FLOODWATERS surround houses in Iloilo City as Typhoon Frank (international name Fengshen) lashed the Philippines for a second day Sunday, leaving more than 80 people dead as it submerged entire communities and capsized a passenger ferry carrying more than 740 passengers and crew. --AP, NONOY LACZA

HEIDE and Estella Laurel wait for updates on their relatives’ fate outside the Sulpicio Lines main office in Pier 12 , North Harbor. --RHOY COBILLA

NEARLY a hundred people were confirmed dead, and crop damage in flooded farms was seen to reach P200 million as an erratic Typhoon Frank slashed through the Visayas region, a big chunk of Luzon island, and sparked rains in Mindanao at the weekend. The death toll is feared to rise as more than 700 remained missing from a passenger boat that sank off Romblon island.

SULPICIO Lines Inc.’s flagship vessel sank off Sibuyan Island in Romblon province on Saturday noon with most of its more than 700 passengers still missing, in the company’s worst sea disaster in a decade.

PRESIDENT Arroyo Sunday ordered the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) to revise its guidelines on the departure of vessels during bad weather after a passenger and cargo ship capsized off the coast of Romblon at the onslaught of Typhoon Frank.

THE Manila Electric Company (Meralco), the country’s largest power distributor, said Sunday a large part of its franchise area was affected by power outages after typhoon Frank hit Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon early Sunday morning, but restoration was nearly complete.

AN official of the United Nations Convention on Biological Biodiversity has warned that the current global food crisis will worsen unless the international community addresses the loss of biodiversity, particularly in Southeast Asia which hosts 20 percent of the known animal, plants and marine species critical to food production.

THE government is pursuing a national broadband network (NBN) infrastructure, only this time it plans to launch it within a certain agency to test if the project would be sustainable before it is implemented among all national and local government agencies down to the barangay level.

A REGIONAL coalition of civil-society organizations in Southeast Asia has criticized the European Union Parliament decision mandating the forcible deportation of more than 60,000 undocumented Filipino workers in Europe. The coalition said the decision, embodied in a draft legislation approved on first reading, negates the goals of the proposed EU free-trade deal with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), seeking to open trade and investments including the seamless entry of Asean workers to Europe.

CLASSES at all levels are suspended Monday in Metro Manila and in 12 provinces in Luzon.

The provinces which along with Metro Manila were heavily affected by Typhoon Frank (international codename Fengshen) are Cavite, Rizal, Batangas, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinan, Zambales, Benguet, Bataan, La Union and Ilocos Norte.

PHOTOJOURNALIST Mauricio Victa of the BusinessMirror bagged the top prize in the photo division of the second Brightleaf Agriculture Journalism Awards sponsored by Philip Morris Philippines, in awards rites Friday evening at the Hyatt Hotel in Manila.

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MAURICIO VICTA of the BusinessMirror poses beside a blown-up exhibit version of his photo captioned “Soup In Salad,” clutching his trophy for the Agriculture Photo of the Year in the 2nd Philip Morris Brightleaf Agriculture Journalism awards, held at the Hyatt Casino Hotel in Manila. --ROY DOMINGO