Philippine Canadian Inquirer Issue #122

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VOL. 7 NO. 122

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JULY 4, 2014

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Andaya signed 33 Saros in PDAF scam

Google takes down SG guide on how to harass Filipinos

Palace vows justice for Benilde student killed in hazing rites

Global Filipino: Jodilly Pendre

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Filipino, US troops hold drills near South China Sea where Philippines, China have dispute The Associated Press SAN ANTONIO, PHILIPPINES—More than 100 Filipino and U.S. marines in assault amphibious vehicles conducted a mock assault on imaginary enemies in military drills Monday on a beach in northwestern Philippines fac❱❱ PAGE 13 Filipino, US

A BACKHOE crushes thousands of fake shoes in Camp Crame, part of the multi-billion peso haul of fake or pirated goods that were smashed or

otherwise destroyed to underscore the government's commitment to international trademark, copyright and patent laws.

PHOTO BY RAFFY LERMA

Sandiganbayan justice tied to Napoles faces ax

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SC probe finds Ong behind case fixing

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA, PHILIPPINES—A recommendation for the dismissal of Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Gregory Ong

has been made to the Supreme Court after an investigation ordered by the high tribunal confirmed his close ties with Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Nora Aunor breaks silence on national artist issue ❱❱ PAGE 15 FACEBOOK PHOTO COURTESY OF GARDO VERSOZA

❱❱ PAGE 9 Sandiganbayan justice

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JULY 4, 2014

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Philippine News

3 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

P-Noy backs Abe’s bid to amend Japan charter for stronger military

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer TOKYO—President Aquino yesterday endorsed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to amend Japan’s constitution and expand the Japanese role on regional security amid China’s expansionism moves.

The Filipino leader, after meeting with Abe, expressed his support for Abe’s proposal to reinterpret Japan’s pacifist constitution to allow its military to defend not only Japan but also its allies that are under attack.

“We believe that nations of goodwill can benefit only if the Japanese government is empowered to assist others and is allowed to come to the aid of those in need, especially in the area of collective self-defense,” Mr. Aquino said in a statement after his talks with Abe. “We therefore do not view with alarm any proposal to revisit the Japanese constitution if the Japanese people so desire, especially if this enhances Japan’s ability to address its international obligations and brings us closer to ... our shared goals of peace, stability and mutual prosperity.”

Abe has proposed to revisit Article 9 of the Japanese charter, which bans the right to collective self-defense.

The proposal faces tough opposition from Japanese citizens who do not want their country to participate in a war, owing to their experience in World War II. Japan is only one of two countries with which the Philippines has a “strategic partnership,” the other being the United States, which is also a treaty ally.

Strategic partnership is a concept where countries work together to achieve long-term shared interests, from security issues to economic concerns.

Mr. Aquino and Abe both emphasized the importance of strengthening the two countries’ partnership.

The Philippines and Japan both deal with the problem of China’s expansionism and share a common interest in protecting their respective ter-

ritories.

This has spurred regular dialogues between the Filipino leader and Abe, who have had four summit meetings in 12 months.

Mr. Aquino’s remarks may pique China but the two leaders, in their statements, were careful not to mention their assertive neighbor.

lar to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the Philippines and the United States?

Mr. Aquino stressed the importance of cooperation between two defense forces, especially in times of disasters, President Benigno S. Aquino III with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. ❱❱ PAGE 14 P-Noy backs

3 principles

“In the face of the regional situation becoming increasingly severe, both nations are closely coordinating,” Abe said in his statement. ‘’I reaffirmed with President Aquino today the significance of the three principles of the rule of law, which I outlined at the Shangri-La dialogue and at the G-7 meeting.”

The three principles Abe referred to are: states shall make and clarify their claims based on international law; states shall not use force or coercion in trying to drive their claims, and states shall seek to settle disputes by peaceful means.

The President said both sides updated each other on the current situation in the South and East China Seas.

In supporting Abe’s move to allow Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense, Mr. Aquino said this would “redound to [the Philippines’] benefit.”

He gave as an example the time when Syrian rebels kidnapped Filipino peacekeepers in the Golan Heights last year.

“In a sense, to us, it is very real,” Mr. Aquino said at a press conference. “There was an instance already that we conceivably could have needed their assistance and they would not have been able to [help].”

Asked if the Philippines and Japan would forge a security cooperation, the President said the two countries were “advancing the dialogue to that.”

He said the intention to discuss a defense agreement was signed in 2012.

Strategic partners

“We’re getting one step further from that,” Mr. Aquino said.

Will the Philippines and Japan have a defense tie-up simiwww.canadianinquirer.net

PHOTO BY RYAN LIM / MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

Philippine News

JULY 4, 2014

FRIDAY 4

Andaya signed 33 Saros in PDAF scam P1B in pork went to 3 senators

BY NANCY C. CARVAJAL Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA, PHILIPPINES—Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya, who allegedly received P255 million from businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles while he was budget secretary, signed almost all the special allotment release orders (Saros) from 2007 to 2009 issued to the three senators indicted for plunder in the Sandiganbayan, documents obtained by the Inquirer showed.

Even so, Andaya was not charged in connection with the P10-billion Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam allegedly masterminded

by Napoles.

The National Bureau of Investigation, however, has implicated Andaya in the Malampaya Fund scam, in which P900 million meant for agrarian reform communities devastated by storms in 2009 was allegedly pocketed by officials through

bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs) of Napoles, and charged him in the Office of the Ombudsman with plunder along with 26 others.

Four employees of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) were charged with graft by the Office of the Ombudsman in the Sandiganbayan in connection with the PDAF scam.

Copies of the Saros obtained by the Inquirer showed that Andaya signed 33 of the 43 Saros released by the DBM to Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Bong Revilla and Juan Ponce Enrile in 2007-2009 that were coursed through the Napoles NGOs. The Saro is a document issued by the DBM to indicate that a project has been approved and that funds shall be released for it with the issuance of a notice of cash allocation.

Andaya signed 10 Saros for Enrile that totaled to P345 million for his PDAF in 2007, all of which went to the Napoles NGOs.

For Revilla, 11 Saros for at least P320 million were signed by Andaya. The funds were also funneled through the Napoles NGOs. For Estrada, Andaya signed 12 Saros for a total of P323 million that also went to the NGOs of Napoles.

Benhur Luy, principal whistle-blower in the P10-billion pork barrel scam and a former employee of Napoles, testified in the Senate last year that 50 percent of the PDAF allocations channeled through the Napoles NGOs were pocketed by lawmakers.

Records of Luy showed that Andaya allegedly received at least 70-percent commission for various projects that were supposed to be implemented by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) from 2006 to 2010, while he was the budget secretary.

An entry of a P28-million commission appeared in the Luy files of July 16, 2007, with the note “Andaya—cash charge to RAD project.” RAD stands

Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya signed almost all the special allotment release orders from 2007 to 2009 issued to the three senators indicted for plunder in the Sandiganbayan, documents obtained by the Inquirer showed.

VIDEO GRAB FROM GMA NEWS

for DAR spelled backward.

Luy’s records also showed that some of the kickbacks that Andaya received were given to him through a Metrobank check.

Other documents obtained by the Inquirer from the Commission on Audit (COA) showed that Andaya signed a total of 145 Saros between Oct. 30 and December 2009 worth a total of P14.393 billion.

The amount came from the Malampaya Fund, the government’s share of the oil and gas

revenues from the gas fields off Palawan province.

Earlier, Pampanga Rep. Oscar Rodriguez, chair of the House committee on good government and public accountability, said the panel would question Andaya about the release of P10.2 billion for public works projects during a spending binge in the last six months of the Arroyo administration.

The Inquirer could not contact Andaya Monday night for comment. ■

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Philippine News

5 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

China hits PH for ‘provocative acts,’ ‘non-stop talk’ on rule of law

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA—Amid growing tensions among countries over the disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea, the Philippines was again, slammed by China for its “provocative actions” and for always talking about the rule of law.

“It is worth noting that recently some countries keep taking provocative actions and stirring things up, and at the meantime, they just cannot stop talking about the rule of law with a purpose of threat-

ening and smearing China and swaying the public opinion,” China Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang siad in a press conference.

The Chinese spokesperson, who was quoted in a transcript released to the media, was responding to President Benigno Aquino III and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s statement that the territorial disputes must be resolved according to the rule of law.

“Since some countries are so fond of the ‘rule of law,’ then I wonder what on earth is the ‘rule of law’ that they keep talking about?” Qin asked.

Qin also insisted that China is not violating any law and has in fact been exercising its “lawful right to properly handle relevant issue and maintain regional peace and stability.”

Contrary to what the Philippines has been claiming, Qin said China has been faithful to its responsibilities by abiding with the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC).

Answering President Aquino’s earlier statements that China has violated DOC because it has been conducting reclamation and construction efforts on the disputed maritime terri-

t o r i e s, Q i n advised involved countries to check on their own violations of international laws.

“Certain countries infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of other countries under the cloak of ‘the rule of law’ and disguise their illegal actions as ‘legal’. I’d

like to advise these countries to check their own doings against international laws and the basic norms governing international relations,” Qin said. ■

Ombudsman to probe Vitangcol for bribe try

BY GIL C. CABACUNGAN Philippine Daily Inquirer THE OFFICE of the Ombudsman has ordered an inquiry into the involvement of former Metro Rail Transit (MRT) general manager Al Vitangcol III and businessman Wilson de Vera in an alleged attempt to extort $30 million from a Czech train coach builder at an ambassador’s residence two years ago.

Vitangcol and De Vera will also be investigated for awarding without public bidding an $11.5-million maintenance contract for MRT 3 to a company, Philippine Trans Rail Management and Services Corp.

(PH Trams), shortly after the failed shakedown in July 2012.

De Vera and Arturo V. Soriano, an uncle of Vitangcol’s wife, are among the incorporators of PH Trams.

In a statement, the Ombudsman announced that it had received a recommendation from its Field Investigation Office (FIO) to conduct a preliminary investigation and administrative adjudication against Vitangcol and De Vera.

Special panel

An FIO special panel was formed in July last year to look into news reports detailing the charges hurled by Inekon

and public accountability.

Last month, Abaya ordered Vitangcol’s suspension only after the MRT chief’s ties to PH Trams were leaked to the media. Vitangcol resigned on the same day.

Recommendation

Group CEO and chair Josef Husek and then Czech Ambassador to the Philippines Josef Rychtar. A separate team was to probe the 10-month maintenance contract awarded to PH Trams.

Husek and Rychtar have testified that Vitangcol and De Vera asked for bribe money in exchange for granting Inekon the P3.7billion contract to supply 48 coaches for the MRT 3 expansion. The deal was subsequently won by CNR Dalian of China.

Both Vitangcol and De Vera

have denied the accusations. The former MRT chief has also filed a perjury complaint against Rychtar.

The FIO panel proceeded with its investigation despite Transportation Secretary Joseph E. A. Abaya’s decision to absolve Vitangcol. A similar probe was conducted by the House of Representatives’ committee on good governance www.canadianinquirer.net

The FIO has recommended the filing of criminal charges against Vitangcol and De Vera for violations of Republic Act No. 301, or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, and of RA 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

Vitangcol also faced administrative charges for dishonesty, grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.

The FIO panel reported that on July 9, 2012, upon t h e r e quest of Vitangcol, a dinner with Inekon representatives took place in a restaurant in Makati City. Present were De Vera, Rychtar, Husek, Manalo Maralit, who was acting as liaison officer for Inekon, and a certain

Haluon.

After Maralit informed Inekon representatives that Vitangcol wanted to continue discussing the MRT project after dinner, the group, except for the then MRT chief, went to the house of Ambassador Rychtar in Forbes Park in Makati City, they said.

There, De Vera indicated that Inekon would be selected as the supplier of the tram vehicles if the company would pay $30 million, they said. The amount would be later reduced to $2.5 million, they added.

FIO report

The FIO report said that a day after the dinner, Vitangcol met with Inekon representatives at his office and “categorically asked [them] whether they agreed with the proposal of De Vera regarding the payment of $2.5 million in exchange for the award of the MRT 3 project.”

The report said Inekon representatives refused the offer.

In a sworn statement to the National Bureau of Investigation, Rychtar said of De Vera: “I think all of us considered him to be an envoy of Mr. Vitangcol since he behaved like that at an official dinner. He went straight to the point of suggesting the payment from Inekon to secure the deal for them. I think everybody was surprised with this suggestion of Mr. W. de Vera, which was $30 million.” ■

Philippine News

JULY 4, 2014

FRIDAY 6

Last living woman Huk leader gets pension back

BY TONETTE OREJAS Inquirer Central Luzon

sion since the 1990s, a fruit of the Hukbalahap Veterans’ (HukVets) campaign.

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO— At 91, the last living high-ranking female commander of the antiJapanese Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap) has managed to have her monthly pension restored by the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO).

The “deceased” status of Simeona Punsalan-Tapang, known as “Commander Guerrero,” has been corrected after a revalidation, said PVAO media officer April Joyce Hermosa.

Tapang’s only child, Ligaya, 66, said that upon the advice of PVAO Administrator Ernesto Carolina, she submitted additional documents as proof her mother was alive.

“There has been difficulty finding her account in the system because her full name was not originally given,” Hermosa said in an e-mail. She said Tapang’s old-age pension, which stopped in March this year, was resumed in May. She has been receiving a pen-

Unseen hand

Ligaya said her mother’s oldage pension of P6,700 monthly and the additional P5,000 she got as the survivor of her husband Pablo, a Huk who was killed in 1949, were not enough for medicines.

Tapang has diabetes, weak lungs and poorly functioning intestines, Ligaya said.

But luck shimmered on the trail leading to the PVAO’s rediscovery of Tapang. It came from the unseen hand of the late Remedios Gomez-Paraiso, Tapang’s friend.

Paraiso, who went by the alias “Commander Liwayway,” commanded Squadron 3-V and was chief of the military provision division of Hukbalahap in Central Luzon.

When Paraiso died at age 95 in May, Robert Tantingco, executive director of the Center for Kapampangan Studies, posted the news on the social networking site Facebook.

At 91, Simeona Punsalan-Tapang is now getting a monthly pension again from the government. In her younger days, she was known as “Commander Guerrero” who fought for social justice with the Hukbalahap guerrilla army. documents obtained by the Inquirer showed.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Proof of life

“After I posted on Facebook the news on the death of Commander Liwayway, (Tapang’s) relatives came forward to tell me she (Tapang) is still alive.

We wasted no time, having learned our lesson with Commander Liwayway, who died before we could see her,” Tant-

www.canadianinquirer.net

ingco said.

Tantingco and Tapang met on June 17 in her house in Barangay San Miguel in San Simon town, Pampanga province.

A photograph that Tantingco took of Tapang became part of the proof of life that he asked the INQUIRER to relay to Carolina.

A usual proof of life is a photograph of a veteran reading a newspaper of current date.

“I found her bedridden and in pain,” Tantingco told Carolina.

The PVAO administrator, in turn, ordered a resumption of the revalidation process for the war heroine.

Tantingco also found a photograph of Paraiso, Tapang and Huk supremo Luis Taruc taken at the HukVets’ office in Quezon City.

It turned out that they had campaigned for benefits for their comrades who had put their lives on the line repulsing Japanese soldiers and rescuing American troops. Taruc died in 2005.

Strength of a man

Tapang was an organizer for

Katipunang Pambansa ng mga Magsasaka sa Pilipinas before World War II. After being imprisoned by the Japanese, she joined Apalit Squadron 104, one of the group’s strongest squadrons.

Tapang was “a big-bodied woman with a man’s strength, fond of wearing a man’s clothes.

She became adept at handling an automatic rifle and would command on the firing line,” Taruc had said.

Tapang has outlived Felipa Culala (“Commander DayangDayang” of Candaba town), a Huk founder who was executed for alleged excesses, and Elena Poblete (“Commander Mameng” of Minalin town), who was killed in battle.

After the war, Tapang joined the communist-led army Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan, becoming part of the Central Luzon regional command.

Tapang shared stories of Huk encounters and social justice campaigns she had supported after the war.

“The revolution did not begin and end with World War II,” Tapang said. ■

Philippine News

7 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Google takes down guide on how to harass Filipinos in Singapore Philippine Daily Inquirer SINGAPORE—Curtailment of freedom of speech or not, Filipinos are happy that the blog they regard as a racial slur is finally off Google—at least.

Google has taken down the blog that listed ways to harass Singapore’s Filipino population, drawing praise from Internet users appalled by growing racial tensions in the city-state.

Police earlier said they were investigating the anonymous “Blood-Stained Singapore” blog, which suggested Singaporeans should refuse to be served by Filipinos in restaurants, or “accidentally” shove them in crowded places.

Hate speech policy

In a post titled “Filipino infestation in Singapore 5-point guide to showing displeasure without breaking the law,” the blog also advised Singaporeans not to help Filipinos involved in traffic accidents.

The blog, which surfaced in late May, was no longer available by late Thursday.

A Google spokesperson said she could not comment on individual cases but confirmed that the US Web giant removes material from Blogger that violates its policy on hate speech.

The Filipino community in Singapore is estimated at more than 170,000, many of them

professionals seen by some Singaporeans as rivals for jobs—a sharp change from a decade ago, when most Filipinos in the city-state worked as domestic helpers.

Singaporeans make up just over 60 percent of the 5.4 million population, with a low fertility rate forcing the government to rely heavily on guest workers.

a people,” Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin said in a Facebook post.

But others questioned whether the move stymied freedom of speech in Singapore.

“Hooray for a democratic country which forcefully shuts the mouths of her citizens!” wrote Titus Lin on the Facebook page of national broadcaster Channel NewsAsia.

Widespread indignation

Abusive comments

The influx of foreign workers in general, many of them from China and India, has sparked a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment.

The blog had triggered indignation among Filipinos at home and abroad, with some calling for countermeasures against Singaporeans.

The Philippine Embassy had urged Singaporean authorities to take action against the blogger.

The embassy said it had requested officials to “carry out the necessary action in accordance with the laws of Singapore to make the author of this blog answerable.”

‘Vile and vicious’

Google’s decision to remove the blog drew mostly positive reactions from Singaporeans online, including the Cabinet minister in charge of approving foreign worker permits.

“Vile and vicious blogs like this do not reflect who we are as

Earlier, a Philippine Independence Day celebration in Singapore was scrapped after organizers faced online abuse and threats.

Anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in some segments of Singapore’s local population, with many complaining that foreigners compete with them for jobs, housing, medical care as well as space on public transport.

This is despite a per capita income of $55,183, one of the highest in the world, and an unemployment rate of just over two percent.

Singapore’s leading activist groups in May warned of a surge in “widespread use of racist, aggressive and militarized rhetoric” against foreigners on social networks.

Abusive comments are usually posted on anonymously run local websites and Facebook pages. ■ With a report from AFP

Google has taken down the blog that listed ways to harass Singapore’s Filipino population, drawing praise from Internet users appalled by growing racial tensions in the city-state.

PHOTO BY ANTB / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

www.canadianinquirer.net

The exercises this year will take place in several locations ashore and at sea, including Subic Bay and San Antonio town in Zambales, and Sangley Point and Ternate towns in Cavite.

PH-US war games start in disputed sea

BY ALLAN MACATUNO INQUIRER Central Luzon SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—Philippine and United States naval forces yesterday began bilateral maritime exercises, which include activities in international waters of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

The exercise directors for both countries, however, downplayed the connection of the annual exercise—called Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (Carat)—to the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China even as some of the activities will be held some 240 kilometers from Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal), a territory being disputed by both countries.

A statement from the US Embassy in Manila said the Carat exercises at sea would be held in international waters west of Subic Bay. It said Carat promotes regional maritime cooperation, “it is not in response to current events.”

The United States has sent the USS John S. McCaine and USS Hasley, both Arleigh Burke-class missile-guided destroyers, carrying about 300 sailors and Marines.

The Philippine Navy’s BRP Ramon Alcaraz, a former US Coast Guard cutter, has also arrived for the naval exercise.

Lt. Rommel Rodriguez, the Philippine Navy’s public affairs officer, said the annual exercises would focus on combined operations at sea, amphibious landings, diving and salvage, and maritime patrol and reconnaissance flights.

“Carat has strengthened the ties that bind both our countries not only because of our history but more for our shared

aspirations and goals,” Rear Adm. Jaime Bernardino, the Philippine fleet commander, said at the opening ceremonies of the naval exercises here.

Bernardino said that holding the Carat exercises had been beneficial for the Philippines in terms of training its naval forces for responding to disasters, citing the combined efforts of Philippine and US naval forces in the aftermath of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in the Visayas late last year.

“More than ever, our sailors and Marines are working more efficiently and effectively in combined operations and this was validated when both the Philippine and US Marines and sailors responded immediately and outstandingly during the relief operations in the aftermath of Yolanda in the central Philippines,” Bernardino said.

Rear Adm. Stuart Munsch, commander of US Submarine Group 7, said conducting the Carat had become “more complex” each year and offered new opportunities even if they had done this in the past 20 years.

“This engagement shares common things. Our security cooperation not only supports our mutual interest but also contributes to regional stability and prosperity,” Munsch said.

He said Carat would allow both forces to “build and renew relationships for professional exchanges.”

The exercises this year will take place in several locations ashore and at sea, including Subic Bay and San Antonio town in Zambales, and Sangley Point and Ternate towns in Cavite, Munsch said. ■ With a report from Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon

Philippine News

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 8

Enrile: Too old to jail?

Publisher Alan Yong Editor Melissa Remulla-Briones editor@canadianinquirer.net Associate Editor Laarni de Paula laarni.liwanag@canadianinquirer.net Community News Editor Mary Ann Mandap maryann.mandap@canadianinquirer.net Correspondents Gigi Astudillo Angie Duarte Frances Grace Quiddaoen Ching Dee Socorro Newland Thessa Sandoval Bolet Arevalo Graphic Designer Victoria Yong Photographers Angelo Siglos Danvic Briones Solon Licas Operations and Marketing Head Laarni Liwanag (604) 551-3360 Advertising Sales Alice Yong (778) 889-3518 alice.yong@canadianinquirer.net Antonio Tampus (604) 460-9414 antonio.tampos@canadianinquirer.net PHILIPPINE PUBLISHING GROUP Editorial Assistant Phoebe Casin Graphic Designer Shanice Garcia Associate Publisher Lurisa Villanueva In cooperation with the Philippine Daily Inquirer digital edition Philippine Canadian Inquirer is located at 400-13955 Bridgeport Rd., Richmond, BC V6V 1J6 Canada Tel. No.: 1-888-668-6059 or 778-8893518 | Email: info@canadianinquirer. net, inquirerinc@gmail.com, sales@ canadianinquirer.net Philippine Canadian Inquirer is published weekly every Friday.

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Member

P-Noy favors considerate treatment of 90-year-old senator

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer TOKYO—President Aquino yesterday said jailers should be considerate toward the 90-year-old Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile when he is arrested on plunder charges stemming from his alleged misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

“It seems there should be consideration to that, that is an established fact … I’m sure the courts are cognizant of fulfilling the obligations but at the same time, having as a factor the advanced age of Senator Enrile,” the President said at a press conference.

Mr. Aquino recalled that when he was in the Senate with Enrile, the latter was already reading with a magnifying glass and constantly used eye drops.

The Constitution itself, under the Bill of Rights, states that “cruel, degrading or inhumane punishment” should not be inflicted on a person, the President said.

He did not say whether Enrile should just be placed under house arrest.

Enrile, a former Senate President who presided over the impeachment trial and conviction of then Chief Justice Renato Corona, has been charged with plunder and graft in connection with the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

The Sandiganbayan division assigned to handle his case is expected to issue an arrest warrant against him any time now.

Two other senators—Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada, who are also charged with plunder and graft for allegedly pocketing kickbacks in the same alleged pork barrel scam—are now detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame.

Enrile allegedly funneled P683 million of his allocations from the PDAF to phantom projects proposed by Janet Lim-Napoles through bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs) from 2004 to 2012, getting 50 percent in kickbacks.

Revilla is accused of plowing P1.2 billion of his PDAF allocations into Napoles’ NGOs, also allegedly receiving 50 percent in kickbacks from every project.

Estrada is allegedly the biggest contributor to Napoles’ scam, channeling P1.6 billion of his PDAF allocations to ghost projects through the NGOs. No reply

The INQUIRER tried to contact the lawyer of Enrile to get his reaction to Mr. Aquino’s statement about the senator but he did not reply to text messages and phone calls.

Even close friends of the senator declined to talk about him and his case.

Enrile said last week that should he

Enrile, a former Senate President who presided over the impeachment trial and conviction of then Chief Justice Renato Corona, has been charged with plunder and graft in connection with the P10billion pork barrel scam.

PHOTO FROM PCIJ.ORG

be arrested he would bring books on the history of political thought, on Nelson Mandela and on poetry.

He said he would prove his innocence.

“I assure you that as long as I breathe, I have the strength and can still think, I will fight for the truth,” Enrile told officials from his home province of Cagayan who traveled to Manila to sympathize with him.

Enrile is not unfamiliar with life in jail. He was charged in February 1990 with rebellion and murder for his alleged participation in a military coup against President Corazon Aquino in December 1989.

He was arrested and detained at Camp Karingal in Quezon City, but was allowed to post bail by the Supreme Court a week later. The Supreme Court invalidated the rebellion charges against him in June 1990.

Double standard

A house arrest for Enrile is expected to draw howls of protest from people accusing the government of double standard—a special detention facility for the three senators and crammed cells for ordinary citizens.

Putting the three senators in a regular jail will prevent the perception that justice is “two-tiered” in this country, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said in April.

In an open letter to Mr. Aquino, John Silva, the executive director of the Or-

www.canadianinquirer.net

tigas Foundation Library, slammed the government’s supposed special treatment of Revilla by giving him a newly constructed room for a detention cell at the PNP Custodial Center.

Estrada is also housed in a similar detention cell at the Custodial Center.

Silva wrote in his letter that the jail conditions of the President’s father, the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., during the Marcos dictatorship was much worse than that of Revilla, considering that the elder Aquino was not jailed for stealing.

“He was into more heady stuff like a return to democracy, human rights and moral convictions,” Silva said.

P-Noy reaction

Reacting to the open letter, Mr. Aquino said the government was only executing the court’s orders on the detention of Revilla and Estrada.

But for the President, it seemed difficult to make a comparison between his father’s experience and the situation of Estrada and Revilla.

Instead, Mr. Aquino described how it was to be incarcerated during martial law.

Despite having an air-conditioner at some point, his father’s cell was bugged by authorities among others.

But perhaps worse of it all was that his father was placed in solitary confinement. ■

9 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Sandiganbayan justice...

Among the findings is that Ong allowed himself to be Napoles’ contact in the Sandiganbayan and he accepted money from her for fixing a case to benefit her.

Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Angelina SandovalGutierrez, who carried out the investigation, recommended administrative charges against Ong for gross misconduct, dishonesty and impropriety.

The Supreme Court entrusted to Gutierrez in January the task of looking into Ong’s ties with Napoles as alleged by two key whistle-blowers in the pork barrel scam.

Ong chairs the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division, which acquitted Napoles in 2010 in the questionable purchase of 500 Kevlar helmets by the Philippine Marines. ❰❰ 1

Judiciary’s image impaired

“Respondent, by his serious transgressions, has impaired the image of the judiciary to which he owes the duty of loyalty and obligation to keep it at all times above suspicion and worthy of the people’s trust,” Gutierrez said in her May 15 report to the high court.

Judicial office demands the best people in the service and thus, the Supreme Court “will not hesitate to rid its ranks of undesirables,” she added. “[I]t is respectfully recommended that respondent Justice Gregory S. Ong be found guilty of gross misconduct, dishonesty and impropriety, all in violation of the New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary and meted out the penalty of dismissal from the service with forfeiture of all retirement benefits, excluding accrued leave credits, and with prejudice to reemployment in any government office, including government-owned or -controlled corporations,” she said.

Luy, Sula testimonies

The 34-page report and recommendation, a copy of which was given to the Inquirer, gave much credence to the testimony of whistle-blowers Benhur Luy and Marina Sula that Gutierrez described to be “instantaneous, clear, unequivocal, and carried with it the ring of truth.”

Gutierrez said Ong was unable to back up with evidence his rebuttal of the testimonies against him by Luy and Sula

and as such, his own testimony was hearsay.

Ong was ordered investigated

by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on Oct. 7, 2013, after Luy and Sula disclosed the ties between Napoles and Ong in the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the pork barrel scam on Sept. 26, 2013.

At that hearing, Luy said Napoles had told him that she was able to fix her case at the Sandiganbayan because she had a contact there, but he did not identify the person at that time.

Sula told the same hearing that Napoles knew Ong. Luy and Sula testified in the investigation being carried out

by Gutierrez on Feb. 12 and elaborated on their statements at the Senate.

Napoles asked him to prepare 11 checks, each for P282,000 or a total of P3.10 million, for her to give to Ong. Luy said Napoles had told him Ong wanted to avail himself of the 13-percent annual interest offered to those like Napoles who placed their money in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Police Savings and Loan Association Inc. (AFPSLAI).

She said Ong gave him a check for P25.5 million and that she would deposit it in her personal account and issue checks to him, Luy said.

Gutierrez quoted Luy’s account in her report to the Supreme Court.

Sula corroborated Luy’s testimony that Ong visited Napoles’ office twice in 2012.

Sandigan ‘connect’

Pork barrel scam TRO

In his testimony, Luy said the “Napoles’ ‘connect’ with the Sandiganbayan is respondent (Ong).”

He said that since they were cousins, Napoles spoke to him about the developments in her Sandiganbayan cases and that she talked about them with Ong, whom she claimed was introduced to her by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

Estrada is now detained in Camp Crame, awaiting trial in the Sandiganbayan on plunder and graft charges over the pork barrel scam.

Luy testified as well that even before the decision in the Kevlar case was promulgated, Napoles and Ong were communicating with each other and that the businesswoman was sure she would be acquitted in both cases.

Asked to elaborate on his Senate testimony that he knew Napoles fixed the Kevlar case, Luy said he kept a ledger for the Sandiganbayan case in which he listed all of Napoles’ expenses, which amounted to P100 million.

Luy said Napoles had told him that she gave various amounts to different people during the pendency of her cases.

Money to Ong

He said Napoles had also told him that she gave money to Ong, “but she never mentioned the amount.”

Luy also said he met Ong in 2012 when he visited Napoles’ office twice at Discovery Suites Center in Ortigas, Pasig City. Napoles introduced Ong to her staff during his first visit there, Luy said.

He said that during that visit,

Elaborating on her Senate testimony that Napoles had told her that she expected a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Sandiganbayan, Sula said the TRO was going to be issued in the event the pork barrel scam case against her was filed in the antigraft court.

Sula said Napoles assured her and the other members of her staff not to worry about the pork barrel scam case because she had contacts in the Office of the Ombudsman and in the Sandiganbayan.

She said Napoles did not name her contact in the Ombudsman but the staff knew that Ong was her contact in the Sandiganbayan.

Sula said Napoles told her staff earlier that Ong would help her in the Kevlar case.

Gutierrez also called in Rappler reporter Aries Rufo in connection with a photograph for a story he had written and which showed Ong posing with Napoles and Estrada.

Rufo declined to identify the source of the photograph. He said he had asked Ong about it and that the justice said it must have been taken during one of the parties hosted by Estrada and he did not know that it was Napoles in the picture.

Ong, who appeared before Gutierrez on March 12, denied the allegations, saying he did not meet with Napoles during the pendency of the Kevlar case.

Ong denied that he fixed the Kevlar case, saying the decision was made by the three-member division as a collegial body. www.canadianinquirer.net

Going to see Napoles

Ong admitted that he went to see Napoles twice in her office in March 2012 or two years after the Kevlar case was promulgated.

Ong said he met Napoles a month earlier at the birthday party of Estrada and that she thanked him for her acquittal in the Kevlar case.

He said he visited Napoles in her office to thank her after she helped arrange a meeting with Msgr. Josefino Ramirez, a former Quiapo Church parish priest, who gave him access to the robe of the Black Nazarene.

He said he was a devotee of the Black Nazarene.

As to Luy’s claim that Napoles paid him advance interest, Ong denied he issued a check for P25.5 million to her and said he had no intention to invest in AFPSLAI. He dismissed as false and without basis the Rappler story’s insinuations, including his alleged closeness to Napoles even during the pendency of the Kevlar case.

Gutierrez said she found the statements of Luy and Sula consistent with their Senate testimonies and that they “did not waver or falter” during cross-examination.

“The undersigned found [Luy and Sula] credible witnesses and their story untainted with bias and contradiction, reflective of honest and trustworthy witnesses,” Gutierrez said in her report.

‘Unmeritorious’

Gutierrez said she found “unmeritorious” Ong’s claim that Luy and Sula were lying.

“With the undersigned’s finding that there is credence in the testimonies of [Luy] and Sula, there is no need to stretch one’s imagination to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that in ‘fixing’ the Kevlar case, money could be the consideration,” she said.

Gutierrez said Ong asked during the hearing if Napoles could be subpoenaed for questioning on Luy’s and Sula’s testimonies, which he described as hearsay and inadmissible as evidence.

But Gutierrez noted that Ong and his lawyer did not file a motion to subpoena Napoles at the hearing and did not present her to rebut Luy’s and Sula’s testimonies.

“Significantly, [Ong] failed to consider that his testimony is

likewise hearsay,” she said, adding that Ong should have presented Napoles and Ramirez to back his own claims.

Gutierrez said Ong’s act of “allowing himself to be Napoles’ contact in the Sandiganbayan, resulting in the fixing of the Kevlar case and of accepting money from her, constitute gross misconduct….”

Check preparation

Gutierrez said she believed Luy’s charge that Ong received money from Napoles because it was Luy who prepared the checks.

She also said that while Ong claimed he visited Napoles to thank her for a favor from Ramirez, it was also possible he could have transacted business with her, as she wondered why Napoles would pay Ong an advance on interest “if it were not a consideration for a favor.”

Ong’s acts also constitute dishonesty, proving Luy’s assertion that the justice received money from Napoles, Gutierrez said.

“Indeed, respondent should not stay in his position even for a moment,” she said.

Also constituting gross misconduct was Ong’s visits to Napoles’ office, according to Gutierrez, who said his position demands that his personal behavior should be “beyond reproach” both inside and outside the court.

Ong committed acts of impropriety in joining Napoles and Estrada in picture-taking, she said.

Witnesses told truth

Noting that the Supreme Court had not tasked her to touch on the merits of the Kevlar case, Gutierrez said she could not “hold back her skepticism” about Napoles’ acquittal in that case.

She questioned why Ong’s division acquitted Napoles on grounds that she did not conspire with the suppliers and was not one of the dealer-payees when its ruling showed that she followed up the processing of the documents, that she was in charge of delivering the helmets and that the checks for payment of the P3.8 million helmets were deposited and cleared in her bank account.

“Considering this glaring irregularity, it is safe to conclude that indeed respondent has a hand in the acquittal of Napoles. All along, the whistleblowers were telling the truth,” Gutierrez said. ■

Philippine News

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 10

DFA explains diplomatic passport for Jinggoy son

Entitled

Under the law, officials entitled to diplomatic passports may extend the privilege to their spouses and unmarried children who are minors, the DFA spokesperson, Assistant Secretary Charles Jose, said yesterday.

Jose said Ejercito was 18 when he was issued a diplomatic passport.

“According to DFA regulations, principals who are entitled to diplomatic passports, their spouses and unmarried minor children who will accompany them on official travel are entitled to diplomatic passports, but only on official travel.

So pursuant to that regulation, the son of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada was issued a diplomatic passport,” Jose told reporters.

Court nixes gov’t bid to amend charges

BY CATHY YAMSUAN Philippine Daily Inquirer

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer AMID CRITICISMS over the special treatment being accorded Sen. Jinggoy Estrada while detained on plunder and graft charges, some netizens are also questioning the “preferential treatment” that his son got from a government office.

A citizen has lodged a petition via the online platform Change.org asking the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to explain why the senator’s son, Joseph Luis Manuel Ejercito (also known as Jolo Estrada), was given a diplomatic passport, as gleaned from online posts showing his “lavish lifestyle,” which is now making the rounds on social media.

“The DFA should explain to the public why Jolo Estrada, son of Jinggoy Estrada, has a diplomat passport. Why is there preferential treatment given?” read the petition by Greg Martinez from Manila.

“We should be vigilant in protecting the sanctity of our public funds, which should have been used to buffer the negative effects of inflation [from] which we are suffering,” he said.

The DFA yesterday confirmed that it had issued a diplomatic passport to Jolo, one of the senator’s four children, for an official trip with his father when he was still a minor.

No revised rap vs Bong

DIPLOMATIC. Under RA 8239, children of Philippine government officials can

have a diplomat passport if the kids are 18 years old and below.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ARPEE LAZARO

Valid for 3 years

Diplomatic passports issued to officials and their qualified family members are valid for up to three years, said Jose.

He said relatives of government officials or diplomats issued diplomatic passports by extension, however, may not use the document if traveling without the principal or for trips other than official missions, such as vacations.

“He can’t travel on his own.

It should be an official travel together with the principal. It should be an official mission,” said Jose, adding that Ejercito “most probably” has an ordinary passport for his personal travels.

Revalidation

Diplomatic passports must also be “revalidated” for every trip requiring an official travel order.

“It (diplomatic passport) is valid on a per travel basis. So it will not be valid for use if it was not revalidated by the DFA,” Jose said.

“Now, for it to be revalidated, the requesting office should submit a travel order approved by the principal. If it’s not revalidated, immigration will not allow [the diplomatic passport holder] to leave,” said Jose

Photosharing site

Martinez posted the petition after photos supposedly uploaded by Ejercito on the photosharing site Instagram surfaced, showing expensive Louis Vuitton shoes, a stay at the Manila Hotel’s presidential suite, aboard a private jet with a friend and his diplomatic passport.

The account under the name @ joloestrada17 where the photos were posted has been deleted but screen grabs of the Instagram posts were compiled by website ManilaSpeak.com. The screen grabs have since been making the social media rounds, reblogged and reposted on Facebook and Twitter.

The photos drew fiery reactions from netizens. Questions were raised whether he used taxpayer money for his lavish lifestyle. He was compared with Jeane Napoles, daughter of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, whose Instagram account also gave away her luxurious lifestyle in the United States.

On his Twitter account (@josephluisman), Ejercito posted a message that may well be his retort to the criticisms.

“Before you judge other people, try looking at yourselves in the mirror. Stop hating people you don’t know,” read his tweet before dawn on Thursday. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

THE GOVERNMENT prosecutors’ failed bid to amend the plunder charges against Sen. Bong Revilla to paint him as the central figure in the misuse of his pork barrel funds yesterday gave rise to assertions that the case was defective and should be dismissed or that they wanted to picture Janet Lim-Napoles as not the guiltiest so they could use her as a state witness.

But Malacañang rejected the view that the case against Revilla—and possibly the plunder cases the Ombudsman has brought against Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile as well—is weak and likely to be thrown out.

The Sandiganbayan’s First Division yesterday denied the prosecution’s motion to amend the information against Revilla to show that it was he and not Napoles who amassed ill-gotten wealth by embezzling P224.5 million in public funds in connivance with several people, including the businesswoman.

The defense opposed the prosecution’s motion, arguing that the amendment of the original information would raise questions about the court’s basis for issuing warrants for the arrest of Revilla and his coaccused last week.

“We will deny the motion to amend the information insofar as the substantial amendments are concerned,” Associate Justice Efren de la Cruz, division chair, said, indicating that the court would issue a formal resolution.

Napoles has always been pictured as the brains behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam that the INQUIRER exposed in July last year, but she is not a government official and cannot be accused of plunder, which the defense has pointed out in questioning the plunder charges the Ombudsman has brought against her.

Unexplained charge

The prosecutors have not explained the plunder charges against Napoles, but the motion they brought on Wednesday to amend the information against Revilla may be a nod to the de-

fense and at the same time an effort to correct a flaw in the case.

The prosecution said, however, that the charges against Revilla could stand even without the amendment.

Joefferson Toribio, lead prosecutor in Revilla’s case, insisted during the hearing yesterday that the original information against Revilla charged the senator with plunder in a conspiracy with private citizens, including Napoles.

He said the proposed amendments merely sought to “eliminate vagueness and cure issues that may later cause undue delay to the trial.”

Eventually, after a back and forth between prosecution and defense, Associate Justice Rafael Lagos asked Toribio: “Even if we deny your motion, will you still be happy? Are you still confident [with your case]?”

“Yes, your Honor,” Toribio replied.

Justice De la Cruz then handed down the ruling denying the motion, saying the court would allow only minor amendments such as spellings or middle names but not changes to “substantial” parts of the original information.

Unsupported charge

Napoles’ lawyer, Stephen David, said the original information did not support the charge of plunder against the businesswoman, as she is a private citizen.

David said the prosecution’s belated move to amend the information put the court in an awkward position because the justices decided last week that there was probable cause to order the arrest of Revilla, Napoles, the senator’s staff member Richard Cambe, and Napoles’ driver-bodyguard John Raymund de Asis and nephew Ronald John Lim based on the charges filed by the Ombudsman.

The court also ordered the arrest of 27 others accused of graft with Revilla.

Revilla’s lawyer, Joel Bodegon, said the prosecution’s plea was intended to allow Napoles to become a state witness to bolster the case. ❱❱ PAGE 12 No revised

Philippine News

11 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Young Filipina mother, fatally electrocuted by fake USB charger

BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer A 28-YEAR-OLD Filipina mother of two was found dead in her rented room in Gosford, New South Wales (NSW), due to apparent electrocution by a faulty USB phone charger.

Sheryl Banaag Aldeguer left behind two young children and a husband at the time of her demise in April of this year.

The case is currently under investigation by the Brisbane

Waters police.

Aldeguer was to start work as a theatre nurse at Gosford Hospital, just days from her death.

She had been in Melbourne for six months, acquiring Australian standards for her nursing training. She had hopes that her family would be able to soon join her.

Authorities are using the tragic death of the young mother to warn consumers against buying fake USB-style chargers.

Aldeguer was wearing headphones and holding her laptop

when she was found dead with burns on her ears and chest, in an apparent electrocution.

It was reported by NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe that several USB-style chargers, travel adaptors and power boards that fell short of Australian safety standards had been removed from a mobile phone accessory retail stall in Campsie, in Sydney’s south-west, after Aldeguer’s death.

Stowe pointed out that authorities were previously un-

Sheryl Aldeguer.

PHOTO FROM THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF SHERYL ALDEGUER.

aware of the volume of imitation and cheaply made chargers that were available for sale in NSW. “This is the first time we’ve been aware of them in large

numbers,” he said.

“We’re only familiar with this one incident and it does look like one of these devices are implicated in the electrocution,” he added. ■

‘Sorry, senator, but this is not a five-star hotel’

BY MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer

be able to walk. That’s why we keep him on a healthy diet,” he added.

SO WHAT’S wrong with having cockroaches and rats inside jail?

Some officials of the Philippine National Police yesterday sneered at relatives and friends of Sen. Bong Revilla for raising a fuss over the crawling pests and other unwanted “guests” inside his detention cell at Camp Crame.

“Senator Revilla is not on vacation at Camp Crame. Spending time in detention is not supposed to be like a hotel accommodation,” a senior police officer, who agreed to talk on condition of anonymity, told the INQUIRER. “Although he is an elected official, he is accused of committing a crime. The presence of [bugs] and other crawling insects inside his detention cell should be the least of their concerns,” the officer said.

The PNP spokesperson, Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, confirmed the presence of night crawlers inside Revilla’s detention room.

“We admit we are having pest problems at the Custodial Center. [We will address this concern] with pest control measures,” Sindac said.

Revilla’s wife, Cavite Rep. Lani Mercado, and lawyer and family friend Salvador Panelo told reporters on Saturday that they saw cockroaches and rats at the senator’s detention cell

‘As big as a kitten’

at the PNP Custodial Center.

They also complained about the lack of ventilation in the 32square-meter room, which, they said, could pose health risks to Revilla.

Unbearable heat

Another PNP official, who asked not to be identified for lack of authority to speak to the media, admitted that the searing heat inside Revilla’s detention room could be unbearable during daytime and may even cause a headache.

Since his arrest on Friday, Revilla has been occupying the first room of the newly built four-room bungalow inside the high-security detention compound.

“But he can still consider himself lucky,” the second source

said. “That building was intended to be the barracks of the officials of the Custodial Center who are forced to stay in an old and dilapidated building.”

The PNP official also disclosed that Revilla had been refusing to eat the food rationed to detainees since he was brought to the detention facility.

ator’s eldest son, said his father had sinampalukang manok (chicken in tamarind soup) and grilled tilapia for lunch yesterday.

“We also brought grilled liempo. But he didn’t touch it because he’s avoiding foods which are high in cholesterol and uric acid,” Revilla’s son said.

Tilapia for lunch

Healthy diet

Instead, he said, the senator had been eating the food brought in by his wife, his siblings and close friends.

“While he has the right to decline the food we give him, Senator Revilla should also understand that the PNP is using public funds for the food ration of detainees like him,” he said.

Actor Bryan Revilla, the senwww.canadianinquirer.net

The family, he said, had leche flan (custard) for dessert.

“We bring him food so that at least he can feel our presence.

Our family and some friends have agreed who among us would bring him food for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Bryan said.

“If he eats foods which are high in uric acid, he may not

Bryan also confirmed that there were “many” cockroaches and rats inside his father’s cell.

Asked if mosquitoes were also causing problems for his father at night, he said: “It’s OK. He has [insecticide] inside.”

He said the visitors saw a rat “as big as a kitten” outside the detention facility’s visitor’s lounge, where the family held a Bible fellowship led by actorturned-Christian pastor Chinkee Tan. “But the rat has been captured. We were told it was already brought to the detention room of Tito Jinggoy,” he said in jest, referring to Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, his father’s close friend and coaccused in the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

Pest control measures

Besides Revilla and Estrada, opposition Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and 51 others have been charged with plunder and graft for allegedly funneling billions of pesos of Priority Development Assistance Fund to ghost projects of bogus nongovernment organizations of detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.

Revilla’s former chief of staff, lawyer Richard Cambe, who also surrendered to the Sandiganbayan on Friday, is also held at Camp Crame. He is staying in 9 sq-m cell. ■

Philippine News

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 12

SC dismiss appeals on RH Law Land distribution continues–DAR

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

MANILA—Though some of the law’s key provisions were declared void, the Supreme Court yesterday upheld the constitutionality of the Reproductive Health Law, affirming its ruling last April.

“Addressing the motions for reconsideration, the court with the same unanimous vote as in its decision promulgated on April 8, 2014, denied all the motions for reconsideration, subject to the same positions indicated by the specific justices on the specific sections declared to be unconstitutional,” read the ruling.

The justices denied the motions for reconsideration filed by petitioners questioning the majority opinion of the court adding that the penal provisions of the law violates the constitu-

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Supreme Court of the Philippines.

tional freedom of religion.

Six appeals were filed by the Filipino Catholic Voices for Reproductive Health Inc., ProLife Philippines Inc., Philippine Alliance of Ex-Seminarians, Task Force for Family and Life Visayas, former senator Francisco Tatad and wife Maria Fenny and lawyer Joan de Venecia, Korina Ana Manibog and Jan Robert Beltejar.

Several provisions including

PHOTO BY MIKE GONZALES / WIKI COMMONS

portions of Section 23 which penalize health workers for failure or refusal to disseminate RH information on RH programs regardless of their religious beliefs.

The groups, however argued that the ruling will be violating the constitutional freedom of religion.

Despite the motions filed, the SC still upheld RH Law’s constitutionality. ■

MANILA—The Department of Agriculture said, the distribution of land will continue even after the lapse of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

The CARP Law, which expires at June 30, 2014 only applies to the issuance of Notices of Coverage (NOC), according to Agrarian Reform Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Anthony Parungao.

This means that, DAR can still proceed with the finishing of the distribution of private agricultural lands.

Parungao added that efforts are being made in Congress to give DAR two more years to is-

sue more NOCs. “We will continue to process all pending cases and proceedings as long as NOCs have been served these landholdings, per Section 30 of CARPer law, as supported by two Department of Justice opinions, the transcript of the Bicameral Conference Committee in 2009, and the current budget law,” he said.

A total of 78,303 hectares equivalent to less than 17 percent of covered landholdings still remains to be served with NOCs. Parungao also added that Section 30 of Republic Act 9700, the CARP Extension with Reforms allows pending cases to proceed to finality and be executed even beyond the date indicated. ■

No revised...

Revilla was arraigned on plunder and graft charges yesterday but he refused to enter a plea. The court entered a plea of not guilty for him.

He and Cambe filed petitions for bail last week. ❰❰ 10

No basis

Bodegon said the prosecution’s attempt to introduce substantial amendments to the plunder charge bolstered the senator’s position that the case against him had no basis.

“The denial of the motion is a confirmation that there is no case against Sen. Bong Revilla,” Bodegon told reporters.

“The [prosecution’s] motion under the rules of court is called a judicial admission that won’t need other evidence.

That is conclusive as against the prosecution. That will become a recurring refrain in our defense in favor of Senator Revilla,” he added.

Bodegon also said the motion meant the original information against Revilla was void, making the issuance of the arrest warrant and the commitment order for the senator also void so he should be released from custody.

tion’s motion was also intended to allow former Technology Resource Center (TRC) Director General Dennis Cunanan to become state witness in the trial of the graft charges against Revilla.

He said Revilla could not have been the mastermind and that the senator had nothing to do with the pork barrel scam.

Amado Valdez, former law dean of the University of the East and a board member of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, said the implication of the prosecution’s plea to paint Revilla as the central figure in the pork barrel scam was that Napoles could later become a state witness.

If the charge sheet had been amended, Napoles would effectively be just a tool of Revilla and therefore not the guiltiest, Valdez said.

He explained that while the plunder charge could remain, there was a great difference between plunder as committed with senators in conspiracy with Napoles as principals and plunder committed by senators with Napoles as just a tool of the senators.

Long-lasting implications

Cunanan state witness

Bodegon said the prosecu-

Valdez said the prosecution’s motion to amend the informa-

Malacañang rejected the view that the case against Revilla—and possibly the plunder cases the Ombudsman has brought against Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile as well—is weak and likely to be thrown out.

PHOTO FROM NEWSINFO.INQUIRER.NET

tion would have long-lasting implications for the case.

“Well, the defect is that they are showing a bad card because the steps they took, in going back on the original case, could indicate there was no strong evidence, which was why they’re planning to make her a state witness. You’re amending the information to allow her to be state witness, that’s the implication,” Valdez said.

“It’s as if they’re opening a small hole in a dam. If these holes become numerous, the dam would burst,” he added.

Valdez also said the prosecution’s move could be used by the defense to claim the evidence www.canadianinquirer.net

was weak and therefore the accused should be allowed bail.

Asked if the prosecution’s failure to amend the information showed the case was lost, Valdez said he could not say because he did not know what evidence the prosecution had.

“They may have other evidence in their hands,” he said.

Defective information

Lawyer Raymond Fortun, who represents some of the complainants in the pork barrel scam cases, said the case against Revilla may be defective and could be dismissed.

He said in a phone interview that the prosecution’s motion

to amend the information “implied admission” of the “defect in the language of the information.”

“If it appears (in the information) that Napoles was the one who engineered and masterminded the misappropriation of the [public funds], that does not go with the definition of plunder,” Fortun said.

“The problem is, if you look at the information, Napoles is the mastermind and all the public officials were recipients of kickbacks,” he said. “So the information may be defective.”

‘They did their homework’ In Malacañang, Communications Secretary Hermino Coloma said the Office of the Special Prosecutor “acted well within the rules of court that allow the prosecution to present its case in the manner it deems best consistent [with] its duty and mandate.”

“We are confident that sufficient work has been done to build a credible and convincing case,” Coloma said.

He gave credit to the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation for “doing their homework” in building the case against the public officials and their alleged conspirators in the pork barrel scam. ■

Philippine News

13 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Palace vows justice for Benilde student killed in hazing rites

Filipino, US...

BY CHRISTIAN V. ESGUERRA Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA, PHILIPPINES—Malacañang condemned on Monday the killing of a De La Salle-College of St. Benilde student allegedly during the hazing rites of the Alpha Kappa Rho (AKRHO) fraternity in Manila last weekend.

“Unacceptable” was how Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda described the death of 18-year-old Guillo Cesar Servando, a student of the St. Benilde’s Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management.

Three of Servando’s companions also suffered serious injuries following suspected initiation rites conducted by the AKRHO fraternity.

“We’ll use the full force of the law to go after the hazing conspirators,” Lacierda told reporters.

“We are going to pursue all those people who are instru-

The CCTV footage at the 29th floor of the One Archer’s Place shows this man talking to the phone while two others are dragging Guillo Cesar Servando along the hallway next to the elevator. The man, according to the Manila Police District, is one of the 2-3 persons being investigated after they were seen on the CCTV footage escorting the four victims to the condominium after the alleged hazing rites on Saturday evening.

SCREENGRAB FROM THE CCTV FOOTAGE

mental in the heinous murder of this particular individual.

This should not continue.”

Lacierda was visibly upset over the hazing death and injuries and reminded fraternities on the law against hazing.

“We certainly would [like to remind] fraternities that there is an Anti-Hazing Act, and that

ing the South China Sea, where Manila is locked in a territorial dispute with China.

The amphibious tanks sailed from a U.S. ship anchored a distance away, then rolled onto the beach of San Antonio, Zambales, northwest of the Philippine capital Manila, disgorging the Filipino and American sailors and marines armed with automatic rifles. The exercise is part of the annual Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training that the U.S. conducts with its allies in Asia, including the Philippines, to address maritime security, strengthen partnerships and enhance interoperability.

Officials said the manoeuvrs were not directed at China, which has been criticized for its increasingly assertive behaviour in disputed South China Sea territories.

The Philippines, the oldest of Washington’s five defence treaty allies in Asia, has turned to the U.S. to modernize its illequipped military amid the increasingly tense territorial rifts with China. ❰❰ 1

if any death occurs, you will be held liable,” he said.

“Think about your future.

You are at the cusp of your maturity or adulthood. And if you do that, you are just wasting away your productive years in prison. So let this be a warning to you—all those fraternities and their leaders.” ■

“Whenever we do an exercise, we always train to improve our capabilities, it is not meant for whatever threat or situation that are current,” said Philippine Navy Commodore Roland Joseph Mercado.

Marine Maj. Damon Torres, commanding officer of the U.S. landing force in the exercise, said the drills were a good opportunity to co-ordinate and learn about each other’s capabilities.

China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims in potentially oil- and gas-rich areas in the busy South China Sea, with Beijing laying claim to virtually the entire body of water.

The disputes between Beijing and Manila have worsened since Chinese government ships effectively gained control of the disputed Scarborough Shoal in 2012 then blockaded the Second Thomas Shoal, where Philippine marines have been based on a grounded navy ship since 1999.

Scarborough Shoal lies around 150 kilometres (90 miles) west where Monday’s exercise was held. ■

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Philippine News

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 14

‘New’ map of China alarming

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday condemned China’s unveiling of a new official map that emphatically made the latter’s claims in the disputed waters and reefs of the South China Sea part of its national territory, saying the move betrayed Beijing’s “ambitious expansionism” in utter disregard of international law and regional stability.

“We reiterate that such a publication only shows China’s unreasonably expansionist claim that is clearly contrary to international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos),” the DFA spokesperson, Assistant Secretary Charles Jose, said in a statement released late Wednesday afternoon.

“It is precisely such ambitious expansionism that is causing the tensions in the South China Sea,” Jose added.

Previous maps published by Beijing already include China’s claims to most of the South China Sea, but in a little box normally at the bottom corner to enable the rest of the country to fit on the map.

The new, longer map dispenses with the box and shows continental China along with its self-declared sea boundary in the South China Sea— stretching right down to the

coasts of Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines—on one complete map.

“The islands of the South China Sea on the traditional map of China are shown in a cutaway box, and readers cannot fully, directly know the full map of China,” the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily said on its website.

Old maps make the South China Sea’s islands appear more like an appendage rather than an integral part of the country, which the new map makes “obvious with a single glance,” it added.

“This vertical map of China has important meaning for promoting citizens’ better understanding of ... maintaining (our) maritime rights and territorial integrity,” an unnamed Chinese official with the map’s publishers told the newspaper.

Manila has many times scored Beijing’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea that overlaps Philippine territory in the West Philippine Sea. Through an arbitration case it had filed with a UN tribunal, Manila is seeking to nullify Beijing’s claims that cover territory well within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone.

In November 2012, Manila issued special regulations in which it refused to stamp Philippine visas on just released Chinese e-passports bearing Chinese maps that displayed the socalled nine-dash line, saying doing otherwise would

be tantamount to a recognition of Beijing’s claim in the South China Sea. The Philippines has instead been stamping visas for Chinese travelers on separate forms.

China’s foreign ministry, however, said people should not read too much into the issuing of the new map.

“The goal is to serve the Chinese public. As for the intentions, I think there is no need to make too much of any association here,” foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

“China’s position on the South China Sea issue is consistent and extremely clear. Our stance has not changed,” Hua said.

Beijing claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, but parts of the potentially energy-rich waters are also subject to claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Tensions have risen sharply in the region in recent months, especially between China and both Vietnam and the Philippines.

China’s positioning of an oil rig in waters claimed by both Beijing and Hanoi last month has led to a series of ramming at sea between ships from both countries as well as a flare-up of anti-Chinese violence in Vietnam.

Yesterday, China sent more than 100 ships including six military vessels to protect its

Territorial disputes

mentioned China by name, but both referred to the changing security environment.

China’s rise is a potential challenge to US dominance in the Pacific, and control of vital shipping routes as well as potential undersea oil and natural gas.

China has criticized Japan’s push for collective self-defense, warning against the return of Japanese militarism that wreaked havoc across much of Asia before and during World War II. Mr. Aquino acknowledged the devastation the Philippines suffered in the hands of the Japanese, but said his country’s relations with Japan had been marked by trust and unfailing

The Sinomap Press map showing China's new "10-dash line."

PHOTO FROM GMANETWORK.COM

oil rig.

On Tuesday, Vietnam’s state media reported that a ship belonging to the Vietnam Fishing Surveillance Department was deliberately rammed and seriously damaged by two Chinese ships illegally operating in Vietnamese waters on Monday.

Viet Nam News reported that China continued “its flagrant violation of international law in placing an oil rig in Vietnamese seas and preventing the nation’s vessels from engaging in their normal activities.”

At about 9:30 a.m. on Monday, two Chinese tugboats and a maritime patrol vessel blocked a Vietnamese fishing surveillance ship, allowing another Chinese tugboat to ram and seriously damage the ship.

Chinese vessels defend rig

According to Viet Nam News, a Chinese fleet, including about

44 Coast Guard vessels, 15 cargo ships, 19 tugboats, 35 fishing boats and five battleships, continued to defend the drilling rig Haiyang Shiyou 981 that has been illegally positioned in Vietnam’s waters since the beginning of May. “The Chinese ships kept up their aggression even after the latest ramming incident, coming threateningly close to Vietnamese vessels,” said the stateowned news agency.

On May 2, China sent its oil rig along with a large fleet of armed vessels including military ships and aircraft and positioned it deep inside Vietnam’s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone.

China moved the rig later to a site 111 kilometers (60 nautical miles) inside Vietnam’s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, ignoring Vietnam’s protests. ■

P-Noy backs... similar to the Philippine-US cooperation in coping with the destruction caused by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) in the Visayas region.

“If we have interoperability and we know each other’s systems, we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Mr. Aquino said. ‘’We have those practices with the Americans. It’s more sporadic with the Japanese. Since they are our only two strategic partners, doesn’t it behoove us to have more coordination with these two strategic partners?” the President said. ❰❰ 3

Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is in the midst of tough negotiations with its coalition partner, the New Komeito, which has so far balked at Abe’s proposal to allow collective self-defense with other states.

Under the current interpretation of the constitution, the Japanese military can use force only to defend Japan.

Mr. Aquino’s support comes as Japan and the Philippines deepen security ties in the face of China’s military expansion and territorial disputes both they and other Asian nations have with China.

Neither Mr. Aquino nor Abe

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support in the years since.

Mr. Aquino’s and Abe’s comments highlight how regional neighbors are forging alliances to counter an increasingly muscular Beijing as it presses its influence in nearby waters.

Tokyo and Manila, former World War II enemies, have been drawn closer in recent years as they have tackled their parallel disputes with China.

Maritime defense

Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, even waters approaching the shores of neighboring countries, and has become more aggressive in enforcing what it says are its historical rights.

When Abe visited Manila in July last year, he pledged Japan’s help in strengthening the Philippines’ maritime defense capabilities.

Part of that was a promise of 10 patrol boats for the Philippines’ poorly equipped Coast Guard, which is in the front line of Manila’s spat with Beijing.

The Philippines has lodged repeated protests over China’s growing military and civilian presence on islands and in waters within what it considers its exclusive economic zone.

Relations between Japan and China have plummeted over their competing claims to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. ■

Philippine News

15 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Nora Aunor breaks silence on national artist issue

BY BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR. Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA, PHILIPPINES—After a week of incessant debates and discussions on various platforms and endless opinion-making from various personalities on the national artist controversy, the woman at the center of the storm finally breaks her silence, with a message that rivals in its intensity her monologue at the end of the film “Himala.”

Nora Aunor, the actress whose name President Aquino excluded from the list of the latest batch of national artists, released a short and simple statement, in eloquent Filipino, to the media on Monday.

Before her announcement, however, Aunor made a more provocative statement, by wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Proud to be Filipino. Ashamed of my government.”

Photos of Aunor, wearing the combative shirt, were taken on Saturday on the last shooting day of her latest film, Joel Lamangan’s “Hustisya,” an entry in this year’s Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival.

Aunor’s photos made a lot of buzz in cyberspace—particularly, on the Facebook pages of her supporters.

Does the T-shirt express Aunor’s sentiments on the contentious cultural issue?

In the statement she issued on Monday, Aunor wasn’t as antagonistic. She merely expressed her gratitude to all the people who have stood by her throughout the brouhaha.

the “outpouring of support that I saw and felt from my countrymen—my colleagues in the industry, fans and friends, priests and nuns, teachers and other academicians, media people, national artists, even ordinary people from here and abroad”— more than made up for the disappointment.

The people’s reaction “made me feel that, with or without the trophy and honor that are given by those in power, the Filipino masses have already spoken and have conferred the highest honor on [me], by declaring [me] the people’s national artist in their hearts.”

She said she regarded this populist honor as “more genuine and fulfilling because it came wholeheartedly from the very people who inspire her to be a good artist.”

Aunor explained that the people’s support gave her “the strength and boundless inspiration to further hone [her] craft, to persevere in sharing whatever talent [she has] and to strive harder to become a good and noble citizen of this country.”

Vintage Aunor

She ended the message, thus: “Maraming salamat po at pagpalain po kayo ng Diyos (Thank you very much and may God bless you all).”

It was vintage Aunor.

And now for the story behind the T-shirt.

Actor Gardo Versoza, her costar in “Hustisya,” told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Monday that the T-shirt was his gift to Aunor.

“She saw me wearing the shirt on the set last Saturday,” Versoza said. “Naglambing siya.

She said she liked it.”

‘Hurt’

She said she was initially “hurt” by the turn of events, but

Old shirt

At first, Versoza was hesi-

tant to give Aunor a used shirt.

“Nahihiya ako sa kumare ko dahil luma na ‘yon (I was embarrassed about giving my son’s godmother an old shirt).

I wanted to give her a new one, but she insisted.”

Aunor is the godmother of Versoza’s 8-month-old son Uziel.

Versoza literally gave Aunor the shirt off his back.

Versoza designed the shirt, chose the material and found a supplier with the help of his partner Ivy. He had those shirts made, he said, to express his feelings on the state of our country.

“I was disheartened by the pork barrel exposé,” he said. “I was saddened by our country’s problems. Even before the national artist controversy came up, my kumare and I have been talking about all these issues on the set.”

He said he and Aunor saw eye to eye on many points.

“We both felt that even though there were many showbiz people who had joined politics, the government was not doing enough to support the movie industry that is practically dying,” he said. “We felt the same way about a lot of issues.”

Versoza has been egging Aunor on to direct a movie. “I think she is ready to direct a film. She doesn’t even have to go to school to study filmmaking. It’s innate in her.”

He recalled that he and Aunor had come up with a possible concept for Aunor’s second directorial job. (She directed an unreleased film, “Greatest Performance,” in 1989.)

Hard-hitting film

“She said she wanted to make a political film, a hard-hitting film that will expose what is

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MIND MY WORDS. Actress Nora Aunor wears a black T-shirt with a loud message

following the national artist controversy.

FACEBOOK PHOTO COURTESY OF GARDO VERSOZA

happening in our society now,” Versoza said. “A movie that’s not afraid to criticize those in power.”

Zandro Rapadas, convener of Nora Aunor for National Artist Movement, told the Inquirer that his group met with several other organizations on Thursday to come up with a unified stand on the issue.

“We have five options, legal and political,” Rapadas said in a phone interview on Monday.

“We will announce our next step at the forum to be held at Ateneo on Wednesday.”

Nora effect

Dubbed “The Nora Effect: A Forum on the Crisis in the Order of National Art,” the gathering is set at 4:30 p.m. at Ateneo de Manila University’s Convergent Technologies Center.

Rapadas said he was coordinating closely with other organizations, Concerned Artists of the Philippines, Alliance of Concerned Teachers and Ako Bicol party-list group.

Ako Bicol sponsored House Resolution No. 973, “urging the

President, the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts to declare Aunor a national artist.”

Ricky Lee, the scriptwriter behind “Himala” and “Hustisya,” said Aunor was not the least bit discouraged by the controversies surrounding her exclusion from the roster of national artists.

“She has already given a lot to our country, but at age 61, she still continues to give of herself. The year is only halfway through, but she has already finished four movies and there are more projects to follow,” Lee told the Inquirer on Monday.

Apart from “Hustisya,” she top-bills three other indie films: Adolfo Alix Jr.’s “Padre de Familia” and “Whistleblower” and Perci Intalan’s “Dementia.”

Lee said Aunor was also planning to give free “acting, writing and directing workshops through the Nora Aunor Foundation. She wants to help in discovering new talents—whether in the cities or in far-flung provinces.” ■

Opinion

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 16

THERE’S THE RUB

Excommunication

By Conrado De Quiros Philippine Daily Inquirer WHY am I not surprised? Last week, Pope Francis did another dazzling thing. He excommunicated the Mafia, something that was nowhere near the horizon of his predecessors. “Those who in their life have gone along the evil ways, as in the case of the Mafia,” he told a crowd of 200,000 during a sermon the other Saturday, “they are not with God, they are excommunicated.”

His challenge had the faithful fearing for his life. “Will Pope Francis ‘sleep with the fishes’?” newspaper articles asked the next day. “Sleep with the fishes” being, of course, a famous line in “The Godfather,” a reference to the Mafiosi dropping their enemies to the bottom of the sea. Excommunicating the Mafiosi didn’t just put their souls in peril, it put their bodies in that state as well.

The Church has always been a good friend of the Mafia, many Mafiosi being generous contributors to its coffers. In return, the Church has given them an institutional front, legitimizing their activities and giving them respectability in society.

Which caused analysts like John Dickie, a professor at the University

College London and author of several books on Italian organized crime, to theorize: “The real audience of Pope Francis’ message was the local Church.

There is a very long history of silence and complicity with the Catholic Church and the Mafia. For years many priests have been happy to allow the Mafia to dress themselves up as upstanding members of communities.”

All this had me thinking: The local Catholic Church has always professed an adherence to the Vatican. If that’s so, why can’t the bishops follow in the Pope’s footsteps and do something along these lines? In lieu of excommunicating the sundry criminal syndicates that specialize in robbing banks and jacking cars, and murdering those that get in their way—for all their heinousness, they are nothing like the Mafia—why not excommunicate the egregiously corrupt in our midst?

They are the true bane of our society. They are the one thing that festers and spreads throughout the nation like a cancer. Getting rid of them, or at least pushing them back, is a moral imperative in the sense that Pope Francis interprets moral imperative as something that’s akin to uplifting the plight of the poor.

Excommunicating the Mafia is all of a piece with his pro-poor stance.

Crime doesn’t just ravage society, it ravages the poor in particular. The same is true of corruption: It doesn’t just ravage this country in general, it ravages our poor in particular. Fighting it is the stuff of true morality.

Nothing does that better than cutting off the corrupt from the country’s spiritual life, if not indeed excommunicating them, or threatening to. After all, it wasn’t too long ago when some of the bishops and their loyalists were proposing to excommunicate those advocating reproductive health. And

In lieu of excommunicating the sundry criminal syndicates... why not excommunicate the egregiously corrupt in our midst? doing so in the name of the Vatican, even though even Pope Benedict never thought to go to these lengths. Now, here’s something infinitely worth emulating, and the bishops can always cite the Vatican as inspiration. In lieu of excommunicating the criminal syndicates, our most corrupt. That is the biggest, if not very organized, crime syndicate of all in these parts.

We can always start with those convicted of corruption who more-

over never gave back their loot. It should eventually include Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her cronies, who continue to enjoy the fruits of their exertions. Look at Imelda’s lifestyle to this day. Look at Mike Arroyo’s lifestyle to this day. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing them first in line among the excommunicated.

Who knows? Maybe Chito Tagle, the primus inter pares among Church officials and the closest to Pope Francis we’ve got, can initiate this, or something like it.

At the very least, cutting them off from the faithful, who make up most of the population, can’t be very good for their souls or their bodies. We are as resolute a Catholic country as Italy, if not indeed more so, the depths of religious devotion hereabouts often taking fanatical expressions. Most Filipinos take their eternal salvation pretty seriously, the nastiest people in this country, like the Mafiosi, hearing Mass and going to confession faithfully, finding no particular contradiction between that and raping, stealing, and murdering.

Quite apart from that, even if their religiosity is merely put on—have you noticed that the three senators all heard Mass, spoke of prayer, and invoked God as their witness to being

innocent, with no great fear about being hit by lightning—their businesses, or rackets, are not, and being officially cited as objects of divine displeasure is bound to impact on them. Like the Mafiosi, their wealth thrives from being looked up to by the community, from being routinely made sponsors at baptisms, weddings, and whatever else needs sponsoring.

At the very most, the excommunication of the corrupt, or its equivalent, should also be a way of reforming the Church. Like Pope Francis’ message, this one can also have for its audience the clergy itself, the priests themselves, the bishops themselves.

It’s worlds better than the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines merely railing at the corrupt for their utter shamelessness, which it did only recently. Which is all very well, except that it presumes that the indicters are completely exempt from it. When in fact, as with the Mafiosi, there is a long history of silence and conspiracy between the Church and the corrupt of this country. We do not have to look very far back to see it. It was in full bloom during Arroyo’s rule, involving the CBCP itself, garlanded by the mottos “Everybody cheats anyway” and “Let’s move on.”

Well, let’s move on—without them. ■

this is no longer merely a theoretical possibility. It is a reality … in Iran and Pakistan. Mexico may be on the verge of a downturn in its grain harvest.”

Nowhere are slumping water tables and shriveling of irrigated agriculture more dramatic than in Saudi Arabia, “a country as water-poor as it is oilrich.” Riyadh announced, in 2008, that its aquifers were largely depleted.

It scaled back wheat planting by oneeighth each year. That will go on until 2016, when parched farms close down.

By then, Saudi Arabia projects it will be swapping oil for 15 million tons of wheat, rice and other cereals.

Brown adds: “It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.”

In Asia, births and migrants swell city populations by the size of Seattle every three days. Will residents be split between water haves and havenots? And what can be done?

Leaders must face the fact that the era of abundant resources is over. Deepening scarcities are here to stay. Policies need to address underlying causes, not symptoms. Polluter-pay rules, for example, must be adopted. Strip subsidies. Price scarce resources, like water, at their real cost. This shifts policy away from top-down edicts to incentives for conservation management.

“Singapore and Israel do a great job of conserving water,” notes the ADB’s Arjun Thapansays. They set realistic tariffs and ensure that wastewater is treated and reused.

Reforms don’t come cheap. Curbing ecological plunder affects the wallets of the haves—like pork scam artists in Congress. But reforms postponed cost more over the long haul.

The have-nots are victims. Most can’t afford illness from dirty water or thin harvests. They inflict havoc by poaching, overfishing, or felling trees to secure the next meal. They have few options. “Attention is shifting away from physical limits to growth,” the World Bank notes. It now focuses on “incentives for human behavior.”

The divide between the haves and have-nots can be bridged. “Nothing is more flexible than water,” Chinese philosopher Lao Tze once wrote.

“Yet, nothing can resist it.”

A cup of clean water for a kid in a remote barangay is worth more than the 21—or is it 23?—pills that the doctor says Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile must gobble daily. He is therefore in no shape to be jailed on plunder charges.

Yet, wasn’t it just yesterday that JPE bragged of his still raging libido to reporters? “May asim pa,” he joshed. Wink, wink. ■

VIEWPOINT

Ultimate question

By Juan L. Mercado Philippine Daily Inquirer “THERE are only two families in the world,” mused “Don Quijote” author Miguel de Cervantes. “The haves and the have-nots.”

To be a water “have-not” is lethal.

There is no substitute for water. Everyone, on average, drinks four liters of water daily in one form or another—or wither. As a Filipino proverb says, Pag walang tubig na linaw, iinumin kahit labo. “If there is no clean water, one drinks even the murky.”

In Southeast Asia, availability of water per person has slumped to 55 percent, notes the Asian Development Bank. Larger populations use more water with high levels of waste, including irrigation. Runoffs are “not captured” even as institutions lag in optimizing water use. Conflicts are surging. “Water security is a key issue for survival.”

Each Filipino has 4,476 liters of “internal renewable resources.”

Compare that to each Malaysian’s 21,259 liters. Cebu City siphons twice what its aquifers can recharge. In China, India and the Philippines, the total availability of water per person per year has slumped below 1,700 cubic meters. That’s the global threshold for water stress.

Summers are now longer and cloudbursts more frequent, University of Washington scientists warn. The equatorial band of rains has shifted.

“The threat to our future is peak water,” Lester Brown cautions in an Observer article. “As the population grew, overpumping in some nations reached peak water. That threatens food supply.”

Brown heads the Earth Policy Institute. In his latest book “Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Politics of Food Scarcity,” he writes: “The bottom line is water constraints augmented by loss of cropland to nonfarm uses, a plateauing of yields plus climate change. They cripple expansion of food production. The ultimate question is: Will current trends lead to a cessation in the world grain harvest?”

Harvests shrivel in some countries because of aquifer depletion. They shrink in other nations due to soil erosion. Today, roughly 40 percent of the world grain harvest comes from irrigated land—which expanded sevenfold from 10 million hectares in 1950. “This is historically unique…

Since then, expansion has come to a near standstill.”

Farmers draw irrigation water either from rivers or underground aquifers. Some are replenished by

rainfall. Another type consists of water laid down eons ago, and thus does not recharge. Two strategically important ones are under the North China Plain and the US Great Plains.

“Today some 18 countries, containing half the world’s people, overdraw from their aquifers.” These include the three grain giants: China, India and the United States. The question is not whether water shortages will affect future harvests in these countries. It is when they will do so.

“Water is the driving force of all nature,” Leonardo da Vinci once

In Asia, births and migrants swell city populations by the size of Seattle every three days. Will residents be split between water haves and have-nots?

And what can be done? wrote. The Arab Middle East today reels from the collision between population growth and water supply at regional level. “For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region. There is nothing in sight to arrest the decline.”

Overpumping leads to aquifer depletion. “In the short run, peak water can lead to peak grain. For some countries

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Opinion

17 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

ANALYSIS

Aquino’s Iloilo trip bears omens of discontent

By Amando Doronila Philippine Daily Inquirer PRESIDENT Aquino went on a barnstorming trip to Iloilo City on Friday to test the waters on his standing with the electorate two years before the 2016 presidential election.

The official reason for the trip was to inaugurate a portion of an eight-lane highway, named after his father, the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., touted as a demonstration of the “transformation of the bureaucracy and the countryside” as an offshoot of the administration’s reforms under its “daang matuwid” (right path) program.

Actually, the Iloilo foray was an early sounding board for the President’s endorsement of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas as the Liberal Party (LP) presidential candidate in 2016.

Implicit endorsement In his speech, the President implicitly pitched Roxas when he said he and Roxas jointly campaigned in the 2010 election on the “right path” platform, stressing that the country would not achieve its development goals if Filipinos deviated from that path.

“Two years from now, we will again pick someone to carry on what we’ve started. I urge you not to deviate. Otherwise, if we go our separate ways, we will not achieve our collec-

tive goal,” Mr. Aquino said.

He then thanked Iloilo voters for making him and Roxas No. 1. But in the national vote, Roxas lost to Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay in the vice presidential election.

Roxas, who was seated behind the President on the stage, appeared uneasy, as the President did not directly endorse him as the LP standardbearer in 2016. The others on the stage were Iloilo political leaders, including Senate President Franklin Drilon, Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr., congressmen and local officials.

Kiss of death?

Although LP leaders have expressed preference for Roxas as the LP candidate in 2010, a huge specter loomed over him—the question of whether an Aquino endorsement would be a kiss of death for him or ensure his election.

Doubts persist because, first, the LP does not have a national party machine to back a Roxas campaign.

Second, the President’s popularity is waning, which means an endorsement from him would drag Roxas down.

And third, Roxas’ nemesis, Binay, continues to be a nightmare, as the Vice President’s poll ratings rise while the President’s continue to slide.

A Pulse Asia survey in March found Binay leading in voters’ pref-

erence (40 percent of respondents) among a list of potential presidential contenders in 2016. It said Binay’s approval rating went up by 7 percentage points, from 80 percent in December last year to 87 percent in March, while his trust rating rose by 9 points, from 77 percent in December to 86 percent in March.

On the other hand, the President’s approval and trust ratings dipped despite high-profile efforts by the justice department to bring criminal cases against senators, congressmen and government officials linked by the National Bureau of Investigation to the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

His own assets This means that the administration’s anticorruption campaign cannot be a capital asset to enhance the political fortunes of a candidate endorsed by the President.

Maybe Roxas should not be worried too much about the President’s endorsement. The implication is that the more he steps out of the shadow of Mr. Aquino and depend on projecting his own assets, which are not inconsiderable, the better are his chances of running a successful presidential campaign in 2016.

In the Pulse Asia survey in December last year, Mr. Aquino’s approval rating decreased from 79 percent in

September to 73 percent in December.

Moreover, the President faces public discontent over the rising prices of basic commodities, especially rice and garlic.

Speaking to reporters in Iloilo, Mr. Aquino said he had directed the NBI to work with the Philippine National Police in investigating “the possibility” of the existence of a cartel manipulating rice and garlic prices. He dismissed reports that the price increases were caused by production and supply problems.

He said he based his judgments on reports from agriculture officials, who had told him that they suspected a possible conspiracy among dealers of garlic and rice to create a shortage in the market and drive up prices.

Mr. Aquino’s order to investigate a possible price manipulation is a kneejerk reaction: Curb commodities’ price rises by expedient police action.

dercurrent of unrest that cannot be glossed over by public works.

More disturbing to Mr. Aquino is that it came only two weeks after a group of activists tried to interrupt his Independence Day speech in Naga City.

Ill-timed trip The President’s trip to Iloilo was ill-timed and revealed omens that he was facing a ferment of discontent.

While he was extolling the success of the administration’s infrastructure projects in Iloilo, his speech at Iloilo River Esplanade was marred by heckling by a group of activists who protested and shouted his name, showing that they were unimpressed with his glowing account of his infrastructure projects.

The protests indicated a deep un-

No change The Naga City protesters, who managed to blend with the crowd, shouted, “No change under the Aquino regime!”

Police broke up the protest.

One of them, 19-year-old Emmanuel Pio Mijares, was reported carrying a red cloth bearing antigovernment slogans.

According to police, Mijares, a third year psychology student at Ateneo de Naga University and a member of Anakbayan, was arrested and taken to the police station for questioning. He was charged with public disturbance.

These disturbances took place as the government was confronted by other manifestations of unrest in several sectors.

The PNP released a report on Friday that showed a 17.86-percent increase in crime volume from January to the end of May this year, from 245,347 incidents during the same period last year to 289,198.

PNP officials said the crime rate had not been properly reported or recorded by authorities because of pressure on police chiefs to keep crime volume low and crime solution high. ■

*** Maybe it’s in retaliation for his snub of Ate Guy, but leftist groups are denouncing what they labeled as attempts by P-Noy supporters in the government to “lobby” for the grant of the Nobel Peace Prize to the President.

The nomination—though we aren’t even sure if P-Noy has indeed been nominated for the award—is supposed to be rooted in the successful negotiations for the establishment of a Bangsamoro entity in Mindanao, calling for the cessation of a decades-long armed struggle by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the passage of the law creating the Bangsamoro.

Denying that it was leading any such effort, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process said it was preoccupied these days with getting the law passed and shepherding it through a plebiscite.

But even if the Opapp is indeed pulling strings to win the award for PNoy, what of it? Isn’t the historic accord indeed worthy of a Nobel Prize?

Or is saving the lives of thousands, which can be lost if the fighting were to continue unabated, unworthy of recognition and support?

The emergence of the Bangsamoro after decades—no, centuries—of

oppression, discrimination, violence and bloodshed is indeed a proud moment for Filipinos regardless of faith.

It’s also a hopeful sign for all those working to resolve seemingly intractable conflicts elsewhere. It is certainly welcome, a proud moment for all of us Pinoys. *** A few clarifications from Nandy Pacheco regarding a recent column on the “Movers of Christ’s Peace.”

The movement, a leaderless, selfdirected campaign by individuals for peace and nonviolence, is being launched in a soft, low-key manner in time for the “Year of the Laity.”

The Year of the Laity, clarifies Pacheco, was declared this year by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines and not by the Vatican, as I had erroneously stated.

The Movers of Christ’s Peace expect to culminate the campaign by 2021, by which time, they hope, the Filipino nation will “accept Christ’s Peace” and live it through “love, truth, justice, forgiveness, reconciliation and nonviolence.” In my previous column, I forgot to mention the word “love,” and now I wonder why it escaped my attention. Does age have something to do with it? ■

AT LARGE

Keeping it in perspective

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer I HAVE been—and still am—supportive of the bid to have Nora Aunor declared a National Artist. As I had previously said, her body of work is a showcase not just of acting talent and depth of artistry but also of the myriad identities of the Filipino woman—betrayed wife, spiritual seeker, activist, stoic martyr, everywoman.

So when Malacañang announced the latest crop of National Artists that pointedly excluded “Ate Guy,” I admit I felt a twinge of dismay. And this “twinge” only grew in intensity as the lame-brained explanations and justifications multiplied. Even the Palace has admitted that the award is for artistic accomplishment and genius and not for sainthood, so leading a blameless life is hardly a requirement. So she had a suspended drug conviction in the United States?

So her personal relationships have been beyond the pale? But what of it?

What has that got to do with the price of bawang in Nepa-Q Mart?

Still, it’s not a tragedy on the same scale as Typhoon “Yolanda,” or a scandal that measures up to the stink of the pork barrel scam. Let’s keep a sense of perspective here, people!

Much has been made of P-Noy’s exercise of personal prerogative, overriding the recommendations of both the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Still, the law creating the National Artist award does vest ultimate decisionmaking power on the President, and so he had all the right to leave out any nominee that he felt disinclined to honor. Then again, it’s not too late for him to change his mind—and I’m sure pleasing the millions of Ate Guy fans out there is worth the potential embarrassment. Or as someone said: With all the problems crowding his plate, P-Noy didn’t need another problem on the scale of the controversy and ill feelings generated by his snub of Ate Guy. *** But getting P-Noy to undergo a change of heart over this issue cannot be done with vitriol, insults, and threats of a mass uprising by Noranians.

If I read him right, all the protests and name-calling will only further harden his position. He is, as he himself admits, rather stubborn. And as his biography has shown, the more adversity he faces, the stronger his resolve. We need only look at the stream

of people visiting Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla—who have strong show biz connections, by the way—to remember how steadfastly he sticks to his guns no matter the pressure or public displeasure.

What will make P-Noy change his mind about a National Artist award for Ate Guy? One idea, and it is admittedly quixotic, is for Nora herself to issue a public statement thanking her supporters for their spirited championing of her cause but admonishing them against fueling their anger and resentment. She can even invoke the cherished cliché of losing award nominees: It is an honor just to be nominated. And indeed it is.

Maybe then, with public choler somewhat tamed, the heated atmosphere may cool a bit and allow Malacañang a face-saving gesture: After giving due consideration to the matter, the President has decided that Nora Aunor indeed deserves the honor. Or, as Kris Aquino herself said, half-seriously, on her Sunday TV show: Ate Guy could wait until the next round of awards, but this time her archrival, Ate Vi (Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos to us non-show biz folk) should likewise be named. Now that would be a momentous contest!

www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

18

Canada News

VANCOUVER, B.C.—A local Filipino woman whose family was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan is getting the support she needs to start a new life in Canada, thanks to a full scholarship from Sprott Shaw College, the college announced today.

The scholarship will fully cover tuition, student fees and books for Nenita Yap, who will be pursuing the Health Care Assistant diploma program at Sprott Shaw College.

Last November, while Nenita Yap was working in Surrey under the Live-in Caregiver Program, Tyhoon Haiyan hit her hometown in the Philippines where many of her family were living. Nenita lost 10 family members, including her mother and sister. All the family’s personal belongings were destroyed too – the family of one of Nenita’s older sisters still lives in a tent.

“This scholarship means a lot to me and my family,” says Yap, whose 13-year-old daughter and 16-yearold orphan niece hope to join her in Canada. “The money that I would have appropriated for my tuition fees can now help rebuild our family

(L-R) Samantha, Nenita's daughter, niece Maeve, who was orphaned by Ondoy, and Nenita.

Awarding photos on page 44.

home and give my siblings’ families the starting capital for an incomegenerating business that will enable them to be self-sufficient.”

“I am determined to alleviate my current situation by continuing education, to give me a stepping stone and a fighting chance to be immediately employable,” says Yap. “I’m so thankful to Sprott Shaw for this opportunity.”

Sprott Shaw College, through a partnership with the University of the Philippines Alumni Association in British Columbia (UPAABC) and

the Philippine Canadian Inquirer, invited Filipinos living in B.C. to submit essays detailing their experiences around Typhoon Haiyan, and Yap submitted the winning essay. In it, Yap detailed her family’s experiences, and explained how the scholarship would help improve her and their lives.

Yap received the scholarship from Patrick Dang, president of Sprott Shaw College, and representatives from the UPAABC at the Philippine Consulate in Vancouver on June 30 in an awarding ceremony.

“She has gone through so much and this is our way of giving her hope. We are very thankful that Sprott Shaw answered our plea for help on behalf of the Haiyan victims," says Melissa Briones, PCI editor and UPAABC president.

“We’re honoured to have the opportunity to support Nenita, who has worked so hard and cared so much for her family, despite all odds,” says Dang. “Sprott Shaw strives to be a strong partner to Nenita, and to the Filipino community in B.C. and abroad.” ■

Confusing EI rules have created fear among Atlantic Canadian workers: report

BY MELANIE PATTEN The Canadian Press HALIFAX—A lot of distress in Atlantic Canada over Employment Insurance changes could have been avoided had Ottawa consulted properly with the provinces before implementing the new rules, says a report ordered by the region’s premiers.

The panel report, released Monday, was commissioned last year after the federal government introduced changes it said would better

connect Canadians with available jobs.

But the 109-page report says the changes have created a lot of confusion, particularly a rule surrounding acceptable commuting times.

Under the changes, jobs may be considered suitable if they are within a one-hour commute from the claimant’s home and the pay is at least 70 per cent of their previous salary. Commutes could be longer, depending on the claimant’s commuting history.

The panel says the change has

created fear among some claimants who’ve previously accepted jobs outside of their province.

“The concern raised was that people would be forced to return to out of province locations by Service Canada or penalized if they did not,” says the report, which involved consultations with EI claimants, community groups, businesses and government representatives.

“At a time when the provinces are supporting and encouraging ❱❱ PAGE 34 Confusing EI

NEWS BRIEFS

FROM THE CANADIAN PRESS PCI FILE PHOTO

Scholarship helps woman whose family was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan start new life in Vancouver

PM, GG MARK RUN-UP TO CANADA’S 150TH BIRTHDAY OTTAWA—The fathers of Confederation started the clock ticking towards nationhood 150 years ago, and Canadians got into the countdown spirit Tuesday during this year's Canada Day celebrations. The Dominion of Canada was born July 1, 1867—the big sesquicentennial year will be celebrated in 2017.

But there were important political moments in the lead-up—something Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted in his annual Parliament Hill speech.

HECKLERS AND FANS GREET ROB FORD AT PARADE TORONTO—Supporters cheered and critics jeered as an energetic-looking Rob Ford mingled with Toronto revellers Tuesday, a day after his official return from a stint in rehab. Marching in a Canada Day parade in the city’s east end, the scandal-plagued Toronto mayor was greeted with shouts of “disgrace” and “resign” from some in the crowd, which he brushed off by wishing friend and foe alike the best on the country’s 147th birthday.

NO CANADIAN TO VISIT SPACE STATION BEFORE 2017 MONTREAL—It could be a while before another Canadian astronaut visits the International Space Station unless Canada makes a lot more contributions to the giant orbiting space laboratory. No Canadians will be heading up to the space station before 2017—at the earliest.

2013: THE CALGARY STAMPEDE THAT ALMOST WASN’T CALGARY—The fact that organizers managed to pull off the 2013 instalment of the Calgary Stampede is cited as one of the massive achievements of Alberta’s recovery from last year’s flooding. But Warren Connell, vice president of park development with Stampede, said many don’t realize just how close they came to not being able to throw open the gates.

Canada News

19 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

New anti-spam law won’t put a stop to all unwanted emails, says legal expert

BY TERRY PEDWELL The Canadian Press OTTAWA—A new anti-spam law that one business group calls “heavy handed” won’t stop the flow of all unwanted emails to your inbox, says a legal expert.

The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation, known as CASL and coming into force July 1, will require businesses to obtain consent for sending “commercial electronic messages” to clients or prospective customers.

That’s why Canadians have seen their email accounts inundated recently with requests from companies and organizations that want to retain their contacts.

“We’re updating our contact list in accordance with Canada’s new anti-spam legislation coming into effect July 1, 2014,” Faulhaber Communications has been telling subscribers to its service in recent email messages.

“To continue receiving e-mails about our press launches, industry news and event invitations, we kindly request your consent below.”

The messages contain the mailing address and name of the business, as well as a clear unsubscribe feature, as is required by the new law.

Many people—weary of emails seeking permission to keep sending emails— are saying enough already.

“Getting spammed by Canada’s new anti-spam law emails,” computer programmer and artist T.J. Holowaychuk wrote Friday on Twitter.

“The amount of spam I’m getting because of the spammers reacting to the new anti-spam law to reduce spam is worse than any spam I got before,” added University of Waterloo political science professor Emmett Macfarlane.

Countless messages have gone out recently to people on an array of contact

lists from organizations, companies and individuals who are on top of the change.

Many firms are not prepared, says lawyer Andrew Aguilar with McMillan LLP of Vancouver, who co-wrote a guidebook called “Internet Law Essentials: Canada’s Anti-Spam Law.” But those who fail to meet the deadline won’t face immediate punishment, Aguilar said.

The fines can be enormous— up to $1,000,000 for individuals and up to ten times that amount for companies found in violation of the law.

Company directors can also be held personally liable for damages.

And despite the legislation’s name, it’s about more than just spam.

The law doesn’t define spam or mass messaging, but only refers to any message for a commercial purpose.

“It really appies to a broad range of communications,” Aguilar said.

Still, the law will be administered by the country’s telecom regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. And it has limited resources.

While anyone will be able to complain to the CRTC about spam via a website— http://fightspam.gc.ca—the regulator is expected to show flexibility as it sifts complaints, looking for the most egregious ones.

“They may potentially do warnings or education first and then move their way up to what’s an administrative monetary penalty,” said Aguilar.

And it helps, says the CRTC, if companies perform due dilligence by putting policies in place that are in line with the law.

Things may change in three years, however. That’s when what’s known as a “private right of action” kicks in, which would allow anyone to sue companies

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World News

JULY 4, 2014

FRIDAY 20

North Korea preparing to try 2 detained American tourists for committing ‘hostile acts’

BY ERIC TALMADGE The Associated Press TOKYO—North Korea said Monday it is preparing to try two Americans who entered the country as tourists for carrying out what it says were hostile acts against it.

Investigations into Americans Matthew Todd Miller and Jeffrey Edward Fowle concluded that suspicions about their hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their testimonies, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a short report.

KCNA said North Korea is making preparations to bring them before a court. It did not specify what the two did that was considered hostile or illegal, or what kind of punishment they might face. It also did not say when the trial would begin.

Though a small number of U.S. citizens visit North Korea each year as tourists, the State Department strongly advises against it.

Fowle arrived in the county on April 29. North Korea’s state media said in June that authorities were investigating him for committing acts inconsistent with the purpose of a tourist visit.

Diplomatic sources said Fowle was detained for leaving a Bible in his hotel room. But a spokesman for Fowle’s family

said the 56-year-old from Miamisburg, Ohio, was not on a mission for his church.

His wife and three children, ages 9, 10, and 12, said they miss him very much and “are anxious for his return home,” according to a statement after his detention that was provided by a spokesman for the family.

“It’s devastating,” Sergei Luzginov, a Fowle family friend who lives in North Port, Florida, said Monday. “We are praying for him. ... He loves his kids and he was very protective of his family, and it’s going to be tough for them to survive without Jeff if he’s going to be sentenced for a long time.”

Luzginov said he met the Fowle family in 2007 in Lebanon, Ohio’s Russian immigrant community. Both Luzginov and Fowle’s wife, Tatyana Fowle, 40, are Russian immigrants.

Fowle works in a city streets department.

Luzginov said Fowle’s family and friends are trying to be optimistic about the outcome of the case, “but at the same time, you know the track record that’s the (North) Korean government.”

KCNA said Miller, 24, entered the country April 10 with a tourist visa, but tore it up at the airport and shouted that he wanted to seek asylum. A large number of Western tourists visited Pyongyang in April to run

in the annual Pyongyang Marathon or attend related events.

Miller came at that time, but tour organizers say he was not planning to join the marathon.

North Korea has also been separately holding KoreanAmerican missionary Kenneth Bae since November 2012. He was convicted by a North Korean court and is serving 15 years of hard labour, also for what the North says were hostile acts against the state.

The latest arrests present a conundrum for Washington, which has no diplomatic ties with the North and no embassy in Pyongyang.

Instead, the Swedish Embassy takes responsibility for U.S. consular affairs in the North.

State Department officials say they cannot release details about the cases because they need a privacy waiver to do so.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. was aware of the reports the Americans would be tried, but had no independent confirmation. She urged North Korea to release the pair on humanitarian grounds.

“There’s no greater priority for us than the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad,” Psaki told reporters in Washington.

She said Swedish diplomats visited Fowle on June 20 and Miller most recently on June 21.

Despite the Americans hav-

Though a small number of U.S. citizens visit North Korea each year as tourists, the State Department strongly advises against it.

PHOTO BY ASTRELOK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

ing agreed to a privacy waiver, Psaki said the department would not describe the charges they are facing or provide other information on their cases.

Pyongyang has been strongly pushing tourism lately in an effort to bring in foreign cash.

The tourism push has been directed at Chinese, who by far are the most common visitors to the North, but the still small number of Western tourists to North Korea has been growing.

Despite its efforts to bring in more tourists, the North remains highly sensitive to any actions it considers political and is particularly wary of anything it deems to be Christian proselytizing.

After Miller’s detention, Washington updated its travel warning to the North to note that over the past 18 months, “North Korea detained several

U.S. citizens who were part of organized tours. Do not assume that joining a group tour or use of a tour guide will prevent your arrest or detention by North Korean authorities.”

It added that efforts by private tour operators to prevent or resolve past detentions of U.S. citizens have not succeeded in gaining their release.

The Korean Peninsula is still in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea. ■ Associated Press writers Hyungjin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati, Ohio; and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report. Talmadge is the AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief.

President says China will never seek regional hegemony as he hosts leaders of India, Myanmar The Associated Press

Chinese President Xi Jinping.

PHOTO FROM NPR.ORG

BEIJING—Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday his country will never seek hegemony no matter how strong it becomes, even as his neighbours worry about Beijing’s actions in several territorial disputes.

Xi made the comments as he hosted leaders of India and Myanmar to commemorate 60 years since their countries agreed to principles of peaceful coexistence.

At the same time, China is www.canadianinquirer.net

quarreling with several neighbouring countries, including India, over territory and is challenging U.S. power in the region. In November, China declared an air defence identification zone over much of the East China Sea, where it is disputing several islands with Japan.

Tensions also flared up with Vietnam after China deployed oil rigs in waters claimed by both countries, and with the Philippines, where Beijing has asserted its sovereignty in the South China Sea close to Philippine shore.

However, Xi, Myanmar President Thein Sein and Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari pledged to work to preserve regional peace.

Xi also called for “a new architecture of Asia-Pacific security.”

He has said previously that such a security arrangement would include Russia and Iran and exclude the United States.

While the U.S. is not a claimant itself, it says it has a national interest in sustaining open navigation and trade through the strategic waters in the South and East China seas. ■

World News

21 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

White House: House chief won’t set immigration vote this year; Obama pursues changes on own

BY JIM KUHNHENN AND ERICA WERNER The Associated Press WASHINGTON —President Barack Obama will act on his own to make changes in immigration policy as Congress is not expected to move on the issue this year, a White House official said Monday. Obama is expected to refocus immigration enforcement away from the country’s interior and onto a Mexican border that has seen a tide of children crossing illegally from Central America, the official said.

This official said Obama decided to bypass Congress after House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner informed him last week that the chamber would not vote on an immigration overhaul this year.

Obama was expected to address the status of immigration policy later Monday.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans ahead of Obama’s remarks.

Obama’s decision effectively declares that a broad-based change in immigration policy is dead for the year, and perhaps for the remainder of his administration. Changing immigration laws and providing a path to citizenship for about 11 million immigrants in the country illegally has been one Obama’s top priorities as he sought to conclude his presidency with major second-term victory.

Obama’s ability to undertake changes on his own is limited.

He is instructing Homeland Security Department Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to present him with executive actions he can take without congressional approval by the end of the summer.

The Border Patrol in south Texas has been overwhelmed for several months by an influx of unaccompanied children and parents travelling with young children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Unlike Mexican immigrants arrested after entering the U.S. illegally,

those from Central America cannot be as easily returned to their countries. Obama is seeking authority to act more quickly.

The Border Patrol has apprehended more than 52,000 child immigrants travelling on their own since October.

In responding to the influx of unaccompanied children, Obama plans to concentrate immigration resources on the border areas. The move will effectively further reduce the number of deportations in the country’s interior by stressing enforcement action on individuals who are either recent

unlawful border crossers or who present a national security, public safety, or border security threat.

The decision coincides with a White House request to Congress for new powers to deport newly arrived immigrant children travelling without their parents.

Immigrant advocacy groups immediately criticized the administration’s decision on child border crossers.

“President Obama is asking Congress to change the law to enable the government to inflict expedited removal on unaccompanied children. That is simply unconscionable,” said Leslie A. Holman, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “No matter what you call it, rapid deportations without any meaningful hearing for children who are rightly afraid of the violence and turmoil from which they fled is wrong, and contradicts the fundamental values of this nation.”

Under current law, children arriving at the border from Central America have a right to an immigration hearing before a judge, but under Obama’s proposed changes, which must be approved by Congress, that would no longer be automatic and instead the kids would have to make their case to a Border Patrol agent, advocates said.

Obama’s actions represent a delicate balancing act between responding to what the White House has called a “humanitarian crisis” over unaccompanied children and a demand from immigration activists to reduce the administration’s record number of deportations.

Deportations have spiked under the Obama administration to a total of around 2 million so far—the same number removed during the full eight years of the George W. Bush administration. At the same time, formal removals from the interior have decreased each year of the Obama administration, while the number of deportations from the border has increased.

The Obama administration also has taken steps already to focus deportations on people with more serious criminal records or those who pose a threat. But this approach, while harshly criticized by Republicans, never succeeded in calming concerns in immigrant communities about how deportations are conducted.

Obama on Monday was dropping by a meeting at the White House among immigration overhaul advocates and Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Many of those advocates reacted harshly to Obama’s plan Monday to seek emergency money from Congress that would, among other things, help conduct “an aggressive deterrence strategy focused on the removal and repatriation of recent border crossers.”

Obama, in a letter to congressional leaders, also is asking for increased penalties for persons who smuggle immigrants who are vulnerable, such as children. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Huge crowd expected for Hong Kong democracy rally in show of anger over China’s limits on vote

BY KELVIN CHAN The Associated Press HONG KONG—An annual protest march in Hong Kong is expected to draw three times as many people as usual, angered

by Beijing’s insistence on limiting residents’ say in picking the southern Chinese financial hub’s next leader.

Organizers expect at least 150,000 people to take to the streets Tuesday to show their support for democratic reform and oppose Beijing’s desire to have the final word on candidates for the chief executive’s job.

The rally comes days after nearly 800,000 people voted in an unofficial referendum aimed at bolstering support for universal suffrage.

The standoff over Hong Kong’s electoral reform has sent political tensions soaring and alarmed Beijing, which denounced the poll as illegal. An editorial Monday in China’s state-run nationalist newspaper Global Times, known for its bombastic rhetoric, warned Hong Kongers to stay away from the July 1 demonstration—an annual fixture for more than a decade.

“Hong Kong’s radical opposition forces are trying with all means to build a war chariot and get as many Hong Kong citizens as possible onto this chariot by deception. Its crashing target is the central government and all the people of the country,” the newspaper said, urging residents “not to board this war chariot.”

The protest falls on a public holiday marking Hong Kong’s return to mainland China’s control on July 1, 1997, after more than a century of British rule.

It has traditionally been an occasion for residents to air complaints over a range of grievances, but this year a central theme is unhappiness over stunted democratic development.

Beijing has pledged that in 2017 Hong Kongers will be able

to elect their leader but insists candidates must be vetted by a Beijing-friendly committee like the one that until now has handpicked all post-colonial leaders.

The central government sparked a huge backlash when it released a policy statement earlier this month stating that Hong Kong’s autonomy is subject to Beijing’s authorization and the leader must be patriotic to China, adding to unease about the mainland’s growing influence.

“Hong Kong people are ready for true democracy without any pre-screening, that’s the key message” of the rally, said Edward Chin, leader of a group of banking and finance workers backing the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement that organized the unofficial democracy referendum. “This is a strong signal to Beijing that Hong Kong people can express their views in a nonviolent way.”

To pressure authorities on democratic reform, Occupy Central plans to freeze the city’s financial district with a sit-in involving at least 10,000 people.

That has worried the corporate community. The world’s four top auditing firms—KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and Ernst & Young— took out a newspaper ad Friday warning that the plan would drive businesses away from the Asian financial hub. But some employees fired back Monday with an ad of their own saying the statement “doesn’t represent our stance.” It was signed: “A group of Big Four employees who love Hong Kong.”

Increasing polarization has also unsettled Asia’s richest person, Li Ka-shing, who said in a speech Friday to university graduates that worries about “widening inequality in wealth and opportunities” and “welfare dependence” have left him “sleepless in Hong Kong.” ■ Associated Press writer Didi Tang in Beijing contributed to this report.

Immigration

JULY 4, 2014

FRIDAY 22

Trudeau calls Tory handling of TFW file the most ‘anti Alberta’ policy in years

BY LEE-ANNE GOODMAN The Canadian Press OTTAWA—Justin Trudeau is describing the Conservative government’s embattled temporary foreign worker program as “one of the most anti-Alberta federal policies we’ve seen in decades.”

The Liberal leader made the remarks this week in Fort McMurray while campaigning in advance of Monday’s byelection in the heart of oilsands country with candidate Kyle Harrietha.

The comment invites comparisons to Pierre Trudeau’s national energy program, a policy still reviled by Albertans 34 years after it sought to distribute the province’s oil wealth to poorer parts of the country.

In the past, Trudeau has taken pains to distance himself from his father’s energy policies.

On Wednesday, he accused the Tories of mishandling the temporary foreign workers file for so long that “they’re now putting in caps that are going to hurt people in Fort McMurray,” a community with low unemployment and a booming economy.

“Bringing in blanket changes the way they have has even got some of the local Conservatives very, very uncomfortable with the way the government has mishandled this file.”

The Conservatives mocked Trudeau’s comments, noting he voted in favour of an NDP motion for a moratorium on the entire low-skilled temporary foreign worker stream in April in the House of Commons.

“I’m getting whiplash trying to follow the shambolic Liberal policy on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program,” Employment Minister Jason Kenney tweeted.

Kenney spokeswoman Alexandra Fortier said wages in the food services sector in Alberta have not kept pace with other industries.

In Alberta, which has the highest number of temporary foreign workers in the country, median wages have gone up by 31 per cent since 2006 and inflation by 14 per cent, Fortier said in an email.

“However, in the food services sector, a leading user of the temporary foreign www.canadianinquirer.net

worker program, wages have only increased by eight per cent since 2006,” she said.

“These numbers clearly show that the temporary foreign worker program is no longer being used as it was intended to be used—as a last and limited resort to allow employers to bring foreign workers to Canada on a temporary basis to fill jobs for which qualified Canadians are not available.”

The new changes include a limit on the number of foreign workers that large- and medium-sized companies are permitted to hire, stiffer penalties for companies found to be violating the new rules and on-site audits and inspections to guard against abuses.

Nonetheless, Conservatives are raising alarm bells about last week’s overhaul unveiled by Kenney and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander. The three men who hope to become Alberta’s next premier, including front-runner Jim Prentice, say the reforms unduly punish the province.

MP Brian Storseth, who represents the nearby Westlock-St. Paul riding, said in a radio interview this week that employers rely on temporary foreign workers in northern Alberta. He adds there are simply no unemployed Canadians available to fill positions.

In a radio interview on Lac la Biche’s Big Dog 103.5, Storseth said he plans to write Kenney to ask that northern Alberta be exempted from the overhaul.

Trudeau’s defence of Alberta stands in contrast to remarks he made to a Quebec television station in 2010, well before he won the party’s leadership.

“Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda,” he told Les Francs-Tireurs in 2010.

“It doesn’t work.”

He added: “Certainly when we look at the great prime ministers of the 20th century, those that really stood the test of time, they were MPs from Quebec.

This country— Canada—it belongs to us.”

The comments emerged two years ago, as Trudeau was making a run for the Liberal leadership. He immediately apologized. ■

Immigration

23 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Canada welcomes over 2,200 new Canadians on Canada Day Approximately 130,000 new Canadian citizens so far in 2014 OTTAWA—On Canada Day, more than 2,200 new citizens from 138 countries were welcomed at 45 citizenship ceremonies across the country.

In his home town of Ajax, Ontario, Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister, Chris Alexander, was proud to welcome new Canadians at one of Canada Day’s many citizenship ceremonies.

Minister Alexander also reiterated how the Government of Canada is working to make the citizenship program more efficient–subsequently allowing more people to achieve their dream of becoming a Canadian citizen faster, and with all the exceptional privileges and responsibilities that come with being a citizen.

According to the minister, “On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like

to congratulate our newest citizens and welcome them to the Canadian family on this special day. Canada Day is a day to reflect upon what it means to be Canadian and to reaffirm our commitment to upholding Canadian values, which have their roots in democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law. It is a day to recognize both the rights and responsibilities of each and every Canadian.

Congratulations and Happy Canada Day!” On Canada’s birthday, and at all ceremonies throughout the year, Minister Alexander recognized the hard work, commitment and sacrifices of Canadians who have built and continue to shape a nation staunchly committed to democracy, prosperity and lawful peace.

Some facts immigration

on

Canadian

• Since 2006, Canada has enjoyed the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history, an average of a quarter million newcomers each year.

• The government’s recent changes to the Citizenship Act will further reduce citizenship processing times by streamlining the decision-making process. These changes will bring the average processing time for citizenship applications down to under one year, with the current backlog reduced by more than 80 percent by the end of 2015-2016.

• For new Canadians, the citizenship ceremony marks their formal entry into the Canadian family. A citizenship ceremony is a unique part of Canadian civic life. It is one of the formal occasions when we reflect on

THE ELISCUPIDES FAMILY during their oath taking ceremony earlier this year.

(L-R) Joy, Kaela, the citizenship judge, Gaby, Louie, and a member of the RCMP. PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOY ELISCUPIDES

the rights, responsibilities and exceptional privilege of being a Canadian citizen.

• Since 2006, Canada has welcomed over 1,300,000 proud new Canadians. ■

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FRIDAY 24

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Every week, the Philippine Canadian Inquirer celebrates the unwavering Filipino spirit through a feature called “Filipino-Canadian in Focus.”

The feature recognizes the achievements of Filipinos living in Canada who have shown concern for the community, success in spite of trials, and the uniquely Pinoy practice of “bayanihan.”

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www.canadianinquirer.net

25 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

GLOBAL FILIPINO:

Not just glitz and glamour: The different chapters in top model Jodilly Pendre’s life

BY THESSA SANDOVAL Philippine Canadian Inquirer IT WAS the last night of fashion week and Jodilly Pendre stepped out in a beautiful blue gown made by Francis Libiran. The audience was quiet in amazement, waiting for her next step. She walked the runway like she owned it. When she gracefully turned, people started clapping. “I really want to show the world how incredible Filipinos are,” said the young model before the show began.

That night, she wowed everyone.

For this Asia’s Next Top Model (AsNTM) runner-up, going global is not an option. It is a goal. She has been in Canada for a few days now. She has been flown to Toronto for Canada Philippine Fashion Week, but is extending her stay to look for and walk into modeling agencies and to also visit her lola (grandmother) and other relatives in Mississauga, whom she has not seen for many years.

The days before she came to Canada were stressful according to her. It was only a few days before her flight when she got her visa and five hours before her departure when she obtained her plane ticket. She has also been feeling a bit under the weather because of her jet lag and fever, but Jodilly said there is nothing to complain about.

No matter how she feels, the moment she steps out on the runway, she turns her “supermodel mode” on. “Fashion is my transportation to greater places and greater things. The way for me to give back to them [sponsors, supporters and fans] is to give them great performance,” said the young top model.

(L-R) Ria Bolivar, Jodilly Pendre (Asia's Next Top Model runner-up 2014), Ron Clarin (Lexus Downtown Toronto), Venus Raj (Binibining Pilipinas 2010), Jasmine Maierhofer.

Jodilly in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Jodilly at the Canada Philippine Fashion Week PHOTO FROM JODILLY PENDRE'S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT

Jodilly’s turning point

The 5’10 Filipina model had really gone a long way after winning first runner-up in the second cycle of Asia’s Next Top Model. She was called the “levitating princess” during the show (because of one photo in which she looked like she was floating in midair), but Jody showed the world there were more she could do than to levitate. With multiple fashion shows and campaigns lined up for her, she is soaring high.

However, Jodilly said she didn’t originally plan to be a model.

“I wasn’t really into modeling.

When I was in high school, I was a volleyball player. I was part of the Philippine Volleyball Team.” That was her life back

then; she went to school from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then to her volleyball training from 5 till 10 p.m. Until one day, a sad event altered her future forever.

“Before graduating high school, my father died. Walang magpapaaral sa’kin kasi my mom is unemployed.” (Before graduating high school, my father died.

My mom is unemployed, so she couldn’t support my studies.)

She didn’t get any support from her siblings either. Despite the circumstances in her life, Jodilly worked hard to be a top student.

“Naging salutatorian ako because of my dad. Noong high school ako, sabi niya, gusto ko pagdating mo ng high school malaki ‘yong medal mo, so nagtanong-tanong ako kung paano makakakuha ng

PHOTOS BY SOLON LICAS

malaking medal. Sabi nila valedictorian at salutatorian lang daw.” (I graduated as salutatorian because of my dad. He told me that he wanted me to get a big medal in high school, so I asked others how I could get one. They said the only way was to graduate as valedictorian or salutatorian.) If her dad had not died before graduation, Jodilly said she would have gotten the gold and graduated first in her class. She was happy and grateful, though, that she graduated as salutatorian because it gave her the opportunity to apply for an academic scholarship, which took care of half of her tuition fee for college.

Since she still needed money to pay the rest of her tuition fee,

Jodilly had no choice but to find work. “Dapat magpa-part time call center agent ako, but then God gave me the right people.”

(Supposedly, I was to apply as a part-time call center agent, but then God gave me the right people.) One of the people she was referring to was her high school best friend Yvette Corral, who joined the modeling world before her. Yvette then introduced her to Julius Uy, a modeling agent. At first, Jodilly was hesitant if she could really model. For her, models are always glamorous and well madeup. She knew she wasn’t that kind of person, but again, she had no other choice at the time.

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UP TO $1000* OFF TUITION QUOTE PCI CODE 100 IF YOU START YOUR PROGRAM BEFORE JULY 31st, 2014. *conditions apply www.canadianinquirer.net

CALL 310.HIRE OR VISIT SPROTTSHAW.COM

❱❱ PAGE 39 Not just

Seen & Scenes - Vancouver

PAGDIRIWANG

Minister of Justice and Attorney General of British Columbia Suzanne Anton and Minister of International Trade and Minister Responsible for Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism Teresa Wat are long-time supporters of Richmond’s Pagdiriwang.

JULY 4, 2014

FRIDAY 26

ANCOP RAISES FUNDS FOR POOR

Part of the crowd that attended the Ancop cocktail reception on June 23, at the Metrotown Community Centre in Burnaby.

Lupang Hinirang sang by Anezka Alvarez.

Rene Garrucho, coordinator for Ancop (Answering the Cry of the Poor) Vancouver, briefs the crowd on the background, projects and forthcoming activities of Ancop, including the Ancop Walk 2014 on August 24.

Minister Wat tries the Tinikling dance to the audience’s delight.

Ancop volunteers relate their experiences building houses and assisting in communities in the Philippines.

Richmond City officials led by Councillor Bill McNulty and guests pose for a group photo after the Santacruzan parade in Lansdowne Mall.

DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL HELD IN VANCOUVER

TEAM JOJO KICKS OFF SUMMER ACTIVITY Paddlers and volunteer send offs begin at Granville Island Brewing Beer Garden.

For photo submissions, please email info@canadianinquirer.net.

Team Jojo’s political campaign kicks off its summer activity with a community building BBQ picnic at Trout Lake. Jojo Quimpo is seeking the Conservative Party’s nomination as MP for Vancouver-Kingsway riding.

Photos from Jojo Quimpo’s FB

www.canadianinquirer.net

Seen & Scenes - Toronto

27 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

SENATOR ENVERGA ANNOUNCES AID FOR PH Senator Tobias Enverga Jr., on behalf of the Hon. Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, announced on June 28, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre an allocation of funds to support families affected by conflict in the Philippines.

RIZAL BUST AT THE EARL BALES PARK National hero Jose Rizal inspired the revolutionary movement in the Philippines.

SENATOR ENVERGA MEETS LIONS CLUB EXEC

CROWD GOES WILD AT ONE KAPAMILYA GO (Clockwise, from top left): TFC 20 Ambassador Gary V reaches out to adoring fans; Long lines filled the activity booths at the TFC Pavilion; matinee idol Xian Lim serenades the crowd; Tart Carlos and Vivieka Ravanes played game show hosts for the Celebrity Bingo; Everyone went wild and wacky for The Legal Wife Royal Rumble Acting Game with Angel Locsin, Maja Salvador, Tart Carlos, Vivieka Ravanes and contestants; Dance King Enrique Gil wowed everyone with his energetic numbers; Filipinos packed Ricoh Coliseum for the main show; At the PAL Raffle Draw are from left, Vivieka Ravanes, winner Rosalie Siaga, ABS-CBN North America Managing Director Olivia De Jesus, ABS-CBN Global Sales & Distribution Head Marco Amoranto & Tart Carlos; Crowd goes wild at the Celebrity Bingo; Superstar Vice Ganda had the crowd in stitches with his hilarious interactions with two game audience members. Photos by NMFernandez/TFC

Emmanuel “Manny” Yanga (R), founding president of the Toronto Kapuso Lions Club and the Knights of Rizal Scarborough Chapter Commander, met Filipino-Canadian Senator Tobias C. Enverga, Jr. Yanga is running for trustee in Ward 7 of the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Dindo Orbeso, St. Jamestown News Service, Photo By Philip Rafanan

Left: Blessing by Rev. Fr. Ben Ebcas.

Below: Consul General Junever and Sir John West with guests.

TORONTO CONSULATE MARKS PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE Consul General Junever Mahilum-West and Sir John West invited Filipino-Canadians to the Consulate Office at Eglinton East on June 12, to celebrate Philippine Independence Day. Friends from Filipino organizations and businesses joined in the celebration.

Left: Consul General Junever Mahilum-West showing Fr. Ben Ebcas and Rafael Nebres the PAG Art Exhibit in the Consulate Office.

The painting of a guava fruit on the wall is a painting by Lady Junever. www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

28

Supercharge Your Health “B” is for Balance

BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer I AM not the type of person who goes with fads, trends, or thisand-that latest craze. Never have been, never will be.

I choose, instead, to blaze my own trail, and hope that I don’t burn anything down, in the process.

Like the time I decided to go vegetarian.

It was Manila, 1991, and vegetarianism was virtually unheard of. In a city of fried pork loving people, I may as well have said I was Santa Claus.

“You’re WHAT???” Vegetarian. “ WHAAAAAAAAAAAT???”

VEGETARIAN!!! This was the usual back and forth between me and some bug-eyed incredulous person, and it would normally end with me walking away in frustration, and they raising their hands in surrender. And disbelief. With a hint of confusion.

My veg days stretched on for 21 years, including 9 years of going vegan.

Until one day, on assignment for a travel magazine (the publishers of which would usually call the resort beforehand to explain—more accurately, apologize for—my dietary restrictions), it all came to a grinding halt.

The Executive Chef, a big and burly Austrian fellow, had prepared a four-course meal for me to sample. As each dish was served, I grew more and more suspicious that the call from my publishers had not been made, this time around— each dish somehow had a smidgen of meat. Third dish comes around, the pièce de résistance, presented by no less by big and burly Austrian himself. “And now,” he said with flourish, “for my ‘SPECIAAAALITY! MOROCCAN LAMB SHANK!” My heart sank lower than the restaurant’s Grecian-inspired tiled floor. What was obviously intended to be a big

“TAH-DAH!!!” moment was a huge “OH NOOOOOOO!” moment, for me. I felt I would pass out, from panic. My daughter (who was allowed to tag along) kicked me several times underneath the table; eyes wide with alarm, thought bubble reading: “MAMA!!! What now???”

Well. What choice did I have?

I timidly took a tiny-ish piece, with the excuse that I was already stuffed from the previous courses. Of course, big and burly Austrian would not have it. “No, no no! THIS is how you eat it!”, dumping a huge piece onto my plate, then drowning it in lamb drippings.

Next day, on the 8-hour drive back to Manila, I was all shades of green; as I lay on my daughter’s lap. It was not a pretty sight at all. I knew then that I had to adjust. Between that experience—and being called into my publisher’s office for the whole “You know, we are having a hard time sending you out and now you have to choose…” speech—I knew one thing had to give. My lifestyle /diet of choice, or my travel writing.

I decided I was not yet ready to give up traveling, so…

I have since gone back to meat-eating, slowly re-integrating it back into my diet, but still eat heaping amounts of veggies and fruits, with much smaller amounts of animal anything.

And this is how I have found a balance between career, and personal life choices; such as diet. I’d like to think it has made me more stable, in all aspects.

Yin and yang, I suppose. Balance. One of the most basic building blocks of a healthy, happy life.

A balancing act

Beyond this-and-that latest craze, balance should be the ultimate goal. A holistic kind of health which permeates spirit, soul and body. Finding balance is vital to health, and to happiness.

As American writer and

mystic, Thomas Merton said: ““Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”

In today’s world, balance is often as elusive as Wonderland’s White Rabbit, leaving us wondering where it has gone and why it is seemingly beyond our grasp. Daily life, as hurried, high-pressure and harassed as it generally is, can leave you feeling exhausted, frustrated, anxious, stressed out, depressed, unfulfilled, and unhappy. And, needless to say, but I will say it anyway, these all take a toll on your health. Many “modern-day illnesses “are borne of these negative conditions: panic and stress-related disorders, depression, insomnia, fatigue, to name a few.

Finding balance; CREATING it in your life, is a must, for a healthier and happier you.

Inside and out

The aspects of our life that require balance can—according to Harvard-trained cardiologist, internist, health advocate and author, Dr. Cynthia Thaik— be divided into the internal and the external.

“Internally, you need to find a balance for your mind, heart, soul, and health. Externally, you need to balance your work, social life, family, friends, and hobbies,” she says.

So here’s the key to finding balance, in a nutshell: we must pay attention and nurture each aspect of our lives in as equal amounts as possible.

For instance, feed your mind by making sure to devote some time daily to reading (my personal goal is one book a month, at least), or working on word puzzles and brain activities— that sort of thing.

Commit to exercise and a healthy, natural as possible diet, to keep your body in shape.

Take time to meditate, pray, commune with your spirit.

Take on a interesting and enjoyable pastime, as well—something you enjoy doing.

Appreciate the little things in life. Maintain a thankful heart.

Connect with family and friends as often as you can. Maintain a healthy social life and communication with the people who matter most to you. I personally look forward to spending time with my daughter, movie dates or brunch dates with my dearest of friends, and such.

These are just some things you can do to create balance in all aspects of your life. I find that mapping it out—making a schedule and keeping to it—is an effective way for me to stay on track.

Tips to creating balance

To expound on some of the points mentioned above, here are some useful tips to help create balance in your life, as detailed on the Essential Life Skills website: • Know yourself and how much rest, food and exercise you need to function at your best. There are many good books and websites that give great advice on diet and exercise. Decide what works best for you and implement it into your routine.

• Keep your mind alert and in shape. Try to learn a new piece of information each day. Read, and read some more. Converse with others; talk about new discoveries you made in the day, or events that transpired.

• Stay connected with family and friends. At the end of the day share with your spouse and children how the day went for

each of you. We lead busy lives but we should never be too busy to connect with and make at least one phone call to a parent, sibling or friend during the day.

• Do something spontaneous.

Our lives can be too regimented at times so it's a good idea to do something out of the ordinary every now and then.

• Make time for yourself. At the end of each day, take time to unwind and devote some time towards yourself.

Benefits of balance

In the process of creating balance in our lives, we often find that we are able to focus on all the important areas of our lives, and move away from the unnecessary stuff. This, in turn, helps to make our lives more meaningful and fulfilled.

When balance is created, and the important things are in focus, this allows us to overcome if and when negative things do happen—which they do, life being what it is.

Furthermore, establishing balance in your life will enable you to be more productive and successful— and make you a whole lot healthier and happier.

Dr. Thaik points out that: “Living in balance is very important and extremely rewarding because your life becomes more joyful, serene, and vibrant.”

Plus, it enables you to keep your job and eat your Moroccan lamb shank, too. Without offending big and burly Austrian chefs, or turning green, for that matter. ■

Supercharge Your Health

29 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Dangers of Detection: What you need to know about Mammography

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer WITH THE growing number of breast cancer patients every year, it is quite a relief to think that modern technology brought us an efficient tool to detect cancer traitors before they are given the power to “silently” kill.

In the United States alone, Breast Cancer.org found that about 1 in 8 U.S. women, roughly 12% are expected to develop invasive breast cancer in a lifetime span.

Last year, an estimated 232,340 new cases of breast cancer were expected to be diagnosed among U.S. women.

This figure does not include another 64,640 new cases of noninvasive breast cancer.

But what is more surprising behind these numbers is the fact that breast cancer is not only a growing case among women. Yes, the number of cases among men is growing too!

Also recorded last year, about 2,240 new invasive breast cancer cases were expected to be diagnosed in men.

Though breast cancer death rates keep decreasing every year since 1989, breast cancer is still among the top list of most commonly diagnosed cancer for American women.

What Mammography does

Using a low-dose x-ray imaging system which exposes a part of the body to a small dose of ionizing radiation, Mammography examines a patient by producing pictures of the inside of the breast.

The National Breast Cancer Organization defines it as an “x-ray that allows a qualified specialist to examine the breast tissue for any suspicious areas.

The breast is exposed to a small dose of iodizing radiation that produces an image of the breast tissue.”

Breast cancer is oftentimes referred as women’s “silent killer,” because cancer cells can

grow silently and painlessly inside without the person feeling or knowing it.

But thanks to mammograms, lumps or specks caused by cancer fatty cells or cyst-like conditions can already be detected without a person knowing or feeling the pain.

To easily remember the things to remember about mammograms, breastcancer. org simplifies it to five important points: 1. They can save your life.

Finding breast cancer early reduces your risk of dying from the disease by 25-30% or more.

Women should begin having mammograms yearly at age 40, or earlier if they're at high risk.

2. Don't be afraid. Mammography is a fast procedure (about 20 minutes), and discomfort is minimal for most women. The procedure is safe: there's only a very tiny amount of radiation exposure from a mammogram.

To relieve the anxiety of waiting for results, go to a center that will give you results before you

leave.

3. Get the best quality you can. If you have dense breasts or are under age 50, try to get a digital mammogram. A digital mammogram is recorded onto a computer so that doctors can enlarge certain sections to look at them more closely.

Other tips

• Bring your past mammogram films/results with you. If you’ve been to the same facility before, make sure your past results are available to whoever is reading the study.

• Once you find a facility you have confidence in, try to go there every year, so that your

mammograms can be compared from year to year.

• Have more than one radiologist read your study, if your insurance covers this.

• Ask if your center has CAD— computer-aided detection—a tool that assists the radiologist in finding any areas of concern that need further attention. ❱❱ PAGE 31 Dangers of

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Supercharge Your Health

JULY 4, 2014

FRIDAY 30

Gluten-free information: Basic things you need to know before switching to a GF diet

BY THESSA SANDOVAL Philippine Canadian Inquirer

BY NOW, you have likely seen an explosion of products labeled “gluten-free” in grocery stores and also gluten-free recipes on the Internet. It is probably starting to make you curious. Is it a new kind of diet? Should everyone switch to a gluten-free diet to be healthier? Or is it just another diet fad? To get educated about it and to know if it’s the right kind of diet for you, here are the basic things you need to know: ‘Gluten’ defined

Gluten (Latin word for “glue”) is a protein composite found in wheat and other cereal grains.

It gives elasticity to bread, helping it rise and keep its shape.

Gluten is composed of two proteins, namely glutenin and gliadin, which cause inflammation in the small intestines of people with celiac disease.

What is celiac disease?

According to the Canadian Celiac Association, “Celiac disease is a medical condition in which the absorptive surface of the small intestine is damaged by gluten.” This inherited autoimmune disease leads to reduced absorption of important nutrients needed to maintain good health, which include Calcium, Iron, Vitamins A, D, E, K and Folate. Health Canada says that, “As many as 300,000 Canadians could have this disease; however, many remain undiagnosed.”

How do I know if I have the disease?

To know whether you have the disease or not, you can get yourself tested through a blood screening test. If the blood test result is positive, then a biopsy of the small intestine will be performed to confirm inflammation. It is important to get tested before making the switch to a new diet since a gluten-

PHOTO BY CHAMELEONSEYE / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

free diet can be frustrating, as it requires you to completely remove wheat and many whole grain foods from your diet and to constantly pay close attention to what you’re eating. It is also more expensive.

The gluten-free (GF) diet

It is necessary for individuals diagnosed with celiac disease to stick to a gluten-free diet for the remainder of their lives to live healthier and to avoid illness.

Those who do not have celiac disease, but have wheat allergies or gluten intolerance can also

opt for gluten-free food, as eating food containing gluten can cause bloating, diarrhea, and flatulence.

If you do not have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, you have the right to go glutenfree by all means, but there are things you need to know first.

There has been no scientific evidence yet that proves that going gluten-free is indeed healthier. In an article written by registered dietitian Tanya Zuckerbot for Prevention.com, she said that, “A food billed as ‘gluten-free’ isn't necessarily healthier. Gluten-free products can be high in calories, fat, and carbohydrates, and some people who go gluten-free actually gain weight.” You may also be at risk for nutritional deficiencies because a GF diet means removing grains, the largest food category, from your meals.

Here is a list of gluten-free foods from Mayo Clinic: • Beans, seeds, nuts in their

TIPID TAWAG

6

natural, unprocessed form • Fresh eggs • Fresh meats, fish and poultry (not breaded, batter-coated or marinated) • Fruits and vegetables • Most dairy products • Amaranth • Arrowroot • Buckwheat • Corn and cornmeal • Flax • Gluten-free flours (rice, soy, corn, potato, bean) • Hominy (corn) • Millet • Quinoa • Rice • Sorghum • Soy • Tapioca • Teff If you are really decided to try a GF diet, just make sure to still maintain a well-balanced daily diet. It is also advisable to consult a doctor and a dietitian, who can provide you with a list of alternatives. ■

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Supercharge Your Health

31 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Dangers of...

• If you’ve been referred for a mammogram because of a suspicious lump or a finding on another test, make sure your doctor includes a detailed note as to why the mammogram has been ordered. For example, if the doctor felt a lump in the upper portion of the breast, closer to the underarm, the note might say, “palpable mass in the upper outer quadrant, left breast, rule out abnormality.” Be prepared to talk about previous unusual findings or symptoms with the technologist who performs the mammogram.

• Work with your doctor to compare your mammogram results with any other tests you may have had done, such as ultrasound or MRI. • On the day of the exam, wear a skirt or pants, rather than a dress, since you’ll need to remove your top for the test.

Don’t wear deodorant or antiperspirant, since these can show up on the film and interfere with the test results.

• Avoid scheduling your mammogram at a time when your breasts are swollen or tender, such as right before your period.

• Discuss your family history of breast and other cancers—from both your mother's AND father’s side—with your doctor. ❰❰ 29

• If you don’t receive any results within 30 days, call your doctor or testing facility to ask for the results.

4. Mammography is our most powerful breast cancer detection tool. However, mammograms can still miss 20% of breast cancers that are simply not visible using this technique. Other important tools—such as breast self-exam, clinical breast examination, and possibly ultrasound or MRI—can and should be used as complementary tools, but there are no substitutes or replacements for a mammogram.

5. An unusual result requiring further testing does not always mean you have breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, about 10% of women (1 in 10) who have a mammogram will require more tests. Only 8-10% of these women will need a biopsy, and about 80% of these biopsies will turn out not to be cancer. It’s normal to worry if you get called back for more testing, but try not to assume the worst until you have more information.

Dangers of Mammography

Though organizations such as the Breastcancer.org, and the American Cancer Society, are still confident about

the power of mammograms in cancer detection, several studies have found risks in the use of mammography.

As cited by Samuel S. Epstein, cancer prevention expert and Prof. emeritus at University of IL School of Public Health in Chicago, the practice of “taking two films annually for each breast results in approximately 0.5 rad (radiation absorbed dose) exposure.” He said that the amount is 500 times higher than the normal chest X-ray and 25 times higher than the allowed dose by the Environmental Protection Agency for wholebody radiation from local nuclear industries (0.02 rad).

The National Academy of Sciences, as early as 1972 has also found that premenopausal breasts are highly sensitive to the risks of cancer from mammography.

The U.S. Preventive Task Force supported by the National Breast Cancer Coalition, warned in 2009 against routine premenopausal mammography and recommended in a summary released in November 2009, that: • The USPSTF recommends biennial screening mammography for women aged 50 to 74 years.

• The decision to start regular, bien-

Head’s up: Woman takes smartphone selfie video to show doctors stroke symptoms

BY SHERYL UBELACKER The Canadian Press TORONTO—It may be the most unusual—and quick-thinking—use of a smartphone selfie yet.

When Stacey Yepes lost all feeling on her left side while driving home after running some post-work errands, she grabbed her phone and videotaped herself to show doctors what had been happening to her.

The video shows Yepes (pronounced JEP-ess) describing her symptoms: the left side of her face is drooping and her speech is slurred; she says she cannot move her left arm or leg.

It was not the first time she had experienced such a frightening loss of function.

A day earlier, Yepes had been in her Thornhill, Ont., condo watching TV after work when suddenly she lost feeling in her entire left side and she couldn’t lift her limbs.

“And just as that was happening, my phone rang, so I had answered the phone, and my roommate was calling and ... had said, ‘Why are you talking funny?’” recalled Yepes, 49.

“And as I’m speaking, I can hear my slurred speech and the feeling inside of my face, all frozen.”

Even though the symptoms dissipated in about 10 minutes, Yepes decided to go to the emergency department of a nearby hospital.

“I was scared. I kept thinking as I could hear myself speaking of all the (public service) announcements on the TV,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is a stroke.’”

But at the hospital, following a round of tests, the doctor told the divorced legal secretary her symptoms were the result of stress, which she should learn to manage more effectively.

As she was leaving the hospital three hours later, Yepes felt the numbness coming back. “And I stood there and I said, ‘OK, this isn’t stress.’ I knew it wasn’t, but I thought I had just been diagnosed. What am I going to do?”

The next day, she went to work and was fine all day, until the episode while driving that prompted her to pull over and whip out her smartphone. ❱❱ PAGE 35 Head's up

www.canadianinquirer.net

nial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient's values regarding specific benefits and harms.

• The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of screening mammography in women 75 years or older.

• The USPSTF recommends against teaching breast self-examination (BSE).

• The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of clinical breast examination (CBE) beyond screening mammography in women 40 years or older.

• The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of either digital mammography or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instead of film mammography as screening modalities for breast cancer.

Given these possible complications, it is still always advised that “prevention is always better than cure.” That is why, making a step to prevent breast cancer causes before detection, is always the first and the safest advisable thing to do. ■

Supercharge Your Health

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 32

High Prevalence of Chronic Hepatitis B – Silent Disease and Risk CHRONIC HEPATITIS B is one of the most common diseases among Asians, including Filipinos. Hepatitis B infection has a long incubation period and usually does not have any symptoms. If it is not diagnosed early, there is a very high chance of developing life-threatening liver diseases including liver cancer. The best way to prevent liver cancer is to get tested and monitored for Hepatitis B. Realizing that Hepatitis B and related liver diseases are a serious health issues in Canada, the government of British Columbia and the Vancouver-based immigrant support organization, S.U.C.C.E.S.S., collaborated to deliver the Hepatitis B Public Education Program to raise the awareness and knowledge of this silent killer.

What is Hepatitis B

According to the World Health Organization, hepatitis is the inflammation of the liver, with viral infection as the most common cause of hepatitis. There are five main types of the hepatitis virus: A, B, C, D, and E. Not only have Hepatitis B and C infected hundreds of millions of people chronically, these two viruses are also the main causes of cirrhosis and liver cancer. Chronic Hepatitis B is very common among Asian populations including Filipinos. According to the Hepatology Society of the Philippines, approximately 7.3 million Filipinos are chronically infected with Hepatitis B. Although generally uncommon in Canada, Hepatitis B infection rates approach that of Asia in areas where there are large Asian communities, such as the British Columbia (B.C.) lower mainland. There is an estimated 60,000 Hepatitis B infected individuals in B.C. in which 70% of them are immigrants and among those, Filipino immigrants account for about 10%.

Hepatitis B transmits through contaminated blood, semen or other bodily fluids.

Another common route is from mother to infant during birth.

Other routes of transmission include contaminated blood products, unclean needles during medical procedures, and

intravenous drug. Hepatitis B may also pose a risk for health care professionals due to accidental needle injury during care for Hepatitis B infected individuals.

severely damaged and too late for effective treatment. Taking care of your liver through vaccination, regular monitoring and practicing of healthy behaviours save lives.

Acute VS Chronic Hepatitis B

Lack of Hepatitis B Awareness & Knowledge among Filipino Immigrants

Hepatitis B attacks the liver causing either acute or chronic Hepatitis B infection.

Acute Hepatitis B

The virus could have already been in your body for days, months, or years before you develop any symptoms, sickness or discomfort. Even more commonly, you will have the virus in your body without actually having any symptoms at all. During this time, the infected individuals are highly infectious and may unknowingly transmit the virus to others. Some of the severe symptoms during the acute hepatitis phase include: body fatigue, tiredness, fever, vomit and yellowness of eye and skin (jaundice). Most people require medical treatment and rest for several weeks or even months before returning to normal life and work. If your immune system is unable to clear the virus, you will develop chronic Hepatitis B. However, condition for some of these people may turn for the worse causing hepatic failure or even death.

Chronic Hepatitis B

Chronic Hepatitis B is the most common hepatitis and infected individuals may not have any symptoms at all. However, chronic hepatitis B is the main risk factor for liver diseases including liver cancer. A chronic carrier has 1-in-4 chance of developing liver diseases and liver cancer if the chronic Hepatitis B is not monitored regularly and properly treated. Furthermore, if left untreated, an individual with liver cancer has as low as only 10% chance of survival within the first 5 years of discovering the cancer. Compared to non-infected individuals, a chronic hepatitis B carrier has 100 times higher risk of developing liver cancer. Since chronic Hepatitis B have a long latency period and are often asymptomatic, a large proportion of chronic carriers aren’t even diagnosed until the liver is

Recognizing this devastating, yet overlooked, silent disease in our communities, S.U.C.C.E.S.S. worked with medical experts from the University of British Columbia and was successful at advocating for better Hepatitis B treatment policies in B.C. To further understand the needs and the depth of the Hepatitis B issue among Asians, S.U.C.C.E.S.S., again, collaborated with the B.C. Hepatitis Program and the Division of Gastroenterology of University of British Columbia in 2012 to conduct a Hepatitis B Awareness survey focusing on Asian communities in B.C. More than half of the Filipinos respondents had low awareness of the consequences of Hepatitis B infection, and were unaware that Hepatitis B was a leading cause of liver cancer. Furthermore, roughly 40% of the Filipino immigrants have not been tested and/or vaccinated for Hepatitis B, suggesting a large group of the Filipino community are at risk of Hepatitis B, as well as developing liver diseases including liver cancer. Other cultural barriers, such as stigma and costs, have also been reported preventing members of the Filipino community from getting tested for Hepatitis B. Finally, of those who identified themselves as Filipino and as chronic Hepatitis B carriers, 73% were not being treated by their doctors. This health burden on Filipino communities is likely due to the lack of systematic testing, vaccination, and culturally appropriate health education about Hepatitis B. Hepatitis B Public Education program

Recognizing S.U.C.C.E.S.S.’ previous advocacy work in Hepatitis B care and responding to the desperate need for accessible and cultural specific education on Hepatitis B for the Filipino communities in www.canadianinquirer.net

B.C., the Government of British Columbia has provided funding for the Hepatitis B Public Education Program. This program aims to improve Hepatitis B awareness, knowledge, and preventative practices, specifically the screening of Hepatitis B, as well as to provide resources to Hepatitis B infected individuals to manage their health.

By encouraging the Filipino community to take an active role in their health management and to get tested for Hepatitis B, this project hopes to prevent people from discovering liver diseases too late when the liver is severely damaged. Our Hepatitis B education curriculum incorporates scientifically research based evidence and was developed following consultation with people from various ethnic populations and medical professionals. Major themes of the curriculum are described below.

1) Some of the biggest transcultural barriers preventing the public from talking about Hepatitis B and having correct perception and knowledge of Hepatitis B and Canadian healthcare system include: inability to communicate in English; fear of social stigma; unaware that pre-landing medical examination does not specifically check for Hepatitis B infection or liver diseases; unaware that a healthy lifestyle may only be masking your chronic Hepatitis B as Hepatitis B is damaging your liver without you knowing.

Since Hepatitis B does not transmit to one another through casual contact, such as hugging, shaking hands or sharing food, Hepatitis B should not be a feared topic. It is important to keep in mind that majority of the infected Filipinos contracted the disease at birth or in early childhood. In Canada, as long as pregnant woman who is infected with Hepatitis B can be identified early before she gives birth to her baby, doctors can provide preventative measures to her baby during and shortly after birth to help prevent the baby from getting infected with Hepatitis B. 2) Even if you are indeed infected, you don’t have to panic.

In fact, more than 80% of people were tested for Hepatitis B because their family doctors, family members, and friends recommended it. You are not alone and you do not have to deal with Hepatitis B by yourself. Several translated materials and free vaccination or treatment options are also available to those who are eligible in B.C. Talk to your doctor about your risk of Hepatitis B and get tested for Hepatitis B. To make it easier, Dr. Jessica Chan, a family physician who is actively promoting Hepatitis B awareness among her patients, has suggested the following three questions that you can ask your doctor the next time you make an appointment. ❱❱ PAGE 35 High Prevalence

FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

33

Entertainment

Angel Locsin to fly as Darna Kim-Julia fight in the country’s ‘biggest movie’ scene in “Ikaw

Lamang” trends worldwide

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA—Angel Locsin will be flying again in a movie adaptation of “Darna,” dubbed as the country’s first in terms of scale.

“First time ito. First time ito sa buong history ng Pilipinas,” Locsin said referring to the scale of the movie.

Locsin first played the role, a Mars Ravelos’ creation, on GMA’s primetime series in 2005.

The actress confirmed on Thursday that she will be playing as “Darna” again in the Star Cinema-produced film which will be directed by Erik Matti.

“Naku, you have no idea kung gaano kalaki! Kasi kahit ako, nagulat, eh. Hindi niyo (Star Cinema) ‘yan sa akin sinasabi.

Sabi ko, ‘Sandali lang, ha. Ganito pala kalaki ito?’ As in, never ako naka-experience ng ganito kalaking project, o nakarinig man lang,” Locsin said.

[Oh, you have no idea how big (the film is). I, myself, was surprised. You (Star Cinema) never told me. I said, "wait, is it really this big?" As in, I never experienced a project as big as this, nor even heard one.]

Locsin said the film could elevate the standards of Philippine movie to match world class standards, something Filipinos can be proud of on a worldwide stage.

“Napakaganda noon para sa atin, ‘di ba, na meron tayong

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA—The controversial physical fight seen between the characters of Kim Chui and Julia Montes in “Ikaw Lamang” in the series aired on Wednesday became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter.

Isabel (Kim Chui) slapped Mona (Julia Montes) after the latter was offended of Mona’s accusation that she is carrying Samuel’s (Coco Martin) baby.

Mona, who got fired up with the slap, pushed Isabel in turn which started the heated confrontation.

Because of Isabel’s past relationship with Samuel, Mona is so convinced that Isabel has gone a long way in seducing her husband.

Their physical fight scene then ended with Samuel and the two wives’ respective families restraining them.

Netizens then turned to social networking sites including Twitter to voice out their reactions, which made Ikaw Lamang’s episode the most trending topics that night.

The show’s “#IkawLamangTheScandal,” the official hashtag of the episode eventually ranked among the global trending topics on the microblogging site. ■

Angel Locsin in the 2005 GMA network’s primetime series, “Darna.”

WIKIPEDIA PHOTO

ipapakita, mga bagong talentong ipapakita na ipagmamalaki nating mga Pilipino sa buong mundo, na makakagawa kayo ng ganitong klaseng pelikula,” she said.

[It's great that we Filipinos, have new talents to show and be proud of to the world, that we can create this kind of movie.]

She also commented on the Star Cinema’s “daring” visions for the film.

“Ang tapang! Ang tapang ng Star Cinema para gawin itong project na ‘to,” said Locsin. “And

ako, bilang napili nilang artista dito, sobrang… Hanggang ngayon, speechless talaga ako! Overwhelmed ako kung gaano kalaking proyekto, gaano kaganda, at kung gaano kagagaling ‘yung mga tao na kinuha nila behind ng camera.”

[Very brave! Star Cinema is very brave to be doing this project. Being chosen for this film, I feel really speechless. I am overwhelmed by how big this project is, by how beautiful and great the people behind the camera are.] ■

PHOTO FROM THE TV SERIES’ OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

Entertainment

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 34

Daniel Padilla, all set for free concert in Tacloban

BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer

PHOTO COURTESY OF ABS-CBN

Claudine posts how proud she is for Gretchen’s daughter

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA—After reports of engaging into a controversial fight with her sister, Gretchen, Claudine Barreto shocked her Instagram followers after posting pictures of Gretchen’s daughter, Dominique Conjuagco.

Claudine also posted how she was proud of Dominique, Gretchen’s daughter with businessman Tony Boy Cojuangco with the caption: “My Beautiful Niece!:) #proudtita #beautifulinsideout #kiligmuch.”

The same picture of Dominique with endorsers Sam Rodriguez and Addie Manzano was reported, moments later with a different caption saying:

“Im so Proud of u Dominique!:) u to me are the most Beautiful here:) #proudtita #Pretty&iluvher #ProudAunt #Kiligmuch:).”

Claudine was earlier reported to have accused Gretchen of being “heartless” and “liar” in her interview with “The Buzz.”

“Pakiusap ko kay Gretchen, (My request for Gretchen) any question about me, stop answering.

I don’t want to be affiliated with you because you are a shame to this family. I want you to stay away from me and my children. I want to know, at the end of the day Gretchen, ano ba ang goal mo? (what is your goal?) Up to where?

When are you going to stop?”

Despite their rift, Claudine was also earlier reported to have said that she is hoping that her nieces and nephew will not be involved in their family feud. ■

New-anti spam... for transmitting excessive or unwanted electronic messages.

“That’s the big fear (for businesses) at that point,” said Aguilar. “Right now it’s just the CRTC and I think they’re going to take a much more reasonable approach.”

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business warned earlier this month that most small businesses are not ready for the law.

The CFIB is telling its members to get consent from customers in an initial email message—even if they are existing clients—and then in subsequent messages as well, just to be on the safe side.

“I think this is going to be a pretty heavy-handed legislation,” CFIB vice-president Corinne Pohlmann said in a re❰❰ 19

MANILA—Daniel Padilla is setting his tough and edgy image aside to be a bringer of happiness. At least, this is what his mother had to say about the teen heartthrob’s upcoming free concert in Tacloban for the survivors of super typhoon “Yolanda,” which ravaged the province in November 2013.

“Plinano naming mag-ina ‘yung concert na ito para mapasaya namin ang mga kababayan namin and ito lahat galing sa aming dalawa lang talaga. Siyempre merong mga tumulong sa atin but this is a free concert para sa mga victims ng Yolanda all over Region 8 na gaganapin natin sa grandstand sa Tacloban City,” actress Karla Estrada, Padilla’s mother, said.

“Ang aim namin ay mapasaya sila, makalimutan nila sandali ‘yung kalungkutan na mawalan at maubusan ng pamilya,” she added, explaining that they want to entertain the people in Tacloban City so they could— even just for some moments— forget the hardships they are going through.

Padilla, in turn, said he made the concert a priority, clearing

Daniel Padilla.

PHOTO FROM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

his hectic schedule for it.

“Scheduled na ito dati pa and may oras naman sa ganitong mga events so napasok naman natin,” he said.

Padilla will also have his leading lady, Kathryn Bernardo, perform at the concert as his special guest.

This will be his first time back to Tacloban since Yolanda devastated the province.

“First time kong makakarat-

ing ng Tacloban after ng bagyo.

Siyempre nandun naman para magpasaya ng mga tao doon alam naman natin ang nangyari talagang nakakalungkot so doon tayo magbigay ng saya tsaka ng pag-asa para sa kanila,” he said.

Estrada invited everyone to attend the free concert this Saturday, 6 p.m., at the Leyte Sports Development Center in Tacloban City. ■

of the fear and concern that we heard would have been mitigated had there been an effective communication strategy in place prior to the changes and throughout the first year of the changes,” says the report.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney was unavailable for an interview.

A spokeswoman for Kenney said in an email that less than one per cent of disqualifications from the program were because of the new rules.

“Our changes to Employment Insurance did not change the rules around applying and qualifying for EI— they simply clarified long-standing requirements,” said Alexandra Fortier.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including more collaboration and better

communication between Ottawa and the premiers. It also says communication between Service Canada staff and EI claimants could be improved, noting that some staff members seemed uninformed of the new rules.

Some claimants also reported having trouble getting through to a toll-free support number, sometimes for days.

The report also calls on Ottawa to commit to providing data to the Atlantic provinces on the impact of the program changes. ■

Confusing EI... cent interview.

“It’s going to take a lot of time before many small businesses are even aware that they have some obligations under this legislation and the regulations that go along with it.”

The law prohibits any commercial electronic messages sent without the recipient’s permission, anything that results in an Internet user being sent to a different destination without their consent, and any installation of a software program without the consent of the owner of the computer.

It also outlaws the use of any false or misleading representations to promote products or services and the collection of email addresses obtained through the use of computer programs without consent, known as address harvesting. ■

workers to repatriate to the Atlantic provinces this is a concern.”

The federal government has said the changes to the Employment Insurance program were required as a result of unprecedented labour and skills shortages, and could save the public treasury $33 million this year.

The new rules have prompted numerous protests on the East Coast. The region’s premiers have repeatedly expressed concerns the changes will hurt seasonal industries and businesses in the four Atlantic provinces.

They’ve also blasted Ottawa for what they say was a lack of discussion over the revised program, something the report concluded would have made a difference.

“We believe that a great deal ❰❰ 18

www.canadianinquirer.net

Entertainment

35 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Head’s up...

Yepes is not sure how she had the cool-headedness to record her symptoms as they were occurring.

“I think it was just to show somebody because I knew it was not stress-related.

And I thought if I could show somebody what was happening, they would have a better understanding.”

She got herself to Mount Sinai Hospital in downtown Toronto, where an ER doctor said he believed she had been experiencing transient ischemic attacks, or TIAs, which are small but potentially serious strokes.

The physician referred her to the stroke unit at Toronto Western Hospital, where tests confirmed the diagnosis.

“We’ve never had a patient do this before,” Dr. Cheryl Jaigobin said of Yepes’ video selfie.

“And I guess for a patient who wanted someone to believe her symptoms were real, it was absolutely incredible,” said the stroke neurologist at the hospital’s Krembil Neuroscience Centre. “When we saw Stacey’s videotape, we were all touched by it and absolutely convinced that her deficits were clearly because of a mini stroke, or a TIA.” Jaigobin says Yepes’ mini strokes re❰❰ 31

sulted from a buildup of plaque in her arteries, a condition called atherosclerosis. A blood clot formed on the plaque, then blocked a small artery leading to one side of her brain, resulting in paralysis on the opposite side of her body.

Called an ischemic stroke, it is the most common type of stroke. Warning signs include loss of speech, slurring or an inability to form words; weakness or paralysis on one side of the body; double vision or loss of vision; balance problems; and pronounced dizziness, Jaigobin explained.

The other kind is known as a hemorrhagic stroke and results from bleeding somewhere in the brain; typically, the first warning sign is a sudden-onset headache, she said.

Risk factors for an ischemic stroke such as Yepes experienced include high blood pressure, diabetes and elevated cholesterol; longtime smokers are also at risk.

But not only older people can have a stroke—they can occur in young adults and even babies.

“Stroke can affect anyone at any age, and in fact studies are showing that younger people are presenting with stroke because things that we usually saw in older age, like high blood pressure and diabetes and high

cholesterol, in our modern North American society they tend to occur at a younger age,” said Jaigobin.

Anyone who experiences symptoms that might indicate a stroke should immediately call 911 and get to the hospital, she said, noting that ischemic strokes caused by a blocked artery can be treated with the clot-busting drug tPA, which needs to be administered within 4 1/2 hours to be effective. There are also other medications that can help reverse deficits accruing from a stroke and speed recovery in many cases.

Neurologists who specialize in stroke have a saying: “Time is brain,” meaning that the earlier the diagnosis is made and treatment started, the “more neurons we’re able to save,” she said.

Yepes, who has been off work but hopes to return in July, is participating in a stroke rehabilitation program and will continue to be monitored by Toronto Western’s TIA and Minor Stroke unit, or TAMS. As well as taking cholesterollowering and blood-thinning medications to prevent another mini stroke, she has revamped her lifestyle, eating a healthy diet and exercising daily.

“Thankfully, because I reacted so quickly, I am what they call a high-func-

High Prevalence...

• Am I already a Hepatitis B carrier, and if so, what is my Hepatitis B viral load in the last 6 months?

• What is my risk of getting liver cancer, and have I had an ultrasound within the last year to monitor for liver cancer?

• How often should I come and see the family doctor for Hepatitis B follow-up?

3) Testing of Hepatitis B, such as blood test and liver scan, are fast, safe, and effective at detecting Hepatitis B and liver diseases. Remember, Hepatitis B is preventable, treatable and manageable.

You can live healthily even if you are infected with Hepatitis B. Dr. Eric Yoshida, the Head of the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of British Columbia, has the following advice for chronic Hepatitis B carriers: • Talk to your doctor about Hepatitis B and visit your doctor regularly to monitor your disease status.

• Follow your doctor’s advice on treatment and management.

• Adhere to your treatment if you are given medication.

4) If someone is suspected to have Hepatitis B, family members and friends should be supportive and should not be afraid or ashamed to talk Hepatitis B. Mostly important, they should also get tested for Hepatitis B to prevent getting infected and to manage their own health.

Even if you are not personally infected ❰❰ 32

with hepatitis B, you may know someone who is. Encourage your loved ones to get tested for Hepatitis B because you may have just saved their lives. *** To register for our free workshops or to learn more about why Hepatitis B matters to you and our community, please visit http://HepB.successbc.ca.

You can access various educational materials and resources about Hepatitis B in Tagalog and English. Our Let’s Talk section will give you an up-to-date discussion on Hepatitis B and personal stories shared by those affected by Hepatitis B. You can also follow us on Twitter or like our Facebook page where you can view pictures from previous Filipino workshops.

Through educating the public more about Hepatitis B, please join us in making a difference in the lives of those around you as well as your own. Talk to your doctor and get tested for Hepatitis B. We look forward to meeting all of you in the upcoming workshops and events. ■ Established in 1973, S.U.C.C.E.S.S. is one of the largest social service agencies in British Columbia. It is a charitable organization providing services in settlement, language training, employment, family and youth counselling, business and economic development, health care, housing and community development. For more details, please visit: www.success.bc.ca www.canadianinquirer.net

tioning post-stroke person,” said Yepes, who still has lingering effects from the March mini strokes that may resolve over time.

“If I over-exert myself, if I do too much, I do feel weakness or heaviness on my left side. So it’s now just an indicator to myself that I need to slow down and take time.”

Yepes said the experience was a wakeup call she hopes others will take to heart.

“It’s just opened my eyes that you are never too young. I always thought strokes were for older people. I don’t know anybody in my age range that has ever had a stroke,” she said.

“I would just encourage anybody, if you have these symptoms, or even if you remotely think (you do), go and get it checked out. Don’t wait because your greatest chance of recovering is getting it looked at immediately.”

As for her video selfie, “everybody is really shocked that I had the presence of mind to take it,” she said of the TAMS team. “When Dr. Jaigobin saw it ... she just couldn’t believe that I even did that.

“So, of course, they warned me should any symptoms happen again, dial 911 first— and then do the video.” ■

Entertainment

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 36

‘Transformers: Age TV Blog Buzz: ‘Orphan of Extinction’ Black’’s big twist; what’s the unearths record best TV comedy right now? breaking $100 million at weekend box office The Canadian Press

BY DERRIK J. LANG The Associated Press LOS ANGELES—”Transformers: Age of Extinction” is ruling the box office.

The fourth installment in filmmaker Michael Bay’s morphing robots series earned $100 million in North America during its opening weekend, making it the biggest debut for a movie this year, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Paramount blockbuster outperformed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and its $95 million inauguration in April.

“Age of Extinction” also earned $201.3 million from 37 international territories, specifically making $90 million in China, where it was partially filmed and co-produced by partners like the state-owned China Film Group and the China Movie Channel.

“With almost half of the international total coming from China, it shows how important that marketplace is to the worldwide box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak.

“This film has really capitalized on all fronts.”

“Age of Extinction” stars Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz as a human father-daughter duo who aid the shape-shifting robots from the Hasbro toy franchise. Besides the addition of a new human crew, the sequel also introduces the popular Transformers characters based

on the likenesses of dinosaurs.

“I think putting Mark Wahlberg front and centre accomplished what we wanted to do, and that’s re-energize the franchise,” Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore said. “He appeals to audiences, both critically and as an action star.”

“Age of Extinction” topped the previous entry in the series, “Dark of the Moon,” which took in $97.9 million during its opening weekend in 2011, but failed to eclipse the $108.9 million debut of the second film, “Revenge of the Fallen.”

The first three “Transformers” films starred Shia LaBeouf as a teenager who befriends hulking alien robots Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and Bumblebee. The original 2007 film made $70.5 million and went on to domestically gross $319.2 million.

“Age of Extinction” was distantly followed at the North American box office by a trio of sophomore efforts: “22 Jump Street” in second place with $15.4 million; “How To Train Your Dragon 2” in third place with $13.1 million; and “Think Like a Man Too” in fourth place with $10.4 million.

“The ‘Transformers’ movies are known for being released around the Fourth of July, so this really ensures the film will have a strong second weekend,” said Dergarabedian. “The only movie opening ahead of next weekend in wide release is the Melissa McCarthy comedy ‘Tammy’ and that will be counterprogramming to ‘Transformers.’” ■

DON’T CLICK through if you’re behind on the Canadian scifi drama “Orphan Black,” but show creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett are sharing some details on how they crafted the twist in the season 2 finale.

Without spoiling it, Manson and Fawcett tell TVLine they plotted the surprise development back near the end of the show’s first season with the intention of it really playing out in season 3.

While a third season of the critically acclaimed show hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, Manson and Fawcett say they’re already brainstorming on the next set of episodes. http://bit.ly/1nzVHoR

NEW YORK magazine’s Vulture blog has been recapping the last season of TV by highlighting the best to hit the small screen. They’ve named Amy Schumer the best female comedy performer, called the “Hannibal” season 2 finale the year’s best episode, and crowned FX as the best network.

What do they say was the best comedy of the year? Not “Girls,” or “Louie,” or “Veep.”

Surprisingly, they’ve picked the Fox cartoon “Bob’s Burgers,” which they say “like the late, great ‘King of the Hill,’ it truly is a sitcom that just happens to be drawn.” http://vult.re/1wsUeWR

Cast members of Game of Thrones.

VULTURE ALSO has an interview with “Orange Is the New Black” star Lorraine Toussaint, a.k.a. drug queen-pin Vee, about her villainous role in the Netflix show’s second season.

She talks about how she largely created the back story for Vee, why she changed her mind about going nude for the show, and whether viewers should question what they thought they saw in her final scene. http://vult.re/1mb80pc

PHOTO FROM IGN.COM

PHOTO BY OWLANDBEAR/ FLICKR

ALL CAUGHT up with “Game of Thrones” and can’t wait until next year for new episodes?

Why not re-watch them with people who haven’t seen season 4 yet, and haven’t read George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books?

That suggestion comes from the comic geniuses at CollegeHumor, whose latest viral video highlights why watching people watch “Game of Thrones” can be better than watching the show itself. http://bit.ly/1q5bMrK ■

Teen actress/singer Zendaya no longer playing Aaliyah in Lifetime TV film

BY DERRIK J. LANG The Associated Press

PHOTO FROM FANSIDED.COM

Orphan Black.

LOS ANGELES—Dust yourself off and try again Lifetime Netwww.canadianinquirer.net

work: Zendaya will no longer play Aaliyah in an upcoming film.

The 17-year-old Disney Channel star said Sunday that she pulled out of the project

because “production-wise, (it) wasn’t all the way there.”

“Because it’s someone that I honour and I respect so much, ❱❱ PAGE 39 Teen actress/singer

FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

37

Lifestyle

Louis Vuitton VIPs boil, Issey Miyake make clothes from bananas and pineapples

BY THOMAS ADAMSON The Associated Press PARIS—Louis Vuitton boiled celebrity guests in a sweltering greenhouse. Rick Owens caked models in chalk paint, while Issey Miyake made clothes from bananas.

Such was Thursday, an average day of vibrant eccentricity, in Paris’ spring-summer 2015 menswear calendar.

Here are the highlights and show reports from Day Two of ready-to-wear.

Celebrities in heat

The sun was all too much for the front-row at Louis Vuitton.

Unfortunately, the storied Parisian house also hosted the spring-summer show in a reallife greenhouse without air-conditioning—causing “The Hobbit” actor Luke Evans, model Jon Kartagena and American football star Victor Cruz to sweat it out and fan themselves with the program notes as the show started tardily.

Designer Kim Jones travelled to India to conceive the show.

Was the hothouse setting his way of making guests embody the geographical theme?

Issey Miyake got it just right.

The Franco-Japanese house handed out powder ice-packs before their collection that activate when snapped.

Louis Vuitton’s bright 70s ode to India

It was Rajasthan in vogue for Louis Vuitton.

Jones gave the legendary northwestern Indian region— known as the land of kings—a stylish reworking with a retro, 70s twist.

Silk organza—inspired by turban fabrics with dynamic zigzag stripes—were reimagined as highly wearable semi-sheer wide short-sleeved shirts. And the colours of double-breasted

Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, France.

PHOTO BY AOO3771 / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

suits in rust, blue, sage, orange and pink conjured up the subcontinental palette.

Despite the soft colorings, this strong Jones outing also had a stiff military backbone.

High-waisted pants with long, straight legs, shiny buckle belts, large uniform-style pockets, epaulettes and military shorts in tan played with vestimentary codes of the Indian army.

The set—huge enigmatic pale discs—went even further back in time, apparently inspired by a Rajasthan king who built an astronomical observatory in the early 18th century. The historic musing spawned dubious classical mirror embroidery— with LV engraved discs—on flight jackets.

But overall the collection got a loud and well-deserved round of applause.

Issey Miyake make clothes out of fruit

It was a show for “tropical dandies” at Issey Miyake, as the Paris sun shined high in the sky.

The tropical was in jellyfish motifs, fruit prints, stunning

cobalt blue dyes and in an inventive linen material that mixed abaca—woven wild banana—with pineapple yarns.

But the best part, the dandy, was found in multi-layered silhouettes and in the stiff roughness of linen fabricated on old weaving machines.

Designer Yusuke Takahashi loves his techno-fibers.

The abaca produced the strongest looks—like a loose fitting double breasted jacket with a dandy-esque tassled-scarf underneath, a billowing Japanese maxi coat in light grey, or crinkled cobalt blue shorts that a modern flaneur might don in his walks about town.

Less successful were the psychedelic prints in vivid yellows and blues, which had a sporty edge but diminished the subtlety of the rich material.

Apart from being stylish, it was possibly the first time in Paris a catwalk show could have been bought at a fruit market.

Rick Owens melts

Rick Owens was inspired by the Ballet Russes’ “The Faun’s

Afternoon”—and their famed costume designer Leon Bakst— for the gothic American designer’s typically eccentric menswear offering.

The program notes were impenetrable, but the collection could be read as a play on volume, deconstruction and inside-out—and, even, softening up.

The silken lining of suit jackets was used on the outside in tunics, sometimes in voluminous patchwork, while hems were turned inside-out.

Black coats amassed in clumped shapes were held in place by a shoulder strap— throwing functionality to the wind. Models’ bodies were sometimes painted entirely with white chalk.

Blurring fashion and art, this was Owens’ most developed collections in seasons.

At times a garment—like a huge white shirt—seemed to melt down the body and gathered at the bottom.

Owens is a combative designer. But here the sense of war, conveyed through almost

Spartacus-era loincloths and breast harnesses, came in paradoxically soft colours like grey, pale blue and pink, suggesting a softer direction for a prince of darkness.

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten mixed, matched and found unexpected common ground in the texture of clothes as diverse as basketball shirts, ballet flats, Asiatic silk dressing gowns and embroidered Indian waistcoats.

The silhouette, slim but flowing, saw straps across the torso, and then as breeches, mirroring the straps in the footwear.

Basketball jerseys emblazoned with the number “71” and sports vests featured alongside satin gowns in shimmering caramel and decorative Indian patterns on silky bomber jackets. But contradictions melted away with a blink of the eye in the common suppleness of the 51 diaphanous looks.

Only Van Noten, one of Paris fashion weeks most accomplished designers, could have produced such a subtle dance. ■

Lifestyle

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 38

What does soccer mean to you? 5 stories of growing up with the game in the US

BY DERRIK J. LANG The Associated Press NEW YORK—Youth soccer has been popular in the U.S. for more than a generation, and that may be driving high viewer ratings for World Cup games involving the U.S. Here’s a look at five people who grew up playing and loving soccer in America, from a woman who played on a boys’ team as a kid and now coaches boys’ soccer, to a man who named his dogs after World Cup players.

Mike Helfand

The 42-year-old Chicago attorney has two soccer-playing sons, 8 and 10, and coaches youth leagues. His own parents signed him up when he was 5.

“They’re not very sportsminded people. It’s just what you did. Every kid I knew played soccer and baseball,” he said. “For me and a lot in my generation, we stumbled into it and fell in love by accident.”

While he doesn’t own a jersey or paint his face, Helfand has seen the U.S. team play in person 16 times, travelling as far away as Australia and Ireland.

He’s amazed how far the sport has come in the United States. “Walking down the street now, you see kids wearing Manchester United jerseys and Chelsea Football Club jerseys and Barcelona, and I didn’t even know what those were as a kid. I didn’t know who the best players were in Europe,” Helfand said.

He loved the go-go nature of the game compared to other sports.

“I was a hyper child and the idea of playing in the infield much less the outfield in baseball, and just standing there waiting for something to happen or waiting for your turn to bat, never really appealed to me,” he said.

Sarah Cureton

Cureton, 30, of Bealeton, Virginia, started playing when she was 4, introduced to the game by her older brother. Now, she’s a rare female coach of a varsity boys’ soccer team, at Patriot High School in Nokesville, Virginia.

“I was i n gymnastics when my brother was in soccer and his team used to let me play with them. I hated wearing leotards,” she said.

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, Cureton often played on boys’ teams. There was no all-girls soccer team, but the two or three girls who made the boys’ teams faced resistance.

“Boys were very threatened by it. It would be a lot of teasing.

It was, ‘You must be a boy.’ It never affected me. I just wanted to play soccer,” she said.

Cureton went to George Mason University on a soccer scholarship but stopped playing competitively after college, partly due to injuries.

“I had nine concussions between 14 and 21. If there were concussion baseline tests now I would have never played in college,” she said.

Ciro Garcia

Garcia, 52, was 16 when he moved to New York City from Bogota, Colombia.

“Oh my god, playing soccer is all we did. We’d play soccer waiting for the bus. We’d play soccer in the classrooms, in the hallways. We’d come home and play in the rain,” he said.

But in the U.S., the soccercrazed teen from Colombia could barely find a game.

“In the Bronx there was a park near where we lived where some Europeans played. Me and my brother used to play there a lot. Everybody was playing football and basketball and baseball,” Garcia said. “I lost a little bit of the drive to play when we came here.”

After high school, he joined the U.S. Army and played some, then became an aviation mechanic for United Airlines, which hosted employee soccer tournaments.

Garcia, now an engineer for a

San Francisco w a t e r treatment plant, spent 18 years coaching boys’ soccer, including at his now 20-year-old son’s high school.

“When I started coaching here in the United States, I didn’t understand why the parents didn’t want to let the kids play every day,” he said.

“We never got tired. We never burned out.”

The game is “a natural high,” said Garcia, who still plays but has bad knees from the sport.

“Soccer is like life. It’s running through my blood. I want to play it. Getting old really stinks.”

Ben Fox

Ben Fox, 28, sells solar panels in San Francisco but grew up in the small Vermont town of Peru. He started soccer when he was 4 and played until knee injuries took him out in college.

“We skied in the winter and pretty much everyone played soccer in the summer,” he said.

“But soccer was all I wanted to do all the time.”

His dad is English but wasn’t a rabid soccer fan, thinking his son should study more and play soccer less.

Fox’s family used to breed English springer spaniel dogs.

“The first litter, I named all the dogs after members of the 1994 World Cup teams, like Dunga, who was the captain of Brazil at the time,” he said. www.canadianinquirer.net

His mom, an American and the parent who schlepped him to games, named her favourite dog Mia Hamm.

Ross Coulter

The 46-year-old co-owner of a public relations firm in Dallas played soccer from age 7 through college. His three kids gave him a USA team jersey for Father’s Day. “My dad had no idea about soccer. I had a friend at school who started playing and I came home one day and said I wanted to sign up,” he recalled.

The Dallas Tornado and other North American Soccer League teams were promoting the sport when Coulter was growing up. Many players had come from England, Brazil and other soccer-centric countries for one last chance to play.

“I just idolized those old guys. They’re the ones who really lit the fire and just made us love the sport.

Guys like Kenny Cooper and Mike Renshaw and Pele,” he said. “When I was a kid, you had two different groups of friends. You had the ones who played soccer and then everybody else.”

Coulter coached boys’ teams before he became a dad, was a ref in college and has coached his kids. His oldest played from age 4 but gave it up when she started high school.

“My jaw sort of dropped,” he admits. ■

Lifestyle

39 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Teen actress/singer... it has to be 128 per cent, especially for all her fans, including myself,” Zendaya said on her way into the BET Awards, where she’s up for the Young Stars award. “I didn’t feel like it was all the way there, so I didn’t want to do that. And when the time comes when it’s done right and it’s 100 per cent, by all means, I will be the first person there ready to go.”

Lifetime announced Zendaya’s participation two ❰❰ 37

weeks ago. The announcement sparked anger from Aaliyah’s family, who are not participating in the project.

The network tweeted Sunday: “We are sad Zendaya will no longer portray Aaliyah. Production is currently on hold.”

Others on social media suggested that another actress should play the late singer, who died in 2001 at age 22.

Zendaya defended winning the role in an interview with The Associated Press a day af-

ter the announcement. The 17-year-old said she wanted to show young people what Aaliyah was able to do.

“Of course it was hard” to pull out of the film, Zendaya said, “but again, I just think she deserves the world. She deserves something really, really incredible and so I would rather wait for that.”

The biopic was scheduled to film this summer. ■

ing, one would think that Jodilly was having the time of her life—but she wasn’t. Aside from modeling, she was also in school full time because she was determined to graduate on time. She also rendered service at school to keep her scholarship on top of everything, because with the kind of work schedule she had, she was worried she would not be able to maintain the required grades for an academic scholarship.

“That’s my worst. Worst talaga,” Jodilly said about her college life. There were times when she didn’t even have money to buy food or to go to school that she had to ask her friends and even strangers to lend her money. While her classmates partied after class or traveled during summer breaks, Jodilly worked to make ends meet. “Kung iba yun namatay na sila sa frustration at depression,” she said. (If it happened to someone else, maybe that person would have died of frustration and depression.)

she learned and pieces of advice she got from both friends helped her get to where she is today despite not getting the AsNTM title. They taught her the importance of letting go of negativity as soon as it entered her thoughts. So when the unexpected occurred, when she lost to Malaysian Sheena Lim during the final challenge of the competition, she didn’t think of herself as the loser. “During that moment, I knew Sheena would win. I know she’s good because they’ve been telling me… She’s good, but I am great.

That moment I was only thinking that I would show the world that I was the winner. I am not only a winner, but I am a victor,” Jodilly said.

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report.

Zendaya.

PHOTO BY MUSIC4MIX / FLICKR

Not just... ❰❰ 25

Jodilly’s early beginnings as a model

Jodilly was 16 years old when she started in the business. “I started my portfolio with Manila Bulletin, Fashion Institute of the Philippines, and [renowned Filipino designer] Ino Sotto,” she said. And then she also met Robbie Carmona, another famous Filipino designer, who became one of her mentors and opened more doors for her. Robbie picked her to walk for the opening of a gala even though she doesn’t know a lot about ramp modeling yet. “He just said to me, ‘I believe in you.’”

From then on, Robbie promised her that she would be in all of his shows, so that Jodilly could earn money for her school allowance.

Philippine Fashion Week (PhFW) producers Joey and Audie Espino had also helped the young model by always giving her projects during PhFW. “Hindi pwedeng ‘di ako makaka-ten na shows every season kasi that’s for my tuition [ fees].”

(Every season, I made sure to, at least, do 10 shows because that’s where I get the money to pay my tuition [fees].) Mega and Preview magazines also chose her for many fashion editorials, which gave her more exposure.

Jodilly got her big break when Vince introduced her to Rajo Laurel, one of the biggest names in the Philippine fashion industry. “When I did Rajo for Parisian, I became Rajo’s muse.

Nagkaroon ako ng billboard sa EDSA. All over the Philippines, iyong mukha ko andoon sa SM.” (I had billboards all over EDSA. All over the Philippines, you could see my face in SM malls.)

The worst time in her life

With her success in model-

Jodilly rising challenges

above

the

As always, Jodilly never complained. She just believed that God would always provide solutions to all of her problems and kept working hard. Her perseverance and grit paid off when she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems from University of Santo Tomas in 2013. By that time, she was also already a veteran model.

The 20-year-old Jodilly met two significant people, who became her mentors and closest friends, before she joined Asia’s Next Top Model. They were designers Roland Alzate and Noel Crisostomo. The things

Her inspiration to succeed

The AsNTM runner-up is, up to this day, still very thankful to the thousands of fans who supported her, the people who believed that she was the real winner. “I didn’t know na ‘yong suporta ng Pilipino at ibang bansa sa’kin sobra pala. Lalu nila akong ginawang famous.

Nag-trending ‘yong ‘Justice for Jodilly’ [on social media]. Dun ko pinost ‘yong statement ko na, ‘I feel more than a winner.’” (I didn’t know that the support of Filipinos and people from other countries for me is tremendous.

They made me even more famous when “Justice for Jodilly” trended [on social media]. That’s why I posted a statement saying, “I felt more than a winner.”)

Besides her mother, Roland, and her tito Noel, her supporters became her inspiration to keep pushing herself beyond her limits as a model. “Lagi ko chine-check ‘yong Instagram ko. Lalu ako na-i-inspire ‘pag www.canadianinquirer.net

nababasa ko ‘Jodi sana makita ka namin.’” (I always check my Instagram. I get more inspired whenever I read comments like “Jodi, we hope we see you in person.”)

Because of the support she received from her fans and loved ones, she didn’t allow any disappointment to stop her. Big opportunities came to Jodilly after AsNTM. Aside from getting lots of campaigns and projects, she got picked as one of the outstanding Filipinos honored during Mega’s Pinoy Pride Ball in June and also became one of Meg magazine’s “30 under 30” achievers. Despite the fame and the success, Jodilly said that although a lot has changed in the way she thinks and dresses up, not a lot has changed in her personality. Even though she admits that she likes wearing designer clothes now, because she wants to always project the image of a supermodel, she makes sure not to act like a diva. She stays professional and kind to people.

If there’s one thing she learned through her years in the business, it is that kindness pays.

When asked if her popularity with men also heightened after the top model search, she smiled and said that when it comes to that aspect, she’s not as in demand as her Filipina co-finalist and friend Katarina Rodriguez. “Happy ako kasi less stress. Plus, I have a boyfriend.

Mag-tu-two years na kami. He’s very, very supportive. (I’m happy because there’s less stress. Plus, I have a boyfriend. We’ve been together for almost two years.

He’s very, very supportive.)

Jodilly the unbeatable and the unstoppable

After her short visit in Can-

ada, Jodilly will be back in the Philippines for more work. She is planning to fly to London in July for her friend Roland Alzate’s show. Fashion capitals New York and Italy are also in her list of destinations this year. To be an international supermodel, Jodilly is ready to go wherever she needs to be.

“I am using my AsNTM title as much as possible to get an advantage kasi let’s just be practical, if you’re just Jodilly Pendre sinong maniniwala sayo? Of course, ‘yong mga Pilipino pero outside hindi ka naman nila kilala… I’m just maximizing my popularity.” (I am using my AsNTM title as much as possible to get an advantage because let’s just be practical, if you’re just Jodilly Pendre, who will believe in you? Of course, Filipinos know who I am, but outside the Philippines, they don’t… I’m just maximizing my popularity.)

This young woman has lots of plans for herself and for her family. Of course, her most important endeavor right now is to become an international supermodel. In the future, she also wants to start her own business. Just like everyone else, Jodilly does not know for sure where the path may lead her. She knows many rejections may come her way, but she is ready for it. She keeps her focus by always thinking that whatever happens, she is unbeatable and unstoppable.

“It’s always about the state of mind. You need to attract what you want. I will go global and will be greater than the greatest.”

Jodilly Pendre, with the good and the bad chapters in her life, is ready to embrace greatness. ■

Business

JULY 4, 2014 FRIDAY 40

From rags to riches: How a poor Filipina immigrant became a millionaire in the US

BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer PLANO, ILLINOIS—Filipina Mila Ferrer, who hails from Alcala, Pangasinan, migrated to the United States 40 years ago, with no more than $20 in her pocket, and the determination to succeed.

Ferrer, now 60-years-old, recently recounted her story to a US-based correspondent of ABS-CBN News.

She shared that she was one of four siblings, orphaned and struggling to survive. She vowed to herself that her own family would not know the suffering and hardship she had to endure.

“I will never have my kids go through the life that I went through as a kid,” she said.

The stalwart migrant was fresh out of college upon landing on American soil. She was financially broke, and her English was broken; but her spirit, not so. Living out of a mobile home, she pursued her American Dream with persistence.

The job hunt, however, proved an uphill climb: 17 job interviews later and still jobless. She did not let this bring her down; instead, she cleaned houses to eke out a living.

Eventually, her luck began to turn, and she landed a job which would help her maximize her potential. She took on a clerical post at a financial company, and later on transferred from one banking institution to another.

Ferrer became a loan manager, thanks to her hard work.

She recalled the early years of living in America: “I learned how to make my own money. I was cleaning houses, working in the bank, doing real estate, working as personal assistant to doctors, and being a mom,” she said.

The fact that she was a single mom to five children did not bring her down, either, in the land of opportunity.

“I don’t believe that you can be poor in America. If you want to work hard, there is work,” she said.

“You have to find a mentor.

Kasi yung pera mo kung pagulungan mo you’ll be able to make it,” she pointed out.

Four decades later, Mila’s hard work has paid off.

This once impoverished orphan is now worth millions.

She owns 52 land properties in America, including one of the houses she used to clean.

From her meager trailer home, she presently lives in a 6,000 square-foot house on a threeacre lot.

From struggling employee, she holds the title of regional vice-president for an international investment company.

Ferrer credits hard work and passion as the secrets to her incredible success story. She has not only succeeded, in a tremendous way, but now finds herself in a position to help others succeed, as well.

“I love what I do; I help people. I can do this wherever I go,” she said. ■

Global markets advance after reports show manufacturing grew in US, China

BY HOWARD FENDRICH The Associated Press LONDON—World stock markets turned higher after reports showed manufacturing activity grew in the U.S. and China. In Europe, shares in BNP Paribas rose after the French bank said it had enough funds to pay a nearly $9 billion settlement of charges it violated U.S. trade sanctions.

Market sentiment, which had been lacklustre during Asian trading hours, improved after the Institute for Supply Management said U.S. manufacturing activity grew in June, albeit at a slower pace than in May. Earlier, the equivalent report for China showed manufacturing there grew for the first time in six months, though the expansion was weak and below the historical average.

By midafternoon in Europe,

Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.7 per cent to 6,788.95 while France’s CAC 40 added 0.6 per cent to 4,449.36. Germany’s DAX rose 0.2 per cent to 9,851.55.

Shares in BNP Paribas, France’s biggest bank, rose 3.6 per cent after it said would be able to handle the U.S. fine it got for violating sanctions. The bank processed billions of dollars in illegal transactions on behalf of clients in Sudan, Cuba and Iran that the U.S. had blacklisted to block their participation in the global financial system. The case had weighed on BNP’s share price and the resolution, though it involves a massive fine, is a relief for shareholders.

In the U.S., the Dow was up 0.7 per cent at 16,939.36 and the S&P 500 was up 0.6 per cent at 1,970.94.

Earlier, in Asia, trading was subdued as investors appeared to shrug off the Chinese manu-

facturing data.

Mainland China’s key benchmark, the Shanghai Composite Index, added 0.1 per cent to 2,050.38. Markets in Hong Kong were closed for a public holiday.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.1 per cent to 15,326.20 after the central bank released a survey showing better-than-expected business sentiment despite a decline in the April-June quarter.

Elsewhere, shares in South Korea and Australia also fell, while those in Taiwan and New Zealand gained.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude for August delivery was up 29 cents to $105.66 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 37 cents on Monday.

In currencies, the dollar rose to 101.50 yen from 101.32 yen late Monday. The euro slipped to $1.3683 from $1.3693. ■

Surrey Night Market opens July 5th

Mila Ferrer.

SCREENGRAB FROM VIDEO POSTED TO ABS-CBNNEWS.COM.

THE FIRST ever multicultural night market in the Fraser Valley opens on July 5th at 17726 - 62 Avenue, located within the Cloverdale Exhibition Grounds in Surrey and will run every Friday and Saturday from 6pm to 11pm, until the end of August.

This open air summer night www.canadianinquirer.net

market will be a family friendly event for all the residents of Surrey and neighbouring cities looking for a good time in the evening. The attendees will get to sample a variety of food, services and goods and enjoy performances by local bands, singers, and dancers without having

to cross bridges. Numerous rides and games will be available for children and youth.

There will be free parking on site for attendees. ■ To get more information, please visit www.surreynightmarket. com.

Sports/Horoscope

41 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

Olympian ends cross Canada mental health ride on Parliament Hill

BY HOWARD FENDRICH The Associated Press LONDON—Roger Federer’s nearly perfect serving carried him back to the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

He’ll try to continue his bid for a record eighth championship at the All England Club by beating his friend and countryman Stan Wawrinka on Wednesday.

Federer won all 54 service games through his first four matches in the tournament, saving eight break points.

That included saving the only break point he faced in a 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 23 Tommy Robredo in the fourth round Tuesday. In the second set, Federer won all 20 points he served.

“Now I’m confident again and not fighting with any con-

fidence issues, which is huge in sporting terms,” said Federer, who lost in the second round at Wimbledon a year ago. “I’m happy I got through the first rounds here rather comfortably.”

Here are five other things to look for at Wimbledon on Wednesday: Stan the man

Wawrinka has lost 13 of 15 career matches against Federer, but 14 of those encounters came before the player who wears T-shirts saying “Stan the Man” won his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January. In their most recent matchup, in the final of the Monte Carlo Masters on clay in April, Wawrinka won.

“It’s going to give me a lot of confidence about myself, knowing that I can beat him,” Wawrinka said. “Doesn’t mat-

ter where.” They’ve been pals for years and paired up to win a gold medal in doubles for Switzerland at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Past champs

Federer isn’t the only previous Wimbledon winner still around. Last year’s champion, Andy Murray, and the 2011 champion, Novak Djokovic, face far-lessaccomplished opponents Wednesday. Murray takes on 11th-seeded Grigor Dimitrov, who will be playing in his second career Grand Slam quarterfinal. Djokovic faces No. 26 Marin Cilic, who is in the Wimbledon quarters for the first time, although he did get to the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2010.

Brash teen

Like any 19-year-old might

do, Nick Kyrgios brought a video-game system on his trip to England. Here’s the difference: The 144th-ranked Kyrgios beat No. 1 Rafael Nadal on Tuesday to become the first man in 10 years to reach the quarterfinals in his Wimbledon debut. “Never did I think a week ago I was going to make the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in my first appearance,” Kyrgios said at his news conference, before addressing reporters directly: “I’m sure some of you have 19-year-old kids. I’m exactly the same.”

Kyrgios plays No. 8 Milos Raonic, the first Canadian man in Wimbledon’s final eight in 102 years.

Halep vs. Lisicki

No. 3 Simona Halep faces No. 19 Sabine Lisicki in one women’s quarterfinal. Both have been a Grand Slam runner-up:

Halep lost to Maria Sharapova in the French Open final last month, while Lisicki lost to Marion Bartoli in the Wimbledon final last year. Lisicki had a far tougher go of it in the fourth round Tuesday, overcoming 20 double-faults and a painful right shoulder in a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 victory over Yaroslava Shvedova.

Bouchard vs. Kerber

Before the tournament, plenty of folks had their eyes on the potential quarterfinal between past champions Serena Williams and Sharapova.

So much for that. Williams lost in the third round, Sharapova in the fourth. Instead, it will be No. 9 Angelique Kerber of Germany (the woman who beat Sharapova) against No. 13 Eugenie Bouchard of Canada (the woman who beat the woman who beat Williams). ■

HOROSCOPE ARIES

CANCER

LIBRA

CAPRICORN

(MARCH 21 - APRIL 19)

(JUNE 22 - JULY 22)

(SEPT 23 - OCT 22)

(DEC 22 - JAN 19)

The stars are telling you that today’s best way to attain inner growth is to look back and reflect. Gather all the events that happened in the past days and take some time to reflect on them today. By being aware of the decisions you have made and the consequences of those actions, you will be one step closer in achieving mental and spiritual growth.

Now is the time to look back and check on the people and friends you might have been ignoring in the past few days. You have been working so hard that you might have forgotten your personal relationships.

Remember that having people who will always be there for you is also a great achievement in your journey, so take some time to prioritize them today.

TAURUS

LEO

(APRIL 20 - MAY 20)

(JULY 23 - AUGUST 22)

Your frenzied moments will stop today. The only way to end the confusion and the mental unrest that has been troubling you for quite some time now is by releasing all the negative emotions you have been hiding inside. Accept what you can’t change and change what you can’t accept. Let it all out today and you will rock the coming days with positive thoughts and a peaceful mind!

This is the best time to practice and develop your listening abilities. You might have done all the talking in the past few days, and you might consider giving the floor to other speakers, this time, in order to learn from them. Remember that the only best way to nurture your knowledge aside from reading is by active listening. You should never miss the opportunity to learn so today, lend them your ears.

GEMINI

VIRGO

(MAY 21 - JUNE 21)

(AUG 23 - SEPT 22)

You might feel tired of driving what seems like an endless road today. But don’t ever let the lengthy path take you down, Gemini. You are getting at the end of the road to find that pot of gold. No matter how tired you are, just think about the happiness you’d get one you get there, so keep on driving. Stop worrying because the stars will always be there to fuel your engine.

You will learn acceptance the hard way today. There is this something that you have been trying to dismiss all your life, and now is the right time to face it. You probably know by now that there are really things in life that you can never change. But once you have opened up yourself to acceptance, you will realize that you just got exactly what you really need. All you have to do now is embrace that thing and accept.

You have been keeping a lot of things inside, that you can no longer hold it in. That’s not healthy. Even the deepest secret needs to be said when the right time comes. Just like a bottle when filled with water, let all your emotions flow and turn the bottle upside down to make sure its empty. When there’s no more in there, that’s the best time to start again! So today, start unloading and recharging for the next phase in your journey.

SCORPIO

AQUARIUS

(OCT 23 - NOV 21)

(JAN 20 - FEB 18)

If you play your cards right, everything related to love will turn out well today. You might not be the most romantic person in the world but If you only try listening to your heart, you might just be the next lucky lover to charm the most important person in your life. All you have to do is keep holding on to that feeling, listen to it and all the great “moves” will follow.

Today, you may want to consider grabbing a dear friend’s advice. There is nothing wrong with hearing what other people has to say to you and your situation right now. But don’t ever let their criticisms turn you down or do you worst. Try to think hard before acting on an advice. Remember that its always you and no one else when you’re making a decision, specally a greater one.

SAGITTARIUS

PISCES

(NOV 22 - DEC 21)

(FEB 19 - MAR 20)

Try balancing your emotions today. Do not be too excited, nor too sad and depressed. Do not let any of your emotions reach its peak as it may blur the line between the right and the wrong, as it does for most people. Learn how to take things lightly by keeping calm and cool. Never let any unnecessary emotion get in your way, so keep your cool.

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Someone with a hidden agenda may seem to be really dear and friendly to you. There is no harm in trying to keep yourself at a safe distance. But always make sure that you don’t let doubts get in your way of developing good friendship and better partnership with the people around you.

Too much may not always be safe enough so try to enjoy things with moderation.

You might be feeling somewhat unsettled today because of the consequences of your actions yesterday. Do not bother. The stars will provide you comfort if you will only try to open yourself up to the possibility of being happy and satisfied again. Nothing good will happen if you remain focused on yourself. Go out, meet friends and have some fun!

FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

42

Travel

London luxury shops welcome wealthy Arabs visiting for a pre-Ramadan shopping spree

BY SYLVIA HUI The Associated Press LONDON—Before the fast, let there be a shopping feast.

From Harrods in Knightsbridge to the glittering diamond stores in Mayfair, London has long attracted big spenders.

But every year around the holy month of Ramadan, which starts this weekend, a wave of spectacularly rich Middle Eastern shoppers arrives and takes retail therapy to a whole new level—complete with an entourage of bodyguards, chauffeurs, and Gulf-registered Rolls-Royces and Ferraris flown in just for the occasion.

Retailers call the boost in business the Ramadan Rush: A hugely lucrative and fast-growing market driven by wealthy Arabs who travel to Britain to escape the desert heat and indulge in buying luxury gifts before flying home for a month of fasting and increased religious observance. Another surge takes place during the Eid holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan.

The spike in shoppers during the summer months has been so regular and noticeable on London’s streets that some have jokingly dubbed the phenomenon the “Harrods Hajj,” after the traditional Islamic pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.

“London is the place in Europe where the Middle Eastern visitor shops the most. It is almost their second home,” said Gordon Clark, U.K. manager at Global Blue, the Switzerlandbased retail research firm. The company estimates that preRamadan sales last July jumped 60 per cent compared with the previous year.

Although tourists from the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar make up only a small

Harrods Department Store frontage as viewed along Brompton Rd at night.

Westfield London shopping area in London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, London.

PHOTO BY DILIFF / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

percentage of total visits to Britain compared with those from the U.S. and Europe, they tend to be much more lavish spenders on average. Official figures show that Middle Eastern tourists ranked just 19th in terms of numbers of people last year, but came second in total spend—888 million pounds ($1.5 billion).

The Kuwaitis are the biggest spenders, shelling out some 1,340 pounds ($2,275) per transaction last July, Clark said.

That corresponds with data from the London Luxury Quarter, a group that represents some of the highest-end businesses in central London. It said the average spend from Middle Eastern shoppers last year came just behind the Chinese, its top customers.

Unsurprisingly, the bestsellers are exclusive designer

handbags and shoes, watches and jewelry, though a Harrods spokeswoman said food gifts like luxury fruit baskets and extravagantly packaged dates and cocoa-dusted almonds also sell briskly.

Ramadan falls on the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Muslims around the world fast from dawn to sunset for a month, starting from Saturday.

The weeks surrounding the month offer retailers an opportunity they can’t afford to miss, and many brands have responded to the trend by rolling out VIP services just for the period.

“We have been working with luxury retailers who offer exclusive products during pre-Ramadan,” said Myf Ryan, marketing director at west London’s Westfield shopping cen-

PHOTO BY CHMEE2 / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

tre. “Dior has limited-edition exotic skin handbags, and Louis Vuitton and Burberry are offering private client services.”

The Westfield mall—one of Europe’s largest—hopes to bring in record sales with the help of extra Arabic-speaking concierges and personal chauffeurs. For the really prolific shoppers, there is a “handsfree” service, which involves helpers who collect the shopping bags and help pack them in the car.

Other cosmopolitan cities, like Paris or Dubai, also see their share of pre-Ramadan shopping. But analysts say London has become the favourite destination.

Language is one reason— most of the shoppers can speak English. But that’s just part of it.

“London has got the cultural

aspects, the history, and it’s a wonderfully inclusive city to visit,” Ryan said. “The temperature’s comfortable. And because the Middle Eastern customer is so important, hotels and the tourism industry are also very adept at making them comfortable.”

All that may leave the average British or American shopper feeling a bit left out. But the Ramadan Rush does bring one direct benefit to the masses: Earlier sales. Many of Britain’s department stores and fashion brands have been adjusting their summer sales schedule to make sure the high rollers get to shop new stock when they arrive.

“They’re not interested in sales, because the stores are too busy,” Clark said. “It’s not a good shopping experience for them.” ■

43 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

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Seen and Scenes - Calgary and Edmonton

PIOCC HOLDS APPRECIATION DINNER The Philippine Independence Organizing Committee of Calgary led by Vangie Caoile (center) during an appreciation dinner.

FRIDAY 44

MAX'S RESTAURANT OPENS EDMONTON BRANCH Max’s Executive Bill Rodgers (center) greets guests during the opening of the newest Max’s restaurant in Canada.

Calgary Filipinos having fun after a sumptuous barbeque lunch.

Filipinos in Calgary led by Anita Ferrer (center) gather for a shot at a baptismal party.

JULY 4, 2014

Above: Max’s employees entertain visitors with an upbeat number.

Right: Bill Rodgers, Max’s grandson and the only Gimenez heir working for the company, welcomes guests during the momentous occasion. Photos from Liz Jackson’s FB

SPROTT SHAW-UPAABC ISKOLAR NG BAYAN Nenita Yap won a scholarship with Sprott Shaw College that will cover her whole Health Care Assistant program to help her build a new life in Canada and help her family in the Philippines after they were devastated by Typhoon Haiyan.

Partners in the grant were University of the Philippines Alumni Association in British Columbia, the Philippine Consulate General in Vancouver and the Philippine Canadian Inquirer.

In top-most photo are Consul General Neil Frank Ferrer, Nenita and Sprott Shaw President Patrick Dang. PCI File photos

For photo submissions, please email info@canadianinquirer.net. www.canadianinquirer.net

Events

45 FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

CANADA EVENTS

YUKON NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

NUNAVUT

http://bit.ly/ PCI-Events

Music Throwback with Randy Santiago, Gino Padilla & Fe de los Reyes

By Pinoy Times WHEN/WHERE: 6 p.m., July 25, at the Polish Canadian Cultural Centre 3015 15 St., NE, Calgary MORE INFO: Call 403-9752150 or email pinoytimes@gmail.com

BRITISH COLUMBIA ALBERTA

View all events by scanning this QR code or visiting

NEWFOUNDLAND

MANITOBA

SASKATCHEWAN

QUEBEC ONTARIO

Summer Picnic and Networking Potluck

By Filipino Members Chapter - Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of the Province of Manitoba (APEGM) WHEN/WHERE: 3:30 – 9 p.m., July 12, at Kildonan Park, Main St., Winnipeg, MB (Shelter 1 A – near Children’s Play Area)

Surrey Night Market WHEN/WHERE: starts on July 5, 6 to 11 p.m. every Friday and Saturday till end of August at Cloverdale Exhibition Grounds, 17726 62 Avenue, Surrey.

MORE INFO: Visit www.surreynightmarket.com Miniature Train Rides WHEN/WHERE: Ongoing daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., July 1 – Oct.15, at 120 N. Willingdon, Burnaby, B.C. MORE INFO: Book your birthday parties & private functions now.

Over two kms. of track and see 1/8 scale Live Steam trains in action! Links: bcsme.org / fvhrs.org / wcra.org

Miss Caregiver 2014

UP Annual Summer Picnic

Mabuhay Cup Golf Tournament 2014

By University of the Philippines Alumni Association of British Columbia WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m., to 6 p.m., July 11, at the Burnaby Fraser Foreshore Park

By Philippine Independence Day Council WHEN/WHERE: Registration – 7:30 a.m., first tee-off – 9 a.m., July 6 at Granite Ridge Golf Club, 9503 Dublin Line, Milton ON L9T 2X7 MORE INFO: 905-878-5494 www.golfgranite.com

New Westminster Philippine Festival Kick-Off Picnic

Workshop on WordPress, Microsoft Basics

By Salve Dayao WHEN/WHERE: 12 noon, July 13 at NW Pier Park, New Westminster, B.C.

By Digital Ink Group (DIG) with FilCore Support Group WHEN/WHERE: 1 to 3 p.m., July 20, at the Canada International Career College (CICC), at Unit 100, 345 Wilson Ave., Toronto, ON, M3H 5W1.

MORE INFO: To reserve a seat in the workshop, contact Odette Montelibano at 416-743-9610, or send an e-mail to odette@ odette-montelibano.com; or e-mail Christine Salubre, FilCore Support Group chairman at mcsgurdag@gmail.com

By Fil-core Support Group WHEN/WHERE: 6 p.m., on July 5, at 1515 Bathurst St., St. Michael College Theatre for the Arts

Summer Fun Dinner and Dance

By Victoria Filipino Canadian Caregivers Association WHEN/WHERE: 6 p.m., July 12 at Cedar Hill Recreation Centre MORE INFO: Fund-raising to help temporary foreign workers, live-in caregivers and new immigrants. Tickets at $22 per person at the Bayanihan Centre, Christine in Pilipino Mart or from any VFCCA Board member. www.canadianinquirer.net

To have your events featured on PCI, please email events@canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY JULY 4, 2014

46

CANADA

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Interested? Send us your resume now and let’s change your life!

We are currently recruiting for Sales Associate and Customer Service Representative to join us in Promenade, Toronto.

Email your resume to info@canadianinquirer.net

We’re looking for confident, sales and customer service oriented team players with: · Passion for telecom products and services · High standards of customer service · Excellent English communication skills · Previous retail experience You will be responsible for: In return, we will provide you with: · Selling long distance, · Professional sales training homephone, Filipino TV · Ideal pay package with channels commission and incentive · Providing an opportunities* exceptional customer · Career growth with service experience internal promotional · Sharing product opportunities knowledge information · Flexible hours

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FRIDAY 48