The Reason for the Christmas Season

You better watch out

You better not cry

You better not pout 
Cause I’m telling you why

Santa Clause is coming to town…..

Yeah right! Did you know this song? The lyrics are taken from the Christmas song called "Santa Claus is coming to Town".

Wow! The time goes fast and its December again. A month where I can feel excited for the Christmas day is yet to come and the Christmas vacation as well.

And because Christmas is forthcoming, our teacher in arts gave us a project which is to create a recycled Christmas decoration that can be hanging. Since this project is not an individual but group, we work for it as teamwork until we made this simple but beautiful parol (shown in the picture above). Amazing, isn’t it?

But behind that, how does our Christmas decoration symbolizes the essence of Christmas?

We all know that Christmas is a celebration of our savior Jesus Christ birthday, who come to this world to pay the price of out sin. It’s not all about the Christmas tree, neither material gifts nor the Santa Claus, but it’s all about the spiritual gifts. We just make use all of those cause we got historically educated on the true origin of what it is celebrated as Christmas.  

But if you wondered, why we put Santa Clause in the center, simply because to give joy. He represents as one when we are traditionally believe that there is a Santa who gives toys and other gifts to children at Christmas. Consequently, I believe that the joy of giving is the true essence of his existence. This is what our decoration symbolizes for in which the giving of love and sharing of blessings will yield gratitude and forgiveness, that is for me, this is the essence of Christmas.

We designed our outwork a colorful one, so through our simple decoration, we can give bright and hope to every one of us despite of all the tragedies that we've been through. Howsoever, we try to give people a reason to smile. No matter what happen, we can truly have a merry Christmas as long as Jesus is into our heart. God bless us all and together let's rejoice.

Belated Merry Christmas and have a lucky and happy New Year to everyone!

State of Global Finance

         

Gov’t makes full award of bonds at higher rate on strong demand

Last November 23, 2016, Melissa Luz T. Lopez, a Senior Reporter, posted some latest news about Financing on the Business World Online.

According to her report the Government made a full award of reissued Treasury bonds (T-bonds) at an auction last Tuesday on November 22, 2016 among strong demand, as yields climbed ahead of an expected hike in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve.

It is very impressive that the Bureau of the Treasury raised P25 billion as planned from the reissued five-year T-bonds with a remaining life of three years and nine months at that auction.

The offer was slightly oversubscribed as bids reached P26.128 billion. The securities, which will mature on Aug. 20, 2020, fetched an average rate of 3.977%, up by 37.2 basis points (bp) from the 3.605% yield on the seven-year T-bonds during the Oct. 11 auction. 

The government raised P11.772 billion from those bonds last month, less than half its planned P25-billion financing amid investor caution ahead of the US Fed’s Nov. 1-2 meeting, which eventually saw US rates unchanged.

The rate on that day of November 22 also went up from the 3.375% coupon rate when the notes were first issued last Aug. 20, 2015.

However, the average yield fetched  remained below the 4.8268% rate seen for the five-year  tenor but higher than the 3.87% quoted for the four-year paper prior to Tuesday’s auction.

At the market’s close, the yield on the five-year papers went up to 4.8464%, while the four-year bond was quoted at 4.0095%.

Bids for the reissued T-bonds ranged between a low of 3.7% to a high of 4.25%, according to Treasury data.

The National Treasurer also noted the expected Fed interest rate increase by December, the impact of which will come into play as to when the government will pursue its planned issuance of at least $500 million in dollar-denominated bonds early next year.

Melissa Lopez also stated in her report that the government is looking to borrow up to P135 billion from the domestic market for this quarter -- P60 billion worth of Treasury bills and P75 billion worth of T-bonds -- but has made several partial awards in past auctions as it sought to cap borrowing costs, amid plans by the Duterte administration to ramp up public spending on social services and infrastructure.

 




Reference:

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Finance&title=gov&8217t-makes-full-award-of-bonds-at-higher-rate-on-strong-demand&id=136751

The Impact of Human Activities in Earth System

       

      An environmental issue is now one of the worldwide concerns. But before that, let us identify first what does environment, ecology, or ecosystem means. As I have read the environmental perspective, I learned that environment defined as our surroundings that affect our growth, health, and our way of living. Ecology is the study of relationships between organisms and their environments. And ecosystem refers to a community of organisms and their relationships to each other and to their environment. These help me understand more how environments affect our lives and how our ways of living affect the environment.

Human activities such as deforestation, illegal mining, and burning of fossil fuels can result to negative impact on environmental condition. Some examples are pollution to air, water, or even land areas, global warming, acid precipitation, extinction of biological species and damage to the atmospheric ozone layer. Another one is we are rapidly depleting nonrenewable natural resources like coil and oil which one exhausted, will not be replaced. Some people often lead to environmental overshoot (using more resources like forest, in a year than their annual renewal, growth, or replacement) which is not good.

Human activities will always affect the environment in some way, but if we understand the factors and process involved, we can work to minimize the negative impacts.

I also learned that earth’s most critical feature is that it is a life-support system and if this fails to operate properly, living organisms may no longer be able to survive. Thus, we have the responsibility of helping to maintain our present and future habitat, the earth system. To be a responsible citizen of earth, we should “think globally but act locally”.