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RISE OF ‘CYBERMOMS’ www.businessmirror.com.ph

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Sunday, December 22, 2019 Vol. 15 No. 73

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Study shows a new breed of digital homemakers calls the shots in keeping the house in order

By Roderick L. Abad

A

Contributor

MONG most Filipino households today, kids are not the only ones hooked to the modern digital technologies—even their parents, especially the mothers, now juggle between their nurturing role at home and active engagement with their peers and communities, an Asianparent Philippines study revealed.

Digital-savvy

ONCE a woman becomes “familied,” one would assume that all her attention would be focused on her husband and children.

This, in turn, will keep her away from her parents, siblings, and even circle of friends.

Nonetheless, theAsianparent Philippines found it the other way around. The study actually discovered that they remain connected to them online and at a longer duration. To wit, about 31 percent of the respondents shared that their screen time has rather increased by 4 hours after becoming a mom.

“Their preferred mobile communication is messaging apps at 62 percent,” Perlas said after sharing the survey results during a forum dubbed “Tap Into Moms 2019” held recently at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. “They are online when the kids go to bed. That’s at 9 p.m.”

MK Bertulfo of Filipina Homebased Moms, an online community with over 165,000 members here and abroad, is among the 28.08 percent of survey participants who agreed with the time for moms to go online.

“9 p.m. is the scheduled posting of the Facebook webinars, or trainings that we do for them, and there are a lot who really watch them at that time,” she said in mixed Filipino and English.

During this period, 33 percent of mothers engage with fellow moms through the app’s community feature or on social media.

With this in mind, Perlas advised

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Based on the results of its 2019 Philippine Digital Moms Survey, the parenting app bared that maternal heads of the family have evolved from being merely plain housekeepers to empowered digital homemakers, who have the authority to decide on family matters at their fingertips.

So who are the digital Filipino moms? The study showed that they are in their 20s—very young yet dynamic. In fact, 64 percent of 1,038 respondents are millennials, or those at the age of 21 to 30. About 32 percent of them are between 21 and 25, and 13 percent are as old as 26 to 30.

More than half or 55 percent of those who were surveyed in the app are pregnant, with majority of them in the first trimester.

Those who already have a child are at 45.13 percent, while those with at least two kids are at 25 percent.

Age-wise, 62.8 percent of them have little ones who are very young at 0 to 3 years old, while 37.2 percent are already 4 and above.

The subjects of the research mostly finished their tertiary education at 65.2 percent. High-school graduates, on the other hand, are almost 19 percent. Having their own family, though, did not hinder them from pursuing their chosen career. Around 33.94 percent of them are working full time, while 55.73 percent are “stay-at-home moms,” or SAHM, so as to still take care of the house.

Given these profiles, theAsianparent Philippines Regional Head of Content Carla Perlas described them as educated, smart and wise.

Continued on A2

Macau chooses China riches over democracy, unlike Hong Kong

By Jinshan Hong & Iain Marlow

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Bloomberg News

ACAU has long provided Chinese leaders with a glimmering showcase for the virtues of obeying Beijing.

The former Portuguese colony has marched on to become the world’s largest gambling hub over the past few decades, surpassing its more rebellious brother Hong Kong along the way. President Xi Jinping is expected to use a visit marking 20 years of Chinese rule over Macau this week to send a message to the protest-stricken financial hub some 50 kilometers to the east: work with us and get rich.

“Jobs are chasing after Macau people, instead of the other way around,” said Alexandra, a 29-yearold human-resources worker in Macau, who declined to give her last name. “Young people can see a much brighter future here than in

Hong Kong. They are indifferent, or even cold, toward politics.”

During his visit, Xi will likely highlight a raft of recent policies intended to help diversify Macau’s tourism industry while—in a possible signal to Hong Kong—establishing a yuan-denominated financial market there. On Tuesday, an article in the state-run Xinhua News Agency stressed that Macau’s patriotism toward the mainland— including Chinese flags flying from schools—have helped the region achieve strong growth and falling unemployment.

“More than just stable, Macau has achieved an economic miracle,” the article said. “People

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.6300

PEDESTRIANS cross the street in front of the Grand Lisboa casino in Macau, September 28, 2019. BLOOMBERG

in Macau know that the future of Macau and the mainland are closely linked together.”

While Hong Kong and Macau share the Cantonese language, a common past as European trading outposts and a similar promise of autonomy from Beijing, they couldn’t look more different to the Communist Party. Today, the enclave of 670,000 people ranks as the world’s second-richest territory in terms of per capita economic output, after Luxembourg, according to data compiled by the World Bank. By that measure, it’s almost 80 percent wealthier than Hong Kong.

Macau has suffered little of the unrest that has gripped Hong Kong since the latter attempted to pass legislation earlier this year allowing extraditions to mainland China. Unlike Hong Kong, the government passed a Beijing-mandated national security law a decade ago, and hasn’t seen mass protests since the government withdrew legislation Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4634 n UK 65.8949 n HK 6.4966 n CHINA 7.2225 n SINGAPORE 37.3819 n AUSTRALIA 34.8689 n EU 56.3208 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.4981

Source: BSP (December 20, 2019 )

NewsSunday RISE OF ‘CYBERMOMS’ BusinessMirror

Continued from A1

brands, partner agencies and even mom-entrepreneurs that “this is the best time to do” their online campaign or selling activities.

The other habits of cybermoms are visiting parenting sites (28 percent) and shopping online (16 percent). The leading social media or app they use is Facebook at 33 percent; followed by theAsianparent app, 31 percent; and Instagram, 27 percent.

“In fact, resource of parenting news and information primarily comes from social media and Facebook groups,” the regional head of content explained. “Forty-six percent of moms claim that that’s where they go to for parenting information, followed by, of course, parenting apps at 27 percent, and then friends and family only account for 10 percent.”

Tap to shop

SHOPPING for the digital Filipina mothers is as easy as a click of a button. When analyzing the purchase behavior of the survey participants, theAsianparent realized that they are still experiential shoppers.

Fifty-seven percent of moms continue to go to physical stores to buy things the family needs. Topping the list of their preference are malls at 45 percent as groceries and supermarkets account only for 33 percent. Close to three-fourths or 70 percent frequent there to buy baby products.

While the brick-and-mortar strongly appeals to them, it’s still

notable that 43 percent do shop online, with 30 percent of the respondents buying baby essentials.

Their go-to e-commerce sites are Shopee at 55 percent; Lazada, 33 percent; and Facebook Marketplace, 5 percent.

Per the research, it’s really the benefits and the actual use of the product (55 percent) that drive them to purchase. Promos and discounts (22 percent) also attract them to purchase items.

Looking at their shopping carts, diapers (48 percent), baby clothes (20 percent) and milk (15 percent) are the top three items moms prioritize to buy. Sixty-six percent of them purchase them in bulk during sales.

When it comes to settling the bill, 75 percent pay in cash, whether shopping online or offline. Only 7 percent of moms use GCash and 5 percent swipe credit cards to pay for their purchases.

“That’s why we go to the actual stores or pay cash on delivery. It’s very reflective of our society,” Perlas said of the usual mode of payment in the country.

Since P30,000 is the average household income of 53 percent of respondent-moms, they always make sure that whatever they buy is worth every cent, she pointed out. She explained that they’re not going to purchase something “because it looks nice or everyone else is buying it,” adding that they do research prior to shopping because they really have to “budget the income that they have.”

This holds true for celebrity

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mom LJ Reyes, who does her homework well prior to going to the store or purchasing on the Web. She said: “I am naturally inclined to researching on everything I purchase, so I have the right information.”

Chief household officer

FILIPINO moms are on top of their game when it comes to making the right decisions for the family. As shown in the study, 88 percent of participants shared that they make the biggest buying decisions in their household, especially when it is for the baby. Only 9 percent actually let their partners choose what is best for their children.

Candice Venturaza, also of theAsianparent Philippines, is an example mom who usually has the final say on family concerns. She just recently exercised this when they transferred to another abode.

“We currently live in Taguig.

My son studies in Greenhills. He is tired of traveling. My husband’s solution is to hire a driver. But I declined. I decided to move to another house near the school because I don’t want my son to have difficulty in traveling,” she said.

Sharing the same attribute with her as the family’s decision maker is Bernadette Zulueta of Millennial Moms PH. She has shown her decisiveness, for instance, when they purchased a car and academic plan for their children.

“Given the Car Seat Law and I have two kids, so we need two car seats. Then, I also need a space for the two strollers at the back. A se-

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A2 Sunday, December 22, 2019

dan will not fit a family of four, so that’s why we actually invested on a bigger car,” she said. “The second decision-making I made was when we invested on education. I think I had the final say on that. I actually just laid down all the options to my husband.”

Because mothers like them call the shots when it comes to everything about taking care of their family, it’s just right to call

them the “chief household officer,” or CHO. “I think moms like me can be really considered as the CHO. Why? Because I think the digital moms nowadays are really the queens of their own homes. They’re very hands-on, especially the millennials. They also want to be part of everything in the house,” Zulueta stressed.

As a flagship brand of multi-

national tech and digital publishing company Tickled Media Pte. Ltd., theAsianparent reaches more than 25 million users a month on its website and app. It is available in 12 languages in 13 countries.

In the Philippines, it has grown to have 3.5 million unique views on its portal and more than 200,000 active users on the app, making it the leading parenting platform in the country.

Macau chooses China riches over democracy, unlike Hong Kong Continued from A1

fattening the retirement packages for top officials in 2014.

“While Hong Kong people can be mobilized by fighting for abstract value as democracy and freedom, Macau is ‘interest-oriented,’” said Ieong Meng U, an assistant professor at the University of Macau’s Department of Government and Public Administration. “Only very few government policies can trigger widespread social grievances.”

Much of Macau’s stability can be traced to its monopoly over casino gambling in China, an industry that accounts for 80 percent of the government’s total revenue and supports a roughly $1,000 annual handouts for residents.

How long that will last is unclear, as slowing Chinese growth and increased overseas competition cut into the returns of operators, including Las Vegas Sands Corp., MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts Ltd. Still, Macau’s success would seem to bolster Communist Party arguments that Hong Kong’s problems stem from its yawning wealth gap and outdated national security laws. Macau has been effectively under Beijing’s control since left-wing protesters—and a few Chinese warships—forced its Portuguese governor to sign an apology for his policies under a portrait of Mao Zedong.

Macau’s charter broadly resembles Hong Kong’s, but lacks key provisions such as the goal of selecting the city’s leader “by universal suffrage.” Incoming Macau

Chief Executive Ho Iat-seng, who Xi will swear in Friday, was chosen by 98 percent of the votes cast by a 400-member election committee.

To prevent any of Hong Kong’s protests from spilling over, authorities have tightened immigration checks into Macau ahead of the President’s visit, with the head of the local American Chamber of Commerce branch among those denied entry. Xi’s expected to attend a banquet and cultural performance before delivering a speech to commemorate the city’s return.

During a similar anniversary visit to Hong Kong two years ago, Xi urged the city to profit from China, not defy it. Growth held “the golden key to resolving various issues in Hong Kong,” the President said at the time. “The messaging is clear to Hong Kong and the rest of the world, but primarily to Hong Kong—there is a way out, there is an easy and good way out, and it’s called Macau,” said Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s SOAS China Institute and author of A Modern History of Hong Kong.

“But what they completely and utterly fail to see, is that if Macau is the future, most people in Hong Kong will say, thank you very much, you can keep it for yourself.”

The message still carries well in Macau, where rent, restaurants and groceries are all cheaper, according to cost-of-living data from Numbeo. In Hong Kong, an influx of mainland Chinese have gobbled up university slots, driven an expansion of luxury shopping and helped make it the world’s least-affordable housing

market for nine straight years.

Although Macau is much smaller—roughly half the size of Manhattan—its residents have been largely insulated from such pressures by policies that make jobs and passports harder to come by for mainlanders or foreigners.

“Hong Kong has long been a metropolitan center, but Macau was just a little city prior to opening up the gaming licenses,” said Simon Sio, chairman of realestate and investment firm Lek Hang Group. “Macanese don’t have enough confidence in ourselves, as we have fewer opportunities in the world compared to Hong Kong. Macau benefits from the motherland a lot. We residents know this well.”

Still, not everyone is satisfied with the local government, as the 2014 protests suggest. Gambling’s dominant role in the economy has led to criminal activity, from loansharking and money-laundering to triad fights and prostitution.

Enough conversations with participants in Hong Kong’s protests will turn up demonstrators from neighboring Macau. That points to a possible source of longterm concern for the Communist Party as casino growth slows.

“In my opinion, the economy of Macau is actually not so stable because the income from the gambling industry has gradually declined since the protests in Hong Kong started,” said Christine, a 21-year-old Macau resident who has participated in Hong Kong protests. “The Communist Party wants to grab out all the money in Macau to maintain their regime.”

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Economists boost China outlook on trade deal, survey shows

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hina’s economic growth will come in at 5.9 percent in 2020 as easing trade tensions and the prospect of lower bank borrowing costs boost confidence, according to analysts and traders.

That’s an upgrade from the previous forecast of 5.8 percent from November, before the US and China agreed a “Phase One” deal to lower tariffs and boost agricultural trade between the two nations. The economy will grow by 6.1 percent this year and by 5.8 percent in 2021, according to the median estimate of around 70 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Observers see policy-makers maintaining a measured pace of easing into next year, trimming the price of central bank mediumterm lending by 15 basis points with the first cut coming in the first quarter, according to results combining the economists survey and a separate survey of market analysts and traders.

Meanwhile, the amount of cash banks have to put aside as reserves will continue to be lowered, possibly by 50 basis points in the first quarter and another 50 basis points in the remainder of the year, according to the survey.

The latest results suggest sentiment on China’s outlook has started to turn around, boosted by better-than-expected output data in November.

“With the announcement of a trade deal, we now have greater conviction that the Chinese economy is on a mini- c ycle recovery path in 2020,” Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley Asia in Hong Kong, wrote in a note. Policy-makers will continue with “defensive easing,” and monetary policy will remain accommodative to facilitate fiscal easing, he said.

Bloomberg News

The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, December 22, 2019

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Bank analysts step to sunnier side as 2020 may not be so bad A

nalysts are starting to think bank stocks may be alright next year. Bank of America’s Savita Subramanian is urging investors to buy the unloved sector. Citigroup’s Keith Horowitz has flipped his view with an admission his deeper pessimism in October was wrong. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Alison Williams is eyeing helpful cost controls and capital returns.

“US banks outperformed in 2019 after a weak 2018 as a strong economic backdrop, a supportive regulatory environment, resilient US consumer, and increased M&A activity more than offset trade tensions and global uncertainty,” RBC Capital Markets’ Gerard Cassidy wrote in a note. “We expect these beneficial trends to persist into 2020.”

Financial stocks should keep “grinding higher,” driven by growing earnings per share, “nice” yields of around 3 percent, buybacks, and “solid” expense and credit trends, Evercore ISI’s Glenn Schorr wrote.

He added that “market returns in 2020 could be pretty good as 17 of the past 20 election years (since 1940) have been up solid.” Schorr’s favorites include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley.

The fresh optimism is starting

to outweigh some of the worries hanging over the sector heading into what may be a tough year in many respects.

Lenders may struggle as the Federal Reserve is likely to keep rates fairly steady, limiting banks’ margins. Commercial and consumer lending has been showing signs of softness, according to recent data, and bank executives who spoke at a Goldman Sachs financial services conference in December said growth could moderate in 2020. Investors will also need to wrestle with shifting regulatory expectations, as the presidential election heats up and candidates offer widely differing visions for financial companies.

Earlier this month, KBW said it would stay neutral on “universal ” bank stocks in 2020. The firm forecasts 6.9-percent earnings year-over-year growth for the median universal bank stock, with much of that growth coming from share repurchases, as revenue will be challenged. “Capital return and underlying fundamentals are stable, but we expect the group to struggle to have positive operating leverage against a flattish yield curve and growth that remains fairly anemic,” analyst Brian Kleinhanzl said.

Geopolitics and asset prices may

be key variables for revenue and earnings per share growth next year, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Williams said. At the same time, US interest rates and global growth risks are moderating, she said.

That, along with “profit help from cost controls and capital returns” may help the banks.

BofA’s Subramanian, in an interview at Bloomberg’s New York headquarters, recommended buying a “basket of SIFIs,” the banks designated as systemically important financial institutions, like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. That’s a bit of a contrarian view, as the financials sector is “unusually hated,” she said, noting that industry coverage has suffered a significant drop as the number of analysts focused on the sector has slipped.

She likes banks as reg u lation prov ides a “moat” around t he indust r y, ensu r ing ent r y into banking is ver y costly and protecting the big gest lenders.

Regulation has been a “crushing weight over the last 10 years,” she said. But the banks have healed since the financial crisis and are now likely poised to benefit from cost cutting and automation. “ T his sleepy sector is starting to get w ith the program,” Subramanian said.

“ You don’t need rates to go up” for bank stocks to gain next year, she added, as they offer cheap y ields. Loan books are relatively healthy, too, as most risky lending now takes place via other entities. A ll of this means the sector trades “ incorrectly,” she said, as stocks get “whipped around based on macro.”

Relative winners Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. have been more “growth-y” than banks, Subramanian said. That makes them less attractive for 2020, as they’re “already crowded.”

Banks will probably continue to have difficulty boosting net interest margins, and may focus on fee income and expenses, as interest rates may not move much next year, John Carey, US director of equity income at Amundi Pioneer said in a phone interview.

Meanwhile, the presidential election is a “wildcard,” Carey said. He has “no idea what regulatory changes might come,” adding that “I scratch my head over some of the proposals” candidates have floated.

Carey also sees investment managers as continuing to face pricing pressure, partly as “the ETF craze doesn’t seem to have diminished.” Carey pointed to the Schwab-TD Ameritrade deal and the rise of robot advisers and

Internet service offerings. Unlike Subramanian, Carey thinks Visa and Mastercard may offer a “bright spot” as electronic payments ramp. “Visa and Mastercard are in the catbird seat,” Carey said.

“Their competitive position is very impressive.”

At Cowen, analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote that “regulator y changes and political pressure” are likely to prompt the biggest banks to favor dividends over buybacks in 2020, likely improving dividend yields. “Buybacks have become a political lightening rod in the wake of President Trump’s corporate tax cut,” he said, with Democrats arguing that companies are using tax savings to benefit insiders by purchasing stock instead of investing in capital expenditures and higher employee pay, he said. Seiberg expects Democrats will “significantly expand their attacks on buybacks as we get closer to the election.” AP

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Sunday, December 22, 2019

The World BusinessMirror

Bankers predict more big Asia IPOs after best quarter since 2010 L

Editor: Angel R. Calso

UK’s Johnson unveils legislative program to end Brexit deadlock

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s Asia Pacific wraps up its best quarter for new listings in almost a decade, the region’s investment bankers are preparing for a busy start to 2020.

Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley are among firms predicting more big offerings in the first half as investors and issuers look past US-China trade tensions and other geopolitical risks. Potential deals in the pipeline include a blockbuster listing of Thai Beverage Pcl’s brewery business in Singapore and a $1-billion initial public offering by bottled water producer Nongfu Spring Co. in Hong Kong.

With concerns over the trade war and Hong Kong’s unrest tentatively receding, some companies are looking to take advantage of a rally in Asian stocks that sent the benchmark index to an 18-month high this week. The region’s IPOs and local-market debut offerings have swelled to $43.6 billion in the fourth quarter, a tally that includes Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s $13-billion listing in Hong Kong.

“Issuers seem to have put aside geopolitical volatility, so we are probably going to start with quite a busy issuance calendar in 2020,”

said Udhay Furtado, co-head of Asia equity capital markets at Citigroup in Hong Kong. “We expect some major transactions in Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and India for the first half of 2020 and it’ll be more diversified.”

Other potential listings in Asia next year include: n Lion Air, Indonesia’s largest private airline n U Mobile, a Malaysian mobile service provider n Tavan Tolgoi, Mongolia’s state-owned coal miner n Tigermed, a Chinese clinical research service provider n To minimize the risk of deals getting derailed by market volatility, some companies have opted for shorter road shows in recent months, according to Johnson Chui, head of Asia Pacific equity capital markets at Credit Suisse Group AG. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, which listed its Asian unit in September after shelving an ear-

lier attempt, debuted in Hong Kong just two weeks after it started marketing shares to investors. Alibaba filed its listing application with the city’s stock exchange on November 13 and began trading on November 26.

Next year’s deal flow is expected to be strongest in the first half as issuers try to avoid uncertainty surrounding the US presidential election in November.

Britain’s looming negotiation with the European Union over a post-Brexit trade deal is another potential overhang, as is continuing concern over the viability of fast-growing but unprofitable companies like Uber Technologies Inc. The ride-hailing company, a poster child for the disconnect between frothy private-market valuations and more skeptical public investors, has tumbled 33 percent since listing in the US in May. The outlook for IPOs in Asia will depend in large part on what happens in Hong Kong, where more than six months of anti-government protests have weighed on investor sentiment.

The city’s exchange still ranks as the world’s busiest listing venue with $39 billion of deals this year—narrowly topping Nasdaq Inc. and the New York stock exchange—but Ernst & Young LLP estimates issuance will slow to around $28 billion in 2020.

In mainland China, some worry that appetite for IPOs will wane in 2020 after the market’s eye-popping returns cooled in the fourth quarter; first-week gains for new listings fell to about 76 percent during the period, from 127 percent in the first nine months of the year. Hong Kong and China accounted for about 76 percent of new share sales by value in Asia this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bankers say potential bright spots for 2020 include the health care and consumer industries, along with companies focused on Southeast Asia. Among the most closely watched prospects: Gojek, the Indonesian ride-hailing and payments giant. The company is preparing for an IPO, though the timing hasn’t been set, co-CEO Andre Soelistyo said in October.

“We expect more activity in the primary markets before the summer,” said Magnus Andersson, co-head of Asia Pacific equity capital markets at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. “The consumer and health-care sectors will continue to be important drivers for the IPO market in Asia next year, on the back of measures initiated

by China to boost domestic consumption and in Southeast Asia by the increased spending power of the region’s emerging middle class.” Bloomberg News

Notre Dame Cathedral to miss first Christmas in centuries

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ARIS—Notre Dame kept Christmas going even during two world wars—a beacon of hope amid the bloodshed.

Yet, an accidental fire in peacetime finally stopped the cathedral from celebrating Midnight Mass this year, for the first time in over two centuries.

As the lights stay dim in the once-invincible 855-year-old Paris landmark, officials are trying hard to focus on the immediate task of keeping burnt-out Notre Dame’s spirit alive in exile through service, song and prayer.

It has decamped its rector, famed statue, liturgy and Christmas celebrations to a new temporary home pending the restoration works, just under a mile away, at another Gothic church in Paris called Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois.

And there it will remain, as works slowly progress to rebuild the cathedral after the April 15 fire destroyed its lead roof and spire and was moments away from engulfing its two stone towers.

“This is the first time since the French Revolution that there will be no midnight Mass [at Notre Dame],” cathedral rector Patrick Chauvet said.

There was even a Christmas service amid the carnage of World War I, Chauvet noted, “because the canons were there and the canons had to celebrate somewhere.” During World War II, “there was no problem,” adding that only once was it closed for Christmas to his knowledge: After 1789, when the anti-Catholic French revolutionaries turned the monument into “a temple of reason.”

Christmas-in-exile at SaintGermain l’Auxerrois this year will be a history-making moment.

“We have the opportunity to celebrate the Mass outside the walls, so to speak...but with some indicators that Notre Dame is connected to us,” Chauvet said.

T hose indicators include a wooden liturgical platform that has been constructed in the Saint-

This photo taken on December 16, shows Notre Dame Cathedral lit up at night, in Paris.

Notre Dame Cathedral kept holding services during two world wars as a beacon of hope amid bloodshed and fear. It took a fire in peacetime to finally stop Notre Dame from celebrating Christmas Mass for the first time in more than two centuries. AP/Michel Euler

Germain church to resemble Notre Dame’s own. A service will be led at midnight on December 24 by Chauvet to a crowd of faithful, including many who would normally worship in the cathedral, accompanied by song from some of Notre Dame’s now-itinerant choir.

The cathedral’s iconic Gothic sculpture The Virgin of Paris, from which some say Notre Dame owes its name, is also on display in the new godly annex.

The 14th-century masterpiece, which measures around 2 meters (6 feet) and depicts Mary and baby Jesus, has come to embody the officials’ message of hope following the fire, after it was spared from destruction by a “miracle.”

“It’s a miraculous virgin. Why? Because at the time of the fire, the vault of the cathedral completely crashed. There were stones everywhere, but she was spared. She could have naturally received the vault on her head and have been completely crushed,” Chauvet said.

He recalled the moment on the night of the fire when he discovered it was saved, as he was holding hands with French President Emmanuel Macron on the cathedral’s forecourt. Around midnight as the flames subsided, they were finally let inside to look. Chauvet pointed and exclaimed to Macron: “Look at the Virgin, she is there!”

He said later that Notre Dame’s workmen on the ground implored him to not remove the statue from the cathedral, crying that during the restoration “we need it. She protects us.”

Chauvet said having it nearby for Christmas is comforting.

“She lived very much in Notre Dame. She watched the pilgrims, all the 35,000 visitors a day.... It keeps us going,” Chauvet said.

Another reason for hope: Since November, after months in the dark, the façade of the cathedral is being lit up after dusk for the first time since the fire. Tourists over the festive period can now see the famed gargoyles and stone statues at night in their full illuminated splendor from the adjacent bridges, although the forecourt is still closed.

Cathedral officials carefully chose Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois as the new temporary home because of its proximity to Notre Dame, just next to the Louvre, allowing ease of movement for clerics who lived near the cathedral. Also, because of its prestigious history.

It was once a royal church that boasted among its faithful French kings, in the days when they lived in the nearby Louvre Palace. The kings, Chauvet explained, would simply cross the esplanade to come and attend Mass.

Since September, the church has been welcoming the cathedral’s flock each Sunday.

Though Notre Dame has moved liturgically to a new home, Notre Dame will always remain Paris’s cathedral—officials are at pains to point out—so long as the bishop’s physical chair, or “cathedra” doesn’t move.

Derived from the Greek word for “seat,” and giving the building its very name, a cathedral’s entire identity technically boils down to the presence of a chair.

“The cathedra is at the cathedral and so it remains Notre Dame Cathedral, which is the cathedral in the heart of Paris,” Chauvet said.

It is not only the faithful who have been displaced since April’s devastating blaze.

Notre Dame was home to a vibrant 160-strong choir-school, which provided singers for each and every one of the cathedral’s some 1,000 annual services. Midnight Mass at Christmas was always a special event in the year: One of the rare times the entire choir sung together and used the cathedral’s famed acoustics to their fullest.

Instead of disbanding, this now-homeless chorus of singers, ranging in age from 6 to 30, has too honed an upbeat message and decided to continue on in a divided form. Different sections of the choir put on concerts in churches, such as Saint Eustache and Saint Sulpice, in Paris and beyond. On Christmas Eve, its members will sing at various yuletide events, including at SaintGermain l’Auxerrois, as well as, bizarrely, at the Russian Circus.

But don’t mention the term choir-in-exile to one of the choir’s directors, Henri Chalet.

“I’d rather use ‘ beyond the walls’...‘exile’ brings it back to sadness. Obviously, there is a lot of sadness and desolation for us to no longer be in our second home. But there is also a lot of hope because it is only a phase,” Chalet said. AP

ONDON—Prime Minister Boris Johnson signaled an end to Britain’s era of Brexit deadlock on Thursday, announcing a packed legislative program intended to take the UK out of the European Union on January 31, overhaul everything from fishing to financial services and shore up the country’s cash-starved public services.

The commanding House of Commons majority won by Johnson’s Conservative Party in last week’s general election all but guarantees he will be able to turn those promises into law, although with Brexit casting a shadow over the British economy, there’s a question mark over how he will pay for it all.

In a speech delivered from a golden throne in Parliament by Queen Elizabeth II, Johnson opened the legislative floodgates after three years in which minority Conservative governments tried in vain to win legislators’ backing for their Brexit plans.

“This is the moment to repay the trust of those who sent us here by delivering on the people’s priorities,” Johnson told lawmakers after the speech. “They want to move politics on and move the country on.”

In less than 10 minutes, the monarch rattled through more than 2 dozen bills the government intends to pass in the coming year. The first will be the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law needed to make Brexit a reality, which is set to receive its first significant parliamentary vote.

The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on January 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by the end of 2020. Trade experts and EU officials say striking a free-trade deal within 11 months will be a struggle, but Johnson insists he won’t agree to any more delays. That vow has set off alarm bells among businesses, who fear that means the country will face a “no-deal” Brexit at the start of 2021.

The government also plans to pass several other Brexit-related measures, including a new “points-based” immigration system that will be introduced after Brexit, when EU citizens will lose the automatic right to live and work in the UK. There are also plans to overhaul agriculture, fishing, trade and financial services after Brexit in ways that will have a huge—though still largely unknown—effect on the British economy.

Johnson also promised “an ambitious program of domestic reform,”including a law committing the government to spend more on the overstretched National Health Service after a decade-long funding squeeze by previous Conservative governments.

There were tough-sounding announcements on law and order, including longer sentences for people convicted of terrorist offenses and other serious crimes.

The speech also promised to “prioritize investment in infrastructure,” and Johnson hinted he might revive an idea he’s floated before: a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Engineers say spanning at least 12 miles (19 kilometers) of the deep and stormy Irish Sea would be difficult to impossible.

Asked by a Northern Ireland lawmaker in Parliament whether he planned to build the “Boris bridge,” Johnson said: “Watch this space, and indeed...watch that space between those islands.”

Several of the measures are likely to prove contentious. The government said it would hold a sweeping review of defense and foreign policy, and set up a “Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission” that could lead to reform of institutions including the Supreme Court. The court angered the government by ruling in September that Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was illegal. AP

These are the big Brexit battles ahead

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s Brexit enters its final phase, the European Union is preparing to navigate the most complex negotiation in its history: its future relationship with Britain.

It promises to be an even bigger and more complicated fight than the political skirmishes over the UK’s decision to leave, with everything from trade to security cooperation up for discussion. A deal will require the approval of the remaining 27 members of the bloc—and all have their own different national interests at stake.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made the path to an agreement even more difficult by pledging to use Brexit as an opportunity to break from what he claims are stifling EU rules. His decision to leave himself only 11 months to reach an accord is being taken in European capitals as a sign he intends to seek only a limited agreement with the EU. “We will now have a competitor at our front door,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week. “A competitor who will strive to show what it has in front of our door.”

Most EU members insist they share a common agenda in the looming negotiations. They want to form a zero-tariff, zero-quota trade relationship; protect the integrity of the single market; and defend regulatory standards that ensure a level playing field. But all countries have their own individual red lines. Here’s a guide to some of the likely flash points, based on interviews with officials in capitals across the EU.

Sequencing

On the surface, the EU appears to have the upper hand in any negotiations given the advantages that come from access to the bloc’s gigantic single market. Then there’s the fact the Britain will need to reach agreement with the bloc on topics that extend far beyond trade—security cooperation and aviation rules, for example.

“All this needs to be coordinated so that we maximize our negotiating leverage,” Sabine Weyand, the commission’s director general for trade, said this week.

But Johnson’s abbreviated time line might put the bloc’s all-or-nothing strategy at risk. If there isn’t enough runway to negotiate all the topics simultaneously, the EU would be forced to choose which issues to prioritize, something that would inevitably upset some member-states.

“Time is very short,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this month.

“We’ll put specific focus on those issues that are an economic cliff-edge at the end of 2020 if they would not be done,” she said. “These are issues where we have neither an international framework to fall back on nor the possibility to take unilateral contingency measures.”

Even if the timetable is tight, each EU member-state will want to defend their own industrial interests.

Automobiles

Officials in Germany, Poland, Austria, Romania,

and the Czech Republic all singled out cars and auto parts as one of their most important sectors that need to be protected.

The UK imported almost 1.5 million autos made by German, French and Italian-owned brands from the continent in 2018, worth a total estimated sales value of €35 billion ($39 billion), according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Some of Munich-based BMW AG’s production is based in Britain. Any customs barriers would affect the industry’s complicated global supply chains.

Agriculture

This was highlighted by France, Italy, Denmark and Latvia. Agriculture is so fundamental to the UK-EU trading relationship, it’s difficult to imagine it wouldn’t be included in the deal. The question is how detailed an agreement can be struck in a matter of months.

Today, EU member-states enjoy free access to British agricultural markets, something they will want to continue—but not at any cost. If the UK lowers its food safety standards to attract trade from other countries, in particular the US, a deal between the UK and the EU will be complicated.

Fisheries

This is a major concern for Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Spain.

France has already made access to British waters after Brexit a key demand. But the UK government has vowed to leave the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy and to protect its own fishing industry by reasserting control over territorial waters.

Gibraltar

That the rocky outcrop at the western entrance to the Mediterranean has belonged to Britain has been sore for Spain for more than three centuries.

While Madrid only has a temporary government at present, any successor may seek to use the outpost’s anomalous status as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with the UK.

Ireland

Ireland has special sensitivities when it comes to Brexit. It is the only EU member to share a land border with the UK, and about €1 billion of trade is carried out between the two every week.

The Withdrawal Agreement allows for an uneasy fudge that will avoid any reappearance of the physical border that has scarred the island—but a comprehensive trade deal would help to render that messy compromise obsolete.

Security

In an increasingly uncertain geopolitical e n v i ro n m e n t m a r ke d b y c y b e r a t t a c k s and terrorism, both sides have indicated they intend to cooperate closely. A s a military power with extensive intelligence capabilities, the UK has leverage in this area.

Bloomberg News

Science

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

BusinessMirror

Sunday

Sunday, December 22, 2019 A5

24 projects, valued at a total of P110M being funded by D.O.S.T. in universities for R&D of Filipino firms all over the country

‘Cradle’ sparks innovation through links between universities’ R&Ds to firms

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By Lyn Resurreccion

here has been a notion that a weak link exists between the academe and research institutions, and the industry in the Philippines, making the results of the academe’s research and development (R&D) not aligned with the needs of the industry.

This is now being addressed with the creation of Collaborative R&D to Leverage Philippine Economy (Cradle) Program by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

C r ad le a i m s to pro v ide a partnership between the academe and industry in order to align R&D with the needs of the industry, and help Filipino companies innovate, said Undersecretar y Rowena Cristina Guevara at the “Cradle innovates industries through R&D” forum at the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) in Quezon City on Thursday.

Guevara said that as of 2019, there are 24 projects, valued at a total of P110 million that were funded by DOST in universities and R&D institutions for Filipino companies all over the countr y.

She added that the program

helps “foster collaborations between the academe and Filipino companies to develop competitiveness and innovation” by facilitating the “smooth transition of new technologies from universities and R&D institutes to industries,” or from laboratory to market.

Cradle serves a specific local company with an R&D problem.

It assists the company by finding a partner university or a research and development institute equipped with experts who can solve the problem and the facility to undertake the R&D. The program gives companies the opportunity to upgrade, expand and become more competitive in business through R&D. Among its interventions were the sambong project of Pascual Pharma Corp. and the egg business of Batangas Egg Producers Cooperative (Bepco).

DOST Undersecretary Dr. Rowena Cristina Guevara, for Research and Development, discusses with the members of the media the features of the “Cradle” program. Nonoy Lacza

A iming to standardize the therapeutic application of sambong plants through artificial intelligence, Pascual Pharma sought the expertise of the TIP in 2017.

The project’s output will help the company innovate and improve the agricultural practices and the extraction process of sambong.

Bepco partnered with the University of the Philippines Diliman to solve its problem in the oversupply of eggs during summer leading to low price. UPD will develop egg white powder and granules from eggs, which can be used for baking purposes. The project will help the company in developing a new product.

Guevara said that besides TIP and Pascual Laboratories, and UPD and Bepco, among other partnerships created under Cradle are between the following: n University of Southeastern Philippines and Hijo Resources

Corp. to improve the productivity through the development of banana diseases surveillance system; n University of San Agustin and Del Monte for the use of metabolomics as tool for the discovery of hypocholesterolemic natural products from pineapple; n De La Salle University (DLSU) and Santeh Feeds Corp. for the development of a cost-competitive aquafeed from lab-lab biomass; n UPD and Sugar and Ice for the reinvention of ice cream into a functional food matrix; n University of Southeastern Philippines and Leadtech for the innovation of digital payment by integrating cloud-based technology and localized prepaid collection schemes; n UPD and Aset for the enhancement and market validation of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition industrial prototype for nitride-based coatings;

Cloud computing to help PHL rice sector

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OS BAÑOS, Laguna—The agriculture and science community in the Philippines celebrated the launch of Asi@Connect Ricestats Database: Leveraging the Cloud for Rice Statistics and Analytics.

Ricestats Database, led by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), intends to create a reference resource by using an ontology to combine data into a one-stop accessible database with a displayable dashboard for rice statistics.

The platform runs on Amazon Web Services, such as AWS Glue, Athena and S3 for data extraction, transformation and loading, while the transformed data is stored in AWS cloud warehouse Redshift.

T he d at aba se w i l l cont a i n d at a f rom e x i st i ng hou se hold sur veys conducted by IR R I globa l ly, a nd w i l l i nc lude d at a f rom nat iona l bureaus a nd i nter n at ion a l orga n i z at ion s.

Currently, such a consolidated database with disaggregated data, such as production by season and gender of household head up to

the barangay level, does not exist for rice in Asia.

In his keynote address, Academician Dr. William Padolina said, “Without new knowledge, especially in science and technology, without the new knowledge that will be generated, it will be difficult to make good decisions on conservation and resource use, something that is vital to the success of rice production.”

The launch was hosted by IRRI, the Department of Science and Technolog y-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOSTASTI), and AWS last month at a hotel in Manila.

DOST-ASTI Director Dr. Joel Joseph Marciano Jr. emphasized the importance of this collaboration with IRRI and DOST-ASTI’s long-standing partnership. “ The DOST-ASTI and IRRI, over the years, have established a good work ing rel at ionsh ip through our partnership in the areas of research networking, high-performance computing, and cloud computing. IRRI is connected to the Philippine Research,

Education, and Government Information Network (Preginet), which is being managed by the DOST-ASTI,” Marciano said.

Preginet is the Philippines’s only National Research and Education Network (NREN) that is connected to a global REN, of which Asi@Connect is the Asia-Europe connection.

IRRI Agri-Food Policy Platform Leader Dr. Jean Balié said: “IRRI believes that the Asi@Connect project can help fulfill a number of Sustainable Development Goals through improved access to education and research resources across the Asia-Pacific.”

“Ricestats Database will enable the dissemination of comprehensive rice socioeconomic data through an easily accessible database interface on a wider scale.

The project will provide a unique resource for agricultural and social science researchers, academia, policy-makers, donors and investors in the rice sector and beyond,” added IRRI Representative for the Philippines Dr. Romeo Recide.

Asi@Connect empowers Asian

countries by enabling them to participate in collaborative programs, like Ricestats Database.

They also bridge the digital divide that exists within the global communities of research, education, and health.

“The main objective of Asi@ Connect, as successor to the TEIN [Trans-Eurasia Information Network] program, is to provide and further develop a dedicated regional high-capacity, high-quality Internet connectivity network for research and higher education, also leveraging the e-infrastructure developed for public service projects, such as food security, health, ocean observation related to natural disasters, e-government, education and training, and cultural heritage with emphasis on applications of broad societal benefit,” said TEIN Cooperation Center CEO Dr. Kim Byung-kyu.

The launch was attended by partners from agriculture and science organizations, officials from national government agencies, and members of the academe in the Philippines.

Age of human ancestor’s fossils narrowed to between 108,000 and 117,000

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EW YORK—Scientists say they have finally calculated the age of the youngest known remains of Homo erectus, which is generally considered an ancestor of our species.

The fossilized skull fragments and other bones were uncovered on the Indonesian island of Java in the 1930s. Determining their age has been a scientific challenge, and a wide range has been proposed by numerous studies.

In a report released on Wednesday by the journal Nature, scientists conclude the

remains are between 108,000 and 117,000 years old.

Researchers used five dating techniques on sediments and fossil animal bones from the area, combining 52 age estimates for the analysis. The project took 13 years to complete.

“I don’t see any way to date this site more thoroughly,” said paleoanthropologist Russell Ciochon of the University of Iowa, an author of the study.

Homo erectus arose in Africa about 2 million years ago and spread widely there

and in Asia, and possibly into Europe.

It reached Java more than 1.5 million years ago, and the new dates suggest it died out at least 35,000 years before the arrival there of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Homo erectus may have been doomed on Java by climate change that turned its open woodland environment into rain forest, Ciochon said.

Still, it evidently existed longer on Earth than any other species on our “Homo” branch of the evolutionary tree.

Susan Anton, a New York University

anthropologist who did not participate in the work, called the dating effort “heroic.”

But she said she considered the reported age range to be too narrow.

She said she preferred a span of less than 550,000 years old to more than 100,000 years old.

That’s roughly what she and coauthors proposed in a paper published in 2011.

The younger end of the range in that paper was as recent as 120,000 years, which she said is virtually the same as the new result. AP

n DOST- Industrial Technology Development Institute and Cenmaco Inc. for the posttreatment of food processing wastewater effluent for nutrient removal; n UP Mindanao and Monde Nissin for the fermentation and purification research to produce food-grade, pharmaceutical-grade and polymer-grade lactic acid; n UPD and Carolina Bamboo Garden for the micropropagation of selected genetically verified, sup er ior ba mb o o to prote c t the env ironment and develop an a lter native wood industr y; n DLSU and IMI for the development of a design guideline using finite element analysis for semiconductor packages; n DOST-Philippine Nuclear Research Institute and Cardinal Santos Medical Center for the development of novel radiopharmaceuticals for management and detection of early stage prostate cancer; n DLSU and Saile Industries Inc. for the development of natural soil minerals into high-value products that could help in textilewaste mitigation; n Isabela State University and Edcor Development Cooperative for the creation of Web and android-based system that can detect, recognize and map the spread of witches’ broom disease of cassava; n Central Luzon State University and Cobb for the development of a decontaminating machine for litter materials that will help improve the growing environment for chicken;

n UPD and Pascual Pharma for the development of new products that are easily digestible and nutritious from marine resources; n University of Eastern Philippines and Davao Region Coconut Industry Cluster Inc. for the development of tree-climbing and de-husker devices suitable to the needs of coconut farmers; n University of Perpetual Help System and CAMP for the creation of an artificial-intelligence system that could accurately check circuit designs” n Holy Angel University and Edelyn’s Homemade Nuts for the advancement of the competitiveness of the local cashew and garlic industries of Pampanga through mechanization; n Bataan Peninsula State University and Terio’s for the development of a de-oiling machine to improve the quality of local peanut products; n DOST-Forest Products Research and Development Institute and RSU Rattan Furniture for the enhancement of the capability of the finishing spray booth equipment to minimize pollutant effluents; n Asian Institute of Management and Manila Water Co. for the creation of a forecasting model that could aid in providing water supply in different delivery channels; and n Ateneo de Manila University and Associated Wire Corp. of the Philippines for the development of a machine-eye that would watchout for anomalies and prevent equipment failure.

Filipino inventor establishes next-generation pharma firm

Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña (second, from right), graces the soft opening of Bauertek Corp., together with its General Manager Dr. Richard Gomez, Mayor Anastacia Vistan and inventor Francisco Pagayon.

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enowned Filipino scientist and inventor Dr. Richard Nixon Gomez realized his 10-year endeavor with the establishment of the Bauertek Corp.—a 100 percent Filipino-owned research, development and production facility for all-natural herbal supplements which are three generations to four generations ahead of the norm.

The concept of the project started with a high-school project of his son in 2009.

The family later on decided to register IT for patent and then introduced IT to the market. This embraces their company motto: “ImbensyongPinoy, GawangPinoy.”

B auer tek Corp. was inaugurated during a soft- opening ceremony on December 16. It was attended by guests, such as Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña as the special guest of honor; Francisco “Popoy” Pagayon, president of the Filipino Inventor Society Producer Cooperative; Mayor Anastacia R. Vistan of Plaridel, Bulacan; among others.

After the ceremonial ribbon-cutting, Gomez led the guests for a special tour of the facilities in the newly constructed Bauertek building.

Bauer tek Corp., which is in Sitio Kabilang Bakod, Santa Rita, Guiguinto, Bulacan, is a pharmaceutical facility dedicated to producing world-class and Food and Drugs Administration-approved food supplements.

One of its products, PiCur, is the first and only Philippine made food supplement that is approved by the G e r m a n g o ve r n m e n t f o r o ve r - t h e counter selling.

The company plans to partner with various government agencies in order to provide benefits for the local farmers, from which it acquires its plant raw materials.

I n s te a d o f i m p o r t i n g p l a nt raw materials, the company plans to work with Filipino-owned plantations and government-managed growing areas, such as the 1000-hectare herbal plant farm in Isabela State University.

The D epar tment of S cience and Technology is also expected to play a major role in terms of providing technology needed, as well as equipment and machinery in order to convert the locally produced plants into globally acceptable products.

Faith A6 Sunday, December 22, 2019

Sunday

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

4th Sunday of Advent: ’Matthew 1:18-24’

Christ, our true peace Msgr. Josefino S. Ramirez SUNDAY GOSPEL IN OUR LIFE

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Thousands of Filipino Catholics flock at Saint Joseph Parish Church, popularly known as Bamboo Organ Church, in Las Pinas on December 16, the first day of the Philippines’ traditional nine-day dawn Masses called the Simbang Gabi, in preparation for Christmas. Roy Domingo

Tagle: Christmas is not about gifts, bonuses

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Catholic Church leader said Christmas is not about decorations, gifts and money— but about the love of God. In his homily at the Manila Cathedral at the start of the traditional Simbang Gabi (Dawn Mass), Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle reminded the faithful of the true essence of Christmas, which is the birth of Jesus Christ.

“Are the others excited for Jesus this Christmas? It seems not to be the case. What they are

excited about is the bonus. Even if there’s no Jesus as long there’s a bonus,” Tagle said. “ They know where to shop [Christmas] sales, but the Gospel seems to be not important,” he said.

T he c a rd i n a l a l so l a mented t he losi ng t rad it ion of home Nat iv it y scenes. I n stead , he

s a id t h at people, now ad ay s, ju st pl ace g i f t s beneat h t he C h r i st m a s t ree.

“And when some people did not receive gifts, they would go for money instead,” he said.

Tagle also noted that the message of Christmas is to be charitable, and to take every opportunity to be a witness to the good news of salvation.

“We should give witness to Jesus at all times, even if it’s not Christmas,” he said.

During the Mass, Tagle also remembered all those affected by t he power f u l ea r t hqu a ke that struck parts of Mindanao on December 15.

The 6.9-magnitude quake killed at least nine people and many others injured, including a priest from the Diocese of Digos while he was visiting a far-flung community.

T he t remor a l so d a m aged properties and triggered landslides as several families are still reeling from strong earthquakes that hit the region in October.

“The nation will show that despite the earthquake, we have faith—the essence of Simbang Gabi. We keep the faith and believe that Jesus, the Lord will come and save us,” he said.

Simbang Gabi is a nine-day novena in preparation for Christmas.

CBCP News

Pope: Sainthood causes require thorough investigation

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ATICAN—The saints are “the true light of the Church,” so before they are proposed to all Catholics for imitation and veneration, a scrupulous investigation is required, Pope Francis said.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of having an office, the Congregation for Causes of Saints, totally dedicated to identifying and promoting models of holiness, Pope Francis met on December 12 with the congregation’s staff, members and consultants—including physicians, historians and theologians—and with postulators, the people who shepherd and promote the causes of saints.

“The very many beatifications and canonizations that have been celebrated in the past few decades demonstrate how the saints are not unreachable human beings, but are close to us and can support us in our life’s journeys,” the pope said.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, prefect of the congregation, told the pope that in the past 50 years, 2,203 people have been beatified and 1,479 have been canonized.

In addition, the congregation handled the processes for the papal declarations of six new “doctors of the church,” namely: Saints Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Therese of Lisieux, Hildegard of Bingen, John of Avila and Gregory of Narek.

Before any of those processes, the cardinal said, the congregation “carries out a meticulous, and scrupulous, work of scrutinizing and verifying their holiness.”

Focusing on the congregation’s work for the universal church, neither Pope Francis nor Cardinal Becciu mentioned the Vatican’s recent decision to put on hold the beatification of US Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, apparently awaiting clarification about how he handled cases of clerical sexual abuse.

Before declaring that a person lived

Pope Francis delivers his blessing during his general audience in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on December 11. PAUL HARING/CNS

a holy life and is with God in heaven, the pope said, intense investigation is necessar y, a work that must be carried out with “seriousness and expertise in studying the procedural sources, and documentation with objec tivity and rigor in the examination and at ever y stage of judgment.”

Such rigor, he said, is the only way for the church to “clear the field of any ambiguity and doubt, obtaining full certainty in the proclamation of sainthood.”

Pope Francis insisted postulators, who do not work for the Vatican but for religious orders, bishops’ conferences or organizations promoting a sainthood candidate, must have “an attitude of serving the truth” and

not be motivated by a desire for success or financial gain.

Departing from his prepared text, Pope Francis also spoke about the church’s requirement that, except in the case of a martyr, one miracle attributed to the candidate’s intercession is needed for beatification and another miracle for canonization.

“A miracle is required, because it’s the finger of God there,” he said. “Without the clear intervention of the Lord, we cannot move forward with a sainthood cause.”

Also on December 12, the Vatican published 10 decrees signed by Pope Francis advancing several sainthood causes: n He recognized the miracle needed for

the beatification of Italian Sr. Maria Velotti, founder of the Franciscan Sisters, Adorers of the Holy Cross. n In three separate decrees, he recognized the martyrdom of 25 Dominican friars, a layman belonging to a Dominican third order and a Dominican nun killed during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and 1937. The 27 can now be beatified. n In five separate decrees, he recognized that an Italian bishop and four Italian priests lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way. n He recognized the heroic virtues of Sr. Dinah Amorim, a Brazilian member of the Daughters of Mary who was born in 1917 and died in 1988. Cindy Wooden/Catholic News

Service via CBCP News

h e go s p e l to d ay n a r rates the circumstances of Christ’s conception and birth. The Christ, who is to be born shall be called “Emmanuel” (cf. Matthew 1:23), which means “God-with-us.”

As we prepare for Christmas day, in which we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, let us never lose sight of the fact that the one who is to be born is God, Himself. It is God who has taken a human nature in order to be close to us men.

Chr istmas has a lways had the connotation of peace. On Christmas night, the angels that appeared to the shepherds announced a message of peace to all men of good will. The baby who is born is called the “Prince of Peace.”

And it is really fitting that we reflect today about peace.

Every once in a while, we are faced with the threat of violence and bloody conflict. Perhaps, with that threat, we can begin to appreciate better what peace is.

Those humdrum days of going to work or school, that we may have taken for granted, are not useless and unexciting days.

Peace is not just the absence of war and conf lict. It is not a sleepy and boring situation that involves no movement. The classical definition of peace is “tranquility in order.”

It is the state of rest when the different elements involved occupy their proper places (not just in the physical sense) within the plan of the universe.

It is compatible with dynamism and movement, provided that this dynamism is within that sphere of

order. Peace is not a “stalemate,” but it is rather a harmonious reality.

When we speak of international or national peace, we refer to that state in the world or in a given society in which the different organisms enjoy their proper freedom to pursue their legitimate goals.

But that order in the international spheres ultimately depends on the order found in the heart of each person who comprises these societies. If there is no peace in the heart of each man, there will always be conflict in the end, because a dissatisfied heart will always find a bone of contention.

But how is each man to enjoy that peace of heart?

The most important and vital order that we have to confront is our order, our relationship, with God our creator. We can never have real peace unless we can be at peace with our own conscience, and we can acknowledge our relationship of creature hood to God. Christ’s coming is the greatest help we can have for this task.

Since Christ is God, Himself, yet appearing to us in human form, we can easily relate to Him. It becomes easy for us to acknowledge Christ as our Lord and Master because He is so accessible. It becomes easy for us to love Christ because He has loved us first by coming down to our level and suffering, and dying on the cross for us.

When we strive to put Christ in our hearts, we shall find peace inside ourselves. And this inner peace can be the basis for a dealing in peace with our fellowmen, who are all equally brothers of this Christ whom we love.

Woman forced to remove hijab in jail settles for $120K

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INNEAPOLIS—A Minnesota Muslim woman has received $120,000 to settle her lawsuit alleging she was forced to strip in jail and remove her hijab for a booking photo over a traffic offense, the woman and her attorneys said last week.

Aida Shyef Al-Kadi, of St. Louis Park, appeared with her attorneys at the Minneapolis headquarters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to announce the settlement approved last month by US District Judge John Tunheim.

Al-Kadi, 57, said her treatment at the Ramsey County jail in August 2013 was “one of the most humiliating and harmful experiences” of her life.

“I knew that I did not want any other Muslim woman to experience what I did,” she said.

A judge had issued a warrant for Al-Kadi’s arrest after she missed a court hearing over a traffic offense while taking her daughter to the hospital, the Star Tribune reported.

Under the settlement, the jail has put in place specific rules about how to accommodate inmates with religious headwear when taking booking photos. The county also agreed to destroy all hard copies and delete any electronic copies of Al-Kadi’s booking photo.

The settlement does not require the county to admit wrongdoing.

“We believe that this settlement agreement is fair and in the best interests of all of our residents.

Ramsey County’s values hold that the rights, beliefs, well-being, and dignity of all our residents are protected and honored in all aspects of what we do. The practices outlined in the agreement to improve the booking process for those with religious head coverings better re-

flect these values,” Ramsey County Board Chairman Jim McDonough said in a statement.

In her lawsuit, Al-Kadi’s argued that the county violated her constitutional rights and discriminated against her for her religious beliefs.

Al-Kadi was born and raised in Ohio. She moved to Minnesota in 2005 so her daughter could receive specialized medical care.

When Al-Kadi turned herself in, she said was told to remove her hijab and abaya, a long dress that covered her body, in front of male jailers.

When she objected, she said she was removed from the area and taken to a holding cell, where she removed her hijab in front of a male jailer.

She said she agreed to remove her headscarf for her booking photo after being told that the photo would never be released to the public. But months later, she found it on a thirdparty web site that charges users to take down the photos.

After taking the photo, officers gave her a bedsheet to use as a hijab. Al-Kadi eventually was told to remove her abaya and change into a jail uniform, while two female officers watched her.

Ramsey County policy says that misdemeanor inmates such as Al-Kadi “will not be viewed without clothing,” according to court records.

In 2014, the county revised its jail policies to include that inmates, who wear hijabs, will not be forced to remove them in front of men. A facility-approved hijab will be provided.

Sheriff spokesman Roy Magnuson said bedsheets are no longer used. AP

Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror

Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

Sunday, December 22, 2019

A7

Grandest Christmas Village in PHL Opens in Tangub City

Thousands of spectators from different towns gather each year for the Christmas Symbols Festival in Tangub City.

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Parc de la Ciutadella looks charming, just like the one in Spain.

A replica of the Patterson Park Pagoda Tower in Maryland.

By Gelyka Ruth R. Dumaraos Photos from DOT OPAA

attention, especially to people in Luzon and Visayas.”

Festivals all-year round

housands of spectators welcomed the lighting of various world-class destination replicas in this year’s Christmas Symbols Festival in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental.

Over 100,000 visitors witnessed the opening of 17 entries from different local and national agencies featuring mounted international landmarks including the Dubai Miracle Garden, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Temple of Athena Nike, Patterson Park Pagoda Tower, Copenhagen’s City Center Theme Park, The Transparent Church of Borgloon, and Nautilus House among others.

Dubbed as the Christmas Symbol Capital of the Philippines, the city located south of the province has been known to be a top destination in Northern Mindanao during the Christmas season for the past 27 years.

The brainchild of Tangub City Mayor Jennifer Wee-Tan, then first lady of former mayor and now Misamis Occidental Gov. Philip T. Tan, the festival aims to popularize international destinations to the locals of Tangub and its neighboring towns.

In 1992, then-Mayor Philip put up a giant Christmas tree in the town plaza to help ease his first lady’s homesickness

following her move from hometown Cebu City after their wedding.

The giant Christmas tree was eventually a welcomed spectacle for the townspeople.

Mayor Jennifer then suggested putting up more lighted Christmas symbols around the plaza, an idea that came out of love and compassion for the locals of Tangub.

In 2014, the festival launched the theme “Discover the World in Tangub City,” which made the town even more popular as a Christmas destination. Spectators look forward to the yearly Christmas village, featuring a massive display of colossal replicas of popular destinations in the world.

Mayor Tan underscores that these displays will not be repeated in the years to come, so visitors are always up for a yearly surprise on displays.

Community-based festival

But while the replicas are constantly changing each year, she says that the community-based fanfare will always be

Saifuddien Mosque gives audience a glimpse of Brunei Darussalam.

present. “What’s constant in this festival is the spirit of volunteerism of the people.

It is unchanging,” adding that it highlights the Filipino Christmas spirit.

“You go to Disneyland; you’ll feel like you’re in a foreign country. The displays are done by professionals. But when you are here, you’ll feel the Filipino kind of Disneyland and it’s not done by professionals. It is done by people who are purely passionate at heart.”

Tangub City Tourism Officer Baby Paller says that agencies participate in gratitude to the taxpayers of the city. She also adds that the participants are the ones who shell out the funds in building their masterpieces. “We do this out of passion. The festival is our way of giving back to the locals of the

city for their yearlong support.”

Livelihood

Mayor Tan also says that the influx of tourists during the Christmas season also brings a boost to the livelihood of locals.

Based on their data, in the past years, their December income covers eight months of their livelihood.

Department of Tourism Regional Director for Northern Mindanao Marie Elaine Unchuan meanwhile, notes that the Christmas Symbols Festival has been a major attraction not only within the city but to the whole Mindanao, as well.

She says, “People in Mindanao are well aware of this fiesta. But we are very determined to bring this to nationwide

Aside from the Christmas Symbols Festival during December, Tangub City celebrates the other three festivals scheduled per quarter. The Stadium Lights Parade Festival is being celebrated during February while Sobremesa Fair Festival, a summer trade fair, is being observed in April alongside the yearly Santacruzan. Dalit Festival, dubbed as the mother of all festivals in Mindanao is celebrated in September.

As for other attractions, Tangub City takes pride in Belvedere, a scenic spot in Fertig Hills in Mount Malindang, which promises a 360-degree view of the city and its neighboring towns. The Gardens of the World, designed by award-winning architecture firm Palafox Associates, is also soon to be opened in the area. It is projected to be one of the main landmarks in Misamis Occidental with the Asean heritage site Mount Malindang as its backdrop.

It may be a small city, but Unchuan eyes a tourism boost in Tangub in the years to come because of the construction of the Panguil Bay which shall connect Lanao del Norte to Tangub City. Currently, the way to Misamis Occidental to Lanao del Norte is either by land through Zamboanga, or a 15-minute ferry ride from Tubod, Lanao del Norte, to Ozamiz City. The bridge is set to be the longest bridge in the Philippines by 2021.

The Christmas Symbols Festival will last until January 8, 2020.

DOT launches new guidebook, app on MM foodscape

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s part of its continuing efforts to heat up the country’s profile as a culinary destination in the world, the Department of Tourism (DOT) on Thursday unveiled its newest travel guidebook to Metro Manila’s diverse food choices, concluding this year’s gustatory rendezvous at the Kain Na! food and travel trade fair.

Aptly titled Metro Yummy Picks, the 76-page glossy compendium features gastronomic delights and iconic culinary masterpieces like “inutak,” “pancit luglog,” “waknatoy,” among many, which were tediously selected by an elite group that include the DOT, representatives from 17 DOT-partner local government units in the National Capital Region (NCR), to lo-

cal residents, restaurateurs, and renowned food writer Margaux Salcedo.

“This will surely serve foodies well because food and adventure are a perfect mix of a best seller,” DOT Assistant Secretary Rica Bueno said quoting Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat in her opening remarks. She added that “food is the one resource that draws people together and creatively connects us to local culture and tourism.”

DOT-NCR Regional Director Woodrow Maquiling proudly talked about how the project came into being. He said that “this is an implicit invitation for tourists to stay longer in Metro Manila, and try the local flavors and the diverse food offerings

available,” referring to his plan to tap tour operators through the help of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines (TCP) and the Philippine Tour Operators Association, who have committed to curate culinary tours based on the compendium.

“Metro Yummy Picks will be available to the public starting today, and we will be distributing all 10,000 copies of it across the region, from airports, to seaports and malls nationwide,” he added, saying that its mobile companion “My Metro Manila,” which is now readily available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store, will not only complement one’s food experience but is part of the project’s sustainable efforts.

While Metro Yummy Picks disclaims itself as a definitive list, it hopes to shine a light on NCR’s rich and diverse food culture that is unique elsewhere in the Philippines. The choices included in the selection were narrowed down to three criteria: “iconic attraction and popularity among locals and tourists alike; longshared history as a destination’s unique food offering/culture; and authentically rooted in the locality and a must-try when visiting the area.”

According to the 2018 Philippine Tourism Satellite Accounts Report, food and beverage accounts for 23.8 percent of the total expenditure of tourists in the Philippines.

Lashinbang is now on Facebook and Twitter!

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DOT Officials led the opening of the Metro Yummy Picks handbook launch, and food and culinary exhibition at Glorietta Activity Center in Makati.

Gastronomy delights and culinary masterpieces from 16 cities and a municipality of Metro Manila top bill Metro Yummy Picks culinary guide book launch.

ashinbang, the world’s largest used Japanese anime goods shop has just launched its English Facebook page and Twitter accounts.

On these sites, Lashinbang celebrates the birthday of Anime characters every day, introduces and sells our various Otaku items, including CDs, DVDs, figures, cosplays, and Doujin and announces the newly opened shops.

Lashinbang has 43 stores in Japan and is now expanding across Asia. You can find Lashinbang in Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul.

So, if you are looking for otaku figures, cosplays, Doujin to CDs and DVDs, and other anime goods, please go to Lashinbang.

For latest updates, please follow Lashinbang on Facebook (Lashinbang2) and Twitter (@Lashinbang2).

Sports BusinessMirror

SAUDI PRINCE: SPORTS A TOOL FOR CHANGE A8 Sunday, December 22, 2019

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

By Aya Batrawy

The Associated Press

IRIYAH, Saudi Arabia—A world-class tennis exhibition, an international golf tournament, a Formula series car race and the world heavyweight boxing championship share a peculiar commonality: They’ve all played out in Saudi Arabia this year.

By hosting major sporting events, Saudi Arabia aims to draw attention to the sweeping social changes under way in the country and encourage Saudis to turn their attention to sports. Yet some big-name athletes have stayed away amid criticism the events are also an effort in “sportswashing” by diverting attention from the kingdom’s human rights record.

“We will face criticism whether we do

something or we don’t,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki al-Faisal, the 36-year-old royal who heads the kingdom’s General Sports Authority (GSA), said.

The prince leads the GSA’s spending spree to revolutionize sports in Saudi Arabia. While the sports authority’s budget is not public, it did reveal in July a $667-million plan to improve local clubs. The authority also oversees the

Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki al-Faisal: Saudi Arabia is going through a transformation. AP

biggest sporting events that have taken place in the country. It’s also organizing the upcoming Dakar Rally that kicks off January 5.

“Saudi Arabia is going through a transformation,” Prince Abdulaziz said.

“We were always criticized that we are not opening up to the world, we’re not doing anything in the kingdom, we’re not opening up to tourism,” he said. “Now that we’re doing it, they’re calling it ‘sportswash.’”

The prince spoke with The Associated Press at a tennis exhibition in Saudi Arabia that drew eight of the world’s top 20 male tennis players. It was the first ever such tournament to be played in the kingdom.

While the changes have been hailed, rights groups like Amnesty International have also expressed concern that the kingdom could be using sports to rehabilitate its image and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reputation following international outcry last year over the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post columnist who’d written critically about the crown prince was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a team of Saudi agents, including some who directly worked for Prince Mohammed.

Women’s rights activists, clerics, writers and others have also been targeted for arrest—part of a far-reaching crackdown on dissent overseen by Prince Mohammed as he consolidates power and pushes through an ambitious overhaul of the kingdom.

In just a few short years, the 34-year-old crown prince has upended

the country’s ultraconservative rules with state backing for concerts and movie theaters that had for generations been banned. Women now drive in Saudi Arabia, are no longer required to sit in separate spaces than men at restaurants and can travel abroad without male permission.

Sports has been used to phase in some of these social changes that were once deemed too controversial or sensitive. Women, for example, are now allowed into stadiums to watch soccer and competed for the first time against men as horse-riders in an equestrian festival last week. This comes after years of leading Saudi clerics warning that women’s participation in sports was immodest and blurs gender lines.

“Sports has been a tool for social change within the kingdom,” Prince Abdulaziz said.

Young people, he said, are driving that change. More than half of Saudi Arabia’s population of around 20 million are under the age of 25.

Last year’s Formula-E electric car race was used as a trial of sorts for Saudi Arabia’s new tourism visas. It was also the

venue for the first-ever major concert performed near the capital, Riyadh. The concert drew international stars Enrique Iglesias and Black Eyed Peas. American hip-hop artists Tyga and Chris Brown headlined this year. Tens of thousands of young Saudi men and women, standing shoulder-to-shoulder unsegregated, had never witnessed anything like that in their country before.

“We’ve had 40,000 people come to the concerts. That tells you something.

There are people who want this,” Prince Abdulaziz said. “We are here to cater to everyone. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to attend.”

The most headline-grabbing event thus far was the rematch earlier this month between British fighter Anthony Joshua and Mexican-American champion Andy Ruiz Jr. Joshua reportedly pocketed $70 million for winning the heavyweight crown.

The fight took place in a stadium in Diriyah that juts out of the desert near a more than 300-year-old Unesco World Heritage site that recently opened to the public. The site showcases the simple clay homes that the country’s rulers and their allied tribes lived in before the country was established and oil was unearthed.

It was here in Diriyah where the ruling Al Saud, for whom the country is named, founded the first Saudi dynasty in the Arabian Peninsula. It’s also in Diriyah where Saudi Arabia’s austere interpretation of Islam, referred to widely as Wahhabism, was born.

Prince Abdulaziz described Diriyah as a place that shows the “glory of where everything started.” He spoke from the VIP stands overlooking the Diriyah Tennis Cup. “For us, we have a plan and we have a strategy that we’re going to move forward with,” he said.

NFL at 100: Helmets go high tech in quest for player safety

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ong gone are the days of the leather shell and single-bar face mask.

Today’s football helmets are technological marvels, using cutting-edge materials and design elements to make the headgear the safest it’s been in the 100th season of the National Football League (NFL).

No piece of protective equipment has undergone as much transformation over the past decade as the helmet.

Through a combination of technological advancements, investment by the NFL and an open marketplace for development, helmets are rapidly evolving—with more innovation on the horizon.

The helmet will never be expected to fully prevent concussions or other head trauma.

But the advancements in recent years are making a major difference, the league says.

“There is no question there has been significant success from the helmet manufacturer side in terms of building equipment that is more protective than it was four or five years ago,” said NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miller.

There are four primary helmet manufacturers currently—legacy brands Riddell and Schutt, along with relative newcomers VICIS and Xenith—with plenty more up-an-coming companies awaiting their opportunity to get into a rapidly growing market, with new materials, new ideas popping up on a regular basis.

It’s an industry with countless areas for development. Some companies focus on the materials that provide padding and protection on the inside of the helmet. Some focus on the materials used for the outer shell. Others make the face mask a priority.

And some—the four major brands—put it all together, often using input from current players to create a design they want to wear and provide a combination of maximum usability and safety.

“Competition is good for everybody.

Competition keeps everybody moving fast, keeps everybody on their toes and wanting to bring new, better things to the field,” said Thad Ide, senior vice president of research and product development at Riddell.

Helmets have evolved from the original hard leather of the NFL’s infancy to hard polycarbonate single-piece shells with various amounts of padding and air bladders that served as the primary form of head protection into the beginning of this century.

Starting in the early 2000s with Riddell’s Revolution and Schutt’s DNA, helmets began to morph, taking advantage of emerging technologies and an increased focus on concussions. And with those new models coming to market started an increased awareness by the players of what was going on their heads.

“A couple of decades ago I think you would have had a hard time finding guys in the NFL or NCAA locker rooms who knew what helmet they were wearing. They just didn’t pay attention,” said Glenn Beckmann of Schutt Sports. “Now with all the attention and all the conversation and everything we’ve all learned as a society, as a sport, as a manufacturer, as an athlete they realize it’s to their benefit to know what is going on and to use all this information to their advantage.”

Now new helmet designs are hitting the market yearly and being tested in a joint partnership between the NFL and NFL Players Association for certification. In 2019 alone, 11 new helmet models manufactured by the four major companies were tested by the NFL and NFLPA. And there are other companies waiting for their opportunity to join the NFL marketplace.

“So much of that is yet to be determined in terms of where we’re going to head. But I do think that we’re going to continue to see innovation and the best way for that to

occur is with more competitors as opposed to fewer,” said Nick Esayian, CEO of LIGHT Helmet, which has yet to be tested and approved by the NFL for use.

The NFL deserves credit for stimulating some of the development. The league started its Head Health Challenge earlier this decade, awarding grants to promising technologies. VICIS—the top rated helmet the past three years by the NFL and NFLPA— started in part due to a grant from the league earned through one of the early years of the programs.

Four years ago the NFL created what it calls an engineering road map specifically for helmets. The goal was to collect and analyze as much data as possible to map and track where helmet impacts were occurring, what types of impacts were causing head injuries and have all that information shared with the helmet manufacturers.

The league also created digital finite element models which allowed helmet manufactures the ability to recreate an unlimited number of helmet impacts based on the data collected by the league. That helps to discover new ways to reinforce or alter areas of the helmet that showed to be having repeated impacts.

Think of it like the old crash test dummies from car manufactures. Except technology has allowed all that work to now be done on computers and tested countless times.

The results have created opportunity for the helmet manufacturers to analyze where the majority of injury-causing impacts are taking place.

“This is the most focused set of research that we have done on the engineering front against protective equipment,” Miller said. “The original budget for the five-year program was $60 million, and as we make the way through the years we’re staying on budget with that. When we’re done we’ll have spent $60 million.” AP

‘That’s My Boy’ is now ‘Mr. Speedy’ How Jason Gaguan grew from child star to corporate executive

‘That’s My Boy’ is now ‘Mr. Speedy’ How Jason Gaguan grew from child star to corporate executive

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

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how business plucked him out of poverty, but it was education that led him to prosperity.

Jason Christian Gaguan was four years old when he decided that he wanted be on television. He was inspired by the kids on “That’s My Boy,” a talent contest on noontime variety show Eat Bulaga!. Pressed by poverty, Gaguan and his single mom packed their clothes and left their shanty in Naga City for Manila to audition.

“We were really poor,” Gaguan recalled.

“Our family relied on whatever we planted in our backyard.”

With no talent in singing and dancing, Gaguan presented a short skit during auditions, recreating different TV commercials.

The act charmed not only talent scouts but the contest’s judges as he barged into the Grand Finals. Gaguan came up just short of winning the contest, but his deep run paved the way to more opportunities for the child star.

Gaguan was cast as host on several children variety show, including Batibot, Chikiting Patrol and Pen Pen de Sarapen. He even scored a role in the 1995 action movie Ang Titser Kong Pogi, alongside Bong Revilla.

Throughout this time, Gaguan’s mother, a public-school teacher in Naga City, never stopped reminding his son to study hard. Gaguan took the advice to heart and was able to enter the University of the Philippines Integrated School for elementary education, about the same time when his entertainment career drew to a close.

Eventually, the wheel started to turn on them once again. The house of Gaguan and his mother got demolished and they moved to a squatter’s relocation in Commonwealth, where they lived in a 20-squaremeter space with six other people.

Gaguan knew that he had to continue to study to make it out of poverty for good.

His top option was to enter the Philippine Science High School, upon learning that it provides financial allowance to its students.

Education taught him to dream big Gaguan applied a Spartan regime to prepare for the entrance examination. He woke up at 4 a.m. daily for three months, studying review materials photocopied from a bookstore.

All the hard work paid off and Gaguan was admitted to the school, where he was called “Pedicab King.”

“I got that name because I rode a pedicab with all my laundry whenever I went home on weekends, while my classmates took their family cars,” he said.

Gaguan did not pursue the popular path

The 30-year-old country manager of Mr. Speedy, Jason Gaguan of “Pisay” graduates continuing their college studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman because he could not afford the tuition. Meanwhile, UP’s neighbor, Ateneo de Manila University, presented a golden opportunity with full scholarship grants, including dorm accommodations and several forms of allowances.

Gaguan entered the Ateneo as a Merit scholar of the Department of Science and Technology. He took up Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and became a member of the university’s computer programming team from 2007 to 2009. He also made it to the honors program of the Jesuit-managed institution.

Aside from getting quality education, Gaguan was able to rub elbows at the Ateneo with scions of rich families. For one, his roommate was a son of a big shot Cebu-based businessman. Such encounters inspired the kid who grew up poor to dream big.

“I was confident that I was also capable of doing the things these guys were pursuing,” he said.

Gaguan also managed to help his extended family during his time in college.

He provided them with steady income by saving up his scholarship allowances, which he then used to put up a small tutoring and nursery school in his neighborhood along Commonwealth.

Gaguan and his mother conducted tutoring sessions in mathematics, science and English, including entrance examinations in PHS and different universities, helping children get admitted to prestigious schools for a brighter future.

After graduating college, Gaguan entered law school at the University of the Philippines. He tested the field but realized that that path wasn’t for him. He decided to drop out after a year.

The experience, however, still left an indelible mark on his life, as Gaguan was inspired to strive for excellence from stories of his fraternity brothers at UP Sigma Rho Fraternity.

He then structured his career to have a

2 BusinessMirror

holistic understanding of business, with an eye to lead his own company one day.

The jump to corporate Gaguan chose to enter the corporate world in 2011. His first foray was in market research with Nielsen Philippines, where he worked as a retail measurement executive for six months. His job entailed drafting distribution and brand strategies for consumer goods companies, as well as selling data and insights to fast-moving consumer goods companies and to manage these accounts up to execution.

Gaguan then moved to Unilever as a channel distributor executive and field sales analytics lead for two years. Although he was only in his early 20s then, Gaguan already managed two regional distributors with over 50 sales employees to drive transactions worth $15 million.

He also led Unilever Philippines toward automated field operations through infusion of market algorithms to guide micro trade and sales decisions.

Next stop was Globe in 2014, where he spent three years as brand manager of Globe Prepaid and TM Prepaid. Gaguan said his humble background gave him advantage over his colleagues in selling to the masses because he “quite knew the psyche of the people down there.”

In his stint with Globe, Gaguan spearheaded a regional market team that created products and services, alongside working closely with the sales teams and advertising agencies to drive executional excellence in on-ground strategies.

In 2017, Gaguan joined OLX Philippines as category and revenue manager. Under his leadership, the goods and services team achieved 40-percent revenue growth by building the sales team of account managers, field sales representatives and telesales teams.

Mr. Speedy Today, the 30-year-old Gaguan serves as the country manager of freight forwarder/ document delivery service Mr. Speedy. He December 22, 2019

started the company in a small unit in Katipunan with the goal and personal mission to empower Filipino entrepreneurs.

Mr. Speedy offers same-day delivery service in Manila for anything from food to flowers at just, P60 hailing fee and additional P6 per succeeding kilometer.

Gaguan continues to build Mr. Speedy in partnership with Moscow-Internet crowdsourcing logistics platform Dostavista Global, which he said shares with him the goal to help online sellers in the Philippines.

“We want to dominate the market for small online sellers,” he said. “But at the same time, we are charging P6 per kilometer because I believe we can achieve economies of scale with a heart for our clients.”

Gaguan said he wants to end his career as a teacher like his mother, and to create a happy work environment in the office with a lot of mentoring and alcohol, but as of the moment, his focus is on creating a healthy ecosystem for Filipino entrepreneurs.

“Given from where I grew up,” he said, “I can say that education and entrepreneurship are the main ways out of poverty.”

Sound trip BusinessMirror

your Music our business

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: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

Editor-In-Chief

: Lourdes M. Fernandez

Concept

: Aldwin M. Tolosa

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: Jt Nisay :

SoundStrip Editor

: Edwin P. Sallan

Group Creative Director : Eduardo A. Davad Graphic Designers

: Niggel Figueroa

Contributing Writers

: Tony M. Maghirang,

Anabelle O. Flores

Rick Olivares,

Darwin Fernandez,

Mony Romana,

Leony Garcia, Stephanie Joy Ching

Columnists

: 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

BusinessMirror 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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BusinessMirror

YOUR MUSIC OUR BUSINESS Yeng Constantino

WRITING (AND SINGING) ABOUT LOVE

YENG CONSTANTINO ON MAKING BEAUTIFUL MUSIC FOR THE BIG SCREEN

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By Edwin P. Sallan

INCE winning Pinoy Dream Academy, ABSCBN’s reality talent search in 2006, Yeng Constantino has more than lived up to her potential and continues to exceed expectations with every new release.

From 2007 to the present, the multi-awarded singer-songwriter has released five studio albums of mostly original material that she herself composed. She has over two dozen hit singles to her name, including now OPM classics like “Hawak Kamay,” “Salamat,” “Lapit,” “Jeepney Love Story,” “Chinito” and “Ikaw.”

Yeng remains one of the most formidable OPM artists today. At the premier streaming channel Spotify, Yeng currently enjoys a monthly listener base of over 1.3 million. On

YouTube, her official videos have generated views by the millions, led by “Ikaw” which to date has over 94 million views.

It comes as no surprise that she has also crossed over to the big screen and has been cited for her songs that were used for numerous films including romantic comedies like Bride for Rent, Para sa Hopeless Romantic, The Breakup Playlist and All You Need is Pag-Ibig. “Hawak Kamay” has in fact, won the Best Theme Song award for both the

Metro Manila Film Festival (2006) and the FAMAS awards (2007).

Acting-wise, Yeng has headlined three movies, the quirky indie, Shift, which netted her a Best Actress nomination from the Cinema One Originals film festival in 2013 and The Eternity Between Seconds which was nominated for four Gawad Urian awards in 2018.

Her latest, Write About Love is TBA Studios’ entry to this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival feels a little too close to home for her. In this movie-within-a-movie, Yeng plays Joyce, the lead protagonist of a romantic comedy being penned by two screenwriters (Miles Ocampo and Rocco Nacino) who are forced to work together despite their contrasting views about love.

As crafted by the writers, Joyce is a singer for an up and coming band who just landed an overseas

gig at a time when her already rocky relationship with construction engineer Marco (Joem Bascon) is coming to a head.

As in the case of Shift, Yeng’s involvement in Write About Love is not just limited to acting but also includes performing the film’s theme song—well, in this case—two theme songs.

One is a remake of Jolina Magdangal’s “Kapag Ako ay Nagmahal” written by Larry Hermoso. Yeng says she tried to honor Jolina’s well-loved hit by embellishing it with her own hugot vibe in accordance with her character in the film.

“Joyce is the epitome of a martyr in love so lines in the song like ‘Umiyak man ako, hindi ko ito ikakahiya’ perfectly fits the tone of our film. I Continued on page 6

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Sound BusinessMirror

DECEMBER 22 , 2019 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUS

BOOM BOOM POW

AND JUST LIKE THAT, THE BLACK EYED PEAS ARE BACK

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By Darwin V. Fernandez Interview by Edwin P. Sallan

t has been a long time since that name was ever mentioned again in mainstream, but who could really forget the Black Eyed Peas who not only showcased Filipino talent, but also crossed cultural boundaries in incorporating their roots with their music.

Back on home soil, Apl. De. Ap. was joined by the boys Will.I.Am, and Taboo who brought back that funky BEP– sound and the same brotherly party chemistry performing on stage, as they served the icing on top of the cake in the closing ceremony of the SEA Games.

After pursuing individual projects for a while and taking a step back from the crew, the boys reminisced on how their music brought pride to the Philippines. Fil-Am rapper Apl (Allan Pineda) tells what it was like bringing the crew to his homeland.

“It’s always a proud moment to show my band mates the development of the Philippines,” he said, “I always try to show them new things.”

“I remember when I first met Will, back in ‘89, I used to tell him ‘oh you know, I go farming, I take care of water buffalos’, he’s like ‘yeah right, you got like a pet bison?’ and I was like ‘yeah and we pump water out of the ground and we wash clothes by the river’ and he didn’t believe me until during our first concert here, I was able to take him to Sapang Bato and he’s like ‘wait that’s what you were talking about!’

“We all got to show him Puning. It’s in the back of Sapang Bato which was created

by Mt Pinatubo when it erupted back in 1991 and it created all these hot springs. We got to see Bohol, we rode the ATVs and drove by the Chocolate Hills.”

“If I was raised as a Filipino, I would be from the Chocolate Hills,” Will chuckled.

Will and Taboo told how having a meal in Apl’s hometown made them vegan.

“It was funny ‘cause he wrote

we were finished, two chickens were left. I was so happy that everybody has a pretty amazing house, the community, he has his chickens, he has his rice fields, and he has the pig.

They were amazing, beautiful animals at one point in time, living life, being very happy, and so I’m vegan now,” he joked.

Apl admitted that it was hard getting the crew together for their SEA Games gig but individually they knew they couldn’t resist being in the band once again.

“Individual projects is not

Black Eyed Peas (Photo by Edwin P. Sallan/BusinessMirror)

a song called the APL Song and in one of the lyrics he said how would you feel if you had to catch a meal? and we went to his house for the first time and we saw chickens and they were chillin’ and his mom’s like, ‘alright, you guys ready to eat?’ and we’re like ‘yeah, cool’.

Taboo continued, “There were nine chickens when we walked into his house, and after

what I signed up for", Will said, “It was successful but I don’t want do that. Every night I’ll go on stage [thinking] ‘I miss my group, I want to be with my group again’ my manager would say ‘why you saying that?

There’s 20,000 people out there’ but I didn’t want this, I just want to be with my crew, this is family you know, this is like a brotherhood, it makes you feel

like you’re a part of something.”

After going through a full nine months of chemotherapy and battling with cancer for five years, Taboo admitted to also missing the crew.

“The most important thing that kept me fighting was my wife and my kids but also knowing that I could be onstage with my best friends again. And while I was going through my battle, all I could think about was the joy and the happiness that being with Will and Apl brought to my life and gave me life, so that spirit and that camaraderie kept me fighting on, which helped me beat cancer.”

With a renewed vision from their individual journeys, the Black Eyed Peas made the most of their time together and teamed up with South American musician Jake Balvin in making the dance party anthem “Ritmo.”

Will tells that the song came at a time when music fans are more open to welcoming a wider range of music.

“In 2007, dance music was underground,’ he said, “the rest of the world didn’t really know about it, just the people that loved dance music. In 2008 and 2009 it started growing and we did a really important role with David Guetta. “We got affiliated with taking dance music everywhere, and as big as J. Balvin is and reggae tone, it’s still not ‘everywhere’. Las Vegas was not Vegas in 2007, think what dance music did to Vegas, the same thing’s going to happen to Latin music and afrobeat, that excitement of this new electricity and collaborating with pioneers of that community is a blessing to honor.”

Will teases a whole set of projects they are planning together along with an international tour to mark a new year for the crew in 2020.

The band calls their new sound, “a fusion of cultures bringing together Latin and Reggae together with Afro-beats, but done in a Black Eyed Pea way.”

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soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | DECEMBER 22 , 2019

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SIC OUR BUSINESS

MAKING IT GOOD

BEN ADAMS ON CHRISTMAS DUET WITH MORISSETTE

By Stephanie Joy Ching

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ime to fall in love with the new Yuletide classic “This is Christmas”, brought to you by Morissette and Ben Adams. The song, an upbeat piano piece embellished with sleigh bells reminiscent of Mariah Carey’s better-late-thannever number one single, “All I Want for Christmas is You,” was released under Sony Music.

Ben Adams

THIS IS CHRISTMAS SINGLE OF BEN ADAMS AND MORISSETTE

The English singer-songwriter, best known for his time with the popular boy band a1, originally wrote the song for a different artist but loved it so much that he decided to sing it himself.

“I loved it so much I couldn’t give it away,” admitted the British singer-songwriter and producer.

“So I decided to take it back. Once I recorded the whole thing I was like, it sounded magical but I thought I can squeeze some more magic out of it—so I began searching for the best person to collaborate on it with me.”

After tweeting about his desire to find a duet partner, his friends and his fans recommended Morissette to him. Even Sony Music Philippines’ General Manager Roselyn Pineda was high on The Voice of the Philippines alumna and was confident that she and Ben would hit it off well and make a great song together.

“She exemplifies the best of the Philippines,” Pineda stated.

Convinced he’s found his duet partner, Adams contacted

Morrissette, who was more than delighted to work with him on “This Is Christmas.”

“When Ben Adams of a1 first reached out to us about possibly working on a Christmas track together, we were just thrilled and thought it would really be an honor to work with him,” shares Morissette about the team-up. The two, who met up via Facetime, quickly worked on their parts. The result is a bright, cheerful number further elevated by Ben and Morissette’s buttery soft vocals that culminated in a nice, silky finish.

“I’m super impressed” he said, “It opened my eyes just how talented Filipinos are.” Adams also shared that he hopes to write more songs for the singer dubbed as Asia’s Phoenix in the near future. Ben added that he already has a few songs in mind “that would be perfect for her.”

“She could literally sing the ABC, and it would sound incredible. Who knows what could happen in the future? But I think it would be fun,” Ben concluded in complimenting Morissette.

Top bands rocked Resurgence music fest

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ome of the best up and coming acts and established artists gathered together for the Resurgence Music Fest held recently at the Circuit Concert Grounds, Makati.

Sponsored by Resurgent Corporation and Renegade Branding Concepts, the music fest was headlined by seven talented OPM bands. Fans enjoyed the music of Telegrama, Drive of Daydreams, Kithara, Tanya Markova, This Band, Juan Karlos and IV of Spades.

The event was held as part of the roll-out festivities of newly launched direct marketing company Resurgent Corporation. A business unit under Resident Holdings, the company offers members access to quality products such as supplements, cosmetics and other fast-moving foods. It also offers food franchises.

The music fest also served as a treat to food connoisseurs and food franchisees under Renegade Branding Concepts, a company that partners with top celebrities and influencers to create highly differentiated business concepts and ideas. During the event, attendees were treated to some great food courtesy of more than 40 food kiosks curated by celebrities and influencers.

Resurgence Music Fest was supported by Eurotel, Brandberry Marketing, BYS Cosmetics, Zen Institute, and Elias Beer.

It also partnered with Inquirer. net, Business Mirror, Manila Concert Junkies, Astig.ph, When in Manila, ABS-CBN Lifestyle and Pulp Magazine.

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DECEMBER 22 , 2019 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

Sound trip BusinessMirror

YOUR MUSIC OUR BUSINESS

RHYTHM & RHYME

by Kaye Villagomez-Losorata

U2: Worth the trouble, traffic and tantrums

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ou can say what you want on social media but U2’s concert last December 11 at the Philippine Arena was worth the following: 1) The trouble of spending too much on tickets; 2) The traffic that sandwiched that piece of music heaven called The Joshua Tree Tour; and 3) The tantrums of those “offended” by Bono’s political anthems.

As if you haven’t heard enough, here are some more reasons why.

Visuals. That 200ft wide, 45ft high LED screen alone that enveloped all 45,000 fans like a warm embrace was worth going through so much for one show.

Let’s say you went to a concert just to be part of the action and you’re not really a U2 fan, you will still have to support your jaw from dropping because of the visuals.

The screen took Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. right in front of you; it didn’t matter where you’re seated.

That screen transported the audience like a portal and with

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find Joyce to be way more softer than I am so I tried to really internalize Joyce even during our recording sessions. I need to go to that place so I can deliver this beautiful song by Ms. Jolina,” Yeng said in mostly Filipino during the film’s recent pocket press conference.

From the looks of it, Yeng found the right approach to the song as it has resonated with fans on both Facebook (over 1.1 million views) and YouTube (combined 343,000 views for both the music and lyric videos).

And then there’s “Ikaw ay Akin,” a new original song penned by Write About Love’s director, Crisanto B. Aquino. Although she did not compose this tune, Yeng said it very much reminded her of her monster

U2 in total control in the driver’s seat.

We’ve seen concerts with visual fireworks before. Ed Sheeran’s Divide was the closest in terms of how huge the LED screens were and Katy Perry’s concert a couple of years ago had floating props but nothing close to Joshua Tree Tour.

Vocals. We heard a lot about Bono’s pipes with the Philippine leg being second to the last of the tour that wrapped a couple days ago in India. There were reports that Bono had hard time belting power notes--not one bit of this was true.

During last week’s concert, the frontman—at his pre-senior year of 59—was solid. This was in full display during slower numbers, but particularly in “Every Breaking

Wave.” As soon as Bono's vocals joins the piano with the first line (“Every breaking wave on the shore/Tells the next one there’ll be one more”), you just know you surrendered your soul to this five-year old classic. Yes, this was just released in 2014, part of the album", Songs of Innocence, which you probably have on Apple Music because they gave this album away for free.

For The Joshua Tree concert, U2 performed the slower version, the one from the BBC uploaded live performance on YouTube.

So when Bono belted the chorus (“If you go/If you go your way and I go mine/Are we so/Are we so helpless against the tide/Baby every dog on the strees/Knows that we’re in love with defeat/Are we ready to

be swept off our feet/And stop chasing every breaking wave”), you know you’re a converted fan once again.

Front act. U2 served a few classics to front the Joshua Tree songs. This was like the main act before the main act. With just the band on stage, U2 warmed up with “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “New Year’s Day” and “Pride (In The Name Of Love).” Early on in the show---and minus that 200foot spread on stage---fans were already weeping happy tears.

As if U2 was telling the crowd, “Oh hey, here are the classics!

They don’t need to come out with any special effects.” And they really don’t.

Venue. Bono praised the venue more than once during the concert. We did mention this in our previous entry: The Philippine Arena, for all the difficulty going to and from the area, is the perfect venue for these kinds of concerts.

You have both visuals and sound protected in a closed arena and every part of the experienced is simply amplified and made better because of this. Each note just circles back to you. It’s just way better for the senses compared to an open venue.

For thousands of fans we’re sure the high—post-concert— lingered for days because everything was simply “even better than the real thing.”

(The author is a former entertainment reporter and editor before shifting to corporate PR. Follow @kayevillagomez on Instagram and Twitter for more updates.)

hit, “Ikaw,” which she wrote for her husband, Victor "Yan" Asuncion, a fellow musician and worship director at Victory Christian Fellowship.

“I really like yung line, ‘Kung ang lahat ay mauulit pati ang buhay ko, ikaw pa rin sinta.’ And I really feel that way. If I had the chance to rewind my life, I would certainly still choose him.

That’s why it was not at all that hard for me to sing this song. I feel like me and Direk Cris were joined at the hip when he wrote that song,” she noted.

As her own original music has complemented many films, Yeng believes that putting music at the forefront of Write About Love is an ideal creative decision that can only be beneficial for this kind of lighthearted romance.

In addition to the songs, “Ikaw ay Akin” and “Kapag Ikaw ay Nagmahal,”

the firm is further enhanced by the equally winning score by TBA’s most celebrated filmmaker Jerrold Tarog. It may not be surprising at all if Write About Love emerges as the sleeper hit of this year’s MMFF 2019.

Write About Love opens December 25 in cinemas nationwide and is TBA

Studios’ official entry to the MMFF 2019. It recently received a G rating (suitable for all audiences) from the MTRCB and a B-Grading from the Cinema Evaluation Board.

The film’s official music soundtrack by Yeng Constantino is now out via Star Music Philippines.

PHOTO BY SMART MUSIC LIVE

Joem Bascon and Yeng Constantino

Robots are very bad news for millennial workers

By Ferdinando Giugliano Bloomberg Opinion

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he rise of populist politicians across the rich world has led to a profound rethinking of the way developed economies work. In particular, the impact of automation on the labor market, and the disappearance of routine manufacturing jobs, has been blamed for the electoral successes of leaders, such as US President Donald Trump and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.

Yet, there are profound differences in what determines the economic winners and losers on the two sides of the Atlantic.

In the US, the main factor deciding whether a worker can prosper in the age of robots appears to be education. Conversely, in the European Union, it seems to be whether staff have strong protection in their employment contracts—as many older industrial workers do here.

It would be foolish for any government to dissuade companies from investing in machines that are more productive. Innovation is a powerful driver of economic growth. However, they do need to make sure the impact of auto-

mation is spread evenly.

The American model of favoring the educated may be brutal, but at least it has a semblance of being meritocratic (if you ignore the skewing of colleges toward the rich). By contrast, the European tendency to protect staff with the best work contracts is unfair on the younger workers without those safeguards. That’s hardly the best way to deal with the problem of intergenerational injustice that drives some younger voters toward populist politicians on the left and right.

A study by Konstantinos Pouliakas for the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training shows the extent to which automation is a challenge for Europe.

Using a survey of nearly 50,000 individuals, he found that 14 percent of adult workers may face a very high risk of automation. The occupations most in danger are routine jobs with little demand for transferable skills or social interaction.

As in the US, the middle-income part of the European labor market is being

hollowed out.

Maarten Goos, Alan Manning and Anna Salomons, three economists, looked at 16 European countries between 1993 and 2006. They found an increase in the employment share for high-paid professionals and managers, as well as low-paid services workers, and a decrease in the share of manufacturing and routine office workers.

This change is explained by the so-called routinization hypothesis, which states simply that since computers can easily replace routine tasks, workers doing these jobs are most vulnerable.

Strangely, unlike in the US there’s little sign that automation is further polarizing wages in Europe. The economists Paolo Naticchioni, Giuseppe Ragusa and Riccardo Massari looked at salaries on the continent for the period 1995-2007 and found technology has only a weak effect on their distribution. Their other interesting finding is that education plays no role in determining wage inequality in the EU, which isn’t the case for Americans.

However, there are clear losers from automation in Europe, as highlighted in a study of Germany by Wolfgang Dauth, an economist at the University of Wuerzburg, and his colleagues. Dauth finds that most of the burden falls on young workers just entering the manufacturing sectors. Europe’s labor market rigidity—expressed in employment protection for longer-serving staff—means companies have to give more stable and better-paid jobs to older incumbents, and thereby penalize new entrants.

Younger workers have to switch plants or abandon manufacturing altogether, and face significant earning losses.

Should governments respond by dissuading innovation? Not at all. The example of Italy shows that not having enough automation has a pernicious effect on the labor market. Gaetano Basso, a researcher at the Bank of Italy, found that since the mid-2000s, Italians haven’t suffered wage polarization, but rather an outright degradation of the jobs market.

Only the share of low-wage manual occupations has increased markedly, while high-wage jobs have dropped along with middle-income employment. The lack of automation is one cause. Italy’s economy has been marred by stagnant productivity for three decades, so it’s unsurprising that wages and job quality haven’t improved.

Rather than fighting innovation, governments must get better at handling its unwanted consequences. The most obvious area of improvement, on both sides of the Atlantic, is education—for younger and older workers. Promoting the right skills can help.

However, Europe’s politicians also have to decide whether to keep the labor market skewed in favor of incumbent workers. If they do, the displaced youngsters of today will be the forgotten men and women of tomorrow. And the angriest voters.

The key to workplace harmony among different generations? Respect

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

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etermining the priorities—and, by large, the commitment—of applicants is one of the challenges of recruiters in the current job market.

To help employers understand and address these industry-specific challenges, Paul Andrew Tuazon, sales manager of JobStreet.com, said the company is launching a knowledge resource called Laws of Attraction.

The new online tool provides insights drawn from JobStreet.com’s comprehensive study of Filipino workers, allowing employers to develop effective strategies for attracting and keeping satisfied employees. It is the latest in the arsenal of tools that has made JobStreet.com the leading talent partner for hirers in the Philippines.

Paul Andrew Tuazon, sales manager of JobStreet Philippines

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Tuazon noted that millennials and Gen Zers have different outlooks in their career road map, but both agreed that career development is important for them.

“Generation Y and Z have the energy and enthusiasm to work overtime, spend overnights to finish tasks, and, at the same time, they want to have a work-life balance,” Tuazon said.

Looking through the “life stage lens,” Tuazon said the Gen Zs can afford to move around as most of them are single and have no family obligations.

Meanwhile, millennials, are not keen on traveling overseas but want self-development programs sponsored by their office.

The study is the biggest ever conducted by JobStreet.com, involving 18,378 Filipino employees across different job levels in 25 key industries. The results from the study determined several key factors that directly affect job satisfaction. But more December 22, 2019

important, it revealed that these factors aren’t the same across different industries.

The survey involved a 30-minute interview that featured rehashed questions to ensure they get consistent answers. Biggest respondents in the AsiaPacific region came from the Philippines.

To achieve harmony in the workplace among baby boomers, Gen Y and Gen Z, the study determined that the key factor is respect.

“We know that everyone has a different inclination. I think the only key thing there is respect,” Tuazon said.

JobStreet.com currently services over 230,000 corporate hirers and over 15 million jobseekers. The company also owns WorkAbroad.ph, a talent and employment marketplace in the Philippines and in Asia, along with JobXpress.com, a job search portal for technical and vocational workers.

Gen Z wants to leave Russia in record numbers, poll shows

By Ilya Arkhipov

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Bloomberg

he generation of young Russians who’ve grown up almost entirely under President Vladimir Putin’s rule now want to leave the country in record numbers, according to a new survey.

Among 18 to 24-year-olds, 53 percent said they would like to emigrate from Russia, the highest level recorded in a decade, the independent Moscow-based Levada Center polling organization reported recently. That’s an increase of 16 percentage points since a similar poll in May, it said.

The survey of 1,601 people conducted September 26 to October 2 showed the desire to flee the country ticked up among other age groups too, with 30 percent of people aged 25 to 39 saying they’d like to leave and 19 percent of 40 to 54-year-olds.

That compared to 23 percent and 14 percent, respectively in May. The margin of error was no greater than 3.4 percentage points.

While the increase may be a “temporary and emotional” response to a summer of political protests and police crackdowns on demonstrators, “it is also part of a long-term trend that the emigration mood has been slowly growing as a reaction to worsening economic and political conditions,” said Stepan Goncharov, Levada‘s researcher. “Young Russians are also part of global trend, where people in the modern world know foreign languages better, are more mobile and less afraid of changing

their lives.” Young people were prominent in Moscow’s biggest anti-Kremlin protests since 2011-2012 this summer after the authorities refused to allow opposition candidates to contest September’s city council elections. Riot police responded harshly, detaining thousands, while many of the movement’s leaders were jailed. More than 25,000 people turned out in September to demand the release of imprisoned activists, amid a public outcry at harsh sentences given to several protesters.

Among those wishing to emigrate, 45 percent said their main reason was a desire to find a better future for their children and 40 percent blamed the economic situation in Russia. Some 33 percent were unhappy with the political situation in the country.

After five years of stagnating incomes, a separate study this month found that 59 percent of Russians want “decisive and full-

Among those wishing to emigrate, 45 percent said their main reason was a desire to find a better future for their children and 40 percent blamed the economic situation in Russia. Some 33 percent were unhappy with the political situation in the country. scale changes” in the country. Putin, who first became president in 2000, saw his personal rating slide last year after he pushed through an unpopular pension reform.

While his popularity has stabilized in recent polls, it remains far below the peaks reached following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. The Kremlin is examining possible ways to extend Putin’s rule beyond 2024, when his fourth and presumably final presidential term ends under Russia’s constitution.

The share of all Russians who would like to emigrate, at 21 percent, has risen 6 percentage points since May and is close to the record high of 22 percent in 2011, Levada found. Then, 48 percent of people aged 18 to 24 wanted to leave the country.

Even so, fewer than 1 percent of those questioned in the latest poll said they were in the process of emigrating now, a figure that’s little changed since 1992, Levada said. Another 1 percent said they’d made a firm decision to leave Russia.

Finland’s millennial PM warned of baby boomer threat to finances

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he world’s youngest prime minister needs to act quickly to tackle one of Europe’s fastest-aging populations.

Finland’s central bank said on Tuesday that the burden on public finances, as more people head for retirement, is unsustainable and requires a political response. The warning comes just days after 34-year-old Prime Minister Sanna Marin took office.

The so-called sustainability gap— which measures the difference between spending and income—has widened to 4.7 percent relative to gross domestic product, from about 3 percent a year ago, the Bank of Finland said in a report on Tuesday. The biggest contributors to the increase are cooling growth, higher government borrowing and political stalling

Finland’s 34-year-old Prime Minister Sanna Marin over health and welfare reform.

According to the European Commission, the sustainability gap poses a significant risk to the long-term health of public finances when it exceeds 6 percent, while a reading of under 2 percent denotes low risk.

“One factor currently weighing on the long-term outlook for the public finances is

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the fact that the baby-boom generation has reached retirement age,” the central bank said. “This has increased public pension expenditure, and over the next few years it will also lead to a more rapid increase in expenditure on health care and long-term care of the elderly.”

Like much of Europe, Finland needs to come to grips with the growing pressures of an aging and shrinking population. In the Nordic nation’s case, the issue assumes even greater importance because of its generous welfare state, relatively low immigration and the constraints of euro membership.

While recent governments have taken action to address the problem, more needs to be done, said the central bank, which has been issuing similar warnings since the December 22, 2019

start of the decade.

The new government of Sanna Marin, the world’s youngest prime minister, has confirmed previous plans to raise the employment rate to 75 percent of the workingage people, from about 72 percent now. According to Gov. Olli Rehn, the objective is “well-justified.”

“More determined action should, however, be taken to strengthen the public finances and the prerequisites for employment,” he said. The central bank on Tuesday also cut its growth forecasts for the euro area’s northernmost economy, to 0.9 percent in 2020 and 1.1 percent in 2021.

Its previous forecasts pointed to growth rates of 1.5 percent and 1.3 percent respectively. Bloomberg News