The name ‘Ahcee Flores‘ went trending on social media sites today due to negative comments posted by a girl after an earthquake hit a lot of provinces in the Visayas. Gladys Lumantes Delos Santos is said to be the real identity of the person behind the name Ahcee Flores, which caused an uproar to all ‘Visayan” people when she left hateful comments on Yahoo!Philippines. Though there’s still no confirmation that she is indeed the girl behind the viral comment.

According to reports, the comments were posted right after the news broke that a 6.7 magnitude quake hit the Negros-Cebu Philippine region on Monday. A tsunami alert was raised by authorities and people were panicked. Yet, Ahcee Flores wished for a tsunami so that many people from the affected region will suffer.

Here’s what she posted on Yahoo!Philippines new story:

“Let us all pray……. Na matuloy ang tsunami para maraming bisaya ang mamatay, para mabawasan ang mga baduy sa pilipinas (Let us all pray… that the tsunami would happen so many ‘Bisaya’ people would die and we could lessen the number of “low-class” citizens in the Philippines).”

She even added:

“Di Bale Guys, kundi man natuloy ang Tsunami ngayon, wag tayong magalala, marami pa namang pagkakataon na darating, matutuloy din yan, just keep on praying.” (“Don’t worry guys, if the tsunami won’t happen today, there are chances of it happening. It will happen. Just keep on praying.”)

Users then immediately slammed the hateful comment “by Ahcee Flores”, with hate pages against her all over Facebook. FB Pages were being setup by angry users to bombard her with hateful comments and threats. Even on Twitter, her name is quite popular with a lot of reactions from Filipino users all over the country. As of this writing the name ‘Ahcee Flores’, is still going viral right now on popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The execution of three convicted Filipinos, who were convicted for drug trafficking in China, was carried out today Wednesday, March 30,2011, in a confirmation stated by Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay.

“I just want to inform you that our three compatriots have been executed,” Binay told ABS-CBN news, citing information from the Philippine foreign affairs ministry.

Chinese authorities carried out the execution of Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain today via lethal injection.

The three Pinoys were arrested separately in 2008 for carrying at least 4 kilograms of heroin and was convicted in 2009. China has been known for strictly imposing their law regarding drugs. Possession and smuggling of more than 50 grams of heroin or other known drugs is punishable by death in China.

Though the Philippine government had taken every available opportunity to appeal to the authorities of China for clemency in their cases, to which the Chinese government responded with a postponement of the execution, but still the sentence was imposed by the by the courts of the People’s Republic of China this morning, according to Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda.

The whole Filipino nation sympathized with the families of the executed Filipinos.

In line with the circulating text messages and facebook stat alerts about the dangers of radiation effects of the Fukushima Power Plant Explosion reaching the Philippines, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) issued this official statement.

Department of Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo assured the public that, based on DOST’s Philippine Nuclear Research Institute’s routine daily radiation monitoring in the environment, the level of radiation in the environment in the country has remained stable since the Fukushima incident in Japan.

“DOST-PNRI is closely monitoring developments through its 24-hour link up with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” Sec. Montejo said.

No increase in radiation level means that, as of the moment, there are no immediate effects of the March 11 Fukushima nuclear power plant explosion to the Philippines.

DOST-PNRI Director Alumanda dela Rosa also cited a plume trajectory study provided by DOST-PAGASA showing that the plume from the site of the incident at Fukushima will not pass the Philippine territory as of March 14, 2011.

“The direction of the smoke appears to go away from the direction of the country,” Dr. dela Rosa explained. “The smoke is carried away by the northeast monsoon (amihan).”

According to DOST-PAGASA, the direction of the wind will continue to be stable until about May 15 and there is no imminent sign of weather disturbance that may affect the current wind direction.

HONG KONG – Hong Kong issued its top-level black travel alert for the Philippines on Monday after at least 8 Hong Kong tourists were killed in a bus hijack in Manila by an armed ex-policeman.

“A serious kidnap incident happened in the Philippines. Hong Kong residents should avoid all travel to the country,” a government spokesman said in a statement.

“Those who are already there should attend to their personal safety and exercise caution.”

At least 8 of the hostages have been killed while 7 others were being treated in hospitals after their 12-hour ordeal, police and doctors in Manila said.

The Hong Kong government also said it would charter two flights to Manila for families of the tourists who were held hostage by an armed ex-policeman in their tourist bus.

Andy Ho, spokesman for Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang, said the city’s airline Cathay Pacific will arrange two chartered flights for family members, as well as psychologists, immigration and medical officers.

The first flight will take off around midnight on Monday (1600 GMT) and the second flight is scheduled for 8 am on Tuesday, he said.

“We are ready to go but we are awaiting landing permission from Manila,” Ho said.

The busload of Hong Kong tourists was seized by former senior police inspector Rolando Mendoza, who said he wanted to clear his name after being discharged for extortion in 2008.

The gunman was killed by police in the final moments of the crisis.

In Manila, the Chinese embassy said it was saddened by the death of the hostages. It asked the government to attend to the survivors.

Source: ABS-CBN News

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Six of the 15 hostages, most of them Chinese nationals, were shown crawling out of the bus after police assault teams moved in. Others were carried motionless from the bus, but the police did not say how many people had been killed or wounded. A man shown slumped and apparently lifeless by the main door of the bus was identified as the gunman, but the authorities did not immediately confirm his fate.

Live video from the scene showed police commandos, their rifles drawn, surrounding the bus, slamming windows with sledgehammers and opening an emergency exit as emergency vehicles converged at the scene. A television reporter said there had been additional gunfire after the police tried to enter the bus, but it was not clear who was shooting, or whether anyone had been hit.

A short time earlier, the driver of the bus managed to escape after cutting himself loose from handcuffs the hostage-taker had put on. The driver jumped through a window, ran from the bus and screamed, “Everybody is dead!” to a group of journalists who had clustered at the scene.

Police have not confirmed whether there were any deaths inside the bus, but they began the assault moments after the driver escaped.

At least nine hostages had been released earlier, including three children and a diabetic. Three of the freed were Filipinos. According to the authorities, there were 15 other people inside before the police began their assault.

The drama began at 10 a.m. when a former police officer identified as Rolando Mendoza, 55, boarded a Hong Thai Travel tour bus and took the passengers hostage.

Rodolfo Magtibay, the chief of the Manila Police District, told reporters on the scene that the Mr. Mendoza had demanded the return of his job and benefits. Authorities said that Mr. Mendoza had been dismissed in 2009 after accusations he had extorted money from a hotel chef accused of using drugs.

The bus sat parked with its curtains drawn at the Quirino Grandstand near the Manila Bay, a public plaza where presidents usually take their oaths of office. For hours, live broadcasts indicated no movement inside the bus, except when three shots were fired through the windshield.

The presence of cameras appeared to play a role in how the standoff unfolded.

The situation seemed to escalate after the gunman’s brother, Gregorio Mendoza, who is also a police officer, complained to reporters gathered near the scene that the police had wanted to implicate him in the hostage-taking. He also accused the police of trying to kill him. In front of the cameras, Officer Mendoza was picked up the by the police and shoved into a police car, his relatives wailing behind him.

Earlier, the hostage-taker had warned the authorities not to harm his family.

There were shots heard soon after the gunman’s brother was taken into custody, raising the possibility that those on the bus were watching the crisis play out on television monitors inside.

Throughout the day, the gunman wrote his demands on cardboard, which he would then paste on the windshield of the bus. One of the messages read, “Big mistake to correct a big wrong decision.”

Late in the afternoon, he posted a message saying, “Media now,” apparently telling journalists to come to him. But the police prevented reporters from even getting near the bus.

Source: nytimes.com

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After the search engine giant’s second-quarter results missed Wall Street estimates, Google, Inc. shares slipped Friday even though net income and revenue climbed sharply.

Results were hurt as Google hired aggressively to maintain its commanding lead in online search and expand into other businesses. The company is pushing into everything from Web display advertising and mobile ads to operating systems for computers and wireless devices, although Google still makes much of its money by serving up advertising alongside Internet search results.

Google said it added nearly 1,200 employees with more than 21,800 workers. The company indicated that it will continue to hire at an aggressive pace.

In a research note, “Google is escalating its investments as it transitions from being a ‘one-trick pony’ to generating material revenues from non-search segments.”

Google reported earnings of $1.84 billion for the second quarter, or $5.71 per share, on $6.82 billion in revenue. It posted an income of $1.48 billion in the same quarter of 2009, or $4.66 per share, on $5.52 billion in revenue.

Source: BusinessWeek

The six year old giant social networking site reached the 500 million users mark last weekend and the site is expected to announce the actual number anytime this week.

We’ve posted a couple of months ago that Facebook has reached 400 million users and the sociam media network’s plans of spreading the company across the web as well as enriching the quality of the user’s social experience.

As part of the occasion, the site will be launching Facebook Stories, a special application that will feature short tales about users whose lives were changed because of Facebook.

500 million users are more than the latest population census of the United States which stands at 309 million. Only China and India have more people, each with a billion residents.

Analysts believe that advertisers will take advantage of the situation despite the fact that the site had encountered issues in the past few months. Such issues include privacy settings and the cartoon drawing competition that Muslim users found to be not good.

Facebook was created by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and was launched last February 4, 2004.

There has been an impending or a possible recall all of Apple’s sold iPhone 4. This is due to the heightened issue regarding the defect of its latest gadget’s antenna. Consumer Reports, an American magazine which publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory, has released an article just recently that they won’t recommending Apple’s iPhone 4 due to it’s antenna defect. There has been reports from those who got the iPhone 4 already that if a finger would be placed on the bottom left of the phone, the signal would be reduced or even cause the call to drop entirely.

Sanford C. Bernstein & Co analyst Toni Sacconaghi said a full product recall of the iPhone 4 would represent the equivalent of about 5 weeks of free cash flow or about 3.5% of its total cash balance and it would sum up to $1.5 billion. If Apple will not pursue the recall, their integrity and name would be compromised.

“While logical arguments can be made that suggest that iPhone momentum remains strong and the antenna issue can be “solved” with a rubber case, the press appears to be increasingly crying foul at Apple, which suggests that Apple’s image – and potentially iPhone sales – could be compromised if Apple does not explicitly – and constructively – address the issue of what it believes is wrong with the phone and how it will address it,” Sacconaghi wrote. -cbsnews

Apple is blaming the problem initially to a miscalculation within the formula which is used to determine how many signal bars should be displayed and it is basically an optical illusion. Consumer Reports as well as other analysts would not buy this reason. In fact, Larry Barton, Former Vice President of Crisis Management of Motorola just told Cult of Mac that Apples response has been “Lackluster’.

Google recently announced that they will be offering a free software called Google App Inventor for Android soon.

The system has been in development for a whole year now with the help of computer scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It was designed for future app developers with little knowledge in programming. In fact, schools and universities that did not come from the computer science stream have tested it.

“The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world. We could only have done this because Android’s architecture is so open. These aren’t the slickest applications in the world. But they are ones ordinary people can make, often in a matter of minutes,” said Harold Abelson, the one who led the development of the project.

A Gmail account is needed to use the development tool.

It is expected that the number of Android apps will pass the 100,00 mark by the end of this month. This is still smaller when compared to that of the applications available for rival Apple iPhone. The introduction of the App Inventor for Android is expected to help Android in catching up to Apple iPhone in terms of number of applications.

Here are the Top 10 richest men and woman in the Philippines for 2010 according to the annual listing conducted by Forbes Magazine.

Henry Sy Sr., whose wealth was primarily fueled by the success of SM shopping malls, is the richest mast in the Philippines for the second year in a row, according to Forbes magazine’s survey on the 40 richest Filipinos for 2010.

The mall mogul’s net worth rose to $5 billion in the Forbes 2010 survey from $3.8 billion a year earlier.

Sy ranks 201st in the 2010 list of 1,011 billionaires of the world, that according to Forbes dropped from 1,125 in 2008.

The 85-year-old patriarch of the Sy family made $8 million more in terms of net worth since Forbes came up with World’s Billionaires list in March 2010.

Lucio Tan, owner of Philippine National Bank, Asia Brewery, Tanduay Holdings, Fortune Tobacco and Philippine Airlines Inc. ranked second with a net worth of $2.1billion, up by $4 million from the magazine’s 2009 list.

In third spot is first time billionaire John Gokongwei Jr. whose net worth of $1.5billion in the 2010 survey more than doubled over his 2009 net worth of $720 million. The 83-year-old Gokongwei holds interests in telecom, financial services, petrochemicals, power, and hog farming.

Jaime Zobel de Ayala is the fourth richest man in the Philippines, with a net worth that rose to $1.4 billion from $1.2billion.

The CEO of Ayala Land Inc. was knocked over the third place by Gokongwei.

In fifth place is Andrew Tan of Alliance Global Group. The entrepreneur has a net worth of $1.2billion from $850 million.

Restaurant chain magnate Tony Tan Caktiong, who owns 1,500 Jollibee stores in the Philippines and abroad, ranks sixth with a net worth of $980 million.

The seventh richest man is Enrique Razon Jr. with $975million. His International Container Terminal Services Inc. operates in nine countries, including China, Ecuador, and Philippines.

Beatrice Campos, one of three women who made it to the Forbes list of richest Filipinos, has $840 million to occupy the eight place.

Her year-on-year net worth grew by more than 50 percent or $430 million.

George Ty, the financial tycoon, ranks ninth $805 million.

The founder of Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. earned $290million since the list was made a year earlier.

Wrapping up the 10 wealthiest Filipinos is Eduardo Cojuanco Jr., whose net worth grew by $100 million to $760million.

Source: Forbes Magazine