Expanded Maternity Leave Bill to Benefit Dads

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"Ang Expanded Maternity Leave Bill ay hindi lamang para kay nanay, pwede din kay tatay."

This was the statement issued on Tuesday by Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros in response to questions whether the paid paternity leaves of working men can also be increased.

Hontiveros, who chairs both the Senate Committee on Women and Senate Committee on Health, filed Senate Bill 215 otherwise known as "The Expanded Maternity Leave Act" to double women workers' maternity leave from the current 60 days to 120 days, with extra 30 days for solo mothers, for a total of 150 days.


"Daddy quota"

The Senator said that fathers can avail of the benefits of the proposed Expanded Maternity Leave Law. She called this the "Daddy quota" of the proposed measure.

"The idea behind the bill is not only to give expectant mothers ample time to ensure the best possible conditions for a healthy delivery, recovery from childbirth and stronger mother-child bond, it also recognizes the role of fathers, adoptive parents and alternate caregivers, and contribute to a more equal distribution of child care among Filipino families," Hontiveros said.

Hontiveros said that 30 days of the proposed 120-day maternity will be alloted to alternate caregivers (spouse, common-law partner, relative up to the 4th degree of consanguinity). Adoptive parents are also included.

“Parenting is a collective effort, and pregnancy is both a delicate and precious time. Pregnancy and child care is not the responsibility of women alone. Fathers and other alternate caregivers deserve the opportunity to create meaningful memories with their partners as they welcome and nurture their children,” Hontiveros said. 

Mga tatay makikinabang sa Expanded Maternity Leave bill ni Hontiveros

"Ang panukalang batas na Expanded Maternity Leave ay hindi lamang para sa mga nanay, pwede rin ito sa mga tatay."

Ito ang pahayag ngayong Martes ni Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros bilang kasagutan sa mga nagtatanong at nagmumungkahing itaas din ang bilang ng paid paternity leave ng mga nagtatrabahong tatay.

Si Hontiveros, chairperson ng Committee on Women at Senate Committee on Health sa Senado, ay naghain ng Senate Bill 215 o ang "Expanded Maternity Leave Act" para doblehin ang kasalukuyang 60 araw na maternity leave sa 120 araw at karagdagang 30 araw sa mga solo parents, sa suma total ng 150 na araw.


"Daddy quota"

Ayon sa senador hindi lang ang mga kababaihan ang makikinabang sa kanyang Expanded Maternity Leave bill, maging ang mga tatay ay kasama dito. Sabi ni Hontiveros, may "Daddy quota" ang kanyang panukalang batas.

"Ang pangunahing layunin ng panukalang batas na ito ay bigyan ng tamang panahon ang mga nanay na magpagaling matapos manganak at masiguro din na may tamang oras na igugugol para sa mother-child bonding. Bukod sa pagbibigay halaga sa mga nanay, kinikilala rin ng Expanded Maternity Leave Act ang papel ng mga tatay, adoptive parents, at alternatibong tagapag-alaga o caregiver na may parehong responsibilidad para alagaan ang mga bagong silang na bata," ani ni Hontiveros.

Ayon kay Hontiveros, sa kanyang panukalang batas, ang 30 araw sa 120 araw na maternity leave ay pwede ibahagi sa mga miyembro ng pamilya na mag-aalaga ng sanggol (asawa, common-law partner, o kamag-anak hanggang 4th degree of consanguinity). Kasama rin ang mga adoptive parents.

“Ang pagiging magulang ay isang kolektibong pagsisikap. Ang pregnancy at childcare ay hindi lang responsibilidad ng mga kababaihan. Ang mga tatay, adopters at alternatibong tagapag-alaga ay kailangang mabigyan ng oportunidad na magkaroon ng makabuluhang panahon kasama ang kanilang mga partners para masubaybayan at maalagaan ang sanggol," sabi ni Hontiveros.

SEA-US Cable System Secures FCC License Cable is Targeted for Completion in 2Q 2017

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The Southeast Asia – U S (SEA-US) Cable System publicly marked key milestones and closed in on others with the completion of the installation of its state-of-the-art undersea fiber optic cable network by the second quarter of 2017. Last week, the Hermosa Beach, California shore-end was successfully connected. On January 12, 2017, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the SEA-US cable landing license. By the end of January 2017 the construction of California’s cable landing station will be completed. In February 2017 the installation vessel will arrive in Honolulu, Hawaii, after completing its main-lay construction between California and Hawaii.

Essential to the SEA-US Cable System’s reliability is the location and protection of mission-critical equipment on land. The SEA-US consortium members chose CoreSite (NYSE:COR), a premier provider of secure, reliable, high-performance data center and interconnection solutions across the United States, to house the SEA-US Cable System’s submarine line terminating equipment (SLTE) at CoreSite’s purpose built LA2 data center in downtown Los Angeles, California. The SEA-US Cable System’s unique design provides its users with additional protection between the Hermosa Beach, California landing and CoreSite’s LA2 data center over physically diverse dark fiber pairs.

The historic US $250 million SEA-US Cable System is being constructed by NEC Corporation. When completed, the system will deliver an initial design capacity of 20 Terabit per second (Tb/s) capacity, using NEC’s state-of-the-art 100 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) technology. This capacity will help to meet the exponentially growing demand for bandwidth between Asia and North America, while also enabling onward connectivity to existing and planned submarine cable systems.

The SEA-US Cable System investors consist of the following consortium members: Globe Telecom (Manila, Philippines), GTA (Tamuning, Guam), GTI (Los Angeles, California), Hawaiian Telcom (Honolulu, Hawaii), RTI (San Francisco, California), Telin (Jakarta, Indonesia) and Telkom USA (Los Angeles, California). More details can be found below.

The Role of Endpoint Security in Today’s Healthcare IT Environment

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This is the number of opportunities a cybercriminal needs to exploit healthcare network vulnerabilities, steal passwords, install malware, and ultimately work their way through the entire IT ecosystem. Once inside, they could hijack control of medical equipment, gain access to patient data, and much more, ultimately putting patient lives and organizational reputation on the line.

The shift towards deploying and managing a more patient-friendly healthcare environment that includes the myriad of devices being accessed by patients and employees can be very challenging, especially when it comes to endpoint security.

Let’s take a closer look at the role endpoint security plays in today’s healthcare environment, and why it needs to be part of the larger network security puzzle. 

Supporting the Patient-Centric Care Movement

Healthcare providers of all types are now being required to provide platforms that allow for seamless communication and collaboration between key stakeholders. As a result, information that needs to be securely shared and stored is now flowing at an increasingly rapid rate, and in many different directions, creating a need for security solutions that can support these exchanges.

This move towards patient-centric network services has decentralized the monitoring process and resulted in patients, providers, and other stakeholders accessing information that originates from outside the hospital’s physical walls.

The more information accessed and shared outside the hospital setting, the greater the risk of malicious content working its way inside. While some healthcare systems are adjusting to these changes by employing endpoint security and robust security solutions, there are still a number of organizations that have left the doors to their data wide open. Endpoint security is critical to keeping the patient and other stakeholders’ data secure.

Securing Endpoints Related to the Increased BYOD Interest

The growing number of connected devices used by employees in the healthcare sector is leading to more information sharing, but it’s also placing the endpoint at greater risk than ever before. It’s very common to see smartphones, tablets, and laptops being used inside today’s hospitals, and the data that’s being accessed needs to be secured, from the Internet to the endpoint. This data often contains sensitive medical information that’s being shared between healthcare professionals, including medical imaging data, transcriptions, prescriptions, and more, and typically needs to be vetted by a number of different individuals (physicians, employers, claims processors, etc.) to determine protocols and procedures.

This need for a collaborative digital workspace to enable internal and external collaboration makes it critical that endpoint security be taken seriously. Without appropriate endpoint security solutions in place, healthcare systems will not be able to enhance their existing systems and processes without an overabundance of risk.

An Endpoint Blueprint for Success

Solely deploying security end to end is simply not enough in today’s healthcare industry, as it lacks two key components – integration and automation. Endpoint security, today and in the future, needs to be part of a much larger security framework that can work together with other security elements, like threat intelligence.

From inside the network to the cloud, powerful and integrated end-to-end solutions need to protect the attack surface at all points along the kill chain. When different security sensors and tools are able to work together to collect, analyze, and coordinate a response to threats, the entire healthcare environment will be better protected. Security solutions must be ready and able to deal with the sophisticated threats of today in real time.

Let’s get a conversation going on Twitter! What role do you think endpoint security plays in today’s healthcare IT environment and where do you think we are headed in 2017 and beyond?

Written by Susan Biddle, Sr. Director of Healthcare at Fortinet