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www.businessmirror.com.ph www.businessmirror.com.ph By Manuel Manuel T. T. Cayon Cayon By & Cai U. Ordinario & Cai U. Ordinario
D
AVAO CITY— Underaged mothers are delivering children sired by men above 60 years old, a child-rights network said, citing Philippine birth records, which may hide likely cases of child abuse and incest.
The Child Child Rights Rights Network Network The (CRN) and the Philippine Legisla(CRN) and the Philippine Legislators’ Committee Committee on on Population Population and and tors’ Development (PLCPD) did not cite Development (PLCPD) did not cite exact figures, but said child birth exact figures, but said child birth records kept kept by by the the Philippine Philippine StaStarecords tistics Authority Authority (PSA) (PSA) said said “under“undertistics aged mothers mothers are are generally generally sired sired by by aged older men, with childbirth regisolder men, with childbirth registration records records in in 2018 2018 showing showing tration that children children as as young young as as 10 10 years years that old were sired by older men aged old were sired by older men aged more than 60 years.” more than 60 years.” The trend trend emerged emerged as as the the The groups also also lifted lifted latest latest figures figures groups from the the PSA PSA showing showing “a “a grim grim scescefrom nario” that should prompt Connario” that should prompt Congress to to press press aa “legislative “legislative alarm” alarm” gress to pass pass important important bills bills protecting protecting to children. children.
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Sunday, February February 28, 28, 2021 2021 Vol. Vol. 16 16 No. No. 140 140 Sunday,
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Congress urged to speed up passage of bills to address growing numbers of teenage moms—and the insidious implication that many pregnancies resulted from child abuse by predators.
‘GRIM SCENARIO’
Young as as they they are are Young
THE PSA PSA has has listed listed 62,510 62,510 children children THE giving birth in 2019, with about giving birth in 2019, with about seven girls aged 10 to 14 years old seven girls aged 10 to 14 years old giving birth each day, with a total giving birth each day, with a total of 2,411 2,411 births births that that year. year. of “These figures should sound sound “These figures should the legislative alarms and press the legislative alarms and press Congress to swiftly address the Congress to swiftly address the roots of of why why children children are are havhavroots ing children, children, including including the the sexual sexual ing abuse dimension,” CRN said. abuse dimension,” CRN said. It said said “immediate “immediate action” action” is is It needed, “as “as we we fear fear that that we we are are curcurneeded, rently in in aa worse worse situation, situation, as as the the rently Covid-19 pandemic has certainly Covid-19 pandemic has certainly compounded the the issue.” issue.” compounded LAST year, year, CRN CRN said said families families LAST should keep watch on relatives, or should keep watch on relatives, or even family family members, members, to to protect protect even children as as it it cited cited significant significant ininchildren formation pointing at child abuse formation pointing at child abuse happening inside inside the the children’s children’s happening homes but but paid paid by by online online foreign foreign homes child predators. child predators. What’s alarming, alarming, it it said, said, was was What’s that cases of online sexual abuse that cases of online sexual abuse and exploitation exploitation jumped jumped threefold threefold and during the lockdown period in the the during the lockdown period in Philippines. Philippines. The group group said said one one incident incident on on The May 21 21 last last year year had had aa 28-year-old 28-year-old May suspect of of online online sex sex trafficking trafficking suspect arrested in Butuan City. Police said said arrested in Butuan City. Police the suspect was a close relative and the suspect was a close relative and neighbor of of the the seven seven victims victims aa neighbor and six six other other children children suspected suspected to to and have also been abused. have also been abused. “The suspect suspect was was arrested arrested afaf“The ter she she was was found found to to be be offering offering aa ter paying foreign foreign sexual sexual predator predator aa paying livestream of the sexual abuse and and livestream of the sexual abuse exploitation of the minors together exploitation of the minors together with an an adult,” adult,” the the group group added. added. with “The sad reality that the sussus“The sad reality that the pect is a close relative and acquainpect is a close relative and acquaintance of of the the victims victims highlights highlights tance the fact fact that that at at least least 25 25 percent percent of of the online cases of sexual abuse in the online cases of sexual abuse in the country are are perpetrated perpetrated by by family family country members and close contacts of vicvicmembers and close contacts of tims,” said said Romeo Romeo Dongeto, Dongeto, conveconvetims,” ner of of the the CRN. CRN. ner He said the Inter-Agency Inter-Agency He said the Council Against Trafficking (Iacat), Council Against Trafficking (Iacat), which is is headed headed by by the the DepartDepartwhich ment of of Justice Justice (DOJ), (DOJ), confirmed confirmed ment the data. the data.
National emergency emergency National
CRN said said the the Senate Senate and and House House CRN of Representatives should “swiftly of Representatives should “swiftly pass” three three proposed proposed bills bills “that “that pass”
DESY DESYPISTONAMI PISTONAMI| DREAMSTIME.COM | DREAMSTIME.COM
‘Family affair’ affair’ ‘Family
can comprehensively comprehensively address address the the can sexual abuse aspect of the growing sexual abuse aspect of the growing problem of of the the adolescent adolescent or or teenteenproblem age pregnancy.” age pregnancy.” It said said even even the the Commission Commission It on Population (PopCom) has said said on Population (PopCom) has the rising incidents of teenage the rising incidents of teenage pregnancy in in the the country country “can “can pregnancy now be be considered considered aa national national now emergency.” The The PopCom PopCom based based emergency.” its claim on the Social Weather its claim on the Social Weather Stations poll poll on on Women Women Concerns Concerns Stations and Family Family Planning, Planning, “which “which rereand vealed that nearly 60 percent vealed that nearly 60 percent of Filipinos Filipinos think think that that teenage teenage of pregnancy is the most important pregnancy is the most important problem of of Filipino Filipino women.” women.” problem CRN said Congress has three three CRN said Congress has bills that may help alleviate the bills that may help alleviate the situation: the Anti-Child Rape Bill, situation: the Anti-Child Rape Bill,
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n n US US 48.6370 48.6370
the Prohibition Prohibition of of Child Child Marriage Marriage the Bill, and the Adolescent Pregnancy Bill, and the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill. Bill. Prevention It said the House House of of RepRepIt said the resentatives approved approved on on third third resentatives and final final reading reading on on December December 1 1 and last year House Bill 7836, which last year House Bill 7836, which provides for for stronger stronger protection protection provides against rape, rape, sexual sexual exploitation exploitation against and abuse, abuse, and and increasing increasing the the age age and for determining the commission for determining the commission of statutory statutory rape rape from from below below 12 12 of to below below 16 16 years. years. to The bill bill contains contains “potent “potent proproThe visions, which include increasing visions, which include increasing the age age to to determine determine statutory statutory the rape from from below below 12 12 to to below below 16, 16, rape equalizing the protection for vicequalizing the protection for victims of of rape, rape, whether whether aa boy boy or or aa tims girl, and the removal of marriage girl, and the removal of marriage
as forgiveness forgiveness exemption exemption where where as the perpetrator is freed of legal rethe perpetrator is freed of legal responsibility if the perpetrator marsponsibility if the perpetrator marries the the person person he he raped.” raped.” ries What is is left left for for HB HB 7836 7836 to to be be What passed into law is for the Senate to passed into law is for the Senate to approve a counterpart bill. approve a counterpart bill. The Senate Senate also also passed passed on on third third The and final final reading reading Senate Senate Bill Bill 1373, 1373, and or the the Prohibition Prohibition of of Child Child MarMaror riage Bill, which aims to provide riage Bill, which aims to provide equal protection protection for for all all children children by by equal declaring the the facilitation facilitation of of child child declaring marriage as as illegal illegal and and punishable punishable marriage by law nationwide, it said. The bill bill by law nationwide, it said. The introduced socioeconomic and culintroduced socioeconomic and culture-sensitive programs programs that that crecreture-sensitive ate an enabling environment that ate an enabling environment that could help help foster foster protection protection for for could girls against child marriage. girls against child marriage.
At the the House House of of RepresentaRepresentaAt tives, counterpart bills—including tives, counterpart bills—including House Bill Bill 1486 1486 filed filed by by Rep. Rep. BerBerHouse nadette Herrera-Dy and Rep. Ednadette Herrera-Dy and Rep. Edcel Lagman; Lagman; House House Bill Bill 3899 3899 filed filed cel by Rep. Rep. Alfred Alfred Vargas; Vargas; House House Bill Bill by 5670 filed by Rep. Veronique Lac5670 filed by Rep. Veronique Lacson-Noel and and House House Bill Bill 7922 7922 filed filed son-Noel by Rep. Rep. Joy Joy Tambunting—have Tambunting—have all all by remained pending with the House remained pending with the House Committee on on Welfare Welfare of of Children Children Committee since 2019. since 2019. Senate Bill Bill 1334, 1334, meanwhile, meanwhile, Senate or the Adolescent Pregnancy Preor the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill, authored by Sen. Risa vention Bill, authored by Sen. Risa Hontiveros, is is still still pending pending before before Hontiveros, the Senate Senate plenary. plenary. The The bill bill seeks seeks the to develop a national program of to develop a national program of action and investment plan for the action and investment plan for the prevention of of teenage teenage pregnancy, pregnancy, prevention
the organization organization and and mobilization mobilization the of regional and local information of regional and local information service delivery network for adoadoservice delivery network for lescent health and development, lescent health and development, the development development and and promotion promotion of of the ageand development-appropriate age- and development-appropriate comprehensive sexuality sexuality educaeducacomprehensive tion, the establishment of function, the establishment of functional local local teen teen centers centers for for adolesadolestional cent health health and and development, development, and and cent social protection for teenage mothsocial protection for teenage mothers or or parents. parents. ers “We call call on on Congress Congress to to make make “We these three bills part of the legisthese three bills part of the legislative priority list and ensure that lative priority list and ensure that soon, the tides will turn, with the soon, the tides will turn, with the end view view of of seeing seeing an an immediate immediate end future where where Filipino Filipino children children are are future not having children,” CRN said. not having children,” CRN said. Continued on on A2 A2 Continued
n JAPAN JAPAN 0.4579 0.4579 n n UK UK 68. 68.11745 745 n n HK HK 6.2725 6.2725 n n CHINA CHINA 7.5340 7.5340 n n SINGAPORE SINGAPORE 36.7016 36.7016 n n AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA 38.2870 38.2870 n n EU EU 59.2350 59.2350 n n SAUDI SAUDI ARABIA ARABIA 12.9692 12.9692 n
Source: BSP BSP (February (February 26, 26, 2021) 2021) Source:
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A2 Sunday, February 28, 2021
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Air travel quarantines are getting longer and lonelier
Q
By Angus Whitley & Kyunghee Park Bloomberg News
UARANTINES continue to frustrate travelers and strangle airlines a year into the pandemic, with the threat from highly infectious coronavirus variants meaning enforced isolations are mostly getting longer and stricter rather than easing up. Even as vaccines embolden countries like Israel and the UK to plot paths to reopening, authorities around the world are tightening the screws to stop Covid-19 mutations slipping through quarantine models designed to contain a less aggressive virus. With questions hanging over the efficacy of vaccines on mutated strains, this new front in the public-health battle is damping hopes of a swift rebound in international air travel. While UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday that foreign travel could start as soon as May 17, triggering a surge in flight bookings, England has only just put in place its toughest border curbs of the pandemic, imposing 10-day hotel quarantines for British and Irish nationals and residents arriving from dozens of countries. Meanwhile, in parts of the world that have been most successful in keeping out the virus, quarantine rules are being tightened and policy makers are striking a more cautious tone on when travel may start again. Authorities in Melbourne are sketching out plans
for custom-built isolation facilities outside the city. Hong Kong has one of the most extreme policies: a soul-crushing 21-day hotel lockup awaits residents arriving from outside China. The different requirements are neutering a push by airlines for a standardized global response to get people flying again. The International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) proposal for test or vaccine certificates to replace quarantines hasn’t gained traction with governments. “We cannot seriously talk about recovery as long as quarantine requirements are in place,” said Volodymyr Bilotkach, a lecturer in air-transport management at the Singapore Institute of Technology. “Countries continue making up their rules, changing them as they go.”
Cabin fever
ISOLATION can take a toll on travelers stuck in hotel rooms, which often have sealed windows and minimal space. Finance worker Chanyoung Kim struggled through
A MEDICAL staff member knocks on the door of a patient’s hotel room who is Covid-19 positive during week 19 of radical quarantine on July 20, 2020, in Caracas, Venezuela. To manage hospital occupation rates, the Venezuelan government has 4,000 hotel rooms nationwide to host and isolate Covid-19 patients with no or mild symptoms. LEONARDO FERNANDEZ VILORIA/GETTY IMAGES SOUTH AMERICA
three weeks without exercise, fresh air or human interaction in the Sheraton in Hong Kong on his return from a business trip to South Korea. Kim, who has also endured several 14-day quarantines in Seoul, has sought treatment from a psychiatrist and told his manager he’s not sure how long he can maintain this lifestyle. “It was getting mentally difficult,” said the 42-year-old. “When you’re on your own, one tends to think a lot and that’s not a good experience.” Governments have decided it’s a price worth paying to keep out fast-moving Covid-19 strains from places such as South Africa, which was linked to a 16-fold increase in cases in neighboring Zambia within a month. Mutations have also been tied to Brazil and the UK. “The problem is at this point we have very little information about these variants,” said Abrar Chughtai, an epidemiologist who lectures at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Tighter quarantines might be sensible as a precautionary measure, he said. The UK’s restrictions aim to shield the country as the government accelerates its vaccination program. Adults arriving from a so-called red list of countries must pick up the £1,750 ($2,450) bill for hotel quarantine, and face a £10,000 fine or a decade in prison for breaking the rules. Prime Minister Boris Johnson fueled optimism this week by saying the end of the pandemic is in sight for England, unless infection
rates surge again. All adults in the UK are due to be offered a vaccine shot by the end of July, and data suggest one dose provides a high level of protection. There are signs elsewhere, too, that curbs on travelers could ease with inoculations and lower caseloads. Taiwan, which has had only nine virus deaths, may loosen border controls next month, while Macau has reopened to quarantinefree travel from mainland China. Thailand is considering scrapping two-week isolations for vaccinated tourists. More than 63 million doses have been given to Americans.
New measures
AT the same time, fresh restrictions are being imposed on travelers to block Covid-19 variants. As of February 22, 2021, passengers on flights into Canada must pay for three nights at a government-approved hotel as part of their mandatory 14-day quarantines. The New Zealand government is considering forcing travelers from overseas to isolate at home even after their 14-day mandatory hotel quarantine ends. From February 1, anyone entering Vietnam has to do 21 days of quarantine at their own expense. The UK’s vision for overseas travel in May needs destinations that are open, too. “European countries are still discouraging or restricting foreign travelers. It’s far from clear when they’ll fully open their borders to holidaymakers again,” wrote An-
drea Felsted, Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Meanwhile, the constantly changing rules and approaches are wreaking havoc with flight networks and schedules. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. axed services to Vancouver, San Francisco and other cities from this week and has introduced an arduous shift cycle for crew members to bypass Hong Kong’s new rules on quarantine. Cathay crew can volunteer for a 21-day work shift, during which they stay in a company hotel whenever they fly into Hong Kong. That is followed by 14 days of quarantine in another hotel, and then 14 days of leave. “The focus of governments is almost universally on containing the spread of the virus across borders,” IATA Director General Alexandre de Juniac wrote in his blog in early February. “There is little hope of an imminent return to normal.” Rather than gradually being wound back, some quarantines are approaching permanency. The Australian state of Victoria has started looking at “long-term” solutions for separating overseas arrivals from the local population, with arrivals housed in newly built complexes near airports. The review followed an outbreak of the virulent UK strain from a quarantine hotel in Melbourne. In Hong Kong, Kim has become a disheartened isolation veteran. “No matter how long or short the quarantine is, it’s still a very difficult experience,” he said.
‘Grim scenario’ Continued from A1
Work double time!
“THE whole civil society and the government must work double-time not only to expand the mantle of protection to Filipino children but also to tear legal barriers to the access of minors to sexual and reproductive health services,” CRN and PLCPD said. The increase in teen pregnancies could lead to the creation of 133,265 families led by minors by the end of the year, PopCom had earlier warned. In a briefing on Wednesday,
Population and Development Undersecretary Juan Antonio Perez III said this is equivalent to a population of 260,000 people, which is the average population of 10 municipalities in the Philippines combined. Perez said births from teen pregnancies have been increasing and may reach 62,510 by the end of 2021. He said this is a conservative estimate and that the continuation of the lockdown may bring this up to around 74,000 births this year. With minors already starting families even before they finish school, Perez said, this would re-
duce their ability to earn more. Perez said the discounted lifetime wage earnings foregone by a cohort of teenage women 18 to 19 years resulting from early childbearing is estimated on the average at P33 billion. Further, this will place parents with an additional financial burden since they will have to be the ones to support their child and their children’s child or children. In the end, a vicious cycle is perpetrated, victimizing all generations—but the children most especially.
The World BusinessMirror
www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Angel R. Calso
Why is Facebook banning Myanmar military pages? By Victoria Milko The Associated Press
F
acebook announced on Thursday that it is removing all remaining Myanmar military and military-controlled pages from its site and from Instagram, which it also owns. It said it will also block advertising from militarylinked businesses. The decision follows a February 1 coup in which the military removed elected leaders from power and jailed others. Days after the coup the military temporarily blocked access to Facebook because it was being used to share anti-coup comments and organize protests. Here’s a look at Facebook’s role in Myanmar and what the banning of the military pages means.
What is Facebook’s role in Myanmar?
For decades Myanmar was one of the leastconnected countries in the world, with less than 5 percent of the population using the Internet in 2012, according to the International Telecommunication Union. When telecommunications began to be deregulated by a quasi-civilian government in 2013, the price of SIM cards for cell phones plummeted, opening a new market of users. Facebook was quick to capitalize on the changes, and soon began to be used by government agencies and shopkeepers alike to communicate. Myanmar, also known as Burma, had over 22.3 million Facebook users in January 2020, more than 40 percent of its population, according to social-media management platform NapoleonCat. For many in the country, Facebook effectively is the Internet. “The role of Facebook is vital in the country,” said Nickey Diamond, a Myanmar human-rights specialist with the group Fortify Rights. “In Myanmar, Facebook is one of the most important communication platforms to the people.”
What issues has Facebook faced in Myanmar?
The social-media platform has faced accusations of not doing enough to quell hate speech in the country. In a 2018 report on army-led violence which forced more than 700,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, Marzuki Darusman, head of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said Facebook “substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension
and conflict.” He added, “Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that.” Under pressure from the UN and international human-rights groups, Facebook banned about 20 Myanmar military-linked individuals and organizations in 2018, including Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing, for involvement in severe human-rights violations.
Why is Facebook banning more military-linked pages now?
After the coup, Facebook said it would reduce distribution of all content from Myanmar’s military, called the Tatmadaw, on its site, while also removing content that violates its community standards, including hate speech. Facebook announced Thursday that it will ban all remaining Myanmar military-related entities from Facebook and Instagram, as well as ads from military-linked businesses. “Events since the February 1 coup, including deadly violence, have precipitated a need for this ban. We believe the risks of allowing the Tatmadaw on Facebook and Instagram are too great,” the company said a statement. The ban covers the air force, the navy, the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Border Affairs, Facebook Policy Communications Manager Amy Sawitta Lefevre said. Facebook said it will leave up pages contributing to public welfare, including those of the Ministry of Health and Sports and the Ministry of Education.
What impact will it have?
The decision deprives the military of its largest communication platform. “This is a welcome and long overdue step by Facebook,” Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, said in an e-mailed statement. “In a country where Facebook has been so incredibly popular, it’s a psychological blow for the military. They have put a lot of resources into using Facebook for propaganda purposes, to recruit soldiers and to raise funds.” Facebook said it expects the military will attempt to regain a presence on the platform. “In cases like these, we’re working to be as precise as possible, but we know we may miss some and we’ll keep refining our enforcement,” Lefevre said. Facebook declined to say how much revenue it expects to forgo from the loss of advertising from military-linked companies. AP
These Covid-19 billionaire fortunes are fading with the vaccine rollout
I
By Yoojung Lee
n the health-care industry, the coronavirus pandemic led to big fortunes, fast. Now some of them are evaporating just as quickly. Take Seegene Inc., a maker of Covid-19 test kits, and Alteogen Inc., a biotech with subcutaneousinjection technology. Their founders became billionaires as the shares surged last year. Fast-forward a few months to the vaccine rollout, and they’ve lost their title after both stocks sank more than 41 percent, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It’s a similar story for glovemakers in Malaysia, which counted at least five industry billionaires by August as the worsening health crisis increased demand for the protective gear. Despite a brief rebound amid last month’s frenzy in retail trading, their shares are down at least 40 percent since hitting highs, wiping more than $9 billion from their founders’ net worth. While the billionaires created by the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. vaccines have maintained much of their wealth, many others have seen a falling off. The moves show how fleeting fortunes can be with a market so wild that some stocks have had days with fluctuations of more than 20 percent. Some of the founders took advantage of the volatility to book profits, just as others increased their control by buying more shares as prices fell. “It doesn’t look like fortunes made from a sudden boom in demand—such as for test kits or biotech—would continue to grow once things get more stable,” said Park Ju-gun, president of Seoul-based corporate watchdog CEOScore. He expects platform-based services that thrived with the pandemic will lead to further wealth creation. The emergence of Covid-19 and its rapid spread across the globe led to an immediate need for test kits, protective gear and treatments for the disease. Companies such as Seegene, Alteogen and Top Glove Corp. stepped up. Seegene developed a coronavirus test kit in late January of last year. Alteogen licensed its injection technology that enabled patients to self-administer medications. The world’s biggest maker of rubber gloves beefed up production and continues to do so—it’s aiming to produce 110 billion pieces of the protective gear annually by December, up from 91 billion now. Each of the stocks climbed at least 500 percent last year at their peak, with Seegene up as much as 919 percent by August as demand for test kits rose. South Korean President Moon Jae-in even visited the company’s headquarters in Seoul after then-US President Donald Trump asked for medical equipment to help fight the virus. “I’ve never felt more pressure in my life,” Seegene founder Chun Jong-yoon said in an interview with a local newspaper last June. But the vaccine rollout has put a brake on the ascent. While Seegene’s revenue for 2020 jumped almost 10-fold and Alteogen’s more than doubled
in the third quarter, the shares have slumped on skepticism over their ability to maintain such growth. Chun and his family, who together own 31 percent of Seegene, are now worth about $840 million, down from $1.6 billion last year. Alteogen’s Park Soon-jae, who controls 25 percent of the company with his family, is valued at $830 million compared with $1.4 billion at the peak. Glovemakers, which are mostly in Malaysia, became the focus of short sellers soon after the nation lifted a ban to bet against equities at the start of the year. The Reddit-inspired retail trading craze that lifted them in January proved short-lived. Almost $2.2 billion has evaporated from the net worth of Top Glove founder Lim Wee Chai and his family since October. The fortunes of Supermax Corp.’s Thai Kim Sim, Hartalega Holdings Bhd.’s Kuan Kam Hon and Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd.’s Lim Kuang Sia are each down more than $1.2 billion, while Riverstone Holdings Ltd.’s Wong Teek Son is no longer part of the 10-figure club. Some of the Chinese health-care and biotech companies that produced a slew of new billionaires after the pandemic’s outbreak have also tumbled, including Allmed Medical Products Co., a maker of gauze products and surgical masks, and Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co.
Boosting control
Some of the newly ultra-rich have taken advantage of the market volatility. The Lims of Top Glove bought almost $23 million of shares since early December as the stock fell, strengthening their control over the company, while Kossan Rubber’s founder purchased about $4.9 million of equity after he and his family made more than $128 million selling some of their holdings through August. Alteogen’s Park family gained about $12 million from offloading shares through September, while the Chuns also sold some of Seegene stock. Others are holding on to their gains. Li Xiting, chairman of Chinese medical-equipment maker Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., became Singapore’s richest person with a fortune of $23.8 billion as the company’s shares hit a record high earlier this month. Moderna and BioNTech, whose Covid-19 vaccines are being administered around the globe, have more than tripled in the past year, boosting the fortunes of at least six billionaires. And of course tech entrepreneurs that benefited from lockdowns and work-from-home arrangements—such as Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos, Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s Eric Yuan and Forrest Li of gaming firm Sea Ltd.—remain big winners despite recent stock drops. But for many companies, the tide has already started to turn. “The extravagant rise in stock prices is going to be far-fetched, and it’s unlikely they’ll grow at the same rate,” said Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, head of consumer sector equity research at Tellimer. “We’re going to see a rotation from virus stocks to vaccine stocks.”
Bloomberg News
Sunday, February 28, 2021
A3
Rise of variants sparks push for all-in-one Covid vaccines J
ust weeks into the rollout of vaccines to combat Covid-19, researchers are shifting their focus to a new class of potential shots to take on the threat posed by fastspreading mutations. Dangerous coronavirus variants identified in Africa, Europe and South America are carpeting the globe, pushing scientists in the UK and elsewhere to target multiple versions of the pathogen in a single shot and perhaps head off more lethal foes that may emerge. A variant that arose in South Africa has already shown itself capable of partially evading defenses raised by several vaccines. The country paused rolling out a shot from AstraZeneca Plc because it offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness cause by the mutant, called B.1.351. With a spreading virus comes an increased risk of more alarming mutations. “We cannot be complacent that we’ve got the vaccines we need and it’s just a matter of time to ending the pandemic—it’s not,” said Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which has worked to accelerate development of Covid inoculations. “We’re in a race with the virus and we’ve got to get ahead of it.” Britain snapped up huge Covid vaccine supplies early and became the first Western country to approve a shot. Now it’s seeking to catch up with the outbreak and sustain its momentum in the next phase of the crisis, a difficult task as the virus runs rampant.
Blunted optimism
The government last week announced a pact with CureVac NV to tackle variants, pairing artificial intelligence to predict future mutations with messenger RNA technology that can rapidly generate new vaccines. After a oncepromising partnership with Sichuan Clover Biopharmaceuticals Inc. ended and separate trials with Sanofi ran into delays, London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc is also working with CureVac on mutant-quelling vaccines. Meanwhile, countries across the European Union, which has lagged the US and UK in immunizations, have raised questions about the bloc’s strategy on mutants. At a meeting of ambassadors on Wednesday, countries including Malta and Germany urged the European Commission to ensure contracts with manufacturers cover sufficient batches if booster shots are needed, according to a cable seen by Bloomberg. The new variants, including the B.1.1.7 lineage that surfaced in southern England, have blunted the optimism that greeted highly effective mRNA shots from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. late last year. The variant is likely to be associated with a greater risk of hospitalization and death than earlier versions, according to a report published Friday by the government. There’s a possibility that B.1.1.7 is dampening host antiviral responses and moving deeper into the lungs more quickly, said Julian Hiscox, a University of Liverpool coronavirus specialist and member of a UK advisory group, calling the increased risk of death “slight.” If required, companies should be able to quickly redesign their inoculations based on the distinctive spike protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells, according to Michael Kinch, a vaccine specialist at Washington University in St. Louis. While scientists have the tools to keep pace, further mutations call for alternative approaches, he said. “The bad news with these particular variants, and the reason many of us are nervous, isn’t that the vaccines will suddenly not work,” Kinch said, “but that they will slowly become obsolete.” Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have said they’re starting work on developing booster shots or other efforts to bolster their vaccines. AstraZeneca and partner Oxford aim
to have a tweaked version tailored to new variants available by fall. One problem drugmakers confront in the quest for a single shot that covers different strains is that they don’t yet know which ones will be the most prevalent in the months to come, according to Andrew Pollard, the lead investigator on the Oxford trials. “We know today which ones you would choose, but the virus is likely to continue to evolve under pressure from human immunity and so that could change over time,” he said. Researchers are considering a number of ways to overcome the challenges. Another strategy involves including a variety of antigens, the molecules in the vaccine that provoke an immune response, Kinch said. Although the spike protein has proven to be a good target, other surface proteins in the virus’s envelope and membrane could turn out to be important, too.
‘Almost job done’
“Vaccines based on the spike protein are the first out the door,” said Hiscox, the University of Liverpool professor. The next round could add the N—or nucleocapsid—protein, whose job is to bind viral RNA, he said. With both S and N proteins, “that’s almost job done,” he said. Traditional methods that use the virus itself in a weakened or inactivated form and provide a broader choice of potential targets—like those used by
some Chinese developers including Sinovac Biotech Ltd.—could also play a more significant role, Kinch said. CEPI, the Oslo-based group that has funded a number of Covid vaccine programs, has set a goal of developing “strain changes” within 100 days if needed, Hatchett said. Pfizer’s partner BioNTech SE has said that if their vaccine turns out to be ineffective against a new strain, they could, in theory, produce an updated shot targeting that variant within six weeks. For years, multivalent flu vaccines targeting three or four versions of the pathogen have provided protection against multiple strains circling the globe. Glaxo and CureVac plan to rely on mRNA technology to develop a product that addresses multiple variants in one Covid vaccine. If the work is successful, a vaccine could be ready next year. That could still have a big impact given how many countries lack access to vaccines, said Thomas Breuer, chief medical officer for Glaxo’s vaccines unit. One of the big flu vaccine suppliers, Glaxo is used to altering vaccines quickly, he said. Following partnerships with the UK and Glaxo, CureVac has been approached by other governments, said Mariola Fotin-Mleczek, its chief technology officer. “The virus will mutate further, and therefore we need to re-invest now,” she said.
Some scientists, including a team at the University of Cambridge, are exploring vaccines that could protect against multiple coronaviruses to prepare for future pandemics. Backed by UK funding, the Cambridge group is developing technology that could be plugged into any platform to fight multiple variants and other coronaviruses, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. They’re planning to start human trials in the spring.
Pressure rises
“We need to bring on the next generation that are going to work against not only these variants, but the next pandemic,” said Jonathan Heeney, the Cambridge professor leading the study. Combinations are another avenue drugmakers are pursuing. Oxford is launching a trial bringing AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines together to determine whether two shots of different products yield better results. Russia also plans a study mixing the Astra vaccine with its Sputnik V shot. As the work progresses, the pressure is rising. New strains could make it more difficult to achieve a sufficient level of immunity needed to get control of the virus, Hatchett said. “Every responsible observer is concerned about what we’re seeing. We’re going to get an awful lot of mileage out of the vaccines that we have,” he said. “But we also need to be ready.” Bloomberg News
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Sunday, February 28, 2021
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Superspreaders behind top Covid-19 conspiracy theories By David Klepper, Farnoush Amiri & Beatrice Dupuy The Associated Press
A
s the coronavirus spread across the globe, so too did speculation about its origins. Perhaps the virus escaped from a lab. Maybe it was engineered as a bioweapon. Legitimate questions about the virus created perfect conditions for conspiracy theories. In the absence of knowledge, guesswork and propaganda flourished. College professors with no evidence or training in virology were touted as experts. Anonymous social-media users posed as high-level intelligence officials. And from China to Iran to Russia to the United States, governments amplified claims for their own motives. The Associated Press collaborated with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab on a nine-month investigation to identify the people and organizations behind some of the most viral misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus. Their claims were explosive. Their evidence was weak. These are the superspreaders.
Francis Boyle
Who he is: A Harvard-trained law professor at the University of Illinois, Boyle drafted a 1989 law banning biological weapons and has advised the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Palestinian Authority. Boyle has no academic degree in virology or biology but is a longstanding critic of research on pathogens. He has claimed Israeli intelligence was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; that SARS, the swine flu and Ebola have been genetically modified; and that West Nile virus and Lyme disease escaped from a US biowarfare lab. He has also claimed that Microsoft founder Bill Gates “was involved” in the spread of Zika. Covid claim: Boyle says the coronavirus is a
genetically engineered bioweapon that escaped from a high-level lab in Wuhan, China. He maintains it shows signs of nanotechnological tinkering and the insertion of proteins from HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. He alleges that US researchers helped create it, and that thousands of doctors, scientists, and elected leaders are conspiring to hide the truth. Boyle promoted his claim in an e-mail to a list of news organizations and personal contacts on January 24, 2020. That same day, he was interviewed on a podcast called “Geopolitics and Empire.” That podcast was cited by a little-known Indian web site, GreatGameIndia, and went viral, with Boyle’s comments picked up and featured in Iranian-state TV, Russian state media, and fringe web sites in the US and around the world. He’s since repeated his claims on Alex Jones’ show Infowars. Evidence? Boyle bases his argument on circumstantial evidence: the presence of a Biosafety Level 4 lab in Wuhan, the fact that other viruses have escaped from other labs in the past, and his belief that governments around the world are engaged in a secret arms race over biological weapons. Biosafety Level 4 labs—or BSL4 labs—have the highest level of biosafety precautions. “It seemed to me that obviously, this came out of the Wuhan BSL 4,” Boyle told The Associated Press. A World Heath Organization team concluded it was extremely unlikely the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, and other experts have said the virus shows no signs of genetic manipulation.
Greatgameindia
What it is: A web site that was an early promoter of the theory that the coronavirus was engineered. Its January 26, 2020, story on “Coronavirus bioweapon-How China Stole the Coronavirus From Canada and Weaponized It” was picked up by far-right financial blog Zero Hedge and shared to thousands of social-media users before it was promoted by conservative web site RedStateWatcher and received more than 6 million engagements.
Covid claim: GreatGameIndia claims that the virus, which has now killed more than 2 million people worldwide, was first found in the lungs of a Saudi man and then sent to labs in the Netherlands and then Canada, where it was stolen by Chinese scientists. The article relies in part on speculation from Dany Shoham, a virologist and former lieutenant colonel in Israeli military intelligence. Shoham was quoted discussing the possibility that Covid is linked to bioweapon research in a January 26, 2020, article in the conservative US newspaper The Washington Times. In that article, Shoham was quoted saying there was no evidence to support the idea that the virus has escaped from a lab, but GreatGameIndia did not include that context in its piece. “We do stand by our report,” web site cofounder Shelley Kasli wrote in an e-mail. “In fact, recently Canadians released documents which corroborated our findings with Chinese scientists.... A lot of information is still classified.” Evidence? The coronavirus most likely first appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, a World Health Organization panel announced this month, saying an alternate theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab was unlikely. America’s top scientists have likewise concluded the virus is of natural origin, citing clues in its genome and its similarity to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, who has been studying the virus since its genome was first recorded, has said it is clear that the virus was not engineered or accidentally released. “It is something that is clearly selected in nature,” Racaniello said. “There are two examples where the sequence tells us that humans had no hand in making this virus because they would not have known to do these things.”
The center for research on globalization
What it is: The Montreal-based center publishes articles on global politics and policy, including a healthy dose of conspiracy theories on vaccines and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It’s led by Michel Chossudovsky, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa and a conspiracy theorist who has argued the US military can control the weather.
The center publishes authors from around the world—many of whom have advanced baseless claims about the origins of the outbreak. In February, for instance, the center published an interview with Igor Nikulin suggesting the coronavirus was a US bioweapon created to target Chinese people. The center’s web site, globalresearch.ca., “has become deeply enmeshed in Russia’s broader disinformation and propaganda ecosystem” by peddling anti-US conspiracy theories, according to a 2020 US State Department report which found that seven of its supposed writers do not even exist but were created by Russian military intelligence. Covid claim: While the center has published several articles about the virus, one suggesting it originated in the US caught the attention of top Chinese officials. On March 12, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian retweeted an article published by the center titled: “China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US?” “This article is very much important to each and every one of us,” he posted in English on Twitter. “Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.” He also tweeted: “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation.” The story by Larry Romanoff, a regular author at the center, cites several debunked theories, including one that members of the US military brought the virus to China during the Military World Games in fall 2019. Romanoff concludes that it has now “been proven” that the virus originated from outside of China, despite scientific consensus that it did. Evidence? The World Health Organization has concluded that the coronavirus emerged in China, where the first cases and deaths were reported. No evidence has surfaced to suggest the virus was imported into China by the US. Chossudovsky and Romanoff did not respond to re p e ate d m e s s a g e s s e e k i n g co m m e nt. Romanoff ’s biography lists him as a visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, but he is not listed among the university’s faculty. The university did not respond to an e-mail asking about Romanoff ’s employment. Romanoff’s original article was taken down in the spring, but Zhao’s tweet remains up.
Igor Nikulin
Who is he? A four-time failed political candidate, Nikulin is prominently quoted in Russian state media and fringe publications in the west as a biologist and former weapons inspector in Iraq who served on a UN commission on biological and chemical weapons in the 1990s. Covid claim: Nikulin argues the US created the virus and used it to attack China. He first voiced the belief in a Jan. 20, 2020, story by Zvezda, a state media outlet tied to the Russian military. He appeared on Russian state TV at least 18 times between January 27, 2020, and late April of that year. Once the virus reached the US, Nikulin changed his theory, saying “globalists” were using the virus to depopulate the earth. Nikulin has expressed support for weaponizing misinformation to hurt the US in the past. On his web site, he suggests claiming the US created HIV as a way to weaken America from within. Russian intelligence mounted a similar 1980s disinformation campaign dubbed “Operation INFEKTION.” “If you prove and declare...that the virus was bred in American laboratories, the American economy will collapse under the onslaught of billions of lawsuits by millions of AIDS carriers around the world,” Nikulin wrote on his web site. Evidence? Nikulin offered no evidence to support his assertions, and there are reasons to doubt his veracity. Former UN weapons inspector Richard Butler, for whom Nikulin claims to have worked, said he had no memory of Nikulin, and that his story sounded “sloppily fabricated, and not credible.” No UN records could be found to confirm his employment. In an exchange with the AP over Facebook, Nikulin insisted his claims and background are accurate, though he said some records from UN work were destroyed in an American bombing during the Iraq invasion. When told that Butler didn’t know him, Nikulin responded “This is his opinion.”
Greg Rubini
Who he is: Greg Rubini is the name of an Internet conspiracy theorist who claims to have high-level contacts in intelligence and listed his location on Twitter as “classified,” until he was kicked off the platform. His posts have been retweeted thousands of times by supporters of QAnon, a conspiracy theory centered on the baseless belief that Trump is waging a secret campaign against
enemies in the “deep state” and a secret sect of satanic pedophiles and cannibals. Covid claim: Rubini has tweeted that Dr. Anthony Fauci created the coronavirus and that it was used as a bioweapon to reduce the world’s population and undermine Trump. Evidence? Rubini’s doesn’t appear to be the intelligence insider that he pretends to be. Buzzfeed attempted to track down Rubini last year and determined it is the alias of a 61-year-old Italian man who has worked in marketing and music promotions. A previous version of his Twitter bio indicates he is a fan of classic rock and the films of Stanley Kubrick. Attempts to reach Rubini online and through business contacts were unsuccessful. Rubini has bristled at efforts to verify his claims. When a social-media user asked: “My question to you @GregRubini is, ‘Where and what is your proof?’ Rubini responded curtly: “And my question is: why should I give it to you?” Twitter suspended Rubini’s account in November 2020 for repeated violations of its policies.
Kevin Barrett
Who he is: A former lecturer on Islam at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Barrett left the university amid criticism for his claims that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were orchestrated by people linked to the US and Israeli governments. Barrett calls himself “a professional conspiracy theorist, for want of a better term” and has argued government conspiracies were behind the 2004 Madrid bombing, the 2005 London bombing, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. Covid claim: Barrett said he is “80%” sure coronavirus was created by elements within the US government as a bioweapon and used to attack China. Iran was a secondary target, he has argued. Writing for Iran’s PressTV, he said the early outbreak in that country “suggests that the Americans and/or their partners the Israelis...may have deliberately attacked Iran.” Barrett further detailed his views during an interview with the AP. “It seemed fairly obvious to me that the first hypothesis one would look at when something as extraordinary as this Covid pandemic hits, is that it would be a US bio-war strike,” he said. Evidence? Barrett cited reports that the US warned its allies in November 2019 about a dangerous virus emerging from China. Barrett said that’s long before authorities in China knew about the severity of the outbreak. Official sources have denied issuing any warning. If the US did know about the virus that soon, it was likely thanks to intelligence sources within China, which may have known about the virus as early as November 2019, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Luc Montagnier
Who he is: Montagnier is a world-renowned virologist who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering HIV. Covid claim: During an April interview with the French news channel CNews, Montagnier claimed that the coronavirus did not originate in nature and was manipulated. Montagnier said that in the process of making the vaccine for AIDS, someone took the genetic material and added it to the coronavirus. Montagnier cites a retracted paper published in January from Indian scientists who had said they had found sequences of HIV in the coronavirus. AP made multiple unsuccessful attempts to contact Montagnier. Evidence: Experts who have looked at the genome sequence of the virus have said it has no HIV-1 sequences. In January, Indian scientists published a paper on bioRXIV, a repository for scientific papers that have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a traditional scientific journal. The paper said that the scientists had found “uncanny similarity of unique inserts” in Covid-19 and HIV. Social-media users picked up the paper as proof that the virus was engineered. As soon as it was published, the scientific community widely debunked the paper on social-media. It was later withdrawn.
Supreme leader Ali Khamenei and Hossein Salami
Who they are: Khamenei is the second and current Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has the final say on all matters of state, including the economy, military and health divisions. Since being elected to office in 1981, Khamenei has maintained his skeptical view of the US as Iran’s foremost enemy. The tensions between the two countries boiled over in 2018 when Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions. At the time, Khamenei remarked, “I said from the first day: Don’t trust America.” Hossein Salami was appointed by Khamenei as commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in April 2019. He leads the country’s paramilitary force that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program and responds to threats from both inside and outside the country. Covid claim: Salami declared on March 5, 2020, that Iran was engaged in a fight against a virus that might be the product of an American biological attack. On those grounds, Salami ordered a Ground Force Biological Defense Maneuver to test the country’s ability to combat a biological attack. Beginning March 16, the Ground Force, in close collaboration with the Health Ministry, began holding nationwide biodefense drills. Khamenei was among the first and most powerful world leaders to suggest the coronavirus could be a biological weapon created by the US. During his annual address on March 22 to millions of Iranians for the Persian New Year, Khamenei questioned why the US would offer aid to countries like Iran if they themselves were suffering and accused of making the virus. Khamenei went on to refuse US assistance, saying “possibly [US] medicine is a way to spread the virus more.” Last month, he refused to accept coronavirus vaccines manufactured in Britain and the US, calling them “forbidden.” The Iranian Mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Evidence: There is no evidence that the US created the virus or used it as a weapon to attack Iran.
Science
BusinessMirror
www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion
Sunday
Sunday, February 28, 2021 A5
PHL’s, China’s S&T agencies launch 8 joint R&D projects E
By Lyn Resurreccion
ight joint research and development (R&D) projects for 2021 were launched online on February 24 under the inaugural Philippine’s Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Joint Research Program (JRP). The JRP covers areas from health, agriculture and renewable energy. It is part of the Philippine’s and China’s commitments to strengthen the two countries’ science and technology partnership under a Memorandum of Understanding on S&T Cooperation signed in August 2019. Topping the list of approved projects is the DOST-Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI) “Green Oil and Phytochemicals from Cashew” to be implemented with its counterpart from the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the DOST said in a news release. The seven other projects under the cooperation scheme are the following: n The Belt and Road of Avian Infectious Diseases: Intervention strategies to predict, prevent and control disease outbreaks caused by emerging strains of newcastle disease viruses and avian influenza viruses in Philippines and China, to be implemented by Philippine’s Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Animal Industry (DA-BAI), and China’s Jilin University; n SinoPhil CHARRME: ChinaPhilippines Cooperation for Harnessing and Accelerating Research and
Resources on Microvesicles and Exosomes (The Development of Exosome Probe Chip as a New Technology for Diagnosis of Autoimmune Diseases), by the University of San Agustin, and Tsinghua University; n Key technological research on portable power generation based on gasification of municipal solid wastes and agricultural biomass pre t re ate d b y co - hyd rot he r m a l treatment, by the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, and East China University of Science and Technology; n Research on the key technology of refined assessment of solar energy resources for photovoltaic power generation and development potential in low latitude area/Solar PV Resource and Installation Assessment Using Geospatial Technologies (Sinag), by the University of the Philippines (UP), and China Meteorological Administration Public Meteorological Service Centre; n Developing of techniques for detecting parasitic helminth infections and for alerting transmission as well as evaluation of their safety risk, by the UP Institute of Biology, and the Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital; n T he development of highperformance and low-cost membrane electrode assembly for alkaline fuel-cell based on ion/electron dual conducting catalyst layers, by the UP, and the Hefei University of Technology; and n Evolutionary dynamics and phylogenetic analysis of rabies virus in
Reproductive health education, vital vs teenage pregnancy during pandemic
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e e n ag e pregnancy is unplanned, but not necessarily unwanted, and unplanned pregnanc y means no
regrets.” These are some of the findings presented by Dr. Gloria Luz M. Nelson, professor of Sociology at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, based on her study of 18 teenagers from nine provinces in seven regions in the Philippines who are pregnant, mothers, or are both pregnant and are mothers at the same time during the Covid- 19 pandemic crisis in 2020. It should be noted that the study by Nelson and Mari Juni Paulette B. Gonzales was a „qualitative research“ based on varying experiences of the proponents, and not the common quantitative studies. When asked how it is to be a mother, the teens responded that it means a source of joy, excitement and inspiration. No one had attempted to abort or commit suicide, Nelson and Gonzales pointed out in their study. Majority, except one, however, expressed regret over being pregnant. “It is boring, I cannot leave the house to roam around. Eat, sleep only...vague thoughts, gossiping with my housemates, dream big but I know it is impossible for it to come true,” the respondent said in Filipino. Further, the teens view pregnancy as a consequence of having a boyfriend and that sexual abstinence and use of contraceptives are not being practiced. Also, for those interviewed, being intimate is an expression of love and respect. While the study could not provide a general conclusion, given its small sample size and the qualitative method employed in the study, it however, provided vivid descriptions and meanings of the experiences of the Filipino pregnant teens during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, Nelson said. The stories told by the teens show that family members, partners, husbands, relatives and friends are the main source of financial and emotional support of the teenagers. Most of these teens are not currently enrolled but have plans to continue their studies since they are aware that education can help provide a better future for their children. Nelson cautioned, though, that the study is bias toward teens with access to cellular phones. The in-depth interviews that lasted for over an hour were conducted via Facebook Chat or Messenger, which leaves out those who did not have access to communication devices. Nelson further shared that most of the
time, cell phones are not for the exclusive use by teens but for the use also of other members of the households. From the researcher’s perspective, the situation of teenage pregnancy and teenage mothers means facing multiple burdens that include the following: having a low to no income, lack of education, less employment opportunities, and health risks for both the mother and the unborn child. In a related study in 2020, it was estimated that 2 million Filipino women, 15 to 49 years old, are expected to get pregnant due to Covid-19 lockdowns, and 10 percent of these pregnancies will come from those below 20 years old.
Recommendations One of the recommendations of Nelson and Gonzales is to urgently implement an ageappropriate comprehensive sex education, which, according to them, is not a privilege, but a right of the youth to know about reproductive health from the right sources. Nelson added that sex education does not only mean teaching the youth on the proper use of contraceptives, but includes rational planning in terms of the following: when they want to have kids, how many they want, how many years of interval between children, and learning to say “No” over sexual advances. “We can learn something from this study which results in some policy recommendations, [maybe] if not in the national government level, [maybe] at the local government level,” said Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña as quoted in a Department of Science and Technology-National Research Council of the Philippines (DOST-NRCP) report. For his par t, DOST-NRCP President Dr. G re g o ri o E . H . D e l Pi l a r e m p h a s i ze d t h e importance of qualitative research, such as this of Nelzon and Gonzales, which gives people the knowledge on the range of varying experiences, instead of the trends commonly provided by quantitative studies. The study, the seventh in the “Kapakanan ng Tao sa Oras ng Pandemya-Covid [KTOP]” webinar series, was viewed by over 300 par ticipants, some of whom came from the House of Representatives, Commission on Youth, D epar tment of Social Welfare and D evelopment, National S ecurit y Council, u n i ve r s i t i e s i n c l u d i n g t h e U n i ve r s i t y o f the Philippines System from D iliman to Mindanao, and the Population Commission. KTOP is a basic research promotion initiative of the DOST-NRCP. Geraldine Bulaon-Ducusin/
S&T Media Services
The officials of the Philippine’s Department of Science and Technology and Chinese Embassy grace the online launching on February 24 of the inaugural Joint Research Program of the DOST and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology. They are joined by the two countries’ respective ambassadors, DFA representatives and the projects’ leaders. Screenshot, DOST-ITCU the Philippines, by the DA-BAI, and the Jilin University. Each project will be implemented for two years, and will have an annual R&D fund of up to P8 million for the Philippine side and RMB 1 million (approximately P7,537,541) for the Chinese side. The Call for Proposals for the DOST-MOST JRP that was released in May 2020 was able to solicit a total of 37 capsule proposals from Filipino researchers all over the Philippines. Reviewed and matched with MOST, it resulted in eight proposals for funding and implementation. In his speech during the launch, Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña said following the signing of the MOU with MOST, “We at the
Department, are very much excited to welcome collaborative talks and initiatives with our S&T counterparts from Yunnan, Guangxi, Jiangxi, and Shandong [in China] to work on areas of mutual interest.” “We look forward to our continued cooperation with MOST through this JRP to address common S&T challenges of both nations, and to provide necessary collaborative platforms to our researchers—both locally, and internationally,” de la Peña said in his message, a copy of which was obtained by the BusinessMirror. De la Peña prov ided an overv iew of the long-standing collaboration of DOST w ith MOST that began with the Basic Agreement on S&T that was signed in 1978, the
DOST ’s International Technolog y Cooperation Unit (ITCU) said in a news release. It was strengthened by the recent initiatives that both Philippine and Chinese agencies have jointly undertaken, including the inaugural DOSTMOST JRP. The Science Chief explained in his speech that the current Duterte administration is «committed» to «reinvigorate” the Philippine’s longstanding relationship with China. President Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping have earlier issued a joint statement emphasizing collaboration between the two nations’ aspiration to “explore other areas of bilateral cooperation, including IT, health, customs cooperation, research and development, education, and other fields that will be mutually beneficial to both countries.” For her par t, Undersecretar y Rowena Cristina L. Guevara shared during the event the S&T framework of cooperation between DOST and MOST, where the JRP figures in among possible areas of partnerships laid out in the agreement, the DOST-ITCU said. Both Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian and Philippine Ambassador to China Jose Santiago L. Sta. Romana also graced the online event. In his speech, Huang pointed out that the consensus of the Heads of States of the Philippines and China provides avenues for collaboration on areas of common interest particularly
on science, technology and innovation systems and policies that play important roles in battling the pandemic, the DOST ITCU said. These also include new products and technologies in biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and big data that will support the immediate post-Covid-19 recovery. Huang further said that in the last Group of 20 summit, “Chinese President Xi Jinping noted that new businesses should leverage on strengthened cooperation on science, technology, and innovation.” Sta. Romana echoed the same commitment of the Chinese counterparts, noting that a robust engagement on S&T, especially between the Philippines and China, is central to sustainable progress and development, the DOST-ITCU said. He reaffirmed the commitment of the Philippine Embassy in China to support and further widen the continuing S&T cooperation between the two countries. De la Peña said: “Our hope is for these partnerships to further evolve into higher planes to include joint government research and development undertakings, scientific fora and conferences, and capacity-building activities.” T he event was also attended by DOST Assistant Secretar y Dr. Leah J. Buendia for International Cooperation, DOST Councils executive directors, representatives from the Depa r t ment of Foreig n A f fa irs, and projects’ leaders from both the Philippines and China.
Hybridization program to improve coconut production in Calabarzon
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ith the current high demand for v irgin coconut oil as a supplement against Cov id-19, a coconut hybridization project is expected to continue to improve coconut production in Calabarzon. The “Performance Evaluation of the 2-pronged Coconut Hybridization Scheme in Calabarzon” project ensures the availability of coconut hybrids for the Philippine Coconut Authority’s (PC A) massive coconut planting and replanting program in the region. Likewise, it capacitates extension workers and farmers w ith the assisted and directed natural hybridization technolog y. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD) is providing funds to the project that is being implemented by PCA-Region IV under the supervision of PCA Deputy Administrator for
The Philippine Coconut Authority research team with DOST-PCAARRD representatives and S&T consultant during the recent project review held online. Crops Research Division, DOST-PCAARRD Research and Development Erlene C. Manohar. Accomplishments of the project were recently rev iewed in an online meeting organized by DOSTPC A ARR D. About 8,197 planting materials of PC A 15-10 (Tacunan dwarf x Laguna tall) hybrid, the variety
best suited for sap production, have been har vested from project sites in Quezon. A lmost 40 percent of the planting mater ia ls were a lready d is tributed to 15 farmers and fieldplanted in 25.5 hectares in Quezon, Cav ite and Laguna. Likewise, planting materials were
given to an interested farmer in Torrijos, Marinduque. It was observed that the produced hybrid nuts are significantly robust, have thicker girth and good vegetative growth. According to the project’s S&T Consu lt a nt, Dr. V iolet a N. V i llegas, the replanting of the old and senile palms w ill improve the countr y’s coconut production and consequently improve farm income and the lives of coconut farmers. W it h i nc re a si ng de m a nd for emerging high-value products in the global and domestic markets, Manohar said the planting of hybrids is seen as the answer to the industr y’s pursuit towards global competitiveness. P ro j e c t t e a m me m b e r s f rom PC A-R eg ion I V a nd PC A-Za mbo a nga R esea rc h Center, a s we l l a s t he C rops R esea rc h Div ision rep resent at ives led by it s Di rec tor, Dr. Ed n a A . A n it pa r t ic ipated i n t he re v iew. Alissa Carol M. Ibarra/S&T
Media Services
Newton Agham PhD scholars graduate amid the pandemic
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Sheen Mclean Cabaneros, PhD in Medical Engineering
hr e e N e w t o n A g h a m P h D s c h o l a r s completed their doctorate research in January regardless of predicaments caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Having been supported by the British Council through par tnerships with the Depar tment of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in the past four years, the Filipino scholars have established their presence in the fields of medicine, energy and environmental engineering, the British Council Philippines said in a news release.
Charlie Lavilla Jr, PhD in Biomedical Science DOST-Newton scholar Charlie Lavilla Jr. earned his degree at the Nottingham Trent University. Lavilla’s research explored the biochemical properties of carnosine in characterising and potentially developing a low-cost food supplementation strategy to help treat or prevent muscle damage in people with diabetes and other lifestyle diseases. He is set to return to the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSUIIT) to continue his career as associate professor. Lavilla has set his goal to transpose this expertise back to the Philippines and support
Newton Agham PhD scholars are (from left) Sheen Mclean Cabaneros, Gene Fe Palencia and Charles Lavilla Jr. completed their doctorate research. Photo from the British Council MSU-IIT in its efforts to become one of the country’s leading research universities.
Gene Fe Palencia, PhD in Engineering DOST-Newton graduate Gene Fe Palencia finished her degree at Coventry University. Palencia’s research focused on wireless sensor networks directed to enable user-driven control of micro-power generation devices.
She explored developing user-friendly mobile applications and tools to support technologically enhanced precision farming. Her research took a holistic view on the “farmer and farming” socio-technical system and leveraged state-of-the-art tools in environmental, soil sensing and nutrients control to help farmers form more informed decisions towards productivity. Palencia has returned to Cebu where she is a faculty member at the University of San Carlos.
CHED-DOST Newton scholar Sheen Mclean Cabaneros completed his studies at the University of Strathclyde. He worked on developing a forecasting model to characterise the concentration levels of air pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide and particulate matters, in urbanised areas. Cabaneros’s study provides an economical early-warning mechanism for the public to plan their activities in advance and reduce exposure to potential air pollution episodes. This year, he is set to return to his home institution, the University of Santo Tomas. As of February 2021, there are seven Newton Fund PhD graduates while 15 other scholars are expected to graduate and return to the country in 2021 to early 2022. The Newton PhD Programme aims to facilitate the capacity building of individuals, and the building of sustainable, long-lasting links between the UK and the Philippines. D e l i ve re d b y t h e B r i t i s h Co u n c i l, t h e program is jointly funded by the Philippine g o v e r n m e n t t h ro u g h D O S T a n d C H E D t o offer full-time PhD scholarships for Filipino researchers in the UK.
Faith A6 Sunday, February 28, 2021
Sunday
Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph
Vatican issues Holy Week 2021 guidelines amid Covid-19 woes
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ATICAN—The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued guidelines recently for the celebration of Holy Week this year in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In the note signed on February 17 by the congregation’s prefect Cardinal Robert Sarah and secretary Archbishop Arthur Roche, the congregation said that bishops were called upon to make prudent decisions regarding the liturgy in line with the Vatican decree on Holy Week liturgies issued in March 2020, which will remain valid for this year.
“We therefore invite you to reread it in view of the decisions that bishops will have to make about the upcoming Easter celebrations in the particular situation of their country,” it said. “Many countries still have strict lockdown conditions in force rendering it impossible for the faithful to be present in church, while in others
a more normal pattern of worship is being resumed,” it noted. The congregation noted that the use of social media has aided pastors in offering support to their communities during the pandemic, but it added that “problematic aspects were also observed.” In light of this concern, the Vatican suggested that media coverage of the Holy Week liturgies offered by the local bishops are “facilitated and favored, encouraging the faithful who are unable to attend their own church to follow the diocesan celebrations as a sign of unity.” The guidelines also recommended the preparation of prayer aids for family and personal prayer that make use of the Liturgy of the Hours. The decree issued in March 2020 by the Congregation for Divine Worship, which remains valid in 2021, included the following guidelines for
the liturgies of Holy Week in areas where there are restrictions on public gatherings from civil and Church authorities: Palm Sunday: The Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem is to be celebrated within sacred buildings; in cathedral churches the second form given in the Roman Missal is to be adopted; in parish churches and in other places the third form is to be used. The Chrism Mass: Evaluating the concrete situation in different countries, the bishops’ conferences will be able to give indications about a possible transfer to another date. Holy Thursday: The washing of feet, which is already optional, is to be omitted. At the end of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the procession is also omitted and the Blessed Sacrament is to be kept in the tabernacle. On this day the faculty to celebrate Mass in a suitable place, without the presence of
the people, is exceptionally granted to all priests. Good Friday: In the Universal Prayer, bishops will arrange to have a special intention prepared for those who find themselves in distress, the sick, the dead. The adoration of the Cross by kissing it shall be limited solely to the celebrant. The Easter Vigil: This will be celebrated only in cathedral and parish churches. For the “Baptismal Liturgy” only the “Renewal of Baptismal Promises” is maintained. The new note from the Congregation said: “We are aware that the decisions taken have not always been easy for pastors or the lay faithful to accept.” “However, we know that they were taken with a view to ensuring that the sacred mysteries be celebrated in the most effective way possible for our communities, while respecting the common good and public health.”
Courtney Mares/Catholic News Agency
Catholic missionary priest nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
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Catholic missionary priest in Madagascar known for serving the poor living on a landfill has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Fr. Pedro Opeka, 72, is a Vincentian priest from Argentina who has worked with the poor in Madagascar for more than three decades. He founded the Akamasoa humanitarian association in 1989 as a “solidarity movement to help the poorest of the poor” living on the site of a garbage dump. Janez Janša, the Prime Minister of Slovenia, has announced that he nominated Opeka for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his dedication to “helping people living in appalling living conditions.” The Akamasoa association (meaning “good friend”) has provided former homeless people and families with 4,000 brick houses and has helped to educate 13,000 children and young people. Pope Francis visited Opeka’s “City of Friendship” built atop a rubbish dump on the outskirts of the capital city of Antananarivo during his apostolic visit to Madagascar in September 2019. Pedro Pablo Opeka was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1948. His parents were refugees from Slovenia who emigrated after the inception of the communist regime in Yugoslavia. At the age of 18, he entered the seminary of the Congregation for the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul in San Miguel, Argentina. Two years later, he traveled to Europe to study philosophy in Slovenia and theology in France. He then spent two years as a missionary in Madagascar. In 1975, he was ordained a priest at the Basilica of Lujan, and in 1976 he returned to Madagascar, where he has remained to this day. Upon seeing the desperate poverty in the capital city of Antananarivo, especially at the landfills where people live in cardboard boxes and children compete with pigs for food, he decided to do something for the poor. With help from abroad and the work of the
Fr. Pedro Opeka in Antananarivo, Madagascar. AMICI DI PADRE PEDRO
people of Madagascar, he founded villages, schools, food banks, small businesses, and even a hospital to serve the poor through the Akamasoa association. During the coronavirus pandemic, Opeka has been working to help families who have fallen even deeper into poverty as a consequence of coronavirus measures. “The situation is difficult for families, for the poor who have many children. We do not have rice. We do not have water. We need water and soap,” Opeka told Vatican Radio in April 2020. Madagascar is one of the world’s poorest countries. Opeka expressed his gratitude to Pope Francis for his appeal for rich countries to cancel the debt of poor countries in light of the pandemic. “It is necessary if we want to live in dignity,” he said. This is not the first time that Opeka has been nominated for the peace prize. Slovenian Parliament representatives also nominated the priest in 2012. Among the other nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this year are the Black Lives Matter movement, the World Health Organization, Greta Thunberg, Donald Trump, Stacey Abrams, Jared Kushner, Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, and Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. A Catholic lawyer who helped found the prodemocracy movement in Hong Kong has also been nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Martin Lee Chu-ming, 82, has been demonstrating for universal suffrage in Hong Kong for nearly 40 years. Lee was the founding chairman in 1990 of Hong Kong’s first pro-democracy party, the United Democrats of Hong Kong, and led the party’s successor, the Democratic Party, while serving in the territory’s legislature for more than two decades. Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner was the United Nations World Food Programme. This year’s winner is expected to be announced next fall. Courtney Mares/
Catholic News Agency via CBCP News
PABASA.
The Albano family of Cainta, Rizal, holds their annual family tradition of “Pabasa,” or Chanting of Christ’s Passion. They pray for the end of the Covid-19 pandemic and thank God that the family is safe from the virus. Following the health protocol, they hold their seventh pabasa with face mask and social distancing and only 10 people at a time. Bernard Testa
Faith shines bright amid darkness in Myanmar
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hree weeks after Myanmar’s army effectively ended Myanmar’s ten-year-old fledgling democracy, protesters again gathered on Wednesday in Yangon. It is the 19th day people have gathered since the first large protest on February 6. Myanmar’s Bishops voiced their concern on Sunday, one day after a 16-year-old boy was killed in Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar. “The heart-rending scenes of youth dying in the streets wound the conscience of a nation...The sadness of parents burying their children has to stop. Mothers’ tears are never a blessing to any nation.” Healing can begin, they stressed, “with the release of detained leaders.” The citizens of Myanmar are accompanied by women religious “fighting and protesting to end military dictatorship, to get justice and peace.” One of the sisters of Sisters St. Joseph of the Apparition, who wishes to remain anonymous, shared her experience with Vatican News. “On the first day of February, after our morning prayers, we came to know the sad news that our leaders were arrested. Some of us cried and we all were saddened. As soon as we finished our breakfast we start making adoration till midnight by turns.” As the days unfolded, the sisters began to understand their mission differently, but always in the paradigm of their charism. “Our congregation’s charism is ‘love.’ Our mission is to show love in different works of charity. Our Constitutions says ‘...fighting in the spirit of the Gospel against destitution and every kind of injustice....’” The Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition prepared food for the protesters on February 21. At first the sisters began to provide “snacks, coffee, juice” to the people who were taking to the streets. She confesses they were having a hard time finding the financial resources to continue providing this service. “Some donors began to offer us some help
Sisters on February 23 comfort the grandmother of the 16-year-old boy killed in the protests. Photo from the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition Facebook page/Vatican News when they saw on Facebook what we were doing,” the sister says. “Even our smile is great support for the protesters.” The sisters have also taken part in two demonstrations in Yangon, standing and walking side-by-side their fellow citizens. “ We s u re ly u n d e r s t a n d t h at w i t h o u t demonstrating, the military dictatorship will never end. That is why we support the protesters as much as we can,” she said. Sister described the mood in the country in terms both positive and negative. She writes that a positive aspect is that even though Generation Z had never directly experienced the military dictatorship, they are now coming to realize “they are the leaders now in this revolution. They are full of zeal and creative,” sister writes. She tells us that the young people “are exhausted” but they will not stop until “the military give up their power, because Myanmar’s military power has been destroying our country for more than 60 years already.” However, the sister emphasizes, they are
committed to the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). Writing about the negative aspect, the sister says, “We are scared, worried, insecure and sometimes hopeless.” She added: “During the night we are scared because the police and soldiers attack the activists, protest leaders, CDM officers and influencers during the night. More than 20,000 prisoners were released and the army paid them and ask them to set fires in the quarters. People from the quarters choose night watch among them to catch different kinds of night time terrorists.” The nuns are determined to continue offering support to the cause, even though there may be unforeseen consequences. “During the day there are police everywhere. Although they are not causing us any harm, we are watched and we are alert during the night. No supporter or activist is safe in this time. They catch and arrest people at night everywhere in the country,” she said. Sr. Bernadette Mary Reis, FSP/
Vatican News
Anti-vax at the Vatican? You might lose your job
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OME—The Vatican is taking Pope Francis’ pro-vaccine stance very seriously: Any Vatican employee who refuses to get a coronavirus shot without a valid medical reason risks being fired. A February 8 decree signed by the governor of the Vatican city-state says that employees who opt out of vaccination without a proven medical reason could be subject to a sanction up to and including “the interruption of the relationship of employment.” The directive cited the need to protect Vatican employees in the workplace, as well as guidelines issued by Francis’s advisory Covid-19 commission, which said individuals have a moral responsibility to get vaccinated “given that refusing a vaccine can constitute a risk for others.” The decree sparked heated debate, since its provisions go well beyond the generally voluntary nature of Covid-19 vaccinations in Italy and much of the rest of the world. The Vatican is an absolute monarchy in the heart of Rome that operates independently of Italian law and Italian labor protections. In a statement responding to questions about the decree, the Vatican City State governorate’s office defended the measure but denied it infringed on the rights of employees. It said it was issued as an urgent response to a public health crisis and reflected the need to protect individual workers and the broader community. The statement said the reference to a 2011 norm allowing for the possible firing of an employee who refuses preventive health-care measures was not punitive in nature. Rather, the statement said, it is “a tool providing a flexible and proportional response to the need to balance the health care of the collective with the freedom of choice, without resorting to any repressive means vis a vis the employee.” Some Catholics and other believers have expressed faith-based concerns about vaccines because some of the ones available were indirectly connected to research that used aborted fetal cells. The Vatican’s doctrine office has judged it morally acceptable for Catholics to receive Covid-19 vaccines, including those that relied on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses. Vaccines are not mandatory in Italy, where Europe’s coronavirus outbreak erupted this time last year and which has the highest pandemic death toll of any European country except Britain. Some doctors and nurses who have expressed anti-vaccine sentiments or skepticism about the virus have been threatened with professional sanctions. The Italian government’s bioethics committee said in November that while it couldn’t rule out the need to require vaccines for members of highly exposed groups, such as medical personnel, any move to mandate Covid-19 jabs must be “discussed within their professional associations and be revoked as soon as there is no longer a significant risk for the collective.” The Vatican, which has around 5,000 employees, is on its way to becoming perhaps the first country to complete its adult vaccination campaign. The Holy See’s health service began inoculating staff member and their families in January with the Pfizer vaccine. Francis himself has received both of the needed doses, and the Vatican has expanded its vaccine offerings to also cover homeless people in the area. Francis has frequently spoken about the need to ensure that vaccines are widely available, especially to the poor and marginalized. AP
Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror
Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014
Editor: Lyn Resurreccion
Sunday, February 28, 2021
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Sarangani Bay Protected Seascape teeming with coastal, marine life Sarangani Bay’s scenic feature Photos by Penro Sarangani/SBPS2
By Jonathan L. Mayuga
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arangani Bay was put in the spotlight recently when reports that hundreds of whales and dolphins showed up while a team from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the province was conducting a marine mammal census. Little is known about Sarangani Bay. This magnificent seascape is a rich body of water and home to the tuna industry in the Philippines. It is teeming with coastal and marine life, enough to be included as one of the 94 protected areas covered by the Expanded National Integrated Protected Area System Act.
Protected seascape On March 5, the Sarangani Bay Protected Seascape (SBPS) will mark its 25th year. In 1996, then-President Fidel V. Ramos signed Proclamation 756, establishing Sarangani Bay and a portion of the municipal waters of Maitum, Kiamba and Maasim in the province of Sarangani, as a protected seascape, in order to protect and maintain its coastal and marine resources for the benefit of the Filipino people. The SBPS has a total of area of 215,950 hectares and is shared by a total of 68 coastal barangays from the towns of Maitium, Kiamba and Maasim, and the towns of Alabel, Malapatan, and Glan; and General Santos City,
The stretch of Sarangani Bay covers a total of 224 kilometers. It is host to the General Santos City Fish Port Complex, numerous fishing villages, beach resorts, a coal energy power plant, shipyards, marine parks and sanctuaries and aquaculture farms. As host to one of the country’s most important cities and ports, Sarangani Bay, from which the province was named when it was created in 1992, is one of the Soccsksargen Region’s most economically important bodies of water.
Biological features According to the DENR-Region 12 and the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (Penro) of Sarangani, its coastline is teeming with diverse species of mangrove. There are a total of 27 mangrove species and 9 associate species within the SBPS. Among the most dominant species of mangroves in the area are the pagatpat, bungalon and bakawan. The SBPS also hosts a total of 11 species of seagrass, that is dominated by the locally known “miki.” There are also 411 reef species in Sarangani Bay.
Socioeconomic and cultural profile T h e r e a r e s e v e r a l i n d i g e no u s t r i b e s w it h i n t h e S B P S . T h e s e i n c l u d e t h e B l a a n , Ta g a k a o l o , T ’ bol i, Manobo, K a lagan and Mag uindanaos.
Corals and fishes waiting to be discovered within the Sarangani Bay Protected Seascape They are described as some of the most hospitable and fun-loving Sarangans or people of Sarangani. They engage in indigenous music and cook a scrumptious feast of local delicacies. More importantly, the DENR said the intricate craftsmanship of their mat-weaving and beadwork is “marvelous.”
Threatened species The SBPS is home to many threatened species—such as dugong, mameng, or the Napoleon wrasse, and four species of marine turtles namely hawksbill, olive ridley, loggerhead and green sea turtle. Other notable fauna include dolphins, whales, sunfish, giant clams, and shorebirds, most of which are threatened. Despite that, the area is frequented by marine mammals, like whales and dolphins, which make it uniquely interesting.
Garbage woes Sarangani Bay, like most coastal areas in various parts of the country, is affected by menacing garbage. “The garbage is not from the coastal communities but from inland,” said Joy C. Ologuin, the Protected Area Superintendent of SBPS. She said the tons of garbage indiscriminately dumped by irresponsible residents end up in waterways and, during heavy downpours, are swept away by the raging river down to
Thailand’s Khao Sok National Park is 50th Asean Heritage Park
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protected area in Thailand, touted as the world’s oldest tropical evergreen forest, Khao Sok National Park, was declared an Asean Heritage Park (AHP), the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) announced in a news release. The environment ministers of the Asean approved the nomination of Khao Sok National Park as the 50th Asean Heritage Park as endorsed and recommended virtually by the 31st Meeting of the Asean Senior Officials on Environment (ASOEN) and the 22nd meeting of the governing board of the ACB, hosted by Vietnam on November 24 and 25, 2020. “We are pleased to share the news that Khao Sok National Park has joined the list of designated Asean Heritage Parks. These remarkable parks are areas of high conservation value that best represent the region’s rich natural resources and cultural identity,” said ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim. The ACB, as the secretariat of the Asean Heritage Parks (AHP) Programme, facilitates the rigorous evaluation process of the nominated protected areas to be declared as an AHP. An evaluation team, led by Robert Mather, technical assistance team leader of the Biodiversity Conservation and Management of Protected Areas in Asean (BCAMP) Project, together with two Thai evaluators, Dr. Dachanee Emphandhu and Dr. Petch Manopawitr,
visited Khao Sok in October 2020. BCAMP is an ongoing project being implemented by the ACB with support from the European Union. K hao Sok Nationa l Park is a 740-square kilometer terrestrial national park located in the Suratthani province of Thailand. It consists of diverse ecosystems, including evergreen forest, swamp forest and limestone forest. Wildlife species thriving in the park, include the vulnerable species mainland serow and the endangered Malayan tapir, as well as the largest flower Rafflesia Kerrii Meijer and the endemic flowering plant species Khaosokia caricoides. K h ao S ok i s adjacent to t he Ratchaprapha Dam that generates power supply to its surrounding communities. Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP), the agency responsible for protected area conservation and management in the country, welcomed the announcement, saying it gives the department “a feeling of accomplishment.” “On behalf of the Thai people, DNP is delighted and proud of Khao Sok National Park becoming the 50th Asean Heritage Park,” Thanya Netithammakun, director-general of DNP said. Chonlathorn Chamnankid, Thailand’s AHP representative and director of National Park Research and
Innovation Centre, National Parks Office of DNP, said Khao Sok National Park, situated in the middle of Klong Saeng Khao Sok Forest Complex, has been a tourism destination for its ancient rainforest, limestone landscapes, and wildlife, “[providing] income and enhancing quality of life for the locals.” Khao Sok National Park is the seventh AHP in Thailand. Other AHPs are Khao Yai National Park, Tarutao National Park, Ao Phang-Nga-Mu Ko Surin-Mu Ko Similan National Park, Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex, Mu Ko Ang Thong National Park and Hat Chao Mai National Park-Mu Ko Libong Non hunting Area. “ The designation of Khao Sok comes at an opportune time as the Asean region gears toward the recovery of the tourism sector, which is one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. The Asean Heritage Parks, apart from showcasing the rich biodiversity in the region, can also be prime nature tourism destinations,” Lim said. On February 4, following the 24th Meeting of Asean Tourism Ministers through a video conference hosted by the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Asean ministers issued a joint statement expressing commitment to the recovery of the tourism sector, highlighting three priority areas—the “Road to Recovery”; “Towards Asean as a Single Tourism Destination”; and “Realising Sustainable, Inclusive, and Resilient Tourism Development.”
Sunset over mangrove area the river deltas, accumulating in Sarangani Bay. “That is why we are working with the LGUs and the private sector to do something about it,” she said. A proposal, she said, is to put up garbage traps in strategic locations along creeks and rivers so that the garbage will no longer reach the coastal area. “The garbage traps will prevent garbage from going to the bay. The solid waste will just be collected from the traps,” she said partly in Filipino.
Awareness campaign Ologuin said the DENR, in partnership with various stakeholders, continues to conduct information, education and communication campaigns in Sarangani to highlight the importance of protecting and conserving Sarangani Bay. S he s a id t he re i s a ne e d t o strengthen the information drive in various parts of the province, especially those in communities along rivers that lead out to Saragani Bay, to educate them about proper solid waste management that continue to threaten the livelihood of fishing communities and the coastal and marine ecosystem of the province. If unchecked, she said the garbage problem, particularly plastic pollution in Sarangani Bay, will take its toll on the province’s precious marine wildlife—which include the mangroves, seagrass, and corals.
Tourism potential The provincial government of Sarangani has high hopes in turning Sarangani Bay into a tourism hub, with whale- and dolphin-watching among the main attractions. Little is known that Sarangani Bay has potential for diving and snorkelling, with unique species of corals and reef fishes, waiting to be discovered. “That is why we really want to protect Sarangani Bay and keep its water as clean as possible all the time,” Ologuin said.
Simple celebration Because of the pandemic, a simple but meaningful celebration of SBPS’s 25th year on March 5 is being prepared by the DENR along with the provincial government of Sarangani, towns and coastal barangays. “It was decided by the Protected Area Management Board to make the celebration as simple as possible,” Ologuin told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on February 22. Nevertheless, she said the celebration, although it will have a limited number of participants, will be meaningful because all sectors will be appropriately represented. The events aim to encourage audience participation, especially among the coastal communities. “ We really want this to make it know n to all that the Sarangani Bay is a protected seascape, because
PHL urged to consolidate tracking of funds for climate change By Roderick L. Abad
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Contributor
EVELOPING countries like the Philippines are encouraged to have a consolidated approach in tracking climate finances to benefit more people affected by global warming and other catastrophes. Deputy Executive Director Angelo Kairos de la Cruz of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) made the call in a recent webinar, following over-reporting of funds meant to help countries respond to climate change. Citing the global climate finance adaptation study report released last month by CARE International with ICSC and other groups in Southeast Asia and Africa, de la Cruz revealed that developed nations and the finance institutions they oversee have overstated climate finance from 2013 to 2017 by $20 billion. Based on the Climate Finance Adaptation Study Report for the Philippines, on the other hand, he bared that $770 million (P38.5 billion), or 37 percent, can be considered as over-reported from the $2.1 billion (P105 billion) of adaptation finance for the country reported by donors. Such overstated amount of donations covers the 18 assessed projects, mainly arising in initiatives committed by Japan ($425 million), t he World Bank ($156 mi l l ion),
France ($98 million), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ($54 million), and Korea ($32 million). “[So] we’re not talking measly amounts. We’re talking about billions of dollars, which, at some extent, we can still shape on how we will use them. So we still have some space to improve things. But we have to move fast,” de la Cruz said. The latter research they conducted together with Accord and CARE in the Philippines, according to him, found out that the lack of an integrated system of managing climate-related portfolio is among the hindrances for accurate and independent analyses of adaptation and climate finances. Accounting for climate finance, therefore, is a shared responsibility of the source and recipient, he said. “Doing local tracking work and actually following where the money goes and trying to get a first hand feel of how it was actually used on the ground, and how it impacted people, that would require more coordination and, at some extent, a lot of resources as well,” de la Cruz explained. Collaboration-wise, ICSC has always been clear in its position that whatever tracking report it produces could be part of the future initiatives of the government, particularly with the Climate Change Commission through the Climate Finance Systems and Services. “We want to share our findings
some people are still not aware of it,” she said. Hopefully, she said the event will eventually see the declaration of March 5 as a local holiday in General Santos City and the entire Sarangani province.
Bike and Plant This year’s celebration will kick off on February 28 with the launching of the “Bike and Plant” events at the Oval Plaza. From General Santos City, there will be a bike tour with three different levels or categories, with the beginners’ bike tour ending in Glan. Ologuin said another group of bikers will tour to Malapatan and the pro-level participants will go all the way up to Alabel, “the farthest area, where the beautiful beaches in Sarangani Bay can be found.” Simultaneously, there will be an opening of an exhibit to showcase the various products, programs and activities of Sarangani’s various LGUs. The exhibit will run from March 1 to March 5 at the lobby of the City Hall in General Santos City. To cap the event, on March 5, Ologuin said there will be a simultaneous coastal clean-up with all 68 coastal barangays within the SBPS taking part. “We are very happy because we have the support of the LGUs in Sarangani. All LGUs and barangays are very cooperative,” she said. with the rest of the country, if not the rest of the developing countries,” he disclosed. “Within the year, ICSC would be able to bring out a toolkit to update our local tracking toolkit, which could be shared and could be followed by others who are looking into doing this kind of work.” Since the Philippines is among the most vulnerable nations to climate change, he emphasized the importance of having a solid national plan on climate action, building back better and transition to a low-carbon economy. “I think the financing will start flowing naturally toward those if we have a plan. If we basically have access to a lot of funds, but then we don’t have a plan on how to use it,” he noted. “So we have, for example, agencies sitting on grant financing until it has to be given back to the source because they don’t have a plan on how to utilize it. So it’s a missed opportunity. I feel like ordinary Filipinos are missing out a lot instead of benefitting from this available resources,” de la Cruz explained. “We are happy the Department of Finance is working on the country’s climate finance roadmap while working with the Climate Change Commission to deliver an ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement,” he said. The CCC has also set up its Climate Finance Systems and Services, while the legislature, particularly the House climate committee, is exercising its oversight function and fills a massive gap in the accountability loop, he added.
Sports BusinessMirror
GOLF isn’t ready to contemplate the future of its biggest star Tiger Woods. AP
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unday, February 28, 2021 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao
GOLF WITHOUT TIGER?
Semenya bringing case to human rights courT
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APE TOWN, South Africa—Caster Semenya is going to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge “discriminatory” rules that prohibit her from competing in certain track events because of her high natural testosterone, her lawyers said Thursday. The two-time Olympic champion in the 800 meters has already lost two legal appeals against World Athletics’ regulations that force her to medically lower her natural testosterone level if she wants to run in women’s races from 400 meters to 1 mile. The South African’s lawyers said there’s been a “violation of her rights” and wants the humanrights court to examine the rules. Semenya has one of a number of conditions known as differences of sex development. Although she has never publicly released details of her condition, World Athletics has controversially referred to her as “biologically male” in previous legal proceedings, a description that angered Semenya. Semenya has the typical male XY chromosome pattern and levels of testosterone that are much higher then the typical female range, World Athletics says. The track and field body says that gives her and other athletes like her an unfair advantage over other female runners. The 30-year-old Semenya was legally identified as female at birth and has identified as female her whole life. She says her testosterone is merely a genetic gift. The regulations have been fiercely criticized,
mainly because of the “treatment” options World Athletics gives to allow affected athletes to compete. They have one of three options to lower their testosterone levels: Taking daily contraceptive pills, using hormone-blocking injections, or having surgery. “The regulations require these women to undergo humiliating and invasive physical examinations followed by harmful and experimental medical procedures if they wish to compete internationally in women’s events between 400 and 1 mile, the exact range in which Ms. Semenya specializes,” Semenya’s lawyers said. World Athletics, which was then known as the IAAF, announced in 2018 it would introduce the rules. Semenya challenged them and lost at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2019. She also lost a second appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal last year. That second case will be central to her appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. “Caster asks the Court to find that Switzerland has failed in its positive obligations to protect her against the violation of her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights,” her lawyers said. They said the track body’s rules were “discriminatory attempts to restrict the ability of certain women to participate in female athletics competitions.” Because of her refusal to lower her natural testosterone, Semenya has been barred from running in the 800 since 2019, when she was the
dominant runner in the world over two laps. She is currently not allowed to run her favorite race—the race she has won two Olympic golds and three world titles in—at any major event. Semenya is not the only athlete affected. Two other Olympic medalists from Africa, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Margaret Wambui of Kenya, have said they are also bound by the rules. They also said they would refuse to undergo medical intervention to reduce their testosterone levels. “I hope the European court will put an end to the longstanding human-rights violations by World Athletics against women athletes,” Semenya said in a statement. “All we ask is to be allowed to run free, for once and for all.” Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui finished 1-2-3 in the 800 meters at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, strengthening World Athletics’ argument that their medical conditions gave them an athletic advantage over other women. It’s unclear if the human-rights court would be able to hear Semenya’s case before the delayed Tokyo Olympics, which might be Semenya’s last. The games are set to open on July 23. Previous sports cases that have gone to the European Court of Human Rights have taken years to be decided. AP
By Doug Ferguson
T CASTER SEMENYA’S lawyers say there’s been a “violation of her rights” and wants the human-rights court to examine the rules. AP
The Associated Press
HE Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour without Tiger Woods was always inevitable purely because of age. His shattered right leg from his SUV flipping down a hill on a sweeping road through coastal Los Angeles suburbs only brings that closer. Golf wasn’t ready Wednesday to contemplate the future of its biggest star after the 10th and most complicated surgery on the 45-year-old Woods. There was more relief that he was alive. “Listen, when Tiger wants to talk about golf, we’ll talk about golf,” Commissioner Jay Monahan said at the World Golf Championship in Florida. “When you’re going to overcome what he needs to overcome, I think the love of all of our players and everybody out here, it’s going to come forward in a big way and across the entire sporting world. “I think he’ll feel that energy and I think that’s what we should all focus on.” Woods made it clear what he faces with an update posted early Wednesday to social media by his team that outlined the “long surgical procedure” at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Anish Mahajan, the chief medical officer, said Woods shattered tibia and fibula bones on his right leg in multiple locations. Those were stabilized by a rod in the tibia. He said a combination of screws and pins were used to stabilize additional injuries in the ankle and foot. Four previous surgeries to repair ligaments were done on the left knee. This is the first major trauma to the right leg. Woods has had five surgeries on his lower back in the last seven years. The most recent was in December, a microdiscectomy to remove a pressurized disk that was pinching a nerve. “I would say, unfortunately, it’s very, very unlikely that he returns to be a professional golfer after these injuries,” said Dr. Michael Gardner, chief of orthopedic trauma at Stanford Medical Center. “His age, his multiple back issues, this is going to be a very long road ahead if he chooses to attempt to return to his previous level of golfing.” Can golf do without the player singularly responsible for its growth? His watershed victory in the 1997 Masters sent media interest in golf soaring. More than just the first player of Black heritage in a green jacket, he won at a more prolific rate than anyone in history. The timing was impeccable, for the PGA Tour negotiated a television contract that made prize money spike. Woods won his first tournament as a 20-year-old in the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational, where the total purse was $1.65 million. At the World Golf Championship this week, first place alone is worth $1.82 million. Woods made everyone rich. What now?
The PGA Tour has been down this road before. Ten years ago, when Woods was still smarting from the sordid revelations of serial adultery and missed three months with more injuries, the PGA Tour negotiated a nine-year television deal with increased rights fees. There was no assurance Woods could get back to the top of his game. Woods was playing a small schedule even when he was younger and healthier. He has never played more than 21 times in a year on the PGA Tour, which stages events in 46 weeks this season. He also tends to return to the same courses. But when he plays, and there isn’t a pandemic, no one needs to study TV ratings to measure his impact. Fans often stand six and seven rows deep behind tees and greens to get a look. No other player attracts that kind of attention. The top 10 in the world combined don’t do that. Woods doesn’t move the needle. Woods is the needle. “It’s always great when he plays at a tournament or is out here because it gives that tournament an extra dimension that it usually doesn’t,” four-time major champion Rory McIlroy said. “We were all sort of heading towards that day that Tiger wasn’t going to be a part of the game.” Woods had only one top-10 finish last year, and that was before the pandemic. Even after golf returned, he waited an additional month to get started. He played only seven times since July and never cracked the top 35. He remains one victory short of his 83rd victory, which would set a PGA Tour record, the one most reasonable for him to break. That was before the crash. McIlroy already has seen one comeback. He often talks about having lunch one day with Woods in Florida, right after Woods’s fourth back surgery to fuse his lower spine. He saw the pain. And two years later, he saw Woods win the Masters for a fifth time, his 15th major. “I don’t want to take anything away from what Ben Hogan did after his car crash or any of the other comebacks that athletes have had in other sports, but right now I can’t think of any greater comeback in sports than the journey that he made from that lunch we had in 2017 to winning the Masters a couple years later,” McIlroy said. Hogan threw himself in front of his wife right before they were struck by a Greyhound bus in 1949. He broke his pelvis, collarbone and left ankle, chipped a rib and had blood clots that left him with circulation problems the rest of his life. Hogan was 36 at the time. What the future holds for Woods and for the tour is not anything players were ready to embrace. “At this stage, I think everyone should just be grateful that he’s here, that he’s alive, that his kids haven’t lost their dad,” McIlroy said. “That’s the most important thing. Golf is so far from the equation right now, it’s not even on the map.”
Gay Republican lawmaker urges defeat of anti-trans athlete bill
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ASHVILLE, Tennessee—Legislation to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ sports would likely result in vulnerable students being marginalized while also harming Tennessee’s ability to recruit athletes and businesses, the state’s only openly gay Republican lawmaker recently warned his fellow GOP colleagues. “This issue will be divisive and will be used against us in general elections for years to come, and likely lead to costly legal battle in the courts,” wrote Rep. Eddie Mannis, a Republican from Knoxville, in a February 22 letter. The letter, which was first reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel, was sent to the House Education Administration Committee and later provided Thursday to The Associated Press by Mannis’s office. The freshman lawmaker is not a member of the House panel but said he wanted his comments known ahead of a possible House floor debate. “As we strive to represent all of our students, this legislation could very well marginalize a percentage of our kids and have a tremendous impact on them physically and mentally,” Mannis wrote. Mannis’s remarks stand out inside the
GOP-dominant Tennessee Statehouse, where several legislative leaders have expressed strong support of the measure despite criticism from Democratic members and civil-rights advocates. According to the bill, student athletes would be required to prove that their sex matches that listed on the student’s “original” birth certificate in order to participate in public school sports. If a birth certificate is unavailable, then the parents must provide another form of evidence “indicating the student’s sex at the time of birth.” Republican Gov. Bill Lee has held off promising he’ll sign the bill should it land on his desk, but has said that transgender athletes would “destroy women’s sports” and stressed that transgender athletes would put “a glass ceiling back over women that hasn’t been there in some time.” House Speaker Cameron Sexton has conceded that while there may not actually be transgender students currently participating in middle and high-school sports, the bill was necessary so the state could be “proactive” on the issue. In the Senate, the bill has received more tepid support, but it’s still cleared enough hurdles that the measure is headed to a vote by the full Senate. AP
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One of these things is not like the others
Why Facebook is beyond our control
February 28, 2021
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BusinessMirror FEBRUARY 28, 2021 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com
LAYING IT BARE
YOUR MUSI
Sarah Barrios joins forces with syd hartha in hot new single
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By Stephanie Joy Ching
ISING American artist Sarah Barrios recently teamed up with Filipina singersongwriter syd hartha for the new dream-like electropop single, “All My Sins.”
Publisher
: T. Anthony C. Cabangon
Editor-In-Chief
: Lourdes M. Fernandez
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: Aldwin M. Tolosa
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: Jt Nisay
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: Edwin P. Sallan
Group Creative Director : Eduardo A. Davad Graphic Designers Contributing Writers
Columnists
: Niggel Figueroa
With the pandemic giving people more time to themselves, many people have started to reflect on their actions, assess their mistakes in particular and ultimately bare their feelings. The free time has allowed many to face not only their fears but also their confusing thoughts. It can be easy to get lost in negative thoughts and get confused, but for Sarah and by association, syd, that feeling is perfectly valid, as both ladies were able to articulate in her new song. The surprise collaboration marks many firsts for both artists. “I knew that I wanted to do a collaboration with another female and I knew that I had a small following in the Philippines,” shared Sarah. “I knew that they were really active and engaged on social media platforms. So it kinda just felt right to partner up with someone from the Philippines,”
Anabelle O. Flores : Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Darwin Fernandez, Leony Garcia, Stephanie Joy Ching Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez : Kaye VillagomezLosorata Annie S. Alejo
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SARAH Barrios
Prior to this project, Sarah’s only connection to the Philippines was her cover of a Ben&Ben song on YouTube, which led her discover more Filipino artists until she found a music video by syd hartha. “It was really cool, like the photo of it looked really cool, so I said; ‘this looks interesting’ and I clicked on it then I was like: ‘this is perfect’,” she said. And it was perfect, as both syd and Sarah found that they have a deep connection with each other despite being coming from two very different cultures. “We have a lot of things in common,” shared syd. “When we write songs, we’re both very emotional and very vulnerable, and that’s why I thought we were going to get along if we worked together,” For syd, “All My Sins.” marks a big milestone in her career, as it is also her
first collaboration with another artist. “To have an international collaboration was really crazy for me, especially since it’s my first collab,” she expressed. “I was super honored to do this with someone like Sarah, and i’m very grateful for the opportunity,” According to Sarah, “All My Sins” was brought about during a hangout with friends when they were all discussing their feelings. “It was mainly thinking back about all the mistakes that you’ve made as a human being,” said Sarah, “No one’s perfect, but it can be very easy to blame yourself for those mistakes so you hold on to those feelings. You end up asking yourself; ‘am I a bad person, or am I just a human being who makes mistakes?’ I think that it’s important to remember it’s not the mistakes that make you, it’s what you do about them. And we wanted to capture that feeling of being confused and not really knowing how to answer the question,” “I’m sure it’s relatable to a lot of people. And when I look into it, in this quarantine where I keep reflecting, I could relate to it so much for a lot of reasons,” said syd. Released by Sony Music Philippines, “All My Sins” is now available on major streaming platforms.
IC
soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | FEBRUARY 28, 2021
BUSINESS
SoundSampler by Tony M. Maghirang
LOVE AND RAGE Gloc-9’s latest, ‘Poot at Pag-ibig’ sends love in unusual ways
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ELEASED one track per day between February 14 and 19 this year, Gloc-9’s latest release titled “Poot at Pag-ibig (translation: Hatred and Love) is a Valentine’s anthology to the many facets of love.
Now, a full-fledged independent artist, Gloc-9 aka Aristotle Pollisco. has been releasing singles via his various digital platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. The love month has inspired the prodigious poet rapper to look at the bright and the dark sides of being in love and in the process, may have gotten the bite of what it means to be indie. Like, let the imagination roam free, unfettered by the tastemakers of a mainstream record label. “Alitaptap” is a tale of ‘till death do us part’ pact slowly being dashed to pieces by an uncaring, indifferent significant other. The break point: “Kapag ako’y lumalapit, lagi kang lumalayo/Ako na lang ba? Kaya ko pa ba?” “Di Marunong” tells naysayers that faith in one’s self is a vital key to unlock success. Sock it to ‘em gently: “Buti na lang di ako marunong sumuko/Buti na lang hindi nakinig sa mga tutol/ Naniwalang magbubunga ang mga kanta!” “Payong” suggests the resilient ones outlast loser assholes. Lesson no. 1: “Unahin ang angas walang makukuhang mabuti/ Dapat mo gawin nang tama kung gusto mong pumapel!” “Oka:” makes a subtle play on self-love in a time of need
and sorrow and it’s a kind of selfishness at the crossroads of delusional and psychotic. Crux of the matter: “Akala mo ba may kausap ka?/Wala, sira!” “Sana” is a story of longing for a long-lost partner showcasing the second collaboration between father Gloc-9 and daughter Shaun aka Elle Shaun. Loaded lines: “Ito na kaya ang araw na ako’y makakalaya sa mga suliranin?” “B.P. B” acronym for “Bulag, Pipi, Bingi” has nothing to do with Ka Freddie’s Metropop big winner. Instead, the track argues you have to be blind to see the world with fresh eyes, lose your hearing to be free from all the noise, etc. For example, ”“Gusto kong mabulag/Makakitang muli sa mata ng bata/Tinging puna ng saya!” The poet in Gloc-9 is all over the album and the music keeps pace. There’s pop, there’s ballad, there’s fast talking rap and rock, of course, featuring the amplified guitar of a dude named Perf de Castro. Collaborators include Gloc-9’s twins, Shaun and Danie, Arvy T, Loir and Yeg of Sandiwa. All songs were composed by Aristotle Pollisco, arranged by Rassel “Goodson” Tiquia, and mixed and mastered by John Edmel “Gcode” Tabuniar.
GLOC-9
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One of these things is not like the others
Why Facebook is beyond our control
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By Peter Martin
ith Facebook’s announcement that its Oversight Board will make a decision about whether former President Donald Trump can regain access to his account after the company suspended it, this and other high-profile moves by technology companies to address misinformation have reignited the debate about what responsible selfregulation by technology companies should look like. Here are three key ways social-media self-regulation can work:
Australian National University
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hat’s the difference between Google and Facebook? One difference is that last week Google agreed to pay Australian news outlets for their content in the face of a threat of government action to force it to. Facebook did not, temporarily removing Australian news sources from its feeds, a decision it only reversed after winning a range of concessions. Another is the reason why. It’s that Google faces competition, whereas Facebook really doesn’t. If I want to switch from Google to another search engine (something I’ve done) it costs me next to nothing. I might find it hard to move my search history over (although there’s probably an app for that) but otherwise the new search engine will either be better, worse or about the same as the one I left. I’m free to find out. It means that Google is forced to defend itself from competition (or the threat of competition) by providing an extraordinarily good service. Not so Facebook. Although a relatively new concept in economics, the idea of a “network effect” dates back to at least 1908 when the president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Theodore Vail, spelled it out in a letter to stockholders. “A telephone, without a connection at the other end of the line, is not even a toy or a scientific instrument,” he wrote. “It is one of the most useless things in the world. Its
value depends on the connection with the other telephone—and increases with the number of connections.” The ASX stock exchange is another example, as is eBay. You could try to sell something on a different platform, but you wouldn’t reach nearly as many potential customers, so you might not get as good a price. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission puts it this way in its report on Facebook: even if the government made it easier for a user to switch to another network, perhaps by mandating the transfer of data. If none of the user’s friends or family are moving away from Facebook, that user would be unlikely to switch platforms. The “lock in” that happens when a network gets so big people feel they have to use it means it doesn’t have to treat them particularly well to get them to stay. Seventeen million Australians use Facebook every four weeks—a huge proportion of the population, and an even bigger proportion of the population aged over 14 (80 percent). Without Facebook, it would be hard to know what family and friends and
long-lost classmates are up to—whether or not Facebook offers news. It doesn’t need to treat its users particularly well to get them to stay. Fifteen years ago MySpace was how people connected, but it hadn’t grown to the point where network effects took over. When they did, there could be only one clear winner, and it happened to be Facebook. Now, not even its bad behavior (Roy Morgan finds it is Australia’s least-trusted brand) can stop most people using it. In the same way as people who want the lights on generally have to use the electricity company, people who want to catch trains generally have to use the railway and people who want to drive cars generally have to buy petrol, people who want to stay in touch generally have to use Facebook. Facebook has become a (transnational) utility, unconcerned about its image. Attempts by one government, or even a coalition of governments, to force it to do anything are pretty much a lost cause. No-one wanted it to be like this, and it’s not like this for Google. Facebook has moved beyond our control. The Conversation
‘Sentiment analysis’ on Facebook reveals Filipinos’ online concerns amid pandemic
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recent study of publicly available Facebook data from the Philippines determined the top sentiments of Filipinos between March 17, 2020, three days after the start of the first lockdown orders in the country, and January 31, 2021. According to BluePrint.PH, a research and campaigns firm that uses big data analytics, education was highly discussed among the country’s 80 million Facebook users between the study period, as the topic tallied 12.7 million data points, or total shares, posts, comments and reactions. The top Facebook posts on education relate to the deaths of two female students, posted separately on Facebook by the National Union of Students in the Philippines (NUSP). Eero Brillantes, chief executive officer of BluePrint.PH, said the sentiment analysis reflect the serious problem of mental health of students, and the digital divide between students from poor families and living remote areas and those from affluent families living in urban areas.
If Big Tech has the will, self-regulation can work
“The sentiment analysis on Facebook data points on education during the pandemic can be a critical tool to provide guidance and influence decisions of policy-makers to address the pressing issues on education,” Brillantes said. The post on the death of a 21-year-old female student from Iriga City on September 12, 2020 tallied the highest data points at 196,834, of which 95.8 percent is “sad” reaction. The victim reportedly complained about the lack of digital gadget for learning, and Internet connectivity. The death of a 20-year-old student from Capiz State University, who died while searching for Internet signal earned the second-highest data points at 148,089, of which 83.8 percent is “sad” reaction. Meanwhile, the post on “10 Hail Marys campaign” of the Quiapo church on August 12, 2020 earned 77,941 combined “love” and “like” data points. This is widely shared after bishops called on the faithful, including those from Catholic schools to pray 10 Hail Mary’s daily from August 15
4 BusinessMirror
to September 15 last year. The Facebook post about 103 students given stipend by the Mariano Marcos State University in May 9 last year earned the highest “love” reaction. Conversely, scoring the highest number of “angry” reactions was news on the government’s decision to hold face-to-face classes in places with low Covid-19 cases. The Department of Education (DepEd) is the main influencer on the topic education during Covid-19 pandemic, with 401 posts over the same period, followed by news sites GMA News and ABS-CBN news that came second and third, respectively. Vice President Leni Robredo’s version of State of the Nation address in July last year, titled “Pahayag ni VP Leni Robredo: Ulat, Mungkahi Ukol sa Pandemya, at Mensahe ng Pag-asa,” earned 50 percent “love” from its nearly 100,000 reactions. The post on Sona appeared in Robredo’s six posts, which earned 40 to 50 percent “love” reactions for each post. Rizal Raoul S. Reyes February 28, 2021
Deprioritize engagement Social-media platforms are built for constant interaction, and the companies design the algorithms that choose which posts people see to keep their users engaged. Studies show falsehoods spread faster than truth on social media, often because people find news that triggers emotions to be more engaging, which makes it more likely they will read, react to and share such news. Deprioritizing engagement in content recommendations should lessen the “rabbit hole” effect of social media, where people look at post after post, video after video. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently summed up the problem: “At a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement—the longer the better—and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible.”
Label misinformation The technology companies could adopt a content-labeling system to identify whether a news item is verified or not. During the election, Twitter announced a civic integrity policy under which tweets labeled as disputed or misleading would not be recommended by their algorithms. Research shows that labeling works. Studies suggest that applying labels to posts from state-controlled media outlets, such as from the Russian media channel RT, could mitigate the effects of misinformation.
Crowdsource accuracy verification Community-based enforcement Twitter recently announced that it is launching a community forum, Birdwatch, to combat misinformation. While Twitter hasn’t provided details about how this will be implemented, a crowd-based verification mechanism adding up votes or down votes to trending posts and using newsfeed algorithms to down-rank content from untrustworthy sources could help reduce misinformation. The Conversation