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A ‘Historic’ Landing The ‘new normal’ takes a new, different meaning on Pagasa Island

IN this April 21, 2017, file photo, Philippine troops march as a Philippine Air Force C-130 transport plane carrying Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Armed Forces Chief Gen. Eduardo Año and other officials sits on the tarmac at the Philippine-claimed Pagasa (Thitu) Island off the disputed Spratlys chain of islands in the West Philippine Sea. Their visit was aimed to assert the country’s claim to the heartland of a disputed area where China is believed to have added missiles on man-made islands. Seen in the background above the horizon, center, is the Chinese man-made island of Subi Reef. AP/BULLIT MARQUEZ

By Rene Acosta

I

N what was bannered as a “historic landing,” a Philippine Navy ship, the BRP Ivatan, berthed more than a week ago for the first time at the Pagasa Island in the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) within the expanse of the disputed West Philippine Sea.

For the small community of Filipinos living on the island, however, the mooring of the PN ship is just part of the “new normal” that they have been accustomed to, even

before the Philippine government began to spread the meaning of the phrase to the minds of Filipinos amid the onset of a global health pandemic that, ironically, emerged

for the first time in Wuhan, China.

Pagasa, the largest island in the KIG, or the Spratly Group of Islands, hosts the municipality of Kalayaan, one of the islands that is the subject of a territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing because of the latter’s aggressive and expansive claims in the South China Sea (SCS).

The new normal, as the government repeatedly says, is the way Filipinos should conduct their daily lives amid the raging novel coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19). It is how they should act, think and carry their day-to-day activities in response to the contagion.

At the same time, however, the new normal phrase carries a differ-

ent meaning, perhaps owing to the fact that Pagasa Island is still free of any resident infected with Covid-19 as of this writing.

To them, new normal means having to live with the permanent presence of Chinese vessels that sail in swarms on the island’s pristine coastlines on a regular basis.

Reasserting island ownership

THE landing of the BRP Ivatan (LC298), which the Navy described as historic, has proven that the country is still in control and possession of the island, whose development is being stymied and continuously challenged by China, and, to some extent, the restraint taken by the Philippine govern-

THE BRP Ivatan docked at the Naval Station Jose Andrada in Manila. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

ment, which may be due to President Duterte’s pivot to Beijing.

“The Philippine Navy’s BRP Ivatan (LC298) docked at the newly constructed port at Pagasa Island,

Kalayaan Island Group, West Philippine Sea (WPS) early morning of May 13, 2020, making it the firstever PN [Philippine Navy] vessel Continued on A2

Reopening: It’s back to business, but not business as usual

By David Crary, Dave Collins & Nicole Winfield

N

The Associated Press

EW YORK—This is what “normal” will look like for the foreseeable future.

In Connecticut, restaurants are reopening with outdoor-only dining and tables 6 feet apart. In Beverly Hills, California, the rich and glamorous are doing their shopping from the curb along Rodeo Drive. And preschools around the US plan to turn social distancing into an arts-and-crafts project by teaching kids how to “create their own space” with things like yarn and masking tape.

As the US and other countries loosen their coronavirus restrictions, it’s back to business, but not business as usual. In fact, it is becoming all too clear that without a vaccine against the scourge, the disruptions could be long-lasting and the economy won’t be bouncing right back.

In Italy, where good food is an essential part of life, once-packed restaurants and cafés are facing a huge financial hit as they reopen with strict social-distancing rules after a 10-week shutdown.

Experts warned that as many as one-third of the country’s restaurants and bars could go out of business, up to 300,000 jobs in the sector could vanish and losses could reach €30 billion ($32 billion) this year.

“We have to turn upside down all the activity that we did before,” lamented chef Raffaele di Cristo, who must wear a mask and latex gloves as he prepares food at the popular Corsi Trattoria in Rome.

“Everything is changed.”

Corsi reopened this week with

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.5820

A KASHMIRI shopkeeper wearing a mask waits for customers ahead of Eid al-Fitr during a nationwide lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus, in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, May 20, 2020. AP

half its tables removed to ensure the mandated 1-meter (3-foot) spacing.

Hand sanitizing gel was placed at the entrance, and a new ordering system was installed so that customers could read the menu on their phones instead of listening to waitresses recite the specials.

In Connecticut, restaurants that reopened Wednesday for outdoor dining are required to rearrange workstations so that employees don’t face one another, and stagger shifts and break times to minimize contact among them.

Markers must be installed to encourage customers to keep their distance from one another.

In Glastonbury, Connecticut, the Max Fish restaurant opened for lunch with 16 tables on outdoor patios. Customers filled about half the tables in the early afternoon, and all the tables were reserved for dinner, general manager Brian Costa said.

Friends and retirees Debbie Lawrence and Jill Perry, who often ate out together before the outbreak, enjoyed a meal at Max Fish.

Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4699 n UK 61.8365 n HK 6.5232 n CHINA 7.1076 n SINGAPORE 35.7041 n AUSTRALIA 33.1717 n EU 55.3822 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.4731

Source: BSP (May 22, 2020)

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A2 Sunday, May 24, 2020

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A ‘Historic’ Landing

lining up the area. They are there for a variety of reasons, including R&R [rest and recreation],” he said.

“So it’s the new normal under Covid,” Bito-onon said. “New normal with their presence,” he stressed, referring to the Chinese ships and their crewmen and normal amid humanity’s existence amid the pandemic.

“We love China, as the President says,” the former mayor said in jest.

Continued from A1

that berthed thereat,” said the Naval Forces West (NFW) in announcing the landing.

The berthing was in connection with the military’s troop rotation and re-provisioning mission (RORE) for its different detachments in the WPS, an activity that is always challenged, both at sea and air, by the Chinese military every time it is carried out.

The presence of the Navy vessel, skippered by Cdr. Bennie B. Demetillo, in Pagasa was, however, brief.

“Said vessel already arrived at Puerto Princesa City early morning of May 17, 2020, after weeks of traversing the West Philippine Sea for troop RORE at the different KIG detachments, which also include Rizal Reef Detachment (RRD), Lawak and Patag Islands,” the NFW said.

Former Kalayaan Mayor Eugenio Bito-onon Jr. said the berthing of the vessel was a welcome development on the island, coming at a time when a nasty geographical message swirls on the social media saying the “Philippines is a province of China.”

But again, it was just a part of the overall new normal in Pagasa, normal in the sense that according to Bito-onon, the sight of Chinese militia vessels, accompanied and escorted by Chinese Coast Guard vessels, has become a permanent fixture on the island’s coastline.

He said the permanent presence of Chinese vessels in Pagasa is the “new normal” for the residents.

While the PN did not say in what particular port the Ivatan landed, it could have been in the small sheltered port built by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) at a cost of P450 million.

Absence of patrol

THE Philippine-claimed Kalayaan (Thitu) Island on the Spratlys chain of islands is shown off the West Philippine Sea, April 21, 2017. AP/BULLIT MARQUEZ

Bito-onon said the DOTr has two projects in Pagasa and these are two ports.

“One is the smaller sheltered port which is already constructed.

The other one, which is bigger, is yet to be constructed,” he said.

Up to 60 vessels a day

BITO-ONON said the presence of 30 up to 60 Chinese vessels on a regular day in the waters off Pag­asa is a normal sight for the residents, and, in fact, they have come to treat it as an ordinary occurrence, part of the modern-day existence of Pagasa.

“You cannot get rid of them, you cannot shoo them away. You

cannot intimidate them,” he said of the vessels.

“They are blue boats, Chinese militia vessels, very big and steelhulled. They are escorted by Chinese Coast Guard vessels, they shepherd them,” said Bito-onon, who during his mayorship had persistently urged the national government to pour in huge resources to fully develop the KIG in order to bolster the Philippines’s stamp of ownership.

‘Constant maritime militia’

IN late February this year, Gregory Poling, director of the US-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), said, “China has

maintained a constant maritime militia and CCG [Chinese Coast Guard] deployment around Thitu Island [in Spratlys] for 424 days.”

When military reporters asked for his reaction, an apparently piqued Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana asked about Poling’s interest in the issue, adding that the presence of Chinese vessels in Pag­ asa was constant.

When asked about the number of ships, the defense chief answered they were counting.

Last month, Lorenzana was criticized for his apparent defense of the Chinese Navy after a Chinese warship pointed its “gun control director” (GCD) at the BRP

Conrado Yap while it was on its way to Rizal Reef.

“I don’t think they have an intention of harming our men,” he said of the incident.

As the Navy had explained, the GCD can be used to designate and track targets and makes all the main guns ready to fire in under a second.

The Department of Foreign Affairs fired off a diplomatic protest to Beijing over this incident.

Bito-onon emphasized that the presence of Chinese vessels on Pagasa was not constant but permanent.

“Pagasa has an anchorage area of three up to 11 kilometers from the shoreline, they are all there,

BITO-ONON said the swarm of Chinese militia ships in Pagasa and in its surrounding islands may have been encouraged by the absence of regular PN patrols there, although the Navy leadership maintains it regularly prowls the area.

“There is no patrol,” the former mayor said.

More than a year ago, former Marine Captain and Magdalo PartyList Rep. Gary Alejano said that the sand bar near Pagasa, Sandy Cay, has been taken over by China in 2017, just like the Scarborough Shoal.

He claimed the dedicated presence of Chinese ships near Sandy Cay has prevented the government from exercising its “effective control” of the area.

Bito-onon said the presence of Chinese ships in Pagasa, instead of Filipino boats, prods them sometimes to entertain the issue of identity.

To be sure, presence is inevitably a signal, and, while it is impossible at the moment to stop China from continuing to assert a dubious historic claim on the area, there’s nothing to be lost from the Philippines persistently asserting its own stamp of ownership. Pag­ asa, after all, means “hope” in English, and as the cliché goes, “hope springs eternal.”

Reopening: It’s back to business, but not business as usual

SENIOR students wait for class to begin with plastic boards placed on their desks at Jeonmin High School in Daejeon, South Korea, Wednesday, May 20, 2020. KIM JUN-BEOM/YONHAP VIA AP Continued from A1

“It was terrific. It’s just wonderful to be outside,” Lawrence said. “But I’m still a little leery of going to any stores.”

At the Crab Shell Restaurant on the waterfront in Stamford, co-owner James Clifford held up a roughly 6-foot-long stick he said he used to make sure chairs weren’t too close together.

“I just hope the outdoor people don’t get greedy and they don’t overstep their bounds,” he said. “Because if you can’t get it right outdoors, how can you get it indoors?”

In Fredericksburg, Virginia, one restaurant that recently reopened its patio has taken an extra step to reassure diners. The Colonial Tavern is taking staff mem-

MANNEQUINS are placed to provide social distancing at a restaurant in Vilnius, Lithuania, Thursday, May 21, 2020. AP/MINDAUGAS KULBIS

bers’ temperatures at the start of their shifts and posting the results for customers to see.

Some of new rules for dining out echo reopening guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

They are intended for child-care centers, schools, day camps, mass transit systems, restaurants, bars and other businesses and organizations.

For example, the CDC suggests mass transit systems close every other row of seats and limit how many riders can be on a bus or train.

Amid the wave of reopenings, many Americans remain wary, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll says 83 percent of Americans are

at least somewhat concerned that lifting restrictions in their area will lead to additional infections.

The poll also exposed a widening partisan divide on the topic, with Democrats more cautious and Republicans less anxious as President Donald Trump urges states to “open up our country.” Only about a third of Republicans say they are very or extremely concerned about additional infections, compared with three-quarters of Democrats.

About 5 million people worldwide have been confirmed infected, and over 325,000 deaths have been recorded, including over 93,000 in the US and around 165,000 in Europe, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, based on government data.

Experts believe the true toll is significantly higher.

With the virus far from vanquished, the reopenings could prove to be a stop-and-start, twoste ps - for w a rd- one - ste p - bac k process.

Ford temporarily halted production at two of its assembly plants Tuesday and Wednesday in Chicago and Dearborn, Michigan, after three autoworkers tested positive for the virus. Work was stopped to sanitize equipment and isolate those who were in contact with the infected employees.

Detroit’s Big Three automakers restarted their US factories on Monday after a two-month shutdown.

Education, too, is facing radical changes.

Cambridge became the first university in Britain to cancel all face-to-face lectures for the up-

coming school year, saying they will be held virtually and streamed online until the summer of 2021.

Other institutions have taken different tacks. The University of Notre Dame in Indiana will bring students back to campus but redesigned its calendar to start the semester early in August and end before Thanksgiving.

In South Korea, hundreds of thousands of high-school seniors had their temperatures checked and used hand sanitizer as they returned Wednesday, many for the first time since late last year. Students and teachers were required to wear masks, and some schools installed plastic partitions around desks.

France is limiting spaces in its primary schools, giving priority to the children of essential workers and those in need.

Some younger students even go on alternating days, while high schools remain closed.

People’s gratitude at being able to shop or eat out again is mingling with worries about job security.

Business was slow at a Paris farmer’s market with a mixed mood among the masked, gloved vendors. A man selling peonies and petunias said he was glad to get out and see shoppers again, while a woman selling asparagus and tomatoes behind a makeshift plastic screen grumbled that her customers were buying less than usual.

British aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce announced plans to cut 9,000 workers as it grapples with the collapse in air travel. In general, those jobs come with good pay and benefits, and losing them is a sharp blow to local communities.

Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, May 24, 2020

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Will Covid-19 deter spectators from watching SpaceX launch?

By Mike Schneider

O

In this handout photo taken from video footage, medical workers record a video appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Armavir, Russia, on May 16. Dozens of medical workers all across the country, from Siberia to southern Russia, made similar videos over the weekend, demanding the bonuses Putin promised them for working with coronavirus patients. Many said they had received 10 to 100 times less than was promised. Grigory Kramchanin via AP

‘We are expendable’: Russian doctors face hostility, mistrust

By Daria Litvinova

M

The Associated Press

OSCOW—There are no daily public displays of gratitude for Russian doctors and nurses during the coronavirus crisis like there are in the West. Instead of applause, they face mistrust, low pay and even open hostility.

Residents near the National Medical Research Center for Endocrinology, a Moscow hospital now treating virus patients, complained when they saw medical workers walking out of the building in full protective gear, fearing the workers would spread contagion.

“Maybe once the disease knocks on the door of every family, then the attitude to medics will change,” said Dr. Alexander Gadzyra, a surgeon who works exhausting shifts.

The outbreak has put enormous pressure on Russia’s medical community. While state media hails some of them as heroes, doctors and nurses interviewed by The Associated Press say they are fighting both the virus and a system that fails to support them.

They have decried shortages of protective equipment, and many say they have been threatened with dismissal or even prosecution for going public with their complaints. Some have quit and a few are suspected to have killed themselves.

Government officials insist the shortages are isolated and not widespread.

Antipathy toward the medical profession is widespread in Russia, said social anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova, who studies social-media posts peddling virus conspiracy theories. More than 100 theories she studied say doctors diagnose Covid-19 cases so they can get more money; others say they help the government cover up the outbreak.

“It’s a crisis of trust that the epidemic underscored,” she said. “I haven’t seen this attitude anywhere else.”

Trust in government institutions has always been low in Russia, according to opinion polls, and most of its hospitals are state-run.

Russia is struggling in the pandemic, with over 300,000 infections and 2,972 deaths.

The government has disputed critics who have questioned the relatively low number of fatalities.

Official statements and news reports in more than 70 Russian regions show that at least 9,479 medical workers have been infected with the virus in the past month, and more than 70 have died. Health-care workers believe the death toll to be much higher and they have compiled a list of more than 250.

Dr. Irina Vaskyanina said at least 40 workers are infected at a hospital in Reutov, outside Moscow, where she headed a department handling blood transfusions.

She also said insults and threats from superiors became common after she complained about working conditions to her bosses, to law enforcement and even to President Vladimir Putin.

“I handed in my notice,” Vaskyanina said.

“They’re not letting me do my job. I love my job and I want to keep doing it, but I can’t go on like this.”

She said 13 of her 14 colleagues have also quit.

Dr. Tat yana Rev va, an intensive care specialist in the town of Kalach-on-Don, was summoned by police for questioning and slapped with disciplinary action after recording a video about equipment shortages. The hospital’s head reported her to a prosecutor for “spreading false information”—an offense punishable by fines

of up to $25,000 or a prison term.

“I am one reprimand away from being fired,” Revva told AP. Dr. Oleg Kumeiko, head of Revva’s hospital, rejected the claims. He told the AP there were no shortages of protective equipment in the hospital, and said he had no intention of firing Revva. Disciplinary action against her was justified, he said, and “had nothing to do with her public activity.”

“I don’t understand why they treat us like we’re expendable,” said Nina Rogova, a nurse in the Vladimir region 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of Moscow. She is recovering from the virus after getting it at work and she says she is being threatened with dismissal after she told local media about a lack of protective gear.

Doctors in the southern region of Chechnya who complained about equipment shortages later had to retract their statements as a “mistake” and apologize on TV. The predominantly Muslim region’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has a reputation for stifling dissent, and he has demanded they be fired.

Adding to the frustration is pay. Health workers say they haven’t gotten bonuses the government promised them for working with coronavirus patients. In early April, Putin personally promised generous bonuses to monthly salaries—about $1,100 for doctors, $680 for nurses and paramedics, and $340 for orderlies.

A month later, social media was filled with photos of pay slips reflecting bonuses from 10 to 100 times smaller than promised. Dr. Yevgeniya Bogatyryova, a Moscow-area paramedic, told AP the April bonuses varied from $2 to $120.

“They’re calculating the time ambulance doctors spend with a coronavirus patient and pay by the hour, apparently,” Bogatyryova said.

More than 110,000 people signed an online petition demanding the government keep its promise.

Dozens of paramedics protested in the Nizhny Novgorod region 400 kilometers (240 miles) east of Moscow, and scores more from Siberia to southern Russia made videos demanding the bonuses.

“Whoever we ask in our management, our superiors, they say, ‘Putin promised you [bonuses], so Putin should pay you,’” Natalia Salomatova, an orderly at a hospital in the Siberian city of Chita, told the AP. April bonuses for her colleagues ranged from the equivalent of 41 cents to $6.86.

Salomatova herself didn’t receive any.

Only after Putin went on TV twice last week and angrily demanded that officials pay what was promised did medical workers in some regions start getting the payments.

“Makes you wonder: Who should we protect the medics from, the infection or the administrators?” said Arkhipova, the social anthropologist.

Russia’s Health Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reports of health-care workers resigning are surfacing. Over 300 quit in the western Kaliningrad region two weeks ago, dozens of paramedics reportedly resigned in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk in May and 40 workers gave notice at a hospital in the Vladimir region.

That could further cripple Russia’s health-care system, already impaired by a widely criticized reform that closed half of its 10,000 hospitals in 20 years, with thousands of layoffs. In December, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova called the reform “horrible” and said it significantly affected the quality and the accessibility of health care.

“Now we’re facing the threat of a complete destruction of the medical community,” said Semyon Galperin, head of the Doctors Defense League rights group.

The Associated Press

RLANDO, Florida—In ordinary times, the beaches and roads along Florida’s Space Coast would be packed with hundreds of thousands of spectators, eager to witness the first astronaut launch from Florida in nine years.

In the age of coronavirus, local officials and Nasa are split on whether that’s a good idea.

Nasa and SpaceX are urging spectators to stay at home next Wednesday for safety reasons.

Officials in Brevard County, home to the Kennedy Space Center, are rolling out the welcome mat in an effort to jump-start a tourism industry hit hard this spring by coronavirus-related lockdowns.

If people are comfortable coming and watching the launch, “by all means, come. If they aren’t, I respect that too,” said Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey.

“I’m not going to tell Americans they can’t watch a great piece of history. I’m just not going to do it,” he said.

The sheriff said he is asking visitors to practice social distancing as they watch the launch of astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on a test flight of SpaceX’s Dragon crew capsule.

Liftoff is set for 4:33 p.m. EDT. A rou nd 8 5 re s e r v e d e pu ties will be on hand to monitor crowds and ask people to comply w ith socia l d istancing if they are in groups. A local chain of beach shops is distributing 20,000 masks to spectators in coordination with the sheriff ’s office, Ivey said.

The sheriff, who grew up in Florida watching launches, wants a new generation to be able to experience the energy, excitement and feelings of patriotism

that comes from watching a US launch with astronauts.

“Nasa is a true part of our history in Brevard County,” Ivey said.

Earlier this month, Nasa Administrator Jim Bridenstine asked potential spectators to watch the launch online or on TV from home.

The space agency is also offering a “virtual launch experience.”

Nasa is doing its best to facilitate social distancing inside the Kennedy Space Center by limiting access, although it may be hosting two VIPs. Vice President Mike Pence says he plans to be there, and President Donald Trump said he’s thinking of attending.

The visitor center at Kennedy, usually a prime spot for viewing launches, is closed to the public.

Na sa a st ronauts h ave not launched from the US since the space shuttle program ended in 2011. It will be the first attempt by a private company to fly astronauts to orbit for the space agency.

“The challenge that we’re up against right now is we want to keep everybody safe,” Bridenstine said. “And so we’re asking people not to travel to the Kennedy Space Center, and I will tell you that makes me sad to even say it. Boy, I wish we could make this into something really spectacular.”

Although crowd sizes varied, a high-profile space shuttle launch

In this July 8, 2011, file photo, crowds gather in the surf and on the beach in Cocoa Beach, Florida, to watch the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on STS-135. This is the final US shuttle mission before the fleet is retired. In ordinary times, the beaches and roads along Florida’s Space Coast would be packed with hundreds of thousands of spectators, eager to witness the first astronaut launch from Florida in nine years, scheduled for May 27, 2020. In the age of coronavirus, local officials and Nasa are split on whether that’s a good idea. AP/Dave Martin

could attract a half million visitors to the Space Coast. Local tourism officials think next week’s launch will bring in no more than 200,000 spectators.

With airline passenger traffic drastically down and nearby Orlando theme parks closed because of the pandemic, “we’re not going to be getting the out-of-state traffic we may have gotten during the shuttle era,” said Peter Cranis, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism.

“The environment is different with Covid-19 and people now reemerging from stay-at-home orders,” Cranis said. “There are going to be a number of people who are hesitant.”

The Space Coast’s tourism business is down by about 40% for the year, and that could cost the area $1 billion, he said.

“A launch like this after a big long weekend could really give us a shot in the arm,” Cranis said.

Local hoteliers are looking forward to the influx of visitors after two bad months. Tom Williamson, who is general manager of two hotels on the Space Coast, each with 150 rooms or more, said one hotel was closed and the other only had 15 percent occupancy in April. He expects both hotels to be at or near capacity on the night of the launch.

“We’re glad to see some signs of life,” Williamson said.

Steven Giraldo works as a technical consultant for a software company in Saint Petersburg, Florida, but he has a side gig with some space-buff friends offering charter boat tours for watching launches. For next week’s SpaceX launch, he had booked around 150 people from as far away as Australia for $75 a head on a fleet of boats. He ended up scrapping those plans.

“It would take too much logistical effort to see if everyone is wearing a mask, making sure no one has a fever, and how do you social distance on a boat?” Giraldo said.

Instead, he plans to watch the launch with seven other friends, some from Arizona and Indiana, in a boat on the Banana River.

“This was going to be our biggest event. The historical significance of it created a lot of buzz,” Giraldo said. “But I just don’t know how we could have done it.” AP

AP-NORC poll: Americans harbor strong fear of new infections

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ES MOINES, Iowa—Strong concern about a second wave of coronavirus infections is reinforcing widespread opposition among Americans to reopening public places, a new poll finds, even as many state leaders step up efforts to return to life before the pandemic.

Yet support for public health restrictions imposed to control the virus’s spread is no longer overwhelming. It has been eroded over the past month by a widening partisan divide, with Democrats more cautious and Republicans less anxious as President Donald Trump urges states to “open up our country,” according to the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll finds that 83 percent of Americans are at least somewhat concerned that lifting restrictions in their area will lead to additional infections, with 54 percent saying they are very or extremely concerned that such steps will result in a spike of Covid-19 cases.

“Oh, I’d like to get my hair and nails done. It’s one of those little pleasures you take for granted,” said Kathy Bishop, a 59-year-old billing specialist who had pneumonia two years ago. “But I’m just going to suck it up. It’s not worth the risk.”

Bishop lives in the western suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, a state where Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is among the state chief executives leading a gradual reopening of businesses such as salons, barbershops,

restaurants and bars. But even after nine weeks spent at home, Bishop is among the solid majority of Americans who support rigorous criteria for economic reopening that goes beyond wearing masks in public places and continued social distancing.

About 8 in 10 Americans say that it’s essential to reopening for people to return to self-quarantine if they are exposed to the virus. Roughly 6 in 10 also say having widespread testing for the coronavirus in their area is essential to reestablishing public activities, along with requiring people to keep 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart in most places and to wear face masks when they’re near others outside their homes.

Nearly as telling as the public’s appetite for rigorous precaution: Close to half say it is essential that a vaccine be available before public life resumes.

A third say that’s important but not essential.

Taken together, the findings suggest that while some Americans are anxious to get back to business as usual, most don’t see the country returning anytime soon to what once was considered normal.

Instead, Americans largely envision a protracted period of physical distancing, covered faces and intermittent quarantines ahead, perhaps until a vaccine is available.

Joe Yeskewicz, of Middleboro, Massachusetts, said he believes a vaccine is a must for his town of 23,000 south of Boston to fully reopen. He’s among the nearly 8 in 10 Americans who don’t expect one

to be ready before the end of the year.

“It is so novel, so unpredictable and so terribly, terribly contagious,” the 76-year-old retired teacher and college professor said of the virus. “The vaccine predictably could take years because it has to undergo a vigorous testing program for it to be effective and safe. Regardless of the optimism, this is going to take a while.”

The latest AP-NORC survey was conducted over this past weekend, before Monday’s news of positive results in a clinical trial of a potential vaccine. It found that a solid majority of about 6 in 10 Americans are in favor of requiring people to stay in their homes except for essential errands, with about a third of the country strongly behind that approach.

While still resolute, support for such measures to contain the coronavirus has slipped in the past month—80 percent were in favor of stay-at-home orders in April. The new survey found that 69 percent now favor restricting gatherings to 10 people or fewer, down from 82 percent in April.

Those declines are largely driven by changes in attitudes among Republicans, as Trump and several GOP governors have aggressively pressed for and moved ahead with reopening businesses and public places. Some people in Wisconsin headed straight for the local tavern last week after the conservative-controlled state Supreme Court upheld the GOP-controlled legislature’s appeal of Democratic

Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order.

Just 45 percent of Republicans now say they favor stay-at-home orders, while about as many are opposed. A month ago, 70 percent of Republicans backed them. Among Democrats, 78 percent favor stay-at-home orders, down from 91 percent in April.

Only about a third of Republicans say they are very or extremely concerned about the possibility of additional infections if restrictions are lifted, compared to three-quarters of Democrats.

Peggy Dullum, a 65-year-old Republican and retired state health-care worker from suburban Sacramento, California, said she once supported strict lockdown measures to contain the virus. But she now thinks they have outlived their purpose.

“If they’d have opened all retail, it would have spread out social activity rather than congesting it in those few retail locations where people crowded without masks,” Dullum said. “Make everybody wear a mask, instead of making it voluntary, and we probably could have kept the economy moving at a solid pace during the second month.”

But Yeskewicz, the Democratic-leaning independent from Massachusetts, shakes his head—including at the small but vocal pockets of protesters, at times armed and brandishing Confederate flags, who complain that leaders who back continued safety measures are doing so out of anything but concern for public health. AP

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The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Quest for ‘super-duper’ missiles pits US against China and Russia

Ex-Green Beret nabbed in Ghosn’s escape has long lived on the edge

By Adam Geller

By Robert Burns

W

Ap National Security Writer

What’s special about hypersonic?

Two things make these weapons special: speed and maneuverability. Speed brings surprise, and maneuverability creates elusiveness.

Together, those qualities could mean trouble for missile defenses.

By generally agreed definition, a hypersonic weapon is one that flies at speeds in excess of Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.

Most American missiles, such as those launched from aircraft to hit other aircraft or ground targets, travel between Mach 1 and Mach 5.

Trump occasionally mentions his interest in hypersonic weapons, sometimes without using the term. In February he told governors visiting the White House: “We have the super-fast missiles—

tremendous number of the superfast. We call them ‘super-fast,’ where they’re four, five, six and even seven times faster than an ordinary missile. We need that because, again, Russia has some.”

And last Friday, Trump told reporters, “We have no choice, we have to do it, with the adversaries we have out there,” mentioning China and Russia. He added, “I call it the super-duper missile.” He said he “heard” it travels 17 times faster than any other US missile.

“It just got the go-ahead,” he added, although the Pentagon would not comment on that.

How they work

The Pentagon is pursuing two main types of hypersonic weapons. One, called a hypersonic glide vehicle, is launched from a rocket.

It then glides to a target, maneuvering at high speed to evade interception. The other is sometimes referred to as a hypersonic cruise missile. Capable of being launched from a fighter jet or bomber, it would be powered by a supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet, enabling the missile to fly and maneuver at lower altitudes.

On March 19, the Pentagon flight-tested a hypersonic glide vehic le at its Pacif ic Missi le Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii.

It deemed the test a success and “a major milestone toward the department’s goal of fielding hypersonic warfighting capabilities in the early- to mid-2020s.”

Unlike Russia, the United States says it is not developing hypersonic weapons for use with a nuclear warhead. As a result, a US hypersonic weapon will need to be more accurate, posing additional technical challenges.

As recently as 2017, the Pentagon was spending about $800

Ap National Writer

D

ASHINGTON—They fly at speeds of a mile a second or faster and maneuver in ways that make them extra difficult to detect and destroy in flight.

President Donald J. Trump calls them “super-duper” missiles though they’re better known as hypersonic weapons. And they are at the heart of Trump administration worries about China and Russia.

For decades the United States has searched for ways to get ultrafast flight right. But it has done so in fits and starts. Now, with China and Russia arguably ahead in this chase, the Trump administration is pouring billions of dollars a year into hypersonic offense and defense.

The Pentagon makes no bones about their purpose.

“Our ultimate goal is, simply, we want to dominate future battlefields,” Mark Lewis, the Pentagon’s director of defense research and engineering for modernization, told reporters in March.

Critics argue that hypersonic weapons would add little to the United States’s ability to deter war.

Some think they could ignite a new, destabilizing arms race.

A look at hypersonic weapons:

www.businessmirror.com.ph

In this photo taken from undated footage distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, an intercontinental ballistic missile lifts off from a truck-mounted launcher somewhere in Russia. The Russian military said the Avangard hypersonic weapon entered combat duty. Little on the Pentagon’s drawing board illustrates more clearly the Trump administration’s worry about China and Russia than its work on hypersonic weapons. These missiles and aerial vehicles fly at speeds of a mile a second or faster and maneuver in ways that make them extra difficult to detect and destroy in flight. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

million on hypersonic weapon programs. That nearly doubled the following year, then rose to $2.4 billion a year later and hit $3.4 billion this year. The administration’s 2021 budget request, which has yet to be approved by Congress, requests $3.6 billion.

Although this is a priority for Pentagon spending, it could become limited by the budgetary pressures that are expected as a result of multitrillion-dollar federal spending to counter the coronavirus pandemic.

Why they matter

Top Pentagon officials say it’s about Russia and, even more so, China.

“By almost any metric that I can construct, China is certainly moving out ahead of us,” Lewis, the Pentagon research and engineering official, said on Tuesday.

“In large measure, that’s because we did their homework for them.”

Basic research in this field was published by the US years ago, “and then we kind of took our foot off the gas,” although the Pentagon is now on a path to catch up and surpass China, he added.

China is pushing for hypersonic weapon breakthroughs. It has conducted a number of successful tests of the DF-17, a mediumrange ballistic missile designed to launch hypersonic glide vehicles.

According to a Congressional Research Service report in March, US intelligence analysts assess that the DF-17 missile has a range

of approximately 1,000 to 1,500 miles (1,600 to 2,400 kilometers) and could be deployed this year.

Russia last December said its first hypersonic missile unit had become operational. It is the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which Moscow says can fly at Mach 27, or 27 times faster than the speed of sound, and could make sharp maneuvers to bypass missile defenses. It has been fitted to existing Soviet-built intercontinental ballistic missiles and in the future could be fitted to the more powerful Sarmat ICBM, which is still in development.

But are they necessary?

As with other strategic arms, like nuclear weapons and naval fleets, for example, hypersonic weapons are seen by the Trump administration as a must-have if peer competitors have them.

But critics see hypersonic weapons as overkill and potentially an extension of the arms race that led to an excessive nuclear buildup by the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. There also is worry about these technologies spreading beyond the US, Russia and China.

“Their proliferation beyond these three nations could result in lesser powers setting their strategic forces on hair-trigger states of readiness and more credibly being able to threaten attacks on major powers,” the RAND Corp., a federally funded research organization, said in a 2017 report.

ecades before a security camera caught Michael Taylor coming off a jet that was carrying one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives, the former Green Beret had a hard-earned reputation for taking on dicey assignments.

Over the years, Taylor had been hired by parents to rescue abducted children. He went undercover for the FBI to sting a Massachusetts drug gang.

And he worked as a military contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, an assignment that landed him in a Utah jail in a federal fraud case.

So when Taylor was linked to the December escape of former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn from Japan, where the executive awaited trial on financial misconduct charges, some in US military and legal circles immediately recognized the name.

Taylor has “gotten himself involved in situations that most people would never even think of, dangerous situations, but for all the right reasons,” Paul Kelly, a former federal prosecutor in Boston who has known the security consultant since the early 1990s, said earlier this year.

“Was I surprised when I read the story that he may have been involved in what took place in Japan? No, not at all.”

On Wednesday, after months as fugitives, the 59-year-old Taylor and his 27-year-old son, Peter, were arrested in Massachusetts on charges accusing them of hiding Ghosn in a shipping case drilled with air holes and smuggling him out of Japan on a chartered jet. Investigators were still seeking George-Antoine Zayek, a Lebanese-born colleague of Taylor.

Kelly, now serving as the attorney for the Taylors, said they plan to challenge Japan’s extradition request “on several legal and factual grounds.”

“Michael Taylor is a distinguished veteran and patriot, and both he and his son deserve a full and fair hearing regarding these issues,” Kelly said in an e-mail.

Some of those who know Taylor say he is a character of questionable judgment, with a history of legal troubles dating back well before the Utah case. But others praise him as a patriot, mentor and devoted family man, who regularly put himself at risk for his clients, including some with little ability to pay.

“He is the most all-American man I know,” Taylor’s assistant, Barbara Auterio, wrote to a federal judge before his sentencing in 2015. “His favorite song is the national anthem.”

In 1993, a Massachusetts state trooper investigated Taylor for drug running and sued his supervisor after being told to stop scrutinizing the prized FBI informant. In 1998, Taylor was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against a Teamsters official accused of extortion. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to planting marijuana in the car of a client’s estranged wife, leading to her arrest, according to a 2001 report in the Boston Herald.

Taylor also made headlines in 2011 when he resigned as football coach at a Massachusetts prep school, Lawrence Academy, which was stripped of two titles. Taylor was accused of inappropriate

donations, including covering tuition for members of a team that included seven Division I recruits.

“It wasn’t pleasant what he was yelling at us across the field. He was calling us out for not being man enough to kick the ball,” said John Mackay, who opposed Taylor as coach of St. George’s School in Rhode Island. “His zeal, probably like he does everything in life, is to the Nth degree.”

The security business that Taylor and a partner set up decades ago was initially focused on private investigations but their caseload grew through corporate work and unofficial referrals from the State Department and FBI, including parents whose children had been taken overseas by former spouses.

“Michael Taylor was the only person in this great country that was able to help me, and he did,” a California woman whose son was taken to Beirut, wrote to the sentencing judge in the Utah military contracting case. “Michael Taylor brought my son back.”

In 2012, federal prosecutors alleged that Taylor won a US military contract to train Afghan soldiers by using secret information passed along from an American officer. The prosecutors said that when Taylor learned the contract was being investigated, he asked an FBI agent and friend to intervene.

The government seized $5 million from the bank account of Taylor’s company and he spent 14 months in jail before agreeing to plead guilty to two counts. The government agreed to return $2 million to the company, as well as confiscated vehicles.

The plot to free Ghosn apparently began last fall, when operatives began scouting Japanese terminals reserved for private jets. Tokyo has two airports within easy reach of Ghosn’s home. But the group settled on the private terminal at Osaka’s Kansai International Airport, where machines used to x-ray baggage could not accommodate large boxes.

On the day of the escape, Michael Taylor and Zayek flew into Japan on a chartered jet with two large black boxes, claiming to be musicians carrying audio equipment, according to court papers.

Around 2:30 that afternoon, Ghosn, free on hefty bail, left his house on a leafy street in Tokyo’s Roppongi neighborhood and walked to the nearby Grand Hyatt Hotel, going to a room there and departing two hours later to board a bullet train for Osaka.

That evening, his rescuers wheeled shipping boxes through the Osaka private jet terminal known as Premium Gate Tamayura—“fleeting moment” in Japanese. Terminal employees let the men pass without inspecting their cargo.

At 11:10 p.m., the chartered Bombardier, its windows fitted with pleated shades, lifted off. The flight went first to Turkey, then to Lebanon, where Ghosn has citizenship, but which has no extradition treaty with Japan.

“I didn’t run from justice,” Ghosn told reporters after he resurfaced. “I left Japan because I wanted justice.”

(Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in Washington, D.C., and Alanna Durkin Richer in West Harwich, Massachusetts, contributed to this report)

The month that shook Saudi Arabia economy just the start of a long slog

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t was a sharp descent for Rakan Al-Ghalayini. A graduate of Northeastern University in Boston who moved back home to Saudi Arabia, he just found work at the start of 2020 in the kingdom’s new entertainment industry, booming at the time under plans to reinvent the oil-based economy.

But in March, as the pandemic struck and the oil market went into meltdown, the crisis obliterated his job of bringing in hundreds of guests for Saudi Arabia’s first international film festival. The event was indefinitely postponed, along with all the others he’d hoped to work on—leaving him unemployed, again.

“My future looked bright after a year of not working,” said AlGhalayini, 26. “What do I do now?

Back to square one?”

It’s only over the past month that the full extent of the damage sank in for Saudi businesses. Hit simultaneously by plunging crude prices and coronavirus shutdowns, the non-oil economy is expected to contract for the first time in over 30 years.

Many of the kingdom’s newfound strengths suddenly became

vulnerabilities, threatening a transformation that was just taking root.

As the pandemic sends the Saudi economy into a downward spiral, people across the kingdom are adjusting to a harsh new reality.

Naif, a 25-year-old who runs an events company, had been upbeat last month in anticipation of a turnaround. The downturn had forced him to pause expansion plans, but he’d been able to keep paying employees with the help of an interestfree bank loan of 750,000 riyals ($200,000)—part of the government’s stimulus package. Now he’s dreading laying them off.

While the pandemic drags on and consumers come under pressure, Naif fears firms like his will collapse and he won’t be able to pay back the loan. He asked to withhold his last name so he could speak freely about his financial situation.

‘Much worse’

“I guess things are much, much worse now,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be back in business for a year at least.”

The government initially bought time with a stimulus package and

trimmed spending elsewhere. A PwC survey found that firms reported higher levels of government support in Saudi Arabia than neighboring countries.

But as the crisis grew worse, the world’s largest crude exporter made a sharp turn toward austerity in May, a move that will likely pinch consumption long after this year’s shocks dissipate. Earlier data from PwC showed outlooks were already worsening at firms across the kingdom.

In a survey of chief financial officers in mid-April, 77 percent of respondents in Saudi Arabia said the pandemic was causing them “great concern”—up from 55 percent two weeks earlier. Half said they expected to make lay-offs over the next month.

‘Tough to see’

“We’ve made so much progress that at this point it’s kind of tough to see it go another way,” said Fawzi Mudawwar, who cofounded a free consulting service called Kalbonyani to help businesses adapt to the pandemic.

This year was meant to be a turning point for the conservative

Islamic kingdom: a key milestone for Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to overhaul the economy and loosen social restrictions.

Only weeks ago, consumer spending was soaring as businesses finally started to recover from the impact of the last oil price rout, in 2014. Riyadh was abuzz with pop-up restaurants frequented by flirting couples in scenes that once would have been unthinkable.

Now, the streets fall silent each evening after a 5 p.m. curfew imposed to slow the spread of the virus. Cafes and even mosques are shut as cases spike in crowded labor camps, while security guards stand watch with thermometers at the entrance of malls.

The sectors key to the prince’s plan—from entertainment and tourism to sports—are among the hardest hit.

More worryingly for many businesses, officials have turned to drastic measures to steady public finances as oil revenue falls. They’ve trimmed state workers’ allowances and tripled a value-added tax to 15 percent, shocking many citizens.

The crown prince’s program to diversity the economy, known as Vi-

sion 2030, itself is facing spending cuts as money gets redirected to public health and aid for businesses.

“These are the priorities: the health care of people and the livelihood of people,” Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan told Bloomberg.

The Saudi Arabia that will emerge from the crisis is likely to have lower average incomes, with a younger generation that won’t match its parents’ stand a rd of l iv i ng , accord i ng to K aren Young, a Gulf-focused scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

At the same time, the upheaval could ultimately aid the process of replacing the foreign workers who dominate the private sector with Saudis, said Young. It’s a trend already visible over the past few years.

At Coyard, an independent coffee shop in Riyadh, almost all of the workers are Saudi—a point of pride for 29-year-old Ghanem Binyousef, who opened the cafe in 2018.

His business is facing a steep decline in revenue. But it’s adapted so far, delivering coffee beans to customers at home and trimming

salaries while avoiding layoffs.

“We are trying to hang on,” Binyousef said, noting that they benefited from a government program that covers 60 percent of wages for some Saudis in the private sector.

Khalid Al Omran, chief executive of Maestro Pizza, a local chain with over 2,000 employees, said he’s avoided layoffs by making swift changes to cope with the curfew.

It offered free delivery, added a breakfast menu and began selling prepared pizzas that people can cook later at home.

Even so, he’s less certain than he was a few weeks ago.

“Although things are getting better day by day, we have less visibility than we thought we had a month ago,” Al Omran said. “We don’t know when this will end.”

As for Al-Ghalayini, who lost his job, he’s thinking about going back to tutoring children, which helped him get by during his last job search.

“That’s why it’s sad, because we had just built ourselves up again,” he said. “But I’m sure that we will get back on our feet.”

Bloomberg News

Science

BusinessMirror

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

Sunday

Sunday, May 24, 2020 A5

Biotech advances lead to faster Covid-19 vaccine production More Filipinos encouraged to join 10,700 data science scholars

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ilipinos are encouraged to maximize their time at home amid the Covid-19 pandemic by enrolling in an online training under the project Smarter Philippines through Data Analytics Research and Development, Training and Adoption (Project Sparta).

The trainings are free of charge through scholarships under the project.

“It is our goal to upskill 30,000 Filipinos who will be capable to handle big data generated by the different government agencies as well as other entities in the country. We put weight on this initiative as we believe that data science can ultimately change and boost government processes, for the benefit of each Filipino; and even solve some of our country’s major problems,” said Executive Director Dr. Enrico Paringit of the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD).

In partnership with the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), Analytics Association of the Philippines and Coursebank, Project Sparta offers free online education to capacitate interested individuals with essential data science and analytics knowledge and skills to efficiently manage, analyze and interpret data.

The project is open to all Filipinos permanently based in the country, who are at least senior highschool graduates, with or without prior knowledge on data science and analytics. Scholars may pursue one of these learning pathways: Data Associate: They gather, process and analyze data and prepares reports that highlight relevant trends and other significant results. Moreover, they provide some information on observable trends and patterns that help senior analysts and managers easily identify opportunities for follow-up in-depth analysis.

Data Steward: They are responsible for ensuring that an organization’s data is well-defined, managed, and ready to use for downstream reporting, analytics, modeling, or even artificial intelligence (AI) use cases.

Essentially, they are the gatekeepers of data, working to improve data quality; ensure data acquisition, usage, maintenance, access, and security, in compliance with policies, rules, regulations, and ethical practice.

Data Engineer: They are the builders and managers of data workflows, pipelines, ETL processes, and platforms and are mainly responsible for the management of the entire data lifecycle: ingestion, processing, surfacing, and storage.

Data Analyst: They leverage reporting, data analysis, and modelling techniques to solve problems and gather insight across functional domains. They also analyze data and assess requirement from a business perspective related to an organization’s overall system.

Data Scientist: They are specialists who apply their expertise in statistics and building machine learning models, enriched with programming, to make predictions and answer key business questions. Data scientists create sophisticated analytical models used to build new datasets and derive new insights for data.

Analytics Manager: They oversee analytical

operations and communicate insights to executives.

Analytics managers translate analytical results to actionable business items. Their role is to drive business outcomes, bridging technical expertise from steward, engineer, scientist and analyst with the operational expertise of the business functions.

Each pathway can take about six months to finish, depending on the pace of the scholar. After completing one, another pathway can be pursued.

To date, there are already 10,700 scholars under Project Sparta. Most of them are aged 18 to 34 and are pursuing the Data Scientist and Data Associate pathways.

About 58 percent are working for private companies, 17 percent are from government agencies, and the rest are students and faculty members.

Interestingly, 57 percent of the scholars are female.

“Filipinos can benefit from learning about data science in at least two ways: one, through the employment opportunities for our data scientists, and two, by harnessing their expertise in solving socioeconomic problems at the national and local levels, as well as creating public and customer value through new products, improved services, and evidence-based policies,”said Dr. Alan Cajes, DAP senior executive fellow and Project Sparta project leader.

Cajes envisions a new breed of Filipino data scientists as efficient knowledge workers who can handle big data and provide useful ideas that continually improve the Philippine society.

Paringit agreed, saying that “data science is like a Swiss army knife that has multiple functions— catching fraud and tax evasion detection, human and national security, street crime awareness, and resource management, all of which can help us improve the life of the Filipinos.”

“We’ve seen how data science tools have become indispensable in this period of the worldwide pandemic. Epidemiological analysis and disease surveillance are currently prime areas where data science had shown their mettle. However, as we transition to post-lockdown era, the global business community and governments are going to need skills that are able to make sense of what happened and present economic, business and industrial scenarios that can help us all move forward. Possessing data science skills are therefore crucial now, more than ever,” he added.

The Project Sparta trainees are required to develop a capstone project to highlight the skills and knowledge learned throughout the courses.

The projects can receive financial support from DOST-PCIEERD through the 2020 Call for Proposals under the Good Governance through Data Science and Decision Support System (GODDESS) Program.

Interested trainees can submit their proposals at https://dpmis.dost.gov.ph/ until May 31.

For more information visit https://sparta.dap.edu. ph/ to learn more about Project Sparta. For queries, send an email to

World Metrology Day provides public awareness on proper measurements for global trade

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he World Metrology Day on May 20 commemorated the anniversary of the signing of the Metre Convention in 1875. This treaty provides the basis for a worldwide coherent measurement system that underpins scientific discovery and innovation, industrial manufacturing and international trade, as well as the improvement of the quality of life and the protection of the global environment.

The theme for World Metrology Day 2020, “Measurements for global trade,” was chosen to create awareness of the important role measurement plays in facilitating fair global trade, ensuring products meet standards and regulations, and satisfying customer quality expectations, the International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML) said in a news release.

Across the world, national metrology institutes continually advance measurement science by developing and validating new measurement techniques at the necessary level of sophistication.

The national metrology institutes participate in measurement comparisons coordinated by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) to ensure the reliability of measurement results worldwide.

The OIML develops international recommendations, which aim to align and harmonise requirements worldwide in many fields.

The OIML also operates the OIML Certification System (OIML-CS) which facilitates international acceptance and global trade of regulated measuring instruments.

These international metrology systems provide the necessary assurance and confidence that measurements are accurate, providing a sound basis for global trade today and helping us to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow.

World Metrology Day recognizes and celebrates the contribution of all the people that work in intergovernmental and national metrology organisations and institutes throughout the year.

The National Metrology Laboratory at the Industrial Technology Development Institute of the Department of Science and Technology serves as the National Metrology Institute of the Philippines.

It is tasked by law to be responsible for establishing and maintaining the national measurement standards for physical quantities such as mass, temperature, pressure, voltage, resistance, luminous intensity and time interval and their dissemination to Filipino users.

E

By Lyn Resurreccion

veryday, during news briefings, Philippine government officials have been telling the public that they have to strictly follow sanitation and community quarantine rules to prevent contracting the novel coronavirus disease while there is still no cure and vaccine against it, or as Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire has been saying, while we are in the midst of “World War C,” referring to Covid-19.

The world has been scrambling to find a cure and vaccine against the pandemic that has infected around 5.2 million people and killed more than 330,000 globally as of May 22.

Pharmaceutical companies are racing to be the first to license a Covid-19 vaccine. The World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that there are “more than 100 candidate” vaccines, but said only seven or eight are “top” candidates, The Associated Press reported.

The WHO did not identify the top candidates. However, separate news items reported the vaccines being developed.

Among them are the two vaccines being tested by China Nationa l Phar maceutica l Group (Sinopharm) and Sinovac Research and Development Co. Ltd.; Moderna Inc., whose mRNA-1273 vaccine was the first to begin clinical testing in humans in the US; while AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 began clinical trial in April.

Gulf Brokers listed among “important biotech stocks” to watch the Covid-19 vaccine-producing pharma companies, such as the tandem of Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, whose vaccine is expected its clinical trial in the second half of 2020 and may be available in the second half of 2021; Johnson and Johnson Inc. with its vaccine‘s human trials by September; Pfizer and BioNTech team‘s vaccine that will have human trials in August; and Inovio Pharmaceuticals and Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology Co. partnership for INO-4800 vaccine, which is now being tested on humans.

Philippines in Solidarity Trials

Is the Philippines developing its own vaccine?

The country is not doing its own research on its own vaccine, but Science Secretary Fortunato de la Peña said the government is joining the Solidarity Trials of the WHO in developing vaccines.

He said the country has chosen its partners. “We will close our deal with three collaborators,” de le Peña said in Filipino at a recent virtual news conference.

Dr. Nina Gloriani, a medical doctor, microbiologist and former head of Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines, said the government is pro-active on this possibility and is “preparing for regulatory requirements for these trials to proceed.”

“This involvement [of the Philippines] in clinical phase I or II trials will provide a potential ‘fast’ solution to address the pandemic.

Still, this will require 12 month to 18 months waiting period for regulatory approvals for safety, immunogenicity, efficacy or protection against SARS-CoV-2 or

Covid-19 infection,” Gloriani told the BusinessMirror in an e-mail interview.

“While the country is open to using foreign-manufactured vaccines the soonest time possible, medium- to long-term plans to support vaccine research and development [R and D of vaccines in the country], to build capacity for our own local vaccine development agenda, will also be considered,” she said.

“This is especially true, if we want to use the local isolates [viruses or microbes circulating in our country versus isolates from other countries which may be different]. I believe we now have the human resource capable of engaging in these “biotechnological innovations,” she said.

The government is also more open to supporting infrastructure and higher end technology development for such endeavors, she added.

De la Peña added that included in the WHO Solidarity Trials are the testing of four sets of medicines.

These are remdesivir, which was previously tested as an Ebola treatment; the HIV treatment lopinavir and ritonavir; multiple sclerosis treatment interferon beta-1a; and related drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which have been used to treat illnesses including malaria and rheumatoid arthritis.

He said 100 patients will be involved and 24 hospitals have expressed intentions to join the trials.

The Department of Health earlier said the Japanese-made Avigan, or favipiravir, an antiviral drug, will be tested on Filipino patients infected with Covid-19.

De la Peña added that the country is developing anti-Covid-19 supplements and medicines from natural products.

The virgin coconut oil is undergoing laboratory tests in Singapore, and clinical trials are being held at a hospital in Santa Rosa Laguna, and soon at the Philippine General Hospital.

At the same time, lagundi, which was already approved as medicine for asthma and cough, will be tested for Covid-19 at a laboratory, while tawa-tawa, now a food supplement against dengue, will be also be subjected for lab tests against the coronavirus.

What is a vaccine?

A vaccine imitates the infection to give the immune system a preview of the disease.

Vaccination became a public health tool after Edward Jenner showed in 1796 that inoculation with the less virulent cowpox could prevent smallpox.

After his son’s death from

A women receives a shot on March 16 in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. The vaccine by Cambridge, Massachusettsbased Moderna Inc., generated antibodies similar to those seen in people who have recovered from Covid-19 in a study of volunteers who were given either a low or medium dose.

AP/Ted S. Warren

smallpox, Benjamin Frank lin regretted his decision not to inoculate his son against it, said The Conversation.

Vaccines are currently widely credited for the prevention and eradication of many of once feared dead ly diseases. T hey prepare the immune system by generating disease-fighting proteins called antibodies, which seek out and attack if the real infectious virus ever shows up, The Conversation added.

Biotech advances used for Covid-19 vaccine

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a recent UN Economic and Social Council video briefing, said the original thinking was that it may take 12 to 18 months to produce the vaccine for Covid-19.

Tedros said an accelerated effort is under way, that is being helped by €7.4 billion ($8 billion) pledged a week ago by leaders from 40 countries, organizations and banks for research, treatment and testing, AP said.

He said the $8 billion will not be enough, and additional funds will be needed to speed up the development of a vaccine, but more importantly to produce enough “to make sure that this vaccine reaches everyone—[and] there’s no one be left behind.”

These initiatives in producing vaccines are a step in the right direction, making use of highly advanced technologies in finding vaccines for this novel agent SARS-CoV-2 which causes atypical pneumonia, now called Covid 19, Gloriani said “The race for vaccine development for Covid-19 is going on at a tremendous pace globally, as vaccines are seen as the best, and perhaps, the long-term solution solution to end this pandemic,” she added.

Different technology platforms previously tried and optimized for the first SARS (2003) and MERS (2012) vaccine development efforts were used for Covid-19 vaccine development, and further refined with newer technologies, adjuvants and other immune system modulators, Gloriani explained.

Preclinical studies on proof of concept for the Covid-19 vaccine were completed faster because of those “biotech” platforms, and eventually, allowed the clinical phase 1 trials to start, she said.

Gloriani explained that under normal circumstances, vaccine development takes many years before it reaches the market.

The routine vaccines currently available, such as polio, measles, DPT, BCG, HPV, PCG etc, took 10 to 15 years of development, going through the pre-clinical and the four phases of clinical trial before commercialization, she said.

She noted: “The Covid-19 vac-

cines being developed may reach the markets earlier because of the dire need.”

“For Covid-19, because of its pandemic nature, severity in certain high-risk groups and very high transmissibility, drug discovery and vaccine development requirements have been speeded up, many of the candidate molecules considered under ‘Emergency Use List,’” she said.

According to Gloriani, the scientific world is now “at an era or age where it is possible to study new or emerging viral agents [or any microbial agent for that matter] at the molecular level.”

“The determination of the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 allowed the development of diagnostic kits, either detecting viral RNA using rRT-PCR as well as rapid diagnostic tests to detect antibody responses in patients,” she further explained.

The advances in recombinant DNA technology, CRISPR technology, synthetic peptide technology and other virus-vector based technologies, including computational biology over the last three to four decades, some more cutting edge and more precise than others, have been utilized for drug discoveries, diagnostics and vaccine development.

Cost of producing a vaccine

Depending on the type of vaccine developed, like the one the Philippines did for leptospirosis with the use of the whole cell inactivated form of the bacteria, the government spent around P20 million for a two-year proof of concept study, which was purely R&D at the laboratory level, using hamsters, Gloriani explained.

For Covid-19, or viral vaccines, the funding requirements will be a lot more, depending on the technology platform, she said.

Fighting Covid-19 without a vaccine

In the absence of vaccines and specific drugs against Covid-19, the current government community quarantine levels, with all the attendant preventive measures— such as physical distancing, proper hygiene and sanitation, wearing of masks—are best weapons at this time, Gloriani said.

“As a public health professional and medical doctor-scientist, I help draw up research studies to better understand the dynamics of Covid-19 transmission in different risk settings, and in studying in more detail, host immune responses against the virus, helping elucidate the natural course of the infection, for medical and public health interventions.

Educating the public and all possible stakeholders in this fight against an invisible enemy should be part of every knowledgeable person’s advocacy, she noted.

Faith A6 Sunday, May 24, 2020

Sunday

Prelates await govt advice on holding of Masses

C

atholic Churches have yet to hold public Masses as prelates await the government’s decision on the conduct of religious activities in areas under the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) and the general community quarantine (GCQ).

cleanup and preparations,” he said in a separate statement.

On the other hand, Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Manila Bishop Broderick Pabillo said they will resume Church activities once there are better guidelines.

On Monday, the CBCP said it has submitted to the government proposed guidelines on the holding of Masses.

During the quarantine period, Masses are being held online or livestreamed from Churches.

Religious gatherings are restricted to a maximum of five and 10 persons, under the MECQ and the GCQ, respectively.

‘New normal’

A worker disinfects the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, or Baclaran Church, in Parañaque City on May 18. Photo from Baclaran Church/CBCP News

“We are still waiting for the advice of the government. [Presidential Spokesman] Harry Roque said that the CBCP [Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines] is asked to present a program for the resumption of Masses,” said Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco in a statement last week.

Ongtioco also reiterated the statement of other Church officials that they will implement precautionar y measures once the faithful are allowed again to

attend eucharistic celebrations.

“On our part, it has been very clear. We will observe physical distancing. And if we have to add more Masses then we will,” he added.

Legazpi Bishop Joel Baylon, meanwhile, said the Churches under the diocese have opened but only for cleaning and preparation purposes.

“We have no Masses. We are just about to finalize things. We have only opened up the Churches for

Ph ysica l distancing w il l be among the “new normal” when Masses resume in churches as the country continues to battle the coronavirus crisis.

Religious ser vices “with the people” have been banned since the start of the lockdown in mid-March and some worshipers have been calling for the reopening of churches especially in low-risk areas.

The CBCP on May 16 agreed to a set of guidelines that will be released when parishes will be allowed to hold religious services with people in attendance.

“When the time comes and we are able to gather and celebrate the Eucharist, we will approach this next phase, in the context of the pandemic, with prudence, patience and loving and charitable mindset,” said Archbishop Romulo Valles, CBCP president.

T he l i st i nc ludes st r ic t ne w mea su res on soc i a l d i st a nci ng , u se of f ace m a sk s b y wor sh ippers, a nd i n st a l l at ion of foot bat h s.

The bishops also suggested that the faithful will continue to receive communion through the hand, and there will be no holding of hands when reciting the “Our Father” during Mass.

But Church officials discouraged priests from wearing face masks or gloves during the celebration of the Eucharist.

“Instead, he should remain more than 1 meter from the congregation during the Mass. In such circumstances, there is no substantial risk of infection,” the guidelines stated.

The liturgical guidelines also pushed the reduction of choir members who will sing during the Mass in order to keep physical distancing.

“It may even be advisable to have only a cantor who will lead the assembly in the singing,” Valles said.

During the offertory, instead of passing baskets from person to person in each of the pews, there can be designated boxes or collection points where the faithful can place their contributions.

The episcopal conference also suggested that the elderly, children and the sick be dispensed from the obligation to attend Mass while the threat of the virus is still widespread.

And since many of the lay ministers of communion are elderly and vulnerable to the infection, parishes are urged to train younger eucharistic ministers.

“Parishes should also distribute Holy Communion outside of the Mass for the sick and those who are taking serious caution not to be contaminated by the virus and therefore avoid gatherings of people even in Church,” Valles said.

PNA and CBCP News

Churches may reopen, but services won’t have singing T

hey are words the Rev. John Witvliet, an expert on Christian worship, never thought he would hear himself say.

“Based on the science that we are learning about this week, we are urging and I am personally urging extreme caution,” said Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in an interview on May 13.

“Singing together in congregations is a practice that we dearly love and are eager to promote, but loving our neighbor is job one here and so the time for fasting from this wonderful practice may be longer than any of us would like,” he said.

His unprecedented words of warning come as religious leaders have received jarring predictions from scientists well-versed in virology as well as vocal practices.

Webinars, videos and texts are circulating across the globe as scientists reveal their studies, and clergy must consider what to do with the results of those reports.

Some Church leaders aren’t yet sure what to do when they reopen, others are designing multiphase plans, and still others are moving ahead with their traditional practices of praise.

But, more than halfway across the country, Dr. Howard Leibrand, public health officer for

Skagit County, Washington, appears to be in Witvliet’s amen corner.

“I would recommend that until we get a vaccine, we don’t do congregational singing,” he said, adding that it is “the safest recommendation.”

Leibrand was one of the investigators of the coronavirus outbreak that spread through a local chorale that had been meeting in a Presbyterian church.

He is an author of a repor t published by the Centers for D isease Control (CDC) and Prevention that tracked the 61 people who attended the March 10 rehearsal with one symptomatic person.

The repor t found that 87 percent of the group was confirmed to have Covid-19.

Three members were hospitalized, and t wo of them died.

The repor t noted that, in addition to sitting nex t to each other, snack sharing, and stacking chairs after the rehearsal, the singing by chorale members could have led to infection via the transmitting of droplets.

“The act of singing, itself, might have contributed to transmission through emission of aerosols, which is affected by loudness of vocalization,” it says.

Religion News Service via AP

St. Faustina Kowalska’s feast day added to Roman calendar

V

ATICAN—Pope Francis has decreed that St. Faustina Kowalska’s feast day be added to the Roman Calendar as an optional memorial to be celebrated by all on October 5.

The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship issued the decree on May 18, the 100th anniversary of the birth of St. John Paul II, who canonized St. Faustina on April 13, 2000, making her the first saint of the new millennium.

The decree said that Pope Francis had taken the step in response to petitions from pastors, religious men and women and associations of the faithful, and “having considered the influence exercised by the spirituality of St. Faustina in different parts of the world.”

It said that he had, therefore, “decreed that the name of St. Maria Faustina [Helena] Kowalska, virgin, be inscribed in the General Roman Calendar and that her optional memorial be celebrated by all on 5 October.”

Between 1934 and her death in 1938, St. Faustina recorded her conversations with Jesus in a diary that was later published in dozens of languages and led to the worldwide spread of the Divine Mercy devotion.

The decree, signed by the Congregation’s

Statue of St. Faustina Kowalska in Rome’s Church of the Holy Spirit in Saxony. Vatican Media

prefect Cardinal Robert Sarah and Secretary Archbishop Arthur Roche, emphasized St. Faustina’s impact on the global Church.

It said: “Born in the village of Głogowiec, near Łódź, in Poland in 1905, and dying in Krakow in 1938, St. Faustina spent her short life among the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, generously conforming herself to the vocation she received from God and developing an intense spiritual life, rich in spiritual gifts and

in faithful harmony with them.”

“In the Diary of her soul, the sanctuary of her encounter with the Lord Jesus, she herself recounts what the Lord worked in her for the benefit of all: listening to Him who is Love and Mercy she understood that no human wretchedness could measure itself against the mercy which ceaselessly pours from the heart of Christ. Thus she became the inspiration for a movement dedicated to proclaiming

and imploring Divine Mercy throughout the whole world.”

The decree continued: “Canonized in the year 2000 by St. John Paul II, the name of Faustina quickly became known around the world, thereby promoting in all the parts of the People of God, pastors and lay faithful alike, the invocation of Divine Mercy and its credible witness in the conduct of the lives of believers.”

On April 19, Pope Francis celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday at Santo Spirito in Sassia, a Church a short walk from St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Mass marked the 20th liturgical anniversar y of St. Faustina Kowalska’s canonization and the official institution of the feast of Divine Mercy Sunday by St. John Paul II. John Paul II’s life was intimately connected to the Divine Mercy devotion. He died April 2, 2005, the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday. He was beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2011 and canonized on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2014.

Last October Pope Francis authorized a similar decree stating that the optional memorial of Our Lady of Loreto should be inscribed in the Roman Calendar and celebrated every year on December 10.

Catholic News Agency via CBCP News

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

When religion sided with science

Medieval lessons for surviving Covid-19

A follower of the Senegalese Mouride brotherhood, an order of Sufi Islam, prays during Muslim Friday prayers at West Africa’s largest mosque, the Massalikul Jinaan, in Dakar, Senegal, on May 15. A growing number of mosques are reopening across West Africa even as confirmed coronavirus cases soar, as governments find it increasingly difficult to keep them closed during the holy month of Ramadan. AP/Sylvain Cherkaoui

F

aced with a range of serious patient reactions to the Covid-19 disease, doctors and nurses have sometimes struggled to find viable treatment options. But when we examine faith-based responses to the virus, spiritual guidance has proved even more elusive.

Guidelines for faith leaders from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention encourage groups to clean surfaces and limit meetings or gatherings. But they do not address the emotional effects that Covid-19 victims, and those of us who live in fear of contracting it, might experience.

Religious figures, such as Pope Francis, have composed prayers for protection from coronavirus.

But the idea of prayer as a vital part of any response to Covid-19 might feel inappropriate or even irresponsible to some in a world that often views medicine and religion as polar opposites—one turning to science, the other to God. As a social historian of the medieval Islamic world, I think and write about the role of religion in daily life. Looking at how people thought about science and religion in the past can inform the contemporary world’s approach to Covid-19.

Plagues—a fact of life

Plagues were a fact of life in ancient and medieval worlds.

Personal letters from the Cairo Geniza—a treasure trove of documents from the Jews of medieval Egypt—attest that bouts of widespread disease were so common that writers had different words for them.

They varied from a simple outbreak—wabā, or “infectious disease” in Arabic—to an epidemic— dever gadol, Hebrew for “massive pestilence,” which hearkens back to language from the 10 plagues of the Bible.

During the time of the jurist and philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138-1204), who led the Jewish community of Egypt, Fusā (Old Cairo) faced a plague so daunting in 1201 that the city’s Jewish population never returned to its former glory.

Divine punishment?

Religious people throughout history often saw plagues as the manifestation of divine will, as a punishment for sin and a warning against moral laxity.

The same chorus is heard by a minority today. As a Jewish person, I am embarrassed to read that a rabbi was recently quoted as saying that Covid-19 was divine punishment for gay pride parades.

In A Mediterranean Society, Geniza researcher S.D. Goitein describes Maimonides’s reaction to the plague: “Whatever the philosophers and theologians of that

time might have said about man’s ability to influence God’s decisions by his deeds, the heart believed that they could be efficacious, that intense and sincere prayer, almsgiving, and fasts could keep catastrophe away.”

But the Jewish community also dealt with disease in other ways, and its holistic response to epidemics reveals a partnership—not a conflict—between science and religion.

Science and religion

In the medieval period, thinkers like Maimonides combined the study of science and religion.

As he explains in his philosophical masterwork The Guide to the Perplexed, he believed that studying physics was a necessary precursor to metaphysics. Rather than seeing religion and science as inimical to one another, he saw them as mutually supportive.

Indeed, scholars of religious texts complemented their studies with science-centered writings.

Maimonides’s Islamic contemporary, Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), is a perfect example. Though an important philosopher and religious thinker, Ibn Rushd also made meaningful contributions to medicine, including suggesting the existence of what would later come to be called Parkinson’s disease.

But it was not only elite scholars who saw religion and science as complementary.

In A Mediterranean Society, Goitein says that “even the simplest Geniza person was a member of that Hellenized Middle EasternMediterranean society which believed in the power of science.” He adds: “Illness was conceived as a natural phenomenon and, therefore, had to be treated with the means provided by nature.”

Tending to one’s inner life

Science and religion, therefore, were both integral to the soul of the Geniza person. There was no sense that these two pillars of thought challenged one another.

By tending to their inner lives t h roug h r it u a l s t h at he lped them deal with the sadness and trepidation, and their bodies through the tools of medicine available to them, the Geniza people took a holistic approach to epidemics.

For them, following the medical advice of Maimonides or Ibn Rushd was an essential part of their response to plague.

But while hunkered down in their homes, they also looked to the spiritual advice of these thinkers, and others, to care for their souls.

Those of us experiencing stress, solitude and uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic could learn from the medieval world that our inner lives demand attention too.

Phillip I. Lieberman/The Conversation

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

A7

Saving PHL native tree species W

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

ith the shrinking forest cover and years of planting fast-growing trees, some of the country’s native trees were seriously threatened, if not having gone extinct.

Indeed, the country’s forests have been devastated by decades of destructive development projects—from commercial logging to mining and quarrying, unsustainable agricultural practices like slash-and-burn, and the massive land-use conversion and human encroachment of forested areas, plus other factors like the proliferation of invasive alien tree species.

Reforestation program To address the massive deforestation and as a mitigation and adaptation measure from 2011 to 2016, the government, through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), implemented an ambitious reforestation program called the National Greening Program (NGP).

But in the early years of implementation of NGP, fast-grow ing trees were planted instead of native trees, thereby, failing to address the serious environmental problems the Philippines was confronting.

This was eventually corrected, through the planting of native trees, underscoring the importance of conserving the country’s native tree species, particularly the dipterocarp, or tall hardwood tropical trees with two-winged fruit that are the source of valuable timber, aromatic oils and resins.

The NGP is now being sustained through t he Ex panded Nationa l Greening Program (E-NGP). The program is banking on partnerships with the private sector, which has various environmental protection programs—such as to help restore the country’s open, degraded and denuded forests, and help save the country’s native trees from extinction.

Private-sector initiative Ongoing initiatives may help save

some of the country’s threatened tree species, most of which are endemic to the Philippines, and eventually help establish a reliable database of its native trees.

One such initiative is the Binhi Program—a species conservation program that focuses on native tree species—of the Lopez-led Energy Development Corp. (EDC), a leading renewable energy company.

ED C i s a pione e r i n ge ot he r m a l energ y i n t he Ph i l ippi nes. Its 1,475 M W tot a l i n st a l le d c apacit y ge ne r ates 37 p e rce nt of t he cou nt r y ’s tot a l renewable energ y.

Its 1,181 MW geothermal portfolio, accounting for 61 percent of the country’s total installed geothermal capacity, is putting the Philippines on the map as the world’s third largest geothermal producer.

EDC has recently completed its population survey of 35 threatened native tree species under Binhi, a news release of the company said last week.

Saving native trees DENR Assistant Secretary Ricardo Calderon, concurrently its Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) director, lauded EDC for its initiative in helping save the country’s native tree species. “ The DENR has a good number of partnerships with the private sector,” he said in a telephone interview on May 19.

With the EDC, the partnership includes the planting of native trees in some areas like in Northern Samar, near Mount Apo, Pantabangan in NuevaEcija and in Cotabato, he said.

These areas, according to Calderon, contain the country’s natural gene pool.

He emphasized that protecting and conserving native trees is also boosting

The endangered hawksbill turtle is among the wildlife species traded illegally. ACB

Going beyond business as usual in saving endangered species

By Dr. Theresa Mundita S. Lim

T

he Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) joined the international community in observing the Endangered Species Day last week, and urged reflections on the actions to be taken to reverse biodiversity decline across the region and the rest of the world.

The Asean region is rich in biodiversity, which include wildlife, and enjoys high endemism of flora and fauna.

The region has the highest mean proportion of country-endemic bird (9 percent) and mammal species (11 percent), and the second-highest proportion of country-endemic vascular plant species (25 percent) compared to the other tropical regions of the world, based on the Asean Biodiversity Outlook, 2017.

Unfortunately, the region is also known as a biodiversity hot spot. Data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List

of Threatened Species in 2019 show that 3,875 species or 13 percent of the species threatened with extinction globally are found in the region.

Wildlife trade and consumption is not only a national concern, but a regional and global concern as well. Several communities rely on wildlife for a number of reasons. Some are rooted in socio cultural practices.

Others look for alternative sources of nutrition and medicine, symbols of luxury and status, and/ or keep them as pets.

According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) database, reptiles are the most commonly confiscated species, followed by birds, mammals, fish and amphibians.

The disturbance of natural habitats have far-reaching consequences to ecological balance, including the spillover of zoonotic diseases from nonwildlife hosts, triggering more outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The Covid-19 pandemic has even made this

Kanining-peneras and mapilig trees

Photos from EDC

wildlife conservation efforts.

The DENR provides capacity building training to the EDC work force on forest protection and conservation.

T he company’s advantage, he said, is having officials who have the passion for the environment, citing Atty. Allan Barcena, a former DENR official.

Native tree database The Philippines, Calderon said, has established a native tree database, as a result of a long-standing partnership of the DENR’s Forest Management Bureau and DENR-BMB with the University of the Philippines-College of Forestry and Natural Resources.

He acknowledged that EDC’s survey is a big boost in updating the country’s database, saying that some of the trees the company recorded were believed to have been extinct.

“It is a big help for us because in the DENR’s listing, some of the trees they have surveyed were already extinct but were found to be still thriving,” Calderon said.

He acknowledged that EDC’s project sites are reservation areas that include vast environment protected areas.

Forest restoration EDC has been pushing for the restoration of forests within its area of operation and other parts of the country for more than a decade now, according to company officials.

Through its Binhi Program, which is part of the company’s flagship forest restoration program, EDC aims to bring back the abundant number

of native trees, 96 of which are now threatened.

This is being implemented with the help of 177 project partners for over 11 years now.

The population survey of native tree species is in partnership with the DENR-BMB Adopt-a-Wildlife Species Program.

EDC has already reforested 9,372 hectares and has planted 6 million native tree seed seedlings since 2009.

Company’s commitment EDC President and Chief Operating Officer Richard B. Tantoco said in the news release that the completion of the target 35 tree species for the population survey, from 2016 to 2019, was consistent with the company’s commitment to protect the environment, along with its effort to provide uninterrupted clean, renewable power.

EDC completed the population survey and data gathering of 10 of the priority native tree species in its pilot year in 2016, followed by 10 more in 2018, and eventually completing the list in end-2019.

Some of the tree species surveyed were already on the critically endangered list, if not already thought to be extinct, and have not been seen or recorded in other areas.

The 15 trees on the list were: kaladis narig, thick-leaf narig, pinulog, Mindanao narek, gisok-gisok, supa, kamatog, itom-itom, malinoag, tangile, yakal, narek, malayakal, piling-liitan and kamagong ponce.

After the population survey, the company recommended the updat-

ing of the species’s conservation status through the DENR, the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and the secretariat of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List for Tree Species.

Barcena, head of EDC’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Relations, underscored the importance of conducting the survey of native trees species, saying it will help the company identify priority species for conservation.

“This population survey of native tree species enables us to improve the prioritization of [tree species] for biodiversity enhancement and conservation program in our areas of operation. This is crucial since the geothermal reservations that we manage is close to 1 percent of the country’s total land area,” he told the BusinessMirror in a text message on May 19, when asked how the company will help boost efforts to protect and conserve biodiversity.

In situ conservation The EDC is now in the process of implementing an in situ conservation project, or natural habitat for selected threatened tree species— such as critically endangered or endangered—to continue their propagation, and the establishment of ex situ, or outside conservation with an arboretum or tree park for all priority species across the country.

In May 2019 last year, under Binhi, EDC was tapped as the first and sole partner of BGCI, a Europe-based plant conservation charity, to be its

partner for Global Tree Assessment program for conservation status assessments of 800 Philippine endemic tree species for two years.

BGCI is part of the IUCN, an organization that formulates measures for the protection of the environment through data gathering, research, field projects, advocacy, and education.

Under the partnership, EDC received a grant of £16,160 or more than P1 million for the two-year period.

BGCI also trained the Binhi team and the DENR on the IUCN Red List methodology, a vigorous and internationally respected procedure following strict guidelines and data requirements on extinction r isk assessments.

According to BGCI, only 25,000 of the world’s 80,000 tree species have been assessed globally and nationally for their risk of extinction.

Updating IUCN’s Red List The EDC has already submitted its list of 200 species for updating on the Red List web site of IUCN. “Our mandate is clear—to keep prov iding clean, reliable energ y without causing damage to the environment, and to further protect and sustain those that remain for us to protect for the current and future generations,” Tantoco said.

For 2020, EDC said it will continue to pursue strategic partnerships to establish additional arboretum across its project sites, and continue to develop propagation protocols for its 96 priority threatened species, in partnership with academic institutions and the government.

connection more obvious.

The loss of wildlife species could also mean the narrowing of sources for possible cure and treatment of these diseases, which is among the ecosystems services that they provide.

To conserve endangered species on the brink of extinction, the ACB has been facilitating a wide range of activities spearheaded by Asean Member States.

Rigorous monitoring, evaluation and assessments of the status of wildlife species, especially the endangered ones, are conducted regularly.

The data and information obtained supports the development of the national Red List of endangered species in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Community-led monitoring and law enforcement are initiated through education and capacity-building activities.

Forest managers and rangers in Lao PDR and Malaysia have been equipped with cameras and information technology to help monitor poaching and other illegal activities, and enforce wildlife protection laws.

In the Philippines, for instance, community participation has been instrumental in the recent seizures of illegally traded wildlife.

International and regional cooperation is key to information sharing and apprehension of illegal wildlife traders to end the poaching and trafficking of protected species.

Apart from being parties to the Cites, the 10 Asean member-states issued the Chiang Mai Statement of Asean Ministers on Illegal Wildlife Trade in March 2019.

The bigger challenge rests on instinctively adopting sustainable practices to protect our endangered species, reverse the destruction and restore their natural habitats.

As humanity grapples with climate change impacts and the current pandemic, the only way we can ensure our own existence is by going beyond business-as-usual in the way we treat the other creatures with which we share this planet. The time for transformative change is now.

Endangered tigers face growing threats from Asian road building

Dr. Theresa Mundita S. Lim is the executive director of Asean Centre for Biodiversity.

Road construction worsens existing threats to tigers, such as poaching and development, by

T

igers are one of the world’s most iconic wild species, but today they are endangered throughout Asia. They once roamed across much of this region, but widespread habitat loss, prey depletion and poaching have reduced their numbers to only about 4,000 individuals.

They live in small pockets of habitat across South and Southeast Asia, as well as the Russian Far East—an area spanning 13 countries and 450,000 square miles (1,160,000 square kilometers).

Today Asia is experiencing a road-building boom. To maintain economic growth, development experts estimate that the region will need to invest about $8.4 trillion in transportation infrastructure between 2016 and 2030.

Major investment projects, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative—one of the largest infrastructure projects of all time—are fueling this growth.

While roads can reduce poverty, especially in rural areas, many of Asia’s new roads also are likely to traverse regions that are home to diverse plants and animals.

To protect tigers from this surge of road building, conservation scientists like me need to know where the greatest risks are. That information, in turn, can improve road planning in the future.

In a newly published study, I worked with researchers at the University of Michigan, Boise State University and the University of British Columbia to examine how existing and planned Asian roads encroach on tiger habitats.

We forecast that nearly 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) of new roads will be built in tiger habitats by 2050, and call for bold new planning strategies that prioritize biodiversity conservation and sustainable road development across large landscapes.

Letting humans in

paving the way for human intrusion into the heart of the tiger’s range.

For example, in the Russian Far East, roads have led to higher tiger mortality due to increased collisions with vehicles and more encounters with poachers.

To assess this threat across Asia, we focused on areas called Tiger Conservation Landscapes—76 zones, scattered across the tiger’s range, which conservationists see as crucial for the species’ recovery.

For each zone we calculated road density, distance to the nearest road and relative mean species abundance, which estimates the numbers of mammals in areas near roads compared to areas far from roads.

Mean species abundance is our best proxy for estimating how roads affect numbers of mammals, like tigers and their prey, across broad scales.

We also used future projections of road building in each country to forecast the length of new roads that might be built in tiger habitats by 2050.

More roads, fewer animals

We estimated that more than 83,300 miles (134,000 kilometers) of roads already exist within tiger habitats. This is likely an underestimate, since many logging or local roads are missing from the global data set that we used.

Road densities in tiger habitat are onethird greater outside of protected areas, such as national parks and tiger reserves, than inside of protected areas.

Nonprotected areas averaged 1,300 feet of road per square mile (154 meters per square kilometer), while protected areas averaged 980 feet per square mile (115 meters per square kilometer).

For tiger populations to grow, they will need to use the forests outside protected areas.

However, the high density of roads in those forests will jeopardize tiger recovery.

Protected areas and priority conservation sites—areas with large populations of tigers— are not immune either. For example, in India— home to over 70 percent of the world’s tigers—we estimate that a protected area of 500 square miles, or 1,300 square kilometers, contains about 200 miles (320 kilometers) of road.

Road networks are expansive. Over 40 percent of areas where tiger breeding has recently been detected—crucial to tiger population growth— is within just 3 miles (5 kilometers) of a nearby road. This is problematic because mammals often are less abundant this close to roads.

In fac t, we estimate that current road networks within tiger habitats may be reducing local populations of tigers and their prey by about 20 percent. That’s a major decrease for a species on the brink of extinction. And the threats from roads are likely to become more severe.

Making infrastructure tiger-friendly

Our findings underscore the need for planning development in ways that interfere as minimally as possible with tiger habitat.

Multilateral development banks and massive ventures like the Belt and Road Initiative can be important partners in this endeavor.

For example, they could help establish an international network of protected areas and habitat corridors to safeguard tigers and many other wild species from road impacts.

National laws can also do more to promote tiger-friendly infrastruc ture planning. This includes keeping road development away from priority tiger populations and other “no go” zones, such as tiger reserves or habitat corridors.

Zoning can be used around infrastructure to prevent settlement growth and forest loss.

Environmental impact assessments for road projects can do a better job of assessing how new roads might exacerbate hunting and poaching pressure on tigers and their prey.

Neil Carter/The Conversation

A8 Sunday, May 24, 2020

T

By Dan Gelston The Associated Press

HE image is striking: Fans watching a college football game in the midst of a pandemic, wearing masks with a smidge of social distance between them on row after row of bleacher seats.

The photo is 102 years old.

The Georgia Tech alumni Twitter feed posted a black-and-white photo of the scene at Grant Field in 1918. Decades before tailgates, prime-time kickoffs and billions in program-supporting TV money, the ethos of the die-hard college football fan was not much different than today: Risks be damned, we’re going to the game.

And once fans are allowed back in stadiums, history has shown that football could come back strong.

“That’s really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s,” said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame.

“People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren’t as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There’s new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring ‘20s and that’s when you see the stadiums arm race.

Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?”

A comeback seems a long away off even as some schools try to prepare for what many hope will be a full season this fall. For now, headlines are still dominated by discussions about what can be done safely.

“I think a lot of people will hesitate to attend sporting events as spectators until there is a proven vaccine,” Georgia Tech professor of sports history Johnny Smith said.

“I think there are parallels in what we can learn from 1918 in terms of how we respond to a pandemic,” Smith added. “The cities that were hesitant and didn’t impose closure orders as quickly had far more fatalities. I think the lesson we can draw in general from 1918 about how to respond to a pandemic is that closure orders and social distancing is effective.”

College football back then was already trying

to field teams amid the lingering effects of World War I. There were restrictions on travel, practice and number of games played. The storied ArmyNavy game was canceled in 1918 and the lone postseason game was the 1919 Tournament EastWest game in Pasadena, California, a game better known today as the Rose Bowl.

The pandemic sickened players and coaches, shortened seasons and even forced some universities to scrap their seasons. On October 13, 1918, The Washington Post carried a story that declared the epidemic “sweeping the country has dealt the death blow to necessary preparations, and with the stage still undetermined, the outlook is anything but bright.”

Penn Coach Bob Folwell, better known as the first coach of the New York Giants, was hospitalized with Spanish flu and missed six weeks during the 1918 season. West Virginia failed to field a team and at least one player died after a cold turned out to be the virus. The Missouri Valley Conference, which included Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri, shut down for the season. Pittsburgh and Michigan shared the national championship, though neither team played more than five games and all but one was held in November.

In September 1918, the second and by far deadliest wave hit in the US, the final blow for teams trying to schedule a full season. The headlines that followed included “Masks for Michigan Men” (Daily Pennsylvanian, October 23) and “Rough Year For Football, But Game Shows Its Mettle” (Chicago Daily Tribune, October 21).

“A lot of them closed up camp, especially once the second wave hit,” Swick said.

The pandemic killed more than 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States. Even with lower numbers in 2020, Smith said, fans will still be cautious.

“I think generally people are going to be more hesitant to return to stadiums today,” Smith said. “I think there will be a certain segment of the population that is more concerned about a second wave. That’s another lesson to keep in mind from 1918.”

And if fans are allowed, what rules will be in place? The bleak question looms large should campuses open to students in the fall: Is it safe to

Sports BusinessMirror

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

MURKY GUIDE FOR SPORTS THIS undated photo provided by Georgia Tech alumnus Andy McNeil shows a Georgia Tech home game during the 1918 college football season. AP

pack fans inside The Swamp or The ’Shoe if the pandemic is still on?

“I think when we look back on this idea of people wearing masks to attend a football game and raise the question today, would people do that? I’m not sure that people would,” Smith said.

College football commissioners in midApril insisted sports cannot be played this fall if campuses are not open, a stance echoed by NCAA President Mark Emmert. Still, schools are working hard to find ways to play, and there are encouraging signs even if campuses are not

fully open in the traditional sense.

Much more is at stake from a century ago: TV money, bowl games, conference championships, cross-country travel all need to be sorted out. In 1918, there were no more than 90 college football teams. There are 130 major college football teams alone in 2020, spread across 41 states and competing in 10 conferences, save for a handful of independents.

To play or not to play is still the essential dilemma a century later but football—and sports—will return at some point, as it did

Pandemic medical workers torchbearers for Beach Games

M

EDICAL workers who battled the coronavirus pandemic in Hubei province will be used as Torchbearers for the Sanya 2020 Asian Beach Games.

The announcement was made during a ceremony marking 200 days to the Asian Beach Games, scheduled in the Chinese city of Sanya from November 28 to December 6.

Representatives of the Hainan medical team assisting Hubei province during the pandemic were invited to the ceremony where

it was revealed they would be taking part in the Torch Relay in the run-up to the Games.

The ceremony also included the official launch of the new Asian Beach Games web site and the contract signing of the first batch of merchandise licensees.

Highlights of previous Games and interviews with residents of Sanya were shown.

“Fighting spirit of the people of Asia” was the ceremony’s theme.

“Some dreadful calamities, such as

To play or not to play is still the essential dilemma a century later but football— and sports— will return at some point, as it did in 1919.

in 1919. The Ogden Standard noted after the sport’s yearlong break in the state it was “anxiously awaiting the rustle of the cleated shoes, the line plunges of victory and the return of the greatest of all college sports.”

“People really wanted to get back to their lives,” Smith said. “Sports is all about the human experience, human connection.

We’re not meant to be isolated. That’s a frustration a lot of people have in 1918 and today. I think people not being able to attend sporting events is symbolic of a larger sense of loss in America.”

earthquakes, tsunamis and epidemics cannot be prevented,” Sanya 2020 said in a statement.

“But in the end our fighting spirit will prevail.”

“Whether it is in China or other parts of Asia we choose to stand side by side when a dreadful disaster happens. In times of hardship it is the togetherness that helps keep alive the glimmer of hope,” organizers added.

The sixth edition of the Asian Beach Games will feature 17 sports across four venue clusters.

Authorities in Sanya are planning to carry out a standardization of signs in the city ahead of the games.

The standardization of signage is aimed at “optimizing the international communication and business climate” as reported by TASS. Insidethegames

Little League offers ‘best practices’ for return

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ILLIAMSPORT, Pennsylvania— Little League is offering youth baseball organizations a pathway forward as they eye a restart amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The organization released a series of “best practices” guidelines this week that highlight how to create a safe playing environment whenever state and local authorities give youth sports in a given area the all clear to restart. Little League canceled the 2020 Little League World Series

and other championships because of the pandemic last month but remains hopeful a regular season may still be possible.

Little League president Stephen Keener said during a roundtable discussion hosted by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania on Thursday that it compiled the outline after consulting with medical professionals and receiving guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, among others.

While Keener stressed the decision will

MEMPHIS Little League President Kerry Cobb rides a lawn mower over the outfield grass at Will Carruthers Park in Memphis. AP

ultimately be made by each family, he believes it was important to show parents that playing “can be done, we think as safely as possible...if you follow these guidelines.”

The recommendations include eliminating all nonessential contact and banning the postgame handshake line in favor of lining up along the respective baselines and tipping caps to opponents.

All players should wear masks while in the dugout and coaches and volunteers should wear masks and protective medical gloves at all times, the guidelines said. Players should also be separated by 6 feet while in the dugout or in the stands and the shared use of equipment is prohibited when possible. Umpires would move from behind home plate to behind the pitcher’s mound and game balls would be switched out every two innings.

Concession sales would also be prohibited.

So would ballpark staples like sunflower seeds and spitting. The recommendations also include limiting the amount of family members allowed into a facility to watch games.

Toomey said he would sign his 10-year-old son up for baseball “tomorrow” because he believes it can be done safely.

“I think it is time that we begin resuming normal life,” Toomey said.

The best practices were released a week after Major League Baseball put together a 67-page proposal outlining how it could conceivably return to play this year. AP

Is isolation a feeling?

2

BusinessMirror MAY 24 , 2020 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

RHYTHM & RHYME

by Kaye Villagomez-Losorata

THE LAST DANCE SOUNDTRACK REEKS OF NOSTALGIA

F

OR basketball fans mourning the loss of live games, The Last Dance has been the next big thing.

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Netflix has been killing it with documentaries lately. Last Monday, the streaming app served the much-anticipated two-episode wrap up for the Michael and the Jordanaires show and it’s as good as the online hype it’s been getting, whether you love or hate MJ and The Chicago Bulls.

With 97 percent approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes, The Last Dance extends its universal acclaim to the series’ soundtrack.

It wasn’t just the movie-like plot that surrounded the basketball god that Jordan was and the Bulls team that scored six NBA championships back in the 1990s. The Last Dance also delved into the bad, the ugly and some game-changing, culturecultivating history that explained how Jordan and team had a hand at sending the NBA to global stage and elevating sneakers lifestyle to mainstream fair.

All the while, the soundtrack kept matching the visuals from that time. Whether it’s a quiet interview that brings a subject to tears or a montage of exclamation-wielding buzzer-beaters and punctuationflashing dunks, The Last Dance made sure it had a song, a score to emphasize the moments.

CBS Sports raved over the featured songs: “From ‘I Ain’t No Joke’ by Eric B. & Rakim to ‘I’m Bad’ by LL Cool J, the music in this series, especially early on, was so on point in terms of capturing the vibe of the era and times. Nothing takes us back like music, and not only did the song selections throughout the series contribute to the aforementioned nostalgia, but they took the overall energy of the doc through the roof. It was all perfect.”

The New York Times also praised the series’ music. “But one element has received near-universal praise: the music. Beyond the dramatic strings and moody transitions typically found in documentaries, the makers of The Last Dance have assembled a soundtrack that not only snapshots the music of Jordan’s era — particularly hip-hop — but organically accentuates both the documentary footage and the actual basketball being played.”

The report added, “‘Been Around the World,’ the opulent 1997 Puff Daddy track featuring Mase and the Notorious B.I.G. that opens the documentary, perfectly captures the cultural glamour the Bulls had attained by the late ’90s.

A montage of Jordan’s 63-point playoff game against the 1985-86 Celtics is perfectly synchronized to the booming percussion and braggadocious rapping of LL Cool J’s ‘I’m Bad’ — marvel at how Jordan eyes the opening tipoff as LL’s voice builds in pitch and intensity.”

Director Jason Hehir and music supervisor Rudy Chung said they made sure they chose music that represented what they were listening to at the time the documentary was being made. “I think we pretty quickly realized that the best thing was to tell the story with songs from the era,” Chung said.

According to Hehir, “The entire story of the Bulls for someone like me, who’s 43 years old, is grounded

in nostalgia. I really wanted to reflect the music of the times in telling the story of the ’80s and ’90s and the world the Bulls were living in.”

Spotify released the whole ’90s music spread recently. You can Google the link filed under The Last Dance Official Playlist with more than 50 songs featured in all 10 episodes.

That said, we’re still waiting on the video compilation of MJ with the iPad. Each time His Airness is given an iPad to view certain comments from certain key players (pun intended), it’s at the very least meme-worthy. His reactions are hilarious, priceless, raw and always personal which pretty much sums up this ESPN-produced series.

The author is a former entertainment reporter and editor before shifting to corporate PR. Follow @kayevillagomez on Instagram and Twitter for more updates.

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | MAY 24 , 2020

3

IC OUR BUSINESS

IS IT LIVE OR IS IT JUST A MEMORY? On the absence of blinding lights and heart-pounding live music S

By Jill Tan Radovan

OME say that you’ll never forget your firsts. To some extent I would have to agree because I, for one, will never forget the first concert I got tickets to when I was 12; the first gig I watched at a now defunct rock joint when I was 13; and the first music festival I attended in my early twenties.

There’s also the first concert I watched on campus in high school; the first time I found myself in a mosh pit sometime in college; and the first time I flew to a different country just to see a band play.

Being exposed to music at an early age shaped my undaunted love for music, and being blessed enough to watch live gigs and concerts as a clueless and naive teen helped define my immense appreciation for them. Each time, I unabashedly wanted more, with each new show I saw, I told myself it wouldn’t be my last.

Of all the things I have had to abstain from due to COVID-19 restrictions, going to concerts and gigs is one of the things I miss the most. It’s not just the thrill of seeing your favorite band or solo artist in the flesh that makes live gigs and concerts memorable. There’s also witnessing dynamics unfold and momentum escalate on stage; finger plucking and rhythmic strumming, impassioned and soulful singing, and jolting body movements happening before your very eyes. Your heart pounding rhythmically to every beat coming from multiple loudspeakers at the venue, and the blinding lights. Even something as trivial as sweat trickling down the forehead of someone on stage is a sight to behold; and a missed chord or lyric, a detail burned in memory.

And then there’s this unspoken connection you

unintentionally create with the rest of an equally fascinated crowd; singing along in unison to a song’s chorus; the emotional responses you share in the middle of a song; screaming at the top of your lungs in an attempt to catch the attention of the legend on stage; stomping your feet, raising your fist, and exuberantly applauding to a heartfelt performance; and the energy that can only come from an excited (and sometimes intoxicated) live audience. You and the rest of the crowd screaming, “More!”

Nothing beats seeing and hearing gifted musicians perform live especially when they’re mere inches or even a couple of meters from you, or when you don’t have front-row seats but you’re in a spot that makes the most of the best acoustics in the venue. Nothing beats devoting a few hours of your life to a concert, a gig, or music festival— not even listening to perfectly arranged recordings of your favorite artists.

This pandemic has proven to be a unifying yet humbling experience for the majority. Even big names like Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong, seminal local bands like Rivermaya, and OPM greats such a Gary Valenciano have resorted to online gigs not only as a way to raise funds or connect with their fans, but also to spread positive vibes at such a distressing time.

There’s nothing more feel-good than waking up to Ben Folds playing a repertoire of his most loved hits from his living room, or more nostalgic than ‘90s OPM rock vocalists and legends in different locations lending their voices to a fundraiser, captured in a music video or streamed online. There is nothing quite like seeing what the studios and living

Encore number by the boy band Blue during their Manila concert in 2012 (Photo by Jill Tan Radovan)

Thomas Mars of Phoenix mixing it up with the audience (Photo by Jill Tan Radovan)

quarters of well-loved artists look like while they deliver music goods digitally from inside their own homes. It has also been quite amusing to see them share more of their personal lives online—they have all the time in the world, anyway.

Online gigs have become the norm and most likely, they’re here to stay. All is well and good with seeing musicians perform from the other side of town or the world; and the fact that we all get front-row tickets to these shows is an additional perk. In our heart of hearts, however, we have every reason to wish that streamed online gigs won’t be our only options in the future.

Concerts have either been postponed or completely cancelled because of the pandemic.

Music venues are not allowed to operate; hence, gigs are out of the question until further notice. While everyone is in lockdown or under quarantine, the live events industry suffered an untimely death, and we can only hope that it is only sleeping or it will be resurrected within this lifetime. This may sound overly dramatic and exaggerated, considering how people have been seen ignoring social distancing protocol at the first opportunity they get to flock to public places.

However, with the blood, sweat, and tears involved in mounting a live show and the sweat and breathy sighs of exhilaration you can expect in a crowded venue, it’s highly improbable that we

will see any band or artist selling out tickets—let alone being allowed to perform—in a live, onsite concert or gig in a coliseum, arena, or music hall, anytime soon. This affects not only musicians, artist management, or producers; humble production assistants and crew members who are dependent on live events for their living expenses have been hardly hit and are devastated.

When COVID-19 happened, I found myself regretting my decision to opt out of gigs because of heavy traffic or simply because I was lazy; to take a break from covering events because I didn’t have the time or energy; and to skip concerts when they were still feasible. It doesn’t seem like live events will resume anytime soon, and it’s a sad, painful reality that talented artists, event personnel, ardent music fans, concert patrons, and eager groupies will have to deal with until someone finds a way to prevent and cure the virus.

From the looks of it, it’s going to take some time before anyone is once again allowed to turn on the lights and the sound system, to turn up the amps and the microphones, and to experience the magic of a live concert or show—big or small— unfold on stage. The silence is deafening. After talking about my firsts, I fear that I may have attended last concert, rock gig, and music festival.

I dare say—more! At the right time and place, of course.

Is isolation a feeling?

By Carly Osborn University of Adelaide

I

am feeling isolated. Is this a state, or an emotion?

Rather than getting into the semantics of language, I will ask another question: what does isolation feel like?

Isolation feels like being stuck on the couch despite having time for a walk. Isolation feels like comfort eating nachos and box wine.

Our bodies are tired. Our minds slip and skid between blank boredom and anxious overthinking. What is happening to us, here in our homes, away from the routines and interactions that used to shape our days?

I am feeling isolated. Scholars of emotion talk about feelings as judgements—our considered response to what’s happening. These judgements tint our experience as we live it: like the transferred epithets of Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, “pronging a moody forkful” of eggs, or “balancing a thoughtful lump of sugar” on his teaspoon.

Experience reaches us through these filters of judgement.

This morning I made myself a lonely piece of toast and am writing this article drinking a grateful-for-free-childcare cup of tea.

Every lonely person is lonely in their own way

Some of the effects of isolation are common to all human beings, across times and places. Humans have evolved as communal animals living in “families, tribes and communities.” We feel “the pain of social isolation and the rewards of social connection.”

Beyond these human constants, our emotional experiences are powerfully shaped by our individual circumstances. Our communal and personal histories affect our expectations of life and our responses to events. In this sense, your feeling of isolation is different to mine. Like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each of us is feeling this crisis in our own way.

Medical researchers of isolation note this recursive flow of emotion: symptoms like poor sleep and high blood pressure correlated not with measures of patients’ objective isolation, but their perceived isolation.

One person’s agonizing loneliness is another’s boring staycation. We are as isolated as we feel.

This does not mean our feelings aren’t real. They are, in fact, the only reality we can know. Is there a meaningful difference between asking “How are you?” and “How are you feeling?”

Full bodied feeling

Our feelings are experienced by our whole selves: bodies, minds, emotions, all intertwined.

We feel the absence of human touch, we feel anxiety as we obsess over daily statistics, we feel exhausted by shopping trips that feel like ventures into no-man’s-land, we feel grief at the horrific headlines of death, and frustration at government responses. We feel loss and confusion about our identity and value as jobs disappear.

Those who contract Covid-19 report not only fear of dying, but boredom and anger at being isolated from family and friends.

We are feeling isolated. Despite our Tolstoyan uniqueness, we find comfort in shared feelings. We share memes about interminable Zoom meetings, or homeschooling, or day drinking. We feel seen, heard, understood—less isolated. These are called affiliative behaviors and they are a powerful coping strategy for all kinds of crises. Somehow our suffering is more bearable if another human being knows how we feel, and feels it too.

Connecting with one another, and feeling that we are in this together, can mitigate some of the pain of isolation. Sufferers during previous pandemics who felt their isolation was serving an altruistic goal of protecting their neighbors reported less negative emotions about isolation.

Political exiles have, throughout history, found ways to endure isolation. Early modern English nuns in exiled European convents drew upon antique history to comfort themselves, identifying with Biblical stories of suffering that finally resolve in homecoming and restored community.

Prisoners in solitary confinement have relied on simple things like sunlight and human voices on the radio to keep the worst at bay.

They are feeling isolated. Isolation feels like being

alone but it also feels like reaching beyond our usual spheres, feeling new empathy with people who were strangers before.

Isolation is a long-term state for many. From professional women in male-dominated fields, to caregivers and those in remote communities, to religious and queer minorities.

Asylum seekers in detention report deep feelings of isolation and invisibility. Their poems open up for us in new ways now.

New parents, especially mothers, experience isolation with feelings familiar to many of us right now: “powerlessness, insufficiency, guilt, loss, exhaustion, ambivalence, resentment and anger.” Those who are young, or poor, or single, are especially at risk of feeling isolated, overwhelmed and worried.

In our empathy we are connected across social and economic gaps.

Emotional force

We are feeling isolated. Now, our shared emotions become a central part of how we make sense of the crisis.

Shared, collective emotion can be a strong driver of collective activity. Enough shared emotion can cause us to feel like a unified nation, our common humanity stronger than our superficial differences. Conversely, emotional sparks can create political cliques who cohere around shared anger toward other groups.

Scholars of emotion describe emotions as a force, not only felt within, but acting upon the external world. Emotions do things. Big, collective emotions do big things. We are only beginning to discover what isolation is doing to us. The Conversation

HR start-up launches campaign for job seekers and companies now hiring

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orkbean, an HR start-up that specializes in employer branding and company culture, has launched a crowdsourcing campaign that seeks to list down employers from various sectors and industries that are hiring amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Over the last several weeks, news of companies going bankrupt or doing massive layoffs have shocked the world and a lot of us might be wondering: Are there opportunities out there? The short answer is yes,” said Kass Monzon, cofounder and CEO of Workbean.

The initiative (bit.ly/3gbxzLG) was inspired by the com-

pany’s desire to be able to help individuals seek employment, especially those whose livelihoods were affected by the pandemic.

“We’re constantly looking out for best practices that other companies are doing globally, and we came across a start-up in the US that listed about 500 companies that are still hiring fresh graduates,” Monzon said. “We thought this would be very helpful in the Philippines given the growing number of inquiries we receive about open positions in our platform.”

Among the industries that are hiring at the moment in-

4 BusinessMirror

clude IT, banking, oil and energy, architecture and planning, human resources, BPO, financial services, computer software, graphic design, marketing and advertising, and even retail, hospitality and restaurants.

In line with their goal of helping professionals look for the right fit, Workbean aims to update the list every few days with companies that are hiring. They also encourage others to spread the word, not just by sharing the list to aspiring applicants, but also by informing employers who are not on the list to sign up. Interested companies may register at bit.ly/3g8f1w2.

May 24, 2020