Trump Campaign Chief Had Ties to Marcos

Paul Manafort (Source: The Guardian)

Paul Manafort met Ferdinand Marcos in the 1980s, each had something the other wanted. Manafort, then in his 30s, was a hotshot Republican operative who had made his name helping Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and was pioneering a new form of international political consulting. A Marcos front group hired Manafort to try to help him retain his grip on power, agreeing to pay Manafort’s firm $950,000 a year — one of the first big foreign gigs landed by the firm, reports Politico magazine.

Filipino WWII Vet Gets Medals 74 Years After His Death

The family of Filipino war veteran US Army Private Juan Sablan received his medals, 74 years after his death. Sablan was killed in action in the Philippines during World War II. The medals include the American Defense Service Medal with a foreign-service clasp, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one bronze service star, and the Presidential Unit Citation with two bronze oak leaf clusters, reports ABS CBN News.
 

Filipino Wins Tony for Costume Design

Clint Ramos at the Tonys (Source: Inquirer.net/Photo by Regina Ramos)

New York-based set and costume designer Clint Ramos won the 2016 Tony Award for costume design for “Eclipsed,” a play featuring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”), reports Inquirer.net.

Goal for Easing Manila Traffic Woes Is 2 to 3 Years

The administration of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has placed Metro Manila’s traffic woes in its crosshairs with a plan to rapidly deploy infrastructure projects aimed at dramatically cutting road congestion in two to three years, reports inquirer.net.
 

Too Many PH Laws Erode Its Competitiveness, Says Council

The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) wants to push for the repeal of thousands of departmental circulars and orders and even laws to accelerate improvements in ease of doing business in the country, reports ABS-CBN News.

PH's First Transgender Solon to Speak in New York

Congresswoman Geraldine Roman, the first transgender politician to be elected in the Philippines, will deliver a keynote address at Asia Society’s Diversity Leadership Forum on June 10, the organization announced. The Forum is a two-day conference on best practices in global diversity and leadership, reports Inquirer.net.

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300 PH Nurses Leave to Work in Japan

More than 300 health workers from the Philippines left for Japan on Thursday, June 2, under a bilateral program that allows nurses and caregivers to prepare for and take the Japanese licensure exam for a chance to work there. The group of 60 nurses and 274 caregivers is the eighth batch of trainees deployed to Japan since the program, established under the 2006 Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, began in 2009, report ABS-CBN News.

PH Expects $51B This Year from Remittances and BPO Earnings

The Philippines expects to earn more than $51 billion this year from the sustained inflow of remittances from overseas Filipino workers and the business process outsourcing sector, Dutch financial giant ING Bank said yesterday. Money sent home by Filipinos abroad would grow at least three percent from$25.8 billion in 2015 to $26.6 billionthis year. Revenues from the BPO sector would expand by up to16 percentto around $24 billion, reports Philstar.com.