The earth’s last remaining forest cover cleans the air we breathe, purifies water systems, provides habitat for plants and animals, and even helps slow down climate change by removing heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It benefits everyone, but what happens if trees are indiscriminately cut for the high-value wood, if the most profitable minerals...
Category: News
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When Arroyo’s ‘favorite companion’ picked up the dinner tab in New York
The Philippine power structure continues to highlight intriguing peaks and valleys, and attentive observers are recalling long-ago details after Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ’s “demotion” from her lofty post as senior deputy speaker of the House of Representatives. Time was when Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, now speaker of the chamber, was deemed a “favorite...
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Contract awarded for world’s largest floating solar project
The government has awarded to SunAsia Energy Inc. and Blueleaf Energy the contract to build and operate the world’s largest floating solar project in the Philippines. The project has a cumulative capacity of over 750 megawatts (MW). The move is viewed as a milestone in the Philippine energy sector, with the Department of Energy (DoE)...
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Poachers stepping up hunt for critically endangered animals in Panay
LIBERTAD, Antique—Not only have poachers trespassed on the lush forests of northwestern Panay to cut down rare agarwood trees and collect their precious resin, they are also hunting critically endangered animals, like the Visayan Warty Pig, according to wildlife field researchers. In months-long trips, the research team in the Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park (NPPNP)...
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For a healthier lifestyle, wake up earlier
When the 3 a.m. alarm went off it should have started a familiar routine that involved hitting the snooze button a number of times, closing my eyes again, and thinking of excuses for welshing on a commitment. To say that mornings are rough is to make an understatement. But this was no ordinary morning engagement,...
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New chief has less than a year to clean up drug-smeared PNP
When Police Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr. took over as Philippine National Police chief from Rodolfo Azurin Jr. on April 24, he promised a “relentless” anticrime drive and assured his predecessor that he would continue “cleansing” the ranks. Acorda made an “uncompromising commitment” to turn the police into “vanguards of peace to ensure a safe and...
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Why we should continue to wear face masks
Planet Earth has been learning about Covid-19 ever since this highly contagious respiratory disease that killed so many was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. The knowledge led to mobility restrictions in many countries including severe lockdowns in the Philippines, not to mention a global race on who could...
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Scientists say the soul doesn’t die and returns to the universe
The existence of the soul, and whether it is immortal or not, has polarized great thinkers from both the philosophic-theological and scientific camps. The “physicalists” (those who hold that everything about us, from consciousness to higher rationality, can be explained by biochemical processes) are quick to say that the phenomenon of consciousness does not emanate...
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There’s such a thing as a Rainwater Collection Law
Ever wonder what happened to Executive Order No. 26, which then President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law on May 16, 2017? It was practically a nationwide ban on smoking, with strict guidelines similar to what were imposed in Davao City when Duterte was its mayor. What about Republic Act No. 10913, or the Anti-Distracted Driving...
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‘Water crisis’: Government has no integrated water infrastructure program
(Last of two parts) ‘Water crisis’: No cause for worry yet, authorities say The first order of business is for the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) to put its foot down every time the two water concessionaires close their valves to repair pipes and clean filters during the dry season, according to an activist...