The Globe for Education program’s “Tuloy ang Edukasyon, Tuloy ang Pag-asa” campaign was recognized with the top honor in the Social Contribution category at the 2023 World Communication Awards.

Globe’s program emerged as one of the winners in the 25th WCA, which saw an impressive 220 entries, the highest in WCA’s history. The WCA is considered a benchmark of excellence in the telecommunications industry, recognizing outstanding achievements and innovations through a rigorous judging process.

The global award announced recently at a gala event at The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam affirms Globe’s innovative and transformative impact in the realm of educational technology.

In presenting the award to Globe, the WCA lauded the telco provider, saying its education campaign “showcased an operator fully at one with its customers.”

“Using digital learning solutions, digital expertise, and its product and network ecosystem to reach millions of Filipinos, Globe is showing their ongoing commitment to shrinking the digital divide. A very positive project with amazing impact on digital learning across the country,” it added.

KD Dizon, Head of Globe Business, said the honor is not just for Globe but for the entire Philippine education sector.

“The Globe for Education program embodies our unwavering commitment to education and demonstrates how technology can be a powerful tool in building a resilient and inclusive educational system. This award fuels our motivation to continue innovating and supporting the academic community and help ensure a better future for the Filipino youth,” said Dizon.
In 2022, Globe for Education was launched across three major brands, Globe Postpaid, Globe At Home, and Globe Business, with the goal of empowering the education community with the right technology.

The initiative’s success in fostering digital advancement and inclusivity in education highlights Globe’s commitment to shaping a brighter future for students and educators nationwide.

The effort also underscores Globe’s role as a technology enabler, uplifting education towards 21st-century learning through programs and solutions that support the new learning ecosystem.

By providing affordable connectivity, accessible platforms, and safer learning environments, Globe has made significant strides in transforming the country’s educational landscape. Through programs like Globe for Education, the company helps make quality education accessible everywhere, at any time, for everyone. (PR)

Globe has upgraded its SIM registration platform to enable data verification in as fast as 24 hours, a key step to deter fraud.

This is in line with fresh guidelines from the National Telecommunications Commission after tests showed how fraudulent IDs and details pass telcos’ SIM registration platforms. This bolsters the platform’s existing security features such as Optical Character Recognition, its data-matching capability that compares information between SIM users’ IDs and submitted forms, and the selfie requirement.

“With improved verification, Globe will be able to immediately weed out fraudulent submissions and avoid issues we had to confront in the first year of SIM Registration, including the use of fake IDs and fraudulent information. Our goal is to complete validation within 24 hours, and we’ll continue to fine-tune our solution as we test out this process,” Atty. Froilan Castelo, Globe Group General Counsel.

Globe has also started undertaking vigorous verification of all SIM registration data covering an estimated 61.4 million SIM users, with the review expected to be finished within 2024.

“In light of red flags that law enforcement authorities raised on the vulnerabilities of telcos’ SIM registration platforms, this stringent review aims to retroactively remove questionable submissions. With this step and our improved verification for all future submissions, our goal is to ensure the integrity of SIM registration data,” he said.

Globe also reiterated its call on the government to give telcos access to its official ID database to make SIM registration verification fool-proof. This step is critical in cross-referencing ID submissions as it would help telcos verify which IDs are real or fake.
“As we take our own steps to improve the SIM registration process, we continue to seek help from the government to boost our data verification capabilities. Access to government ID data is key in this process,” said Castelo.

Globe launched its SIM registration platform on December 27, 2022, two weeks after the release of the implementing rules and regulations of the SIM Registration Act, a crucial measure to deter online fraud and scams.

Since the start of SIM registration, Globe registered 53.7 million SIMs existing at the time of the registration period, and 7.7 million new SIMs since the deadline on July 30, 2023.
On top of its full compliance with the SIM Registration Act, Globe has long been undertaking stringent measures against fraud, including proactive SMS and SIM blocking, a 24-hour Security Operations Center, partnerships with banks and financial institutions, the #StopSpam
#StopSPAM – Report Scams or Spam Messages – Globe
We invite you to join us in our fight to stop spam by reporting SMS spams or scams, fake websites, and fake soci…reporting portal, and awareness campaigns to help customers protect themselves.

Through these efforts, Globe blocked 5.31 billion spam and scam SMS from January to end November 2023, and over 208,000 SIMs from the same period over fraud links, including 200,686 blacklisted SIMs from other networks, and 7,403 deactivated SIMs from within its own network. (PR)

TACLOBAN CITY – The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) is eyeing to plant 44,200 high-quality seed nuts in the next few months under its hybridization program, which is included in the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan (CFIDP).

PCA Eastern Visayas Regional Manager Joel Pilapil said in a phone interview on Tuesday that nurseries have been established in eight sites of the region to make seedlings available in all six provinces.

“These nurseries are specifically designed to ensure the distribution of high-quality coconut seedlings to coconut farmer beneficiaries under the CFIDP. This is to enhance the productivity of coconuts by providing farmers with access to superior-quality seedlings,” Pilapil said.

The sites of the bigger nurseries are in Bobon, Northern Samar; Salcedo, Eastern Samar; Liloan and Bontoc towns in Southern Leyte; Sta. Fe, Leyte; and Calbayog City in Samar. Each site can house about 7,000 seed nuts.

Other locations are in Kananga, Leyte and Naval, Biliran, with about 3,000 seed nuts each.
The PCA is upbeat to plant 44,200 hybrid seedlings in the region within the first half of 2024.

“The program specifically focuses on coconut hybridization, which involves the development and promotion of hybrid coconut varieties. This program aims to enhance the productivity and resilience of coconut trees, leading to improved yields and quality of coconut products,” Pilapil added.

He said that by 2040, the contribution of the hybrids to the total yield of nuts in the country will potentially increase to 28 percent. This amounts to 8.45 billion of the hybrid’s nut yield out of the expected total nut production of 30 billion.

Through the program, there will be research projects and activities to identify, select and breed coconut varieties with desirable traits. This includes the morphological identification and selection of parental palms as well as the development of improved dwarf and tall coconut cultivars.

From April to June 2023, Eastern Visayas is the sixth largest coconut producing region in the country with an output of 260,114 metric tons of coconut, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
(SARWELL Q. MENIANO/PNA)

With the New Year’s celebration

TACLOBAN CITY – Ahead of the New Year’s celebration, police authorities in the region asked the public to use only firecrackers and fireworks sold in stalls accredited by them.
Based on the record of the regional headquarters of the Philippine National Police(PNP), there are only 120 retailers were given permits to sell firecrackers and fireworks across the region.

Of this number, eight are in Tacloban City; 31 in Leyte; 27 in Northern Samar; 10 in Biliran; five in Samar; 17 in Southern Leyte, and 22 in Eastern Samar.

The PNP also gave permits to three fireworks and firecrackers distributors in the region.
On Tuesday (Dec.26), police regional director, B/Gen. Reynaldo Pawid personally led an inspection of stalls selling firecrackers in Tacloban City.

“Ang pinaghahandaan natin ngayon is to ensure na this coming New Year’s celebration wala talagang mangyaring insidente lalo na yung iwasan natin ang paggamit ng bawal na paputok para walang masaktan at masunog na ari-arian,” Pawid said in a brief interview.
The PNP-8 top official added that the Tacloban City Police Office had apprehended individuals who were selling firecrackers without permits and confiscated illegal firecrackers.

Since December 22 monitoring of the Department of Health, the health agency has recorded one incident of firecracker related injury throughout the region.
The firecracker-related injury was reported from Palo town, involving an eight-year-old boy who was injured by “boga.”

The victim was brought to the Palo Rural Health Unit and was later sent home.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)

TACLOBAN CITY – Nearly 35,000 barangay (village) officials in Eastern Visayas will undergo leadership training beginning January 2024 to better equip and prepare them as development partners of the national government.

The training aims to ensure that village officials are capacitated to perform their tasks to ensure peaceful and progressive communities, Arnel Agabe, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Eastern Visayas regional director said in an interview Wednesday.
“The training is not only for the newly elected officials but for everyone in the barangay leadership. We want our barangay government to be a partner in all our development efforts,” he said.

The training program will start with a two-day basic orientation course to introduce them to the fundamentals of barangay governance, particularly the relevant provisions of the Local Government Code, development planning, budget and finance, participation, and public ethics and accountability.

Apart from the orientation course, it will also provide technical assistance in the implementation of specialized courses on barangay governance, enriching citizen participation, and performance management.

The Seal of Good Local Governance for Barangays will be discussed extensively in the program.

Agabe said the training would also highlight priority campaigns such as the formation of a barangay anti-drugs council and enhancing the capacity of the anti-drug council and peace and order council.

“We will conduct training needs assessments since there are special concerns for each area,” he said.

On Oct. 30, 2022, the region’s over four million voters elected 4,365 barangay chairman and 30,555 barangay council members.(SARWELL Q. MENIANO/PNA)

CATARMAN, Northern Samar– Through its sustainable intervention programs in combating and eradicating malnutrition, especially among children, the Provincial Government of Northern Samar, was named as the 2022 Green Banner Seal of Compliance Awardee during the 2023 Regional Nutrition Awarding Ceremony in Palo Leyte on November 21, 2023.

Along with the province, the local government units of Bobon and Mapanas also received the same award.

The Green Banner Seal of Compliance supersedes the Green Banner award, which requires a local government unit to attain the highest score in each administrative level to be eligible for the award.

Using the Monitoring and Evaluation of Local Level Plan Implementation Protocol (MELLPI) Pro, the evaluators scored LGUs on the following dimensions: (1) vision and mission; (2) nutrition laws and policies; (3) governance and organization structure; (4) local nutrition committee management functions; (5) nutrition interventions and services; and (6) nutritional status.

With a strong commitment from the provincial government of Northern Samar, emphasizing key nutrition initiatives like the First 1000 Days Program, the rehabilitation and treatment of severely wasted children, ensuring food security, and enhancing governance for the effective implementation of nutrition programs, we can attain a province that is ‘Marig on, Mainuswagon ngan Malipayon.’
(THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT OF NORTHERN SAMAR)