News Roundup 04 July 2022
Jul 04, 2022 • 4 min Read
Daily average COVID cases jump to 1,057 – DOH | INQUIRER.NET – The number of daily average infections of COVID-19 rose to 1,057 from June 27 to July 3, after the Department of Health (DOH) recorded a total of 7,398 infections in the said period. Based on the DOH’s weekly report on Monday, the recorded total infections are significantly higher than the total logged the previous week at 4,634 with an average daily infection of 662. However, most of these new recorded cases were mild infections as only 19 or 0.26 percent of the new cases were tagged as severe or critical. With this, the total number of severe or critical cases is currently at 497 or 8.4 percent of the total COVID-19 admissions. Meanwhile, 74 deaths were added to the country’s COVID-19 death toll — all of which were backlogs from previous months from March 2021 to February 2022.
Escudero raises ‘unique legal quandary’ over Marcos’ first veto | INQUIRER.NET – Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero raised what he called a “unique legal quandary” over the first veto of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against a bill passed by Congress under the previous administration. “I am uncertain if PBBM (President Bongbong Marcos) can veto a bill passed by the “previous” Congress (when he was not yet President),” Escudero said in a tweet Sunday. “If he can’t sign it (because the signatories will be composed of past/present officials that didn’t serve at the same time), can he veto it? [It’s] a unique legal quandary,” he added. In response to Escudero’s tweet, former Senate President Vicente Sotto II said Marcos “can.” “It has happened before,” Sotto added. “For one, Erap (former president Joseph Estrada) to GMA (former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo), GMA vetoed some bills passed during Erap’s time,” he told INQUIRER.net in a message. While Escudero made no mention of the bill he was referring to, Marcos, over the weekend, vetoed a bill seeking to establish and grant tax perks to the proposed Bulacan Airport City Special Economic Zone and Freeport. Sotto, in a separate tweet, said former President Rodrigo Duterte should have signed the Bulacan airport ecozone bill, which he said was supposed to lapse into law this week. PRRD should have signed it. It was going to lapse into law by July 3rd. Senators and a House lawmaker said they intend to refile the vetoed bill. For Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, he stressed the need to make the measure “clearer” and to provide “conventional checks and balances” under it.
As fuel costs soar, alternative learning teachers lose touch with students | PHILSTAR.COM – When Sheila Oñedo-Villena read the news of another oil price hike in June, she sent an apology to the group of 43 adult students who have been waiting months for her to start their first lesson. These 43 members of the Iraya-Mangyan community, who live high up a mountain in a sitio in Oriental Mindoro, personally requested Oñedo-Villena and a co-teacher to teach them to read and write. But after fuel prices went up — and habal-habals or private motorcycles, the only available mode of transportation in Sitio Adong, began to charge P300 roundabouts — Oñedo-Villena and her co-teacher had to postpone teaching the group and prioritize students closer to home. Oñedo-Villena works as a teacher in the Alternative Learning System (ALS), the Department of Education’s (DepEd)’s parallel learning system that deploys teachers to reach out-of-school youth and adult learners with no access to formal schooling. ALS offers a basic literacy program and elementary and secondary education. Turning down the request of 43 adults eager to learn basic literacy pained Oñedo-Villena, but she could not afford to stretch her salary to service five barangays assigned to her. In that sitio, Oñedo-Villena could only schedule a weekly delivery of printed modules for elementary and high school level students. “You can’t teach basic literacy through modules. We told them we would get back to them once everything is okay, once we can afford going to their place,” Oñedo-Villena said in Filipino. Waves of oil price hikes in June have driven up fare costs for habal-habal’s or private motorcycles — ALS teachers’ ride of choice in geographically distant areas where there is no public transportation.
