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Senator Cynthia Villar is hitting two birds with one stone in her latest effort to help Filipinos amidst the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) crisis in the country. She is distributing face masks to all barangays in her home city of Las Piñas, which are sewn by a group of women in Cavite. “We are helping prevent the spread of Covid-19 in our barangays, at the same time, we are able to provide a source of income for some women in Cavite, which as the rest of the country, is in enhanced community quarantine or lockdown”, said Senator Villar. Prior to this, Senator Villar has distributed bottled drinking water, rice and other relief goods to the city’s barangays. Her family also provides the daily meals and temporary housing of frontliners of the Las Pinas General Hospital and Satellite Trauma Center. A total of 4,400 cloth face masks will be done and distributed to 22 barangays in Las Piñas. The women who will sew them will be paid for the face masks. They will also be sewing PPE (p...

Over 700,000 facemasks were donated to the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Department of Health, and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine through an international public private collaboration project which was spearheaded by the Senate office of the Philippines represented by Senator Manny Pacquiao. The facemasks were given by two South Korean companies KP Trading and C-So Funding and imported and handled by their local partner retailer HMR Trading Haus. “It’s at times like this that we realize there are no borders; we are all humans fighting a common enemy, as such, we must support each other to achieve a united victory,” said Diana Ji Hye Kwon representative of KP Trading and C-So Funding. Also joining Diana were Won Young Lee, Ho Bum Shim and Warren Allen Carman. With the assistance of the Department of Social Welfare and Development handled by Senator Pacquiao, the face masks were distributed to...

Award-winning actress Sylvia Sanchez and her husband businessman Arturo Atayde were tested positive for COVID-19. Sanchez made the announcement on her Instagram March 31. She is the third Filipino movie star to test positive for coronavirus. The two other celebrities - Christopher de Leon and Iza Calzado - have been discharged from the hospital. The complete statement of Sanchez: "Hi everyone❤️ On March 24, my husband and I were brought to Cardinal Santos as I was having chills and he had cough and shortness of breath; "We were made to take the covid-19 swab test and since then, Art and I have self-isolated. A week later, we finally received the results and we both came out positive for COVID19; "We would like to request those whom we saw prior to the community quarantine to monitor for symptoms of shortness of breath, cough, fever, LBM and sore throat. Art and I are getting better each day; "Although this is slower than our usual recovery, we ...

More than 200 cinemas in Shanghai will re-open Saturday, March 28, after nearly two months of enforced shutdown to stop the spread of coronavirus, Chinese authorities said. This makes the metropolis of more than 24 million one of China’s first major tier one cities to re-open multiplexes to the public, after others in more far-flung regions like Xinjiang or Sichuan provinces led the way last week. A first batch of 205 Shanghai cinemas will resume operations Saturday, while the rest will re-open “in an orderly manner when the conditions are right,” said the official Xinhua news agency, referencing comments made by Shanghai Municipal Government spokesman Yin Xin at a Thursday press conference about coronavirus prevention. There are currently more than 380 cinemas in Shanghai. In order to encourage viewers to actually frequent cinemas, the Shanghai Film Bureau will partner with the city’s propaganda bureau on a month-long program to subsidize film tickets. Until April 26, users ...

In March 1985, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross and more than 40 other A-list recording artists came together to sing “We Are the World.” The cause: African famine. The sales: $63 million. The chorus: “There’s a choice we’re making, we’re saving our own lives.” Those words became part of a unifying, legendary anthem. Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and the 35th anniversary of the release of the hit song, that chorus is on Richie’s mind today. He wrote the song with Jackson. “That line,” Richie, 70, tells PEOPLE exclusively, “came about as Michael and I were sitting there talking. We said, you can either say, ‘I’m saving my life’ or ‘We’re saving our lives.’ ’We Are the World’ is a statement we wanted to make. What do we do to save our own?” Richie, like many Americans, is sheltering in place with his loved ones. “We are all hunkered down. Family is the key to this. It is the soother,” he says. While at home, also like m...

GENEVA - FIFA, the international governing body of football, and the World Health Organization (WHO) have teamed up to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19) by launching a new awareness campaign led by world-renowned footballers, who are calling on all people around the world to follow five key steps to stop the spread of the disease. The “Pass the message to kick out coronavirus” campaign promotes five key steps for people to follow to protect their health in line with WHO guidance, focused on hand washing, coughing etiquette, not touching your face, physical distance and staying home if feeling unwell. “FIFA and its President Gianni Infantino have been actively involved in passing the message against this pandemic since the very beginning,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the virtual launch of the campaign at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. “Be it through campaigns or funding, FIFA has stood up to the coronavirus, and I am delighted that world ...

One of the hottest movies in the Warner Bros. library is a nine-year-old drama that kills off Gwyneth Paltrow in its first 15 minutes. Fears of the coronavirus have prompted movie fans to re-examine Steven Soderbergh’s star-studded 2011 thriller, “Contagion,” a fictional account of a pandemic that kills 26 million people worldwide. According to Warner Bros., the film was listed as No. 270 among its catalog titles at the end of December. Since the start of 2020, it has jumped to second, bested only by Harry Potter movies. “Contagion” is also trending on Amazon Prime Video and has flirted with the iTunes top 10. Barry Jenkins, the writer and director of “Moonlight,” the best picture winner at the 2017 Oscars, was one of the people who found himself interested in the film in recent days. He said he had watched “Contagion” with his girlfriend, Lulu Wang, the writer and director of the acclaimed 2020 indie hit “The Farewell,” while on location in Atlanta — the city, he was qu...

Brooklyn DJ iMarkeeyz capitalizes on Cardi B’s viral Instagram video about Coronavirus to score his first Billboard chart entry. As preliminary reports indicated, the remixed tune “Coronavirus” sold 3,000 copies in the week ending March 19, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The sales total prompts a No. 9 debut on Billboard’s Rap Digital Song Sales and a No. 13 start on the R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Song Sales charts dated March 28. In addition, “Coronavirus” picked up 626,000 U.S. on-demand streams in the same period. “Coronavirus” began as an Instagram rant from Cardi B on March 10 about the pandemic disease and its global repercussions. Within days, iMarkeeyz -- known for turning other viral moments into musical remixes -- chopped the clip’s audio and repackaged it with a hip-hop beat, with special attention given to the rapper’s delivery of the disease as “Corona-VIRUS!” and an off-the-cuff “sh-- is getting real” for the remixed song’s refrain. On Twitter, both t...

Actor Hyun Bin was reported to have donated 200,000,000 won (P8.2 million) to the fight against coronavirus (Covid-19) in South Korea. A report by Koreaboo.com said that Hyun secretly donated to the Community Chest of Korea, a non-profit organization. Hyun's agency said that it is not aware of the actor's donation. Reports said that the "Crash Landing On You" actor even requested the organization to keep quiet about it until he wrote a letter on Instagram. He wrote a letter on Instagram about the sorry state of coronavirus in South Korea. It was written in Korean and was later translated in English. The letter read: "You might be spending day after day anxious and worrying over the Coronavirus disease 2019 which is occurring all over the world and throughout Asia including China and Japan as well as Korea. I’d like to ask after your health at least by writing to express my worry over whether the place you are at is safe; ⠀ "Just as we’ve alw...

US actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson have been released from a hospital in Australia after receiving treatment for coronavirus. The couple, who are now in self-quarantine in their Queensland rented home, announced they had tested positive last week. The couple were on the Gold Coast as Hanks made a film about Elvis Presley. Production has been put on hold. There are currently 375 confirmed cases of the virus in Australia. Hanks, 63, said last Thursday on Instagram he had come down with the virus. "We felt a bit tired, like we had colds and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too," he said in a post. He later followed up with another post, thanking "everyone here Down Under who are taking such good care of us". - bbc.com/image courtesy of vanityfair.com.

The Department of Health (DoH) confirmed reports of the recovery and subsequent discharge of a Filipino COVID-19 case. This brings the total of recovered patients in the Philippines to 3. The recovered case is PH14, a 46-year old male who manifested with cough and fever on February 25, 2020. He was admitted March 5 at Makati Medical Center, and was confirmed with COVID-19 on March 9. The patient is now asymptomatic and tested negative twice for COVID-19 prior to discharge. “While this is a very welcome development, there is no reason for us to be complacent. In order to contain the virus, we may also need to extend community quarantine to other areas of the country. We need the public to cooperate with us now more than ever, and serve as our partners in ensuring that the spread of COVID-19 is put to a halt. Let us all act fast and act now,” Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said. - (Department of Health)

Senator Miguel "Migz" Zubiri has been tested positive for the coronavirus (Covid-19). Zubiri made the announcement on his Facebook March 16. His full statement: "To my dear fellow Filipinos, my Kababayans. It is with sadness that I announce that I am positive for Covid 19; "I had a test taken last Friday while on self quarantine and this afternoon I received a call from Sec. Duque on my condition; "My heart sank with what he had said but Im uplifted with the fact that i am asymptomatic and have no fever or cough nor am i weak or have any headaches; "My decision to self quarantine last Wednesday evening after session was the best decision i made and could have protected my Family from contamination; "As one of those very early on in the Senate who espoused and advocated for stronger Government response on controlling Covid 19, I was very careful in my dealings with people at work in the Senate. I practiced social distancing as well as a...