Sitting Too Much Could Be Deadly, Experts Say

LONDON —  Here’s a new warning from health experts: Sitting is deadly.

Scientists are increasingly warning that sitting for prolonged periods — even if you also exercise regularly — could be bad for your health. And it doesn’t matter where the sitting takes place — at the office, at school, in the car or before a computer or TV — just the overall number of hours it occurs.

Research is preliminary, but several studies suggest people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat, have a heart attack or even die.

In an editorial published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences suggested that authorities rethink how they define physical activity to highlight the dangers of sitting.

While health officials have issued guidelines recommending minimum amounts of physical activity, they haven’t suggested people try to limit how much time they spend in a seated position.

“After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals,” Ekblom-Bak said. She explained that genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down.

Even for people who exercise, spending long stretches of time sitting at a desk is still harmful. Tim Armstrong, a physical activity expert at the World Health Organization, said people who exercise every day — but still spend a lot of time sitting — might get more benefit if that exercise were spread across the day, rather than in a single bout.

That wasn’t welcome news for Aytekin Can, 31, who works at a London financial company, and spends most of his days sitting in front of a computer. Several evenings a week, Can also teaches jiu jitsu, a Japanese martial art involving wrestling, and also does Thai boxing.

“I’m sure there are some detrimental effects of staying still for too long, but I hope that being active when I can helps,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to think the sitting could be that dangerous.”

Still, in a study published last year that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for about a dozen years, researchers found people who sat more had a higher death risk, independently of whether or not they exercised.

“We don’t have enough evidence yet to say how much sitting is bad,” said Peter Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, who led the Canadian study. “But it seems the more you can get up and interrupt this sedentary behavior, the better.”

Figures from a U.S. survey in 2003-2004 found Americans spend more than half their time sitting, from working at their desks to sitting in cars.

Experts said more research is needed to figure out just how much sitting is dangerous, and what might be possible to offset those effects.

“People should keep exercising because that has a lot of benefits,” Ekblom-Bak said. “But when they’re in the office, they should try to interrupt sitting as often as possible,” she said. “Don’t just send your colleague an e-mail. Walk over and talk to him. Standing up.”

Lakas to field GMA as bet for Speaker

MANILA, Philippines – The cat is finally out of the bag. The ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD will field President Arroyo as its candidate for Speaker of the House of Representatives, party leaders said yesterday.

Speaking for the administration party, Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III said there is a big chance that Mrs. Arroyo, who is running for representative of Pampanga’s second district, would be the next Speaker.

“There are more than 100 Lakas-Kampi congressmen who are seeking reelection in their districts. Additionally, there are several Cabinet members who are seeking House seats. An overwhelming majority of these candidates will win on May 10,” Albano said.

He said there are also administration supporters who are seeking congressional seats as party-list representatives.

“There is no doubt that President Arroyo and the party she heads will be a force to reckon with in the next Congress,” he stressed.

In a recent television interview, Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III said he would not allow Mrs. Arroyo to become Speaker if he wins the presidency.

Aquino said even if there are only a few LP members who are seeking congressional seats and who may win, he and other party leaders would make sure that the Speaker would be an Aquino administration ally.

“We will move fast to gain a majority in the House. Having been congressman for nine years before becoming senator, I know the political dynamics (in that chamber),” he said.

Aquino did not go into specifics, but he was obviously referring to the possibility that a House run by Mrs. Arroyo and dominated by her allies could derail his legislative agenda.

Worse, the President and her supporters could impeach him.

Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar, for his part, downplayed the possibility that Mrs. Arroyo could end up Speaker in threatening his administration should he become the next president.

“If I become President, let me assure you that I can handle the presidency and I will not be threatened by that (Mrs. Arroyo getting the speakership). I am not going to be threatened by anyone,” Villar said.

If Mrs. Arroyo poses no threat to him, Villar said the same goes with Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile if he gets reelected and retains his position as Senate President.

“Same answer will be given. I am not worried about that,” he said.

Amid speculations that Villar has struck a deal with the Arroyo administration, the Nacionalista Party presidential bet said the President does not even have the assurance that she can dictate matters in the House.

“Normally, the Speaker is elected by all members of the House of Representatives,” said Villar, who also served as Speaker during the botched administration of former President Joseph Estrada.

Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez, a staunch ally of Mrs. Arroyo, said Aquino, if he wins the presidency, could block a possible quest by the President for the position of Speaker and No. 4 official of the land.

Suarez recalled that when Fidel Ramos was elected president in 1992, most of the congressmen who won were members of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) who were not allies.

“They were loyalists of the late Speaker (Ramon) Mitra. You will remember that President Ramos bolted the LDP and formed Lakas Tao and later won the presidency with the support of the late President Cory Aquino,” he said.

But Ramos and his allies moved fast to control the House and installed Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia as Speaker, Suarez said.

“The same thing happened when Erap (Joseph Estrada) was elected president in 1998. Lakas members led by Manny Villar defected to Erap’s camp and Villar became Speaker,” he said.

Less than three years later, it was Villar, as Speaker, who railroaded the transmittal of the impeachment complaint against Estrada to the Senate. Three months later, Estrada was forced from the presidency.

Asked what makes congressmen defect to the camp of the winning presidential candidates, Suarez said, “It is the President who dispenses pork barrel funds.”
Source: inquirer.net

Home Lot Certificates for the Landless: Mayor Uy’s surprise gift on Valentine’s Day

On February 14, Mayor Rey T. Uy surprises the informal home settlers of Tagum City during their assembly. Home lot certificates of RTU Grand Village IV of Barangay Apokon were awarded to 356 recipients of 536 lots available with a standard model size of 60 to 80 square meters designed to cater the welfare of the relocated Tagumeños from the affected areas of Barangay Poblacion (Baex Creak), Barangay West (Purok Mauswagon and Purok Malinawon), Barangay Apokon (Purok Maganda, Purok Pagaran), and Barangay Visayan Village (Purok Santol, Purok Durian, Purok Assessor, Chinese School of Purok Malinawon).

“As a father of our city, it is your welfare that I care most” says Mayor Uy as he reminded the settlers to take care of their land titles. The RTU Grand Village is a ready to use housing area to establish a community with drainage, widened roads, septic tanks prepared by the City Government of Tagum for the settlers.
Mayor Uy wishes for a peace-loving community where garbage will also be properly disposed. Even to the details of drying clothes and raising a family, the Local Chief Executive wants the village to be always presentable as it will soon become a model of housing village initiated by City Government.
SP Chair on Housing Councilor Nickel Suaybaguio Jr. cheered the crowd when he said, “patience pays off, it has been a while that we have waited for this moment to have our own home lot.” Since Mayor Uy wanted everything to be perfectly in place, the relocated lot owners waited for a while to get their land titles.

As a symbol of a united spirit between the church and state, Msgr. Ulysses Perandos did solemnize the village. Assisted by Lay Ministers, the home lots of RTU Grand Village IV was sprinkled with holy water.

City of Tagum Mayor Rey T. Uy awards one of the home lot certificates to a recipient with a standard model size of 60 to 80 square meters last February 14, 2010 at RTU Grand Village IV of Barangay Apokon in this city together with (next to Mayor Uy) Vice-Mayor Allan L. Rellon, PCUP XI Commissioner Luzviminda V. Salcedo, Coun. Reynaldo T. Salve, Coun. Raymond Joey D. Millan, Brgy Kagawad Ian Neo and Coun. Alan D. Zulueta.

With Mayor Rey Uy and elected officials, Diocese of Tagum Vicar General Msgr. Ulysses L. Perandos blesses the concrete monument during the giving of Home Lot Certificates on Valentine’s Day at the RTU Grand Village IV of Barangay Apokon in this city.

With Mayor Rey Uy and elected officials, Diocese of Tagum Vicar General Msgr. Ulysses L. Perandos leads the prayer for RTU Grand Village IV of Barangay Apokon in this city.

Editorial : Endorsements

Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE Declaration of Intent of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting sent shock waves through both newsrooms and dressing rooms. But the PPCRV’s plan to compel mass media personalities endorsing candidates to resign or go on leave during the campaign period, and the Comelec’s avowed readiness to enforce the relevant provisions, may not actually be supported by the wording of the law itself.

Commission on Elections Resolution 8758 reproduces, in Section 36, the exact wording of Section 6.6 of RA 9006, the Fair Election Practices Act.

There is no dispute about the first part of the provision. “Any mass media columnist, commentator, announcer, reporter, on-air correspondent, or personality who is a candidate for any elective public office” should resign or go on leave; if they don’t, their sheer presence on TV or radio or in a newspaper’s pages would constitute undue advantage over their political rivals. That much is clear.

The disagreements arise in the second part: a mass media personality who is “a campaign volunteer for or employed or retained in any capacity by any candidate, political party, or party-list group, or organization, and/or coalition thereof” should also resign or go on leave.

There are conditions in which resignation or leave of absence is the professional thing to do. A TV news anchor who is retained as a political consultant in one presidential campaign, or a tabloid editor who receives P100, 000 a month from one candidate to analyze political dynamics for the express benefit of that candidate, cannot be said to serve the purposes of professional journalism. They must resign or go on leave.

But what about a movie star who likes a particular candidate and offers her support in the best, most effective way she knows how: through an unpaid endorsement? Or a radio commentator who, after discussing the merits and demerits of presidential candidates for weeks on end, tells his audience he has come to a conclusion—and details it over the airwaves? Do mass media personalities lose their right to free expression simply because they have exercised their right to choose?

But “endorsing is campaigning,” says Ferdinand Rafanan, the head of the Commission on Elections’ law department. He is right, but only up to a point. That is to say, there is a kind of endorsement that can be understood, by any reasonable person, as a form of campaigning. A celebrity who is hired for the duration of the campaign to represent a candidate—for purposes of argument we can cite the case of the famous actress Judy Ann Santos, whom Sen. Jamby Madrigal used as campaign prop in 2004, in her second and successful run for the Senate—may be said to be actually campaigning.

But surely there are degrees of endorsement. A “mass media personality” who says, once, during an interview, that he prefers a particular candidate is merely giving expression to his own opinion. Will the Comelec penalize this exercise of a basic liberty? A famous model may allow her likeness to be used in the last few weeks of the campaign; should she be penalized during those weeks when her endorsement is not used by forcing her to resign or go on leave throughout the campaign period? The wording of the provision in both the 2010 resolution and the 2001 law is open to contrasting interpretations—and is therefore crying out for clarification.

The case of columnists, however, is completely different—so different that perhaps in future Comelec resolutions fleshing out the provisions of the Fair Election Practices Act it should be given a section of its own. Columnists are hired not only to analyze public issues or to interpret the news, but to shape public discourse itself. In other words, columnists are in the persuasion business. It is their job to sway people’s minds, to influence voters’ conduct.

That job takes on greater weight during election season, not less. It is precisely at a time when the voting population is weighing candidacies and programs that columnists must engage the issues. That engagement carries with it both the responsibility and the risk of endorsement.

Source: inquirer.net

Villar has another land scandal in Iloilo

Sen. Manny Villar, Nacionalista Party presidential candidate, got a dose of Drilon’s ire. It seems that Villar has another C-5 scandal in Drilon’s home province of Iloilo. Villar has a subdivision in Pavia, Iloilo called “Savannah.” Some 12.7 hectares of Savannah were first-class irrigated rice lands which Villar’s company converted into residential land. The CARP law prohibits the conversion of irrigated rice lands to other uses, the reason being to safeguard food production. However, Villar’s company was able to make the Department of Agrarian Reform issue a conversion order.

“Former Agrarian Reform Secretary Rene Villa refused to sign the conversion order, but Villar’s company had his successor, Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, sign the conversion order,” Drilon said.

Villar’s company later bought adjacent lands, increasing the area of Savannah Subdivision to 250 hectares. Drilon said farmers were forced to sell their lands because of lack of irrigation because Villar’s company filled up an irrigation canal, thus blocking water flow to the farms.

“Villar has only one public works project in Iloilo,” Drilon said. “That was a 585-meter highway, for which Villar used P4 million of his pork barrel. That highway led direct to his Savannah Subdivision.” The road project was in the 2003 General Appropriations Act and implemented via Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) 2004-249.

“The C-5 road controversy is just the tip of the iceberg. What we see is a pattern under which Villar’s subdivisions benefited from undue advantage allegedly because of influence peddling in government,” Drilon said.

He challenged Villar to open the books of his real estate companies and reveal to the Filipino people how many favorable land conversion orders he was able to secure from DAR ever since he became a high government official.

“In the name of transparency, I believe the Filipino people are entitled to know the land conversion processes in the DAR under which Villar was able to build his string of subdivisions,” Drilon said.

“After the discovery of this C-5-and-a-half land scam in Iloilo, Villar should now come clean and bare to the public his dealings with DAR.

“By opening his books and proving that the land conversion orders he secured from DAR are aboveboard, Villar will then be able to disprove long-standing rumors in the business community that he used his influence as a high government official to expand his vast private business empire,” Drilon said.

“I challenge Senator Villar to go beyond public rhetoric and open the books of private companies to disprove persistent allegations that he used his government influence to advance his private business interests.”

Source: inquirer.net

Arroyo signs law exempting elderly from e-VAT

By Christian V. Esguerra
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has finally signed into law the much-awaited Expanded Senior Citizens Act, which would exempt senior citizens from the value added tax in their purchases of goods, Charito Planas, her deputy spokesperson, said on Tuesday.

The law, authored by Senator Pia Cayetano, has troubled economic planners as it could erode government revenues from the expanded value added tax.

Cayetano and the bill’s other supporters said the loss of revenue was not too big and the benefits to senior citizens greater than the loss.

Luzon brownouts still a possibility

Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—Metro Manila and Luzon provinces may still experience two to three-hour brownouts today as the 540-megawatt (MW) Limay combined cycle power plant in Bataan remained offline as of 6 p.m. yesterday.

Carlito Claudio, vice president for operations of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, said yesterday managers of the power plant were still preparing to start operations.

“The Limay power plant has to operate by (early this morning) at the latest. Otherwise, we will definitely experience brownouts in the afternoon,”
Claudio said.

He said another plant, the 650-MW Malaya, was running despite low fuel reserves.

Once the Limay power plant goes online, Claudio said, the Malaya plant could start distributing just 260 MW, thus extending fuel reserves until the National Power Corp. is able to purchase more fuel for the oil-based facility. Amy R. Remo

Source: inquirer.net