Singapore’s purge

It’s quite surprising that Filipino anti-IMF protesters were blocked from passing through Singapore’s Changi Airport in line with the island-city’s ban on demonstrations. Read the ordeal of the two Filipino activists here.

They were just passing by en route to Batam, an island in Indonesia where a simultaneuos protest summit will be held against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conference in Singapore.

Well, I can only sigh. We can’t expect much from Singapore about dissent. Could we?

Did aerial spraying cause this ‘rare disease?’

Did aerial spraying cause Keratosis follicularis, a rare disease diagnosed in a woman living near a banana plantation here? Dermatologist Maria Myla Alvarado of the Davao Medical Center did not think so, saying the disease is genetic. 

On Sept. 13, Lapanday Development Corporation company physician Dr. Luzviminda Floresca asked Alvarado to present her findings on victim Flor Watin, 31, mother of seven. 

Watin, who lives in Rice Mill, Mandug, Davao City, near a banana plantation owned by Lapanday Development Corporation, is in the limelight of the public debate on the proposed ban on aerial spraying. 

In the Sept. 12 episode of GMA television program “Reporters’ Notebook”, she was portrayed as having been contaminated with chemicals used in aerial spraying. Read the whole report.

(UPDATED) Some “must know” facts about our mobile phones

From the Amul-amul Bukidnon e-group:
(IMPORTANT NOTE FROM ISTAMBAY SA MINDANAO: Some of the “facts”presented here may not be actually FACTUAL AND SCIENTIFIC. Please read at  your own risk. I posted this for you to see if it works with your units, and  primarily because of the emergency stuff included here. I don’t have a claim to the truthfulness of this post.)

START OF POST
Dear All, Few more Mobile phone facts:-

1) Emergency number – The Emergency Number worldwide for
Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly …this number 112 can be dialed even while the keypad is locked. Try it out.

2) Locked the keys in the car? Your car has remote keys? – This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are home, call someone on your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the other person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other “remote” for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk). Editor’s Note: *It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!”

3) Hidden
Battery power – Imagine your cell battery is very low, u r expecting an important call and u don’t have a charger. Nokia instrument comes with a reserve battery.To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will gets charged when u charge your cell next time.

Caution : Always use left ear while using cell (mobile), because if you use the right one it will affect brain directly. This is a true fact from Apollo medical team. Please forward to all your well wishers.

USEFUL INFO: How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following digits onyour phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to yourhandset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. (Pls do it right now.)

Should your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and givethem this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if thethief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless.

You probably won’t get your phone back, but at least you know that Whoeverstole it can’t use/sell it either and can use it as PAPER WEIGHT.

If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing Mobile phones.

Please spread this useful information around.
END OF POST

(Post Script: If it worked in your case, spread this if you want  so more  people will know – Istambay sa Mindanao, 18 April 2007)

Gail’s must-read offer

MindaNews columnist Gail Ilagan launched her book “Fly on the Wall” Monday. It’s a collection of articles she wrote for MindaViews, the opinion section of MindaNews in her column “Wayward and Fanciful”.

She said she choose the articles that got the most number of e-mail responses. In short these are the favorites. I’m sure this book is a must read. Well, probably you’ve read some of them in www.mindanews.com. But it’s also worth buying a copy. It’s only P250  I think. Congrats Gail!     

Kampai to PCIJ’s Ms. Sheila Coronel

Congratulations to Ms. Sheila Coronel of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. She has moved to Columbia University in New York as a graduate school of journalism professor and as director of a new investigative journalism center. Read her “valedictory” blog here. It’s a great honor that a Filipino journalist will head that center in the prestigiousColumbia
University. This is a proof of the Filipino being at par with the world. But of course, it’s also a great loss for Philippine Journalism.
 
Magsaysay Awardee Sheila Coronel is no doubt one of our bests, if not our best. Like any prominent and respected personality, she has not only helped in a functional way but also inspirational.

Though I regard her decision with high respect, I really felt bad hearing about it on Sept. 11.   If a well-respected, good and helpful person leaves, it has an impact on morale. It draws attention to the suppose exodus of Filipinos to the world. To say a brain drain is an understatement.
 
We are ought to lose some warm bodies here who are source of inspiration not only to many journalists but to Filipinos in general.  But this is not to question her decision. Maybe this is just to state what consequence or sacrifice is there in good decisions. Ms. Coronel said she could bring back what she could learn from there in the same way she is bringing her experiences here to America. 
 
I‘m sure she had inspired many Sheila Coronels and PCIJs to take on the rigors of investigative journalism in the Philippines.Perhaps, inspiration should be drawn from the PCIJ, which she nurtured for many years. God Bless you Ms. Coronel and the PCIJ.