BusinessMirror December 29, 2019

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THE POGO PHENOMENON

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By Samuel P. Medenilla

OCIAL protection for the 83,000-plus foreign nationals (FNs) employed by the flourishing Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogo)-related business establishments and service providers remains uncertain, at the most, notwithstanding the Philippine government’s efforts to revamp its expat recruitment policies this year.

Labor officials earlier said the Labor Code guarantees that even foreign workers enjoy general labor standards (GLS) and protection through occupational safety and health standards (OSH) similar to those of their local counterparts as long as they are working legally in the country.

These include having the necessary 9G, or Prearranged Employment Visa from the Bureau of Immigration (BI), as well as Alien Employment Permit (AEP) from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

An AEP is a document issued by the DOLE to FNs, who will be locally employed in a position where

no Filipino can perform the tasks, for more than six months. It is determined through a so-called labor market test.

While the fluency of FNs, particularly Chinese nationals, to speak their native tongue may have played a big factor in their landing a Pogo job here, such fluency could also be the same factor for why they are having a hard time accessing their social welfare benefits. They hardly speak any other language.

Chinese dominated

MOST Pogo firms licensed by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) target clients

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.7440

Authorities grapple with an influx of foreigners, mostly monolingual Chinese nationals, into the country’s workforce, with most Filipinos still weighing whether their presence is a blessing or a curse.

ALIEN EMPLOYMENT PERMIT HOLDERS IN THE COUNTRY

28,371

41,993

45,288

54,241

83,764

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

from mainland China, thus, majority of their workforce are Mandarin-speaking Chinese nationals.

As of December 10, DOLE said the 153 Pogo-related firms employed 118,239 employees, of which 82.28 percent or 97,283 are foreigners, while only 17.72 percent or 20,956 are Filipinos.

Of the said 97,283 FNs in the Pogo field, 77 percent or 75,028 are Chinese nationals.

Labor Assistant Secretary Benjo M. Benavidez said the Chinese nationals are mostly designated in positions in Pogo-related firms that will require them to interact with clients, who are usually also Chinese nationals.

Meanwhile, he said, Filipino workers are employed as back-office support and in administrative positions.

Citing the results of their labor market tests for the AEP issuance, the labor official said there are currently no Filipino workers who are “competent, able and willing” to replace Chinese work-

ers in the Pogo industry.

Currently, there are pending efforts from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and the Department of Education (DepEd) to create the country’s pool of Filipinos who can speak Mandarin.

Cause and effect

THE booming Pogo industry started in 2016 after Pagcor issued a new policy enabling it.

Immediately after, the overall number of AEP holders in the country skyrocketed from 28,371 in 2015 to 41,993 the following year.

The increase in AEP holders continued at 45,288 in 2017 and 54,241 in 2018. And as of December 10, 2019, Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) Director Dominique R. Tutay said their numbers have reached 83,764.

About 3 out of every 4 of those with AEPs this year applied in Metro Manila, which makes it the Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4629 n UK 65.9926 n HK 6.5162 n CHINA 7.2512 n SINGAPORE 37.4909 n AUSTRALIA 35.2569 n EU 56.3512 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.5238

Source: BSP (December 27, 2019 )

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THE POGO PHENOMENON region with the highest concentration of FNs nationwide.

Tutay said the figures could still increase since their current count only accounts for FNs hired

by Pogo-related firms under the jurisdiction of Pagcor and still excludes those from Pogos in economic zones.

The labor official, however, said the sustainability of the said growth rate in FNs in Pogo firms will depend on the policy environment in the country and even in China, where gambling is prohibited.

Among the government reforms that could minimize Pogo operations is the plan of Congress to impose a 5-percent franchise tax for Pogo-related firms and to raise the withholding tax for FNs employed in the said companies.

But even before the said proposal, DOLE had already projected the number of FNs employed by Pogos to eventually plateau to a certain point since Pagcor became more strict in its licensing requirements and activities.

“We expect the level will be between 100,000 and 130,000 since these are the figures earlier reported by Pagcor,” Tutay said, adding that they are merely validating the figures given by Pagcor.

Employment concern

WITH over 2 million unemployed people in the country, the arrival of at least 80,000 FNs in the Philippines to find work did not sit well

with some Filipinos.

Some lawmakers expressed alarm over the trend since most of these FNs allegedly took away job opportunities from local workers—notwithstanding DOLE’s labor market tests showing no Filipinos able to handle the work these Chinese do—and led to an increase in criminality in areas with large concentrations of Pogos.

Reports of kidnappings and prostitution involving Pogo workers have been played up in the media, leading to more officials opposing the industry’s operations.

The most recent incident involves the kidnapping of a Chinese woman in Makati, prompting its local government to stop issuing business permits to new Pogo firms.

This likewise triggered an interagency review of the country’s policy in processing foreign workers, which exposed several “gaps,” including varying government data on the exact number of FNs employed in the country, as well as inconsistent policies for the issuance of the necessary permits for them.

The policies on taxation for these FNs, who were hired locally, were also raised in the process.

Aftermath registration

ALL of these were addressed in the three new instruments released by the interagency task force, which was created this year to address all of these concerns.

Tutay said the instruments include Joint Guidelines, signed last May, mandating all FNs

working in Pogos to avail themselves of SWPs; the Joint Memorandum Circular, signed in July, making Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) documentary requirement for the application of AEPs. It also made all government agencies, which issue workrelated permits, to secure a Certificate of No Objection from the DOLE. These instruments also led to the DOLE conducting a national inventory of all FNs employed in the country, as instructed by the Department of Finance (DOF).

Tutay said they inspected 237 Pogo-related establishments and 228 Pogo service providers this year.

She said the remaining 49 Pogo-related firms and 141 Pogo service providers will be inspected by the first quarter of 2020.

“We would probably resume inspection by January 15 or early February,” Tutay said.

Social welfare benefits

DURING the course of their inventory, Tutay said they found that all of the FNs employed in Pogorelated firms and service providers should enjoy social security, at least on paper.

She noted that all the payrolls of the Pogo firms they reviewed indicated the premiums of the FNs to Social Security System (SSS), Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), and Home Development Mutual Fund (PagIBIG).

However, there are some con-

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Continued from A1

cerns that not all of the said premiums are being remitted to the concerned government social welfare agencies.

Tutay said a month ago, the SSS approached the DOLE to ask for a copy of FNs in the Pogo industry to conduct its own inspection and determine possible non-remittance of premiums.

“They noticed that in certain sectors where there are Pogos, there were still low remittances. So they are trying to find out where the bulk [of the foreign Pogo workers] are based. This is what they are plowing through,” Tutay explained.

She said non-compliance with GLS and OSH, and failure to make tax payments are grounds for Pagcor to revoke the license of Pogo firms.

Benavidez disclosed that if the FNs have paid the necessary premiums from the SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG, they should be able to avail themselves of the benefits from these social welfare agencies.

Language barrier

YET another challenge for FNs in the Pogo industry, particularly Chinese, in accessing social welfare services is their low fluency in speaking in Filipino or English, which are used as the medium of instruction in the country.

Tutay said there are now proposals to address this by translating the country’s policies to other languages to help FNs understand them.

“We made this suggestion so that they [FNs] will not be fooled....

This is one of the ways we are considering as a way forward on the issue,” Tutay said.

Yet another option they are now considering, Tutay said, is providing post-arrival seminars to FNs to orient them about local laws and Filipino culture.

“This will probably help in lessening the misunderstanding or miscommunication between foreigners and Filipinos,” she added.

The inability of FNs to use the languages being used in the country also limits their ability to seek intervention from the DOLE’s attached agencies like the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB).

The NCMB said it has yet to process a case wherein the complainant is a foreign national.

There have been reports that some Chinese nationals who are Pogo employees suffered illegal recruitment and contract violations upon working in the country.

Even the country’s labor groups and migrant advocates acknowledge the vulnerabilities of FNs and called on the government to ensure their rights are also protected.

“The DOLE should have its inspection in Pogo bases of operations in order to ensure local labor laws are being followed, as well as other laws protecting the labor rights of foreign nationals working in the gaming industry,” Partido Manggagawa chairman Renato

Magtubo said.

Other options

MIGRANT advocate Kabalikat ng Migranteng Pilipino Inc. (Kampi) noted that FNs tend to have few options on where to seek aid in the country.

“I think their natural recourse is to go to their embassy or if there are existing NGOs [nongovernment organizations] serving the locals. For example, the Chinese. I don’t know if there are such NGOs in the country,” Kampi president Luther Calderon said.

He explained that Kampi itself cannot provide assistance to the Chinese nationals since their mandate is limited to Filipino migrant workers.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) affirmed the position of Calderon that it is mainly the concern of the Chinese embassy, which handles the affairs of its FNs, especially those who face deportation.

BI special prosecutor and visa hearing officer Gemma de la Cruz cited their experience in the deportation of some of the 8,000 Chinese nationals this year due to violations of Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Pagcor requirements.

“Once we get the information, that they [Chinese nationals] committed immigration violations, we immediately coordinate with the Chinese embassy for their immediate deportation,” dela Cruz said.

She said this is a good thing since concerned Chinese nationals are immediately deported by the Chinese embassy at its own expense, thus preventing congestion within the BI’s detention centers.

Institutionalized process

DOLE said if there is one good thing that came out from the surge of FNs in the country in the last three years, it is that it had helped institutionalize the country’s policy framework in accepting expatriate workers.

Tutay said they are looking at the country’s own model in its deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) as it seeks to improve its processing of FNs. This, she said, may include allowing DOLE-licensed Private Employment Agencies (PEA) to facilitate the recruitment of FNs. “This will ensure foreign nationals will go through proper channels to work in the Philippines and would be hired.... The recruitment agencies will be able to facilitate their entry and verify if their employment is legitimate,” Tutay explained.

This will make PEAs accountable for the welfare of FNs, she added.

“We are currently reviewing the guidelines on the private recruitment agencies for local employment and we might consider [such] since there is no prohibition actually in existing laws for this,” Tutay said.

Pros and cons

ASIDE from prompting the stan-

dardization of FN employment policies, the Pogo industry also helped provide economic benefits to the country, Tutay said. This was not only through collected taxes, which the DOF said already reached P356 million as of last August, but also through its “indirect” contributions.

She said this became apparent with the employment growth in specific industries like real estate, wholesale and retail, accommodation and food, which were indirectly benefited by the increase in the number of FNs who have a lot of disposable income.

BLE said FNs usually earn between P20,000 and P40,000, excluding their other benefits.

“The said industries [affected

by Pogo] have a big contribution when it comes to the net employment of the country as shown in the July 2019 labor force survey,” Tutay said.

Citing another benefit, she said local Filipino workers employed in the industry were also exposed to new technologies and systems used in Pogo operations.

Magtubo also acknowledged the advantages brought about by the Pogo industry, but he noted it should be only a temporary source of economic growth in the country since it is mainly reliant on gambling.

The labor leader noted the country should use revenues collected from Pogos and divert these to other industries that will provide sustainable economic growth to the country, such as manufacturing and the agriculture sector.

Transition process

TUTAY said the government is aware of the risks arising from the sudden disappearance or decline of the Pogo industry.

The more immediate impact of such development is the displacement of 20,956 Filipino workers employed by the industry.

DOLE, however, projects these workers could immediately find new employment with their work experience from Pogos.

“They could still go back to the usual IT-BPM [information technology-business process management] sector. Or even other segments of the services sector, such as hotels and restaurants, since most of them deal with administrative work,” Tutay said.

She reiterated Magtubo’s position that the best preparation for the possible phaseout of Pogos is for the government to help expand other industries.

“This will result in more jobs in the country, which could replace the Pogo industry,” Tutay said.

Meantime, however, the Pogo sector is here to stay, and it’s just as well that the various regulators were able to manage the phenomenon in a timely fashion through an interagency approach that has tackled the revenue, immigration and social-welfare issues all at the same time.

The World

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

BusinessMirror

Sunday, December 29, 2019

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2019 markets report: Record stocks, lower rates, so-so IPOs

By Alex Veiga

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The Associated Press

EW YORK—On January 3, the S&P 500 sank 2.5 percent when Apple warned of sagging demand for the iPhone, an inauspicious start to 2019 following a 14 percent drubbing in last year’s fourth quarter.

On January 4, Federal Reserve (the Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank would be “patient” with its interest rate policy following four increases in 2018. The S&P 500 soared 3.4 percent and by the end of the month was up nearly 8 percent.

January’s swing helped set the tone for a year in which the market responded to every downturn with a more sustained upswing. Along the way, stocks kept setting records—32 of them for the S&P 500 by December 20, and 19 for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

By its final policy meeting in December, the Fed had completely reversed course, and cut rates three times in what Powell called a pre-emptive move against any impact a sluggish global economy and the USChina trade war might have on US economic growth. The stock market, and most Fed observers not named Trump, approved of the Fed’s actions.

Investors’ uncertainty over trade policy eased by December as Washington and Beijing reached a modest, interim agreement that averted a new round of tariffs on $160 billion worth of Chinese imports and reduced existing import taxes on about $112 billion in other Chinese goods.

While the pact left unresolved some of the thorniest issues between the two countries, investors appeared happy to have a de-escalation in trade tensions now and push off lingering concerns until 2020.

Through it all, the US economy and consumers’ appetite for spending remained resilient, supporting the market’s recordshattering, year-end rally.

Almost everything’s a winner

In v estments around the

world were winners in 2019, as central banks unleashed more stimulus to bolster the global economy against the damage created by President Donald Trump’s trade war. Not only did US stocks rise, so did high-quality bonds, low-quality bonds and foreign stocks. Among the few losers: junk bonds with the very lowest credit ratings, but a better performance from bonds with bad but not the worst, ratings meant high-yield indexes still generally made gains.

off after that. For non-tech companies, Beyond Meat and its plant-based burgers hit the spot, while SmileDirectClub produced mostly frowns. WeWork’s botched IPO signaled a change in IPO investors’ mindset.

Keeps on ticking

Tech is chipper

The US economy withstood a number of challenges in 2019.

Trump’s trade war with China intensified as both sides increased tariffs. Fears of recession spiked in late summer and fall as exports fell, and businesses, facing higher costs on imported goods, cut back spending on new machinery and equipment. Overseas economies also stumbled, with Germany nearly falling into recession and growth in the United Kingdom slowing amid Brexit uncertainty. Still, the US consumer kept spending as the unemployment rate hit a 50-year low and wage growth picked up for workers outside managerial ranks. Most economists expect modest growth in 2020.

Mixed reviews

For initial public offerings, 2019 was like a year in Hollywood: There were some phenomenal successes, and some notable flops. Ride-hailing giant Uber and rival Lyft were huge disappointments. Video-conference company Zoom and workplace messaging company Slack each soared on their first day of trading, but while Zoom kept zooming; Slack, well, slacked

Drones need tracking network for expanded flights, FAA says

In this November 14 file photo, a pair of specialists work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Investments around the world were all winners in 2019 as central banks unleashed more stimulus to bolster the global economy against the damage created by President Donald J. Trump’s trade war. AP/Richard Drew

Technology stocks soared in 2019 and far outpaced every other sector in the S&P 500. Chipmakers, including Advanced Micro Devices and Lam Research, made some of the biggest gains, despite a trade war that threatened business in China. Apple and Microsoft had their biggest share gains in a decade, and each topped $1 trillion in market value. Energy stocks gained the least amid concerns that oil supply is outpacing demand.

Earnings ease up

Corporate profits hit the brakes in 2019, a year after a big tax cut helped juice results.

On top of no longer getting the benefit of the first year of lower tax rates, a slowing global economy weighed on company revenues. If S&P 500 companies end up reporting four straight quarters of declines for 2019, as analysts expect, it would be the first time that’s happened since 2015 and 2016. Still, analysts tend to set low expectations that most companies are able to beat, so investors aren’t panicked by the slower profit growth.

Can negative be a positive?

Would you pay someone to

lend money to them? The practice has become more common around the world—$13 trillion in bonds globally had negative yields as of November, according to Deutsche Bank. Much of that total is from Japan, France and Germany, countries that account for nearly a quarter of all the world’s bonds. It’s the result of shock-therapy by the European Central Bank and others to try to jolt their economies and inflation higher.

The Fed’s U-turn

The Fed changed course on interest rate policy this year, cutting its benchmark rate three times after more than two years of increases. Powell portrayed those cuts as “ insurance” against a slowdown resulting from weak global growth. Prior to late 2015, t he Fed h ad been kee pi ng rates at a record low near zero to stimulate the economy. In December, the Fed said it was prepared to keep rates low at least through next year.

Home run

A strong labor market and a steady decline in mortgage rates stoked demand among would-be homeowners this year, driving US home sales higher. A persistently limited supply of previously occupied homes for sale, at a time, when millennials are increasingly seeking to become homeowners also helped to stoke demand, even though affordability remained a challenge

in many markets. The housing trends favored US homebuilders, whose shares surged well above the broader market.

Clicks again outshine bricks

Retailers had a mixed year, as they continued beefing up their online sales strategies amid declining foot traffic.

Department stores and Macy’s, in particular, fell sharply. Specialty retailers did much better, with electronics retailer Best Buy, car dealership chain CarMax, and home improvement retailers Home Depot and Lowe’s among those making sharp gains. As the year wound down, retailers were hoping that low unemployment, higher wages and the record-setting stock market would translate into a robust holiday shopping season.

Protein push

Plant-based meat has gone mainstream. Beyond Meat, w h ic h m a k e s bu r ge r s a nd sausages from pea protein, had one of the most successful IPOs of the year. Burger K ing’s soy-based Impossible W hopper was a big hit. Tyson Food s, Nest le a nd K el log g a l l i nt roduced pl a nt-ba sed meat s. Hea lt h a nd a n i m a l welfare concerns are driving t he t rend . US pl a nt -ba sed meat sales jumped 10 percent this year to nearly $1 billion; traditional meat sales rose 2 percent to $95 billion in that same time, Nielsen says.

Apple supplier bullish on 2020 as 5G phone demand kicks in

T

aiyo Yuden Co., a Japanese maker of ceramic capacitors used in smartphones, sees increasing demand for its components next year as China pushes ahead with the fifth generation of cellular technology.

“We’re already getting orders for 5G base stations,” Chief Executive Officer Shoichi Tosaka said in an interview on Thursday. “Early next year, we should start seeing 5G-related orders for smartphones.”

Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. have led the orders for capacitors used in base stations, Tosaka said. The demand is coming mostly from Chinese carriers, after the Trump administration pushed US allies to exclude Chinese suppliers from their networks. Huawei may sell

100 million 5G-enabled smartphones in China, alone, next year, Tosaka said.

This should have been a bad year for Taiyo Yuden, as smartphone shipments have sputtered and the US government blacklisted one of its biggest customers in Huawei.

Instead, the company has stuck to its May forecast for record revenue and profit. Demand for its capacitors has proven resilient to geopolitical shocks largely because they’re components used in large numbers across all kinds of electronic devices­—from smartphones to electric cars. Taiyo Yuden’s shares have more than doubled this year.

Key insights A 5G-enabled phone uses about 1,000 capacitors, or about 30 percent more than a 4G predecessor.

The new wireless standard is power-hungry and requires a larger battery, which leaves less space for other components. That bolsters demand for premium capacitors that can store more energy in a smaller footprint.

Huawei is likely to lead the introduction of 5G phones, followed by Samsung Electronics Co., Tosaka said.

If Apple Inc. introduces its first 5G-enabled models in September, as is widely expected, the orders for components are likely to come in June, Tosaka said. The company has sufficient output capacity to meet the demand, he said.

Taiyo Yuden’s factories are currently running at about 85 percent of their maximum load, but supply may tighten for the rest of the financial year ending March 2020.

The first batch of 5G-enabled iPhones, whenever they come, will “open up the floodgates” on device upgrades, Wedbush Securities Inc. predicted this month.

About 350 million iPhones among the Cupertino, California, company’s 900 million installed user base are now in the window of an upgrade opportunity, analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients.

The multilayered ceramic capacitors, or MLCCs, Taiyo Yuden makes are building blocks of the modern world. Tiny components made of metallic plates, they’re used in electronic circuits to stabilize voltage and power flow.

Invented in the 18th century by German and Dutch scientists, capacitors are now used in everything; from smartphones and televisions, to refrigerators and

automobiles. Tosaka said the demand for MLCCs is likely to keep growing for the next five years to a decade.

While many investors still see Taiyo Yuden as a mobile play, the company has succeeded over the past three years in reducing its reliance on smartphone components. The company’s orders used to spike around July and August, driven by preparations for a fall smartphone model refresh, followed by a trough. Now, automotive and industrial applications account for close to 40 percent of Taiyo Yuden’s revenue, and Tosaka is looking to raise that proportion to 50 percent within five years.

“The risk used to be that we sold a lot to a few customers,” Tosaka said, but now “it’s become a long-tail business.” Bloomberg News

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ll but the smallest civilian drones would have to broadcast radio tracking data to ensure greater safety and prevent terrorism under a sweeping proposal unveiled by US regulators on Thursday.

The long-awaited draft rules call for a massive new tracking network for everything from toys to larger commercial drones so that law enforcement can spot the devices flying anywhere, from congested urban areas to the most rural zones.

The controversial measure by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is subject to public comment and could change before it becomes final, is a key foundation to advance drone-driven commerce, including deliveries of consumer goods by companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Wing and Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Air. The rules would come into full force three years after being finalized.

“Remote ID technologies will enhance safety and security by allowing the FAA, law enforcement and federal security agencies to identify drones flying in their jurisdiction,”Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in a press release.

With only limited exceptions for groups such as model-airplane operators, all drones weighing more than 0.55 pounds (0.25 kilograms) would have to broadcast their position and operator’s identity at all times under the FAA proposal.

The FAA is suggesting that private companies approved by the agency would set up tracking systems for drones, replicating the existing air-traffic control system for traditional aircraft.

The US Chamber of Commerce believes the proposed rule on remote identification of drones “will help ensure the safety and security of the airspace and enable more innovative applications and uses of unmanned aircraft systems such as package delivery and long-range surveying,” according to Tim Day, senior vice president for the group’s Technology Engagement Center.

Law enforcement and homeland security agencies had demanded a tracking mandate in response to the growing number of drone threats, including a handful of close calls that halted airline flights near airports, collisions with other aircraft or use of the devices by terrorists around the world.

The FAA is attempting to finalize the regulation as soon as possible, said Brandon Roberts, the agency’s acting director of rulemaking. An earlier proposal by the FAA to allow drone flights over people has been held up until a tracking system can be developed.

“This is an important building block in the unmanned traffic management ecosystem,” the FAA said in the proposal.

The issue has fractured the rapidly growing base of drone operators, at times pitting recreational fliers and different segments of the industry against each other even as the majority of users acknowledge the need for some type of tracking. It also has raised significant concerns about government monitoring of the public.

Under the FAA proposal, if drone operators want to operate freely, they would have to both broadcast their identity on a radio frequency that can be monitored nearby and simultaneously upload the information via the Internet.

In that way, other nearby drones and aircraft can steer clear and local police equipped with tracking devices could identify rogue operators. At the same time, the devices could be monitored from a remote, central system.

Drone users can choose a more limited option of uploading the information to the Internet only, but they would be restricted to flying within 400 feet of the operator.

The agency is proposing that the rules would take full effect three years after being finalized, meaning routine delivery flights and other commercial operations won’t be possible until at least then. Bloomberg News

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Sunday, December 29, 2019

The World BusinessMirror

At each end of Pacific, skepticism over China farm purchases

By Josh Funk, Paul Wiseman & Joe Mcdonald

O

AP Business Writers

MAHA, Nebraska—President Donald J. Trump likes to joke that America’s farmers have a nice problem on their hands: They’re going to need bigger tractors to keep up with surging Chinese demand for their soybeans and other agricultural goods under a preliminary deal between the world’s two largest economies.

But will they really?

From Beijing to America’s farm belt, skeptics are questioning just how much China has actually committed to buy—and whether US farmers would be able anytime soon to export goods there in the outsize quantity that Trump has promised.

It amounts to $40 billion a year, according to Trump’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. If you ask the exuberant president himself, though, the total is actually “much more than’’ $50 billion. To put that in perspective, US farm exports to China have never topped $26 billion in any one year.

What’s more, since Trump’s trade war with Beijing erupted last year, China has increased its farm purchases from Brazil, Argentina and other countries. As a result, Beijing may now be locked into contracts it couldn’t break even if it intended to quickly increase its purchases of American agricultural goods to something approximating $40 billion.

“History has never been even close to that level,” said Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. “There’s no clear path to get us there in one year.”

“The figure of $40 billion,” added Cui Fan, a trade specialist at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, “is larger than I expected, and I wonder whether the United States can ensure the full supply of the products.”

America’s farmers would surely like to. The farm belt has endured much of the impact from Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs since July 2018, when the Trump administration imposed taxes on $360 billion in Chinese imports. Beijing struck back by taxing $120 billion in US exports, including soybeans and other farm goods that are vital to many of Trump’s supporters in rural America.

The impact from China’s retaliatory tariffs was substantial: US farm exports to China, which hit a record $25.9 billion in 2012, plummeted last year to $9.1 billion. Soybean exports to China fell even more—to a 12-year low of $3.1 billion, according to the Department of Agriculture. (Farm imports to China have rebounded somewhat this year but remain well below pre-trade-war levels.)

The so-called Phase 1 deal that the two sides announced December 13 did manage to de-escalate the standoff and offer at least a respite to American farmers. Yet, the truce put off for future negotiations the toughest and most complex issue at the heart of the trade war: The Trump administration’s assertion that Beijing cheats in its drive to achieve global supremacy in such advanced technologies as driverless cars and artificial intelligence.

The administration alleges— and independent analysts generally agree—that China steals technology, forces foreign companies to hand over trade secrets, unfairly subsidizes its own firms and throws up bureaucratic hurdles for foreign rivals. Beijing has rejected the accusations and contended that the administration is instead trying to suppress a rising competitor in international trade.

Under the preliminary US-China deal, Trump suspended his plan to impose new tariffs and reduced some existing taxes on Chinese imports. In return, Lighthizer said, China agreed to buy $40 billion a year in US farm exports over two years, among other things.

(Beijing also committed to ending its long-standing practice of pressuring foreign companies to hand over their technology as a condition of gaining access to the Chinese market.)

Ma ny fa r mers say t he y ’re hopefu l but restrained in their e x pect at ions.

In this May 23 file photo, a farmer plants soybeans in a field in Springfield, Nebraska China’s imports of soybeans surged in November following the announcement of an interim trade deal with the United States. AP/Nati Harnik

“At this point, we have to wait to see more details,” said Jeff Jorgensen, who farms about 3,000 acres in southwest Iowa.

Yet the Trump administration has released no text of the agreement. And a fact sheet that Lighthizer’s office issued didn’t specify the target for increased Chinese farm purchases. What’s more, Beijing has so far declined to confirm the $40-billion figure.

“After the agreement is officially signed, the contents of the agreement will be announced to the public,” said Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry.

Still, Chinese imports of US soybeans more than doubled in November after the Phase 1 agreement was initially announced in mid-October—a sign t hat reduced tensions might have begun to ease the strain on American farmers, according to AWeb.com, a news website that serves China’s farming industry.

Beijing insists, though, that its farm purchases will be based on consumer demand and market prices, pointedly implying that it won’t buy more than it needs just to satisf y the Trump administration’s promises.

“The purchases should be based on market principles,” said Tu Xinquan, director of the China Institute for WTO Studies in Beijing.

“The United States should compete with other countries through price and quality.”

Some analysts suggest that it’s at least theoretically possible for the US to boost its farm exports to China to something close to the figures the administration has promised. Flora Zhu, associate director of China corporate research at Fitch Ratings, calls the $40 billion “achievable.’’

She notes, for example, that China’s demand for soybeans amounts to $40 billion a year. Even before the trade war, the US supplied about a third of that total— “suggesting, Zhu said, that “there

is still large room for China to increase its purchases of soybeans from the US.” In addition, China’s demand for imported pork has intensified because its own pig herds have been decimated by an outbreak of African swine fever. Yet that same outbreak could reduce China’s need for American soybeans: Fewer hogs could mean less demand for soybeans and other sources of feed.

But achieving $40 billion a year would likely require diverting market share away from other countries—Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand— that export sizable quantities of farm goods to China. Those nations could then argue to the World Trade Organization that they are losing exports not because they can’t compete but because China is being coerced into buying American to avoid Trump’s tariffs.

“It is a situation many countries are concerned about,’’ said Tu of the WTO studies institute in Beijing.

US farmers sound wary. Some worry that the prolonged trade war will brand the United States an unreliable trade partner in China and jeopardize access to a vast Chinese market that had increased its purchases of US farm products from less than $1 billion a year in the early 1990s to nearly $26 billion by 2012.

US farm exports to China then f luctuated between about $20 billion to $25 billion a year before Trump’s trade war erupted in earnest last year.

Farmers have watched with frustration as breakthroughs in the trade war appeared several times to have been achieved only to collapse soon thereafter.

“I think it’s a lot of false promises again,” said Bob Kuylen, who grows wheat and sunflowers and raises cattle near South Heart, North Dakota. “I’d love to see $50 billion, but I don’t think it will ever happen.... It’s just almost an impossible thing, so why even say it?”

Modi hardens stance against protesters, who vow to hold the line

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rime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has set itself on a collision course with those protesting against a new religion-based citizenship law, leading to fears of deepening polarization across the country at a time when the economy is sputtering.

At least 25 people have been killed, scores more injured and thousands detained as tens of thousands of people across India have taken to the streets to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, pushed through parliament on December 11.

Days after attempting to allay fears over the citizenship drive at a rally in the capital, Modi and his ministers doubled down on Wednesday.

He blamed the demonstrators for the vandalism that took place during two weeks of nationwide protests. Those who were misled and caused damage to public property “should sit at home and ask themselves if their path was right,” he said an event in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow. He did not comment on the allegations of widespread police brutality.

The law bars undocumented Muslims from three neighboring nations seeking Indian

citizenship while allowing people of other faiths to do so. Taken together with a proposed national register of citizens the new law is seen as a way for Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to discriminate against India’s Muslim minority.

“This new law and the resulting protests could have major political, reputational, and economic costs for a government that until recently was enjoying a relatively smooth ride,” said Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center in Washington, who has closely researched India’s politics over the past decade. “The longer the protests go on, the more reputational risks there are for a government keen to attract foreign investment,” Kugelman said, adding he does not expect “a happy and quiet ending” as there is anger on both sides.

Growing fears

Peaceful protests will continue as long as the new citizenship law is not withdrawn, said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “Do not fear anybody,” Press Trust of India quoted Banerjee as saying at a rally on Thursday. “I warn the BJP not to play with fire.”

In New Delhi thousands of people have been taking part in demonstrations, braving chilly winter temperatures to protest against the new law.

Hundreds of women in the working class, largely Muslim neighborhood of Shaheen Bagh, sat on the roads in protest on Thursday. The women, some nursing their infant children, have been part of the demonstration since December 15. Thousands of people across faiths have been joining their sit in and providing food and blankets.

“How can we let our rights go like this? We will sit here till Modi answers us and take back the plan for national citizenship register,” said Sahiba, who gave just one name. “We women have never been on roads like this.”

Their fears only grew when the government announced on Tuesday plans to allocate funds to create a National Population Register. The move has been widely criticized by the opposition, which sees it as a precursor to countrywide citizens register that, along with a new citizenship law, is driving the angry protests.

While the government denied any links between the two processes, in July 2014 Kiren

Rijiju, the then junior home minister in Modi’s cabinet, told Parliament the government had decided to create a citizens registry based on the information collected under the national population register.

Government crackdown

The massive demonstrations have been the first real test Modi has faced in his six-year rule, and the government has struggled to contain them.

Civil-society groups and human-rights activists have begun gathering independent accounts of some of the worst reports of violence, especially from Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the BJP’s Yogi Adityanath, a hard-line monk who promised earlier this week security forces would extract “revenge” from protesters who caused any damage to public property.

The government, especially in states where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is in power, has cracked down against all protests. In many areas, the administration has banned the gathering of more than four people and cut mobile Internet connections. Bloomberg News

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Japan’s longest serving premier faces 2020 hobbled by scandals

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apanese P r i me M i n i ste r Shinzo Abe heads into 2020 hampered by scandals that have dragged his support to levels not seen in a year and tarnished his record as the country’s longestserving premier.

The latest poll by the Asahi newspaper found 38 percent of respondents surveyed December 21 and 22 said they supported Abe, down for the third straight month and sagging below 40 percent for the first time in more than a year.

Abe, 65, has built a record of deflecting such problems since he took office for the second time seven years ago. He bounced back from allegations of cronyism in 2017 and 2018. The combination of an opposition in disarray along with a perceived lack of alternative leaders may enable him to do the same again.

The allegations of corruption could, however, weigh on the chances that he will stay on for a fourth straight term as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, or make progress toward his goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution.

Abe’s term as LDP leader ends in less than two years and several recent polls have found the most popular candidate to succeed him is Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister who has criticized the Abe administration since leaving the Cabinet in 2016.

Here are some of the problems Abe is facing:

Cherry blossom blues

Opposition lawmakers raised questions over whether Abe rewarded constituency supporters with invitations to a publicly funded cherry blossom-viewing party. The scandal has deepened with accusations that an organized crime figure was also among the guests and the Abe administration was covering up its involvement in deciding who could attend the party.

The most recent cherry blossom event in April attracted about 18,000 people, and pictures on the web site of the prime minister’s office show a smiling Abe posing with celebrities, some of them dressed in colorful kimonos. Abe’s administration has said it won’t

hold the event next year, breaking an almost 70-year run.

Attempts to unearth evidence about the party have met with little success—the government says the guest list happened to have been shredded an hour after an opposition lawmaker submitted an application to see it in May. A hotel gathering for Abe’s supporters held the night before the main party has also come under scrutiny.

Polls show 70 percent or more of respondents say they are not satisfied with Abe’s explanation about the parties.

Upshot: Unless further information emerges, the worst may be over for Abe in this scandal.

Casino bribery case

A ruling party lawmaker was arrested this week on suspicion of receiving bribes from a Chinese company seeking to invest in the casino industry. The first arrest of a sitting lawmaker in nearly a decade doesn’t look good for Abe but the damage may be limited since he hasn’t staked a great deal of his political capital on promoting casinos.

Upshot: The scandal will deal a blow to already unpopular plans to allow the first gambling resorts to be established in Japan. The casinos are intended to help the country meet its target of welcoming 60 million tourists a year by 2030.

Cabinet and business corruption

The chief executive of the partly government-owned Japan Post Holdings and two other executives are set to resign on Friday over an insurance sales scam, according to broadcaster JNN. The scandal undermined trust in the group and is likely to force a delay to the sale of the last tranche of the government’s holdings.

An October payoff scandal involving Kansai Electric Power Co. clouded the prospects for planned nuclear re-starts. The resignations of two ministers in October over suspected illicit payments also hurt the image of Abe’s Cabinet. A Kyodo News poll last month indicated the public is less willing than before to accept his plans to change the constitution, and more than 60 percent said Abe should not stay on for another term. Bloomberg News

Singapore goes on global offensive to defend ‘fake news’ law

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ingaporean diplomats are taking the lead in defending a two-month-old fake news law, challenging international media outlets and free-speech advocates it says are publishing misleading claims on the contentious legislation.

Since the law was enacted in October, authorities in the Southeast Asian city-state have invoked it four times against critics and once against Facebook Inc., which was required to attach a government-issued “correction” to content deemed to contain falsehoods. Government officials have also countered critical media coverage of the law, known as the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act. F o o C h i H s i a , S i n g a p o r e ’s H i g h Commissioner to the UK, stated the Economist had misrepresented the law, writing in a December 21 letter to the editor that it “should be looked at in the same context as our belief in the right of reply, which in our view enhances rather than reduces the quality of public discourse.“ “Readers can see both and decide for themselves which is the truth,” she wrote.

“How does t winning fac tual replies to falsehoods limit free speech?”

E a r l i e r i n D e c e m b e r, S i n g a p o r e ’s ambassador to the US, Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, disputed a Washington Post story that cited critics saying the law could have a “chilling effect on online free expression.” In the letter, obtained by Bloomberg, he also criticized Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, who was quoted as an expert in the story. Days later, Bernard Toh, director of the Ministry of Communications and Information’s information policy division, accused Fred Ryan, the newspaper’s publisher, of “perpetuating false allegations,” local media reported.

The battle for public opinion comes as social-media companies raise concerns the law could impact their businesses. Opposition Singaporean politicians are also worried the law will suppress dissent ahead of elections that must be held by April 2021. They expect the ruling People’s Action Party, which has governed Singapore since independence in 1965, to win despite a slowing economy.

Singapore’s government has said the new law is not aimed at stifling free speech and is enforced independently of the election cycle.

“This is equally true with laws regulating the exercise of the rights of free speech and assembly, and with any other law,” the Ministry of Law wrote in an e-mailed response to questions, noting that content impacted by the law remains intact alongside the ordered correction, which links to a full justification. “They can read both and decide for themselves on the truth. This encourages greater transparency,” the ministry said.

Singapore is the latest Asian country seeking to counterac t the flood of fake news in an era when messages delivered to smartphones over platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp have become as trusted as articles from traditional media sources. In elections earlier this year, both India and Indonesia sought to monitor the spread of fake news and counter the dissemination of rumors.

Some provisions in the law are unique to Singapore, which has increased risks for global tech companies. In addition to requiring companies to post “corrections” to user posts, the law may also require them to ensure the correction is seen by every user in Singapore who has read the offending post. Penalties for failing to comply can be as high as S$1 million ($738,500) per post and a further S$100,000 per day for noncompliance following a conviction. Bloomberg News

Science

BusinessMirror

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

Sunday

Sunday, December 29, 2019 A5

Hangover happens as your body tries to protect itself from alcohol’s toxic effects

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ebaucherous evening last night? You’re probably dealing with veisalgia right now.

More commonly known as a hangover, this unpleasant phenomenon has been dogging humanity since our ancestors first happened upon fermentation.

Those nasty vertigo-inducing, cold sweat-promoting and vomitproducing sensations after a raucous night out are all part of your body’s attempt to protect itself from injury after you overindulge in alcoholic beverages.

Your liver is working to break down the alcohol you consumed so your kidneys can clear it out ASAP. But in the process, your body’s inflammatory and metabolic reactions are going to lay you low with a hangover.

As long as people have suffered from hangovers, they’ve searched in vain for a cure. Revelers have access to a variety of compounds, products and devices that purport to ease the pain.

But there’s a lot of purporting and not a lot of proof. Most have not been backed up well by science in terms of usefulness for hangover treatment, and often their effects don’t seem like they’d match up with what scientists know about the biology of the hangover.

Working overtime to clear out the booze

Hangovers are virtually guaranteed when you drink too much.

That amount varies from person to person, based on genetic factors as well as whether there are other compounds that formed along

with ethanol in the fermentation process.

Over the course of a night of heavy drinking, your blood alcohol level continues to rise. Your body labors to break down the alcohol—consumed as ethanol in beer, wine or spirits—forming damaging oxygen free radicals and acetaldehyde, itself a harmful compound.

The longer ethanol and acetaldehyde stick around, the more damage they can do to your cellular membranes, proteins and DNA, so your body’s enzymes work quickly to metabolize acetaldehyde to a less toxic compound, acetate.

Over time, your ethanol levels drop through this natural metabolic process. Depending on how much you consumed, you’re likely to experience a hangover as the level of ethanol in your blood slowly returns to zero.

You r body is w it hd raw ing from high levels of circulating alcohol while, at the same time, trying to protect itself from the effects of alcohol.

Scient ists have l imited knowledge of the leading causes of the hangover. But they do know that the body’s responses include changes in hormone levels to reduce dehydration and cellular stress.

Alcohol consumption also affects a variety of neurotransmitter systems in the brain, including glutamate, dopamine and serotonin.

Inf lammation increases in

of the night before.

But in short order, you’ll forget how excruciating your last hangover was. And you may very soon talk yourself into doing the things you swore you’d never do again.

Speeding up recovery

Drain enough cups of booze in one session, and you know what’s bound to follow. Laura Buron/Unsplash, CC

t he b o d y ’s t i s s ue s , a nd t he healthy gut bacteria in your digestive system take a hit too, promoting leaky gut.

Altogether, the combination of all these reactions and protective mechanisms activated by your system gives rise to the experience of a hangover, which can last up to 48 hours.

Your misery, likely, has company

Drinking and socializing are cultural acts, and most hangovers do not happen in isolation. Human beings are social creatures, and there’s a high likelihood that at least one other individual feels the same as you the morning after the night before.

Each societ y has different r u les rega rd i ng a lcohol u se, which can affect how people view alcohol consumption within those cultures.

Drinking is often valued for its relaxing effect and for promoting sociability. So it’s common to see alcohol provided at celebratory events, social gatherings and

holiday parties.

In the United States, drinking alcohol is largely embraced by mainstream culture, which may even promote behaviors involving excessive drinking. It should be no surprise that overindulgence goes hand in hand with these celebratory social events—and leads to hangover regrets a few hours later.

Your body’s reactions to high alcohol intake and the soberingup period can influence mood, too.

The combination of fatigue that you experience from sleep deprivation and hormonal stress reactions, in turn, affect your neurobiological responses and behavior.

As your body is attempting to repair itself, you’re more likely to be easily irritated, exhausted and want nothing more than to be left alone. Of course, your work productivity takes a dramatic hit the day after an evening of heavy drinking.

When all is said and done, you’re the cause of your own hangover pain, and you’re the one who must pay for all the fun

DOST-FPRDI Transit Testing Laboratory acquires new machines

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he Department of Science a nd Tec h nolog y ’s (DOST) Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI) Transit Testing Laboratory (TTL) has recently acquired new machines to meet the local furniture industry’s growing demand for package product testing.

The TTL is one of the FPRDI Furniture Testing Center’s (FFTC) laboratories.

According to FFTC’s Technical Manager Engr. Victor G. Revilleza, the newly acquired compression machine is designed to determine the behavior of a package under compression force. It simulates resistance of packaged products to warehouse stacking load.

Compression machine

The humidity chamber, on the other hand, is designed to test the shelf-life and stability of packaging materials, chemicals, food, drugs, cosmetics, among others.

The TTL currently offers five laboratory tests: drop, incline impact, horizontal impact, vertical impact and vibration tests.

With the new machines, the center now also offers compression and atmospheric tests.

T he newly acquired equipment are meant to better serve not only local furniture manufacturers, but a lso other industries, which require testing services to improve protective packaging effectiveness.

Juliemar V. Purificacion/S&T Media Service

Soybean R&D project launches in Surigao del Sur

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he country’s soybean industry is threatened by tight competition with other crops, such as rice and corn, in terms of production area.

This is further challenged by unfavorable supply chain and volatile prices. The limited expansion of production and low utilization of soy food hinder the industry’s take off.

To aid this, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD) funded the research, “Improvement of Soybean in Surigao del Sur through Enhanced Value Chains, Sustainable Seed Sector, and Better Varieties under Different Cropping Systems.”

It is being implemented by the Surigao del Sur State University, led by Dr. Jocelyn B. Panduyos, SDSSU research and extension division director.

The project aims to enhance local soybean by developing an improved soybean value-chain model in Surigao del Sur. It also aims to develop sustainable soybean production in the uplands through improved

Dr. Jocelyn B. Panduyos, project leader from SDSSU, presenting the project overview and objectives to the attendees of the inception meeting. DOST-PCAARRD cropping system, seed system and varieties.

At the inception meeting for the project held recently at SDSSU, Rosario, Tandag City, Surigao del Sur, its components and objectives were discussed.

Upland farmers in Tandag, Tago and San Miguel, in Surigao del Sur will be encouraged to include soybean in their cropping systems and store seeds of improved varieties.

Household members will be encouraged to include soybean as food at home and as source

of income from soyfood product processing.

Po te nt i a l m i c ro - e nt re p re n e u r s a n d consumers in urban areas will also benefit through soyfood processing seminars.

Soyfood-related enterprises will be promoted and, technical assistance and linkages will be provided to different stakeholders.

Local government units will also be aided in their food sufficiency programs through the use of soybean in their health and nutrition campaign.

Dr. Nemesio G. Loayon, SDSSU vice president

for research and extension, expressed his gratitude and appreciation to DOST-PCAARRD for putting value and support to the university’s research endeavor.

With the potential of SDSSU on soybean research, DOST-PCAARRD Industry Strategic S&T Program Manager for Legumes, Rolando S. Corpuz, envisions SDSSU as the future Soybean R&D Center under the DOST’s Niche Centers in the Regions for R&D Program.

The program aims to capacitate higher education institutions through upgrading, development and acquisition of S&T infrastructure and establish R&D Centers that will cater to the specific needs of the Regions.

The two-year project is the fifth component projec t of the S oybean R&D Program, “Improvement of Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] for Better Nutrition, Higher Income and Enhanced Soil Health,” under the leadership of Elmer E. Enicola of the Institute of Plant BreedingUniversity of the Philippines-Los Baños.

Eileen Fay M. Villegas/S&T Media Services

While pharmacologists, like us, understand a bit about how hangovers work, we still lack a true remedy.

Countless articles describe a variety of foods, caffeine, ion replenishment, energy drinks, herbal supplements including thyme and ginger, vitamins and the “hair of the dog” as ways to prevent and treat hangovers.

But the evidence isn’t really there that any of these work effectively. They’re just not scientifically validated or well reproduced.

For example, Kudzu root (Pueraria lobata), a popular choice for hangover remedies, has primar i ly been investigated for its effects in reducing alcoholmediated stress and hangover.

But, at the same time, Kudzu root appears to inhibit the enzymes that break down acetaldehyde—not good news since you want to clear that acetaldehyde from your system quickly.

To fill this knowledge gap, our lab is work ing w ith colleagues to see if we can find scientific evidence for or against potential hangover remedies.

We’ve focused on the benefits of dihydromyricetin, a Chinese herbal medicine that is currently available and formulated as a dietar y supplement for hangover reduction or prevention.

Dihydromyricetin appears to work its magic by enhancing alcohol metabolism and reducing

its toxic byproduct, acetaldehyde.

From our findings in mice models, we are collecting data that support the usefulness of dihydromyricetin in increasing the expression and activity of enzymes responsible for ethanol and acetaldehyde metabolism in the liver, where ethanol is primarily broken down. These findings explain one of the several ways dihydromyricetin protects the body against alcohol stress and hangover symptoms.

We are also studying how this enhancement of alcohol metabolism results in changes in alcohol drinking behaviors. Previously, dihydromyricetin was found to counteract the relaxation affect of drinking alcohol by interfering with particular neuroreceptors in the brain; rodents didn’t become as intoxicated and consequently reduced their ethanol intake.

Through this combination of mechanisms, we hope to illustrate how dihydromyricetin might reduce the downsides of excessive drinking beyond the temporary hangover, and potentially reduce drinking behavior and damage associated with heavy alcohol consumption.

Of course, limiting alcohol intake and substituting water for many of those drinks during an evening out is probably the best method to avoid a painful hangover.

However, for those times when one alcoholic beverage leads to more than a few more, be sure to stay hydrated and catch up on rest.

Your best bet for a smoother recovery is probably some combination of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug like ibuprofen, Netflix and a little downtime.

Daryl Davies/The Conversation (CC)

Japan, UK, PHL eye collaboration for sustainable coastal communities

Osamu Kobayashi (from left), director of the Department of International Affairs of JST; Dr. Mark Claydon-Smith, deputy director of the International Development of UKRI; and Dr. Enrico Paringit, executive director of DOST-PCIEERD S&T Media Service

B

ORACAY Island, Aklan—In a bid to come up with technologies that support sustainable coastal communities, science agencies from Japan, the United Kingdom and the Philippines initiated the crafting of a framework for a multi-funder cooperation among the three countries.

The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and Philippines’s Department of Science and Technology (DOST) convened researchers and stakeholders from the Southeast Asian countries to discuss recent studies on coastal communities and brainstorm ideas for possible research collaboration.

JST, UKRI and DOST are research funders focused on resolving global challenges, propelled by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. Collaboration among these institutions is encouraged as it increases the complementarity and impact of investments in terms of research funding, people, equipment, data, and other resources.

Execut ive Director Enr ico P a r i n g i t o f D O S T- P h i l i p p i n e Council for Industr y, Energ y and Emerg ing Technolog y Research

a n d D e v e l o p m e nt ( P C I EE R D) sa id t h at t he cooperat ion be t ween Japan, t he UK and t he Philippines should benefit coastal communities that face threats of c limate change.

“Having a multilateral approach to support research initiatives is a way for us to optimize resources.

There are research resources available in other countries that may be beneficial in the implementation of research projects here in the Philippines,” he said.

The multilateral cooperation focuses on sustainable coastal communities as several projects in the Southeast Asian region were identified as having a thematic focus on water, coastal communities and aquaculture—topics that are relevant to the SDGs. One major discussion during the workshop was the participants’ experience with funding agencies that will be the basis for the development of an effective multi-funder mechanism.

JST, UKRI and DOST will consolidate the input from the workshop and come up with a framework for a multi-funder cooperation that may take effect in the following years.

S&T Media Service

Faith A6 Sunday, December 29, 2019

Sunday

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

Many airports have a chapel where travelers can meditate

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lying home for the holidays? It is very likely that there is a chapel or meditation room tucked away somewhere in one of the airports you’ll pass through. Sixteen of the United States’s 20 largest airports have chapels, as do many more around the world.

Jewish synagogue in the 1960s.

These chapels were located at a distance from the terminals: Passengers wishing to visit them had to go outside. They were later razed and rebuilt in different area of JFK. In the 1970s and 1980s, Protestant chapels opened in Atlanta, and in several terminals of the Dallas Airport in Texas.

Becoming more inclusive

The entrance to Our Lady of the Airways Chapel at Logan International Airport today. Randall Armor, CC

I am a sociologist of contemporary American religion, and have written two recent articles about airport chaplains and chapels. My interest in airport chapels started as simple curiosity—why do airports have chapels and who uses them?

After visiting a few—including the chapel at Logan, my home airport here in Boston—I have concluded that they reflect broader changing norms around American religion.

How airports came to have chapels

The country’s first airport chapels were intended for staff rather than passengers, and were established by Catholic leaders in the 1950s and 1960s to make sure their parishioners could attend Mass.

The first one in the US, Our Lady

of the Airways, was built by Boston Archbishop Richard J. Cushing at Logan Airport in 1951 and it was explicitly meant for people working at the airport.

A neon light pointed to the chapel and souvenir cards handed out at the dedication read: “We fly to thy patronage, O Holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us away from all dangers, O glorious and blessed virgin.”

Our Lady of the Airways inspired the building of the country’s second airport chapel, Our Lady of the Skies at what was then Idlewild—and is today John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport in New York City.

Protestant chapels came later.

The first was in New York—again at JFK. It was designed in the shape of a Latin cross and was joined by a

By the 1990s and 2000s, singlefaith chapels had become a “dying breed.” Most started to welcome people from all religions.

And many were transformed into spaces for reflection, or meditation for weary travelers.

The chapel at San Francisco International Airport, for example, known as the Berman Reflection Room for Jewish philanthropist Henry Berman, who was a former president of the San Francisco Airport Commission, looks like a quiet waiting room filled with plants and lines of connected chairs.

A small enclosed space without any religious symbols, or obvious connections to things religious or spiritual is available for services.

The scene at the Atlanta Airport Chapel is similar—with only a few chairs and clear glass entrances—to provide space for quiet reflection.

Some airports, such as JFK, continue with their “Our Lady” names, indicating their faith-based origins.

Others include religious symbols and objects from a range of religious traditions. The chapel in Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, has multiple religious texts, alongside prayer rugs, rosary beads and artistically rendered quotes from the world’s major religions.

Pamphlets on topics ranging from grief to forgiveness are available for visitors to take with them at the Charlotte Airport.

Different airports, different rules

As these examples show, no two airports have negotiated chapel space in the same way. What is permissible in one city is often not in another.

Often, it is local, historical and demographic factors, including the religious composition of the region, that influence decisions. These could even be based on who started the chapel, or how much interreligious cooperation there is in a city.

Certain airports, such as Chicago’s O’Hare, have strict rules regarding impromptu religious gatherings whether inside the chapel or out.

Some use their public address systems to announce religious services.

Others prohibit such announcements, and do not even allow airport chaplains to put out any signs that could indicate a religious space.

If they are included in airport maps, chapels tend to be designated by the symbol of a person bent in prayer. But even then, they can be difficult to spot.

About half of the existing chapels are on the pre-security side of the airport, and the other half accessible only after passengers pass through security.

Only four large American airports—Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York’s LaGuardia— do not have chapel spaces, although opening such a space is under consideration. In the interim, at LaGuardia­— Catholic chaplain, holds Mass in a conference room.

What’s the future?

The reasons for these spaces and their variations are idiosyncratic, and intensely local. These chapels reveal a range of approaches to contemporary American religion and spirituality.

So on your travels, keep an eye out for these chapels. Note their similarities and differences, and recognize how important local histories are to how church-state issues are resolved—at airports and beyond. The Conversation (CC)

How old would you want to be in heaven?

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a n y religious faiths propose different versions of heaven as a location: There are walled gardens with streams, flowers, pleasing scents, pretty angels, rapturous music or delicious accessible food.

But what about us—the once-mortal— who will go on to inhabit the heavenly real estate? What form will our bodies take? Not all religions posit bodily resurrection. But those that do tend to depict them as young.

As the author of prize-winning books on age and culture, I tend to notice unseen forms of ageism.

I wonder: Is the cult of youth what we really want trailing us into the afterlife?

The righteous are young

According to Christian orthodoxy, if you’re worthy of being raised from the dead, you’ll be resurrected in the flesh, not merely as spirit, with a body restored like that of Christ, who died at 33.

In heaven there will be no whip marks, no scars from thorns, no bodily wounds. If eaten by cannibals or bereft of limbs from battle—some medieval people worried about wholeness in such conditions—people would regain their missing parts.

The body would be perfected, as the Apostle Matthew promised in the New Testament when he wrote, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear.”

In Islam, in the traditional Hadiths— the commentaries that succeeded the Quran—the righteous are also youthful, and apparently male.

“The people of Paradise will enter Paradise hairless [in their body], beardless, white colored, curly haired, with their eyes anointed with kohl, aged 33 years,” according to Abu Harayra, one of Mohammed’s companions.

The afterlife isn’t all based on sacred text.

Folklore, cultural traditions and audience demand also shape its images.

Western art has, over the centuries, located the promise of posthumous perfection in bodies that are youthful.

British historian Roy Porter writes that the art of the Renaissance (in which bodies were first portrayed with muscles and motion) showed “rosy-fleshed and even lithe bodies rising elegantly from the Earth, in an almost balletic movement.”

Think of the muscular naked bodies in Luca Signorelli’s Resurrection and the Crowning of the Blessed in Orvieto Cathedral.

Throughout history, some people died in their 90s, as they do now. But the luck of having lived a long life on Earth, with its wisdom and experience symbolically etched on the face and signaled by the august whiteness of hair, apparently did not cross over onto the other side.

In such visions of heaven, there would be no signs of our ordinary mortal passage. No wrinkles. No disability. No old age. “Perfected” means never having grown up even into the middle years.

Ageist and ableist, these traditions promote cults of youth. The New Testament, the Quran, the Italian Renaissance, the Romantic era—all sing the same declineoriented, exclusionary song.

On our screens, forever young

Jump to the myths of the modern world, and the aftercare of the fit juvenile body remains precious.

In vampire stories, for example, the undead bloodsuckers appear young and attractive. When their true age is revealed, it turns out that they’re often thousands of years old.

“Who wants to see old ghosts?” critic Martha Smilgis wrote in a 1991 Time feature about a recent spate of films that featured young, lithe actors populating the afterlife.

“Hollywood wants to remain forever young,” she continued, “and what better way than to extend yourself into another life?”

In the award-winning Black Mirror episode “San Junipero,” the fantasy of forever young becomes a reality: The dead can upload themselves into a simulation to live out their afterlives as their younger selves.

In other television shows about the afterlife, one way to avoid old ghosts is to simply have the characters all die young. And so in series like Dead Like Me and Forever, freak accidents on Earth ensure the resurrected are fit and attractive.

The best version of you

Because we now live in an age of longer, healthier lifespans—and because I’m in my 70s—I’m nonplussed by seeing the cult of youth persist.

People I know in later life are healthy.

Some are handsome. Unlike the great unwashed of previous epochs, old people too now bathe. We brush our teeth, so we don’t lose them before 40. Syphilis, in the rare event that we contract it, can be cured.

If we have partners, we enjoy sex.

I can understand idealizing youth in this life, but only by considering the ageism that people endure in the workplace.

Sure, a midlife job seeker, desperately unemployed, tweaks his date of birth on his résume because he is considered “too old” at too young an age. A woman dyes her hair and gets a little Botox for the same reason.

But in heaven, too, where capitalism is gratefully left behind? Surely, part of the Rapture is not having to depend on a boss and a paycheck. You can’t be fired, downsized or made redundant. If heaven means nothing else, it works like a good labor union, assuring blessed tenure.

So might we disrupt the ancient adolescent fantasies that, translated to our contemporary era, seem so anachronistic?

I am no longer a teenager. I have put away on Earth—as it should be in heaven—the peer pressures, the showy embarrassing décolletage, shaving my legs, the comical hair

styles and the beach-blanket boozy fantasies of the hourglass figure.

My earlier face would look weird to me were it suddenly to appear tomorrow over the bathroom sink. If heaven were furnished with mirrors—an unlikely scenario—I am certain I would want to behold the face I have now.

Whatever its earthly faults in the eyes of Hollywood plastic surgeons and the tiresome fashion magazines, it has the virtue of familiarity.

Heaven is supposed to be the entrance to a fuller, or better, future life—what mortals fail to obtain in the real world.

Does that now mean Club Med for young people? Fort Lauderdale at spring break? With more clothing? Or, perhaps, less?

Mormons are promised that they will spend eternity with their kin. For many people now, paradise is, more than anything, a place where we will meet loved ones. Often a beloved parent.

I would have no interest in a heaven in which my mother appeared to be 33, when I scarcely knew her as a six-year-old. Nor would I want her to look six decades younger than I do, were I to arrive in my 90s.

She died at 96, and I want her to have the face I loved in her very old age. There she would be, still smiling at me benignly, as she does in a photograph I see every day of my aging-into-old-age life.

Heaven can keep the pleasant streams, the divine choirs and the luscious apricots.

It can heal us of pain. We can be loved for who we are.

If all that, who needs to be younger, as well? I believe our dreams of the afterlife need to challenge the idée fixe that only the appearance of youth is valuable.

Some of us with longer lives don’t think it perfection to have the signs of who we are now, erased for eternity. We have a finer dream of human solidarity. Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Brandeis University/ The Conversation (Cc)

Some researchers believe atheists are disliked because people link their lack of belief to an overall lack of values. Gary Stevens/Flickr via The Conversation CC

Why some people distrust atheists A

n ad featuring Ron Reagan, son of the Republican former President Ronald Reagan, surprised some viewers of the recent Democratic primary debates.

In the 30-second spot, run by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Reagan expressed concern that religious beliefs have gained too much political influence in the United States. Reagan signed off by describing himself as a “lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.”

Reagan’s detractors expressed alarm. They were concerned that an “unabashed atheist”—a person who lacks belief in a god or gods—could speak so bluntly on national television.

And the ad inspired some strong reactions, with some major networks even banning it from the airwaves. And, perhaps, that should be unsurprising.

Research shows there is intense prejudice against atheists in the US. Of the approximately 25-percent proportion of the US population who do not identify as religious, a little over 3 percent identify specifically as atheists, although, some researchers claim the actual number might even be as high as 20 percent.

What’s behind such distrust?

Prejudice toward atheists

Because of this prejudice, people might be reluctant to identify themselves as atheists, even on anonymous questionnaires.

Research shows that atheists are trusted less than religious people. In fact, even atheists trust their fellow atheists less than religious people.

And until recently, a majority of Americans believed that atheists are not moral. University of Kentucky scholar Will Gervais and colleagues have found that people in several countries even tend to associate serial murder with atheism, relative to religious belief.

Social psychologists have spent years examining what causes some people to have negative feelings, thoughts and behavior toward atheists.

Some work argues, for example, that atheists are disliked because they remind religious believers of their inevitable mortality. That is, atheists deny the existence of an afterlife.

When reminded of death, this theory suggests, religious people respond with increased prejudice toward atheists.

Our 2018 study on the prejudices that religious believers hold against atheists, conducted along with our colleagues at Arizona State University, examined one previously unexplored cause of atheist prejudice: perceptions of their sexual behavior.

Religious people and values

Evidence suggests that religion and sexual behavior are often linked. Many major religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam and some traditional religions, promote lifestyles emphasizing fidelity and underscoring the importance of caring for one’s family.

And a large body of research suggests that such religions may be especially attractive to people who value such commitments—perhaps precisely because those religions help to reinforce their own lifestyle choices.

This is not to say that all sexually committed people are religious or vice versa. Rather, this seems to be a stereotype. For example, many atheists are married, and around 40 percent have young children.

Still, knowing the perceived connection between faith and sexual commitment, we suspected that people may see atheists, relative to believers, as less likely to endorse values like monogamy and caring for one’s family—values associated with being sexually committed.

In such people’s minds, sexually uncommitted behavior is linked to several other traits and social behavior, such as opportunism and being impulsive—traits that hardly inspire trust.

So we reasoned that people’s stereotypes of atheists as being sexually uncommitted were the root cause of distrust of atheists.

Distrust of uncommitted partners?

To test this, we recruited 336 participants from the US to complete an online experiment. They were randomly assigned to rate one of two detailed dating profiles. These two profiles differed only in whether the person profiled identified as religious or nonreligious.

We found that participants made inferences about the person in the profile based solely on religiosity. First, and consistent with past research, the nonreligious person was trusted less than the religious person.

Second, supporting our theory, the nonreligious person was rated as less likely to have committed lifestyle. For example, compared to the religious profile, people viewed the nonreligious one as less of a “faithful romantic partner” and less of a “dedicated” parent.

To determine whether this inference that atheists are sexually uncommitted actually caused distrust, we conducted a second experiment. We recruited 445 US participants and showed them the same profiles, but with one additional piece of information: The person in the profile was also described as keen to either “get married” or “play the field.”

Adding this scant bit of information about sexual behavior—“dating preferences”—was enough to override the assumptions people made about atheists.

Atheists who wanted to get married were thought to be just as trustworthy as religious people, and they were thought to be even more trustworthy than religious people who wanted to play the field.

Statistically, a person’s dating preferences explained approximately 19.7 percent of participants’ trustworthiness ratings—a fairly large effect for social sciences. By contrast, the person’s religiosity explained less than 1 percent.

Notably, religious participants did not evaluate the religious profile more favorably, suggesting that even religious folks are swayed more by someone’s sexual behavior than that person’s religiosity.

Jaimie Arona Krems/The Conversation (CC)

Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror

Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

Sunday, December 29, 2019

A7

Davao bags Sports Tourism Awards for Destination Marketing

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By Gelyka Ruth R. Dumaraos Photo from Selrahco PR

he City of Davao was lauded for its sports-related activities this year at the third edition of the Philippine Sports Tourism Awards (PSTA) held at the Grand Wing of Resorts World Manila, Newport City.

The City of Davao bagged the Destination Marketing of the Year for its Alveo Ironman 70.3 event which has gathered thousands of sports enthusiasts from all over the world last March.

City Tourism Operation Office (CTOO) Chief Gene Rose Tecson highlighted that this award is a major boost on the city’s initiative to strengthen the BIMP-Eaga or Brunei Darussalam-IndonesiaMalaysia-Philippines-East Asean Growth Area.

“We’re positioning the city as a MICE destination not only for the whole country, but also for the BIMP-Eaga,” Tecson said in an interview. “Also, we already have direct flights to Davao from Singapore, Hong Kong, and other countries within the Eaga, so this is very timely for us.”

BIMP-Eaga cooperation was founded 1994 in Davao City, and aims to boost connectivity, tourism, cross-border movement of goods and services, and the environment.

She added that it is also a timely recognition as Mindanao rises again after the Marawi crisis and the declaration of martial law in 2017.

Tecson recalled that they were

worried of the possible low participant turnout after the crisis but were surprised to have sold out slots before the competition.

The triathlon reportedly attracted over 2,200 participants from 38 countries in the 2019 edition. Participants included those from the United Arab Emirates, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Mexico, Ukraine, India, Malaysia, Qatar, the United States, Belgium, Spain, Italy, New Caledonia, Singapore, South Africa, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain, Korean, Norway, Thailand, Switzerland, Greece, Kuwait, New Zealand, Turkey, China, Guam, Mexico, Panama, Taiwan and the Philippines.

“We are working very hard to promote not only Davao but the whole of Mindanao as a safe place and a beautiful place to go to,” Tecson said. “With this award, we hope that more events will be held in Davao.”

For next year, Tecson looks forward to a brighter path for Davao’s sports tourism. Ironman will be once again held in Davao for the third time, as well as the Dragon Boat competition during the Kadayawan Festival in August.

She said, “We do hope that people will see Davao as another destination that is safe and chal-

This year’s best in promoting Philippine sports tourism as recognized by the Philippine Sports Tourism Awards

lenging at the same time.”

Sports tourism as sustainable tourism

Department of Tourism (DOT) Undersecretary for Tourism and Development Planning Benito Bengzon Jr., noted that sports tourism is not just about promoting a destination, but making it sustainable, as well, for the opportunities is brings to the locals.

“When we develop an area for tourism, not only do we improve its connectivity and infrastructure. We also make local communities our partners in progress.

This is something that I believe sports tourism has contributed substantially.”

Bengzon said that last year alone, DOT recorded over 5.4 million jobs across various tourism related enterprises. “We in the DOT strongly believe in the huge potential of sports tourism as a magnet for drawing more foreign visitors to the country.”

Meanwhile, Sunrise Events Inc., the organizer behind Ironman events in the country, also won the PSTA Event Organizer of the Year.

Clark Freeport clinched the Destination of the Year for orga-

nizing and supporting over 200 sporting events in the free port zone last year.

Other winners of PSTA 2019 were City of Dumaguete (Event Organizer of the Year— Government), Subic Bay—Ironman (Event of the Year—International), Ceres—Negros FC (Sports Association of the Year), Resorts World Manila (Charity Event of the Year), Sunlife Financial (Event Sponsorship of the Year), Philippine Airlines (Airline of the Year), AA Philippines (MICE Event of the Year), Marco Polo Plaza Hotel (Hotel of the Year), Cebu Pacific—

Juan for Fun (Adventure Event of the Year), Philippine Sports Commission/Philippine National Games (Event of the Year—Domestic), Panaad Park and Sports Complex, Bacolod City (Sports Venue of the Year).

Organized by Selrahco, a tourism marketing and public relations group, PSTA recognition were given to different entities, event organizers, hotels, airlines, government agencies, sports associations, destinations, corporate sponsors and charities for their efforts in promoting sports tourism in the Philippines.

Renowned Filipino Director A merry Christmas indeed at Bellevue Sigrid Andrea Bernardo visits Israel

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enowned Filipino Director Sigrid Andrea Bernardo, with her director of photography Roberto “Boy” Yñiguez, recently toured the destinations and major sites in Israel, to explore coproduction possibilities. She visited the country as a guest of the Israel Ministry of Tourism and was escorted by Anna Aban, marketing manager for Israel Ministry of Tourism of the Philippines.

Bernardo is an award-winning director whose latest movie Kita Kita (2017) ended

By Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez

its theatrical run with worldwide gross earnings of P320 million ($6 million) making it the highest-grossing Philippine independent film. For the film, she was nominated in the Best Director and Best Screenplay/ Screenwriter category in 2018, and won in both categories at the Star Awards for Movies. CNN Philippines considered Kita Kita to be one of the best romantic comedy films for the last 25 years. Bernardo has also been recognized by her peers in international fo-

The historic city of Jerusalem is one of the major attractions in Israel.

Filipino visitors Roberto “Boy ” Yñiguez and Sigrid Andrea Bernardo with Baha’i Gardens representatives in Haifa

Yñiguez and Bernardo visit the Judaean Desert.

rums for her other projects, most notably Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita (2013).

While in Israel, Bernardo went to different historical sites in the cities of Tel AvivYafo, Caesarea, Haifa, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea region. In Caesarea, she toured the Caesarea National Park, and in Jerusalem she visited the Old City, as well as a tour of some other sites of the city. She enjoyed a tour of the old city of Tel Aviv-Yafo and the beach promenade followed by an exciting nightlife tour that showcased the vibrant culture of the city after dark. In Haifa, Bernardo strolled through the city’s picturesque German colony and toured the famed Bahai’i World Centre and Hanging Gardens. No trip to Israel is complete without a visit to the famous Dead Sea region where Bernardo toured the historic Masada National Park, followed by the unique and exciting floating experience in the dense saltwater and mineral rich environment.

The visit showcased the unique terrain and vibrant culture of Israel, set against a uniquely intriguing historic backdrop. On Bernardo’s visit to Israel, Sammy Yahia, director of Israel Ministry of Tourism, India and the Philippines said, “Israel is a destination that has a lot to offer to travelers. We have seen a growing interest from the market with over 30,000 visitors from the Philippine to Israel this year [January through November], and a film is a great way to showcase the destination to the Filipino audience. I am happy to see there is an interest from Philippine film industry to showcase this beautiful country.

Bernardo is a well-respected director with a keen eye and I am looking forward collaborating with her.”

Israel offers a plethora of things to do and see to cater to the discerning traveler.

From the historical city of Jerusalem to the beach city of Tel Aviv-Yafo; from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, to the marvelous underwater marine life of Red Sea in Eilat, Israel is truly a dynamic destination.

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he most wonderful time of the year comes to Bellevue properties to the delight of holiday crowds around the country.

At its annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony at The Bellevue Manila, Bellevue Hotel and Resort’s (BH&R) flagship five-star property in Alabang, Muntinlupa City, guests were treated to a feast of flavors, good music and a meaningful resolve in the air—to celebrate the joy of family.

“Holiday traditions like this help bring the family closer,” said Patrick Chan, managing director of The Bellevue Manila, “It reminds us of what’s truly important.”

Joined by his children Gabby, Raffy and Sebastian, the BH&R head presented gifts to the special beneficiary of this year’s tree-lighting ceremony, the SOS Children’s Village Alabang, a nonprofit organization that provides long-term family-based care and assistance to children in need.

Patrick and his children also led the ceremonial tree lighting, and lit up the BH&R properties altogether, promising to be part of the cause to create a brighter world for the many children who bring light to the world.

This year’s celebration is the hotel group’s second event to be held simultaneously across all four of its properties via live stream in The Bellevue Resort, B Hotel Alabang, and B Hotel Quezon City. It is also the first to be led by a kid host, 12-yearold Naima Narciso, daughter of B Hotel Alabang Hotel Manager Glennis Narciso, who has been with BH&R for 15 years now.

As the display of lights illuminated the halls of The Bellevue Manila and its sister hotels, mesmerized onlookers were serenaded by Himig Muntinlupa, the official choral group of the City Government of Muntinlupa.

At The Bellevue Resort in Panglao, Bohol, world-renowned Lobo Children’s Choir performed for guests as they joined

BH&R brings Yuletide cheer simultaneously in all four of its properties via live stream.

the ceremonies via live stream.

On behalf of the Chan family, General Manager Rommel T. Gonzales led The Bellevue Resort’s celebrations, acknowledging special guests that included students from STEPS (Specialized Training and Education for Philippine Students), a program supported by The Bellevue Resort to improve the quality of life for the underprivileged by means of educational support, livelihood training, and teaching health awareness through organic gardening and seminars.

The students were gifted with school supplies, toys, and a chance to enjoy some special Bellevue Kids Activities, such as cookie and cupcake decorating.

Highlighting The Bellevue Resort’s celebration was the presence of International Gold Award winner and Bohol’s “Chocolate Princess” Dalareich Polot, who acknowledged the resort’s efforts in promoting the Boholano Culture. Polot recently won at the Apec Business Efficiency and Success Target Award, which was held earlier this year in La Serena, Chile.

Also gracing the exciting affair were Chairman Johnny Chan; Patrick; Dustin Chan, managing director for The Bellevue

Resort; and B Hotels Managing Director Ryan Chan.

In the spirit of bringing the family closer this season of giving, The Bellevue Manila is also gifting guests a month’s worth of treats.

Patrick shared that at the Bellevue Kids Club, parents and guardians bring their kids together to participate in activities, such as arts and crafts, storytelling, kitchen activities and nature explorers.

Ongoing for four years, the Bellevue Kids Club has been an instrumental part of BH&R’s family-centered services, allowing kids to gain new experiences and meet other kids.

December has plenty of gastronomic adventures in store for Bellevue patrons, as well, beginning with a special Christmas and birthday gift for December celebrants—dine at Café D’Asie for free throughout the whole month when birthday celebrants take part in the buffet specials with three companions.

At Homare, guests will love the authentic Japanese cuisine with assorted sushi and maki platters for the whole month of December, while guests can avail themselves holiday pastries at Pastry Corner’s.

Sports BusinessMirror

A8 Sunday, December 29, 2019

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

SIMONE BILES: THE SMILE IS REAL

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By Will Graves

The Associated Press

HEY’RE called “Simone Things,” a catchall phrase for the casual ease with which Simone Biles seems to soar through her sport and her life.

The irony, of course, is that there’s nothing casual or easy about it. Any of it. The greatest gymnast of all time and 2019 Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year only makes it seem that way.

Those jaw-dropping routines that are rewriting her sport’s code of points and redefining what can be done on the competition floor?

Born from a mix of natural talent, hard work and a splash of ego.

The 25 world championship medals, the most by any gymnast ever? The result of a promise the 22-year-old made to herself when she returned to competition in 2017 after taking time off following her golden run at the 2016 Olympics.

The stoicism and grace she has shown in becoming an advocate for survivors—herself included—and an agent for change in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual-abuse scandal that’s shaken USA Gymnastics to its core? The byproduct of a conscious decision to embrace the immense clout she carries.

“I realize now with the platform I have it will be powerful if I speak up and speak for what I believe in,” Biles told The Associated Press.

“It’s an honor to speak for those that are less fortunate. So if I can

be a voice for them in a positive manner, then of course I’m going to do whatever I can.”

And it’s that mission—combined with her otherworldly skill and boundless charisma—that’s enabled Biles to keep gymnastics in the spotlight, a rarity for a sport that typically retreats into the background once the Olympic flame goes out. She is the first gymnast to be named AP Female Athlete of the Year twice and the first to do it in a non-Olympic year.

Biles edged US women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe in a vote by AP member sports editors and AP beat writers. Skiing star Mikaela Schiffrin placed third, with WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne fourth. Biles captured the award in 2016 following a showstopping performance at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, where she won five medals in all, four of them gold. She spent most of the following 12 months taking a break before returning to the gym in the fall of 2017, saying she owed it to herself to mine the depth of her talent.

Check social media following one of her rout ines a nd you’ll find people—from LeBron James to Michelle Obama to

SIMONE BILES is the first gymnast to be named the Associated Press’s Female Athlete of the Year. twice and the first to do it in a non-Olympic year. AP

Chrissy Teigen—struggling to distill what they’ve witnessed into 280 characters or fewer, with whatever they settle on typically followed by multiple exclamation points and a goat emoji, a nod to Biles being considered the Greatest Of All Time.

Her triple-twisting double-flip (the “triple double”) at the end of her first tumbling pass on floor exercise is a wondrous blur. Her double-twisting double-flip beam dismount (the “double double”) is so tough the International Gymnastics Federation made the unusual decision to downplay its value in an effort to deter other gymnasts from even trying it.

This is both the blessing and

the curse of making the nearly impossible look tantalizingly attainable. When Biles learned about the FIG’s decision, she vented on Twitter, her palpable frustration highlighting the realness she’s maintained even as her first name has become synonymous with her sport’s royalty.

It can lead to a bit of a balancing act. In some ways, she’s still the kid from Texas who just wants to hang out with her boyfriend and her dog and go to the grocery story without being bothered. In other ways, she’s trying to be respectful of the world she’s built.

Take the GOAT thing. It’s a title she embraces—Biles wore a goat-themed leotard during

training at the national championships in August—but also takes with a grain of salt, determined to stay grounded even as the hype around her grows. Yes, GOAT happens to be the acronym for her planned post-Olympic “Gold Over America Tour,” but ask her where the inspiration came from and she laughs and gives credit to a friend, Kevin, who came up with it in a group chat. It is both paying tribute to and winking at her status at the same time.

Biles has become well aware over the last three years that her every word and action carries far greater weight than she ever imagined. Her most impactful moment

of 2019 might not have come during a meet but sitting for an interview on the eve of winning her record sixth national title, when she fought back tears while talking about how USA Gymnastics, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the FBI failed to protect athletes during an investigation into Nassar’s abusive behavior.

The moment went viral, as most things surrounding her tend to do these days.

“I’m starting to realize it’s not just the gymternet anymore,” Biles said, using the term for her sport’s dedicated fans. “It’s an overall thing. It’s weird to get that kind of attention, but at the end of the day, I feel gymnastics has been overlooked in non-Olympic years.

Yeah, it puts pressure on me. But I’m not trying to think about all the attention from the outside world.”

The attention figures to only grow in the run-up to Tokyo, where she will attempt to become the first female gymnast in more than half a century to repeat as Olympic champion. Her smiling face serves as the exclamation point at the end of every television promo for the Summer Games.

Let it be known: The smile is real. That might not have always been the case, but is is now. Heading into the final months of a singular career, she is trying to revel in the journey while anxiously awaiting what’s next. Add it to the list of Simone Things.

“I feel like this is the beginning of my life and I don’t want gymnastics to be my whole entire life,” she said. “I’m definitely going to soak in the moment and enjoy it so 10 years from now I can look back and say ‘I had the time of my life out there’...rather than ‘I was good, but I was miserable.’”

OLD MEN BRADY, BREES ROLL ON

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ETWEEN them, Tom Brady and Drew Brees have played 38 pro football seasons, 39 if you count 2008 when the New England star wrecked his knee in Week 1. Both probably should be long retired and counting the days until their induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Instead, they’re still slinging away—and could be doing so against each other on February 2 in a little thing called the Super Bowl.

No, 40-year-old quarterbacks should not still be setting National Football League (NFL) records. Yet Brees always seems to be doing so.

And certainly 42-year-old QBs don’t even belong on the field. But Brady has the Patriots in position for—not that most of America wants to read this—a fourth straight trip to the Super Bowl, and his 10th overall, with six wins.

The influx of hotshot arms, from Patrick Mahomes to Lamar Jackson, from Carson Wentz to Deshaun Watson, has captured so much attention through the football galaxy. Still, it’s the two 40-somethings who lord over the quarterbacking universe, possibly for their final seasons.

Adding spice to their continued presence center stage are the stats.

Consider the career touchdowns passing mark that Peyton Manning held until Brees broke it in Game 14 for the Saints.

He now has 544, beating Brady to the record in part because New Orleans has a more dangerous, dependable and varied attack than does New England these days.

Brady is at 539.

While neither passer is a stats freak, they certainly are aware of the numbers they have compiled.

“Obviously, before the season you know you are a certain distance away, but then once the season starts, you just focus on winning games and doing what I need to do as a quarterback of this team to put us in the best position to succeed,” Brees says. “With that, I guess the statistics come, and maybe they add up, and then all of a sudden, you’re close enough to be within striking distance of some of those things.”

With Michael Thomas running routes for him, Brees could always be closing in

on unthinkable numbers. Thomas already has broken the single-season record for receptions with 145, and he caught 42 of those from Teddy Bridgewater while Brees was sidelined for five games with a thumb injury.

The presence of Thomas, running back Alvin Kamara, a solid offensive line and Coach Sean Payton could be enticing enough for Brees to come back next year.

Or he could walk away from the NFL with nothing to prove, particularly if the Saints can win a second NFL title since he ventured to the Big Easy in 2006. That’s certainly doable: If New Orleans beats weak Carolina on Sunday while Green Bay and San Francisco lose, the Saints will be the National Football Conference’s top seed. A simple victory over the Panthers earns a bye.

New Orleans could wind up in an odd position for 2020 at quarterback because Bridgewater will be a high-demand free agent. The Saints would love to hang on to the 27-year-old Bridgewater, who went 5-0 replacing Brees. But at what price if Brees is still around?

New England has similar questions to answer, and they will magnify after the playoffs. Brady has had an inconsistent

FOR Tom Brady and Drew Brees, entering their 40s has had no effect—that same might be true when they are 50. AP

season with little established talent around him. His only dependable veteran target is Julian Edelman, and the protection has been spotty at best. Unlike Brees, who still has the mobility to make plays outside the pocket, Brady is pretty much stationary.

He’s also perhaps the greatest pocket passer ever. Surely, the fiery, often combative (on the field) Brady is the most accomplished quarterback with his six rings. To ever dismiss him is foolish, and the Patriots are 12-3, just like the Saints.

But there are more negative vibes around Brady than ever. His passer rating could wind up his lowest since 2003. His contract ends after this season. There have been rumblings he wants out of New England, whether by retirement or, if you can imagine, by joining another club as a free agent.

Brees hasn’t been drawing those kinds of headlines, of course. Then again, while he’s been the face of the franchise in New Orleans, Brady for years has been the face of the NFL. Brady notes that there really is not a status quo in sports—not even for a quarterback with nearly two full decades of play on his resume.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of new pieces and you’re always trying to incorporate from week to week,” Brady says. “And every year, it’s a little bit different, the challenges are different. You just can’t rely on, ‘Oh well, we’ll just do exactly what we used to do,’ or, ‘We’ll do exactly what we did last week.’

You have to kind of reinvent yourself every week. How the game plan takes shape and what guys are asked to do in order to execute takes shape.

“It’s always a little bit of a challenge, but football season is not supposed to be easy. It’s a hard grind for us.... We’re in the middle of it, we’re deep into it and just got to have the mental toughness and the competitive stamina to keep showing up every day and working as hard as you can to be ready to compete when we’re called upon.’’

That’s something Brady and Brees always have been able to do. Entering their 40s has had no effect. The same might be true when they are 50.

How Ninja set off an ‘all-out talent war’ in video gaming

How Ninja set off an ‘all-out talent war’ in video gaming

By Lucas Shaw & Olga Kharif Bloomberg Mercury

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n August 1, a rail-thin 28-yearold with hair dyed red, white and blue altered the course of video gaming with three words: “The next chapter.”

That tweet introduced a video in which Tyler Blevins, known to his fans as Ninja, announced he was moving from Twitch, a video site owned by Amazon.com Inc., to Mixer, a rival site owned by Microsoft Corp.

“This is a really good chance to get back in touch with my roots,” Blevins said in the video, a mock press conference in which he answered questions from a talking bush and a cooler filled with the energy drink Red Bull.

Blevins’s defection shocked the $152-billion video-game industry. Twitch is the most popular web site in the world for diehard gamers, and Blevins was one of its biggest stars. More than 14 million people followed his channel, where he streamed himself playing games like Fortnite for hours each day. He gave that up to join a rival site with a fraction of the audience.

The move set off a fight for talent unprecedented in the history of video games and online influencers—“an all-out talent war,” according to Justin Warden, the head of eSports marketing company Ader.

In just the past few months, more than a dozen top gamers have signed exclusive agreements to live stream with Twitch’s rivals, such as YouTube and Facebook.

They include Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, who joined Ninja at Mixer; Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, who left for YouTube; and Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios, who joined Facebook.

(Mainstream celebrities have gotten in on the action, as well. Rapper Offset signed a streaming deal with Caffeine, which is backed by Walt Disney Co.)

“Entertainers who three to five years ago were streaming from their apartments or parents’ home are now world-class entertainers getting multimillion-dollar deals.”

The biggest streamers are earning as much as $40 million over three to five years, contracts that mirror those of professional athletes. And that’s just for live streaming. Like athletes, many of the biggest streamers get sponsorship deals worth millions more.

Twitch countered by signing new longterm deals with Saqib “Lirik” Zahid and Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar, both of whom rank among the site’s most popular creators.

The deals reflect the growing clout of a handful young video-game players, whom companies are paying millions of dollars to help lure viewers away from Twitch and sell new consoles and gaming services. Many industry experts trace the current dealmaking to a handful of new gaming products in the market. Microsoft is developing a new version of its Xbox video game console, and Google just released a new cloud gaming platform called Stadia.

“The past few years have validated live streaming as an industry, and we’ve high-

lighted the potential of the intersection of gaming and live,” Sara Clemens, Twitch’s chief operating officer, said in an interview, before adding, “We are incredibly confident in our position.” The gold rush is a reward for gamers who’ve been streaming live, hours a day, for years on end. Many of the most popular personalities, including Ninja and Lirik, started live streaming in Twitch’s very first year, 2011. The site started as a spin-off from Justin.tv, named after cofounder Justin Kan, one of the first people to stream his life live on the Internet.

While Justin.tv hosted general entertainment, Twitch quickly found an audience among video-game enthusiasts.

Twitch added millions of viewers over its first few years, and in 2014 was acquired by Amazon for almost $1 billion, a deal which introduced the start-up to the general public. Twitch has tried over the years to break into new areas like cooking and live sports, but the vast majority of its audience still comes for live gamers, where Twitch is the undisputed king.

Even small eSports names gain as industry matures

S

mall-cap eSports companies can benefit as more advertisers find value in the industry’s ability to attract a younger, richer audience and as the industry builds out infrastructure, according to Stephens Inc. The firm initiated coverage of two eSports companies, rating Allied Esports Entertainment Inc. as a buy-equivalent and Super League Gaming Inc. as a hold-equivalent and setting their price targets at $5 and $3, respectively.

The combined market value of the two southern California companies is less than $90 million.

Shares of Allied Esports rose 3.3 percent to $2.84 at 1:14 p.m. in New York, paring earlier gains of as much as 9.1

percent. The company’s arenas are well positioned to capitalize on demand for in-person eSports events, Stephens said. Super League Gaming, which runs an eSports community and content platform, rose 6.4 percent to $2.81.

Gaming has an “enviable position” due to its main audience being young, digitally native and affluent, analyst Jeff Cohen said in a research note. While eSports is still in its nascent stages and currently under-monetizes on a perviewer basis compared to traditional sports, advertisers have started to look at the industry as a way of connecting with an increasingly tough-to-reach demographic.

“Esports leagues and tournaments have begun to see

2 BusinessMirror

an influx of non-endemic sponsorship money,” Cohen said.

He highlighted T-Mobile US Inc., Toyota Motor Corp. and Sour Patch Kids as sponsors of Activision Blizzard Inc.’s Overwatch League.

The industry’s revenue streams are largely the same as those for traditional sports, including sponsorships and advertising, merchandise and tickets sales, and media rights.

Stephens sees those revenue streams continuing to grow as brands not linked to gaming recognize the return on investment of marketing to the audience that eSports attracts. Bloomberg News

December 29, 2019

YouTube is the most popular web site for gaming videos in general. It draws more than 200 million users to gaming content every day, according to Ryan Wyatt, the head of YouTube’s gaming operations. But most of them watch short prerecorded videos. YouTube’s share of the live streaming business is just 21 percent, compared with Twitch’s 73 percent, according to Stream Elements, an industry researcher. No other site accounts for more than 5 percent.

“Entertainers who three to five years ago were streaming from their apartments or parents’ home are now world-class entertainers getting multimillion-dollar deals.”

Twitch’s dominance caused stagnation, however. The site failed to offer new ways for talent to get paid or tools to enhance their videos. That opened the door to other sites. “Twitch’s reputation has suffered lately,” said Andrey Yanyuk, chief executive officer of Tempo Storm, which brokered ZeRo deal’s with Facebook.

Continued on Page 8

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YOUR MUSIC OUR BUSINESS

THE BLOOMFIELDS

HIT THE GROUND RUNNING AGAIN

WITH THEIR NEW SOUND, THE BLOOMFIELDS DOESN’T WANT TO BE BOXED ANYMORE

By Darwin V. Fernandez and Edwin P. Sallan

I

NITIALLY identified as a retro band heavily influenced by The Beatles and the Merseybeat sound of the 1960s, The Bloomfields nonetheless first struck gold with their rousing hit cover of Bodjie Dasig’s OPM classic, “Ale” in 2007 which to date remains their most-streamed song on Spotify.

They also backed up Jim Paredes on an inspired rendition of Labuyo’s “Tuloy Pa Rin Ako” in 2013 which is also among the group’s Top 5 streamed tunes.

Then came their second studio release, Hit the Ground Running and a Christmas album which saw traces of 80s funk and 90s Britpop, The Bloomfields remained active in the live circuit before surprising everyone with A Drop Into the Blue, their latest album released by Curve

Entertainment early this year.

Now a quartet composed of Louie Poco on bass, Lakan Hila on keyboards and guitars, Dino Pascual on rhythm guitars, keyboards and harmonica and Rocky Collado on drums and percussions, The Bloomfields has released a collection of new songs which they say is a marked departure from the 60s sound that most audiences have identified themselves with.

“A Drop Into the Blue is the

culmination of years of composing and self-doubt and reassessing and trying again and finally just saying ‘Yes, I think we got it this time.’ It was difficult for us to find the sound that we wanted to express ourselves with, but now we’re ready to join the larger world of music that we’ve isolated ourselves from for too long,” Collado noted.

“Our most notable influences for the album are the genres of 50s surf rock, the 60s british invasion, 70s psychedelia and funk, 80s new wave and 90s britpop. That sounds like a lot of conflicting genres but trust us, we found a way to make it work. If you’re wondering what that sounds like, I urge you take listen. We created the music to express thoughts and ideas that we couldn’t normally define in simple prose or conversation.”

“For a time, we were boxed,” Pascual added, “For this one, we decided no rules.”

The well-received album first

yielded the bluesy, experimental “One Time Nevermind,” which so far has now become their moststreamed song since “Ale.” Their new single, “In The City” is the result of a partnership with the iconic British fashion brand, Ben Sherman. Poco says that despite the retro English rock themes, the tune has a mod-soul vibe with a more contemporary local twist. “[Composing the song] started when Filipino swag became a trend. ‘In The City’ is part of the album’s experimental tone as a whole,” Poco added.

For Collado, the inspiration for composing, arranging and producing the songs on the new album came from numerous places and circumstances.

“I hear songs in my head during dull stretches of time that city life imposes upon me daily; boring meetings, plane rides, long drives or waiting in line at the bank to Continued on page 6

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Sound BusinessMirror

DECEMBER 29 , 2019 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUS

MELT RECORDS | THE SOUNDS OF VIS-MIN

MORE ON CEBU CITY’S INDIE MUSIC SCENE

D

By KARL R. De MESA

erwin Dexter Sy idolizes Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan of North Carolina indie label Merge Records.

He’s also taken plenty of inspiration from Tony Wilson, the head honcho of famous Manchesterbased Factory Records who had artists like Joy Division and Happy Mondays on their roster, in his incarnation in the book Factory: The Story of The Label and in the seminal movie 24-Hour Party People.

“Both book and movie were something that, perhaps unrealistically, shaped how I thought running a label would look like,” Sy said when he wrote to Business Mirror, the humor coming through our correspondence.

Perhaps it’s quite apt that the adventurous spirit of Tony Wilson runs through Sy and his compatriots, as their fledgling label Melt Records may well have both the ambition and the deep well of diverse talent to draw from to one day reach such great heights of Manc glory.

Melt Records started as the brainchild of Sy, founded at the beginning of 2018 in Cebu City (“actually on the internet, mostly” added Sy), carrying over the operational procedures and catalog from their old label, Bomba Press.

Melt Records not only wants to transform how independent musicians and artists in Cebu City and in the Visayas and Mindanao create, distribute, and build communities around their music, but they also envision making their current business model eventually obsolete—a counter intuitive move that will see their artists going fully

Honeydrop

independent, with the resources to jump high and fly on their own.

As of this writing, there are 27 artists on the roster of Melt Records, with bands hailing mostly from the southern cities of the archipelago.

Standouts include the frolicking reverb saturated guitars of Loop from Iligan, the impressive dream pop and shoegaze flavors of KRNA from Cagayan De Oro, the eclectic, tongue-in-cheek, indie rock of Sunday Sunday from Cebu, and the math rock stylings of Honeydrop (also from Cebu).

Though Melt Records hasn’t let geographic regionalism stop them at all as they also have the classic early aughts emo punk stylings of Ordinary Neighbors from Canada (sadly now on the inactive column) and even Caviteño rockabilly swaggerists Stray Mullets.

This is an important trait, since most of the label founders and personnel are themselves musicians from the Visayas, they consciously refrain from perpetuating any kind of regional elitism they may have previously experienced as creatives based out of the often snobbish and patronizing Imperial Manila. A good song, after all, is a good song, wherever it may have originated.

“Speaking from the perspective of an artist, I dare say YES [there was some geographic elitism]. But this was blatantly happening before when social media and Spotify didn’t exist,” explained Debb Acebu, head of PR and marketing for Melt Records, who

Kubra Commander

KRNA

MELT CDS

also does vocal duties for Honeydrop and also with Terno Records’ Ang Bandang Shirley.

“But looking back, the struggle of being coined as a ‘provincial act/artist’

by Manila people can oftentimes become insulting, knowing that most acts are from key cities in Mindanao and Visayas,” Acebu added. “Yet, I have also come into terms with the idea that probably Manila can just be too vain, hence Manila-centric.”

Meantime, Sy plays in Psychomonkey (and also takes on producer roles), and their A&R head Mic Mic Pacalioga plays in Loop.

Rounding out the team are label manager Cyril Peral (creative director of design studio Inodoro™) and creative director PJ Ong. Historically, the pioneers at independent Cebu label Lighter Press Records led the way in the early-to-mid aughts to shine the spotlight on Vis-Min artists, so the rest of the nation could get to know the music of acts such as Faspitch, The Ambassadors, and Dice & K9, Nuncyspungen (from Cagayan de Oro), Point Click Kill (from Iloilo), and of course Urbandub.

Sy acknowledged this as he “personally came of age in music as a fan of the things Lighter Records was putting out. It definitely inspired and it enlightened me as to what is actually

LOOP

possible in the Cebu music scene.”

Still, Sy can’t ascertain how geographic centricity can be utilitarian later on and so elevating experiences, creating opportunities, and fostering communities are the bigger plan.

“I think it’s all about the ‘indie music’ community and geography should hardly be a factor,” Sy said.

“We never consciously showcased Vis-Min artists though it happened naturally since Vis-Min is close to home for us. I never saw geography as a limitation.”

Whether they’re inspired by Mike Patton’s Ipecac Recordings, Fueled

by Ramen Records, or Tony Wilson’s Factory Records, Sy and the good folks at Melt Records are working hard at what is currently still a passion project to not just get the word out that there’s awesome talent in the south of the archipelago, but that the rest of the country, nay, the world, needs to be listening to them stat. “’Melt’ had a nice ring to it and rolls off the tongue easily,” explained creative director Ong about how he came up with the label name. “It was also a name that was partly inspired by the idiom of ‘ear-melting’ or ‘brainmelting’ music.”

Check out the roster of artists Ads and their music at Melt Records’ Facebook page.

d trip

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | DECEMBER 29 , 2019

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SIC OUR BUSINESS

SPLENDID DEVELOPMENT

CATCHING UP WITH SPLENDIO TRITUS

By Darwin Fernandez

I

T has almost been two years since a group of young passionate musicians caught the attention of SoundStrip. With a desire to feature every extraordinary bit of OPM and the Philippine music scene, it’s hard to resist not to tell the story of Splendio Tritus, the second time around.

It was back in 2018 when the quartet was featured right on the banner section of SoundStrip, and since then, the Ferrer Family’s Nicolle (guitar and vocals), Josiah (or Josh) (bass and vocals), Iazelle (drums) and Yhaele (keyboard and vocals), have been up and pulling others with them as they carry their Musical Mission advocacy wherever they go.

A lot can happen in a day and even more so in a year, as the eldest of the crew, Nicolle shared that it has been a struggle keeping up with their old and new selves.

“Currently, we have 13 original compositions and seven have been recorded, [but] we only released two for now because we just wanted to preserve our young voices as they will become part of the past,” she beamed, “All of us just surpassed puberty. We still encounter some voice cracks from time to time.”

Still with the same confidence in their band, Josh still hopes to have their songs being a part of a movie soundtrack, for a film that’s equally inspirational as their sound, and invites Disney to try.

This young bassist was one of the reasons Splendio appealed to SoundStrip—despite his autism, the second-born kuya remains

SPLENDIO TRITUS

optimistic and dedicated to his craft, making this group just heart-warming to watch. Aside from the band, he has other talents he hopes to pursue career-wise.

“I am in Senior High Grade 11 at University of Batangas- Lipa Campus. Despite my condition, I feel appreciated and supported by my teachers and classmates.

I hope to study Architecture in college, also at UB-Lipa Campus.”

Furthermore, Josh was nominated for SENIA International Awards because of his contributions to the group’s advocacy.

Iazelle on the other hand is quite the forward thinker at her young age, as this ninth grader shares, she has a fondness for the technical aspects of her world.

“I am the heartbeat of the band and I hope to improve my skills further,” she says, “I plan to finish RSL (Rock School of London) courses next year and maybe take up RSL certification by 2021.

“I learned from our mentors that our compositions includes syncopations, polyrhythmic and metric modulations but maintaining the same beats per minute. Hence, they mentioned

that this is what makes our music unique. I plan to hone my drum skills further to support my siblings in our music,” she concluded.

Sharing Iazelle’s love for puzzles, Yhaele also plans to take up robotics in the future. He shares that another aspect of what makes their music unique is a feel for the sound.

“All of us rarely read notes, we play by ear and I hope we could be able to share this skill with others in the future, because it really feels good playing music by ear.”

When a video of the group rocking their hearts out in 2017 went viral, Nicolle was partly to blame. Using her skills in video editing, she not only composes the songs for the band but also creates videos on their Facebook and YouTube pages.

The music that has strengthened their bond as siblings has brought them far from their living room jam sessions.

The Ferrer kids, however, haven’t forgotten what their music is supposed to be.

With the support from their relatives, fans, and their ever faithful Sandatahang Splendio fan group, they perform in almost

every charity gig they’re invited to and even arranged some of their own. Way back in 2017 they raised P10,000 to pay for the bills of a Baby Matt Morada, as well as performing for Rockapatiran 1 to 4, and even with big music icons in their gig at the Niños Inosentes DengVaxia Awareness Concert featuring Freddie Aguilar at the Quezon City Memorial Circle.

Among their most recent activities were at the 30th Angels Walk for Autism, where they performed in front of a crowd of 24,000 parents, SPED teachers, music lovers and all members of Autism Society Philippines.

It was sponsored by SM Cares Foundation.

After almost two years of performing in public from June 2017 to December 2019, the band has accumulated a total of 96 gigs, 20 of which were for a good cause. This also led to the band getting featured in book published by the Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation.

Splendio Tritus has a lot on their plate already, but with how far they’ve gotten, it seems they won’t be stopping any time soon.

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DECEMBER 29 , 2019| soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

Sound trip BusinessMirror

YOUR MUSIC OUR BUSINESS

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

FIRST QUARTER (ROCK) STORM 2020 Part 1

I

Manila Rocks Into A New Decade

T looks like heavy weather’s coming up in the first three months of January 2020. No, I’m not talking about the initial surge of climate change effects. I’m referring to livewire rock action that could change the climate of heavy music in these parts.

So yeah, let’s welcome some nasty inclement weather to blow across the first quarter of the first year of a brand new decade to quite possibly kingdom come.

Here’s the first fusillade from the rocking visitors in January.

12 January SILVERSTEIN Live! at Skydome, SM North EDSA Canada’s Silverstein are one of the longest-running stalwarts of the emo-post hardcore scene and they’re coming to Manila in celebration of their 20th anniversary as an active rock outfit. The band is set to play their iconic 2005 album titled “Discovering of The Waterfront” in its entirety along with other classics that brought them to mainstream success across the rock and pop divide. Silverstein’s live concert special “When

Hit...

from page 3

name a few. I’ve gotten into the habit of recording ‘interesting’ phrases or melodies whenever they come to mind so I can later revisit my little collection of ideas and see what I can come up with.

It’s the first step in manifesting something from the imagination into the real world. Once it’s recorded, me and my bandmates can then shape and mold it to however we please,” he explained.

One thing that has changed for The Bloomfields since their early days is how social media plays a more prominent role in promoting their music.

“It has been a long time since we released a single so we’re

Broken Is Easily Fixed” released in 2019 is a peek at the band at their crazy best.

Defying Decay from Bangkok opens the show that’s expected to be both emotional and cathartic in its length and breadth.

18 January STATE CHAMPS at Mow’s Bar, Matalino St. QC On tour behind their latest album, “Living Proof,” New York hotshots State Champs are coming to QC’s favorite indie hang-out to re-ignite the torch of pop-punk’s undying flame. Their third and latest release has been described as a fusion of old and newer sounds built around unrelenting drums, melodic riffs and the chameleonic voice of frontman Derek Discario. surprised to see that social media has become the playing field to get our music across. I’ve done more Facebook lives than I can remember. If there ever was a time to release music, it would be now,” Pascual added.

Currently the group has a Facebook page and a YouTube channel where they hold their Studio Sesh—a full jam session were they play their originals and cover songs. They also feature guest performances from some prominent names in the music scene like Chris Padilla from Hilera and Paul Putian from Coffee Break Island. A future episode will feature Orange and Lemons frontman Clem Castro.

Critics are hopeful that the new album will finally catapult State Champs to the ranks of giants of pop-punk.

Fellow post-hardcore travelers and 2017 Vans Warped Tour veterans Movements starts the show

20 January AS I LAY DYING at Skydome, SM North EDSA Hounded by a turbulent history, US metal mainstays As I Lay Dying are bringing to Manila the essence behind their comeback album “Shaped By Fire.” Chumps beware.

Tech death riffolas, head-banging rhythms and overall moshpit friendly intensity will rule the night when no harm, no foul, all gloves are off slips out of the main door.

The band is also on a rampage to take back their rightful place in the modern metal totem pole so sonic rage and pillage are on the set list.

Really, chumps stay home.

Malaysia’s metalcore marauders Massacre Conspiracy kicks off the proceedings.

9 February TINY MOVING PARTS at Skydome, SM North EDSA Minnesota’s Tiny Moving Parts are returning to the Manila after a memorable live performance last year and on the heels of a brand new album that fresh tunes from the amiable pop-punk American outfit. In a press release, band vocalist Dylan Mattheisen shared that the batch of new songs tackles most of the same dark themes the trio has confronted in previous releases, this time with a more positive outlook on life and love. They promise to deliver a more sinewy take on punk, math-rock and emo that have endeared to Filipino music fans in a 2018 performance.

Between February and March, the stormy squall continues with the Malasimbo Arts & Music Festival and Wanderland Music & Arts Fest.

Bigger rock acts like Green Day, Jimmy Eat World and Slipknot are also coming Stay tuned.

In the ‘Star Wars’ economy, one thing doesn’t pay

By Adam Minter

J

Bloomberg Opinion

unk is surprisingly pervasive in Star Wars, playing an understated role in nearly every film in the series.

In The Phantom Menace, we meet young Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader, working at a small electronics scrap yard and repair shop. In A New Hope, Luke Skywalker’s uncle buys R2-D2 and C-3PO from a group of Jawas, a species that drive massive, sand-crawling junk trucks.

The recently released Rise of Skywalker is largely a coming-of-age story for Rey, the last of the Jedi, who spent her youth scavenging electronic scrap on Jakku, a remote outer planet.

As a third-generation descendent of earthbound scrap-metal recyclers, I’ve subjected myself to repeated Star Wars viewings (even of the bad films), partly just to spot all the junkyard tidbits. Over the years, I’ve developed a theory or two about the waste and recycling economy in the series, and enjoyed sharing it with (primarily) other junkyard descendants.

But in 2018, I realized there might be a larger audience for these insights.

That year, China—for decades the world’s biggest importer of recyclables— started imposing stringent restrictions on what recycled stuff it would still accept from overseas. In the aftermath, prices for recyclables dropped steeply, raising costs and reducing profits for businesses around the world.

Alas, Star Wars doesn’t offer any advice on how to find new markets for used plastic detergent jugs. And no, Rey can’t

Rey, the last of the Jedi, spent her youth scavenging electronic scrap on Jakku, a remote outer planet. conjure the Force to boost the price of used cardboard boxes. But if you watch the films carefully, they have a good story to tell about turning waste into something that people might want—and, even better, buy.

The Star Wars universe generates tons of trash, much of it recyclable. Yet, for all the scrap yards and scavengers, you see very little actual recycling. Mostly, the metal, plastic and paper seems to get tossed out with the trash. My favorite example occurs in The Empire Strikes Back.

At a crucial moment, an Imperial star destroyer dumps stadium-sized chunks of metallic garbage into space before jumping to hyperspace (this, according to Han Solo, is Imperial protocol). From an earthbound perspective, this is commercial suicide: Metals are the world’s most recyclable materials, and even villains know there’s money to be made in selling them.

But a similar pattern repeats throughout the series. In The Force Awakens, early scenes on Jakku are dominated by the wreckage of an immense star destroyer.

It’s reminiscent of the huge seagoing vessels that are run onto the beaches of

India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, then disassembled by hand and recycled in a matter of months—down to the individual screws. Crash a star destroyer in Alang, India, one of the world’s hubs for beaching and recycling ships, and pieces of it will be on sale in local markets by lunchtime.

The reason for this seemingly irrational behavior is that the Star Wars universe doesn’t suffer from a scarcity of resources.

There are dozens of mining outposts mentioned in the series, and there always seems to be another planet waiting to be exploited. In a galaxy that enjoys such surpluses, recycling won’t save much money. And the Empire, with its massive spending on planet-destroying weapons like the Death Star, doesn’t seem overly concerned about the environment.

So what, then, is the business model that supports so many junkyards and scavengers? Rey, the Jawas, and everyone else who scavenges in the series recognize that there’s more value in a working gadget or spare part than in the raw materials that constitute them.

The value is in the energy, engineering

The force is strong with TOMS

By Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez

S

tar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker draws a conclusion to an epic saga, but the end in the nine-film title’s merchandise barrage still seems to be far, far away.

The latest to roll out Star Wars-inspired items is footwear company TOMS. Following the launch of a limited-edition collection in September that honored the original Star Wars trilogy, TOMS recently dropped a second sneaker range that pays tribute to some of the most iconic characters from the pop culture phenomenon.

The new collection includes a Luke Skywalker hightop, a Darth Vader low-top, and embossed leather and nubuck leather Chewbacca and Darth Vader Alpargatas.

There are also cushioned slip-ons inspired by Yoda, Princess Leia and R2-D2.

“[This] is a nod to some of the greatest movies ever made,” Toms Philippines executive Carlo Pullini said to Y2Z. “The collection speaks to a span of generations, whether you’re a longtime fan or you’re just starting with your [Star Wars] journey.”

The new Star Wars X TOMS collection is available at Glorietta 4, Powerplant Mall, SM Megamall, SM Baguio and Robinsons Place Manila.

TOMS was founded in 2006 by American traveler Blake Mycoskie. He was in Argentina and witnessed the hardships faced by children growing up without shoes.

Mycoskie’s desire to help resulted in the creation of TOMS Shoes, which he dedicated to match every pair of shoes purchased with a new pair of shoes for a child in need under the pioneering “One for One” model.

To date, the company has given over 60 million pairs of shoes to children in need.

7 BusinessMirror

December 29, 2019

and manufacturing required to make the stuff. So, for example, that crashed star destroyer on Jakku isn’t stripped for metal; instead, we see Rey risk her life to scavenge it for reusable components that she can sell. Characters from Chewbacca to Luke Skywalker later demand her recovered parts for the devices and ships that they’ve learned to repair on their own.

That business model wouldn’t work for plastic recyclers here on Earth. But the so-called e-waste industry—a category that includes everything from used smartphones to server racks—is rapidly diversifying into business models that look very similar to those practiced by Rey and the Jawas.

At a time when recycling markets are depressed, these businesses need a new revenue stream. So rather than trying to recover raw materials that aren’t financially attractive at the moment, they’re seeking out whole gadgets and the parts within them.

Robin Ingenthron, the head of Good Point Recycling, tells me that his company was making about $60 a week selling gadgets for reuse out of its scrap pile in 2015. As commodity prices fell, he reoriented the business to extract parts from old televisions and better identify the reusable gadgets already on offer.

Today, sales of reusable stuff account for more than $50,000 a month, and around a third of the company’s revenue. Sims Recycling Solutions Inc., one of the world’s biggest electronics recyclers, has steadily shifted away from its traditional shred-and-recycle model to incorporate more reuse and refurbishment in recent years. Others are going even deeper, recovering specific chips from motherboards for reuse.

This might come as a surprise to earthly environmentalists. But in the Star Wars universe, it’s the way business has always been done.

Tips to make the best of post-holiday shopping

By Anne D’Innocenzio The Associated Press

N

EW YORK— Holiday shopping doesn’t end with Christmas.

Shoppers can take advantage of fatter discounts on clothing, home decor and other items between Christmas and well into January.

In fact, a National Retail Federation survey of nearly 8,000 adults conducted November 27 through December 5 found that 68 percent of holiday consumers will likely shop the week after Christmas.

Nearly 50 percent plan to take advantage of post-holiday sales and promotions, and 27 percent plan to use gift cards. And more than half of shoppers say they will return or exchange any unwanted gifts or holiday items within the first month after receiving them.

But just as shoppers should scrutinize the bargains on Black Friday, they need to do the same for post-Christmas deals.

“Don’t assume that a sale is a good deal,” said Julie Ramhold, senior staff writer at DealNews.com, a deal comparison web site.

“Do price comparisons.”

In addition to DealNews.com, Ramhold cited such sites as camelcamelcamel. com, an Amazon price tracker, and Honey, a browser extension that searches for coupons and cash-back offers and tracks prices on web sites including Amazon.com, Target.com and Walmart.com. She says shop-

In this file photo, Daisy Clark shops at a Kohl’s store in Colma, Calif. Holiday shopping doesn’t end with Christmas. Bargain hunters can take advantage of fatter discounts on clothing, home décor and other items between Christmas and well into January. AP pers need to figure out the price history of the item and whether it’s lower than Black Friday’s deal.

Holiday shoppers also need to be aware of retailers’ more stringent return policies. Some well-known retailers like Bed, Bath & Beyond, Macy’s and Kohl’s are following a trend of implementing ever-shorter return periods. Stores that once had unlimited return policies have cut them to one year, then to 180 days, and now in some cases to 90 days or less, according to Edgar Dworsky, founder of the Boston-based consumer advocacy web site Consumer World.

Here are tips for post-Christmas shopping:

SHOPPING AHEAD The post-Christmas shopping period is a good time to stock up on items like wrapping paper, cards and home décor shoppers will need next year. For example, holiday décor is typically slashed by 50 percent, but those discounts deepen to 80 percent after

December 25, according to Ramhold. She recommends heading to the sales racks right after Christmas since there won’t be much selection if bargain hunters wait longer.

SHOPPING FOR CURRENT IN-SEASON GOODS Last year, about one-third of post-Christmas deals was for clothing and accessories, according to DealNews.com. But stores like Victoria’s Secret and Michael Kors also use this period to run semi-annual sales.

Discounts on sweaters and other winter clothing are about 50 percent, similar to Black Friday, so it’s best to wait until after January 1 when the deals deepen to 70 percent, according to DealNews.com.

Still, some retailers like Target start their after-Christmas deals with more aggressive cuts. Target is taking up to 70-percent off on clothing and shoes for the family starting Thursday.

As for electronics, it’s best to hold off until after the annual Consumer Electronics Show in early January, where new tech

products will be displayed. That will help retailers decide which older products to discount.

Looking for a new TV? Wait until right after the Super Bowl in early February, according to Marshal Cohen, chief industry adviser of the NPD Group Inc., a market research firm. And shoppers can always count on exercise equipment to be on sale. DealNews.com saw more exercise equipment deals in January than during any other month this past year.

To get the best deals, look for merchandise sold at stores that differs from their primary selection. For example, Cohen suggests buying luggage and home appliances at T.J. Maxx.

DISSECTING RETAILERS’ HOLIDAY RETURNS Don’t expect to buy an item in December and go back to the store to return it in April.

Every retailer’s return policy is different, and shoppers need to read the fine print on the receipt or check the retailer’s web site.

Still, many retailers offer special extended holiday return deadlines, says Dworsky.

That allows gifts purchased in November to be returned until mid to late January, beyond the normal return deadlines in some cases, according to Consumer World. Overall, the return deadlines are shrinking. At Bed, Bath & Beyond, the deadline to return is now 180 days. Last year, it replaced its no time limit return policy with a one-year deadline.

Dworksy says that stores continue to “slice and dice” their return policies, creating knotty rules for specific products. For example, a TV may have a shorter return window than a sweater.

How Ninja set off an ‘all-out talent war’ in video gaming Continued from Page 2

Other platforms are wooing streamers by offering new ways to promote themselves. Facebook, for instance, is capitalizing on its ownership of Instagram. When users of the app turn on their camera to take a selfie, they can pick a picture of toast with a mustache, which is the symbol of one of its streamers, Disguised Toast.

“It’s about providing the right tools and monetization opportunities to allow people to be successful,” said Leo Olebe, global director of games partnerships for Facebook.

Streaming is a very unstable job that requires the top creators to play video games for eight to 12 hours a day every day with no vacation or weekends, and develops skills that can’t be applied to any other profession. Players also rely on the popular-

ity of individual games that may go out of fashion.

“All streamers crave stability,” Yanyuk said. “When you get a big contract, you get stable income, and that’s very appealing.”

Warden compared these new contracts to a retirement plan.

Big contracts weren’t available even a couple of years ago when Twitch controlled the market. But interest in live streaming spiked as Twitch built its audience, and competing companies realized the power of these creators to sell products, from tickets and merchandise to games themselves.

When Electronic Arts Inc. introduced Apex Legends, a free battle-royale-style game akin to Fortnite, it used a marketing campaign built around live streamers. EA eschewed TV advertising, and instead paid popular gamers, including Shroud and Dr Disrespect, to play the game on Twitch. That

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drew millions of users to the game, which, in turn, boosted the company’s stock.

Since then, publishers have adjusted their titles and marketing budgets to accommodate gamers, giving them copies far in advance so they can test out what they like and don’t like. Then they record videos of them playing for release around the title’s launch.

“Game publishers realized the best way to launch games is through content creators,” said Doron Nir, CEO of StreamElements. “Now every single game, by every major publisher, is a live-streaming event that’s happening as the game unfolds.”

It’s not clear if this is an effective strategy. Early results indicate the movement of two or three gamers doesn’t affect a site’s audience. Usage of Twitch grew the month after Ninja left, while Mixer remains an also-ran. Ninja’s personal audience, mean-

December 29, 2019

while, shrank from about 50,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch to just 10,000 on Mixer.

“For the first people to move over, it’s viewership suicide,” Warden said. “Twitch hopes that will deter people who don’t want to do that.”

But Ninja’s defection was a marketing coup for Mixer, generating free press and inspiring other gamers to follow. The move was akin to Howard Stern going from terrestrial radio to satellite, according to Nir. Stern’s audience dropped, but he established Sirius as a bona fide player.

“These grassroots entertainers who three to five years ago were streaming from their apartments or parents’ home are now world-class entertainers getting multimillion-dollar deals,” Nir said. “Just for the chance that their viewers will migrate with them.”