A waste of government funds

Indeed, the national photobomber continues his reign as the selfie king.

In the age of smarphones and Instagram, selfies with celebrities have truly replaced the traditional autograph. It’s quite difficult to imagine an encounter these days without fans leaving with some sort of digital evidence of their meeting.

And while it’s become so much easier to document significant moments like meeting our ‘lodi,’it takes so much courage to nail these ‘once in a lifetime’selfies— not to mention the perfect timing, the angles and the crowd.

But Mr. Christopher ‘Bong’ Go, President Duterte’s special assistant, proves to be the ‘undisputed one’as he continues to score epic snaps with world leaders and other known personalities.

The 41-year-old official started to make waves online since first posting about President Digong’s first face-to-face encounter with United States President Donald Trump at the Asia-Pacific Economic Leaders’Summit in Vietnam, where he seemed to be more prominent in the image’s foreground than the two heads of state.

Then he leveraged his selfie game as he took more with President Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and many more.

Then there’s the staggering 26,000 reactions, 5,000 shares and 600 comments; a feature by The Washington Post, one of U.S.’s leading broadsheets — where he was dubbed as the “selfie savant”; a new photo with Steven Seagul; and so on.

But the kicker?

In case you don’t know, Facebook users can now have their photo taken with him. Thanks to the latest photo filter now circulating on social media!

I’ve first seen this through my good friend, Philip’s account. Then, later discovered that the feature is accessible if you use the filter with your current profile picture.

Although the creator of the custom frame remains unknown, heaps of netizens had populated the news feed with this t r end.

When told about it, Go has proven to be a good sport as he said: “Hala! I’m humbled. I am just an extra. I don’t deserve this kind of attention.”

Oh. hail to the King and the newest ‘Lodi’in town! Stay active until our next chat!

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Need more tips on life, career and beyond? Invite me to speak at your event or reach me at www.facebook.com/ I n Spar k .Peop l e By Bobby Nalzaro I AM afraid that the P3 billion worth of Dengvaxia, the anti-dengue vaccine, will go to waste following the suspension in administering the vaccines to children and adults by no less than the Department of Health (DOH). This is in view of the new findings by the vaccine supplier, Sanofi Pasteur, in its negative clinical effect to patients who have not yet been infected by the dengue virus.

The new findings have created panic among physicians and patients in countries that purchased the vaccines, including the Philippines. About half of the world’s population live in countries where four serotypes of dengue virus are in circulation. Every year, an estimated 390 million dengue infections are reported. People can be infected with dengue up to four times in their lifetime and they can get severely ill after any of these infections.

Surveillance data from some endemic countries indicated that between 70 to 90 per cent of people will have been exposed to dengue at least once by the time they reach adolescence. There are many factors that can lead to severe dengue infection. However, the high risk of getting a more severe disease has been observed in people infected for the second time by a different dengue virus. Dengue is a painful, debilitating mosquito-borne viral disease for which there is no treatment yet. Almost five billion people are living at risk of dengue and these people can be sickened by dengue not just once but as many as four times in their lifetime.

“These findings highlight the complex nature of dengue infection. We are working with health authorities to ensure that prescribers, vaccinators and patients are fully informed of the new findings with the goal of enhancing the impact of Dengvaxia in the endemic countries,’said Dr. Su-Peing Ng, global medical head of Sanofi Pasteur.

Now, why did I say that the dengue vaccines that the previous administration purchased will go to waste? Who still wants to avail themselves of the free vaccine in light of the recent findings? Parents of children and those adults who were already vaccinated and but never have been infected by the virus

are panicking and scared because of the negative clinical effects of the vaccines.

And how can the vaccine’s manufacturer improve its product when these were already distributed and used by their clients’countries, including here. Will the manufacturer only improve the labeling and not the content of the product as it will not jeopardize the lives of those people who have been vaccinated who did not experience dengue? Will the manufacturer recall the vaccines and replace these with newly improved ones? I doubt.

While there are people, especially those confined in government hospitals and rural folks who are in dire need of medicines, we’ve heard about expired medicines being buried and indiscriminately disposed of by health officials. If you ask some medical representatives, they will tell you that some government hospitals and local government units they supply will just purchase medicines even if these are not needed. Why? Because those in charge and head of the procuring entities are only after their commissions and SOP. As a result, some of these medicines will not be of used and will just expire. The pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry and pharmaceutical companies can influence policymakers to patronize their products because of under-the-table deals. Corruption is still the reason for all of these. This is a total waste of taxpayers’ money.