Good day. Here are the top stories of The Manila Times for Monday, Oct. 16, 2023.
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READ: Govt to evacuate Filipinos in Gaza
THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) placed Gaza under the highest alert level of 4 to pave the way for the mandatory repatriation of Filipinos in the besieged Palestinian enclave. There are 137 Filipinos in Gaza that have to be pulled out before Israeli forces launch an invasion. On Friday, the Israeli military instructed about a million residents in northern Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours, an indication that an assault is imminent. DFA spokesman Ma. Teresita Daza said in a statement on Sunday the Philippine government has "accounted for 131 of our nationals in Gaza, and at least 78 of them are now situated near the Rafah border crossing near Egypt."DFA Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said the government is "calling on our nationals to leave" Gaza. The first batch of eight Filipinos in Israel who requested repatriation is scheduled to arrive home today, October 16. Gaza remains under a strict blockade. The DFA said it is collaborating with diplomatic partners in the region to facilitate the safe passage of Filipinos through the Rafah border crossing.
READ: US sends second aircraft carrier to help Israel
The United States is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean "to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas' attack," Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Saturday (Sunday in Manila). The USS Eisenhower and its affiliated warships will join another carrier group already deployed to the region in the wake of the attack on Israel a week ago and Israel's ongoing response. The deployment signals Washington's "ironclad commitment to Israel's security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war," Austin said in a statement. A week of deadly Israeli salvos was sparked by a Hamas raid which saw fighters break through the heavily fortified border between the Gaza Strip and Israel and gun down, stab and burn to death more than 1,300 people.
READ: 'Consumers must be tech-savvy in cash-lite society'
A PROMINENT banking official said Filipino consumers must have a good grasp of digital technology to hasten the country's transition to a "cash-lite" society. Guesting in SMNI's weekly public affairs program "Business and Politics," RCBC executive vice president and chief innovation and inclusion officer, Lito Villanueva, said the switch to a cash-lite society also increases the risk of online fraud such as cryptocurrency and social media scams. Villanueva said the country is evolving into a cash-lite society to enable more Filipinos to join the financial system.The goal of digitalizing transactions is to merge every related positive part of the digital sector and have an overall, reliable system that can operate outside the traditional banking system, Villanueva said.
READ: Hackers break into House website
THE website of the House of Representatives was hacked Sunday before it went offline in the afternoon. A picture circulating online and on the main page of the House website showed a picture of a troll in the photo journal section. The press releases and committee schedules on the website were also altered. In a Viber message issued on Sunday, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) confirmed the hacking. House Secretary General Reginald Velasco said in a statement the chamber is "committed to ensure the security and integrity of our digital platforms, and we will implement additional measures to prevent such incidents in the future." Several government websites have been breached recently, and in some cases, private information was leaked to the public.
Business: GOCC subsidies drop to P18.83B in August
Subsidies to government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) dropped substantially in August from a month earlier, Treasury bureau data showed. Based on the agency's latest cash operations report, the budgetary support of P18.933 billion was 43.03 percent lower than July's P33.238 billion. Year on year, however, the amount was 21.86 percent up from August 2022's P15.536 billion. Year-to-date, subsidies to GOCCs rose by 17.5 percent to P115.87 billion from last year's P98.60 billion. Government financial institutions received P137 million in August, up from P109 million a year ago and zero in July. Subsidies to major non-financial state firms, meanwhile, plunged in August to P4.375 billion from July's P8.121 billion. It was higher than the year-ago P3.037 billion. The tally for other state-owned firms also declined to P14.421 billion from July's P25.117 billion but rose from P12.390 billion a year earlier.Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) took the lion's share of the August's subsidies at P12.931 billion, down from P22.650 billion in July and P11.231 billion a year ago.
Sports: Astros, Rangers battle in ALCS showdown
Houston dominated Texas during the regular season, winning nine of 13 matchups. Now the Rangers get another chance at the Astros when they meet for the first time in the playoffs in a Texas-sized showdown with a trip to the World Series on the line starting Sunday (Monday in Manila) in Houston. The Astros completed the regular season matchup against the Rangers with a three-game sweep at the beginning of September. Houston hit 16 homers to sweep that series by a combined score of 39-10. But despite the lopsided results this season, both teams say they'll start with a clean slate for the American League Championship Series.
Sports: IOC: Boxing in '28 Games on hold
IT is unclear if the sport of boxing would be contested in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California in the United States. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board said they decided to withdraw the International Boxing Association (IBA) during their recent IOC Session in Mumbai, India.This could leave an uncertainty to Philippine boxers, who are known to have medalled at the sport in the Olympics. Jose Villanueva was the country's first boxing medalist, by winning bronze at the 1932 Summer Olympics, which was also in Los Angeles. Other medalists included Anthony Villanueva who won a silver in Tokyo 1964; Leopoldo Serantes, who was a bronze medalist in Seoul 1988 and the Velasco brothers, Roel and Onyok, who won a bronze and silver medal in Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996, respectively. At the recent 2020 Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, Nesthy Petecio gave the Philippines its first boxing silver medal in the women's division, by placing second in the featherweight division. Carlo Paalam also won a silver medal in the flyweight division, while Eumir Marcial got the bronze medal in the middleweight division. Marcial has already qualified for the upcoming Olympics in Paris, France, after his silver-medal performance at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
READ: Opinion/Editorial
Today's editorial is on the lukewarm response to Antarctica's shrinking mass. Read the full version on print or digital or listen to the Voice of the Times. Featured columnists on the front page are Rigoberto Tiglao, Fr. Ranhilio Aquino and Francisco Tatad. Tiglao talks about the hard geographical lessons from the Israel-Hamas conflict; Aquino on unholy prospects in the Holy Land; and Tatad on what we remember and what we choose to forget.
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