Upholstered desk chairs swivel

MANILA, Philippines — There is a need for a third Bayanihan measure because the second one “did not work enough,” Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, who chairs the House committee on ways and means, said Monday. Salceda made the remark as he pushed once again for the passage of Bayanihan 3. The House version of the measure remains pending in the House committee on economic affairs. “We need a Bayanihan 3 for the simple reason that Bayanihan 2 did not work enough, and the embedded stimulus in the 2021 budget was formed when our expectations of recovery for this year were still optimistic,” Salceda said in a statement. “We were told that credit stimulus could be leveraged five times. That did not happen. In fact, credit growth shrunk. We were told 2021 would be the start of recovery. In fact, there’s a strong chance we would only see 2019 levels of output by 2022 or 2023,” he added. Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo earlier filed House Bill No. 8628 or the … [Read more...] about Salceda: Bayanihan 3 needed because Bayanihan 2 ‘did not work enough’

MANILA, Philippines—The Senate committee on defense has advised the government’s security forces against publicly linking institutions or activist groups to the communist insurgency on the basis of unproven intelligence reports or information. The committee made this and other recommendations in a report on Feb. 22 on its investigation of alleged Red-tagging of individuals and groups by the military. “The security sector should exercise caution in making public pronouncements as these carry with it a semblance of authority from the State,” the 66-page report read. “The authorities should refrain from publicly vilifying, labelling and imputing guilt by association to the communist groups, various institutions and progressive organizations based on false or unverified information,” it added. ‘Unacceptable blunder’ The committee report pointed to the military’s “recent blunder” in posting on social media a list of University of the Philippines alumnus who had supposedly joined … [Read more...] about Senate panel seeks halt to Red-tagging with false, unverified info as basis

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, the chair of the Senate national defense and security panel, on Wednesday said “Red-tagging,” or the branding of government critics and activists as communists, or enemies of the state, could be declared a criminal act. “As a matter of fact, I am seriously considering the recommendation to criminalize Red-tagging as long as such legislation will not infringe on the Bill of Rights involving freedom of speech and expression,” Lacson told reporters in a Viber message a day he had wrapped up hearings on the issue. He did not say what may be the penalties. Many activist groups and the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives say Red-tagging is largely used by the military and the police and their supporters to harass and intimidate them and in many instances has led to the assassination of some of their members. President Duterte himself escalated enemy-branding on Monday when he directly identified the Makabayan bloc as a front of the Communist Party of … [Read more...] about Lacson: ‘Red-tagging’ may be declared a crime

For a robot vacuum cleaner, the latest LG Hom-Bot (model VR66900TWA) is surprisingly chatty. It issued a warning - in a female voice - when one of its two side brushes became entangled in the net of my children's toy goal post. It also informed me when its battery was low. However, I was often unable to hear what it was saying because of the din from the suction motor or simply because I was too far away. To be fair, the Hom-Bot is one of the quietest robot vacuum cleaners I have tried. LG says it produces a noise level of around 64 decibels or slightly louder than a normal conversation. Because I am used to noisy vacuum cleaners, its relatively silent operation made me doubt its cleaning efficacy. It is probably for people like me, as well as those who have a very dusty home, that LG has included a Turbo mode. This mode, which is automatically activated when cleaning carpets, bumps up the speed of the suction (and the noise level) for a more thorough cleaning. However, it … [Read more...] about Small, silent robot cleaner

Indonesia, which has recorded more than 450,000 coronavirus infections and over 15,000 deaths, has become a linchpin in Beijing’s efforts to assure ASEAN Countries that China – rather than Western countries or Russia – should be their first choice to supply them with an effective, trustworthy coronavirus vaccine. Winning over Southeast Asia’s biggest country and its population of 270 million would put China well on the way to a public relations victory in a region already at the centre of a struggle between Washington and Beijing for influence over the South China Sea and Mekong region. For Beijing the early signs have been encouraging. Last month, after meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Indonesian minister Luhut Pandjaitan – who oversees Chinese investment in the country and is a trusted aide of President Joko Widodo – said Beijing was supporting Jakarta in its attempt to become a regional hub for vaccine production. Coronavirus vaccines in the final stages China now … [Read more...] about China’s Coronavirus Vaccines are ASEAN Countries Ready to Trust Them