ORMOC CITY-A lifeless body of a newly born male fetus was found in a swamp in Catbalogan City with the local police have yet to establish the mother of the baby.
The dead fetus was discovered on March 31 at about 3:30 am in Purok 3 of Barangay Pupua, Catbalogan City, the police said.

The local police said that at about 5:20 am on that day, they received a cellular phone call from a concerned citizen informing them that there was a dead fetus found in the swamp in the said barangay.

Upon receipt of the information the local police immediately responded to the place to verify the said report and upon arrival in the area the responding team saw a lifeless body of a fetus at the shoreline.

Catbalogan police immediately coordinated with Samar provincial forensic unit for the conduct of processing crime scenes. After processing the crime scene, the recovered fetus was immediately subject to an autopsy and post-mortem examination and will be turned over to the barangay officials of the same place for their appropriate action.
The local police are now conducting a thorough investigation into the identity of the mother of the male fetus. (ROBERT DEJON)

TACLOBAN CITY– AirAsia Philippines disclosed that it is mulling to revive the Tacloban-Clark, Pampanga route next year.

Steve Dailisan, the company’s communication and public affairs head, said that the move is partly due to the increasing number of passengers coming from this city and the rest of the region.

It was learned from Dailisan that Tacloban City is among AirAsia Philippines top domestic markets, flying four times a week for its Manila-Tacloban flight.

And to further encourage air passengers to patronize AirAisa Philippines, they are offering 20% off on domestic and even international flights this year.

The airline company made a sales blitz in the city last week.
It was learned from Dailisan that the number of air passengers from the region who are using AirAsia Philippines has already reached their pre-pandemic number.

He added that in line with their mission of bridging the distance for all Filipinos, the airline plans to revive their Clark to Tacloban routes, hopefully in 2024.

More than being the home of the longest bridge in the Philippines and as the site of the US General Douglas MacArthur’s landing, this city is the gateway to Eastern Visayas known for its captivating natural beauty including rock formations, waterfalls, sand bars, white sand beaches like Kalanggaman in Palompon, Leyte, and Sambawan Islands off Maripipi town, Biliran, colorful and enchanting festivals, and mouth-water foods. (ROBERT DEJON)

TACLOBAN CITY – The city government of Borongan and Dolores, both in Eastern Samar, has committed to promoting renewable energy to ensure a sustainable future for their communities.

As part of their commitment, Mayor Jose Ivan Dayan Agda of Borongan and Councilor Randy Pomida, representing the municipality of Dolores, entered an agreement with Oxfam Philippines and the ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability Southeast Asia Secretariat (ICLEI SEAS) last March 28.

The two areas were chosen to be the pilot site of the renewable energy (RE) program that aims to increase people’s access to sustainable energy and opportunities to scale up renewable energy technologies.

The project is part of Oxfam Philippines’ just energy transition (JET) program to promote a democratized energy governance system in the Philippines and support local governments to establish enabling policy and program environment for accelerated renewable energy transformation.

In his message, Mayor Agda expresses the LGU’s optimism for the success of the RE-Start project in his city.

“Finally all of us realized that the progress of our country lies in the local government units. This will be true that the success of our country in the local government unit, no matter how vulnerable we are in terms of governance, still the local government unit proceed the growth way to success,” he said.

“When people question what RE is and why it’s important, we will inform them that it can provide cheaper electricity that our communities can benefit from,” Agda said, adding that the project can help continue their campaign on environmental protection.

Agda stressed that under his administration, the city government will cooperate with the project because it will help the LGU to become self-sufficient when it comes to energy sources using power generated from natural sources like hydro energy power plants, and help promote environment protection.

Councilor Pomida, for his part, expressed hope that thru this project, energization will reach off-grid communities in Dolores.

Present during the agreement signing were Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Resources Development and Utilization Division chief Lourdes Arciaga, Oxfam Pilipinas Visayas Field Office, Senior Resilience Portfolio Officer Juvilyn Salazar- Dormitorio, and LEDS manager, ICLEI SEAS Pamela Cabacungan.(ROEL T. AMAZONA)

Leading digital solutions platform Globe and one of the Philippines’ major banks, the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), have signed a Memorandum of Agreement signifying their commitment to work together against online fraud.

The agreement allows each party to have a direct and round-the-clock communication channel to report any fraudulent activities for immediate investigation and blocking. This is to help address the increasing volume and complexity of financial crimes, identity theft, phishing, SMS spam, and other similar scams and other forms of fraud. These malicious activities severely impact consumers and major stakeholders in telecommunications, e-commerce, finance, and other industries.

The partnership is aligned with Globe’s MoU with the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) which aims to enhance the joint capability of Globe and RCBC to investigate and respond to incidents related to financial scams and fraud, as well as develop proactive measures to prevent further incidents and their escalation. This is expected to promote a more integrated and collaborative approach to information and intelligence sharing and incident reporting.

“Our collaboration with RCBC will enable us to take proactive measures to prevent spam and scams from occurring and strengthen our capabilities to investigate and respond to such incidents. Our commitment to fighting fraud remains strong, and we will continue to work with other institutions and stakeholders to protect our customers from fraudulent activities,” said Globe Chief Privacy Officer Irish Salandanan-Almeida.

“Our partnership with Globe is aligned with our advocacy to educate the public about cybersecurity and is a major step towards enhancing our capabilities in fraud detection and prevention, and customer protection. Having direct coordination will boost our efforts against fraud. We look forward to working together to keep accounts safe and mitigate other cybersecurity threats,” said RCBC Chief Information Security Officer Carlos Tengkiat.
The partnership with RCBC is part of Globe’s long-going efforts to work with major commercial banks and online retailers in the country to quell fraud, particularly scam and spam SMS.

As a result of its intensified crackdown against fraudsters, Globe blocked 85 million bank-related spam and scam messages from January 2022 to January 2023, part of the record high of 3 billion scam and spam messages filtered out within the same period.

Since the transition towards a digital marketplace expands through digital products and services, it also creates a wider terrain for attackers to target non-assuming digital users. This prompted Globe to strengthen measures to protect its customers.

The company has launched various initiatives to address growing threats brought about by spam and scam SMS, including the #StopSPAM portal (#StopSPAM – Report Scams or Spam Messages – Globe) where customers may report these unwanted messages.
#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…

Aside from investing in tools and launching channels to streamline spam and scam SMS reporting both internally and externally, Globe has spent about $20 million to step up its spam and scam SMS detection and blocking system. Its round-the-clock Security Operations Center filters out unwanted messages, including app-to-person and person-to-person SMS from international and domestic sources.

Globe also regularly provides customers with relevant information via social media advisories about fraud, cybersecurity, and data privacy to boost awareness and help them protect themselves against these threats. (PR)