Rappler Newscast | March 13, 2014

STORY 1: CHINA TO PH: REMOVE SHIP FROM AYUNGIN

Tensions increase in the South China Sea.
China demands the Philippines remove a ship that ran aground in Ayungin Shoal.
This comes a day after the Philippines filed a protest against China for chasing away two of its ships in that disputed area.
A stranded Philippine warship remains in Ayungin and now serves as a base for Philippine military forces.  
The military says it used an airplane to drop food to soldiers in Ayungin after the Chinese Coast Guard blocked two Philippine ships from delivering supplies.
China says the ships were loaded with construction materials and accused the Philippines of building structures on the disputed area.
The shoal is located in the West Philippine Sea or South China Sea, the subject of a historic case that Manila filed against Beijing.
On Wednesday, China says the Philippines is “making unfounded countercharges by staging the so-called ‘protest’.”
The United States slams China’s moves in the disputed shoal.
A US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki says, “This is a provocative move that raises tensions.”

STORY 2: SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE DAY

Filipina Vicki Tauli-Corpuz is named the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People.
She comes from the Kankana-ey tribe of Mountain Province, and considers herself a proud Igorot.
Filipinos praise her appointment.
Playamoth says, “This is no surprise if you met and lived with the proud people of the Cordilleras.
If our leaders were Igorots, they would have protected our economy culture and heritage from foreign domination.”
Anonymous says, “I hope she can shoo away those miners that destroyed the indigenous people’s homes in Palawan, Mountain Province, Samar, and many more!”

STORY 3: BREAKING DOWN STEEP POWER RATES IN PH

Last year, power distributor Meralco imposed the Philippines’ highest power rate hike in history: an increase of P4.15 per kilowatt hour.
The Supreme Court temporarily stopped its implementation, but Meralco’s power hike highlighted the problems of the energy sector.
Among them:  the possible collusion among industry players, flaws in the structure of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market or WESM, and gaps in regulation.
Meralco attributed its rate hike to the shutdown of the Malampaya plant.
But simultaneous outages of other plants also drove the prices up.
Some groups accuse the power sector of collusion, but Meralco’s head of Utility Economics Larry Fernandez says the shutdowns of other plants were unexpected.

LARRY FERNANDEZ, MERALCO HEAD OF UTILITY ECONOMICS: In terms of the impact of the Malampaya outage on power rates… that has been anticipated. I think one difference we had was late last year was that it occurred simultaneous with some scheduled maintenance of some large power plants. Last year was an election year — national elections and the barangay elections, and during those periods power plants were asked not to perform maintenance during those election months.. because our elections depended on reliable power… What we did not foresee were the unscheduled outages that happened in the last two months.

Asked why power is so expensive in the Philippines, Fernandez cites data from a consultant that show the country’s power rates are at par with Singapore and Western Australia.
He also says power in some countries are subsidized by the government.

LARRY FERNANDEZ, MERALCO HEAD OF UTILITY ECONOMICS: The rates in the Philippines are very similar to the rates in Singapore and Western Australia. But those three are higher than the rates in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, and South Korea. And according to his study about 80% of the difference was due to subsidies that the utilities in those countries receive from the national government.

Fernandez says the Philippines depends on natural gas and coal-fired plants but adds the Philippines needs more power generating facilities to bring down electricity rates.

LARRY FERNANDEZ, MERALCO HEAD OF UTILITY ECONOMICS: The major recommendation to bring down the cost of power in a significant way is for the country to [have] additional and more efficient generating capacity into the system. The key is for the country to invite – incentivize the building of additional and fuel-efficient generating capacity, and that will help bring down price… To an extent we also have to, as a country, look at our fuel mix and perhaps diversify our sources to address our dependence on any kind of fuel.

STORY 4: DE LIMA SLAMS JINGGOY FOR ‘BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE’

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima says Senator Jinggoy Estrada is “barking up the wrong tree” when he claimed that he and 2 other senators implicated in the pork barrel scam are being tried by publicity.
In a privilege speech Wednesday, Estrada hit the credibility of whistleblowers in the scam where he and others are accused of stealing public money.
Estrada also criticized what he called prejudgment and trial by publicity against him.
But De Lima says the publicity is “not brought about by the DOJ, but the very nature of the subject matter.”
She also denies Estrada’s allegation that witnesses are being coached to pin the administration’s enemies.

STORY 5: REVILLA: PALACE, ALLIES OUT TO LIFT TERM LIMITS

Senator Bong Revilla accuses the Aquino administration of plotting with its Congressional allies to lift term limits in the 1987 Constitution.
Under previous administrations, President Benigno Aquino opposed the move.
Citing a source, Revilla says the administration is allegedly pursuing the move because of the “weakness” of their potential candidates in the 2016 elections.
The senator cites his source as saying the administration plans to “tinker with term limits to ensure that they’ll remain in power beyond 2016.”
Revilla is reportedly eyeing higher office in 2016, but says he has not made up his mind about it.
Revilla, who faces plunder charges for the pork barrel scam, has repeatedly accused the administration of political harassment.

STORY 6: VIETNAM PLANES FIND NO DEBRIS NEAR CHINA SPOTTING: OFFICIALS

It’s another false alarm on Day 6 of the search for the missing Malaysian plane.
Two Vietnamese search planes find no trace of Flight 370 near the site where Chinese satellites spotted floating objects thought to be debris from the plane, which vanished Saturday with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
On Thursday, a Wall Street Journal report suggests the plane flew on for about four hours after it lost contact.
The report, citing US aviation officials, says this is based on data automatically transmitted from the plane’s engines.
Malaysian investigators deny the report.

STORY 7: ThE wRap: YOUR WORLD IN ONE READ

At number 2, Ukraine prepares to seek the help of US President Barack Obama against the threat of Crimea joining Russia.
Ukraine’s autonomous region is set to hold a referendum on switching over to the Russian side.
The Group of 7 industrialized nations warns against Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea with US freezing assets and imposing travel bans on Russians as sanctions.

At number 3, a major explosion caused by a gas leak flattens two Manhattan apartment buildings Wednesday Manila time, killing at least 7 people and injuring 63.
It took an entire afternoon for firefighters to completely extinguish the fire.
For some New Yorkers, the explosion sparks reminders of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 that brought down the Twin Towers.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio calls it “a tragedy of the worst kind.”

At number 8, scientists say they found an elusive mineral that suggests the existence of a vast reservoir deep in the Earth’s mantle.
Scientists believe it may hold as much water as all the planet’s oceans combined.
The evidence comes from the presence of the mineral ringwoodite, which thrives on water.
Scientists say ringwoodite comes from the so-called transition zone sandwiched between the upper and lower layers of Earth’s mantle.

For the full top 10 visit Rappler.com’s ‘the wRap.’

Water image from Shutterstock

STORY 8: ASTRONOMERS REVEAL ‘LARGEST YELLOW STAR EVER’

Astronomers say they’ve spotted the largest yellow star ever observed in the galaxy and it’s 1,300 times larger than the sun.
The yellow hypergiant star HR 5171 A is 1,300 times largalso about a million times brighter than the sun.
Although it’s 12,000 light years from Earth, the star can be seen with the naked eye.
Yellow hypergiants are very rare, with only a dozen or so known in our galaxy. – Rappler.com