NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us that many of the changes that scientists have observed in the climate are unprecedented and worse, some of these changes, like continued sea level rise, are irreversible over hundreds to...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo Prior to becoming a public official, Deputy Speaker and Antique Lone District Representative Loren Legarda was a multi-awarded broadcast journalist. She was an anchor of the highly-regarded and award-winning news program, The World Tonight. She was also the anchor and...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo According to the World Risk Report, inadequate and inefficient infrastructure and weak logistic networks significantly increase the risk for an extreme natural hazard to backslide into a disaster. Philippines lies along the Pacific Typhoon Belt and is within the...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo Diplomatic ties between the Philippines and China formally started in 1975, but the partnership between the two countries dates several centuries back with trade and cultural exchanges flourishing between their peoples. Since the ancient times, Chinese citizens have...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo When Department of Justice Undersecretary Emmeline Aglipay-Villar was diagnosed with lupus – an autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body, including joints, skin and internal organs – she did not know anyone with a similar condition. There was no...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) released “The Project for Study on Improvement of Bridges through Disaster Mitigating Measures for Large-Scale Earthquakes,” a study it undertook in collaboration with the Department of Public Works and Highways...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo When I was in Massachusetts in 2020, the city government of Boston just launched the “Go Boston 2030 Vision Framework,” an initiative which hoped to cement Boston’s place as America’s most walkable city by putting up infrastructure that would improve access...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo Secretary Vivencio “Vince” Dizon would probably be the best example of a multi-tasker, and an effective one at that. He wears many hats, so to speak, serving at the center of the government’s COVID-19 response and the “Build, Build, Build” program. Secretary...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo He was initially identified as President Rodrigo Duterte’s most trusted man, having served as the former Davao City Mayor’s loyal and trustworthy aide for two decades. He was also referred to as the “People’s bridge to the President,” ensuring that the...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo Typhoon Nina, internationally known Nock-ten, entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) on Dec. 23. It intensified as a typhoon on Dec. 24 and made landfall over Catanduanes province on the evening of Dec. 25. At about three p.m., on Christmas Day, I received...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo The economist. The reformist. The professor. While these may sound like characters in a television series, I’m just referring to only one real person. These could well describe the three main hats that Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno...
NIGHT OWL Anna Mae Lamentillo When I asked Finance Secretary Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez III if he thinks that the Philippines will become a trillion-dollar economy, his answer was an emphatic, “Of course! And not in the distant future.” Statistics prior to the COVID-19 pandemic show we are...