Dear Rappler reader,
In the light of the Abu Sayyaf’s attempt to attack Bohol, this week’s #AnimatED reminds us of peace and security problems beyond the drug war.
There is terror in our midst. While they are getting the beating in Sulu, we should expect them to bring the war somewhere else in the meantime, to ease military pressure on them.
They have the resources to tap networks outside Western Mindanao. But in the end, their biggest advantage would be a government security apparatus in disarray or confused about its priorities.
We ask you to give these matters some thought as we bring you the top stories of the day.
It’s a special kind of pasalubong (welcoming gift). When President Rodrigo Duterte came back from his weeklong visit to the Middle East, he brought with him 138 stranded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Many of the 138 are victims of abusive labor practices. None are guilty of any crime in Saudi Arabia. Some have been stranded for months, some even years because of unresolved issues that prevented them from being given exit visas.
Filipinos are generally an optimistic lot. This is confirmed again as results of a recent survey conducted by a private firm showed that Filipino millennials are among the world’s most optimistic despite the political and economic conditions in the Philippines. In the survey released by financial advisory firm Deloitte on Sunday, April 16, 84% of Filipino millennials said they expect the social and political situation in the country to be better in the next 12 months. This is significantly higher compared to their counterparts in other countries with only 36% sharing their optimism.
Drop those silly, unrealistic deadlines that may just create unintended consequences. Do more painstaking but quiet intelligence work. There is terror in our midst, consider your priorities. These, according to this week’s #AnimatED, are the challenges the Duterte administration must consider in the wake of the Abu Sayyaf’s attempted attack on Bohol.
As he delivered the traditional Easter Day Mass in Rome on Sunday, April 16, Pope Francis urged an end to “horror and death” in Syria and implored God to bring peace to the Middle East. He also speaks out against the hostilities and famine in South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Facebook’s security team spent 6 months fighting to neutralize an international fake account operation that was firing off inauthentic “likes” and bogus comments to win friends it would then pound with spam. The campaign aimed to trick people into connecting as friends they would later target with spam. Facebook said it had derailed the operation early enough to spare users that fate.
Police on Sunday, April 16, were searching for a gunman they said murdered a man live on Facebook in the US state of Ohio. Officials in the city of Cleveland said the suspect, Steve Stephens, 37, shot his 74-year old victim at random – a cold-blooded killing which was livestreamed on the internet.
Emma Morano, an Italian woman believed to have been the oldest person alive and the last survivor of that 19th century died Saturday, April 15, at the age of 117. Morano’s death, at the age of 117 years and 137 days, means there is no one living known to have been born before 1900.
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