January 20, 2014 Edition

Close to 10 years ago, actor Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr landed in the Senate with a bang. A neophyte, he finished an impressive strong second to then senator Mar Roxas during that year’s senatorial elections. Today, battered by accusations he plundered at least P224.5 million, he is fighting what could be the toughest adversary he has ever faced in real life. The Senate listed in its agenda for January 20, the privilege speech of Revilla. He has decided that now is the right time to confront his adversaries. Revilla is said to have collected his commissions in cold cash – from releases of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) channeled to fake non-governmental organizations linked to Janet Lim Napoles, the woman supposedly behind the pork barrel scam. How will he defend himself?

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Acknowledging the huge challenge ahead as it rebuilds areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), the Philippines is turning to its most powerful ally for long-term support. In a meeting in the US ahead of American Senator Marco Rubio’s scheduled visit to Manila, Philippine Ambassador Jose Cuisia Jr expressed the hope that Rubio will be one of the advocates for a “long-term US commitment” in the reconstruction of communities damage by Haiyan on Nov. 8, 2013.  Rubio, a member of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will visit Tacloban when he arrives in the country as part of a week-long trip that would also include stops in Japan and Korea. The government’s 4-year blueprint for post-Yolanda rehabilitation efforts is expected to cost P360.9 billion (US$8.17 billion).

Read the full story on Rappler.

Tropical Depression Agaton continued to hover just southeast of Mindanao on January 20, and is still bringing rain to parts of the island and affecting more than 700,000 people. As of  4 am on January 20, public storm warning signal number 1 was still hoisted over 6 provinces in Mindanao. The storm’s toll continues to be at 40 people, with 65 others injured and 6 missing. A total of 352 evacuation centers have been opened, housing a total of 119,605 people, of 25,495 families.

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President Benigno Aquino III will lead on Monday, January 20, a National Day of Prayer and Solidarity following calamities and a bloody standoff with rebels that happened last year. The special event will be held at 5 pm on the Malacañang Palace grounds in Manila, and broadcast live on state-run radio and TV. Leaders and members of Congress, all government officials, as well as representatives of civil society organizations and religious groups are invited to participate in the event. The event is meant “to remember the lives lost to the tragic incidents of 2013, to thank the Almighty for the nation’s strength and resilience, and to seek divine guidance as the country moves forward to rebuild the affected communities,” said Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr.

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Thousands of domestic helpers took to the streets of Hong Kong on January 19 to demand justice for an Indonesian maid allegedly tortured by her employers, the second such rally in a week. Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, 22, was reportedly left unable to walk following 8 months of abuse in Hong Kong, and was admitted to an Indonesian hospital in critical condition last week after returning home. The allegations have renewed concern about the treatment of domestic helpers in the former British colony following a spate of similar abuse cases and recent criticism by rights groups. Organizers claimed around 5,000 people participated in the rally, a sharp increase in numbers from a similar march last week which drew several dozen protesters.

Read the full story on Rappler.

In a long-awaited speech, President Barack Obama on January 17 trimmed the powers of the secretive US eavesdropping agency by calling for new privacy safeguards, but allowed bulk phone data sweeps to continue as an anti-terror tool. Obama also said he had halted National Security Agency (NSA) spy taps targeting friendly world leaders. At the heart of the changes is a commitment from the president to end the NSA’s hoarding of telephone “metadata” detailing the duration and destination of calls but not their content. These seemed to represent a search for a compromise between demands of civil liberties advocates – who see all bulk data collection as unconstitutional – and resistance from US intelligence community.

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Imagine VIPs in government falling in the long line to get on the train, going up escalators often out of order, waiting out 3 or more trips before getting on, and squishing into jampacked coaches. Imagine them riding old and rusty jeepneys and buses, some aptly described as killer vehicles. This scenario is the subject of a campaign by writer and editor Dinna Dayao in Change.org, an online petition platform.  What are the odds officials will get on board? Rappler asked senators if they are willing to take on the challenge, and their proposals to improve the notorious public transport system. Check out their answers in our story.

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This smart contact lens aims to help people living with diabetes manage their glucose levels. On January 16, Google’s X facility unveiled this project, saying it came at a time when the International Diabetes Federation declares the world is “losing the battle” against the disease. The smart contact lens contains miniaturized chips and sensors that measure glucose levels in tears. The product is still in its early development stages. Current prototypes are able to conduct readings once per second and supposedly transmit that data wirelessly.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The Vatican has yet another unusual initiative. Pope Francis set a date for engaged heterosexual couples at a special general audience with him in the Vatican on February 14. The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family is organizing the audience, and participants are invited to register by January 30 to get a spot. “The Joy of Yes Forever” reads a Vatican invitation, which was decorated with silhouettes of a man and a woman embracing and a white cross with pink borders against a blue sky backdrop.

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Third seed Maria Sharapova was knocked out of the Australian Open by Slovak Dominika Cibulkova on January 20, the second major upset in as many days. The Russian, who took a medical timeout between the second and third sets, crashed 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 against the 20th seed in the fourth round to follow Serena Williams out of the tournament. After racing through the first set Sharapova, who has reached eight major finals and won four, with her last success coming at the French Open in 2012, appeared to have a problem with her left buttock. Cibulkova’s shock win set up a quarter-final encounter with either eighth-seeded Serb Jelena Jankovic or Romanian Simona Halep, seeded 11.

Read the full story on Rappler.