News Roundup 27 August 2021
Aug 27, 2021 • 5 min Read
17,447 new COVID-19 cases push Philippines’ count to 1.91 million | PHILSTAR.COM – Health authorities on Friday reported 17,447 new coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s overall count to 1,916,461. Today’s numbers saw active cases up by 10,610 from the 131,921 on August 26. It is the second highest since the pandemic hit in 2020, next only to the 18,332 last Monday, August 23. The Department of Health said one laboratory did not submit test results.
- Active cases: 142,531 or 7.4% of the total
- Recoveries: 6,771, bringing the number to 1,741,089
- Deaths: 113, or now 32,841 in total
Duterte told to mind separation of powers after complaining about Senate probes | PHILSTAR.COM – President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday was told to read up on the doctrine of the separation of powers in government after he derided Senate inquiries as fruitless endeavors used by senators to “posture.” Duterte voiced his criticism at a pre-recorded address aired Thursday where he and his pandemic task force were meant to discuss their response to the COVID-19 crisis. Senators are currently holding hearings into the “deficiencies” flagged by state auditors in the Department of Health’s handling of pandemic funds. “Listen to some of the senators there…after an investigation one or two days hearing, nothing,” he said partially in Filipino. “No recommendation, no prosecution, no imprisonment. Just pure posture.” “Filipinos should not believe the president’s statement that nothing is happening in the investigations being conducted in the Senate,” Sen. Panfilo Lacson said in a statement written in Filipino. “We have passed many laws that benefit the people because of the inquiries and investigations we have conducted.” “He should also first read about the doctrine of Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances of the Executive, Congress and Judiciary before he interferes with us in the Senate.” As the Blue Ribbon Committee on Friday afternoon resumed the hearing that drew Dutete’s ire, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon manifested that he takes exception to Duterte’s remarks. “With all due respect, to investigate in aid of legislation is the Senate’s constitutional mandate,” he said.
Jailing truth: Cyber attacks target dissent, anti-Duterte reports | INQUIRER.NET – A rights group in the Philippines sought to remember those killed in the Duterte administration’s bloody campaign against drugs and the crackdown on activists in what has been described as the “month of killings.” Karapatan, a group which had been vilified by officials led by President Rodrigo Duterte himself, said it wanted to stand against the killings and bring messages of “hope, solidarity, and defiance” under a “regime who wants us to cower in fear and silence.” But as the group started to prepare for Aug. 17, the day that rights activist Zara Alvarez was murdered, its website came under online attack from July 21 to Aug. 20, which had cost an estimated $260,000. Qurium, a Sweden-based digital forensics group, said Karapatan was the target of a “sophisticated, well-resourced dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attacks.” It stated that the attacks consisted of “application layer web floods,” a kind of DDoS that specifically targeted a part of karapatan.org which contains reports regarding killings in the Philippines. CloudFare defines DDoS as a “malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a server by overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic by using multiple compromised computer systems.” The reports of killings posted on Karapatan’s website included those of Kian Lloyd delos Santos, Carl Arnaiz, Reynaldo de Guzman, Randall Echanis, the tribesmen in Panay Island and farmers in Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental. In a previous statement, Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said the “cowardly attacks were obviously made to prevent the public from accessing our reports on the worsening state of human rights in the Philippines.” In a report, “Israeli firm Bright Data (Luminati Networks) enabled the attacks against Karapatan,” Qurium said it reviewed the servers linked to a wave of DDoS attacks against the website that came from a proxy network operated by Bright Data in Netanya, Israel. It said that from Aug. 10 to Aug. 20, 10 terabytes (enough for 250 movies) worth of traffic from Bright Data was recorded. The attacks were carried out by 30,000 bots, over half of which were distributed in Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia and China.
DOST invests P8.4M for VCO clinical trials | Manila Bulletin – The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) has invested P8.4 million to determine the safety and efficacy of virgin coconut oil (VCO) as adjunctive therapy for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients, and to evaluate its beneficial effects for probable COVID-19 patients who are quarantined in a center or hospital. In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the DOST said its Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) has allocated P8.4 million to explore the use of VCO as “life-saving solution to fight COVID-19.” Of the amount, P4.8 million was given to the project, “Virgin Coconut Oil as Adjunctive Therapy for Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients”. The project was led by Dr. Marissa M. Alejandria of the University of the Philippines-Manila National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH). It was implemented for 12 months, from June 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021. “The patient enrolment and intervention were completed. The project team is currently conducting data analysis,” DOST Undersecretary for Research and Development (R&D) Dr. Rowena Cristina Guevara told the Manila Bulletin. The DOST said the study aims to determine whether or not VCO helps improve the overall health status and recovery of a COVID-19 patient. The agency also poured in P3.6 million for a project which seeks to evaluate the beneficial effects of VCO among suspect and probable cases of COVID-19. The randomized double-blind controlled intervention VCO trial is being conducted by DOST-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), led by Director Dr. Imelda Angeles Agdeppa.
