Photo source: Inquirer.net

According to reports, Kris Aquino and James Yap’ s marriage were officiated by Congressman Sonny Belmonte, the mayor of Quezon City at that time. However, there were also reports said that the one who bound them was the minister of the Holy Sacrament Internation Church.

However, these reports were not confirmed by Kris or by any at her camp.

Bong Osorio, head of ABS-CBN Corporate Communications said, “It is a game and variety show that will surely bring joy, energy and hope to Filipinos all over the world.”

This move of the ABS-CBN however means that Willie Revillame is totally out of his popular noon show, the Wowowee. But according to Mr. Osorio, ABS-CBN is planning a separate show for Willie Revillame.

During the inspection done by the Philippine Coast Guard divers, they found a pipe-cut of about 1-foot long and a broken chain connected to an anchor. Authorities believed that the anchor belong to M/T Baliwag owned by Herma Shipping.

To answer the demand of the activists – fishermen, an authority of Petron said that Petron will pay the legitimate damages brought by the oil leak.

The victims were identified as Angelito Mariano, Sr., his son Angelito, Jr., Vener Bermillo, Luisito Caparas, and one Richard del Pilar.

According to the investigators, the hunters were using a gasoline driven water pump inside the tunnel. The engine normally emits carbon monoxide which was believed to be cause of their suffocation.

Rescuers successfully got the unconscious hunters out but were declared dead upon arrival in the hospital.

He also added that they already had requested the Coast Guard Maritime Environmental Protection Group – Central Eastern Visayas. The oil response team had been sent already to the Ro-ro port terminal in Barangay Benit, San Ricardo, Southern Leyte.

Last July 28, there are 147 passengers and crews of the M/V Ocean Kings II were rescued by the Philippine Coast Guard and San Ricardo Rescue Team after the roro vessel run aground in the coast of Barangay Benit, San Ricardo at early afternoon.

According to Master Chief Petty Officer Dancel, the ferryboat left  Lipata (Surigao City) Ferry Terminal at 12 noon on that day. When the vessel reached the Balongbalong point, it was hit by the 7 feet (estimated) high waves that caused the water to ingress.

It was learned that grounding the ship at the coast of the Barangay Benit is the decision of the ship captain, Captain Zaldy Angot, upon learning that his ship had problem in turning back and that the water had entered already the ship. So instead of going straight to Liloan Ferry Terminal the ship captain decided to revert its route to the Benit Roro Port but did not reach the port, instead run aground.

Out of 121 passengers, 2 of them are children and the ship was carrying 16 rolling cargoes including 2 buses.

It was also learned that the M/V Ocean King II was the one boarded by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the inaugauration of the Benit Roro Port of San Ricardo, Southern Leyte on April 2009.

(Report by Jade G. Nombrado/ English Translation by Sustines Laplana /Image credit to Southern Leyte Balita)

According to him, symptoms of the Dengue Fever are fever, rashes on skins or bleeding. “However, Dengue Fever currently doesn’t show symptoms recorded on the book. Sometimes patients experience only the fever without rashes. Sometimes there’s no bleeding… That’s why, the patient should be brought immediately to the hospital for immediate checkup and treatment,” the doctor said.

Dr. Trumata added that the two elementary grader who died this month of August were not immediately brought to the hospital before the illness’s worsen. The first victim was an 11 year-old girl from Barangay Abgao who studied at the St. Joseph College and the other victim was a resident of Barangay Mantahan and a pupil of the Tomas Oppus Pilot School.

However, the number of patients admitted at the SOYMPH who are suffering from Dengue Fever, according to Dr. Trumata,  has decreased compared to the number of patients last month of July. (Report by Jade G. Nombrado /English Translation by Sustines Laplana /Image credit to thinkquest.org )

Yellow confetti showered while people mostly wearing yellow shirt chant “Cory! Cory!…” and holding their hands with the “L” or laban sign which was used by Cory during her campaign for the 1986 Presidential Election against the dictator president Ferdinand Marcos. They were not hindered by the hunger and rains in laiding her to her destination.

Former president Aquino’s remains were buried just beside her beloved husband, Ninoy Aquino.

In the other regions of the Philippines, people stayed off the street watching the live coverage of the burial. Yello color is everywhere… People wear yellow shirt, pinned yellow ribbon and flew yellow ballons. Some Catholic parishes offered mass for the president.

Currently, Maasin City experienced rains and gusty winds.

The reason of the accident that happened in the heavily traveled Red Line at 5PM (Washington time) between Fort Totten and Takoma stations is not yet known. But the Homeland Security Department authority said that there was no sign of terror in the incident.

According to the report, one of the dead was the female operator of one of the trains, and the rescuers were treating 70 injured passengers.

Because of our current hardships and economic miseries our government must not remain callous and insensitive to act. Members of both the Lower and the Upper House must muster their political will to hasten the approval of a House Bill aim at making mandatory for all operators and drivers nationwide to use the Compressed Natural Gas(CNG)to run the vehicles and factories. The aforesaid HB was co-authored by House energy committee chairman Mikey Arroyo of Pampanga and Parañaque City Representative Eduardo Zialcita. With the immediate implementation of this economic measure, our country can do away with being overdependence on imported fossil fuels, which greatly contribute to the heavy pollution in our big cities and the environment. When this goal would be realized, the Philippines can have a huge reduction on fuel expenditures and its unabated heavy pollution in big metropolis where all types of utilities and factories abound would be greatly reduced.

Since we have no vehicles and cars suitable for the utilization of Compressed Natural Gas, big financing institutions should come to rescue and help the government to buy the needed vehicles in places like the USA,Canada,India,China and in other countries where vehicles design for compressed natural gas fuel are being manufactured. The Malampaya-Palawan oil and gas fields in the country must be mined now and tap other potential oil and gas fields in various places of our nation to sustain our fuel needs. On the other hand, our big capitalists who choose to be consignees in this kind of business should not be tempted in the near future to mix compressed natural gas with crude oil like we have in all gasoline stations throughout the country, called kerosene by other name.

The mixture of two elements, we’ve just mentioned, like we are buying at gas station, especially if there is a blackout, will surely result to additional pollution in all our areas. The additional pollution due to crude oil mixture with the natural gas is very evident by the soots gathered inside our noses the night before when we resort to kerosene use as temporary substitute for the absence of electric power. Have you not observe that in your home, especially in the households of poor Filipinos? In contrast, unadulterated natural gas, if there’s a detection of any soot, is so insignificantly negligible to consider as pollution. Some of emission of kerosene (a mixture of natural gas and crude oil) put inside the lamps would also pollute our rooms the following day, if you have observed that as well. This means that if in the near future some tricky and hoarding businessmen would be tempted to do this deplorable thing, the pollution in our environment would re-emerged. Hence, there’s an urgent necessity to screen the attitude of businessmen/capitalists who would like to participate in the Government’s venture in this kind of undertaking where the issue on environment-friendly fuel is at stake.

Considering this probable prediction of the money-oriented rather than service-oriented attitude of some businessmen to rake huge profit in the name of mixture elements, the House Bill must include as one of its provisions prohibiting any capitalist/consignee to mix CNG with crude oil. A monitoring task force must be created that would include as members the Energy Committee Chairman, energy official and some honest and prudent NGO environmentalists for the purpose of monitoring and regular checking of CNG’s natural content before dispensing the fuel for private and public use. Those businessmen who would violate the law must be slapped with huge fine and imprisonment. We seriously need honest and prudent investors/capitalists in the strict application of such law in order to achieve our goal to greatly reduced our environmental pollution which make adults and children in this country suffer from illness and eventual death to countless of lives. According to reports pollution also causes chronic coughing in millions of children across the globe.

Other alternative fuel or energy that has been tapped to provide electricity and run vehicles is the solar energy. It has already been experimented and found to be feasibly usable and suitably applicable in running vehicles and providing electricity in numerous households in the country. It’s a free source of limitless energy and is non-pollutant: one of the greatest gifts from Mother Nature that remain untapped for centuries by man. The emergence of Great Minds in the field of Science and Technology are responsible for a huge leap in inventions and discoveries that have provided man his amenities including some of his needs in life more obtainable than before. We can also use electricity to run jeepneys and buses, which is also pollution-free. Makati’s current use of electric jeepneys plying in various areas of the city, which is much lesser in fuel expenses for the drivers and operators compared to gasoline and crude oil, is very encouraging and worthy of emulation for other cities and provinces. The experiments that our scientists, technical men and the experts have been doing are enough proof that the Philippine Government has the capability and the capacity to relentlessly pursue on these projects. A huge budget proportionate enough for its continual implementation must be made now for its effective realization.

The two alternative sources of fuel and energy that we are discussing are sure ways that will eventually release us from our overdependence on gasoline and crude oil which is now very prohibitive to obtain.

Global warming caused by unregulated environmental pollution, which also damaged the ozone layer according to the scientists, is not only a Philippine concern and problem. It is also a concern and a problem of every country, every nation throughout the world, whether the industrialized or the developing because we breathe the same air and we live in the same planet. Therefore, it is of urgent necessity that all the nations and other countries of the world, including the United States of America, China, England, Australia, India, Russia, Japan, European countries, UK and Germany should also shift to alternative fuel like Compressed Natural Gas, solar energy to run their vehicles, cars and factories, biofuel or biomass, deuterium in order to achieve the highest degree of pollution reduction in our Planet Earth.

To those countries whose climate condition is similar to the Philippines, Nobel Prize winner Dr.. Hartmut Michel during his recent visit to Manila has also advised its respective governments to tap wind power and hydro power that are environment-friendly to generate electricity

Although nowadays the prices of crude oil and gasoline have greatly reduced after a series of rollback, but this ups and downs in pricing activities of the fossil fuels cannot be relied upon by the users and consumers. These kind of dirty fuels have no permanently sustainable pricing movement. It is dependently influence by the law of supply and demand in the international market. The preoccupation of self-interest capitalists/investors who mostly want to rake huge profit in this kind of business undertaking is also something to be considered as contributory factor in the unpredictable and volatile pricing scheme hike.

Hence, our businessmen and the government must not be callously complacent if there are days when crude oil, gasoline and other oil products will have decreased prices. The government must start implementing now the laws on Biofuel act of 2006 and the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 to tap and develop nature’s renewable energy resources that are readily available in our very own environment and are ecology-friendly.

The plan of the government to recommission or revive the 30-year-old Bataan Nuclear Power Plant must be debunked. It was found out by a team of Scientists and Engineers that it has numerous defects in its construction, among other defects, which pose as health hazard detrimental and harmful to the health and welfare of the people and equally destructive to the immediate environment.

Our high government officials, like Congressmen, Senators, Scientists, Engineers, Technical men, The Experts, Educators and other concerned leaders should take heed seriously to what UP Professor Roland G. Simbulan was saying in his commentary article entitled “Is The BNPP Safe?” (PDI, Feb. 5, 2009 issue)

And that of Rina Jimenez-David’s “Anti-Nuclear and Pro-Life” (PDI, Feb. 24, 2009 issue) on the danger of reopening the defective BNPP as energy source. Who has initiated this plan? Why do we have to disrupt our thinking with such kind of energy which produces radioactive wastes harmful to humanity and our already heavily polluted environment? Another kind of potential and unprecedented radioactive disaster will only add to the worsening of our already worst environmental condition.

Common sense of wisdom and political will, unblemished with a sinister and wily scheme of acquiring more wealth thru greediness and self-centeredness, are the only 2 important things that our leaders really need to push thru in the realization, acquisition and the sustainable utilization of nature’s renewable energy resources that abound and are readily available in our environment. Like solar energy, hydropower (waterfalls), wind energy, biofuel from jatropha oil, coconut oil, corn, ethanol from sugar cane, biomass and reportedly a vast limitless deposits of deuterium lying in hibernation under the Surigao Deep also known as the Philippine Deep is waiting to be tapped.( Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.)