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A broader look at today’s business

CEMENT PLANT + PLASTIC WASTE = SAVING PLANET? www.businessmirror.com.ph

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Sunday, March 20, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 163

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DENR pushes option to transform plastic refuse into a key ingredient in cement manufacturing

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By Jonathan L. Mayuga

O help reduce the country’s solid waste generation, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is urging cement manufacturers to explore ways to utilize plastic waste as raw material and help cut half of the country’s garbage problem.

“When all these cement plants will participate, we can dramatically reduce the volume of plastic waste which will be now regarded as raw material of the cement plants in their current processing,” DENR-Environment Management Bureau Director William Cuñado said in a news statement.

He said several cement firms have already adopted the conversion of plastic waste into energy in the country.

“This measure will reduce by 40 percent to 60 percent the volume of plastic waste,” he pointed out.

The DENR-EMB chief also said that the participation of local government units (LGUs) through their solid waste management efforts would contribute to the decrease in plastic waste volume.

Cuñado noted that the conver-

sion of plastic waste into raw material for cement plants would result in the reduction of plastic waste generated in cities and municipalities.

DENR Undersecretary for Policy, Panning and International Affairs and department spokesperson Atty. Jonas R. Leones also pointed out that cement plants could recycle campaign materials made out of plastics that are being used for the May 2022 elections.

“Plastic tarpaulins are also used in co-processing, in energy.

These are mixed into cement as fillers; sometimes these are used to create pots,” Leones, who held the position of EMB director during his early years in the DENR, pointed out.

“Plastic tarpaulins are melted to have some other products out of these plastics,” he added.

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 52.1670

tions such as policies that prevent and reduce the volume and toxicity of plastic waste without aggravating the already alarming climate crisis, Salamat stressed.

‘Toxic emissions’

DENR-Environment Management Bureau Director William Cuñado: “When all these cement plants will participate, we can dramatically reduce the volume of plastic waste which will be now regarded as raw material of the cement plants in their current processing.”

COLEEN SALAMAT, Plastic Solutions Campaigner of EcoWaste Coalition: “Cement kilns, incinerators, and other combustion units burning waste, especially chlorinated materials, release harmful pollutants into the environment.”

MARIAN FRANCES T. LEDESMA, Zero Waste Campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast AsiaPhilippines: “Plastic-to-fuel schemes are false solutions which do not result in the behavioral changes or systemic shifts our planet needs.”

While the Philippines has been implementing Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 for more than 20 years, the country is facing a looming garbage crisis.

With its estimated population of over 100 million, the country produces around 40,000 tons of garbage every day or 14.6 million tons of garbage annually. Metro Manila produces slightly less than a quarter of that figure with around 9,000 tons every day.

Environmental groups pushing for zero waste solutions questioned the DENR’s proposal and

branded the use of plastic waste as fuel in co-processing and wasteto-energy as “false” environmental solutions.

waste, especially chlorinated materials, release harmful pollutants into the environment,” Coleen Salamat, Plastic Solutions Campaigner of EcoWaste Coalition, said.

“Before any blanket endorsement is made on this disposal scheme for plastic waste, we urge the authorities to make publicly available independent studies, as well as verified monitoring reports, presumably used by DENR to justify its push for such a scheme,” she said.

To improve the recyclability and circularity of plastics, the government should draw up real solu-

‘Harmful to environment’

WASTE and pollution watchdog EcoWaste Coalition said plastic waste as an alternative raw material or fuel for cement manufacturing does not address the root problem of the plastic pollution crisis, and could even potentially do more harm than good to the environment.

“Cement kilns, incinerators, and other combustion units burning

SOUGHT for reaction, Greenpeace said using plastic waste as fuel in co-processing and waste-to-energy produces significant amounts of toxic emissions and greenhouse gases, further aggravating the plastic pollution and climate crises.

“Plastic-to-fuel schemes are false solutions which do not result in the behavioral changes or systemic shifts our planet needs.

They instead incentivize continued waste generation and dependence on plastic. We only get one side of the story from the proponents of such schemes, as local governments and the wider public are not well informed about the risks. The costs of refuse-derived fuel and waste-to-energy on human and environmental health are considerable. They’re essentially converting plastic pollution from waste to another form—air pollutants,” Marian Frances T. Ledesma, Zero Waste Campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia-Philippines, said.

“The Philippine government should not be encouraging or investing in technology that compromises the safety and health of people and the environment,” she added.

n JAPAN 0.4398 n UK 68.5996 n HK 6.6733 n CHINA 8.2185 n SINGAPORE 38.5423 n AUSTRALIA 38.4732 n EU 57.8636 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.9045

Source: BSP (March 18, 2022)

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A2 Sunday, March 20, 2022

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How one man dodged Russian tanks to escape Mariupol

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By Aliaksandr Kudrytski | Bloomberg News

ESIDENTS of Mariupol used to regard themselves as immune to the turmoil enveloping southern Ukraine after they saw off pro-Russian separatists eight years ago.

“We Mariupol people thought we’d smelled the gunpowder in 2014 and seen a lot,” said Ivan Goltvenko, director of personnel and administration at the city’s Metinvestowned Azovstal steel plant. “But guess what—we were wrong.”

Now, their city lies in ruins, civilians are buried in make-shift graves, and Mariupol has become a symbol of the devastation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to go to war with his neighbor.

Goltvenko is one of those lucky to have escaped.

The 38-year-old had never thought of leaving the port city of more than 400,000 on the Sea of Azov. His father and grandfather had worked for Azovstal, and he nurtured a dream that his two sons would follow, too. He enjoyed the city with its vibrant culture, mild climate and proximity to the sea.

Nearly three weeks after Russia launched its invasion, Goltvenko spoke by video link from Vinnytsia, a city 720 kilometers from Mariupol, to which he was able to flee this week. The story of his escape was verified by Metinvest, his employer.

On the second day of war, Goltvenko insisted that his wife

leave the city with their sons, and he moved into his parents’ apartment on the city’s main thoroughfare, Prospekt Myru, or “Peace Avenue.” The street would be heavily bombed in the days that followed.

The apartment overlooked a lawn where his sons liked to play in summertime. Opposite stood a hospital and maternity ward that would become synonymous with the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas carried out by Russian forces, a charge that Russia continues to deny.

“This is how this place looks like today,” Goltvenko says, showing a photo of a building with empty, charred windows.

Other pictures show a destroyed building that was once the university where he studied and met his wife, a pizza place they used to frequent in normal times, and a jewelery shop where he planned to buy his wife a present for International Women’s Day, March 8. It’s now a charred skeleton of bent steel and broken glass.

“It’s like seeing a loved one dying in your arms and one vital organ after another failing,” he said.

It’s not like Mariupol was unprepared for war. After 2014,

THE Azovstal Steel and Iron Works in Mariupol, before the invasion. BLOOMBERG

when Russia annexed Crimea and fanned separatist insurgencies in the industrialized regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, Metinvest meticulously overhauled the company’s bomb shelters, filling them with medical supplies, food and water, and organizing communications. As many as 8,500 people could hole up there—workers and their families.

As head of personnel, Golt-

AN aerial view of burned out high-rise buildings in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 14, 2022. AZOV BATTALION VIA AP

venko’s job was to help the company’s staff. But the bunkers were only ever intended to help people shelter from bombings, not for a prolonged siege. As it became clear that Mariupol was being surrounded, more and more Azovstal employees, especially those from nearby towns being overrun by Russian troops, requested to locate their families in the shelters.

Goltvenko said that his position allowed him some insight into the defense of the city, and insists there were no Ukrainian troops positioned downtown, let alone in the maternity ward as Russia later claimed.

Instead, he said the shelling deliberately targeted locations where people gathered for evacuation—the hospital, the university, the theater—along the most obvious route leading west from Mariupol toward government-held safe areas in central Ukraine.

In 2014, Mariupol sustained multiple rocket attacks. Now, it’s the aircraft assaults that residents fear the most.

“However thick your walls are, you hear the roar of the airplane which descends to attack, you feel this vibration, the whistle of the missile fired,” he said. “It lasts for 4-5 seconds which seem an eternity, after which there comes an explosion.”

Everything begins to shake, and all you can do is wonder where the next missile will hit, he said.

After about a week, a first attempt at establishing an evacuation corridor for civilians collapsed.

With mobile links down, only the most daring climbed onto rooftops to catch a signal and spread the news. Even the mere mention of a corridor was “like a ray of light to us,” Goltvenko said.

Toward the end of the second week, he realized that he and his parents would either starve to death, die of thirst, or perish from bombs. Taking to the road was no guarantee of survival, but at least it offered a chance.

On the way out of the city by car along a designated humanitarian corridor, they witnessed two apartment blocks being bombed in front on them. “So it became clear this was a one-way road,” he said.

The 250 kilometers or so from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, normally a couple of hours’ drive, took them two days. They moved in a convoy of about 100 vehicles, groping their way forward as it quickly became obvious that Russian forces weren’t observing the cease-fire.

The convoy spent several hours at a Russian checkpoint trying in vain to persuade the soldiers to let them pass. It was one of several encounters with Russian troops, some of whom were simply looking for food, vodka or cigarettes.

Others were frightened young conscripts, lightly dressed, who warmed themselves at fires by the roadside and said they knew nothing of humanitarian corridors.

They spent a night in a nearby village. There was no electricity or gas, but the stoves were warm and the people welcoming. One of them showed a way to bypass the checkpoint. Next morning, they drove over fields and on dirt roads, keeping about 15 meters between each car in case of explosives. On reaching the highway, they found harrowing scenes of corpses and a truck full of dead soldiers. They knew they had to keep moving.

Eventually, they reached a town where they were stopped by men in sportswear, waving Kalashnikov automatic guns at them.

Only yellow bands wrapped around their hands gave away that they were “territorial defense units,” militia organized by Ukraine to protect civilian areas.

They explained that it was best to wait as there was a tank battle underway nearby. When they signaled it was safe, the convoy moved off at top speed. The road was destroyed, asphalt dust hung thick in the air.

The drivers focused on the red tail lights ahead while also glancing in

the rear mirror at the headlights behind, and that way moved in unison, like links in a chain.

About 400 people were able to get out of Mariupol in the convoy with Goltvenko, four to each car.

He called his friend in Mariupol and described the route, telling him to break into a room in the steel plant’s administrative office where alcohol was stored and use it to bribe Russian soldiers. It worked, and his friend managed to lead another 23 cars to safety.

Now in Vinnytsia, Goltvenko tries to keep contact to people back home, but he said it’s getting harder as phone access fails.

One work colleague told him that he’d been able to leave Mariupol with his mom, but that his father had died, so he buried him near a bench in the garden of their apartment block. Now his only wish is to return to give his father a proper burial. Other colleagues told him a lawn in front of Azovstal’s office has been turned into an improvised graveyard where victims of the shelling are laid to rest.

On Wednesday, as he spoke, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that Russian forces had been violating cease-fires along the agreed humanitarian corridors, firing on buses, on residential areas and assembly points for evacuation.

The city council said that Russian forces had bombed Mariupol Drama Theater, the debris collapsing on top of the bomb shelter where perhaps more than 1,000 people were hiding. Their fate is unknown. Russia, which says it is only targeting military assets, dismissed the reported airstrike as disinformation.

Still, more than 30,000 people managed to leave Mariupol in recent days, headed for Zaporizhzhia, according to the city council.

“People calling me are actively asking for safe routes to leave,” Goltvenko said. “They didn’t lose hope, they want to survive.”

The World

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

Russian footholds in Middle East and Africa raise threat to Nato

By Ellen Knickmeyer & Zeina Karam The Associated Press

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EIRUT—Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine dominates world attention. But with less global scrutiny, Putin is also busy advancing Russia’s presence in the Middle East and Africa—an expansion that military and civilian leaders view as another, if less immediate, threat to security in the West.

Putin’s strategy in the Mideast and Africa has been simple, and successful: He seeks out security alliances with autocrats, coup leaders, and others who have been spurned or neglected by the US and Europe, either because of their bloody abuses or because of competing Western strategic interests. n In Syria, Russia’s defense minister last month showed off nuclear-capable bombers and hypersonic missiles over the Mediterranean, part of a security partnership that now has the Kremlin threatening to send Syrian fighters to Ukraine. n In Sudan, a leader of a junta that’s seized power in that East African country has a new economic alliance with the Kremlin, reviving Russia’s dreams of a naval base on the Red Sea. n In Mali, the government is the latest of more than a dozen resource-rich African nations to forge security alliances with Kremlin-allied mercenaries, according to US officials.

Especially in the last five or six years, “what you’ve seen is a Russia that is much more expeditionary and casting its military power further and wider afield,” retired US Gen. Philip M. Breedlove told The Associated Press.

“Russia is trying to show itself as a great power, as at the seat in world affairs, as driving international situations,” said Breedlove, the top Nato commander from 2013 through 2016, and now a distinguished chair at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington.

But with Putin’s hands already full battling the fierce resistance from a much weaker Ukrainian military, experts view his expansionist goals in the Middle East and Africa as a potential long-term threat, not a present danger to Europe or the Nato alliance.

“It’s threatening Nato from below,” Kristina Kausch, a European security expert at the German Marshall Fund think-tank, said of the leverage Russia is gaining. “The Russians have felt encircled by Nato—and now they want to encircle Nato,” she said.

To achieve its strategic aims, Russia provides conventional military or Kremlinallied mercenaries to protect the regimes of often-outcast leaders. In return, these leaders pay back Russia in several ways: cash or natural resources, influence in their affairs, and staging grounds for Russian fighters.

These alliances help advance Putin’s ambitions of returning Russia’s influence to its old Cold War boundaries.

Russia’s new security partnerships also aid it diplomatically. When the U.N. General Assembly condemned Putin’s Ukraine invasion this month, Syria joined Russia in voting against, and many of the African governments that have signed security deals with Russian mercenaries abstained.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Russia would bring recruits from Syria to fight in Ukraine. The threat was seen primarily as an intimidation tactic and US officials say there’s been no sign of Syrian recruits in Ukraine. Some security experts say Russian mercenaries are using Mali as a staging ground for deployment to Ukraine, but US officials have not confirmed these reports.

Regardless of how imminent the threat is, US and European leaders are paying increasing attention to Putin’s moves in the Middle East and Africa—and Russia’s growing alliance with China—as it formulates plans to protect the West from future aggression.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in mid-February that the West could no longer ignore the competition for influence across Africa, where China spends billions on infrastructure projects to secure mineral rights, and Russia provides security through Kremlin-allied mercenaries.

“We see and realize that if we withdraw from this competition as liberal democracies, then others are going to fill these gaps,” Baerbock said as Western diplomats huddled on the Ukraine crisis, in the last days before Russia’s invasion.

Perhaps the boldest example of Russia flexing its global reach was when it sent defense minister Sergei Shoigu last month to Damascus to oversee Russia’s largest military drills in the Mediterranean since the Cold War, just as Russia’s military made final preparations for its assault on Ukraine.

The drills, involving 15 warships and about 30 aircraft, appeared choreographed to showcase the Russian military’s capability to threaten the US carrier strike group in the Mediterranean.

Russia’s Hmeimeem air base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast has served as its main outpost for launching attacks in Syria since September 2015. Russia’s attacks in Syria, which leveled ancient cities and sent millions of refugees to Europe, allowed President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal government to reclaim control over most of the country after a devastating civil war.

“Hmeimeem base is now an integral part of Russia’s defense strategy not just in the Middle East but all the world,’’ said Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syrian journalist and senior diplomatic editor for Syrian affairs at the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

In Africa, too, Russia is open to working with leaders known for anti-democratic actions and abuses of human rights.

On the eve of Russia’s invasion with Ukraine, Kremlin officials met in Moscow with an officer of a military junta that seized power in Sudan.

Isolated by the West, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo warmly responded to Russia’s overture of a new economic-focused alliance. Upon returning home, Gen. Dagolo announced that Sudan would be open to allowing Russia to build its long hoped-for naval base at Port Sudan on the Red Sea. It’s far from certain that Russia would be able to take advantage anytime soon. The Ukraine invasion is straining its military and financial resources and showing Russia’s military weaknesses, and international sanctions are crippling its economy.

But longer-term, a Red Sea port could help give it a greater role in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, increase Russian access in the Suez Canal and other high-traffic shipping lanes, and allow Russia to project force in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

“They certainly could create enough havoc to cause problems,” said Breedlove, the former Nato commander.

Russia’s expanding alliances aren’t just about its conventional military.

From 2015 to 2021, Russian mercenary security outfits increased their presence around the world seven-fold, with operations in 27 countries as of last year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The most prominent is the Wagner Group, which the US and EU consider to be a surrogate of the Russian military, but which the Kremlin denies even exists.

From Libya to Madagascar, security contracts granted to Wagner Group and others give Russia access to mineral resources, staging grounds for deployments and substantial footholds challenging Western nations’ influence there.

In Mali, the US and Europe expressed alarm in December at reports that the Wagner Group had signed a $10 million-a-month security contract with that government.

Experts say Wagner took advantage of local unhappiness over the failures of a yearslong French-led deployment in the sub-Saharan targeting extremist factions.

Mali denied any such deployment, but some in Mali saw the arrival of Russians as a slam to Mali’s colonial ruler France, which had struggled to protect them against armed extremists. They hope for better results from any Russian fighters arriving in the subSaharan. “Long live Russia!” cried one man in a crowd cheering the sight of a Russian delegation in the capital in January. “Long live the people of Mali!”

Knickmeyer reported from Washington. The Associated Press reporter Bassem Mroue contributed from Beirut.

BusinessMirror

Sunday, March 20, 2022

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Russia’s bond payment in limbo as countdown to default begins

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By Bruce Douglas & Abhinav Ramnarayan

ussia’s Finance Ministry said that it has sent payment orders for the interest on its dollar bonds to its correspondent bank, giving incremental details on a debt settlement that has come to exemplify how Moscow plans to handle its future relations with creditors.

In a statement Thursday, the Finance Ministry said it had sent the order for a $117 million interest payment on March 14 to a correspondent bank that it didn’t identify, adding that it would issue a separate comment about whether the paying agent, Citibank’s London branch, has received the payment. The bank declined a request for comment. The ministry has said it would first try to make the payments in dollars and then use rubles if that fails.

So far, European bondholders of Russia’s sovereign debt have received no sign of the funds, although growing optimism that the bonds may be settled is spurring prices higher across maturities.

What happens next is unclear, but if Russia’s creditors don’t get the cash in dollars within the 30day grace period that starts on Thursday, it would be the first time the nation defaulted on foreigncurrency bonds since the Bolsheviks repudiated the czar’s debts in 1918. Bondholders could still declare default if Russia pays in rubles, according to Fitch Ratings.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the nation has all the resources it needs to avoid a default.

If, however, it doesn’t meet its debt obligations, the outcome could reinforce Russia’s exclusion from global capital markets and raise its borrowing costs. The government and firms including Gazprom and Lukoil have about $150 billion of foreign-currency debt. Such amounts and the broader financial squeeze may not be enough to threaten a global financial crisis, but the strains are rippling through emerging markets and could deal shocks to a world economy undergoing a seismic transformation in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

“The Russian debt deterioration was very sudden and in a country where the fundamentals were strong, so it will definitely be more significant than, say, Argentina’s default,” Anthony Kettle, a senior portfolio manager at BlueBay Asset Management Plc, said. “It may lead to some further diversification of international reserves, with possibly more of a role for

A food delivery man leaves an exchange office with screen showing the currency exchange rates of US dollar and euro to Russian rubles in Moscow, Russia on February 24, 2022. AP Photo

CNY, as the US has used sanctions and the dollar reserve asset status so effectively in this case.”

Signs of stress

As for the impact on Russia itself, while its economy has been devastated by measures such as freezing much of the central bank’s $640 billion in reserves, the country’s large current account surplus means it doesn’t necessarily need bond market access.

That said, there have also been signs of strains among some Russian corporate borrowers. Internet search engine Yandex, social-media network VK Co Ltd. and Ozon Holdings have already initiated talks with creditors. Also, payments due from EuroChem hadn’t been processed as of Wednesday evening, according to people familiar with the matter, and Severstal said it had “grounds to believe” its settlement wouldn’t be processed either. Citigroup is the paying agent for both bonds. The

bank declined to comment on all of the interest payments.

“The biggest hit will obviously be on the flow of capital,” said Simon Harvey, head of FX analysis at Monex Europe, who expects money managers to become much more cautious around emerging-market credit. “Investors have now been woken up to the perils of investing in higher-yielding sovereign debt.”

In 1998, Moscow’s default on its domestic debt and moratorium on payment to foreign creditors rippled across the global economy, contributing to the collapse and subsequent rescue of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, an event cited by the World Bank’s chief economist in an interview on Tuesday.

“Remember LTCM? That wasn’t necessarily on anyone’s radar screen at the outset of the Russian default in August 1998,” said World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart. “Those things start to surface. Exposures are opaque.”

Bloomberg News

Historic surge in oil impacting Asian equity, currency markets

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he historic surge in oil is reshaping the outlook for Asian equity and currency markets, as the specter of prolonged high prices exposes the vulnerability of energy-dependent countries.

Risks of a rise in consumer prices and disruption to currentaccount balances have triggered strong foreign outflows from equities in markets like India and South Korea in recent days, spurring weakness in their currencies.

A few resources-rich nations, like Australia and Indonesia, are among the beneficiaries as their markets are holding up amid the downturn since Russia invaded Ukraine. Sanctions against Russian oil pushed the price of Brent crude to as high as $139 a barrel earlier in the week.

“There couldn’t be a more appropriate time than now for investors to remain well-diversified across assets,” said David Chao, global market strategist for Asia Pacific ex-Japan at Invesco Ltd. “It makes sense to be overweight in natural resources and those countries that are the biggest commodity exporters in energy, agriculture and metals.”

Here’s a look at how some Asian markets are positioned in the face of elevated energy prices:

Australia

The country is a world leader in producing and exporting metals and minerals, including coal, iron ore and gold. Oil and natural gas account for more than 15 percent of Australia’s export earnings, according to RBC Europe Ltd. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index, where material firms account for a quarter of the weighting, has declined 2 percent since

Korea is also witnessing a foreign selloff that’s contributed to the weakness in its currency. The won is down about 3 percent against the greenback since the invasion of Ukraine, the second-worst performer in Asia.

The Kospi Index, which was the region’s biggest 2022 loser among national equity benchmarks before the war began, is down almost 11 percent year-to-date as rising yields threaten to erode earnings for its tech heavyweights. The outlook has slightly improved as the new president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is expected to be more business friendly than his predecessor.

China Feb. 23, the day before Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. That’s versus a more than 7 percent slide for the MSCI Asia Pacific Index. Miners like Cimic Group Ltd. and Whitehaven Coal Ltd. have surged at least 27 percent during the period, while the Australian dollar was up more than 1 percent against the greenback as of late Friday in Asia.

Indonesia, Malaysia

Indonesia and Malaysia are the world’s top two exporters of palm oil, a status that has helped attract investors amid a global stock rout.

The Jakarta Composite Index has held its own while the rupiah is the sole gainer among Asian currencies since the Ukraine invasion.

A resilient ringgit has supported foreign inflows into Malaysian stocks. Down a little more than 1 percent since Feb. 23, the local equity benchmark is faring better than the regional market.

“It’s the classic inflation hedge,” said Wai Ho Leong, a strategist at Modular Asset Management in

Singapore. “I’d be looking for Malaysia assets to buy on the cheap,” he said, adding the currency is still “fundamentally undervalued.”

India

In India, which imports about 85 percent of its oil needs, foreigners are selling stocks at a record pace and the exodus has sent the rupee to a record low. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex is down 2.9 percent since Feb. 23, with buying by domestic funds amid a retailtrading frenzy helping limit equity losses.

Still, the risk of an inflation shock poses a challenge for the central bank and financial markets in a country that’s likely the most vulnerable to the surge in Brent crude. Earlier this month, Credit Suisse Group AG doubledowngraded Indian stocks to underweight in their Asia allocation, while upgrading Australia.

South Korea

Another big oil importer, South

The dynamics are slightly different for Chinese markets, where regulatory concerns have been hammering share prices. China imports about 15 percent of its oil from Russia and may be able to pay lower prices for those imports due to reduced demand from the US and Europe, according to Jian Chang, Barclays Plc’s chief China economist. A wealth of policy tools also means Beijing can order stateowned oil refiners to cut profit to cap fuel prices.

Thailand

Soaring fuel costs are threatening a nascent recovery in Thailand’s tourism-dependent economy, just as the nation started opening up to international travel.

The likely loss of Russian tourists, the largest group of travelers in January, would deal another blow to the economy.

The baht is Asia’s worst performing currency since the invasion of Ukraine, while the SET Index has fallen more than 2 percent.

Bloomberg News

Journey

»life on the go

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BusinessMirror

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Editor: Tet Andolong

Exciting Restart in Bicol

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By Bernard L. Supetran

he lowering of Covid-19 Alert Levels in most parts of the Philippines is undoubtedly the green light wanderlusts have been waiting for to resume their jetsetting lifestyles before the pandemic struck.

Among the top tourist destinations which has been eagerly awaiting the return of visitors over the past two years is the Bicol region.

Situated just a few hours drive south of the Metro, many localities cautiously reopened its tourism in late 2020 to revive the industry after putting health and safety protocols in place.

Just recently, the Department of Tourism launched the “Exciting Restart” to officially reboot tourism and the economic activities related to it. Patterned after its “Exciting Bicol” branding, the campaign aims to lure back visitors with its natural wonders, recreational adventures and newly- opened eco -t hemed destinations which are considered low-risk because of open spaces and adherence to physical distancing.

Legazpi City, the regional center announced its formal reopening with the recent staging of the fourth Oz Goose National Championships which saw over a hundred sailors taking part in a sporting event which also launched Bicol as a new haven for sailing.

With the new sport, the city boulevard is expected to be a mecca for watersports and outdoor recreation, especially with the newly-developed Sawangan Park.

A Unesco as a Man and Biosphere Reserve, Albay is reinventing itself as the region’s hub of farm tourism with its bevy of agrarian-themed establishments around the iconic Mayon Volcano.

Among the farm-themed restaurants and boutique lodgings are Aguas Farm and Mirisbiris Garden and Nature Center in Sto. Domingo,

Sumlang Lake, Solong Eco-Park and El Miro De Shei Integrated Farm in Camalig, Farm Plate in Daraga, and Gamboa’s Orchard in Malilipot.

With Instagrammable premises and good food to boot, these establishments have become Internet sensations as well.

Fresh from the successful run of a GMA teleserye shot in the province, Sorsogon also announced its reopening with the redevelopment of its top attraction, the Bulusan Volcano Natural Park. Tucked in a lush tropical rainforest, the project built an eco-tourism center and eco-adventour facilities so visitors can better enjoy the park’s centerpiece—the 16-hectare Bulusan Lake which can be navigated aboard a boat.

Donsol town also announced the resumption of the butanding interaction where guests can see a whale shark, the world’s biggest fish, up close. Meanwhile, surfers are beginning to troop back and ride the waves again in Gubat, the province’s surfing hot spot.

In recent months, scuba divers plunged into the depths of the sea to check out the viability of introducing diving as a watersport in several coastal towns.

For a glimpse of its rich heritage, swing by Museo Sorsogon, the restored old provincial jail situated at the Provincial Capitol Complex which was also spruced up during the lull.

Camarines Sur is also emerging as a hive for farm tourism with the development of agrarian-themed resorts and day tour destinations at the fringes of Naga City. Among these are Sonrisa Farm in Magarao, a garden wedding place and a gov-

Oz Goose National Championships in Legazpi City John Gochenouer

Consocep Hibiscus Camp in Tigaon, Camarines Sur Bernard Supetran

Bulusan Lake in Sorsogon Bernard Supetran

Quinapaguian Island in Mercedes, Camarines Norte Bernard Supetran

ernment-accredited farm school, and MikeLiz Integrated Farm in Calabanga, a dragonfruit plantation which also now hosts an animal farm, a country-style resort, and a venue for small events.

At the bosom of Mount Isarog at 519 meters above sea level is the village of Consocep in Tigaon town, regarded as Bicol’s “summer capital” with its cool climate and the magnificent view of mountains, sea and lake.

The best spot to gaze at this panorama, feel the cool breeze and sip a hot tablea chocolate is Hibiscus Camp, an upland garden with swimming pools, view decks, picnic huts, bonfire and camping grounds, a mountain chapel, and a quaint barn house for overnight stays.

Adventure lovers can hie off to the old time favorites—CamSur Watersports Complex and Caramoan beaches, or rediscover the whitesand beaches in the Partido district which have become accessible with the road improvements.

Masbate and Catanduanes are also beckoning travelers who want a more laid-back and close-to-nature type of journey. These island provinces boast some of the most underrated, but equally-beautiful beaches and idyllic islands coupled with amazing rugged landscapes.

The former boasts of the Manta Bowl dive site in Ticao Island, while the latter is a Pacific surfing spot with the so-called Majestics, known for its barreling waves in Baras town.

Last but not least, Camarines Norte has also rebooted its local tourism and is expecting the influx of beach bums who will troop to Calaguas Islands, once voted as the country’s top Tourism Gem, and other powdery coastal areas and islands in Panganiban, Capalonga, Mercedes, Vinzons and Paracale towns.

With the excitement of the restart of Bicol’s tourism, footloose travelers can only look forward to more enticing experiences in an exciting region.

Tuwad-Tuwadan Blue Lagoon in Catanduanes ROY CIRERA

TWO FRIENDS FOR SUSTAINABLE FARM TOURISM D

Bobby Joseph and Tony Meloto at the Serenity Chapel

Paraiso Village Social Tourism Farm

Plush accommodations at the Balinese-style Rumah Cantik

Horses and goats raised at the farm

espite graduating from colleges with a well-known sports rivalry (Letran and Ateneo, respectively), Robert Lim “Bobby” Joseph and Antonio “Tony” Meloto are just two great friends living parallel lives. Aside from being the same age, both have been spearheads for worthy endeavors (Bobby launched the Save Manila Bay project in January 2019 and Tony is the founder of Gawad Kalinga, a Philippinebased poverty alleviation movement).

Both have the shared experiences of losing loved ones (Bobby’s son Richard tragically passed away in 2017 at the age of 28 while Tony lost 3 siblings to cancer and his father in 1994) and booth have health issues (Bobby is a Stage 4 kidney cancer survivor since 2002 while Tony is blind in the left eye since he was 12 and had skin psoriasis since he was 38). In spite of all these trials and tribulations, both have remained steadfast in their Catholic faith (Bobby prays the rosary daily, is a “cooperator” with Opus Dei and is especially devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and Mary Mediatrix of all Grace in Lipa while Tony is an active member of Couples for Christ and founder of Youth for Christ, Kids for Christ, Handmaids of the Lord and Servants of the Lord).

Both Bobby and Tony also share a genuine concern to aid and uplift the marginalized communities. Now in their 70s, they’ve discovered a new passion to add quality to their senior years by, in turn, improving the quality of the less fortunate through the creation of shared prosperity to end poverty—sustainable farm tourism. For both of them, doing good has no retirement, age limit or expiration date.

In 2018, Tony established Paraiso Village Social Tourism Farm, an 8.8-hectare eco-farm resort in San Jose, Batangas and Bobby, with his supportive wife Ida, have also actively involved themselves in this endeavor. Because of

his friendship with Tony, Bobby saw the village farm as an avenue to continue their shared advocacy as well as it being an instrument to honor his son Richard who, before he died, was an active Gawad Kalinga volunteer helping street children.

According to Tony, Paraiso aims to improve the lives of farmers by providing them residence, livelihood, and sustainable source of income. Investors invest in a small land and the farmers who lived on that land had, with the capital from the landowners, grown 3,000 fruit-bearing trees (langka, mangosteen, durian, lanzones, marang, lychee, rambutan, papaya, avocado and bananas) and planted vegetables (ampalaya, pechay, squash, eggplant, upo, cucumber, etc.), root crops (cassava, singkamas, etc.) and herbs. In return, they got 30-percent share of the total harvest on top of the salary they received every month.

They’ve also raise livestock and tended to farm animals such as pigs, carabaos, horses goats and chickens. Landowners and investors are only allowed to build on 20 percent of their lots while the remaining 80 percent is cultivated for agricultural purposes.

A big boost to the farmers’ income this, seemingly, is too good to be true, considering that farmers, who tend the field under the heat of the sun all day, are one of the lowest paid citizens in the country. The families are also given free housing, water and electricity and they can do whatever they want with their share of the harvest, whether they use it for their daily

meals or sell it in the market.

Bobby and Ida have donated and dedicated a chapel under the name of their son Richard. Today, this beautiful and modern, minimalist chapel, now called the Serenity Chapel, blends effortlessly with the serene rural setting. Together with the Bamboo Sanctuary, they are serene areas for prayer and meditation. Strongly believing that education is a tool that will provide a brighter future, Bobby and Ida have also sponsored the education of the Paraiso farmers’ children until college. He and other kind-hearted members of the Rotary Club of Manila have also donated money for the monthly school food allowance and transportation of the farmers’ children.

The beauty of Paraiso Village Social Tourism Farm is it not just about the farm. Here, visitors can tour the area, via electric tourist coaches, breathe unpolluted air and immerse themselves and have a life-changing experience with Paraiso Village Farm farmers. After a productive and heartening day, visitors can stay overnight at beautiful air-conditioned bed and breakfast villas (Cabana Nipa, the Balinese-themed Rumah Cantik, etc.) or can also camp out and enjoy healthy, farm-fresh dishes made by the women in the village and, for a minimal price, take home their favorite fresh, organic produce.

A multipurpose hall serves as a venue for values-oriented events such as seminars that teach values, a positive attitude and skills on livelihood and other income opportunities for

the families. The building can also be a venue where larger groups can hold functions, baptisms and weddings (the building is beside the chapel), birthday receptions, corporate events, retreats and other special occasions.

The multipurpose hall, chapel as well as the farm facilities, bed and breakfast villas and restaurant were all built by the men, with the mothers managing the last two. The children help in the vegetable gardening, landscaping and cleanup. All, including the seniors (the oldest is 84 years old), help in entertaining families of guests (especially the children) by introducing them to the joys of farming. For fun activities for visitors, especially to kids, there’s a swimming pool (adult and kiddie) with a jacuzzi. There’s also a bike trail.

Now considered one of the top agri-tourism destinations, Paraiso Village Social Tourism Farm has, for four years now, been a working social business model for promoting sustainability, uplifting farmers, and building unity among the stakeholders.

In 2019, it was an awardee for Social Tourism by the Rotary Club of Manila.

Bobby and Tony still invite businessmen to invest and to help the farmers and their families. Still a work in progress, both are constantly working on improving the village farm to truly make it a little piece of heaven on earth where rich and poor are equal in worth and dignity and where there is no bias or exclusion due to race religion and gender.

Science Sunday BusinessMirror

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

Sunday, March 20, 2022

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How can a woman be an environment scientist?

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o be a woman is already hard enough, and to be working in the field of environment presents a number of challenges.”

This was according to Dr. Emilyn Q. Espiritu, executive director of Ateneo Research Institute of Science and Engineering, during a presentation on “Women at the Frontline of Climate Change,” in the recent Women’s Month celebration of the Department of Science and Technology-Gender and Development.

Espiritu gave a rundown of the six challenges confronting the environment: over population, depleting water resources, soil erosion, solid waste management, loss of biodiversity, and the atmosphere.

She said that people are witnessing a tremendous leap in industrial development, economic growth, population increase, but unfortunately these developments came at a price.

The exponential increase in population has been exerting pressure on water resources, such that scientist have come up with a very grim scenario that future wars will no longer be fought over territories or land. It will be fought over access to clean, potable water.

She cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report which showed that the past seven years have been the warmest on record.

The situation is so critical that the IPCC made a statement that “unless there are immediate, rapid and largescale reduction in greenhouse emissions, it could take 20 to 30 years to see global temperatures stabilize.”

Addressing the younger audience, Espiritu said: “To the youth, 20 to 30 years [old], you are still young, while we are on our exit. This is your generation, ladies and gentlemen. This report is a reality check. While it is not my intention to scare or discourage you, the challenge for us now is: So, what do we do about it? In particular what is the role of women scientists in protecting the environment?”

The scientist’s journey as a woman in the science field Espiritu grew up in an era when women had to contend with gender bias. She shared how her grandfather would say this to her aunts: “Just be teachers because you will get married anyway.”

During her time, girls were always considered the last resort when it came to selecting contestants for science and math competitions because of the popular notion then that girls can’t do math and that science was a man’s domain.

In the 1980s when she was starting out in her career, there were few leadership positions for women and the pay wasn’t great.

She also recounted that there were some colleagues who experienced some form of inappropriate treatment pertaining to sexual behaviour. They were trapped in jobs which they felt had minimal opportunities for promotion and higher salaries.

Having graduated with a degree in Marine Science in the early ‘70s, Espiritu pursued a higher degree in Environmental Sanitation in the late ‘80s, and eventually a PhD in

Dr. Emilyn Espiritu NAST.ph photo Applied Biological Science majoring in Environmental Technology in the mid-‘90s.

Espiritu specialized in a field called ecotoxicology, which was still in its infancy back then, when the researchers were just beginning to understand what is the significance of various substances on the health of plants, animals, communities, and others.

Her work was mostly focused on generating baseline data because that was what was needed at the time. Until she realized that generating data was not enough. It was important as well.

This realization came with the statement by Sara Parkin in 1991, the former spokesman of the British Green Party: “Our numbness, our silence, our lack of courage could mean that we end up the only species to have minutely monitored our own extinction. What a measly epitaph that would make—they saw it com-

A slide from Dr. Emilyn Espiritu’s presentation showing women scientists (from top, left, clockwise): Dr. Fe del Mundo, medicine; Dr. Carmen Velasquez, parasitology; Dr. Dolores Ramirez, cytogenetics; Dr. Clare Baltazar, entomology; Dr. Lourdes Cruz, biochemistry; Dr. Ma. Corazon de Ungria, forensicDNA technology; Dr. Rhodora Azanza, Marine science; and Dr. Reinabelle Reyes, astrophysics. ing but didn’t have the wit to stop it happening.”

“I told myself there has to be a better way of doing things in order to preserve what remains of our resources, and to ensure a more sustainable future for everyone,” Espiritu said.

That signaled the beginning of her journey, not just into monitoring and assessment and providing baseline data, but into capacity building, environmental policy, environmental advocacy, and so on.

She was doing researches on projects related to environmental monitoring, assessments, a job which allowed her to do field work in Manila Bay, in various lakes, rivers, mining sites, and others.

Later, she also got involved in more management-related types of

projects, capacity building, providing training programs on environmental management for various institutions, eco labeling, environmental policy, etc.

She is currently doing research on plastics, specifically microplastics in various aquatic habitats like rivers and lakes.

Addressing the audience, she said: “Let us be reminded that women hold up ‘half of the sky.’”

“Half the Sky” is a book written by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, about turning oppression into opportunities for women.

Advice to the younger generation on science career “The fact is, a science background serves as a good training for a variety

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University of Perpetual Help, 2 Asean universities partner to launch space satellite

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DOST-STII

British Council STEM scholarships for Filipino women deadline on March 31

Cube nanosatellite Photo from UPHSD

he University of Perpetual Help System Dalta (UPHSD) in Las Piñas City is all set to “reach for the stars” as it joins forces with two educational institutions in the Asean region for the start of the AseanSAT1 nanosatellite project.

The the project aims to launch a nanosatellite in the first quarter of 2023 to the International Space Station, UPHSD said in a news release.

The satellite will go into a low earth orbit to gather data on Earth imaging, marine traffic and greenhouse gases, and testing of equipment like commercial off-the-shelf global positioning system and the Anistropic Magneto Resistance Magnetometer.

Joining the UPHSD are the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Shah Alam, Malaysia, and the King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB) in Thailand.

The international kick-off ceremony for the start of the AseanSAT 1 nanosatellite project was held on March 11 in simple online ceremonies.

It was attended by the project’s heads led by Lorena Ilagan of the UPHSD, Phongsatorn Saisutjarit of KMUTNB and Dr. Mohamad Hazaimy Jusoh of UiTM. “Certainly, this project is a milestone not only for the University of Perpetual Help System Dalta but for the development of science and technology in the country and in the Asean region,” said Dr. Anthony Jose M. Tamayo, president of the University of Perpetual Help.

In her presentation during the ceremonies Ilagan pointed out the importance of satellites to modern day living.

“Some of us might not be aware of the importance of satellites in our lives.

The usual everyday things we rely on in our day-to-day existence have become increasingly dependent on space technology like satellite TV, GPS systems used by

of professions, not just in the field of environment,” Espiritu said, encouraging the younger generation to find out more about the women scientists, both locally and abroad who contributed in the field.

She added that other than a background in science, one also needs luck, need passion, perseverance and hard work to be successful in whatever it is they plan to do.

She said that a successful career in science, in the environment in particular, will require them to achieve a certain level of competency or expertise.

She advised: “You have to be focused on your goals. And do not be afraid to take risks. As I told my students, those in environment, they are those who are not afraid to have their hands and feet get dirty.”

She also encouraged the youth to develop and strengthen their communication skills because there are different kinds of people that they’ll have to address to in order to help them understand what the problems are.

She pointed out that they have to be confident about who they are and what they know, but at the same time to be open to change, and more importantly, to publish their work to obtain affirmation from their colleagues in the profession, and enhance their reputation, at the same time.

“It allows you to contribute to the knowledge in the field, for after all, we do science not just for the fun of it. Science is fun, yes. But we do science more importantly, to be of service to society.” Geraldine Bulaon-Ducusin,

smartphones, instruments and equipment for military operations, air traffic and the weather. Without space technology like satellites, the world would be very different from what it is today,” Ilagan explained.

Mohamad outlined the benefits of the project, including the advancement of space technology, satellite images for advanced research of academic institutions, advanced engineering expertise for students.

He added that projects like AseanSAT1 can have an “immense impact” on the social and economic life of a nation.

“These impacts include the development of human resources that aids economic development, the development of knowledgebased economies and manufacturing of space grade products,” he said.

He warned, however, that Asean countries must hasten their space technology programs.

“Many corporations and countries are working to put their own satellites in space. If we don’t get involved in a space project to put our own object in space, we are not sure if there will be any space for us in space in the next five years,” Mohamad said.

Founded in 1975, the UPHSD is committed to delivering quality education in the fields of medical and allied health, engineering and architecture, arts and sciences and many more.

It aims to produce future leaders who excel in their chosen fields through innovative programs and an extensive network of national and international linkages in higher education and business.

The education institution believes that national development and transformation is predicated on the quality of the education of its people. It is committed to the ideals of teaching, community service and research with its motto “Character Building is Nation Building” as its guiding principle.

he Philippines placed second in the countries with the most numbers of female inventors, a recent report by the World Intellectual Property Office said.

However, within the education context, Evident Integrated Marketing and PR reported that «just two in seven engineering students are female, only 41 percent of students taking IT-related courses are women,» the British Council said in a news release.

It added that Filipino women make up only 43 percent of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) enrolments—and mostly in nonengineering or non-informational technology fields, according to statistics from the Commission on Higher Education.

To support Filipino women to further their careers in STEM, the British Council is inviting applications for its Women in STEM scholarships which

deadline is on March 31.

There are 29 scholarships from six UK universities on offer, namely for Brunel University, Teesside University, Liverpool John Moores University, Edinburgh Napier University, University of Glasgow and the University of York.

The scholarships include funding for 21 Master’s degrees and eight PhDs or fellowships.

Courses being offered include those in the fields of climate change, healthcare management, automation and water engineering, among others.

This scholarship program aims to increase opportunities in STEM for girls and women.

In 2020, six female researchers were awarded the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-Newton PhD scholarships leading the next batch of DOST-Newton Fund research and studentship grants, the British Council said.

‘Maghanda’ prepares Filipinos for their safety from natural hazards

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he Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) entered into an agreement for an information caravan in order to prepare the Filipinos all over the country from natural hazards.

DOST Undersecretary Dr. Renato U. Solidum Jr., for Scientific and Technical Services, led the signing of the memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the DILG, represented by DILG Undersecretary for Barangay Affairs Martin B. Diño, for a new partnership that will carry out the information caravan dubbed as “Maghanda,” or the “Meteorological and Geological Hazard Advisories, Warning and Notifications for Decisive Action” in 17 regions across the country.

Maghanda aims to provide the citizens a clearer understanding of all the warning messages on natural hazards—such as

DOST Undersecretary Dr. Renato U. Solidum Jr. (seated, second from left) and DILG Undersecretary Martin B. Diño (seated second from right) lead the signing of a MOA for an information caravan dubbed as “Maghanda,” or the “Meteorological and Geological Hazard Advisories, Warning and Notifications for Decisive Action” to all the regions across the country. Photo by Henry A. De Leon/S&T Media Service earthquakes, storm surges, typhoons, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions among others, for a better response action among the local government units (LGUs).

The MOA signing was attended by officials from the DILG, DOST agencies, including the Science and Technology Information Institute (DOST-STII), Philippine Institute on Volcanology and

Seismology (DOST-Phivolcs) and Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (DOSTPagasa) Present were Local Government Academy Executive Director Thelma T. Vecina, DOST-Science, DOST-STII Director Richard P. Burgos, DOST-Phivolcs’s Dr. Mylene M.

Villegas, DOST-PAGASA Deputy Administrator for R&D Dr. Esperanza O. Cayanan, DOSTPagasa Administrator Dr. Vicente B. Malano, and DILG-Central Office Disaster Information Coordinating Center Chief Edgar Allan B. Tabell. The MOA signing was held on 16 March 2022 at the SEDA Vertis North Hotel in Quezon City. S&T Media Services

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Sunday, March 20, 2022

Faith

Sunday

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

Vatican: Pope to consecrate Russia, Ukraine to Immaculate Heart of Mary V

ATICAN CITY—Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Vatican announced recently.

The Holy See press office said on March 15: “On Friday, March 25, during the Celebration of Penance at which he will preside at 5 p.m. in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

“The same act, on the same day, will be carried out in Fatima by His Eminence Cardinal [Konrad] Krajewski, Apostolic Almoner, as envoy of the Holy Father.”

Krajewski was one of two papal envoys sent to Ukraine last week in an expression of the pope’s concern for the war-torn country’s population.

March 25 was the day in 1984 that Pope John Paul II consecrated Russia and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is also the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.

Ukraine’s Latin Rite Catholic bishops asked Pope Francis earlier this month to consecrate Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In a letter to the pope, the U k ra in i a n bishops sa id t hat t he y were w r it i ng “ i n t hese hours of immeasurable pain and terrible ordeal for our people” in response to many requests for the consecration.

“Responding to this prayer, we humbly ask Your Holiness to publicly perform the act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ukraine and Russia, as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima,” said the letter, published on the bishops’ web site on Ash Wednesday, March 2.

Following the bishops’ call, Our Lady of Fatima shrines worldwide were invited to unite in prayer for the conversion of Russia.

The appeal was made by Father Andrzej Draws, rector of the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima in Krisovychi, western

Pope Francis prays at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in Fatima, Portugal, on May 12, 2017, the eve of her feast. VATICAN MEDIA

Ukraine.

He encouraged all shrines in honor of Our Lady of Fatima to unite in prayer for the conversion of Russia, on March 13.

Ukraine and Russia, the two largest countries in Europe by area, are both predominantly E a ster n O r t hodox cou nt r ies

with deep traditions of Marian devotion.

Yaroslav the Wise, the grand prince of Kyiv, dedicated his lands to Mary in 1037 and she has been known since then as “Queen of Ukraine.”

Pope Francis used the title in his Angelus address on March 6,

saying: “Let us pray together, as brothers and sisters, to Our Lady, Queen of Ukraine.”

Before the revolutions of 1917 that overthrew the Russian Empire and led to the creation of the Soviet Union, Russia was colloquially known as the “house of Mary” because there were more shrines and churches dedicated to Our Lady than in any other country at the time.

During the Fatima apparitions in 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary revealed three secrets.

The second secret was a statement that World War I would end, and a prediction of another war that would start during the reign of Pius XI if people continued to offend God and Russia was not consecrated to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

Sister Lucia, one of the three Fatima visionaries, recalled in her memoirs that Our Lady asked for “the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the

First Saturdays” to prevent a second world war.

She said that Mary told her: “If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.”

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”

In a letter written in 1989, Sister Lucia confirmed that Pope John Paul II satisfied Our Lady’s request for Russia’s consecration in 1984.

Other authorities, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also have affirmed the consecration was completed to Sister Lucia’s satisfaction.

Catholic News Agency via CBCP News

1st Mass celebrated at Swiss cathedral after 500 years since Reformation

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Officials of the National Historical Commission; Bulacan Provincial History, Arts, Culture and Tourism Office; and the Malolos Diocese unveil historical markers at the Malolos Cathedral as part of the commemoration of the diocese’s 60th anniversary. SANDIGAN-DIOCESE OF MALOLOS Photos

Historical markers honor Malolos Cathedral

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ALOLOS CITY—Two government cultural agencies have installed historical markers honoring the history of the Immaculate Conception Parish-Cathedral and Minor Basilica in Malolos City.

T he ded ication ceremony was held in front of the historic church on March 14.

It was attended by some officials of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), the Bulacan Provincial History, Arts, Culture and Tourism Office (Phacto), and the Malolos diocese.

The NHCP marker was unvei led at t he bel f r y i n t he presence of Bishop Dennis Villarojo, Malolos Cathedral Rector Fr. A lberto D.J. Santiago and Malolos Church Cultural Heritage chairman Fr. Vicente Lina Jr. The Bulacan Phacto also installed its own marker, citing Malolos Cathedral’s significance in the history of Malolos City and of the province.

The event was part of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Diocese of Malolos, which was celebrated on March 11.

The celebration was highlighted with a Mass presided over by A rchbishop Charles Brow n, Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines.

Founded in 1580 by the Augustinian friars, the Malolos Cathedral is one of the country’s oldest parishes dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

I n 18 8 8 , t he c hu rc h be came the historic venue for the dialogue between Spanish Gov. Gen. Valer iano Weyler and 20 women of Malolos, resulting in the grant given to them to learn Spanish for the first time.

During the First Philippine Republic of 1898-1899, Malolos served as the first capital of the country.

The cathedral’s convent was also converted as the Presidential Palace for President Emilio Aguinaldo.

In 1962, t he church was elevated as the cathedral of Malolos diocese.

On the occasion of the Centennial Year of Philippines Independence (1898-1998), the church was granted the title of minor basilica. It is one of only two churches in the Philippines that is both a cathedral and a minor basilica; the other is the Manila Cathedral.

Called by scholars as the “freedom shrine of the Philippines,” the historic church is remembered for its remarkable contribution to the history of the Church and of the country. Kendrick Ivan B. Panganiban/ CBCP News

OME—The first Catholic Mass in nearly 500 years was celebrated at a cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland, last week for the vigil of the First Sunday of Lent.

The last Mass celebrated at St. Pierre Cathedral took place in 1535.

After the Reformation, the building was taken over by John Calvin’s Reformed Protestant Church, which destroyed the cathedral’s statues and paintings, and banned Catholic worship.

The Mass took place on March 5, having been postponed for two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Around 1,500 people attended the Mass. The main celebrant was Father Pascal Desthieux, the episcopal vicar of Geneva.

During the liturgy, Daniel Pilly, a representative of the Protestant community, asked pardon for historic actions against Christian unity.

Desthieux said that Geneva’s Catholics were touched by the Protestant community’s invitation to celebrate Mass at St. Pierre Cathedral and also asked for forgiveness for “faults against unity”: acts of mockery, caricature, or challenge to the Reformed community.

Desthieux also underlined the desire to “enrich each other with our differences.”

The priest greeted couples from religiously mixed marriages “who live ecumenismz in the most intimate way.”

Referring to Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the desert, he called on those present to

The façade of St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland, in January 27, 2020. Photos by Lyn B. Resurreccion

The nave of St. Pierre Cathedral.

The spire or belfry of St. Pierre Cathedral.

“resist the forces of division in our lives between us and among us Christians.”

In a letter published on the vicariate’s website in 2020, Desthieux described the cathedral as the “central and symbolic location of Geneva’s Christian history.”

Following the Reformation, the cathedral became a location “emblematic of the Calvinist reform,” he said.

John Calvin, the French founder of the branch of Protestantism known as Calvinism, lived in Geneva, and the city was a destination for French Protestants forced to flee due to persecution.

Saint-Pierre de Genève was Calvin’s home church and his chair is displayed next to the cathedral’s pulpit.

The diocese of Geneva was eventually absorbed into the diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg.

Today, just under 40 percent of the Swiss population is Catholic.

While acknowledging that the return of Catholic Mass to the cathedral was a cause for rejoicing, Desthieux cautioned against “triumphalism,” as well as any language suggesting that Catholics were looking to “take over” the building.

“With our Protestant brothers and sisters, who welcome us in their cathedral, we want simply to make a strong ecumenical gesture, a sign that we all live together in Geneva,” he said, adding that the Mass was a “gesture of hospitality” within the city’s Christian community.

Hannah Brockhaus/Catholic News Agency

India court upholds hijab ban in schools and colleges

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EW DELHI—An Indian last week upheld a ban on wearing hijab in class in the southern state of Karnataka, saying the Muslim headscarf is not an essential religious practice of Islam in a ruling that is likely to further deepen religious tensions in the country.

The high court in Karnataka state delivered the verdict after considering petitions filed by Muslim students challenging a government ban on hijabs that some schools and colleges have implemented in the last two months.

The ban does not extend to other Indian states, but the court ruling could set a precedent for the rest of the country.

The dispute began in January when a government-run school in Karnataka’s Udupi district barred students wearing hijabs from entering classrooms, triggering protests by Muslims who said they were being deprived of their fundamental rights to education and religion.

That led to counterprotests by Hindu

students wearing saffron shawls, a color closely associated with that religion and favored by Hindu nationalists.

More schools in the state followed with similar bans and the state’s top court disallowed students from wearing hijab and any religious clothing pending a verdict.

The court in its ruling said the state government had the power to prescribe uniform guidelines for students as a “reasonable restriction on fundamental rights.”

The ruling came at a time when violence and hate speech against Muslims have increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Hindu nationalist party, which also governs Karnataka state.

Over the last few weeks, the issue has become a flashpoint for the battle over the rights of Muslims, who fear they are being shunted aside as a minority in India and see hijab bans as a worrying escalation of Hindu nationalism under

Modi’s government.

Some rights activists have voiced concerns that the ban could increase Islamophobia.

“No one can understand our anxiousness about what is to follow,” Afreen Fatima, a New Delhi-based student activist, wrote on Twitter. “The court’s Hijab ban is a great injustice and a very worrying precedence. The scale of its repercussion is going to be brutal and inhuman.”

Karnataka’s education minister B. C. Nagesh told reporters that female Muslim students who were protesting against the ban must respect the court’s verdict and return to classes.

He said his government will try to win the hearts of “misguided” students and “bring them in mainstream of education.”

Some Muslim politicians called the verdict disappointing.

“I hope this judgement will not be used to legitimize harassment of hijab-wearing women,” said Asaduddin Owaisi, a member

of the Indian parliament.

Ahead of the verdict, the Karnataka government banned large gatherings for a week in state capital Bengaluru “to maintain public peace and order” and declared a holiday on Tuesday in schools and colleges in Udupi.

The hijab is worn by many Muslim women to maintain modesty or as a religious symbol, often seen as not just a bit of clothing but something mandated by their faith.

Hijab restrictions have surfaced elsewhere, including France, which in 2004 banned them in schools. But in India, where Muslims make up 14 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people, the hijab has historically been neither prohibited nor limited in public spheres.

Women donning the headscarf is common across the countr y, which has religious freedom enshrined in its national charter with the secular state as a cornerstone. AP

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

A7

UN meeting gears up to save biodiversity G

E N E VA — Ne a r l y a l l t he world’s countries kicked off a UN-backed meeting this past week aimed at preventing the loss of biodiversity—seen as critical to avoiding the extinction of many vulnerable species, the emergence of pathogens like the coronavirus, and the damage to both lives and livelihoods of people around the world, Indigenous peoples in particular.

The two-week meeting of over 190 countries on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), that started on March 14, after a two-year delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic, will be the last gathering of its kind before a major conference in the coming months in Kunming, China, that will try to adopt an international agreement on protecting biodiversity, the Associated Press (AP) reported..

“We have this one goal, which is to bend the curve on biodiversity loss and really to build that shared future to live in harmony with nature in the long term,” CBD Executive Secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told reporters.

Three meetings critical to developing an ambitious and transformative post-2020 global biodiversity f ra mework to sa feg u a rd n at u re resumed in in-person sessions in Geneva, Switzerland, the Canadabased CBD said in a news release sent to the .

“The world is clearly eager for urgent action to protect nature,” Mrema said in the CBD news release. “And we have no time to spare. Together we must ultimately deliver a truly historic agreement that puts us firmly on the path to living in harmony with

nature.”

Possible diplomatic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lurked in the background—potentially denting any prospects of global unity on the issue.

Russian delegates who had planned to attend had their travel plans canceled amid the closure of much of Europe’s airspace to flights from Russia after the invasion, organizers said, expressing hopes that Russian diplomats based in Geneva would nevertheless participate.

An intergovernmental, sciencebased assessment of biodiversity worldwide three years ago cited a decline of nature at unprecedented rates and an acceleration of the extinction of species—with up to a million species facing possible disappearance in the coming decades.

The US-based Campaign For Nature says a major theme in Geneva will be a target to protect and conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s lands, inland waters and oceans to help stanch habitat loss, the “overexploitation” of nature by people and businesses, and the emergence of pathogens that thrive off upheaval in the environment.

Convention managers point to five drivers of biodiversity loss: Changes to the use of land and sea; unsustainable exploitation through activities like agriculture, and climate change; pollution; and the spread of invasive alien species into new habitats. Indirectly, it says, unsustainable production and consumption also play a role.

Originally scheduled for Geneva from January 12 to 28, the three

The Bakhawan Eco Park in New Buswang, Kalibo, Aklan, was established by the Kalibo Save the Mangrove Association Inc. The mangrove park, that was photographed in June 2017, was awarded the Best in People‘s Organization in Mangrove Coastal Rehabilitation and Best in Mangrove Forest Management for Eco-tourism by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Photos by Lyn B. Resurreccion

Mangrove seedlings at the Bakhawan Eco Park in New Buswang, Kalibo, Aklan. Some seedlings were named after the Miss Earth 2008.

meetings—of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 24), the third meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI 3) and the Openended Working Group on the Post2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (WG2020-3)—resumed at the Centre International de Conférences Genève, the CBD said.

SBSTTA-24 will advance discussions on a monitoring approach for the post-2020 framework. This includes marine and coastal biodiversity, biodiversity and agriculture and health, and invasive alien species.

Other issues include synthetic biology, living modified organisms risk assessment and management, and the work programme of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

SBI-3 will complete its work on key inputs to the post-2020 framework and lay a firm foundation for its adoption and implementation at the resumed Conference of Parties-15.

T h e a g e n d a i n c lu d e s e n s u r ing the framework mobilizes and scales-up finance for biodiversity, better aligned investments w ith the needs of nature and people and facilitates the disclosure of risks and impacts for nature.

Delegates will also advance work on the mechanisms to monitor, report and review implementation, and to build countries’ capacity to manage and conserve its biodiversity resources, benefit from ecosystem services, and achieve the framework’s targets.

Plans will also be advanced to enhance outreach and public awareness

to support biodiversity action, and ensure the framework fully supports rights-based approach and respect gender equality and equal access for women to leadership, participation and decision-making.

WG2020-3 discussions will center on agreeing on actions needed to reach the 2050 Vision of living in harmony with nature, defining how performance will be tracked and reported, and ultimately determining how success will be defined.

This includes addressing the five drivers of biodiversity loss—land sea use change, unsustainable exploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species—and relevant indirect drivers such as unsustainable production and consumption.

The meeting is also expected to decide and announce the dates of the resumed UN Biodiversity Conference later this year in Kunming, China, at which the landmark blue print post2020 Global Biodiversity Framework is due for adoption.

Mrema said one key issue in the conference will be efforts toward repurposing and redirecting harmful subsidies—to the tune of some $500 billion per year currently—and how “these financial flows can move away from nature-negative to biodiversitypositive outcomes,” AP said.

A draft proposal for the framework to be adopted in China would aim to require that $700 billion would be put into sustaining or improving biodiversity.

The issue of reducing pollution from plastics is also part of the draft, she said. Lyn B. Resurreccion with AP

Three Philippine cities are finalists Filipinos, Asean residents urge leaders to solve biodiversity crisis in WWF’s One Planet City Challenge

By Rizal Raoul Reyes

M

W

hat do the cities of Davao, Dipolog and Quezon have in common?

They have been selected as national finalists in the World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) 2021-2022 One Planet City Challenge (OPCC) from 16 qualified cities in the Philippines.

WWF initiated the OPCC to honor cities for their climate actions and ambitions, and assess whether they align with the goals agreed upon in the Paris Agreement in limiting plane’t warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, OPCC said.

The OPCC finalists will be evaluated by an international jury panel composed of experts in urban sustainability. The winners will be announced by May-June.

It should be noted that the United Nations Environment Programme pointed out that climate change directly impacts cities and urban life.

Increasing global temperatures result in rising sea levels and more extreme weather events—such as floods, droughts, and storms, particularly affecting coastal communities.

OPCC said increases in the spread of vector-borne and water-borne diseases and heat-related illnesses have affected urban populations as global temperatures increase.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report reinforced these findings. It said that cities are areas of concentrated risk to climate change with losses due to infrastructure damage and disruption in services and affected supply chains already occurring. Cities are also areas where opportunities for delivering urgent climate action abound.

Major contributors to climate change are cities, because urban activities are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions. An estimated 75 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are from cities, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors, OPCC said.

To address the climate change challenge, some cities have started to use renewable energy sources, implement regulations to limit industrial emissions, and institute energy efficiency measures.

“Many have undertaken climate actions

People stroll at the Dipolog Boulevard in the afternoon. Photo by Imee Bellen, WWF-Philippines to increase their city’s resilience with its residents and businesses adapting to the changing climate. Others have also enforced laws that help to restore and preserve the environment,” OPCC said.

In OPCC, cities are encouraged to present their best practices and holistic plans to substantially reduce the effects of climate change and accelerate climate transformation.

In OPCC’s 2021-2022 leg, there are a total of 280 cities from 50 countries.

Since its inception 10 years ago, close to 600 cities from 53 countries in five continents have already participated in this challenge.

One Planet Cities Project Manager for WWF-Philippines Imee Bellen expressed hope that more Philippine cities will participate in OPCC in the future.

“We are always welcome to showcase inspiring transformative urban solutions to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change,” Bellen said.

WWF-Philippines Climate and Energy Programme Head Atty. Angela Ibay encouraged citizens to help their respective cities to boost their capacity to respond to the climate crisis.

“The cities’ plans would not come to life if it wasn’t for the collective action of its residents. However, we as individuals can still make a difference on our own. Even the most trivial habits, such as reducing energy consumption, can have a long-lasting impact on the community and nature,” Ibay said.

Rizal Raoul Reyes

any Filipinos, like their Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts, are urging their respective governments to champion the United Nation protection target as a solution to the world’s biodiversity crisis.

In a three-day poll commissioned by Atri Advisory in February in biodiverse-rich countries of the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia showed an overpowering support for a global target to protect at least 30 percent of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030, known as 30x30.

“Almost all respondents—96 percent in Malaysia, 98 percent in Indonesia and 95 percent in the Philippines—support the global goal, and 84 percent of Malaysians, 94 percent of Indonesians and 85 percent of Filipinos want their respective governments to also support the global target,” the report said in a material sent to the BusinessMirror.

The survey was conducted by Vase. ai, a well-established polling company in the region.

The poll was the first-ever to measure public opinion in the three countries on the global 30x30 goal in the lead up to a major biodiversity summit later this year in Kunming, China.

Around 190 countries—including

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines— are expected to finalize and approve a global strategy, known as the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), designed to stave off a biodiversity crisis that threatens up to 1-million species with extinction in the coming decades.

Negotiators from these countries are currently meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to iron out the details of the GBF, which includes a target to protect 30x30 as one of its central elements.

The High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC), an intergovernmental coalition of more than 80 countries cochaired by Costa Rica, France and the US, is championing the 30x30 goal.

Cambodia is the first and currently only HAC member from the Asean region. Other Asian members include Japan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and the Maldives.

Overwhelming scientific evidence and economic data shows that conserving at least 30 percent of the planet’s land and ocean is key to help address global biodiversity loss—in addition to storing carbon, preventing future pandemics, bolstering economic growth, increasing fisheries’ production, and advancing Indigenous rights.

Southeast Asia comprises just 3 percent of Earth’s land mass, but it contains almost 20 percent of the world’s biodiversity.

The poll shows that people in the region fully appreciate the value of biodiversity to development, and appreciate the role it can play in preserving it.

The poll is a public mandate for the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia to embrace the 30x30 global goal.

“The survey reflects the staggering support of citizens in the region for their governments to endorse the proposal to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030 and to take urgent steps to halt biodiversity loss. To do otherwise is not an option,” explained Dr. Zakri Abdul Hamid, chairman of Atri Advisory and Science Advisor to the Campaign for Nature.

“It is incumbent upon our political leaders and policy-makers to listen to the people and join the rest of the world in this crucial effort,” Zakri, founding chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, said.

Dr. Tony La Vina, former undersecretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Philippines, said: “Southeast Asia comprises just 3 percent of Earth’s land mass, but it contains almost 20 percent of the world’s biodiversity.”

An Associate Director for Climate Policy and International Relations of Manila Observatory, La Viña added, “The poll shows that people in the region fully appreciate

the value of this biodiversity to our own development and appreciate the role we can play in preserving it. This poll is a public mandate for the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia to embrace the 30x30 global goal.”

The HAC pointed out that the economic benefits of 30x30 are strong. The group said an independent study prepared by more than 100 economists and experts found that meeting the 30 percent target will generate financial and ecosystem services benefits at least five times the cost.

In an interview, 80 percent of Malaysian respondents, 92 percent of Indonesians and 95 percent of Filipinos said they were either extremely or very concerned about the biodiversity crisis.

On the awareness of global negotiations on the new set of rules on biodiversity goals and targets, scheduled for agreement in Kunming, 87 percent of Chinese respondents said they are updated, while 93 percent of Malaysians and 91 percent of Filipinos said they are well informed.

Yongyuth Yuthavong, senior advisor to the president of National Science and Technology Development Agency, former deputy prime minister of Thailand, and Global Steering Committee member of Campaign for Nature, said science has shown that there is lot to be done in protecting Planet Earth, and warned that time is running out.

Limasawa, Fiji typhoon survivors receive solar charging systems, pay it forward

T

ACLOBAN—Residents of Barangay San Agustin in Limasawa Island, Southern Leyte, can now enjoy lighting and power after a community solar charging system was installed in their island town two months after Typhoon Odette (international name Rai) devastated the island.

At the same time, residents of Suva, the capital of Fiji in the South Pacific, likewise received a similar set-up as Fijians trained

by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) survivors assembled and installed their own system last week, a news release said.

Fiji and the Philippines continue to face storms supercharged by warming seas and creeping climate impacts, but the survivor communities are paying it forward by reaching out across the ocean to empower other survivors by lighting up communities across the Pacific.

Two solar charging systems were set up by the Solar Scholars’ initiative shortly after

Yolanda slammed into the Philippines.

The modular power stations were the result of the Solar Scholars training in Tacloban, Leyte, and in Suva, Fiji, that was held online from February 22 to 24.

Community representatives from Samar and Leyte were supported by the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC).

They were trained by representatives from the climate group 350.org Pacific and the Christian organization Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC).

A 300-watt solar charging system set up in Suva was installed in the PCC head office for public use.

ICSC launched the Solar Scholars initiative in 2015 to enable community members, local government officials and civil society representatives to integrate renewable energy into disaster-risk reduction and community development programs, the news release said.

There are now over 400 Solar Scholars

across the Philippines.

“We can accelerate the energy transition in more islands by building new and far more locally responsive renewable energy systems that are resilient to extreme weather events and which can be maintained by community members themselves, especially women,” said Arturo Tahup, ICSC associate for Community Resilience.

“Inaction is everyone’s adversary today as we face the rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a future where our communities can thrive despite the climate crisis,” Tahup said.

“Solar Scholars and community-led power systems help promote community leadership and ownership of accessible, affordable and sustainable renewable energy services. It’s been an unmistakable joy to witness frontline communities in the Philippines working to help enable their sisters and brothers in Fiji,” he added.

Besides online mentoring and live technical training sessions, community Solar Scholars prepared an instructional video by putting up a 200-watt solar charging system to help the Fijian participants.

Jude Capila Elona, a Solar Scholar and Yolanda survivor with a background in electrical engineering, helped assemble the 200-watt charging system, which was then turned over to residents of Limasawa Island.

Fourteen barangay officials and workers, including eight women, were trained to use and maintain the community solar charging system.

“These solar charging systems are of great help, especially for small communities and far flung areas lacking access to electricity. With this system, we now have access to electricity when the next storm hits,” said Marie Ann Dagohoy-Kangleon, head of Limasawa’s disaster risk reduction management office, during the turnover of the solar charging system in Barangay San Agustin last March 1and 2.

Sports BusinessMirror

Shiffrin back at skiing’s summit after Beijing Olympic struggles

A8 | S

unday, March 20, 2022 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

SHOOT 3S FOR UKRAINE

STANFORD Head Coach Tara VanDerveer (right) holds up the winning trophy while her team cheers after they won an NCAA college basketball game for the Pac-12 tournament championship against Utah early this month. AP

S

TANFORD, California— At home over breakfast Thursday morning with sister Heidi, Tara VanDerveer formulated a plan to somehow help the suffering Ukrainian people who still mean so much to her years after she took the US national team to play there.

The Hall of Fame Stanford coach pledged $10 for every threepointer made in the women’s NCAA Tournament toward humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, and she challenged anyone else who could give to do so—even just a dime per 3 if possible.

Georgia Tech coach Nell Fortner, whose team played its first-round NCAA game against Kansas at Stanford last Friday, immediately joined VanDerveer’s fundraising efforts. She was an assistant coach on that US team.

“I want to put a challenge out to other coaches, to our fans, to everyone in here, my sister’s already accepted the challenge, I’d like to donate to the Ukraine humanitarian fund—and I’m not sure which fund it will be yet—$10 for every threepoint made in the NCAA women’s tournament,”

VanDerveer said as defending champion and top-seeded Stanford prepared to take on Montana State in the first round.

Heidi VanDerveer, the coach at UC San Diego, wasn’t sure she could commit $10 for every three-pointer but said, “I’m going to do whatever I can.” She and her sister were still discussing which organizations to support, perhaps choosing several.

“The fun thing about Tara, everyone talks about basketball and everything else, but she referred to her bubble. We’re all in a basketball bubble but the rest of the world keeps going,” Heidi said. “The great thing about her is that she definitely has the bigger picture in mind and understands that from traveling the world just how fortunate we are. And when you can help somebody, you do. It’s great.

It’s awesome.”

Tara VanDerveer’s 1996 Olympic champion US national team played in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv leading up to the Atlanta Games, and faced the Ukrainian national team about 10 times.

“I would call them our cousins because we saw them in so many

tournaments and played against them,” VanDerveer recalled. “So maybe I have an affinity for the country, and watching what’s happening has been really, really very hard. When our team was leaving Ukraine, women at 3:30 in the morning were begging outside of our bus.

And our team emptied their suitcases, emptied their wallets, just were very generous.”

Said Fortner: “That was a phenomenal trip over there, and it was an eye-opening trip in a lot of ways.”

VanDerveer has asked associate director of communications Wilder Treadway to track her total each day.

“I hope people can make a lot of 3s and that I can be very generous,” VanDerveer said, “and I hope other people will get on

F

THE US’s Mikaela Shiffrin speeds down the course during the women’s super-G final at the World Cup in Courchevel, France, on Thursday. AP

board with this challenge and I’d like people to match the challenge.”

Georgia Tech guard Sarah Bates plans to contribute to the effort with her play.

“My job is to be a shooter and to make as many 3s as possible, so I’m planning on doing that anyway,” she said. “But if it’s to help the efforts in Ukraine as well, that’s just another motivation to make more 3s. I think that’s awesome what she’s doing and I hope other people are on board and willing to shoot more 3s so we can get more money out there.”

A diversity report for graduation rates among this year’s NCAA Tournament teams, meanwhile, found the gap between white and Black men’s players has shrunk compared to last season.

The study released recently from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at Central Florida found that racial gap in average Graduation Success Rate (GSR) scores had declined from about 13.4 percentage points last year to 11.4 this season. That was due to gains by Black players (up 3.4 percentage points to 83.7 percent) outpacing those by white players (up 1.3, to 95.1 percent), “The gap has frequently narrowed, and especially on the men’s side, when the white graduation rate when down rather than the Black

graduation rate going up,” institute director and lead report author Richard Lapchick told The Associated Press. “So the fact that this went up is really an important thing to note for the Black student-athletes.”

The racial gap also exists on the women’s side, but is smaller.

This year’s gap 6.3 percentage points and was only slightly higher than last season (6.1), with white women’s players up to 98.8 percent this year and Black women’s players up to 92.5 percent.

As an example, the study found that 10 men’s teams had white players ahead of Black players in graduation rates by a gap of at least 30 percentage points. UCLA, which reached last year’s Final Four, had the biggest at 71 percentage points, while the list included a No. 1 seed in Arizona, Saint Mary’s and Indiana all at 50.

By comparison, only four women’s teams in this year’s tournament field fit that category: Mount St. Mary’s (40), Arkansas (37), UNLV (37) and Utah (33).

Women continue to outperform men in average GSR, though the gender gap shrunk significantly from 10.7 percentage points last year to 6.7, with women at 93.9 percent and men at 87.2 percent. Lapchick noted, though that the women have less room to improve with their routinely higher scores.

“The gap has narrowed, so that’s somewhat encouraging,” Lapchick said. “But it always says to me that the emphasis has been much stronger on the women’s side. I think it’s gotten stronger on the men’s side as they’ve realized with academic reforms they could not make postseason play.”

The study looked primarily at the GSR, which was developed to allow the NCAA to track the progress of Division I studentathletes for six years following their entrance to schools. GSR doesn’t penalize schools for athletes who leave in good academic standing and counts transfers at their new schools, while a federal graduation rate would consider them non-graduates and doesn’t factor in those common roster movements. AP

ALYSA LIU performs during last month’s Winter Olympics in Beijing. AP

U.S. OLYMPIAN LIU, FATHER TARGETED IN CHINA SPY CASE U

S Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu and her father Arthur Liu—a former political refugee—were among those targeted in a spying operation that the Justice Department alleges was ordered by the Chinese government, the elder Liu says.

Arthur Liu told The Associated Press he had been contacted by the FBI last October, and warned about the scheme just as his 16-year-old daughter was preparing for the Winter Olympics that took place in Beijing in February. The father said he did not tell his daughter about the issue so as not to scare her or distract her from the competition.

“We believed Alysa had a very good chance of making the Olympic team and truly were very scared,” Arthur Liu said late Wednesday.

The Justice Department earlier in the day announced charges against five men accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese government in a series of brazen and wide-ranging schemes to stalk and harass Chinese

dissidents in the United States.

Arthur Liu said he and his daughter were included in the criminal complaint as “Dissident 3” and “family member,” respectively.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said he was “not aware of the specifics” surrounding the allegations, and said China is “firmly opposed to the US slandering by making an issue of this out of thin air.”

“China always asks Chinese citizens to abide by the laws and regulations of host countries, and we would never ask our citizens to engage in activities that violate local laws,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing Thursday. “The so-called transnational harassment schemes are just trumped up.”

Liu said he took a stand against China’s bullying by allowing his daughter to compete at the recent Olympic Winter Games, where she placed 7th in the women’s event.

“This is her moment. This is her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to

compete at the Olympic Games. I’m not going to let them stop her from going and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure she’s safe and I’m willing to make sacrifices so she can enjoy the moment,” Arthur Liu said. “I’m not going to let them win—to stop me—to silence me from expressing my opinions anywhere.”

The father said he agreed to let his daughter compete with assurances from the State Department and US Olympic Committee that she would be closely protected while competing in China, with at least two people escorting her at all times.

“They are probably just trying to intimidate us, to...in a way threaten us not to say anything, to cause trouble to them and say anything political or related to human-rights violations in China,” Arthur Liu said.

“I had concerns about her safety.

The US government did a good job protecting her.”

He said a man called him last November, months before the Olympics, claiming to be an official

with the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee, and asked for his and his daughters’ passport numbers.

Arthur Liu refused to provide them and said he would call his contact at Team USA the next day.

“I didn’t feel good about it. I felt something fishy was going on,” Arthur Liu said. “From my dealings with the US Figure Skating association, they would never call me on the phone to get copies of our passports. I really cut it short once I realized what he was asking for.”

A spokesman for US Figure Skating deferred comment to Team USA. The US Olympic & Paralympic Committee in a statement to AP said: “The security of the US delegation is our number one priority, and we work closely with our partners, including government agencies, to ensure athlete safety at the Games.”

Arthur Liu said he does not remember being approached in person by Matthew Ziburis, who was arrested Tuesday on

AR away from her mystifying struggles at the Olympics, Mikaela Shiffrin soared back to the summit of Alpine skiing Thursday.

A season that risked being defined by zero medals from six events in China instead ended in triumph in the French Alps.

Shiffrin clinched the overall World Cup title Thursday, the sport’s most coveted prize, with standout racing in the speed disciplines on back-to-back days at the weeklong season finals.

An expected duel this week with defending overall champion Petra Vlhová was settled with two races left this weekend in their favored slalom and giant slalom.

“It’s been some high moments this season and it’s been some really difficult moments as well,” Shiffrin said. “Ending it on a high (and) finding some really nice moments on the last races, that’s really important and very special.”

The fourth giant crystal globe trophy in her career, and first since 2019, lifts the 27-year-old Shiffrin to the level of former teammate Lindsey Vonn in World Cup history.

Only the six overall titles of Annemarie Moser-Pröll, the Austrian great who dominated downhill in the 1970s, stands above the two Americans.

It was a surprise win in downhill Wednesday that fueled Shiffrin to the title.

She backed it up with a smartly judged second place Thursday in super-G to pull away from Vlhová, who failed to score points in either race.

Suddenly her Olympic struggles just a month ago seem like the distant past.

“Just this week, right now, I really enjoy skiing,” Shiffrin said, though also acknowledging more self-doubt before coming to neighboring Courchevel and Méribel.

It continued an up-and-down season in which five wins and 14 podium finishes in just 24 World Cup events made her inconsistent Olympics such an outlier.

It also included an enforced break because of a Covid-19 infection in December and still coming to terms with her father’s death in an accident at the family home in Colorado two years ago.

“This last week alone was some very low moments (thinking) I should just go home because I don’t think I truly have a chance,” Shiffrin said Thursday. “And somewhere we’re here now.”

The “we” could as easily have referred to her partnership with boyfriend Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, the Norwegian who also celebrated a success this week.

Kilde placed fourth in the men’s super-G Thursday but that discipline title was already locked up, and he also added the downhill crystal trophy Wednesday.

Racing one hour after the women, Kilde was at the start further up the mountain at the moment of his girlfriend’s victory. Instead, another Norwegian, Ragnhild Mowinckel who had just won the super-G race, was first to share a celebratory hug with Shiffrin.

The men’s race was won by Vincent Kriechmayr, adding to his downhill success Wednesday on the Eclipse course at Courchevel.

Kriechmayr, who won gold medals in both speed events at the 2021 world championships, is set to defend those titles on the same slope next February when Courchevel host men’s races at the 2023 worlds.

Women’s races at those worlds will be at nearby Méribel, where the Alpine combined title should be defended by Shiffrin after processing “one of the most confusing seasons I’ve ever had.” AP

charges that include conspiring to commit interstate harassment and criminal use of a means of identification. Ziburis was released on a $500,000 bond.

Prosecutors allege that Ziburis was hired to perform surveillance on the family and pose as a member of an international sports committee to ask Arthur Liu for a copy of his and Alysa Liu’s passports by claiming it was a travel “preparedness check” related to Covid-19. The complaint said when Arthur Liu refused, Ziburis threatened to delay or deny them international travel.

The elder Liu said he left China in his 20s as a political refugee because he had protested the Communist government following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Arthur Liu eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, put himself through law school and nurtured one of America’s most promising athletes.

His daughter visited their ancestral homeland for the first time while at the Olympics. Arthur Liu

said his daughter has generally been warmly embraced by Chinese fans and media, who consider her to be one of their own.

But through the spying investigation, he learned that China was aware of an Instagram message about human-rights violations against the ethnic minority Uyghurs that his daughter once posted. During the Games, Alysa Liu also told her father that she was approached by a stranger late one night at a cafeteria after the free skate event, and that the man followed her and asked her to come to his apartment.

“I’ve kind of accepted my life to be like this because of what I chose to do in 1989, to speak up against the government. And I know the Chinese government will extend their long hands into any corner in the world,” Arthur Liu said. “I’m going to continue to enjoy life and live life as I want to live. I’m not going to let this push me down and I’m not going to let them succeed.” AP

BusinessMirror

March 20, 2022

Power of 52 Youth groups call on poll bets to push for green agenda

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Formed from a fateful union of four friends, these lads went on to become the Canadian alternative band, New Friends and are reinventing the standard for what popular music can be. Taking inspiration from each of their own backgrounds, they are currently rocking the charts with their debut single, “Right Here.” “‘Right Here’ is kind of the big finale to ‘The Pilot’ and to that era of New Friends,” said drummer Conrad Galecki, “It’s kind of an anthemic hoorah as we say to our family and friends at home to let them know that we will be traveling a lot, and we won’t get to see us as much and all they see is our faces in social media, but even if we are far away, we’re right

there for them.”

A Green Day-esque anthem combined with reassuring lyrics, “Right Here” also serves another purpose. As an album closer, it not only gives an idea of what the band can do, but also tells the audience that New Friends will definitely be “Right Here.”

“It kind of has a double meaning,” said lead singer Stefan Boulineau, “A lot of shows will name their first episode ‘the pilot’ and it’s kind of a tester show to see if people like it, so we called it “The Pilot” because it is the first body of work we have made so far,” And quite a debut it is. From having an accidental hit with their song “Purple Candy”, they

felt emboldened and eventually, won Canada’s biggest music competition “It’s Your Shot”. With each member having a different background in music, New Friends combines hip-hop, EDM and folk and pop sensibilities to challenge the “outdated” idea of genres. The band describes their discography as “pop songs but not pop songs.”

“We have no boundaries on genre, bending genres is really fun for us, and ultimately it depends on the listener or the critic where to put us on the playlist,” said guitarist Cole Wilson.

“We are such fans of different genres and we always try to bring them together and see what we can do. It always leads to a different sounding song,” added Galecki.

With the album being a three year labor of love, two of which were spent in lockdown, the band expressed that the process was not only a “journey” musically, but also a journey that changed them as friends.

“Looking back now, two years later, it has been a crazy experience,” said keyboardist Ayden Miller.

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soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | MARCH 20, 2022

BUSINESS

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

Shape-shifting rockers, amplified guitars and downhome bluegrass

DRIVE OF DAY DREAMS Drive of Daydreams Vol. 1

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HIS is an album in thrall with the jangle of amplified guitars and the power of love unrequited or otherwise. The quick references are Sugarfree, Itchyworm and Join The Club even though Drive of Daydreams fly around their own sonic orbit in songs like “Giliw,” “Wag Na Lang” and “Alinlangan.” The musicality and meldocism of the group are right on the money even if the vocals aren’t easy to peg given that the lyrics express a cycle of moderated joy and controlled exasperation with a loved one. They’re reasons enough to keep coming back to this unique collection.

BEACH HOUSE Once Twice Melody

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ISPARAGINGLY described as The

Carpenters of indie-rock, US duo Beach House create emotional songs draped in the melodic synth washes of shoegaze and the gorgeous hooks of Top 40 radio. That lushness in sound akin to The Carpenters’ brings comfort that seems antithetical to indie kids’ penchant for unsettling troubling music.

Well, damn rigid indie-core.

Beach House’s “Pink Funeral,” “Superstar” (not the Carpenters’ classic), “Over and Over” and the sweeping title track have this ageing curmudgeon swooning about love, moon, and June.

Me first before you screaming bastards, all right?

MELT YOURSELF DOWN Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In

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T’S the kind of record whose soul and funk will have bodies moving and shaking from dusk till midnight. Its jazzy grooves will have heads bopping to a glorious high. The lyrics, however, start strong with opener “It Is What It Is” crying out loud, “Some hate coz you’re blacker/ Some hate coz you’re browner/ You’re never enough” only to slowly melt away into bland platitudes in subsequent tracks.

So, devote yourself to the ecstatic music that will have you dancing and prancing the night away.

Your best bets: “For Rea.” “Boots and Leather,” and “Sunset Flip.”

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BIG THIEF Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

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ITH previous progrocking full-lenghts, Big Thief presents itself this time as a prodigious multi-talented outfit. Their latest album finds them broadening their palette even more employing acoustic instruments for a downhome sorts of recording. The strummed guitars and wobbly drums are complemented by fiddle, harp, harmonica and hear, hear, vocalist Adriane Lenker’s pleasing voice blurred to cool effect. And get this, while the overarching intent is a modern bluegrass record, the unconventional meshing of sounds occasionally gets rerouted to interesting climes like the shoegaze-y “Little Things” and the shape-shifting rocker “Filter of Blood.” The old becomes new again in Big Thief’s exceptional vision.

BURZAGOM Kontrabida

HE name of the recording artist can be a disguise or a source of wonder. Or pander to the inquisitive mind. In Burzagom, apparently a play on the martyred Pinoy priests Gomburza, your initial feel is what you finally get. Suffused in tolling bells, art noise and fading glitches, Kontrabida is an exposition into the state of mind of a wandering soul. What a concept really because the soul gets to taunt the living in “Adk sa Pagasa” and “Andito sa Impiyerno” then he also spews some political bile in “Ikaw at Rolando Galman.” Who knew the afterlife can be fun albeit a sinister one at that?

THE BLEACHING HOUR Meet Me in the Graveyard

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OUR young lasses hailing from Quezon province let their hair down to bring you indie pop from the hinterlands.

Obviously, the EP title itself does not a lovefest make. What The Bleaching Hour deliver are haunting tunes at the witching hour that would’ve been brilliantly enlightening if tonight were Halloween, or we’re stuck in a sort of miserable situation and bailing out to oblivion is a sharp knife away. Happily, it’s summer so hold that last thought at bay.

All the albums reviewed are on digital music platforms, especially YouTube and bandcamp.

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Power of 52

Youth groups call on poll bets to push for green agenda

By Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez

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n a movement dubbed “Love, 52,” Greenpeace Philippines and environmental campaigners from different youth groups converged ahead of the 2022 polls and penned letters to electoral candidates, urging them to prioritize climate action.

Referencing the 52 percent young Filipinos that comprise the total voting population, co-project lead Maverick Flores pointed to the crucial role of the youth in electing public servants at a time of a global emergency. “[The youth] have the power to decide who our new leaders are going to be. They have the most to gain or lose from election results,” he said. “They are and will continue to experience the consequences of the climate crisis.”

The Philippines, found to be the most climate-vulnerable nation in the world, stands to face devastating damages should the government fail to build an effective response to climate change impacts and translate policies into concrete actions on the ground, according to a statement from the group.

“We need platforms on comprehensive discussions about this,” Flores said, adding that climate change-induced calamities such as Typhoon Odette, a category 5 storm that hit the coastal areas of Visayas

The panel for the recent “Love, 52 Youth and Elections Movement Press Briefing and Virtual Launch” includes Mel Senica, Youth for Mental Health Coalition; Rorei Asinero, TreeBuk Project; Jessie John Legaspi and Cris Jamil Hertez, Better Normal Youth Movement; Vince Pacañot, National Society of Parliamentarians, Inc.; and Joanna Sustento, Co-Project Lead, Love, 52 and Mindanao last year, “will only continue to worsen.”

In 2021, the Philippines ranked 125th out of 146 countries in the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), which indicates the ability of nations to protect the environment.

“We cannot have a government that takes the climate crisis seriously if we will not elect leaders who prioritize the environment,” said National Society of Parliamentarians Inc.’s Vince Davidson Pacañot.

Where they stand Several presidential aspirants have already outlined their plans to mitigate the impact of climate change in recent months.

Vice President Leni Robredo pushes for the inclusion of climate change programs in all plans of the government and calls for a concerted effort to shift to more renewable sources of energy.

Labor rights activist Leody de Guzman also advocates for the transition to renewable energy and the closure of coal-fired power plants.

Former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. likewise pushed for the development of renewable energy sources.

Meanwhile, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso said he would push for a massive rehabilitation, recovery, and reforestation of the country’s denuded forests.

In a radio interview, Senator Ping Lacson said he wants to implement better carbon emission testing and reforestation programs as part of his initial plans to curb global warming.

Lastly, Senator Manny Pacquiao said Congress should move for the creation of a “super agency” that would focus not only on disaster resilience and response but on creating long-term disaster adaptation strategies.

The youth’s sentiment “We feel that the discussions around the 2022 elections, so far, have been missing key issues that matter to the youth and our loved ones,” said Cris Jamil Hertez, 20, of the Better Normal Youth Movement.

The group submitted a Better Normal Youth Agenda to President Duterte in 2020, expressing the youth’s vision of the country’s post-pandemic recovery. It states, “At a time when both a health and a climate crisis are upon us, and with the most crucial election of our generation coming up, we have to listen

to those who will reap the fruits—or consequences—of today’s actions.”

Rorei Asinero, 22, of the TreeBuk Project, believes that while the spirit of Bayanihan lives and we have our individual responsibilities, we can only do so much as citizens.

“If these candidates truly love the country, as they say during their campaign sorties, they must show that love by protecting the Philippines and Filipinos from the worsening impacts of the climate crisis,” he said.

Greenpeace considers 2022 as a crucial window for climate action, given the urgency of addressing the climate crisis. An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released earlier this year affirmed that the climate system is rapidly changing, and the scale of change is unprecedented, with extreme weathers that will be more intense and more frequent.

“Our next leaders have a prime opportunity to put the nation on alert and institute policies that would help us in the struggle for climate justice,” said Greenpeace campaigner Joanna Sustento. “The strength of those vying for power should be tested on destructive industries such as fossil fuels and single-use plastic production, who should be held accountable for their contributions to the climate crisis.”

The environmental group is urging Filipino voters, especially the youth who comprise a majority of the voting population, to consider these pressing matters in choosing the right leaders.

“This is not just shading on a ballot—we are talking about the future of our country and our next generations,” Sustento said.

“2022 should not just be another year of loss and statistics; it must be the year of climate justice.”

How to design an effective treaty to curb plastic pollution

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lastic pollution is accumulating worldwide, on land and in the oceans. According to a study commissioned by the World Economic Forum, without changes to current practices, there may be more plastic by weight than fish in the ocean by 2050.

On March 2, representatives from 175 nations around the world took a historic step toward ending that pollution. The United Nations Environment Assembly voted to task a committee with forging a legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution by 2024. UN Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen described it as “an insurance policy for this generation and future ones, so they may

live with plastic and not be doomed by it.”

To address this problem, the US has focused on waste management and recycling rather than regulating plastic producers and businesses that use plastic in their products. Failing to address the sources means that policies have limited impact.

Some countries, such as France and Kenya, have banned single-use plastics. Others, like Germany, have mandated plastic bottle deposit schemes. Canada has classified manufactured plastic items as toxic, which gives its national government broad power to regulate them.

Plastic pollution crosses boundaries, so countries need to work together to curb it.

Countries have come together to solve en-

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vironmental problems before. The global community has successfully addressed acid rain, stratospheric ozone depletion and mercury contamination through international treaties. These agreements, which include the US, offer strategies for a plastics treaty.

Based on these precedents, plastic is a good candidate for an international treaty.

Like ozone, sulfur and mercury, plastic comes from specific, identifiable human activities that occur across the globe. Many countries contribute, so the problem is transboundary in nature.

In addition to providing a framework for keeping plastic out of the ocean, a plastic pollution treaty should

March 20, 2022

include reduction targets for both producing less plastic and generating less waste that are specific, measurable and achievable. The treaty should be binding but flexible, allowing countries to meet these targets as they choose.

Negotiations should consider the interests of those who experience the disproportionate impacts of plastic, as well as those who make a living off recycling waste as part of the informal economy. Finally, an international treaty should promote collaboration and sharing of data, resources and best practices.

Since plastic pollution doesn’t stay in one place, all nations will benefit from finding ways to curb it. The Conversation