It’s a historic day for human rights and justice in the Philippines. The Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court has ruled to confirm the charges of crimes against humanity against former President Rodrigo Duterte:
It effectively denies his request to be released and returned the Philippines and sets the stage for the trial to follow. After years of living in anguish, suffering and fear, the victims of Duterte’s brutal war on drugs will finally have their day in court.
After three days, my youngest was finally discharged from the hospital yesterday. This wasn’t his first hospital admission so we were more familiar with the discharge procedures. So after completing the paperwork and settling the part of the hospital bill that wasn’t covered by our HMO and PhilHealth, it was a pleasant surprise when an actual PhilHealth employee came to see us for a quick interview/survey.
The PhilHealth employee courteously introduced herself as someone directly assigned to monitor the state insurer’s services at the hospital we stayed at. She wen through our bill, clearly explaining how the PhilHealth coverage was like that and the amount it covered, which was significantly larger compared to the last time my youngest, or any of us, was admitted for hospital treatment.
She then went on to ask us if the hospital asked us to make a cash deposit prior to admission, as this was against PhilHealth’s ‘zero balance billing’ program. I replied in the negative. Then her next was question was whether or not there were any difficulties availing of PhilHealth services, again I replied in the negative. Come to think of it, we’ve never had any difficulties availing services from PhilHealth. It seems that this is advantage of having up to date records and continuous contributions since I joined the formal labor sector a little more than a decade ago.
Still, it’s a wonderful experience to see first hand some good customer service from a government agency such as PhilHealth. Hopefully it continues to improve, especially the coverage it provides as for other Filipinos, PhilHealth is the only means they are able to get some form of healthcare services in this country known for crushing poverty amidst healthcare services that are not only woefully inadequate, but also criminally expensive and unaffordable.
For decades since the ratification of the 1987 Constitution, the public has been waiting for Congress to enact a law that gives life to the constitutional prohibition on political dynasties. With Congress dominated by politicians from political dynasties, it’s been near impossible for such a law to be enacted. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t stop the people from demanding and campaigning for it.
Enter the Anti-Dynasty Network – a non-profit organization composed of ‘reform-minded dynasts, academics, public servants, and citizens committed to ending political dynasties and advancing inclusive, accountable governance.’
They are currently gathering signatures in support of the effort to enact an anti-dynasty law with the following features:
We would like to see the following in an anti-dynasty law:
Clear. Reasonable. Long overdue. If you’re looking for a cause or effort that would bring meaningful change to our country, this would be one of it. Express your support here. Together we can do this.
Meta wants access to the photos in your device’s camera roll. Yes, the ones you haven’t posted or uploaded online for various reasons – intimate, raw, it could even be proprietary, Meta doesn’t care, it just wants to feed it to its AI.
To turn off this feature and stop Meta from getting to the photos in your camera roll, do the following:
If one or both of those toggle switches are already on, then Meta is actively scanning, processing and retaining your photos to train its AI. Turning off those toggle switches will stop it.
Microsoft has finally acknowledged that it’s looking into an issue affecting Windows 11 PCs where SSDs are disappearing from a user’s PC after installing its latest security update KB5063878. Some users have reported that the update did not only cause their SSD to suddenly vanish from their PC, it even bricked some drives causing serious data loss.
JayzTwoCents has good rundown of the on-going issue:
While waiting for a fix from Microsoft, the best recommended fix is to uninstall the update from your Windows 11 PC. If it’s still not installed, DO NOT INSTALL KB5063878. Turn off automatic updates in Windows Update for the time being. While some users have not been affected, including myself, fortunately, it’s definitely not worth taking the risk.