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THIS satellite image shows Chinese vessels in the Julian Felipe Reef off the West Philippine Sea, March 23, 2021. MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES VIA AP

‘IN THE SHADOW OF CHINA’S MIGHT’

Philippines urged to revise defense posture amid renewed foreign maritime incursions

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‘In limbo’

By Rene Acosta

ITH China’s “physical” occupation of the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and West Philippine Sea (WPS) and its determined efforts to fortify its presence there, proposals are being put forward for the military to reevaluate its ongoing modernization program and shift its procurement focus to the acquisition of hardware that can best secure and defend the country’s stakes in those territories.

Beijing has undisputably swarmed the maritime waters that it disputes against Manila with its Coast Guard and maritime militias, and even fishing vessels. This, while ensuring the sustained presence of its ships from the People’s Liberation Army-Navy in those areas that are dotted with features, although these maritime waters are located within the Philippines’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

While China is in physical control of the Scarborough Shoal near Zambales, it also exercises a de facto control of Sandy Cay, and is in possession of the Mischief Reef, which it has turned into a massive military base since first claiming in 1995 that it was simply building makeshift “fishermen shelters.” Its ships, especially those of its maritime militias, are

permanent fixtures in other parts of the KIG and the WPS. By the count of the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea (NTFWPS)—as reported on Wednesday—at least 240 Chinese ships are still berthed in those two maritime waters, including at Julian Felipe Reef, which was used as a jumping board for 220 Chinese maritime militia vessels.

MEMBERS of the Philippine Coast Guard use rubber boats as they patrol beside Chinese vessels moored at Julian Felipe Reef on April 14, 2021. The Philippine government recently summoned the Chinese ambassador to press its demand for Chinese vessels to immediately leave a reef claimed by Manila in the West Philippine Sea and said their presence was stoking tensions, officials said. PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD VIA AP

Needed weaponry

DR. Renato de Castro, an international relations professor from the Dela Salle University and a trustee of the Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute, said the maritime militia is part of China’s three-layered sea force, which includes its Navy and the Coast Guard.

Given the undeclared “invasion” of the Chinese military of the KIG and WPS and the long-stand-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 48.4790

DERR: “IF you’re serious about protecting your sovereignty and your people, you need to actively monitor, patrol and occupy features in your EEZ.”

ing problem of territorial security there, former Philippine Navy vice commander retired Rear Admiral Rommel Ong said the Armed Forces of the Philippines must readjust its defense posture, the primary focus of which is the acquisition of a “game changer” military package that has an immediate impact in the SCS.

Ong, who is now a professor of praxis at the Ateneo de Manila University’s School of Government and executive director of the Security Reform Initiative, said the military must hasten the acquisition of Indian-made

Brahmos supersonic missile and other platforms.

The military’s defense acquisition program under its remaining Horizon 2 and 3 projects follows a system where assets and equipment are set and identified before they are fixed for procurement, with the end goal of having a modern and fully equipped force.

However, Ong doubted whether the Horizon 2 and 3 were still viable, given that the country is currently being ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, burying the government in trillions of pesos in debt.

DR. Chester Cabalza, president and founder of the International Development and Security Cooperation, said the government’s defense spending is currently at 1.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

With the acquisition program already uncertain, Ong, who served in the Navy for 30 years, said the military must turn its focus to the KIG and WPS and hasten the acquisition of weapons that are needed to defend them.

Ong described the military’s procurement as in “limbo, as in the last five years.”

According to him, it did not help that President Duterte took a “pro-China policy,” which he described as a “failure,” although he admits there is still a need to engage Beijing.

Cabalza, on the other hand, said that other than acquiring weapons, what the military needs is a good concept of defense and strategy, including for the KIG and WPS. Liz Derr, president and cofounder of the US-based technology and research company Simularity, said that if the Philippines wanted to keep and protect its EEZ, then it must defend it and move to occupy the features within its waters, otherwise other states would take them.

How serious are we?

“IF you’re serious about protecting your sovereignty and your people, you need to actively monitor, patrol and occupy features in your EEZ,” she stressed.

Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4458 n UK 66.8477 n HK 6.2417 n CHINA 7.4336 n SINGAPORE 36.3302 n AUSTRALIA 37.5615 n EU 58.0245 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.9274

Source: BSP (April 16, 2021)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, April 18, 2021

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Where can you fly right now?

By Layan Odeh, Siddharth Philip & David Ingold

A

Bloomberg News

IRLINES just can’t get the world flying again. Despite a US boom in vaccinations, many countries are battling a resurgent coronavirus.

That means carriers are now expected to end 2021 offering about two-thirds the number of seats they did in 2019.

Passenger demand could be even lower.

Globally, scheduled capacity is stuck at about 58 percent of pre-pandemic levels, says John Grant, chief analyst at aviation data specialist OAG. For every market that grows, another seems to fall back, he said.

Using weekly OAG updates, Bloomberg has built a global flight tracker to monitor the pulse of the air travel comeback. It’s not one Grant expects to be quick.

Measuring seats on offer shows that carriers currently have some 62 million seats per week, well short of the 2019 benchmark of 106 million.

While not as precise a measurement as actual passenger traffic, tracking seats offered can help identify trends, giving an early look at what’s happening on a global, regional or national level.

With lockdowns meaning hopes of a buoyant European summer season hang in the balance, Grant says the reality is that airline capacity will hit an average of about 65 to 68 million seats by the end of the year— with passenger demand lagging some 15 to 20 percentage points behind capacity levels “for a long period of time.”

“There may be light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s a very, very long tunnel we’ve still got to go through.”

What’s happening in air travel this week

OAG’s data snapshot for the week of April 12 shows that the US is gaining momentum, with a handful of accessible destinations in the Caribbean benefiting from a recent upturn. Besides Cancun in Mexico, airlines have been ferrying Americans to the US Virgin Islands, where capacity is up 36

percent versus 2019, Puerto Rico, up 0.5 percent, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where last week’s volcanic eruption is likely to erase a 13-percent gain.

Discount carriers in the US have been adding capacity as rising vaccination rates encourage leisure travel. Frontier Group Holdings Inc. and Spirit Airlines Inc. have been the most aggressive, piling on flights just before spring break—though their push has trailed off in the past week.

Despite US growth, Asia leads the global pack. China is offering 5.1 percent more seats than during the same week in 2019. Vietnam is still closed to foreigners but domestic tourism means flight capacity is almost back up to where it was two years ago. A similar dynamic is at play in India, where seats offered are down just 16 percent.

In Europe, the regional hops that embody summer travel are nearly dormant, with countries like Italy, France and Germany stuck at 25 percent or less of prepandemic levels.

One surprising development is the handful of bright spots in Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo leads the way at 41 percent above pre-pandemic activity. International borders have been open since August in the expansive central African country, which is layered in rainforest.

War-torn Yemen in the Middle East is another outlier, with capacity offered at 19 percent above 2019 levels. While Yemenis are unable to fly to many countries, airlines have reintroduced routes to Sudan and Ethiopia, where getting visas is easier.

No region is back at 2019 levels

CHINA was quick to bring Co-

A PASSENGER pushes luggage through a departures hall of Narita Airport in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. AKIO KON/BLOOMBERG

vid-19 under control, and has kept infections low. Yet while it continues to help Asian air travel outperform the rest of the world, even that is not enough to see the region restore capacity mothballed since 2019.

Asia’s comeback was briefly interrupted by the Lunar New Year break in February, when the Chinese government encouraged people not to travel, OAG’s data show. The recovery has resumed since then though the pace has flattened in recent weeks.

North America got a bump at the start of March, driven by spring break getaways and a powerful US vaccine rollout. That looks set to continue after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month cleared a return to recreational travel for vaccinated individuals. Muddying the outlook is a rise in infections in the Midwest, which has sent US virus cases to a two-week high.

Europe trails every other region by far. A host of factors are at play, ranging from the

high reliance on international flights—which complicates border crossings—to the emergence of new virus strains and setbacks in the European Union’s vaccination drive. The UK, which has had the most success in cutting infections, has waffled on a May 17 target date for a reopening of international air travel, but says it’s still a goal.

Domestic travel can offset gloom

UNITED Airlines Holdings Inc., whose normal route network is weighted toward international travel, remains stuck at almost 50 percent below normal. The Chicago-based carrier has emphasized matching capacity to demand, so that planes fly fuller. Delta Air Lines Inc., another big global carrier, will have more room for passengers on May 1, when it becomes the last US airline to lift its block on selling mid-row seats.

While international travel remains suppressed, some large nations are being buoyed by domestic carriers, which have been

able to keep flying where train or automobile travel is less practical.

Airlines in China and India have kept accepting single-aisle jet deliveries from Airbus SE. Vietnam, about 1,000 miles from north to south, has also recovered well, with scheduled capacity down just 5.2 percent from 2019.

Yet Singapore and Hong Kong, both reliant on international travel, are barely flying at all. Progress toward establishing flight corridors has been waylaid by virus flareups, despite low case numbers in comparison to Western countries.

In Malaysia, where capacity is 85 percent below 2019 levels, AirAsia Group Bhd. posted a record loss in the final quarter of 2020 after local lockdowns delayed its plan to resume limited operations.

What comes next?

WHILE US airlines are bringing back pilots from leave, the coming weeks will show whether March’s rebound can endure. Rising Covid-19 cases there mean the outlook for carriers is becoming less

clear, according to analyst Helane Becker of Cowen & Co. Vaccination rates will be key to lifting travel restrictions. Just this week Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine rollout became the latest to hit obstacles, with the US pausing use of the shot and its European rollout delayed after reports of rare instances of blood clotting. Questions have also been raised about the effectiveness of some of China’s vaccines.

On a more positive note, the EU on Wednesday reached agreement on a draft of technical standards for so-called vaccine passports, which promise to ease travel to and within the bloc. But it’s not clear how soon the plan will go into effect.

“It’s very difficult on a global basis to see that there are going to be enough vaccinations by the end of 2021 or indeed 2022,” said OAG’s Grant. “It almost makes air travel a luxury product once again, particularly if you need to get tested both before and after arriving back home.”

‘IN THE SHADOW OF CHINA’S MIGHT’ Continued from A1

Derr, whose company had mapped the SCS and the activities of its contending claimants, said that Vietnam alone outnumbered the Philippines “one is to three” in building outposts in the areas that it claims.

A Vietnamese outpost that she showed during Wednesday’s virtual forum of the Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute was what she called as “DK1,” which is made of two structures that tower above the water and even has a helipad.

Compared with the coast guards of other countries in the region, Derr noted that the Philippine Coast Guard is the only one that is not “authorized to make defense when confronted.”

She prodded the country to secure its EEZ and ensure that “no more features are taken.”

Derr said that at least 27 features within the country’s EEZ in the South China Sea were not yet occupied by the Philippines until now.

She listed the key features as: Hopps Reef, Sabina Shoal, Southern Banks, Hardy Reef, Boxall Reef, Iroquois Reef, Hopkins Reef, Third Thomas Shoal, Jackson Atoll, Livock Reef, Alicia Annie Reef,

Empire Reef, Jones Reef, Higgens Reef, Holiday Reef and Hallet Reef.

Other uninhabited areas are: Pennsylvania South Reef, Southern Banks, McKennan Reef, Edmund Reef, Loveless Reef, Director Reef, Half Moon Shoal, Bombay Shoal, Northeast Investigator Shoal, Royal Captain Shoal, and Seahorse Shoal.

Constructing structures in these areas, such as lighthouses, can be done inexpensively “without provoking war,” Derr said, noting that the Philippines has been very weak in protecting its territory compared to other claimants.

“If the Philippines occupies the unoccupied Spratlys features in its EEZ, with some research into prioritizing which to occupy and what the best level of occupation is, their EEZ will be protected,” she said.

The presence of Philippinebuilt structures in the area will also protect Filipino fishermen and defend their right to continue fishing within the country’s waters.

“If this weakness continues, we will surely see more features being occupied by foreign countries,” Derr warned.

Indeed, the continuing signs of weakness are obviously the key

MEMBERS of the Philippine Coast Guard patrol the Julian Felipe Reef on April 14, 2021. PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD VIA AP

drivers of Beijing’s expansionist designs in the West Philippine Sea.

And, while the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has served notice it will never tire of lodging protests against such blatant

violations of international law—a necessary move to show the Philippines did not sleep on its rights— the defense and security establishment apparently needs to up the ante, and fast. The Asian giant has

cast a shadow over the country’s food sustainability, and while no shots have been fired, the continued hollowing out of the nation’s precious resources by hundreds of vessels daily can kill just as well.

As DFA Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. said in a tweet, “The really bad news is NOT that they’re swarming as a prelude to legal possession—legally impossible; they really are fishing—everything in the water that belongs by law to us: fish, clams, and in such big quantities as to wipe out sustainability.”

In short, no invasion, just a raid of the national refrigerator. A policy clearly enunciated by then Chinese President Jiang Zemin to a high-level Philippine congressional delegation that raised the matter of the Mischief Reef “shelters” in 1995. With all conviction, Mr. Jiang told his guests, he was puzzled by the complaints of Filipinos, because China is not invading them. And then added, that if one had to feed a billion people, it would search as far as it can for the resources for such. The purpose was clear 26 years ago, it seems, when the “shelters” predated the military fortresses and islandbuilding spree.

The logical countermove? Stop the raiding, padlock the ref, before the locals go hungry—but with what? That’s another story.

With earlier reports by Recto L. Mercene and Butch Fernandez

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

The World

China passed up a vaccine opportunity and fell behind

By Bruce Einhorn

Bloomberg News

T

he call came early in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Drew Weissman, an infectious diseases professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in messenger RNA, received a query from a Chinese company interested in using the new technology to make a vaccine against the coronavirus. mRNA, which effectively turns the body’s cells into tiny vaccine-making factories, has since become the breakout star of the Covid era, underpinning shots made by Moderna Inc. and the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE partnership which have been among the most effective in fighting the disease. Before Covid hit, though, the experimental science had yet to receive regulatory approval for use against any illness—let alone against the mysterious respiratory infection.

“They wanted to develop my technology in their company in China,” said Weissman, a leader in the field because of his work with research partner Katalin Karikó on discovering mRNA’s diseasefighting potential. “I told them I was interested.”

Then, nothing happened.

“I never heard from them again,” Weissman said.

It was one of the missed opportunities that have disadvantaged the country’s Covid vaccine push and left Chinese companies playing catch-up on a technology set to revolutionize everything from flu shots to oncology drugs.

As the coronavirus spread globally last year, New York-based Pfizer raced to partner with Germany’s BioNTech, an mRNA frontrunner that had hired Kariko as a senior vice president.

Massachusetts-based Moderna, meanwhile, had $2.5 billion in funding from the US government.

China setback

By contrast, several Chinese companies focused on older technologies that have proved far less potent. At a conference on April 10, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, George Fu Gao, said Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” local media reported.

As the comments caused a stir on social media, Gao backtracked, telling Communist Party-backed newspaper Global Times that he was just referring to ways to improve vaccine efficiency. But no amount of damage control can obscure the fact that no Made-in-China mRNA vaccines have been approved yet.

That’s a setback for President Xi Jinping’s ambition to make the country a health-care innovation powerhouse. mRNA’s effectiveness with Covid vaccines is opening up a new frontier for the technology, with researchers looking at ways to use it to fight cancer, tuberculosis and many other diseases, according to Surbhi Gupta, a health-care and life sciences analyst with consultancy Frost & Sullivan. “mRNA technology has the potential to be a game changer,” she said. For decades, vaccines have been made using inactive versions of viruses, but mRNA shots use genetic material to instruct the body to create the spike protein the coronavirus uses to enter cells. That in turn trains the body to fight potential infection.

Old-school Chinese-made Covid vaccines now in use from Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and China National Biotec Group Co. rely on particles from inactivated viruses and have protection rates much lower than the mRNA vaccines’ more than 90 percent effectiveness in preventing infections.

Sinovac’s vaccine has an efficacy rate of a little over 50 percent in protecting against symptomatic Covid-19, according to studies conducted in Brazil, just meeting the minimum threshold required by global drug regulators. State-owned China National Biotec, a unit of Sinopharm Group Co., has said its two inactivated vaccines are 73 percent and 79 percent effective in preventing symptomatic Covid but has not published data to support that assertion. Meanwhile, China’s CanSino Biologics Inc. has produced a viral-vector vaccine which, like those made by AstraZeneca Plc’s and Johnson & Johnson, uses a genetically modified virus to fight off infection. The Tianjin-based company has reported 66 percent efficacy in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 in its final stage trial.

China’s government has pushed aggressively to close the gap with the West and become an alternative pharmaceutical and biotech power. It allowed controversial treatments with stem cells and gene therapy, despite concerns elsewhere about safety and efficacy. Yet China didn’t make mRNA vaccines a priority.

“Before Covid, a lot of people still had reservations” about the technology, said Lusong Luo, senior vice president at BeiGene Ltd., a Beijingbased biotech pioneer and leading producer of oncology drugs. “It’s new, it’s at the cutting edge.”

When Sinovac began working on a vaccine, it focused on a familiar method in order to develop a shot quickly, after efforts at exploring other alternatives didn’t yield promising results.

“For us the strategy is really to use the more mature platform and technology to solve the problem,” CEO Yin Weidong told Bloomberg News in an interview last May. Now, with the success seen by Pfizer and Moderna, Chinese companies are jumping into the fray—but their efforts will take time to pay off. China may not have mRNA vaccines until the end of 2021, according to Feng Duojia, president of the China Association of Vaccines, China Global Television Network reported on April 11.

BeiGene in January announced an agreement to cooperate with Strand Therapeutics Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts on an mRNA treatment

for tumors. “Now people realize that mRNA vaccines really work, it will be a lot easier,” Luo said.

China’s Walvax Biotechnology Co. began construction in December on a facility to make mRNA vaccines, while CanSino struck a deal in May last year with Vancouver-based Precision NanoSystems Inc. to develop an mRNA vaccine.

Contract manufacturer WuXi Biologics Cayman Inc. has said it is devoting over $100 million to mRNArelated vaccines, biologics discovery, development and manufacturing.

While China has largely contained the spread of the coronavirus within its borders, more effective vaccinations and a wider take-up among its population would enable the country to reopen sooner, reducing the need for quarantines and lockdowns. China risks losing the edge gained by stamping out the virus if its inoculation drive is less effective than places where mRNA shots are the backbone of rollouts. In Israel, where nearly 60 percent of the population has received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths are plunging. As more adults get their shots in the US, which also relies largely on mRNA vaccines, President Joe Biden has predicted Americans will be celebrating July 4th with backyard barbecues once again.

China isn’t the only country that missed the boat with mRNA. While companies in Japan, India and Australia are significant players in fighting diseases like flu and polio, no company in the AsiaPacific region now makes mRNA shots. “Basically, mRNA was put in the ‘too-hard’ basket for many years,” said Nigel McMillan, program director for Infectious Diseases & Immunology at Griffith University in Southport, Australia.

In March this year, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Moderna’s local partner for Japanese trials of its Covid vaccine, signed a deal with New Jersey-based Anima Biotech on mRNA treatments for Huntington’s and other neurological diseases.

Another big Japanese drug maker, Daiichi Sankyo Co., announced on March 22 the start of an earlystage trial of its own mRNA Covid vaccine.

In Thailand, Bangkok-based Chulalongkorn University has enlisted Penn’s mRNA pioneer Weissman to help it develop mRNA capability.

As they try to catch up, Chinese developers and others in Asia can take advantage of the lower barriers to entry for mRNA vaccine and drug development. In addition to the market leaders Moderna and BioNTech, there are other Western start-ups that invested in mRNA and are ready to license their technology.

Making mRNA vaccines and drugs also doesn’t require large capital expenditures on expensive bioreactors and other equipment, said Archa Fox, an associate professor at the University of Western Australia’s School of Human Sciences and School of Molecular Sciences.

That bodes well for China’s ability to recover from not focusing on mRNA sooner, according to Weissman.

“They are going to hire the best scientists they can find,” he said. “Anybody can get in the game if they’ve got good people and money.”

BusinessMirror

Sunday, April 18, 2021

A3

Shortage of intubation drugs threatens Brazil health sector

By Diane Jeantet & David Biller

R

The Associated Press

IO DE JANEIRO—Reports are emerging of Brazilian health workers forced to intubate patients without the aid of sedatives, after weeks of warnings that hospitals and state governments risked running out of critical medicines.

One doctor at the Albert Schweitzer municipal hospital in Rio de Janeiro told The Associated Press that for days health workers diluted sedatives to make their stock last longer. Once it ran out, nurses and doctors had to begin using neuromuscular blockers and tying patients to their beds, the doctor said.

“You relax the muscles and do the procedure easily, but we don’t have sedation,” said the doctor, who agreed to discuss the sensitive situation only if not quoted by name. “Some try to talk, resist. They’re conscious.”

Lack of required medicines is the latest pandemic problem to befall Brazil, which is experiencing a brutal Covid-19 outbreak that has flooded the nation’s intensive care units. The daily death count is averaging about 3,000, accounting for a quarter of deaths globally and making Brazil the epicenter of the pandemic.

“Intubation kits” include anesthetics, sedatives and other medications used to put severely ill patients on ventilators. The press office of Rio city’s health secretariat said in an e-mail that occasional shortages at the Albert Schweitzer facility are due to difficulties obtaining supplies on the global market and that “substitutions are made so that there is no damage to the assistance provided.” It didn’t comment on the need to tie patients to beds.

The newspaper O Globo on Thursday reported similar ordeals in several other hospitals in the Rio metropolitan region, with people desperately calling other facilities seeking

sedatives for their loved ones.

It’s unclear whether the problem seen in Rio remains an isolated case, but others are sounding the alarm about impending shortages.

Sao Paulo state’s health secretary, Jean Carlo Gorinchteyn, said at a news conference Wednesday that the situation was dire in the hospitals of Brazil’s most-populous state. On Thursday, more than 640 hospitals were on the verge of collapse, with shortages possible within days, officials said.

“We need the federal government’s support,” Gorinchteyn said.

“This is not a necessity for Sao Paulo; it is a necessity for the whole country.”

His state’s health officials sent nine requests for intubation medication to the Health Ministry over the past 40 days, according to a statement Wednesday. Its last delivery was enough to cover just 6 percent of monthly needs in the state’s public health network, officials told AP. Federal Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga, who took over the post last month, said Wednesday that a shipment of sedatives was expected to arrive in Brazil “in the next 10 days.” It is the result of a contract signed with the Pan American Health Organization.

He said two separate efforts to acquire medications on the international market are under way “to end this day-to-day struggle.”

For many weeks, the ministry has also been facing logistical constraints on getting oxygen delivered to hospitals across the country. Queiroga said it remains “a daily concern.”

A more contagious coronavirus variant, known as P.1, has been spreading across Brazil this year. It may also be more aggressive than the original strain, and health workers have reported patients requiring far more oxygen than last year.

The private sector has stepped up to help address some of the supply shortfall. A group of seven large companies donated 3.4 million doses of intubation drugs—enough for the management of 500 beds for six weeks—to the Health Ministry.

A first batch of 2.3 million was scheduled to arrive from China late Thursday at Sao Paulo’s international airport and would be distributed to states with critical shortages, the ministry said in an e-mailed response to AP questions about supply bottlenecks.

Last month, the Health Ministry requisitioned intubation medications from laboratories, reportedly

as a means to distribute to the neediest hospitals. That has caused other facilities’ stocks to dwindle, said Edson Rogatti, director of an association of more than 2,000 hospitals nationwide.

“If we run out, the health sector will be in chaos,” Rogatti said on Globo News TV. Shortages aren’t limited to the public sector. Brazil’s private hospital association published a survey Thursday in which nine of 71 institutions reported having supplies for five days or less. About half said they had enough for a week.

Private facilities are looking to import medications from India, but still need regulatory approval, the association told AP. The city of Itaiopolis in southern Santa Catarina state this week reported shortages of both sedatives and oxygen. Neighboring Rio Grande do Sul state also reported supplies running out.

“The situation is desperate,” Rio Grande do Sul’s health secretary, Arita Bergmann, said in a statement Thursday. “We urgently need the Health Ministry to replenish hospitals’ stocks, or else intubated patients can wake up without medication, and that would be terrible.” AP

Journey

»life on the go

A4

BusinessMirror

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Editor: Tet Andolong

Bicol Bounces Back

Camsur Watersports Complex

W

By Bernard L. Supetran

hen the Department of Tourism described the Bicol region with the word “exciting” in its tagline, it was no empty boast or a worn-out adjective. It may have been synonymous with the perfectconed Mayon Volcano for the longest time, but it has proven in recent years that it has a plethora of natural wonders to offer beyond this iconic peak.

Composed of six provinces, it has been among the top domestic destinations because of its blend of countryside adventure, delectable dishes, colorful culture, warm people, and a semblance of cosmopolitan living.

Luzon’s southernmost region, has a vast contiguous landmass which will enable tourists to hop around the attractions with relative ease even by public transport.

With among the lowest Covid-19 cases in the country, the region is cautiously reopening tourism to make the industry compliant to the new normal regime, and strike a balance between health and the economy.

Albay, is the regional center and aerial gateway to the Bicolandia with its numerous flights and the new international airport which is expected to operate this year.

Named by the Unesco as a Man and Biosphere Reserve in 2016, the province is reinventing itself as a haven for farm tourism with

the agrarian-themed attractions around the foot of the majestic Mayon.

Albay Gulf, the vast body of water embracing the province, is emerging as a hub of watersports such as scuba diving, jet-skiing, and sailing with the recent introduction of Goose sailboats which aim to make the area a boat club.

The Gulf, which also hosts occasional dragonboat tournaments, runs along side the Legazpi City Boulevard, a long promenade which has become a hive of outdoor recreation, fitness activities and family bonding.

Neighboring Sorsogon, the habitat of the butanding (whale shark), the world’s biggest fish, is also unveiling a bevy of newly developed beaches and natural sanctuaries to lure nature-lovers to foray into its hidden nooks.

Bulusan Lake, the province’s old-time poster image, has undergone a landscape redevelopment to provide visitors a front seat to the

Bulusan Lake in Sorsogon

placid lake. Tucked with the lush Bulusan Volcano Natural Park, the 16-hectare lake is a quiet retreat where you can navigate its surface on board a kayak or standup paddle.

At the neoclassical Provincial Capitol Complex in Sorsogon City, visitors can travel back in time at the newly opened Museo Sorsogon, a repository of its rich natural, political and cultural heritage.

Sorsogon also takes pride in Gibalon Shrine in Magallanes town, a galleon-shaped spot which is the site of the first Mass in Luzon in 1569 officiated by Fray Alonzo Jimenez. The place is recognized by the National Quincentennial Commemorations as the place where the first seeds of Christianity were sown in the archipelago’s main island.

To showcase more of its bestkept secrets, the province will take center stage in the GMA Teleserye “I Left My Heart in Sorsogon” topbilled no less than by its first lady, Heart Evangelista.

Camarines Sur, the region’s largest province, continue to lure sports adventure lovers at the

Buntod Reef Marine Sanctuary in Masbate

Surfing in Catanduanes

CamSur Watersports Complex which is undergoing a facelift to restore the glory of what was once the country’s wakeboarding capital.

New tropical-themed accommodations are coming up in the sought-after Caramoan beaches which are famed because of the Survivor international reality TV show. More powdery sand beaches which were once almost inaccessible are being opened with the completion of paved roads.

The road gateway to the Bicol-

andia, Camarines Norte has been introducing its once sleepy shores in its Pacific seaboard over the past few years. These new beaches, in addition to its famed Calaguas Islands, once voted as the country’s top Tourism Gem, will make sun worshipers and island-hoppers come to CamNorte again once it reopens.

On the west and east of Bicol’s mainland are the island provinces of Masbate and Catanduanes, respectively, which have their own

distinct charm which have been veiled for so long.

Known as the Rodeo Capital of the Philippines, Masbate has missed for two successive years the staging of the most spectacular cowboy-themed festival in the archipelago. Guests may be barred from entering the ranches and doing the cowboy stuff, but the unspoiled islands and beaches away from the madding crowd can still be visited.

A must-see is the 200-meter Buntod Sandbar, an award-winning reef marine sanctuary just 15 minutes away from Masbate City.

Last but not least, Catanduanes is another pleasant surprise waiting to be uncovered by those who dare to go the roads less traveled.

Lying at the archipelago’s Pacific rim, it promises to be the Happy Island with its raw and crude topography, and happy interludes with nature. It also boasts of being a surfing getaway with the socalled Majestics, which known for its huge waves.

As Bicol bounces back, the region’s tourism will surely become more exciting and enticing.

Science

BusinessMirror

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

Sunday

Sunday, April 18, 2021 A5

DOST catches up on AI, funds 9 new projects F

By Edwin Galvez

rom spending P7.7 million for two artificial intelligence research and development projects in the last 10 years, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), through its Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD), is “trying to catch up” on the country’s AI R&D investment by bankrolling the implementation of nine “mission-driven” AI R&D projects amounting to almost P316 million.

“DOST started investing in its AI program [seven years ago], but even then, we have been trying to catch up, and within our available resources we are able to catch up,” said Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña at the online launching of the country’s 10-year AI R&D program called AI Pinas on April 8.

De la Peña said the AI Pinas, or the DOST-PCIEERD Artificial Intelligence Program, represents the AI R&D roadmap from 2019 to 2029.

The five targets of the 10-year AI R&D framework include the universal and affordable access to AI infrastructure; upskilling the workforce; science-based solutions for socio-economic opportunities; unprecedented innovation for the industry sector; and enhanced policy support and stakeholder engagement.

The AI R&D grants provided by the DOST-PCIEERD totaled P328 million from 2018 to the present, according to Executive Director Dr. Enrico C. Paringit.

“To jumpstart the AI Pinas program, we supported 13 mission-driven projects in seven higher-education institutions and research and development institutions,” Paringit said at the same launching.

Paringit added that, to date, “almost P340 million had been poured out and we look forward to reaching a critical mass of researchers developing AI capabilities, applications, and services and the rapid delivery of responsive AI-based solutions.”

“To turn this roadmap into reality,” Paringit said the DOST-PCIEERD is al-

locating at least P70 million to support AI-related researches in its call for R&D proposals for 2023.

“PCIEERD is investing P40 million and will ask the DOST at least P30 million to support some of these AI-related researches as part of our core or platform technologies or the applications or sectoral support or demonstrations,” Paringit added.

Investing harder and faster on AI R&D AI had been among the bottom five of the 21 sectors, ranking either 20th or 21st for R&D budget allocation since 2011.

“We actually started quite slow so we are acting on that momentum, but we want to improve this standing and we are really investing hard [on AI R&D] in a fast-paced manner,” Paringit explained.

At the virtual launch of AI Pinas, the DOST-PCIEERD presented the nine new AI R&D projects and their leaders and heads of the implementing institutions, which include the DOST-Advanced Technology Science Institute (ASTI), University of the Philippines Mindanao (UPMin), De La Salle University (DLSU), University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) and Caraga State University (CarSU).

“I am very proud of the variety of these projects in scope and scale, anywhere from environmental protection to agriculture to education,” Paringit said.

The five educational institutions each received a P3-million Dell Poweredge T640, a high-performance computing machine designed for handling intensive data processing activities.

They will then also serve as the AI hub in their respective regions.

Paringit called on researchers to develop mission-driven programs to help the industry and find breakthroughs that will make use of the computing resources that are now available in these institutions.

“For R&D proposals, we have actually identified a few of them, including AI robotics solutions for emerging needs, enhancing disaster risk-reduction response, and improving infrastructure

The DOST, through PCIEERD, is investing close to P316 million for nine new AI research and development projects. At the online signing of the MOA between the DOST and the implementing institutions are (from top, left) Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña; UPMin Chancellor Dr. Larry N. Digal; Dianne Tating of PCIEERD; DLSU President Br. Raymundo B. Suplido, FSC; Caraga SU Prof. Junrie B. Matias; DLSU's Dr. Judith J. Azcarraga; UPMin's Dr. Vladimer B. Kobayashi; UPLB's Engr. John Paolo A. Ramoso; DOST R&D Undersecretary Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara; Caraga SU President Dr. Anthony M. Peñaso; UPMin's Dr. Jose Ildefonso U. Rubrico; PCIEERD Executive Director Dr. Enrico C. Paringit; and DOST ASTI's Engr. Alvin E. Retamar. Not in photo are UPLB Chancellor Dr. Jose V. Camacho Jr., DLSU's Dr. Marnel S. Peradilla and DOST ASTI's Engr. Peter Antonio B. Banzon.

Screenshot by Edwin Galvez

management,” Paringit said.

DOST-PCIEERD will accept proposals for “game-changing innovations” from public and private universities and colleges, research and development institutes, R&D consortia, nonprofit laboratories, and other public or private non-profit science and technology institutions in the country from May 3 to June 3, 2021 through the DOST Project Management Information system portal www://dpmis.dost.gov.ph.

Pushing for mission-driven AI projects First is the Autonomous Societally Inspired Mission Oriented Vehicles (Asimov) program of the DOST-ASTI and UPMin. Composed of two component projects, the Asimov program will develop AI-enhanced, mission-driven robots working autonomously or with humans to help address the needs of society. Its initial phase calls for developing and

innovating on key functional modules of intelligent mobile robots: sensing, actuation, control, navigation and communications.

The UPMin and DOST-ASTI will also spearhead the Philippine Sky Artificial Intelligence Program (SkAIPinas) with the Automated Labeling Machine-Large-Scale Initiative as its main research component.

SkAI-Pinas will bridge the gap between the availability of massive remote sensing data in the country and address the lack of a sustainable technologybased framework to facilitate their widespread processing systematically and effectively.

Fifth is the DLSU’s Intelligent Structural Health Monitoring via Mesh of Tremor Sensors (meSHM) project that will develop a low-cost, wireless structural health monitoring system with visualization for buildings, bridges or metro rail systems utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) technology

and mesh networks.

The project will pave the way for a more complete data collection and analysis for upgraded studies and policies on disaster preparedness involving vertical and horizontal structures in the country.

The DLSU will also implement the Development of Multi-lingual Chatbot for Health Monitoring of Public-School Children Project, a system that can interpret audio input and converse with in Filipino and Visayan languages.

The project will develop speech and natural language processing models that can provide appropriate and intelligent responses in the form of questions or suggestions.

The information gathered will then be extracted to update the health database of the students. Health analytics and visualization of these data will be provided for decision-making.

The seventh project, also under the UPMin, addresses the global threat of

anthropogenic marine debris using a towed camera system for marine litter monitoring.

Developing a simple, cost-effective technology to monitor and quantify the marine litter in shallow coastal areas will help protect the environment and reduce marine pollution.

The UPMin will base its technology on existing towed optical camera array system for deep-sea monitoring and redesign and improve this by adding sensors and cameras.

It will also have a built-in image processing and deep learning or machine learning capability to identify marine litter, compute and map the area covered by the litter and build models for predicting scenarios.

Meanwhile, to help identify and classify materials and their capacity and performance, the UPLB will develop an automated software that accepts values from a standard Impedance Spectrometer and uses a machine learning algorithm to identify electrical, mass and temperature parameters by looking into the time series plot and plot library.

This also involves properly fitting a spectrum with sufficient parameters that minimizes common errors in existing numerical fittings.

The program will be integrated with a simple interface where the user can just input the values or parameters.

The academe and industries involving electronics, semiconductors, food, medicine, and agriculture will benefit from this project.

Lastly, using an IoT sensor network and deep learning, CarSU will design and develop an intelligent traffic control and management system, which can monitor traffic in an area by using various devices to measure such parameters as flow, density, volume, headway, waiting time, throughput and even pollution.

The system’s base station will be established and equipped with intelligent behavior and direct policy search capabilities using reinforcement learning to automatically and efficiently manage traffic and avoid congestion.

Common anti-diabetic drug found useful for diabetic tilapia

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Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña administers the oath of office to Dr. Franz A. De Leon as the ninth director of DOST-ASTI on April 15. Enrico P. Belga Jr., Office of the DOST Secretary

Duterte appoints UP professor as new DOST-ASTI director

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resident Duterte appointed Dr. Franz Asunta de Leon as new director of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ASTI).

An associate professor at University of the Philippines Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute (UPD-EEEI), de Leon will lead DOST-ASTI in implementing its research and development (R&D) programs and projects in the field of information and communications technology (ICT), microelectronics and space technology.

De Leon was sworn into office by Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña on April 15 as the ninth director of ASTI. President Duterte made his appointment on March 30.

Present during the event held at the DOSTASTI Building in Diliman, Quezon City, were DOST Undersecretary for Research and Development Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, and other DOST-ASTI officials.

The new DOST-ASTI director is a graduate of BS Electronics and Communications Engineering and MS in Electrical Engineering in 2003 and 2005, respectively. He earned his PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom in 2014.

He also served as part of the UP faculty for engineering students.

With interests in Digital Signal Processing for Audio and Communications, he was involved in one of the collaborative projects of DOST-ASTI with UPD-EEEI as the project leader for the Development of a Philippine Indigenous Instrument Sounds Database, also known as Kalipunan ng Katutubong Tunog (Katunog).

“During these challenging times, there is a need for solutions and applications that will uplift our spirits and help us adjust to the new normal,” de Leon said on his appointment.

“As the new ASTI director, I want to make the Filipinos enjoy the benefits of innovative solutions in the field of ICT, microelectronics and space technology.

We will continue to work closely with our stakeholders to meet their expectations. We will also continue to invest not only in upgrading the facilities, but more importantly in our human resources to be agile and ready for the next generation technologies,” he added.

De la Peña congratulated de Leon on his appointment.

He added: “There is a big task ahead for the new director, and I am sure that his academic and research experience as an educator will help a lot. DOST-ASTI has a very good quality working team, but the challenge is how to increase their numbers. I am confident that something can be done about that.”

“The field that has been assigned to ASTI is something that will really transform the Philippines, and so we expect a lot of innovations and transformations that will come out of ASTI. I count on ASTI to contribute not only to new knowledge generation, to new technology generation, but toward the support for more commercial technologies that will boost our initiatives toward being competitive in the region,” de la Peña said.

Being the former Vice President for Planning and Development of the University of the Philippines, de la Peña said DOST-ASTI is the only research and development institute of DOST which he saw since it was established, “and I was very happy with its inception.”

DOST-ASTI was recently headed by Dr. Joel Joseph Sacro Marciano Jr., who is now the director general for Philippine Space Agency.

Established in 1987 by Executive Order 128, DOSTASTI undertakes scientific research and development and technology transfer in the advanced fields of ICT, computing, electronics, and their applications.

id you know that fishes can also have high blood glucose level, or diabetes?

Aquatic organisms are considered diabetic as they cannot utilize dietary carbohydrates. This condition depends on the fish’s food consumption.

Carnivorous fishes, which are meat-eaters and generally require live foods, are on top of the list of diabetics. Nile tilapia, which is considered omnivorous and moderately able to cope with high dietary carbohydrates, is found to benefit from low dosage (0.02 percent) of benfotiamine, a human food supplement similar to Vitamine B1 or thiamine.

Omnivorous animals eat a variety of both meat and vegetable matter.

With this information, the University of the Philippines Visayas-National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (UPV-Biotech) conducted a pilot feeding trial wherein the project team supplemented benfotiamine in the tilapia’s diet.

The trial yielded higher gross income, profit and profit margin compared with either commercial or high-carbohydrate diet.

The results of the trial were reported by Dr. Augusto E. Serrano Jr., Professor 12 and director of UPV-Biotech, during the online project monitoring and evaluation organized by the funding agency, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and

DOST-SEI, partners vow more intl victories for Filipino STEM students

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rom math Olympiads to robotics competitions, Filipino students have been consistently making their mark in the international arena, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) and its educational partners—some of whom have been the agency’s allies for well over two decades.

The institute and its partners recently reaffirmed their shared commitment to promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through the online signing of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on April 14, a reminder of the unusual circumstances brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as of the determination and creativity of the various agencies to overcome these challenges.

“While Filipinos will always be known for our resiliency, it’s time that we thrived beyond that,” said DOST-SEI Director Josette T. Biyo. “We are thankful to our partners for helping us and our Filipino youth to grow into something bigger and brighter, through STEM.” Biyo presided over the ceremony that was attended by long-time partners—the National Olympiad in Informatics Philippines; Asian MathSci League Inc.; Felta Multi-Media Inc.; Mathematics Trainers’ Guild Philippines; Philippine Foundation for Science and Technology; Philippine Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology; Philippine Meterological Society Inc.; Philippine Society of Youth Science Clubs Inc.; and Mathematical Society of the Philippines.

“Though the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the educational landscape around the world, we look forward to continue to inspire our youth to pursue STEM careers by showing them that they have the capability to win against all odds in international competitions,” Biyo said. S&T Media Service

Technology (DOST-PCAARRD).

Benfotiamine to accelerate fish growth

Benfotiamine is similar to Vitamin B1 or thiamine in structure but is considered more available and better absorbed by the body than thiamine.

Supplementing benfotiamine in the diet of tilapia can accelerate fish growth due to increased utilization of carbohydrates by 40 percent and above.

Dietary carbohydrates are the cheapest components in aquafeeds. However, the use of dietary carbohydrates should be limited as it has a negative effect on fish body growth.

Nile tilapia supplemented with benfotiamine was able to lower glucose level five hours after feeding.

Moreover, the diet supplemented with benfotiamine showed a 26-percent profit margin over high carbohydrate feed, and 48 percent profit margin over commercial feed diet.

Tilapia fed with diet containing benfotiamine was found to be superior in terms of body weight and growth response.

The metabolic-digestive organs of tilapia supplemented with benfotiamine functioned more efficiently as their genes involved in breaking down carbohydrate were upregulated.

Eduardo V. Manalili/S&T Media Services

AdMU, DOST explore science-based water resource management for Boracay

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he world-renown tourist destination Boracay is being used by researchers as a test case in developing science-based monitoring techniques and planning guidelines for sustainable water resource management on tourist islands.

Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) and the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PNRI) researchers intend to provide a comprehensive understanding on the water conditions and outlook on the island, Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña said in his weekly DOST Report.

As part of the project, guidelines will be formulated in the management of both surface and groundwater resources in the Nabaoy River Watershed and Boracay Island. The Nabaoy River is a major supplier of potable water on Boracay.

The AdMU researchers will use advanced surveying and monitoring equipment to assess and map the water resources and location of groundwater aquifers in Boracay.

They will evaluate the water quality and quantity and develop water projection/forecasting tool for both surface and groundwater reservoirs.

The DOST-PNRI, on the other hand, with the use of isotope techniques and classical hydrology, will characterize water quality and quantity, determine

groundwater system dynamics, recharge mechanisms, potential degradation and impending sources of pollution in Nabaoy Watershed and on Boracay Island, The data that will be generated will be used in the development of short-medium-long term management strategy, including the plans, programs and policies related to water infrastructure.

Through the pilot study, the DOST is expecting that the methodologies and tools to be established and developed, planning guidelines will be adopted and utilized by partner national government agencies and local government units for other major tourist islands in the country that are facing challenges in water availability and sustainability.

The project is supported by the DOST-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development.

It is co-implemented with the UK-British Geological Survey and Aklan State University, and in cooperation with the DOST-Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration, Department of TourismTourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority, Department of Environment and Natural Resources-National Water Resources Board, Boracay Water Concessionaires, and the municipality of Malay in Aklan.

Faith

Sunday

A6 Sunday, April 18, 2021

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

Baptism of 7 Cebu kids highlights Mass for 500th year of Christianity

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EBU CITY—The Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, Archbishop Charles John Brown administered on April 14 the sacrament of baptism to seven children to depict the same event on April 14, 1521, when the ruler of Cebu and his wife accepted Christianity.

The ritual during the solemn pontifical Mass beside the historic Magellan’s Cross at the Plaza Sugbu was also attended by Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Cardinal Quevedo, other bishops, and a hundred priests.

T he seven c h i ld ren whom Brown welcomed to the Roman Catholic Church: were David Villagracia, John Michael Dragon, Milby Illocendo, April Suan, Billy Connie Pal, French Cedric Sison and Jolito Abaquita Jr. Brown also handed over to each of the children an image of the Sto. Niño and their baptismal certificate.

In his homily, he said the rites given to the children “will give a rebirth, in the spirit... We will give

them the light of Christ.”

He shared his ref lection on what happened in Cebu 50 0 years ago when Christianity was a faith that began in Asia before it spread throughout the world into large parts of Asia, North Africa, and Europe.

“So, we have this paradox of the arrival of Christian faith in the Philippines—that the faith, which itself, was born in Asia, was then brought here first by means of European explorers and colonizers who were accompanied by missionaries and that was a great gift—the gift of the Catholic faith,” the representative of Pope Francis said.

The Mass was also attended by a few government officials, led

by Presidential Assistant for the

Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines Archbishop Charles John Brown (center) presents an image of the Sto. Niño to a boy who was one of the seven children baptized during the solemn Pontifical Mass beside the Magellan’s Cross at the Plaza Sugbu in Cebu City, on April 14. The activity was part of the celebration for the 500th anniversary of Christianity in the Philippines.

PNA photo by John Rey Saavedra

Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino, who represented President Rodrigo Duterte in the event, Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Junard Chan, among others, as well as papal awardees and a few religious nuns.

Palma expressed gratitude to the faithful for attending the historic event, while observing health and safety protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Basilica now a national treasure

The Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu and the image of the Sto. Niño are now national

cultural treasures.

“As contribution to this commemoration, the cultural agencies of our country have decided to declare the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu as a national cultural treasure, one of the highest distinctions the state can give to a particular build heritage,” said Rene Escalante, chairman of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

Escalante is also the executive director of the National Quincentennia l Committee which served as the clearinghouse of all government efforts for the commemoration of the 500th

anniversar y of the Filipinos’ first contact with the Spanish in 1521 from a Filipino-centric point of view.

Republic Act 10066, the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009 defines a national cultural treasure as unique cultural property which possesses “outstanding historical, cultural, artistic and/ or scientific value which is highly significant and important to the country and nation.”

The law entitles the property to receive priority government funding for protection, conservation, and restoration; incentive for private support of conservation and restoration; an official heritage marker; and priority protection by the government in times of armed conflict, natural disasters, and other exceptional events.

The Sto. Niño minor basilica was declared a national historic landmark in 1973.

A historical marker was installed at the basilica complex, the fourth mounted in the 456-year old church.

The first marker was fixed in 1941 when the basilica was declared a national monument.

Another marker at the Magellan’s Cross was also installed in 1941, and another one for the Order of St. Augustine, three years ago.

Religious leaders recall deep spiritual curiosity of Prince Philip

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ONDON—Churches in Britain held services to remember Prince Philip as people of many religions reflected on a man whose gruff exterior hid a strong personal faith and deep curiosity about others’ beliefs.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby led a service of remembrance at Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England for the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, who died on April 9 at the age of 99.

Welby, who presided at Philip’s funeral last Saturday at Windsor Castle, led prayers for Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, and contemplated “a very long life, remarkably led.”

I n L ond on’s We s t m i n s t e r Abbey, where Phi lip mar r ied the then-Princess Elizabeth in 1947, Dean of Westminster David Hoyle remembered the former naval officer’s “self-effacing sense of service.”

Most people’s gl impses of Ph i l ip in a rel ig ious set t ing were of him beside the queen at commemorative ser vices, or walking to church with the royal family on Christmas Day. But his religious background and interests were more varied than his conventional role might suggest.

Born into the Greek royal family as Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, he was baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church.

His father was exiled and his family left Greece when Philip w a s ver y you ng. He bec a me an Anglican when he married Elizabeth, who as queen is supreme governor of the Church of England.

In the 1960s, he helped set up St. George’s House, a religious study center at the royal family’s Windsor Castle seat, where Philip would join clergy, academics,

Britain’s Prince Philip salutes during a special Armistice Day ceremony under the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, in this photo taken on November 11, 2013. The Duke of Edinburgh attended a special Armistice Day ceremony to oversee the handover of 70 sandbags of soil from Flanders fields.

AP/Paul Edwards

businesspeople and politicians to discuss the state of the world.

He was a regular visitor to Mount Athos, a monastic community and religious sanctuary in Greece, and was a long-time patron of the Templeton Prize, a lucrative award for contribution to life’s “spiritual dimension” whose winners include Mother Teresa.

Philip’s longstanding environmentalism, which saw him serve as patron of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, was connected to his faith.

He organized a 1986 summit in Assisi, Italy, where representatives of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism pledged to protect the environment.

Philip said at the time that “a new and powerful alliance has been forged between the forces of religion and the forces of conser vation.”

B l u nt - s p o k e n a n d q u i c kwitted, Philip also was known for making remarks that could be deeply offensive, some of them sexist and racist. But former Archbishop of York John Sentamu, who was born in Uganda, said those who saw Philip as a bigot were wide of the mark.

“If somebody challenged him, you would enter into an amazing conversation,” Sentamu told the BBC. “The trouble was that because he was the Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of the queen, people had this deference.

“I’m sure sometimes he regretted some of those phrases, but in the end it’s a pity that people saw him as somebody who makes gaffes,” Sentamu said. “Behind those gaffes was an expectation of a comeback, but nobody came back, and the gaffe, unfortunately, stayed.”

Inderjit Singh, a prominent British Sikh leader, said Philip had a strong knowledge of Sikhism and “contributed to the understanding and harmony between differing faith communities.”

“He recognized what we should all recognize....We are all of one common humanity,” Singh said.

Philip’s faith may have been partly a legacy of his mother, Princess A lice of Battenberg, who established an order of nuns, sheltered Jews in Nazi-occupied Greece during World War II and is buried below a Russian Orthodox church in east Jerusalem.

“I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special,” Philip said on a 1994 trip to Israel, where he visited his mother’s grave. “She was a person with deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a totally human action to fellow human beings in distress.”

His interests in religion and ecolog y have been passed on to his eldest son, Prince Charles.

T he hei r to t he t h rone i s a strong env ironmentalist who has said he wants to be “defender of faiths” when he takes the throne, rather than the monarch ’s official title as defender of the Anglican faith. AP

Why is Ramadan called Ramadan?

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What is the significance of Ramadan?

Ramadan is a period of fasting and spiritual growth, and is one of the five “pillars of Islam.” The others being the declaration of faith, daily prayer, alms-giving and the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Able-bodied Muslims are expected to abstain from eating, drinking and sexual relations from dawn to sunset each day of the month. Many practicing Muslims also perform additional prayers,

John Rey Saavedra/PNA

limited (for example, because of an illness or old age) are exempt from the obligation to fast; the same is true for anyone who is traveling.

Those who are able to do so are expected to make up the missed days at a later time. One could potentially make up all of the missed days in the month immediately following Ramadan, the month of Shawwal.

Those unable to fast at all (if they are financially able) are expected to provide meals to the needy as an alternative course of action.

A Palestinian toddler wears a jilbab, an Islamic garment, on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in the Old City of Jerusalem, on April 12. AP/Maya Alleruzzo

a m a da n is t he nint h month of the Islamic lunar calendar, and lasts either 29 or 30 days, depending on when the new crescent moon is, or should be, visible.

The Arabic term Ramadan connotes “intense heat.” It seems that in pre-Islamic Arabia, Ramadan was the name of a scorching hot summer month.

In the Islamic calendar, however, the timing of Ramadan varies from year to year. This year Ramadan begins in most places on April 13. An Islamic year is roughly 11 days shorter than a Gregorian year.

“The presence of a historical marker in the complex adds value to this historic place. Aside from being considered a holy ground as the home of the most venerated image of Child Jesus of Cebu, the Basilica is regarded as an important cultural property that the national government should preserve, protect and promote,” Escalante said.

Fr. Andres Rivera Jr., prior provincial of the Augustinian friars in Cebu, expressed his gratitude to the national government’s commitment to afford protection for the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño and the holy image.

Rivera said the church stands not on ly a s a bu i ld i ng w it h beautiful designs “ but a place where a tradition and culture has taken place.”

The basilica was founded in 1565 by the Augustinian friars, Fray Andres de Urdaneta and Fray Diego de Herrera.

Recognized as the oldest Roman Catholic church in the Philippines, the basilica is built on the same spot where the image of the Sto. Niño de Cebu was found during the expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. It was the same image presented by Ferdinand Magellan to Rajah Humabon’s wife upon the royal couple’s baptism on April 14, 1521.

especially at night, and attempt to recite the entire Qur’an. The prevailing belief among Muslims is that it was in the final 10 nights of Ramadan that the Qur’an was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

What is the connection between soul and body that the observance of Ramadan seeks to explain?

The Qur’an states that fasting was prescribed for believers so that they may be conscious of God. By abstaining from things that people tend to take for granted (such as water), it is believed, one may be moved to reflect on the purpose of life and grow closer to the creator and sustainer of all existence.

As such, engaging in wrongdoing effectively undermines the fast.

Many Muslims also maintain that fasting allows them to get a feeling of poverty, and this may foster feelings of empathy.

Can Muslims skip fasting under certain conditions? If so, do they make up missed days?

All those who are physically

What is the significance of 29 or 30 days of fasting?

By fasting over an extended period of time, practicing Muslims aim to foster certain attitudes and values that they would be able to cultivate over the course of an entire year.

Ramadan is often likened to a spiritual training camp.

Besides experiencing feelings of hunger and thirst, believers often have to deal with fatigue because of late-night prayers and predawn meals. This is especially true during the final 10 nights of the month.

In addition to being the period in which the Qur’an was believed to have been first revealed, this is a time when divine rewards are believed to be multiplied. Many Muslims will offer additional prayers during this period.

Do Muslims celebrate the completion of Ramadan?

The end of Ramadan marks the beginning of one of two major Isl a m ic hol id ays Eid a l-Fit r, the “ festival of the breaking of the fast.”

On this day, many Muslims attend a religious service, visit relatives and friends, and exchange gifts. Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Michigan

State University/The Conversation-CC

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A7

Conserving tigers, elephants, bison, one LPG stove at a time

RS Components employees sort electronics, automation, and control components, tools and consumables at a local warehouse. Photo from RS Components

Time for manufacturing sector to go green

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

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he manufacturing sector is creating economic opportunities that contribute to growth and development.

However, the sector has been consistently linked to various environmental problems, such as solid waste, air and water pollution.

But the sector can be developed to support the United Nations sustainability goals by refocusing efforts to operate sustainably.

Imperative to go green

The Center for Energy, Ecology and Development (CEED) said since the manufacturing sector is one of the major sources of pollution and a big contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions, it is only right for the sector to take a greener and more sustainable path.

“It is imperative for the manufacturing sector to go green and contribute in reducing pollution as this sector, besides energy and transport, is one of the major sources of pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions in the country,” CEED Executive Director Gerry Arances told the B usinessM irror via Messenger on April 8.

Arances said as major corporations globally are now compelled to do their share in contributing in mitigating the impacts of climate change and stabilization of ecosystems, it is incumbent upon the manufacturing sector in a vulnerable country like the Philippines to do its share with haste.

After all, he said, the manufacturing sector will not be the only one to greatly benefit from going green, but the country as a whole.

Reducing carbon footprint

It is simply time for the manufacturing sector to go green, said George Santiago, Philippine country manager of RS Components, in his reply to the BusinessMirror when asked on how the sector can be part of the solution on environmental woes.

RS Components, a global solutions partner for industrial customers in designing, building or maintaining industrial equipment and facilities, believes that the use of innovation and technologies to integrate sustainable practices are essential to make sure the industry is reducing its carbon footprint and becoming more energy efficient.

The company provides a choice of industrial and electronic products as well as innovative solutions. It aims to make it easy to do business through the firm’s e-commerce platform.

RS Components is the trading name of Electrocomponents, headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has over 7,000 employees worldwide and is present in key markets across Asia Pacific, including the Philippines.

Right tech, solutions; aligning with SDGs

According to Santiago, implementing technologies like automation and Industry 4.0 solutions throughout operations enable manufacturers to experience productivity and efficiency, in addition to reducing energy consumption and lowering emissions.

“We are raising awareness and helping customers to identify and access the right technologies and solutions for these types of requirements,” he said.

He said that while the Philippine government has committed to reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030, the company’s goal is to help the manufacturing and industrial customers to contribute to the drive and meet their own sustainability and energy efficiency targets.

He said there is now a greater focus among businesses and manufacturers on sustainability issues and opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint and become more energy efficient.

“Many organizations, including RS, are aligning with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, too,” he said.

Santiago said in order to keep emissions down, changes must be made in various businesses, transport and manufacturing industries to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

“Adopting green approaches to cities and implementing strategic practices will make the change happen faster,” he said.

The United Nations Environment Programme includes climate change, resource efficiency, chemicals and waste and air pollution among its priorities in the Asia Pacific, Santiago noted.

“From my perspective as one working in industrial distribution, it’s important for manufacturers to also look at how or where they are sourcing raw materials because it can significantly reduce their carbon footprint.

Sourcing locally or regionally helps firms minimize their footprint and transport costs, compared to sourcing from international sources that require further or longer transport,” he explained.

Reducing pollution contribution

In the Philippines, as the government is pushing for more manufacturers to practice sustainable operations, a roadmap was developed to guide manufacturers forward, touching on steps encouraging product and process innovation. That was in 2015, Santiago said.

“We’ve already seen some firms in six different manufacturing industries adopting this roadmap, including automotive, pulp and paper, plastic, furniture, housing and copper,“ he said.

“On top of this roadmap, Philippines Green Jobs Act of 2016 gives incentives to companies that reduce energy consumption and minimize waste and pollution,” he said.

Santiago said manufacturers and procurement specialists are interested in becoming more sustainable with their operations.

“To support our customers’ initiatives to minimize emissions we stock products locally. For example, in Southeast Asia, we hold stock in Singapore. We also host energy efficiency conferences. Our last one was held in Cagayan de Oro in which we saw great interest from Philippine manufacturers to go green,” he said.

Local initiatives

Santiago said the firm’s local technical and sourcing staff help customers select compliant products or quality alternatives, such as LED bulbs and sensors, so they can achieve energy efficiency and improve productivity levels in their plants and facilities.

“We also have eSolutions and eProcurement solutions to give customers better control and visibility over their supply chain, ultimately reducing wastage on their end,” Santiago said.

“Customers’ carbon footprint shrinks when they leverage their eProcurement solution as it eliminates the need to travel back and forth to the warehouse to get a hold of products,” he added.

Customers also benefit from the transparency of having purchasing data accessible online, allowing better planning of procurement, managing costs, and less wastage.

Accountability, social acceptability

Leon Dulce, national coordinator of the Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE), underscored the need for environmental accountability.

“The manufacturing sector should be accountable for its entire value and supply chain. The sourcing of raw materials could be coming from destructive large-scale mines or agribusiness land-grabs,” Dulce, told the B usinessM irror via Messenger on April 8.

For one, he said the semi-processing and other value-adding could be operating pollutive factories in areas where regulations are lax.

“The packaging could be using cheap but wasteful plastic materials,” Dulce added.

Finally, he said the sector should be obliged to do environmental due diligence across its value chain.

“They must ensure 100 percent responsible sourcing and adhere to the highest standards of environmental and social-acceptability compliance,” he said.

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YDERABAD, India—As the sun sets over the canopy of Albizia amara trees, a thin blanket of fog begins to descend over the forests of the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, which lies roughly 150 km south of the Indian city of Bangalore.

Not so long ago, plumes of smoke would rise from the hamlets dotting the forests as women busily cooked dinner for their families over wood stoves.

But that night, dinner would be a smokeless affair in dozens of villages as communities have opted for the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a clean burning fuel that has given a boost to the health and safety of both the forest and its people thanks to a unique conservation project.

Spread over an area of 906 sq. km—slightly bigger than the German capital Berlin—and nestled along the border of two states, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in southern India, Malai Mahadeshwara Hills (MM Hills) was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2013.

An estimated 2,000 elephants and 150 people, mostly police and security officers, had been killed here in the past because of rampant poaching by an infamous bandit.

But thanks to a number of conservation projects run by various government agencies, nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and several other big game animals, including bison and tigers.

Besides animals, the forest landscape also includes over 50 villages of indigenous peoples. And in a dramatic shift toward sustainability, thousands of forest dwellers have moved to a forest-friendly fuel to save the habitat of these wild animals, thanks to a project spearheaded by Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), a local NGO, in partnership with IUCN.

Conserving the natural habitat of elephants

Funded under IUCN’s Integrated Tiger Habitat Conser vation Programme (ITHCP), the project aims to minimize human-wildlife conflict and promote a sustainable living among the forest peoples.

Dr. Sanjay Gubbi, senior scientist at NCF, describes the early years when his team first began work in MM Hills.

Almost every village community in MM Hills practices farming, but they were also dependent on forest resources, including using firewood for fuel.

And the destruction of one particular tree, the Albizia amara—also called the Oilcake tree in many parts of the world—was of significance to the wildlife population.

“We conducted a survey and found that 53 percent of the firewood used by the community came from the Albizia amara tree. Elephants feed on the barks of these trees, so because of the firewood consumption, elephants were directly affected. So, we decided to begin by addressing this firewood problem, especially along the elephant corridors [forest patches used by elephants to move from one part of the forest to another],” Gubbi tells Inter Press Service (IPS).

Solution with numerous benefits

The team focused on introducing an alternative fuel source that would be nonpolluting, accessible and affordable to the community.

Moreover, it had to be something that would help the forest dwellers adopt a more sustainable way of liv ing—one of the core conser vation principles practiced by IUCN. NCF prov ided each family w ith a f ree LPG subsc r ipt ion, wh ic h came with a stove, a cylinder and accessories, and cost about 5,300 rupees ($71).

In addition, they trained the community to use the stove and connected them with a nearby LPG distributor, so they could re-fill their gas supply independently.

Changing the community’s source of fuel wasn’t easy. The villagers, most of whom had never seen an LPG stove before, were scared of taking one home.

Their worries ranged from beliefs that food cooked over a gas stove could cause gastric pain, to the fear that the cylinders would burst and kill them.

Every day, NCF field workers travelled to the villages, facing volleys of questions from the community.

The team came up with a unique solution to tackle the twin challenges of breaking the taboo and convincing the villagers to embrace LPG: producing a short film in which all the actors were from the community itself.

The 16-minute film answers the questions of community members, allays their fear and informs them about the use of LPG. The film also explains the co-benefits of using LPG instead of firewood; women will spend less time searching for and collecting firewood, leaving them with more time to improved lung health and reducing their risks of facing elephants while collecting wood.

“The film was a big hit and a great communication tool,” Gubbi tells IPS. One of the villages where a large number of people have switched to

Two elephants cross a stream in Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. Thanks to a number of conservation projects, the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and other big game animals. Stella Paul/IPS using LPG is Lokkanahalli. The village is of geographical significance as it is located along the Doddasampige-Yediyaralli corridor, one of the paths the elephants take to Biligirirangana Ranganathaswamy Hills, an adjacent wildlife sanctuary.

“I was scared [at first] of using LPG because it might be harmful for our health. I also thought that it would mean an extra cost for our family [to refill the LPG cylinder] and we might not be able to afford it,” 28-year-old Pushpa Vadanagahalli, one of the women from Lokanahalli village, tells IPS. The refill costs about $8.

“But after I received the first cylinder and cooked with it, I realized there was nothing to be afraid of. Actually, I feel it’s much safer than going to the forest daily and collecting firewood, so we don’t mind spending on the refill,” Vadanagahalli says.

Case study for managing landscapes for nature and people

According to Gubbi, over the past four years nearly 2,000 families from 44 villages in MM Hills and its adjoining forest Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary have given up using firewood as a source of fuel.

Consumption of firewood has reduced by 65 percent among these villagers.

However, the community still continues to use firewood to heat water.

But for this they collect agricultural residue or dry, dead branches and twigs that have fallen onto the forest floor. So there is need to address the issue of providing an alternative for heating water.

It is a harmonious managing of the landscape for both nature and the people who live there. This is one of the themes of the IUCN World Conservation Congress, which will be held from September 3 to 11 in Marseille.

The Congress will be a milestone event for conservation, providing a platform for conservation experts and custodians, government and business, indigenous peoples, scientists, and other stakeholders.

T he success of t he MM Hi l l s a nd C auver y projec t proves t h at a ba l a nce bet ween “ecolog ic a l i nteg r it y for n at u ra l l a nd sc apes, a sh a red prosper it y, a nd ju st ice for

custodians on work ing landscapes w it h i n t h e l i m it s t h a t n a t u r e c a n su st a i n”— one of t he d isc u s sion poi nt s for t he Cong ress —is possible.

Understanding how to “deliver climate-resilient and economically viable development, while, at the same time conserving, nature and recognizing its rights” is one of the questions around the theme, “Managing landscapes for nature and people,” that will be discussed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

From poaching to protection

Another question is how to heed the voices of environmental custodians, especially those that are often marginalized, such as indigenous peoples and women.

Perhaps the MM Hills project provides an answer to this. NCF has found a unique way to include the indigenous people of the area in their conservation efforts.

And they have found that women are overwhelmingly taking the lead in these efforts.

With each LPG subscription provided by NCF, a written commitment to agree not to cut or destroy wild trees and to not engage in illegal hunting activities is required.

The signatories are part of the community committee—a communitybased group focused on the conservation and protection of the forest.

Currently, 27 villages have a forest protection group, comprising over 80 percent of women.

Towards a sustainable future

The conservation efforts in MM Hills and Cauvery continue. Seven years after it became a protected forest, MM Hills is now home to 12 to 15 tigers and will soon become a tiger reserve.

Early this year, the government of Karnataka and the federal government gave their approval and a formal announcement is expected to be made soon.

The formal status of a tiger reserve is expected to bring more funding, which could further help mitigate the human-wildlife conflict and help convert communities there to a more sustainable way of life.

Stella Paul/Inter Press Service

Globe and partners beef up efforts vs. climate change

By Roderick L. Abad Contributor

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H R O U G H i t s v a r i o u s i n i t i a t i ve s a n d partnerships with customers, Globe Telecom Inc. has raised P15.65 million to cover 156 hectares of reforestation sites in Bukidnon and Lanao del Sur in Mindanao, doubling its replanting, watershed conservation and carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction efforts to combat climate change.

Globe, in its long-term tie up with Hineleban Foundation, has sequestered a conser vative estimate of 25,083.13 metric tons of CO2 with the aim of reducing 96,069.04 metric tons of CO2 by 2025.

It was able to accomplish this by planting a healthy mix of temporary species of calliandra and indigenous trees, such as narra, white and red lauan, mamalis, bitaog, ulayan and katii.

During the initial stages of their program, the foundation worked with Banga Watershed

Fa r m e r s D e v e l o p m e n t Co o p e r a t i v e . I t i s now working with the Kaliwawa Salawagan Ta l a a n d i g Tr i b a l Ag r i c u l t u ra l Co o p e rat i ve consisting of 52 families to help in succeeding reforestation ac tivities.

“We are grateful to Globe for being our reliable ally in our reforestation efforts. Our partnership is a true testament that when various stakeholders come together, there are no limits to what we can achieve,” said Georgia Perrine, general manager of Hineleban Foundation.

“Our rainforestation team takes extra steps to ensure each seedling thrives, and with your generous help, make sure that it takes deep root in the soil in the first years of its long life,” Perrine added.

Besides Hineleban, the Ayala-led firm also engaged in a five-year partnership with The Mead Foundation since 2019 to undertake permanent reforestation activities in the upland areas of Iba, Zambales.

The area has been severely denuded, resulting in the loss of flora and fauna, invasive cogon grass establishment and regular fires.

To date, an initial three hectares were planted with over 30,000 seedlings. More native and indigenous trees will soon be planted once pioneer species mature, Globe said.

The project, likewise, provided livelihood to the displaced Aeta communities, both in the planting activities and the foundation’s ongoing forest ranger programs.

“The Mead Foundation together with our local Aeta partners are very grateful for this kind and generous support from Globe,” said Ben Mead, founder of The Mead Foundation.

“Together in this joint reforestation effort we can help return the ecological balance of the local environment while giving provision of alternative income generating activities for the displaced Aeta residents of Zambales.”

“Help us make this project a success by

supporting and donating through the GCash app,” Mead added.

Globe has also tied up with the Zoological Society of London for its mangrove rehabilitation program in Iloilo which is set to start this year.

“The task of restoring our rainforests is massive and goes beyond planting trees.

To g e t h e r w i t h o u r c u s t o m e r s a n d o t h e r stakeholders, we can also help protect critical watersheds, increase biodiversity, establish forest habitats, sequester greenhouse gases, and improve local livelihoods,” said Yoly Crisanto, Globe chief sustainability officer and senior vice president for corporate communications.

For this initiative, customers of Globe can donate their Rewards points or GCash credits.

Every 100 Rewards points donation is equivalent to one tree, and every P100 donation via GCash is equivalent to 1 tree planted.

Just download the Globe Rewards app via https:// www.globe.com.ph/rewards.html#GRewardsApp

Sports BusinessMirror

A8 | S

unday, April 18, 2021 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

JORDAN TO PRESENT KOBE FOR INDUCTION

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ICHAEL JORDAN will present Kobe Bryant for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame next month.

Hall officials revealed the full list of presenters Thursday. Members of a Hall class are asked to choose who they would like to accompany them to the stage and present them before their acceptance speech—when the inductee is being enshrined posthumously, as in Bryant’s case, family members are asked to make the decision on presenter.

Jordan tearfully spoke for more than 11 minutes at the memorial for Bryant and his daughter Gianna in Los Angeles in February 2020.

“When Kobe Bryant died, a piece of me died,” Jordan said at that memorial, about four weeks after Bryant, Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash. “And as I look in this arena and across the globe, a piece of you died, or else you wouldn’t be here. Those are the memories that we have to live with, and we learn from. I promise you, from this day forward, I will live with the memories of knowing that I had a little brother that I tried to help in every way I could.”

The enshrinement ceremony is May 15 in Uncasville, Connecticut.

Jordan will also present Baylor women’s basketball Coach Kim Mulkey, another member of the 2020 class. Tim Duncan will be presented

by his longtime San Antonio Spurs teammate David Robinson, and Kevin Garnett will be presented by Isiah Thomas.

Duncan, Garnett and Bryant combined for 48 All-Star selections during their careers.

Four-time Olympic gold medalist and 10-time WNBA All-Star Tamika Catchings will be presented by Alonzo Mourning and Dawn Staley; former Bentley women’s coach and winner of more than 1,000 games Barbara Stevens will be presented by Geno Auriemma and Muffet McGraw; the late three-time Final Four Coach Eddie Sutton will be presented by John Calipari, Bill Self and Sidney Moncrief; twotime NBA champion Coach Rudy Tomjanovich will be presented by Calvin Murphy and Hakeem

Olajuwon; and the late longtime Fiba Executive Patrick Baumann will be presented by Russ Granik and Vlade Divac.

The enshrinement ceremony was originally scheduled for August 2020 and was postponed by the pandemic.

LaMarcus Aldridge, meanwhile, retired from the NBA after saying he experienced an irregular

Semenya pins Tokyo Games hopes on 5,000

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RETORIA, South Africa—Caster Semenya won the 5,000-meter race at the South African national championships on Thursday in a personal-best time and then said she’s likely to focus on long-distance events for the rest of her career.

That could be her best hope of running at this year’s Tokyo Olympics after being barred from defending her 800-meter title.

The two-time Olympic champion won the 5,000 in 15 minutes and 52.28 seconds at Tuks Athletics Stadium at the University of Pretoria. That was outside the Olympic qualifying standard of 15:10.00 but Semenya has until the end of June to

qualify for Tokyo.

Although the nationals are South Africa’s main trials for the Olympics, athletes only need to register a qualifying time once at any recognized meet before the June 29 cutoff.

It’s still a long shot for the 800-meter specialist, but Semenya’s time on Thursday was more than 22 seconds faster than her last outing in the 5,000.

Semenya’s participation in the event at the nationals was confirmed the day before the meet started and is a departure from her previous plans after announcing last year that she would attempt to qualify for the Tokyo Games in the 200 meters.

“We had to look into‚ can we do 200 for the

MICHAEL JORDAN: When Kobe Bryant died, a piece of me died.

heartbeat during his final game with the Brooklyn Nets.

Aldridge, 35, posted a statement on social media saying the heart concerns he had during and after Brooklyn’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday were one of the “scariest things” he’s experienced.

Aldridge, who was diagnosed with WolffParkinson-White syndrome—an abnormality that can cause a rapid heartbeat—as a rookie in 2007, said he feels better now after getting it checked out but nevertheless decided to end his 15-year career.

“For 15 years I’ve put basketball first, and now, it is time to put my health and my family first,” Aldridge wrote.

The seven-time All-Star signed with the Nets on March 28 and he had become their starting center. He missed the last two games with what the team had called a non-Covid-19 illness.

Nets General Manager Sean Marks said the team fully supported Aldridge’s decision.

“We know this was not an easy decision for him, but after careful consideration and consultation with numerous medical experts, he made the best decision for him, his family and for his life after basketball,” Marks said.

Aldridge joined the Nets after reaching a buyout agreement with the San Antonio Spurs and provided his new team with an inside post presence that was one of the few things it was missing. The 6-foot-11 Aldridge had the best of his five games with the Nets in the one before his heart trouble, scoring 22 points in a victory over New Orleans on April 7.

The No. 2 pick in the 2006 draft was long one of the best at his position, averaging 19.4 points in a career that began with nine seasons in Portland. AP

ITF moves rankings cutoff for Olympics to June 14

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next five years? It was not really in our favor,” the 30-year-old Semenya said Thursday. “I’m getting old‚ I’m scared to tear my muscles. We had to sit down and make sure that the decision that we make makes sense. Distance makes sense.”

Semenya is barred from running in events from 400 meters to 1 mile at top track meets under World Athletics’ testosterone rules. She has refused to bow to those rules and take medication to lower her natural testosterone levels, calling the regulations unfair and discriminatory.

She can now only run in the 100 and 200 meters, or in long-distance races. All of those events CASTER SEMENYA can now only run in the 100 and 200 meters, or in long-distance races—events unfamiliar to her. AP

are unfamiliar to her.

Semenya also hasn’t given up on getting the rules overturned in court. She said in February she was challenging the testosterone policy at the European Court of Human Rights in her third legal appeal against them. Semenya has previously lost court cases against World Athletics at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and at the Swiss supreme court. No date has been set for her case at the human-rights court but it’s highly unlikely it would be heard before the Tokyo Games open on July 23.

Semenya’s story has been one of sport’s most contentious since she arrived as an unknown teenager and won the 2009 world title in the 800 in a blisteringly fast time.

It was then announced she had undergone sex verification tests during those championships and her career has been submerged in a complex argument over sex and gender since.

Semenya was assigned female at birth and has identified as female her whole life. But World Athletics argued in court that she is “biologically male” with the typical male XY chromosome pattern, and her testosterone level is higher than the typical female range. That gives her an unfair advantage over other female runners, the track and field body says.

World Athletics said it would allow Semenya to run in female competitions if she reduces her testosterone level through medical intervention.

Semenya has refused to do that, insisting she is female and her high natural testosterone is merely a genetic gift.

Semenya is believed to have one of a number of conditions known as differences of sex development, sometimes known as intersex. Details of her exact condition have never been released. AP THE US’s Alex Morgan (13) scores against France during their international friendly in Le Havre, France, on Tuesday. AP

ONDON—The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings of June 14 will be used to determine which tennis players earn direct entry into the Tokyo Olympics for singles and doubles, a delay of a week to match the change in dates for the French Open.

The ITF announced Thursday that its board of directors approved the move from June 7.

The French tennis federation pushed back the start of its Grand Slam tournament from May 23 to May 30 because of rising Covid-19 cases in the country.

The singles finals are now scheduled for June 12 and 13.

After countries let the ITF know which eligible players plan to enter singles and nominate pairs for women’s and men’s doubles, the full entry lists will be released by the end of June. Mixed doubles teams will be established once players arrive in Japan.

The tennis competition during the pandemicpostponed Summer Games is to run from July 24 to August 1.

There are 64-player draws in women’s and

men’s singles, 32 pairs in women’s and men’s doubles and 16 teams in mixed doubles. Each country can have up to six women and six men, with as many as four in singles and four in doubles for each gender—no country can have more than two pairings in mixed doubles.

Serena Williams, meanwhile, signed a deal with Amazon Studios under which she will create scripted and non-scripted programming, including a docuseries that follows her exploits on and off the court, the tennis star said Tuesday.

Williams made the announcement during a conversation with actor Michael B. Jordan that was part of a charitable event organized by Vanity Fair magazine.

The 39-year-old Williams, who ranks second all-time with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, said she hopes to “bring really special stories to film, and to people’s homes.”

Williams, who has limited her schedule in recent years because of injuries and the birth of her daughter, has not played since she lost in the Australian Open semifinals in February to Naomi Osaka, who went on to win the title. AP

US women soccer players appeal decision vs equal pay

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AN FRANCISCO—Players on the US women’s national soccer team have asked a federal appeals court to overturn a lower court decision throwing out their lawsuit seeking equal pay to the men’s team.

Players led by Alex Morgan asked the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday to reinstate the part of their suit that US District Judge R. Gary Klausner threw out last May when he granted a partial summary judgment to the US Soccer Federation.

“For each win, loss and tie that women players secure, they are paid less than men who play the same sport and who do the same work; that is gender discrimination,” players’ spokeswoman Molly Levinson said in a statement.

“A pervasive atmosphere of sexism drove this pay discrimination.”

Appeals are assigned to three-judge panels.

The 9th Circuit estimates that oral arguments in civil appeals will be scheduled 12-20 months from the notice of appeal and nine to 12 months after written briefs have been completed.

The court asked players to submit their brief

by July 23 and the USSF its brief by August 23. The players’ optional reply brief is due 21 days after the USSF submission.

The US has won the last two Women’s World Cups and is the favorite in this summer’s Olympic women’s soccer tournament.

Players sued the USSF in March 2019, contending they have not been paid equitably under their collective bargaining agreement that

runs through December 2021, compared to what the men’s team receives under its agreement that expired in December 2018. The women asked for more than $66 million in damages under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Klausner threw out the pay claim last May, ruling the women rejected a pay-to-play structure similar to the one in the men’s agreement and accepted greater base salaries and benefits than the men, who failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. The sides reached a settlement December 1 on working condition claims that Klausner approved Monday. The deal calls for charter flights, hotel accommodations, venue selection and professional staff support equitable to that of the men’s team.

The USSF says it pays equally for matches it controls but not for tournaments organized by soccer’s world governing body.

Fifa awarded $400 million in prize money for the 32 teams at the 2018 men’s World Cup, including $38 million to champion France. It awarded $30 million for the 24 teams at the 2019 Women’s World Cup, including $4 million to the US after the Americans won their second straight title.

Fifa has increased the total to $440 million for the 2022 men’s World Cup, and its president, Gianni Infantino, has proposed Fifa double the women’s prize money to $60 million for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, where Fifa has increased the teams to 32. AP

BusinessMirror

April 18, 2021

Viral thoughts: Why COVID-19 conspiracy theories persist

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BusinessMirror APRIL 18, 2021 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

RECALLING FOND MEMORIES Ritt Momney brings new life to a song that never gets old

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By Stephanie Joy Ching

OPULAR video creating platform TikTok has had a hand in creating unexpected hits in the music scene for quite some time now. From reviving old hits in a new light to bringing new artists into the spotlight, Tik Tok is an unpredictable playground for all artists to explore.

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: Lourdes M. Fernandez

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

Columnists

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So when 21-year old singer songwriter Ritt Momney suddenly found his cover of Corrine Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On” making waves on the platform, it was a massive surprise. Moreover, the cover was able to reach a top 10 peak on Spotify Philippines’ Top 50 and continues to impact mainstream radio stations such as Monster RX 93.1 (No. 8), 99.5 Play FM (No. 8), and more.

“I didn’t expect the cover to be anything more than a fun little

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RITT Momney (photo cred James Kowalski)

release in between albums,” he said, “I was super surprised to see it taking off on TikTok. It has been the coolest thing ever to see people from other countries enjoying it.”

According to Ritt, the original song by Corinne Bailey Rae has always been a significant part of his life, evoking memories of riding in his mother’s minivan and later driving around with friends.

“It’s just one of those songs for me that I’ve always remembered and I’ve always loved. It was really interesting. I mean, I’m always finding songs that I love and songs that I find interesting, and that these songs can get old. But “Put Your Records On” never really got old for me, so when I heard it again for the first time after a long time, I was like: ‘this is a really good song, maybe I should cover this,’” he shared.

At the time, he expressed that the song “felt like what he needed” as the global lockdown had just begun.

“At first I was like: ‘this is an awesome time to be a solo musician, I could just work all

the time’ but I’ve realized that it’s hard to write when you don’t have inspiration. And if you’re just sitting in front of your computer all day, it’s hard to write,” he recalled.

Notwithstanding the rocky start during the lockdown, Ritt shared that he was able to find inspiration within himself.

“Recently, I’ve been pretty productive, and I’ve noticed that my previous songs have been about relationships with other people, a lot of my writing now kinda focuses on myself and what’s going on in my head, which probably has something to do with having been alone for a lot of the time,” Born as Jack Rutter, he first started creating music in the 9th grade, when he put together his first garage band and started messing around with the music production software Logic. He found himself in love with the production process of music and immediately knew he wanted to make a career out of it.

It was also around this time that he first came up with his later stage name; Ritt Momney, which started out as an inside joke with his friends.

“There wasn’t much inspiration behind it, honestly. Ritt Momney started out as a band with my friends in high school, and Mitt Romney (editor’s note: yes, the American senator who ran for the U.S presidency) was kind of a big guy in Utah where I live, and it was a stupid little joke; “hey, what if we call it like Ritt Momney?’ and it just stuck from there,” he recalled.

Since scoring a huge worldwide hit with his cover of Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On,” Ritt has released two more new singles. One is the somber track, “Not Around,” which he cowrote and co-produced with fellow recording artist Dayglow and also features an epic guitar solo by Palehound. The other is the more upbeat, “Set The Table,” produced

by Palehound’s Ellen Kempner and also features fellow recording artist phenom Claud.

All three songs by Ritt Momney are now available on all major steaming platforms.

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soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | APRIL 18, 2021

BUSINESS

3

RHYTHM & RHYME

by Kaye Villagomez-Losorata

Let’s talk about Lil Nas X’s ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’

LIL Nas X (Photo by Eric Lagg courtesy of Columbia Records via AP)

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VERY once in a while, an artist pulls out all the stops and succeeds. There’s undeniable genius behind the pre-hype efforts of Lil Nas X’s current hit “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” Literally smeared with blood (yes, that sneaker collab stunt with human blood on it), X seized every opportunity to flaunt and flirt with critics on this one.

It’s really not the song that woke up conservatives from a long slumber. The song is catchy, recalldrawing, and beat-driven. I liked that it’s only 2:17 long like it’s all there anyway and it’s like a tribute to when songs are just songs, not a short film or a musical.

The video, on the other hand, has been the largest bull’s eye for today’s morality police. Montero the video now has its own life, nearly independent of the song.

This usually happens when you take your viewers down the bottomless pit with the wildest abandon we’ve seen in a while throwing all known cautions to the wind.

But X actually cares. You will too if you just landed the penthouse of the Billboard charts, only the second time since Old Town Road did it for X in 2019.

Just check out his Twitter. He’s been answering critics, and media

is picking up on every rave, rant, reply, and rebuttal—all of these efforts (this column included) just extended chart glory for X and Montero.

For those unfamiliar, Montero (Call Me By Your Name) the song refers to X’s real name (Montero Lamar Hill) and tells about a former lover of X and how they had to hide their sexuality. Call Me By Your Name is a reference to the 2017 Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer-starrer.

The “Old Town Road” singer is obviously milking every bit of the spotlight. To those barking at him for going to hell and back in order to showcase how unapologetic one should be about their sexuality, X posted, “I hope my haters are sad.

I hope they are crying. I want your tears to fill my Grammy cup.”

When X returned to Billboard No. 1 days ago, he also posted: “Y’all told a 19-year-old who had just escaped the lowest point of his life that he would never have a hit

again. You told him to stop while he’s ahead. He could have given up. But 4 multi-platinum songs and 2 #1s later, he’s still here.

Thank you to my team and fans.

ILY.” He’d also go from a tongue-incheek post, “I really just finessed a song about f****** a n***** to the number 1 song in the world to” to more serious expressions of thanks with, “All jokes aside, we get to control our own destiny.

Never let the world decide it for you. No matter how dark it may look, keep going.”

And stunts aside, he did just that. Complex.com put it best with a story post captioned, “Devil works hard but Lil Nas X (and the devil) work harder.”

Choosing hell for a location shoot was really worth it. As of this writing, the music video is close to 100M views in about 10 days since it was uploaded. It doesn’t matter whether you approve of the theme featuring X as various characters in Biblical and mythology-inspired scenes. Today in pop music, it’s about the count (in views) and conversations—both conquered by X from his first twerk in that video.

With a pandemic to deal with, we have our own versions of hell to contend with. Let X have his fun. We’re allowed a pass to be authentic. Just because someone’s brand of expression makes us uncomfortable doesn’t mean he’s wrong, you’re right. It’s all just a stunt, a marketing stroke of genius no one should lose sleep over.

Viral thoughts: Why Covid-19 conspiracy theories persist In this April 3, 2021, file photo, a stadium worker holds up a sign for people to wear face masks before a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Houston Astros in Oakland, Calif. As the world struggles to break the grip of Covid-19, psychologists and misinformation experts are studying why the pandemic spawned so many conspiracy theories, which have led people to eschew masks, social distancing and vaccines. AP

By David Klepper

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The Associated Press

ROVIDENCE, R.I.— Daniel Roberts hadn’t had a vaccination since he was 6. No boosters, no tetanus shots. His parents taught him inoculations were dangerous, and when the coronavirus arrived, they called it a hoax.

The vaccine, they said, was the real threat.

So when the 29-year-old Tennessee man got his Covid-19 shot at his local Walmart last month, it felt like an achievement. A break with his past.

“Five hundred thousand people have died in this country. That’s not a hoax,” Roberts said, speaking of the conspiracy theories embraced by family and friends. “I don’t know why I didn’t believe all of it myself. I guess I chose to believe the facts.”

As the world struggles to break the grip of Covid-19, psychologists and misinformation experts are studying why the pandemic spawned so many conspiracy theories, which have led people to eschew masks, social distancing and vaccines.

They’re seeing links between beliefs in Covid-19 falsehoods and the reliance on social media as a source of news and information. And they’re concluding Covid-19 conspiracy theories persist by providing a false sense of empowerment. By offering hidden or secretive explanations, they give the believer a feeling of control in a situation that otherwise seems random or frightening.

The findings have implications not only for pandemic response but for the next “infodemic,” a term used to describe the crisis of Covid-19 misinformation.

“We need to learn from what has happened, to make sure we can prevent it from happening the next time,” said former US Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who served in George W. Bush’s administration.

“Masks become a symbol of your political party. People are saying vaccines are useless.

The average person is confused: Who do I believe?”

Created intentionally?

5G-triggered infection?

About 1 in 4 Americans said they believe the pandemic was “definitely” or “probably” created intentionally, according to a Pew Research Center survey from June. Other conspiracy theories focus on economic restrictions and vaccine safety. Increasingly, these baseless claims are prompting real-world problems.

In January, anti-vaccine activists forced a vaccine clinic at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles to close for a day. In Europe, dozens of cell towers burned because of bizarre claims that 5G wireless signals were trigger-

cant or frightening moments in history: the moon landing, the September 11 attacks, or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, when many found it difficult to accept that a lone, deranged gunman could kill the president. Vast conspiracies involving the CIA, the mob or others are easier to digest.

“People need big explanations for big problems, for big world events,” said John Cook, a cognitive scientist and conspiracy theory expert at Monash University in Australia. “Random explanations—like bats, or wet markets—are just psychologically unsatisfying.”

This drive is so strong, Cook said, that people often believe contradictory conspiracy theories. Roberts said his parents, for instance, initially thought Covid-19 was linked to cell towers, before deciding the virus was actually a hoax. The only explanations they didn’t entertain, he said, were the ones coming from medical experts.

“When people start believing their own facts and rejecting anything the other side says, we’re in real trouble,” he said.

The one, true fix

Daniel Roberts, 29, poses for a picture Monday, April 5, 2021, in McMinnville, Tenn. Roberts received a Covid vaccine over the objections of his family, who are against being vaccinated. AP ing the infection. Elsewhere, a pharmacist destroyed vaccine doses, medical workers were attacked, and hundreds died after consuming toxins touted as cures—all because of Covid-19 falsehoods.

The most popular conspiracy theories often help people explain complicated, tumultuous events, when the truth may be too troubling to accept, according to Helen Lee Bouygues, founder and president of the Paris-based Reboot Foundation, which researches and promotes critical thinking in the Internet age.

Such theories often appear after signifi-

In recent years, an idea called inoculation theory has gained prominence. It involves using online games or tutorials to train people to think more critically about information.

One example: Cambridge University researchers created the online game Go Viral!, which teaches players by having them create their own misleading content.

Studies show the games increase resistance to online misinformation, but like many vaccines, the effects are temporary, leading researchers to wonder, as Cook said, “How do you give them the booster shot?”

Someday, these games might be placed as advertisements before online videos, or promoted with prizes, as a way to regularly vaccinate the public against misinformation.

“The true fix is education,” said Bouygues.

“Covid has shown us how dangerous misinformation and conspiracy theories can be, and that we have a lot of work to do.”

How to talk to believers of Covid-19 conspiracy theories

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onspiracy theories about Covid-19 are causing real-world problems by discouraging some people from getting vaccinated, wearing masks or following other guidelines. Some bizarre theories about the virus have prompted believers to burn 5G cell towers, shut down vaccination clinics or even ingest poisons touted as cures.

Experts on misinformation and psychology interviewed by The Associated Press offer several tips for individuals wondering how to talk to friends or family who believe conspiracy theories about Covid-19. Here’s what they suggest: LISTEN, DON’T PREACH: Believers in conspiracy theories aren’t likely to be swayed by people who mock their views. Instead of lecturing, listen and ask questions about how they became interested in the conspiracy theory, where they get their information, and whether they’ve considered other

explanations. Whenever possible, have the conversation offline.

STAY CALM: Arguing with someone about conspiracy theories is likely to result only in higher blood pressure. Remember that some people won’t change their mind no matter what you say, and arguing over the proven benefits of mask wearing or vaccines isn’t likely to convince them.

CHANGE THE SUBJECT: Bring up shared experiences and interests to help the person focus on personal connections.

If someone dwells on the conspiracy theory, politely say you’d rather talk about something else.

As for increasing your own defenses against conspiracy theories and misinformation about the virus (or any other topic), experts suggest the following: EXPAND YOUR MEDIA DIET: Checking a variety of news sources—including

4 BusinessMirror

some mainstream local, national and international outlets—is the best way of staying informed and avoiding rabbit holes of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Don’t rely solely on social media for your news.

CHECK SOURCES: Look to see who wrote the content, and who is quoted in it. Are they named? Do they have a position, or experience, that lends credibility to their claims? Are other viewpoints expressed in the article? Be wary of claims made by “insiders,” anonymous Internet posters or anyone citing hearsay as fact.

Also, check the dates: Misinformation peddlers often post old photos or news stories and claim they’re new.

BE WARY OF CONTENT THAT PLAYS ON EMOTIONS: Misinformation and conspiracy theories often exploit anger, fear or other emotions. Be cautious of content that features strongly emotional language, or that seems intended to make April 18, 2021

you outraged. If you read something that really gets you fired up, wait until your emotions have cooled before reposting or sending to friends.

VERIFY EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS: If you read something that makes an incredible claim—one that seems too good, too awful or too weird to be true—check to see if it’s being reported elsewhere. If it’s an important story, other outlets will confirm the details. Be cautious of explosive claims if they’re only being made on one web site or by one social-media user.

GET OFFLINE: The pandemic has been a time of heightened stress and fear for everyone, and there are many legitimate questions about the virus. Experts say healthy habits like exercise, meditation, positive relationships, volunteering and even hobbies can ease some of the dread—and make us more resistant to misinformation and conspiracy theories that exploit our fear or anger. AP