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Philippine News Digest 135

Week November 05-09, 2007

Contents:
-Saving the youth from risks
-Organic food is safer, better
-All Saints’ Day rapist nabbed

Saving the youth from risks
By Ma. Cecilia Rodriguez
Inquirer.net, Mindanao Bureau

MISAMIS ORIENTAL–Unlike other teenagers, this group spends weekends and free time not in malls and game hubs but in dusty barangay (village) halls or even under the shade of a tree.

Being there is neither a requirement nor a spiritual sortie but is motivated by a common mission: To save young people like them from contracting sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiancy virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome).

The advocates call themselves Kartada Tres, an acronym for Karapatan at Kalusugan ng Kabataan.

With more than 600 youth volunteers, the group goes around barangay in Misamis Oriental and the Lanao provinces to conduct small group discussions and symposiums about reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention and safe sex.

“Participants should be 13 to 21 years old. There are times when older people want to sit in but usually they ruin the discussion because of their hostile reactions,” relates Mark Vincent Datoy, 21, one of the senior volunteers.

Thus, he says, they usually request organizers to make sure the lectures will be exclusive for the youth.

Organic food is safer, better
Sunday, November 04 2007 (www.philstar.com)

It may cost more, but it’s worth it, and it’s better for the environment and safer. And while those who buy organic food regularly are still a minority, their numbers are growing bigger all the time. Most organic food buyers overwhelmingly believe it tastes better and is worth the extra cost.

Citing the results of a Harris Poll involving 2,392 adults surveyed in the US by Harris Interactive, the Ecological Society of the Philippines (ESP) said more and more people, including Filipinos are finding it good for the health and the environment to consume organic foods.

ESP president Antonio M. Claparols said the survey says that only seven percent of all adults are buying organic food all or most of the time. A further 31 percent say they do so occasionally.

Some segments of the population are more likely to buy organic foods regularly: College graduates (11 percent), liberals (11 percent), Westerners (10 percent), Echo boomers (those aged 18-30, 10 percent), and Gen Xers (these aged 31-42, nine percent).

Those who buy organics (including those who only do it occasionally and rarely) report that their organic purchases are much more likely to have increased (32 percent) than to have decreased (five percent); evidence that organic food consumption has been rising, Claparols reported.

The ESP chief added that the very large majorities of the public believe that organic food is safer for the environment (79 percent) and healthier (76 percent). Almost everyone (95 percent) of the public, including 88 percent of frequent organic food buyers, believes organic food is more expensive.

About a third (36 percent) of the public, including almost all (91 percent) frequent organic food buyers, believes that “organic food is better for you” and that “the extra expense is worth it to have better food.” A smaller 29 percent of the public believe it is a waste of money as it is no better for you than conventional foods.

All Saints’ Day rapist nabbed
By Jerry Botial
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Philstar

Police arrested yesterday a jobless man who raped and robbed a 16-year-old girl in Caloocan City while the rest of her relatives were at the cemetery on All Saints’ Day.

Caloocan police chief Superintendent William Macavinta said Dennis Alvin de la Cruz, 22, was arrested in Barangay 188 by a police team led by Police Officer 3 Ricky Sta. Isabel.

PO1 Marcy Pino of the Women’s and Children’s Concerns Desk (WCCD) said De la Cruz was arrested at around 10:30 a.m. yesterday after he was identified by the victim, who accompanied the police team during the manhunt.

The police team spotted him talking to a man who gave him a plastic sachet of what later turned out to be shabu. They confiscated the sachet and a nine-inch kitchen knife from the suspect.

The victim told probers that she was manning their family store at around 9 a.m. when De la Cruz, whom she did not know, bought cigarettes and engaged in small talk, asking if she was alone.

When it rained, the victim went to the house’s second floor open area to get the laundry. When she rushed back, she found the suspect already in the house.

The victim said De la Cruz raped her. Her cousin avoided being raped by claiming she had just had an operation. The suspect fled with some P80,000 in cash, jewelry and other valuables, which have yet to be recovered.

updated November 09, 2007

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Preda Foundation Inc.

The work of Preda Foundation is focused on alleviating the physical, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse and suffering of children and preventing abuse through community education and social media.

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