Philippine Asian News Today Vol 19 No 18 | Page 16
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PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY September 16 - 30, 2017
Vancouver predicts nearly higher overdose support calls
City of Vancouver pre-
dicts nearly 7,000 overdose
support calls by the end of
2017
4,919 overdose calls
have been made in 2017, sur-
passing the 2016 total
Vancouver Police De-
partment (VPD) reported that
Vancouver saw a total of four
suspected overdose death-
saduring the week of Sep-
tember 11 to 17, an increase
from two reported the previ-
ous week. The most stagger-
ing data comes as Vancou-
ver Fire and Rescue Services
(VFRS) reported a total of
4,919 overdose support calls
so far in 2017, surpassing the
2016 total of 4,709. The week
of September 11 alone saw
93 overdose calls to VFRS.
The City has been urg-
ing the federal and provin-
cial governments to make
this public health emergency
a top priority and is encour-
aged by the $322 million in
funding from the new pro-
vincial government allocated
towards fighting the overdose
crisis. The City looks forward
to working alongside the
provincial government to ad-
dress four key pillars of harm
reduction, treatment, preven-
tion and enforcement. A few
of the actions recommended
to both levels of government
include: exploring decriminal-
ization and a move towards a
national regulatory framework
for all illicit substances; ex-
panding addictions treatment
including injectable opioid as-
sisted therapy; increasing the
number of overdose preven-
tion sites to all communities
in need; providing necessary
services in supportive housing
for people at risk for overdose;
implementing drug check-
ing programs; and amending
legislation for MSP to include
coverage for evidence based,
psycho-social addiction treat-
ments.
Toxicology reports on
the most recent deaths are
not yet complete, and final
overdose death numbers
need to be confirmed by the
BC Coroners Service.
Read the BC Coro-
ners Services’ report on Illicit
Drug Overdose Deaths in BC,
January 1, 2007 to July 2017
here.
************
PH climbs a notch in competitiveness
The Philippines climbed
one place to rank 56th among
137 countries in the World Eco-
nomic Forum’s Global Compet-
itiveness Report 2017-2018.
The report showed while
the country improved its global
ranking from 57th last year, its
Asean ranking slid to 8th this
year from 6th in 2016.
With the two-point drop
in regional standing, the Phil-
ippines now ranks behind Viet-
nam and Brunei Darussalam,
which both made large strides,
according to the Makati Busi-
ness Club.
“It is good to see that
we have maintained our over-
all competitiveness and even
moved one notch higher. How-
ever, as we implement changes
to improve, other countries are
doing the same. In fact, Viet-
nam and Brunei have overtak-
en us this year,” MBC chairman
Edgar Chua said.
“We therefore need to do
much more at a much faster
pace. We call on Congress to
focus on passing priority bills
identified by the business sec-
tor especially the Comprehen-
sive Tax Reform Program and
not allow itself to be diverted by
various political maneuvers like
impeachment proceedings,”
said Chua.
The Philippine’s highest
gains this year are in market size
where it climbed four notches
from its 2016 ranking; labor
market efficiency, 4 notches
up; and higher education and
training, 3 notches up.
Macroeconomic environ-
ment remains the country’s
highest-ranking pillar, but it slid
down the 22nd spot, from its
2016 ranking at 20th.
Its ranking in financial
market also slid down from 48th
in 2016 to 52nd in 2017. In
terms of market size, the sec-
ond highest-ranking pillar, the
country jumped four places to
27th.
Based on top-ranked in-
dicators, the Philippine’s com-
petitive advantages are infla-
tion (ranked 1st out of 137),
HIV prevalence (ranked 1st),
government budget balance
(ranked 24th), business impact
of malaria (26th), domestic
market size index (27th) and
available airline seat kilometers
(27th).
The report also showed
that of the five top-ranked
competitive advantages, gov-
ernment budget balance slid
down 7 spots from 2016, while
domestic market size gained
3 notches from the previous
year.
Meanwhile, the country’s
bottom indicators included the
number of procedures to start
a business (ranked last out of
WWW.PHILIPPINEASIANNEWSTODAY.COM
137th), tuberculosis incidence
(126th), burden of Customs
procedures (125th), business
cost of terrorism (125th) and
quality of air transport infra-
structure (124th).
The Executive Opinion
Survey, a major component
of the report, showed that the
most problematic factors for
doing business in the Philip-
pines were inefficient govern-
ment bureaucracy, inadequate
supply of infrastructure, cor-
ruption, tax regulations and tax
rates.
Singapore remains the
most competitive in Asean.(O.
V. Campos, MS)