MPT South teams up with LRMC Plant for Life at Ipo Watershed

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As part of its commitment to environmental sustainability, Metro Pacific Tollways South (MPT South), a subsidiary of Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC), participated in the Plant for Life: Tree Planting Activity organized by Maynilad Water Services Inc. in partnership with Bantay Gubat of Ipo Watershed on September 27, 2024.

The event focused on the reforestation of the vital Ipo Watershed in Bulacan, which plays a crucial role in the water supply for Metro Manila and other parts of Cavite. MPT South, along with Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC) employees and volunteers, planted a total of 800 native tree seedlings in this collective effort. This is a part of Maynilad's 2024 environmental target, which seeks to plant 220,000 trees across 660 hectares of forested land.

Arlette V. Capistrano, Vice President for Communication and Stakeholder Management of MPT South, stated, “It is an honor to help Mother Nature thrive alongside our kapatids of LMRC. Together, we can do more in protecting our environment and strengthening the consciousness of our teams that what we do is for the good of our future generation.”

MPT South’s involvement in the Plant for Life Tree Planting Activity is part of the company’s broader commitment to environmental sustainability. Through initiatives like tree planting, the company hopes to foster a culture of sustainability and inspire communities to join the mission of protecting and preserving the environment.

MPT South is a subsidiary of Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC), the infrastructure arm of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC). Aside from the CALAX and CAVITEX network of toll roads, MPTC’s domestic portfolio includes the concessions for the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), the NLEX Connector Road, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), and the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway (CCLEX) in Cebu.

Angara highlights early gains in first 100 days at ECCP Luncheon

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As he approaches his 100th day in office, Education Secretary Sonny Angara urged the support of the private sector to help bridge important gaps in the education sector during a luncheon meeting hosted by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) on Wednesday.

“With your support, we can transform this massive system into a force for positive change. I hope you join me not just in my first 100 days, but also in hundreds more to come. DepEd may be the largest, but with partners like you, we’re certainly not the loneliest,” Sec. Angara said.

Sec. Angara noted that the Department is keen to collaborate with private organizations, particularly in areas such as laptops, resources, electrification, educational technology, infrastructures, and support for children with special needs.

“The private sector has always been our accountability partner. In a cycle of leadership changes, they help ensure that programs continue,” he noted.

The DepEd Chief also shared the progress made by DepEd in his first 100 days in office, following President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos’ directive to secure the basic services and prepare learners for work.

“We made the curriculum more flexible to maximize the learning time of students. We created a PISA Task Force to prepare our students for the upcoming international assessment. We’re assessing our reading interventions and Senior High School curriculum,” he added.

Sec. Angara further emphasized efforts to improve teacher support, including the review of the Teacher Development Plan, policy on career progression, and additional benefits, “Our teachers need policies that give them more: more time to teach, more resources for their lessons, more salary in their bank accounts. They require sturdy career progress and reliable support like guidance counselors, both currently lacking in our system.”

In addition, he underscored existing partnerships with organizations like Khan Academy, Frontlearners, iamtheCODE, Jollibee, Rebisco, and Milo, as well as international bodies such as the World Bank and UNICEF to strengthen DepEd programs.

The ECCP luncheon served as a platform for discussion between the government and the private sector on pressing national matters like DepEd’s educational initiatives emerging as a key concern for stakeholders.

Doctors Without Borders calls for urgent action as governments and donors are failing children with TB

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Too many children with TB are neither tested nor treated, with many countries failing at the first hurdle: updating policy guidelines in line with WHO recommendations

Geneva, 16 October 2024 - A new report released today by Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), shows that children with tuberculosis (TB) continue to be left behind in the global effort to end the disease. The report, TACTIC: Test, Avoid, Cure TB in Children, surveyed TB policy guidelines in 14 countries* with a high burden of TB, revealing that many countries lag behind in aligning their national TB policies with the latest guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Doctors Without Borders urged all countries to update their national guidelines so they are in line with the WHO recommendations for the care of children with TB, and to allocate the needed resources—along with developing clear plans with timelines to implement the policies and increase access to TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the children with TB in the country. Doctors Without Borders also urged international donors and technical support agencies to provide sufficient funding to countries to support paediatric TB policy reforms and implementation.

“TB is curable, also in children. The WHO has updated policies to guide countries in providing the best possible care to children with TB, one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases,” said Stijn Deborggraeve, Diagnostics Advisor at MSF Access Campaign. “Yet countries are lagging behind in adopting and implementing these solutions for testing, preventing, and treating TB in children. We urge countries, donors and technical agencies to put an end to this deadly status quo and step up their efforts to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment of TB in children. We can no longer afford inaction—every delay means that more children die unnecessarily.”

Of the 14 policy indicators measured in the Doctors Without Borders report, only one country’s policies are fully aligned with WHO guidance, while seven countries have more than 80% alignment, and four countries still fall below 50% alignment. The largest gaps were found in policies related to diagnosing TB in children. For example, only 5 out of 14 countries have adapted their guidelines to initiate TB treatment in children when symptoms strongly indicate TB disease, even if bacteriological tests are negative. Additionally, only 4 of these 5 countries have the necessary resources to implement this guidance effectively.

The WHO estimates that 1.25 million children and young adolescents (0-14 years) fall ill with TB each year, but that only half of these children are diagnosed and treated. Based on the latest scientific evidence, WHO revised its guidance in 2022 for the management of children and adolescents with TB and made several key recommendations, including the use of treatment decision algorithms that allow many children to be diagnosed based on symptoms alone in absence of lab confirmation, and offering short oral regimens to treat and prevent TB disease in children. If adopted and implemented, the WHO recommendations would drastically improve the diagnosis and quality of care for children with TB.

“Since the older children have been able to benefit from the shorter three-month, once-weekly TB preventive treatment, they have really appreciated how easy it is to take, as have their parents, and the adherence to treatment is much improved. This is a first-hand example of how keeping up with the latest recommendations can provide patient-centered quality of care as well as improving the national indicators on preventive treatment. We are looking forward to making it available for all ages soon,” says Trisha Thadhani, Filipino TB doctor from the Doctors Without Borders TB project in Tondo, Manila.

However, the work does not stop with policy reforms. For example, new, shorter, all-oral regimens are now recommended by the WHO for both drug-susceptible (DS-) and drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) treatment in children, but their rollout in countries remains slow. Additionally, while new and child-friendly TB drugs are available for DS- and DR-TB, these are not always procured by countries.

“It's unfortunate that child-friendly formulations of TB drugs are still not available in many countries due to bureaucratic barriers and funding gaps,” said Dr Cathy Hewison, Head of Doctors Without Borders TB working group. “As a result, children with TB are forced to swallow crushed and bitter medicines without appropriate weight-based doses, putting them at grave risk of side effects and treatment failure. This neglect must end now. We call on governments, donors, and global health organisations to act with urgency, ensuring no child dies or suffers from a preventable, treatable disease like TB. The tools and treatments we have must reach the children who need them most – now."

*Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, India, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Republic of South Sudan, Uganda.