Philippine Canadian Inquirer #199

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VOL. 1 NO. 199

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Grace: Stop mudslinging, debate platforms instead

2016 seen more challenging for stock market

Enrile info prompts new Mamasapano inquiry

Canadians go for frosty New Year’s Day swim

Six things to do with unwanted holiday gifts

‘Colombia may sue, but not for crown’

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer

USHERING IN WET NEW YEAR Fireworks light up the sky as Filipinos welcome the New Year amid a drizzle at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City. The drizzle helped clear the sky of thick smoke that usually enveloped Metro Manila in the early morning of past New Year’s celebrations.

EDWIN BACASMAS / PDI

Affirm SET decision on Poe, lawyers ask high court

BY JEROME ANING Philippine Daily Inquirer IN A 150-PAGE comment on the certiorari case filed by Rizalito David, Sen. Grace Poe’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to affirm the Senate Electoral

Tribunal’s (SET) ruling that she was a natural-born citizen and thus qualified to run for senator during the 2013 elections.

Poe’s lawyers, led by Alexander Poblador, said the SET majority did not com-

Filipino-Canadian in Focus: Marlon Antonio

CAN COLOMBIA sue for the crown?

Only for damages, but not to dethrone the Philippines’ third Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach, according to legal experts.

This as reports circulated online that Colombian lawyers were mulling a suit against the Miss Universe organizers for the confusing end to the Dec. 20 beauty pageant, where Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutiérrez Arévalo, was briefly crowned the winner only to have to hand the tiara to Wurtzbach after host Steve Harvey admitted his mistake.

Former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, chair of the Binibining Pilipinas 2015 panel of judges that crowned Wurtzbach in the country, believes that while lawyers may sue for civil damages, they may not take away the Philippines’ crown.

De Lima said the suit “would essentially be a civil case to be determinedunder the state laws of Nevada, where the pageant was held.”

❱❱ PAGE 26 ❱❱ PAGE 10 Affirm SET

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❱❱ PAGE 9 ‘Colombia may’

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FRIDAY

Philippine News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

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Palace appeals to public for patience, says necessary road projects are now under construction

BY JOANN SANTIAGO Philippines News Agency

ballooning population.

Among the on-going infrastructure projects, which are targeted to be finished this year and in 2017, are the Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3, the NAIA Expressway Phase II, and the LRT Line 2 East Extension, which lengthens the line from Santolan in Pasig to Masinag in Antipolo.

Avenue; 2.) C-5 Road-GreenmeadowsCalle Indutria-Eastwood; and 3.) EDSARoosevelt Avenue-Congressional Avenue.

MANILA — Traffic congestion in MetAlso, the Cavite-Laguna Expressway ro Manila has worsened partly due to Project, the Laguna Lakeshore Develon-going road projects targeted to ease opment Project, the NLEX-SLEX Contravel not only in Metro Manila but in nector Road Project, the North-South Calabarzon and Central Luzon.

Commuter Railway Project, LRT Line Thus, Presidential 4 and 6 Projects, and Communications the Bus Rapid TranOperations Office sit Project from Que(PCOO) Secretary zon City Memorial Herminio Coloma Jr. Circle to Manila City appealed to the pubWe are confident that these contracts will Hall. lic to have patience as pass legal scrutiny. These have been done Coloma said some these infrastructure in accordance with the principles of good of these projects have projects are targeted governance. hurdled issues like to have long-term right-of-way acquisigains. tion and have passed Citing a study by stringent feasibility the Japan Internastudies. tional Cooperation Aside from road Agency (JICA), the Palace official on Other projects that are on differ- projects, he government has also deTuesday said implementation of neces- ent stages of implementation are the cided to put up new urban centers sary infrastructure projects is the key to PhP1.27-billion vehicle underpass along outside of Metro Manila such as the uplift the lives of people in Metro Ma- Sen.Gil Puyat-Paseo de Roxas, and the 9,450-hectare master planned propernila and surrounding areas.

PhP4.01-billion Metro Manila Inter- ty called Clark Green City, which will He said implementation of traffic- change Phase IV project, a three-grade be located in the Clark Special Ecorelated projects that have short-term separated interchanges at 1.) EDSAeffects is not the real solution given the North Avenue-West Avenue-Mindanao

‘Kalayaan’ group wraps up Spratly protest

BY JAYMEE T. GAMIL Philippine Daily Inquirer MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? Around 50 members of the “Kalayaan Atin Ito” (Kalayaan This Is Ours) movement are returning home today from Pagasa (Thitu) Island in the Spratly archipelago after a campaign on the island for a week in a defiant stand against China’s claim to almost the entire South China Sea. The group composed mostly of young volunteers ranging from 15 to 27 years old—headed by former Marine Capt.

Nick Faeldon and accompanied by a hired boat crew—camped on Pagasa from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, angering China, which insists it has “undisputed sovereignty” over the strategic waterway through which $5 trillion in global trade passes every year.

One of the group’s coordinators, Joy Ban-Eg, said the group left Pagasa on late Friday morning. They are expected to arrive in mainland Palawan today.

China said it was “strongly dissatisfied” by the protest, claiming the Philip-

pines was “illegally occupying” disputed islands in the Spratly archipelago.

But Kalayaan Atin Ito was adamant.

“Our peaceful and legal patriotic voyage will never be dependent on what China will do. Our objective is to bring to the attention of the world the invasion and militarization done by China inside our [exclusive economic zone] and [extended continental shelf ] at the Kalayaan Island Group municipality,” Ban-Eg said in a text message.

Pagasa is one of five islands in the Kalayaan Group occupied by the Philippines. The group is within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines, which had been monitoring the group despite its disapproval of the protest, confirmed there were no untoward incident with China during the protest or the group’s voyage.

Ban-Eg said the only time the group was “blocked” in any way was by the Philippines’ own Coast Guard. “It was funny, because we’re not the enemy here,” Ban-Eg said in a phone interview with the INQUIRER. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

nomic Zone.

Coloma said this particular urban area is seen to benefit about 1.2 million residents, 800,000 workers and boost the area’s share on domestic output by about PhP1.57 trillion annually.

These projects are being put up through the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative and Coloma said the Aquino administration is optimistic that these will pass future scrutiny.

“We are confident that these contracts will pass legal scrutiny. These have been done in accordance with the principles of good governance,” he said citing that the country has received several awards in ensuring that there are seals of good housekeeping in these projects.

“Secretary (Rogelio) Singson and the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) have been repeatedly commended by the private sector as having exemplified excellent management of our infrastructure development project and there is ever reason to acknowledge that they have done their work well,” he added. ■

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Philippine News

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Malacañang condoles with Torres’ family

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE PALACE yesterday expressed sympathy and relayed its condolences to the family of former Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Virginia Torres who died on Saturday following a heart attack.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr., said Torres rose from the ranks at the LTO where she started as a cashier in 1980 and rose to an assistant secretary in 2010 until her retirement in 2013.

“We recognize her 33-year continued service in the government and to the people,” Coloma said on state radio.

When asked by text message

if President Aquino had gone to Torres’ wake, Coloma said he had no such information yet.

The President was spending the holidays in the presidential mansion in Baguio City when news of her demise reached him.

Torres was one of President Aquino’s controversial friends, having been involved in certain controversies even after her retirement in 2013 that was prompted when a cell phone footage of her playing in a casino surfaced—a no-no for government officials.

Torres, 63, died in a Pampanga hospital several hours after she was brought there due to complaints of dizziness and chest pain.

A two-day wake has been arranged at Torres’ home in Paniqui town in Tarlac province,

President Benigno S. Aquino III pays his last respects to former LTO chief Virginia Torres last January 5.

MARCELINO PASCUA / MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

before she would be transferred to her hometown of La Paz, also in Tarlac.

Before she was appointed chief of the LTO in 2010, Torres headed the LTO in Tarlac.

She was known to be a shooting

buddy of Mr. Aquino.

Meanwhile, there is no official appointment yet of a new LTO chief although lawyer Roberto Cabrera has been recommended for the job, according to Coloma.

Coloma said this was the statement of Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya to him and which he shared to the media via a text message.

Abaya said that LTO chief Alfonso Tan Jr., voluntarily resigned from the job in November for family reasons.

“I requested him (Tan) to hold on until a new appointment is made by the President. The recommended replacement is Roberto Cabrera, the former executive director of LTFRB (Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board),” said Abaya’s statement.

Abaya said his office had yet to receive a copy of the appointment of the new LTO chief.

“We hope to get a copy of the appointment by [today],” he said. ■

Palace exec says gov’t addressing Metro Manila traffic woes

BY JOANN S. VILLANUEVA Philippines News Agency MANILA — A Palace official on Monday said the government is determined in addressing the worsening traffic situation in Metro Manila through several projects approved by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Board in June 2014.

In a statement, Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Sec. Herminio Coloma Jr. said the Aquino administration is determined to put in necessary measures to address the needs of people living and working in the National Capital Region (NCR) and surrounding areas.

He said the NEDA Boardapproved principles under the Mega Manila Dream Plan or Roadmap for Transport Infrastructure Development for Metro Manila and its Surrounding Areas are now being implemented.

The Roadmap heeds the recommendations of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) namely: www.canadianinquirer.net

1) No traffic congestion; 2) No households living in hazardous conditions; 3) No barriers for seamless mobility; 4) No excessive cost burden for low income groups; and 5) No air pollution, he added.

Under the Mega Manila Dream Plan, there will be five components namely at-grade urban roads; main roads/expressways network; urban and suburban rail network; roadbased public transport; and traffic management strengthening.

Coloma’s statement was issued in response to the statement of American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham) senior advisor John Forbes, who said that Metro Manila would become uninhabitable within four years if traffic congestion will not be addressed.

As quoted by a major daily, the AmCham official said the strong growth of the country’s automotive industry will further worsen the already problematic traffic situation in the metropolis if roads and other infrastructure will not be upgraded immediately. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

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900 JTF-NCR personnel to help secure Black Nazarene Procession PHILIPPINES NEWS AGENCY

President Benigno S. Aquino III leads the distribution of relief goods to the victims of Typhoon Nona in Catarman, Northern Samar last December 23.

GIL NARTEA / MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

DSWD vows to speed up aid

BY GIL CABACUNGAN Philippine Daily Inquirer THE DEPARTMENT of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is aiming to finish this year the construction of permanent housing and the provision of livelihood to thousands of victims displaced by natural and manmade calamities during the last five years.

“The DSWD will focus on the full implementation of the recovery and rehabilitation efforts in disaster stricken areas of the Visayas earthquake, Zamboanga conflict and typhoons ‘Sendong,’ ‘Pablo,’ ‘Glenda’ and ‘Yolanda,’” the DSWDsaid in its report on its priorities for 2016.

The DSWDhas been criticized for the slow pace of providing aid and bringing back to normal the lives of affected people years after a storm or earthquake or armed conflict struck their communities despite the availability of government funds and donations.

The DSWD said that forging partnerships with international organizations such as the United Nations World Food Program would lead to an “improved and more efficient system of disaster operations.”

It also expected that the establishment of the department-wide Disaster Risk Re-

duction and Management protocols/system/capacity building guidelines would help the DSWDand other agencies to prepare for disasters of the scale and magnitude of Supertyphoon Yolanda.

Critics noted that funds and aid had come too little, too late, for victims of typhoons Sendong (December 2011), Pablo (December 2012), Yolanda (November 2013) and Glenda (July 2014) largely due to choke points in the deployment of rehabilitation funds and lack of an integrated plan to finish the projects within a specific period.

In the case of Yolanda-damaged areas, the National Housing Authority has built only one-tenth of the more than 200,000 houses targeted to be built in communities more than two years after these areas were pummeled by the world’s strongest typhoon.

In the Zamboanga conflict— where rogue members of the Moro National Liberation Front led by Nur Misuari left Zamboanga City in rubble and thousands of families homeless in September 2013—US Ambassador Philip Goldberg had voiced concern over why thousands of internally displaced persons continue to live in the Zamboanga City sports complex and temporary shelters. ■

MANILA — Nine hundred military personnel will be augmenting Philippine National Police (PNP) units tasked to secure this year’s Black Nazarene Procession in Quiapo, Manila this Saturday.

These officers and enlisted personnel will be under the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region (JTF-NCR), said Armed Forces of the Phil-

ippines (AFP) spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla.

He added these military personnel, who are coming from the Army, Air Force and Navy, will be equipped with searchand-rescue, explosive ordnance disposal, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear equipment for possible contingencies.

JTF-NCR personnel will also be aided in their security task

by K-9 units, medical and communication teams.

And if needed, military ve-

hicles and helicopters are also available.

Padilla said JTF-NCR personnel will be deploy in five task groups which are divided into logistics, covert security, overt security, disaster response operations and communications.

The security protocols will be similar to the ones used during Pope Francis’ visit and APEC Economic Leaders’ Summit.

Padilla also said that AFP intelligence units are to detect any threats for Saturday’s festivities. ■

NGCP set to implement projects to improve reliability of power

BY LILIAN C. MELLEJOR Philippines News Agency DAVAO CITY — The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) is set to implement projects in Southern Mindanao geared towards addressing reliability of power in 2016.

Melfrance Capulong, Information Officer of NGCP – Southern Mindanao based here, is optimistic to address power issues and improve on reliability with the 230 kilovolts project in Matanao - Malita (Davao del Sur) that would bring power from north up to Malita and Davao Occidental; Matanao – General Santos and Caraga – Butuan projects which are geared towards reliability and delivery of quality power.

Capulong said they were also hoping for additional generators from suppliers of power.

“Everything being placed as 2016 enters,” Capulong said.

She said power supply in Mindanao has been a problem since four years ago.

The situation was further aggravated by the toppling down of NGCP steel towers. On Sunday, Capulong announced NGCP has declared “Yellow Alert” as two hydroelectric power plants of the National Power Corp. in Lanao del Sur remained isolated from the Mindanao grid after a series of bombing of steel towers. www.canadianinquirer.net

Capulong said that under the Yellow alert, the regulating reserves at only 45 megawatts as of 6 p.m. on New Year’s day due to the isolation of the Napocorowned generating facilities Agus 1 and 2 hydro plants.

Capulong said the generation plants have a combined capacity of 150 megawatts. These plants remained disconnected from the grid due to the bombing of Tower # 25 along Agus 2 - Kibawe 138KV line in Ramain, Lanao del Sur last Christmas Eve. As NGCP undertakes repair works, Capulong said these had been hampered by the refusal of landowner to allow entry of field personnel to work on bombed steel tower in Lanao del Sur. “Restoration was halted due to failed negotiation with landowner of the property where the facility is located. The owner refused NGCP entry to repair the toppled tower alleging that government failed to pay his claims long ago,” Capulong said.

Capulong reported there are already 16 towers toppled down by unidentified perpetrators from January to December contributing to the supply situation. This is further aggravated by the peace and order problem.

But she said they continue to collaborate with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Philippine National Police and the local government units for the protection of the towers.

Capulong said that despite lower power consumption brought about by the cold weather and yearend holidays, NGCP still placed the Mindanao grid on “Yellow Alert,” with the reserves falling below required levels.

In a text message, Capulong explained that Yellow alert is next to red alert which is extreme condition. Under the Yellow alert, the contingency reserve is less than the largest synchronized unit in the grid.

Under this, Capulong said the operator would implement load curtailment.

Capulong further warned that the supply situation would worsen come Jan. 4 when classes and work resume. Based on NGCP power outlook for Mindanao as of Jan. 3, Mindanao has 107-megawatt power reserves but on Monday, Jan. 4, the Mindanao grid had only 24-megawatt power reserves.

While undertaking repairs, NGCP is also appealing to the public, local and national government, the police and military to help monitor the safety of the towers so that transmission services remain uninterrupted.

“The company also appealed to local community leaders to help identify the perpetrators of the bombings, and to negotiate with uncooperative landowners, to prevent longer power interruptions,” Capulong said. ■

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Philippine News

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

SC to tackle crucial cases this month

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE SUPREME Court is off to a busy start of the new year as it is set to tackle this month crucial cases and address critical administrative matters.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, chair of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), will lead on Jan. 7 and 8 the conduct of public interviews of 16 candidates being considered for the Supreme Court slot to be vacated by outgoing Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr. Villarama is set to retire on Jan. 16, ahead of reaching the mandatory retirement age on April 14, when he turns 70.

Villarama had cited his deteriorating health for seeking early retirement.

On Thursday and Friday, the sevenmember JBC is scheduled to interview candidates for the post, among them top officials and magistrates Justice Secretary Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang and Court of Appeals Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr. Other nominees from the judiciary are Court of Appeals Associate Justices Apolinario Bruselas Jr., Rosmari Carandang, Mariflor Castillo and Stephen

Cruz, Sandiganbayan Associate Justices Maria Cristina Cornejo and Alex Quiroz, and Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge Reynaldo Daway.

Veteran lawyers also nominated for the post are Joe-Santos Bisquera, former Commission on Audit Chair Maria Grace Pulido Tan, Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras III, Cibac party-list Rep. Cinchona Cruz-Gonzales, and Deputy Ombudsman Gerard Mosquera.

On Jan. 12, the high court en banc is expected to continue deliberations on the constitutional question against the Philippines-United States Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), a case that has been pending for more than a year.

Edca, an executive agreement signed in April 2014 just before US President Barack Obama arrived in Manila for a state visit, allows increased rotational presence of American troops in the country.

On Jan. 19, the high court is set to hold oral arguments on the disqualification cases filed against Sen. Grace Poe. Up for discussion is the plea of disqualified presidential candidate Rizalito David for the court to reconsider the Senate Electoral Tribunal’s decision upholding Poe’s naturalborn citizenship, hence affirming her qualification for the 2013 senatorial race. ■

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GRACE POE / OFFICIAL FACEBOOK

Grace: Stop mudslinging, debate platforms instead

BY LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer CANDIDATES SHOULD turn over a new leaf this new year by steering clear of petty politics and making the 2016 campaign a battle of platforms on how to improve government, said Sen. Grace Poe, who issued the call to fellow aspirants for the presidency.

Voters will choose the country’s next set of leaders in May and the official campaign period for national posts will begin next month.

“We’re all coming into 2016 with a clean slate. We can use this chance to elevate the level of discourse in the campaign. I think everyone will agree that Filipinos deserve no less from us,” Poe said in a statement.

Poe also recalled an agreement between her and fellow candidates Liberal Party standard-bearer Mar Roxas and Vice President Jejomar Binay to keep the campaign “friendly and dignified.”

It was made during a prayer service by Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle in September.

Tagle reminded the candidates that being a leader meant being of service and that they should not forget that a leader must be the first to feel what the people were going through, she noted.

Poe, who is battling attempts to kick her out of the race for the presidency, also said personal ambitions should not triumph over the desire to improve how things were done in the country.

This kind of ambition, she said, could lead to dirty tricks against opponents.

“I presume we all want the same thing for the country, which is ultimately, to uplift the lives of our fellow Filipinos.

Let us not make this about personal ambitions because if we do, the tendency

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is to employ all means, even dirty tactics, to eliminate those who stand in our way,” she said.

The Commission on Elections disqualified Poe from the race for the presidency, saying that she failed to meet the 10-year residency requirement and that she could not be considered a naturalborn Filipino because she was a foundling.

She believes her rivals were behind the move to take her out of the running.

Poe also said she was earlier told that her having no “black ops” was a problem.

But she said she and her running mate wanted to have a positive campaign.

They want to focus on what they could do for the country, she added.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is running for Vice President, also called on candidates to continue their holiday ceasefire on mud-slinging and character assassination.

“Now and during the campaign period, we candidates should present to the electorate discourses, speeches and statements that are issue-based and in a dignified and decent manner,” said Marcos.

The candidates have shown that they could stop the trash talk during the holidays and there is no reason not to continue the practice, he said.

“I can’t see any reason why it could not be done during the entire campaign period. The people are waiting to hear solutions to the lingering problems of the country and it should be given to them. It would be an insult to their intelligence if this is sidelined by nonsense quarrels,” he said.

Sen. Francis Escudero, meanwhile, shrugged off earlier reports that alleged supporters of Poe, his running mate, had criticized him for supposedly abandoning her. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

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Utilization of PhilHealth benefits by poor members on uptrend

BY LEILANI S. JUNIO Philippines News Agency MANILA — The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) has noted a big increase in the utilization of benefits among PhilHealth members included in the National Household Targetting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTSPR) — a data bank and information management system that identifies who and where the poor are in the country.

“I think utilization among NHTS members has increased tremendously... So, malaki na ang nalalaman nila sa mga benepisyo tungkol sa PhilHealth at nagagamit mismo ng mahihirap (So, people now know the benefits better and hence, the less priviledged are able to use the services),” PhilHealth President and CEO Atty. Alexander Padilla told the Philippines News Agency.

“In terms of claims pro-

cessing, we are now averaging around 1.2 million claims from the NHTS and sponsored members, representing almost 32 percent or one-third of our claims processing,” Padilla said.

Members of these sectors are also the ones being assisted by the government under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Payment for their premium contributions is being shouldered by the government because their income is not sufficient.

This is part of the effort of the Aquino administration to ensure that the poor will not be left behind and have access to quality health care and other services as part of promoting the inclusive growth or in reaping the fruits of good governance.

Based on the data of Phil-

Health from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2015, a total of PhP44 billion benefit payment was made by PhilHealth in the first half of the year.

In comparison, Padilla said that such amount was equivalent to the benefit payment that the agency made for the entire 2012.

“So, in a matter of four years’ time, our PhP44-billion payment in 2012 is only six months of payment benefits for 2015,” the PhilHealth president said.

He noted that with the continuous uptrend, they have projected that they will be paying roughly PhP88 billion by the end of 2015.

Last year (2014), PhilHealth paid a total of PhP78.2 billion in benefit claims, up from PhP55 billion in 2013 and PhP44 billion in 2012.

For the first half of 2015, more than PhP13 billion of benefit payments were used for NHTS/sponsored members who had utilized their

PhilHealth claims for their health needs or even sickness of their dependents numbering 1,210,668 claims.

“So iyon, lumalaki ang benefits na binabayaran namin (The benefits we pay for get more expensive)…We have also expanded the Z-benefits to include colon and rectum cancers for this year,” Padilla said.

Z-benefit package refers to catastrophic illnesses that ordinary citizens may not be able to afford the cost of treatment.

Examples of catastrophic illnesses are acute lymphocytic/ lymphoblastic leukemia, breast cancer, prostate cancer, end state renal disease requiring kidney transplantation, coronary artery bypass, etc.

Padilla said the complete list of such catastrophic illnesses can be viewed at PhilHealth website or www.philhealth.gov. ph.

At present, there are 15,288,583 indigents covered

by PhilHealth.

Dependents of these indigent members total to 30,118,509 individuals which when added together total to 45,407,092.

About 40 percent of PhilHealth members are indigents; one percent comprise sponsored members; 13 percent, senior citizens; 35 percent from the formal economy; and nine percent from the informal economy.

For this year, about 3.5 million senior citizens were added as members under Republic Act No. 10645 which mandated that PhilHealth must cover the senior citizens who were not members before or not included in any category.

The government pays the premium of these senior citizens through the Sin tax revenues.

At present, the PhilHealth is proud to say that nine out 10 Filipinos or 89.4 million of the 100 million population are covered by PhilHealth. ■

Briones claim on 2016 budget recycled – Palace

BY JERRY E. ESPLANADA Philippine Daily Inquirer MALACAÑANG HAS dismissed as “recycled” former national treasurer and Prof.

Leonor Briones’ allegation that this year’s P3-trillion national budget is “loaded with pork and lump sum appropriations.”

Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. Tuesday pointed out that Briones’ budget-related claims had been previously debunked by the Department of Budget and Management.

Coloma, head of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), also brushed aside Briones’ assertion that the expected increase in the 2016 gross domestic product (GDP) would be driven by an election budget and would not have a sustainable impact on the poor and the unemployed.

He said “the Aquino administration’s record speaks for itself.”

“While the national budget doubled—from P1.64 trillion in 2011 to P3.002 trillion in 2016—

the country also attained its highest five-year average GDP growth in four decades,” he said.

The PCOO chief noted that “while allocating the biggest portion of the budget (37 percent) to social protection and human development, significant gains have been achieved in poverty reduction and in increasing employment.”

“More was achieved in modernizing the Armed Forces of the Philippines than in the last three administrations combined,” he added.

Briones claimed, among others, that “while the National Expenditure Program totals P3.002 trillion, more than P930 billion is in automatic appropriations while Special Purpose Funds total P408 billion and Unprogrammed Funds total P67.5 billion.”

“Just like the 2015 General Appropriations Act, the 2016 GAA reinforces the redefinition of savings and authorizes the transfer of Development Assistance Program-like funds already declared by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional,” she said.

She alleged that “as in previ-

SHUTTERSTOCK

ous election years, small infrastructure projects were embedded in the 2016 budget and were specifically identified by legislators during the preparation phase of the budget, which amount to huge sums worth of public works.”

“Additional insertions were introduced by both houses of Congress and the bicameral conference committee. Concrete examples are farm-tomarket roads which are identified with legislators who claim credit for them during election sorties,” she added. www.canadianinquirer.net

In an e-mail, Briones said it was “not surprising that many Filipinos are optimistic about 2016.”

“They are looking forward to the May national elections which will give them cash, free food and temporary jobs. The question is: Is the good news about 2016 sustainable?” she asked.

She added: “The question remains whether election-driven growth will be sustained for the long term and whether it will directly benefit the poor and the marginalized. Will this be

sustainable enough to lift the people out of poverty?”

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, however, defended the 2016 budget, saying it “represents the government’s commitment to invest in people.”

In a statement, Abad said “this is a budget that is twice more than the national budget when this administration took over in 2010. It also provides the highest allocations on social and economic services compared to the budgets under previous administrations.”

“But more than that, this is a budget that caps six straight years of high-impact budget reforms that plugged leakages in the budget, aligned spending with results, streamlined budget release procedures, sped up disbursements, and capacitated agencies to fast track the implementation of programs. We also made budget information easily accessible to the public, and enabled communities to identify projects that they need. These reforms have enhanced the operational efficiency of agencies, as well as accountability and transparency in the budget process,” he added. ■

Philippine News

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JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

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For 2016, some have projected a modest rise while others see the demise of the bull market.

FIRST OF TWO PARTS

2016 seen more challenging for stock market

BY DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE YEAR 2015 was a very challenging period for the stock market, which had to contend with global headwinds and massive volatility which were inherent to an aging bull. For the first time in six years, the local stock barometer ended the year in negative territory.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index shed a total of 278.49 points or 3.85 percent to close 2015 at 6,952.08.

For 2016, some have projected a modest rise while others see the demise of the bull market. This is seen to be an even more challenging year, with the run-up to the hotly contested presidential elections adding to the uncertainties created by concerns over the Chinese economy and the start of the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes.

“Election uncertainty could continue to dampen market performance, similar to the past four elections when the PSEi was weak three to six months prior to voting day. Any post-election market rally [which occurred in three of the past four elections] will likely be modest unless the winning candidate unveils a clear and compelling national agenda [which at this point, seems unlikely],” Citigroup stocks analyst Minda Olonan said in a research note.

Citigroup’s base-case or central scenario is for the PSEi to rise to 7,350 this year. Its best case scenario is for the PSEi to end 2016 at 8,050, based on the assumption that investors will be willing to pay 19 times (price to earnings or P/E ratio) the amount of money they expected to make from this market.

Earnings of PSEi stocks (excluding gaming firm Bloomberry Resorts Corp. and conglomerate San Miguel Corp.) are

expected by Citigroup to rise by an average of 11.6 percent this year, higher than the projected average growth of 8.7 percent in 2015 and 5.1 percent in 2014.

“While the Philippines’ macro fundamentals remain relatively defensive, the weaker global environment, slower GDP (gross domestic product) growth, and election uncertainties will make it challenging to keep a valuation premium,” Olonan said.

While the 12-month forward-looking P/E ratio of the local stock market has gone down to 17x, it is still seen much higher than the 13.4 times average P/E ratio seen across the Southeast Asian bloc. As such, Olonan said: “current valuations do not look compelling in our view, despite the Philippines being positioned as a relatively more defensive market.”

Jonathan Ravelas, chief strategist at Banco de Oro Unibank, said the PSEi could rise back to the 8,000 level this year if investors would accept a priceto-earnings ratio of more than 20 times.

However, he said the more prudent target would be 7,400 to 7,600, consistent with the price-to-earnings range of 18 to 19 times across stock markets globally.

“Investors can’t discount the possibility that the local stock market could hit as high as the 9,000 level in 2017 with the assumption that the next administration will implement and execute well major infrastructure projects needed to further boost investments,” Ravelas said.

“A virtuous cycle of investments, jobcreation and sustained consumer spending should keep the peso relatively stable at the 47:$1 level over the medium-term,” he said.

Campos Lanuza & Co., is among those who believe that the reign of the bulls is over. This is even if the PSEi has yet to decline by 20 percent from the peak level [of over 8,100], the magnitude of pullback typically used to determine that a market had entered the bear territory or a period of sustained decline in share prices.

“We expect this bear market to test the patience of most investors,” Lacson.

“This bear market will have the legs to keep itself moving over the next six months and possibly for the whole 2016.”

Lacson said it would likely take time for prices to correct to levels that won’t reflect the fundamentals under tighter global liquidity and slower economic growth.

All in all, Lacson said the strategy would be for investors to be patient and let valuations come to them instead of going after share price rallies.

“China’s currency policy is a source of volatility. The second biggest economy in the world has demonstrated its willingness to devalue its currency to sustain its economic growth. A devaluation of the renminbi may have implications on US monetary policy, which this December has shifted to tightening mode,” Lacson said.

What will likely come next, Lacson said, would be a dynamic process of counter-cyclical policy moves between the US and China.

“And the Philippines, like other smaller economies will be in just for the ride.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will have to keep a fluid stance to potential shifts in the peso,” Lacson said.

Similar to the global stock market meltdown seen on Aug. 14, 2015 trig-

Bearish

Jose Mari Lacson, head of research at

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❱❱ PAGE 10 2016 seen

Philippine News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

Malampaya platform eyed as prison

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer PICTURE THIS: a prison island in the middle of the West Philippine Sea. This is one of the proposals made at the House of Representatives concerning what to do with the Malampaya offshore facility in Palawan once its supply of natural gas runs out.

LPGMA party-list Rep. Arnel Ty, a member of the House energy committee, yesterday proposed converting the Malampaya platforms, located some 80 kilometers off northwest Palawan, into a high-security prison island à la Alcatraz.

Although the Malampaya field is seen to remain productive for a few more years, the wells “are bound to dry up, be plugged and abandoned, along with the platforms,” said Ty, who proposed a number of other ways that the government could make use of the facility once it is decommissioned.

“The Bureau of Corrections can opt to transform the platforms into a high-security prison,” he said, noting how terribly overcrowded the country’s jails are, including the 8,700-capacity New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City, which has more than 22,000 inmates.

Described by its operators as an “island of steel and concrete,” the Malam-

‘Colombia may...’

“Assuming that Nevada’s laws on torts and quasi-delict are anywhere similar to our own, then anyone who feels that she has been aggrieved by any negligent or mistaken act that is not otherwise justified may use for redress, compensation and ❰❰ 1

9

Brace for heavy traffic in Parañaque Work on P9-B road linking C-5 to Cavite to cause ‘shortterm inconvenience’

paya facility is composed of two large adjacent structures with wells to extract natural gas and oil from undersea reservoirs.

“The platforms are built to withstand typhoons and earthquakes. One of the rigs can house 60 workers and has a helipad,” Ty said.

But he did not explain or provide details on how many prisoners could be accommodated once the platforms are turned into jails, and how their safety could be ensured.

At present, because of safety reasons, only 59 people— who are transported by helicopter—are allowed on one of the Malampaya platforms at any given time, according to a GMA 7 documentary by Sandra Aguinaldo titled “Islang Bakal” in 2014.

It was explained that the number of people allowed on to a platform was limited to 59 because only this number of people could be evacuated by lifeboat.

Malampaya derives natural gas from the Camago-Malampaya reservoir, a gigantic reserve of natural gas discovered in 1992 by Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. The Malampaya wells tap into 2.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves located some 3,000 meters below sea level, according to the Malampaya project’s website. ■

INSTAGRAM PHOTO

vindication,” she added.

Atort is awrongful act that causes someone loss or harm, leading to the legal liability of the offender. Quasi-delict is a French legal term that refers to how negligence causes harm or damage to another. ■

BY MARICAR B. BRIZUELA Philippine Daily Inquirer WITH THE construction of the C-5 Link Expressway beginning next month, the Parañaque government warned the public to expect “short-term inconvenience” when traveling on major roads in the city, particularly in the vicinity of the Moonwalk and Merville Park villages.

In a statement released on Sunday, Mayor Edwin Olivarez said the first phase of the 7.6kilometer project was given notice to proceed by the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) in December.

To be built at a cost of P9 billion, it will connect C-5 in Taguig City to the Cavite expressway, cutting through Merville Subdivision in Parañaque.

Following the TRB approval, Olivarez said a groundbreaking ceremony would be held this month with construction set to begin in February.

According to City Administrator Fernando Soriano, work on the project will

cause heavy traffic on major roads like Andrews Avenue, Airport Road and Sucat Road which are already congested due to the ongoing Naia Elevated Expressway.

But once the C-5 Link Expressway is completed in 2019, it will “ensure faster travel and more productive living in the city” especially among residents of Merville, BF Subdivision, Multinational Village and Moonwalk, Soriano said.

“The new expressway will likewise provide safe, fast and convenient expressway travel for its users in Cavite [province], the cities of Las Piñas, Taguig [and] Makati and nearby areas,” he added.

In preparation for the roadwork, Olivarez said they would deploy additional traffic enforcers to major arteries leading to the airport, adding that the number of enforcers and traffic plan would be finalized after the groundbreaking.

He also advised motorists passing through the affected areas to plan their trips and take alternate routes. ■

LBC and BOC collaborate to ensure speedy Balikbayan Box deliveries PASAY – Following through on their discussions in the recently concluded Asia Logistics Summit 2015, LBC Express, Inc., the country’s largest logistics, remittance, and courier company, and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) are working hand-­ in-hand to ensure that Balikbayan boxes, especially ones targeted for Christmas, arrive promptly and safely.

BOC Chief Bert Lina was one of the guests of honor at the Asia Logistics Summit 2015. In his keynote speech, he mentioned “[In] logistics, the name of the game is speed.” He then followed it up with a clamor for the logistics companies and government to work together to ‘accelerate the pace of getting things done across all members of the supply chain.’

In response to Lina’s call, LBC has been working with the Bureau to hasten their turnover times. “The Balikbayan Box is where the OFWs translate their hard work and effort into something that is tangible and can be felt by their families back home. Its more padama than it is padala,” said Rene Fuentes, LBC’s Head of Global Retail. “Through the years, LBC has always been trusted with sending those important gifts and gestures of love, so we’ve synchronized our systems with Customs to be able deliver packages as quickly as possible,” he continued.

In this cooperation between LBC and the BOC, both entities have streamlined their processes and systems to create a cohesive structure that will facilitate the movement of Balikbayan boxes from

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point to point. The method ensures that the boxes will be handled safely, and will guarantee that the boxes will never have to be opened unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

In August 2015, the BOC issued Customs Memorandum Order No. 27-­ 2015 stipulating that “Balikbayan boxes of OFWs shall not be subjected to random or arbitrary physical inspection. Instead, they shall undergo mandatory X-­ ray scanning.”

This X-­ ray scanning is conducted at the Designated Examination Area (DEA), for preliminary non-­ commercial shipments. However, should any box be tagged “suspect” after X-­ ray scanning (containing goods of commercial value), these will be physically inspected by duly authorized BOC inspectors. In this regard, all senders are encouraged to properly adhere to the procedures and policies of the BOC, while likewise preparing complete documentation (packing list).

To further assist senders, and respond to queries and concerns in real-­time, LBC and the BOC also initiated a regular live chat with BOC officials, where OFWs may directly communicate with BOC officials.

“We hope that through our collaborative efforts [with the BOC], we can further improve our services to our customers, as well as upgrade the standards for the industry-­ at-­ large,” Fuentes said. “At the end of the day, all we want is for our OFWs to be able to send their love to their families, so that they will have a very Merry Christmas,” he concluded.

10

Philippine News

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Affirm SET... mit any grave abuse session held by the court two of discretion as they days later, the three justices no reached their deci- longer took part in the delibsion “without citing any politi- erations for and the issuance cal or emotional considerations of a resolution requiring the reand relying solely on the Con- spondents in David’s suit—SET stitution, applicable law and and Poe—to submit their comjurisprudence.” ments within 15 days.

The SET majority, according to the comment, had “sound Exclusive judge bases” in rendering its decision The senator’s camp said the while David failed to substanti- ruling of the SET, which is the ate his allegations of personal sole and exclusive judge of or political considerations on qualifications of a senator, was the part of the majority. already final and may no longer David, even before the SET be reviewed or reversed by the began its hearings, should have high court as David “woefully moved for the inhibition of the failed” to show any grave abuse senators which he claimed to of discretion. be biased in favor of Poe or who “[David’s petition] should be have close relationship with denied, and due respect given her, the majority said. to the exclusive jurisdiction The inhibition of three SET of the SET to decide the issue Poe also recalls an agreement between her and fellow candidates Liberal Party standard-bearer Mar Roxas and Vice justice-members from the Da- of Senator Poe’s citizenship President Jejomar Binay to keep the campaign “friendly and dignified.” vid suit and the retirement qualification posed before it, PHOTO FROM POE’S WEBSITE of another magistrate, Jus- especially considering that [he] tice Martin Villarama, on Jan. absolutely failed to prove grave sis, not motivated by partisan “transcended party lines.” through representatives who 16 means only 11 justices—of abuse of discretion, but at most, considerations, any perceived “For [David], because most enjoy their direct mandate, and which seven will comprise a errors of judgments allegedly error, imagined or real, should of the senator-members are whose decision would reflect majority—will be conducting committed by the SET, which not be the subject of review, not lawyers, they should have the collective judgment of the the oral arguments on the case is beyond review even by this much less of corrective cer- deferred to the three justice- sovereign people.” on Jan. 19. tiorari jurisdic- members’ interpretations, They added that the SET’s After the SET tion,” it added. which should be controlling decision was not made legally denied David’s The senator’s and given more weight. [He] es- infirm simply because certain motion for recamp added that sentially ascribes infallible wis- members took into account consideration, For [David], because most of the Constitution dom on the unelected members what David claimed to be nonthe tribunal’s the senator-members are not itself “mandates of the SET, conveniently disre- legal considerations in casting three justicelawyers, they should have deferred the composition garding the wisdom of elected their votes. members who to the three justice-members’ of the SET to be members when it suits his purPoe’s camp also opposed Davoted against interpretations, which should be partly political, pose,” Poe’s camp added. vid’s plea for the issuance of a Poe—Antonio controlling and given more weight. and its members temporary restraining order or Carpio, Arturo are allowed, and People’s mechanism writ of preliminary injunction Brion and Terehave full and Poe’s lawyers also pointed out against the SET ruling. sita Leonardocomplete au- that by approving the current “[The SET’s] determination De Castro—said thority, to take Constitution which provided should be respected, and no they would inhibit themselves honorable court,” the comment into account policy consider- for a predominantly legislative reason, urgent or otherwise, from the case should David el- stated. ations and the will of the people membership of an electoral exists in the meantime to preevate it to the high court.

“A becoming regard for its in their vote.” tribunal, “the people provid- maturely deprive the people David filed the certiorari constitutional jurisdiction dicHowever, the comment not- ed for a mechanism whereby of their representation on the suit at the Supreme Court last tates that for as long as the SET ed, the votes of the senators their opinion on the issues may basis of one man’s persistent Dec. 14. At the special en banc makes a decision with clear ba- who are members of the SET be taken into consideration, doubt,” the comment stated. ■ ❰❰ 1

2016 seen... gered by the economic woes of China and the revaluation of the renminbi, Lacson warned of rapid net outflows of capital because of such possible policy surprises. “It’s all a matter of policy surprises and reactions,” he said.

On the other hand, Lacson said there were two things likely to bode well for the Philippines—soft commodity prices and election spending.

“Both will help keep domestic purchasing power strong ❰❰ 8

and consumption spending healthy. Election spending is expected to be weaker than in 2010 but will nevertheless provide a boost. Under a sustained weaker peso, we can also count on OFW (overseas Filipino worker) remittances and BPO (business process outsourcing) revenues to drive consumption spending growth,” he said.

‘Musical chairs’

As the presidential race continues to heat up, Citigroup’s Olonan said recent events

might lead to key changes to the presidential lineup. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has ruled disqualifying popular candidate Senator Grace Poe from the race, on residency and citizenship issues. Poe recently obtained a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court on the Comelec’s decision to disqualify.

In the meantime, the substitute filing strategy of another popular candidate—Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte—is still undergoing Comelec review. www.canadianinquirer.net

“The disqualification of Senator Poe will benefit all the candidates, although Mayor Duterte will likely gain the most. He is also perceived to be ‘independent’ and an advocate of clean government—but his unfiltered language and other allegations have led to concerns in some sectors,” Olonan said.

“Having a grassroots machinery, which favors Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas and Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay, may not be as valuable with

more independent-minded ‘millennials’ who account for an estimated 49 percent of the electorate,” Olonan said.

The Citigroup analyst noted that unlike the 2010 elections— when corruption was the voters’ top issue—the need for effective and faster execution of government projects and reducing crime were now the key issues. Each candidate can play up his/her own strengths, and the race remains fluid,” Olonan said.

(To be concluded)

Philippine News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

11

Bicol town nurses mothers, babies

BY JOCELYN R. UY Philippine Daily Inquirer IN THE SMALL town of Tinambac in Camarines Sur province, the health of every mother and child is everybody’s affair.

While public health workers are the primary providers of care, ordinary townsfolk—from the midwives going around the villages to the habal-habal drivers plying the town’s steep roads to the priests holding Sunday Masses in the barrios— share in the arduous task of keeping every mother and baby alive and well.

Cultivating this novel synergy in the last two years, the municipality was able to reverse setbacks in its health programs, which worsened in 2011 when nine mothers died in childbirth and 11 infants perished even before they were a month old.

For a town of more than 65,000 residents, the figures were considered alarming as the Philippines worked to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets on maternal and infant deaths at 52 women per 100,000 live births and 26.7 per 1,000 live births, respectively, by the end of 2015.

Actual figures show that there were 539 maternal deaths nationwide as of the third quarter of 2015, a 57-percent reduction from the numbers culled in 2012.

Partnerships

“I learned that providing better health for the mothers and children is not just the job of the mayor, the barangay official or the health personnel. We have to create more partners to [achieve this goal],” Tinambac Mayor Ruel Velarde said in an interview with the INQUIRER. A first-class municipality, Tinambac was recently awarded the first Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF) Excellence

liefs and traditions,” Velarde said, explaining the reason for the unusual partnership.

The national government and the Catholic Church have been at odds over the reproductive health law, which gave Filipino couples access to a wide range of birth control methods, particularly artificial ones.

Earlier, ZFF president Ernesto Garilao underscored the importance of family planning, saying family planning services must be made available to Filipino households to curb deaths of mothers during pregnancy.

Effective communicators A first-class municipality, Tinambac was recently awarded the first Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF) Excellence Award for Leadership in Public Health for instituting health reforms to help make serious dents in the national figures on maternal and infant mortality.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ZUELLIGFOUNDATION.ORG

Award for Leadership in Pub- reform journey we all can learn information and research and lic Health for instituting health from,” he added. service delivery. reforms to help make serious Velarde pioneered many In giving the award to Tinamdents in the national figures on health innovations worthy of bac, ZFF lauded the town’s maternal and infant mortality. replication in other cities when “breakthrough alliance” with In 2013, Tinambac has been he partnered with ZFF and the Archdiocese of Caceres able to bring down maternal trained under its Health Lead- and the local parishes, where deaths to one and finally to zero ership and Governance Pro- priests take to their pulpits the in the succeeding two years de- gram in 2012. advocacy of responsible parspite the absence enthood and of of avant-garde safe, planned health facilities, and wanted complicated by pregnancy. the geographiI learned that providing better It might have cal isolation of health for the mothers and children been a difficult majority of its 44 is not just the job of the mayor, partnership if barangays. the barangay official or the health it were imple“[The award] personnel. mented elseis given to a muwhere in the nicipality whose country, but in mayor has disa town where played commendable ‘Bridging Under this program, mayors priests are still highly revered Leadership’ skills in instituting and municipal health officers as God’s messengers, the camchanges. The mayor’s owner- take a yearlong, two-module paign reaped positive results, ship of health issues inspired leadership program and are said Velarde, a devout Catholic. others to take part in a bet- tasked with improving health It also helped that Tinambac ter vision for health,” Roberto indicators in their jurisdictions has the most number of parishRomulo, ZFF chair, said at the following the World Health Or- es, seven, under the Archdioawarding ceremony. ganization’s six building blocks cese of Caceres, he said.

“Together with the municipal of health: leadership and gov“If we just leave it to the lohealth officer, rural health phy- ernance, health care financ- cal leaders to speak, people may sician and members of the local ing, health workforce, medi- resist the message, especially health board, they took a health cal products and technologies, when it goes against their be-

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“Priests are still effective communicators in our municipality. Our people still believe that the message priests deliver to them is the word of God, so they obey,” Velarde said.

He added, however, that the priests are helping out with the town’s campaign to teach couples the calendar method, which uses past menstrual cycles to estimate the time of ovulation. The “scientific commodities” of family planning are left to the health experts.

Involving priests to help improve and protect the health of mothers and infants has also become handy in communicating often ignored programs and activities like vaccination schedules for infants and free prenatal and postnatal checkups for pregnant women, Velarde said.

“There were times that the priest in my parish would allow me to be by his side and make the announcements myself or lecture about the calendar method before he concluded the Mass,” he said.

To handle the last-minute hospital admissions of laboring mothers and the dismal rate of hospital deliveries, Velarde had to be extra creative in the face ❱❱ PAGE 12 Bicol town

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Philippine News

JANUARY 8, 2016

House members still want to grill resigned LTO chief

BY GIL CABACUNGAN Philippine Daily Inquirer THE NEWLY resigned chief of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) responsible for the backlog in driver’s license cards and defective vehicle plates is not yet off the hook, according to some lawmakers.

House members still want to summon Alfonso Tan Jr. to a congressional inquiry that would pinpoint the root cause of the controversies surrounding the production of license cards and vehicle plates during his four-year stint as head of the LTO. Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said Congress should look into these issues because replacing or kicking out the LTO chief was not the solution.

“Over the past few years, transportation groups and the Commission on Audit (COA) have questioned some LTO projects like the slow production of driver's license cards and car plates. These anomalies will only be repeated, that’s why we should investigate them now,” Colmenares said.

He was referring to the license plate production deal between the LTO and DutchFilipino consortium PPI-JKG

Australia gives P17.5M for ‘Nona’ victims

BY LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer

The lower house seeks to summon resigned Land of Transportation Office chief Alfonso Tan Jr. to a congressional inquiry.

ROBERT VINAS / MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

Philippines Inc. which was stopped by the COA for violation of the Government Procurement Reform Act. Under Tan, the LTO also suffered a legal setback in the Manila Regional Trial Court which suspended the license card contract awarded to Allcard for lack of a budget to bankroll the project. The COA also stopped the LTO from paying its longtime card supplier, Amalgamated Motors Philippines Inc., which has been getting the contract annually without any bidding.

In a report on Saturday, Transportation Secretary Jo-

seph Emilio Abaya confirmed that Tan had voluntarily resigned—and “wasn’t sacked”— and would be replaced by Robert Cabrera, executive director of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.

Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III said that with Tan out of the LTO, he could be more “open” in revealing the true cause of the backlog or be pictured as a “fall guy” in the LTO's failures.

Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon said that ultimately, President Aquino and Abaya would have to take responsibility for these controversies. ■

about to give birth or with an emergency medical condition to get prompt help.

Others who are too poor to pay for transportation choose to give birth in their homes with the assistance of a hilot, he added.

“So what we did was, we organized the habal-habal drivers, gave them uniforms and IDs and a record book identifying all the pregnant mothers in their own villages and the mothers’ respective addresses and due dates,” Velarde said.

The record book, regularly updated at the municipal health office, gives the drivers an idea when they are expected to give the mothers a ride to the nearest health center. In return, the drivers are given monetary incentives upon arrival at the

hospital.

The construction of a halfway maternal home in 2013, financed by ZFF, provided a more permanent solution. Built right next to the municipal hospital, the halfway house provided pregnant women a refuge while awaiting their delivery date so they no longer needed to travel from far-flung villages.

To dissuade hilot from assisting in home deliveries, Velarde gave them a more stable and lucrative job—the young ones were enlisted as barangay health workers and the older ones as community herbal gardeners.

A safe birthing ordinance has also been passed, which imposes stiffer sanctions on stubborn hilot and couples who seek their assistance rather than get professional care.

FRIDAY

THE AUSTRALIAN government would provide P17.5 million in humanitarian assistance to the Philippine government for families affected by Typhoon ‘Nona’ (international name: Melor), Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced yesterday.

In a statement, Bishop said the 500,000 Australian dollars assistance was in response to the Philippine government’s call for help.

Australia would provide tarpaulins for emergency shelter, sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets, water containers, hygiene kits, and sexual and reproductive health kits for women.

It would release prepositioned in-country stores to affected families in badly-hit areas through the United Nations Population Fund and the Philippine Red Cross.

Assistance to sexual and reproductive health services would be provided through partnership with the Family Planning Organization of the

Philippines and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Nona forced some 743,000 people in 14 provinces to evacuate. The onslaught of the typhoon also killed 42 people and left 1.4 million with damaged or destroyed houses. Close to 300,000 people spent the holidays in evacuation centers and are at risk of a prolonged stay there.

Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Bill Tweddell commiserated with the families adversely affected by Nona, which struck shortly before the Yuletide holidays.

“The Australian government and our people are concerned for families who sadly face difficult conditions over Christmas and New Year. We recognize and support the leadership of the government of the Philippines and the considerable resources it has provided in responding to the needs of those affected by Typhoon Nona.

We hope that Australia’s assistance through prepositioned in-country stores with partners will help augment the government’s resources,” Tweddell said. ■

Bicol town... of inevitable limitations, such as the distance of coastal and upland villages to the town’s health facilities.

Tinambac has two rural health centers and a municipal hospital manned by five resident doctors, 12 staff nurses and five midwives. ❰❰ 11

Transportation system

Velarde formed a band of habal-habal drivers in each of the 44 barangays of Tinambac under the Kasurog Program to make sure that every pregnant woman in labor, even in the remotest areas, reaches the hospital on time.

He said one of the major causes of maternal and neonatal death in his town was the failure of pregnant mothers

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Continuity

Velarde, now serving his last term, said he worked hard over the last two years to build a better health system that involved all sectors so that after he stepped down in June, the people would know what the municipal government owed them and would continue to demand better services from whoever was at the helm.

“This way, continuity is ensured even if I am no longer the mayor,” he said.

In her speech at the awarding ceremony, Health Secretary Janette Garin underscored the importance of accountability among local leaders to achieve better health services in their communities.

Various sectors must work together to deal with post-2015

challenges and social barriers facing the country’s health care system, she said.

“Local government[s] must have strong capacities as the front-line planners, resource programmers and implementers of policies and programs at the grassroots level,” she said.

Garin also said ZFF’s health change model had been proven to be an impetus for harnessing the “energies, talents and commitment” of mayors, municipal health officers and community leaders to improve health services.

Expanding this model on the national level will help the Department of Health enhance further its programs and initiatives toward meeting the country’s MDG targets, she added. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

13

Gov’t to spend PhP6.5B for rehab of roads in 73 provinces — DBM PHILIPPINES NEWS AGENCY MANILA — The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) announced on Sunday that the government has appropriated PhP6.5 billion in the 2016 General Appropriations Act (GAA) for the rehabilitation and upgrading of provincial roads in 73 provinces.

DBM Secretary Florencio Abad said the allocation of funds is performancebased with the recipient provinces which have been chosen on compliance with good governance standards.

“These qualified provinces have not only met good governance standards and social development benchmarks, they have also established monitoring and evaluation mechanisms,” Abad said.

Dubbed KALSADA (Konkreto at Ayos na Lansangan at Daan Tungo sa Pangkalahatang Kaunlaran), Abad said the program is “an innovative devolution program that aims to institutionalize good governance by enabling and shepherding local government units on Local Road Management.”

The program will rehabilitate and upgrade provincial roads and transfer these road assets permanently to the provincial government, which will maintain them. The program will also develop the Provincial Road Network Development Plan (PRNDP) for each province and promote the use of an online open data portal as a mechanism for monitoring and evaluation of provincial roads.

Provinces were selected based on their compliance with the Department of Interior and Local Government’s (DILG) Seal of Good Financial Housekeeping and submission to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) of their Local Public Financial Management Assessment Report.

Allocations were determined by a combination of performance and need criteria, such as inclusion in the Budget Priorities Framework provinces, utilization and completion of local road projects under the Special Local Roads Fund (SLRF), as well as regular appropriation and use of maintenance funds for local roads.

Abad said the PhP6.5 billion fund has a breakdown per province according to a formula that considers performance and need scores such as previous provincial utilization of SLRF and provincial road network length of the provinces that have complied with the requirements for consideration.

He said he program has put in place a monitoring and evaluation system to ensure that the upgrading and rehabilitation of the roads will be completed.

In collaboration with the World Bank and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the gov-

ernment has created a system that uses geo-tagging for reporting on the status of the projects, according to the DBM head.

He said through the Open Roads Portal, the public can check online which roads have been selected for rehabilitation or upgrading and track the progress of the road project from start to completion.

The Open Roads Portal (www.openroads.gov.ph) will contain the uploaded provincial road network maps, as well as

videos of the conditions of priority roads before, during, and after the implementation of KALSADA. Abad said KALSADA will increase the provinces’ ability to bring their road networks to sustainably-maintainable conditions by incorporating both Public Financial Management and technical criteria developed by the DILG through the Philippine Provincial Road Management Facility (PRMF), an earlier governance reform program to improve the way provincial governments plan, bud-

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get, and maintain local infrastructure.

According to Bohol Gov. Edgar Chatto, Secretary-General of the League of Provinces of the Philippines and a champion of the program: “This is the first time in Philippine local governance that the government is implementing a national incentive program for local road management to enhance connectivity and economic productivity.”

Chatto added that KALSADA has no ❱❱ PAGE 14 Gov’t to

14

Philippine News

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

No pay hike for teachers in May polls

BY JOCELYN R. UY Philippine Daily Inquirer PUBLIC SCHOOL teachers who will render services during the May 9 elections won’t be getting a pay hike, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced as it starts today the organization of the members of the board of election inspectors (BEI) in all clustered precincts.

In a resolution, the Comelec said all BEI chairpersons and members shall get a P4,500 honorarium for the services they will render for three days during the upcoming elections.

The amount is the same rate that they were paid during the May 2013 balloting.

The fee includes payment for the verification and sealing of the book of voters, the final testing and sealing of the vote counting machines and transportation allowance.

Earlier, groups led by Buhay party-list proposed that public school teachers assigned as BEI be given an P8,000 honorarium instead of the Comelec’s offer in the previous elections.

Meanwhile, Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio authored House Bill No. 5412 seeking to make poll duty voluntary for public teachers and allow the Comelec to appoint national government employees, private school teachers and any qualified Filipino citizen to man polling precincts. ■

precedent as a national-local counterpart to rehabilitate and improve local roads for inclusive growth.

Meanwhile, DPWH Secretary Rogelio L. Singson agreed that KALSADA is indeed an exemplar considering that capital funding required to offset road asset depreciation has never been given to provinces.

“Provincial roads are the largest and most important asset being managed by provincial local governments. These road networks link national roads to areas of economic development, allow access to basic services, and serve as important conduits during conflict, crises, and calamities,” Singson said.

“Every time a province undertakes capital works to rehabilitate one kilometers of road, it uses funds that should have funded four to five kilometers of road maintenance. This continuous drain from maintenance funding has effectively cut maintenance funding and asset life-spans in half,” he further said.

Singson added that the cumulative cost of lost asset life is PhP11.1 billion per year when computed across all 81 provinces.

Singson also said Provincial, Arterial Roads, and Farm to Market Roads (FMR) will get

2nd victim of New Year shooting dies

BY MARICAR B. BRIZUELA Philippine Daily Inquirer

Gov’t to... ❰❰ 13

“We will not be at peace until he is put behind bars,” said Elizabeth Diego, the boy’s grandmother.

the bulk of infrastructure investment in 2017 after completion of all construction and upgrading of national roads and bridges this year.

Likewise, local bridges and roads will be upgraded to ensure the safe use of local infrastructure.

“With the rehabilitation and construction of national roads and bridges throughout the country set to be completed by the end of 2016, arterial provincial roads and farm-tomarket roads are next on our priority list. The government will need to invest in approximately 180,000 kilometers of local roads, 32,000 kilometers of provincial roads, 15,000 kilometers in cities, 4,000 kilometers in 1,400 municipalities, and about 129,000 kilometerrs in the 42,000 barangays across the country,” Singson said.

Singson added that KALSADA is a strategic investment in local roads and bridges infrastructure — often referred to as the ‘missing middle’ — that will have a large impact on making provinces, cities, and municipalities more business-friendly, competitive, and open up opportunities for job creation and livelihood. These will also greatly address access issues to basic services and in times of natural or man-made calamities and crises. ■

to grab his arm, the father recalled.

Liza, a member of the local Bantay Bayan or civilian secuA SECOND victim died in the rity unit, fired at least five shots New Year shooting incident using a .45-cal. pistol, based on where a drunk village watchthe recovered bullet casings. man opened fire on a group of According to his relatives, Liza drinkers early Friday. only borrowed the gun from a John Edward Pascual succousin. cumbed to gunshot wounds in Elizabeth said Liza had been the chest and abdomen Satknown for his arrogance and ofurday morning at Ospital ng ten challenged people to a fight Makati, where he was brought when drunk. together with the other victim, Makati policemen were the a 7-year-old boy whowas hit in first to respond to the incident, the back of the head. The minor thinking it was their area. But was pronounced dead Friday in an interview on Saturday, afternoon. the Taguig police chief, SeThe suspect, nior Supt. ArRaymundo Liza, thur Felix Asis, has packed up explained that and left his house Southside was together with his He was a fighter. Up to his last breath, among the vilwife, according we knew that he still wanted to live lages subject to to the Taguig but his wound was very severe. a jurisdictional police who have dispute between taken over the the two cities. case from the “Here, the adMakati police after jurisdic- why it is very hard for me to ac- dress does not depend on the tional matters were cleared up. cept that he is gone.” location but on the people you Pascual, a resident of Pasay “He was a fighter. Up to talk to,” Asis explained. “DeCity, was just visiting and hav- his last breath, we knew that spite the confusion, we have ing a drink with friends on Bu- he still wanted to live but his taken over the case and interlusan Street, Barangay South- wound was very severe,” Mark viewed the relatives of the susside, when a pistol-wielding Anthony said of his son, a Grade pect who also live in the area.”

Liza fired at the sidewalk gath- 2 pupil, adding that doctors Liza, who lived two houses ering around 12:20 a.m. of Jan. were unable to extract the bul- away from the crime scene, had 1. let from the boy’s skull. disappeared together with his Liza, 42, was reportedly tarMark Anthony said he tried wife but his relatives agreed to geting Pascual but a stray bul- to stop Liza in his shooting ram- help the police in tracking him let also hit Mark Angelo Di- page but the latter was “drunk down, the official said. ego, who was then playing and and very aggressive.” When Charges for two counts of watching fireworks. Diego’s fa- his son fell to the ground, the murder await the suspect, Asis ther Mark Anthony was among boy was still conscious enough added. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

the men who were drinking with Pascual.

The boy’s family on Saturday called for the immediate arrest of Liza, who earlier figured in another shooting incident that caused his suspension as a Bantay Bayan member on Dec. 7.

“We will not be at peace until he is put behind bars,” said Elizabeth Diego, the boy’s grandmother (not his aunt, as earlier reported).

“He would always wait for me when I come home from work and ask me for a ‘pasalubong’ (gift),” said Elizabeth, who served as Diego’s mother when his parents separated. “That’s

Philippine News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

15

Enrile info prompts new Mamasapano inquiry

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO, LEILA B. SALAVERRIA AND NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer ON THE REQUEST of Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, the Senate will mark the first anniversary of the Mamasapano debacle by reopening its investigation to tackle “possibly new evidence” on the bloody clashes between police commandos and Moro fighters and members of private armed groups.

Sen. Grace Poe, chair of the public order committee that led the inquiry, Tuesday said an additional hearing would be conducted on the morning of Jan. 25.

The hearing will be held exactly one year after the counterterrorist operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, led to the killing of Malaysian terror suspect Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan,” and the deaths of 44 elite police operatives, 17 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and three civilians.

The Senate rules committee, chaired by Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, recently said there were no longer obstacles to the return of the Mamasapano report to the committees for the conduct of hearings without voiding the previous proceedings.

The ruling of Cayetano’s committee also said that whenever a fellow senator asserted that he or she had new matters to raise, “then the body will take in good faith that there are indeed new matters.”

“This considers not only to the assertion of the movant, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, but also the opinion expressed by Sen. Grace Poe, chair of the primary committee, that Senator Enrile has in his possession ‘new mat-

ters and perspectives,’ and she interposes no objections to the motion,” the committee said.

The clashes came after then PNP Special Action Force (SAF) commander, Director Getulio Napeñas, ignored ceasefire mechanisms between the government and the MILF.

lessons to be learned. “I don’t think the intent is to find fault but to complete the entire picture.”

‘Alternative’ version

Fallout

The fallout from the otherwise successful counterterrorism operation derailed the peace process between the government and the MILF, endangering the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law whose fate in Congress continues to hang in the balance.

The massacre also dealt the biggest blow to President Aquino’s popularity, with his numbers dropping to an all-time low after the debacle.

The Senate report on Mamasapano called the killing of the 44 SAF troopers a “massacre” and found the President ultimately responsible for the debacle. It recommended charges against MILF members and police officials.

“It’s good that the rules committee gave a go-signal that additional hearings can be called in response to Minority Leader [Juan Ponce] Enrile’s request to call such, citing his personal information and possibly new evidence,” Poe said.

She reiterated her manifestation that the new hearings would not affect or void the earlier findings of the Senate committees that conducted the probe. Twenty-one members signed their report.

“There is always space if there is new evidence,” she said.

Put closure

Last November, Enrile asked that the Mamasapano issue be reopened at the committee level because he wanted to ask more questions in order to put closure to the issue, particular-

Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile will reopen investigation in Mamasapano encounter to tackle “possibly new evidence” of the case.

VOLTAIRE DOMINGO / ENRILE’S WEBSITE

ly about what the government was actually doing when the encounter between police commandos and Moro rebels were taking place.

Enrile was detained at PNP General Hospital for plunder in connection with the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam when the Senate conducted its inquiry into the Mamasapano incident. He returned to the Senate in August after being granted bail.

In an earlier privilege speech, Enrile recalled that when news of the Mamasapano incident reached him in detention, a lot of questions came to mind about its tragic end.

Palace silence ominous

“In those critical moments when the battle was apparently going on, I recall no word was uttered from the Palace, from the AFP, and from the PNP,” he said.

Enrile described the silence as ominous. “Was there a government paralysis during those tense moments?” he asked.

During the interpellation of his privilege speech last October where he sought for the reopening of the inquiry at the committee level, Enrile disclosed his having met the SAF

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survivors at the PNP hospital.

He said that he learned about the “gruesome slaughter” of the police commandos on Jan. 28 last year and that a few days later the survivors were brought to the PNP hospital. “They stayed with me in that building for quite some time.”

Frightening

“I had several personal encounters with them and their families. These were occasions too for me to talk to some of them, and they related their frightening recollections of the bloody massacre,” Enrile said.

He also said the survivors and dependents had told him of “their resentment and disenchantment as it seemed to some of them that the death of the SAF 44 was now largely exploited to serve political ends, some for political propaganda.”

Enrile said he promised the survivors to bring up their case in the Senate should he return there.

In an interview, Sen. Vicente Sotto III said Enrile wanted to take up these issues because the story of what had happened there was not yet complete.

Sotto underscored the need to find out if there was new information on the incident and

Last September, the President rekindled interest in the issue by saying there was an “alternative” version of what had transpired in Mamasapano.

Mr. Aquino also mentioned a picture that came out on the Inquirer’s front page that he said “posed so many questions, and that is what we want to resolve.” He added that he did not want to talk too deeply about the specifics as it might hamper efforts to get to the complete truth.

The President’s statement gave rise to speculations that the SAF members did not kill Marwan, but the President later tamped this down and said there was no doubt that the commandos had killed and cut off the finger of the terrorist.

Marwan’s finger was used for DNA testing conducted by the United States, which had a multimillion-dollar bounty for the Malaysian terrorist.

Malacañang on Tuesday said it recognized the mandate of the Senate to reopen its investigation into the Mamasapano debacle, pointing out the separation of powers between the executive and legislative, even as the President had put closure to the controversial police counterterrorism operation several times.

“We recognize that part of the Senate’s mandate is to conduct investigations in aid of legislation and as part of its oversight functions,” Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said when sought for comment. ■

Opinion

16

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

AT LARGE

In flux

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer WOMEN in flux, finding themselves in exile, caught between girlhood and womanhood, struggling to make a go of marriage, seeking their place in new occupations, scheming for ways to get home, these women—and some men—live out their stories in “Blood,” a collection of short fiction

by Noelle Q. de Jesus.

Noelle is herself very much like her characters. Born in the United States, schooled and raised in the Philippines, a graduate student in American institutions and now a resident of Singapore, it is tempting to see her and traces of her life in her stories. But what makes her a truly accomplished writer is that she takes the seeds of her experiences and lets them flourish into full-blown characters—figments of her imagination, true, but fully realized, multidimensional, complex and contradictory.

In the title story “Blood,” a girl undergoing menarche discovers not just what it takes to take one’s first steps toward womanhood, but also what it takes to live in a world of adult cruelty and betrayal.

In “Babies” and “The Wash,” two

stories that share a single character’s central dilemma, the girlfriend of a graduate business student begins to question her life choices, especially the one she made to leave the home she’s known all her life to join her boyfriend with whom she shares a single, bed-less one-room apartment. De Jesus adheres to a pattern in most of her stories, catching her characters just as they are about to fall into the downward spiral of their lives, standing on the edge of the abyss, contemplating the unknown. She never does take us on that dangerous journey, but readers can feel the nervous tension, the mounting dread. *** THE collection is notable for its very short, succinct stories, many of them from a previously released (in 2003) compilation called “Fast Food Fiction: Short Short Stories to Go” that seems tailored for today’s short attention span-afflicted generation.

The stories serve up fiction only in spurts and quick shots, just enough to set up a situation, introduce a character, catch a moment.

But fiction is not only for the long haul. In these short bursts of prose are contained lifetimes of conflict and resolution: a chef and his partner cook,

bake and eat their way to separation; a teacher is forced to swallow an angry retort despite a burning desire to get back at a rude, insolent student; a lover plays a game of teasing and taunting over the phone, only to be caught by her own mouth and trickery.

At times, a short story may leave the reader panting for more, curious about what is to come, what was left unsaid. But there is in the brevity also a sense of completeness, a sense that nothing more need be said, that the silence that follows is enough. *** “BLOOD” also augurs a growing body of exile literature, written by Filipinos who are themselves dislocated and thus knowledgeable about the emptiness, the loneliness, the sense of alienation that assault those cut off from home and the familiar.

De Jesus has empathy for these exiles, whether just making their way through the cold to find shelter, navigating strange and alien social situations, or homesick for the sounds of a native Christmas.

The diaspora has dispersed not just the economically desperate but also the frustrated and disappointed, who leave the homeland not just for higher wages but in hopes of

establishing a new life, a new identity among strangers. Instead, as De Jesus’ stories show, they are drawn back, again and again, to the home country, if only by way of language, their tongues itching to verbalize with crisp, in-your-face insults.

Not for her, though, the idealization of the Filipino abroad, or the perpetuation of a victim mentality.

Her Filipino exiles have themselves willed their way to foreign climes, even the maid who steals the passport of her employer’s wealthy friend so her own daughter could make it out of the home country.

They cope with the hazards of exile and the wages of isolation because they have come with goals and dreams, lofty enough to steel them against the cold, the strangeness, the feeling that they will always never fully fit in, not even at home.

So while Pinoy blood flows in their veins, it is blood steeled by the price they were willing to pay, and will continue to pay in the search for themselves, for who they are in the world. *** BEATLES fans—and there are some younger than you would think—may want to score a ticket to “Bach versus The Beatles,” a concert

featuring the Manila Symphony Orchestra on Saturday, Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Sylvia Lina Theater, La Salle Zobel, Ayala Alabang Village.

The evening will give you a chance not just to indulge in your Beatlesera memories, but also to take in a bit of high culture (and not a little snob appeal) with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

It will also allow you to help in a noble cause. The concert is sponsored by the Pampamilyang Paaralang Agrikultura Inc., a nonprofit, nonstock foundation behind an innovative school that teaches the children of small landowners farming methods that are efficient, sustainable and profitable. The Dagatan Family Farm School, located in Barangay Dagatan, Lipa, Batangas, also teaches the children the value of staying close to their families while earning a decent living in the countryside. Hundreds are reported to have benefited from this school, creating, it is hoped, new generations of farm families who will continue their mission of feeding our population.

Tickets are available at P500, P1,000, P1,500 and P2,000 each. For more information, contact Lester at 0917-6009347 or e-mail him at lestherdeleon@gmail.com. ■

LOOKING BACK

Rizal for President: Can he win?

By Ambeth R. Ocampo Philippine Daily Inquirer WITH THE presidential election coming up in 2016, the nation weighs the frontline candidates against each other in coffee shop debate that is sometimes reduced to the absurd when someone throws Jose Rizal into the equation to leave all the presidential candidates wanting by comparison. Tinimbang ka ngunit kulang (You’ve been weighed and found wanting).

Presuming that Rizal is alive today, if he is not declared a nuisance candidate, and if he has the money and machinery to mount a national campaign, what are his chances of winning?

While Rizal has an enviable name recall and is revered as the national hero, will people vote him into Malacañang?

Textbook history tells us that there was once a Filipino propaganda paper in Spain called “La Solidaridad” (Solidarity) that ran from 1889 to 1895 in a futile attempt to campaign for reforms in the colonial Philippines.

‘Rizalistas’ vs ‘Pilaristas’ Graciano Lopez Jaena was the first editor, succeeded by Marcelo H. del Pilar, who became both editor and publisher in December 1889.

What is swept under the rug of

textbook history is the disagreement in the way Del Pilar managed “La Solidaridad,” sometimes referred to by the affectionate nickname “Sol” (Sun). A move for changes in editorial policy caused a split in the Filipino community that required the election of a “responsable.”

This resulted in pitting “Rizalistas” or Rizal and his supporters, against “Pilaristas,” those allied with Del Pilar. From experience we know that elections tend to bring out the worst in Filipino nature, and this goes way back to our Founding Fathers.

No unanimity While Rizal enjoyed the respect of his countrymen in Spain, this was far from unanimous. According to Del Pilar, who recounted what transpired in a letter to Deodato Arellano, the assembled Filipinos discussed the rules and agreed that a leader be elected by a two-thirds majority.

When the votes were cast: “…The majority required was not secured. Rizal and I were the candidates. The balloting was repeated three times with the same result, and Rizal and I parted with the greatest cordiality, so much so that he told me that, since the balloting would be resumed the next day, it would be

advisable for us to join in voting for a third person so as to avoid the formation of factions, to which I agreed.

“The balloting again took place in the afternoon of the following day; I had to go out and could not be present, so I authorized Naning [Mariano Ponce] to vote and make any agreements for me. On my return home I found the following news: that on the first balloting a majority had once again been lacking; that in view of this Naning conferred secretly with Rizal, proposing a coalition third candidate recommended by the two opposing parties; that Rizal without accepting or rejecting the proposal, replied that he was going abroad to work by himself because there was no unity possible where there were two Filipinos; that the balloting took place a second time, and again failed to produce a decision; that in view of this, Rizal counted the votes in his favor in everyone’s presence and said: ‘Well, I see that I have 19 friends in the colony; goodbye, gentlemen, I am going to pack my bags, see you later,’ and, seizing his hat, went off.

“Since Naning had instructions from me to prevent my election, he conferred with those whom he knew were voting for me and asked them for the sake of harmony to make the sacrifice of changing their votes to favor

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Rizal. Dominador Gomez, once this agreement had been made, took the floor and announced that his party desired harmony in the colony and were ready to sacrifice their votes in favor of Rizal’s candidature. The balloting was then repeated and Rizal was elected.”

Moral leader Rizal saw himself as the moral leader of the Filipinos in Spain and was encouraged in this belief by partisans in Manila, who sent funds for the publication of “La Solidaridad” and offered him editorship of the paper.

He declined in 1889, saying he was busy researching in the British Library and working on his annotations to the 1609 book “Sucesos de las islas Filipinas” (Events of the Philippine Islands) by Antonio de Morga.

Friends who urged Rizal to challenge Del Pilar’s leadership set him up for a major disappointment. Del Pilar, de facto leader of the Madrid group, would not yield his position as well as editorial control of “La Solidaridad” to Rizal easily.

3 ballots Three inconclusive ballots one day in February 1891 show that neither Rizal nor Del Pilar had a clear majority. Next day, after two more inconclu-

sive ballots, the Pilaristas delivered their votes in favor of Rizal, only for Rizal to refuse on the grounds that he demanded unanimity.

In his letter to Arellano quoted above, Del Pilar claimed he did not want to be elected yet his actions spoke louder than his words because he refused to withdraw nor yield his votes to Rizal.

On the other hand, Rizal kept threatening to leave Spain and the Reform movement to complete his second novel “El Filibusterismo” but he did not withdraw or deliver his votes to Del Pilar, either.

Filipinos’ election behavior This is a clear case of mixed signals and the Filipino trait of saying something but meaning another— jele jele bago quiere— of making an outward show of humility to fish for compliments or support, of saying he wants to leave when he actually wants to be asked to stay.

This minor episode in Philippine history is a glimpse into Filipino election behavior; it makes us ask ourselves: Rizal for president? Maybe not.

One thing is certain, though. If Rizal were alive today, his idealism, his seriousness, his sharp pen, would get him shot in the Luneta all over again. ■

Opinion

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

17

ANALYSIS

Indulging in wishful thinking on his legacy

By Amando Doronila Philippine Daily Inquirer CANBERRA—As the Philippines stands on the threshold of 2016, Filipinos are impaled between hopes of a new leadership in the May presidential election and the undesirable legacies of political regimes during the past two decades.

Elections in democracies are moments for renewal and political change—either for the better or for the worse. On the eve of the New Year, the nation received bad and disheartening news from the outgoing government.

In his New Year message, President Aquino pledged to continue working “faithfully” for the nation in his last six months in office, and called on Filipinos to bid farewell to a “historic 2015.”

What made 2015 “historic” left many Filipinos asking themselves: What’s so memorable about the last six years of the Aquino presidency?

The President indulged in wishful thinking about his legacy.

Exhausted presidency In reality, it was an electioneering speech for his designated successor and a self-serving apology for the unfinished business he would bequeath to whoever is elected President in May. The message sounded like a testament from an exhausted presidency trying to catch up with the unfulfilled goals of his term.

Mr. Aquino said the possibility that the “daang matuwid” (straight path) roadmap or ideology of his administration would “catapult us to First World status and make us a $1 trillion economy by year 2030 … encourages me and the rest of government to faithfully pursue our tasks in the last six months of my administration.”

How he would compress five years of unfinished projects within this time frame is hard to contemplate.

President’s fantasy “The same thought should guide us, as we choose our leaders this coming election, to maintain the upward trajectory of our growth and keep our nation on the daang matuwid,” the President said, pursuing the fantasy of his end-of-term race against time.

“As long as we bear in our hearts and minds the welfare of our people, we will realize our inherent greatness and usher in a Philippines that we can proudly bequeath to the coming generations.”

He described 2015 as “historic” for the country’s “soaring economy, robust democracy and magnified presence on the global stage.”

In this assessment, the President was treading on soggy ground. He claimed all these not only promise a great start in the coming year but also highlight the Philippines’ ongoing narrative of resurgence under the daang matuwid. This claim is absolute hogwash and self-indulgence.

Collective resolve Manifesting the syndrome of being swept off his feet by his own propaganda, Mr. Aquino went on with his rant: “As I reflect on the developments of our country this past year and those that came before it, I am filled with pride by how far we have come since we began our journey in 2010. Just a little more than five years ago, we faced a future full of despair and uncertainty. Reports of plunder, mismanagement and corruption dominated our headlines.

“Today, progress, opportunity and growth fill the news about the Philippines, both here and abroad.”

The President said: “All these we achieved because of our collective resolve to follow the straight and righteous path—a path that transformed damaged public agencies into stronger, more transparent and responsive [bodies], turned a demoralized government work force into dedicated civil servants, galvanized an apathetic populace into empowered nation builders and reinvigorated a sluggish business sector into a major driver of economic growth.”

Social costs This rosy assessment stopped short from cataloguing the social costs of this pseudo-moralistic approach of good governance, driven by slogans based on daang matuwid—the creed that encapsulates what passes for the ideology of the Aquino regime. It also

flies in the face of the assessments of independent and nonpartisan international institutions.

In a recent study of poverty, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) found: “While economic expansion in the Philippines has exceeded 6 percent in the past 2 years, it has not generated enough jobs to reduce poverty. The challenge is to translate solid economic growth into poverty reduction by generating more and better jobs.”

According to the ADB study, the proportion of the population below the poverty line improved to 25.2 percent in 2013 from 26.5 in 2009 [but] the employment-to-population ratio dropped to 59.7 percent in 2012 from 60.1 percent in 2008.

The study pointed out that improving the quality jobs also remains a challenge as nearly 40 percent of the work force is in the informal sector or in vulnerable employment.

World Bank report In October 2015, the INQUIRER reported that the Philippines’ ranking slipped in the latest World Bank (WB) report on the Ease of Doing Business globally—an oft-cited indicator by the government to illustrate progress—raising alarm bells for officials who immediately assailed the report’s reliability and predictability.

Although the WB report acknowledged that conditions continued to

improve in the Philippines, making it marginally easier for small and medium enterprises to set up shop and compete in the country, it emphasized that the country’s relative [position with] the rest of the world declined several spots.

Government and private sector officials were quick to place part of the blame in changes on how scores were computed by the WB, in other words, they berated the methodology of the ratings.

Purisima’s concern Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima expressed concern that the ratings could have dire consequences on the Philippines’ ability to attract a higher level of investments. “Erratic methodological changes year after year severely threaten the report’s credibility as a global measure of competitiveness,” he said in a statement.

Purisima did not stop there. He took potshots at WB officials’ swift ad hominems that have nothing to do with methodology. He described WB officials as bureaucrats “sitting in comfortable offices too far away to fully understand contexts and appreciate reforms being undertaken.”

In this year’s report released last week, the Philippines ranked 103rd, down six spots from 97th last year.

Last year’s report placed the Philippines at 95th but was revised to reflect in methodology. ■

PUBLIC LIVES

Time, lastingness, and gratitude

By Randy David Philippine Daily Inquirer IF YOU take an extended break from what you regularly do, you must know how hard it is to get back into the groove, particularly of the creative act.

False starts besiege you. What used to take only a couple of hours to write now consumes a whole day. Assailed by doubts about your “lastingness,” as Nicholas Delbanco calls the challenge of creativity in old age, you seek consolation in past productivity, wondering if that is not legacy enough.

For the first time in the 20 years that I’ve been writing this column, I took a month-long break in early December to join my wife Karina on a trip to the United States to welcome the birth of our fourth grandchild.

Born on Dec. 9, the baby boy named Alonso is our daughter Nadya’s and her husband Paul Nievera’s first child.

On previous trips abroad, I would conscientiously send my columns from wherever I was in the world, waking up at the oddest hours to meet selfimposed deadlines. The column was a compass that kept me oriented to what was happening at home. But this time

around, having decided I owed myself a real vacation, I asked to be allowed to go on leave for an entire month.

The experience has been unsettling in many unexpected ways, testifying to the truism that we are indeed creatures of habit.

I would still wake up at the oddest hours, thirsting for coffee, my fingers aching to open a laptop. Resisting the physical need to write and the sense of guilt that drives it, I would make myself a cup of coffee and open a book instead. But soon my mind would be redirected to events unfolding at home.

To assuage the guilt arising from willful idleness, I would make mental notes of what I might be writing about in future columns. To take my mind off writing, I did what I most loved to do when I am in the United States: motorcycling. My brother Goli had carefully planned a leisurely three-day tour of the historic mission churches that dot the vast California countryside. But gripped by an inexplicable anxiety that I could not shake off, I asked that we settle for short daytime rides. We rode only once, and that was it.

I think that what seized me in an uncanny way was an intimation of mor-

tality. I felt that my reflexes were not as sharp as before. In welcoming my newborn grandson into the world, I also sensed that my own generation was due for culling. This thought flooded me with sadness. Seventy years separate us from one another. There is no past we can share, and this child’s future is yet to begin. The fleeting present is all we have.

But the cause of the vague uneasiness that accompanied me from the moment I landed in Los Angeles wasn’t so much the state of my health as that of my wife’s.

She had two angioplasty procedures in 2015 and this was her first long trip after her health crisis last year. Lugging a big box of assorted maintenance medications, she arrived in the United States one week earlier than I, hoping to have more time with our daughter as she navigates the critical first three weeks of caring for a newborn infant. Four days after her arrival, however, Karina landed in the emergency room of Kaiser Hospital in West LA for what seemed like an ordinary case of diarrhea. Dehydrated, she was put on IV fluids and was promptly sent home the day after.

In the meantime, the little boy, snug inside his mother’s womb, was taking his sweet time. Due on the first of December,

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he showed no sign of keeping the appointed date. Like things in nature, he seemed mindful only of his own time. Despite his mother’s heroic effort to deliver him naturally, it took a Caesarean section to bring Alonso out into the world.

But what a magical moment a birth is! Suddenly, there is this other human being in our midst, his gentle crying proclaiming the urgency of his appetite. At once, he is brought skinto-skin to his mother’s breast, rapidly gaining in color as he drew warmth from this life-giving contact.

Coming back to their apartment two days after the delivery, we braced ourselves for a wakeful first night at home with the baby. But just before midnight, it wasn’t the baby’s crying that woke me up but Karina’s soft moaning. She was clutching at her chest and knowing her heart problem, I feared that she was having an attack. I asked my son-in-law Paul to drive us to the Kaiser Medical Center, 12 minutes away. The ERs in US hospitals are exactly what we see on TV: They are beehives of lifesaving activity. Within 10 minutes, the doctors ruled out a heart attack. A substantial drop in Karina’s hemoglobin level was what had caused

the chest pain. She had been bleeding internally without her knowing it.

An endoscopic procedure traced the bleeding to an ulcerated polyp in the duodenum. The doctors had planned to remove the polyp, but fearing complications, they opted to clip the ulcer in the meantime. This gave us a window in which to take the return trip to Manila just before Christmas. I intend to write about this amazing encounter with the American medical system in another column. Suffice it to say that our gratitude to Kaiser and its extraordinary staff, most of whom are ethnic Filipinos, is boundless.

Contemplating my wife’s frail condition in the same hospital where our grandson was born a few days before, I found comfort in William Wordsworth’s timeless ode, portions of which I had memorized: “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: / The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, / Hath had elsewhere its setting, / And cometh from afar: / Not in entire forgetfulness, / And not in utter nakedness, / But trailing clouds of glory do we come/ From God, who is our home: / Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”

Happy New Year to one and all! ■

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JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Canada News

Nova Scotia NDP frustrated with government’s direction on promised help for PTSD

BY KEITH DOUCETTE The Canadian Press HALIFAX — Manitoba’s move to recognize post-traumatic stress as a work-related disease has a Nova Scotia politician wondering what happened to a government promise to look at more ways to help emergency workers such as police, firefighters and paramedics in his province.

The third party NDP introduced a bill in October 2014 calling for all current and former emergency responders to receive automatic or presumptive coverage for a PTSD diagnosis under workers compensation.

The governing Liberals appeared receptive at the time, with Health Minister Leo Glavine saying that an all-party committee would be struck to examine ways to support first responders dealing with the mental health issue.

Glavine said the committee would submit a report to the government before the spring 2015 session of the legislature.

NDP house leader Dave Wilson, who introduced the bill, said there’s been no committee formed and he’s heard little about the government’s plans over the past 15 months.

“I’m quite frustrated by the whole process,” said Wilson, a former paramedic with nine years’ experience in the field.

Changes to Manitoba’s Workers Compensation Act, which took effect Jan. 1, make anyone who is diagnosed by a medical professional after a job-related trauma eligible for treatment and compensation.

Wilson believes Nova Scotia’s first responders are getting coverage, but only to a certain extent.

“It’s usually after a long hardfought battle which is the last thing they need when they are

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NDP house leader Dave Wilson, who introduced a bill concerning PSTD, said there’s been no committee formed and he’s heard little about the government’s plans over the past 15 months.

Site C protesters defy B.C. Hydro eviction FORT ST. JOHN — Protesters are defying an eviction notice from BC Hydro as the Crown utility presses ahead with land clearing around the Site C hydroelectric project along the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia.

The eviction notice was issued Dec. 31, giving protesters 24 hours to leave the area known as Rocky Mountain Fort, on the south bank of the Peace River, just a few kilometres south of Fort St. John. Moves business and regional.

Guard against duplication.

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trying to get better from PTSD,” he said.

Labour Minister Kelly Regan said the government will have “more to say” about PTSD later this year - but she added that work has been done that didn’t require legislation to clarify “confusion” around workers compensation rules related to psychological injuries.

She said first responders are eligible for help within a year of being diagnosed for PTSD, even if the condition is linked to a traumatic event that may have happened several years before.

Previously, she said some people mistakenly believed the diagnosis had to occur within a year of the traumatic event.

Regan also said PTSD has been given its own category instead of being listed as a psychological injury so the board can better track the number of cases affecting first responders.

She said there are more changes to come, although she wouldn’t be specific.

“Absolutely, we are watching what is going on across the country to see what other jurisdictions are doing,” she said.

“We do have research underway looking into this particular issue.”

Vince Savoia, a former paramedic and advocate who assists first responders through the Tema Conter Memorial Trust Fund, believes governments have no choice but to take a serious look at the problem.

He said there were 39 confirmed suicides by first responders in 2015, and another 27 in 2014.

“What the presumptive legislation will do for the first responder is allow them to get treatment they need sooner rather than later,” he said.

PTSD is treated as a presumptive condition under changes to workers compensation laws in British Columbia and Alberta, while Ontario and New Brunswick are currently examining laws that contain changes similar to Manitoba’s. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Icy river threatens to flood near Smithers, B.C. SMITHERS — Residents on the southeast edge of Smithers, B.C., are on high alert as ice jams threaten to flood the area and force people from their homes.

Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako chairman Bill Miller says ice has backed up along the Bulkley River, causing water to rise and seep into basements and crawl spaces of some nearby homes.

Seniors reminded of help to pay health bills VANCOUVER — Prices for several services have jumped in British Columbia as of New Year’s Day, prompting the province’s seniors advocate to urge people over 65 to find out if they qualify for Medical Services Plan premium subsidies. Isobel Mackenzie says seniors could be eligible for full or partial payments but most are unaware of the available help.

Man injured in Williams Lake shooting WILLIAMS LAKE — A shooting in Williams Lake, B.C., has injured two men, one of them critically. RCMP say the attack was targeted but have not said if any suspects were identified.

Missing Ontario man found dead in B.C. RICHMOND — Friends and family of a 23-year-old Toronto man have launched an online fundraising drive as they face the expense of returning his body to Ontario from British Columbia. In posts on a GoFundMe site, the family of Ephraigm Flores say a five-day search for the recently licensed nurse ended tragically on New Year’s Eve when his body was found in Richmond.

Canada News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

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Canadians go for frosty New Year’s Day swim in annual polar bear plunges

BY SIDHARTHA BANERJEE The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — C.J. Pentland has made it a tradition to celebrate New Year’s Day by experiencing the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Every year, the 24-year-old and his family and friends dress up as Santa and his reindeer, and join thousands of others in Vancouver’s polar bear swim.

“There’s no better way to ring in the New Year, I think,” said a soaking Pentland, homemade antlers atop his head.

His dad, John Pentland, stood in the surf wearing a wet Santa costume, complete with a hat and white beard, and said the polar bear swim is simply

tradition for the family.

“It’s more important than New Year’s Eve. This is what gets us going for the year,” he said.

The oldest Polar Bear Club in the country was founded in 1920 in Vancouver, and since then the frosty tradition has since spread across the country.

The Vancouver event remains the largest, however, attracting a record-breaking 2,500 people in 2014.

This year, nearly 2,000 people registered for the swim, but there were even more who jumped in the water — possibly enough to set a new record, said Sarah Kirby-Yung, chairwoman of the Vancouver Park Board.

“The energy down here is

fantastic, and that’s kind of what brings people together,” she said.

While some opted to wear their traditional bathing suits, others were clad in costumes, pyjamas or brightly-coloured wigs.

Ken Hamilton sported a hat covered with his pins from previous polar bear swims and a red “40” headband to celebrate the decades he’s been attending the event.

He started in 1976 “just for fun” and now rents a bus to bring his friends and family in from Surrey, B.C. “We used to have a small bus and now we have a bigger one,” said Hamilton, who came with ❱❱ PAGE 21 Canadians go

Case of Montreal teen found guilty of terrorism charges put off until March

BY SIDHARTHA BANERJEE The Canadian Press MONTREAL — A Quebec teen convicted on two terrorism-related charges will have to wait until at least the spring for his sentencing hearing.

The 16-year-old was found guilty in December of committing a robbery in association with a terrorist organization and planning to leave Canada to participate in the activities of a terrorist group abroad.

Youth court Judge Dominique Wilhelmy authorized a number of expert and pre-sentencing reports Tuesday that will take several weeks to complete.

The case returns to court March 29 when lawyers will

decide if they can proceed with to participate in terrorism-re- the sentences are far less harsh. hearings on April 6. lated activities.

While several people have “Both the defence and the The maximum adult sen- been convicted previously of a prosecution agree it would be tence for committing a crime different charge — participaappropriate for tion in the activthe judge to reity of a terrorist ceive such regroup — the teen ports,” federal was the first to prosecutor Mabe found guilty rie-Eve Moore In finding him guilty, Wilhelmy called since the new said following it a sad tale of a boy washed over by charge was addthe brief hearing. violent and vengeful Islamic State ed to the Crimi“We will be propaganda and who was likely saved nal Code in 2013. able to confirm after his parents alerted authorities.

The case stems (in March) if from an Octowe are ready to ber 2014 conveplead for a sennience store robtence (in April).” bery the Crown The Crown has successfully arnot said if it will seek an adult on behalf of a terrorist orga- gued was linked to the Islamic sentence for the teen, who is nization is life imprisonment, State of Iraq and the Levant described by prosecutors as the while the maximum on the and committed to help finance first Canadian convicted of at- travel charge is 10 years. Under the boy’s trip to take part in the tempting to leave the country the Youth Criminal Justice Act, conflict in Syria.

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The defence had argued the teen, who was 15 at the time of the offence, was confused and only wanted to go to Syria to help fellow Muslims.

The Crown argued he engaged in private Twitter chats with jihadist sympathizer Martin Couture-Rouleau, who fatally ran down Canadian Forces Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent with a car in St-Jean-surRichelieu, Que., in 2014.

In finding him guilty, Wilhelmy called it a sad tale of a boy washed over by violent and vengeful Islamic State propaganda and who was likely saved after his parents alerted authorities.

The teen had already pleaded guilty to the robbery charge when the terrorism charges were added. ■

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Canada News

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

How response to Syrian refugee crisis went from 10K in three years to months

BY STEPHANIE LEVITZ The Canadian Press OTTAWA — When the Conservative government promised, in January 2015, to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees over three years, Liberal MP John McCallum didn’t buy it.

The Conservatives were under pressure to address the ongoing refugee crisis created by the Syrian civil war — millions of people were on the move and refugee settlements were bursting at the seams.

But pleas had fallen on deaf ears inside then-prime minister’s Stephen Harper’s office, including pitches from cabinet ministers about how the government could and should do more than the 1,300 people it already committed to bringing over.

Harper would only agree with a condition — the focus had to be on persecuted religious minorities from the country.

Given it was that or nothing, cabinet signed off, and on Jan. 7, a plan was announced — 10,000 people would be brought to Canada by 2018, most by private sponsors.

Then serving as immigration critic for his party, McCallum chided the government for relying on private sponsors, saying they needed to lift more of the load themselves. He was skeptical — given the Conservatives’ track record — that they’d meet the deadline.

“We could be waiting forever before 10,000 Syrian refugees arrive in Canada,” he told one news outlet.

Well, it isn’t going to be forever.

Before the Liberals took power on Nov. 4, about 1,263 Syrians had arrived in Canada under the Conservatives’ commitment to 10,000.

Since Nov. 4, a further 6,064 have arrived under a Liberal campaign commitment — a promise they partially expect to meet in the first two weeks of 2016 with the arrivals of nearly 4,000 more for a full 10,000.

But like the Conservatives before them, the Liberals are relying on private sponsors to hit that target.

Many of the refugees who ar-

rived in 2015 were cases opened under the Conservatives, and some were already being fasttracked — the Conservatives sped up their timelines when they began getting blow back during the election.

A photograph of Alan Kurdi dead on a Turkish beach was the catalyst — the Syrian child and his family were trying to reach Europe. It emerged their family in B.C. had been trying to get some of them to Canada, but the paperwork was rejected.

The sudden attention to the issue saw the Liberals attach a timeline to their own Syrian refugee promise — they’d resettle 25,000 Syrians themselves by the end of the year and work with private sponsors to do more.

The number dated back months, part of the Liberal proposal advanced in March for how Canada could contribute to the war against ISIL. When asked in an interview with The Canadian Press how the Liberals arrived at the number, McCallum — now the immigration minister — said it was a similar level to previous large-scale refugee commitments.

“I don’t think there’s anything scientific in it,” he said.

“I think, relative to our contributions in the past, relative to what we thought would be a good solid contribution, affordable, we thought that was about the right number.”

When asked during the election how’d they achieve such an ambitious target, the answer was succinct — political will. As soon as they were elected, the Liberals faced questions as to whether the promise, and its deadline, were still in effect.

It was, everyone from McCallum to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself kept saying.

Until it wasn’t.

In the immediate aftermath of terrorist attacks in Paris in November, initially but erroneously linked to men believed to have arrived as refugees, Trudeau said nothing was going to change for Canada’s program.

A week later, he said otherwise: pressure from the public to slow down the process had

An explosion after an apparent US-led coalition airstrike on Kobane, Syria, as seen from the Turkish side of the border, near Suruc district, 24 October 2014, Sanliurfa, Turkey.

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forced a change.

“We realized that the most important thing is to be able to reassure Canadians that absolutely everything is being done to keep Canadians safe, and therefore ensure that these refugees are welcomed as new Canadians and not a cause for anxiety or division within the population,” Trudeau told reporters.

But it wasn’t just those attacks. Even before, officials from the United Nations, the International Organization for Migration and settlement agencies in Canada all told the Liberals moving that many people by the end of the year just wasn’t feasible.

Among the problems — finding them. As of mid-October, there were only about 8,400 cases in the immigration department’s inventory, 6,540 of then privately-sponsored, 1,761 government-assisted and the remainder from a blended program.

To meet their promise then, the Liberals need to find over 23,000 people able to come to Canada in a matter of weeks.

So, the first iteration of the plan saw the promise broken down — rather than 25,000 government-assisted Syrian refugees to arrive by Dec. 31, it would be 10,000 privatelysponsored refugees, and a further 15,000 government-assistwww.canadianinquirer.net

ed ones by the end of February.

Then, by the end of 2016, the full promise of 25,000 government-assisted refugees would be met.

Refugee assistance agencies — which had raised concerns about even meeting the previous Conservative commitments — breathed a little easier.

Given they are responsible for the needs and requirements of all government-assisted refugees, some extra time to prepare was exceptionally welcome.

They also needed money. The Liberal platform said the program would cost $250 million but didn’t explain how they’d arrived at that number.

The budget the Liberal government later released estimates the cost at as much as $678 million over six years, with $377 million earmarked for resettlement. But that’s not the full cost.

Earlier in December, McCallum launched an appeal to the corporate community to find a further $50 million for housing.

When asked whether the appeal was made in part to save the government money, McCallum paused.

“You could say it is, but I think the corporate sector should be there. It’s not primarily to save us money, it’s to fill a gap,” he said, explaining that housing isn’t something the federal gov-

ernment normally funds but that refugees need.

Also, McCallum said, getting both private business and citizens involved in the project is important.

“We think there is an appropriate role for other Canadians, big companies, small companies, individuals with thick wallets and big hearts to come forward and in large measure they are,” he said.

“It’s a sign that it’s implicating all Canadians, it’s not just government putting up the money.”

While bureaucrats worked around the clock on the program, the end-of-year target was missed.

A host of factors were cited: weather, diplomatic issues, airport capacity, Syrians not being willing to leave as quickly as the government would like, medical screenings and so on.

The work will continue in 2016 for government, but for also Syrians who have come to Canada and the families that are welcoming them as they adjust to a new life here.

They include Alan Kurdi’s uncle and his family, who arrived in Canada earlier this week, sponsored by Tima Kurdi, Alan’s aunt.

“This is not the end. This is just the end of 2015,” she told reporters. “This is just the beginning.” ■

Canada News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

Chief economists at Canada’s big banks predict rocky year for economy

BY PETER HENDERSON The Canadian Press TORONTO — Canada is headed for a rocky year as low oil prices continue to drag on economic performance, the chief economists of some of Canada’s biggest banks said Tuesday.

Bank of Montreal chief economist Douglas Porter told a morning gathering of leading economists that it’s going to be a “very close call” whether the fourth quarter of 2015 saw any economic growth.

Canada’s resource sector has been slammed as the price of crude has fallen from a high above US$105 in June 2014 to below US$40 over the past few months, just as other commodities are at or near multi-year lows.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Canada, Porter said it looks like last

year was one of the worst years for economic growth in decades outside of a full-on recession, and Canada is looking at a 2016 growth rate not much higher than last 2015.

The loonie, which has plunged as the price of oil has declined, also has further to fall, he said.

The negative outlook for oil, the differing policy directions between the Canadian and American central banks, and the strengthening American economy mean the loonie will fall below 70 cents US before it begins to recover, Porter said.

“The last line of defence for the Canadian dollar would be some stability in oil prices and resource prices, and we just don’t see that stability over the next few months.”

Canada’s dollar has been trading near 11-year lows for weeks but has remained above

71 cents U.S. since 2003.

Craig Wright, Royal Bank of Canada’s chief economist, said the cheap loonie and the American economic recovery should provide a boost to Canadian exports in the near future, although such a rebound hasn’t materialized so far.

Wright said Canada will depend more than ever on its largest trading partner for export growth, because of the faltering performance of the rest of the world including the European Union and China.

“The U.S is the bright shining star,” he said. “But it’s not a very bright sky.”

CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld said 2016 will be a disappointing year for the global economy at large, and Canada won’t be spared.

Yet by the end of the year, he said, investors may see better returns as the world looks ahead to a brighter 2017. ■

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Canadians go... ❰❰ 19

about 30 others this year. “It just gets better and better every

year.”

It was a bright, sunny afternoon under a cloudless sky and with the water was a balmy temperature of about eight degrees, Hamilton said it was one of the warmest swims yet.

Canadians taking the plunge elsewhere in the country weren’t as lucky.

Snow flurries didn’t deter several hundred people from turning out at a Toronto beach to run en masse into Lake Ontario in the 11th annual Toronto Polar Bear Dip. In Oakville, Ont., Olaf the snowman, Santa Claus and at least one Star Wars storm trooper were among the 800 to dive into Lake Ontario.

Jenna Courage has done the dip at least 10 times — but said she never gets used to the cold.

She and a friend jumped up and down to keep warm, as snow fell around them, before they ran into the water.

Her father, Todd Courage,

helped found the Oakville dip 31 years ago, and he’s participated every year since then.

For the past 20 years, he and his brother have partnered with World Vision Canada.

Swimmers donate money to register, this year raking in $130,000 to bring clean water to Rwanda.

Meanwhile, in Atlantic Canada, 10 people braved freezing temperatures to leap off a snow-covered wharf in Portugal Cove, N.L. In Herring Cove, a small community outside of Halifax, N.S., 81-year-old Ernie Ross was first into the water, wearing salmon-coloured swimming trunks with the phrase “Happy 2016” written across his chest in black marker. About 130 others followed behind.

Organizers estimate 250 swimmers — one wearing a lab coat and riding a boogie board — entered the water during a polar bear dip at Britannia Beach in Ottawa, as crosscountry skiers made their way through a nearby park. ■

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World News

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Iran president criticizes Saudi Arabia over severing ties

BY ALI AKBAR DAREINI AND JON GAMBRELL The Associated Press TEHRAN, IRAN — Iran’s president said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia cannot “cover up” its crime of executing a leading Shiite cleric by severing diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic, even as the kingdom’s allies began limiting their links to his country.

President Hassan Rouhani’s comments came as Kuwait announced it had recalled its ambassador to Iran over attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic Republic.

The execution last weekend of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite cleric and opposition figure in Saudi Arabia, has heightened the Saudi-Iran regional rivalry, threatening to derail already shaky peace efforts over the wars in Syria and Yemen.

A statement posted on his official website said Rouhani discussed the current diplomatic dispute with visiting Danish Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen.

“The Saudi government has taken a strange action and cut off its diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran to cover its crimes of beheading a religious leader in its country,” Rouhani said. “Undoubtedly, such actions can’t cover up that big crime.”

Iran’s Vice-President Mo-

hammad Bagher Nobakht, addressing journalists Tuesday, said the country’s intelligence services were investigating the diplomatic mission attacks and that police officers who failed to take action to stop the assaults would be prosecuted. Iranian police say at least 50 people already have been arrested over the attack.

The diplomatic standoff between Iran and the kingdom began Saturday, when Saudi Arabia executed Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others convicted of terror charges — the largest mass execution carried out by the kingdom since 1980. It’s not clear whether al-Nimr was beheaded with a sword, though Saudis routinely use that form of execution.

Al-Nimr, a central figure in the Arab Spring-inspired protests by Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority, was executed after being convicted of sedition and of other crimes, though he long denied advocating violence.News of his execution has sparked Shiite protests from Bahrain to Pakistan.

In Iran, protesters responded by attacking the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad. Late Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced it was severing relations with Iran because of the assaults, giving Iranian diplomatic personnel 48 hours to leave.

Sudan and the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain said Monday they would sever ties with Iran The United Arab Emirates announced it would downgrade ties to Tehran to the level of the charge d’affaires, while other nations issued statements criticizing Iran.

On Tuesday, Kuwait announced the recalling of its ambassador in a statement carried on the state-run Kuwait News Agency. However, Kuwait did not say it would sever its ties to Iran over the tensions.

Tiny Kuwait is home to both Shiites and Sunnis living in peace and has the most free-wheeling political system among all Gulf nations.

Meanwhile Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of Shiite protesters marched in Sitra, south of Bahrain’s capital, Manama, over al-Nimr’s execution. An Associated Press journalist saw police fire tear gas and bird shot, while some protesters threw gasoline bombs. A number of protesters suffered wounds from the birdshot.

Bahrain, a tiny island off the coast of Saudi Arabia, is predominantly Shiite, but ruled

by Sunnis. It’s been the scene of long-running, low-intensity unrest since 2011 Arab Springinspired protests.

Iran expressed “regret” over the attacks on the diplomatic missions in a letter to the United Nations on Monday and

President Hassan Rouhani’s comments came as Kuwait announced it had recalled its ambassador to Iran over attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic Republic.

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vowed to arrest those responsible. In the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, Iran’s U.N. envoy Gholamali Khoshroo said more than 40 protesters have been arrested and that authorities are searching for other suspects.

In response to a Saudi letter, the U.N. Security Council late Monday strongly condemned the attacks by Iranian protesters on Saudi diplomatic posts.

The council statement, agreed to after hours of negotiations, made no mention of the Saudi executions or the rupture in Saudi-Iranian relations.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have long vied for influence in the Middle East. Their rivalry deepened following the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the chaos of the Arab Spring, which gave rise to proxy wars in Syria and Yemen.

World powers have sought to calm the tensions. On Monday, Germany called on both sides to

mend ties, while Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed senior diplomat as saying Moscow is ready to act as a mediator.

The U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, was en route to Riyadh on Monday with plans to later visit Tehran. Iran, a staunch supporter of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Saudi Arabia, a key backer of the opposition, have participated in three rounds of international talks aimed at ending the conflict. De Mistura has set a Jan. 25 target date for a fourth round of talks.

The White House urged Saudi Arabia and Iran to not let their dispute derail efforts to end the Syrian civil war. ■ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Hussain alQatari in Kuwait City and Reem Khalifa in Manama, Bahrain, contributed to this report.

Malicious acts surpassed accidents as the chief cause of airline deaths worldwide in 2015 for the second year in a row

BY JOSH LEDERMAN The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Malicious acts surpassed accidents as the chief cause of airline deaths worldwide in 2015 for the second year in a row, according to an industry tally.

There were only eight accidental airline crashes last year accounting for 161 passenger and crew deaths — the fewest crashes and deaths since at least 1946, reflecting continued imwww.canadianinquirer.net

provement in safety technology and aircraft design, according to Flightglobal, an aviation news and industry data company.

That tally of 161 accidental deaths is far outpaced by the 374 killed when a Germanwings airliner was deliberately flown into a mountainside in the French Alps last March, and a Russian airliner packed with tourists that exploded over Egypt in October.

In 2014, the toll from a Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared and another that was

shot down over Ukraine was 537 deaths compared to 436 accident deaths that year.

Those tallies are for all types of airline flights, including cargo, positioning, training, and maintenance flights. There were just 98 paying passengers killed last year. It’s a vast improvement from the 790 passengers killed in 2007, and the annual average of 1,289 passengers killed in accidental crashes in the 1970s. ❱❱ PAGE 31 Malicious acts

World News

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

In conversations with prominent figures, Obama tries to reconnect before presidency runs out

BY KATHLEEN HENNESSEY The Associated Press WASHINGTON — The novelist tossed out phrases such as “religious humanism” and “the sinister other.” The interviewer asked her about her upbringing and writing process.

At an hour and 7,000 thoughtful words, the discussion sounded like a college seminar or an independent bookstore reading.

But this was part of the White House’s new media strategy.

Even for a president well-practiced in using nontraditional media, the conversation in September between Barack Obama and writer Marilynne Robinson — and a few others like it conducted in recent months — charted new territory in presidential communications.

Slow paced, personal, nearly divorced from the news of the day and sometimes distributed by the White House, a series of “conversations” between Obama and prominent figures in arts, letters and entertainment captures a White House experimenting with ways to reconnect Americans to the president before they say goodbye to him.

They also offer a glimpse of the president’s interests and thinking as he looks at that next chapter.

“We had this idea that why don’t I just have a conversation with somebody I really like and see how it turns out?”

Obama told Robinson, before diving into mutual rumination about Christianity, fear and politics that ran in two installments in The New York Review of Books.

Not all the chosen conversationalists are quite so high brow: • Obama recently cruised around the White House grounds in a 1963 Corvette Stingray coupe with Jerry Seinfeld for an episode of the Web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”

• He sat for an hour in comic Marc Maron’s garage in June for the podcast “WTF with Marc Maron.”

• In March, the White House invited David Simon, a former journalist and writer of “The Wire” and urban dramas, to discuss criminal justice.

• British naturalist Sir David Attenborough met with Obama in July for a conversation that revealed a bit how Obama’s Hawaiian and Kenyan roots have animated his fight against climate change.

“We want to give the president opportunities to talk in more expansive ways about big ideas and subjects,” White House spokesman Eric Shultz said of some of these conversations. “Our goal is give people some insight into how he sees things that are not necessarily at the top of the news cycle at that moment. We believe when you feel like you really understand someone’s thinking, you understand their decision-making.”

Conducting nontraditional interviews is nothing new for this president.

Where other White Houses dabbled in women’s magazines or lifestyle interviews, the Obamas embraced late-night talk shows, celebrity magazines, sports media. Obama has sat for interviews with bloggers and YouTube stars, taken questions on Facebook and Reddit, and distributed content via the White House website, Twitter and YouTube.

Still White House officials put Obama’s long-form sit-downs in another box.

Obama’s conversations aren’t narrowly targeted at a single constituency and aren’t typically organized around a single political message or timed to a policy rollout or debate. There tends to be a clear mutual interest_ a peer-to-peer relationship, as one White House official described it. In some, Obama takes the role of interviewer.

“I’m a huge fan of ‘The Wire,”’ Obama said, sounding like one, as opening his interview with Simon.

That level of interest has given some of the conversations a “you only live once” feel to them, as though Obama were ticking through a list of people he always wanted to meet while he still had the staff to arrange the introduction. (“They contacted us through the website ... which immediately made me think this was fake,” Maron noted on his podcast.) Obama recently noted that was one of the perks of the job.

“It turns out you pick up the phone if somebody is doing something interesting, something that inspires you, you can usually get them to take your phone call,” Obama told NPR. “You know, sometimes I do it to learn myself what is it that, you know, makes them tick and what can they teach me about the world.

Sometimes I just want to shine a light on somebody who I think is extraordinary.”

But White House officials say the ideas typically come from staff, based on ❱❱ PAGE 31 In conversations

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World News

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Obama announces new rules for gun buying: ‘This is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns’

BY JOSH LEDERMAN The Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, at one point wiping tears from his cheek, unveiled his plan Tuesday to tighten control and enforcement of firearms in the U.S., using his presidential powers in the absence of legal changes he implored Congress to pass.

Obama accused the gun lobby of taking Congress hostage, but said “they cannot hold America hostage.” He insisted it was possible to uphold the Second Amendment while doing something to tackle the frequency of mass shootings in the U.S. that he said had become “the new normal.”

“This is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns,” Obama said in a ceremony in the East Room. “You pass a background check, you purchase a firearm.

The problem is some gun sellers have been operating under a different set of rules.”

Obama wiped tears away as he recalled the 20 first-graders killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He paid tribute to the parents, some of whom gathered for the ceremony, who he said had never imagined their child’s life would be cut short by a bullet.

“Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad,” Obama said.

At the centerpiece of Obama’s plan is a more sweeping definition of gun dealers that the administration hopes will expand the number of sales subject to background checks. Under current law, only federally licensed gun dealers must conduct background checks on buyers. But at gun shows, websites and flea markets, sellers often skirt that requirement by declining to register as licensed dealers.

Aiming to narrow that loophole, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is issuing updated guidance that says the government should deem anyone “in the business” of selling guns to be a dealer, regardless of where he or she sells the guns. To that end, the government will consider other factors, including how

In the Blue Room of the White House, President Barack Obama talks with people whose lives have been impacted by gun violence, prior to announcing executive actions that the administration is taking to reduce gun violence, Jan. 5, 2016.

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO / PETE SOUZA

many guns a person sells, how necessarily have stopped the Invoking the words of Martin frequently, and whether those last massacre, “so why bother Luther King Jr., Obama said, guns are sold for a profit. trying?”

“We need to feel the fierce urThe White House also put “I reject that thinking,” gency of now.” gun sellers on notice that the Obama said, arguing it would be Obama’s actions carved a administration planned to worth it if the measures would predictably partisan fault line strengthen enforcement — in- prevent even a single gun death. through the presidential camcluding deploying 230 new “We maybe can’t save every- paign. Hillary Clinton and examiners the FBI will hire to body, but we could save some.”

Bernie Sanders, both competprocess background checks.

To lend a personal face to the ing for the nomination from The impact of Obama’s plan issue, the White House assem- Obama’s party, praised the on gun violence remains a ma- bled a cross-section of Ameri- president and pledged to build jor question, and one not eas- cans whose lives were altered on his actions if elected. The ily answered. Had the rules by the nation’s most searing Republican field formed a chobeen in place in the past, the recent gun tragedies, including rus of voices vowing to annul steps wouldn’t likely have pre- former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords the whole package, with Marco vented any of the recent mass and relatives of victims from Rubio claiming Obama was shootings that “Obama is obhave garnered sessed with unnational attendermining the tion. The Obama Second Amendadministration For Obama, the executive actions ment.” acknowledged it mark a return late in his presidency In Congress, couldn’t quantito an issue he’s elevated time and Democrats and fy how many gun again but has been unable until Republicans sales would be now to advance. similarly lined newly subjected up on opposite to background sides.

House checks, nor how Democratic many currently unregistered Charleston, S.C., at Virginia leader Nancy Pelosi said Obama gun sellers would have to ob- Tech. Mark Barden, whose was acting within his “clear autain a license. son was shot to death at Sandy thority,” but echoed his call for Pushing back on that cri- Hook Elementary School, in- Congress to finish the job. But tique, Obama said every time troduced the president with a House Speaker Paul Ryan prethe issue is debated, gun rights declaration that “we are better dicted a certain challenge in the groups argue the steps wouldn’t than this.” courts. www.canadianinquirer.net

“Rather than focus on criminals and terrorists, he goes after the most law-abiding of citizens,” said Ryan, R-Wis. “His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty.”

For Obama, the executive actions mark a return late in his presidency to an issue he’s elevated time and again but has been unable until now to advance. By bypassing Congress, though, Obama is limited to steps far more modest than what he and likeminded lawmakers had long envisioned.

After the Sandy Hook shooting, Obama in 2013, Obama sought far-reaching, bipartisan legislation that went beyond background checks to ban certain assault-style weapons and cap the size of ammunition clips. When the effort collapsed in the Senate, the White House said it was thoroughly researching the president’s powers to identify every legal step he could take on his own. A more recent spate of gun-related atrocities, including in San Bernardino, California, shootings have spurred the administration to give the issue another look. ■

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

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New Year Special

Six things to do with unwanted holiday gifts

BY KATHERINE PADILLA Philippine Canadian Inquirer THE HOLIDAY season has just passed and it has left us with filled heart and stomachs.

But that’s not the only thing Christmas and New Year’s has brought us. Unwanted presents have probably come your way too. Now, you’re left asking, “What will I do with these?”

To help you solve this common post-holiday dilemma, here are six things that you can do with your unwanted presents: Return it

Not to the gift-giver but to the store.

Chances are, the gift that you received was bought from top brands and department stores.

Luckily, most of stores have favorable return policy. If your gift came with a receipt, this solution is for you.

Top shopping spots such as Sears Canada, Winners, Holt Renfrew, and Hudson’s Bay accept returns. Holi Renfrew will refund your item if you’re able to send it back to them within 14 days, while Sears Canada gives you 10 to 90 days from the date of purchase, depending on the product.

Winners’ return policy states that you must return the item within 10 days. Hudson’s Bay’s policy is more lax, giving you

14-30 days within the date of purchase to refund the item.

You must be thinking, “But 10 days have passed!” Don’t fret.

Winners will refund your item with a gift card and so will Hudson’s Bay with their HBC gift card. This way, you will have leeway in selecting and item that would be useful to you.

Just be sure to send back your item to Hudson’s Bay not later than 60 days from the date of purchase.

Don’t forget to bring your receipt.

letting it go? The design looks so fabulous. If only you can keep it.

Well, guess what? You can actually keep it. If those jeans don’t fit, turn it into a denim handbag. You’re not really a fan of scarves but you know that the print would look good on you. Why don’t you turn it into a kimono jacket? All you have to do is tie its ends to the sides.

You don’t really have to throw it away. All you need is a sewing machine, glue, and lots of creativity.

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Re-gift it

Re-gifting an unwanted gift is a common practice these days.

Hey, it better fall on the hands of a friend than end up in a trash bin.

You may have been given a wrong size of shirt, a lipstick which shade does not suit you, a perfume which scent does not please you or a gift that you already have.

A friend may fit in the shirt that is two sizes small for you.

The lipstick that doesn’t flatter you may be just perfect for your co-worker whose skin tone works very well with that shade of lipstick. Not a fan of musk? It might be the favorite perfume note of a relative.

Knowing which fit who is the key. So think of everyone you know. Can you find someone who can make better use of the gift in your hands?

Exchange it

Receiving a gift with no use for you is pretty common. You can probably find friends, office mates, neighbors, relatives— who, just like you, is also thinking of ways to dispose the unwanted gifts that they received during the holidays.

So why don’t you scan your phonebook and go through your Facebook friends? Call them up and ask, “Anyone up for an exchange gift party?”

This way, you are not only presented a chance to dispose an unwanted gift but also a chance to catch up with loved-ones.

So serve up the drinks because there’s a party going on right here!

Sell it

If you’re too busy to set up a party or the idea just doesn’t

appeal to you, perhaps selling your unwanted gift might just be the solution for you.

Thanks to the internet and the prominence of online shopping, you can now dispose your gift even withoutoff leaving the comforts of your home.

Online buy and sell sites like eBay, eBid, CQuot and QuiBids, to name a few can definitely take that unwanted gift off of your hands.

So go to your browser now and post an ad online for that unwanted gift. Your next e-mail could be a notice from eBay telling you of Jane from Vancouver who is interested to buy it.

Re-create it

Think again, do you really want that unwanted gift off your hands? Are you having a heavy heart with the thought of

Donate it

“It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving,” said Mother Teresa.

If you want to extend to others the spirit of giving, the best way to it is to donate. It may be an unwanted gift from you but it could be a treasure for others.

Reach out to a community volunteer in your area who might know an organization near you that accepts in-kind donations. You can also browse the web to find groups who can help you.

If you have more time, you can also organize a charity drive with your neighbors where everyone could drop off items they wish to donate. This way, you are not only sharing but also creating camaraderie with your community.

Remember, the spirit of giving is all year round. ■

New Year’s resolutions: Researchers say questions better than declarations

BY LAURA KANE The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — When it comes to keeping a New Year’s resolution, researchers say it’s better to ask than tell.

A new study spanning 40 years of research has found that asking questions is a better way to influence behaviour than

making statements.

It’s called the “question-behaviour effect,” a phenomenon in which asking people about performing a behaviour influences whether they do it in the future.

“If you just ask yourself, ‘Are you going to exercise next week?’ it’s going to make your attitudes towards exercising more accessible,” said Ioannis

Kareklas, an assistant marketing professor at the University of Albany.

“It’s going to remind you of all the times you should have exercised and didn’t exercise.

And, the thinking goes, you’re more likely to exercise in the future.”

Kareklas was among four researchers from universities across the United States

who examined more than 100 studies to provide the first comprehensive look at why the effect occurs. The findings were published this month in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

The researchers looked at several explanations and found the most evidence to support cognitive dissonance, or the idea that holding two inconsis-

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tent thoughts at the same time creates tension and motivates behavioural change.

For example, asking someone “Will you recycle?” will make them think of all the times they failed to recycle as well as the fact that it’s good for the environment.

“At the same time, you’re ❱❱ PAGE 35 New Year’s

New Year Special

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JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

FILIPINO-CANADIAN IN FOCUS:

Marlon Antonio: A parchment to his success

BY MAVELLE DURIAN AND LAARNI LIWANAG Philippine Canadian Inquirer THE WORLD loves success stories of all kinds.

And when it’s achieved in a foreign land by an undergraduate, who is a pedicab driver in his younger years, it is in many ways, special.

Marlon Antonio is in many ways, special. Aside from being blessed with a good business, a dedicated Team, he is so much blessed with a family that is centered on God. His wife Elsa Antonio, his 3 children, Danica Antonio, Shaelyn Antonio and Marc Antonio are his jewels. Marlon believes in the saying that “a happy wife is a happy life.”

Marlon is a family oriented person and he brings this value to his flourishing businessGreatway Financial. His being a secondary school graduate were never a hindrance. Marlon and his wife Elsa co founded Greatway Financial. He is the President and CEO of Greatway Financial, but likes to be addressed as Lead Mentor for he is in fact a mentor to his present team of 1,100 advisors and counting. His success story is an inspiration to many.

Early life

In his early years in the Philippines, Marlon Antonio was a pedicab driver in Dinalupihan, Bataan, He was 11 years old then but already showed signs of hardwork and perseverance, He didn’t shy away from physical labor. “I started working since I was a child. I worked because I want to be like the other guys who are always on the streets.

When I was in high school, during weekends and summer, I’m doing physical labor. It just happened that I’m very independent growing up,” Antonio said.

His mom, Fida Hinzman, is an elementary school teacher, but low pay forced her to seek greener pastures in Hongkong and in Canada where she worked as nanny so she can give a better future to her children.

Marlon and his siblings will be forever grateful to all the sacrifices of their mom.

“My mom went to Canada in 1988 as a nanny, met a Canadian guy and for some reasons, she

returned back to Hong Kong to work there again. And then this Canadian guy Lester Hinzman, who is now my stepfather followed my mom to Hong Kong and got married. In November 1990, the family was petitioned here in Canada. Antonio expressed that “we are very blessed to have a stepfather who treat us as his own.

When Antonio and his siblings migrated to Canada in 1990, he has already finished his high school and spent a year in college in the Philippines.

In his desire to pursue a university degree, he underwent an assessment examination in Bow Valley College, but was told his education is equivalent to grade 11 and the results of his assessment test is only Grade 7 in English and Math. He was told it will take a few years just to finish high school.

Knowing that he will need to spend years in high school and college and aching to earn as soon as possible, he decided to work instead of going back to school. His first jobs in Canada were those of a dishwasher and caregiver. For 10 years he worked double job, sometimes triple jobs just to pay the bills.

“After working for ten years in Canada, I realized that having a job is not enough, and I said to myself that maybe there’s a better way of earning money,” Antonio said. He and his wife Elsa started to become self-employed by owning a cleaning company and learned that being self employed has a significant tax advantage and also affords flexibility in time.

With his formal education incomplete, Antonio turned to books.

“I love to read books. My per-

ception was this, if you want to become a lawyer, you have to read books about law; if you want to become a doctor, you have to read books about medicine. I started reading books about success in 1997.” I learned a philosophy from Jim Rohn that formal education will make you a living and self education will make you a fortune. I tried to be self educated by reading books, listening to self motivation tapes or CD’s (now iTunes or YouTube) and attending seminars about how to become successful.

Until now, Antonio only has a high school diploma he earned in the Philippines.

Opportunities in Canada

When he was asked about the best thing in his life in Canada, Antonio said: “The best thing in Canada is the opportunity. I met so many successful people that did not have formal education but they become successful owning a business. There are tons of opportunities here in Canada. Dream big, work hard on it, and if you really want it (bad enough), you will definitely achieve it.”

Antonio was inspired by the book “10 Secrets that Revenue Canada Doesn’t Want You to Know.” It teaches you how to make more money and pay less tax, He loves reading inspirational books too.

His climb to the top

In 2004, Marlon became a successful financial advisor in one of the biggest financial companies in Canada with 137 advisors in his Team. But in 2008, he resigned from this company and build his own — the Greatway Financial, with www.canadianinquirer.net

only 14 advisors joining him in this new company which he established in March 2010.

In December 2010, the number of advisors increased from 14 to 60 and the company eventually became a general managing agency, with 1,100 advisors and counting. Today, Greatway Financial has 9 offices across Canada.and planning to open 6 more offices in 2016.

Most of the management and employees of Greatway Financial are Filipinos. Of the 1,100 advisors, around 950 are Filipinos. For Antonio, the virtues and traits of a Filipino work well in his business. His success can be summed up in the way he runs the management of the company. A management that is centered on God, building good values and good character amongst its advisors and his Team. “Think Good, Say Good , Do Good – all the time” thus runs the company value.

My greatest fulfillment is to see my fellow Filipinos become financially independent and having a great life.

“Filipinos are loyal, hardworking, prioritizes their family, and are God-centered, which is the best part of our culture, and it works well when applied into business,” Antonio said.

Antonio likes to be addressed as a Lead Mentor rather than CEO of the company. While developing his Team’s intelligence and skills, he also builds the character and integrity of his Team. Antonio believes that “character and integrity are the fundamental aspects of their personality and good foundation for success.”

Greatway Financial envisions to close the gap between the rich and the poor, and this is

what keeps Antonio motivated in his work. Since he was not able to finish his studies, he still wants to prove to people that “they can also achieve something regardless of their educational attainment.”

“I want Filipinos to dream. I keep moving because I want to project an image of a successful Filipino and want all Filipinos to have a good and rewarding career in Canada.

“Success is like a rice plant. The more you become successful, the more you should bow down to the ground, and your personality should matter more to you.

It’s who you become. As much as possible, I don’t want to be called boss because we’re all human beings, and we’re all dreaming of becoming successful in our own lives. I want them to remember me as Marlon Antonio they met before that inspire them to achieve more, to contribute and give more to the society and I want to prove to them that you don’t need to change your personality in order to succeed.”

“Greatway Financial will never be what it is today if not for the trust and belief of more than 1,100 Greatway”s advisors.

The success of Greatway is attributed to the team effort or rather to the Greatway family effort. Greatway Financial is well known for having a family oriented environment in the office and in the business. Marlon is forever grateful to be able to serve all advisors who trusted Greatway Financial.”

Social responsibility

Like all successful people, Antonio wants to give back to the community. ❱❱ PAGE 39 Marlon Antonio

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

27

Travel

Great views and easy or hard workout with snowshoeing in southern B.C.

BY TERRI THEODORE The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — Snowshoeing is one of the easiest, and least expensive, ways to exercise or get out and enjoy the winter in southern British Columbia.

If you can walk, you can snowshoe.

But some people are taking the winter pastime to the extreme, making it an endurance sport.

There’s room for all kinds of snowshoers on the mountains around Vancouver, including the North Shore slopes, peaks in the Callaghan Valley, and one of the newest resort areas above Howe Sound in Squamish.

All three North Shore Mountains — Seymour, Grouse and Cypress — have snowshoeing. However, they were difficult to access over the holiday season, with long traffic lines or extended delays for the shuttle service as locals rejoiced in the thick snow base that was non-existent last year.

Mount Seymour, just a 35-minute drive from Vancouver, was named the No. 1 resort for snowshoeing in North America by Snowshoe Magazine in 2012.

The mountain has about nine kilometres of maintained trails, depending on the amount of snow, and all are well marked and groomed, with little risk of getting lost.

Many of the trails, located at the bottom of the ski hill, are protected from wind and allow trekkers to wander through an old-growth forest.

Erin Warkman, a supervisor in the outdoor education department at Mount Seymour, said some of the trees along the snowshoe trails are up to 1,000 years old.

“It was never all cut down, so we definitely have remnants that are very old growth. Yellow cedars can actually live to be 1,500 years old,” she said.

Mount Seymour staff recommend people keep to the main trails to stay safe, but more experienced and prepared snowshoers can venture into the backcountry, as the paths also connect to the B.C. Parks trails.

Those looking for a real workout can run up Dog Mountain, a B.C. Parks trail.

On a clear day, the hike boasts a spectacular view of the Lions Gate Bridge, Stanley Park and Vancouver in the distance.

Seymour also offers a drop-in snow fit class once a week.

Mount Seymour.

“When you’re running on snowshoes you can actually burn twice as many calories as you would burn running on the road,” Warkman said. “It’s really fun and it’s a fantastic workout.”

The trend toward snowshoeing as part

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of a fitness regime is growing, said Kim Ebers, marketing and sales manager at Callaghan Country, a ski resort 120 kilometres north of Vancouver on the way to Whistler.

“We have one athlete who comes and

will run into the backcountry lodge — that takes most people four to five hours — in two hours,” she said.

“She’ll run in and do lunch, and then come back out.”

Callaghan Country is famous for its heavy dumps of snow, which can make getting there difficult. Snow tires are mandatory, while chains are recommended. The resort has more than 40 kilometres of snowshoe trails offering self-guided experiences for the day.

Ebers said there is little danger of getting lost in the area if people stick to the trails.

Callaghan also has a backcountry lodge where guests can reserve an overnight stay after an 11.5-kilometre ski or snowshoe trek. The package includes a room, dinner, breakfast and a packed lunch for the trip back the next day.

Snowshoers looking for a fabulous view can find it at the Sea to Sky Gondola over Howe Sound, about 60 kilometres north of Vancouver.

There, a network of trails has something for everyone from novice to expert, and there’s no extra cost to go on the trails once you’ve purchased the

Vancouver

❱❱ PAGE 31 Great views

Manila

More flights, better connections!

For more information please contact local travel agency or call EVA Air Vancouver branch office (604) 214-6608

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Travel

28

Breaking out of the Manhattan mindset with a culinary tour of Queens via NYC’s No. 7 train

BY J.M. HIRSCH The Associated Press NEW YORK — When eating in New York City, breaking out of the Manhattan mindset is tough, at least for visitors.

Because when you mostly are here on business — no matter how frequently — the glut of great eats in Manhattan makes it easy to ignore the wealth of awesome restaurants and bars in what locals call “the outer boroughs.” Shortsighted, I know. But when you are on the ground for just a few days, places like Brooklyn and Queens can feel forever away.

Which is why a native New Yorker friend recently helped me push my boundaries — and my appetite. It was painless, fun and easy, mostly thanks to the No. 7 subway line.

The 7 line — and its beautiful, spanking-new Hudson Yards station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue — is an easy way for visitors to explore funky and authentic Queens neighbourhoods on the rise. Brooklyn is better-known as the city’s hipster destination, but Queens is catching up. It already has mul-

tiple Michelin-starred restaurants, including Casa Enrique, M. Wells Steakhouse and Zabb Elee.

So on a Tuesday afternoon, for $2.75, we caught a 7 express train and in 35 minutes we were in Flushing, Queens. It felt nothing like Manhattan, but it was the start of what would feel like a culinary United Nations.

Emerging on Flushing’s Main Street, we found ourselves in a swirl of Chinatown: a woman making fresh tofu on the street here, a window of barbecuebronzed poultry and ribs there.

You could spend a day on Main Street alone, poking through the warrens of shops and eateries. But we headed across the street to the New World Mall, a place with enough hard-core foodie cred to have once earned Anthony Bourdain’s attention.

The mall basement is where you’ll find a food court like nothing you’ve seen in the suburbs. A couple dozen stalls offer everything from freshly pulled ramen to delicate filled dumplings to — and here’s the money shot — freshly filled rice rolls (balls). Start at Lan Zhou ❱❱ PAGE 31 Breaking out

Great views... ❰❰ 27

round-trip ride on the 10-minute gondola.

Snowshoe rentals are

extra.

The great advantage for a snowshoer, once on the mountain, is there are no lines such as those experienced by skiers and snowboarders at lifts — you just start trekking.

Rates to get on trails and rent equipment vary from location to location. Several resorts allow dogs, and all have tours that individuals can join or that can

be booked for larger groups.

Good preparation is the first step to enjoying a snowshoeing trip, which means dressing appropriately in wool or synthetic layers and waterproof outerwear. Hiking boots or good winter boots work well — runners do not.

Snowshoes are measured for your weight and foot width.

You will also need to take all the safety gear necessary for any outdoor trip during the winter, plus food and water. ■

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market holds final New Year auction before making way for development

BY ELAINE KURTENBACH The Associated Press TOKYO — It’s among the biggest of Japan’s many New Year holiday rituals: Early on Tuesday, a huge, glistening tuna was auctioned for about 14 million Japanese yen ($118,000) at Tokyo’s 80-year-old Tsukiji market. Next year, if all goes as planned, the tradition won’t be quite the same.

The world’s biggest and most famous fish and seafood market — also a major tourist attraction in Tokyo — is due to move in November to a massive complex further south in Tokyo Bay, making way for redevelopment of the prime slice of downtown real estate.

The closure of the Tsukiji market will punctuate the end of the post-war era for many of the mom-and-pop shops just outside the main market that peddle a cornucopia of searelated products, from dried squid and seaweed to whale bacon and caviar.

The auction is typical of Japan’s penchant for fresh starts at the beginning of the year — the first visit of the year to a shrine and the first dream of the year are other important firsts — and it’s meant to set an auspicious precedent for the 12 months to come.

Sushi restaurateur Kiyoshi Kimura has prevailed in most of the recent new year auctions, and he did so again this year in the bidding for a 200-kilogram (440-pound) tuna.

In 2013, a bidding war drove his record winning bid to 154.4 million yen (at today’s exchange rates about $1.3 million) for a 222-kilogram (490-pound) fish.

That drew complaints that prices had soared way out of line, and the winning price in 2014 was dramatically lower.

Last year, a 180.4-kilogramme (380-pound) tuna caught off Japan’s northern region of Aomori fetched a winning bid of 4.51 million yen ($37,480). www.canadianinquirer.net

Tsukiji market in Tokyo, Japan.

Japanese eat about 80 per cent of all bluefin tuna caught worldwide, and stocks of all three bluefin species — the Pacific, Southern and Atlantic — have fallen over the past 15 years amid overfishing.

But while the new year and daily tuna auctions are Tsukiji’s best-known events, the market is about much more than just tuna.

On a recent year-end day, shop owners in rubber boots and aprons were rushing to clean up and sell off the last of their inventory, as the last few hundred shoppers milled around hunting for bargains.

Already, some shops outside the market have been razed and a new building that will house a smaller “outer market” is under construction. Conceptual drawings from the Tokyo city government show the 23-hectare (nearly 57-acre) market site that fronts the Sumida River’s outlet into Tokyo Bay being transformed into an open waterfront park surrounded by greenery, with a wide shopping plaza and a passenger terminal for tourist ferries traversing the bay and river.

“We are contributing with all our efforts to the revitalization of our historic Tsukiji,” said a

banner emblazoned with the logos of the architect and other contractors hanging from scaffolding of the new building.

Tsukiji’s predawn auctions are a fixture on the tourist circuit, and since it was not set up to accommodate large crowds the management has gradually limited access for safety’s sake.

Planning for the move began nearly 20 years ago. But the shift was delayed for years due to toxins found in the soil at the new location, the former site of a coal gasification plant run by Tokyo Gas. The city announced in 2001 that the market would be moved by 2012. But cleanup work dragged on, and in 2013, Tokyo Gas disclosed it had found more toxins at the site.

Critics of the move said city authorities were swapping worries over cramped and some say unhygienic conditions in Tsukiji for a new set of health problems: unsafe levels of lead, arsenic, hexavalent chromium and other toxins.

Cleanup of the tainted site required the removal and replacement of 2 metres (6 feet) of topsoil, construction of retaining walls, pumping out of polluted ground water and an injection of fresh water. ■

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FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

www.canadianinquirer.net F PhilippineCanadianInquirer

T PhilCanInquirer

m info@canadianinquirer.net sales@canadianinquirer.net

A (888) 668-6059

www.canadianinquirer.net

30

Community News

JANUARY 8, 2016

Consular fees adjusted due to currency changes PHILIPPINE CONSULAR offices in Canada will implement effective Jan. 1, an adjustment of consular fees brought about by the changes in the Canadian currency exchange rate vis-àvis the US dollar.

While the changes will affect the fees in Canadian dollar denomination, the prescribed consular fees pegged in the US dollar remain unchanged. Direct payment in US dollar currency is acceptable, according to a statement from the Philippine Consulate in Toronto.

The new schedule of fees is listed below, and will be implemented at the consular section of the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa, the Philippine Consulate General at Toronto and Vancouver, and for applicable services provided by Philippine Consular Offices at Charlottetown, Edmonton, Halifax, St. John’s, and Winnipeg, as well as at all full service consular outreach missions across Canada.

“A review of the exchange rate parity between the US dollar and Canadian dollar is conducted on a quarterly basis. Any determination of holding the conversion rate steady, or undertaking an

US$

US$

CAD at 1.35

CAD at 1.35

20.00

27.00

1 40 or less crew

1 00.00

1 35.00

2 41-100 crew

1 50.00

2 02.50

3 100-200 crew

200.00

2 70.00

4 in excess of 200 crew

2 30.00

3 10.50

Treaty Trader/Investor Visa - 9 (d)

4 00.00

5 40.00

II Visa Services

Student Visa - 9 (f)

2 50.00

3 37.50

A Non Restricted Aliens (9a)

Pre Arranged Employment

4 00.00

5 40.00

4 00.00

5 40.00

4 00.00

5 40.00

1 50.00

2 02.50

1 50.0

2 02.50

a Solemnization of Marriage

60.00

81.00

b Jurat/Acknowledgement/

25.00

33.75

25.00

33.75

60.00

60.00

Applicant

50.00

67.50

Dependent

25.00

33.75

D Seaman - Individual (c)

I Passport Services a Passport

60.00

81.00

b Extension

20.00

27.00

c Travel Document

30.00

40.50

d Replacement of Lost Passport

1 50.00

2 02.50

e Affidavit of lost passport

25.00

33.75

Visa 9 (g)

1 Single Entry-Valid for 3 months

30.00

2 Multiple entry visa valid for 6 months

60.00

3 Multiple entry visa valid for 1 year

90.00

40.50 81.00

Other Special non-immigrant visa under Sec. 13 (a-g) SIRV and SRRV

1 21.50

Non-quota Immigrant Visa under Sec. 13 (a-g) F Extension of Re-entry Permit or Special Return Certificate

1 Single Entry-Valid for 3 months

40.00

2 Multiple entry visa valid for 6 months

80.00

3 Multiple entry visa valid for 1 year

1 20.00

54.00

III Notarials and Miscelleneous Services

1 08.00 1 62.00

Authentication/Certification c Taking, Transcribing and

C Transit Visa 9(b) for stay of not more than 72

Special Non-immigrant Visa 49 (a) (2)

B Restricted Aliens (9b)

1. Single Entry valid for 3 months

E Crew List Visa

Recording Depositons per page

20.00

27.00

d Interpretation (per hour) IV Retention/Re-acquisition of

hours (non restricted)

Philippine Citizenship 2. Single Entry valid for 3 months for stay of not more than 72

40.00

54.00

hours ( restricted)

upward or downward adjustment, would be in accordance with prevailing exchange market

conditions and short- to medium-term analysis and outlook,” PCG Toronto added. ■

Clark responds to concerns about Surrey crime with ‘there’s a new minister’ PREMIER CHRISTY Clark’s empty response to the growing gun violence problem in Surrey shows she’s just not there for the people of the lower mainland, say the New Democrats.

“We called on the premier to take immediate action to deal with the threat of violent crime in Surrey, and the fear it’s invoking in residents across metro Vancouver,” said New Democrat Leader John Horgan.

“Her response was to say she appointed a new minister.

“All British Columbians agree that Justice Minister Suzanne Anton has been ineffective at curbing the spread of violence, but a new minister is not the same as real action.”

Horgan, New Democrat spokesperson for public safety Mike Farnworth, and New Democrat Surrey MLAs Harry Bains, Sue Hammell and Bruce Ralston sent the premier a let-

ter in December, demanding an additional 100 officers on Surrey streets immediately, even if it means redeploying RCMP resources from other areas.

The letter also demanded that a dedicated internal RCMP task force work full time to end this epidemic of gun violence. Violent crime is up by 40 per cent over the past year, and attempted murder has nearly doubled.

“The premier’s response is not good enough,” said Farnworth. “Saying that all is well because she has a new minister means nothing, when she could be requesting redeployment of experienced officers now.

“In the past year, we’ve seen the Christy Clark government under-fund gang-prevention.

And now this empty response with vague platitudes about supporting outreach programs.

The truth is clear – she’s not there for the people affected by

this crime wave.”

In 2014, B.C.’s New Democrats launched discussions on the Surrey Accord, a widereaching plan to address the root causes of the violence – including a mental health action plan and better housing – along with tough policing measures to crack down on violent crime.

Since launching the plan, the caucus and its Surrey MLAs have repeatedly raised the issue and called on the premier to take measurable action to combat the violence. Horgan’s December letter was the latest, with the call for more RCMP members.

“Her response, which my office received this week, shows Premier Clark doesn’t get just how scared the people in Surrey are,” said Horgan. “British Columbians deserve better from their government.” – New Democrat Media Release www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY

Body of missing FilCan nurse found in Richmond pond

BY MARY ANN R. MANDAP Philippine Canadian Inquirer THE BODY of a young Filipino Canadian from Toronto was recovered from a pond in Richmond, British Columbia on Dec. 31.

Ephraigm Flores, 23, went missing for nearly a week, after attending the Contact Winter Music Festival in Richmond on Boxing Day, Dec. 26. He was last seen in the area of Garden City Road and Granville Ave., around 11:15 p.m., according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

On New Year’s Eve, the Canadian Mounties found the body in partly frozen waters just south of Garden City Park in the 9200-block of Granville Ave. Meanwhile, friends and family of Flores have launched an online fundraising drive to cover the expense of returning his body to Ontario from British Columbia.

Posts on a GoFundMe site, a fundraising drive, to assist the Flores family in bringing the body of the young nurse and recently-licensed immigration consultant back to Toronto, have raised over $14,000 a day after being posted. The goal is $25,000 according to Flores’

Flores.

sister Katrina.

Police and the coroner are continuing to investigate the death, which is not considered suspicious, as of press time.

According to sources, it was unusual for Flores to drop contact with family and friends.

Flores is described as a Filipino man, 5’8” tall, weighing around 190 lbs. He had short black hair, brown eyes and an athletic build.

In her post, Katrina said, “For the past few days, the Flores family spent the holidays looking for Ephraigm. He was lost.

He was missing and everyone even people we do not know tried to search for him. In behalf of our family, thank you for all the efforts, it means a lot to us. Now, we found him. But, the situation was not what the family expected.”

She said, “Flores was a strong person, all smiles, and very bright. He was a licensed nurse, recently passed immigration consultancy, and had more plans for the future. This is not what we expected. But, God works in mysterious ways. He has His reasons.”

Katrina asked help in bringing Flores home to Toronto for his funeral. “His body is in Vancouver at the moment. Viewing will be arranged for one night in Richmond,” she added. ■

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

31

Malicious acts...

“In recent years, a higher accident rate than airline safety has im- the second or the third or the proved very consider- fourth generations, and it just ably to the point where, typi- moves on up.” cally, there are now very few But more needs to be done to fatal accidents and fatalities in weed out disturbed pilots and a year,” said Paul Hayes, Flight- guard against acts of terrorism, global’s director of air safety experts said. and insurance. “However, flight The Germanwings case is essecurity remains a concern.” pecially perplexing, said John Although some years are bet- Cox, a former airline pilot and ter than others, the fatal acci- aviation safety consultant. Pident rate has been improving for lot Andreas Lubitz managed many years. The global fatal ac- to conceal his problems even cident rate for all types of airline though airlines are continuoperations in 2015 was one per ally evaluating pilots for signs 5 million flights, the best year of trouble. Pilots evaluate each ever. The previous best year was other as well.

2014, with a fatal accident rate It’s not known what caused of 1 per 2.5 million flights. Air- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 line operations are now about to disappear while flying from four or five times safer than they Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, but were 20 years ago. many aviation safety experts A big reason for the improv- theorize that it was mostly likeing record is better engineer- ly the result of deliberate acts, ing: Today’s probably by one airliners and of the two pilots. aircraft engines “Pilots from are far safer than day one are so earlier generaingrained with tions of planes. protecting the They are more More needs passengers, with highly automatto be done learning skills to ed, which has to weed out deal with unanreduced many disturbed ticipated events common pilot pilots and ... and evaluated errors.

They guard on how well you have better satagainst acts deal with stress,” ellite-based navof terrorism.

Cox said. “Those igation systems. who don’t do They are made of well with it don’t stronger, lighter survive as proweight, less corfessional pilots.” rosive materiThe Islamals. And they’re ic State has equipped with claimed credit safety systems introduced in for a bomb suspected of blowrecent decades, and repeat- ing apart a MetroJet A320 over edly improved over time, that Egypt. Malaysia Airlines Flight have nearly eliminated mid- 17 was shot down by a Russian air collisions between airlin- Buk surface-to-air missile fired ers and what the industry calls from rebel-held territory in “controlled flight into terrain” Eastern Ukraine, according to — pilots who lose situational Dutch crash investigators. awareness and fly their planes Terrorists “have been probinto a mountainside or into the ing nonstop since 9-11 and evground. ery once in a while they find a The aircraft improvements way to get through,” Goglia said. are due primarily to lessons The new frontier in airline learned from crash investiga- safety is a managerial philosotions that are taken into ac- phy known as SMS, or safety count when new planes are management systems, he said. designed, said John Goglia, a Airlines are systematically gathformer National Transporta- ering data on safety trends, and tion Safety Board member. As encouraging pilots, dispatchers, older planes are replaced with mechanics and others to report newer planes, aviation becomes problems by promising there safer, he said. will be no retaliation for mis“We’re now up to about the takes. The information is then 7th generation of jet airplanes,” shared across the industry in an he said. “We know the first gen- effort to spot problems before eration — DC-8s, 707s — had they lead to an accident. ■ ❰❰ 22

Breaking out...

ITOODMUK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Hand Made Noodle for ramen that will be pulled and shaped and tossed as you watch. You can get the noodles with nearly anything; we went with lamb.

Just don’t eat too much. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Now head across the hall to Tao Rice Rolls, where you select your fillings, then watch as the chef masterfully encases them in a ball of lightly seasoned sticky rice. We chose mushrooms, sausage, nori seaweed and dried pork. The result — for a mere $3.50 — was crunchy, sweet, warm and meaty.

For a delicious visual overload, head upstairs to the JMart, a sprawling Asian supermarket that transports you to lands where duck feet and live turtles are common fare. There are tamer options too, but resist the urge to load up: You have multiple bites and subway stops to go as you eat your way back to Manhattan. (Note: A $31 MetroCard covers unlimited subway rides, good for seven days.)

Jump back on a Manhattanbound 7, and get off at 69th Street. At 71-28 Roosevelt Ave., in the working-class, multi-ethnic Jackson Heights neighbourhood, you’ll find one of the Michelin stars — Zabb Elee, which specializes in northern Thai cuisine and also has a Manhattan outpost. The decor is sim❰❰ 28

ple, the food is not. Get the beef larb, minced meat salad potent with scallions, chilies and lime.

This is what they are known for.

But you might also get som tum, a green papaya and crab salad that gets oomph from fermented fish sauce. Wash it down with a lychee martini.

It’s a few blocks to Papa’s Kitchen, 65-40 Woodside Ave., considered one of New York’s best Filipino restaurants. It’s small, intimate and you will be asked — repeatedly — to partake in karaoke. We passed. But we didn’t pass on the Shanghai dynamite (crisply fried spring rolls stuffed with pork and vegetables), nor the pork loin slowly simmered in coconut milk and serrano chilies.

Hop back on the 7 train at the Woodside-61st Street station.

Head to the Vernon BoulevardJackson Avenue stop for another star-worthy meal, this time at Casa Enrique, 5-48 49th Ave. Up to now, everything has been deliciously down market.

Casa Enrique, in the gentrifying Hunters Point-Long Island City area, scales up. Beautifully rustic, it has a relaxed but happening vibe. In good weather, sit on the back covered patio. It feels like another, better, world.

My friend got a mango caipirinha, I went with a chili-spiked margarita. Both were delicious and a great complement to our

ceviche and skirt steak tacos.

We wanted to order more, but we were stuffed. Stuffed, that is, until I foolishly Googled other eateries and noticed Burnside Biscuits, a new-ish place specializing in biscuits and fried chicken at 32-07 30th Ave. in Astoria. We couldn’t resist.

To get there, we could have taken the 7 from Vernon Boulevard to Queensboro Plaza, then changed for the N to Astoria-Ditmars. Forgive us for succumbing instead to a passing taxi. We were feeling a bit bloated.

Burnside Biscuits shone like a beacon from its spot on a bustling commercial strip. This is no hole in the wall. This is a place to linger with friends. The decor — gleaming open kitchen, deco tiles, brick oven — is classy and casual all at once. And the biscuits? Killer.

By now it was dark. Our stomachs ached. We’d sampled a world of food in six hours.

Total cost for two people (with several drinks along the way): $170.23.

Alas, the 7 train was not nearby, but the elevated N train platform was, so we took that into Manhattan (where you can switch from the N to the 7 at Times Square).

It was enough to make me think maybe there is a food world beyond Manhattan, and it really does deserve a visit. Or 10. ■

cated, liberal-leaning urbanites.

This is the “liberal cognoscenti,” said Tevi Troy, a historian and former George W. Bush administration official who has written on both presidents and pop culture and intellectuals at the White House.

“In that audience are the people who are going to be writing the books about him, the histories, the obituaries — the people who are going to help decide his legacy for him, cement his standing, and burnish his legacy for years to come.” ■

In conversations... ❰❰ 23

the opportunity, the boss’ known interests and the potential au-

dience.

For the most part, Obama has largely been talking to the circles that launched his career — upper- and middle-income, edu-

www.canadianinquirer.net

32

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Entertainment

MMDA head not afraid of House probe of MMFF controversy

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer “WE WILL answer it. We are not afraid of any investigation that may be conducted by anybody or any institution.”

This was the reaction of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chair Emerson Carlos on House Resolution No. 2581 filed by Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez asking Congress to investigate the disqualification of his film, “Honor Thy Father,” from competing in the best picture category of the ongoing 41st Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).

“Walang personalan. Walang pulitika. (Nothing personal. No politicking.) It was a painful decision for us, but we had to do it to send a message across. We’re just upholding the rule of law so that there will be fair treatment among all the entries,” the MMDA chief told reporters on Sunday shortly before the 2015 MMFF Gabi ng Parangal held at the Kia Theater in Cubao, Quezon City.

Carlos explained the MMFFexecutive committee (execom) had decided to disqualify the film from competing for failure to disclose some “material facts.”

He added that producer Ronald Stephen “Dondon” Monteverde and director Erik Matti informed the execom about their movie’s participation in the Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival “on Nov. 4 or 5, but the material fact that we considered was the time they were told to come in as an official festival entry—this was either on Oct. 22 or 23. They were asked to submit certifications, which included the one that stated that the movie has not and would not participate in any film festival other than the MMFF.” In his resolution, Fernandez said that “Honor Thy Father” was featured as the opening film of the Cinema One Origi-

nals Digital Film Festival on Nov. 8.

Fernandez is one of the actors in the film directed by Matti, who eventually won the best director award.

He added that Monteverde had earlier committed to Cinema One organizers prior to receiving and accepting the offer to participate in the MMFF. He pointed out that Monteverde had informed the execom about this, and even submitted a sworn statement from Cinema One festival director Ronald Arguelles stating that the screening did not generate revenues and was merely a “by invitation” event.

Carlos, however, rejected that argument. He said: “We understand that it was not an income-generating event, but the rules specifically stated: ‘... income generating, commercial or otherwise,’ so that argu- Meryll Soriano and John Lloyd Cruz in 'Honor Thy Father.' ment was already immaterial.

We had an emergency meeting Despite the controversy, tial producers.” on Christmas Day and deliber- Matti won the best director Matti said the issue was no ated on the particular issue on award. He did not attend the longer about his film, but “the Dec. 26.” ceremony, but instead asked whole film industry.”

The MMDA chief said he Shiel Calde, creative assistant Carlos said that during the was aware that the timing of of Reality Entertainment, to deliberations, three options the release of the decision to read his letter. “I’ve never made were considered: 1) For the disqualify the film was being films just to win an award. If film to be pulled out from the questioned. “Pangit nga be- I have complaints against the theaters; 2) For it to be shown cause it was the but disqualified day before the from competing awards night, in all the award but we all agreed categories; and that wehad to We didn’t impose the sanction on 3) To merely disdecide because if the talents, stars or director. They qualify it from we didn’t, then a were still eligible for the awards. We the selection of precedent might wanted to make the message clear, the best picture be created by aland this was directed to those who category. lowing this film committed the violation.

“We chose the to participate. third option, beWe have to abide cause we wanted by the rules. The fair treatment. It execom fears wasn’t the fault that it might come to a point MMFF, it’s not about the mov- of everyone who worked on the when our film festival becomes ie’s disqualification… My disap- movie, but only of a few,” Carlos a festival of reissues.” pointment with the MMFF is stressed.

Carlos added: “We didn’t im- far deeper than that—from the The audience was expecting pose the sanction on the talents, process of choosing the finalists Tirso Cruz III to address the isstars or director. They were still up, to how the execom seemed sue when he went up onstage to eligible for the awards. We want- to have tolerated the deplor- accept his best supporting actor ed to make the message clear, able treatment of some theater award for “Honor Thy Father,” and this was directed to those owners to other movie entries, but he did not. who committed the violation.” especially those of less influenIt was producer Josabeth www.canadianinquirer.net

SCREENSHOT FROM THE OFFICIAL MOVIE TRAILER

Alonso, who received the second best picture award for “Buy Now, Die Later,” who dared to comment on the issue.

“This is a joyous moment, but we’re not that happy,” Alonso said, adding that the people behind “Honor Thy Father” “have created an outstanding film. We congratulate them for not stopping to dream… Like them, we should all keep trying and hoping (for the best for the industry).” She also asked people to view all of the eight film entries.

Offstage, Dan Villegas, whose film “#WalangForever” won best picture,” said “Honor Thy Father” was “one of the best local films I’ve seen this year. It would really depend on the jury, but I think it would have been a strong contender for best picture if it wasn’t disqualified.”

When asked what he considered the secret of his success as a filmmaker, Villegas, who shared the best story award with girlfriend Antoinette Jadaone, said: “I just try to make a film as truthful as possible. I’m thankful that the audience like the flavor that I offer!” ■

Entertainment

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

Former UFC champion Ronda Rousey to host ‘Saturday Night Live’

Final season begins for ‘American Idol’ with new hopefuls and stars from earlier seasons

THE CANADIAN PRESS FORMER UFC champion (Rowdy) Ronda Rousey will host “Saturday Night Live” on Jan. 23.

The NBC show made the announcement via Twitter.

Rousey, who lost her bantamweight title to Holly Holm in November, is no stranger to the world of entertainment. The former judo Olympic bronze medallist has appeared in such films as “The Expendables 3,” Entourage” and “Furious 7.”

She is currently involved in a remake of “Road House.”

The musical guest on Jan. 23 will be Selena Gomez.

BY LYNN ELBER The Associated Press

Ronda Rousey.

SNL also announced that actor Adam Driver, who plays Kylo Ren in the new “Star

ZENNIE ABRAHAM / FLICKR

Wars” movie, will host the Jan. 16 show. The musical guest will be Chris Stapleton. ■

Xavier Dolan lashes out at Netflix over screening format of ‘Mommy’ THE CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO — Xavier Dolan is taking issue with Netflix for the way his acclaimed film “Mommy” has appeared on the streaming service in the United Kingdom.

The acclaimed Quebec director accused the company of tampering with his artistic vision in an open letter posted to Twitter.

Dolan says tweets alerted him to changes made to his art house hit, which employs an unusual 1:1 — or square — aspect ratio.

He says the format is supposed to open up temporarily for one key scene but it did not when viewed on Netflix in the U.K. Dolan says that “shut down the emotional capacity of that scene.”

A Twitter response from a Netflix account representing the U.K. and Ireland thanked Dolan for alerting them and said “we are looking into this.”

Dolan says only he has the

Xavier Dolan.

right to change visual elements of his film.

“Who has bestowed on you the right to revise my choices, and how competently have you pondered the impact of such decision both on my film and

33

GEORGES BIARD / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

the public?” Dolan says in a letter posted Monday to his account,@XDolan.

“You can crop and tweak your own shows if you want, but don’t touch my film. Take it as is, or remove it.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

LOS ANGELES — It started on June 11, 2002, with a couple of unfamiliar hosts posing in an empty theatre and making an overblown declaration to TV viewers.

“Live on this stage, an unknown talent will be launched into superstardom,” said Brian Dunkleman.

“You at home decide who will become the next American idol,” intoned Ryan Seacrest.

The reasonable reaction: uhhuh, sure. But it turned out the two were underselling Fox’s “American Idol.”

The singing contest, which begins its 15th and final season Wednesday, was a blockbuster that invigorated its network. It made stars of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson and others, and resurrected the TV talent show as a boom industry that includes NBC’s “The Voice” and ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

“It not only was a huge success for Fox but impacted everyone else,” said Bill Carroll, media analyst with Katz Television Group. “It once again underscored the fact that broadcast television is communal and an event.”

“American Idol,” from megaproducer Simon Fuller and based on his British hit “Pop Idol,” did even more. It breathed life into the music industry as it and network TV both grappled with technologydriven changes in consumer habits.

The show’s end is the result of dwindling ratings, the inevitable fate of even durable performers. “Idol,” which averaged more than 30 million weekly viewers at its 2006 peak and ranked No. 1 for nine consecutive years, averaged about 11 million last season (still enough by today’s standards to land it

in the top 20, but with fewer advertiser-favoured younger viewers).

Whatever its change in fortunes, the series will get a sendoff worthy of a television landmark, said executive producer Trish Kinane.

As she sees it, that means paying tribute to its past while focusing on the battle among this year’s contestants to become the last “Idol” winner.

“It’s that tricky thing of, ‘Hey, it’s the 15th season, let’s do nostalgia, let’s look back at the show’s really rich history,”’ Kinane said. “But on the other hand, you’ve got to find an amazing American Idol. So we’re trying to combine both of those things.”

To accomplish that “organically,” she said, past winners and familiar runners-up will be sprinkled throughout the season, starting with the open auditions in which Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken, Taylor Hicks and others were on hand to share tips with the hopefuls.

Plans also call for duets pairing contestants with their nowfamous predecessors, who “all want to be involved, somehow,” Kinane said.

A famous non-Idol, Kanye West, made a surprise appearance at the judges’ auditions in San Francisco in September, with wife Kim Kardashian West along as his cheerleader. His “tryout” is included in Wednesday’s episode.

The season debut is a fourhour, two-night affair, airing from 8-10 p.m. EST Wednesday and Thursday and opening on a retrospective note with the Seacrest-Dunkleman ‘02 clip.

One contestant featured in the premiere demonstrates the show’s impressive hold on its fans.

Michelle Marie Lecza of Daytona Beach, Florida, recalls watching it as a 4-year-old and can recite all of the winners, in order. ❱❱ PAGE 39 Final season

34

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Lifestyle

Good gardens start from the ground up

BY LEE REICH The Associated Press

If you don’t have a budget, make writing one a resolution for the new year

BY CRAIG WONG The Canadian Press OTTAWA — If you don’t have a budget, then financial planners want you to add another thing to your list of new year’s resolutions.

Credit counsellor Pamela George says budgeting is important no matter what your income.

“I think it is even more important for a bigger salary to have a budget because you need to account for it and you need to understand that $200,000 can finish as fast as $12,000,” said George, who works for the Credit Counselling Society in Ottawa.

Start with your paycheque.

You need to know how much you are bringing in each month.

Then list your mandatory expenses that you can’t really change, such as rent or mortgage payments, utilities, car payments, insurance and debts.

George also includes savings and putting money aside for an emergency fund if you don’t already have one in the manda-

tory category.

“I take savings and put it under mandatory because it is mandatory that you save,” she said.

Then comes your discretionary spending for whatever you might have left over. Things that you have some flexibility with when it comes to your plan. Entertainment, dining out, a gym membership.

“These are all things you have a little more control over,” George said. “You can choose not to buy clothes one month.

You can choose not to go to the movies.”

Jane Rooney, financial literacy leader at the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, says tracking spending for a couple of weeks to find out how you’re actually spending money is important when building a budget.

“The more formal strategy allows people to see clearly where the income is coming in and where the expenses are going,” she said.

“Often people underplay where they’re spending the money.”

The FCAC offers several tools online to help plan a budget, including a comprehensive calculator, and helps detail how you spend your money.

Household debt has flirted with record levels in relation to income, fuelled by low interest rates and a boom in the housing market.

The importance of having a budget is especially important for those who have debt, especially bad debt like credit cards.

“Knowing to pay as much as you can on a credit card bill as often as you can if you cannot pay the balance in full is a really important tip,” Rooney said.

Having a budget doesn’t mean never buying a latte and a pastry on your way to work or always brown bagging your lunch.

But it does mean understanding what those things cost and whether or not you can afford them.

“There is a sense of freedom and a peace that I have because I work with a budget,” George said.

“The consequences of not having a budget is debt.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

GOOD GARDENS start from the ground up, but to be a good soil steward you have to understand some basic terminology.

A few important terms associated with soil: Soil texture describes nothing more than the size ranges of the mineral particles that make up a particular soil. Those size ranges are defined in three broad classes: clay (smaller than 0.002 mm), silt (0.002 mm to 0.05 mm) and sand (greater than 0.05 mm). Rare is the garden soil that is pure sand, silt or clay, so textures usually have such names as “sandy clay” or “silty clay” to indicate the mix.

Texture is important because particle sizes reflect the sizes of the pores between them, and that influences how much air and water the soil can hold. The smallest pores actually draw water in by capillary action, then hold onto it tightly. So clay soils can stay moist through long periods without rain.

Sandy soils have large pores, too large for capillary action, so gravity easily pulls excess water down beyond the root zone. Sandy soils tend to dry out quickly. On the other hand, they are well aerated because air fills those empty pores.

The ideal soil has a little of everything — sand, silt and clay — for both good aeration and good water retention. Such a soil, with roughly equal functional contributions from clay, silt and sand is, texturally, a loam.

You get what you’re dealt in soil texture, but fortunately texture isn’t the end-all when it comes to water and aeration.

A soil’s mineral particles can clump together — or “aggregate” — into crystal-like, larger units, which give a soil structure.

A poorly aggregated clay soil, its small pores filled with capillary water, leaves roots gasping for air. However, when a clay soil has good structure, the small particles aggregate together to

make large particles with large pores between them. At the same time, water can be held in the small pores between particles within the aggregates. A well-aggregated clay soils offers roots the best of both worlds.

While it’s usually impractical to change your soil’s texture, there are ways to manage soil so that it has good structure.

Friability and tilth, while not meaning exactly the same thing, are closely related from a plant’s point of view. A friable soil crumbles when you squeeze it gently. Tilth is the physical condition of the soil as far as plants are concerned. A soil that is friable is in good tilth. Good structure puts a soil in good tilth.

A soil that is well-drained allows water to readily percolate through it. Drainage, as you now know, is related to both texture and structure: Sandy soils generally have little structure but, with large pores, are well-drained.

Clay soils, at the other extreme, are well-drained only if they have good structure, in which case they are also in good tilth. Texture, structure and tilth aside, ground where there is a high water table cannot be well-drained; there’s nowhere for water to go.

Organic matter is the living and once-living component of the soil. The low percentage of organic matter in soils — usually only a few per cent — belies its importance. Besides its positive influence on plant nutrition and health, organic matter also provides the glues that lead to aggregation, good structure and, hence, friability, good drainage and good tilth.

Cultivation, in gardening, has more than one meaning.

One sense is to stir the soil, as with a hoe or rototiller. Such cultivation kills weed seedlings and loosens the soil surface so that water more readily percolates in. Cultivation also refers to plant care generally, in the same way you cultivate a friendship.

Caring for the soil — keeping it in good tilth — is one component of plant cultivation. ■

Lifestyle

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

35

PANGARAP : SO, OUR JOURNEY BEGINS

So, can you be a mentor?

BY BOLET AREVALO

ANYBODY CAN BECOME A MENTEE, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE A MENTOR IS BORN AND THEN CHOSEN. I know I always had it in my heart and soul to be a teacher.

Each encounter I have with another person is not complete if I am not able to share my knowledge, my thoughts, and my dreams. But in the reality of things here, there is a sequence of events that need to happen before you can become a volunteer-mentor. Even if you want to volunteer, a mentor waits to be asked to volunteer his services for free.

First and foremost, you must have at least one or two years of work experience in your field of specialization. The unwritten code is, of course, you must be considered to have succeeded in reintegrating yourself in that area. And I would think it is best that success is a factor because it feels better to become a mentor when you are proud of and happy about your achievements. After all, the mentee must believe the mentor because the mentor is his own success story.

The success factor is the inspiring factor. Remember that your mentee is somebody who comes to you with a whole set of skills and academic preparation. He comes with a solid experience of international background. Most likely, he is able to speak the universal English language both conversationally and technically.

As a mentor, the key is to help

the mentee put all the skills he much because he is too busy has in the right perspective at staring at a person he believes the right time and right place. wants to snatch his job away He needs to be guided as to from him. He does not want to how to get off to a good start. say much because he does not He needs to know how his set of trust this mentee, as if anyskills can fit into the local busi- thing he says might backfire on ness environment. He needs him or this mentee might learn to know how much he needs to so much that tomorrow he is adjust his work habits and work ready to take my job. Huh?! values to make himself acceptA good mentor must at least able and blend peacefully in the have his own wide network of local workplace setting. contacts in his own. The best Newcomers, myself includ- mentoring match is like a suced, will never understand why cessful marriage. Such a marthere is such a thing as local riage involves the mentor being experience requirement when able to find the right match for obviously immigrants who his mentee in the workplace, have just landed do not have it. where the mentee can start Only when they start being able using his own set of skills and to find themselves in real work newfound knowledge of the settings or volunteer jobs will work cultures and business enthey begin to understand. Aside vironment the two have talked from encountering peoples about. This is ideal, but not a re- Only the good mentor can inspire his mentee to trust that he too can gather his of varied cultures and ethics, quirement. own victories in a seemingly restrictive work environment. there are new things, new conThe newcomer needs a foot SHUTTERSTOCK.COM tacts and new ways to be famil- in the door. He needs to believe iar with. that a door can open for him. take delight in the triumph of work environment. A good menWhen you are, for example, The mentor is the inspiring fac- other people and be proud of tor must be a secure person, and an experienced events orga- tor. He has already made it. He the achievements of his men- proud of and not threatened by nizer in your home country, got his foot in the door. He was tees. This is probably the reason the strengths and potentials certainly you have the right soft able to successfully squeeze why mentors are volunteers. of his mentee. A good mentor and hard skills to do the job. himself into the prohibitive They are not paid for their time thinks of this effort as paying But how can you do your events entrance gate. The mentor has and effort. They selflessly give back to the community that has management job well if you do a story to tell, his own story or them away for this cause. welcomed him and raised him to not know who There is a rea- his position. ■ to contact for son to pay foryour logistical ward, and there Bolet is a marketing communineeds— venues, is time you need cations practitioner and dabbles suppliers, events A mentor must have a happy, giving to pay back. If in writing as a personal passion. hosts, sponsors, heart. He must take delight in the you believe this, She is author-publisher of the transportation, triumph of other people and be then you can be a book: The Most Practical Imsupport crew? proud of the achievements of his good mentor. migrating and Job Hunting SurLocal experience mentees.

Many success- vival Guide, proven simple steps will equip you ful persons have to success without the fears and with that knowlthe ability to tell the doubts. The book is availedge. the stories of able in Amazon.com, Barnes I also believe a good mentor stories of people he has worked their triumphs and struggles, & Noble, Chapters/Indigo, the is a totally secure person. How with. Mentoring consists of but only the good mentor can Reading Room and other online would you deal with a men- sharing those stories. inspire his mentee to trust that bookshops worldwide, and in tor who feels threatened by his Lastly, a mentor must have he too can gather his own vic- National Book Store and Power own mentee? He does not teach a happy, giving heart. He must tories in a seemingly restrictive Books in the Philippines.

New Year’s... holding two inconsistent thoughts — the idea that you haven’t recycled in the past, and the idea that you should be recycling, because that’s what society expects of you,” said Kareklas.

“This literature would suggest the only way to alleviate that tension that’s created by cognitive dissonance is to en❰❰ 25

gage in the behaviour in the future.”

Kareklas noted it helps to ask a “yes” or “no” question. Studies have shown a stronger effect from a question like “Will you vote in the next election?” as opposed to “What is the likelihood you will vote in the next election?”

The technique has been shown to influence a wide range

of behaviours, including cheating less in college and reducing gender stereotypes.

And it doesn’t just affect you the next time you’re faced with choosing whether to throw out a pop can or lace up your running shoes. The effect has been shown to last more than six months after questioning.

“There are a couple of studies www.canadianinquirer.net

reporting effects up to a year,” said Kareklas. “It’s a really longlasting effect with lots of prosocial implications.”

He said researchers don’t yet know exactly why it’s so longlasting, and that could be one area for future studies to explore.

Kareklas added that the research has wider implications beyond keeping New Year’s

resolutions. Asking parents “Will you vaccinate your children?” could have positive impacts on public health, even if only a small percentage were swayed.

“If you get an additional 10 per cent of people to be vaccinated, through such a simple effect ... that could be a really a game-changing technique in the long-term for society.” ■

36

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Business

PH urged to get into bigger economic pacts

BY AMY R. REMO Philippine Daily Inquirer

free trade agreement, and prepare to join the TPP, which is likely to go into effect in 2017,” John D. Forbes, senior adviser at the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham), said in an e-mail to the INQUIRER. “Existing and new agreements provide huge opportunities for Philippine exports. The government can support domestic companies and attract more foreign investors to participate in global supply chains by improving competitiveness with improved infrastructure,

port higher economic growth,” Forbes said.

Separately, Bodo Goerlich, president of the German-PhilTHE PHILIPPINES is urged ippine Chamber of Commerce to move forward with existand Industry Inc. (GPCCI), ing negotiations for free trade noted that FTAs had always deals and prepare to join more served as “instruments to help ambitious agreements, such the national economy to grow.” as the TransPacific Partner“The young, growing and ship (TPP), that would proEnglish-speaking workforce of vide “huge opportunities” for the Philippines is a particular growth for Philippine exports advantage with regards to ecoand local industries. nomic integration. However, According to foreign busieconomic integration demands ness groups, being part of bigcompetitiveness of products in ger trade deals will also help price and quality. To this end, significantly imthe Philippines prove the overhas to open its all investment markets, allow climate in the more competicountry, open up To this end, the Philippines tion domesticalfurther the econhas to open its markets, allow ly, and support omy and boost more competition domestically, small and meits competitiveand support small and medium dium enterprises ness. enterprises to grow and expand to grow and ex“The Philipnationally and internationally. pand nationally pines should and internationmove ahead in ally,” Goerlich ongoing negostressed. tiations for the For Henry J. Regional Comprehensive Eco- reduced red tape, workforce Schumacher, vice president nomic Partnership and the Eu- skill enhancement and sound for external affairs at the European Free Trade Association labor practices. The EU FTA ropean Chamber of Commerce (Efta), negotiate and conclude and TPP will encourage domes- of the Philippines Inc. (ECCP), a European Union-Philippine tic economic reforms and sup- the Philippines has no choice

The Asean Economic Community offered opportunities that had to be taken seriously amid challenges that might be faced by some of the country’s key industries.

but to enter into these agreements because otherwise, “access to new markets will become more complicated, making the Philippines less competitive.”

The Asean Economic Community, he added, offered opportunities that had to be taken seriously amid challenges that might be faced by some of the country’s key industries, such as agriculture.

The Philippines is currently negotiating for an FTA with Efta member states, and is poised to start the same discussions with the EU this year.

Through the Asean, the Philippines is also part of the negotiations for RCEP, which is expected to be completed in 2016.

The Philippines has so far signed seven free trade agreements, only one of which was a bilateral, while the remaining six are through the Asean.

These are the Asean FTA; Asean-China FTA; Asean-Korea FTA; Asean-Australia-New Zealand FTA; Asean-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement; Philippines-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (PJEPA) and the Asean-India FTA. ■

Slumping loonie could add $3.5B to cost of Windsor-Detroit bridge, Trudeau told

BY JORDAN PRESS The Canadian Press OTTAWA — The federal Liberal government will need to find $3.5 billion more to pay for a new bridge at the bustling border crossing between Canada and the United States.

Documents show Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been warned that the cost of building the new Windsor-Detroit bridge has likely gone up by at least $2 billion, thanks to the declining value of the Canadian dollar.

Government officials told Trudeau the project would

also need an extra $1.5 billion in a contingency fund to bear the shock of any interest rate increases should the loonie decline further against its American counterpart.

The government’s long-term fiscal framework has the price of the bridge, to be named after hockey legend Gordie Howe, pegged at $4.8 billion.

The details are laid out in a secret briefing note to Trudeau obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. The Windsor-Detroit crossing is the busiest commercial trade crossing between the U.S. and

Canada. Almost one quarter of all goods moving between the two countries pass over the existing bridge and through the tunnel connecting Detroit and Windsor.

The long-sought new bridge built over the Detroit River spawned a hard-fought political battle among national, state, provincial and local politicians and the private owner of the existing Ambassador Bridge.

To make the project a reality, the Canadian government agreed last year to pay for all construction costs, including $250 million for the inspection plaza on the American side of the river, with a plan to recoup www.canadianinquirer.net

the costs through tolls.

The government expects to collect about $4 billion in tolls over 30 years — more than enough, Trudeau was told, to cover the $2-billion cost increase that consultants from Deloitte calculated in October.

Otherwise, the documents said, the costs could only be recovered “before the end of the useful life of the bridge,” adding in brackets, “100 years.”

Three select companies will be given the opportunity in “early 2016” to bid on the construction work, said Mark Butler, a spokesman for the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority,

the Crown corporation that is overseeing the project.

Butler didn’t define “early 2016” and had yet to respond to followup questions after emailing a short statement to The Canadian Press.

The briefing note to Trudeau said the request for proposals needed to be out “at the latest” by the middle of last month in order for the bridge to open by December 2020.

The bridge authority needed to “demonstrate it had sufficient funds to support the project” before it could launch the RFP process, the document said. ■

Business

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

37

Top CEOs earned an average of $8.96 million in 2014, new study shows

BY ALEXANDRA POSADZKI The Canadian Press

Several luxury brands have opened shops in the Makati Central Business District (pictured).

SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

2015 showed strength of Filipino consumer spending More and more luxury brands opened stores

BY CHECHE V. MORAL Philippine Daily Inquirer A TESTAMENT to the spending might of the Filipino consumer today, global brands entered the local retail scene one after the other in 2015.

French luxury labels Lanvin and Balenciaga opened their first (for Lanvin) and flagship stores in Makati, carrying the complete merchandise lineup for both brands, including apparel.

Louis Vuitton also tested the waters in December and brought in for the first time its women’s apparel collection, a preview of what’s to come from the brand, as it’s slated to bring in the entire men’s collection (including apparel) when it opens its second store in Manila in 2016.

Jo Malone, the famed London perfumer, opened its first boutique in October. It was also the first retail partnership of Estée Lauder (which owns the brand) with Suyen Corp.

(Bench Group), a break from the French company’s longtime affiliation with Rustan’s.

Though strictly not retail, Hermès Maison, the home division of the French luxury house, unveiled its showroom just above the Hermès boutique in December. Other Hermès subsidiaries Puiforcat (silverware) and Crystals Saint-Louis also opened their respective showrooms.

In 2016, Hermès will also bring in a limited selection of its women RTW designed by its new French artistic director Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski.

Burgeoning dining scene

Ladurée, of the French macaron fame, and New York deli Dean & DeLuca opened in the country in 2015, making for exciting additions to the burgeoning dining scene.

American brand Coach returned to the country in 2015 after over a decade of absence, as part of the quickly growing brand portfolio of the now-public SSI Group (Stores Specialists Inc.).

What to watch out for: If rumors are true, a famous American bridal designer brand will open in 2016, next to Balenciaga at 8 Rockwell.

In 2015, there was major upheaval in the French fashion houses.

Raf Simons abruptly ended his 3½-year tenure at Dior. Alexander Wang, who was named creative director of Balenciaga only three years ago, announced his departure, to concentrate on his eponymous label.

Lanvin’s longtime artistic director, Alber Elbaz, stepped down, amid talks of disagreements with the brand’s Chinese owner.

Industry watchers pointed to the excessive demands of commerce—six collections a year!— that have been causing designer

burnout.

It was almost hush-hush when Rustan’s acquired Adora in the summer, ending Adora founder Eman Pineda’s sevenyear autonomy from the retail company started by his maternal grandparents.

The acquisition was at the behest of the Rustan’s patriarch, according to Rustan Commercial Corp. president Donnie Tantoco.

Tantoco said Adora would remain distinct from Rustan’s and continue to stand for “classic sophistication and youthful modernity,” and Pineda would continue to head merchandising and overall operations. By December, Adora was already carrying some luxury brands from the SSI Group, a Rustan’s subsidiary.

Last Valentine’s, retail chain Bench figured in a controversy regarding its billboard on Edsa, featuring a hand-holding samesex couple.

The couple’s hands in the image were painted black, insinuating vandalism.

There was outcry on social media, at first blaming the Ad Standards Council for the seeming censorship and homophobia. Netizens expressed support for the LGBT agenda and applauded Bench for its campaign.

The applause would turn to outrage when Bench released a statement saying it selfcensored its own billboard. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

TORONTO — Canada’s highestpaid CEOs saw their compensation dip two per cent from 2013 to 2014, but they still raked in an average of $8.96 million each, according to a new study.

The think-tank that conducted the research, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says that’s 184 times more than the average wage in Canada.

In 2014, the average wage for a full-time worker was $48,636, according to the think-tank.

Between 2008 and 2013, the country’s 100 top-paid CEOs saw their compensation climb about 25 per cent to $9.2 million — roughly twice as fast as the average wage for Canadians.

In order to calculate total compensation, the think-tank includes salaries, bonuses, share grants and stock options.

Hugh Mackenzie, a research associate at the think-tank, says it’s not known whether the slight dip in 2014 is a sign of any sort of lasting change.

“It’s not clear from the data at this point, because we’ve only

Blackberry CEO John Chen.

seen one year, whether this is indicative of a slight downward trend or whether this is just a blip,” said Mackenzie.

“My gut instinct tells me that it’s a blip,” he says, adding that a change in how stock options are being valued, given the slide in commodity prices that began in 2014, may be responsible for the slight decline.

The highest paid CEO, according to the study, was Blackberry’s John Chen, who took home $89.7 million in total compensation.

Donald Walker of Magna International Inc. was the next highest paid, pocketing $23.4 million. Gerald Schwartz of the private equity company Onex Corp., who was the top paid CEO the previous year, earned total compensation of $21.1 million.

Peter Blake, the former CEO of Ritchie Bros Auctioneers, was the lowest paid CEO on the list, earning $4.3 million in total compensation.

Only two women made the list — Linda Hasenfratz of Linamar Corp., who was compensated a total of $10.1 million, and Dawn Farrell of TransAlta Corp., who earned $4.5 million. ■

PROSAM CHURCHILL / FLICKR

38

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Sports

Former West Indies captain Chris Gayle was fined but avoided suspension for making inappropriate comments to a female reporter

Nonito Donaire.

BY KEIRAN SMITH The Associated Press

LARRY BURTO / PICASSA / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Nonito’s April defense slated at Big Dome

BY MARC ANTHONY REYES Philippine Daily Inquirer NONITO DONAIRE Jr.’s roller-coaster career is making another stop at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

This was confirmed by Top Rank’s Bob Arum, promoter of the 33-year-old Filipino fighter who staged another successful comeback after winning the WBO world super bantamweight title last December against Cesar Juarez in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Donaire has won spectacular bouts at the Big Dome, including a second-round knockout of William Prado of Brazil last year that helped him get closer to the eventual world title fight against Juarez.

In 2009, Araneta Coliseum also served as his launch pad to stardom when Donaire stopped Raul Martinez in the fourth round for the IBO and IBF flyweight crowns.

Arum said his prized ward

will stake his crown against Mexican-Russian Evgeny Gradovich on April 23 at Araneta Coliseum.

“Our plans for him are to have him next fight at the world-famous Araneta Coliseum in the Philippines,” Arum was quoted as telling BoxingScene.com.

Donaire won his last three fights and is on the upswing after a brutal knockout loss to Nicholas Walters in 2014 at StubHub Center in Carson, California.

But Donaire is expected to face a tough battle against former stablemate Gradovich (201-1with 9 KOs), who trains under former Donaire trainer Robert Garcia.

Incidentally, the website cited Donaire’s thrilling unanimous decision triumph over Juarez as one of the finest of the year.

Donaire (36-3-0 with 23 knockouts) flashed his vintage form against Juarez, whom he decked twice in the fourth round. ■

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Chris Gayle was fined but avoided suspension for making inappropriate comments to a female reporter in a live TV interview during a Big Bash League Twenty20 match in Australia.

After scoring 41 from 15 deliveries for the Melbourne Renegades in a win over the Hobart Hurricanes on Monday night, the former West Indies captain suggested to television reporter Mel McLaughlin that the pair go out for a drink and made remarks about her appearance.

He added, “Don’t blush, baby” during an awkward pause in the interview.

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland on Tuesday joined the criticism of Gayle’s suggestive comments, saying it bordered on harassment and was inappropriate in the workplace.

Renegades chief executive Stuart Coventry reacted by fining Gayle $10,000 Australian dollars ($7,300).

“It was done in jest but it’s inappropriate,” Coventry said.

“We had a look at some history and ... we think that this is a one-off scenario.”

Coventry said Gayle was “quite surprised” when informed of the fine, which will

www.canadianinquirer.net

be donated to charity.

Sutherland said Gayle “got it badly wrong last night.”

“It’s not a nightclub — it’s actually a workplace, it’s Chris Gayle’s workplace and it’s Mel McLaughlin’s workplace and those comments border on harassment and are inappropriate for cricket and inappropriate for the workplace,” he said.

“We are working incredibly hard to ensure cricket is a sport for all Australians — men and women, boys and girls — and we just won’t tolerate behaviour that undermines that.”

Sutherland said that because the Renegades had sanctioned Gayle, the veteran batsman would not face further action from Cricket Australia for this incident.

Coventry and Gayle both apologized to McLaughlin, with the player defending his comments as a “simple joke.”

“There wasn’t anything

meant to be disrespectful or offensive to Mel. If she felt that way, I’m really sorry for that,” Gayle was quoted as saying by Australian Associated Press.

“There wasn’t any harm meant in that particular way.

“It was a simple joke — the game was going on. Things get out of proportion but these things happen.”

McLaughlin said in a television interview Tuesday she accepted the apology and wanted to put the episode behind her, adding that she’d prefer to be talking about cricket than being at the centre of a controversy.

“I’ve not spoken to (Gayle) personally,” she said. “I know he issued an apology. I accept that and I just want to move on.”

The BBL, one of a growing number of domestic Twenty20 tournaments helping revolutionize cricket, is a TV ratings winner in Australia and drew a crowd of 80,000 for a game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground over the weekend.

As part of the broadcasts, some players wear cameras on their caps or batting helmets and are involved in live interviews during the action.

Channel 10 head of sport David Barham was quoted by the Herald Sun newspaper as saying Gayle would no longer be fitted with a microphone for on-field comments. ■

Sports

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

Flames forward Gaudreau named top star of December after posting 12 goal month THE CANADIAN PRESS NEW YORK — Calgary Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau is the NHL’s first star of December after leading the league with 12 goals in 13 games over the month.

Gaudreau also had six assists as the Flames went 9-4-0 in December and completed a franchise-record run of 11 straight home victories.

He registered at least one point in nine of his 13 appearances, highlighted by three game-winning goals, four

multi-goal performances and a pair of hat tricks.

Washington goaltender Braden Holtby is the second star with a 9-0-1 record, 1.69 goals-against average, .947 save percentage and one shutout in 11 appearances Chicago winger Patrick Kane is the third star as the month’s leading scorer with 19 points (nine goals, 10 assists).

Anaheim goaltender John Gibson is the league’s top rookie of December with a 5-3-1 record, 1.62 goals-against average, .929 save percentage and

three shutouts in 10 appearances.

Earlier, the NHL named Los Angeles goaltender Jonathan Quick, Arizona forward Shane Doan and Pittsburgh defenceman Kris Letang as the three stars of the week.

Quick went 4-0-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average, .968 save percentage and one shutout for the Pacific Division-leading Kings.

Doan led the NHL with five goals in three games, while Letang led all defencemen with six points. ■

Marlon Antonio...

“My wife and I dreamt of helping out the Filipino youth. We give back by showing support to the Filipino community in Canada. The Filipino community is the number one supporter of Greatway to become what we are and where we are now.

We have over 120 college scholars in the Philippines.

You’ll see the cycle of poverty in a Filipino family through their livelihood and lifestyle, and because they were not able to meet their educational needs.

Others finished high school and still want to earn a college degree but they can’t afford to study in a university or college.

They need to end their cycle of poverty by giving the youth a chance to study and help them achieve their dreams, and alleviate poverty in this way,” Anto❰❰ 26

nio said.

His message to Filipinos in Canada?

“Through my experience, it showed that Canada is a beautiful and rich country, the fact that you are now here in Canada, you are already blessed – blessed with opportunities.

Canada is a land of opportunity and it is up to you to look for that opportunity, it is a place where your dreams could be fulfilled and turn them to reality. We, Filipinos, should help each other to become successful. Dream big. And when the time will come that you became successful, share your blessing with others. . Let’s take out the crab mentality in us. Don’t be selfish, and always put God in every thing that we do,” “Magtulungan tayo” Antonio said. ■

2016 Superliga calendar favors collegiate stars

Final season... “‘American Idol’ is what I based my life off of. I am going to walk into the audition room and go get my dream,” the braces-wearing 15-year-old says.

Such fervour made “American Idol” a well-timed hit. With social media gaining steam, viewers wanted to get in on the real-time conversation about “Idol” — good news for networks selling commercial airtime and the sponsors who wanted their ads to be seen, not skipped as the show was replayed on a DVR. The live “Idol” episodes increased that appetite and launched the networks’ embrace of a variety of other live broadcasts that included NBC’s musicals “The Sound of Music” and “The Wiz.” It was a salve as well for the music business: In 2009, Steve Knopper, author of “Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age,” called “American Idol” and its robust digital sales one of the few bright spots for the industry as consumers grew increasingly resistant to shelling out for albums.

The series became such an impressive promotional platform that established artists including Steven Tyler, Mariah Carey and Prince dropped in as panelists, mentors and per-

39

❰❰ 33

BY MARC ANTHONY REYES Philippine Daily Inquirer The series became such an impressive promotional platform that established artists including Steven Tyler, Mariah Carey and Prince dropped in as panelists, mentors and performers.

JOSH HALLETT / FLICKR

formers.

So did Harry Connick Jr., Jennifer Lopez and Keith Urban, returning for their third year together as judges to usher “Idol” to its conclusion. They’re joined by the savvy, unflappable Seacrest, the show’s on-camera linchpin who outlasted fellow original cast members Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson (and Dunkleman, who was one-and-done).

Urban said he’s focused less on the show’s farewell than what he calls the “job at hand.”

“I more often forget it’s the last season until somebody mentions it,” the country music star said during a production break at the Dolby Theatre. “It’s just finding the right person and making sure we don’t miss somebody.”

He said the show retains its power to jump-start a begin-

ning career. For the farewell season, some 75,000 people swarmed to auditions in Atlanta; Denver; Philadelphia and Little Rock, Arkansas, in addition to San Francisco.

“I love the fact that these guys and girls still see the potency and potential of something like ‘Idol’ to take them to places really, really quickly,” Urban said.

It would be ideal if the final season produces another “American Idol” pop superstar, Connick said.

The show “has had a lot of hits, had a lot of misses. I would love to see somebody come out and put a bookend on what Kelly Clarkson did the first year, which is to sell a ton of records, sell a lot of concert tickets and became a household name,” the jazz musician said.

“That would be a great way to end it,” he said. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

THE PHILIPPINE Superliga has opened its doors to collegiate players wide enough for the likes of Ateneo star Alyssa Valdez to join, and long enough for them to make a career decision.

Releasing its 2016 calendar, the country’s top club league marked off February to May for the annual players draft pool application and profiling.

Most collegiate leagues like the UAAP and the NCAA have already finished its season by May. The move will allow players like Valdez, Ara Galang, Cyd Demecillo and Mika Reyes to move up the club league whose teams will offer one-year exclusive contracts to players starting the coming year.

The draft application and profiling kicked off the hectic PSL calendar which includes eight tournaments here and abroad.

From Feb. 12 to March 13, the PSL will stage the PSL Invitationals that will feature a

crack Japan squad battling local squads.

The league will then form an allstar team to campaign in the Thailand Super League slated March 23 to 29, going up against club teams from Vietnam and Thailand.

The beach volleyball season will also fire off May 7 with the Beach Volley Challenge Series that will run for four weekends.

On May 20, the league will present the drafted players to the media with their respective teams.

The All-Filipino Conference commences June 11 to July 30, followed by the Champions’ League on Aug. 19 to 21 which aims to pit all league champions for the year.

The country will then host the prestigious Asian Women’s Club Championships Sept. 3 to 11 with 2015 GP champ Foton comprising the core of the national team.

And for the first time in the fouryear league, PSL will take its act to the United States with the PSL West Coast Road Tour.

The season will be capped with the import-flavored Grand Prix slated Oct. 8 to Dec. 4. ■

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JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Technology

Smarter devices offer lots of benefits but they’ll also challenge our notions of privacy

BY ANICK JESDANUN AND DAVID HAMILTON The Associated Press OUR CARS, our homes, our appliances and even our toys: Things around us are going to keep getting smarter. In 2016, we’ll entrust even more of our lives and their intimate details to machines — not to mention the companies that run them.

Are we ready for that?

You might, for instance, like the idea of turning on your TV with a spoken command — no more fumbling for the remote! But for that to work, the TV needs to be listening all the time, even when you’re not watching. And even when you’re discussing something extremely personal, or engaged in some other activity to which you’d rather not invite eavesdroppers.

How much should you worry?

Maybe your TV never records any of your casual conversations. Or maybe its manufacturer is recording all that, but just to find ways to make the TV better at understanding what you want it to do. Or maybe it retains everything it hears for some other hidden purpose.

You may never know for sure. At best, you can hope the company keeps its promises on privacy. More important, you have to trust that its computer systems are really secure, or those promises are suddenly worthless. That part is increasingly difficult to guarantee — or believe — as hacking becomes routine.

And here’s the chief quandary: Every technological benefit comes with a cost in the form of a threat to privacy. Yet not paying that price has its own cost: an inability to participate in some of technology’s greater achievements.

Because smart gadgets thrive on data — data about you and your habits, data about what large numbers of people do or say or appear to want in par-

ticular situations — it’s difficult not to share pretty much everything with them. Doing otherwise would be like turning off your phone’s location services, which disables many of its most useful features.

The consequences aren’t restricted to phones and TVs: • Kids will be able to talk to more toys and get personalized, computer-generated responses. Does the “don’t talk to strangers” rule apply if the stranger is the Hello Barbie talking doll or Dino, the dinosaur powered by IBM’s Watson artificial-intelligence system?

• Cars will work with GPS technology and sensors in parking meters, roads and home appliances to help route you around traffic and turn on your living-room lights as you approach the driveway.

But that can also generate a detailed record of your whereabouts.

• Thermostats from Nest and others will get smarter at conserving energy when you’re away. Potential burglars might find that information handy.

• Home security cameras are getting cheaper and more plentiful, but they’re sometimes insecure themselves, especially if you set them up clumsily. There’s already a website devoted to showing video from cameras with no passwords. Though they are mostly outdoor or business cameras, one was trained on a baby’s crib, and another in a living room.

• Wearable health devices will track your heart rate, fitness levels and more — and share achievements with friends and family. But slacking off may carry a heavier cost than those extra holiday pounds, particularly if your insurance company yanks discounts for meeting fitness goals.

• Software from Google and Facebook will get even more refined to help you cut

Shiny new things are inherently attractive, and it takes a while for some of us to get uneasy about the extent to which we may be enabling our own surveillance.

through the noise. That’s great if Facebook is showing you posts from friends you already interact the most with, but will a long-lost friend’s plea for help go unanswered because you don’t see it?

The pending onslaught of privacy trade-offs might seem trivial when it comes to a talking — and listening — Barbie.

But maybe it’s less so when your phone knows enough about you to remind you it’s time to leave for an important interview (if the alternative would be losing a shot at that job) or your smart home can really tell you if you turned off the oven before leaving for an international trip.

“The encroachments on our privacy are often self-inflicted in the sense that we will accept the trade-off one bit at a time,” says John Palfrey, co-author of “Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems.

And these trade-offs can be quite subtle. Technological advances typically offer immediate, tangible benefits that, once you’ve put enough of them together, can indeed revolutionize daily life. Can you imagine www.canadianinquirer.net

living your life without a smartphone? A few years from now, you might goggle at the thought of managing your day without constant advice from Siri or “OK Google.”

As for the risks, they’ll tend to be diffuse, abstract and often difficult to ascertain even if you’re paying attention — and most people won’t. In a study released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center says about half of American adults have no confidence that they understand what’s being done with their data, and about a third are discouraged by the amount of effort needed to get that understanding.

In short, convenience usually wins. Shiny new things are inherently attractive, and it takes a while for some of us to get uneasy about the extent to which we may be enabling our own surveillance.

Humans have made this bargain with technology for some time. When cameras were invented, legal scholars debated how far you can go snapping pictures of people in public.

That’s no longer an issue — although the camera on a drone

in your backyard is.

Over time, manufacturers will get better at putting in safeguards, and consumers will get better at setting boundaries and taking charge.

For instance, this holiday season’s Hello Barbie talking toy won’t listen in until your kid presses its belt buckle. Though it does store conversations between kids and their dolls to improve speech-recognitiontechnology, its maker says there’s little personal information tied to those conversations — no first or last names, no ages, no gender.

“We don’t need that information,” said Martin Reddy, co-founder and chief technical officer of ToyTalk, which developed Hello Barbie with Mattel.

“We don’t want that information. It just makes it more difficult on our end.”

Of course, kids might simply tell their toys personal details about themselves. ToyTalk employees who review such conversations to improve the technology are trained to immediately delete anything sensitive, but they aren’t charged with actively monitoring stored discussions.

Step One in managing interactions with our newly smart digital companions comes down to simple attentiveness.

Parents, for instance, can be actively involved in what their kids are doing — in this case, by taking the time to review and delete conversations from ToyTalk’s website.

Step Two might be learning to say no. Many services ask for birth dates, phone numbers and even income levels just because they can — and few people resist. If enough people rise up, companies will stop. There’s precedent: Enough people fed up with online ads have turned to ad blockers, such that websites are taking steps to make ads less annoying.

There will always be a tradeoff, but the balance can always shift. ■

Technology

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

41

Driverless taxi on South Korean campus offers glimpse into future of automated mass transport

BY YOUKYUNG LEE The Associated Press SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF — A South Korean university is testing a sedan that can pick up and transport passengers without a human driver, giving a glimpse into the future of autonomous public transport.

Seo Seung-Woo, director of the Intelligent Vehicle IT Research Center at Seoul National University, said the university has been testing the driverless taxi to transport handicapped students around campus.

The vehicle, called Snuber, has been navigating the 4,109 square meter (44,200 square foot) campus for the past six months without any accidents.

It works in conjunction with a hailing app created by the university.

Companies around the world are betting that automated driving technology will transform public transportation.

In Japan, a company called Robot Taxi Inc. plans to offer a full commercial service in 2020. In Greece, driverless

There two types of taxis in South Korea. These are classified as either regular (pictured) or deluxe but this new driverless taxi called Snuber might just change the game.

CHU / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

buses called CityMobil2 have been tested in real traffic.

General Motors Co. said Monday it is investing $500 million in ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. and forming a partnership that could eventually lead to on-demand, self-driving cars.

South Korean companies, however, have been slow to embrace the self-driving tech-

nology. The country’s largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor Co., said it expects to roll out a fully automated car in 2030. Only this month, Samsung Electronics created a team to focus on autonomous driving.

On the campus of Seoul National University, many heads turn as the grey sedan passes.

It has turret on its roof with devices that scan road conditions.

Seo’s team outfitted the Genesis sedan with a camera, laser scanners and other sensors.

For now, due to regulations banning autonomous vehicles on the roads, a driver is behind the steering wheel and can override the automation in emergency situations.

The car cannot travel faster than 30 kilometres per hour (18.6 miles per hour) because

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of the speed limit on campus.

There are no full traffic lights but researchers have programmed Snuber to navigate around other challenges.

The vehicle applies a brake pedal at a red stop sign and at a pedestrian crosswalk. When another vehicle stops in the middle of the road, the automated sedan will scan the other lanes to detect vehicles travelling from the opposite direction. If there are no other vehicles, the Snuber moves into the oncoming lane to pass the vehicle.

However, it is not yet ready for use outside the relatively controlled campus environment.

“It will take a huge amount of time and effort,” said Seo. “We need more tests in real traffic conditions.”

He said in early 2020, a driverless car will be running between tollgates on highways. A door-to-door pickup service using a self-driving car is likely in early 2030, he said.

Experts said such services have the potential to change delivery businesses, not only mass transport. ■

Long term forecast from www.theweathernetwork.com CALGARY

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Events

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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 Tagalog Class

By FCT WHEN/WHERE: 10 to 11 a.m., every Saturday, Filipino Centre Toronto, Toronto

JANUARY 8, 2016

Homework/Tutorial Class

By FCT WHEN/WHERE: 11a.m. to 12 nn, every Saturday, Filipino Centre Toronto, 597 Parliament St., Suite 103, Toronto, ON MORE INFO: For registrations, call 416928-9355. The office, at 597 Parliament St., Suite 103, Toronto, is open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 6 p.m.

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Temporary Foreign Workers Program Workshop

By Migrante B.C. WHEN/WHERE: 3 to 6 p.m., 4794 Fraser St., Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Join Migrante BC in discussing the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), an important issue that concerns migrant workers who are already here and those waiting to come to Canada through the Temporary Foreign Workers Program.

Emotional Health and Stress Management Workshop

By Mosaic WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m. to 12 nn, Jan. 6, at the New Westminster Public Library Main Branch, 716 6th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Call Angel – 604-438-8214 ext 104 Legal Information Workshops: WorkSafe Standards

By Mosaic WHEN/WHERE: For adults: 1:30 to 3:30p.m., Jan. 10; For youth: 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., Jan. 23 at

the Mosaic Burnaby Centre for Immigrants, 5902 Kingsway, Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Call - 604-438-8214 ext 211 Kumare Restaurant & Bakery Delta Grand Opening

By Ethno Marketing Team WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m., Jan 16 at Unit 100 8047 120th St. Delta, Vancouver, B.C. Canadian Citizenship Preparation

By Mosaic WHEN/WHERE: 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Jan. 18 & 19, at Tommy Douglas Burnaby Public Library, 7311 Kingsway, Vancouver, B.C. MORE INFO: Call Angel – 604-438-8214 ext 104 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-

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322-2839 or email: tfw.divorce@gmail.com English Now: No Cost Language Training for Jobs in Administration or Retail

By ISS of BC MORE INFO: Contact 604-684-2325 or englishnow@issbc.org Skills Now: Project-based Training for Immigrants in Retail and Administration

By ISS of BC WHEN/WHERE: Call or email at 604-684-2581 (ext 2193 Nanki) skillsnow@issbc.org MORE INFO: Receive a certificate or skills training in retail or administration; job search workshops; and strong employment opportunities.

10 Weeks of English Conversation

By South Vancouver Neighbourhood House WHEN/WHERE: Feb. 1 to Apr. 9, 18 locations in Metro Vancouver, MORE INFO: Call Amie to register – 604-324-6212 ext 142

JANUARY 8, 2016

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JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

Food

Recipe for salmon poached in green salsa and topped with baked chips

BY SARA MOULTON The Associated Press THE FRENCH love to cook fish by poaching it in a flavoured liquid, usually a combination of white wine and water, leeks or onions, and some herbs. It’s a notably lean way to roll because there’s no fat involved. And the finished product is reliably tender because it has been cooked at a low temperature.

So, it’s lean, tender and... quite boring. I crave more flavour and texture. So here’s a recipe for poached salmon that adds the missing elements.

Typically, poaching calls for a lot of liquid. The fish is supposed to be submerged as it cooks, after which the liquid usually is tossed. I wanted a way to poach the fish in a small amount of liquid, which then could do double duty as a sauce.

Given that fish generally requires a spritz of acid to brighten it up, the ideal liquid needed to be acidic and intensely flavoured. Green salsa — that is, tomatillo salsa with chilies and lime juice — struck me as a likely candidate.

The salmon wouldn’t have to swim in a vat of the salsa.

I made a modest batch and cooked the salmon in a smallish skillet with the salsa rising halfway up the sides of the fillets. I covered the pan tightly to trap the heat and flipped over the salmon half way through its cooking time to make sure it cooked evenly.

How do you know when the salmon is finished cooking?

If you slide a knife into it and the blade sails through the fillet with no resistance, it’s done.

And be sure to pull it off the heat when there’s still a tiny bit of resistance left, which will allow for carry-over cooking time.

For crunch, I sprinkled tortilla chips on top; they are salsa’s classic partner. But these were my own healthy baked tortilla chips, which take only

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15 minutes to prepare. On the whole, this recipe is pretty quick and easy to make, but you can streamline it even further by picking up green salsa and baked tortilla chips at the supermarket.

By the way, there were leftovers the second time we tested this winner. When we polished them off the next day, we discovered that this dish is just as delicious cold as hot.

SALMON POACHED IN GREEN SALSA AND TOPPED WITH BAKED CHIPS

Start to finish: 40 minutes Servings: 4 For the tortilla strips: • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil • 1 teaspoon chili powder • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin • Four 6-inch corn tortillas • Kosher salt For the salmon:

• 8 ounces fresh tomatillos, husked, rinsed and quartered • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped scallions (white and light green parts) • 1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro • 1 tablespoon lime juice • 1/2 jalapeno or serrano chili, seeds removed if desired • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil • 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion • Kosher salt and ground black pepper • 1 1/2 pounds centre-cut salmon fillet, cut into 4 equal portions To make the tortilla strips, heat the oven to 400 F. In a small bowl, stir together the oil, chili powder and cumin.

Brush the oil mixture over both sides of each tortilla. Using a knife or pizza wheel, cut the tortillas into thin strips. Arrange the strips in a single layer www.canadianinquirer.net

on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake the strips on the oven’s middle shelf for 6 to 8 minutes, or until crispy. Sprinkle with salt, let cool completely, then break them up slightly. Set aside.

To prepare the salsa, in a food processor, combine the tomatillos, scallions, cilantro, lime juice, chili and garlic. Pulse until the ingredients are almost smooth with a few small chunks.

In a medium skillet over medium, heat the oil. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatillo mixture and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. If the mixture gets too dry, add 1/2 cup of water. Season with salt and pepper. Add the salmon to the skillet, skin sides down, then cover the skillet tightly and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Turn the salmon over, cover tightly and simmer gently until the salmon is almost cooked

through, about another 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let the salmon stand for 3 minutes, covered, before serving.

To serve, transfer a portion of salmon to each of 4 plates, then top each with sauce and tortilla strips.

Nutrition information per serving: 470 calories; 240 calories from fat (51 per cent of total calories); 27 g fat (3 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 110 mg cholesterol; 370 mg sodium; 18 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 4 g sugar; 40 g protein. ■ EDITOR’S NOTE: Sara Moulton was executive chef at Gourmet magazine for nearly 25 years, and spent a decade hosting several Food Network shows.

She currently stars in public television’s “Sara’s Weeknight Meals” and has written three cookbooks, including “Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners.”

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

Seen & Scenes: Vancouver

I-REMIT HOLIDAY PARTY I-Remit Richmond Office Head Jenny Lumabi and staff treated their customers with a postholiday party on Jan. 2, and raffled off prizes to their guests’ delight (Photos by Laarni Liwanagde Paula).

UFCABC Board led by Joel Castillo (5th from L)

NEW YEAR DINNER-DANCE The United FilipinoCanadian Associations in B.C. started the year off with a well-attended dinner-dance at St. Patrick’s Gym in Vancouver, B.C. on Jan. 2. The opening salvo also marked the first anniversary of the umbrella organization for FilipinoCanadian societies and community groups in B.C. (Photos by Angelo Siglos).

WHITE CHRISTMAS PCI staff Laarni De Paula and Mary Ann Mandap, with their families, visited Mt. Seymour on separate occasions to enjoy magnificent snowcapped mountains and breathtaking views of Vancouver and beyond.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Sister Act. Socorro “Babes” Newland and Goldie B. Dituri. / Dancing ladies. / Former Consul General Jose Ampeso, UFCABC Board Member Janice Lozano and Angelo Siglos, a World Financial Group trainer.

NOVENA PRAYER MLA for Vancouver Kingsway Adrian Dix (R, photo above) joined the crowd of prayer warriors on the 9th day prayer for Delfin Arciaga, significant other of Filipino-Canadian New Era Society Head Perla de Peralta, on Jan. 3, at the Multicultural Helping House Society in Vancouver. The United Filipino-Canadian Associations in B.C. sponsored the nine-day novena prayers. (Photos by Janice Lozano). www.canadianinquirer.net

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Seen and Scenes: Toronto

JANUARY 8, 2016

FRIDAY

EL SHADDAI CHRISTMAS PARTY FRIENDS OF JESUS CHRIST The Friends of Jesus Christ marked the season’s festivities on Dec. 12, 2015, with different ministries re-enacting Christmas stories. Pastor Teck Uy and Senator Tobias Enverga delivered touching holiday messages.

(Photos by Ariel Ramos).

EL SHADDAI celebrated their holiday party at the Rembrandt Banquet Hall on Dec. 12, 2015. Sen. Tobias Enverga was special guest during the event (Photos by Ariel Ramos).

ACTRISTAR HOLIDAY GETTOGETHER Actrista President and Vice Pidoy and Ting Pacis celebrated their yearend party with distributors at Montecassino Hotel on Dec. 16. Guests received giveaways including several Rolex watches and a 47-inch TV. Saladmaster President Keith Peterson and wife Viera arrived from Texas to bestow on the Canada Team the Executive Elite Master Dealer of 2015 award.

(Photos by Ariel Ramos).

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

47

FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2016

Don’t limit your dreams Be different!

Become an Independant Financial Consultant Becoming an independent financial consultant has been a huge stepping stone for many who join Greatway Financial.

This has enabled them to achieve their financial goals and dream bigger. It is not full-time but part-time. They do it at their own time. You too can have that opportunity to write your own pay cheque! What do Greatway financial consultants do? They passionately share their blessings with others by educating others about finances.

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