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AUGUST 7, 2015

VOL. 8 NO. 179

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‘Noy scolded us for Binay plug’ — Kris Aquino

Binay delivers ‘TSONA,’ hits ‘daang matuwid’

Election campaign set to break records: cost, length, nastiness

Pieces of missing Flight 370 may still be afloat: Experts

Filipino-Canadian In Focus: Ethan David

Shaking-off the ‘Big One’

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

THE ANOINTED ONE “My dream is no different from the dream of every Filipino. I wish for the Filipino people only what I would wish for myself. After all, who are we if not our dreams?” Mar Roxas said.

GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE / PDI

P-Noy names Mar of the hour Roxas finally gets his shot at the presidency

BY MARLON RAMOS AND DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer THE MAN who once stepped aside for his close friend and political ally now gets his own shot at the presidency.

Swearing by the memories of President Aquino’s parents, the late democracy icons Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino and

Corazon “Cory” Aquino, an emotional Interior Secretary Mar Roxas yesterday jumped into the 2016 presidential race, declaring his readiness to take on the call to pursue the “straight path,” the Aquino administration’s reform program.

His voice cracking, Roxas vowed to honor the unsullied legacy of the President’s parents. He also thanked Mr.

❱❱ PAGE 14 Abolition just

British Columbia Filipino community remembers Lita Nuguid

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MANILA — The Metropolitan Development Manila Development Authority (MMDA) recently conducted a metro-wide earthquake drill to prepare for a possible earthquake in Metro Manila dubbed as the “Big One.” The drill was a simulation of the conditions before, during and after a 7.2 magnitude and intensity 8 earthquake.

Set to prepare Filipinos for the earthquake with a possible movement of the West Valley Fault, the drill showed a “real-world training scenario.”

After the airing of a 30-second audio recording, sirens and bells signalled the beginning of the metropolis drill.

Fire trucks and ambulances rushed to the command posts where the “drop, cover and hold” posture was conducted for 45 seconds — the estimated duration of the earthquake.

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FRIDAY

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

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‘Cory magic is still there’ P-Noy urged to stump for Mar as if he himself were running

BY NIKKO DIZON AND GIL C. CABACUNGAN Philippine Daily Inquirer THE “CORY magic” is still there.

So, President Aquino needs to stump for Interior Secretary Mar Roxas as if he were the candidate to get him elected President next year, Liberal Party (LP) leaders said yesterday.

Six years after her death, democracy icon President Corazon Aquino’s memory and impact continue to reverberate even in the small group that gathered at her tomb at the Manila Memorial Park yesterday to remember her.

Her only son, President Aquino, said that through the decades of unity and cooperation, “we have reached, in a sense, harvest time.” “Our parents and grandparents would say that all the trials and tribulations in raising us were somehow worth it. I have to reiterate that none of the things that have been done [was] done by a single individual.

[It] has always been we working for everybody,” Mr. Aquino said.

Mrs. Aquino’s death from colon cancer on Aug. 1, 2009, triggered calls for then Sen. Noynoy Aquino to run for President amid the country’s growing discontent with the administration of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which was mired in allegations of corruption.

The public clamor for Senator Aquino to run for President forced then Sen. Mar Roxas to step aside and run for Vice President. He lost the race to former Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay.

Immeasurable

On Friday, President Aquino announced that Roxas was the administration coalition’s presidential candidate in next year’s general elections.

Leaders of the ruling LP said yesterday that the President should stump for Roxas as if he were the candidate to help him win the presidential race.

They said his endorsement would improve Roxas’ poll standing.

“The President’s endorsement is immeasurable. It will increase the support base of Secretary Mar on a week-to-week, month-to-month basis. The degree of increase will really depend on the time and effort the President will extend,” said Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, one of the most avid supporters of Roxas in the LP. Iloilo Rep. Jerry Treñas said the President’s endorsement should immediately lead to a spike of 5 to 10 percentage points in Roxas’ poll ratings.

In the latest Social Weather Stations poll, Roxas ranks third, behind Binay and the new front-runner, junior Sen. Grace Poe. In the latest Pulse Asia poll, Roxas

WALANG IBA KUNG HINDI SI MAR ROXAS. President Benigno S. Aquino III endorsed the 2016 presidential bid of Mar Roxas in a gathering at the historic

Club Filipino on July 31, 2015.

PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS DEVELOPMENT AND STRATEGIC PLANNING OFFICE

ranks fourth, behind Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, Binay and Poe. Poe and Duterte, however, have yet to decide whether to run.

“The [President’s] endorsement will give the candidacy of Secretary Mar the momentum so that it will take off. A lot will really depend during the next nine months as Secretary Mar goes around the country and continues to explain the gains of [the administration’s reform program], the need for its continuity and why Mar Roxas as President can ensure that the gains will be continued and even strengthened,” Treñas said.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said the President’s endorsement alone should push Roxas within striking distance of the front line.

“We must remember that we have a very popular sitting President who will be campaigning nationwide for Mar Roxas. The anticorruption campaign of P-Noy is fitting for Mar Roxas, who is untainted with any corruption issue during his long stint in the government,” Evardone said.

Being remembered, too

Roxas joined Mr. Aquino, his sisters, and the rest of the Aquino family in remembering Mrs. Aquino, whose tomb and that of her husband, assassinated opposition leader Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., were both bedecked with bright yellow flowers.

Standing along with other wreaths was one from Binay, who resigned from the Cabinet in late June to become leader of the opposition and had since been criticizing the Aquino administration.

Loyal friends of the Aquino family were also present, including Fr. Catalino Arevalo, who celebrated the commemorative Mass.

Arevalo is also spiritual adviser to President Aquino as he was to President Cory.

As “Bayan Ko” was sung at the end of the Mass, President Aquino flashed the L, for the Laban, sign and everybody followed.

Mrs. Aquino’s former spokesperson, Deedee Siytangco, said that the “yellow army” would certainly support Roxas’ candidacy, as it would be a continuation of the Aquino family’s fight for democracy.

Kris mum on Mar

The President’s youngest sister, celebrity Kris Aquino, however, gave an enigmatic answer when asked what she thought of Roxas carrying on her par-

ents’ legacy.

“I promised Noy to keep quiet about that. My brother and I spoke about [it],” she said, adding that the public would know it “in due time.”

Kris said she and Binay’s daughter Anne remained close friends.

She also said she would no longer vote in Makati City, as she had moved to Quezon City. She said she would have her biometrics taken today by the Commission on Elections. ■

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Philippine News

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Former solon: Can’t PH come up with better presidential candidates?

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — Former Akbayan representative and University of the Philippines (UP) professor Walden Bello claimed that he was very much disappointed with the four possible presidential candidates for the coming national elections.

“My great disappointment with all four candidates comes through clearly since our country really can come up with better people,” Bello said in a Philippine Daily Inquirer report, referring to Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, Senator Grace Poe, Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte.

For Bello, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s preferred successor, Roxas, was a ‘nice guy, harmless and clean but unfortunately hollow.’

“He reminds me of passages from T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men,’ especially the lines, ‘Shape without form, shade without color, paralyzed force, gesture without motion,’” he said.

The former House representative also

questioned Roxas’ staying mum on several issues he was supposedly involved in, whereas he believed that what the country needed was a president who would ‘attack vested interests and not one who will protect them.’

“So whose interests does he actually represent except the Makati Business Club which loves him? He will maintain the social status quo, and this is why he’s harmless,” he added.

Bello described Poe, on the other hand, as a ‘blank slate’ and an ‘anti-Binay’ but not a candidate with a ‘discernible pro-people program.’

“I like Grace personally, but she’s a blank slate… [She is] simply someone with a famous name [who could compete with Binay since Roxas] does not have the mass appeal to be able to do this,” he said. “We don’t really know what she stands for at this point.”

On Binay, Bello only noted that the Vice President was ‘bad news,’ with numerous unresolved corruption allegations against him and his political clan. “[His presidency is the] second coming of the corrupt GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) presidency… His approach

Rep. Walden Bello.

is to say, ‘Hey, I’ll give you handouts like a cake on your birthday; all I want is for you to close your eyes while I also have my cake,” he said, adding that Binay did not seem like he really understood poor people’s struggles.

And with the mayor’s seeming disregard for basic human rights, Bello described Duterte’s presidency as the ‘second coming of the Marcos regime.’

SOCY MAJOR / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

“Unfortunately, given the crime wave and the deterioration in effective policing that took place under P-Noy’s buddy, former PNP (Philippine National Police) Chief Alan Purisima, many people are willing to give Duterte’s iron fist a chance and suspend their concerns about due process and human rights…

I think that this is still a minority, though,” he said. ■

‘Noy scolded us for Binay plug’ — Kris Aquino

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — Kris Aquino shared that she got a long lecture from her brother, President Aquino for her statement which was perceived to be an endorsement of Binay.

“I remember I was flying to Dumaguete when that came out. When I turned on my phone, there was a long lecture from my brother,” Kris told reporters as she lined up to register as a voter in Quezon City on Sunday.

Kris earlier said that she and her sisters support Binay for president adding that the Liberal Party could have him as a standard bearer for 2016.

“My sisters and I have been talking about it and we say that if this can bring about unity … and if he continues what Noy (Aquino) has started, why not?” www.canadianinquirer.net

Kris had said on the television program she cohosts with Boy Abunda.

She said that she already apologized to the President during their conversation.

“I said [to the President], ‘I’d like to apologize if it put you in a bad light.

There were certain words taken out of context. And at the end of the day, you know I will follow you,’” she said.

Kris also denied reports of an on-going rift between the Aquino family and the Binays, who were a former ally of the late President Corazon Aquino.

“I don’t think there’s a rift. Noy hasn’t said anything super-evil. And from the start, I think they (Binays) knew where Noy’s heart was,” Kris said.

“We can’t avoid that when [Binay] attacks my brother, it hurts. And I’m sure when Noy says stuff, they [Binays] get hurt. But I’d like to really believe our friendship will survive,” Kris said. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

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UN: BBL passage to solve Mindanao displacement

Aquino increases Judiciary’s allocation in national budget

BY NIÑA P. CALLEJA Philippine Daily Inquirer

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Take concrete steps

Beyani urged the government to promptly take concrete steps to resolve problems affecting IDP. This included the passage of a law on the rights of IDP following more than a decade of deliberation.

In 2013, the Philippine Congress passed a bill seeking to protect the rights of more than one million IDP in the country. President Aquino, however, vetoed the bill saying some provisions of the bill were questionable.

“An almost law is as good as no law,” the UN rapporteur said. “For a country prone to disasters and displacement effects of long-standing conflicts, it is essential to enshrine the rights and protection of internally displaced persons into law,” he said.

He advised the government to treat displaced persons equally and without discrimination.

A UNITED Nations envoy urged the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) as a “clear solution” to the problem of massive displacement in Mindanao.

Chaloka Beyani, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDP), also urged the Philippine government to build permanent houses for families displaced by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” and other natural disasters, noting the lack of basic services in temporary shelters.

A Zambian national and professor of international law, Beyani was in the Philippines from July 21 to 31 to look into the situation of persons displaced by disasters, armed conflict and development projects in the An almost law Philippines. He visis as good as ited areas in Maguno law. For a indanao, Zamboanga, country prone Tacloban and South to disasters and Cotabato. displacement In a press briefeffects of ing in Makati, Beylong-standing ani brought up the conflicts, it is urgency to pass the essential to BBL as a measure to enshrine the avoid the further disrights and placement of people protection in Mindanao. of internally

Equality of treatment

The IDP in an area should not be seen from a political lens or from the lens of who they are, whether they are Muslims or they have a different religion, Beyani said. “There should be equality of treatment without tarnishing them with a political brush,” he said. displaced He noted that the Clear solution persons into international com“The passing of the law. munity had already law is a clear soluaccepted that “cention in relation to the tralization and inteidentity of the popugration (in the governlation (Bangsamoro) ment) don’t work.” and its capacity to “Devolution and self-determine,” Beygiving greater selfani said. determination is the On persons displaced by natural di- way forward,” he said. sasters, Beyani said lack of infrastrucThe UN envoy visited areas in Mindture for basic services including water, anao but was prevented from going to sanitation and electricity in temporary some areas where there were reports of housing sites were a problem for fami- firefights, he said. lies displaced by Yolanda in Tacloban.

He also went to Tampakan in South He noted the “lack of the government’s Cotabato where a proposed open-pit full commitment to move on to build- gold and copper mine would potentially ing permanent settlements.” displace over 5,000 people, most of them He said some families “seem to have indigenous people. become stuck in substandard ‘bunk“Armed conflict or intrusive develhouse’ accommodation or fallen entire- opment projects not only displace inly through the protection net.” digenous peoples and subject them to These things were happening, he said, conditions that may bring about their despite the huge resources spent or ear- destruction as peoples. Those also demarked for infrastructure projects. stroy their homes and livelihoods,” the envoy said. ■

MANILA — In the proposed 2016 national budget, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III allotted P26.7 billion to the Judiciary to ‘enable our judicial system to deliver equal justice for all.’

“By augmenting its resources, the Judiciary stands a better chance of reducing the case backlog of its courts and fast-track the resolution of cases,” Aquino said in his budget message.

“Part of this budget is P2.3 billion to cover all operating expenditures of lower courts to enhance their independence and reduce their dependence on local governments,” he added.

Moreover, the President also put forward the transfer of the Supreme Court to the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig. Should this be approved, P1.2 billion would be allocated for its land acquisition.

“We have also committed P3.29 billion over four years for the construction of the new Supreme Court building, of which P122.7 million has been set aside in the 2016 budget to fund the detailed architectural and engineering design

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and project management needs of the project,” Aquino said.

Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, for her part, earlier disclosed that the Supreme Court eyed a 21,000-squaremeter-lot in BGC. Should the proposed Judiciary budget be accepted by the Congess, next year’s budget would be 22 percent more than this year’s budget of only P12 billion.

Earlier rifts

Aquino and the Judiciary earlier had a falling out with the former’s proposal to have the Judicial Development Fund (JDF) be remitted to the national treasury and the latter’s declaration that the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was unconstitutional.

The President then criticized the Supreme Court ruling for obstructing his economic programs supposedly intended to help poor Filipinos.

Several Supreme Court employees, on the other hand, slammed at the President for ‘rampaging’ the JDF which they claimed were substantial help to rankand-file workers.

But with Aquino’s raise in the Judiciary’s 2016 budget, all seemed well from both sides now. ■

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Philippine News

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Abad: Ping should ask Congress about pork

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer BUDGET SECRETARY Florencio Abad yesterday said former Senator Panfilo Lacson should direct his criticism of the alleged lump sum in the 2015 national budget at Congress.

“This criticism should really be directed at Congress because the accusation being leveled is that Congress has once again reinstituted the pork barrel,” Abad told reporters yesterday.

Abad maintained that there were no lump sums in the national budget.

Abad added he welcomed the petition that Lacson said he would file before the Supreme

Court next week.

The case, Abad said, would be an occasion for the high court to again "clarify what pork barrel really means.”

Earlier this week, Lacson claimed the 2015 national budget “resurrected” the lawmakers’ priority development assistance fund (PDAF), also known as the pork barrel, as well as the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Lacson said he had the names of lawmakers who have inserted “pork” projects in this year’s national budget.

In 2013, the High Tribunal declared the PDAF unconstitutional, saying the identification of pork-funded projects by lawmakers was “unrelated to the power of congressional

Budget Secretary Florencio ‘Butch’ Abad.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM 2014

oversight.”

The court’s ruling came at

the height of the so-called pork barrel scam involving businesswoman Janet Napoles and several lawmakers, who allegedly connived to pocket the funds using fake nongovernment organizations.

In an earlier statement, the Department of Budget and Management said “a careful

reading of the National Budget would prove [the inaccuracies of Lacson’s allegations] quickly enough.”

“While the General Appropriations Act may appear complex, it will very clearly show two things: that the supposed DAP provisions are not in the GAA, and that there are fewer lump sums in the administration’s spending plan this year,” the DBM said.

It also said 87 percent of the "Special Purpose Funds" in the 2015 Budget “has already been disaggregated.”

The DBM added that whatever lump-sum items are left in the proposed 2015 Budget are “funds whose specific purposes are impossible to determine in the planning process,” such as when natural disasters would strike or the extent of damage calamities.

The DBM said this was why the budget of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) is “necessarily a lump sum.” ■

Binay delivers ‘TSONA,’ hits ‘daang matuwid’

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — Vice President Jejomar Binay on Monday delivered what he called the “true” State of the Nation Address (TSONA) and criticized President Aquino saying Filipinos became poor under his “daang matuwid.”

Binay said the administration was “manhid at palpak” (insensitive and bungling) adding that more Filipinos are still suffering from poverty.

The Vice President criticized Aquino’s campaign slogan, “Kung walang kurap, walang mahirap.”

(If there’s no corruption, there will be no poor Filipinos.)

“After five years, many are still poor and many are still corrupt,” Binay said.

Binay resigned from the Cabwww.canadianinquirer.net

inet in June following allegations of corruption and ill-gotten wealth raised against him and his family.

Binay said that he was becoming a “punching bag” of the allies of the administration.

“There will be no progress if we give six more years to an administration that has no sympathy for the poor,” Binay said.

“After five years, what the Filipino people reaped was an insensitive and bungling government,” he added.

Binay, who earlier announced that he will run for President in the 2016 elections, also criticized Interior Secretary Mar Roxas during his speech.

He blamed Roxas for mishandling the devastation wrought

by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

Aquino earlier announced that he will endorse Roxas in the upcoming 2016 elections. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

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DMCI recalls: SolGen once said Torre ‘no threat’ PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

Senator Grace Poe.

PHOTO FROM POE'S OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

Poe wants Senate committee to probe on ‘get-rich-quick scams’

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — Amid the One Dream Global Marketing Inc. controversy, Senator Grace Poe filed a Senate resolution, asking the Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies to investigate on the ‘get-rich-quick schemes.’

“Would-be investors are enticed by ‘networking groups’ by emphasizing the seeming lavish lifestyle of their ‘successful members’ through their posts on social media showcasing their money, cars, watches, free trips or other material things,” Poe said in a statement.

One Dream, a Batangasbased company, was purportedly involved in a P3-billion scam, with its investors filing a syndicated estafa case against its owner, Arnel Gacer.

Poe then wanted the Senate committee to probe on the ‘aid of legislation on relevant securities and investment laws, regulations and measures, with the end goal of introducing remedial amendments to better battle deceptive investment schemes and stop insidious networking scams.’

The neophyte senator believed that the Senate needed to ‘revisit securities and investment laws’ to ‘protect the people from being preyed upon by networking groups amid the strong appeal of marketing strategies.’

Poe asserted that the securi-

ties and investment laws have been exploited by some deceitful companies to victimize the public in bogus investments.

She then cited One Dream, which was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a trading firm of goods but not of investments.

“With One Dream being a SEC-registered firm, unsuspecting investors could have been made to believe that it was safe to invest their money in the company. Amendments may have to be made to prevent companies engaged in deceitful means from circumventing existing securities and investment laws, regulations and measures,” she said.

“Desiring to improve one’s financial status and one’s quality of living by investing one’s hardearned money is commendable and is beneficial not only to the investor but to the economy, but to prey on our countrymen through deceitful and unscrupulous means is simply wrong and the government ought to step in to ensure the protection of our countrymen’s investments and dreams,” she added.

One Dream has stopped operations on July 11, failing to pay its investors.

The SEC, for its part, warned the public against other alleged investment scams by Freedom Life Advanced Global Prosperity Marketing Incorporated and SUCCESS200 International Marketing Corporation. Both companies were not registered with the SEC. ■

grounds that the physical integrity of the Rizal Monument is not threatened with destruction or alteration by Torre de Manila.”

“In the case of NCCA, [the OSG] stated that it does not have jurisdiction over the Rizal Monument and the Rizal Park, which are neither World Heritage Sites nor works of national artists,” DMCI’s statement further read.

In the Jan. 12 pleading, the OSG also said the agencies “cannot be compelled to stop

suance of a CDO (cease and desist order) to stop the construction” of Torre.

In a position paper filed on WHY THE turnaround?

Thursday, Hilbay said Torre’s The developer of the controrise violated the National Culversial condo project Torre de tural Heritage Act of 2009 as Manila on Friday noted how well as the “Constitution’s conthe Office of Solicitor General servationist and protectionist (OSG) had apparently changed policies.” its position on the Supreme While conceding that the Court case that seeks the buildbuilding’s location is “not ing’s demolition. within the geographical area of DMCI Homes was referring a declared heritage zone,” he to the position paper filed in the said the government’s definiSupreme Court on Thursday by tion of the Rizal Monument’s Solicitor General “physical integFlorin Hilbay, rity… necessarily who maintained includes its sight that the strucline, because it is ture was illegal If the law stated that physical integrity a visual phenomin the eyes of the includes sight line, then we would enon.” national governhave complied. But the fact is, there To this, DMCI ment. The paper is no law that defines or regulates replied: “If the supported the visual corridors. law stated that petition filed physical integby the Knights rity includes of Rizal, which sight line, then wants Torre torn down for the construction of Torre de we would have complied. But spoiling the view of the Rizal Manila” as its location is “way the fact is, there is no law that Monument. beyond the protected [five- defines or regulates visual corIn a statement, the company meter] buffer zone of the Rizal ridors. Again, rules should not recalled that when the OSG is- Monument and the Rizal Park.” be changed arbitrarily and midsued a comment on the case on The OSG also noted then that way.

Jan. 12, it asked the high court the building’s site is “private “We broke no law and sought to discharge the National Mu- property, the use of which can- clearance from the government seum, National Commission for not be arbitrarily interfered institution mandated to conCulture and the Arts (NCCA), with by a government agency, serve the history and cultural and the National Historical such as respondent NHCP, heritage of the country. And yet, Commision of the Philippines without clear legal grounds.” we are being forced to abandon (NHCP) as respondents.

It said “there is clearly no a project that will help improve Back then, it noted, the OSG sufficient legal basis that would the living conditions in the City based its comment “on the justify respondent NHCP’s is- of Manila.” ■

DMCI’s Torre de Manila as seen on the background of the Rizal Monument in Manila.

MARIFLOR DYCOCO / @JUST_IFI / INSTAGRAM

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FRIDAY

Proudly PH made: DOST’s hybrid hope for Metro traffic Publisher Philippine Canadian Inquirer, Inc. Correspondents Lei Fontamillas Jane Moraleda Frances Grace Quiddaoen Socorro Newland Bolet Arevalo Online Media Head Ching Dee ching.dee@canadianinquirer.net Graphic Designer Shanice Garcia Photographers Angelo Siglos Solon Licas Vic Vargas Operations and Marketing Head Laarni Liwanag (604) 551-3360 Advertising Sales Alice Yong (778) 889-3518 alice.yong@canadianinquirer.net Emy Rose Figueroa salesphilippines@canadianinquirer,net emy.figueroa@canadianinquirer.net Nelson Wu (1) 647-521-5155 salestoronto@canadianinquirer.net nelson.wu@canadianinquirer.net Amelia Insigne 1-416-574-5121 amelia.insigne@canadianinquirer.net PHILIPPINE PUBLISHING GROUP Editorial Assistant Phoebe Casin 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, sales@canadianinquirer.net Philippine Canadian Inquirer is published weekly every Friday.

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BY CHARLES E. BUBAN Philippine Daily Inquirer THROUGHOUT HUMAN history, necessity has driven invention and innovation. With public transportation virtually destroyed at the end of World War II, enterprising Filipinos modified the surplus Willys and Ford military jeeps to develop a public transport system.

They removed the jeep’s rear, extended the rear seats so the vehicle could take in passengers and added a metal roof. Thus was born the jeepney.

Fast-forward to the present: With Metro Manila’s traffic condition and airquality level not getting any better, Filipino engineers at the Metals Industry Research and Development Center of the Department of Science and Technology (MIRDCDOST) were challenged to create an alternative urban mass transit that would be safe and convenient to ride, not too expensive to build and maintain, burn less fuel and generate less emissions, and not seriously worsen the already problematic traffic situation when introduced into crowded roads of the metropolis.

Three years and P45 million later, the engineers headed by DOST Assistant Secretary Robert Dizon unveiled a working prototype of a hybrid dieselelectric “road train” during the 2015 National Science and Technology Week at SMX Convention Center in Pasay City last week.

The road train is one of the three projects on the DOST’s Advanced Transport Program under the Makina Para Sa Bayan Program or MakiBayan. An automated guideway transit —a driverless, elevated, electric-powered train—and the retrofitting of 40 donated and unused coaches for the Philippine National Railways are the other projects.

“The DOST road train is actually a hybrid of sorts: Just like a train, it has a total of five coaches, is 40 meters long and can accommodate up to 240 passengers.

But like buses, the road train moves on wheels,” said Christian Ibañez, a science research specialist at the MIRDCDOST. Each road train has 12 wheels, he said.

“Just like Metro Manila’s Light Rail Transit trains, the road train is driven by electric motors. They draw power not from an electric overhead cable but from 260 interconnected lead-acid batteries constantly charged via regenerative braking and by a generator that converts the energy produced by a small conventional diesel engine,” Ibañez said.

No waste

Getting a regular vehicle moving

DOST Hybrid Electric Road Train.

needs a big input of power, and every time the driver hits the brakes all the energy built up disappears again, wasted in the brake pads as heat. In the regenerative braking that the road train employs, this energy that should have been wasted while slowing down or coasting downhill is captured, turned into electricity, and stored in the batteries.

“When the DOST road train slows down or coasts downhill, the same electric motors go into reverse. The electricity that is produced is stored back into the batteries. If battery charge is still low or when more power is needed, the diesel engine paired to the DOST road train’s 300 kVA (kilovolt-ampere) generator kicks in to supply more power.

With the technology that we have installed, emissions are significantly lower,” he said.

When asked if the road train could readily be introduced into Metro Manila’s major roads like Edsa and Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, Ibañez said the 10-ton vehicle would not require the building of new infrastructure like railway tracks, overhead electric cable system or digging of tunnels.

“With the DOST road train, the requirement would only be the creation of a dedicated lane much like the marked ones the MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority) created for motorcycles along Edsa and Commonwealth Avenue as well as bus stops that could accommodate the 40-meter length of the vehicle,” he said.

As explained by Dr. Rio Pagtalunan, MIRDC-DOST analysis and testing division chief, the train system is still the most efficient public mass transportation system, the reason why the DOST road train is patterned after a train system model.

For those who wonder how a vehicle

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DOST.GOV.PH

this long would be able to turn, Ibañez said the road train maneuvers just like a regular bus and will only need a threelane-wide road to make a 90-degree turn.

“We have proven this on the parade ground and nearby streets of Clark Freeport in Angeles City, Pampanga, and the roads around SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City. Moreover, there is no special training for the driver as long as that person knows how to drive trucks and buses,” he said.

He added that the electrical and other water-sensitive parts of the road train are raised almost 2 meters, making it safe to drive through flooded roads.

For added safety, the batteries and the generator are located in the fifth and last coach, separate from the passenger coaches.

Moreover, for passenger convenience, the lowest steps of the road train are at sidewalk level while the doors are wider by about 2 mthan the doors of regular buses or light rail trains.

The road train can accommodate 60 passengers per coach, for a maximum of 240 passengers per trip or 650,000 passengers per day.

As for maintenance, Ibañez said, the parts and components used (generator, batteries, wheels, electrical and body) and technologies employed (regenerative braking and hybrid drivetrain) in the road train are locally developed and sourced.

“For companies that would like to acquire the DOST road train, they would just have to obtain the patents from us,” he said.

The price of the road train is much lower than the P45 million the DOST spent and would only take the MIRDC engineers about six months to fabricate, he said. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

9

Aquino still eyeing for Roxas-Poe tandem

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

THREE’S A CROWD. The screen flashes the faces of Vice President Jejomar ‘Jojo’

Binay, Sen. Grace Poe, and Liberal Party bet for 2016 Interior Sec. Mar Roxas during Pres. Aquino’s 6th State of the Nation Address.

SCREENSHOT FROM PCI’S LIVESTREAM VIA RTV MALACAÑANG

MANILA — President Aquino is still hoping that Senator Grace Poe will run with Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas for the 2016 elections.

“We are still hoping. We still want that very unified group that will preserve the coalition as much as possible that can ensure the victory of the agenda,” Aquino told reporters.

He added that talks will still

continue until certificates of candidacy from both parties are filed.

“Until matapos ang filing ng certificates of candidacy, wala pang pag-uusapang tapos.”

Aquino said.

(Until the filing of certificates of candidacy are filed, talks are not yet over.)

Aquino also said that there will be lesser chances for the administration to win the polls if the coalition is divided.

The president also believes that the tandem of Poe, Roxas and Sen. Francis Escudero would

make a formidable alliance.

“Maganda nga po sana, na ang mga kailangan pang magsanay ay talaga pong magkakaroon ng pagkakataong mahinog at maunawaan ang tunay na lalim ng pagkapinuno. Sa akin pong paniniwala, itong tatlo, kung magkakasama-sama ay talagang matinding tambalan,” Aquino said.

(It might be better if there is training and a chance to truly understand what it takes to become a leader. In my belief, if you group these three, there will be a great alliance.) ■

Roxas sees no problem being tagged ‘Noynoy 2.0’

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer WHAT’S WRONG with being President Aquino’s clone?

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas yesterday dismissed criticisms that he would merely be “Noynoy 2.0” after he was endorsed by President Aquino as the administration coalition’s presidential candidate in 2016.

“What is wrong with Noy 2.0?” Roxas told reporters after the Mass commemorating the sixth death anniversary of former President Corazon Aquino at Manila Memorial Park.

After President Aquino endorsed Roxas’ presidential bid, Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes said Roxas clearly only wanted to be “Noynoy 2.0,” noting the “symbols and colors” of the endorsement gathering at Club Filipino in Mandaluyong City and his speech.

More of the same

“He too will run in the name of Cory and Ninoy, in the name of daang matuwid (straight path), in the name of continuing Noynoy Aquino’s failed legacy. He promises us more of the same,” Reyes said in a statement.

Reyes added that people “do not want a Noynoy 2.0,” saying reform program of Mr. Aquino was a “sham.”

“The people demand real change,” Reyes said.

But Roxas defended the accomplishments of the Aquino administration.

He said the country was now in a place never reached or

Liberal Party standardbearer Mar Roxas.

PCDSPO

imagined before in five years remained one of the people he “This is not diminishing her because of President Aquino. hoped would agree to be his stature. I respect her. For me “I don’t need to enumerate vice-presidential running mate. this is part of a bigger plan that the statistics and proof but our “The short answer is yes,” is generational. There is a saycountry’s standing before the Roxas said when asked if Poe ing that politicians think of the people and the world is now dif- remained on the Liberal Party’s next elections, statesmen think ferent than before,” he said. list of potential candidates for of the next generation,” Roxas “I think we said. know, and the President rest of the counAquino had spotry knows, that ken several times what P-Noy has He too will run in the name of Cory with Poe about done, we have to and Ninoy, in the name of daang a possible coalicontinue them… matuwid (straight path), in the name tion but all the I can contribute of continuing Noynoy Aquino’s failed meetings failed my experience legacy. to bring any deand what I have finitive decision. done as well to Poe is the enhance and front-runner in strengthen the straight path Vice President. the presidential polls, followed that has been started,” Roxas Roxas expressed hope that by Vice President Jejomar Bisaid. the public would accept and nay. understand that having Poe as Roxas is in third place in the Poe still considered for VP the coalition’s vice-presidential Social Weather Stations poll Roxas said Sen. Grace Poe candidate is being considered. and fourth, behind Davao City www.canadianinquirer.net

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, in the Pulse Asia survey.

Poe is the frontrunner in presidential surveys, with Vice President Jejomar Binay a close second. Roxas, on the other hand, lags behind the polls prompting President Aquino to urge supporters to campaign hard for Roxas to make him known to more people.

Roxas said that President Aquino would still spearhead the meetings with possible vice presidential candidates of the Liberal Party.

“We will get there. Honestly, I have not spoken to anyone. I am not speaking to anybody yet because I don’t want to preempt the President. Perhaps the talks and the deep reflection (on who will be the vice presidential candidate) will happen in the coming days,” Roxas said. ■

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FRIDAY

P-Noy names...

Aquino for the trust and support he had given him.

“I, Mar Roxas, accept the challenge of our bosses to continue, expand and fight for the straight path,’” Roxas said at the end of his 15-minute acceptance speech, drawing thunderous applause from his supporters who filled the historic Kalayaan Hall of Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan City.

It was the same hall where Roxas, then primed to seek the presidency in the 2010 elections under the banner of the Liberal Party (LP), announced that he was giving way to Mr. Aquino, whose popularity suddenly soared after the death of his mother.

This time, it was Mr. Aquino’s turn to heap praises on his friend and rally the LP’s “yellow army” behind him.

“Club Filipino brings back so many memories,” Roxas said.

“This is where President Cory took her oath in 1986. As mentioned by the President, this is also where he accepted the calls for him to lead and where he said that we can now dream again. This is also where I first said ‘country first before self.’” ❰❰ 1

Great privilege

Turning to the President, Roxas said: “This is a great privilege and I promise not to besmirch their names. And I will definitely not tarnish your name.”

“With this endorsement, you are also passing the dreams and strength of the 100 million Filipinos [to me]. To my bosses, I will not betray your trust,” he said, referring to the Filipino people.

Roxas, who lost to Vice President Jejomar Binay in the 2010 elections, had apparently traded his original political color, blue, for the more popular yellow of the LP. Roxas’ mother, the clan matriarch Judy Araneta-Roxas, was observed crying as his son recalled how the death of his brother, the late Capiz Rep. Gerardo “Dinggoy” Roxas Jr., catapulted him from being an investment banker in New York City to a national political figure.

His wife, television reader Korina Sanchez, said the President’s endorsement was a big boost to her husband’s candidacy, pointing out that Mr.

Pres. Benigno Aquino III with Liberal Party standardbearer Mar Roxas.

Aquino was the only President whose popularity rating remained above 50 percent in the last year of his term.

in my heart was right. I accepted the responsibility,” he said.

In all the events he had attended as a government official across the country, Roxas said what struck him most was the fact that all Filipinos were “united by our aspirations.”

PCDSPO

“It’s professional, not transactional. No lucky strokes, only systematic fulfillment of our dreams,” he said. “It’s a government [that serves only] our United by aspirations bosses who give us the mandate Amid rumors that the Presiand strength.” dent would endorse Sen. Grace He added: “This is what we Poe, the new front-runner in have started on [the straight the presidential polls, Sanchez Filipino dream path. The President] allowed said she and her husband did “My dream is no different us to imagine again what the not doubt Mr. Aquino’s choice from the dream of every Fili- Filipino is capable of… We are a of his successor. pino. I wish for the Filipino serious people who are serious In his speech, Roxas said he people only what I would wish with our dreams, who have just had no plans of going into poli- for myself. After all, who are we had a taste of what serious, selftics although less leadership he came from a can achieve.” family of politiRoxas also cians. He said lauded Mr. his brother, who This is what we have started on [the Aquino for the succumbed to straight path. The President] allowed sacrifices he had cancer in 1993, us to imagine again what the Filipino made for the was supposed is capable of… We are a serious country, recallto carry on the people who are serious with our ing the difficult tradition started dreams, who have just had a taste of times he faced in by their grandwhat serious, selfless leadership can 2009 when varifather, the late achieve. ous sectors were President Mantrying to conuel Roxas, and vince him to run their father, the for President in late Sen. Gerry Roxas. if not our dreams?” he said.

2010.

“This principle is in our “Who would not want a life In one of their conversations, blood; you have the obligation with dignity and comfort? That Roxas said he remembered the to serve. Put the collective first you have something to eat when President telling him that he before yourself,” he said. you’re hungry and your life will could not abandon the calls for “I could not turn my back be better if you work hard,” he him to pursue what his parents on the memories of my father, added. had started.

Dinggoy and our grandfather.

Under Mr. Aquino’s leaderIt’s my duty even though I know ship, Roxas said the govern- Debt to the people that my life would change… I ment proved that it could at“I owe the Filipino [people] had to do justice to what I had tend to the people’s needs and as much and I owe as much to been taught and to what I knew fulfill its mandate. you, Mr. President. I have never www.canadianinquirer.net

met a President who sacrificed so much for the country,” he said.

“I have never met a President who has been able to inspire so much confidence. You showed us how to live by the principles we believed in and show us what we could do with our political will… and by sticking with the truth no matter how strong our enemy is,” he added.

Roxas said the straight path principle was “never about me or the President” and that it was the embodiment of the aspirations of every Filipino.

“As what the President said, it is worth fighting for. It is worth sacrificing for and dying for if need be. The straight path transcends me and [the President]; it is a Filipino ideal that has been there long before we were born, and will remain long after we are gone,” he said.

Roxas then promised not to abandon the straight path principle, saying: “I will give my all.

I will not leave anything for myself. I will leave everything on the floor for this fight.”

‘Good taste’

“The President has good taste, that I can tell you,” Sanchez told reporters after the event.

“We never talked about it because every time we looked at each other’s eyes, we knew that the President would pick the right person. And we knew that Mar deserved [his support],” she said.

Continuity

“The first six years under the Aquino administration were really to make sure the road was straight. But now we make sure the boat has no holes,” said Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, the LP chair in the Bicol region.

“Everyone in the boat now must push the boat in the right direction. Of course, what Mr. Aquino did was the most difficult part. But now, we need to keep the boat going, and that involves a platform of government focusing on inclusive social policy and infrastructure,” he said.

Definitely, he said, the LP “will bank on the President.”

He said the mistake of former US Vice President Al Gore, who lost the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, was when he tried to distance himself from outgoing President Bill Clin-

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

ton.

“He thought that if he distanced himself, the problems [associated with Clinton] will disappear,” Salceda said, adding that Gore should have realized that he could not “dissociate” himself from the Clinton administration.

“But Mar has always been part of the Aquino team. He’s part of the team,” he said.

Nomination bounce

Salceda predicted a “nomination bounce” or spike for Roxas’ polling numbers now that President Aquino had endorsed him as his chosen successor.

He said an internal poll commissioned by the LP showed that Roxas had a 13-percent share of the hypothetical vote if the elections were held today.

“With the anointment of the President, there will be a spike, toward the 20s. That will make us very competitive” with the front-runners Sen. Grace Poe and Vice President Jejomar Binay,” Salceda said.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said Roxas now needed to consolidate his political base, by “running after” the members of the coalition formed under the Aquino banner.

He said Roxas should “smile more,” look less serious in order to help the masses relate to him as a candidate.

“I’m very confident of him.

Without question, he’s the most qualified. He has experience and integrity,” Belmonte said.

Roxas just needs to “improve his PR,” he said. “He’s lacking in that department. He looks too serious,” he added.

Most prepared

Former Sen. Wigberto Tañada described Roxas as the “most prepared to be the next President because of his knowledge, his experience, his commitment as a public servant.”

“He is clean and honest, so I think he is the most deserving of our support as our next President,” he said.

He said symbols derived from

the Aquino campaign should help boost Roxas standing with the public.

“By wearing yellow, it shows the values we continue to plant in the consciousness of our people: Honesty, cleanliness, courage, firmness, and integrity,” Tañada said.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone noted that Roxas’ campaign color used to be blue.

“But now, we’re talking about continuity, so it’s hard to change colors,” he said.

Evardone said the campaign wished to avoid a repeat of the 1992 presidential election when the candidate of the dominant party, the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, Ramon Mitra, lost to Fidel V. Ramos.

Ramos was endorsed by President Corazon Aquino, who resisted tremendous pressure from the ruling party in making her choice.

“Now, the difference is that we’re the dominant party, and the President is in the dominant party, and he has endorsed Mar,” Evardone said.

Formidable task

Sen. Ralph Recto said Roxas’ task ahead of him was formidable.

“He has to show he is better than the President and better than all other candidates.

People want more. You cannot be just equal to or less than [the person you’re trying to replace].

He should be greater than President Aquino,” he said.

Recto said Roxas did not need to try to erase his image as an “elitist.” “Maybe he just needs more exposure. There’s a possibility he will endear himself to the public again,” he said.

Social activist Leah Navarro, a campaigner for Mr. Aquino and now for Roxas, said she believed the Aquino magic should do wonders for the Roxas candidacy.

‘Yellow has always been the color since 2009, since the campaign began. I think the symbolism here is not that Mar is adopting the color, but that it

has been his color,” she said.

“In the fifth year of the Aquino administration, we have to show we are in the same boat.

That’s the story,” she said.

Even retired policemen, including classmates of sacked Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima, threw their support for the presidential run of Roxas.

Former PNP Deputy Director General Felipe Rojas Jr. said he believed Roxas was the most capable among the politicians who had expressed their interest to seek the presidency in the 2016 elections.

For retired PNP Director Cipriano Querol Jr., Roxas was the best man to continue the gains of President Aquino’s reform program.

Rojas and Querol were both classmates of Purisima, one of the President’s closest friends in the government who became Roxas’ critics, in the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1981.

They were among several former PNP officials who attended the President’s formal endorsement of Roxas as his successor.

11

Binay might face murder complaint

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — On top of the corruption allegations raised against him, Vice President Jejomar Binay may face a murder complaint.

Binay revealed on Tuesday that his critics are planning to charge him with murder as part of what he described as a “demolition job” against his presidential bid.

“Meron pa nga po fa-file-an ako ng murder charge. Yan nga po ang gawain, demolition by perception,” he said in an interview with radio DZMM. (There is also someone who is planning to file a murder charge against me. That’s what they do, demolition by perception.)

“Mga kababayan ‘yan pong demolition na ‘yun, alam po ng mga naninira sa akin noon pa

man na sila ay nagsisinungaling. Alam po nila na hukuman lang ang makapagsasabi,” he added.

(My fellow Filipinos, in that demolition, my critics know from the very beginning that they are telling lies. They know that only the court can judge.)

Binay said that he is saddened by how his image has been eroded by the corruption issues thrown at him.

“Ang malungkot na parte sa akin, ‘yung sinasabing pagkakorupisyon e Binay ‘yun. Mga kababayan, ‘yan hong mga salitang ganyan, kayo ho ay naging bahagi ng biktima ng sinasabi naming demolition by perception,” he said.

(What saddens me is that when they say corruption, that’s Binay. My countrymen, those words, you were also a victim of what we describe as demolition by perception.) ■

Closer to the goal

“Many of us in the uniformed service want to see the continuation of the straight path of President Aquino. I think the endorsement of Secretary Roxas was a step closer toward attaining that goal,” Querol said.

While there was no formal organization, Rojas said a number of retired policemen and even military officials had voiced out their support for Roxas.

“I believe in the competence and efficiency of Secretary Roxas as a leader. He applied business principles to improve the police service,” Rojas said.

Besides Querol and Rojas, retired PNP Director Carmelo Valmoria, the former chief of the Metro Manila police, and former Chief Supt. Jojo Angan, Roxas’ former chief aide, were also seen at the event dubbed “A Gathering of Friends.” ■

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Vice President Jejomar Binay.

PHOTO FROM BINAY'S OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

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FRIDAY

De Lima: INC abduction probe still ongoing

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.

FACEBOOK

Show ‘true SALN’ first — Cayetano to Binay

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

first.)

In his speech, Binay criticized the administration’s “daang matuwid” adding that it only made more Filipinos poor.

“After five years, many are still poor and many are still cor-

President who have not yet answered the allegations thrown against him and his family.

“Nakapagtatakang naririnig MANILA — Senate Majority natin ito mula sa bise presidenLeader Alan Peter Cayetano on te, samantalang siya mismo ay Tuesday slammed Vice Presihindi pa sinasagot ang mga isyu dent Jejomar Bing korapsyon lanay’s “true” State ban sa kanya at of the Nation Adsa kanyang pamdress (SONA). ilya,” the senator Cayetano said The public deserves transparency, added. that Binay should the truth and honest leaders who are (I’m wonderhave revealed accountable for their actions. ing why I hear his “true” stateit from the Vice ment of assets, President when liabilities and net he have not anworth) first. swered the cor“Bago sana siya naglabas ng rupt,” Binay said. ruption issues raised against tinatawag niyang True SONA, He also called the adminis- him and his family.) sana ay naglabas muna ang tration “manhid at palpak” (in“Up to now, he has not probise presidente ng kanyang True sensitive and bungling). vided a clear-cut explanation SALN (statement of assets, li“After five years, what the regarding his alleged ill-gotten abilities and net worth),” Cay- Filipino people reaped was an wealth. The public deserves etano said in a statement. insensitive and bungling gov- transparency, the truth and (Before he released what he ernment,” he added. honest leaders who are accalled True SONA, he should Cayetano said that it was sur- countable for their actions,” have released his True SALN prising to hear it from the Vice Cayetano said.

MANILA — Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Monday said that the investigation on the cases of abduction of Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) ministers is not yet over.

De Lima said the National Bureau of Investigation is still looking into the matter.

“The investigation is still [going on]. The earlier reports, alluding to a purported statement from an NBI official that the case is closed, are wrong,” the justice secretary said.

The statement was made following earlier reports of an NBI official who reortedly claimed that the initial investigation

showed no abduction.

De Lima said she was surprised with the statement adding that the official was not even involved in the on going probe on the case.

She was referring to the chief of the NBI’s Anti-Organized Transnational Crime Division, lawyer Manual Eduarte.

Eduarte made the announcement last Monday that there was no abduction in the case.

“First of all, that official is not involved in the investigation…

I was surprised when he made that announcement and I asked NBI Director Virgilio Mendez to do something about it, to discipline him for making an unauthorized and untrue statement that the investigation is closed,” De Lima said.

Justice Secretary Leila De Lima.

SCREENSHOT FROM ABS-CBN NEWS FOOTAGE

Detained Chris Brown promoter faces DOJ

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE PROMOTER of American singer Chris Brown briefly appeared at the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday afternoon and said through counsel that he would respond to the allegations against him in two weeks.

Still a detainee of the Bureau

of Immigration ( BI), FilipinoCanadian John Michael Pio Roda was present at the start of the DOJ’s preliminary investigation into the estafa complaint filed against him and Brown by Maligaya Development Corp.

(MDC) over the singer’s failure to show up for a 2015 New Year’s Eve Countdown concert at Philippine Arena.

Pio Roda’s counsel Sarah

Abraham said her client intends “to address all allegations during the next hearing, when we file our counter-affidavit.”

State Prosecutor Christine Buencamino gave Pio Roda 15 days to respond to the allegations.

Brown, now out of the country after being prevented for a few days from leaving last week because of the complaint, did not send a representative in the www.canadianinquirer.net

proceedings. $1-M talent fee

MDC, the firm that operates the 55,000-seat arena owned by the influential Iglesia ni Cristo, sued Brown and Pio Roda mainly for allegedly failing to return the $1-million talent fee that was paid to the singer.

The complaint prompted the DOJ to order the BI to issue a look-

out bulletin on Brown, who had a one-night concert on July 21.

The order delayed Brown’s scheduled departure on July 22 but he eventually secured an emigration clearance to leave on the 24th.

Roda, however, was detained by the BI the night before Brown’s departure, citing him several immigration violations, including working in the country without a permit.

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FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

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Philippine News

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AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Shaking-off the... ❰❰ 1

Fire control simulation

At the Manila Port Area, the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) conducted a staged dire control scenario held in a building.

The drill held at the West Quadrant, involved fire control and rescue operations. Those inside the building were taught how to successfully gather the people outside when a fire break out and rescue those trapped inside.

The MMDA earlier reported that around 500 fire incidents may be recorded during the first hour of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake.

For the fire department observers, however, there is still a need to urge the people to fully participate in the drill.

“We have observed a successful simulation although there is still a need to encourage full participation of the people,” Senior Inspector Jema Wee, Substation Commander of Intramuros Fire Station told the Philippine Canadian Inquirer.

Wee also added that the aside from participating in the metro-wide drill, institutions and business establishments may still conduct fire prevention drills with their aid.

“They can just come to our office and ask us to schedule a fire drill in their schools or offices.

That’s for free and that’s part of our fire prevention awareness that we are promoting,” Wee added.

Other drills

Aside from the fire simulation, other scenarios were also staged around Metro Manila.

Aseana City complex in Paranaque City was set as the command post for the drill and its grounds were also tagged as the mass burial site for possible fatalities.

The complex was also the area for the staging of a rescue operation with debris clearing and first-aid treatment simulations were conducted.

The transport of injured quake victims and the simulated rappel rescue operations through helicopters were also conducted.

Simultaneously, a high-angle rescue from a tall building was conducted by teams assigned along Ayala Avenue and at the Glorietta malls in Makati City.

Medical teams also put a field hospital at Eastwood City in Libis Quezon City while the Philippine Coast Guard conducted a seaborne medical rescue at the shore of Manila Bay. ‘Historic,’ successful drill

“Sa tingin ko historic ito.

For the first time tayo nag drill kasama ang international community, kasama pa natin ang sandatahang lakas, barangay, simbahan. So nakikita ko matagumpay at makasaysayan,” Tolentino said.

(I think this [the drill] is historic. For the first time, we conducted a drill with the international community, the police force, the local govern-

ment, the church. So I think it is very successful and historic.)

He added that the drill highlighted the importance of coordination between ground commanders and city mayors.

“Kailangan ang communication between quadrant commander and the mayors. Yun ang pinapraktis natin. Na kahit anong mangyari yung director o assistant director dapat nandito and we will make sure the line of communications is open.

Unahin yug pamilya o mahal sa buhay but make sure the government will be functioning,” he said.

(There is a need for communication between the quadrant commander and the mayors.

That’s what we are practicing, that whatever happens, the director or the assistant direactor is here and will make sure that the communication lines are open. Put the family and loved ones first but make sure that the government will be functioning.

To further advance the earthquake preparedness campaign, the MMDA created preparation essentials and todo list before, during and after earthquakes posted on the website www.bepreparedmetromanila.com.

niture which may block your agress.

• Keep a list of important emergency or hotline numbers.

• Establish family earthquake plan.

• Keep contact numbers or list of addresses of relatives and friends.

• Prepare earthquake emergency kit.

HOME EMERGENCY KIT – 1 gallon of water/person/ day – Food (3 days consumption) – Pieces/pairs of clothes, blankets, rubber shoes – First aid kit – Portable radio, whistles, flashlights & batteries – Essential medications – Low frequency Two-way Radio System – ABC Fire Extinguisher – Instructions on how to turn off gas, water and electricity OFFICE EMERGENCY KIT – 5 liters of water – Food (biscuits, instant noodles etc.)

– Piece of t-shirt & pants and pair of rubber shoes – First aid kit – Portable radio, whistles, flashlights & batteries – Essential medications – Low frequency Two-way Radio System

Before earthquakes

• Identify safe spots at the house or building.

• Stabilize LPG cylinders.

• Secure shelves and cabinets.

• Remove heavy objects or fur-

During earthquakes

If indoors: • Don’t panic; stay calm.

• Do the “Duck, Cover, and

Hold” position.

• Duck — and Look for cover • Cover — Under a sturdy desk or table • Hold — onto the furniture leg until shaking stops • Stay inside until shaking stops. Move only when it is safe to go out.

• Face away from windows.

• Stay clear of tall objects that may topple over.

• Watch out for falling objects.

• Do not take the elevator when going down.

If outdoors: • Go to open areas.

• Stay clear of buildings and power lines.

• Do not smoke or light matches or lighters.

If inside a vehicle: • Stop as quickly as safety permits and stay inside the vehicle.

• Avoid stopping near or under trees, light posts, power lines or buildings.

• Stay away from bridges, overpasses and tunnels.

After earthquakes

• Stay calm and be prepared for aftershocks.

• Check for injuries and administer First Aid to the degree you are trained for.

• Check for obvious hazards and damages on your house.

• Do not turn off any lighting or electrical device.

• Listen to the radio for updates and instructions.

• Use emergency supplies only if necessary.

Forced attendance on Binay’s ‘TSONA’?

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — With Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay delivering his ‘True’ State of the Nation Address (TSONA) at the Cavite State University (CSU), Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda asked if the student audience of the speech were required to attend.

ABS-CBN reported on Tuesday that Lacierda posted in his Facebook account, a CSU memorandum requiring all junior and senior students to attend a ‘student assembly’ which later on

turned out to be Binay’s ‘TSONA.’ “President Divinia Chavez of Cavite State University should perhaps explain why students were required to attend VP’s ‘TSONA,’” Lacierda said.

With Chavez yet to respond to Lacierda’s inquiry, Office of the Vice President head of media affairs Joey Salgado hit back at the Malacañang for already indicating ‘how the administration will use its power to harass and intimidate during the election season.’

“Paalala namin sa Palasyo, tayo ay nasa demokrasya. Hindi dapat nila sinusupil ang malayang palitan ng opinyon lalo na

sa ating mga paaralan,” Salgado said.

(Our reminder to the Palace, we are in a democracy. They should not be hindering the free exchange of opinion especially in our schools.)

“Kung hindi nila nagustuhan ang malakas na palakpak ng mga estudyante sa true SONA ng Vice President, huwag nilang daanin sa pananakot. Sagutin na lang nila ang mga sinabi ng Bise Presidente na nakabatay sa katotohanan at araw-araw na nararanasan ng taumbayan, kasama na ang mga estudyante ng CSU,” he added.

(If they did not like to loud www.canadianinquirer.net

applause of the students at the true SONA of the Vice President, they should not use intimidation. Instead, they should answer the claims of the Vice President that are based on truth and are experienced every day by the masses, including the students of CSU.) Lacierda, for his part, did not find Salgado’s statements as rational.

“Oh, you mean it was such a huge honor for Cavite State University to invite Vice President Binay that the memo failed to mention him as the Honored Guest Speaker and instead just called it a ‘Student Assembly?,’

Lacierda answered back.

“Mr. Salgado, pasensya na po, hindi po mangmang ang mga tao, at mawalang galang na po, palpak na nga po ang ‘TSONA’ ni VP Binay, palpak na naman ang katwiran ninyo,” he added.

(Mr. Salgado, my apologies, the people are not foolish, and with all due respect, VP Binay’s TSONA was futile, as well as your statement.)

Moreover, the Malacañang dismissed Binay’s ‘TSONA’ as the opposite of reality. They also slammed the Vice President for criticizing the administration he applauded for five years.

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

15

Bilibid ‘kings’ lose Jacuzzis, back to ‘tabo’

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer THEY USED to live like kings, their air-conditioned rooms equipped with top-of-the-line entertainment systems, Jacuzzis, stripper bars, recreational drugs, concert equipment, sex toys, wads of cash and underlings at their beck and call.

But at dawn yesterday, 17 high-profile drug convicts found themselves where they really belonged: in 8-squaremeter jail cells inside a recently inaugurated building at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa. This time, their cells had only the basic necessities: a closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera for added security, bunk beds, a sink, a basin and a dipper (“tabo”).

They’d have to make major adjustments to the change, said Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director General Ricardo Rainier Cruz III. “It’s a new environment. This is a real prison quite different from their former kubol (villas). Now they’d be in actual cells, unlike before when they were in a community,” the official added.

In a raid led by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima in December last year, the high-living drug lords were found living in luxury and plying their illegal trade behind bars, apparently with the complicity of jail guards and prison officials.

Isolated

Their new cells at the recently inaugurated Building 14, a facility within the Maximum Security Compound of NBP, are markedly different from their old quarters. Inside Building 14, the drug convicts are isolated from the main prison population through a separate entry and exit, part of stricter secu-

rity measures.

At 4:19 yesterday morning, De Lima led the highly secured convoy from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) headquarters in Manila to the NBP. The inmates were transported on a BuCor coaster flanked by vehicles carrying heavily armed NBI agents, BuCor officials and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) agents.

The convicts were herded to their new digs at 5 a.m. and immediately locked up. Based on a carefully planned placement scheme, officials said some cells would be occupied by one inmate, others by two.

Confidential transfer

The inmates, known to still wield influence even in prison because of their drug-sourced wealth, did not know they were going to be transferred to the NBP at dawn yesterday, but they did not resist, De Lima said. “We know they were [expecting] this,” she added. “[But] we cannot underestimate the capacity of these drug inmates. We heard that while they wanted to be transported back to Bilibid, they did not want to be moved here to Building 14,” De Lima told reporters who were given an advisory about the confidential operation late Friday night, but were not allowed to enter the building.

17 convicts identified

Cruz identified the 17 convicts transferred to Building 14 as Eugene Chua, Sam Li Chua, Vicente Sy, Ruben Tiu, Tony Co, Joel Capones, Herbert Colangco, Peter Co, Imam Boratong, Tom Chua, Rommel Capones, Jojo Baligad, Willy Chua, Michael Ong, Jacky King, Willy Sy and Noel Martinez.

“When George Sy (of the Bilibid 19) passed away recently due to cancer, he was replaced

by Ruben Tiu, [so the Bilibid 19 are still 19],” Cruz said, add-

this facility... We just can’t move them today, but it will be very soon,” the justice chief said.

Completely drug-free

Screenshot of Bilibid inmate Herbert Colanggo's music video shot inside one of the special "kubol" inside the NBP compound.

ing that a sufficient number of BuCor personnel have been assigned to Building 14.

It has yet to be determined when two of the 19 inmates could be transferred to the NBP. One of them, German Agojo, is still confined at the Philippine General Hospital due to intestinal problems, according to Cruz, while the other, Clarence Dongail, has been placed under the Department of Justice (DOJ) Witness Protection Program.

“The inmates have the capacity to ask to be rescued by their cohorts while outside [the NBP],” said De Lima, explaining the urgent and confidential nature of the transfer operation.

“They wanted to go back to their old place [instead of the new building],” she added. “Although their kubol are no longer there, who knows? If we put them back there and they’re back under the the protection of their gangs, in time, they might be able to reestablish and again set up their kubol,” the justice chief said.

Visitation allowed

In the new building, the inmates will be “well-guarded,”

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De Lima said. “The whole purpose of this (transfer) is to disable them from [their drug trade]. That’s why we’re putting in stricter security measures.”

The DOJ head said that though visitations were allowed, the hours were limited, and only the immediate family—including “the legal wife or the certified common-law wife, not wives”—and the convicts’ counsel are allowed.

De Lima entered the prison briefly to check on the Building 14 operation center, where monitoring equipment is housed, but did not check on the new transferees.

BuCor doctors also performed a cursory medical check-up on the inmates and found nothing irregular.

De Lima said the BuCor was also consulting with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, among them the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Presidential AntiOrganized Crime Task Force and the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces, in finalizing the list of other inmates who should be moved to the 58-capacity Building 14.

“We are cleaning up the list of who else should be moved to

The short list included inmates who, like the group moved yesterday, continued to deal drugs while in prison. “[We are choosing] those who we think, based on intelligence or validated reports, are … still plying their [drug] trade inside confinement, and those who have the capacity to continue (plying) that trade,” De Lima said.

“The goal is to make the NBP a completely drug-free facility,” she added.

CCTV in every cell

Among the security measures put in place inside Building 14 are CCTV cameras installed in each of the cells, and assigning prison guards who are not prone to corruption, De Lima said.

“Those were my marching orders to Director General Cruz— that we assign the right guards and supervisor, those who are not vulnerable (to corruption),” the DOJ official said.

“These [convicts] will always try all sorts of means and methods to go around the system and sneak in contraband. That’s why we have to implement stricter security measures, given the kind of inmates that we have transferred here,” she added.

After the December raid, the inmates, tagged the “Bilibid 19,” were moved out of the NBP and held at the NBI quarters in Manila to isolate them from their gangs.

Some of the kubol at the NBP have been demolished, and more will be dismantled soon, Cruz said.

Opinion

16

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

ANALYSIS

A curse or boon at Club Filipino?

By Amando Doronila Philippine Daily Inquirer THE ENDORSEMENT of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas as the Aquino administration’s presidential candidate in the May 2016 elections saddled him with either a curse or an express vehicle to the presidency.

In declaring his endorsement at Club Filipino, President Aquino said that after careful consideration of a short list of probable successors, he determined that Roxas was the one “who has shown exemplary and true integrity,” the one fully ready to continue the daang matuwid (straight path) reforms of his government after he steps down next year.

Roxas won Mr. Aquino’s endorsement despite his dismal ratings in public opinion surveys on presidential preferences, which showed him running third behind front-runner Sen. Grace Poe, independent, and Vice President Jejomar Binay, head of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

In an act of faith, the President expressed hope that Roxas’ ratings would go up once he is “introduced well” to the people.

“If his current numbers are low,

this means we have to work harder defined the overriding issue in the 2016 surance that his endorsement would on making him well-known,” he told elections. The choice is between that of significantly boost his electoral prosthe Liberal Party (LP) faithful who “who will continue along the straight pects. This raises the question, how celebrated the endorsement in a pep path and fully break the system of pa- much weight does the endorsement talk at Club Filipino. The gathering tronage” and that of “who is always of the President carry in the next was more of a nostalgia trip for the looking for a way to bring us to the cycle elections?

Aquino family’s supporters than a of corruption and poverty.” The issue is Mr. Aquino withheld the endorsepresentation of Roxas’ qualifications now joined between Roxas and Binay. ment until after the delivery of his for the presidency.

In accepting the President’s en- last State of the Nation Address Club Filipino is flooded with mem- dorsement, Roxas locked himself (SONA), which enumerated the acories of Cory Aquino, the President’s into the daang matuwid straitjacket complishments of his administration mother, who was inducted into the of Mr. Aquino’s platform of good gov- during the past five years, hoping presidency in the club after the col- ernance. that the Sona would turn the tide of lapse of the Marcos dictatorship in the “As the President said, this is just public opinion in favor of his chosen 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution. the start. We shall continue to fight. I successor and bail him out of his adClub Filipino brought back bad am Mar Roxas. I accept the challenge verse ratings in the surveys. memories for Roxas. Six years ago, it of our bosses: To continue, expand To be sure, as the LP standardwas at Club Filipino, bearer, the whole where Roxas gave weight of the party In an act of faith, the President expressed hope that Roxas’ up his presidential machine and the ratings would go up once he is “introduced well” to the people. bid in favor of Mr. administration’s reAquino in the 2010 elections. Roxas and fight for the straight path.” sources will be thrown behind Roxas, was defeated by then Makati Mayor In an emotional response, Roxas enjoying the government’s advantage Binay in the vice presidential contest. said: “This endorsement … is a big of incumbency.

Today, Roxas and Binay face a rematch honor for me, Mr. President. I promAt this early stage of the electoral for the presidency in a grudge fight. The ise you I won’t sully the legacy of your campaign, it still remains to be seen trauma of the 2010 defeat haunts Roxas, parents, I won’t sully your name, I whether the Sona and the endorsewith the poll ratings confronting him. won’t stray from the straight path. I ment would swing the tide in Roxas’ Will he fare better this time? will give my all for this right.” favor.

Straitjacket In endorsing Roxas, the President

How much weight?

He gave the pledge, without the as-

Not a clone In the June poll conducted by

Pulse Asia, only 10 percent of the respondents said they would vote for Roxas, putting him a distant fourth, while 30 percent said they would choose front-runner Poe, and 22 percent backed Binay.

When Roxas declared, “I am Manuel Roxas, I accept the challenge of our bosses” to run for President, he seems to have sent the message that he was distancing himself from the Aquino legacy and trying to get out of the shadow of the Aquino oligarchy, or that he was responding to criticism that he was appearing as a clone of Mr. Aquino.

These are symptoms that being perceived as a surrogate of the President and being held hostage to daang matuwid pronouncements of the Aquino legacy is a heavy drag to Roxas.

The Roxas family belongs to that branch of the political class that traces its social and political pedigree to eminent public figures, like Manuel A. Roxas, grandfather of Mar Roxas and the first President of the independent postwar Philippine Republic, after having served as a brilliant finance secretary and Speaker of the House under the Commonwealth government of President Manuel L. Quezon. ■

AT LARGE

BBL, Shari’ah and respect for women

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer WHATEVER P-NOY’S reasons for not mentioning the SAF 44 (why is no one bemoaning the non-mention as well of the 17 Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters and the three civilians?) in his State of the Nation Address, criticism of his “sin of omission” is directed against the wrong people.

In the course of his two-hour speech, the President found time to thank his colleagues and advisers in the government, the members of his Cabinet, the Senate President and House Speaker, his security force, his office and household staff, and his own family.

But the most scathing criticism was directed against his mention of his personal support staff, including fashion designer Paul Cabral and hair stylist Cherry Reyes, even making humorous references to his own (lack of ) fashion sense and (lack of ) hair, comparing Reyes’ accomplishments to that of an economist making the most of scarce resources.

Particularly coming in for harsh and uncharitable remarks was his longtime housekeeper Yolly Yabes (some mistakenly referred to her as P-Noy’s yaya or nanny), whom he singled out for her care and unstinting service, even toward his colleagues.

The implication of much of the I respect and admire, are adamantly the decision of a Shari’ah court, especriticism was that Yabes was some- against the passage of the Bangsam- cially if there is abuse of power in the how undeserving of mention in such oro Basic Law because of their fears part of the Shari’ah judge.” an important speech as the Sona, the that the Muslim Code of Personal *** last in P-Noy’s term. Or that some- Laws, or Shari’ah Law, would be ap- AS for respect for the rights of womhow the President had trivialized the plied to all Filipinos. en under the BBL, Murad assured exercise by including such a lowly Of particular concern for them are that women’s rights are “guaranteed” personage as a household helper in the purportedly “anti-women” provi- in this draft law. his farewell speech. sions in Shari’ah, a legal system de“The BBL calls not just for the inExcuse me, but I think Yabes de- rived from the religious precepts of clusion and active participation of serves as much credit for P-Noy’s Islam, which in some countries have women,” Murad noted, but also for continued service to the nation as any been used to curtail women’s rights, “meaningful representation” in all Cabinet member or official. It is she particularly its harsh provisions re- aspects of public life, “including [the and her companions, after all, who garding punishments for adultery pursuit of ] political power.” see to it that he eats healthy meals, and sexual misbehavior.

Key to my own appreciation of the is ready to face the BBL, despite apworld each morning, prehensions on the It is their efforts, their perseverance, their loyalty that allow and brings the right impact on women him to face each difficult day in office. outfits in his travof Shari’ah Law and els. It is their efforts, other Islamic legal their perseverance, their loyalty that In an “encounter” between MILF precepts, is that women in Mindanao, allow him to face each difficult day in chair Murad Ebrahim and a group of including those living within the prooffice. And by discounting the impor- media representatives, he was asked posed Bangsamoro territory and not tance of their work and their charac- about this perceived fear of Shari’ah just Muslim women, say they have ter, P-Noy’s critics are betraying their Law among non-Muslim Filipinos. little to fear from its application. own biases against those they deem In the first place, said Murad, And if they, who will live under lowly and menial, many of them wom- Shari’ah has been in place for many such a legal system and know intien, who serve even from the sidelines years in the Philippines, but is ap- mately how it works in their own reand even in obscurity. plied “specifically for Muslims lationships and family life, are open I’m glad Yabes—and all the house- alone.” Shari’ah courts and laws co- to it, then who are we to hold back hold help she represents—got their exist with general civil laws and with our support for the BBL purportedly two minutes in the limelight, cour- the court system, he added, and even for their own sake? tesy of P-Noy. when a Shari’ah court rules with fiShould we not instead, if we are *** nality on a case, “it does not prevent all that concerned about the welfare SOME of my friends, including those the Supreme Court from reviewing of our sisters in the South, push for

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the passage of a “meaningful” BBL if this will guarantee progress and development in this long-neglected part of the country? Poverty, after all, and all its implied conditions—ignorance, powerlessness, violence—is the greatest form of oppression, for women, men and children. *** SERIOUS points have been raised

by Moro scholars and members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission against the changes made in the substitute BBL measure passed by the House. And judging by Senate committee chair Bongbong Marcos’ timeline, it seems he has no intention of pushing for the passage of the BBL before P-Noy’s term draws to a close.

But then, we are reminded time and again, this administration has managed to pull off surprises in terms of getting legislation passed despite perceived stumbling blocks and determined opposition.

Nobody is closing the door yet to a BBL in place even before the 2016 elections. But the people’s minds will have to stay open, and room for contrary views made. No law has ever been passed intact from the time it is filed to the time it is signed. But let’s hope and pray for the timely passage of a BBL that holds sense and meaning for every Filipino. ■

Opinion

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

17

PUBLIC LIVES

The weight of a presidential endorsement

By Randy David Philippine Daily Inquirer AN INCUMBENT president’s endorsement or—to use a religious term—anointment of a candidate in a presidential election can work in either of two ways. It can be a blessing or a curse, an asset or a liability, a badge of honor or a burden. Most of the time, it is a mix of both. Surprisingly enough, notwithstanding the personalistic nature of our existing political culture, presidential endorsements have made very little impact on our nation’s electoral outcomes.

Between Fidel V. Ramos and Ramon Mitra, who were both loyal to her, President Cory Aquino initially signaled that she would not take sides. But she eventually supported Ramos after the latter lost the Laban party nomination and decided to run under a new, hastily assembled, party. FVR won by the slimmest margin in the extremely crowded 1992 presidential race. Competing in that election were prominent figures that had stood by Cory during the turbulent years following Edsa I. One could understand why she preferred to stand above partisan politics.

In the 1998 election, President Ramos initially found himself torn be-

tween Renato de Villa, his longtime By 2010, she had become so unpopuI think P-Noy’s forthright anfriend and comrade in the military, and lar that the best thing she could do for nouncement of his personal choice of Jose de Venecia Jr., his party mate in Gilberto Teodoro Jr., her party’s can- Mar Roxas as the person most worthy Lakas who, as Speaker of the House of didate, was to stay away from his cam- to succeed him will test, for the first Representatives, had given him an ac- paign. Benigno S. Aquino III won that time, the true value of a presidential commodating Congress. Ramos chose election with 42 percent of the votes. endorsement. At his last State of the De Venecia, hoping that the Lakas The capable “Gibo” Teodoro, who Nation Address, he declared that he machinery and the resources of the could not avoid being identified with wants the coming election to be a administration would be able to offset GMA, trailed at fourth place, with 11 referendum on his administration. the tremendous advantage enjoyed percent of the votes. His miserable per- One would be hard-pressed to find by a wildly popular Joseph “Erap” formance at the polls demonstrated in any other president who has stood Estrada. Erap won that election by a no uncertain terms the unbearable so confidently on his record. Clearly, landslide. Thrown out of office barely weight of a presidential endorsement.

P-Noy intends to go out and actively halfway through his term, he was unThe 2016 presidential election will campaign in the 2016 election as able to groom a sucthough he himself I think P-Noy’s forthright announcement of his personal choice cessor. Still, while he were the candidate. was in detention on In turn, I am sure of Mar Roxas as the person most worthy to succeed him will test, plunder charges, he he expects Roxas for the first time, the true value of a presidential endorsement. did everything to get not only to continue his bosom friend, Fernando Poe Jr., to likely change that picture. All our what he has started, but also to derun against Gloria Macapagal Arroyo presidents, from Marcos to Arroyo, fend it with conviction. in the 2004 election. uniformly ended their terms weighed Roxas has repeatedly shown that GMA, who had assumed the presi- down by poor approval ratings in the he is a good team player. He could dency following Erap’s ouster in 2001, opinion polls, and hounded by con- have quit P-Noy’s Cabinet at the was intensely disliked from the mo- troversies and problems that even- height of the Mamasapano affair, and ment she announced she was seek- tually defined their presidencies. he would have been instantly rewarding a fresh term as president in 2004. P-Noy, in contrast, has remained ed with high presidential preference This sour relationship with the public politically buoyant as he approaches ratings by an impressionistic public. was aggravated by the countless scan- his final year in office. In the eyes of A political pragmatist who thinks dals that defined her transactional the many who entertained doubts only of his career would no doubt presidency, beginning with the “Hello about him in the aftermath of Mama- have seized the opportunity. Not Garci” tapes, which showed the extent sapano, but later gave him back their Mar; he quietly stood by P-Noy even of her brazen manipulation of the can- trust, this president has earned the when he was being jeered for having vassing of the 2004 presidential votes. right to name his successor. allowed himself to be bypassed on a

matter that belonged to his department. I am sure his low ratings are partly ascribable to this perceived lack of confident assertiveness that we often mistake for leadership.

To sum up: Three questions basically determine the value of a presidential endorsement. Firstly, has the endorser earned the right to endorse his successor? Or, to put it another way, how much political influence does the endorser wield over public opinion? Secondly, to what extent is the endorser prepared to act in order to ensure that his endorsement makes any difference? Another way of putting the same thought: How much stake does the endorser have in the election of his chosen successor? And lastly, how far is the chosen one prepared to defend the record of an incumbent president’s endorsement? The events at Club Filipino the other day have left no doubt about the answers to these questions.

For a presidential endorsement to work as intended, it has to take on the qualities of a relationship built on enduring trust, rather than of a contractual arrangement arrived at by calculation. Looking back, I think it would have been very difficult for PNoy to justify endorsing anyone else other than Mar Roxas. ■

LOOKING BACK

Earthquake

By Ambeth R. Ocampo Philippine Daily Inquirer ON AUG. 2 it will be 47 years since the earthquake in Casiguran, Quezon, that would not be remembered if not for the impact it made 200 kilometers away, in Manila. Known today as the “Ruby Tower Earthquake,” it reminds us of the collapse of a building in Binondo that killed at least 268 people and injured 261 others.

Disasters in Manila always get momentary attention; our problem is following through. There is nothing we can do about the past but we can prepare for the future, and I wonder what amendments to the Building Code were made after the Ruby Tower Earthquake and if it has been recently updated to minimize the loss of life and property anticipated in “The Big One.” I was at the office of the president of De La Salle University when the 1990 earthquake struck. I knew it was a strong one because Br. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC, all 200 pounds of him on a swivel chair, was moved to a side of his desk by the tremor. Since we would not fit under his office desk, I stood up and was looking at the door when he said: “Stay where you are! We will be safe. I am a Christian brother.” Being

a man of little faith, I did not find the falling roof tiles. The solution? Gal- worked for the secularization of the last statement very reassuring. But I vanized-iron sheets for roofing. GI Philippine clergy in the 19th century. sat back down and he continued the sheets are fire-resistant and won’t His name would have joined those conversation that had been rudely in- slide off and kill the neighbors during of Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and terrupted. Later when I stepped out of an earthquake, but during a strong Jacinto Zamora who were killed by his office, I found the entire building typhoon these can still fly off and in- garrote in Bagumbayan in February empty. Everyone had evacuated to the jure someone.

1872, but he escaped execution befootball field.

How people respond to disaster cause he was killed when the Manila In retrospect, I admire Brother can be an engaging way to know and Cathedral collapsed on him during Andrew, since deceased, for being a understand history. the 1863 earthquake that occurred gallant captain who would sink with There are many references to in Nueva Ecija, 60 km north of Intrahis ship (but he did not have to take earthquakes in the 55-volume com- muros. me down with him). Manila was fine, pilation of Spanish documents People in Metro Manila have every but the newspapers the next day car- known to historians as “Blair and reason to be apprehensive because ried photos of the ruins of Hyatt Ter- Robertson.” They make timely read- there is no question that we are ripe races hotel in Baguio. ing today because they describe for a big earthquake in our lifetime— Earthquakes do unless, of course, not kill people, colthe experts are The earthquake drills in Metro Manila and other parts of lapsing buildings wrong. The earththe country are not only timely but also essential because while we do. Urbanized parts quake drills in Metcannot do anything about a quake, we can minimize destruction of the Philippines ro Manila and other and plan for reconstruction afterwards. have come a long parts of the country way from the basic are not only timely bahay kubo of the Filipino nursery tremors that go horizontally, verti- but also essential because while we rhyme to towers of glass and steel cally, or even in circles, triggering cannot do anything about a quake, we that scrape the sky. When people motion sickness in people and ani- can minimize destruction and plan lived in nipa houses the big problem mals. Some 19th-century travel ac- for reconstruction afterwards. If you was fire, so the roofing was changed counts of the Philippines come with have the time you must download to tiles that did not need to be re- engravings made from photographs the Japan International Cooperation placed as often as thatch and pro- showing ruined buildings in Manila Agency (Jica) study on Earthquake vided more insulation from the heat. and elsewhere after an earthquake.

Impact Reduction for Metro Manila But the problem was that during the One of the notable earthquake ca- that was done way back in 2004. It disastrous earthquakes of the 19th sualties in history is Pedro Pelaez, took a decade for us to even start century, some people were killed by who, together with Mariano Gomez, earthquake drills.

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In 2004 when the Metro Manila population was only 10 million, way less than today, the projection was that with a 7.2-intensity earthquake, 35,500 people would die and 113,600 would be injured in the collapse of buildings—and there were not enough hospitals and medical facilities to cope. The post-earthquake problems included fire, food and water shortage, and restricted mobility (because Manila is predicted to be divided into four quadrants). In terms of building damage, the 2004 report took into account 1,325,896 residential buildings. Of that number, 168,300 would be heavily damaged and 339,800 partly damaged.

Jica also did scenarios for 6.5- and 7.9-intensity earthquakes. You can read the figures in the report that, despite its calm language, is quite terrifying. Phivolcs has its own projections that are just as scary. For a 7.2-intensity earthquake, the projected casualties are 37,000; very serious injuries, 16,000; serious injuries, 132,000; and slight injuries, 456,000. It even projected total floor area figures for collapsed, complete, extensive, moderate and slight damage.

We can’t do anything about an earthquake, but we can prepare for it. ■

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AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Canada News

No deal: Countries leave Hawaii without 12 nation trade agreement

BY ALEXANDER PANETTA The Canadian Press PRIME MINISTER Stephen Harper was prepared to make a triumphant announcement Friday night about Canada joining the largest free-trade zone in history, and use that as a launchpad into an anticipated weekend election call.

But the planned event in Parliament’s Centre Block never happened.

That’s because a few thousand kilometres away, negotiators couldn’t close the deal.

Ministers from 12 countries left Hawaii without a Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty, and without a date set for their next meeting.

Now the Conservative government finds itself in a rare position: instead of campaigning on a free-trade deal, it might have to negotiate one in the midst of a national election.

International Trade Minister Ed Fast was asked about the impending Canadian vote and whether his government would be able to participate in the next round of talks.

“When our partners reconvene, and we trust that will be very soon, Canada will continue to be at the table as a constructive partner — with a sincere desire to complete these negotiations.” Fast told a Maui news conference Friday.

“Canada came to Maui ready to conclude a TPP. We were active, constructive players at the table.”

The countries had arrived in Hawaii last week amid expectations they might close out a free-trade agreement covering 40 per cent of the world’s economy.

They got closer — but couldn’t cross the finish line.

“We have made significant progress,” said Michael Froman, the head of the U.S. delegation.

Agriculture is one of the final sticking points _ which participants describe as a normal phenomenon in trade negotiations, given the political sensitivity around farming and food.

In recent months, other countries have singled out Canada for having taken a hard line on allowing foreign competition into its tightly controlled dairy sector.

But one trade expert at the meetings said a 12-party negotiation is too complex to be boiled down to one issue and one country. Canadian dairy is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, Alan Wolff said.

“It’s highly interdependent,” said Wolff, a former U.S. negotiator who now leads the American National Foreign Trade Council, a commercial association.

“The question is, who moves? Canada has to take in some more dairy… Japan has to take in some more dairy. The U.S. has to take in some more sugar.”

At the same time the U.S. has a counter-demand — that other countries increase protections for cutting-edge pharmaceuticals against copycat versions.

It wants countries to adopt its 12-year exclusivity period for new biologics products; Canada offers eight years and some countries offer virtually no protection.

So the stakes of this deal would extend beyond grocery stores, farms, research labs and pharmacies — where prices could rise or plunge, depending on the product. ❱❱ PAGE 21 No deal

Ombudsman says he gets too many complaints about Family Responsibility Office

BY KEITH LESLIE The Canadian Press TORONTO — The Ontario agency responsible for enforcing court-ordered child and spousal support payments has been singled out again by the ombudsman because of a growing number of complaints.

There were 1,167 complaints about the Family Responsibility Office in 2014-15, a slight increase over the previous year but up considerably from 794 complaints two years ago, ombudsman Andre Marin said in his annual report Tuesday.

There’s “a new wrinkle” that saw 350 people denied a total of $845,000 in family payments they were entitled to because they had also been receiving welfare or disability support and then moved off the social assistance program, added Marin.

“These are people with children who should be getting that money — didn’t get that money, and again this year we’re looking at 274 (families) totalling $214,000,” he said. “Improved, but still over $200,000 not going to needy parents.”

There are also serious problems in cases where the person paying support or the recipients live outside Ontario, something the ombudsman raised in previous reports, and there are ongoing problems with mistakes by staff at the FRO. The report cites the case of one woman who complained she stopped getting support payments for more than a year, and couldn’t get anyone at the agency to call her back. It took Marin’s staff more than half a year to get her the $10,000 she was owed.

“We raised the issue with senior FRO staff, and more than seven months after the problem was identified, it finally acknowledged that the case workwww.canadianinquirer.net

Ombudsman André Marin.

ONTARIO OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

er had wrongly determined that the woman was no longer entitled to support,” wrote Marin.

Sheila McKinnon, of Courtice, Ont., told The Canadian Press she’s had problems with FRO for years because her exhusband doesn’t inform the agency when he changes jobs, and it won’t impose fines or penalties to force him to comply.

“FRO has told me they have no way of making him disclose his employer so they can garnish his wages,” McKinnon said in an email.

The agency wrote her in April explaining why it won’t fine her ex-husband for not disclosing where he’s working.

“FRO made the decision to focus our efforts on collecting court ordered support obligations rather than exercising the offences provision under our legislation for a number of reasons,” wrote Carolyn Calwell,

assistant deputy minister of Community and Social Services. “The most compelling reason is that any fines paid upon conviction do not benefit the support recipient.”

Marin, who hopes to be reappointed for a third, five-year term, admitted he made mistakes in May with a social media campaign urging his 31,700 Twitter followers to pressure Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals to keep him as ombudsman. He had retweeted dozens of posts from supporters, including one that accused the Liberals of turning Ontario into a “banana republic” and another saying Wynne is “more corrupt” than FIFA, soccer’s scandal-plagued governing body.

“Things were happening fast that night, and the more you’re on Twitter, it’s like a highway, you can have fender benders,” he said. ■

Canada News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

19

Election campaign set to break records for cost, length, nastiness

BY JOAN BRYDEN The Canadian Press OTTAWA — Stephen Harper is set to launch the country Sunday into a federal election campaign that promises to rewrite Canadian history books.

Costliest campaign ever. Longest campaign since 1872. First campaign in which three parties all have a legitimate shot at winning as they line up at the starting gate.

And given those unique circumstances and high stakes, it’s an almost certain bet it will also be the most vicious, no-holdsbarred campaign Canadians have ever witnessed.

What’s more, if Harper can pull off a victory on Oct. 19, he’ll become the first prime minister since Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1908 to win four consecutive elections.

The very rarity of that feat goes a long way towards explaining why Harper has chosen to formally call Canada’s 42nd election in the middle of a holiday weekend in the dead of summer, triggering a gruelling, 11-week marathon rather than the five-week sprint that’s typified federal campaigns in recent times.

The unusually long campaign activates an obscure provision in the Harper government’s overhaul of election laws last year, allowing parties and their candidates to spend more than double the spending limits of $25 million and $100,000, respectively, that would have applied for a minimum 37-day campaign.

Having amassed vastly more money than any other party, the increased spending limits give the Conservative party and its candidates a huge advantage over their more impoverished rivals.

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The campaign “will be unlike Conservative ads trashing have suddenly turned their anything we’ve ever seen,” pre- Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau sights on NDP Leader Tom dicts Jeremy Broadhurst, the as “just not ready” to be prime Mulcair with similar attack ads Liberal party’s national direc- minister have been ever-pres- depicting him as an unethical, tor. ent on radio and television for opportunistic “career politiAll parties will have to figure more than two months already. cian.” Having helped drive out how to build momentum, Liberal insiders admit they’ve Liberal support to the NDP, keep volunteers motivated been effective, contributing to they’ve now evidently decided and voters enthey need to gaged over such blunt Mulcair’s an extended momentum at period, he says. the outset of the The poorer ones The unusually long campaign campaign. will have to find activates an obscure provision in The shifting creative ways the Harper government’s overhaul targets of the to stretch their of election laws last year, allowing Tory ads reflect budgets. parties and their candidates to spend the tricky twoAnd, given the more than double the spending front war facing tone already set limits of $25 million and $100,000, the governing by the Conservarespectively, that would have applied party. tives, Broadhurst for a minimum 37-day campaign.

At a time when adds the camthe economy has paign has “certanked and polls tainly got the posuggest twotential to be the thirds of the elecnastiest” in Canadian history. the Liberals’ slow decline in the torate are looking for a change, It’s been clear for weeks how polls to third place from their the Conservatives risk drivthe ruling party intends to use front-running status over the ing change seekers to coalesce its financial advantage: to car- previous two years. behind the NDP if they attack pet bomb the air waves with atOn the eve of Sunday’s elec- the Liberals too hard, and vice tack ads. tion launch, the Conservatives versa. They’ll attempt to strike

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a balance, attacking both and warning that the economy is too fragile to risk putting it in the spendthrift hands of either Mulcair or Trudeau.

But Mulcair and Trudeau also face two-front wars — with each other as much as with Harper. Each will be attempting to prove that his party is the vehicle that can defeat the Conservatives and provide real change. And in doing so, they’ll be fighting not just to win the election but, potentially, for the very survival of their respective parties.

Should Harper win a minority, the two opposition parties will come under pressure to form a coalition to snatch power from him. Should he win another majority, they’ll come under pressure to merge outright and stop splitting the progressive vote.

In either scenario, the opposition party that emerges strongest on Oct. 19 will have the upper hand; the weaker party could face possible extinction. ■

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Canada News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

Tories launch anti-Mulcair attack ads on eve of federal election call

BY JOAN BRYDEN The Canadian Press OTTAWA — The Conservatives are finally training their sights on NDP Leader Tom Mulcair just as Prime Minister Stephen Harper is about to plunge the country into an 11-week election on Sunday.

After carpet-bombing the airwaves for weeks with ads asserting that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is “just not ready,” the ruling party is poised to start the official campaign with two new television ads targeting Mulcair.

The ads portray the NDP leader as an unethical opportunist who looks out for himself at taxpayers’ expense, a “career politician” the country can’t afford.

The new ads feature the same group of supposedly ordinary Canadians perusing resumes who trash Trudeau’s work history in the ubiquitous “just not ready” ads, only this time it’s

Topless protest in Canada urges women to ‘bare with us’ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Screenshot of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s “Ready” campaign ad.

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Mulcair’s resume that’s being dissected.

The Tories have been running the Trudeau attack ads relentlessly, long after opinion polls suggested Liberal support had sagged into third place, largely to the benefit of the NDP which heads into the campaign with a slim lead over the Conservatives.

Liberal strategists say they believe the Tory obsession with Trudeau reflects the fact that the Liberals remain the biggest threat to Conservatives in the crucial suburban swing ridings ringing Toronto, where all three parties agree the Oct. 19 election will be won or lost. ❱❱ PAGE 39 Tories launch

WATERLOO, ONTARIO — Dozens of topless women – and men – attended a “Bare With Us” rally Saturday meant to educate the public about women’s right to go shirtless if they choose.

The rally and march were organized by three sisters who were stopped by a police officer for biking topless a week ago.

Local media reports said people were waving banners and wearing body paint with messages including “everyone has the right to NOT be harassed” and “Bare With Us! They’re just boobs!”

Musician Alysha Brilla said she and her sisters were not

wearing shirts while cycling in Kitchener, Ontario, on July 24 when a male police officer drove up beside them and told them to cover up because it is the law.

Brilla said told the officer he was wrong and that when she started filming the interaction on her cellphone, the officer said he had only wanted to check if the women had proper bells and lights on their bicycles.

Ontario women have had the right to go topless in public since 1996.

A similar incident in June garnered headlines after an 8-year-old was told by city staff in Guelph, Ontario, to cover up while she was in a wading pool wearing only a swim bottom. ■

No deal...

They could also be felt at ballot boxes around the world.

Canada is the first TPP country facing a general election — but others have looming political deadlines.

In the U.S., with presidential primaries beginning in five months, Hillary Clinton is facing pressure from her Democratic party’s left to oppose the TPP and has avoided comment so far. Peru has an election next year. So does Japan, where a drop in recent polls has left Prime Minister Shinzo Abe politically vulnerable.

Big free-trade deals have collapsed before, under the weight of delay and added political pressure. It happened to global talks at the World Trade Organization, and to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

“That’s the risk (with delays),” said Wolff, who negotiated U.S. access to the Japanese market in the 1970s, helped draft early U.S. fast-track trade legislation, and worked on the landmark GATT treaty.

Dairy has long been politically sensitive in Canada. At least one Canadian negotiator of the original free-trade agreement ❰❰ 18

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21

with the U.S. said he wished they’d dumped supply management in the 1980s, but it was too politically difficult.

Any major opening of that sector could produce tension between parts of the country with dairy farms — especially in rural Quebec and Ontario — against big population centres, where consumers might like more options at the grocery store, and enjoy the idea of competition lowering prices for cheese and yogurt.

Canada’s political parties all insist they’ll continue supporting limits on dairy imports.

However, the Harper government agreed to open the market slightly with the recent Canada-Europe free-trade deal, and had apparently made another overture this week.

But New Zealand’s representative in Hawaii described a Canadian agriculture offer as so insignificant as to be unworthy of discussion.

Harper has said Canada can’t be left out of this agreement.

If it’s going to happen anytime in the next two and a half months, however, he’ll have to negotiate it from the campaign trail. ■

World News

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FRIDAY

Egypt's disaffected youth increasingly calling for violence

BY BRIAN ROHAN The Associated Press CAIRO — The 20-year-old law student says he has had enough of fruitless protests in support of Egypt’s deposed Islamist president, two years of a losing struggle with police.

Now he wants to join the extremists of the Islamic State group who are battling the army in the Sinai Peninsula.

He and other youths are growing increasingly open in their calls for violence and a move toward extremism, frustrated by the police crackdown since the military ousted President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. Some want to avenge friends and family killed or abused by police.

Once sympathetic to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, some of them resent it as weak and ineffectual.

“Now we know there is only one right way: jihad,” said the law student, Abdelrahman, showing off scars from pellets fired at him by police shotguns during protests. Like other protesters interviewed by The Associated Press, he spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name for fear of police retaliation.

He spoke bitterly about the series of ballot box victories in 2011 and 2012 that

Young Egyptians in protest.

ARINDAMBANERJEE / SHUTTERSTOCK)

gave the Muslim Brotherhood political dominance and made Morsi the country’s first freely elected president.

“Democracy doesn’t work. If we win, the powers that be, whoever they are, just flip things over,” he said. “The Brotherhood thought they could play the democratic game, but in the end,

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they were beaten.”

At a time when militants are carrying out more sophisticated attacks in Egypt, the apparent spread of radicalism among youths in Cairo is a worrying sign for Egyptian authorities, who say they are working to quell violence.

In recent weeks, militants who declared themselves to be the Sinai branch of the Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State group tried to take over a Sinai town in an elaborate attack on security forces, and Egypt’s top prosecutor was killed by a bomb in the first assassination of a senior official here in a quartercentury. Attacks are frequent in Cairo and elsewhere, often killing policemen or soldiers, and hitting businesses and some tourist sites.

The insurgency swelled after the army overthrew Morsi following mass nationwide protests of his rule. Since then, the more than 80-year-old Brotherhood has been shattered by a security crackdown.

Most of its top leaders are in prison, with several sentenced to death, including Morsi. Since 2013, hundreds of protesters have been killed, many more wounded and thousands arrested, often brutalized in prison.

With other leaders in hiding or abroad, lower-level supporters of the Brotherhood have been the ones working to keep protests alive. Members of the Brotherhood themselves are divided over whether to stick to its official policy of peaceful protest or to embrace violent confrontation with the government.

Authorities already accuse the group of fueling violence and have branded it a terrorist organization.

An official at Egypt’s Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the police, said its policies aim to eradicate lawlessness and chaos, saying it must confront

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those who seek to incite youth in rough neighborhoods to violence.

“The Interior Ministry also follows information and monitors social media sites to track people who promote extremist ideas and who are affiliated in groups,” according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because regulations did not allow him to talk to reporters.

The ministry has carried out several “pre-emptive strikes” against such individuals, he said without elaborating. If it is proven that a policeman is guilty of wrongdoing, he would immediately face legal proceedings, the official added.

Youssef, a Brotherhood member who leads protests in the greater Cairo area, said he opposes a turn to violence, but adds that others are embracing it in the face of police abuses.

“We have all lost lots of friends. And as a result there are lots of opinions. Some feel the only way to resist now is with armed struggle,” said the 20-year-old business student. Others also involved in organizing demonstrations made similar statements.

Protests occur almost daily in poor, forgotten corners of the capital and countryside. Banners are less about Morsi and more about revenge against police.

“Peace is dead,” proclaimed one at a recent march in the Cairo slum of Matariya. In the nearby village of Nahia, another banner bore the slogan “peaceful” — then mocked it by adding a smiley face carrying an assault rifle. Some demonstrators chant slogans praising the Islamic State group.

“Most of these young guys were not political before. They were politicized ❱❱ PAGE 39 Egypt’s disaffected

World News

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

23

Experts say pieces of missing Flight 370 may still be afloat

BY NICK PERRY The Associated Press WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — If a wing fragment found in the western Indian Ocean turns out to be part of missing Flight 370, experts say, there are probably other pieces of the aircraft that floated off rather than sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Finding them remains the hard part.

John Page, an aircraft design expert at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said the discovery of the fragment last week on Reunion Island leads him to conclude the missing Boeing 777 broke up, most likely when it hit the water nearly 17 months ago.

He said that while the main body of the plane is likely to have sunk, he thinks other small, lightweight parts attached to the wings and tail may have floated free and could still be afloat — pieces like the flaps, elevators, ailerons and rudders.

“I’m certain other bits floated,” he said.

“But whether they’ve washed up anywhere is another question. The chances of hitting an island are pretty low.”

He said there’s plenty of trash in the ocean, and even if somebody sailing past spotted something in the water, he or she may have no clue it was from the plane.

The discovery of the fragment, which has been taken to France, could be a significant development in one of avia-

tion’s greatest mysteries. Malaysia AirHe said flight-control surfaces on the lines Flight 370 vanished in March 2014 wings and tail would be most likely to while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Bei- break off and float because they are esjing with 239 people aboard. sentially carbon-fiber skins filled with Air safety investigators have identi- air, making them strong but lightweight. fied the component as a flaperon from a They’re also designed to be waterproof, 777. French and Malaysian investigators so moisture doesn’t enter them and will begin examining freeze during flight. the piece Wednesday “What makes airto make sure that ascraft work are their sessment is correct. light structures,” he They will try to conHe said the said. firm the flaperon is amount of Depending on how from Flight 370 and floating debris the aircraft broke up, gather clues about would be Page said, it’s poswhat happened to the determined sible other pieces plane. Flight 370 is by the way could float. Those the only missing 777. the plane hit could include plastic Authorities believe the water, and fiberglass trim, the plane most likewhich remains door panels, even ly crashed offshore unknown. personal belongings from Australia in the or luggage. He said it east Indian Ocean. was unlikely any huOceanographers say man remains would it’s feasible the wing have survived very fragment floated thousands of kilometers long. (miles) in a counterclockwise direction Mark Tuttle, a professor in mechaniacross the ocean before washing ashore. cal engineering at the University of Malaysian authorities said this week Washington, said in an email that all they’ll seek help from territories near structural materials used in transport Reunion Island to search for more de- aircraft are heavy enough they will sink bris. in saltwater. He said the only time they Page said the heaviest parts of the will float, as he suspects is the case with plane, like the engines, would sink immediately, while other parts might get spread out by the currents before sinking, forming a triangular-shaped debris field on the ocean floor.

Pakistani, Indian troops trade fire, killing 3 in Kashmir

BY MUNIR AHMED The Associated Press ISLAMABAD — Pakistani and Indian border guards traded gunfire and mortar shells along their disputed border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir on Tuesday, killing two Pakistanis and an Indian villager, officials said.

Six civilians also were wounded by Indian fire in the Bajwat sector near Sialkot, a city in the eastern Punjab province, Pakistan’s military said in a statement. It said Pakistani troops responded to the “unprovoked” Indian fire and that the exchange of fire continued into Tuesday afternoon.

Indian Inspector-General Danish Rana blamed Pakistan for firing first, saying an Indian villager was killed when Pakistani troops shot at a dozen Indian border posts in the Jammu region.

An official with India’s border security

force said the Pakistani fire also wounded four civilians. He said the Pakistani troops opened fire first and the Indian troops “retaliated.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.

Pakistani and Indian troops deployed along the border with Kashmir often exchange fire and both sides routinely blame the other for initiating the violence. The two South Asian nucleararmed rivals have fought two wars over their competing claims to Kashmir. A 2003 cease-fire largely has held despite small, but regular, skirmishes.

Rebel groups have been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the fighting and in a subsequent Indian military crackdown. ■ Associated Press writer Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, contributed to this report. www.canadianinquirer.net

the flaperon, is when a design feature like air trapped inside causes them to remain buoyant.

Geoff Dell, an air safety investigation expert and associate professor at Australia’s Central Queensland University, said he, too, would expect the parts most likely to break free and float would be the flight-control surfaces. Many are attached to the plane only with hinges.

He said the amount of floating debris would be determined by the way the plane hit the water, which remains unknown. He said if it hit in an uncontrolled manner and at a high speed, the plane would likely break up more, allowing more debris to float. A more controlled landing, on the other hand, could result in more of the plane remaining intact and sinking, he said.

Dell said some parts of the plane that might initially float, such as a seat that broke free from the fuselage, could become degraded and saturated over time and eventually sink.

Michael Smart, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Queensland, said there was some reason for hope in the search.

“If one piece turns up, perhaps there’s a likelihood that others will as well,” he said. “It’s strange to think you’d find one part that floated and nothing else.” ■

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AUGUST 7, 2015

Heartfelt & Deepest Condolences Alan & Jhynet Yong, Victoria Yong and Yong Family Laarni Liwinag and Jojo De Paula Babes and Bob Newland and Family Joey Ampeso and Family Alice Yong and Family Ed and Carmelita Tapia Asia Heroes Canada Foundation Southeast Asia Canada Business Council Historama Family Cris and Natie Sotana and Family Ryan Ferrer and Family Mary-Ann Mandap and Family Dominador “Kuya Boy” Masakayan and Family Bambi Fonacier and Family Kkriv “DJ Clark” Lamsen

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FRIDAY

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FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

Lita Nuguid: Goodbye to a woman of substance, beauty and compassion

BY SOCORROBABES NEWLAND

ESTRELLITA “LITA” Nuguid, a long-time resident of the Lower Mainland, BC died Saturday 26th of July at Vancouver General Hospital of aneurysm. Born in the Manila in 1946, Lita worked in radio broadcasting and music recording industry in the Philippines. She was executive assistant to CEO, the late Dr. James Dy, of DYNA (Music) PRODUCTS INC. The millennial Dyna Music is the first independent record and music entertainment company in the Philippines that created many successful careers of pioneering recording stalwarts like Jose Mari Chan, Martin Nievera, Verni Varga, Joey Albert, Pops Fernandez, Afterimage, Introvoys and Dingdong Avanzado

to name a few.

In a major career shift when she migrated to Canada in 1993, Lita Nuguid served the FilipinoCanadian communities in various capacities. Amongst civic and political organizations affiliated with her were the BC Liberal Party, Richmond BC’s Pagdiriwang (Annual Philippine Independence Day Celebration) and the newly-formed United Filipino-Canadian Association of BC as Director-PRO. She loved being surrounded by her family and considered her time spent with toddler-grandsons— James Tan, Jaxen Tan and Ryan Ireland priceless that brought so much joy to her life.

Loyal to her friends, Lita loved singing/music, good food and socializing. She had a wonderful smile and disposition that could light up a room. Lita was an epitome of generosity and compassion. When asked

how many Filipino temporary contract workers in British Columbia she has helped through the years, there would be too many to mention. She never expected any recognition nor made grandstanding for all her good deeds. A community leader who always supported various events and inspired others to aspire for excellence and greatness in whatever they do.

She became a radio personality on weekly program called, “Affairs of the Heart” on Juan Radio FM96.1. Together with DJ Clark (Kirv Wendale Martilino Lamsen), she was fondly called “Ate Lita” who delivered meaningful advice and played classic OPM ditties to her avid listeners. A woman of grace and confidence, Ate Lita was highly principled who never wavered to fight for what she believes is right and just. A true salt of the earth. A true Canadian. She will

Our Deepest Condolences from the management and staff of

Philippines Fest

www.canadianinquirer.net

Lita Nuguid with family.

be sorely missed.

LIta was predeceased by her father Sylvester Nuguid and is survived by her mother Rosario Nuguid; her children Jet Tan (wife Pia Tan) and daughter Victoria Ireland (husband Chris Ireland); her siblings Carmelita Weichert, Dory Paradero, Rocky Nuguid, Danilo Nuguid, Teresita Carolino and Joy Lewies. And loving nieces and nephews — Lisi Aldaba, Jingle Robinson, Eliane Profeta, Jeffery Paradero, Echon Carolino, Beng Carolino, Don Carolino

and Lester Nuguid.

Funeral services and Celebration of Life in her honor dubbed as “Pagdiriwang Para Kay Lita” was held last Wednesday 5th August at Richmond Memorial Home. Lita’s parish church St. Anthony de Padua in Vancouver became the fitting venue for a memorial mass well attended by family and friends.

Cremation immediately followed where her urn was joined in with her father’s at the Valley View Funeral Home & Cemetery in Surrey, B.C. ■

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AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

FILIPINO-CANADIAN IN FOCUS:

Defying Gravity, Defying Odds: Ethan David

BY JEREMIAH NEIL SUMAGUI Special to the Philippine Canadian Inquirer RECENTLY, I had the privilege of interviewing newly crowned ‘Vocalist of the World’, Ethan David.

Ethan competed in the World Championship of Performing Arts (WCOPA) — and won — with the song “Defying Gravity” from the hit musical “Wicked.”

According to Ethan, he chose the song specifically for its inspiring message.

The road to such an accomplishment was paved with hardship, but Ethan was determined to reach his goal no matter the cost. And what a cost it was!

Ethan had to raise about $8000 for the trip to the WCOPA, in addition to his rigorous training. The fundraising campaign he lead included selling chocolates and bottles, along with local performances. Though he was denied by most of his possible customers, Ethan refused to give up.

But what kind of a boy is Ethan David? How was he inspired to sing? The answers lay in one motivating factor: A love to share his talent with all.

Who is Ethan David?

He is 12-year-old who will do everything to pursue his dreams.

“I love helping and inspiring other people and I am a singer and my hobbies are swimming, basketball and soccer… I started realizing that I really wanted to sing when I was 8 years old.”

What inspired you to become a singer?

“My mom inspired me to become a singer. I also have some favorite artists like Michael Jackson and Bruno Mars — they are my favorite singers in the world.”

Did you have formal voice training?

“First of all, my Mom taught me how to sing. I had formal voice lessons with Kiks de Leon of KMZ Production and proper breathing techniques by Tita Joey Albert.”

How did you perfect your singing?

Ethan David.

Ethan with his mom and dad

Ethan David with the Interviewer Jeremiah.

Ethan at Surrey City Wall.

“My mom tells me to practice everyday, every single morning to get ready for the competition.”

change your life?

“Definitely WCOPA changed my life. When I am walking in the park, sometimes people [tell me] they are proud of me. I am on the news too. But I think I am the same Ethan as before...

“I met some producers who want to do music for me in [Los Angeles], too… Hopefully, this will come in God’s time… I am also visiting next month to say thank you to the Filipinos who have supported me.”

that, you will [definitely] reach your dream.”

Where else have you performed aside from WCOPA? “I’ve performed locally in some Filipino events and I sang in the hockey games.

Do you have a message for our readers?

“I would just like to thank them for the support — especially the Lord, my loving parents, and Tita Janice Lozano who help me a lot. Also, I would like to tell them if you want to join WCOPA, just contact Tita Belinda Reyes.”

Why do you sing?

“I sing because it is my passion and I like singing. Also, I want to share my talent to the world. I will tell them to never give up on your dreams because if you give up, you will never reach your goal.”

How did you find out about the WCOPA? “I found out [about it] because my Mom sings with Tita Joey Albert. Tita Joey Albert told my Mom to let me join WCOPA.” Tell us about your fundraising experience.

“The [hardest part is] carrying bottles while selling chocolates… Everyday I try to sell 30 chocolates. My Mom tells me to go [out for just] one hour, but I go [for] 4 hours.”

How was your experience with the competition?

“It is not just about the championship, you [also] get to meet

new friends. I met friends from around the world like Thailand, Czech Republic, the Philippines and a lot more. It is not just being competitive, it also about making friends.”

Why did you choose ‘Defying Gravity?’

“I chose ‘Defying Gravity’ because the song means a lot to me. People tell me to give up on [my] dreams and that [I am] not going anywhere.... [but in the song, there’s a line that says] “no one’s gonna bring me down” and that is what I like about it.”

Is WCOPA the most memorable experience and why?

“Yes, because I won the best junior vocalist of the world and [it was] my first time to go to L.A., so it [was] a really fun experience.”

How does it feel to be the vocalist of the world?

“I feel very happy and also proud because I didn’t think I will represent Canada or even win the title ‘Junior Vocalist of the world.’”

How has winning WCOPA www.canadianinquirer.net

Can we expect any concerts?

“I had an invitation in Australia to do a show, a music producer wants to do original music for me in L.A., and yes, I will visit the Philippines and do some guestings there.”

What is your advice to young performers?

“My advice to them is: If you have a dream that you want to follow, never give up and always try to reach your goal. If you do

PHOTO BY VIC VARGAS

Going back to the competition, were there other factors — like finances — that prevented you from joining the competition?

“Oh, yes. Training is the hardest one because sometimes you do not get the right note… [Plus] I am still in school [and I have to sell] chocolates and bottles [to raise funds.] It is hard to squeezed that [into my schedule].”

Thank you, Ethan, for your inspiration to your fellow young adults everywhere. ■ Interview by Jeremiah Neil Sumagui, special to the Philippine Canadian Inquirer Edited by Ching Dee, Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Immigration

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

27

12th Express Entry Draw: CRS points required decreases to 463 CIC NEWS THE NUMBER of Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points required by candidates to receive an invitation to apply for permanent residence through the Express Entry selection system for Canadian immigration has dropped for the third time in just over a month.

The twelfth draw from the Express Entry pool was performed on July 10, 2015. A total of 1,516 invitations to apply for Canadian permanent residence were issued to candidates with 463 or more CRS points.

Though three Express Entry draws that selected candidates with less than 600 points have occurred previously — notably from March 20 to April 17, 2015 — the most recent Express Entry draws mark the first time in which three such draws have taken place and the CRS points requirement has decreased for each consecutive draw.

This news has been welcomed by candidates who have been awarded a considerable number of CRS points for their core human capital factors, which includes level of education, age, work experience and language proficiency, as well as those who have successfully obtained a qualifying job offer of arranged employment or an enhanced provincial nomination certificate.

Many candidates who had been in the pool for many weeks, or even months, have finally been rewarded for their efforts at increasing their CRS score and ranking.

Moreover, with an increasing number of Canadian provinces having introduced Express Entry streams as part of their Provincial Nominee Programs, candidates in the Express Entry pool are seeing an increasing number of options and opportunities for obtaining the all-important invitation to apply. The provinces of Ontario and Saskatchewan, as well as the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, have all introduced such streams in recent weeks.

These enhanced Provincial Nominee Program immigration streams have all been cov-

SHUTTERSTOCK

ered in-depth by CICnews.com in recent weeks: — Ontario Core Human Capital Priorites and French-Speaking Skilled Worker streams — Saskatchewan Express Entry — Nova Scotia Experience: Express Entry — New Brunswick Express Entry Labour Market Stream How are people getting invitations to apply?

(The following scenarios are hypothetical and do not represent real people who have received an invitation to apply.

They are representative of how people may have improved their CRS score and ranking within the pool over recent weeks and months.)

Gabriel: 464 points Gabriel wishes to immigrate to Canada as a single applicant.

Now 30 years old, he obtained a Master’s degree in 2011 and has recently acquired a third year of work experience outside Canada as an insurance manager.

He has initial advanced (CLB 9) language proficiency. He had considered re-taking a language test with the aim of improving his language ability to CLB 10 or higher, but the fact that he reached an annual milestone in his work experience, along with the CRS points requirement de-

creasing, led to him receiving an invitation to apply.

Maria: 463 points Like Gabriel, Maria is also 30 years old and has never worked or studied in Canada. She is in the pool as a principal applicant and wishes to move to Canada with her husband and child.

She has a Master’s Degree, has completed four years of skilled work experience, and has proven initial advanced (CLB 9) language proficiency. Her profile had been in the pool since February, 2015. During recent months, her husband has obtained an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) for his Bachelor’s degree and sat the General IELTS test, in which he received results equivalent to CLB 9 for listening, speaking and reading, and CLB 8 for writing. Because these spousal characteristics are taken into account under the CRS, Maria’s score increased to a total of 463.

Charlotte: 475 points Thirty-seven year-old Charlotte has been living and working in Canada as a biologist for two years. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree back in 2001, for which she obtained an ECA before entering the Express Entry pool. She is a single applicant and is fluent in English. She has also acquired www.canadianinquirer.net

three years of skilled work experience in her home country earlier in her career. Though she hasn’t obtained a large number of points for her age, her other credentials are strong enough for her to be awarded 475 points.

Ahmed: 899 points (pending) Ahmed is 45 years old and has been working in Saskatchewan as a construction estimator since obtaining a temporary work permit in 2013. He has a one-year post-secondary training certificate and, though not a native speaker of English or French, has managed to get his language proficiency in English up to an adequate intermediate (CLB 7) standard. When he saw that his occupation was listed as in-demand for the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP) Express Entry sub-category, he made an application to the SINP. After his complete and accurate application is approved by the province and he inputs this information into his Express Entry profile, he will be awarded 600 additional CRS points and will receive an invitation to apply for permanent residence at a subsequent draw from the pool.

Don’t lose heart

“The most recent Express Entry draws may be seen as a

positive development for candidates in the pool who did not receive an invitation to apply this time around. The important thing is to not lose heart,” says Attorney David Cohen.

“The number of CRS points required has been decreasing over the past month. Moreover, with an increasing number of Canadian provinces having introduced Express Entry streams as part of their Provincial Nominee Programs, candidates in the Express Entry pool are seeing an increasing number of options and opportunities for obtaining the all-important invitation to apply.”

“By learning from others and by communicating with experts on Canadian immigration, candidates who have not yet been issued an invitation to apply may realize that their dream of immigrating to Canada remains a real one. And, of course, I offer my congratulations to anybody who has received an invitation to apply so far,” says Attorney David Cohen. ■ To find out if you are eligible for any of over 60 Canadian immigration programs, including the federal economic programs that are processed under Express Entry, visit www.cicnews.com.

Republished with permission from CIC News.

28

Community News

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

PH embassy lends a hand to persons with disabilities IN SUPPORT of the Philippines’ National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week, the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa signed up for the Garlic Project of the Ottawa-Carleton Association for Persons with Developmental Disabilities (OCAPDD) upon the initiative of Ambassador Petronila P. Garcia.

The 2015 Garlic Project kicked off with Embassy personnel and their dependents as the first batch of volunteers for the harvest season. Embassy personnel and their dependents spent the morning of 25 July 2015 at the Silver Spring Farm in Ottawa carefully lifting garlic from the ground with their bare hands. Energized by a cause, they cleared the assigned beds with time to spare for cleaning and sorting the harvest.

The OCAPPD’s Garlic Project requires 6,000 hours to complete every year. Proceeds from this major fundraiser amounting to CAD 25,000 to 35,000 per year go to the Client Fund to cover special needs of Persons with Developmental Disabilities numbering 1,100 individuals in the Ottawa-Carleton area.

“The Client Fund covers special needs such as education, training, and clothing and Special Olympics programs. We run 16 group homes, day programs and support services for, among others, 120 PDDs living on their

At the Silver Spring Farm operated by the OCAPDD, Amb. Garcia and PH Embassy staff harvest garlic for PDDs, clear beds assigned to Embassy volunteers and clean the garlic harvest in time for the OCAPDD garlic sale in August.

At the Silver Spring Farm operated by the OCAPDD, Amb. Garcia and PH Embassy staff harvest garlic for PDDs, clear beds assigned to Embassy volunteers and clean the garlic harvest in time for the OCAPDD garlic sale in August.

own,” Debbie Blasutti, OCAPDD Coordinator of Volunteers, explained.

Formerly called the Ottawa and District Association for the Mentally Retarded, the OCAPDD is said to be the largest and longest-serving association of

its kind in Ottawa. Since 1956 and with the help of volunteers, the OCAPDD supports its clients practically in every aspect of life as they seek work opportunities, secure living arrangements or deal with daily tasks.

“The Embassy’s volunteer

work with the OCAPDD heightened my team’s sensitivity to the many challenges faced by PDDs every single day. We thank the OCAPDD for the opportunity to give back to our host country through volunteer work for PDDs,” Ambassador

Garcia stated.

Also on the same weekend, embassy personnel delivered mobile consular services to the Filipino community in Montreal, including Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) at the JIL Church. ■

Government of Canada helps increase employment opportunities for persons with disabilities and Aboriginal peoples OTTAWA, ONTARIO — Today, the Honourable Dr. K. Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, announced support to help Canadians with disabilities and Aboriginal peoples gain meaningful employment in federally regulated sectors such as banking, transportation and communications.

The National Educational Association of Disabled Students is receiving $150,000 for a project that will educate employers on how to make workplaces more accessible and inclusive so they can better attract, retain and advance the careers of employees with disabilities.

To encourage persons with disabilities to consider a career in the transportation sector, the BC Centre for Ability is receiving $460,377 for a project that will create a comprehensive recruitment framework.

The funding will also be used to develop strategies for the longterm career development of employees with disabilities to improve retention rates in the sector.

The Paqtnkek Mi'kmaw Nation is receiving $269,950 for a project that will help reduce barriers to employment for Aboriginal peoples. The project will create and strengthen partnerships with large-scale employers in

Nova Scotia, particularly those in sectors such as banking and communications where Aboriginal peoples have traditionally been under-represented.

Funding for these projects is being delivered through the Workplace Opportunities: Removing Barriers to Equity (WORBE) program. Through the creation of industry-tailored strategies and partnerships, the WORBE program is providing up to $500,000 annually for projects that improve the representation of persons with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples, women and members of visible minority groups in federally regulated workplaces. www.canadianinquirer.net

Quick Facts

In Canada, there are 4.4 million people (approximately 14 percent of the population) with a disability, and their representation in the workforce has more than doubled since 1987.

Through Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the Government of Canada is helping persons with disabilities succeed in the workplace. For example, the Enabling Accessibility Fund has been extended by $15 million per year on an ongoing basis to improve accessibility in workplaces across Canada. In addition, the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities, with an increase in funding to $40 million annu-

ally, is being reformed to provide more demand-driven training for persons with disabilities.

Through a new generation of Labour Market Agreements for Persons with Disabilities (LMAPDs), the Government invests $222 million per year, which allows the provinces and territories to determine how to best address the needs of Canadians with disabilities while helping Canadian businesses benefit from their skills and talent. Under the LMAPDs, approximately 300,000 interventions are provided annually for persons with disabilities through over 100 programs across the country. ■

29

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS:

FILIPINO-CANADIAN IN FOCUS 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.”

This year, we are welcoming nominations for the next subject of “Filipino-Canadian in Focus.”

MECHANICS: - All nominees must have (a) Filipino heritage/ancestry - All nominees must be residing in Canada at the time of nomination - Nominees from all industries are welcome (e.g. medical/health, politics, community service, business, entertainment, charity institutions, etc.)

- Who can nominate? Anybody.

Fill up the nomination form online by scanning the code with your smartphone or by visiting InFocus.canadianinquirer.net.

www.canadianinquirer.net

30

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Entertainment

Heart Evangelista: Marian’s fans are ‘very bad’

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — Kapuso actress Heart Evangelista may have only wanted to stir away from co-star Marian Rivera’s fans’ bashes on her but her ‘very bad’ comment may have ignited another round of heated exchange of online posts and comments from both sides.

Heart recently posted a photo of her with her dog Princess Panda in her Instagram account. She captioned it: ‘Look who’s with me today. #princesspanda.’

Although she did not make any reference to Marian in her post, one follower commented: ‘You’re way better than Marian!’

Flattered but wanted to stay away from haters, Heart responded: ‘Thank you, but let’s not start with that. Her fans are very bad and I don’t want to get bashed. Thank you.’

Her fan immediately apologized for her words.

Concerned over what Marian’s fans may react to Heart’s earlier comment, another of her fans commented: ‘Good to know that umiiwas ka sa mga issues na ganyan… But I guess they will not like how you described them in your comment above.’

(Good to know that you’re stirring away from issues like that… But I guess they will not like how you described them in your comment above.)

To this, Heart only responded: ‘It’s a fact sad to say. To all Heart World (Heart’s fan

John Lloyd has no problem working with ex-girlfriend Shaina

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Kapuso star Heart Evangelista-Escudero.

group) never act like that. It will reflect on who you look up to… No to [negativity].’

With this, Marian’s fans immediately responded by posting in their accounts.

“Don’t talk about how you hate bullies, when you’re the bully… We are supporters of Dingdong and Marian (who has been indirectly included by ♥ in her posts,” one of Marian’s fan groups said, including a ♥ sign obviously referring to Heart.

“We would like to logically present our point in response to Heart’s ‘very bad’ comment…

No to [negativity]? Isn’t declaring and generalizing the fans of Marian as ‘very bad’ causing unnecessary negativity?,” they

FACEBOOK

added.

Marian’s fan group continued hitting back at Heart.

“It is easy to resort to labeling a person when you do not have the intellect to explain yourself properly… The burden of proof lies with who declares (labels, generalizes), not who denies,” they said.

“FYI (for your information), both sides have their share of bashers and insults. The fans of Marian are very bad? Some ♥ fans even go to Marian’s IG (Instagram) just to bash her…

There is nothing worse than some ♥ fans wishing something bad would happen to Marian’s innocent unborn baby,” they added. ■

www.canadianinquirer.net

MANILA — With Kapamilya actor John Lloyd Cruz working with co-star and ex-girlfriend Shaina Magdayao in ABS-CBN’s teleserye “Nathaniel,” John Lloyd claimed that there was no hesitation or issue on his part.

“We’re all grown-up. Matagal na ‘yun. Saka, wala naman talagang issue. Actually, noong nag-decide ako na mag-offer ng services ko… to be a part ng ‘Nathaniel,’ hindi ko naisip na…’Ooops teka lang, andiyan pala si Shaina,” he said in a press conference.

(We’re all grown-up. It was a long time ago. And, there’s really no issue. Actually, when I decided to offer my services… to be a part of ‘Nathaniel,’ I haven’t thought that… ‘Ooops, wait, Shaina’s there.)

“Siya pa nga ‘yung nag welcome sa akin sa set (She was even the one who welcomed me

in the set),” he added.

John Lloyd portrayed the role of Francisco Lucas, a lawyer in the teleserye while Shaina was one of the mainstays.

Meanwhile, John Lloyd shared how much he enjoyed working with the cast and crew of “Nathaniel.”

“Sobra akong nag-enjoy.

Napaka bait nila… It’s a kind of set na gusto mong mapabilang.

‘Yung show ay tungkol sa kabutihan, sa pag-asa.,” he said.

(I enjoyed a lot. They’re all so good… It’s a kind of set that you would want to belong to. The show is about goodness, about hope.) “‘Pag nandun ka sa set, napakagaan at napakasaya nila kasama…

May respeto sila sa mga artista, sa mga tao nila… Kaya ako, maswerteng-maswerte ako napasama ako sa teleserye na ‘yun,” he added.

(When you’re in the set, it feels so light and happy with them… They have respect towards the artists, towards their crew… That’s why I’m very lucky to be part of that teleserye.) ■

John Lloyd Cruz and Shaina Magdayao at "Nathaniel."

PHOTO FROM JOHN LLOYD'S OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

Entertainment

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

31

Richard can give Bea love advice

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer RICHARD GOMEZ said he would be willing to give relationship advice to Bea Alonzo, if his “The Love Affair” co-star asked for it.

At the press conference of their latest movie, Gomez said Alonzo was “exploring her single life.”

He said that “she’s doing well now. She’s happy with her friends. She goes out to enjoy.

I would hear her discuss [personal] things on the set, but I’d rather not share them [with reporters]. Besides, they are probably the subject of stories in newspapers by now.”

Working it out

At the same event, Alonzo addressed the rumor that she has called it quits with her longtime boyfriend, actor Zanjoe Marudo. Alonzo, however, said they’re “working things out…

We’re happy where we are now.”

She added: “I’m OK. We’re

OK. We did go through something, but isn’t that normal in any relationship? What’s more important is how you handled yourself after all that has happened to you…Do I look like I’m in pain or broken? I’m happy. I owe it to myself to be happy.”

Female actors have difficulty maintaining romantic relationships in show biz compared to other professions, Gomez pointed out. However, he said he would still advise them to look for partners in the same field.

“It’s hard for non-actors to understand this kind of work, especially if his wife or girlfriend would do kissing scenes with another man. That’s kind of hard to digest.”

Gomez, who is married to Ormoc Rep. Lucy Torres, added that “my relationship with Lucy is different because she understands my kind of work and loves watching my movies.”

Emotionally broken

In “The Love Affair,” Gomez

plays Vince, a man who hopes to be an ideal husband. Dawn Zulueta is Patricia, a wife seeking forgiveness after committing the biggest mistake of her life. Their paths will cross with Adie’s (Alonzo), a woman who is emotionally broken and is searching for happiness after a failed relationship.

In one scene, Gomez was made to touch Zulueta’s breasts.

The veteran actress said she didn’t need much convincing.

“As an actor, you have to look at everything with a broader perspective. You read the script and understand where your character is coming from and where it is going, only then will you appreciate the scene. I had no reservations because I understood why the scene was needed and I was comfortable with it.”

“I was the one who got excited,” Gomez quipped. “Seriously, we discussed what we had to do with the director (Nuel Naval).

I told Dawn that it was really up to her. We’ve been working for so long that we’re so comfort-

Richard Gomez and Bea Alonzo.

able with each other.”

Zulueta added: “It’s not like we’re doing a torrid love scene.

The character of Goma (Gomez’s nickname) is angry and that’s why it happened.”

SCREENSHOT FROM MOVIE TRAILER

“The Love Affair,” with story and screenplay by Vanessa R. Valdez, tells of three different individuals with love as the unifying element. The film premieres on Aug. 12. ■

Leren Bautista wins grand title Sarah gives ‘power of Mutya ng Pilipinas 2015 hug’ to Matteo after

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Triathlon race

MANILA — Among the 30 beauties who competed for the crown, Laguna’s Leren Mae Bautista won the grand title of Mutya ng Pilipinas-Asia Pacific International.

Conversely, Qatar’s Janela Joy Cuaton was given the title Mutya ng Pilipinas-Tourism International and Australia’s Nina Josie Robertson was given the title Mutya ng PilpinasOverseas Communities.

Homegrown candidates Julee Ann Marie Bourgoin and Brenna Cassandra Gamboa won as the first and second runners-up, respectively.

Aside from the crown, Bautista also took home P150,000, a Hoseki royal brooch, a Viva Communications two-year contract, SkyJet Airlines unlimited flights for a year, plus numerous other products and services from Inglot Philip-

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

PHOTO COURTESY OF BAUTISTA’S FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

pines, Robinsons Malls, Mags Clothing, Lee Cooper Jean, Zanea Shoes and Hana Shampoo.

The coronation night was

held last Sunday at the Newport Theater in Resorts World Manila and was hosted by Ruffa, Richard and Raymond Gutierrez. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

@POPSTARPRINCESS / INSTAGRAM

Leren Mae Bautista of Laguna was crowned Mutya ng Pilipinas 2015.

MANILA — Matteo Guidicelli receives a “power hug” from her girlfriend Sarah Geronimo after finishing a race in Cebu.

Guidicelli was able to finish the Cobra Ironman 70.3 Triathlon Race on Sunday.

His girlfriend, Geronimo flew to Cebu on Saturday to show support for Guidicelli.

A photo posted on Instagram showed how Geronimo gave the actor a tight hug after at the

finish line of the race.

Geronimo was also seen on the finish line with Guidecelli’s mother.

The term “power hug” was used by Geronimo in the 2009 movie “You Changed My Life” with John Lloyd Cruz. ■

Entertainment

32

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Musicians Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale file for divorce THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES — Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale filed for divorce on Monday, seeking to end a nearly 13-year marriage between two members of rock music royalty.

Stefani filed her petition citing irreconcilable difference and Rossdale filed a response shortly thereafter, court records show.

The former couple cited irreconcilable differences for the breakup and said in a statement that they would work to raise their three sons together.

Stefani, 45, is a judge on NBC’s “The Voice” and is the frontwoman for the band No Doubt, in addition to having a successful solo career.

Rossdale, 49, is lead singer of the band Bush and has also

worked “The Voice.”

“While the two of us have come to the mutual decision that we will no longer be partners in marriage, we remain partners in parenthood and are committed to jointly raising our three sons in a happy and healthy environment,” Stefani and Rossdale wrote in a joint statement. “To that end, we respectfully request privacy from the media during this time.”

The pair was married in September 2002 and had their first child together in 2006. Their youngest son is 17 months old.

Stefani and Rossdale met in the mid-1990s and never worked on a music project together until collaborating on “The Voice” last year.

“It was just awkward,” she said at the time. “We’ve only collaborated on making babies.” ■

50 Cent says expenses $108,000 a month THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HARTFORD, CONN. — Rapper 50 Cent says in a Connecticut bankruptcy court filing he spends $108,000 a month on his expenses, including $5,000 for gardening.

He has a monthly in-

come of $185,000, mainly from royalties and interest on his investments. But he’s paying $72,000 a month to maintain his suburban Hartford mansion.

He filed for bankruptcy last month after New York City jurors ordered him to pay $7 million to a woman who said he posted online a crudely narrated sex tape she made with a boyfriend.

His Monday court filing says he also owes money to his stylist, his barber and his fitness coach.

The rapper was born Curtis Jackson III. His album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” helped make him one of the world’s best-selling artists. He’s due back in bankruptcy court Wednesday. ■

Academy Award winner Meryl Streep shows her versatility — and rock and roll side — in her new movie “Ricki and The Flash.”

SCREENSHOT FROM MOVIE TRAILER

Streep finds her inner rocker in ‘Ricki and The Flash’

BY LINDSEY BAHR The Associated Press EARLY ON in “Ricki and the Flash,” Ricki (Meryl Streep) gets a call that disarms her before she’s even decided to pick it up. With smoky eyes, braided rocker hair and a swagger that suggests skin that’s as thick as her leather pants, this doesn’t seem like a woman who would back down from a challenge.

She hesitates more than once to pick it up — you get the sense that she’s either become accustomed to being scolded by the voice on the other end of the line, or has just given up on dealing with that other life completely. It’s a small but telling moment in a lovely film laced with intensely human details that allow the audience the opportunity to actually know its characters in ways that so many films come up short.

The voice on the line is her exhusband Pete (Kevin Kline) and father of her three grown children. He’s asking her to come back to Indiana. Their daughter’s husband has left her, she’s a wreck, and Ricki needs to help.

Only a few minutes into the movie, we’re well on our way to understanding Ricki. We’ve just seen her hold the attention of a small but enthusiastic audience at a Tarzana neighborhood bar as the lead singer of a rock cover band and then suffer through but tolerate her day job as a www.canadianinquirer.net

clerk at a Los Angeles Whole Foods stand-in with a smirk and an attitude.

Although there are surprises to come, it’s one of the more precise and effective introductions to a character in recent memory. There’s no exposition.

No voiceover. It’s all story advancing character specifics that are amplified by Streep’s layered performance as this broke 60-something woman with the spirit and soul of a rebellious, stargazing teenager.

When her cab pulls up to Pete’s palatial suburban mansion she gets out, bags and guitar in hand, and asks him for the fare. He’s not surprised.

Such a concoction could only come from (or at least make it to the screen via) the mind of “Juno” and “Young Adult” screenwriter Diablo Cody, cinema’s songstress of defiant women.

Ricki’s arrival is a tumultuous one as she attempts to reintegrate herself, ever so briefly, in the lives of the family she left and attempt to restore the broken Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real life daughter). Everyone has moved on and no one is afraid to tell her that.

It sounds like the stuff of melodrama, but in the hands of director Jonathan Demme, the story chugs along naturally and subtly with the characters — from an awkward showdown at a fancy restaurant to a nostalgia and marijuana-fueled night of

bonding over stories and home videos.

In fact, all of the relationships are given an unexpected texture and depth, from the ex-husband’s new wife and surrogate mother to the children Maureen (Audra McDonald) to Ricki’s more-than-a-friend bandmate Greg (Rick Springfield).

But it’s Gummer, Streep and Kline who you wish the camera spent more time with, especially together. Also, beyond the mesmerizing physical resemblance between the reallife mother and daughter pairing, Gummer and Streep both disappear into their respective roles. It helps, probably, that they don’t pair up on screen in this capacity often.

The only real contrivance is a late in the film wedding and a third act montage of growth that feels rushed where nothing else did.

Ultimately, spending time with these people is pleasant, lived-in, honest and even thought-provoking. And when the dialogue stops, there’s a fun, golden not-too-oldies live music soundtrack to hum along with too.

“Ricki and the Flash,” a Sony Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “thematic material, brief drug content, sexuality and language.” ■ Running time: 102 minutes.

Three stars out of four.

33

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

Lifestyle

‘Health is more than body size’; Don’t use scale to measure health, experts say

BY LAUREN LA ROSE The Canadian Pres TORONTO — Erica Schenk has been a runner for 10 years, but a single snapshot of the curvy athlete may represent her most significant strides yet.

The plus-size model is captured mid-sprint as she covers the August issue of Women’s Running. The latest edition is focused on body positivity and highlighting that runners’ bodies don’t all fit one specific mould.

Both the model and the magazine have made international headlines and earned widespread praise, with editor-inchief Jessica Sebor calling the reaction “completely unanticipated.”

Coupled with the kudos, she said they’ve also received emotional responses from women with larger bodies who said they hadn’t felt accepted as runners, but can now “see themselves” on the cover because Schenk

was showcased.

While many are quick to use be related to genetic predispo“We’re such an image-driven weight as a key measure of fit- sition, such as diabetes or other culture,” Sebor said from San ness, Sharma said there are weight-related health probDiego, Calif. “We assume we many misconceptions about lems, he noted. know everything about some- what the numbers actually inSharma also notes on his one by looking at their picture dicate. website that abdominal fat is and that’s just not true.”

“Stepping on a scale is not a different than the fat accumu“Health is about what you do measure of health. It can be a lating on the hips or buttocks.

— not about what you look like.” measure of risk for health prob- Abdominal fat can be a major What’s more, the “obses- lems,” said Sharma. risk factor for diabetes, high sion” about body blood pressure weight and comand abnormal position has litcholesterol levtle to do with acels, and can lead tual health, said We’re such an image-driven culture. to heart disease Dr. Arya Sharma, We assume we know everything and stroke. chair in obesity about someone by looking at their “We also know research and picture and that’s just not true. that health bemanagement at haviours are the University of much more imAlberta. portant than the “We live in a weight on the society where people who hap“We do know some health scale,” said Sharma, founder pen to carry a few extra pounds problems become more com- and scientific director of the are looked down upon and face mon in people as they gain Canadian Obesity Network. a lot of bias and discrimina- weight. But we’ve also learned “What will determine your tion — especially as you come to that perfect health is also possi- health ultimately is going to be higher BMIs — and that makes ble across a wide range of BMIs your fitness level, the amount their lives miserable. It’s not or body weights.” of sleep that you get, how you that they actually have health Determining whether excess feel about yourself, the quality problems.’’ weight will be a factor also can of your diet. You could be dowww.canadianinquirer.net

ing all of those things right with no impact on your body weight and still be a lot healthier than you are now.”

Michelle Pitman is vicepresident international for the Association of Size Diversity and Health. The professional organization is committed to the Health At Every Size principles, which support acceptance of people regardless of size or shape.

“Health is more than just body size,” said Pitman, wellness coach with Define Me Wellness.

Pitman said if she’s seeing a new client who wants to lose weight to be healthier, she seeks to help them reframe what health means to them.

“Think about weight in terms of an outcome as opposed to a behaviour. Things like: ‘I want to have improved energy,’ ‘I want to have a better sex life,’ ‘I want to complete this 10K race for a sense of personal accomplishment’ — and taking weight out of the equation.” ■

34

Lifestyle

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Neoprene was the ‘it’ fabric

BY ALEX Y. VERGARA Philippine Daily Inquirer FOR FASHION watchers, President Aquino’s sixth and final State of the Nation Address Monday afternoon will be known as the year of neoprene, minimally embellished bodices, statement butterfly sleeves, jewel tones and neutrals.

By downplaying details and playing with proportions, some of the country’s designers created day- and age-appropriate takes on Filipiniana wear.

Dawn Zulueta, wife of Davao del Norte Rep. Antonio Lagdameo Jr., led this year’s list of impeccably dressed women in a white Cary Santiago neoprene terno. Drama is confined to the huge cabbage rose on the sleeve.

Heart Evangelista, wife of Sen. Chiz Escudero, opted for an Inno Sotto white princesscut Mikado silk terno with eyecatching sleeves. The feather appliques on the sleeves were sewn by hand one by one.

Zulueta and Evangelista’s updos allowed the sleeves’ design to stand out and frame their lovely faces.

Sen. Grace Poe wore a white silk crepe terno with a goldtrimmed boat neckline by Rajo Laurel. Yellow and gold beadwork and hand painting were confined to the statement sleeves and skirt.

Other fashion-savvy women who made heads turn in neoprene ternos were Fille Cayetano, Maricar Quisumbing and

Valenzuela Councilor Shalani Soledad-Romulo.

Cayetano, wife of Taguig Rep. Lino Cayetano, stood tall in a beige number with embossed Roman-inspired ornamentation on the sleeves, neckline and bodice. Again, the look was simple, day-appropriate but far from blah.

Quisumbing, wife of Cebu Rep. Luigi Quisumbing, wore Jun Escario’s black and bone creation with cutout details on the sides. The classic dark-andlight combination had a slimming effect on its wearer.

Romulo, wife of Pasig Rep. Roman Romulo, favored a bottle green terno with draped bodice and fishtail silhouette.

A pregnant Diwa Rep. Emmeline Aglipay, wife of Las Piñas Rep. Mark Villar, opted for a dayappropriate Mikado silk terno in ecru with minimal floral lace applique in black, ecru, taupe and light gray, also by Sotto.

Both designs proved that long dresses could still look interesting and day-appropriate through fabric manipulation and judicious use of details.

‘Traditionalists’

But a good number of women who went for more traditional materials and embellishments like beadwork, embroidery, overlay and applique were able to hold their own.

Leading the “traditionalists” were Rep. Lucy Torres-Gomez, Tootsy Angara, Timi Aquino, Cindy Ejercito, Marga Nograles and Sen. Nancy Binay.

Like in years past, Gomez

wore good friend Randy Ortiz’s design—a white embroidered column fashioned from tulle and piña in berry patterns. It was a safe but classic choice that was flattering.

She came with actor-husband Richard Gomez and their teen daughter Juliana Gomez, who wore a minimally embroidered terno of dove gray tulle and ice blue silk also by Ortiz. To make the look more age-appropriate, Ortiz accented her waist with a tiny bow.

Angara, wife of Sen. Sonny Angara, went for a rather unusual but lovely choice—Laurel’s shimmery two-piece dove-gray terno consisting of a cropped top made of tulle and lace appliqué and full brocade skirt with pockets.

Laurel played with contrasting proportions—fitted blouse and huge skirt. He also opted for cropped butterfly sleeves.

Another fashion plate Stella Quimbo, wife of Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo, stood out in an Escario terno with a skirt made of gray silk gazar and bodice fashioned from such disparate materials as antique metallic obi sash fused with woven Bontoc fabric.

Escario’s unusual combination of non-traditional materials was the main appeal.

The fair Aquino, wife of Sen. Bam Aquino, glowed in Noel Crisostomo’s silk chiffon terno in white and butter yellow with minimal beadwork and lace appliques on the waist. The figure-friendly silhouette flattered the new mother’s figure.

President Benigno Aquino III with sister Kris and Sen. Grace Poe. @WITHLOVEKRISAQUINO / INSTAGRAM

Never mind if she chose to wear an evening terno. The tall and svelte Ejercito, wife of Sen. JV Ejercito, was one woman you couldn’t ignore in Paul Cabral’s black column embellished with Art Deco-inspired beadwork.

Everything about the terno from workmanship to proportion-flattered Ejercito.

Nograles, wife of Davao Rep. Karlo Nograles, also stood out by paying homage to Mindanao.

Bobby Castillo fashioned a look that fused Mindanao silk with lace overlay.

The look had contrasting textures, interesting and complementary colors and right proportion.

After being panned by netizens last year, Binay drew praises this year in Ortiz’s midnight blue terno, an embroidered column with slimming asymmetric silhouette made of strips of piña and silk tulle.

Binay looked dignified without appearing too somber. And by choosing embroidery over shiny embellishments, Ortiz produced an ideal day-appropriate look for his loyal client. ■

PH is world’s ‘most social nation’

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — According to a report by web browser Opera Mini, the Philippines is the ‘most social nation’ in the world with a very high social media activity among the country’s Internet users.

“Filipinos love to share things with friends and families. This country used to be the text-messaging capital of the world,” Opera Software Country Manager Eiko Raquel said.

“Now, with easier Internet

access and higher smartphone try’s Internet users browsed the rate in this country has grown adoption, the Philippines has web and went online through from 41 percent to 55 percent not only been crowned the ‘self- their phones. over the past year,” the Opera ie capital of the world’ by Time “With the unstoppable adop- Mini report read. magazine, but also has now tion of smartphones, people are Among the social networkbeen ranked as ing sites, Face‘the most social book topped the nation’ by Oplist of having the era,” he added. most page views; According to The smartphone adoption rate in this and was followed Opera Mini, the country has grown from 41 percent to

by Twitter and prevalence of 55 percent over the past year.

Tumblr.

Also smartphones among the most spearheaded the visited sites were Philippines’ soGoogle, Youcial networking activities. The spending more time accessing Tube, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Wordmobile browser’s report also the Web on their mobile devic- Press, Answers.com and AZlyrdisclosed that half of the coun- es… The smartphone adoption ics. www.canadianinquirer.net

In terms of smartphone brands used for social media activity, Opera Mini found out that local brands were beginning to be at par with international brands.

“A breakdown of the top 100 mobile devices preferred by Opera Mini users shows that Cherry Mobile has overtaken Samsung, with a 27 percent market share. Another local brand, MyPhone, has 8 percent… The total market share of these two local smartphone brands is 35 percent, higher than Nokia’s 31 percent,” the report concluded. ■

Travel

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

35

From Donsol to Matnog, Sorsogon province is eco-cultural tourism destination

BY DANNY O. CALLEJA Philippines News Agency FROM TIP to tip, the unassertive province of Sorsogon is indisputably a striking eco-cultural tourism destination that many can bet others do not know about.

At the western border of the province is the municipality of Donsol that undeniably is the most known ecotourism destination of Bicol for the world’s largest school of whale sharks that seasonally swarms its coastal water each year.

But apart from this sensation that regularly draws tens of thousands of tourist, Sorsogon — as many leisure travelers coming to the region, particularly this city — Bicol’s center of tourism, might not know — has a lot more to offer for those who are seeking for closer encounters with nature, adventure, culinary and history.

For nature lovers, the province also has its share of long white sand beaches kissed by sparkling turquoise waters offering superb surfing sites, peacefully nature-laced lake and lagoons, hectares of mangrove forest being swarmed by herds of homegrown and migratory birds, hot springs whose waters tender therapeutic effects, an active volcano and, more other, amazing ecological treasures.

For those who are amazed by the past, the historical heritage of the province, which sits at the southeastern end of the Luzon mainland, can be traced from antiquated churches its old localities own, vintage lighthouses towering over its major shores and other landmarks that remind everyone of the province’s stimulating past.

Not a too long ride from this city, the provincial capital, is the Paguriran Lagoon that has lately emerged as a destination that tourists would certainly regret when missed out, having lost a chance to discover its exceptional beauty — featuring a lagoon bordered around by jagged rocks in bizarre formation guarding the amazing serenity of its emerald water that is so relaxing to swim.

The next destination along the way could be the offbeat town of Prieto Diaz, which is blessed with off-the-beatenpath ecotourism sites like unexplored caves and a 500-hectare mangrove forest that is listed as a tourism park and bird-watching site.

From Prieto Diaz, a less than an hour drive, can take one to the town of Gubat that is famous for its Rizal Beach, which, unknown to many, also boasts of a fantastic surfing spot.

The next towns of Barcelona and Bulusan also boast of similar beaches, apart

Calintaan Island in Matnog, Sorsogon.

from the historical structures that its people preserve.

Barcelona is a humble destination that presents a simple and laid-back aura in-between Gubat in the north and Bulusan in the south.

It has a carefully landscaped beachfront park where the Presidencia Building and the century-old school for the Spaniards remain standing to bare the interesting history of the place.

Across the street opposite the park is the Saint Joseph Parish church built by the Franciscan friars in 1874 out of coral stones, beaten egg and a local wine, which is very evident in the façade, belfry and on its thick wall.

The church is known as one of the oldest and well-preserved churches in the Bicol Region whose unfading beauty is astounding.

A few kilometers away is the town of Bulusan that plays host to Bulusan Lake at the bosom of Bulusan Volcano Natural Park, a 3,672-hectare protected area serving as home to various species of endangered animals and considered the most visited ecotourism site in the province next to Donsol.

The park also boasts of several springs and waterfalls that originate from the mountains, one of them the bathingfavorite Masacrot, a man-made earthen pool with cool mineral waters coming from underground springs.

Bulusan Lake itself, which is situated at the very foot of Mt. Bulusan, one of the most active volcanoes in the Pacific Rim of Fire, is a spectacular ecotourism destination for its scenic and exquisite beauty.

Rising 340 meters above sea level, the lake that occupies an area of more than 16

SCREENSHOT FROM MACOY MEJIA’S YOUTUBE FOOTAGE

hectares is dubbed as the “Switzerland of the Orient” for its pristine perfection and the coolness of its mountain breeze.

Another tourist attraction at the Bulusan downtown is the Punta Diamante, the muralla (stone fort) that encloses the church complex of St. James the Greater Parish which remains grand in its antiquity, together with the belfry, the largest of the four watchtowers dotting the historical complex.

Before reaching the downtown, the Tan-awan, a cliff road that overlooks the town center and the expansive Pacific Ocean is a heartwarming experience as, from its vantage point, the view of Samar Island across the San Bernardino Strait is indeed stirring.

The next town of Irosin, the province’s only landlocked locality, features a 140-year-old Catholic church that sits on a hill top, affording churchgoers and visitors a panoramic view of the entire town and the surrounding countryside

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of lush rice fields and forest.

The church can be reached from the foot of the hill via a steep 74-step concrete stairway and from its vantage point, the peak of Mt. Bulusan appears almost near enough to be kissed.

Farther 17 kilometers south of Irosin is the town of Matnog that plays host to the huge ferry terminal serving as Bicol’s main link to the Visayas regions and site of Subic Beach, which is also called La Playa Rosa because of its long pinkish sand shoreline kissed by turquoise waters that makes it a perfectly unique destination.

Near Subic Beach is Tikling Island, which is known for its spectacular rock formations hidden behind its lush forest and colorful corals and sea plants that add a tinge of color to the breathtaking view of the island’s towering cliffs.

Back north after Irosin sits the pleasant town of Juban, known for its ancestral houses, serving as the locality’s most important landmark that tells the history of the place during the early years of the Spanish settlement in the country.

Around 20 kilometers southwest of Juban is the town of Magallanes that is secluded by thickly vegetated high mountains whose lower slopes are crisscrossed by a winding and rolling paved highway linking it to the rest of the province.

Deep inside this coastal locality facing the Ticao Pass are white sand beaches, abundant marine life, picturesque islets and some historical structures like the aged lighthouse that stands high on top of Bagatao Island, serving as the one of the town’s famous tourist attractions.

There are so many more out of the ordinary tourist destinations in the province but, according to local observers, all those places have been made underrated by the lack, if not absence, of tourism promotion on the part of local government units, including the provincial government. ■

36

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Business

Mining industry still Apple slump deepens on horrified by Mount iPhone, China concerns Polley tailings pond collapse: Bennett

BY BRANDON BAILEY AND STEVE ROTHWELL The Associated Press

THE CANADIAN PRESS KAMLOOPS, B.C. — British Columbia’s mines minister says the mining industry remains horrified a year after a tailings pond collapsed at the Mount Polley mine northwest of Williams Lake.

Bill Bennett said no one thought a crisis on such a scale was possible but that even now he can’t guarantee that another breach of a tailings pond won’t happen because only some of the risk factors can be eliminated.

“We didn’t eliminate enough of the risk and we have to figure out, and we are figuring out, how to eliminate the rest of that risk,” he said of the Aug. 4, 2014 accident.

About 24 millions cubic metres of waste spilled into area waterways, causing an environmental disaster.

“It totally destroyed the creek that comes out of Polley Lake and flows past the tailings storage facility, past the mine, down into Quesnel Lake,” Bennett said. “You had millions of trees and roots and mud and all kinds of stuff in Quesnel Lake. It looked horrible, it was horrible.”

Imperial Metals (TSX:III),

which operates the gold and copper mine, has spent about $67 million on cleanup of the region, repair of the damaged bed of Hazeltine Creek and monitoring of water quality in area lakes.

Katrine Brino, president of the Mining Association of B.C., said much has been learned since the collapse of the tailings pond.

The industry has been forced to take a close look at all practices surrounding the construction, maintenance and use of tailings ponds, Brino said.

She said accidents will happen but that investigators remain focused on the root causes of the collapse and that mitigating risk is the industry’s biggest challenge.

An independent report determined poor dam design caused the tailings pond to collapse.

The provincial government has spent $6 million on the cleanup, and Imperial Metals was granted conditional approval to reopen last month, although it still needs further permits before it can operate fully.

Bennett said water and sediment testing will have to continue for decades. ■

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is slumping as the usually high-flying tech stock struggles with the burden of raised expectations.

The world’s most valuable public company saw its stock price drop for a fifth straight day on Tuesday, falling as much as $5.19, or 4.4 percent, to $113.25 as investors fret over China’s economy and whether Apple can keep growing at the pace it’s maintained over the last few quarters.

Apple shares closed Tuesday at $114.64 - down 14 percent since hitting a record $133.60 in February. That puts Apple in a “correction,” which is Wall Street jargon for price declines of 10 percent or more from a peak. The slide has wiped out more than $96 billion in market value.

The stock also dropped below its 200-day moving average, a technical indicator that traders use to gauge momentum. And as a sign of Apple’s outsized role in the market, its decline Tuesday accounted for more than half of the 47-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average for the day. Apple is also by far the biggest component in the Standard & Poor’s 500, making up 3.6 percent of the index, which is a benchmark for most mutual funds.

Apple sold more than 47 million of its signature iPhones in the last quarter, or 35 percent

EXCHANGE RATES CDN/USD CDN/PHP CDN/EUR CDN/GBP EUR/USD AUD/USD USD/JPY

NEIRFY / SHUTTERSTOCK

more than a year earlier. That drove the company’s profit and earnings above Wall Street estimates. But demand for the iPhone and Apple’s new smartwatch still fell short of some analysts’ more bullish predictions, and executives gave a forecast for the current period that was also lower than some analysts expected. That has sent the stock into a decline since Apple reported earnings on July 21.

Shareholders are also worried about recent hiccups in China’s economy, because the country is viewed as one of Apple’s biggest markets for expansion, said Daniel Ives, a managing director and senior analyst for FBR Capital Markets.

He added that investors are looking ahead to the December quarter, which is traditionally Apple’s strongest. The company sold 74 million iPhones during that period last year, a 46 percent jump. But with a much

larger volume to compare against, it will be more difficult for Apple to show that kind of year-over-year growth again.

But new products like Apple Pay and the expected release of new iPhone models this fall could give the company a boost, Ives said.

Apple’s current slump isn’t as severe as an earlier slide that began almost three years ago, in a period when investors worried that the Cupertino, California, company had run out of ideas to counter growing competition from other smartphone and tablet makers. Apple shares fell 45 percent from a split-adjusted peak of $100.72 in September 2012 to a low of $55.01 in April 2013. By June of that year, however, the stock had embarked on a steady climb upward again. ■ Rothwell contributed from New York.

As of August 5, 2015 from ca.finance.yahoo.com PRICE

CHANGE

% CHANGE

1.3199 34.6690 1.4340 2.0522 1.0864 0.7345 124.3815

+0.0011 +0.0561 -0.0021 -0.0007 -0.0025 -0.0034 +0.0165

+0.0800% +0.1622% -0.1456% -0.0322% -0.2273% -0.4635% +0.0133%

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Business

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

37

Inflation seen breaching low end of BSP target

BY PAOLO G. MONTECILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE AVERAGE rise in consumer goods such as food and fuel may have decelerated to its slowest pace on record in July, presenting a new threat to the central bank’s full-year target.

Foreign and local banks were in agreement that July inflation likely fell below or matched June’s record-low. The average for the year, some said, might fall below the central bank’s target range of 2 to 4 percent.

“We expect inflation in the Philippines to have remained muted,” Standard Chartered said late last week. The Brit-

ish bank did not give a forecast for July, but said 2015 inflation would likely average lower than 2 percent.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) main goal is to protect consumers’ purchasing power by keeping inflation stable and within target.

High inflation can be an excessive burden on consumers, but if inflation gets too low— or turns into deflation where average prices fall lower than year-ago levels—businesses lose the incentive to keep producing goods. This threatens to stunt economic growth.

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said the central bank expected inflation to average between 0.5 and 1.3 percent

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

in July compared with June’s record low 1.2 percent.

In different forecasts, most banks said inflation likely fell from June’s level. BDO Unibank sees inflation at 1 percent, Bank of the Philippine Islands at 0.8 or 0.9 percent, Security Bank at 0.89 percent, ING at 0.9 percent and DBS at 1.2 percent.

“Inflation is expected to creep higher toward the end of the year. We expect an average inflation rate of 1.7 percent for 2015,” ING economist Joey Cuyegkeng said.

Base effects from 2014 are also expected to be most pronounced in July and August.

In the same months last year, inflation peaked at 4.9 percent. ■

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Bank sees no changes in BSP rates

BY LEI FONTAMILLAS Philippine Canadian Inquirer

of the year. We expect average inflation rate of 1.7 percent for 2015 and 2.8 percent in 2016,” he said.

He also said that the investment bank eyes inflation at 0.9

MANILA — The ING Bank eyes no changes on the key policy rates of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) next week, following lower Financial stability is likely to consumer prices. be maintained since economic Joey Cuyeggrowth would improve from the keng, ING Bank disappointing first quarter GDP senior econogrowth of 5.2 percent. mist said in a report for the Philippine Star that the BSP is expected to keep its percent in July from 1.2 perrates unchanged. cent in June before increasing “Inflation is expected to toward the end of the year. creep higher toward the end “Financial stability is likely

to be maintained since economic growth would improve from the disappointing first quarter GDP growth of 5.2 percent,” he said.

While financial markets are likely to be volatile as investors and markets adjust to different views, the volatility may not necessarily affect the stability of the Philippine economy.

“But we do not think the volatility would lead to an unstable Philippine financial sector and economy,” Cuyegkeng said. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

An artist’s rendering of the proposed Iloilo Business Park.

MEGAWORLDCORP.COM

Firm bullish on Iloilo project

BY DORIS DUMLAOABADILLA Philippine Daily Inquirer TYCOON ANDREW Tan-led property developer Megaworld Corp. has reported brisk demand for its 71-hectare Iloilo Business Park project, resulting in fast-improving property valuations.

In a statement, Megaworld said that since it started selling commercial lots in 2013, lot prices were now selling at P70,000 a square meter (sq m) or 49-percent higher than the inaugural offering of P47,000/ sq m.

The lot cuts range from 611 sq m to 1,735 sq m. Around nine hectares of the entire township had been allocated for the commercial district.

To date, Megaworld said 80 percent of the commercial lots have been sold. Banks and financial institutions as well as local enterprises were among the takers. Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. and Union Bank of the Philippines are among the major banks that are set to establish their regional headquarters and offices in this area.

“There has been a strong interest from various sectors,

particularly financial and banking, to establish their businesses in Iloilo Business Park. Since we announced the township being envisioned as Iloilo City’s new central business district or CBD, everyone wants their presence here,” Jennifer Palmares-Fong, head of marketing at Iloilo Business Park, said.

The commercial district, which will rise at the southern part of the township near the Iloilo River, is envisioned to be one of the busiest districts in Iloilo Business Park. It will be directly connected to the township center via the six-lane Megaworld Boulevard.

“Aside from banks and financial institutions, other commercial businesses such as car and furniture showrooms as well as regional headquarters of corporations are welcome to the financial district of Iloilo Business Park,” Palmares-Fong added.

Iloilo Business Park will be home to two business hotels (Richmonde Hotel Iloilo and Courtyard by Marriott), the Iloilo Convention Center, which will be the biggest convention facility in Region 6 alongside state-of-the-art business process outsourcing (BPO) office towers. ■

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38

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

Sports

Orcollo cops US Open 8-ball title in Las Vegas

SBP makes last-minute additions to Gilas Pilipinas lineup

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer MANILA — Sixteen players will be included in the training pool of the Gilas Pilipinas team which will be competing at the FIBA-Asia Men’s Championship to be held in China this year.

The players who have been spotted in what was believed to be the first practice session of the national team held last week at the Meralco gym are the ones expected to make the pool.

Aside from Jayson Castro, Dondon Hontiveros, JC Intal, Terrence Romeo, Troy Rosario, Matt Ganuelas-Rosser, Asi Taulava and Sonny Thoss, also included in the Gilas Pilipinas roster are Calvin Abueva, Jimmy Alapag, Andray Blatche, Gabe Norwood, Aldrech Ramos and Kelly Williams.

Rain or Shine player Paul Lee is also expected to be included in the national team lineup.

Lee’s representative, Lawrence Chongson, however, does not see this happening.

“Sa akin lang, gustong-gusto kong makasama sa national team si Paul. Gusto rin ni Paul kasi bandila natin yan eh… Kaso alangan namang talikuran ni Paul ang gusto ng nasa itaas.

Dun siya sumusweldo,” Chongson said.

(If I was to decide, I really want Paul to be included in the national team. Paul wants it as well because it’s our flag… But it’s not like Paul can turn his back from what the top [man-

BY ROY LUARCA Philippine Daily Inquirer

SMART Gilas Pilipinas basketball team in 2014.

agement] wants. That’s where he gets paid.)

“Sana pala nung nag negosasyon kami nun, naglagay ako ng clause sa kontrata gaya ni LA Tenorio nuong araw sa Alaska na bibigyan siya ng permiso na lumaro sa national team,” he added.

(I should’ve added during the negotiations a clause in his contract like that of LA Tenorio when he still played for Alaska that he would be given permission to play in the national team.)

Last-minute meeting

According to Spin.ph sources, the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) has supposedly scheduled a meeting with PBA executives as it plans on adding more players to the Gilas Pilipi-

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nas pool.

The said sources have also disclosed that head coach Tab Balwin is still lacking a big man and a point guard in his team which will have its second practice on Monday also at the Meralco gym.

SBP President Manny Pangilinan would also have a closeddoor meeting with the national team lineup on the same day at the Meralco office.

“Dun natin malalaman lahat if there will be additions and what boss MVP (Pangilinan) will tell these players and the whole team… But basically, halos yan na yun,” a source said.

(It is there where we’d know if there will be additions and what boss MVP will tell these players and the whole team…

But basically, that’s all them.) ■

www.canadianinquirer.net

FILIPINO DENNIS Orcollo survived American Mike Dechaine’s hot start and final charge to hack out an 11-9 triumph and clinch the US Open 8-ball championship Friday (Saturday in Manila) at Rio allSuite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Dechaine surged ahead at 4-0 and was still on top at 9-7 in the race to 11 finals when the 36-year-old multi-titled Orcollo made his move.

T h e Filipino broke and cleaned out for 98, then pounced on Dechaine’s scratch to draw level at 9-9.

The standout of Bugsy Promotions then broke and easily won the next rack to reach the hill and sealed the victory worth $11,000 when the American faltered with a dry break on his turn at the table.

It was a tight match all the way as Orcollo and Dechaine alternated table runs from the ninth to 14th racks for a 7-7 count.

Dechaine took the next two racks to put the pressure on Orcollo, who again showed steely nerves to raise his earnings for

the year at $42,404.

En route to the title, Orcollo also subdued Canadian John Morra, 9-7, and Mexican Rafael Martinez, 9-7, in the event that lured 87 cue masters from all over the world.

Apart from giving the Philippines gold medals in the 2005 Manila Southeast Asian Games (doubles), the 2011 Palembang SEA Games (8 ball), the 2013 Naypwidaw SEA Games (10 ball) and the 2015 Singapore SEA Games (9 ball), Orcollo distinguished himself as 2006 World Pool League king, 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games 9-ball titleist, 2010 World Pool Masters winner, 2011 World 8-ball titleist and 2013 World Cup of Pool champion with countryman Lee Vann Corteza.

“He (Orcollo) is still the most dependable cue master in the Philippines,” said his longtime benefactor Perry Mariano. “His regular practice sessions at King of Sports (Quezon City) paid off.”

According to Mariano, Orcollo, who earlier placed fourth in the US Open 10-ball version won by American Thorsten Hohmann, will next take part in a tournament in Chicago.

Other Filipinos who took part were Warren Kiamco and Jeffrey Ignacio. ■

Sports

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

39

Manila North gains Fiba 3x3 world final

BY JASMINE W. PAYO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE PHILIPPINES will return to the world stage despite failing to replicate its thrilling championship romp in last year’s Manila leg.

Manila North couldn’t match the scoring firepower of Novi Sad Al Wahda of United Arab Emirates and bowed to the tournament top seed, 21-14, yesterday in the championship round of the 2015 Fiba 3x3 World Tour Manila Masters at Robinsons Place Manila.

“They were really good, especially with their hustle plays,” Manila North leader Calvin Abueva said of Novi Sad, the reigning world champion that bagged the $10,000 prize.

As finalists, both Novi Sad and Manila North earned slots to the Fiba 3x3 World Tour Final in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 15 and 16.

“The players really showed their heart, especially the North team,” said Philippine 3x3 coach Eric Altamirano.

“They thrived on effort and hustle.”

Dusan Domovic Bulut, ranked as the No. 1 3x3 player in the world, powered Novi Sad with 10 points, while Dejan Majstorovic knocked in all of the team’s four long-range shots for an eight-point total.

Vic Manuel fired six points to pace Manila North, which dethroned the Manila West squad of tournament MVP Terrence Romeo, 21-18, in the all-Filipino semifinals.

Beirut vs. Manila North in the FIBA 3x3 challenge.

SCREENSHOT FROM FIBA 3X3 YOUTUBE FOOTAGE

Abueva and Troy Rosario finished with four points each with Karl Dehesa rounding out the Manila North squad that surpassed its quarterfinal stint last year.

Egypt’s disaffected ... by violence, by seeing friends or family members shot and killed by police or being arbitrarily detained,” said Basem Zakaria al-Samargi, who works at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, an advocacy group, and lives in Matariya. “There are many people who now want vengeance from the state.”

Jerome Drevon, a researcher at the University of Manchester and a specialist on militant groups in semi-authoritarian regimes, said the conflict is not about ideology, but rather people’s willingness to avenge themselves and their friends against the security forces and join whatever group can help them achieve that.

“The new Egyptian regime has triggered a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “They have hindered any possibility of peaceful opposition to the regime, assimilated the Islamist opposition to IS, eroded mainstream Islamist groups’ internal organizational control over their sympathizers, and nourished a desire for revenge for young opponents.”

At a news conference this month in Cairo, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry quoted President Barack Obama, who has said that “when people are oppressed, and human rights are denied ... when dissent is silenced, it feeds violent extrem❰❰ 22

Before ousting Manila West in the Final Four, Manila North survived three straight thrillers, bundling out Team Longshi of China, 21-19, in the quarterfinals after topping the Pool B

eliminations following an upset of 2013 world champion Team Ljubljana of Slovenia, 17-16, and Team Beirut, 20-18.

Despite failing to defend its title, Manila West swept the side events with Romeo ruling the three-point shootout and Rey Guevarra bagging the slam dunk crown.

NoviSad pulled away early, 7-1, and kept its distance the rest of the way with Majstorovic heating up from beyond the arc.

Manila West, composed of Romeo, Guevarra, KG Canaleta and Aldrech Ramos, reached the semifinals after disposing of China’s Longshi, 21-19, in the quarterfinals and sweeping Pool D with wins over Team Auckland, 21-18, and Manila South, 21-14. ■

Tories launch... ism.”

Matariya, a crowded district of narrow alleyways with few services and a history of neglect, has seen some of the country’s bloodiest clashes with police in the past two years. Dozens were killed in gunbattles there in January. Rights groups have raised alarm over possible abuses at the district’s police station, where detainees have died in custody and where residents talk of rampant torture and of young men disappearing after night raids on their homes.

Abdelrahman’s family is like many others in the district. His cousin is in a wheelchair after being shot by police at a demonstration. His uncle was recently arrested for protesting.

His brother, known for orchestrating attacks on police, is on the run.

Security forces have clamped down in Matariya, making protests more difficult. Armored personnel carriers and troops surround mosques during Friday prayers.

But Nahia, the nearby village, is a virtual no-go zone for the state at the moment. There, hundreds of youth march unopposed in formation down main roads, calling for the ouster of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the army chief who deposed Morsi and later was elected to office. Some residents brag about the lack of a police sta-

tion in Nahia, or the 2013 sniper killing of a police general in Kerdasa, a nearby Islamist stronghold.

While marching, Abdelrahman has waved the Islamic State group’s black flag. He says the only violence he has committed is burning three police cars. But he adds: “I’m ready to fight.”

He says he has several friends already fighting alongside militants in Sinai.

Now living in a safe house away from his family, he says he knows whom to contact in order to join the group but that he needed to have a sponsor and go through vetting because it is wary of government infiltrators.

The self-declared Sinai branch of the Islamic State group is believed to have originally drawn on local Bedouin tribesmen for recruits. But the attacks it has claimed around the country have involved Egyptians from outside Sinai, suggesting it is gaining new followers.

Some Brotherhood members have attacked police stations or planted bombs on the street, but they usually get arrested, Abdelrahman said.

“I tell people they should join a jihad group,” he said, “and if not, take the risky step of forming a group on their own, or even acting alone.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

However, the Conservatives have apparently decided it’s time to burst the NDP’s bubble, although it remains to be seen whether they’ll run the anti-Mulcair ads with the same frequency as the anti-Trudeau ads.

The Conservatives offered a “sneak peek” at their new antiMulcair ads in a fundraising email missive sent out to supporters late Friday.

In the email, Tory campaign spokesman Kory Teneycke asserts that the NDP “would wreck our economy,” that Mulcair’s “dangerous schemes would mean higher taxes for all Canadians and would drive us back into deficit.”

Yet the ads the email is promoting don’t mention the economy or Mulcair’s policies. They focus squarely and personally on Mulcair.

The panellists perusing the NDP leader’s resume note that Mulcair was first elected to Quebec’s National Assembly in 1994 — “as a Liberal,” one of the group says in a shocked voice.

“Hmm, he’s no fresh face,” comments another.

One ad recounts that the NDP has been “caught breaking the rules by directing $2.7 million of taxpayers’ dollars to their political offices.” And it recalls a decades-old libel suit in which Mulcair was ordered ❰❰ 21

by a judge to pay $100,000 “for malicious and abusive behaviour” — a tab the ad asserts he wanted taxpayers to pay.

“Politicians like him never care when it’s our money,” one man grouses.

The other ad recounts how Mulcair, as a provincial politician, was once offered a bribe by a “disgraced Quebec mayor” which he didn’t accept but also didn’t report to police for 17 years. It also claims that Mulcair joined the federal NDP only “after he cashed out his $135,000 severance,” to which he was entitled after retiring from provincial politics.

“Looks out for himself,” comments one of the group.

The Liberals, meanwhile, gave supporters a preview of an ad countering the Conservative accusation that Trudeau is not ready to lead the country.

“Stephen Harper has been saying one thing a lot: That I’m ‘just not ready. Well there are a few things that I’m not ready to do,” says Trudeau in the ad that shows him walking across a green park with the Parliament buildings in the background.

“I’m not ready to stand by as our economy slides into a recession, I’m also not ready to stand idle as hard working Canadians fall behind.”

Trudeau goes on to say he would hike taxes on the wealthy. ■

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FRIDAY

Technology

Will the Internet listen to your private conversations?

BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — Like a lot of teenagers, Aanya Nigam reflexively shares her whereabouts, activities and thoughts on Twitter, Instagram and other social networks without a qualm.

But Aanya’s care-free attitude dissolved into paranoia a few months ago shortly after her mother bought Amazon’s Echo, a digital assistant that can be set up in a home or office to listen for various requests, such as for a song, a sports score, the weather, or even a book to be read aloud.

After using the Internet-connected device for two months, Aanya, 16, started to worry that the Echo was eavesdropping on conversations in her Issaquah, Washington, living room. So she unplugged the device and hid it in a place that her mother, Anjana Agarwal, still hasn’t been able to find.

“I guess there is a difference between deciding to share something and having something captured by something that you don’t know when it’s listening,” Agarwal said of her daughter’s misgivings.

The Echo, a $180 cylindrical device that began general shipping in July after months of public testing, is the latest advance in voice-recognition technology that’s enabling machines to record snippets of conversation that are analyzed and stored by companies promising to make their customers’ lives better.

Other increasingly popular forms of voice-recognition services include Apple’s Siri assistant on mobile devices, Microsoft’s Cortana and the “OK Google” feature for speaking to Google’s search engine. Spoken commands can also be used to find something to watch on some TVs, and an upcoming Barbie doll will include an Internet-connected microphone to hear what’s being said.

These innovations will confront people with a choice pitting convenience against privacy as they decide whether to

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open another digital peephole into their lives for a growing number of devices equipped with Internet-connected microphones and cameras.

The phenomenon, dubbed the “Internet of Things,” promises to usher in an era of automated homes outfitted with locks, lights, thermostats, entertainment systems and servants such as the Echo that respond to spoken words.

It’s also raising the specter of Internet-connected microphones being secretly used as a wiretap, either by a company providing a digital service, government officials with court orders or intruders that seize control of the equipment.

“We are on the trajectory of a future filled with voice-assisted apps and voice-assisted devices,” Forrester Research analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo says. “This is going to require finding the fine balance between creating a really great user experience and something that’s creepy.”

Fears about Internet surveillance have heightened during the past two years as former

National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden released documents revealing that the U.S. government’s terrorist-fighting programs have included mining personal information collected by a variety of technology companies.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group, wants the Federal Trade Commission to set security standards and strict limitations on the storage and use of personal information collected through Internet-connected microphones and cameras.

“We think it’s misleading to only present the potential conveniences of this technology without also presenting the huge number of possible drawbacks,” said Julia Horwitz, director of the center’s privacy project.

The FTC believes companies selling Internet-connected devices and apps should collect as little personal data as possible and quickly delete it once the information has served its purpose, said Kristen Anderson, an attorney with the commission’s division of privacy and identity www.canadianinquirer.net

protection.

Amazon.com says Echo users don’t need to worry about the device eavesdropping on them. As a safeguard, according to Amazon, the device’s microphone is programmed to come on only after it’s activated with the press of a button or the use of a certain word, such as Alexa, the name of the software that powers the Echo.

A blue light on the Echo also comes on when it’s recording and remains illuminated when it’s listening. Users can also select a sound to alert them when the Echo is recording. Amazon also allows users to review the recordings made by the Echo and delete any or all of them, although the Seattle company warns the device might not work as well without access to the audio history.

The Echo so far is getting mostly glowing reviews. It has received a five-star or four-star rating from about 90 percent of the roughly 23,000 reviews posted on Amazon.com.

Despite what Amazon says, Steven Combs has noticed the

Echo’s blue light illuminate at times when it hasn’t been asked during the six months he has been using a test version of the device in his Columbus, Indiana, home. But he says he has never worried about being spied upon.

“Somebody would have to have a real interest in me, and I don’t think I am that interesting for someone to come after my data,” said Combs, the president of a community college.

Michael Edelman, 61, started to wonder about the Echo’s snooping potential within the first few weeks after he set up the device in his home in Huntington Woods, Michigan. He frets about the possibility of government agencies using the Echo or similar devices as a surveillance tool, though that concern hasn’t been enough to cause him to turn off the device’s microphone.

“After you have lived long enough, you realize people will be willing to bring spying technology into their own house if they think it will do something great for them,” Edelman said. ■

Technology

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

41

Microsoft says 14 million computers now running Windows 10

BY BRANDON BAILEY The Associated Press

BLOOMUA / SHUTTERSTOCK

Hackers break in Android phones through text messages

BY JANE MORALEDA Philippine Canadian Inquirer ACCORDING TO cyber firm Zimperium Mobile Security, Android phones can already be hacked through text messages with a so-called “Stagefright” code.

“Attackers only need your mobile number, using which they can remotely execute code via a specially crafted media file delivered via SMS (text message),” a Zimperium post read.

“A fully weaponized successful attack could even delete the message before you see it. You will only see the notification,” the post continued.

Zimperium warned that Stagefright could include video snippets in the text messages. They would then hide their malicious contents in the video files. Even if the Android phone owner never opens or reads the text message, the malicious contents will still be unleashed.

“The targets for this kind of

attack can be anyone… These vulnerabilities are extremely dangerous because they do not require that the victim take any action to be exploited,” Zimperium said.

Stagefright has already been reported to Google.

“Google acted promptly and applied the patches to internal code branches within 48 hours, but unfortunately that’s only the beginning of what will be a very lengthy process of update deployment,” Zimperium said. ■

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA — Microsoft says its’ new Windows 10 operating system is now running on more than 14 million computers, two days after the software was released as a free download.

That’s a far cry from the company’s goal of getting Windows 10 onto a billion devices within three years. Microsoft says it’s releasing the software in waves

Windows 10 was launched near the end of July 2015.

WEATHER UPDATE VANCOUVER

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to make sure downloads go smoothly.

In a blog post late Thursday, Microsoft said it has not yet delivered Windows 10 to everyone who requested a free upgrade for computers running older Windows versions. Microsoft says the 14 million includes some copies installed on new computers sold in stores.

Reaction has been mostly favorable, with reviewers calling the new Windows an improvement over the last version, known as Windows 8. ■

BLOGS.WINDOWS.COM

Long term forecast from www.theweathernetwork.com CALGARY

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Events

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Afridadey! 2015 World Music Festival WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., Aug. 5 to 8, at Prince Island Park, Calgary, A.B. MORE INFO: Tickets available at Safeway Stores, Sloth Records and Mayfair Foods Calgary Christian Festival By the Hope Mission WHEN/WHERE: 3 to 7:30 p.m., Aug. 8, Prairie Winds Park, 223 Castleridge Blvd., NE, Calgary, AB

AUGUST 7, 2015

One Kapamilya Go

By The Filipino Channel WHEN/WHERE: 6 p.m., Aug. 8 at Stampede Corral, Calgary, AB Abakada atbp By the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Aug. 8, at 8 Rothwell Drive, Ottawa MORE INFO: Kids 5 to 12 years old are invited to register at www. philippineembassy.ca

YUKON

NUNAVUT

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

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CANADA EVENTS

To have your events featured on PCI, please email events@canadianinquirer.net

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New WelcomePack Canada Distribution Centre

By WelcomePack Canada Inc. WHEN/WHERE: 1 to 5 p.m., Mon, Tues, Thu & Fri at the Filipino Centre Bldg., 597 Parliament St., Suite 103, Toronto, On MORE INFO: Call (416) 928-9355

MORE INFO: For registrations, call 416-928-9355. The office, at 597 Parliament St., Suite 103, Toronto, is open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 6 p.m.

Homework/Tutorial Class

By QUEBEC FCT WHEN/WHERE: 11a.m. to 12 nn, every Saturday, Filipino Centre Toronto

2015 Manitoba Filipino Street Festival

By Filipino Street Festival WHEN/WHERE: Aug. 22 at Sears Garden City, Manitoba

Community BBQ

By Christ for Life Ministries Tagalog Class WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.,

By FCT Christ for Life Ministries, 3607 WHEN/WHERE: 10 to 11 a.m., every Wolfedale Rd., Mississauga, Ont. Saturday, Filipino Centre Toronto MORE INFO: Call (905)-566-1208 NEWFOUNDLAND

BRITISH COLUMBIA ALBERTA

FRIDAY

ONTARIO

NOVA SCOTIA

Seniors Club Burnaby South Walking Club

By Mosaic WHEN/WHERE: July to August, Mosaic Burnaby Centre for Immigrants, 5902 Kingsway, Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Call Jennifer 604-438-8214 Drop-In Taichi for Seniors

By Mosaic WHEN/WHERE: 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., up to Aug. 28, at Brentwood Community Resource Centre, 2055 Rosser Ave, Burnaby, B.C. MORE INFO: Call - Jennifer 604-292-3907 Free Drop-In English Conversation Circle

By Mosaic WHEN/WHERE: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., up to Sept. 21, Vancouver Community Room, 1720 Grand St., Grd. Flr. MORE INFO: Call Pia at 604-254-9626 ext 487 Temporary Foreign Workers Uncontested Divorce Clinic

By Law Courts Center WHEN/WHERE: Saturdays from 2 to 4 p.m., at the Justice Education Society at the Provincial Court of BC Room 260 800 Hornby St., Vancouver B.C. MORE INFO: To book an appointment, call/text 778-322-2839 or email: tfw.divorce@gmail.com Canadian Citizenship Preparation

By Mosaic

WHEN/WHERE: 10am–1pm, Aug. 5 & 6, at New Westminster Public Library, Main Branch, 716–6th Ave. NW, B.C. MORE INFO: Call Faustin 604-438-8214 ext 112 Pinoy Fiesta Vancouver WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Memorial South Park, 41st Ave. & Ross St., Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Officially proclaimed Filipino Fiesta Day in the City of Vancouver Post-Arrival Orientation Seminar

By PCG-Vancouver and Phil. Labor Office in Vancouver with Victoria Filipino Canadian Caregivers Association WHEN/WHERE: 2 p.m., Aug. 8; 8 p.m. Aug. 9 at Bayanihan Centre, 1709 Blanshard St., Victoria, B.C. MORE INFO: Topics include labour and immigration updates, workers’ rights and responsibilities, consular services, career alternatives and Philippine government benefits.

3rd Traditional Chinese Medicine Symposium

By Tzu Chi International Medical Association WHEN/WHERE: 8 a.m. to 5:50 p.m., Aug. 8 & 9, at Tzu Chi Foundation National Head Office, 8850 Osler St., Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Featured speakers are Dr. Jianmin Li, founder of the "Superhand Manu-Technique”; Dr. In Ho Jung, president of 15 Korean cosmetic/ aesthetic clinics and inventor of "Inno technique www.canadianinquirer.net

Cosmetic Acupuncture"; Dr. Siu Moyee, instructor of Zhu's Scalp Acupuncture and co-founder of Zhu's Neuro-Acupuncture Centre; Dr. Jung-Peng Chiu, chief leader of the Acupuncture Department of Taipei City United TCM hospital; Dr. Adam Chen, TCM practitioner for 40 years and president of the TCM Physician Association of Canada; and Dr. Terry Tang, registered TCM doctor in B.C. Tela: Philippine Fashion Show & Exhibit

By Sinag and the Philippine Consulate GeneralVancouver WHEN/WHERE: Aug. 10 to 13, Riverside Grand Ballroom, 1231 Burdette St., Richmond, B.C. Pagtitipon: A Gathering WHEN/WHERE: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Aug. 10 to 13, at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Artists Reception: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Aug. 11, Roundhouse Community Centre. Contact Lenore- Lenorerslim@gmail.com or Esmie – esmie@ meld-arts.com 2015 Ancop Walk

By Ancop Canada WHEN/WHERE: 9 a.m., Aug. 23, Holland Park, 13428 Old Yale Rd., Surrey, B.C. MORE INFO: Register and join at www. ancopcanada.org

AUGUST 7, 2015

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FRIDAY

Seen & Scenes: Vancouver

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

ETHAN AT SURREY CITY Ethan David, Junior Vocalist Champion of the World and Surrey resident, recently received a proclamation from Surrey City Hall officials (Photo by Vic Vargas).

NOVENA PRAYER FOR LITA NUGUID

BLAST FROM THE PAST A Blast from the Past Concert featuring the Monay sisters Merlene Rose and Maria Isabelle with guest performers Earl Mayuga, Denzel Ace Austria, Aldrin Albos was held recently in support of the Friends in the Heart of Jesus Foundation Society. The society has produced 28 graduates since its inception in 1998. For 2015-2016, the foundation supports 31 scholars.

A nine-day prayer vigil was held at the Multicultural Helping House Society by members of the FilipinoCanadian community for well-loved community leader Lita Nuguid who died July 25. Lita’s family and friends honored her memory in a Celebration of Life ceremony held at Richmond Funeral Home on Aug. 5.

www.canadianinquirer.net

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Seen and Scenes

AUGUST 7, 2015

FRIDAY

PANDAY TINIG The Panday Tinig at the Filipino Congress of Canada Gala, Hellenic Center in Montreal, last Aug 1 (Photos from Editha Fedalizo’s FB).

SUMMER PICNIC Some scenes at the Philipppine Colleges and Universities Alumni Associations Summerfest 2015 held recently at Mississauga Valley Park (Photos by Ariel Ramos).

PILGRIMAGE The 35th Filipino Martyrs Shrine Pilgrimage organized by the Archdiocesan Filipino Catholic Mission of Canada was held on Aug. 1, at Midland, On. The event was supported by Sen. Tobias Enverga, Western Union, Philippine Canadian Charitable Foundation, Answering the Cry of the Poor, and other religious organizations (Photos by Amelia Insigne).

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

Food

FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015

Chickpea, Zucchini, and Chicken Quesadillas

The Healthy Plate:

Veggie Burritos

BY MELISSA D'ARABIAN The Associated Press

BY ALISON LADMAN The Associated Press WEEKNIGHT COOKS love the versatility and ease of quesadillas. Construction is simple — two flour tortillas sandwiched around a bunch of fillings, then skillet toasted — and they can be made with just about any ingredients you have on hand.

In fact, quesadillas are a great way to use up an abundance of produce or any leftovers you have kicking around. The trick is just to make sure that none of the ingredients are watery.

Leftover roasted vegetables, for example, should be drained in a mesh strainer before being added to a quesadilla. Watery raw vegetables, such as tomatoes or the zucchini used in this recipe, should be lightly salted and briefly drained.

We’ll even throw the occasional leftover cooked grain into a quesadilla. Cooked quinoa or rice go great with canned beans and some chopped drained tomatoes. But whatever you do, don’t forget the cheese. It is the glue that holds this delicious dish together. We like cheddar, but Jack or Gouda are nice, too.

Start to finish: 45 minutes Servings: 4 • 1 small zucchini • Kosher salt • 1 tablespoon cumin seeds • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika • 1 teaspoon chili powder

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• 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained • Four 10-inch (burrito-size) flour tortillas • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese • 1/2 cup pitted black olives • 1 cup shredded cooked chicken • Salsa, to serve • Guacamole or sour cream, to serve Use the coarse side of a box grater to shred the zucchini. In a colander, toss the shredded zucchini with a generous sprinkle of salt, then set over the sink to drain.

Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high, heat the cumin seeds until fragrant and toasty, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the vegetable oil, smoked paprika, chili powder and chickpeas. Continue to cook, stirring regularly, until the chickpeas are lightly crispy, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer the beans to a bowl and wipe out the pan.

Squeeze out any remaining

47

liquid from the zucchini and pat dry with paper towels. Return the skillet to medium heat.

Place a tortilla in the middle of the pan and sprinkle with a quarter of the cheese. Top with half of the zucchini, half the seasoned chickpeas, then half the olives and half the chicken.

Sprinkle with another quarter of the cheese, then top with another tortilla. Cook until the bottom tortilla is lightly toasted and the cheese is beginning to melt, about 6 minutes.

Place a dinner plate on the quesadilla and flip the whole pan upside down. Remove the pan and slide the quesadilla off the plate and back into the pan, with the toasted side up. Cook for another 5 minutes, or until all the cheese is melted, everything is hot, and the second tortilla is toasted. Slide onto a plate and repeat the process with the remaining ingredients. Cut into wedges and serve with salsa and sour cream or guacamole. ■

www.canadianinquirer.net

ROASTING IS my default cooking method for just about any veggie. The high heat brings the natural sweetness of the vegetable to the surface and turns a simple little item from the produce aisle into a delectable treat.

Adding fiber and filling healthy fats is some cubed avocado, which means I don’t even miss the cheese (especially with the cheesy goodness of nutty nutritional yeast!). No boring veggie burritos here!

Start to finish: 45 Servings: 6 • 1/2 large head cauliflower, cored and cut into very small florets • 8 baby bella or button mushrooms, sliced • 2 teaspoons olive oil • 1 teaspoon garlic powder • 1 teaspoon ground cumin • Kosher salt and ground black pepper • 1/4 cup cider vinegar • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes • 1 teaspoon sugar • 1/2 small head red cabbage, finely chopped • 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced • 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional) • Six 8- to 10-inch whole-grain tortillas • 1/2 cup purchased tomatillo salsa (or any favourite salsa) • 1 small avocado, pitted, peeled and cubed

• 1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt Heat the oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with kitchen parchment or foil, then mist with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, toss the cauliflower florets, mushrooms, olive oil, garlic powder, cumin and a hefty pinch each of salt and pepper. Arrange in an even layer on the prepared baking sheet and roast until the cauliflower is golden brown and the mushrooms are cooked but not dry, 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, use a fork to mix together the vinegar, red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon of salt and the sugar until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Toss in the cabbage and onion, mixing to coat, then set aside.

Once the cauliflower and mushrooms are cooked, remove from the oven. Sprinkle the yeast flakes over the veggies (if using) and toss. If not using, give them another sprinkle of salt.

Place the tortillas between 2 damp paper towels and microwave for 15 seconds to make them pliable. Divide the vegetables among the tortillas and top each with a sixth each of the pickled cabbage and onion, the salsa, avocado and Greek yogurt. Roll up into burritos, leaving one end open. ■ Food Network star Melissa d’Arabian is an expert on healthy eating on a budget. She is the author of the cookbook, “Supermarket Healthy.”

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FRIDAY