Panama’s FETV Channel 5, a television channel owned and operated by the Catholic Church, is sending a team to the Philippines to film a feature on the country to be shown on a popular Panamanian television program, called Travels and Adventures with Blanca Herrera.

According to the show’s producers, they are interested in doing a program on the Philippines that will highlight the country’s tourist spots, people, history, culture, customs and traditions.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine Embassy in Mexico are coordinating this activity with the Department of Tourism, which has committed its full support to the project.

The DFA said that with programs such as this one, the Philippines will be better able to tap into the large Latin American tourist market of some 500 million people.

Among all Asian countries, the Philippines alone enjoys special historical and cultural affinities with the countries in Latin America, the DFA said.

Barely two months after its implementation, the SME Unified Lending Opportunities for National Growth (SULONG), a financing program under the National SME Development Plan, has already approved a total of P2 billion worth of loans to 8,607 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country.

With the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as its lead implementor, SULONG has targeted P10 billion in loans to the SME sector in the next six months and P30 billion for the next 12 months.

The funds for the program were committed by nine government financial institutions (GFIs) - SB Corporation, Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corporation (QuedanCorp.), National Livelihood Support Fund (NLSF), People's Credit Finance Corporation (PCFC), Philippine Export-Import Credit Agency (PhilExim), Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and Social Security System (SSS).

"The P2 billion approved for SME lending is a breakthrough as it effectively demonstrates the cooperation among all GFIs in the country to help the SMEs," DTI Secretary Manuel Roxas II said.

SB Corporation loan approvals amounted to P192.75 million; NLSF - P34.25 million; PCFC - P385.24 million; LBP - P941.03 million; DBP - P262.35 million; PhilExim to P5.0 million; and QuedanCorp. - P90.41 million.

Roxas said that under the program, participating GFIs relaxed their lending requirements and simplified their credit evaluation process to make credit more accessible to SMEs nationwide. SULONG is one of the major components of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s 8-point agenda program for national development.

A Filipino expatriate detained in a jail in China but later freed through the intercession of the Philippine government has found in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a model of a kind, concerned and understanding leader.

In a letter, Rizalde Astrolabio, a resident of Barangay Dayao, Roxas City, profusely thanked the President for her "efforts, financial, moral and spiritual" that led to his freedom from a jail in Tianjin, China.

Astrolabio was convicted a life term and detained in June 1999 for killing a Chinese national and wounding another. The sentence was later reduced to 15 years imprisonment and because of good behavior, was again reduced to 10 years.

President Macapagal-Arroyo, then the vice president, brought up the case of Astrolabio, among others, in a bilateral meeting with Chinese officials. She asked for the grant of clemency for Astrolabio or the further commutation of his sentence.

During her state visit to China in 2001, the President reiterated the same request. On January 23, 2002, the No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin reduced Astrolabio’s jail term to just ten months, again on the grounds of good behavior.

Philippine embassy officials in Beijing regularly visited Astrolabio and worked on his case. He was even able to talk to his family by phone on pre-arranged times. On December 24, 2002, he arrived in the Philippines.

In his letter, Astrolabio wrote to the President: "What I am now is the product of your Christian kindness and concern to our least fortunate countrymen like me."