OFFBEAT MAIL

Engr. Aisa Mijeno meets with President Obama and Jack Ma of  Alibaba.com. at the APEC CEO Summit in Manila. Photo: philnews.ph Engr. Aisa Mijeno didn't have time to figure it out until she paid a visit to a remote village in Mt. Province in the Philippines. At the touch of dusk, she had noticed that all the homes in that upland community were engulfed in total darkness. Then, she promised to herself that she would invent a lamp that wouldn't use kerosene, a common fuel for unsafe traditional lamps in the hinterland areas in the country. But kerosene lamps can burn down houses made of light and native materials that are readily available in the uplands. When she went back home, Mijeno tried to polish her new invention. Voila, she made it. She thought her problem would end there. Instead, she was faced with the lack  of money to finance her new project, which is to mass-produce the saltwater-fed lamp intended for the homes in upland communities in the Philippines. It t...

PH Pres. Benigno Aquino III inspects APEC venue. Photo: Malacanang In one of its front page trivia, the Philippines News Agency came out with a news dispatch which states that the 21 world leaders who are set to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Manila on November 17, 2015, would be using fixed chairs, instead of the normal swivel chairs that allow the leader to have the freedom to turn around whenever he wants to do so during formal sessions. Admittedly, this news story is new. And this is the first time that a host country like the Philippines has used this new strategy to perhaps, curtail the bad mannerism of a particular world leader. To some, this might be misconstrued as an unacceptable imposition of something beyond human rational behavior. If it is, I simply don't agree with this view. What is really the essence why the host country decides to deviate from using the usual swivel chair? In his words, Philippines' Communication Secretar...