The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Saturday announced the completion of printing of more than 67 million ballots to be used in the May 9 national and local elections. The poll body said 67,442,616 ballots are ready weeks ahead of the target April 25 completion. “The last of the 67.4M official ballots for #NLE2022 was printed at approximately 10:28 a.m. today (Saturday), April 2,” its Twitter account, @COMELEC, stated. The ballots for the National Capital Region were the last to be printed. All ballots will next go through a verification process. The National Printing Office in Quezon City began printing

_:A Red Cross team on its way to Mariupol, Ukraine to facilitate the safe passage of some 100,000 civilians had to backtrack after arrangements and conditions made it impossible to proceed, said the humanitarian group on Friday. “The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team, which consists of three vehicles and nine personnel, did not reach Mariupol or facilitate the safe passage of civilians today,” the ICRC said. “They will try again on Saturday to facilitate the safe passage of civilians from Mariupol.” For the operation to succeed, it is critical that the Ukrainian and Russian sides respect the

Two suspected Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) members were killed while nine others were wounded in clashes with government troops in Basilan province on Saturday, a top military official disclosed. Brig. Gen. Domingo Gobway, Joint Task Force-Basilan commander, said in a text message that the clash broke out around 7:31 a.m. in Barangay Sukaten, Sumisip town, and continued sporadically. The Western Mindanao Command said in a separate text message that the firefight was ongoing as of this writing. Gobway said four of the nine wounded are troopers of the 64th Infantry Battalion (IB) while the other five are followers of the

A senatorial candidate is wondering why a so-called rights organization is relentless in its character assassination of President Rodrigo Duterte and himself when it has close ties with local groups declared as terrorists by western countries. Duterte had already urged the public to dismiss the party-list group Bayan Muna in the May 9 elections. It is part of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), a founding member of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP). UniTeam bet Harry Roque, who has litigated human rights cases in Philippine and international courts, said he does not know which is

The Philippines is 23 million vaccinees away from reaching its target to fully inoculate some 90 million Filipinos before the administration ends on June 30, the Department of Health (DOH) said Saturday. In a Laging Handa briefing, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje reported that some 67 million people have been fully vaccinated since 2021. With less than three months left before the end of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, the official said the government would strive to reach the target by ramping up its house-to-house programs, bringing the vaccination to workplaces, and declaring more “special vaccination days” in areas where vaccine uptake

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said focus should be trained on those joining the second part of its “PiliPinas Debates 2022” for presidential aspirants, rather than on UniTeam’s Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Marcos skipped the first of the three-part presidential debates at the Harbor Garden Tent of Sofitel Philippine Plaza in Pasay City on March 19. As of posting time, his camp has not issued a statement yet on his participation on Sunday. After two single-moderator formats, it will be a town hall type for the third debate on April 24. Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said they are excited about the