Embassy

I’ve written this piece when I was still based in Bangkok. For some reason, I wasn’t able to post this. As I got to coordinate with the Embassy here Down Under (again) I think it’s about time to post this, for the record. This is unedited and captures my raw emotion when I was writing this.

OFWs stick it out

The recession is real. It has affected not only locals here in Australia but expat workers including Filipinos.

I recently talked to one of the hundreds of Pinoy OFWs working here and he said that they had to assist another OFW who was resigned to just ‘go home’ after the latter’s position was declared redundant. True enough as for most Pinoys here, optimism has its own reward, the OFW was able to find another job just before the expiration of his visa.

The difference between the unemployed here and our OFWs returning to the Philippines without the possibility of employment is that locals have the support of the government. I remember my colleague’s
fiancé who urged her to take it easy in saving. He explained that ‘the government will take care of them.’ It was quite easy for the man to tell his Asian fiancée that it will be alright because they are used to some fallback in times of trouble. Of course, this is not all true all the time but the fact remains that most of the time, it is true that Pinoy OFWs despite their contribution to the economy might find themselves fending for themselves in this time of recession.

Pacquiao proves he’s world class

Pacquiao did not waste any chance nor mocked around and showed the world that he is truly world class.

Manny Pacquiao knocked down reigning IBO and Ring Magazine light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton. Hatton claimed that he will be able to defeat the Filipino fighter with Oscar De La Hoya suggesting that it will be a one-sided fight for the British. Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, remained optimistic and gave a fearless forecast that Pacquiao will win.

“The Hitman” lies flat on the floor after a hit from “Pac-Man”

While the fight wasn’t long enough to give ticket holders and pay-per-view viewers a reason to hold the breaths and be entertained enough, it was surely a good six minutes of boxing that will long be remembered and for Filipinos was just satisfying.

British media, however, were slow to pick-up on the news and described Pacquiao as brutal. Some British readers of BBC suggested that the win was expected as “Hatton is not the fighter he was” because his “age and lifestyle” deteriorated the best of his boxing skills. There were some suggestions that Pacquiao also had an unfair advantage during his non-title fight with Oscar De La Hoya.

Well, despite these suggestions Pacquiao is optimistic that he will continue fighting giving his “100%” in every fight.

Closer to home, the Logie Awards is the biggest news (aside from the Influenza A/H1N1 outbreaks) today. The Logie Awards is the TV industry awards here in Australia. More re the Logie Awards here.

Swine Flu is a Misnomer

The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has issued a statement lamenting the misnomer on an emerging disease that originated from “a virus circulating in Mexico and the USA and involving person to person transmission.” In a statement, OIE clarified that the there is no evidence to link the cases of influenza in the USA, Mexico and other countries to possible animal cases such as swine. It said that they have not yet isolated the virus in animals.

The OIE said that it was unjustified to call the circulating disease as Swine Influenza or Swine Flu with the absence of its link to pigs. It suggested that the new disease be named as “North-American influenza.”

Some scientists also backed OIEs claim with one article calling to a stop on blaming pigs and “blame simple biology” for the disease mutation.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has since corrected its reference to the disease and now calls it Influenza A (H1N1). While the media has yet to pick-up on the correction, it is slowly referring to the disease as just H1N1 in most of its headlines. The US Center for Disease Control now refers to the disease as H1N1 but does not drop swine flu as another name for the disease. The confirmed cases of Influenza A/H1N1 were recently raised to 615 in 15 countries according to a WHO update.

The OIE and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are monitoring the influenza A/H1N1 situation with FAO sending technical experts to affected areas to investigate if the influenza has some links with the swine population. Scientists admitted that they are struggling to understand this latest mutation of influenza.

This situation has shown that international crises such as SARS, bird flu (H5N1) and influenza A/H1N1 have yet to be coordinated smoothly among international organizations. It has shown some flaws in the international cooperation framework that the UN agencies agreed to abide to. Although these agreements become formal during specific crisis they have previously agreed to exchange information and coordinate actions. This influenza showed that there was no information exchange and panic immediately prevailed.

As a former communications officer for an organization involved in the bird flu (H5N1) outbreaks, I have witnessed how scientist struggled to understand the disease. This has given so much pressure for most communications officers in the Region as they were asked to produce an immediate message regarding prevailing risk behaviors that might promote the spread of bird flu.

Most of the communication messages that were produced dealt on risk behavior relevant to human influenza and not on the source of the disease during that time–avian species. While the behavior change campaigns remain relevant for pandemic preparation, it did not address the continued spread among animals thus putting farmers at risk.

I guess for the zealous scientists (and PR and communications specialists) during the bird flu outbreaks, the pandemic that they’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. The WHO has warned that measures previously implemented for other diseases such as SARS has no effect to the current influenza outbreak (but only to the economy).

However, there’s always the silver lining as WHO Director-General Margaret Chan always claim “the world is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history.”