News in Pictures: November 24, 2024
VITAL SECTOR
Senior citizens in Pasig City on Thursday avail themselves of free consultations (left) with nutritionists tapped by the city government as it observes Senior Citizens’ Month this November. Other services for seniors were also offered at the city’s popular Maybunga Rainforest Park, where they also held a group exercise (right) that morning.
The norm now in government to designate a seniors’ month—October in Europe, May in the United States and, among the different localities here, observed in other months—was first established by US President John F. Kennedy with his landmark Proclamation No. 3527, directing the assignation of a Senior Citizens Month and urging “all public and private organizations to cooperate in its observance.”
The 1963 proclamation noted further how “this population segment represents a great national resource of skills, wisdom and experience” upon which nations have been built. Succeeding proclamations in the United States as well as in the Philippines have also served to acknowledge how senior citizens, especially in their prime, had contributed much of their time and money and subordinated their own lives to sustaining their society and economy. —LYN RILLON
PGH AGAINT PROLONGED TENURE
Health workers of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) gather on Friday to protest a second extension being sought by neurosurgeon Gerardo Legaspi for his term as PGH director.
According to the Manila Collegian, the student publication of University of the Philippines (UP) Manila which runs the state hospital, Dr. Legaspi has been PGH chief for a full nine years, including his first extension during the 2020 pandemic.
The Collegian cited UP regulations stating that PGH heads can only serve two years. But Legaspi said he aims to fulfill an infrastructure plan for the hospital laid out for a stretch of 20 years. —RICHARD A. REYES
SOLAR ENTERPRISE
President Marcos is joined by Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) officials during Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremonies for the company’s biggest solar enterprise yet—the Meralco Terra Solar Project which spans 3,500 hectares across the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan.
The project, once it becomes operational by its target schedule of February 2027, is expected to generate an overall monthly capacity of 3,500 megawatts (MW)—or about a third of the average monthly demand of 10,000 MW in the whole of Luzon.
This bodes well for energy stability in the country—a much improved condition from the power crisis that hounded the regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. until the administration of Corazon Aquino. —PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
PESO SLUMP
Arriving passengers at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Thursday line up at foreign exchange counters to convert their US dollars, a day after the Philippine peso sank to P59 against the greenback, its lowest drop in over two years.
The peso’s decline will affect various sectors in different ways, but Filipino migrant workers see it as a boost to the peso value of their earnings. But banks and other traders would only buy US currency at rates lower than P59. —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
