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Press Statement – 27 April 2011
Philippine Eagle Foundation

Four Eagles in Five Months:
A Statement of Alarm Over the Rate of Eagle Retrievals

The Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) expresses alarm over the spate of captures of Philippine Eagles in the last five months. The PEF team has retrieved four Philippine Eagles since December 2010, making up one of the highest rate of retrievals since the year 2000. More alarming is that two of these four eagles were rescued with serious injuries, and that a third eventually died from fungal infection.

In December 2010, the PEF rescued a female eagle estimated to be about 5-6 years old in Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte. The eagle was missing two out of three toes on her right foot.

A month after, on 31 January 2011, DENR – Region 11 personnel turned over a one-year-old male eagle which originated from Sitio Biasong, Don Salvador, Mati, Davao Oriental. Details are still sketchy about the history of the bird.

Then on 4 April, a juvenile Philippine Eagle was retrieved from Sen. Ninoy Aquino, Sultan Kudarat. PEF staff believe that the eagle had already been held captive for over a month by the time it was in PEF custody. It was to be released back to the wild, but the bird died on the 24th of the same month, from stress leading to multiple organ failure due to extensive fungal infection.

Finally, on 19 April 2011, an eagle about a year old was brought to the Philippine Eagle Center by residents of Sitio Biha, Bgy. Tambobong, Baguio District, Davao City. Only two primary feathers remained on its right wing.

What we gather from this wave of retrievals is that:

We are extremely distressed about these events. We call on all local government units and the media to advise their constituencies on the appropriate response when a Philippine Eagle is found. The PEF offers the following guidelines:

Further, we call on the Philippine government and its law enforcement and judicial agencies for stronger enforcement of Republic Act 9147. Crimes committed against nature have effects of a much bigger impact than we can imagine (deforestation; the landslide of Guinsaugon, Leyte) and can reach generations beyond our own (global warming).

The Philippine Eagle is important not just because it is our national bird and therefore a symbol of our country, but more so because the abuse and harm caused on Philippine Eagles illustrate our recklessness in managing our natural resources. If the Philippine Eagle, which is already perhaps the most prominent and recognizable of Philippine wildlife species, suffers a fate as grim as the above four eagles have experienced, how much more other species?

What bigger injustices could possibly be happening to the rest of the Philippine environment?

We condemn these acts of violence against nature and call on our fellow Filipinos to adopt more sustainable paths towards progress. Our economy is built on natural resources — the indiscriminate killing and plunder of these resources is not development. This will only bring us several steps backward.

For more information, and to find out how you can help, please contact:

Ms Tatit Quiblat
Manager for Development, Philippine Eagle Foundation
Mobile: +63(917)712-2895 • Email

Philippine Eagle Foundation
Malagos, Baguio District, Davao City
Tel. +63(82)271-2337 • Fax +63(82)301-1033 • Email

* Philippine eagle photos by, and used with permission from, Alain B. Pascua.

[Media Release]

The City Government of Davao, in cooperation with the Davao Association of Tour Operators and the Davao Tourism Association, will be holding the 1st Davao Summerfest from April 29 to May 29, 2011. In full support of this endeavor are the Davao Travel Agency Association, GUIDE-Davao, Small Hotels Association of Davao, Davao Airline Operators Association, and the Davao Cooperative Center for Visitors and Conventions.

The 1st Davao Summerfest was organized to address the need to hold an event during summer in Davao City, a season when the city receives the most number of tourists, as well as to complement the city’s existing major festivals — Araw ng Dabaw and the Kadayawan Festival. With the development of a new festival, Davao City will aim to establish itself as a primary summer destination in the country.

This year’s Summerfest will showcase a series of events that will focus on sports, eco-adventure, and entertainment for both visitors and locals to enjoy during the summer season. As the guests can participate in the line-up of events during the Summerfest, they can also enjoy the diverse man-made and natural attractions of the city.

Blessed with “natural venues” for outdoor sports, the Summerfest will allow visitors to see and experience the wonders of Davao Gulf, Davao River, as well as the well-paved roads leading to the mountains of Marilog, where one can also hold various eco-adventure activities.

This is also an opportunity for local facility owners, tour operators and sports organizers to showcase Davao’s various sports adventure facilities, such as zip lines, a wakeboarding park, river rafting, kayaking, mountain climbing, spelunking, among many others. The city can also highlight its existing facilities that can readily host world class competitions, such as golf courses.

The Summerfest will not only generate revenue for the city during the summer season but will also promote camaraderie, project a wholesome image for the community, and promote an interest in sports and healthy living among the youth.

Holding an annual Summerfest will also ensure a regular flow of tourists throughout the year as it will lure them to come back, not just to compete in sports for the following summer, but also to enjoy the sights that Davao City can offer all year long.

Schedule of Activities

Event / Organizer	Date / Venue
Opening Program City Government of Davao	29 April 2011 People’s Park – 5:30pm
Summerfest Kaandawet (A musical gastronomic event) Davao Association of Tour Operators	8 to 15 May 2011 Bolton Street – 6:00pm onwards
PFF Suzuki U23 Mindanao Championships Davao Football Association & Philippine Football Federation	28 to 30 April 2011 Tionko Field, Quimpo Blvd. – 8:00am onwards
13th Davao Horse Show & Competition Davao Horse Club	30 April to 1 May 2011 Davao Riverfront Corporate City – 8:00am onwards
17th NFMC Annual Convention Castrol Motokhana National Federation of Motorcycle Clubs, On Any Sunday Riders	30 April to 1 May 2011 NCCC Mall Open Parking Area – 8:30am onwards
PFF Smart Club Mindanao Championships Davao Football Association & Philippine Football Federation	4 to 6 May 2011 Tionko Field, Quimpo Blvd. – 8:00am onwards
Daba Daba Ultimate Frisbee Tournament Mulatto Davao	7 to 8 May 2011 Tionko Field, Quimpo Blvd.
Race to Reduce Half Marathon Aboitiz Group of Companies Organized by Sunday Runners Club	8 May 2011 Assembly at Victoria Plaza Mall – 5:00am
Philippine Autocross Championship Series Round 2 Shago Racing	8 May 2011 Speed City, Davao Riverfront Coporate City
National Judo Championship – Youth Division Holiday Judo Club	14 to 15 May 2011 Gaisano Mall of Davao
1st Davao City Host Lions Club Football Festival Davao Football Association	14 to 15 May Tionko Field, Quimpo Blvd.
6th Pomelo Tee Golf Tournament Rancho Palos Verdes	20 to 22 May 2011 Rancho Palos Verdes
Queen of May (Santa Cruzan sa Dabaw 2011) City Government of Davao	21 May 2011 Holy Mass at San Pedro Cathedral – 5:30pm Procession – 7:00pm
Davao Aero Marathon Summerfest 2011 BeeFit / Holiday Gym & Spa	27 May 2011 Atrium, NCCC Mall – 2:00 to 6:00pm
Celebrity Adventure Race City Government of Davao	28 to 29 May 2011 Around Davao City

For more information, please visit Tourism Davao on Facebook.

Tonyo Cruz, among other things the main proponent for a national bloggers’ organization in the Philippines, and this author were invited to participate in the 1st Malaysian-ASEAN Regional Bloggers Conference in Malaysia, which had its opening activities at the Sime Darby Convention Center in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. To date, of all the blogger-centric events I’ve [...]

Today’s growth in mobile device usage in the country has spawned new ways of accomplishing tasks. For example, mobile users now read news on their tablets or send messages via their smart phones. With the ease in communications afforded by mobile devices, users have also come to demand more conveniences in other ways. HP is addressing one of those through their ePrint technology, which is now enabled in all of their new printers.

On my Apple iPod touch, I can have PDF files, MSWord files, but due to the closed nature of the iOS environment, there’s not much I can do with those files on the device when the need arises for me to print them. But with HP’s ePrint-enabled printers, all I need do is to email the file directly to an HP printer for printing.

No more tinkering with drivers or worrying about supported file formats! When you email a file (attached to the email message) to your printer, it’s HP’s cloud-hosted printing service that’ll take care of determining the proper drivers to use for completing the print job. And you even get a confirmation email response to inform you whether or not the print job was successful.

At the ePrint launch in Makati last 15 April 2011, HP’s market development manager, Erwin E. Creencia, and his colleagues talked about this newfangled innovation. In answer to my question regarding file formats that are not yet supported, Creencia said that AutoCAD files are the only printable files that can’t be printed via ePrint. (Although, ePrint is now also enabled in HP’s large-format Indigo printers.)

What came to mind right away after learning of ePrint and how it works was spam. HP Philippines country general manager, Mandy Pascual, addressed this by apprising us of the safeguards built into HP’s cloud printing service. He said that the service allows for whitelisting of source email addresses, aside from having built-in anti-spam monitoring. (I just wonder how good their anti-spam software is…) The good news is, you can change your printer’s email address anytime, and for an unlimited number of times.

Printers that are equipped with the ePrint technology — i.e., HP’s printers that can be connected to the Internet either via LAN or Wi-Fi — need only be registered online. Once registered, it will be assigned its unique email address. An online account will be created where you can manage or monitor print jobs.

For those who are concerned about privacy, Pascual said that the online printer registration is secure and can be done anonymously. (I certainly hope HP won’t do profiling of their customers, or worse, sell the aggregated user data to advertisers.)

Currently, ePrint is enabled on the following printers: HP LaserJet Pro M1536dnf Multifunction Printer, HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fn/fnw Color Multifunction Printer, HP LaserJet Pro CP1525 Color Printer, HP Photosmart Ink Advantage K510a, and the HP Officejet Pro 8500A e-All-in-One Printer.

According to HP Philippines, there is also an enterprise solution for corporations that require the ePrint service on their private networks. Normally, printers with their own email addresses are open to the world for receiving documents — this is what lets you print from wherever. But for companies that require a more secure system, HP can enable the use of their ePrint technology within a corporate Intranet.

With a growing number of individuals and businesses going online, it’s becoming more and more practical to use the ubiquitous email for communicating… and for printing. One day soon, HP’s ePrinting will most probably replace the fax machine. In fact, I’m trying to convince my friends in the travel industry to consider the shift. Since all of them have email already, and since they still need to print stuff regularly, upgrading to HP’s ePrint technology is but natural!

Consider this: when buying an airline ticket online, you could supply your printer’s email address to the online booking system. So that when your e-ticket is sent to you, it gets printed right away!

What about you? Can you think of other practical uses for printers that have their own email addresses?

The Philippine government has forged a partnership with the country’s three telecommunications firms — Digitel/Sun, Globe, PLDT/Smart — to send free public safety advisories and text messages to their subscribers during calamities, disasters and emergencies. The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC), National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), and the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), through [...]

Bangkok Wok is now 2 years old, and to celebrate their second anniversary, they have come up with a special deal — Wok All You Can! Instead of a buffet spread, Bangkok Wok lets you order from a special menu as much as you can. This means that your food will always be freshly cooked, [...]

Last week it was their new line of Ink Advantage printers. This week, HP launched in Davao City their new family of notebooks and desktops, as well as high-performance thin clients. The world’s #1 technology company in terms of PC sales in 2010 also opened yesterday its new HP Concept Store at the Gaisano Mall of Davao. The HP Concept Store will feature the latest products, enabling customers to experience first-hand HP’s most cutting-edge technologies. HP yesterday also revealed a redesigned consumer portfolio at A New HP World, with sleek looks and the latest technologies to enhance the way people connect, produce and experience entertainment, and manage information that matter to them. All in order to allow HP’s consumers to achieve their personal passions.

The redesigned HP Pavilion notebook PCs and the new HP TouchSmart Consumer PC are built on inspirations from culture, art, fashion trends and HP’s MUSE — Materials, Usability, Sensory appeal, and Experience — design philosophy.

What the MUSE design philosophy involves are a mix of materials such as metals, alloys and high-grade plastics; easy-to-use features for enhanced usability; a blend of artisanal elements for sensory appeal; and, intuitive features for streamlined computing experiences.

The improved HP Pavilion lineup, featuring the dv series of notebook PCs, includes impressive features, such as HP CoolSense technology (for automatic sensing of the processor’s need for ventilation), HP TrueVision HD webcam (gone are the days of the low-megapixel webcams), and HP SimplePass (for biometric logins). Select models of the HP Pavilion dv series also feature Beats™ Audio for a mind-blowing audio experience!

Other new notebooks include the HP Pavilion dv4, HP Pavilion g4 (which is available in the Philippines in charcoal grey and sonoma red), and the Elitebook 8540w series. I was especially salivating over the Elitebook 8540w Mobile Workstation, a.k.a. Portable Powerhouse, which looks like a no-nonsense business machine that packs a punch. It boasts of an Intel® Core™i7 processor with Turbo Boost technology, and with 4 RAM slots that can accommodate up to 16GB of memory. (Of course, you’ll have to run Windows 7 64-bit on it to enjoy all that RAM.)

All in all, I was very impressed with the new offerings of HP in the Philippines — in terms of the awesome technologies and the wide range of products that address not only consumer requirements, but also budgetary considerations. Also, judging by the constant presence of HP in Davao, it would seem that this company is fulfilling its commitment to the city when it declared it its first HP City back in 2008.

I can’t possibly cover here all that was presented during the launch yesterday, so I urge you to go to the HP Concept Store at the Gaisano Mall of Davao in Bajada. Experience HP innovation yourself and be amazed as I was!

In Davao City, I go for the Cheesy Hungarian Sausage or the Spicy Frankfurter by Hero Sausages. At present, they have one foodcart inside NCCC Mall, at the Activity Center just outside the supermarket section. It's one out of many food stalls in the mall, but it's what I seek out because their sausage sandwiches are satisfyingly good and filling.

Even amid public outcries against the move by telecommunications operators to impose an access limit to broadband Internet in the Philippines, Globe Telecom has proceeded with their broadband cap anyway. Their public-relations spin on it goes by the name “fair use policy”.

Globe subscribers, your Internet access is going to be throttled if your downloads and uploads exceed 1 gigabyte in a day. For most of you, whose Internet access involves mostly just emailing and interacting on Facebook or Twitter, this isn’t going to be an issue at all. But for those who use the Internet (via Globe Telecom) for business, a broadband cap is going to be a major problem.

Filipino netizens today are very sophisticated, constantly finding amazing and creative ways to make use of the Internet. Buying and selling online are activities that aren’t so newfangled anymore, and an increasing number of Filipinos are finding jobs through websites and making a living via the Internet. These people are in need of better Internet access, which Globe Telecom would do well to provide.

Everyday, I hear complaints from people around me about their Internet access woes. At home, in the office, in public Wi-Fi hotspots, Filipino Internet users are dissatisfied. But more urgently, the satisfaction of Filipino Internet users whose living depends on the Internet are not being met.

In a news article, Globe Telecom purports that a minority of users are abusing access:

In a recent internal analysis, Globe said about 5 percent of abusive subscribers use 80 percent of the available broadband Internet bandwidth in the company’s network.

This leaves only 20 percent of the capacity to be shared by 95 percent of the remaining users.

Source: INQUIRER.net

They seem to be blaming “abusive” Internet access on illegal downloading of content (music, TV shows, etc.), but are they for certain that these are the only activities going on online? It’s like saying excessive use of knives is bad because it kills people. Do chefs kill people for a living?

I don’t think telecommunications firms in particular, or businesses in general, are in a position to dictate which activities are illegal and which aren’t. That’s the government’s job. In my opinion, Globe Telecom is imposing their broadband cap because they do not want to invest further in their facilities and infrastructure.

Do they really give a damn about Filipinos, about protecting us from illegal online activities? I doubt that very much. And my reason for saying that is this: if they did care, they would be proactively anticipating the fast-paced growth of Internet usage in the country, and addressing this by meeting our requirements. But no, what Globe seems to be doing now is attempting to hide the fact that their Internet service provision is sub-par and does not even meet the minimum requirements of today’s netizen.

I’m quite certain that everyone who’s using the Internet for work or business will agree with me here, that if Globe, Smart and the other telecoms firms provided better Internet access, productivity would soar and we would have more time and resources available.

TXTPower, a mobile users watchdog, has a very cogent suggestion: for the government to conduct an independent review of telcoms companies’ existing facilities and services vis-à-vis consumer demand. Let’s hope that the National Telecommunications Commission finds it persuasive enough. But if you doubt that, then let’s all be vigilant and defend our universal right to a better Internet.

Hewlett-Packard (Phils.) launched in Davao City last 7 April 2011 a new line of value-for-money printers that are designed primarily for the home-use market. In total, six new models have been introduced: from the basic HP Deskjet Ink Advantage K109a, to the advanced HP Officejet Advantage 4500 All-in-One Printer, of which SME companies could very well take advantage as well.

These printers are priced very competitively at ₱8,999 (SRP) for the Officejet 4500. This particular printer has all the bells and whistles, such as borderless printing, network printing, and PC-less printing (via SD card). You can event assign

But what caught my attention was the new line of inks that HP has come up with. These new printers accommodate the new Ink Advantage 703/704 ink cartridges.

In addition to providing greater choices and outstanding value, the new HP Ink Advantage printers deliver the same quality, reliability and convenience customers rely on from HP.

The high-capacity HP 703 Black and Tri-Color Ink Cartridges used in the new HP Photosmart Ink Advantage e-All-in-One and the HP Officejet Advantage 4500 All-in-One offer up to 600 pages in black and 250 pages in color, delivering finely detailed graphics, laser-quality text, and archival-quality output.

The New HP 704 Black and Tri-Color Ink Cartridges used in the New Deskjet HP Ink Advantage Printers offer up to 480 pages in black and 200 pages in color and is composed of up to 70%(3) recycled plastic.

Personally, I use the HP Deskjet Ink Advantage 2060 AIO Printer (SRP: ₱4,999) at home. It can print, scan and copy and the ink cartridge costs less than ₱400 apiece!

With this new line of HP printing solutions, equipped with the new Ink Advantage color and black ink cartridges, the cost of ownership of an HP printer should be its greatest selling point. Over time, an HP printer owner will spend less compared to other brands whose printers are cheap but the corresponding ink cartridges are exorbitantly priced.

When I asked an HP representative about the new Ink Advantage cartridges being HP’s response to the spread of continuous-ink systems, he said that it was. He said that HP does care about their customers, and that’s why they came up with this solution: a very cost-effective ink cartridge that delivers the same quality of printing as HP’s more high-end ink cartridges. Plus, you get to keep your printer’s warranty, too!

HP printers are available in many of Davao’s computer shops. And, there is an HP service center in the city, at Digital Interface, Pryce Business Park, J.P. Laurel Ave., Davao City.