Filipinos around the world please take time to vote online for the Tubbataha Reef in Palawan, Chocolate Hills in Bohol and Mayon Volcano in Albay to be included as one of the “New Seven Wonders of Nature.”

The contest was organized by the non-profit Seven Wonders Foundation that was established in 2001. Voting ends December 31, 2008 then panel of experts will short-list 21 candidates of which voters worldwide will select the New 7 Wonders of Nature in 2009 and the new winners will be announced in 2010. Tubbataha Reef is an atoll coral reef found in the Sulu Sea. It is a marine sanctuary protected as Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park (TRNMP).

Click this link to vote New 7 Wonders of Nature

Photo courtesy of Tubbataha.org

Aerial photo of Pagasa Island (Thitu Island) taken from C-130 plane of Philippine Air Force (Courtesy of Wikipedia).

According to Wikipedia:

The second largest Spratly island. Serves as the poblacion for the Municipality of Kalayaan, Palawan, Phils. It is covered with trees and has a variety of fauna. It is home to some 300+ civilians (including children) and over 50 soldiers. Other islands are expected to be populated before 2010. Population is regulated to protect the islands’ flora and fauna and to avoid tension with other countries. It has 1.4 km airstrip, a marina, water filtering plant, power generator and a commercial communications tower (by Smart Communications). The Philippines’ Department of Tourism is making improvements to the island to make it profitable. Occupied since 1968. Part of Thitu Reefs.

The Spratly joint project is now becoming a hot issue in Philippine politics as it might have a link to the controversial gov’t and & ZTE deal.

Easy to follow instructions on what to do and don’t when taking care of a baby LOL!!.

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I don’t get what this commercial is really trying to promote, actually it is soooo offending than Desperate Housewives brouhaha. At the end of the clip (approx.0.40) it all summed up.

Please tell me what’s wrong with being a fair or dark complexion?

Here we go again… Senator Antonio Trillanes and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim marched to the Manila Peninsula Hotel after they walk out of the Makati City Regional Trial Court on Thursday morning.

Here’s the statement read at the press the conference:

“Today, we address all decent Filipinos to announce that now is the time to end the sufferings and miseries inflicted upon us by the illegitimate Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government and start a new life, a new Philippines. The die is cast pursuant to our constitutional mandate as protector of the people and state.

And by these acts the officers and men of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police supported by the masses of our people and the various political forces give substance to the constitutional provisions which says the Philippines is a democratic and republican state.

Sovereign peace resides in the people and all government authority emanate from them. That we take the faithful steps of removing Mrs Arroyo from the presidency and undertake the formation of a new government.

Mrs Arroyo had occupied the presidency under a questionable mandate publicly disputed by a vast majority of Filipinos. She stole the presidency from President Estrada through unconstitutional and deceitful means and later manipulated the results of the 2004 elections to perpetuate herself in power.

More {here}

An online petition to save the life of Marilou Ranario, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) facing death sentence in Kuwait. The appeal for Ranario is addressed to Kuwait’s Amir. Ranario, 35, left a teaching job in the Philippines to work as a domestic helper in Kuwait in 2003.

She was jailed and convicted in January 2005 for the murder of her female employer. Kuwait’s Court of First Instance sentenced her to die by hanging eight months later. The Court of Appeals upheld the sentence last February.

The case is on final appeal before the Cessation Court, Kuwait’s highest court, and the final verdict is expected to be out in January or February 2008.

Please see the complete online petition here.

Is it true or just another unconfirmed report but according to a Yahoo news (you need a Spanish translator), Philippine president Gloria Arroyo is studying the prospects of reviving the official language status of Spanish by January after the country education system abandoned it in 1987.

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1) The Nigerian scam, also known as 419

Most of you have received an email from a member of a Nigerian family with wealth. It is a desperate cry for help in getting a very large sum of money out of the country. A common variation is a woman in Africa who claimed that her husband had died, and that she wanted to leave millions of dollars of his estate to a good business.

In every variation, the scammer is promising obscenely large payments for small unskilled tasks. This scam, like most scams, is too good to be true. Yet people still fall for this money transfer con game.

They will use your emotions and willingness to help against you. They will promise you a large cut of their business or family fortune.

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Pinoy problogger Abe Olandres is stepping down as Blog Herald editor due to a lawsuit.  I was reading J. Angelo Racoma’s blog late yesterday and found a few details about the root of the problem as described by Abe.

I run a fairly small start-up web hosting here in the Philippines. One of our former clients runs a forum that we used to host. Several members of that forum were throwing vindictives against a their former employer. That employer sent us a demand letter thru their law firm demanding that we terminate the site or be charged with libel as well. The client moved out from us the following day. However, the employer/complainant has now filed several libel law suits against us claiming that we are the owner of the domain and the operator of the site. The site is still up and running though hosted somewhere else, the domain was also transferred away from us. Still, the complainant is alleging we should have enforced some sort of regulations or control over the content when it was still with us.

Apparently, all they wanted is money and this case is just of one of their many business gigs.

A couple readers of Blog Herald suggested to setup a legal fund for Abe just to ease a little bit the financial burden he’s having right now and J. Angelo initiated ways to contribute to this fund thru PayPal or Xoom.

We’ve set up a Xoom link where you can send in funds: www.xoom.com/pay/26999757 . Xoom accepts any amount from $25 to $2,500. For smaller amounts, you can send paypal to theblogherald (at) gmail (dot) com.

Have you ever received an mail coming from your bank that’s asking you to verify your account information? or, if you’ve been using Ebay or PayPal and get a email message that telling you that your account had been compromised and you need to reset your password then you’re not alone, this online scam is called Phishing.

To check you knowledge about phishing scam, try these online quizes and see if pass or failed the phishing scam check test.

1. Washington Post
2. SonicWall