This might not be the typical expat blog, written by a German expat, living in the Philippines since 1999. It's different. In English and in German. Check it out! Enjoy reading!
Dies mag' nun wirklich nicht der typische Auswandererblog eines Deutschen auf den Philippinen sein. Er soll etwas anders sein. In Englisch und in Deutsch! Viel Spass beim Lesen!
You plan to move to the Philippines? Wollen Sie auf den Philippinen leben?
There are REALLY TONS of websites telling us how, why, maybe why not and when you'll be able to move to the Philippines. I only love to tell and explain some things "between the lines". Enjoy reading, be informed, have fun and be entertained too!
Ja, es gibt tonnenweise Webseiten, die Ihnen sagen wie, warum, vielleicht warum nicht und wann Sie am besten auf die Philippinen auswandern könnten. Ich möchte Ihnen in Zukunft "zwischen den Zeilen" einige zusätzlichen Dinge berichten und erzählen. Viel Spass beim Lesen und Gute Unterhaltung!
Visitors of germanexpatinthephilippines/Besucher dieser Webseite.Ich liebe meine Flaggensammlung!
Nabunturan, Davao de Oro- Davao de Oro Governor Jayvee Tyron L. Uy is set to deliver his State of the Province Address on January 20, 2020, 1 PM at the new session hall of the Legislative Building at the Provincial Capitol Compound, Nabunturan, Davao de Oro. This is the first major event after the renaming of the province last December 7, 2019.
The governor is expected to outline the accomplishments of the provincial government under the Bayanihan 4P’s Framework, which stands for Planet (Environmental Management and Disaster Preparedness), People (Social Protection and Human Development), Prosperity (Economic Development), Peace (Peace, Justice, and Security), and Plus (Good Governance).
Governor Uy is expected to highlight the advancements of Davao de Oro, especially its rise in the business competitiveness index, its low malnutrition incidence, the ongoing campaign against illegal drugs, and many other achievements.
The governor quipped that his state of the province will adopt a simpler tone this time.
“We will deliver a report that is short, simple yet substantial. We will be more transparent. We’ll do away with glitz and glamour. We will focus on reporting on the milestones we achieved together and the things we are still yet to realize,” he said.
The State of the Province Address will be shown through Facebook. Viewing stations will be mounted in all eleven municipalities so that many can listen and access the governor’s report.
Governor Uy also mentioned that the province’s new seal and hymn will be launched on the same date as his State of the Province Address. Last year, heformed the Davao de Oro Transition Committee to lead the creation of the new corporate seal and hymn of the province.
The new name of the province was ratified overwhelmingly last December 7, 2019 in a plebiscite supervised by the Commission on Elections.(AJC, DDO Info)
A volcano in the Philippines has begun spewing lava, as authorities warn that a "hazardous eruption" is possible "within hours or days".
In the early hours of Monday weak lava began flowing out of Taal volcano - located some 70km (45 miles) south of the capital Manila.
It comes after it emitted a huge plume of ash, triggering the mass evacuation of 8,000 people from the area.
Taal is the Philippines' second most active volcano.
Situated on an island in the middle of a lake, it is one of the world's smallest volcanoes and has recorded at least 34 eruptions in the past 450 years.
Image copyrightPHIVOLCSImage captionWeak lava has began flowing out of the Taal volcano
"Taal volcano entered a period of intense unrest... that progressed into magmatic eruption at 02:49 to 04:28... this is characterised by weak lava fountaining accompanied by thunder and flashes of lightning," the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in a statement.
But Phivolcs director Renato Solidum said that signs of a hazardous eruption, including "flows of ashes, rocks, gas at speeds of more than 60 kph horizontally" had not yet occurred, according to CNN Philippines.
Phivolcs has now raised the alert level from 3 to 4, out of a maximum of 5.
Authorities have also warned of a possible "volcanic tsunami", which can be trigged by falling debris after an eruption, pushing the water and generating waves.
On Sunday, the volcano emitted a giant plume of ash, with rumbling sounds and tremors also reported.
A total of 75 earthquakes have occurred in the Taal region, with 32 of these earthquakes ranking 2 and higher on the earthquake intensity scale, said Phivolcs.
The Official United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said more than 450,000 people are estimated to live within the 14km danger zone of the Taal volcano.
Over 450,000 people are estimated to be residing within the 14 km danger zone of the Taal Volcano. On 12 January, alert level 4 was raised and surrounding towns were evacuated. As of 6 a.m. today, @NDRRMC_OpCen reports that over 7,700 people are in 38 evacuation centres.
Ash fell on several areas nearby with residents advised to wear masks. One resident in metro Manila said shops had begun to run out of masks.
"When I went to my car, I saw it was covered in ash. I hurriedly went to buy a mask from a drugstore but they had run out," Angel Bautista, a resident of Paranaque told Reuters.
The government has warned retailers not to hike mask prices amid the surging demand.
'Grey and lifeless'
By Howard Johnson, BBC News, Tagaytay, Philippines
As we approached the Taal volcano area this morning we saw local residents shovelling thick wet ash from the roads. Pineapple groves, normally verdant and luscious, now looked grey and lifeless.
In the distance Taal continued to billow ash and smoke miles into the sky. As the morning went on the ash clouds became darker.
Police manning a 14km exclusion zone stopped people from travelling into the area close to the volcano, but there was a steady flow of cars and trucks moving out.
On the back of one pick-up truck, I saw a large family with their treasured household possessions. They were moving in the direction of the Philippine capital Manila, where many people are choosing to stay with relatives.
Image copyrightAFPImage captionCars, buildings and roads have been left covered in ashImage copyrightEPAImage captionEven birds have been blanketed by ashfall
The volcanic ash also forced Manila's international airport to suspend all flights on Sunday. Phivolcs had warned that the "airborne ash and ballistic fragments from the eruption... posed hazards to aircrafts".
The Civil Aviation Authority announced later on Monday that it had resumed "partial operations" as of 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT) for flights departing the airport and 12:00 for arrivals.
The Philippine stock exchange also announced it would halt all trading on Monday.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionAsh from the Taal volcano has affected thousands of residents in nearby areas
President Rodrigo Duterte's office has also ordered the suspension of government work in Manila and the closure of all schools in the capital.
Earthquakes and volcanic activity are not uncommon in the Philippines, which lies along the Ring of Fire - a zone of major seismic activity, which has one of the world's most active fault lines.
Taal: 'A very dangerous volcano'
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
The active volcano is at the centre of the 230 sq km Lake Taal, formed by prehistoric eruptions
Taal is a "complex volcano", which means it doesn't have one vent or cone but several eruption points that have changed over time
The head of Phivolcs calls Taal "a volcano within a volcano" and says as such it is "very dangerous"
Taal has erupted in different ways more than 30 times in the past 500 years - most recently in 1977
A 1911 eruption killed about 1,500 people. A 1974 eruption lasted several months
WE could spend all year living healthier, more productive lives, so why do we only decide to make the change at the start of the year? Why do we all make (and break) New Year resolutions?
Many of us will start 2020 with resolutions – to get fit, learn a new skill, eat differently. If we really want to do these things, why did we wait until an arbitrary date which marks nothing more important than a timekeeping convention? British psychologist Tom Stafford asked this. And not only he. The answer tells us something important about the psychology of motivation, and about what popular theories of self-control miss out.
Today is a very cool and rainy day. I am lazy. Not on the mood to do anything. It's even difficult to write this column. But my motivation gets bigger and bigger while writing. New Year resolutions? Many writers discussed about this topic already. Here are my two cents in.
While celebrating during New Year's night, my family and friends found out, that what we want isn't really straightforward. At bedtime you might want to get up early and go for a run, but when your alarm goes off you find you actually want a lie-in. When exam day comes around you might want to be the kind of person who spent the afternoons studying, but on each of those afternoons you instead wanted to hang out with your friends. Believe me - I heard it many times from my students.
You could see these contradictions as failures of our self-control: impulses for temporary pleasures manage to somehow override our longer-term interests. One fashionable theory of self-control, proposed by Roy Baumeister at Florida State University, is the 'ego-depletion' account. This theory states that self-control is like a muscle. This means you can exhaust it in the short-term – meaning that every temptation you resist makes it more likely that you'll yield to the next temptation, even if it is a temptation to do something entirely different.
A corollary of the 'like a muscle' theory is that in the long term, you can strengthen your willpower with practice. So, for example, Baumeister found that people who were assigned two weeks of trying to keep their back straight whenever possible showed improved willpower when asked back into the lab.
But, and more importantly, that theory doesn't give an explanation why we wait for New Year's Day to begin exerting our self-control. If your willpower is a muscle, you should start building it up as soon as possible, rather than wait for an arbitrary date.
Another explanation may answer these questions, although it isn't as fashionable as ego-depletion. George Ainslie's book 'Breakdown of Will' puts forward a theory of the self and self-control which uses game theory to explain why we have trouble with our impulses, and why our attempts to control them take the form they do. The virgin page of a new calendar marks a clean break between the old and new you - a psychological boundary that may help you keep your resolutions.
And, so to speak with Tom Stafford again, Ainslie gives us an answer to why our resolutions start on 1st January. The date is completely arbitrary, but it provides a clean line between our old and new selves. The practical upshot of the theory is that if you make a resolution, you should formulate it so that at every point in time it is absolutely clear whether you are sticking to it or not. The clear lines are arbitrary, but they help the truce between our competing interests hold.
Let me ask you now, my dear readers: How about your 2020 resolutions!
DAVAO CITY – The City Government of Davao will set aside P54 million to construct an annex buildings of the University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP) in Barangay Malabog, Paquibato District to get more children from poor families to proceed to higher education, Mayor Sara Duterte said.
Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte
(FACEBOOK / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
Duterte said that the budget for the construction of the building would be sourced from the 2020 budget of the City Government, which she hopes to see being completed by next year or 2022 at the latest.
She said that the expansion came after Task Force Peace 911, which was created to take the lead in the implementation of a comprehensive peace-building program of the local government for conflict-affected areas of the city, found out that there is a need to put up a college in Paquibato to get more senior high school graduates to study college.
It is high time to put up higher education institution in Paquibato, as its presence would encourage more students, who are constrained financially to afford the expenses of going into college in downtown, according to Duterte.
She added Paquibato was chosen to host the USEP-Annex as it aligns with the university’s mandate to reach out to the students in conflict-affected areas.
“It’s on track, and this project – the USEP-Annex- is already moving,” she said.
The Peace 911 was the successor of the defunct Davao Peace Committee, the local peace panel created to hold localized peace initiative with the New People’s Army operating in the hinterlands of the city.
On December 23, 2019, the mayor asked the Duterte administration to exclude the city from the coverage of the GRP-NDFP peace talks, as it would only dampen the gains of the “Peace 911” in all 13 barangays of Paquibato District and Barangay Dominga in Calinan District.
“To be covered by the ceasefire or the peace negotiations will only disrupt and threaten the gains of our process of peace and development in these communities formerly controlled by the terrorists,” she said.
She claimed that Peace 911, a comprehensive peace-building program of the local government for conflict-affected areas of the city, had successfully removed the remaining communist guerrillas operating in Paquibato District and Barangay Dominga.
She said the civilian-led Peace 911 capacitated the Lumad farmers on farming and marketing, and linked them directly to buyers for their produce through the so-called “Peace Economy.”
Davao de Oro--- Finally, Confucius Institute has been successfully inaugurated at the Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU) in partnership with Huaqiao University on December 19, 2019 at the ADDU, Davao City.
Attending the inauguration were the Vice President (VP) of Huaqiao University- Mr. Zeng Lu, Mr. Zhang Xincheng, Director of International Exchange and Cooperation, Mr. Hu Peian, Director of Chinese Language and Culture Education and Mr. Xiang Shimin, Director of the Office of the Board of Trustees, Ms. Sholai Lim and the Davao de Oro officials and employees.
Davao de Oro as the beneficiary of four (4) programs under this institute and the first LGU beneficiary in the country represented by the 1st Lady of the Davao de Oro Province Ma’am Sholai Lim in behalf of Governor Jayvee Tyron L. Uy.
Confucius Institute is a public educational organization under the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, whose stated aim is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.
Christine Torino Dompor- Provincial Tourism Officer warmly welcomed the visit of Huaqiao University executives to Davao de Oro headed by its university VP Mr. Zeng Lu joined by his director of international cooperation and exchange, director for language and culture and director for the board of trustees along with the members of Huaqiao Alumni Association who are based in the Philippines.
Huaqiao University is a national university and was founded in 1960 for students of overseas Chinese backgrounds (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore and the Phils.) to pursue tertiary education in their ancestral homelands. The university has two campuses in the cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, known for their large numbers of overseas Chinese who have roots in these cities.
According to Dompor that Huaqiao University officially opened its doors to the province early this year. Under the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative of China which the Philippines is part of, “we were given the opportunity to avail of the learning programmes and sent five students during the summer camp immersion last June 2019 for 7 days and five senior high school students last September 2019 for a 4- year intensive Mandarin Language course.
Dompor added that there are 25 government officials and employees of the province studying Chinese language and culture for six months that will be completed by May or June 2020, the first LGU in the country and the pioneering class of the newly inaugurated Confucius Institute of the Ateneo de Davao University.
“International cooperation, partnership and mutual understanding with international communities such as China will surely create more and more golden opportunities for Davao de Oro,” Dompor added.
On the other hand, Sholai Lim expressed her gratitude as she personally witnessed the inauguration of the Confucius Institute in Ateneo de Davao University, the first and only in the islands of Visayas and Mindanao, and probably the last to be installed in the Philippines.
Lim added “the opening of the Confucius Institute is a big step forward for us to learn new language, to understand deeper the Chinese culture and facilitate future exchanges between our people to foster international cooperation as we dream for a more cohesive and peaceful society.
Lim also congratulate the visionary University President of Ateneo de Davao Rev. Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ, Consul General Li Lin together with Asst. Consul Tung, and to the hardworking professors of AdDU Jenner Chan, Dr. Ging Panda and Prof. Hadji Balajadia to the faculty, administrators and officials of Huaqiao University, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio and Vice Mayor Sebastian Duterte.
( Rey Antibo, ID Davao de Oro)
Confucius Institute has been successfully inaugurated at the Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) in partnership with Huaqiao University on December 19, 2019 at the AdDU, Davao City with the Davao De Oro officials and employees as the first LGU in the Country as beneficiary of the four (4) programs of the institute in learning the basic Chinese language and their culture. (C. Dompor FB Post)
