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February 2022 Newsletter

We hope you and your families are doing well amidst the COVID-19 surge last month. 

This newsletter is the first edition for this year and covers some resources that you might find interesting. You can also look at Animal Empathy Philippines’ EA Forum post and learn more about it.

Additionally, we feature Brian Tan, one of EA Philippines’ co-founders. So check out the Member Spotlight and find out what he’s been up to recently. There are also various job openings and opportunities that are included in this month’s newsletter!

Updates from the local EA community

Ging Geronimo recently made an EA Forum post Introducing Animal Empathy Philippines (AEP), a spin-off organization of Effective Altruism Philippines that is dedicated to community building work on effective animal advocacy in the Philippines. 

Ging, together with Kate Lupango and Janai Baril, seeks to create a positive impact for farmed animals. They aim to increase the number of farm animal welfare advocates, expand the talent pool for effective animal advocacy, and potentially form a coalition of local animal welfare organizations. If you’re interested to learn more about AEP, you can fill out this interest check form and have a 1-1 with either Ging or Kate!

Upcoming EA-related events/programs

Foreign EA-relevant Resources

Want to ask questions about effective altruism but you’re just too shy? You can do so now using the EA Librarian program. It’s a new way for EA Forum users to ask questions to a team of experienced "librarians" who provide detailed answers. You can use this form to submit questions privately.

Consider these when applying to EA jobs

For some of you who want to get an EA job (i.e., jobs at organizations that are explicitly aligned with the effective altruism movement), here are three pieces of advice from Akash Wasil – be honest, meet people, and be critical. Find out what he meant by these. Read his EA Forum post on advice he has found helpful as he applies to EA Jobs.

Find an EA-aligned internship with the EA Internship Board

You can try finding remote EA-aligned part-time jobs or internships with the EA Internships Board! Made by Sabrina Chwalek and Emma Williamson, this high-impact internship board aims to help undergraduate EAs build skills in relevant fields.  Getting an internship is also a good way to test your fit for potential career paths. Learn more about it here. (You can also still check out EA Philippines’s own job board for local opportunities.)

Get 1-1 career advising

Have you ever thought of using your career to help others as much as possible? 80,000 Hours plans to expand and reach more people with their 1-1 career advising. You can sign up now through this link! If you’re curious about what you can discuss with them during a call, here are some ideas: 

• Talk through cause prioritization

• Consider your options 

• Connect you up with more people

• Work out some next steps

• Debug your plan

News / resources relevant to the Philippines

With over 67 million eligible voters in the Philippines, we are standing at a crucial political time in the Philippines. As the number proves that more Filipinos are eager to vote amidst the pandemic, we should also take this as an opportunity to make a well-informed vote. 

The Philippine election is on May 9 this year, but as early as now, we should get to know more about the presidential aspirants and what their platforms are. You may start by watching the Presidential Interviews with Jessica Soho and other interviews featuring the presidential candidates.

Some profit-driven groups in the country are now proposing rabbit farming. With concerns on animal welfare standards among meat producers in the country, it’s very unfortunate that another kind of animal is possibly subjected to mistreatment and suffering. So we’d like to encourage you to sign Animal Kingdom Foundation’s petition to stop rabbit meat production.
 

There’s a new report on Ambient Air Pollution in Southeast Asia by Founders Pledge! One of its key findings is that ambient air pollution has led to over 250,000 premature deaths and around 7.6 million DALYs annually in South East Asia. Also, the funding installation of coal scrubbers in power plants in the PH / SE Asia is estimated to be $286 per DALY averted. That is an acceptable ballpark of cost-effectiveness compared to GiveWell charities.

Member Spotlight

He learned about EA as a university student through the 80,000 Hours website in 2017. He read through their whole career guide, and it was really interesting to him. He wanted to help a lot of people with his career, but he was mainly thinking of doing so through working at or starting a startup, or creating content. The guide helped him learn about other ways to do more good, such as working for effective non-profits, doing advocacy work on big, neglected causes, or earning-to-give.

In 2018, he co-founded EA Philippines. He also started working as a Product Designer at First Circle, a financial tech company, in 2019. In Dec. 2020 though, he left his job to work full-time on EA Philippines, after receiving a grant from the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA).

Now, he recently started a job working 20 hrs/week for CEA, where he supports EA groups around the world. Although he’s sad to be less involved in EA Philippines, he’s excited about helping foreign EA groups recruit talented students and professionals to work on pressing global problems, including AI safety, biosecurity, global health and development, and animal welfare.

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Best,
EA Philippines

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