MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte is scheduled to depart for South Korea on September 20 to attend the Global Education and Innovation Summit (GEIS).

In an advisory from the Office of the Vice President, Duterte will attend the event in Seoul at the invitation of the South Korean government.

“She will serve as one of the GEIS keynote speakers to be held on 21 September 2023,” OVP said.

The vice president will also be joined by a ‘You Can Be VP’ program participant, a learner from Danao City in Cebu.

MAYNILA — Napapanahon nang magkaroon ng isang opisyal na national organization para sa vloggers, iginiit ni Sen. Raffy Tulfo ngayong Lunes.

Aniya, hindi kasi tulad ng mga traditional media na may "accountability" at "checks and balance", may ilang vloggers na basta lang nagpo-post sa social media nang walang pinagdadaanang proseso.

"Marami ding independent vloggers na responsible... That's siguro it's about time — I don't know if this needs legislation — na magkaroon po ng 'Kapisanan ng mga Vloggers sa Pilipinas' or something to that effect na para magkakaroon ng policing, na para maging responsable na sila. Hindi iyong sa ngayon e may kanya-kanya sila," ani Tulfo.

"Marami nga dyan na mga vloggers na sumusunod sa code of ethics, sa tamang pamamaraan para ilabas mo iyong istorya... Pero meron pa rin talaga dyan mga 'guerilla', na talagang 'pag umupak, upak lang without thinking of the consequences because walang nagre-regulate sa kanila," dagdag niya.

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang will pay tribute to Filipino teachers through the Konsyerto sa Palasyo on Oct. 1, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) announced.

“A night full of music from our talented performers is our gift to our beloved teachers,” the PCO said in Filipino in a Facebook post on Saturday.

The concert will be aired live on the Konsyerto sa Palasyo Facebook page, the PCO said.

[...]

President Marcos initiated the concert series himself, according to Malacañang.

MANILA, Philippines – Pope Francis has dismissed from the priesthood Father Pio Aclon of Borongan, Eastern Samar, for alleged sex abuse, the news service of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) reported on Sunday, September 17.

The Pope expelled Aclon “for sexual abuse involving minors,” said CBCP News, which noted that Aclon “last served at a minor seminary in Borongan before the diocese suspended him from his clerical duties.”

Earlier on Sunday, the Diocese of Borongan released a July 18 announcement that stated: “Notice is hereby given that the Holy Father Pope Francis has dismissed from the clerical state PIO CULTURA ACLON of the Diocese of Borongan. He is, therefore, no longer a cleric and cannot exercise priestly ministry in the Church.”

MANILA, Philippines – The Facebook page of SMNI News, the media arm of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy’s megachurch The Kingdom of Jesus Christ, has become unavailable.

As of Friday morning, September 15, the URL facebook.com/SMNINews says, “This content isn’t available right now.” This message appears if privacy settings prevent a certain user from accessing the content, or if the content has been deleted.

Before it became inaccessible, SMNI News had around 2.3 million followers and 960,000 likes on Facebook earlier in September.

This comes after Quiboloy’s Facebook was removed from the platform in August this year. Meta later confirmed that his Facebook page was deleted in line with the company’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy, as Quiboloy is currently facing US Executive Order (EO) 13818 sanctions for “serious human rights abuse.”

MANILA — The Philippines has overtaken China as the world's top rice importer, according to the latest report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), as the country grapples with surging prices of the staple commodity.

The USDA's latest "Grain: World Markets and Trade" report estimated that the total rice importation of the Philippines for the 2022-2023 trade year hit 3.9 million metric tons compared to China's 3.5 million metric tons.

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 10) – Groups of educators condemned the planned changes of the Department of Education (DepEd) in its Grade 6 Araling Panlipunan curriculum, which they said would spread disinformation and historical distortion.

"The alteration of historical terminology is not only distortion but also undermines the truth about one of the darkest periods in Philippine history," the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said on Sunday.

Following a directive from the DepEd Curriculum and Teaching Management Committee, the agency's Bureau of Curriculum Development on Sept. 6 released a memorandum that would change the term "Diktadurang Marcos" to "Diktadura" in the Araling Panlipunan subject of the new MATATAG curriculum.

On Saturday, the Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND) described the revision as “a blatant example of disinformation, where the people are deliberately misled by manipulating historical facts.”

MANILA -- The chief of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) said on Tuesday that the government is considering limiting the number of SIM cards an individual can own in a bid to further deter scammers.

The proposal was made as text scams continue to proliferate in the Philippines despite the implementation of the SIM Card Registration law.

Undersecretary Alexander Ramos said he is looking at a maximum of four to five SIMs per person as he believes having too many is "abnormal."

But he said telco players are proposing a maximum of 10 sim cards per person as the "reasonable" option.

On Thursday, Inquirer.net, one of the Philippines’ most-read news websites, asked that question in an article based on an exclusive report by The FilAm, an online magazine based in the United States with which it has a content partnership.

The article was up for several hours and getting multiple comments from readers when it was taken down, reportedly on orders from top management. The link to the piece now directs readers to a landing page of reports by Inquirer.net’s US contributors.

A link to a cached version could still be found on Sunday morning. It now renders a 404 error.

It’s the latest in a number of instances of Philippine news sites taking down reports on the country’s powerful politicians and businessmen. The CEO of the Inquirer Group of Companies, Sandy Prieto Romualdez, is married to the Speaker’s brother, Philip.

PCIJ reached out to Inquirer and Inquirer.net on Sunday morning for comment. It has not received a response as of this writing.

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 2) – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed Iglesia ni Cristo executive minister Eduardo Manalo as a special representative for overseas Filipino concerns, Malacañang announced on Saturday.

He also named businessman Norman Vincent Wee as his special envoy to the United Arab Emirates for Trade and Investments.

Manalo previously served in the same position under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte from 2018 to 2019.

MANILA, Philippines — Mobile giant Globe Telecom Inc. has warned that digital fraud is thriving in messaging channels and from overseas numbers, both of which are not covered by the regulations of SIM registration.

Globe will send representatives to the Sept. 5 hearing of the Senate on the proliferation of text scams and the reported use of SIMs for illegal operations.

Globe general counsel Froilan Castelo said that cases of online fraud, particularly text scams, remain prevalent in spaces unregulated by SIM registration.

MANILA - Kabataan Party List Representative Raoul Manuel dared the officials of the Department of Trade and Industry, and members of the Marcos Jr. administration to live on minimum wage for a month, after Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual issued a statement last week on the sufficiency of the existing minimum wage for a family of five.

During on Thursday’s House Committee on Appropriations hearing on DTI’s proposed 2024 budget, Manuel said that the trade chief’s statements appear to be “detached from reality”.

This observation did not sit well with Pascual. He clarified that minimum wage should be studied by experts, but the DTI is working hard to help improve industries so that more Filipinos will have the opportunity to get better paying jobs.