A Graph of the Laziest Countries in the World – Philippines Not..?..?

To implement effective non-communicable disease prevention programs, policy makers need data for physical activity levels and trends.

In this report, we describe physical activity levels worldwide with data

• For adults (15 years or older) from 122 countries
• For adolescents (13—15-years-old) from 105 countries.

Worldwide, 31·1% (95% CI 30·9—31·2) of adults are physically inactive, with proportions ranging from 17·0% (16·8—17·2) in Southeast Asia (ASEAN) to about 43% in the Americas and the eastern Mediterranean. Inactivity rises with age, is higher in women than in men, and is increased in high-income countries.

The proportion of 13—15-year-olds doing fewer than 60 min of physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity per day is 80·3% (80·1—80·5); boys are more active than are girls.

Continued improvement in monitoring of physical activity would help to guide development of policies and programs to increase activity levels and to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases.

They found that 31% of adults do not get enough physical activity—defined as 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise three days a week, or some combination of the two.

Women tend to get less exercise—34% are inactive, compared with 28% of men—but there are exceptions and regional variations, as the maps below show.

Women in Russia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Greece and Iraq (to name a few) move more than their male counterparts. Malta wins the race for the most slothful nation, with 72% of adults getting too little exercise. Swaziland and Saudi Arabia slouch close behind, with 69%.

In Bangladesh, by contrast, just 5% of adults fail to get enough exercise. Surprisingly, America does not live up to its sluggish reputation. Six in ten Americans are sufficiently active, compared with less than four in ten Britons. These figures are worrying

From country-to-country, inactivity rises with age, is higher in women than in men, and rises in higher-income countries, according to a new study on idleness in "The Lancet". Here's a map of the world's sloth, via "The Economist". Countries in darker colors had greater recorded inactivity or laziness, defined as failing to reach 30 minutes of moderate activity a day.

Inactivity might rise with income, but some of the world's most inactive groups are women in countries with barriers to female employment, such as Libya and Saudi Arabia. Among men, Great Britain and Japan are reportedly among the most slothful or the laziest countries in the world, but Europe collectively reported walking more than any other group in the study.

The survey found a surprising degree of bustle in the typical American's life America, (the alleged king of couch potatoes?). Six in ten Americans were deemed "active," compared with fewer than five in ten Brazilian men, four in ten Japanese, and three in ten Argentineans. We're still a far way from Benin, Bangladesh, Mozambique, and Mongolia, where more than 90 percent of men got at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week.

Other factors that could affect the activity of a person include the following;

• Climate – People will minimize its activity if the weather is too hot like in the African and Middle Eastern Countries. For the tropical climate like the Philippines and other ASEAN countries, higher activity recorded during early morning and the evening and activities would become lesser during noon times.
• Culture – Middle Eastern Women who are restricted in their culture to find jobs would also affects the daily activity.
• Financial Activities – Inactivity might rise with income. The more a person is earning in his business the more he would lost its time to do other jobs than just making business and sitting in their office all the time.

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Philippines to acquire 10 new attack helicopters

The Philippines will acquire 10 attack helicopters starting next year in a bid to boost the capabilities of the poorly equipped military, an air force spokesman said Wednesday.

Italy, Britain, France, Russia and South Africa are all being eyed to supply the helicopters, Lieutenant Colonel Miguel Okol said, although he declined to specify which models were being considered.

The brand-new machines will upgrade the fleet of US-made MG-520 light attack helicopters that the air force has been using since the 1990s.

"What we are going to get are armed attack helicopters… that can carry more payload than the MG-520," Okol told AFP.

He declined to specify the cost of the acquisition but said the government had already allocated the required funds.

The new aircraft will be used for "internal security operations, border security and support operations," he said.

The Philippines is battling communist insurgents in rural areas throughout the archipelago, as well as Muslim extremists in the troubled southern regions.

In recent months tensions have also risen with China over conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea, but Okol said the acquisition of the attack helicopters was unrelated.

The tensions with China have highlighted the weakness of the Philippine military, which is one of the most poorly quipped in the region, relying largely on surplus US equipment.

The Philippines has been refurbishing its ageing MG-520 helicopters, other military sources said.

The country has recently been stepping up its modernization efforts and plans to acquire new fighter-trainer jets and attack and transport planes by 2014, the defense secretary said earlier.

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Philippines Defense Build-up: Reviving Self-reliant posturing (SRDP)

The Philippines has embarked on a surge in defense spending under President Benigno Aquino III, who, in his first formal address in July 2010, vowed to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for both territorial defense and disaster relief missions.

In his first months as president, Aquino disbursed more than US$395 million on AFP modernization projects compared with an average of only $51 million annually during the previous 15 years. Some 140 procurement projects valued at $1.6 billion were being considered for funding by the end of July. Having acquired decommissioned coast guard cutters from the US and basic trainer aircraft and combat utility helicopters from Italy and Poland, the Department of National Defense (DND) is looking to South Korea, Spain and France as possible suppliers.

This increase in defense spending from 2011 is a big leap from its previous poorly funded status, at just $1.2 billion per year. It is partly driven by the increased effort to eliminate domestic insurgency and in reaction to the threat of China's military buildup. The increased expenditure is also related to the country's robust economic growth, 6.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

Revival Of Self-Reliant Defense Posture of the Philippines

The DND plans to revive the Self-Reliant Defense Posture (SRDP) as part of its Capability Upgrade Program, focused on securing indigenous production of weapon systems, platforms and armaments. The SRDP was initiated in 1974 by President Ferdinand Marcos to meet the immediate need for military hardware to support the AFP's mission against the escalating secessionist movement in the southern Philippines and the insurgency by the New People's Army in the 1970s. The SRDP served as the necessary mandate to uphold the sovereignty of the state through non-dependent protection of the national territory. Its underlying mission was to develop a local defense industry to support the material requirements of the AFP.

Although in the early years the program enjoyed some success, with 15 defense corporations supplying military hardware to the AFP, the Philippines later lost its way in ensuring the provision of broad-based security. The country's resilience faced a series of testing challenges including military coups, terrorism and insurgencies, natural disasters, as well as threats to sovereignty such as the Mischief Reef incident.

The Philippines today finds itself as one of the weakest members of ASEAN both military capability and defense expenditure. The Philippines' defense and security sector is one of the worst resourced in Southeast Asia. The AFP is in the ignominious position of scraping together resources to maintain the operationality of its remaining ageing aircraft and warships. The Philippines navy is in a sorry state, with most of its warships of Second World War vintage. As an archipelagic country comprising 7,107 islands, the navy badly needs ships to patrol its vast territorial waters.

After over four decades the SRDP has failed to achieve any of its objectives. Except for some companies like ARMSCOR, most private defense corporations have found it difficult to sustain production, due to insufficient defense acquisition budgets, graft, corruption, inflation and a lack of support from the national leadership.

The malaise in the Philippines defense sector was revealed in a 2003 Joint Defense Assessment Report that examined the performance of the AFP in the long-running battle against the insurgents, as a means of determining the degree and nature of technical assistance, field expertise and funding from the United States.

Stimulus or Drag on Development?

Manila is exploring whether a defense build-up might benefit both the AFP and the country's economic and social development. Research has shown that military spending stimulates economic activity, creating beneficial economic and technological spin-offs to local industry. In essence, successful defense reform requires rapid economic growth, and vice versa.

The challenge for the government is to be more creative in managing its defense resources to ensure a meaningful contribution to broader national security capability. For years, government institutions, the defense department included, have been plagued with corruption and financial mismanagement.

From neighboring countries, two lessons can be learned. One is to encourage technology transfer through acquisition-related offsets. In this regard, Indonesia is currently seeking to implement its first official offset policy, having the potential to leverage acquisition-related investment through Jakarta's strong trading ties with the United States and South Korea.

Second, is to look at Singapore's defense industry and research and development efforts in terms of integrating systems from diverse sources and tailoring them to specific local requirements. If funds are appropriately channeled and properly managed, the SRDP can be developed and enhanced to promote a local defense industry that can offer employment opportunities, improve the woefully low level of Philippine technological expertise, and thus eventually support both defense and development.

Written by Ava Patricia C. Avila - a PhD candidate at Cranfield University, UK, and was formerly an associate research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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