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VOL. XXXVI • NO. 359 • 3 SECTIONS 12 PAGES • P20 • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2023 • www.manilastandard.net • mst.daydesk@gmail.com
FLATTENED BY QUAKE. This aerial view shows residents searching for victims and survivors amidst the rubble of collapsed buildings following an earthquake in the village of Besnia near the town of Harim, in Syria’s rebel-held northwestern Idlib province on the border with Turkey, on February 6. Thousands have been reportedly killed in north Syria after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that originated in Turkey and was felt across neighboring countries. AFP
PH mission off to Turkey, Syria Joins other nations in rescue, medical efforts as death toll crosses 5,000 It could likely happen here, too—Phivolcs AS A magnitude 7.8 earthquake recently hit Turkey and Syria, the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) on Tuesday said such a magnitude is also likely to happen in the country. “There’s always this possibility. In
fact, it already happened on July 16, 1990… The 1990 Luzon earthquake was magnitude 7.8,” Phivolcs Director Teresito Bacolcol said in a briefing. Bacolcol added that the country has many active faults that are capable of Next page
HE Philippines is joining other nations in offering aid to Turkey and Syria, as a contingent of rescuers and medical personnel are leaving today to assist in search and rescue operations following the massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the region on Monday.
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A massive rescue effort in both Turkey and Syria battled frigid weather in a race against time to find survivors under buildings flattened by an earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said
the country’s aim was to send a contingent of rescuers and healthcare volunteers by Wednesday to assist in the search and rescue of survivors and victims of the strong temblor that devastated the two countries.
“We organized a group of about 85 personnel together with some goods,” Mr. Marcos said, adding he received assurance from an airline company that will be assisting the Philippine contingent to Turkey. Citing figures from the attached agencies, the Department of Foreign Affairs said some 248 Filipinos in Turkish provinces were affected by the earthquake, while there are 60 in Syria. As of Tuesday, Feb. 7, DFA said no Next page
WHO warns up to 23m people could be affected by 7.8 tremor
TAX CAMPAIGN. President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is flanked by Speaker Martin Romualdez and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. during the 2023 National Tax Campaign Kickoff at the PICC in Pasay City on Tuesday. Rey Baniquet
GENEVA—Up to 23 million people could be affected by the massive earthquake that has killed thousands in Turkey and Syria, the WHO warned on Tuesday, promising long-term assistance. “Event overview maps show that potentially 23 million people are exposed, including around five million vulnerable populations,” the World Health Organization’s senior emergencies officer Adelheid Marschang said. “Civilian infrastructure and potentially health infrastructure have been damaged across the affected region, mainly in Turkey and northwest Syria,” she said.
The WHO “considers that the main unmet needs may be in Syria in the immediate and mid-term,” Marschang told the WHO’s executive committee in Geneva. She spoke as rescuers in Turkey and Syria braved freezing cold, aftershocks, and collapsing buildings, as they dug for survivors buried by a string of earthquakes that killed more than 5,000 people. “It is now a race against time,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, explaining that the UN health agency was urgently sending aid to the area.
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Speaker slams Jan. inflation hit 14-year high 8.7% as prices of basic needs soar agri traders to ‘moderate greed’ of easing in January, rising to 8.7 percent from 8.1 percent a month ago and 3 percent a year ago, driven mainly by faster increases in the prices of housing, water, electricity, gas, and fuel, the Philippine INFLATION rose to its highest level in Statistics Authority (PSA) said Tuesday. “The January 2023 inflation was the more than 14 years and showed no sign
By Julito G. Rada, Vince Lopez, Maricel V. Cruz, Macon Ramos-Araneta, and Othel V. Campos
By Maricel V. Cruz SPEAKER Martin Romualdez on Tuesday urged “profit-hungry traders” manipulating or hoarding the supply and prices of agricultural products, particularly onions to “moderate their greed” or suffer the dire consequences of their actions. Romualdez and other leaders of the House met earlier with representatives from the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) during which he called for an all-out war against profiteers preying on consumers. “We’ll be working closely with the Executive, with the Department of Next page
highest since November 2008 at 9.1 percent,” national statistician and civil registrar general Dennis Mapa said in a briefing. PSA data also showed that core inflation — a measure of inflation that captures changes in the price of goods and services, excluding food and ener-
Labor group: Rising prices erode daily wage by P88 By Vito Barcelo AT LEAST P88 has been eroded from the P570 minimum wage in Metro Manila due to the continuous rise in the prices of basic commodities, the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said Tuesday. “We call on Congress to legislate a P100 across-the-board salary increase
for all workers as relief from the shock of rising prices,” Rene Magtubo, PM national chair, said. “The P570 minimum wage in NCR (National Capital Region) is actually just worth P482 by December 2022,” he added. “P88 has been shaved off the real value of the minimum wage. Meaning, not only has the P33 minimum wage
hike in June 2022 been effectively wiped out by runaway inflation, workers’ real wages have been pushed back even further,” Magtubo said. The labor group thus called for a new round of wage hikes to recover workers’ lost purchasing power not just in Metro Manila but across the whole country due to the surge in inflation. Next page
gy — accelerated to 7.4 percent from 6.9 percent in December, the highest since April 1999. The housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels index had an inflation of 8.5 percent in January 2023 from 7 Next page
Omicron strain XBB1.5 here
THE Philippines has confirmed its first case of the coronavirus omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which experts said causes the most transmissible form of COVID-19, the Department of Health said Tuesday. Out of 1,078 samples sequenced by health authorities from Jan. 30 to Feb. 3, 196 were found as XBB, including one case classified as XBB.1.5, the DOH Next page