News Roundup 14 October 2021
Oct 14, 2021 • 6 min Read
Philippines’ COVID count by up 7,835 new cases | PHILSTAR.COM – The Philippines on Thursday reported 7,835 new coronavirus cases, pushing its total count of infections to 2,698,232. Today’s numbers active cases up by 2,439 from the 82,411 on October 13. DOH said four laboratories did not submit screening results.
- Active cases: 84,850 or 3.1% of the total
- Recoveries: 5,317 bringing the number to 2,573,161
- Deaths: 154, or now 40,221 overall
Months after VFA restoration, Philippines agrees to hold over 300 military activities with US | PHILSTAR.COM – A few months after President Rodrigo Duterte decided to fully restore the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States, the two countries agreed to hold over 300 activities for the next year. This decision came after the completion of the 2021 Mutual Defense Board and Security Engagement Board (MDB-SEB), an annual defense and security cooperation meeting between the two allies. In a joint media release, the AFP and the US INDOPACOM said the meeting resulted in “ensuring continued, robust relations between the US and Philippine militaries.” Faustino said the Philippine military is privileged to to witness the advancing level cooperation and communication between the Philippine and US militaries. “I am optimistic that our alliance will continue to be robust in view of new and emerging security challenges that confront our nations. After all, we share the same goal of keeping peace and stability in this region,” Faustino said. INDOPACOM’s Aquilino also noted that the two countries have shared a “deep friendship” for more than 200 years. “This friendship is based on values, to include upholding freedom for all people. The sanctity of freedom was the foundation of our alliance… and is still applicable today,” Aquilino said.
Robredo aims to rally people in big push for unity | INQUIRER.NET – Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday appeared to be no longer interested in unifying personalities – those who have declared their candidacy for the presidency – saying she would instead build the broadest coalition possible with the Filipino people. Robredo, who was invited to the Rotary Club of Manila’s virtual membership meeting, said that the goal of unifying the opposition has not changed. However, it may no longer involve other candidates for the presidency. “My personal take on this is now, more than ever, we really need to put our people’s welfare first before politics. We have been pushing for inclusivity, and we have already started doing this after I filed by reaching out and talking to those who are not members of the party, from the start our goal has always been to forge the broadest unity possible,” Robredo said. “So if unity was not possible among the presidential contenders, I have not given up on unifying our people,” she added. Prior to these statements, Robredo was urged to strike a deal with other supposed opposition stalwarts like Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, and Senators Manny Pacquiao and Panfilo Lacson. However, the Vice President admitted that they disagreed on crucial matters that caused the talks to fail. Robredo explained that her decision to launch her own candidacy, after months of indecision on whether she should run for president, shows that she has already abandoned efforts to unify personalities.
VP Leni sets out key goals if elected president | Manila Bulletin – Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday, October 14, laid out her plans for the first 100 days in office if she’s elected president in the 2022 polls. Top among these priorities is the realignment of the national budget to make it more responsive to the country’s COVID-19 response programs. She admitted that her role will be very different compared to her predecessors because of the extraordinary time when she might possibly be put at the country’s helm. “Because we are in a middle of the pandemic, the first order of business is controlling the pandemic, focusing all our efforts on decreasing the number of COVID cases dramatically so we can fully reopen the economy and to do this, we must realign the national budget so that it would be more akin to addressing the pandemic,” she told the Rotary Club of Manila during its virtual membership meeting. “We will be coming in from a set budget already. This means realigning the budget, allotting more funds for healthcare services and facilities, COVID-19 response, social services for Filipinos,” Robredo added. Similar to what she said in the past, the vice president highlighted the need for “more efficient testing, tracing, and treatment, vaccinating as (many) people as possible.” Robredo also wants to “empower our healthcare system” through “improving access to hospitals, building more facilities, if needed, improving infrastructure to access COVID vaccines, the logistical support for vaccines.” “We address it (health problems) and the rest of the challenges become less daunting,” the vice president stressed. One problem that she will be trying to stop is that of a food crisis, which is one of the reasons why she tapped Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan to be her running mate since agriculture has been his advocacy. To address this, a Robredo presidency will “invest heavily” in agriculture, particularly in technology and farm-to-market infrastructure. Aside from problems in the health care industry, the next administration will also face a soaring unemployment rate due primarily to the closure of many businesses. The opposition leader said that the one thing that will create more jobs is to bring back foreign direct investments, which have been in a steady decline during Duterte’s term. This year, annual FDI dropped by 24.6 percent, the lowest in five years. “It is very difficult to overpromise. One thing that will bring jobs back is to make sure that the pandemic is under control. For us to be able to open our economy again, we have to control the virus first, we have to control the transmission first,” she stated. The vice president is also open to collaborating with China “in areas that we have no conflicts.” “But when it comes to the West Philippine Sea, we cannot deal with them without their recognition of the arbitral ruling,” she said, referring to the 2016 landmark ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague on China’s nine-dash line claim. Robredo, however, also stressed the importance of having “an inclusive and independent foreign policy as opposed to one that favors certain countries.” “We will be open to working with everyone so long as it will be in the best interests of the Filipino people,” she said. But all of these are possible only with good governance as the vice president emphasized that the real focus should be on “strengthening institutions on cleaning the bureaucracy, setting platforms to ensure that good governance is in place.”
