Fears for children as thousands evacuate Taal Volcano zone amid COVID-19 chaos

Wazzup Pilipinas!?


Concern is mounting for the safety of children and families in Batangas as the Taal Volcano was raised to Alert Level 3 following a phreatomagmatic eruption yesterday which experts warned could be followed by further, more dangerous eruptions.

Some barangays in Agoncillo and Laurel –towns which are considered as high-risk areas- have undergone forced evacuation already. More than 7,000 residents in Laurel and nearly 14,500 people from Agoncillo are now affected.

In addition, communities around the Taal Lake are advised to evacuate, take precautionary measures, and remain vigilant for possible hazards and volcanic tsunami according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS).

Authorities are evacuating hundreds of families from their homes to safer areas. But as the country continues to grapple with a second wave of COVID-19, Save the Children warned that another eruption will also increase the risk of the virus spreading.

Jerome Balinton, Humanitarian Manager at Save the Children in the Philippines, said:

“If the volcano erupts again, it could be deadly. Thousands of families and children have been forced to evacuate their homes and are temporarily sheltered at evacuation centers. We are also concerned that, amidst the chaos of the evacuations, families will be unable to follow social distancing guidelines and are at risk of being infected with the virus. There are 16 active cases of COVID-19 reported in Agoncillo and Laurel. If the evacuation of families becomes overwhelming, it may contribute to the spread of the virus.

With the country still reeling from the fallout of COVID-19, a life-threatening volcanic eruption is the last thing these areas need. Many families have already lost their homes and their livelihoods because of the pandemic. Disasters like this exacerbate their present condition and coping with life struggles.”

Atty. Albert Muyot, Chief Executive Officer at Save the Children in the Philippines, said:

“We are appealing to the local government units to ensure the safety and protection of children and their families during this crisis, as well as to develop their Comprehensive Emergency Program for Children (CEPC) to address the safety, protection, participation, and development of all children when emergencies or disasters strike.

Children’s rights to protection from all forms of harm, to be with their families at all times, to remain healthy, and to continue learning amidst the pandemic and emergencies such as the latest Taal Volcano eruption, should always be realized.”

Save the Children’s humanitarian teams are on stand by and ready to respond, and provide displaced families with temporary shelters and other essentials, as needed.

Philippine Post Office employees gets vaccinated

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Given their work on the frontlines of Covid-19 pandemic, more than 500 Philippine Postal Corporation (Post Office) employees and letter carriers have already received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, through the massive rollout of “Resbakuna program” of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the City of Manila’s Health Department.

Postmaster General Norman “Mr. Postman” Fulgencio thanked Senator and Chair of the Senate Committee on Health Christopher "Bong" Go for assisting in the vaccination of post office workers and for his continuing effort to protect employees from contracting the virus to keep the workplace safe.

According to Postmaster General Fulgencio, it is necessary for their essential workers to secure vaccines most especially the letter carriers who are usually exposed in the field, as they continue to interact with the public in delivering mails and parcels.”

Deputy Chief Implementer of the national policy against COVID-19, Presidential Adviser for Flagship Programs and Projects, and Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) president and chief operating officer Secretary Vince Dizon and GSIS President and General Manager Rolando Macasaet witnessed the ceremonial vaccination program for post office employees.

He also expressed his sincere appreciation to Manila City Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso for his initiative to organize a vaccination program for Post Office personnel.

Fulgencio promised to make the vaccine available and accessible to all essential post office workers.

Moreover, he lauded the government headed by Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., chief implementer of the National Task Force against Covid-19 for continuously supporting the country's pandemic responses especially for government postal workers.

A special “Frontliners Stamp Frame” were also presented to Secretary Dizon and PGM Rolando Macasaet of GSIS respectively. Secretary Dizon praised the Postal Service for issuing the stamps in honor of the Frontline heroes in the fight against Covid-19. “We were told that the Philippines is one of the first country in the World to issue stamps for Frontliners”, he said.

Meanwhile, PGM Rolando Macasaet of GSIS offered the Coconut Palace which they owned; to be used as quarantine facility for post office workers should they turn out positive with Covid-19. This is important since Post Office Letter Carriers are highly exposed to the risk of getting infected with the virus. He also announced that GSIS will install a GW@PS Kiosk at Manila Central Post Office and grant GSIS Personal Accident Insurance for the benefit of all Post Office workers.

Major FIDO Updates Launched to Accelerate Global Charge Past Passwords

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New FIDO UX Guidelines and Specification Enhancements Enable Consumers and Enterprises to Meet Growing Demand for Simpler, Stronger Authentication

The FIDO Alliance today announced its first user experience (UX) guidelines and new FIDO2 standards enhancements aimed at accelerating the world’s move beyond passwords. With over 4 billion devices, all major browsers and operating systems now supporting FIDO authentication, today’s releases make it even easier for service providers and enterprises to provide simple, phishing-resistant and privacy-enhancing sign-in experiences.

Today’s announcements come as the widespread support for FIDO Authentication has led to an increased demand from service providers and consumers alike – but they need an implementation path to follow that maximizes adoption and simplifies FIDO deployments. The FIDO UX guidelines provide that path, allowing service providers to help consumers understand, adopt and benefit from logging in with FIDO.

At the same time, the increase in remote work and subsequent increase in phishing attacks on their infrastructure is accelerating enterprises’ digital transformation plans and making strong authentication a priority. The FIDO2 enhancements announced today address enterprises’ unique authentication and device management needs for faster, more efficient FIDO deployments.

“Eliminating the reliance on passwords is now a major objective for everyone offering online services – both to provide a more seamless yet secure access to consumer services, as well as to address the growing threat from sophisticated attacks targeting distributed workforces and systems. Our first UX guidelines and FIDO2 enhancements give consumers and enterprises the tools, protection and roadmap to a simpler, more secure, passwordless future,” said Andrew Shikiar, executive director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance.



UX Guidelines to speed consumer adoption of FIDO authentication

Virtually every modern device and web browser now supports FIDO Authentication, allowing consumers to leverage the same technology they use to unlock their device (a fingerprint or face scan for example) to now sign-in to web services in a secure and private manner. A growing number of large service providers and financial institutions are providing this built-in functionality in order to give their customers the option to log in without the risk and hassle of passwords. These FIDO UX guidelines were created as a set of best practices to help service providers encourage their customers to log in with FIDO Authentication on desktop environments; other FIDO authentication use cases will be addressed through UX guidelines in the future.

The UX guidelines are available to view and download at www.fidoalliance.org/UX-guidelines.

The UX Guidelines were developed following many sessions of moderated and unmoderated consumer research conducted by third-party research firm Blink UX, in collaboration with UX and design experts from FIDO Alliance member companies including Bank of America, eBay, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intuit, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Microsoft, Trusona, Visa and Wells Fargo.

For more detail on this work and recommendations visit Andrew’s blog. FIDO Alliance also has updated the consumer resource site loginwithfido.com with added information on how and where to use FIDO Authentication.



Enhancements to FIDO standards to accelerate passwordless in the enterprise

The FIDO Alliance has announced enhancements to its FIDO2 specifications, which include several new features that will be helpful for passwordless enterprise deployments and other complex security applications. Both FIDO2 specifications were recently updated by their governing bodies – with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approving WebAuthn Level 2 and FIDO doing the same for CTAP 2.1.

Key to these enhancements is enterprise attestation, which provides enterprise IT with improved management of FIDO authenticators used by employees. Enterprise attestation enables better binding of an authenticator to an account, assists with usage tracking and other management functions including credential and pin management, and biometric enrollment required in the enterprise.

Other updates include support for cross-origin iFrames and Apple attestation, as well as improvements to resident credentials. More details on these and other FIDO specification enhancements are available here.



About the FIDO Alliance

The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. By harnessing the collective expertise of hundreds of leading technology, consumer services and government organizations, the FIDO Alliance is enabling simpler and stronger online experiences and more secure online identities and devices. The FIDO Alliance creates and publishes specifications, executes rigorous certification programs and educates consumers in order to build confidence and trust in FIDO Certified products and services.