News in Pictures: September 11, 2024
LARGE-SCALE BUSTS IN TWO DAYS
Law enforcement agents already had quite a roundup of illicit goods and services at the beginning of this week.
On Tuesday, the Cybercrime Division of the National Bureau of Investigation arrested six Chinese and four Filipinos at Shore Residences in Pasay City after NBI agents found various technologies such as Al, encryption and anonymity tools, social media platforms and an online market place for their sex trafficking operations.
The NBI together with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) also raided a warehouse in Quezon City and found fake car batteries valued at P94 million.
Earlier on Monday, Customs agents seized an estimated P4.8 billion worth of counterfeit vapes and vape accessories, cosmetics, designer bags and even school supplies at a warehouse in Binondo, Manila. Apart from DTI’s increasing restrictions on the sale and distribution of vape products, authorities said fake items are a health and safety risk to consumers. —PHOTOS BY MARIANNE BERMUDEZ, NIÑO JESUS ORBETA, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS
NATURE’S WRECK
A man (top photo) living along the Wawa River near its spillway in Barangay San Rafael, Rodriguez, Rizal, observes the river’s strong current on Sunday, while boys collect huge rocks almost the size of boulders which they will use to help reinforce their homes from a nearby mountainside where a landslide struck last week at the height of Tropical Storm “Enteng” (international name: Yagi). The storm entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility as a low pressure area (LPA) on Sept. 1 and left the country three days later, leaving damage to crops and infrastructure at P3 billion and a death toll of 20. On Tuesday, weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said it is monitoring two LPAs—one of them east-northeast of northern Luzon and the other east of Mindanao. —PHOTOS BY LYN RILLON
OLD SOULS, YOUNG AT HEART
A group of girls representing a stall selling goods from the Southern Tagalog region performs a traditional number that their grandparents might have danced to in their youth, at the closing of this year’s Philippine Travel Mart in Pasay City on Sunday. The trade fair featured a diversity of products from the country’s regions.
Meanwhile in Cainta, Rizal, Leonardo Victorino Cruz (left) joins a “Seniors Got Talent” singing contest held at a mall in celebration of Grandparents Day, as he belts out “This Is the Moment” from the musical “Jekyll and Hyde.” —PHOTOS BY RICHARD A. REYES,
