Tracy Maureen Perez: Ready for the world

Tracy Maureen Perez (Miss World Philippines Organization Facebook)

by Robert Requintina, Manila Bulletin

Miss Philippines Tracy Maureen Perez is ready for the world as she remains in the top fighting form for the Miss World 2021 beauty pageant, which will be held in Puerto Rico on March 16.

During an intimate catch-up huddle at Pandan Cafe in Quezon City on Feb. 2, Perez said that she’s slowly but surely getting the momentum back in time for the finals.

“I’ve worked the hardest to be where I am, and I’m proud of that. I basically came from scratch, And they see that. They don’t see a beauty queen, they see a person. And that’s very important,” she said.

Perez, 28, also said that she doesn’t feel any pressure now being the official flag bearer of the Philippines. “I don’t really think about it much. My co-candidates told me that I’m different from what they envisioned Miss Philippines to be.”

With the guidance of Miss World Philippines National Director Arnold Vegafria and the expert supervision of Aces and Queens trainers, Perez is confident she can prep herself up again for competition within a month’s time.

“If there’s one thing I learned from my Miss World journey so far, I just always have to stick to what I know. It pays to just be yourself because they know if you’re putting up a facade,” she said. “That’s also my takeaway from our previous queens, that there’s really no formula. At the end of the day, it’s just faith. It’s about you performing and just being prepared for anything.”

Only the Top 40 candidates have been invited to go back to Puerto Rico for the finals and the Cebuana beauty queen is one of them. Perez is one of the 15 winners of the pageant’s fast-track challenges. They will be joined in by 25 delegates who were chosen by the judges.

The 15 fast-track winners are: Cote D’ Ivoire, Mexico, Mongolia, India, England, Kenya, Philippines, South Africa, United States, Paraguay, Cameroon, Nepal, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Botswana.

The 25 judges choice for the Top 40 are: Poland, Hungary, Puerto Rico, Colombia, The Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, France, Ecuador, Guinea, Bahamas, Malaysia, Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia, Trinidad & Tobago, Argentina, Canada, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Somalia, Chile, China, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Iceland.

When the Miss World 2021 pageant was postponed again in December due to COVID-19, Perez said she was unfazed.

“It could be frustrating for some, but I tried my best to compose and calm myself because it’s something I couldn’t control. I’ll just take it as a blessing that I’ll have more time to prepare,” she said.

Tracy was able to take some time off as she took her first US trip and spend the holidays with her relatives in Oceanside, San Diego, California. She returned to Manila mid-January, just in time to mount her battle plan to hold her own relief operations for the victims of typhoon Odette, which also hit her hometown in Argao, Cebu.

“I’ve been in contact with relatives and friends in Cebu during the height of the typhoon, so I know the situation. Some areas still don’t have power yet. Even our house in Argao was hit, but not as badly as the other areas.”

Perez said that she is also privileged that her outreach project for the single mothers in Cordova, Cebu, had been selected as her beneficiaries of her Beauty With A Purpose Challenge.

“During the Miss World preliminaries, I think that was one of my proudest moments – not because I was being recognized – but more because I had fulfilled my mission for them. That’s the time I realized that there have not been as many efforts addressing the struggles of single moms. So when Miss World organization selected my project, I knew I had done my rightful part,” she also said.

Perez continued to talk in detail about her plan for solo parents.

“It’s all about capabilities training, giving them the skills to earn a better livelihood, specifically BPO and computer training. We’re also bridging the gap for them by hooking them up with their eventual employers. One of our partners in the project is a BPO owner. So, they’re literally ready to take them under their wings very soon.”

The Miss World 2021 beauty pageant will be telecast on CNN Philippines on March 17.

4 Visayas cities very high risk for COVID-19

Vendors and other individuals working at the night market queue for their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Divisoria, Manila during the night vaccination program of the local government on Aug. 2, 2021.

The STAR / Miguel de Guzman

By: Janvic Mateo - The Philippine Star 

MANILA, Philippines — Four highly urbanized cities in the Visayas are still considered “very high risk” for COVID-19, according to a member of the OCTA Research Group.

OCTA fellow Guido David said the average daily attack rate (ADAR) or the number of infections per 100,000 people remains “very high” in Bacolod, Iloilo, Cebu and Mandaue.

Iloilo recorded the highest ADAR as of Tuesday with 64.06 followed by Cebu with 40.32; Mandaue, 29.99, and Bacolod, 27.26.

The four cities also have high reproduction numbers of over 1.0 and very high positivity rates of more than 20 percent.

In terms of health care utilization, Mandaue logged a high 78 percent. The three other cities are now at moderate levels.

David said Lapu-Lapu, Ormoc and Tacloban are classified as ”high risk” for COVID-19.

He said Lapu-Lapu recorded a very high ADAR of 39.83, but its health care utilization rate was below 50 percent, which is considered low based on the metric used by OCTA.

Ormoc had a moderate ADAR of 9.12 while Tacloban recorded a high 15.62 daily new infections per 100,000 people in the past week.

Positivity rates in the three cities remain very high. Ormoc logged the highest at 75 percent.

Bacolod, Iloilo, Cebu, Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, Ormoc and Tacloban were placed under Alert Level 3 until Feb. 15 due to a surge in COVID cases fueled by the Omicron variant.

Christ empowers us to be apostles

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala *

THAT’S clear when we consider how Christ mandated and empowered his apostles who were sent out two by two and given authority over unclean spirits. (cfr. Mk 6,7) We have to realize that this mandate and empowerment are also given to us who are supposed to continue Christ’s redemptive work till the end of time. 

Obviously, this is done in different ways considering the different circumstances of each one of us. But these mandates and empowerment stand. We need to correspond to this truth about this Christian duty of ours. We may always feel inadequate for the mission given to us, but we should keep our faith strong in the words of Christ. We can hack it.

We just have to know where that true empowerment can really come from. That’s because nowadays, with the plethora of ideologies sprouting all over, there is a lot of confusion and even outright error being propagated in this regard.

True empowerment can only come from God in Christ through the Holy Spirit who now inspires the Church Christ founded on the pillars of the apostles and endowed with powers that assure her of her fidelity till the end of time despite men’s weaknesses, mistakes and sins. Remember Christ saying, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mt 16,18)

In saying this, we are not suggesting, of course, that this claim be simply rammed down our throat. We should just look into history and see how the Church, despite the frailty of those governing it and the enormous challenges and crises it had to face and suffer, has managed to survive up to now. The Church indeed has the authority to convey Christ’s message and Christ himself to us.

That true empowerment can only come from God through Christ as can be gleaned from the following passages in the Bible:

-“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4,13)

-“Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” (Eph 6,10)

-“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.” (Eph 3,16)

-“The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.” (Habakkuk 3,19)

To be sure, this can only happen if we exert effort to identify ourselves with Christ who, for his part, identifies himself with us. In fact, Christ goes all the way by assuming all our sins and conquering them with his death and resurrection. And he offers forgiveness to us.

Like Christ, we have to realize that our power can come only when we are also properly detached from the things of this world. Thus, in his instructions to the apostles, he told them “to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.” (Mk 6,8-9)

Such detachment would help us to be properly focused on our duty and mission as apostles. We know very well how the things of this world can easily spoil us. We should always be wary of this possibility. Thus, we need to constantly check ourselves to see if we are still following Christ’s words.

* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

Is the worst of the pandemic over? We can only hope so!

by Manila Bulletin

News articles and government announcements coming from our neighbors, such as Thailand and Vietnam, paint a rosy prospect for the tourism, hospitality, and retail industries in the coming months. It seems businesses in general couldn’t take any more restrictions and lockdowns, so the best way that their governments have handled the situation is to bring back a sense of normalcy and allow their citizens to adapt to the new normal way of life.

Thailand’s Public Health Ministry, for example, has just proposed easing of COVID-19 curbs in light of the diminishing threat of the Omicron variant. This allowed businesses to open at longer hours and to serve more tourists.

Thailand’s situation is also similar with the Philippines, as our country’s IATF has already placed NCR plus seven other provinces under the less strict Alert Level 2.

The Alert Level 2 classification will be imposed until Feb. 15, 2022. This announcement seemed like a “booster” for the local businesses, a shot of adrenaline to awaken the humdrum state of the economy. Now, malls, restaurants, and hotels are coming up with Valentine’s Day packages and promotions, wooing weary Filipino couples to have some fun in the Month of Hearts. Normally, we wouldn’t mind this but seeing businesses get excited is heartening news, since this also means more Filipinos are employed, more business people are recuperating their losses, and more enterprises would be able to thrive and survive.

The Alert Level 2 decision in NCR, according to the Department of Health (DOH), is due to the fact that there was a decline in new COVID-19 cases and an uptick in vaccination rates, especially with minors being allowed to have a vaccine jab.

With all these positive developments, the question asked by many is this: “Is the worst of the pandemic over?” Judging how some European countries such as the UK, Spain, Germany and Denmark reacted, it seems that their response is “yes,” as they have started the process to downgrade COVID-19 to endemic status. London, for example, now allows its citizens to go out in public without face masks. Denmark completely lifted all health restrictions, including the wearing of masks.

The World Health Organization (WHO), on the other hand, is adamant that these “sudden moves” to reclassify COVID-19 as endemic are not helpful, especially as “many countries still have low vaccination rates and whose unvaccinated citizens are many times more at risk of severe illness and death.”

“Omicron may be less severe,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading, and hurts the overall response and costs more lives. The virus is still circulating far too intensely with many still vulnerable. Countries must remain calm as the next few weeks remain critical.”

Dousing plans for end-of-pandemic celebrations, the WHO chief believes that the pandemic is “nowhere near over and with the growth of Omicron, new variants are likely to emerge.”

Looking at both sides of the coin — businesses calling for more mobility and lesser restrictions; and health experts calling for more caution and lesser freedoms — there seems to be no agreement if the pandemic is already at its end stages. So what do we do? As citizens who have grown weary of the past 22 months with on-and-off lockdowns and erratic imposition of restrictions, will we endure more months or another year of the pandemic? Or should we just go ahead with our lives and try our best to adapt with the new normal situation? Time can only tell.