LOCSIN TO RAISE SEA ROW, VACCINE ACCESS IN ASEAN MEET

MANILA — Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. will raise equitable access to vaccines, pandemic recovery and the South China Sea issue at the 54th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AFMM) and Related Meetings to be held virtually from Aug. 2 to 6.

Locsin will bring up the Philippines’ priorities in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations during a series of foreign minister level meetings, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

Aside from the 54th AFMM, other foreign minister meetings are the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Interface with ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights Representatives, Meeting of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Commission, 23rd ASEAN Political-Security Community Council Meeting, 29th ASEAN Coordinating Council Meeting, Post Ministerial Conferences with Dialogue Partners, 22nd ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, 11th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and 28th ASEAN Regional Forum.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will participate in five virtual ministerial meetings related to the ASEAN from Aug. 2 to 6. These will be the US-ASEAN, East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Mekong-US Partnership and Friends of the Mekong ministerial meetings.

During the meetings, Blinken will engage with leaders from across the Indo-Pacific on pressing regional and international issues. He will reaffirm the United States’ commitment to ASEAN centrality and to working with ASEAN and international partners to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and support economic recovery.

US SENATE DEMOCRATS URGE BIDEN TO ADDRESS PHILIPPINE RIGHTS SITUATION

MANILA — Democrats at the US Senate have raised concerns over alleged human rights abuses in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte and asked the Biden administration what it has done about the reported violations.

In a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week, Senate Democrats also sought to understand US President Joe Biden's strategy to address the Duterte government’s “continuing pattern of human rights violations.”

“We urge the Biden administration to stand with the people of the Philippines as they continue to fight for their universal human rights,” the senators said.

They added the State Department should condemn the abuses "at the highest levels in our diplomatic engagements with the Philippine government representatives, as well as publicly."

The letter was led by Sen. Ed Markey (Massachusetts), who chairs the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific. He was joined by 10 other Senate Democrats:

Patrick Leahy (Vermont)

Jeffrey A. Merkley (Oregon)

Sherrod Brown (Ohio)

Ben Cardin (Maryland)

Ron Wyden (Oregon)

Bob Casey (Pennsylvania)

Cory Booker (New Jersey)

Richard Durbin (Illinois)

Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts)

Chris Van Hollen (Maryland)

Markey, Leahy and Durbin have been banned from entering the Philippines following their support for a provision in the US government's spending bill that allowed banning officials involved in the detention of Sen. Leila De Lima from travelling to the United States.

'WHO WILL COME NEXT?': DE LIMA QUESTIONS DEATH OF WITNESS VINCENT SY FROM CARDIAC ARREST

MANILA — Opposition Sen. Leila de Lima questioned Sunday the "trend of witnesses dying" as she raised the possibility of foul play after the second straight death of a former witness against her amid the coronavirus pandemic.

This comes after Vincent Sy, a convicted drug lord who once testified against De Lima, suddenly died of a heart attack on Thursday, July 29.

Sy, who previously testified and said that he contributed half a million pesos to De Lima's senatorial campaign in 2012, eventually retracted his claims and admitted he did not know De Lima according to the senator's lawyer.

"It's not remote that any, some, if not all, of these prosecution witnesses who were either coerced, threatened, bribed or blackmailed to lie about my alleged drug links would be targeted for extermination in order to permanently silence them from exposing the truth about my cases," the senator said in a dispatch from her cell in Camp Crame.

"This beleaguering trend of witnesses dying still does not give comfort to me who is waiting for their eventual revelation on who are behind these fabricated charges filed against me. As they say, dead men tell no tales. And it appears that my persecutors are sticking to the malevolent wisdom of this saying. As if the truth can be eternally buried or is not inevitable. As if there's no day of reckoning."

The death of Sy is only the second high-profile death linked to De Lima's case after drug convict Jaybee Sebastian also succumbed to the coronavirus in July last year. Former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II accused him of running a funding campaign to support De Lima's Senate run in 2016.

"I believe and maintain, to this day, that it was a case of deliberate killing in order to block his then impending retraction of his affidavit falsely implicating me in the Bilibid drug trade," she said Sunday of Sebastian's death.

De Lima was jailed in 2017 over drug charges filed by the Department of Justice. She is accused of involvement in the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison when she was Justice secretary during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III.

MANILA POSTS NEW ALL-TIME HIGH VACCINATION

MANILA — The Manila city government recorded a new all-time high of 44,570 vaccine doses administered on Saturday.

“We have reached another all-time high vaccination record in a single day,” Mayor Isko Moreno said.

The figure was higher than the 44,077 vaccines administered on July 20 and 43,011 doses on July 5, according to Moreno.

City hall said the vaccination on Saturday catered mostly to recipients of second doses, adding 41,559 fully vaccinated individuals in Manila.

The local government also launched a drive-through vaccination site at the Quirino Grandstand. At least 400 slots were offered on Saturday during the launch.

Manila has administered a total of 1,328,713 vaccine doses as of Saturday.

DOH PANEL MEMBER SAYS OCTA DATA 'PROBLEMATIC'; LIKENS ONE PREDICTION TO FORTUNE-TELLING

MANILA - A member of the Department of Health's expert panel group on Monday criticized independent research group OCTA for releasing "problematic" data on the country's COVID-19 situation.

"Their model, unfortunately, is problematic because they are using data that is incomplete and inconsistent. There are other things you have to look at," Dr. Edsel Salvaña, a member of the DOH Technical Advisory Group, told ANC's "Rundown".

"I have no personal quarrel with them. In fact, some of the OCTA people are my good friends but in terms of if they're going to make projections, I wish that they would be more circumspect," he added.

OCTA is a group of doctors, researchers and professors from different universities, which has been releasing its own daily bulletins.

This comes after OCTA said there may already be community transmission of the COVID-19 Delta variant in Metro Manila. This is based on the increasing percentage of COVID-19 cases detected in the country through genome sequencing.

Salvaña also slammed one of OCTA's predictions as "fortune-telling". He referred to an incident on July 22 when OCTA said the number of COVID-19 cases in the country may increase to 8,000. The daily coronavirus infections recorded on that same day was over 5,800.

"Sabi ko, alam mo (I said, you know what, that's) fortune- telling yan eh because in the first place, you can't exactly calculate how many cases would come out in one day," he said.

"In the first place, there's backlogs, there's all these things. We don't do that in science. Hindi kami manghuhula (we are not fortune-tellers.). The important thing is you look at trends and you analyzed the data properly," he added.

Salvaña also called on OCTA to refrain from declaring things related to COVID-19 as "official".

PGH NOTES RISE IN COVID-19 ADMISSIONS OVER PAST WEEK

MANILA - Virus cases in the Philippine General Hospital, the country's biggest COVID-19 referral center, has consistently climbed over the past week, its spokesman said Monday.

The PGH as of Sunday has 143 COVID-19 patients out of its 250 beds, said Dr. Jonas del Rosario.

"Patuloy po ang pagtaas mula po ito ng nakaraang linggo.

For the last 10 days talagang consistent na umaakyat ang aming admissions," he told ABS-CBN's Teleradyo.

Some of its healthcare workers who contracted mild to moderate COVID-19 illness were also admitted, Del Rosario said as he noted that the majority of the hospital's staff were fully vaccinated.

"Most are mild symptoms. May dalawa na inadmit pero nasa moderate, recovered na rin po iyon," he said.

The referral center assumes all of its virus cases are Delta variants, according to the spokesman.

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PHILIPPINES' COVID-19 DEATH TOLL BREACHES 28,000; OVER 8,000 NEW CASES CONFIRMED

MANILA - One hundred twenty seven more deaths were reported from COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the disease’s death toll in the Philippines to 28,016.

The Philippines confirmed 8,735 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday bringing the country’s total to 1,597,689.

The country reported conducting 50,116 tests on July 30, of which 14.9 percent were positive.

The Department of Health also reported 5,930 new recoveries, pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 1,506,027.

This means that the country has a total of 63,646 active cases as of 4 p.m. Sunday.

METRO MANILA PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION TO REMAIN DURING ECQ: OFFICIAL

MANILA - Public transportation in Metro Manila will remain during the strict lockdown from August 6 to 20, the Department of the Interior and Local Government said Monday.

The transportation department has yet to advise if it would allow fewer public utility vehicles, said DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya.

"Hindi po natin kailangan ng libreng sakay dahil...the current public transportation will be maintained," he told ABS-CBN's Teleradyo.

"Wala pa pong abiso samin ang Department of Transportation kung magbabawas but we understand the need to keep public transportation."

Authorized persons outside their homes will include essential workers and residents scheduled for COVID-19 vaccination, Malaya earlier said.

"Kailangan pong makapunta ang tao sa bakunahan (People need to get to vaccination sites) that is why we’re maintaining the level of public transportation right now," he said.

The DILG will also ensure that policemen stationed at checkpoints have a negative confirmatory test result for COVID-19, Malaya added.

CEBU CITY HOSPITALS, CEMETERIES 'FULL' AS COVID-19 CASES RISE - OFFICIAL

MANILA – Cebu City hospitals are full and cemeteries cannot accommodate more burials, an official said Monday following a surge of COVID-19 cases in the city.

Wakes, interment and funerals, and burial must be held within 3 days of a person’s death under the modified enhanced community quarantine, said Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak, citing Inter-Agency Task Force Against COVID-19 guidelines.

“Lahat ng sementeryo natin napupuno na talaga sa city proper natin, subalit dun sa rural areas natin, may 2 pa tayong rural area cemetery na okay pa po. Pwede pa po natin magamit,” he told ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.

"Yung mga mamamatay po na ‘di makakaafford ng cremation, lalo na yung positive, kailangan ilibing kaagad within 24 hours."

Tumulak said ambulances are circling hospitals as they wait for patients to get triaged and admitted.

The city on Sunday logged 415 fresh cases, bringing its total active infections to 2,700.

"Last week pa po nakikita natin nagpipila na ang mga ambulance natin. Di natin pwede mailagay kaagad sa emergency room [ang mga pasyente] kasi punong-puno na rin ang emergency room,” he said.

"Nakausap ko po ang mga driver ng sasakyan. Paikot-ikot sila, aabot pa nga sila sa Lapu-Lapu City, Mandaue City.”

The councilor appealed to national government to intervene in the hiring of more health workers as virus cases surged in the city.

"It takes the support of the national government. Kawawa naman po ang private hospitals natin kasi kulang po sila ng staff. It needs the intervention of the national government to support our private hospitals, not only private hospitals but also public hospitals,” he said.

CEBU PLACED UNDER GCQ UNTIL AUGUST 15

MANILA — From modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ), the province of Cebu has been placed under general community quarantine (GCQ) with heightened restrictions starting yesterday until Aug. 15.

Meanwhile, the government tightened the quarantine status of Aklan, Apayao and Laguna to MECQ for the same period.

Aklan and Laguna  were under GCQ with heightend restrictions, while Apayao was under GCQ before they were escalated to MECQ.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said yesterday that President Duterte approved a recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to reclassify Cebu from MECQ to GCQ with heightened restrictions.

On Friday, Duterte announced that Metro Manila would be under the strictest enhanced community quarantine from Aug. 6 to 20.

The tightening of the quarantine status was meant to prevent the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant of COVID.

METRO MANILA RESIDENTS GETTING VACCINATED VS COVID-19 ALLOWED OUTDOORS DURING ECQ: OFFICIAL

MANILA - Metro Manila residents getting their COVID-19 vaccines during the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) from August 6 to 20 will be allowed to leave their homes, an official said Sunday.

Aside from essential workers, vaccinees will be included among authorized persons outside their residence (APOR), Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said.

"Hihingin lamang ang vaccination card o kaya text o notice mula sa LGU (local government unit) na sila ay naka-schedule for bakuna at sila ay papayagang makalabas ng kanilang mga bahay," he told ABS-CBN's Teleradyo.

Cargo delivery vehicles are free to enter and leave the capital region, Malaya said. Other vehicles will be subject to checkpoints, he added.

"‘Yung papasok ng NCR Plus at lalabas ng NCR Plus, pareho po yan iche-checkpoint," he said.(Those that will enter and leave NCR Plus will be subjected to checkpoints.)

BACLARAN CHURCH SUSPENDS MASSES

MANILA — Masses and other religious activities at the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran, Parañaque are suspended amid heightened restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, church officials said masses are suspended until the end of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) on Aug. 20.

“This was approved by the Diocese of Parañaque to prevent the spike of COVID-19 cases, especially the more infectious Delta variant,” the church said.

Masses can be streamed live on Facebook and Youtube.

The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases placed the National Capital Region under general community quarantine with heightened restrictions until Aug. 5 due to the rising cases of the Delta variant.

ENTERTAINMENT & LIFESTYLE

CHICO ALICAYA, AMANDA ZAMORA JOIN STAR CINEMA'S 'LOVE AT FIRST STREAM'

MANILA -- The tandem of Chico Alicaya and Amanda Zamora will be part of Star Cinema's upcoming project "Love at First Stream," which will be directed by Cathy Garcia-Molina.

The two will be the "guest love team" in the film which will be headlined by Daniela Stranner, Anthony Jennings, Kaori Oinuma and Rhys Miguel.

In Star Magic's Inside News, Zamora and Alicaya shared their thoughts joining the big screen project after winning the “Love Team Stream” campaign on Kumu.

"Sobrang saya ko siyempre hindi pa ako nagkakaroon ng movie kung saan may role talaga ako since dati nage-extra pa lang ako kaya sobrang laking blessing na nanalo kami through this opportunity," Zamora said.

"Mixed emotions lang talaga. I am excited and nervous at the same time. Pero nervous in a good way. I can't wait to work with these talented people," Alicaya said.

Zamora and Alicaya admitted that they did not expect to win and be part of the film.

"Alam kong maraming malalakas na contenders, contestants na sobrang talented din in their own ways. Kaya I really do respect and look up to them and I want to say na great job din sa lahat ng sumali," Zamora said.

"I don't think na nag-expect kami parang all in our head is just do your best, do your best lang talaga para no regrets," Alicaya added.

It was last month when Olivia Lamasan, managing director of ABS-CBN Films, and Kumu's senior vice president for business development Paolo Pineda announced that Star Cinema, the country's biggest film production company, and Kumu, the country's biggest live streaming and social entertainment platform, are teaming up to create a one-of-a-kind film.

SPORTS

OLYMPICS: PH’S KNOTT EXITS 200M RACE AFTER FINISHING LAST IN HER HEATS

Kristina Knott of the Philippines finished 5th and last in her heats in the women’s 200 meters on Monday to exit the Olympics in Tokyo.

Knott, the reigning Southeast Asian Games champion, clocked 23.80 seconds in the preliminaries at Olympic Stadium, far off her personal best and Philippine record of 23.01 seconds.

Only the top 3 finishers in each of the 7 heats and the next 3 fastest times advanced to the semifinals later in the day.

Knott qualified for the Olympics via universality rule.

Meanwhile, defending champion Elaine Thompson-Herah kicked off her audacious bid for an unprecedented Olympic women's sprint "double-double" by advancing to the 200m semi-finals on Monday.

Thompson-Herah, who outgunned teammate Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to seal back-to-back 100m golds on Saturday, finished third in her 200m heat which was won by Canadian Emmanuel Crystal in 22.74sec.

Fraser-Pryce also progressed, but 100m bronze medallist Shericka Jackson, also of Jamaica, failed to make it through after inexplicably slowing with 40 metres to run.

Christine Nboma of Namibia clocked the fastest time, 22.11sec, to finish her heat ahead of red-hot US favourite Gabby Thomas, who was reveling in her Olympic experience.

Another athlete missing from the field was Belarusian Kristina Timanovskaya.

She said Sunday she was "safe" and under police protection in Japan after claiming her country had forced her to leave the Tokyo Olympics.

The 24-year-old said team officials had tried to remove her from Japan after she criticized Belarus's athletics federation for entering her into a relay race in Tokyo without giving her notice.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. - Clive James