Amidst the threat of COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, the educators, students, and the school are still coping and adjusting to the distance learning education. This study explored teachers' awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic and their opinion on their respective schools' readiness, as well as their response to the challenges of conducting distance learning education in the Philippines. A validated questionnaire was developed to collect the relevant data for this study. The initial reliability test obtained 8.9 Cronbach's alpha. Data gathering procedure was done through Google forms, which, after validation from the respective DepEd divisions and universities, were subsequently sent to the teachers via email. The results show that the teachers were highly aware of the presence and consequences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The correlation between teacher's demographic profiles and awareness to COVID-19 shows no relationship at all. Nevertheless, the length of teaching experience and specialization is very strongly correlated to readiness to distance learning education. Simultaneously, the teachers' geographic location is strongly correlated to readiness to adapt to distance learning education. Furthermore, only the teachers' gender has a significant difference in their awareness of the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, teachers' gender, length of teaching experience, and geographic location have significant differences with their readiness to distance learning education. This study can be used as a basis for ©2020 The authors and IJLTER.ORG. All rights reserved.further research particularly in developing institutional plans to better understand the status of their teachers and educational organizations, and schools' readiness to teach and learn through distance learning approach; hence, preserving and continuing educational mission during the current or future pandemic as well as be prepared for any natural disasters.

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Background. The improper recycling of electronic waste (e-waste) by informal recyclers often leads to contamination of the environment. E-waste contains organic and inorganic compounds along with heavy metals and trace elements. These pollutants can have a negative effect on humans. Biomonitoring can provide information on the sources, amount, geographical distribution, and adverse health effects of contaminants. Objectives. The present study aimed to assess risks to the health of informal e-waste recyclers in Payatas, the Philippines due to their exposure to e-waste toxicity by examining the presence of micronuclei in buccal epithelium cells. Methodology. Frequencies of binucleated cells (BNc) and abnormal cells were obtained from the buccal epithelium of the study population composed of e-waste exposed recyclers (n=40) and a control group (n=52). Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were employed for the data analysis. Results. Participants' gender, occupation, smoking status, alcohol consumption, and the number of karyolitic cells of both groups were significantly associated. Only occupation in e-waste recycling and length of e-waste exposure were significantly associated in terms of the number of abnormal cells and micronuclei. Similar trends were found in the linear regression analysis drawn from participants' length of e-waste exposure with a significance of R2= 7346, indicating that as the length of e-waste exposure increased, the number of micronuclei found in the participants' buccal epithelium cells increased as well. Conclusions. Longer exposure to e-waste materials may induce genotoxic damage in human cells which is a serious concern, leading to adverse effects to human health. Competing Interests. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

The study aimed to analyze the impact of pandemic-related BMW production and management in the Philippines and its potential role in transmitting the COVID-19 virus via a mixed-methods analysis of data from surveys of different sectors (consumers of medical waste, deliverymen, and medical workers) and using secondary sources. The results revealed that the most common types of PPE used in the country are disposable face masks and face shields, wherein all respondents reported an increase in the consumption of medical materials. An improper disposal of an estimated 85 million disposable face masks and 50 million face shields in the Philippines poses a serious threat to the environment and health in the Philippines, a biodiversity hot spot. There was a strong correlation between the increased exposure to BMW and laxer degrees of implementation of proper BMW disposal practices. The paper also established an estimated consumption of ≈ 120.5 million face masks, ≈ 71.4 million face shields, ≈ 38 million disposable gloves, and ≈ 4.1 million full-body suits per day in the Philippines. The actual output of biomedical waste in the country drastically increased in a year, comprising an average daily output of 3,390 tons of BMW (≈ 482 tons for face masks, ≈ 2,544 tons for face shields, ≈ 198 tons for disposable gloves, and ≈ 167 tons for full-body suits which is an important discovery regarding the biomedical waste in the country. These estimates were found to be higher than those reported by the Asian Development Bank in 2020. All sectors reported low awareness levels and confidence in the country's effectiveness in implementing current BMW management practices.

The Philippines, like many other Asian countries, is struggling to combat the current widespread aquatic pollution levels caused by anthropogenic activities. Environmental biomonitoring is an efficient tool to detect and monitor the fluctuating toxicity levels in a dynamic ecosystem using bioindicators like algae, macrophytes, zooplankton, insect, bivalve mollusks, gastropod, fish, amphibians, and others to assess the extent and levels of pollution in aquatic ecosystems. The present review deliberates on the biomonitoring techniques such as bioaccumulation, biochemical alterations, population, and community-level approaches to evaluate the current status with respect to the extent and levels of pollution in the aquatic ecosystems in the Philippines which also is one of the biodiversity hotspots. Therefore, the potential applications for biomonitoring are proposed to mainly include evaluation of actual aquatic pollutions, bioremediation, toxicology prediction, and research on toxicological mechanisms. The purpose of such evaluations is to critically analyze and help stakeholders to come up with a strategic action plan with recommendations on a low-cost, sensitive, and effective bioindicator for rapid and efficient environmental biomonitoring.

We express our appreciation of the response to our micronucleus paper 1 and are glad that our research findings are relevant to other findings on e-waste issues from the plethora of literature that we have read. We understand that there are confounding factors to consider when it comes to micronucleus assays. Based on our reading of other related studies, the use of buccal micronucleus assay for biomonitoring of e-waste workers is definitely possible because the micronucleus (MN) assay in exfoliated buccal cells is a useful and minimally invasive method for monitoring genetic damage (as also experienced among e-waste workers) in humans. The MN assay in buccal cells has been used since the 1980's to demonstrate the cytogenetic effects of environmental and occupational exposures, lifestyle factors, dietary deficiencies, and different diseases, but important knowledge gaps remain about the characteristics of micronuclei and other nuclear abnormalities, with the basic biology explaining the appearance of various cell types in buccal mucosa samples and effects of diverse staining procedures and scoring criteria in laboratories around the world. With these uncertainties, the human micronucleus project (HUMN) 2 has initiated a new international validation project for the buccal cell MN assay. They advised that future research should explore sources of variability in the assay (e.g., between laboratories and scorers, as well as inter-and intra-individual differences in subjects), and resolve key technical issues, such as the method of buccal cell staining, optimal criteria for classification of normal and degenerated cells and for scoring micronuclei and other abnormalities. The harmonization and standardization of the buccal MN assay will allow more reliable comparison of data among human populations and laboratories, evaluation of the assay's performance, and consolidation of its worldwide use for biomonitoring of DNA damage. 3 In this regard, the buccal cell MN assay was first proposed in 1983 and continues to gain popularity as a biomarker of genetic damage in numerous applications. More than 40 laboratories from many countries either have used or are currently using this assay, and the number of articles published annually is steadily increasing. Different issues related to the buccal cell MN assay were reviewed in several publications over the last decade. 4 Since the publication of the previous e-waste monitor in 2017, the number of studies on the adverse health effects from e-waste have increased. These studies have continued to highlight the dangers to human health from exposure to well-studied toxins, such as lead. Recently, research has found that unregulated e-waste recycling is associated with increasing numbers of adverse health effects. These include adverse birth outcomes, altered neurodevelopment, adverse learning outcomes, 5 DNA damage, 6 adverse cardiovascular effects, 7 adverse respiratory effects, 8 and adverse effects on the immune system. Additionally, the Micronucleus Assay Expert Group reported s...

In the present study, attempts were made to optimise water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) in combination with freshwater prawns (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) to be grown under aquaponics culture conditions, especially as an indoor set-up suitable for urban dwellings. A comparison of the morphometric parameters such as linear growth and number of leaves of plants and the survival rate under the soil, aquaponics, aquarium and hydroponics units simultaneously per cycle was done to establish the stability of the system. The water spinach grown under the aquaponics set-up showed significant growth compared to the hydroponics set-up but was less than that of the soil units. Significantly higher growth of freshwater prawns was also recorded in the aquaponics unit compared to the aquarium unit. Though further investigations are still needed to find factors that can give optimum produce, the researchers propose that standardised aquaponic units for water spinach and freshwater prawns can be a safe option for urban households as a sustainable farming practice. Keywords: Food security, Hydroculture, Symbiotic growth, Urban farming