hmes 2013: Support PHIVOLCS' modernization please, now!

Source: http://www.hazmapping.com

From over 40 casualties, the death toll has risen to nearly 100 in the Carmen, Bohol Province-Cebu City earthquake. At that figure, the Carmen-Cebu tremor can qualify as a Killer Quake. Cebu and nearby areas has to be declared to be in a state of calamity. There are limited manuevers that aircraft can make at the Cebu airport due to the cracking and opening up of the airport's runways.

The six million dollar question is: how many more incidents like those in Carmen, Bohol and Cebu City and the other ones in Leyte, Samar will we be expecting?

Were the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Philvolcs) prepared adequately enough with equipment to monitor ground movement, tectonic plate disturbance, the nearly 100 deaths could have been avoided. 27 Billion Philippine Pesos is earmarked for pork barrel in the 2014 General Appropriations Act out of a total expenditure program of 2.26 Trillion Philippine Pesos. Would it be difficult to allocate even half of that pork barrel budget for emergency preparedness, disaster risk reduction, equipment upgrade?

Past Warnings of Big Disaster

This site has been warning the public for more than four years since the time of the former President, Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Due to the total torpedoing of the private sector (Corinthian Gardens, Forbes Park, Dasmarinas Village, the owners of high rise condominiums at the left side of EDSA southbound, among others), of the program for predicting highly lethal effects of a major tremor in Metro Manila and the replication of this effort in many urban areas in the country by the same sector in collusion with some corrupt officials in the government, a large disaster and environmental hazards summit was proposed to be supported by the Philippine Government and the United Nations, among other institutions from many other sectors - including the non-profit (minus the Napoles et al NGOs).

Wanting responses

It is reiterated that in the time of Mrs. Arroyo, only the then Administrator of the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), Ms. Elaine Bautista, now Mrs. Horn, had the small effort to make an email message to the proponents of the 2010 Disaster and Environmental Hazards Mapping Summit. And that was only because the United Nations Environment Programm (UNEP)  told the former Ms. Bautista to get in touch with HMES 2010 organizing group. At the time, concurrent to her post in MARINA, Ms. Bautista was considered a friend of UNEP and a significant point person for the Philippine Government in relation to selected UNEP concerns - particularly about emergency and assistance.

When Mr. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino 3rd became President, the organizing group wrote to Ms. Corazon Juliano Soliman of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and Gen. Voltaire Tuvera Gazmin. Ms. Soliman did not respond. It was noticed however that several days later, Gen. Gazmin, the Secretary of the Department of National Defense gave an interview to national media.

In that interview, when Gazmin was asked about what the people should do when a disaster strikes, he replied: "Run for your lives."

Carrying the barest minimum luggage in their bodies, the poor, helpless people in above photos must have taken advice similar to that of Gen. Voltaire Gazmin's to leave and forget belongings elsewhere and to "run for your lives."

It will appear that the kind of response the government has given is exceedingly wanting in substance. It is hoped however that as a grandfather and parent, Gazmin to no fault of his own was merely showing his personal concern for the safety of the life of the average citizen. He was probably very well-meaning and was admonishing the people not to bring their television sets, beds, furniture, cash safety vaults, washing machines, cabinets, sofa, stoves with their fuel gas tanks, desk-stand-ceiling fans, air conditioners, desktop computers and refrigerators outside of their homes and instead to proceed to a more safe location and be saved in time of major catastrophe.

The head of the Philvolcs, Dr. Renato Solidum absolutely cannot be faulted and is blameless. For decades, had been ready to accept the support for equipment upgrade and modernization. Despite the billions of funds allocated to the departments of the government, the great oversight of perpetually forgetting to take care of the Philvolcs modernization programme has consistently been committed by this government.

Despite the billions lost for the personal enrichment of selected persons in our public sector and their intimate partners in very enterprising undertakings in the private sector, no one has shown keen interest in allowing the Philvolcs to finally get hold of the adequate funding for acquisition of hardware and software that will highly increase its forecasting accuracy and its earthquake trending studies and research on the major faults all over the country. Click here for more.

The many faces of synergy

Synetic Industries: Epitome of synergy. Confluence and Convergence. Unifying and coming together. Joining people. Joining hands. Joining technologies. Joining systems. Linking networks. Merging applications. Connecting people and technologies in high synergistic mode. Combining energies.

The many graphic faces of synergy

Philippine IP Laws

The Philippine Copyright Law is published and readable in open sources such asWikipedia. Other sites publish the entire Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines such as the Chan Robles law office.

It will be clear upon digesting the provisions of law for protection of intellectual property ownership that a large number of safeguards, safety nets are available for owners of intellectual property.

During conferences, conventions, seminars and small group meetings organized by thePhilippine Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHIL), the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) of the United Nations and many other organizations concerned with protecting the rights of owners to their proprietary intellectual products, brands, literature, music, among others, the common lament among the very officials and their staff involved with IPO in the majority of countries around the world, the worst kind of problem encountered is the lack of support by the judiciary and the prosecution system.

The law enforcement sector is considered to be part of the integrated prosecution system of any country, according to past and present paradigms.

In sum, there are hardly cases that are successfully prosecuted, litigated in Court. One of the IPO community's concerns in recent past was imparting the knowledge about IPR to Judges of Philippine Courts and even going to the extent of forming Special IPR Courts for the Philippines.

Whether the efforts of the Philippine Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHIL) are succeeding, we can only surmise. The extent of piracy in the Philippines, the brand copying and the rampant engagement of local contractors of foreign brand owners in IPR infringement themselves, is so great that it is safe to say the revenues that had been lost to notorious violations of IPR laws and the Geneva Convention agreements from the 1980s alone to the present run to multi-trillions of Philippine Pesos.

If this staggering amount will not affect neither jolt the judiciary, the prosecution system and the whole gamut of government into action, then nothing can.

Meanwhile, the victims of infringement of rights of ownership of intellectual property, whether affluent or poor can just die waiting for the solutions to come or fight it out with the IP thieves until they are meted the applicable sanctions under law, if ever that will happen. Unlike the PDAF-DAP Scandal, in terms of relevance, the organizers of gimmick rallies and protests and media hype will not give due course to promoting or fostering collective action against the poisoning of our children because of chemical laced toys, burning of entire neighborhoods due to substandard christmas lights or electric wires, cables and factory defective mobile phone chargers and exploding cellular phones themselves, to name only a few of the dangers of uncontrolled piracy.

As a PR practitioner once said with contempt, "it just ain't saleable to the public, that's why." What public? 

Source: IPR Laws and Regulations - Synetic Industries

Synetic Industries

Announcement from Synetic Industries

This site will publish an open letter to the owner of a multi-billion owner of a retail-banking-real estate-gambling conglomerate with regard to illegal business practices without due regard to the parties that are robbed of the opportunity to profit from their proprietary interests.

The open letter will be published in a few days. An email copy form of the open letter will be sent to the various public sector agencies as well as to public institutions based outside the Philippines, that are concerned with the legal remedies and sanctions pertaining to the illegal acts committed by the said retail-banking-real estate-gambling conglomerate headquartered in the Philippines, with a number of satellite branches overseas.

The Hideous Face of Corruption

The COA - Chairperson (photo below) of the Commission on Audit's Report on the 10-Billion non-government organization fund scam is dismissed by House of Representatives Speaker as indefensible in Court since it was signed only by a Task Force and not by the COA Commissioners themselves.

Photo Credit: Pastor Eryche Cortez

Image source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Honorable Ma. Grace Pulido Tan, Chairperson, Commission on Audit, was extremely moved and broke into tears and called the content of her Report over national media the vernacular equivalent of "horrifying," "monstrous," "diabolic," or "hideous" (kahindik-hindik). For reasons unknown, print media downgrades Hon. Grace Tan's description (kahindik-hindik) into the subtler synonym of "disgusting." ABC Channel 5 Radio anchors, the Tulfo brothers give more ooze and juice when mentioning Hon. Grace Tan's ghoulish remark.

Hon. Grace Tan knows whereof she speaks. Her namesake, the famous accountant R. Pulido, possibly a very close relative, was an imposing figure in the Commission on Audit for many decades and spread his influences and powers generously, that in the period of the late 90s a lot of young persons claimed they were begat by the erstwhile young, charming female persons who became beneficiaries of his COAish auditorial visiting powers. The namesake was not as opulent as Napoles of late, but managed pretty well.

Meanwhile, hovering in the air is the filing of applicable charges vs. 20 persons to include former the former President, Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo - GMA, as well as Madam Janet Lim Napoles aka Jenny. At the same time, truly hideous as the Hon. Grace Tan's corruption Report revelations is the dole out of hundreds of millions of dollars (over fifty billion Philippine Pesos) by His Excellency Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III to the Honorable Members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Philippines. This is in payment of the support for His Excellency, The President, of his firm advocacy of the impeachment of the head of the Philippine Supreme Court, The Honorable Chief Justice Renato C. Corona as well as The Honorable Justice Merceditas Guitierrez, head of the government watchdog agency, The Office of the Ombudsman.

Former Members of the House of Representatives who are intimately identified with His Excellency, The President were also disclosed to be involved in huge money-making schemes that will expose the Philippine Government to the tune of several hundred to billions of dollars (Rail project, Batangas break-water project, tens of other big ticket public sector contracts - both funded or to be financed by loans and private investments under the Build-Operate-Transfer, Build-Operate-Lease and several other similar scheme.)

The biggest surprise for this and the following week is the identification of the actual and real faces behind the Napoles fund scam. Going all out for the filing of cases, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice, among other agencies, will be stumped when new information comes to light about the true nature of the campaign to popularize the issue about Napoles' scam, notwithstanding the great breadth and horrendously humongous size of the scam perpetrated by others like Messrs. Zaldy Co and his fellows in ABAKADA Party List and non-profit as well as business corporations and involving huge property ownerships such as the Misibis Bay, Midas Hotel, among others.

Author Ms. Raissa Robles speaks of her strong early perception of the linkage between Napoles and the former Lady President, GMA as well as former presidential spouse, ex-First Gentleman Miguel T. Arroyo. The public deserves to know these things and deserve to be told not just the basic facts but the rationale behind why certain persons treat 70 billion Philippine Pesos as simple spending money, without any scruples as to why these funds are being thrown about like gift candy to greedy demons in superbly tailored jusi, pina and classy bespoke suits.

In the next few days, so much more information will be revealed, most specially in the same volume as the kilometric legal depositions and narratives, legal research about the Napoles multi-level networking scam, necromancy and rabid brown-nosing in the corridors of power. The public will have their share of the reality behind these scams and how it becomes apparent as Hon. Grace P. Tan declared, that indeed there is such a thing as The Extremely Hideous (kahindik-hindik) Face of Corruption.

Announcement

A business organization internet site will publish an open letter, addressed to the top-ranked Asia billionaire owner of a huge retail-banking-real estate-gambling conglomerate with regard to illegal business practices without due regard to the parties that are robbed of the opportunity to profit from their proprietary interests.

This letter will be emailed to various public sector agencies concerned with providing legal remedies and sanctions on individuals and groups committing illegal acts similar to those perpetrated by the retail-banking-real estate-gambling conglomerate in the Philippines.

Transforming Perspective in Philippine Elections

The perspective in Philippine elections could be transformed into a more efficient, fraud and corruption-free system.

This is espoused by the private sector as shown below:

The Government of the Philippines' Commission on Elections and its allied government agencies can do well to modernize the whole gamut of equipment and software now existing and in use within the Commission.

In April 2013, private sector group encouraged the head of that agency to upgrade the Comelec system to the state-of-the-art and the best communications technology.

Considering the dynamics of government approval of unsolicited proposals, it may either take a long process before the public sector responds to the proposal, but it is also possible that government may not mind encouragements such as this at all. See more of this article here.

It is envisioned that if not under this administration, a similar system shall emerge through the political will of the succeeding administrations.