March 19, 2013 Edition

World leaders flew in for Pope Francis’s inauguration mass in St Peter’s Square on March 19, where Latin America’s first pontiff will receive the formal symbols of papal power. The arrivals have already presented Francis, 76, with a first diplomatic headache in the form of a request from compatriot President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina to mediate in a row with Britain over the Falkland Islands. The Chinese government has also said it will not be sending any representatives after Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said he was attending. Latin America will be heavily represented at the mass by the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years.

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The Department of Finance and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) are targeting the self-employed such as lawyers and doctors in their latest campaign against tax evaders. According to BIR Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares, there are around 1.8 million self-employed professionals working in the Philippines, but only 402,934 actually file taxes. “This is a very conservative estimate,” she said. Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said they would “wage war” against SEP tax evaders.

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Syria’s main opposition National Council has elected Ghassan Hitto, a communications executive with Islamist leanings who has lived in the United States, as premier for swathes of Syrian rebel-held territory mired in chaos and poverty. The vote came after some 14 hours of closed-door consultations among 70-odd Coalition members, with some members describing Hitto as a consensus candidate pleasing both the opposition’s Islamist and liberal factions. Coalition members say the prime minister’s first task will be to form an interim government, which he should put to vote to the group’s general assembly.

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The Philippines doesn’t want to be left out of a free trade agreement between the United States and 10 other countries, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose L. Cuisia Jr. outlined Manila’s desire to join the TPP in his presentation at Georgetown University on March 14. The US, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are the current parties negotiating the TPP to eliminate trade barriers in the Asia-Pacific region. While the Philippines does not have a seat at the negotiating table yet, the country has drawn up a roadmap that it hopes will lead to its inclusion.

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Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her support of gay marriage in an online video released by the Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization working for gays rights. Clinton said she supports gay marriage both “personally and as a matter of policy and law.” While Clinton pushed gay, lesbian and transgender rights during her four-year tenure as America’s top diplomat, considering them human rights, she had not until now advocated for gay marriage.

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His story is one that continues to inspire many young people aspiring to become soldiers. Jestony Lanaja, the son of a coconut farmer, graduated valedictorian in this year’s Philippine Military Academy ceremonies. He said his parents are his greatest inspiration, seeing how hard his father worked. On graduation day, Jestony urged his peers to stay true to the values instilled in them by the Academy. “Let us keep the values of courage, integrity and loyalty intact, and let it be a beacon that would guide us daily in our thoughts and deeds.”

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Over the weekend, security blogger Brian Krebs recounted his experience of having his blog attacked and his home raided by police at the same time. Krebs, formerly of The Washington Post and now of Krebs on Security, discussed the simultaneous cyberattack and misdirected police raid on his home last March 14. Krebs notes that while the denial of service attack on his site didn’t last long as he hired a company to protect against those things, the “SWATting,” or practice of tricking actual police to raid otherwise innocent people, was of more immediate concern. Krebs believes the DDoS attack and the “SWATting” were related to an earlier report he made about underground sites peddling credit reports and Social Security numbers.

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Asia’s best actors and actresses come from the Philippines. If that wasn’t a fact before, it is a fact now that Nora Aunor and Eddie Garcia were awarded top acting honors at the recently concluded 7th Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong. Aunor earned her trophy from her powerful portrayal of a barren Badjao midwife in the Brillante Mendoza opus “Thy Womb.” She beat South Korea’s Cho Min-Soo (“Pieta”), Taiwan’s Gwei Lun-mei (“GF*BF”), Afghanistan’s Golshifteh Farahani (“The Patience Stone”) and China’s Hao Lei (“Mystery”). Garcia won two trophies for playing a grouchy gay man waiting for his death in the company of his dog in “Bwakaw.”

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 19, issued a status quo ante order against the Reproductive Health law, temporarily stopping the law’s implementation. The justices voted 10-5, in favor of the status quo ante order, which is effective for 120 days, or 4 months. The court has set oral arguments on June 18.

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University of the Philippines Manila Chancellor Manuel Agulto suspended on Tuesday, March 19, the “no late payment policy” that has been widely criticized after the death of a UP Manila student. According to Prof Carl Ramota, chairperson of the Department of Social Science in UP Manila, Agulto announced the suspension of the controversial policy in a meeting among department chairs of the College of Arts and Sciences in UP Manila and select student leaders on Tuesday, March 19. Agulto was quoted as saying the suspension of the “no late payment policy’ will immediately take effect pending review in April 2013 by UP’s Board of Regents, the highest policy-making body of the state university.

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