Puerto Princesa Subterranean River // Photo: New7Wonders

The provisional results are based on the first count of vote which closed last Friday November 11 (Saturday, Sydney time).

The voting is now being checked according to the website of the organising New 7 Wonders, and is being validated and independently verified.

The confirmed winners will be announced early next year during the official inauguration ceremonies.

The Puerto Princesa subterranean River, also known as Puerto Princesa Underground River or PPUR, is described by the New 7 Wonders as:

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park is located about 50 km north of the city of Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines. It features a limestone karst mountain landscape with an 8.2 km. navigable underground river. A distinguishing feature of the river is that it winds through a cave before flowing directly into the South China Sea. It includes major formations of stalactites and stalagmites, and several large chambers. The lower portion of the river is subject to tidal influences. The underground river is reputed to be the world’s longest. At the mouth of the cave, a clear lagoon is framed by ancient trees growing right to the water’s edge. Monkeys, large monitor lizards, and squirrels find their niche on the beach near the cave.

The six other new wonders are the Amazon Rainforest in South America, Halong Bay in Vietnam, Iguazu Falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina, Jeju Island in Korea, Komodo National Park in Indonesia, and Table Mountain in South Africa.

The new seven wonders were elected by popular votes from a list of 21 candidates shortlisted from amongst 77 nominations as at December 31, 2008.

The campaign to nominate the new seven wonders of nature was started by New7Wonders Foundation in 1999 when its founder Canadian filmmaker-writer-adventurer Bernard Weber began to gather nominations for the new seven wonders of the world.

Four Philippine sites were nominated to a world vote in 2008. The four sites were Tubbataha Reef (Sulu Sea), the Chocolate Hills (Bohol), the Subterranean River of Puerto Princesa (Palawan) and Mayon Volcano (Albay).

Iglesia Ni Cristo Executive Minister Bro Eduardo Manalo (left) and Hanwha E&C vice chairman Kim Hyun-chung shake hands after the groundbreaking ceremony near Manila August 17. Photo: Hanwha E&C / Korea Herald

A Korean construction company started work last Thursday (August 18) to build in Bocaue, Bulacan a domed arena fitted with 50,000 seats and nearly 36,000 square metres domed roof, reported online news Korea Herald. Video – Ground breaking ceremony

The Korea Herald report, written by Choi He-suk, said the company, Hanwha Engineering and Construction Corp., signed last August 4 an agreement with project owner, Iglesia Ni Cristo. Representing their respective organisations were Hanwha E&C vice chairman Kim Hyun-chung and chief of Iglesia Ni Cristo Bro Eduardo Manalo.

The contract value of the project is placed at US$175 million, and work will be carried out over 30 months, Korea Herald said, adding that with its size, Hanwha E&C considers the structure, named Philippine Arena, to be the world’s largest domed arena.

The new domed arena’s 50,000 seating capacity will eclipse Araneta Coliseum’s 16,500 seats and Acer Arena’s (formerly Sydney SuperDome) 17,500 seats.

To date, Araneta Coliseum is considered the largest domed arena in Southeast Asia.

Following the signing June 30 of Republic Act No. 10153 by President Aquino III postponing this year’s Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao elections, oppositions have lodged before the Philippine Supreme Court.

GMA News writer Sophia Dedace reported that former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr led a group of petitioners including some Muslim leaders in filing today with the high court a petition to declare the new law as “unconstitutional and invalid for supposedly undermining the autonomy that the 1987 Constitution accords to ARMM.”

Pimentel’s group has asked the SC “to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) and other injunctive reliefs to prevent Malacanang from enforcing the law,” the GMA News writer reported.

The GMA News also added that veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal was expected to file a petition questioning the legality of RA 10153.

The first to seek nullification was House Minority Leader and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman who filed his petition Thursday June 30, signing date of the new law, said GMA News.

Lagman contended that the new law “deprives the region of the autonomy accorded by the Constitution.”

Meanwhile, Worldwide Filipino Alliance Executive Vice President Arman Muleem issued today a statement denouncing the postponement of the ARMM elections.

WFA labeled the postponement as an “insult heaped upon the people of the region who were not sufficiently consulted and whose voices were never heard.”

The Filipino Australian reported last week a related statement by Global Filipinos Australia deploring the ARMM elections postponement.

The three bars were known to be fronts for prostitution, said the AFP wire quoting a Philippine national police statement, adding that the raids rescued some 100 women from the three bars.

Australian Terrence James Smith, manager of the Sunshine Bar in Angeles City, was detained and would be charged with human trafficking which carries a maximum prison term of life, said the AFP report.

Quoting the police statement, the AFP report also said that yesterday’s raids were ‘linked to a US decision on Monday to remove the Philippines from a watchlist of countries not doing enough to combat human trafficking.’

Angeles City is located in Pampanga and about an hour’s drive from Manila. The city’s northern end is known as a red-light district, catering in the past for American soldiers posted in the old Clark Air Force Base.

The base, handed back to the Philippine government about 20 years ago, has now an airport serving international flights.

Tibi-Tibi school children proudly toting their backpacks

The Outreach Program of the Worldwide Filipino Alliance – Pandaigdigang Alyansa ng Pilipino (WFA-PAP) is bringing smiles to the recipient indigenous people (IP) school children of Tibi-Tibi Elementary School.

School supplies including backpacks, books, DVDs and other education materials were distributed June 22 by WFA-PAP volunteers to a hundred Grade 1 pupils.

The WFA-PAP volunteers were led by Commission of the Poor’s Romy Lagahit and Filipino Australian Leo Ceniza, an accountant based based in St Marys NSW.

Tibi-Tibi Elementary School is located in the Municipality of Talaingod, Davao del Norte, more than 100 kilometres from Davao City.

“WFA-PAP’s outreach program in Tibi-Tibi will be an ongoing activity,” said the alliance chair Lolita Farmer, adding that there are “plans to have scholarship for IPs to go to high school.”

Ms Farmer also said that the group is reaching out IP school children “not because we pity them but because of our obligation to help those who are in need, part of humanity.”

In a communication with this website, Ms Farmer also acknowledged the donations of the Filipino Australian community to the recent Tibi-Tibi activity.

She said these included Linda Alvarez Barnes (Forum), Jun Relunia (PASSCI), Chris Pilao (APSL), and AGAPI.

WFA-PAP is an Internet-based group of overseas and Philippine-based Filipinos whose goal is to assist in the development efforts in the Philippines and assist overseas Filipinos in uplifting their working and living conditions.

Officers and volunteers of WFA-PAP include USA-based Prof Cesar Torres (WFA president), Jeddah-based Arman Muleem (WFA executive vice-president), Fe Jagna (WFA-PAP secretary), Sandy Elizaga (WFA-PAP treasurer), Romy Lagahit (Commission of the Poor), community worker Prof Armanda Bueno, Thailand-based Chona Bollos, Paris-based WFA director Susie Barbieri, Filipino Australian Leo Ceniza, and USA-based WFA members Victor Barrios, Ted Aquino, and Rob Ceralvo.

//Photos: WFA-PAP / Fe Jagna

CeBIT booth G48 for Philippine IT-BPO industry

If wall visuals on a trade expo booth are measures of the size of the exhibitor’s business, then G48 is an exception. In fact, it looks very modest in appearance compared to nearby booths.

Yet, the G48 booth represents a sector in Philippine business that has ploughed in billions of dollars from overseas and helped prop up the country’s economy.

The booth is occupied by representatives of some 15 Philippines companies engaged in IT and Business Process Outsourcing services who are exhibitors at the 2011 CeBIT Information and Communications Technology trade exhibits which opened yesterday at the Darling Harbour Convention & Exhibition Centre.

These companies represent a sector in Philippine economy which according to the companies’ coordinating body, Business Processing Association Philippines (BPA/P), has a reported 21 per cent share of the total offshore global BPO market with over 600 IT and BPO companies located in various parts of the Philippines and employ around 500,000 IT-BPO workers.

Pointwest director Quizon (center) with two other officers of BPA/P company exhibitors

“This is our second year to participate in CeBIT and we are looking at Australia as a new growth area for us,” said Pointwest Technologies Executive Director Renato Quizon. “Especially with a very strong Aussie dollar, it is only a matter of time that Australia will open itself to the outsourcing world.”

Pointwest Technologies is one of the 15 companies represented in booth G48.

From a sourcing perspective, the BPA/P has reported that the Philippines is ranked second after India as a business process offshoring market by destination.

Currently, services from the Philippines reach customers, employees, and management of countries such as the United States, India, China, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietname, Korea, UAE, United Kingdom, France, Spain and Germany.

The Philippines has an edge over other outsourcing countries. It is one of the few countries that can boast that almost all its annual 500,000 college graduates can understand and speak the English language.

“After the CeBIT exhibition in Sydney, we will be travelling to New Zealand,” said Mr Quizon, adding that the Philippine Consulate in Sydney had helped them arrange meetings with business contacts in Australia for business matching.

Sydney-based cartoonist and artist Edd Aragon will talk about his art and his experimentations with UV light-reactive pigments on Monday, February 21 at the Yuchengco Museum in Makati.

Aragon’s experimentations are displayed in his “Under a Different Light” exhibition with more than 20 ultraviolet paintings.

For the past three decades, Aragon has been creating editorial cartoons, comics, and caricatures for Australian and Philippine newspapers such as The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Philippine Bulletin Today, and Philippine Daily Express.

Since 2004, Aragon has been experimenting with UV light-reactive paint on canvas ~ paintings that can be seen only under UV light.

Aragon’s “Under a Different Light” paintings are available for viewing for the next two months at 3/F Bridgeway Gallery, 2 – 3:30pm from February 19 to April 20.

“Under a Different Light” is also dubbed by the museum as Aragon’s homecoming exhibition.

The Yuchengco Museum is located at RCBC Plaza, Corner Ayala and Sen. Gil J. Puyat Avenues, Makati City.

There are sectors in media who believe that they should be excluded from all these because they were just exercising a cherished freedom, press freedom.

But, why only media? Were not the others also trying to do what they thought was proper to their perceived roles and to their appreciation of the situation? How could there be a criminal accountability when there was no premeditation and no ill intent.

Full article by Ed Roa