Eliana Atienza | Images: Instagram/@elianahatienza
The 19-year-old daughter of television celebrity Kim Atienza was suspended by the University of Pennsylvania and barred from entering university property after she and six others participated in a pro-Hamas rally on campus. Atienza defended his daughter Eliana for expressing her anti-Israel beliefs. Eliana and her six schoolmates supposedly urged administrators of the Ivy League school to severe its financial ties to Israel after the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 that started the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The war has disrupted the lives of almost 50,000 overseas Filipino workers in Israel and Lebanon. That number excludes seafarers whose lives are endangered by pro-Hamas attacks on civilian shipping in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. At least two Filipino seafarers have already died because of the attacks and at least 17 other seamen are still in the custody of pro-Hamas Houthi rebels in Yemen. —JESSICA ANN EVANGELISTA