BusinessMirror May 07, 2023

KING CHARLES III CROWNED IN ANCIENT RITE; BRITISH MONARCHY FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE »A2

WHO downgrades Covid-19 pandemic, says it’s no longer a global emergency

By Maria Cheng & Jamey Keaten

The Associated Press

GENEVA—The World Health Organization said Friday that Covid-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide.

The announcement, made more than three years after WHO declared the coronavirus an international crisis, offers some relief, if not an ending, to a pandemic that stirred fear and suspicion, handwringing and finger-pointing across the globe.

The UN health agency’s officials said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn’t finished, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast

Asia and the Middle East.

W HO says thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week, and millions of others are suffering from debilitating, long-term effects.

It’s with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency,” WHO DirectorGeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

That does not mean Covid-19

DOH to convene IATF following WHO’s Covid downgrade

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

The Department of Health (DOH) will convene the members of the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to discuss and reassess policies after the World Health Organization (WHO) lifted the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on Covid-19.

This is an acknowledgment of our effective and collaborative Covid-19 response and concerted efforts to fully recover and reopen our economy,” the DOH said in a statement late Friday night.

In the same statement, the DOH further guarantees the Filipino people that all factors in determining their next action would be in line with the WHO’s proclamation.

W hatever will be considered and discussed by the IATF will be approved by the President, the DOH also said.

In a recent press conference, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Covid-19 has been so much more than a “health crisis” for it disrupted economies, travel, shattering businesses and “plunging millions into poverty.”

Ghebreyesus noted that for over a year, the pandemic has been on a “downward” trend.

It may be noted that on January 30, 2020, WHO announced the emergency declaration.

The DOH reported that the total number of Covid -19 cases in the country is 4,099,088. Of this number, the total number of recoveries is revealed to be 4,023,485, while deaths are reported as 66,444.

To date, there remain 9,159 active cases, while there are 1,563 new cases reported as of May 5, 2023.

BRITAIN’S King Charles III receives the St. Edward’s Crown during his coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey, in London, Saturday, May 6, 2023. ANDREW MATTHEWS/POOL VIA AP

BRITAIN’S King Charles III is crowned with St. Edward’s Crown by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby during his coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey, London, May 6, 2023. AARON CHOWN/POOL PHOTO VIA AP

PHL BETS SWEEP SEA GAMES OBSTACLE RACING Team Philippines sweeps the gold and silver medals in obstacle race at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Saturday. Celebrating on the podium are (top, from left) Kaizen Dela Cerna (silver), Precious Cabuya (gold), Mark Julius Rodelas (gold) and Kevin Jeffrey Pascua (silver) with Philippine Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino (barong tagalog) and Pilipinas Obstacle Sports Federation President Atty. Alberto Agra. ROY DOMINGO

King Charles III crowned in ancient rite; British monarchy faces uncertain future

By Danica Kirka & Jill Lawless The Associated Press

LONDON—King Charles III was crowned Saturday at Westminster Abbey, in a ceremony built on ancient traditions at a time when the British monarchy faces an uncertain future.

Trumpets sounded inside the medieval abbey and the congregation shouted “God save King Charles” as the ceremony began in front of more than 2,000 guests, including world leaders, aristocrats and celebrities. Outside, thousands of troops, tens of thousands of spectators and a smattering of protesters converged along a route that the king traveled from Buckingham Palace in a gilt-trimmed, horse-drawn carriage.

It was the final mile of a sevendecade journey for Charles from heir to monarch.

To the royal family and government, the occasion—code-named Operation Golden Orb—is a display of heritage, tradition and spectacle unmatched around the world.

The rite was expected to by watched by millions, though the awe and reverence the ceremony was designed to evoke are largely gone—and many greeted the day with apathy.

Some even met it with disdain. Republican protesters gathered outside to holler “Not my king” for a celebration of an institution they say stands for privilege and inequality, in a country of deepening poverty and fraying social ties. Handfuls were arrested.

A s guests arrived, the church buzzed with excitement and was abloom with fragrant flowers and colorful hats. Among them were

US First Lady Jill Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, eight current and former British prime ministers as well as Judi Dench, Emma Thompson and

Lionel Richie.

Thousands of people from across the UK and around the world camped overnight along a 1.3-mile (2-kilometer) route that the king and his wife, Camilla, traveled to reach the abbey.

At a traditional Anglican service slightly tweaked for modern times, Charles, clad in crimson and cream robes, swore on a Bible that he is a “true Protestant.”

But for the first time, a preface was added to the coronation oath to say the Church of England “will seek to foster an environment where people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely,” and the epistle from the King James Bible was read by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Britain’s first Hindu leader.

A gospel choir performed a newly composed “Alleluia,” and, for the first time, female clergy took part in the ceremony.

For 1,000 years and more, British monarchs have been crowned in grandiose ceremonies that confirm their right to rule.

These days, the king no longer has executive or political power, and the service is purely ceremonial since Charles automatically became king upon death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September.

The king remains the UK’s head of state and a symbol of national identity—and Charles will have to work to unite a multicultural nation and keep the monarchy relevant at time when support for it is waning, especially among younger people.

The anti-monarchy group Republic said six of its members, in-

cluding its chief executive, were arrested as they arrived at a protest. Police have said they will have a “low tolerance” for people seeking to disrupt the day, sparking criticism that they are clamping down on free speech.

A cost-of-living crisis is also making everyone in the UK poorer, raising questions about the cost of all the pomp.

C harles has sought to lead a smaller, less expensive royal machine for the 21st century. So this will be a shorter affair than Elizabeth’s three-hour coronation.

In 1953, Westminster Abbey was fitted with temporary stands to boost the seating capacity to more

than 8,000, aristocrats wore crimson robes and coronets, and the coronation procession meandered 5 miles (8 kilometers) through central London so an estimated 3 million people could cheer for the glamorous 27-year-old queen.

Organizers this time shortened the procession route, trimmed the coronation service to less than two hours and sent out 2,300 invitations to world royalty, heads of state, public servants, key workers and local heroes. There were judges in wigs, soldiers with gleaming medals attached to red tunics and members of the House of Lords in their red robes. Heir to the throne Prince Wil-

liam, his wife, Kate, and their three children were all in attendance. William’s younger brother Prince Harry, who has publicly sparred with the family, arrived alone. His wife Meghan and their children remained at home in California.

Built around the theme “Called to Serve,” the coronation service began with one of the youngest members of the congregation—a boy chorister—greeting the king. Charles responded by saying, “I come not to be served but to serve.”

The moment is meant to underscore the importance of young people—and is a new addition in a service laden with the rituals through which power has been passed down to new monarchs throughout the centuries.

The symbolic peak of the twohour service came halfway through when Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby placed the solid gold St. Edward’s Crown on the monarch’s head. Trumpets sounded and gun salutes were fired across the UK.

In another change, Charles has scrapped the traditional moment at the end of the service when nobles were asked to kneel and pledge their loyalty to the king.

Instead, Welby will invite everyone in the abbey to swear “true allegiance” to the monarch. He’ll invite people watching on televi-

sion to pay homage, too—though that part of the ceremony has been toned down after some criticized it as a tone-deaf effort to demand public support for Charles. Welby will now suggest people at home take a “moment of quiet reflection” or say “God Save the King.”

The public’s response to Charles, though, during the service and along the parade route, is key, said George Gross, a visiting research fellow at King’s College, London and an expert on coronations.

None of this matters if the public don’t show up,” Gross said. “If they don’t care, then the whole thing doesn’t really work. It is all about this interaction.”

A nd today’s public is very different from the audience that saw Elizabeth crowned.

A lmost 20 percent of the population now comes from ethnic minority groups, compared with less than 1 percent in the 1950s. More than 300 languages are spoken in British schools, and less than half of the population describe themselves as Christian.

A lthough organizers say the coronation remains a “sacred Anglican service,” the ceremony will for the first time include the active participation of other faiths, including representatives of the Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh traditions.

WHO downgrades Covid-19 pandemic, says it’s no longer a global emergency

Continued from A1

is over as a global health threat,”

he said, warning that new variants could yet emerge. Tedros noted that while the official Covid-19 death toll was 7 million, the real figure was estimated to be at least 20 million.

Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before Covid-19.

He bemoaned the damage that Covid-19 had done to the global community, saying the pandemic had shattered businesses, exacerbated political divisions, led to the spread of misinformation and plunged millions into poverty.

The political fallout in some countries was swift and unforgiving. Some pundits say missteps by President Donald Trump in his administration’s response to the pandemic had a role in his losing

reelection bid in 2020. The United States saw the deadliest outbreak anywhere in the world—where more than 1 million people died across the country.

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said it was incumbent on heads of states and other leaders to negotiate a wide-ranging pandemic treaty to decide how future health threats should be faced.

Ryan said that some of the scenes witnessed during Covid-19, when people resorted to “bartering for oxygen canisters,” fought to get into emergency rooms and died in parking lots because they couldn’t get treated, must never be repeated.

W hen the UN health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an international crisis on January 30, 2020, it hadn’t yet been named Covid-19 and there were no major outbreaks beyond China.

More than three years later, the virus has caused an estimated

764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.

In the US, the public health emergency declaration made regarding Covid-19 is set to expire on May 11, when wide-ranging measures to support the pandemic response, including vaccine mandates, will end. Many other countries, including Germany, France and Britain, dropped most of their provisions against the pandemic last year.

W hen Tedros declared Covid-19 to be an emergency in 2020, he said his greatest fear was the virus’s potential to spread in countries with weak health systems.

In fact, some of the countries that suffered the worst Covid-19 death tolls were previously judged to be the best-prepared for a pandemic, including the US and Britain. According to WHO data, the number of deaths reported in Africa account for just 3 percent of the global total.

WHO doesn’t “declare” pandemics, but first used the term to describe the outbreak in March 2020, when the virus had spread to every continent except Antarctica, long after many other scientists had said a pandemic was already underway.

W HO is the only agency mandated to coordinate the world’s response to acute health threats, but the organization faltered repeatedly as the coronavirus unfolded.

In January 2020, WHO publicly applauded China for its supposed speedy and transparent response, even though recordings of private meetings obtained by The Associated Press showed top officials were frustrated at the country’s lack of cooperation.

W HO also recommended against mask-wearing for the public for months, a mistake many health officials say cost lives.

Numerous scientists also slammed WHO’s reluctance to ac-

knowledge that Covid-19 was frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms, criticizing the agency’s lack of strong guidance to prevent such exposure.

Tedros was a vociferous critic of rich countries who hoarded the limited supplies of Covid-19 vaccines, warning that the world was on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” by failing to share shots with poor countries.

Most recently, WHO has struggled to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, a challenging scientific endeavor that has also become politically fraught.

A fter a weeks-long visit to China, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that Covid-19 most likely jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility that it originated in a lab as “extremely unlikely.”

But the UN agency backtracked the following year, saying

“key pieces of data” were still missing and that it was premature to rule out that Covid-19 might have ties to a lab.

Mark Woolhouse, an infectious diseases professor at the University of Edinburgh, described Covid-19 as a “once-in-a-lifetime disaster” and said that broad immunity against the virus meant we were now in a new phase of the outbreak.

Woolhouse noted there had also been significant criticism of WHO’s pandemic response, in addition to those of its member countries and others.

He lamented that the global community missed numerous chances to stop the coronavirus earlier, in addition to causing much “self-inflicted harm” by shutting down much of society.

“Given the ever-present threat of another pandemic, lessons need to be learned,” he said.

Maria Cheng reported from London

BRITAIN’S King Charles III travels in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach with Camilla, the Queen Consort, for the coronation ceremony in London, May 6, 2023. AP/ALBERTO PEZZALI

BRITAIN’S King Charles III, front center, and Queen Camilla, middle center, walk in the Coronation Procession at Westminster Abbey in London Saturday, May 6, 2023. AP/KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH, POOL

PROTESTERS wait for the arrival of King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort, to visit Liverpool Central Library in Liverpool, England, Wednesday, April 26, 2023. AP/JON SUPER, POOL

How a gang that could not shoot straight pulled off a $24.5-M heist

By Katharine Gemmell

Coinbase insiders sued for dumping stock to avoid $1 billion in losses

By Robert Burnson

COINBASE Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian

Armstrong, board member Marc Andreessen and other officers avoided more than $1 billion in losses by using inside information to sell stock within days of the cryptocurrency platform’s public listing two years ago, before bad news sent the share price tumbling, according to a lawsuit filed by an investor.

The company’s board deployed a so-called direct listing instead of a more typical initial public offering and rapidly sold off $2.9 billion in stock before Coinbase management later revealed “material, negative information that destroyed market optimism from the company’s first quarterly earnings release forward,” according to the complaint unsealed Monday in Delaware Chancery Court.

“Within five weeks, those shares declined in value by over $1 billion, and Coinbase’s market capitalization plummeted by more than $37 billion,”

claimed the investor, Adam Grabski, who said he’s held Coinbase shares since April 2021.

Armstrong sold $291.8 million of Coinbase stock as part of the direct listing, according to the complaint, while Andreessen’s venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, dumped $118.6 million worth of the stock.

“As the most popular and only publicly traded crypto exchange in the US, we are at times the target of frivolous litigation,” Coinbase said in an e-mailed statement. “This is an example of one of those meritless claims.”

The so-called derivative complaint filed on the company’s behalf seeks the return of “ill-gotten gains” from Armstrong and Andreessen, along with President Emilie Choi, Chief Financial Officer Alesia Hass, Chief Accounting Officer Jennifer Jones and former Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee and board members Frederick Ersham, Fred Wilson and Kathryn Haun.

Bloomberg News

Chinese island at center of alleged green fuel fraud

By Alfred Cang

ARESORT island off southern

China, best known for its balmy weather and sandy beaches, has become the unlikely focus of Europe’s concerns over a booming waste-oil industry.

On the edge of the South China Sea, Hainan has become a green-fuel hot spot over the past year, accounting for nearly a third of the country’s biodiesel exports. The catch is that China’s answer to Hawaii has no capacity to convert used cooking oil, the most obviously compliant feedstock, into biodiesel.

According to producers, traders and analysts who held conversations on the sidelines of a conference in Singapore last week, it suggests the island may instead be serving as a transshipment hub, facilitating efforts to mix fuels with cheaper feedstock, then mislabeling the product in order to qualify for European green incentives.

Speaking on condition of anonymity as their conversations are private, many fretted about the consequences of potentially fraudulent biodiesel exports to Europe, including greater scrutiny and quality inspections. They expressed concern that punitive tariffs could be imposed on Chinese products should there be findings of dumping or fraud, which would hurt the entire industry.

Chinese and European producers worried they were being undercut by non-compliant cargoes.

And at the center of their disquiet is Hainan.

Hainan-registered companies exported 498,000 tons of biodiesel over the whole of last year, making up 28 percent of China’s total outbound shipment, according to customs data compiled by Bloomberg. Its share of exports climbed to 31 percent in the first quarter this year, with volumes

at 205,000 tons. Almost all the cargoes were bound for the Netherlands, a large consumer market and home to major European ports.

Europe is an increasingly attractive market for biofuels because of incentives offered for fuels made from waste products, intended to foster sustainability and which mean higher prices than for those made directly from crops.

The problem is that it’s hard to check what’s blended into biodiesel.

The spike in exports from China to Europe comes at the same time as a surge in Chinese imports of palm waste and palm-based biofuel from Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil is generally shunned by the European Union due to deforestation fears, and the bloc is phasing out its use for biodiesel feedstock.

Chinese customs data show Hainan-registered firms handled more than 60 percent of the country’s biodiesel imports in the first three months. Most of the volumes came from Indonesia and Malaysia, the biggest palm oil suppliers globally.

China’s biodiesel production reached 2.4 billion liters last year, up by a third from 2021 due to a surge in export demand, the US Department of Agriculture estimates. Facilities are located mainly in Shandong, Guangdong, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu. Nearly all are export-oriented to take advantage of EU tax policies.

Calls to the department of commerce of the Hainan provincial government went unanswered.

The International Sustainability & Carbon Certification—which provides certification for materials and fuels, including what’s needed to comply with EU rules—said in April it’s implementing measures including unannounced integrity audits at processing units in China and Singapore and expanded auditor capacity in Asia. Bloomberg News

James Parker, an unemployed man living in the English seaside town of Blackpool, and Stephen Boys, a financial adviser making a modest living, were on their way to the United Arab Emirates to invest their haul from a crypto heist as simple as it was effective. A fitting crime for an age of doggy tokens and virtual apes.

As the two 54-year-olds were waiting to board, Parker’s mobile buzzed from an Australian phone number. After listening to the mystery caller, Parker only needed to say a few words before hanging up: “F**k off, I’m not a thief.”

On the other end of the phone was the founder of an Australia cryptocurrency exchange, CoinSpot, who used a private investigator to trace Parker all the way to Northwest England. His name was Russell Wilson and he told Parker what he should have been expecting—that he had stolen millions, and he wanted it back.

One year later, Parker and Boys were facing arrest warrants. What became clear after a two-year police investigation and a six-week jury trial at Preston Crown Court in 2022 was that Parker and his unlikely mob had cheated the firm out of A$37 million ($24.5 million).

Beyond the billions of Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX scandal, crypto fraud on a smaller scale has become a problem for British law enforcement. The value of UK cryptocurrency fraud leaped 32 percentto £226 million last year, according to data from Action Fraud, the UK’s reporting center for fraud. Trade body UK Finance called the problem an “epidemic.”

Back at Manchester airport, the call from CoinSpot’s angry owner accusing Parker of being a criminal didn’t faze them. Parker was about to take the scheme global. During this trip, and multiple others, Parker and his associates cashed out cryptocurrency into UAE accounts and laundered the returns. Police uncovered properties, jewels, pictures of cash and gold piled high, and a Dubai villa allegedly bought from mysterious Russians with a suitcase of cash.

The scheme took place not in an offshore enclave in the Bahamas, but in a town that few would associate with the democratization of investment fraud. Blackpool, famous for sticks of rock and an old-school theme park, struggles with some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country.

Parker’s swift rise and fall was compiled from court proceedings in the city of Preston, court documents and interviews with police, lawyers and some of the participants in the fraud.

The glitch

BED-BOUND from smoking-related illnesses—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—Parker began dabbling in cryptocurrency in 2017. He had once done technical drawings, but he was no tech expert. Parker spent most of his time reading about conspiracy theories and discovering the world of crypto, which was just coming to mainstream attention.

Using his disability benefits to trade tiny fractions of Bitcoin, he stumbled upon a flaw on CoinSpot’s exchange.

Wilson was desperate and launched an internal probe, which led to discovery of Parker’s accounts.

Wilson said he even made a call to the Lancashire police, but an operator didn’t believe an Australian company was the victim of a multimillion crypto fraud run from Blackpool.

Worried about whether others could learn about the glitch, Wilson decided to make a deal with Parker and Boys. Around 436 Bitcoin would be returned as part of an agreement brokered by Boys and a promise Wilson wouldn’t pursue the matter.

dead within the year.”

More than a year after Parker’s death, Caton, Robinson, Austin-Beddoes, and Boys pleaded not guilty to multiple criminal charges relating to the fraud. Austin-Beddoes pleaded guilty to a count of converting criminal property.

Boys contended he thought Parker’s money had come through legitimate means and he never knew about the glitch, but a forensic accountant found evidence of £1.9 million funneled into his bank account, with only a small fraction being legitimate. He was tried for money laundering.

It was simple: If he offered a Bitcoin for sale and then went through the motions to buy it back, the computer system would record him as still having that Bitcoin and wrongly credit his account with the sale. If he sold one coin on the exchange worth £1,000 ($1,247), then bought it back, he would double his money.

From his one-bedroom apartment teeming with mold, Parker exploited the glitch on an industrial scale. While prosecutors said he was unlikely to have understood how it worked, all that mattered was he was making money. Fast.

Parker went on to exploit the flaw in the system hundreds of times between September 2017 and January 2018. Police records show that on Christmas Day 2017, Parker stole credits of A$159,000 in less than one minute. He also used his CoinSpot account to generate as much as A$3.3 million on the night before one of his trips to Dubai with Boys.

But he couldn’t just open an Australian bank account from England and cash it out. Instead, he used his credits to buy more Bitcoin, then moved it to a different platform where he could transfer it. In a matter of months, Parker went from having nothing to being a millionaire. By November 2017, he had moved into a room at the North Euston Hotel in nearby Fleetwood.

Crypto crime has soared in the years since these events took place, as the industry has burst into the mainstream. Last year was the biggest year ever for crypto hacking, with $3.8 billion stolen from cryptocurrency businesses globally, according to data from Chainalysis, a US blockchain analysis firm. Meanwhile, Chainalysis data showed that almost $23.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency was laundered in 2022, a 68 percentincrease from the previous year’s $14.2 billion.

Parker viewed himself as a crypto Robin Hood, giving thousands of pounds worth of Amazon vouchers to the homeless. He insisted on buying drinks for everyone at the hotel bar and bought a fleet of cars including Mercedes and Ford Focuses for those close to him.

Parker began to share the glitch with a group of friends and acquaintances that would help him make the most of it. He first recruited his live-in helper, James Austin-Beddoes, 28, to create accounts and exploit the bug. Later at the hotel, he met Jordan Robinson, 24, who was pulling pints behind the bar. Then came Kelly Caton, 45, the mother of Robinson’s girlfriend. CoinSpot accounts were set up for all and the money kept rolling in.

Explaining the glitch to his friend Phoebe Davies, he told her he was making a lot of money “f**king with a website.” Davies didn’t understand how it worked and told Parker she thought he would end up in serious trouble. Parker, unhappy with her response, stopped talking to her within days.

436 Bitcoin

THE expansion, however, was one of the mistakes that began to unravel the crime. CoinSpot only spotted the fraud as the volume increased. Russell

A spokesperson for CoinSpot said Wilson was unavailable to comment. They said that CoinSpot customer funds and personal information were never compromised, and its funds are audited yearly.

But in the end, the group’s demise didn’t come from CoinSpot.

Suspicion and greed had set in among Parker and his cronies. Parker and Boys were fighting over which houses were in whose names. Caton, who had removed herself from the group, started exploiting the platform herself. Her Google history was littered with worried searches like is it “illegal to make money from a glitch.”

The plot ended in a similarly hapless fashion. Caton’s daughter allegedly stole a Bitcoin and an incensed Caton reported it to the police. When police interviewed her daughter, the only thing she would say was that they should investigate where her mother really got the crypto.

Robin Hood story?

DAVID WAINWRIGHT, the genial sergeant who led the police investigation, said that in 2019 the Lancashire force’s understanding of cryptocurrencies was minimal and against that backdrop, it turned out to be one of the most fascinating cases he ever investigated. The probe was nicknamed “Project Eucalyptus” in a nod to its Aussie roots.

“It felt like a Hollywood movie,” Wainwright said in an interview. “Far from being a Robin Hood type story, this was other people’s money that they were spending on luxury goods.”

Parker passed away in January 2021, before charges could be filed against him. The cause of death was the impact of his smoking-related illness mixed with other factors.

The last time Wainwright interviewed Parker, he told him: “I’ll be

In an e-mail from Berwyn Prison in north Wales, Boys strongly maintained his innocence and said that he is appealing the verdict. He said he was a victim of  “false testimony” and that a juror communicated with one of the co-defendants during the trial. He said that he had a “40-year unblemished career” in the financial industry and that “all he ever did’” was try to help reach a settlement with CoinSpot after he was made aware of the glitch.

Caton’s defense was that nobody lost out because of the glitch, and it was the platform’s problem – not hers. But the jury didn’t see it that way given they didn’t disclose their sudden source of wealth to anybody else.

Lawyers for the other defendants could either not reach their clients or did not respond to a request for comment.

Parker’s culpability was vital to the trial. The jury had to decide whether he had committed wrongdoing to be able to convict the others. The jury did and all four were found guilty. One man was cleared.

In the Preston court in January of this year, the ragtag group stood together waiting for their sentence. The judge, remarking on the lack of remorse from most of them, sentenced them collectively to 26 1/2 years in prison. Austin-Beddoes was the only one to get a suspended sentence and spared jail. Boys, before being taken away, gave a salute to his family in the public gallery.

“In 2019 our understanding of crypto and how to search for it was minimal,” Wainwright said. “The sentencing of the suspects is not the end of the line however, there are millions of pounds of missing money still out there.” Bloomberg News

ON a dreary British day in January 2018, two men, one in a wheelchair, the other pushing him, sped through Manchester Airport on their way to catch an Emirates jumbo jet to Dubai.

COINBASE executives allegedly used inside information to sell stock.

The World Amsterdam’s airport is on a quest to ban private jets

By Sarah Jacob, Olivia Rudgard & April Roach

SCHIPHOL Airport would like to excuse itself from the hop-on, hop-off jet-setting culture of business tycoons, celebrities and sports stars. The effort, if it succeeds over industry opposition, could set a precedent for private aviation around the world.

The Netherlands’s largest airport made its intentions known in April, when it announced plans to ban night flights and private jets starting in 2026. The declaration came five months after climate activists stormed Schiphol’s runway to protest carbon emissions from air travel, and followed years of noise complaints from locals. “I realize that our choices may have significant implications for the aviation industry, but they are necessary,”

Ruud Sondag, interim chief executive officer of Royal Schiphol Group, said in a statement.

“This shows we mean business.”

The fate of Schiphol’s grand plan isn’t yet clear. Its implementation hinges on compromises that haven’t been reached yet, and is further complicated by ongoing litigation. But whatever happens next at the Dutch airport, Schiphol’s example could be a harbinger of how other countries deal with the intersection of wealth, climate politics and a growing backlash against emissions seen as particularly gratuitous.

Business vs. pleasure

MOVES to curb emissions and noise pollution at Schiphol began last year, when the Dutch government—the majority owner of the Royal Schiphol Group—

proposed cutting the airport’s annual flights t o 440,000 by 2024, from the current 500,000. The government later suggested a 460,000-flight cap as an intermediary step, but airlines challenged the restrictions in court. On April 5, 2023, a judge ruled in their favor, saying the government had not followed the correct procedure.

One day before that ruling, though, Schiphol announced a swathe of additional measures, including the 2026 ban on night flights and private jets. The airport noted that some 17,000 private jet flights crossed its runways last year, causing a disproportionate amount of noise and generating 20 times more carbon dioxide emissions per passenger than commercial flights. Around 30 percent to 50 percent of private jet flights from Schiphol are to holiday spots like Ibiza, Cannes and Innsbruck, the airport said—all destinations that are also served by commercial flights.

“This statement was really out of the blue; we didn’t expect it,” said Michael van Hooff, owner of Amsterdam-based Orange Jets, a private jet charter broker that operated 600 flights from Schiphol Airport last year.

Small aviation companies stress that private jets are an essential business tool. With a round-trip price tag of €15,000 to €25,000, depending on destination, entrepreneurs can, in Schiphol’s case, connect to a key European hub that is less than a half-hour drive from Amsterdam’s business district.

“It is mostly a business destination,” said Eymeric Segard, CEO of Genevabased private jet charter broker LunaJets, juxtaposing Schiphol against expensive

tourist locales such as Nice or Cannes.

Segard said C-suite executives, board members and entrepreneurs mainly take private jets into the city to stay flexible and discreet, and to maximize work hours.

Critics of Schiphol’s plan also argue that banning private jets at one airport doesn’t make sense, as many flyers will simply choose a different one. While Schiphol is the Netherlands’s main airport for business aviation, private jets also operate out of Lelystad, Rotterdam The Hague and Eindhoven airports, among others.

Rotterdam The Hague Airport, which is also owned by Royal Schiphol Group, was quick to clarify that it has no capacity to take on flights from the Amsterdam hub. A Schiphol Group spokesperson said that the company doesn’t intend to transfer all traffic to one of its other airports, and is instead proposing greater use of commercial flights and/or other business destinations in Europe.

Toby Edwards, co-CEO of Londonbased private jet charter broker Victor, acknowledged a broader regional movement to opt for trains over planes where possible, but said Schiphol could also have taken a different approach. Last year, Victor partnered with oil company Neste Oyj to reduce private jet charter emissions by increasing use of sustainable aviation fuel, and Edwards said 20 percent of its customers choose to pay an extra €1,000 to use SAF when flying . “There is equally a cohort of flyers that would like to fly sustainably,” he said. “Right now, the best way to do that, if you have to fly, is to buy sustainable aviation fuel.”

Because private jets are smaller than commercial aircraft, and have wealthier users, they are a logical testbed for innovations like battery power and SAF, which is derived from ingredients such as waste oils, fats and sugar crops. Smallscale adoption can send a clear demand signal that helps these markets grow, and some climate groups and politicians have called for policies that would ban private jets from shorter routes unless they use green hydrogen or electricity. For now, though, few such technologies are ready for primetime: There is limited supply of SAF, for example, which also doesn’t address aviation’s impact on air quality or noise pollution.

Elite emissions

WHILE private flights account for just 4 percent of global carbon emissions from aviation, it’s the unfairness that rankles. The richer half of the world is responsible for 90 percent of air travel emissions, according to a 2019 study, and a private jet emits up to 2 metric tons of CO2 during a single hour of flight. (A typical car emits roughly 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year.) As one viral tweet put it, “Kylie Jenner is out here taking 3-minute flights with her private jet but I’m the one who has to use paper straws.”

Private aviation is also on the rise The number of private jets globally mor e than doubled over the past two decades, according to a report published this week by the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, DC-based think tank . The report cited a record 5.3 million private flights last year, and a 23 percent increase

in emissions from private jets since the start of the pandemic.

In Europe, the number of flights increased 64 percent last year, leading to an almost-doubling of CO2 emissions, according to a separate study conducted by Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft and commissioned by Greenpeace. Last year, F rench Transport Minister Clément Beaune said the country was looking into a tax on private flights, or using other means to get companies and rich individuals to limit their use.

The egregiousness of these emissions has also made priv ate jets a ripe tar get for activists foc used on clima te justice, which asks ho w responsibility for the climate crisis can be equitably shared, said Heather Alberro, a lecturer in global sustainable development at Nottingham Trent University.

“The super-rich have a disproportionately colossal ecological climate footprint, and I think because evidence is accumulating around this in recent years, that’s one of the reasons that activists have started to target these kinds of high emitters and these lifestyles of excess,” Alberro said.

Protests also tend to enjoy the highest levels of popular support when the public sees them as targeted at elites, she said.

At Schiphol Airport in November, more than 200 people were arrested after demonstrators from Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion stormed the tarmac and blocked aircraft. “The wealthy elite are using more private jets than ever, which is the most polluting way to fly,” Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner

Dewi Zloch said at the time. “We want fewer flights, more trains and a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and private jets.”

The protest clearly played a role in Schiphol’s current plan, says Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Maarten de Zeeuw, though he also acknowledged that local frustration has been building for some time. “Maybe the airlines don’t see it yet, but in the end it’s inevitable that there are measures that reduce noice and pollution,” De Zeeuw said.

Matthew Paterson, director of the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester, said climate campaigners are effectively reframing the problem of aviation as a problem of inequality. “It’s not about the people who are going every two years to Marbella,” he said. “It’s about the people who are flying once or twice a week.”

Monitoring these frequent flyers has even become something of an Internet pastime. Menno S wart, co-host of aviation podcast The Mic High Club, started tracking the private jets of wealthy Dutch celebrities after he saw a Twitter account garner attention for following the private jet of Tesla (and Twitter) CEO Elon Musk. Swart’s most popular account, @VerstappenJet, shares the whereabouts of a jet owned by Formula 1 racer Max Verstappen, who sometimes takes off from Schiphol.

Swart called Schiphol’s plan to ban private jets a political statement. “It’s now popular opinion to bash private planes, and they sort of jumped on the bandwagon to do it,” he said. Bloomberg News

• Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

DOST’s ‘Tubig Talino’ to provide iodine-rich drinking water

ARECENT survey has reported that Filipinos have inadequate intake of iodine. In response to this concern, the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) developed “Tubig Talino,” a technology for Iodine-Rich Drinking water.

DOST-FNRI will transfer the technology to qualified adoptors, like operators of water refilling stations, to help combat iodine deficiency.

The scienc e agency said drinking five glasses of “Tubig Talino” at 250 milliliters (mL) each can meet 33 percent of the daily

iodine requirement of the body.

The DOST -FNRI Expanded National Nutrition Survey in 2021 revealed that only about one-third, or 33.2 percent, of household respondents consumed iodized salt with sufficient iodine, while around one out of two, or 55.7 percent claimed using it. Iodine deficiency causes significant problems from birth, jeopardizing children’s mental health and physical development, affecting their performance and competency, or worse, their survival, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO further warned that iodine

deficiency in pregnant women can harm the baby in the womb, resulting in neurodevelopmental deficits, low birth weight, prematurity, and can increase perinatal and infant mortality.

The D epartment of Health (DOH), through the Food and Drug Administration, sets and enforces standards for iodized salt and monitors compliance of salt manufacturers and distribut ors to ensure that the salt being sold in markets and retail stores is properly iodized.

“Tubig Talino” is a combination of purified or ordinary potable water and Water Plus I2, a water and iodine premix.

Only 5 milliliters (mL) of Water Plus I2 can enrich 19 liters of purified or potable drinking water.

F ive years ago, the eighth Na tional Nutrition Survey already reported that one of the interventions that can be considered effective in the control of iodine deficiency disorder in the Philippines is the countrywide salt iodization program.

H owever, cost-effectiveness of this program was said to be dependent on the amount of iodine in the salt that reaches the consumers at the household level and the salt intake of the households.

B ased on then self-reported non-usage

of iodized salt, 40.6 percent of them said that iodized salt has a different taste from ordinary salt and/or that they were used to using ordinary salt.

DO ST-FNRI noted the respondents’ feedback on the difference in taste and addressed this in the latest DOST developed “Tubig Talino,” which is said to have no discernible taste difference from regular water.

It can also be used in coffee, tea, milk, other beverages, and even in cooking.

“Tubig Talino” can also be used in nutrition intervention programs, disaster relief packs, and other health and community projects.

For those who are restricted to consume salt, like people with hypertension and kidney disease, DOST-FNRI recommends eating iodine-rich foods instead, such as fish, shellfish and other seafood to avoid iodine deficiency. The go vernment, through the Republic Act 8172, known as “An Act for Salt Iodization Nationwide,” declared the policy to protect and promote the health of the people, to maintain an effective food regulatory system and to provide the entire population, especially women and children, with proper nutrition. Geraldine Bulaon-Ducusin/S&T Media Service

Raising awareness for govt’s S&T gems

THE Philippines is in the Pacific Ring of Fire, where volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are common. The country has 24 active and 27 are potentially active volcanoes. Of the 24 active volcanoes, only 10 are being monitored. Moreover, of the 10 monitored, only two—Taal and Mayon— have complete monitoring systems.

The human and ec onomic impacts of an insufficiently equipped active volcano is high.

As an example, Cabalian Volcano, an active volcano in Southern Leyte, does not have sufficient monitoring instruments. If it is not monitored, around 240,000 individuals and 30 airports could be affected by volcanic ash if it erupts.

Mean while, the country also lags in earthquake monitoring, with only 117 seismic stations, while Taiwan, which is one-tenth the size of the Philippines, has 194.

With all these concerns, a bill was filed at the House of Representatives for the modernization of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-Phivolcs).

DOST-Phivolcs Director Teresito C. Bacolcol shared all the data and information that would justify the urgency of the passage of the modernization bill at the consultative meeting at the institute’s headquarters in Quezon City on April 18.

The meeting aimed to get inputs and insights from key stakeholders from the local government units (LGUs), other national government agencies, academic institutions and private sector to further improve the provisions of the bill.

The bill aims to modernize the operations of the agency and enhance its ability to provide timely and accurate information, warnings, and recommendations to the public, government agencies, and other concerned stakeholders in the event of natural disasters.

It includes allocating funds, (around P7 billion), for the acquisition and maintenance of state-of-the-art equipment, infrastructure improvement, research and development, and capacity building of DOST-Phivolcs personnel.

Bacolcol explained the need to strengthen the monitoring systems and capability of DOST-Phivolcs.

H e said it needs to add more seismic stations in the country to effectively increase the detection and locate small earthquakes, particularly for faults that exhibit low activity prior to large events.

In addition, a denser network would help reveal active faults that have no clear surface expressions.

At the same time, the institute plans to establish at least 50 more stations for tsunami detection for coastal communities at risk to tsunami, develop effective warning systems, and install sensors offshore close to tsunami sources.

Bacolcol also said that 21 out of 24 active volcanoes have incomplete hazard maps, putting at risk 28 provinces.

Meanwhile, 27 potentially active volcanoes have incomplete hazard maps, putting 17 provinces at risk.

He also emphasized that only 38 out of 82 provinces have complete earthquake hazard maps.

“Filipinos would greatly benefit from the passage of this modernization bill. Many of us are aware of the impacts of destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Casualties, property losses...will be prevented or minimized if we have adequate monitoring equipment across the country.

This will greatly help us formulate policy recommendations and guidance to our LGUs and communities,” Bacolcol said. Allan Mauro V. Marfal, S&T Media Service

By Richard P. Burgos Special to the BusinessMirror

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is the primary science and technology body in the country, charged with pursuing the state policy of supporting local efforts in science and technology (S&T) research and development (R&D).

It has 18 attached agencies, 16 regional offices and 80 provincial offices that produced more than 1,121 locally developed technologies. These information are now in most of our people’s consciousness.

As the library and communica tion arm of the DOST, the Science and Technology Information Insti tute (DOST-STII) was hard pressed to get DOST out of the shadows and into the national consciousness. It did not help that we were among the smallest DOST agencies in terms of plantilla positions and budget.

Here are a few things DOST-STII did that set us on the road to success.

Revisited our mandate, vision and mission statements and estab lished our core values

The institute discarded its global ambitions as unrealistic and crafted statements that can guide our strat egies and execution.

In the most conspicuous places we exhibited these statements as daily reminders of our whys, whats and hows and to be a shot in the arm when we slow down or get discouraged. Our core values helped us make decisions we do not regret and everyone accepts.

Subscribed to research data and generated insights from them

DOST-STII did not have a measure of the national awareness level about science, technology and innovation (STI) information, so in 2017 we subscribed to a rider in the national survey of the Social Weather Stations to establish a benchmark to determine where we are and to craft the way forward in creating awareness.

The initial result of 6 percent was dismal but, undeterred, we doubled it in 2018 to 13 percent, building an upward trajectory that hit 47 percent by end 2022. Enhanced communication capabilities and embraced social media

THE SWS survey showed the media preferences of our audience so we strengthened our presence in television and embarked on our social media campaign.

In record time we relaunched our broadcast program DOSTv, initially via live streaming and eventually on PTV4, then GMA News and now CNN Philippines. This helped balloon our viewership from 80,000 to 162,000 average viewership per minute.

Today the eight pages that the DOST-STII maintains on Facebook have a reach of 30 million. Our official hashtags #ScienceForThePeople and #OneDOST4U have been used on FB by 94,000 and 24,000, respectively.

The institute continues to support the learning and development of our communicators in DOST, and 14 were able to graduate with MSc in Development Communication under a special off-campus program of the University of the Philippines Los Baños as scholars of DOST.

By the end of 2022 our annual media coverage was valued at P13 billion.

Strengthened the brand

TO create a more predictable, reliable and identifiable brand, the DOST Corporate Identity manual has had two revisions.

The websites of all agencies were branded and ensured that

they contained common features and were user-friendly. We encouraged brand extensions through jingles, mascots, merchandising, etc. to make us more relatable and closer to the people.

Pivoted, performed and excelled during the pandemic

UNFAZED by the closure of our library and offices during the pandemic lockdowns, DOSTv: Science For The People, the official broadcast program of the department, in seven days created a new online platform to disseminate weekly information about DOST.

Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña soon made “The Secretary’s Hour” the authoritative source of information about DOST updates for our employees, our media contacts and the public at large.

It continues to be a must-watched show for employees, the media and the public even in the new administration of Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr.

Public service delivery quickly shifted online, enabling us to serve and reach thousands instead of a few at a time.

Built strong partners and expanded our network TODAY DOST-STII have more than 80 partner organizations, who support our projects with funds, equipment or services.

Under the National Economic and Development Authority’s National Priority Plan, where donors enjoy a tax deduction, we generated more than P13 million for STARBOOKS and P7.5 million for DOSTv.

At the same time, Hyundai donated two Starex vans to ease the mobility for media coverage of DOSTv.

Won awards

IT was important that the institute

Strengthened the institute

communicated our success and that our efforts are recognized by reputable organizations.

In 2017 in our initial foray into the awards world, we won for STARBOOKS a gold and silver Anvil from the Public Relations Society of the Philippines and were No. 3 among more than 400 entries for the Grand Anvil of the Year.

This was followed by an FOI Special Award in 2019 from the Presidential Communications Operations Office, Excellence in Government Communications Program Award in 2020 from the 18th Philippine Quill Awards, and 2022 CSC Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award as a Regional and National Winner for STARBOOKS, the highest recognition for a government program from the Civil Service Commission.

Meanwhile, in 2017, DOSTv won the Most Trusted Science TV program from Gawad Filipino, and an Anak TV Seal Award a year after for family friendly and child safe television.

In 2019, DOSTv was a nominee in the Best Magazine Show for Television in the Philippine Movie Press Club Star Awards, Finalist in the Government Best Practice Recognition of the Development Academy of the Philippines, and bagged two silver and one gold Anvil from the Public Relations Society of the Philippines.

DOSTv was also a Finalist for Best News Magazine (DOSTv: Science For The People-PTV4) and Best News Program (DOSTv sa Radyo - RP1) in the 2020 Catholic Mass Media Awards.

Proudly, DOSTv won the highest award in the 2020 and 2022 Gandingan Awards as the Gandingan ng

Kaunlaran: Most Development-oriented Radio/TV/Online Platform and bagged three core awards in 2020 and four core awards in 2022.

THE institute’s budget has more than doubled. Our plantilla has increased 11 percent and has grown younger from an average age of 46 down to 35. DOST-STII facilities have been upgraded and we continue to expand, and became ISO accredited. We topped all DOST agencies in internal control systems for financial management as assessed by the Internal Audit Service and ranked No. 3 in gender mainstreaming. We have attained Level 2 in the PRIME HRM program of the Civil Service Commission and among only 37 government agencies being groomed for Level 3. Our financial performance metrics are outstanding and the Commission of Audit gave us an unqualified opinion for three years. We paid our employees the Performance-Based Bonus every year since the program started 13 years ago.

We now have a Science Communication Agenda and a Science Communication Framework to guide the way forward for ourselves and our cohorts.

DOST in everyone’s mind

THE pandemic highlighted the role of S&T. The 2023 Q1 results of the Publicus Asia survey of all government agencies showed DOST inching up to No. 5 in both approval and trust ratings.

Congress, in the last few years, has evidenced strong support in terms of new legislation and budget allocation for S&T. Happily, in the very center of the new strategic map of DOST, we now find for the first time communication and linkages as our core processes.

In a world where S&T are making great headways in improving our lives and productivity, DOST deserves to be known and appreciated by all.

There must be a science for increasing awareness. But then again, there must as well be art and heart in this entire enterprise. Their confluence has produced results we could only dream of at the start. We believed, we worked hard and the results followed.

Now we are not afraid nor tentative. We at DOST-STII are confidently creative and have learned how to fly. And DOST is now in everybody’s mind.

‘Phivolcs needs to modernize to address concerns on quakes, volcanic eruptions’

Richard P. Burgos is the director of Science and Technology Information Institute of the Department of Science and Technology.

CIVIL Service Commission Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award for Starbooks.

Pope: Solutions to loss of faith ‘come from the tabernacle, not the computer’

Lord’s consolation to situations of pain and poverty in our world, being close to persecuted Christians, to migrants seeking hospitality, to people of other ethnic groups and to anyone in need.”

“I want to assure you that good pastoral ministry is possible if we are able to live as the Lord has commanded us, in the love that is the gift of his Spirit,” the pope said, speaking to an audience of approximately 1,000 Hungarian priests, seminarians, and pastoral workers gathered at St. Stephen’s Co-Cathedral in Budapest.

“If we grow distant from one another, or divided, if we become hardened in our ways of thinking and our different groups, then we will not bear fruit,” he warned.

“It is sad when we become divided, because, instead of playing as a team, we start playing the game of the enemy: bishops not communicating with each other, the old versus the young, diocesan priests versus religious, priests versus laity, Latins versus Greeks,” the pope explained.

Such divisions lead to polarization along entrenched ideological lines, the Holy Father said.

“No! Always remember that our first pastoral priority is to bear witness to communion, for God is communion and He is present wherever there is fraternal charity,” he said.

Speaking on he first day of his three-day visit to Hungary’s historic capital, Pope Francis acknowledged the many reasons for Christians to feel disheartened today, including the rise of secularism and a corresponding decline of faith in the West.

But the pope pointed out that Christians “must always be on guard” not to yield to the temptation to become defeatists, “who insist that all is lost, that we have lost the values of bygone days and have no idea where we are headed.”

There is another, equally dangerous temptation, he said: “A

comfortable conformism that would have us think that everything is basically fine, the world has changed and we must simply adapt.”

To combat “bleak defeatism and a worldly conformism,” Pope Francis said, “the Gospel gives us new eyes to see” as well as discernment that enables us to “approach

our own time with openness, but also with a prophetic spirit.”

He added that we are called to “prophetic receptivity.”

“Prophetic receptivity is about learning how to recognize the signs of God in the world around us, including places and situations that, while not explicitly Christian, challenge

Black Protestant church still vital despite attendance drop

COLUMBIA, South Carolina—The wide empty spaces in pews between parishioners at a Sunday service at Zion Baptist Church in South Carolina’s capital highlight a post-pandemic reality common among many Black Protestant churches nationwide.

At its heyday in the 1960s, more than 1,500 parishioners filled every seat at Zion. But membership at the historic church—a crucial meeting point for many during the Civil Rights Movement—dwindled over recent decades.

The trend has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which infected and k illed Black Americans at a disproportionate rate. Zion’s attendance dropped from 300 parishioners before the outbreak to 125 now.

Founded in 1865, Zion still has a choir capable of beautiful singing, but it also shrunk by more than half.

The stomping of feet and the call-andresponse of the leader and congregation have dimmed from what they were before the pandemic.

“It saddens my heart,” said Calvernetta Williams, who has worshipped at Zion for 40 years. “The pastor has a lot of outreach to do, and so do we...because it’ll never be the same.”

Zion’s shrinking attendance is in line with a r ecent Pew Research Center survey; it found significant attendance drop among Black Protestants that is unmatched by any other major religious group.

The number of Black Protestants who say they attend services monthly has fallen from 61 percent in 2019 to 46 percent now, said Pew, and they are the only group in which more than half (54 percent) attend services virtually.

Zion broadcasts services online, produces digital content and is active on social media.

But the Rev. M. Andrew Davis said his church’s virtual experience can’t match inperson interactions, including the smiles of children, and how sometimes older congregants share testimonials about how God healed them.

Davis’s sermon on a recent Sunday was titled: “Trust during times of trouble.” He recalled the pandemic as one the most challenging times in his church’s history—

and offered words of hope.

“We may not ever go back to the way it was, but we can do better,” Davis told parishioners.

Black Americans—two-thirds of whom are Protestant—attend church more regularly than Americans overall, and pray more often, sur veys show.

But patt erns of worship are shifting across generations: younger Black adults attend church less often than their elders, and those who attend are less likely to do so in a predominantly Black congregation.

“It’s imperative that we get our young people back,” said Donnie Mack, a deacon at Zion. “As we say in old churches—if you don’t see any young people, if you don’t hear any babies crying, then, you’re at a dying church.”

Several Black church leaders said it’s proved difficult to convince members to return for in-person worship. They note that many congregants are older, have inadequate access to health care, and hesitate to return to church for fear of catching a contagious illness.

Black adults also suffer from higher rates of obesity, diabetes and asthma, making them more susceptible. They are also more likely to be uninsured.

Additionally, many Black working people had jobs deemed essential and were less able to work from home during the pandemic, raising concerns about

exposing others in their often crowded households to the virus.

“The pandemic exasperated that,” said the Rev. Quardricos Driskell, pastor at Beulah Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia.

Attendance at his 160-year-old church dropped from a peak of more than 200 people who met in two Sunday services in the early 2000s, to less than half that at a single service.

“We’re lucky if we have 100 on any given Sunday,” Driskell said.

Despite the attendance drop, academics, pastors and parishioners agree that churches remain fundamental to Black communities, providing refuge and hope.

“No pillar of the African American community has been more central to its history, identity, and social justice vision than the ‘Black Church,’” Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in ‘The Black Church,’ his companion volume to the PBS series.

“For a people systematically brutalized and debased by the inhumane system of slavery, followed by a century of Jim Crow racism, the church provided a refuge: a place of racial and individual selfaffirmation, of teaching and learning, of psychological and spiritual sustenance, of prophetic faith,” Gates said.

Although there’s broad respect for the historical role of Black churches,

including their crucial role fighting for racial equality, polls sho w tha t there’s also a perception among Black Americans that they have lost influence in recent decades.

“It still functions in the same way: It’s a source of hope for people who cannot hold on to political promises, they can’t necessarily go to the law and get the things that we need and give them the safety that we need,” said Tamura Lomax, professor of religious studies at Michigan State University who specializes in the Black church.

But attendance had been dwindling— even before the pandemic and the 2020 protests over racial justice—because the way people connected to the church had changed, Lomax said.

A pivotal moment came when the Black Lives Matter movement was founded. Its members, she said, embraced some of the African spirituality and religious practices that were taken from their ancestors during enslavement and rejected the Christcentered movement that had been pivotal to the civil rights struggle.

“They didn’t want to carry the patriarchal kind of Black masculinity leadership model,” Lomax said.

During the pandemic, Black pastors used their influence to encourage vaccinations from the pulpit, while hosting testing clinics and v accination events in church buildings.

The Rev. Eldren D. Morrison of Shaw Temple African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Georgia’s Cobb County, said in-person attendance plunged by half—from 400 worshippers to about 200—since the virus outbreak.

But the pandemic helped pastors like him rethink how to connect with their congregation.

“It’s teaching us that we’re not necessarily looking for numbers, but we’re looking for engagement,” Morrison said.

“Whether that’s virtual, or whether that’s people in pews or whether it’s through some type of ministry involvement throughout the community, people are involved with the church and are growing their faith. And that’s what the mission is in the end anyway,” Morrison added. Luis Andres Henao/Associated Press

The Church must aspire to be “capable of mutual listening, dialogue, and care for the most vulnerable” and “welcoming to all and courageous in bringing the prophetic message of the Gospel to everyone,” the Holy Father explained.

“Christ is our future, for he is the one who guides all history. Your confessors of the faith were firmly convinced of this: the many bishops, priests, religious women and men martyred during the communist persecution. They testify to the unwavering faith of Hungarians,” Pope Francis said.

us and call for a response,” the Holy Father said.

“At the same time, it is about seeing all things in the light of the Gospel without yielding to worldliness, as heralds and witnesses of the Christian faith,” he pointed out.

Pope Francis said people can accomplish this by “bringing the

“Our lives, for all their frailty, are held firmly in his hands. If ever we forget this, we, clergy and laity alike, will end up seeking human ways and means to defend ourselves from the world, either withdrawing into our comfortable and tranquil religious oases, or else running after the shifting winds of worldliness. In both cases, our Christianity will lose its vigor, and we will cease to be the salt of the earth,” he pointed out. Tyler Arnold/Catholic News Agency via CBCP News

Manila archdiocese launches ministry on cooperatives, social enterprise

THE Archdiocese of Manila has established a new ministry to help church workers and volunteers, and those belonging to the poorest sectors of society to create a more sustainable livelihood platform.

Manila Archbishop Jose Cardinal Advincula led the launching of the Ministry on Cooperatives and Social Enterprise Development (MCSED) at the Layforce Center at the San Carlos Seminary in Makati City on April 29.

Caritas Manila President, Fr. Anton Pascual, MCSED Minister, said that while there are many church-based cooperatives, “they still need to be strengthened by those who are in need in a sustainable, inclusive and resilient way.”

He said that the creation of the new ministry aims to fulfill Pope Francis’s vision to establish more church cooperatives and strengthen the existing ones to become more viable in their respective parishes. He added that the pope gives importance and pushes for the cooperative movement all over the world.

“While cooperatives are pro-profit, they are pro-people and pro-planet,” Pascual, who is also the board chairman of the Union of Catholic Church-based Cooperatives, said over Radio Veritas.

One of the immediate missions of MCSED is to gather and unite all church-based cooperatives in Metropolitan Manila. The ministry will provide education and training to enable leaders and members of cooperatives to improve their opportunities.

According to the Cooperative Development Authority, there are 18,000 cooperatives nationwide with some 11 million members. CBCP News and RCAM-AOC

POPE Francis recently encouraged clergy and others discouraged by a shortage of priests and ebbing faith in the West to pray for God’s help, saying the solutions will “come from the tabernacle and not the computer.”

CONGREGANTS sit in largely empty pews during service at Zion Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, on April 16. Zion’s shrinking attendance is in line with a recent Pew Research Center survey, which found that the number of Black Protestants who say they attend services monthly has fallen from 61 percent in 2019 to 46 percent. They are also the only group in which more than half attend services virtually. AP/JESSIE WARDARSKI

MANILA Archbishop Jose Cardinal Advincula FILE PHOTO BY RCAM-AOC

POPE Francis speaks to bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians and pastoral workers at St. Stephen’s Co-Cathedral in Budapest, Hungary, on April 28. VATICAN MEDIA

Biodiversity Sunday

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Zoonomia: Genetic research reveals what humans share with animals

BY comparing the genetic blueprints of an array of animals, scientists are gaining new insights into our own species and all we share with other creatures.

One of the most striking revelations is that certain passages in the instructions for life have persisted across evolutionary time, representing a through line that binds all mammals—including us.

The findings come from the Zoonomia Project, an international effort that offers clues about human traits and diseases, animal abilities like hibernation and even the genetics behind a sled dog named Balto who helped save lives a century ago.

Researchers shared some of their discoveries in 11 papers published in the journal Science.

David O’Connor, who studies primate genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the studies tackle deep questions.

“It’s just the wonder of biology, how we are so similar and dissimilar to all the things around us,” said O’Connor, who wasn’t involved in

By Bob Villablanca

TACLOBAN CITY—A mining company

whose operations were suspended for 15 years due to complaints from residents due to environmental pollution is back in the historic island of Manicani in Eastern Samar, creating restlessness and fear among residents that it might cause another division in the improving relations among them.

Carlos Tayag, regional director of Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) in Eastern Visayas, said Hinatuan Mining Corp. (HMC), was given a go-signal to conduct another round of mineral exploration to determine whether it remains economically viable for the company to continue with its operation on the island.

“They [HMC] have to conduct further exploration which is the reason why some residents are alarmed with the increasing number of backhoes and other heavy equipment. These will be used for the exploration,” Tayag said.

Tayag said MGB Central Office granted the petition of the mining company on March 2, 2022, to extend the expired its Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) for 15 years to cover for the years that their operations were suspended.

“The MPSA was good for 25 years but HMC was only able to operate for less than 10 years. This is not yet the renewal of their MPSA but only using the unexpired portion of their mining permit,” he said.

The MPSA awarded to HMC on April 28, 1992, granted a 25-years mining permit to mine 1,164.55 hectares out of the Manicani’s total size of 1,166 hectares. The 25-year MPSA was suspended in 2002, and expired on October 28, 2017.

O perations of HMC, a subsidiary of Nickel Asia Corp., were suspended after a bloody incident in 2001, wherein a vehicle rammed on the picket line of protesting residents injuring a local and two other protesters.

Animosit y among residents developed pitting those who worked in the mining company against those who lost their farm lands and houses due to the mining operations, causing division among relatives in the erstwhile closely-knitted island.

Marcial Somook, president of Protect Manicani Island Inc. (Promisi), a grassroots organization formed by residents who are against the mining operation, said he is worried about the return of the mining company as this may rekindle old animosity that already started to heal since the company stopped its operations.

H e said they will continue to oppose the return of the mining operations.

the research. “It’s the sort of thing that reminds me why it’s cool to be a biologist.”

The Zoonomia team, led by Elinor Karlsson and Kerstin Lindblad-Toh at the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, looked at 240 species of mammals, from bats to bison. They sequenced and compared their genomes—the instructions organisms need to develop and grow.

They found that certain regions of these genomes have stayed the same across all mammal species over millions of years of evolution.

One study found that at least 10 percent of the human genome is largely unchanged across species. Many of these regions occur outside the 1 percent of genes that give rise to proteins that control the activity of cells, the main purpose of DNA.

Researchers theorized that longpreserved regions probably serve a purpose and are likely what they call “regulatory elements” containing instructions about where, when and how much protein is produced.

Scientists identified more than

3 million of these in the human genome, about half of which were previously unknown.

Scientists also focused on change within the animal king -

dom. When they aligned genetic sequences for species and compared them with their ancestors, Karlsson said, they discovered that some species saw a lot of

DANCING WITH BIRDS A farmer plows a rice field with a hand tractor while egrets, herons and other migratory birds fly around him in Mabitac, Laguna. BERNARD TESTA

“This is our home. We cannot allow just anybody to destroy it and deprive us of our livelihood. I’m sure the owner of HMC will not be happy if somebody goes to their house and destroys it. It is the same with us,” he said.

E arlier, Bishop Crispin Varquez, prelate of the Diocese of Borongan, Eastern Samar, expressed his deep concern for the increasing number of mining companies operating in Homonhon, the adjacent island of Manicani, and urged government leaders and concerned agencies to take immediate action.

“We are very much disturbed by the escalated mining operations in our beloved historic island of Homonhon,” the prelate said in his Easter message.

“At present, there are four active mining companies operating on the island. Their immediate and negative effects on the communities and the natural environment are very alarming,” he added.

Besides the damage to the delicate ecosystem that HMC has caused in Manicani, residents also complained that mining operations have reduced the amount of land available to farmers. Manicani Island is one of the biggest sources of calamansi in the region.

Ta yag, however, said conditions in Manicani Island have already normalized and that there is a strong clamor from the residents to resume the mining operations that will bring jobs to the residents.

He said HMC has been a responsible company and complied with government regulations, especially with its tax obligations.

“Even when the operations were suspended, HMC has spent millions of pesos for the upkeep on Manicani Island,” he said.

M anicani Island, located 10.5 kilometers off from Guiuan, is composed of four barangays—San Jose, Banaag, Hamorawon and Buenavista. The island is home to over 3,000 residents based on the 2020 Census. Its residents are dependent on fishing and agriculture as their main source of income.

B oth the islands of Manicani and Homonhon form part of the 60,448 hectares

Guiuan Protected Landscape and Seascape under Proclamation 469 issued in 1994. A large tarpaulin put up by the Environment Management Bureau about the proclamation greets visitors at the port.

Du ring World War II, the island was converted by the US Navy into a major naval repair facility. The facility included housing for 10,000 people, a mess hall, shops, administration buildings and an outdoor movie theater.

After the war and upon leaving Manicani, US Navy personnel dismantled and removed all buildings and utilities.

changes in relatively short periods of time.

This showed how they were adapting to their environments.

“One of the really cool things about mammals is that at this point in time, they’ve basically adapted to survive in nearly every single ecosystem on Earth,” Karlsson said.

One group of scientists looked for genes that humans don’t have but other mammals do.

Instead of focusing on new genes that might create uniquely human traits, “we kind of flipped that on its head,” said Steven Reilly, a genetics researcher at Yale University.

“Losing pieces of DNA can actually generate new features,” Reilly said.

For example, he said, a tiny DNA deletion between chimps and humans caused a cascade of changes in gene expression that may be one of the causes of prolonged brain development in humans.

Another study focused on the fitness of one well-known animal: Balto.

Scientists sequenced the genome of the sled dog, who led a team of dogs carrying a lifesaving diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska, in 1925. His story was made into a 1995 animated feature film and a statue of the pup stands in New York’s Central Park.

By comparing Balto’s genes to those of other dogs, researchers found he was more genetically diverse than modern breeds and may have carried genetic variants that helped him survive harsh conditions.

One of the authors, researcher Katherine Moon of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said Balto “gives us this guide through comparative genomics,” showing how genetics can shape individuals.

O’Connor said he expects Zoonomia to yield even more insights in the future.

“To have these tools and to have the sort of audacity to ask these big questions” helps scientists and others “learn more about life around us,” he said. Laura Ungar/Ap Science Writer

VIETNAM LAUNCHES CON DAO AS ITS 12TH ASEAN HERITAGE PARK

CON DAO ISLAND,Vietnam—In celebration of its 30th year of its establishment, Con Dao National Park was launched as the 55th Asean Heritage Park (AHP).

Besides its pristine beaches, diverse ecosystems and abundant flora and fauna, Con Dao is known for its historical value as it witnessed the bravery and selflessness of thousands of heroes who fought for Vietnam during the colonial period.

With its rich natural and cultural heritage, Con Dao National Park was declared as the newest addition to the growing number of AHPs—a network of effectively managed protected areas and nature reserves in the Asean region.

“Of the 55 Asean Heritage Parks, 12 can be found in Viet Nam—making it the Asean member state with the highest number of declared AHPs,” said Dr. Theresa Mundita Lim, executive director of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB).

“This only reaffirms Vietnam’s commitment in ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of its ecosystems and biodiversity through the effective and participatory management

of its protected areas,” Lim said after handing over the AHP certificate to the park management of Con Dao. The ACB serves as the secretariat of the AHP Programme.

A nature reserve or a protected area goes through a rigorous selection process before being recognised as an AHP in order to ensure that it meets the stringent standards of ecological completeness, naturalness, uniqueness, and having a high conservation importance, to name a few.

As an AHP, the park can avail for itself various program support in the form of capacity development, technical assistance, l ivelihood projects, joint conservation initiatives, and other opportunities for promoting the park in different regional and global fora.

Con Dao National Park Director Nguyen Khac Pho thanked all government, nongovernment and international organizations for supporting the conservation initiatives in the park that contributed to its current achievements and its national, regional and global recognitions.

Besides being an AHP, the Park is also recognised as a Wetland of International Importance, or a Ramsar Site in 2014.

Prof. Dr. Dang Huy Huynh, Vietnam’s 2017 Asean Biodiversity Hero, said at the ceremony:

“Now that Con Dao is declared as an AHP, it is not just an important conservation site in Vietnam—it is also recognised as a vital conservation area in the world,” Huynh said.

From ‘hell’ to ‘heaven’ on Earth CON DAO ISLAND was once tagged as “hell on Earth” as it was once a prison to an estimated 20,000 fallen Vietnamese soldiers and patriots during the war period.

Classified as a Special National Monument, Con Dao’s historical features include the Hang Duong Cemetery and the Con Dao Prison where the “Tiger Cage” can be found. The Tiger Cage symbolises one of the worst means of solitary confinement during the colonial era.

Beyond its gloomy past, Con Dao National Park is now known as an ecotourism paradise as its 14 islands serve as haven for both terrestrial and marine biodiversity.

The geographic isolation of the park resulted in high species endemism. Species that can only be found in the park include Dipterocarpus condorensis, Ilex condorensis,

Pavetta condorensis, Psychotria condorensis, Con Son’s black giant squirrel (Ratufa bicolor condorensis) and long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis condorensis).

The park’s marine habitat is also home to seven critically endangered species and 67 endangered and vulnerable species.

Located in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province in southeastern Vietnam, tourists may visit Con Dao National Park by land, air and water.

The park is a popular site for ecotourism activities, such as hiking, trekking, camping, birdwatching, swimming, diving and snorkeling for coral-watching, visiting turtle laying grounds, releasing baby turtles and other nature-based activities.

Hotels, resorts, guesthouses, cabins, and other accommodation facilities are available in the area.

Tourists are strictly prohibited from bringing single-use plastic items in the park.

The popular spots in the island include the Ong Dung Beach, S oray Plantation, Tre Lon and Tre Nho Island, Nhat Beach, Shectaresrk Cape, Trung Islet, Dam Tre Bay, Cau Island and Bay Canh Island.

GUNNAR KAASEN and with his dog Balto, the heroic dogsled team leader, sit for a portrait in the early 1920s. As a part of the Zoonomia Project, with 11 papers published on April 27 in the journal Science, Balto’s genes were compared to those of other dogs. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE

Manicani residents get restless with the return of mining firm

By Josef Ramos

PHNOM PENH—It’s as simple as 1-2-3 to predict that Ernest John “EJ”

Obiena is guaranteed to repeat as men’s pole vault gold medalist at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games.

Obiena’s the Asian record holder with a leap of 5.94 meters and was practically unchallenged with the

World cycling body reviews rules on ‘trans’

Editor: Jun Lomibao

OBIENA GOES FUNDAMENTAL IN CAMBODIA

Morodok Techno National Stadium

in the Cambodian capital.

“He [Obiena] has been investing in fundamentals which will give him the foundations to go higher when it comes to strength and technique,”

Obiena’s personal adviser Jim Lafferty told BusinessMirror The world No. 3 Tokyo Olympian will hit Phnom Penh straight

from a training camp in Alicante, Spain. The SEA Games, he and his handlers say, will be his springboard to the upcoming outdoor season.

“E J was in a great place [Alicante] mentally and geared up to have a tremendous outdoor season starting with the SEA Games,” Lafferty said. “His strength and speed are at an all-time high. He’s never been faster or stronger.”

Ob iena was with his legendary trainer Vitaly Petrov of Ukraine in Alicante.

Despite his bronze medal from the world championships last year, Phnom Penh remains high in the 27-year-old Obiena’s list.

“He’s continuously working with Coach Petrov on adjustments to his approach and other technical elements, and sharpening his mental game,” Lafferty said. “I think it’s going to be a great and highly-

Malixi eyes nothing less than gold as SEAG golf action unfurls Monday

By Jun Lomibao

PHNOM PENH—Rianne Malixi

vowed to deliver a stronger performance at the Cambodia 32nd Southeast Asian Games golf action that starts Monday at the Golden City Golf Club here.

“It’s an honor for me to have another chance to represent the country in the SEA Games,” said Malixi, who debuted for the national team in Vietnam last year.

The International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI)backed Malixi was ninth in Hanoi in individual play, but salvaged a bronze in team play in stirring fashion, chipping in for birdie on the fourth playoff hole to beat Singapore’s Suanne Loh in a match play format.

Along with teammates Lois Kaye Go and Mafy Singson, Malixi is more than ready to take on the best, targeting a more productive in Phnom Penh while at the same time toning down expectations.

“There are chances of getting gold.

But I won’t be setting expectations.

I’ll be starting out fresh since I have been practicing a lot and devoted my time in prepping,” said Malixi, who primed herself up for the SEA Games battle through rigorous training at Royal Northwoods Golf and Country Club in Bulacan.

The men’s and women’s individual titles will be disputed via a stroke play format over 54 holes while the team championship will be played in match play. Go placed fourth in individual

play in Vietnam while ICTSI teammate Mafy Singson wound up eighth.

The Filipina aces, however, will have their hands full given the depth of the competing field, headed by the fancied Thais made up of reigning WAAP champion Eila Galitsky, Prim Prachnakorn and Nawaporn Soontayaphas, Singapore’s Aloysa Atienza, Jaymie Ng and Loh, Malaysia’s Geraldine Wong, Ng Jing Xuen and Foong Zi Yu, and Vietnam’s Le Chuc An, Than Bao Nghi and Doan Xuan Khue Minh.

Ma lixi, who ended up tied at 13th in the Women’s Amateur AsiaPacific Championship in Singapore last March after sharing third place in the 2022 edition of the event in Thailand, actually nailed a fourth victory on the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour in Iloilo last month. But she missed spiking her SEAG buildup with a victory in Japan after blowing a final round lead in the Royal Junior, one of the topranking amateur tournaments.

Bu t the setback hardly dampened her spirits as she buckled down to work to sharpen her skills while making the necessary adjustments that would guarantee a medal-contending performance in Cambodia.

“M y past performances will not dictate how I will next week. I’m excited and nervous at the same time but knowing how much prep and hard work I have put in the past few weeks, I know I’ll do just fine,” said Malixi.

fulfilling SEA Games for him.”

Ob iena’s father, Emerson who’s a former national pole vaulter himself, will oversee his performance in the SEA Games and will be in constant contact with Petrov.

Obiena will be going for his third straight SEA Games gold medal despite the SEA Games having no effect on his qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympics and even the world championships in August in Budapest.

“I need to win the gold for all the Filipinos, it’s a must,” Obiena told BusinessMirror . “I want to make all Filipinos very happy. It’s very important in the medal standings for Team Philippines.”

Emerson Obiena is cautious.

“We never know what may happen,” said the elder Obiena, who picked Thailand as having leveled up with its pole vaulers. “The

Thais are slowly progressing but coach Petrov doesn’t want him to peak as early as now because there are bigger and more important competitions later this year.”

Sprinter Eric Shauwn Cray, meanwhile, said he is highlymotivated to get his sixth straight gold medal—eighth overall—in the 400-meter hurdles set for Thursday at the same venue.

“It’s definitely hotter here in Cambodia in terms of the weather, but that’s good,” said Cray, who’s been bothered by a hamstring injury. “I feel good despite coming off some injuries earlier.”

Fi fty-one Filipino athletes including Hanoi gold medalist Kyla Richardson are competing in athletics hoping to surpass the five gold medals won in Hanoi last year.

Evenepoel, Roglič Giro d’Italia favorites

MILAN—This year’s Giro d’Italia is being billed as a two-horse race between the experienced Primož Roglič and the younger Remco Evenepoel.

But the Italian Grand Tour, which started Saturday, is often wet, wild and unpredictable—especially with a brutal final week.

Both Roglič and Evenepoel know that anything can happen over a three-week race and that even unheralded outsiders could lift the “Trofeo Senza Fine” in Rome at the end of the month.

Evenepoel became world champion last year and the Belgian also claimed his first Grand Tour success when he won the Spanish Vuelta, ending a run of three straight victories for Roglič.

The 23-year-old Evenepoel comes into the Giro having won the prestigious Liège–Bastogne–Liège last month for the second year in a row.

“I t hink I can be here only with a positive feeling,” Evenepoel said Thursday. “I just won Liège for a second time, so that’s a good way to start the Giro. The season has been very good so far. I won the UAE tour, we came second in Catalunya with a small margin and a nice race.

“So I think here I can be with a lot of confidence and a lot of trust and belief at the start … I’m here with a lot of positive vibes and good feelings

for the start of the Giro.”

Evenepoel finished second to Roglič by just six seconds in the Catalonia Volta and the week-long race boosted the Soudal Quick-Step rider’s confidence in his ability to compete with the Slovenian.

“L ast year I had still some doubts that I could have the same level as him in the mountains,” Evenepoel said. “But I think these doubts, I could wash them away after Catalunya. We were on the very same level when we speak about climbing.

“So I hope that I can be on the sam e le vel as him in the climbs and just be on a better level in the time trials. That’s the good recipe to try and beat him. But of course, he’s Olympic champion in time trial as well, so it’s not going to be easy.”

Evenepoel crashed out of the 2021 Giro, the only time he has competed in the Italian Grand Tour. That was his first race back after a serious accident the previous year that left him with a broken pelvis after a crash sent him flying off the side of a bridge.

That also happened in Italy, in the Tour of Lombardy.

“It’s true that the results haven’t been the greatest in Italy, so it’s time to change that,” Evenepoel said.

Roglič was third in the 2019 Giro but has failed to finish three of his past four Grand Tours. The Jumbo-

Visma rider had to withdraw from both the Spanish Vuelta and Tour de France last year following crashes during the races.

“I ’m now for quite a while at the best level, or competing with top guys and when you are all the time there a lot of nice things happen, but there’s also a lot of not so nice things … it’s a part of it,” Roglič said.

“But now we are here and looking forward to this next adventure.”

At 33, Roglič is a decade older than Evenepoel and he hopes that plays out in his favor.

“I ’m like a wine, the older the better,” he said with a laugh. “For sure you grow up, while getting older you are definitely wiser, you have more experiences.

“For sure he [Evenepoel] is one of the strongest ones. I mean, he just recently won Liège, he’s in super great shape. The rest of us will try to make his life a bit harder going towards Rome.”

Two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar hadn’t planned to make his Giro debut this year and remains sidelined after wrist surgery.

INEOS ARMADA

INEOS Grenadiers heads into the Giro looking for a third success in four years.

And the team isn’t leaving anything to chance as it seeks to end

AIGLE, Switzerland—The International Cycling Union (UCI) will review its rules regulating transgender athletes and expects to make a fresh decision in August, the governing body of the sport said Thursday.

The UCI said it would “analyze the current situation” without referring to the women’s race in the United States last weekend won by Austin Killips.

The 27-year-old Killips, who is a transgender woman, won the Tour of the Gila stage race in New Mexico. Her victory provoked a negative reaction by some cycling fans and former racers. Governing bodies in track and  and swimming have barred athletes who underwent male puberty from competing in international women’s events.

The UC I said after a management committee meeting it is “reopening consultation with the athletes and national federations.”

Cycling’s rules were changed last year to require transgender athletes to have serum testosterone levels of 2.5 nanomoles per liter or less for at least 24 months before competing in women’s events. The previous rule stipulated below five nanomoles for only 12 months.

“The UCI’s objective remains the same: to take into consideration, in the context of the evolution of our society, the desire of transgender athletes to practice cycling,” the Switzerland-based organization said.

“The UCI also hears the voices of female athletes and their concerns about an equal playing field for competitors, and will take into account all elements, including the evolution of scientific knowledge.”

The next management meeting is from 31 July-Aug. 2 on the sidelines of the world championships in Glasgow, Scotland. AP

a two-year wait for success in a Grand Tour, since Egan Bernal won the Giro in 2021.

Ineos will be spearheaded by joint leaders Tao Geoghegan Hart and Geraint Thomas, whose Giro fortunes have been very different.

Thomas had to abandon the Italian Grand Tour twice. In 2017, he was involved in a crash caused by a police motorbike, and three years later he fractured his hip after a drinks bottle became lodged under his wheel.

Geoghegan Hart is the only previous Giro winner (2020) in this year’s race.

“It doesn’t matter what happened before Saturday,” Geoghegan Hart said. “The deeper you go into the race, nothing matters what you’ve done before. Even how you rode on stage one, two, three, four doesn’t mean anything when you’re in stage 18, 19, 20.

“So we’re looking forward to the race and getting stuck into it and doing our best together. We’ve done a lot of races together and we can communicate well.”

THE FINAL WEEK

THE race will likely be decided in the Dolomites Range in what promises to be an action-packed, demanding week before the final day’s ride through the streets of Rome on May 28.

Three of the last six stages have been given the maximum difficulty rating of five stars, including the penultimate day’s time trial. The week kicks off with the Sabbio Chiese to Monte Bondone stage, with over 5,000 meters of elevation.

St age 19 has no flat sections and has five classified climbs including the Passo Giau, the Passo Tre Croci and the finish up the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, with gradients of up to 18 percent.

“The last week is so hard and so brutal that you can even take the (leader’s) jersey on stage 20 and become the winner of of the Giro this year,” Evenepoel said. “So it’s all about the last days.” AP

BOTH Primoz Roglič and Remco Evenepoel

ERNEST JOHN “EJ” OBIENA is focusing on the basics in Phnom Penh.

RIANNE MALIXI is all focused in Cambodia.

Downshifting: why people are quitting their corporate careers for craft jobs

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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Zack Tabudlo on doing his job as artist and musician

By Jill Tan Radovan

IF you’ve seen him perform live, you have most likely heard his fans singing along to whatever song he’s performing, down to every word. Whether he’s serving smooth RnB with the charttopping single “Pano” or groovin’ to touches of soul and funk with “Akin Ka,” Zack Tabudlo demands attention with his words and his music.

He speaks the language of his generation through his song, but it is a language that much older listeners can understand. And because his songs speak of love and heartbreak and everything in between, the themes and messaging tend to appeal to a wider audience, too. Zack writes unabashedly in Filipino, says “O trip mo lang ba ako saktan?” in one song and “Oh ‘tang ina, iba ka talaga,” in another. And just when you’re wondering if he’s just some kid with musical talent and a penchant for tongue-in-cheek lyrics, he confuses you, making your heart melt by singing, “I’ve always seen my future in your eyes.”

he started his journey as a fan; in his case, strumming an acoustic guitar to his own rendition of Ed Sheeran’s songs, and letting artists like John Mayer and Charlie Puth influence him, too. He eventually learned to mix his own music and became a ghost producer in Los Angeles. His foundation, music-wise, is deeply rooted in pop and hip-hop.

OPM band.

“It’s something else for me. I remember finishing that track. I was like, dang this is really this is a pop RnB track that I know a lot of people vibe into. This is some VST & company shit,” he said.

He loves performing as much as he loves making songs, and compares the value and satisfaction he gets from both.

“The performance side it gave me the confidence of who I am on stage every time. Stepping on stage does satisfy me in terms of like giving the energy back to the people and how I can make people jump put their hands up and stuff like that. And just overall giving the people the love that I have. Just seeing them sing it with me as a surreal kind of feeling.”

Lourdes M. Fernandez

Aldwin M. Tolosa

Jt Nisay

Edwin P. Sallan

Eduardo A. Davad

Niggel Figueroa

Anabelle O. Flores

Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Patrick Miguel

Bernard P. Testa Nonie Reyes

It’s not just the lyrics, of course. Zack can whip up catchy melodies and create hooks almost as if on cue. Blame his musical ear, perhaps, on his roots and the people he grew up with. His father had a band in college and his mother, before she passed on, was a hotel singer who belted out songs of Alicia Keys. His sister, whilst not one to perform in public, also sang, like his grandmother. His grandfather, on the other hand, shared his love for the Beatles.

“When it comes to the whole music, then I feel like it’s always been there. It’s, it’s kind of like a growing phase where it just comes out of you and it’s the right time. And I feel like that’s what happened to me,” Tabudlo said in an online interview with SoundStrip.

“I mean, I grew up listening to a lot of artists that my family members also listened to. It just took a bit of time for it to really come up with me and how I was fascinated with performing and just reading.”

Zack has so far released two studio albums, produced tracks for other artists, and performed with quite a few of them on stage. The Voice Kids alumnus mentioned Moira dela Torre as one artist who has provided him with guidance along the way. He credits Jonathan Ong of Sonic State Audio and Cleng Saturno, Vehnee Saturno’s son—as his mentors in music production.

Tabudlo explains, “They kind of guided me when I was very young. So, I feel like in terms of like the knowledge that I have now and when I make my music, it all came from them. And they’ve been probably the most important people in my life when it comes to the screen.”

The 21-year-old singer-songwriter was quick to mention that he is grateful for the opportunities to work and perform with so many artists throughout his career, so far.

“They’ve always been there and they’ve always had a bag of stuff and so I keep the closest people and like the I guess the closest people to heart and and people who have meaning to me the most,” he said.

“When it comes to writing it’s kind of like the same thing but the difference is I’m inside my closet, inside my turf, when I create it. No one’s really around. Nno one really knows how I make my music and how I created from scratch and that’s kind of like my comfort zone as well and just doing everything on my space and it kind of feels like a safe, protection, circle type of thing.”

Zack is no stranger to online criticism, and admits having bashers despite his growing pool of followers. He takes everything in stride although he does listen to the constructive feedback.

“It all sounds the same by now and yeah, I’ve heard a lot of diminished comments and at the end of the day, to a certain extent I would get part of it,’ he said. For Zack, however, something is much more important than all the external noise from his critics.

“At the end of the day, again, it’s just the joy in the songs that I create.”

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Tabudlo might seem like this big, bright ball of energy bouncing on stage and this glitzy persona in his music videos, but up close—scratch that, online—and personal, he comes across as a soft-spoken, introspective, brooding artist who is just too passionate about making music.

Like many aspiring recording artists,

At the time of the interview, Zack said that he had gotten back to his roots and working on yet another song about heartbreak—something he is known and loved for. His stories of heartbreak, as told in his songs, are straightforward, inyour-face, and unpretentious; they easily capture the essence of every heartbreak in simple yet endearing form.

He is also collaborating on a secret project involving hip-hop artists, and he is excited about this, too.

Among the songs he’s written, “Habana Buhay” is Tabudlo’s current favorite, and compares it to the music of a well-known

He expanded more on the joy in creating music, saying, “The amazing part of creating music is once you put it out there, it’s not about you. Creating songs for yourself for me is something that you want to really publicize, share to like Spotify. You create music and you put it out there. That’s about connecting people.”

“My take on it when every time I perform and every time I write these songs, there’s a certain reason with it that comes with it, that I want to connect with these people. So that vulnerability that comes along with it, that is just pure satisfaction for me that I can help out in like 10,000 people, as long as I can help one person who’s been acting really strangely and acting really sad and acting really happy or like different types of emotions towards the songs that I create.”

“That’s how I know I’ve done my job as a as an artist and as a musician.”

T. Anthony C. Cabangon

ZACK Tabudlo

by Tony M. Maghirang

Themes of bravery, pleading, panic, holding on and More

a rising Filipino-American artist signed to a Manila-based label.

THE ITCHYWORMS

“Panic In My Mind”

THEItchyworms are back with an upbeat, retro-pop tune that deals with the dread of knowing your loved one will be moving away to a different place for good. The group’s new single titled Panic In My Mind” was specifically written for their bandmate Chino Singson who has migrated to Canada with his family to start a new life.

The Itchyworms’ signature sound lives on in “Panic in My Mind,” which blends intricate vocal harmonies and colorful melodies with ‘a classic pop sound. Lead vocalist and drummer Jazz Nicolas explains. “We were going for a more organic sound with acoustic instruments as opposed to our previous album, which had a lot of electronica elements. It also has a ‘60s vibe with the jangly guitars and three-part harmonies.” The Itchyworms are embarking on their first US tour, dubbed “Akin Ka Na Lang, Amerika.”

VIVOREE “Matapang”

INher new single titled “Matapang,” former “Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7” housemate Vivoree speaks about fearlessness in love. She shared, “It’s a song about being brave in love. Let’s say may gusto ka sa isang tao or mahal mo yung tao, Nung una ‘di mo alam kung paano i-express [yung feelings] at takot ka pa. Pero in the long run, you’d gain the courage to admit to yourself na ‘Okay, gusto ko itong taong ‘to,’”

“Matapang” is a teaser to Vivoree’s upcoming solo EP where she vows to showcase a different side of her by working with some of the most forward-thinking female songwriters and producers around.

AFTER debuting as a bonafide solo star with the banging “Wild Tonight,” SB19’s Josh Cullen continues his winning streak with his follow-up single that redefines a love song with edgy hip-hop twist. Aptly titled “Pakiusap Lang,” the new track is a romantic rap ballad that forays into emotional honesty with stylistic finesse, Pakiusap Lang” shows another side of Cullen: an entertainer who has no need for gimmicks just to prove his point. According to SB19’s resident lead rapper and subvocalist, “Pakiusap Lang” is a song based on his personal experiences. He further explains, “It’s all about the struggles of maintaining a relationship. The song inspires the listener to hold on and trust the process.”

PATRICK MAGADA

“Never Let Me Go”

BEGINNING with a metaphor for an abandoned home, “Never Let Me Go” is about letting go of grudges brought on by the trauma of lingering emptiness. Similar to the feeling of bitterness and distaste, the track evokes a sense of urgency with a fouron-the-floor kick that turns to ear candy in periodic reverbed drenched space. The song also features a piano run following a salsa-like rhythm culminating in a beautiful final chorus. “Never Let Me Go” is part of the anticipated Cycles EP from Patrick Magada,

SAM CONCEPCION “Kapit”

“Tagahanga”

SAM

Concepcion reimagines Christian Bautista’s 2017 hit song “Kapit” and the two brand new mixes of “Kapit” impressively take the song to even greater heights. The homage to Asia’s Romantic Balladeer puts Sam’s own spin on the track, infusing it with his infectious signature sound and energy.

Recalling how he accepted the offer to cover a Christian Bautista hit, Sam enthuses, “When the opportunity presented itself to remake a song that I really like, that I am aware of, and I’ve listened to countless times before, I took the chance to record and sing it, siyempre.” He’s also happy that two different producers came up with two different versions of the sane song to change the whole mood and context of the song.

ON her second single, Filipino singersongwriter Mona channels the story of a passionate fan who rallies around her idol, hoping to connect with him in a meaningful way. The promising songstress admits the song transforms her positive energy into a euphoric pop anthem to highlight the essence of the narrative.

Mona shared, “To an extent, I took the ‘fangirl’ experience to heart because I know how it feels to idolize someone. Also, the producer prominently highlights the bass and guitar parts, creating a driving rhythm that invites dancing and movement, adding a layer of fun and excitement to the track.”

SoundSampler

JOSH CULLEN “Pakiusap Lang”

MONA

Downshifting: Why people are quitting their corporate careers for craft jobs

By antoine Dain Aix-Marseille Université

In France and other Western societies, it is increasingly common to see interior designers become bakers, ex-bankers opening up cheese shops, and marketing officers taking up electricians’ tools.

In January 2022, 21 percent of French working people were in the course of changing career, while 26 percent were reported to be considering a career switch in the long term. As part of this trend, executives or the highly educated are increasingly drawn to the world of craft. The practice is sometimes referred to as downshifting in English, which, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is “the practice of leaving a job that is well paid and difficult in order to do something that gives you more time and satisfaction but less money.”

These career changes are a puzzle for sociologists, who have traditionally sought to understand the factors driving upward mobility, class reproduction, or social downgrading. These days, the latter can be observed on an intergenerational scale, with children increasingly occupying lower positions in the social hierarchy than their parents’, but also on an intragenerational scale, with individuals carrying out jobs for which they are overqualified. In both cases, the phenomenon at play is thought of as something people are subject to, not the result of their own decision. How, then, can we get our heads around managers moving

into the craft industry?

For individuals who have scaled the career ladder or who are highly educated, switching to a “manual” craft trade could indeed be understood as a paradoxical “voluntary downgrading.” As part of my PhD, I embarked onto a mission to understand downshifters’ motivations, interviewing 55 of them.

A specific relationship to work

THE first takeaway to emerge from these interviews is the majority of career switchers show a relationship to work which we can describe as “experiential.” This means that, more than material resources or the prestige of professional status, these professionals prioritize satisfying and fulfilling work life.

The economic dimension, while not totally omitted, was all the more easily overlooked because our interviewees often had safety nets. For some, this means unemployment benefits for the time needed to retrain, income from a spouse; for others financial assistance from relatives, prior savings or even property assets.

In this regard, Tom (first names have

been changed), who has a PhD in physics and works as a carpenter, confirmed to me that having “the cultural and economic capital” and the security of knowing that “his parents [who are both academics] are there” are the conditions that allow him to “wander from one job to another.”

Thanks to their degrees or past professional experience, these professionals also know they can return to a more qualified job if things don’t pan out the way they would like. Under these conditions, career switchers, who are after a job that is more in line with their values, can allow themselves to transgress socio-professional boundaries.

Admittedly, the craft trade corresponds to a more working-class job sector than the one their initial background had accustomed them to. It requires a lower education level than theirs, and generally confers lower or more irregular income. But the experiential relationship with work leads the career switchers to focus less on these criteria than on the satisfaction that their new job can intrinsically provide. They therefore only rarely told me that they felt downgraded, assessing their situation more on an

individual level and in terms of fulfilment than in terms of the socio-professional status associated with their new job.

Giving meaning to one’s job

THIs experiential relationship to work often leads career switchers to indicate that craft work would have more “meaning” than their former profession. Gabriel, a former account manager who now works as a cheesemonger, sums up what led him to consider that his job “lacked meaning.”

“Every day is a bit the same,” he said. “You say to yourself, ‘Well, am I really going to spend 40 years at a desk, with my arse on a chair staring at a computer? Is this really what I want to do?’”

In contrast to studies highlighting the physical vulnerability associated with craft work, career switchers tend to describe this bodily engagement as something that “feels good,” strengthens “muscles,” makes you feel “fit” and “good in your body,” or that helps avoid “getting fat.”

Craftsmanship is also valued for its “concrete” character. By this we mean that the product of the activity is palpable, tangible, which makes it easier to equate the efforts engaged with the result they produce. This concrete aspect contrasts with feelings associated with the former job, of losing oneself in “endless meetings,” in “frills,” in reflections that can last “hours and hours” on subjects which interviewees criticize as “superficial,” “artificial,” “abstract” or “excessively complex.”

Joëlle, a training manager who became a baker, underlined that she had the impression of “finishing late […] to do nothing.” she contrasts this activity where, at the end of the month, she had “still earned 5,500 euros,” but without knowing “who she was benefiting.” Meanwhile, she feels more accomplished in her new job, saying, “There, every day I feed at least a hundred people.” The Conversation

Cover photo by Amina Filkins/pexels.com

How the craft revolution helped develop the market

THE craft revolution is everywhere: Craft beers, specialty coffee, handmade soaps and artisanal ice cream. While some may think this is foolish snobbery, others revel in the esthetics of craft experiences.

The craft revolution is often seen as a reaction against excessive industrialization or as a way to keep traditions and culture alive in the face of a homogenized, corporatized world. Instead of privileging the pursuit of profit, craft businesses and professionals are part of the rise of creative professions. They are

driven by esthetic engagement, creative expression and an aspiration for quality.

Between 1991 and 1998, the number of specialty coffee shops in the United states grew to about 10,000 from 1,650. By 2015, there were 31,490 specialty shops. specialty coffee is now more than half of the $48 billion retail value of the Us market. This rise in demand and popularity of a craft-oriented approach to a consumer good has shifted a large part of the market towards craft values and beliefs.

Businesses conduct their activities

based on key values and beliefs. Craft firms undertake theirs striving for esthetic engagement, creative expression and an aspiration to quality. In contrast, commercial firms such as McDonald’s McCafé and Tim Horton’s privilege the maximization of profits.

some have argued that craft offers more authentic products, perhaps because craft work creates a kind of one-toone relationship between the producer and consumer that is different from the standardized mass market production that dominates so much of our economy.

But while craftspeople’s creative expression might be found in their products and presentation, commercial firms have become skilled at mimicking the artistry of craft professionals, making it difficult to identify which is which.

Authenticity is an ambiguous concept—what one might find authentic might be seen as elitist by others. Perhaps the success of craft might lie in its capacity to tap into our nostalgic ideals of work and our increasing desires for connection with the origins of products and the stories and people behind them. The Conversation

Long coveted by job centres and PowerPoint presenters, the old image of moving up the career ladder makes less and less sense by the day.

“More than material resources or the prestige of professional status, these [career changers] prioritize satisfying and fulfilling work life,” writes the story’s author Antoine Dain, a doctorate student in sociology at Aix-Marseille Université in France. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto/Pexel S.com