Good day. Here are the stories for The Manila Times on Monday, November 25, 2024.
Today's episode is brought to you by Wilcon Depot, The Philippines' leading home improvement and construction supplies retailer—your Trusted Building Partner.'Mediate Marcos-Duterte feud'
READ: 'Mediate Marcos-Duterte feud'
SEN. Bong Go appealed to fellow senator Imee Marcos to help settle the rift between the Marcos and Duterte camps, given her "history of fostering unity" during the 2022 elections. Go made the call amid the worsening feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte. Go, a close ally of the Dutertes, said in a chance interview on Saturday Senator Marcos could have a "potential role as a unifying figure" in patching up the differences between the two clans. Senate President Pro Tempore Jose Estrada shared Go's sentiments. Go appealed to Senator Marcos, "as the sister of our president — and she also treats as sister VP Inday Sara Duterte —to possibly mediate for the welfare of every Filipino." Go said the political bickering between two of the country's most powerful clans was a waste of time. The rift worsened last week after the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability ordered the vice president's chief of staff Zuleika Lopez detained after citing her in contempt for refusing to answer questions about how the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were spent. Duterte visited the detained Lopez on Thursday and then threatened to camp out in the office of her brother, Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte, until Lopez was released. The falling out between the Marcoses and Dutertes hit a high point on Friday night when the vice president created a stir when she said she had hired an assassin to kill the president and members of his family. On Sunday, National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said he considers the threat against the president and his family as "serious."
READ: 2025 elections seen as most transparent
ELECTION watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) is confident that next year's elections will be one of the country's most transparent electoral exercises. PPCRV's IT Director William Yu during The Manila Times-DZRH TownHall said the most outstanding feature of the 2025 polls is the online voting system (OVS), the first ever in the country's election history. The OVS will give all overseas Filipino workers, including seafarers, around the world, the convenience of voting using their cellphones. In past elections, overseas voters cast their ballots either by mail or voting personally at Philippine embassies or foreign missions. PPCRV has made suggestions, including a biometric check during the voting itself. Addressing concerns about the absence of paper ballots and printed ERS in the implementation of OVCS, Yu said he expects the Comelec to come up with an alternative means to record the poll results. During the 2022 elections, there were around 1.7 million registered migrant voters spread across 92 Philippine posts overseas. Another big feature of the 2025 polls is the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or voter's receipts and election returns (ER) QR codes with machine-readable results. Yu said the VVPAT is useful in doing the random manual audit (RMA) because it eliminates the manual encoding and counting of votes by using a cellphone to scan the QR code for results. Comelec spent more than P400 million for overseas voting but the turnout was a disappointing 39 percent. Yu said PPCRV was still working out ways to monitor the online voting system. Yu also said the Comelec would only be successful in regulating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other forms of social media technology during the election campaign if the public cooperates fully.
READ: Developing nations slam 'paltry' $300B climate deal
BAKU — The world approved a bitterly negotiated climate deal Sunday, but poorer nations most at the mercy of worsening disasters dismissed a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy historic polluters as insultingly low. After two exhausting weeks of chaotic bargaining and sleepless nights, nearly 200 nations banged through the contentious finance pact in the early hours in a sports stadium in Azerbaijan. But the applause had barely subsided when India delivered a full-throated rejection of the "abysmally poor" deal, kicking off a firestorm of criticism from across the developing world. Sierra Leone's climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai said it showed a "lack of goodwill" from rich countries to stand by the world's poorest as they confront rising seas and harsher droughts. Nigeria's envoy Nkiruka Maduekwe called it an "insult."Some countries had accused Azerbaijan, an oil and gas exporter, of lacking the will to meet the moment in a year defined by costly disasters and on track to become the hottest on record. But at protests throughout COP29, developed nations — major economies like the European Union, United States and Japan — were accused of negotiating in bad faith, making a fair deal impossible.
Wrapping up its stories on the front page is a two-part special feature on How fellow Filipinos murdered the Bonifacio brothers.
In Business
READ: Trade tensions open opportunities
TRADE tensions between the United States and China have opened up opportunities for developing countries such as the Philippines, the chief executive of global delivery firm DHL Express said. At the launch of the firm's Global Connectedness Tracker update last week, DHL Express CEO John Pearson said countries that were not strong allies of either the US or China had increased their share of global trade over the last eight years. China+1 is a supply chain strategy where companies expand to other Asian markets in a bid to mitigate risks. It gained popularity about a decade ago as labor costs rose in China and has again come to the forefront in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and rising geopolitical tensions.The collective share of world trade by countries that are not close allies of both China and the US grew to 47 percent as of this year from 42 percent in 2016, DHL Express said in the November update to its Global Connectedness Tracker report. The update was released amid rising concerns over deglobalization, or diminishing interdependence and integration among countries, and the impact from a second Donald Trump presidency. Globalization, DHL Express noted, remains limited at 25 percent even after decades of efforts to improve flows across national borders. It remains substantially resilient, however, amid geopolitical tensions and uncertainty. While US-China trade continues to diminish — direct shipments have fallen to 2.6 percent of global goods trade this year from 3.5 percent in 2016 — it was said to comprise a "small part of the world's international flows."
Topping Sports
READ: Jazz surprise Knicks; Bucks spoil Ball's 50
SALT LAKE CITY — Lauri Markkanen had 34 points, Collin Sexton had four 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and the Utah Jazz ran past the New York Knicks 121-106 on Saturday (Sunday in Manila) to snap a four-game skid. Sexton finished 25 points and John Collins had 20 points and 13 rebounds for the Jazz. OG Anunoby scored a season-high 27 points, Jalen Brunson scored 23 points and Karl-Anthony Towns had 16 points and 16 rebounds for the Knicks, who shot 39 percent from the field and lost for the first time in five games.
READ: No San Beda, Letran in Finals
FOR the first time in 20 years, neither the San Beda Red Lions nor the Letran Knights are in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's basketball Finals. Two decades of having San Beda or Letran in the finale ended on Saturday when the Red Lions fell to the College of Saint Benilde Blazers 63-79 in their Season 100 final four clash at the Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay City. As the second seed team, Saint Benilde needed to win only once over the third seed and last year's champion San Beda in the semis. The Blazers will face the Mapua Cardinals in the best-of-3 championship series starting on Dec. 1. Top seed Mapua defeated fourth seed Lyceum in the other semifinals pairing. Meanwhile, Letran didn't even make it to the semis this year as the Knights finished sixth in the elimination round.
READ: Opinion
In its editorial, the Times says the Ukraine war threatens to escalate into a global conflict. Read the full version or 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 says the Dutertes emerge as Filipinos' folk heroes; Aquino on standing by constitutional order while Tatad asks whether the US military Task Force Ayungin in Palawan is a deterrent or a provocation.
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