BusinessMirror August 23, 2020

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Sunday, August 23, 2020 Vol. 15 No. 318

PHL’s first integrated steel mill may soon finally rise in Mindanao

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EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS

BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018)

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS

PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY

DATA CHAMPION

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

By Manuel T. Cayon

AVAO CITY—A few more steel brushstrokes and the touted first integrated steel mill in the country will soon rise in the largest industrial estate in Mindanao, the administrator of the Philippine Veterans Industrial Estate Corp. (Phividec) in Misamis Oriental revealed.

FREEPROD | DREAMSTIME.COM

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PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 48.5610

n JAPAN 0.4580 n UK 63.6878 n HK 6.2659 n CHINA 7.0182 n SINGAPORE 35.4356 n AUSTRALIA 34.8765 n EU 57.5205 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.9482

Source: BSP (August 20, 2020)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

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Giant leap to the future Phividec Industrial Authority Administrator Franklin Quijano announced in July that the steel mill “shall stand on the property for lease with option-to-purchase awarded to Simple Homes Development Inc., a subsidiary of A Brown Co. Inc. (ABCI), a publicly listed company with major investments in real estate, power generation, agriculture and mining.”

He said China’s Huili Fund teamed up with the CISDI Group Co. and Philippine-owned Simple Homes Development Inc. for the project. The CISDI Group Co. is a subsidiary of China Metallurgical Group Corp.

Construction will start as soon as the parties, which include the Phividec-Industrial Estate Misamis Oriental-Special Economic Zone (PIEMO-SEZ), were expected to finalize the formulation of the memorandum of agreement, registration agreement and the contract of lease.

The target was “very soon,” an insider into the formulation of the agreement told the BusinessMirror this week.

It was the governing board of Phividec Industrial Authority which approved on July 27 this year the proposal of the Huili Group to establish the integrated steel mill.

“This means that the owners of the project would now be able to enter into an agreement with PIEMO-SEZ and to establish the project,” the Phividec insider said.

Quijano said the integrated steel mill would cost around $4.9 billion inside the 400-hectare land area. The operation would produce an approximate 5 million tons per annum of flat products such as steel plates, and long products such as billets, round bars and wires.

He said the project would commence upon signing of the agreements, which was projected to have taken place in the early part of July.

“Realizing the vision of President Rodrigo R. Duterte, this investment paves the way for the country to have a globally competitive iron and steel industry,” he said.

He said the integrated steel mill “is a tremendous contribution to the ‘Build, Build, Build’ program of the national government, as we cannot build a country without steel.”

“The world is shrinking but we are expanding with the introduction of the integrated steel mill,” Quijano added.

Job generation

THE integrated steel mill is expected to make a significant contribution to employment generation and economic growth not only in Northern Mindanao but also nationwide, he said. The construction phase alone would generate between 10,000 and 30,000 jobs, while regular operations would require some 3,000 employees.

“This investment also provides employment opportunities for our kababayans under the

‘T

Balik-Probinsya program,” Quijano added.

he world is shrinking but we are expanding with the introduction of the integrated steel mill.”—Phividec Industrial

Industrialization

WHEN it was being planned, the steel mill had provided one of the promising prospects for decentralizing industrial operations away from Metro Manila and Cebu and only recently, a likely enticing ingredient in the Balik-Probinsya program.

In the last quarter of 2019, Quijano also organized the first national Industrial Summit in Cagayan de Oro City, which leading industrialists and tycoons participated in to craft the country’s road to industrialization.

Among the key participants were the chief executives of a steel processor and a food and beverage giant, which has several subsidiaries already located in the Phividec area.

“This southern Philippine island has always been an attractive place to investors. This is due to its natural resource potential, suitable geographical location, favorable climate, among others,” Quijano said in describing the contribution of Mindanao to help decentralize the national capital and the manufacturing centers around it.

To recall, he emphasized, “Iligan City was once called in the 1970s-1990s as the Industrialized City of the South until the global crisis struck our economy in the late mid-’90s.” In the heart of the city was the once booming National Steel Corp., the backbone of the steel industry in the country, and

Authority Administrator Franklin Quijano

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along its corridor going to Cagayan de Oro City are about three cement factories, a chemical company, a flour mill and other industrial complexes.

There are more than 60 companies and factories at the PIEMOSEZ. “This does not include more than 100 service providers regis-

tered with the Phividec Industrial Authority as service enterprises,” the BusinessMirror insider said.

Notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies and factories continued to operate. While some of these may have closed shop, Phividec said this was not due to the Covid-19 pandemic

but due to internal company problems, the source added.

Given all the sanguine forecasts surrounding the prospects for this soon-to-rise integrated steel mill project, the Philippines may well be on the brink of taking the first crucial step in its longdrawn bid to industrialize.

Asia wealth management hits snag with bankers stuck at home

By Alfred Liu & Chanyaporn Chanjaroen | Bloomberg News

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RIVATE bankers in Hong Kong and Singapore had their wings clipped by the pandemic, thwarting their pursuit of millionaires scattered across a region where wealth is growing faster than anywhere else.

For most of the year, relationship managers in two of the world’s largest centers for cross-border money management haven’t been able to freely travel to China and around Southeast Asia to meet new prospects and verify ownership of private yachts, property and more.

They’ve focused instead on a trading boom among existing clients.

Covid culprit

BUT the shrinking pipeline is an increasing worry as Covid-19 flareups in the region keep them largely grounded, say executives and relationship managers. Already, the likes of UBS Group AG and JP­ Morgan Chase & Co. have seen the growth of new money in Asia take a hit. And while regulators are easing rules that typically require inperson meetings and on-site visits, banks are still catching up with digitization and some bankers are reluctant to step away from the traditional checks.

“The challenge is the majority of private bankers’ business in Asia is coming from offshore,” said Benjamin Quinlan, chief executive officer of Quinlan & Associates, a strategy consultant in Hong Kong. “To service clients from another country, you need some physical travel.”

More than half of the assets managed in Hong Kong and Singapore are drawn from outside the two hubs. New relationships for private bankers are often nurtured over months of meetings. On top of that come the regulatory requirements to prove client identities and verify sources of their wealth.

No new customers

WITHIN the wealth business of UBS, Asia contributed just $200 million to its $9.2-billion net new money in the second quarter, down from $1.1 billion a year earlier. But the region was still its second biggest in terms of profits, buoyed by trading. JPMorgan’s number of new private banking clients in Asia dropped more than 10 percent in the first half from a year earlier, even as brokerage activity increased more than 50 percent.

A Shanghai-based executive at a Chinese wealth manager, who asked not to be named discussing a private matter, said new offshore clients fell more than 30 percent in the first half from a year earlier.

A Singapore-based regional head for a European private bank said he hasn’t been able to bring in any new customers since February.

Private banks require anything from $1 million to more than $10 million to be parked with them, and Asia is fertile ground for that kind of cash. Financial wealth in the region, excluding Japan, has grown 10.8 percent annually since 2009, almost double the global rate, according to a report by Boston Consulting Group. It’s seen growing 5.1 percent to 7.4 percent annually until 2024, clocking the fastest pace in the world, the report said.

‘Critical’ period

“THE second half is going to be critical,” said Kam Shing Kwang, chief executive officer of JPMorgan’s Asia private bank. “We’re learning to adapt to this new world because not everything has to

A STAR Ferry Co. vessel, owned by Wharf Holdings Ltd., travels across Victoria Harbour as Two International Finance Center (IFC), left, and other buildings on Hong Kong island stand illuminated at dusk in Hong Kong, China, April 29, 2019. JUSTIN CHIN/BLOOMBERG

come to a halt.”

Some banks are faring better, in particular those with extensive local networks—often via their retail presence or through partnerships. Bank of Singapore, which oversees $113 billion in wealth assets, reported a rise in assets of $9 billion in the second quarter, both from new assets and market gains.

Getting existing clients to add more cash amid resurgent markets has also provided a cushion to the difficulties in wooing new clients.

Credit Suisse Group AG saw net new assets in its Asian private banking business swell by 80 percent in the second quarter after the trading boom.

UBS has accelerated its digital push as transactions on its e-trading platform in Asia rose fourfold from December to June, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman said in an e-mail. More than 50 percent of its equity trades in the region are now executed through the online platform.

Dawn of ‘new normal’

ANOTHER boon has been an easing regulatory environment. Authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore have temporarily pulled back verification rules, allowing for video conferencing and digital submissions of paperwork such as deeds, licenses and signatures.

Julius Baer Group Ltd., based in Zurich, started digital onboarding pilot in Switzerland this year and is planning to roll that out in Asia, according to AsiaPacific Chief Operating Officer Andreas Zingg.

“As a bank we’re convinced that many of the changes on how we engage with clients are here to stay in the long run and this includes further digitalization of onboarding new clients,” he said.

Starting at the end of next month, Bank of Singapore is going to extend digital onboarding of prospective clients anywhere as long as they want to have their assets managed in Singapore, said

Sonjoy Phukan, the chief operating officer at the bank. Pending approval, this will later be offered to prospective clients looking to open accounts in Hong Kong.

“It’s a given that movement restrictions as a result of global Covid-19 pandemic have affected the ability of our relationship managers to conduct in-person meetings with both existing clients and prospective clients,” said Phukan.

The bank has still been able to open new accounts by moving checks to video conferencing and other digital means, he said. But it’s also anticipating a slowdown in the growth of new assets in the second half of the year.

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

The World

Mexico targets junk food as obesity takes toll amid Covid-19 pandemic

By Mark Stevenson

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The Associated Press

EXICO CITY—As more states propose or approve bans on junk food sales to minors, Mexico is seeing the tide turn against high-calorie snacks that experts say have given the country one of the highest rates of childhood obesity and an unusually young coronavirus death toll.

The Gulf coast state of Tabasco passed restrictions on the sale of sugary bottled drinks and high-carbohydrate snacks this week, less than two weeks after the southern state of Oaxaca became the first to do so. Legislators in several more states have introduced similar bills, all of which forbid merchants from selling “junk” food to minors unless their parent or guardian is present and approves.

In the northern state of Chihuahua, Rep. Rene Frias introduced a bill “to guarantee our children and youths a healthier diet and to fight obesity and excess weight.”

The bill has not yet been voted on.

In Mexico City, the country’s largest retail market, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said earlier this month “we are working with legislators to see if it is feasible to get similar legislation in Mexico City.”

Some of the measures also would ban vending machines from dispensing such foods and prohibit their sale in or near schools.

The issue has come to a head with the coronavirus pandemic with Mexico having the third highest confirmed Covid-19 death toll in the world, trailing only the US and Brazil. The government revealed that among the 57,774 Mexicans who have died, high blood pressure and obesity were the chief underlying conditions that may have complicated the disease, with diabetes a close third.

The government’s point man on the epidemic, Hugo López-Gatell, has been a big supporter of the junk food measures—as well as recently

enacted mandatory warning labels on highcalorie food—in part because about half of Mexico’s deaths from the virus were people under 65, something he has blamed on obesity and bad diets. He has singled out soft drinks, which he called “bottled poison.”

But defining “junk food” has become a major challenge in writing the new laws—Oaxaca is still working on drawing up its list—in part because there are a lot of traditional Mexican snack foods that are loaded with sugar, salt and calories.

For example, the drink known as “chilate”— variations are known in southern Mexico states as pozol, tejate and a host of other names—has a laundry list of high-calorie ingredients: chocolate, sugar, ground corn or rice, and even sometimes ground-up cookies. It has been consumed in Mexico in some form for hundreds of years. Traditional Mexican sweets are usually almost entirely made up of sugar, salt, tamarind and lime.

But because of political and economic concerns and national pride, the lawmakers want to avoid touching traditional snack foods, and instead seek to focus on packaged foods made by multinational companies.

The Tabasco law, passed on a 22-8 vote on Monday, uses verbal gymnastics to try to avoid including traditional snacks in the ban.

Th e Ta b a s c o l a w “p ro h i b i t s t h e s a l e, distribution, giving, supply or donation of bottled sugary drinks, carbonated sugary drinks, sweets and snacks prepared with mainly refined carbohydrates and solid vegetable fats that contain transfats.”

It may be a long haul to enforce the new law, because many packaged snack foods like Doritos chips have already been firmly integrated into Mexican food culture, with “Dorilocos” now a staple at Mexican parks. Preparing Dorilocos involves splitting open a bag and adding as many as a dozen ingredients to the chips, some healthy—like celery or tomato—and some decidedly not so, like salted nuts or gummy bears.

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Sunday, August 23, 2020

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Covid-19 gives cover to press crackdowns all over the world

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overnments around the world are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to justify—or to divert attention from— crackdowns on press freedom.

Media tycoon Jimmy Lai was arrested in Hong Kong earlier in August as police enforced a new national security law. In June, journalist Maria Ressa was convicted of “cyber libel” in the Philippines. In Egypt, at least 12 journalists have been arrested this year under laws against “spreading misinformation” related to the coronavirus.

In some cases, regimes have moved to curb alleged misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic that doesn’t align with official proclamations about its spread or severity. In others, the pandemic serves as a distraction by directing national attention away from these incidents.

Egypt, for instance, has been jailing young journalists such as Nora Younis, editor-in-chief of the alManassa news agency, who according to the International Press Institute was arrested on June 24. In Russia, the AP found at least nine cases against ordinary Russians accused of spread-

ing “untrue information” on social media and via Messenger apps, with at least three of them receiving significant fines.

The IPI has been tracking media freedom violations since the pandemic began. Such repression includes arrests and charges, restrictions to access to information, censorship, excessive fake news regulation, and physical attack.

Incomplete figures make it difficult to say whether such crackdowns are on the rise. At least 17 countries, including Hungary, Russia, the Philippines and Vietnam, have enacted new laws ostensibly intended to fight misinformation about the coronavirus, according to an IPI tally. In reality, those measures have actually served as pretexts to fine or jail journalists who are critical of the government, the organization said.

In Hungary, for example, Prime Minister Viktor Orban passed a coronavirus law that could mean up to five

years in prison for false information.

Russia can fine people up to $25,000 or imprison them for five years if they’re deemed to have spread false information about the virus. Media outlets can be fined up to $127,000, according to the IPI. The Committee to Protect Journalists has tracked 163 violations of press freedom related to the coronavirus this year as of July 29. The group says its data is not comprehensive. The IPI has tracked 421 violations related to the virus, including arrests, censorship, excessive “fake news” regulation and physical or verbal attacks.

“We see an ongoing crackdown on the press that is compounded by the coronavirus,” said Courtney Radsch, CPJ’s advocacy director.

Even incidents unrelated to alleged pandemic misinformation can escape broader notice amid the flood of coronavirus news. Jimmy Lai’s arrest in Hong Kong, for instance, shortly followed enactment of a new national security law that gives China more power to squash dissent in Hong Kong. Lai operates Apple Daily, a feisty pro-democracy tabloid that often criticizes China’s Communist Party-led government.

The libel convictions of Ressa and another journalist were also unrelated to Covid-19. But Radsch said the pandemic can serve as a distraction for such cases that might otherwise have

gotten more international attention.

“There’s just much less attention being paid to a lot of this since people are just caught up in other news,” she said. “It’s difficult to break through the morass to raise concerns and public concerns about crackdowns.”

That’s been exacerbated by the absence of a robust response from the US under President Donald J. Trump, experts said.

“In the age before Trump, clearly the United States would be the one advocating for press freedom and independent media worldwide,” said David Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and a former UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression. Trump routinely refers to the mainstream press as “fake news.”

While the Trump administration sanctioned Chinese officials, including Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, over Lai’s arrest, its traditional rhetoric in support of the free press has fallen short. “We don’t see the robust condemnation that we would expect from the US over press freedom crackdowns or deaths of journalists in custody,” Radsch said. The administration also could have done more for Ressa, she said, as the journalist holds American as well as Filipino citizenship.

“We have not seen a robust call at the highest level for charges to be dropped,” she said. “It’s not what we expect.” AP

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The World BusinessMirror

Immigration to Canada drops, threatening economic growth

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anadian immigration plummeted by almost two thirds in the second quarter as border restrictions remained in effect, threatening one of the country’s main drivers of economic growth.

T he countr y accepted only 34,260 permanent residents in the three months through June, with border closures still in place to curb the spread of Covid-19,

according to the latest government data. That compares with 94,275 in the same period last year, representing a drop of 64 percent.

High immigration over the past few years has been a key component of government efforts to grow the work force and counter an aging demographic. Immigration-driven population growth has been credited with supporting the housing and labor markets, and has been one of the few bright spots in an economy that suffers from weak export and business investment.

But travel restrictions that took effect in the latter half of March remained in place throughout the second quarter. Canada is still accepting most permanent resident applications but the pandemic has

slowed processing times. The government says it’s prioritizing applications for Canadians returning to the country, vulnerable groups and people who perform or support essential services.

In the first six months of 2020, Canada allowed 103,420 permanent residents into the country. At that pace, Canada’s immigration levels will fall short of government targets laid out earlier this year.

In March, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said the 2020 target was 341,000, with another 351,000 or so to obtain permanent residence in 2021. Bloomberg News

Thrifty pandemic-era dining habits boost US Spam sales

By Adam Minter

Bloomberg Opinion

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n weekdays, the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota, might be the busiest business on Main Street. A brief, socially distanced visit reveals why.

Spam isn’t just canned meat manufactured up the street by Hormel Foods Corp.; it’s played a crucial role in feeding Americans in some of the country’s toughest periods. “We’ve supported our troops through every major conflict,” reads an exhibit label close to a life-size cutout of General Dwight Eisenhower. Another notes that Hormel exported more than 130 million cans of the iconic canned pork to feed hungry soldiers and civilians from 1940 to 1945.

Americans aren’t on a wartime footing, but the Covid-19 pandemic has them eating packaged foods like they are. Spam sales surged more than 70 percent in the 15 weeks that ended June 13, while net grocery sales of Hormel products—including Skippy Peanut Butter and Hormel Chili—were up 8 percent in the company’s second quarter. Much of that boost was due to the panic stock-up that occurred as Covid-19 shuttered a lot of American activities. But nearly five months into the pandemic, the dynamics are shifting. “What we are starting to see is that consumers are staying with us,” says Luis Marconi, Hormel’s group vice president for grocery products, during a recent Zoom call.

That Spam’s customers are going back for more speaks to the changes that Covid-19 has brought to American shopping and dining habits. In particular, “nutrition,” a concept most recently associated with fresh and healthy eating, is taking on more varied meanings.

Just as poverty and scarcity during the Great Depression and World

A can of Hormel Foods Corp. Spam brand cooked meat is arranged for a photograph in Tiskilwa, Illinois, on May 17, 2018.

Hormel is scheduled to release earnings figures on May 24.

War II influenced American pantries for generations, a pandemicera mindset is likely to stick.

For the last decade the dominant American food trend has been a search for healthier, fresher and more “authentic” foods than the packaged fare that dominated American pantries during the latter half of the 20th century: out with the Tang and in with the cold-pressed juice. That quest has played out across the American supermarket. The center of the store, home to packaged, frozen and dairy products, has been in relative decline compared with the perimeter, where fresh produce and meat are typically found. US sales of Campbell’s Soup declined in eight of the last nine fiscal years.

But from 2010 to 2017, consumer expenditures on fresh fruit and vegetables grew 2.3 percent.

Nonetheless, there are outliers.

In 2019, Hormel announced that its Spam brand had just enjoyed its fifth consecutive year of record growth (and will almost certainly enjoy a sixth). Marconi points to several factors that account for the sustained success of the 83-year-old brand. Like many packaged products (think Hamburger Helper),

it’s proved to be highly versatile, especially for consumers who are looking for inexpensive ingredients to make familiar, tasty dinners, such as Spam and eggs and—more recently—Spam tacos and Spam musubi (a wildly popular Hawaiian sushi roll). That versatility, in turn, drives Spam’s relevance and growth.

Hormel data shows that Hispanic and Asian Americans, two of the country’s fastest growing demographics, are more inclined to buy Spam than the general population.

Then came Covid-19’s economic toll. In addition to job losses a nd t i g hte ne d p o c k et b o ok s, Americans also suddenly faced surging food prices. Pork prices are up 8.1 percent since February. Americans are also eating more (or even all) meals at home thanks to restaurant restrictions and suspended school schedules.

At the same time, an unknown number of adult children have returned home to live—and eat— with their parents.

Predictably, the volume of groceries being purchased has expanded by as much as 31 percent a trip, according to one analysis.

Packaged snack foods constitute a growing percentage of the haul,

as stressed Americans seek out affordable indulgences or modest meal stand-ins (a pattern observed in past recessions). At the same time, 1 in 5 American parents with children at home report they’re worried about their ability to secure food, and account for a significant share of the cars seen in long lines at food pantry distributions across the country. A recent survey by the Food Marketing Institute, a trade association, found that 22 percent of Americans newly prioritize “making ends meet” when they cook, and 37 percent prioritize “getting enough basic nutrition.”

For Hormel and other packaged food makers, those shifts are a chance to reintroduce their products to consumers who may have turned away in recent years. “This is a time when we can present a versatile, very tasty, nutritious option, protein-centric, to families when they need to stretch their dollars,” Hormel’s Marconi said.

General Mills Inc., maker of Cheerios and Progresso soups, recently announced that it’s expanding its manufacturing partners to meet consumer demand. And Conagra Brands Inc., maker of frozen food classics like Hungry Man dinners and Banquet Chicken, reports a surge in customers trying out its products.

Of course, not all of those first-time Spam and Hungry Man consumers will stick with the products. Organic meats have also boomed during the pandemic. But just as Americans held to their Depression and World War II-era diets for decades, many millions of Americans will most likely continue their thrifty pandemic-era dining habits. Once Covid-19 and its economic impacts wane, they’ll seek out their new comfort foods.

Telephone calls between U.A.E., Israel ring for the first time

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UBAI, United Arab Emirates—Telephone calls began ringing on Sunday between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, marking the first concrete step of a US-brokered diplomatic deal between the nations that required Israel to halt plans to annex land sought by the Palestinians.

Anger over the deal, however, continued as well, with protesters in Pakistan criticizing the UAE and Iran making new threats about the accord, which will see the Emirates become only the third Arab nation to currently recognize Israel. The UAE responded by summoning Iran’s chargé d’affairs to criticize earlier comments by Iran’s president it described as threatening.

But for Dubai’s small expatriate Jewish community, which has worshipped for years at an unmarked villa in this city-state, the calls represented so much more than just the convenience of being able to directly dial loved ones in Israel.

“There’s a sense of a miracle upon a miracle upon a miracle, as all of these hurdles fall away and people at last can come together and start talking,” Ross Kriel, the president of the Jewish Council of the Emirates, told The Associated Press.

Direct telephone calls have been blocked

in the Emirates, a US-allied federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, since its founding in 1971. That backed the standing position of Arab nations at the time, that Israel must first grant concessions to the Palestinians before being recognized—one of their few points of leverage.

Since Thursday’s announcements, Associated Press journalists have tried to make calls between the nations without success. But around 1:15 p.m.

Sunday, AP journalists in Jerusalem and Dubai could call each other from both landline and cellular phones registered to Israel’s country code +972.

Over an hour later, Emirati officials acknowledged that Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan had called his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi. The Israelis later acknowledged the call as well, saying the block had been lifted from the Emiratis’ side.

Israeli Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel issued a statement “congratulating the United Arab Emirates on removing the blocks.”

“Many economic opportunities will open now, and these trust-building steps are an important step toward advancing states’ interests,” Hendel said.

Also Sunday, Israeli news web sites that had

previously been blocked by UAE authorities, like the Times of Israel , the J erusalem Post and YNet, could be accessed without using means to bypass Internet filtering in the Emirates.

In the UAE, a recorded message in Arabic and English would typically play prior to Sunday saying calls to +972 numbers could not be connected. The advent of Internet calling allowed people to get around the ban, although these too were often interrupted.

Some in Israel used Palestinian mobile phone numbers with +970 numbers, which those in the UAE could call.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced on Thursday they were establishing full diplomatic relations in the US-brokered accord. The historic deal delivered a key foreign policy victory to President Donald Trump as he seeks reelection, and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.

Palestinians maintain it puts a just resolution of the Middle East conflict even farther out of reach.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contended on Sunday that the deal with UAE shows Israel doesn’t need to retreat from occupied land sought

by the Palestinians in order to have diplomatic ties with Arab states.

Deals between Israel and the UAE are expected in the coming weeks in such areas as tourism, direct flights and embassies. Early Sunday, the Emirates’ state-run WAM news agency announced a UAE company had signed an agreement with an Israeli company for research and study of the coronavirus pandemic.

The move has sparked anger among some who see it as a betrayal of long-standing efforts to establish an independent state of Palestinians. In Pakistan, hundreds of Islamists rallied to denounce the Emirati-Israeli deal. The Jamaat-e-Islami party chanted slogans against the United States and burned effigies of Trump. They also set ablaze American and Israeli flags.

Those protests mirror others by Palestinians that have seen images of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan burnt, torn and trampled upon. That’s enraged some in the UAE, a nation of autocratic rulers where speech is strictly monitored. Emiratis online encouraged fellow citizens to report comments critical of the country to law enforcement. Jon Gambrell/AP

www.businessmirror.com.ph

‘Are you doing OK?’: On the ground New York City’s contact tracers

By Jennifer Peltz

The Associated Press

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EW YORK—Joseph Ortiz headed for the home of a stranger who tested positive for Covid-19, unsure how his unexpected visit would go.

The person hadn’t answered phone calls from New York City’s contact tracing program, a massive effort to keep the coronavirus from spreading by getting newly diagnosed people to identify others they might have infected before those people spread it further.

Ortiz was out to try to bring the person into the fold.

“It’s a mixed bag. You never know what you’re going to get,” Ortiz, 30, said as he approached the person’s Queens apartment building this month.

“Sometimes you have people who are really appreciative. They like that we’re out here trying to end the pandemic so everyone can get back to normal.”

“But other times, you might have a client who slams the door.”

Such is the on-the-ground work of what appears to be the biggest contact tracing effort in any US city, with over 3,000 people making calls, knocking on doors and checking in on people’s health and sequestration.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, has credited the effort with “so far, amazing success.” After a knotty June start, the city says it’s now meeting its goal of reaching about 90 percent of all newly diagnosed people and completing interviews with 75 percent.

But in the program’s first two months, more than 11,000 infected people—over half of all new cases—didn’t provide any names of others they might have exposed. When people have identified contacts, tracers have finished interviews with 6 in 10 of them, short of the city’s goal.

The city has yet to say how quickly it’s connecting with people or what it’s gleaning about potential sources of exposure.

Comparing US state and city contact tracing programs is difficult because they vary widely in what they release, but some public health scholars say the numbers that New York reports are promising. Still, some outside experts suggest New York should get more from the initiative.

“The way you hear the metrics and the progress described, it’s like their job is done after making these contacts. But it’s not mission accomplished, at all,” says Dr. Denis Nash, a City University of New York epidemiology professor. He feels the city is missing opportunities to assess people’s success at isolating themselves and scout exposure patterns to learn “where the holes in the safety net are and assess how big they are.”

Program Director Dr. Ted Long acknowledges there’s more work to do.

But Long, a physician and executive with city-run hospital system Health + Hospitals, estimates the tracers’ efforts have prevented thousands of coronavirus cases and helped keep new infections, hospitalizations and deaths at relatively low levels. New confirmed cases topped 6,000 on some days in April; they now average about 200 a day amid far more testing.

“That’s what tells me that what we are doing is working,” Long said.

Contact tracing is a time-honored public health technique, but the pandemic is putting it to a grueling new test around the world. The stakes are particularly clear to the US city that has suffered more Covid-19 deaths than any other but wrestled its outbreak into relative control late this spring.

Making calls from her East Harlem apartment, tracer Maryama Diaw says she strives to “be sensitive and compassionate and actually talk to the person as a human being, and not just read off a script.”

When a woman was crestfallen to hear she’d tested positive, Diaw recalls, she temporarily put aside her planned questions to ask, “Are you doing OK?” “We talked for a little bit, like person to person,” said Diaw, 25, a graduate student in public health. “That was really rewarding because I actually helped someone through what could be a very difficult day for them, and I know that she left the call with the resources that she needed.”

New York’s tracers also offer assistance that can include food deliveries and free hotel rooms.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s director has estimated the country will need nearly 100,000 tracers. By the end of July, the total was over 41,000, according to an NPR and Johns Hopkins University survey with data from 45 states, excluding some local government programs.

The US tracing has been hampered by factors including coronavirus resurgences, a patchwork state-by-state approach and stubbornly slow test result turnaround times, experts say.

“We’re not in a good place,” says Lori Tremmel Freema, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. But “New York City’s a bright spot.”

The city already had a couple of hundred people tracing HIV and other infectious diseases before the pandemic. But Covid-19 took the work to “a scale that is unprecedented,” said deputy health commissioner Dr. Demetre Daskalakis.

New York City appears to have the biggest city-level program. By comparison, 2,600 tracers are covering nearly all of massive Los Angeles County. Chicago says it has over 200 tracers now and expects the number to grow to about 800 by mid-September. Houston said this spring it was hiring 300.

L.A. County’s health department says its program is “going well” as it completes interviews in about half of all new cases and with nearly twothirds of all contacts—though, as in New York, the percentages are higher when factoring out such circumstances as people without available phone numbers.

New York state, which has 2,000 tracers working outside the city, has reached about 90 percent of newly diagnosed people and nearly 88 percent of contacts, state official Larry Schwartz said; it’s unclear what percentage completed interviews.

Neighboring New Jersey says it interviewed about 7 in 10 newly diagnosed people statewide in the first week of August and got contacts from half of those willing to talk. Connecticut official Josh Geballe said the state has recently been reaching people in 90 percent of new cases within 48 hours, finishing interviews and getting contacts in half to two-thirds.

Such yardsticks are reasonable but don’t show how tracing is affecting coronavirus transmission, notes Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which offers health officials a free course and an app to gauge their programs’ impact.

Ortiz, an HIV contact tracer before the coronavirus pandemic, sees the impact on days like the one when he knocked on that Queens apartment door.

The infected person professed not to have realized tracers were calling, Ortiz said. Since tracers keep doorway conversations short to preserve privacy and limit exposure, the person pledged to call in for a full interview.

“They already had their phone in their hands by the time I left,” Ortiz said. “It’s definitely a good sign.” Associated Press Video Journalist Robert

Bumsted in New York and writers Marina Villeneuve in Albany, New York, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

Science

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

BusinessMirror

Sunday

Sunday, August 23, 2020 A5

DOST-aided start-ups are shaping a better normal

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By Edwin P. Galvez

n the late 2016 at a coworking space in Alabang, Muntinlupa City, a few months after “retiring” as the country’s game development pioneer, Elson Niel S. Dagondon decided it was time to “start working again and tick off one item in my bucket list— invent something” to help modernize education in the country.

Dagondon founded the first local game development studio in 2001 that leading game developer and publisher, Thailand-based Pocket PlayLab Ltd., bought 14 years later.

In 2017, he collaborated with C a l e n M a r t i n D. L e g a s p i o f Orange&Bronze Software Labs to develop the prototype for an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered school management system. The school offers a complete suite of software to digitally transform learning institutions.

After many rounds of technical presentations, Education Technology (EdTech) startup Edusuite received P4.9-million in 2018 as one of the 15 pioneer grantees of the Startup Research Grant program of the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD).

“It is our direct help to start-ups who want to produce prototypes or improve the products, services and technologies that they have started,” said Russell M. Pili, chief of DOSTPCIEERD’s Research Information and Technology Transfer Division.

Pili discussed “Pinoy Start-ups Innovations” in the recent DOST Report aired on DOSTv. “With the funding, these startups can buy materials to improve their products, test these to adhere to the standards, and get the services of experts to help them design, fabricate and test their products or services,” Pili said.

DOST boosting start-ups

Transforming “early-stage technologies into market-ready products,” the DOST Startup Research Grant program has so far assisted 15 technology start-ups to “overcome research and development roadblocks, strengthen intellectual property, establish initial market traction and refine business model,” among other benefits.

“The DOST grant helped us hire people to make Edusuite a complete product that we can sell to schools,” Dagondon said.

Today, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Edusuite runs in 10 learning institutions, from K to 12 schools to colleges and universities.

They are safely and efficiently ensuring their continuous operations through automated transactions and cloud-based computing solutions for their more than 20,000 students, faculty and administrators.

These include the management of student information and grading, class scheduling, automatic student advising, online enlistment and enrollment, faculty load, clearances, forecasting of class demand, automated scheduling and computation of assessments.

“The grant program is a very good project, and we are very glad that the government helped us,” Dagondon said.

Edusuite is currently being used at the Ateneo High School, CIIT College of Arts and Technology, Benedictine International School, International British Academy, King’s

The Edusuite team at their Alabang headquarters.

College of the Philippines, Sumulong College of Arts and Sciences, Batangas Eastern Colleges, Sacred Heart Academy of Pasig, University of San Agustin, and Joji Ilagan International Schools.

Edusuite is looking at serving a market of 2,300 listed colleges and universities in the country, most of which are privately funded, while it is also talking to the Department of Education on how it can serve public schools.

Start-ups for better normal

The countr y’s emerging technolog y start-ups and other DOSTPCIEER D grantees, such as Senti Techlabs (Senti AI) and Futuristic Av iat ion and Mar it ime Enterprise (FAME) are shaping a “ better normal ” for Filipinos during the Covid-19 pandemic.

These start-ups are treading the innovation path paved by funding and other support programs of the DOST-PCIEERD. The biggest among these is the Technology Business Incubation (TBI) program that supports 45 technology business incubators in various universities and areas in the country.

TBI is currently “nurturing” 300 start-ups to become successful technopreneurs and free-standing enterprises.

“Our TBI program is helping 45 institutions—from Tuguegarao to Davao—that support start-ups involved not only in information and communications technology (ICT) or software development, but also in the fields of agriculture, aquaculture, food, and natural resources,” said Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña during the same online

broadcast.

“I am happy that with our startups, we will have a bigger pool of entrepreneurs. Now even our colleges are teaching technopreneurship,” de la Peña said.

“We need new companies that can compete because if there is no innovation, we will be left behind,” de la Peña reiterated.

Start-ups are new ways of thinking, doing

From 100 start-ups identified by the DOST-Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) in 2015, start-ups in the country today are estimated to number from 400 to over 1,300, majority of which were put up between 2016 and 2017.

“Innovative start-ups are small companies with products or services based on technologies or ways and processes that have not been done before,” Pili said.

“Compared to big corporations, start-ups employ a few people and their business revolves around technology,” Pili said.

Usher: Pili said that many startups that received support from DOST have responded to the government’s call for solutions to stop the spread Covid-19, including the DOST-funded Universal Structural Health Evaluation and Recording System (Usher).

Usher Technologies Inc., a spinoff startup company established by engineers from Mapúa University, is led by Dr. Francis Aldrine A. Uy, dean of its School of Civil, Environmental and Geological Engineering.

From making “earthquake-recording instruments,” Usher created devices that have helped Filipinos cope with the pandemic, including

Searca launches youth program for agri innovation

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special program on youth called, “Young Forces for Agricultural Innovation” or #Y4AGRI, was launched by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) on the recent International Youth Day. Searca Director Dr. Glenn B. Gregorio introduced #Y4AGRI at the Searca Online Learning and Virtual Engagement (SOLVE) webinar on “Youth Disengagement in Agriculture: Addressing Challenges, Creating Opportunities,” which featured youth leaders from the Philippines, Latin America and Africa, a Searca news release said.

“To show our commitment for the younger generations, our strategic plan for the next five years puts value on youth engagement in agricultural and rural development,” Gregorio pointed out.

He said #Y4AGRI builds on Searca’s decades of

experience in training the next generation of leaders in Southeast Asian agriculture through its scholarships and projects for the youth—from school children to young professionals.

To date, Searca has awarded more than 1,800 master’s and PhD scholarships in agriculture and related fields to Southeast Asians, including 477 Filipinos.

Searca has also led a school-plus-home gardens project (S+HGP) that has been sustained by the pilot schools and adopted by other elementary and high schools in Laguna.

The research center is now bringing the S+HGP to Palawan with a weekly e-training on school and home gardens cum biodiversity for teachers, program coordinators, parents from the seven pilot schools, and staff from the local government of Busuanga and Coron

that runs from July 17 to September 3.

Searca’s youth program aims to elevate the interest of young people to venture into and pursue careers in agriculture and allied fields, said Sonny P. Pasiona of Searca during the SOLVE webinar.

He added that it also intends to enhance the individual, social, and technological capacities of young people through formal and non-formal education in agricultural innovation and food systems. “#Y4AGRI is a platform for young people to be heard, engaged, and to be partners in attaining better, bigger, and smarter solutions for our farmers and farming families,” Gregorio said.

Searca’s youth program will also “engage the youth in knowledge generation and policy dialogues on agricultural and rural investments.”

Forthcoming ##Y4AGRI activities include

learning events, recognition of outstanding youth leaders, policy dialogues, social-media campaigns, and par tnership building to advance youth integration in agricultural and rural development.

During the #Y4AGRI kick-off, Searca also announced a “Youth COVIDeo Contest” that will promote youth solutions in food and agriculture during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Themed “Youth and Locally Grown Food,” the contest will showcase local food production practices by young people during the pandemic in video format.

The contest is open to Southeast Asians, including Filipinos, aged 15 to 35 with group or individual entries until September 11. The winners will receive cash prizes ranging from $150 to $500 and a smart tablet for a special prize. The contest mechanics are published on the Searca web site.

CEAP taps PLDT ‘holistic’ e-learning solutions

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Catholic Church-based school organization tapped PLDT to augment their e-learning programs with enterprise-grade online applications and connectivity solutions for their members.

The Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) teachers and school superintendents will readily have access to the applications through the Online Learning Management System.

Bundled with the service are enterprisegrade Microsoft 365 Web-based collaborations tools, including MS Teams that teachers can use to facilitate online classes, integrate notes through OneNote, promote teacherstudent collaboration, and create quizzes with integrated third-party applications.

This also comes with PLDT’s fiber-powered

connectivity for the academe and Smart’s LTE-enabled Bizload Solution for its users for hassle-free load management and distribution for connecting students.

PLDT offers these academic bundles with enterprise-grade cyber security as online applications are hosted on the telco’s secured network of Vitro data centers.

Through the partnership, PLDT is supporting CEAP’s mission to serve and promote religious instruction as an essential element of Catholic education by enabling their member-schools with various online applications designed for remote teaching.

As a response to the pandemic, the CEAP has created the Task Force Covid-19 for Sustainability and Resiliency composed of key officials of the association to assist

member institutions.

The task force prepared a comprehensive CEAP Learning Continuity Plan, which include sections on Flexible Learning Modalities, CEAP Enrollment Assistance Portal, Review of Fees, among others.

It has also been conducting regular webinars to respond to the needs of Catholic schools.

“The CEAP continues to stay true to its vision, even in the midst of this global pandemic to transform the world and renew the Philippines guided by the missionary mandate of the Church and with the support of partners like the PLDT,” said CEAP President Father Elmer Dizon.

“Despite the challenges of this pandemic for the education sector, we are optimistic that

our partnerships with the various educational organizations will help them get through this difficult period and take learning to the next level,” said First Vice President of PLDT Enterprise Vic Tria.

“Our main goal is to offer a ‘holistic’ solution that will cover most aspects of the teaching and learning experience for the academe sector and the students. That’s why in offering solutions, we really leverage on the strength of both PLDT and Smart’s network for our partners to maximize to enable their digital programs’ objectives,” said PLDT Enterprise Corporate Relationship Management Head Dick Perez.

CEAP, a nonstock, nonprofit organization, has 1,484 school-members with 120 superintendents of Catholic schools in the country.

the Go-Clean Disinfection Chamber that “sanitizes the body of a person entering its enclosure” before proceeding inside the hospitals and other establishments, and swab collection booths to prevent Covid-19 infections.

Usher first commercialized its “building structure health monitoring system” through DOSTPCIEERD’s Funding Assistance for Spin-off and Translation of Research in Advancing Commercialization (Fastrac) program.

“Fastrac helps our engineers, scientists and researchers in our universities to commercialize their researches and technologies to benefit our people,” Pili said.

FA ME: A not her benef iciar y of Startup is the Futuristic Aviation and Maritime Enterprise Inc. (FAME), which first developed transponders or small-scale vessel trackers and monitors to communicate with and ensure the safety of fishers.

“FAME designed a [Covid-19] specimen collection booth—an enclosed system that is safe for both tester and those being tested—that is being used by the Department of Health,” Pili said.

DWARM: DOST TBI-funded DWARM Technologies Inc., founded by engineering students and alumni of the Far Eastern University Institute of Technology Innovation Center.

It developed an A I-powered thermal scanner that can be dronemounted to “scan temperatures in crowded places and isolate those who have high temperature.”

We Trace: For apps that track the rate of Covid-19 infections, one of the first to be introduced was the community-tracing app WeTrace developed by DOST scholar Eddie F. Ybañez of the DOST-funded Genii Hut Technologies Corp.

WeTrace, which is now required for use by all workers in the province of Cebu to stem the spread of Covid-19, initially helped map the location of Covid-19 patients, report cases, and track contact locations.

“AI4Gov and DOST-funded Senti AI, both leading start-ups involved in artificial intelligence, made a chat bot to answer the questions of the public regarding Covid-19 through Viber and Facebook Messenger,” Pili said.

P r o j e c t R a m d a m : D O S TPCIEERD also helped a group of software developers with their Project Ramdam, or Resource Allocation Management, Distribution and Monitoring system made

by Geographic Innovations for Development Solutions (GrIDS).

“They made a mobile app and Web platform used by local government units [LGUs] in distributing food packages and relief items,” Pili said.

Six barangays in Los Baños, Laguna, have benefited from using the platform and app that help local government units monitor “which households they have visited and those they still need to help” during their relief and cash assistance distribution operations.

Start-ups: Home-grown technologies by PCIEERD provides support to TBIs established in universities across the country, which serve as DOST’s “partners in research and development,” as they guide both start-ups and technopreneurs.

“Our students, researchers, and teachers usually have the technologies—with their teachings, research and ideas, even with their theses— that may be the source of start-ups,” Pili said.

A new program called TBI 4.0, a partnership between the DOST and universities that already have incubators, particularly those that were established since 2009, aims to “widen our linkage with incubators in other countries and other organizations that can help our incubators here.”

“This will improve our services and expose our start-ups to business practices in other countries,” he said.

PCIEERD is currently working on the new guidelines for the Startup Research Grant program based on Republic Act 1137, or the Innovative Startup Act that “aims to strengthen, promote, and develop an innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem and culture in the Philippines.”

“We were tasked by law to produce guidelines for our programs for start-ups,” said de la Peña, referring to the mandate given to the DOST, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Information and Communications Technology to provide resources to help the country’s start-ups.

PHL wins silver, bronze medals in 52nd Intl Chemistry Olympiad

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he Philippine team to this year’s 52nd International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) won one silver and three bronze medals. This is the Philippines’s best performance in the IChO since the country’s participation in 2017.

The 2020 IChO was hosted and organized by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey from July 23 to 29.

Originally planned to be held in Istanbul and attended by 235 students from 60 countries, this year’s edition of IChO was conducted online for the first time because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Philippine team was composed of silver medalist Michael Cole Tantoco (Philippine Science High School Main Campus), bronze medalist Nathan Wayne Ariston (PSHS Central Mindanao Campus), bronze medalist Ron Angelo Gelacio (PSHS Main Campus), and bronze medalist Stefan Marcus Ong (Saint Jude Catholic School).

The four contestants answered nine challenging problems for five hours on the evening of July 25 in their own homes proctored by their parents while being supervised by the Turkish IChO organizers via real-time video.

The other members of the 2020 delegation are: Dr. Jose Andaya, PSHS-Calabarzon Campus (country coordinator and mentor); Dr. Faith Marie Lagua, De La Salle University (DLSU, head mentor and coach); Dr. Nestor Valera, Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU, mentor) and Dr. Hilbert Magpantay, DLSU (mentor) The success of this year’s team Philippines is also attributed to the shared expertise of its coaching pool.

In the Organic and Biochemistry Coaching Cluster headed by Dr. Magpantay, the members are: Dr. Irene

Villasenor (UP-Diliman), Dr. Virgilio Ebajo (DLSU), Dr. Lagua (DLSU) and Laurenzo Alba (DLSU).

The Inorganic, Analytical and Physical Chemistry Coaching Cluster is composed of Dr. Ian Ken Dimzon (AdMU), Dr. Raymond Malabed (DLSU), and Valerie Miclat (AdMU), and headed by Dr. Valera (AdMU).

The parents of the four students also played a major role by serving as the invigilators while the students are taking the examination inside their homes. This was the first time that this has happened in the 52 year history of IChO. The competing team was assembled f rom t he contesta nts who got the highest scores at the Philippine Nationa l Chemistr y Olympiad held on February 1. The 2020 PNCO was hosted by the College of Science of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila under the leadership of Prof. Jennifer Sy (PLM) and PNCO convenor Dr. Eric Punzalan (DLSU).

First held in 1968, the IChO is the most prestigious annual competition in chemistry for highschool students. The IChO aims to stimulate student interest in chemistry through the solving of creative yet challenging chemical problems, promote international contacts in chemistry, friendships among young scientists of different nationalities, cooperation among students, and exchange of pedagogical and scientific experience in chemistry.

The Team Philippines’s participation was made possible by the Philippine Federation of Chemistry Societies (PFCS). The Philippines first sent its competing delegation to join the competition in 2017, where it took home two bronze medals.

Faith A6 Sunday, August 23, 2020

Sunday

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

Bishop praises Supreme Court for ‘courage’

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he acting head of the Catholic bishops’ leadership lauded a Supreme Court decision upholding human rights in a drug case.

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan said it is about time the nation hears from the magistrates what the people have been saying “with muffled voices: ‘We can’t breathe…’ or ‘The lives of the poor do matter.’”

“Bravo, Supreme Court,” Bishop David said.

“Now the words are written by our own Supreme Court justices, who, thankfully, are mustering the courage to behave as an independent and coequal branch of government in a supposedly democratic nation,” he said.

In an 11-3 decision on a six-year old case, the SC acquitted the drug

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan. CBCP NEWS

suspect from Tabuk City, Kalinga, who has been in jail for six years, because he was nabbed on an invalid search.

The High Court affirmed that warrantless police searches and seizures based solely on unverified anonymous tips are not valid.

The bishop lamented that what the government’s bloody war on drugs has destroyed is not the narcotics trade “but the integrity and credibility” of the police institution.

“It has profoundly demoralized the ‘few good people’ within this law enforcement body, who carry out their duties but with due respect for the law,” he said.

The Kalookan diocese comprises of parishes in the southern part of Caloocan, Malabon and Navotas, covering some of the country’s poorest communities.

In some occasions, David described his diocese as a “killing field” because of the relentless killings of drug suspects.

“Since the war on drugs began, the impunity, the blatant disrespect for the law, for human life, human dignity and human rights, has been more the rule than the exception with regard to the conduct of our ‘law enforcers,’” David said.

The SC pointed out that it will not

allow the Constitution “to be added to the mounting body count” in the war against drugs.

“When the Constitution is disregarded, the battle against illegal drugs becomes a self-defeating and self-destructive enterprise. A battle waged against illegal drugs that tramples on the rights of the people is not a war on drugs; it is a war against the people,” the SC said. “ The state’s steadfastness in eliminating the drug menace must be equally matched by its determination to uphold and defend the Constitution,” the High Court added. CBCP News

Spreading social good through spiritual development

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aith is like a solid rock where a community can be built on.”

These were the famous words of Mrs. Felicidad Sy, or “Nanang” as the SM family fondly calls her, the wife of the late mall magnate Henry Sy. Nanang’s unwavering dedication to the Catholic faith brought about the creation of the Felicidad T. Sy Foundation Inc. that supports the restoration and building of Catholic churches, provides SM employees with spiritual development programs, and carries out special projects enabling church leaders and ministers to spread social good through spiritual wellness and promotion of culture.

FTSFI continuously supports the televised Sunday mass held in its very first chapel, the Chapel of the Eucharistic Lord at the fifth-floor atrium of SM Megamall.

This initiative aims to spiritua l ly nour ish and strengthen the faith of Filipinos despite the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The televised Sunday mass is organized by FTSFI in partnership with Agapetos Foundation Inc. and aired live by CNN Philippines.

According to FTSFI Executive Director Mel Elido, the Sunday mass broadcast reaches Filipinos worldwide in about 35 countries. Since many are unable to physically attend church services due to the pandemic, the reach of the televised Mass is expected to increase.

Building cradles of faith Since 2013, FTSFI has erected and maintains eight churches and chapels. These are the Chapel of the Eucharistic Lord in SM Megamall; San

spiritual needs of the mall employees and mall goers as well as providing a venue for worship for families who gather at the malls on weekends.

FTSFI also works with the nearby SM Mall to provide for the upkeep and utilities of the churches.

This allows the host parish to use the collections for catechism and other community based outreach activities.

Sto. Nino Parish in Calumpit, Bulacan, which construction was funded

by FTSFI. FTSFI photo

Social good for the soul Once circumstances allow, FTSFI will continue its social good efforts for SM employees, including the kasalang bayan or mass wedding.

Since 2013, over 100 couples have been joined in matrimony via these mass weddings. The foundation has also held Confirmations for 130 persons.

The foundation has also held spiritual recollections, lector’s formations, lector’s renewal, and various learning sessions on sacristy upkeep and flower arrangement among others for over 2,850 participants Felicidad T. Sy Foundation is an affiliate of SM Foundation.

Pedro Calungsod in SM Aura; Shrine of Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life beside the SMX Convention Center; San Pedro Calungsod Church in Cebu City; Mary the Queen Chapel in Jaro, Iloilo; Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in General Uno, Cavite City. The newer ones are: Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary in SM North EDSA, Holy Family of Nazareth School in National University and the Cross Tower in Cebu.

By building churches inside or beside SM super malls, FTSFI make sure that it takes care of the

Kasalang bayan for SM employees. FTSFI photo

Malate Church, or Our Lady of Remedies Parish Church, in Manila. The Baroque-style Church is dedicated to Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (“Our Lady of Remedies”), the patroness of childbirth. The statue of the Virgin Mary was brought from Spain in 1624.

Wikimedia Commons

Dioceses: Holding Mass in GCQ areas up to clergy, faithful

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wo archdioceses in Metro Manila— Cubao and Manila—are leaving the decision to their clergy and the faithful on whether they would celebrate Mass or be physically present to attend it in the Church as the region is again placed under the more relaxed general community quarantine (GCQ) starting last Wednesday.

In a Facebook post, the Diocese of Cubao said parish priests are free to decide if they want to open their Churches.

“As the Inter-Agency Task Force places Metro Manila under GCQ beginning August 19, our parishes in the Diocese of Cubao may resume their religious activities at the discretion of the parish priest, following strict IATF guidelines and depending on the situation in each parish community,” the diocese said in an advisory.

The diocese also advised the faithful to coordinate with local parishes for the

64th year feast of Virgen de los Remedios’s coronation to push through sans devotees

By Ashley Manabat

C Papal crown on Our Lady of Mount Carmel

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iocese of Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco (left) lays the crown on the head of the statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel based on the mandate for canonical coronation from Pope Francis.

The event took place at Basilica of the National Shrine and Parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Quezon City in time for the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady on August 15. Witnessing the event is outgoing Parish Priest Fr. Joey Mabborang, OCD. Basilica of the National Shrine and Parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

IT Y OF SAN FERNANDO—This year’s 64th anniversary celebration of the coronation of Pampanga’s patroness, the Virgen de los Remedios (VDLR), on September 8 will be observed “with simplicity and austerity.”

The celebration will be held without the thousands of devotees congregating in open public spaces in the Capitol grounds, in the Holy Mass and in the reenactment of the crowning of the image of the Virgen.

In his Circular Letter 50, Series of 2020, issued August 11, Archbishop Florentino Lavarias said that the most essential things considered for this year’s celebration are the “oneness in prayer and our collective expression of solidarity with the poorest among the poor” of the archdiocese.

This year’s reenactment of the canonical coronation will be totally different from the celebrations in the past 63 years.

It will be livestreamed on Facebook and broadcast on 91.9 Bright FM, Radio Veritas and Radyo Maria sans the thousands of Marian devotees.

On the eve of the coronation, on September 7, a mañanita will be hosted by the archdiocesan liturgical commission.

In the morning of September 8, Masses will be

Virgen de los Remedios celebrated in all parishes in commemoration of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

No coronation reenactment will be held in any of the parishes.

The archdiocesan coronation reenactment will be held at 4 p.m. of the feast day at the main chapel of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary in the City of San Fernando to be livestreamed on FB and broadcast on 91.9 Bright FM, Radio Veritas, and Radyo Maria.

“It is our fervent hope that this year’s celebration will make us realize that like our Blessed Mother,

we are part of the solution to the different social problems being faced by our country, and we are God’s instruments in extending brotherly and sisterly care to the most vulnerable members of the Church and the larger society,” Lavarias said in his circular.

The celebration has the theme, “Virgen de los Remedios, Kayantabe king Pamanintun Lunas, Kasaup king Pamamiya Lingap [Our Friend in Looking for a Cure, Our Helper in Giving Care].”

The traditional “lamak” (offerings in kind) that are part of the VDLR parochial visits will be gathered during novena Masses in all parishes from August 30 to September 7 “to be distributed to their poorest members.”Novena Masses will be celebrated at the Repository Chapel of the VDLR and will be livestreamed via Facebook, the circular said.

The veneration of the Virgen de los Remedios, paired with the Santo Cristo del Perdon, was initiated by the first bishop of San Fernando, the Most Rev. Cesar Maria Guerrero as the Cruzada de Penitencia y Caridad (Crusade of Penance and Charity) in the 1950s amid the social unrest in Pampanga brought about by the Huk rebellion.

Through a papal bull dated July 15, 1956, Pope Pius XII bestowed the Virgen de lost Remedios a canonical coronation designating her as the patroness of Pampanga and setting her liturgical feast on September 8.

announcement of the resumption of Masses in their communities.

Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Manila is letting the faithful decide if they want to physically go to Church or just stay in their homes.

“It will depend on them [churchgoers],” said Manila Apostolic Administrator Bishop Broderick Pabillo.

Pabillo added that they would abide by the guidelines as far as the holding of Masses and other religious activities are concerned.

“We will follow the guidelines for GCQ,” he said.

On Monday, President Duterte announced that the National Capital Region and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal would be under GCQ again from August 19 to 31.

R eligious gatherings are allowed at 10-percent seating capacity under GCQ. PNA

Pope grants awards to 5 Bataan lay Catholics

By Samuel P. Medenilla

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ive lay people in the Diocese of Balanga were given recognition by Pope Francis for their devotion to the Catholic Faith.

In a pastoral announcement, Bataan Bishop Ruperto Santos said Digna Calina, Maria Basilla Garcia, Sonia Rufin and Leticia Vizcayno were given the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (For Church and Pope) award. “[This is the] highest award given to the laity for outstanding service to the Church. As ‘cross of honor,’ the life of the papal awardee configures to the sacrifices and service of our [Lord] Jesus,” Santos said.

Meanwhile, Victor Quezon received the papal Knight of Saint Sylvester. The award is bestowed upon lay people who are actively involved in the life of the Church, while exercising their profession.

Santos said the Diocese of Balanga expressed its gratitude to Pope Francis for the awards.

“In spite of our hardships and sufferings because of this uncertain and unprecedented Covid-19 [novel coronavirus disease], we still experience God’s graces and His goodness” Santos said.

The prelate said he hopes the award recipients will serve as examples to other people to live their life with fidelity to the Catholic Faith.

“They have shown dedication and devotion to their Catholic Faith and obligations; being true to their vocations as faithful wives and husband and as responsible parents and law-abiding lay people,” Santos said.

The Diocese of Balanga said the conferment of the awards will be scheduled when the pandemic is over.

Sa story ng Virgen, yung paragraph na fourth from the last paragraph, palitan mo nito:

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, August 23, 2020

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

A7

FIGHTING ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE

Is your parrot or snake documented?

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

I

mals, annual renewal of CWR and reporting of inventory or status of the animals in their possession.

s your pet parrot, snake or turtle properly documented? Were they legally acquired or bred in authorized breeding facility?

Do you have a permit as private wildlife collector and breeder?

If if the answers were no, then you might find yourself in trouble, not only of losing your pet, but you may spend time behind bars for illegal wildlife trade.

Continuous wildlife registration

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is coming up with a new guideline for Republic Act (RA) 9147, or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act, to ensure the continuous wildlife registration.

This includes offspring or progenies of those bred in captivity, in the DENR’s bid to properly regulate the collection and trade of wildlife and prevent illegal wildlife trade, including the lucrative pet trade that targets rare native species and exotic animals that are critically endangered or on the brink of extinction.

DENR Assistant Secretary Ricardo Calderon said they are also looking at imposing an annual renewal of Certificates of Wildlife Registration (CWR) in a bid to build a database of legally acquired wildlife, whether they are threatened, non-threatened, or exotic animals.

“Before, under the Wildlife Act, wildlife registration is a one-time activity. We want to change that.

Also, we want to start issuing a certificate of wildlife registration for progenies of animals bred in captivity,” Calderon told the BusinessMirror during a telephone interview.

Commercial breeding

A remedial measure

Calderon, also the concurrent director of the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), said they are now trying to correct what they believed to be a flaw in the existing guidelines for the implementation of the Wildlife Act. T he new g u idel i ne w i l l come i n t he for m of a new DENR Adm i n ist rat ive Order (DAO) a nd a Tec h n ic a l Bu l let i n , bot h of whic h a ims to remedy loopholes i n prev ious DAOs. Included in the orders to be remedied is DAO 2004-55, or DENR streamlining /procedural guidelines, pursuant to the Joint DENRDepartment of Agriculture-Palawan Council for Sustainable Development implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 9147, or the “Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act.” Another is DAO 2004-58, which pertains to the registration of threatened and exotic species of wild fauna in the possession of private persons and entities; and DAO 2004-62, which provides fees and other guidelines on the implementation of threatened, non-threatened and exotic faunal species under the jurisdiction of the DENR. Theresa Tenazas, OIC of the Wildlife Bureau at the DENR-BMB, said the plan to formulate a new guideline came after questions on the legal possession of exotic wildlife was raised following viral social-media posts of a North American serval cat and two common ostriches, a species known to occur in Africa,

A rescued North American serval cat awaits transfer to its new home at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center in Quezon City. GAUDENCIO DE LA CRUZ/DENR-SCIS

were seen inside posh subdivisions in Antipolo City and Quezon City, respectively, recently.

The owners of the North American wildcat and the ostriches, one of which died of stress, are facing investigation for violation of R A 9147. They failed to show documents to prove their legal acquisition of the animals, including transport permits.

Among the required documents for the possession of wildlife is the proof of legal acquisition, receipt of the sale or a deed of donations, and the animal’s CWR which may be issued by the DENR Regional Offices of the DENR-BMB.

Illegal wildlife trade

Rogelio Demelletes Jr ., a DENR-BMB wildlife law enforcement specialist, said some of the suspects they arrested with the help of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) would show dubious documents for the animals that are being traded.

“Sometimes, a suspect would present a [genuine] certificate of wildlife registration for a wildcaught animal,” Demelletes told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on August 18.

Sometimes, he said, suspects would attempt to avoid arrest by

showing fake CWRs. Even with a legitimate CWR, a permittee, he said, is not allowed to sell the animal under the law, hence, a violation of the Wildlife Act for the illegal trade of wildlife is committed.

Duties and responsibilities

According to Tenazas, a lawyer, the new DAO will clearly distinguish threatened native species from nonthreatened native species, and exotic animals that are allowed to be traded under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which the Philippines is a party and a signatory.

She said CWR holders have different obligations for non-threatened, threatened and exotic animals.

“We are distinguishing them now under the new DAO for clarity,” she said in partly in English and Filipino in a telephone interview on August 10.

A CWR holder’s privileges, she said, have limitations under the law and they will be clearly specified for the type of legally acquired animals in the new DAO. The DAO, she added, will put more emphasis on the obligations of CWR holder rather than the privileges, such as the continuous registration of their acquired ani-

The DAO will also specify fees for CWR and the special permits needed for transporting the documented animals, which are often ignored by the sellers and the buyers to avoid the inconvenience of a site inspection, visit or detection, especially if the animals are of dubious origin, Tenazas said.

Current fees for special permits, she said, are reasonable, but to avoid DENR inspection, sellers, who are running an illegal breeding facility or wildlife farm often do not apply for a transport permit “ because we will inspect their facility.”

“The law requires CWR or Wildlife Farm Permit [WFP) holders to have the financial and technical capacity,” Tenazas said.

She said that the continuous registration of wildlife will apply even to offsprings under the proposed DAO.

Transfer of ownership

“E v en a f ter se l l i ng , t he sold animals’ [CWR] will have to be transferred to the new owner and registered with the DENR-BMB,” Tenazas said.

This, she said, will ensure that all wildlife, threatened, non-threatened, nonnative or exotic species are properly recorded.

The new DAO, she said, will also outline the guideline in trading locally and internationally, and the wildlife, depending on conservation status, will be identified.

Meanwhile, she said a Technical Bulletin will be issued by the DENR-BMB to serve as an official template or guide in the processing of CWR, including Wildlife Farm Permits.

This will help harmonize all documents pertaining to the application and issuance of CWR, she said.

Welcome move

Asean Centre for Biodiversity Executive Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim, a former DENR-BMB director, welcomed the move to remedy the lapses in the Wildlife Act to ensure proper monitoring both of the CWR holder and the wildlife itself.

“There is really a need to regularly monitor the CWR holders. Through this [proposed] amendment, there will be a regular registration process, including of progenies, so that there is easy tracking of the movement of wild animals from one owner to another,” Lim told the BusinessMirror on August 18.

She underscored that in coming up with the DAO, there’s a need to consult the various stakeholders, particularly permittees, whether they are holders of a CWR or Wildlife Farm Permit.

Sought for reaction, Grace Diamante, executive director of the Mindoro Biodiversity Conservation Foundation Inc., said being a member of the party and a signatory to CITES, the Convention on Migratory Species and Convention on Biological Diversity, the Philippines need to revisit its existing guidelines and “strengthen the conservation advocacy campaign and its enforcement on the ground especially in Protected Areas where the majority of our wildlife are found.”

“We need more good, determined, trained, honest and brave individuals to implement and monitor that these are strictly enforced,” Diamante said via Messenger on August 18.

It is about time for the DENR to allocate more fund to environmental, habitat and biodiversity protection rather than infrastructure projects.

“We need to support our rangers out in the field—arm them with the proper information on species, law enforcement and proper handling of such cases in the field. The DENR cannot do this alone. We all need to support each other and play an important role in getting things done in the most righteous, safer, and ethical way,” Diamante added.

Pilmico uses waste Beyond orangutans: Indonesia’s national park stakeholders craft conservation plan ash for construction F

By Roderick L. Abad

T

Contributor

he use of the by-products of rice husks as an alternative to bunker fuel has been again proven sustainable in a feeds manufacturing facility.

Pilmico Foods Corp., the integrated agribusiness and food unit of the Aboitiz Group, began using a boiler powered by the biomass in 2018.

Sourced from partner rice mills, the burning husks generate steam in the boiler to cook and sanitize the feeds, an Aboitiz news release said.

This initiative has helped Pilmico to cut more than 60 percent of its bunker fuel consumption. Not only it has reduced the company’s overall production costs, it also lessened its carbon emissions.

In its constant search for sustainable alternatives, civil engineers of the Pilmico Animal Nutrition Corp.

(PANC) discovered other potential applications for the burned rice husks’ ash: as mix for cement for the plants’ construction needs, the news release added.

“When we started using the biomass boiler almost two years ago, we saw process improvement and reduced costs. But in Pilmico, we know that the challenge does not stop there. If you find a solution for something, you continue to improve that to ensure, that it stays relevant,” said Engr. Michael D. Cayabyab, maintenance mechanical supervisor at Central Maintenance Department (CMD) of PANC. To minimize costs and further

lower waste from Pilmico’s Tarlac feeds and farms facility, PANC’s engineers conducted a research to find other supplemental uses of waste ash from the biomass boiler.

After some experiments, they were able to establish a concrete mix from waste ash which decreased the actual cement usage by 20 percent, Aboitiz said.

The waste ash mixture that is used in Pilmico’s Slaughterhouse and Meat Cutting facility in Tarlac supplemented the concrete mix for road perimeters, curb and gutter that controls water flow by coursing it to specific drainages that helps prevent flooding in the facility. The same materials are also used in the perimeter fence of the facility.

The waste ash and cement mixture is, likewise, used in the facility’s swine farm concrete slats that are used for the elevated flooring of the swine pens that have a flushing system underneath for easier cleaning and maintenance.

PANC’s Central Maintenance Department said the precast concrete slabs used for the road perimeters are highly efficient and advantageous, the news release said.

It said the construction team was able to produce their preferred specifications, allowing them to build with better quality and efficiently produced materials.

“Guided by Pilmico’s core value of innovation, we improved the original initiative of using rice husks for our feeds production process. With that, we are able to create more uses from the by-products of the by-products [rice husks] we are using,” Cayabyab said.

iery-furred orangutans swing effortlessly from tree to tree using their long arms. Yearly, trekkers and tourists visit the lush rainforest of Gunung Leuser National Park (GLNP) for a close encounter with these mighty tree-dwelling mammals.

Due to its rich biodiversity and critical ecological value, the park has been classified as an Asean Heritage Park (AHP) and part of the Unesco World Heritage Site Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra.

GLNP is the only forest in the world where four iconic species live: the Sumatran orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Sumatran elephant and the Sumatran rhinoceros, said a news release from the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB).

Besides these, the park is abundant with fauna and flora species: 130 mammal species, up to 380 bird species, and iconic plants like the world’s largest flower species Rafflesia arnoldii , and the tallest flower, Amorphophallus titanium .

Other known wildlife animals inhabiting the 800,000-hectare park are the slow loris, pig-tailed and long-tailed macaques, siamangs, white-handed gibbons, Thomas’s leaf-monkeys, Griffith’s silver leaf-monkeys, clouded leopards, Malay sunbears and sambar deer.

Illegal logging, poaching

Gunung Leuser and its rich biodiversity, however, are persistently hounded by threats such as illegal logging and poaching.

As it spearheaded the drafting of the collaborative management plan of GLNP, the Yayasan Orangutan Sumatera Lestari-Orangutan Information Centre delved into these threats through a series of workshops, consultations and visits.

The plan, which was completed in 2019, serves as a three-fold guide for park authorities and the local community alike to: conserve the park, create livelihood opportunities and increase community involvement.

The crafting of the plan was supported by the partnership between the ACB and the German Development Bank, or Kreditanstalt Für Wiederaufbau

(KfW), through the Small Grants Programme (SGP).

Early this year, the ACB and KfW awarded civil society organisations in GLNP and Way Kambas National Park, another AHP in Indonesia, a total of €446,227 in grants.

Addressing threats

Data from the GLNP collaborative management plan show that encroachment, illegal logging and disasters have damaged 143,735 hectares of the park, the ACB said.

It should be noted that the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, to which GLNP is part of, has been listed in the Unesco’s World Heritage Site in Danger.

Factors aggravating these concerns were the opening of forest roads coupled with encroachment, land-use conversions and the lack of long-term planning.

The existing management plan was established around the vision of the park’s conservation and sustainable development.

However, notable gaps in its implementation, including limited community involvement, have been observed.

Thus, the management and stakeholders of the park decided that community awareness and participation has to be improved to address threats to the park.

“Local communities are a crucial partner in conserving biodiversity,” ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim said. “Considering their familiarity with the area and their experiences living in biodiversity-rich areas, local communities usually already are, or can be, the Asean Heritage Parks’ natural stewards.”

The plan has also given attention to community outreach and conservation awareness.

Findings in the GLNP plan show that issues like the removal and damage of park boundary signs are brought about by the lack of public awareness and appreciation of the park.

Key solutions have been proposed to address this: establishing a center of conservation for community development and environmental education,

conducting a conservation education series for stakeholders and for students, and rolling out online media promotional activities.

Good collaboration among stakeholders is expected to positively contribute to the park rehabilitation and wildlife conservation. The plan recommended shared responsibility between GLNP staff and community leaders in the park management and law enforcement.

Members of the community are tapped to conduct patrols, monitor biodiversity, and identify flora and fauna for conservation and tourism purposes.

O ther proposed ecosystem-restoration activities in encroached and degraded areas in the park were also built around strengthening partnerships with various local nongovernment and civil society organizations.

Penabulu Foundation, an organization t h at a s s i s t s t h e g ra nte e s, re p o r te d t h at wildlife monitoring and research informed the implementation of SGP-supported initiatives, such as improving the conservation of important species in these two parks.

Livelihood opportunities

The plan’s livelihood component, meanwhile, focuses on community development and ecotourism.

Among the proposed activities are tree planting, establishing sustainable forest enterprises like beekeeping and medicinal plants, and developing other products like crafts and delicacies, ACB said.

The goal for ecotourism, on the other hand, is to diversify tourism experiences in GLNP. Tourism, especially orangutan and elephant tours, serves as a significant source of livelihood.

Currently, visits are concentrated in areas with established tourism packages focused on orangutan and elephant tours.

For example, Langkat District, where the orangutan and elephant tours operate, reported 18,600 international and domestic tourist arrivals in 2016.

Designing tourism plans and packages, and training the local community to implement tour

offerings in other areas with potential will provide more attractions for visitors and additional income for the communities in these areas.

This shows that experiencing the wonders of Gunung Leuser goes beyond watching orangutans and elephant.

Jefry Susyafrianto, head of the GLNP, envisions the positive effects of the programs on the communities living around the park.

“These programs would develop sustainable livelihood and increase their awareness, which can encourage them to become involved in GLNP management, specifically in protecting the park resources as their livelihood source,” he said.

The implementation of the overall plan will be piloted in a pre-identified 205,355-hectare area in the park. The established plan can then be replicated in other areas of GLNP.

Covid-19 pandemic

The management of GLNP and their communities remained sanguine about the future of the park despite the ongoing health crisis. Routine patrolling and monitoring in the park continue despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Susyafrianto said.

While the park remains temporarily closed to tourists, conservation partnership activities for ecosystem restoration, and sustainable land use for livelihood are still being implemented.

Thus, all park activities are carried out while following the health and safety protocols set by the government.

“With the recently awarded SGP grants and the ongoing conservation initiatives, the park and the local communities will be more prepared when GLNP opens again for tourism,” Lim said.

“As long as communication and collaboration among the stakeholders are sustained and the local communities are empowered to participate in decision-making and implementation, the SGP projects will contribute not just to the good of the park’s wealth of biodiversity that goes beyond orangutans, but also to the good of the communities who call the areas around GLNP their home.”

Sports BusinessMirror

A8 Sunday, August 23, 2020

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

JAPANESE FIRMS OPPOSE GAMES T

OKYO—A majority of Japanese companies among almost 13,000 surveyed oppose holding the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics next year, according to an online study published Thursday.

The survey by a Japanese research company, published by the Kyodo news agency, showed 27.8 percent want the games to be canceled, and 25.8 percent said they should be postponed again. The Olympics were originally planned for this year but were been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Japanese organizers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have said if the Olympics can’t be held next year, they will be canceled.

In the survey, 46.2 percent said they wanted the games to go ahead in some form and open on July 23, 2021.

The survey was conducted by Tokyo Shoko Research and covered 12,857 companies, Kyodo said.

Japan is heavily invested in the Olympics and is spending officially $12.6 billion, though a government audit says the number is twice that large.

Japan and Tokyo have suffered moderately from the pandemic, but new cases have been rising steadily in the last several weeks, particularly in urban areas. Japan has reported about 1,100 deaths attributed to Covid-19.

The Japanese economy has also been hit hard by the pandemic. The government

reported this week that exports plunged 19.2 percent in July from a year earlier.

The online survey was conducted between July 28 and August 11.

When it comes to Olympic tickets, the Latin expression “caveat emptor” often applies: “Let the buyer beware.”

The unprecedented postponement of the Tokyo Olympics has left buyers of millions of tickets in a quandary. Will the games happen next year? Will non-Japanese fans be allowed?

Will there be any fans? How will health and travel restrictions be applied? Will there be a vaccine and quarantines?

Tokyo organizers and the IOC say the Games will open on July 23, 2021, and the competition schedule remains virtually unchanged. But they’ve offered few details, and specifics aren’t expected until the fall and into next year as the Covid-19 pandemic evolves.

“We have some people saying there is no way Tokyo 2020 is happening, and other people are saying it’s absolutely going to happen and ‘I’m going to be there for every moment of it,’” said Ken Hanscom, the chief operating officer of the Los Angeles-based firm TicketManager.

Hanscom isn’t connected with Olympic ticketing, but his company manages bigevent tickets for corporate clients. He’s also organized a popular Facebook page that’s a go-to for Tokyo ticket information.

Olympic ticketing is always confusing, a maze of interests including official ticket

resellers, national Olympic committees and sports federations, sponsors and advertisers, and local organizers and the IOC. Invariably at every Olympics, an event is listed as “sold out” although the venue is half-filled because some VIPs or hospitality guests haven’t shown up.

Four years ago in Rio de Janeiro, IOC member Patrick Hickey of Ireland was arrested for scalping tickets. He has maintained his innocence. Japan has passed an anti-scalping law specifically because of the games, though it has several loopholes.

The Chinese e-commerce, data, and technology company Alibaba is taking over ticketing for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and likely beyond. Alibaba owns Damai, one of China’s largest ticketing platforms, and is also an IOC sponsor.

Olympic tickets for residents of Japan were sold through the local organizing committee. It says refunds for the postponement “will be carried out” no earlier than this fall. This seems straightforward.

It’s more complicated for non-Japan residents.

Those outside Japan purchase through socalled Authorized Ticket Resellers appointed by national Olympic committees. They can charge a 20-percent handling fee on tickets, and are allowed to package desirable tickets with premium hotel packages. They also set the foreign-currency exchange rates.

In Brazil four years ago, CoSport, the ATR for the United States, used a currency

NO BRYAN TEAM IN U.S. OPEN

N

EW YORK—Bob and Mike Bryan were not on the entry list released for men’s doubles at the US Open on Wednesday, possibly signaling the end of the 42-year-old American twins’ record-breaking careers.

The Bryans won five of their 16 Grand Slam doubles titles together in New York, most recently in 2014.

Mike also won the 2018 US Open with Jack Sock when Bob was recovering from hip surgery.

The US Tennis Association announced its women’s and men’s doubles fields, including wild cards.

Three-time US Open champion Kim Clijsters received a wild-card entry in doubles to go along with the one she got for singles as she makes her Grand Slam comeback.

The tournament begins singles competition August 31, and doubles on September 2. The doubles fields are being cut from 64 to 32 teams for women and men this year to reduce the number of people on-site because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Clijsters and playing partner Hailey Baptiste were joined by these other pairings getting wild cards in women’s doubles: Ann Li and Bernarda Pera, Christina McHale and Usue Arconada, Jessica Pegula and Shelby Rogers.

Serena and Venus Williams are not in the women’s field.

Men’s wild cards for doubles went to brothers Ryan Harrison and Christian Harrison, Chris Eubanks and Mackenzie McDonald, Ernesto Escobedo and Noah Rubin, and Nicholas Monroe and Nathaniel Lammons. AP

exchange rate that drove up ticket prices.

There are dozens of ATRs, and they’ve applied varied terms, conditions, and deadlines for seeking refunds. The largest ATRs are: CoSport/Jet Set Sports, the only ATR for the United States; Cartan, which covers much of Latin America; MATCH Hospitality for Brazil and Russia; Kingdom Sports for much of Asia and Africa; Fanatic Sports for India.

Christopher Chase, an attorney based in New York who specializes in sports, intellectual property and media, looked at the “Terms and Conditions” set out by Tokyo 2020 regarding ticket use. He said the “force majeure” clause was defined broadly enough to cover the pandemic and health crisis.

Force majeure spells out unforeseeable circumstances that prevents a contract from being fulfilled.

But he noted that local organizers had already committed to paying refunds for the postponement, as have many ATRs. “It’s all a bit confusing as each set of terms seem to direct to the other party’s [terms],” wrote Chase, a partner in the law firm Frankfurt Kurnit. “But it does appear that tickets refunds are possible, regardless of whether a force majeure event occurs.”

Tokyo organizers say at least 70 percent of 7.8 million tickets were set aside for buyers in Japan. About 4.5 million tickets have been sold to Japan residents, with ticket sales expected to be worth at least $800 million to local organizers, their thirdlargest source of income. AP TICKETS for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are on display in Tokyo. AP

G

ENEVA—Fifa is helping soccer players switch eligibility and represent a second national team with a planned rule change announced recently.

The proposal gives hope to players who are eligible for multiple countries but fell out of favor at their first national team, where they are bound after just a single minute of playing time in a competitive game.

The new wording would let players switch eligibility if they played a maximum of three times for the first national team—including tournament qualifying games—before they turned 21, and at least three years earlier.

The new rule will take effect next month if 211 national federations approve it at the September 18 congress that Fifa is hosting online from Zurich.

A Fifa working group has tried for more than two years to shape the new proposal.

A test case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport ahead of the 2018 World Cup is key background.

Munir El Haddadi, now with Europa League finalist Sevilla, wanted to be selected for Morocco but lost his appeal against the Fifa rules. He had played just once for Spain in September 2014, as a 77thminute substitute in a European Championship qualifier.

The new rule would not help Brazil midfielder Oscar, who has suggested switching to China where he has played club soccer since 2017.

Oscar would fail the test because he has played more than three times for Brazil, including after he was aged 21, and at a World Cup finals tournament in 2014.

The proposal would bar nationality switches for anyone who played at a “final tournament of the Fifa World Cup or a final tournament of a

Fifa shapes new rule to help players switch national team confederation competition.”

Fifa’s new flexibility even suggests letting players revert back to their original national team if they never actually play for the second one.

The existing Fifa rules have been used by many players born in Europe—who played in national age-group

teams or friendly games—and switched to African countries where they have ties through their parents or grandparents.

In more updating of eligibility rules, Fifa wants to clarify how long players must live in a country before they can play for its teams. AP

SEVILLA’S Munir El Haddadi (left) and Manchester United’s Harry Maguire vie for the ball during their Europa League semifinal match in Cologne, Germany, recently. AP

Indy 500 speeds rise again with record in sight

M

ARK MILES can close his eyes and still hear the deep, resonant voice of longtime Indianapolis Motor Speedway announcer Tom Carnegie’s voice echoing across the cavernous facility each May as it announced a new track record.

It doesn’t matter much that Carnegie, who came to be known as the “Voice of the Speedway” during 60 years at the track, retired in 2006, five years before his death.

His signature calls of “He’s on it!” and “It’s a new track record!” became the soundtrack for thousands of fans who made the pilgrimage to the Brickyard.

“That excitement,” said Miles, the chief executive of IndyCar, “is just part of the brand.”

Yes, speed has always been part of the brand. But even though the 33-car field that will take the green flag in Sunday’s race—postponed from its typical Memorial Day weekend date by the coronavirus pandemic—is the second-fastest in history as a collection, the top speed set by pole sitter Marco Andretti of 231.068 miles per hour (371.87 kilometers per hour) remains well off the record.

Tony Stewart set the pole mark of 233.100 mph in 2006 on a track that had been just

resurfaced, while Arie Luyendyk eclipsed him with the fastest single lap in speedway history with a mark of 236.986 miles per hour (381.39 kph) the following day.

Those records might not be safe too much longer.

IndyCar increased the amount of boost this year to help compensate for the weight of the new aeroscreens designed to provide more safety for the driver. That’s a big reason for the increase in speed. But it also follows a longrange plan put in place by IndyCar to slowly build up the kind of speed that has captured the public’s imagination over the years. AP

Teens struggle to balance school, family, work amid Covid-19

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BusinessMirror AUGUST 23, 2020 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

MUSICAL SHAPESHIFTERS

Chin and Carmella of MYMP adjusts to the times

F

By Stephanie Joy Ching

ROM having live gigs every day to online gigs at home, acoustic band MYMP proves that their adaptability, resilience and talent goes a long way.

MYMP Blue Kiss

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

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

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First formed in 1996, MYMP (short for Make Your Momma Proud) experienced many changes throughout their lifespan. From members leaving to label changes to genre changes, they remained resilient and prolific in the music scene. Now back with their “lockdown pandemic single” called “Blue Kiss,” According to lead guitarist Chin Alcantara, the song was a product of their need to continue playing even when live gigs stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. MYMP, however, was fortunate to record and do the final mix of Blue Kiss before the COVID-19 pandemic took over and a lockdown ensued.

“A kiss is a positive thing and one of the best expressions of affection, but because of the pandemic, our ways of expressing affection have been limited. Touching and kissing are not allowed except for family members or friends living in the same house with you. The title Blue Kiss relates to our current situation because we can only dream about kissing our friends and loved ones.

For now, we can only send virtual hugs and kisses,” Chin noted.

“It’s our coping mechanism to create music and content, we’d actually go crazy if we didn’t. It’s crazy that we went from playing almost every day to not playing at all. We were restless and in denial for the first two months of lockdown.

Fortunately, we are able to do a lot of virtual performances on Facebook and YouTube,” he added.

The duo also found a lot of encouragement with the noticeable surge in their streams, which Chin and new vocalist Carmella Ravanilla attributed to people being able to spend more time at home.

“People actually have more time to listen to online now. Those who previously could not watch our live shows and gigs are given a chance to watch even if they’re in a different country or province now that we’re online,” said Alcantara.

Carmela joined MYMP in 2019 following her sensational stint in “Idol Philippines.” Since then, she found herself adjusting to performing almost every single day for months.

“At first, I was in shock, like “I’m the vocalist?” It wasn’t until we did out of town live shows when I was able to adjust and my confidence grew,” she shared.

Carmela brings with her a more country sound in addition that also allows her to put her own personal stamp on MYMP’s staples. When asked why this was so, Alcantara

stated that they choose their songs based on who will be singing it.

Given her “different” vocal timbre that has an uncanny similarity to American band Lady A’s Hillary Scott, the band had to quickly adapt to fit her tone.

In addition to Chin and Carmella, MYMP is also helped in the studio and during live performances by bandmates Aaron Cadaing on bassist, Benj Bamba on drums and Rodnie Resos on keyboards and vocals.

“No matter what song or repertoire we make, as long as it has a nice message and has a nice melody, our process in arranging and choosing songs are still the same. Nothing changes,” he said.

“Blue Kiss” is now available on all streaming platforms nationwide.

MYMP

IC

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | AUGUST 23, 2020

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BUSINESS

ANNIEWHEREWEGO

By Annie S. Alejo

Pandemic-norm concerts, anyone?

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FTER news of socially irresponsible concerts participated in or even spearheaded by some hugely irresponsible bands, we hear of the “world’s first socially distanced concert.”

See, if I were to contract COVID-19 for watching a concert, it most certainly would not be in a Chainsmokers concert. That’s just me. I didn’t understand why bands would hold concerts at a time like this when they know there’s danger of things not going as planned. The Chainsmokers concert organizers told “Buzzfeed” they followed all health protocols. Still, people can be daft. The Los Angeles Times reported that videos and photos of that “fundraising” Southampton event showed people “dancing close together” while the “dividers can be seen on the ground.” Proof that, when left to their own devices,

Sam Fender (AP Photo)

humans are not exactly the epitome of discipline or intelligence.

Now, in contrast, the recent Sam Fender outdoor concert played out to 2,500 people at the Virgin Money Unity Arena in Newcastle, England unveiled the “new normal” set up.

I don’t know who Fender is so I’d probably not going to turn up at his show anytime soon; but organizers say this is just one of the series of

Audience setup at Sam Fender's recent outdoor concert (AP Photo)

concerts they planned.

Beer flowed and some were actually wearing face masks. The difference was, concertgoers were in what they called “pods,” areas for a max of five people marked by three concert barriers. Further back, the pods were slightly elevated to give attendees a better view.

At first glance, this concept is a godsend for someone like me who does not really enjoy contact with strangers—especially sweaty ones or obnoxious types or rowdy drunk ones that turn up in every concert.

Having some sort of private area to enjoy an outdoor concert with people you actually know and presumably like contributes to plus points. Being outdoors, ventilation is also a risk mitigator.

However, it removes the feeling of being “one with the crowd” you get from a really awesome show.

You can’t elbow your way into that thick crowd in front of the stage, or lose your mind jumping and singing along to the songs with the thousands of people you don’t

know but, for that one night, feel like your best friends.

This pandemic has truly heightened my aversion to being among crowds, so this concept helps even if it does pose a challenge—are you fast enough to buy tickets to the pods nearest the stage? Call a friend, I guess.

Still, maybe it’s premature to celebrate. The New York Times published an article called “‘A Smoking Gun’: Infectious Coronavirus Retrieved from Hospital Air” last August 11. It essentially states that there is evidence that “floating respiratory droplets called aerosols contain live virus, and not just fragments of genetic material.” While it is still inconclusive if the live virus from these five-micrometer aerosols can cause infection, you still have to marvel at the fact that the aerosols were collected at a distance of up to 16 feet from Covid-19 patients. So, are you up for a socially distanced concert any time soon? Let me know what you think!

Teens struggle to balance school, family, work amid Covid-19

By Lindsay Whitehurst The Associated Press

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ALT LAKE CITY— With her baby brother in her arms, Kara Apuzzo tried to follow along in an online class as he squirmed or slept.

Other times, the 18-year-old rushed to get ready for work at a frontline job at Target as her virtual high school lessons were still wrapping up.

Last school year was further complicated by computer issues that kept her from logging in and online tools that bedeviled even her teachers. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Apuzzo, who lives in New Haven, Connecticut, knew she wanted to go to college right after high school. Now, she’s not so sure.

“Right now, I don’t know where I want to go with my life,” she said. “I feel so behind when it comes to what do college kids actually do.... It’s scary, it’s so new—I don’t have any idea what I’m even doing.”

Educational disruptions forced by the pandemic are hurting teenagers at a time when many families also are struggling with layoffs and child care for young kids— challenges that are expected to persist as a new school year gets under way, largely

Educational disruptions forced by the coronavirus pandemic are hurting teenagers who also may need to work and help their families care for young kids. Among them are Kara Apuzzo (left), 18, and Brianne Harmon, 16. AP with remote learning.

Some teens have to share computers with siblings or sign in to classes in crowded households or from their cars. Others have been laid off from after-school jobs that help provide for their families or work extra hours in essential industries, leaving less time for school. Students whose parents can’t work from home also have less structure to push them to get their work done.

“They’re at home being their own teachers,” said Nick Mathern, vice president of K-12 Partnerships for the nonprofit Achieving the Dream, which helps students complete degrees through community colleges.

The transition from high school to college can be rocky for many teens, and the coronavirus crisis could widen the gap between kids with wealthier, college-educated parents and their lower-income peers, Mathern said.

“That’s a real danger when it comes to in-

creasing inequality in our country,” he said.

Mathern’s group works with hundreds of US institutions and is affiliated with Gateway to College, which helped Apuzzo improve her grades before the pandemic.

Now, she’s planning to work for a year before enrolling in college.

Schools and organizations like his, Mathern says, will have to get more creative in figuring out how to help older students like Apuzzo who are facing a new set of challenges.

A recent report from Measure of America, a project of the New York-based nonprofit Social Science Research Council, says the number of people ages 16 to 24 who are disconnected from both work and school could spike to almost one in four, erasing a decade of gains and hitting levels higher than the Great Recession.

In the Salt Lake City suburb of Magna, 16-year-old Brianne Harmon struggled to find a secluded place for online lessons in a

house with several relatives. With a heavy load of homework, she found herself in danger of failing three classes.

“I’m trying not to let my family down, not to let myself down to keep going with my career, but it gets hard with everything piling on,” Harmon said at the time.

That put her at risk of being barred from the drill dance team, a sport she loves. She retreated to her grandmother’s house and stayed up all night to pass her classes. She’s going back to a hybrid of online and in-person school in the fall.

“I’m definitely nervous, but I’m excited to have something else stable in my life right now,” Harmon said.

Her math teacher, Michele Jones, said she heard from a number of students like Harmon.

“The stories you hear are just heartbreaking: ‘I’m taking care of three young siblings, I don’t have time to do school. I really don’t feel safe at home, Mom and Dad lost their jobs, there’s a lot of just stress,’” Jones said.

Along with the pandemic, her students also dealt with an earthquake and a temporary contamination in the water supply this spring. Remote attendance in her class dropped to 20 percent at times, a worrying number at a key time for math education.

“I do think this is recoverable academically,” Jones said. “For me, what I’m more concerned about is kids being really traumatized by this time. Feeling lost and abandoned and hopeless.”

Global youth on back foot as virus hits education, jobs

By Alexander Weber Bloomberg

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oung people are being hit especially hard by the coronavirus crisis as their jobs dry up and education is disrupted, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Under 30s often work in sectors suffering the most from the pandemic, making them particularly vulnerable.

While that’s a familiar trait of economic crises, the current situation also raises concerns about long-term scarring because of huge disruptions in training, the ILO said in a report based on a global survey.

“How this will eventually impact the young people who will come to the labor market next year or in two years’ time, that’s a really big question,” said Sangheon Lee, director of the ILO’s Employment Policy Department. Both problems together mean “this disproportionate impact we already start to see will continue in the years to come.”

The issue is one of a host of challenges for policy-makers as they try to drag their economies out of the deepest slump in living memory. It also shows how the crisis aggravates problems with inequality, both within individual societies and between richer and poorer nations.

Millennials were already hit by the financial crisis

more than a decade ago, leaving them with insecure work and stunted opportunities. They also faced a range of challenges at the onset of the pandemic, including a sluggish economy and the rise of automation, the ILO said in March.

A lack of vacancies is now expected to lead to a longer transition from school to work, according to the Genevabased organization. Younger workers and those in lowerincome countries are also more likely to see their work reduced.

The move from campuses to online learning didn’t go smoothly everywhere, revealing deep digital divides, es-

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pecially in lower-income countries, according to the ILO. Nearly one in six of those polled said their education had come to a complete stop, and more than half expected their studies to be delayed.

The survey, which was conducted among 12,000 people in April and May, also sought to gauge the impact of the crisis on young peoples’ mental health. One in two are “possibly” subject to anxiety or depression, with a further 17 percent “probably” impacted—potentially delaying the recovery in education and employment.

The survey also found the youth to be largely compliant with stay-at-home measures, while one in four reported being highly engaged in volunteering or making donations to the Covid-19 response. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Wednesday urged contributions from young people to the institution’s strategy review, calling them a “key motor of change” in a tweet.

The ILO called for “urgent, large-scale and targeted policy responses” to reintegrate those who lost their jobs in the labor market, for example through hiring subsidies or youth guarantees. Governments should also make sure unemployment benefits reach young people, and invest in infrastructure to support digital learning.