News Roundup 09 July 2022
Jul 09, 2022 • 4 min Read
OCTA: COVID-19 positivity rate in Metro Manila, 8 areas now past 10% | INQUIRER.NET – The COVID-19 positivity rate in Metro Manila and in other eight areas has breached the 10 percent mark. This is double the benchmark set by the World Health Organization (WHO), the independent pandemic monitor OCTA Research said on Saturday. The WHO set the ideal COVID-19 positivity rate benchmark at 5 percent. Positivity rate refers to the number of all tests conducted for COVID-19 that yielded positive results. OCTA research fellow Guido David said that the positivity rate of Metro Manila as of July 9 is now at 10.4 percent from 8.3 percent recorded on July 2. Meanwhile, the positivity rate of Antique, Batangas, Capiz, Cavite, Iloilo, Laguna, Pampanga, Rizal has also breached the 10 percent mark, according to David. The COVID-19 positivity rate in Antique is now at 18.9 percent; Batangas (10.5 percent), Capiz, (17.8 percent), Cavite (16.2 percent), Iloilo (10.9 percent), Laguna (16.2 percent), Pampanga (16.1 percent) and Rizal (15.7 percent).
Shinzo Abe murder suspect: What we know | INQUIRER.NET – Agence France-Presse. The man accused of assassinating Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has been arrested and named by police as Tetsuya Yamagami. Police say the unemployed 41-year-old admits shooting Abe with a homemade gun at a campaign event on Friday, but what else do we know about the suspect so far? Yamagami told police he had served in Japan’s navy, the Maritime Self-Defense Force, for three years from 2002. More recently, he worked at a factory in western Japan for around a year and a half, but quit in May this year, local media reports said. “His attitude towards work had not been a problem. I’m surprised and shocked,” his former manager at the plant told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. Yamagami spoke to police after the attack in a “matter-of-fact” way, according to officers. Former middle school classmates interviewed by public broadcaster NHK said the suspect had been quiet but not a loner, and was good at both sports and academics. “The suspect stated that he held a grudge against a particular organization, and that he committed the crime because he believed former prime minister Abe had a connection to it,” police said Friday. They did not give the name of the organization in question, but Japanese media said it was a religious group, citing unnamed investigative sources. NHK and the Mainichi Shimbun said Yamagami’s family had suffered troubles as a result of his mother’s financial donations to the organization. Yamagami had originally planned to target the head of the group but then switched focus to Abe, who he believed had promoted the organization in Japan, Kyodo News reported, also citing anonymous investigative sources.
CHR probes death of 19-year-old teen during bar scuffle in Davao | PHILSTAR.COM – The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said Saturday that its regional office in Davao is conducting a motu proprio investigation related to the death of 19-year-old student Amier Mangacop, who was hit by gunshots during a scuffle at a bar earlier this month. The shots were fired by suspect Marvin Rey Pepino, a doctor and non-uniformed police personnel who was there at the scene on July 2. According to the Davao City Police Office, he claimed that he used his gun out of self-defense after being mauled by a group of men when he was trying to pacify the commotion between his friends and the Mangacop group, MindaNews reported. In an emailed statement on Saturday, CHR’s Executive Director Jacqueline Ann de Guia pointed out conflicting accounts of both the physician and Mangacop’s family. Amier’s kin alleged that the student and his companions arrived in the middle of the scuffle, and they were neither drunk nor high, she said. “CHR’s independent investigation seeks to help establish the truth amid competing narratives from both sides. One point of inquiry is as to why a non-uniformed personnel is carrying a firearm outside the residence, particularly while drinking in a bar,” De Guia said. She said their goal is to hold the perpetuator to account, secure justice for Mangacop’s death and possibly prompt a review the guidelines of firearm use in the country. At present, the San Pedro Police and the Philippine National Police Davao Region are conducting their own investigation, but the Mangacop family requested for the National Bureau of Investigation to handle to case instead over fears of “suppression and whitewash.”
