More Rain and Landslides in The Philippines

Luzon has been drenched by monsoon rains enhanced by Typhoon Usagi. Photograph: Francis R. Malasig/EPA
 
Torrential monsoon rains have hit the north-west Philippines triggering landslides and killing 20 people in areas already weakened by a powerful typhoon, and raising the death toll to 47 from storms across Asia.

Philippine officials said soldiers and villagers were also searching for at least seven people missing in mountainside villages hit by the landslides on Monday in the province of Zambales.

In China, where typhoon Usagi struck after passing by the Philippines, officials said the storm killed 25 people in the southern province of Guangdong, 13 of them in the city of Shanwei where it struck the coast late on Sunday.

Two people drowned when a passenger boat capsized in north-east Aurora Province in the Philippines.

Jeffrey Khonghun, mayor of Subic, Zambales, said 15 bodies were dug out in two landslide-hit villages in his town. Five people also died in landslides in two other towns in Zambales, according to army officials and police.

Rescuers used their hands, pots and shovels to dig through the muck that buried a cluster of houses, while relatives of two other missing residents waited in the rain in the village of Wawandue.

"This is the first after a long time that we were hit by this kind of deluge," Khonghun told Manila's DZBB radio network. He had to stop the interview when another body was pulled out from the mud near him.

Typhoon Usagi enhanced the torrential monsoon rains that drenched the main northern Philippine region of Luzon over the weekend. The powerful typhoon blew away late on Saturday and a new tropical storm off southern Japan was continuing to intensify the downpours in Luzon, government forecaster Samuel Duran said.

Many low-lying areas of the Philippine capital, Manila, and outlying regions were swamped on Monday, prompting authorities to close schools and offices.
In Hong Kong flight schedules were returning to normal on Monday after major disruptions caused by Usagi, which was the season's strongest storm. At its peak it forced about 250 flight cancellations in Hong Kong, before weakening to a tropical depression over the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

Train and airline services around Guangdong had returned to normal after the storm, China's state broadcaster CCTV said.

China's national weather centre said the storm would continue to weaken as it moves north-west.

Philippine Church "Right" despite Pope Francis Comments

 

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma: Be involved. Photo from http://www.cbcponline.net/

Philippine Catholic leaders are standing firm against contraception, abortion and homosexual marriage despite Pope Francis’ comments urging a change of tone on those issues, the national Church said Tuesday. 

 

About 80 percent of the Philippines’ 100 million population are Catholics, making the country the bastion of the faith in Asia, and Church leaders insisted that its dogma would remain in place.

“He is not saying that what the Church deemed before as wrong is now right. He is merely telling us to be more compassionate,” Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president Jose Palma said in reaction to the recent papal statement.
“He won’t be saying contraceptives, and even abortion, are now okay. No! Do not expect that to happen,” Archbishop Palma said in comments made Monday.
In an interview published last week, the Argentine pontiff urged a break with the Church’s harsh “obsession” with divorce, gays, contraception and abortion.
Philippine Church leaders have led a decade-long campaign against a birth control law that required the state to hand out free condoms and birth control pills, and provide post-abortion medical care.

The Supreme Court suspended the law in March so that judges could hear formal petitions from a range of Church-backed groups arguing that it was unconstitutional.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, the vice president of the bishops’ group, said: “He (the pope) did not rebuff the strong opposition to contraception, abortion or homosexual marriage. He just set it on proper grounding.”

The transcripts of Palma’s and Villegas’ comments were made available by the bishops’ organisation to AFP on Tuesday.

Edcel Lagman, a former legislator who wrote the birth control law, told AFP the pope’s comments had put the Filipino Church leaders on the defensive, saying they belonged to its “ultra-conservative wing”.

“I think they will have to reconcile their doctrines and make themselves attuned to the liberal thinking of the new pope. There is no way to go but to follow the pope,” he said.

Lagman said the Filipino Church’s conservative activism was rooted in its key role converting locals to Christianity as part of the Asian islands’ 17th-century colonisation by Spain.

“The Church feels it should meddle in the affairs of the State,” he added.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/494061/philippine-church-right-despite-pope-francis-comments#ixzz2fnRr9wWZ

Typhoon Usagi Moves Towards Philippines and Taiwan

 
Typhoon Usagi has wind speeds of up to 175 km/h (109 mph).
 

The Philippines and Taiwan are braced for Typhoon Usagi, which meteorologists say could become the most powerful typhoon of 2013.

The typhoon was 560km (350 miles) east-southeast of Taiwan and 360km (225 miles) from the northern Philippines on Friday morning, weather officials said.

Both Taiwan and the Philippines have issued alerts and warned boats to exercise caution.

Typhoon Usagi had wind speeds of up to 175 km/h (110 mph) and gained strength early on Friday, Pagasa, the Philippine government's weather agency, said.

Philippine officials have issued storm warnings for flash flooding, landslides and storm surges for several northern provinces.

Emergency and health personnel in some provinces have also been placed on standby, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau issued a land warning on Friday morning, and forecast heavy rainfall for northern and eastern Taiwan.

China's State Oceanic Administration has issued a class I emergency response for the typhoon, its highest maritime disaster response level, state media report.

China's National Meteorological Centre has also issued a yellow alert in its weather warning system.

In August, at least two people died and thousands lost their homes after Typhoon Utor hit the northern Philippines. 

Davao City - my Second Home

 

More fun in Davao City(Official)

Good Evening Davaoeños!

98 days to go and it's Christmas!

Let's not allow anyone to destroy our beautiful, progressive and peaceful city, but please be safe guys! ...


Davao City - Fun is Here

^Angelknigh†^


(c) Owner of the PhotosSee More

Herzlich Willkommen Dietmar Prinz/Heartily Welcome Dietmar Prinz

Dietmar Prinz aus San Fabian, Pangasinan

Zu meiner Person: Ich bin am 10 .09.1948 geboren,  habe 37 Jahre ein Fliesenfachgeschäft   Verlegung   Beratung  Verkauf in Deutschland gehabt.Ich bin seit 16 Jahren in zweiter Ehe glücklich  verheiratet und habe die beste Frau und kann eigentlich,  und ich bin es auch,  sehr zufrieden sein  mit meinem Leben.

Meine Frau ist eine  Pinay. Ich  liebe  auch meinen grossen  Familienkreis. Klaus, ich kann manchmal nicht alle Kommentare ueber die Pinoys gutheissen. Sie sind nicht besser und  nicht schlechter als  alle anderen Menschen auf der Welt, SIGURO ...etwas anders für uns aus  Europa. Es gibt keine guten  Deutschen und schlechten Moslems. Es gibt überall auf der Welt gute und weniger gute Menschen - unabhänig  von Religion  und /oder Nationalität.  Manchmal fehlt nur ein wenig Verständniss für den anderen.   

Additional Requirements for Foreigners Before Marrying Filipinas?

A lawmaker on Friday urgend the government to impose an additional requirement to male foreign nationals desiring to marry a Filipina before a marriage license can be granted to prevent exploitation of Filipino women.

"We are all aware of incidents that some foreigners who come to the Philippines to marry Filipino women are vagabonds or social or moral derelicts, whose real motive is only to take advantage and exploit our women, "Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia (3rd District, Cebu City) said.

Garcia is author of House Bill 2387 or "An Act amending Article 66 of the Civil Code of the Philippines in order to prescribe additional requirements for male citizens or subjects of a foreign country to marry a Filipino woman."

"Not a few of these male foreigners' real motive for marriage is to exploit our women by making them work and worse, by sending them to prostitution, and other degrading and dehumanizing occupations,"Garcia said.

At present, Garcia said, "when either or both the contracting parties are citizens or subjects of a foreign country, it shall be necessary, before a marriage license can be obtained, to provide themselves with a certificate of legal capacity to contract marriage, to be issued by their respective diplomatic or consular officials."

The bill provides that when one of the contracting parties is a male citizen or subject of a foreign country desiring to marry a female citizen of the Philippines, in addition to this certificate of legal capacity, the foreigner shall provide himself with a certificate of good moral character and a certificate that he has gainful trade, business or employment, to be issued by his diplomatic or consular official, before a marriage license can be obtained.

Garcia said the exploitation of Filipino women, thru the so-called mail-order or penpal, Facebook, website mail, and other internet instigated marriages, has not only caused miseries and sufferings to Filipino momen but also brought dishonor and disgrace to Filipino womanhood.

"The proposed requirements, in addition to the usual certificate of legal capacity, are intended to protect our women from these undesirable foreigners," Garcia said.

The Garcia bill has been referred to the Committee on Revision of Laws chaired by Rep. Marlyn Primicias-Agabas (6th District, Pangasinan).

By: PNA