The study investigates households’ vulnerabilities to climate change impacts in selected coastal communities of Baybay City, Leyte. Personal interviews were conducted among 152 randomly selected respondents. Principal Component Analysis was used to estimate the vulnerability index. Results of the study show that more than 80% of households experienced flooding in their homes, usually due to heavy rains, or a combination of heavy rains and high tide. However, households were indirectly sensitive to climate change impacts because more depend on non-natural resource-based income. Living in houses made up of light materials, make them more vulnerable to natural hazards. More than the geographic location and physical features, these communities are potentially vulnerable to climate change owing to the prevailing socio-economic conditions in the area as well as the capacity of households to adapt to climate-related hazards. Policies such as establishment of mangrove forests or physical infrastructures like dikes or breakwaters, capacity development on the conduct of seminars about climate change and different adaptation strategies are suggested to improve the adaptive capacity and resilience of the selected coastal communities in Baybay City, Leyte.

The continuous outflow of the Philippine labor force contributes to brain drain or the loss of skilled workers. Concerning to this, past researches separately modelled international migration based from push and pull factors which can be attributed to modelling with omitted variable bias. Hence, in a converged model of push and pull factors this study examines the determinants of international migration. The study analyzed five regional migration models by dividing the eighty-two destination countries based on the world regional affiliation. The division includes twelve countries for North and South America; twenty countries in Asia and Oceania; twenty-two countries for Europe; fourteen countries in the Middle East and North Africa; and fourteen countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Thereafter all regional models were put together for the overall migration model. The study analyzed the panel datasets using the years spanning from 1998 to 2014. Results showed that significant push factors are foreign direct investment, inflation, unemployment rate, population growth, adult literacy rate, occurrence of natural and technological disasters, political stability, income inequality and real interest rate. Meanwhile, the significant pull factors or the conditions of the destination countries that draws OFWs to move outside the Philippines includes distance, unemployment rate, GDP per capita, cost of living, population growth, cross exchange rate, and fiscal freedom. Besides, the study found that English speaking and non-Christian countries are the major destination of OFWs.

This study investigates the effect of surging increase in international remittances on poverty level in developing countries controlling for income, inequality, and other sources of external funding. Using the newly suggested remittance variable, the method of panel data analysis was applied across 66 developing countries for 9 panel years from 1981 to 2005. Results suggest that international remittances helped in alleviating poverty in developing countries as manifested by the significant negative relationship of remittances on dimensions of poverty such as level, depth and severity of poverty using the methods of pooled ordinary least square method. However, the significance of this alleviating effect of remittances vanishes when using panel data approach suggesting that the alleviating effect of remittances on poverty is less apparent in developing countries when controlling for individual country specific effect.

Evaluation of teaching strategies serves as a guide for diagnosis and improvement for effective teaching. However, studies focusing on the effectiveness of teaching strategies in Region 8, Philippines is a bit limited. Hence, this paper aims to evaluate the teaching strategies of teachers at the Hilongos National Vocational School using a total of 23 randomly selected teachers and 294 students. The data was analyzed using descriptive measures and Spearman rank correlation coefficient was also computed to determine the relationship between student’s perception and student’s performance for each teaching strategy. Results show that 11 academic teachers are using five teaching strategies namely computer assisted lessons, peer tutoring, modeling and teaching demo, oral recitation and reporting, and group work. In addition, there are 12 vocational teachers who are also using the same teaching strategies plus lecture with laboratory. The students rated high or strongly approve all the teaching strategies. In addition to computer assisted lessons and peer tutoring, the following teaching strategies such as modeling, teaching demo, oral recitation and reporting are effective for both academic and vocational teachers. The student’s perception on peer tutoring and academic performance under an academic teacher is positively correlated. Further, no relationship was found between the student’s perception of teaching strategies and academic performance under vocational teachers.

This study investigates the diversity and use of macroinvertebrates as bioindicators of water quality in three selected sites of Bilar River. River usage, management issues and people’s perception on water quality were also assessed. Kick and sweep sampling methods were used to collect macroinvertebrate samples and physico-chemical parameters of the river were measured. Ecological parameters using standard indices were employed to describe macroinvertebrate diversity. A total of 12 macroinvertebrate species belonging to seven orders under four classes (Bivalvia, Gastropoda, Malacostraca and Insecta) were encountered. Results revealed that the two most abundant macroinvertebrate groups were found to be tolerant and very tolerant, suggesting that the water quality is considered “degraded to poor” based on tolerance ranking. Results show that Site 2 (Brgy. Poblacion) had the highest diversity, evenness, and richness index values, but lowest in dominance among the sites. Mean water pH was slightly acidic with low water temperature while water depth, flow and velocity were influenced by the presence of man-made dams and land bridges in the sites that hamper natural water flow. Bilar River plays an important role in the local community as irrigation and food sources but poor solid waste management in the area threatens its quality. Respondents believed that the river’s water quality is deteriorating and will continue to deteriorate through the years, thus, conservation measures should be done to protect its health.