Pinoy Meets World

MANILA, Philippines – Gilbert Teodoro found himself in the hot seat at a youth forum Friday when he and other presidential candidates were asked whether they would make President Macapagal-Arroyo accountable for anything anomalous that happened in her administration.

At the forum at the De La Salle University (DLSU)-Manila campus, moderator Ted Failon asked the presidential hopefuls: “Is there something for which President Arroyo should be held accountable? How should she be made accountable?”

At first, Teodoro, the administration presidential candidate, hesitated to give an answer, saying his previous working relationship with the President bars him from doing so.  Read more... (173 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with a group of Filipino-American experts on urban planning, will visit the Philippines next week to assist in the ”heavy lifting” of the Philippine government’s reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.

Executive Director Butch Meily of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation, which serves as partner of the Special National Public-Private Reconstruction Commission (SNPRC), announced the scheduled arrival of the California-based experts on reconstruction and rehabilitation along with the Hollywood action hero-turned-politician.

He said in a press briefing last Thursday that Schwarzenegger and company ”will be spending days” in Manila to share with their counterparts their practices and strategies in addressing damages brought by catastrophes.  Read more... (188 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

A powerful predawn quake hit parts of Bicol and Southern Luzon on Thursday, but the Philippine Institute of Volcanology of Seismology said it was too far from land to cause damage.

Phivolcs seismologist Henremagne Penarubia said the quake was recorded at 2:49 a.m., with the epicenter traced northeast of Virac, Catanduanes in Bicol.

“Magitude-6.0, medyo malakas siya pero ang location medyo malayong dagat (It was measured at Magnitude 6.0, but it was too far from land to cause damage),” Penarubia said in an interview on dzBB radio.  Read more... (160 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – – Apple chief executive Steve Jobs on Wednesday revealed the culture-changing company’s latest must-have device, a touchscreen tablet computer annointed the “iPad.”

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary product,” said Jobs, who underwent a liver transplant last year and was making just his second public appearance since September.

The long-awaited iPad has a 9.7-inch (24.6-centimeter) color screen and resembles an oversized iPhone. It is 0.5 inches (1.3 cms) thick, weighs 1.5 pounds (0.7 kgs) and comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigabytes of flash memory.  Read more... (210 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

MANILA, Philippines – Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago on Tuesday walked out of a Senate plenary session after criticizing Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and fellow senators who engaged in gutter talk during Monday’s floor debates on the ethics case of Senator Manny Villar.

In an impassioned speech, Santiago reminded her fellow senators that the rules of the Senate frown on the use of improper language during debates in the plenary, especially against each other.

“Our language and behavior did not serve the nation…Our parliamentary immunity entitles us to freedom from liability in anything we say or do against anybody except our fellow senator or against any public institution such as the institution of the presidency, Congress or Supreme Court,” she said.  Read more... (199 words, estimated 48 secs reading time)

NEW YORK (AFP) – – A significant Pablo Picasso painting was damaged after a woman attending art class lost her balance, fell into “The Actor” and tore it, The Metropolitan Museum of Art said.

The unusually large canvas, measuring 77.25 by 45.38 inches (196 by 115cm), sustained a vertical tear of about six inches (15cm) in the lower right-hand corner in the accident on Friday.

The museum, located on the eastern edge of New York’s Central Park, did not elaborate on why the woman fell.  Read more... (132 words, estimated 32 secs reading time)

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo reactivated yesterday the El Niño Task Force and ordered the release of P1.7 billion to fund emergency measures to mitigate the detrimental effects of the dry spell on the fisheries and agriculture sectors.

The effects of El Niño could result in as much as P20 billion in economic loss in the next six months, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

Immediately after its reactivation, members of the task force, chaired by Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, met at the Palace to come up with “a comprehensive and integrated action plan to address the coming El Niño phenomenon,” Secretary Conrado Limcaoco, officer-in-charge of the Office of the Press Secretary, told a news briefing.  Read more... (151 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)