Y101 Diaries

255 All Batteries. More batteries, more power.
After a long time, Senator Manuel "Lito" Lapid on Monday showed up for a hearing on a bill that seeks to give tax credits to private lawyers who provide services to the poor.
After the hearing, Lapid said he was inspired to file Senate Bill 2301 by the story of a man who spent five years in jail for throwing a stone at a streetlamp because he had no lawyer to defend him. The bill proposes tax credits of between P10,000 and P30,000 for all legal services, and P50,000 for services involving litigation.

A strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked the northern Philippines and southern parts of Taiwan early Sunday, shaking houses and prompting authorities to order some people to leave their homes. Most of the activity was under water, under the seabed of the Batanes Islands. There were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage and no tsunami warning was issued. The quake was also felt in southern counties of Taiwan, where the Central Weather Bureau measured it at 6.8 on the Richter scale and at a depth of 46 kilometres.

355 All Batteries. More batteries, more power.
Over the weekend, Speaker Prospero Nograles announced that we the taxpayers may now keep an eye on them congressmen through Global News Network (GNN) or online. GNN (Channel 3) will feature live broadcasts of the House plenary sessions as well as committee hearings when Congress is in session. These will be replayed during non-session days. They call it Congress TV which will be simultaneously on a webcast. Hopefully you're hooked on Destiny Cable. The test broadcast started last Friday. Regular programming is expected to start this week.

(sāɴ-lô-rän')
The fashion world grieves as we speak as the industry suffers the loss of the man who put women in pantsuits. International fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent died Sunday night at his home in Paris. Saint-Laurent has been increasingly dogged with ill health and retired in 2002 wile some critics said his work was becoming repetitious. In 1999, he sold the rights to the YSL brand to Gucci for $70 million, retaining control of Sanofi Beaute. Saint Laurent was the last of an era of fashion designers that included Coco Chanel and Christian Dior, for whom Saint Laurent worked until Dior's death in 1957.

Anchor Family Milk.
HEADLINES. Australia, one of the first countries to commit troops to the war in Iraq five years ago, has ended its combat operations there. Australian troops are due to begin returning home in a few days in line with a promise by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who swept to power in November. He said the Iraq deployment was making Australia more of a terrorist target. The Australians had deployed more than 500 troops in Iraq, helping to train some 33,000 Iraqi soldiers. About 300 Australians will remain inside Iraq on logistical and air surveillance duties. No Australian soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq though several were wounded.

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A Canadian privacy group has filed a complaint against the social networking site Facebook accusing it of violating privacy laws. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic has listed 22 separate breaches of privacy law in its country. Officials say Facebook needs to be held publicly accountable. Facebook rejects the charge, claiming some of the highest standards around. The complaint, filed with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, states that Facebook collects sensitive information about its users and shares it without their permission. It goes on to say that the company does not alert users about how that information is being used and does not adequately destroy user data after accounts are closed.

555 Filinvest---we build the Filipino dream.
Barack Obama is poised to claim the Democratic presidential nomination this week, but Hillary Clinton shows no signs of conceding. How their endgame plays out -- in continued rivalry, as running mates or something in between -- will go a long way toward determining Democrats' fortunes this fall. With more Democratic Party leaders -- the so-called superdelegates -- set to endorse Sen. Obama in coming days, and the dispute over Michigan and Florida convention delegates settled over the weekend to Sen. Obama's and the states' satisfaction, Sen. Clinton's last hopes of an upset appear to be dashed. Sen. Clinton reportedly isn't too ecstatic about her victory n Puerto Rico's Democratic primary where she scored a 68% to 32%, winning about 20 more of its 55 delegates than did Sen. Obama. The weekend's gains still leave her too far behind in the overall delegate tally to overtake him. Even so, Sen. Clinton vows to fight on, though the Puerto Rico landslide almost certainly will be the last in a recent string of wins that came too late and brought her too few delegates. Mr. Obama is heavily favored in Tuesday's final two primaries.

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Government task forces\, Task Force on Energy Contingency led by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, met with transport groups today in hopes of paralyzing transport holiday and to ddress their concerns about soaring oil prices in the country. TRansport groups have been awarded provisional fare hikes last week while President Arroyo continues to reject calls to scrap the 12-percent eVat. The government has instead offered a P2-billion subsidy in the diesel products for public utility vehicles and promised to intensify the campaign against "kotong" cops and colorum vehicles. The Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) also announced a P1billion allocation for the conversion of diesel-fed engines to LPGfed vehicles. Other support mechanisms being eyed are rice subsidies for the public transport sector and tax exemption on spare parts. We'll keep you in the loop for how this meeting turns out.