Businessmirror March 16, 2019

BusinessMirror THE SUMMER OF WATER DISCONTENT

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY

2018 BANTOG DATA MEDIA AWARDS CHAMPION

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A broader look at today’s business n

Saturday, March 16, 2019 Vol. 14 No. 157

2018 EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS

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Service interruptions leave huge parts of Metro Manila dry, sparking questions about how well managed the water systems are.

IPO Dam, located about 7.5 km downstream of the Angat Dam near its confluence with the Ipo River in Bulacan, November 3, 2018. RECYAP8 | DREAMSTIME.COM

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By Jonathan L. Mayuga

ETROPOLITAN Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) Administrator Reynaldo V. Velasco is pitching calls for the crafting of a 50-year Water Security and Used Water Master Plan for Metro Manila and its service areas in light of the current water supply shortage affecting the so-called East Zone of Metro Manila.

Velasco said that by August, in time for the 22nd anniversary of the public-private partnership (PPP) tie-up between the MWSS and its private water concessionaires—the Ayala-led Manila Water Company Inc. and the MVP-led Maynilad Water Services Inc.— he will call for a summit among various stakeholders to pursue the crafting of the master plan as the main agenda.

“An executive committee and technical working group will be created shortly to put on track all the short-term and long-term solutions to water security, sewerage and other related issues,” he told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday, a day ahead of the

RESIDENTS of Barangay Barangka in Mandaluyong City line up for their water ration on March 13, 2019. NONIE REYES

kick-off of the two-day Asian Water Council 8th Board of Council Meeting, 3rd General Assembly and Elections happening on March 14 and 15 at Makati Diamond Residences in Makati City.

Maynilad President Ramoncito Fernandez and Manila Water President Ferdinand dela Cruz, during the same news conference, expressed support for the country’s hosting of the international conference, as well as the proposal to craft a water security and used water master plan for Metro Manila. Incidentally, it all came on the heels of a water crisis in Metro Manila—blamed on a combination of population Continued on A2

Mining’s dirty secret faces a climate reckoning AN mining be green? That’s certainly the ambition of some of the biggest companies in the sector. Rio Tinto Group last year became the first major miner to stop digging up coal altogether. Glencore Plc, historically one of the commodity’s most vocal boosters, has promised to cap production at current levels.

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 52.5910

produce a single metric ton of steel, not much less than you’d get from burning a ton of thermal coal for energy.

EVGENIY KALINOVSKIY | DREAMSTIME.COM

C

Total quantity of 2.3 TONS carbon dioxide typically released to the atmosphere to

By David Fickling | Bloomberg Opinion

“We have a portfolio free of coal and oil and gas,” Rio’s Chief Executive Officer Jean-Sebastian Jacques told investors after annual results last month. “We are wellpositioned to thrive in the world that values sustainability more and more.”

Well, up to a point. Miners

have certainly been working to reduce the impact of their own operations. Partly thanks to asset sales and spinoffs, carbon pollution from on-site fuel and electricity – so-called Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions – has fallen by almost half in the past five years at the two biggest players, Rio Tinto and BHP Group.

Still, judging mining companies on the basis of their operational emissions is a bit like judging tobacco companies on the basis of their record on labor rights and board diversity. It’s interesting and See “Mining,” A2

n JAPAN 0.4708 n UK 69.6515 n HK 6.6997 n CHINA 7.8214 n SINGAPORE 38.7954 n AUSTRALIA 37.1503 n EU 59.4594 n SAUDI ARABIA 14.0239

Source: BSP (March 15, 2019 )

News

BusinessMirror

A2 Saturday, March 16, 2019

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The Summer of Water Discontent

PANTABANGAN Dam on the Pampanga River in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija. The multipurpose dam provides water for irrigation and hydroelectric power generation while its reservoir, Pantabangan Lake, affords flood control. NAMHWI KIM | DREAMSTIME.COM Continued from a1

growth and the corresponding uptick in the number of water consumers, the unusually huge demand brought about by a “mild” El Niño and limited water allocation for the East Zone.

About 52,000 households of Manila Water customers are currently without water. And this does not include areas with decreased or low pressure, which intermittently experience water service interruptions.

Business establishments, government offices, including schools in about 35 barangays in the East Zone, the concession area of Manila Water, are still experiencing severe water shortage. Dela Cruz

said the situation could improve, albeit “not immediately.”

Three months

“WE just don’t want to give false expectation as the situation will not improve immediately. This will continue throughout the summer period,” he told the BusinessMirror.

On Thursday, Manila Water announced that it is employing a revised water interruption scheme with more definite schedules effective immediately. Under such a scheme, customers may experience from six to 20 hours of service interruption daily.

“However, when water is available in their taps, pressure may be lower than usual. This scheme, which covers the entire East Zone,

may last for the next three months or until the rainy season sets in,” the company’s public advisory sent to the media via e-mail stated.

Manila Water has deployed 20 water trucks to distribute water to affected areas on a daily basis, while waiting for an additional supply that will come from the soon-to-be-completed Cardona Water Treatment Plant in Cardona, Rizal.

Tap Laguna de Bay

BY the end of the month, the Cardona plant, which will draw water from Laguna de Bay, will be able to produce about 50 million liters per day (MLD) and another 50 MLD by August as work progresses.

Velasco said he had also requested Maynilad to provide an

additional 50 MLD from its water allocation to Manila Water, which Maynilad granted, adding that such “generosity” will not affect their operation.

Of the 4,000 MLD allocation approved by the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) for MWSS, 2,400 MLD goes to Maynilad, while the remaining 1,600 MLD goes to Manila Water. The demand of Manila Water customers had peaked to 1,740 MLD in February, but dela Cruz said the company has been augmenting supply from the La Mesa Dam, a water reservoir, since its number of customers had grown over the years, resulting in increased demand.

Deep well option

TO address the present water shortage being experienced by Manila Water, Velasco said he has requested the NWRB, through Executive Director Virgilio David, to allow Manila Water to activate deep wells, which can supply an additional 100 MLD to its consumers.

A memorandum of agreement

Mining… worthy, but ultimately misses the big picture.

Take a look instead at Scope 3 emissions—those that result when the products are consumed—and a very different picture emerges:

On that measure, of resources companies for which Bloomberg has data, only Royal Dutch Shell Plc is a bigger emitter than Rio and BHP, both of which feature on S&P Global Inc.’s Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. Soot-stained coal dinosaurs like Glencore, and Exxaro Resources Ltd. come in well down the ranking.

How to account for the difference? It’s ultimately about steel.

Producing a single metric ton of steel in a blast furnace typically releases around 2.3 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, not much less than you’d get from burning a ton of thermal coal for energy. Moreover, the commodity portfolios of the two biggest miners and Vale SA are dominated by the key blast furnace feed stocks of iron ore and (in the case of BHP) coking coal.

The fact that steel raw materials have escaped the image problem suffered by thermal coal isn’t so much that they’re cleaner, as that they appear to be harder to replace.

As we’ve argued, the plummeting costs of renewables and gas mean that you don’t even need a price on emissions to undermine thermal coal on a purely financial basis— something even Glencore is start-

will be signed between the NWRB and Manila Water for the activation of the deep wells, Velasco said.

The MWSS, he added, will also look into the proposal to construct a new treatment plan so as to preserve La Mesa Dam as a water reserve area in the future, including the muchneeded repairs of conveyance pipes, some of which were installed in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s.

According to Velasco, with such measures, it is now up to Manila Water how best to operate the promised additional water supply to ease the burden of its customers.

Earlier, Manila Water COO Geodino V. Carpio, explaining over CNN Philippines the current predicament of Manila Water’s customers, said the company has had to experience a “supply shortage” by an average of 140 MLD per day since 2016.

The installed aqueduct from Angat to Ipo Dam, and Ipo Dam to La Mesa Dam, also has limitations, which means there’s a need to enlarge its capacity, because even if the NWRB were to allow Manila Water to draw down a higher water allocation, the limited capacity of the aqueduct will constrict the flow of supply.

Despite the current situation, Velasco assured the public that there will be enough water to supply the future needs of the 20 million residents in Metro Manila and nearby provinces serviced by Manila Water, Maynilad and Bulacan Bulk Water in the next 10 to 15 years.

Playing catch-up

ADMITTEDLY, he said, the MWSS and its private sector partners are on a catch-up mode as far as the water supply source is concerned.

“Our main source, which is the Angat Dam that supplies 96 percent of water to Metro Manila and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite and Rizal, was built in 1967, and no water source has been built since then except for some water supply projects from Laguna de Bay by both Maynilad and Manila Water,” he said.

Solutions

ACCORDING to Velasco, the Duterte administration is vigorously pushing for other major water supply projects that will ensure water security for Metro Manila

and the serviced provinces.

The MWSS chief reiterated his call to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources DENR for the approval of the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) of the much-delayed 600MLD Kaliwa Dam Project which is targeted for completion in 2023.

According to Velasco, the initial agreement on the water allocation once the Kaliwa Dam is completed is for 350 MLD to go to Manila Water and 250 to Maynilad.

The long-stalled project, which was started during the time of former President Ferdinand Marcos, was only revived under the Duterte administration.

Aside from the Kaliwa Dam Project, Velasco said the MWSS is also pinning its hopes on the Wawa Dam Project. He said he had been encouraging Manila Water and the proponent of the Wawa Water Source Development, Prime Infra, to sit down and find ways to jointly work for the immediate production of additional 500 MLD and the implementation of Manila Water’s 80-MLD supply of water for consumers in the East Zone.

Meanwhile, the so-called ABC Projects that will produce an additional 1,200 MLD, Velasco said, cover the completion of the feasibility study for the Angat-Norzagaray Optimization Plan or the “A” component by ITP-JV Co., and is expected this May for approval.

The project will hopefully produce some initial 250 MLD by 2021 and an additional 550 MLD by 2024. Both Manila Water and Maynilad will receive water allocation from the A Project.

The B component, or the Bayabas Dam in Doña Remedios Trinidad in Bulacan, with a 350-MLD capacity, is intended for the Bulacan Bulk Water.

The C component of the ABC Project is the Candaba Multi-Purpose Impounding Dam Project.

“MWSS would like to see the day when all the three concessionaires have independent and sufficient water supply sources to better serve the consuming public,” Velasco said.

From the looks of it, that day is long in coming. Meantime, the people seethe in a summer of utter discontent.

Continued from a1

ing to recognize.

The same hasn’t been true with steel. Despite the rise of electric arc furnaces—which recycle steel scrap and generate a fifth or less of the carbon emissions associated with blast furnaces—traditional technology remains dominant because the metal it produces tends to have fewer impurities, and the world simply lacks sufficient scrap to supply a demand boom like the one China experienced over the past two decades. Profit margins tend to be better, too, although the high capital outlays involved in building blast furnaces reduce that advantage.

The future could look very different. China’s steel consumption peaked last year, according to the Australian government. Other emerging countries might be expected to make up for that decline, but there’s no guarantee they’ll industrialize at the same extraordinarily steel-intensive pace. Should consumers switch to more frugal habits, current demand levels of around 1.7 billion tons a year may already have hit a long-run plateau, according to one 2017 study for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: That might seem at least to guarantee big miners a steady-state continuation of current profitable conditions, but the growing wave of worn-out material may change that calculus. Scrap supply will grow to 1 billion tons by 2030 from

about 750 million tons at present, according to the World Steel Association, and climb further to 1.3 billion tons in 2050. If all of that is used in mini-mills and total demand peaks at current levels, production via the blast-furnace route could fall by around two-thirds.

As with thermal coal producers 10 years ago, the continuing business model of steel raw material suppliers depends upon the world deciding that tackling the pollution from the products they sell is simply too hard. It’s ultimately a bet that the relatively slight economic advantages of conventional technology over greener alternatives won’t be eaten away by better technology, regulation, or a price on carbon emissions.

A shift toward the pattern that now exists in North America or India—where blast furnaces are used mostly for specialty high-quality steel, with direct reduced iron playing a bigger role to dilute out scrap impurities in mini-mills—would be devastating for all those longlife assets that big miners like to boast about.

Still, with steel and iron accounting for about 8 percent of global emissions, it’s what’s needed if the world is to avoid disastrous climate change. Miners currently touting their environmental credentials should watch out. That shiny green image could turn rusty surprisingly quickly.

The World BusinessMirror

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Saturday, March 16, 2019

A3

China’s premier denies Beijing tells companies to spy

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EIJING—China’s premier denied Beijing tells its tech companies to spy abroad and promised on Friday to treat foreign and domestic competitors equally, seeking to defuse tensions with Washington and Europe over technology, market access and other irritants.

Premier Li Keqiang’s rejection of spying accusations at a news conference was the communist government’s highest-level effort to put to rest Western security concerns. They threaten Chinese access to lucrative markets for telecom and other technology.

“This is not how China behaves. We did not do that and will not do that in the future,” the premier, China’s No. 2 leader, said when asked whether Beijing told Chinese companies to spy on foreign countries.

The United States, Australia and some other governments have imposed curbs on use of technol-

ogy from Chinese vendors, including Huawei Technologies Ltd. That threatens to disrupt Huawei’s access to phone carriers that are preparing to invest billions of dollars in next-generation technology.

Huawei, the big gest global maker of network gear, has denied accusations it facilitates Chinese spying. Its founder told reporters this year he would reject official requests to disclose its foreign customers’ secrets.

President Xi Jinping’s government faces mounting pressure to repair trade relations with the United States, Europe and other major markets after China’s eco-

F.A.A.’S ‘COZY’ TIES WITH BOEING QUESTIONED AFTER TWO DEADLY PASSENGER JET CRASHES

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OR more than six decades, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has relied on employees of airplane manufacturers to do government-required safety inspections as planes are being designed or assembled.

But critics say the system, dubbed the “designee program,” is too cozy as company employees do work for an agency charged with keeping the skies safe while being paid by an industry that the FAA is regulating.

“There is a potential conflict of interest,” said Todd Curtis, a former Boeing Co. safety engineer and creator of airsafe.com, a web site that focuses on airline safety. “They [the FAA] don’t have the money to do all of the oversight. It’s a question of being practical.”

The FAA’s oversight duties are coming under greater scrutiny after deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 Max jets operated by airlines in Ethiopia and Indonesia, killing a total of 346 people. The US was nearly alone in allowing the planes to keep flying until it relented on Wednesday after getting satellite evidence showing the crashes may be linked.

The FAA concedes that it doesn’t have resources to keep up with a growing aviation industry, and experts say it lacks the personnel to inspect every component, especially those made in other countries.

But the agency says the program’s results speak for themselves.

The US has the safest skies in the world.

Until April of last year, US passenger airlines had not had a fatality since 2009, while carrying several billion passengers.

But safety experts say it’s time to look into the agency’s relationship with Boeing. The FAA’s ties to the company were revealed when Boeing and the agency released similar messages shortly after the Indonesian airliner crashed in October and again this week, when the FAA announced that Boeing would upgrade the Max’s flight-control software, said Mary Schiavo, a former Transpor tation Depar tment inspector general.

With the messages, the FAA “revealed that they were just parroting what Boeing told them,” she said.

The agency needs more people with technical skills to adequately monitor a company that makes machines as sophisticated as today’s jets, she said, contending that it didn’t understand the Max’s flight-control computer program.

“The FAA readily states they don’t understand the 4 million lines of code and the 150 computers,” Schiavo said. “What they do is see that Boeing followed the process, they checked the FAA boxes. The public thinks the FAA has more involvement.”

Indeed, the agency’s own web site says that employees of manufacturers can approve design changes and aircraft repairs.

“Using designees for routine certification

tasks allows the FAA to focus its limited resources on safety critical certification issues,” it says.

Congress will examine the relationship between Boeing and the FAA. Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (Democrat-Oregon), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he would hold hearings on the FAA’s process for approving the planes.

The agency’s practice of delegating certification processes has come under scrutiny before. In a 1993 report, the Government Accountability Office warned that the FAA was falling behind the industry in technical competence because of lack of training and delegation of tasks to the manufacturers.

The report said 95 percent of certification work for the Boeing 747-400 jetliner was delegated to the manufacturer in 1989. By comparison, 70 percent to 75 percent of that work was done by the FAA in the early 1980s, the report said.

In a separate report in 2005, the GAO said the FAA had no requirements for evaluating its designated certification workers within the industry. It also had incomplete records about safety violations that occurred during the inspection process.

FAA designees have also run afoul of the law. Last February, Edward Carl Fernandez, an FAA-designated representative in Florida, pleaded guilty to falsely certifying the airworthiness of aviation parts. Between 2010 and 2013, prosecutors said, Fernandez would sign off on parts from an aviation repair company in exchange for bribes.

C h e c k s b y t h e e m p l o ye e s, w h o are paid by the airplane makers, are reviewed by government inspectors. In a 2017 video, FAA Assistant Administrator Peggy Gilligan said the agenc y had 6,000 engineers and aircraft inspectors overseeing 7,500 designees in aircraft certification and flight standards. Another 4,000 designees are working at FAAapproved companies, like parts suppliers.

Curtis, who worked for Boeing from 1991 to 2000, said the system is designed so that company employees defer to the FAA if they find something wrong.

Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director who now is an aviation safety consultant, said the system has worked well for years. “But at times like this, people start to question it,” he said.

He’s not one of them, though, saying that the proof is in the outcome. “We have had the safest aviation system in the world for a long time,” Goelz said. “The size of the bureaucracy you would need to move to a completely ‘gotcha environment’ simply would be unsustainable.”

James Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said he thinks the agency may have gotten complacent. AP

nomic growth fell to a three-decade low of 6.6 percent last year.

Activity has weakened further on multiple fronts including cooling export growth and a contraction in auto sales.

Li promised to create a “level playing field” for all competitors in China’s state-dominated economy to help “ boost the vitality of the market.” He also pledged to open more industries to foreign investment, but gave no details.

“We will adhere to the principle of neutrality and treat domestic and foreign companies as equals,” the premier said.

A lso on Friday, the countr y’s ceremonial legislature endorsed a law aimed at defusing a tari f f wa r w it h Wa sh i ng ton by discouraging Chinese officials from pressuring companies to hand over technolog y.

The measure is part of an investment law that aims to address complaints China’s system is rigged against foreign companies. The tariff battle was triggered by US complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to give up technology.

“This is designed to protect the

rights and interests of foreign investors and attract more foreign investment,” Li said.

It was unclear whether the measure would mollify Trump, who also wants Beijing to roll back plans for government-led creation of global competitors in robotics and other technologies.

American and Chinese negotiators are in the midst of rapid-fire negotiations but have yet to announce formal agreements.

The official Xinhua News Agency said China’s economy czar, Vice Premier Liu He, talked by phone with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The one-sentence report said they made “further substantial progress,” but gave no details.

Forecasters expect Chinese economic activity to pick up in the quarter that starts in April as government stimulus efforts through higher spending on public works construction gain traction.

“The economy has started to rely on fiscal stimulus, especially for infrastructure investment,” said Irene Pang of ING in a report on Thursday. “This will continue for the rest of 2019, and will be

particularly important if a trade deal comes later than expected.”

Government plans also call for higher spending on development of technologies, including artificial intelligence, electric cars, biotechnology and new materials that China’s leaders see as a path to prosperity and global influence.

China’s emergence as a competitor in smartphones, solar power and other technologies has increased consumer choice and helped to drive down prices. But it rattles Washington and other governments that worry Chinese competition threatens their industries and employment.

The government said earlier the investment law w ill prohibit Chinese officials from using “administrative methods to force technology transfers.” The wording of the final version of the law following amendments this week wasn’t immediately released, but state media gave no indication the technology portion had changed.

Ahead of Friday’s vote, foreign business groups welcomed the proposed law, but said it might have been rushed through the ap-

proval too quickly. They said they will need to see how it is enforced to know whether it will improve conditions for foreign companies.

The law is “still quite general” and fails to address problems including the potential for unequal treatment of companies, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a statement on Wednesday. It expressed concern about the broad scope of “national security reviews” allowed by the law and the impact of regulations on individual industries.

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China earlier expressed concern the focus on “administrative methods” might mean officials still are free to use other tactics to pressure companies to hand over know-how.

Chinese officials deny companies are required to hand over technology. But they face pressures, including requirements in industries, like auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals to work through state-owned partners.

That requires to them provide technology to companies the ruling Communist Party hopes will become their competitors. AP

40 killed in New Zealand mosque shootings; 4 held

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E W ZE A L A N D — M a ss shootings at two mosques full of worshippers attending Friday prayers killed 40 people on what the prime minister called “one of New Zealand’s darkest days,” as authorities detained four people and defused explosive devices in what appeared to be a carefully planned racist attack.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the events in Christchurch represented “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence” and acknowledged many of those affected may be migrants and refugees. In addition to the dead, she said more than 20 people were seriously wounded.

“It is clear that this can now only be described as a terrorist attack,” Ardern said.

Police took three men and a woman into custody after the shootings, which shocked people across the nation of 5 million people. While there was no reason to believe there were more suspects, Ardern said the national security threat level was being raised to the second-highest level.

Authorities have not specified who they detained, but said none had been on any watch list. A man who claimed responsibility for the shootings left a 74-page antiimmigrant manifesto in which he explained who he was and his reasoning for the attack. He said he was a 28-year-old white Australian and a racist.

Austra lian Pr ime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed that one of the four people detained was an Australian-born citizen.

Ardern at a news conference alluded to anti-immigrant sentiment as the possible motive, saying that while many people affected by the shootings may be migrants or refugees “they have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home.

They are us.”

As for the suspects, Ardern said “these are people who I would describe as having extremist views that have absolutely no place in New Zealand.”

Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police were not aware of other suspects beyond the four who were detained but they couldn’t be certain. “ The attackers were apprehended by local police staff. There have been some absolute acts of bravery,” Bush said. “I’m hugely

AMBULANCE staff take a man from outside a mosque in central Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday. A witness says many people have been killed in a mass shooting at a mosque in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. AP/MARK BAKER

proud of our police staff, the way they responded to this. But let’s not presume the danger is gone.”

Bush said the defense force had defused a number of improvised explosive devices that were attached to vehicles stopped after the attacks.

He sa id anybody who was thinking of going to a mosque anywhere in New Zealand on Friday should stay put.

The deadliest attack occurred at the Masjid Al Noor mosque in central Christchurch at about 1:45 p.m. Arden said 30 people were killed there.

Witness Len Peneha said he saw a man dressed in black enter the mosque and then heard dozens of shots, followed by people running from the mosque in terror.

Peneha, who lives next door to the mosque, said the gunman ran out of the mosque, dropped what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon in his driveway, and fled.

Peneha said he then went into the mosque to try and help.

“I saw dead people everywhere.

There were three in the hallway, at the door leading into the mosque, and people inside the mosque,” he said. “It’s unbelievable nutty.

I don’t understand how anyone could do this to these people, to anyone. It’s ridiculous.”

He said he helped about five people recover in his home. He said one was slightly injured.

“I’ve lived next door to this mosque for about five years and the people are great, they’re very friendly,” he said. “I just don’t understand it.”

He said the gunman was white and was wearing a helmet with some kind of device on top, giving him a military-type appearance.

A video that was apparently l ivest rea med by t he shooter shows the attack in hor r if ying detail. The gunman spends more than two minutes inside the mosque spraying terrified worshippers with bullets again and again, sometimes refiring at people he has already cut down.

He then walks outside to the street, where he shoots at people on the sidewalk. Children’s screams can be heard in the distance as he returns to his car to get another rifle.

The gunman then walks back into the mosque, where there are at least two dozen people lying on the ground.

After walking back outside and shooting a woman there, he gets back in his car, where the song “Fire”

by English rock band “The Crazy World of Arthur Brown” can be heard blasting from the speakers. The singer bellows, “I

am the god of hellfire!” and the gunman drives away. The video then cuts out.

There was a second shooting at the Linwood Masjid mosque that Ardern said killed 10 people.

Mark Nichols told the New Zealand Herald he heard about five gunshots and that a Friday prayer-goer returned fire with a rifle or shotgun.

Nichols said he saw two injured people being carried out on stretchers past his automotive shop and that both people appeared to be alive.

The man who claimed responsibility for the shooting said he came to New Zealand only to plan and train for the attack. He said he was not a member of any organization, but had donated to and interacted with many nationalist groups, though he acted alone and no group ordered the attack. AP

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

A4 Saturday, March 16, 2019 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

PHL, Malaysia pursue cooperation on halal, barter trade, bolstering BIMP-Eaga

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RADE Secretary Ramon M. Lopez pushed for greater bilateral cooperation on the area of barter trade between the Philippines and Malaysia during his dialogue with Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Ignatius Darell Leiking on March 8, 2019.

The trade chief said the revival of the barter-trade system in Mindanao will support the promotion of the halal industry from both countries.

The ministers also agreed to coop-

erate in strengthening the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-MalaysiaPhilippines East Asean Growth Areas (BIMP-Eaga).

“We should really make these

areas of cooperation work to create and bring more economic activities to both Filipinos and Malaysians.

The barter trade, as well as the BIMP-Eaga, will mean a lot to our people,” Lopez said.

The trade chief reported the ongoing progress in the revival of the barter-trade system in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi areas (Basulta) that aims to provide more livelihood and income to small coastal communities, especially in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. He also underscored the Philippines’s potential in the halal industry and the opportunities it offers to Malaysian consumers.

Officials from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) noted that apart from

Trade opportunity reports, biz matching

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HETHER you are an overseas company looking to establish business relations with Philippine suppliers or a local exporter searching for buyers or clients abroad, the Department of Trade and Industry-Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) has you covered.

EMB plays an indispensable role in empowering Philippine exporters by providing them the necessary platforms and tools that enable them to be part of the global supply chain.

The EMB, mandated to oversee the development and promotion of Philippine exports, ensures that all programs, resources and initiatives offered by the government pertinent to the strategic expansion of Philippine exports are made accessible and inclusive to its stakeholders. These services include, but are not limited to, trade facilitation, business matching, export accreditation, trade complaint handling, market consultancy and export knowledge processing.

EMB’s business-matching service, in particular, provides an important opportunity in advancing the competitiveness of Phi l ippine e x por t products and services. The Bureau endeavors to provide professional guidance to its stakeholders in navigating the vast and intricate network of businesses across the global market and break new grounds internationally.

The EMB is single-minded in its campaign to promote the best of the Philippines to the world. It works in close collaboration with trade as-

By John Derrick Anchinges

EXPORT READY! sociations, Philippine embassies abroad, and Philippine Trade and Investment Center (PTIC) offices overseas to make certain that trade leads and business-matching opportunities are readily available to its clients and partners.

The EMB, through its Export Assistance and Business Matching Division (EABMD), assists micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) by equipping them with the requisite export knowledge and entrepreneurial insights to ensure that Philippine commodities are of first-class quality and comply with the necessary international standards and certifications.

Direct inquiries from foreign buyers and trade opportunities reported by trade representatives abroad are available for reference at the DTI-EMB office in Makati, Metro Manila.

For business-matching opportunities, exporters may contact DTI-EMB through e-mail: ex por t matching@dti.gov.ph; or telephone: (02) 465-3300 local 102/104, (02) 897-7610.

Equally important, the Bureau, through the assistance of our PTICs and international partners, facilitate and organize trade

shows, exhibits, and outbound and inbound business missions. Business missions are focused expeditions where Philippine suppliers are set to meet with foreign buyers abroad, and vice versa, to negotiate and conduct business. Trade shows, meanwhile, are exhibitions where companies in specific industries demonstrate and showcase their newest products and services, explore the latest market trends and opportunities, and engage in faceto-face business-matching meetings. To signify interest in joining these missions, please contact (02) 465-3300 local 216, 228, 230.

Tradeline Philippines, a tradeintelligence platform of the DTIEMB, boasts of a real-time businessmatching system where foreign buyers’ requirements are matched with Philippine suppliers online. This program equips the Bureau with the essential apparatus to maintain an integrated export intelligence structure that covers all dimensions of export marketing.

To be part of our database, you can register your company as either buyer or supplier at www. businessmatching.dti.gov.ph.

For further inquiries on trade statistics and online business matching, please visit tradelinephilippines.dti.gov.ph.

electronics, top imports from the Philippines include processed food, which could be a strong start for halal promotions.

In 2018 Malaysia was the country’s 10th-largest trading partner, 11th-largest export market and ninth-top import supplier. Total bilateral trade amounted to $6 billion in 2018 compared to $5.5 billion in 2017.

The Department of Trade and Industry will head a delegation in April to attend the Malaysia International Halal Showcase.

“This kind of activities is very important to the Philippines as the country is still beginning to recognize its potentials in the halal industry and would learn much

from big economies, like Malaysia,” Lopez added.

Both ministers expressed the need to focus on the development of Asean’s subregions, which include the BIMP-Eaga.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian minister expressed his appreciation of Philippine products and homegrown brands like Jollibee, which is currently expanding in Malaysia.

MITI officials also conveyed the interest of many Malaysian companies in participating in the Philippines’s massive infrastructure project, “Build, Build, Build,” as well as the assistance extended to companies intending to invest in the Philippines.

The meeting between Lopez and

Leiking followed the visit to the Philippines of Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad last week.

Present during the meeting were DTI Undersecretaries Ceferino Rodolfo and Abdulgani Macatoman, Assistant Secretaries Angelo Taningco and Allan Gepty, Board of Investments International Investments Promotion Service Chief Lanie Dormiendo, Malaysia External Trade Development Corp. (Matrade) CEO Dato’ Wan Latiff Wan Musa, Malaysian Investment Development Authority Executive Director for Strategic Planning Zabidi Mahbar, Asean Economic Integration Division of MITI Director Khairulnizam Hashim and Matrade Manila Trade Commissioner Siti Azlina Mohd Ali Hanafiah.

25 PHL food brands net $83.2-M export sales at Dubai food show

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WENTY-FIVE Philippine companies bagged more than $83 million of export sales from over 1,163 foreign buyers when the country joined Gulfood at the Sheikh Rashid Hall, Dubai World Trade Centre, United Arab Emirates (UAE) from February 17 to 21, 2019.

Led by the Department of Trade and Industry, through the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (DTI-Citem), the 25 local food producers and manufacturers showcased the country’s top halal-certified food selections in the country’s 14th participation in the event.

“Our country’s tropical selections once again delighted the palate of buyers across the globe under the Philippine pavilion in Gulfood, one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious events on food,” DTI-Citem Executive Director Pauline Suaco-Juan said.

The Gulf Food Hotel and Equipment Exhibition and Salon Culinaire, popularly known as Gulfood, is considered one of the world’s biggest stages where the latest tastes, trends and innovations are unveiled. It is a trade and business platform that provides immense opportunities to buyers, exhibitors and notable personalities in the food and hospitality industries.

Among the best sellers under the FoodPhilippines pavilion were dried fish (herring and anchovies), fruit preserves, nuts, condiments from Pixcel Transglobal Foods Inc.; fresh banana from SL Agritech; tamarind mix and oyster sauce from Mama Sita’s; canned sardines from Phil-Union Frozen Foods Inc.; and sardines, tuna, frozen fish, canned vegetables and fruits from Mega Global Corp.

Also showcased in the pavilion were products from Alsons Aquaculture Corp., Brandexports Philippines Inc., Celebes Coconut Corp., Century Pacific Food Inc., Columbia International Food Products Inc., Fitrite Inc., Gem Foods International Inc., Krystle Exports Philippines Inc., Leonie Agri Corp., LTH Food Industries Inc., Mama Sita’s, Marikina Food Corp., Market Reach International Resources, Monde Nissin Corp., Philippine Grocers Food Exports Inc., Profood International Corp., Q-Phil Products International, Sagrex Foods Inc., San Miguel Pure Foods Co., See’s International Food and Super Q. “Participating in this five-day event is strategic for us to sustain and strengthen the promotion of Philippine food products in the Middle East and North African [Mena] region,

particularly in member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council,” SuacoJuan said.

The Philippine participation in Gulfood is also aimed at expanding the country’s market share in the global halal trade. According to Hexa Research, the global halal food market size is predicted to reach $2.55 trillion by 2024, driven by the rising demand for the consumption of halal meat.

“We also invite buyers and food enthusiasts with keen interest in Philippine and other Asian products to taste more of these in the upcoming edition of Ifex Philippines, where we will present the next big thing in Asian food under the theme ‘NXTFOOD ASIA,’” she said.

This participation under FoodPhilippines is led by DTI-Citem as part of the government’s unified effort to promote the Philippines as a source of quality food products in the global market.

Citem is the organizer of Ifex Philippines, the country’s biggest export‐ oriented food show, happening from May 24 to 26. Ifex Philippines 2019 will present “NXTFOOD ASIA” where it will showcase the next big thing in Asian food with the latest food innovations, trends and best practices in the Asian food industry.

New US rules for food labeling to take effect in 2020

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ILIPINO exporters of food and beverage products to the US are advised to make proactive efforts now to update their product labeling to ensure compliance with the new US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules and facilitate the entry of their goods.

Finalized in May 2016, the new US FDA rules comprising formatting changes, updates to serving sizes, daily sizes, daily values and nutrient definitions will

be effective on January 1, 2020, for large food businesses. Small businesses will have an additional year to comply.

Large food firms are those grossing at least $10 million in annual sales.

“Food labeling consists of several components. The earlier you begin, the more time you allot for the unexpected and improve the chance of avoiding a surplus of outdated labeling inventory,” said Vijey Ananda, senior regulatory advisor South East Asia at Registrar Corp.

Ananda said the mandated updates to daily values for certain nutrients, such as dietary fiber, will require food manufacturers to readjust certain daily values on their labels. They also need to account for the daily values of vitamin D and potassium, which will be new “The product may need to be reformulated with more fiber or the claim will need to be removed from the product labeling by the deadline,” Ananda said.

Philexport News and Features

Sports BusinessMirror

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

Saturday, March 16, 2019

A5

A ROBOT passes a basket containing drinks to a woman in wheelchair during an unveiling event in Tokyo on Friday. AP

LEBRON JAMES and the struggling Lakers lose for the sixth time in seven games, further denting their fading playoff hopes. AP

A6 Saturday, March 16, 2019 | Editor: Mike Besa

ODYSSEY MILLED COLLECTION PUTTERS

Japan domestic market rarities for the connoisseur O

Story & photos

by Mike Besa

DYSSEY is at the top of the food chain as far as putters are concerned. They lead the equipment statistics of the world’s professional golf tours with the greatest number of putters in play among the world’s touring professionals. They also lead the world’s putter sales statistics with a line that has a putter for golfers of every persuasion and budget.

Putters are unique clubs in the bag. If they are cared for well, they will last, well, forever or until it stops sinking putts. It isn’t a surprise then, that high-end putters are among the most collected of golf clubs. Manufacturers have been quick to mine this niche, producing putters of jewel like quality that would be just as home in a glass display case as in your golf bag. The high-end niche is dominated by the designers; Scotty Cameron, Bettinardi, Piretti and others are the biggest names in the business.

Odyssey has long produced “Tour specials,” limited edition putters produced specifically for the most discerning golfers in the world. The Protype and Black Series putters have their cult followers but no other putter line in Odyssey’s extensive model range elicits as much interest as the models produced specifically for the Japanese domestic market (JDM).

They are more expensive to own than most other Odysseys and made with more sophisticated manufacturing techniques and more expensive materials.

Consider the Odyssey Milled putters. Either of the two examples in the opening image cost twice as much as most of the other putters in Odyssey’s line. Each is part of a small production lot and ownership guarantees exclusivity but not at the cost of performance.

We should consider ourselves lucky that these putters even make it to our shores.

The Milled Collection #1 SX is the focus of this review. Odyssey took a billet of soft carbon steel and CNC machined the putter head from it. Then they took a stainless-steel insert and laid it over a three-layer cavity that sits directly behind the insert and terminates in a

sound slot in the sole. Said sole is adorned with tasteful graphics milled into it, then filled with paint adding to the putter’s desirability.

The resulting putter is a modern take on the sound slot first pioneered

by Ping. Odyssey calls it the Sound Chamber and the resulting sound is unlike any THE Milled Collection SX 1 other putter and might be best described as soft and crisp. The sound makes judging distance intuitive, which is invaluable. The sound changes with the quality of the strike; off-center hits sound distinctly different providing valuable feedback.

Odyssey’s milled putters have the most refined and most consistent shapes from sample to sample in the putter giant’s range. They sit so naturally behind the golf ball. Discerning where they are pointing is second nature and increases confidence over the ball.

The SX 1 is a slim rendering of the original Answer/ Newport shape. It is substantial, but exquisitely balanced and feels light in hand. Some putters look and feel heavy and tool-like, but this feels like a wand to work magic on the greens.

The substantially sized pistol grip puts your hands a most natural position and does much to improve the sight picture when over the ball. I found myself less concerned with how my hands fell on the putter than with the intended line of the putt. Putting being the exact science that it is, anything that can shift your focus from mechanics to feel and precision is a great thing.

The Odyssey Milled Collection SX is available in a limited variety of head shapes, some unique to the milled series line. They are every bit the equal of the highly touted designer putters with perhaps a bit less finish work. The trade off is a significantly lower price tag than its competition for a putter that is in many ways superior in its functionality.

That makes it a clear winner in our book.

THE FIFTH M

CALLAWAY Japan makes some of the coolest putters.

TIGER WOODS. GETTY IMAGES

By Chuah Choo Chiang

A THE champion’s trophy at the Players’ Championship.

RECENT off-the-cuff comment

by Johnny Miller, the former professional golfer-turnedcelebrity commentator, during his farewell press conference was

pure gold.

While discussing his career highlights, Miller said: “There should only be maybe five championships in golf, The Players Championship (TPC), and then the majors and the rest of them can be tournaments.”

Indeed, Miller’s appreciation of placing The Players Championship on the same pedestal as the four majors speaks volumes of the PGA Tour’s flagship tournament and its gold standard for every facet of The Players exemplifies excellence and prestige.

The 71-year-old Miller’s remarks hold water as he has seen it all—first as a fiery competitor who won 25 PGA Tour titles including two majors before becoming the lead golf analyst for NBC where his colorful, unfiltered and no-holds-barred commentary made him peerless in the commentary booth.

For years, golfers, fans and media have often debated if The Players should be inducted as the fifth major in the men’s game.

In reality though, this championship, which undoubtedly showcases the strongest field assembled anywhere around the world and played on a course which players regard as the purest test in golf, stands alone on its own. And not to forget, it will offer a punchy $12.5 million in prize money at this year’s championship from March 14 to 17, 2019.

“It’s our showcase of excellence,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan.

Its Roll of Honor includes the finest, from Nicklaus to Norman, Woods to Mickelson, Couples to Scott. And with a resurgent Tiger Woods, himself a two-time Players champion, continuing his quest to surpass Sam Snead’s 82 PGA Tour win record, fans can expect more drama to unfold at The Players Stadium Course

at TPC Sawgrass next week.

Woods, two wins shy of Snead’s record, clearly has a third Players victory in his sight as he also aims to emulate Jack Nicklaus’s three wins in the championship. “I take a lot of pride in playing well in the biggest events. So that being obviously the majors, The Players and the World Golf Championships. I think my record has been pretty good in those events,” said Woods.

This year’s Players marks a switch in tournament dates, where the Tour has brought its showpiece forward by two months from its previous May slot.

Defending champion Webb Simpson believes the move is a brilliant one.

“I think that is going to bring even more prestige to this event,” Simpson said. “When it used to be in May, we already had a very big event on the calendar, the Masters. Now it’s in March, so I think the season—every tournament is a big tournament—but this is the first really big tournament of the year, and I think that’s special

HONMA TW747

Beyond the glam

www.pinoygolfer.com | Saturday, March 16, 2019 A7

MAJOR

The mental coaching process

By David MacKenzie

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TEP 1: THE MENTAL GAME ASSESSMENT The Golf State of Mind Assessment is an important first step in the mental coaching process. Through a series of written questions, the aim is for me to find out the following: n The player’s mindset and how they view challenges n Their personality and how they learn (what “type” of thinker they are) n Their current scoring average and their goals n Their specific challenges and why they can sometimes underperform n How they handle pressure situations n What they focus on during the phases of a round of golf, including their shot routine n Their best rounds and what could get them into their peak performance state n Their sources of fear n Their level of commitment to achieve their goals n How they practice

knowing that when the guys come here, they know the best players in the world are going to be here for the first time, maybe all season competing for the trophy.”

It’s a sentiment that is not lost on 2016 FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy, who owns three top-10 results at The Players. “I really like it because you’ve got five really big golf tournaments each month starting in March all the way through to July, and then that culminates with the FedExCup Playoffs in August,” McIlroy said. “So, it’s a more condensed schedule, and for fans that’s going to be good, because you’re going to see the best players in the world play in the same tournaments more often.”

To commemorate the switch in dates, this The Players 2019 champion will hoist a new first-of-its-kind trophy customdesigned by Tiffany & Co. Made of sterling silver and 24k gold vermeil, the trophy was

brought to life utilizing cutting-edge 3D technology and will help launch the PGA Tour’s showpiece event into a new era.

Using a process called “electroforming,” Tiffany & Co. and the PGA Tour began with the inspiration of the swinging golfer from the iconic PGA Tour logo. Then, through sophisticated computer modelling, designers incorporated aspects of each of the previous 38 different winners of The Players mixed in between.

Korean golf star K.J. Choi, the first Asian to win The Players in 2011, is honoured to have part of his characteristics included in the new trophy. “The trophy looks beautiful and I understand it was a complicated process to make,” said Choi, Asia’s most successful golfer on the PGA Tour with eight victories. “The Players victory was one of the most significant and dramatic moments for me. A lot of Korean fans cried and cheered for me that day and I

H m, performance HONMA 4-Fang Technology

ONMA golf clubs have enjoyed legendary status in local golf circles but more for the exotic metals and stratospheric price that they commanded than for performance. Honma’s TW747 line of golf clubs are here to change our perception about the storied Japanese company.

Honma Golf Company was founded in the early sixties by the Honma brothers. They were well known for their custom golf clubs and pioneered technologies such as graphite shafts in the early seventies well before other manufacturers. Eventually, Honma’s reputation shifted to one as a purveyor of very high-end custom golf clubs and away from their performance line.

The company fell on hard times after the turn of the century and in 2010 was acquired by Marlion Holdings Ltd. after it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005. Marlion Chairman Liu Jianguo’s dynamic leadership has shaken Honma out of the doldrums and has thrust the company back on the world stage with the high-profile signing of world number one Justin Rose at the onset of the new season.

remember it perfectly, even though it happened almost 10 years ago.”

Asia’s quest to deliver a third winner at The Players will see the likes of Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Haotong Li of China, India’s Anirban Lahiri, C.T. Pan of Chinese Taipei, Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama and Korea’s Si Woo Kim, winner in 2017, going toe to toe with the world’s best.

Kim, 23, stunned the golfing world with his triumph two years ago, which placed him in golf’s folklore as the youngest winner of The Players and he believes the Asians can challenge at TPC Sawgrass.

“I feel a sense of pride anytime I’m at TPC Sawgrass,” Kim said “It’s a very special place for me. It feels like my home course since I’ve won there before.”

n Note: Chuah Choo Chiang is senior director, Communications, PGA Tour, and is based in Kuala Lumpur.

Honma’s TW (Tour World) line is their no-nonsense performance line. Designed to go head-to-head with Callaway, Titleist and TaylorMade on the world’s professional tours in the hands of the world’s best golfers. The TW line has gotten a lot of notoriety lately after Justin Rose won the Farmers Insurance Open at the tough South Course at Torrey Pines on his first outing with his Honma clubs.

The Honma TW747 P and TW747 VX irons aren’t in the world number one’s golf bag but they’re going to be in the bags of many that are new to the brand. The P iron is the game-improvement club and will work wonders for the mid-to-high handicapper. It uses tungsten weights positioned uniquely in the individual clubheads to provide the ideal ball flight for each iron.

The TW747 VX is Honma’s entrant in the hotly contested players’ distance iron segment. Forged of soft S20 carbon steel, the VX iron also features tungsten weights in the toe of the 3-8 irons to precisely locate the club’s center of gravity in the center of the clubface and to increase the iron’s moment

STEP 2: GETTING STARTED WITH THE RIGHT MINDSET FOR SUCCESS THE right mindset is the backbone to long-term success. Without it, we will never find out how good we can really become.

Developing a champion’s mindset is an ongoing process, but it’s the best place for mental coaching to start after the initial assessment. Does the student have more of a growth mindset, or a fixed mindset? Are they too judgmental of their abilities and focus too much on results, or are they able to embrace failure and mistakes objectively and see them as opportunities to learn and improve? The best players never want to stop getting better (regardless of winning or losing) and it’s their mindset that’s a big driver in their success.

When I review a player’s round with them, I encourage and help cultivate a growth mindset with the questions I ask them. Instead of the question, “what did you shoot?” I prefer the question, “what did you learn?” Questions such as this get the player to look less at the result and more at what contributed to their success (so they can repeat these behaviors and actions) and what caused their mistakes (so they can change those behaviors).

STEP 3: ESTABLISHING GOALS (WHAT AND WHY) AFTER helping them understand the mindset of inertia. Both P and VX irons sport shorter necks to pull weight down into the clubhead for increased forgiveness.

Perhaps the most surprising development of Justin Rose’s switch to Honma was his decision to put a Honma driver in his bag. Rose disclosed that he found another 5 miles per hour of ball speed with his Honma TW747 460 driver.

In the high-tech driver wars, Honma doesn’t disappoint; the TW747 455 and 460 drivers are packed with the latest technologies in golf. Both are adorned with internally ribbed carbon crowns made from ET40/Toray. Honma says it’s the lightest crown in any driver today.

Both 455 and 460 drivers feature replaceable weights. In the 455, the weight is positioned as far from the shaft’s axis as possible to promote the fade that many of the best players prefer.

On the 460, the two weights can be flipped, changing the club’s center of gravity to better fit the club to the golfer.

Both drivers also feature what Honma calls 4-Fang Technology; reinforcing ribs that frame the center of the clubface. Enhancing

they need to cultivate to succeed, we establish what the player wants to achieve. What is their dream goal and why do they want to achieve it? Finding out their motivation for wanting to achieve their goals is also important, as this is another driving factor in their success.

Once we have gathered detailed stats on their game (if they don’t already keep them, they should begin immediately), we can set long and short-term goals. An example would be: n Dream goal: Winning on The PGA Tour n One Year Goal: Scoring average of 72 n Short-term (8-12 week) goals: Increase birdies per round (average) to five Improve GIR from 150-175 yards to 60 percent Improve putting make percent from 10-15 feet to 25 percent STEP 4: TRAINING AND PRACTICE (HOW) WHAT does the student need to improve, to get them a step closer to their goals? This will be a combination of mental, technical and fitness exercises.

Based on the player’s assessment, their goals and ongoing reflection of their rounds, we can create a specific game-improvement plan for their rounds and practice. This will be some of the following: n Identifying the player’s shot routine (Process) n Helping them understand what brings out their best player self n Competitive skills drills to test the process and increase pressure during practice, so that player trains their focus and learns how to lower performance anxiety n Guided Visualizations n Improving focus and being present through meditation n Breathing techniques n NLP—positive associations or triggers n Developing an Attitude of gratitude n Body language n Self-talk and mantras n Tempo/tension awareness Many of the players I work with keep a performance journal, which they share with me to increase accountability and commitment to what they are working on.

STEP 5: PREPARATION WHAT a player does to prepare for a round can set them up for success or underperformance.

Does the player have a clear strategy and know the golf course? How does that player prepare mentally for the round? I work with the rigidity around the face increases the elasticity of the club face over a wider surface area providing faster ball speeds.

Most impressive is Honma’s adjustable hosel. The clubface can be adjusted for loft (+/1-degree), lie (+/- 2 degrees) and face angle (maximum of 1.5 degrees) all without changing the shaft’s orientation or spine. While other manufacturers downplay the effect of the spine on the consistency of the shaft’s performance, Honma recognize its worth and have taken pains to make sure the adjustments do not adversely affect shaft performance.

Both drivers absolutely look the business.

The clean aesthetic is devoid of flash or gimmicks and gives the TW747 drivers a stealthy performance advantage.

Speaking of shafts, Honma makes all its graphite shafts in-house. Any questions on the quality of their shaft were dashed when Rose won at Torrey Pines with a Honma Vizard shaft in his TW747 460. These shafts are as good as any you’d care to name.

Of course, Honma filled out its line with extremely competitive fairway metals and

all my students on their mental rehearsal of their rounds, putting those images of success for the upcoming round into the “subconscious mind”. This involves meditation and visualization of the round and seeing themselves being successful and positively dealing with challenges. This increases positive focus and reduces focus on any doubts. If you are interested in a guided pre-round warm-up, please check out my Pre Round Confidence Booster Audio Sessions.

STEP 6: EXECUTION/PERFORMANCE DURING each round, the player will have a clear plan that is completely within their control, unlike the outcome of their shots and scores. With increased self-awareness and improved ability to manage their thoughts and emotions, they will be able to remain confident, focused and mentally tough and achieve better results.

My Mental Game Scorecard is a great way to stay accountable to the shot routine and give the player more productive things to focus on. Other aspects that I score the player on are: n Being present in between shots n Body language and self-talk n Processing the negatives (letting go of mistakes) n Accountability to the process STEP 7: EVALUATION/REFLECTION AS I mentioned earlier, instead of focusing on the results, it’s more important that the player looks at what was learned from the round. The Post Round Review helps guide them through this process. We need to celebrate the players’ successes and be objective and constructive about the mistakes. After the Post Round Review, we can revise short-term goals and the practice plan for the following week based on areas of weakness during those rounds.

Go back to Step 3 and repeat the cycle each week...

FALL IN LOVE WITH THE PROCESS! DEVELOPING mental toughness and learning how to cope with the external and internal pressures that arise during your rounds isn’t easy. But with daily exercises, perseverance and immersion in the mental coaching process, you’ll develop winning habits and bring your goals closer to you every day. n David MacKenzie is a mental coach and the

founder of Golf State of Mind. He currently works with golfers on the PGA Tour, Web.com Tour, European Tour, Challenge Tour, LPGA and LET, along with many elite juniors and amateur golfers of all levels. hybrids, as well as an assortment of wedges with multiple sole grinds to suit any course conditions that you might encounter.

We got to test the new TW747 line of clubs at one of Honma’s demo days at the Army Driving Range in Fort Bonifacio. Both drivers are noticeably fade biased but were easily adjusted by closing the clubface until our drives straightened out. The two available shafts should work nicely for most golfers and compliment both clubheads nicely.

The irons are what you’d expect from a premium manufacturer like Honma; they’re easy to hit and feel really good at impact.

The TW747 VX was particularly impressive.

It should see favor with many mid-to-low handicap golfers.

Although we can’t definitively say that the TW747 line of clubs are world beaters, they are competitive and deserve to be in the conversation if you’re considering an upgrade to any of the clubs in your bag.

The TW747 line is more than a pretty face, it’s a contender and has put Honma back in the spotlight. Mike Besa

OurTime

A8 Saturday, March 16, 2019 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

BusinessMirror

Makati honors newest centenarians

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By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco | Correspondent

WO new centenarians personally received from Makati Mayor Abigail Binay a P100,000 check each as cash gift and a plaque of recognition, as part of the city’s continued efforts to pay tribute to its elderly citizens.

“I will always be grateful for the chance to meet our centenarian Makatizens and be able to share some time with them. It is an honor to show them the city’s grateful appreciation for all their contributions to our progress,” Binay said as she expressed pleasure at being able to meet Makati’s two newest centenarians, Esperanza Jacinto of Barangay Bangkal and Eugenio Palileo of Barangay Magallanes, who are the 28th and

29th awardees during her term.

Jacinto was born on December 29, 1918. At the age of 17, she got married to the late Francisco Jacinto, a musician, and they had seven children. During her prime, Mrs. Jacinto owned and managed a sari-sari (variety) store and a small carinderia (eatery) which, through her hard work, flourished through the years. She has been a Blu Card member since August 7, 2002.

Palileo was born on December 14, 1918. He graduated from the University of the Philippines School of Engineering and landed fourth place in the board examination for engineers. He earned his law degree in 1953.

During World War II, Palileo served as a first lieutenant of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). He was cited for bravery for saving the lives of his fellow soldiers and was nominated for a Silver Star. After the war, he worked at the Development Bank of the Philippines as chief engineer/ appraiser. He worked there for 35 years, heading various divisions including Industrial Engineering and Administration.

Palileo has been a Blu Card member since February 13, 2003.

In January, a P100,000 check and a plaque of appreciation were also awarded to Braulio Sison of Barangay Dasmariñas, the 27th awardee under Binay’s term. He was born on

December 8, 1918, and is the second child in a brood of six. He has been a Blu Card member since November 6, 2009.

City Ordinance 2012-099 entitles Makati senior citizens who are Blu Card holders to a one-time P100,000 cash gift upon reaching 100 years old. It serves as a tribute to their significant contributions and role in the history and development of the city.

The latest awardees were able to meet the criteria set by the Makati Social Welfare Department, the lead implementer of the Blu Card Program: They must be a Filipino citizen; a bonafide resident of Makati; must have reached 100 years old between January to December of the current year; and must be a Blu Card and White Card holder for at least five years.

To date, 54 Makati centenarians have been awarded the P100,000 cash gift since 2012 following the passage of City Ordinance 2012-099.

DOH warns public vs heatstroke

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GRANDPA’S FRUITS GALORE Despite his age (63 years old) and physical disabilities, Bong Santos continues to manage his fruit stall at the Santiago City Public Market in Isabela. He is the leading fruit vendor in the city. SUZANNE JUNE G. PERANTE

Ilocos Norte looking for more tourism-industry workers

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AOAG CITY—The Provincial Tourism Office will hire more tourism workers to better serve and assist visitors here, amid the expected influx of tourists these summer holidays.

“Our tourism employment program is in again this summer, so we are again hiring tourism ambassadors, first-aid personnel, utility persons and senior-citizen guides.

Basic qualification is they should be at least 18 years old and show interest in tourism work,” Provin-

cial Tourism Officer Aianree Raquel said on Monday.

As in previous years, Raquel said students, out-of-school youth and senior citizens are most welcome to apply as long as they are passionate about promoting tourism in the province.

Since Friday last week, the Provincial Tourism Office has already started accepting applicants.

The additional workers shall assist the provincial government in serving as tourist aides, utility per-

Spain’s nursing ‘house of horrors’ reveals deceit of elders

US Justice Department targeting scams against older people

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ADRID—Spain’s Civil Guard said it arrested six people for possibly swindling €1.8 million ($2 million) from elderly people held at an alleged “house of horrors.”

In a tweet, the police force said it found foreign elders locked up, drugged and often fed through tubes at the private nursing home near the southern city of Cadiz. An elderly German man and a Dutch woman were found to be in a terrible state.

According to the local Diario de Cadiz newspaper, a Cuban woman and a German man were among those arrested over allegations that they duped the elders to designate them as heirs. AP

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ASHINGTON—The Justice Department said on Thursday that it has criminally charged about 225 individuals over the past year in connection with fraud scams that victimize people age 60 and older.

Atty. General William Barr and other law-enforcement officials announced what they said was the department’s largest-ever nationwide crackdown on elder fraud schemes. In addition to the criminal charges, the department has brought civil cases against dozens of other defendants. All told, officials said, there were more than 260 criminal and civil charges filed in the past year.

“This is a particularly despicable crime, and it’s a massive and

sonnel and paramedics in the 42 tourist centers across the province starting March until the end of the summer season.

Interested applicants may submit their credentials at the tourist center of the La Tabacalera Lifestyle Center, Laoag City, or to their respective city or municipal tourism officers until March 24, 2019.

As of this posting, Raquel said they are expecting to hire more than 200 additional staff this summer. PNA

HE Department of Health (DOH) warned the public against the dangers of heatstroke, a common health condition associated with rising temperatures during the dry season.

“It would be better to drink a lot of water to avoid heatstroke. It is important for children or elderly relatives to be given water, so that they’ll be encouraged to drink water,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in a radio interview on Monday.

The DOH defined heatstroke as a medical emergency wherein the body temperature reaches very high levels, 40 degrees Celsius and up, due to constant heat exposure.

It is usually in combination with dehydration, which can damage the brain, heart, kidneys and muscles. It may also lead to severe complications and even death if untreated.

Duque said senior citizens and babies are the usual victims of heatstroke, as he advised the public not to stay outdoors between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. when the sun is at its hottest.

The DOH advised the public to wear thin, loose and lightcolored clothes, to avoid alcohol, caffeine and carbonated drinks; and to apply ice packs to the armpits, groin and neck to cool down one’s body temperature.

PNA

growing problem,” Barr said at a news conference. “It’s despicable because the people involved are vulnerable, and because of their stage in life, they don’t have the opportunity frequently to recover.

And so these losses are devastating to them.”

Barr said authorities “have to prosecute an all-out attack on this type of crime.”

Among the defendants identified by the department are two people who prosecutors said ran a telemarketing scam out of Costa Rica and swindled victims by telling them they had won prizes in sweepstake contests and needed to transfer large sums to collect the prizes. The two were extradited to face charges in North Carolina.

Among the would-be victims

highlighted were William Webster, the former director of the FBI and CIA, and his wife, Lynda. The couple described at the press conference how they were targeted by a man from Jamaica who threatened them and sought to extort millions of dollars over the course of several years. The Websters involved the FBI, which arrested the man after he arrived in the US. “It’s important to let older people know there are ways they can check out these calls, and should,” Webster said.

It was Barr’s first news conference as attorney general.

He made opening remarks but, as the delivery of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report looms, left the podium without taking questions. AP

www.businessmirror.com.ph

We are the last generation

By Nick Tayag

T

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH

HE running joke is that we— seniors, people of the golden sunset—are on a predeparture lounge waiting for our respective flights on a one-way ticket to the blue yonder.

Unfortunately, we shall also be departing with the baggage that carries our cultural heritage and legacy. Our generation (’50s and ’60s) are the last bearers of the old Filipino society.

This thought hit me when our grandchildren would not eat the ginataang bilo-bilo, tinumis (dinuguan), and bibingka (rice cakes) that we brought from the province recently. One look at the tinumis and they were horrified. I just shook my head, resigned to the fact that these kids belong to a generation continuously fed and nurtured on French fries, hamburgers, fried chicken, spaghetti, pizza pies, shakes and sundaes.

I belong to the “native kakanin” generation, the last batch to witness our lolos and lolas extract “gata” or coconut milk by using a heavy stone grinder, or bake bibingka made from a mixture of galapong and coconut milk, sugar and margarine, which is oured on a clay pot lined with precut banana leaf and heated with lit uling (charcoals) placed below and above the clay pot to evenly cook the mixture.

Some things cannot be taken out of our generation’s DNA. For we still love to eat tinapa or tuyo with fresh raw tomatoes or salted eggs, and occasionally pour pure fresh carabao milk over our rice, sprinkled with a pinch of salt. Once in a while, I sneak into a Balot-balot restaurant where they serve meals wrapped in banana leaves.

Many of us consider our favorite past time to be drinking barako coffee or thick tsokolate with suman or other native rice cakes.

In time past, Filipino farmers in tradition-bound barrios didn’t have “coffee breaks.” What they had was a “betel break,” which afforded them respite and provided occasion for light banter between periods of serious work. As a boy, I sat fascinated, watching my forebears and old neighbors chew betel leaves and occasionally spit out dark-red saliva.

In fact, very few young people drank coffee during our time. Now millennials and college students flock to fancy coffee shops for their daily fix of latte or cappuccino.

We are the last generation to make our own toys, crafted from bamboo, empty sardine cans or discarded pieces of wood. We played creative games in which we had no need for expensive gadgets. As children, we played street games such as patintero, luksong baka, tumbang preso and sawsaw suka on full-moon nights. By daylight, during nonschool days, the girls would play piko or jacks, while boys would play holen, goma (rubber band) or teks, or sometimes, labanan ng gagamba.

When we went to church, we had to dress in our Sunday best, and women and girls wore veils over their heads. If you wore sneakers or sandals to Mass, your elders would give you a disapproving frown.

To the student of Philippine society and culture, this is your chance to interview us, for we grew up in a bygone era, a culture that is now slowly fading, fated to oblivion, soon to be read only in cultural anthropology books. This is the time to extract the past before our memory completely gives out.

Someone used the term “culture bearer,” and I would like to appropriate it for our generation. Our

cultural heritage runs through us.

We are living treasures and holders of “sacred” traditions. So, before the “mano po” is finally and totally replaced by beso-beso, I urge my generation to become active bearers and conveyors of tradition and culture.

My humble suggestion is to pick a grandchild who seems most interested or receptive to hearing our stories and adventurous enough to eat the traditional delicacies and native treats such as puto and kutsinta, ginataang mais or ube, sapin sapin, maja blanca, palitaw or other local variations, all of which are an integral part of Filipino food culture.

Get him or her to try traditional snacks like biscocho, sampaloc or camachile, pilipit, rosquillos, barquilos, puto seko, uraro, broas, pacencia, lengua de gato, lubid lubid, sanikulas, otap or pop rice ball and ampaw.

Introduce your grandchild to the intellectual pleasure of playing metaphorical and allegorical folk riddles such as bugtong or salawikain. Read aloud the poem “Ang Pamana” of Jose Corazon de Jesus, which was a favorite declamation piece of students of our generation. Let him feel the poignancy of a son’s tender declaration of gratitude and love for his parent, a family value that resonates deeply in every true Filipino.

Take them to Paete, Laguna, to see toys being crafted by hand out of paper, or to Betis, Pampanga, to marvel at the skills of native woodcraftsmen. Bring them to Quiapo to see the Black Nazarene and explain to them the complexity of folk Christianity, as well as the practices and expressions of the Filipino’s simple faith.

These are random suggestions at the top of my head, but my point is to make an effort to instill in them an appreciation and a sense of pride in our native cultural heritage.

Do not be like some members of our generation who baldly proclaim that they are “Proud to be American” on their Facebook postings, even boasting that their grand kids speak fluent English with an American twang, but cannot speak a single Filipino word. Ashamed to have Filipino roots or ancestry, these naturalized Americans have never sparked interest in the minds of their Fil-Am offsprings about the heritage of their mother country, but choose instead to observe and celebrate traditional American rituals and festivities such as Thanksgiving or July 4 Independence Day in their homes.

When I visited my wife’s ancestral home over the weekend, I spent some time looking intently at the sepia-tinted pictures of her family ancestors. How youthful they looked in the photographs. It was like an eternal present for them, but then I realized that when they posed for the camera, their present then had already slipped into the past. It’s as if the picture says to us now: When this you see, think about me. Memento mortuis.

As the last link to our forefathers, we owe it to them to pass on the cultural heritage to the present and coming generation. Let us build on what they have bequeathed us.

For it is this heritage, this handeddown treasure chest of practices and knowledge that marks our distinctive identity as a people.

Not frappuccino, or hamburgers or French fries, nor sneakers, hoodies and signature denims.

Let us honor the creativity and craftsmanship of our ancestors, as well as their culinary ingenuity and resourcefulness. Memento traditionis culturae.

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

BusinessMirror

Saturday, March 16, 2019 A9

Facebook’s messaging ambitions amount to much more than chat

BY ANICK JESDANUN & RACHEL LERMAN The Associated Press

F

ACEBOOK, already the leader in enabling you to share photos, videos and links, now wants to be a force in messaging, commerce, payments and just about everything else you do online. The company’s ambitions harken to how WeChat has become the centerpiece of digital life in China, where people use it to order movie tickets, subway passes, food delivery and rides. If Facebook succeeds in turning its own messaging services into a platform for everything, it could ultimately threaten established services, such as Snapchat, Yelp, Venmo, eBay and even Apple and Amazon.

“It’s clear that Facebook does have very broad ambitions here,” said Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at Technalysis Research. “Their goal is to be the WeChat of everywhere but China.”

But Facebook faces numerous hurdles. A key one is restoring user trust, following a string of privacy failures that includes the sharing of personal information from as many as 87 million users with a consulting firm affiliated with Donald Trump’s campaign. And any change may cause users to rethink their relationship with Facebook.

“Facebook has a lot of momentum but it’s not completely invincible,” said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. “People came to Facebook for a particular thing. Offer them a different thing, and they’re likely to re-evaluate whether they want to be there at all.”

After all, Friendster and Myspace came and went as Facebook grew. Yahoo and AltaVista moved over for Google. And remember when AOL was popular, powerful and rich enough to buy the traditional media company Time Warner? Both AOL and Yahoo are now fading brands within Verizon.

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After building an advertising-supported service that depends on vacuuming up data on your hobbies, interests and political views, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that Facebook will now emphasize ways for small groups to communicate in a truly private fashion.

This involves scrambling all messages in WhatsApp, Instagram Direct and Messenger so that even Facebook itself can’t read them. Facebook will also let messages automatically disappear after a set amount of time, something rival Snapchat already does. Facebook, Zuckerberg said, will “then build more ways for people to interact on top of that, including calls, video chats, groups, stories, businesses, payments, commerce, and ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services.”

Facebook declined to further elaborate on its ambitions, and a spokesman reinforced that it is early in the process.

But there are clues in what Chinese tech giant Tencent has already done with WeChat in China.

WeChat combines functions that are typically done by separate companies elsewhere—think of Facebook and its messaging services combined with PayPal and Uber. People use WeChat to buy goods in retail stores, split restaurant bills with friends, pay utility bills, donate to charities and hail rides from the Uber-like Didi Chuxing service.

Facebook already lets people send money to other individuals through Messenger in the US and a few other countries and is testing payments through WhatsApp in India. The New York Times reported that Facebook is also developing its own digital currency to make it easier for users to send money to their messaging contacts.

Facebook didn’t offer many details on its digital currency endeavors, but said a “new small team” was looking for ways to make use of the type of technology

powering bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.

While the current payment options require linking Facebook to bank accounts or services, such as PayPal, a digital currency could potentially work without them. That could appeal to users, especially in Asia and Africa, with limited access to banking services, said Avivah Litan, a Gartner analyst who specializes in security and payments.

And it would solve a key challenge with commerce on phones. Litan said entering credit card details on a phone is cumbersome, and businesses often lose customers before they complete orders. If Facebook can integrate payments into messaging, it can keep users within Facebook and convince advertisers they’re more likely to complete sales.

Facebook could also diversify revenue beyond advertising. For instance, it could take a commission, whether for newspaper subscriptions or food deliveries, much as Apple already does with a cut of up to 30 percent for app payments.

Kay said messaging could become one-stop shop for Yelp-like business reviews, OpenTable restaurant reservations, on-demand delivery similar to Uber and a marketplace akin to eBay—the latter being something Facebook already offers on its main app.

Amazon might be tougher to challenge, he said, given the company’s expertise in delivery logistics, but there might be pieces, such as grocery delivery, that Facebook can go after.

Nonetheless, potential Facebook rivals need not pack up yet. Zuckerberg’s blog read as a manifesto, a list of things he wants to implement, and it’s unclear how much will actually get executed, eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said. She said it’s too soon for competitors to start drastically adapting.

“You cannot be blase about anything Facebook says or does,” she said. “But I think there is certainly time to see how this all plays out.” ■

NCT Dream

PHOTOS BY GIANNA MANIEGO

Friendship concert with NCT Dream, Silent Sanctuary trends on Twitter PRIMETIME

DINNA CHAN VASQUEZ @dinnachanvasquez luckydinna@gmail.com

K

OREAN entertainment is facing several storms right now, but in true show business fashion, the show must go on.

Last week the 70th anniversary celebration of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and South Korea kicked off with a free concert at the Mall of Asia Arena headlined by three K-pop groups together with Filipino rock band Silent Sanctuary. The diplomatic community, government officials, guests and fans marked the milestone at the 2019 K-pop Friendship Concert in Manila held on March 7 at the Arena.

Among the guests were Korean Ambassador to the Philippines Han Dong-man, First Vice Minister Kim Yong-sam of Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports

and Tourism (MCST), Ambassador-designate Vasin Ruangprateepsaeng of Thailand, Ambassador Giorgio Guglielmino of Italy, Ambassador Mohammad Tanhaei of Iran, Bangko Sentral Governor Benjamin E. Diokno, and National Commision for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Commissioner Victorino Manalo.

This year has been designated Korea-Philippines Year of Mutual Exchange, and the concert is the kickoff. Other events that will be held this year are the Korean Film Festival and Taekwondo Culture Festival.

That night, it was all about the music with the hashtag #2019KPOPFCMNL trending on Twitter.

The concert was hosted by Ryan Bang and Kring Elizano Kim. Silent Sanctuary opened the concert to warm applause as most of the Gen Z’ers in the audience that night grew up to their music.

It was the first Philippine visit for six-member girl group APRIL, composed of Yena, Rachel, Jinsol, Chaekyung, Chaewon and Naeun. “It’s such a great honor to perform here in the Philippines, and this is actually our first time to be here so it’s kind of nervous but we’ll try our best,” Rachel said. The group, which debuted in August 2015, performed “April Story,” “Tinkerbell” and “Oh! My Mistake.”

APRIL released its sixth mini-album The Ruby last October. It was the second Manila visit for NOIR,

composed of Yeonkuk, Junyong, Seunghoon, Yunsung, Siheon, Hoyeon, Daewon, Siha and Minhyuk. The group was here in December for a fan meet.

“We are honored to be here as a participant in the K-pop Friendship Concert in Manila,” said Seunghoon.

NOIR, whose official fandom name is Lumiere (which means “light” in French), made its debut in April 2018.

In January, they announced that Lumiere will be their fandom name. During the concert, NOIR performed “Gangsta”, “Gift”, “Airplane Mode” and a cover of BTS’s “Boys in Love.”

For the last act, NCT Dream’s Renjun, Jeno, Jaemin, Jisung and Chenle performed “Go”, “My First and Last”, “We Go Up” and “Chewing Gum.” “First of all, we are very thankful and honored to participate in this event. We will show you a great performance,” said Jeno during a press conference before the show. NCT Dream made its debut in August 2016 with the track “Chewing Gum.” Jeno revealed they want to be daring with their future comeback.

“We performed cute [concept]. But now we want to show our sexy performance.”

The 2019 Kpop Friendship Concert in Manila was organized by MCST, together with the NCCA, Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the Philippines, and the Korean Cultural Center in the Philippines, and produced by Pulp Live World.

THE Absher App on a phone in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. AP

SAUDI APP CRITICIZED FOR FEATURE TO CONTROL WOMEN’S TRAVEL THE Saudi government app Absher is mostly a way for people to pay traffic fines and complete other administrative tasks electronically. But one feature isn’t sitting well with civil-rights advocates: the ability for men to grant or deny a woman permission to travel.

Regardless of their age, women in Saudi Arabia must have the consent of a male relative to obtain a passport, travel or marry. In the past, a travel permit was a paper document issued by the Interior Ministry and signed by a male relative.

The Absher app replaces the need for a paper document.

The app is merely implementing existing laws, and removing it would not change or remove the guardianship rules in place. Nonetheless, the feature has sparked calls for leading tech companies to block access through their app stores. “The ingenuity of American technology companies should not be perverted to violate the human rights of Saudi women,” US Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, wrote in a letter to Apple and Google.

According to Speier’s office, Google won’t remove the app because it doesn’t consider it a violation of Google’s terms of service, while Apple is still investigating.

Google and Apple declined to comment. Apple CEO Tim Cook told NPR last month that the company would “take a look” at the app.

The app includes a setting where Saudi men can grant or deny their spouses, daughters and minor sons permission to travel abroad. Through an integrated system, immigration officials at the airport can see the status of a woman’s travel permit by scanning her passport details.

At one time, Saudi men were also being notified by text messages when dependents exited and entered Saudi Arabia, though Absher officials quoted in local Saudi media say that those text messages were not sent through Absher and that this texting service was stopped in 2014. Nonetheless, some published reports say the texts are still available. The app itself doesn’t appear to track women using the phone’s location services.

Absher was created in 2007 and can also be accessed through a web site, so removing the app would not remove men’s ability to electronically grant or deny travel permission to women. Although the app and its travel feature has been around for years, it has only recently become a focus of intense criticism by women’s rights activists and other critics.

Some civil-rights advocates acknowledge that the ability for guardians to control travel permissions exist regardless of the app. But they complain that US companies are enabling that practice by allowing the app.

“These companies don’t have to support this,” said Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “They’re making the choice.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, wrote Apple and Google to criticize that they “are making it easier for Saudi men to control their family members from the convenience of their smartphones and restrict their movement.”

Many Saudi citizens have pushed back against calls for the app’s removal. Khawla Al-Kuraya, a female professor in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wrote in a Bloomberg opinion piece that the app makes travel easier to enable by cutting out long lines and paperwork.

Some young Saudi women who have fled the country in recent years did so by accessing their father’s phone and changing the setting to grant themselves permission.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said the app is “an essential and direct means” for Saudis to access government services anytime, anywhere. The ministry also condemned what is said was a “systematic campaign aimed at questioning the purpose of Absher services.”

Apple’s app guidelines seem to give the company latitude in what apps are considered unacceptable, including those that have “content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust or in exceptionally poor taste.” Google also has guidelines to prohibit apps that facilitate harassment and characteristics tied to systemic discrimination.

In recent years, there have been 13 billion visits to the Absher app, 11 million users and more than 110 million services done, according to Absher officials quoted in local Saudi media. AP

A10 Saturday, March 16, 2019

BusinessMirror

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How to predict consumer spending trends? Use data, intuition

BY JOYCE M. ROSENBERG The Associated Press NEW YORK—Small business owners who want to predict what consumers will buy next month, next season or next year can get some answers by mining the Internet for data, and thinking about what that data means.

First, retailers and manufacturers should expect that a current trend will run its course, and they should anticipate that something that’s been hot for several seasons or years will run out of steam. Joanna

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ENGLISH computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, delivers a speech during an event at the CERN in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, on March 12. AP

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TEAM AidUSC from the Philippines was awarded third place in the recent Microsoft Imagine Cup Regional Finals for their water contamination detection app

Duda, owner of Pirillo Swimwear, a Chicago-based online retailer of women’s swimsuits, is changing her color mix now that yellow has been popular the past few years.

“I think we’re getting sick of it,” she says.

Some tips for forecasting consumer spending trends: ■ Look for consumers’ search and buying patterns on your own web site, Google Trends and Amazon.com. Search trends tell you what they want and what they’d like to find.

■ Social-media sites can show you what

consumers are interested in.

Finding hashtags related to your type of business on Instagram and Twitter, and searching for Facebook groups with potential customers can help you learn what consumers want. Engaging with your own customers on social media will help you understand their interests, and how their tastes and buying habits may be changing.

■ Get creative with what you learn. If you can glean that customers are moving in a new direction— for example, staying home more—think about the purchases they’re likely to make, says Marshal Cohen,

At age 30, World Wide Web is ‘not the Web we wanted’

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BY JAMEY KEATEN The Associated Press

ENEVA—At the ripe old age of 30 and with half the globe using it, the World Wide Web is facing growing pains with issues like hate speech, privacy concerns and state-sponsored hacking, its creator says, trumpeting a call to make it better for humanity.

Tim Berners-Lee on Tuesday joined a celebration of the Web and reminisced about his invention at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, starting with a proposal published on March 12, 1989.

It opened the way to a technological revolution that has transformed the way people buy goods, share ideas, get information and much more.

It’s also become a place where tech titans scoop up personal data, rival governments spy and seek to scuttle elections, and hate speech and vitriol have thrived—taking the Web far from its roots as a space for progress-oriented minds to collaborate.

As of late 2018, half of the world was online, with the other half often struggling to secure access.

Speaking at a “Web@30” conference at CERN, Berners-Lee acknowledged that a sense among many who are already on the Web has become: “Whoops!

The Web is not the Web we wanted in every respect.”

His World Wide Web Foundation wants to enlist governments, companies, and citizens to take a greater role in shaping the Web for good under principles laid out in its “Contract for the Web.” Under the contract, governments are called upon to make sure everyone can connect to the Internet, to keep it available and to respect privacy. Companies are to make the Internet affordable, respect privacy and develop technology that will put people—and the “public good”—first. Citizens are to create and to cooperate and respect “civil discourse,” among other things. “The Contract for the Web is about sitting down in working groups with other people who signed up, and to say, ‘OK, let’s work out what this really means,’” Berners-Lee said. It was unclear, however, how such rules would be enforced.

Berners-Lee cautioned it was important to strike a balance between oversight and freedom but difficult to agree what it should be.

“Where is the balance between leaving the tech companies to do the right thing and regulating them?

Where is the balance between freedom of speech and hate speech?” he said. The conference, which brought

together Internet and tech experts, also gave CERN the chance to showcase its reputation as an opensource incubator of ideas. Berners-Lee worked there in the late 1980s, and had been determined to help bridge a communications and documentation gap among different computer platforms.

As a young English software engineer at CERN, Berners-Lee, who is now 63, came up with the idea for hypertext transfer protocol—the “http” that adorns Web addresses—and other building blocks for the Web. The “http” system allowed text and small images to be retrieved through a piece of software—the first browser—which Berners-Lee released in 1990 and is considered the start of the Web. In practice, the access to a browser on a home computer made the Internet easily accessible to consumers for the first time.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Berners-Lee recalled how his research was helped by his former boss at CERN, Mike Sendall, who wanted a pretext to buy a then-new Next computer by Steve Jobs’s Apple needed for his research.

Berners-Lee said Sendall told him to “’pick a random program to develop on it.... Why don’t you do that hypertext thing?’”

Berners-Lee has since become a sort of father figure for the Internet community, been knighted

by Queen Elizabeth II and named as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century by Time Magazine. While he now wants to get the debate going, other panelists expressed concerns like the increasing concentration of control of the Internet by big corporate players, and fretted about a possible splintering of cyber space among rival countries.

“The challenges come from the same things that make it [the Web] wonderful, and that’s the difficulty,” said conference panelist Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science.

“The openness is wonderful, the connectivity is wonderful, the fact that it was created as a network for academics who are kind of into trusting each other...” she said.

Now with the Web, “there’s an enormous amount of centralization going on, with a few big players becoming gatekeepers. Those few big players have built, basically, surveillance machines,” she said. “It’s based on surveillance profiling us and then targeting us for ads—which wasn’t the original idea at all.” ■

a senior analyst at NPD Group, a company that tracks consumer trends.

■ Look beyond your current core group of customers. Most of the people who sign up with Africa Travel for safaris tend to be age 45 or older, says Steve Pritchard, digital marketing consultant for the Leeds, England-based company. Pritchard, who tracks consumer trends on social media and Google, looks at younger consumers’ searching and buying habits, expecting that they would be the next wave of travelers to Africa. “We want to stay ahead of the curve,” he says.

HUAWEI SUES U.S. GOVERNMENT FOR UNCONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS

GLOBAL mobile phone and networking brand Huawei announced on March 7 that it has filed a complaint in a US federal court, challenging the constitutionality of Section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Through this action, Huawei seeks a declaratory judgment that the restrictions targeting Huawei are unconstitutional, and a permanent injunction against these restrictions.

“The US Congress has repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to support its restrictions on Huawei products. We are compelled to take this legal action as a proper and last resort,” said Guo Ping, Huawei rotating chairman. “This ban not only is unlawful, but also restricts Huawei from engaging in fair competition, ultimately harming US consumers. We look forward to the court’s verdict, and trust that it will benefit both Huawei and the American people.”

The lawsuit was filed in a US District Court in Plano, Texas. According to the complaint, Section 889 of the 2019 NDAA not only bars all US Government agencies from buying Huawei equipment and services, but also bars them from contracting with or awarding grants or loans to third parties who buy Huawei equipment or services, without any executive or judicial process. This violates the Bill of Attainder Clause and the Due Process Clause. It also violates the Separation of Powers principles enshrined in the US Constitution, because Congress is both making the law, and attempting to adjudicate and execute it.

Song Liuping, Huawei’s chief legal officer, stressed: “Section 889 is based on numerous false, unproven and untested propositions. Contrary to the statute’s premise, Huawei is not owned, controlled or influenced by the Chinese government. Moreover, Huawei has an excellent security record and program. No contrary evidence has been offered.”

“At Huawei, we are proud that we are the most open, transparent and scrutinized company in the world,” said John Suffolk, Huawei’s Global Cyber Security and Privacy Officer.

“The company’s approach to security by design development and deployment sets a high standards bar that few can match.”

From Huawei’s perspective, the NDAA restrictions prevent the company from providing more advanced 5G technologies to US consumers, which will delay the commercial application of 5G, thus impeding efforts to improve the performance of 5G networks in the US. Beyond this, network users in rural and remote regions of the US will be forced to choose between government funding and high-quality, cost-effective products. This will impede the network upgrade process, thus widening the digital divide. Even worse, the restrictions on Huawei will stifle competition, leaving US consumers paying higher prices for inferior products.

Estimates from industry sources show that allowing Huawei to compete would reduce the cost of wireless infrastructure by between 15 percent and 40 percent. This would save North America at least $20 billion over the next four years.

Guo Ping added, “If this law is set aside, as it should be, Huawei can bring more advanced technologies to the United States and help it build the best 5G networks. Huawei is willing to address the US Government’s security concerns.

Lifting the NDAA ban will give the US Government the flexibility it needs to work with Huawei and solve real security issues.”

USC-based team places third at Microsoft Imagine Cup

BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES UNIVERSITY of San Carlos Cebu (USC)-based Team AidUSC recently scored a third place finish at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Regional Finals held in Sydney, Australia, for its development of Aqua Check, a mobile application that detects water contamination.

Team AidUSC trio composed of senior college information-technology students Danielle Ann Piamonte, Erl Joshua Arcenal and Jeremiah Valero drew raves for their Aqua Check which detects water contamination by taking a photo of a water sample through a microscope. Powered by Microsoft’s Azure Custom Vision, Aqua Check allows anyone to analyze water samples and even map the contamination location, which for the Philippines is a big step toward ensuring that all communities have access to clean and potable water.

“We used to focus on solving specific nichetype problems in our past competitions, but this time we wanted to create a bigger impact not just in

the Philippines but on a global scale,” said Arcenal in a press statement. “With the increasing water contamination cases in the country, we aim to continue to improve Aqua Check and hopefully deploy our application in local government units across the Philippines.”

Competing against 11 teams from Asia Pacific, Team AidUSC has been joining multiple national innovation and start-up competitions since high school.

The team was motivated to develop the solution for water contamination after coming across an article about the diarrhea outbreak in the biggest prison facility in the Philippines, which affected over 1,200 inmates and killed two because of water contamination.

Water is regarded as one of the most critical natural resources in the world.

Unfortunately, according to the World Health Organization, around 2 billion people globally use a drinking water source that is contaminated.

In the Philippines, over 19 million lack access to improved sanitation and 9 million rely on unimproved,

unsafe and unsustainable water sources. In 2013 the Department of Environment and Natural Resources shared that 55 people die daily from diseases caused by a lack of proper sewerage and sanitation facilities.

With the help of the University of San Carlos’s community extension program, Team AidUSC is introducing new innovations in furtherance Aqua Check, and plans to have the technology patented in the near future. At the same time, the team is trying to raise funds to obtain a foldable microscope and a PPNL microscope, which can bring about faster results and better insights into the technology.

Team Caeli from India and Team RailinNova from China emerged as champion and first runner-up, respectively. Team Caeli bagged the first prize with their smart automated Anti-Pollution and Drug delivery mask specifically designed for patients that are suffering from asthma and other chronic respiratory conditions; while Team RailinNova came up with Rail Component Inspection Robot, which determines and identifies rail defects through multi-sensor monitoring.

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Saturday, March 16, 2019 A11

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OPPO unveiled the Find X 5G prototype at the 2018 China Mobile Global Partners Conference held last December in Guangzhou, China.

Oppo unveils Find X 5G prototype

THIS undated illustration provided by Tinder/Emojination shows new variations of interracial emoji couples. In the world of emojis, interracial couples had virtually no options in terms of skin tone. But the emoji gods, otherwise known as the Unicode Consortium, recently rectified that, approving 71 new variations. Using six skin tones already available for one-person emojis, vendors, such as Apple, Google and Microsoft will now be able to offer couples of color. Additions are expected later this year. AP

Emoji gods approve skin-tone options for couples of color

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EW YORK—In 1664, Maryland passed the first British colonial law banning marriage between whites and slaves. An 1883 US Supreme Court ruling that state prohibitions on interracial marriage don’t violate the 14th Amendment held for more than 80 years.

While such impediments to marriage were dismantled over time, there are still hurdles, however small, to overcome. Here, in 2019, interracial couples have a small victory to celebrate: the approval of 71 new variations of emoji for couples of color.

Capping a yearlong project by, of all people, the folks at the swipe-right dating app Tinder and tech activist group Emojination, the emoji gods (known as the Unicode Consortium) recently approved the additions in characters technically referred to as people “holding hands.”

A new “gender-inclusive” couple emoji was also approved among 230 new characters.

Until now, emoji of two or more people on various platforms and devices have been available only in the default yellow. While the Unicode Consortium, where Google, Microsoft and Apple have voting seats and Lee is vice chairman of the emoji subcommittee, signed off on the skin-tone additions, user companies will decide for themselves starting later this year whether to add them and how they will look.

Jenny Campbell, the chief marketing officer for

Tinder, isn’t worried about distribution after the company mounted a campaign and petition drive in support of the technical proposal it submitted to Unicode.

“Ultimately, we wanted to get the interracial emoji couple on people’s keyboards not only for equality, but also to spread acceptance for all couples no matter what their race,” she told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Our users are craving a way to express themselves visually and see themselves reflected in our everyday tech language.”

So are lots of other emoji enthusiasts of color left in the wings for years. More than 50,000 people signed Tinder’s online petition at Change.org.

“Unicode is taking user demand for more skin tones across emoji very seriously,” said Lee, the cofounder of the grassroots Emojination.

“The additional of skin tones, gender variations, hijab and hair styles are part of users around the world demanding to see themselves represented on the emoji keyboard. Diverse couples and families are part of that.”

While facial features and hair textures are yet to be determined by some vendors, Tinder said the use of six existing skin tones already available for oneperson emoji and various others is a step in the right direction at a time when the text- and chat-friendly characters remain a readily accessible way for the

world to express itself. The lack of color options in couples, the company said, felt like a slight.

“Even as our social behaviors have evolved and interracial dating and marriage has become more prevalent, visual representation of these relationships in technology has lagged far behind,” Campbell said.

Emoji of single people of color and same-sex couples were added in the last several years, but not in mixed-tone combinations. In real life, the rate of interracial marriage has increased over the years, especially since the 1967 US Supreme Court decision Loving v Virginia that struck down all antimiscegenation laws remaining in 16 states. But such marriages remain a small portion of marriages overall. Tinder is taking credit for its industry in pushing interracial dating along, citing data that indicates couples who meet online are more likely to be interracial than those who don’t.

“We know that equal forms of representation are important to our users,” Campbell said, “and important to us.”

Skin tones for limited use were added to the Unicode Standard for emoji in 2015. More representation of women in 2016, some “genderinclusive” people in 2017 and hair color options last year. Also approved this year: a waffle, a muchrequested white heart, a guide dog and people in wheelchairs. Oh, and a sloth. AP

WITH the 5G era is fast approaching, Oppo has successfully produced a prototype 5G version of its flagship smartphone, Find X, and recently unveiled this to the world in Guangzhou, China. At the same time, the smartphone brand also announced its plan of working together with industry partners worldwide to develop a new 5G ecosystem. The Find X 5G prototype is one of the first of many other 5G products that Oppo will be unveiling to the public this year.

The Oppo Find X flagship smartphone leads the allscreen trend in the smartphone industry. The company officially entered the Western European market with the launch of the Find X enabling it to reach more consumers in developed countries. The Oppo Find X 5G prototype garnered a lot of attention from visitors at the 2018 China Mobile Global Partners Conference with its engineering sample Snapdragon 855 and X50 5G modem that offers outstanding 5G performance. At the event, Oppo, Qualcomm and Keysight Technologies Inc., a world-leading electronic measurement company, demonstrated 5G data connectivity and applications including browsing, online video replay and video call using the Find X 5G prototype.

Speaking at the conference, Brian Shen, Oppo global vice president and president of China Business, said: “We are confident Oppo will be one of the first companies to launch commercial 5G smartphones in 2019.” As a pioneer in the 5G era, Oppo has been working on 5G standards, product R&D and the exploration of applications since early in 2015, and has made a series of leading achievements.

In May 2018, Oppo completed the world’s first 5G 3D video call featuring structured light technology and proposed the concept of “Ubiquitous Reality.” Oppo then completed one of the world’s first 5G signaling and data connections on a smartphone that same year in August, and became the first company to complete a 5G Internet access test on a smartphone in October.

Oppo has introduced the concept of “5G+,” with a belief that the 5G+ era will be such where everything is connected and “experience is king.”

“The smartphone will be at the core of a wide range of smart devices, which will all be connected through the 5G network. To address the areas of ‘smart health’ and ‘smart home,’ Oppo has already begun work on several smart devices, exploring the intersection of 5G and cutting-edge technologies, and is collaboratively building a 5G+ innovation ecosystem with the entire industry,” said Shen.

Lawmaker sees digital technologies helping attain financial inclusion in PHL

BY RODERICK L. ABAD Contributor SEN. Francis Escudero called for cooperation between the public and private sectors to reach out to more unbanked and underserved Filipinos through digital technologies.

According to him, there are more people in this country who have no bank accounts than anywhere else in the world.

Citing data from the government, he revealed that 70 percent of Filipinos aged 15 years old and above are “unbanked,” or more than double the 31 percent of the adult population internationally.

“May we reach this [global] level in the near future,” he said in his keynote address during the Cebuana Lhuillier Financial Inclusion Forum, dubbed “#KayaNa!,” held recently at New World Hotel in Makati City.

At the digital landscape increasingly informs everyday life, the lawmaker is confident the socalled financial inclusion, or a state wherein there is effective access to a wide range of financial products and services by all, could soon be realized.

This is by leveraging on people’s mobility that

could be pivotal in bridging them to the formal banking system right at their fingertips.

Considering that the mobile phone penetration in the Philippines is at 110 percent, he noted this technology, through apps, now paves the way for branchless banking, crowdsourcing, blockchain, and even peer-to-peer village financing, among others. “[So] we can actually leapfrog to doubling this figure of financial inclusion in another two to three years,” Escudero said.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), he noted in particular, could be pivotal to achieve this since its supervisory power has been expanded—by virtue of the New Central Bank Act which was ratified in the Senate late last year—to create policies or regulations for the adoption of these new technologies and trends to help address the issue of financial inclusion.

Expecting the Shari’ah Banking Law to be enacted before Congress adjourns in the next three weeks prior to the May 2019 midterm elections, the senator sees this measure, which seeks to organize and regulate Islamic banks in the country, also helping to increase the number of “banked” Filipinos. Currently, only around 30 percent of the country’s adult population have bank accounts.

Because of their Islamic faith, he said Muslims are not allowed to deposit their wealth or money in the bank as it is considered a sin per the Koran, the equivalent of the Holy Bible of Christians.

“It is also a sin to charge interest [or riba, which is prohibited by the Shari’ah],” the senator added, citing that this belief literally has led for most of them to keep their money or some forms of value in their house or any unsafe storage.

“There are roughy 11 million Muslim Filipinos in the country, and half of them are adults. So if you’re talking of approximately a population of 106 million [nationwide, there will be around] 5.2 million Filipinos that will immediately be banked as opposed to unbanked if we pass this law,” Escudero said.

Not to be discounted, the legislator pointed out, is education in so far as encouraging the public to save through the banking system. Case in point is the collaboration of the BSP and the Department of Education to teach financial literacy among elementary and high-school students nationwide.

“For me, this is highly needed to make our fellows better understand the benefits of becoming banked compared to the unbaked or underbanked,” Escudero said.

On the private sector’s part, on the other hand, he lauded innovative business players like Cebuana Lhuillier, which has just launched its micro-savings to provide Filipinos with a more convenient and affordable means to save their hard-earned money.

Such offering enables the people to break through the barriers of saving in banks, including numerous requirements; high initial deposit, maintaining balance and dormancy charges; and lack of access to banking facilities.

Opening a Cebuana Lhuillier Micro Savings account requires only one valid ID and a minimal P50 initial deposit. Since the microfinancial service company’s network of branches is comprised of 2,500 retail infrastructures, account holders can deposit and withdraw anywhere at their most convenient hours.

“This should have been done actually a long time ago [in the private sector] to make it simpler and easier for people to actually get a bank account,” the senator said, citing that the innovative offering of Cebuana Lhuillier is worth emulating by other industry players.

“It is not simply making it accessible that should be our goal; it is actual usage and availment that should be our goal,” he stressed.

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

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Hooked on Hokkaido Or tales from the traveling ‘tito’: Part 2 THE TECHNIVORE ED UY

whereiseduy@gmail.com

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S I stood on top of the hill that led to the Ice Village at Hoshino Ski Resort, I placed my phone inside my bag for the first time that day, just so I could take in the scenery—the sun slowly fading away to surrender to the darkness, giving me one last view of the snow-covered landscape, the cold bursts of wind on my face, and the feel and sound of the snow crystals crunching under my boots.

It was incredible. This was a moment I have been dreaming of ever since I first held shaved ice from my halohalo. I stood there frozen for a minute or two, whispered a word of thanks to God for giving this overweight, out-ofshape tito a chance to marvel at His creation, sat down, pushed myself and screamed like a teenage girl as I slid down the frozen slide leading to the Ice Village.

WHITE VALENTINES

WE left on the eve of Valentine’s Day, and had our first taste of Japan at the Japan Airlines Sakura Lounge. If you have access, make sure to sample their beef curry. They weren’t kidding when they told us they had the best; it was so good that I had to stop myself from getting a third serving! FYI: I hate curry (the Indian kind), but this was totally different.

Besides curry, there’s also udon, miso soup, pastry, some snacks and all the drinks you want.

We took JAL’s new Manila-to-Tokyo, via Haneda route, which was the earliest flight to arrive in Tokyo. We then took another flight to Hokkaido, arriving at Memanbetsu at around 9 am. As soon as we got our luggage, everyone immediately changed into their winter clothes. I already had a sweater on, so I just put on the jacket I got from Bench (which I’m pretty sure wasn’t made for winter). Our guide warned us that it was going to be really cold outside, about minus 9 degrees Celsius, and asked me if I was sure about what I was wearing.

“I think so,” I told her.

HOKKAIDO HIGHS AND WHOAs

OUR itinerary was prepared by the Japan Tourism Board, and since the theme of our trip was to #GetMoreJapan, we were able to visit some of the popular tourist sites and also some that you don’t usually read about. I have listed the HIGHS on why you should definitely give it a try and the WHOAs to make you think twice about adding it to your itinerary.

■ I’LL STOP THE WORLD AND SMELT WITH YOU. Our first stop was Lake Abashiri to try one of the most popular winter activities in the area—smelt fishing. When the lake freezes over, the place becomes a large campsite where tourists can do some ice fishing. They will drill a hole in the ice where you can fish for smelts—a kind of small fresh water fish. Once you’ve caught your smelts, you can have them fried into yummy tempura. HIGH: It’s an OK group activity, depending

on your luck. I caught one during my first five minutes but that was also the last. It was a good thing they gave us a basket of smelt tempura to munch on, but I’m not sure if you could also order in case you don’t catch any fish. WHOA: This activity could take from one to three hours, and costs around P1,300.

Instead of fishing, however, we actually spent more time enjoying the scenery and taking photos of the snow-covered trees and mountains.

■ OSHINKOSHIN WATERFALLS. The name Oshinkoshin originates from the Ainu language, meaning a place where many Ezo spruce grow. The waterfall consists of two separate flows. It is nicknamed soubi no taki, meaning beautiful forked waterfalls. HIGH: Our tour guide said it was one of the top 100 most beautiful waterfalls in Japan. WHOA: The area is steep and very slippery, and I wouldn’t risk going up unless you are wearing proper snow boots. The stair steps are hard to see and entirely covered in snow. Skip this if you are with older people as they might fall and hurt themselves; if they insist, just take photos near the entrance.

■ NOT SO FAST AND FURIOUS: HOKKAIDO DRIFT ICE WALKING. I both love and hate this activity at the same time.

Love because it was a one-of-a-kind experience that I doubt I will be doing again; and hate it because I don’t have any photo to show for it. Well, I do have a couple: one was of me looking like a Power Ranger reject, and the other one was just partly showing my face because we were a bit far behind.

The area was really cold and unless you properly wrap your phone/camera I doubt it will survive, and, no, the dry suits don’t have pockets. Our guide Mr. Ogawa’s phone went dead a few minutes after he took it out for some photos.

Make sure you read my tips on how you can winterproof your devices below. HIGH: It’s like being in the Ice Age! Once you reach your stop in the middle, lay down on your back and look up at the sky and imagine that during the summertime, you are actually in the middle of the sea. It’s an experience you definitely have to try. WHOA: It’s not for everyone because there is a height and age limit because of the dry suit. Children aged 0-5, seniors aged 74+, pregnant women and those who are less than 130 centimeters in height cannot join this activity. Depending on drift ice distribution, there are also times when the tour can be cancelled. It can also be quite tiring as you have to walk for almost an hour to and from your starting point. Best done in the early afternoon.

DAY 2

■ AINU VILLAGE. The place reminded me so much of Oaken’s Trading post in Disney’s Frozen, I was almost tempted to look for Kristoff and Sven. The quaint-looking village is home of the Ainu tribe and is one of the biggest kotans or “settlements” in Hokkaido. We had a wood-carving class that I enjoyed, and a surprise lunch I won’t forget anytime soon. HIGH: The place is so picturesque you just want to take a photo of every store and building. There are also a lot of souvenir shops that sell nice looking trinkets and Ainu handicrafts. WHOA: OMG, we ate Bambi! Follow Susan Roces’s advice “Huwag mahiyang magtanong.” We were served sweet potato pizza (good) rice with beans (OK) and vegetable soup with deer meat. It looked like nilaga and was hot, so I immediately ate a chunk of meat before I realized what it was. I wanted to run out and cry, but since I was so hungry I decided to finish the entire bowl, thinking happy thoughts and hopefully a buffet dinner.

■ DRIVING A SNOW MOBILE. This was easily my favorite activity of the entire trip. I wanted to drive real fast

because the open field of snow was just too tempting, but I remembered that the last time I tried to show off, I flew off a bike, landed face first and chipped my front teeth. So I decided to take out my phone, shoot a video and drive slower, which turned out to be a better decision as you can only drive around the 2-kilometer course once. HIGH: Snowmobile driving is very affordable at just ¥1,500 per person (around P750) for a 2-km drive. You can also go for the longer 4-km, 7-km and 10-km routes but I think these are for more advanced riders. You can also ride a banana boat or do some smelt fishing at Lake Akan as well. WHOA: I can’t think of any negatives about this activity except that the 2-km drive ends too soon.

■ LAKE AKAN ICE FESTIVAL. Just a five-minute walk from our hotel, Hotel Akanko-So was the venue for Lake Akan Ice Festival where tourists and locals can celebrate the cold in the middle of the frozen landscape complete with fuyu-hanabi, or winter fireworks display. There are several highly Instagrammable installations like the one which shows the temperature in a heart shaped-ice sculpture, and a small shrine, among others. There’s also a mini ice hockey game, and you can even try sawing ice. HIGH: Its free, they give out hot milk and if you arrive early, you can try all the activities at the venue ahead of the crowd. Where else could you watch an amazing fireworks display amid the frozen backdrop?

WHOAs: It can get very very very cold so don’t be ashamed to pile on all those layers—get those thick gloves out, the scarves, neckwear, bonnet and you can even borrow an oversized windbreaker from the hotel.

DAY 3

■ BIRD WATCHING. The Japanese crane or tancho (featured on JAL’s logo) is the national bird of Japan and symbolizes longevity, luck and happiness. These birds are mostly found in the Hokkaido region and were it not for the efforts of the Tsurui-Ito Tancho Sanctuary, it would have become extinct decades ago. HIGH: Head over to the information center to learn more about the Japanese crane and their preservation. There is also a souvenir shop from which the proceeds help run this crane sanctuary.

WHOA: There isn’t really much to do besides take photos and the front of the fence is usually packed with all these photographers and their gear.

■ IKEDA WINE CASTLE/MUSEUM. Although it’s really not a castle and the museum part is just some old barrels of wine in the lower floor, this was where we got the chance to sample rum ice cream, free wine tasting and have our steak lunch. HIGH: Although the steak is just a single-serve, there is a buffet of side dishes, vegetables and soup. You can also have all the drinks you want but dessert isn’t included. Good thing you can head over to the shop and get your soft served ice cream—which is a must-try in Hokkaido. WHOA: Price is around P2,000 for each. Just make sure to let them know how you like your steak cooked because I think they usually serve it medium rare.

■ ICE, ICE VILLAGE. If driving the snowmobile and drift ice walking were my favorite activities, this Ice Village was hands down the best destination of our entire trip.

Located 90 km from Ikeda (or 150 m away from Sapporo) the Hoshino Resort Tomamu is an upscale ski resort where you can find this ice town and enjoy a fantastical and magical experience of snow—just make sure to bundle up, since temperatures can go as low as minus 30 degrees Celcius.

Open from December to March, you can enter the Ice

Village for just ¥500. It features several different “igloos,” including a cafe that sells ice cream and bingsu, and a library with actual books you can read, a fireplace in one corner, as well as seats, tables and shelves—all of which (except for the books) are made entirely out of ice. There is also an Ice Bar that serves more than 50 cocktails, all in ice glasses; and shops that sell winter jackets and souvenir items. And if you’re feeling romantic, the ice chapel is the perfect place to propose or even tie the knot. The Ice Village wouldn’t be complete without the Ice Hotel that you can rent and spend the night in.

It has a living room, sofa, sunbathing chairs and, of course, a completely furnished bedroom all made of ice. HIGHS: If you’re going to ask me one reason to go to Hokkaido in the winter, this is it. Make sure to drop by the Church on the Water (if it is open) and try the buffet dinner in Nininupuri, a restaurant in the middle of Tomamu forest. WHOA: If you plan on spending the night at the nearby hotels, be ready to spend at least ¥40,000 for a room.

We spent our last day in Tokyo, but unfortunately we were only given a few hours which I spent mostly at Don Quixote and Uniqlo GU to shop for pasalubong. Definitely need to come back to Shinjuku and explore this shopping and entertainment district and get a photo at Shibuya crossing.

Japan Airlines now flies from Manila to Tokyo via Haneda, with the earliest morning arrival allowing travelers to easily connect with other flights throughout JAL’s domestic network. For information, visit www.ph.jal.co.jp or www.jal. co.jp. Arigato gozaimasu!

Now that you have an idea of the best places to visit and how to prepare yourself for a winter trip to Japan, as promised I’m also going to share a few tips I learned on how to make sure that your smartphone and your photos (don’t forget to back it up on the cloud) survive the freezing cold.

HOW TO WINTERPROOF YOUR SMARTPHONE

WE all know that extreme temperatures can do massive damage on your phones, but since there’s no sense in doing any of these activities without having photo evidence, here are some tips to make sure your smartphone still functions during those most Instagrammable moments.

■ Get a real protective case. Yes, your phone will get thicker, but traveling with a protective case will protect your precious phone from accidental drops (it will happen!) should you slip or slide while walking in the snow.

■ Keep them warm. When temperatures are below zero, don’t keep your phone exposed all the time. Keep it inside your pocket when not in use, or better put it inside a pouch as your pockets can also be damp from the cold.

■ Keep it fully charged always: Battery drain is a common side effect of cold weather. Make sure that your phone is fully charged before heading out into freezing temperatures to combat the possible rapid decrease of battery power. It’s also best to bring a backup power source, like a powerbank for those emergencies.

■ Don’t panic if your phone shuts down: Should your phone shut off by itself, do not restart it immediately as it might even lead to more damage. Instead, keep it in a warm place (like your pocket or bag) and let it warm up for a few minutes before turning it on again.

■ Turn it off. In really freezing temperatures, like the time we went ice walking, it’s best to just turn your phone off than let it shut down because of the cold. Our guide kept his phone wrapped inside his dry suit and only turned it on when it was time to take our photos and it worked. ■

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In the ad material of Notice of filing of Application for Alien Employment Permits published on March 14, 2019, the position of Mr. Wan, Jinyu under INVECH TREASURE PROCESSING CORPORATION should have been read as IT Technical Mandarin and not as published.

If you have any information / objection to the above mentioned application/s, please

If you have any information / objection to the above mentioned application/s, please communicate with the Regional communicate with the Regional Director thru Employment Promotion and Workers Welfare Director thru Employment Promotion and Workers Welfare (EPWW) Division with Telephone No. 400-6011.

(EPWW) Division with Telephone No. 400-6011.

ATTY. ANA C. DIONE, CPA REGIONAL DIRECTOR ATTY. ANA C. DIONE, CPA REGIONAL DIRECTOR

B4 Saturday, March 16, 2019

LAMUDI HONORS TOP LOCAL REAL-ESTATE PROFESSIONALS, BROKERAGE COMPANIES

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A MUDI recently recognized outstanding real-estate professionals and brokerage companies at the third annual Lamudi Broker Awards Night held on February 21 at Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

“The Lamudi Broker Awards Night is our way to show appreciation to our most successf u l par tners who not only grew along [with] the company, but [also] helped Lamudi reach g reat heights in the rea lestate industry,” says Gilles Hage,

Lamudi vice president for commercial strategy.

Lamudi Chief Executive Officer Bhavna Suresh formally opened the gather ing. T hought leaders were also present in the event, offering an avenue for exchanging valuable insights on how to improve the local real-estate industry and the community at large.

The awards presented were divided into Individual, Company and Special c ategor ies. T he w i n ners of t he

‘S

Leyde Francisco of Cebu Globenet Realty

MostNumberof ListingsUploaded

Rey Sonico of MFR Realty

“As a freelancer, collecting fees can be a challenge. Pay is often delayed, and that really messes up the household budget,” Andy says.

“There are times when I thought about drawing from the account I’ve set aside for my child.”

Luckily, Andy discovered Tala, which helped her find a way around her problem.

Since loan approvals take just a few minutes, she was able to beat payment deadlines without having to redo her budgeting. She smiles all the way to the bank, knowing that she makes her son’s future a little bit brighter every day.

There are good entrepreneurs. There are good housewives. Aimee is the special type of woman that’s good at both, and she represents the growing number of women that have been empowered by microfinance.

Aimee grew a small loan into a business venture that made her a financially independent housewife. She invested her first P1,000 to sell packed food, then reinvested what she earned until her business took on a life of its own. Now, her business has grown to include frozen food, beauty products and even a small microlending operation of her own. She has many more ideas in her head, and none of them include asking her husband for money.

“Real smiles are drawn from happiness, and nothing inspires happiness more than the feeling that you’re trusted and empowered,” says Angelo Madrid, country manager. “These smiles remind us of why we keep doing what we do at Tala.”

Founded in 2014, the California-based company analyzes data from one’s smart phone to gauge an individual’s ability and willingness to repay loans.

As of today Tala has already provided loans to over 2.5 million people worldwide.

PROPERTY SERVICE PROVIDER RE/MAX PHL FRANCHISEES, AGENTS COMMENDED

Most Responsive

Christopher Larawan

Top Trained

Korina Christine Reyes of MF Reyes Realty

Lamudi Broker of the Year (Luzon)

Evelyn Samaniego

Lamudi Broker of the Year (Visayas-Mindanao)

Rodulfo Lafradez Jr. of Fareast Habitat and Settlements Inc.

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Most Responsive

Cloverph Realty Corp.

Top Trained Brokerage

Top Realty

LamudiBrokerageof theYear(Luzon)

Miyabi Realty

Lamudi Brokerage of the Year (Visayas and Mindanao) Land Asia Global Properties Network

Loyalty Award

Philproperties International Corp.

New Brokerage of the Year

Rising Land Realty

SPECIAL AWARDS

New Broker of the Year

Lamudi Partner Success Story of the Year

George Tejada

COMPANY AWARDS Most Leads Generated

My Saving Grace Realty and Development Corp.

Charlie Aparicio

People’s Choice Award

MJ Jambaro

Lamudi Partner of the Year

Land Registration Authority

NHMFC EXPLORES PARTNERSHIP WITH JAPAN HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY

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ITH the common desire to strengthen cooperative relations in the fields of housing finance and market support, the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp. (NHMFC) signed March 1 a memorandum of cooperation (MOC) with the Japan Housing Finance Agency (JHF).

The MOC aims to explore the solutions to problems of mutual concern and exchange of information on policies, research and programs between the two housing agencies, especially the JHF green bond program. This is a first of its kind for a residential real estate in Asia. Green bonds are issued to raise funds for green projects such as business, to improve environment

by utilizing renewable energy and /or by enhancing energy-efficiency.

Similarly, one of NHMFC’s projects in the pipeline is the Balai Berde bonds, the fifth series of the corporation’s Bahay Bonds program. It will target those with existing loans with NHMFC (retrofitting of housing units); who buy NHMFC’s acquired assets (retrofitting of housing units prior to sale); and originators of housing loans that will be sold to NHMFC (100-percent loan-to-value ratio for new loans, provided that units are constructed in adherence to climate change).

NHMFC President Dr. Felixberto Bustos Jr. requested JHF to guide them on the procedures of issuance and compliance

to green bonds in the Philippines.

“Our job is not just building houses but building communities, which are resilient to natural disasters, very specific in terms of withstanding earthquakes of magnitude 7.2, and typhoons or hurricanes up to 250-300 kph [kilometers per hour], which I noticed is becoming more and more common in the Philippines because of the changes brought about by the climate change. So, I think [that] the memorandum of cooperation is very timely, and this is something that the country is looking forward to,” Bustos said.

JHF is NHMFC’s counterpart in Japan, which has expertise in the field of primary and secondary mortgage financing.

NEED NOT TO WORRY: SEDA VERTIS NORTH COMES IN HANDY FOR YOUR WEDDING NEEDS

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than 200 brokers and associates nationwide.

In 2018 RE/MAX agents closed an average of 12 transactions and earned an average of P3.3 million in commissions amid an average sales volume of P200 million.

“Joining RE/MAX means being equipped with the proper tools and gaining access to more listings and more buyers to help you close more deals,” said Kenneth Stern, country manager, RE/MAX Philippines.

For more information on RE/MAX Philippines, visit www.remax.ph.

In photo are (from left) Stern; Kerwin Yu, chairman of RE/MAX Capital; de la Cruz; Eddie Santos, region owner of RE/MAX Philippines; Elizabeth Dueñas, president and region owner of RE/MAX Philippines; and John Dueñas, region owner of RE/MAX Philippines.

MostNumberof ListingsUploaded

Property Hunter Realty

Loyalty Award

Edmund Tario

EDA Vertis North, a popular wedding and social venue in the north, graciously hosted in February an enchanting bridal fair highlighting more than 50 carefully chosen wedding specialists and event suppliers catering to soon-to-be couples.

The event was capped off with a highly applauded bridal show with gowns by seasoned, as well as emerging designers.

“Entwine: Weddings by Seda Vertis North” was set in the hotel’s Quezon ballroom, which was transformed into a fabled setting decked with f lowers and sparkling lights—the perfect backdrop to booths set up by

E/MAX, the world’s leading franchisor of real estate and brokerage services, recently hosted an awards night to fete its top producers within the franchise for 2018.

The most prestigious award went to RE/ MAX Capital and received the prized RE/MAX trophy for being Office of Year, based on overall office performance in sales and recruitment.

RE/MAX Capital increased their sales by 110 percent and their agent count by 185 percent in 2018. Julius de la Cruz of RE/MAX Unlimited, on the other hand, took home the coveted RE/ MAX championship belt. He is recognized for taking a very active role in honing the skills of his agents and for continuously leading their office to growth and the path to success.

RE/MAX Philippines is poised to expand its current network of 30 franchises, and more

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS Most Leads Generated

LITTLE WINS ARE BEHIND THOSE BIG SMILES MILE!” You hear it right before school photos, family pictures, groupfies. But a smile does more than just showing someone’s best features, thus, giving a person the power to lift up everyone around, especially true if it comes from a beautiful and an empowering experience.

This truth provides the inspiration for a photo series called “Ngiting Tagumpay”.

Produced by Tala Philippines in celebration of Women’s Month, the campaign features real Tala users who were photographed while remembering their real-life victories. The photos celebrate the countless other women who fight—and win—very real battles day in and day out.

Some entrepreneurs give up on their dreams when their livelihood loses momentum. But not Bea, an independent mother and budding businesswoman from Taguig City. A year ago her small garment business almost folded due to lack of capital— thanks to a lender that recognizes emerging players like herself.

“Nung una kong nakita ’yung Tala, inisip ko kung totoo ba ’to,” explains Bea, who says she is extra careful with anything that has to do with her venture as the smallest mistake could end it. “Nabigyan ako ng pag-asa nung natanggap ko yung unang loan ko.”

With that small loan, Bea was able to breathe new life into her apparel business.

She’s incredibly proud when customers wear her garments, and it shows in the smile that she wears on her face.

Moms make amazing sacrifices when it comes to their child’s welfare. For Andy, it meant giving up a lucrative overseas job to take care of her son at home. She did a bit of freelancing to support her kid. But despite her efforts, money still fell short at times.

Individual and Company Awards were determined via data gathering, while winners of the Special Awards were chosen through voting by Lamudi’s partner network, with the exception of the Lamudi Partner of the Year award as this was chosen by Lamudi.

In photo is a representative of Miyabi Realty accepting the award for Lamudi Brokerage of the Year for Luzon.

experts, from bridal gown, jewelry and accessories designers, to photographers and videographers, to event and floral stylists. The well-curated list of specialists also include providers of bridal cars, lights and sounds, giveaways, printers, entertainers, makeup and cake artists.

“All couples need reliable suppliers to help them pull together what will be one of the most memorable days of their lives,” said Cinty Yniguez, director for sales and marketing of Seda Vertis North.

L’Oreal chief makeup artist Verna Marin, Metrophoto’s Dino Lara, event stylistsDonandKathyKingofEventstyles

and wedding planning expert Marex Gaba further shared presentations highlighting their expertise, as well as tips, and insights for attentive soon-tobe brides and grooms. Marin illustrated how brides could achieve a No Makeup look to highlight the happy aura that usually accompanies such a special day.

Lara emphasized the need for a couple to choose seasoned service providers focused on executing the couple’s plans. When a bride is sure that her production team, under the direction of a veteran events planner, will deliver as promised, it shows in the photos and the smooth flow of the event.

Also on hand to provide their services were representatives of Beauty Bar, Lush, Red Damien, Sound Assembly, Cilla and Co., MSQ Events and String Minstrels.

A bridal show at dusk, copresented by the Lifestyle section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, capped off the day. Gowns

by Randy Ortiz, Rhett Eala, Rajo Laurel, Mike de la Rosa, JC Buendia, Efren Ocampo, Cary Santiago, Jun Escario, Michael Leyva, Dennis Lustico, Vania Romoff and Lulu Tan-Gan were well applauded. Creations by Rosa Clara, Zandra Lim, Julianne Syjuco, Patricia Santos, Haydee Garcia, 37LA Atelier and Bella Borromeo, likewise, caught the appreciative crowd’s attention.

The show included a tribute to the late designer Cesar Gaupo by way of three gowns showing off his classic silhouettes.