Archive - Banner

By JAKE SORIANO IN December last year, blind massage therapists from Zamboanga City traveled all the way to Cagayan de Oro to undergo licensing exams. They took the nearly 500-km journey because their jobs were on the line. But Typhoon Ruby (Hagupit) struck, and they were told to go home. No exams meant no licenses.

By ANTONIO JOSE GALAURAN and LUIS ADRIAN HIDALGO (Conclusion) IN May 2013, a few months after the University of the Philippines-Diliman signed an agreement with the agriculture and environment departments and the UP Beta Sigma Fraternity to develop its 22-hectare arboretum into a National Botanical Garden, residents of Pook Arboretum barricaded a portion of Metro Manila’s

By ANTONIO JOSE GALAURAN and LUIS ADRIAN HIDALGO (First of two parts) IN the midst of the concrete jungle that Metro Manila has become, a forest continues to thrive. But the 22-hectare University of the Philippines Arboretum is in peril, owing to the inroads of urbanization and influx of informal settlers in the last five decades.

Text by JAKE SORIANO; Photos by KAYE SORIANO UPI, Maguindanao—Drums beat loud and fast. A showcase of moves with the bilao and the indigenous basket biton for props, a splash of colors and folk rhythms thundering from the agong and the kulintang filled the streets of this town up in the mountains. Already on its 12th

[metaslider id=30916] By YVONNE T. CHUA THE Philippines and three other ASEAN members count among the top 20 developing countries in the world identified as the biggest exporters of illicit capital over the last decade, according to a global report. The report, released worldwide Monday (Tuesday in Manila) by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington

By YVONNE T. CHUA (Infographics sourced from OECD report) CONTRARY to popular belief, corruption isn’t the scourge solely of developing countries like the Philippines. In fact, two-thirds of bribes paid by businesses to foreign public officials took place in countries with medium to very high human development index, including the most developed economies, says a report

Text and photos by AVIGAIL M. OLARTE TACLOBAN CITY – On the bed is where she could end it, she thought. She’s 16, he’s six months old. Alyssa (not her real name) was sold for sex one night last year. On board a docked ship in Leyte, in a locked room, a Japanese repeatedly raped

   By JOHNNA VILLAVIRAY  GIOLAGON TACLOBAN, Leyte –President Aquino marked the first anniversary of the super typhoon Yolanda (international name, Haiyan) one day earlier in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, where the typhoon made its first landfall early morning of Nov. 8, 2013. It was in Tacloban in Leyte that Yolanda wrought the most damage. Leyte residents

By YVONNE T. CHUA INVESTIGATORS of the Anti-Money Laundering Council recently concluded that bank accounts of Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. and his family, as well as those of Janet Lim-Napoles and her pseudo-NGOs, were possibly involved in a scheme to launder the controversial “pork barrel” funds. The AMLC’s 64-page inquiry report containing the initial findings

  By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS THE Philippine College of Physicians, headed by   Dr. Anthony Leachon, is recommending that the Philippine government require returning Filipinos from West Africa, where there is a widespread outbreak of the killer disease Ebola, to undergo exit screening there before being allowed to come home. That is on top of the

By JAKE SORIANO NAGA, Camarines Sur — The night before Typhoon Gloria (international name Rammasun) battered its way through Barangay Ponong in Magarao, Camarines Sur, local chief Bobby Abad was busy warning his constituents to leave for the nearest evacuation centers. Typhoon winds were already strong by the time he finished his duties. He went

By COOPER RESABAL, VERA Files NOCNOCAN Island, Bohol—Defying wind and rain, children romp around the white sand beach leading to this 2-hectare village of houses on stilts where mothers tend their homes and men their fighting cocks. But behind this simple, idyllic life on this island named after “nocnoc” (shellfish) lies something sinister: For more