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Sunday, April 24, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 196

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The polls, the pols and people’s pulse

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By Rory Visco

UST like any other elections in the past, opinion or preelection polls (or “surveys”) are released to help provide voters a clear picture of how people perceive candidates for national or even local posts, and help aid voters in their decision-making when choosing the country’s next leaders.

But many view surveys as a platform open to misuse or abuse, and can have somewhat of a conditioning effect, though empirical studies in other countries have been divided on this. A research firm head said other studies argue that while survey results may lead to a bandwagon (supporting the one who leads), the same survey may also have an underdog effect (supporters of the trailing candidate will then work hard to increase support for their favored candidate).

Still, many believe surveys to be a more accurate and scientific representation of the true sentiments of the electorate depending on the framing of the right questions and other considerations to help cull accurate data.

DR. RONALD HOLMES, president of Pulse Asia Research Inc.: “All research requires funds, but the source of funding does not, in any way, affect the integrity of the survey.”

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 52.3950

Recently, three representatives from some of the popular research firms in the country gathered to provide answers to burning questions on how surveys are done via a virtual roundtable discussion organized by the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) titled “Na-Survey Ka Na Ba? How Opinion Polls are Shaping the May 9 Elections,” and supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation Philippines.

Are surveys paid?

DR. Ronald Holmes, president of Pulse Asia Research Inc., said there are two types of surveys—commissioned and non-commissioned.

He said what they usually release to the public are the non-commissioned ones that Pulse Asia pays for, done quarterly in a year and, as elections draw near, every month from January to April. For the commissioned surveys, which is funded by a separate entity, Pulse Asia decides exclusively on the survey’s structure, the sampling, the questions. The only difference perhaps, Holmes said, is the source of funds. “All research requires funds, but the source of funding does not, in any way, affect the integrity of the survey,” he stressed. “Whatever the results, whether good or bad for the one that commissioned the survey, the results should not be changed.”

He added that what the clients can only do with regard to the survey is state their objective, but the framing of the questions

SUDARSAN THOBIAS | DREAMSTIME.COM

So many questions have been raised about the role of surveys in Philippine election campaigns. Experts weigh in on the issue in a recent forum.

lies on Pulse Asia’s academic team, Holmes added. “If they don’t agree with the framing of the questions, we just return the funds.”

Dr. David Yap Jr., chief data scientist at Publicus Asia Inc., agrees.

He emphasized that it is important that survey firms stand their ground on funded surveys. He said that there are many perils when it comes to formulating or constructing questionnaires. “You can have a loaded question, a double-barreled question, all leading questions that we as statisticians would like to avoid. While the client has objectives on what information they need to see from the survey, at the end of the day, we will stand our ground that this is how the questions should be phrased.”

Yap said they are also watchful of other factors, though trivial, when conducting surveys, especially during interviews, and make sure that their field personnel are trained to avoid the pitfalls of conducting them. “They just don’t ask the questions; everything from the appearance of the interviewer, their tone of voice when asking questions, their intonation, how they respond to the interviewees, all these factors are considered and we are very watchful of.”

is still representative of people’s sentiments. “If the survey is random and has sufficient distributive characteristics, then we can make the inference that it is representative of the sentiments of the voting public. Of course, there is a margin of error but that depends on the sample size. How much is sufficient depends on how little margin of error is desired.”

As for surveys done via social media, Dr. Yap said this depends on the randomness of the sample, and the selection of the sample allows the survey firms to invoke the “central limit theorem,” which he said is critical to the sampling since it allows survey firms to assume certain distributional properties of the sample that can be extended to the greater population. “This allows us to indicate the margin of error.

The crux here is the randomness implicit in the sampling design. If the survey collected respondents in a non-random manner, then all these assumptions will not hold.

That is where the skew, the biases, will come into play, which we try to minimize through the randomness of the sample.”

Respondents’ size

AS regards regulating survey firms, Dr. Antonio Gabriel La Viña, chief of Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy Department of the Philippine Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court, said that regulation applies

FOR Dr. Guido David, OCTA Research fellow, that’s a matter of statistics. He said that based on statistical design, if survey questions are designed properly, then that

Should survey firms be regulated?

Do they condition the minds of people?

to any industry, but in terms of suppressing, not allowing to publish survey results, this has been settled by the Supreme Court. That’s a basic academic freedom and basic right to information of the people, he said. “I’d rather have a situation where survey firms publish the results of non-commissioned surveys, and when they have commissioned ones subject to their rules, it should be published, so it can be critiqued by the people.”

La Viña believes, however, that through the years, people have shown that they are not much affected by surveys on who they decide to vote for, but surveys done nearer to the elections do shape the decision of politicians.

On the question of mindconditioning, Yap pointed out that reputable survey firms are not media entities or influencers but are engaged in polling, not mind conditioning, and do not compel people to believe their results. The firms in the roundtable, he said, provide the public with all the information necessary to make their own assessments. “Interpretations of other people of content we release are beyond our control. The numbers released are precisely that: numbers. Just like the other reputable survey firms, we take our work and commitment to statistics bravely. More importantly, it is against our interests to falsify our reports, given that our continued survival as a firm is contingent to our reputation.”

n JAPAN 0.4080 n UK 68.3021 n HK 6.6791 n CHINA 8.1206 n SINGAPORE 38.3987 n AUSTRALIA 38.6308 n EU 56.7857 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.9709

Source: BSP (April 22, 2022)

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Many say Biden not tough enough on Russia: AP-NORC poll

By Nomaan Merchant & Hannah Fingerhut The Associated Press

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ANY Americans still question whether President Joe Biden is showing enough strength in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, even as most approve of steps the US is already taking and few want US troops to get involved in the conflict.

FRAGMENTS of a destroyed Russian military vehicle lie against the background of an Orthodox church in the village of Lypivka close to Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 11, 2022. Lypivka was occupied by the Russian troops at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war and freed recently by the Ukrainian army. Many Americans continue to question whether President Joe Biden is showing enough strength in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, even as most approve of steps the US is already taking and few want US troops to get involved in the conflict.

AP/EFREM LUKATSKY

A poll by The Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 54 percent of Americans think Biden has been “not tough enough” in his response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thirty-six percent think his approach has been about right, while 8 percent say he’s been too tough.

But as the war has dragged on, Americans’ desire to get involved has waned somewhat. Thirty-two percent of Americans say the US should have a major role in the conflict. That’s ticked back down from 40 percent last month, though that remains slightly higher than the 26 percent who said so in February. An additional 49 percent say the US should have a minor role.

Conundrum

THE results underscore the conundrum for the White House. As images of Russian attacks on civilians and hospitals are shared around the world, there’s pressure to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin and help millions of Ukrainians under attack in their home country or fleeing for safety.

But Biden must also manage the threat of escalation with Putin, who has raised the alert level on using Russia’s nuclear weapons, and prevent the US from getting involved in a much larger conflict.

“Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” CIA Director William Burns said in a recent speech at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Burns added that “so far we haven’t seen a lot of practical evidence” of Russian nuclear escalation.

The White House has authorized more than $2 billion in weapons and led Western sanctions that have crushed the Russian economy. Biden has ruled out sending US troops—a decision supported by a majority of Americans.

The US has also held back some weapons and defensive systems sought by Ukraine and placed early limits on intelligence sharing that have been loosened throughout the conflict.

The poll and follow-up interviews with respondents indicate many Americans, responding to images of Ukrainians being killed and Russian forces allegedly committing war crimes, want to see more action to stop Putin. A majority—57 percent—say they believe Putin has directed his troops to commit war crimes. Just 6 percent say he has not, while 36 percent say they aren’t sure.

“I know that we’re not directly responsible,” said Rachel Renfro, a 35-year-old from Nashville, Tennessee. “But we’ve always been the kind of people that insert ourselves into these kinds of situations and I

CIA Director William Burns: “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.”

AP/BRYNN ANDERSON

don’t understand why we’re not doing that now to a bigger degree.”

Renfro wants to see the US accept more refugees and provide more aid to Ukraine. Sending troops should be “an absolute last resort,” she said.

Most Americans are in favor of the US sanctioning Russia for the invasion, providing weapons to Ukraine and accepting refugees from Ukraine into the US. More Americans also support than oppose deploying US troops to Eastern Europe to support US. NATO allies in response to Russia’s invasion, and about two-thirds say NATO membership is good for the US. But public support stops short of deploying US troops to Ukraine to fight against Russian forces. Only 22 percent say they favor deploying US troops to Ukraine to fight against Russian forces, while 55 percent are opposed; 23 percent say they are neither in favor nor opposed.

Michael Gonzalez, a 31-yearold from Fort Collins, Colorado, said Biden’s response was “about right,” citing wide-ranging sanctions on Russian banks, oligarchs, and government officials and their families.

“In a perfect world, I wish we can go out there with the troops,” said Gonzalez, whose father served in the Cuban military and whose stepfather worked as a private contractor during the US war in Afghanistan. “I feel like we shouldn’t be policing the world and going everywhere. I wish we could help them, but we’ve been

fighting for a while.”

Balancing act

BIDEN faces other significant political challenges heading into the midterms with inflation at a fourdecade high and soaring energy prices exacerbated by the war. The poll suggests the balance in the tradeoff between sanctions on Russia and the US economy might be shifting.

By a narrow margin, Americans say the nation’s bigger priority is sanctioning Russia as effectively as possible over limiting damage to the US economy, 51 percent to 45 percent. Last month, more said they prioritized sanctioning Russia over limiting damage to the economy, 55 percent to 42 percent.

Anthony Cordesman, emeritus chair in strategy at the Washingtonbased Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that Americans broadly support many actions the White House is already taking.

Building up Ukraine’s air defense or sending more tanks and airplanes also requires setting up logistics, including radar and maintenance capabilities, that take far longer than many people would expect, Cordesman said.

The White House making that case to people who want more action carries its own risk.

“If you start communicating the limits to what we can do in detail, you may or may not reassure the American people, but you’re providing Russia with a lot of information that you scarcely want to communicate,” Cordesman said.

Features

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

Singapore aims to be Asia’s busiest international airport

By Kyunghee Park

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hangi Airport was crowned the world’s best aerodrome for 15 years straight prior to Covid based on its superior traveler offerings and high-tech customer service. Now it’s readying to welcome back visitors en masse, hoping improvements made during the pandemic will cement its status as Asia’s premier aviation hub.

Most of the shops at the two Changi terminals that are operating have reopened and business partners like Singapore Airlines Ltd. and ground handling and catering outfit SATS Ltd. are hiring in anticipation of a travel rebound, seeking to avoid the labor shortageinduced snarls of Australia and Europe. New technology is being applied that’s taking contactless service to the next level.

Such efforts could help Changi become the region’s busiest airport for international travel in 2022, a title that’s there for the taking considering the woes of Hong Kong International Airport, where air passenger traffic has slowed to a trickle under China’s Covid-Zero policy. Restoring Changi, which commands a certain spot in the nation’s psyche, is also vital to Singapore’s economy, with the aviation sector accounting for more than 5 percent of the city’s gross domestic product and providing around 200,000 jobs.

“Changi is the most liberal airport we have in Southeast Asia right now,” said Mohshin Aziz, director of the Pangolin Aviation Recovery Fund, which invests in aviation-related businesses. “We are in this situation where the difference in policies will determine whether an airport is in the 21st century or in the dark ages.”

Singapore was among the first in Asia to start easing travel restrictions by establishing so-called vaccinated travel lanes that ultimately allowed people from 32 countries to visit without quarantine.

From April, the island was opened to anyone who is fully inoculated regardless of where they’re from.

While waiting for footfall pick up, Changi was making behind-the-scenes adjustments. Self check-in kiosks and baggage drops now operate when a person hovers their finger over a screen.

Passengers use automated immigration gates that scan faces and irises if those biometrics are registered in a passport. Air conditioning and mechanical ventilation has been installed with hospital-grade filters and ultraviolet sanitization systems, and autonomous cleaning robots use misting to disinfect carpets.

Singapore itself has set aside almost S$500 million ($367 million) to spur a tourism revival.

And travelers are coming back, gradually.

Changi handled 1.42 million passengers in the first two months of this year, a jump from 263,000 the same period 12 months ago. That compares with Hong Kong, which handled 157,000 passengers in January and February.

South Korea’s Incheon International Airport, ranked No. 1 in Asia for international travel in 2021, processed 675,452 international passengers in the first two months of 2022.

The strict travel restrictions in Hong Kong have meant it’s ceased to function as an international aviation hub, the International

Air Transport Association said earlier this month. “It’s effectively off the map now, and I think it’s going to be difficult for Hong Kong to recover,” said Willie Walsh, director general of IATA. That’s in stark contrast to Changi, which even in the most difficult times kept its gates open to passengers traveling to destinations within Southeast Asia, when most direct flights from other regions had stopped.

Transfer passengers—Singapore being a prime transit hub for travelers from Australia and New Zealand going onto Europe and the US or vice versa—accounted for as much as half of traffic at the airport last year, compared with about 30 percent pre-Covid.

The airfield is seeing more travelers as Singapore reopens and is focused on serving them, Changi Airport said in an e-mailed response, declining to elaborate.

On a recent visit one weekday afternoon, around 65 percent of the shops in Changi’s transit area were open, rising to almost 90 percent in the public areas of Terminals 1 and 3. Lotte Duty Free, South Korea’s biggest duty free operator and one of the two biggest at Changi, is set to open one of its largest-ever stores at the airport shortly, while Singapore Airlines spent part of the pandemic completely refurbishing its business and first-class lounges at Terminal 3.

While Changi doesn’t have immediate plans to reopen Terminal 4, it plans to restore operations at Terminal 2 in phases later this year. Building works at the previously under construction Terminal 5 remain on hold.

There are still long stretches during the day and night when activity comes to a standstill because very few flights are landing. While 81 of the 91 carriers that used to fly into Changi have restored services, flight frequencies are just 37 percent of pre-Covid levels. Last year, the aerodrome handled 3.05 million passengers, a drop versus the 68 million in 2019 before countries closed their borders.

Some store operators haven’t been able to hold out. A few in the transit area have handed their operating licenses back to the airport and Changi will look for new retailers to take over the vacant spaces. Singapore’s government has also warned that stricter measures could return if the Covid situation worsens, even though now, more people can eat together at restaurants and masks aren’t mandatory outside anymore. The government aims to restore passenger volume at Changi to at least 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels by later this year, up from 15 percent at the end of 2021. Singapore Tourism Board Chief Executive Officer Keith Tan said earlier this month that the number of short-term visitors more than doubled in March to about 120,000, from 57,000 in January.

An announcement in January that Singapore will resume hosting the Formula One Grand Prix for another seven years after a two-year hiatus was a positive signal, said Gary Bowerman, director of travel and tourism research firm Check-in Asia.

“That’s really given a boost to everybody showing that Singapore means that it’s staying open,” he said. “They’re being realistic. It’s going to take time to rebuild passenger demand.” Bloomberg News

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A3

South Korea professor uses trash as treasure to study life in N. Korea

By Hyung-Jin Kim

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The Associated Press

EOUL, South Korea—When the waves wash trash onto the beaches of front-line South Korean islands, Kang Dong Wan can often be found hunting for what he calls his “treasure”—rubbish from North Korea that provides a peek into a place that’s shut down to most outsiders.

“This can be very important material because we can learn what products are manufactured in North Korea and what goods people use there,” Kang, 48, a professor at South Korea’s Dong-A University, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

He was forced to turn to the delicate information-gathering method because Covid-19 has made it much harder for outsiders to find out what’s going on inside North Korea, one of the world’s most cloistered nations even without pandemic border closures.

The variety, amount and increasing sophistication of the trash, he believes, confirms North Korean state media reports that leader Kim Jong Un is pushing for the production of various kinds of consumer goods and a bigger industrial design sector to meet the demands of his people and improve their livelihoods.

Kim, despite his authoritarian rule, cannot ignore the tastes of consumers who now buy products at capitalist-style markets because the country’s socialist public rationing system is broken and its economic woes have worsened during the pandemic.

“Current North Korean residents are a generation of people who’ve come to realize what the market and economy are. Kim can’t win their support if he only suppresses and controls them while sticking to a nuclear development program,” Kang said. “He needs to show there are some changes in his era.”

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Kang regularly visited Chinese border tow ns to meet Nor th Koreans staying there. He also bought North Korean products and photographed North Korean villages across the river border. He can’t go there anymore,

however, because China’s antivirus restrictions limit foreign travelers.

Since September 2020, Kang has visited five South Korean border islands off the country’s west coast and collected about 2,000 pieces of North Korean trash including snack bags, juice pouches, candy wrappers and drink bottles.

Kang said he was amazed to see dozens of different kinds of colorful packaging materials, each for certain products like seasonings, ice cream bars, snack cakes and milk and yogurt products. Many carry a variety of graphic elements, cartoon characters and lettering fonts. Some still can seem out of date by Western standards and are apparent copycats of South Korean and Japanese designs.

Kang recently published a book based on his work titled “Picking up North Korean Trash on the Five West Sea Islands.” He said he’s now also started to scour eastern South Korean front-line beaches.

Other experts study the diversity of goods and packaging designs in North Korea through state media broadcasts and publications, but Kang’s trash collection allows a more thorough analysis, said Ahn Kyung-su, head of DPRKHEALTH. ORG, a website focusing on health issues in North Korea.

Kang’s work also opens up a fascinating window into North Korea.

Ingredient infor mation on some juice pouches, for instance, shows North Korea uses tree leaves as a sugar substitute. Kang suspects that’s because of a lack of sugar and sugar-processing equipment.

He said the discovery of more than 30 kinds of artificial flavor enhancer packets could mean that North Korean households cannot afford more expensive

Kang Dong Wan, 48, a professor at South Korea’s Dong-A University, speaks with trash from North Korea during an interview in Seoul, South Korea, on April 4, 2022. Kang has turned to a different way of collecting information about secretive North Korea as pandemic restrictions make it harder for outsiders to find out what’s life like for North Koreans. AP/Ahn Young-joon

natural ingredients like meat and fish to cook Korean soups and stews. Many South Koreans have stopped using them at home over health concerns.

Plastic bags for detergents have phrases like “the friend of housewives” or “accommodating women.” Because the assumption is that only women do such work, it could be a reflection of the low status of women in male-dominated North Korean society.

Some wrappers display extremely exaggerated claims. One says that a walnut-flavored snack cake is a better source of protein than meat. Another says that collagen ice cream makes children grow taller and enhances skin elasticity. And yet another claims that a snack cake made with a certain kind of microalgae prevents diabetes, heart disease and aging.

Kang has been unable to verify the quality of former contents inside his trash.

North Korean snacks and cookies have generally become much softer and tastier in recent years, though their quality still lags behind that of South Korea’s internationally competitive products, according to Jeon Young-sun, a research professor at Seoul’s Konkuk University.

Noh Hyun-jeong, a North Korean defector, said she was “ecstatic” about the South Korean bread and cakes that she ate after her arrival here in 2007. She said the confectionaries and candies she had in the North were often bitter and “as hard as a rock.”

Kang Mi-Jin, another defector who runs a company analyzing North Korea’s economy, said that when she had South Koreans try new North Korean cookies and candies in blind taste tests, they thought they were South Korean.

But Ahn, the website head, said the

North Korean cookie he obtained in 2019 was “tasteless.”

Kang said his trash collection is an attempt to better understand the North Korean people and study how to bridge the gap between the divided Koreas in the event of future unification.

In 2019, Kang said he was denied entry at Shanghai’s airport, apparently because of his earlier, mostly unauthorized work along the China-North Korea border. During a previous period of inter-Korean detente that ended in 2008, Kang said he visited North Korea more than 10 times but could only buy limited goods that didn’t help him understand the country.

Picking up trash on the islands, about 4-20 kilometers (2.5-12 miles) from North Korean territory, is a tough job. He most often visits Yeonpyeong, an island shelled by North Korea in an attack that killed four South Koreans in 2010.

On some trips, South Korean marines quizzed Kang because residents who saw him collecting trash thought he was doing something suspicious. He was sometimes stranded when ferry services were canceled because of bad weather. Kang said he occasionally cried in frustration on the beach when he failed to find North Korean trash or received calls from acquaintances jeering or doubting his work.

“But I was heartened after collecting more and more trash...and I determined that I must find out how many goods are in a country where we can’t go and what we can find from that trash,” Kang said. “When the wind blew and the waves ran high, something always washed ashore and I was so happy because I could find something new.”

Eternal Gardens honors St. Mary Euphrasia, founder of the Religious of the Good Shepherd

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TERNAL Gardens in Balagtas, Batangas City pays tribute to St. Mary Euphrasia, founder of the Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS) and whose feast day falls on April 24, by naming one of its areas in her honor.

We chose to name our new area The Court of St. Mary Euphrasia as a tribute to the founder of the Good Shepherd Sisters, whose missionaries found their way to Batangas City more than 100 years ago,” said Numeriano B. Rodrin, president and chief operating officer of Eternal Gardens.

The Court of St. Mary Euphrasia at Eternal Gardens Balagtas is a 4-hectare expansion area found at the rightmost section of the park. It features various types of memorial properties, such as Lawn Estate, Garden, and Family Estate. It is also the future site of the fourth branch of Eternal Chapels, a provider of complete mortuary and chapel products and services, which is a sister company of Eternal Gardens.

Aside from being honored at Eternal Gardens Balagtas, there is also a St. Mary Euphrasia Parish located at De Joya Capitol Village in Barangay Kumintang Ilaya, Batangas City where the founder of the Religious of the Good Shepherd is venerated by devotees.

Religious of the Good Shepherd

Born Rose Virginie Pelletier on July 31, 1796, St. Mar y Euphrasia joined the religious life at age 18 when she entered the Sisters of Charity of the Refuge in Tours, an order devoted to caring for girls and women in difficulty, where she took the name Sr. Mar y Euphrasia. She became superior of the convent at age 29.

While she was superior, Sr. Mary Euphrasia formed a contemplative group of penitent women who wished to live a cloistered life. The Sisters earned their living through intricate embroidery of priest vestments and production of altar bread. This group is known

St. Mary Euphrasia

today as the Contemplatives of the Good Shepherd.

To extend the reach of their mission, Sr. Mar y Euphrasia e s t a bl i s he d t he G e ne r a l at e , which made it possible for the congregation to send Sisters to other parts of the world. The i nt e r n a t i o n a l C o n g r e g a t i o n of Our Lady of Charity of the Good She pherd received ap proval from Pope Gregor y X VI on Januar y 16, 1835, and thus began the spread of their mis-

The Court of St. Mary Euphrasia at Eternal Gardens Balagtas is a 4-hectare expansion area found at the rightmost section of the park.

sion across the world.

The first Irish RGS missionaries arrived in Batangas City from Burma (now Myanmar) on October 12, 1912 to continue the mission of the Congregation.

Today the Philippines is already a province of the RGS, but upon

its formation in the countr y, the Congregation was under the Motherhouse in Angers, France where it was originally founded

by St. Mary Euphrasia in 1835.

St. Mar y Euphrasia died on April 24, 1868. Her example of zeal, compassion, and courage

continues to inspire her sisters today as they continue her work and carry out the mission of the Congregation. St. Mary Euphrasia was canonized by Pope Pius XII on May 2, 1940. Her Feast Day is also celebrated today, April 24.

A4

The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Biden announces $1.3-billion heavy artillery, other weapons for Ukraine

By Aamer Madhani, Robert Burns & Darlene Superville

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The latest military aid, Biden said, will be sent “directly to the front lines of freedom.”

“Putin is banking on us losing interest,” Biden said. The Russian president is betting that “Western unity will crack...and once again we’re going to prove him wrong.”

The new package includes $800 million in military aid for much-needed heavy artillery, 144,000 rounds of ammunition and drones for the escalating battle in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. It builds on roughly $2.6 billion in military assistance that Biden previously approved.

There’s also a fresh $500 million in direct economic assistance to Ukraine for government salaries, pensions and other programs. That raises the total US economic support to $1 billion since Russia’s invasion began nearly two months ago.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the United States in his nightly address in Ukraine, saying the military aid was “just what we were waiting for.” Earlier in a virtual address to the World Bank meeting in Washington, he said his nation will also need up to $7 billion each month to make up for economic losses.

With tens of thousands of buildings damaged and key infrastructure in ruins, Ukraine “will need hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild,” Zelenskyy said.

Biden underscored a need for the United States and Western allies to remain resolved in their support for Ukraine amid signs that Americans are becoming more wary of the war.

A poll published Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows Americans’ desire to get involved has waned somewhat. Some 32 percent say the US should have a major role in the conflict. That’s ticked down from 40 percent last month, though it’s slightly higher than the 26 percent who said so in February. An additional 49 percent say the US should have a minor role.

The president also announced that Russian-affiliated ships would be barred from US ports, though that

appeared to be largely symbolic. Russian ships bring a tiny amount of the cargo unloaded in the US, and “my guess is that...a decent chunk of that was tankers transporting Russian oil which is now banned anyway,’’ said Colin Grabow, a research fellow who studies trade at the Cato Institute.

Overall, Biden said that $6.5 billion in security assistance that Congress approved last month as part of a $13.6 billion package for Ukraine could soon be “exhausted.” With the latest announcement, Biden has approved about $3.4 billion in military aid since February 24. Congress’ overall total also included about $6.8 billion in direct economic assistance to care for refugees and provide economic aid to allies in the region impacted by the war—and additional funding for federal agencies to enforce economic sanctions against Russia and protect against cyber threats.

“Next week, I’m going to have to be sending to Congress a supplemental budget request to keep weapons and ammunition deployed without interruption,” Biden said.

Congress has signaled it is receptive to further requests and has been expecting there would be a need for further help for the Ukrainians. But the issue could become entwined with partisan fights over pandemic spending and immigration, complicating the pathway.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has expressed a willingness to consider more aid for Ukraine in recent weeks. “I think we need to say we want the Ukrainians to win, and we’re prepared to do everything we can to help them win,” McConnell said Monday in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

“We want to do more,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters at the Capitol, during an appearance with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. She said lawmakers would learn more about Biden’s latest funding request “in the next day or so, to be taken up as soon as we can. Next week.”

Biden has chosen retired Lt. Gen.

California inmates study at state prison college

By Olga R. Rodriguez The Associated Press

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AN QUENTIN, California—Behind a fortress wall and razor wire and a few feet away from California’s death row, students at one of the country’s most unique colleges discuss the 9/11 attacks and issues of morality, identity and nationalism.

Dressed in matching blue uniforms, the students only break from their discussion when a guard enters the classroom, calling out each man’s last name and waiting for them to reply with the last two digits of their inmate number.

They are students at Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin State Prison,

the first accredited junior college in the country based behind bars. Inmates can take classes in literature, astronomy, American government, precalculus and others to earn an Associate of Arts degree.

Named for a mountain near the prison, the college was accredited in January after a 19-member commission from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges determined the extension program based at San Quentin for more than two decades was providing high-quality education.

“This is a profound step forward in prison education,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, the umbrella organization for all US higher education institutions.

Mitchell said Mount Tamalpais College

US risks missing out on new Covid pill as funds run out

By Riley Griffin & Josh Wingrove

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The Associated Press

ASHINGTON—President Joe Biden pledged an additional $1.3 billion Thursday for new weapons and economic assistance to help Ukraine in its strong but increasingly difficult battle against the Russian invasion, and he promised to seek much more from Congress to keep the guns, ammunition and cash flowing.

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

President Joe Biden walks to board Air Force One on Thursday, April 21, 2022, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., en route to Portland, Ore. AP/Gemunu Amarasinghe

n its quest to build up its stockpile of Covid-19 drugs, the US government has held talks with Japanese drugmaker Shionogi & Co. about buying its experimental antiviral pill, people familiar with the matter said. Finding the money to pay for it could be a problem.

Two years into the pandemic and after nearly a million deaths in the US, a standoff in Congress has left those in charge of building up the country’s drug supplies without the resources to do so.

The implications are far-reaching. The government needs more funding to pay for existing orders with companies like Pfizer Inc. and could end up unable to invest in new therapies like Shionogi’s.

The talks to buy Shionogi’s drug have been preliminary, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the discussions. The Japanese company’s treatment is currently in late-stage clinical trials and hasn’t yet been authorized. In earlier studies, the drug reduced viral loads in patients within the first few days of use.

It’s seen as a promising option given it will likely require fewer pills than Pfizer’s coronavirus treatment, which involves taking 30 tablets over five days. It’s not unusual for the US to put orders in for drugs before authorization.

Shionogi shares rose as much as 2.7 percent in Tokyo on Friday, before paring gains to trade 0.2 percent higher. A company spokesman confirmed Shionogi is in talks with the US government regarding the supply and manufacturing of its Covid pill.

Governments around the world have been racing to lock up supplies of Covid treatments to protect their populations.

Successful drugs often generate early demand and countries that order first are typically first in line to receive them— meaning the US could find itself waiting for shipments behind other countries.

President Joe Biden’s administration has said having a “medicine cabinet” of treatments will stem the virus’ worst outcomes, while raising the alarm about the lack of funding for more drugs.

Terry Wolff, a National Security Council official during the Obama administration, to oversee coordination of the security assistance to Ukraine, according to a White House official.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet to be formally announced appointment, said Wolff was brought to the White House National Security Council team in recent days.

Biden spoke on the new assistance, and more broadly about the situation in Ukraine, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the strategic city of Mariupol. Putin, however, ordered his troops not to risk more losses by storming the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the war’s iconic battleground.

Biden in an exchange with reporters following his remarks called Russia’s claim on Mariupol “questionable.”

Russian forces have destroyed much of southeastern port city, which has witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the war. By Russian estimates, about 2,000 Ukrainian forces remain holed up in a sprawling steel plant, even as Russia continues to pound the industrial site and issue ultimatums for surrender.

Biden sought to make clear to Russians that plenty more military assistance for Ukraine would be coming.

“Sometimes we will speak softly and carry a large Javelin, because we’re sending a lot of those,” Biden said, paraphrasing Theodore Roosevelt and referring to an anti-tank missile system.

The new US military assistance is to include 72 155mm howitzers, 144,000 artillery rounds, 72 vehicles used to tow to the howitzers onto battlefields, and over 121 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones, as well as field equipment and spare parts.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the drones were developed by the Air Force and fit a specific need of Ukrainian forces in the battle for the Donbas. The drones are produced by a US company, Aevex Aerospace, in a program that began before Russia invaded on Feb. 24. Kirby said the Phoenix Ghost is similar to the armed Switchblade kamikaze drones that the Pentagon already is providing to Ukraine.

The 72 howitzers are in addition to the 18 announced last week the US was transferring to Ukraine.

Biden’s decision to quadruple the number pledged in an arms package announced just last week reflects what is shaping up as a major ground battle in the contested Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

The Russians have been deploying additional artillery there in recent days as they aim to expand their offensive and attempt to take full control of the Donbas after retreating from a failed attempt to capture Kyiv, the capital. Heavy weaponry like artillery is expected to play a key role in the fighting in the relatively confined area where Ukrainian and Russianbacked separatists have been battling since 2014.

The announcements on new aid came against the backdrop of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings this week dominated by how to manage the spillover from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Ahead of his remarks, Biden met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Shmyhal. The Ukrainian leader also met on Thursday with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as well as Pelosi.

Yellen at a news conference said the economic aid the US and allies have sent “is only the beginning of what Ukraine will need to rebuild.”

She added that she’d be discussing efforts to further aid Ukraine with her Western counterparts this week.

“I think we stand united in recognizing we’ve got to find ways to meet Ukraine’s needs,” she said.

The Biden administration also announced a new program Thursday aimed at streamlining refugee applications for Ukrainians and others fleeing the fighting, while they are still in Europe. The US will no longer routinely grant entry to those who show up at the US-Mexico border seeking asylum, as thousands have.

The US expects to admit up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine and about 15,000 have come, mostly through Mexico.

Associated Press writers Ben Fox, Alan Fram, Fatima Hussein, Chris Megerian, Zeke Miller and Paul Wiseman contributed reporting.

At the moment, the government needs more funding from Congress just to pay for existing orders of treatments as well as to place new orders. A Senate deal on a potential $10 billion funding package collapsed earlier this month over a dispute about a border measure. Talks are likely to resume with the Senate’s return next week, but it isn’t clear a deal will be reached.

If new funding is authorized, roughly half of it will go to finalizing an order of 20 million courses of Pfizer’s Paxlovid. The US has only paid for about 11 million of the courses, officials have said, and the rest will cost nearly $5 billion. The remainder of the money is supposed to be used for testing, the purchase of vaccines, drugs and other measures.

The cash crunch is growing urgent.

If the US doesn’t get new financing from Congress within the next few weeks, it

is “an extraordinary model” that will give it autonomy not seen in prison programs attached to outside schools.

The new designation will force the school to maintain the high standards set by the college association and hopefully catch the attention of donors to help the college expand, said President Jody Lewen. While it can accommodate 300 students per semester, another 200 are on a waiting list.

The college is one of dozens of educational, job training and self-help programs available to the 3,100 inmates in the medium-security portion of San Quentin, making it a desired destination for inmates statewide who lobby to be transferred there.

“I wish I had learned this way coming up; instead I was in special ed my whole life,” said 49-year-old Derry Brown, whose English 101 class “Cosmopolitan Fictions,” was discussing “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” a novel by Mohsin Hamid.

Brown, who is serving a 20-year sentence for burglary and assault, earned his GED in prison and takes pride in now being a college student. He said he may pursue a career in music in his hometown of Los Angeles once he’s released next year.

“There is joy in learning—that’s why I want to continue,” he said. “Even when I get out, I’m going back to college.”

The college’s $5 million annual budget is fully funded by private donations, with a paid staff and volunteer faculty, many of them graduate students from top universities, including Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.

The previous program started in 1996 and was later known as the Prison University Project and it also offered associate’s degrees but Lewen, who started as a volunteer instructor in 1999, said she began the process to have an autonomous college three years ago when the university they partnered with closed.

“Very often in the field of higher ed, people will look at educational programs in prisons and they’ll say, ‘Well, that’s a program or project. It’s not a school.’

Our hope is that by being an independent, accredited, liberal arts college that operates in a prison we make it more difficult for people to overlook those inside and we help them imagine our students differently,” Lewen said.

Any general population San Quentin inmate with a high school diploma or GED certificate is eligible to attend. The prison’s 539 death row inmates are excluded.

Guards check the IDs of students coming to classes held in trailers set up on one edge of the prison’s exercise yard, where students stop to discuss their assignments—corrections officers watching from four towers above.

Overhearing those yard conversations made a big impression on Richard “Bonaru” Richardson after he was transferred to San Quentin in 2007 to finish

Cash crunch

risks falling well back in line for purchases of new treatments, potentially including Shionogi’s, an administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We just want to be very clear: if we don’t purchase these vaccines and therapies for the American people, other countries will step in to purchase them for their citizens,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House’s principal deputy press secretary, told reporters Thursday, without addressing Shionogi specifically.

Without new funding, “we can’t buy any more treatments,” Jean-Pierre said.

And even if a deal is reached, the White House has signaled it will continue to need more money—at home and abroad. Buying Shionogi’s drug would likely come from future funding deals, as there’s no funds for a sizable purchase otherwise.

Antiviral needs

“We have a collective amnesia in this country when it comes to pandemic preparedness, and, in a way, that’s playing out right now,” said Carl Dieffenbach, director of the division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, who was tapped by Anthony Fauci last year to lead the Biden administration’s multibillion effort to develop antivirals for Covid and future pandemic threats. Dieffenbach wasn’t commenting specifically on Shionogi’s talks with the US government but rather on the broader state of antiviral development and stockpiling.

Since the Antiviral Program for Pandemics began in June, the US government has worked closely with companies like Pfizer and Shionogi to bring new Covid drugs to market. A NIAIDsupported study of Shionogi’s drug will launch globally at the end of the month, according to ClinicalTrials.gov.

The US has focused on new candidates that offer a clear edge over existing therapies. Shionogi’s drug fits that description, Dieffenbach said, because it’s easier for patients to take.

Paxlovid is intended for high-risk patients within five days of symptom onset. Patients must take three pills, a combination of the drug and a booster pill, twice a day over five days. Shionogi’s therapy employs the same mechanism as Paxlovid, but will require fewer pills. On the first day of treatment, patients are given a higher dose and then over the next four days they’re given one pill per day, without the need for a boosting agent, a spokesperson for the Osaka-based drug company said.

Results from the NIAID-supported study and a late-stage trial in Asia will help determine the dose Shionogi ultimately brings to market, the company spokesperson said.

Multiple antivirals are needed because viruses tend to mutate to render drugs ineffective. The ideal coronavirus treatment would combine drugs to target the coronavirus spike protein in different ways, he said.

“I hope we can maintain momentum and that Congress will recognize the value of this and keep it going,” Dieffenbach said.

“Basically all progress is kind of frozen.”

Bloomberg News serving a 47 years-to-life sentence for a home invasion robbery. Former Gov. Jerry Brown commuted Richardson’s sentence, and he was released last year after serving 23 years.

“In other institutions, we were used to talking about gang activity, violence, knives, drugs, the next riot,” he said.

In San Quentin, the conversations were often about what classes they were taking, how to write a thesis or how to defend an argument.

“I was taken aback. It was kind of like, ‘Hold on, isn’t this supposed to be a prison?’” he added.

He decided to sign up after seeing a group of female volunteers walk across the prison yard.

“I got into the classroom for all the wrong reasons, but I realized that I was actually learning something and that there were people who believed in you more than you believe in yourself. When you see that, you start believing in yourself,” he said.

Science Sunday BusinessMirror

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

Sunday, April 24, 2022

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E-mobility innovations get ₧321M from DOST

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here is no denying that the public transportation sector in the country badly needs help to modernize and be able to contribute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, the Science department came to its succor and invested over P321 million for electromobility (e-mobility) related projects.

The Department of Science and Technology recently announced that it is prioritizing an ecosystem of e-mobility solutions for the country’s transportation sector, a DOST news release said.

When the Department of Energy is planning to procure electronic tricycles (e-trikes), the DOST had anticipated the need for science and technology (S&T) interventions, such as electronic-vehicle charging needs, low-cost battery storage system, battery management system, low-cost materials and production for e-trikes, battery parts and components, mining technology to

source out raw materials, etc., the DOST said Dr. Enrico Paringit, executive director of the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD), urged the public to support efforts to boost financing for e-mobility research and development.

He also called for the use and adoption of research-based technologies in the transportation industry. He likewise stressed the lower value of e-mobility, which costs 40 percent less than gasoline.

DOST’s I-Cradle program to boost MSMEs, grants ₧25M per project

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he industry-academe collaborations is significant in solving problems of Filipino companies, most specially micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). The role of industry and the academe research, development and innovation is very important in leveling up the products and procedures of MSMEs. The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) highlighted these crucial partnerships in its launching of the Industry-level Collaborative R&D to Leverage Philippine Economy (I-Cradle) Program, a news release said.

I-Cradle upgrades the current Collaborative Research and Development to Leverage Philippine Economy (Cradle) Program that supports industry-academe innovation activities, from individual firms to specific industry sector with at least five collaborating firms.

With the upgraded program, the maximum amount of the funding grant is increased from P5 million to P25 million per project.

The launching was held during the recent first Cradle conference titled, “The Cradle Journey: Witnessing innovative breakthroughs through collaborative R&D.” The event featured success stories of DOST-Cradle beneficiaries and highlighted successful projects involving women scientists leading innovation projects.

Under the I-Cradle program, industry-wide needs and problems shall be identified and the partner university shall undertake R&D. The program will target each level of the technology transfer process—from the pursuit of industry-driven basic research, academe-industry joint research, and product development stage to technology promotion/transfer and adoption.

Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña said during the Cradle conference: “DOST’s support to industry-academe partnerships through the Cradle program has been very evident in our ranking in the annual Global Innovation Index on university-industry research collaboration.”

I n 2 014 , t h e Ph i l i p p i n e s reached the 56th place among 130 countries.

“Our 2020 rank improved to 27th place, proving that the Philippines, even with the budget of a developing nation, can compete in the innovation race with every country in the world,” de la Peña added.

The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries

by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It is published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, in partnership w it h Cor nel l Universit y, INSEAD, and other organizations and institutions.

Science Undersecretar y for R&D Rowena Cristina L. Guevara said, “In just five years, the DOST Cradle program successfully engaged 76 industry partners with 36 academic institutions in 10 regions in the country.”

“There was a clear need for innovation and Cradle answered the needs of industry through R&D. And this program reached every corner of our archipelago to support the growth and competitiveness of Filipino companies. It is high time that government support should also change and evolve to the growing needs of industry,” Guevara said.

Both I-Cradle and Cradle programs are under the DOST-Science for Change Program (S4CP). They were created to accelerate STI in the country in order to keep up with the developments in our time wherein technology and innovation are game changers, the news release said.

Other sub-programs of S4CP include the Niche Centers in the Regions for R&D (Nicer) program where qualified Higher education institutions in the regions are provided with grants so they can undertake quality research directed at promoting regional development with their existing capabilities and resources.

Another capacity-building program is the Research and Development Leadership (RDLead) Program which aims to help develop and strengthen further the research capabilities of the academe, research and development institutions, and other government line agencies nationwide.

RDLeaders, who are local S&T experts with strong leadership and innovative policy proficiencies, are engaged to train, and direct and support the R&D goals of their host institute.

At the same time, the Business Innovation through S&T for Industry Program aims to provide financial assistance to Filipino private companies for the acquisition of strategic and relevant technologies so that they can undertake R&D. The financial assistance, which may only be used to purchase R&D equipment or to secure technology licensing and/or patent rights, will be refunded to DOST at zeropercent interest.

An E-trike charging station in the University of the Philippines Diliman and e-jeepney prototypes PCIEERD photos

During a virtual news conference, DOST announced 16 e-mobility initiatives that target diverse areas of the transportation industry.

The following are the projects: n E-Mobility R&D Center: This will be the country’s first etrike center which will be built in Cagayan. Under it are three projects. Project 1 is the Design, Development, and Fabrication of the E-Trike’s Different Parts and Assemblies; Project 2 is the Design, Fabrication, and Testing of a Locally Developed E-Trike’s Electrical and Electronic Systems; and Project 3 is the Viability Study of Conversion of Conventional Tricycle To E-Trike.

n Intelligent Electric Transportation Systems: The DOST has helped to develop automobiles made from locally available materials that are designed and manufactured by Filipino engineers.

Two of the the projects are the Hybrid Electric Train and the Hybrid Electric Road Train.

Under this initiative, there are three more projects: Project 1: Ad-Hoc Vehicle Infrastructure Cooperative Environment; Project 2: Emocion: Electric Mobility and Charging Infrastructure Operating as a Network; Project 3: ETrike Deployment and Utilization Investigation. n Charg ing in Minutes (CharM): This project attempts to reduce the time to charge electric

automobiles. In comparison to the traditional 4 hours to 6 hours of charging, this fast-charging system can fully charge electric automobiles in 30 minutes.

The capabilities of the CharM are crucial in aiding the country’s development of a more flexible and ecologically friendly mass transportation system. n 23-seater Electric Jeepney (E-Jeepney): This involves Design, Development, Demonstration and Business Planning of a Flexible Electric Van for Logistics and Passenger Transport n Safe, Efficient, and Sustainable Solar-Assisted Plug-In Electric Boat (Sessy E-Boat). n Design of a Modular Stator, Segmented Rotor Switched

Reluctance Motor n Fabrication of Aluminum-Air Reactor Battery n Nicer R&D Center for Advanced Batteries: One of the most wellknown new R&D centers, this will collaborate with host universities to develop strong R&D capabilities in the region. This center has three additional projects: NextGen: Advanced Cathode Materials for Next Generation Batteries; REBCell: NiFe High Energy Density Batteries; and AlabEU: Advanced Lead-Acid Batteries.

Paringit said e-mobility solutions are less expensive to maintain because the battery has fewer moving parts than a traditional automobile, making maintenance easier, less frequent and more economical overall.

He believes that electric vehicles will help minimize harmful air pollution because it is not generating any emissions.

As such, he explained that emobility solutions will help alleviate the Philippines’ energy challenges as the country transitions to renewable energy sources.

“DOST-PCIEERD welcomes the public to join us in speeding up the country’s transition to e-mobility as a pioneer and partner in facilitating innovations, “ he added.

DOST-SEI: Number of Pinay scientists increases

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cience, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields in the Philippines have become appealing to more and more Filipino women.

Researchers from the Department of Science and Technology’s Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) recently found that there is significant increase in the number of females in the field of STEM. The study titled, “Women in Science,” focused on the state of Filipino women and girls pursuing careers in STEM and was launched recently as part of DOST-SEI’s celebration of women’s month.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) for the years 1990 to 2015 showed that females account for nearly half of the country’s total science and technology (S&T) workforce.

The top S&T occupation with the highest number of female workers were nursing and midwifery and other health-related professions, as well as engineering and other technology-related professions.

The following information were also gathered:

Maria Y. Orosa (November 29, 1892-February 13, 1945) was among the first Filipino women scientists. She was a food technologist, pharmaceutical chemist, humanitarian and war heroine. During World War II she developed Soyalac, a drink from soybeans and “darak” (rice bran that is rich in vitamin B-1, which prevents beriberi) that helped save the lives of thousands of Filipinos. She introduced the popular banana ketchup.

Wikimedia Commons

n The number of females in science and technology careers is increasing; n The most prominent S&T core occupations of women are generally in the health practitioners field; n There is an increasing number of female S&T employed in the fields of engineering, architecture, and information, communication

and technology related fields; n Most female with careers in S&T are concentrated in some areas in Luzon, specifically in the National Capital Region, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon. n For 2015, the following data were generated that showed that females engaged in S&T is already quite substantial: n Out of 10 million bachelor’s degree holders in the country, over 3.7 million have S&T degrees, composed roughly of 45 percent females; n Approximately, there are 434 thousand (48.1 percent) females who are S&T bachelor’s degree holders and employed in S&T occupations; n There are more females (54.3 percent) working in the S&T fields who are post-baccalaureate degree holders; n Female S&T workers are younger (30 years old) than the male group (34 years old) based on their median age.

There are, however, still some gaps and inequalities that still need to be addressed.

One of which is that most female S&T professionals are

concentrated in the National C apit a l , Cent ra l Lu zon, a nd Calabarzon regions.

Also, there remains a high gender disparity in important professions, such as engineering and architecture.

“While we have made great strides in empowering Filipinas in STEM, there is much work that still needs to be done, not just in terms of gender equality but also towards further improving access to education and employment opportunities,” said DOST-SEI Director Josette T. Biyo.

“This inclusivity is essential to ou r nat ion’s development and eventual achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals,” Biyo added.

DOST-SEI affirms its focus in inviting more women in STEM as it regularly celebrates outstanding Filipino women scientists and scholar-graduates.

“Without naming names, there is a great number of Filipinas who are impact-players in their fields.

We hope to continue to inspire our young girls for we know the caliber that our women scientists and engineers can be,” Biyo pointed out.

S&T Media Services

Lego education robotics held for smart agriculture

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earning innovations in agriculture through Lego?

That exactly what the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) did in its maiden run of its InnovEIGhts ideation session on Lego education robotics for smart agriculture.

Dubbed “Brewing Education and Creativity Agri 4.0,” the ideation session included training in the basics of building, programming, and operating Lego as well as a demonstration of the proper usage of the accompanying software, a Searca news release said.

It also introduced the studentparticipants to the Snapmaker and Dobot robotic arm, both of which are housed in the Searca Hub for Agriculture and Rural Innovation for the Next Generation (Sharing).

The ideation session was the first event held at the Sharing Café.

Searca Director Dr. Glenn B. Gregorio said the Sharing Café is an interactive component of the Sharing

The robots built by the participating student teams in the “Brewing Education and Creativity Agri 4.0,” of Searca. Searca photo

innovation spaces that aims to provide a creative learning experience geared towards Agriculture 4.0 in Southeast Asia.

He added that the café is designed as an innovative venue for “play-tolearn” and “learn-to-play” activities for guests and fun learning modules for K-12 students in the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels and even the parents.

“For its first run, Searca’s InnovEIGhts ideation session on Lego education robotics engaged the Center’s staff with the long view

that they will become the focal and in-house resource persons in Lego education robotics for their respective departments and units,” Gregorio said.

The participants comprised of five groups, each equipped with its own robotic Lego set (EV3Lab), which they built and programmed by themselves.

The Lego education sets used were Wedo 2.0 and EV3Lab. Wedo 2.0 was developed to engage and motivate elementary students’ interest in learning science and engineering

subjects and their application in smart agriculture.

EV3Lab is a third-generation robotics kit in Lego’s Mindstorm line.

A Director’s Cup was held to test the participants’ robots’ agility in a race at the Shraring Open Learning Space. The first team that successfully programmed their machine to make it from the starting point and back bagged the prize.

Felta Multimedia Inc., official distributor of Lego education materials and robotics in the Philippines, implemented the training.

Felta will also certify the participants as Lego education trainees equipped to instruct interested learners.

Glenn N. Baticados, Searca program head for Emerging Innovation for Growth, challenged the trainees to craft proposals or projects relevant to their respective departments, that would encourage innovative minds to use the world-class facilities and tools of the Sharing innovation spaces.

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Sunday, April 24, 2022

Faith

Sunday

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

Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Baha’is, Sikhs, Jains and Hindus celebrate holy days this month

Holy days converging in April spark interfaith celebrations

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t’s a convergence that happens only rarely. Coinciding with Judaism’s Passover, Christianity’s Easter and Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, Buddhists, Baha’is, Sikhs, Jains and Hindus also are celebrating their holy days in April.

Hundreds gathered around the Guru Nanak Gursikh Gurdwara temple grounds in celebration of the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi, on April 27, 2008, in Bellingham, Washington.

Mark Malijan/The Bellingham Herald via AP

The springtime collision of religious holidays is inspiring a range of interfaith events.

In Chicago, there’s the Interfaith Trolley Tour on April 24, in which a trolley will make stops at different faiths’ houses of worship.

In cities across the country, Muslims are inviting people to interfaith iftars so they can break their daily Ramadan fasts in community with their non-Muslim neighbors.

In addition to Passover, Easter and Ramadan, holy days occurring in April this year include the Sikhs’ and Hindus’ Vaisakhi, the Jains’ Mahavir Jayanti, the Baha’i festival of Ridvan, and the Theravada Buddhist New Year.

Across faiths, the celebration of the overlapping holy days and religious festivals is seen as a chance to share meals and rituals.

For some, it’s also a chance to learn how to cooperate among faith traditions on crucial issues, including how to help curb climate change, fight religious intolerance,

and assist people fleeing Afghanistan, Ukraine and other nations during the global refugee crisis. “ T he r a re conve rge nce of such a wide array of holy days is an opportunity for all of us to share what we hold sacred with our neighbors from other traditions as a way of building understanding and bridging divides,” said Eboo Patel, the founder and president of Interfaith America, previously known as Interfaith Youth Core. “This is Interfaith America in microcosm.”

On Chicago’s south side, the upcoming trolley tour is intended to teach participants about this year’s April holidays, which are converging for the first time in the same month since 1991, said Kim Schultz, coordinator of creative initiatives at the Chicago Theological Seminary’s InterReligious Institute.

The trolley will stop at several sacred spaces, including a Baptist church, a mosque and a synagogue, and will end with an

iftar at sunset catered by recently resettled Afghan refugees.

“We’re asking people to take advantage of this confluence, the convergence … more than half of the world is celebrating or commemorating the critical moment in our faith traditions,” said Hind Makki director of recruitment and communications at American Islamic College.

The event is sponsored by the American Islamic College, the Chicago Theological Seminary, the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran School of Theology, the Hyde Park & Kenwood Interfaith Council and the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

After more than two years of Covid-19 restrictions that upended many holidays, followers are eager to meet in person again.

Organizers of the Chicago event said they had arranged for a trolley that would carry 25 people, but there was so much interest across faiths that they had to arrange for a bigger trolley for 40 people instead.

And then, when more kept joining, a second trolley.

“This is a great time,” Makki said. „So, why not take the opportunity to learn about each other’s traditions, to learn about each other through those traditions.”

As part of the month’s celebrations, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA opened its mosques to host dozens of interfaith iftars in cities across the nation centered on the theme of ‘justice through compassion.’

“During our gatherings across 35 cities we emphasized that the world that we see now stands on the brink of a world war,” said Amjad Mahmood Khan, national director of public affairs for Ahmadiyya. “And only the collective prayers and actions of the faithful can really save humanity from self-destruction.”

Faith leaders from Christian, Jewish, Sikh and Hindu faiths gathered recently for a virtual panel celebrating the convergence of their sacred observances.

Among the issues discussed were shared concerns over the rise of white Christian Nationalism and legislation in Arizona

and Florida that they criticized for marginalizing LGBTQ young people.

“We see that convergence as highly symbolic, maybe even divinely ordained as our people need to reaffirm our shared values of love, freedom and justice in order to disrupt white Christian Nationalists’ attempts to decide what ideas, identities and practices are valued and respected,” said the Rev. Jennifer Butler, founder and chief executive of the Washingtonbased multifaith group Faith in Public Life.

“This sacred season presents the opportunity for solidarity, for prophetic witness as we lament the rise of intolerance and discriminatory laws that threaten our nation’s quest to be a multiracial and multireligious democracy,” she said.

It will also be an important moment for members of different faiths to find common ground in the runup to the US midterm elections, said Nina Fernando, executive director of the Shoulder to Shoulder campaign, a multifaith national coalition committed to countering and preventing antiMuslim discrimination.

“With the time that we’re living where essentially we’re polarized and divided among racial and religious and political lines, we can take this opportunity to talk about how to live well together amidst our diversity and talk about these holidays overlapping,” Fernando said.

The convergence of the holidays also offers a chance to dispel misconceptions about faith traditions and appreciate shared values, said the Rev. Stephen Avino, executive director of the Parliament for World Religions.

“The holidays are the enactment of the core values, and we can actually see before our eyes the beauty of that tradition through the holidays and through ritual,” Avino said.

“You can compare that to your own traditions, and you can see the similarities and differences and within that is the beauty of that.

And you start to see that faith as being worthy of reverence, while still maintaining your own faith,” he added.

Orthodox Easter truce in Ukraine war urged

A man walks on a street in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol that is besieged by Russian forces. ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO

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he Secretary General of the United Nations joins Pope Francis‘s call for a “fourday Holy Week humanitarian pause” in the Ukraine war, on the occasion of the current Orthodox Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday on April 24.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday appealed for a pause in the Russian assault on Ukraine, in order to be able to open a series of humanitarian corridors to reach those hit hard by the war.

Hope of Easter

For Orthodox Christians who follow the Julian calendar, Holy Week this year began with Palm Sunday, 17 April, and will culminate in Easter on 24 April, the most solemn feast of all Christians that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus from death.

“Easter is a season for renewal, resurrection and hope. It is a time for reflection on the meaning of suffering, sacrifice, death—and rebirth. It is meant to be a moment of unity,” he told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.

“Save lives. Stop the bloodshed and destruction. Open a window for dialogue and peace and keep faith with the meaning and the message of Easter.”

On the contrary, “This year, Holy Week is being observed under the cloud of a war that represents the total negation of the Easter message,” Guterres said standing in front of the “Knotted Gun” sculpture, symbolizing non-violence.

Horrors of war

He lamented that the intense concentration of forces and firepower of the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine “makes this battle inevitably more violent, bloody and destructive”.

“The onslaught and terrible toll on civilians we have seen so far could pale in comparison to the horror that lies ahead. This cannot be allowed to happen,” the UN chief stressed, adding, “Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance.”

The Secretary-General pointed out that “many good-faith efforts by many parties to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine have failed.”

Need for humanitarian corridors

According to Guterres, the four-day humanitarian pause during the Holy Week for Orthodox Christians, beginning on Holy Thursday and running through Easter Sunday, 24 April, would provide the necessary conditions to meet two crucial imperatives.

First, safe passage of all civilians willing to leave the areas of current and expected confrontation, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“I am calling for a 4-day Holy Week humanitarian pause beginning on Holy Thursday and running through Easter Sunday, April 24th, to allow for the opening of a series of humanitarian corridors.”

Second, beyond humanitarian operations already taking place, a pause will allow for the safe delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid to people in the hardest-hit areas such as Mariupol, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.

With more than 12 million people in Ukraine deprived of food, water and supplies to treat the sick or wounded, the UN chief described the humanitarian situation as “dire.”

The UN fears this figure could swell to 15.7 million, or 40 percent of people left in the country.

Silence the guns

“For all these reasons, I call on Russians and Ukrainians to silence the guns and forge a path to safety for so many at immediate risk. The four-day Easter period should be a moment to unite around saving lives and furthering dialogue to end the suffering in Ukraine,” said Guterres.

“I call on Russians and Ukrainians to silence the guns and forge a path to safety for so many at immediate risk.”

The UN chief concluded with a call to “all champions of peace around the world ” to join his Easter appeal, in order to save lives, stop the bloodshed and destruction, open a window for dialogue and peace, and “ keep faith with the meaning and the message of Easter.”

Robin Gomes/UN News via Vatican News

Passover takes on new meaning for Jews fleeing Ukraine ‘G

ood morning! Happy morning!”

Rabbi Avraham Wolff exclaimed, with a big smile, as he walked into the Chabad synagogue in Odesa on a recent morning.

Russian missiles had just struck an oil refinery in the Ukrainian city, turning the sky charcoal gray. Hundreds were lining up outside his synagogue hoping to receive a kilo of matzah each for their Passover dinner tables.

The unleavened flatbread, imperative at the ritual meal known as a Seder, matzah is now hard to find in war-torn Ukraine amid the war and a crippling food shortage.

But the rabbi wanted no challenge to get him down—be it the lack of matzah or that he was missing his wife and children who had fled the Black Sea port for Berlin days ago.

“I need to smile for my community,” Wolff said. “We need humor. We need hope.”

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews have fled while about 80 percent remain

in Ukraine, according to estimates from Chabad, one of the largest Hasidic Jewish organizations in the world.

Inside and outside Ukraine, a nation steeped in Jewish history and heritage, people were preparing to celebrate Passover, which began sundown on April 15 and ended on April 23. It’s been a challenge, to say the least.

The holiday marked the liberation of Jewish people from slavery in ancient Egypt, and their exodus under the leadership of Moses. The story is taking on special meaning for thousands of Jewish Ukrainian refugees who are living a dramatic story in real time.

Chabad, which has deep roots and a wide network in Ukraine, and other groups, such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Federations of North America, have mobilized to help Ukrainian Jews celebrate Passover wherever they have sought refuge.

In Ukraine, Chabad planned for 52 public Seders welcoming about 9,000 people.

In Odesa, Wolff was preparing to host two large Seders—one in early evening at the Chabad synagogue for families with young children and a later Seder at a hotel where participants could stay the night, obeying a 9 p.m. curfew.

He‘s been waving in trucks loaded with Passover supplies—matzah from Israel, milk from France, meat from Britain.

“We may not all be together, but it‘s going to be an unforgettable Passover,” Wolff said.

“This year, we celebrate as one big Jewish family around the world.”

JDC, which has evacuated more than 11,600 Jews from Ukraine, has shipped more than 2 tons of matzah, over 400 bottles of grape juice and over 700 pounds of kosher Passover food for refugees in Poland, Moldova, Hungary and Romania, said Chen Tzuk, the organization’s director of operations in Europe, Asia and Africa.

In Ukraine, their social service centers and corps of volunteers distributed nearly 16 tons of matzah to elderly Jews and families in need, she said.

“Passover is something familiar and basic for Jewish people,” Tzuk said. “For refugees who have left everything behind, it‘s important to be able celebrate this holiday with honor and dignity.”

JDC organized in-person Seders in countries bordering Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, she said, and facilitated online Seders where it’s too dangerous to gather in person.

The Jewish Federations of North America has set up a volunteer hub in support of refugees fleeing Ukraine; it‘s a partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel, the JDC and IsraAID. Russian-speaking volunteers, such as Alina Spaulding, helped organize a Seder for 100 refugees at a hotel in Budapest.

Spaulding, a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina, fled Kharkiv, Ukraine, as a

5-year-old in the 1970s with her parents.

She said the war has rekindled strong connections to Ukraine.

“My mom showed me a photo of me with my grandpa on a street that was recently bombed,” Spaulding said. “We talked about the university in Kharkiv where my mom and dad went, which was also hit. Suddenly, it all felt so personal.”

Spaulding believes spending Passover with refugees will be “an experience to remember.“ “Part of the magic of Passover is finding your own story,” she said. “We’re in the middle of a modern-day exodus. I can’t even imagine the stories I will hear.”

Celebrating a holiday could give people a rush of hope and happiness even in grim situations, said Rabbi Jacob Biderman, who leads Chabad activities throughout Austria, including a center in Vienna that is sheltering about 800 Ukrainian Jews.

Days after refugees reached his center,

Biderman led a joyous celebration of Purim, a festival commemorating the deliverance of Jews from a planned massacre in ancient Persia.

“The look on their faces changed from sorrow to joy... Their eyes lit up,” Biderman said. “It gave them a sense of normalcy, dignity and the belief that their spiritual life is something no one can take away from them.”

That fueled Biderman‘s determination to provide a memorable Passover Seder for the refugees.

Dr. Yaacov Gaissinovitch, his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children—ages 11, 8 and 4—were part of that celebration.

They fled the Ukrainian city of Dnipro by car on March 4.

Gaissinovitch, a urologist and mohel, who performs the Jewish rite of circumcision, said it pained him, as an observant Jew, to drive on Shabbat—a forbidden act on the day of rest and prayer except when lives are at stake. AP

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

A7

Saving the mysterious sea cows K

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

filter large quantities of nutrients and play an important role in the marine ecosystem.

“The dugong that lives in these seagrass ecosystems are excellent barometers indicative of the overall health of the ecosystem,” Ramilo said in a mix of Filipino and English.

He said the dugong’s constant browsing of seagrass encourages regrowth, ensuring critical habitat and feeding sites for a host of other marine species, including turtles, dolphins and sawfish.

nown locally as “dugong” (Dugong dugon), this sea cow is a large, charismatic and gentle creature of the sea that is rarely seen nowadays in coastal and marine areas where they used to thrive.

Shy as it is, very little is known about this very elusive marine mammal—its population and distribution, how and where it breeds or congregates, or where and how it raise its young.

Fortunately, as a species, dugong is surviving the numerous humaninduced threats, unlike its cousin, the Steller’s sea cow that lived off the coast of western North America, which became extinct in the 18th century mainly due to hunting.

Dugong is one of four living species of the Order Sirenia, which includes three species of manatees—the Amazonian, the West Indian and the West African manatees. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse Family Dugongidae.

Dugong life cycle Known to live up to 70 years old, it takes about four years to 17 years for this marine herbivores to become sexually mature.

By feeding on seagrass, an adult dugong can weigh from 250 kilograms to 900 kg. It is not surprising because scientists say its closest land mammal relative is the elephant and not cows.

It got the name sea cow only because it feeds on seagrass.

A dugong’s gestation period takes about 13 to 15 months, which means it can only reproduce once every three years, or up to 7 years, and it can only produce one offspring at a time.

A mama dugong should nurture

until the baby dugong can fend for itself by eating seagrass 14 months to 18 months after birth.

Elusive A dugong feeding on seagrass. Danny Ocampo

Population decline Known to occur in 37 countries in the Indo-Pacific region, the global population of sea cows is on the decline. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species lists dugong as vulnerable.

In the Philippines, the dugong is critically endangered, a conservation status that means the species is just a step shy from being declared extinct.

Yet, despite its conservation status, still very little is known about the dugong and its way of life. Perhaps this is the reason why its population continues to drop.

There are five priority sites for dugong conservation in the Philippines—Calauit Island in Busuanga and Green Island Bay (which has ongoing conservation initiatives), both in Palawan province; the Malita and Davao del Sur area; Sarangani Bay; and the Sulu Archipelago.

Saving the dugongs In the Philippines, at least one group, the Community-Centered Conservation-Philippines (C3PH), is working closely with the communities to save the species from extinction.

In his online presentation during the World Wildlife Day celebration

organized by the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on March 4, Reynante V. Ramilo, programme coordinator of C3PH, said conserving the critically endangered dugong in the Philippines has always been a major challenge.

“The decline of the species and escalating threats led to its classification as critically endangered,” he said.

Human-induced threats Ramilo said the extinction of dugong can be easily blamed on a number of human-induced threats—such as fishery by-catch, direct hunting, rapid coastal development and habitat degradation.

“Sometimes, fishermen are forced to sacrifice their [dugong] lives even though they know it is illegal to hurt or kill dugongs because they want to save their fishnets more than the dugongs,” Ramilo said in a telephone interview on April 19.

As part of the C3PH’s conservation measure to save dugongs caught in fishnets, Ramilo said they are offering to pay the fishermen the cost of the fishnets to save the life of the poor dugong.

“Just last year, we encountered two incidents wherein we paid the

fishermen the cost of the fishnet and we were able to save the lives of the dugongs,” he recalled.

Protected mammal DENR Administrative Order 55 of 1991 declared the dugong as a Protected Marine Mammal of the Philippines.

This means that hurting, hunting, killing, trading, or even possession of dugong, dead or alive, is punishable by law.

The declaration gives it unique importance as a species, perhaps equal to that of other iconic animals like the Philippine eagle, which is protected by Republic Act 6147, which declared it as a Protected Bird in the Philippines.

At the same time, the Philippine tamaraw is protected by Commonwealth Act 73 that prohibits the killing, hunting, wounding or taking away of the tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis), that was approved on October 23, 1936.

Important ecosystem function In his presentation, Ramilo said dugong’s importance to fisheries and marine biodiversity cannot be overemphasized.

A member of the IUCN-Sirenia Specialist Group, Ramilo said dugongs help stabi l i ze sed iments,

While it is widely known that they inhabit and can only be found among seagrass, actually “finding” them is easier said than done.

Take it from scuba diver and explorer Gregg Yan. “It took me decades to see a wild dugong,” he recalled.

“Sizeable herds of dugongs once plied the Philippine archipelago until hunting and habitat loss greatly reduced their numbers. Some herds are still holding out in Isabela, Mindanao, Guimaras and Palawan, but encounters are extremely rare,” Yan told the BusinessMirror via Messenger on April 19.

He explained that encountering a dugong is unlike seeing a whale, “which steals your breath away because of sheer size, nor a shark that inspires just a primeval bit of fear.”

“Dugongs are huge but cute and friendly, just like a mermaid Hodor,” he said.

Tourist magnet While they are indeed elusive and hard to find, on Calauit Island, “dugong hunt” is being offered as part of the diving experience to tourists.

Danny Ocampo, ocean conservation advocate, master scuba diver, and photography expert, told the BusinessMirror via Messenger that because finding sea cows is not easy, a local Tagbanua tour guide will give the chances of finding them a big boost.

However, observing and interacting

Sibol project to boost environment protection, economy in rural areas

Mt. Mantalingahan Protected Landscape and Seascape in Palawan province Sibol photo

A

P1.1-billion project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has elevated the Philippines’ appreciation for natural resources and biodiversity protection and is seen to boost environmental protection and support economic activity in rural areas.

Called Sustainable Interventions for Biodiversity, Oceans, and Landscapes (Sibol) and implemented by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the project estimates the economic value of the country’s natural resources and has trained Filipino natural resource managers on how to properly account for environment-provided benefits.

A five-year natural resources management and biodiversity conservation project, Sibol is among the biggest and most important initiatives in the country that could profoundly impact the environment in generations to come, according to USAID. Launched in 2020, Sibol aims to work with the government to achieve its goals of improving natural resource governance,

stimulating public and private sector investments, and reducing environmental crime.

Through the project, a total of 275 government staff and researchers from Philippine public universities have completed a three-month training that will support the government’s promotion of economic growth through the conservation of the country’s ecosystems.

The training serves as a foundation for incorporating environmental valuation into the design of economic plans at the local level.

The Philippines’ capability to quantify the economic value of its natural resources will be applied in natural capital accounting.

“When we have competent natural resource managers who are able to account for and monitor the economic value of ecosystem services, the country is in a better position to understand the drivers behind natural resource depletion,” said John Edgar, USAID Philippines Environment Office director, in a statement.

“It’s a necessary intervention that will preserve the country’s biodiversity, oceans,

and landscapes,” Edgar said.

Natural resource managers and researchers from the DENR, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, National Economic and Development Authority, Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, and six public universities learned various methods for measuring the value of benefits derived from the environment, such as food, water and fuel, soil conservation, and coastal protection.

“This [capability will help in] updating the country’s asset accounts, or the value of resources found in Philippine forests, coral reefs, and fisheries,” the DENR said.

According to the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, the Philippines is one of 17 megadiverse countries in the world, which account for 70 percent of the entire planet’s species of flora and fauna.

The project is hoped to promote greater ecosystem stability and inclusive green growth.

Sibol has set up four sites in the following key protected areas in the Philippines, namely 1) Masinloc-Oyon Bay Protected Landscape and Seascape, a coastal area that supports thousands of fishers and coastal communities threatened by mining, overfishing, and population growth; 2) Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park and Cleopatra’s Needle Forest Reserve, which are forest areas of the ecologically important Palawan province and significant habitats for biodiversity; 3) Mantalingahan Protected Landscape, a forest area that is home to abundant biodiversity and more than 12,000 indigenous people threatened by logging and mining pressures; and 4) Siargao Bay Protected Landscape and Seascape, a marine protected area surrounded by the country’s largest contiguous mangrove area and is threatened by over-fishing and the exploitation of other natural resources.

Jonathan L. Mayuga

The Imus River in Cavite province originates from the upland streams of Silang and flows down to the ocean via Manila Bay. All segments of the river span 186.5 kilometers and pass through major towns and cities of the province like Silang, Imus, Dasmariñas, Kawit and Bacoor, as shown in the photo. Gregg Yan/Pemsea photo

Pemsea presents solutions to rid rivers of plastics for Earth Day

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Southeast Asia environment agency is finding ways to help manage plastic waste entering the world’s rivers as it celebrated Earth Day 2022 on April 22.

The Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (Pemsea) released a set of five studies under Project Aseano, a threeyear initiative to stop plastic pollution in two pilot sites—the Imus River in Cavite province in the Philippines and the Citarum River in Indonesia, a Pemsea news release said.

Funded by the Norwegian Development Program to Combat Marine Litter and Microplastics, Project Aseano is led by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies in Indonesia.

It is together with the Pemsea Resource Facility and the Asean Secretariat under the purview of the Asean Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment.

Layman versions of the studies are publicly downloadable. The studies cover the social implications of plastic pollution mitigation, assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices on plastic waste and offer maps of the Imus River watershed.

It also identified hotspots of plastic waste. Waste entering this river system is liable to flow into the ocean via Manila Bay. The studies were led by two academic institutions based within the Imus River watershed—the Cavite State University and De La Salle

with dugongs require permission from the Tagbanuas that protect them, he pointed out.

Raising awareness

Ocampo said ecotourism can help raise awareness about wildlife.

“With that awareness, it can help people to care for them,” he said when sought for a comment last April 19.

“Ecotourism can also help raise needed funds for the management of protected areas/habitats to ensure that endangered wildlife, such as dugongs, can thrive and recover from population decline,” he added.

According to Ocampo, interaction guidelines were already set for dugong and other wildlife tourism. It limits the number of people interacting with them at a given time or the amount of time they are exposed to tourists, which can be stressful to them or alter their behavior. “ These [guidelines] should be strictly followed and regular studies should be conducted to assess if these measures are enough,” he said.

Way forward According to Ramilo, C3PH will continue to work with communities and local government units in Palawan with the goal of establishing a network of dugong conservation sites in Palawan.

C3PH intends to push for the development and implementation of the Dugong Conservation Area Management Plan in coordination with concerned government agencies, and work with the DENR and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) for the declaration of certain areas as Critical Habitat for Dugong.

“We want to promote participatory research and monitoring with the communities and the practice of citizen science,” he said.

Hopefully, he said, between 2022 to 2025, C3PH will be able to replicate dugong conservation in Calauit Island in eight or more other critical sites across Palawan.

University Dasmariñas (DLSU-D).

“We wanted to understand not just what types of waste enter the Imus River, but how the people who live near the river itself perceived plastic pollution as well as local efforts to combat it,“ explained Dr. Edwin Lineses of DLSU-D. “Through this, we were able to contextualize possible policies and initiatives that might once more make the river safe for bathing, fishing and recreation,” Lineses said.

East Asian countries produce over half of the world ’s marine plastic pollution, and waterways like the Imus River act as conveyor belts that discharge waste to the oceans.

“Project Asean is developing practical measures to reduce the entry of plastic waste into rivers, while carefully assessing the interlinked dynamics between residents, local economies and the environment,” explained Aseano Project Manager Thomas Bell.

Project Aseano promises to share proven and cost-efficient actions to help local communities better manage plastic waste from source to sea.

The project enhances capacity, monitoring, evaluation and inter-local government unit cooperation for various groups tackling river pollution. Its solutions are designed to be replicated and upscaled across the region, the news release said.

“For almost three decades, Pemsea has been developing and sharing solutions to revive the seas of East Asia,” said Pemsea Executive Director Aimee Gonzales.

“This Earth Day, let’s revive our rivers. Promoting integrated river management, just like integrated coastal management, translates to more productive waterways and healthier communities,” Gonzales said.

Sports BusinessMirror

A8 | S

unday, April 24, 2022 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

MASTERS CHAMP

BACK TO WORK

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VONDALE, Louisiana—One of the perks from winning the Masters is recognition that comes from outside the world of golf. For Scottie Scheffler, that included a letter from fellow Dallas resident and former President George W. Bush.

One problem.

“His handwriting is really hard to read,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “I hear he's a good artist now. He's got to do some work on his handwriting.”

Whatever it said, the moment was not lost on Scheffler. He has a Masters green jacket at home. He has won four of his past six tournaments to reach No. 1 in the world. It’s a little overwhelming to be getting handwritten notes from a former US president, and getting social media mention from Michael Phelps and a message from Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott.

“Stuff like that is pretty cool,” Scheffler said. “That's probably the only moments I’ve had where I kind of sit and reflect on what's happened the past month-and-a-half, two months.

Obviously, the Masters is such a different event than the rest of them.

“Just getting some messages like that from people I’ve looked up to for so long is really special.”

After a week at home to catch his breath, it’s time to get back to work.

Scheffler is playing the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the only official team event on the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour schedule. His partner is Ryan Palmer, who has a history of playing with No. 1 players.

Palmer previously played the TPC Louisiana with Jordan Spieth twice, and then the past two times with Jon Rahm.

“The big talk around is I keep playing with guys that are top-ranked players.

Well, they want to play with me,” Palmer said jokingly.

Rahm is playing the Mexico Championship next week. Palmer had a hunch in February that Scheffler—who at the time had just won for the first time on the PGA Tour—would be playing in New Orleans. He said he sent Scheffler a picture of Palmer and Rahm posing with the Zurich Classic trophy two years ago, superimposing Scheffler's face over Rahm’s.

They know each other well from casual rounds in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and practice rounds on tour. Palmer knows Scheffler well enough to not be surprised how the 25-year-old is handling his new fame.

Scheffler doesn't get too wrapped up in himself or what he has achieved. He

goes minute to minute at home and on the golf course.

“He’s just such a humble and down-toearth guy,” Palmer said. “I’ve listened to plenty of interviews. He’ll never change.

His upbringing has been so great. His family, I know them all and they’re such great folks. That’s what’s so great about him is somebody will be thrown in that limelight so fast, and to do what he’s done... it’s like nothing’s changed.”

Scheffler had a relatively quiet week, just how he likes it, spending most his time in the backyard and only getting back to golf last weekend. And then he shot a 63 at Royal Oaks. Nothing has changed.

As for the green jacket, Scheffler says he has worn it a few times at home. He’s even tried to use it for a little leverage if his wife, Meredith, wants him to do something.

“Sometimes I’ll grab it out of the closet and look at her, ‘Huh, really?’ It hasn’t worked yet,” he said to laughter.

No matter how well Scheffler is going, he and Palmer will have their work cut out for them against a particularly strong field.

Players Championship winner Cameron Smith, who gave Scheffler the biggest battle at Augusta National until his triple bogey on the par-3 12th hole, is back with Marc

Leishman as they try to defend their title.

Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele will take their successful Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup partnership to the TPC Louisiana. Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland, Nos. 2 and 5 in the world ranking, are playing together.

The most unusual team is Bill Haas and his 68-year-old father, Jay Haas, a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour who is making his 799th start. His first tournament as a pro was the 1976 Western Open. He tied for 47th and earned $535.

Haas used to play the former team event in Disney with his uncle, former Masters champion Bob Goalby, who died earlier this year. He knows how fun it can be, even if he was a little hesitant when his son approached him.

“Bill asked me to play, and I tried to discourage him, that he needed a partner that could help him a little bit more,” Haas said. “But just being with him out here and being on the same range with him again, looking down the aisles here and just seeing all the great players that we have... it's something I’ve been thinking about, certainly nervous about.”

It will be only the second time they have played together. Jay and Bill Haas were in the same group at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2006. AP

13 Nassar victims seek $130M from FBI over bungled probe

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ETROIT—Thirteen sexual assault victims of Larry Nassar are seeking $10 million each from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), claiming a bungled investigation by agents led to more abuse by the sports doctor, lawyers said Thursday.

It's an effort to make the government responsible for assaults that occurred after July 2015. The Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that the FBI made fundamental errors when it became aware of allegations against Nassar that year.

Nassar was a Michigan State University sports doctor as well as a doctor at USA Gymnastics. He is serving decades in prison for assaulting female athletes, including medalwinning Olympic gymnasts.

“This was not a case involving fake 20 dollar bills or tax cheats,” attorney Jamie White said.

“These were allegations of a serial rapist who was known to the FBI as the Olympic US doctor with unfettered access to young women.”

Nassar, he added, continued a “reign of terror for 17 unnecessary months.”

Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics told local FBI agents in 2015 that three gymnasts said they were assaulted by Nassar. But the FBI did not open a formal investigation or inform federal or state authorities in Michigan, according to the inspector general’s report.

Los Angeles FBI agents in 2016 began a sexual tourism investigation against Nassar and interviewed several victims but also didn’t alert Michigan authorities, the inspector general said.

“No one should have been assaulted after the summer of 2015 because the FBI should have done its job,” said Grace French, founder of a group called The Army of Survivors. “To know that the FBI could have helped to avoid this trauma disgusts me.”

White is not suing the FBI yet. Under federal law, tort claims must be a filed with a government agency, which then has six months to reply. A lawsuit could follow, depending on the FBI’s response.

The FBI declined to comment Thursday but referred to Director Christopher Wray’s remarks to Congress about how the matter was poorly handled.

“I’m sorry that so many different people let you down, over and over again,” Wray told victims at a Senate hearing last year. “And I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed. And that’s inexcusable.

It never should have happened.”

White said more than 100 women were assaulted after July 2015, and he expects other lawyers will file claims against the FBI. Nassar wasn't arrested until November 2016 during an investigation by Michigan State University police.

The Michigan attorney general's office ultimately handled the assault charges against Nassar, while federal prosecutors in Grand Rapids, Michigan, filed a child pornography case.

White noted the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The FBI received a tip about five weeks before 17 people were killed at the school, but the tip was never forwarded to the FBI’s South Florida office. The government agreed to pay $127.5 million to families of those killed or injured.

Michigan State University, which was also accused of missing chances over many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement. AP

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER hits out of the sand on the 13th during the first round of the Zurich Classic at TPC Louisiana last week. AP

TENNIS star Serena Williams and Formula One standout Lewis Hamilton are expanding their business horizon. AP

Williams, Hamilton join crowded bid to purchase Chelsea

L THE Harvard-Yale Regatta 1852 Trophy Oars are displayed at Sotheby's in Manhattan borough. AP

Harvard-Yale Regatta oars for $3 million?

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ONCORD, New Hampshire—The 170-year-old prize awarded in the first US intercollegiate sports competition is going up for auction next month.

Sotheby’s estimates the trophy oars from the inaugural Harvard-Yale Regatta will fetch $3 to $5 million in online bidding May 17 to 24. Made of black walnut with engraved silver plaques, the oars were presented to the winning Harvard crew on August 3, 1852, 17 years before the first intercollegiate football game and 43 years before the first such basketball game.

“It’s about Harvard and Yale on the surface, but what I think is truly interesting is it’s the real beginning and genesis of the rivalries in college sports that we sort of take for granted today,” said Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts. “It’s just part of America’s cultural fabric.”

The inaugural race between the Ivy League schools was held on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire after a Yale oarsman from the state struck a marketing deal with a regional railroad line looking to boost

ridership. New Hampshire's own Franklin Pierce, who was elected president three months later, presented the prize.

“The story is so American,” Austin said in an interview Wednesday. “Why it started there was just sort of luck, but it was luck interspersed with commerce and then layered with this political campaign.”

Never before auctioned, the oars were discovered decades ago by a family cleaning out the basement of a Medford, Massachusetts, rooming house they had purchased.

“They’ve been with the family for the last 40 years,” Austin said. “How they ended up in that building and where they were in the interim is sort of a mystery lost to the ages, but I think it is great that they were rediscovered.”

With a few exceptions, the regatta has been an annual event since 1859. It’s currently held on the Thames River in Connecticut. The 155th regatta, set for June 11, will be the first since 2019. AP

ONDON—The crowded field to buy Chelsea now features 23-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams and seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton.

A long-standing fan of Arsenal, Hamilton has seized the opportunity to invest in its London rival as three bidders try to buy the Premier League club from sanctioned Russian owner Roman Abramovich.

Williams and Hamilton are part of a consortium that features proposed investment from Josh Harris and David Blitzer, the owners of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Philadelphia 76ers who would have to sell their stakes in Premier League club Crystal Palace to buy Chelsea.

The reigning world and European champions could be sold for 3 billion pounds ($4 billion)—a record in world sports—given the interest in the west London club.

Representatives for Hamilton said he planned to invest more than 10 million pounds ($13 million) in the bid being fronted by former Liverpool and British Airways chairman Martin Broughton and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe. Another bid has seen Boston Celtics coowner Steve Pagliuca partner with Larry Tanenbaum, who has ownership stakes in Toronto with the NBA’s Raptors, the National Hockey League’s Maple Leafs and the city’s Major League Soccer team. Peter Guber, a part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is also backing in the group.

Another part-owner of the Dodgers, Todd Boehly, is leading another consortium hoping to be announced as the preferred bidder.

A New York-based merchant bank, the Raine Group, has been overseeing the sale process that was announced last month by Abramovich

following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The oligarch has been sanctioned by Britain and the European Union over his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin with assets frozen, including Chelsea.

Abramovich has been disqualified from running Chelsea by the Premier League and he cannot profit from the proceeds of the sale, which the British government must approve under terms of a license that allows the team to continue operating.

Once the sale is completed, the new ownership will have an FA Cup final against Liverpool to attend.

Who will be representing the club in the royal box at Wembley Stadium on May 14 is still to be determined.

As the three remaining bidders wait to discover if they are chosen to buy out Abramovich, the west London club beat Crystal Palace, 2-0, recently in the semifinals of world soccer’s oldest competition on Sunday.

Goals from Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mason Mount ensured the eight-time FA Cup winners will be back at Wembley on May 14 to face Liverpool which beat them at the national stadium on penalties in the League Cup final in February.

“Now it’s time to get our payback,” Mount said.

The ownership contenders are, in part, being assessed on how much they will have to invest throughout the club, including player recruitment.

The victory over Patrick Vieira's Palace was produced by goals from graduates of the Chelsea academy that benefited from Abramovich’s lavish spending.

Such is the challenge to break into the first team, both had to gain playing experience on loan elsewhere, including Loftus-Cheek at London rival Palace. AP

BusinessMirror

April 24, 2022

Can we heal the damage we have already done to the Earth?

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BusinessMirror APRIL 24, 2022 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

DO IT YOURSELF SUCCESS

Self-promotion is the way to go for rock band, Last Song Bea

H

OW does a new rock band create instant buzz and land on Spotify’s editorial playlist barely three months after releasing its debut single?

Last Song Bea makes for an interesting case study in do-it-yourself marketing and self-promotion.

The relatively new Pinoy pop/rock group boasts of seasoned musicians from diverse fields, including Richard Parcia (guitar/vocals), Xyrus Judan (bass), Donie Dico (lead guitar), Mark Bambico (drums), Nimrod Lacquian

Publisher

: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

Editor-In-Chief

: Lourdes M. Fernandez

Concept

: Aldwin M. Tolosa

Y2Z Editor

: Jt Nisay

SoundStrip Editor

: Edwin P. Sallan

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

Columnists

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

Photographers

: Bernard P. Testa Nonie Reyes

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

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(keyboards/guitar), and Erwin Dimaculangan (guitar/vocals).

They launched their debut single “Nakakotse” last August 2021 with no fanfare. Relying on their social media (Facebook, Instagram and YouTube) alone, the song eventually gained traction on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

Despite the under-the-radar blitz, music fans took notice of the emerging act that sounded like a hybrid of the Manila Sound era of the ‘70s and the resurgent alternative rock band scene of the ‘90s.

Riding on their creative high, the group followed through with their second single, ‘Tara!’ in November, and released its alternative version, “Pasko!” in time for the holidays.

Buoyed by their then-modest success, the band made a radical departure from their staple sound when they launched their fourth single, ‘Inside,’ as a Valentine’s Day offering.

Surprisingly, the edgier, grittier rock anthem opened the band’s doors to a wider audience.

To date, their Spotify streams show an exponential rise, with ‘Inside’ taking top spot (100,578 streams), followed by LAST SONG BEA

“Pasko!” (106,706), “Inside” (the live piano version, at 41,689), “Tara!” (28,661), and “Nakakotse” (6,848).

It might also be worth mentioning that all these happened in the middle of the lingering Covid-19 pandemic—a bleak period for musicians and the local music industry in general.

But what do all these numbers mean?

Interestingly, Last Song Bea lead singer/composer Richard Parcia is an award-winning CIO who works for one of the country’s top industrial firms. Despite his expertise in the field, he prefers to just shrug off what could be called beginner’s luck—considering their band’s stature as an emerging act.

Richard modestly enthuses, “I still think it’s just exposure and timing.

Regardless of the streams, we just really needed to push it out there for folks to find it. For example, “Pasko!” was released a month earlier before it got picked up by Spotify for their editorial playlist.”

“Even in the digital age, there is no substitute to good old promotion, albeit, the medium is different and faster. For sure, people think it’s easy to promote it because of social media, but it also meant

ten times or even a hundred times the competition.”

He adds, “And remember, we are just a small indie band. We don’t have record labels to help us promote. We DIY. We’re just blessed to find an audience. We’re far from being the big artists locally, and much farther away than a K-Pop group.

But we’re happy some folks listen to us and when they tell us that they do, it fuels us to keep going.”

Is it possible to map out their listeners’ demographic based on the earlier success of “Nakakotse” and “Tara?”

Richard explains, “We can see the numbers, but I don’t trust the demographics. That is due to experience.

We thought that “Nakakotse” would resonate with the ‘90s alternative rock audience, and “Tara!” will resonate with newer crowds with its ‘festive’ vibe. We were wrong. It was the reverse.

For example, my niece and her friends who are all in college like “Nakakotse” over the other releases. It came out as a surprise. I’m quite sure there is a more sophisticated way to map the demographic. But we prefer not to overthink it. It’s art, not rocket science.”

IC

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | APRIL 24, 2022

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BUSINESS

BEHOLD, EM BEIHOLD Rising singer-songwriter on seeing depression in a new light

By Stephanie Joy Ching

A

FTER captivating millions across social media, buzzing Los Angeles singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, Em Beihold shares a new single and music video entitled “Numb Little Bug” that encapsulates the feeling of depression in a new light.

According to Beihold, the song came about when she was gaining traction in her music career, but could not feel anything.

“I wrote ‘Numb Little Bug’ when I had a song called ‘Groundhog Day’ that was going viral and all of the sudden all these labels were talking to me and all my dreams were coming true, but I didn’t feel how I expected to feel,” she shared.

Em also shared that at the time, she was also starting on antidepressants, which made her “emotionally flat line.”

“I didn’t realize it took the highs as well as the lows,” she said.

With a catchy tune set juxtaposing lyrics like; “Do you ever get a little bit tired of life, like you’re not really happy, but you don’t want to die, like a numb little bug that’s gotta survive?”, it was no wonder the song reached over 1.5M likes and 6.4M views on Tiktok.

Known for writing about the little intricacies of growing up and making them relatable, Em Beihold has been writing since she was seven as a way to “figure out my feelings.” She drew inspiration from not just her day-to-day life, but also from the likes of Regina Spektor.

The result is an artist who can put a positive spin even on the most terrible parts of growing up.

“It’s not necessarily a choice I’m making, I always just write about how I’m feeling,” she shared, “And at the time, I didn’t feel a single thing.

I was driving along a highway trying to figure out the words to how I felt.

Like I didn’t want to die, but I just wanted to press pause on life.”

Prior to making it big on Tiktok with “City of Angels”, Em was enlisted by director Michelle Schumacher to create a “Not Who We Were” for her film I’m Not Here starring Academy

Award winner J.K. Simmons. The song later graced her debut album, Infrared, a year later. Following “City of Angels” was “Groundhog Day”, which was also met with praise, the initial teaser lighting up social media with 20 million views and the song itself generating over 6.6 million Spotify streams.

With her career taking off in the new normal, Em only hopes to continue writing, with her main goal

EM BEIHOLD

being to be able to perform on SNL. “There’s definitely pressure after ‘Numb Little Bug’ because I didn’t expect it to get as big as it did, but my biggest career goal is to perform on SNL, I don’t have a set timeline for myself, so hopefully that happens one day.”

Em Beihold’s “Numb Little Bug” is now streaming on Spotify and digital music platforms.

Curious Kids:

Can we heal the damage we have already done to the Earth?

By Scott Denning Colorado State University

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Is it possible to heal the damage we have already done to the Earth? – Anthony, 13

S

ometimes it may seem that humans have altered the Earth beyond repair. But our planet is an incredible system in which energy, water, carbon and so much else flows and nurtures life. It is about 4.5 billion years old and has been through enormous changes.

At some points in Earth’s history, fires burned over large areas. At others, much of it was covered with ice. There also have been mass extinctions that wiped out nearly every living thing on its surface.

Our living planet is incredibly resilient and can heal itself over time. The problem is that its self-healing systems are very, very slow. The Earth will be fine, but humans’ problems are more immediate.

People have damaged the systems that

sustain us in many ways. We have polluted air and water, strewn plastic and other trash on land and in oceans and rivers, and destroyed habitats for plants and animals.

But we know how to help natural processes clean up many of these messes. And there has been a lot of progress since people started waking up to these problems 50 years ago.

There still are problems to solve. Some pollutants, like plastic, last for thousands of years, so it’s much better to stop releasing them than to try to collect them later.

And extinction is permanent, so the only effective way to reduce it is to be more care-

ful about protecting animals, plants and other species.

Reversing climate change The most serious damage humans are doing to the Earth comes mainly from burning coal, oil and gas, which is dramatically warming its climate. Burning these carbon-based fuels is changing the fundamental chemistry and physics of the air and oceans.

Every lump of coal or gallon of gasoline that’s burned releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There it heats the Earth’s surface, causing floods, fires and droughts.

Some of this added carbon dioxide dissolves into the oceans and makes them more acidic, which threatens ocean food webs.

Climate change is a problem that will get worse until humans stop making it worse— and then it will take many centuries for the climate to return to what it was like before the Industrial Revolution, when human actions started altering it on a large scale.

The only way to avoid making things worse is to stop setting carbon on fire. That means societies need to work hard to build an energy system that can help everyone live well without the need to burn carbon.

The good news is that we know how to make energy without releasing carbon dioxide and other pollution. Electricity made from solar, wind and geothermal power is now the cheapest energy in history. Cleaning up the global electricity supply and then electrifying everything can very quickly stop carbon pollution from getting worse.

This will require electric cars and trains, electric heating and cooking, and electric factories. We’ll also need new kinds of transmission and storage systems to get all that clean electricity from where it’s made to where it’s used. The rest of the carbon mess can be cleaned up through better farm and forest management that stores carbon in land and plants instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. This is also a problem that scientists know how to solve.

The Earth will certainly heal, but it may take a very long time. The best way to start is with everyone doing their part to avoid making the damage any worse. The Conversation

Sustainability in the digital commerce ecosystem

S

outheast Asia generates over 31 million tons of plastic waste each year, with 91 percent of consumers stating that they are concerned about plastic waste issues in the region. To address this, e-commerce brand Lazada launches a LazEarth campaign as part of the company’s commitment to support sustainable practices in the digital commerce ecosystem.

The campaign will initially focus on plastic waste reduction in product and packaging. Lazada will work with LazMall brands and partners to make eco-friendly products easily assessable and identifiable to consumers. Under this campaign, Lazada will recognize and feature more than 70 brands and 5,000 items across mainly fashion and FMCG product categories that are made, packed, or shipped with reduced or better plastics.

“As digital commerce continues to be

one of the key growth drivers in Southeast Asia, it is crucial for companies to place sustainability at the core of their strategies to build stronger and greener economies,” said Magnus Ekbom, Chief Strategy Officer, Lazada Group. “The LazEarth campaign is part of Lazada’s ongoing efforts to address plastic waste and help our buyers make informed decisions about sustainable products.”

Since 2021, Lazada started offering green-

4 BusinessMirror

er parcels made from alternative sustainable packaging materials through its Fulfilment by Lazada (FBL) service for partnering brands. The green parcels use FSC-certified carton boxes filled with recycled shredded paper instead of plastic fillers.

Apart from addressing plastic waste, Lazada has put in place partnerships and social initiatives aimed at building a sustainable digital commerce ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

In the Philippines, Lazada has partnered with Basic Environmental Systems & Technologies Inc. (B.E.S.T.)’s Trash to provide Cashback for LazGoGreen, Lazada Philippines’ package recycling program.

Customers can simply compile their Lazada packages at home, drop off their recyclables at the nearest MBE-C-Center site (available in Metro Manila and Cagayan de Oro), and convert the environment points they receive from their packaging waste to earn

April 24, 2022

Lazada Wallet Credits.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Lazada partnered with the National Trade Promotion Program to offer lychees from farmers in Hai Duong on the platform during the pandemic. In Indonesia, together with PT Smoot Motor Indonesia, Lazada Logistics introduced the Blue Vehicle, a practical and environmentally-friendly package delivery fleet for Lazada’s frontliners in the country.

James Chang, Chief Business Officer, Lazada Group, said the company recognizes that sustainability and value creation will become increasingly important to its longterm success.

“With the launch of LazEarth, we look forward to forging more collaborative partnerships and green initiatives that will empower our brands, partners and consumers to collectively create responsible and sustainable shopping and consumption habits,” he said.