BusinessMirror April 14, 2024

ENDURING slashed incomes for nearly two years bit hard on 37-year-old single mother Veniel (not her real name) and her family.

Filipinos forced to return home by the pandemic are flying out in droves to jobs that can fulfill their ‘dreams,’ raising questions of whether this means Covid-19’s wrath has been fully avenged. She

eign labor starting in 2022, these returnees due to Covid-19 took the chance.

end

P12,000

Veniel’s

Th at P25,000 in total aid, plus some little savings that Veniel brought home, still weren’t enough. So was online selling.

Sister Bee, a domestic worker and mother of one in Pateros, sends the bulk of her P6,500 salary plus extra incomes from selling prepaid mobile phone credit. Another sister, Ida, also a domestic worker, sends the bulk of her P7,000 salary.

Life’s oh-so hard [napakahirap],” Veniel says. “I needed to go out of the country again, immediately.”

Diminished incomes did push many of the 2,348,098 returnee OFWs to seriously consider repeating their overseas migration. And once destination countries’ borders reopened and their labor markets went back to hiring for-

Returning THE Philippines went back to its economic strongholds —labor migration and foreign remittances— these past two years. Four years since Covid-19 put human mobility to a screeching halt, the Philippines and her army of workers went back migrating. Newly hired and rehired OFWs in foreign lands and in ocean-plying vessels reached 2,330,720 in 2023, says fresh data from the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW).

That’s a 323.9-percent increase from pandemic-hit 2020; only 549,841 OFWs went out that year. Th at 2.33 million number of deployed OFWs last year is a 55-year record since the Philippines started recording departing overseas contract workers in 1969 (3,694).

The “pandemic returnees” waited for those moments when their former employers would call them up and when it’s safe to travel again. Seafarer Ylrem Dhi Barbo, 30, waited to go back on board since his savings dried up in

By Sheila May Balagan, Jilliane Rae Manuel, Christine Nicole Montojo, Claire Sofia Pascual, Ziannen Francine Santos & Jeremaiah Opiniano OFW Journalism Consortium

Xi Jinping hosts former Taiwan president in Beijing, in rare diplomatic engagement

By Bloomberg News

CHINESE leader Xi Jinping recently met former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing, a rare act of diplomatic engagement between the two sides seemingly designed to spotlight the Communist Party’s willingness to talk to the island’s opposition.

The two septuagenarians shook hands before each delivering remarks while seated across from each other in a large conference room inside the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday afternoon.

External interference cannot stop the historical trend of national reunification,” Xi told Ma—the first former Taiwan leader to visit the Chinese capital—while accompanied by Cai Qi and Wang Huning, two top party officials. His comments appeared aimed at the US, which provides Taiwan with political and military support.

Ma, president of the self-ruled democracy from 2008 to 2016, said both sides of the Taiwan Strait should oppose independence and stick to the 1992 consensus. That’s

an agreement between China and the Kuomintang, which Ma once led, stating there is just one China, although they differ on their definition of that country. “If war breaks out between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, it’ll be unbearable for the Chinese nation,” he added. “Chinese people on both sides of the strait are definitely wise enough to handle various disputes peacefully and avoid conflicts.”

X i told Ma that talks could start if Taiwan recognizes it is part of China, according to Xinhua News Agency, which said the Chinese president also extended condolences to victims of a deadly earthquake in Taiwan earlier this month.

W hile the meeting is unlikely

to lead to any fundamental changes in cross-strait ties, it carries symbolic weight. Initially reported to be scheduled for Monday, the sitdown eventually landed on the eve of a leaders summit between the US, Japan and the Philippines in Washington to discuss concerns

over China’s growing assertiveness.

Holding a Xi-Ma meeting around the same time as the US gathering could be an effort to contrast Beijing’s “supposedly peaceful handling of cross-strait ties with the defense-oriented components of the trilateral,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

C hina’s most-powerful leader since Mao Zedong may also be trying “to show that people from Taiwan, especially political figures, will be well treated and respected if they are pliant to his wishes,” he added.

The ruling Communist Party considers Taiwan a breakaway province, and Xi has pledged to bring it under China’s control someday, by force if necessary. Beijing frequently flexes its muscles on the issue, most notably by holding unprecedented military exercises around the island after then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in 2022.

In contrast to the bonhomie between Xi and Ma, Chinese officials have condemned Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party and its incoming president, Lai Ching-te, as “separatists” who risk starting a war. Taiwan has warned China is likely to step up its pres-

sure on Lai, including militarily, before and after he is inaugurated in May.

C hina’s preferred negotiating partner in Taiwan is the KMT. Cross-strait ties flourished during Ma’s time as president, and he met with Xi in Singapore in 2015. That was the first summit between the two sides since they fought a civil war in the first half of 20th century.

Still, Ma’s influence in Taiwan has waned in recent years, exemplified by his failed attempt to broker a unity ticket between two Beijing-friendly candidates in the recent presidential election. Despite that, he remains a rare Taiwanese figure with direct access to top leaders in the world’s second-largest economy.

During a visit by Ma to China last year, officials highlighted their nation’s cultural links with the island, as they have done on his current trip. Xi said on Wednesday that “compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have always been of the same origin, holding hands and looking forward to the future.”

Song Tao, the head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office who also attended the sitdown, said in a meeting with Ma in the southern city of Shenzhen earlier in his trip that “compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are all Chinese.”

C hinese state media reported Ma visited the Great Wall near Beijing, where he sang a song dating back to the nation’s war with Japan. While in the northwestern city of Xi’an, the former Taiwanese leader visited archives that hold texts China says prove it holds sovereignty over disputed islands in the South China Sea.

With assistance from Brian Fowler and Evelyn Yu / Bloomberg

Revenge migration? Not really.

Continued from A1

2022—and his mother needed to sustain therapy sessions given her multiple sclerosis. Y lrem’s back on a ship, as an oiler, last year.

Recovering lost ground

IN 2021, analysts like University of the Philippines political scientist Dr. Jorge Tigno projected that prepandemic migrant deployment “will not return overnight.” Prepandemic year 2019 was a benchmark: the Philippines sent out 2,156,742 OFWs, the previous highest number of deployments.

But given the country’s own economic recovery efforts, Tigno writes that “the Philippines needs labor migration to weather through future economic crises, as well as to address the socioeconomic issues caused by the pandemic.”

W hen countries slowly reopened their borders and labor markets, the Philippines took advantage of such opportunities, says economist Alvin Ang of Ateneo de Manila University. With the 2023 record deployment, he thinks increasing migrant workers’ deployments “will continue but will normalize in the coming years.”

But is this a case of “revenge migration,” like “revenge travel” for tourism? No, says Maruja Asis of the nonprofit Scalabrini Migration Center, who describes it rather as a post-pandemic “demand for migrant workers in various economic sectors.”

Host countries went back to rebuilding their economies. Some countries felt the stress of having more older people and fewer workers. And just like prior to Covid-19, citizens in host countries still shun certain types of work, like farming.

A ll these drove post-pandemic

migration, Asis adds.

Recouping ESTIMATES using the country’s Family Income and Expenditures Survey show that OFW households earned an annual average of P168,150 in foreign remittances in 2021. That’s more than P30,000 below what they earned from abroad in 2018 (P201,161.20 on average).

Like many Filipino families, OFW households “are trying to rebuild their lives past the pandemic,” says Asis. “Returning to work abroad is one of those household strategies [and a preferred option] for employment.”

Returning to the United States in 2022 as a caregiver was “my ultimate decision,” says 44-year-old Beverly (not her real name). Once the US loosened its travel and border protocols, Beverly’s mind carried no second thoughts: The US “is where my bread and butter is.”

The Philippine government has been managing the overseas exodus of workers and of citizens wishing to settle permanently elsewhere since 1974 through their country’s Labor Code and the government agencies past and present tasked to ensure safe and orderly migration through regular channels. But the prepandemic era had its share of tribulations for OFWs: abuses, labor exploitations, trafficking, contract substitution, illegal recruitment, and many more.

The pandemic, says Asis, only but provided a lesson that mattered: one’s health. During the early months of lockdowns across the world, mental health became a key concern for foreign workers and seafarers.

W hile the two-year-old DMW continued previous decades of migrant worker protection measures, Asis says telehealth can broaden

OFWs’ access to health services. On the other hand, DMW may have to address rampant online recruitment that increases risks of irregular migration and trafficking, Asis adds.

Readying to embark

MEANWHILE , as the Philippines moves forward from the pandemic, so are workers from the countryside who missed earning the dollars that provided them comfort.

Former seafarer Ed, 53, from Pampanga, is waiting for that chance. That chance is worth around US$1,000 to US$1,500 a month. “I always think of my family.”

Th at second chance is what Mary Campit, 47, awaits, too: leaving Moncada, Tarlac, and heading to a new overseas destination armed with her previous experience as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, that ended in 2022.

Campit’s siblings and her farmer-husband opposed her decision to go, but the desire to improve her children’s living conditions didn’t stop her. Once son Joshua returns to Moncada from his own work abroad, Mary’s next. Her youngest child has to finish school.

My siblings wanted me to back out. I said, ‘Can you give me P20,000 a month? Can you send my children to school?’” Mary told her siblings.

“ You and your families have dreams. I have dreams, too.”

The OFW Journalism Consortium is a nonprofit news service writing stories on overseas Filipinos and the country’s migration phenomenon. This pooled story stems from a story requirement in a journalism course at the University of Santo Tomas—Reporting on Global Migration—that the OFW Journalism Consortium is handling.

CHINESE President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou as they meet in Beijing on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in a bid to promote unification between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949. JU PENG/XINHUA VIA AP

Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World

How a Japanese firm’s bid for US Steel became about Biden and swing states

TBy Joe Deaux & Josh Wingrove

AKAHIRO MORI traveled more than 12 hours from Tokyo to Pittsburgh to secure what he hoped would be one of the biggest-ever steel mergers. On the other side of the table from the Nippon Steel Corp. executive sat the one man who now appeared to have the fate of the $14 billion deal in his hands: David McCall, head of the United Steelworkers union.

The Japanese bid to take over United States Steel Corp. had widely been viewed as a slamdunk offer—the only sticking point was winning over the union and, in turn, its political leverage. Mori assured McCall that Nippon Steel would offer commitments to invest more than $1 billion in the iconic American company while also promising no idling of plants and, most importantly to its workers, no immediate layoffs.

After extending his olive branch, Mori was met with eight minutes of silence as the union read the fine print before a reluctant McCall even

responded. The talks dissolved in less than an hour, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Since that fateful March meeting, McCall and the union have continued to slam the deal over labor concerns, even while leaving the door open for more negotiations.

Unions don’t typically hold much sway in the world of takeover battles. But Nippon Steel’s bid to buy US Steel is now caught in an election year maelstrom as President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, in the wake of the union’s objections, have both publicly opposed the deal as they vie for blue-collar votes. The turmoil threatens to strain American relations with one of its top allies while underscoring how the politics of winning swingstate voters is dramatically influencing the corporate landscape.

“It’s a very tough time right now for a marquee-type deal like this to be happening, because there’s politics in every direction,” said Michelle Galanter Applebaum, who’s covered the industry for four decades as an analyst, including at

Salomon Brothers Inc.

The political tumult is now background to a summit between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington this week—a gathering that’s meant to demonstrate the strength of the alliance. And while the meeting comes just as signs emerge that the steel deal still has a path forward, there are other tensions brewing.  The Biden administration recently enacted an unexpected moratorium on liquefied natural gas export facilities, with the move coming as a surprise to Japanese importers that were in talks to invest in or procure fuel from the facilities. The US also imposed tougher sanctions on a Russian Arctic LNG project vital to Tokyo.

The political outcry came swiftly after Nippon Steel announced its bid in December. That same day, Pennyslvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman shot a video from the roof of his Braddock home with a US Steel mill in the background. “It’s absolutely outrageous that they have sold themselves to

a foreign nation,” Fetterman said. Others echoed his misgivings, including the state’s other senator, Bob Casey, and Biden’s foremost economic aide, Lael Brainard. Then in March, Biden called for domestic ownership.

“I told our steel workers I have their backs, and I meant it,” Biden said in a statement just one week after the failed meeting between Mori and McCall. US Steel shares fell that day to the lowest since mid-December, just before Nippon Steel announced its offer. The stock is trading about 25 percent below the $55-a-share bid.

The takeover is now going through a secretive national review process, one that’s typically reserved for business involving adversarial nations such as Russia, not countries like Japan, which has served as a key American ally for decades. The outcome of the review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States also has the potential to be contested in court.

“I think they should block the original deal, as announced,”

Chris Deluzio, a Pittsburgh-area Democratic congressman, said in an interview, adding: “I imagine, no matter what, the lawyers are going to have their say in either direction here.”

Still, it’s clear that Biden’s motivations aren’t to single out Japan—this is all about winning hearts in places like Pennsylvania.

Trump won Pennsylvania on his way to victory in 2016, and Biden—who was born in the state—won it in 2020. Now on the doorstep of the 2024 rematch, both candidates are wooing the same workers. Trump said he would “absolutely” block the steel deal. Biden called for US Steel to be American-owned, while so far stopping short of an outright pledge to block it.

Even then, Biden’s strong stance against the deal so far isn’t considered its death knell, according to interviews with a dozen people familiar with the discussions. Nippon Steel’s deal may ultimately close for a range of reasons, including because there are problems and trade-offs in every alternate

scenario and the potential for litigation over what authority Biden has, they said. Many don’t expect a decision before the US presidential election in November.

“The partnership between Nippon Steel and US Steel reflects the close alliance between Japan and the United States. We are confident that our partnership will protect and grow US Steel,” the companies said in a joint e-mailed statement. “The deal will protect jobs, strengthen American supply chains, and enhance the competitiveness of the US economy, all while building resilience against threats from China. US Steel’s headquarters will remain in Pittsburgh, and its products— supported by significant capital investments and technology sharing from Nippon Steel—will remain mined, melted, and made in America.”

To understand why the future of US Steel is so critical to the 2024 election, you just need to talk with the parishioners of

The World

Wealth management’s rising star in Asia brings in $14 billion client funds to UBS

By Chanyaporn Chanjaroen & Denise Wee

YOUNG JIN YEE quit her last job after less than six months to take on one of the hardest tasks in private banking: combining the Asia operations of UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse. Now almost 10 months into her new role as UBS’s co-head of AsiaPacific wealth management, the former international gymnast is making a mark.

Net new client funds brought in under Young’s remit came to almost $14 billion during the second half of last year, people familiar with the matter said. She’s using her ties with UBS investment bankers hailing from Credit Suisse to win business from ultra-rich clients. And former Credit Suisse operations in Southeast Asia, one of her areas, broke even early this year for the first time since the merger. It amounts to a positive start for one of Asia’s highest-profile bankers, according to interviews with 11 people with knowledge of her work, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

But challenges remain. One is to build the business in India and Australia, two booming—and increasingly important—wealth markets. Another is to manage layoffs and cut costs after the merger. Biggest of all is to bring together two very different cultures.

Whether Young succeeds will help determine if UBS can translate its size advantages in wealth management into higher profits and a bigger share of a fragmented market. It will also be a factor in the latest test of whether governmentorchestrated rescues of financial

giants ever really work. “It’s a tough job,” said Martin Kuenzler, a former private-banking executive who spent 19 years at Credit Suisse. “Jin Yee will have to prove herself.”  UBS announced in March 2023 that it was buying Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.3 billion) in a shock deal brokered by the Swiss government. Just before the takeover closed in June, Young had revealed her strategy as Asia-Pacific wealth head at Deutsche Bank AG, which she’d joined in January after almost two decades at Credit Suisse. Some 16 private bankers had followed her to Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest exoduses in recent Asian private banking history.

So it surprised many when Young was offered—and took—the job at UBS, starting to run the AsiaPacific business in June alongside Amy Lo, a 29-year UBS veteran. Lo, who’s in her early 60s, handles Greater China from Hong Kong, while Young, 49, oversees the rest of the region from Singapore. Lo is also chair of global wealth management for Asia.

UBS wanted a former Credit Suisse person to help run the combined business and win back the more than $100 billion that panicked clients withdrew before Credit Suisse collapsed, people familiar with the matter said. Iqbal Khan, UBS’s global head of wealth management and a former Credit Suisse banker himself, personally recruited Young, one of the people said. “I was offered an opportunity to co-lead the best and largest wealth manager in the region, together with Amy, whom I admire greatly,” Young said in e-mailed comments.

“It was too big an opportunity to pass.”

One of Young’s overriding tasks is to help the world’s second-largest wealth manager after Morgan Stanley to gain a bigger market share. UBS wealth management oversees $3.9 trillion in client assets, but that’s just a fraction of the global pie, estimated at about $159 trillion by Bain & Co. and GlobalData as of the end of December. The two firms forecast the market to swell to around $195 trillion by the end of 2027.

Young has already made some progress. The almost $14 billion of net new client funds added under her remit from July to the end of December compared with roughly $10 billion attributable to Lo’s areas, people familiar with the matter said.

Young’s close cooperation with Tan Kuan Ern, who was one of Credit Suisse’s top investment bankers, is helping, people familiar with the matter said. Tan and his team have handled major deals such as the purchase by United Overseas Bank Ltd., the Singapore lender shaped by the late billionaire Wee Cho Yaw, of Citigroup Inc.’s South -

east Asia retail assets announced in 2022. Entrepreneurs who do business with the investment bank can sometimes become lucrative private banking clients.

Former Credit Suisse wealth operations in Southeast Asia, which is part of Young’s remit, broke even in January for the first time since the merger, according to people familiar with the matter.

But while net new money increased more in Asia-Pacific than any of the other three major regions in the last three months of 2023, operating profit was the lowest, largely due to a slowdown in China. Asia-Pacific’s cost-to-income ratio rose to 87.7 percent in the fourth quarter as a result of the merger, from just under 70 percent a year earlier. The combined headcount of UBS and Credit Suisse’s wealth management arms as of the end of December 2022, before the takeover, was more than twice the number for UBS’s largest competitors, HSBC Holdings Plc and DBS Group Holdings Ltd., according to the latest data from Hong Kong-based publication Asian Private Banker.

All this is adding to expectations for more layoffs. UBS started a round of about 70 job cuts in AsiaPacific in March, mainly in Hong Kong and Singapore, people familiar with the matter said. UBS’s number of employees in Asia-Pacific had already dropped to about 1,100 as of the end of December, from more than 1,200 at the end of September. The decrease came from cuts and people leaving of their own accord.

One challenge for Young is to build UBS’s business in India and Australia, markets that are seen as a way to diversify beyond a faltering China. UBS exited India’s onshore

business in 2014 and spun off its Australian wealth unit the next year. Now, it’s using the Credit Suisse teams that it acquired to make a comeback.

Young herself is less familiar with India and Australia, people with knowledge of the matter said. She has told staff that her focus for India is on the nation’s wealthy diaspora. But some have questioned whether she’s paying enough attention to the rapidly growing ranks of wealthy inside India, the people said.

UBS is the top foreign player in Australia and currently has the No. 1 wealth management business in the country, a spokesperson said. Non-resident Indians and ultrahigh net worth people in India are equally important to UBS’s strategy, the spokesperson said.

Young’s biggest task is to integrate two different cultures, one known for a cautious approach to wealth management, the other seen as faster moving and more cavalier.

UBS has focused on safeguarding client assets and giving them access to lucrative hedge fund, private equity and venture capital investments, as well as advice on succession planning. Credit Suisse relied more on extending loans to wealthy entrepreneurs in emerging markets such as Indonesia to win their private banking business.

“The culture and the way decisions are made today at UBS Group and its subsidiary Credit Suisse would be much different from Credit Suisse when she was there,” said Mak Yuen Teen, a National University of Singapore professor who researches corporate governance. “It would be interesting to see if she can achieve the same success.”

So far, staff reaction to Young has been mixed, according to people familiar with the matter. Some see her as candid and efficient, while others question her loyalty after moving so soon from Deutsche Bank. That departure also disappointed executives at the German lender, people with knowledge of the matter said. A spokesperson for Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

“The decision to leave naturally impacted Jin Yee’s image within Deutsche Bank and maybe more among those that followed her from Credit Suisse,” said Danny Jones, founding partner of executive search firm Huddlestone Jones in Singapore. Still, “she was a natural candidate and surpassed any internal options.”

Young moved to Singapore from Taiwan when she was five. She received Singapore citizenship before she competed for the city-state in the Southeast Asian Games in individual rhythmic gymnastics in 1991 and 1993.

Young joined Citigroup in Singapore in 1998 before moving to DBS in 2000. She started at Credit Suisse in 2003, rising to the No. 2 position in Asia wealth. A fluent Mandarin speaker, she travels to work every day in a chauffeurdriven Toyota Alphard after ditching the black Rolls Royce that she used at Credit Suisse. Her husband, a former private banker, sometimes picks her up after work in one of his sports cars.

“Jin Yee has taken on one of the largest leadership positions within the private banking sector in Asia,” Jones, the recruiter, said.

“The spotlight is now on Jin Yee.” With assistance from Preeti Singh, Ambereen Choudhury and Joyce Koh/Bloomberg

How a Japanese firm’s bid for US Steel became about Biden and swing states

the Saints Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Church in Braddock, about 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The church was founded in 1896, making it a contemporary of Andrew Carnegie’s first mill. On some sunny days, the towering US Steel facility known as the Edgar Thomson Plant, less than a 10-minute walk away, casts a shadow on the church.

Steel is built into the fabric of towns like Braddock. Pittsburgh’s professional football team is named after the industry (the Steelers), and even while US Steel long ago lost its dominance as the nation’s biggest producer of the metal, it’s still an American industrial icon.

“It’s the history of our town, it’s the history of our families, it’s the history of immigration in this country. Every immigrant group that came to this country they worked in the mills,” said Mary Beth Joscak, 68, a church parishioner with several family members that have worked in the steel mill.

But for all its romance, the industry has seen decades of decline thanks to stiff competition from rival producers in China, Russia and even Japan. Even as recently as 2015, US Steel was posting losses topping $1 billion and left investors worried the company could be on the path to bankruptcy.

“We went through some rough times,” said Rob Hutchison, a 28-year USW member who is an electrical technician at US Steel and a local union grievance chairman. Partly thanks to wide-ranging tariffs enacted to boost US industries, manufacturing employment during the Trump administration grew to the highest level since 2008, but remained well below the peak reached in 1979. Pandemic-related shutdowns wiped out any progress, with

the number of manufacturing employees in April 2020 falling to the lowest since 1941.

And while blue-collar workers remained steadfastly supportive of Trump in 2020, enough of them shifted their support to Biden in 2020 to put the politician over the top. Now on the doorstep of the 2024 rematch, both candidates are pulling out all the stops to woo the critical voting bloc.

Political outcry over the steel deal is quieter outside Pennsylvania. Michigan Senator Gary Peters hasn’t opposed the Nippon Steel deal and said any path forward must protect “American jobs, businesses, and supply chains” and honor union contracts.

For Biden’s part, he’s helped to helm the post-pandemic economic recovery that allowed US Steel to post full-year adjusted profits before some items of $5.59 billion in 2021—a sharp turnaround from the massive losses less than a decade earlier. The rebound allowed USW members to secure a more than 20% raise, a $4,000 bonus and increases to pension and 401k contributions.

“Coming out of Covid the company seemed to be doing extremely well for the first time in a long time, there weren’t a bunch of financial worries, there weren’t a bunch of people worried about losing their jobs,” Hutchison said during an interview at the USW’s historic downtown Pittsburgh office building. “Then suddenly out of nowhere within the plant we all started to get this message that they were talking about selling the company.” What the workers fear is not just losing their jobs, but also some of the protections that come with being union members, such as retirement benefits.

O nly about half of US Steel’s workers are members of the USW.

Part of that is because a large number of workers aren’t steelworkers, but hold typical office jobs.

The division among steelworkers comes down to those employed at plants that use traditional blast-furnace production of steel from iron ore, which are typically unionized, and the growing number that are at the more modern and less-polluting plant that remelts metal scrap instead—a so-called mini mill that isn’t unionized.

In late 2020, US Steel announced the full purchase of a state-of-the-art and nonunionized mini mill and announced plans to pour in an additional $3 billion to double capacity at the facility. The plant, called Big River Steel and located in Osceola, Arkansas, instantly became the crown jewel of the company. The purchase cemented Chief Executive Officer David Burritt’s reputation and many in the broader industry felt the pivot saved the company. But to pay for it, Burritt canceled a $1.3 billion plan to upgrade union-run Mon Valley, the flagship Pennsylvania plant where Carnegie built his first mill in the 1870s.

The move was the first of what the USW has seen as the company’s anti-union trend.

In r ecent years, US Steel idled production at its Granite City plant in Illinois a nd Great Lakes Works in Michigan, which are unionized plants. The company hasn’t shown any indication it wants to ramp those sites back up. In 2022, then-president of the USW Tom Conway (who has since passed away) put it bluntly in an interview with Bloomberg: “Clearly going to Arkansas is also a strategy to avoid a union. They’re not going into the Gary, Indiana, region or back into Detroit where you took steelmaking down, or Northeastern or Midwestern states where there’s unions.”

Nippon Steel’s original offer to US Steel, during the American company’s strategic review to sell all or parts of the business, was to buy the Arkansas mill and some iron ore mining operations at $9.2 billion. It’s a point not lost on Don Furko, president

of USW Local 1557, who sported a union t-shirt during the interview that Hutchison was also part of. F urko and Hutchison echoed Biden by saying they want US Steel to be American owned—but they also are quick to point out that their bigger concerns are about jobs. It’s a sentiment that’s been echoed by other w orkers, union officials, area residents and also by some of the politicians.

“ We felt that if the company was to be sold we want it to be to a company who would invest in our legacy facilities,” like the union shops such as Mon Valley, Furko said. “Anything that would keep us out of the cross hairs—that would be good.”

McCall has called the latest overtures by the Japanese company to win his support “meaningless.” Nippon Steel made what it called a binding commitment to the influential union in a March 27 letter. McCall dubbed it “another collection of empty promises and open-ended language that would enable it to skirt obligations to workers and retirees.”

McC all and the USW also continue to publicly back US-based Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., which had also pursued a purchase of US Steel. Cliffs CEO L ourenco Goncalves, whose original public offer for US Steel in August was what effectively first sparked the takeover saga, is now teasing another bid. He’s said his company is the only one that has the backing of the USW. “He’s made real commitments to us about capital investments in the facilities and steelmaking operations and blast furnace operations in this country,” McCall said in a recent interview with Bloomberg News. “That’s important to us.”

Conversations with McCall over the last few months reveal a decidedly different tone when he speaks about Nippon Steel versus Cliffs.

Back in March, McCall opened the meeting with Mori and other Nippon Steel officials with a jab: “ Why didn’t you call us when you knew you were going to buy US Steel?”

S till, McCall is also aware that Goncalves has his own shareholders to answer to. “F irst of all he’s the CEO of a major employer, so he represents the employer,” McCall said. “Sometimes we can easily align with him and what he represents, and sometimes we don’t.”

A spokeswoman for Cleveland-Cliffs wasn’t available for comment.

Analysts, officials and others following the deal closely tend to agree on one thing: the deal isn’t necessarily dead, but its path is unclear. Several options remain: Nippon Steel succeeds in buying US Steel, including through a potential legal fight; Cliffs or another entity buys it instead; everything collapses and US Steel remains independent; or it’s split among buyers. All have risks, complications and political headaches.

Another bid from Goncalves would likely come at a lower price, and also carry serious antitrust concerns.

Combining Cliffs and US Steel would mean the combined company would hold 100% of US iron ore reserves and integrated mills, and become the primary supplier of coveted automotive steel—a prospect the auto sector, which has its own political clout, has warned against. US Steel and its advisers repeatedly flagged “substantial” antitrust concerns about selling to Cliffs, saying it would require $7 billion of divestitures, far from the $2 billion that Cliffs had proposed.

You could slice this deal so many different ways and come up with a different problem,” Applebaum, the retired analyst, said of the overall US Steel situation. S tatements from Nippon Steel,

meanwhile, offer no hint of retreat. Given that Nippon Steel would owe a $565 million breakup fee if the deal fails, it would make more sense for the company to promise a $50,000 bonus to each unionized steelworker to save the negotiation, investors have said.

E ven McCall himself this week in an interview agreed with steelworkers and retirees who spoke to Bloomberg News that keeping union jobs, keeping the US Steel mills open and securing specific investments that will ensure another generation of life at the blast furnaces is what’s most important to him, regardless of who the buyer is for US Steel.

William Chou, an analyst at the Hudson Institute think tank, said Nippon Steel will continue to focus its advocacy on union members. Though the review timeline remains unclear, Biden has stopped short of formally ending the deal. “Until that happens, expect Nippon Steel to push for a deal, given its faith in the US market and the quality of its steelmaking technology,” Chou said.

W hat does look clear for now is that the voices that seem to have the strongest sway aren’t in the boardrooms. They’re back in Braddock, waiting to be won over by Biden. The president was born about 270 miles away in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and invokes blue-collar hardships of his childhood in almost every unscripted speech.

“ My grandfather came to Braddock in the 1890s,” said Bill Mistick, a thirdgeneration resident of the area. “And he worked in the mill, got killed in the mill. Several uncles worked in the mill—one lost several fingers.”

“The piece that’s really important is the union and union jobs and union strength, so the middle class can really afford to live and have a pension,” he said. With assistance from Yasufumi Saito/Bloomberg

YOUNG JIN YEE BLOOMBERG

Biodegradable straws can prevent new coral from becoming expensive fish food

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida— South Florida researchers trying to prevent predatory fish from devouring laboratory-grown coral are grasping at biodegradable straws in an effort to restore what some call the rainforest of the sea.

Scientists around the world have been working for years to address the decline of coral reef populations.

Just last summer, reef rescue groups in South Florida and the Florida Keys were trying to save coral from rising ocean temperatures.

Besides working to keep existing coral alive, researchers have also been growing new coral in labs and then placing them in the ocean.

gradable cage that’s made in part with drinking straws boosts the survival rate of transplanted coral to over 90 percent.

Parrot fish on the reef really, really enjoy biting a newly transplanted coral,” Pisano said. “They treat it kind of like popcorn.”

Fortunately the fish eventually lose interest in the coral as it matures, but scientists need to protect the coral in the meantime.

. Stainless steel and PVC pipe barriers have been set up around transplanted coral in the past, but those barriers needed to be cleaned of algae growth and eventually removed.

Pisano had the idea of creating a protective barrier that would eventually dissolve, eliminating the need to maintain or remove it.

He began conducting offshore experiments with biodegradable coral cages as part of a master’s degree program at Nova Southeastern University. He used a substance called polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), a biopolymer derived from the fermentation of canola oil.

PHA biodegrades in ocean, leaving only water and carbon dioxide. His findings were published last year.

drinking straws were able to protect the coral for about two months before dissolving in the ocean, but that wasn’t quite long enough to outlast the interest of parrot fish.

When Pisano and Dotson reached out to phade for help, the company assured them that it could make virtually any custom shape from its biodegradable PHA material.

“But it’s turning out that the boba straws, straight out of the box, work just fine,” Dotson said. Boba straws are wider and thicker than normal drinking straws. They’re used for a teabased drink that includes tapioca balls at the bottom of the cup. For Pisano and Dotson, that extra thickness means the straws last just long enough to protect the growing coral before harmlessly disappearing.

Reef Fortify is hoping to work with reef restoration projects all over the world. The Coral Forts are already being used by researchers at Nova Southeastern and the University of Miami, as well as Hawaii’s Division of Aquatic Resources.

Balik Scientist sets multidisciplinary approach in tamaraw conservation

TO protect one of the country’s critically endangered species, Dr. Nikki Heherson A. Dagamac, a Balik Scientist and biology expert, has embarked on a mission to assess and monitor the elusive tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis) in its natural habitat in Mindoro.

considered critically endangered under the DENR Administrative Order 2004-15, it has been assessed for the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species in 2016.

Marine researcher Kyle Pisano said one problem is that predators like parrot fish attempt to bite and destroy the newly transplanted coral in areas like South Florida, leaving them with less than a 40 percent survival rate.

With projects calling for thousands of coral to be planted over the next year and tens of thousands of coral to be planted over the next decade, the losses add up when coral pieces can cost more than $100 each. Pisano and his partner, Kirk Dotson, have developed the Coral Fort, claiming the small biode -

But protecting the underwater ecosystem that maintains upwards of 25 percent of all marine species is not easy. Even more challenging is making sure that coral grown in a laboratory and placed into the ocean doesn’t become expensive fish food.

The coral cage consists of a limestone disc surrounded by eight vertical phade brand drinking straws, made by Atlanta-based WinCup Inc.

The device doesn’t have a top, Pisano said, because the juvenile coral needs sunlight and the parrot fish don’t generally want to position themselves facing downward to eat.

Dotson, a retired aerospace engineer, met Pisano through his professor at Nova Southeastern, and the two formed Reef Fortify Inc. to further develop and market the patent-pending Coral Fort.

The first batch of cages were priced at $12 each, but Pisano and Dotson believe that could change as production scales up.

Early prototypes of the cage made from phade’s standard

‘Making the invisible visible,’ preventing birds from colliding into windows

WE have heard of birds colliding into windows, but we are unaware of the extent and how it could be prevented.

An exhibit was recently held that featured the feathered remains of birds that had collided into windows.

The exhibit at the University of the Philippines Diliman College of Science Institute of Biology (UPD-CS IB) in February was about “Making the Invisible Visible,” of the citizen science project, Bird Window Strike Philippines, said Maria Alexandra Marmol.

It served as poignant and striking visuals for this strange, but common occurrence, with infographics and posters that provided possible solutions and accounts of incidents from 290 citizen reports from all around the Philippines.

Pigeons (Columbidae), kingfishers (Alcedinidae), barbets (Megalaimidae), and pittas (Pittidae) were among the most common victims of window collisions, Marmol said.

Bird Window Strike PH started as a research initiative and passion project under Janina Castro of the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability, and Jelaine Gan of The UP Wild, an online educational

community raising awareness on UP Diliman’s wildlife and green spaces, she added.

The two had long been avid bird watchers, or “birders,” when the idea formed after Casro rescued a Coppersmith Barbet that had struck a window in Ateneo.

She realized that little to no research was being done on bird collisions intu windows despite their somewhat common occurrence.

Teaming up with Gan, the two planned to bring more attention to

the issue and what could be done to prevent further collisions.

Bird collides into windows when they are misled by the reflections of either the trees and the sky on the glass surface or by the view of the environment through the glass.

Based on studies by various researchers and the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), breaking up the reflection on the window is the most efficient means of preventing such occurrence.

Rich Karp, a coral researcher at the University of Miami, said they’ve been using the Coral Forts for about a month. He pointed out that doing any work underwater takes a great deal of time and effort, so having a protective cage that dissolves when it’s no longer needed basically cuts their work in half.

“Simply caging corals and then removing the cages later, that’s two times the amount of work, two times the amount of bottom time,” Karp said. “And it’s not really scalable.”

Experts say coral reefs are a significant part of the oceanic ecosystem. They occupy less than 1 percent of the ocean worldwide but provide food and shelter to nearly 25 percent of sea life.

Coral reefs also help to protect humans and their homes along the coastline from storm surges during hurricanes.

This could be done by installing stickers at least 1 cm in size, ideally spaced around 5 cm apart.

The “Making the Invisible Visible” pop-up exhibition showed other solutions, such as ropes and wire mesh screens for windows.

“[These solutions are] among the most effective, but this doesn’t mean that these are the only choices,” the Bird Window Strike PH team explained. “In the ABC database, there are a number of DIY solutions and commercial solutions that people can choose from.”

Citizens from across the country aid in raising awareness on the endangerment of various species, as the Bird Window Strike PH regularly receives incident reports and photos—some of which were part of the exhibit.

“In particular, we get a lot of Common Emerald Dove [Chalcophaps indica] and Hooded Pitta [Pitta sordida] in the reports,” the team cited. “We don’t know why these birds seem to be colliding more, but some of the explanations in literature are related to increased blue light pollution in cities and to birds’ behavior of moving around different forest patches.”

The citizen science and conservation initiative plans to set up more pop-up exhibitions. By showcasing solutions through these displays and serving as an avenue for incident reports, they hope to reach more people and encourage them to take action in preventing any further accidents.

Project Matapat, or Multidisciplinary Approaches for TAmaraw Protection Against Threats, seeks to assess the present status of tamaraw in Mount Calavite Wildlife Sanctuary (MCWS) and to identify priority areas of conservation in Occidental Mindoro.

The project was supported by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology, and implemented by the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Santo Tomas (UST) in collaboration with D’Aboville Foundation, Demo Farm Inc., Tamaraw Conservation Program, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) MCWS Protected Area Management Office.

Dagamac’s team employed assessment techniques including the use camera trapping and census in MCWS’s Strict Protection Zone. It was done through the project component, Tamaraw Inventory and Movement using Approaches for Wildlife Analysis.

The research team assessed and monitored the population of tamaraws by deploying 20 infrared camera traps in 100 locations for 1,400 camera trapping days.

Another component of the project focused on habitat suitability analysis using ecological niche modeling to identify areas that are highly suitable for the translocation of tamaraws. Tamaraw is an endemic dwarf buffalo in Mindoro. Currently

According to the Tamaraw Conservation and Management Action Plan 2019-2028 (DENR 2019), their species are threatened by habitat loss and degradation, fires that involve slash-and-burn farming, invasive nonnative plants (e.g., weeds or grasses), and unregulated wildlife poaching and hunting both from residing indigenous communities and other external groups.

Project Matapat worked closely with the Iraya-Mangyan tribes in camera trapping and habitat assessment activities in MCWS.

Through the course of the project, Dagamac was able to capture other endangered, endemic, and elusive species present in Mindoro, such as the Mindoro warty pig and Philippine brown deer. This is essential progress in habitat assessment and sustainability.

Before returning to the Philippines, Dagamac, a long-term Balik Scientist, worked as a research associate at the Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald in Germany, and Visiting Adjunct Professor at the ThaiNguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry in Vietnam.

During his engagement with UST, Dagamac also mentored 15 graduate students and more than 100 undergraduate students

He is also the founder of the Initiatives for Conservation, Landscape Ecology, Bioprospecting, and Biomodeling, where he was able to hone the research collaboration skills of young and budding researchers on biodiversity assessment and conservation. Rudolph John M. Cabangbang, Michelle P. Caparas, and Jesselle S. Laranas/S&T Media Services

DOST chief: IP key in tackling PHL’s pressing concerns

AT the onset of the celebration of the National Intellectual Property (IP) Month, Science Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr.emphasized how IP serves as a catalyst for innovative and creative solutions essential for shaping a brighter future.

“As we celebrate National IP Month, let us remember that Intellectual Property is not solely about protecting ideas; it’s about leveraging them to address global challenges,” said Solidum during the Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST) Virtual Flag Raising Ceremony on April 01.

In his message to DOST employees,. Solidum encouraged fellow public servants to reflect on the role of the DOST as they are constantly at the forefront of providing solutions and opening opportunities to the Filipino people through science, technology, and innovation.

Solidum pointed out that guided by the four pillars, namely: promotion of Human Well-being, Wealth Creation, Wealth

Protection, and Sustainability, the DOST continually strives to champion initiatives that embody these principles.

“Our commitment to technology transfer and commercialization ensures that innovations reach those who need them most, driving progress and prosperity across the nation,” he said. He shared that the launching of the Mini Science Centrum and project visits in Quezon province recently reflects on of the department’s thrust of using science, technology, and innovation for inclusive development.

“These events highlight our partnership with local government units, educational institutions, and communities, emphasizing our shared goal of promoting accessible education and scientific understanding. It serves as a reminder of the practical impact of our work and underscores the importance of community development,” Solidum said.

THIS July 26, 2023, image provided by phade by WinCup, Inc., shows a “Coral Fort,” made of biodegradable drinking straws that researchers are using to prevent laboratory-grown coral from becoming really expensive fish food, off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. CHRIS GUG/PHADE BY WINCUP, INC. VIA AP

BALIK Scientist Dr. Nikki Heherson A. Dagamac’s Project Matapat team worked closely with the Iraya-Mangyan tribes in camera trapping and habitat assessment of the critically endangered tamaraw in MCWS. DOST-PCAARRD PHOTO

Faith Sunday

New Church stats reveal more Catholics, fewer vocations

THE 2024 Pontifical Yearbook and the 2022 Statistical Yearbook of the Church, edited by the Central Statistical Office of the Church, are currently being distributed in bookstores, published by the Vatican Printing Press.

The Pontifical Yearbook offers information regarding the life of the Catholic Church worldwide for the period ranging from December 1, 2022, to December 31, 2023.

During this period, 9 new Episcopal Sees and 1 Apostolic Administration were established; 2 Episcopal Sees were elevated to Metropolitan Sees and 1 Apostolic Vicariate to an Episcopal See. The Statistical Yearbook of the Church is filled with statistical data to assess the main trends affecting the evolution of the Catholic Church worldwide. Here are a few of the salient details on some basic aspects of the Catholic Church between 2021 and 2022.

Church statistics: Catholics and bishops

THE number of baptized Catholics has increased globally, rising from 1.376 billion in 2021 to 1.390 billion in 2022, with a relative increase of 1.0 percent. The rate of change varied from continent to continent. Africa recorded an increase of 3 percent, with the number of Catholics rising from 265 million to 273 million in the same period.

Europe shows a situation of stability (in 2021 and 2022 Catholics number 286 million).

The Americas and Asia recorded a significant growth in the number of Catholics (+0.9 percent and +0.6 percent, respectively), a trend entirely in line with the demographic development of these two continents. Oceania reported stability, with lower absolute values.

The number of bishops during the biennium 20212022 increased by 0.25 percent, going from 5,340 to 5,353 bishopsishops.

Much of this growth was found in Africa and Asia, with relative variations of 2.1 and 1.4 percent, respectively.

A situation of stability was visible in the Americas (with 2,000 bishops) and in Oceania (with 130), while a slight decline (-0.6 percent) was recorded in Europe (from 1,676 to 1,666).

Fewer priests and more permanent deacons THE year 2022 marked a further decrease in the number of priests compared to the previous year, continuing the downward trend that has characterized the years since 2012.

The global number of priests in the world in 2022, compared to that of 2021, decreased by 142 priests, going from 407,872 to 407,730. Africa and Asia showed a sustained dynamic (+3.2 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively) and the Americas remained almost stationary. Europe, with the greatest weight on the total, and Oceania registered negative variation rates of 1.7 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. The number of permanent deacons continued to show significant evolutionary dynamics.

In 2022, the number of deacons increased by 2 percent compared to a year earlier, going from 49,176 to 50,150 deacons. The number improved in all continents at significant rates. In Africa, Asia, and Oceania, where they still failed to reach 3 percent of the total, the number of

deacons increased by 1.1 percent standing at 1,380 in 2022.

The data also improved in areas where the presence of permanent deacons was quantitatively significant.

In the Americas and Europe, where 97.3 percent of the total population resided, deacons increased in the biennium considered by 2.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.

Decrease in professed religious

THE number of non-priest professed religious men contracted at the global level.

There were 49,774 religious men in 2021, falling to 49,414 in 2022. The decline was attributable, in order of importance, to the European, African, and Oceanian continents. In Asia, on the other hand, religious men increased considerably, and to a lesser extent in the Americas.

Professed religious women

constituted a population of considerable size.

In 2022, they exceeded the number of priests across the world by almost 47 percent but are currently in sharp decline.

Globally, they went from 608,958 professed women in 2021 to 599,228 in 2022, with a relative decline of 1.6 percent.

Africa was the continent with the largest increase in religious women, who went from 81,832 in 2021 to 83,190 in 2022, with a relative increase of 1.7 percent.

They were followed by Southeast Asia, where professed religious women went from 171,756 in 2021 to 171,930 in 2022, with an increase of just 0.1 percent.

South and Central America showed a decline, going from 98,081 religious women in 2021 to 95,590 in 2022, with a global decrease of 2.5 percent.

Three continental areas are marked by a significant

contraction: Oceania (-3.6 percent), Europe (-3.5 percent), and North America (-3.0 percent).

Reduced numbers of seminarians

THE decline that has characterized the trend of priestly vocations since 2012 continued over the period.

In 2022, men preparing for the priesthood numbered 108,481, with a variation of -1.3 percent compared to the situation a year earlier. A summary analysis conducted at the subcontinent level showed that local behaviors were differentiated from each other.

In Africa, the number of major seminarians (postsecondary education), increased by 2.1 percent over the two year period.

In all parts of the Americas, there was a decrease in vocations resulting in a variation of -3.2 percent. In Asia, a decrease was recorded that brought the number of major seminarians in 2022 to a level 1.2 percent lower than that of 2021.

Europe’s vocational crisis since 2008 continued unabated. In the biennium 2021-2022, the number of seminarians decreased by 6 percent. In Oceania, priestly vocations in 2022 exceeded those of 2021 by 1.3 percent.

Of the 108,481 seminarians worldwide, in 2022, Africa showed the highest number of seminarians, with 34,541 men. It was followed by Asia with 31,767, the Americas with 27,738, Europe with 14,461, and Oceania with 974 major seminarians. L’Osservatore Romano via Vatican News

Awe, dread: How religions responded to total solar eclipses

THROUGHOUT history, solar eclipses have had profound impact on adherents of various religions around the world. They were viewed as messages from God or spiritual forces, inducing emotions ranging from dread to wonder.

With the total solar eclipse that followed a long path over North America last Monday, here’s a look at how several of the world’s major religions have responded to such eclipses over the centuries and in modern times.

Buddhism

IN the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it is believed that the energy of positive and negative actions is multiplied during major astronomical events, such as a solar eclipse.

According to the late Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, both lunar and solar eclipses are auspicious days for spiritual practice. He has said that the merit—which represents the positive karmic results of good intentions and actions— generated on lunar eclipses is multiplied by 700,000 and on solar eclipses by 100 million. Some of the recommended spiritual activities on these days include chanting mantras and sutras.

Christianity

SOME Christians have believed that an eclipse portends the coming of the “end times” that will precede Christ’s return to Earth as prophesized at various

points in the Bible.

One such passage is in the second chapter of Acts: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”

There also has been a persisting belief among some Christians that an eclipse occurred during the crucifixion because three of the Bible’s four Gospels mention a three-hour period of darkness as Jesus died. “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining,” says Luke 23:44

It’s been noted that a threehour period of darkness doesn’t suggest a solar eclipse, which produces only a few minutes of darkness.

But a recent commentary on ChurchLeaders.com—a website supported by numerous prominent evangelical pastors— said the darkness depicted in the three Gospels “represents a profound spiritual transition.”

“The temporary obscuring of the sun, juxtaposed with the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, offers a powerful metaphor for the transient nature of despair and the eternal promise of salvation and rebirth,” the commentary says.

Hinduism

THE origin of eclipses in Hinduism is explained in ancient legends known as puranas.

In one legend, the devas and asuras, who symbolized good and evil respectively, churned the ocean to receive the nectar of eternal life.

As one of the asuras, Svarbhanu, posed as a deva to receive the nectar, the Sun god (Surya) and Moon god (Chandra) alerted Mohini, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who then used a discus to behead Svarbhanu.

But because the asura had already consumed a portion of the nectar, his immortal but detached head and body lived on under the names Rahu and Ketu.

Legend has it that Rahu occasionally swallows the sun and the moon because of the gods’ part in his misery, causing solar and lunar eclipses.

Hindus generally regard a solar or lunar eclipse as a bad omen. Some observe fasts before and many do not eat during the period of the eclipse.

Observant Hindus ritually bathe to cleanse themselves during the first and final phases of an eclipse. Some also offer prayers to ancestors. Most

temples are closed for the duration of the eclipse. Devotees gather for prayers along pilgrimage sites near holy rivers during the onset of an eclipse. The event is considered to be a good time for prayer, meditation and chanting of mantras—all believed to ward off evil.

Islam

IN Islam, a solar eclipse is a time to turn to God and pray. The eclipse prayer is based on narrations of sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad. Kaiser Aslam, Muslim chaplain at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University, said one narration cited the prophet as saying: “The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah and they do not eclipse because of the death of someone....

Whenever you see these eclipses pray and invoke [Allah].”

The story was that “after the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s son, Ibrahim, his companions tried to comfort him by saying that the sun eclipsed due to the greatness of the loss,” Aslam said.

“The Prophet corrected them by reminding them that the sun and moon are signs of God and to not add any superstitions as to why an eclipse happens,” he added.

On April 8, Aslam will lead the “kusuf” prayer on campus. Customarily, there’s a brief sermon after the prayer to explain the lessons behind it and dispel any superstitions around it, he added.

“It is a beautiful and meaningful prayer that emphasizes our relationship with God’s creation, making sure to give our devotion to God, instead of incidental occurrences in God’s creation,” Aslam said.

Mahmoud Alhawary, an official with Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Academy in Cairo, said it’s better for the eclipse prayer to be performed in congregation at the mosque, but that Muslims may also pray individually elsewhere.

The wisdom “is for the individual to seek refuge in God, requesting the lifting of this affliction,” Alhawary said. “People should know that the occurrences of the whole universe are in God’s hands.”

Judaism

THE Talmud—the collection of writings compiled more than 1,500 years ago that constitute Jewish religious law—offers

specific blessings for many natural phenomena, but not for eclipses.

Instead, it depicts an eclipse as “an ill omen for the world.” On Chabad.org—a website serving an Orthodox Jewish audience—Chicago-based Rabbi Menachem Posner sought to view the Talmud passage in a modern context, given the consensus that eclipses are natural events that can be predicted centuries in advance.

“Eclipses should be opportunities to increase in prayer and introspection—as opposed to prompting joyous blessings,” Posner wrote. “It is a sign that we really could and should be doing better.”

Writing in early March for the Orthodox Jewish education organization Aish, Rabbi Mordechai Becher noted that Judaism has longstanding interconnections with astronomy.

He said there are three craters on the moon named after medieval rabbis with expertise in astronomy.

As for eclipses, Becher— an instructor at Yeshiva University—suggested they were made possible by God for a profound reason.

“He created a system that would remind us regularly that our choices can create darkness, even at times when there should be light,” he wrote.

“Our free will choices can create a barrier between us and the Divine light, but can also allow Divine light to be seen here,” he added. Deepa Bharath, David Crary And Mariam Fam/Associated Press

NUNS from the Order of Saint Benedict and parishioners attend a Mass that marks the Jubilee Year of Santisima Trinidad Parish in Malate Manila on April 5. The event was presided by Manila Archbishop Jose F. Cardinal Advincula. LYN RESURRECCION

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Biodiversity Sunday

Keeping hawksbill turtles alive amid man-made, climate threats

612-hectare critical habitat for hawksbill sea turtles in 2012, known as the Magsaysay Critical Habitat for Hawksbill Turtles.

BUTUAN CITY—Every year, hundreds of hawksbill turtle hatchlings dig out of their nest and start their long arduous journey into the ocean. They crawl out of the dark sand beaches of Magsaysay town in Misamis Oriental province in Mindanao, one of several hawksbill nesting sites in the Philippines.

However, data reveal that man-made and environmental trends have been plaguing the hatchlings.

Significant roles in marine ecosystem

HAWKSBILLSPLAY significant roles in marine ecosystem. They help maintain the health of coral reefs. By removing prey, such as sponges from the reef’s surface, they provide better access for reef fish to feed. They also have cultural significance and tourism value, said the World Wide Fund for Nature on its website.

Hawksbills got their name from their unique beak-like mouth, which resembles that of a hawk that is perfect for finding food sources in hard-to-reach cracks. They are the only species of sea turtle that can survive on a diet mainly of sponges, said the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries website. Hawksbills are estimated to reach maturity between 20 to 35 years, depending on several factors, especially resource availability. However, they could live 50 to 60 years.

Hawksbill turtles’ colorful shell is oftencollected and carved into combs, jewelry, and other items, while whole turtles are harvested and stuffed, all of which are sold in the illegal wildlife trade

The hawksbill is one of five marine turtle species found in the Philippines. It is classified as Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Its population has declined by 80 percent over the past 10 years.

The coastline stretching along the villages of Candiis, San Isidro, and Damayohan in Magsaysay town in Misamis Oriental has been a nesting ground for the hawksbill turtles. Their presence in the area and the emergence of possible human and environmental-related threats led the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to designate a

More people and structures, fewer nests

ALHTOUGH the area has been declared a critical habitat for hawksbill turtles, the increase in human population has brought encroachment of settlements and the emerging small tourism-related beach establishments were obstacles for turtles to lay eggs in their traditional hatching area.

“Residents noted that there were instances the turtles were spooked by dogs, and there were blockages on the beach like a concrete structure or other man-made obstacles that pushed the nesting turtle back into the sea,” said Barangay Chairman Rolando Pagara, a local conservationist spearheading marine turtle protection in the area for more than two decades now.

Pagara, along with volunteers from coastal villages, has been trying to keep the nesting turtles and hatchlings safe amid limited compensation and support over the past few years.

“There were instances that we won’t be able to monitor the nests, only to find out later that hatchlings have started to crawl out, or worst, dead on the coastal area,” he said.

He explained that the volunteers, who are fishermen, could not give more time in monitoring because they need to work to support their families.

Pagara said he has observed that the number of nests they have discovered in the past years have declined compared to decades ago.

This year, five hawksbill turtle nesting sites were recorded, with four in 2023, which numbers were far from the 10 to 15 sites per year from 2000 to 2005.

Added threat from El Niño ON Easter Sunday, 83 hatchlings were the first batch released this year into the sea in the coastal village of Candiis. However, the number was lower than the expected 130 to 180 hatchlings. Sadly, Pagaea noted, they have “recorded four spoiled and three pipped eggs and six dead hatchlings.” He expressed alarm about the impact of intense heat, pointing out that it might have contributed to the death of the hatchlings and weakened those who survived from the nest.

Data from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration Climate Review on the impact of El Niño say that Misamis Oriental was under a dry spell in March, with a daily maximum temperature of 32.6 degrees Celsius (°C) to 35 °C by the first week of April. Pagara, together with villagers and fisherfolks, try to safeguard the nests with a protective barrier perimeter from stray dogs. However, it is not a protection from heat because the top is open.

“Unfortunately, due to lack of proper equipment, we can only do so much in protecting the nests. The beach is wide and not all areas can be monitored properly,” he said.

Rising sea, higher tides

WHILE the threat of El Niño heats up, another concern of conservationists is the rising sea level that bring unusually higher tide that kill the turtles inside the eggs.

“We have monitored the loss of eggs when the lower part of the nest is reached by high tide. The largest was in 2019 when several nests were reached by high tide and subsequent waves that followed between June to July,” Pagara said. According to the US NOAA website, the major threat to hawksbill turtles is the loss of nesting habitat and coral reefs due to coastal development, rising seas from climate change, and pollution.

“A warming climate is likely to result in changes in beach morphology and higher sand temperatures, which can be lethal to eggs or alter the ratio of male and female hatchlings produced. Rising seas and storm events cause beach erosion, which may flood nests or wash them away. Changes in the temperature of the marine environment are likely to alter the abundance and distribution of food resources, leading to a shift in the migratory and foraging range and nesting season of hawksbills,” the NOAA statement said.

Pagara pointed out that the beach has lost more than 10 meters of its original area. The need to evaluate the original protected zone should be looked into, he said.

Need for hatchery

PAGARA reiterated that the best solution for protecting the turtle’s eggs and ensuring the future of the hatchlings is to create a hatchery, where the eggs can be transferred and better monitored while protecting them from heat and rising water levels.

“Having the nest scattered in different areas throughout the vast coastline, monitoring and keeping them safe is a daunting task. We need a better solution in securing the eggs. The best we can think of is creating a proper hatchery, where we can safely transfer the eggs after the mother turtle lays them, monitor them, and successfully release them after they

UN climate chief presses for faster action: Humans have 2 years left ‘to save the world’

OXFORD, England—Humanity has only two years left “to save the world” by making dramatic changes in the way it spews heat-trapping emissions and it has even less time to act to get the finances behind such a massive shift, the head of the United Nations climate agency said.

With governments of the world facing a 2025 deadline for new and stronger plans to curb carbon pollution, nearly half of the world’s populations voting in elections this year, and crucial global finance meetings later this month in Washington, United Nations executive climate secretary Simon Stiell said on Wednesday he knows his warning may sound melodramatic. But he said action over the next two years is “essential.”

“We still have a chance to make greenhouse gas emissions tumble, with a new generation of national climate plans. But we need these stronger plans, now,” Stiell said in a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London.

He suggested that climate action is not just for powerful people to address—in a not-so-veiled reference to the electoral calendar this year.

“Who exactly has two years to save the world? The answer is every person on this planet,” Stiell said.

“More and more people want climate action right across societies and political spectrums, in large part because they are feeling the impacts of the climate crisis in their everyday lives and their household budgets,” he added.

Crop-destroying droughts have increased the need for bolder action to curb emissions and help farmers adapt which could boost food security and lessen hunger, he said.

“Cutting fossil fuel pollution will mean better health and huge savings for governments and households alike,” Stiell said.

Not everyone is convinced such warnings will be helpful.

“‘Two years to save the world’ is meaningless rhetoric—at best, it’s likely to be ignored, at worst, it will be counterproductive,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who is also a professor of international affairs.

Levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the air last year hit all-time highs, according to United States government calculations, while scientists calculate that the world’s carbon dioxide emissions jumped 1.1 percent.

2023 was the hottest year on record by far, global temperature monitoring groups concluded.

If emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from burning of coal, oil and natural gas continue to rise or don’t start a sharp decline, Stiell said it “will further entrench the gross inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest countries and communities” that are being worsened by climate change.

And behind it all is money.

Stiell’s speech comes just ahead of meetings of The World Bank and other big multinational development institutions, where poorer nations, led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Kenyan President William Ruto, are pushing for major reforms in the systems that loan money to poor nations, especially those hit by climate-related disasters.

In conjunction with that push, Stiell called for “a quantum leap this year in climate finance.”

He called for debt relief for the countries that need it the most, saying they are spending $400 billion on debt financing instead of preparing for and preventing future climate change.

He called for more financial aid, not just loans, and more money from different groups like banks, the International Maritime Organization, and the G20, the world’s 20 most powerful economies.

are hatched,” Pagara said.

Patrick Ralph Pahalla, municipal agriculture officer of Magsaysay town, pointed out that they are looking into finding a better solution to save the hatchlings, “Hopefully we can find a budget and a good site where we can have the hatchery. The best would be closer to where Pagara lives as he can spearhead the monitoring and teach our volunteers how to take care of the nests,” Pahalla said.

Cleramie E. Garcia, Ecosystem Management Specialist II of the CityEnvironmentand Natural Resources Office in Gingoog City, agreed that with a hatchery there is a better hope of having more hatchlings released back into the ocean.

“In 2023, we only recorded 207 released hatchlings from Magsaysay and 56 from Medina town. I’m sure there were more based on reports of hawksbill hatchlings crawling toward the ocean. Unfortunately those nests were unrecorded. We even had one of the nests in Barangay Candiis, where all 130 eggs failed to hatch, killing all the possible hatchlings,” Garcia said.

Amid the human restrictions during the pandemic, the highest number of recorded turtle hatchlings released in Magsaysay in the past nine years was in 2020 with around 633 hatchlings compared to 315 in 2019.

In 2021 the town did not record any nest or hatchling released, while in Misamis

Oriental and nearby Carmen in Agusan del Norte province, several hatchlings were released.

With a hatchery, local conservationists are optimistic that they will be able to increase the survival rate of the eggs and be able to release more hatchlings.

More research for better interventions

A PUBLISHED study conducted in 2023 on loggerhead sea turtle nests cited that climate change and anthropogenic (pollution caused by human activities) impacts have been scored as among the highest hazards to sea turtle health, and could have played a role in the Sea Turtle Egg Fusariosis development.

Environmental changes, human activities, and emerging pathogens deserve the highest attention in terms of health research, and conservation management, the study said.

While several studies on marine turtles that face threats from the heat of El Niño and other factors, Philippine scientists recommend more research based on the local settings.

Dr. Ruth Gamboa, a retired professor and chairman of the Department of Biological Science and Environmental Studies at the University of the Philippines Mindanao (UP-Min), said that while heat could be a possible explanation for the death of marine turtle hatchlings other factors should also be observed.

She pointed to more research amid the changes in environmental temperature influenced by climate change.

“There could be several factors that might explain why the hatchlings die. Although we cannot rule out that heat could be a factor, we need more data and accurate measurements on the temperature of the nest to give a better conclusion,” Gamboa said.

She added: “Having more data on the plight of the hatchlings and the turtles nesting in the area will give better solutions for better future interventions. That will be a huge factor in the conservation and protection not only of the marine turtle but other species in the ecosystem.”

Gamboa pointed out the efforts made by Pagara and their volunteers, and expressed hopes that more support will reach the community to strengthen their advocacy toward securing better solutions in saving more marine turtles.

Those countries are responsible for 80 percent of the world’s heat-trapping emissions, he said.

“G20 leadership must be at the core of the solution, as it was during the great financial crisis,” Stiell said.

“Every day, finance ministers, CEOs, investors, and development bankers direct trillions of dollars. It’s time to shift those dollars from the energy and infrastructure of the past, toward that of a cleaner, more resilient future,” Stiell said. “And to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries benefit.”

Officials said the climate finance problem needs to be fixed by the end of the year with November’s climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, a crucial point.

Stiell is “absolutely right” that timing and finance are the heart of the matter, said longtime climate analyst Alden Meyer of European think tank E3G.

The carbon action plans submitted by next year will “determine whether we can get on the trajectory of sharp emissions reductions needed to avoid much worse

climate impacts than those we are already suffering today,” he said.

With so many elections and places where democracies on the brink, “climate finance related to carbon policy is on the line,” said Nancy Lindborg, president of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, at the Skoll World Forum, an ideas conference in Oxford, England.

Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare said Stiell was “listening to the science”—namely that global emissions must be halved by the end of the decade to meet the Paris climate accord’s ambition of capping global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

“Governments are nowhere near that, and disastrously many are still supporting new fossil fuel development,” Hare said.

“We need to see a massive strengthening of action now—faster ramping up of renewables, electric vehicles and batteries—if we’re to get serious reductions by 2030. The longer we wait, the more it will cost.” Seth Borenstein & Jamey Keaten/ Associated Press

Story & photos by Erwin M. Mascariñas

HAWKSBILL turtle hatchlings crawl toward the waters of Gingoog Bay during their release in Barangay Candiis, Magsaysay town, Misamis Oriental on March 31. ROLANDO PAGARA (second from right), Barangay Candiis chairman and conservationist, lower down hawksbill turtle hatchlings from a basin together with volunteers during the release of the turtles in Magsaysay, Misamis Oriental, on March 31.

AN aerial view of a portion of the coastal area where the hawksbill turtles were released in barangay Candiis, Magsaysay, Misamis Oriental.

HAWKSBILL turtle hatchlings inside a container before their release on March 31.

Watson sees unity at Masters dinner

AUGUSTA, Georgia— Tom Watson only saw unity, conversation and easy laughter among 33 champions at the  Masters  Club dinner, seven of them now with Saudi-funded LIV Golf. Watson longs for the day golf can feel that way all year long.

Unity is a popular topic at the first major of the year because the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour has suspended LIV players for defecting to the rival circuit. The only time all the world’s best get together are at the majors, and the Masters is the first chance for that since July.

Watson said he asked Masters Chairman Fred Ridley if he could speak toward the end of the Champions Dinner on Tuesday night.

I’m looking around the room and I’m seeing just a wonderful experience everybody is having,” Watson, a two-time Masters champion, said Thursday. “They are jovial. They are having a great time. They are laughing. And I said, ‘Ain’t it good to be together again?’”

Watson said the room grew quiet and then it was time to leave.

And in a sense, I hope that the players themselves took that to say, ‘You know, we have to do something,’” Watson said. He paused before repeating, “We have to do something.”

Watson, three-time champion Gary Player and six-time champion Jack Nicklaus were together again on the first tee Thursday morning to hit the honorary tee shot, which was delayed by overnight rain. They have combined to win 35 majors—Nicklaus and Player own the career Grand Slam—and are major figures in golf who are among those saddened by the split in in the game as a result of the arrival of LIV Golf. The circuit lured away major champions with guaranteed Saudi riches.

But the Masters Club is a time for celebration. It was said to be like that a year ago with no difference this time around. Most of stories were about Seve Ballesteros because the defending Masters champion is also a Spaniard, Jon Rahm.

There is no indication the two tours are about to come together, even as the PGA Tour negotiates with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia—the money behind LIV— as a minority investor in the new commercial enterprise.

A mong the obstacles for unification is a path back to the PGA Tour for LIV players, assuming they all want to return.

The best outcome is the best players play against each other all the time,” said Nicklaus, who has a stake in golf with his Memorial Tournament.

He said he has spoken with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and was told the tour was doing fine. If Jay thinks we’re doing fine,

SINCE the day they were founded, the Olympics have had a confusing relationship with money. The games were supposed to celebrate sport for sport’s sake, but the price athletes paid to be any good was far too high, and it took virtually no time for the concept of amateurism that the Olympics rested on to be viewed as unrealistic, if not an all-out ruse.

Th is week’s news that track’s international federation will pay $50,000 to gold-medal winners at the Paris Games was the latest step in a century›s worth of unraveling the myth of amateurism at the Olympics.

A look at some key points along the way:

The founder flip-flops

AS early as 1894, two years before the first modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin was sounding different notes about the concept of amateurism. In one speech, according to the authoritative book on the topic, “The Rise and Fall of Olympic Amateurism,” he “warned against the ‘spirit of gain and professionalism’ that threatened

it could take. Rory McIlroy has been among those suggesting a series of tournaments around the world for the top players, and that perhaps any solution with LIV could include that. AP

A century’s worth of unraveling myth of amateurism at Olympics

its existence.’” But not long after that, “he denounced amateurism as ‘an admirable mummy.’”

The greatest Olympian IN what’s considered one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the games, the IOC stripped Jim Thorpe of the two gold medals he won at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics because he had played semi-pro baseball before that. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored the medals in 1983, 30 years after his death.

The workaround

AS the Cold War began, the Soviet Union, East Germany and other Eastern bloc satellites started handing well-paying “jobs” in the military and other civil services to Olympic athletes.

They earned big salaries for doing virtually no work related to that title. Their main job was training, and though they weren’t officially paid to play their sports, nobody tried to disguise this ruse. Some believe this led to a low point in the 1970s for the American Olympic movement, which

was largely still adhering to strict amateur rules.

Change begins

THE IOC began tinkering with its Rule 26, the rule that inscribed the amateur imprimatur to the Olympics, in the mid-1970s.

A n IOC member involved in the changes, Willi Daume, put it best when he pointed to the billion-dollar business the Olympics had become: “It is only the athletes that have to make sacrifices and show proof of asceticism,” he said.

The IOC began letting individual sports federations write their own rules about amateurism. The track federation was among the first to make a move toward allowing athletes to get paid, though at first, it demanded they put their earnings in a trust.

Looking for best show

WHEN Juan Antonio Samaranch became IOC president in 1980, he made it clear he wanted the best athletes at the Olympics.

The IOC worked hard with soccer, ice hockey and tennis (a demonstration sport in 1984 and in

the official program in 1988), which for various reasons had fought the amateurism rules. By the start of the 1990s, amateurism was written out of the Olympic charter. The 1992 Olympics, which brought National Basketball Association stars and the Dream Team to the Barcelona Games, is widely viewed as the start of the professional era at the Olympics.

Then to now

MOST countries now establish prize pools—such as Team USA’s “Project Gold”—for their top athletes at the Olympics, while also funding training and living expenses.

The US is one of the few outliers, in that its government does not provide funding for the Olympic team. More than a generation into the professional era, tension remains not over whether the athletes can receive money but how much of the pie they really share in.

The track announcement is only one small piece of this puzzle, but a symbolically important one. Olympic watchers will be looking closely to see if any sports follow track’s lead. AP

Halep nervous about returning to tennis after doping ban appeal

F

LYING to Florida for the Miami Open, where she would be playing in a professional tennis match for the first time in one and a half years after a doping ban was reduced on appeal, Simona Halep turned to her mother and offered a bit of a confession.

I’m very nervous,” Halep, a twotime Grand Slam champion, recalled telling Mom. She wasn’t sure what it would be like—on the court or off. And as she prepares to resume what she called her career’s “second part” during a video interview with The Associated Press from her home in Bucharest, Romania, Halep is more comfortable with her surroundings but not quite certain how close she can get to her old self as an athlete.

I felt like I don’t know what to expect from people [in Miami]. How it’s going to be—to be in the locker room again. Players’ dining [area]. All this routine that I didn’t do for almost two years, it looked new for me,” said Halep, whose upcoming tournaments are next week in Oeiras, Portugal, and the week after that in Madrid.

And when I arrived on-site, the love that I received from the people that are working for the tournament, the security, and all the people around, and also the players, helped me to just forget everything. And it felt like I never [was] away,” said the 32-year-old Halep, who has been working with new coach Carlos Martinez.

So it was a great feeling, a great energy, and I was really happy deep down that I am, again, part of tennis and part of this sport that I love,” she said. “So for me, it was a great experience, much better than I expected. And this made me feel that, OK, now I want to go back and do my

best and see how good I can be, still.” H alep once was among the best in the world at what she does. She knew it. Everyone else did, too. The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) rankings said so: Halep reached No. 1 in 2017 (she is No. 1,144 this week).

A s did her results: Halep was the runner-up at three major tournaments before breaking through by winning championships at the French Open in 2018 and at Wimbledon in 2019 (defeating Serena Williams in the final).

Now it’s harder for her to know what she’s capable of with a racket. There’s the lack of matches, even if she was encouraged by the only one so far, a three-set loss to former No. 2 Paula Badosa in Miami on March 19. Questions about her fitness, a key component of her playing style. And while she worked while barred, it was not easy to find the motivation without knowing when—or, indeed, if—she’d compete again.

It’s been a tough period.... It was difficult to manage, but now it’s a different story,” Halep said. “And I feel relief, I feel the freedom and— here, she let out a laugh—yeah, I am back in business.”

She thought her career might be finished when she was given a four-year penalty by the International Tennis Integrity Agency for testing positive for the banned blood-boosting drug Roxadustat at the 2022 US Open, where she lost in the first round. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in March that Halep’s test result was unintentional and caused by a contaminated supplement—the

COE

History and pork guts in wintry Beijing

SWEET BABY JAMES AT 76|Aging

like fine wine

James Taylor might seem to have struggled a bit with vocal phrasing at certain points at his Manila concert, but his warm and soothing baritone that has comforted many a troubled soul was intact

By Pocholo Concepcion

MANY in the audience at the recent concert, An Evening with James Taylor and His All-Star Band, surely have their own personal stories of growing up with the music of the enduring singer-songwriter. B ack in the 1970s, a typical scene in Filipino households would have teenagers listening to the radio and catching a Taylor hit or two. Those with record players would never tire playing his albums. It got to a point where learning to play the acoustic guitar with chords from Jingle magazine meant knowing Taylor tunes by heart and wishing to become like him. Joey Ayala started out playing Taylor stuff. Auditioning for a slot in Manila “folk houses” would be incomplete without covering Taylor. Among these aspiring folkies, Noel Cabangon, eventually made a living out of it — and even got to perform as part of an opening act at Taylor’s show at the Mall of Asia (MOA) Arena, mounted by Ovation Productions.

The crowd loved the warmup set, in which Cabangon and Ice Seguerra, with violinist Jonathan Urbano and keyboardist Ivan Lee Espinosa, began with The Beatles’ “Come Together” and a few other classic rock covers, before doing an excellent mashup of Seguerra’s hit “Pagdating ng Panahon” and the Buklod classic “Kanlungan” and ending with that other Buklod rouser, “Tatsulok.”

A l ine from “Kanlungan” served as a reminder of what Taylor and his band succeeded in doing that night: “Panapanahon ng pagkakataon, maibabalik ba ang kahapon?”

Not the usual boring nostalgia act

BUT remarkably, it was not the usual boring nostalgia act—because Taylor rendered his songs with spontaneity, perhaps consciously avoiding sticking to note-for-note live versions. His natural process of singing in a jazz or blues mode was enhanced by a crack team of backup musicians, some of whose credentials may outweigh that of Taylor’s: drummer Steve Gadd, guitarist Dean Parks, bassist Jimmy Johnson, keyboardist Kevin Hays, vocalist/violinist Andrea Zonn, vocalists Kate Markowitz and Dorian Holley, with Taylor’s wife Caroline Smedvig joining in select numbers.   Gadd, famous for his outstanding improvs

with saxophonist Wayne Shorter in the title track of Steely Dan’s 1977 album Aja, defined what a true drummer is—keeping the rhythm tight, never showing off his skills, but lending excitement when the situation called for it, like adding rolling accents to the spaces in between the latter part of “Fire and Rain.”

Parks, an alumnus of four Steely Dan Albums and countless others, was a revelation, switching effortlessly between pedal steel and electric guitar, enhancing Taylor’s folk-rock sound with intensity during his solo turns.

Taylor might seem to have struggled a bit with vocal phrasing at certain points, but his warm and soothing baritone that has comforted many a troubled soul was intact. It sounded lovely in two Carole King originals, “Up on the Roof” and “You’ve Got a Friend”—the latter one of the most anticipated, as Taylor bantered with the front-row audience earlier in the show and holding a big board with his setlist: “Don’t worry, we’ll get to that, we’re not even halfway…”

T he setlist of 18 songs was shorter than the 22 in Tokyo two days earlier, but the thousands of seniors in the Manila crowd wouldn’t have noticed. The show ended way past their bedtime. Apparently, they had one of the best times of their lives—perhaps causing a vivid flashback of their glorious youth.

From all the songs heard that night, these lines were particularly touching: Never give up, never slow down, never grow old, never ever die young…” (from “Never Die Young”); and “Oh but I can sing this song, you can sing this song when I’m gone (“Close Your Eyes”).

Having battled drug addiction and depression as a young man, Sweet Baby James, at 76, is aging like fine wine.

JAMES TAYLOR and his All-Star Band. From left: Kevin Hays, Steve Gadd, Andrea Zonn, Jimmy Johnson (hidden), James Taylor, Dorian Holly, Kate Markowitz, and Dean Parks. PHOTO BY KRIS ROCHA/OVATION PRODUCTIONS

PHOTO BY STEPHEN LAVOIE/OVATION PRODUCTIONS

MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE

Max’s return engagement in Manila gets rousing response

MAX just doesn’t need a guest list, everyone is free to join the show. The sundown welcomes a night full of fun and excitement as MAX Celebrates a comeback in the Philippine concert scene after eight years. Maxwell George Schneider popularly known as Max Music returns to Manila for a three-day mall tour.

M ax welcomes the press with a warm greeting prior to his show launch for his mall tour at the U.P Town Center, on Friday. “Max Live In Manila ‘’ is Max’s highly anticipated visit to the Philippines since 2016. He has excitedly unveiled his journey as a singer and producer.

A s the UPTC grounds are filled up with the ecstatic crowd, Max looks at the bright starlit night. Flashes started to swing in unison and everyone was jamming to every version of his songs— upbeat or stripped down.

Max as an Ace

IN an exclusive interview with Max, he shared an insight into his career as a complete ace. The talented artist walked the crowd through his experience as a singer and producer.

For Max, the opportunity to tour the world and create music not only for himself but for other artists is something he is grateful for. He has collaborated with the biggest names in music including K-Pop stars, such as Jackson Wang of GOT7 for the song “Cheetah” (2023) and SUGA of BTS for “Burn It” (2020).

“ I think more than ever people are

more appreciative to collaborate in person which is amazing—it’s great to be able to ZOOM and collaborate with somebody from across the world,” Max shares.

M ax shared his experience working with the idols and calls it a natural phenomenon to happen, especially with SUGA of BTS.

“ It was life-changing, it’s so beautiful—we first met and we were sitting in a room and we’re fonding over our love for basketball and he asked me to be a

part of that [writing ‘Burn It’] and we did ‘Blueberry Eyes’,” Max says. I feel like a fanboy with all of it, it’s amazing to be a part of such incredible music and artists,” Max recalls. Moreover, Max’s latest hit “STUPID IN LOVE” with LE SSERAFIM’s Huh Yunjin shows his versatility as a talented artist. He shared that all of the collaborations bring about the universe and are meant to come along the way—it’s something natural. “I always wanted a female voice [for my music] and the universe sent Yunjin along the way,” Max says.

“She’s so talented, she’s a really good songwriter and we just get along so well— it felt like little sister-big brother energy and I’m so honored she joined the song,” he added.

Further, aside from being a singer, producer, and model— Max is also an actor and starred in various TV series such as Nickelodeon’s “How to Rock” (2012) and “Crisis” (2014). When asked if he was open to getting back to acting he said if it resonates with an opportunity, he would do it.

“I’d be open for it if it’s the right thing, I’ve been offered a few things but again I’m going

towards what I am gravitated to and inspired by—if something comes up that I’m inspired by then I’m open to it for sure,” Max responded.

Max’s Love For Life

THE 31-year-old American singer is also a great family man. He opened up about his married life and his daughter.

M ax’s relieved that his family is the main inspiration for his music. He even named one of the songs called “EDIE CELINE” from his latest album, LOVE IN STEREO after his daughter.

“ It’s one of those songs that when I wrote it, I wrote it for her in my arms in the hospital and I think it made me realize that it’s beautiful—that song will always be for her [Edie Celine] and that moment will be forever,” Max says.

“ That milestone it’s not something you could see on a plaque but a song when I’m long gone, that song will remain—so writing songs like that will always be the highlight of anything else,” he added.

Max In Manila: The Show

FOLLOWING an opening act from the P-pop girl group DIONE, the kickoff show for Max instantly became a memorable one. He sang hits after hits including “Love Me Less (feat. QUINN CXII)”, “Acid Dreams’ ’, “STUPID IN LOVE (feat. Hyunjin of LE SSERAFIM) ”, “BUTTERFLIES ‘’, “Checklist (feat. Chromeo)”, “Blueberry Eyes (feat. SUGA of BTS),” it’s you (feat. keshi)” and “Lights Down Low.”

A surprise rendition of the classic song by Frankie Valli, “Can’t Take My Eyes off You” (1967).

Max finishes his set full of love for his life and his music—smiling at the crowd. He promised to return for his Filipino fans soon.

Text & photos by Bea Rollo

HistoRy and poRk guts in wintRy Beijing

By Rio Constantino Contributor

Last February, I joined my father on an 11-day trip to the infinitely fascinating land of China, also known as Zhōngguó, the Middle Kingdom, home to tofu nao, tea soup, and sweet, sweet sorghum liquor.

My father had meetings; I tagged along for fun. Together we nursed a common curiosity about a nation that, up to that point, I had only ever seen through the remote lens of news cameras and textbooks.

Our plane arrived in Beijing under a naked sky. To a boy from the humid tropics, it’s the most alien fact: the absence of clouds. February is a winter month, and so far from the sea the air is tortuously dry. Devoid of moisture, skin cracks, noses bleed, and the heavens become a spotless blue bowl. As the day proceeds, it’s not unusual for entire afternoons to pass by without a single fleck of white interrupting the cobalt plain.

It all feels strangely flat and open, a sensation that follows you to the city itself, perhaps because instead of the expected metropolitan density one encounters airiness and light. The many high rises are spaced far apart in roomy grids, leaving just enough room for sunbeams to blow open the otherwise neat curtain of concrete and steel. The streets are clean and wind-swept and wide enough to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians alike. The light is muffled. Time moves at a controlled, deliberate pace.

In the chill weather the sidewalks are perfect for a stroll. Walking around our hotel we noted, with amusement, that the locals seemed to have as much respect for pedestrian stop lights as Filipinos did. Over in the distance, an intimidating stone citadel stood watch at the center of a busy roundabout. Its massive walls loomed over the cars like cliffs.

“Damn,” I said. “That’s a big castle.”

My father merely smirked. That’s just the old city gate, he said.

Lasting imperial grandeur

ThOugh much of the past has been demolished to make way for modern neighborhoods, a considerable part of Beijing’s history remains intact in the form of impressive edifices. There is the hulking drum tower which used to thunder the city awake; the shining Temple of heaven where the emperor used to pray for bountiful harvests; and the Lama Temple, a former Qing

residential mansion turned into a devout Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Inside the Temple’s main hall, behind a curtain of incense smoke, stands a golden 4-story statue of the Buddha.

“Sever all attachments to the material world ,” says the giant’s gently cryptic smile.

Every corner of Beijing, it seems, has at least one structure still glowing with the remains of imperial grandeur. A mansion here, a pagoda there. Don’t forget the great Wall. But of all the most imposing imperial monuments, none can match in size and power the eternal red immensity of the Forbidden City.

gates open at 8 am. Pro-tip: hire a guide. From the pre-pandemic maximum of 80,000 daily visitors, only a measly 30,000 are now allowed in per day. Tickets are sold out two minutes after online selling begins each morning. good luck getting in without a local to help you.

Even with thousands of tourists wheeling about inside, the Forbidden City remains unthinkably, almost inhumanly large. The servant’s quarters are inns, the consorts’ residences are private palaces, and the stone courtyards wind-swept plateaus. It’s a world unto itself. Entire armies could fit inside its parade grounds. Entire armies have fit inside its parade grounds.

The air is thick with history. It seeps from the walls, from cracks in between the pavestones, from the dragons carved on marble staircases. here is where the Dowager Empress had her meals in between selling the empire to foreigners, and this is where the Jiajing Emperor was almost strangled by a mob of palace girls, the young women driven to outrage by their

master’s fondness for virgin menstrual blood to make his alchemical pills. Blink and it’s as if you can see them: hordes of ghostly soldiers, skull-faced eunuchs, and spectral scholar-bureaucrats rising like clouds in the shifting wind.

And yet, even with so many denizens of ages past stalking the halls, in Chinese terms the Forbidden City is a relatively recent phenomenon. It was built during the early 15th century a few decades after the bloody establishment of the Ming Dynasty. A respectable vintage, until one remembers there are oracle bones from the Shang Dynasty dated to the 2nd millennium B.C.E.

Relics, lacquerware, bronzes, and more

IF you leave the Forbidden City by the southern exit, walking under the housesized portrait of Mao mounted on the rather hopefully named gate of heavenly Peace, and cutting through the muted expanse of Tiananmen Square, passing three to four airport-grade security checkpoints along the way, you will find yourself in the monumental foyer of the National Museum of China. Lovers of crumbling relics, rejoice: there are galleries of lacquerware, battalions of clay statuettes, and an entire corridor dedicated purely to porcelain vases. You can spend the morning progressing from the neolithic through to the iron age. By noon you would still be stuck in the medieval era. Is there anything so wonderfully civilized as planned urban sewage by the 6th century A.D.?

Perhaps most impressive are the bronzes. There are bronze axes, bronze bells,

bronze mirrors, masks, and washbowls. The ancient artisans were fond of molding the metal into animal shapes, forming darkly gleaming phoenixes, horses, and oxen. One particularly well-crafted vessel is so beautifully adorned with spiral carvings it looks like a slab of frozen green fire. What’s it for? Wine. Of course: the biggest and most impressive bronze pieces are always reserved for wine.

Piles of stone may crumble, but kindness, hospitality, and a common appreciation for good food and drink remains. Somewhere among the last few traditional gray-brick neighborhoods of Beijing, between the old city gate and an icy imperial lake, you will find a mischievous old man with a wicked smile smoking alone outside a busy restaurant. he’s skinny, bald, and knows around four to five words of English. Sloshing inside your mind is a single drop of Mandarin. All the ingredients, in other words, for a merry afternoon.

The old man sees you and grins, revealing two rows of blackened teeth. he waves you inside, prepares a table, and points out his recommendations on the menu.

“ This,” he exclaims with dancing fingers. “ This is good.”

he’s right. The orders arrive still steaming in the chill winter air: stir-fried eggplants and potatoes in dark vinegar sauce, braised pork elbows brimming with fat, and a platter of exploded pig intestines, turned inside out to reveal delicate strips of gastric membranes green-gray like the sea. It’s delicious, especially when paired with a brimming mug of Yanjing wheat beer.

Voices glow; hunger sates itself; the world shrinks to the size of a rapidly emptying plate. Someone behind you uncorks a barrel of garrulous laughter. The old man asks where you come from.

“Na guo ren?”

“Philippines,” you reply.

“Ah,” he says with a nod and surprised smile. “Manila.”

The realization arrives like a thunderbolt: it doesn’t matter what tongue you arrive with in this endless country, what speech you understand—Filipino, Korean, Spanish, german—so long as you listen with the language of the heart.

Satisfied, the old man eventually pours one out for himself. “Cheers,” he calls out as you exit his restaurant, the warmth on his face and the friendliness in his tone communicating what mere words cannot.

“I had fun. Please, come again soon.”

n The writer is a Biology graduate from the University of the Philippines Diliman. He won first place in the Essay Category of the 2023 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature for his piece titled, “The Year of the Periwinkle,” which was first published in BusinessMirror

SceneS from the writer’s 11-day trip to china. Photos from rio Constantino