Daily News Highlights – September 28, 2015 Edition

The latest Ulat ng Bayan survey of Pulse Asia shows Senator Grace Poe still leading presidential candidates if elections were held today, with a rating of 26%, followed by resigned Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II and Vice President Jejomar Binay. The Pulse Asia survey was conducted September 8-14, before Senator Grace Poe declared her presidential bid, and after Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said he wouldn’t run for the highest post. Poe got a rating of 26%, which is one percentage point lower than another Pulse Asia survey conducted shortly before the quarterly Ulat ng Bayan. The August 27 to September 3, where she got 27%, was commissioned by broadcast company ABS-CBN and had half the size of the Ulat’s sample. In the Ulat ng Bayan, Roxas ranked 2nd with 20%, tied with Binay who got 19%. Duterte was close at 4th with 16%.

Read about the latest Pulse Asia Survey on preffered presidential candidates on Rappler.

Pope Francis met with victims of sex abuse by priests, on Sunday, September 27, saying “God weeps” for their suffering and promising to hold all those responsible to account. The pope met the 3 women and two men, with their relatives and educators, for 30 minutes at the San Carlo Borromeo seminary on the final day of his visit to the United States, the Vatican said in a statement. The Catholic Pontiff promised victims of church sex abuse that the perpetrators would be held to account. 

Read more about Pope Francis’ statement on abuse victims on Rappler.

Globe Telecom has called on its rival the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) to open up its IP peering arrangement in order to boost local Internet speed for all Filipino users. “An all-inclusive IP peering arrangement among major internet service providers in the country is still needed to boost local Internet speed,” Globe Telecom said in a statement released Sunday, September 27. Globe General Counsel Atty. Froilan Castelo said that from a technical perspective, localization is optimization and any amount of traffic localized will contribute to access improvement and cost savings. He pointed out, however, that since around 80% of access content is foreign, there is minimal impact on Internet speed. The remaining 20% is supposedly local traffic – traffic originates in the Philippines and terminates in the Philippines. However, of this 20% supposedly local traffic, up to 70% is still routed outside the country, such as in Asia, US and Europe, before returning to the Philippines, Castelo added.

Read about Globe’s proposal to speed up Philippine Internet on Rappler.

On Monday, September 28, 2015, Rappler Indonesia and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) co-host Indonesia +SocialGood: The Social Good Summit (SGS) in Jakarta. The Jakarta SGS will feature representatives and leaders from government to business and advocacy groups who will talk about the impact of technology and the Internet on social good initiatives around the world. The forum will be held at the Papua Room of the UNDP, at the 7th floor of Menara Thamrin, Central Jakarta.

Watch Indonesia +SocialGood here. 

Read about the Manila Social Good Summit here.

Standing side-by-side with Mark Zuckerberg, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a rock star appearance at Facebook on Sunday, September 27, advocating for the political power of social media. An invitation-only audience jumped to its feet, cheering and snapping photos as Modi strode into a sun-splashed courtyard with Zuckerberg — sporting a jacket and tie for the occasion, in a sartorial about-face for the typically casual campus. Modi called on leaders of the world to “gain” from social media by “joining it,” and not by “running away.” The 65-year-old Modi, who has 30 million fans on Facebook and tweets multiple times a day, said “The strength of social media today is that it can tell governments where they are going wrong and give them an opportunity to do a course correction.”

Read about Narendra Modi’s Facebook visit on Rappler.

Will Catalonia split from Spain? Separatists in Catalonia moved one step closer to independence from Spain as they won control of their regional parliament Sunday, September 27. The region’s nationalist president Artur Mas declared victory to a cheering crowd of flag-waving supporters after an emotional election that has heightened tensions with Madrid. “We have won,” he bellowed, after results published by the regional government showed that his separatist alliance and another pro-independence group won an absolute majority of seats between them. “We have a democratic mandate… This gives us enormous legitimacy to go ahead with our plan [for independence],” Mas told the open-air rally in Barcelona.

Read more about how Catalonia’s newly elected pro-Independence parliament on Rappler.

Pope Francis has been called a rock star among religious leaders and soon that will be true literally, with the pontiff coming out soon with an album.  The 78-year-old leader of the Catholic Church, who has been welcomed by giant crowds on a US visit, is the “lead vocalist” on “Wake Up!” which comes out on November 27. The multilingual album features prayers and speeches from the Argentine-born pope set to newly composed music. Rolling Stone, the leading US music magazine, premiered a single entitled “Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!” which features a speech in English by Francis on a trip to South Korea.

 Listen to the single on SoundCloud.

More on the Pope Francis rock album on Rappler.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview released Sunday, September 27, that he was seeking partners to set up a “coordinated framework” to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Putin, who called for “a common platform for collective action against the terrorists”, said he had personally informed the kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan of his plan and that he had also informed the United States. Russia has increased its military presence in Syria, deploying more troops and warplanes to an air base along with new arms deliveries to President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Read about Putin’s call for collective action against the Islamic State on Rappler.

Gilas Pilipinas struggled early on but managed to execute towards the end to ward off a tough Japan side, 73-66, in the second round of the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship on Sunday, September 27 in Changsha, Hunan, China. Naturalized big man Andray Blatche overcame a right ankle injury he sustained early in the second quarter and went on to provide the dagger basket for the Philippines to keep Japan safely away inside the final minute.

Read about the Gilas win over Japan on Rappler.

Actress Lea Salonga drew strong reactions from social media users after she posted a tweet about “kababawan” (shallowness) on Saturday, September 26. At the time, AlDub’s most recent episode, featuring a visit from Alden to Lola Nidora’s mansion to court Yaya, was the most talked about topic on Twitter. The topic has generated over 25 million tweets. While she did not pertain to anything in particular, used no AlDub hashtag and didn’t mention anything by name in that exact tweet, many started speculating that she was pointing to the growing popularity of Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza aka Yaya Dub or AlDub. Lea said she was speaking in more general terms, and in other tweets said that she’s not specifically targeting a certain episode or particular aspect of AlDub.

Read Lea Salonga’s responses to AlDub fans on Rappler.