Page 3 - LM Confidential Issue August 2014

Alden Richards
set to play Jose
Rizal for GMA
Si Alden Richards ang bida sa bagong gagawing docu-drama series ng GMA News TV 11 na Ilustrado. At excited na
ang Kapuso heartthrob habang naghahanda para rito.
Saad niya, “This is something new for me.
“Kasi first time ko pong gagawa ng isang project na meron akong ipu-portray na isang national hero. “Yung series po na gagawin ko is about buhay ni Jose Rizal. Mula sa kanyang childhood hanggang sa mag-aral siya sa Europe.
“So, mahirap po. Hindi biro.
“Marami pong ibinigay sa akin na mga kailangang panoorin na films. Isa na po yung ginawa ni Kuya Buboy [Cesar Montano] na Jose Rizal, ipnapanood po sa akin ‘yon.
“Tapos a few documentaries po na ibinigay din ng GMA News TV. “This is produced by GMA News TV. Tatakbo po ito ng one season. “October pa ang airing nito. Pero we’re gonna start shooting na this end of July.”
“Sana po, maging successful dito itong Ilustrado. Sana makasungkit din ng awards, not for me, but for the show itself,” asam ng Kapuso hunk.
AUGUST 2014
100 millionth filipino baby-1
Philippine officials welcomed the birth on Sunday of their country’s 100 millionth citizen with a cake, hope and concerns about how their poor nation can help ensure a decent life for its swelling popula- tion.
A girl named Chonalyn was born short- ly after midnight at the government-run Jose Fabella hospital in Manila, pushing the country’s estimated population to the milestone figure, said Juan Antonio Perez III, executive director of the Commission
on Population.
Wrapped in a blanket and pink bon-
net and cradled by her beaming mother, Chonalyn was showered with a cake, infant clothes and other gifts by health and population commission officials at a hospital ceremony.
The United Nations Population Fund said the milestone offers both challenges and opportunities to the Philippines, which is the world’s 12th most populous country and has one of Asia’s fastest- growing populations.
“It is important to emphasise that popu- lation is not merely a matter of numbers, but of human rights and opportunities,” said Klaus Beck, the UNPF’s Philippines representative.
With 54% of its population under the age of 25, the Philippines needs to provide the young with education, job opportuni- ties and skills, Beck said.
Nearly half of the country’s people live in cities as more Filipinos migrate from rural areas to look for better opportunities elsewhere, fostering problems such as traf- ficking in girls and women that have to be addressed, he said.
In the poorest areas, women bear more children than they desire because of a lack of access to reproductive health informa- tion and services, Beck said.
President Benigno Aquino III signed a law in 2012 that directs government health centers to provide free access to nearly all contraceptives to everyone, particularly
the poor, but its enforcement was delayed amid strong opposition from the dominant Roman Catholic church.
In April, the supreme court declared that the law was constitutional and gave the government the OK to enforce it.
Online absentee voting pushed for 2016
Senate President Franklin Drilon expressed frustration over the low turnout of Oversees Absentee Vot- ers (OAV ) registrants and actual voters despite the huge funds and enormous efforts poured in all past elections.
To avoid further waste of money and energy, Drilon pushed for online absentee registration and voting for the 2016 national elections.
In the last 2013 mid-term elec-
tions, it was learned that only 16 percent or about
117,000 of the 737,759 registered voters participated in the absentee voting.
The data provided by the Com- mittee on Overseas Absentee Voting of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was 153,323 voters lower than the turnout of OAV registrants during the May 2010 presidential elections.
During budget deliberation on the 2014 proposed General Ap-
propriations Act last year, the Senate Committee
on Finance found out that the Comelec has spent nearly four times for OAV registration than the amount spent by the poll body on local voters dur- ing the 2013 polls.
Based on computation of the finance commit- tee, the Comelec spent P319 for each local voter and P1,155 for each absentee voter, based on the turnout of absentee voters.
To effectively address the low turnout of OAV registrants, Drilon called on the Comelec to adopt all the necessary technologies that would encour- age the more than 10 million overseas Filipinos to participate in the 2016 national elections.
L. M. Confidential
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