MY SARISARI STORE

Side trip in Hong Kong / OFWs.

The Port of Hong Kong, located by the South China Sea, is a deepwater seaport dominated by trade in containerised manufactured products, and to a lesser extent raw materials and passengers. A key factor in the economic development of Hong Kong, the natural shelter and deep waters of Victoria Harbour provide ideal conditions for berthing and handling all types of vessels. It is one of the busiest ports in the world, in the three categories of shipping movements, cargo handled and passengers carried.

Hong Kong is one of several hub ports serving the South-East and East Asia region, and is an economic gateway to mainland China. Hong Kong set a record in its container throughput in 2007 by handling 23.9 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units of containers), maintaining its status as the largest container port serving southern China and one of the busiest ports in the world. Some 456,000 vessels arrived in and departed from Hong Kong during the year, carrying 243 million tonnes of cargo and about 25 million passengers. The average turnaround time for container vessels in Hong Kong is about 10 hours. For conventional vessels working in mid-stream at buoys or anchorages, it is 42 and 52 hours respectively.

(source:wikipedia)

Side Trip to Hong Kong / OFWs.

This is a short photo series about my last year visit to Hong Kong and about the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) living there. 

Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south. Hong Kong is a global metropolitan and international financial centre, and has a highly developed capitalist economy. Under the "one country, two systems" policy and according to Basic Law, it has a "high degree of autonomy" in all areas except foreign affairs and defence, which are the responsibility of the PRC Government. Hong Kong maintains its own currency, legal system, political system, immigration control, rule of the road and other aspects that concern its way of life, many of which are distinct from mainland China. 

Beginning as a trading port, Hong Kong became a crown colony of the United Kingdom in 1842. It was reclassified as a British dependent territory in 1983 until the transfer of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China in 1997. Renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour, its identity as a cosmopolitan centre where the East meets the West is reflected in its cuisine, cinema, music and traditions. The city's population is 95% Han ethnicity and 5% other. With a population of 7 million people and a land area of 1,054 km2 (407 sq mi), Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

(source: wikipedia)

Reproductive Health Bill rally 2009.

You can find the full text of House Bill No. 5043 here.

PRO:

HB 5043 is pro-life and pro-women: HB 5043 categorically rejects abortion, which it considers a "crime" in consonance with the 1987 Constitution. What it, in fact, wants to do is prevent abortions by offering couples an array of "medically safe, legal, affordable and quality" family planning methods from which they can choose the one that will work best for them.

HB 5043 is pro-poor. Based on a Pulse Asia survey on family planning, an overwhelming majority of Filipinos (92 percent) believe that it is important to plan their families, and most (89 percent) say that the government should allocate funding for modern artificial methods or family planning, including the pill, IUDs, ligation, condoms and vasectomy. And yet only five out of ten married couples use any family planning method whether modern or natural. This reflects a significant unmet need for reproductive health services.

 

HB 5043 is pro-youth. Based on the 1994 and 2002 Young Adult and Fertility survey of the University of the Philippines Population Institute not only did the proposition of youth aged 15-24 who are engaged in pre-marital sex increase (from 17.8 percent in 1994 to 23.4 percent in 2002) but the average age of their first sexual encounter has noticeably declined. The RH bill provides for a mandatory age-appropriate reproductive health education to provide the youth with the much-needed information and values on their reproductive and sexual health.

HB 5043 is pro-informed choice. It is seeking to promote both modern, artificial and natural family planning methods. House Bill 5043 recognizes that couples, especially women, have the right to choose the family planning method they consider to be the safest and most effective for them, provided they are legally permissible. 

While natural family planning, which the Catholic Church promotes offers many benefits, it is a grave injustice to make it the one and only method available to women for whom such method simply cannot work.

CONTRA:

HB 5043 uses wrong means to achieve questionable ends. HB 5043 cannot achieve its stated ends, and that there are more acceptable – and more effective – means of achieving these ends.

HB 5043 promotes abortion by funding and promoting abortifacients. Many studies show that the abortifacient action of many contraceptives cannot be justifiably dismissed. The grave stakes involved (the death of a human being) places the burden of proof on those who would provide such contraceptives to prove that these are in fact non-abortifacient. Until such a conclusive determination is achieved we must err on the side of caution and not place the lives of the unborn at risk. HB 5043, however, explicitly promotes and funds such abortifacients. We also note that there is a safe, modern, and effective alternative to abortifacients: Natural Family Planning.

HB 5043 violates explicit Catholic teaching. Catholic doctrine has always held human life begins at conception. It has also always taught that artificial contraception is a grave evil. HB 5043 promotes and funds abortifacients and artificial contraceptives. The claim, therefore, that HB 5043 is pro-life and consistent with Catholic doctrine is totally false. No Catholic can support HB 5043 without violating the moral teaching of the Catholic Church.

HB 5043 violates the Philippine Constitution. Article II, Section 12, recognizes that human life must be protected from the moment of conception. Since HB 5043 promotes and funds abortifacients, it violates the Philippine Constitution.

HB 5043 is anti-women and anti-poor. The great majority of maternal deaths are caused by the lack of proper medical facilities and care. HB 5043 does not address this lack of basic health care services, and will allow the problem to persist while it wastes funds on abortifacients and other ineffective reproductive health measures.

HB 5043 is coercive and violates freedom of speech. It punishes anyone who “maliciously engages in disinformation about the intent or provisions of this Act”, which can be broadly interpreted as prohibiting the expression of objections to the Bill. It coerces employers to provide for free abortifacients and artificial contraceptives, removing any choice for those who may believe that distribution of such is immoral. Doctors and health workers are also coerced to dispense such abortifacients or to refer those who want to use these to another person who will dispense them. HB 5043 eliminates any choice for conscientious objectors and makes no room for their legitimate concerns.

Epic flood in Metro Manila caused by record rainfall

ANDREO C. CALONZO, GMANews.TV

09/26/2009 | 05:42 PM 

The rainfall brought by typhoon "Ondoy" to Metro Manila and nearby areas in a span of six hours on Saturday was the most in recorded history, surpassing the previous record for the metropolis in 1967, a weather bureau official said.

The incessant downpour brought by tropical storm 'Ondoy' has turned several parts of Metro Manila into a virtual water world. - GMANews.TV

Nathaniel Cruz, weather services bureau head of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), told GMANews.TV that the total rainfall from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday surpassed the highest 24-hour rainfall that the weather bureau recorded 42 years ago.

Cruz said the total rainfall from "Ondoy" in the first six hours of the storm, which measured 341 millimeters, broke the record for the highest 24-hour rainfall of 334 millimeters in metropolitan Manila recorded by Pagasa in June 1967. It was still raining at the time of this posting, as flood waters brought large portions of a mega city of over ten million to a virtual standstill. 

Climate change?

“We were able to break that record in a span of six hours. Today, we really experienced an extreme weather event," he said. 

Cruz also said the amount of rain caused by "Ondoy" in six hours is almost equal to the average monthly rainfall in Metro Manila, which he pegged at 392 millimeters.

“Ibig sabihin nito, ‘yung ulan natin ng anim na oras, halos malapit nang maabot ‘yung kalimitang dami ng ulan natin buwan-buwan (This means our rainfall for six hours today is nearly equal to our average monthly rainfall)," he explained.

Cruz attributed the extreme rainfall caused by "Ondoy" to climate change.

“This could be again a manifestation of climate change. Due to climate change, we should expect more extreme weather events like extreme rainfall," he said.

He added that other factors such as Metro Manila’s poor drainage system, pollution, and garbage problem might have worsened the effects of the heavy downpour that ‘Ondoy’ brought to the area.

“Maybe 10 years ago, maaaring hindi ganito kabaha (The floods might have not been this bad). The heavy flooding might have been caused by these other factors," he said.

Cruz also said that the extreme weather event might be nature’s way of calling the public's attention to human activities that contribute to climatic fluctuations. “Parang paalala lang ito sa mga tao," he said. 

Ondoy (international code name Ketsana), the 15th tropical cyclone to enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility, slammed into the eastern side of Luzon Island from the Pacific Ocean before noon Saturday with maximum winds of 85 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 100 kph. 

It was crossing Central Luzon and was expected to be 230 km west-northwest of Iba, Zambales by Sunday morning as it continues to move into the South China Sea. -GMANews.TV

Reproductive Health Bill rally 2009.

Pro-choice describes the political and ethical view that a woman should have complete control over her fertility and the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy. This entails the guarantee of reproductive rights, which includes access to sexual education; access to safe and legal abortion, contraception, and fertility treatments; and legal protection from forced abortion. Individuals and organizations who support these positions make up the pro-choice movement.

Pro-choice advocates emphasize their beliefs that having a child is a personal choice that affects a woman's body, personal health, and future. They believe that both parents' and children's lives are better when abortions are legal, thus preventing women from going to desperate lengths to obtain illegal abortions. More broadly, pro-choice advocates frame their beliefs in terms of "individual liberty," "reproductive freedom," and "reproductive rights."

Pro-choice individuals often do not consider themselves "pro-abortion" because they consider abortion an issue of bodily autonomy, and find forced abortion as legally indefensible as the outlawing of abortion. Indeed, some who are pro-choice consider themselves opposed to some or all abortions on a moral basis, but believe that abortion bans imperil women's health. Others have a practical acceptance of abortion, arguing that abortions would happen in any case but that legal abortion under medically controlled conditions is preferable to illegal back-alley abortion without proper medical supervision.

Many pro-choice campaigners also argue that pro-life policies would deny women access to comprehensive sex education and contraception, thus increasing, not decreasing, demand for abortion. Proponents of this argument point to cases of areas with limited sex education and contraceptive access that have high abortion rates, either legal, illegal or de facto exported (i.e., where a high proportion of abortions from a state occur outside that state in another country with a more liberal abortion regime). Irish women who visit the United Kingdom for abortions are one example, as were the Belgian women who travelled to France (before Belgium legalized abortion).

Some people who are pro-choice see abortion as a last resort and focus on a number of situations where they feel abortion is a necessary option. Among these situations are those where the woman was raped, her health or life (or that of the fetus) is at risk, contraception was used but failed, or she feels unable to raise a child. Some pro-choice moderates, who would otherwise be willing to accept certain restrictions on abortion, feel that political pragmatism compels them to oppose any such restrictions, as they could be used to form a slippery slope against all abortions.

Reproductive Health Bill rally 2009.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, "Human Life"), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence. 

Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods.

Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as "natural law." The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children. 

But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation.

Anno 2009 the viewpoint of the Catholic Church has not changed a bit...

Reproductive Health Bill rally 2009.

This series is about a rally in front of the House of Representatives urging lawmakers to pass the so called Reproductive Health Bill (HB 5043).

Population control is a highly politicized issue in the country, where more than 80 percent of the 90 million Filipinos are Catholics.

Most politicians are afraid to go against the powerful Catholic Church because they are scared to loose votes among the deep religious Filipino people. 

The RH bill seeks to establish a national family planning program that would include sex education and use of birth control, which the Catholic Church considers "immoral." 

The Church has objected on any artificial form of birth control and has been waging a strong campaign to block the passage of the bill.

It should be noted that HB 5043 categorically rejects abortion, which it considers a "crime" in consonance with the 1987 Constitution. What it, in fact, wants to do is prevent abortions by offering couples an array of "medically safe, legal, affordable and quality" family planning methods from which they can choose the one that will work best for them. 

Pahiyas Festival in Lucban.

Lucban is noted for its authentic foods such as the famous pansit Lucban or pansit habhab, Lucban longganisa (local sausage) and other delicacies such as espasol.

Pahiyas Festival in Lucban.

Each year there is a colourful procession with the statue of San Isidro.

 

 

 

 

Pahiyas Festival in Lucban.