Daily News Highlights – May 7, 2015 Edition

Philippine Justice Secretary Leila de Lima revealed that the recruiters who duped Mary Jane Veloso into bringing heroin into Indonesia, leading to her possible execution, were themselves drug couriers for an international syndicate. She said Maria Cristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao had been on the radar of the National Bureau of Investigation since 2011, a year after Veloso was arrested in Indonesia. Both are now under the custody of NBI. She said 10 other alleged victims have surfaced against the recruiters.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, the second most valuable listed company in the country, targets to lay off around 450 employees this year to cut operational costs and align the skill set of its workforce. Its spokesman Ramon Isberto said “employees were given the option to avail [themselves of] ‘sweetened offers.’” In 2012, PLDT laid off more than 1,000 employees to address job redundancy after it acquired Digitel Telecommunications Philippines, which goes by the brand Sun Cellular. 

Read the full story on Rappler Business.

Public pressure is mounting on Philippine President Benigno Aquino III to tell Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to take back some 50 container vans of possibly toxic garbage illegally exported to Manila two years ago by a Canadian company. In time for Aquino’s state visit to Canada, non-governmental organizations in the Philippines, as well as netizens that included Canadians, petitioned him to bring up the issue with Harper. In 2013, the Philippine Bureau of Customs seized container vans carrying various waste and hazardous materials, including non-recyclable plastics and adult diapers, imported from Canada. They were misdeclared to be containing assorted scrap plastic materials for recycling.

Read the full story on Rappler.

More disgruntled fight fans are going to court with their complaints, suing Filipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao and others for failing to disclose a shoulder injury prior to his “Fight of the Century” against Floyd Mayweather. A class-action suit filed in US District Court in Illinois not only names Pacquiao and promoters Top Rank but also telecasters HBO and Showtime, who combined to produce the pay-per-view fight program that was sold in the United States for about $100. The suit also names Mayweather, Mayweather Promotions and cable television providers AT&T, COMCAST and DirecTV, and accuses the defendants of deceptive practices in marketing and advertising the bout.  

Typhoon Noul entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) around5 am on Thursday, May 7, and has now been given the name “Dodong.” Dodong has slightly intensified, packing maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers/hour with gusts of 170 km/h, state weather bureau PAGASA said in a news conference at around 9:30 am, and in its latest bulletin at 11 am. In its latest bulletin, PAGASA said that the “estimated rainfall amount is from heavy to intense within the 300 km diameter of the typhoon” which is “expected to affect the eastern Visayas and Bicol region for the next 24-36 hours.” Given Dodong’s pattern of intensifying, there is a possibility that it will develop into a super typhoon, said PAGASA weather forecaster Fernando Cada.

Read more on Rappler.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) has raised the alert level of Mount Bulusan in Sorsogon from 0 to 1, according to a bulletin released at 8 am on Thursday, May 7. The alert level was heightened after two steam-driven eruptions in one week. The latesthappened the night before the new alert level. The new alert level indicates that “hydrothermal processes may be underway beneath the volcano that may lead to more steam-driven eruptions.”

Read more on Rappler.

From the “unusual” 45 candidates first reported by Rappler, only 22 are now left vying for the position of Puerto Princesa City mayor. The unusual number of people who filed candidacies has pushed the name of former mayor Edward Hagedorn, the strongest challenger of incumbent Lucilo Bayron, down the candidates’ list, while making the incumbent name No. 1 on the list. As of Wednesday, however, half of the people who filed their candidacies had backed out from the recall elections set for Friday, May 8, according to local the local Commission on Elections. Some of those who filed said they were duped and paid registering, but they didn’t know they were running for mayor.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Britain goes to the polls on May 7 in the closest general election for a generation, which also looks set to deliver a minority government for the first time since 1974. The results could also push Britain closer to leaving the European Union and hasten Scottish independence. Prime Minister David Cameron’s center-right Conservatives, leaders of a coalition government since 2010, are fighting to stay in office but are at level pegging with Ed Miliband’s center-left Labour in opinion polls.

Read the full story on Rappler World.

The Guardian explains why the local elections May 7 elections are “more important than ever.”

The United States, led by no less than the White House, observes the National Day of Prayer every 7th of May. For many Americans, however, prayer is a daily habit, a survey by the think tank Pew Research Centre shows. Fifty-five percent of Americans pray every day, and more women tend to do that than men. Older people are likely to pray every day than young adults.

See the highlights of Pew’s update notes on its survey here.

Zynga said Wednesday, May 6, it was cutting staff by 18% amid ongoing losses, as the social games pioneer seeks to reboot its strategy. The announcement from the San Francisco group, which gained prominence with Facebook games like FarmVille, marks its second major restructuring in two years. The move came as Zynga unveiled a loss of $46 million in the past quarter, narrowing the deficit from $61 million a year ago, with revenues rising 9% from a year ago to $183 million. The company said its latest effort would seek to cut $100 million in annual costs. 

Read the full story on Rappler.