Category Archives: International

NEWLY-CROWNED MISS PHILIPPINES WILL ALSO REPRESENT GERMANY IN MISS WORLD PAGEANT

October 13, 2014 Pol Pinoy 1 Comment

Valerie Weigmann is crowned by her predecessor Megan Youn

Manila, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles) – When Megan Young was crowned Miss World last year, the United States claimed her as its own candidate as well. Young was born in the U.S. to an America father and Filipina mother.

History repeats itself. This year’s newly-crowned Miss World Philippines is half Filipina and half German. Valerie Weigmann will represent the Philippines in the prestigious international beauty pageant, hoping to become the second Filipina to win the title.

Weigmann was a runaway winner. “To be honest, I would have been shocked if the TV celebrity and fashion model hadn’t won. Even during the screening for this year’s Miss World Philippines, I could see it in her stars that bearing the red and silver crown was her destiny,” said Joyce Ann Burton Titular, a former beauty queen herself who now stars in a Philippne television series about beauty pageants. Titular was the Philippines’ candidate in the 1985 Miss Universe Pageant.

Upon learning of Weigmann’s victory, Germany abruptly cancelled the 2014 contest to select its candidate for Miss World. ” We’re more than happy to have Miss Weigmann represent Germany as well ” pageant organizers said in Berlin.

The 2014 Miss World Pageant will be held December 14 in London.

We’ve heard about dual citizenships, but dual beauty queens?

Business, Economy, International, Law Enforcement

CANADA TO PHILIPPINES: RETURNS NOT ACCEPTED ON GARBAGE EXPORT

October 9, 2014 Pol Pinoy Leave a comment

Ontario, Canada (The Adobo Chronicles) – A total of fifty 40-foot container vans of garbage recently arrived in Manila’s International Container Port. It was supposed to be an export of scrap plastic materials for recycling, consigned to a Metro Manila trading firm by a Canadian company identified as Chronic Plastics.

It turns out that the shipment contained mostly toxic garbage, and was in violation of the Philippines’ Tariff and Customs Code, better known as the “Toxic Substances and Hazardous Wastes Control Act of 1990.”

Alerts were promptly issued on the shipment because the consignee had submitted incorrect documents for the importation, which has a declared value of over $220,000.

Ariel Nepomuceno, customs deputy commissioner for enforcement, warned “this junk dumped in the Philippines could pose biohazard risks to our people.”

Both the Bureau of Customs and the consignee firm have asked the Canadian shipper to take back the garbage. However, Chronic Plastics laughed the request off, saying that it has a policy of “No return, no exchange.”

A spokesperson for Chronic Plastics said that all sales are final, especially for garbage waste. “The only way we can accept a return is if the Philippines can assure us that the return shipment will be in the exact same condition as when it first left the Canadian port,” he said.

That doesn’t seem to be possible, as it was reported that garbage juice is now leaking from the container vans. It’s been sitting for almost a year now at the Customs container yard and shipping it back to Canada will take another 3 months.

Economy, International, Politics, The Media

FORBES ARTICLE GOT IT ALL WRONG ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES’ BUDGET DEFICIT, AQUINO GOVERNMENT INSISTS

October 8, 2014 Pol Pinoy Leave a comment

Manila, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles) – The Aquino government blasted a recent article in Forbes magazine claiming that the Philippines’ economic boom is a bubble waiting to burst.

The article was authored by economic analyst Jesse Colombo who writes that the Philippines’ economic progress and status as an emerging market — often touted by President Aquino in his state of the nation address and speeches abroad — is deceiving. Colombo points to the continued disparity between the few rich people and the rest of the population and that investors’ insatiable hunger for emerging market debt has caused the Philippines’ external debt to spike in recent years.

Specifically, Aquino’s Budget Secretary Florencio Abad challenged the claim by Colombo that the Philippine government has been running a budget deficit since 1999, which includes the last 5 years of the Aquino administration.

Pointing to the graph showing the deficit years, Abad said Forbes magazine seems to have inverted the graph, and that the bars showing the deficit should be pointing upwards instead of downwards. He said this is how the graph should look like:

inverted