Return to office

Coverage by Jeline Malasig, Philippine Star

If you asked the Trade chief, he would not recommend employees to continue working from home under the loose pandemic restrictions, citing the need to stimulate the economy.

When more people return to their offices, they "will stimulate spending because there are more opportunities to spend going to work and going home," Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said.

Old normal: While the message on the need to recover economically from the pandemic, there was no mention of the billions of pesos in lost productivity on a daily basis due to road congestion and poor public transportation.

Filipino workers who have seen the benefits of remote work in the past two years expressed worry about commuting costs and hassles, long hours spent in traffic jams and poor workplace ventilation.

 

Public transportation is now allowed to accommodate up to 100% of its capacity, but vehicles and train units' conditions have had to force operators to regularly cram passengers and exceed capacity allotment.

 

Many are supportive of "hybrid" work arrangements. "There are jobs that really need to be done in the workplace, but it’s time for our country to evolve for different setups in working," an employee said.

116 Filipinos remain in Ukraine; 200 seafarers stranded in Black Sea

POLAND. Displaced persons carry belongings as they walk to a border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Thursday, March 3, 2022. More than 1 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia's invasion in the swiftest refugee exodus in this century, the United Nations said Thursday. (AP)

By THIRD ANNE PERALTA-MALONZO, SunStar

OVER a hundred Filipinos are still inside Ukraine, while 200 Pinoy seafarers have been stranded in the Black Sea amid the Ukraine-Russia conflict, an official from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Friday, March 4, 2022.

DFA Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola said 31 land-based Filipinos in Ukraine, including 21 seafarers, have already made their way out of Ukraine and awaiting their flight to the Philippines in Romania.

She said there were also 15 Filipinos from Ukraine in Hungary and nine in Austria.

Arriola said 116 Filipinos are still in Ukraine, including those who are married to Ukraine nationals and refused to evacuate. Forty-five of them were in Kyiv, the country’s capital.

She said the DFA has accounted a total of 209 Filipinos in Ukraine.

She said some of the Filipinos refused to leave due to their work in humanitarian and security organizations, which the country needed the most now.

"We're giving them care packages and financial assistance but we’re really asking them to please leave because the problem is the fighting is getting to be more intense," said Ariolla.

“And what we're afraid of is if the train stops operating, there's no other way to get to Lviv. But we understand some can’t leave because they have their families there,” she added.

She said according to the record of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, around 200 Filipino seamen were stranded in the Black Sea, which lies in the northern portion of Ukraine and northeast of Russia, and in several ports in Ukraine.

Arriola said ships are more careful in sailing after two cargo vessels were hit by explosions caused by the Russian invasion.

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“If there’s really heavy fire, the only thing they can do is hunker down and take cover because the one who might extract them might get killed or if they leave the ships they might also get hurt,” she said.

The DFA earlier said 19 Filipinos from Ukraine have already arrived in the country since February when the conflict began.

4 Mindanao HUCs deescalated to ‘low risk’ status for Covid-19

 

SunStar Davao File

By THIRD ANNE PERALTA-MALONZO, SunStar

THE cities of Davao, General Santos, Iligan and Zamboanga City in Mindanao have deescalated to low risk classification for coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Octa Research fellow Dr. Guido David said on Thursday, March 3, 2022.

David said the four cities are now under low risk classification after they were classified as moderate risk on February 22, 2022.

Other highly urbanized cities (HUCs) in the region, including Butuan and Cotabato, maintained their low risk classification, while Cagayan de Oro remained under moderate risk with a still high positivity rate at 12 percent.

David said Davao’s average daily attack rate (Adar) went down from 2.86 on February 22 to 2.24 on March 2, but it is still under moderate risk, while its reproduction rate slightly declined to 0.27.

The healthcare utilization rate (HCUR) also slid down to 28 percent, while its positivity rate went down to five percent, the standard set by the World Health Organization.

A five percent positivity rate indicates the low transmissibility of coronavirus in an area.

Cotabato City’s HCUR and positivity rate are at low risk at 32 percent and four percent, respectively.

The positivity rates in General Santos City and Iligan City are also still at high risk at 15 and 18 percent, respectively.

Butuan has a seven percent positivity rate, while Zamboanga City has eight percent.

In Visayas, the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Ormoc, Tacloban and Lapu-Lapu are under low risk, while Iloilo is still under moderate risk.

Of the HUCs in Visayas, Mandaue has the lowest positivity rate at one percent, followed by Tacloban at three percent, Bacolod at four percent and Cebu and Lapu-Lapu at five percent.

The positivity rate of Ormoc is at high risk at 17 percent.

In Iloilo, the Adar is at 7.85, HCUR at 54 percent and positivity rate at 10 percent. Its reproduction rate is at very low risk at 0.42.

Of the HUCs in Mindanao and Visayas, Bacolod, Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro and Davao were deescalated to Alert Level 1, the lowest quarantine status in the country amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The other HUCs have remained under Alert Level 2. (SunStar Philippines)

How to deal with temptations

By Fr. Roy Cimagala *

IT’S intriguing to note that Christ allowed himself to be tempted by the devil. (cfr. Lk 4,1-13) Although we can presume that the devil would have no chance to succeed in his effort, Christ must have allowed this event to happen to teach us how to deal with temptations which are unavoidable in our life.

Given our human condition, and especially when we enjoy some privileges and other special endowments, we have to realize that we would be a favorite target of the schemes of the devil. We need to be prepared for this lifelong condition of ours.

Whatever good thing we have in life has to be handled most delicately, with great humility. In other words, it always has to be related to God from whom all power and authority on earth comes. (cfr. Rom 13,1) It should be exercised always with God in mind and in heart. Otherwise, there is no way for it to go other than to be abused. Let’s remember that the only thing we are capable of doing without God is to sin.

To know how to exercise whatever power and authority we have according to God’s will and mind, all we have to do is to look at Christ, imitate him and unite ourselves to him. 

Christ, who is the origin and seat of all power, exercises that power with great humility, with justice, charity and mercy. His attitude toward his power is expressed in these words of his: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20,28) That is the attitude we ought to have toward any power we have. Only then can we exercise our power properly.

We should never forget that only with God can we properly deal with our own weaknesses, and the many temptations and sins around. Only with him can we manage to resist the devil himself. Without him, we are easy prey, a sitting duck. Our earnest desire should be how we can be with God always, our union with him as strong and vibrant as ever.

Let’s not forget that if our first parents, still in their state of original justice and therefore in theory should have been in close union with God, managed to sin, how much more we who are already born with original sin and whose lives here on earth will always be hounded by all forms of evil!

In the case of our first parents, we know that in spite of their very good condition, there was a moment when they failed in the proper exercise of their God-given freedom and chose to listen to the devil rather than to remain faithful to God. And so they fell.

We have to understand that without God, the proper exercise of our freedom would be out on a limb, and it would just be a matter of time before we fall into sin. It is that automatic. We would have no sufficient defenses against our real enemies. We may even think that our enemies are our friends and allies.

We should never forget that our freedom is a very intoxicating endowment God has given us. It should only be exercised with God as its beginning and end. Otherwise, we will only misuse and abuse it and lead us to sin. We should constantly make the effort to choose God instead of what we simply like by ourselves.

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

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

DOT's Puyat expects more visitors as virus restrictions ease

by Waylon Galvez, Manila Bulletin

With the implementation of more relaxed health protocols to combat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat is optimistic that more travelers will be encouraged to visit different tourist destinations in the country in the coming months.

Boracay, arguably the crown jewel of Philippine tourism. (Laimonas Keseriauskis/ Unsplash)

According to Puyat, the Philippines is the first country in Asia to accept fully vaccinated foreign travelers and under the guidelines, the country is no longer implementing quarantine procedures.

“We are proud to say that our entry requirements are delivered in a simple format, without the need for facility-based quarantine primarily for fully vaccinated visitors. Tourists are allowed to travel to all reopened tourist destinations in the country as long as they comply with the requirements from the local government units with jurisdiction over these areas,” Puyat said Thursday, March 3.

Under the guidelines of the Inter Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), the government has approved the entry of foreign nationals and returning Filipinos who wish to visit tourist destinations since Feb. 10.

The travelers, however, must be fully vaccinated from visa-free countries. Puyat said that tourist arrivals since then have been gradually picking up and the DOT looks forward to an uptick during the summer season starting this Holy Week break in April.

As of February 28, the number of international tourist arrivals has reached 47,715, of which 26,306 were foreign visitors and 21,409 were balikbayans or returning Filipinos from abroad.

Those travelers with full vaccines from visa-free countries listed under Executive Order 408 are no longer required to undergo quarantine as long as they are able to present a negative RT-PCR result.

In late February this year, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) called for the lifting of travel bans, stating that they do not provide added value and continue to contribute to economic and social stress.

The tourism department has been proactive in making proposals to the IATF that would balance the recovery of the sector and the restoration of jobs in the tourism sector without compromising the health and safety of the workers and visitors.

Along with the goal toward sustained recovery, Puyat has high hopes to yield stronger programs and partnerships with other tourism ministers and global leaders as the Philippines will host the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) global tourism summit in April.

“We only want what is best for the sector. This hosting of the WTTC Summit will benefit the country by showcasing what the Philippines can offer to the world,” said Puyat.

“More than the recognitions we received over the past years, our goal is to restore jobs and revenue streams for our tourism workers and stakeholders,” she added.