She’s 280 lbs. and a supermodel!

Saying there’s a “Plus-Size Revolution” going on, People Magazine has featured on its cover “The World’s First Size 22 Supermodel”, said a report by CNN.

The supahmodel? Tess Holiday, a 5’5” who weighs 280s lbs. Holiday became the “first model of her stature” to sign with a major modeling agency.

CNN reported that there is now “a level of celebration over fashion being ‘more inclusive’ with larger models everywhere from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to the cover of People.”

BBWs or big beautiful women of “all shades are now being as fashionable as many of the women one might see strutting the runway.”

It’s not how heavy a woman is, but how she carries that weight, emphasized a fashion guru.

Clothing size refers to sizes of garments sold off-the-shelf. Size 24 is generally on the large size, with US sizing going down to as small as size 0 and 2 for women’s dresses and suits.

More Pinoys feeling Optimistic

More Filipinos are optimistic today than at any time since June 2010 and March 1987, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

The SWS survey asked 1,200 adults nationwide on how they feel about their lives now and how their quality of life might be in the next 12 months.

Personal optimism among Filipinos posted a record-high.

Some 42 percent of Filipinos expect their quality of life to improve in the next 12 months. Net personal optimism score was at +37 (42 percent optimists minus five percent pessimists), which the SWS said is “very high”.

The previous record high was +36 recorded in June 2010, the month President Aquino began his term. Last December, net personal optimism was at +35 (41 percent optimists minus 6 percent pessimists).

The SWS considers personal optimism scores of at least +30 as “very high,” +20 to +29 as “high,” +10 to +19 (historical median and mode) as “fair,” +1 to +9 as “mediocre,” zero to -9 as “low,” and -10 and below as “very low.”

The survey also asked the respondents on whether or not their lives improved over the past 12 months and on how they feel about the country's economy.

The first-quarter survey showed 32 percent felt their lives improved (gainers) while 26 percent said they worsened (losers) in the last 12 months. This meant a “high” +6 net gainers score, or the difference between gainers and losers.

SWS said this was the highest in 28 years since March 1987, when it was a record-high very high +11. It is also a increase of seven points from the “fair” -1 (29 percent gainers minus 30 percent losers) in December 2014.

SWS first did the “quality of life” survey in April 1984 when Ferdinand Marcos was president.

The optimism most Filipinos feel appears to come only from their perceptions about the economy.  According to the same survey, 27 percent of respondents were optimistic the economy would improve while 20 percent felt it would deteriorate, or a "high" +6 net optimism about the economy.

Optimism about the economy was 10 points lower and one grade down from the “very high” +16 (31 percent optimistic minus 15 percent pessimistic about the economy) posted in December 2014. -end-

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Criminals as Fish Feeds? Hear it from Duterte

Playing coy on his casting an eye on Malacañang he may be, but Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has said he doesn’t want to be elected President in 2016 because he doesn’t want to kill more people.

In a tell-all at a local TV show, Duterte all but admitted to having ties with the vigilantes in Davao City.  “They say I am the death squad? True, that is true,” Duterte said.

More than 1,000 suspected criminals in Davao had been silenced permanently by the so-called Davao Death Squad or DDS since Duterte became mayor in 1988.

The tough-talking mayor is being wooed by several political parties, including PDP-Laban headed by Sen. Koko Pimentel III to run for President under their banner.

Duterte said that as President, he would not go soft on criminals. “If by chance, God will place me there, the 1,000 will become 100,000,” he said.

“Diyan mo makita na tataba ang isda sa Manila Bay. Diyan ko kayo itatapon (You will see bigger fish in Manila Bay because that is where I will dump your bodies),” he added.

“I do not want to be president. I do not want to kill people so do not elect me as president,”   miserable.”

“Papatayin ko talaga kayo (I will kill you),” he warned criminals.

                                                  -end-

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Aboitiz Power expands its solar venture portfolio

Aboitiz Power Corporation is ramping up its presence in solar energy.  With its American partner SunEdison, the company is targeting an installation of between  40 to 100MW prior to the prescribed cut-off period in March 2016.

“With solar, if our negotiations proceed, we might be able to get a project running also this year so we can catch up with the March 2016 deadline,” Aboitiz Power chief finance officer Manuel Lozano said.

He indicated that based on their project timeline, “ideally, we start something by July or third quarter. We are in discussion with some of our projects.” He said that they are looking at projects in Luzon  and Visayas. In the Visayas region, the existing San Carlos solar power facility could serve as a “good development template” for other players.

Lozano said the company has been talking to several prospective parties, “so it depends on which of them. Hopefully, we can do something between 40 to 100MW. If we can get good projects, then we will do them simultaneously.” The Aboitiz Power executive conceded that “we are constrained by time so we need to finish the deal and have the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract ready, the financing ready.”

The company is already talking  to some banks for project financing. The solar race is where the competition is expected to heat up close on the heels of the recent approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) of the second wave of feed-in tariff (FIT) at P8.69 per kilowatt-hour.

A total of 1,600 megawatts of solar service contracts will flex its way into 450 megawatts of FIT-underpinned capacity, triggering speculation as to which of the major industry players and new ones will prevail.

Time to let go? Resign?

Protesting workers asked today Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz to resign over the fire that killed 72 workers in the Kentex slippers factory in Valenzuela City.

Baldoz, along with local officials of Valenzuela and the Bureau of Fire Protection, is to blame for the loss of lives arising from the lack of safety standards in place at the factory which burned to the ground last week, the workers said.

The labor chief was lambasted by the workers over what they claimed as her initial defense of the owners of Kentex, to whom her department had issued a certificate of compliance with labor standards.

Since assuming her post in 2010, Baldoz has leaned towards the interest of big business, said the Philippine Star in a report, quoting the leaders of the protesting group.

"The issuance of DO 18-A ushered the legalization of sub-contracting, even if it is contrary to the Constitution and the Labor Code,” a labor leader said.

“This also cemented the cheap labor policy of the government that opened the flood gates to pervasive unfair labor practices as sweatshops mushroomed nationwide.” -end-

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