mjohnre

It was deemed impossible at the beginning. Imagine cleaning up an island and disrupting the status quo. Some opposed it because of economic impact. Rumors of a casino to be built were unfounded. But seeing the result after, it proved that it can be done through holistic approach. It's one step to responsible tourism. More needs to be done. There's hope for the environment.

The next challenge is the rehabilitation of Manila Bay [1].

[0] https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/09/02/1847925/25-bor...

[1] https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/03/03/1898154/5-million...

That would seem that they reported fake news that could have caused panic but later on just conveniently issued an erratum.

> You can check them yourself

So, it's a standard that "journalists" can disregard with impunity.

> Duterte is in a position of power to actively act against these journalists

But Pres. Duterte does not as this Bloomberg article clearly shows. Maria Ressa still speaks freely and accuses him openly. That's one less reason to label him as a dictator don't you think? I think I will commend him for that. For upholding freedom of speech.

> Examples: [1] [2]

Regarding the live updates[1], He called it out because it may endanger the soldiers. How should you call them out and get them in check instead?

Regarding the NUJP's condemnation[2], Nieto seems to be joking. Well, I consider jokes and figure of speeches as gray areas in freedom of speech. I don't have to defend him anyway. He can do that for himself.

> Again, you _do not_ peddle opinion to hold people accountable

I just playfully used your words peddle and opinion. Calm down :) That may have made it vague. What I meant is that he effectively raises issues using his words such as the Dengvaxia scandal. Now that it has gained awareness, we may now expect accountability to those who administered it during the past and the present administration. I hate it that the people responsible did it to the children out of greed.

> I'm not saying Duterte is credit grabbing but that people are giving him more credit than he is due. There's a difference there.

Well, I'm giving Pres. Duterte credit because he delivered what the previous administration did not. That's the big difference there.

> Because even in legislation, there's a due process that must be followed and the previous administration followed it. Even if for a bill like FOI which I fully support, I will be critical of Aquino had he dubiously manipulated the legislative process just so he could claim the FOI under his belt.

Maybe you should be critical of Aquino if you really fully support FOI. Knowingly that legislative is slow, he should have at least issued an executive order just as Pres. Duterte did. You just gave me another reason to give Pres. Duterte credit because he found a way to do it quickly in his first few months what the previous administration wasn't able to do after many years in office. Maybe you should too ;)

[1] http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/10/04/1745517/blogger... [2] http://www.mindanews.com/statements/2017/11/statement-nujp-o...

Initially, they reported without verification that ISIS was responsible. Isn't that fearmongering? Does that not qualify as fake news?

> traditional journalists are held to a standard in factual reporting

Who checks them? They're not infallible just like the bloggers. Don't get me wrong, I'm for free speech and not for censorship. What seems to be happening now is that "journalists" label bloggers in Facebook as trolls to silence them and still label Pres. Duterte as dictator. Who's the dictator in that case?

> bloggers (like RJ Nieto in the Senate hearing regarding fake news) would often just hide behind the excuse "I am entitled to my opinion"

The same RJ Nieto who is one of the people to be the first to raise the issue about Dengvaxia, an unproven vaccine against Dengue administered by the previous administration to about 700,000 children. Dengvaxia is reported to worsen the condition for those who do not have a previous case of Dengue. I think RJ Nieto peddles his opinion quite well to make people accountable. Why do "journalists" label him as troll? Is it because he does not conform to their narrative?

> The previous administration basically did the bulk of the legislative footwork necessary to pass a bill. Almost all that's left for Duterte to do is to sign the bill.

Pres. Duterte issued an executive order. Please don't try to frame it as if he is credit grabbing. Even so, why didn't the previous administration just signed and implemented it? By making it as a priority when Pres. Duterte took office, I think he deserves a kudos.

> But that is as much freedom as you can get from bureaucracy, I guess.

Yeah, the government must improve.

It concerns me because it seems that Maria Ressa is now turning to foreigners to intervene and destabilize my country?

What if some of these "journalists" are the ones spreading fake news?

Recently, Rappler reported this. https://www.rappler.com/nation/171702-isis-resorts-world-man...

Then she followed up with this article. https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/171784-terrorism-...

But the blogger RJ Nieto AKA Thinking Pinoy (http://www.thinkingpinoy.net/) pointed it out as fearmongering and fake news.

"Rappler cited Agence France Press who cited Rita Katz of SITE Intelligence Group who cited an anonymous "Marawi Contact". THAT IS DOUBLE HEARSAY (OR EVEN TRIPLE HEARSAY). You did not even bother to ask Katz herself and instead relied on a news wire!" https://web.facebook.com/TheThinkingPinoy/photos/a.568177789...

Thinking Pinoy is labeled by her as a troll and seems to be going around the world trying to convince other people. http://www.getrealphilippines.com/blog/2017/06/people-shriek...

Here, Thinking Pinoy shows that bloggers are having more engagement in Facebook than traditional media. That may be one of the reasons why she's trying to put down Thinking Pinoy. https://web.facebook.com/TheThinkingPinoy/posts/681350205345...

Is Pres. Duterte a tyrant or dictator? One may say that it depends on who is affected and why.

Previous administration promised Freedom of Information (FOI) but only Pres. Duterte implemented it. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/798612/full-text-executive-orde...

Here's the FOI online portal (Browse over 2662 requests and 217 government agencies). https://www.foi.gov.ph/requests?agency=&status=SUCCESSFUL

When I saw this online and fully functional, I was glad and convinced that he is the opposite. He is a leader that upholds freedom and embraces technology (this is very important to me because I'm in the tech sector).

He promised to try to uphold peace and order to the people during the campaign. He openly told the people what he's going to do and it's his priority. People voted for him and he won. Well, that's democracy at work. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/01/philippines-pr...

He tries to make peace with the communists and muslim insurgents. He even let one of the leaders of our muslim brothers speak on the president's podium. http://www.mindanews.com/peace-process/2016/11/nur-and-digon...

According to a survey, majority of the people "agreed they can say anything they want openly and without fear even if it is against the government. http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/07/02/1715565/freedom...

He let protesters rally on the streets. Now, isn't that a working democracy where people are free voice out their concerns? http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/848056/duterte-to-protesters-yo...

How about some of the anti-Duterte who label other people as trolls and try to silence them by taking down their Facebook account, what do you call them?

I was just scrolling here for tech news but then I found this which prompted me to write this. Sorry for the long read. I'd like to know what you think about this. Just refrain from senseless bashing please. By the way, I live in the PH since birth.

I'm not sure what you mean by startup challenges. But Devpost immediately comes into my mind when talking about online hackathons. The hackathons are sponsored by either profit and non-profit organizations. They have either monetary and non-monetary prizes. I was able to join on some of their online challenges and won monetary prize. I'm not sure though if they have startup challenges. Just check it out.

I hope there's a filter/sort or categories.

http://vertx.io/

Vert.x lets you do most of those stuff such as HTTP, futures, P2P, pub-sub and more. It's event-driven and made for concurrency but you can easily run blocking code in it if you want to. I think you can integrate it with existing projects to get those capabilities. It also has tools for testing. It's well documented and with great examples (https://github.com/vert-x3/vertx-examples) so it's easy to learn based on my experience.

Anyone here who also experienced using Vert.x?