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The country’s coconut development plan continues to face funding gaps due to limited operational budgets and underutilized allocations, which have limited implementation, according to the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA).

In its terminal report of the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan (CFIDP), the PCA said that despite adequate funding for the program, proponents have reported delays and limited operational budget in its implementation.

At the same time, market linkages and enterprise development for coconut farmers continue to be the weakest component of the development plan.

The agency said there has been a recurring delay in procurement and low utilization of funds, despite the availability of substantial program funds.

Citing focus group discussions, the agency said that government procurement procedures had substantially prolonged the acquisition of livestock, machinery, planting materials, feeds, veterinary supplies and other production inputs.

Implementing agencies also said that fund releases were slowed down by mismatched timelines, delayed inter-agency funding and long procurement procedures.

Implementing agencies of the CFIDP include the PCA, the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and the Department of Trade and Industry.

The report urged the government to strengthen procurement planning, conduct earlier procurement preparation and implement more efficient administrative procedures.

Implementing agencies have also reported that operational funds remain inadequate relative to the geographical scope of implementation and the increasing number of beneficiaries.

Among the reported lack in budget are for field monitoring, technical assistance, extension services, beneficiary validation, supervision and travel.

‘This gap resulted primarily from the high operational requirements associated with implementing nationwide agricultural programs,’ the report noted.

It added that implementing agencies had to reach far-flung coconut-producing areas, requiring extensive field travel, regular farm monitoring, beneficiary consultations and continuous technical supervision.

The PCA noted that available operating expenses were often insufficient to support these activities.

‘The implication is that while project appropriations adequately finance program components, insufficient operational funding limits agencies’ ability to sustain quality implementation and provide continuous field-level support,’ it added.

The agency said that future budget planning should align program investments with adequate funding to secure effective oversight and sustain the program.

Meanwhile, the report stated that market linkage and enterprise development have remained the weakest component of the CFIDP.

This was mainly due to marketing challenges, unstable prices, limited processing facilities, inadequate value addition and insufficient enterprise development services, despite the delivery of production support.

‘This occurred because implementation efforts focused primarily on increasing production during the early years of the CFIDP, while downstream interventions such as agribusiness development, processing, marketing and value-chain integration received comparatively less emphasis,’ the report said.

Agencies also noted that improved production alone was not enough to raise farmer incomes without sustained market access and enterprise support.

It added that there is a need to strengthen value-chain development, agribusiness promotion, cooperative marketing and post-harvest support.

The CFIDP is a program designed to modernize the country’s aging coconut sector and improve the income of about 2.5 million coconut farmers. It is funded by the P75-billion coco levy fund.

The world has been trying for many years now to find ways of making online platforms more accountable for content that is harmful to minors.

In the past decades, among the biggest problems related to cyberspace was its facilitation of the online sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

Apart from OSAEC, law enforcement and anti-cybercrime agencies have warned of the emergence of a new and more dangerous threat: the spread of nihilistic violent extremist groups. NVE groups prey on impressionable youths with a penchant for violent online games, with adults ‘grooming’ the minors to commit acts of mass violence and self-harm. With no specific political or religious objectives, these NVE communities are tough to track down.

The Philippines is not the only country that has seen the lethal, tragic consequences of such NVE-groomed minors unleashing their violent tendencies in their schools.

Several countries have moved to restrict minors’ access to social media. This can be challenging to enforce in the Philippines, where a national identification system has yet to be fully operationalized.

Another proposal is to treat social media platforms like broadcasting entities and require them to secure a congressional franchise. The proposal was made amid the inability of the government to compel the developer of GoreBox, the sandbox game that promotes ‘unrestrained destruction,’ to face probers in the Philippines.

The government has also had limited ability to make tech giants like Meta answer questions about their self-regulation rules and the impact on minors of violent content on their platforms.

The idea of having jurisdiction over the social media giants through the requirement for a congressional franchise will likely be tempting for lawmakers. But minors aren’t the only ones who use social media, and the proposal could spell disaster for freedom of information in this country.

Considering the record of politicians in dealing with media franchises, the trend should be toward reducing their say on the matter to a minimum rather than expanding their jurisdiction. This is to prevent a repeat of the shutdown of broadcasting giant ABS-CBN because congressmen, several of whom admitted having personal axes to grind, rejected the renewal of the network’s franchise.

Jurisdiction over primary broadcast franchises should be fully turned over to the National Telecommunications Commission, to de-politicize the regulatory process. This is the situation in the US, where broadcast franchises, licenses and regulation are under the Federal Communications Commission.

A congressional franchise for Meta? The last thing we need is for all Filipinos to lose access to major online platforms because lawmakers felt slighted on social media.

Approval of request for foreign travel by local government officials and employees will now be handled by the heads of the regional and provincial offices of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

DILG Administrative Order 47 delegates the approval of travel requests to regional and local field offices of the agency to streamline the approval process.

Based on DILG Circular 2026-017, which took effect on Sept. 7, the DILG secretary has the exclusive authority over all official and personal foreign trips of governors, and mayors of highly urbanized and independent component cities as well as of the mayor of Pateros.

The DILG secretary has the sole authority to approve foreign travel applications of any local elective official if the trip exceeds three months or coincides with a state of emergency or crisis.

For official trips lasting three months or less during non-emergency periods, the heads of DILG regional offices are authorized to grant clearances to elected and appointed officials and employees of provinces, cities and municipalities.

DILG regional directors may also approve requests of appointed local officials and employees when the travel exceeds three months or coincides with emergency situations.

For barangay officials and personnel in component cities and municipalities, the heads of DILG provincial offices can approve travel requests exceeding three months or taking place during a crisis.

Approval of similar requests by barangay officials in highly urbanized and independent component cities will be handled by the heads of DILG city offices.

The DILG said all foreign travel applications will be processed through the Foreign Travel Authority Online System, where applicants can submit required documents.

In a span of four months, three school shooting incidents took place one after the other, with no less than teenage students as the armed shooters.

Last June 22, two students in San Jose National High School in Leyte went on a shooting spree that killed three schoolmates and left several others injured.

Police reported one of the shooters was a 14-year-old student who played online multiplayer game, Gorebox. According to its Google Play listing, it is a game where players can ‘obliterate anything [they] desire’ and ‘engage in brutal combat with an extensive arsenal of weapons and explosives.’

On August 18 this year, a shooting incident occurred at the junior high school building of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University in Zamboanga City. Three students were killed, including the Grade-8 student shooter, while 20 others were injured. Police probers discovered the student shooter visited several websites promoting nihilism.

The latest incident of school violence took place at the Banga National High School in South Cotabato where a 16-year-old Grade 9 student shot at 10 of his schoolmates last Friday (Sept.18). Two of his fellow students were killed and eight other schoolmates were wounded. Initial investigation showed the shooter-student allegedly watched and followed True Crime Community websites that purportedly tends to normalize violence.

While one of the shooting incidents was perpetrated by a student who was hooked on a violent online game, there are no scientific studies to show a direct link between video games and violent behavior. Although, there have been a spurt of school-shooting incidents, our government officials must not resort to knee-jerk reactive measures.

The Department of Education (DepEd) announced last Monday it will add another layer of school security – ‘digital safety.’ In a statement, DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara cited the government has already implemented several physical measures to beef up the security in schools, in response to the recent incidents of school violence.

The DepEd ‘digital safety’ campaign intends, Angara cited, to provide practical and age-appropriate guidance on safe chatting and online behavior, grooming and online child exploitation, cyberbullying and online harassment, privacy, scams and protecting personal information.

‘We need to give children, parents and teachers the knowledge and tools to navigate these spaces safely,’ the DepEd Secretary pointed out. Angara vows to work with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), among other government agencies, to immediately pilot-test the ‘digital safety’ campaign in selected schools.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to previously rare school-shooting occurrence in our country.

Officials, namely DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla, were quick to point to nihilistic websites as having largely brainwashed these students to shoot guns at people as the quick solution to their school problems. Many of our government authorities blame the negligence of these platform operators to filter these so-called ‘nihilist websites’ from being accessed by youngsters whose minds are most vulnerable to its deadly influences.

Information and Communications Secretary Henry Aguda would rather subject tech giants such as Meta Platforms Inc. to get a legislative franchise before they can offer digital platforms, such as Facebook and Messenger, to Filipinos. Aguda favors the imposition of stricter rules on the entry of online platforms in the Philippines in the wake of these tragic events.

In particular, Aguda reportedly supports instead proposed House Bill 4786, or the Social Media Platform Franchise Act pending at the 20th Congress. HB 4786 treats social media sites like Facebook as broadcasting channels. It seeks to mandate digital platforms to establish a local office with a designated country representative and create a grievance redress system accessible to Filipinos.

There is a consolidated House Bill authored by Speaker Faustino Dy III titled ‘Establishing Safety Standards and Regulatory Measures for the Protection of Children on Social Media and Online Gaming Platforms.’ But Dy’s HB is seeking to impose a blanket prohibition instead of risk-based regulation.

Can this be implemented reliably across platforms without creating easy workarounds or simply pushing minors toward less-regulated services? Does enforcing feature-level prohibitions create pressure for platforms to collect or infer more age-related information about every user? Is Congress establishing the substantive rule clearly enough?

From the initial information about this bill, livestreaming, endless scrolling and short-form video are categorically prohibited, while other potentially compulsive features merely require safeguards. Section 19 (h) of this bill targets the mechanism – livestreaming or short-form video – not whether the underlying content is harmful. Platforms must disable these functions for identified child accounts.

Should a 17-year-old and a 13-year-old automatically face exactly the same prohibition on these features? Where is the developmental distinction? Is a categorical feature ban consistent with the bill’s own commitment to proportionate and age-appropriate regulation?

On the other hand, the Senate approved last Monday on third and final reading the proposed Comprehensive School Safety Act under Senate Bill 2426. Authored by Senate President Win Gatchalian, the approved measure reflects his previous proposal to ban the use of mobile devices and portable electronic gadgets within school premises during instructional hours. It could be a much more practical step toward strengthening school safety amid escalating violent incidents involving learners.

There are other separate proposed legislative measures at the Senate and also counterpart bills at the Lower House seeking to impose restrictions in accessing Facebook and other platforms popular to the so-called Millennials and GenZ populace. Our lawmakers are apparently trying to outdo their counterparts in the European Union (EU).

This was after the European Commission had adopted the ‘Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy’ Act, or KIDS Act for short. It prohibits children under the age of 13 from having a social media account, and sets an EU-wide minimum age for minors to open an account of their own at the age of 15. Service providers operating in 27 EU member states will have to show that their services are age-appropriate and safe by design.

In our situation here, the immediate must-do is remove the bad websites to keep safe cyberspace for our kids’ tech access.

With Mhage Sebastian leading the way with a smashing board one victory over Woman FIDE Master Jemima Paulo, the Philippines overpowered Angola, 3.5-.5, to regain lost footing after the sixth round of the 46th World Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan Monday night.

Also coming through were Woman Grandmaster Janelle Mae Frayna and WFM Shania Mae Mendoza on boards two and four, respectively, while Woman International Master Ruelle Canino drew with WIM Caxita Esperanca on board three to complete the one-sided win.

That propelled the Filipinas, whose trip in Samarkand is being bankrolled by the Philippine Sports Commission, into a 30-nation tie for 28th spot with eight match points each.

The Filipinos were equally impressive in their 3.5-.5 rout of the Yemenis to zoom to joint No. 29.

Sen. Mark Villar twice strayed from the Senate minority bloc on Wednesday, September 23, by abstaining from his bloc’s bid to block the threshold vote, then joining the majority in lowering the bar for convicting Vice President Sara Duterte.

Villar was the only minority senator to take part in the second vote that sought to settle the question raised by Sen. Erwin Tulfo whether the 16-bar threshold for conviction should still hold given four senators’ absence from the trial.

Thirteen senators including Villar voted in favor, while Presiding Officer Sen. Chiz Escudero cast the lone vote against overturning the ruling he himself issued when the trial opened in July.

The rest of the minority bloc members chose to boycott the proceedings and keep out of the chamber during the vote, namely Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, Sen. Pia Cayetano, Sen. Bong Go, Sen. Imee Marcos, Sen. Camille Villar and Sen. Robin Padilla.

Cayetano earlier raised a point of order in an attempt to prevent the court from holding a vote at all. He argued the court had no authority to reopen the threshold in the middle of the trial and that the question belonged to the Supreme Court.

To address Cayetano’s point of order, Escudero divided the house and called for a vote. Thirteen senator-judges voted to shoot down Cayetano’s appeal, while the five other minority senators present backed Cayetano. Villar abstained.

Legal issues

Both Mark and Camille Villar are among the members of their family facing criminal and administrative complaints the Ombudsman filed last Friday over PrimeWater Infrastructure Corp.’s water district deals.

The agency found the joint ventures grossly disadvantageous to the government. It identified the senator, who served as public works secretary from 2016 to 2021 under then-President Rodrigo Duterte, as the company’s beneficial owner.

It was against this backdrop that Camille made a rare emotional interjection earlier Wednesday to urge her colleagues to stop invoking the criminal cases of the senators who have missed the trial. Two of the four, Senators Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada, are detained on nonbailable plunder charges.

“Lahat naman po ng wala dito, hindi naman po sila napatunayan na may sala. Hindi po sila plunderer. Hindi po sila magnanakaw,” she said. (Those who are not here have not been proven guilty. They are not plunderers. They are not thieves).

She was answering Sen. Erwin Tulfo, who had argued that the framers of the 1987 Constituion never anticipated senators facing plunder charges, since those in their time faced subversion, sedition and rebellion.

Tulfo later said he had called no one a convicted plunderer and was merely speaking of the reality that four senators cannot take part in the trial.

Hours later, Camille left the chamber with the rest of the bloc. After the lunch break, she was seen briefly returning to the Chamber and conversing with her brother before leaving.

The court ruled on Wednesday that the two-thirds needed to convict will be computed only from senators legally and factually capable of taking part when the verdict is called.

Excluded are senators who are detained, suspended, medically incapacitated or beyond the Senate’s coercive processes and others similarly situated.

The Southeastern College-Pasay has joined the PHINMA Education NCR Network to boost the education sector in the region.

The school leaders were welcomed during a recent luncheon event led by officials of Saint Jude College-Manila and Saint Jude College-Quezon City.

Several of the network’s leaders, partners and supporters also joined the event across Metro Manila.

The Quezon City government, represented by Maricris Veloso, head of QC Education, was also present.

‘As we welcome a new campus in Pasay with the recent acquisition of Southeastern College, the PHINMAEd NCR Network remains steadfast in our mission of making lives better through education by lessening barriers and reaching more students across Metro Manila,’ PHINMA Education NCR Network said in a statement.