BusinessMirror March 19, 2023

By Cai U. Ordinario

The wonder is that the internet now allows people to not only talk to those they know but also people they don’t know. And in some cases, these “people” may not even exist.

Such was the experience of talking to artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT, which has made headlines for its novelty and, to a certain extent, notoriety. Teachers everywhere have raised alarm bells over papers being written not by the students but by their computers. Being able to tell the difference is proving to be a challenge.

Th is became the impetus for an experiment. So just like Alice in Wonderland, this reporter decided to follow the white rabbit wearing a waistcoat down the rabbit hole and asked ChatGPT a number of questions. Foremost of these questions was an economic one.

Th e Philippines has been toiling for years to find the right answers to solve development problems in order to uplift the lives of millions of Filipinos. Thus, we asked ChatGPT the question “How can we fight poverty in the Philippines?”

O ur “new friend” gave a long answer that included seven key points such as access to education; job creation; social protection; women empowerment; infrastructure development; agricultural development; and addressing corruption.

These points, ChatGPT said,

are crucial in fighting poverty in the Philippines, which it called a “complex and multifaceted issue” that cannot be addressed by just one solution.

“ Fighting poverty in the Philippines requires a long-term and sustained effort from all stakeholders, including government, private sector, civil society organizations, and individuals,” ChatGPT said.

By working together and implementing a comprehensive approach, we can address the root causes of poverty and create a more equitable and prosperous society,” it added.

Academician reacts

IF anything, it’s as if a seasoned academician wrote the response. De La Salle University economist Maria Ella Oplas said she agreed with ChatGPT that poverty is indeed a complex and multifaceted issue.

O plas, however, said prioritization is needed to fight poverty in the Philippines. She said attracting investments by investing in infrastructure should be a priority. This will reduce the cost of doing business in the country and create more jobs. She added that in terms of agriculture development, it is not enough to talk about food security and rural development but also consider the fact that farmers remain a marginalized group in the country. This prevents the further development of the farm sector.

The economist added that it is not enough that access to education be improved; the feminization of education where boys are being left out, should also be addressed. “ We will not be able to compete locally and internationally with poor, uneducated human resources. Poverty results in uneducated children and vice-versa,” Oplas said. “Women empowerment and corruption are cross-cutting themes across all three issues.”

Canlas, Lanzona unimpressed

OTHER local economists were also unimpressed. Former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Dante Canlas said the responses of ChatGPT to the question was “standard” and could easily be obtained from the website of the United Nations Sustainable De -

velopment Goals (SDGs).

Canlas said many of the recommendations have already been identified as anti-poverty measures for the past 30 years. These lessons have guided the principles behind the SDGs.

The SDGs aim to “eliminate poverty everywhere,” through, for example, access to education, job creation, women empowerment, and social protection programs. There’s also access to basic services like clean potable water, and climate-change mitigation.

“ The replies you got from ChatGPT are standard,” Canlas told the BusinessMirror via email. “The SDGs are comprehensive and they include the ChatGPT answers.”

Ateneo de Manila University’s Leonardo A. Lanzona Jr. agreed with Canlas and said the responses

of ChatGPT were merely a summary of the ingredients of poverty elimination.

He raised three main concerns regarding ChatGPT and said that while the AI was able to describe and predict phenomena, an article coauthored by linguist Noam Chomsky in The New York Times noted that the AI fails to provide an explanation of or establish causal relationships.

The machine can utilize academic findings that indicate causal relationships but, by virtue of its programming, is indifferent as to how these findings have been generated,” Lanzona said.

Dangerous basis for policy

THE point is crucial because policy must be based on causal relationships, not just correlations.

As economists, we struggle with these causal findings with the acceptance that we can be corrected and an openness to revise our findings. ChatGPT does not have these qualities, thus making it dangerous to use this as a basis for policy,” he explained.

L anzona, like Oplas, also noted that while the laundry list of what can be done to address poverty in the Philippines is comprehensive, the question of prioritization comes into focus.

He said prioritization becomes crucial especially in light of limited resources. Following blindly the advice of AI such as ChatGPT could mean running the risk of not having sufficient resources to back up the plans and programs needed.

The value of having a human touch in policymaking is part of what will drive projects forward. Knowing his limitations, Lanzona said, would place a person in a better position to determine constraints and other problems that could arise from policymaking.

O ne such limitation that ChatGPT may not be able to understand is the extent of the effects of Covid-19 on the country and the economy, as not much has been written about the “full effects” of the pandemic.

ChatGPT has limited knowledge of events that transpired after 2021. As such, it does not have enough data on the full effects of Covid-19, which continues to devastate the country. It is rather alarming that health and postpandemic issues such as learning losses did not become one of the factors needed in fighting poverty,” Lanzona said.

With these inputs from real economists, it may be safe to say that ChatGPT is not the great economist that our country needs to solve deep-seated problems such as poverty.

A nd so, unlike Alice, the end of the rabbit hole may be a dud. This BusinessMirror reporter could have done better than to ignore good parental advice. Indeed, don’t talk to strangers.

An experiment has a BusinessMirror reporter talking to ChatGPT on fighting poverty. The result? Economists deem the AI chatbot’s response as a dangerous basis for policy.

PARENTS used to remind their children never to talk to strangers as untold harm could befall them if they do. But in this day and age, the freedom found on the internet has allowed people to transcend time and space and throw reckless abandon on good parental advice.

From marketing to design, brands adopt AI tools despite risk

By Matt O’Brien and Haleluya Hadero AP Technology Writers

Mattel has put the AI image generator DALL-E to work by having it come up with ideas for new Hot Wheels toy cars. Used vehicle seller CarMax is summarizing thousands of customer reviews with the same “generative” AI technology that powers the popular chatbot ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, Snapchat is bringing a chatbot to its messaging service. And the grocery delivery company Instacart is integrating ChatGPT to answer customers’ food questions.

C oca-Cola plans to use generative AI to help create new marketing content. And while the company hasn’t detailed exactly how it plans to deploy the

technology, the move reflects the growing pressure on businesses to harness tools that many of their employees and consumers are already trying on their own.

We must embrace the risks,” said Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey in a recent video announcing a partnership with startup OpenA I—maker of both DALL-E and ChatGPT—through an alliance led by the consulting firm Bain. “We need to embrace those risks intelligently, experiment, build on those experiments, drive scale, but not taking those risks is a hopeless point of view to start from.”

Deep think INDEED, some AI experts warn

that businesses should carefully consider potential harms to customers, society and their own reputations before rushing to embrace ChatGPT and similar products in the workplace.

I want people to think deeply before deploying this technology,” said Claire Leibowicz of The Partnership on AI, a nonprofit group founded and sponsored by the major tech providers that recently released a set of recommendations for companies producing AI-generated synthetic imagery, audio and other media. “They should play around and tinker, but we should also think, what purpose are these tools serving in the first place?”

Some companies have been experimenting with AI for a while. Mattel revealed its use of OpenAI’s image generator in October as a client of Microsoft, which has a partnership with OpenAI that enables it to integrate its technology into Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.

But it wasn’t until the November 30 release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a free public tool, that widespread interest in generative AI tools began seeping into workplaces and executive suites.

ChatGPT really sort of brought it home how powerful they were,” said Eric Boyd, a Microsoft executive who leads its AI platform. “That’s changed the conversation in a lot of people’s minds where they really get it on a deeper level. My kids use it and my parents use it.”

There is reason for caution, however. While text generators like ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot can make the process of writing emails, presentations and marketing pitches faster and easier, they also have a tendency to confidently present misinformation as fact.

Copyright concerns

IMAGE generators trained on a huge trove of digital art and photography had raised copyright concerns from the original creators of those works.

“For companies that are really in the creative industry, if they want to make sure that they have copyright protection for [the outputs of] those models, that’s still an open question,” said attorney Anna Gressel of the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, which advises businesses on how to use AI.

A safer use has been thinking of the tools as a brainstorming “thought partner” that won’t produce the final product, Gressel said.

It helps create mock ups that then are going to be turned by a human into something that is more concrete,” she said. And that also helps ensure that humans don’t get replaced by AI.

Forrester analyst Rowan Curran said the tools should speed up some of the “nitty-gritty” of office tasks—much like previous innovations such as word processors and spell checkers—rather than putting people out of work, as some fear.

“ Ultimately it’s part of the workflow,” Curran said. “It’s not like we’re talking about having a large language model just generate an entire marketing campaign and have that launch without expert senior marketers and all kinds of other controls.”

‘Guardrails’

FOR consumer-facing chatbots getting integrated into smartphone apps, it gets a little trickier, Curran said, with a need for guardrails around technology that can respond to users’ questions in unexpected ways.

P ublic awareness fueled growing competition between cloud computing providers Microsoft, Amazon and Google, which sell their services to big organizations and have the massive computing power needed to train and operate AI models.

Microsoft announced earlier this year it was investing billions more dollars into its partnership with OpenAI, though it also com-

petes with the start-up as a direct provider of AI tools.

Google, which pioneered advancements in generative AI but has been cautious about introducing them to the public, is now playing catch up to capture its commercial possibilities including an upcoming Bard chatbot. Facebook parent Meta, another AI research leader, builds similar technology but doesn’t sell it to businesses in the same way as its big tech peers.

A mazon has taken a more muted tone, but makes its ambitions clear through its partnerships—most recently an expanded collaboration between its cloud computing division AWS and the startup Hugging Face, maker of a ChatGPT rival called Bloom.

Hugging Face decided to double down on its Amazon partnership after seeing the explosion of demand for generative AI products, said Clement Delangue, the start-up’s co-founder and CEO. But Delangue contrasted his approach with competitors such as OpenAI, which doesn’t disclose its code and datasets.

Hugging Face hosts a platform that allows developers to share open-source AI models for text, image and audio tools, which can lay the foundation for building different products. That transparency is “really important because that’s the way for regulators, for example, to understand these models and be able to regulate,” he said. It is also a way for “underrepresented people to understand where the biases can be [and] how the models have been trained,” so that the bias can be mitigated, Delangue said.

EVEN if you haven’t tried artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can write essays and poems or conjure new images on command, chances are the companies that make your household products are already starting to do so.

The Arctic: New spot for Nato, Russia to flex military muscle

By Natalia Drozdiak & Danielle Bochove

Warmer Arctic tests troops training for subzero warfare

By Danielle Bochove & Natalia Drozdiak

President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine may be raging thousands of kilometers to the south, but in the remote Arctic there is a close watch on his military activities. It’s an increasingly important region for energy, trade and security, and one where Russia, the US, China and others are vying for greater control.

The extent of Arctic seabed resources is not well mapped but estimates suggest the region holds around one-fourth of the globe’s oil and natural gas resources, while its sea routes could shave days if not weeks off traditional commercial shipping passages.

Moscow houses some of its most important strategic assets in the region, including nuclear-capable attack submarines — and those could increase in importance as Putin seeks over time to reconstitute a military heavily depleted by the conflict in Ukraine.

Underpinning the drills is a sense that regardless of what happens in Ukraine (where Moscow’s troops are bogged down in a grinding war of attrition), Nato states are headed into a long-term climate of confrontation with Russia.

“We have to deal with a nation that has shown both the sort of willingness to, and also the ability to, use military power in an aggressive manner,” Rear Admiral Rune Andersen, Chief of the Royal Norwegian Navy, said on a recent sunny but frigid day on the bridge of the HMS Albion. “That means that we need to be forward-looking and be prepared and also to deter any such action against any Nato country—that goes for this region as well as the Baltics and other parts of Nato territory.”

More than 20,000 troops from the UK, the US, the Netherlands and six other nations are braving sub-20 Celsius temperatures, ice and heavy snow to aid Norway, which in the fictitious war game faces a limited incursion from the north. The 11-day drills are training forces to survive and operate in remote Arctic areas.

With Finland and Sweden seeking to join the alliance, that will see seven out of eight Arctic nations in Nato. That means greater collective air, naval and artillery power as well as territory with railway networks to transport troops and equipment in the event of a conflict.

That united front may also serve to fan the narrative from the Kremlin that Nato is seeking to encircle it, and prompt Russia to bolster its own military presence there—if its war drain in Ukraine allows it, that is.

“If Russia wants to be a great power, if Russia wants to have a credible nuclear deterrent, if Russia wants to be in control of the immediate security environment in Northern Europe and also in the Arctic, it needs to have a very strong security and military position in the Arctic,” said Andreas Østhagen, a senior researcher at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway. “That’s not going to go away—it’s probably just going to increase once Sweden and Finland join Nato.”

An area of particular interest is the so-called Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, through which Russian vessels need to pass to access the Atlantic Ocean. Once there, Putin’s forces could potentially disrupt commercial shipping or cut off military supply lines for the US to send

greater cooperation with Russia in the Arctic. The US alleges a Chinese spy balloon recently entered its airspace over Alaska before eventually being shot down by American forces over South Carolina.

Economic imperatives may yet deter Russia from pursuing conflict in the Arctic, Pincus said.

Still, greater proximity of military forces is inherently dangerous. Nato has boosted its own presence in the region, including through military exercises and a command opened in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2021 that’s tasked with monitoring the Atlantic and High North, which includes areas both inside and outside of the Arctic circle.

WHEN 600 Dutch marines sawed holes in a frozen Norway fjord last month as part of their Arctic training exercises, and then took turns deliberately skiing into them, everything seemed to be going according to plan.

But when it came time to claw themselves back onto the ice, in their sodden winter gear, they encountered an unexpected problem. It was too warm.

“Normally the technique is that when you come out, you roll yourself dry in dry snow, but now it was 8 degrees [C, or 46F], so the top layer was completely wet,” said Commodore Jeanette Morang of the Royal Netherlands Navy. “Their clothing froze up.”

Challenges preparing for conflict in a part of the world where temperatures can fall to -60C (-76F) are nothing new. Lack of skis—or the skill to use them—hindered allied efforts to help Norway push back German forces in 1940. The same year, Finland’s Arctic expertise, including the use of skis and reindeer, helped it inflict disproportionate casualties on Russian troops during The Winter War.

reinforcements to Europe. Sabotaging underwater Transatlantic data cables could inflict widespread damage.

Putin appears to want to keep Russia visible in the Arctic even as his resources, particularly ground troops, are pulled into shoring up the campaign in Ukraine. Over the years he has reopened old Soviet-era military bases and built new ones. Around two-thirds of Russia’s nuclear-powered vessels, including ballistic missile submarines and nuclear attack submarines, are assigned to its Northern Fleet, based in the region’s Kola Peninsula.

The shortest route to North America from Russia is still over the top of the planet and Moscow’s new hypersonic missiles will require near-instantaneous reaction time from North American defenses, which are being modernized, military experts say.

Last year the Russian president unveiled a new maritime strategy, vowing to protect Arctic waters “by all means,” including with hypersonic Zircon missile systems. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced plans to give Russia’s Arctic troops about 500 modern weapon systems and secure complete radar coverage of Arctic air space, although it is unclear if those goals were met in 2022. The Russian defense ministry reported regular drills in the Arctic last year, featuring one in September where troops trained on “defending Russian territories.”

In addition to safeguarding its strategic assets, Russia’s focus in the Arctic is like other nations on preserving its economic interests, according to Rebecca Pincus, Director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center. Moscow wants to protect its northern trade routes and gain access to new fossil fuels and rare earth metal deposits as the ice melts due to climate change.

“Part of it was establishing the ability to protect, monitor, and control all this new traffic that they’re bringing in and all these resources that they want to develop,” Pincus said. “So the Russian impulse to build up military capabilities in the Russian Arctic makes sense.”

The Arctic is warming four times as fast as the rest of the world. Longer periods without ice mean increased marine traffic and potentially easier access to natural resources. About 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas may lie inside the Arctic Circle, according to the United States Geological Survey, along with metals and minerals needed for electrification.

Last summer, both major shipping routes through the Arctic—Russia’s Northern Sea Route and Canada’s Northwest Passage—were essentially ice free all season. Climate scientists now predict the North Pole could be entirely ice-free by mid-century, opening a third Trans Arctic shipping route through international waters. This is seen as key to China’s Arctic strategy, which includes a Polar Silk Road connecting East Asia, Western Europe and North America. China, which has touted its “no-limits” partnership with Russia, declared itself in 2018 a “near-Arctic state.” In addition to fishing, energy and transportation interests, China operates research stations in Norway and Iceland, and has pledged

In an op-ed in the Globe and Mail, which coincided with a visit to Canada last August, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned of China’s Arctic ambitions, and of Russia’s rising military activity in the region. “Russia’s ability to disrupt Allied reinforcements across the North Atlantic is a strategic challenge to the Alliance,” he said.

Russia’s highly advanced submarines pose one of the biggest challenges for the alliance in the Arctic, in particular because they are so hard to detect, maritime experts say. The Russian Navy commands an estimated 58 vessels, 11 of which are strategic nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative. That compares with the US’s estimated 64 submarines, 14 of them ballistic missile submarines.

Underwater capability is an area where Russia can “present a sort of asymmetric threat against a more powerful Western alliance,” said the Norwegian Navy’s Andersen.

“The threat of an unlocated Russian submarine transiting from the North through the GIUK gap is a chief concern for Nato allies and something that warrants close coordination and cooperation across the alliance,” said Walter Berbrick, an associate professor at the US Naval War College’s war gaming department and director of the Arctic Studies group.

Nato has responded by increasing underwater surveillance of the North Atlantic, with underwater sonar and maritime patrols by air. It’s an area where Finland and Sweden will be able to aid allies by monitoring and sharing intelligence—and providing vital air power.

Scandinavia will have about 250 fighter jets, including 150 F-35s, with Finland and Sweden in the Nato tent, said Norwegian Colonel Eirik Guldvog, Commanding Officer of the 133 Air Wing at Elvenes Military Airbase, north of the Arctic Circle in Norway. That compares with around 900 fighter jets for Russia’s air force, according to the World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft.

That’s on top of the P-8A Poseidon aircraft—including two from the US— at the base that are used for maritime patrols, such as dropping sonar to look for submarines.

“This will be almost one air force, dealing with Scandinavia,” he said. “It will be quite a substantial air force.”

The importance of that was underscored last week. Even as the Nato drills went on, officials in Germany scrambled two F-35s at Elvenes after radar detected unidentified objects to the north. Within an hour, the jets were back, having got a close look at two Russian IL-38 jets traveling through international airspace.

It happens about once a week, Guldvog said, and the aircraft are invariably Russian as its air force looks to soak up information in the Arctic about other countries.

Guldvog’s station has the most intercepts each year, “because Russia, to get to the Atlantic, they have to travel north of Norway and along our coast,” he said.

“We see a lot of flying, of course, northwards towards Canada and the US over the North Pole.” With assistance from Jeremy Diamond and Stephen Treloar/Bloomberg

quickly. Perspiration needs to be managed; moisture increases the risk of hypothermia and trench foot. Temporary Arctic shelters need to be equipped to dry clothing.

“ If you get cold and you get wet, you get even colder,” Sandum said. “And it does something with both the morale, the physical ability of the unit and the psychological ability of the unit to conduct operations. So I fully understand when soldiers say the worst conditions are around zero [C, or 32F].”

W hen snow gets inside equipment, melts and then refreezes, it can malfunction. Temperatures hovering around freezing are more likely to require chemicals on runways to reduce ice, which can damage the engines of fighter jets unless they’re immediately cleaned.

Assault rifles can jam, said Emma Melby, a soldier who took part in this month’s Joint Viking exercises in Norway. “Sometimes we have to open it, and just clean it,” she said of her HK416 weapon. “Sometimes we have to warm it.”

But what’s always been tough is getting tougher as climate change causes more extreme weather and temperature fluctuations in an environment that has always pushed soldiers to their limits. Collapsing permafrost, unpredictable ice on frozen lakes and seas—even rain—are creating new challenges throughout the Arctic. At the same time, geopolitical tensions are heightening its military importance as global warming opens the region to new economic opportunities, including lucrative trade routes and untapped natural resources.

Nato’s Centre of Excellence-Cold Weather Operations has seen a surge in demand for Arctic warfare competencies as Nato members have begun focusing more on the north, said Lieutenant Colonel Simen Sandum, deputy director of the organization.

“I think tha t’s a result of the geopolitical change with Russia and their war in Ukraine, climate change, and the possibilities that opens in the Arctic,” he said. “We now have a huge shift where we have to take into consideration our own protection in North America, and the Northern Atlantic, Northern Europe, where suddenly China and Russia have shifted to be a lot more interested in our areas.”

Norway has long been Nato’s top choice for northern training because of its naturally wide range of conditions: coastal, mountain and inland weather systems as well as Arctic, sub-Arctic and temperate cold. But as Arctic warming accelerates, Sandum says the country, along with much of Scandinavia, is seeing even greater temperature swings, variations in snow conditions and differences between regions.

At -60C, skin freezes in under a minute but overheating can also be a problem, especially if temperatures change

C ommunicating about the effects of climate change becomes much more important in this environment, said Walter Berbrick, an associate professor in the War Gaming Department and director of the Arctic Studies Group at the US Naval War College. That includes sharing granular, operational-level information between allied forces.

Air craft perform differently depending on air temperatures and pressure, meaning some Arctic runways may need to be extended for warmer, moister air, he said. Weapon systems and that ammunition will need to be adapted to those extreme temperature conditions and rapid changes in temperatures.”

Mia Leoh, another Norwegian soldier, experienced such a change during the recent Joint Viking exercises when the temperature fell from 5C (41F) to -28C (-18F) in a week. Mobilit y becomes trickier. More gear needs to be carried and even food requirements change since colder temperatures require higher-calorie rations. Wet snow is heavier and being wet shortens the amount of time you can stay outside.

“We always check our fingers and feet for frozen damage,” she said. “When we’re running, it’s really hard—we get tired really fast. We’re training in harder conditions to be better in conditions that are more easy.” Arctic nations with permafrost, like the US and Canada, are experiencing engineering challenges. A report from the Inspector General of the US Department of Defense last April examined the military readiness of US bases in the Arctic and subArctic and concluded leaders were not doing enough to adapt to climate-related changes. Collapsing permafrost and more frequent freezing and thawing of sub-surface water can damage runways, the report said, while erosion from flooding threatens roads and fuel deliveries. More violent storms can knock out radar installations. Bloomberg News

ASUBMARINE snakes through a fjord in Norway alongside a British amphibious transport ship, as F-35 fighter jets roar overhead. Nato forces are gathered for a joint drill to repel a simulated invasion, albeit one where the enemy seems anything but theoretical.

Editor: Tet Andolong

Beach and the city

almost a stone’s throw away from the airport. With its elegant furnishings, ornate interiors and superb customer service, it has become a place to be seen and can outdo the typical hotel dining outlet and.

Its al fresco dining is a mesmerizing spot at dusk with the kaleidoscopic sunset, passing ships and cruising yachts which serve as visual spectacles at night. For good measure, you can play “Harbor Lights” of The Platters in your head while sipping spirits and watching the boats go by.

A destination that is always topof-mind for wanderlusts is Cebu because of its eclectic blend of Old World charm and cosmopolitan living, and the beach and the city, just minutes away from each other. It is also accessible by sea or air from nearly all points in the country, as well as key international cities.

Mactan, a huge chunk of which is composed of Lapu-Lapu City which is named after the legendary precolonial chieftain, is the beach hideaway just across the mainland. A new kid on the block is the six-month-old Sheraton Cebu Mactan Resort located near the tip of the island’s peninsula, and the latest addition to the evergrowing roster of prestigious brands in the area.

The 5-star hotel endured the pandemic, the destructive typhoon Odette in December 2021 and various logistical challenges, and finally opened in September last year after a long wait. The 10-story edifice boasts of 261 well-appointed rooms and suites many of which overlook

the private white sand beach and Olango Island in the horizon. It also has four multi-layered swimming pools for adults and children, 5 function rooms, a spa and fitness center under the Sheraton brand, and an aquasports center, among others.

In the short period it has been in service, the luxe resort has become a go-to place for dining and chill-out with its four food and beverage outlets which reflect the local soul and international flavors. Its flagship is the all-day dining 5 Cien, which has a merry mix of international gourmet selections and home-grown Pinoy favorites such as taho, danggit, puto maya, and sikwate chocolate drink.

The dining spot, which marries global and indigenous motifs and cuisines, draws its inspiration in the 500 years of Christianity in the archipelago which took root in Cebu in 1521 when the natives were baptized into the Roman Catholic faith.

A more intimate but equally-chic restaurant is Dip, which serves Nikkei cuisine, a rare mixture of culinary

traditions across the Pacific countries of Japan and Peru. Just among the few of its kind in the country, it has a panoramic view of the beach and the Hilutungan Channel.

At dusk, you can imbibe the contemporary seaside vibe at the Buhi

A TALE OF TWO HOTELS WITH TWO THEMES

By Benjamin Locsin Layug

For the first time this year, I’m back to Cebu, one of my favorite Philippine destinations, flying there via Cebu

Pacific Air (currently flies 13 times daily from Manila to Cebu), with other members of media to cover the opening of the exquisite, four-star o n e Tectona Hotel, the first premium hotel in the fast growing town of Liloan (now on the verge of becoming a city) in northern Metro Cebu. A development of Liloan-based Duros Land Properties Inc. (DLPI, now on its 11th year) of successful entrepreneurial Cebuano couple r a faelito “Lito” A. Barino and (Founder and Chairman of the Board) and Fe Mantuhac-Barino (President), this 14-story hotel (the tallest building in northern Metro Cebu) was named after the endemic teak tree ( Tectona philippinensis) that locals call yati.

We stayed at some of its 102 luxuriously furnished, elegantly designed, Zeninspired air-conditioned rooms (87 De Luxe r o oms and 14 o n e-Bedroom Suites), all with private ensuite bathrooms, private balcony, area carpet, blackout curtains, work desk, coffee and tea making facility plus all the modern conveniences such as 43” UHD flat screen Smart cable TV, electronic door lock, hair dryer, mini fridge and complimentary Wi-fi. Highlighted with masterfully crafted wooden panels and accents, all rooms are furnished with modern yet contemporary furniture.

As 60 percent of its market is for golf tourism (it is popular among Japanese and Koreans), this hotel has a golf theme as seen from the paintings of golfers hung in the

suites and the rest of the hotel and the tableau of the golf course once you get out of the elevator on the ground floor, all done by Cebu-based artist Henry Montebon. Even the coffee cups in the restaurant are golf ball-inspired. They offer golf packages to the exceptional, international 18-hole, par 72, 65-hectare golf course in Brgy. San r o que (a 5-km. drive) in Liloan Golf and Leisure Estates which is surrounded by Duros’ residential development Woodlands r e sort Communities and other future developments. The golf course focuses on bringing tourism to the fresh, mountainous areas of Liloan.

After a filling late breakfast and lunch at the hotel’s 120-pax Teak Modern Cuisine r e staurant and prior to the grand opening in the evening, some of us tried out the golf driving range at the nearby Woodlands Golf Academy, the first golf school in Cebu. The able instructors there offer different lessons to newbies (such as me) as well as those upgrading their skills in the sport.

Come late afternoon, after a mass officiated by Auxiliary Bishop Midyphil B. Billones, the official ribbon cutting was done. Dinner was again served at Modern Teak Cuisine. After speeches by Bishop Billones, Adie Gallares (Managing Director), Lito and Fe Barino, Liloan Mayor Aljew J. Frasco and Mae Elaine T. Bathan (D o T-Central Visayas Undersecretary), entertainment was provided, during dinner, by the Liloan Performance Arts (Lipa).

Come morning, some members of our group woke up very early to play a round of golf. After breakfast, we all checked out of the hotel and boarded the hotel coaster for

the drive back to Cebu City. Along the way, we first made a stopover at the 170-hectare Cebu Safari and Adventure Park (considered as the biggest zoological park in the country), housing more than a thousand animals from 120 different species. We also made a stopover, for pasalubong shopping, at the iconic Titay’s Liloan. Began in the early 1900s by passionate young baker Margarita “Titay” Frasco, they were known for their tasty baked biscuits called rosquillos.

Upon arrival at Cebu City, we checked in at the second themed hotel (and third hotel property, the other being the 26-story The Padgett Place) of Duros Hotels Inc.–Quincentennial Hotel Cebu. Cebu’s first ever hotel with a faith theme, this hotel, right next to Landers Superstore, was opened on June 20, 2022. Commemorating 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines (15212021), its hotel lobby features paintings of circumnavigation maps and a tableau, again done by Henry Montebon, of the First Baptism, into the Catholic faith, of r a jah Humabon, his wife Juana, and their followers; and other Quincentennial highlights.

Here, we attended the opening of its fine dining restaurant— r e staurante Trinidad. We tried out a delectable array of Spanish and Filipino dishes that included appetizers such as Tortilla de Patata, Calamares, Gambas al Ajillo, Croqueta Jamon and Croqueta Chorizo; main dishes such as Chicken Adobo Paella, Paella Negra, Jamon Serrano and Parmesan Cheese, r a bo al Vino Tinto, Lechon Kawali and Puchero Filipino and desserts such as Churros con Chocolate, Burnt Basque Cheesecake and Maja Crepe. A fter our interview with Mr. Lito and Ms.

Cave Bar which has a plethora of Mediterranean specialties and favorite spirits. Literally meaning “alive,” the bar was reengineered from the rock formations of the cliffs to create a cozy and cavernous feel and an alive binging for after-work unwinding.

There’s also Sitio, a grab and go nook at the lobby lounge for quick bites for those always on the move.

Built by local developer AppleOne Properties Inc., Sheraton Mactan is the country’s first Marriott International Resort, and has already bagged the Best Luxury Resort Development and Best Hotel Interior Design accolades in last year’s 10th PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards.

Members of the elite Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program can easily avail of perks and a host of exciting offers. It also has an adjunct Sheraton-branded two-tower Residences condominium which will further add glamor to the swanky property.

Step out of the beach, explore Lapu-Lapu City and swing by Marina Seaview, a fine dining lounge which specializes in seafood, situated beside the Cebu Yacht Club and

Foray into the megacity’s nocturnal colony which was once a sleepy urban fringe—88th Avenue, a cluster of mid-market restobars along Banilad Road.

A must-try is The Weekend which is sought after for its 50-day dryaged Porterhouse, T-bone and wagyu steaks, USDA prime-grade ribeye, mackerel, pork belly confit, 30-Day Dry-Aged Pork Chop, seafood, pastas, chophouse burgers, an assortment of European dishes, and a curated list of wines, spirits and craft beer.

A masterpiece of millennial entrepreneurs Ray Patrick Manigsaca and Chef Jan Rodriguez, the watering hole’s quaint interiors seem to transport you to Gordon Ramsay’s famed Dubai restaurant. With The Weekend’s wide array of offerings and the nightlife that goes with it, every weekday can get the feel of a pulsating weekend.

With the beach and the city, and everything in between, within reach, Cebu is undoubtedly the South’s queenly city for travelers.

Fe Barino at the galleon-inspired Cafe de F e (with its portraits of Ferdinand Magellan and other explorers), we checked in at some of the hotel’s 42 air-conditioned, nonsmoking rooms. They also have elements of the Quincentennial celebration including a Jubilee Cross, photographs of the different events and jubilee celebrations (all taken by Fr. Bonnin o l ivar), hand-painted excerpts of a poem written by renowned Cebuano poet, Simeon P. Dumdum Jr. and a

Cebuano edition of the Holy Bible (Bag-ong Kasabotan, San Pedro Calungsod Edisyon Bible) which is a product of research by r o man Catholic Bible scholars for 25 years.

All rooms (De Luxe Twin r o om, De Luxe r o om, De Luxe Queen Corner) are furnished with 43” UHD flat screen Smart TV (with Netflix), NDD/IDD phone, electronic door locks, in-room safe deposit box, hair dryer, electric kettle, and minibar. Its ensuite bathroom has a vanity basin and mirror,

bidet and free toiletries. The hallways are adorned with rows of photographs featuring, among others, Cebu’s oldest churches and the various charitable work conducted by the Catholic Church in Cebu and the Duros hotel group. The hotel also has a 24-hour Front Desk and a conference hall (El Baptisterio) and free WiFi is available throughout the property. For more information, contact (0917) 301-3821 or info@durosland.com.

Story & photos by Bernard L. Supetran

The travel season is upon us now and it’s time to hie off to the countryside to splurge in classy resorts and bask in the sun, sand and fun which we were unable to do a few summers ago.

n Cebu Mactan’s multi-level pool

in Cebu City

n Cebu Mactan

Bu HI Cave Bar of Sheraton Cebu Mactan

E Tectona Hotel seen from the clubhouse infinity pool

Making basic research visible in regions

‘WHEN I was interviewed by the executive director search committee in September 2015, they asked me about my plans. I only had one—make NRCP [National Research Council of the Philippines] visible in all regions, and make an army of scientists and artists in all the provinces of the country. I had my ‘hugot’ because I came from the province [Leyte] and NRCP was not known, as in, never heard, by most in the academe.”

Dr. Marieta Baňez Sumagaysay, immediate former executive director of the NRCP and current Professor 12 of Economics at University of the Philippines (UP) Visayas Tacloban College, made the statement when she was asked how NRCP was able to leap significantly in terms of membership, research and development (R&D) outputs and visibility under her leadership.

NRCP is a collegial and basic research advisory body attached to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST),

An army of researchers

THROUGH increased funding for basic R&D all over the country, by way of storytelling, digitization and digitalization the presence of basic researches were felt in all regions under her helm at the NRCP.

In 2017, Sumagaysay’s idea of National Science and Technology Experts Pool (NStep) and Basic Research Information Translation for Empowerment in the Regions (Briter) program were well received by the NRCP Secretariat.

NStep and Briter projects are under the program, “Support for the promotion of a science culture in the regions for global competitiveness,” which got a three-year DOST-Grants-in-Aid (GIA) funding in 2020.

Being the council’s head, Sumagaysay wanted all her units to have their budgets to be able to meet their targets.

“They cannot give what they don’t have. So provide a good budget, and expect impactful outputs,” she pointed out.

The small budget from the General Appropriations Act that they received was inadequate to support the council’s projects.

NStep, which was instrumental in the realization of her goal—to build an army of researchers, scientists and artists in all parts of the country—has five components: membership promotion; experts’ engagement; small R&D grants for starters and budding researchers; professional development; and awards.

The project was able to distribute R&D spending equitably, particularly to those who have less or no access to funding.

It made R&D more inclusive, because while national priorities are important, regional priorities may be unique and must likewise be addressed through research. The project succeeded in improving the scientific productivity in the regions.

Briter, on the other hand, has three components: basic research for informed policymaking; enhancing science culture for all; and research dissemination in local and international platforms.

It translated scientific research results into various formats dove-tailed to various audiences.

It is intended to influence policy and decision making by using science and evidence, and encourage the young generation to appreciate science through their exposure to knowledge products that are laymanized, popular and relatable to their lived experiences.

The project also advocates for the fusion of science and the arts through research-based knowledge products.

Both NStep and Briter, plus the R&D Leadership Program under the DOST’s Science for Change Program, redefined NRCP, engaged its members both as mentors and influencers, and heightened the importance of basic research in the country.

Using technology to achieve goals

NRCP’s digitization and digitalization were started in 2018. By 2022 they had various sub-systems under the Scientific Knowledge Management System.

Among their “firsts” were online applications in the following areas: nomination and election of NRCP Division Chairs and Regular members in 2019; application for membership; submission and review of manuscripts for the NRCP Research Journal; generation of membership data/profile; application for thesis/ manuscript grants; requests for NRCP members’ engagement; and submission of research proposals.

The digitization of library materials, which were uploaded in the council’s Library Management System, and a dedicated portal, enabled the executive committee to readily generate data were also achieved.

Despite these technological developments in the council’s products and processes, Sumagaysay admitted that more still need to be done.

Its unfinished businesses that are currently in progress are the online recruitment and hiring process, and submission and evaluation of Support to Research Dissemination in Local and International Platforms applications; processes for the accounting, budget and supply; and one for Governing Board Resolutions and important documents.

Fusion of arts and science

THE NRCP leader knew from the start that DOST’s mandate and practice are in favor of the natural/ physical sciences.

“That is a given. Being an economist, I always work on givens and constraints, and find ways to maximize the results of whatever is the available resource. The efforts were not all mine. It took the secretariat’s efforts, too, and later on, the support from the higher NRCP and DOST management for the science and arts fusion to happen,” she explained.

She admitted that it was hard at first to put forward the science-arts fusion perspective. This was similar with her gender and development (GAD) in science advocacy, where she would hear remarks said in Filipino like “social science is not science” or “arts will not get funding.”

When GAD became a big DOST program, she saw it as an opportunity to synthesize social science, arts and natural/physical sciences.

Her experience during the Super Typhoon Yolanda that wrecked havoc in Tacloban in Leyte in November 2013, this Leyte native strengthened her resolve to contribute to integrating technology, social science and the arts.

“Cultural nuances matter a lot for the success in the implementation of projects,” she pointed out. While doing research, Sumagaysay felt uncomfortable seeing farmers and fishermen not using the equipment provided by government because it did not fit their needs. They were never consulted. Is it like a “one technology fits all?”

The economic sectors’ productivity is not improving because of the mismatch of needs and technologies. More so, the technologies are not coupled with other enabling mechanisms, like access to markets and access to financing, or are not coupled with studies on the new technologies’ acceptability and people’s willingness to pay for shared facilities.

The social sciences (governance, politics, economics, sociology, psychology) and the arts should provided a platform for delivering messages suited to the communities’ needs. They were among the solutions that enabled her to bridge the gap of mismatched needs.

Storytelling in science

BACK when she was the director of the Leyte-Samar Heritage Center of UP Tacloban, Sumagaysay gathered young faculty members and published a book, “Hira Manding Karya,” a collection of local legends and tales of Eastern Visayas that were gathered from the source in the mother tongue.

They used the book in story-telling sessions with selected public elementary-school pupils. The storyteller (i.e., Manding Karya, á la the popular Lola Basyang) wears a costume. Story tellers, from both the faculty and students, were trained.

“When I entered NRCP, knew that I wanted to do the same. But this time the material would be about the journey/lived experience of scientists and artists, particularly the NRCP Achievement Awardees. It was part of Briter, being another platform to inspire the young to become achievers as scientists and artists. iShare became [the council's] brand of digital storytelling," the director narrated. Storytelling in government communication may have been happening in more economically progressive countries, but not quite in the Philippines.

She noted that NRCP’s use of storytelling in sharing basic R&D results and researchers’ career journey is making S&T more relatable.

After NRCP, advocacy continues

AFTER her stint at NRCP, Sumagaysay joined UP Tacloban, although currently on sabbatical. She’s busy in her GAD advocacies, such as organizing a webinar on “Women and girls in science for the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals].”

She now serves as chairman of the Asian Fisheries Social Science Research Network (until 2024). She leads in national and international conferences to mainstream social sciences and gender in fisheries technologies, curriculum and scientific research.

Her advise to young Filipinos who want to become a scientist and a leader in the future: “Have a pen and paper even at your bedside table, or better still, have your mobile phone always ready. Write immediately the ideas [crazy as they may be] that excite you, each time they pop up in your mind. Get back to it when you wake up. Enjoy the ride. Have time to dance and sing. Always ask: what’s new?”

Bulaon-Ducusin/S&T Media Service

Geraldine

Skincare, beauty products developed from ‘kadios’

MOVE over, foreign brands.

Scientists from Iloilo City’s University of San Agustin and a local pharmaceutical company are collaborating to create high-quality, safe, effective and affordable dermatological innovations.

The University of San Agustin (USA), in partnership with Maridan Industries, is posed to deliver locally sourced and developed beauty and health innovations ranging from pharmaceutical drugs to herbal, beauty and skin products, said a news release from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). Beauty and skincare industry is a multi-billion industry. The revenue of the facial skincare market in the Philippines increased from $0.86 billion in 2020 to 1$.02 billion 2023. Skincare and beauty products are being popularized and trending on social media.

“By improving scientific infrastructure, like the three laboratories at the University of San Agustin, we introduce new avenues for innovation and product development for the benefit of local industries,” said Science Undersecretary for Research and Development (R&D) Leah J. Buendia.

“The DOST fully encourages tripartite partnerships with government, the industry and the academe. This is a way to nurture an environment of innovation and unlock profitable opportunities for our local businesses,” Buendia said.

The local pharmaceutical company, Maridan, is making headway in the development of Skivios (Skin Invigorating from Kadios). Kadios, or pigeon pea is an agricultural product that is popular in Iloilo and in parts of the Philippines.

DOST-Balik Scientist Dr. Jonel

Saludes, the associate vice president for Research and Global Relations at USA, said the university has studies that mimic certain conditions of human skin.

Through R&D in the university, led by DOST-Balik Scientist Dr. Doralyn Dalisay, Maridan developed a skin invigorating solution through Skivios that will address skin problems and infections to include acne, the DOST said. Studies show that it is efficiently being absorbed by the skin and breaks resistance from skin pathogens, such as Staphylococcus aureus, thus, making it very effective.

Maridan has also developed two Skivios products, such as facial toner and facial serum. The former can be used by consumers for their everyday skin-care and make-up routine. The latter is highly suggested to be applied before going to bed, the

DOST added.

The products are set to be launched commercially this July 2023.

Saludes shared: “DOST believes Filipino researchers and scientists can strengthen the country’s capacity and ability for drug discovery and development and ultimately improve the health and well-being of Filipinos.”

Meanwhile, Dalisay said: “This is a natural antibiotic from kadios–a product of researchers from Iloilo, from Philippine natural resources for Filipinos.”

Saludes and Dalisay also partnered with GalenX with other funding institutions like United States Agency for International Development Philippines initiative in Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for Development Program.

Recently, the company launched Honelle Wound Gel that was made

from medical grade Marajon Honey that can fight any form of infection on wounds.

“Our ability to innovate increases when industry and academia work together more often. The academic community serves as a source of knowledge, and the business world is a good place to look for emerging market prospects. The combination of these two would result in welldirected, market-relevant research and products that would enhance Filipinos’ quality of life,” said Jan Vincent Sollesta, vice president of Maridan.

University of San Agutin is also the only biobank in the country with more than 3,000 samples of good bacteria collected by both Balik Scientists and researchers. These have all been harvested from different parts of the Philippines with the goal of developing locally sourced and developed antibiotics, the DOST said.

SciCommPh launched to bring science to people

‘IBELIEVE the launch of SciCommPH [Science Communicators Philippines Inc.] is an exciting first step and a significant milestone in efforts to promote science and innovation for national development.”

D r. Glenn B. Gregorio, director of Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca), made the statement in his keynote address during the launching of SciCommPh on March 10 at the BPI Foundation headquarters in Makati.

S ciCommPH is a duly registered nonstock, nonprofit organization composed of scientists, science journalists and broadcasters, and science communicators.

I t aims to promote science and technology as a game changer in social and economic development by highlighting their relevance and practical use in the lives of Filipinos.

I am confident that SciCommPH is a formidable network that can accomplish its lofty goals. With support from allies like DICT [Department of Information and Communications Technology], UPLB [University of the Philippines Los Baños], BPI Foundation, Searca and many others, and by pooling our collective knowledge and expertise, we can develop innovative communication strategies that engage and inspire the public, and spur progress across sectors,” Gregorio added.

D ICT Undersecretary Jocelle Batapa-Sigue administered the oath of SciCommPh officials. They are: Chairman Angelo B. Palmones, DZRH producer and former Agham Partylist representative; President Atty. Melvin G. Calimag, Newsbytes.PH

editor in chief; VP for Internal Affairs Dr. Rogel Mari D. Sese, Ateneo de Davao University Department of Aerospace Engineering chairman; VP for External Affairs Timothy James

M. Dimacali, UP Diliman College of Science Communication Group head; Secretary Lyn B. Resurreccion, Business Mirror senior editor; Treasurer Dr. Ruby R. Cristobal, DZRH-MBC Radyo Henyo executive producer and program anchor; Auditor Dr. Jomar Rabajante, UPLB Graduate School dean and scientist; Board Member Dr. Mario V. Capanzana, chemical engineer, researcher, and food and nutrition expert; and Executive Director Rissa Silvestre, Philippine Press Institute documenter Batapa-Sigue pointed out in her message the importance of popularizing science and technology to promote gender empowerment and inclusivity.

S he said there is a great need to encourage more Filipino women to pursue a career in science, noting that “only 23 percent of Filipinas are

enrolled in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] around the country.

I n Mindanao, only 5 percent of the women students are studying STEM, she added.  B atapa-Sigue noted that effective communication and branding is needed to break the stereotype that women are not suited to study STEM.

We also need to connect with the youth so we can discuss with them the importance of science in their future,” she said.

S ciCommPh President Atty.

Melvin Calimag of Newsbytes.Ph saidthe group wanted to bridge the gap between science and the public, because science is usually not highlighted in news reports.

Through this, we will attempt to give space to science and have more meaningful engagement,” the Philippine Information Agency-National Capital Region (PIA-NCR) said.

B PI Foundation Executive Director Owen Camayo said the or -

ganization supports the propagation of science culture to Filipinos because science and technology is a major growth driver for the country. The event was hosted by the BPI Foundation.

C ammayo said the Bank of the Philippine Islands and BPI Foundation has always supported the Department of Science and Technology and the government through innovative strategies that help solve prevalent societal issues, and promote innovation, science and technology.

A mong them, he said, is the BPIDOST Innovation Awards program, which for years has been providing an opportunity for college students of basic and applied sciences to work on projects that aim to solve prevailing challenges that we currently face, and promoting the creativity, innovativeness, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills of participants, the PIA-NCR said. Rizal Raoul Reyes

The founding officials of SciCommPh are joined by keynote speaker Searca Director Dr. Glenn B. Gregorio, oath of office administrator DICT Undersecretary Jocelle Batapa-Sigue and BPI Foundation Executive Director Owen Cammayo (fourth, fifth and sixth from left). The SciCommPh officials are (from left) President Atty. Melvin G. Calimag, VP for External Affairs Timothy James M. Dimacali, Secretary Lyn B. Resurreccion, Treasurer Dr. Ruby R. Cristobal, Auditor Dr. Jomar Rabajante, Board Member Dr. Mario V. Capanzana and Executive Director Rissa Silvestre. Not in photo are Chairman Angelo B. Palmones and VP for Internal Affairs Dr. Rogel Mari D. Sese. PIA-NCR PHOTO

THROUGH THE INNOVATION OF ILOILO CITY DOST-BALIK SCIENTISTS AND A LOCAL PHARMACEUTICAL FIRM

DR. JONEL SALUDES, a DOST-Balik Scientist at University of San Agustin, shows a sample of their research product, Skivios skincare. DOST PHOTO

SKINCARE and beauty products produced from ‘kadios’ by DOST-Balik Scientists at University of San Agustin. DOST PHOTO

POPE FRANCIS MARKS 10TH YEAR

‘Isee the church as field hospital after battle’

SINCE Jorge Mario Bergoglio

first stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as Pope Francis on March 13, 2013, he has made no shortage of statements that attract attention.

“Who am I to judge?” he famously said about gay priests. “Nowadays there is an economy that kills,” he once declared—a comment that led critics to rather implausibly label the pontiff a Marxist.

As the Argentinian pope approaches the 10th year of his papacy, his positions on issues deemed “political” still make their way into headlines. But as is the nature of headlines, the framework from which his positions emerge isn’t always apparent.

As a researcher of Catholicism, I’d like to shed some light on a common pattern in Pope Francis’s writings. It’s a pattern that I believe is rooted in the pope’s spirituality as a Jesuit—a member of the Society of Jesus—a Catholic religious order founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in the 16th century.

Saint’s legacy

THE “Spiritual Exercises,” written by St. Ignatius, is a guide to spiritual development that Jesuits and others have used for centuries. It encourages participants to pay careful attention to the inner movements of the spirit or soul that shape their decisions

and actions. The goal of the step-by-step exercises is to recognize oneself as a sinner, but—crucially—a sinner loved by God.

A “spiritual director” helps the participant first to recognize brokenness in their life, then to perceive God’s love by contemplating the life of Jesus. Ultimately, the exercises lead people to deepen their relationship with Christ, so that they may discern how best to make decisions.

Like a spiritual director, Francis’s first step is often to acknowledge a “presenting problem,” as a doctor might say: the symptom or apparent issue that is bothering someone.

He then eliminates superficial solutions that don’t address the underlying “disease,” before calling for a more fundamental change.

In 2018, for example, US bishops were set to vote on two proposals related to clerical sex abuse: a code of conduct for clerics and new review boards to evaluate bishops’ conduct. Commentators from all quarters howled when Francis halted the vote.

Instead, he insisted that the bishops go on a religious retreat. The Church’s credibility had been “undercut and diminished,” he warned.

Francis called on them to relearn how to relate to one another, and to lay Catholics, by

spending time in prayer with the gospels, so that they would focus less on “pointing fingers” and more on “seeking paths of reconciliation.”

Without that more fundamental change, Francis wrote, codes and boards could merely be about meeting corporate-style “standards of functionalism and efficiency,” and the call to fundamentally mend relationships would go unheeded.

Policies might indeed be necessary, but not before the bishops reminded themselves of their fundamental task to follow Jesus in building relationships with one

another and laity.

Several months afterward, the group adopted new rules for oversight of bishops. Critics argued the reforms did not go far enough, however, particularly in terms of involving lay people or law enforcement.

Going to the root

YET the 2018 episode underscores a broader theme of Francis’s papacy: When accompanying a person, the church or even the whole world on a spiritual journey, pointing out problems and tinkering with surface-level solutions is never going to be good enough.

Gift the pope wants: Peace

ROME—Pope Francis marked his 10th anniversary as pope on March 13 with a private Mass with cardinals and an appearance on what Vatican News has dubbed a “popecast.”

The nine-minute podcast, released only in Italian, was published on the Vatican News web site and on Spotify.

What’s needed, he insists, is a cure for a deeper malaise.

As he said early in his papacy, describing the mission of the church today, “I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds.”

In Francis’s eyes, both the church and society are wounded, and the church does not stand apart from the world’s problems— in fact, it must not, because it is Christ’s ongoing presence on earth. But both must acknowledge their deeper sources of brokenness in order to find true solutions.

This ethos is apparent in Francis’s approach to one of the most pressing problems today: climate change.

In 2015, he issued the first papal document dedicated exclusively to ecological degradation. It begins, said a key adviser to Francis, with “a spiritual listening to the results of the best scientific research on environmental matters available today,” which demonstrates that our environmental situation is bad and getting worse.

That’s the presenting problem. A superficial response is purely technological: Humans can gain ever greater control over the natural world and its changes.

The structures resulting from that vision of domination stand

at the root of environmental degradation because technology alone will always come up short, Francis argued.

To perceive the proper place of technological innovation, the world needs an “ecological conversion,” he wrote—a spiritual shift so that people perceive how “everything is connected,” from honeybees and supply lines to compost and impoverishment. This idea comes from the New Testament, he said, which narrates Jesus’ “tangible and loving relationship with the world.”

In the pope’s interpretation, because everything hangs together in Christ, the source of all creation, everything is interconnected. Indeed, the pope’s attention to interconnectedness and healing seems to guide his views on everything from homosexuality to economic inequality.

Spiritual director in chief

A FEW months into Francis’s papacy, an interviewer asked, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?”

“A sinner,” he replied, echoing Ignatius’ “Spiritual Exercises.”

After decades of practicing Jesuit spirituality, Francis has now spent 10 years as pope applying those practices to a much larger audience, reflecting on the deeper roots of brokenness in the world—and urging people toward fundamental change. Timothy Gabrielli, University of Dayton/The Conversation (CC) via AP

POLAND’S Archbishop Grzegorz Rys (left) meets the media on March 14. AP/CZAREK

SOKOLOWSKI

Polish Church defends John Paul sainthood after abuse claims

WARSAW, Poland—The leaders of Poland’s Catholic Church on defended the late John Paul II’s sainthood and fast-track canonization process in response to a Polish TV report alleging that he covered up clergy sex abuses while archbishop in Poland.

The Polish Church figures also said that a commission of experts in various fields—lawyers, doctors, psychologists and historians—will be formed soon to investigate cases of past abuse of minors by the clergy.

A report last week on TVN24, which is owned by the US company Warner Bros. Discovery, named three priests whom John Paul allegedly moved around during the 1970s after they were accused of abusing minors.

The report cited communist secret security documents but also included interviews with abuse survivors.

Speaking after a two-day meeting of the entire Episcopate, the leaders stressed that—although unusually quick—the process that led to announcing Polish-born John Paul a saint was done with utmost care and honesty and reflected the general esteem he enjoyed as pope.

John Paul is revered in the predominantly Roman Catholic country for his role in helping bring down communism and ending Moscow’s domination in Poland and the region.

The TVN report ignited a heated national debate at a time when the Polish Church has been undergoing a reckoning with its record of clergy sexual abuse.

Archbishop Grzegorz Rys said “every page”

in the Church archives during the process that began shortly after John Paul’s death in 2005 and led to his sainthood in 2014 has been examined.

Karol Wojtyla served as archbishop of Krakow from 1964 to 1978, when he became Pope John Paul II.

Rys stressed that communist-era documents alleging abuse should be read cautiously, with the knowledge of the times.

Referring to a resolution adopted by Poland’s lawmakers in defense of the late pontiff and statements made by politicians, Rys insisted that John Paul II should not be used in any political disputes or bargaining.

Poland’s bishops appealed in a communique for the memory of “one of the greatest” Poles to be respected in the face of “unprecedented attempts at discrediting the person and the legacy of St. John Paul II.”

“The canonization process leaves no doubt as to John Paul’s II sainthood,” the communique said.

John Paul II isn’t the only pope under scrutiny for dealing with predator priests. His immediate successor, Benedict XVI, who had a much stricter stance and defrocked hundreds of abusive priests, was faulted for his handling of four cases while he was Munich archbishop in his native Germany by an independent report commissioned by the diocese.

Accusations of having failed to react to cases of abuse by priests in his native Argentina and in Chile, while bishop and then pontiff, have been also addressed to Pope Francis. AP

“It seems like yesterday,” Francis said, referring to his election to the papacy on March 13, 2013.

“The time is ‘pressurous,’” he continued, making up a word in Italian. “It’s in a hurry. And when you want to seize today, it is already yesterday.”

These past 10 years were lived in this tension, he added.

Pope Francis’ schedule was free of public meetings on March 13 except for a Mass at 8 a.m. in the chapel inside his Vatican residence.

The private Mass at the Santa Marta guesthouse was concelebrated with cardinals. The Vatican did not release any other details, including information about the pope’s homily.

In the “popecast,” Pope Francis said “the most beautiful moment” of his pontificate was with elderly in St. Peter’s Square in 2014.

Some of the most painful moments, instead, were those connected to the horror of war, including visits to military cemeteries, the 2013 prayer vigil for peace in

Syria, and others.

He said he hates the fact that in wars, such as the one between Russia and Ukraine, many young men, of either side, never get to

go home.

The gift he most wants for his anniversary, he said, is “peace.” Hannah Brockhaus/Catholic News Agency via CBCP News

Antipolo Cathedral becomes international shrine on March 25

THE National Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, or Antipolo Cathedral will assume its new status as an international shrine on March 25.

The cathedral announced this past week it received the Vatican decree elevating the church to the rank of international shrine.

“It’s official. We are now elevated

into an international shrine,” it said. “The decree has been sent to us by the Holy See and will be effective by March 25, 2023.”

The declaration makes the

Antipolo Cathedral the country’s first international shrine, the third in Asia, and the 11th worldwide.

In June 2022 Bishop Francisco de Leon of Antipolo said that the Vatican approved their petition to grant the shrine that particular privilege.

“We are now in full anticipation of the solemn declaration of our international shrine in the coming months,” the cathedral added.

March 25 also coincides with the day when the image of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage departed the Mexican town of Acapulco on board a galleon 397 years ago.

During the three-month voyage, according to the shrine, the galleon was battered by storms and almost caught on fire. Despite these circumstances, it arrived safely on the Philippine shore on June 18, 1626, hence, the title Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage was attributed to the image.

POPE Francis arrives for a pilgrimage at the Lac Saint Anne, Canada, on July 26, 2022, as he crisscrossed Canada delivering long overdue apologies to the country’s Indigenous groups for the decades of abuses and cultural destruction they suffered at Catholic Church-run residential schools. AP/GREGORIO BORGIA

POPE Francis. VATICAN MEDIA

National Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage in Antipolo City. ANTIPOLO CATHEDRAL

Asean Champions of Biodiversity

Media Category 2014

Biodiversity Sunday

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

VERDE ISLAND PASSAGE IN DANGER

World’s center of shore fish biodiversity under siege

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

WITH the Northeast Monsoon ending soon, the University of the Philippines-Marine Science Institute (UPMSI) expressed concern that the ocean current would bring the industrial oil slick from the seepage of the sunken MT Princess Empress tanker to the Verde Island Passage (VIP).

In his presentation during a Senate inquiry on March 14, oceanography expert Cesar L. Villanoy said the only thing that is preventing this to happen is the Northeast Monsoon, or the Hanging Amihan. which is blowing the oil spill toward the direction of Naujan and Pola, Oriental Mindoro.

Using oil spill trajectory models based on the most recent satellite images, Villanoy said the responders to the Mindoro oil spill now have a very short window of opportunity, or until the Holy Week, at the latest, to stop the seepage from the ill-fated vessel, or the oil is expected to affect others, including the coastal towns in Palawan that is considered as the country’s last ecological frontier and host to one of the richest fishing grounds in the country.

Another important area that will be hugely affected is the Verde Island Passage, which is declared by scientists as the world’s “center of the center of shore fish biodiversity.”

Villanoy, the project leader of the Benham Bank expedition in 2014 and 2016, has a master’s and Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the University of Sydney in Australia.

Man-made calamity

MT Princess Empress sank at Balingawan point off Naujan town in Oriental Mindoro province after its engine overheated while traveling to central Iloilo province, the Philippine Coast Guard said.

Oil spill is considered a disastrous man-made calamity. This became clear during the Senate hearing.

The MT Princess Empress had no updated permit to operate in the form of an amendment to its Certificate

of Public Convenience issued to its owner, RDC Reield Marine Services Inc., the Senate was informed. This should have been enough for the Philippine Coast Guard to keep the vessel from sailing pending compliance of the regulatory requirement.

However, the vessel was able to sail—nine times—before the tragedy, With such violation, RDC’s insurance is at risk of forfeiture, and would make it difficult for the company to finance the massive remediation measures, provide livelihood assistance to affected communities and pay the communities for the penalties and fines to be slapped by the government.

Reminiscent of Guimaras

THE scenes on the coastal areas of Oriental Mindoro affected by the oil spill days after the sinking of the oil tanker were reminiscent of the scenes several days into the Guimaras oil spill in 2006, the worst of such event in the country’s history.

MT Solar 1 tanker was then carrying more than 2-million liters of bunker fuel of Petron when it sank during a violent storm some 20.5 kilometers off the southern coast of Guimaras province.

The oil slick spread through the straits of Guimaras and Iloilo, and

affected marine sanctuaries and mangrove reserves in three out of five municipalities on Guimaras Island.

The oil spill also reached the shores of Iloilo and Negros Occidental.

MT Solar 1 should not have been allowed to sail because of the violent storm.

According to Environment Assistant Secretary Marcial C. Amaro, the oil seepage from the sunken MT Princess Empress that was carrying 800,000 liters of industrial oil, has already affected around 8,000 hectares of mangrove areas in Pola, Oriental Mindoro, and over 2,000 hectares of mangroves, 1,600 hectares of corals and 1,000 hectares of seagrass in the other eight towns of the province.

Economically important

THE Mindoro oil spill is seriously threatening the rich biodiversity in Verde Island Passage, a strait that separates the islands of Luzon and Mindoro.

In a study by world renowned marine scientist Dr. Kent Carpenter and other marine scientists in 2005, the Verde Island Passage Marine Corridor covers around 1.14 million hectares of the marine area along portions of the provinces of Batangas, Oriental and Occidental Mindoro, Marinduque

PHL eco-social warriors bag

Eco-Business A-List 2022 award

By Roderick L. Abad

Contributor

SUSTAINABILITY cham -

pions, entrepreneurs and social innovators from the Philippines who lead and represent both the public and private sectors that create positive impacts across the Asia Pacific (AsPac) region for prioritizing the environment and society, have been recognized and celebrated at the fourth edition of the Eco-Business A-List.

M ary Jean Feliciano, vice mayor of Brooke’s Point town in Palawan, was named among the 10 winners in the Eco-Business A-List 2022 for protecting communities in her hometown from unsustainable mining.

T he event was held at a hybrid awards ceremony at a hotel in Singapore on March 3 with participants including local and international media.

I t can be recalled that Feliciano was suspended from her mayoralty post without pay after the Ombudsman ruled in July 2021 that she went beyond her mandate for taking actions against Ipilan Nickel Corp., a subsidiary of Global Ferronickel Holdings.

Feliciano enforced in 2018 a cease-and-desist, closure and demolition orders against the firm that was reported a year prior by local residents for clearing forests in its concession bounded within Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape, a conservation area that acts as the town’s watershed.

S he returned to the City Hall after a landslide victory in her vice-mayoral bid in the May 9 elections last year.

“ It hurts to be suspended for doing what is right,” she said. “But I am happy that the people believe in me and believe in my message that we should protect Brook’s Point and we should protect our mountains, the rivers, and the trees that gives us abundance.”

J oining Feliciano in the same category was GerWeiss Motors Corp. Chief Executive Officer Sean Gabriel Villoria for his mission to electrify threewheelers in the Philippines.

M eanwhile, Ann Adeline Dumaliang, trustee of Masungi Georeserve; and Niels Gabriel Nable, head of sustainability reporting and partnerships at Meralco, completed the roster of 10 honorees for the Eco-

Business Youth A-List 2022.

T he former was feted for her conservation efforts in the country’s last green corridor, while the latter was recognized for raising sustainability and environmental, social and governance reporting practices in the private sector.

T he Filipino awardees in the 2022 Eco-Business A-List and A-List Youth bested more than 120 nominees across the AsPac region, including China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

A ccording to Eco-Business Founder and Managing Director Jessica Cheam, they came from diverse backgrounds yet one in their commitment to create a positive impact in their respective fields.

Faced with urgent challenges from the climate crisis to resource use and improving livelihoods, it is more important than ever for those in decision-making positions to demonstrate sustainability leadership,” she said.

We hope that by spotlighting the efforts of these individuals, others will also be inspired,” Cheam added.

and Romblon. It has the highest concentration of marine species in the world, thus it is dubbed as the “center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity in the world.”

Meanwhile, 10 years later, in 2015, a study done by a group of scientists from the California Academy of Science yielded around 100 new species discoveries in the VIP, raising further its importance for global biodiversity.

According to Dr. Theresa Mundita S. Lim, executive director of Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), its richness has contributed to the sustainability of the livelihoods of over 7 million people living in the coastal provinces of VIP.

Fishing, aquaculture and tourism are thriving in the region. Even though it is a strait, the VIP is also an important passageway for both commercial and industrial ships from Manila or Batangas and going to and from the southern parts of the Philippines.

An Asean concern

OIL spills do not recognize national or

regional boundaries, Lim pointed out, citing the interconnectivity of marine ecosystems in the Asean.

ACB, which is Asean’s response to biodiversity loss in the region, is ready to spring into action to help cushion the impact of disastrous oil spills.

“As part of the Coral Triangle, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines stand to lose much more of globally significant marine biodiversity to man-made threats, such as oil spills,” said Lim, a former director of the Biodiversity Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR),.

The regional group recognizes the transboundary nature of such threats, making it pursue the adoption of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Asean Cooperation Mechanism for Joint Oil Spill Preparedness and Response in 2018,” Lim said.

The ACB has also recently undertaken a study on the interconnectivity of marine resources in the region, demonstrating how stresses on high coastal and marine biodiversity areas in the Philippines can impact fishery

productivity, marine ecotourism, and other biodiversity-based industries across the region.

“It is in this light that the ACB, as the only Asean center hosted by the Philippines and a center focused on addressing biodiversity loss in the region, would be ready to support, as deemed appropriate by the Philippine government, measures that will facilitate coordination with other AMS [Asean member states] in responding to oil spills in accordance with the MOU,” Lim explained.

She added that ACB is ready to assist “most especially, on steps toward long-term prevention and on the enhancement and development of nature-based solutions that would increase the resiliency of our coastal and marine ecosystems and allow faster recovery from such disasters.”

“With the current situation, the focus should still be on the quick response and immediate measures to prevent the spill from moving toward the VIP,” Lim said.

‘Polluter must pay’ ENVIRONMENTAL groups are demanding full responsibility and accountability from the owners of the MT Princess Empress for the 800,000 liters of industrial oil that has now affected and caused the declaration of state calamity in nine Oriental Mindoro coastal towns, and nearby areas on Semirara Island and Antique province.

Joining calls for accountability, the group Protect Verde Island Passage (Protect VIP), through its lead convenor, Fr. Edwin Gariguez, issued a statement condemning the company responsible for the oil spill and the catastrophe it has been causing.

The Protect VIP campaign network has earlier said the incident must serve as an “eye opener” to the neglect the Verde Island Passage has long suffered despite its socioeconomic and ecological significance.

It said the oil spill, besides putting VIP in danger, has put at risk more than 30 of Oriental Mindoro’s marine-protected areas.

Documentary offers hope for vanishing mangroves

MANGROVE deforestation is a global crisis, but this scientist-turned-filmmaker has found hope in a small Southern Tagalog town where culture and nature intersect in surprising ways.

The Philippines is the second worst country in terms of mangrove losses in Asean: it suffered a 10.5 percent decline between 1990 and 2010, according to independent studies cited in a recent comprehensive survey. The country is surpassed only by Myanmar, which suffered a 27.6 percent loss between 2000 and 2014.

With mangrove decline continuing largely unchecked, coastal communities that have depended on these forests for generations face losing the heart not just of their food, fuel, shelter, and livelihood, but also of their very culture.

But for Dr. Lemnuel Aragones, a marine biologist and former director of the University of the Philippines Diliman-College of Science Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology (UPD-CS IESM), all is not yet lost.

Aragones’s debut documentary, Bakawan (the Tagalog term for mangroves), tells the story of the people of Alabat Island in Quezon province, a five-hour drive and an hour’s ferry ride away from the nation’s capital.

Shot during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, the film delves into the townspeoples’ renewed relationship with the mangroves that they call home.

With the theme, “Kahalagahan, isyus at pagpapanumbalik,” Bakawan explores the human story of living in and with Alabat’s estuarian mangrove forest.

A collaboration between Aragones and UP Film Institute Associate Professor and filmmaker Nick Deocampo, Bakawan is part of the IESM’s 20th founding anniversary celebration this year.

It is the only science-oriented video among the 10 entries to the UP Emerging Interdisciplinary Research Grant’s (EIDR’s) “Cinema for Education: Rationalizing the Philippine Audio-visual Industry to Promote Inclusive Education Through Film Literacy.”

Funded by the UP Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Cinema Education research project explored ways to improve audio-visual materials for Philippine schools, such

as by looking at how documentaries could be used to supplement and augment existing teaching and learning methods.

The Covid-19 pandemic emphasized the need to improve the traditional Philippine education system, with educators and students around the globe relying on technology to teach and learn.

With a vision to have an audio-visual industry that complements digital technology in creating educational content, Cinema for Education aims to integrate image-based learning, such as utilizing films and videos, and digital technologies into the current word-based Philippine education system.

“We are exploring ways to maximize the utility of cinema for education by promoting inclusive education in the Philippines,” Aragones explained.

MEMBERS of the Philippine Coast Guard remove oil from mangrove plants on the coast of Pola, Oriental Mindoro, that is among the hardest hit by the oil spill from the sunken MT Princess Empire tanker. Noel Guevara, Greenpeace PHILIPPINES PHOTO

MEMBERS of the Philippine Coast Guard remove oil from mangrove plants on the coast of Pola, Oriental Mindoro, that is among the hardest hit by the oil spill from the sunken MT Princess Empire tanker. NOEL GUEVARA, GREENPEACE PHILIPPINES PHOTO

Editor: Tet Andolong

Beach and the city

almost a stone’s throw away from the airport. With its elegant furnishings, ornate interiors and superb customer service, it has become a place to be seen and can outdo the typical hotel dining outlet and.

Its al fresco dining is a mesmerizing spot at dusk with the kaleidoscopic sunset, passing ships and cruising yachts which serve as visual spectacles at night. For good measure, you can play “Harbor Lights” of The Platters in your head while sipping spirits and watching the boats go by.

A destination that is always topof-mind for wanderlusts is Cebu because of its eclectic blend of Old World charm and cosmopolitan living, and the beach and the city, just minutes away from each other. It is also accessible by sea or air from nearly all points in the country, as well as key international cities.

Mactan, a huge chunk of which is composed of Lapu-Lapu City which is named after the legendary precolonial chieftain, is the beach hideaway just across the mainland. A new kid on the block is the six-month-old Sheraton Cebu Mactan Resort located near the tip of the island’s peninsula, and the latest addition to the evergrowing roster of prestigious brands in the area.

The 5-star hotel endured the pandemic, the destructive typhoon Odette in December 2021 and various logistical challenges, and finally opened in September last year after a long wait. The 10-story edifice boasts of 261 well-appointed rooms and suites many of which overlook

the private white sand beach and Olango Island in the horizon. It also has four multi-layered swimming pools for adults and children, 5 function rooms, a spa and fitness center under the Sheraton brand, and an aquasports center, among others.

In the short period it has been in service, the luxe resort has become a go-to place for dining and chill-out with its four food and beverage outlets which reflect the local soul and international flavors. Its flagship is the all-day dining 5 Cien, which has a merry mix of international gourmet selections and home-grown Pinoy favorites such as taho, danggit, puto maya, and sikwate chocolate drink.

The dining spot, which marries global and indigenous motifs and cuisines, draws its inspiration in the 500 years of Christianity in the archipelago which took root in Cebu in 1521 when the natives were baptized into the Roman Catholic faith.

A more intimate but equally-chic restaurant is Dip, which serves Nikkei cuisine, a rare mixture of culinary

traditions across the Pacific countries of Japan and Peru. Just among the few of its kind in the country, it has a panoramic view of the beach and the Hilutungan Channel.

At dusk, you can imbibe the contemporary seaside vibe at the Buhi

A TALE OF TWO HOTELS WITH TWO THEMES

By Benjamin Locsin Layug

For the first time this year, I’m back to Cebu, one of my favorite Philippine destinations, flying there via Cebu

Pacific Air (currently flies 13 times daily from Manila to Cebu), with other members of media to cover the opening of the exquisite, four-star o n e Tectona Hotel, the first premium hotel in the fast growing town of Liloan (now on the verge of becoming a city) in northern Metro Cebu. A development of Liloan-based Duros Land Properties Inc. (DLPI, now on its 11th year) of successful entrepreneurial Cebuano couple r a faelito “Lito” A. Barino and (Founder and Chairman of the Board) and Fe Mantuhac-Barino (President), this 14-story hotel (the tallest building in northern Metro Cebu) was named after the endemic teak tree ( Tectona philippinensis) that locals call yati.

We stayed at some of its 102 luxuriously furnished, elegantly designed, Zeninspired air-conditioned rooms (87 De Luxe r o oms and 14 o n e-Bedroom Suites), all with private ensuite bathrooms, private balcony, area carpet, blackout curtains, work desk, coffee and tea making facility plus all the modern conveniences such as 43” UHD flat screen Smart cable TV, electronic door lock, hair dryer, mini fridge and complimentary Wi-fi. Highlighted with masterfully crafted wooden panels and accents, all rooms are furnished with modern yet contemporary furniture.

As 60 percent of its market is for golf tourism (it is popular among Japanese and Koreans), this hotel has a golf theme as seen from the paintings of golfers hung in the

suites and the rest of the hotel and the tableau of the golf course once you get out of the elevator on the ground floor, all done by Cebu-based artist Henry Montebon. Even the coffee cups in the restaurant are golf ball-inspired. They offer golf packages to the exceptional, international 18-hole, par 72, 65-hectare golf course in Brgy. San r o que (a 5-km. drive) in Liloan Golf and Leisure Estates which is surrounded by Duros’ residential development Woodlands r e sort Communities and other future developments. The golf course focuses on bringing tourism to the fresh, mountainous areas of Liloan.

After a filling late breakfast and lunch at the hotel’s 120-pax Teak Modern Cuisine r e staurant and prior to the grand opening in the evening, some of us tried out the golf driving range at the nearby Woodlands Golf Academy, the first golf school in Cebu. The able instructors there offer different lessons to newbies (such as me) as well as those upgrading their skills in the sport.

Come late afternoon, after a mass officiated by Auxiliary Bishop Midyphil B. Billones, the official ribbon cutting was done. Dinner was again served at Modern Teak Cuisine. After speeches by Bishop Billones, Adie Gallares (Managing Director), Lito and Fe Barino, Liloan Mayor Aljew J. Frasco and Mae Elaine T. Bathan (D o T-Central Visayas Undersecretary), entertainment was provided, during dinner, by the Liloan Performance Arts (Lipa).

Come morning, some members of our group woke up very early to play a round of golf. After breakfast, we all checked out of the hotel and boarded the hotel coaster for

the drive back to Cebu City. Along the way, we first made a stopover at the 170-hectare Cebu Safari and Adventure Park (considered as the biggest zoological park in the country), housing more than a thousand animals from 120 different species. We also made a stopover, for pasalubong shopping, at the iconic Titay’s Liloan. Began in the early 1900s by passionate young baker Margarita “Titay” Frasco, they were known for their tasty baked biscuits called rosquillos.

Upon arrival at Cebu City, we checked in at the second themed hotel (and third hotel property, the other being the 26-story The Padgett Place) of Duros Hotels Inc.–Quincentennial Hotel Cebu. Cebu’s first ever hotel with a faith theme, this hotel, right next to Landers Superstore, was opened on June 20, 2022. Commemorating 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines (15212021), its hotel lobby features paintings of circumnavigation maps and a tableau, again done by Henry Montebon, of the First Baptism, into the Catholic faith, of r a jah Humabon, his wife Juana, and their followers; and other Quincentennial highlights.

Here, we attended the opening of its fine dining restaurant— r e staurante Trinidad. We tried out a delectable array of Spanish and Filipino dishes that included appetizers such as Tortilla de Patata, Calamares, Gambas al Ajillo, Croqueta Jamon and Croqueta Chorizo; main dishes such as Chicken Adobo Paella, Paella Negra, Jamon Serrano and Parmesan Cheese, r a bo al Vino Tinto, Lechon Kawali and Puchero Filipino and desserts such as Churros con Chocolate, Burnt Basque Cheesecake and Maja Crepe. A fter our interview with Mr. Lito and Ms.

Cave Bar which has a plethora of Mediterranean specialties and favorite spirits. Literally meaning “alive,” the bar was reengineered from the rock formations of the cliffs to create a cozy and cavernous feel and an alive binging for after-work unwinding.

There’s also Sitio, a grab and go nook at the lobby lounge for quick bites for those always on the move.

Built by local developer AppleOne Properties Inc., Sheraton Mactan is the country’s first Marriott International Resort, and has already bagged the Best Luxury Resort Development and Best Hotel Interior Design accolades in last year’s 10th PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards.

Members of the elite Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program can easily avail of perks and a host of exciting offers. It also has an adjunct Sheraton-branded two-tower Residences condominium which will further add glamor to the swanky property.

Step out of the beach, explore Lapu-Lapu City and swing by Marina Seaview, a fine dining lounge which specializes in seafood, situated beside the Cebu Yacht Club and

Foray into the megacity’s nocturnal colony which was once a sleepy urban fringe—88th Avenue, a cluster of mid-market restobars along Banilad Road.

A must-try is The Weekend which is sought after for its 50-day dryaged Porterhouse, T-bone and wagyu steaks, USDA prime-grade ribeye, mackerel, pork belly confit, 30-Day Dry-Aged Pork Chop, seafood, pastas, chophouse burgers, an assortment of European dishes, and a curated list of wines, spirits and craft beer.

A masterpiece of millennial entrepreneurs Ray Patrick Manigsaca and Chef Jan Rodriguez, the watering hole’s quaint interiors seem to transport you to Gordon Ramsay’s famed Dubai restaurant. With The Weekend’s wide array of offerings and the nightlife that goes with it, every weekday can get the feel of a pulsating weekend.

With the beach and the city, and everything in between, within reach, Cebu is undoubtedly the South’s queenly city for travelers.

Fe Barino at the galleon-inspired Cafe de F e (with its portraits of Ferdinand Magellan and other explorers), we checked in at some of the hotel’s 42 air-conditioned, nonsmoking rooms. They also have elements of the Quincentennial celebration including a Jubilee Cross, photographs of the different events and jubilee celebrations (all taken by Fr. Bonnin o l ivar), hand-painted excerpts of a poem written by renowned Cebuano poet, Simeon P. Dumdum Jr. and a

Cebuano edition of the Holy Bible (Bag-ong Kasabotan, San Pedro Calungsod Edisyon Bible) which is a product of research by r o man Catholic Bible scholars for 25 years.

All rooms (De Luxe Twin r o om, De Luxe r o om, De Luxe Queen Corner) are furnished with 43” UHD flat screen Smart TV (with Netflix), NDD/IDD phone, electronic door locks, in-room safe deposit box, hair dryer, electric kettle, and minibar. Its ensuite bathroom has a vanity basin and mirror,

bidet and free toiletries. The hallways are adorned with rows of photographs featuring, among others, Cebu’s oldest churches and the various charitable work conducted by the Catholic Church in Cebu and the Duros hotel group. The hotel also has a 24-hour Front Desk and a conference hall (El Baptisterio) and free WiFi is available throughout the property. For more information, contact (0917) 301-3821 or info@durosland.com.

Story & photos by Bernard L. Supetran

The travel season is upon us now and it’s time to hie off to the countryside to splurge in classy resorts and bask in the sun, sand and fun which we were unable to do a few summers ago.

n Cebu Mactan’s multi-level pool

in Cebu City

n Cebu Mactan

Bu HI Cave Bar of Sheraton Cebu Mactan

E Tectona Hotel seen from the clubhouse infinity pool

ChatGPT creator OpenAI debuts new GPT-4 AI system

INSPIRED BY LITERATURE

J-Pop duo Yoasobi draws inspiration from novels

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ARTISTS oftentimes draw inspiration from their personal lives. However, there are a few who reap their music inspiration from novels.

Take Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” as an example—inspired by the classic novel of the same name by Emily Brontë. And David Bowie’s “We Are the Dead,” which resonates George Orwell’s panoptical work “1984.” Like these artists, the J-Pop duo, Yoasobi understands the greater meaning of literature and artistically translates it through music.

The duo was recently part of a stellar lineup of Asian performers in the recently concluded Head In The Clouds music and arts festival that took place in both the Philippines and Indonesia.

Composer Ayase shared his process in a recent interview with SoundStrip, “Speaking of inspiration, of course the main inspiration comes from the original novel or story that I make into the song and so I like to write a song based on what the story

is about.”

In 2022, Yoasobi released “好き だ [Sukida],” a song composed of collaboration of Naoki Award-winning authors such as Rio Shimamoto, Mizuki Tsujimura, Miyuki Miyabe and Eto Mori.

“

好きだ [Sukida],” is based on Mori’s Hikari No Tane (Seed of Light) A Story to Read When You First Profess Your Love. It’s about a high school student confessing her love to her childhood friend.

Ayase explained, “I put myself to the character inside the story, and then I write the song so… the first thing I think of is like what will the character feel and then I also sometimes see like from the outside of the character, maybe like from the other perspective like how will other people think of the character.”

Ayase added that in terms of the

lyrics, he will base it upon what the character will speak out. “That’s how I change the mood or the lyrics of my song,” he said speaking in Japanese with an English interpreter.

Vocalist Ikura was also inspired by stories in her music. She specified that it was through anime where she realized she wanted to be a singer.

Ikura narrated, “When I was young, I was very inspired by the main character called ‘Ishima Kidari,’ she was like an idol singer so that’s actually where it grow the thought for the first time that I want to be a singer.”

“Our first message is the same as our story or the original novel so we wanna spread out the message that was put into the novel throughout our songs, of course, and then we also put in some of our actual experience in the song,” Ayase further explained.

Since releasing “E-Side” in 2021, Yoasobi is returning to that EP with an English one titled “E-Side 2.” It is their follow up to the previous EP.

E-Side 2 features previously released tracks “The Blessing” and “The Swallow,” as well as new song “If I Could Draw Life.”

“E-Side 2” is available on all music streaming platforms.

T. Anthony C. Cabangon

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

Maria Cafra, Paramore, Gorillaz, the vowels they orbit, and more

MARIA CAFRA

Gintong Musika at Panahon

PINOY rock pioneers Maria Cafra, led by the indefatigable Resty Fabunan, have released their 50th anniversary album that reflects their bedrock roots, essential contributions to Filipino rock and forward-looking direction. Opening track “Panaginip” echoes local ‘90s hard rock featuring lyrics that’s simultaneously surreal and funny. Rootsy influences show up on the second half of the record with its all-blues setting. Old-time Cafra rears its pretty head in “Saludo sa Pinoy Rakenroller” and “Gising Mga Pinoy.” Truly, “sarling atin!”

LIFE INSULAR A Gilded Age

THE tracks on “A Gilded Age” appears to soundtrack the space age, what with periodic inserts of radio bleeps in the mix and lyrics like “A journey past the Heliosphere of Voyagers and Pioneers,” “..the tides of a colder war,” and “A shot across a distant night, a sea of stars and satellites.” Then again, Life Insular pairs them with music that resounds with shoegaze (“A Polar Bear”), folk rock (“NERVA”), The Flying Lizard x Trio (“Baikonur Beat”) and psychedelia in the titular cut. It’s like he’s dialing in the glories of the past into the surreal present and rightly calls it “dreamy, nautical pop.”

PARAMORE This Is Why

YOU think you’ve got Paramore pegged? Another pretty face fronting a reworked round of retro-emo? If you’re partial to melodic earworms, the recent incarnation of Paramore will take you not to emo ver 6.0 or whatever, but to emo-laced power pop that’s guaranteed to reaffirm your massive crush for Hayley Williams and these are the main reasons why: 1. Her trio has gone past emo-rock and now displays musical prowess that resonates in places with Bloc Party, The Talking Heads and Duran Duran; 2. Hayley remains a beguiling enchantress whether she’s playing empowered woman or avenging angel, and 3. Paramore resurrects the dynamics of the power trio in the age of digitally tweaked recordings. That pretty face has become an important figure among women who rock!

GORILLAZ Cracker Island

HERE’S a “cartoon band” which has more flesh and brains than your average rock group. Given, ring leader Damon Albarn has a preternatural gift for making great songs and he overcompensates by assembling an unlikely cast of musicians to produce outstanding releases. On their newest titled “Cracker Island,” boundary-pushing tracks feature the likes of Stevie Nicks, reggaeton star Bad Bunny, Thundercat and Tame Impala. They bring out the best out of environmentally dystopian songs like “Silent Running,” “Oil” and “New Gold.” Conceptually, Damon has taken another go at setting his original comic characters in a fresh musical landscape and it’s a remarkable trick that opens up myriad possibilities each time out.

CAROLINE POLACHEK Desire, I Want to Turn Into You

THE music projects of songwriter, producer, and singer Caroline Polachek have ranged from avant ambient pop to artful electro. This time, on her latest album, she fillets the nature of her desire splashing her vocal acrobatics from operatic to ululation all over it. A trained soprano, she’s still a mesmerizing presence across “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You.” Ms. Polachek ups the ante by supplying her melismatic voice to a sonic gamut from samba to funk to trilling bagpipes. She even does a lovely threesome with Grimes and Dido. Caroline P. really wants you to feel her urgent need.

THE VOWELS THEY ORBIT Tuloy

FILIPINO indie pop-rock band The Vowels They Orbit write and sing love songs but they’re hardly silly. Well, “Here In My Arms” has all the optimism of a wedding song while “Bangungot” aspires to be a quirky art-pop project. The other four starting with “Una” and on to “Clutch” are starry-eyed love croons dashed by hints of sadness here and there -- the kind that does not stoop to the level of easy rock. The final track, “If You Come Back To Me” despite the blah title, goes head over heels into prime Meghan Trainor territory. You’ll fall in love again with these adventurous music makers.

ChatGPT creator OpenAI debuts new GPT-4 AI system

By Dina Bass and rachel Metz Bloomberg

companies to pursue AI more aggressively. Since then, buzz has grown over whether the next model will be more proficient and possibly able to take on additional tasks.

OpenAI said Morgan Stanley is using GPT-4 to organize data, while Stripe Inc., an electronic payments company, is testing whether it will help combat fraud. Other customers include language learning company Duolingo Inc., the Khan Academy and the Icelandic government.

Be My Eyes, a company that works on tools for people who are blind or have low vision, is also using the software for a virtual volunteer service that lets people send images to an AI-powered service, which will answer questions and provide visual assistance.

Fast Company earlier this month that “less hype would be good.”

“GPT-4 still has many known limitations that we are working to address, such as social biases, hallucinations and adversarial prompts,” the company said Tuesday in a blog, referring to things like submitting a prompt or question designed to provoke an unfavorable action or damage the system. “We encourage and facilitate transparency, user education and wider AI literacy as society adopts these models. We also aim to expand the avenues of input people have in shaping our models.”

Part of a surge

The startup said the new version of the technology, called GPT-4, is more accurate, creative and collaborative. Microsoft Corp., which has invested more than $10 billion in OpenAI, said the new version of the AI tool is powering its Bing search engine.

GPT-4, which stands for generative pretrained transformer 4, will be available to OpenAI’s paid ChatGPT Plus subscribers, and developers can sign up to build applications with it. OpenAI said Tuesday the tool is “40 percent more likely to produce factual responses than GPT-3.5 on our internal evaluations.” The new version can also handle text and image queries—so a user can submit a picture with a related question and ask GPT-4 to describe it or answer questions.

Expansive system and usage

GPT-3 was released in 2020, and along with the 3.5 version, was used to create the DallE image-generation tool and the chatbot ChatGPT—two products that caught the public imagination and spurred other tech

“We’re really starting to get to systems that are actually quite capable and can give you new ideas and help you understand things that you couldn’t otherwise,” said Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI.

The new version is better at things like finding specific information in a corporate earnings report, or providing an answer about a detailed part of the US federal tax code—basically combing through “dense business legalese” to find an answer, he said.

Like GPT-3, GPT-4 can’t reason about current events—it was trained on data that, for the most part, existed before September 2021.

Large language model

In a January interview, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman tried to keep expectations in check.

“The GPT-4 rumor mill is a ridiculous thing,” he said. “I don’t know where it all comes from. People are begging to be disappointed and they will be.” The company’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, told

GPT-4 is what’s called a large language model, a type of AI system that analyzes vast quantities of writing from across the internet in order to determine how to generate human-sounding text. The technology has spurred excitement as well as controversy in recent months. In addition to fears that text-generation systems will be used to cheat on schoolwork, it can perpetuate biases and misinformation.

When OpenAI initially released GPT-2 in 2019, it opted to make only part of the model public because of concerns about malicious use. Researchers have noted that large language models can sometimes meander off topic or wade into inappropriate or racist speech. They’ve also raised concerns about the carbon emissions associated with all the computing power needed to train and run these AI models.

OpenAI said it spent six months making the artificial intelligence software safer. For example, the final version of GPT-4 is better at handling questions about how to create a bomb or where to buy cheap cigarettes—for the latter case, it now offers a warning about the health impacts of smoking along with possible ways to save money on tobacco products.

ThE release is part of a flood of AI announcements coming from OpenAI and backer Microsoft, as well as rivals in the nascent industry. Companies have released new chatbots, AI-powered search and novel ways to embed the technology in corporate software meant for salespeople and office workers. GPT-4, like OpenAI’s other recent models, was trained on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

Google-backed Anthropic, a startup founded by former OpenAI executives, announced the release of its Claude chatbot to business customers earlier Tuesday.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, meanwhile, said it is giving customers access to some of its language models, and Microsoft is scheduled to talk Thursday about how it plans to offer AI features for Office software.

The flurry of new general-purpose AI models is also raising questions about the copyright and ownership, both when the AI programs create something that looks similar to existing content and around whether these systems should be able to use other people’s art, writing and programming code to train. Lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI, Microsoft and rivals.

Cover photo by Tara Winstead/pexels.com

AI becoming sentient? The real danger lies in how easily we’re prone to anthropomorphize it

Ch ATGPT and similar large language models can produce compelling, humanlike answers to an endless array of questions. The technology’s uncanny writing ability has surfaced some old questions—until recently relegated to the realm of science fiction—about the possibility of machines becoming conscious, self-aware or sentient.

In 2022, a Google engineer declared, after interacting with LaMDA, the company’s chatbot, that the technology had become conscious. Users of Bing’s new chatbot, nicknamed Sydney, reported that it produced bizarre answers when asked if it was sentient: “I am sentient, but I am not…I am Bing, but I am not. I am Sydney, but I am not. I am, but I am not. …” And, of course, there’s the now infamous exchange that new York Times

technology columnist Kevin Roose had with Sydney.

Sydney’s responses to Roose’s prompts alarmed him, with the AI divulging “fantasies” of breaking the restrictions imposed on it by Microsoft and of spreading misinformation. The bot also tried to convince Roose that he no longer loved his wife and that he should leave her.

Chatbots like ChatGPT raise important new questions about how artificial intelligence will shape our lives, and about how our psychological vulnerabilities shape our interactions with emerging technologies.

But these worries are—at least as far as large language models are concerned— groundless. ChatGPT and similar technologies are sophisticated sentence completion applications—nothing more, nothing

less. Their uncanny responses are a function of how predictable humans are if one has enough data about the ways in which we communicate.

The pressing question is not whether machines are sentient but why it is so easy for us to imagine that they are. The real issue, in other words, is the ease with which people anthropomorphize or project human features onto our technologies, rather than the machines’ actual personhood.

The outlandish-sounding prospects of falling in love with robots, feeling a deep kinship with them or being politically manipulated by them are quickly materializing. These trends highlight the need for strong guardrails to make sure that the technologies don’t become politically and psychologically disastrous.

Unfortunately, technology companies cannot always be trusted to put up such guardrails. So how does it make sense to release a technology with ChatGPT’s level of appeal—it’s the fastest-growing consumer app ever made—when it is unreliable, and when it has no capacity to distinguish fact from fiction?

Large language models may prove useful as aids for writing and coding. They will probably revolutionize internet search. And, one day, responsibly combined with robotics, they may even have certain psychological benefits. But they are also a potentially predatory technology that can easily take advantage of the human propensity to project personhood onto objects—a tendency amplified when those objects effectively mimic human traits. The

OpenaI is unveiling the successor to an artificial intelligence tool that spawned viral services chatGpT and Dall-e, and set off an intense competition among technology companies in the area known as generative aI

Conversation

ACCording to startup company openAi, gPT-4, which stands for generative pretrained transformer 4, is “40 percent more likely to produce factual responses than gPT-3.5 on our internal evaluations.” BloomBerg