“Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan.” (The youth is the hope of the motherland)

This famed quote from the Philippine’s National Hero (who celebrated his 157th birthday, June 19) goes perfectly with the activity conducted at the Le Charme Hotel yesterday. Dubbed the International Coastal Cleanup – Sangguniang Kabataan (ICC-SK) Coordination Meeting / Workshop, the event was organized by ICC-Zambales, and comes on the heels of the recently concluded Beach Cleanup organized by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.

The one-day event was intended to orient SK Chairs and Officers from all 17 Barangays from Olongapo about the importance of their role in achieving sustainable development in the greater Subic Bay area.

International Executive Nik Schwarten led the discussion during the day-long event.

The proceedings were led by George Nikolaus “Nik” Metaxa-Schwarten, a widely acclaimed international executive communications consultant and corporate social responsibility manager (for ISO 26000). The half Greek – half German executive shared his sentiment about how the previous generation has left the current generation with a host of environmental problems and that the end goal for the activity is to show the nation what the small group can accomplish if they sync together, plan together, and work together.

He related the story of how ICC Zambales started with a membership of a mere 80 people, but through sheer determination and good marketing, managed to grow that number to well over 90,000 in a few years.

Zedrik Avecilla, Director of the Lighthouse Marina Resort Legacy Foundation (the major driving force behind the ICC), shares a few words of encouragement with the SK representatives.

Sanguniang Kabataan Representatives from barangays in Olongapo City participated in the discussion by sharing the unique issues that their communities are faced with.

The latter half of the day was spent on an interactive forum between Nik and the SK representatives from Olongapo. Several important issues specific to each barangays were identified and solutions for each were discussed. Curfews, sexual education, widespread illegal drug usage, and teenage pregnancy were among those identified.

Nik gives a brief tutorial on how to use online collaborative tools in order to streamline projects and processing deliverables.

Nik ended the day with a short discourse on some of the collaborative tools the group will be using in the days to come. In addition to the Facebook group that was created specifically for coordination and communication between him and the SK representatives, Nik also discussed how to use Trello for setting project goals, Doodle for decision making, and Bitly for easier information dissemination.

As a major partner in the endeavor, MoreFunPH pledged its resources in order to ensure that the activities of the newly founded coalition between ICC Zambales and the Olongapo SK are optimized for high visibility on the world wide web (through strategic implementation of SEO).

The participants in the activity pose for a group picture after a day of lively discussions.

Overall, the one-day activity served as a glimpse of what the Youth Empowering Summit 2018 will be like.

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MANILA — Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Wednesday urged the creation of a single body similar to the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) that will take over the development and management of Boracay Island, stressing that a powerful governing authority is needed to coordinate the efforts of all concerned agencies in the island’s rehabilitation and development.

Drilon made the call after noting that rehabilitation works are being hampered by finger-pointing among several government agencies, including the local government units (LGUs), on who is ultimately to blame for the various woes besetting Boracay, like sewerage and illegal structures among others.

“As we have witnessed, about a dozen of the agency would have their own little kingdoms, issuing permits, etc. (and) the local government would utilize their powers under the Local Government Code. So what do you have? A chopsuey of a management,” Drilon said in an interview following the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources’ hearing on the degradation of Boracay.

During the hearing, Drilon said that having different agencies handling the development and rehabilitation of Boracay and expressing different views on certain matters is not helping the cause.

“In every issue, different agencies would handle it and have conflicting views. That doesn’t include yet the local government unit,” he told the Senate panel.

“We may want to take a serious look at consolidating the authority of watching over Boracay to a centralized agency which will assume many of the powers that various agencies are exercising right now,” Drilon added.

Meanwhile, Drilon told reporters that the ongoing six-month rehabilitation works in the island are just “ad-hoc solutions” that, in the absence of a master plan, cannot be sustained over time.

Photo credit: independent.co.uk

“Boracay contributes so much to the development of our country particularly in the field of tourism, and yet, there is not one single body in-charge. What we would suggest is a strong administrator which can manage the place like this. It cannot be left to where it is today,” Drilon said.

“We need a master plan to be implemented by a single authority. Otherwise, maybe after six months, we have some reforms done but these cannot be sustained unless there is a single authority,” he added.

Drilon said that the creation of a SBMA-like body to manage Boracay Island has the support of Aklan Governor Florencio Miraflores “even if it will mean a reduction of the powers of the LGUs.”

“For the national interest, we need a governing authority with stronger powers and can coordinate and has the final say on all these development. It must be manned by career and professional people so it could not be a political patronage,” Drilon said.

Drilon has been pushing for the creation of a Boracay Island Council (BIC) at the Senate.

He is the author of Senate Bill 1765 that, once passed into law, would create a BIC which “shall take over the management, development, regulation, protection, and maintenance of the island, including its coastal resources and marine biodiversity.”

“A more permanent management body is what we need. We cannot do in six months what we failed to do for several decades. We need political will,” he said.

Senator Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, fully supports Drilon’s proposal on the need to establish a single body to oversee Boracay.

“This is not a new concept like Subic Bay is managed by one body, Clark is managed by one body. There is something like that in Palawan, Batanes, in Intramuros, Rizal Park, so pwedeng gawin iyon (it can be done),” she said in a separate interview.

“Kaya lang syempre (But of course), every situation is different from another. We have to discuss and see to what is the best way to do it,” Villar said.

Villar said that a technical working group has already been formed to study Drilon’s proposal. By Jose Cielito Reganit

source: pna.gov.ph

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Image: Facebook/CREATIVE CONNECTIONS & COMMONS Inc. (@cccmarketing)

National hero of the Philippines Jose Rizal will get his own manga comic series starting June 19.

The Philippine hero will take on the starring role in a new manga comic series that will be released on June 19, Rizal’s birthday, according to a statement by Japanese company Torico.

The story will be penned by Takahiro Matsui, while the art will be drawn by manga artist Ryo Konno. The new manga will be available in English online, for free through manga distribution website MANGA.CLUB.

Image: TORICO

An Aichi prefecture native, Matsui previously worked in the Philippines between 2003 and 2014 where he taught Japanese to learners. He also taught in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, saying he had a deep interest in the region’s history. Matsui currently works and resides in the suburbs of Tokyo where he teaches Japanese to Filipino learners.

As to why create a manga comic of Rizal, Takuro Ando of TORICO Co. Ltd. answered this in a statement. Ando said he found the presence of Rizal’s bust in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park intriguing so he contacted Creative Connections & Commons Inc., a Davao-based company affiliated with TORICO, to get more details about the Filipino hero. After learning of Rizal’s accomplishments, he thought it would make a great story for manga readers. He also thought that Rizal’s drive to change his country through knowledge and hard work rather than fighting might be appealing to the Japanese. -By: Alfred Bayle

Source Inquirer

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To further promote the business-friendly atmosphere in this free port and boost government efforts on transparency, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) extended the validity of business registrations here from one to three years.

SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma recently released the first batch of Certificate of Registration and Tax Exemption (CRTE) that are valid for three years and cited the agency’s streamlining of business processes to better serve the needs of business locators.

SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma joins representatives of Subic-registered companies that received their 3-year CRTE from the Subic agency.

“This has long been overdue. The previous board under Chairman Garcia promised this to locators, but nothing happened. So we made it a priority project for our 2018 program and we’re proud that after all the hard work, it finally materialized now,” Eisma said.

Eisma added that her administration’s drive for a more investor-friendly climate in Subic is in keeping with President Duterte’s orders for transparency and good governance.

“We want to make life easy for our investors, and the SBMA will continuously work towards improving its system,” she pointed out.

The three-year CRTE was approved by the SBMA Board of Directors on January 26 this year. Then a public hearing to gain acceptance by stakeholders was successfully held on February 28. The announcement of the approved measure was subsequently published on May 9.

Eisma’s office had also taken over the approval and release of CRTEs to further speed up the issuance of this important business document.

According to Kenneth Rementilla, SBMA Deputy Administrator for Business and Investments, business locators were previously required to renew their CRTE annually. But under the new system, businesses with lease terms of more than three years can avail of a three-year registration, or opt for an annual renewal.

Rementilla added that CRTE-holders in the Subic Bay Freeport can enjoy waived value-added tax (VAT), ad valorem and excise tax on internal revenue taxes, customs and import duties, and national revenue taxes, among others.

However, the business locators would have to pay a final tax of 5 percent of the gross income earned (GIE), as required by law. Of the 5 percent final tax, 2 percent is allocated for revenue shares to local government units, while 3 percent goes to the national treasury.

Among those who received the three-year CRTEs from the SBMA are Dongyang Food Machinery Philippines Corp.; Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning Philippines Inc.; Juken Sangyo (Phils.) Corp.; and UPower Building Corporation.-(RFD/MPD-SBMA)

source: subicnewslink.blogspot.com/

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By Genalyn Kabiling

Local fishermen have been bullied into paying fish as “toll fee” to Chinese coast guards while sailing in Panatag Shoal, a local government official said Thursday.

(AFP Photo/Ted Aljibe/MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)

Mayor Arsenia Lim of Masinloc, Zambales said the controversial fish-taking incident in Panatag was similar to a toll system, not a barter trade, in the middle of the ocean, as she appealed for the government’s help to protect the welfare of the fishermen.

“Parang may passway, may toll sa gitna ng karagatan. ‘Yung hinihingian sila ng isda [It’s like a passway, there’s a toll in the middle of the ocean. They are being asked for fish],” she said in an interview with reporters in Malacañang.

“Hindi (barter) po. Toll fee po. Kaya sabi ko hanggang dagat ba meron pang toll fee [That’s not barter. It’s toll fee that’s why I said even the ocean has a toll fee],” she added.

She said Masinloc fishermen, being good people who don’t want to pick fight, have agreed to give the fish to the Chinese rather risk losing access to the fishing ground.

Nonetheless, Lim has urged the government to help ensure local fishermen can fish in Panatag free from any bullying.

“Hinihiling namin kay Presidente na mapangisda sila na hindi nabu-bully at sa oras ng malakas ang hangin ay makasilong sila sa lagoon [We ask the President to ensure they can fish without being bullied and in case of strong winds, they are allowed to seek shelter in the lagoon],” she said.

“Sana makapangisda ng maayos ang aking mga kababayan at nang hindi sila nasasaktan [We hope our countrymen can freely fish and will not be harmed],” he added.

She said Masinloc fishermen shouldn’t have to ask permission from the Chinese to access Panatag since the territory belongs to the country. But she stressed that the most important matter now is the right of the fishermen to livelihood.

Lim said they don’t want to fight China over the incident but expressed hope Filipinos would be allowed without fish in the Panatag, a traditional fishing ground, without harassment. She said there around 5,000 fishermen living in Masinloc, but only a small fraction can sail to Panatag Shoal.

“Ayaw namin ng gulo. Ang importante ngayon, sa panahon ngayon, makipagkaibigan muna tayo na hindi natin sinasakripisyo ang claim natin na ‘yan ay sakop ng bayan at bansang Pilipipinas. Ang importante négaton ay mabuhay sila ng maayos.”

Three Masinloc fishermen earlier complained that Chinese coast guards have boarded their ships and forcibly took away their best catch while sailing in Panatag Shoal. They said the Chinese sometimes gave noodles, cigarettes, and water in exchange for their fish catch.

Romel Cejuela, one of the fishermen, claimed that China still controls Panatag due to the presence of coast guard fleet and absence of its Philippine counterpart.

Vowing to protect the fishermen, Malacañang has promptly called on China to discipline its coast guards and prevent them from filching fish from the locals.

China has recently assured it has no policy of harassing fishermen in Scarborough Shoal and vowed to impose disciplinary actions if allegations of misconduct by its coast guards are proven. Initial investigation indicated the exchange of goods was considered part of the barter system in the high seas.

souce: news.mb.com.ph

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