BusinessMirror April 11, 2021

ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS

2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year

BusinessMirror

EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS

BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018)

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS

PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY

DATA CHAMPION

SOMEWHERE,

www.businessmirror.com.ph

A broader look at today’s business n

Sunday, April 11, 2021 Vol. 16 No. 179

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 12 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

BENEATH THE SEA

S

By Manuel T. Cayon

ULU Sea’s huge natural gas deposit has remained untapped to this day as the country is expected to see the depletion of its active and main natural gas mine in the Malampaya deep, the sea wells off Palawan, and as the South China Sea debacle has stalled future exploration and drilling for natural gas in the area.

The Department of Energy’s record has indicated a deposit that could fuel the power needs of Mindanao and some parts of the country for the next 20 to 30 years, according to an applicant to drill and extract it.

But until when government gives the green light is anyone’s guess while the energy sector hobbles between developing dirty coal

sources as the base load and promoting renewable, but small-scale, energy sources, to hopefully tip the balance in the future in favor of the so-called clean energy.

Lying just offshore, although in the still troubled Sulu islands, are natural gas deposits estimated to be between three and five million tons, according to Graham Elliott, executive director of

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 48.5760

Energy World Corp. (EWC), who manages the company with nine power plant and natural gas explorations in the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.

If tapped soon, the country has the option to solely use the NG deposits for domestic power need than to export it to other countries, he said.

Elliott said the wealth of information at the DOE’s archives and the discovery of the deposits would help shorten the usually long gestation of the project, from the long exploration and then the construction of offshore and land drilling facilities, including the laying of pipelines.

Dr. Amildasa D. Annil, DM, facilitator and coordinator of the Energy World International Ltd., said natural gas deposits in the Sulu area have been discovered on Lugus Island, about 32 miles southwest off the provincial capital of Jolo, and on Pearl Bank, another islet farther west of Lugus.

The EWC said voluminous DOE records indicate that the natural gas deposit in the area would be “good for 3,000 to 5,000 megawatts of power for 20 to 30 years.”

Because of the discovery and initial explorations undertaken by previous companies, Elliott said the company may only need to re-drill some wells as well as find new wells, and to replace some pipelines, from the Pearl Bank to Lugus Island.

In its plan, the EWC would establish the LNG power plant in Barangay Parian Kayawan on Lugus Island, where there would also be some drillings.

The EWC had filed in 2017 its application of intent to undertake the project of exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas in the Sulu area. Elliott said there were continued discussions with the DOE “because we have also the natural gas terminal hub and gas-fired power plant in Pagbilao, Quezon.”

“So the Sulu project has been part of our discussion,” he added.

“I am not saying that someone has been delaying the project,” he clarified though.

According to Elliott, their Pagbilao liquefied natural gas hub terminal, the first in the country, and 650-megawatt combined cycle gas fired power plant, had also met

some delays since getting the DOE endorsement in 2011. Earlier reports cited right-of-way issues.

The entire construction, already 80 percent complete, ground to a halt because of an unfinished substation.

In November 2018 the project was certified as an Energy Project of National Significance by the DOE. The Sulu Sea project would be EWC’s third natural gas exploration and power plant project in the Philippines.

Of this, he said, “I understand that the DOE was working out jurisdiction issues” with the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, as well as tackling existing laws about the explorations.

3-legged stool

FOR a major national building project like this natural gas exploration, to proceed smoothly, three important things must work out seamlessly, he said. “One leg is the investor, like us, which brings in the money, the technology and the knowhow. The other leg is the local

GAGARYCH | DREAMSTIME.COM

LNG firm awaits Palace’s green light to tap Sulu Sea’s natural gas

L

ying just offshore, although in the still troubled Sulu islands, are natural gas deposits estimated to be between three and five million tons, according to Graham Elliott, executive director of Energy World Corp., who manages the company with nine power plant and natural gas explorations in the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.

Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4423 n UK 66.7580 n HK 6.2396 n CHINA 7.4235 n SINGAPORE 36.2291 n AUSTRALIA 36.9615 n EU 57.6646 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.9533

Source: BSP (April 8, 2021)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, April 11, 2021

www.businessmirror.com.ph

US inflation has gone K-shaped in the pandemic like everything else L

By Alex Tanzi | Bloomberg News

OW-INCOME Americans bore the brunt of job losses when the pandemic arrived. Now they’re getting hit hardest by price increases as the economy recovers.

The headline consumer inflation rate in the US remains subdued, at 1.7 percent—but it masks large differences in what people actually buy.

Some of the biggest price hikes of recent months, for example, have come in gasoline. A gallon of regular is up 75 cents since late last year—adding more than $60 a month to the budget of someone who fills up with 20 gallons a week.

Food-price inflation is running at more than double the headline rate, and staples like household cleaning products have also climbed.

Price increases like these are causing trouble all over the world—and they tend to hurt lowincome people most. That’s because groceries or gas take up a bigger share of their monthly shopping basket than is the case for wealthier households, and they’re items that can’t easily be deferred or substituted.

K-shaped

AN analysis by Bloomberg Economics, which reweighted consumer-price baskets based on the spending habits of different income groups, found that the richest Americans are experiencing the lowest level of inflation.

Those same high-earners already posted windfall gains during what’s been labeled a Kshaped recovery from the pandemic. Their net worth surged, thanks to booming stock and real-estate markets—and they mostly kept their jobs and were able to work from home.

The richest 10 percent of households captured 70 percent of

wealth created in 2020, according to the Federal Reserve, while the bottom half got just 4 percent. A January study by Opportunity Insights, a Harvard research project, found that the recession was essentially over for those making at least $60,000 a year, while employment among the lowest-paid—who earn less than half that amount—was still almost 30 percent below prepandemic levels.

The question of who exactly gets hurt by higher prices could become more urgent as inflation accelerates. Most economists expect a pickup in the next 12 months.

The Fed, which is in charge of keeping inflation under control, says any increase will likely prove temporary. The central bank isn’t planning to use its inflation-fighting tool of higher interest rates anytime soon.

The idea behind the Fed’s new thinking is that allowing the economy to run a bit hotter—and inflation to creep a bit higher— will actually help to reduce income inequalities, because it will encourage a strong jobs market that benefits low-paid Americans the most. There’s some evidence that this is already happening in the restaurant, hotel and other service industries.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration says it will push US statisticians to produce more detailed data that breaks down economic outcomes for different racial or income groups.

That initiative could have consequences for people whose incomes are tied to measures of inflation—like recipients of Social Security or food stamps. They can get

A PERSON wearing a protective mask holds a fuel pump nozzle at a Chevron Corp. gas station in San Francisco, California, US, on March 11, 2021. Northern Californians are taking to the open road in much greater numbers, an early signal that gasoline demand may be returning a year after the pandemic paralyzed the economy. BLOOMBERG

“T

he food price story and inflation story are important to the issue of equality. It’s a shock that has very uneven effects.

—Carmen Reinhart, the World Bank’s chief economist squeezed when those gauges fail to accurately capture changes in the cost of living. There’s been talk in the past, for example, of pegging Social Security to an index that specifically measures the inflation experienced by older people.

‘Uneven effects’ THE

distributional

questions

raised by higher prices aren’t just a US phenomenon.

A United Nations gauge of global food costs rose for a ninth straight month in February, the longest run of increases since 2008 when the world faced the first of two food crises within a few years.

“The food price story and inflation story are important to the

issue of equality,” says Carmen Reinhart, the World Bank’s chief economist. “It’s a shock that has very uneven effects.”

The problem of K-shaped inflation predates the pandemic and may have deep-rooted causes, according to Xavier Jaravel, an assistant professor at the London School of Economics.

His research has shown that a key reason why richer people experience lower rates of inflation is that there’s more competition among producers for their dollars—leading to higher levels of innovation in the kind of goods and services bought by the wealthy, which helps keep prices down.

“One can hope that statistical agencies around the world will soon adopt new data sources and price indices to better measure inflation inequality,” Jaravel wrote in a recent paper, “and that economists will pay more attention to the distributional effects of prices.”

SOMEWHERE, BENEATH THE SEA Continued from A1

government support, and the other leg is the national government, including the DOE and ultimately Malacañang.”

Aside from the natural gas, the EWC intends to tap the strong sea water current between the islands of Lugus and Tapul as source of hydroelectric power, said Dr. Annil in his presentation.

For the natural gas project alone, the company estimated to spend $1 billion, and needed between $300 million and $400 million to start it. “I am confident that we have the equity investors to join us as soon as we have the permission from the DOE. I am also confident of the support from the Development Bank of the Philippines due to its impact on employment and the other investments that would be encouraged in this

region, the BARMM, that really needed investments.”

He added, “There is no problem with human resource also because there are several Filipinos who have built NG power plants in several countries. There are many Filipino engineers and skilled workers who are too willing to work out a NG power plant in the Philippines.”

He said the company will also help develop skills from the unskilled work force in Sulu and the surrounding areas if only to develop the area.

He is confident the project would have a strong impact on peace and order in Sulu, currently the hotbed of the Abu Sayyaf terror activities. He said its Pagbilao project did that in Quezon, also a known hotbed of communist insurgency. He said the project helped persuade some 500 insurgents and sympathizers to work in the project and thus helped government in minimizing guerrilla activities.

The Sulu Sea project would also promote the area as an ecotourism destination, Elliott said, “because of the natural beauty of the place.”

The company plans to build condominium-type housing for workers and to donate them later to the local government as hotel accommodation for tourists, once the EWC no longer needs them.

Local support

FOR local support, Lugus Municipal Mayor Hadar Hajiri has assured EWC it could immediately allot 30 hectares as the town’s counterpart to the project’s refinery plant in Barangay Parian Kayawan.

While natural gas is not renewable, “it is clean and its utilization would be part of that government direction toward tapping renewable energy,” he said.

“What we are not seeing yet is the support from the national government,” he said. But while the Covid-19 pandemic has further cut further advances in the discussion with DOE for more than a year, he said he was optimistic of the prospects this year.

Optimism this year

IN his October 2018 report to the Asian Development Bank, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said, “Natural gas and coal remain the predominant indigenous fossil fuel resources in the Philippines” with proven gas reserves at 98.54 billion cubic meters “and economically recoverable coal is estimated at 316 million tons.”

He cited the other sources of energy: “proven oil reserves are around 100 million barrels; the resource potential of hydropower is estimated at 13,097 megawatts (MW); wind energy potential is es-

timated at 76,600 MW with wind power densities ranging between 300 watts per square meter and 1,250 W/m2 based on 2014 National Renewable Energy Laboratory geographic information system data.”

He said in the report, “Estimates for potential solar capacity are also promising with the country enjoying average global horizontal irradiance levels of 5.1 kilowatt-hours/m2/day [and] biomass resources from agricultural residues are likewise available for industrial and household use.”

In July last year, Cusi, in an Energy and Sustainable Development webinar organized by the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government, affirmed government commitment to fully implement Republic Act (RA) 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008.

But, he said, this must be done alongside the tapping of other energy sources to ensure sufficient power capacity in the entire Philippine grid, apparently referring to the continued applications for coal-fired power plant projects in parts of the country, including previously energy-plagued Mindanao.

“I fully support the development and utilization of our renewable resources—but without sacrificing the attainment of our energy

security,” he added.

Later in November of 2020, Cusi told an online discussion with other ministers and high-ranking government officials in Southeast Asia that the government will pursue a clean energy or low-carbon scenario in the future: “There will be a slower growth of the total primary energy supply (TPES), as a result of the country’s energy efficiency and conservation measures.”

The energy chief added, “Coal and oil shares will also continue to decrease due to the use of alternative fuels for transport, among others. This also translates to a power generation mix that shifts from being coal-centered to one where RE, natural gas, and other emerging clean-energy technologies will have increased shares.”

He projected that combined clean energy sources would improve to more than 66 percent of the total generation by 2040.

According to Cusi, the DOE is coming out with the National Renewable Energy Program 20202040 to achieve the target of 34,000 MW of renewable energy installations by 2040. He also approved the updated Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) 2018-2040 to contain “the necessary adjustments that the country has to make because of recent global de-

velopments, including the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the energy sector.”

Cusi said he submitted these to the House of Representatives and the Senate. “The updated version will help the energy family and our stakeholders better understand what the energy situation will be 20 years from now.”

Develop Sulu

TO Elliott, it would be the privilege of EWC to help develop clean energy sources for the country, and to develop economically this part of the Philippines that have wallowed in poverty and lack of opportunity.

If given the go-ahead, he said, the company would be able to proceed faster than “the natural long route of exploration and construction because the data and discovery are already there.”

“Sulu, or even Mindanao, would opt not to export the deposits elsewhere out of the country, or to share them only with the rest of the country. That’s their option that we will respect,” he said.

Their hub terminal in Pagbilao would be used only to accommodate the big tankers from outside and to ship the supply to the rest of the Philippines. Or, this may be used to get the extra supply from Sulu to be shipped to other areas of the country.

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, April 11, 2021

A3

Why shortages of a $1 chip part sparked crisis in global economy

T

Heng Swee Keat, Singapore’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, speaks during a meeting in Singapore, February 19, 2020. Heng on Thursday stepped aside as the designated successor to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, a surprise move that will likely push back a long-telegraphed power transition in the city-state. Bloomberg photo

Singapore leadership plan upended as deputy prime minister steps aside

S

ingapore Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat stepped aside as the designated successor to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, a surprise move that will likely push back a long-telegraphed power transition in the city-state.

In a letter addressed to Lee on Thursday, Heng—who turns 60 this year—said the pandemic meant that he would likely be too old to take over as prime minister “when the crisis is over” roughly five years from now. He said a younger leader should take over instead, adding that he stands ready to support whomever is chosen by party officials.

“When I also consider the ages at which our first three prime ministers took on the job, I would have too short a runway should I become the next prime minister then,” Heng wrote. “We need a leader who will not only rebuild Singapore post-Covid-19, but also lead the next phase of our nationbuilding effort,” he added.

In a joint briefing with top leaders on Thursday, Lee said he respected the decision and noted that Heng would step aside as finance minister in the next cabinet reshuffle, which will take place about two weeks from now. The prime minister said the goal was to identify a successor among younger leaders before the next election due in 2025.

“Succession remains an urgent task and cannot be put off indefinitely,” Lee said. “I think it’ll take longer than a few months, but I hope they’ll reach a consensus and identify a new leader before the next general elections. I have no intention of staying on longer than necessary.”

Asked if he would stay on for another five years, Lee said: “I hope not. I will stay on a bit longer so that the new successor can be identified, can get ready, and as soon as he’s ready, I’d like to hand over to him.”

While Lee has previously signaled his intention to step down by the time he turns 70 in February 2022, last year he reaffirmed a pledge to stay until the country was in “good working order” following the weakest election performance ever by his ruling People’s Action Party.

In a separate statement Thursday, a group of younger party leaders said they respected Heng’s decision and asked Lee “to stay on as prime minister until such time when a new successor is chosen by the team and is ready to take over.” “ This unexpected turn of events is a setback for our succession planning,” the 32 so-called fourth-generation party members said in a statement. “We recognize that Singaporeans will be concerned. We seek your support and understanding, as we choose another leader for the team.”

The Singapore dollar was little changed against the greenback, as was the US-listed iShares MSCI Singapore ETF in premarket trading.

A career civil servant and politician, Heng is currently both deputy prime minister and finance minister. His soft-spoken nature and collaborative approach won him allies in the business community, but a poorer-than-expected showing in the 2020 elections drew questions about his popularity and threw the timetable for succession into doubt.

“It was pretty clear from the election that he didn’t garner a strong mandate for himself as a potential incoming prime minister,” said Bridget Welsh, honorary research associate at the Asia Research Institute, University of Nottingham Malaysia. “There was an attempt to wait for some time after the election for any changes within the leadership structure.”

‘Cannot deliver’

In a press briefing Thursday, Heng said relatively poor showing the last election wasn’t the reason he stepped aside.

“I do not want to take on any job which I cannot deliver,” Heng said. “As those of you who have worked with me know I am a workaholic and I put my heart and soul into what I do, and therefore I’ve been thinking about it as to whether am I the right person.”

Heng was poised to become Singapore’s fourth prime minister since 1965, a period that has seen uninterrupted rule by the People’s Action Party. His ascent would’ve heralded a change in leadership style for the nation, which for all but nearly 14 years has been run by Lee or his late father, Lee Kuan Yew. Lee, who came to power in 2004, has been one of the world’s most vocal leaders calling for the US and China to avoid a destructive clash that could force smaller countries like Singapore to choose sides on everything from trade and technology to Covid-19 vaccines and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The city-state supports a strong American presence in Asia by allowing the US to use its military facilities while also counting China as its top trading partner.

Critical years ahead

Singapore’s economy is now showing signs of getting back on track from the worst slump in its history. Economists see Singapore’s growth recovering to a 5.9-percent pace this year, helped by about S$100 billion ($74 billion) in fiscal stimulus, following a 5.4-percent contraction in 2020—the country’s worst performance since independence.

The shakeup on Thursday is “hugely politically significant” given how carefully Singapore manages the succession process, according to Eugene Tan, an associate professor of law at Singapore Management University.

“The next few years are going to be critical,” Tan said. “How each minister deals with the pandemic with regard to how they affect his portfolio his ministry—all that will come under scrutiny.” Bloomberg News

By Debby Wu & Takashi Mochizuki

o understand why the $450 billion semiconductor industry has lurched into crisis, a helpful place to start is a one-dollar part called a display driver.

Hundreds of different kinds of chips make up the global silicon industry, with the flashiest ones from Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp. going for $100 apiece to more than $1,000.

Those chips run powerful computers or the shiny smartphone in your pocket. A display driver chip is mundane by contrast: Its sole purpose is to convey basic instructions for illuminating the screen on your phone, monitor or navigation system.

The trouble for the chip industry— and increasingly companies beyond tech, like automakers—is that there aren’t enough display drivers to go around. Firms that make them can’t keep up with surging demand, so prices are spiking. That’s contributing to short supplies and increasing costs for liquid crystal display panels, essential components for making televisions and laptops, as well as cars, airplanes and high-end refrigerators.

“It’s not like you can just make do.

If you have everything else, but you don’t have a display driver, then you can’t build your product,” says Stacy Rasgon, who covers the semiconductor industry for Sanford C. Bernstein.

Now the crunch in a handful of such seemingly insignificant parts— power management chips are also in short supply, for example—is cascading through the global economy. Automakers like Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG have already scaled back production, leading to estimates for more than $60 billion in lost revenue for the industry this year.

The situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. A rare winter storm in Texas knocked out swaths of US production. A fire at a key Japan factory will shut the facility for a month. Samsung Electronics Co. warned of a “serious imbalance” in

the industry, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it can’t keep up with demand despite running factories at more than 100 percent of capacity.

“I have never seen anything like this in the past 20 years since our company’s founding,” said Jordan Wu, cofounder and chief executive officer of Himax Technologies Co., a leading supplier of display drivers. “Every application is short of chips.”

The chip crunch was born out of an understandable miscalculation as the coronavirus pandemic hit last year.

When Covid-19 began spreading from China to the rest of the world, many companies anticipated people would cut back as times got tough.

“I slashed all my projections. I was using the financial crisis as the model,” says Rasgon. “But demand was just really resilient.”

People stuck at home started buying technology—and then kept buying. They purchased better computers and bigger displays so they could work remotely. They got their kids new laptops for distance learning. They scooped up 4K televisions, game consoles, milk frothers, air fryers and immersion blenders to make life under quarantine more pa latable. T he pandemic tur ned into an extended Black Friday onlinepalooza.

Automakers were blindsided. They shut factories during the lockdown while demand crashed because no one could get to showrooms. They told suppliers to stop shipping components, including the chips that are increasingly essential for cars.

Then late last year, demand began to pick up. People wanted to get out and they didn’t want to use public transportation. Automakers reopened factories and went hat in hand to

chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung.

Their response? Back of the line. They couldn’t make chips fast enough for their still-loyal customers.

Himax’s Jordan Wu is in the middle of the tech industry’s tempest. On a recent March morning, the bespectacled 61-year-old agreed to meet at his Taipei office to discuss the shortages and why they are so challenging to resolve. He was eager enough to talk that interview was scheduled for the same morning Bloomberg News requested it, with two of his staff joining in person and another two dialing in by phone. He wore a mask throughout the interview, speaking carefully and articulately.

Wu founded Himax in 2001 with his brother Biing-seng, now the company’s chairman. They started out making driver ICs (for integrated circuits), as they’re known in the industry, for notebook computers and monitors. They went public in 2006 and grew with the computer industr y, expanding into smartphones, tablets and touch screens.

Their chips are now used in scores of products, from phones and televisions to automobiles.

Wu explained that he can’t make more display drivers by pushing his work force harder. Himax designs display drivers and then has them manufactured at a foundry like TSMC or United Microelectronics Corp. His chips are made on what’s artfully called “mature node” technology, equipment at least a couple generations behind the cutting-edge processes. These machines etch lines in silicon at a width of 16 nanometers or more, compared with 5 nanometers for high-end chips.

The bottleneck is that these mature chip-making lines are running flat out. Wu says the pandemic drove such strong demand that manufacturing partners can’t make enough display drivers for all the panels that go into computers, televisions and game consoles—plus all the new products that companies are putting screens into, like refrigerators, smart thermometers and carentertainment systems.

There’s been a particular squeeze in driver ICs for automotive systems because they’re usually made on 8-inch silicon wafers, rather than more advanced 12-inch wafers. Sumco Corp., one of the leading wafer manufacturers, reported production capacity for

Covid-19 pandemic shifted how donors gave, but will it continue?

By Haleluya Hadero

W

AP Business Writer

hen Wendo Aszed, the founder of a health nonprofit in rural Kenya, is asked about her frustrations with donors, it doesn’t take long before she brings up a hot-button issue in philanthropy: restrictions on how to use donations.

The “pain point” for her is when funders won’t allow contributions earmarked for one project to be used on related emerging needs. One donor, she notes, funded family planning services—like birth control—but then objected to the money being used for HIV testing on the same women. And some, the 43-year-old added, didn’t want contributions they made prior to the Covid-19 pandemic to help implement virus safety measures at her organization, Dandelion Africa.

“They would prefer the organization closes, even if the funds were for essential services, than use their funds for prevention,” said Aszed, adding that some restricted grants even prohibit buying masks for a project. “We deserve unrestricted grants. We’ve been having these conversations back and forth with some funders who give us restricted funding. Some have gone well, and some have not gone so well.”

Unrestricted funding allows organizations to use donations on what they want. It makes an organization’s infrastructure more durable by funding overhead costs. Proponents say it also corrects donor blindspots in areas like racial equity funding, breeds trust and provides organizations flexibility to respond to shifting needs.

While Aszed’s organization gets a few of these contributions, most of its funding is restricted—earmarked for a specific project by the donor. The debate over these funding models has been around for many years. But nothing has been more galvanizing in this conversation than the pandemic, and to some extent, the racial justice protests following the police killing of George Floyd.

Since last March, about 800 donors—both in the US and abroad—have signed a pledge, spearheaded by the Ford Foundation, that called on them to provide the organizations they fund more flexibility in their pandemic

response. Soon, donors committed to a list of new steps, including loosening restrictions on current gifts and making new donations as unrestricted as possible. But, experts say it’s unclear if these practices, popular among grantees, will continue.

For its part, the Ford Foundation, which gives the majority of its contributions as unrestricted support, is trying to get it to stay.

It announced on Wednesday it will launch a second edition of its BUILD program—a multiyear, $1 billion initiative aiming to provide unrestricted funding to 300 organizations worldwide. So far, the foundation’s six-year program has given more than $950 million to social justice organizations; with new contributions slated to be awarded beginning next January.

“We very much hope other funders who signed the pledge continue in this direction,” said Hilary Pennington, the foundation’s executive vice president for programs, adding, “philanthropy needs all the encouragement and pressure it can possibly get in that regard.”

Though unrestricted donations, especially ones that happen over multiple years, are the holy grail of funding for grassroots organizations, it’s often hard to attain because donors—foundations, corporations or philanthropists—tend to tie their giving to projects.

“A lot of the restrictions were a way to disrupt the business of giving,” said Bradford Smith, the president of the philanthropy research organization Candid. “It was to make organizations much more focused on outcomes and impact.”

Donors also restrict their giving out of concern the funds will be used to pay salaries or other costs and “keep business as usual,” Smith added. “If you talk to most donors about why they’re giving, they’ll say ‘I want to make a difference in the world.’ And I think, especially with some of the newer wealth that started to come into philanthropy from Silicon Valley, billionaires and other people that have made their money in technology, they kind of brought almost a venture capital mindset where you were going to have very clear objectives, very measurable indicators, in order to be able to justify and communicate and measure the impact.”

But choosing between unrestricted

donations and the ability to measure the impact of a donation “is a false dichotomy,” Pennington says.

“And the more we can do to move away from it, the better,” she added. “There are always times when giving project support makes sense. But it’s absolutely possible to measure the impact of these kinds of grants. Every organization has outcomes they’re trying to accomplish. And the foundations that invest in them have outcomes they’re trying to accomplish.”

As of now, early indicators show it’s uncertain whether the large shift toward unrestricted philanthropic giving will continue.

A Center for Effective Philanthropy report released in December surveyed nearly 240 foundations, of whom 170 signed the pledge to reduce restrictions on their giving. It found 92 percent of respondents had loosened or eliminated restrictions on current contributions, 80 percent were making new donations as unrestricted as possible and 90 percent were reducing what they ask of grantees, like reporting requirements.

The report said many indicated plans to continue these changes, but to a lesser degree than during their pandemic response. “These shifts in practice helped nonprofits cope with massive demand for their services and a need to adapt to a rapidly changing context,” said Phil Buchanan, the group’s president. “The question now is whether these changes were a blip or will be sustained into the future, and it’s frankly too soon to tell.”

Another phenomenon that could signal a shift are the sizable donations of billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott, the recently remarried ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. She gave nearly $6 billion in unrestricted contributions last year to hundreds of groups for Covid-19 relief, racial equity and other areas.

Scott’s donations represented most of the unrestricted contributions from the $20.2 billion that was awarded globally for Covid-19 last year, according to a March study by Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. The report found 39 percent of those donations were unrestricted. Excluding Scott’s contributions, that number plummets to 9 percent—just a small bump from 3 percent in the first half of the year.

8-inch equipment lines was about 5,000 wafers a month in 2020—less than it was in 2017.

No one is building more maturenode manufacturing lines because it doesn’t make economic sense. The existing lines are fully depreciated and fine-tuned for almost perfect yields, meaning basic display drivers can be made for less than a dollar and more advanced versions for not much more.

Buying new equipment and starting off at lower yields would mean much higher expenses.

“Building new capacity is too expensive,” Wu says. Peers like Novatek Microelectronics Corp., also based in Taiwan, have the same constraints.

That shortfall is showing up in a spike in LCD prices. A 50-inch LCD panel for telev isions doubled in price between January 2020 and this March. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Matthew Kanterman projects that LCD prices will keep rising at least until the third quarter. There is “a dire shortage” of display driver chips, he said.

Aggravating the situation is a lack of glass. Major glass makers reported accidents at their production sites, including a blackout at a Nippon Electric Glass Co.’s factory in December and an explosion at AGC Fine Techno Korea’s factory in January. Production will likely remain constrained at least through summer this year, display consultancy DSCC Cofounder Yoshio Tamura said.

On April 1, I-O Data Device Inc., a major Japanese computer peripherals maker, raised the price of their 26 LCD monitors by 5,000 yen on average, the biggest increase since they began selling the monitors two decades ago. A spokeswoman said the company can’t make any profit without the increases due to rising costs for components.

All of this has been a boon for business. Himax’s sales are surging and its stock price has tripled since November. Novatek’s shares gained 6.1 percent on Tuesday to a record high, pushing its increase for the year to more than 60 percent.

But Wu isn’t celebrating. His whole business is built around giving customers what they want, so his inability to meet their requests at such a critical time is frustrating. He doesn’t expect the crunch, especially for automotive components, to end any time soon.

“We have not reached a position where we can see the light at the end of tunnel yet,” Wu said. Bloomberg News

A4

The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, April 11, 2021

Biden’s orphaned AstraZeneca supply rises to 20 million doses

T

he US stockpile of the controversial AstraZeneca Plc coronavirus vaccine has grown to more than 20 million doses, according to people familiar with the matter, even as the shot looks increasingly unlikely to factor into President Joe Biden’s domestic vaccination campaign.

tion advisory board.

“We’re never going to use them,” he said.

Celine Gounder, a physician who also served on a Covid advisory board for the Biden transition, agreed the doses should be donated after the company secures authorization from the FDA. “We have enough—we don’t even need Johnson & Johnson,” the third authorized US manufacturer, she said.

“I would like to see the FDA continue its process, issue the emergency use authorization assuming it passes snuff, and then donate that,” she added.

FDA authorization is “really important,” she said, “because of all the different questions with the AstraZeneca vaccine.”

Clotting ‘association’

In this March 22, file photo, vials of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine sit in a fridge at the local vaccine center in Ebersberg near Munich, Germany. A patchwork of advice is emerging from governments across Europe and farther afield, a day after the European Union’s drug regulator said there was a “possible link” between the AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare clotting disorder.

Regulators in the United Kingdom and the EU both stressed that the benefits of receiving the vaccine continue to outweigh the risks for most people. AP/Matthias Schrader

AstraZeneca has yet to request Food and Drug Administration authorization for the two-dose vaccine, and the company faces safety questions abroad and scrutiny from US regulators who’ve already rebuked it for missteps during clinical trials and partial data releases.

Three other vaccines already authorized in the US are going into Americans’ arms at a rate of about 3 million doses per day, with hundreds of millions of additional doses set to be delivered by August.

That raises the question for Biden: What to do with AstraZeneca’s vaccine? The company has more than 20 million doses already on hand, part of a total of

between 80 million and 90 million in some stage of production for the US order, the people familiar with the matter said. American allies have already sought doses from the US AstraZeneca stockpile, and the cheaper vaccine could inoculate people in scores of lowincome countries that can’t afford inoculations from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. “Give them all away. By the time we even think about authorizing it, we are going to be in a glut situation domestically,” said Zeke Emanuel, a medical doctor and University of Pennsylvania vice provost who served as a senior health policy adviser in the Obama administration and on Biden’s Covid transi-

Earlier this week, the European Union drug regulator said it had established a “strong association” between AstraZeneca’s shots and rare blood clots, particularly in younger patients. UK regulators said that people under 30 should be offered an alternative vaccine, if one is available.

That followed an unusual rebuke from American regulators in March, who accused the company of releasing “potentially misleading” data from a large US clinical trial. AstraZeneca revised estimates of the vaccine’s efficacy slightly downward.

AstraZeneca is now searching for new US manufacturing of the vaccine’s active ingredient, after it agreed to vacate a troubled Emergent Biosolutions Inc. plant in Baltimore that had confused production of its shot with Johnson & Johnson’s. The Biden administration brokered J&J’s takeover of the plant.

The US is on pace to have enough vaccine for its entire adult population by the end of next month, with another 200 million doses arriving from Moderna and Pfizer by late July. White House officials have said they want a surplus of doses in part to vaccinate children, once a dose is approved for people under 16.

Given its issues with younger adults,

it’s unclear if the AstraZeneca shot would ever be approved for use by American youngsters.

The administration isn’t making any decisions either way about AstraZeneca until the FDA completes its review, said an official familiar with the matter, who, like the other officials, was granted anonymity to discuss the issue.

The US government last year spent $1.2 billion to accelerate research, development, production and delivery of 300 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

At the time, the Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration said it expected the first doses to be delivered as early as last October.

Biden didn’t change that order, so AstraZeneca began producing shots in the US in anticipation of eventual FDA approval. Last month, the president agreed to send 4.2 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to Mexico and Canada, an arrangement the administration termed a “ loan.”

When those doses are included, the running US AstraZeneca total is nearly 30 million so far, the people said.

The company expects to have 50 million doses ready by the end of this month, one of the officials said.

AstraZeneca declined to directly comment on the US stockpile, but said in a statement that it “expects to have up to approximately 50 million doses available to the US government at the time of Emergency Use Authorization, and millions of additional doses thereafter.”

There is no evidence at this point that any AstraZeneca batches were affected by problems at the Emergent plant in Baltimore, a company spokesperson said.

Canadian and Mexican officials, who are starved for vaccine supply, haven’t expressed concern. On the contrary, Mexico has asked the US for another shipment.

Me x ican President A nd res Manuel Lopez Obrador said Thursday he would consider receiving the AstraZeneca shot himself.

Bloomberg News

China’s plan to vaccinate 560 million in June hindered by supply shortages

C

hina’s ambitious effort to vaccinate 560 million people—40 percent of its population—by the end of June is running into a supply shortage, forcing health authorities to extend the intervals between two doses, and leaving some people unable to book their second shots.

The supply bottleneck comes as China’s vaccination roll out accelerates to nearly 5 million doses a day, the fastest in the world, though the proportion of its vast population covered still lags the US, Israel and other leading inoculating nations.

While China gets its vaccine supply from domestic manufacturers, thus giving it more control than most countries which are struggling to secure doses, the accelerated pace is pushing the limits of what its homegrown makers can churn out, said people familiar with the matter.

This partly drove a decision at the end of March by China’s National Health Commission to issue guidelines on vaccination that said the interval between the first and second dose can be stretched to as long as eight weeks, said the people, who asked not to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

This is over twice as long as the dose interval used during clinical trials of the vaccines made by state-owned China National Bio-

tec Group and Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech Ltd. Among Western vaccines, dose intervals for mRNA shots range from 21 days to 28 days, while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a maximum of six weeks. In the UK, AstraZeneca Plc.’s vaccine is advised to be administered with an interval of between four to 12 weeks.

T he moves underscore the mammoth effort ahead of China, which has virtually eliminated the pathogen domestically and yet risks falling behind other cou nt r ies — pa r t ic u l a rly geo political rivals like the US—in achieving herd immunity and reopening its economy and borders.

In recent weeks, a hardening propaganda campaign that links vaccination to maintaining China’s global prestige in containing the coronavirus has raised take-up rates considerably, but it’s still vaccinating just five out of every 100 people, compared to 27 in the US and 56 in Israel, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.

The National Health Commission did not respond to questions sent by fax.

The supply shortage is being exacerbated by Beijing’s pledge to make its shots a global public good to help end the pandemic.

More than 100 million doses have been donated and sold overseas and more will be exported as Chi-

nese makers are on track to be included in the WHO-backed Covax program to provide immunization access to poorer nations.

China has also offered vaccines to the International Olympics Committee for the upcoming Tokyo Games, while carrying out discussions with European countries looking for supply.

The supply shortage appears to be felt unevenly across China. Beijing, the capital, does not appear to have any supply concerns and has raced ahead with over half of its population dosed. Meanwhile, financial center Shanghai—whose population is also over 20 million people— has raised Sinovac dose intervals from 14 to 21 days due to supply concerns, said one of the people.

To date, Shanghai has given out only 5.5 million doses.

In southern Guangdong province, China’s manufacturing hub, the local government has selected five key cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan and Zhuhai to prioritize for vaccination while halting new doses in all other cities, said a person familiar with the situation there.

In the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the local CDC branch notified some residential compounds to temporarily suspend vaccinations because shots are running out, said people familiar with the situation there.

Given supply con st ra i nt s, t h e 4 0 - p e r c e nt v a c c i n a t i o n target is a nationwide one and doesn’t mean coverage will be even across places, said one person familiar with authorities’ t hin k ing. Densely popu l ated megacities along the developed eastern part of China are being prioritized for vaccination, while remote, sparsely inhabited western provinces will be further behind in the line.

In recent days, some people have complained on social-media platforms that they’ve been unable to book appointments for second shots.

In northeastern Jilin province, resident Wang Yuemei said she’s been told by local officials that she can’t get a vaccination appoint ment. Some c it ies in northeastern China are barring people from getting first doses, as their remaining supply will be rationed for those who have already taken a first shot and are waiting for a second, said people familiar with the situation there.

“They said it’s due to the shortage of the vaccine. I’m in a waitand-see mode because even if I get a first shot, there’s a chance I can’t get the second,” said Wang, 42. “This already happened to one of my family members who has passed his set date for the second shot but is still told to keep waiting.” Bloomberg News

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Covid boosts risks for mental, neurological disorders in study

A

third of Covid-19 survivors were diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition in the six months after being infected, according to the first large-scale research to compare the risks to other illnesses, including influenza.

The University of Oxford study analyzed health records of 236,379 Covid-19 patients infected last year, according to a report in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. As might be expected, anxiety and mood disorders were the most common diagnoses, at 17 percent and 14 percent of patients respectively.

But the study also found 7 percent of those made sickest by the virus had a stroke and 2 percent were diagnosed with dementia.

While the investigators stressed that the specific causes of these long-term effects are largely unknown, they suggested some of them might be linked to stress, job loss or loneliness during quarantine. More in-depth research is needed on the neurological risks and more resources are needed to address the full range of implications, they said.

“Although the individual risks for most disorders are small, the effect across the whole population may be substantial for health and social-care systems due to the scale of the pandemic and that many of these conditions are chronic,” said Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at the university and the study’s lead author.

The researchers also explored data from 105,579 people with influenza and 236,038 patients with any respiratory tract infection. There was a 44 percent greater risk of neurological and mental-health diagnoses after Covid-19 than after flu, and a 16 percent greater risk than with respiratory tract infections.

“Although we know that the virus can access the brain, it’s not necessarily only the neurons in the brain that might be effected,” said Masud Husain,

professor of neurology and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oxford. “We need to be careful about what we attribute the effect of the virus to the brain itself.”

Brain fog

At the start of the pandemic, a number of Covid patients whose symptoms were initially mild developed long-term neurological problems, what survivors refer to as “brain fog.” At the time there was no strong evidence that Covid-19 infects the brain.

However, since then there have been several other studies that have made the link between Covid-19 and increased risk of neurological disorders.

A study published last October found that about 4 of 5 patients hospitalized with Covid-19 suffer neurological symptoms, including muscle pain, headaches, confusion, dizziness and the loss of smell or taste. Another study from Wuhan, China, where the virus first appeared, found that 36 percent of patients had neurological symptoms ranging from headache to impaired consciousness.

A limitation of the Oxford study is that the researchers only analyzed records of patients diagnosed with Covid, which does not take into consideration people who were infected but had no symptoms.

Some of patients in the control cohort “might have also had Covid,” said Max Taquet, a study coauthor.

“We didn’t know that.” It means the findings could have underestimated the relative risk of developing neurological or mental-health disorders.

Still, the overall message is clear, according to Taquet. “We need to be proactive and establish followup strategy for patients who have had Covid,” he said, adding that health-care providers should be prepared to address an increased demand for assessment and treatment of these disorders. Bloomberg News

Africa CDC says Covid-19 vaccine passports ‘inappropriate’ for now

By Rodney Muhumuza

K

The Associated Press

A MPA L A , Uganda—T he head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday described Covid-19 vaccine passports as “inappropriate” while poor countries lag behind others in acquiring the shots.

“Our position is very simple.

That any imposition of a vaccination passport will create huge inequities and will further exacerbate them,” Dr. John Nkengasong told a briefing.

“We are already in a situation where we don’t have vaccines, and it will be extremely unfortunate that countries impose a travel requirement of immunization certificates whereas the rest of the world has not had the chance to have access to vaccines.”

Vaccine passports are documents that show that travelers have been vaccinated against Covid-19 or recently tested negative for the virus. Technology companies and travel-related trade groups in some wealthy countries are developing and testing out passports to encourage travel.

The matter of vaccine passports has been a hotly debated topic around the world, including in the United States and Israel.

One question relates to whether governments, employers, and organizers of large gatherings have a right to know about a person’s virus status. Many disagree over what the right balance is between a person’s right to medical privacy and the collective right of groups of people not to be infected with a dangerous disease.

Critics also point out that such vaccine passports will enable discrimination against poor nations that do not have ready access to vaccines.

Only 2 percent of all vaccine doses administered globally have been in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

The Africa CDC warned last week that the continent is unlikely to meet its vaccination targets amid supply delays from a key manufacturer. Africa has been mostly reliant on the global COVAX initiative, which aims to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have fair access to the shots. But the Serum Institute of India recently announced that as many as 90 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine destined for COVAX worldwide will be delayed

through the end of April as India’s government grapples with a spike in infections at home.

Amid delays in COVAX shipments, the African Union’s Vaccine Acquisition Trust signed a deal last week with Johnson & Johnson for 220 million doses of its vaccine to be delivered by the third quarter of this year, with an option to acquire an additional 180 million doses through 2022.

Africa’s target is to vaccinate 60 percent of its 1.3 billion people by the end of 2022. That goal still may not be met without widespread use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is widely seen as key to the global strategy to stamp out the coronavirus pandemic. The vaccine from the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker is cheaper and easier to store than many others.

Africa has confirmed more than 4.3 million cases, including 114,000 deaths, representing about 3.3 percent of the global caseload. But some experts worry that the continent will suffer greatly in the long term if more of its people are not vaccinated in efforts to achieve so-called herd immunity, when enough people are protected through infection or vaccination to make it difficult for a virus to continue to spread.

That means about 1.5 billion vaccine doses for Africa, or less if the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is widely used.

“In terms of trade and travel, the world will be watching to see which nations achieve herd immunity and are safe,” Ugandan health entrepreneur Dr. Ian Clarke wrote in a recent column in the local Sunday Vision newspaper. “If Uganda stays as a pocket of Covid-19 while other countries have developed herd immunity, we can expect travel advisories from embassies that it is not safe to visit Uganda.”

In a sign of what could come next, Kenya reacted angrily to the British government’s decision to ban most travelers from the East African country because a significant number of them are testing positive for a variant first found in South Africa.

Kenya has retaliated by making it mandatory for all passengers originating from or transiting through UK airports to undergo 14 days of quarantine at a government facility at their own cost. Authorities also charged in a statement that the British government’s decision “seems to be motivated by a discriminatory policy against certain countries and peoples.”

Science

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

DOST-PCHRD inks pact with US hospital, NIH for joint work in health research

T

he Philippine Council for Health Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCHRD) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Massachusetts General Hospital for research programs in identified priority areas in health.

This MOU also covers training opportunities in Harvard University and its network of affiliate institutions, Science Secretary Fortunato T. de le Peña said during the recent DOST Report via DOSTv on Facebook.

The DOST-PCHRD also signed an MOU with United States National Institutes of Health (US-NIH) for the establishment of the Regional Prospective Observational Research in Tuberculosis Consortium in the country.

The signatory for the US-NIH was Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The research program is composed of two projects on tuberculosis being implemented by the UP Manila National Institutes of Health and the Dela Salle University for a duration of three years.

Zayed Sustainability Prize opens for 2022 edition

T

he Zayed Sustainability Prize, the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) pioneering global award for rewarding impact, innovation and inspiration, has announced that the 2022 edition is now open for submissions.

Entries will be accepted until May 6 via the Prize’s online portal for five sustainability categories: heath, food, energy, water and global high schools.

Applicants who have submitted for the postponed 2021 cycle will enter automatically into the 2022 edition.

H.E. Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and director general of the Zayed Sustainability Prize, said: “As a catalyst for change and positive transformation, the Zayed Sustainability Prize continues its drive to dynamically empower small and medium enterprises and nonprofits, while encouraging and empowering youth to take on an active role in supporting their communities and becoming future sustainability leaders.”

He added, “The prize’s support of sustainability pioneers reflects a globally shared vision and ethos that streamlines an integrated approach to meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

Inspired by the sustainable development and humanitarian legacy of the UAE’s founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the prize enters its 14th submissions cycle having rewarded a total of 86 winners whose solutions or school projects have, directly and indirectly, positively transformed the lives of more than 335 million people, to date.

The prize’s $3 million annual fund awards winners $600,000 in each category; the Global High Schools category is split into six world region winners, with each school able to claim up to $100,000 to start or expand their project.

The six world regions of the Global High Schools category are The Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia and Pacific.

Winners will be announced in 2022 during an Awards Ceremony as part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

BusinessMirror

Sunday

Sunday, April 11, 2021 A5

DOST to manufacturers, researchers: Use our 3D printing technologies ‘I

By Edwin Galvez

f you can imagine it, you can print it, and the possibilities are limitless.”

This was how materials science experts and researchers from the Advanced Manufacturing Center-Materials Development (AMCen-Matdev) laboratory of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) summed up their case to encourage manufacturers, academic and professional researchers, educators and even artists to use their latest 3D printers, among other additive manufacturing services, at an online stakeholders’ forum on March 25.

Add itive manufactur ing , a lso known as 3D printing, is among DOST’s “priority programs,” emphasized Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña at the forum aimed at forging partnerships with end-users and research and development (R&D) collaborations with schools, hospitals and organizations, among other forms of engagement.

“Matdev is ready to provide its services to various stakeholders from the industry, academe and government,” said Dr. Blessie A. Basilia, R&D lead for the project.

One of DOST’s “big-ticket” projects last year funded its by Grants-inAid program in 2019, the AMCen is a shared facility covering two projects under the department’s advanced additive manufacturing R&D program.

The Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI) steers the laboratory for the program’s Development of Multiple Materials Platform for Additive Manufacturing, or Matdev project.

Inaugurated on December 22 last year, the Matdev laboratory located within the ITDI compound is now fully operational at the Nanolab-Materials Science Building of the DOST complex.

The Metals Industry Research and Development Center (MIRDC), on the other hand, implements the Research on Advanced Prototyping for Product Innovation and Development using Additive Manufacturing Technologies or Rappid-Admatec project.

The AMCen main facility at the MIRDC compound of the DOST complex will be inaugurated on April 30.

“3D printing is one of the technologies for Industry 4.0, and the country will continue using this technology in the next five to 10 years,” said Basilia, who recently retired as chief of ITDI’s materials science division.

The AMCen-Matdev laboratory of the DOST-ITDI houses the latest equipment and software for additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, including the TEKNA TekSphero-15 spheroidization system, the first in the country and even in the Asean region. Image from TEKNA brochure She said AMCen is developing a 10year roadmap on additive manufacturing in consultation with 3D printing experts and end-users.

Collaborating with Matdev The Matdev laboratory, which undertakes R&D of materials for use in additive manufacturing, aims to reduce the cost of filaments and other materials for 3D printing by utilizing local resources.

As the country’s leading R&D center for 3D printing, the facility consists of laboratories for fused deposition modeling, post-processing, chemistry, materials characterization, 3D printing R&D laboratories and spheroidizing.

“We are targeting from 10 to 15 collaborations with private and public institutions this year,” said Engr.

Marianito T. Margarito, who became the Matdev project leader upon Basilia’s retirement.

The government invested P168 million over the past three years for the Matdev project, about 50 percent of which was spent in purchasing the equipment, while about 6 percent was used for the construction of the building, explained Margarito, senior science research specialist at the materials science division of ITDI, in his e-mail to the BusinessMirror.

Matdev has the latest equipment and software for practical application related to materials development for additive manufacturing, including the TEKNA TekSphero-15 spheroidization system, the first spheroidizer in the country and even in the Asean region.

“Many of our equipment are among the first in the country to meet the

needs for materials processing, development and testing as we also utilize the capability on computer simulation to fast-track materials development and design optimization,” Margarito said.

More equipment—particularly the large 3D printers that can use high-per for mance eng ineer ing plastics, composites, metals and ceramics—will become available at the AMCen building for the rapid prototyping.

“Matdev commits to deliver innovative solutions to support manufacturing industries by the fusion of nanotechnology and additive manufacturing using developed nanomaterials to produce filaments,” Basilia added.

She said they found local materials cheaper and had improved properties and performance compared to imported ones.

“Matdev will create different possibilities, such as replacements of human parts and customized infrastructures, among others, that will greatly contribute to the progress of the country,” Basilia said.

Matdev had nine clients since its opening, “which either sent their designs or we prepared the designs for them for evaluation or the agreement is still being forged.”

The clients include other DOST agencies such as the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD), the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (DOSTPNRI) for its nerve guidance conduits project, and other government offices, such as the University of the Philippines Manila, the Philippine Air Force, and the Philippine Children’s

Medical Center for its valve holding chambers project.

“Individuals who wanted to create prototypes of their products using nonconventional materials and the 3D printing process” also availed of the facility’s services, she said.

The laboratory has also forged agreements for trainings and collaborations with the Batangas State University and the Mariano Marcos State University.

Long-term engagements, such as R&D collaborations, contract research and even trainings with Matdev, are covered by an agreement.

“Matdev will also fully support startups on their needs for prototypes and materials development for additive manufacturing,” said Carlo S. Emolaga, ITDI senior science research specialist.

“Services may range from design and conceptualization, materials development for intended application and continuous development until the intended application is successful,” Emolaga said.

Due to the pandemic, however, client visits and use of the equipment are limited as Matdev’s services are also limited to online transactions, designs and 3D printing.

Competent team Matdev clients can rely on the expertise and knowledge of its competent team composed of licensed engineers and chemists from various fields of disciplines, six of whom have doctorate degree, 14 have master’s degree and 10 have bachelor’s degree obtained in the country and abroad.

“One of Matdev’s objectives is to develop the competency of the technical staff on design, materials development from local sources and testing for additive manufacturing applications,” Basilia said.

They underwent training at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Center, for 3D printing, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and Case Western Reserve University in the US on the various aspects of additive manufacturing.

The staff also attended benchmarking activities conducted by the National University of Singapore and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, as well as local trainings in operating the different additive manufacturing equipment.

“In the new normal, we trained under Dr. Chua Chee Kai of the Singapore University of Technology and

Design, who has been in 3D printing for over 30 years, a real expert in this field,” Basilia said.

She added: “Our combined experience in the R&D of raw materials using indigenous sources and training in 3D printing technology has produced a capable team that can do R&D on any area under materials science.”

Promoting Matdev services The forum also allowed the participants to be part of a virtual tour of the Matdev facility and its various equipment, which are complemented by other ITDI laboratories, providing access to their processing and analytical equipment.

The equipment cover the areas of design and simulation (computer-aided design and simulation software, 3D scanner), 3D printing materials processing (extruders, milling machines, spheroidizer), prototyping (3D printers, post-processing) and characterization (dynamic mechanical analyzer, digital microscope).

“We promote our services through stakeholders’ fora and online platforms in social media, including the web site of DOST,” Emolaga said.

“This is only the first of many engagements that we w i l l have, including a series of webinars and trainings on 3D modelling, among others,” said DOST-ITDI Director Dr. Annabelle V. Briones.

The DOST-ITDI will also host the International Conference on Additive Manufacturing on October 28 and 29.

The conference will gather experts on additive manufacturing from the Asean region to foster collaborations and updates through presentations of their various researches on additive manufacturing.

DOST Undersecretary for Research and Development Rowena Cristina L. Guevara said the role of Matdev is “crucial for the materials science industry as it can reduce the cost of raw materials and increase the utilization of local resources for high-end and high-value applications.”

“With AMCen-Matdev, we can continue developing advanced and sustainable materials for medical technologies, food packaging, transportation and defense, among others, from which various industries can truly benefit from—innovations that could go a long way in our efforts to be responsive and self-sufficient in this field, especially during these trying times,” Guevara said at the same online forum.

Science Tech Tok top Youth urged: Engage in aquaculture to secure fish supply 3 winners declared T S tudents from the Marcelo H. Del Pilar National High School bagged first place in the first-ever Search for Science Tech Tok youth competition held recently.

The school’s entry, “Let’s Learn and be Mahu-Sci,” won over 160 video entries produced by high-schools nationwide.

The winning team was composed of Frances Sophia D. Flores, Pia Bianca B.Laxa and Raphaelle Erika P. Victoria Inspired by the famous short-form video-sharing app Tiktok, the student participants showed their knowledge and showmanship in various creative presentations—such as vlogging, speech choir, documentary, experiments, stories on citizen science breakthroughs—which were slanted on this year’s theme on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The team from Philippine Science High SchoolCentral Luzon Campus, Angeles City, Pampanga, composed of Jose Gabriel G. Angeles, Sam Gabriel B. Austria and Juliane Alyssa Mae B. Bautista came in second with their work “Eropla-Knows.”

The "How do mRNA Vaccines Work?" of Megumi Jireh Cruz, Samantha Nicole San Diego and Rica Phoebe Jane Venturina of Carlos F. Gonzales High School, San Rafael, Bulacan, garnered the third place.

Cash prizes wor th P20,000 (first prize),

P15,000 (second prize), and P10,000 (third place) and e-certificate of recognition were given to the winners.

The winning entries were judged based on content, originality and creativity, and visual appeal.

They were unanimously declared winners by the board of judges from the S&T field namely Timothy James M. Dimacali, information officer at the Science Education Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-SEI); Elvira R. Galvez, Philippine Foundation for Science and Technology (PFST) education consultant; and Florencio T. Gando Jr., senior designer and head of the Science Centrum Fabrication Inc.’s Exhibit Development Division.

PFST Executive Director May M. Pagsinohin and Dr. Ruby R. Cristobal, division chief at the DOST-SEI. In her message, Cristobal urged adults and students to harness the power of social media and the Internet to promote science education as a way of life.

She also commended the students, the filmmakers and STEM leaders for creating, recreating and producing materials in a youthful, creative and fun way.

She said the videos produced were testaments on how students were excited to share knowledge among their peers.

“You just not make Tech Tok but you made STEM talk,” she said.

The search was co-organized by the DOST-SEI and the PFST. Rizal Raoul Reyes

he African swine fever that is threatening the protein supplies of the country still grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic prompted the chief of an international research center to call for more youth to be involved in aquaculture.

“Now, more than ever, is the time for our youth to engage in the efficient production of healthy protein through aquaculture,” said Dan Baliao, chief of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (Seafdec/AQD) based in Iloilo.

Baliao said fish is more efficient to produce than poultry, taking as little as 1 kilogram of feeds to produce 1 kilogram of fish. Yet, there are not enough skilled personnel to competently build and run fish farms in the country.

Data from the Commission on Higher Education showed that there are only 26,259 graduates from the agriculture, forestry and fisheries disciplines from 2018 to 2019, comprising only3 percent of all Philippine graduates in higher education, Seafdec/AQD said in a news release.

Meanwhile, results from the 2019 Fisheries Technologist board exams released by the Professional Regulation Commission also show that only 731 fisheries technologists passed and gained their license out of 2,101 takers across the whole country.

Baliao revealed that a highly-skilled workforce is critical in the coming years as Seafdec/AQD is helping the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR) build legislated multispecies hatcheries in at least 15 sites around the country “We should invest not only in infrastructure and technologies, but also in the building up the workforce

Youth graduates of the training program of the Seafdec/AQD assist in the stocking of milkfish breeders at the newly constructed broodstock facilities of the research center in Tigbauan, Iloilo. Photo by JF Aldon, Seafdec/AQD that will run these critical government hatcheries and the grow-out farms that will receive the seeds,” he added.

Lea Cadapan, Aquaculturist II and Legislated Hatchery Project Coordinator of DA-BFAR, expressed her support of the training of fisheries graduates, citing the need for more competent aquaculturists.

“Aquaculturists should be kept abreast of the recent developments in the aquaculture industry to be more confident, more efficient, and boost their passion for serving the Filipino fish farmers in contributing to the attainment of the country’s goal of fish sufficiency towards food security,” she said.

New generation of aquaculturists

Baliao shared that to jumpstart a new generation

of aquaculturists, Seafdec/AQD piloted the intensive selection of fisheries graduates, who were then given hands-on training on seed production, fish health management, and grow-out operations at Seafdec/ AQD stations in Iloilo, Guimaras, and Rizal.

“We were looking at competent applicants upon recommendation from their respective college deans," shared Caryl Vincent Genzola, officer-in-charge of Seafdec/AQD’s Training Section, who added that the endorsed graduates ideally had to be among the top of their class.

According to Genzola, the first batch of graduates from fisheries schools in Western Visayas was screened in 2018 and given experience in actual production of freshwater and marine fish and crustaceans.

Upon completion of the training program, some

trainees were deployed to upstart the multi-species hatchery operations of the DA-BFAR hatchery in Sagnay, Camarines Sur, which soon took off and produced 467,000 milkfish fry on its first run.

Genzola shared that other trainees were deployed to Seafdec/AQD projects, while some were recommended to government and non-government offices, including private farms.

“Having been trained intensively in an international organization by experts on different aquaculture fields widened my perspective of aquaculture. I was also able to apply the theoretical knowledge from my degree to more hands-on fieldwork,” shared Janice Genilza, one of the Seafdec/AQD trainees after she graduated from the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV).

“I always learned something new every day during those three months, which I am grateful for.

Practicals, in particular, gave me a feel for what I would encounter in the field,” said Therese Geanga, also a trainee from UPV. “I became well-rounded as an aquaculture technologist because the training equipped me with different skills regarding husbandry and managementt of various commodities. It reassured me that I can apply my knowledge and skills regardless of where I will be assigned,” said Jernet Zyca Silorio, who hailed from the Iloilo State College of Fisheries.

Baliao revealed that they are planning to train more fisheries graduates from the Bicol Region and Mindanao, where most legislated hatcheries will be built, as soon as measures are in place to navigate Covid-19 restrictions.

Faith A6 Sunday, April 11, 2021

Sunday

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph

skepticism runs deep Novaliches diocese launches ‘E-Pray’ Vaccine among white evangelicals in US to reach out to Covid-19 patients T Catholic diocese in Metro

A

Photo credit Diocese of Novaliches

Manila has adopted an online platform to reach out to isolated Covid-19 patients and pray for them.

“E-Pray“ is an online prayer request initiative of the Novaliches diocese’s social communications ministry that allows a patient to connect to a priest for spiritual counseling and prayer.

The project uses Google Form, a free web-based application, where people can type in their contact details—such as mobile number or Facebook messenger account so that a priest could get in touch with them.

Fr. Luciano Felloni, the social communications director, said the pandemic has prevented patients

from accessing their priests in the midst of stressful and end-to-life situations.

“The problem is there’s no direct contact because priests are not allowed to enter in hospitals, in ICUs [intensive care units], and in quarantine facilities,” Felloni said.

“We can’t offer at this point in time the anointing of the sick, we can’t offer confession. What we can offer is a priest to pray over them,” he said.

Felloni said the platform will be manned by a number of volunteers

who will match any sick person with a priest available.

According to him, about 30 priests from across the country and one from New York have so far volunteered “to listen and pray with the Covid-19 patients.”

“Let’s not allow any single patient to go on without prayer, to go on without being blessed by a priest,” he said. “Let’s help in our little and very simple way. Let us help with the grace of prayer.”

CBCP News

Filipinos in Spain celebrate 500 years of Christianity

Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Apostolic Nuncio to Spain, leads the Filipino community in Madrid in celebrating the 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines on April 4. PHOTOS FROM CAPELLANÍA FILIPINA MADRID

A

Vatican envoy led the Filipino community in the Spanish capital of Madrid in celebrating the 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines, hailing the migrants as the “best missionaries” of the Church.

Archbishop Bernardito Auza, apostolic nuncio to Spain, said that Filipino migrants are the “fruits” of that Church born in the Philippines in 1521 through the Spanish missionaries.

As someone who has been to many countries, the nuncio recognized the valuable role played

by Filipinos overseas in ensuring that the Church remains vibrant

and relevant.

“You have become the best missionaries of our Church,” said Auza, who is also a Filipino.

“Almost everywhere, Filipinos are there. And the first place we look for and where we gather is the church,” he said.

The archbishop was speaking during Mass to celebrate the opening of the Jubilee Year in the Philippines on Easter Sunday, April 4.

Around a hundred Filipinos attended the celebration held at the Parroquia de San Francisco Javier y San Luís Gonzaga.

“What a privilege to be in Spain, where it all began,” said Auza, who

has been the nuncio to Spain and Andorra since January 2020.

The archbishop then used the occasion to ask the Filipinos to pray for the Church in Spain, which “has been experiencing a crisis of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life and a waning religious practice.”

Filipinos today, according to him, are the “inheritance and inheritors” of the faith the missionaries planted in the Philippines 500 years ago.

“We are commissioned to make that faith bear abundant fruit everywhere we are,” Auza said. “As an act of giving back and of gratitude, may we then be leavens of the Joy of the Gospel here in Spain.”

Also present during the Mass were 10 other priests, including Society of Divine Word Fr. Mark Angelo Ramos, who heads the Filipino Chaplaincy in Madrid.

In 2014, the Philippines recorded a number of around 26,000 Filipinos working in Spain.

Cardinal Carlos Osoro Sierra of Madrid has earlier thanked the Filipinos for bringing back the faith to Spain.

“We are thankful to the Filipinos who work today in our homes.

Through their witnessing, they are returning back the faith we have brought to them,” he said.

Roy Lagarde/CBCP News

Catholic women’s groups in Europe protest Vatican’s gay union stance

B

E R L I N — F i v e C at ho l i c women‘s organizations in German-speaking areas have released an open letter calling for the Vatican to reverse its position that priests cannot bless same-sex unions.

The letter to the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, was signed by the heads of two groups in Germany and one each in Austria, Switzerland and northern Italy’s largely German-speaking South Tyrol region. The groups say they have about a million members in total. “ The church ’s mission to be effective as a sign of salvation in the world means countering homophobia and standing up for gender equality, also on the basis of human sciences,” they wrote.

The organizations called for “a renewal of sexual and relationship ethics” in the Catholic Church and said there needs to be a “recognition of the ever yday reality of people in samesex relationships.”

Belgians Marion Huibrechts (right) and Christel Verswyvelen leave the town hall of Kappelen, north Belgium, on June 6, 2003. The two women became the first gay couple to marry in Belgium under laws passed earlier this year. Huibrechts and Verswyvelen celebrated 16 years of partnership with official vows at a civil ceremony. AP/Geert Vanden Wijngaert

The open letter is the latest sign of pushback from the Germanspeaking world against a document released last month by the

Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which said Catholic clergy cannot bless same-sex unions

because God “cannot bless sin.”

The congregation’s note dist ing u ished bet ween blessing same-sex unions and the Catholic Church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld.

The document argued that such unions are not part of God’s plan and that any sacramental recognition of them could be confused with marriage.

It pleased conservatives and disheartened advocates for LGBT Catholics.

The German church has been at the forefront of opening discussion on hot-button issues, such as the church’s teaching on homosexuality.

More than 230 professors of Catholic theology in Germany and other countries where German is spoken previously signed a statement protesting the Vatican’s pronouncement, which they said “is marked by a paternalistic air of superiority and discriminates against homosexual people and their life plans.” AP

he president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), America’s largest evangelical denomination, posted a photo on Facebook last week of him getting the Covid-19 vaccine. It drew more than 1,100 comments—many of them voicing admiration for the Rev. J.D. Greear, and many others assailing him.

Some of the critics wondered if worshippers would now need “vaccine passports” to enter The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, where Greear is pastor.

Others depicted the vaccines as satanic or unsafe, or suggested Greear was complicit in government propaganda.

The divided reaction highlighted a phenomenon that has become increasingly apparent in recent polls and surveys: Vaccine skepticism is more widespread among white evangelicals than almost any other major bloc of Americans.

In a March poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 40 percent of white evangelical Protestants said they likely won’t get vaccinated, compared with 25 percent of all Americans, 28 percent of white mainline Protestants and 27 percent of nonwhite Protestants.

The findings have aroused concern even within evangelical circles.

The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 local churches, is part of a new coalition that will host events, work with media outlets and distribute various public messages to build trust among wary evangelicals.

“The pathway to ending the pandemic runs through the evangelical church,” said Curtis Chang, a former pastor and missionary who founded ChristiansAndTheVaccine.com, the cornerstone of the new initiative, With white evangelicals comprising an estimated 20 percent of the US population, resistance to vaccination by half of them would seriously hamper efforts to achieve herd immunity, Chang contends.

Many evangelical leaders have spoken in support of vaccinations, ranging from Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress to the Rev. Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptists’ public policy arm.

Jeffress believes a majority of his congregation at First Baptist Dallas welcome the vaccines, while some have doubts about their safety or worry they have links to abortion.

Jeffress is among numerous religious leaders who say the leading vaccines are acceptable given their remote, indirect links to lines of cells developed from aborted fetuses.

Moore expressed hope that SBC pastors would provide “wise counsel” to their congregations if members raise questions about vaccinations.

“These vaccines are cause for evangelicals to celebrate and give thanks to God,” he said via e-mail. “I am confident that pastors and lay members alike want churches full again and vaccines will help all of us get there sooner rather than later.”

Other evangelical pastors have been hesitant to take a public stance.

Aaron Harris, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas, hasn’t discussed the vaccine from the pulpit or decided whether he’ll be vaccinated.

“We don’t believe that this is a scriptural issue; it is a personal issue,” said Harris, who estimates that 50 percent of the congregation’s older adults have been vaccinated, while fewer younger members plan to do so.

“We shouldn’t live in fear of the virus because we do have a faith in eternity.

However, just because we aren’t in fear of it, where is the line of what we ought to do?” he asked. “I’m not going to lay down in front of a bunch of alligators to show my faith in that way.”

Some Christians say they prefer to leave their fate in God’s hands, rather than be vaccinated.

“We are going to go through times of trials and all kinds of awful things, but we still know where we are going at the end,” said Ron Holloway, 75, of Forsyth, Missouri. “And heaven is so much better than here on earth. Why would we fight leaving here?”

John Elkins, pastor at Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Brazoria, Texas, about 50 miles south of Houston, said only one person in his SBC congregation of about 50 has been vaccinated.

“We’re in a very libertarian area. There’s a lot of hesitancy to anything that feels like it’s coming from the federal government,” said Elkins, who is also forgoing the vaccine, at least for now, along with his wife.

Elkins, whose father was a professor of gynecology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said his congregants’ doubts are not theologically based.

“It’s skepticism about effectiveness,” he said. “People are concerned it was rushed out too quickly.”

Phillip Bethancourt, another Southern Baptist pastor in Texas, has encouraged his congregation at Central Church in College Station to get the vaccine and believes most will. The church hosted a vaccine drive for staff and volunteers at other churches; 217 people got their first doses March 22.

“Even people who might be skeptical from a medical standpoint can understand it from a missional standpoint,” he said. “If it helps more people be able to serve at their church again, so more children can learn about Jesus, that’s a good thing.”

Bethancourt, a former vice president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has spoken with congregants who spurn the vaccine and say they’re unafraid of dying if that’s God’s will.

“The sentiment doesn’t trouble me on the face of it, but there’s inconsistency,” he said. “We don’t adopt that mentality in other aspects of our life, like not wearing a seat belt.”

Chang said that as a former pastor, he understands why some whose congregations are mistrustful of the government and the vaccines muzzle themselves rather than risk backlash if they urge their flock to get vaccinated.

“There’s going to be some courage required,” he said.

His initiative includes a toolkit for pastors offering suggestions for how to address—within a Christian framework—the various concerns of skeptical evangelicals. They range from the extent of the vaccines’ link to abortion to whether they represent “the mark of the beast,” an ominous harbinger of the end times prophesized in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

Partnering in the initiative is the Ad Council, known for iconic public service ad campaigns, such as Smokey Bear and “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.”

“We know the important role faith plays in the lives of millions of people throughout the country,” Ad Council president Lisa Sherman said, expressing hope that the campaign could boost their confidence in the vaccines.

As the vaccines first became available, there was widespread concern that many Black Americans would be hesitant to take them due to historic, racismrelated mistrust of government health initiatives.

But recent surveys show Black Protestants are more open to vaccinations than white evangelicals.

“This pandemic has hit our community like a plague—and that’s made our job easier,” said Bishop Timothy Clarke of First Church of God, a Black evangelical church in Columbus, Ohio. “We’ve done a tremendous job of educating.” AP

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Sunday, April 11, 2021

A7

Palaui Island Protected Landscape and Seascape

Cagayan’s island paradise T

working on a draft guideline in preparation for the reopening of the island to tourists.

As chairman of the island’s PAMB, Bambalan is eyeing to resume tourism activities on the island without compromising the health and wellbeing of both the tourists and the people on the area.

“I am really for limited scale [in tourism]. We want to avoid exposing the local communities,” she said.

She said Sitio Palaui, where the communities are concentrated, should be closed to tourism until an established safety and health protocols are put in place and integrated with tourism guideline.

She said part of the island can still be open to the public to generate income which is important in running the PIPLS.

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

he Palaui Island Protected Landscape and Seascape (PIPLS) in the municipality of Sta. Ana in Cagayan, known as the game-fishing hub of the Philippines, is an island paradise teeming with unique wildlife.

Its unique features make PIPLS a tourist magnet.

But beyond its tourism potential, the island paradise is gaining recognition as an outstanding marine protected area with some of the best management practices to showcase.

island presents a combination of natural, historical and cultural elements that need to be preserved through economica l ly v iable communit ybased activities.

Protected area

The island is home to endangered species like the green turtle, commercially viable fish, the Philippine hawk eagle and several dipterocarp species.

It is also known to host a good number of the critically endangered narra tree, and commercially viable white lauan.

According to the protectors of PIPLS, a total of 60 species of flora were identified and counted along the nine stations established for flora on the island.

The island is also known as a bird sanctuary. One time, a total of 424 birds classified into 37 different species were identified and counted along the 2-kilometer transect.

Most of the birds identified were classified as endemic, with 13 “resident” birds and three species classified as migratory species.

Four different species of bats and two forest rats were recorded on the island.

Proclaimed as a protected area by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 447 on August 16, 1994, the PIPLS became a legislated protected area within the classification of a national park under Republic Act 11038, or the Expanded National Integrated Protected Systems (Nipas) Act of 2018.

Covering a total area of 8,048.57 hectares, approximately 2,439 hectares of the PIPLS is terrestrial, while the rest are coastal and marine areas.

The island, although exhibiting signs of human activities, remains generally pristine. It is under the protection of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), concerned local government units (LGUs) and the communities who have inhabited the island.

The PIPLS is twice recognized as an Outstanding Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Para El Mar: MPA Awards and Recognition. First, as third runner up in 2017, and first runner-up in the 2019 awards.

Interconnected ecosystems

An island hosting a former military base as declared under Presidential Proclamation 201 series of 1967, Palaui boasts of several interconnected ecosystems and plays vital roles in the ecological integrity of the ecosystems on mainland Cagayan.

Its ecosystems include coral reef, seagrass, mangrove forest, mudflats, dipterocarp forest and beach forest.

More importantly, the island boasts of outstanding sceneries with sweeping landscapes and seascapes, as well as a rich history.

The protectors of PIPLS said the

Endangered species; bird sanctuary

Growing human population

The growing population of human inhabitants on the island is a cause for concern for the protectors of Palaui.

A total of 803 people, comprising 171 households, are currently on the island. Ninety-seven of the families are considered “tenured migrants” as they have been living there before 1987, the cut-off period, or five years before the establishment of the PIPLS as a protected area in 1994.

A total of 74 families are considered “untenured,” or new entrants f rom neighbor i ng ba ra ngay s or municipa lities.

Being an island surrounded with the ocean’s bounty, fishing is the primary source of income of the people on the island, although some are also subsistence

Beautiful island

An aerial photograph of the historic lighthouse on Palaui Island DENR Cagayan Valley Region photo farmers who plant mostly vegetables and root crops.

Best practices

Pa rt of the strateg y in managing the PIPL S, the Protected A rea Management Board (PAMB) has come up w ith var ious activ ities to help the people generate income other than f ishing , by introduci n g s u s t a i n a ble l i ve l i ho o d a nd biodiversit y-fr iend ly enter pr ises.

The PAMB, along with the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) and concerned LGUs, also trained and deputized Wildlife Enforcement Officers (WEO) to help protect and conserve the island’s rich biodiversity.

The WEO are actively involved in the protection and regular monitoring of the terrestrial and marine resources in the PIPLS. People on the island have also earned their so-called badges as Reef Rangers, Tour Guides and Honey Hunters and they are also simultaneously conducting monitoring activities within the PIPLS while providing services to guests visiting the island.

Environmental protectors

As early as 1993, the Palaui Environmental Protectors Association (PEPA) was established through the DENR’s Coastal Environment Program.

It started as a multipurpose cooperative, and later on was registered as a rural workers’ association in 2006. It has a total of 320 members.

PEPA is conducting regular coastal clean-up every last Tuesday of the month, and the weekly collection of solid waste within the island.

The group is in charge of visitor

management, such as briefings and orientation with guests before the island tour.

The group also provides support to tourism facilities’ maintenance and development through their funds.

More importantly, as beneficiaries of the PIPLS, the group’s members actively participate in addressing issues and concerns within the protected area through the Integrated Coastal Resource Management Project (ICRMP).

Community help and support

Mervelyn Guiang, the protected area superintendent of PIPLS, said the people in the communities within the protected area are very supportive of the DENR’s programs.

“The barangays and local government units are also supportive, including the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority [CEZA],” she said.

According to Guiang, CEZA promotes PIPLS as a tourist spot by training tourist guides and linking the tourist guides to the Department of Tourism.

She said people on the island are now becoming more and more selfreliant with the various programs of the DENR. “Communities in the PIPLS form self-reliant groups to do economic activities, such as weaving native baskets. Another group is into honey bee gathering” from the narra trees where bees build their homes, she said.

She added that tourism is important that helps generate much-needed income for the people.

Fortunately, she said during the pandemic, the DENR was able to facilitate the

distribution of social amelioration program fund to all families on the island.

“Each of the family received P8,500.

But they also did some work for that amount,” she said.

Tourist magnet

Being a favorite tourist destination in the Cagayan Valley Region, the PIPLS boasts of humble facilities.

The Nature Village is the only area allowed as camping site.

It also has the Cape Engano Lighthouse (Faro de Cabo de Engano), a 19th century light house that was constructed during the Spanish era in the Philippines and which architect is the same as that of Cape Bojeador Lighthouse at Burgos, Ilocos Norte.

The Baraturbut Falls Crocodile Island, almost 2 kilometers from San Vicente Port in Sta. Ana, Cagayan, is between Luzon mainland and Palaui Island.

There are also two eco-trails on the island. There is the Lagunzad that was named after Dr. Daniel Lagunzad, a Filipino botanist, which is a 7.4 kilometers from Punta Verde bound to Cape Engaño Lighthouse.

The Leonardo Trail, named after Leonardo Co, the late Filipino botanist and plant taxonomist, who was considered the foremost authority in ethnobotany in the Philippines.

Care and maintenance

Interviewed on March 16 via telephone, Gwendolyn C. Bambalan, DENR-Region 2 executive director, said the DENR is currently focused on maintaining the tourism facilities on the island to promote ecotourism.

The PIPLS PAMB, she said, is also

According to Bambalan, the island is a beautiful island, giving the DENR one good reason to protect it from destructive human activities.

“We know that Palaui is very beautiful. I’ve seen its forest cover and it is still intact. There are many flora and fauna. Biodiversity monitoring is conducted there. The area has priority species both in terrestrial and coastal areas,” she said.

A c cord i n g to B a mb a l a n , t he i sl a nd boa st s of d ipteroc a r p t re e s p e c ies t h at c a n b e t a rgete d b y i l le g a l log ge r s.

“It is only an 8,000 hectare island and it is very fragile,” she said.

She maintained that the people living on the island are prohibited from cutting trees.

“There’s no tree-cutting or harvesting of trees there. But agricultural activities within the designated areas are allowed,” she said.

However, she said farming on the island means planting root crops and fruit-bearing trees, adding that there are other ways to earn on the island without targeting its fragile environment.

“They are subsistence farmers and they are fishers. They are also earning a lot from ecotourism,” she said.

Bambalan underscored the need to maintain the cur rent pr istine status of the island ’s ecosystem, par ticu larly the coasta l and mar ine area, say ing it is one of the reasons why Sta. A na is teeming w ith commercia l ly v iable f ishes.

“The mangroves are very important. And the coral reefs there are habitats of fishes. That’s why there’s plenty of fishes in Sta. Ana. Plus, of course, our ecotourism activities because we maintain our good forest cover, making the tourists are attracted to it,” she said.

Finding ‘loro’: The truth about parrotfish O

By Gregg Yan

ver the past years, social media posts have been circulating about the need to avoid parrotfish, popularly called loro or molmol, in public markets.

The posts have been shared tens of thousands of times with the best of intentions, but there’s more to the discussion than simply banning the capture of these colorful reef residents.

What are parrotfish?

Parrotfish are any of the 90 or so fish species belonging to the wrasse family. They’re common sights in tropical coral reefs because of their relatively large sizes—usually 6 inches to over 3 feet and shaped like a football—weird swimming behavior (like most wrasses, they use their pectoral or “arm” fins to glide like mammals), and insanely vibrant coloration (get a psychedelic drug and imagine a green fish. Voila, you get a parrotfish).

With teeth fused into a parrot-like beak that’s harder than gold, silver or copper, they efficiently scrape the surfaces of coral and rock, crushing whatever they eat into sand, which they poop out.

“Parrotfish are one of the many agents of bioerosion in coral reefs. Bioerosion combines physical and chemical erosion, plus natural reef growth. This natural process is important in maintaining the health of coral reefs,” explained Dr. Rene Abesamis, a noted marine scientist.

Divers love them because they’re great photo subjects, especially when they graze (they don’t flit around as much as say, damselfish). Their constant crunching can also be heard underwater

and is a constant reminder that reefs are very much alive and in flux.

Fisherfolk like them because they have a tendency to sleep at night in predictable locations, usually cocooned in a protective mucous good enough to hide from most predators—but not determined fisherfolk armed with spearguns. Thus, are markets from Cebu to Curacao constantly stocked with parrotfish.

As a diver and environmentalist, I’d like nothing more than to see wildlife left alone in their cozy coral reef homes—but we need to stick to science and consider marginalized coastal communities to dispel the following notions about parrotfish.

They keep corals healthy

Practically all social media posts portray parrotfish as “shepherds” which eat hair algae, preventing them from taking over coral reefs.

“Most parrotfish don’t really eat visible algae.

They graze on microscopic bacteria which live on reef surfaces, including rocks, corals and even seaweed. Some species also eat live coral, which are converted to sand,” explained Kent Sorgon, an ichthyologist or fish scientist.

A large parrotfish like a bumphead (Bolbometopon muricatum) for example, can transform a ton of live coral into white sand each year.

Without parrotfish, coral reefs will wither and die

This might be so if parrotfish dined purely on fastgrowing hair algae, but as above, they mostly target cyanobacteria growing on reef surfaces.

Many other grazers do a better job at keeping visible algae from choking off coral reefs—like

rabbitfish, damselfish and most especially surgeonfish, something I investigated in the Tubbataha Reefs in 2013.

A 2015 study by Dr. Angel Alcala and other scientists found no significant correlation between the presence of parrotfish, hard coral cover and algae.

It was instead found that more parrotfish were recorded in areas with less hard coral cover. I can attest to this, for diving in Laiya in Batangas in the early 2000s, I saw the most parrotfish in rubble areas devastated by storms, not in healthy reef areas.

“A recent review of studies around the globe concluded that there’s almost no empirical support for the idea that protecting parrotfish prevents coral reef decline,” Abesamis added.

“These notions can distract us from addressing the true drivers of coral reef decline, such as siltation, pollution, destructive fishing practices and climate change.”

Banning the capture, sale of parrotfish an effective conservation tool

E x p e r i e n c e has already shown that total fishing bans for selected groups of fish caught in nonselective gear, like a large net left for a few hours around a patch of reef, simply doesn’t work.

“What a fishing ban on a specific group that’s also economically important might do is to likely shift fishing pressure to other groups, which can adversely affect coral reef systems,” Kent added.

Many fishers in the Philippines and beyond

depend on various types of reef fish for their sustenance and livelihoods. Simply saying ‘Stop fishing for parrotfish!’ won’t work [even if you ask nicely and say please] and will most likely be resented by subsistence fishers living well below the daily poverty threshold of P100 daily.

“A ban isn’t inclusive for fisherfolk because it’s a solution which caters to either the environment or people, not both. Sustainable solutions should be created in par tnership w i t h t h o s e w h o d i re c t l y re l y o n m a r i n e resources. Fishers should always be considered collaborators for conservation, never enemies,” notedGela Petines, founder of Batang VIP. Except for bumphead parrotfish, which are classified as “Vulnerable”by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a total ban on catching parrotfish shouldn’t be a priority management action.

“If the objective is to sustain fisheries, then parrotfish must be managed just like how most other reef fish targeted for food are managed,” Abesamis added.

Parrotfish are more important than other reef denizens

Let’s be clear: all sea creatures are equally important, being connected in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.

Though cute and charismatic creatures like whales, dolphins, sea turtles and large fish are far easier for people to relate to, even the smallest plants and animals serve a greater purpose.

Corals, sponges, clams and barnacles, for instance, act as living filters, forever straining water of particulate matter.

A­ whitespot parrotfish uses its pectoral fins to glide in Apo Reef in Occidental Mindoro. Many parrotfish go through various color phases as they mature, wit h juveniles having completely different color patterns from adults. Occasionally caught for the marine aquarium trade, parrotfish are difficult to keep in captivity, requiring highly specialized food. Kent Sorgon Sea urchins and cucumbers are effective grazers and scavengers. Even what we can’t see, microscopic free-floating algae, provide food for trillions of fish while generating much of the oxygen you and I are breathing now.

Eliminate one group and the system can change dramatically.

And because all sea creatures are equally important, the solution to save the world’s coral reefs isn’t to ban the capture and sale of a single fish group.

It’s to ramp up efforts to conserve the planet’s remaining coral reefs by veering away from expensive and dirty fossil fuels which accelerate human-induced global warming, minimizing coastal development (particularly reclamation), avoiding single use plastics (such as the extra

plastic we’re using now for facemasks, faceshields, takeout food and online shopping packages), minimizing coastal pollution and run-off from rivers, better-managing fisheries, shifting to more sustainable alternatives and empowering instead of castigating coastal communities whose lives and livelihoods depend so much on the sea.

When we apply these solutions cohesively, we protect not just our lovable, colorful parrotfish, but the natural systems that can keep tomorrow’s oceans as vibrant and productive as they are now and that’s the secret to saving loro.

Gregg Yan is the executive director of Best Alternatives, an environmental nonprofit group that promotes sustainable and equitable alternatives to various products and practices.

Sports BusinessMirror

A8

Sunday, April 11, 2021

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph • Editor: Jun Lomibao

VITARTI Girl’s Team mechanics (from left) Estenania Onofrio, Paula Salazar and Victoria Pascual stand next to driver Karina Dobal before the start of their first race at the Oscar y Juan Galvez track in Buenos Aires. AP

THE match between No. 37-ranked Hubert Hurkacz and No. 31 Jannik Sinner is the first Association of Tennis Professionals Masters 1000 final since 2003 with two players ranked outside the top 30. AP

In this March 20, 2015 file photo, Brazilian soccer legend Pele smiles during a media opportunity at a restaurant in London. Rio’s state legislature voted the second week of March 2021, to give Gov. Claudio Castro the authority to rename the historic Maracana stadium after Pele.\ AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth

BusinessMirror

April 11, 2021

Dear Normal Were you really that great in the first place?

2

BusinessMirror APRIL 11, 2021 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

LOVE SONG IN A BRIGHT, RIGHT GROOVE

Adjeng’s new single brings a ray of sunshine to these challenged times

W

ITH what’s happening around us, the least thing we need is to listen to some songs that will further put us down the drain of sorrow and sadness. Nothing wrong with the overused hugot word trying to sell such songs to those who have fallen or used to the idea of being that damsel in distress or the boy sacrificing his own joy by just letting someone else take the girl he really likes.

Publisher

: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

Editor-In-Chief

: Lourdes M. Fernandez

Concept

: Aldwin M. Tolosa

Y2Z Editor

: Jt Nisay

SoundStrip Editor

: Edwin P. Sallan

Come on, we need some bright love songs, don’t we?

Here comes one: “O Sige Lang”

by ADJENG. The track, dropped in digital stores last Friday (April 9) is by all accounts a romantic upbeat pop single that offers positivity seldom do we hear now. It is the lady singer’s debut single which she co-wrote.

Finally, here’s a number, an ode to good ol’ sweet, romantic dancing, that will not make one post to say how much he can relate to the hurt being shared in

Group Creative Director : Eduardo A. Davad Graphic Designers Contributing Writers

Columnists

: Niggel Figueroa Anabelle O. Flores : Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Darwin Fernandez, Leony Garcia, Stephanie Joy Ching Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez : Kaye VillagomezLosorata Annie S. Alejo

Photographers

: Bernard P. Testa Nonie Reyes

Y2Z & SOUNDSTRIP are published and distributed free every Sunday by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror Publishing Inc. as a project of the

The Philippine Business Mirror Publishing, Inc., with offices on the 3rd Floor of Dominga Building III 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner Dela Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines.

Tel. Nos. (Editorial) 817-9467; 813-0725.

Fax line: 813-7025 Advertising Sales: 893-2019;

817-1351,817-2807.

Circulation: 893-1662; 814-0134 to 36. www.businessmirror.com.ph

ADJENG

the song when in fact in real life the singer behind the track must just be in the arms of a true love and living the time of his life.

Sounding honest and really bright, ADJENG shared, “God’s timing couldn’t be more perfect. Yes, we all know that the pandemic has brought its share of difficulty. But I wanted to channel my energy into something positive, and make sure that it is something that I could share with my husband and children for the long haul.

Very few things immortalize

memories and feelings more than words and music.”

The track, recorded with ADJENG recording her vocals at home, makes good use of brilliant engineering which made the number sound polished and crafted via big studio production.

ADJENG’s tight lyricism is in full display, complementing the song’s very recallable chorus melody, going with straight-tothe-point yet classy Tagalog poetry, “O sige lang ... sumayaw sana huwag nang matapos ang kanta. Sige lang , sige lang.

Puso ko’y humihiyaw huwag ka naman sanang mawawala.”

She noted, “I pray that my song can make listeners return to a moment in their lives where they were fully present and embracing that kilig coupled with the hope of making a beautiful memory last by dancing with the one who stole their hearts.”

ADJENG wrote her first solo record with Nino Regalado, her frequent collaborator. She’s a seasoned lead singer in the band scene, having fronted the bands Sipol and Wink. She experienced releasing albums in CD format and being promoted by a mainstream pop label.

Outside of her group she established herself in notable songwriting competitions, from The Levi Celerio Music Festival to PhilPop Songfest. In 2010, she and Nino’s tandem made the short list to the KBP Music Awards, and the first FILSCAP (Filipino Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) competition.

“It may have been a long time coming to record and release my originals. But I think it’s worth the wait,” ADJENG, a handson parent and worship leader, pointed out.

ADJENG hopes to collaborate with more musicians as she intends to release others songs in her vault or fresh compositions in the coming months. Perhaps more of this now-rare kind that “O Sige Lang” perfected in sound, rhythm, and mood.

IC

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | APRIL 11, 2021

BUSINESS

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

GOING ROCK STEADY Coffee Break Island on matters of the heart and soul

COFFEE Break Island

I

N the pandemic-ravaged past year, Pinoy band Coffee Break Island (CBI) pulled a major coup, releasing two albums that delved into two separate themes. The first one, their newest titled “Heart Attack, celebrates love and by extension, life that’s largely threatened by a viral killer epidemic. The second one titled Bumi after the Sanskrit word for “Earth” is a collaboration with Bobby Balingit of pioneering local punk band Wuds.

At first brush, “Heart Attack” takes a detour from the eclectic scope of Coffee Break Island’s debut :”No Hero” released in 2017. Where their first release blew hot and diverse with punk, rock and roll, ska and slow ballads jostling for attention, their latest sophomore effort mines classic rocksteady and lovers’ rock grooves seeking to spread the love vibe in a time of infections and lockdowns.

In an online meet, CBI frontman/guitarist Paul Puti-an with his wife Liza, who’s also the band manager, told Soundstrip, “We already had a concept for the latest album even before the pandemic hit. What we wanted was for the record to sound like

you’re listening to influential rocksteady albums. We aimed to take the listener back to the time of lovers’ rock in Jamaican music.”

“Eventually, it dawned on us that “Heart Attack” has calming effect,” Paul added. “The tracks are all love songs, rocksteady all the way in contrast to our debut which was going in different musical directions from one cut to the next.”

Love is certainly all over the new album’s lyrical trajectory.

The music may go bouncing (“Bring It Down”), funky (“Panaginip”) or pure pop for dreadlocks (“Every Step We Take Is Right”) but there’s no mistaking the bigger message

from the song title “That Thing Called Love” to specific lines that go: “Larawan mo’y nakatatak sa aking mata/ Tamis na yong halik ay di mabura” (“Alaala”) or “You’re the wonderful thing that happened to my life/Your love protecting me every day” (“Wonderful Thing”).

Liza shared, “We also thought that with the troubles and stress all around, the album exudes a positive vibe. It’s something comforting that we need today.”

Which brings up the question, how are they surviving in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic?

“We went farming and we’re doing okay, actually” was Liza’s quick response.

Paul talked about a retreat to a creative sanctuary. He explained, ”Before the lockdown in March last year, we have completed recording the new album. We also decided to go up at Alitatap, an artists’ community in Amadeo, Cavite, where we initially hoped to work on our future plans.

“We have stayed there since then. Who knew the pandemic would have a second season?”

They became neighbors with punk legend Bobby Balingit.

At the same time, their music found a ready audience in the fine creative families that also

sought refuge in Alitaptap and the occasional gigs posted online have attracted a following among stay at home netizens.

More than the illustrious neighbors, Liza felt that lockdown in a community of creative people help inspire others, including the band, to be more imaginative and resourceful and come up with better creations in their company.

Paul presented a more practical view. He reasoned, “Before the pandemic, we would be thinking about bar shows and corporate gigs. Now, we channel our energy to make music, to more creative pursuits and cooperation. Of course, we’re on this mindset while waiting for the pandemic to subside and fade away!”

He also mentioned that the new album is being promoted through social media. The sales is secondary. Right now, he just wants to spread the band’s music to a wider audience.

A new CBI line up recorded “Heart Attack” namely, Raffy (keyboards), Dennis (drums), Ron (bass) and Paul (guitars, vocals and Tanduay).

The conversation with the band was conducted in Filipino and the quotes in the article were translations in English done by the writer.

3

Dear Normal: Were you really that great in the first place?

By Sophia Rosenbaum The Associated Press

D

ear Normal, everyone wants you back.

It seems every day of this late-stage pandemic era (In the US, that is. In these parts, in the words of former health secretary Dr. Esperanza Cabral, we are “10 steps back from square one”—Ed) is marked with someone wistfully talking about Normal: going back to you, starting new with you. It’s all about norms and normalcy. All about you.

As for me, I’m not so interested in Normal. I defer to Taylor Swift: We are never, ever, ever getting back together.

It felt normal to want Normal back at first. Last year, in those first months, daydreaming of you was a constant daily escape from all of the endless dire possibilities. I wanted my life back. I wanted the control.

Complaining about commuting or being too busy was the norm in the B.C. (before Covid) era. But in those early days, the mundane was what we craved.

Packing into a subway car, grabbing an unplanned drink with a friend, hugging parents, striking up a conversation with a stranger.

And yet all of those Normal desires felt entirely unfathomable. Would we ever be able to go to a crowded space?

If we could, would we want to? The answer then felt like a definite no, especially with mortality and death constantly wailing in our ears. The fear of the unknown was like a weighted blanket, but one that provided no comfort or warmth.

It was then that I craved my Normal most.

It wasn’t just me. Over the last year, our obsession with normalcy has shown up on Google, with the highest spike in searches around mid-April 2020, when it seemed we might have been able to resume life as we once knew it.

Searching for normal went up again around the start of the school year in September and around the holidays in late November. But as the search trends show, these desires for normalcy ebb and flow, constantly fading and morphing.

The experience of living through the yearlong aberration feels like the rapidfire history verses of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”—condensed into

family and friends, or anyone, for extended periods of time. A whole crop of young people finding grace after being robbed of moments big and small. We got used to it. We normalized the unimaginable.

Now, in late-stage pandemic life, the echoes of this unimaginable life creep into my dreams, leaving me wandering around a packed place like Walt Disney World maskless, or being the only exposed face in a sea of people wearing a mask. “It’s normal,” my therapist told me. “Everyone is having these dreams.”

Well, great—more Normal I didn’t ask for.

“The thing about normalcy is that it’s never universal. My Normal is not yours.

And because of that, it perpetuates life’s inequalities, many of which have been laid bare by the pandemic.” one tumultuous year. The world shuts down, a racial reckoning, a divisive election. Loss after loss after loss. A previously unimaginable attack on the peaceful American transfer of power.

A jittery inauguration. Multiple vaccines—and a glimpse of a world beyond the pandemic.

After living through all that, going back to Normal feels more and more like returning to a lover we just can’t seem to leave.

B.C., adaptability sometimes felt a lot different, from adjusting to time zones to changing wardrobes according to the season. Meanwhile, the past year has given the word a new meaning.

Many people have a new perspective of their capabilities. Impossible things became possible: Maintaining relationships online and enduring not seeing

The thing about normalcy is that it’s never universal. My Normal is not yours. And because of that, it perpetuates life’s inequalities, many of which have been laid bare by the pandemic.

These are problems that don’t have easy solutions and may not even be solved in our lifetimes. Sure, many people may want things to change. But will they commit to being part of that? Or will it be just like a resolution made at the start of a new year, one that is broken within a month or two?

When we have a green light to start living life again, to enter a new Normal, what will we hold onto from this time?

Will we really stay unbusy? Will we care more about work flexibility, employee protections, access to medical coverage?

Will anti-racism efforts, once at the forefront of the zeitgeist, be prioritized or

forgotten? Will mass shootings become the exception rather than a painful rule?

Will there be any systemic change?

Not likely, Pandemic author Sonia Shah said on a recent episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight.

“We usually go right back to business as usual as soon as the thing ends, as soon as we have a drug, as soon as we have a vaccine,” she said. “We don’t really do the fundamental social change.”

We’ve already experienced that.

When life changed, there was a period of adjustment. It took a while to get used to it. Then we did. That’s happening again right now in the United States as more people are vaccinated and infection rates decrease. Already, the pulls of Normal are tugging.

For all the growth and change and adaptation that has happened in the past year, it is hard to even define what a post-pandemic normalcy might mean.

The dictionary defines it simply as conforming to a standard—usual, typical, or expected. Is that really what we want?

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be,” Maya Angelou once said.

Without Normal, the path forward is more open, the opportunities perhaps broader. What if there’s a whole lot of amazing that stands to be lost if Normal returns? What if, instead of banking on normalcy, we focused on that one-of-a-kind ability to adapt and evolve? Maybe that’s the way forward, instead of simply reconciling with what was and trying to recreate something that’s already had its day.

It’s too late, anyway. Remember, Normal: You and me, we already broke up.

ON THE COVER: Kyree Kayoshi, his dog Kumi, and Miranda de Llano use circles marked for social distancing to help battle the Covid-19 virus as they relax at the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio, Texas. AP

‘Glass ceiling’ remains: The persistent struggle for women in politics

By Pauline Gutierrez

I

n a recent online forum of young female leaders, economist and politician Stella Quimbo spoke of the underrepresentation of female public figures in law-making positions in the Philippine government.

“In the House of Representatives, there are only 85 congresswomen—that’s 28.3 percent out of 300 representatives. In the Upper House, of the 24 senators, only 7 are women,” Quimbo said during the “Young Female Leaders in Politics” webinar organized by the FriedrichNaumann-Foundation for Freedom. “Sadly, both houses of Congress still fall short of having that 30-percent ‘critical mass,’ much less [an] equal, 50-50 representation.”

In 2017, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) cited studies that a legislator’s gender has a distinct impact on their policy priorities. The NDI stated that it is critical that women are present in politics to represent the concerns of women and other marginalized voters, as well as to help improve the responsiveness of policy-making and governance.

Notwithstanding the Philippines’s advances in terms

of closing the gender gap (the country ranked among the top 10 most gender-equal countries in the world for more than a decade, according to the World Economic Forum), there exists a growing concern for gender imbalance in leadership. Patriarchal norms and values prevail, including social biases, which hinder women from holding office.

“In terms of education, women actually outperform men. There are more women among those who finish higher levels of education and fewer women among those with lower levels of educational attainment. Furthermore, fewer girls than boys drop out of school,” Quimbo said.

“Women clearly have the qualifications, yet they lack the same leadership opportunities.”

The politician added that gender stereotypes discourage voters from supporting women candidates. That women are looked down upon as weak, emotional and indecisive “affects the preference of political parties or groups to finance male candidates who are perceived to have higher probabilities of winning the election,” according to the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW).

Meanwhile, general society continues to designate domestic responsibilities to females, Quimbo said.

In the paper, titled “Barriers and Solutions to Increas-

4 BusinessMirror

ing Women’s Political Power,” Shauna Shames of the Rutgers University-Camden Studies posited that women also have to deal with a “motherhood penalty.” This relates not only to the time, effort, and medical care during pregnancy and childbirth, but to the persistent tendency of women to carry a larger share of childcare through the years. In fact, a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center found that mothers were more likely to experience significant career interruptions to attend to their families’ needs.

Thus, when women do decide to run for office, “they [have to] weigh their educational background, previous political experience, encouragement from others, and familial responsibilities especially child bearing and rearing—factors that men are less likely to consider as much when deciding to run,” Quimbo said.

She added that even when women are appointed to leadership roles, the battle continues. Women leaders are almost always designated to agencies or departments that address “feminine” roles in society.

“Of the 12 women cabinet members of the last five administrations, half were appointed as Secretary of Social Welfare and Development. Generally, this may reflect a tendency to limit women leaders to a certain stereoApril 11, 2021

type—more ‘nurturing’ and less ‘strong.’” Quimbo said.

Political accountability to women, she added, begins with increasing the number of women in decision-making positions, but “it cannot stop there.”

“For each woman and girl, I believe we all have a responsibility to uplift each other and embody the ideals of gender equality,” Quimbo said. “I’m sure we all look forward to the eventual day when, in the selection and determination of our leaders, gender won’t even be a factor anymore. With collective action among women, and including men as our allies, I believe we can turn this ideal into a reality.”

Hon. Stella Quimbo was one of the speakers at the recent “Young Female Leaders in Politics” webinar organized by the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation for Freedom.