August 26, 2013 Edition

Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in Manila and key cities in the Philippines and abroad held protest rallies against the pork barrel system on National Heroes’ Day on August 26. An initiative that began on Facebook, the anti-pork campaign led to ground mobilization by professions, students, activists and organized groups. By 9 am, police estimated the number of protesters in Luneta at 600,000. In New York, Filipinos staged a protest on Manhattan Avenue, saying they were dissatisfied with President Aquino’s decision to merely reform the pork barrel system and not scrap it.

Check our live blog of the nationwide protests here.

Dubious non-government organizations siphoning lawmakers’ pork barrel and misusing them extended their reach to the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The recently released Commission on Audit report on the 2007-2009 PDAF releases showed that P751 million of pork barrel that went through the social welfare department was misused by organizations outside of government. The amount in question was released to at least 20 NGOs. Most of them had dubious backgrounds, doubtful documents, questionable projects, and unverifiable beneficiaries. The special audit conducted by COA covered only the last 3 years of the past administration.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno is “both an insider and outsider” in the Supreme Court. And as it turns out, this was a double-edged sword. One year into her term as chief justice, Sereno, the first junior justice to be appointed to lead the Court, is continuing earlier reforms in the institution, but it is far from easy. The pace has been slow as she wades through difficult terrain in the hierarchy-steeped Court, meeting up with strong resistance from some of her colleagues. One observer describes Sereno’s mishaps as “rookie mistakes” and that “time is on her side.”

Read the full story on Rappler

The United Nations said on August 25 its experts would start their probe of an alleged Syrian chemical weapons site Monday. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “has instructed the mission … currently in Damascus, to focus its attention on ascertaining the facts of the 21 August incident as its highest priority,” the UN said in a statement. The UN announcement came shortly after Damascus gave the green light for the inspectors to carry out the probe into the alleged use of chemical weapons near the Syrian capital on Wednesday. It had been repeatedly delayed amid differences with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime over the scope of the probe into the alleged use of chemical arms in the 29-month civil war. Doctors Without Borders has said 355 people died last week of “neurotoxic” symptoms.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Will the final peace agreement for the Bangsamoro be signed next month? Both the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front seem to think so. MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal told Rappler there was a “big chance” the last two annexes to the comprehensive peace agreement will be signed in the next meeting. The two parties ended their 39th round of talks in Kuala Lumpur on August 25. This round of talks were held weeks after bombings in Cagayan de Oro and Cotabato City. In their joint statement, the parties said They “worked towards the resolution of some of the most crucial issues” and “are confident that an agreement will be reached soon.”

Read the full story on Rappler

The Philippine stock market has great long-term prospects, according to Tony Herbosa, managing director for Corporate Finance for the Center for Global Best Practices. He cites the fact that recently, JP Morgan finally agreed with global bond behemoth PIMCO’s assessment of US growth. Herbosa notes that with the country’s economic growth story, helped by its potential labor force and demographics base of 70% being below 25 years of age, the PSEi will most likely outperform many Asian bourses, if not the US as well.

Read Herbosa’s blog here

Anti-Muslim rioters burned shops and homes in a fresh outbreak of communal unrest in Myanmar on August 25, as the former army-ruled nation grapples with destabilizing religious violence. Some 38 houses, 9 businesses and a rice mill were torched during the unrest Saturday night, August 24, which erupted after a Muslim man was arrested on suspicion of attempting to rape a Buddhist woman in a village at Kanbalu in the central region of Sagaing, according to a regional police official. Several episodes of religious unrest — mostly targeting Muslims — have exposed deep rifts in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, casting a shadow over widely praised political reforms since military rule ended two years ago.

Read the full story on Rappler

It was a room full of bloggers, online journalists, lawmakers, technology experts, members of the academe, and other Internet users gathered for the big data summit #ThinkPH on August 23 sponsored by Rappler, Google and +Social Good. But Andrew Keen, a US-based author who flew in for the summit, pulled no punches in blasting the Internet as an “epic failure” nearly 25 years after its invention. Jumpstarting the summit as its first speaker, he minced no words against one of the organizers, Google, which he called a “central character” in the Internet’s failure. But Nancy Roberts, co-founder of analytics start-up CORE Lab at the US Naval Postgraduate School, challenged Keen’s arguments, pointing out the immense power of the Internet to connect problems to solutions and empower users to drive change wherever they want from wherever they are.

Read the stories on Keen and Roberts here and here.

US fashion-wear company American Apparel has announced an open call for transgendered/transsexual models. The search is liberal in defining its broad qualifications or almost lack thereof, surely in the spirit of the open-minded LGBT milieu. The open call announcement has been posted earlier in Rappler’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, eliciting appreciation, skepticism, and other responses.


Read the full story on Rappler.

Iconic US singer Linda Ronstadt “can’t sing a note” anymore, she said, after Parkinson’s disease stole her voice. Although she was diagnosed just 8 months ago, the 67-year-old singer, who’s behind the 1970s hit remakes of “Blue Bayou” and “That’ll Be the Day,” said in a recent interview that the symptoms first started appearing as far back as 8 years. The singer sometimes relies on a cane to walk and uses a wheelchair while traveling. Parkinson’s is a degenerative nerve disease that causes tremors, stiffness, and slowed movement. Ronstadt hit it big in the 1970s, becoming one of the best-paid singers in country and rock ‘n’ roll.

Read the full story on Rappler.