Alligator drags toddler into lagoon at Disney resort in Florida(Reuters) - Police in Florida hunted on Wednesday for a 2-year-old boy who was dragged by an alligator into a lagoon at Walt Disney World in front of his family hours earlier, despite the parents' efforts to rescue their child.

The boy was attacked by the reptile about 9:15 p.m. on Tuesday at the Seven Seas Lagoon at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa in Lake Buena Vista near Orlando, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said.

The boy was playing in the water while his family, vacationing from Nebraska, relaxed on the shore nearby, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings told a news conference.

"The father entered the water and tried to grab the child and was not successful," Demings said.

The mother also tried to rescue the boy and the father suffered hand injuries, he added. The family has not been named.

"As a father, as a grandfather we are going to hope for the best in these circumstances but, based on my 35 years of law enforcement experience, we know we have some challenges ahead of us," Demings told reporters.

He said the animal was thought to be between 4 and 7 feet (1.2 and 2 meters) long.

Wildlife and marine officials were drafted into the search, which ran through the night.

"We're putting every effort into locating the child and trapping this alligator," Florida Fish and Wildlife Officer Chad Weber told reporters.

A spokeswoman for Walt Disney World Resort said everyone there was devastated by the tragic accident. "Our thoughts are with the family and we are helping the family," she said.

On May 28, a 3-year-old boy fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, causing zookeepers to kill a gorilla to protect the child.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Fiona Ortiz, Andrew Heavens and W Simon)

Cold-blooded murder Another grim Monday deadline, another hapless hostage dead. On Monday, June 13, the Abu Sayyaf Group beheaded Canadian hostage Robert Hall somewhere in Sulu, after the lapse of the 3 p.m. ransom payment deadline. Hours later, the victim’s severed head was found near a church in Jolo, Sulu—delivered as proof of death by the bandit group. In Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a pained but resolute statement. “The vicious and brutal actions of the hostage-takers have led to a needless death. Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder.”Hall was the second Canadian hostage executed by the Abu Sayyaf bandit group in two months.

On another Monday, last April 25, after the deadline for paying another exorbitant ransom passed, John Ridsdel—with Hall, part of the group that was abducted from Samal Island in September last year—was beheaded, and proof of death was also delivered. Trudeau condemned Ridsdel’s killing as “an act of cold-blooded murder.”

A year and a day ago today, on the eve of the 117th Philippine Independence Day, Lea Salonga tweeted a question about freedom: “Our country is not yet debt-free, poverty-free, crime-free or corruption-free. So what are we free from exactly and why do we celebrate it?”

It was a reflective, rhetorical question, meant to prod people to pause and think. Salonga, one of the country’s most talented, articulate and intelligent artists, was apparently doing the same—spending the day giving thought to the question of what really constitutes freedom for a country that, while now free of colonial enslavement, is beset by modern challenges that still chain its people to hardships and interfere with their ability to chart their own collective destiny. What, indeed, is freedom in today’s context?

A year and a day ago today, on the eve of the 117th Philippine Independence Day, Lea Salonga tweeted a question about freedom: “Our country is not yet debt-free, poverty-free, crime-free or corruption-free. So what are we free from exactly and why do we celebrate it?”

It was a reflective, rhetorical question, meant to prod people to pause and think. Salonga, one of the country’s most talented, articulate and intelligent artists, was apparently doing the same—spending the day giving thought to the question of what really constitutes freedom for a country that, while now free of colonial enslavement, is beset by modern challenges that still chain its people to hardships and interfere with their ability to chart their own collective destiny. What, indeed, is freedom in today’s context?

‘Richest place on earth’Let’s spare a thought for days just past—World Oceans Day (June 8) and Coral Triangle Day (June 9)—and their importance to the Philippines as an archipelago. There is no overemphasizing the marine diversity that blesses this country, a global center of amazing marine life that includes, according to a study conducted by Haribon Foundation in partnership with Newscastle University UK, 2,248,400 hectares of coral reefs.The Coral Triangle is a marine area in the Indian and Pacific Oceans shared by Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Island, Timor Leste and the Philippines (located at the apex). Sometimes called the “Amazon of the Seas,” the area spans 5.7 million square kilometers and hosts over 600 species of corals. The Philippines’ Verde Island Passage stretches 1.14 hectares in the waters around the provinces of Batangas, Oriental and Occidental Mindoro, Marinduque and Romblon, and is known for wall-to-wall coral reefs. It was dubbed in a 2005 study by biodiversity experts Kent Carpenter and Victor Springer as the planet’s “center of the center of marine shorefish biodiversity.” Then there’s the world-famous Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, located 157 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa City in Palawan: It boasts 10,000 hectares of coral reefs and serves as home for 80 percent of all the coral species in the country and half of all the coral species in the world.Yet the Philippines’ enviable status is endangered by the day, with natural and manmade threats making of  our treasures an imperiled lot. Climate change and global warming are destroying the corals, and, per the Haribon study, overpopulation, overharvesting as well as illegal methods of fishing have led to the disappearance of certain fish that not only provide food for humans but also help ensure the healthy condition of the coral reefs.

Fiscal balancing actIN THE management of the government coffers, it is important that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, and that each acts in coordination with the other.We are, of course, talking about the state’s fiscal management scheme where, for the benefit of the country and its citizens, it is important that the government not only collects the revenues it needs, but also spends these in a timely and judicious manner. In that way, taxes will benefit the very same people from whom these were levied, in areas where these are most needed and, just as importantly, when these are needed.In the Philippine setting, this balancing act is performed on one hand by the Department of Finance, which is in charge of raising money for the state through the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs. On the other hand is the Department of Budget and Management, which is responsible for disbursing funds to government instrumentalities for the benefit of the man and woman on the street. The left hand takes, the right hand gives out.

Fear of trouble

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and China’s Deputy Chief, Joint Staff Department, Central Military Commission, Adm. Sun Jianguo AP

The Asia Security Summit—also known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, held over the weekend in Singapore—centered expectedly on the simmering maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It was the first time for the annual security forum to convene since China began significantly expanding its foothold on parts of the Spratlys by reclaiming land and establishing military bases; the discussions were intense and occasionally dramatic.

Beijing had learned how to make its case heard in the forum; instead of offering mere tough talk, this time it again sent a very senior military officer who did not only draw lines in the geopolitical sand but also displayed a gift for repartee.

SupermajorityThe speed with which the national political landscape has shifted, since the election of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as president, has been dizzying. The use of the earthquake analogy is appropriate; in the House of Representatives and, to a lesser extent, in the Senate, the change has been seismic.Or, to change metaphors: The rapid ripening of the balimbing or star fruit in the political orchard has been one for the farmer’s almanac. The President-elect joined the PDP-Laban only recently; on May 9, only three of its candidates for Congress won. But a month after the elections, PDP-Laban is set to become the new majority, not only in the House but also in the Senate.The shifting of alliances in the House will not look out of place in any episode of “Game of Thrones.” From a tiny base of three, Representative-elect Pantaleon Alvarez was able to grow his support to about three-fourths of the entire chamber—in part because as a longtime friend he is Duterte’s choice as speaker, in part because of savvy decision-making and alliance-building. Alvarez reached out to the controversial but politically adept Rodolfo Fariñas, reelected to his seat in the first district of Ilocos Norte, to offer him the post of majority leader. The majority-in-the-making allowed some just-elected or reelected congresspersons to join the coalition without leaving their parties, while encouraging others to join PDP-Laban. The new majority also worked to ensure that Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. of the Liberal Party would find himself not in the minority (as he had originally declared) but as part of the ruling coalition; this is a key development, as Belmonte is one of the country’s most influential politicians. He was thrice elected speaker, remains the dominant political force in the country’s richest city, and played an instrumental role in the victorious campaign of Vice President-elect Leni Robredo.

NOThe famous funeral oration in “Julius Caesar” begins with a practical distinction: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” Shakespeare’s eloquent version of the Roman general Mark Antony uses the distinction as a convenience, to allow him, a potentially dangerous ally of the murdered dictator-in-the-making, to mourn his friend in public.In the case of the controversial plan to inter the remains of an actual dictator, the late Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, at the Libingan ng mga Bayani or Heroes’ Cemetery, this distinction does not hold. To bury Marcos is to praise him.It is really quite as simple as that.

Death By Ecstacy

So bad is the Philippines’ drug problem that Filipinos overwhelmingly voted into the presidency a man whose main platform centers on stamping out crime, particularly the trade in illegal drugs, within three to six months after assuming office.The deaths of five people who attended the open-air Closeup Forever Summer Concert at the Mall of Asia on May 21 suggest the pervasiveness of the drug culture and the easy access to highly regulated substances even in very public venues.The five fatalities—aged 18 to 33, one an American—were found unconscious at different places in the concert grounds; they died in hospitals hours later. Autopsies on two of them showed that they died of a massive heart attack; two others, autopsied only last Tuesday, indicated “sudden cardiac death.” Investigators earlier said the heart attack could have been the result of a heatstroke or dehydration because of current sweltering temperatures. The Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation are conducting parallel inquiries. At this writing, no one in authority has formally announced drug overdose as cause of death.