News in Pictures: July 21, 2024
RELIEF EFFORTS
Victims of the floods affecting southwestern Mindanao gather on Tuesday at Matanog town in Maguindanao del Norte province, as they await their turn to receive aid packages from personnel sent there by Vice President Sara Duterte. Government officials, particularly from Mindanao, have committed relief and assistance to residents there affected by the floods, following rains early this month from the southwest monsoon and the intertropical convergence zone.
On Sunday, Cabinet officials were also at Matanog to lead relief efforts, which continued on Wednesday, with the Bangsamoro region’s Ministry of Social Services and Development distributing goods to residents (right) in Pagalungan, Maguindanao del Sur.
COUNTERPARTS, ALLIES
Gen. Charles Brown Jr. on Tuesday meets with his Philippine counterpart, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brown arrived in the country for “a series of engagements” with Brawner ahead of the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in Manila between the foreign and defense secretaries of the Philippines and the United States. Brown, a general of the Air Force, first visited Manila in 1987 as a junior officer. He was also scheduled to visit last week a still undisclosed Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca) site, one of nine in the country under a 2014 agreement with Washington for the interoperability of US troops and equipment in the country.
WARNING ON SCHOOL MATERIALS
Toxics watchdog group EcoWaste Coalition holds a news briefing in Quezon City on Wednesday to draw consumers’ attention to the presence of hazardous chemicals like cadmium and lead in school materials—amid the back-to-school shopping trend less than two weeks before the beginning of the new school year on July 29. EcoWaste said these chemicals are linked to decreased cognitive abilities, learning difficulties and other adverse health effects.
‘UNCERTIFIED’ PRODUCTS
Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual (center) is joined by Fhillip Sawali (left), director of the Fair Trade Enforcement Bureau of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and Assistant Secretary Agaton Teodoro Uvero, as they show the media on Tuesday “uncertified” products for kitchen use confiscated from raids conducted by DTI’s Task Force Kalasag in Valenzuela City and the provinces of Bulacan and Cavite. DTI said on Saturday that it had made its “biggest single-day seizures of uncertified appliances in less than three weeks”—including more than 14,000 blenders, induction cookers, electric fans and other household appliances valued at about P8.3 million.
