Rise in LPG price has Filipinos turning to charcoal

There's nothing much you can do about people who shift to charcoal or any other alternative fuel for cooking because of LPG shortage. As many as 40 percent of Manila's estimated six million slum dwellers are resorting to charcoal because they only have enough money to buy fuel day by day.

Firewood still provides good alternative to liquefied petroleum gas for cooking in the Philippines. Filipinos living in a slum neighborhood use liquefied petroleum gas to cook for tehir families. As shortage of LPG hits the Metro, filipinos are firing up charcoal.

Firewood still provides good alternative to liquefied petroleum gas for cooking in the Philippines. As many as 40 percent of Manila's estimated six million slum dwellers are resorting to charcoal because they only have enough money to buy fuel day by day.

All that smoke

ANTI-OBAMA

A protester shouts slogans during a rally outside the U.S. embassy in Manila, January 20, 2009, coinciding with the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. The protesters challenged the 44th U.S. president to reverse the last administration's interventionist policies, especially in the Middle East and the Philippines, according to their press statement released on Tuesday. The word "Bayan" means "nation" and refers to an anti-goverment organisation in the Philippines.

THE AFTERMATH

These boys enjoy a cold bath hours after two persons died and a nine-year-old girl's body was badly burned when a fire razed a residential compound in Sampaloc district in Manila, before dawn Tuesday. Firefighters said the fire brokeout around 2 a.m. inside the victims' family compound along A.H. Lacson Avenue, Sampaloc district. The fire was pacified in less than 30 minutes.

VIVA SANTO NINO

Kids perform a dance while holding on to the image of the child Jesus during the celebration of the feast of Sto. Nino in front of a cahtolic church in Tondo Manila. Hundreds of devotees bring with them their Santo Nino (Child Jesus) images to bless as part of the Santo Nino feast on Sunday.

Little one's

TOP SPIN

BLESSINGS

A young devotee raises the image of the baby Jesus, locally known as 'Santo Nino', during blessing rites outside a church at the poor district of Tondo in Manila, Philippines. Many Filipinos in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines keep the small religious images in their homes as an expression of deep faith and due to a belief that the statues help keep evil and misfortune away.

LFS

U.S. Embassy security personnel and policemen use shields to disperse Filipino student activists as they march in front of the embassy in Manila, Philippines, on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009, to condemn the Israeli air and ground assaults in Gaza. The demonstrators called Israel and the U.S. 'the world's number one terrorist.

BLACK NAZARENE

FIRE AFTERMATH

Aldrin collects copper wires from the remains of houses destroyed by a blaze that left hundreds of residents homeless at around 7:30 p.m. in Sitio Masigasig along C-5 Road in Western Bicutan. It destroyed some 300 houses before firefighters could put it out at about 9 p.m. Damage was estimated at P1 million. The fire spread quickly as the houses were made of light materials.

KEEP THE FAITH

Israeli troops invade Gaza

A Filipino Muslim woman shouts slogans while holding a mock bombing victim during a protest near the Israeli embassy in the Makati's financial district of Manila January 5, 2009. About two dozen protesters marched near the Israel embassy on Monday to condemn violence in the Gaza Strip.