BusinessMirror July 03, 2022

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DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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A broader look at today’s business n

Sunday, July 3, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 268

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 16 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

‘NEW WATER’: A SAFE, SUSTAINABLE OPTION? When ‘reused’ H2O evolves into a potable commodity amid climate change

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By Jonathan L. Mayuga

AYNILAD Water Services Inc. recently launched its “New Water” project which aims to recycle treated used water from its sewage treatment plants (STP) in Parañaque City for redistribution to the taps of water customers within its concession area.

Company officials said with its New Water project, Maynilad would be able to augment the limited supply coming from Angat Dam, initially by 10 million liters per day (MLD), and avoid the perennial problems encountered in extracting raw water from surface water like Laguna de Bay, such as the algal bloom and high water turbidity during typhoons and heavy downpour.

The New Water will be blended with treated water from Maynilad’s treatment plants in La Mesa and will be supplied to Barangays San Dionisio and San Isidro in Parañaque City, which are the areas nearest to the modular treatment plant (ModTP) location.

According to Maynilad, some 38,700 customers in these barangays will benefit from the additional supply, as it will improve water availability in the area sans added cost to its customers.

Maynilad officials led by its President and CEO Ramoncito Fernandez assured the public that Maynilad’s New Water passed the Philippine National Standard for Drinking Water, hence, safe to drink.

Potable, safe

ACCORDING to Maynilad, its New Water is the potable water supply that is produced after used water from households passes through rigorous and stringent treatment process to become drinkable.

“Maynilad is moving towards potable water reuse in a bid to boost available supplies given the growing demand for water, as well as the strain on existing raw water resources due to the impact of climate change,” Maynilad said in its Frequently Asked Questions posted in its website.

During the project’s launch on June 29, 2022, Fernandez was joined by guests from the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage

System (MWSS), the local government unit (LGU) of Parañaque, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the ceremonial drink-up of Maynilad’s New Water to prove that it is indeed “safe to drink.”

Socially acceptable

PER Maynilad, it has been conducting a series of social acceptability tests and public consultations involving residential and commercial customers, LGUs and government agencies, including the Department of Health, the DENR, the MWSS and the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) to ensure that the New Water will be acceptable to consumers.

Maynilad further said that based on its initial social acceptability test, residential and commercial customers of Maynilad have expressed willingness to use New Water after seeing the product water and understanding the idea behind it.

A first in PHL

WHILE Maynilad will be the first to do it in the Philippines, converting used water to potable water is already being done in other countries such as Namibia, South Africa, and some areas in the United States that are known to implement direct potable reuse.

Maynilad said other countries such as Belgium, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia, and some parts of the US adopt an “indirect potable reuse” through groundwater recharge and surface water augmentation.

Maynilad said it benchmarked with Namibia and Singapore before its move to tap treated used water for drinking.

According to Maynilad, Namibia, a pioneer in developing potable supply from reused water, has

THE “New Water” that Maynilad produces using raw water supply from its Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Parañaque City has been issued a Certificate of Potability by the Parañaque City Health Office.

Photo shows Department of Health-certified water samplers collecting samples of New Water from the company’s Modular Treatment Plant for testing, in the presence of representatives from the Parañaque City Health Office. The collected samples were tested by DOH-accredited laboratories to ensure that the water is safe to drink. The issuance of a Certificate of Potability proves that New Water meets the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water. New Water is drinkable water supply that is sourced from the used water generated by households. Maynilad now produces New Water by collecting the treated used water discharged by its Parañaque Water Reclamation Facility and putting it through a Modular Treatment Plant for a more rigorous purification process to make it potable. MAYNILAD

been recycling treated used water since 1968. In fact, Windhoek City is currently getting 24 percent of its drinking water from this source.

Meanwhile, Singapore—an island city-state with little water supply—produces NEWater to meet water demand. NEWater now supplies around 40 percent of its drinkable and non-drinkable water, Maynilad pointed out.

New Water: Doable

ASKED to weigh in on Maynilad’s New Water initiative, Antonio Tompar, a Cebu-based businessman and a pioneer in water desalination or the process of converting salt water into freshwater, said Maynilad’s move to tap treated used water from its STPs to make it drinkable is doable, and, in fact,

Singapore’s NEWater Technology

more economical than tapping water from rivers or lakes.

He said it would be a lot cheaper to treat water from its STPs than making potable water extracted from Laguna de Bay or Pasig River drinkable.

It comes with a cost

“THE cost of treating water goes up depending on the level of pollution,” says Tompar. He said turbidity alone is a big problem.

Tompar, CEO of Mactan Rock Industries Inc., is known as “Cebu’s Water King.” His company, a pioneer in bulk water supply and water technology provider in the Philippines, has been providing various institutions with desalinated water for decades. Industry-wise, Mactan Rock has secured more than half of Cebu’s bulk water supply, and perhaps in the entire country, servicing industries with its lowest water rate ranging from P75 to P85 per cubic meter, as compared to the more than P100 per cubic meter offered by other companies.

He said producing freshwater that is drinkable or safe to drink is doable, thanks to modern technology.

‘All in the mind’

PUB/SINGAPORE’S NATIONAL WATER AGENCY (WWW.PUB.GOV.SG)

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 54.9700

HOWEVER, Tompar said persuading water consumers to drink used water from the STPs is a rather different story altogether.

“It’s psychological. It will be hard to convince people to drink used water. Even in Singapore, a lot of people buy mineral water,” he told the BusinessMirror.

As a technology provider, Tompar made a stunning declaration of its plan to make water from Pasig River, one of the country’s dirtiest rivers, drinkable—using reverse osmosis.

Tompar’s Mactan Rock has been providing safe, drinking wa-

ter to various clients, including hotels and economic zones.

A welcome initiative

DR. Sevillo David Jr., executive director of the NWRB, said Maynilad’s New Water initiative is a welcome development.

“Any initiative to recycle water to use water again will be helpful,” says David.

David said water recycling, in fact, should be practiced even by households by maximizing water use before they finally dispose of it.

While treated used water is already being converted into drinkable water in other countries, it is best to make sure that the technology we have for such projects is equally reliable and safe.

“Dapat pa rin nating pag-aralan lalo at makakatulong naman talaga ito,” he said.

The official said water level at Angat Dam remains below the normal working level of 180 meters above sea level despite several days of rains. To ensure a sustainable water supply, however, he said the best option is to develop new water sources, like the Kaliwa Dam, and make people realize the importance of conserving freshwater.

Netizens’ reaction

MAYNILAD’S New Water, as expected, drew varied reactions. While many lauded the effort and thanked the company for its initiative, some remain skeptical, at the least.

Veteran journalist Alfredo Gomez Pedroche, responding to a casual survey via Facebook, said: “All the water we use, drink, bathe with, cook with, have been used through the ages. The water we drink used to be urine and sewage water. Water is naturally recycled and who knows, we have probably

drunk what used to be the urine of our forefathers.”

“Perhaps I’d puke to drink water from purified septic tank water but what we don’t know don’t hurt.

There’s now a modern technology being used for the purpose,” he added.

Communication expert Roland Alino Inciong said water recycling to augment potable water is real and they also call it “New Water.”

“Check Singapore. They are drinking purified sewage water. I was there when the Prime Minister tasted the first processed water.

New Water ang tawag nila noon [is what they call it over there],” Inciong said.

In Maynilad’s official FB page, netizen Jay Nadz Genetiano Libardo said: “Congrats team Maynilad for such effort to produce more sources of potable water.”

Some netizens, however, remain skeptical, even attacking the company’s poor services, especially in Imus, Cavite, which has been experiencing frequent water service interruption.

Nadine Villanueva dared Maynilad officials to first try for themselves by drinking water provided by the company to residents of Imus.

“Try drinking your water here in Imus once the water supply resumes. It smells like sewer,” Villanueva lamented.

Netizen Paw San Mateo, for his part, said he may not appreciate New Water because they are always sleeping late at night to wait for water to flow from the taps. “Di namin maa-appreciate ’yan kasi mga puyat kami magipon ng tubig.”

Roi Cabalida from Imus also lamented that they have been experiencing water scarcity in Imus for seven years already.

Now, that’s another story.

n JAPAN 0.4050 n UK 66.9535 n HK 7.0060 n CHINA 8.2044 n SINGAPORE 39.5667 n AUSTRALIA 37.9348 n EU 57.6251 n SAUDI ARABIA 14.6513

Source: BSP (July 1, 2022)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, July 3, 2022

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Four charts reveal seismic shifts in global energy within one lifetime

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By Nathaniel Bullard | Bloomberg News

VERY year, energy super major BP Plc. performs a much-needed service for economists, analysts and longterm planners everywhere with its annual Statistical Review of World Energy. Published since the 1960s, it’s a trove of data on energy production and consumption, power generation, trade flows and other aspects of today’s energy system.

The publication always rewards a close look at both longterm trends and notable nearterm changes. I could probably draw out dozens of meaningful trends, if I (and readers) had the time for them, but I will highlight four here.

has grown from 0.8 percent of the world’s electricity mix to 13 percent. Renewables passed the 10-percent mark in 2019 and have added 0.8 percent of market share—the same amount that they accounted for globally in 1985!— on average annually since 2010.

Renewables are now 13 percent of global power 1generation

and solar now generate more than nuclear power 2 Wind

In 1985, coal-fired power was 38 percent of global electricity generation. Hydro was 20 percent, nuclear, 15 percent; natural gas, 14 percent; and oil, a bit over 11 percent.

Three and a half decades later, coal is still king at 36 percent, and gas has increased to almost 23 percent. But every other major generation source of the mid-1980s has lost relative share—and more than gas alone can account for.

That is because renewable power (wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and small hydropower)

Last year I noted that although renewable power generation does not exactly compete with nuclear, renewables were winning. In 2020, all renewable power generation surpassed all nuclear generation.

In 2021, wind and solar surpassed 10 percent of global generation on their own, and overtook nuclear in annual generation.

2021 was actually a significant year for nuclear power. Nuclear generation increased more than 4 percent, the biggest increase since 2004, thanks to Chinese fleet additions.

ROADS cross between clusters of photovoltaic panels at the Solara 4 solar park in Vaqueiros, Faro district, Portugal. GONCALO FONSECA/BLOOMBERG

China is now the world’s biggest importer of liquefied 3natural gas BP has tracked trade in liquefied natural gas since the year 2000. At the start of the century, Japan was

1 Renewables are now 13 percent of global power generation

far and away the world’s biggest LNG importer, taking in about 75 billion cubic meters a year. Europe as a whole was the next biggest importer, followed by South Korea.

China did not even begin importing LNG until 2006.

Over the next 20 years, Japan’s LNG imports peaked, driven by the closure of many of the country’s nuclear plants following the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011.

Europe’s import volume looked poised to match Japan’s a decade ago, before falling back and then rising again to exceed Japan’s in 2019. Korea’s imports more than doubled, despite the occasional year of modest decline.

And then there is China. China imported 109.5 billion cubic meters of LNG last year, 1.3 billion more than Europe. Asia has accounted for 70 percent of global LNG trade for the past decade, during which time China’s shares of both global LNG trade and of Asia LNG trade have more than tripled.

China generates more renewable electricity than 4Europe

2 Wind and solar now generate more than nuclear power

3 China is now the world’s biggest importer of liquefied natural gas

4 China generates more renewable electricity than Europe

China, again, and a story and chart that should look familiar. In 1965, the United States generated 13 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity and Europe generated 3 terawatthours. Data on China’s renewable generation does not appear until 1990, at which point its 0.1 terawatthour was less than 1/600th of what the US was generating.

Fast forward to 2016 and China has surpassed the US and reached close to 60 percent of Europe’s total renewable generation. Then, in 2021, China rockets past Europe, adding almost 290 terawatt-hours of total renewable electricity generation in one year.

Last year, Japan and India generated a combined 302 terawatt-hours.

Not every development in energy last year was positive. Coal consumption, for instance, rebounded sharply and was very close to its all-time high of 2013.

Primary energy consumption reached an all-time high as well.

But primary energy consumption per capita has been more or less flat for a decade; it peaked 15 years ago in OECD countries. And growth rates matter. Coal consumption grew only 0.1 percent per year from 2011 to 2021, and gas grew at 2.2 percent. During that same 10 years, renewable power generation grew at 15 percent per year on average. The global energy system is huge and complex, and massive consumption of fossil fuels still dominates the mix. Zerocarbon power, however, is where growth lies.

The World

BusinessMirror Nato deems Russia its ‘most significant and direct threat’

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

By Jill Lawless, Joseph Wilson & Sylvie Corbet The Associated Press

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ADRID—Nato declared Russia the “most significant and direct threat” to its members’ peace and security on Wednesday and vowed to strengthen support for Ukraine, even as that country’s leader chided the alliance for not doing more to help it defeat Moscow.

The military organization’s condemnation was not wholly surprising: Its chief earlier said Russia’s war in Ukraine had created Europe’s biggest security crisis since World War II. But it was a sobering about-face for an alliance that a decade ago called Moscow a strategic partner.

Nato also issued a warning about China, accusing it of bullying its neighbors and forming a “strategic partnership” with Moscow that poses a challenge to the West.

Set up some 70 years ago to counter the Soviet Union, Nato held its summit in Madrid in a world transformed by Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. The war drove the alliance to pour troops and weapons into eastern Europe on a scale unseen in decades and pushed Sweden and Finland to seek the safety of Nato membership.

The two formerly nonaligned nations were formally invited to join on Wednesday, as Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the war had brought “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.” But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented that Nato’s open-door policy to new members did not appear to apply to his country.

“The open-door policy of Nato shouldn’t resemble the old turnstiles on Kyiv’s subway, which stay open but close when you approach them until you pay,” Zelenskyy said by video link. “Hasn’t Ukraine paid enough?”

He also asked for more modern artillery systems and other weapons and warned the leaders they either had to provide Kyiv with the help it needed or “face a delayed war between Russia and yourself.”

“The question is, who’s next? Moldova? Or the Baltics? Or Poland? The answer is: all of them,” he said.

Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Nato membership is a distant prospect. Under Nato treaties, an attack on any of the 30 members would trigger a military response by the entire alliance, so it is trying to strike a delicate balance, letting its nations arm Ukraine without sparking a direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

At the same time Nato has moved quickly to ensure that its members are protected, dramatically scaling up military force along its eastern flank, where countries from Romania to the Baltic states worry about Russia’s future plans.

It plans to increase almost eightfold the size of the alliance’s rapid reaction force, from 40,000 to 300,000 troops, by next year. The troops will be based in their home nations but dedicated to specific countries in the east, where the alliance plans to build up stocks of equipment and ammunition.

US President Joe Biden, whose country provides the bulk of Nato’s military power, vowed the summit would send “an unmistakable message... that Nato is strong and united.”

“We’re stepping up. We’re proving that Nato is more needed now than it ever has been,” said Biden. He announced a hefty boost in America’s military presence in Europe, including a permanent US base in Poland, two more Navy destroyers based in Rota, Spain, and two more F35 squadrons to the UK. Still, strains among Nato allies have also emerged as the cost of energy and other essential goods has skyrocketed, partly because of the war and tough Western sanctions on Russia. There also are tensions over how the war will end and what, if any, concessions Ukraine should make.

Money remains a sensitive issue—just nine of Nato’s 30 members currently meet the organization’s target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose country does hit the target, urged Nato allies “to dig deep to restore deterrence and ensure defense in the decade ahead.”

At the summit, the leaders published Nato’s new Strategic Concept, its once-a-decade set of priorities and goals.

The last such document, in 2010, called Russia a “strategic partner.” At the time, the idea of Russia waging a land war on Nato’s borders would have sounded far-fetched.

Now, Nato accused Russia of using “coercion, subversion, aggression and annexation” to extend its reach.

The document also set out Nato’s approach on issues from cybersecurity to climate change—and the growing economic and military reach of China. For the first time, the leaders of Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand attended the summit as guests, a reflection of the growing importance of Asia and the Pacific region and Nato’s desire to counterbalance China.

“China is not our adversary, but we must be clear-eyed about the serious challenges it represents,” Stoltenberg said.

“We see a deepening strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing, and China’s growing assertiveness and its coercive policies have consequences for the security of our allies and our partners,” he added.

The alliance said, however, that it remained “open to constructive engagement” with Beijing.

Nato also stressed the need to address political instability in Africa’s Sahel region and the Middle East—aggravated by “climate change, fragile institutions, health emergencies and food insecurity”—that is driving large numbers of migrants toward Europe. Host Spain and other European countries pushed for this new focus.

The summit, which ends Thursday, opened with one problem solved, after Turkey agreed Tuesday to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining Nato.

Nato operates by consensus, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had threatened to block the Nordic pair, insisting they change their stance on Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey considers terrorists.

After talks with leaders of the three countries, Stoltenberg said the impasse had been cleared.

The two countries’ accession has to be ratified by all nations, but Stoltenberg said he was “absolutely confident” Finland and Sweden would become members quickly.

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said his country was eager to get out of the “gray zone” of having applied for membership but not yet fully covered by Nato’s collective defense guarantee.

“Our aim is that that period should be as short as possible,” he said.

The Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Madrid contributed.

Sunday, July 3, 2022

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Central bankers’ requiem for low-inflation strategies

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isks are mounting that the world is shifting to a regime of higher inflation, forcing central bankers to tear up their playbook of the last 20 years.

That was a key message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his European counterparts on Wednesday as they debated how to tackle persistent price pressures and slower growth.

“I don’t think we are going to go back to that environment of low inflation,” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told the ECB’s annual forum in Sintra, Portugal.

“There are forces that have been unleashed as a result of the pandemic, as a result of this massive geopolitical shock we are facing now that are going to change the picture and the landscape within which we operate,” she said during a 90-minute panel discussion moderated by Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua.

Her comments, alongside those of Powell and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, mean a potential upheaval of monetary policy practice. For years, the critical foe facing central bankers was too-low inflation—pushing them to deploy near-zero interest rates and massive bond purchases to lift their economies during recessions and feeble recoveries.

The common enemy now is sizzling price pressures, which have surged to 40-year highs in the US as pandemic-tangled supply chains and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sink predictions they will prove fleeting, forcing central bankers to hit the brakes: The Fed raised interest rates by 75 basis points this month—the largest increase since 1994—and signaled it could do the same in July.

For Powell and his colleagues, a conclusion that underlying inflation is at risk of drifting higher and becoming unmoored from the Fed’s 2 percent target could spell an even-

more aggressive policy pivot than suggested by their June forecast.

That outlook—which already shows the most hawkish Fed action since the 1990s, projects rates rising another 175 basis points this year and peaking between 3.75 percent and 4 percent in 2023. The following year, however, officials pencil in modest rate cuts as growth moderates and inflation turns back toward target.

Policy makers “are saying there is going to be some pain and we may not get the soft landing we want, but having this high inflation and high inflation expectations is worse,” said Derek Tang, an economist at LH Meyer in Washington. “This is a major shift” and may forestall rate cuts in 2024.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. economists Bruce Kasman and Joseph Lupton said that the still expected central banks to be sensitive to growth with the Fed eventually stopping rate hikes at 3 percent, the BOE at 2 percent and the ECB at 1 percent.

“But we are not confident in this view and rising uncertainty around their reactions to supply shocks that lower growth and raise inflation increases near-term recession risk,” they said in a report on Wednesday.

De-globalization The Fed chief warned of a “re-division of the world into competing geopolitical and economic camps, and a reversal of globalization” that could result in lower productivity and growth.

The risk of longer-lasting scarcity as the world reorders can already be seen. Inflation rates in the US, UK, and the eurozone are far above their targets and the worry is that they could be persistently so as global trading and production patterns

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on June 23, 2022 in Washington. AP/Kevin Wolf

reconfigure.

“It’s how you deal with a series of large supply shocks with no air gap between them, which of course feeds through into expectations,” Bailey said. “Put them all together, they’re not transitory in the traditional sense of the term.”

For decades, advanced economies enjoyed a tailwind from globalization. In the terminolog y of central banking, inf lation expectations were anchored and that allowed central banks to allow labor markets to run hotter. Access to offshore labor also gutted worker bargaining power, further undercutting inf lation but at a social cost as wages stagnated.

“The last 10 years were so far the height of the disinflationary forces that we faced,” Powell said.

“That world seems to be gone now at least for the time being. We are living with different forces now and have to think about monetary policy in a very different way.”

The Fed in 2020 reoriented its policy approach to tackle the problem of too-low inf lation, adopting a strategy that committed to not reacting preemptively to forecasts of higher inf lation as the labor market tightened and redefining the full-employment side of its mandate to be broad and inclusive.

Powell acknowledged that the current environment raised questions about whether this approach was still fit for purpose.

“If you want to know the lessons to be learned of the last 10 years, look at our framework. Those were all based

on a low inflation environment that we had. And now we are in this new world where it is quite different with higher inflation and many supply shocks and strong inflationary forces around the world.”

Central bankers worry that unrelenting price increases could shift households and businesses into a state where expectations are based on more recent inflation experience.

“To the extent that there are a series of shocks, it does become rational for people to pay more and more attention,” Powell said. “The clock is kind of running” on how long the Fed can count on low expectations before they move higher. “We will prevent that from happening.”

In earlier remarks on Wednesday in Sintra, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said officials now face an asymmetric choice, warning that the error of assuming inflation expectations are well anchored when they aren’t is more costly than tightening policy too aggressively to make sure they stay that way.

Jens Weidmann, former President of Germany’s Bundesbank, made a similar argument at a separate event earlier this week in Basel, cautioning against the gradualism that had been a hallmark of central banking until this year.

“The more persistent the shock proves to be, the more the delay in monetary tightening increases the risk that companies, households and workers will start to expect that high inflation is here to stay,” Weidmann said on June 26. “In order to prevent de-anchoring, the persistence of inflation should be overstated rather than understated, and a forceful monetary policy response is advisable precisely when uncertainty about it is particularly high.”

Powell implicitly acknowledged the asymmetric choice—conceding that officials could err and tip the economy into a recession, but arguing that was the lesser of two evils.

“We are committed to and will succeed in getting inflation down to 2 percent,” he said. “The process is highly likely to involve some pain.

But the worse pain would be from failing to address this high inflation and allowing it to become persistent.” Bloomberg News

China’s economy shows signs of improvement as Covid eases

C

hina’s economy showed further signs of improvement in June with a strong pickup in services and construction as Covid outbreaks and restrictions were gradually eased.

The official manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50.2 from 49.6 in May, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday, slightly below the median estimate of 50.5 in a Bloomberg survey of economists. It was the first time since February that the index was above 50, indicating an expansion in output compared with May. The non-manufacturing gauge, which measures activity in the construction and services sectors, climbed to 54.7, the highest in more than a year and well above the consensus forecast of 50.5.

“The Chinese economy bottomed out in June and the recovery is basically entrenched, although attention still needs to be paid to imbalances between the recoveries in supply and demand,” according to a statement from the China Logistics Information Center, which publishes the PMI figures in partnership with the NBS. China’s benchmark CSI 300 Index rallied 1.6 percent by the mid-day break even as most Asian stock markets were trading lower. Chinese stocks were also boosted by news of further easing of virus-related travel curbs. The offshore yuan strengthened as much as 0.2 percent

after the data release to 6.6935 a dollar.

Easing lockdowns

Government restrictions to contain Covid outbreaks have gradually eased over the last month. The financial hub Shanghai lifted its two-month lockdown at the start of June by allowing more shops to reopen, more factories to resume production, and for port operation to pick up.

The data suggests “the pace of recovery accelerated as the Covid situation stabilized,” said Peiqian Liu, chief China economist at NatWest Group Plc. There was a “broad based but still soft recovery in both production and new orders,” and the figures show the rebound is still milder compared with the recovery from the Wuhan lockdown in 2020, she said.

Some 19 of the 21 sectors in the service sectors tracked in the survey returned to expansion last month, up from just six in the previous month, NBS analyst Zhao Qinghe said in a separate statement.

Gauges of sectors previously hit badly by the outbreaks all improved, such as railway transport, air transport, accommodation, catering and entertainment.

“We see plenty of reason for caution.

The pickup in manufacturing was weaker than expected as demand lagged. And conditions aren’t as solid in services as the data suggest—with the exception of strength in logistics, most services registered only modest gains. All in all,

a recovery is underway but it’s not going to be smooth sailing,” said Bloomberg economists Chang Shu and Eric Zhu. The pickup in the transportation industry helped shorten the time for raw materials to reach manufacturing customers, with an index measuring the delivery time of suppliers jumping to 51.3, the highest in more than six years. A higher number indicates shorter delivery times, but that improvement likely lowered the headline PMI figure because of the way the data is calculated, economists said.

Normally shorter shipping times means demand is contracting and so indicates an economic slowdown. However this month, this indicates that logistics are getting back to normal, and so the actual rebound in manufacturing activity was likely stronger than the main PMI figure shows, according to economists including Standard Chartered Plc.’s Ding Shuang and Zhang Zhiwei at Pinpoint Asset Management Ltd. Smoother logistics also facilitated construction progress and boosted confidence of the sector’s companies in the business outlook, the NBS’s Zhao said.

Slow improvement

US firms in China saw an improvement in output and logistics in June from May, according to a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, but the situation was still not back to normal.

Across all regions, 46 percent of respondents said production capabilities were reduced or slower because of an employee shortage, inability to get supplies, or government-ordered lockdowns. That was down from 59 percent in May. The recent outbreak is still affecting the supply chains of 45 percent of companies, but that is also down from 61 percent in May. Demand for services warmed up in June as the impact of the outbreak waned and company sentiment improved, Zhao said. Consumer spending could further improve in July as the government loosened more Covid-related controls ahead of the summer holiday.

However, the recovery remains fragile as the country is sticking to its Covid Zero strategy, meaning restrictions could be tightened again if outbreaks flare up again. Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed that policy this week, saying it was the most “economic and effective” for the country.

The NBS also struck a cautious tone, noting that 49.3 percent of manufacturers surveyed said their orders were “insufficient,” while the profitability of some companies is being squeezed as output prices continued to contract. “Relatively weak market demand remains a major problem facing the manufacturing industry,” Zhao said.

Bloomberg News

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TheWorld BusinessMirror

Sunday, July 3, 2022

A viral reprise: When Covid-19 strikes again and again and again

By Laura Ungar

F

AP Science Writer

or New York musician Erica Mancini, Covid-19 made repeat performances. March 2020. Last December. And again this May. “I’m bummed to know that I might forever just get infected,” said the 31-year-old singer, who is vaccinated and boosted. “I don’t want to be getting sick every month or every two months.”

But medical experts warn that repeat infections are getting more likely as the pandemic drags on and the virus evolves—and some people are bound to get hit more than twice. Emerging research suggests that could put them at higher risk for health problems.

There’s no comprehensive data on people getting Covid-19 more than twice, although some states collect information on reinfections in general. New York, for example, reports around 277,000 reinfections out of 5.8 million total infections during the pandemic. Experts say actual numbers are much higher because so many home Covid-19 tests go unreported.

Several public figures have recently been reinfected. US Health and Human Services Secretary X avier Becerra and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they got Covid-19 for the second time, and US Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said he tested positive a third time. All reported being fully vaccinated, and Trudeau and Becerra said they’d gotten booster shots.

“Until recently, it was almost unheard of, but now it’s becoming more commonplace” to have Covid-19 two, three or even four times, said Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute. “If we don’t come up with better defenses, we’ll see much more of this.”

Why? Immunity from past infections and vaccination wanes over time, experts say, leaving people vulnerable.

Also, the virus has evolved to be more contagious. The risk of reinfection has been about seven times higher with Omicron variants compared with when Delta was most common, research out of the United Kingdom shows. Scientists believe the Omicron mutants now causing the vast majority of US cases are particularly adept at getting around immunity from vaccination or past infection, especially infection during the original Omicron wave. US health officials are mulling whether to modify boosters to better match recent changes in the coronavirus.

The first time Mancini got Covid-19, she and her fiancé spiked fevers and were sick for two weeks.

She couldn’t get tested at the time but had an antibody test a couple months later that showed she had been infected.

“It was really scary because it was so new and we just knew that people were dying from it,” said Mancini. “We were really sick.

I hadn’t been sick like that in a long time.”

She got vaccinated with Pfizer in the spring of 2021 and thought she was protected from another infection, especially since she was sick before. But though such “hybrid immunity” can provide strong protection, it doesn’t guarantee someone won’t get Covid-19 again.

Mancini’s second bout, which happened during the huge omicron wave, started with a sore throat.

She tested negative at first, but still felt sick driving to a gig four hours away. So she ducked into a Walgreens and did a rapid test in her car. It was positive, she said, “so I just turned the car around and drove back to Manhattan.”

This bout proved milder, with “the worst sore throat of my life,”

Samsung is first to start mass production of 3-nanometer chips

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amsung Electronics Co. kicked off mass production of 3-nanometer chips that are more powerful and efficient than predecessors, beating rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to a key milestone in the race to build the most advanced chips in the world.

South Korea’s largest company will begin with 3nm semiconductors for high-performance and specialized lowpower computing applications before expanding to mobile processors, it said in a statement on Thursday. By applying so-called Gate-All-Around transistor architecture, Samsung’s 3nm products reduce power consumption by up to 45 percent and improve performance by 23 percent compared to 5nm chips, it said.

Samsung shares were down about 1 percent in Seoul on Thursday, in line with the KOSPI benchmark.

Samsung’s push to be first to market with the latest technology is essential in its uphill climb to match TSMC, which remains dominant in the contract chipmaking, or foundry, market. The Taiwanese firm accounts for more than half of the global foundry business by revenue and is the exclusive supplier of Apple Inc.’s Silicon processors for iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and desktop Mac PCs. TSMC and Samsung are competing for large multiyear orders from the likes of Apple and Qualcomm Inc. 3nm mass

production from the Taiwanese chipmaker will commence in the second half of the year, TSMC has said. Samsung will produce 3nm chips at its Hwaseong facilities and is expected to extend that production to its newest Pyeongtaek fab.

“We will continue active innovation in competitive technology development and build processes that help expedite achieving maturity of technology,” said Siyoung Choi, president and head of Samsung’s foundry business.

“Samsung’s launch of 3nm node chip production, based on a new-generation transistor architecture, shouldn’t affect TSMC’s market share and sales growth in the next 12 months. Despite stronger performance, Samsung’s 3nm chip needs to demonstrate it can be produced at the same cost-efficiency level as TSMC’s most advanced N3 process before it can gain new orders from Apple, Qualcomm and other large chip designers,” said Charles Shum, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

S a m s u n g ’s a d v a n c e c o m e s a t a sensitive time for the semiconductor industry, whose place in the global geopolitical order is currently under scrutiny by leading governments. The US and China have both taken steps to bring more chipmaking capacity and expertise within their borders—arguing it’s a matter of national security—and Samsung is in the process of setting up a new fabrication facility in Texas. Bloomberg News

Erica Mancini, an accordionist, poses before taking the stage to perform in a Ukrainian avant garde jazz opera, Friday, June 17, 2022, at Bohemian National Hall in New York. Mancini has suffered three Covid-19 infections: one at the beginning of the pandemic, one last year and one in May of this year. Medical experts warn that we’ll be seeing more multiple reinfections given how long the pandemic is stretching on. AP/Bebeto Matthews

a stuffy nose, sneezing and coughing.

The most recent illness was milder still, causing sinus pressure, brain fog, a woozy feeling and fatigue. That one, positive on a home test and confirmed with a PCR test, hit despite her Moderna booster shot.

Ma nc in i doesn’t have a ny known health conditions that could put her at risk for Covid-19.

She takes precautions like masking in the grocery store and on the subway. But she usually doesn’t wear a mask on stage.

“I’m a singer, and I’m in these crowded bars and I’m in these little clubs, some of which don’t have a lot of ventilation, and I’m just around a lot of people,” said Mancini, who also plays accordion and percussion. “That’s the price that I’ve paid for doing a lot throughout these past few years. It’s how I make my living.”

Scientists don’t know exactly why some people get reinfected and others don’t, but believe several things may be at play: health and biology, exposure to particular variants, how much virus is spreading in a community, vaccination status and behavior. British researchers found people were more likely to be reinfected if they were unvaccinated, younger or had a mild infection the first time.

Scientists also aren’t sure how soon someone can get infected after a previous bout. And there’s no guarantee each infection will

be milder than the last.

“I’ve seen it go both ways,” said Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist. In general, though, breakthrough infections that happen after vaccination tend to be milder, he said.

Doctors said getting vaccinated and boosted is the best protection against severe Covid-19 and death, and there’s some evidence it also lessens the odds of reinfection.

At this point, there haven’t been enough documented cases of multiple reinfections “to really know what the long-term consequences are,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor University’s tropical medicine school.

But a large, new study using data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which hasn’t yet been reviewed by scientific peers, provides some insight, finding that reinfection increases the risk for serious outcomes and health problems such as lung issues, heart disorders and diabetes compared with a first infection. The risks were most pronounced when someone was ill with Covid-19, but persisted past the acute illness as well.

After Mancini’s last bout, she dealt with dizziness, headaches, insomnia and sinus issues, though she wondered if that was more due to her busy schedule. In a recent week, she had 16 shows and rehearsals—and has no room for another Covid-19 reprise.

“It was not fun,” she said. “I don’t want to have it again.”

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Britain’s battered economy sliding toward breaking point

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ritain under Prime Minister Boris Johnson is running into the biggest headwinds it’s faced since the 1970s, heaping pain on an economy still reeling from Brexit and the pandemic.

After suffering from unprecedented shocks in recent years, the nation is succumbing to more intractable problems marked by plodding growth, surging inflation and a series of damaging strikes.

The result is a plunge in consumer confidence that analysts warn may lead to a recession. Railway workers walked off the job in anger that their living standards are slipping, and teachers, doctors and barristers may be next.

The malaise is a far cry from the boom and “cool Britannia” reputation that Tony Blair’s government enjoyed through the early part of this century.

The headline figures make grim reading.

The economy is on track to shrink in the second quarter, raising the possibility that the UK is already in a recession. Even when the outlook appeared brighter, officials estimated that growth would settle at a below-par 1.8 percent a year, with no end in sight to the feeble productivity that has blighted the country for over a decade.

While growth is on track to lag most major economies next year, inflation is also on the rise. Consumer prices surged by 9.1 percent in the year through May, the most for 40 years.

The Bank of England expects inflation to accelerate again when energy bills are allowed to rise in the autumn, reaching more than 11 percent.

It’s a blow for the UK, which led the world in growth after the pandemic, and recalls the dark days of the 1960s and 1970s when commentators and politicians identified Britain as the “sick man of Europe” because of its performance.

Those figures overshadow deeper structural problems hobbling the UK. Chief among them is productivity growth, which slowed to a crawl after the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Only Italy put in a worse performance.

How much a worker can produce is important because it drives the long-term potential of the economy. Low productivity limits the pace at which output can grow and depresses wage packets. Real wages took years to recover to their 2007 levels after the financial crash.

An hour of work in the UK generates around $60, according to the OECD. The figure is over $70 in the US and about $67 in France and Germany. Economists and policy makers debate the causes of the malaise but say that fixing it is crucial if Britain is to get out of the slow lane.

The gaps in performance within the UK are equally stark, with London consistently outperforming other regions, in part due to the concentration of financial services in the capital city. Johnson came to power in

2019 on a pledge to “level up” poorer parts of the country, but there are few signs that the policy is working.

One explanation for the productivity gap is a lack of investment. British companies spend less on things like plant, machinery and technology than those in most other major economies.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak says the tax system is one of the problems and is working on a way to improve allowances companies can claim for making investments.

Brexit uncertainty also seems to have unsettled executives, with investment flatlining since the 2016 public vote to leave the European Union. Had they continued to spend as they did before the referendum, investment would be around 60 percent higher today.

Life outside the EU has also had an impact on trade as importers and exporters contend with higher trade barriers. Despite a sharp fall in the pound since the vote, there is little evidence to suggest the external sector has benefited from increased competitiveness.

Analysis by Bloomberg Economics shows the UK lagged behind the trade performance of other big nations before the pandemic, and has failed to fully share in the global trade rebound since then.

“It’s been six years since the UK voted to leave the European Union and more than one since it established a new relationship with its main trading partner. From a 16 percent devaluation of the pound to an eye-watering slide in trade and investment, Brexit’s impact is plain to see. The data have only reinforced our view that life outside of the EU would leave the UK worse off,” said Bloomberg economist Ana Luis Andrade.

The housing market is another constraint.

Prices have risen almost without break since 1995, straining affordability for first-time buyers. Properties are in short supply in places like London that’s long been the engine driving the national economy.

The expense and difficulty of moving limit labor mobility, depriving companies and public services of key workers, and leave consumers channeling more wealth into the property market than their peers abroad.

Housing is the most visible drain on consumers, but wages are lagging too. Real wages adjusted for inflation are now falling at the fastest pace in 20 years. In 2019, wages in the UK trailed far behind those in the US and Canada.

Workers are rebelling, with rail unions embroiled in the biggest work stoppage since 1989 and teachers, doctors and barristers are threatening to walk off the job.

The strife recalls the 1970s, when Harold Wilson’s Labour government put industry on a three-day week because of an energy crisis and strikes by coal miners.

Bloomberg News

$30 billion from Russian oligarchs frozen under REPO seizure effort

By Fatima Hussein The Associated Press

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ASHINGTON—A multinational task force designed to seize Russian oligarchs’ wealth has blocked and frozen $30 billion in sanctioned individuals’ property and funds in its first 100 days in operation, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday.

That’s on top of the yachts, other vessels and luxury real estate that have been impounded as well as $300 billion in Russian Central Bank funds that h ave been i m mobi l i z ed , t he department said.

“We continue to increase Russia’s cost of its war,” Treasury said of the REPO task force, short for Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs.

The program is designed to drain Russia of its resources as President Vladimir Putin continues his invasion of Ukraine, but civil rights advocates have raised concerns about potential overreach.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Attorney General Merrick Garland convened the REPO task force in March in conjunction

People look on from the super yacht Amadea as it arrives in San Diego Bay on June 27, 2022, seen from Coronado, Calif. The $325-million super yacht seized by the US from a sanctioned Russian oligarch arrived in San Diego Bay on Monday. A multinational task force designed to seize Russian oligarchs’ wealth has blocked and frozen $30 billion in sanctioned individuals’ property and funds in its first 100 days. AP/Gregory Bull

with a number of other countries, which work together to investigate and prosecute oligarchs and other individuals allied with Putin. The European Commission has set up its own Freeze and Seize Task Force to work in conjunction with the REPO group.

The collective has worked to impound bank accounts, assets and properties. For instance, earlier this month, the US announced sanctions on God Nisanov, one of the richest men in

Europe, and Alexey Mordashov, one of Russia’s wealthiest billionaires, along with his wife and two adult children.

“REPO members will continue to track Russian sanctioned assets and prevent sanctioned Russians from undermining the measures that REPO members have jointly imposed,” Treasury said.

With sanctions increasing, there are growing concerns that seizures are being carried out on non-Americans outside of the

judicial review process, with big consequences for sanctioned individuals who may not be able to challenge the seizures.

Attorney Tom Firestone, who specializes in international investigations for business clients, said seizures “can have consequences for innocent people who have nothing to do with the war—we need to be careful not to penalize innocent people.”

“We’ve seen a tremendous expansion of the sanctions,” Firestone said. “The US government is going after a variety of targets.

There is a lot of uncertainty about where it is all going.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has contested bills—including the House-passed Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act—that would make seizure of Russian assets easier for the government.

The government said that in a wartime environment that has spawned a worldwide food crisis “we are seeking to maximize the impact of sanctions on designated persons and entities while guarding against spillover that affects global commodities markets and food supplies.”

World Features BusinessMirror

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

US pools close, go without lifeguards amid labor shortage

By Arleigh Rodgers & Claire Savage

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The Associated Press/Report for America

NDIANAPOLIS—Manager Ashley Ford strode the perimeter of one of Indianapolis’ five open swimming pools, monitoring kids as they jumped off a diving board or careened into the water from a curved slide. Four lifeguards, whistles at the ready, watched from their tall chairs stationed around the water.

With a dozen of the city’s pools shuttered due to a lifeguard shortage, families sometimes line up more than an hour before the one at Frederick Douglass Park opens, Ford said. Many days, it reaches capacity.

A national lifeguard shortage exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic has prompted communities such as Indianapolis to cut back on pools and hours. In other spots around the United States, swimming areas go without attendants.

That’s left some Americans with fewer or riskier options, even as a significant part of the nation endures a second heat wave in as many weeks. Public health experts say the risk of drowning decreases significantly when lifeguards are present.

“That’s my biggest thing, is making everybody safe,” Ford said.

The American Lifeguard Association estimates the shortage impacts one-third of US pools. Bernard J. Fisher II, director of health and safety at the association, expects that to grow to half of all pools by August, when many teenage lifeguards return to school.

“It is a disaster,” Fisher said.

Summer shortages aren’t unusual, but US pools are also dealing with the fallout from earlier in the pandemic, when they closed and lifeguard certification stopped, Fisher said. Starting pay lags behind many other jobs, though some cities are ramping up incentives.

Indy Parks and Recreation has 100 lifeguards on staff this year when normally it would have double that, said Ford, who was worked for the agency for 20 years. Even as lifeguards from closed neighboring pools bulk up the open facilities, pools in Indianapolis must still close for an hour-long lunch and cleaning break each day.

When a local pool is not open, young people may go swimming in places without lifeguards, Fisher said. That can result in more drownings, which disproportionately affect people of color. In the US, Black people under 29 are 1.5 times more likely to drown compared with white Americans of the same age, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 330,000 people enroll with the American Red Cross’ lifeguarding course annually. That figure shrank, as many pools shuttered due to the pandemic, but is now rising, Jenelle Eli, senior director of media relations for the American Red Cross said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Indy Parks requires its lifeguards to pass a course in which they swim 100 yards, tread water for a minute without using their hands and retrieve a 10-pound object from the bottom of a pool.

Starting pay is $15 per hour, up from $13 an hour earlier this year.

Those who stay through the season will receive a $100 retention bonus, Boyd said.

“I’ve tried to get some of my friends that want to get a summer job and want to have money in their pockets,” said second-year lifeguard Donald Harris, 17. “They’ve just said lifeguarding isn’t for them.”

At Indiana’s state parks, lifeguards are paid $11 an hour. All of the state’s 37 facilities remain open, but some operate on limited hours, said Terry Coleman, director of the Division of Indiana State Parks. Many Indiana state parks additionally have shallow swimming areas without lifeguards, Coleman said.

“We’re looking at potential incentives for maybe the 2023 recreation season, but nothing in stone yet,” he said.

In Maine, several state parks started the season without lifeguards, and visitors are informed at the park entrance when no lifeguard is on duty, said Jim Britt, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. The state pays lifeguards about $16 an hour.

“It’s a concern,” Britt said. “There’s no two ways about it. We want lifeguards to be there and to be on duty.”

Chicago, which boasts one of the nation’s largest aquatic programs—77 public pools and 22 beaches that serve a population of nearly 2.75 million—pushed opening day for pools back to July 5 from June 24.

“Chicago families rely on our park programs during the summer, so we are not giving up,” Chicago Park District Superintendent Rosa Escareño said in a news release.

Escareño attributed the scarcity in part to “mass resignation”— referring to post-pandemic labor shortages.

Chicago Park District pays $15.88 hourly and is now offering bonuses of $600, up from $500 in May, to new hires that stay through the summer. It also relaxed residency requirements, meaning applicants do not have to live in the city.

One cause for applicant hesitation unrelated to the pandemic may be a lifeguard sexual abuse scandal that rocked Chicago Park District last year.

Escareño said the organization has since strengthened its accountability and reporting systems.

“I think right now, the most important thing is to ensure that we open safely, and that we place the greatest priority on safety, not just the safety of our residents, but also the safety of our employees,” she said.

The Associated Press reporter David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report. Savage reported from Chicago. She and Rodgers are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Sunday, July 3, 2022

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Climate change caused Bangladesh, India floods

By Aniruddha Ghosal & Al-Emrun Garjon

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The Associated Press

YLHET, Bangladesh—Scientists say climate change is a factor behind the erratic and early rains that triggered unprecedented floods in Bangladesh and northeastern India, killing dozens and making lives miserable for millions of others.

A lthough the reg ion is no stranger to flooding, it typically takes place later in the year when monsoon rains are well underway.

This year’s torrential rainfall lashed the area as early as March.

It may take much longer to determine the extent to which climate change played a role in the floods, but scientists say that it has made the monsoon—a seasonable change in weather usually associated with strong rains—more variable over the past decades.

This means that much of the rain expected to fall in a year is arriving in a space of weeks.

The northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya received nearly three times its average June rainfall in just the first three weeks of the month, and neighboring Assam received twice its monthly average in the same period. Several rivers, including one of Asia’s largest, flow downstream from the two states into the Bay of Bengal in low-lying Bangladesh, a densely populated delta nation.

With more rainfall predicted over the next five days, Bangladesh’s Flood Forecast and Warning Centre warned Tuesday that water levels would remain dangerously high in the country’s northern regions.

The pattern of monsoons, vital for the agrarian economies of India and Bangladesh, has been shifting since the 1950s, with longer dry spells interspersed with heavy rain, said Roxy Matthew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian

Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, adding that extreme rainfall events were also projected to increase.

Until now, floods in northeastern Bangladesh were rare while Assam state, famed for its tea cultivation, usually coped with floods later in the year during the usual monsoon season. The sheer volume of early rain this year that lashed the region in just a few weeks makes the current floods an “unprecedented” situation, said Anjal Prakash, a research director at India’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy, who has contributed to UN-sponsored study on global warming.

“This is something that we have never heard of and never seen,” he said.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave a similarly grim assessment Wednesday.

“We haven’t faced a crisis like this for a long time. Infrastructure must be constructed to cope with such disasters,” she told a news conference in Dhaka. “The water coming from Meghalaya and Assam has affected the Sylhet region” in northeastern Bangladesh, she said, adding that there is no quick respite for the country.

Hasina said that floodwaters would recede soon from the northeast, but they would likely hit the country’s southern region soon on the way to the Bay of Bengal.

“We should prepare to face it,” she said. “We live in a region where f looding happens quite often,

Flood-affected people wait to receive relief goods in Sylhet, Bangladesh, on June 22, 2022. AP/Mahmud Hossain Opu

which we have to bear in mind.

We must prepare for that.”

A total of 42 people have died in Bangladesh since May 17 while Indian authorities reported that flood deaths have risen to 78 in Assam state, with 17 others killed in landslides.

Hundreds of thousands are displaced and millions in the region have been forced to scramble to makeshift evacuation centers.

Bangladesh, home to about 160 million, has historically contributed a fraction of the world’s emissions. Meanwhile, a decadeold deal for rich nations, who have contributed more to global emissions, to give $100 billion to poorer nations every year to adapt to climate change and switch to cleaner fuels hasn’t been fulfilled.

And the money that is provided is spread too thin.

That means that countries like Bangladesh—whose GDP has risen from $6.2 billion in 1972 to $305 billion in 2019—have to redirect funds to combat climate change, instead of spending it on policies aimed at lifting millions from poverty.

“This is a problem which is created by the global industrialized north. And we are paying the price for it because they have ignored their responsibilit y,” Prakash said.

In the hardest-hit city of Sylhet, shop owner Mohammad Rashiq Ahamed has returned home with his families to see what can be

salvaged from f loods. Wading through knee-deep water, he said that he was worried about waters rising again. “The weather is changing...there can be another disaster, at any time.”

He is one of about 3.5 million Bangladeshis who face the same predicament each year when rivers flood, according to a 2015 analysis by the World Bank Institute.

Bangladesh is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change and the poor are disproportionately impacted.

Parul Akhter, a poultry farmer, held on to her disabled son to save him from the floodwaters in Sylhet. But she lost her only income—her chickens—and all other belongings.

“The chicken farm was the only way for me to live. I have no other means to earn,” she said.

Mohammad Arfanuzzaman, a climate change expert at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said that catastrophic floods like the one this year could have wide-ranging impacts, from farmers losing their crops and being trapped in a cycle of debt to children not being able to go to school and at increased risk to disease.

“Poor people are suffering a lot from the ongoing flooding,” he said.

Ghosal reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Julhas Alam from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Victoria Milko in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

South Sudan fights child marriage as girls are auctioned off for cows

By Deng Machol

The Associated Press

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UBA, South Sudan—Some young girls are still auctioned off into marriage for cows in South Sudan— one of the social challenges that activists had hoped to highlight during Pope Francis’ now-postponed visit.

The price of a daughter, determined in negotiations between her father and would-be husband, is typically 50 to 100 cows, each worth up to $1,000. A girl viewed as beautiful, fertile and of high social rank can bring as many as 200 cows. One girl in a well-publicized case a few years ago was auctioned off for 520 cows, plus cars.

“The younger the girl marries, the more the family gets cattle in return,” said Jackline Nasiwa, executive director of the Center of Inclusive Governance, Peace and Justice in South Sudan’s capital, Juba.

“They sell their daughters so that they get something to survive.”

Though South Sudanese law limits marriage to those age 18 and over, it’s rarely enforced, particularly in rural areas.

South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011 brought widespread hope for prosperity and peace for the country’s 12 million people, but little of that has materialized.

The new country quickly plunged into five years of civil war that ended with a fragile peace deal in 2018, but deadly

Nyanachiek Madit, 21, who successfully refused when her father told her at age 17 that she would be married off to a man about 50 years old because her family couldn’t afford to send her to school, speaks to The Associated Press in Juba, South Sudan, on June 8, 2022. Some young girls are auctioned off into marriage for cows in South Sudan—a practice that the government and international organizations are fighting to promote better health and educational opportunities. AP/Deng Machol intercommunal violence continues, and most people remain trapped in poverty.

Climate shocks like flooding, along with rising food prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have deepened widespread hunger.

South Sudan has the world’s fifthhighest prevalence of child marriage, according to the UN, which says the practice is a violation of human rights, a serious impediment to literacy and a major cause of persistent poverty. About

a third of girls in the country are pregnant before turning 15, according to UNICEF. Against the odds, some South Sudanese girls have fought back. “ I r e f u s e d , ” s a i d 2 1 - y e a r- o l d Nyanachiek Madit, when her father said she would be married to a man about 50 years old because her family couldn’t afford to send her to school. She was 17 at the time.

“I didn’t accept to get married because I am disabled and my education will be my ‘leg’ later on,” said Nyanachiek, who was born with a congenital disorder. Convinced that schooling would give her a better life, she stood up to her family and dared them to beat or even kill her. Her family didn’t force her to marry, but refused to pay her school fees as punishment.

Nyanachiek’s plight came to the attention of ChildBride Solidarity, which offers scholarships to girls whose parents abandon them after they oppose early marriage. With the group’s assistance, Nyanachiek now studies in South Sudan’s capital.

“I am now happy,” she told The Associated Press.

Early marriage can be deadly. The United Nations Population Fund has said South Sudan is one of the riskiest places to be a mother. Mothers die in 1,150 out of 100,000 live births, one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

“You cannot have a healthy mother, you cannot have a happy mother, if you

are marrying off your children and making them mothers,” Chris Oyeyipo with the UN Population Fund said during an event marking Mother’s Day in Juba.

The UN wants child marriage eliminated worldwide by 2030. But poor families in South Sudan see laws against child marriage as barring them from profiting from their daughters and threatening their very survival.

Only about 10 percent of South Sudan’s girls finish primary school because of factors including conflict and cultural beliefs, according to UNICEF and Plan International.

Experts say some families worry that sending girls to school exposes them to dangers such as sexual assault that could lower their value when it comes time to look for marriage offers. And yet the experts say early marriage exposes girls to domestic abuse, including rape.

Authorities have a long way to go to change such attitudes, said Aya Benjamin, South Sudan’s minister of gender, child and social welfare, who as a girl watched some of her friends be married off.

“It is our collective responsibility to make sure that our girls are allowed to enjoy their childhood,” she told the AP. “We are not discouraging marriage. We just say allow girls to be children. Allow them to be themselves. Let them grow up and let them go to school and allow them to decide what they want to be in life, and in that way we can have a healthy society.”

Bayaniha BANKING ON THE

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A BusinessMirr

Sunday, July 3, 2022 | www.businessmirror.com.ph

Price Stability for a Stronger Philippine Economy B

ASED on its charter, the main responsibility of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is to formulate and implement policies in the areas of money, banking, and credit, with the primary objective of preserving price stability.

“Price stability” refers to a condition of low and stable inflation.

By keeping prices stable, the BSP helps ensure strong and sustainable economic growth and better living standards.

Adjustments of the Key Policy Interest Rate

The BSP’s key policy interest rate— which influences the interest rates imposed by banks—was at its peak of 4.75 percent in early 2019. Following the assumption of Benjamin E. Diokno as central bank governor, the BSP implemented a series of rate cuts that brought down its key policy rate to just 4.0 percent by the end of the year.

The rate cuts were done based on the BSP’s assessment of a benign inflation environment.

After peaking at 6.7 percent in September 2018, inflation had dropped to a three-year low of 0.8 percent in October 2019.

When the inflation outlook is benign, the BSP has the flexibility to cut its key policy rate in support of economic growth. Low interest rates encourage credit-taking activities, such as to fund investments and infrastructure projects, which then help spur economic growth.

Meantime, upon the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in early 2020, the BSP continued with the series of rate cuts to support economic

recovery and growth.

It had brought down its key policy rate to a record low of 2.0 percent in November 2020.

The low interest rate environment helped encourage credit activities, which were important in reversing the pandemic-driven recession.

Aided in part by low interest rates and the other policy responses of the BSP and the National Government, the economy bounced back from the crisis. Following the recession in 2020, the Philippine economy grew by 5.7 percent in 2021 and further by 8.3 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

The record-low rate was in effect until the Philippine economy’s solid recovery, which prompted the BSP to start normalizing the policy rate. On 19 May 2022, the BSP raised the key policy rate by 25 basis points, followed by another 25 basis points on 23 June 2022.

These adjustments brought the current policy rate to 2.5 percent.

The rate hikes were also implemented amid an outlook of elevated inflation. The Russia-Ukraine war has led to a rise in global prices of oil and other commodities, and this is seen causing second-round effects to domestic prices, including wage hikes.

When the inflation outlook is elevated, the BSP may hike its key policy interest rate. Higher interest rates temper demand for loans, thereby easing demand for goods and services and slowing down inflation.

Based on inflation forecast of the BSP as of 23 June 2022, inflation will average at 5.0 percent in 2022,

amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

With its timely adjustments of the key policy rate, the BSP remains committed to its price stability mandate, while supporting growth of the economy.

Looking ahead, the BSP affirms its support for the economy while keeping an eye on the potential risks to future inflation.

The BSP stands ready to respond to potential second-round effects, in line with its price and financial stability objectives.

Monetary Operations

4.2 percent in 2023, and back to within-target of 3.3 percent in 2024.

The higher-than-target infla-

tion projections for 2022 and 2023 are due mainly from external supply shocks, such as rising global prices

Besides interest rate adjustments, the BSP also fulfills its price stability mandate through its monetary operations.

When the inflation outlook is elevated, the BSP may accept more deposits from banks or sell more debt securities to absorb excess liquidity in the financial system. By doing so, it helps temper demand for goods and services and helps slow down inflation.

The BSP made sure to capitalize on its recently regained authority to issue its own debt securities to pursue its price stability mandate. Republic Act No. 11211, the amended charter of the BSP that was signed into law in February 2019, brought back its authority to trade its own securities.

As of 26 April 2022, total outstanding amount absorbed by the BSP via its facilities stood at about P1.6 trillion, almost double the P854 billion recorded before the pandemic in December 2019.

The bulk of the BSP’s monetary

operations to absorb excess liquidity had been conducted through its term deposit facility (TDF), which accounts for 36 percent of total (or about P576.8 billion).

Placements in the BSP Securities facility, overnight reverse repurchase facility, and overnight deposit facility made up about 31.8 percent (P509.6 billion), 19 percent (P305.0 billion), and 13.2 percent (P211.9 billion), respectively, of the total amount of liquidity absorbed by the BSP. Moreover, effective 10 December 2021, the BSP has allowed trust entities to participate in the secondary market for BSP Securities. The move is in line with the BSP’s efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of its market-based instruments for monetary operations.

In addition, the BSP has included digital banks as eligible participants in its monetary operations effective the same date. A part of its digital banking framework, the measure aims to further improve the transmission of monetary policy.

All these initiatives and reform measures reflect the BSP’s strict commitment to price stability.

The BSP recognizes the importance of price stability in achieving a better economy for all Filipinos, in that it helps provide an enabling environment for businesses and helps maintain the purchasing power of households.

The BSPs’ commitment to price stability is consistent with its agenda of bringing the central bank closer to the Filipino people.

Promoting a Sound, Stable, and Resilient Financial System

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ESPITE the challenges from the COVID-19 crisis, the country’s financial system remained sound and stable, with more-than-ample liquidity, sufficient capitalization, and satisfactory loan and asset quality. Three years of close supervision, sustained reforms, and timely pre-emptive measures by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) spelled resilience and robustness for the banking sector and the entire financial system.

Sustained safety and soundness of the banking system At the core of this resilience is prudent regulations. During the crisis, the banking industry served as a pillar of strength for the economy, guided by the BSP’s forward-looking and risk-based supervision.

The Philippine banking system (PBS) sustained its solid footing, as shown by the continued growth in assets, deposits, healthy profits, stable capital and liquidity buffers, and ample loan-loss reserves.

Total assets of the banking system reached P20.70 trillion as of April 2022, up by 6.7 percent yearon-year. Similarly, total deposits of 16.13 billion as of the same period

also reflected the sustained confidence of depositors amid the pandemic with a 7.2 percent year-onyear growth.

Alongside improving economic conditions and credit activity, loan quality remained manageable. The PBS’ gross non-performing loan (NPL) ratio stood at 3.9 percent as of end-April 2022, a solid rebound from the pandemic-record of 4.5 percent in July 2021.

The latest total loan portfolio (TLP) figures as of April 2022 also marked an expansion of 7.0 percent year-on-year with P11.4 billion against the recorded P10.65 billion in 2021.

The enactment of the Finan-

cial Institutions Strategic Transfer or FIST Act has further supported resilience of banks to the crisis.

The law allowed banks to sell nonperforming assets to asset management companies, so called FIST corporations, to keep their exposure to bad assets manageable.

Sustained profitability has also been evident in the banking industry as net profit went up by 26.3 percent year-on-year to P66.3 billion as of end-March 2022. This growth reflected a reversal from the recorded 5.7 year-on-year decline in net profit during the same period in 2021.

The BSP also ensured ample capitalization that helped banks absorb pandemic-induced shocks.

The capital adequacy ratio stood at 16.2 on solo basis as of March 2022, which is well above the 10 percent and 8 percent thresholds of the BSP and the Bank of International Settlements, respectively. This means banks have adequate capital for their risk-taking activities at the time of the crisis.

In addition, the liquidity coverage ratio of 200.3 percent on solo basis at end-February 2022 indicated strong liquidity position to support short-term funding requirements.

Continued financial services amid the pandemic The BSP ensured that the banking industry and other BSP-supervised financial institutions remained supportive of the country and the

Filipinos’ financial needs, especially amid challenging times.

Regulatory relief packages were initiated to help ease the financial burden of households and businesses amid weaker economic activity during the pandemic. Such measures included forbearance on loan payments without incurring further interest on interest, fees, penalties, and other related charges. At the same time, the BSP also imposed a ceiling on interest or finance charges for credit card receivables to induce consumption and promote responsible credit card lending in the country.

The BSP extended the effectivity of these prudential and operational relief measures until endDecember 2022 to ensure continued provision of credit and access to financial products and services for all.

Institutionalized Islamic banking The pandemic did not stop the BSP from advancing the domestic Islamic finance industry. The BSP created the Islamic Banking Supervision Group (IBSG) on 18 June 2021. IBSG is the focal for the BSP’s strategic initiatives and prudential policy reforms meant to implement the Islamic Banking Law and promote Islamic banking.

Likewise, the BSP inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) as

part of the BSP’s initiatives to develop Islamic banking and finance in the country.

This pioneering work of the BSP continues to fortify a wholeof-government approach toward greater inclusivity and broadened access in the financial system.

Introduced rural bank reforms A fundamental root cause of many rural banks (RBs)’ weaknesses is inadequate capital which limits their ability to cover operational costs and constrains the viability of their operations, management, and governance. These constraints restrict opportunities to expand operations and enhance income potential. The BSP’s Rural Bank Strengthening Program (RBSP) aims to address these concerns.

The RBSP is anchored on the principle that a safe and sound bank is well-capitalized. Its design draws from various reviews and empirical analyses to develop a program responsive to the challenges faced

by RBs. It has four key elements: (i) a stronger capital base for RBs; (ii) a holistic menu of five time-bound tracks for RBs; (iii) incentives and capacity building interventions; and (iv) enhancements of regulations to ensure consistency in policy approach and direction.

Strengthened systemic risk management The BSP promoted financial stability (FS) and maintained sharp-

eyed vigilance over vulnerabilities in the financial system, particularly during the height of the COVID-19 crisis.

A milestone of BSP’s FS initiatives is the publication of the Macroprudential Policy Strategy Framework. The framework reflects how financial authorities define systemic risks, how they monitor changes in risk behaviors, and how they move forward in managing this policy concern.

As a crucial part of the framework, the BSP conducted the first-ever Macroprudential Stress Test. The completed initial phase assessed the resilience of non-financial corporations (NFCs) to severe yet plausible income shocks. The assessment used a whole-of-market approach and potential secondround effects of decreased supply and demand arising from stressed revenues.

Another landmark document is the Systemic Risk Crisis Management (SRCM) framework. The SRCM framework was developed to identify key actions required to assess, categorize, manage, and communicate systemic risks.

All these bright spots signified the soundness and resilience of the country’s financial system despite the pandemic-driven headwinds.

More importantly, these instituted financial reform contours have paved the way for a stronger-thanever Philippine financial system that is up to the challenges of the times.

han Spirit

ror Special Feature

www.businessmirror.com.ph | Sunday, July 3, 2022 A7

Ensuring a safe, efficient, and reliable payments and settlements system T HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) leads in promoting an efficient payments and settlements system by providing the necessary infrastructure through the operations of the Philippine Payment and Settlement System (PhilPaSS); and the policy and regulatory framework, also known as the National Retail Payment System (NRPS), to establish a safe, efficient, and reliable retail payment system in the country.

PhilPaSS and PhilPaSSPLUS

In 2019, the BSP focused on advancing the robustness and interoperability of the PhilPaSS and began to develop the PhilPaSSPLUS. The new system, which was launched on 26 July 2021, can accommodate a growing number of settlements between financial institutions; has rigid controls to support transaction security in fund transfers; and has enhanced system availability.

As the country recovers from the pandemic, the value of PhilPaSSPLUS transactions surged by 104.2 percent to P42.43 trillion in February 2022 from the same period in 2019. Transaction volumes rose 15.1 percent to 96,000 over the same period.

ISO 20022

In 2019, BSP’s Monetary Board approved the mandating of the adoption of the ISO 20022 as the messaging and communication standard to be implemented by all banks, non-bank financial institutions, and third-party service providers that transmit electronic payment instructions to PhilPaSS. The ISO 20022 standardizes financial messages for all initiatives with different counterparties, business domains, and networks, thereby facilitating the interoperability of payment and settlement systems and other financial initiatives, allowing for straight-through-processing of payments.

National Retail Payment System

The emergence of innovative payment technology is revolutionizing the payments and settlements system.

Promoting payments digitalization while maintaining the safety and efficiency of the national payment system is at the forefront of the BSP’s policy agenda as the country transitions into a cash-lite society. As such, the BSP launched a three-year Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap (2020-2023) that charts its current initiatives and strategy toward an efficient, inclusive, safe, and secure digital payments ecosystem.

The COVID-19 pandemic became an essential catalyst for greater digital payments adoption. The BSP’s prepandemic initiatives to lay the groundwork for interoperable payment systems proved critical in expanding digital payments adoption during the COVID-19 health crisis. The NRPS capitalizes on the benefits of digital payments to support the country’s economic competitiveness and inclusive growth. It has paved the way for the creation of two automated clearing houses—the Philippine Electronic Fund Transfer System and Operations Network (PESONet) and InstaPay, which allow interoperable fund transfers among accounts from different participating bank and non-bank financial institutions.

Since the pandemic started, there has been a sustained rise in the adoption of digital payments in the Philippines. The latest e-payments measurement report showed that as of end-2021, the share of monthly digital payments volume rose to 30.3 percent from 20.1 percent in 2020. The value of digital payments in the country represents 44.1 percent of total retail payments in 2021—close to the BSP’s target of converting at least 50 percent of retail payments to digital form by the end of 2023.

PesoNet and InstaPay

Combined transactions using PESONet and InstaPay—the two interoperable platforms for electronic fund transfers—rose by 44 percent in terms of volume and 46 percent in terms of value as of end-December 2021 compared with2020.

The PESONet Multiple Batch Settlement (PESONet MBS) was launched on 24 January 2022, adding another milestone in the BSP’s payment system development agenda. With this service enhancement, PESONet users are able to receive funds at an earlier time than the usual end of banking day.

EGov Pay

Using the PESONet rail, EGov Pay is an electronic payment facility that allows individuals and businesses to digitally pay taxes, licenses, permits, and other obligations to the government.

By participating in the EGov Pay as billers, government institutions can efficiently collect revenues and, therefore, improve their delivery of public and social services. Moreover, the government can curb revenue leaks through efficient collection means, better audit trails, and enhanced transparency.

Following the successful pilot launch of the Digital Tax Payment Service using PESONet on 15 August 2019, the BSP approved the onboarding of other government agencies and other payment systems providers to the digitalization of government collections.

Digital Banking

To maintain the momentum in digital transformation, the BSP is pursuing several other initiatives, such as promotion of digital banking. The Philippines is a pioneer among the countries in the Asia-Pacific region in developing a digital banking framework.

Digital banks may conduct end-to-end processing of financial products and services through digital platforms and electronic channels. They are expected to have robust, secure, and resilient technology infrastructure, as well as

effective data management strategy and practices, and sound digital governance.

maining ROBs on 1 July 2021.

As of end-December 2021, total CSA transactions amounted to P302,491.7 million or 376.7 million pieces.

Open Finance

Counterfeit, Unfit, Mutilated, and Demonetized Coins

Another digitalization initiative is open finance. With this, the BSP espouses consent-driven data portability, interoperability, and collaborative partnerships among incumbent financial institutions and third-party players. Through open banking, incumbents and third parties are allowed access to financial information needed to develop innovative products and services that suit changing customer needs.

The National QR Code Standard

The BSP’s issuance of a policy requiring adoption of a National QR Code Standard was a turning point in the country’s digital transformation journey.

The National QR Code Standard dubbed “QR Ph” was launched in November 2019, with the Person-to-Person (P2P) use case made available first, followed by the Person-to-Merchant (P2M) in 2020. QR Ph P2M’s main feature is interoperability, as it enables the transfer of funds across different participating payment service providers.

In Q4 2021, BSP and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) developed the Paleng-QR Ph program to promote account ownership and digital payments among market vendors and tricycle drivers.

Cross Border Payments System

Milestones in the BSP’s digitalization agenda provided the impetus for improving the cross-border payment system.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) envisions efficient and effective interoperability among payment systems in the region, pursuant to the vision under the ASEAN Payments Policy Framework. The framework supported the bilateral connectivity of many of the ASEAN member states’ fast payment systems.

In 2021, the BSP started to tackle the challenges of cross-border payments, which include high costs, low speed, limited access, and insufficient transparency. The target beneficiaries are overseas Filipinos, businesses in the tourism, export, import, and e-commerce industries, as well as firms receiving financial support from their global institutional investors and affiliates abroad.

Currency Management

On 27 July 2020, the BSP launched enhanced Philippine banknotes that are more responsive to the needs of the elderly and the visually impaired and feature the latest anticounterfeiting technology. The launch of enhanced Philippine banknotes is consistent with the recommendation of currency experts worldwide to introduce enhancements to banknotes every 10 years.

The BSP released and circulated 29 million pieces of the new 20-Piso coin, which is now the highest denomination Philippine coin. With a longer lifespan than the banknote version, the 20-Piso coin is more cost-efficient to produce.

Meantime, in line with its mandate and global good practice, the BSP explored the adoption of polymer banknotes. In April 2022, it issued a limited volume of 1000-Piso polymer banknotes, which is co-circulating with the 1000-Piso paper banknotes.

The advantages of polymer substrate are widely documented. Based on reported experiences of other central banks, polymer banknotes are significantly cleaner and less susceptible to viral and bacterial transmission due to their smooth and non-absorptive surfaces. Their resilience against extreme temperatures and resistance against water and dirt make them highly durable. They have been found to last two to five times longer than paper money, more than offsetting the initial increase in production cost.

Thus, polymer notes are more cost-effective than paper notes.

Moreover, the use of polymer is said to reduce expenses on banknote issuance by 40.0 to 60.0 percent. In addition, polymer banknotes have a smaller carbon footprint and lower water and energy usage. Its recyclability enables polymer banknotes to have more than one life cycle. Thus, the materials can be kept within the economy indefinitely and used productively, creating further value.

The BSP has also considered the impact of polymer substrate on the abaca industry, given that the existing substrate has abaca content. In partnership with other government agencies, the BSP has taken a proactive stance in exploring other avenues for possible use of abaca products, such as the procurement of abaca for BSP collaterals and the inclusion of abaca content in land titles and other security documents.

Cash Service Alliance

The BSP’s currency management strategy is guided by the mandate of ensuring sufficient supply of safe and reliable currency in the most cost-effective and efficient way. As such, amid the pandemic, the Cash Service Alliance (CSA) initiative was launched in October 2020.

Under this initiative, authorized agent banks (AABs) may enter into mutually beneficial agreements to service each other’s requirement for fit currency using their available currency holdings.

This helps ensure availability of fit currencies even during crises, such as at the height of lockdowns amid COVID-19 crisis.

The CSA in the Greater Manila Area went into full gear in 2021. As of end-December 2021, 28 out of the 29 AABs participated in the CSA. On 1 June 2021, the CSA was launched in six other BSP Regional Offices and Branches (ROBs) with the highest volume of fit note deposits (i.e., Cebu, Davao, Tuguegarao, Tacloban, Cagayan de Oro, and General Santos). It was subsequently rolled out in the re-

BSP AND NOTE PRINTING AUSTRALIA PARTNER IN PRODUCING MODERN POLYMER PH BANKNOTES. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has partnered with Note Printing Australia (NPA), a subsidiary of the Australian central bank, in the initial roll-out of modern polymer banknotes. During a high-level event at the Manila residence of Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Steven J. Robinson AO (left, above), BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno (center) received uncut 1000-Piso polymer banknotes from NPA Chief Executive Officer Malcolm McDowell (right), witnessed by BSP and Australian Embassy officials, as well as leaders from the Philippine banking industry. The new polymer banknote is more durable and cost-effective because of its extended lifespan; more environmentally friendly because of its smaller carbon footprint and recyclability; and more hygienic and sanitary because of the shorter survival periods of viruses and bacteria on its surface. It also has advanced security features to further deter counterfeiting.

To ensure that only fit legal tender coins recirculate, the BSP facilitated the destruction of counterfeit, unfit, mutilated, and demonetized (CUMD) coins through the highcapacity Coin Defacement Machine (CDM) leased to BSP. A total of 435.2 metric tons were defaced in 2021.

The BSP also conducted 11 successful law enforcement operations in 2021. These resulted in the arrest of 19 individuals, the filing of 15 criminal charges, and the seizure and confiscation of 813 pieces of counterfeit New Generation Currency banknotes, 144 counterfeit US dollars, other foreign currencies, and other counterfeiting-related items. By the end of 2021, the BSP was able to secure a 100-percent conviction rate, with the conclusion of the three counterfeiting cases and conviction of the accused in criminal cases for counterfeiting or possession, or both, of counterfeit currencies.

AMID A HARVEST OF AWARDS, YOUR SUPPORT COUNTS MOST

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HE pandemic tested the media industry, forcing newsrooms around the world to overhaul the way they do their job while following strict health protocols in order to survive a deadly infection.

The BusinessMirror, the country’s premier national business daily, was tested like everyone else, and survived, even continuing to live up to its promise to provide a broader look at today’s business.

In November 2021, the business broadsheet was recognized as the “Business News Source of the Year” for 2020 by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (Ejap), the country’s premier organization of business reporters, editors and wire agencies. It was a 4-peat for BM, having gotten the same honors for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019.

And, as in the past Ejap awards, it also swept half of the individual categories, with its seasoned reporters adjudged as best in their respective coverages.

Earlier in 2021, the BusinessMirror was given the Pro Patria Award by the Rotary Club of Manila, for “its commitment of valuable resources for the protection of free expression and its resilience in disseminating fair and truthful information resulting in an informed and enlightened citizenry.”

It was just the latest recognition from the prestigious Rotary Club, which named it “Business Newspaper of the Year” for 2018-2019, and again in 2020. In all, it has received six top

Rotary journalism awards in its short 16-year existence.

The BusinessMirror has also consistently reaped top awards in the Brightleaf Journalism Awards for Agriculture and the Philippine Agricultural Journalists-San Miguel Corp. (PAJ-SMC) Binhi Awards, also for the best in agriculture journalism.

The BusinessMirror was also repeatedly adjudged the leading daily in biotechnology journalism, a recognition bestowed by the Jose G. Burgos Jr. Biotechnology Journalism Awards.

The “broader look” mantra also drew recognition from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) which named the BusinessMirror, at its first awards rites in 2018, as the inaugural “Data Champion.”

In the first “Bantog Science for the People” awards for media from the Department of Science and Technology, the BusinessMirror got the top award for the Institution category for Print; and the grand prize in the individual category for science journalist Stephanie Tumampos.

In 2018, Environment Reporter Jonathan Mayuga received the Luntiang Aligato award from the Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit organization founded by Nobel Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore.

The Broader Look at biodiversity was also recognized. It was named among the Asean Champions of

Biodiversity, for the Media Category, by the Asean Centre for Biodiversity.

The Broader Look also extended to the paper’s corporate social responsibility. It organized and staged the first-ever recognition rites for the best of the Philippines’s friends in the world, with the “MISSION PHILIPPINES: The BusinessMirror Envoys & Expats Awards.” The initiative won a Gold Anvil in 2019.

Distinguished institutions in government have also repeatedly recognized the BusinessMirror’s role in spreading the word about the work they do—information that shines a light on good governance and committed public service to uplift people’s hopes. Most notably, these are the Social Security System and Pag-IBIG Fund.

Sixteen years, two of them in a pandemic, have tested the promise of a Broader Look. But they are also a measure of the unstinting support of friends—advertisers and news sources alike—and readers who continue to believe in that promise.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE. YOUR LOVE AND SUPPORT IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT TROPHY.

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

Science Sunday

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

BusinessMirror

Sunday, July 3, 2022

A9

DOST immortalizes hard word in 5 ‘legacy’ books

‘P

By Lyn B. Resurreccion

amanang Handog sa Bayan [Legacy as Gift to the People].” This theme aptly described the five books, the last in the “Science for the People” book series of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) that were launched at a hotel in Quezon City on June 14.

Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña and his co-authors described the significance and contents of the books that featured success stories and life-changing innovations in research and development (R&D) programs and projects of the DOST in the six years under his helm.

The books were the “Science for the Arts,” “Science for Healing,” “Science for Resilience,” “Science for Awareness” and “Science for Business.”

The first five books in the series were launched in November 2021.

They were: “Science for Change,” “Science for Innovation,” “Science for Human Capital,” “Science for Co op e r at ion ,” a nd “ S c ie nce for Communities.”

Immortalize hard work “The books will immortalize the hard work and dedication of our scientists, researchers, communicators and public servants so that our readers will appreciate more the importance of science, technology and innovation in our lives,” de la Peña said during the books’ launching.

Through the books “so many stories have been told,” he said.

“From the mouths of our scientists and researchers as well as from the target beneficiaries of their noble works, [we] would see how conducting S&T-related research and picking the brains of our science heroes would give us a huge chance to achieve inclusive and sustainable development...while addressing the challenges and limitations of a specific area or sector in our country,” he pointed out.

They highlighted the innovative technologies and products that generated local employment and created livelihood and other opportunities, he said.

De la Peña said in Filipino that the books were the “legacy” he, and his co-workers at the DOST, could give as he ends his term at the department on June 30, and thanked all those who helped the department in their quest for science for the people.

‘Science for the Arts’ Executive Director Dr. Marieta Sumagaysay of the National Research Council of the Philippines, co-author of the book, said she believes “there is a dialectical relationship between the arts and humanities with science, technology and innovation [STI].”

“It is creativity that fuels the construction of world views, of which science is one among many, the development of tools that enhance ways of living.

The arts and humanities are the fields where creativity is recognized, honored and nurtured,” she explained.

Sumagaysay pointed out that the book “celebrates the milestones” of the DOST “whenever science and technology [S&T] are fused with the arts.”

“There is no [STI] without the arts and humanities. To leverage inventiveness, we believe that it is necessary to recognize that art and science share many basic requirements and techniques that promote creativity and innovation.

I believe that science relies on creativity, thus, art is as important as science,” Sumagaysay explained.

‘Science for Healing’

The book focuses on the initiatives of the department that led to battle the ongoing pandemic, said Executive Director Dr. Jaime Montoya of the Philippine Council of Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD), co-author of the book, along with DOST Assistant Secretary Maridon O. Sahagun.

It highlighted on how “investing in R&D is pivotal” in dealing with or in preventing emerging health crises.

Montoya said the pressing health crisis posed by Covid-19 at the latter part of 2019 served as an “urgent call” in the health field to quickly look for solutions or innovations that will respond to the challenges.

This led the DOST-PCHRD to launch the “Addressing and Responding to Covid-19 through Health Research Program,” to provide support and funding to research projects that have been “ instrumental ” to the

The DOST launches five books, the last in its book series, on June 14. With Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña (from left) are his co-authors NRCP Executive Director Dr. Marieta Sumagaysay, DOST Assistant Secretary Maridon O. Sahagun, DOST-PCHRD Executive Director Dr. Jaime Montoya, Undersecretary Renato U. Solidum, DOST-STII Director Richard P. Burgos and DOST-TAPI Director Atty. Marion Ivy D. Decena. Also gracing the event are DOST Undersecretary for Research and Development Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara (right) and DOST Assistant Secretary Diana L. Ignacio (fifth from left). Lyn B. Resurreccion country’s pandemic response.

Among those that were featured in the book delved on enhancing and expanding the country’s Covid-19 testing capacity, providing support to the health-care workers, mapping the spread of the disease for evidenceinformed policymaking, searching and validating possible treatment regimens, and participating in vaccine clinical trials and generating data on Covid-19 vaccines.

‘Science for Resilience’ Undersecretary Renato U. Solidum, for Scientific and Technical Services, said as co-author of the book, that the difference between victims of disasters and victors is how they handle adversities. The first suffers from the same repeated story; the latter moves forward and builds capacities.

Solidum said: “This book is inspired by the context of Filipino resilience— not merely surviving amid repeated losses and damages—but about living, coping, thriving and adapting to risks. And we at the DOST translated these lessons into innovations and technologies.”

The book lays the foundation in science in terms of early warning systems, human-built physical infrastructure and settlements, environment, water and agriculture, and transportation and energy, he added.

Solidum explained: “The Innovations for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management is our way to connect to the Filipino people and give them the aspiration that we are on our path to disaster resilience.”

‘Science for Awareness’

Director Richard P. Burgos, of the Science and Technology Information Institute (DOST-STII), said that the national awareness on STI has increased more than four-fold from 6 percent in 2017 to 24.5 percent in 2021, itself a

big accomplishment in terms of communicating STI to the people.

He disclosed that six of DOST’s social-media platforms have a total reach of 30 million, and its media coverage in 2021 generated an advertisement value of P9.8 billion and public relations value of P13.5 billion.

Quoting Anne Roe’s “Nothing in science has any value to society if it is not communicated,” Burgos said, “This is where science communication plays a vital role” and DOST-STII becomes crucially important.

The DOST-STII provides the public access to its products and services—such as the S&T Post, Balitang RapiDOST, DOST Digest, DOST website, DOST app, news conferences and webinars, seminars and DOSTv episodes.

The multi-awarded DOSTv is aired on two TV programs, four online shows, 10 segments, has 13 million reach on Facebook and had 2,000 episodes since 2016.

Meanwhile, the Starbooks, or the Science and Technology Academic and Research Based Openly Operated Kiosk System, has been installed in more than 5,800 sites nationwide. It gives access to DOST’s library collection in remote areas without Internet or electricity.

The Department of Education has adopted Starbooks and has committed to preload it on all computers and gadgets for the regions.

‘Science for Business’ Director Atty. Marion Ivy D. Decena, of the DOST-Technology Application and Promotion Institute, said the book is one of the best ways the DOST could offer in order to reach out and inspire as many inventors, innovators and technopreneurs in the country who are in their journeys toward building their own enterprises.

“We have corroborated in programs of assistance to help each of them in fulfilling a concept prototype, protecting their intellectual properties,

creating a working model for market and pilot testing and commercializing their technologies,” she said.

The successes in the fields—such as in agriculture and natural resources, health and nutrition, and advanced engineering and robotics—have resulted in mitigating disasters, eradicating malnutrition and public health problems, improving business operations and productivity, and protecting the environment, Decena explained.

“By reading the snippets of the lives of our noble partners, I have learned and realized a thing or two: that having a creative or inventive mind is not merely measured by social class, educational background, or disposition in life as ultimately anyone can become successful through science for business,” Decena pointed out.

‘Greatest achievement’ Responding to the “Science for Healing” book, Dr. Nina G. Gloriani, head of DOST Vaccine Expert Panel (VEP), pointed out that she considers her engagement with DOST VEP as her “greatest achievement” in her professional life/ career in public health.

“I look up to the leadership of DOST, which has time and again poured its whole heart and soul into its many accomplishments, some of which are showcased in these books,” she said.

Citing parts of the book where the role of the VEP was highlighted, Gloriani said the chapter on Vaccine Evaluation and Selection (VES) underscored the streamlining process the DOST and other relevant agencies, which helped advance the country’s access to Covid-19 vaccines.

The Task Group on VES (TG-VES), she added, established bilateral and multilateral collaborations on vaccine clinical trials.

It also developed a national Vaccine Development and Manufacturing roadmap that will guide the country toward vaccine self-sufficiency and self-reliance in the future.

“A great contribution of the DOST is its very big support to the World Health Organization Solidarity Trial Vaccines which placed the Philippines in the global map for vaccine collaborations,” she said.

Major contribution of the TG-VES, through the VEP, included its engagement in information and communication activities, that explained Covid-19 vaccine issues to all sectors, including those at the grassroots level, Gloriani noted.

Empowering inventors and scientists Written in simple language, the “Science for Business” provides diverse examples that can target a mix of investors, inventors, innovators, policy-makers, students and entrepreneurs, said Greg Çiocson of the DOST’s technology transfer and business development team in his response to the book.

In the chapter on technology development, “We will see how inventors and scientists can be empowered, how other stakeholders in transferring the technology broadened their skills in managing the technologies, and its context in the organization, industry, market and the country,” Çiocson said.

Responses Those who also gave their responses to the books were: NRCP Researcher Dr. Rochelle Irene G. Lucas and Ret. Col. Gilbert Ramos (conductor and musical director of Musikawayan), to “Science for the Arts.”

FASSSTER developer Dr. Maria Regina Justina E. Estuar in “Science for Healing:” Defense Undersecretary Ricardo B. Jalad and Local Government Undersecretary Nestor F. Quinsay Jr., to “Science for Resilience.”

Front lea r ners I nc.’s L eo a nd Maria Elaine P. de Velez, and BusinessMirror Science Editor Ly n Resurreccion, to “Science for Awareness,” and Techmatch Asia’s Nestor Precioso, to “Science for Business.”

DOST-PCAARRD lauded for its program vs Covid-19, leadership in poverty reduction

By Rizal Raoul Reyes

T

he Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOSTPCAARRD) was lauded by the department‘s top officials during its 11th anniversary celebration on June 22.

Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña and Undersecretary for Research and Development Rowena Cristina Guevara lauded DOST-PCA ARRD for its contributions in helping Filipinos reduce poverty, fight climate change and enhance competitiveness for national development.

De la Peña recalled the significant response of DOST-PCAARRD to the challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic that worked to address the fears, doubts and insecurity prevailing among the public.

It launched the Galing-PCA ARRD Kontra Covid-19 Program as part of the response of the nationa l government to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

De la Peña hailed the DOSTPCAARRD for its commitment to provide leadership in quality research and

development (R&D).

“The [R&D] consortia in the region played a key role in pushing the development agenda to the various provinces in the country,” he said.

“The collaboration between the DOST and PCAARRD has started sowing the seeds for comprehensive direction in the Philippines as well as in the region,” Guevara said.

Guevara urged DOST-PCAARRD to continue doing innovation and research in achieving a flourishing agriculture, aquatic and natural resources to make the country develop a stable food security program.

“We will need more dedication, teamwork and government support in the coming years,” she said.

De la Peña urged the state colleges and universities (SUCs), private educational institutions, research institutions and local and international partners to ensure that DOST-PCAARRD programs are more relevant and suited to the regional stakeholders “Through its programs and initiatives, the conservation, sustainability and preservation of the country’s biodiversity has been enhanced toward progress,” de la Peña said during the online celebration.

A total of 64 projects and 12 activities and initiatives from existing DOST-PCA ARRD projects had been approved with an estimated total investment of P174 million. It was in collaboration with over 48 partner institutions.

As of March 11, 2021, 50 DOSTPC A A R R D projec ts were i mple mented across the Philippines: 32 projects in Luzon, 5 in Visayas, and 13 in Mindanao.

By sector, there were 28 projects under crops, eight aquatic, six livestock, five forestry, and three cross-cutting.

DOST-PCAARRD, likewise, honored de la Peña and Guevara for their

leadership, dedication and valuable services in uplifting the quality of agriculture, aquatic and natural resources in the country.

Galing-PCAARRD Kontra Covid-19 Program components n Teknolohiya-Kaalaman para sa Pamayanan: This focused on the dissemination and circulation of different information, education and communication materials using various communication platforms. n Lingkod Alalay sa Pamayanan: This emphasized on the distribution of food products, disinfectants, alcohol, personal protective equipment

and provision of support services to affected communities and frontliners.

This is in response to the call to immediately extend assistance to families and individuals affected by the community quarantine.

The 10 technology-transfer projects/programs are food related assistance distributed to beneficiaries and non-food related assistance distributed to beneficiaries. n Pagkain at Kabuhayan sa Pamayanan: This supported various food production and livelihood projects, such as Gulayan sa Pamayanan, Tilapia para sa Pamayanan, and Manok at Itlog para sa Pamayanan. n DOST-PCA ARRD in the Regions: This is comprised of the Quick Response Project proposals from 15 consortia based on the assessed and identified ongoing and prospective activities needed to address Covid-19 concerns and impacts in the regions. n Rebuilding the Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources in Response to Covid-19 (ReAARRC)—It is the R&D and innovation component of the Galing-PCAARRD Program.

The ReAARRC activities and projects focus on non-food/non-crops initiatives, such as production of

coconut ethyl alcohol, Lapnis-framed face shields, bamboo soap products, bamboo-abaca handsfree disinfectant dispenser and foot bath prototypes, and development of Giant Swamp Taro chipping machine and GIS-based system. n Gulayan sa Pamayanan: An offshoot of the initial Gulayan sa Pamayanan project under Component 3 is offering urban agriculture technologies, such as Enhanced Potting Preparation (EPP) and Simple Nutrient Addition Program (SNAP) Hydroponics in National Capital Regionthe , Region 3 and Region 4A, through the collaboration among DOST-PCAARRD, Caritas and DOST Regional Offices. n Smart Food Value Chain Program: An integration of the different DOST agencies’ initiatives among PCAARRD, PCIEERD, ITDI, FNRI and DOST Regional Offices in partnership with SUCs to enhance the food value chain for selected commodities in identified regions.

It is done by implementing key approaches to strengthen the network of stakeholders and processes involved in the production and value adding activities towards food resiliency in the new normal.

A10 Sunday, July 3, 2022

Faith

Sunday

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

Some reasons why Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion was overturned T

the basis of race, sex, or disability,” the decision explains.

he US Supreme Court on June 24 issued an opinion in Dobbs v.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, returning the question of abortion policy to the states and to the people’s elected representatives.

Why did the Court make this decision? Here are some of the reasons that the justices gave in the majority opinion for overturning Roe.

1

The Constitution makes no reference to abortion.

The opinion points out that abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, nor, the opinion says, is such a right “implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

2

Abortion is not “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”

Supreme Court precedent had held that any right not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

“The right to abortion does not fall within this category,” the court concluded.

3

Abortion is “fundamentally different” than the subjects of related court decisions because it involves the taking of a life.

Abortion is “fundamentally different” from other decisions related to

6

Roe’s reasoning was “exceedingly weak.”

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” said Alito’s decision.

sexual relations, contraception and marriage, the justices wrote, because it destroys what other court decisions call “fetal life” and what the Mississippi law in question describes as an “unborn human being.”

“None of the other decisions cited

by Roe and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion,” the opinion says.

4

Thanks to Roe, women’s voices on abortion have not been heard.

By preventing the people’s elected representatives at the state and local levels from regulating abortion, the court argues that women’s voices— both pro- and anti-abortion—were silenced under Roe. “Our decision…allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting and running for office,” said the Dobbs decision.

7

“Women are not without electoral or political power. It is noteworthy that the percentage of women who register to vote and cast ballots is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do so.”

State consensus on abortion existed before Roe. The right to abortion was “entirely unknown in American law” until the latter part of the 20th century, said Alito’s decision.

“Indeed, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three quarters of the States made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy.”

5

8

Demonstrators on both sides of the abortion debate outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., after the court released its decision in Dobbs, June 24, 2022. KATIE YODER/CNA

States have “legitimate interests” in regulating abortion.

A law regulating abortion, like other health and welfare laws, is entitled to a “strong presumption of validity” if there is “a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests.”

“These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development; the protection of maternal health and safety; the elimination of particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures; the preservation of the integrity of the medical profession; the mitigation of fetal pain; and the prevention of discrimination on

The Supreme Court can’t settle the abortion debate, but legislators may.

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” the decision says.

“This Court’s inability to end debate on the issue should not have been surprising. This Court cannot bring about the permanent resolution of a rancorous national controversy simply by dictating a settlement and telling the people to move on. Whatever influence the Court may have on public attitudes must stem from the strength of our opinions, not an attempt to exercise ‘raw judicial power.’” Jonah McKeown/

Catholic News Agency

Vatican designates Antipolo Church as ‘international shrine’

T

he Vatican has declared the National Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage in Antipolo City as an “international shrine.”

Bishop Francisco de Leon of Antipolo recently said the Vatican approved the diocese’s petition to give the shrine, which is also the Cathedral of the diocese, with such privilege.

“We received a letter from Rome saying that on June 18, our national shrine will be recognized as an international shrine,” de Leon said.

The bishop made the announcement in his homily during Mass at the cathedral to celebrate the diocese’s 39th founding anniversary.

But the diocese, he said, has yet to receive a copy of the official declaration.

The Antipolo shrine becomes the 11th

Bishop Francisco de Leon presides over Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage to celebrate the 39th founding anniversary of the Diocese of Antipolo on June 25. ANTIPOLO CATHEDRAL photo

international shrine and the third in Asia after the St. Thomas Church Malayattoor in India, and the Haemi Martyrdom Holy Ground together with the Seoul Pilgrimage Routes in South Korea.

I t i s , h o w e v e r, t h e f i r s t M a r i a n international shrine in Asia, and the sixth in the world.

The Catholic Church has three kinds of shrines: diocesan shrines, approved by the local bishop; national shrines recognized by the bishops’ conference; and international shrines endorsed by the Vatican.

According to Catholic News Agency, international shrines include historic locations, such as Jerusalem and Rome, sites of approved Marian apparitions, such as Lourdes and Fatima, and places associated with saints, such as Assisi and Lisieux. CBCP News

Records of Jews who sought Vatican help during Holocaust to go public

R

elatives of Holocaust survivors and victims can now look through the files of more than 2,700 Jews who sought help through Vatican channels to escape Nazi persecution before and during the Second World War. The archives have gone public on the Internet at the request of Pope Francis.

The files constitute “a heritage that is precious because it gathers the requests for help sent to Pope Pius XII by Jewish people, both the baptized and the nonbaptized, after the beginning of Nazi and fascist persecution,” Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, said in a June 23 article for Vatican News.

This heritage is “now easily accessible to the entire world thanks to a project aimed at publishing the complete digitalized version of the archival series,” he said.

“Making the digitized version of the entire Jews/Jewish people series available on the Internet will allow the descendants of those who asked for help, to find traces of their loved ones from any part of the world.

At the same time, it will allow scholars and anyone interested, to freely examine this special archival heritage, from a distance,” Gallagher added.

The files are hosted at the web site for the Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State’s Section for Relations with States and

International Organizations. The archive hosts a photographic reproduction of each document and an analytical inventory that names all those requesting help.

The series pertains to the papacy of Venerable Pius XII, who was elected pope on March 2, 1939, just six months before the start of the war.

Some requests written by Jews or on behalf of Jews sought help to obtain visas or passports, to find asylum, or to reunify families.

Others sought freedom from detention or transfers to a different concentration camp. They sought news of deported people or asked for supplies of food or clothes, financial support, spiritual support and more.

“Requests went through the Secretariat of State, and Church diplomatic channels would try to provide “all the help possible,” said Gallagher.

In 2020, when this archive was first opened to researchers, Vatican officials described the documents as “Pacelli’s List,” using the family name of Pope Pius XII to allude to the “Schindler’s List” of the Stephen Spielberg film about a German who rescued Jews from the Holocaust.

“Although the two cases differ, the analogy perfectly expresses the idea that people in the corridors of the institution at

the service of the pontiff, worked tirelessly to provide Jewish people with practical help,” Gallagher said.

Venerable Pius XII records point to his record before and during the war, including significant evidence of Vatican assistance for Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis.

The archive series is 170 volumes in total, about 40,000 digital files. About 70 percent of the material will be made available immediately, but the final volumes are still being integrated into the collection, the Holy See Press Office said in a June 23 bulletin published in the English, Italian and Hebrew languages.

The Ebrei Archival Series was named “Jews” or “Jewish people” in Italian because “its aim is to preserve the petitions for help from Jewish people all over Europe, received by the pope during the Nazi-Fascist persecutions,” the press office said.

In the mid-20th century, the Section for Relations with States was known as the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, equivalent to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Msgr. Angelo Dell’Acqua had a diplomatic role in this office called “minutante.” He and his office oversaw requests from Jews and sought “to provide the petitioners with all possible assistance,” the archive page says.

Dell’Acqua would later become a cardinal and vicar-general of Rome under St. Paul VI. Some of the Jews who wrote seeking Catholic aid were baptized Christians, but many were not. Many petitions were written by intermediaries on behalf of Jews.

“Thousands of people persecuted for their membership to the Jewish religion, or for merely having ‘non-Aryan’ ancestry, turned to the Vatican, in the knowledge that others had received help,” Gallagher said.

About 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

On June 22, Pope Francis received an international delegation of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human-rights group that counts 400,000 member families in the US. The delegation presented to the pope a copy of an original report authored and signed by Nazi leader Adolfh Hitler in which he called for the destruction of the Jewish people. The document is dated September 16, 1919, long before the Nazis took power.

“What began as one man’s opinion would become state policy of Nazi Germany 22 years later, which led to the systematic murder of one-third of world Jewry,” Marvin Hier, founder and CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said at the meeting. Kevin J. Jones/

Catholic News Agency

Ancient statue of St. Peter Vatican News

Pope on Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul: Church called to promote a culture of care

P

ope Francis blessed the pallia for the new Metropolitan Archbishops on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul on June 29, and presided at the Mass for the Solemnity, which was celebrated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals.

In his homily at the Mass, the Holy Father focused on two expressions from the day’s readings: “Get up quickly,” the command of the angel to St. Peter as he languished in prison; and St Paul’s call to Christians to “fight the good fight,” from the Apostle’s Letter to St. Timothy.

He reflected on the meaning of these two phrases for “today’s Christian community, engaged in the synodal process.”

‘Get up quickly’

St. Peter, the pope recalled, had been imprisoned by Herod when an angel appeared to him, woke him, and ordered him to “get up quickly.”

“The scene reminds us of Easter, because it contains two verbs present in the account of Resurrection: ‘awaken’ and ‘get up.’ For Peter, this was the beginning of his escape from Herod’s jail, while for the Church it stands as a call to enter into the mystery of the Resurrection, and allow the Lord to guide us along the paths he wishes to point out to us,” the pope explained.

Often, however, “we experience forms of resistance that prevent us from setting out,” including laziness, or fear of change, leading to spiritual mediocrity, he said.

“We are called by the Synod now in progress to become a Church that gets up, one that is not turned in on itself, but capable of pressing forward, leaving behind its own prisons and setting out to meet the world,” he pointed out

‘Fight the good fight’

The second phrase comes from St. Paul’s Letter to Timothy, where, looking back on his whole life, he says, “I have fought the good fight.”

St. Paul sees that fight going on throughout history, “since many people are not disposed to accept Jesus, preferring to pursue their own interests and follow other teachers.”

Having fought his own battles, St. Paul calls on Timothy and the Christians in the community to carry on his work “with watchful care, preaching, and teaching.”

Pope Francis said Paul’s exhortation “is also a word of life for us,” helping us realize that we are all called to be missionar y disciples, with ever yone offering their own contribution.

The pope posed two questions for modern Christians. First, he said, we must ask “What can I do for the Church?”

He warned against complaining about the Church and invited the faithful to participate in the Church’s work with passion and humility.

This, he said, “is what a synodal Church means: everyone has a part to play, no individual in the place of others or above others.”

Then, “What can we do together, as Church, to make the world in which we live more humane, just and solidary, more open to God and to fraternity among men?”

This does not mean retreating into “ecclesial circles,” trapped in fruitless debates, but instead, “helping one another to be leaven in the dough of the world.”

“In a word, we are called to be a Church that promotes the culture of care and compassion towards the vulnerable,” he explained.

The Church, he said, is called to “fight all forms of corruption and decay… so that in the life of every people the joy of the Gospel may shine forth.” This, he said, is our “good fight.”

Blessing of pallia, greetings to Orthodox delegation

Finally, recalling the “fine tradition” of the blessing of the pallia—a liturgical vestment worn by Metropolitan Archbishops that symbolizes union with the pope—Pope Francis reminded the archbishops that “they are called to ‘get up quickly’ in order to serve as vigilant sentinels over the flock, and to ‘fight the good fight,’ never alone, but together with the holy and faithful people of God.” He invited them to “journey together, because only together can we be the seed of the Gospel, and witnesses of fraternity.”

Christopher Wells/Vatican News

‘When we work with God’s grace, miracles happen’

‘W

e come with hearts filled with gratitude and joy this evening to celebrate the memory and the teaching of this great saint who has shown us a way of sanctification in the modern world.”

These were the words of the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown, who gave insights into the spirituality of human work during his homily for the Mass at the Manila Cathedral on June 27 to commemorate the feast day of St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, an Opus Dei news release said .

“Man’s work is a participation in God’s activity. That awareness ought to permeate even the most ordinary everyday activities,” Archbishop Brown said, quoting St. John Paul II. This, the Nuncio said, was a “summation of the spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva.”

Escriva is known for “valuing so importantly the vocation of the laity; for understanding that the Church is not simply a clerical association of priests and bishops, but that the vast majority of Catholics make their way to heaven as laypeople,” the nuncio said.

During his canonization on October

6, 2002, Pope John Paul II called him “the saint of the ordinary.” St. Josemaria taught people many ways to seek Christ in the ordinary things of each day, most specially in work and in family.

After two years of pandemic, the crowd was back at the Manila Cathedral, albeit limited in size due to health protocols.

Devotees throughout the country organize Masses yearly to celebrate St. Josemaria’s feast, which is on June 26. His portraits and statues can be found in many churches nationwide.

Devotees organized more than 230 Masses from June 22 to July 1 this year, from Batanes in the north to Davao and General Santos cities in the south.

Cardinal Jose Advincula, the archbishop of Manila, was not a concelebrant at the Mass but was in attendance from his cathedra. There were more than 30 concelebrants, including Bishop Emeritus Antonio Tobias and Bishop Roberto Gaa (Novaliches), Bishop Oscar Florencio (Military Ordinariate); and Msgr. Carlos Estrada, the Regional Vicar of Opus Dei in the Philippines.

Opus Dei started in the Philippines in 1964.

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, July 3, 2022 A11

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Zamboanga Peninsula’s wetland of international importance

Sibugay Coastal Wetlands eyed for Ramsar listing

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

H

ome to a variety of native and migratory birds, including waterbirds, the Sibugay Coastal Wetlands (SCW) in Zamboanga Peninsula is undeniably a wetland of international importance.

With an area of 172,007.25 hectares, this economically important ecosystem is now being pushed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for inclusion in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.

Strong commitment The push for the designation of the Sibugay Coastal Wetlands as a Ramsar Site demonstrates the country’s strong commitment to the Ramsar Convention as well as to the Convention on Biodiversity and Convention on Migratory Species, said Michael F. de la Cruz, chief of the Sibugay Technical Services in the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (Penro), in a news release on June 6.

Besides the presence of important ecosystem-forming species like coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass and mudflats, SCW serves as a staging, roosting and foraging grounds for other equally important species like marine turtles and whale sharks.

Ramsar Sites are covered by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands.

Known as the Convention on Wetlands, it is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the convention was signed in 1971.

Philippines Ramsar Sites A member of the Ramsar Convention, the Philippines is bound to work toward the wise use of all its wetlands and designate suitable wetlands to the list of Ramsar Sites.

The country currently has eight Ramsar Sites, namely: Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary, Naujan Lake National Park, Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary, Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and

Migratory waterbirds depend on healthy, well-preserved wetlands to survive their annual migration. Photo from DENR/Growth Publishing

Ecotourism Area, Negros Occidental Coastal Wetlands Conservation Area, and the Sasmuan Pampanga Coastal Wetlands

International importance Executive Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) told the BusinessMirror the importance of acquiring such a distinct title as a Ramsar Site.

“We support the DENR and the Sibugay LGU [local government unit] on their nomination of the SCW as a Ramsar Site. With the area being used as a watering hole and sanctuary by migrating birds, [it] is a crucial part of the East Asia-Australasian Flyway,” said Lim, a former director of the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB), when asked for her comment via Messenger on June 22.

According to Lim, a biodiversity conservation expert, the whole of the Sibugay Coastal Wetlands also has a huge potential for nature tourism and is already a source of livelihood to the people in the area.

Key to fisheries sustainability Keeping the coastal areas healthy is key to the sustainable food supply from fisheries, she added.

“Before the pandemic, I was able to visit the [Sibugay] wetlands, and saw the amazing flight of fruit bats at dusk from a view deck in the municipality of Siay, and was given a taste of the rich fishery resources, attributed to the wetlands as spawning and growing ground for the seafood,” she recalled.

A vast tract of mangrove forest is one of the unique features of the Sibugay Coastal Wetlands. Photo from DENR/Growth Publishing

The ACB provided support to Siay for bird monitoring and to help in its enforcement before the pandemic.

“We look forward to supporting more activities related to the listing of the Sibugay Wetland Natural Reserve as a Ramsar Site,” Lim pointed out.

Ecological connectivity Anson Tagtag, OIC division chief of the Caves, Wetlands and Other Ecosystems Division of the DENRBMB, for his part, said wetlands all over the world are connected and are being used by migratory species during different stages of migration.

In the Philippines, Ramsar Sites are staging grounds.

“We need to preserve these habitats. Once lost, the [birds’] migration process will be interrupted,” he said, referring to the destruction of the important habitats.

Tagtag said wetlands are important for the survival of various species.

“Inland and coastal wetlands cater to different groups of migratory birds. Of course, in coastal wetlands, besides migratory waterbirds or shorebirds, there are mangroves and grasses,” he added.

‘Restaurant’ of migratory waterbirds T agtag d e s c r i b e d S i b u g a y Coastal Wetlands as a “restaurant” of migrator y waterbirds.

“Those migrating from Alaska to Australia, from October to March, many waterbirds stop by

Sibugay to feed,” he told the BusinessMirror via telephone interview on June 23.

Tagtag also noted that SCW is known to have mudflats and seagrasses, which are key to the survival of many coastal and marine species.

Since the Philippines is in the middle of an important migratory pathway for waterbirds, the need to protect and conserve Ramsar Sites is paramount.

“Imagine if our mudflats have been destroyed? Where will the migrating birds stop to rest and eat?” he asked.

According to Tagtag, what makes Sibugay Coastal Wetlands extra special is its vast tract of mangrove forests which serves as home to over 300,000 flying foxes, or fruit bats, whose existence could not be overemphasized.

“These flying foxes are silent planters. They help maintain a healthy forest,” he said, compared to inland wetlands.

Ecological and economic importance A coastal area located at the southern portion of the peninsula, the Sibugay Coastal Wetlands has a total of 5,154.74 hectares of mangroves, 3,697.15 hectares of mudf lats, as well as estuarine and coastal waters, the DENR’s Penro in Zamboanga Sibugay said.

The SCW stretches along a 146-kilometer coastline covering a total of nine municipalities and 63 barangays.

It plays a substantial role in the natural functioning of a river basin,

or coastal system.

Haven for migratory waterbirds According to the Zamboanga Sibugay Penro, the wetland serves as a staging, roosting, foraging and breeding ground to various waterbirds, including migratory species.

“During the 2018 AWC [Asian Waterbird Census], 291 heads of the endangered far eastern curlew were recorded in the wetland,” stated a document from the Zamboanga Sibugay Penro that was furnished to the BusinessMirror.

Proponents of the study revealed that banded, or flagged birds, were also documented in the wetland with banding sites from China, Russia, Australia and Japan.

Home to threatened species SCW also supports threatened species—such as marine turtles, whale sharks, sea cows and saltwater crocodiles.

The vast mudflat is also home to a variety of oysters, scallops and other mollusks.

The bay supports fishing and other marine-related livelihoods which serves as the main source of subsistence for most of the coastal barangays.

In a telephone interview on June 21, Georgina L. Fernandez, chief of Conservation and Development Section/Focal-Nagao Funded Project of Penro Sibugay, said mapping of the Sibugay Coastal Wetland is ongoing to include an updated list of mangroves and mudf lats.

“To date, we have documented

68 species of waterbirds, 42 are considered migratory species. And we have identified four threatened species. Eleven are considered nearthreatened species,” Fernandez said.

Opening up new opportunities The Sibugay Coastal Wetlands will be renamed Sibugay Wetland Nature Reserve upon its inclusion on the Ramsar List when contracting parties meet in Gland, Switzerland, in December.

As such, it will undergo a more stringent management regime.

Fernandez said the title will also open opportunities for international cooperation on research, allowing the DENR and its partners to learn more about SCW. “It will also help raise funding for conservation and protection of the site,” she added.

Wise use of resources For his part, Penro Chief Edgardo P. Montojo said in a news release that it is important to advocate for the wise use of the wetlands’ resources so they will be enjoyed by future generations.

“Here, the Ramsar list will play a unique role,” he said.

Currently, the DENR-Region IX is preparing the documents for the inclusion of the SCW into the list.

The documents will be submitted to the DENR-BMB, the designated Ramsar National Administrative Authority, for endorsement to the Office of the DENR Secretary who will then endorse it to the Ramsar authorities.

Langun-Gobingob Cave, largest in PHL, needs sustained management like others T he Philippines has over 3,100 known caves. Among them is the LangunGobingob Cave in Samar. It features 12 chambers over its 7-kilometer span, making it the king of the country’s caves.

Discovered by Italian Guido Rossi in 1987, Langun-Gobingob Cave was opened to the public in 1990, a news release said.

Caves are underground chambers, usually in mountains, hills or cliffs.

Generations of imaginative fear-mongers have made them the home of everything from treasure-hoarding dragons to a whip-wielding Balrog.

In reality, caves are special ecosystems which need protection, particularly from unscrupulous miners who would break apart tons of rock for a handful of precious stones.

Unique but threatened biodiversity

Samar Island, overshadowed by more popular places like Palawan and Boracay, isn’t usually considered a top tourist destination, owing to its long history as a hotbed for insurgencies and it is often visited by typhoons.

Although the Philippines’s third largest island exudes rugged beauty, its real value as an ecotourism destination lies beneath the earth.

“Samar is unique because it is a karst landscape made primarily of limestone.

Millions of years of weathering has created numerous caves and sinkholes on the island,” explained Anson Tagtag, head of the Caves, Wetlands and Other Ecosystems

Division of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“Caves are special ecosystems which harbor highly evolved fauna, most of which have adapted to darkness,” Tagtag said.

Birds, bats, spiders, snakes, crickets and blind cave fish thrive inside the Langun-Gobingob Cave.

The lack of light confines plants to its entrances, but mushrooms and other types of fungi cling to life as discreet denizens of the dark.

“The speleothems or rocks in caves are in a very real sense ‘alive’—they just grow and move at timescales difficult for people to comprehend,” explained Dr. Allan Gil Fernando, a professor at the National Institute of Geological Sciences in University of the Philippines Diliman.

“The constant dripping of water, for instance, leaves minute traces of minerals like calcite. Over time these traces pile up to form hanging stalactites and their inverted kin, stalagmites. It takes about a century for a stalactite or stalagmite to grow one inch,” Fernando added.

It is because of their surreal beauty that many caves are sundered.

“People used to enter the LangunGobingob Cave to break apart and mine stalagmites plus white calcite rocks for collectors,” said Assistant Superintendent Eires Mate of the Samar Island Natural Park (SINP).

Cave guide Alvin Rafales confirmed this. “Locals used to mine the cave for

Taiwanese businessmen, who paid a paltry P7 for a kilogram of rock. Balinsasayao, or swiftlet nests, were plucked out too, to be shipped to Chinese markets,” he said.

The cave was finally declared a protected area in 1997. “Thank God for legal protection. Mining was effectively stopped,” Mate said.

The Langun-Gobingob Cave is just one of many natural systems benefiting from the country’s protected area system.

“Declaring key biodiversity sites as protected areas is one of the best ways to ensure that future generations can continue enjoying their beauty,” Anabelle Plantilla, United Nations Development Programme Biodiversity Finance Initiative manager, was quoted in the news release.

“Visitors should positively support local communities but be mindful of the environmental impacts of their travels.

They should, for instance, avoid taking wild plants or leaving trash in tourist sites,” Plantilla pointed out.

Year of the Protected Areas

Inside Langun-Gobingob Cave in Samar, these flowstones, as tall as a small skyscraper, are possibly among the largest on the planet. They occasionally glitter due to calcite crystals inside.

Declaring caves as protected areas are among the best ways to protect their treasures from miners, who would mine million-year old stones for profit. Photo from Mavel Luperte

Launched in May 2022, Year of the Protected Areas (YOPA) hopes to generate funds from tourists to ensure the continued management of protected areas hard-hit

by Covid-19 budget cuts.

The Langun-Gobingob Cave is part of SINP, one of YOPA’s six highlighted parks.

The others are the Bongsanglay Natural Park in Masbate, Apo Reef Natural Park in Occidental Mindoro, Balinsasayao Twin

Lakes Natural Park in Negros Oriental, Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary in Davao Oriental, and Mount Timpoong Hibok-Hibok Natural Monument in Camiguin.

The country’s caves are now open for tourism, but visitors should know what not to do inside them.

“Cave tourism should be well managed and there are cave do’s and don’ts,” said Buddy Acenas from the GAIA Exploration Club, a Manila-based caving and exploration group.

“A comprehensive assessment should be conducted before a cave is opened for tourism. Trained guides and set trails should be used to minimize human impacts. Like so many of our fragile wilderness areas, caves must be stewarded by those visiting them,” Arcenas said.

For its part, the Philippine government is doing what it can to promote responsible tourism.

“Our caves, mountains, beaches and other protected areas are now open for tourism. We invite both Filipinos and foreigners to come and visit, but to do so in an environmentally-responsible manner,” said Director Natividad Bernardino of the DENR-Biodiversity Management Bureau.

“By practicing responsible and regenerative tourism in protected areas, we’re helping our national parks flourish and recover from the economic blow they suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic,” Bernardino added.

Sports BusinessMirror

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

A12 Sunday, July 3, 2022

COUNTING EM BURNED CALORIES

KANSAS State guard Nijel Pack shoots against West Virginia’s Isaiah Cottrell during their NCAA college game in Manhattan, Kansas, on February 14, 2022. AP

One year into NIL era, fresh questions rise about future

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BELGIUM’S Wout van Aert (front right), the US’s Sepp Kuss (center front) and their Jumbo Visma train near Copenhagen ahead of the Tour de France. AP

By John Eric Goff

I

University of Lynchburg

MAGINE you begin pedaling from the start of Stage 12 of this year’s Tour de France. Your very first task would be to bike approximately 20.6 miles (33.2 km) up to the peak of Col du Galibier in the French Alps while gaining around 4,281 feet (1,305 m) of elevation.

But this is only the first of three big climbs in your day. Next you face the peak of Col de la Croix de Fer and then end the 102.6-mile (165.1-km) stage by taking on the famous Alpe d’Huez climb with its 21 serpentine turns.

On the fittest day of my life, I might not even be able to finish Stage 12—much less do it in anything remotely close to the five hours or so the winner will take to finish the ride. And Stage 12 is just one of 21 stages that must be completed in the 24 days of the tour.

I am a sports physicist, and I’ve modeled the Tour de France for nearly two decades using terrain data—like what I described for Stage 12—and the laws of physics. But I still cannot fathom the physical capabilities needed to complete the world’s most

famous bike race.

Only an elite few humans are capable of completing a Tour de France stage in a time that’s measured in hours instead of days.

The reason they’re able to do what the rest of us can only dream of is that these athletes can produce enormous amounts of power.

Power is the rate at which cyclists burn energy and the energy they burn comes from the food they eat. And over the course of the Tour de France, the winning cyclist will burn the equivalent of roughly 210 Big Macs.

Cycling is a game of watts

TO make a bicycle move, a Tour de France rider transfers energy from his muscles, through the bicycle and to the wheels that push back on the ground.

The faster a rider c an put out energy, the gre ater the power. T his r ate of energy transfer is of ten measured in wat ts. Tour de France cyclists are c apable of generating enormous amounts of power for incredibly long periods of time compared to most people.

For about 20 minutes, a fit recreational cyclist can consistently put out 250 watts to 300 watts. Tour de France cyclists can produce over 400 watts for the same time

period. These pros are even capable of hitting 1,000 watts for short bursts of time on a steep uphill—roughly enough power to run a microwave oven.

But not all of the energy a Tour de France cyclist puts into his bike gets turned into forward motion. Cyclists battle air resistance and frictional losses between their wheels and the road. They get help from gravity on downhills but they have to fight gravity while climbing.

I incorporate all of the physics associated with cyclist power output as well as the effects of gravity, air resistance and friction into my model. Using all that, I estimate that a typical Tour de France winner needs to put out an average of about 325 watts over the roughly 80 hours of the race. Recall that most recreational cyclists would be happy if they could produce 300 watts for just 20 minutes!

Turning food into miles

SO where do these cyclists get all this energy from? Food, of course!

But your muscles, like any machine, can’t convert 100 percent of food energy directly into energy output—muscles can be anywhere between 2 percent efficient

when used for activities like swimming and 40 percent efficient in the heart.

In my model, I use an average efficiency of 20 percent. Knowing this efficiency as well as the energy output needed to win the Tour de France, I can then estimate how much food the winning cyclist needs.

Top Tour de France cyclists who complete all 21 stages burn about 120,000 calories during the race—or an average of nearly 6,000 calories per stage. On some of the more difficult mountain stages—like this year’s Stage 12—racers will burn close to 8,000 calories. To make up for these huge energy losses, riders eat delectable treats such as jam rolls, energy bars and mouthwatering “jels” so they don’t waste energy chewing.

Tadej Pogaar won both the 2021 and 2020 Tour de France and weighs only 146 pounds (66 kilograms). Tour de France cyclists don’t have much fat to burn for energy.

They have to keep putting food energy into their bodies so they can put out energy at what seems like a superhuman rate.

So this year, while watching a stage of the Tour de France, note how many times the cyclists eat—now you know the reason for all that snacking. AP

Hamilton pushes back against ‘old voices’ over racism

S

ILVERSTONE, England—Lewis Hamilton said Thursday that Formula One should ignore “old voices” and reject racism as it focuses on becoming more inclusive, even as reigning world champion Max Verstappen said his “father-in-law” should not be banned from the F1 paddock.

Hamilton, the seven-time F1 champion and only Black driver, was reacting to comments made last year by threetime F1 champion Nelson Piquet referring to Hamilton by a racial term. The word in question was brought to attention this week. Piquet is the father of Verstappen’s girlfriend, Kelly Piquet.

Former longtime F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone defended Piquet on Thursday, said he was surprised Hamilton hadn’t “brushed it aside,” and expressed support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“I don’t know why we are continuing to give these older voices a platform because they’re speaking upon our sport and we’re looking to go somewhere completely different. And it’s not representative, I think, of who we are as a sport now and where we’re planning to go,” Hamilton said, without mentioning either Piquet or Ecclestone by name.

“These old voices, whether subconsciously or consciously, do not agree that people like me, for example, should be in a sport like this, do not agree women should be here,” Hamilton said. “Discrimination is not something we should be projecting or promoting.”

In an apparent response to Ecclestone’s comments, Hamilton added: “No one should have to brush off racism, and it shouldn’t be for me to brush it off.”

Verstappen said that Piquet had been wrong to use a word he described as “very, very offensive” but doesn’t consider him to be racist. He added Piquet’s lifetime paddock access given to former F1 champions should not be revoked.

“Let it be a lesson for the future not to use that word because it’s very, very

LEWIS HAMILTON arrives at the Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. AP offensive, and especially nowadays, you know, it gets more and more traction,” he said. “But I spend a lot of time with Nelson, I think, more than the average person in general. And he’s definitely not a racist, and he’s actually a really nice and relaxed guy.

“I’m pretty sure that, also the statement he released, you can see the word in two ways, but I think it’s still better not to use it.”

Verstappen said he had not confronted Piquet. “It’s not up to me to talk to my father-in-law like I think any of you do. We’re not going to call and say, ‘Hey, man, that’s not correct.’ I think he knows that himself.”

Hamilton did not immediately respond to Verstappen’s remarks.

Hamilton said he wanted F1 to do more to widen the diversity and inclusivity of the sport. Hamilton is working with his Mercedes team to fund projects to promote more female participation in auto racing and engineering scholarships for Black students with a focus on auto racing. They announced the first grants Thursday.

Piquet was suspended Thursday from his honorary membership of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, which owns and runs the Silverstone track used for this week’s Grand Prix.

The BRDC said Piquet’s use of “racially

offensive language to describe a fellow BRDC member is unacceptable and represents conduct that is wholly inappropriate for an Honorary Member of the BRDC, notwithstanding his subsequent apology.” The BRDC added that its board was expected to cancel Piquet’s membership at a forthcoming meeting.

Piquet on Wednesday apologized to Hamilton but said the term, while “ill thought out,” was not meant to be offensive.

Piquet used the term three times while discussing a crash between Hamilton and Verstappen during last year’s British Grand Prix.

Even without Piquet’s comments, this week’s return to Silverstone would have had a heightened focus on the often-bitter rivalry between Hamilton and Verstappen last year. Verstappen crashed into the wall and was taken to a hospital for observations, while Hamilton went on to win despite a penalty.

Hamilton faced racist abuse on social media following the race; Verstappen complained it was classless for Hamilton to celebrate a win while Verstappen was being evaluated at the hospital.

There has been widespread condemnation of Piquet’s remarks from F1 management, governing body the FIA and from

most of the drivers.

Zhou Guanyu of Alfa Romeo said Thursday that he experienced “quite a lot of negativity, racist comments, which never should happen” on social media around the time he signed his contract to become the first driver from China in F1.

“Lewis, in a way, is trying to help the world going forward, and it’s not just for us, it’s for the younger generation, to set a better example for them,” Zhou added.

Verstappen’s Red Bull team issued a statement Tuesday saying “the team do not condone any form of racism.” It made no mention of Piquet and focused on the Red Bull decision to fire Formula Two driver Jüri Vips from a test and reserve driver role for using a racial slur during an online gaming stream. Vips has kept his seat with his F2 team Hitech.

Ecclestone, who has been criticized before by Hamilton for comments on racism and diversity in F1, said Piquet’s closeness with Verstappen might explain his comments and that Piquet would “never go out of his way to say anything bad.”

“Knowing Nelson as I know him, as his daughter is the girlfriend of Max Verstappen, probably after seeing the accident... he probably exploded then and sort of carried that forward,” said Ecclestone in comments on British TV breakfast show “Good Morning Britain.”

Ecclestone, who controlled F1 for decades before stepping aside in 2017, also defended Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine. The 91-year-old said he would “take a bullet” for the Russian president.

“The comments made by Bernie Ecclestone are his personal views and are in very stark contrast to [the] position of the modern values of our sport,” F1 said in a statement.

Hamilton wondered why Ecclestone was even put on television: “Someone that ultimately believes in the war, the displacement of millions of people and the killing of thousands of people? That’s beyond me, and I can’t believe that’s what I heard today.” AP

HE first year of the athlete compensation era in college sports evolved into almost everything the NCAA didn’t want when it gave the green light last summer.

What was envisioned as a way for college athletes to make some pocket money based on their celebrity has turned into bidding wars for top recruits and transfers who can command millions for their services. State laws have been passed or overturned and funding in some cases is coming from deep-pocketed donors and alumni who have waded into the recruiting wars.

The current frenzy has given rise to serious concerns about recruiting practices and competitive balance and, in turn, questions about where NIL compensation—short for name, image and likeness—goes from here. Will Congress get involved? Will schools take on a primary role?

“The way this money situation is exploding on schools, they’re going to compete themselves into the ground,” University of Illinois labor law professor Michael LeRoy said. “They can’t all win under these rules.”

Some would say there are no rules, or that rules set up by the NCAA and in state laws have no teeth and are treated more like suggestions.

“When you see Nick Saban losing his cool over recruiting, it’s a sure sign that damage is being done at the highest levels of NCAA athletic competition,” LeRoy said, referring to t he Alabama football coach’s comments in May alleging Texas A&M “bought every player on their team.”

The NCAA interim NIL policy says there is to be no pay for play, no recruiting inducements and that athletes must provide a service in exchange for pay. With the schools themselves left out of the loop in the wheeling and dealing, so-called booster collectives sprung up to provide earning opportunities—and, critics say, recruiting enticements.

Basketball player Nijel Pack made one of the first big splashes in April. When his transfer from Kansas State to Miami was announced, it was made public he would get a two-year, $800,000 deal with a medical tech company that came with a car. Pack already is featured in an advertisement.

There have been media reports of football and basketball recruits and transfers being promised millions of dollars in NIL deals—all against the rules because they haven’t enrolled.

The NCAA Division I Board of Governors in May warned that enforcement staff would investigate and take action against the most “outrageous violations,” with the schools being penalized for boosters’ improper conduct.

Dionne Koller, a professor and director of the Center for Sport and the Law at the University of Baltimore law school, said she’s not surprised how NIL has unfolded. The market, she said, was at a boiling point.

“Because we now let the genie out of the bottle,” she said, “this is what’s happening.”

Short of congressional action to sort out NIL issues, some wonder if athletes will be declared employees of their schools and have NIL issues addressed through collective bargaining.

Proponents say their position is strengthened by last fall’s memorandum from National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who wrote college athletes fit the definition of “employees” under federal labor law: someone who performs services for an institution and is subject to its control.

Koller said she agrees there is a strong legal basis for calling athletes employees.

“Whether we actually get to the point of collective bargaining, I’m still in waitand-see mode because this is something that can be changed by statute,” she said.

“The NLR Act can be amended to say college athletes can’t be considered employees.

Whether Congress would do that, that’s a political question and something we have to keep in mind.”

LeRoy said there is nothing to prevent public schools from adopting collective bargaining or Congress from passing an industry-specific collective bargaining law, just as it did in 1926 with railroads and in 1936 with airlines.

Marc Edelman, a law professor at Baruch College in New York, said Abruzzo’s memo set the stage for unionization. The NCAA, on the losing end of court cases in antitrust lawsuits, has long opposed unionization and its newly redrawn constitution makes clear athletes cannot be paid by their schools for playing sports.

To be determined would be whether only athletes in revenue-producing sports would be included. There also would be Title IX implications with regard to how men’s and women’s interests are addressed.

LeRoy, who wrote the 2014 book Collective Bargaining in Sports and Entertainment: Professional Skills and Business Strategies, said now that athletes can make NIL money maintaining a semblance of competitive balance should be the impetus for unionization.

Without it, LeRoy said, the five to 10 most well-heeled programs will sign elite, money-motivated recruits and further separate themselves from other programs.

“No league can win when you don’t have some kind of competitive balance in your rule system,” he said. “Rule No. 1 for a league is have anti-competitive rules in order to be competitive. That’s to say, they have to put restraints on a labor market in order to spread talent around and to make the league interesting from a fan standpoint.

“The way this is rapidly evolving, it’s going to accentuate the difference between the haves and the have-nots. I personally don’t see 65 Power Five teams hanging together in the same grouping under this current system.”

That topic is among the many under discussion as the NCAA’s three divisions restructure themselves, a process that picked up momentum last year.

LeRoy envisions the conferences as the “employers,” or “management,” in collective bargaining and key areas of negotiation being revenue sharing, a salary cap and creative ways to deal with NIL. He offered a couple possibilities: backloaded NIL agreements requiring athletes to stay at a school three or four years before they collect their money, or setting an annual per-team limit on NIL earnings.

Tom McMillen, president and CEO of the LEAD1 Association, which represents toptier athletic directors, suggests a less radical approach. He said athletic departments should oversee NIL activities to ensure compliance.

McMillen said expanded group licensing involving the schools and all athletes would more equitably distribute NIL money. Because schools that receive federal aid must comply with Title IX, male and female athletes would have equal opportunities to cash in.

“The athletic department already arranges internships, jobs, academic tutors—they play a super role in these kids’ lives,” McMillen said. “You could have a licensing divisin focused on the kids run by the athletic department. It’s going to be compliant and they’re going to do it the right way.”

Another option, McMillen said, would be a compromise to unionization where Congress would set up a new social contract for basketball and football players that could involve some form of bargaining, but not collective bargaining as outlined by federal law.

“Our ADs our very concerned, 97 percent, about going full throttle to the professional model,” he said. “They would love to see college sports preserved and it has to be preserved, obviously, in a way that if coaches are making millions of dollars, studentathletes are going to have a chance to make more.” AP

BusinessMirror

July 3, 2022

5 drawbacks to following your passion

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BusinessMirror JULY 3, 2022 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

THREE-PART AMBITIONS The Cheat Codes raise hell in three different ways

By Stephanie Joy Ching

F

OR many budding artists, putting together one cohesive debut album is already a pretty daunting task. From having to create a story from songs to making sure they all flow together, a full-length album entails a lot of work. Genre-defying act Cheat Codes, however, chose to make their mark in the music world with not just one, not just two, but three albums that tell one story.

Publisher

: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

Editor-In-Chief

: Lourdes M. Fernandez

Concept

: Aldwin M. Tolosa

Y2Z Editor

: Jt Nisay

SoundStrip Editor

: Edwin P. Sallan

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

Columnists

: Niggel Figueroa Anabelle O. Flores : Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Darwin Fernandez, Leony Garcia, Stephanie Joy Ching

Composed of an impressive 39 songs, the Hellraisers trilogy is a big flex of Cheat Codes’ influences and skills with each member contributing their own unique flavor to each album.

“It was something we wanted to do for a long, long time,” explained Trevor Dahl, “Ever since we started, we kinda had the idea of doing a three-part album, and when the pandemic hit, we kinda had the time to do it, it just felt natural and there’s three of us, so why not three parts,” With a sound that’s nothing short of well, genre-defying, the trio share that

Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez : Kaye VillagomezLosorata Annie S. Alejo

Photographers

: Bernard P. Testa Nonie Reyes

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

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CHEAT Codes

they find inspiration in everything and anything, and the Hellraisers trilogy is a culmination of that.

Following the release of Hellraisers Part 3, the band describes each album as “three unique albums that represented us individually but still stayed true to who the Cheat Codes really are.” While Hellraisers Part 1 was inspired by Trevor’s pop background and Part 2 introduced Kevin Ford’s hip-hop flare, Part 3 promises to deliver the dance pop side of the band brought to listeners by member Matthew Russell. With numerous collaborations involving the likes

of Gashi, Icona Pop and Loote, the band certainly have a flair for picking the perfect artists that will elevate their music to the next level.

“Like we said, we had all this time, and we were making all this music, and we felt that we kinda broke up into three different genres and show people what we are able to do musically, so it’s kinda cool to kinda show people our voices and our influences that way,” said Trevor.

As the dance side of the Cheat Codes, Hellraisers Part 3 brings the house down with infectious tracks such as “Memory” and “Back Again” that really bring the whole project together.

“It was a lot of work,” confessed Trevor, “I don’t think we realized how much work it was gonna be when we first started the idea, and there are 39 songs and 37 different artists, which is a big undertaking, not just for the music, but also the visuals, the artwork, it was definitely a lot but we are pretty satisfied with it,” Hellraisers Part 3 is now available on all major streaming platforms nationwide.

IC

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | JULY 3, 2022

BUSINESS

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

Nothing but Certified Ear Candies

CAREN TEVANNY “Deliverance”

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HIS synth-infused rock ballad from former General Luna guitarist Caren Tevanny starts slow and its sucker punch lies in lyrics about personal empowerment. Right at the opening stanza, Caren sings, “I won’t stop the things I do/I won’t doubt the things I choose/You can’t change me, not even my name.”

Ms. Tevanny said, “”Deliverance” is actually about focusing on your goals and not being affected by anyone at all.

On a different level, it can also be like being strong in your faith no matter how strong the devil is or temptation becomes.”

“I wrote the lyrics and music and Vince Lucero produced the track,” she added. “I am working on different approaches on my music right now infusing some digital elements on my guitar riffs and some dance beats in my rock approach.

GERALD SANTOS “Ibulong Mo Na Sa ‘Kin”

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INGER-HESPIAN Gerald Santos has a new song penned by journalist-musician Yugel Losorata. Santos shared,

“‘Ibulong Mo Na Sa ‘Kin’ is very now! It’s relatable and this generation will definitely love this song. This song is actually away from my usual ‘heavythemed’ music which is a breath of fresh air for me!”

The track, according to its songwriter Yugel, gives a nod to the intense power of whispering to someone that you love him/her. The lyrics tell about one who has done his/her special someone wrong and is now asking for forgiveness. Losorata, author of two books, is the chief songwriter and bass player of the band The Pub Forties.

us who we are, the things we are thankful for; the people, experiences, and memories…

And realize that there’s more to life than the hardships we go through. Life can only get better when we’re here to make it better.”

ARTHUR MIGUEL “Huli”

J

RLDM’s “Biktima” captures the sentiment of a collective left anguished by the political divide in Philippine society that recently became apparent by with recent national elections. Over lonesome guitar riffs, JRLDM’s voice soars to echo pain and loss by fixating on one’s self: all of us are victims, to some extent, under the incoming new regime. The guitar solo towards the end — the song’s emotional and melodic climax — roars to an abrupt stop, as if out of breath.

“Biktima” is rife with discordant textures that contrast JRLDM’s vocal melodies, resulting in a fiercely sincere and unfiltered message of lost hope yet to be regained, and the unabashed readiness for what comes next.

T liesl-mae “The Trip”

E

MERGING singersongwriter liesl-mae looks inwards and recounts stories of personal-growth with her latest single, “The Trip.” Simple, vulnerable, and authentic, The Kuala Lumpurbased songstress’ storytelling approach reveals an old soul steeped in awareness far beyond her age.

“The Trip” begins stripped down and intimate as liesl-mae details the starting point of a journey she’d like to embark on.

The sparse instrumentation, a nod towards limitless potential and endless possibility, is equally daunting in its expanse as it is exhilarating.

In dealing with the mental exhaustion and burnout that typically ensues, liesl-mae said, “It’s important to look back at all the things that have made

HE new single from Arthur Miguel titled “Huli” is a serenade from the perspective of a man reciting his wedding vow. The song revolves around the things that make relationships magical and extraordinary. The song will remind everyone that there will be a person who’s gonna stay with you through ups and downs and give the love that you deserve.

Arthur Miguel Quimpo, also known as Arthur Miguel, is a 22 year old recording artist whose video uploads achieved widespread success in the early pandemic era. Some of his trending tracks are “Dito, Sa Ilalim Ng Buwan” and “Ang Wakas.”

JRLDM “Biktima”

DILAW “Kaloy”

I

NDIE-alternative duo who goes by the name Dilaw fuses multiple genres with mindbending lyrics that stimulate your thoughts, melodies that blow your mind, and an enigmatic presence unlike any other. Dilaw started his relationship with music through rapping over beats found online. He then met Vie Dela Rosa in 2019 which led to the present duo “Dilaw.”

From writing comedic skits to making music, the duo continues to spread their message to the conscious people. Inspired by the stories of Radioactive Sago Project, to the verses of MF Doom, the duo aims to make their mark in the music scene by releasing songs, forging relationships, and spreading their message

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5 drawbacks to following your passion

By Erin A. Cech

A

University of Michigan

fter earning bachelor’s degrees in engineering and sociology, I was determined to do what I love. I headed straight to graduate school to investigate the social problems that frightened and fascinated me.

For almost a decade, I told everyone I encountered—students, cousins, baristas at the coffee shop I frequented—that they should do the same. “Follow your passion,” I counseled. “You can figure out the employment stuff later.”

It wasn’t until I began to research this widely accepted career advice that I understood how problematic—and rooted in privilege—it really was.

The passion principle As a sociologist who examines work force culture and inequalities, I interviewed college students and professional workers to learn what it really meant to pursue their dreams, which I will refer to here as the passion principle. I was stunned by what I found out about this principle in the research for my book The Trouble with Passion.

I examined surveys that show the American public has held the passion principle in high regard as a career decision-making priority since the 1980s. And its popularity is even stronger among those facing pandemic-related job instability. My interviews revealed that proponents of the passion principle found it compelling because they believed that following one’s passion can provide workers with both the motivation necessary to work hard and a place to find fulfillment.

Yet, what I found is that following one’s passion does not necessarily lead to fulfillment, but is one of the most powerful cultural forces perpetuating overwork. I also found that promoting the pursuit of one’s passion helps perpetuate social inequalities due to the fact that not everyone has the same economic resources to allow them to pursue their passion with ease. What follows are five major pitfalls of the passion principle that I discovered through my research.

Reinforces social inequality While the passion principle is broadly popular, not everyone has the necessary resources to turn their passion into a stable, good-paying job.

Passion-seekers from wealthy families are better able to wait until a job in their passion comes along without worrying about student loans in the meantime. They

1

Erin A. Cech, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan and author of The Trouble with Passion, writes, “Those who promote the ‘follow your passion’ path for everyone might be ignoring the fact that not everyone is equally able to find success while following that advice.” Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash /

“It wasn’t until I began to research this widely accepted career advice­—­‘Follow your passion’—that I understood how problematic and rooted in privilege it really was.”

On the cover: Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

are also better situated to take unpaid internships to get their foot in the door while their parents pay their rent or let them live at home.

And they often have access to parents’ social networks to help them find jobs. Surveys revealed that working-class and firstgeneration college graduates, regardless of their career field, are more likely than their wealthier peers to end up in low-paying unskilled jobs when they pursue their passion.

Colleges and universities, workplaces and career counselors who promote the “follow your passion” path for everyone, without leveling the playing field, help perpetuate socioeconomic inequalities among career aspirants.

Thus, those who promote the “follow your passion” path for everyone might be ignoring the fact that not everyone is equally able to find success while following that advice.

ciple. Employers of passionate workers do, too. I conducted an experiment to see how potential employers would respond to job applicants who expressed different reasons for being interested in a job.

Not only do potential employers prefer passionate applicants over applicants who wanted the job for other reasons, but employers knowingly exploited this passion: Potential employers showed greater interest in passionate applicants in part because employers believed the applicants would work hard at their jobs without expecting an increase in pay.

Reinforces the culture of overwork In conversations with college students and college-educated workers, I found that a substantial number were willing to sacrifice a good salary, job stability and leisure time to work in a job they love. Nearly half—or 46 percent of college-educated workers I surveyed ranked interest or passion for the work as their first priority in a

4

“When we rely on our jobs to give us a sense of purpose, we place our identities at the mercy of the global economy.”

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A threat to well-being My research revealed that passion proponents see the pursuit of one’s passion as a good way to decide on a career, not only because having work in one’s passion might lead to a good job, but because it is believed to lead to a good life. To achieve this, passion-seekers invest much of their own sense of identity in their work.

Yet, the labor force is not structured around the goal of nurturing our authentic sense of self. Indeed, studies of laid-off workers have illustrated that those who were passionate about their work felt as though they lost a part of their identity when they lost their jobs, along with their source of income.

When we rely on our jobs to give us a sense of purpose, we place our identities at the mercy of the global economy.

Promotes exploitation It’s not just well-off passion-seekers who benefit from the passion prin-

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future job. This compared to only 21-percent who prioritized salary and 15-percent who prioritized work-family balance.

Among those I interviewed, there were those who said they would willingly “eat ramen noodles every night” and “work 90 hours a week” if it meant they could follow their passion.

Although many professionals seek work in their area of passion precisely because they want to avoid the drudgery of working long hours doing tasks they aren’t personally committed to, passion-seeking ironically perpetuates the cultural expectations of overwork.

Most passion-seekers I spoke to were willing to work long hours as long as it was work about which they were passionate.

Dismisses labor market inequality I find that the passion principle isn’t just a guide that its followers use to make decisions about their own

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lives. For many, it also serves as an explanation for work force inequality. For example, compared to those who don’t adhere to the passion principle, proponents were more likely to say women aren’t represented well in engineering because they followed their passion elsewhere, rather than acknowledging the deep structural and cultural roots of this underrepresentation.

In other words, passion principle proponents tend to explain away patterns of labor market inequality as the benign result of individual passion-seeking.

Avoiding pitfalls To avoid these pitfalls, people may want to base their career decisions on more than whether those decisions represent their passion. What do you need from your work in addition to a paycheck? Predictable hours? Enjoyable colleagues? Benefits? A respectful boss?

For those who are already employed in jobs you are passionate about, I encourage you to diversify your portfolio of the ways in which you make meaning—to nurture hobbies, activities, community service and identities that exist wholly outside of work.

How can you make time to invest in these other ways to find purpose and satisfaction?

Another factor to consider is whether you are being fairly compensated for the extra passion-fueled efforts you contribute to your job. If you work for a company, does your manager know that you spent weekends reading books on team leadership or mentoring the newest member of your team after hours?

We contribute to our own exploitation if we do uncompensated work for our job out of our passion for it.

My research for The Trouble with Passion raises sobering questions about standard approaches to mentoring and career advising. Every year, millions of high school and college graduates gear up to enter the labor force full time, and millions more reevaluate their jobs. It is vital that the friends, parents, teachers and career coaches who counsel them begin to question if advising them to pursue their passion is something that could end up doing more harm than good. The Conversation