World's Largest Crocodile Dies

TAGUM CITY— Lolong, the world’s biggest reptile in captivity, is dead. The 20.4-foot (6.12-meter) saltwater crocodile died at its pen in Consuelo village, Bunawan town, Agusan del Sur province, around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to Mayor Edwin Elorde, reports Inquirer.net. Lolong had refused to eat since late January. Captured in the Agusan Marsh on Sept. 3, 2011, Lolong is believed to have eaten a man, who went missing in July, and bitten off the head of a 12-year-old girl in 2009. Since its capture and subsequent measurement and confirmation of international crocodile experts that Lolong was the planet’s largest in captivity, Bunawan town has become a tourism draw, with revenues running in the millions of pesos.

National Bookstore Stops Selling China-Made Globes

National Bookstore, the Philippines' largest bookstore chain, has withdrawn from its shelves Chinese-made globes showing Beijing’s claims to most of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), reports Inquirer.net. A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said the chain decided to pull out the globes after a dialogue with DFA officials. Bookstore management claimed it was unaware of the “misinformation” contained in the education materials.

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Filipino Domestics in Hong Kong Continue Rise

More than 10,000 additional Filipino domestic workers came to Hong Kong last year, boosting their total population to 155,969, according to latest figures from the Immigration Department, reports The Sun. Filipino newcomers nearly accounted for almost all new foreign domestic worker arrivals,  suggesting that they are filling the additional demand in the market.  The slowdown in Indonesian immigration could partly be attributed to Jakarta's decision in May last year to charge employers of its nationals a hefty fee to cover medical examination, insurance and the cost of a round-trip ticket.Starting September last year, Filipinos outnumbered Indonesians for the first time in three years. The total number of Filipino domestics recorded at the end of that month was 152,807, compared with 151,382 for Indonesians. In the succeeding months, the gap widened even more to 3,467 by the end of October; 5,491 by November and 6,733 by December. 

UAE Hiring Fewer Pinay Maids Due to Minimum Wage

ABU DHABI--Fewer Filipina maids are being hired in the United Arab Emirates since the Philippine government set the monthly salary at US$400 (Dh1,469)--almost double the wage set by other countries, reports The NationalUAE. Employers now favour maids from Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka. "When I tell them they should pay $400 for a Filipina maid, employers turn their backs on me," said Juliet Lasalita, manager of a recruitment agency in Al Ain. "Employers are not willing to pay the amount for a first-timer, or one who does not have any experience in domestic work."

Most Pinoys Happy with Love Life; Those with None Increase

More than half of Filipinos, about 54 percent, are happy with their love life, but the number of Filipinos with no love life may is apparently at a record-high, according to a new survey by pollster Social Weather Stations. The SWS survey, conducted from Dec. 8 to 11  also showed 78 percent of Filipinos believe love just comes and is not planned. Although 54 percent of adult Filipinos were happy with their romantic life in December 2012, this figure is lower than 2011's all-time high of 59 percent, 2010's 55 percent and, 58 percent in 2002.

Filipino Nurse Hailed by Obama

Filipina nurse Menchu Sanchez was hailed during President Obama’s State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress, reports Balitang America. Sanchez, a nurse at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, one of the special guests of the First Lady Michelle Obama, was honored as one of the heroes of the Hurricane Sandy disaster that devastated large parts of New York and New Jersey last year. Sanchez devised a plan to transport 20 at-risk infants at the Langone Medical Center to intensive care units around the city, organizing the nurses and doctors to carefully carry the babies down eight flights of stairs with only cell phones to light the way. Even as her own home was flooding, Sanchez thought only of protecting the babies in her care, the White House explained. Menchu was born, raised, and educated in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States in the 1980s.

Thousands of OFWs Stranded on Island in Iran

An estimated 2,000 OFWs are stranded on Kish Island in Iran, waiting to renew their visas so they can return to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to find work, reports ABS-CBN News. The stranded Filipinos are mostly tourist visa holders who failed to find jobs in the UAE.  Tourists visa holders can renew their visas if they stay outside UAE for a month. Many have been staying on the island for several months while waiting for job opportunities in UAE. With no income and with the very limited money already spent on hotel accommodations, many jobless Filipinos rely on the help of kababayans based on Kish Island. Many refuse to return to the Philippines because of the mounting debts waiting for them back home.

Filipino Oilfield Workers in Louisiana Complain of Abuse

A Louisiana oilfield maintenance company is being accused of exploiting trafficked Filipino workers who say they were lured here by lies, and they are instead treated like slaves, reports wwltv.com Eyewitness News. They were allegedly promised salaries of $20 an hour, but when their paychecks arrived they amounted to a fraction of that, sometimes little more than $3 an hour. The workers left the Philippines to find work overseas and landed at Grand Isle Shipyard, a regional oilfield maintenance company in Galliano.

The workers point to 18-hour workdays, sometimes up to 400 hours a month for measly pay. Some say they  slept in a retro-fitted storage container, their passports held by their employer. The WWL-TV investigation uncovered what appears to be a system of human trafficking, with immigration paperwork allegedly based on lies, and workers holding numerous and fake social security numbers. There were a number of apparent violations found, from immigration policies to labor and workplace standards.