Philippine Canadian Inquirer Issue #79

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VOL. 8 NO. 79

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AUGUST 30, 2013

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Why was PNoy not visible in the first two days of flooding?

Pinoys start leaving Egypt

Nanny was a virtual slave

Global Filipino: Anna Meloto-Wilk

It’s back-to-school time!

Manila’s Million People March

BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer

THOUSANDS of people gather at the Luneta Park in Manila on Monday for the “Million People’s March” against “pork barrel.” Please see page 13 for more photos.

PHOTO BY ALBERTO ESPEDIDO

Pork out; no more NGOS

P-noy admits his reforms failed to stop corruption of pork funds

BY MICHAEL LIM UBAC, TJ BURGONIO AND CHRISTIAN V. ESGUERRA Philippine Daily Inquirer IT’S TIME to abolish the PDAF,” President Aquino announced during a surprise press conference.

“Let’s forget NGO. There will be no

more NGOs,” Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said, declaring an end to dealings between congressmen and nongovernment organizations in the financing of projects.

Answering questions from reporters after his announcement, Mr. Aquino said he was not threatened by the rally

❱❱ PAGE 46 Manila’s Million

MABUHAY!

Friends of the Philippines unite ❱❱ PAGE 24-25

❱❱ PAGE 8 Pork out

IT ALL began—as most things do today—on social media. The call to march on August 26, National Heroes Day, came forth on the Facebook page of Ito Rapadas, singer (formerly with the Neocolors) and record producer. The call was re-posted by Peachy Bretaña (ordinary citizen, turned overnight-catalyst for change), and—as most things go on social media—spread like wildfire on the Facebook pages of disgruntled Filipinos.

The P 10-B pork barrel scam had been pushed to the forefront of the nation’s collective consciousness, with a little help from Janet “I love you, baby girl” Napoles and the excessive ways of her brood. Social media was abuzz with photos, videos, posts, tweets and blogs chronicling extravagances so disgusting; funded—apparently—by the taxpayers of the nation. For years, clueless to the reality that a good portion of their hard-

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Philippine News

3 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Lawmakers suddenly turn gun-shy on pork

BY TJ BURGONIO Philippine Daily Inquirer PERHAPS FEARFUL of a public backlash, no senator or representative in the 16th Congress has so far requested the allocation of his pork barrel fund for any project, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said.

Abad said the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) had not received any endorsement of Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) requests from either the Senate or the House of Representatives since Congress convened on July 22.

That was why, Abad said the DBM had stopped the processing of PDAF, for now.

“Normally, requests are made about this time. Probably because of the raging controversy and possible changes in policy, the legislators have held off submitting their requests,” he said in a text message to the INQUIRER. Five senators and 23 representatives have been implicated in the alleged conversion of P10- billion PDAF into kickbacks over 10 years by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, using dummy foundations, fake beneficiaries and forged signatures of officials.

The INQUIRER ran a series on this, and this was corroborated by the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA) in a special audit of the PDAF from 2007 to 2009.

COA report

The COA reported on Friday that at least 74 legislators exceeded their annual allocations of P70 million for representatives and P200 million for senators between 2007 and 2009. COA Chair Grace Pulido-Tan said the findings were appalling.

Of the P12.018 billion taxpayer money allocated to the pork barrel of legislators, only about 10 to 20 percent were spent on the actual projects.

The COA report identified 371 legislators who accounted for P8.374 billion worth of pork barrel in soft projects, and P32.347 billion in hard projects.

What had been processed so far were requests for PDAF allocation carried over from the previous Congress, Abad said.

“That still covered the last Congress, not this new one,” he said, referring to the first tranche

of PDAF allocations released this year.

“But there are still carryover PDAF not yet requested from that congressional batch.”

On Monday night, President Aquino told GMA 7 that the release of PDAF in the second half had been suspended pending proper liquidation of the earlier tranche and completion of the inquiry into the pork barrel scam by the National Bureau of Investigation.

PDAF to be retained

The President said charges would be filed against anybody found to have committed improper liquidation.

Earlier Monday, Mr. Aquino rejected the clamor for the abolition of the PDAF and argued it had benefited rural communities needs otherwise not noticed by the national government. Besides, any misuse could be plugged by more stringent safeguards, he added.

Part of the safeguards drawn up by DBM was to limit the menu of projects that could be funded by the lawmakers’ PDAF, but some argued that this was still open to corruption.

“We are determined to pursue good governance on all fronts, including PDAF administration,” said Secretary Herminio Coloma of the Presidential Communication Operations Office.

“The government will file solid cases and exact accountability from those who have misused public funds.”

Meanwhile, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said the Senate was free to inquire into the pork barrel scam even though this was being

investigated by the NBI. “The probe is perfectly within the jurisdiction of the Senate, in aid of legislation.

Anyway the NBI has already started its own investigation,” she said. ■

Supreme Court asked to stop plunder of Malampaya Fund

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE SUPREME Court is being asked to stop the “systematic plunder” of the Malampaya Fund by resolving a petition pending for almost four years assailing its use by the government as illegal and unconstitutional.

A group of petitioners is set to file an urgent motion to resolve the case which was tackled by the high court in oral arguments Nov. 24, 2009. The petitioners, represented by law professor Harry Roque, included Bishop Pedro Dulay Arigo of Puerto Princesa, former Interior Secretary Cesar Sarino, geologist and surgeon Dr. Jose Antonio Socrates and broadcaster Gerry Ortega who was killed in 2011 apparently because of his exposés on Malampaya.

The new motion came amid allegations that the P10-billion scam involving ghost projects and fake agencies of businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles included P900 million from the Malampaya Fund coursed through the Department of Agrarian Reform ostensibly for

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storm victims who were beneficiaries of the land-tothe-tiller program.

It said a “systematic brazen raid” on the government share in the proceeds of the operation of oil and gas resources in Malampaya off Palawan began two days after the oral arguments in the court.

In the eight-page motion, the petitioners noted an INQUIRER report that said the Commission on Audit (COA) was investigating disbursements amounting to P23.6 billion from the Malampaya Fund by the Arroyo administration.

“Had the court decided the case immediately after oral arguments almost four years ago, we would not have just prevented Napoles from squandering P900 million of the government’s money,” Roque said in a statement.

The group reminded the high court that it last made a manifestation on Nov. 23, 2011, after the COA recommended graft charges against former Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes on the P2.8-billion Malampaya Fund mess. It said this underscored “the questionable constitutionality and legality” of the use of the funds by both the national as well as the provincial government of Palawan. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 4

Customs revamp: Ball now in Purisima’s court

BY JERRY ESPLANADA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE BALL is now in Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima’s court.

This is what Bureau of Customs insiders are saying to comments about the delay in the announced revamp of the bureau, an attached agency of the Department of Finance (DOF).

They said Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon has already forwarded to the DOF the list of Customs district collectors “that will be covered by the reshuffle.”

Purisima, however, has yet to approve the BOC head’s proposal, they said.

“It’s still a waiting game … the commissioner cannot impose on the secretary, his immediate boss,” said a Biazon aide.

Last Friday, Biazon announced during a BOC event at the port of Batangas that three of the 17 port collectors would be retained.

They are Tomas Alcid of the

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima: Waiting game.

port of Batangas, Fidel Villanueva of San Fernando, La Union, and Elvie Cruz of the Limay and Mariveles ports in Bataan.

Biazon explained that Alcid has just been designated as port collector of Batangas, while Villanueva and Cruz are handling the port containerization and the merger of the Limay and Mariveles ports, respectively.

The fate of the remaining col-

PHOTO FROM AFP

lectors, including the so-called “three kings”—Rogel Gatchalian at the port of Manila, Ricardo Belmonte at the Manila International Container Port and Carlos So, who heads the BOC office at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport—has yet to be known.

Gatchalian, Belmonte and So are said to be backed by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and the influ-

ential Iglesia ni Cristo religious sect, respectively.

During the Batangas port’s 56th founding anniversary rites, Biazon said all three collectors will be included in the revamp. “Definitely, they will be moved,” said Biazon, who is also the concurrent head of the Customs Intelligence Group (IG) following the resignation of deputy commissioner Danilo Lim, the former IG chief.

Biazon has been tight-lipped about “who’s going where” in this month’s major revamp at the BOC, which he said was aimed at improving revenue collections and curbing corruption in the agency.

The reshuffle “will not only be wider in scope” but also “will not be influenced by politicians and other power blocs,” he said.

“The reshuffle’s other objective is to remove port collectors and other Customs officials from their comfort zones,” he told the INQUIRER. Biazon said most of the bureau’s personnel will be affected by the revamp. “However, some will be retained. I am referring to those who performed well beyond expectations,” he said.

Biazon said the reshuffle will not be limited to port collectors but would also cover the deputy collectors, appraisers, examiners and people involved in cargo clearance operations, among others.

“We are going down the line from district collectors to employees with lower rank,” he said. ■

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Philippine News

5 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Metro Manila shuts down ‘Habagat’ dumps 30 days worth of rain in one day

BY NIÑA P. CALLEJA, JOCELYN R. UY, DJ YAP, AND NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer METRO MANILA shut down for business as the southwest monsoon (habagat) intensified

by Tropical Storm “Maring” dumped nearly a month’s worth of rain in one day.

But the rains of August were a great leveler swamping the homes of the rich and the poor.

The head of the agency on top of the country’s flood control projects, for instance, was not spared by the flooding that hit Metro Manila and large swaths of Luzon for the fourth day on Tuesday.

The house of Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson is in upscale Magallanes Village in Makati City near the Maricaban Creek which overflowed and submerged a third of the village starting Monday night.

Amid the deluge, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle encouraged everyone to work together to ease the sufferings of the affected communities.

“I hope in the midst of nature’s scourge, we find a deep connection with each other so that the pain brought about by the loss of home, property and livelihood will be replaced by overwhelming love and concern for others,” Tagle said over Church-run Radio Veritas yesterday.

“In times like these, let us work together and help each other even in our small ways so that we can lessen the sufferings brought about by this calamity,” he added.

In the metropolis, the major closures included the following: Malacañang ordered the suspension of work in government offices in Metro Manila for the second straight day. Private offices were closed. Classes in both private and public schools were suspended.

Flights were canceled.

Heavy rains spawned by habagat (southwest monsoon) submerged 60 percent of Metro Manila and many parts of Luzon, according to authorities.

Death toll, worst hit

The death toll rose to eight,

Plaza Binan in Laguna was drenched in murky flood waters due to the typhoon.

A resident wades through the flood.

PHOTO BY RHEA ARCETA

including infants who drowned.

The torrential rains have affected 600,000 people, mostly in the Calabarzon area, the hardest hit region.

The southern parts of Metro Manila and Cavite province were the worst hit by the monsoon, a Philippine Red Cross (PRC) official said.

PRC secretary general Gwendolyn Pang said Parañaque and Las Piñas cities and Cavite province bore the brunt of the torrential rains with 41,569 families, or 205,478 individuals, seeking shelter in 190 evacuation centers.

“The southern parts were the worst hit because floodwaters there reached unprecedented levels,” Pang said in an interview.

The PRC said the floods had claimed the lives of seven people, among them four children, injured 11 more and left four others missing.

“We were also surprised with the rain intensity, especially in some areas,” Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo said at the second meeting of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

Record rainfall

Montejo said that some areas experienced record rainfall, particularly in Sangley, Cavite, where the rainfall on Monday exceeded its record last year.

The month of August receives an average of 475.4 millimeters of rainfall, said Esperanza Cawayan, of the weather bu-

reau’s National Capital Region.

But Cawayan said Sangley had 475.4 mm of rainfall in the past 24 hours.

She said that Ninoy Aquino International Airport received 326 mm of rain for the past 24 hours, which was 77 percent of the average August rainfall.

Other parts of Metro Manila, however, received less rainfall than last year’s monsoon rains.

“Last year, there was no letup in the rains. This time, we had breaks. Our rainfall alert was lowered (on Monday night) and was raised to orange again at dawn on Tuesday. That was the difference than last year’s (monsoon),” Cawayan said.

Montejo said that Maring could be outside the Philippine area of responsibility in the next few days.

Weather forecaster Chris Perez of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said that there was lesser volume of rain from noon of Tuesday until late afternoon.

“But that is the nature of the monsoon rains. There would be heavy rains in the afternoon up to the evening then early morning, then there would be a break,” Perez said.

As of 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the NDRRMC reported that only 20 percent of Metro Manila remained underwater, particularly the cities of Marikina and Parañaque.

Earlier on Tuesday, 60 percent of Metro Manila was flooded. www.canadianinquirer.net

PHOTO BY CARLA SABIJON

Worse than ‘Ondoy’

In Makati City, Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay, who was joined by his father, Vice President Jojo Binay, in the rescue operations, said the flooding on Tuesday was “worse” than that caused by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” that hit the metropolis in 2009 and killed scores of people.

Vice President Binay said one street in Magallanes that was high enough not to be reached by floods during Ondoy was under chest-high floods yesterday.

“Some residents parked their cars there, thinking that they would be safe,” he said.

The NDRRMC spokesperson, Maj. Rey Balido, said 65 roads in Central Luzon, Calabarzon, the Cordillera Administrative Region and Metro Manila remained impassable, as well as a bridge in Mt. Province.

Placed under a state of calamity were Narvacan in Ilocos Sur, the towns of San Fernando, Masantol, Guagua, Macabebe, and Minalin in Pampanga, the provinces of Bataan, Laguna, and Cavite, the municipality of Pateros, and Parañaque City.

Red alert

Pagasa issued a red rainfall warning advisory over Metro Manila and surrounding provinces at 7:30 a.m., indicating intense to torrential rains.

The weather bureau alerted residents to severe flooding in Metro Manila, Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Zambales and Bataan.

It was the second red rain-

fall warning over Metro Manila since Maring entered the country’s territory on Saturday. The first was issued on Sunday evening. Pagasa’s rainfall warning has three levels: Yellow, orange and red, the last serving as the highest level of alert.

On Tuesday, Maring was predicted to move more briskly northward at 19 kilometers per hour (kph), compared to its slow movement hours before due to interaction with a low pressure area, which had since dissipated.

As of 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the eye of the storm was observed at 540 kph east northeast of Itbayat, Batanes province, packing peak winds of 95 kilometers per hour and gustiness of up to 120 kph, Pagasa said.

Perez said the storm was expected to leave the country by Thursday morning, by which time it would likely be 560 km northwest of Itbayat, heading for northern Taiwan.

Weather conditions will gradually improve by Friday, he said. Based on Pagasa’s 24hour weather outlook, Metro Manila, Ilocos, Central Luzon, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) and the province of Benguet will experience monsoon rains that may trigger flash floods and landslides. ■ With reports from Michael Lim Ubac, Tarra Quismundo, Philip C. Tubeza, Miguel R. Camus, Jerry E. Esplanada I Metro Manila; and Jhunnex Napallacan, Inquirer Visayas

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 6

Docs seek stop to expensive, experimental stem cell therapy

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer SAYING THAT doctors were exacting “exorbitant fees” for what is still experimental medicine, the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP) yesterday launched an online petition urging the Department of Health (DOH) to put a stop to “experimental” stem cell therapies in the country.

“Human stem cell therapy for unproven indications is proliferating in the Philippines and posing serious safety issues to unknowing Filipinos...

The Philippine College of Physicians is alarmed by the false claims, misinformation and exorbitant fees for such stem cell treatments,” read the petition on www.change.org.

The PCP urged the DOH to issue a cease and desist order to all doctors performing such therapies as the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) clarified that stem cell therapy was not covered by the government’s universal health-

HIV/AIDS and other conditions,” the group said.

Lack of evidence

care program.

Cease and desist

“We, the undersigned, call on the (DOH) to issue a cease and desist order to all doctors, clinics and hospitals that [offer] human stem cell therapy for unproven indications until scientific evidence to support claims of efficacy and safety are approved by the Food and Drug Administration,” it said.

The PCP, the umbrella organization of Internal Medicine

specialists in the country, said that transplanting “human bloodforming stem cells” to treat cancerous and noncancerous diseases of the blood was the most widely accepted clinical application of stem cell therapy.

“The effectiveness and safety of human stem cell therapy has yet to be proven for heart, neurologic, skin, rheumatologic and gastrointestinal diseases, diabetes, hypertension, autism, cancer, aging and aesthetics,

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“Despite the lack of solid scientific evidence to support the [application] of human stem cell therapy for these conditions, reports of its use precisely for these conditions being received and exorbitant fees being paid by prominent personalities abound in media,” the PCP said.

It said that this could mislead the public into accepting stem cell therapy which “is at best experimental at this time.”

“Good ethical practice dictates that when treatment is experimental, the patient should not pay for it but instead should be compensated for altruism in participating in a clinical trial for a treatment that has not yet been proven completely effective or safe,” the PCP said.

“The use of human stem cells for unproven indications should be confined to clinical studies that have been screened and approved by a duly constituted technical review board

and ethics committee,” it further said.

The group said that human stem cell therapies should be duly registered with the FDA and performed only in DOHaccredited centers.

PhilHealth says no

PhilHealth, meanwhile, said it was not paying for stem cell therapy but if it were later certified as “a standard care,” it would have to undergo evaluation first.

Under Republic Act No. 10606, the law creating the National Health Insurance Program of 2013, as amended, “the Corporation [PhilHealth] shall not cover expenses for health services considered ... as cost ineffective through health technology assessment ... in keeping with its protection objectives and financial sustainability.”

“All new technologies, including stem cell therapy, shall undergo the process of assessment if they can be developed into a benefit package or be excluded from the same,” PhilHealth said. ■

Philippine News

7 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Alvarez to sue Almario for libel Defrocked nat’l artist vs nat’l artist

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer SHE HAD considered responding to his attacks “with dignified silence.”

But former National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) executive director Cecil Guidote-Alvarez blew her top when Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino chair Virgilio Almario, National Artist for Literature, called her “immoral” on national television.

Alvarez said she would file libel charges against Almario, who she said has been “feasting” on the four artists who were stripped of their National Artist titles by the Supreme Court, with “special focus” on her and comic strip creator and filmmaker Carlo J. Caparas.

The Supreme Court last month also nullified the conferment by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the National Artist award to architect Francisco Mañosa and couturier Jose “Pitoy” Moreno.

Alvarez, wife of former Sen. Heherson Alvarez, has assailed the “personal attacks” allegedly hurled against her by Almario, saying they have “become out of sync and clearly, a blatant case of oral defamation.”

“He has continuously assaulted my character and integrity of lifelong service in the field of culture and arts in our

country,” Alvarez, who founded the Philippine Educational Theater Association in 1967, told the INQUIRER. “Mr. Caparas, at least, was gentleman enough to defend me on air from the verbal abuse made by Mr. Almario,” she said.

Alvarez said it was “unbecoming and unethical” for Almario, a National Artist and a government official “to have maliciously and deliberately undertaken this mudslinging campaign against me.”

Sought for comment, Almario said he has no questions about the qualifications of the four artists. “I never called them pipitsugin (tacky),” he said.

His objection against their conferment was what he called abuse of presidential discretion when Arroyo allegedly disregarded the awards’ rigorous screening process and inserted her own choice of awardees.

Almario said he called Alvarez “immoral” for not refusing her selection for reasons of delicadeza (sense of propriety).

Alvarez said she had wanted to shrug off the matter but she received so many adverse comments.

“I received so many phone calls, text messages and e-mails from people who were shocked when he called me ‘immoral’ on Karen Davila’s show on ANC. I myself couldn’t believe it so I waited for the show’s rerun. I saw it and was flabbergasted. I was

being accused unjustly and falsely by Mr. Almario,” Alvarez said.

“I am being realistic that my time on earth is getting close to a curtain call. I have survived cancer but my well-being is being threatened by diabetes and high blood pressure. I am also half blind. I am resigned to meet my Maker sometime, sooner or later. But I cannot allow my name to be defiled by somebody who is known during the dark years of the dictatorship as a most favored artist of Madam Imelda Marcos. And strangely, his proclamation as National Artist was signed by President GMA,” she said.

On July 16, the Supreme Court said Alvarez, Caparas, Mañosa and Moreno can still be conferred the National Artist award for as long as their nomination undergo stringent processes.

In a decision, the high court clarified that the invalidation of Arroyo’s declaration that recognized the four as National Artists “should not be taken as a pronouncement on whether they are worthy to be conferred that honor.”

“Only the President, upon the advice of the NCCA and Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) boards, can do that,” it said.

The tribunal said the former president had disregarded the processes established by the NCCA and CCP, diminishing the award’s exclusivity. ■

National Artist Virgilio S. Almario: Faces suit.

PHOTO FROM SAFETY4SEA.COM

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PHOTO FROM SAFETY4SEA.COM

Sea tragedy death toll rises to 75 Philippine Daily Inquirer THE DEATH toll from the sea tragedy off Talisay City rose to 75 yesterday as four more bodies were recovered from the sunken St. Thomas Aquinas, authorities said.

Three bodies were pulled out from the sunken ferry and and another was found off the coast of Cordova town in Cebu, according to Philippine Coast Guard Commander Armand Balilo.

The fourth body was “an adult but the lower body of the cadaver is missing,” Balilo said.

This left 45 people—39 passengers of the ferry and six crew members of the cargo ship Sulpicio Express 7—still unaccounted for, Balilo said.

Navy and PCG ships and helicopters continued to scour the waters for the 45 still missing from the St. Thomas Aquinas ferry, said the local PCG commander Weniel Azcuna.

“We are still hoping to find more survivors but we are realistic and we expect we will find more dead bodies,” he told AFP. The ferry sank quickly after it collided with the cargo ship off Talisay City. A total of 750 passengers and crew out of the 870 on board were rescued.

Azcuna said divers were still searching the debris-choked vessel, and declined to set a date for when the operation would end.

The PCG, military and police are meanwhile helping clean up a large oil spill from the ferry, which has reached the coasts of nearby towns and affected

mangrove forests, rich fishing grounds and sanctuaries as well as popular beach resorts, Azcuna said.

Specialized divers from Japan, hired by the ferry operator 2GO Travel, had been conducting surveys to plug the leak and contain the spill, he added.

Azcuna said 2GO had also contracted with a salvage company which was spraying chemical dispersant on the spilled oil. He could not say how much oil had already leaked out.

Doomed ferry

The doomed ferry was carrying 120,000 liters of bunker fuel when it sank, according to the PCG. Meanwhile, a Special Board of Marine Inquiry (SBMI) will conduct an initial hearing on the sinking of the St. Thomas Aquinas on Friday at the Lawis Ledge in Talisay City.

Commodore William Melad, the PCG district commander in Central Visayas, said the SBMI will summon the crew, the two ship captains and the passengers that witnessed the accident.

Capt. Reynan Bermejo of 2GO shipping and Capt. Rolito Gilo of the Sulpicio Express Siet were in the custody of their shipping companies which have assured the PCG that the two ship captains would appear at the hearing, Melad said.

The two captains have both submitted their marine protests which will serve as primary evidence in the investigation of the collision. ❱❱ PAGE 11 Sea tragedy

Philippine News

Pork out... against the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel.

“Why should we be worried?

We’ve gained more allies in fixing the system. Thanks a lot to them,” Mr. Aquino said.

The President said he was scandalized by the Commission on Audit’s findings and he blamed it all on the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now a representative of Pampanga in the House.

With the abolition of the PDAF, Mr. Aquino said the executive and the two Houses of Congress would find a new way to deal with the needs of constituents “in a manner that is transparent, methodical and rational” and “not susceptible” to abuse.

From now on, the President said, lawmakers could identify and “suggest” projects in the congressional districts but these had to “go through the budgetary process.”

“If approved, these project will be earmarked as line items, under the programs of your national government. In this way, they will be enacted into law as part of our national budget,” Mr. Aquino said. ❰❰ 1

No more ‘consumables’

But the projects should not include “consumable” soft projects, such as fertilizers, seeds, medicines, medical kits, dentures, funding for sports festivals, training materials, and other such items, he said.

And the funds can no longer be disbursed through NGOs and certain government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), some of which had been used in the pork barrel scam, Mr. Aquino said.

Those GOCCs will be abolished, along with others of their kind that have become notorious for irregularities, and seem to serve no other purpose than being instruments of corruption, he said.

Funds for projects should be limited to the districts or sectors of the legislators who sponsored them, he said.

Speaking to reporters after President Aquino announced on national television his decision to abolish the PDAF, Belmonte called on members of the House to “graciously accept” the abolition and prepare to follow a new

system of financing projects for their constituents.

President Aquino promised to reform the corruptionplagued PDAF a month after the INQUIRER began to publish a series of reports on how businesswoman Janet LimNapoles allegedly siphoned off P10 billion in pork into her bank accounts through bogus NGOs over the past 10 years.

The INQUIRER series was validated by a Commission on Audit (COA) special audit of the PDAF from 2007 to 2009, the results of which showed that 12 senators and 180 congressmen channeled P6.156 billion in pork through 82 NGOs. Announcing the results of the audit on Aug. 16, COA Chair Grace Pulido-Tan said 10 of the NGOs were “linked to Janet Lim-Napoles.”

The 10 NGOs got P2.157 billion, Tan said.

The confirmation of the INQUIRER reports stirred up public anger and calls for the abolition of the PDAF, including plans for a Million People March to Rizal Park on Aug. 26 to demand the scrapping of the pork barrel.

After weeks of resisting those calls, President Aquino admitted that his own reforms did not stop the “scandalous” misuse of the PDAF. “Despite the reforms we have implemented, we have seen, as the events of the past weeks have shown, that greater change is necessary to fight those who are determined to abuse the system. It is time to abolish the PDAF,” Mr. Aquino said.

New ‘mechanism’

The President directed Belmonte and Senate President Franklin Drilon, who flanked him as he spoke, to devise a “mechanism” by which the P25.24 billion allocated for the PDAF could be itemized in the P2.268-trillion proposed budget for 2014.

Through new mechanism, “every line, every peso, and every project” would be open to scrutiny, and the lawmakers’ constituents would get a “fair and equitable share” in the budget in the form of health services, scholarships, livelihood and infrastructure, Mr. Aquino said.

The new system appears to have been under discussion between Malacañang and the Senate and House leadership, as Belmonte was ready with

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 8

answers to potential questions from the congressmen.

Belmonte advised the members of the House to begin constituency consultations and prepare a list of suggested projects that would be scrutinized during the deliberations on the budget in the House and the Senate.

“I call on the congressmen to begin listing down (projects), asking suggestions from your barangay captains, your mayors. Come up with a list of projects that you want to pursue,” Belmonte said.

Competitive bidding and items needed for the projects would be subject to “open and competitive bidding,” with all bid notices and awards to be posted on the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System or PhilGEPS, Mr. Aquino said.

Straight earmarks

The President said he had directed Budget Secretary Florencio Abad to consult with Drilon and Belmonte in devising the new mechanism and submit it to him “as soon as possible.”

In budget legislation, the itemization of projects and allocation of funds for their development is called “straight earmarking.” The result of straight earmarking is pork.

The abolition of the PDAF therefore will not take away from lawmakers the privilege of choosing projects and allocating funds for the development of those projects.

That explains the 180-degree turn by congressmen and senators yesterday from their opposition to the public call for the abolition of the PDAF. Samar Rep. Mel Sarmiento of the Liberal Party said Mr. Aquino’s decision “speaks a lot about his determination to defy the conventions of business-asusual politics and set in place all the needed reforms to defeat all forms of corruption in the government.”

Sarmiento added: “I fully support President Aquino’s decision to scrap the PDAF, especially with his assurance that all the people that we’ve been helping through the PDAF will not be left behind and our scholars will not be forced to stop going to school.”

Iloilo Rep. Jerry Treñas, another administration ally, described Mr. Aquino’s decision as “unprecedented,” and said it “would certainly help in ensuring transparency in the use of public funds.”

Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza, who earlier called for the suspension www.canadianinquirer.net

of the pork barrel, commended the President for his “sensitive decisiveness on the issue and heeding the people’s outrage.”

“It is wrong for legislators to appropriate funds which they themselves decide how to spend. The source of corruption is the discretionary nature of the pork barrel system as practiced,” Atienza said.

Marikina Rep. Romero Quimbo, chair of the House ways and means committee, supported the President’s decision, saying the “line item budgeting approach is more transparent and accountable.”

Support from senators

Senators from both the administration and the opposition coalitions also supported Mr. Aquino’s decision to abolish the PDAF. “I’m quite happy and I thank President Aquino for his position that the pork barrel should be abolished and be replaced by line item budgeting wherein the use of public funds would be made more transparent,” Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said.

Cayetano and Sen. Francis Escudero, chair of the committee on finance that will soon hear the administration’s proposed budget for next year, have filed separate resolutions for the abolition of the PDAF. “Good move in the name of continuing reforms in the government,” said administration Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, chair of the committee on justice and human rights.

“Let’s prepare for a very thick and detailed national budget because there will be line item budgeting to reflect budget priorities at the national, district and sectoral levels,” Pimentel said. “[I]f it must be scrapped, the pork barrel should be scrapped totally,” Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said at a news conference yesterday.

“We should not only look at scrapping the PDAF, but [also abolishing] the various pork barrel or lump-sum appropriations of all departments of government,” said Enrile, one of the senators linked to the pork barrel scam allegedly masterminded by Napoles.

Sen. Gregorio Honasan, also linked to the pork scam, said the abolition of the PDAF was “a start but not the final solution.”

Honasan said he feared merely abolishing the pork barrel would just transfer the discretion over development and assistance projects and the potential for

corruption from the legislative branch to the executive.

Can do without it

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, another opposition coalition member linked to the pork scam, said he could do without the pork barrel.

“I welcome it,” Estrada said, reacting to President Aquino’s announcement.

But Estrada expressed apprehension about the loss of medical assistance the senators could provide for needy constituents.

“In my case, the queue for medical assistance is quite long,” he said.

Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. also linked to Napoles’ alleged racket, welcomed the President’s decision.

“This issue has unnecessarily tarnished the legislature so much that the safeguards now proposed by the President is a very welcome development,” Revilla said.

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos lauded Mr. Aquino’s decision.

“I’m glad that the President has made clear his position on the PDAF. I have been for the abolition and one with my fellow senators,” Marcos said.

The business community also welcomed Mr. Aquino’s decision.

But Melito Salazar, president of the Management Association of the Philippines, recommended that the new mechanism for financing congressional projects be made open to public scrutiny.

Salazar said the public was angry not just over the PDAF but also over the corruption that came with the use of the pork barrel during the Arroyo administration.

Miguel Varela, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), also lauded the President’s decision, but said businessmen expected the government to lay down guidelines for appropriations and fund releases.

‘Small victory’

Former National Treasurer Leonor Briones, professor emeritus at the University of the Philippines-National College of Public Administration and Governance, described Mr. Aquino’s decision to abolish the PDAF as a “small victory” that should not lull Filipinos into giving up protests against lump-sum appropriations in the budget. ■ With reports from Norman Bordadora and Amy R. Remo

Philippine News

9 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Why was ‘PNoy’ not visible in the first two days of flooding?

BY KATHERINE MARFALTEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer AMID THE recent flooding in many parts of Metro Manila and nearby provinces, many netizens asked, “where is the highest-ranked government official of the Philippines?”

Did anyone see PNoy? ABS-CBN broadcaster Lynda Jumilla in fact asked via her Twitter account the veritable question: “Where is PNoy?” A few minutes later, cyberspace was flooded with the same question.

Isn’t the president supposed to visit the poor flood victims who happen to be his constituents?

Worse, some Filipinos began comparing PNoy to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, as the latter was quite visible in various relief operations.

President Benigno Aquino III was also not present in various press briefings during the onslaught of the enhanced monsoon rains and tropical storm “Maring”. Instead of personally meeting with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), he just sent some of his Cabinet officials.

Okay, there was the wondering. But, before you make any conclusion, here is the story.

Where really was he?

There were reports that PNoy was sick for a few days because of his allergy to flowers.

But Malacanang officials said that the president was overseeing the situation from his official residence and was corresponding constantly with his envoys since Sunday. He also had an important meeting at the Palace.

He was again visible, albeit just to family and close friends, when he attended a private mass in the morning of August 21 for the death anniversary of his father, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., in Pasig City.

Finally!

A media advisory was later issued by Malacanang on the same day which outlined the President’s schedule, which included visiting some areas affected by heavy flooding: Mandaluyong City, Binan, Laguna and San Pedro, Laguna.

PNoy explained that he did not want to be a cause of commotion in the relief operations that is why he was not seen in public, at least for the last 2 days of heavy flooding in the country.

Satisfied netizens

and

dissatisfied

It was indeed a relief to many Pinoys to see their president for the first time on August 21.

Netizens through their Facebook accounts expressed that despite of the calamity the country had just faced, a show from the nation’s leader was a huge morale boost.

Here are some posts from satisfied netizens: “This is the reason why we need the Pork barrel for our Local Government officials....Mr. President Aquino is using his Pork barrel wisely and genuinely to the Filipinos who needs help. Let’s stop issues about Napoles...it will not help our country...Better find a solutions about the control of Pork Barrel...We need the senate to deliberate and amend this in their sessions.” —Ronnie Poliquit “good work mr. President..

God Bless..& good health.”— Rogelio Almonia

FROM THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF PRES. BENIGNO AQUINO III

But there were also netizens who seemed to be still upset: “Government should step in and all the big companies should do some sponsorship to upgrade drainage.”—Murugasan Kalimuthu “These acts are only temporary relief, the Government and/or the President should start to plan on how to remove the pork barrel and better make the executive departments finance with those allotment instead so that they’ll be equipped with money and resources needed to improved each institution like, DPWH whose work is to make/improved highways, roads, streets, sewerage, drainage, clean water ways, etc. Senators/ Congressmen/Mayors do not need these PORK BARRELS.”— Gilbert Tungol Well, PNoy did say that at the end of the day, he will be responsible for whatever happens, and that he will not let things get out of control. ■

www.canadianinquirer.net

THE HAPPY GIVER. President Aquino distributes relief packages—consisting of a

sleeping mat, bread, canned goods and rice—to flood victims in Imus, Cavite.

PHOTO BY LYN RILLON

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 10

Ping pushed as special, independent pork prober

BY NORMAN BORDADORA Philippine Daily Inquirer

Gov’t, Moro rebs resume peace talks in KL

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer THE GOVERNMENT and the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) began another round of exploratory talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to thresh out the two remaining annexes needed to complete a comprehensive peace agreement that would end the decades-old Muslim insurgency in Mindanao.

In her opening statement at the 39th round of exploratory talks, the government’s chief negotiator, Miriam Coronel Ferrer, said the recent efforts apparently aimed at sabotaging the peace negotiations would not succeed. “(T)hrough their grievous deeds, these entrepreneurs of violence and mayhem have only succeeded in isolating themselves from the rest of the people … In this round, we will prove that we have not been waylaid by these groups’ destructive, desperate ways,” Ferrer said.

A series of deadly bombings in Mindanao, which killed dozens of people, took place in July.

President Aquino has said that the bombings were the handiwork of peace saboteurs.

Police have filed murder charges against a suspect in the July 27 Cagayan de Oro bombing. Thjey said the suspect was a member of a new threat group called the Khilafa Islamiyah Movement, whose members reportedly are from the Jemaah Islamiyah, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and the Abu Sayyaf.

Another powerful explosion killed several children ripped

in Cotabato City, but the police have yet to identify a perpetrator.

Coronel said that even as the peace panels were meeting in Kuala Lumpur in July, the BIFF already “were on a rampage, attacking soldiers and setting off grenades and IEDs in several parts of Central Mindanao, in their bid to derail our negotiations.”

“We know that there will be more challenges ahead, that in fact, things might still get worse before things get better.

Such has been the experience in most post-conflict settings,” she said.

“This is my objective view, not a pessimistic stance. But it is an appraisal that is imbued with the determination that we shall overcome.”

The government and the MILF have completed the annexes on wealth sharing and transitional arrangements and modalities.

Coronel said the opening ceremony of the current round of talks had an “unprecedented number of observers.”

They included House Representatives Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro, who sits as one of the council of observers to the peace process in the House; Jim Hataman of Basilan, chair of the committee on peace and reconciliation; Pangalian Balindong from Lanao del Sur, deputy speaker and a member of the committee on peace and reconciliation; and Jesus Sacdalan of North Cotabato.

The members of the Transition Commission from the government and the MILF are also in Kuala Lumpur as well as observers from civil society organizations. ■

FORMER SEN. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, who called for the abolition of the pork barrel system and never touched it during his 12 years in the upper chamber, is being tapped as an independent special investigator in the Senate blue ribbon committee’s inquiry on the fund’s widespread abuse.

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said Lacson was the best person to handle the investigation “because of his impeccable record against corruption and his unwavering stand against the pork barrel.”

Former Sen. Joker Arroyo also spurned the use of his PDAF. In a news conference, Cayetano said that he had drafted a resolution recommending that Lacson be appointed to help in the inquiry beginning next week by the panel headed by Sen. Teofisto Guingona III. Cayetano said that Lacson could ensure that the inquiry on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) would be “effectively and credibly” conducted amid allegations that five senators and 23 congressmen were involved in a P10-billion scam and findings by the Commission on Audit (COA) of “appalling” misuse of the pork barrel funds.

He also announced that he would file a concurrent resolution proposing that both the Senate and the House of Representatives abolish the PDAF by removing the lawmakers’ discretion over lump-sum appropriations.

“The blue ribbon committee needs an independent and credible special investigator who can assist it to ferret out the truth, pursue leads, and find evidence so that the guilty can be charged and the innocent can clear their names, while maintaining its credibility and impartiality,” Cayetano said.

To consult P-Noy

In a text message, Lacson said he may have to consult with President Aquino “since I have yet to hear a formal confirmation of an earlier announced creation of an anticorruption www.canadianinquirer.net

body to be headed by me which will necessarily deal with a similar or related issue at hand.”

“I laud the effort of Senator Cayetano for pushing what I had always advocated for in the last 12 years—abolish a very corrupt and corrupting system in our political institutions known as pork barrel,” said Lacson, a former chief of the Philippine National Police.

Lacson thanked Cayetano for his confidence “in my ability to assist the Senate in a very sensitive issue hounding several of its members.” The resolution, he said, needs to be adopted by the majority of the senators and that the special investigator’s mandate, scope, powers and functions should be defined.

“Had the 12th Congress reacted positively to my privilege speech 10 years ago, the Senate could have been saved from the wrath and the hatred of the citizenry,” Lacson added, referring to his speech entitled, “Living without Pork.”

The Senate had initially balked at holding an inquiry on the pork barrel scam allegedly engineered by the fugitive businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles using the PDAF of Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon Revilla Jr., Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Jinggoy Estrada and Gregorio Honasan, and 23 congressmen.

Senate President Franklin Drilon at that time cited the ongoing inquiries being conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Ombudsman.

But after the COA issued last week its special audit on PDAF misuse from 2007 to 2009 and the widespread public indignation it generated, Drilon relented.

Clamor for accountability

“Over the past three weeks, our people have expressed shock and dismay over the reported P10-billion PDAF scandal that allegedly involved some members of Congress,” Drilon said in an emailed statement.

“We heard the people’s loud clamor for accountability from us and they will not be denied.

We will hold ourselves accountable,” he said.

“Now that the COA has com-

pleted its special audit on the PDAF from 2007 to 2009, it is time for the Senate, through its blue ribbon committee, to conduct public hearings, in aid of legislation, on the utilization of the PDAF .... It is time our people are informed about the details of that special audit,” Drilon said.

“I enjoin my colleagues in the Senate to respond fully to the questions raised by COA’s findings. We are accountable to our people and they deserve no less each than everyone’s full explanations to these questions,” Drilon added.

He said the inquiry would also “review the need to fund the PDAF in 2014 and beyond and to immediately recommend the adoption of strict guidelines in the use of the PDAF, among others.”

Resolution to abolish pork

“The Senate blue ribbon committee should exercise utmost prudence and sensitivity so as not to allow its proceedings to be plagued with questions and insinuations of partiality and conflict of interest since this is the first time it has been placed in a situation where so many of its members have been alleged to be involved in the issue it will be investigating,” Cayetano said.

He said he would file a concurrent resolution—that he hopes the Senate and the House of Representatives would adopt—to abolish the pork barrel system.

“To enable Congress to fully pursue its primary function, which is to legislate laws that will benefit the majority of Filipinos especially the poor and marginalized, the pork barrel must be abolished,” Cayetano said in his draft concurrent resolution.

“In order for legislators to assure their constituents of beneficial and developmental projects and programs, a nondiscretionary and specific line item appropriation system through the General Appropriations Act, that will be equitably distributed across various regions, provinces, legislative districts, cities and municipalities nationwide be developed and implemented henceforth, beginning with the 2014 national budget,” Cayetano added. ■

Philippine News

11 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Pinoys start leaving Egypt

BY MICHAEL LIM UBAC Philippine Daily Inquirer AN INITIAL batch of five Filipinos from Egypt was expected to arrive, the first group to be flown home from the strifetorn Arab country under the government’s mandatory evacuation program.

“Initially, there are only five who are coming home. Many are resisting (repatriation) because they don’t want to lose their jobs (there). But the situation is really serious. We will not call for level 4, which is forced repatriation otherwise,” President Aquino said.

The government is footing the bill for the repatriation of the Filipinos in Egypt, estimated to number between 5,000 and 6,000, the President said.

Mr. Aquino, who was interviewed while distributing relief goods to evacuees at the at Mandaluyong Elementary School, said he had released an initial $240,000 to the Philippine embassy in Cairo.

Raised alert level

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, who went to Egypt last week to personally assess the security situation, on Monday raised the crisis alert level for Egypt to 4, setting into motion the mandatory repatriation of Filipino citizens there.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said the five—three from Cairo and two from Alexandria—would be taking a Qatar Airways flight that was sched-

CAIRO, EGYPT—Egyptians protesting in El-Etehadeya district during “June 30” protests.

PHOTO BY GEORGE NAZMI BEBAWI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

uled to arrive at 4:20 p.m.

A check with the Manila International Airport Authority showed that the flight was confirmed for arrival despite delays and cancellations of local and international flights since Monday because of the monsoon rains and floods.

DFA spokesperson Assistant Secretary Raul Hernandez again appealed to Filipinos in Egypt—workers, residents and students—to immediately contact the Philippine Embassy in Cairo to sign up for repatriation for their own safety.

“I’m sure the [ Philippine] embassy in Egypt has been preparing for this, and has been actively trying to encourage our countrymen to ensure their safety to leave Egypt at this

time,” Mr. Aquino said.

Repatriation budget

The funds for the repatriation, which will come from the DFA budget, will cover the plane fare and “other expenses related to repatriation,” said deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte.

The violence in Egypt has left 900 people dead following a crackdown on the protest camps of supporters of the ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

Asked if the government would be able provide the overseas Filipino workers with jobs upon their return, Mr. Aquino said: “Just like what happened in the Arab Spring in Libya, if I remember correctly—I’m

drawing from memory—AG&P hired almost 4,000 soon after they returned to the Philippines,” he said.

AG&P, or Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific, is an industrial process outsourcing Filipino company which has partnered with some of the largest multinational companies on critical resource and infrastructure projects in and outside the country.

Mr. Aquino said providing returning OFWs with livelihood opportunities was “automatic,” and that he expected the Department of Labor, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and other government agencies to assist them and give them the necessary training in the skills needed for reintegration.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz yesterday ordered Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief Hans Leo Cacdac to coordinate with licensed overseas recruitment agencies that deployed the 1,540 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to Egypt for the issuance of airline tickets to the OFWs within 48 hours.

Mostly domestics

“This should be immediate and fast,” said Baldoz, who also directed Cacdac to monitor the insurance agencies that insured the deployed OFWs. Most of the 1,540 OFWs in Egypt are domestic workers, nurses, hotel workers, production technicians, and skilled workers, such as stone setters.

Licensed recruitment agen-

cies should also be directed to inform prospective OFWs that there is deployment ban against Egypt, Baldoz said.

“It is not safe for OFWs to go to Egypt and work there, considering the present circumstances,” she said.

To facilitate the repatriation of OFWs from Egypt, Baldoz ordered Robert Bassig, welfare officer in the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and welfare officer Eduardo Mendoza, who is based in Manila, to immediately proceed to Cairo.

Baldoz also instructed Overseas Workers Welfare administrator Carmelita Dimzon to prepare the package of assistance under the National Reintegration Program for OFWs, particularly livelihood and job referral assistance, temporary shelter, medical care, and counseling. ■ With reports from Tarra Quismundo and Tina G. Santos

Sea tragedy...

Gilo and Bermejo blamed each other for the collision, saying the other vessel was occupying the wrong lane.

The SBMI will be composed of Commodore Gilbert Rueras of the Maritime Safety Services Command of the PCG, a master mariner, a chief engineer, and the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina).

The government of Spain yesterday sent its condolences to the Philippine government and the families of the victims.

“The government of Spain wishes to convey its heartfelt condolences to the families of ❰❰ 7

PHOTO FROM INTERAKSYON.COM

www.canadianinquirer.net

the victims and to the people and the government of the Philippines, and reiterates its support to the country with which Spain maintains very profound ties of friendship,” said a statement from Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

Still searching

Meanwhile, many relatives of the missing converged on the funeral homes where the recovered bodies were brought as they said they had lost hope that their loved ones had survived.

The sea tragedy has brought grief to many, including a mother who thought her two-year-

old daughter was among the survivors after her name was on an initial list posted outside the 2GO office.

Emmalyn Sinday, 22, of Dapa, Surigao del Norte, went from one hospital to another searching for her daughter, Gwen.

When she went to the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes in Cebu City, Sinday was shocked to see Gwen among the unidentified casualties. ■ With reports from Jerry E. Esplanada and Carmel Loise Matus, Inquirer Visayas, with a report from Jhunnex Napallacan, Inquirer Visayas

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 12

Countdown: 15 senators now seeking ban on pork

BY NORMAN BORDADORA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE IDEA of doing away with their allocations under the multibillion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) has gained ground in the Senate, with 15 senators so far expressing support for the abolition of the pork barrel.

Senators Francis Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano filed separate resolutions seeking the scrapping of the PDAF, the official name of the pork barrel.

This developed as two senior senators from both the majority and minority—Ralph Recto and Gregorio Honasan—expressed the need to abolish not only the PDAF but also the discretionary funds of the executive branch headed by President Aquino.

Other senators who favored the abolition of the PDAF were Teofisto Guingona III, Aquilino Pimentel III, Loren Legarda, Grace Poe, Juan Edgardo Angara, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Benigno Aquino IV, all members of the majority bloc.

Members of the minority who supported the idea of scrapping the PDAF included Deputy Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III and Sen. JV Ejercito, the chair of the Senate committee on economic affairs.

Senate President Franklin Drilon himself earlier expressed support for the abolition of the pork barrel, while Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago filed a resolution for the three-year phase out of the congressional pork.

Honasan and Revilla were among the senators whose names figured in the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam engineered by Janet Lim-Napoles using fake non-government organizations (NGOs) and recipients.

Their names were also mentioned in the Commission on Audit (COA) report that found that more than P6 billion in PDAF went to 82 questionable NGOs, including those set up by a number of lawmakers or their relatives.

The others were Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada.

All the senators linked to the scam and mentioned in the COA findings have denied any

wrongdoing and indicated their willingness to be investigated. “[The PDAF] has already mutated into a multi-billion racket allegedly perpetrated by syndicates in both the public and private sectors,” Escudero said in Resolution No. 193 that he filed yesterday, this week’s first and only working day at the Senate.

Source of corruption

“Despite the proper use and disbursement by well-meaning public officials and despite its statutory laudable purpose, the misconception that the pork barrel has become a form of horse trading and a major source of corruption in the government is apparently starting to become real in the eyes of the Filipino people,” Escudero said.

Escudero is the chair of the Senate committee on finance that in the coming weeks will hear the Aquino administration’s proposed P2.226-trillion budget for 2014.

Majority Leader Cayetano said in concurrent Resolution No. 4, which he hopes the House of Representatives will adopt, that the power and mandate of oversight was greatly compromised when legislators themselves were accused of grave acts of abuse and misuse of public funds.

Misuse fans anger

“[The] special audit report of the Commission on Audit covering the years 2007-2009 released on Aug. 16, 2013, showed that at least P6.165 billion of PDAF from 12 senators and 180 representatives were released to 82 questionable non-government organizations, which has further fanned the discontent, anger and indignation of the Filipino people,” Cayetano said.

Reports of the massive misuse of the PDAF, as alleged by whistle-blowers and confirmed by the COA report, have gripped the nation and triggered widespread public outrage.

Million people march

The misuse of public funds has also given rise to calls to abolish the pork barrel and a public gathering called the “Million People March to Luneta” on Aug. 26 in Rizal Park in Manila and other parts of the country to showcase the people’s outrage, but President Aquino and many lawmakers

have thumbed down the idea.

Cayetano said the continued presence of the PDAF in the national budget was viewed by the public as an unwillingness of the legislature to address the many abuses and instances of corruption in the system and the unwillingness to heed the voice of the Filipino people for dramatic change.

Recto, the Senate President Pro Tempore and the former chair of the Senate committee on ways and means, said he was supporting the abolition of the pork barrel but added that it would not be enough to ensure graft-free and responsive national budget allocations in 2014 and afterward.

“Together with the abolition of the PDAF, we must reform the entire budget. [There should be] no off-budget items like [funds from] Malampaya, Pagcor, PCSO and minimize lump-sum budgeting to only calamity and contingency accounts,” Recto said, referring to the funds allocated by the executive branch.

BEEFING AGAINST PORK. In preparation for the Million People March against

the corruption of the congressional pork barrel, shirts were printed with this for the nationwide protest initiated by angry netizens.

PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK PAGE OF ANTI-EPAL

budget] should no longer be allowed.”

“It appears that the good intentions of helping the poor and spreading development to the countryside are not realized and are even toyed with when it comes to the implementation,” Revilla said.

A handful in House

Line-item budgeting

“The rest should be line item [allocations].

This will promote transparency and a more effective, efficient and responsive budget,” Recto said in a text message.

Recto said a line-item budget provided for in the General Appropriations Act “will inform local government officials, districts, communities, netizens, civil society where taxpayers’ money is being spent, what project, price and location.”

Aside from calling for the abolition of the PDAF, Honasan called for an impartial probe of the PDAF scam, which, he said, put him in a bad light and for the enactment of the Freedom of Information Bill “that would mean full transparency in public affairs.”

“I would support the calibrated abolition of the PDAF, pork barrel, discretionary fund system in all branches, departments of government,” Honasan said in a text message.

Ejercito said senators should be sensitive to what the people want. “We were elected as legislators, not as administrators….

I can manage to perform my duties without the pork barrel.

And also as a neophyte senator, I would want to put an end to this issue once and for all and restore the faith of the people in the Senate and Congress,” he said.

In the House of Representatives, a handful of lawmakers have also called for the scrapping of the PDAF. But the Liberal Party secretary general, Western Samar Rep. Mel Senen Sarmiento, said scrapping the pork barrel could leave many poor families without scholarships for their children, medical assistance and infrastructure projects.

Sarmiento said he supported President Aquino’s decision to suspend the release of the PDAF since this would be a good opportunity to plug the loopholes in the system and make it transparent and immune to corruption.

Also ban insertions

Revilla, whose allocations were also linked to the PDAF scam, said, “It looks like it’s time for the total abolition of the PDAF. Even the insertions [in the www.canadianinquirer.net

More harm than good

He said scrapping the PDAF would be a drastic move that could do more harm than good.

“The complete abolition of the Priority Development As-

sistance Fund appears to be the spur of the moment answer by people understandably angered by the extent of reported anomalies on the controversial pork barrel. But this may not, after all, be the best option,” he said in a statement.

He said that personally, he would not mind if the pork barrel system would be abolished.

But it could could have “heartbreaking consequences” for poor families who depend on the help of their representatives for needs such as educational assistance and medical care.

Equalizing factor

The President, he said, “is convinced on the equalizing factor of the PDAF so the poorest of the poor in far-flung areas of the country could share the fruits of development.”

Sarmiento further said that the PDAF system was a good one, but “human greed took advantage of the system’s loopholes.” As long as it is used properly, the pork barrel funds could do a lot of good, he added.

He sought to distance the Aquino administration from the alleged pocketing of pork barrel funds. According to him, the alleged P10-billion scam supposedly involving Janet Lim-Napoles and several lawmakers took place before the reforms implemented by the Aquino administration.

He said the use of the pork barrel had been judicious and strictly regulated since 2010. ■ With a report from Leila B. Salaverria

Philippine News

13 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Manila’s Million People March in photos PHOTOS BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer

Placards with a play on words: MakiBAKA, Wag MagBABOY.

A demonstrator atop a podium takes the opportunity to decry the Muslim peace negotiations.

“Anonymous” masked rallyists.

Disco Miss Piggy, a spoof of Napoles’ excessive and extravagant lifestyle.

Bus hostage fiasco a closed case–DFA

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer AS FAR as the Philippines is concerned, the death of eight Hong Kong tourists in a tragic bus hijack in Manila three years ago is a closed case.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) made this statement even as relatives of those who were killed in the incident took to a Hong Kong court Thursday and sued the Philippine government, including former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, saying their demands for a formal apology and proper compensation have yet to be met.

“As far as we’re concerned, this matter has been fully settled,” DFA spokesperson Assistant Secretary Raul Hernandez said via text message.

Hernandez has yet to issue comments on the legal action, saying the home office has not received official communication about the case from the Philippine Consulate in Hong Kong.

He earlier said it was the “prerogative of the families of the victims to take any action regarding this issue.”

Relatives of the Hong Kong tourists killed in the Aug. 23, 2010, bus hostage drama on Thursday filed a lawsuit

against nine parties in the Philippines on the eve of the incident’s third anniversary to press for compensation and reiterate their demand for a formal apology.

Their loved ones were among 22 Hong Kong tourists taken hostage by disgruntled police officer Rolando Mendoza in 2010, an incident that grabbed international headlines following a bungled rescue.

Mendoza was known to have killed the eight victims before police shot him dead, ending a much-criticized police operation meant to end the standoff.

President Aquino had said it was not appropriate for the Philippine government to apologize for the incident as the state was not responsible for the harm inflicted on the Hong Kong tourists.

He, however, expressed deep regret for the bloodshed, a sentiment communicated to Hong Kong by former Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim to former Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Chang during a meeting on Dec. 16, 2010.

The House of Representatives and the Manila City Council also separately passed resolutions expressing sympathies to the Hong Kong people for the deaths. The Philippines has also provided “financial tokens of solidarity” to the victims’ families, the DFA said. ■

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Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 14

9th whistle-blower vs Napoles surfaces ‘Fatal oil rig blast in Gulf Witness claims she saw payoffs to lawmakers of Mexico caused by poorly trained Filipinos’

BY NANCY C. CARVAJAL Philippine Daily Inquirer

A NINTH witness in the P10billion pork barrel scam told the INQUIRER she was present when Janet Lim-Napoles met lawmakers in high-end restaurants, where she handed them cash, and kept a “red book” of such transactions.

This latest witness, who declined to be named in public in the meantime, is now with the National Bureau of Investigation, which has been looking into allegations that Napoles turned allocations from the Priority Development Assistance Fund of senators and congressmen into kickbacks of up to 60 percent.

Six of the whistle-blowers led

by Merlina Suñas were present yesterday during the INQUIRER’s interview of the ninth whistleblower. They corroborated the new whistle-blower’s testimony.

“It was my job to go with her anywhere she went, so I got to see who she met and witnessed money handed to them,” said the 35-year-old woman who claimed to have worked as a close aide of Napoles, the fugitive head of the JLN group of companies, from 2009 to 2011.

The eyewitness now works as a casual employee for a government agency.

The new witness also said that Napoles kept a red book that contained the names and amounts received by lawmakers who had given her access to their pork barrel funds, which were then coursed through dummy non-government organizations (NGOs) and ghost

projects.

Levito Baligod, lawyer of the whistle-blowers, asked the INQUIRER not to name the lawmakers pending completion of this witness’ sworn statement.

Earlier statements by the accusers said five senators and 23 congressmen were involved in the scam.

Benhur Luy, 31, a cousin and former Napoles employee, has accused the businesswoman of using pork barrel funds in a P10-billion racket over the past 10 years.

Luy said he was held captive

by Napoles for three months after she suspected him of setting up a rival group to compete with her.

Napoles went into hiding last week after a court issued a warrant for her arrest, and that of her brother Reynald Lim, for the serious illegal detention of Luy. Seven other former Napoles employees have corroborated Luy’s accusations, including two last week who refused to be named for security reasons.

Luy earlier told the INQUIRER about the red book, but this was denied by Napoles during the roundtable interview with the INQUIRER. P65,000 ball pen

The ninth whistle-blower said dinners with the lawmakers were in expensive restaurants, like the Greenhills Stone Grill and Tsukiji in Makati City.

She said Napoles asked her to buy gifts for the senators.

“One time she asked me to pick a ball pen, Montblanc, worth P65,000 from Rustan’s,” she said, adding she paid for it in cash.

“I had to pick up the ball pen

the following day because it had to be engraved with the senator’s name,” she said.

The woman also confirmed earlier statements by Luy and Suñas about the bags of money placed in Napoles’ bathtub in the master bedroom of unit 18B North Pacific Plaza Towers in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.

“I saw one of the staff get a bag of money from the bathtub and handed it personally to Kuya Dick,” the woman said, referring to a driver of a senator. Each bag in the tub had the amount it contained written on bond paper.

“When we are ordered to get money from a bag, we correspondingly write in the paper how much was taken out and then write our name,” she said.

The ninth whistle-blower also said that what Commission on Audit Chair Grace Pulido-Tan said about the names of those who had passed government board examinations being used as beneficiaries in ghost projects was true.

“My colleagues had difficulty coming up with names, so when they saw those board passers in the newspapers, they copied their names,” she said.

She also confirmed earlier statements of Luy and Suñas that Napoles’ drivers, maids and nannies were ordered to come up with names of fake beneficiaries.

Lawyer Baligod told the INQUIRER that the ninth whistle-blower did not hesitate to come forward. “We looked for her and she willingly agreed to corroborate the earlier statements of the other whistleblowers,” Baligod said. ■

The ninth whistle-blower said Napoles asked her to buy gifts for the senators, including a Montblanc worth P65,000 from Rustan’s, at one time.

SCREEN GRAB FROM GMA NEWS

www.canadianinquirer.net

BY TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer UNITED STATES oil platform operator Black Elk Energy Offshore Operations has pointed to unsafe welding practices as the cause of the oil rig blast that killed three Filipino workers in the Gulf of Mexico on Nov. 16 last year.

The company was citing a report from an “independent third party” investigation it had commissioned pending a federal probe.

A report released by ABSG Consulting said its contractor, Grand Isle Shipyard (GIS), had violated contract obligations when it allowed “poorly trained subcontractor workers” to undertake welding operations on the platform.

The Philippine Embassy in Washington D. C. withheld comment on the Black Elk report, saying that it would instead wait for the results of the official investigation by the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

Official investigation

“The embassy would like to wait for the release next month of the results of the official investigation conducted by the BSEE of the Department of the Interior in which the Filipino workers involved in the accident were given the opportunity to participate,” said the embassy in a statement.

“The embassy, however, takes note of the statement of Black Elk president John Hoffman reiterating his recognition of the reputation of Filipino offshore oil workers for competence and professionalism,” the post said.

US media reports on the Black Elk investigation results said the Houston-based firm’s consultant had found that subcontractor workers were welding an open pipe connected to tanks with highly flammable oil and vapors at the time of the blast.

It said GIS allowed welders of the Philippine-based DNR

Offshore and Crewing Services, which deployed the Filipino workers, to do sensitive work even as it was bound by contract not to use subcontractors for the job.

Absolved of liability

The commissioned report released on Aug. 21 virtually absolved Black Elk of any liability in the blast.

Filipino workers Jerome Malagapo, 28, Avelino Tajonera, 48, and Elroy Corporal, 42, were killed in the blast while two others were injured, including pipefitter Renato Dominguez and a colleague whose name was withheld on the family’s request.

Responding to the privately contracted investigation, contractor GIS pointed out that the probe was outside the formal federal investigation and that consultants were “selected, hired, paid and directed” by Black Elk. Inaccuracies and hearsay

“There are several inaccuracies and hearsay included in this report which GIS will refute once we have had an opportunity to review in detail the entire 400-page report,” read the GIS statement.

The contractor also underscored how the commissioned probe excluded GIS and its subcontract personnel, saying they “have never been interviewed directly by this firm to discuss the first-hand accounts of the incident.”

The Philippine Embassy vowed to continue providing assistance to the affected workers and “to take all actions to ensure that their rights are fully protected and their claims properly addressed.” ■

Philippine News

15 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Chief aide in charge of Enrile’s PDAF deals

BY GIL C. CABACUNGAN Philippine Daily Inquirer SENATE MINORITY Leader Juan Ponce Enrile has not met Janet Lim-Napoles apparently because he had left it to his chief of staff to handle the release of his pork barrel funds to the dubious nongovernment organizations (NGOs) allegedly operated by the fugitive businesswoman.

According to the Commission on Audit (COA) report of its special audit of the congressional pork barrel funds released between 2007 and 2009, Enrile denied signing any documents relating to the fake NGOs, but “he confirmed to have authorized his chief of staff to sign on his behalf.”

Whistle- blower Benhur Luy, a Napoles relative who acted as her bookkeeper to keep track of kickbacks and profitsharing with the legislators involved, told the INQUIRER that Napoles’ main contacts with Enrile’s office was lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Gonzales- Reyes and Jose Antonio Evangelista.

Reyes was Enrile’s chief of staff of long standing until she was forced to quit early this year after being criticized by some senators for calling them “hypocrites” during the Senate Christmas funds scandal. She is widely known in the Senate to sign official documents and checks on Enrile’s behalf.

Jessica “Gigi” Reyes and Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile.

confirmed signing documents to the NGOs under investigation in the multibillion peso pork barrel scam except for one such NGO. In the case of the Kagandahan ng Kapaligiran Foundation Inc. (KKFI), “the chief of staff confirmed signatures in the MOA (memorandum of agreement) but denied signatures in the certificates of acceptance and list of beneficiaries for projects implemented,” the COA said.

the implementing agency for one project be changed from the National Livelihood Development Corp. to the Technology Resource Center, but the same NGO beneficiary (Cared) be retained.

5 Napoles NGOs

The COA report also showed that En-

NGO pork recipients Denial from chief of staff

Contacted for comment, Reyes said the senator would normally designate her “and/or any of our deputy chiefs of staff” to sign documents on his behalf.

“But specifically regarding his PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund), Senator Enrile himself signs the endorsement to the DBM (Department of Budget and Management),” she said in a text message.

“I never signed any endorsement to the DBM to nominate any project whether under the senator’s PDAF, VILP ( Various Infrastructure including Local Projects) or other sources,” she added.

Reyes said either she or deputy chief of staff Jose Antonio Evangelista would sign documents required by the implementing agencies “but only pursuant to the written authorization of the senator.”

“But the COA provided our office numerous documents where our signatures were obviously forged and we intend to present these in the investigation,” she said. Reyes denied knowing Luy. “I challenge him to prove his claim that I am their contact whoever he was referring to. I had encountered Ms Janet Lim- Napoles on several occasions before, but I’ve never met Benhur Luy,” she said.

The COA said Enrile’s chief of staff, which it did not identify in the report,

According to the COA report, Enrile received a total of P904 million in pork barrel from 2007 to 2009 (he became Senate President in November 2008).

The COA report zeroed in on around P300 million of Enrile’s pork barrel allocations which went to the Social Development Program for Farmers Foundations Inc., or SDPFFI (P101.85 million), Countrywide Agri and Rural Economic Development Foundation Inc., or Cared (P76 million); Dr. Rodolfo Ignacio Sr. Foundation Inc. (P35.55 million); People’s Organization for Progress and Development Foundation Inc., or POPDFI, (P24.25 million); Agri and Economic Program for Farmers Foundation Inc., or AEPFFI (P24.25 million); Kagandahan ng Kapaligiran Foundation Inc. (P14.56 million); Agricultura Para sa Magbubukid Foundation Inc., or APMFI (P24.25 million); Masaganang Ani para sa Magsasaka Foundation Inc., or MAMFI (P58.2million); Pangkabuhayan Foundation Inc. (P10.9 million); Kaloocan Assistance Council Inc. (P10 million); Rotary Club of New Manila East (P2 million); and local government assistance to Taguig (P4.55 million) and Quezon City (P1.598 million).

The COA report showed that Enrile had chosen the NGO beneficiary and conduit to be used. For example, the COA said Enrile’s office requested that www.canadianinquirer.net

rile had forked over his pork barrel to at least 5 Napoles-linked NGOs—SDPFFI, Cared, POPDFI, AEPFFI, and APMFI—that Luy claimed gave senators and representatives handsome profits in exchange for looking the other way when the NGOs listed down ghost projects and fake beneficiaries in their accomplishment reports.

The COA report showed that at least three suppliers (B.B. Vergara, JR and JP Enterprises, and J Sangalang Garden and Plant Nursery) connected to Enrile’s pork barrel have denied having made any transaction with the fake NGOs. Another six suppliers were also found to have submitted spurious receipts and documents—Nutrigrowth Philippines, Calpito Agrifarm and Machineries Enterprises, LR Services, Livelihood Research Corp., and TNU Trading and MMRC Trading of the Napoles group.

Enrile also released P2 million for the Rotary Club of New Manila East ostensibly for a milk- feeding program for malnourished children in Quezon City. The COA said the club has no SEC registration and local business permit, and has yet to liquidate this disbursement. ■ With Norman Bordadora

Opinion

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 16

THERE’S THE RUB

‘Napulis’

By Conrado De Quiros Philippine Daily Inquirer WHAT A time for Ome Candazo to die, just when the protest against pork is heating up. Ome, as the INQUIRER revealed, was the newspaper’s “Deep Throat,” the congressman who exposed the bane of pork in 1996. Specifically, he showed in painstaking detail how the senators and congressmen swallowed huge portions of the lechon de leche, their commissions or kickbacks from their pork ranging from 30 percent to half of it.

Ome was the representative of Marikina then, one of those who helped mightily to banish the city’s reputation as the rape capital of the world. In more ways than one: There’s rape and there’s rape, the literal rape of Maria and the not-so-metaphorical rape of Juan de la Cruz, and both are heinous. Ome had been an activist in his younger days and was jailed three times for it, and clearly he never lost the spirit of wanting to “serve the people” even after he became a congressman.

He died of a heart attack. I had just heard that very morning he was rushed to the hospital, only to learn the following day he never recovered.

He was 61. Not without an irony he himself might have laughed at, the

man who had tried to clear the country’s political arteries of cholesterol succumbed physically to it.

Ome’s exposé shows what’s profoundly wrong with Malacañang’s refusal to scrap it, and indeed continuing defense of it. Like the PNoy administration today, the Ramos administration then also vowed to plug the loopholes in pork. The budget department promptly disallowed projects like basketball courts and waiting sheds to be funded by pork, and posted an online bulletin board showing how the lawmakers proposed to spend their allocations. Like today’s senators and congressmen, the lawmakers then promised to behave, their change of heart signaled by their change of the name of pork from “Countryside Development Fund” to “Priority Development Assistance Fund.”

Alas, a skunk by any other name smells just as bad, cholesterol by any other name kills just as well. The change of name led only to a change of ratio: Not long afterward, many senators and congressmen were leaving less to their constituents, skimming off more than half from their pork—60 percent, according to a Commission on Audit study. Not least by funneling the money into NGOs put up by family and friends. The practice of sliming the NGOs did not begin

with Janet Napoles, it goes way back.

I have little doubt the government will be able to stop a Napoles-type scam from happening again. That doesn’t mean it will be able to stop other pork scams from happening again. Or people’s money disappearing into the bottomless pit of greed, the way it did long after basketball courts and waiting sheds were banned from being porked. Where there’s pork, there’s scam. If

Since the Spanish times, plunder has been rife, with a tacit injunction only that officials do not plunder too grossly. But what is par for the course and what is kaswapangan are subjective judgments. we Pinoys have shown an exceptional talent for anything, it is in discovering the infinite variety of ways to skin a cat, or roast a pig, or get around the law.

The pork barrel is an engraved invitation to perfidy, which is not likely to be refused by people who have been known to gatecrash places where perfidy holds a party. “Huwag naman lahatin” is the mantra of ardent pork defenders in the executive and legislative branches. That may be true, but the exception is not the overwhelming

majority, it is the tiny minority. Or the exception has to do only with quantity, not quality. You put P200 million in the hands of a senator and P70 million in the hands of a congressman, giving him or her the sole power to decree where it may go, it will take a Mother Teresa to want all of it to go only to the poor. The only question really is what the ratio will be between pocket and conscience.

To go by the history of pork, pocket will be the long-term gainer.

Indeed, the only question is whether the skimming will be done with finesse or brazenness. To go by the alleged 10-year run of Napoles, brazenness will win in the long run. Why am I not surprised that Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla were caught with their, well, pants down? Napoles kayo nang Napoles, napulis tuloy.

Given our culture, which defines corruption as pillaging beyond the norm—“Was I greedy?” was Angelo Reyes’ pained and quite revealing cry— the pork can, and will, be used for purposes other than what the law intended without the senator and congressman feeling he/she has done something wrong. Since the Spanish times, plunder has been rife, with a tacit injunction only that officials do not plunder too grossly. The problem with that of course is that what is normal and what

is excessive, what is par for the course and what is kaswapangan, are subjective judgments. More to the point, the norm rises over time. The pork take certainly has: It’s now at 60 percent.

You insist on merely policing the uses of pork and you only add to the work of the auditors, or indeed to the bureaucracy itself, putting on more people to police the police, to regulate the regulators, to audit the auditors. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and nowhere does the adage apply more forcefully than here. Scrap pork and you won’t have that headache.

I’m glad the netizens in particular— truly, thank God for the social media, they are the new Edsa, or the new Plaza Miranda—are registering their disgust and revulsion over the pork scam, given particularly the scale of poverty and misery in this country. I’m glad they’re calling for some sort of People Power next week to demand an end to the plague. About time we rose to stop it. You may hem and haw about pork, you may discuss and debate the nutritive value of the political cholesterol, but one thing is inescapable. Pork remains—both the congressional and presidential ones—and the daang matuwid will never be paved.

The money for it will be, well, napulis. ■

AT LARGE

A ‘yellow’ tribute to Ninoy

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer YELLOW BALLOONS, yellow flowers, yellow ribbons and men and women in yellow were all over the departure/ arrival hall of Naia Terminal 3, and for good reason. It was Aug. 21 after all, marking the 30th death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino, who was shot and killed on the tarmac and thereby earned the honor of having the country’s main airport named after him.

The area is dominated by a bust of Ninoy, usually ignored on most days as passengers are either rushing to their gates or hurrying to get home, but on this morning Ninoy was receiving his due share of the limelight.

The day before, much of the metropolis and surrounding areas were rendered impassable by lashing rain, flash floods, and islands of garbage.

But on that day, the streets were clear, if still littered with the detritus of the city’s waste, although some guests still had to muddle their way through remaining high water. But as latecomer Rene Saguisag remarked: “If Ninoy once said that the Filipino is worth dying for, then Ninoy is certainly worth braving the floods and the traffic for.”

No member of Ninoy’s immediate

family was present, and for good reason. President Noynoy was visiting different evacuation centers, while his sisters were off on their own relief efforts. Representing the Aquino family were Ninoy’s youngest brother Paul, his senator-son Bam, and a delegation (his wife, daughter and granddaughters) representing Butz, who I understand is ailing.

But making up for the absence of Ninoy’s nearand-dear were friends and political allies, familiar faces who had taken part in the years of the pre-Ninoy and post-Ninoy protests, played important roles in the Cory government, and have become familiar figures in all the commemorations of Ninoy’s and Cory’s milestones. There was enough remembering to go around. *** EXECUTIVE Secretary Jojo Ochoa was the first to indulge in the trip down recent history. His father who had been a local politician in Bulacan, he shared, had been a close associate of the late senator Ninoy. In fact, he said, in their trips across the country before the declaration of martial law, the older Ochoa and Ninoy were sometimes forced to share the same bed.

So when Ninoy was arrested and incarcerated, his father, said Ochoa, was

downhearted and sunk into depression. He only brightened somewhat when he learned of Ninoy’s release into exile in Boston, and was heartened when he learned of the senator’s plans to return home. “He seemed to take the news of the assassination quite calmly,” Ochoa recalled, and his father’s only request was that they drive to Times Street to view Ninoy’s remains.

“But when we got to the street corner, we found a long queue of people waiting to get inside,” recalled Ochoa.

Indeed, there was nostalgia, sadness, but also triumph in the air that morning.

“At this point, seeing all those people waiting to pay homage to Ninoy, my father broke down in tears, not just in tears but breaking out in sobs and wails.” The “little President” added, “I think it was only at that moment that the truth of Ninoy’s death had sunk in. So instead of stopping, I simply drove on and headed home.” *** DELIVERING the response in behalf of the Aquinos was Bam, the senator, whose striking resemblance to Ninoy may have been his ticket to electoral victory.

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But he opened his talk by sharing his feeling of dismay when a survey among young people showed how little they knew of the late senator and martyr. When asked what they knew about Ninoy, Bam said, most respondents said they knew him as “the father of Kris Aquino” (“not even of P-Noy,” Bam remarked), the man whose pensive face is shown in a P500 bill, and the man who lent his name to the country’s main airport.

Still, Senator Bam said, “this doesn’t mean that people power is dead,” it remains alive, but “only in different forms.” That so many young people have spent days and nights in evacuation centers helping flood victims, or helping put together relief packages, is a form of people power, he said. Even now citizens and netizens have called for another show of people power to denounce politicians who have abused the pork barrel and to demand for reforms of the system, while young people are organizing to help their communities and help build a more responsive society.

“So please, don’t talk about the ‘old guard’ and the ‘young turks’ of Edsa,” pleaded Bam. “We are all still in this, continuing Uncle Ninoy’s fight.” *** CENTRAL to the morning’s cer-

emonies was the laying of wreaths before the bust of Ninoy by different groups, including the “veterans” of ATOM, the August 21 Movement that was formed immediately after the killing of Ninoy; the “Corvets” or Cory Veterans who served in the late president’s administration and worked for both her and P-Noy’s campaigns; the EstradaKalaw family led by former senator Eva Estrada Kalaw; and of course the Aquino family.

Bringing everyone back to those heady, stressful, suspenseful and yet hopeful years was singer Noel Cabangon, with the special participation of Ogie Alcasid who is a member of the Edsa People Power Commission. Of course, “Bayan Ko,” our second national anthem, was sung, although for me the more moving number was when Cabangon sang “My Personal Revenge,” a haunting hymn based on a poem by a Sandinista rebel that says, among its many beautiful lines, that “My personal revenge will be to show you/The kindness in the eyes of my people.”

Indeed, there was nostalgia, sadness, but also triumph in the air that morning. But anger? It seems to have dissipated in the typhoon’s departing winds, or to have been directed at new targets, as it should be. ■

Opinion

17 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

PUBLIC LIVES

Can pork be good?

By Randy David Philippine Daily Inquirer RATHER THAN heed the growing public clamor to scrap the pork barrel portion in the current national budget, President Aquino has justified retaining it while calling for tighter control over its use. He argues that the system of reserving funds for projects identified by legislators has the advantage of benefiting communities and addressing needs often neglected by the national government. He cites his own experience as a former representative of Tarlac province.

There is no question that honest and conscientious legislators can put their pork barrel to good use. By the same token, they may also be tempted by its sheer availability into pocketing it. The issue is: Is the pork barrel system the most rational way of spotting social needs that escape the notice of the national government? Bear in mind that this is a system explicitly invented to accommodate politicians in their role as patrons, a mechanism that everywhere has been proven to be susceptible to widespread abuse.

Can anyone honestly think that effective controls may be built into the system without removing the one basic feature that defines it—personal

discretion by politicians over the expenditure of public funds?

We all know this is not how government in a democracy is supposed to work. The work of legislators, insofar as the budget is concerned, is confined to reviewing the budgetary proposal submitted by the executive, scrutinizing and debating its general thrusts and priorities, and disallowing intended appropriations that cannot be justified. This political power does not give congressmen and senators the discretion to allot money for their pet projects. And, much less does it include the privilege of naming contractors and suppliers, and recommending designated beneficiaries.

Asked if he would give in to the public clamor to abolish the pork barrel, P-Noy was supposed to have retorted, “And then change it to what?” I think the reasonable reply to that would be: “Just take it out—it is a superfluity.”

The administration of funds is not a legislative function. If the national government wants to make sure that underserved communities are attended to, all it needs to do is listen to the local development councils at all levels through the various government agencies on the ground.

There is a simple logical reason for keeping administration separate from

politics. The politicians who have the power to examine the budget might be more objective if they were not given a role in the actual administration of public money. In turn, those in charge of the funds might be more conscientious in approving fund releases, bidding out contracts, monitoring projects, and auditing expenditures if they did not have to deal with politicians. These are principles of modern governance that are embodied in our system of laws.

Why is the clamor for the abolition of the pork barrel being addressed to P-Noy rather than to Congress? It’s because we expect much from him.

There is, of course, no guarantee that public funds would be better spent if the pork barrel system was abolished. But the legislature might be in a better position to call the executive to task if its members were not in some way involved in executive functions. It may compel legislators to focus more on their core function— lawmaking and participation in parliamentary debates—to be assessed by voters on the basis of their parliamentary activity rather than on their

patronal generosity. At the very least, getting rid of the pork barrel is a direct way of removing one of the biggest sources of corruption in our society.

But I can understand why the average president of our country would want to retain the pork barrel system.

In the absence of a strong political party system, the power to release or to withhold Priority Development Assistance Fund allotments offers the executive strong leverage in its dealings with Congress. We may also presume that every president could, if he asked for it, obtain a dossier on PDAF misuse by particular politicians, a weapon against political foes that is too good to give up.

Why is the clamor for the abolition of the pork barrel being addressed to P-Noy rather than to Congress? It’s because we expect much from him.

We expect him to be different—to be a modern, not just a moral, President. We want him not just to set the example of honest leadership, but to change the system that corrupts even the best of our leaders. We look up to him to use his popularity to initiate enduring reforms in governance and political practice, knowing he has little time left before he is replaced by another president.

It is regrettable that P-Noy does

not appear to appreciate the depth of public disaffection over the pork barrel scam. It took him more than a month to make a declaration on the pork barrel controversy, and all he could manage is to defend it as a neutral tool of governance. He seems to believe that it can be regulated and its loopholes plugged, forgetting that it was not any branch or agency of government that exposed the scam but a couple of whistleblowers. If the Napoles group of bogus nongovernment organizations had not imploded, it is doubtful if the public would have known about the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

My hunch is that when the Commission on Audit completes its review of PDAF utilization, it will be found that at least half of the members of Congress were engaged in one form of irregularity or another.

Many routinely took kickbacks.

They knowingly channeled millions of their PDAF to shell NGOs whose performance they had no interest in monitoring. Others lost all sense of shame and created their own NGOs, fattening these with their annual PDAF. All contrary to law.

Can pork be good after it is cured?

Not in a political system dominated by insatiable swine. ■

AS I SEE IT

Many years ago, when ‘flood days’ were happy times

By Neal H. Cruz Philippine Daily Inquirer STORMS AND floods always put me in a nostalgic mood. While listening to the raindrops drum on the roof and watching the water rise on the streets, my thoughts go back to my happy boyhood days in Malabon, when the rainy and flood season was a time to play in the floodwaters and swim in the river.

Not anymore, today the floods bring untold suffering to the people.

We lived in a house on a big lot in the middle of fishponds. It was almost an island, connected to the street only by a long narrow dike. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but water. It was like a big lake crisscrossed by dikes that separated the fishponds.

Along the fishponds was the Catmon River, a tributary of the Tenejeros-Tullahan River that emptied into Manila Bay. The riverbanks were lined with mangrove trees and big trees called kalapinay whose branches, arching over the water, served as diving boards from which we jumped into the river.

During heavy rains, the river swelled from the runoff water. We would go to the wooden bridge over the Catmon River and watch the water—brown like coffee with milk—

angrily rushing under the bridge.

Leaves, branches and various flotsam on the water.

All the lots around the fishponds had drainpipes emptying into the ponds so that the water levels in the ponds slowly rose. All that water, pushing against the earthen dikes, put pressure on them so that eventually, a portion of the dike, weakened by holes burrowed by crabs, would give way and the water would rush out.

Pond caretakers tried to ease the outward pressure by letting out excess water through the many control gates to the river. But when the river was swollen, the pond water could not flow out.

Sometimes it was the other way around. Water in the swollen river pushed inward against the dikes. Workers tried to strengthen the dikes before the arrival of the flood season, by taking mud from the pond bottoms and plastering them on the sides and tops of the dikes. The sun’s heat baked them into hard walls resembling weak concrete.

But even then, these measures were not enough. Weaker portions of the dikes would eventually surrender to the constant pressure and gave way, and the river water would rush into the ponds. This was what fishpond owners feared most.

When the floods subsided or the

tide went out, water flowed out of the ponds and into the river and the fish with them. During a bad season, the owners could lose all their investments in bangus fingerlings that they had put in the ponds.

That is why, when there was warning of an approaching storm, the owners would harvest their fish if they were of marketable size. If not, or their efforts were too late, and the floodwaters had swamped the ponds and the surrounding backyards, the fish would escape and there would be a free-forall among the surrounding residents to

The first big typhoon I can remember was when I was a little boy. The typhoon lifted our small nipa hut whole and deposited it intact in the middle of a pond. catch as many fish as they could.

Since we were kids and did not own the ponds, these occasions were happy ones for us. We chased the fish in the streets and in our backyards with all sorts of implements—throw nets, spears, fish traps called salakab, gallon cans, washtubs, clay pots, and even pieces of firewood with which we clubbed fish swimming in the shallow waters.

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We would have fish for viands for weeks.

Our house then had a basement.

When the ponds overflowed their banks and flooded our yard, water flowed into the basement—and with it, fish. When the water receded, the fish would be stranded in the basement. We could hear them splashing down there. We would go into the basement to catch some of them when needed. But in-between, we fed them leftover rice and fish and meat.

We had fresh fish for months.

At other times, during heavy rains but before the floods, we would watch fish, called martiniko or liwalo, climb up the banks of the ponds, mistaking the water flowing over the banks and from the drainpipes as the upstream to which all fish are attracted.

After they got over the banks, the fish would splash around in the shallow water in the yard. When there were enough of them there, we would go down and catch them with salakab. This was a bamboo fish trap with a hole on top. We clamped it down in the water where the fish was, then reached through the hole on top and caught them with our bare hands. We put them in earthenware jars called tapayan and left them swimming happily there until we needed them for viands. Broiled over hot coals, this

particular fish was very delicious.

Before the river swelled too much and the current became too strong, we would swim and play in the river. In barrios along the river, most children learned to swim soon after they learned to walk.

We dove from the Catmon Bridge and from the trees lining the banks of the river and played all sorts of games in the river. We would stay there from morning until mid-afternoon when our elders would call us to go home for lunch.

The first big typhoon I can remember was when I was a little boy, a preschooler. The typhoon lifted our small nipa hut whole and deposited it intact in the middle of a pond. (It was after this that my father built a big concreteand-wood house firmly anchored to the ground with steel and concrete.)

With the loss of our nipa house, we sought shelter in an aunt’s house in a nearby barrio, on the mainland. A cousin carried me on her shoulders.

The raindrops were so big they hurt my head. So my cousin put a gunny sack over my head and shoulders and we proceeded to my aunt’s house.

All the big mango trees in the neighborhood were blown down. But curiously, four huge tamarind trees and two big santol trees, as well as all the kakawati trees surrounding our lot, withstood the strong winds. ■

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

18

Canada News

Nanny was a virtual slave, Crown says at human trafficking sentencing

NEWS BRIEFS

BY DENE MOORE The Canadian Press VANCOUVER—Leticia Sarmiento was a modern-day slave, working 16 hours a day, seven days a week as a nanny for a wealthy family in British Columbia, says the Crown, urging a judge to hand down a sentence for her former employer that will deter others from trafficking vulnerable women.

Franco Yiu Kwan Orr was found guilty in June of human trafficking for bringing Sarmiento with his family to Canada, where she earned $500 a month to care for his three children.

“He kept her as a virtual slave in his home,” Crown lawyer Peter La Prairie told the B.C. Supreme Court Judge Richard Goepel on Wednesday.

“It was a crime of greed and it was a crime of control.”

La Prairie asked Goepel to impose a prison sentence of five to six years.

In 2007, Sarmiento, 40, began working for the family in Hong Kong, where, she told the court, conditions were very different.

A mother of three herself, Sarmiento testified that she was told by the couple before coming to Canada that she would continue to have two days off a week and regular working hours.

She said they told her she could become a permanent resident of the country after two years, and her children could join her here.

Orr brought Sarmiento to Canada in September 2008 on a visitor’s visa that expired after six months.

Living in Metro Vancouver, she said she was not allowed to socialize with other people, worked seven days a week, had her passport taken away, and had to share a room with the couple’s youngest daughter.

In June 2010, after 22 months, Sarmiento called 911 and police took her to a women’s shelter.

In a victim impact statement read in court by La Prairie, Sarmiento said she wanted a better life but has now lost trust in people.

“I’m a good mother, a good daughter. I never do bad things. I help people and I expect the same back,” La

PROVINCE REJECTS SECOND CASINO SITE IN OTTAWA OTTAWA—Ontario’s finance minister has written a letter to Ottawa’s mayor saying that the province will not support the creation of a second gaming zone in the city. The letter comes as Ottawa city council faces a potential debate if the city approaches the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. with plans to establish two new gaming zones in the capital, which would allow construction of new casinos.

The Filipino community closely followed the case of Leticia Sarmiento, a nanny who has filed a civil suit against her former employers.

PHOTO FROM RAPPLER.COM

Prairie read aloud.

She said she believed her children would join her in Canada.

“I have not seen my children since 2007 when I left the Philippines and went to Hong Kong,” the statement said. “In 2010 I stopped having income to send home, so my kids stopped going to school.”

Her youngest daughter accused her of not being able to even recognize her in photos, she said, and the media attention from the case has caused her embarrassment and made it difficult to find another job.

“I feel judged,” she said.

La Prairie said Orr used deception to get Sarmiento into the country, subjected her to degrading and humiliating conditions once here, and did so for his own profit—all aggravating factors for sentencing.

He cited a study on the trafficking of women for domestic servitude, and said they are among the most vulnerable in the world.

According to RCMP, there have been 45 convictions in Canada for human trafficking or related crimes, involving 69 people, but Orr’s is the first conviction for human trafficking under the Immigration Act. Orr was also found guilty of employing a foreign national illegally and misrepresenting the situation to

immigration officials. His partner, Oi Ling Nicole Huen, was found not guilty by a jury.

Defence lawyer Nicholas Preovolos suggested a conditional sentence for Orr, 50, a father of three without a criminal record.

Preovolos said his client—who worked at one time as an immigration consultant, according to the Crown—maintains his innocence on the charge of human trafficking.

If the jury believed the conditions in the home were as deplorable for Sarmiento as she testified, they would have convicted Orr’s spouse of human trafficking, as well, for being complicit in the exploitation, he said.

“Mrs. Sarmiento did have serious credibility problems,” Preovolos told the court, pointing out discrepancies in her testimony about working hours, her access to a cellphone, whether her passport was taken away and whether she was locked in the house.

“To me, it looks like she embellished the evidence or outright perjured herself.”

Preovolos said his client may have been paying Sarmiento Hong Kong wages in Canada, but “it is a very limited profit motive.”

The maximum sentence for the human trafficking charge is life in prison. ■

POSITIVE REACTION TO POT ADMISSION: TRUDEAU CHARLOTETOWN—Justin Trudeau says reaction has been almost universally positive to his frank admission he smoked marijuana after becoming a member of Parliament. The Liberal leader says Canadians are pleased to find a politician who’s willing to be so honest.

MANITOBA JUMPS INTO SENATE COURT CASE WINNIPEG—The Manitoba government is intervening in the federal government’s Senate reference case before the Supreme Court of Canada. Ottawa is asking the court for guidance on what it would take to reform the upper chamber and whether it can abolish the body without provincial consultation.

MAPLE BACON JAM BLAMED FOR CNE FOOD POISONING TORONTO—The maple bacon jam topping on the cronut burger at the Canadian National Exhibition is the ingredient that led to more than 79 cases of foodborne illness, Toronto’s public health agency said Tuesday.”We were able to clear the cheese, the meat patty, the lettuce and the bun and identify the jam,” said Dr. Lisa Berger of Toronto Public Health. “Now we are looking at the individual components of the jam, there are separate food samples being sent to the public health lab and we are awaiting those results.”

Canada News

19 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Debt levels rise for Canadians and especially seniors, report suggests 2013 Civic DX Lease for

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OTTAWA—Canadian households have returned to their free-spending ways and seniors have joined the party lately by borrowing to finance their post-retirement lifestyles, a new report says.

The report from Equifax Canada shows that despite recent efforts by policy-makers to clamp down on borrowing, total consumer debt in Canada rose $77 billion, or 6.1 per cent, in the second quarter of 2013 from last year, and by 6.5 per cent among those 65 and over.

The increase in debt among seniors was the biggest year-over-year of all age groups.

Jeffrey Schwartz of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services of Canada says the finding on seniors debt is in line with other reports that show bankruptcies among retirees is on the rise.

“That’s what scary about this,” he said.

“Seniors are carrying more debt into retirement. They are trying to maintain a lifestyle they had pre-retirement but on post-retirement income, and if income

has dropped, they are increasing their debt to cover off their spending. It’s a very dangerous strategy.”

He added another possible cause is that seniors are supporting their grown children in greater numbers.

In a separate analysis from the TD Bank also released Monday, economist Leslie Preston noted that although savings rates have risen in recent months, it will take a long time for Canadians, including seniors, to pay off their mountains of debt.

Overall, the Equifax data suggested most of the new debt came from an increase in mortgage credit, up 7.4 per cent, and in auto loan balances, which increased 8.6 per cent over the past year.

Other data from Statistics Canada and the Bank of Canada have tended to show a decrease in credit accumulation, although the last release was for the first quarter of 2013, which found the debt-to-income ratio falling to 161.8 per cent from 162.6 per cent.

However, the pace on home purchases picked up during the spring.

Despite the increase in debt, Equifax also found that delinquency rates fell over the past year to 1.19 per cent in the

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second quarter of this year, one of the lowest values on record.

Toronto had the highest delinquency rate among major metropolitan areas at 1.56 per cent of non-mortgage balances, but has continuously improved since hitting a peak of 2.53 per cent in 2010.

The low delinquency rates suggests that with interest rates at super-low levels, and incomes rising even if moderately, Canadians are able to service their high levels of debt. But Christian deRitis, a senior director of consumer credit at Moody’s Analytics, warned all that could change with economic conditions or a shock in the housing market.

“Stable home prices and improve-

ments in the labour market should continue to support the market in the future, while the outlook for consumer credit remains positive,” he said. “A sudden rise in interest rates or deterioration in fundamentals in key export markets are risks to this forecast, however.”

The Bank of Canada has long warned that as interest rates rise, many more Canadians become vulnerable to an economic shock.

Last week, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said he was satisfied that overall the housing market had responded appropriately to the tightening of lending rules introduced last year and that he planned no more interventions to cool mortgage credit. ■

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World News

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 20

Japanese leave established companies for less well paying ventures, seeking meaningful careers

BY YURI KAGEYAMA The Associated Press TOKYO—In a shabby backalley office in Shibuya, a Tokyo district known for youth culture and tech ventures, defectors from corporate Japan are hard at work for a little known company they fervently believe will be the country’s next big manufacturing success.

Like a startup anywhere in the world, its bare bone setup crackles with an optimistic energy and urgent sense of purpose. What’s different, for Japan, is that this startup’s talent is drawn from the ranks of famous companies such as Mitsubishi, Michelin and Nissan.

Kohshi Kuwahara, 26, worked for more than two years at electronics giant Panasonic Corp. before hopping to Terra Motors Corp., a little know venture that pays far less but is out to conquer the world with its stylish electric scooters. As with his colleagues at Terra, he resiled from the hidebound culture of big Japanese companies and felt a deep sense of frustration at their eclipse by rivals such as South Korea’s Samsung and America’s Apple.

“If you’re stuck in a system that promotes just by seniority, it’s living a slow death like animals on a farm,” said Kuwahara.

“I wanted to be in a tough competitive place.”

Despite having some of the developed world’s least hospitable conditions for starting a new business, Japan’s “salaryman” culture of guaranteed lifetime employment at a household name corporation is no longer the unquestioned ideal.

Ventures are sprouting again after a decade marred by some high-profile failures and a striking aspect is their focus on manufacturing. Facebook and Google they are not. They are Sony and Toyota, all over again—but with young fresh faces.

Terra Motors founder and president Toru Tokushige, 43, said one sign of progress for startups is that these days they have no problems recruiting quality people.

A few years ago, all he could

Smart scooter: Toru Tokushige, president of Terra Motors Corp., touches an iPhone mounted on his company’s electric A4000i scooter in Koto Ward, Tokyo, on Wednesday.

PHOTO BY SATOKO KAWASAKI / JAPANTIMES.CO.JP

hire were what Japan categorized as the losers, those who had no hopes of getting hired at an established company. As Sony Corp. and other mainstream brands lose their lustre, Terra is gaining a chance to shine.

Tokushige’s 15 employees now hail from top-name companies, and the interns are enrolled in Hitotsubashi, one of Japan’s top universities.

He acknowledges that plans for his tiny company to break into global markets still sound a little crazy by mainstream Japanese standards. But he believes his way of doing business is superior to bigger companies, where decision-making tends to be bureaucratic, slow and oriented toward avoiding risks.

“Mainstream companies started out as ventures. That means old-time Japanese did it,” he said of the humble beginnings of Honda, Sony, Panasonic and All Nippon Airways. “We can do it, too.”

At their former employers, Tokushige’s workers felt stifled, although they were promised stability, status and money.

They knew what they could contribute was limited, while at Terra, they can hope to make a crucial and tangible contribution.

“What we want to do is create another Sony or another Honda,” said Kazuaki Konno, 35, an engineer who worked previously at Nissan Motor Co. and Boston Consulting before joining Terra.

At a shareholders’ meeting in June, Sony President Kazuo Hirai was asked by an investor about an alleged exodus of talent from the company. The investor expressed worries about continued creativity at Sony.

Hirai reiterated he would do all he could to keep innovation going, but he did not deny the allegation.

Such defectors are setting a trend, said author Ryuichi Kino, who has written books about the Japanese auto and nuclear industries, and is working on a book about the advent of career switches and job-hopping in Japan.

“These people are searching for their place. For those with talent, they would rather go where they are wanted than endure suffering where they are,” he said.

The office of Terra Motors is a tiny room in a building in the crammed slummy Shibuya district known as “Bit Valley,” Japan’s equivalent of Silicon Valley for housing startups.

Recently, Terra came out www.canadianinquirer.net

with an electric scooter targeting emerging markets that connects to smartphones to gather location-based and electricityconsumption data. They charge from a regular plug outlet.

Terra, set up in 2010, received investment capital from top funds, including one run by former Sony President Nobuyuki Idei. It already has top market share in electric scooters in Japan, and is eyeing overseas markets including Vietnam, India and the Philippines.

Its success so far is against the odds.

The World Bank, in ranking the ease with which a new business can be started, scored Japan 114th among 185 economies. New Zealand was at the top, and the U.S. was No. 13. Singapore was fourth, while Ghana was 112th.

Japan’s initial public offerings, at 36 in 2011, make for a fraction of the numbers in the U.S. at 134, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Adding to the obstacles, the prevailing message for the past decade in Japan was that startups were not to be trusted.

The ones that used to get attention tended to be videogame companies such as Gree Inc., which got slammed over the alleged anti-social addic-

tiveness of its games, and the wayward, such as Net services company Livedoor, whose founder was arrested in a securities fraud scandal.

It is only recently that some vigour has returned to ventures. Part of the explanation may be the renewed focus on manufacturing.

Japan’s four decades of industrial success after World War II were followed by more than two decades of stagnation, mainly because of the absence of innovation, said Masazumi Ishii, managing director of AZCA Inc., a California consulting firm specializing in international corporate development.

For innovations to happen, poorly performing large companies need to be allowed to fail, and innovative smaller companies must be nurtured and funded, he said.

The technological prowess is there. Japan still produces its share of Nobel Prize winners, ranking eighth in the world, and Japan’s top universities file as many patents as do top U.S. universities, according to Ishii.

“Japan has the capability to innovate. But the problem is that this capability does not translate to commercial value.” ■

World News

21 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Firefighters struggle to contain huge wildfire raging in Yosemite National Park area

BY BRIAN SKOLOFF AND TRACIE CONE The Associated Press TUOLUMNE CITY, CALIF.— Crews working to contain one of California’s largest-ever wildfires gained some ground Monday against the flames threatening San Francisco’s water supply, several towns near Yosemite National Park and historic giant sequoias.

Containment of the Rim Fire more than doubled to 15 per cent, although it was within a mile of the park’s Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, the source of San Francisco’s famously pure drinking water, officials said Monday.

“Obviously, it’s the water supply of the city of San Francisco, so we’re paying a lot of attention to that,” said Glen Stratton, an operations section chief on the fire.

San Francisco water authorities were scrambling to fill area reservoirs with water from Hetch Hetchy before ash taints

supplies, said Harlan Kelly Jr., general manager of the city’s Public Utilities Commission.

The city is able to move water more quickly out of Hetch Hetchy because of a recent multibillion-dollar improvement to the piping system.

Ash from the 234-square-mile fire has been falling on the reservoir, but so far hasn’t sunk far enough into the lake to reach intake pumps, Kelly said. Water quality remained good on Monday.

San Francisco gets 85 per cent of its water from Hetch Hetchy as well as power for municipal buildings, the international airport and San Francisco General Hospital. The threat to the city’s utilities prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency for San Francisco.

Kelly said the city has a sixmonth supply of water on hand.

If ash eventually causes turbidity, it will have to filter supplies, although he was unsure how much that would cost.

The agency also was checking 12 miles of hydroelectric trans-

mission lines that supply city facilities with power. An emergency declaration has allowed the city to spend $600,000 for power on the open market.

The fire also posed a threat to giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park. Crews were using sprinklers and lighting fires to clear brush, though the fire remained several miles from the massive trees, Stratton said.

Another part of the fire that is also burning into the park was not of major concern because it was running into rocks that are not heavily forested, Stratton said.

The governor planned to visit a fire base camp on Monday to meet with state and federal emergency officials. Brown spoke Sunday to President Barack Obama, who reiterated his commitment to providing needed federal resources, according to the White House.

While it has closed some backcountry hiking, the fire has not threatened Yosemite Valley, where such sights as the Half Dome and El Capitan rock

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PHOTO FROM WEATHER.YAHOO.COM

formations and Bridalveil and Yosemite falls draw throngs of tourists. Most of the park remained open to visitors. Park spokesman Scott Gediman said Monday morning he was not aware of any additional threats to the park overnight.

The U.S. Forest Service said about 4,500 structures were threatened by the fire. At least 23 structures have been destroyed, though officials have not determined whether they were homes or rural outbuildings.

Additional personnel brought in to help raised the total number of firefighters to more than 3,600 on Monday, said state fire spokesman Daniel Berland.

“Our containment doubled overnight, but there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Berlant said.

That work included constructing contingency lines

near communities north of the blaze, he said.

Firefighters were aided by movement of the blaze into less forested areas, higher humidity and cooler temperatures caused at least in part by the shadow cast by the large plume of smoke, national forest and fire officials said. But winds were expected to pick up again and reach as high as 25 mph, Berlant said.

The fire, which began Aug. 17, has moved up to 13th on the list of the state’s largest wildfires since 1932, according the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The agency doesn’t list earlier fires because those records are less reliable. The largest fire of the modern era burned 427 square miles of San Diego County in 2003. ■

Immigration

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 22

A Dream, a Reality: CIIP Supporting Immigrants to Canada

BY KIT CAJIGAL Orientation Officer, CIIP Philippines Office IMMIGRATION HAS become the best way for many Filipinos to rise above threatened security in the Philippines, even despite the huge changes faced by members of this family-oriented culture who leave their comfort zones in favour of unfamiliar lands. Their hearts are torn at the prospect of leaving behind the friends and relatives that form an integral part of their lives. They take the plunge into the UNKNOWN. Some jump into the water looking for the prospect of a better life and seek the opportunity explore the greener pastures that await them in countries like Canada. Some leave behind gainful employment in the Philippines for better work environs. Possibly, Filipinos research websites and see the minimum wages in Canada.

They see overseas workers re-

turning after some years abroad and building better homes.

They notice the way these immigrants change over time, from being self-restrained to becoming more expressive.

A 2004 survey of Canadian immigrants showed that 29% were unemployed even after two years—a significant percentage that somehow needed to be addressed. Whatever happened to the designated accountant, the professional engineer, the doctors, the nurses from the Philippines? Some found work as secretaries, as food and beverage servers, as drivers. These are all noble professions. But what about their interests, their experience, their training, and the many years they have invested to become the nurses and doctors and engineers and accountants that they wanted to be in their new country. Here in the Philippines, when we graduate kindergarten we go onstage and we announce in front of everyone, “When I grow up, I want to be…”

CIIP was born in 2006 to address the need for immigrants to know how deep the water is before they take the plunge.

The challenge was how to strike a balance between the dream and the reality. We did not want to quash people’s dreams of a better life, but CIIP wanted immigrants to prepare for the reality they would face in achieving those dreams. Canada offers endless possibilities, but it also has standards that have to be met to become a member of its labour market.

CIIP focuses on supporting immigrants to give them a competitive edge in making their dreams a reality. At CIIP, we present the possibilities, but at the same time we present the challenges that may arise and the steps that immigrants must take to make the most of their opportunities. Many of these steps, such as credential recognition and bridging programs, can begin before clients move to Canada. And the icing on our cake is that we have partners in

The author explaining the services of CIIP.

Canada who establish contact with our clients once they complete CIIP, so they are supported before and after their arrival in Canada.

Each orientation officer who delivers the services in the four CIIP offices (Manila, Delhi, Guangzhou and London) has seen many of the more than 20,000 clients who have come through our doors with only one vision in immigrating to Canada—a better life. And these clients all have different stories. As an orientation officer myself, there were stories that have made me cry, and others which have made me hopeful.

Like the other orientation officers in Manila, I have learned to practice compassion, empathy and unconditional regard for all the clients that we see.

Some have made it, some are

BC HAPPY HOMES IMMIGRATION SERVICES

working on their own vision of success, and some have had to take an alternative route to success. It is heartwarming to know that through the years, CIIP has been there to support their journey.

Approximately 250,000 people immigrate to Canada every year, who demand all the support we can give them. CIIP is trying to reach as many as it can by expanding our services to more than 25 countries worldwide. I am just one of the many CIIP team members who assist prospective Canadian immigrants by providing information, and helping them make plans. I must say that it is the best journey I have ever taken in my whole life—helping in my own small way so newcomers to Canada can make their dreams a reality. ■

Since 1992

Since 1992

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Immigration

23 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Immigration and refugee board orders Why credential deportation of alleged triad boss recognition matters

BY VIVIAN LUK The Canadian Press VANCOUVER—The Immigration and Refugee Board has issued a deportation order against an accused triad kingpin from Macau who may not even be in Canada, after concluding the man is part of the Shui Fong gang and is not admissible under this country’s immigration laws.

But Lai Tong Sang’s wife and three children, who accompanied him to Canada in 1996, get to stay.

Board adjudicator Geoff Rempel’s decision was released Tuesday, after a three-day admissibility hearing in March.

Lai did not attend the admissibility hearing in person but called in from Macau.

Lai, who allegedly fled to Vancouver with his family to avoid a bloody turf war, first applied for permanent residence in February 1994. When that application was referred for enhanced criminal checks, he withdrew the application.

The standard of proof in an immigration matter is less than in a criminal court, but Rempel said in his written decision he has reasonable grounds to believe the Shui Fong triad is a criminal organization whose members committed offences such as assaults and homicides that would be indictable in

Canada, and Lai was a prominent member.

A Macau police document presented at the admissibility hearing said Lai w a s elected as “top leader” o f

the Shui Fong triad in 1995. Lai alleged Macau police are unreliable because they are corrupted, but Rempel said that assumption is irrelevant.

“However, a generalized concern about corruption, per se, does not provide a rationale for concluding that the Macau police provided false information about Mr. Lai,” he said.

“No theory or evidence has been presented explaining how such corruption would lead to the production of false information.”

Rempel also pointed to wiretapped conversations that took place after Lai came to Canada.

The conversations were between someone in Vancouver and someone abroad and were about the turf war between Lai and the leader of another Macau triad, and about a contract on Lai’s life.

Rempel said the conversations implicated Lai’s involvement with the Shui Fong triad.

“The participants in these conversations, unaware their

calls were tapped, were candid in their discussions, clearly implicating Mr. Lai in the triad turf war in Macau, and making elaborate and extensive efforts first to locate Mr. Lai in Vancouver and then to send him a message by arranging the shooting,” Rempel said.

The adjudicator was referring to a shooting that took place outside Lai’s Vancouver home in 1997.

“There is no plausible explanation for these events, other than the one offered by the (minister of public safety and emergency preparedness)— that Mr. Lai was targeted by a rival triad because of his position in the Shui Fong triad of Macau.”

Rempel said he also based his decision about Lai’s organized criminality on various publications, which have been criticized by Lai as being sensational and biased.

He dismissed Lai’s argument that a finding of inadmissibility would violate his rights to liberty or security. Rempel said Lai, as a non-citizen, does not have an unqualified right to enter or stay in Canada.

The minister of public safety and emergency preparedness had alleged Lai deliberately misrepresented himself as the owner of two companies in Macau when he applied for permanent residency. However, Rempel said Lai had provided documents and tax receipts confirming he was who he said he was.

Lai’s wife and children are believed to live in Metro Vancouver. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

IF YOUR education, work experience or professional credentials were obtained outside Canada, they may not be equivalent to Canadian credentials.

To work in Canada, you will need to have your credentials assessed to see whether they meet Canadian standards or whether you need more training, education or Canadian work experience.

Foreign credential recognition is the process of verifying that the education, training and job experience you obtained in another country are equivalent to the standards established for Canadian workers.

Here are some things you need to know: • Starting in May 2013, if you apply under the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), you must get an educational credential as-

sessment (ECA). An ECA is used to verify that your foreign degree, diploma, certificate (or other proof of your credential) is valid and equal to a completed credential in Canada for the purpose of immigrating to Canada.

• Qualifying to immigrate to Canada does not mean that your education, work experience and professional credentials are automatically recognized in Canada.

• Working in some jobs in Canada, including certain trades, may require a licence. To get a licence, you will need to have your credentials recognized.

• You can start the credential assessment and recognition process before you arrive in Canada.

• Getting your credentials recognized takes time and costs money. ■

Friends of the Philippines

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 24

THANK YOU

TO ALL THE VOLUNTEERS AND THOSE WHO GAVE DONATIONS TO THE VICTIMS OF TYPHOON MARING IN THE PHILIPPINES

THANK YOU!

LAGUNA RELIEF OPERATIONS VOLUNTEERS Relief Goods Packing: Ma. Josefina Silos, Ruth Silva, Sharon Presa, Jess Requimin, Allan Christian De Villa, Francis Israel, Mark Edrian Bragais, John Paul Yancha, Josephine Labor, Seychelle Barres, Rosalina Mangaliman Relief Goods Distribution: Alberto Espedido, Jhynet Juanillas, Maribel Dugay, Rhea Naron, Elaine Carupo, Myra Dapulag, Lady Ana Saavedra, Dexter delos Reyes, Mar Vizconde, Juvina Jao, Bernajun dela Cruz, Roderick Pamiloza

DONORS Alan Yong, Victoria Yong, Lita Nuguid, Joe Damasco, Beth Dimaculanga, Bernie Julve, Violet Chan, Bong Roscuata, Gigi Ricarse, Manny Ilao, Violet Chan, Mary Tecson, Laarni Liwanag, Gigi Astudillo, Socorro and Bob Newland, Terry Bahar, Peter Cheung, May Yip, David Mew, Rebecca Lim, Dominador Masakayan, Vinelli Rumbaua, Briones and Remulla Families, Tisha Newland-Figueroa, Russel Figueroa and Family

BC HAPPY HOMES IMMIGRATION SERVICES

Since 1992

Since 1992

Canada Immigration is constantly changing When you need professional help Please give us a call.

604.584.1199 Cell: 604.209.4706 Your Future is in

GOOD HANDS Family Class, Federal Skilled Worker, Federal Skilled Trade, PNP,CEC, Student Visa, Visitor’s Visa, Super Visa, Care-giver Processing, Work permit, Temporary worker, Appeals for Refused Family Class Applicants, Regular trips to the Phil. etc.

NATIE & CRISTIE LANE SOTANA are Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants & members of ICCRC.

email:natiesotana@yahoo.ca www.sotanacanadaimm.com

www.canadianinquirer.net

25 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Friends of the Philippines

FILIPINOS RECEIVE OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT AS THE RAINS FELL When the Philippines’ heaviest rains fell for a second day, the capital’s roads turned into veritable rivers that trapped tens of thousands of people in homes and shelters.

Two of the hardest hit were Laguna and Cavite, where residents were trapped on rooftops, waded through the streets or drifted on makeshift rafts.

The flooding followed two nights of heavy monsoon rains, enhanced by Tropical Storm Trami (local name: Maring). The storm hovered over the North Philippine Sea and drenched the main northern island of Luzon with up to 30 millimeters (just over an inch) of rain per hour.

Officials reported at least 18 people dead, including a 5-year-old boy whose house was hit by a concrete wall that collapsed.

All eyes were on the Philippines as Trami lashed it with its force. Authorities opened more than 200 evacuation centres in Manila and surrounding provinces that quickly filled with tens of thousands of people. It was reported that more than 600,000 people have been affected by the floods.

Filipinos in Canada and throughout the world united in an outpouring of support for the Philippines. Telethon and fundraising events—to at least alleviate the plight of those who were left homeless, hungry and displaced— were held.

Indeed, the Friends of the Philippines in Canada, together with their friends in the Philippines, sounded the call to raise funds, bought goods and water, packed the goods and trooped to evacuation shelters under the still-pouring rain.

Armed with the relief goods, the Friends of the Philippines volunteers were able to reach out to 602 displaced families in Laguna and Cavite.

It was a collective effort that made possible many good things for many good people.

For being a part of it, thank you, thank you, thank you.

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Global Filipino

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 26

GLOBAL FILIPINO

Anna Meloto-Wilk

BY CHING DEE Philippine Canadian Inquirer WHEN IT comes to all-natural beauty and top-of-the-line cosmetics, none other than Anna Meloto-Wilk’s Human Heart Nature (HHN) have taken the country by storm since its conception since 2007.

Daughter of Gawad Kalinga founder Tony Meloto, Anna found the “Pro-Philippines, Pro-Poor, Pro-Environment” company with her husband Dylan, a British national, and her sister Camille.

Modest Beginnings

Anna’s father grew up in the sacadas of Negros. Deprived of luxurious possessions, her father learned to make the most of what he’s got—a trait that Anna inherited.

“It was like, my father imprinted in me a desire to always live a more meaningful life beyond personal interests.” Anna shared. “[He] raised us to regard each person as our equal and to treat them with dignity and respect.”

This trait was formed from a life-changing visit to one of the most notorious places in the metropolis.

“In my freshman year, my dad brought me to Bagong Silang, the biggest squatters’ relocation site in Metro Manila…

Bagong Silang was notorious for being a training ground for criminals. My father had organized a youth camp for gang members and drug addicts to try to reach out to them and understand the root causes of poverty in our country… Needless to say, it was a life-changing moment for me and also for the young people that I met there,” Anna explained.

She added, “Bringing me there was a risk and at the same time a peace offering. It was a gesture to show that he regarded these forgotten youth, that he considered them to be part of his family in the same way that he loved his daughter.”

After graduating from Ateneo de Manila University, she defied her peers’ and family’s expectations. Instead of joining Gawad Kalinga, she joined the corporate world.

“I felt like I needed to find my

Ms. Anna Meloto-Wilk, President, and Ms. Camille D. Meloto, Creative Director of Gandang Kalikasan,Inc., were named the Social Entrepreneur in the recent Entrepreneur Of The Year Philippines 2011 awards banquet. In photo with Ms. Meloto-Wilk and Ms. Meloto are Ms. Vivian Gee (right), Asia Head of Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and Mr. Antonio Meloto (second from right), Social Entrepreneur Of The Year 2010.

CAPTION FROM ERNST & YOUNG GLOBAL LTD.

own path and step out of my father’s shadow. I also fell in love with the art of brand-building and communications and set my career on this path,” Anna said.

Her love affair with the corporate world lasted for four years, until her “inner compass” started tugging at her heartstrings—leading her to her father’s brainchild, Gawad Kalinga Foundation.

But at the end of one love affair, a new romance started to blossom.

“It was also around this time when I met my husband, Dylan Wilk, a young, successful British entrepreneur who came to the Philippines in search for his own purpose in life,” Anna shared.

“He fell in love with the Philippines and the work of GK at the same time that I was having my own epiphany. Our shared values and purpose brought us together and we were married in 2004. We have been serving and working together ever since.”

Anna now serves as the president of Gandang Kalikasan, which produces HHN organic personal care products and cosmetics. She said that Gandang Kalikasan and Gawad Kalinga share the same initials in order “to remind us everyday of our purpose and our mission, that our business exists to build a beautiful society.”

The Birth of Human (Heart) Nature

In 2005, Anna gave birth to

two important parts of her life: her first child, and her passion for taking care of the environment.

“My husband Dylan and myself, decided to use cloth diapers after reading that disposable diapers contain toxic chemicals and take 500 years to deteriorate,” she recalled.

However, it was while they were living in the United States in 2007 that the concept for Human Heart Nature was born.

“I noticed that there was a growing number of affordable organic products that were being marketed in the supermarkets that were not easily available before,” Anna explained.

After painstaking research, Anna and her sister Camille finally opened their first store at the Blue Leaf Fort in Bonifacio, Manila.

Now, HHN continues to grow—not just as a beauty brand, but as an avenue to propagate awareness about saving the environment and being more responsible when it comes to the stuff we use on ourselves.

“Our final advocacy is on the environment,” says Anna.

“All our products contain no harmful chemicals, are biodegradable and between 96-100% natural in terms of ingredients.

We believe that the Philippines is in a position to be a globally competitive supplier of natural products and raw materials and we are capable of building a world-class brand that all Filipinos can be proud of.”

The company is also very acwww.canadianinquirer.net

Photo of Anna Meloto-Wilk from “40 Under 40 International Development Leaders”

tive in being a catalyst for helping alleviate poverty in the Philippines.

“Our vision was to create a company that could provide sustainable livelihood for many of our poor farming communities by using locally available natural ingredients such as citronella, lemongrass, virgin coconut oil, sunflower oil and many more undiscovered or under-utilized botanicals for cosmetic products.

“We invest in communities by paying fair trade prices and providing processing equipment to farmers that will allow them to sell their produce at a much higher price. In our main office, a third of our more than 100 employees hail from Gawad Kalinga sites. We deliberately work with local community organizers to recruit from the poor who receive proper training, higher than minimum wage salaries and full company benefits.”

The Future of Nature

Anna, together with her husband and sister, looks forward to making HHN a “global brand” that will put the Philippines with the top providers of organic cosmetics and personal care products.

“We want to change how business works, that its sole purpose is not only to make profit but to create value for everyone. As I said, we believe that the role of business is to create a beautiful society for all,” added Anna.

As a businesswoman and

an advocate of the poor, Anna wishes to shatter stereotypes about the urban poor in the Philippines. She would also like to continue to overcome people’s misconceptions about using all-natural and organic products by making HHN products more accessible to the masses.

“I think that ordinary people need to start thinking about the future and the sustainability of our daily practices over convenience. We need to invest in our future by changing the way we do things now,” she said.

It’s not an easy job, but someone’s gotta do it.

“It’s a daily struggle but we just try to influence people by example,” Anna beams.

In everything that she does, Anna knows that she wouldn’t have all these success if not for the Creator’s blueprint, that’s why she wants to fulfill what she believes to be God’s purpose for her life. She believes that trusting God’s plan is something more people should imbibe in their lives to become more productive and successful, just like her.

You can learn more about Gandang Kalikasan, Human Heart Nature, and their advocacies through their website on http://humanheartnature. com/usa/index.html ■ Interview conducted by Alpha Miguel-Sanford, editor, Aspire.

Motivate.Succeed.

Article transcribed and written

by Ching Dee, correspondent, Philippine Canadian Inquirer.

Vancouver Artists

27 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

A brush with strangers

BY MELISSA REMULLABRIONES Philippine Canadian Inquirer There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met.

- William Butler Yeats AND SO it was that 3 strangers, armed only with their brushes and creative yen, had that date with fate. Never having previously met, their roads have somehow converged inside that sunlit room because of the similar—and yet different—stories that they paint on their canvasses.

Esmie Gayo McLaren’s oils are infused with movement and emotion, and write anecdotes of life. Dancing is her guilty pleasure, and her art captivates that exhilaration, passion, delight, and the nirvana one feels when feet touch the earth. Ruby Gomez Peabody loves the ocean to abstraction, and has reflected so much of it in her art. From the abstract to the impressionist, and finding herself going full circle to abstract, the waters of Vancouver buoy her creative visions and provide the inspiration for her journey. Danvic Briones carves on wood and caresses it with oil, eyes blazing and intent, letting lines upon lines, some deep, some light, represent his realities and imaginings. A renegade thinker who is not afraid to ask questions, he sometimes

seeks answers in the freedom of his artistic spirit.

PCI sat with these 3 extraordinary artists to find out more about them, their art, their visions, their likeness and their differences.

PCI: According to Peri Schwartz, “Painting is like breathing for me”. What is it like for you?

Esmie: For me, painting is a language...a means to communicate with the viewer. If I am emotionally and/or intellectually touched by something, I want to express it by painting. And, as in any language, I must be careful that the viewer understands what I want to articulate so that he can respond.

Should I spell out my bias, or should I let him extrapolate?

Ruby: I think painting is like an escape for me. A wonderful escape to a dream that makes me happy.

Danvic: Painting is like work.

I create interesting artworks under pressure.

PCI: What’s your favourite art work?

Esmie: I have no singular favourite art work. I enjoy Sargent’s adventurous watercolours and Van Gogh’s expressions of freedom from his torments.

Ruby: I’m afraid I feel like I can’t pick a favourite. To me that would be like choosing the favourite of your children (al-

though for me that would be easy, since I only have one!).

Danvic: “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali.

PCI: What themes do you pursue?

Esmie: I have themes of birds, gardens, children at play, and dancers. I enjoy expressing movement and emotions, as well as the peace and contemplation from scenes and gardens.

Ruby: I started out doing a lot of abstract work when I was a fine arts student at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.

Then I gradually began doing more impressionistic work when I lived in New York and California. Now, I’m feeling the urge to go back to abstract work, so that’s what I plan to do more of. I have no specific themes in my work. I just like to reflect life, existence, humanity, and beauty.

Danvic: Fragments of memories, experienced and imagined.

PCI: What’s your favourite or most inspirational place?

Esmie: My most inspirational spaces are at my garden and at places I travel to.

Ruby: I would say the ocean, which has inspired me in both California and Vancouver. The ocean, and people and places close to the ocean make me happy. That in-

DANVIC BRIONES knew that art was what he wanted to do for the rest of his

life because when he saw his favourite uncle draw an elephant, that image did not leave him until he conveyed the vision to paper. He moved on to other media—colored pencils, chalk pastel, charcoal, acrylic and oil—and to higher art when he pursued his passion and took up Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines. His works—which evolved to part-woodcarving, part-oil painting, part-representation of his realities—were exhibited in New York, California, British Columbia and the Philippines.

❱❱ PAGE 44 A brush

A Vancouver based artist whose love of life is reflected in her art, RUBY GOMEZ PEABODY began her studies at the University of Sto. Tomas in the Philippines where she obtained a degree in Fine Arts. Ruby continued her studies in New York City at the renowned Art Students League. She studied there under Richard Pousette-Dart, one of the Founding members of the Abstract Expressionist Movement. After spending 20 years in New York and Los Angeles, Ruby and her family moved to Vancouver in 2009.

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Long intrigued with capturing people on canvas, ESMIE GAYO MCLAREN infuses her figures with action and emotion, presenting them in some of their best moments. She began painting as a child, attended workshops, and received her Fine Arts Techniques Certificate from Emily Carr University. She extends her love for gardening to vibrant images of birds, flowers, and gardens. She is an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, Dimasalang III International Artists Group, and Portrait Society of America. Her awardwinning inspirations, whether in oils, acrylics, or watercolours, are exhibited and collected widely.

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

28

Back to School

Battling the Bye-Bye Blues

BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer THE FIRST day of school: Parents of young children know all too well what that’s like. That jittery, “butterflies-in-my-tummy feeling”; excitement, anxiety all rolled into one big ball of nausea at the very core of your being. And we’re not even talking of the school kid, here. Teehee.

The pitiful cries of “Mommy, DON’T GO!!!”, often accompanied by tears and leg-clinging.

Heart-wrenching, for any parent; traumatic, for any child.

Separation anxiety can occur whether it is your child’s first day of school ever, or if they are returning after a vacation break.

Flashback to many years ago; snippets from my childhood: Me playing the dutiful big sister, checking in on my brother on his first-ever day at kindergarten. He sat by the window, and held his nanny’s hand through the jalousies, as silent tears rolled down his face.

Fast-forward several years from that: Me being the dutiful mom, accompanying my daughter to her first-ever day of pre-school. She did remarkably well; me, not so much.

I watched wistfully; winsomely as she—ever the brave soul—marched into her classroom, waving goodbye, giving me a thumbs-up, as silent tears rolled down my face. My heart

swelled with pride, as she went over to a little girl, crying in the corner. “Don’t cry, it’s going to be ok,” my daughter said as she put her arm around the trembling tot.

Yes, she did well. So well, in fact, that she hardly seemed the same little girl who—just a few months before—would cling to my neck for dear life at the prospect of my leaving, and kick and scream if anyone dared pull her away.

The transformation didn’t happen overnight. Nor did it happen by some wave of a fairy godmothers’ magic wand.

It took time, perseverance, and the patience of a saint to achieve. But the outcome was well-worth the effort.

Although separation anxiety is a normal stage of development in young children, it is often difficult to manage. Experts say that it is natural for your young child to feel anxious when you say goodbye. However, separation anxiety can also affect your child’s enjoyment of school and the learning process.

The good news is that with understanding, patience and some helpful coping tips, separation anxiety can be alleviated, and generally lessens and disappears as your child gets older.

Top 7 tips for dealing with separation anxiety: 1. A little goes a long way.

Practice separation in small doses. Almost like you were

trying to develop immunity to an allergen. I would arrange to leave my daughter, with a trusted friend or with my parents for an hour at a time. An exercise which was—admittedly—more stressful for me, the worry-wart mom. But we both survived the ordeal, coming out duly strengthened.

2. Play to learn. Switch roles with your child for a dress-up exercise in role-playing. Play the child, while allowing your child to be the parent. Act out all the motions of the first day of “pretend” school: have your

child wake you up, get you dressed, feed you breakfast, drop you off, and pick you up from a day at school.

3. Establish a goodbye ritual. Children generally have an easier time saying goodbye when a ritual accompanies it. It may be as simple as a hug and a kiss, a secret wave or hand gesture, or a keepsake for them to hang on to. This enables them to concretize that this is your way of saying goodbye, and that you will come back. My daughter and I had a heart pendant that would split into two halves.

We would each hang on to one piece, rejoining the halves upon my return.

4. Being sneaky is not a good idea. It is better to explain the situation and say goodbye properly, than to just sneak out of the room. Sneaking out can heighten your child’s anxiety, and create trust issues. Incorporate as many fun ways to explain the situation, such as storytelling (experts recommend the following children’s books, among others: I Love You All Day Long, ❱❱ PAGE 44 Battling the

Back to School

29 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Back-to-school, from a preschool teacher’s perspective

BY KATHERINE MARFALTEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer

1. Teaching children is NOT EASY. Yup, teaching cute little angels is not a breeze. As a preschool teacher, you need your wits about you, and tons of energy and creativity because these kids, they will keep you on your toes.

2. Going to a preschool class unprepared is a BIG NO. Don’t underestimate the intellectual abilities of children, you’ll never know what to expect from them. I remember the story of one of my co-teachers.

She got an unexpected question from a curious kid, but failed to explain it well (partly because she didn’t have enough visual materials to support her answers, and children are visual learners!). She got creamed.

3. Integrate Multiple Intelligence in your lessons.

Just like adults, children are strong in some points, weak in some, learn better through a unique learning style, which may be one of these or a combination:

I ONLY taught in preschool for one school year, but the memories of being with thoughtful, playful and happy kids are still somewhere in my system—and it’s all good.

I had no plans of being a preschool teacher at all, but perhaps destiny drove me to what’s considered as “the noblest of all professions”, short as it was.

The idea of being with children for a few hours everyday may be a source of great (advance) joy to anyone, but it does not mean that teaching children is easy. Having been there, I can tell you it is not easy, but oh boy, is it fun!

Since we are going back-toschool, and if you are a preschool teacher or a wannabe, here are some important facts that you need to know or remember:

• Visual-Spatial • Logical—Mathematical • Bodily—Kinesthetic • Musical—Rhythmic • Intra-Personal • Inter-Personal • Naturalist • Spiritual 4. Don’t bore your students.

Children have very short attention spans but no clowning around is needed (you are, after all, a teacher and not an entertainer). The keyword is CREATIVITY. First rule: Do not let children sit in class for a long periods of time. Allow them to go out and explore. Use reallife objects to explain a concept.

Children will soon get tired of seeing flashcards each and every school day, so the best way is to replace it with objects that really exist. Mix teaching strategies that may include dancing, singing, writing, reading and listening.

5. Be prepared to deal with parents. Expect them to be ❱❱ PAGE 31 Back-to-school, from

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Back to School

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 30

Back to school is back to stress for some kids; coping techniques can help

BY HELEN BRANSWELL The Canadian Press TORONTO—Back-to-school-time can be back-to-stress time for kids of all ages. But experts say there are ways to help them cope with the anxiety that can be triggered by the return to the structured environment of the classroom.

Preparing kids for what is coming up, getting them back into a regular sleep routine, reconnecting them with school friends they may not have seen over the summer—these and other techniques will help with the readjustment, they say.

But the most important approach may be just to talk with and listen to children, adolescents and teens about what worries them when they think about the resumption of classes, says David Wolfe, a psychologist and senior scientist at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

“And to say ‘I understand it’s tough to go back to school. The more you talk about it, the more you tell me what’s going on, the more I can at least listen and

help you if I think I can,”’ says Wolfe, who works with children and teens.

It’s entirely normal to feel a degree of stress associated with the start of school, experts say.

Young children who are going to school for the first time can be fearful about facing the unknown and worried about being separated during the day from a parent or a trusted caregiver.

Older children who’ve already been in school may dread the return to a regimented world where they have to buckle down to work. “There’s nothing abnormal about going from a low responsibility situation in the summer to a higher one and feeling anxious about it,” Wolfe says.

Teens may be worried about fitting in, at a time of life when fitting in can be allimportant—but tough to do.

“You’re under more stress as you go into middle school in particular. More stress because of all of the rapid changes in your development and expectations and sexual stress and so forth,” Wolfe says.

“You start looking at the world in black and white again. I better do this and not

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picked out as being different. So it’s very stressful.”

He notes that some anxiety is a good thing—it’s part of the intrinsic human wiring, designed to help us survive real threats. “It’s a way of negotiating the world, staying away from certain dangerous objects and that (sort of thing).”

But too much anxiety can be debilitating and a sign something else is at play. A young child may be experiencing separation anxiety—over the loss of constant access to a parent—that makes it hard for him or her to adapt to school. Or a child who is returning to school may have been bullied in the past and may be fearful about having to face a tormentor again.

“It’s always good to ask those questions or just ask ‘Is there anything else you worry about?”’ Wolfe says.

The Psychology Foundation of Canada suggests starting to prep kids for school at least a week before classes resume. Shopping for new clothes and school supplies, or practising the walk to school can help kids become more comfortable with what is to come.

And others praise so-called mindfulness techniques as a way to help kids young and old to gain control of the anxiety that may be cluttering up their minds.

There are a variety of approaches, but the basic idea is to bring children into the present—as opposed to worrying about the future—as a way of grounding them and helping them calm themselves. Some ways of doing this are to focus on breathing—taking “brain breaks” in the language of the Hawn Foundation (started by actress Goldie Hawn), which

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has been a leader in bringing mindfulness techniques into schools.

Now New York-based, the foundation was started in Vancouver in the early 2000s; Hawn was living there while her son, Wyatt, played junior B hockey for the Richmond Sockeyes. Its signature program is called MindUP, which teaches children about the brain and why they react to stimuli or stresses the way they do.

Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, a professor of applied developmental psychology in the University of British Columbia’s faculty of education, has studied the impact of MindUP on children. The evidence shows that it and other mindfulness programs help lower kids’ stress levels, she says.

Teachers—3,000 in B.C. are trained on the MindUP program—find it a good stress reliever too, Schonert-Reichl says.

“Kids tell us all the time ‘Finally, you give me something I can use,”’ she says.

Schonert-Reichl says one way to use mindfulness techniques to help with the stress of resuming school might be to focus, while walking to school, on all the sounds one hears. Instead of having a head full of anxious or negative thoughts about what the coming day or year might bring, the child can be helped to focus on what he or she is experiencing at that moment.

Wolfe says CAMH’s Fourth R program—the fourth R, after reading, writing and arithmetic, is relationships—incorporates mindfulness strategies.

“It’s a way of just recognizing our normal emotions and be able to deal with them and not let them possess you,” he says of the approach. “All giving the message that you can control this. ... It’s a normal feeling, don’t let it take over you. Learn to breathe.” ■

Back to School

31 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Back-to-School, from... regular guests in your class. They would want to be updated with the progress of their children, so be ready to answer all their questions.

Make sure you have an updated lesson plan and interesting visual materials to show them.

Parents only want the best for their children, and some of them could be very discriminating, and place heavy and exacting demands. ❰❰ 29

I was only 21 when I had my first teaching stint in preschool.

I was really nervous and didn’t know how to handle myself in front of the kids and their parents.

I had the first day jitters; the

shivering was there (which I believe all first-time preschool teachers also felt). But after my first day, I promised myself that I would perform well, really well for the children. Though innately naïve, I had to sing and dance like there’s no tomorrow to catch up with my restless students—and admittedly, it felt good!

Do you want to make a difference in the lives of children?

The path to being a preschool teacher might just be yours.

You should always remember, though, that through your wisdom and actions, you can make or break them, so do your best to be the best teacher that you can be. ■

Canadians planning to spend more on back to school shopping this year: poll

BY ALEXANDRA POSADZKI The Canadian Press TORONTO—Canadians will be digging a little deeper into their pockets during this year’s backto-school shopping season, a new survey suggests.

According to the Pollara survey, Canadians intend to shell out an average of $428 per child on items such as school supplies, clothing and technology as their kids head back to class.

That’s an increase of 18.2 per cent over last year, when they planned to spend an average of $362 per child.

Back-to-school shopping typically marks the start of the peak selling season as retailers gear up for Christmas.

Regionally, Quebecers plan to shell out the most on back-toschool shopping this year—an average of $501 per child—followed by shoppers in the Atlantic Canada and the Prairies, who intent to spend $450, on average.

Ontarians lag at the back of the pack with plans to spend $390 per child, on average, while Albertans are budgeting for an average of $431 and

shoppers in B.C. are planning to spend $403.

Parents with kids who are in college or university plan to spend the most—an average of $572 per child.

Those with high school kids plan to spend an average of $226 per child, while parents of kindergarten and elementary school children plan to spend $170.

The online poll, which was funded by the Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO), surveyed roughly 1,000 Canadians.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

“The end of summer is an important time of the year for many businesses that sell back to school supplies,” Mike Bonner, vice-president of commercial banking at BMO, said in a statement.

“Many will see an increase in the number of shoppers and dollars spent during the season, leading to a positive impact on their bottom line.” ■

New law school aims to ease shortage of lawyers in northern, rural Ontario

BY ALLISON JONES The Canadian Press THE INAUGURAL class of Ontario’s first new law school in decades starts this fall in a province already teeming with new lawyers, but these students will be steered away from the big-city fray.

As law school enrolments continue to rise and more students studying law abroad return home, a growing number of graduates are scrambling for a comparatively stagnant number of articling positions— a 10-month work experience mandatory to become a lawyer.

But the so-called articling crisis never made its way as far north as Thunder Bay, Ont., where Lakehead University is set to unveil its new law school, said the new dean.

“If you talk to many of the law firms up here they’ll say, ‘Look, we’ve been trying to get an articling student for a number of years, we just can’t get the right one,” said Lee Stuesser, who has taught law for more than two decades.

“For years I’ve been saying to law students, ‘Look outside the big centres. There are jobs there.’ And you know what?

They haven’t. So there is a shortage (of lawyers) here in the north.”

In March 2008 about six per cent of articling candidates

couldn’t find a spot, according to the Law Society of Upper Canada. Three years later that number had risen to 12 per cent and by March 2012 approximately 15 per cent of potential lawyers were being left in the lurch.

The majority of articling spots are in Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor and London—which are all home to law schools— and just two per cent of the positions are in Ontario’s north, according to recent statistics from the law society.

An alternative to the current articling requirement meant to ease the crisis will be in place by the time Lakehead’s first class graduates, but law society treasurer Thomas Conway said he still hopes the school will help open up the north to new lawyers.

Regions with the fewest lawyers per capita are often also the ones with the fewest new lawyers, law society statistics show. Lakehead hopes to fill that void, often referred to as the “greying of the bar.”

The law school will direct its students toward practising in traditionally under-served northern and aboriginal communities, as well as small towns and cities across the country.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Deputy Grand Chief Goyce Kakegamic said he is “thrilled” with the new law school and hopes it prompts more First Nations

The new law school at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

www.canadianinquirer.net

people to become lawyers.

“Our people are kind of geographically bound,” he said, so having a law school close to home means they are more likely to attend.

The class of 55 students entering Lakehead’s law school this year includes seven people from First Nations communities. The law society reports that recently an average of 18 to 24 aboriginal lawyers have been called to the bar each year.

The process of establishing the new law school wasn’t without its hiccups. When the university replaced a full-credit aboriginal world views course with a half-credit one on aboriginal law, a group of Lakehead students protested with a sit-in.

Stuesser said he believes the outcry has been resolved by offering a course on native Canadian world views as well as a second course on aboriginal perspectives, in which students will work with aboriginal communities.

The Nishnawbe Aski Nation supports the law school’s decision, Kakegamic said, but wishes there had been a bit more dialogue with the community about the content of the courses. He was pushing for a retreat with the new faculty and First Nations leaders.

Sebastian Murdoch-Gibson, ❱❱ PAGE 44 New law

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

32

Entertainment

FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT, CANADA!

2013 PNE Star Showdown Winner is all of 7 years old BY SOCORROBABES NEWLAND

EVERYONE IS gushing about this diminutive 7-year old Elias Tyson Venegas who won the hearts of the audience and judges alike at the recently concluded PNE Star Showdown with his unique jazz rendition of “Route 66”. With no less than his effervescent idol, Michael Buble, coming out on stage; impressed by his winning performance.

What a joy to watch him perform. And “what a cutie!”, exclaimed by many who trooped

down at the PNE to partake last weekend’s event. Tyson, as he’s fondly called, started jazzying up his A-B-C and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star nursery rhymes at the age of two. Not too long ago, I had a chance to exchange pleasantries with Tyson’s mom, Iris Venegas.

And she expressed her and her husband’s disbelief on how their son has taken a natural penchant to learning and singing old, standard songs like that of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley and the like.

Sounding like her son was born to perform melodies that were way before his time. Now, that’s remarkable.

The seven-year-old has followed starting foot works of

previous PNE talent contest winners Michael Buble and Carly-Rae Jepsen. Tyson was apparently inspired to perform on stage after his parents took him to watching a Michael Buble concert a few years back.

It must have been one magical moment for Tyson to finally get to meet his “idol” and congratulating him in his winning said contest. This handsome master can only be an inch away from fulfilling his ultimate dream of sharing the center stage with Buble in one big concert.

ELIAS TYSON VENEGAS. A name you’d perhaps want to remember. It is truly conceivable that you’d be hearing more of this bright and talented youngster in the future. ■

When rain catches up with stars

BY BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR. Philippine Daily Inquirer SOME OF them kept busy; others relaxed and recharged at home, or wherever they were stranded.

Vilma Santos

I am thankful that my province wasn’t as hard hit by Maring as several others. I went to my office in Batangas City on Tuesday in spite of the bad weather, to stay on top of the relief efforts. As (my “Ekstra” character) Loida Malabanan would say: “Part of the job po!”

Mara Lopez

I was stranded at the airport.

I was flying to Bicol that day for a taping of [the GMA 7 show] “Aha!,” but the flight was delayed. I went stretching and jogging around Terminal 3. Good thing I brought my yoga mat!

Kris Lawrence

I arrived from Iloilo, only to

learn that all vehicles had been caught in traffic and couldn’t get near enough to the airport for pickups. I was so tired, so sleepy, that I decided to lie down on the conveyor belt, which was still moving. When stuck at the airport, it’s best to play Clash of Clans or Plants vs. Zombies on iPad. Better yet, for me, get in touch with Katrina (Halili, partner) and Katie (their daughter) via Facetime.

Joey Paras

I’ve been holed up at Sanctuary spa in Tagaytay City. As I write, the winds and rains are still strong and heavy. Hopefully the floods will soon subside. I will check on my house in Molino (Alabang, Muntinlupa) as soon as the weather improves.

Carla Abellana

I had a taping schedule for (the GMA 7 soap) “My Husband’s Lover.” The show must go on. Our set was in Casa Milan, farther away than La Mesa Dam pa. I started monitoring

the news on TV and was saddened by the situation of many of our countrymen. I hope they won’t refuse evacuation, and that there will be more boats and amphibian vehicles for that purpose. ■ RIGHT: MARA Lopez jogs and does

yoga at Terminal 3.

BELOW: KRIS Lawrence rests on

conveyor belt.

7-year old Elias Tyson Venegas

Entertainment

33 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Daiana Menezes posed almost naked in UNO magazine

BY KATHERINE MARFALTEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer DAIANA MENEZES never fails to stun (and amuse) us in ways we can never imagine.

The “abused wife” issue

PHOTO FROM THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF UNO MAGAZINE

Can you still remember her controversial Instagram posts back in June? She said indirectly that she was abused by former Cagayan de Oro Rep. Benjo Benaldo, who at that time was known as her boyfriend—until it was revealed that Benaldo was actually her husband. It had definitely ignited confusion.

Women’s groups came to her rescue but she remained enigmatic.

What’s really puzzling was her statement that she was not really abused by her husband— that the public had just misinterpreted her posts. Then, shortly we saw them together in a T.V. interview as if nothing happened.

The “denied suicide” issue

Barely a month after, Menezes and Benaldo made it to the headlines again when the latter shot himself in the chest at his office in Congress. Initial reports said that the ex-Congressman tried to commit a suicide which he denied later,

claiming that it was "just an accident."

After being discharged from the hospital, the controversial couple said that they are fine.

The “tie around neck pose” issue

Then came another news headline involving Menezes— again—posing in UNO magazine’s 88th and September issue with just a loose tie around her neck.

In the cover photo, she was described as a “Brazilipina”, who is also said to have “bared her soul” in the magazine feature. She had been featured in Maxim and FHM Philippines before, but this is the first time

that the 26-year-old host-model posed completely naked in a men’s magazine.

Of course, men were shocked again, but found it amusing nevertheless. Women were likewise surprised; some were entertained while some were confused.

But most netizens were asking, “What will be next?”

Meanwhile, spectators noticed that Menezes pose resembled that of Jennifer Aniston’s January 2009 GQ cover.

Yahoo! SHE is currently conducting a survey as to which pose is more liked. The September issue of UNO magazine will hit the shelves next week.

Solenn: Don’t call me ‘It’ Girl ‘I hate it! I don’t know what it means!’ says the newest Bench Body endorser, and also budding songstress

BY CHECHE V. MORAL Philippine Daily Inquirer WHEN THE velvet curtains parted and the seductive strains of a song popularized by French singer Patricia Kaas filled the room, it was the chanteuse Solenn Heussaff—not her actress or fashion model persona—that appeared on the dais. She was in a slinky silver dress, leaning against the stripper pole at the center, her dark, long tresses a sexy tumble on her slender shoulders.

Heussaff is a singer with an album to her name, and another about to hit record stores. That ability in her impressive list of talents is what the FrenchFilipino chose to highlight that evening, as Bench welcomed her into its fold as the newest Bench Body siren.

She cooed the lyrics of “Mon mec a moi” (“This Guy of Mine”) in her father’s Gallic tongue to a roomful of media, the Bench family, and guests who included her parents.

For the event, the Bench Tower’s Playground was transformed into an intimate cabaret-saloon. The song choice was meaningful for Heussaff and Bench: It was the song she sang when she first met Bench founder Ben Chan years ago.

Chan recalled it was on Geor-

gina Wilson’s birthday when he first heard Heussaff sing. He was hosting the birthday dinner in his home. Wilson, a Bench endorser, is a close friend of Heussaff, who, at the time, was still just modeling.

“We were impressed,” said Chan, who avidly took photos of his new talent. “But we couldn’t sign her up because she was still under contract with another brand. We waited for another six months, when her contract was up.”

Fateful night

Heussaff herself giggled in recollection of that fateful night. “A close friend was also their (Chan’s) neighbor. Nahihiya ako because I didn’t know them at all. Then there was a band and I joined in the singing.

It would turn out they’re really nice people, and they’ve been very kind to me.”

(Her Bench coming-out party was dubbed “La Nuit de Solenn,” or “Solenn’s Night.”

She sang two other songs from her new album after a costume change. She slipped into a black Bench Body bra and a beaded sheer black skirt.)

Heussaff said the Bench Body endorsement deal came at the right time, just as she’s embracing a more mature image.

She has no qualms about baring skin—”as long as it’s artsy

and well done,” she clarified.

“I don’t think I’m going to do beyond what I did for Esquire, though. Otherwise, they will all just be the same,” referring to the magazine cover where she posed au naturel.

The young woman is so comfortable in her skin that she didn’t mind being Sultry Solenn in front of Mom and Dad. “They’re very supportive, I know,” she said. “It was actually my mom who used to push me to sing for people, but the more she’d make me, the more I wouldn’t do it.”

Good fit

Heussaff believes the Bench Body brand is a good fit for her.

“I dress super casual on the outside, but I like to wear nice things underneath. I want to feel sexy for myself, even when nobody can see it.”

Heussaff has good genes to thank for her pretty face and svelte frame. But maintaining a figure that would sell underwear and be worth baring for billboards takes work. She does yoga every other day, and biometrics exercises. She also runs.

She watches what she eats— only grilled stuff, no fried foods, and only fruits for snacks. She also juice-cleanses every three months.

“I used to be able to eat anywww.canadianinquirer.net

HEUSSAFF has no qualms about baring skin–”as long as it’s artsy and well done,” as in this promotional photo.

thing,” she said. “Now that I’m 28 mas mahirap na. When I cheat, I like crispy pata, lechon, laing, pancit. Sometimes I’ll have a big breakfast of croissant and scrambled eggs.”

Her efforts at eating healthy have given rise to a new business venture. Next month, Heussaff and her friends will open a bakery-brunch café-bar at Rockwell in Makati City called Hatch 22, which will specialize in healthy meal alternatives.

“If people want to know about my diet, they can come and eat in the restaurant. My brother Erwan,” the foodie-blogger and boyfriend of Anne Curtis, “came up with the menu,” Heussaff said. “He’s the one who really advocates healthy eating.”

One other dream

This multi-hyphenate also hopes to fulfill another dream: to collaborate with Bench in a clothing or underwear collection. Heussaff studied fashion in France, and was a budding designer before the lure of show biz beckoned.

Call her actress, model, singer, host and even fashion designer, but don”t make the mistake of calling her “It Girl.”

“I hate it!” she said, you could almost feel her cringe. “I don’t know what it means! Maybe because my friends are…” Then she quickly added, “Anyway, I’ll take whatever comes my way.”

Well, perhaps next time, it will be “Solenn: Bench modelslash-designer.” ■

Entertainment

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 34

Local celebrities unite to help “Maring” flood victims Philippine Canadian Inquirer AS THE flooding brought about by monsoon rains and tropical storm “Maring” ravaged many parts of Metro Manila and far-flung provinces, celebrities united and led some relief operations.

Award-winning actress Angel Locsin is on top of the list. She has been active in doing relief operations and lending a helping hand to the Philippine Red Cross.

To ease the burden of “Maring” flood victims, the Kapamilya actress went to the Quezon City chapter of the agency to provide some aid. She has also been updating her Twitter account with information on how to help flood victims. @therealangellocsin—Sa maliit na classroom na to ng Diosdado Macapagal Elementary School, Tatalon, may 60 na tao na naka-stay sa ngayon. Meron pong more than 700 families na nandito sa buong school. #philredcross ( There are 60 people staying in this small classroom of Diosdado Macapagal Elementary School, Tatalon. A total of more than 700 families are staying in the entire school).

Brgy. Doña Imelda, Araneta Ave. Hot meals, food, clothes, hygiene kit :) #phil-

redcross -@therealangellocsin “Youth volunteers ng Red Cross QC Chapter! Paka-sipag!” (Very industrious)! -@therealangellocsin Host-actress Anne Curtis also used her Twitter account to spread information on how to help flood victims.

“Putting together some clothes & goods to drop off at relief centers. What about you? C’mon guys. Lets come together as one again.”

KC Concepcion encouraged her Twitter followers to be with her and Judy Ann Santos in their relief operations last August 21, “Hi to all the loyal fans of my big sis @ OfficialJuday! Pls join us for relief operations tomorrow, distribution of goods + hot meals!”

Meanwhile, “Queen of all media” Kris Aquino, along with Taguig Mayor Lani Cayetano and Congressman Lino Cayetano chose to visit and help affected families in Laguna and Taguig.

“Just finished Taguig Relief w/ my friends Ate Lani Cayetano & Direk @ linocayetano. On my way to Biñan now.”—@krisaquino214 Celebrity couple Ogie Alcasid and Regine Velasquez also went to the Philippine Red Cross to deliver some relief goods.

PHOTO FROM THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF ANGEL LOCSIN

Total performer Gary Valenciano used his series of shows billed “Tuesdays with Gary” at the Teatrino in Greenhills to hold a fund-raising activity.

“TUESDAYS WITH GARY at Teatrino is now a fund raising series. We’re pushing thru with the one tonight. Bring your relief goods with you...”

Kapatid actor Derek Ramsay was planning to bring some relief goods to the affected families of Pateros. He was also updating his Twitter account with

helpful information.

“Hope we can help pateros. Im going over there tonight to bring my donations.

Over 1000 families had to evacuate.”

Other celebrities like Kapamilya artists Sam Milby and Jessy Mendiola assisted in packing relief goods in ABSCBN’s Sagip Kapamilya centers, while GMA stars Barbie Forteza, Luis Alandy, Luanne Dy and Betong Sumaya helped in the telethon to accept pledges and donations. ■

Kris’s elder sister in opposition to her political aspirations

BY KATHERINE MARFAL-TEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer IF KRIS’S elder sister Aurora Corazon “Pinky” Abellada is to be asked if she wants her youngest sibling Kris Aquino to enter politics, she would say “No.” Early this year, the “Queen of all media” expressed her intention of running for public office in Tarlac, the home province of the Aquinos.

In a report from ABS-CBN news, Kris said, “I would like (to undergo) on-thejob training with mayors of ‘bonggang’ (fabulous) cities.”

Abellada recently guested in an ABSCBN news and public affairs show “Tapatan ni Tunying” (hosted by Anthony Taberna) where she boldly expressed her disagreement on her sister’s political aspiration. She was quoted saying, “Sana huwag na siyang pumasok sa pulitika, sana hindi (I hope she doesn’t enter politics, I hope not).”

Abellada, who is second among five siblings explained that she wants Kris to steer clear of the path so she can have a normal life.

Meanwhile, Balsy Cruz, the eldest www.canadianinquirer.net

PHOTO FROM THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF KRIS AQUINO

among the Aquino siblings said that their family’s political inclination was their destiny, “Parang nasa tadhana talaga, eh. Hindi naman nila pinagarap, hindi nila ginusto. Iyon nga lang, noong namatay ang dad, naging ang mom [ang president]. Noong namatay ang mom, naging si Noy [ang president] (It seems like it’s their destiny. They didn’t want it, didn’t wish it to happen. But when our dad died, our mom became the president. Then, when our mom died, Noy became the president).” ■

Entertainment

35 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Just learning about Selena Gomez chides reporter who twerking? Well, asks what Taylor Swift said at the VMAs don’t bother, it’s already in decline, and we explain why

BY NATALIE ROTMAN The Associated Press

BY NEKESA MUMBI MOODY The Associated Press NEW YORK—The day after the MTV Video Music Awards came with a few more people Googling the phrase: “What is twerking?”

It’s been a popular search all summer, ever since Miley Cyrus, America’s former teen sweetheart, decided her pathway to chart-topping success involved doing freaky things with stuffed animals and gyrating her booty at high speeds.

Newly anointed as an expert, Cyrus has been twerking her way up the charts with the song “We Can’t Stop,” the catchy groove that has been in Billboard’s top 10 for most of the summer.

For those who are still unclear, twerking is a dance, it’s all about the movement of the rump— and it’s been around longer than Miley’s been alive.

It’s been called different things at different times, but anyone who saw the video “Rump Shaker,” has been to a strip club or has seen the majority of hiphop videos over the years probably has a good idea of what twerking is.

Cyrus’ appropriation of the dance for her ratchet makeover (go ahead and Google that) has put a new spotlight on the move, and made it the dance du jour. But before you start taking twerking lessons from your local YMCA or the Internet, you might want to find a better way to invest your time. All signs are pointing to the fact that twerking, while not on its way out, may have already reached its peak: • A former Disney star has become the poster child for twerking.

• Your Zumba teacher says, “OK ladies— now it’s time to twerk!”

• There are twerk dance teams.

• Twerking instructional videos on YouTube have millions of views.

• There are videos of pets twerking with thousands of views.

• Selena Gomez says she taught Ethan Hawke how to do it.

• There’s a Wikipedia entry on twerking.

• Rapper Juicy J briefly offered a twerking college scholarship.

• The Associated Press is doing a story on twerking. ■

VIDEO GRAB FROM YOUTUBE.COM

LOS ANGELES—Did Taylor Swift really utter an expletive to Selena Gomez when One Direction and former love interest Harry Styles took the stage for the MTV Video Music Awards?

Don’t ask Selena Gomez.

Swift’s seemingly foulmouthed reaction shot lit up social networks and became an instant GIF. But Gomez reprimanded a reporter who asked what Swift said at the premiere of Gomez’s new film, “Getaway,” on Monday.

“Don’t try that with me,” Gomez told him.

The young star later said that she’s protective of her friends.

“I think girls need to be more supportive of each other. I definitely agree with that. I’m all

***

PHOTO FROM TUMBLR

about that,” she said. “Taylor has been one of those girls. We have been friends for five years.

She is very strong. She doesn’t care what people think and she inspires me.”

Gomez won best pop video for “Come & Get It” at the ceremony Sunday and said she didn’t expect to win.

“So I am watching the beautiful boys, One Direction who are not bad to look at, then they said my name. I looked at Taylor ... it was surreal. Because I do put so much work into my music. There’s so much talk of everything. But I did put my heart and soul into it so I was really excited. It was great.” ■

'Girls Gone Wild' creator Joe Francis gets 270 days in jail, must take anger management course

BY TAMI ABDOLLAH The Associated Press LOS ANGELES—“Girls Gone Wild” creator Joe Francis was sentenced Tuesday to 270 days in jail and three years’ probation for choking a woman and repeatedly slamming her head to the ground at his Los Angeles mansion in 2011.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Nancy L. Newman also ordered the 40-year-old Francis to complete an anger management course and attend 52 sessions of psychological counselling, according to Deputy City Attorney Mitchell Fox. A jury in May convicted Francis of five misdemeanour charges— three counts of false imprisonment, one count of assault by means likely to cause great bodily injury, and one count of dissuading a witness from reporting a crime.

Francis’ attorney Steve Levine said key details of the case were proven to be false in court, and he is appealing the decision.

“Joe has always maintained his innocence,” Levine said. He added that the judge “still came to a very fair and measured decision.” www.canadianinquirer.net

According to Fox, Francis met three women on Jan. 29, 2011, at a college graduation party at the Supper Club in Hollywood. He grabbed the arm of one of the girls and took her to his limo, and the two others followed, believing they’d be taken to their car.

Instead, they ended up in a gated area of Francis’ Bel Air home.

Francis appeared to be interested in one of the women and tried to lead her away, but her friend pulled back, Fox said.

Francis then “jumped on the friend, took her to the ground, choked her, slammed her head against the ground, dragged her across the ground, and when she got back up, did it several more times,” Fox said.

He then apparently told the women they were trespassing and had to leave. The women said they were going to call the police, and Francis yelled to “go ahead and call the police,” the prosecutor said.

Francis told the girls he “owns the police” and that officers wouldn’t arrest him, Fox added.

Judge Newman denied Francis’ request for a new trial Tuesday, but sentenced him to less

than the four years in county jail urged by prosecutors.

Levine said Francis would be released from custody soon after posting a $250,000 bond Tuesday. He’ll remain free pending the outcome of the appeal.

The day after Francis was convicted in Los Angeles, he told The Hollywood Reporter that members of the jury were “retarded,” and said “they should all be lined up and shot.”

Francis later apologized for his comments.

“This is one of those cases where being a celebrity did not help him at all,” Levine said.

Francis has had a number of past legal troubles. Last year, a jury found him guilty of defaming casino mogul Steve Wynn on multiple occasions, including on ABC’s national morning show. Francis claimed the creator of some of Las Vegas’ most upscale resorts threatened to kill him over a gambling debt.

Dozens of other lawsuits have targeted Francis, who built a porn empire producing and marketing videos of young women exposing themselves on camera. ■

Entertainment

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 36

Here comes Ben Affleck as the new Batman

BY KATHERINE MARFALTEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer THERE WILL be a new Batman aka Bruce Wayne—and he is no less than Ben Affleck.

Warner Bros Pictures in a press release Thursday, Aug 22 (Friday, Aug 23 in Manila) said, “Affleck and filmmaker Zack Snyder will create an entirely new incarnation of the character in Snyder’s as-yet-untitled project—bringing Batman and Superman together for the first time on the big screen and continuing the director’s vision of their universe, which he established in ‘Man of Steel’.”

Affleck will be joined by Henry Cavill, who will play Superman aka Clark Kent. The creation of the Batman-Superman movie, a sequel to 2013’s “Man of Steel” to be released on July 17, 2015, was first publicized by Snyder during the San Diego ComicCon last July.

Greg Silverman, President of Creative Development and Worldwide Production for Warner Brothers said he finds Affleck as the actor who can best portray the role of Batman, “We knew we needed an extraordinary actor to take on one of DC Comics’ most enduringly popular Super Heroes, and Ben Affleck certainly fits that bill, and then some.”

Additional reports from Warner Brothers said that stars like

Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, and Diane Lane will also join the cast.

Meanwhile, Snyder and cocreator David S. Goyer will still be the minds behind the classic story based from DC Comics’ Superman and Batman characters.

Undoubtedly, Synder has a reason why he chose Affleck to be the next Batman, “Ben provides an interesting counterbalance to Henry’s Superman.

He has the acting chops to create a layered portrayal of a man who is older and wiser than Clark Kent and bears the scars of a seasoned crime fighter, but retain the charm that the world sees in billionaire Bruce Wayne.

I can’t wait to work with him.”

Sue Kroll, Warner Bros Pictures’ President for Worldwide Marketing and International Distribution is likewise pleased to see Ben portray Batman.

To date, “Man of Steel” has already earned more than $650 million worldwide.

Affleck last starred in the Oscar-winning film “Argo”, which he also directed. He is also no stranger to playing superhero roles as he starred in the 20th Century Fox’s 2003 film “Daredevil”, and in 2006’s film “Hollywoodland”.

He will be the fifth actor to portray Batman in a movie since Michael Keaton donned the role in 1989.

According to the Associated Press, the new film will start shooting next year. ■

Ben Affleck as the new Batman PHOTO FROM THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF BEN AFFLECK

All is fair in love and ‘Storage Wars,’ as the franchise makes its way to Canada

BY ADRIAN LEE The Canadian Press TORONTO—War—what is it good for? Ratings, apparently.

TV’s “Storage Wars” franchise—where crafty teams of professional bidders scan storage units with flashlights and look for clues that suggest gems such as Rolexes, rare furniture, or even pianos lurk inside—has become wildly popular since its 2010 debut, drawing millions of viewers every week and spawning expansions into New York and Texas.

Now, one fan of the original show is set to star in the northof-the-border spin-off “Storage Wars Canada,” which debuts Thursday.

“I thought it was modernday treasure hunting,” says Roy Dirnbeck of Mississauga, Ont. “I own a small courier business, so when I saw this on TV, I had some spare time, and I used to sneak off to auctions. After hitting a couple good ones early, I couldn’t believe the kinds of things that people were leaving behind. It just became addictive for me.”

It’s become addictive for many others, too. Don Reinhart, the auctioneer for the Canadian incarnation, has been in the business for more than 40 years. He says crowds have ballooned in size in recent years, from 10 or 15 to as many as 200.

“It takes longer,” Reinhart says. “Where it used to be 15 or 20 minutes to sell two or three lockers, you’re now half an hour or 45 minutes because everywww.canadianinquirer.net

body has to have a look.”

Cast members on “Storage Wars Canada” have all been bestowed with specific labels: the devious Dirnbeck is the “instigator”, while Woodbridge, Ont., supply teacher Ursula Stolf’s penchant for designer heels and body-hugging dresses have earned her the “knockout” moniker. Cindy Hayden and her partner Rick Coffill, who have been involved with auctions for 17 years, fill the TV role of the “veterans.”

“Every unit has a story,” says Hayden. “We don’t know (the people who lost their units) personally, but by the end of the digging, you kind of feel bad, because they lost their locker.”

The cast members—all professionals of the circuit—say the cameras have brought a new kind of scrutiny and pressure.

“It’s ruining the business part of it because we’re paying extra for lockers,” says Dirnbeck, now a three-year vet. “Everyone wants to bid against us, everyone wants to beat us, they know we’re professionals and they want to prove themselves against us.”

“And the thing is, they come to know our characters, know what we’re coming to look for and what we’re coming to buy,” Stolf adds. “Take, for example, if there’s a clothes locker: Everyone in a crowd knows, ‘It’s an Ursula locker.’ I know that that locker, if it’s worth $500, if I really want it, I have to pay $2,000. It becomes a little cumbersome, but you deal with it.

But leave it to the confident

and canny Dirnbeck to see it all as strategy.

“We’re professionals, we know what the number should be. So if someone wants to bid us up, we’ll let them have fun for a while. They never come back the next week. They get stuck with stuff. They don’t play that game very long; we’re just weeding them out right now. It’s gonna come, we were expecting it.”

The popularity also raises the risk of celebrating the glamour of the high-stakes bidding without the focus on the hard work that follows— moving the often heavy and musty contents, fixing what’s broken, cleaning the storage unit, and occasionally all for nothing, when a bet on a bin goes bad. Indeed, while the profits can be tantalizing, Coffill says he and Hayden have found dead cats and other animals among the lots they’ve purchased.

“I wouldn’t recommend that anyone go out and quit their job and decide to do this full-time,” says Coffill. “It’s not something you can just jump into, because you can lose utterly, and I don’t want to see anybody do that. It is gambling.”

At the end of the day, all is fair in love and “Storage Wars.”

Hayden and Coffill are common-law partners, and the cast also features a father-and-son duo and is entirely made up of people clearly passionate for the work that they do.

“But when the door goes up, there are no friends,” says Coffill.

“Storage Wars Canada” premieres Thursday on OLN. ■

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

37

Lifestyle

When the home office is also the laundry room: Dual purpose rooms are in demand

BY MELISSA KOSSLER DUTTON The Associated Press WASHING CLOTHES in the bedroom. Sending email from the laundry room.

Busy Americans are demanding more from each room in the house, and spaces designed for multiple functions are popping up all over floor plans, design blogs and magazine spreads.

“People multitask all the time. There is a definite correlation and carry-over in the home,” said Wendy Danziger, owner of Danziger Design in Bethesda, Md. She has helped clients create rooms for eating and watching television; housing guests and working from home; sleeping and doing laundry.

Some homebuilders have added space for seating, desks and charging stations in the laundry room.

“It’s happening all over,” Danziger said. “There’s a lot of strategy that goes on—a lot of compromise.”

Furniture manufacturers,

too, are helping to make every square inch count, said Pat Bowling, spokeswoman for the American Home Furnishings Alliance in High Point, N.C. Modern pieces include end tables that double as file cabinets, coffee tables with adjustable heights to accommodate working at a computer or eating, and chests with docking stations for electronics.

The portability of laptops, tablets and other devices means you don’t need a dedicated home office to work at home. People can—and do—use electronics in the family room, bedroom and kitchen.

“Today’s furniture is multitasking furniture that can help you stay organized, stay connected and keep clutter at bay,” said Kim Shaver of Hooker Furniture in Martinsville, Va. “In versatile styles and silhouettes, these pieces fitany room—from the kitchen to the bedroom and from the family room to the entry hall or foyer—and provide multiple functions in each room.”

Danziger says a console table with hinged leaves is a good op-

tion for a TV room that sometimes needs to become a dining room: When guests come for dinner, just slide the table away from the wall under the television and extend the leaves to create a table that seats up to six people.

Nesting tables—stacking tables of different sizes—also help increase the functionality of a space, she said. She often puts them on wheels so they can easily be rolled to another area of the room for another use.

She has worked with retirees downsizing to a smaller home and with young professionals squeezed into urban apartments.

“Once home offices were the rage,” she said. Now, “it is not unusual to see living spaces where people eat, sleep, work and play gamesjust for the sake of living in a city where one can walk to everything, including their office.”

Frank Pitman of Frank Pitman Designs in Orange County, Calif., also has seen the trend.

“There’s a lot of dual -purpose space happening,” he said.

He has had a growing number of clients putting laundry facili-

This publicity product photo courtesy of Universal Furniture shows a coffee table with a lift top designed to accommodate working at a computer or eating.

ties in their bedroom closets.

“They are already storing the clothing there. Why not wash the clothing right there?” he said.

Some of his clients like having a room’s secondary use come as a surprise: Television or computer screens that seem to “appear from nowhere” are good examples, he said.

Murphy beds, which are stored vertically in a cabinet along a wall, or murphy desks,

which slide out bookshelves, are another way to keep a space’s other function hidden.

Often the need to get more use out of a space arises when an elderly parent joins the household, a grown child returns home or a young family hires a live-in nanny, said Amy Albert, editor of Custom Home Magazine in Washington, D.C. “Multiple generations needs multi-functioning space,” she said. ■

Price tag often high, but some men opt for single fatherhood via births by surrogate moms

BY DAVID CRARY The Associated Press TREY POWELL’S first name has an extra resonance these days. Though still a bachelor, he now presides over a family of three as the dad of twin daughters born six months ago via a surrogate mother.

“I feel so lucky every day,” Powell said.

At 42, he’s a new addition to the ranks of men who inten-

tionally seek the role of single father. While some opt for adoption, others yearn to have children with genetic ties and are willing to invest $100,000 or more to make that happen.

There are no firm numbers of how many men have taken this route. It’s clearly still a rarity, although Growing Generations, a leading for-profit surrogacy agency in Los Angeles, says its caseload of single men has risen steadily and totalled about 25 cases last year.

Experts say the driving force is generally a male equivalent of the “biological clock” that prompts some unmarried women to have children while they’re still fertile.

“They say they’ve always wanted to be a dad, they haven’t found a partner that they want to start a family with, they’re getting older and just don’t want to wait—the same things single women say,” said Made❱❱ PAGE 39 Price tag

Lifestyle

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 38

Are CCTV cameras really protecting us from criminals?

How could you identify the thieves who stole your bag in a resto, if you couldn’t even match their faces with those hazily captured on CCTV?

BY ALEX Y. VERGARA Philippine Daily Inquirer ARE CCTVS giving us a false sense of security? I ask this in light of a recent incident I witnessed involving my friend Jude Mancuyas while we were dining in Quezon City’s restaurant row.

Even before dessert, Jude had lost his Martin Margiela shoulder bag. Apart from his cell phone and money, the bag contained his credit card, Philhealth card and house keys.

After reviewing the building’s CCTV footage, we were able to establish that three thieves had run away with Jude’s bag, which also had his late mother’s billfold. Now, that’s priceless.

Now that it has become mandatory for business establishments to install CCTVs as deterrent to crime, you wonder, do these devices really serve their purpose? Or do they simply add to an overload of afterthe-fact information to the list of unsolved crimes in Metro Manila?

Exposure trip

Unlike the rest of the weekend crowd, Jude and I weren’t out on a lark. It was more of an exposure trip, as we sampled one of the newest places in the area. I was there to write about it, while Jude, a restaurateur himself, was there to soak up the scene.

Since the small air-conditioned area was getting crowded, Jude and I decided to dine al fresco while interviewing the restaurant owner and its young chef. We settled at a table by the main entrance, where the menu was also set on an easel.

In short, our spot was a gathering point for diners. The building had a security guard, but the restaurant didn’t.

An hour into our interview, the place was already packed with diners.

Missing bag

When I returned to our table from the restroom, Jude and the owner were already raising a commotion with the restaurant staff. Jude had already discovered that his bag, which

he placed on an empty chair beside him, was missing.

Jude, who sat near the restaurant door, didn’t anyone bold or suspicious enough who came near his bag.

Decently dressed

In the admin office we watched a prereviewed C C T V footage of what transpired earlier that night. Like one huge puzzle, the flat-screen TV was divided into numerous blackand-white scenes simultaneously captured by several cameras.

The person who reviewed the footage brought our attention to three young men who looked like diners, but were apparently already casing the joint.

They even went to another restaurant on the second floor.

Since they probably didn’t see any prey there, they went down and lingered in the courtyard

before heading our way.

The decently dressed thieves, one of whom carried a backpack, didn’t need to resort to distraction. All they had to do was blend in, linger, leaf through the menu and wait for the right time.

One of them, perhaps trying to test how occupied we were, even dropped the menu before quickly picking it up.

The menu landed under the table almost right in front of him, Jude recalled.

In less than 10 minutes, their efforts paid off. Just when everyone’s attention was somewhere else, the man with the backpack casually grabbed Jude’s bag before turning his back, slipping the item into his backpack and heading for the street.

His two companions quickly followed. The three wove through traffic before vanishing into the night.

Scrimping on monitoring?

The coverage, which showed a dozen or so points within and even beyond the building, was impressive, but with one person manning it, I wondered how he could possibly keep tabs of everything and everyone being captured on screen.

Plus, black-and-white images of people weren’t conclusive enough. How could you identify the thieves in a police lineup, say, if you couldn’t even match their faces with those hazily captured on CCTV? Since there were so many cameras and not enough people to monitor them, the thieves weren’t caught.

It’s obvious that since these devices are expensive, business establishments are scrimping by hiring a token person or two to monitor live feeds.

So, are CCTVs useless? Not really. But they don’t frighten away criminals. ■

Nine-year-old wins J-pop contest Philippine Daily Inquirer FOUR YOUNG talents won in the 2013 J-Pop Anime Singing and Cosplay Mini-Contest held July 20 at SM Mall of Asia Center Stage.

The grand prize was awarded to nine-year-old Melrick James Celajes, who impressed the crowd with his rendition of “Piece of My Wish.”

It was one of the highlights of the celebration of PhilippineJapan Friendship Month and the 40th Year of Asean- Japan Friendship and Cooperation.

Sheena Stacey Gonzales won second prize with “Kimi ni Todoke.” Third prize winner was Diana Tabitha Caro who performed the “Ryuusei.” Fourth placer was Alexys Arcilla who interpreted the song “Saigo no Ame.” Celajes also bagged the Hero’s Choice and Toie’s Choice awards.

The winners were given prizes such as gadgets from Sony, Toshiba, Canon and Panasonic, and scholarships from the Center for Pop Music and various merchandise from Uniqlo, Yakult and Ajinomoto.

Cosplay mini-contest

Anime enthusiasts, dressed in their favorite characters, gathered in the Mini Cosplay Event. For greater excitement, the mecha and cloth categories were added in the contest.

In the mecha category, Seir Luke Buelos as Gundam Heavy Arms won first prize, and Ashley Misaki Francisco as Garo, second.

In the cloth category, Rica Gabrielle Ortiz as Miku Hatsune was first place. Second was Ian Christopher Ticar as Agent Hunk.

The Toei’s Choice award was given to Rica Gabrielle Ortiz and Shan Lowel Cruz as Garulu. Christine Jean Blardony

as Xiang Yu Armor and Gregory Cole Reyes as Yukito were Hero’s Choice awardees. The winners also received gadgets from Panasonic and Canon and gifts from Uniqlo, Yakult and Ajinomoto.

Japanese pop artist Joe Inoue surprised his Filipino fans when he emerged on stage for a brief performance. The audience enjoyed his song “Closer.”

Japanese Ambassador Toshinao Urabe said that the 2013 J-Pop Anime Singing Contest is helping build a legacy in Philippine-Japan ties.

The No Plan Band, composed of diplomats from the Embassy of Japan, took a break from work and performed in the event.

Captain DFA, the Philippines’ own hero, joined the celebration.

The appearance of Doraemon and Nobita never fails to fascinate the audience. www.canadianinquirer.net

DRESSED in their favorite characters–anime enthusiasts at the Mini Cosplay Event

Anime film showing

The anime film screenings of the “Place Promised in Our Days” and “5 Centimeters per Second” at the SM Mall of Asia Cinema 6 received overwhelming support from anime fans.

Some 1,500 people watched this year’s anime films which focused on friendship and relationships.

The 2013 J-Pop Anime Singing Contest and Mini Cosplay Event is organized by the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines and the Japan Foundation Manila.

It is supported by Ajinomoto Philippines, Animation International Licensing Philippines, Canon Information Technologies Philippines Inc., Canon Marketing (Philippines) Inc., Canon Business Machines (Philippines) Inc., Center for Pop Music Philippines Inc., Nihongo Center Foundation Inc., Panasonic Philippines Corp., SM Mall of Asia Cinema, Sony Philippines Inc., Toei Animation Philippines Inc., Toshiba Philippines Inc., Uniqlo Philippines, Yakult Philippines Inc. and Yoshinoya. ■

Lifestyle

39 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Price tag... line Feingold, an Oakland, Calif., psychologist who has done extensive counselling related to surrogacy.

That was the case for Powell, a pharmaceutical company executive in Seattle who spent three years futilely trying to adopt.

“I was in an adoption pool for a year and half, didn’t get any calls and got bummed about the whole experience,” he said. “I just wanted to be a dad. Time was not on my side, and I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for an ideal mate.”

Before approaching Growing Generations, Powell discussed his options at length with family members and with people who’d been through surrogacy.

There was a lot of self-interrogation.

“If something happens to me, who’s going to take care of my daughters? Is this an egotistical, selfish thing?” he recalled asking himself. “I had to be sure it was the right thing to do.”

Now, he says, fatherhood is the focus of his life—a transformation made easier because he often works from home and can afford a full-time nanny.

That level of affluence is a virtual prerequisite for men pursuing the option of fatherhood via surrogacy.

“We tell people to budget $125,000 to $150,000 for a single baby, and $150,000 to $175,000 for twins,” said Stuart Bell, co-owner of Growing Generations.

Those figures include compensation of $8,000 to $10,000 for the egg donor, and at least $25,000 for the surrogate mother who gives birth after being impregnated with an implanted embryo.

Though male clients have the option of enlisting an egg donor on their own, Bell said most make their choice from a pool of women recruited by Growing Generations. The clients aren’t told the names of the possible egg donors, but see videos of them and learn extensive details about their health, education and genetic history.

The process also entails psychological screening, plus detailed legal negotiations to minimize any chance that the egg donor or surrogate mother might claim parental rights.

By the time the process is done, the aspiring father’s commitment is usually apparent, said Denise Bierly, a State College, Pa., attorney specializing in adoption and surrogacy law, “With men especially, the process gets so well thought through,” she said.

“They go into this having talked about it with their friends, relatives. There’s nothing spontaneous about it.”

Alan Bernstein, a dad raising three surrogacy-born children in Los Angeles, describes single parenting as “an insanely hard job” and also as deeply rewarding.

“It helps to be really passionate about it,” he said.

Bernstein, 48, is president of a property management company, able to adjust ❰❰ 37

his working hours and also to afford an au pair who helps care for 9-year-old Isaac and 7-year-old twins Natalie and Naomi.

Like Trey Powell, Bernstein is gay and grew into adulthood never expecting that fatherhood would be a realistic and enticing option.

“When I came out in my early 20s, I felt it was a choice of leading an honest life but giving up on the idea of family,” he said. “I’d always liked children—but for many years I didn’t allow myself to think about it. It seemed sad and inevitable that I wouldn’t have any.”

Though gays account for a substantial portion of Growing Generations’ singlefather clientele, it also caters to straight men, such as New York City lawyer Steven Harris, 58, whose 6-year-old son, Ben, is about to start first grade.

“Everybody thinks you’re real sensitive. ‘What a guy,”’ Harris said. “They don’t realize it’s fun and wonderful.”

He’s had a few conversations with other men wondering whether to follow his example.

“I tell them, don’t even think twice.

Just do it,” he said. “There’s no downside, if you really want a child.”

State laws on surrogacy vary widely.

Some states forbid commercial transactions, while California has a reputation as perhaps the most receptive state.

Worldwide, commercial surrogacy is banned in most countries, and two that do allow it—India and Ukraine— have decided not make it available to single men. As a result, Growing Generations’ clientele of single men includes an increasing number of foreigners seeking the option of a safe, legal surrogacy.

Among them is Simon Taylor, a 50-year-old Briton who had a son via a surrogate birth in Arkansas last year, and is now working on arrangements to have a second child.

Taylor, a self-employed businessman in the insurance industry, said in an email that he had extensive discussions with family and friends about his decision, with the upshot being strong support once those close to him realized how serious he was.

His son, Cal, is now 15 months old. A nanny helps with child care, but Taylor says he strives to be a hands-on dad, coming home early from work twice

a week, putting the baby to bed, and spending all weekend with him.

“My life has completely changed now that my son has been born and it is all around Cal,” Taylor wrote.

Was Cal losing out by not having a mother around?

“I honestly cannot answer that,” said Taylor, adding that his sister, aunt and cousins were helping to provide “plenty of female love and attention.”

Intentional single parenthood— whether sought by a man or woman— still draws some criticism from skeptics who say children fare best with a mix of masculine and feminine approaches to parenting.

However, some academics who study

www.canadianinquirer.net

families say the gender stereotypes of parenting are breaking down.

“Fathers on average are more involved in their children’s lives” than in the past, said University of Florida sociologist William Marsiglio. “More fathers are identifying parenthood as a key dimension of who they want to be—not just being bread winner, but providing nurturing and caregiving.”

Diane Ehrensaft, a clinical psychologist in Oakland, Calif., says it’s an outdated myth that men lack the inherent ability to be as nurturing a parent as women.

“The lack of warmth, attention and affection is what causes harm to children,” she said. “No gender has a corner on the market for those three things.”

One thing single moms and single dads have in common: Parenthood can complicate the prospects of kindling a romance.

“I did not grasp the degree to which having three children would be an impediment to dating,” said Alan Bernstein, who does date occasionally when circumstances allow it and would like to forge a long-term relationship.

“That hasn’t happened yet,” he said.

“I remain optimistic I will find someone who will want to be part of an awesome family.” ■

Business

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 40

Asean integration to benefit PH, says Ayala Corp. chief Ayala chief cites skilled labor, strong economy

BY MICHELLE V. REMO Philippine Daily Inquirer SINGAPORE—Ayala Corp. chair Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala said the Philippines should play an active role in pursuing the integration of Southeast Asian economies, believing the country stood to benefit on a net basis from the plan.

Contrary to fears that the Philippines could lose out in a regime of tighter market competition in the region, Zobel opined that the country actually had comparative advantages that should make integration beneficial to Filipino businesses.

“It is in our best interest to do what we can [to pursue] the integration initiative,” Zobel told the INQUIRER at the sidelines of a conference held here and organized by the Network Asean Forum (NAF).

He said that with a competent labor force and favorable macroeconomic fundamentals, the country could entice more investments when these could freely flow across countries in the region.

Zobel cited the services sector, which enjoys continually growing foreign investments because of the skills of the country’s labor force and appropriate information and communication technology infrastructure.

“We are now the fastest-

growing economy in the region.

And unlike some of our neighbors that suffer from current account deficits, we enjoy a current account surplus,” he pointed out.

The positive macroeconomic fundamentals, he said, were an indication of the country’s resilience to global shocks and that should make the country a winner when the Asean economies have been integrated.

His view contrasted those of critics who feared that the Philippines was not yet prepared for integration because this could encourage local businesses to invest elsewhere. In particular, countries believed to have better infrastructure and regulatory environment could entice Filipino businesses away from the Philippines.

Moreover, with stiff competition, small businesses in the country are feared to lose out against foreign giants.

Economists noted that in order for the Philippines to compete head on with its neighbors, it should invest more heavily in infrastructure, rationalize regulations for some sectors and ease the processes for setting up businesses.

NAF, of which Zobel is a cofounder, is a private sector-led organization pursuing the realization of the proposed integration of member economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

Oliver: Act now to develop natural resources or risk missing opportunity The Canadian Press Y E L L OW K N I F E — N a t u r a l Resources Minister Joe Oliver says the window of opportunity is in danger of closing if Canada doesn’t act fast on de-

veloping its energy and minerals.

Oliver, who was in Yellowknife for an annual meeting with his provincial and territorial counterparts, says a big part of that is building pipelines to bring oil and gas to coastal wa-

Representatives from the business sector of Southeast Asian economies discussed bottlenecks to the integration during the conference held yesterday. NAF is expected to submit policy recommendations gathered from the participants to concerned governments on how the problems confronting Asean integration should be addressed.

Under the original plan of the Asean, member economies are supposed to be fully integrated by 2015. This means there should be completely free movement of capital, goods and labor across the region.

Both private and government observers, however, have acknowledged that a fully integrated Asean economy might not be possible by 2015 because of a host of bottlenecks, including tight regulations on certain areas.

NAF believed that full integration should be pursued, although a new timeline should be looked at given that 2015 was just less than two years away. NAF acknowledged that progress toward integration has been slower than earlier planned.

NAF said an integration would help boost investments, job creation and, in the process, incomes. Integration is also expected to make Asean a more powerful region in the global economy. ■ ters, so it can be exported to lucrative markets.

In a speech, the minister called those projects “nation building” and compared them to big infrastructure projects like the Canadian Pacific Railway and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

He says the long-dormant Mackenzie Gas Project in the Northwest Territories is a classic example of a project that could have been a boon to local aboriginal communities, had it not been dragged down by a years-long regulatory process.

By the time the 1,200-kilometre pipeline was approved, burgeoning shale gas resources further south rendered it virtuwww.canadianinquirer.net

The government announced plans to build a commemorative park to honour the 47 people killed in the disaster.

PHOTO BY MEUNIERD / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Quebec government to restore rail service to Lac Megantic businesses The Canadian Press LAC-MEGANTIC, QUE.—The Quebec government is planning to restore rail service to businesses in the devastated town of Lac-Megantic.

Premier Pauline Marois says a temporary rail link from the main line to the community’s industrial park is expected to be built by the end of the year.

Businesses in the industrial park have been cut off from crucial rail service ever since a train carrying crude oil jumped the tracks on July 6, exploded, ally obsolete.

“When development is deferred, communities suffer from loss of opportunity,” said Oliver.

“The Mackenzie gas project represented a tremendous opportunity for aboriginal partners, but the regulatory review took almost a decade to complete. By the time it was done, the opportunity had passed—an irretrievable loss for an entire generation.”

Oliver’s counterpart in the Northwest Territories, David Ramsay, has been promoting the idea of a “made in the North” pipeline to bring landlocked oil to either the Beaufort Sea or Alaskan port of Valdez—a

and obliterated part of the town.

Marois says the province is continuing to study the possibility of building a permanent railroad link to serve the town.

The government also announced plans to build a new bridge, a commercial area and a commemorative park to honour the 47 people killed in the disaster.

Marois says those projects will cost about $16 million— which is part of a $60 million government reconstruction fund that had already been announced. ■ potential alternative to controversial oil pipeline proposals further south that have faced regulatory delays. ■

By the time it was done, the opportunity had passed—an irretrievable loss for an entire generation.

Sports/Horoscope

41 FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

Pacquiao’s ‘physical toughness has withered’

BY ROY LUARCA Philippine Daily Inquirer MANNY PACQUIAO is no longer the menacing physical specimen he used to be, and Brandon Rios could exploit this when they tangle on Nov. 24 in Macau.

This was the assessment of 2012 Trainer of the Year Robert Garcia, who is preparing Rios for the 12-round welterweight bout set at Cotai Arena of Venetian Macao.

In an interview with BoxingScene.com, Garcia said he saw the subtle decline in Pacquiao’s prowess during the Filipino icon’s last two fights against Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Pacquiao beat Marquez by majority decision on Nov. 12, 2011 before suffering a 2011 before suffering a sixth-round knockout to the Mexican last

Dec. 8. In a dubious decision, Pacquiao lost on points to American Timothy Bradley on June 9, 2012.

“He (Pacquiao) does not have the same strength and his legs are suffering from cramps,” Garcia told Salvador Rodriguez.

Regardless of his observation, however, Garcia said he would train Rios “for the best Pacquiao, the same one from four years ago.”

Garcia manned Antonio Margarito’s corner when Pacquiao beat the towering Mexican to virtual retirement before about 41,000 fans on Nov. 13, 2010 in Arlington, Texas.

Though Garcia acknowledged that Rios’ onrushing, swinging style is similar to that of Margarito, he was quick to point out that Rios is nearly 10 years younger than Margarito and is (hungrier) for fame.

Having thoroughly studied tapes of Pacquiao-Margarito, Gar-

cia said there were technical aspects in that fight that could have benefited his ward back then.

Garcia, who also trained FilAmericans Nonito Donaire and Brian Viloria in the past, also hopes to inject new techniques in Rios’ arsenal that could neutralize Pacquiao’s advantage in speed and, perhaps, power.

While Rios has been regularly working out in the gym since early July, Pacquiao only started light training in General Santos City.

Interviewed by GMA Network that day, Pacquiao said he would come up with new technique and strategy for his payper-view fight with Rios. ■

Azkals pick up stride with Peace Cup, friendlies

BY CEDELF P. TUPAS Philippine Daily Inquirer WITH THE AFC Challenge Cup only a few months away, the Philippine Azkals are set for a busy final quarter of the year with the Philippine Peace Cup and a series of friendlies against highlevel teams to prepare them for the major tournament that dangles a spot in the Asian Cup. Azkals manager Dan Palami said preparations for the Challenge Cup will already kick into high gear in the final quarter of 2013 as the team braces for a tough battle in the Challenge Cup in the Maldives in March.

After the friendly match against Indonesia in Solo, Central Java, where the Azkals lost, 0-2, the Philippine Football Federation is now eyeing a

friendly against New Zealand and its neighbor New Caledonia for September.

The Azkals will also be in action the following month when they defend their Philippine Peace Cup title from Oct. 11 to 15 in Bacolod City, which is hosting an international match for the first time since the Guam-Philippines game in June last year.

Philippine Football Federation general-secretary Ed Gastanes said they are looking at Challenge Cup qualifier Kyrgyzstan as a possible participant in the Peace Cup. The Azkals ruled the Peace Cup last year, besting Chinese-Taipei, Guam and Macau at Rizal Memorial Stadium.

Gastanes said the PFF will invite one of the teams that saw action last year to complete the cast in Bacolod. ■

HOROSCOPE ARIES

CANCER

LIBRA

CAPRICORN

(MARCH 21 - APRIL 19)

(JUNE 22 - JULY 22)

(SEPT 23 - OCT 22)

(DEC 22 - JAN 19)

News of an unexpected career break could come your way, Aries. This can be exciting and it should make a big difference in your life. This time definitely calls for some modesty. If you act too proud or thrilled, you might stir some envy among your colleagues, and this could come back to haunt you later. Save your excitement for your family.

TAURUS (APRIL 20 - MAY 20)

This isn’t a good day to get together with your romantic partner, Cancer, or even talk on the phone at length. Keep your conversations brief and make arrangements to meet in a few days. Your friend could be in a very agitated state of mind and might take offense at an innocent remark from you. This could cause an unpleasant quarrel. Be patient!

Recent overindulgence may have you to feel a bit under the weather this morning, Libra. Avoid coffee and other stimulants. Try to sleep in if you can. Too much stress in your life certainly isn’t helping.

This malaise could pass by noon, but if you’ve been doing this a lot lately, you need to ask yourself why and find a way to quit doing it.

SCORPIO

LEO

(OCT 23 - NOV 21)

(JULY 23 - AUGUST 22) Are you taking a long-distance trip by air, Taurus? Postpone it if you can. It might end up being slow and tedious. If you must travel, be prepared for delays, lost luggage, or bad weather. Travel light, be at the airport early, and take some reading material. If you’re planning a trip, don’t confirm the arrangements or the same effects might apply when you do travel. Wait a few days.

Some technological gadgets that you make copious use of may go out of whack today, Leo. This could prove frustrating for you, but don’t vent your frustrations on them. That wouldn’t help! Stay calm and call in a professional to fix the problem. Think of the expense as a contribution to your own mental health.

Some wonderful news may come to you today, Capricorn, and this could send you into such excitement that it’s difficult to concentrate on the situation at hand. This is OK for a while. Your friends and loved ones will probably understand. But at some point you need to come down to Earth!

Take a walk and work off the excitement. That might be just what you need.

AQUARIUS (JAN 20 - FEB 18)

Feelings of love for a romantic partner could be so overwhelming today you might be moved to tears, Scorpio. You will experience a lot of sensual passion, so an intimate evening together is definitely called for if you can arrange it. If it isn’t possible, don’t jump to the conclusion that your friend doesn’t desire you anymore. If your friend claims to be busy, it’s probably true.

A friend or colleague may pay you back a small sum of money that’s owed to you, Aquarius. You’ll be thrilled, but you might feel a little guilty that you plan to spend it on something frivolous instead of putting it toward your bills. This isn’t worth the guilt.

It isn’t that much money, and you’re entitled to a little frivolity now and then. Go for it!

GEMINI

VIRGO

SAGITTARIUS

PISCES

(MAY 21 - JUNE 21)

(AUG 23 - SEPT 22)

(NOV 22 - DEC 21)

(FEB 19 - MAR 20)

Your subconscious mind is active today, Gemini. You might have psychic insights and some odd dreams.

However convoluted they may be, they’re trying to tell you something, possibly about your relationship with a friend or love partner. Make a list of the symbols and then figure out what they mean to you. The symbols in these dreams are probably all very personal.

Your love partner may be experiencing some minor conflicts with colleagues today, Virgo, and may seem distant and preoccupied. The problem could well pass by tomorrow, but your friend isn’t likely to listen to any reassurance. Just make it clear that you’re there if needed and then do something else. Your beloved may have to come to terms with this alone.

Today the walls may seem to be closing in around you, and you’re anxious to get out for a while, Sagittarius. Your significant other could want nothing more than to stay in. Don’t let this turn into a major issue. Find a compromise. Go out to dinner and then come home and watch TV. Enjoy your time together! If single, get out and mingle.

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Your home may seem lonely today, Pisces, and love may seem to be absent. A family member, perhaps your love partner, could be away for the night, making the place seem far colder and emptier than it is. This isn’t a good night to stay home. Go out and visit a friend or go to a movie. You need to keep yourself occupied until your partner returns.

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

42

Travel

B.C. farmstay an oasis for kids and adults amid the quacking, clucking, baaing

BY CAMILLE BAINS The Canadian Press QUADRA ISLAND, B.C.—A herd of sheep feasting on Jerusalem artichoke leaves can’t seem to get enough food or admiration from two wide-eyed city boys oblivious to the manure beneath their feet.

Nearby, a dozen hens cluck away with their chicks in tow as five quacking ducks waddle off in the distance, and Myra, the tail-wagging golden retriever, woofs to signal it’s time to play.

The cacophony is pure joy for my nine-year-old son Matthew and his 10-year-old friend Lev, who are learning a few lessons in the care and feeding and sharing of animals at the Bold Point Farmstay on Quadra Island, off the eastern coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

It’s the second day of our three-day trip, and the boys who initially feared their fingers would be bitten off by the ducks they were trying to feed, have now become a couple of farm hands shouting “Awesome!” at every new discovery.

Gales of laughter erupt as they take turns riding Toby the sheep when I join in for a little cruise of my own. More laughter.

Watching the action is Rod Burns, who has guided the kids in their adventures since our arrival on this remote 10-acre property past logging and gravel roads.

“I bet he’s a teacher,” says Lev’s mom, Tricia, as Burns leads us to our rented cottage across from a vegetable garden surrounded by apple, plum and sour cherry trees—and an enticing hammock.

Indeed, Burns taught Grades 8 to 10 before buying the farm

BOTTOM ROW PHOTOS FROM FARMSTAY-CA.COM

with his wife Geraldine Kenny in 1995, when he made nature his classroom for the benefit of guests’ children.

Visitors from France, India, Japan and elsewhere around the world have come here to unwind and increasingly, unplug in a place Burns calls “oldworld wireless.”

Burns and Kenny also host guests through two programs called HelpExchange and Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), which gives volunteers the opportunity to work and learn in return for food and accommodation.

“In many cases they will come to B.C. to try to improve their conversational English,” Burns says.

Along with the vegetable garden, the forest on the property invites visitors to just wander free.

“The city crud comes off and your senses come alive and you start listening to the raindrops,

to the animals,” Burns says.

Besides collecting eggs for breakfast, heralded by the cock-a-doodle-doo of Mika the blind rooster, the boys get an education in maintenance by fixing a gate, broken thanks to the antics of a bossy ewe named Naughty Dotty.

Burns hands the kids a screwdriver, a hand saw, a piece of wood and some hardware.

“Work together” is the only instruction Burns gives them before letting them figure out the project he later deems a success.

That evening, we become stargazers during the annual Perseid meteor shower, watching shooting stars streak across the sky while lazing on lawn chairs without a care in the world.

The next morning, Kenny treats us to a tour of the garden that includes three types of beans, such as the purple ones that turn green when they’re cooked, and scarlet runners,

which are adorned with striking orange blossoms.

Kenny also teaches the boys, through their initial snickers, that sheep manure makes excellent compost, especially for the plentiful squash, including the giant zucchini, which are apparently quite the rage around here.

“On Quadra Island people say, ‘Don’t leave your car unlocked or someone will leave a zucchini in it,”’ Kenny says, inviting us to pick lettuce and herbs for our dinner.

All of us have learned about water conservation because a tiny spring provides for the house, where Burns and Kenny live, and the cottage, where a sign in the bathroom reads: “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.”

We’ve also trekked off the farm to a local beach and Main Lake, where we meet plenty of kayakers who frequent Quadra Island, the largest of the Discovery Islands.

And we’ve visited the Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre at the nearby village of Cape Mudge to see potlatch ceremonial regalia, along with masks, rattles and whistles from the late 1800s to the early 1920s. The items belong to 15 First Nations communities around northern Vancouver Island.

Back at the farm, the boys who’ve groaned a few times about going back to school, have had an education they’ll long remember.

“To be continued,” Burns and Kenny say before we head for the car, lugging two massive zucchini and already missing Naughty Dotty and the gang.

If you go

From Vancouver, head to West Vancouver and take the 90-minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo.

From there, drive about two hours to Campbell River. It’s a 10-minute ferry ride from there to Quadra Island. ■

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

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FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 44

New law...

21, participated in the sit-in with a group of fellow indigenous learning students, saying he felt that the original course was necessary to understand how law, economics and politics are viewed through an aboriginal lens.

But ultimately their protest ended after the group presented its concerns to the university senate.

“We believe on principle that an angry mob shouldn’t dictate the curriculum of a university,” Murdoch-Gibson said.

Alison Morris, 23, who is set to be part of Lakehead’s first class, said the aboriginal aspect ❰❰ 31

to the curriculum was one of the draws of the school.

“I can definitely see myself working in that field,” she said.

“There are a lot of issues with the aboriginal community and it’s really important for aboriginal lawyers to understand more about the aboriginal communities and it looks like that’s what the program is going to try to get us to do.”

Morris, who studied Canadian politics at the University of Victoria and Carleton University, grew up in small towns across Canada, spending most of her formative years in Revelstoke, B.C. Lakehead focused its admis-

sions on applicants from northern, rural and aboriginal communities, in the hopes that they will return to them to practice.

More than 50 per cent of the class is from northern Ontario, with another 20 to 25 per cent from smaller communities, mostly in Ontario, Stuesser said.

Lakehead tried for years to get provincial approval for a law school, and Stuesser said its niche is what made it stand out among other schools clamouring for one.

“I’ll be blunt, I think that many of those universities want a law school for the wrong reasons...They perceive it as being somewhat prestigious and sec-

ondly some of them see it as a means of good tuition revenue,” Stuesser said.

“Where I think Lakehead had an advantage is that we’re saying, ‘Look, we need a law school because we want to serve our community and our community needs lawyers. The aboriginal community needs aboriginally aware lawyers. The local, smaller centres need lawyers.’”

A 2011 study sponsored by the Law Society of Upper Canada looked at the numbers of lawyers per capita across Ontario and, perhaps unsurprisingly, found Toronto to be the most densely populated, with one lawyer for every 227 people.

The regions with the fewest lawyers per capita—including a region east of Ottawa, Chatham-Kent and Durham Region—have one lawyer for approximately 1,800 to 3,225 people.

Julia Tousaw, 24, another member of Lakehead’s inaugural class, is from Goderich, Ont., and would like to return to practice law there or in another small community. Tousaw had no hesitations joining an untested program.

“I see it as a blank slate and maybe it’s a great opportunity for us as 55 students to start a culture that is different and that you can’t find elsewhere.” ■

Battling The...

The Kissing Hand, Go Home, Mrs. Beekman and The Night Before Kindergarten). Story books can be an effective tool towards developing an understanding of the situation, as children can relate to them, and they provide happy resolutions to challenging situations. ❰❰ 28

5. Familiarity breeds security. Definitely not in keeping with the old saying about familiarity and contempt, but very helpful in dealing with separation anxiety issues. If your child’s school will allow it, try to make a few trips to the school before the first day.

Point out fun areas: the craft corner, playground, their own little cubbyhole (kids generally love these). This was key for my daughter’s progress; two trips to the school, and she was in love with the kid-friendly

school grounds. It also helps to schedule a playgroup with classmates, whenever possible, prior to the first day of school.

This way, familiar, friendly faces await them in the classroom.

6. Don’t project your emotions on your child. Your own stress and worry may aggravate your child’s emotions. Most children will take their emotional cues from their parents, so don’t let your own anxiety show on your face. Do not overemphasize separation issues, either.

7. Countdown to the first day. Make a calendar a month before school starts and countdown to the start. Same principle as an Advent or Christmas calendar. This exercise will help your child visualize the schedule, and feel less trepidation when the big day finally rolls around. ■

Vancouver artists Ruby Gomez Peabody, Esmie Gayo McLaren and Danvic Briones

A brush... cludes watching my son surfing in California, and stand up paddleboarding on English Bay in Vancouver.

Danvic: The open road. The fleeting of time and images that I see and experience while walking or driving gives me ideas and inspiration. ❰❰ 27

PCI: In painting, what couldn’t you do without?

Esmie: I couldn’t do without some kind of emotional/ intellectual connection with my subject. I need to be able to identify what about the subject that moves me to paint it.

Ruby: I need to be happy to be productive at my painting. I also like to have a goal.

Danvic: Deadline.

PCI: What’s the best advice www.canadianinquirer.net

you have been given in terms of pursuing your art?

Esmie: Be at your easel.

Ruby: Never give up. If you have to do something else to pay the rent, do it—but don’t give up on your art, don’t give up your dream, don’t give up your goal.

Danvic: Claude Michel Schonberg once told me, “Breathe it.”

PCI: What advice can you give to those who want to follow your path and be an artist?

Esmie: Be at your easel.

Ruby: See my answer above!

Danvic: To be a good artist, you have to study, understand and practice art. To be a great artist, you have to get away from it.

PCI: When you are not paint-

ing, what is it that you like doing?

Esmie: Dancing, traveling, golfing, gardening....and when I’m doing these, I still have my painting cap on.

Ruby: Reading (I love British murder mysteries), hanging out in Gastown cafes with my husband (who likes to write in cafes), dinners with friends and family, and spending time by the water in our Kitsilano Beach neighbourhood.

Danvic: Designing and innovating emergency preparedness products and tools.

Esmie, Ruby and Danvic are collaborating in Brush with Strangers, an art exhibit that opens on September 5, 2013 at 6pm at Again, 1868 West Broadway, Vancouver (1/2 block west of Burrard). It will run through September 15, 2013. ■

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013

45

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Philippines

FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2013 46

Publisher Philippine Canadian Inquirer Editor Melissa Remulla-Briones editor@canadianinquirer.net Associate Editor Laarni de Paula

Piston group and their “Pork Barrel King” effigy PHOTO BY ANGIE DUARTE

Manila’s Million...

Red mixes with white, at the more militant Mendiola rally.

PHOTO BY ANGIE DUARTE

earned buckaroos was going to Jeane Napoles’ Jimmy Choo’s, monies were misappropriated by the Napoles clan and several porky political pigs.

Citizens groaned under the weight of corruption; on the verge of heaving from nausea; deeply-seated at the very core of their national being. The stage was set for something to explode: The people’s collective vomit borne of poisoning from contaminated pork.

Dramatic entrance from the rafters: Severe Tropical Storm Maring , and her partner-in-crime, habagat (southwest monsoon rains.) Enter from all sides of the stage: Record-flooding, which played sold-out shows to a paralyzed Metro and its denizens for 5-days solid. The straw that broke the camel’s back.

Corruption was to blame for poor road conditions, terrible sewage systems, inadequately (and horribly) planned urbanization, improper garbage disposal, and the creation of politicians so fattened by pork that they had grown too lazy to do their jobs.

A call to march. The bugle was sounded.

Questions flew across tweets and timelines: “Who is organizing this?”

“What groups will be involved?” “Where do we meet? What to wear? What time?”

“Will there be a program?” A Facebook page was set up; the impromptu hub in the midst of frenzy.

Despite the absence of any real organizing body, people—of their own accord— took to the streets in hordes to be a part of the “Million People March” and protest rally at Luneta Park and Mendiola Circle.

Most wore white, as a symbol of solidarity and the cry for truth and transparency.

The call was heard across the islands, as several provinces held rallies and demonstrations of their own.

The summa total? Just under 200,000 men, women and children. Not quite 1-milliion, but not a bad turnout, either. ❰❰ 1

Unlikely heroes

In droves, they came to Luneta: The old and young, male and female, from all walks of life. Artists, employees, business people, students, activists, ordinary citizens, members of the clergy, church

organizations (Catholic, Christian, Buddhist), indigenous people groups, musicians, athletes (cyclists, runners, skateboarders), “punks”, “preppies”, and everything else in between. Unlikely heroes, one and all.

Some bore placards, others carried effigies; a few went the extra mile and wore them. Plus-size comedienne, Juana Change donned a pig mask, sexy red lingerie, bills of money, jewelry and white ball gloves; stuffed herself into a wooden barrel and waved the country’s flag.

A “pig-headed P-Noy” pranced around, to the tune of angry rapping from folk-singers onstage, decrying the “King Pig”, “pig in the Palace”, and “pork Padrino (Godfather).”

A fashion-conscious member of society wore a faux-fur stole, adorned with Miss Piggy and disco balls (representative of Napoles’ lavish Hollywood party, now infamous thanks to YouTube). His words dripped sarcasm as he said “I wear this because I want the Philippines to be more glamoroooouuuus.”

Banners bore slogans from serious to scathing; each reflective of a heart cry for change, and reminiscent of many other rallies gone by.

Numerous masked men and women marched in “Anonymous” fashion, drawing quizzical looks from those not in the know of the group’s involvement in today’s political landscape.

Chants and cries for solidarity and change were interspersed with percussive drumbeats, which in turn drew spontaneous dancing on muddy fields and crowded sidewalks.

Boos mingled with chants and cheers, as former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Renato Corona—himself recently embroiled in a corruption scandal— dared show his face at the rally. What he claimed to be an act of solidarity was viewed as an affront; insult added to injury. He had been judged, and the people’s verdict was evident as he walked through the crowd: “BOO!!!”

The demands

From Luneta to Mendiola, the demands were clear. The delivery differed,

with the Luneta atmosphere being decidedly more festive and frenetic, while Mendiola—as expected—was more impassioned and militant.

The demands were made, from PA systems, over microphones and bullhorns, and on flyers: • Abolish the pork barrel, which is a reflection of a culture of corruption, perpetuates a culture of patronage, and breeds a system by which the masses are exploited.

• Transparency in governments’ accountability for budgets and funds.

• An exhaustive and transparent investigation and prosecution of all governments officials involved in the pork barrel scam. An audit of all pork barrel funds, an all levels of government; from the lowest official, all the way up to the President.

• And, an allocation and re-channeling of funds towards meaningful projects, such as education, health care, and other basic services for Filipinos both here and working overseas.

Volunteers sat under green tents at Luneta, collecting signatures for the petition from all-too-willing marchers, rallyists and onlookers.

Challenge to change

The rally culminated with a free concert at the Quirino Grandstand: A day of protesting, capped by music in the early evening; in true Filipino fashion.

Radio reports said that this “unorganized” demonstration was by far more organized and orderly than those set into motion by demagogues and political groups. The Philippine National Police reported it to be peaceful, with no incidences of casualties. Officials from the Luneta Park praised how “clean” the grounds were, in the wake of the rally.

The challenge to change was posed by the citizenry to the people in power; in what was—as Ms. Bretañia said over the radio—just the first of many events to come.

The challenge to the citizenry is to function as well-oiled cogs on a gear and keep the machine in motion. Lest this, too, be forgotten until the next nationshaking drama unfolds. ■

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Correspondents Lizette Lofranco-Aba Gigi Astudillo Angie Duarte Maria Ramona Ledesma Katherine Marfal Frances Grace Quiddaoen Agnes Tecson Ching Dee Socorro Newland Graphic Designer Victoria Yong Jennifer Yen Photographers Solon Licas Angelo Siglos Danvic Briones Operations and Marketing Head Laarni de Paula (604) 551-3360 laarni.liwanag@canadianinquirer.net Advertising Sales Alice Yong (778) 889-3518 alice.yong@canadianinquirer.net Antonio Tampus (604) 460-9414 PHILIPPINE PUBLISHING GROUP Editorial Assistant Phoebe Casin Graphic Designer Shanice Garcia Associate Publisher Lurisa Villanueva In cooperation with the Philippine Daily Inquirer digital edition Philippine Canadian Inquirer is located at Suite 400, North Tower | 5811 Cooney Road, Richmond, B.C., Canada Tel. No.: 1-888-668-6059 or 778-8893518 | Email: info@canadianinquirer. net, inquirerinc@gmail.com, sales@ canadianinquirer.net Philippine Canadian Inquirer is published weekly every Friday.

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