News Roundup 19 August 2021
Aug 19, 2021 • 6 min Read
DOH reports 14,895 more COVID-19 cases | PHILSTAR.COM – Health authorities on Thursday listed 14,895 new coronavirus cases to push the country’s total to 1,791,003. Today’s numbers are the second-highest daily rise since the pandemic began in 2020, next only to the 15,310 in April this year. Active cases were up by 6,569 from the 105,151 on August 18. The Department of Health said two laboratories did not submit test results.
- Active cases: 111,720 or 6.2% of the total
- Recoveries: 8,248, bringing the number to 1,648,402
- Deaths: 258, or now 30,881 in total
Rights group says website attacked during commemoration of killings | PHILSTAR.COM – Local human rights watchdog Karapatan on Thursday decried renewed cyberattacks against its website at karapatan.org. In a statement, the rights group said this came after a new report from Sweden-based media foundation Qurium published Tuesday. As it stands, Karapatan said, one cyberattack started on July 29 and is still ongoing as of Wednesday. “These new series of cowardly cyber attacks against our website were obviously made to prevent the public from accessing our reports on the worsening state of human rights in the Philippines — and we know whose interests these attacks serve,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said. Palabay said that “specifically targeting Karapatan’s online resources only means that these attacks were clearly trying to suppress our documentation and human rights work, and of course, the people’s right to freedom of information.” Qurium in its report said the attacks “[took] place amid the online solidarity campaign #StopTheKillingsPH” as “human rights organizations and advocates across the world asserted the call to stop the killings in the Philippines and to hold President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for what progressive groups say are his crimes against the Filipino people. The event also marked one year since the killing of human rights worker Zara Alvarez, who was shot dead in Bacolod City. According to Qurium, the attack infrastructure “used to launch billion of malicious web requests” was composed of application-layer web floods, a type of Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS. The attacks were specifically launched against the karapatan.org/resources site, which the rights group said contains its directory of periodical monitors, year-end reports, policy position papers, and other public resources. “During the 16th of August 2021, the attacks intensified with the inclusion of ‘headless browsers’ supporting Javascript and capable to bypass common anti-DDOS techniques as ‘captchas.’ The attackers used the very same proxy network with the ‘headless browsers’ to flood the website,” Qurium said in its report. “The geographical distribution of the bots that flood the website is global but four countries account for almost half of the bots: Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia and China.”
Poor fend for themselves amid gaps in gov’t pandemic response | INQUIRER.NET – The strict lockdown in Metro Manila was scheduled to end on Friday (Aug. 20) but uncertainty prevails over what would come next—another round of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) or a less restrictive measure. While the next quarantine measure in Metro Manila after Aug. 20 is uncertain, one thing has been clear since the start of the COVID catastrophe in 2020—its impact had been “profound and adverse” on the poor. Bea Rodriguez, a widow, lives in a household of 12 people in a resettlement area in Towerville, San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan. She lives in a small house with her children and their families so she can “closely watch over her family.” In 2020, as the government first imposed ECQ, she lost one month’s worth of income, prompting her to think of ways she can make ends meet for her family, a household that consumes at least three kilos of rice per meal. “I hope people in government act as if they were in our situation,” said Rodriguez who, before the pandemic, had been depending on her salary from Igting, or Maigting na Samahan ng mga Panlipunang Negosyante sa Towerville Inc., a social enterprise based on clothing production. Rodriguez, 61, was one of the Filipinos trying to struggle against poverty who had been engaged by the Program on Alternative Development of the University of the Philippines’ Center for Integrative and Development Studies (UP CIDS) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) in a research program. Eduardo Tadem, Ph.D. said the report on the program presented five cases—urban poor community, women’s micro social enterprise, an indigenous people’s community and a school for indigenous children and youth. Filipinos, especially in the midst of a crisis, say, “Who else will help us except for ourselves?” In Filipino, “Sino pa ba ang magtutulungan kung ‘di tayo rin?” This was the reality for millions of people feeling the direct impact of the COVID pandemic since 2020. Most felt neglected while government restrictions left them in the dark and fighting their way through the crisis.
1Sambayan eyes ‘people’s movement’ for 2022 election, notes coalition is ‘growing’ | Manila Bulletin – Opposition coalition 1Sambayan believes that toppling the Duterte administration in next year’s polls is possible with “grassroots development,” which will lead to what it calls a “people’s movement.” Unlike the present administration, 1Sambayan does not have the political machinery to ensure support for its candidates at the local level. What it does have is support from the grassroots that is now gaining momentum as the October filing of the Certificate of Candidacy (COC) nears. 1Sambayan convenor Howard Calleja said that the coalition respects its nominees as they take their time in discerning if they should run in 2022. But while their nominees like Vice President Leni Robredo are focusing on her pandemic response, the 1Sambayan convenor stressed that the coalition is working to build support from the people. “Pero tuloy-tuloy po ang (But we continue the) grassroots development ng (of) 1Sambayan to make sure that come election day, hindi lang po tayo (we are not only) reliant on local government but it is a people’s movement,” he added during a recent virtual forum. Right now, Calleja said the coalition is “growing” with 22 foreign chapters and 45 allied organizations, parties, and coalitions. It also has 40 chapters, and expects to have 81 chapters that will represent each province. “We would respect the candidates to have their time and to discern and at a proper time, 1Sambayan, together with its allied groups—Liberals, Akyson, and all the other parties—will hopefully come to have a unified candidate. I’m still very optimistic that we will only have one unified (list of) candidates for the democratic forces for the elections 2022,” he stressed. It was revealed on Wednesday, August 18, that 1Sambayan is working to form alliances with Robredo’s Liberal Party (LP) and Manila Mayor Isko Moreno’s Aksyon Demokratiko.
Photo Source: By Ralff Nestor Nacor
