News in Pictures: September 15, 2024
HEALTH WORKERS GROUP EYES MIDTERM POLLS
Health workers from different hospitals perform a dance number during a light moment at Saturday’s launching of the Health Workers Partylist at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City. The new party, formed about eight months ahead of the midterm elections, aims to establish representation in the legislature for physicians, nurses and rank-and-file hospital employees who deal with meager, delayed salaries—a world apart from the perks in the medical community.
The nominees and other candidates presented at the launching were (from left) Dr. Catherine Joyce Brillantes, nurse Jet Garcia, Remy Ysmael, radiologist and third nominee Benigno Santi II, health worker Rose Mary Ann Solinap, nurse and second nominee Maristela Presto-Abenojar, nurse and first nominee Robert Mendoza, nurse Cyruz Tuppal, dentist Grace Aure and nurse Julie Passi. —LYN RILLON
BACK TO NEGOTIATIONS
Foreign Undersecretary Maria Theresa Lazaro meets with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong on Tuesday for their Bilateral Consultation Mechanism in Beijing—yet another “frank and candid discussion” regarding tensions in the West Philippine Sea. Beijing has recently stepped up its rhetoric against Manila, while its embassy in Manila has also warned against linking maritime tensions to an “internal issue” like Taiwan, saying that the Philippines is committed to the One-China policy articulated by its 1975 joint communique with China, a document strictly binding only the governments of both countries. Nevertheless, China has been sensitive to any reference to Taiwan as a sovereign nation, even by a party not bound by that communique like the media. —PHOTO FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
CRUISE SHIP IN TOWN
The Diamond Princess cruise ship docks at Pier 15 of Manila South Harbor on Friday. The British-registered, US-operated vessel made the news during the pandemic year of 2020 when about 500 passengers and 150 crew members of about 3,500 people onboard became infected with COVID-19. The ship was quarantined at Yokohama’s port that February, with passengers and crew who were not infected allowed to disembark by the end of that month. The Diamond Princess was allowed to leave Japan three months later and arrived in Manila in May for further repatriation of crew members. During its Manila stop this year, the 290-meter cruise ship brought in about 2,000 foreign tourists who toured the metropolis on Saturday. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
HEINOUS CRIME
Flanked by Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr. and Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rommel Marbil, suspected child sex trafficker Teddy Jay Mojeca Mejia on Thursday arrives in Manila from Dubai, where he had been arrested for selling sex videos online involving children and youths from the Philippines, most of them girls. According to Abalos, Mejia had victimized more than 100 minors.—MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
