PGMA doubles allocation for govt’s pro-poor programs to P10 billion
MANILA, Philippines–Preparing for the worst while hoping for the best, Malacanang said that the P5 billion allocation for the government’s pro-poor subsidy programs will be raised to P10 billion next year in an effort to soften the impact of the global economic whiplash especially on the poorest of the poor Filipino families.
The Cabinet reached the decision to double the budget of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Pantawid Pamilya Program at its meeting this morning amid projections that the full impact of the worsening global economic crunch will be felt next year.
In 2006, or two years before the Wall Street collapse triggered the current global crisis, the President launched the Pantawid Pamilya Program in response to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
Briefing newsmen covering Malacanang after the Cabinet meeting, Social Welfare and Development Secretary Esperanza Cabral said the additional allocation of P5 billion released last week for the Pantawid Pamilya Program would double the number of beneficiaries from 320,000 households or one million children to 640 households are nearly two million children attending school.
Cabral said the President has given her until the first quarter of next year to identify the beneficiaries of the program who will be given cash assistance.
The Wisdom of our lawmakers in treating the Filipino Equity Bill
Our struggles for honor and dignity as Filipino American veterans of World War II bears witness to the fact that 64 years fighting for benefits due them is still an elusive issue which the 110th Congress failed to act considerably in favor of the surviving vets who served under the American flag.
On Distant Shore
Year of fears and hopes
LOS ANGELES, Cailf.–After quietly celebrating Christmas Day, many people must now face reality and ask themselves: What’s ahead in 2009? How are we going to cope?
From whom all blessings flow
An old year has completed its course
HOUSTON, Tex.– An old year – 2008 - has almost completed its course. A new year – 2009 - is smiling at us with twelve months of the unknown. An entire ocean of possibilities, including both sun-drenched days and a few storms with howling winds and giant waves, stretch out across the uncharted waters. If we let ourselves, we could become so afraid of the potential dangers, so safety conscious, we would miss the adventure.
Filipino Potpourri
Welcome to a new year of change and discovery
And now let us welcome the New Year
Full of things that have never been.
-Rainier Maria Rilke
SAN DIEGO, Calif.– “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job,” President Harry Truman once observed, “and it’s a depression when you lose your own.” As downturns in the global economy disturb more and more households, we begin to question seriously the financial yardstick by which we have been measuring our personal net worth and therefore our happiness.
From the Publisher's Desk
Stress the Holiday
The holiday is upon us and everyone is in mad dash to get the perfect gift for their families and loved ones. Studies have shown that it is through the holidays that people get stressed out the most and have therefore caused some strain in relationships, financial, emotional etc. aspects of our lives.
‘PacMan’ hits clueless critics
By Francis Earl A. Cueto,
Off the ring, a day after he clobbered Oscar de la Hoya, Filipino icon Manny Pacquiao seemed to be still in a fighting mood.
New Year’s Eve benefit gala builds schools in rural Asia
SAN DIEGO, Calif.– Beyond Productions will host the first annual New Year’s Eve Benefit Gala “One World 2009” at Jasmine Restaurant on December 31, 2008.
Save the date December 6
6 December, Chula Vista Holiday Tree Lighting and 46th Annual Starlight Parade
The community is invited to celebrate the start of the holiday season at the 46th annual Chula Vista Starlight Parade.
66 years later, soldier gets POW medal for Bataan
By Ed Fletcher
Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif.– Adorned with old flags, photos and plaques galore, VFW halls are all about remembering. On Tuesday, a North Highlands hall turned its attention to remembering – and honoring – the service of Gil Perla.
More than 65 years after a Japanese rifle butt was slammed to his skull, punctuating his journey on the Bataan Death March, Guillermo "Gil" Perla finally received his due – a Prisoner of War Medal.
"We finally got his medals," said Rep. Doris Matsui shortly before pinning the medal adorned with a golden eagle on Perla, as his three children, several grandchildren and numerous other guests watched. "He is a true hero."
And with the medal, perhaps, Perla will receive a measure of comfort that the world is not forgetting what happened in 1942 on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
Perla, 87, of North Highlands was a 20-year-old Filipino member of the 12th Signal Corps, serving as a scout for the U.S. Army, when Bataan fell not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor .
That much is undisputed.
About 75,000 troops – nearly 12,000 of them Americans, most of the rest Filipinos – were captured and forced to march more than 60 miles north in what became known as the Bataan Death March. An estimated 6,000 to 11,000 soldiers died along the way from mistreatment, exhaustion or execution by their Japanese guards.
