BusinessMirror November 03, 2024

THE SOUTH IS HEADING NORTH

By John Eiron R. Francisco

DISTANCING Mindanao from the long-standing perception of a region marked by conflict and disorder, local officials are now striving to dispel this notion, presenting the region instead as a “land of opportunity and growth.”

Shamera Acoymo Abobakar, Director II of Investments for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), told the BusinessMirror that they are determined to reshape this perception and showcase the region as a land of opportunity rather than chaos.

BARMM, she noted, is rich in resources spanning various sectors, be it for agribusiness, manufacturing, agriculture, fisheries, aquamarine, renewable energy, and telecommunications, making the place highly conducive to investment. The BARMM, located in the southern Philippines—ranked as the country’s second-fastest growing region in 2021—contributed 7.5 percent to the national gross domestic product (GDP) of 5.7 percent, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

PSA-BARMM data further revealed that the region’s GDP increased from P280.3 billion in 2022 to P292.2 billion in 2023, reflecting a growth of 4.3 percent, equivalent to an increase of P11.9 billion.

This growth was primarily fueled by three key sectors in the region’s 2023 gross regional domestic product (GRDP): services, leading with P119.9 billion, followed by agriculture, forestry and fishing at P101.8 billion, and industry at P101.8 billion.

As a result, BARMM’s per capita GRDP rose by 2.2 percent to

P58,217 from the previous year’s P56,970. Of the overall 4.3-percent growth, services contributed 2.7 percent; agriculture, forestry and fishing contributed 1.0 percent; and industry contributed 0.6 percent.

Since the establishment of the Bangsamoro government under the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) in 2019, the region has shown consistent economic growth and a trajectory toward positive peace, Abobakar said.

“We are taking advantage of the peace and order. We are actually one of the most peaceful regions in Mindanao,” Abobakar pointed out.

She emphasized that the region, with a strong population of over 4.9 million—more than half of whom are 25 years old and below—is youthful and increasingly educated, with significant tourism potential and a competitive cost of doing business.

BARMM remains an “undiscovered gem,” she said, acknowledging that its progress may have been delayed due to previous conflicts. However, with enhanced peace and a wealth of investment opportunities, BARMM is attracting attention through national events, such as exhibitions and conferences organized or led by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), to showcase its potential.

“You’ll see Mindanao as a com-

plete package—a limitless business hub in the country. We have everything here. We have our natural resources, our talented people, and our resilient communities, which can be our greatest assets for our economy,” Abobakar asserted.

“When it comes to our agriindustrial economy, we will soon become, as they say, an economic powerhouse,” she added.

‘POSITIVE PEACE AND GOOD GOVERNANCE’

ABOBAKAR also noted that BARMM now enjoys “positive peace,” supported by “good governance.”

She said the region is actively promoting a business-friendly environment, with the Bangsamoro government providing a mix of incentive packages under the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Law, or Republic Act 11534, Executive Order 226, special laws, and other related legislation.

Asked about the relationship between local government and businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), she described the relationship as strong, with local government units (LGUs) showing continuous support. Unlike other areas where leadership changes can disrupt support, the region remains consistently supportive even with shifts in leadership.

According to the regional director for investments, politicians are united in their commitment to economic growth and development within their areas, with initiative of collaboration and the “power of consolidating everything,” as the LGUs are really engaged.

By May 2025, BARMM will establish its first parliamentary government, becoming the only region in the Philippines governed by an Autonomous Regional Government. This government will be led by a Chief Minister and supported

by an 80-member Bangsamoro Parliament.

‘JUST CONNECT US’

MEANWHILE, as Mindanao presents itself as a vast potential business hub in the country, it must hurdle a daunting infrastructure gap, according to Jamju Rivera, Local Economic Development and Investment Promotions Officer (LEDIPO) of Isabela City, Basilan. Rivera noted that the region still trails behind Luzon despite both being large islands.

He illustrated this by saying that while it’s easy to travel from Manila to Baguio and nearby provinces, travel across Mindanao “takes time.”

“While our infrastructure is improving, there’s still a considerable gap. We need stronger infrastructure,” Rivera said.

He highlighted the need for additional airports, better interregional connections, wider high-

ways, and larger logistics and transportation companies to effectively link Mindanao’s regions.

“Mindanao has it all—innovation, creativity, diverse cultures, and rich history,” Rivera said. “All we lack is the infrastructure to connect our cities and bring out our full potential.”

He called for greater connectivity not only within Mindanao but also across Southeast Asia, emphasizing the island’s strategic position to connect with Sabah in Malaysia, Indonesia, Cebu, Taiwan, China, and other neighboring provinces and countries.

“Just really connect us,” he added.

Another crucial factor to development are the increased public-private partnerships (PPPs).

According to Elena Haw, Area Vice President for PCCI Mindanao and Director of Halal Industry Development, if development relies solely on public investment, progress will lag. She referenced successful infrastructure projects in Luzon, such as the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx) and the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), as examples of effective PPP initiatives.

However, Rivera noted that while PPPs are needed, the process needs to be simplified. Many investors are interested in developing infrastructure in Mindanao, but the complex requirements deter them from moving forward, she said.

“Hopefully, through PCCI’s advocacy, we can engage the national government, possibly even Congress, to streamline these processes,” he said.

“There’s significant interest in investing, but the complicated requirements and lack of clear profit assurances discourage investors,” he added.

Haw further highlighted the need for policy stability, noting that in the Philippines, policy shifts often accompany changes in administration.

A VISION IN PINK The Dimaukom Mosque, or Pink Mosque, stands as a striking symbol of peace, unity and interfaith brotherhood in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao. Built with support from then-Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom on his family’s land, this vibrant pink mosque— crafted by Christian workmen—represents a powerful blend of cultural and spiritual harmony. Opened in 2014, its pink façade reflects Mayor Dimaukom’s vision of love and community, inviting visitors to experience the beauty of shared faith and fellowship. CAMILLE MORALES VIA CANVA

A SERENE view from the beach on Lanawan Island, Basilan, captures peaceful waves under a soft sky. AL-RAFFY ISMAD VIA DREAMSTIME.COM.

AI tool in hospitals creates fake statements, warn researchers

SAN

By Garance Burke & Hilke Schellmann The Associated Press

FRANCISCO—Tech behemoth

OpenAI has touted its artificial intelligence-powered transcription tool Whisper as having near “human level robustness and accuracy.”

But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. Those experts said some of the invented text—known in the industry as hallucinations—can include racial commentary, violent rhetoric and even imagined medical treatments.

Experts said that such fabrications are problematic because Whisper is being used in a slew of industries worldwide to translate and transcribe interviews, generate text in popular consumer technologies and create subtitles for videos.

More concerning, they said, is a rush by medical centers to utilize Whisper-based tools to transcribe patients’ consultations with doctors, despite OpenAI’ s warnings that the tool should not be used in “high-risk domains.”

The full extent of the problem is difficult to discern, but researchers and engineers said they frequently have come across Whisper’s hallucinations in their work. A University of Michigan researcher conducting a study of public

meetings, for example, said he found hallucinations in eight out of every 10 audio transcriptions he inspected, before he started trying to improve the model.

A machine learning engineer said he initially discovered hallucinations in about half of the over 100 hours of Whisper transcriptions he analyzed. A third developer said he found hallucinations in nearly every one of the 26,000 transcripts he created with Whisper.

The problems persist even in well-recorded, short audio samples.

A recent study by computer scientists uncovered 187 hallucinations in more than 13,000 clear audio snippets they examined. That trend would lead to tens of thousands of faulty transcriptions over millions of recordings, researchers said.

Such mistakes could have “really grave consequences,” particularly in hospital settings, said Alondra Nelson, who led the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for the Biden administration until last year.

“Nobody wants a misdiagnosis,” said Nelson, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study

computer screen displays text produced by an artificial intelligence-powered

in Princeton, New Jersey. “There should be a higher bar.”

Whisper also is used to create closed captioning for the Deaf and hard of hearing—a population at particular risk for faulty transcriptions. That’s because the Deaf and hard of hearing have no way of identifying fabrications “hidden amongst all this other text,” said Christian Vogler, who is deaf and directs Gallaudet University’s Technology Access Program.

OpenAI urged to address problem

THE prevalence of such hallucinations has led experts, advocates and former OpenAI employees to call for the federal government to consider AI regulations. At minimum, they said, OpenAI needs to address the flaw.

“This seems solvable if the company is willing to prioritize it,” said William Saunders, a San Francisco-based research engineer who quit OpenAI in February over concerns with the company’s direction. “It’s problematic if you put this out there and people are overconfident about what it can do and integrate it into all these other systems.”

An OpenAI spokesperson said the company continually studies how to reduce hallucinations and appreciated the researchers’ findings, adding that OpenAI incorporates feedback in model updates.

While most developers assume that transcription tools misspell words or make other errors, engineers and researchers said they had never seen another AIpowered transcription tool hallucinate as much as Whisper.

WHISPER HALLUCINATIONS

THE tool is integrated into some versions of OpenAI’s flagship chatbot ChatGPT, and is a built-in offering in Oracle and Microsoft’s cloud computing platforms, which service thousands of companies worldwide. It is also used to transcribe and translate text into multiple languages.

In the last month alone, one recent version of Whisper was

downloaded over 4.2 million times from open-source AI platform HuggingFace. Sanchit Gandhi, a machine-learning engineer there, said Whisper is the most popular opensource speech recognition model and is built into everything from call centers to voice assistants.

Professors Allison Koenecke of Cornell University and Mona Sloane of the University of Virginia examined thousands of short snippets they obtained from TalkBank, a research repository hosted at Carnegie Mellon University. They determined that nearly 40% of the hallucinations were harmful or concerning because the speaker could be misinterpreted or misrepresented.

In an example they uncovered, a speaker said, “He, the boy, was going to, I’m not sure exactly, take the umbrella.”

But the transcription software added: “He took a big piece of a cross, a teeny, small piece ... I’m sure he didn’t have a terror knife so he killed a number of people.”

A speaker in another recording described “two other girls and one lady.” Whisper invented extra commentary on race, adding “two other girls and one lady, um, which were Black.”

In a third transcription, Whisper invented a non-existent medication called “hyperactivated antibiotics.”

Researchers aren’t certain why Whisper and similar tools hallucinate, but software developers said the fabrications tend to occur amid pauses, background sounds or music playing.

OpenAI recommended in its online disclosures against using Whisper in “decision-making contexts, where flaws in accuracy can lead to pronounced flaws in outcomes.”

TRANSCRIBING DOCTOR APPOINTMENTS

THAT warning hasn’t stopped hospitals or medical centers from using speech-to-text models, including Whisper, to transcribe what’s said during doctor’s visits to free up medical providers to spend less time on note-taking or report writing.

Over 30,000 clinicians and 40 health systems, including the Mankato Clinic in Minnesota and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, have started using a Whisperbased tool built by Nabla, which has offices in France and the US. That tool was fine-tuned on medical language to transcribe and summarize patients’ interactions, said Nabla’s chief technology officer Martin Raison.

Company officials said they are aware that Whisper can hallucinate and are addressing the problem.

It’s impossible to compare Nabla’s AI-generated transcript to the original recording because Nabla’s tool erases the original audio for “data safety reasons,” Raison said.

Nabla said the tool has been used to transcribe an estimated 7 million medical visits.

Saunders, the former OpenAI engineer, said erasing the original audio could be worrisome if transcripts aren’t double checked or clinicians can’t access the recording to verify they are correct.

“You can’t catch errors if you take away the ground truth,” he said. Nabla said that no model is perfect, and that theirs currently requires medical providers to quickly edit and approve transcribed notes, but that could change.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

BECAUSE patient meetings with their doctors are confidential, it is hard to know how AI-generated transcripts are affecting them.

A California state lawmaker, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, said she took one of her children to the doctor earlier this year, and refused to sign a form the health network provided that sought her permission to share the consultation audio with vendors that included Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing system run by OpenAI’s largest investor. Bauer-Kahan didn’t want such intimate medical conversations being shared with tech companies, she said.

“The release was very specific that for-profit companies would have the right to have this,” said Bauer-Kahan, a Democrat who represents part of the San Francisco suburbs in the state Assembly. “I was like ‘absolutely not.’”

The South is heading north

Continued from A1

“You can’t take off if you’re always on the runway,” she said, adding that investors prioritize stability, which should be addressed at the national level.

RETURNING VISITORS

THE Mindanao region is also celebrated for its rich biodiversity, ecotourism opportunities, vibrant culinary scene, thrilling adventure activities, historical landmarks, and breathtaking natural landscapes, all of which continue to attract tourists. Amid these regional attractions, Basilan province is steadily strengthening its tourism industry to meet the increasing visitor numbers, even as it awaits major infrastructure projects and investments. Rivera emphasized that these efforts reflect the province’s commitment to enhancing the tourist experience and capitalizing on the steady growth in arrivals.

He reported that tourist arrivals in Basilan surged from approximately 27,000 in 2021 to 370,000 in 2022, and then further

increased to 420,000 in 2023. This consistent growth motivates them to continue their efforts.

Meanwhile, Rivera noted that some visitors come to the region for the first time out of curiosity, jokingly asking themselves, “Will I survive?” But, once they do, they often return.

“We’re very happy here. All the tourism infrastructure is in place, and the systems are running smoothly. It’s gratifying to see the local economy benefiting,” Rivera said.

Similarly, Kahar Dalaten, Chief of Staff at the Office of the Governor and Acting Provincial Tourism Officer of Sultan Kudarat, echoed the sentiment, highlighting their province’s substantial investment in tourism. He mentioned the “Bisita, Be My Guest” initiative by the Department of Tourism (DOT), which became part of the DOT’s Philippine Experience program, and the establishment of Sultan Kudarat’s first designated tourist area in South-Central Mindanao.

“Our goal is to establish ourselves as the premier tourism and business hub in the Southern

Philippines,” he said. This vision, shared by local leaders, is driving the development of significant infrastructure projects. They are also preparing to inaugurate the largest convention center in Mindanao, with a seating capacity of 3,000.

Through their participation in national events, conferences and expos, local leaders said these opportunities have boosted confidence among residents, encouraging them to promote their region and its products more actively. Dalaten highlighted that their support for communities goes beyond basic assistance; they aim to elevate local products to international standards, showcasing items that meet global quality, not just those for local consumption. He emphasized the need to scale up production in Mindanao to meet export demands, given the region’s vast resources. “We are the food basket of the Philippines," Dalaten noted, adding that their high-quality products have the potential to reach markets beyond Mindanao, bringing pride not only to the region but to the entire country.

A

transcription program called Whisper at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Friday, February 2, 2024. In this example, the speaker said, “as the um, the, her father dies not too long after he remarried...” while the program transcribes that as

Editor: Angel R. Calso

November 3, 2024 A3

Myanmar’s military regime falters as resistance forces seize territory

By David Rising The Associated Press

BANGKOK—Three well-armed militias launched a surprise joint offensive in northeastern Myanmar a year ago, breaking a strategic stalemate with the regime’s military with rapid gains of huge swaths of territory and inspiring others to attack around the country.

The military’s control had seemed firmly ensconced with vast superiority in troops and firepower, plus material support from Russia and China. But today the government is increasingly on the back foot, with the loss of dozens of outposts, bases and strategic cities that even its leaders concede would be challenging to take back.

“The military is on the defensive all over the country, and every time it puts its energy into one part of the country, it basically has to shift troops and then is vulnerable in other parts,” said Connor Macdonald of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar advocacy group.

“To us it doesn’t look like there’s any viable route back for the military to recapture any of the territory that it’s lost.”

The military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, triggering intensified fighting with long-established armed militias organized by Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups in its border regions, which have struggled for decades for more autonomy.

The army’s takeover also sparked the formation of prodemocracy militias known as People’s Defense Forces. They support the opposition National Unity Government, which was established by elected lawmakers barred from taking their seats after the army takeover. But until the launch of Operation 1027, eponymously named for its Oct. 27 start, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, had largely been able to prevent major losses around the country.

Operation 1027 brought coordinated attacks from three of the most powerful ethnic armed groups, known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance: the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army,

the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. The alliance quickly captured towns and overran military bases and outposts along the Chinese border in northeastern Shan state.

Two weeks later, the Arakan Army launched attacks in its western home state of Rakhine, and since then other militia groups and PDFs have joined in around the country.

Myanmar’s military has been pushed back to the country’s center A year after the offensive began, resistance forces now fully or partially control a vast horseshoe of territory. It starts in Rakhine state in the west, runs across the north and then heads south into Kayah and Kayin states along the Thai border. The Tatmadaw has pulled back toward central Myanmar, around the capital Naypyidaw and largest city of Yangon.

“I never thought our goals would be achieved so quickly,” Lway Yay Oo, spokesperson for the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, told The Associated Press. “We only thought that we would attack the military council together to the extent we could, but it has been easier than expected so we’ve been able to conquer more quickly.”

Along the way, the Tatmadaw has suffered some humiliating defeats, including the loss of the city of Laukkai in an assault in which the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army captured more than 2,000 troops, including six generals; and of the city of Lashio, which had been home to the military’s Northeast Command.

“The 1027 offensive was a highly impressive operation, quite complex, and the use of drones played a big role because basically they were able to dismantle the military’s network of fire-support bases across northern Shan,” said Morgan Michaels, a Singapore-

based analyst with the International Institute of Strategic Studies who runs its Myanmar Conflict Map project.

“And then, once the military’s artillery support eroded, they were able to overrun harder targets like towns and battalion headquarters.”

A year later, the military is “substantially weakened,” he said, but it’s too early to write it off.

Military has been weakened, but not defeated

THE Tatmadaw has managed to claw back the town of Kawlin in the Sagaing region, which had fallen in the first days of the 1027 offensive, stave off an attack by three ethnic Karenni militias on Loikaw, the capital of Kayah state, and has retained administrative control of Myawaddy, a key border crossing with Thailand, after holding off an assault by one ethnic group with the assistance of a rival militia.

Many expect the military to launch a counteroffensive when the rainy season soon comes to an end, bolstered by some 30,000 new troops since activating conscription in February and its complete air superiority.

But at the same time, resistance groups are closing in on Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, in the center of the country.

And where they might be out-gunned, they have gained strength, hard-won experience and confidence over the last year, said the Ta’ang National Liberation Army’s Lway Yay Oo.

“We have military experience on our side, and based on this experience we can reinforce the fighting operation,” she said.

Thet Swe, a spokesperson for the military regime, conceded it

will be a challenge for the Tatmadaw to dislodge the Three Brotherhood Alliance from the territory it has gained.

“We cannot take it back during one year,” he told the AP in an emailed answer to questions. “However, I hope that I will give you a joyful message ... in (the) coming two or three years.”

Civilian casualties rise as the military turns more to indiscriminate strikes

AS the military has faced setbacks in the fighting on the ground, it has been increasingly relying on indiscriminate air and artillery strikes, resulting in a 95 percent increase in civilian deaths from airstrikes and a 170 percent increase in civilians killed by artillery since the 1027 offensive began, according to a report last month by the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Tatmadaw has been accused of deliberately targeting civilians whom it believes support the resistance militias, a tactic that is only turning more against them, said Isabel Todd, coordinator for the SAC-M group.

“It doesn’t seem to be having the effect that they want it to have,” she said. “It’s making them even more hated by the population and really strengthening the resolve to ensure that this is the end of the Myanmar military as it’s known.”

Military spokesperson Thet Swe denied targeting civilians, saying it was militia groups that were responsible for killing civilians and burning villages.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the fighting, and there are now more than 3 million internally displaced people in Myanmar overall, and

some 18.6 million people in need, according to the U.N.

At the same time, the 2024 humanitarian response plan is only 1/3 funded, hindering the delivery of aid, said Sajjad Mohammad Sajid, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs operation in Myanmar.

“The humanitarian outlook for the next year is grim, and we anticipate that the deteriorating situation will have a massive impact on the protection of civilians,” he said in an interview.

In some areas, however, the offensive has eased pressure, like northwestern Chin state, which borders Bangladesh and India and had previously been the focus of many of the Tatmadaw’s operations, said Salai Htet Ni, a spokesperson for the Chin National Front whose armed wing has been involved in fighting the military.

“In October of last year the military convoys that were going up into the Chin mountains were withdrawn,” he said. “As a result of the 1027 operation, there have been almost no major military activities.”

Success brings new tensions between resistance groups AS the front has expanded it has seen militias advancing out of their own ethnic areas, like when Rakhine-based Arakan Army in January seized the Chin town of Paletwa, which has given rise to some friction between groups, foreshadowing possible future strife should the Tatmadaw eventually fall.

In the case of Paletwa, Salai Htet Ni said his group was happy that the AA took it from the Tatmadaw, but added that there should have been negotiations before they began operating in Chin territory and that the AA should now bring Chin forces in to help administer the area.

“Negotiations are mandatory for these regional administration issues,” he said. “But we will negotiate this case through dialogue, not military means.”

At the moment there is a degree of solidarity between the different ethnic groups as they focus on a common enemy, but Aung Thu Nyein, director of communications for the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar think tank said that does not translate to common aspirations. Should the Tatmadaw fall, it could lead to the fragmentation of Myanmar unless the groups work hard to resolve political and territorial differences.

“As far as I see, there is no established mechanism to resolve the issues,” he said. “The resistance being able to bring down the junta is unlikely, but I cannot discount this scenario, (and) if we cannot build trust and common goals, it could lead to the scenario of Syria.” Chinese interests and ties with both sides complicate the picture COMPLICATING the political picture is the influence of neighboring China, which is believed to have tacitly supported the 1027 offensive in what turned out to be a successful bid to largely shut down organized crime activities that had been flourishing along its border.

In January, Beijing used its close ties with both the Tatmadaw and the Three Brotherhood groups to negotiate a ceasefire in northern Shan, which lasted for five months until the ethnic alliance opened phase two of the 1027 offensive in June, accusing the military of violating the ceasefire. China has been displeased with the development, shutting down border crossings, cutting electricity to Myanmar towns and taking other measures in a thus-far unsuccessful attempt to end the fighting. Its support for the regime also seems to be growing, with China’s envoy to Myanmar urging the powerful United Wa State Army, which wasn’t involved in the 1027 offensive or related fighting, to actively pressure the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Ta’ang National Liberation Army to halt the renewed offensive, according to leaked details of an August meeting widely reported by local media.

There is no evidence that the UWSA has done that, however.

“The idea that the northern groups and the Three Brotherhood Alliance etc. are somehow just agents of China is a complete misconception,” Todd said.

“They have their own objectives which they are pursuing that are independent of what China may or may not want them to do, and that’s apparent in the incredible amount of pressure that China has put on them recently.”

Because of the grassroots support for the resistance, it is less vulnerable to outside influence, said Kyaw Zaw, a spokesperson for the opposition National Unity Government.

“No matter who is putting pressure on us, we are winning because of the power of the people,” he said.

Conservative assault on LGBTQ rights rattles corporate America

By Simone Foxman, Jeff Green & Sridhar Natarajan

MARTY CHAVEZ used to think things were only getting better for LGBTQ people. His own story certainly pointed that way. Chavez spent a quarter-century scaling the pinnacles of Wall Street. When he was promoted to chief financial officer at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., he emerged as the most senior openly gay executive in the bank’s history. Now, after so many LGBTQ milestones— from the legalization of same-sex marriage to efforts to foster workplace diversity— Chavez is having doubts about the future. He and other advocates worry hard-won gains are slipping away. The idea that this fight is over, the mission accomplished, suddenly seems woefully misguided. “I no longer feel that way at all,” says Chavez, now vice chairman at investment firm Sixth Street Partners. “It’s my sense—and it is the sense of other LGBT people—that not only has progression stalled out, that it’s going backwards. And in some places, it’s going backwards fast.” For many, the feeling is difficult to shake: From living rooms to boardrooms, support for LGBTQ rights in the US appears to have peaked. An overwhelming majority of Americans— seven in 10, according to Gallup—remain squarely behind same-sex marriage. From there, the picture begins to blur.

As a polarized nation hurtles toward Election Day, cultural conservatives have staked out aggressive positions on multiple issues, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Amid the backlash from the right over diversity, equity and inclusion, pockets of corporate America are edging away from public commitments to help level the playing field.

A growing number of companies are abandoning DEI metrics for executive pay, deleting from their corporate filings references to specific groups like women and LGBTQ workers that their DEI initiatives were meant to help, and revising internships and mentorship efforts. Some 94 percent of employees said workplace equality worsened last year, according to a report from advocacy group

Out and Equal. Chavez, a board member at Alphabet Inc., corporate parent of Google, is so concerned he’s been reaching out to prominent business figures on the issue. He recalls his 20s as a vocal presence at Queer Nation protests to combat the escalation of antigay violence. Now, according to Chavez, he’s ready to wear his activist boots again.

“It is concerning enough that we have to wake up and do something about it,” the 60-year-old said. “We don’t want special treatment, and neither will we settle for mere tolerance. It’s about full acceptance.”

The sense of anxiety is heightened as Donald Trump and his allies pour millions into anti-trans ads in swing states ahead of November 5. The conservative policy book

Project 2025 has urged the next Republican administration to redefine what constitutes discrimination based on sex, so that sexual orientation and gender identity are no longer included. Even if Kamala Harris wins, the pressure from the right is unlikely to let up: The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking roughly 530 anti-LGBTQ bills across the US (not all of them will become law). For years, corporate America has been seen as a key ally for the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Now, a small but growing number of marquee-name corporations have stepped back. Some have reduced internal initiatives designed to support LGBTQ employees. Others have backed away from more public displays of involvement. “It only means one

thing: Our clout is dwindling,’’ says Fabrice Houdart, executive director of the Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors, a New York-based nonprofit founded in 2022 with the goal of diversifying corporate boards. By the group’s count, only 47 of the more than 5,000 board seats in Fortune 500 companies are occupied by LGBTQ people. Among Fortune 500 companies, the CEOs of Apple Inc., Dow Inc. and Land O’ Lakes are the few recognized as being openly gay. Given the political climate, raising those percentages isn’t about to get any easier. Ford Motor Co., Lowe’s Cos Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp., among others, recently have reconsidered their public support of the Continued on

IN this photo provided by Mandalay People’s Defense Force, militias pose for a photograph in front of the gate of the captured army battalion in Mogok township in Mandalay region, Myanmar on July 25, 2024. MANDALAY PEOPLE’S DEFENCE FORCE VIA AP

An election worker wanted to serve her country: A stew of conspiracy theories and vitriol awaited

By Christina A. Cassidy

The Associated Press

RENO, Nev.—One morning last month, Cari-Ann Burgess did something completely unremarkable: She made a quick stop at a coffee shop on her way to work.

For Burgess, the top election official in a northern Nevada county, such outings could be precarious. As she waited for a hot tea and breakfast sandwich, an older woman approached.

“She proceeded to tell me that I should be ashamed of myself— that I’m a disgrace, I’m an embarrassment to Washoe County, and I should crawl into a hole and die,” Burgess said in an interview with The Associated Press the following day.

A morning stop at the coffee shop would be no more. It was added to a growing list of things Burgess no longer did because of her job. She already had stopped shopping for groceries and other basic necessities. Meals were eaten at home. If she and her husband did eat out or go shopping, they would travel an hour away from their Reno neighborhood.

“I go to work, I go home, and I go to church – that’s about it,” Burgess said. “I’m very cautious now about where I go.”

Still, Burgess said she was looking forward to November and overseeing the presidential election with her team in Nevada’s second most populous county. That came to an end one day toward the end of September, when she was called into a meeting with county officials.

The county said Burgess requested medical leave to deal with stress and it has referred to her departure as a personnel matter. In a statement, the county said it was “focused on conducting a smooth and fair election.”

Burgess said she was forced out after refusing to go along with personnel changes sought by the county manager’s office. She said she asked repeatedly to stay, even providing a doctor’s note vouching for her health, and has hired a lawyer.

Overseeing the office now is Burgess’ deputy—the fifth person

in four years to run the county election operation. The entire staff is new since 2020. The turnover is one symptom of a county that is closely divided politically and has been buffeted by election conspiracy theories since Republican Donald Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Burgess, in her first public remarks since her abrupt departure, told the AP this past week that she was worried about her team and was at a loss on what to do next.

She even put off voting, saying it was a reminder she was no longer part of a process she loves.

“I was giving 110% of who I was, who I am to this job. And then all of a sudden I’m out and I don’t understand,” Burgess said as she considered her next steps. “I don’t understand how we got to this point.”

‘I had no idea what we were getting into’

AP journalists were in Reno in September, a week before her departure, and spent several days with Burgess that included time at the Washoe County elections office and at her home. As with those who preceded her, Burgess and her staff had been in a pressure cooker, subject to biting criticism at public meetings and made to answer conspiracy-fueled claims about voting machines, drop boxes and voter rolls.

Dealing with members of the elected county commission who distrust elections made the job even more difficult.

Burgess was an extreme case of the types of challenges facing local election officials across the United States after four years of false claims that have undermined public confidence in elections and in those who run them. Election workers have faced harassment and even death threats and have taken extra security precautions

this year that include adding bulletproof glass and panic buttons.

Over the three days that the AP spent with Burgess, she gave no indication she planned to leave her job. She talked extensively about how she was managing the stress for her, her family and her staff.

“I didn’t think I was going to be in a place that I am now—so front and center and a hotbed for this election, but I am grateful,” Burgess said, sitting in her living room and surrounded by inspirational Bible passages and Christian symbols. “I’m grateful for the opportunity. I’m grateful that I am able to serve my country again.”

Hanging on a wall was a decorative sign that read: “God doesn’t give us what we can handle, God helps us handle what we are given.”

At home on a Friday night, Burgess sat down for dinner with her husband and a close friend whom she considers a brother. Her husband’s prayer over the meal included a request to keep Burgess and her team safe.

“I had no idea what we were getting into, but I know that this is something that’s very important for Cari. She loves her job,” Shane Burgess said after dinner was over. “Sometimes I want to get in the fight, but I know she can handle herself.”

Later, Burgess and her husband discussed plans for the weekend. Burgess wanted to take her husband, a baseball fan, to watch Reno’s minor league team, the Aces, play before the season ended.

“Not if you’re going to be yelled at,” Shane Burgess told his wife as they sat next to each other in matching recliners.

Burgess tried to reassure her

husband: “I can wear a hat.”

In the end, they decided not to go.

‘I can’t not serve my country’ THE Washoe County election office sits inside a complex of government buildings a few miles north of downtown Reno. Burgess’ office, before she left, was adorned with American flags, a copy of the US Constitution and red, white and blue decorative stars that read liberty, freedom and America.

“Election Heroes Work Here,” proclaimed a sign outside her office door.

She was the fourth person to lead the Washoe County election office since 2020, named interim registrar of voters in January in a 3-2 vote by the county commission. Even though her entire office was new, Burgess said she was impressed at how well the staff had performed amid all the pressure of working in a high-stress environment.

“I have an amazing staff who all have their part and who do their job to perfection,” Burgess said.

Across parts of the US, local election officials exhausted by the harassment and demands of the job have retired or left the profession entirely. Even Burgess had stopped working in elections after being harassed in public by people upset Trump had lost the 2020 election, even though he had easily won the Minnesota county where she worked at the time.

After that election, she moved to North Carolina and was working at a beachside ice cream shop when she felt called to return to elections while watching fireworks

on the Fourth of July. “I was like, I can’t not serve my country the way I have,” she said. “And coming from elections and knowing elections, I’m like, that’s something I can get back into. I can do elections again.”

‘Front line of democracy’ ARRIVING in Washoe County, where the Sierra Nevada transitions to the high desert, Burgess encountered a county mired in voting-related conspiracy theories.

County meetings are often prolonged by members of the public who opposed Burgess’ hiring and who want the county to hand count votes because they don’t trust voting equipment.

“It feels like you’re on the front line, but it’s a different front line. It’s the front line of democracy -- not the front line of combat,” Burgess said. “But the way the country is divided at the moment, it feels like combat because every day you’re combatting some misinformation.”

Burgess said a commission vote earlier this year to refuse to certify two recount elections from the state primary hurt morale in the election office. Afterward, she said, two staffers were in tears. There had been no significant issues during voting and no errors when the votes were counted, she said. With the commission under increasing public pressure, it eventually relented and voted to certify.

Every morning, when office assistant Shawna Johnson arrives, she updates the whiteboard with the latest countdowns for early voting and Election Day on Nov. 5. On this day, it was 28 days and 45 days, respectively. She also makes sure to add one more: “95 days ’til Christmas.”

“We know what our focus is -it’s getting to early voting and then getting to Election Day,” Johnson said. “But you got to look forward to what happens after all of that. We’ll be able to get back to our normal lives, regular hours, being at home with our families, celebrating holidays.”

A few days before her departure, Burgess had brought in a consultant to lead training for staff on how to manage stress. That included the importance of taking regular breaks, getting enough sleep and building a support network of friends and family.

“Realizing that I have trauma

from 2020 and that I have the PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), I don’t want that to happen to my team,” Burgess said. “They deserve better. They deserve to know how to take care of themselves.”

At one point, Burgess reminded her team to take some time off because everyone would be working weekends starting the first week of October.

Privately, Burgess acknowledged time off for her staff would likely mean more work for her. In the two months before the election, she expected to be working 13-hour days.

“If they can’t be there, I need to be,” Burgess said. “There’s just that many things that need to get done for an election.”

‘Not in me to leave something I love’

AMONG the many things for Burgess to do were security upgrades at the election office.

Around the nation, personal safety and the security of election offices have become top concerns amid threats and harassment of election workers.

Soon after Burgess said she was harassed at the coffee shop, she had a walk-through to discuss security measures to implement before the November election. Among the recommendations was placing a film over glass windows that can slow, but not stop, bullets.

“That’s when I realized I have a lot more dangerous job than I actually expected. It should never, ever be like this,” Burgess said. Burgess, for the most part, said she kept those concerns to herself. She said she wanted to keep her team focused on running a smooth and secure election. That included making sure poll workers were well trained.

The day of the incident at the coffee shop, Burgess recalled that after she finished working, she closed the door to her office and shut the lights off. She sat on her office couch and prayed for comfort and strength.

“I could go somewhere else where it’s a lot easier,” Burgess said. “I could get out of elections completely. That’s not in me. It’s not in me to leave something I love.” Less than a week later, she was gone, a decision she said was made for her. And Washoe County, once again, would have someone else in charge of its elections.

Conservative assault on LGBTQ rights rattles corporate America

44-year-old Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group. The retreat is raising new questions about the future of HRC’s influential yardstick of company behavior, the Corporate Equality Index. Founded in 1980, the Washington, DC-based HRC has wielded money and influence to back initiatives like same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination rules and gender-affirming care benefits.

The organization has often leaned on the C-suite, persuading executives to back such policies well before they were required by law. For years its index has been embraced almost universally by US companies hoping to demonstrate their commitment to diversity.

Achieving a perfect score became the ultimate symbol of an LGBTQ-friendly workplace, and the group wielded it aggressively—so much so that some corporate advisers likened it to an activist hedge fund.

In 2011, for instance, the number of Fortune 500 companies offering transgender-

inclusive health care more than doubled after HRC added such care as one of its index metrics. In 2017, Walmart Inc. made headlines when HRC suspended its perfect index score of 100. In 2019, Google pulled a controversial app that LGBTQ groups said promoted “conversion therapy’’ hours after HRC threatened its 100 rating. However, since June, when conservative activist Robby Starbuck began online campaigns targeting consumer brands for their “woke” policies and support of the LGBTQ community, at least eight companies including Harley-Davidson Inc. and Tractor Supply Co have announced they’ll no longer participate the index. Toyota’s Lexus brand pulled its high-level corporate sponsorship. Representatives for most of the defectors have said they’re refocusing DEI programs on internal efforts closer to their business lines, but said they remained committed to diversity, including LGBTQ employees and their corporate benefits.

Kelley Robinson, president of HRC, characterizes the recent developments as a “blip.” HRC and its allies have accused

companies of cowering to Internet trolls and bowing to conservative fear mongering.

“This is purely a political attack that is leaning into people’s lack of familiarity to sow fear and chaos,” Robinson says. “We’ve seen this playbook before.”

She says that despite the defections, more companies than ever are providing data for next year’s index.

“If we ignore this and think it’s just a blip, it may be irresponsible,” says Rob Smith, board director at shoe company Steve Madden Ltd. and former executive at Macy’s Inc. and Victoria’s Secret & Co. “The concern is real,” adds Smith, who is openly gay, saying that LGBTQ supporters need to unite to challenge what seems like a coordinated conservative backlash.

Others say timeworn strategies of issuing public demands and lobbying aggressively have become less effective given the protections and benefits LGBTQ people have already won in the workplace, and given today’s deeply partisan landscape. Among Republicans, support for LGBTQ rights has fallen markedly in recent years,

according to Gallup, as Trump and others have adopted anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Only 46 percent of Republicans support legalized same-sex marriage, down from 55 percent in 2022. Some 51 percent of Americans, including 85 percent of Republicans, believe changing one’s gender is morally wrong, Gallup found earlier this year.

HRC, however, has kept raising its bar for big business. To earn a perfect score, companies must now offer gender-transition plans for their employees, including supportive restrooms, dress codes and documentation guidance. Businesses also must participate in five LGBTQ community outreach initiatives, up from three in 2022.

Executives at some of the companies that pulled out of the rankings had grown uncomfortable with HRC’s approach, as well as its high profile, openly partisan political posture, according to people familiar with their thinking. Robinson, the CEO, for instance, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August.

All of this has put executives on the defensive. Since the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in college

admission, conservatives have aggressively targeted corporate DEI efforts. To head off the kind of criticism that has roiled the nation’s elite universities, companies have conducted sweeping reviews of their diversity programs. Recent controversies involving Bud Light beer and Target stores have only added to the angst.

Some LGBTQ advocates are suggesting a new playbook for engaging with corporate America.

“It’s being tone deaf to expect companies to do the same things in the same way that they’ve done for 20 years,’’ says Todd Sears, the founder of consultancy Out Leadership. “The conversation we need to have is: How do we help companies move forward in this way so that they can continue to do it, versus naming and shaming?’’ Charles Moran, president of conservative gay rights group Log Cabin Republicans, says refusing to engage with Trump has been a mistake.

Like Chavez, Maeve DuVally navigated a career at Goldman Sachs. She recalls that when she transitioned, Lloyd Blankfein, the bank’s long-time CEO, popped into her office.

“Nice hair,’’ Blankfein told her. It was a powerful expression of support, says DuVally, who has since retired from the lender. But Goldman Sachs is based in New York. Nowadays, many Wall Street players are expanding in places that aren’t as friendly to LGBTQ people. Goldman Sachs, for instance, is building a big new campus in Texas, where state lawmakers have proposed scores of anti-LGBTQ laws.

“Maybe it’s easier now than five years ago if you are in New York or West Hollywood,’’ DuVally says of being an LGBTQ person. But that’s not the case across red America. “It’s definitely much harder for trans staff to find support in those places.” Bloomberg News

“HRC is running around to all of these corporations saying, ‘We’re here for LGBT Americans and we’re here for gay rights and all this stuff’,” says Moran. “I’m like, ‘No, you’re here for gay Democrats and to advance the Democratic party’s narrative around gay rights’.”

CARI-ANN BURGESS, interim Registrar of Voters for Washoe County, Nev., arrives at the office on

Balik Scientist Program seeks long-term engagement amid short-term trends

By Bless Aubrey Ogerio

THE future of the Balik Scientist Program of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) lies in the personal commitment of returning experts, according to the agency’s undersecretary for research and development.

“That is also what we want, for them to stay here for good. But, you see, it’s a personal commitment,” Undersecretary Leah Buendia told reporters on the sidelines of the 10th Annual Balik Scientist Program convention on October 28.

“The program cannot force these scientists. But, if I may recall, many of them stayed for good,” she added.

Since its establishment in 1975, the Balik Scientist Program has welcomed a total of 674 returning experts. This year, around 100 of them gathered at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City for the convention. The program was solidified by the Balik Scientist Act (RA 11035), signed on June 15, 2018.

In his speech, Science Secretary

Renato U. Solidum Jr. emphasized the importance of balik scientists in DOST’s mission of “providing solutions, opening opportunities.”

According to data presented by the DOST, the majority of engagements from 2015 to 2024 have been short-term, with a significant gap in long-term engagements. Notably, medium-term engagements began to emerge in 2019. From the same period, the distribution of Balik Scientists across sectors revealed that 43.7 percent are involved in industry, energy, and emerging technology; 28.4 percent in agriculture, aquatic, and natural resources; and 27.9 percent in health. In addition to partnerships with the University of the Philippines System, many Balik Scientists col -

laborate with academic institutions, particularly the De La Salle University.  Collaborations also extend to DOST agencies, other government bodies like the Departments of Health, and of the Environment and Natural Resources, as well as industries and nongovernmental organizations.

DOST’s strategy framework for 2023-2028 highlighted the key contributions of Balik Scientists in advancing its four pillars: human well-being, wealth creation, wealth protection, and sustain -

ability.

Some of the program’s achievements include developing molecular techniques to enhance rice and tilapia production, establishing microbial biobanks for improved aquaculture feed, adopting smart farming technologies, and advancing bioremediation strategies to tackle heavy metal contamination. In the field of health sciences, the program has improved methods for identifying harmful substances in medicines and water, introduced radiation-assisted plastic recycling, developed

Building modern innovation ecosystem: DOST honors 26 champions

By John Eiron R. Francisco

THE Department of Science and Technol -

ogy, through its Technology Application and Promotion Institute (DOST-TAPI)

honored 26 innovation champions, whose contributions are expected to benefit communities, on October 25, at a hotel in Alabang.

Atty. Marion Ivy D. Decena, director of DOST-TAPI, in her opening message at the event titled “Lunduyan,” which translates to “Meeting Point” or “Cradle,” described the gathering as a powerful step toward turning dreams into reality.

She likened it to a small flame of inspiration, where each idea, transformed into an innovation, has the potential to grow and ignite further.

Decena emphasized that the participants had gathered to strengthen this flame, making it brighter and more resilient through collective efforts.

She noted that the stories behind each project, along with the connections and networks formed, underscore the vital role everyone plays in building a modern innovation ecosystem in the Philippines.

This year’s Lunduyan winners are the following.

Smart Electronics

n Ivan Brent F. Nara— Technology

Validation of Improved KoolGear (Galing)

n Dr. Francis Aldrine A. Uy—Hoclomac (Venture Financing Program)

Software/Platform as a service

n Genevieve P. Navales—ScrapCycle PH (Technicom)

n Varian Sherwin Chu—4Gives (Technicom)

John Vincent Q. Gastanes—Farm Konekt (Technicom)

n Jonald Justine U. Itugot—Cerebro Plus:

An Integrated School Management and Content Library System for K-12 Schools (Venture Financing Program)

n Ralen Rose Gloria L. Malatbalat— Making Technology Manufacturing

Corp. Scale Up for Market Expansion and Customer Retention (Venture Financing Program)

n Marc Carlo Lijauco—Bizkit Technologies Inc. Local Centralized Business Suite (Venture Financing Program)

n Noel Gary E. Del Castillo—SeeYouDoc

Corp (Venture Financing Program)

Transport System Technologies

n Miguel Locsin—DOON Transport Technologies Inc (Technicom)

Machining and fabrication innovation

n Ramon T. Manalo—Abaca Fiber Stripping Machine (Galing)

n Glen M. Portugal—Improved Cocoon and Other Materials Dryer (Galing)

n Melinda C. Medallo—Danilyn’s Enterprises (Venture Financing Program)

n Charlou Delos Reyes Guion— C&G Machine Shop

Renewable/Sustainable Energy Technologies

n Stephanie Julienne Fabie-Agapin—Unas Canvas (Galing)

Nutraceuticals

n Samuel Antonious D. Tecuala—DeHusk Inc. (Technicom)

n Lina T. Codilla—Carrot Smoothie with Blue Ternate Flower Infusion (Galing)

n Antonitte C. Canda—Tony’s Food Products (Venture Financing Program)

Farm Mechanization and Digital Integration

n Alvin Phoebe Artemis Valdez—IoT Artificial Intelligence-Based Dosing System in Greenhouse (Galing)

Other approved projects

n Alphy Ferraren—Technology Validation of USB Port with Mounting Holder

n Renzo Navarro Ducusin—Cloud-based Point of Sale system

n Caraga State University— Prototype Enhancement and Testing of Village-level

Sago Pith Extracting Machine

n Gilbert Jim—Fondre Flavour Dynamics

Vegetable Lumpiang Togue Vertical Farming

n Normie Jean Sajor Lacubtan— Determining the Pesticide Residue Level of Mangoes using a smart metal oxide nanosensor for Post-Harvest Applications

n Southern Leyte State University—SolarPowered Self Navigating Paddle Wheel Aerator System

Strengthening innovation

SCIENCE Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr. unveiled in his speech the innovative solution aimed at enhancing community success in 2024 through DOST-TAPI’s call for proposal campaign, “Further Forward.”

The campaign seeks to streamline financial support for local inventors and innovators, focusing on projects with market potential to ensure their commercialization.

According to Solidum, the submissions represent an initial step in assessing ideas, supported by regional activities that underscore the need for targeted assistance.

He noted that 12 priority sectors have been identified to reinforce contributions to economic growth, including the expansion of infrastructure.

Solidum pointed out that the DOST is expanding the innovation landscape through initiatives like the Expanded Intellectual Property Rights Assistance Program (EIPRA).

The program extends support to innovations beyond the country’s borders, providing comprehensive assistance for international intellectual protection, with the goal of competing in the global market and raising the nation’s ranking in the Global Innovation Index.

Recently, the Philippines moved up three spots, from 56th to 53rd on the index. Solidum expressed optimism that this upward trend will continue, with the potential to return into the top 50 soon. The country has a 20 ranking in the GII in 2020 In addition, the science and technology

chief announced the launching of the Expanded Venture Financing Program (EVFP) to enhance the commercialization and promotion of innovative technologies developed by startups, spin-offs, and technical brands, aiming to drive local growth.

He emphasized that substantial and ongoing support is being provided through collaboration with various agencies, universities, and the private sector.

This initiative targets a wide range of beneficiaries, including research institutions, startups, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and individual inventors, as they continue to develop cutting-edge technologies and products.

“Their success is the success of the entire nation,” Solidum pointed out..

In 2024, DOST-TAPI allocated nearly P38 million to support 213 technologies focused on invention and intellectual property protection, and invested over P12 billion in 16 commercialization projects aimed at boosting MSMEs.

The department awarded over P14 million in financial assistance through successful technical programs, while the EIPRA processed 168 local applications and filed 39 international ones, with an allocation of P16 million.

The EVFP allocated more than P18 billion to advance various projects.

Additionally, Solidum announced enhancements to the Hirang 2.0 program, which aims to equip startups and DOST Research and Development Institute spin-offs with essential skills for investment and business growth.

The Science secretary also reported that DOST-supported startups have displayed their innovative talents at prominent events in Switzerland, Singapore, and Thailand, highlighting the Philippines’ ability to meet global demands with advanced technology.

Expressing optimism for the future, Solidum reiterated the importance of collaboration in igniting innovation within the country, urging stakeholders to maximize the administration’s support for science, technology, and innovation.

He highlighted President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr’s call to scale up Filipino-made innovations, which the DOST-TAPI is poised to facilitate.

The S&T agency will launch a new program on December 4, aimed at strengthening technology transfer and commercialization in the country by helping stakeholders manage the costs associated with bringing innovations from research to market.

advanced biosensors for heavy metal remediation, and facilitated the application of CubeSat technology and the design of a sterilizer for managing infectious medical waste.

“If they are abroad, there are many smart people. Although there are also many smart people here in our country now, their specific expertise will mean a lot when you are in a third-world country,” Buendia said.

Most Balik Scientists hail from the National Capital Region (358), Calabarzon (65), and

Western Visayas (40). In Mindanao, both Northern Mindanao and the Davao Region contribute 30 each, while Soccksargen has the lowest representation with only four, and there are none from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The distribution of scientists by origin showed that 53 percent come from North America, 27 percent from Asia, 9 percent from Europe, 7 percent from Australia, and 4 percent from Africa.

“The Balik Scientist needs to have Filipino descent, or a Filipino. Usually, the ones sent to study and live abroad are from the United States. That’s why we have more scientists from the US,” Buendia said. “But in later years, we already have from Asia, like South Korea, Japan, and others,” she added. There are only a few from Africa, because there are only a few Filipinos there.

“So, where the Filipinos are, that is our target. And the majority is still in the US. But we are slowly emerging from the US, because many of them are studying in Australia, Japan, and other countries,” Buendia said This year’s theme for the Balik Scientist Program, “Global Talents, Local Innovations: A Decade of Balik Scientist Contributions,” aims to reflect the impact of international expertise on local scientific progress.

Student inventors showcase their winning agri-inventions

Gand

inventors from Colegio de San

de Letran Calamba showcased their agri-inventions at the “Sowing Seeds: Cultivating Youth’s Future in Agriculture” session on agri-robotics.

The event was organized by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) through its Partnerships Unit (PU) as part of the Center’s recent Young Forces for Agricultural Innovation program.

In his opening message, Searca Director Glenn Gregorio explained that agriculture is a complex system that includes not only production but also harvesting, postharvest processing, and, ultimately, consumption. Gregorio also underscored the transformative role of innovation and technology in modern agriculture.

“Agriculture is the culmination of human labor, nature, and technology,” he remarked.

The session featured agri-robotics demonstrations by Colegio de San Juan de Letran Calamba student inventors, who won at the International Exhibition for Young Inventors 2024, held at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.

Through the session, the young inventors were given a platform to inspire their fellow youth and spark their interest in agriculture, particularly in technological innovation.

The team of Czyan Knox Arcibal, Isabelle Visico, and Francine Jaic Conde, demonstrated the use of their invention, “Circular Irrigation with Moisture Detection System (CIMDS).

CIMDS is designed to automate the irrigation process through soil moisture level detection, reducing the need for manual labor, while ensuring that crops are receiving the

precise amount of water needed. The inventors of “TempHydroponics”—Gian Carlo de Guzman, Louise Andrei Garcia, and John Caleb Robles—said the technology monitors hydroponic plants’ temperature and pH levels through an electrical conductivity sensor. The sensor detects nutrient deficiencies to maintain a balanced nutrient solution.

For their part, Daniel Eleazar Camangon and Anne Marie Jael, who invented the “Leak and Overflow Detection Arduino System [LODS],” said it was designed to detect leaks and overflows, sending real-time alerts that allow immediate troubleshooting and prevent further damage.

Drawing from his experiences as a young scientist, Gregorio shared motivational messages and insights into improving the students’ agri-inventions.

Around 100 grade-school and high-school students from Colegio de San Juan de Letran Calamba, University of the Philippines Rural High School, Colegio De Los Baños, and Christian School International participated in the session. As part of the learning activity, the students were given a tour of the Searca Hub for Agriculture and Rural Innovation for the Next Generation AgriMuseum and Searca Sky Garden. Sowing Seeds aims to foster interest in agriculture among young Southeast Asians. The initiative emphasizes the potential of agriculture as a promising career and encourages young people to explore higher education options in this field. This session on agri-innovation is anchored in the International Youth Day 2024 theme, “From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development.”

SCIENCE Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr. (center) and DOST-PCIEERD Executive Director Enrico Paringit join the returning Filipino scientists based

abroad at the Balik Scientist Program at its annual convention on October 28. BALIK SCIENTIST PROGRAM FACEBOOK PAGE

THE DOST-TAPI celebrates the second year of its “Lunduyan” gathering by honoring 26 innovators for their contributions to advancing science, during an event at a hotel in Alabang on October 25. Science Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr. (center) graces the event. DOST-TAPI FACEBOOK PAGE

EIGHT grade school and high school student-inventors from Colegio de San Juan de Letran Calamba and their coaches pose with the Searca team led by Director Glenn Gregorio (center). SEARCA PHOTO

RADE school

high school student-

Juan

A6 Sunday, November 3, 2024 Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph

Cardinal-designate David calls for a ‘more welcoming Church’

ROME—The success of the just concluded Synod on Synodality hinges on the Church becoming more welcoming, even to nonCatholics, Cardinal-designate Pablo Virgilio David said.

Speaking to CBCP News at the end of the month-long second session of the Synod of Bishops’ 16th general assembly, the bishop of Kalookan said this was his hope for the particular churches, or dioceses and eparchies, across the world.

“Synodality is about that. To become more inclusive. To widen the spaces of our tent. And if local churches around the world will really take this path of synodality, I think that will be the most important thing that synodality will achieve,” David said.

This outreach must be extended in particular to the poor and other marginalized sectors, he said.

Ancient Irish get too much credit for Halloween

THIS time of year, I often run across articles proclaiming Halloween a modern form of the pagan Irish holiday of Samhain (pronounced SAW-en).

But as a historian of Ireland and its medieval literature, I can tell you: Samhain is Irish. Halloween isn’t.

The Irish often get credit—or blame—for the bonfires, pranksters, witches, jack-o’lanterns and beggars who wander from house to house, threatening tricks and soliciting treats. The first professional 19th-century folklorists were the ones who created a through line from Samhain to Halloween.

Oxford University’s John Rhys and James Frazer of the University of Cambridge were keen to find the origins of their national cultures.

They observed lingering customs in rural areas of Britain and Ireland and searched medieval texts for evidence that these practices and beliefs had ancient pagan roots.

They mixed stories of magic and paganism with harvest festivals and whispers of human sacrifice, and you can still find echoes of their outdated theories on websites.

But the Halloween we celebrate today has more to do with the English, a 9th-century pope and America’s obsession with consumerism.

A changing of the seasons

“Not only with fellow Catholics. [It should work] with every fellow human being, as wide as possible,” David said.

“We have to work with fellow Christians who are not necessarily Catholics. That’s ecumenism. We have to work with fellow believers who are not necessarily Christian. That’s interreligious dialogue. We have to work with other cultures. That’s intercultural. We have to work with all created reality. That’s ecological,” he explained. David is tasked with overseeing the synod’s implementation and crafting the agenda for the

In terms of ministry, people must also learn to work with one another and shun a tendency to become “too churchy.”

next one, having been elected to synod’s Ordinary Council.

The synod’s final document called for wider lay participation in Church decision-making and mandatory participatory councils with diverse memberships.

It also called for greater transparency not just in financial matters and cases of abuse, and the adoption of monitoring and evalu -

ation schemes.

The prelate, who is set to be -

come cardinal in a Vatican consistory, or a solemn meeting of the council of cardinals, presided by Pope Francis on December 7, led the Philippine delegation to the Vatican meeting as president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

Felipe Salvosa II/CBCP News

Venerable Fr. Aloysius Schwartz’s vision to mission

By Veronica Velosoyap Wuson

‘EACH one is a living miracle,” said philanthropist Marixi Prieto, her voice filled with awe and pride as she gazed at the 3,000 uniformed girls gathered inside the multi-purpose gymnasium at the GirlsTown of the Sisters of Mary (SOM), in Silang, Cavite.

Through a rigorous selection process led by nuns across parish churches in Luzon, these young girls embark on their transformational journey at age 12.

On a sprawling 10-hectare campus, they enter a five-year secondary boarding school with a holistic curriculum combining academic studies with hands-on vocational training.

“They receive food, clothing, shelter, medical and dental services, as well as highschool and technical education—all free of charge,” said Sr Tess Sumalabe.

Every detail of the SOM GirlsTown is designed to equip the young scholars with the tools to reshape their futures. Seventy-six lay teachers, 36 nuns, and 77 support staff from the kitchen to the garden ensure every aspect of the girls’ development are supported.

“The SOM curriculum has evolved with the times,” explained GirlsTown principal, Sr. Mylene Arambulo.

“In 2005, we restructured the academic calendar so students could complete junior high in three years and dedicate their final year to post-secondary education.

“With the K-12 system in 2012, our postsecondary extended to 10 months, giving students more time to hone their chosen vocational skills,” Sr Mylene explained.

It is a purposeful, five-year immersion intended to prepare the students not only academically but for all aspects of life.

The end goal is ambitious but clear: to make the students job-ready and fully capable of competing with graduates from private

institutions.

By the time they complete their education, they will not only have the qualifications but also the confidence to seize new opportunities and become catalysts for change in their communities.

This transformative vision began with Venerable Aloysius Schwartz, a Catholic priest from Washington, DC. Schwartz completed his theological studies in Belgium where he was “inspired by the Shrine of the Virgin of the Poor to dedicate his life to serve the needy.”

In 1957, he chose South Korea for his first mission, drawn by the country’s struggles in the aftermath of the Korean War that left thousands of orphans, beggars, and widows.

In 1964, he founded the Religious Congregation of the Sisters of Mary in Busan, South Korea. That same year, the first “GirlsTowns and BoysTowns”—orphanages and schools for homeless children—opened their doors.

Later, in 1981, he expanded the mission with the Brothers of Christ.

In 1983, Schwartz received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in Manila for his extraordinary service to the poor in South Korea.

Seeing the local slums during his visit, he realized his next mission was in the Philippines, which eventually became the SOM global headquarters. Today, all the school towns in Cavite and in Cebu stand as a testament to his enduring legacy. Since 1985, nearly 90,000 students from the slums and rural areas of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao have graduated and are gainfully employed.

How do these school towns thrive financially? Initially, Schwartz himself worked tirelessly to raise funds, earning the nickname “priest and beggar” for his relentless pursuit of donations worldwide.

Even when he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in 1989, a terminal illness that eventually claimed his life in 1992, his mission never wavered.

After his passing, the nuns and local benefactors formed Fr. Al’s Children Foundation (FACFI) to ensure that his work could continue. Today, 90 percent of donations come from foreign benefactors of all faiths. Gratitude flows both ways. SOM alumni remain deeply connected to their alma mater, giving back year after year.

In 2023 alone, alumni donations amounted to P8.2 million, part of a total P55.5 million in grants distributed among the four campuses — Biga (GirlsTown) and Adlai (BoysTown) in Cavite, and Talisay (GirlsTown) and Minglanilla (Boys Town) in Cebu.

A shining example of this commitment is Sr. Maureen Antido, the current GirlsTown school superior and a 1998 SOM graduate herself.

Growing up in a modest family of seven children in Antipolo, she joined the congregation, earned a degree in psychology from the University of Recoletos in Cebu,. Her journey has taken to SOM schools in Latin America, South Korea, Tanzania before returning to Cavite, bringing a wealth of experience to her role.

Another inspiring alumna is Irish Queenie Melitante, a 2011 SOM graduate, who now teaches electronics and computer classes at BoysTown.

She completed her B.S. Electronics Technology, at the Technical University of the Philippines, Manila, through the support of the Tom and Glory Sullivan Foundation.

“Our graduates are highly sought after,” Prieto said proudly, highlighting alumni who have become doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, chefs, and corporate executives.

Notably, four young men earned global certification as auto mechanics through a

partnership with Don Bosco and Porsche, demonstrating the practical skills SOM fosters.

Prieto’s brother, Charlie Rufino, FACFI president, leads the annual “Sports for a Cause” fundraiser. Thanks to these siblings’ efforts, construction began this year on a new Digital Transformation Center funded by the Felicidad Sy Foundation.

“This will certainly improve the students’ software and hardware skills,” said Sr. Tess, reflecting on future possibilities for SOM’s graduates.

A golf team, Highlands Ladies, in nearby Tagaytay contributes partial net proceeds of their yearly fundraiser to the SOM for the past 16 years, underscoring the strength of community support.

Fr. Al is buried in BoysTown, Silang, Cavite. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, he attributed his life’s work to the Virgin of the Poor.

Though his life was brief, his impact has extended across continents, inspiring generations and changing countless lives. The Sisters of Mary and Brothers in Christ continue his legacy establishing school towns in Mexico, Africa, Brazil, Honduras, and Guatemala.

His sainthood cause is ongoing. In January 2015, Pope Francis declared Fr. Aloysius Schwartz “Venerable,” the first step toward canonization.

“We’re waiting for one miracle for him to be beatified, and then one more miracle to finally be declared a Saint,” Prieto explained. “This would take a medical miracle, something beyond explanation.”

But for the SOM students and the countless families transformed by his mission, Schwartz is already a saint in their hearts.

“We witness miracles of transformation every day,” Prieto said, “Each graduate, each success story, is a miracle born from one man’s vision to see the neglected potential in the poor.”

FOR two millennia, Samhain, the night of October 31, has marked the turn from summer to winter on the Irish calendar. It was one of four seasonal signposts in agricultural and pastoral societies.

After Samhain, people brought the animals inside as refuge from the long, cold nights of winter.

Imbolc, which is on February 1, marked the beginning of the lambing season, followed by spring planting.

Beltaine signaled the start of mating season for humans and beasts alike on May 1, and Lughnasadh kicked off the harvest on August 1.

But whatever the ancient Irish did on October 31 is lost to scholars because there’s almost no evidence of their pagan traditions except legends written by churchmen around 800 A.D., about 400 years after the Irish started turning Christian.

Although they wrote about the adventures of their ancestors, churchmen could only imagine the pagan ways that had disappeared.

An otherworld more utopian than terrifying THESE stories about the pagan past told of Irish kings holding annual weeklong feasts, markets and games at Samhain.

The day ended early in northwestern Europe, before 5 p.m., and winter nights were long. After sundown, people went inside to eat, drink and listen to storytellers.

The stories did not link Samhain with death and horror. But they did treat Samhain as a night of magic, when the otherworld—what, in Irish, was known as the “sí”—opened its portals to mortals.

One tale, “The Adventure of Nera,” warned that if you went out on Samhain Eve, you might meet dead men or warriors from the sí, or you might unknowingly wander into the otherworld.

When Nera went out on a dare, he met a thirsty corpse in search of drink and unwittingly followed warriors through a portal into the otherworld.

But instead of ghosts and terror, Nera found love. He ended up marrying a “ban sídh” (pronounced “BAN-shee”) an otherworldly woman.

But here’s the medieval twist to the tale: He lived happily ever after in this otherworld with his family and farm.

The Irish otherworld was no hell, either.

In medieval tales, it is a sunny place in perpetual spring. Everyone who lives there is beautiful, powerful, immortal and blond. They have good teeth.

The rivers flow with mead and wine, and food appears on command. No sexual act is a sin.

The houses sparkle with gems and precious metals. Even the horses are perfect.

Clampdown on pagan customs

THE link between October 31, ghosts and devils was really the pope’s fault.

In 834, Pope Gregory IV decreed November 1 the day for celebrating all Christian saints. In English, the feast day became All Hallows Day. The night before—Oct. 31—became known as All Hallows Eve.

Some modern interpretations insist that Pope Gregory created All Hallows Day to quell pagan celebrations of Samhain.

But Gregory knew nothing of ancient Irish seasonal holidays. In reality, he probably did it because everyone celebrated All Saints on different days and, like other popes, Gregory sought to consolidate and control the liturgical calendar.

In the later Middle Ages, All Hallows Eve emerged as a popular celebration of the saints.

People went to church and prayed to the saints for favors and blessings. Afterward, they went home to feast.

Then, on November 2, they celebrated All Souls’ Day by praying for the souls of their lost loved ones, hoping that prayers would help their dead relatives out of purgatory and into heaven.

But in the 16th century, the Protestant rulers of Britain and Ireland quashed saints’ feast days, because praying to saints seemed idolatrous.

Protestant ministers did their best to eliminate popular customs of the early November holidays, such as candle-lit processions and harvest bonfires.

In the minds of ministers, these customs smacked of heathenism.

A mishmash of traditions

OUR Halloween of costumed beggars and leering jack-o’-lanterns descends from this mess of traditions, storytelling and antiquarianism.

Like our ancestors, we constantly remake our most important holidays to suit current culture. Jack-o’-lanterns are neither ancient nor Irish. One of the earliest references is an 18thcentury account of an eponymous Jack, who tricked the devil one too many times and was condemned to wander the world forever.

Supposedly, Jack, or whatever the hero was called, carved a turnip and stuck a candle in it as his lantern.

But the custom of carving turnips in early November probably originated in England with celebrations of All Saints’ Day and another holiday, Guy Fawkes Day on November 5, with its bonfires and fireworks, and it spread from there.

As for ancient bonfires, the Irish and Britons built them to celebrate Beltaine, but not Samhain—at least, not according to the medieval tales.

In 19th-century Ireland, All Hallows Eve was a time for communal suppers, games like bobbing for apples and celebrating the magic of courtship.

For instance, girls tried to peel apples in one long peel; then they examined the peels to see what letters they resembled—the initials of their future husbands’ names.

Boys crept out of the gathering, despite warnings, to make mischief, taking off farm gates or stealing cabbages and hurling them at the neighbors’ doors.

Halloween with an American sheen

ACROSS the Atlantic, these customs first appeared in the mid-19th century, when the Irish, English and many other immigrant groups brought their holidays to the US.

In medieval Scotland, “guisers” were people who dressed in disguise and begged for “soul cakes” on All Souls Day.

These guisers probably became the costumed children who threatened—and sometimes perpetrated—mischief unless given treats. Lisa Bitel, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/The Conversation (CC) via AP

CARDINAL-ELECT Pablo Virgilio David (center), the bishop of Kalookan and CBCP president, attends the Synod on Synodality’s final working session in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall on October. 26. ROY LAGARDE/CBCP NEWS

FR

. Aloysius Schwartz join scholars of GirlsTown of the Sisters of Mary in one of his souvenir photos. PHOTOS COURTESY OF GIRLSTOWN OF THE SOM

SCHOLARS at GirlsTown of the SOM, in Silang, Cavite, engage in a vocational activity.

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Damn if you do, damned if you don’t

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

SOME 140 members of the Stop Kaliwa Dam Network and Que -

zon-based organization, called Alma! Dam, trooped to the provincial capitol of Quezon last month to appeal to the Provincial Board members authorizing Gov. Helen Tan to issue a cease-and-desist order against the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project in the southern Sierra Madre Mountain Range.

Like Angat Dam, the Kaliwa Dam is large that can store huge volumes of water during the rainy season and can be used during the dry season.

The P12.2-billion cost for the design and construction of the 60-meter-high dam and a 27.70-kilometer raw water conveyance tunnel is said to provide an additional water supply of 600 million liters per day.

It is planned to augment the current raw water supply from Angat Dam, which supplies 90 percent of Metro Manila’s water supply in the last six decades.

Dams are constructed for various purposes, including water for household or domestic, commercial and industrial uses, irrigation, and hydropower generation, while some for recreation and tourism.

Threats to communities

RECENT floods in Luzon, including Metro Manila and parts of Rizal, caused by heavy-than-usual rainfall. induced by typhoons were also blamed for the massive destruction of the Marikina watershed, including the Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape, and other parts of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range.

These weakened low-land communities’ natural defense against calamities.

Meanwhile, the fear of abrupt water releases from dams, not to mention catastrophic failure or destruction in the event of a strong earthquake, which scientists say is likely to happen, has been cited by members of Stop Kaliwa Dam Network and Alma! Dam.

They also mentioned adverse environmental and climate impact, as reasons to scrap the project.

Around 1,000 households from

Barangay Daraitan in Tanay, Rizal, and 500 households in Pagsangahan in General Nakar, Quezon, will be inundated by the construction of the dam.

IPs way of life under siege

THE Samahan ng mga Katutubong Agta/Dumagat (Organization of Indigenous Agta/Dumagat) estimates that the project would displace 10,000 members of the Dumagat tribe, insisting that they were not consulted by proponents of the project.

Alma! Dam Coordinator Conrad Vargas told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on October 22 that since Dumagat-Remontados are nomads, they follow a fixed or seasonal pattern of movements and settlements.

Nomadic people traditionally travel by animal, canoe, or on foot.

In the case of the DumagatRemontados of Rizal and Quezon provinces, their way of life depends on the natural systems—such as the rivers, where they catch fish and or collect shells, gather fruits or root crops.

As a source of income, they also plant near rivers and collect honey produced by wild bees in the forest.

The wild bees that produce those sweet, aromatic honey, are said to be unique and cannot be cultured to produce honey, Vargas said,.

He underscored the importance of bees as as plant pollinators to be able to bear fruits and reproduce through their seeds.

Rich biodiversity

THE ancestral domain of the Dumagat-Remontados overlaps with a named protected area covered by Presidential Proclamation 1636.

Being a protected area, it is supposed to be off-limits to destructive development, such as the construction of a large dam, Vargas said.

“For one, IP [Indigenous peoples] communities rely on nature for food and medicine, and for income. Tthey gather natural food like honey which they sell to lowlanders,” Vargas said in Filipino.

The ground zero of the Kaliwa Dam, he said, is at the Infanta-Kaliwa

Watershed—an area that is rich in biodiversity.

“There were sightings of the Philippine eagle in that forest, according to Haribon. The Philippine eagle is already on the brink of extinction in that area. There is also an endemic rafflesia in that forest,” he added. Vargas said the forest of Sierra Madre, including the project site of Kaliwa Dam, is being protected by the Dumagat-Remontados for many generations.

Biodiversity impact and best alternative

ASKED about the issue, environmentalist Gregg Yan said the adverse impact of large dams contribute to biodiversity loss.

“Among all types of renewable energy [RE] sources, large dams are probably the most problematic. Imagine creating a lake where a forest or sprawling grassland used to be—felling trees and essentially drowning everything inside your new dam,” Yan told the BusinessMirror via

New ginger species discovered in Mindanao

By Malou Talosig-Bartolome

is red with white spots and spikes.

The five researchers discovered this flowering rhizome on Mt. Gutom in Zamboanga del Norte, and Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur.

“The fruits are reported by the local people as edible,” the researchers wrote in the study published last October 18 at the Journal of Asia Pacific Biodiversity.

The scientists who wrote the study are Mark Arcebal Naïve from University of Chinese Academy of  Beijing; Jeco Jed J. Ruales and Darlo Novo M. Beltran from Caraga State University, Butuan City; Eddie P. Mondejar from Mindanao State UniversityIligan; and Ralph Rj E. Rozano from MSU- Marawi.

The ELN ginger thrives in secondary lowland forest under deeply shaded conditions with moist soil, in 900-950 meter elevation.

This is the 18th Etlingera species in the Philippines, with 12 being endemic.

However, the researchers noted that the new ginger species was discovered in a forest that “is not designated as a protected area, with some portions currently being converted into agricultural land.”

“Additionally, the forest in Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur, where the species was found, is undergoing road expansion, posing a significant threat to the habitat and survival of this newly discovered species,” they added.

Messenger on October 30.

Globally, dams have contributed to the 84 percent decline in freshwater wildlife population sizes since 1970, Yan added, citing the Zoological Society of London’s Living Planet Index, which is released every two years.

“Around a quarter of the world’s freshwater and sediment runoff is trapped behind the unyielding concrete walls of dams, which also prevents fish, invertebrates, and cetaceans like river dolphins from traversing their natural ranges,” he said.

According to Yan, a best alternative would be to switch to “less destructive small-scale damming,” or even concentrate entirely on other types of RE, including wind, ocean, geothermal, and solar power.

“All these have pros and cons, but they are much better than largescale dams and miles ahead of power derived from fossil fuels like gas, coal, and oil,” said Yan, also the founder and head of Best Alternatives.

Must for water security

PATRICK DIZON , acting deputy administrator of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the proponent of the Kaliwa Dam Project, however, explained the project is “a must” to ensure water security in the Philippines.

Metro Manila, including parts of Cavite, Rizal, and Bulacan relies on water from Angat, he said in a telephone interview on October 30.

“There has been no major dam construction since 1967. In the past few years, when we experience water shortage, we get water from other sources like Wawa Dam, Laguna de Bay, and deep wells. The Kaliwa Dam Project is a long-term water-source project. In case something happens to Angat Dam, we lose 90 percent of our supply,” he explained.

According to Dizon, with the projected population growth and growth targets, a long-term additional water source like Kaliwa Dam is a must.  He said the dam will sustain growth projections until 2050.

4th

CALI, Colombia—The United Nations, scientists and governments made an urgent call on Wednesday for increased funding to protect coral reefs under threat of extinction.

Research this year shows that 77 percent of the world’s reefs are affected by bleaching, mainly due to warming ocean waters amid human-caused climate change.

It's the largest and fourth mass global bleaching on record and is impacting both hemispheres, United Nations Capital Development Fund said.

The findings prompted a UN special emergency session—typically called to address escalating conflicts or natural disasters—on corals to be convened on sidelines of the UN biodiversity summit, known as the Convention on Biological Diversity 16th Conference of Parties (CBD COP16), nearing its end after

Minimum impact

SPEAKING partly in Filipino, he said that with the guidance of the National Commission on Indigenous People, a memorandum of agreement was signed by MWSS and the wouldbe affected IP communities in the project area.

The government, through the MWSS, will provide an alternative source of income and livelihood, and yearly Community Royalty Development Plan to the affected DumagatRemontados.

The distribution of benefits, he pointed out, will start before and continue during the implementation of the project.

The Dumagat-Remontados, Dizon said, also received initial compensation called ‘disturbance fees.”

Like all other development projects, the Kaliwa Dam underwent an environmental impact assessment, which was approved by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

A multpartite monitoring team will monitor the compliance with the environmental compliance certificate of the project.

“The MWSS is complying with all the requirements and we guarantee a minimum impact to the biodiversity,” he pointed out.

Dizon cited the approvals coming from the Protected Area Management Board, local government units (LGUs) and several communitybased groups and nongovernment organizations.

“Majority of the LGUs already approved of the plan,” he said. “We are just waiting for Infanta and we are all set.” Contrary to the belief that the dams will trigger catastrophe, Dizon explained that dams are an effective flood-control facility.

He cited President Marcos Jr.’s directive to build more weirs, or small dams to mitigate flooding, commending the MWSS and the proponents of the Upper Wawa Dam Project which mitigated flooding in Metro Manila early this year.

Without an additional long-term water source, Dizon said these areas are doomed to suffer perpetually the same water supply shortage woes.

ing, acidification, disease, and pollution; a vital ecosystem lost within our lifetime,” Creagh added.

Next year, a UN ocean conference will take place in Nice, France, and countries are being urged beforehand to pledge more to the UN global fund for coral reefs with the aim of mobilizing an additional $150 million in donations by the conference.

“In 2024, climate change and other

two weeks in Cali, Colombia. Coral reefs are vital ecosystems that support over 25 percent of marine life and nearly a billion people, many relying on reefs for food security, coastal protection and livelihoods, the UN development fund said.

After the emergency session, the governments of New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany and France made new pledges totaling around $30 million to the UN fund for coral reefs established in 2020. By 2030, the fund seeks to leverage up to $3 billion in public and private finance to support coral reef conservation efforts. Around $225 million has been raised to date.

“Protecting our ocean and its precious habitats is fundamental to life on earth," said UK Minister for Nature Mary Creagh.

"But without urgent action, the world’s coral reefs face extinction from global heat -

THE different parts of the newly discovered ginger species Etlingera lacerate Naïve that was discovered on Mt. Gutom in Zamboanga del Norte, and Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur. Journal of Asia Pacific Biodiversity

A MAN swims along coral reefs off Verde Island, Batangas

Sports

What’s wrong with this picture?

More girls, fewer boys participating in sports

WASHINGTON— Children and teenagers playing sports overall has increased even as participation among boys has dropped off, according to an annual study.

By Tim Reynolds

The Associated Press

MIAMI—Dwyane Wade’s new statue celebrates a moment where he won a game with his offense.

The feedback to the statue had him playing defense.

Wade explained the statue’s look and the process of creating it after the Heat unveiled the tribute.

The statue—with a face that, to put it mildly, isn’t a perfect depiction of Wade—was immediately a talking point, trending globally on social media and even getting mentioned on national newscasts.

“If I wanted it to look like me, I’d just stand outside the arena and y’all can take photos,” Wade said Monday. “It don’t need to look like me. It’s the artistic version of a moment that happened that we’re trying to cement.”

That moment was the end of a game against the Chicago Bulls in March 2009, when he made a shot to win at the buzzer of double overtime, hopped up onto a courtside table and yelled, “This is my house.” The position of his hands in the statue are reminiscent of that moment. But it›s the face that has generated almost all of the feedback.

“I care, but I don’t,” Wade said. “The social media world is about opinions. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone, use y’all opinions. Please talk more about us. Talk more about a statue, come on down to see it, take some photos, send some memes. We don’t care.” Later, in a halftime ceremony during the MiamiDetroit game—played on the 21st anniversary of Wade’s debut with the Heat—Wade told the crowd that the statue was for them as well. He also continued to defend the work, saying that the statue doesn’t depict a human body and calling it “art at its finest.”

“There’s only a few organizations that have a statue outside. There’s not even 15 players who played this game of basketball that have a statue outside. We—we—have a statue outside,” Wade told the crowd. “So, for me to be the vessel that’s used, to be the chosen one, I’m proud of it. I’m proud because we worked very, very, very hard to create an image that will stand for a very long time that expresses what the Miami Heat, my family and our fan base is about.

“So, don’t let nobody talk about our house. Because this is our house. They’re on the outside. Leave them out there.”

Sculptors said it took about 800 hours of work to make the statue, and Wade was directly involved with the process. Most people saw the statue for the first time Sunday and Wade had seen parts of it—including the face— along the way.

Participation for girls was at its highest levels since at least 2012 in part due to the phenomenal rise of University of Iowa-turned-Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark leading youth to want to play basketball, according to the study from the Aspen Institute.

The group said the National Survey of Children’s Health, administered through the US Census Bureau, found that 53.8 percent of young people ages 6-17 played sports in 2022.

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), which tracks youth participation by sport, found in 2023 that there was a 6 percent increase in young people who regularly participated in a team sport, which it said was the highest rate (39.8 percent) since 2015.

The SFIA data, however, found only 41 percent of boys participated regularly in sports in 2023, a decrease from 10 years earlier when half of all boys took part.

Federal government data also shows a decline for boys over the past decade, although not as steep, according to the study.

Thirty-four percent of girls ages 6-12 participated and 38 percent of girls ages 13-17 took part in sports in 2023, a higher level than in any recent year dating to at least 2012.

Tom Cove, SFIA senior adviser and former president and CEO, said the change was significant and “it’s a mystery to me why.”

Cove speculated that making teams has become harder and that when boys miss the cut,

they stop playing. Girls, he said, are not getting cut as often as boys are.

“My sense is youth sports have become a self-fulfilling prophecy around travel and competition, and there aren’t enough places to play when you get cut,” Cove said.

Black children are playing sports less than they once did, while Hispanic participation is increasing.

SFIA data shows that 35 percent of Black youth ages 6-17 regularly participated in sports during 2023, down from 45 percent in 2013, when Black children played at a higher rate than white peers. White, Hispanic and Asian American children all played sports more frequently in 2023 than Black youth.

The study said the increases among girls can be attributed in part to Clark’s performance on the court.

“Her deep shooting range inspires younger players and may change the women’s game much the way NBA [National Basketball Association] star Stephen Curry changed the men’s game more than a decade ago,” the study said.

Unrivaled expansion

UNRIVALED is already expanding its rosters before the inaugural season of the 3-on-3 women’s basketball league begins.

Co-founder Napheesa Collier announced on social media that the league will increase from 30 players to 36, allowing each team to have six players.

“We’re able to do this because we outperformed our financial projections, and so now we get to do something that we wanted to do in the future, which is give more people spots in Unrivaled,” Collier said in a social media video.

“This is such an amazing time in women’s sports and we’re so thankful to all the positive people who have come out and supported us.”

Over the past few months

Unrivaled has unveiled a roster full of Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) talent through social media. Aliyah Boston of the Indiana Fever was the 30th player announced Thursday, joining players

College athletes pushing for voter turnout, others shun controversy

LILY MESKERS faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.

The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal to support Senator Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election.

The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.

Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester’s votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.

“I was like, okay, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost,” Meskers said. “And me being a female

student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn’t have the same support for me.” Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken highprofile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken—even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field.

Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don’t want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete— for better or for worse—or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.

There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday›s ballot. Still, such steps are considered rare.

such as Brittney Griner, Jewell Loyd and Angel Reese.

One player who has not signed yet is Caitlin Clark, although the league is open to having the WNBA Rookie of the Year join.

“We’re always going to have a roster spot for Caitlin Clark,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell told Sportico. “We’re not applying a full-court press the way people think. We are letting her decompress from basketball.... She knows that we have a spot for her when she’s ready.”

Earlier in October, the league announced a multiyear partnership with TNT and its sports platforms to show more than 45 games when the season begins in January. Matchups will be shown three nights a week with twiceweekly games on TNT on Mondays and Fridays. Games that are played on Saturday will be shown on truTV. Games begin on January 17 and will be played in Miami.

The league also announced earlier in the month the names of the six teams: Laces Basketball Club, Mist Basketball Club, Phantom Basketball Club, Lunar Owls Basketball Club,

Tour

de France gets traditional look back in ’25

THE Tour de France will have a more traditional look next year. After a rare finish outside Paris this past July, cycling’s biggest race is getting back to basics for the 2025 route that was unveiled recently. A mostly flat first week is followed by a lot of climbing in the last 10 stages that will pave the way for another duel between defending champion Tadej Pogacar and his best rival Jonas Vingegaard.

College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump›s Democratic opponent in next week›s presidential election.

Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.

Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021.

“It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don’t even take that chance because they haven’t made it yet,” said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.

“And these individuals still have to figure out what they’re going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted,” she added.

He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company’s partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.

He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.

“Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service,” he said. “So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way.” AP

“Jonas Vingegaard couldn’t be here today, but I imagine he’ll be pleased with the route,” said Grischa Niermann, the head of racing for Vingegaard’s Team Visma-Lease a Bike. “But the same likely goes for riders like Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic, and Remco Evenepoel.” Following three consecutive starts from abroad, the 2025 Tour will be 100 percent French as riders won’t make any excursions beyond France’s borders. The race starts from the city of Lille on July 5 and stays in cyclingmad northern France for three stages. The peloton will then head south, via Brittany and the Massif Central. Riders will tackle a second individual time trial in the Pyrenees mountains, and the final week of the race will feature three mountain-top finishes at the Mont Ventoux, the Col de la Loze—the highest point of the race at 2,304 meters—and the ski resort of La Plagne in the Alps.

Last year’s final stage was held outside Paris for the first time since 1905 because of a clash with the Olympics, moving instead to Nice. Because of security and logistical reasons, the French capital did not have its traditional Tour finish on the Champs-Elysees.

The world famous avenue is back on the program and will host the final stage for the 50th time at the conclusion of the 3,320-kilometer (2,063-mile) odyssey.

Organizers said the “the milestone of turning 50 serves as a central theme,” as the 2025 edition also marks the 50th anniversary of the polka-dot jersey for best climber and the best young rider classification.

The women’s race will start on July 26 from the Brittany town of Vannes. Featuring nine stages for a total of 1,165 kilometers (724 miles), the fourth edition of the race will go through the Massif Central and finishes in the Alps as the peloton will climb blockbuster mountains such as the Col de JouxPlane and the Col de la Madeleine.

Among the highlights of the men’s route are a trio of Pyrenean stages including the race against the clock to Peyragudes on Stage 13 and a return to Luchon-Superbagnères.

The climbing of the Mont Ventoux, the punishing ascent on which British rider Tom Simpson died in 1967, promises to test tired legs during Stage 16. Ventoux is a huge moonscape of rock in Provence with little shade or grass. French philosopher Roland Barthes called it “a god of evil.” The Alps will then

CAITLIN CLARK (right) and Iowa teammate Hannah Stuelke celebrate a basket during their NCAA game against Penn State on February 8, 2024, in Iowa City. AP

DWYANE

UNIVERSITY of Montana sprinter Lily Meskers follows her conscience.

The American Climate Corps faces an uncertain future

NOVEMBER 3, 2024 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

WSTILL GROOVIN’ LIKE FOREVER

A dose of acid jazz via Incognito

ONDERFUL to know that Incognito, the group that guitarist/songwriter/ producer Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick formed in 1979 with bassist Paul “Tubbs” Williams, and which has kept evolving with a multi-racial set of members, is performing again after 11 years on Nov. 10 at the New Frontier Theater in Quezon City.

Incognito set the tone for its existence with its 1981 debut album, Jazz Funk — which is essentially the sound of horns and bass egging each other to have fun with melody and rhythm.

The rhythm was funky, which meant it was danceable. In a few years Incognito would be identified with acid jazz — a wordplay on the “acid house” style of

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dance music and the Acid Jazz record label founded by Gilles Peterson and Eddie Piller.

Acid jazz is about jazzy chords, soulful, funky female vocals, and hip-hop beats.

To the uninitiated, including Gen Z music fans, a good start to appreciate Incognito is to go to Spotify and listen to Always There: 1981-2021 (40 Years & Still Groovin’), an eight-disc compilation of 106 songs that captures what Bluey and the band aspired to: make listeners feel good no matter what their situation is.

Most of the tracks move you to dance, or at least bob your head to the beat — but this is more than disco, or let’s just say this is disco elevated with the rich ingredients of R&B, soul, and funk, and topped with the playful, improvisational elements of jazz that make the music such a joy to groove on.

There’s rock, too, by way of the

electric guitar (which Bluey plays), but on a minimal level. This album is meant to physically move you to excitement.

Refreshing covers

ASIDE from the original instrumentals, the covers with vocals are refreshing efforts in reinterpretation. Fine examples are “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing” (Stevie Wonder), “Always There” (Ronnie Laws), “Listen to the Music” (Doobie Brothers) “That’s the Way of the World” (Earth, Wind & Fire), “Lowdown” (Boz Scaggs), “You Are in My System” (Robert Palmer), and “Pick Up the Pieces” (Average White Band).

The eclectic choices reflect Bluey’s wide musical background. Here’s what he said in a 2021 interview on albumism.com:

“My cousin, whose mum really looked after me and my mum when we had almost nothing, he had those three great Stevie Wonder records —Talking Book, Innervisions, and Fulfillingness’ First Finale, and he was the one feeding me those things. He also had Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin — bands like that and we’d listen to Emerson, Lake and Palmer, too.

“Anything done with great musicianship and I learnt to love everything! Coming out of the ’60s, I had hippie cousins listening to Hendrix and Santana and another one who loved prog rock. Then one day, I went to the West End and saw these pretty cool-looking

people going downstairs to a record shop and followed them, and that’s where I discovered Herbie Hancock and Headhunters, and all that.

“Then one teacher came to me with two guitars and said he realized that others had told me I wouldn’t amount to much, but he had faith that I would shine. Then he put Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ on and asked if I could jam along to it, so I did! He said then that he knew I was going to be fine. That was the opening of the musical path for me.”

On what it was like to record as a band (including his first, group, Light of the World):

“It was like a first kiss! In recording those early albums, we didn’t know those things I’ve mentioned like radio play and marketing, etc. All we thought about was dancing! Take away all those things and that’s what you’re left with — the groove to dance to.”

“When we were part of the movement back then, when I was part of Light of The World, Freeez, and then Incognito, the whole thing was the excitement of doing something we had never done before. We were breaking new ground—there were new paths, new visions and new goals.

“When we first came out, part of it was seeing people dance as you were performing. You’d see those guys at Club 7 or at The Royalty in Southgate (a north London suburb) and having that visual of the dancers added something to the music we made. We would see a guy dipping in a certain way and know what type of sound would make him do that. All the ideas were related to dancing and club life. We weren’t thinking anything spiritual — it was the escapism of dance, the ability to shake off your worries and live on the dance floor. But at the same time, we were at a point where we were beginning to see what society was like all around us and that we were breaking new ground.”

INCOGNITO today, with bandleader-cofounder Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick (seated)

‘ALWAYS There: 1981-2021’ is an eight-disc compilation of 106 Incognito tracks spanning 40 years, available on Spotify

INCOGNITO live in concert, Germany, 2016

TAKING MUSIC TO HEART

What Filipino fans mean to Michael Learns To Rock

WHILE The Carpenters in the 1970s and Air Supply for most of the 80s pretty much defined the MOR or middleof-the-road genre of their respective eras, the same can probably be said of Micheal Learns to Rock.

For most of the 1990s and even during the early 2000s, the soft rock Danish band scored a string of big hits that included “The Actor,” “25 Minutes,” “Out of the Blue,” “Someday” and “Paint My Love.”

Because of their enduring popularity, particularly in Asia, it’s no surprise that the band has frequently performed in the Philippines. Just two years ago, I caught their well-received show at the New Frontier Theater for their Back On Tne Road Tour. This November 5, they’ll perform again at the SM Mall of Asia Arena as part of their Take Us To Your Heart tour of Southeast Asia.

And even though they have more than enough greatest hits to fill an extended concert set list, the band is not through writing and recording new material. To promote MLTR’s new single, “A Life To Remember,” guitarist Mikkel Lentz recently granted an exclusive virtual

interview with SoundStrip and looked back at what has certainly been a career to remember.

Excerpts:

What do Filipino audiences mean to Michael Learns to Rock?

OH, they mean loyalty. I mean, the Filipino fans for us, I mean, are loyal, and we’ve been to the Philippines so many times. They were there the first time we were in the Philippines, and they’re still here. So we feel a lot of emotion for our Filipino fans, who understand the spirit of Michael Learns to Rock. So we have a lot of gratitude for our Filipino fans.

They are not just a great crowd. They are also the best singers in the world. When we play in the Philippines, people are very much alive, and they sing along to all the songs. It’s a very festive and vivid atmosphere. In terms of audience response

and the way they interact with is onstage, the Philippines is one of the best countries in the world to play in.

Why do you think MLTR’s music, and your songs resonate so much with Filipino audiences?

THAT’S a very, very good question. A lot of people, including ourselves, have wondered about that. I mean, there was never a formula or anything like that. Nothing was planned.

Many people have asked us, why are you famous in the Philippines, in Asia? We say, we don’t know. I mean, we speak Danish, we don’t speak English in Denmark.

I guess it’s because the lyrics are pretty easy to understand. Quite simple, because it’s not our first language. So the way we express ourselves is easy to understand.

And I guess the melodies appeal to people who have a romantic flavor. Our most famous songs in the Philippines are ballads, the slow songs. So we think the Filipinos like us for our romantic songs.

You have a new single called “A Life To Remember.” Would you say this song from the title alone pretty much sums up your life and career?

I GUESS you can say that. You know, I was a teenager when we started in 1988, I was 19 years old. And now I’m getting old. So yes, it’s about that, about the gratitude of life. When you get older, it’s like you see everything in a different perspective.

Because when you’re young, you want to achieve all your goals. And you’re quite busy going somewhere else and realizing your dreams. But now it’s like we’ve already tried a lot of the things that we dreamed about.

And now, all we really care about are our families, our children, and our friends. So things are a bit more relaxed now. And we feel a lot of

gratitude for this.

Because we survived all these years and had a wonderful journey. So now when we’re looking back, it’s like, wow, we feel very privileged to still be here and to look back on all the beautiful things that happened along the way.

Michael Learns To Rock has been around for a long time. Except for a few lineup changes, you guys are still performing and making new music together. What’s your secret? GOOD question. I think we’re like brothers. We were very young when we met.

So we’ve been through this 40-year-long journey, almost four years together. And that is very precious. It’s like having family and brothers, and good friends.

And also, so no matter what, I guess we will always be friends like that. But also, I mean, our fans keep us together. Because we, I mean, we’re family guys.

Normally, we just stay home with our families. But when we meet, it’s always because we are going to play music for our fans. Without the fans, I don’t think we would see each other very often. The fans are the glue that keeps us together.

Over the years, you’ve created and released a lot of music. Do you have your own particular favorites among your songs?

I REALLY like “Someday,” it’s a really beautiful song. I also like “Love Will Never Lie,” “Renovate My Life.” I think they’re beautiful songs. For me, “The Actor” is also a favorite, because that’s the song that started everything. And we were very young when we did that. And it was very real. I mean, we did not have a car. And I did not even have a girlfriend back then. That song kind of opened everything and is a big reason for our success.

MIKKEL Lentz

MICHAEL Learns To Rock

The American Climate Corps faces an uncertain future

by matthew Griffin & Todd Woody Bloomberg

STaNdiNG

on ladders and wielding flashlights, four people are bringing a dark, dank restroom at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds into the energy-efficient future.

Their mission is to remove old fluorescent lighting throughout a sprawling fairground building in Stockton, California, and rewire the fixtures for LEDs. They’re members of a state service organization, but the project is also now part of the work of the American Climate Corps (ACC), a nationwide program geared at placing young people in temporary jobs while giving them a pathway to federal service and climaterelated careers.

A long-held ambition of the Biden administration, the Climate Corps launched earlier this year and now boasts some 15,000 members. They’ve been deployed doing everything from cleaning up after wildfires to helping people make their homes more energy efficient. It’s all part of a plan to pick up the torch from the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program whose members transformed farmland and natural spaces across the country.

An open question

But with a uS election looming, the fate of the Climate Corps is an open question. Republican members of Congress are openly critical of it, and Donald trump would have the authority to end the program if he returns to the White House.

Workers would still likely keep their jobs, since they serve across a range of state and national partner organizations—some newly created but many, like the agency AmeriCorps, predate the initiative. (Those partners post job openings on the ACC’s website.) Still, a trump return would threaten national cooperation that the White House says has boosted recruitment and worked to create funding opportunities for those partners.

The trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The Climate Corps was designed to be resilient to political shifts in Washington, the Biden administration says.

“We have built the American Climate Corps to be a durable program that will continue to serve communities around the country, no matter who is president,” said Maggie Thomas, special assistant to the president for climate. Thomas, who led its

creation from the White House, said the decisions to lean on existing partners, use funding that Congress has already authorized and hire staff at AmeriCorps are helping to “institutionalize” it.

Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia university, said most of the ACC’s work “is not a threat to fossil fuels, which is the sort of thing most likely to attract trump’s attention.”

But as a brand new and relatively obscure program, it also lacks broad popular support. “Even during the depths of the Great Depression, Republicans for the most part refrained from criticizing the [Civilian Conservation Corps], because it was so popular with the American people,” said Neil Maher, a historian who wrote a book about the New Deal program. “The problem for the ACC might be that it is not yet well known.”

Aimed at young adults

A MoNG the foursome rewiring light fixtures at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds is Noah Van Ekelenburg, 25, who studied environmental science in college before joining the California Conservation Corps. The program—among the state initiatives to partner with the wider American Climate Corps—is aimed at young adults, who spend a year doing everything from installing solar panels to responding to natural disasters.

“It might not seem like a lot,” Van Ekelenburg said of installing LED bulbs at the fairground. “But when you multiply that across hundreds of lights in this one building and then hundreds of buildings in the whole state, it adds up pretty quick.”

In the uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, which stretches across parts of utah and Wyoming, Kayleigh Martinez spent about two months from July to September

doing work that would have been familiar to her predecessors in the Civilian Conservation Corps. The 20-year-old cleared trails, removed unwanted trees and surveyed fish populations alongside other members of the Forest Corps, a partnership between AmeriCorps and the uS Forest Service. She also helped survey burned areas after two forest fires, checking for spots that were still dangerously hot.

“The best part is just getting to work and live somewhere that’s so beautiful,” Martinez said in September, near the end of her time in uinta-Wasatch-Cache. Her team’s housing lacked internet access, so she’d posted up in a nearby library to speak over a video call.

The program in its current form is a much smaller version of the initial idea, and lower profile, since it’s essentially grafted onto hundreds of existing agencies and nonprofits around the country.

Work at those partner programs will go on no matter who wins on Nov. 5. Michigan plans to continue its organization, the MI Healthy Climate Corps, regardless of what happens at the federal level, said Cory Connolly, the state’s chief climate officer. Maine’s Climate Corps was authorized by the state legislature, Kirsten Brewer, until recently the program’s coordinator, noted when asked about its future.

Maher could see the Climate Corps grow if it captures the public imagination. A larger version could then help make climate change a dinner-table issue, he said, just as its New Deal predecessor “democratized conservation” by bringing that topic into people’s everyday lives.

‘I’m realizing that change can happen on a really small level’ MoRGAN Glynn, 23, is used to starting those discussions. She traveled the coast of Maine to help communities prepare for floods as part of her role within the network of Maine Climate Corps programs. She joined in January after studying envi-

‘The program is aimed at young adults, who spend a year doing everything from installing solar panels to responding to natural disasters.’

“our worksite views are insane,” she said. “our lunch views are incredible.”

The potential to be ‘transformative’ BACK in the 1930s and early 1940s, 3 million total members of the Civilian Conservation Corps developed 800 new state parks and combated soil erosion on 40 million acres of farmland. A modern climate corps on that scale would be “transformative for the country,” said Maher, the historian. Progressives in Congress like Representative Alexandria ocasio-Cortez thought so too, and their original vision for the corps was grand: A legislative proposal called for a jobs program that would employ 1.5 million people.

ronmental science and film in college.

Glynn spoke to people who were seeing flooding threatening places where they had “deep roots,” and who were thinking about what life would be like for their children and grandchildren. She says the job gave her a greater appreciation for people’s connection to where they live. “Community voice is so important, and that’s something that’s going to be irreplaceable as we think about building our climate-resilient future,” she said.

Glynn’s experience made her want to keep working on climate resilience in Maine, and changed her view of what service can look like.

“I’m realizing that change can happen on a really small level,” she said, “and it can have really big impacts.”

n Cover photo by Los Muertos Crew on Pexels.com

Representative Cliff Bentz of oregon, a Republican, called the idea of a federal climate corps “delusional” in 2021. Funding for it was dropped from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, leaving President Joe Biden to create the ACC by executive order. That prompted GoP pushback, with some members of Congress introducing legislation to block the program. And after Biden’s request earlier this year for funds to expand it, the conservative-leaning Senate Western Caucus said it would probably be better to set $8 billion on fire.

CaLifornia Conservation Corps members finish installing LED lights at the San Joaquin County fairgrounds in Stockton, California. BloomBerg