News in Pictures: December 8, 2024
DEFENDING MARCOS AT EDSA
Supporters of President Marcos gather on Saturday at the People Power Monument on the beltway Edsa—where massive protests 38 years ago ended the dictatorial rule of his father and namesake—to express their solidarity with his administration, following criticisms and threats by Vice President Sara Duterte, whose supporters assembled in that area a week earlier.
Since breaking away from Mr. Marcos with her resignation as education secretary in June, Duterte has returned to upholding the People Power legacy that she and her father had earlier shunned, despite the role in that movement of the late anti-Marcos opposition leader Soledad Roa Duterte, mother of former President Rodrigo Duterte and grandmother of the Vice President.
It was the Duterte-Marcos alliance of 2022 that effectively silenced the anti-Marcos opposition after foiling its campaign against the return of the Marcoses to power. A former senator of the Liberal Party describes that episode as prompting their “retreat” and “soul-searching”—leaving a vacancy in the political scene and even on a hallowed ground of protest. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
AGRITECH GOES MOBILE
An agriculturist from the Bureau of Soils and Water Management of the Department of Agriculture shows a seedling (right) grown at the Mobile Soil Laboratory (above), a 10-wheeler with state-of-the-art equipment and other features.
Malacañang on Friday launched the MSLs in ceremonies led by President Marcos and Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. Next year, the vehicles will be deployed nationwide to farms in remote areas needing support in terms of agricultural technology. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
ART INSPIRED BY OFWS
The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) on Saturday has the walls of its main office in Mandaluyong City painted with murals depicting the lives of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Only two years into its establishment, the DMW continues to be guided by the service toward that sector demonstrated by its pioneering head, the late Migrant Workers Secretary Susan “Toots” Ople, who died only a year into her agency’s existence. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
