Philippine Canadian Inquirer Issue #90

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VOL. 11 NO. 90

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NOVEMBER 15, 2013

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Search and rescue, services restoration top priority

HK legislators OK anti-PH resolution

Miriam tags JPE pork scam godfather

Storm surge

Filipino-Canadians in Yolanda’s aftermath

Tearful plea from Philippines delegate as typhoon overshadows opening of UN climate talks

Aquino declares state of national calamity

BY MONIKA SCISLOWSKA The Associated Press

SO YOUNG. A man brings his lifeless 6-year-old daughter to the morgue in downtown Tacloban City. The girl is one of the fatalities in the storm surge

whipped up by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

PHOTO BY NINO JESUS ORBETA

Bodies everywhere in Leyte, says US general

BY CHRISTIAN V. ESGUERRA, MARLON RAMOS AND NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer President Aquino on Monday night declared a state of national calamity, three days after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” roared across the central Philippines, killing hundreds of people and leaving the region, in the words of a US military official, totally devastated.

“We declared a state of national calamity to expedite the government’s

rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts in provinces devastated by Yolanda,” Aquino said in a televised address to the nation.

The state of national calamity will remain in force until lifted by the President, according to Proclamation No. 682.

Aquino approved the release of P1.1 billion in additional “quick response fund” for both the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). ❱❱ PAGE 8 Aquino declares

Filipino community comes together to aid typhoon victims ❱❱ PAGE 18

WARSAW, POLAND—The devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan cast a gloom over U.N. climate talks Monday as the envoy from the Philippines broke down in tears and announced he would fast until a “meaningful outcome is in sight.”

Naderev “Yeb” Sano’s emotional appeal was met with a standing ovation at the start of two-week talks in Warsaw where more than 190 countries will try to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.

U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres also made reference to the “devas❱❱ PAGE 21 Tearful plea

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Philippine News

3 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Search and rescue, power, telco services restoration top priority

BY MICHAEL LIM UBAC Philippine Daily Inquirer PRESIDENT AQUINO ordered the release of P365 million to the Philippine Air Force as a search and rescue operation for victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” got under way.

After a meeting with selected Cabinet members, Mr. Aquino ordered the following: the immediate restoration of power in the affected provinces in the Visayas; coordination with telecom companies to resume phone connectivity; the clearing of road obstructions and the declogging of waterways; and examination of coastal areas affected by storm surges to help speed up relief efforts. He also directed Science Secretary Mario Montejo to “study and recommend” to the government the adoption of an allweather communication system in the face of widespread problems with phone connectivity in the midst of the disaster.

These instructions were announced

by Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma in an interview last night with state television PTV 4.

Report from Roxas, Gazmin

According to Coloma, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas had reported to the President via satellite phone from Leyte. The two had flown to the province, which was predicted to be under the most serious threat from the super typhoon.

“They reported heavy damage in the province, widespread power outages and that telecom services have yet to be restored to normal (operation),” said Coloma.

Mr. Aquino also conferred with Armed Forces Chief Emmanuel Bautista for logistical support to be given the AFP. The P365 million will be released to the Air Force for fleet maintenance and provisions as well as provision for petroleum, oil and lubricants.

Full-alert mode

Earlier, the President placed the entire government on “full alert” mode as Yolanda barreled through the central Visayan islands.

The President also ordered the release of an additional P53.24 million for relief operations, on top of the P195 million worth of prepositioned relief resources that had been announced.

Hours after the strongest typhoon ever recorded made landfall in five Visayan provinces, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) issued a call for civilian volunteers to help repack relief goods at the National Operations Center in Malibay, Pasay.

Some 125,604 individuals, or 26,675 families, had been housed in 109 evacu-

Two steps ahead

A tweet from Globe Telecom reads, “Globe Telecom mobile cell site off to Tacloban from Bacolod this morning via the Phil. Navy BRP ship. #YolandaPH pic.twitter.com/oWPj8wcSt5” PHOTO FROM TWITTER PAGE OF GLOBE TELECOM

ation centers in 22 provinces, 13 cities and 73 municipalities in seven regions— Mimaropa, Bicol, Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao and Caraga.

“The entire strength of the government is focused on aiding our people and taking them out of danger as a result of the devastation of Supertyphoon Yolanda,” Coloma told a Palace briefing earlier.

Coloma said Yolanda had already made landfall five times—Guiuan, Eastern Samar; Dulag and Tolosa in Leyte; Daanbantayan, Cebu; Bantayan Island, Cebu; and Concepcion, Iloilo.

“All agencies of government led by the NDRRMC (National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council) are currently on full red alert. The DSWD is prepared to distribute relief goods to the residents of affected provinces, cities and municipalities,” he said.

Specific directives

Coloma also gave updates on the specific directives given to crucial departments—welfare, health, energy and public works.

He said Health Secretary Enrique Ona had directed all Department of Healthsupervised hospitals to provide medical assistance to affected residents.

The NDRRMC was also monitoring the water levels at dams like Agno and Angat, he said, while the National Grid Corp. was working to restore power in Catbalogan, Samar; Southern Leyte; parts of western and eastern Leyte; Calbayog City in Samar; Tacloban City and Palo in Leyte; and parts of Surigao del Norte.

The heavy equipment of the Department of Public Works and Highways is ready to remove street obstructions, and declog rivers and waterways, said Coloma.

He said the airports of Kalibo, Roxas, Tacloban, Surigao, Caticlan, Legazpi, Romblon and Iloilo were temporarily closed to all air traffic to prevent accidents.

Asked if the President, who had opted to monitor the progress of Yolanda from Malacañang, was satisfied with the government’s disaster preparedness this time, Coloma said Mr. Aquino had nothing to worry about because “we see the efforts of the government to be proactive.”

By proactive, he explained that “we should be a step ahead of the situation” and “our countrymen should have sufficient information that would take them out of harm’s way and thus prevent the unnecessary loss of lives.”

Learning from the lessons of typhoons “Sendong” (2011) and “Pablo” (2012), the government indeed appeared to be two steps ahead this time around.

Mr. Aquino had activated all national, regional, provincial and municipal disaster risk reduction management councils, and ordered the preemptive evacuation of residents living in danger zones and the prepositioning of P195 million worth of relief goods and other logistics in the Eastern Visayas, the most seriously threatened region.

He also called for cooperation and bayanihan during a televised speech even as he warned local government units that their constituents were facing a “serious threat.”

Communication, power disruptions

At the briefing, Coloma said the government was coordinating with telecom companies amid reports of weak cellular sites or signals in parts of the Visayas.

“These are the priority areas for power restoration. As to questions on connectivity, they are also working closely with the telecommunications companies to ensure minimal disruption of services ❱❱ PAGE 10 Search and

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Philippine News

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 4

Gov’t defends DAP: It’s prioritized spending

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer IT’S NOT a fund or an appropriation but a program or a system of prioritized spending by the executive branch.

This was how the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), in its consolidated comment to the Supreme Court, described the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) of Malacañang which those who oppose it have branded as President Aquino’s own pork barrel.

“As is obvious from its name, it is a program for accelerating disbursements. What is only unstated in the title of the program— DAP—is that the sources of funds are, first, the legitimately generated savings of the government, and second, the unprogrammed funds authorized in any relevant General Appropriations Act,” the OSG said.

The OSG, representing the government, filed its consolidated comment on seven of eight petitions against the DAP

before the high court which has scheduled oral arguments on the question of the DAP’s legality and constitutionality.

The petitions against the DAP have increased to nine, with the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) filing its petition yesterday asking the high court to stop its implementation, citing almost the same arguments raised by earlier petitioners.

These included, among other things, the argument that the DAP was created, established and implemented without any law or enactment to support it and thus was unconstitutional and illegal.

In its consolidated comment, the OSG questioned the petitioners’ assertion that the executive branch committed a grave abuse of discretion when it created, established and implemented the DAP as it noted that their petitions were “mostly anchored on newspaper clippings and media reports.”

“The petitions … are miserably lacking on the allegations of facts that would support a claim

of grave abuse of discretion,” the OSG said, citing for instance petitioner Greco Belgica’s “speculation” that the DAP was used for new projects and not to augment actual deficiencies, which the OSG said was based merely on the pronouncements of Palace spokespersons.

No law required for creation

The OSG said the petitioners should have asked the Department of Budget and Management to provide them with sufficient information “to determine whether their speculations are rationally and factually grounded.”

Among the arguments raised by the OSG was that no law was required to create the DAP, arguing that the President had the constitutional authority to create policies in the execution of laws.

“The President through the DBM implemented the DAP in order to accelerate public spending, push economic growth and promote prudent fiscal management,” the OSG said, adding that this was “plain

executive policymaking, nothing more.”

Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said that no one, not even the Supreme Court, could stop President Aquino from talking about and defending the DAP because he is immune from suit while in office.

De Lima dismissed as “ludicrous” former Iloilo Rep. Augusto Syjuco Jr.’s motion asking the high court to issue a gag order on the President and his subordinates to keep them from speaking about the DAP. Constitutional immunity

“No one can gag the President who is constitutionally immune from any kind of suit during his incumbency. This immunity is inherent in the office as a matter of necessity and cannot be violated, whether directly or indirectly,” De Lima said in a text message to reporters.

“In addition to immunity, the

President is an impeachable official.

As such, he cannot likewise be personally subjected to regular court orders that tend to diminish or compromise his ability to regularly perform the functions of his office,” she said.

“Any order of a court that derogates on these privileges will circumvent the protection offered by [these] privileges, and will be highly questionable,” De Lima said.

Any gag order issued “against the person and office of the President indirectly violates presidential immunity by making him the subject of a suit, especially to an order the enforcement of which depends upon the exercise of the court’s power to cite in contempt,” she said. ■

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Philippine News

5 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Benhur upstages Janet in hearing

BY NORMAN BORDADORA AND TJ BURGONIO Philippine Daily Inquirer BENHUR LUY stole the show from Janet Lim-Napoles.

As Napoles curtly replied either an “I don’t know” or invoked her right against selfincrimination, Luy recounted how his former employer schemed to divert allocations from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) into her bank accounts and gave lawmakers kickbacks.

During a six-hour testimony at the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing televised nationwide on the P10-billion PDAF scam, Luy said he and Napoles’ driver delivered payoffs to Agusan del Norte Rep. Rodolfo Plaza’s house at Alabang Hills, Ruby Tuason at Bel-Air and Pauline Labayen in Dasmariñas Village.

“Congressman Plaza himself received his kickback. Their agreement is 50 percent,” said Luy, a cousin and former personal aide of Napoles.

“I don’t know the addresses of the lawmakers and those of the chiefs of staff. I only got to know them when madam gave me the addresses and the driver and I were told to go there,” Luy said, contradicting Napoles’ denial of such instructions to deliver kickbacks.

Tuason was purportedly Napoles’ link to Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, and Labayen to Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. The two senators, along with Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., are under investigation for plunder by the Office of the Ombudsman.

Plaza is being investigated in the scam for violation of the antigraft law.

Napoles denied instructing Luy to deposit funds in the accounts of lawmakers and their representatives.

“She’s lying,” said Luy, who said that Napoles gave him the lawmakers’ bank account numbers.

Luy said he also personally gave former Apec Rep. Edgar Valdes his share of the loot, while lawyer Richard Cambe, Tuason and Labayen also went to the office of Napoles.

Cambe is a member of Revilla’s staff. Like Tuason and Labayen, Cambe is among those charged in the PDAF scam.

Luy said he saw Napoles giving money to officials of imple-

menting agencies at her office.

“When Ms Napoles gives the instruction to prepare the money and their 10-percent commission, I will so prepare it. I will type the voucher and have it checked by my seniors or by her daughter Jo Christine,” Luy said. “I will bring the money to her office and there are instances when she and I will meet the person and give the money contained in a paper bag.”

Luy said he saw Alan Javellana, a former president of the National Agribusiness Corp., and Antonio Ortiz, former head of the Technology Resource Center, receive their respective payoffs.

Other sources of kickbacks

Luy said Napoles, the head of JLN group of companies, also snagged millions of pesos in budget insertions and government savings as could be gleaned in the case of Plaza.

“As you can see from [the affidavit], supposedly his commission should be P37 million from the PDAF of P75 million. Why did it reach P42.137 million? Madam manages to get funds from insertions in government department agencies for instance during budget hearings,” Luy said.

“Madam gets to ask for savings. That’s why in my records, aside from the PDAF, our JLN office also gets extra savings,” Luy added.

Wearing a bulletproof vest, the 50-year-old Napoles was taken to the Senate by a 100strong team of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force from its Sto. Domingo Camp in Sta. Rosa, Laguna province, where she is being held for serious illegal detention for allegedly holding captive Luy for three months in a bid to stop him from testifying against her. She surrendered to President Aquino on Aug. 28.

Luy, 31, was rescued by a special team of the National Bureau of Investigation in March. He and 10 other former Napoles relatives and employees later executed sworn statements detailing the businesswoman’s alleged racket.

Napoles denied wrongdoing, claimed she knew nothing of the alleged PDAF scam.

She disputed allegations she formed 20 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and used them to channel pork barrel funds meant to ease rural poverty to ghost projects.

“I pity the senators and congressmen. Even their names are being dragged in this mess,” Napoles said.

WHISTLEBLOWER BEN LUY ATTENDS SENATE PROBE. Whistleblower Benhur Luy

Phone, CCTV records

Luy suggested that the Senate secure Napoles’ phone records to determine the lawmakers she had talked to and the closedcircuit television (CCTV) tapes of her office building. “You’ll see that there were lawmakers going there,” Luy said.

Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, the committee chair, confronted Napoles with the payoff vouchers Luy made allegedly upon her instructions.

“Do you think lawmakers or their chiefs of staff will sign such vouchers if they are for kickbacks?” Napoles said.

Luy said Napoles herself told the recipients of the money that such documents were just for the internal accounting purposes of her office.

Marina Sula, another former Napoles employee, corroborated Luy’s testimony. She said she filed the vouchers.

“But this January 2013, we started shredding documents at Pacific Plaza. [Napoles] didn’t want any proof against her,” Sula said.

Luy said he kept records of the transactions with the lawmakers or their chiefs of staff but did not know what happened to them after he was arbitrarily detained by Napoles.

“Ms Napoles, there are many details being presented here,” Guingona said.

“They’re not true,” Napoles shot back.

“You are under oath,” Guingona said.

“Yes,” Napoles said.

Division of loot

Napoles also denied Luy’s earlier testimony that under her scheme, 50 percent of a PDAF allocation went to the lawmaker, 35 percent to Napoles, 10 percent to the implementing agencies and 5 percent to the lawmakers’ chiefs of staff.

Merlina Suñas, also a former employee turned whistleblower, said Luy’s allegation was true and that Napoles even promised the members of the fake NGO 1 percent of the loot.

“That’s her promise to us. But she never gave us that part,” Suñas said.

At the start of the hearing, www.canadianinquirer.net

is accompanied by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation as he makes his way to the Senate’s plenary hall to attend the Blue Ribbon committee hearing on the alleged P10 billion Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam.

PRIB PHOTO BY JOSEPH VIDAL/7 NOVEMBER 2013

Napoles denied ordering Luy and his fellow employees to form fake NGOs. Luy told the committee Napoles was lying.

Luy and his fellow whistleblowers testified that Napoles liquidated the millions of pesos in PDAF coursed through her fake foundations by coming up with hundreds of names as fake beneficiaries.

“She’s lying. Because in the list of fake beneficiaries, even she and her children signed,” said Sula.

“We signed the list of beneficiaries in the conference room.

When there are toomany names that need to be signed and she didn’t have anything to do, she would join us in signing the fake signatures of the beneficiaries.

We had so many kinds of ball pens in signing,” Sula added.

“Is this true, Ms Napoles?”

Guingona asked.

“Hindi po (No, sir),” Napoles said.

Payoffs to senators

Luy testified that the staff of Revilla, Estrada and Enrile went to the JLN office to receive their commissions from their PDAF allocations.

At the request of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Luy read portions of his affidavit detailing the amount of PDAF and the commissions released to the senators and their staff.

Citing his accounting records from 2004 to 2010, Luy said Revilla’s PDAF covered by a special allotment release order totaled P652 million, and the 50-percent commission was P326 million.

In his records, only P224.5 million was released, Luy said.

Enrile had a total PDAF of P726.55 million, and also got a 50-percent commission of P363.2 million. In his record, Luy said of the amount, only P172.8 million was released. The commission was picked up at the JLN office by Ruby Tuason, Luy said.

Estrada, for his part, had a PDAF of P751.5 million and 55-percent commission of P375.7 million. But P183.79

million was released. The commission was picked up by Pauline Labayen, he said.

Inconsistencies

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano pointed out inconsistencies between Napoles’ claim that she had no knowledge of the pork barrel, and her 2006 letter to agriculture officials seeking a certification that her company’s purchase of fertilizer was funded with the PDAF. Cayetano produced documents, including aMarch 27, 2006, letter purportedly from Napoles to then Agriculture Secretary Domingo Panganiban, and questioned her about it.

In that letter, Napoles was requesting a certification that the money used to purchase liquid fertilizer from her company Jo-Chris Trading for the entire 2004 came from the PDAF of House representatives.

Napoles said she wasn’t aware of the letter. She later said if this was covered in the plunder complaint filed against her in the Office of the Ombudsman, she was invoking her right against self-incrimination.

Cayetano next produced another document on the April 2005 purchase of 3,108 bottles of liquid fertilizers allegedly approved by Napoles. Again, she said could not recall this. Her former employee, Marina Sula, confirmed she approved such purchase.

Under questioning by Sen. Francis Escudero, Napoles said she could not recall the “lady mastermind” of the scam that she mentioned to INQUIRER editors and staff after the paper broke the scam. ■ Editor’s Note: In the INQUIRER interview, Napoles said Luy had another boss, a woman. She whispered the name to one of those present.

Levito Baligod, counsel for the whistle-blowers, also testified that he was offered by Napoles’ lawyer Freddie Villamor up to P300 million to fix the case, but he rejected this.

Philippine News

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 6

HK legislators OK anti-PH resolution

BY JEROME ANING Philippine Daily Inquirer HONG KONG’S legislature passed a nonbinding motion calling on its government to impose “strong and forceful” economic sanctions on the Philippines unless substantial progress was made within the month regarding their demand for an apology and compensation for the victims of the Luneta bus hostage-taking incident in August 2010.

The council called on the Special Administrative Region (SAR) government “to consider suspending the visa-free arrangement for Philippine visitors, even tightening the arrangements for issuing business and employment visas to Philippine passport holders (excluding visas for foreign domestic helpers).”

This should be enforced, the councilors said, “until the Philippine authorities have formally responded to the demands of the victims and their families for an apology and compensa-

tion regarding the hostage incident, taken truly effective measures, and put forward ways to properly resolve the issue.”

According to the Hong Kong Legislative Council’s website, the resolution proposed by councilor Albert Chan, as amended by his colleagues Alice Mak, Sin Chung-kai and Regina Ip, was passed by a vote of 41 in favor, three against, and seven abstentions during the body’s session.

the relevant demands of the victims’ families at all, with its attitude, especially that of its President, being extremely poor in handling the incident,” the Hong Kong lawmakers said.

They recalled that after a Taiwanese fisherman was shot dead by the Philippine Coast Guard in May this year, Manila tendered a formal apology for the incident within three months following Taiwan’s announcement of sanctions against the Philippines.”

Hurt feelings

“[T]his council considers that the incident has seriously hurt the feelings of the victims in the hostage incident, their families and Hong Kong people, and that the Philippine government should be condemned in this regard,” the resolution stated.

The councilors noted that the Incident Investigation and Review Committee created by President Aquino “categorically pointed out the blunders of the relevant authorities in the incident.” “[Y]et the Philippine government has never faced up to

Serious mishandling

The council members said the Luneta hostage incident “has yet to be resolved properly, and the progress is hardly acceptable and is grossly unjust to the victims’ families.” They said Philippine authorities committed “serious mishandling of the rescue work” resulting in the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists and the injury of seven others.

The council said it was for “strong and forceful economic sanction measures” against Manila “to press the Philippine government to make a prompt

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and formal response to the four demands of the victims’ families, i.e. to apologize to the victims’ families, to offer compensation to the victims’ families, to penalize the relevant officials for dereliction of duty in the Philippine hostage incident, and to implement measures to protect tourists’ personal safety.”

The legislators called on the SAR government to suspend the procurement of Philippine products as well as the new round of negotiations on areas such as air freedom rights and trade.

They also suggested that the SAR government suspend all its dealings with Manila, except for the hostage incident.

Cultural exchange

The council sought the suspension of invitations to Philippine cultural organizations to Hong Kong to participate in the activities organized by the territory’s government.

The body also called on the LegCo to suspend its friendship exchanges with the Philippine Congress.

The councilors also asked the SAR government to call on the Hong Kong community and commercial sector to suspend their commercial and cultural exchanges with the Philippines, and to call on the public to boycott Philippine goods.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) had no immediate reaction to the resolution.

DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez merely reiterated an earlier statement on the issue: “We will continue to work quietly to achieve a mutually satisfactory conclusion.”

According to China’s CCTV report, more than 700,000 Philippine visitors came to Hong Kong last year and were able to stay for two-weeks without a visa. During the same period, only 120,000 people have traveled from Hong Kong to the Philippines, which has been placed under a “black tourism alert.”

Chief Executive Leung Chunying said Hong Kong would take necessary action unless substantial progress is made within one month. ■

Philippine News

7 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Massive relief effort under way Aid pledges

BY CHRISTIAN V. ESGUERRA AND CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima: “I’m all for the filing of perjury and contempt raps versus Napoles, given her evasive posturings, if not downright lies, during the Senate hearing.”

PHOTO FROM SENATE.GOV.PH

De Lima all for charging Napoles with perjury, contempt over hearing

BY JEROME ANING AND GIL CABACUNGAN Philippine Daily Inquirer JUSTICE SECRETARY Leila de Lima backed moves by Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Francis Escudero to charge suspected pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles with perjury and contempt following her testimony before the Senate blue ribbon committee.

“Senators Alan’s and Chiz’s proposed moves or courses of action would be well-justified.

I’m all for the filing of perjury and contempt raps versus Napoles, given her evasive posturings, if not downright lies, during the Senate hearing,” De Lima said in a statement.

Senate blue ribbon committee chair Sen. Teofisto Guingona III said he and his colleagues would study the transcripts to consider the matter.

De Lima had accompanied to the hearing the scam whistleblowers led by Benhur Luy, who countered the denials-made by Napoles.

Luy is a relative and former employee of Napoles whose complaint that he had been illegally detained by his employer led to the unraveling of the P10billion scam that involved the diversion of the legislative Priority Assistance Development Fund (PDAF), or pork barrel, to fake nongovernment organizations. Napoles is accused of being the mastermind of the operation, reportedly taking 30 to 40 percent of the project funds while lining the pockets of

elected officials-with the rest.

During the Senate hearing, Napoles denied the accusations and repeatedly invoked her right against self-discrimination.

De Lima, however, was cautious about Escudero’s proposal to move Napoles to a regular jail from her detention inside Fort Sto. Domingo in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

“The government should ask the DOJ to put her in an ordinary jail. We should not spend for her security since she’s going to deny [the accusations] anyway,” Escudero had said in a television interview.

De Lima said there were security concerns that needed to be addressed. Napoles’ suspected cohorts in the plunder include senators, congressmen, their staff and former government officials.

De Lima said she would take up the transfer issue with Interior Secretary Mar Roxas who has jurisdiction over the Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Napoles’ current custodians, and ultimately with President Aquino.

Escudero’s proposal was echoed yesterday by some members of the House of Representatives, who urged the government to “stop giving (Napoles) VIP treatment.”

Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., a lawyer, said Napoles let the public down when she not only clammed up when she was questioned by the senators but also continued to deny the charges made by her former employees. ■

SAYING SUPERTYPHOON “Yolanda” could not bring Filipinos to their knees, Malacañang has set a massive relief, rescue and rehabilitation effort in the aftermath of one of the strongest typhoons in world history.

Accompanied by seven Cabinet officials, President Aquino yesterday flew to Tacloban City in Leyte province and to Roxas City in Capiz province to lead the distribution of relief supplies and personally assess the extent of the damage caused by Yolanda.

The United Nations said it expected the death toll from the supertyphoon to rise and that it was sending emergency supplies to the stricken nation, as Pope Francis called on Catholics on Sunday to provide “concrete help” to the hundreds of thousands of people rendered homeless by the typhoon. More than 60,000 people joined the Pope in his own prayer for the victims during his traditional Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, a day after he tweeted his solidarity with the Philippines.

“Sadly, there are many, many victims and the damage is huge,” Francis said, speaking from a third-floor window of the papal palace. “Let us try to provide concrete help.”

Amid the devastation, foreign governments and groups

rushed to provide relief assistance and deployed teams to help the government make a rapid assessment of worst-hit areas.

The governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Germany, as well as international groups, such as the European Union, UN Children’s Fund (Unicef ) and World Bank, offered not only their sympathy to the Philippines for the loss of lives and massive destruction but also their readiness to help.

Mr. Aquino’s deputy spokesperson, Abigail Valte, said the priority was to send “medical teams, rescue units and equipment, technical personnel and relief goods” to the badly hit areas. “[No] matter how heavy the calamity, we have always managed to pick ourselves up and get back to our normal lives,” Valte said in amedia briefing on Radyo ng Bayan.

The US government, through its acting ambassador, Charge d’Affaires Brian Goldbeck, announced the availability of $100,000 to provide health, water and sanitation support to those affected by the storm.

“USAID Office of Foreign Assistance and Mission representatives have already been deployed at various locales throughout the affected areas and determined the damage is severe in multiple locations,” the US Embassy said in Manila on its website.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel would make helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and surface maritime search and rescue equipment available after a request from the Philippines government.

The British government, through its Overseas Development Secretary Justine Greening, announced a package of up to 4 million pounds, or P276 million, as humanitarian response to the typhoon.

“My thoughts are with the people of the Philippines and, in particular, to those who have lost loved ones,” Greening said in a statement.

British Ambassador Asif Ahmad said “the speed and efficiency of action in the days ahead… can save lives and provide security and comfort to those affected.”

Shelter items

British assistance includes a rapid-response facility that can provide up to 500,000 people humanitarian aid, including access to clean water and shelter items, such as plastic sheeting and household items, from the stockpile of humanitarian items at a UK warehouse in Dubai.

The United Kingdom will also send another team of humanitarian experts to join three others already in the country to coordinate international response.

Canada said it was working with Canadian and interna-

US choppers, planes

A Pentagon statement said

❱❱ PAGE 15 Massive relief

Volunteers repacking relief goods for DSWD in Iloilo.

PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK PAGE OF ROCK DRILON

www.canadianinquirer.net

Philippine News

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 8

Aquino declares...

The President said the amount would be added to the P18.7billion fund that the government had released to help the typhoon victims. It would be sourced from the government’s calamity funds, contingency funds and savings, Aquino said.

“In the coming days, you can expect help to arrive [faster],” Aquino said, addressing typhoon survivors.

Cooperation and prayer would help the nation “rise from this disaster,” the President said.

“Let us show the heart of the Filipino, who will never be brought to his knees by any typhoon,” he added.

As of Monday, he said 22 countries had pledged assistance, among them Indonesia, the United States, England, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and Hungary. ❰❰ 1

Price controls

The proclamation would also control the prices of basic goods and commodities in the typhoon-ravaged areas of the country and allow the government to use as much funds as necessary to deal with the calamity caused by Yolanda.

In signing the proclamation, Aquino also directed law-enforcement agencies, with help from the military, to take all necessary measures to ensure law and order in the provinces devastated by the typhoon.

It was the third time in three years that Aquino had placed the country under a state of national calamity.

The first time was on Dec. 20, 2011, after Tropical Storm “Sendong” devastated northern Mindanao and killed 1,080 people.

On Dec. 7, 2012, Aquino declared a state of national calamity in response to Typhoon “Pablo,” which killed 1,900 people in Mindanao.

Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) slammed into the Samar-Leyte area on Friday, then swept across central and western Visayas, leaving wide swaths of devastation.

‘Total devastation’

A US Marine general on Monday said he saw bodies everywhere during a helicopter flight over the region struck by Yolanda.

Speaking after a two-hour flight with Filipino forces, US Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said every building and

house he saw was destroyed or severely damaged.

“We saw bodies everywhere,” he said. Some were floating in the water, others in a schoolyard, he said.

Kennedy said trees were uprooted for kilometers around, roads were impassable and power lines were down.

“I don’t believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way,” he said.

“I don’t know how else you can describe total devastation,” Kennedy said at the airport in hardest-hit Tacloban City.

Two US Marine C-130 cargo planes were parked nearby, their engines running, unloading food and water from the capital, Manila.

‘Situation is bad’

Three days after Yolanda, the strongest storm on record, roared across the Visayas, government officials still did not know the extent of the damage and devastation, with some in Manila questioning five-figure local estimates.

“The situation is bad, the devastation has been significant. In some cases the devastation has been total,” Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras told a news conference on Monday.

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said it appeared that Yolanda whipped Eastern Samar harder than Leyte, adding that the government was rushing relief for the survivors through the airport in Guiuan town.

Reports trickled over the weekend indicating deaths in Eastern Samar.

Leo Dacaynos of the Samar provincial disaster council said on Sunday 300 people were confirmed dead in one town and another 2,000 were missing, with some towns yet to be reached by rescuers.

Dacaynos pleaded for food and water, adding that power was out and there was no cell phone signal, making communication possible only by radio.

Death toll unclear

With communications still knocked out in many areas, it was unclear how authorities were arriving at their estimates of the number of people killed, and it will be days before the full extent of the storm is known.

In Tacloban, corpses hung from trees, were scattered on sidewalks or buried in flattened

buildings, some by the typhoon that washed away homes and buildings with powerful winds and giant waves.

The government has not confirmed officials’ estimates over the weekend of 10,000 deaths, but the toll from Yolanda, one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded, is clearly far higher than the current official count of 1,774 people dead and 2,500 others missing throughout the region.

Philippine National Police Director General Alan Purisima on Monday sought an explanation from Eastern Visayas police director, Senior Supt. Elmer Soria, who was quoted by the wire services on Sunday as saying the death toll in Leyte could reach 10,000.

“We are still verifying the figure (Soria) mentioned. We are actually taking the actual numbers because what we want to report is the actual body count,” Purisima told a news conference at PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

“If the PNP released a report, we could not take it back. What if (only) 100 people had actually died? Where are the (other) 9,900 bodies?” Purisima said. “The police must only rely on evidence, (or in this case), actual body count. We do not rely on perception reports or anecdotal reports.”

Soria did not report that 10,000 people in Leyte were killed during the typhoon.

The wire services quoted him as saying he was briefed late Saturday by Leyte Gov. Dominic Petilla and told that there were about 10,000 deaths in the province, mostly by drowning and from collapsed buildings.

Petilla’s figure was based on reports from village officials in areas where Yolanda first hit land on Friday.

But Purisima said the provincial police office had yet to provide photographs or other physical evidence that would support that figure.

“The problem is our police stations there cannot contact other police offices. Our ground commanders [have to travel from one town to another then report wherever there is power and telephone],” Purisima said.

Purisima reminded police commanders that only the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) had the authority to release damage and casualty reports during disasters.

“Our (standard operating prowww.canadianinquirer.net

cedure) is that we should be factual in our reports. We should not be speculating,” Purisima said.

“Policemen can make public their report on the number of casualties [but it] should be based on what they had actually seen,” he said. “We are not trying to hide anything here, but what we want is accurate reporting.”

Communications down

That is proving difficult, though, as much of the central Philippines remains cut off from communications.

The United Nations said officials in Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the typhoon on Friday, had reported one mass grave of 300-500 bodies.

Flattened by surging waves and monster winds of up to 250 kilometers per hour, Tacloban, 580 km southeast of Manila, was relying almost entirely for supplies and evacuation on just three military transport planes flying from Cebu City, across the Camotes Sea in Central Visayas.

Most of the damage and deaths were caused by huge waves that inundated towns and swept away coastal villages in scenes that officials likened to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Bodies were littered on the streets of Tacloban, rotting and swelling under the hot sun and adding to the health risk.

International aid agencies said relief resources in the Philippines were stretched thin after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Central Visayas last month and displacement caused by fighting between government forces and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels in Zamboanga City in September.

Operations were hampered because roads, airports and bridges had been destroyed or were covered in wreckage.

Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said on Monday that it would take at least two months to restore power in the region.

Petilla said more than 100 power pylons were toppled during the typhoon. Even if they were erected again, he said, power distribution could not resume right away because of lack of materials and manpower.

Threatening to add to the crisis, a tropical depression carrying heavy rain was forecast to

arrive in the region as early as Tuesday.

In central and western Visayas, the death toll from Yolanda had risen to 235 while the damage to infrastructure and agriculture had been estimated at nearly P800 million, disaster officials said on Monday.

In western Visayas, the death toll was 176, of which 133 were reported in Iloilo, 25 in Capiz, 12 in Antique, and one in Negros Occidental.

Officials said they expected the figures to rise as fresh reports of body recovery came in.

The Capiz provincial disaster council said most of the deaths were from drowning, collapsed houses, flying debris or falling trees.

In central Visayas, the regional civil defense office said the death toll was 59 as of Monday.

A regional civil defense officer, Flor Gaviola, said 58 of the deaths were reported in Cebu and one in Guindulman, Bohol province.

Gaviola’s office still had to determine the extent of the damage to infrastructure and agriculture Yolanda had inflicted on the region.

More bodies recovered

In Estancia town, Iloilo province in Western Visayas, municipal officials reported on Monday that 71 bodies had been recovered, more than half of the 133 fatalities reported for the entire province.

The bodies, including those of 25 fishermen believed to be from Masbate province, were buried in mass graves on Sunday.

The fishermen were killed after their boats, anchored at the port of Estancia, slammed into the seawall by a huge storm surge.

There will be more burials in coming days.

“We are still fishing bodies out of the sea,” said Erol Acosta, Estancia budget officer.

The regional office of the Department of Agriculture estimated the damage to agriculture in the area at P99.23 million. ■ With reports from Dona Z. Pazzibugan in Manila; Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Felipe Celino, Jhunnex Napallacan and Carla Gomez, Inquirer Visayas; Matikas Santos, INQUIRER.net; and wires

Philippine News

9 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Napoles told: Talk or die Santiago: Senators involved murderous

BY NORMAN BORDADORA AND LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer SQUEAL OR be killed.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago left her sickbed to give Janet Lim-Napoles that advice as the alleged mastermind behind the pork barrel scam clammed up on the involvement of lawmakers and government officials in the theft of P10 billion in government funds over the last 10 years.

Wearing a bulletproof vest, Napoles was taken from her detention center in a convoy guarded by rifle-toting policemen, and she was warned at the opening of the Senate blue ribbon committee inquiry into the pork barrel scam that she had good reason to fear being killed.

Napoles proclaimed her innocence, but refused to talk about the alleged involvement of lawmakers in the racket for which she, three senators and 34 other people, including five former congressmen and five ex-agency chiefs, are now facing plunder charges in the Office of the Ombudsman.

Santiago said the senators accused of plunder with her were hoping to kill her to ensure she did not testify against them.

“Tell the truth before the senators affected have you assassinated, that is your path to safety,” Santiago said.

Blanket denial

Santiago may have failed to get Napoles to squeal on the lawmakers, but managed to get her to take back her blanket denial of having anything to do with the legislators.

Santiago appeared at the hearing to lecture Napoles on the right against self-incrimination.

“Many people want you dead.

That’s why I’m telling you as a lawyer to tell us what you want to say so that they can no longer have you killed,” Santiago told Napoles.

She told Napoles that those involved in the scam would continue to see her as a threat as long as she remained silent.

Santiago told her that she could easily change her mind and rat on her alleged conspirators.

Strong evidence

“But if you tell us [what you know] now, they will no longer have a motive to kill you because your motive is already there. And that is under oath, affidavit or even a dying declaration, for all you know, and a dying declaration is very strong evidence,” Santiago said.

The senator has been on an extended medical leave from the Senate because of chronic fatigue.

But she announced on Twitter onWednesday night that she would attend the hearing to “show [Napoles] she cannot take advantage of the right against self-incrimination.”

And at the hearing, she told her that the lawmakers involved wanted her dead.

“They’re not only homicidal, they are also murderous.

They’re planning on murder.

So, while it is still early tell us who’s the most guilty among those involved,” Santiago said.

But Napoles replied in Filipino, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? I know. Because his empire is quite wide,” Santiago said.

Not most guilty Santiago told Napoles that she couldn’t have been the most guilty in the pork barrel scam because she lacked “sophistication.”

“You’re not exposed to so-

phisticated lifestyle like in Metro Manila that’s why it can be said that you came from a poor family,” Santiago said.

Santiago urged Napoles to tell the committee who was the most guilty “so that he can’t transfer being the most guilty to you.”

“That person is listening to us. He doesn’t show himself, that’s his style, but he’s listening. He has a lot of money and after this he will order his minions to put me down,” the senator said.

Santiago was obviously referring to Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, with whom she had been quarreling since late 2012.

Enrile did not appear at the blue ribbon committee hearing.

He and Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. are facing plunder charges in the Office of the Ombudsman together with Napoles for the pork barrel scam.

All three have denied any wrongdoing.

Revilla did not attend the hearing. Estrada was in the United States.

‘Tanda,’ ‘Sexy’ and ‘Pogi’

“Your former employees say that you call Enrile ‘tanda’ (old man). Who else in the Senate is old other than Enrile? He said he’s already 89, but we’re not sure. He may already be 99, or 109, because he seemed to be suffering from dementia, especially on things as regards me,” Santiago told Napoles.

She asked Napoles if Estrada was the “Sexy” she was referring to according to the whistleblowers.

“I also don’t know,” Napoles replied.

“You don’t know? But you do. What you want to say is you invoke your right against selfincrimination,” Santiago shot back.

www.canadianinquirer.net

Miriam tells Napoles: “Many people want you dead. That’s why I’m telling you as a lawyer to tell us what you want to say so that they can no longer have you killed.”

PHOTO FROM SENATE.GOV.PH

After consulting her lawyers from the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), Napoles changed her answer and said, “I invoke my right (against self-incrimination).”

“I have nothing else to say because that’s our law,” Santiago said.

But she went on to ask Napoles if Revilla was the one she called ‘Pogi’ (handsome).

“I invoke my right,” Napoles said.

Santiago asked her if she personally knew Enrile or Estrada or Revilla.

“I invoke my right,” Napoles said.

Santiago then asked if Napoles knew any of the other senators who may be charged for involvement in the pork barrel scam.

“I invoke my right,” Napoles said.

The hearing ended after a

short break for lunch, with the senators beaten back by a witness who was determined to keep her mouth shut.

Harder work

In the House of Representatives, congressmen were disappointed, saying that Napoles’ denying knowledge of the pork barrel scam had been expected.

Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate said the Senate had to work harder to determine who really was the mastermind behind the theft of the government’s development funds.

Zarate said nothing could be expected from Napoles, as she already knew that the burden of proving the case against her and the “cabal of scammers and plunderers” lay with the government.

“Her denial, though disap❱❱ PAGE 11 Napoles told

Philippine News

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 10

Miriam tags JPE pork scam godfather

because in times of calamity, it is important for our people to have the means of communication so that they can assure the safety of their families,” he said.

“We prioritize (response) based on the ranking of the situation according to how serious the danger that is posed to the lives of our people. So the first line of response is the rescue in areas that could be affected by storm surges and rising floodwaters,” said Coloma.

After affected residents are rescued, they will be cared for by the government in evacuation centers, he said. ❰❰ 3

BY TJ A. BURGONIO Philippine Daily Inquirer JANET LIM-NAPOLES, a high school graduate from the poor and conflict-torn Basilan province in southern Philippines, could not have built a pork barrel “empire” by herself, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said.

The real empire builder had to be someone more intelligent and powerful, Santiago said, referring to the brains behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam blamed on Napoles. And who was that? Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, Santiago said, describing the former Senate President as the godfather of the pork barrel scam “He is,” Santiago said when asked if it really was Enrile.

“His paternity is unquestionable. His DNA has been confirmed,” Santiago said.

The 89-year-old Enrile, who did not appear at yesterday’s hearing called by the Senate blue ribbon committee for the questioning of Napoles on the systematic theft of development funds, denied Santiago’s accusation.

“I feel compelled to issue a statement on today’s Senate hearing lest my silence in the face of the most outrageous allegations will be construed against me,” Enrile said.

“I support any investigation that seeks to uncover the truth about this PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) scam,” he said.

“To this end, I urge Mrs. Napoles to reveal the whole truth no matter who is hurt, as only the truth will set me free,” he said.

‘Wild-eyed charges’

Without mentioning Santiago by name, Enrile said some members of the blue ribbon committee used the hearing to make “wild-eyed charges, baseless assumptions and false accusations” through which they “converted the investigation into a parody of justice.”

“They should lead the facts to a just conclusion instead of corralling their own predilections into a preordained conclusion,” Enrile said.

“Finally, let me reiterate my innocence and that of my staff members and my office,” he said.

Search and...

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago on JPE’s involvement in the pork barrel scam: “His paternity is unquestionable. His DNA has been confirmed.”

PHOTO FROM PCIJ.ORG

In an interview with reporters, Santiago said testimonies from the whistle-blowers in the pork barrel scandal as well as reports by state auditors would point to Enrile as the “most guilty.”

“There are 36 of them. You have 36 people swearing on their lives. You can’t ignore 36 testimonies,” she said. “You can’t ignore actual testimonial and documentary evidence. You’ve got documentary and testimonial evidence. As trial judges, we don’t need anything more.”

Relations between Santiago and Enrile soured after a dispute over Christmas bonuses in the Senate last year.

Not the guiltiest

Santiago, who questioned Napoles for close to an hour during the hearing, said she believed the 49-year-old businesswoman wasn’t the “most guilty.”

If at all, the “most guilty” was a group of public officials, either senators or Cabinet officials, or amix of both, she said.

“They’re the kernel. They’re the source of her strength. She wouldn’t have had the guts if she didn’t have protection,” Santiago told reporters during a break in the hearing.

“She wasn’t born rich. She didn’t have the connections to get rich that quick. She didn’t even finish college,” she said.

She wondered: How did Napoles end up a foreign investor?

“It’s not possible that a woman like her, no matter how invested, how talented, could possibly build up an empire consisting of senators, Cabinet

members and representatives in so short a time. She started from poverty; she admits it. She did not even finish college,” she added.

Singled out

The doubt about Napoles being the mastermind behind the pork barrel scam came up with the senators’ offer of immunity for her in exchange for her disclosing the identity of the real brains behind the racket.

Santiago told Napoles that she must be the least guilty, not the most guilty, to be given immunity and she went on to say that Napoles could not be the most guilty one in the conspiracy to steal public funds.

Santiago singled out Enrile, who is facing plunder charges in the Office of the Ombudsman for the scam along with Napoles, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr., and 34 others, in her discussion of the most guilty.

“Who emboldened her? Enrile. He was the Senate President at the time,” Santiago said.

COA audit report

In a special audit of the PDAF, the Commission on Audit (COA) reported that P6.2 billion in pork was transferred to 82 nongovernment organizations from 2007 to 2009, including at least eight that had links to Napoles.

The funds were sourced from the PDAF allocations of Revilla (P413.29 million), Enrile (P332.7 million), Estrada (P191.58 million) and Sen. Gregorio Honasan (P14.55 million), among other lawmakers. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Gov’t’s top priority

Aside from the safety of the people, the provision of “basic needs” such as “food, shelter and clothing” of those in evacuation centers was the top priority of government, Coloma said.

“And as we receive significant information on actual damage or if there are casualty reports, we will give it to you on a continuing basis for the rest of the day,” he said.

Besides storm surges, he said the Phivolcs (Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology) was “watching out for possible lahar movement on Mt. Bulusan in Sorsogon because there are heavy deposits of lahar on the slopes of Mt. Bulusan.”

“We are looking out for reports of landslides because these would have potentially disastrous effects,” he said.

“All aspects are being taken into account,” he said.

‘Better safe than sorry’

Coloma explained that being proactive was different from being alarmist.

“Better safe than sorry,” he said, stressing that “every Filipino’s life is important.

“Asked if this “proactive mode” was part of the new norm in the government’s disaster risk reduction strategy, he said: “Yes, definitely. And we want to improve as we face continuing challenges due to the phenomenon of climate change. We would want to improve as we go along, and we are not forgetting the goal of zero casualty. It may be ambitious, and unrealistic, we’re not disheartened. We still want to achieve that.”

He said that, according to the latest update from the NDRRMC, there was still a low

number of reported casuaties from Yolanda.

“Only three casualties have been reported, two of whom were electrocuted in separate areas in San Jacinto, Masbate and Surigao del Sur. The last one was struck by lightning in Zamboanga City. Seven have been reported injured,” he said.

He commended Filipinos “for heeding the call of the government to take the necessary safety precautions and for following by the evacuation measures that have been put in place by local government officials especially those residing in danger zones and high-risk areas.”

“The President has directed all government agencies to conduct continuous search and rescue activities to ensure that, at the barangay level, all families and community members are accounted for. Special attention is being given to areas that may have been isolated from town centers in the aftermath of the typhoon,” he said.

Coloma urged everyone to remain vigilant until Yolanda leaves the Philippine area of responsibility.

Ready to chip in

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. yesterday said Metro Manila residents should be ready to “chip in” to help the victims of Super typhoon Yolanda.

“Looks like Metro Manila will not be affected. Let’s help those affected,” said Belmonte in a text message.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone, whose province was directly in the path of the supertyphoon, said it was the “worst” calamity his province had ever experienced.

In a statement, Australian Ambassador Bill Tweddell extended the “heartfelt sympathies” of the Australian government and people for the massive destruction from Typhoon Yolanda.

“Australia, as a close friend of the Philippines, is deeply concerned for the Filipino people at this difficult time. I admire the resilience and courage that Filipinos demonstrate under extreme pressure. I note that relief and recovery efforts are still ongoing in areas that were severely affected by the Bohol earthquake and the typhoon that also battered Northern Luzon,” Tweddell said. ■

Philippine News

11 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Calamities may push more Pinoys into poverty—Neda

BY MICHELLE V. REMO Philippine Daily Inquirer SUPERTYPHOON “YOLANDA” and other natural calamities that have struck the Philippines may not drag down the country’s overall growth but they could push more households into “transient” poverty, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said.

Government economists believe a significant portion of the country’s poor are “transient poor”—people who were previously not poor but were suddenly pushed below the poverty line because of untoward incidents, including natural calamities.

The latest poverty report said that 27.9 percent of Filipinos were living below the poverty line in the first semester of 2012.

Neda Director General Arsenio Balisacan said with the series of natural calamities hitting the country, the government could not discount the possibility that some people living in the affected areas had been pushed into poverty because of the damage wrought on their properties and sources of income.

He said the Neda would study the impact of Yolanda and the recent earth-

Neda Director General Arsenio Balisacan: “With the series of natural calamities hitting the country, the government could not discount the possibility that some people living in the affected areas had been pushed into poverty because of the damage wrought on their properties and sources of income.”

PHOTO FROM NEWS.YAHOO.COM

quake on the country’s poverty incidence.

Yolanda hit the Visayas less than amonth after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the central Philippine region last month, severely affecting Bohol and Cebu provinces.

Based on the Neda’s assessment, the Philippine economy could still maintain the robust growth it had exhibited in the first semester despite the earthquake and Yolanda.

However, while the impact of natural

Napoles told... pointing, is expected. She is not just saving herself but also her patrons, including those yet to be named, exposed and charged,” Zarate said in a statement.

But should she be proved to have lied, the authorities could go after her for perjury because she testified under oath, Zarate said.

The senators should look for other ways to discover the truth, he said.

“The Senate blue ribbon committee must now exert efforts to get to the bottom of this scam beyond the blanket denial of Napoles,” he said.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said there was enough evidence to prosecute Napoles and her coconspirators despite her evasive answers.

“I doubt she will be able to get away just because she denied anything and everything,” Evardone said.

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said the Senate must not belittle its power to cite Napoles in contempt and detain her.

Detaining Napoles in the Senate would prevent her from getting away even if the Makati court trying her on charges of serious illegal detention grants her petition for bail, Colmenares said.

Holding her in the Senate would also allow easier access to her for information she might have than if she contin❰❰ 9

ues to be held at a police training camp in Fort Sto. Domingo in Laguna province, he said.

Pressing charges

Malacañang said it understood Napoles’ decision to remain silent.

“Whoever in a similar situation wants to protect her rights and personal integrity,” Malacañang spokesperson Herminio Coloma told reporters.

Coloma said it was up to the Senate if it wanted to grant immunity to Napoles, as it was the senators who would decide the value of their resource persons’ testimony.

He said Malacañang was more interested in seeing the charges against Napoles through the Office of the Ombudsman than in quibbling over the grant of immunity to the alleged brains behind the pork barrel scam.

“That is the objective of our government,” Coloma said. “That is why we stay focused . . . on moving the process forward, from the Ombudsman to the Sandiganbayan so those involved can [be tried] and ultimately held accountable.”

Coloma said the Senate blue ribbon committee investigation was part of the “overall effort” to discover who really was behind the misuse of the PDAF and other discretionary funds. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

calamities on the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) was not much of a concern, the social impact should be a worry, said Balisacan on the sidelines of a partnership ceremony between Ayala Corp. and the UP School of Economics, which will conduct a series of economic forums in the next three years.

Neda Deputy Director General Emmanuel Esguerra, meanwhile, said that the government agencies concerned were developing a program that would serve as a safety net against transient poverty in times of calamity.

In particular, he said, the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Agriculture and Department of Social Welfare and Development, among other agencies, were designing a program to help families affected by calamities recover from lost income sources.

Such a program, details of which are still being finalized, is expected to be part of the revised Philippine Development Plan that will be released before the end of the year.

Esguerra said that the program may include financial help as well as technical assistance.

“The idea is that the program should be responsive in a timely manner,” Esguerra said. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 12

Only 2 senators formally renounce P200-M pork share

BY TJ BURGONIO Philippine Daily Inquirer ANYONE FOR pork barrel abolition? So far, there are a few takers in the Senate.

Only Senate President Franklin Drilon and Sen. Francis Escudero have so far filed their official position on the disposition of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as the deadline draws near.

And it’s not surprising that they’re the first ones to do so since both have been vocal about having their PDAF scrapped from the 2014 budget and have filed resolutions to that effect.

“So far, we have received only two. Mine and Senate President Drilon’s,” said Escudero, chair of the finance committee that would collate the senators’ positions and incorporate these into its final report.

Both senators have equivocally stated that their P200-million annual PDAF allocation each be deleted from the proposed P2.268trillion 2014 national budget.

The senators, who are divided on whether to scrap or realign their PDAF as their House counterparts had done for the entire Congress, have until Monday to submit their stand.

“There’s no competition involved here, that if you file first you’ll end up in first place,” Escudero told reporters yesterday, downplaying the fact that 22 of his colleagues have yet to file their position.

Senators and House representatives are on Halloween break from Oct. 26 to Nov. 17.

If anyone fails to submit a position, he or she will be deemed to be supportive of the House realignment of the PDAF to departments, Escudero said.

Ahead of the filing, the Senate minority composed of Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, Vicente Sotto III, Jinggoy Estrada, Gregorio Honasan III, Joseph Victor Ejercito and Nancy Binay have early on declared they’re for abolition.

In the majority bloc, so far Senators Loren Legarda, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Aquili-

no Pimentel III, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, and Cynthia Villar, among others, have indicated support for abolition.

Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV have expressed preference for PDAF realignment to calamity fund and social services, respectively.

Best evidence

“I filed a resolution to that effect. That’s the best evidence,” Escudero said when asked if he would push for PDAF abolition among his colleagues. “But I can’t vote in their behalf and decide for them.”

Given the scant manifestation from his colleagues in support of PDAF abolition, Escudero earlier expressed doubts that this would reach a majority support.

But if abolition draws the support of a majority in the 24-member chamber, Escudero said he would push for a vote in plenary. After all, there are pending resolutions seeking the abolition of PDAF from the

budget, he said.

As they reeled from the backlash over the large-scale misuse of the PDAF over the past 10 years beginning with the Arroyo administration, the senators introduced resolutions seeking its abolition in a bid to repair their image.

Enrile, Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. are facing a plunder complaint in the Office of the Ombudsman over the P10billion pork barrel scam along with businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles and 34 others.

They’ve vowed to face the complaint in court.

And then the rest of the senators have had to fend off criticism over their additional allocation of pork barrel from the Executive Department after the Senate convicted Chief Justice Renato Corona for dishonesty in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth in May 2012.

Criticism likely to go on

Whether they go for abolition or realignment, the senators won’t be spared public criti-

cism, Escudero conceded.

“If we have it abolished and deleted, we will hear comments that we should have given it to Bohol,” he said of the province devastated by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake last month. “Those who will realign will be accused of still having discretion over the fund.”

It’s safe to assume though that for now the Senate won’t follow the House lead of realigning the entire P25.2-billion Congress pork barrel to six departments when it approved the 2014 budget on third reading weeks ago, Escudero admitted.

Specifically, the House realigned the Senate’s P4.8-billion pork barrel to the departments of health, social welfare, and labor, and the Commission on Higher Education.

Given that some are for abolition, the Senate would end up introducing individual amendments to the House-approved budget measure by specifying that one’s PDAF be deducted from the national budget, Escudero said. ■

PH will rise from scam—Drilon

BY NORMAN BORDADORA Philippine Daily Inquirer SENATE PRESIDENT Franklin Drilon told more than 100 international parliamentarians the controversy facing the Aquino administration involving the alleged misuse of pork barrel funds was a “cleansing process” from which the Philippine government will emerge stronger.

In his address at the 20th anniversary of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) at the Manila Hotel, Drilon said the government led

by President Aquino will make sure that all those found guilty of pocketing-millions of pesos in public funds will be punished.

“Today, the Aquino government is taking an intense public beating because of the alleged misuse of government resources earmarked in the national budget by some legislators, popularly known in the West as the pork barrel, to fund preferred projects and programs,”

Drilon said.

“We see this challenge, colossal as it is, as a cleansing process.

The Aquino government will not spare anyone who will be proven guilty from accountability and punishment,” he said.

Drilon, like Mr. Aquino, is a ranking official of the ruling Liberal Party.

“This might be a politically painful cleansing process, but we are confident that when the political and judicial processes are completed, and the guilty are punished, the platform of good governance upon which the Aquino administration stands, will have a stronger foundation,” Drilon said.

Among the foreign delegates in attendance were Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy, European Parliament members Graham Watson of England and Hans van Baalen of the Netherlands, and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom regional director Dr. Rainer Adam.

Also present were LP leaders Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya, party

secretary general Samar Rep. Mel Senen Sarmiento and party spokesperson former QuezonRep. Lorenzo Tañada III. “Today, in the Philippines, government transparency and openness have been made possible, we must emphasize, because of the Aquino administration’s strong adherence to democratic principles and ideals,” Drilon said.

“Bad governance—the root of all economic ills—can be squarely addressed only in a democracy because of the presence of institutions and a legal environment that make governments and public officials accountable,” he said.

But “for some countries in Asia, the pursuit of democracy is long and arduous.”

“However, we must remain optimistic. We must not lose hope. Certainly, we look forward to the day when Aung San Suu Kyi becomes the first democratically elected president of Myanmar after decades of military rule,” he said.

“And we will all be there cheering and proud when our www.canadianinquirer.net

Senate President Franklin Drilon: “This might be a politically painful cleansing process, but we are confident that when the political and judicial processes are completed, and the guilty are punished, the platform of good governance upon which the Aquino administration stands, will have a stronger foundation.”

PHOTO FROM SENATE.GOV.PH

CALD chair, Sam-Rainsy, is elected prime minister of Cambodia. CALD will certainly be sending a delegation to your inauguration, as it did when President Aquino became the 15th President of the Republic of the Philippines,” Drilon said.

CALD is an organization of liberal democrats in Asia that has been at the forefront of the struggle for democracy and freedom in authoritarian Asian regimes.

CALD was launched in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1993 with support from then Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung.

It is the only regional alliance of liberal and democratic political parties in Asia and counts among its members Myanmar Member of Parliament and longtime political detainee Aung San Suu Kyi and Cambodian opposition leader Rainsy. ■

Philippine News

13 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

‘Time to help each other’ Find everyone, P-Noy orders rescue teams

BY MICHAEL LIM UBAC Philippine Daily Inquirer

Malverse, not plunder, raps for next batch

BY NANCY C. CARVAJAL Philippine Daily Inquirer THE SECOND set of charges involving the theft of public funds through lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) has not reached plunder levels, according to the lawyer of the whistle-blowers in the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

“The charges against the lawmakers involved would be malversation and not plunder because the government funds involved did not reach the threshold for plunder of P50 million,” lawyer Levito Baligod told the INQUIRER in an interview.

Malversation is a bailable offense unlike plunder, which is nonbailable and is punishable with life imprisonment.

The second set of lawmakers will also be charged for the misuse of the PDAF, Baligod said.

He said that no less than 10 lawmakers will be recommended for prosecution for malversation of their PDAF, or pork barrel, through the nongovernment organizations (NGOs) controlled by Janet Lim-Napoles.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are scheduled to file the charges.

In September, the NBI and DOJ filed plunder charges against at least 60 individuals, including a former president, three incumbent senators and their senior staff, congressmen, department heads and other agency officials for the misuse of the PDAF and the Malampaya gas fund.

Also charged in the Office of the Ombudsman was alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Napoles, her brother Reynald Lim, nephew John Lim and longtime assistant Evelyn de Leon.

Baligod said that like the first set of PDAF cases, the second set would have

the NBI and DOJ use as evidence the testimonies and documentary evidence submitted by the whistle-blowers who are former employees of Napoles, led by principal witness Benhur Luy. The documents from the Commission on Audit would also form part of the evidence.

“Just like before, the basis for the charges would be the documentary and testimonial evidence of the witnesses,” Baligod said.

Earlier charged with plunder in the Ombudsman for the misuse of the PDAF were Napoles, Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. and former Representatives Rizalina SeachonLanete and Edgar Valdez.

They were charged with allegedly diverting P10 billion in PDAF funds to dummy aid organizations and ghost projects to obtain kickbacks.

Others on the charge sheet are Jessica Lucila Reyes, Enrile’s former chief of staff; Richard Cambe, Revilla’s senior staff member; Ruby Tuason, Enrile and Estrada’s liaison officer; Pauline Labayen, Estrada’s former appointments secretary; Jose Sumalpong, Lanete’s chief of staff; Jeanette de la Cruz, Lanete’s district staff member; Erwin Dangwa, former Rep. Samuel Dangwa’s chief of staff, and Carlos Lozada, Dangwa’s staff member.

The former heads of government corporations charged were Alan Javellana, former president of the National Agribusiness Corp.; Gondelina Amata, president of the National Livelihood Development Corp.; Antonio-Ortiz, former director general of the Technology Resource Center (TRC); Dennis Cunanan, former deputy director general and now director general of TRC, and Salvador Salacup, former president of ZNAC Rubber Estate Corp.

Also earlier charged were NGO officials supposedly beholden to Napoles. ■

PRESIDENT AQUINO ordered the military and all search and rescue teams of the government to all the communities that suffered devastation as Supertyphoon “Yolanda” roared across the central Philippines.

Mr. Aquino gave instructions to find everyone—the survivors as well as the dead—deliver relief and reestablish communication, Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras told reporters after a meeting of the national disaster council in Quezon City.

With power and telephone networks down, many of the worst-hit areas remained cut off from communications yesterday, and it was impossible even for the government to determine the extent of the damage Yolanda had wrought in central Philippines.

Mr. Aquino met disaster officials and gave fresh instructions to rush relief to the survivors of the typhoon.

But Mr. Aquino was not prepared to make an assessment of the damage caused by Yolanda.

“It’s hard to make an assessment because we have obtained incomplete data,” Mr. Aquino told a news conference.

Asked where the government would get the funds for the mammoth relief effort after Yolanda, Mr. Aquino referred to the “heavily criticized” calamity and contingency funds, the President’s Social Fund, and all other lump sums in the national budget.

The dwindling calamity and contingency funds stand at roughly P1 billion, while the social fund still has P6 billion.

Mr. Aquino said he would also draw from the quick reaction funds of the agencies.

“I’d like to assure everybody that although we have experienced many disasters—both man-made and natural—we have P16 billion in savings that [we can use for relief operations],” Mr. Aquino said.

The President hinted that he would take to task local officials in Leyte for failing to prepare for the supertyphoon.

Tacloban City, the provincial capital, appeared to have taken the brunt of Yolanda’s fury, with at least 100 people reported killed. ❱❱ PAGE 15 ‘Time to’

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Philippine News

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 14

BOC won’t let seized rice, goods go to waste

BY JERRY E. ESPLANADA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE BUREAU of Customs (BOC) will release millions of pesos worth of smuggled rice and other food items, as well as construction materials and used clothing it has seized, to help the government relief effort for the victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” Commissioner Ruffy Biazon said.

Biazon told the INQUIRER the items were being prepared in various ports around the country to be turned over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Biazon did not identify the ports but said he would “issue instructions to others, as well, to do the same thing.”

He said, the BOC “will make an inventory of the confiscated and abandoned goods in the ports to determine the availability of items we can donate under existing rules and regulations.”

He said it was not the first time the BOC was donating “hot rice” and other smuggled items to disaster relief.

Last March, the Department of Finance-attached agency turned over to the DSWD some 94,000 50-kilogram bags of illegally imported Vietnamese rice it had confiscated last year at the Subic Freeport in Zambales.

The “hot rice,” estimated to

be worth over P110 million, was used by the DSWD in its humanitarian programs following natural disasters.

In August 2012, Biazon ordered an inventory of confiscated smuggled goods at all ports nationwide for distribution to flood victims in Metro Manila and other parts of the country.

The seized items for donation, however, did not include the 420,000 bags of Indian white rice, estimated at P480 million, and Vietnamese rice worth P42 million it had seized at Subic Freeport and the Legazpi City port, respectively.

In September, the Bureau of Customs said it planned to turn over P40 million worth of smuggled ukay ukay (used clothing) to the DSWD. Biazon said then that “it’s the best option because used clothing cannot be disposed of by auction since they are prohibited goods.”

“We will offer the seized ukay-ukay to the DSWD for their use in calamity operations.

In January 2012, P20-million worth of illegally imported used clothing went to northern Mindanao folk who were displaced by floods spawned by Tropical Storm “Sendong.”

Biazon warned that “any incident of deliberate holding of donations by any customs official shall be dealt with accordingly.” ■

Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon (right) and Deputy Commissioner Danilo Lim inspect smuggled used clothing worth P21 million in June. According to Biazon, “We will offer the seized ukay-ukay to the DSWD for their use in calamity operations.”

PHOTO FROM GMANETWORK.COM

House to probe abuses versus illegal Pinoys in Saudi Arabia

BY LEILA B. SALAVERRIA AND TARRA QUISMUNDO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE HEAD of the House committee on overseas workers affairs will investigate the alleged abuses of Filipinos in connection with Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on undocumented workers, as he called on the government to exert more effort to help its affected citizens.

Committee chair and Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello said the government should have prepared for the effects of Saudi Arabia’s bid to go after undocumented workers.

The second extension of an amnesty period for undocumented foreign workers to regularize their employment status in Saudi Arabia expired on Nov. 3.

Earlier, Filipino workers deported from Saudi Arabia alleged that they were abused after officials rounded them up.

One said they were “treated like animals,” and another said their feet were chained.

“The government, especially our representatives in Saudi Arabia, should have prepared the necessary resources to handle this situation. They knew the clock was ticking,” Bello said in a statement.

Despite the grace period given since March by the Saudi www.canadianinquirer.net

government, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said there are still some 213 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) staying at the Bahay Kalinga at the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah and about 700 camped in tents outside the consulate waiting for their papers to be processed. There are some 348 in temporary Philippine shelters in Riyadh.

The DFA said 4,600 undocumented Filipinos, including mothers and their children, had been repatriated.

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas had estimated 108,000 “irregular” Filipinos in Saudi Arabia as of Dec. 12.

Bello said the DFA should help those who were arrested and expedite their repatriation.

He even suggested that Philippine officials must also seek an apology from Saudi Arabia officials for the reported abuses.

Bello said the committee on overseas workers affairs will tackle relevant proposals related to the Saudi Arabia issue.

On the other hand, Vice President Jejomar Binay, the presidential adviser on overseas Filipino workers’ concerns, expressed optimism that a “happy ending” was in the offing for undocumented Filipinos still scrambling to process their documents.

Binay said Jameel Bin Mohammed Ali Humaidan, the

labor minister of Saudi’s neighboring country, Bahrain, visited him yesterday and said his country could serve as an alternative destination for OFWs who might be affected by Saudization. There are currently 60,000 Filipinos in Bahrain.

“Among Filipinos in the Middle East, 80 to 85 percent are skilled, 15 to 20 percent are domestics. Most of the sad news that we hear about involve the domestics. But our professionals there enjoy good pay and benefits, although negative news is more magnified,” said Binay.

Under Saudi’s new guidelines, overstaying foreign workers will be apprehended and deported. Saudi residents who employ illegal or absconded workers, provide cover, harbor or transport them, or aid them by any means will also be pursued.

The new regulations require employers who hire undocumented workers to pay for their deportation. Those without regular employers would have to pay for their deportation, although the kingdom said it would consider shouldering the costs for violators who could not afford their flight home.

Citing information from the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, Hernandez said no Filipino so far has been arrested on the third day of the crackdown. ■

Philippine News

15 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

‘Time to’... ❰❰ 13

Early reports

The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) listed four people dead and four missing, but the Philippine Red Cross said it had estimated that more than 1,000 people were killed in Tacloban alone.

“The damage is significant. This is the time for all of us to help each other,” Almendras said at the NDRRMC briefing.

He said that the government was getting calls from private companies and individuals volunteering services and equipment for the disaster response.

Mr. Aquino also called up local officials and gave instructions to begin the implementation of response plans that had been prepared before Yolanda hit land.

Two C-130 transport planes of the military left Manila carrying relief supplies, power and communications equipment for Tacloban City, also heavily damaged by storm surges.

‘Damage all over’

“[On Friday] afternoon, the President talked to (Defense) Secretary (Voltaire) Gazmin when the satellite phones finally started working. The report was not good. [That] afternoon, we knew that Tacloban was badly [hit],” Almendras said.

The President ordered Gazmin and

TIME TO HELP EACH OTHER. In Toronto, Canada, volunteers led by Father Ben Ebcas, Senator Tobias

Enverga, and other Filipino community leaders and organizations, pack boxes of canned food, clothing, blankets and other supplies, to be sent to the Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) victims in the Philippines, at the Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church, the home base of the Filipino Catholic Mission—Archdiocese of Toronto, located at 2565 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario.

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas to Tacloban on Thursday to coordinate the government’s response to Yolanda.

“They walked around ... and in the distance ... they did see casualties,” Almendras said.

“It is hard to quantify because the extent of the area (reached by Gazmin and Roxas) is limited. At [present], the report of damage is significant,” he said.

Eastern Visayas appeared to have suffered heavier casualties than Western Visayas, he said.

“If it’s damage, then it’s all over the place,” he said.

In Western Visayas, six people were reported dead in Iloilo, four in Antique, three each in Aklan and Capiz, and six in Cebu.

Almost all houses in coastal or island villages were destroyed or damaged by Yolanda’s monster winds.

Fallen trees and electric posts blocked

roads and rice fields were littered with roofing torn off from houses.

The howling winds did not spare churches, municipal and school buildings and other concrete structures.

After the strong winds, badly hit towns were threatened by flooding, with waters in higher areas rising.

Too many homeless

In Negros Occidental, Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. wept yesterday when he saw so many poor people rendered homeless in Cadiz City.

Aside from Cadiz, also badly hit in Negros Occidental were the cities of Sagay and Escalante and Toboso town, the provincial disaster council said.

A provincial social welfare office report said 59,209 people in 24 towns and cities were affected by the typhoon and 12,992 were staying in 193 evacuation

Massive aid... tional humanitarian partners to determine what assistance was needed, as it announced it would provide up to C$5 million in support of these organizations. This would provide emergency shelter, food, water, livelihood support and other essential services.

“The destruction is alarming and Canada will continue to ensure needs are being met,” Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said in a statement.

Germany will deploy emergency and relief response to the country.

German nongovernment organization World Vision and the International Search and Rescue Team (Isar Germany) donated 23 tons of relief aid consisting of water, food, hygiene and medical kits. The goods were due to arrive yesterday on a Lufthansa flight.

Isar Germany is also sending a medical team of 24 doctors and nurses to the hardest-hit regions. They will bring in up to 2 tons of medical supplies provided by Action Medeor, a German relief organization, and will set up medical tents that can accommodate up to 1,000 persons a day.

Australia will provide an initial P15.5 million in relief supplies, said Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop.

Australian Ambassador Bill Twed❰❰ 7

dell said his government would distribute emergency family kits, which include sleeping bags, blankets and water containers, through the Philippine Red Cross and reproductive health kits through the UN Population Fund.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EC had sent a team to assist Philippine authorities.

“We stand ready to contribute with urgent relief and assistance if so required in this hour of need,” Barroso said.

The Unicef commended the government for its preventive measures but said it was concerned about the disaster’s impact on children. Forty percent of the some four million people affected by the typhoon were children under 18 years old, according to its Philippine representative, Tomoo Hozumi.

Saying “a friend in need is a friend indeed,” Taiwan announced a donation of P8.6 million to support the postdisaster relief efforts and rehabilitation in the typhoonravaged areas.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a message to Mr. Aquino expressing condolences and sympathies for the loss of many lives and for the many people affected by the disaster.

In a statement from the Japanese Embassy, Abe said his country would extend any necessary assistance to the Philippines. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

centers.

In northern Cebu, at least seven towns remained isolated after getting a whipping from Yolanda.

Badly hit were Bogo City and the towns of Medellin, San Remegio, Daanbantayan in mainland Cebu and the towns of Sta. Fe, Bantayan and Madridejos on Bantayan Island.

Local officials appealed for help, saying the extent of the devastation was “overwhelming.”

Welfare desks

The Red Cross said it was setting up welfare desks in badly hit areas to help survivors.

Gwendolyn Pang, Red Cross secretary general, said more than 1,000 bodies had been seen floating in Tacloban and 200 people had been reported dead in Samar.

“Our volunteers saw the [bodies in Tacloban], but they couldn’t determine how many,” Pang said.

The Philippine Coast Guard reported yesterday that a seafarer drowned after a tugboat sank in waters off Bauan town in Batangas at the height of the typhoon.

The Coast Guard identified the seaman as Roberto Pelicano, 58, a resident of Davao.

Another seafarer, Allan Rada, was injured in the accident, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard reported nine other maritime incidents during the typhoon, but said there were no casualties. ■

Opinion

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 16

THERE’S THE RUB

Resilience

By Conrado De Quiros Philippine Daily Inquirer I’VE MORE affinity with the south than the north and was horrified by what happened to Tacloban. I like the place, even if it is Imelda Marcos’ favorite city, and even if my stomach protests its liberal supply of bahalina into it. I can understand Waray reasonably well even if I can’t speak it. I used to go there quite frequently for meetings in the 1990s, living in a hotel beside the sea, lapping up its languorous whisperings at night, reveling in its idyllic sereneness.

I can feel the holy terror that filled the hearts of its residents late last week.

More than 10,000 dead is a staggering amount. But it’s the individual pictures that tear your heart out: A woman keening over the body of her boy in a chapel, rigid bodies caked in mud lying on the streets, arms and legs sticking out of their covers, small children sitting outside their shanty or what is left of it, staring dully at a blank sky and a blanker future. Losses of this magnitude are always catastrophic any time they happen, but more so when they happen at the threshold of a season given to joy and thanksgiving.

Indeed, when they happen to those who had so little to begin with.

One is tempted to say that disasters are democratic in that they fall on both the rich and the poor. But that isn’t always true. Supertyphoons and superearthquakes tend to ravage the poor more than the rich: They have flimsier roofs, they do not have the means to move to higher ground, and the higher ground they move on to, such as churches and makeshift shelters, are just as brittle as the ones they left behind.

You are poor, you are far more vulnerable. You are bereft, you will be more bereft.

That thought rankles in your brain at the spectacle of our recently ravaged. We remain, despite our vaunted growth, a country mired in poverty. A hurricane howls over New York, floods overrun Central Europe and turn Prague and neighboring cities into a gigantic pool, a killer earthquake shakes buildings in Tokyo, but you do not see bodies lined up in the streets, children huddled against a gray sky, a sea of faces lost and despairing. You see those scenes in Tacloban, and before that in Ormoc, Cagayan de Oro, and Metro Manila itself, and you are reminded how impoverished we are and how frailer our lives are made by it.

To this day, they still remember the devastation wrought by Hurricane “Sandy” and the score or so dead

it left behind. A few months from now, only their kin and friends will remember the thousands dead in the Visayas in the wake of Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” They will be too busy taking care of the living. They will have become collateral damage in the protracted war that is their lives.

It’s almost obscene to call this resilience. It’s almost profane to call us resilient. That is what John Kerry does.

“Your spirit is strong,” he says by way of comfort, by way of encouragement, by way of solidarity. Maybe he means well,

Losses of this magnitude are always catastrophic any time they happen, but more so when they happen at the threshold of a season given to joy and thanksgiving. though I don’t know that the stricken will find his words exceptionally comforting, encouraging, and transcendent. The rest of us will probably just say, “Your credit is good, but we need cash.” Or wonder why he couldn’t just put it the way Erik Spoelstra did: “We extend our condolences to the victims of Supertyphoon Haiyan. We will keep them in our thoughts and prayers.”

In the past, the bishops, who were

never themselves victims, also used to use the word “resilience” each time this country was flattened by earthquakes, landslides, storms, torrential rains, floods, and others—well, the insurance companies call them “acts of God.” The Filipino spirit is resilient, they said, it will survive, it will prevail. Well, there are other words for resilient. Those are vulnerable, frail, insignificant, negligible, forgettable, dismissible, miserable, not really there. Or indeed passivity, acceptance, resignation, getting by, making do, moving on.

What you call resilient, we call forced to good.

Some things we can’t do anything about. Acts of God are one of those, though we can always add our voices, however teeny-weeny, to calling on Kerry’s favorite country to do something about its carbon emissions that are causing the winds to howl and the earth to heave. And we can always, like Dylan Thomas, rage against the dying of the light, even if only as a matter of attitude, even if only as a metaphysical stance. That is what a strong spirit is, a rebellious one.

Other things we can do something about. We can always get angry at the terms of our existence. We can always burn and rave at our vulnerability, at our powerlessness, at our poverty.

We can always be as outraged about our deprivation as we have been of late about our corruption. We can always be oppressed by our lot as we have been of late about their plots. We can always refuse to be humored and called resilient, we can always refuse to have our grief waved away by faint comfort, we can always say, “Leave us be, we are hurt and we are angry.”

We can always refuse to be poor, or at least rebel against it. Because the scary part is that this has just begun, the world will get darker from here. The National Economic and Development Authority reckons that though the series of disasters that has befallen us will not affect the figures of our growth, it will affect the number of our poor. More semi-poor will become poor, more poor will become poorer. Which at the very least makes you wonder what the sense is in a growth that is so sticky it refuses to trickle down. And which at the very most makes you aghast at the thought that given that disasters are getting more plentiful and more ferocious, given that catastrophes have become our way of life, or death, how will we fare, who are mostly poor, in the world of tomorrow?

Never mind resilient, we can do with just being less helpless. ■

nation. There is an Equal Opportunities Commission supposed to tackle discrimination issues, some stemming from government policies. Domestic helpers on contracts get no help from it.”

Leung used the recent Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to make demands of President Aquino. “This was itself beyond his remit and under other circumstances, (this) would have incurred Beijing’s wrath for addressing an issue to a head of state rather than leaving this to the central government.” Hong Kong has no independence in international affairs other than trade and financial issues.

“But Beijing saw advantage in letting Leung act as though he were a head of state,” Bowring continues.

“It’d bolster Leung’s battered image in Hong Kong and provide a stick to beat Manila. Leung never does anything without getting a green light from Beijing. So it is clear that the sanctions threat had its backing.”

Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also challenge China’s claim to almost the whole of the West Philippine Sea, BBC points out. They claim territory in the West Philippine Sea that, they say, falls within their exclusive economic zones.

The smell of oil overhangs the issue. The US Energy Information Administration cites one Chinese

estimate which puts possible oil reserves as high as 213 billion barrels.

That’s 10 times the proven reserves of the United States, BBC notes. But American scientists have estimated the amount of oil at 28 billion barrels.

“The real wealth of the area may well be natural gas reserves. Estimates say the area holds about 900 trillion cubic feet (25 trillion cubic meters).” That’s in the same league as Qatar’s proven reserves.

“Beijing is suspicious of Hong Kong’s pretensions. Many look down on mainlanders and resent their increasing prominence in the territory.

It rightly senses that Hong Kong has an inflated sense of its importance and a very parochial world view,” Bowring adds. “But on this occasion it is happy to buy into Hong Kong’s assumptions of Chinese ethnic superiority in general and of Hongkongers’ value in particular.”

President Aquino has refused payment. “As a people, Filipinos had no part in this tragedy…. In the end this may never get to sanctions,” Bowring notes, adding that enough money and apologies could be squeezed and extracted from Filipinos for Hong Kong to claim victory.

If that comes to pass, credit the buffoonery of an utterly clueless Mayor Joseph Estrada. ■

VIEWPOINT

Clueless pawn

By Juan L. Mercado Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA MAYOR Joseph Estrada went viral with his bid to apologize and compensate for the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists in a botched bus hijack rescue in August 2010.

This is “buffoonery,” snaps Philip Bowring who writes for South China Morning Post and International Herald Tribune. This journalist has tracked Asia for 39 years.

Estrada tried to show up former mayor Alfredo Lim “under whose watch the Luneta bus attack occurred,” Bowring notes in a column on Hong Kong’s demands. Instead, he ends up a clueless pawn in China’s complex West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) claim.

Sanctions would be imposed unless Hong Kong’s demands were met, threatened the appointed Mayor Leung Chun-ying. The Legislative Council last week clamped a time frame: one month. Suspend visa-free arrangement for Philippine visitors, the council proposed.

“It’s bizarre for the head of a city of seven million people to threaten sanctions against a sovereign nation of 97 million,” Bowring writes.

“But that’s the outcome of barely disguised racism in Hong Kong.” (It

is) underpinned by “China’s desire to punish the Philippines for standing up to Beijing’s claims to almost the whole of South China Sea.” “Filipinos have long been overtaken by Indonesia in supply of domestic helpers” and barring Filipinos would upset many Hong Kong employers, Bowring notes. Significantly, Filipinos “have other work options.”

Overseas Filipino workers work in over 160 countries, the Asian Development Bank notes. Among these are pilots, doctors, physics professors, domestic helpers, computer specialists and airport controllers. One in every 10 Filipinos works abroad.

Trade sanctions are verboten.

“Hong Kong would make an idiot of itself before the World Trade Organization and Asia Pacific Economic Council, the two organizations on which Hong Kong has separate international status,” Bowring scoffs.

Hong Kong tacked the Philippines on a travel blacklist with Syria. This affects group tours from Hong Kong.

But (it) had scant impact on the Philippines which is currently enjoying a tourist boom. Visitors come notably from Korea and China. “In Hong Kong, foreigners ignore this blacklist.”

Leung and company demand “as though presidents routinely apologize

on behalf of a whole country for the misdeeds of a few.” That’s ironic coming a few days after a Filipino womanphysician was among those killed in a Tiananmen Square attack by five Uighurs,” Bowring says and notes: Filipinos were killed in Beijing in 2008. “No presidential apology or compensation was offered by the central government.”

Leung uses the Manila bus case to divert attention “from issues at home. His popularity is at a low ebb.”

Recently, (he) denied a TV channel license to favor “existing players— owned by property tycoons with connections to members of the Execu-

The smell of overhangs the issue.

oil

tive Council and to Beijing-friendly interests,” Bowring says.

Hong Kong boasts of laws to protect domestic workers. “But in practice, (it) declines to enforce them.”

The result is employees “being paid less than the statutory wage, denied time off to which they are entitled, see their passports confiscated and with limited time to find new jobs if they leave an abusive employer.”

“All Southeast and South Asian minorities in Hong Kong—some there for generations—suffer constant discrimi-

www.canadianinquirer.net

Opinion

17 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

AT LARGE

‘Yolanda’: pain and promise

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer A FEW years back, I attended a briefing on global warming conducted by the Manila Observatory. One of the more prominent “take aways” from that session was a warning that, because of rising ocean temperatures and changing tidal patterns, weather disturbances like typhoons would not only visit the Philippines more frequently, but that these would be more intense and as a consequence wreak more damage.

Those words would come to haunt me over the weekend as news of the extent of devastation wrought by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” filtered through.

Described as “the worst disaster to hit the Philippines,” Yolanda packed the strongest and fastest winds as well as torrential rains never seen or felt before on the planet. It cut a path of destruction through much of the Visayas, Bicol and even parts of Mindanao, Mindoro and Palawan. As I write this, Yolanda (international name Haiyan) is howling across much of Vietnam, with several coastal cities in its path.

Also memorable from the presentation of the Manila Observatory was a graphic showing just how many typhoons and tropical depressions pass through the Philippines in a year. The familiar out-

lines of the country were almost obscured by the storm paths crisscrossing our territory, a dramatic reminder of just how vulnerable we are to the vagaries of weather, especially now that the earth’s temperature is on the rise.

Right now, most news outlets have devoted most of their front pages and many broadcast and telecast hours, to “special” coverage of the post-Yolanda damage. Most heartrending of all are scenes of the devastation in Tacloban, the bloated corpses littered among the debris of broken houses and felled trees lending dramatic testimony to the extent of the suffering wrought by this supertyphoon. *** I happened to catch a report by intrepid GMA-7 reporter Love Añover who ventured to her home province of Leyte to report firsthand on the arrival of Yolanda. Midway through her stand-up, Love’s voice began trembling before her face crumbled in grief and fear. Apparently, she had been reporting from a roadside perch when fierce winds drove them to a nearby church where she and her team sought shelter.

This is natural behavior, since churches are traditionally built on the highest spot in a town, and are believed to be constructed from stronger materials. But seconds after, even the

church began to give way to the lashing wind and rain, as they peeled off the church’s roof, drenching the occupants and threatening to blow them away.

It’s a wonder Love was even able to face the camera after going through such trauma. And the fact that the lifethreatening experience took place in her own hometown, where many family members live, must have added to the “shock and awe” of the event.

Love’s experience was repeated many

‘Through our prayers and effective solidarity, the faith will rise stronger in the midst of ruins.’ - Cardinal Tagle times over in Tacloban, where observers report “living zombies” walking about the streets: Yolanda’s survivors who are too stunned and shocked to do anything else other than stagger about the ruins of their homes, churches, schools and public buildings. Those who can still summon the energy, or are driven by raving hunger, have begun breaking into and looting not just restaurants and fast-food chains but also supermarkets, malls and even food processing factories. *** There is a bright side to this trag-

edy, believe it or not.

From all around the world, friends and relatives, some of whom I have not heard from for years, have sent their queries and messages of commiseration. I am almost embarrassed to reply to them, since all we here in Metro Manila have experienced have been some light rains.

The best news of all is that an aunt of ours, Francisca Lastrilla Jimenez, who is about 90 years old (if we can get her to admit it) and the widow of our uncle Titong, who lives in Tacloban, is safe and sound and is reported to be staying with a family friend. But her home in the city, from where she hosted a memorable “Flores de Mayo” celebration for the clan some years back, is reportedly filled with mud and uninhabitable. We are pulling all the strings that can be pulled to bring her to Manila, if she wants to make the trip.

Many thanks to cousin Kara Magsanoc Alikpala and nephew-in-law Nicco for the update on Tita Ansing.

Here in Metro Manila, Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, expressing solidarity with the entire nation in the wake of the Bohol and Cebu earthquake, and the victims of Yolanda, detailed in a letter the steps to take in responding to the plight of the victims.

*** Aside from preparing a short prayer for the victims to be said at “an appropriate moment at every Mass,” the archdiocese is taking up a special collection for Yolanda’s victims at least for the next two Sundays. And if a parish is already helping a particular town or parish in the affected area, said Cardinal Tagle, he requests that Caritas Manila be informed so the archdiocese could “either add to what you are sending or look for other communities that have not received any help.”

The cardinal asks parish priests to “mobilize the parochial schools and religious communities in their area, as well as to tap parents’ associations.

Associations of the lay faithful and ecclesial movements are asked to coordinate with the archdiocese’s efforts.

“If some celebrations are scheduled in our parishes and schools,” appeals the cardinal, “please review them in light of the enormous suffering and needs of the victims and make the necessary adjustments.

Through our prayers and effective solidarity, the faith will rise stronger in the midst of ruins!”

I almost want to say: “Promise, ha?”

But without faith and hope, all we’ll have left is pain and pessimism. ■

AS I SEE IT

Like Boy Scouts, we should always be prepared

By Neal H. Cruz Philippine Daily Inquirer A SUPERTYPHOON like “Yolanda” that hit the Visayas, Southern Luzon and Northern Mindanao with its 235-kph winds can be deadly even to the best prepared. Still, the best preparations will minimize casualties.

As of this writing, the official death count is only four but scores of dead bodies were seen by news crews littering the streets of Tacloban City in Leyte province, the hardest hit by Yolanda, with the Red Cross estimating the death toll to be as many as 1,000. Not surprisingly, Tacloban was the least prepared for the deadly typhoon, the strongest in the world this year with sustained winds of 235 kph and gusts of 275 kph. President Aquino said the other day he would “take to task” local officials in Leyte for failing to prepare for the supertyphoon.

The final casualty count can really be high. Still, P-Noy’s hands-on role in the government’s “war-like preparations” probably saved a lot of lives.

In any emergency, the first mission of the government is to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

Nothing can save houses and structures made of light materials from a Category 5 typhoon. But preemptive

evacuation, ordered by the national government and implemented by local government units, saved many lives although some evacuation centers were not spared the floods and their roofs ripped off by gale-force winds.

P-Noy readied and prepared the areas closest to the path of Yolanda. Early on, he issued a televised warning for people to leave high-risk areas—coastal communities prone to storm surges, areas near rivers susceptible to flooding, and villages at the foot of hills and mountains that are at risk to landslides.

National and local authorities evacuated thousands of people from villages in the path of Yolanda. Schools and offices were closed. These preemptive evacuations reduced casualties, particularly, in Eastern Visayas, Bicol and on the island of Bohol where residents are still recovering from the deadly earthquake that killed more than 200 people and destroyed churches and plenty of homes last month.

But regardless of how prepared government is, there will always be inadequacies. The people were warned against storm surges, the big waves pushed by the strong winds.

Still, most of the casualties were caused by the tsunami-like storm surge that swept through the city like a huge watery scythe and took back

into the sea people, vehicles, bancas and the debris from wrecked homes.

One aspect that the government, national and local, was unprepared for was the ugly reality of looting.

Typhoon victims in Tacloban looted stores and shopping malls, taking not only food and water, warm clothes and shelter, but anything they could lay their hands on, like laptops and electric fan. Television footage showed a crowd looting the malls in Tacloban

Regardless of how prepared government is, there will always be inadequacies. with nobody trying to stop it. There were no policemen nor soldiers on site. The mall’s security guards probably fled when they saw the approaching mob. One video showed several men escaping with a pushcart piled high with loot from the mall.

The national government said during a press conference Saturday that it would fly in from Metro Manila policemen and troops the next morning. By that time the malls and other stores would already be empty. There would be nothing to save anymore.

Pagasa made accurate predictions

www.canadianinquirer.net

about Yolanda’s path and strength, which helped the government in its planning and preparations for the supertyphoon. Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Defense Secretary Volt Gazmin were already in Tacloban to supervise operations before the typhoon struck.

There were rescuers from the military, police and the Bureau of Fire Protection (there was a fire during the heavy rains, which firemen put out).

The Department of Social Welfare and Development had prepositioned 27,550 family food packs in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan), Bicol, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Central Visayas, Northern Mindanao, and the Caraga region. The DSWD also requested the National Food Authority to provide 100,000 sacks of rice to eight typhoon-hit regions.

Cabinet members were ordered to take hands-on roles in the preparations for the supertyphoon. Local governments, down to the barangays, were prepared and provided with the facilities needed to cope with the initial impact of the typhoon.

Help was ready and dispatched promptly. Shelter, food and water were ready. Vehicles, including rubber boats and newly-purchased amphibious ve-

hicles to be used for evacuations were prepositioned in strategic areas.

“Be prepared” is the motto of the Boy Scouts. It would be good for us and the whole nation to adopt this motto. Be prepared. *** The lecture that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago delivered to Janet LimNapoles during the blue ribbon committee hearing was, I am happy to note, parallel to the advice given to Napoles by this column in the Nov. 8 issue of the Inquirer: to talk for the record to save herself from assassination plots of lawmakers she could take down with her.

The logic is this: Napoles obviously knows the lawmakers and other public officials she gave kickbacks to, and her testimony would certainly bring them to prison. But a dead woman tells no tales.

Rich and powerful officials therefore would be glad to see her dead and help in that direction by hiring hitmen to silence her.

But if Napoles would already put her testimony on record, there would be no more advantage in assassinating her. Her recorded testimony could be used as evidence against the accused. There would be no more use in killing her. The plotters would only add “murder” to the cases they are already facing. ■

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

18

Canada News

Cash called best option for helping the Philippines with typhoon devastation

BY COLIN PERKEL The Canadian Press TORONTO—Members of Canada’s Filipino community faced daunting logistical challenges as they scrambled on Monday to collect cash and relief supplies for victims of last week’s catastrophic typhoon.

The biggest problem, said one spokeswoman, was the cost and difficulty of getting the supplies to the Philippines, where food shortages are compounding already unfathomable misery.

“It’s really very overwhelming,” said Rosemer Enverga with Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Toronto.

“By the day, it’s getting worse.”

While the true scale of devastation from typhoon Haiyan has yet to emerge, some estimates put the death toll in the thousands, with hundreds of thousands badly affected.

As volunteers packed boxes of canned goods, clothing, blankets and other supplies at the church, Enverga noted it would take well over a month to get the goods to where they are desperately needed.

The problem, she said, is air freight is prohibitively expensive, leaving sea shipment as the only option. However, even sea freight is expensive, and many companies are already at capacity in anticipation of the Christmas rush.

“It would be nice if an airline could

sponsor,” Enverga said.

“We’re still praying and keeping our fingers crossed that somebody with good heart and generous enough will sponsor the shipment costs.”

Given the cost of shipping supplies, the Red Cross said cash was the best way for Canadians to help because money would allow the Philippines Red Cross to identify needed supplies and source them more cheaply.

The relief agency had already raised $1.2 million in donations as of noon Monday, said spokesman Guy LePage.

“People are being very generous,” said LePage, who noted the true scope of the disaster has yet to emerge.

“This is going to be a long-term recovery program.”

In addition, the Canadian Red Cross was set to deploy a mobile hospital that would offer basic healthcare services in conjunction with its Norwegian and Hong Kong counterparts, LePage said.

The unit would be able to care for 20 people at a time, he said.

Canadians who want to donate through the Red Cross can do so via www.redcross.ca and designate typhoon Haiyan. They can also donate $5 by texting redcross at 30333.

The Canadian government has pledged $5 million in disaster relief and offered to match Canadian donations dollar for dollar.

The Ontario government announced Monday it would donate $1

million via the Red Cross.

Rosemary McCarney, president of Plan Canada, which has been on the ground in the Philippines for decades and is prepared to respond quickly, said the scale of the disaster is “off the charts.”

“People are just saying, ‘Everything is gone, there’s nothing left’,” McCarney said.

Earlier Monday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the president of the Philippines to express condolences and offer support.

Harper spoke with Benigno Aquino to say the thoughts and prayers of Canadians were with those affected by the horrific storm that has killed thousands.

Canada was ready to help and support the Philippines in responding to the disaster, and was deploying a disaster-response team to assess the needs on the ground and identify response options, Harper told Aquino.

Aquino expressed his sincere thanks to Canada.

As many as 200,000 Filipinos in the Toronto area have been affected by the disaster, said Filipino-Canadian Martha Joy, who is planning a series of fundraising concerts.

The first will be held Nov. 22 in the city’s east end.

Joy, who was 8th in the 2007 “Canadian Idol,” said the concerts were the least she could do.

“I am deeply saddened by what has happened,” she said. ■

Members of Canada’s Filipino community come together to aid typhoon victims

BY WILL CAMPBELL The Canadian Press TORONTO—Canada’s Filipino community is cobbling together resources to send to the Philippines as many people frantically try to contact friends and loved ones missing in what appears to be the country’s deadliest storm yet.

As prayers went out Sunday for survivors of typhoon Haiyan, plans were also being quickly drawn up to send over assistance to the hardest-hit areas.

Rev. Ben Ebcas Jr. told rows of concerned congregants at his midtown Toronto church his fears about his two brothers who are missing on Leyte Island, which saw some of the worst of the storm.

“It’s sad and it’s difficult. I couldn’t sleep, but we have to pray for one another,” he said after mass, fighting back tears.

Officials fear as many as 10,000 people may be dead in one Philippine city alone, and officials say the death toll could climb even higher ❱❱ PAGE 40 Members of

NEWS BRIEFS

FROM THE CANADIAN PRESS

SASKATCHEWAN GOVERNMENT DONATES CASH TO AID VICTIMS OF STORM IN PHILIPPINES REGINA—Premier Brad Wall says the Saskatchewan government will provide $250,000 to aid victims of a devastating storm in the Philippines. The typhoon has killed over 900 people, but as many as 10,000 are feared dead in one city alone. Wall says there are many Filipinos living in Saskatchewan and the government’s thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the storm.

MANITOBA THRONE SPEECH TO FOCUS ON JOBS WINNIPEG—Manitoba’s government says the throne speech Tuesday will outline ways to boost the economy, although the New Democrats will almost certainly spend much of the new legislature session fending off more criticism of their sales tax increase. The throne speech, which starts a four-week fall sitting, will lay out plans for creating jobs and improving education, said Andrew Swan, government house leader and attorney general.

FINALLY, SOME GOOD PUBLICITY FOR THE SENATE OTTAWA—This week’s Supreme Court hearing on what it would take to reform or abolish Canada’s much-maligned upper house will be like balm to the burning ears of senators.

The arguments advanced by the provinces will serve as a useful reminder in the midst of the raging expenses scandal as to why Canada has a Senate and the importance of the role it plays in the country’s parliamentary system.

OTTAWA LIKELY TO PROJECT SURPLUS IN 2015 OTTAWA—Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has been cautious so long about economic prospects that Tuesday’s stay the course fall update on the country’s fiscal position may come off positively sunny. Unlike the past two fiscal reports from the finance minister, this latest one is expected to show that despite a snail-paced recovery, Ottawa is on track to not only balance the budget in 2015, but report a not-so-modest surplus.

Canada News

19 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Members of Canada’s disaster relief team bound for typhoon ravaged Philippines The Canadian Press OTTAWA—The leading edge of Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team is on its way to the Philippines to help the devastated island nation deal with the daunting aftermath of last week’s catastrophic typhoon.

A Canadian Forces C-17 from CFB Trenton is en route to the Southeast Asian archipelago, carrying between 35 and 50 members of the team and their gear, Foreign Minister John Baird told a news conference Monday.

The full complement of the rapid-response team, known as DART, comprises 200 Canadian Forces personnel and was last deployed following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010.

“The first plane will leave within hours and it will bring personnel and equipment,”

Baird said in the House of Commons foyer.

“Obviously, due to the scale and the scope (of the disaster), we will be working with our Filipino counterparts to determine what else is required, how many additional resources. Obviously we’ll do all we can.”

The DART has four specific areas of specialty: basic medical care, water purification, basic infrastructure repairs such as roads and electricity and streamlining communications systems for aid efforts.

Its deployment has become a signature element of Canada’s international relief efforts when catastrophic disaster strikes, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the quake in Pakistan in 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster of 2004.

The team will work with local authorities as well as other aid groups and the Philippines

armed forces to determine how best they can help, Baird said, noting the speed with which the federal government took action.

“We’re not getting into arcane bureaucratic discussions about paperwork and whatnot,” he said. “There’s people who need our help and we’re going to do everything we can to provide assistance.”

The federal government has already promised up to $5 million in aid money and has pledged to match donations to relief organizations, Baird said as he encouraged Canadians to open up their wallets to help.

“The one thing I would suggest more than anything is to take the government up on its offer,” he said.

“We will match dollar-fordollar donations made to registered Canadian charities. Canadians have been generous in previous devastating events like

this, and we hope they’ll be generous.”

The true scale of devastation wrought Friday by typhoon Haiyan has yet to emerge, but some estimates suggest the death toll could reach 10,000, with hundreds of thousands badly affected.

The hard-hit city of Tacloban resembled a garbage dump from the air, with only a few concrete buildings left standing in the wake of one of the most powerful storms to ever hit land, packing 237-kilometre-an-hour winds and whipping up six-metre walls of seawater that tossed ships inland and swept many out to sea.

There was no one to carry away the dead, which lay rotting along the main road from the airport to Tacloban, the worst-hit city along the country’s remote eastern seaboard.

Authorities estimated the typhoon killed 10,000 or more

people, but with the slow pace of recovery, the official death toll three days after the storm made landfall remained at 942.

However, with shattered communications and transportation links, the final count was likely days away, and presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said “we pray” it does not surpass 10,000.

Authorities said at least 9.7 million people in 41 provinces were affected by the typhoon, believed to be the deadliest natural disaster to ever beset the poor Southeast Asian nation. ■ With files from The Associated Press

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World News

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 20

World’s biggest economies being sustained by help from central banks that carries risks

BY PAUL WISEMAN, ELAINE KURTENBACH, AND JOE MCDONALD The Associated Press WASHINGTON—Five years after a global financial crisis erupted, the world’s biggest economies still need to be propped up.

They’re growing and hiring a little faster and creating more jobs, but only with extraordinary aid from central banks or government spending. And economists say major countries may need help for years more.

From the United States to Europe to Japan, central banks are pumping cash into economies and keeping loan rates near record lows. Even fast-growing China has rebounded from an uncharacteristic slump with the help of government money that’s poured into projects and made loans easily available from state-owned banks.

For now, thanks in part to the intervention, the world economy is improving. The International Monetary Fund expects global growth to rise to 3.6 per cent in 2014 from 2.9 per cent this year.

The improvement “does not mean that a sustainable recovery is on firm footing,” Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, warned last month. He said major economies will need stimulus from “extraordinary monetary policies” to sustain momentum into 2014. Many economists think stimulus will be needed even longer.

Yet these policies carry their own risks: Critics, including some of the Fed’s own policymakers, note that the cash the central banks are pumping into the global financial system flows into stocks, bonds and commodities like oil. Their prices can escalate to unsustainable levels and raise the risks of a market crash.

Other analysts warn that the easy-money policies could cause runaway inflation in the future.

Here’s a look at how the world’s major economies are faring:

United States

The U.S. economy grew at an unexpectedly solid 2.8 per cent annual pace from July through September, though consumers and businesses slowed their spending. And U.S. employers added a surprising strong 204,000 jobs in October.

The Fed has been debating whether hiring is healthy enough to justify slowing its monthly bond purchases. Despite the solid October jobs report, most economists think the Fed won’t reduce its bond buying before early next year.

Janet Yellen, who faces a confirming hearing this week for her nomination to lead the Fed starting in January, is expected to sustain its low-rate policies.

Even at reduced levels, the bond purchases would continue to stimulate the

economy by adding money to the financial system and lowering loans rates to encourage borrowing and spending. The Fed’s purchases have helped offset U.S. government spending cuts.

Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, thinks the U.S. economy will be strong enough to manage without any help from Fed bond purchases by the end of 2014.

He sees the Fed raising shortterm rates, which it’s kept at a record low near zero since late 2008, sometime in 2015.

But weaning the U.S. economy off Fed support, he says, is “tricky ... If you do it too slowly, you could ignite inflation. If you do it too quickly, you run the risk of killing the recovery.”

Europe

After enduring two recessions since 2009, the 17 countries that use the euro currency are expected to eke out their second straight quarter of growth from July through September. But many economists say the eurozone’s growth might not meet even the feeble 0.3 per cent quarterly pace achieved from April through June. The latest quarterly fig-

ure will be announced Thursday.

The European Central Bank surprised investors last week by cutting its benchmark refinancing rate to a record 0.25 per cent. It acted after economic reports exposed the weakness of the recovery. Inflation last month was a scant 0.7 per cent. That raised the risk of deflation—a prolonged drop in www.canadianinquirer.net

wages, prices and the value of assets like stocks and homes.

The rate cut “signals that the ECB is not prepared to accept the risk that the euro area falls into deflation,” says Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“Once prices begin to fall, you start to see consumers and businesses change their behaviour,” Kirkegaard says. “Why should you buy a car today if the price of the car is going to fall tomorrow? Falling into the trap can be very difficult to get out of.”

Japan

Japan’s economic recovery has gained momentum since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in late 2012. Under “Abenomics,” the government a n d central

bank have injected money into the economy through stimulus spending and rate cutting. The economy grew at a robust 3.8 per cent annual rate from April through June.

But economists worry about whether the recovery can be sustained and whether Japan can grow enough to make up in tax revenue what it’s spending on stimulus.

Noriko Hama, a professor at Kyoto’s Doshisha University, contends that only higher wages and rates will give people the income and confidence they

need to spend more and restore the economy’s health.

Like the Fed, the Bank of Japan could struggle with how to time and carry out a reversal of its easy money policy once the economy improves or if inflation or asset bubbles emerge as a threat.

“They have placed themselves in a very difficult situation indeed,” Hama says. “It’s a double-edged sword.”

China

China’s economy grew at a two-decade low of 7.5 per cent in the three months that ended in June compared with a year earlier. That’s still a vigorous pace compared with the developed economies of Europe, the United States and Japan. But for China, it marked a slowdown, and Beijing launched a mini-stimulus program, spending on railway construction and other public works.

It worked: Growth edged up to 7.8 per cent from July through September from a year earlier.

Yet some economists doubt the gains in China will last.

“I can’t see the rebound lasting for very much longer, because it has been driven by government projects,” says Mark Williams of Capital Economics.

In the latest quarter, more than half the reported growth was due to investment, not trade or consumption. Many economists say China’s continued reliance on governmentled investment is dangerous. It threatens to produce factories that make goods no one wants and unneeded real estate developments that can’t repay loans.

China responded to the 2008 global crisis by ordering its banks to open their lending spigots. The recovery has been underpinned by a surge in borrowing, which is up 20 per cent this year.

China’s central bank has warned that the aggressive lending is unsustainable and could cause bad loans to pile up dangerously.

“I think we’re going to see policymakers try to crack down on credit in the next few months,” Williams says. ■ Kurtenbach reported from Tokyo, McDonald from Beijing.

World News

21 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Tearful plea... tating impact” of the typhoon in her opening speech, and urged delegates to “go that extra mile” in their negotiations.

Scientists say single weather events cannot conclusively be linked to global warming. Also, the link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear, though rising sea levels are expected to make low-lying nations more vulnerable to storm surges.

Nevertheless, extreme weather such as hurricanes often prompt calls for urgency at the U.N. talks.

Last year, Hurricane Sandy’s assault on the U.S. East Coast and Typhoon Bopha’s impact on the Philippines were mentioned as examples of disasters the world could see more of unless it reins in the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

“We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here,” Sano told delegates in Warsaw.

Choking on his words, he said he was waiting in agony for news from relatives caught in the massive storm’s path, ❰❰ 1

though he was relieved to hear his brother had survived.

“In the last two days he has been gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands,” Sano said.

“In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home ... I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate,” he added. “This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this (conference) until a meaningful outcome is in sight.”

On the sidelines of the conference, climate activists called on developed countries to step up their emissions cuts and their pledges of financing to help poor countries adapt to rising seas and other impacts of climate change.

Tense discussions also are expected on a proposed “loss and damage” mechanism that would allow vulnerable countries to get compensation for climate impacts that it’s already

too late to adapt to.

Asked whether the U.S. had any plans to increase its emissions target in the international talks, U.S. negotiator Trigg Talley said the “focus for us now” is to meet the existing target, of cutting emissions by 17 per cent between 2005 and 2020.

“I think that we are on the right track to achieve it,” he said, noting President Barack Obama’s plans to cut emissions from power plants, boost renewable energy and other measures.

Though no major decisions are expected at the conference in Warsaw’s National Stadium, the level of progress could be an indicator of the world’s chances of reaching a deal in 2015.

That’s the new watershed year in the U.N.-led process after a 2009 summit in Copenhagen ended in discord. ■ Associated Press writer Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.

www.canadianinquirer.net

Trade agreement would generate much needed jobs, growth in Europe and US

BY JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG Philippine Daily Inquirer BRUSSELS, BELGIUM—The United States and the European Union sought Monday to get past a rough patch in diplomatic relations to resume talks on a free trade deal that would grow what is already the world’s biggest business relationship.

Negotiators for the Obama administration and the EU say an agreement would create jobs and boost growth in the two economies, which represent almost half of global output but are still not fully recovered from recession. The trade volume in goods and services between the two economies totalled 800 billion euros ($1.08 trillion) last year.

The negotiations, however, are taking place against the backdrop of European pique over reported U.S. electronic

espionage of EU citizens, including high-profile leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel.

The Greens in the European Parliament on Monday became the latest political group to call for the trade talks to be frozen in response.

Concerns over the talks also grew last week when a Belgian court accused the EU’s top trade official of tax fraud. European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen assured reporters on Monday that Karel De Gucht’s legal troubles “will not have any impact” on the talks.

But both European and U.S. officials have said the benefits of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are too great to let other issues jeopardize them.

The week-long bargaining session in Brussels, which was delayed due to the U.S. govern❱❱ PAGE 40 Trade agreement

Immigration

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 22

Kenney prepares to meet with provinces hostile to his jobs grant program

BY LEE-ANNE GOODMAN The Canadian Press OTTAWA—The federal government’s Canada Job Grant proposals are in trouble, officials and opposition critics are warning on the eve of Jason Kenney’s meeting with his provincial and territorial counterparts.

Seven months after Ottawa first proposed the program in its March 2013 budget, the minister of employment and social development can expect a litany of complaints when he sits down with his colleagues in Toronto on Friday.

Quebec has even threatened to opt out of the program.

“They’re out on a branch on this one, a very fragile branch,” Brad Duguid, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, said this week.

Provinces and territories are particularly opposed to Kenney’s plan to slice $300 million—about 60 per cent—from the so-called Labour Market Agreement implemented by

the Conservatives in 2007.

That initiative provides funds to train unemployed workers not eligible for employment insurance and is aimed at aboriginals, immigrants, women, youth, older workers, people with disabilities and those with low literacy levels.

“They’re planning on funding this Canada Job Grant on the backs of our most vulnerable workers,” said Duguid, adding that the program would leave Ontario on the hook for $232 million.

“That would be very harmful to those programs and to those vulnerable, marginalized workers if the federal government was to follow through.”

The Labour Market Agreement has been a big hit with the provinces and territories, with provincial officials pointing to a recent joint evaluation with Ottawa that determined those participating in the plan doubled their chances of landing jobs and keeping them.

But Kenney has often been dismissive of the fund, calling it ineffective. His office has

also suggested it plays a part in a supposed Canadawide “skills shortage,” a state of affairs described in a recent TD Economics report as being over-stated.

In Toronto on Thursday, Kenney took issue with Duguid’s remarks, calling them “factually inaccurate.”

“By definition, the people who benefit from the training though the current labour market transfer are not workers,” he said.

“That’s the whole point: they’ve not been working for at least six years and many, if not most of them, are habitual welfare recipients.”

If provinces and territories want to train their welfare recipents, he added, they should pay for it out of their welfare and social budgets because the money provided by Ottawa isn’t meant to offset their welfare costs.

Kenney reiterated his misgivings about the current set-up, saying too much of the money transferred to the provinces from Ottawa is used for “the sake of training” and doesn’t result in permanent employment.

“Bringing somebody in for the fourth or fifth time to teach them how to write their resume, or dress for an interview, or set their alarm clock in the morning with no job at the end of it, frankly, is not a very sensible use of the federal taxpayer’s dollars.”

As proposed in the budget, the Canada Job Grant would provide up to $15,000 to any business offering a training program. A third of that money would come each from the federal government, the provincial or territorial government and the business itself.

Kenney recently suggested the cost could be chopped for small businesses, saying they could pay less if bigger firms agreed to pay more. Ottawa has also proposed to the provinces that the program could be phased in, with only a required 10 per cent implementation in its first year, beginning on April 1, 2014.

On Thursday, Kenney said he’s listening to “constructive criticism” from the provinces and has replied with a “long list of proposed flexibilities in how

it would be delivered.”

He said those suggestions include allowing the provinces to draw on another federal fund, the Labour Market Development Agreement, to pay for the program, and to allow small businesses to band together to make it “administratively easier for them” to participate in the Canada Job Grant.

Duguid, however, said he’s seen scant evidence from Ottawa so far that it’s open to rethinking the job grant program.

He’s only personally heard from Kenney once about it, he added.

Rodger Cuzner, Kenney’s Liberal critic in the House of Commons, said there’s been no consultation with the provinces on the program.

“They’ve spent millions of dollars advertising this Edsel, and it’s being thrashed by the provinces,” Cuzner said. “Had there been new money allocated with the program, it may have stood a chance.” ■ With files from Maria Babbage and Allison Jones in Toronto.

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HOW TO REGISTER To register for these workshops or to learn more about MOSAIC’s Pre-Arrival Employment Services, contact: PrearrivalServices@mosaicbc.com In partnership with:

www.canadianinquirer.net

Immigration

23 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

GLOBAL-FILIPINO AT WORK IN CANADA

BC Certification Process: Powering up with Power Engineers (Part 2 of 2)

BY LIZETTE LOFRANCOABA

NEW IMMIGRANTS have always been a source of great talent for the trades, skilled work and the technical industries in Canada. However, the process of getting one’s credentials from his country of origin may not always be easy. In fact, horror stories abound of how immigrant professionals go through the eye of the needle to get into the profession where they had been in their native country, all the while painstakingly enduring survival jobs to get by daily life. While many immigrant workers and professionals come with a wealth of talent, they face a lot of hurdles to get their qualifications accepted in Canada. Most commonly pinpointed are in the area of oral English communication skills, the lack of knowledge in navigating through the credentialing process, and the credentialing process itself.

However, in the midst of the much-reported—and yes, justified—claims and real-life experiences that immigrant professionals endure severe hardships, there are true-to-life stories that provide hope and inspiration. Though there are tales that bespeak of the typical new immigrant’s via dolorosa, some jut out from the common path with surprisingly successful twists.

In Part 2 of this article, we shall explore the experience of another Filipino engineer who decided to take this route towards Power Engineering certification.

Jimboy

This is the story of Jimboy whose story seems to run out of the ordinary. Jimboy came to Canada at the end of 2004.

Armed with a Mechanical Engineering degree, Jimboy worked in Hotel Engineering in the Philippines for about 10 years, including as an Assistant Chief

Engineer at five-star international deluxe hotel in Makati.

As his landing at the YVR airport was right smack in the middle of winter 2004, Jimboy found himself indoors during those rainy and snowy days.

However, he wasted no time in buying a fax machine and sending his resumes to all the hotels even where there were no advertised vacancies. He sent his resumes to various job search engines, online headhunters and everywhere he thought possible. For a while, his efforts of sending a barrage of applications were met with, if not silence, the usual auto-reply, “Thank you for sending in your resume. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interview. Unfortunately, we do not entertain follow-ups.”

However, Jimboy decided he would not be discouraged. Then after two weeks, a call came from Westin Whistler. A Shift Engineer position was offered on the condition that he would get his Power Engineering certification within three months of hire. So Jimboy accepted this challenge despite not knowing anything about the certification process.

Jimboy was grateful that although the job level was not close to where he was in the Philippines, he was able to get through the doors of the company. He mentions that he was tasked with all sorts of jobs, many of them quite humbling when compared to what he was doing in the Philippines, that is, managing a team of more than 45 staff members. Yet he plodded on. “I was doing the tasks that nobody else in the company would be excited to be coming to work to do everyday. I had no choice but to like it. It was tough but you have to keep your hopes up and believe something better will come your way.”

He further adds, “I already had prepped up myself even before coming over to Canada and I was ready for the worst. I was thankful for these opportunities, having had no Canadian

experience nor Canadian credential to boast of, as they had seemed to require. However, deep in my heart that was not the kind of job I wanted to do.

I knew I was meant for more.

I was willing to do everything that was required of me on the job, and I did them with the right attitude.”

A month after, another offer came from a Marriot hotel in one of Metro Vancouver’s commercial districts.

Back-to-school

Eventually, Jimboy was able to slowly build his Canadian experience while he worked on getting his trades certification on the side. He realized that the ticket was a necessity to get to the better jobs. He admits however that during those circumstances, going back to school was not the most appealing thing to do with family to support in the Philippines. Besides, getting a job was his first “order of battle” to survive in Canada.

Moreover, he did not have a lot of friends then or even relatives to show him the way. So doing his own due diligence, Jimboy went to BC Safety Authority to ask for advice. “I was told to submit my resume, diploma and transcript of school records. After two weeks, I got a call from them and was told that I have the necessary education and experience to take the 4th Class Power Engineering written exam without having to go back to school.” While chugging steadily at the shiftwork job, Jimboy decided to challenge the 4th class Power Engineering exam. And pass it, he did. Within five months after landing, he got his certification.

Then came another break when a headhunter from nowhere called him for a job at one of the biggest property management companies in Canada. “I was fortunate enough to work in a world-class facility, the headquarters of this huge telecoms company at the heart of downtown Vancouver. It was a great job. There are challenges www.canadianinquirer.net

Average hourly wages for Power Engineers / Stationary Engineers range from $20—40, although this could go higher for some companies.

and opportunities for us nonCanadians. Pero dapat marunong tayong makipag-sabayan, kung baga. (However, we need to be up to the test and know how to work alongside Canadian talent.)

The grass is greener

Today, Jimboy works for a crown corporation. He looks back through his almost 9-year journey and quips, “I cannot be thankful enough. The rewards have been great. The most important thing for new immigrant professionals is first to decide on what you want to do and focus on your strengths.

Plant seeds and when the time is ripe, you will reap something.

Do not get comfortable with where you are and do not get stuck. Always keep the right attitude even when the tough gets going. Sometimes, you just have to go beyond the negativity that you hear about new immigrants’ horror stories. Expect the worst but hope for the best.”

Powerful words from power engineers!

Note from the author: Power Engineers are employed in industrial and manufacturing plants, hospitals, universities, government, utilities, hotels,

and other commercial establishments. Power Engineers “operate and maintain various types of boilers, pressure vessels and associated auxiliary equipment to provide heat, light, power, and other utility services for commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings and other work sites.” Average hourly wages for Power Engineers / Stationary Engineers range from $20—40, although this could go higher for some companies.

For information on various classes of Power Engineering certification and finding employment in this field, please refer to: http://www.welcomebc. ca/Work/find-a-job/occupational-guides/Occupation/ Stationary-%28Power%29-Engineers.aspx. ■ Please note that the statements expressed herein are those of the author’s. They are provided for general information purposes only. This column is not intended to provide specific professional advice and should not be relied on as a basis for any legal decision. The writer is a Certified Human Resources Professional.

She may be contacted at hopefortheflowers.2012@yahoo.com.

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

24

Storm Surge

12-year-old died like a man to protect home

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer PALO, LEYTE—Bilfrid Militante was not quite a man yet, but he died like one.

Against his mother’s wishes, the 12-year-old joined his father and the other men of the village in watching over their homes on the eve of the devastating landfall of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” here, said his mother Cristina Maceda-Militante.

The mother wanted the boy to evacuate with her to a relative’s ancestral house in the village of Buri uphill. But Bilfrid, a high school sophomore, insisted that he was old enough to do what the adults did. “I’m going to stay,” he told her proudly.

Most of the menfolk of Candahug village in this coastal town facing the Pacific Ocean had resolved to brave the night to protect their belongings and livestock. The women and children, on the other hand, were to head for high ground.

“They said it would be OK. They said it would just be wind, that there would be no flooding,” said the 37-year-old Cristina, who makes a living by making rice cakes.

But like so many others who made light of Yolanda’s power and fury as the monster hit the area on Friday, they thought wrong. And a multitude paid for

the mistake with their lives.

Bilfrid was found 1 kilometer away from where their house once stood, buried in the pile of debris.

“He was a papa’s boy,” the mother said, visibly struggling to fight back tears.

“We had high hopes for him.

He was so good in class. The teachers always appreciated him,” she said in front of the newly built Palo Metropolitan Cathedral, where some 20 bodies were taken, including her son’s.

Village buried in sand

Bilfrid’s father Gilberto is still missing, presumed dead, as are many of Candahug’s men.

A day before Yolanda’s landfall, the Inquirer met Crispolo Daga, a 49-year-old tricycle driver who lived in Candahug. “We’re used to storms. It’s dangerous for the children, so we brought them to the evacuation centers. We men will stay behind,” he had said.

The Inquirer sought Daga out on the team’s second visit to the area. But there was virtually nowhere to look for him.

“It’s all sand now. The entire village is buried in the sand,” 55-year-old Josefa Navarra said, describing what had become of Candahug.

The last big storm to strike Leyte was “Undang” in 1984.

It also battered Palo, but it whipped up mostly powerful winds that blew roofs off houses.

Storm surges as high as buildings slammed into the settlement of shanties near the shoreline. The tide swept inland, swallowing everything in its path: houses, pets and livestock, trees, people.

PHOTO FROM NEWS.YAHOO.COM

Yolanda was nothing like any storm this town of over 60,000 people had ever seen.

Surges as tall as buildings

Storm surges as high as buildings slammed into the settlement of shanties near the shoreline. The tide swept inland, swallowing everything in its path: houses, pets and livestock, trees, people.

Entire settlements were wiped out on the coastline.

The remains of neighborhoods were scattered inland, bodies crushed beneath them.

“It was like Hiroshima after the bomb, minus the fallout and the radiation,” said Sandy Javier, mayor of Javier, a town south of Palo.

Seeing the widespread destruction in the tiny town named after his grandfather, Javier hastily assembled a team of workers and policemen to clear the roads of obstruction— to let relief trucks into town and deliver much-needed aid to his townspeople.

For almost two days straight, the team used two payloaders,

saws and bolt-cutters to clear major obstructions on the main highway from Javier town all the way to Palo. “You are among the real heroes here,” the mayor told his exhausted men.

Javier said the worst hit in Leyte, based on his observation, were the towns of Tanauan, Palo and Tolosa.

Mass grave for 500

In Tanauan, another coastal village south of Palo, he encountered reports of over 500 dead, for whom a mass grave was now being prepared.

Elsewhere he reported seeing more of the same: toppled poles and trees, flattened houses, upturned cars, corpses on the streets.

“We were doing this for 36 hours, and that was all we saw,” he said. “It was getting boring.”

“Never in my lifetime have I seen something like this,” Javier said.

At Barangay (village) Isidro, farther inland in Palo, another horror story was unfolding.

Unlike the coastal settlements, the swirling waters spawned by Yolanda were not

high enough, but its powerful gusts sent rooftops flying.

Afraid of ghouls The house of Maricel Daga, 37, a vendor, was blown away. “Only the sink remained,” she said.

Her husband had raised their bed up to shield them from the debris. She clutched her yearold daughter Venice Mae tightly, while her husband was holding 3-year-old Vianney Marie, the woman said.

“Mama, may aswang (Mother, there’s a ghoul),” Maricel recalled her little Vianney saying. “She was afraid of ghouls.

It was her way of saying she was scared,” she said.

But Vianney was also afraid of blood.

“When her father got wounded, his blood dripped onto her face, and I could see that she just closed her eyes in fright,” Maricel said, wiping away tears.

When Yolanda’s fury died down, she was horrified to see that it was not only her husband’s blood on Vianney’s. “She was bleeding, too, from a deep wound in her scalp,” she said.

The little girl died that night. ■

Storm Surge

25 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Typhoon Yolanda in Photos THOUSANDS OF people are believed dead after Typhoon Haiyan battered the central Philippines with sustained winds of 235 kph (147 mph) and a storm surge of 6 metres (20 feet). Here are some photos that are making the rounds of social media and news sites:

Borbon, Cebu: The huge rooftop was seen flying during the wrath of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

Malapascua Island.

PHOTO FROM CEBU PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

PHOTO COURTESY OF PHILIPPINE RED CROSS

The destruction caused by super Typhoon Yolanda in the Market place in Baybay Leyte.

A look at some of the destroyed houses in the Eastern Island of Leyte.

PHOTO VIA VANESSA JONES

PHOTO FROM RUFFYBIAZON.PH

DSWD delivers 600 food packs to Tacloban City via PAF c130

A boy stands among debris in Tacloban.

PHOTO FROM @DINKYSUNFLOWER, @GOVPH

In Daang Maharlika Highway going to downtown Tacloban.

PHOTO BY FRANCIS R. MALASIG/EPA

This was Robinsons Malls BEFORE Super Typhoon Yolanda hit.

Destroyed houses in Capiz.

PHOTO VIA @ROBERTMANODZMM

PHOTO C/O GWEN PANG

www.canadianinquirer.net

PHOTO COURTESY OF @IAMRANDAL.

Storm Surge

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 26

Daughter’s last words: ‘Ma, just let go… Save yourself’

Tacloban mayor’s wife recounts ordeal

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer

BY LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer

gry wind,” she recalled, giving a high-pitched scream to imitate its power.

TACLOBAN CITY—High school teacher Bernadette Tenegra, 44, would never forget the last words of her daughter.

“Ma, just let go. Save yourself,” said the girl, whose body was pierced by wooden splinters from houses crushed by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

“I was holding her and I kept telling her to hang on, that I was going to bring her up. But she just gave up,” said Tenegra, her face contorted in grief.

The sun was shining only hours after the deadly landfall of the monster typhoon, casting a clearer light on the misery that had descended upon the city on Friday and the Tenegra home on the bank of a river.

Yolanda cut through Tacloban like a scythe, sending walls of water across the downtown area in a furious rush, toppling power lines and felling houses, wrecking trucks and cars totally and, in many many cases, ending lives.

Dozens of corpses turned up under piles of rubble. Some bodies lined the roadside, covered in blankets, staining the pavement with bright red blood.

People with missing relatives tentatively approached each one, peeking at the faces. One tearful man shook his head, muttering, “Not him.” Two teenage boys openly wept when they found what they were looking for: the body of their dead father.

The Tenegra family had huddled together in their shanty at Barangay (village) 66-Paseo de Legazpi, believing it could weather the storm as it had always done in the past.

But as the water rose with astonishing speed, the house toppled over, sweeping away the occupants, including Tenegra’s husband and her other daughter. They were able to scramble to safety, but the youngest Tenegra was spun around by the current along with the deadly debris.

“I crawled over to her, and I tried to pull her up. But she was too weak. It seemed she had already given up,” the mother said.

“And then I just let go,” she

NEITHER THE pull of power nor the sheen of celebrity could protect anyone from the wrath of Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

Officials of Tacloban City, which bore the brunt of the supertyphoon’s fury, were among those who escaped with only the shirts on their backs.

Having nothing else to wear, Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez had to don a pair of shorts—apparently among the items looted from a department store—which someone had given him, according to his wife, Tacloban Councilor Cristina Gonzales-Romualdez.

Cristina herself had to borrow underwear and shirts from friends.

But the most horrifying experience came at the height of Yolanda’s onslaught.

Psalm 91

A father brings his lifeless 6-year-old daughter to the morgue at the downtown area in Tacloban City, one of the fatalities in the storm surge whipped up by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

PHOTO BY NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

said, crying.

Mute shock was etched on the faces of survivors, many of whom were unfamiliar with storms as fierce as this one.

Barracks flattened

Richard Bilisario, an Air Force man, was carried by violent waves that demolished his unit’s barracks at the military base overlooking the Leyte Gulf.

“At first, the wind was only coming from inland, so we didn’t really mind it. Then suddenly we heard the howling from the sea,” he recalled.

“When we opened the door to check, the water was already up to the knee. And as soon as the door was opened, the water just rushed in, and the 11 of us were thrown away,” he said.

Four are still missing, including their commander, Bilisario said.

At downtown Tacloban, two men silently pushed a wooden cart carrying the bloated bodies of a woman, her teenage son and her baby on the flooded main avenue.

The men took their gruesome load through the streets, as kibitzers watched in morbid fascination.

The woman’s name was Erlinda Mingig, 48, a fish vendor.

She had been trapped in her one-story home with her two children, John Mark, 12, and 1-year-old Jenelyn, at Barangay 39-Calvaryhill.

“I told them to stay in the house because it was safer,” said Mingig’s husband, Rogelio, 48.

But the water was rising dangerously fast. When Erlinda

tried to open the door to escape, it would not budge,” the man said.

“We found her embracing the children in one arm and grabbing on to the ceiling with the other,” he said.

Double whammy

Some of the bereaved expressed conflicted feelings of guilt: Why they survived, and why their loved ones didn’t.

And in at least one case, why they had been able to save others, but not their own.

Reinfredo Celis, chair of Barangay 31-Pampango, spent most of Thursday and early Friday morning transporting his neighbors to a sturdy school building downtown, on his multipurpose cab.

But he didn’t even consider evacuating his own wife, believing they were safe in their concrete two-story house. He was mistaken.

Businessman Lemuel Honor, a former vice mayor of a Southern Leyte town, said Tacloban had been swamped by two different bodies of water.

“Two seas actually met over Tacloban: the Cancabato Bay and the Tacloban Bay,” he said.

The first wave of the calamity came when Yolanda barreled inland from the Pacific Ocean via the Tacloban Bay, and the second, when its tail pulled in waves from the Cancabato Bay in the opposite direction, he said.

“This is why you’d be confused why there were waves coming from both directions, first westward, then eastward,” Honor said. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

An angry wind

Cristina flew to Manila on Monday to help coordinate relief efforts, bring her children over, and also quell rumors about her supposed demise.

She spoke at a press briefing in Makati City, where relief goods were being packed for the typhoon victims.

The former actress recounted how her two daughters and their househelp clung to the beams on the ceiling of their guesthouse, where they had sought shelter, as the waters raged around them. The wind had blown off its roof.

“It was a strong wind … an an-

Cristina’s husband was inspecting a nearby resort when the water came, forcing him and his aides to retreat to a ballroom and hang from the ceiling, as the sea tried to claim them, she said.

“We almost lost him,” she said.

On the morning Yolanda struck, Cristina and her daughters, aged 10 and 14, plus the household staff, left their home facing the Pacific Ocean to seek shelter in a guesthouse farther inland.

But such was the typhoon’s strength that the water went rushing in. Her children were afraid but she assured them they were not going to die.

“I was just praying. Praying and praying and praying with my kids,” she said.

She recited Psalm 91, a prayer for protection, and sang worship songs with her children.

‘Is this a movie?’

When the water receded, the family, including their dog, a German Shepherd, walked through the debris to reach downtown.

Cristina said she had only a few scratches and rolled up her pants to show a bright red gash down her leg.

But she still reeled from the experience. “Is this a dream? Is this a movie?” she remembered ❱❱ PAGE 28 Tacloban mayor’s

The former actress recounted how her two daughters and their househelp clung to the beams on the ceiling of their guesthouse, where they had sought shelter, as the waters raged around them. The wind had blown off its roof.

PHOTO FROM INTERAKSYON.COM

27 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

GOD

The Kingdom of

JESUS CHRIST The Name Above Every Name

Love is

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The love of the Almighty Father can reach even the most evil person as long as the Father sees an ounce of hope that he can change.

Let me tell you the extent of God’s love.

Why is the love of God so extensive that He commanded us to love our enemies?

I experienced this in my ministry. There are people who have made an enemy of me when I have not even tried to make enemies of them just because what I preach is the Will of the Father in my life.

For example, when I said, “I am the Appointed Son of God sent into this world today,” many people could not accept that.

They called me names.

They called me a cult.

They called me a false prophet. They called me many names, but instead of hating them, I went to the Prayer Mountain and prayed for them.

What was my prayer? I prayed, “Father, enlighten those people who are persecuting this ministry.” I asked this because these people are spiritually ignorant, they are not enlightened. And you know what happened?

Many e-mails and text messages have come to me, saying, “Pastor if you remember, I am one of those who persecuted you bitterly. I called you names, but one day, I was

enlightened by the Father Almighty that truly you are the Appointed Son of God. Now I have repented.”

There are also those who called me an anti-Christ. One man had said, “You are the anti-Christ written of in the Scripture that would come to earth because you are taking the place of Jesus Christ and that place is not yours.”

But now, the same man has written me and he says, “I wrote you before, but now I am repented. I am now a Kingdom citizen because I was enlightened.

The Almighty Father enlightened me. One day I dreamt that God visited me and talked to me.”

God said, “Why do you call me an anti-Christ?”

I said, “I did not call you an anti-Christ. It is Apollo Quiboloy whom I called an Anti-Christ.”

And God said to me, “Don’t you know that I and my Son are not two, but one? Whatever you do to him, you have also done to Me?” Then he was reminded of a Scripture, which says that Jesus Christ, in the last day, would separate people, some on the left and others on the right. And He tells them, “I was hungry, you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty you did not give me drink. I was a stranger you did not receive me. I was in jail, and you didn’t visit me.

I was naked, you didn’t clothe me.” (Matthew 25:35-38) And those people would say, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and did not feed you? When did we see you thirsty and did not give you drink? When did we see you naked and did not give you clothing?

When did we see you sick and in jail and did not visit you?” Then He will not point to Himself,

He will point to the least of those He has commissioned on earth.

Why am I including those whom He has commissioned?

Because He said, “If you have done it to the least of these (those whom He commissioned), “you have done it to me.”

(Matthew 25:40).

(To be continued next week)

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Storm Surge

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 28

Tacloban mayor’s... thinking.

Since then, she and her husband had been helping tend to the city’s shocked residents and doing what they could to restore some semblance of order.

“Everybody was a victim,” she said. “It’s not a normal typhoon where the (social welfare department) is here to provide help because they were also victims. So who was going to help?” ❰❰ 26

Driven to desperation

This was why she was saddened by reports claiming her husband could not be located in Yolanda’s aftermath. Publicizing their efforts and having their pictures taken while help-

ing others were not on their minds, she said.

But she said she was very grateful for the help pouring in.

As for the looters, she said many were driven to desperation because they wanted to help their families.

“They just wanted to get food for their families and to survive,” she said.

She recalled that some of the people were sharing the loot with others, for example the clothes taken from stores.

Her husband’s aides were given short pants and her husband wore one pair because he had no other clothes with him.

Blame game

“Now is not the time to play

the blame game. Rather, it’s time to unite and pick up the pieces. We have to bury our dead,” Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, a cousin of Mayor Romualdez, told reporters.

The congressman said he would not take issue with President Aquino’s remark that Tacloban officials did not seem to have been prepared.

According to the lawmaker, Aquino’s remarks were probably made before he was apprised of the actual situation.

“No one, not here or abroad, could prepare for this supertyphoon, this catastrophe of unprecedented proportions,” he said.

“Everyone did as much as was

humanly possible to prepare … yet no one was spared,” he added.

House resolution

Cristina said that three days before Yolanda struck, local officials had evacuated people and warned them of possible storm surges.

She said officials chose evacuation centers that were sturdy but such was Yolanda’s strength that even the hardiest houses gave way.

“Even if that happened in Metro Manila, I’m sure the same thing would happen,” she said.

In a House resolution, Romualdez urged the President to place the entire country under a state of calamity. The resolu-

tion was coauthored by other representatives.

Romualdez said a presidential proclamation was needed to control the prices of basic necessities and prime commodities and allow the grant of noninterest loans to the victims.

He also said he would push for the creation of a commission to handle relief and assistance operations in areas battered by Yolanda.

Romualdez said he could understand the looters’ frustration since many were left with nothing but there was also a need to restore order.

This has not been easy because policemen and local officials were also victims of Yolanda. ■

Baby’s birth amid debris In a chapel turned morgue after Philippine brings cheers in typhoon typhoon, a father mourns young boy lost to surge devastated Philippine city

BY TODD PITMAN The Associated Press

The Associated Press TACLOBAN, PHILIPPINES— Cheers broke out Monday in the typhoon-devastated airport of the city of Tacloban in the Philippines when 21-year old Emily Ortega gave birth to a baby girl.

It was a rare piece of good news for the seaside city where officials fear at least 10,000 were killed, and where tens of thousands of residents saw their homes flattened by ferocious winds and a massive storm surge from Typhoon Haiyan.

Bea Joy Sagales appeared in good health. Her birth drew ap-

plause from others in the airport and military medics who assisted in her delivery.

Her birth was near miraculous—her mother was in an evacuation centre when the storm surge hit and flooded the city. The mother had to swim and cling to a post to survive before she found safety at the airport. Her husband in Manila was unaware of what has happened.

The typhoon made landfall Friday, barrelling through six central Philippine islands, wiping away buildings and levelling seaside homes with winds of 235 kilometres per hour (147 miles per hour) and gusts of 275 kph (170 mph). ■

21-year old Emily Ortega gave birth to a baby girl whom she named Bea Joy Sagales.

VIDEOGRAB FROM AFP VIDEO VIA INQUIRER.NET

TACLOBAN, PHILIPPINES— There is no functioning morgue here, so people have been collecting the dead from Typhoon Haiyan and storing them where they can—in this case, St. Michael The Archangel Chapel.

Ten bodies have been placed on wooden pews and across a pale white floor slick with blood, debris and water. One appears to have foamed at the mouth. One has been wrapped in a white sheet, tied to a thick green bamboo pole so that people could carry it, and placed on the floor.

One body is small, and entirely covered in a red blanket.

“This is my son,” says Nestor Librando, a red-eyed, 31-yearold carpenter. “He drowned.”

Librando had taken refuge in a military compound nearby by the time the typhoon’s storm surge poured in Friday morning. For two hours, the water rose around him. He held his 2-year-old son in one arm, his 3-year-old son in the other.

But the torrent proved too strong, and swept the family out of the building. The water rose above Librando’s head and he struggled to swim. His younger son slipped from his hands and was immediately pulled under the water.

“I found his body later, behind www.canadianinquirer.net

Residents walk through toppled electric posts and trees and tangled cable wires (top photo) in the heart of Tacloban City after it was smashed by super typhoon ‘Yolanda’.

PHOTO FROM MB.COM.PH

the house” in the courtyard, sunken in the mud, he says.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, the worst thing I could imagine,” Librando says. “I brought him to this chapel because there was nowhere else to take him. I wanted Jesus Christ to bless him.”

The chapel is close to the Tacloban airport, in an area where the storm felled and shredded a vast bank of trees. The water moved with such force that light poles beside a dirt road are bent to the ground at right angles.

At a lakeshore west of the airport terminal, three bodies lay among the rocks. A man, wearing blue shorts and lying face down. A child with yellowed arms grasping skyward. A tiny baby, sprawled on its back.

More bodies lay along a muddy beach nearby. A dead man in jeans leans forward, his head in

the water, his back feet somehow perched frozen above the sand and mud behind. Beside him, a child in a diaper lays partially covered by a palm frond, beside wood, debris and a green crate labeled San Miguel Brewery.

There are survivors here, too, including 22-year-old Junick de la Rea. He says the water swept him and five of his relatives off a rooftop where they had fled, but they all survived by grabbing a bunch of plastic and metal containers that happened to float by.

“Please, can you help me?” de la Rea asks a reporter. “I want you to send a message to a friend of mine,” a friend who works for the German Red Cross Union.

His message: “We survived. I want to say we survived. ... We lost everything. But we are still alive—and we need help.” ■

Storm Surge

29 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Heroism after the storm surge

BY KATHERINE MARFALTEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer I AM a Filipino.

And I am hurting now, just like other Filipinos who were also devastated upon knowing the extent of destruction that super Typhoon (international name: Haiyan) Yolanda wrought to the Philippines.

Deemed as the world’s strongest typhoon to ever hit the world, it left tens of thousands of my countrymen homeless— and grieving for the loss of their loved ones.

A heart wrecking 10,000 people were predicted to be gone; perhaps, some were swept away by the enormous storm surge or some were left behind as huge trees fell.

We would never know what exactly happened on that day, Nov. 8, 2013; even media men could just surmise what really happened to the victims.

Micaela Papa, a reporter of GMA News recounted how she witnessed a girl, trying hard to grip to the bars of a window to avoid being flushed way. “Ang hirap isipin na pwedeng mamatay yung bata at wala akong magawa to help her (It’s quite difficult to think that the girl can die and I can’t do anything to help her),” she said.

Papa needed to evacuate the place immediately to avoid the gigantic storm surge—since then, she hasn’t heard any news about the girl. She can only pray that the girl is safe.

As soon as Yolanda’s wrath showed up in Central Philippines, we, Filipinos from the lesser affected parts of the country were hooked to TV and radio stations for updates on the condition of our countrymen.

It was also my husband’s birthday when Yolanda took its toll in Visayas; we had previous plans of going out with the whole family, but upon hearing the news, we just decided to stay at home and cook dinner for everyone.

Before eating, we offered a short prayer for our fellowmen in Visayas. We also tried to limit our noise so we can reflect a little.

Then, we tuned in to a news report by Atom Araullo of ABSCBN, he was soaking wet as he gave updates on the destruction that the super Typhoon brought to Tacloban. After a few minutes, his signal weakened until he was totally out of the air; and even his fellow reporters from Manila couldn’t contact him and his team.

His family from “Umagang Kay Ganda,” expressed their worries to what might have happened to their co-workers.

After several hours, he was onair again, helping in the rescue operations, standing in the chest-level flood water, lifting the survivors to a safer place.

He was joined by other men who didn’t mind being in an unsafe place just to help their fellowmen.

While I was still saddened seeing the condition of the people in Visayas and other affected areas, I was moved into tears with the heroism that these Filipinos showed—genuine selflessness.

PNOY VISITS TACLOBAN President Benigno S. Aquino III and Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas personally inspect the extent of damage brought by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Hainan) during their visit to Tacloban City the province of Leyte on Sunday (November 10, 2013). Typhoon Yolanda, the world’s most powerful typhoon in 2013, packing more than 300kph when it made landfall in Central Visayas Friday morning. Photos by Ryan Lim / Malacanang Photo Bureau

Aftermath Heroism

Lives were already gone and houses were already destroyed.

We cannot do anything about it anymore.

But what we can do is to unite and help the victims survive what could be their worst nightmare.

“Now is not the time to blame each other, now is not the time for squabbling (bangayan),” Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras told reporters, saying relief and rescue operations remained the priority.

“Let’s make sure those who survived will survive and let’s provide for them” he added.

Indeed, the devastation that happened in the Philippines moved everyone to do their share.

Even a little boy I knew.

He sells sampaguita to fund his school requirements, but as soon as he heard the news, he expressed his intention to help.

But his next statements made me really emotional.

He said, “Saan ko ba pwedeng i-donate itong mga napagbentahan ko.” (Where can I donate all my earnings for today?) ❱❱ PAGE 38 Heroism after

FROM @SHEKINAHEDEN The future of humanity is alive & well in my neighborhood. Thank God 4 the beautiful hearts of children #Philippines pic.twitter.com/ Tl2XA7oTDl

ANGEL LOCSIN RELIEF OPS @therealangellocsin at 1:20AM, November 10, 2013.. Kahit 8 na lang kaming volunteers, derecho pa rin sa relief packing to achieve the target.. #YolandaPH#StrongerPHFollowing

ATOM ARAULLO reporting amid the

storm surge in Tacloban City. Screengrab from TV Patrol video www.canadianinquirer.net

PCI AUTHOR Kaye Marfal-Teves with

other volunteers, finishing packing 200 boxes of relief goods.

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 30

www.canadianinquirer.net

31 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

FILIPINO-CANADIANS IN YOLANDA’S AFTERMATH:

Rowena and Leonora Lagunzad

BY ANGIE DUARTE Philippine Canadian Inquirer NOVEMBER 08, 2013: A day the Philippines—and the world— will not soon forget. This was typhoon Yolanda’s heyday. Haiyan, by international standards.

She was vicious. She was violent.

And she was unstoppable.

She made landfall—all 650 kilometers of her—in the Visayas region of the Philippines with a fury that has been described as monstrous; catastrophic, and world-record breaking, in fact. Packing winds of 235 miles per hour, gusts of 275 miles per hour, and a storm surge the height of a 4-storey building in the areas she hit hardest, Yolanda was a category 5 natural force of death, destruction, and devastation.

The images of her aftermath can best be described in one word: Horrific. Perhaps, two words: UTTERLY horrific. Yolanda barreled through six central Philippine islands, obliterating buildings, flattening homes, uprooting trees, reducing bustling towns to piles of rubble, and leaving dead bodies strewn along her path. Survivors looted stores, in a desperate search for food and drink, amidst a backdrop of seemingly post-apocalyptic ruin.

The hardest hit was the city of Tacloban in the eastern province of Leyte. Next in her line of fury was Samar province. Also hard-hit was Coron in Palawan.

Manila was spared—but not from the scathingly insensitive self-absorption of some, who deemed the media coverage “overblown” and “hyped”, and who continued on their merry, trivial way sans a shred of shared humanity. Many have since eaten their unseasoned words, and must have balked at how awful an aftertaste these left in their own mouths.

Thankfully, there are more who have responded in compassion and sympathy; rekindling the hope in humankind’s worth.

The death toll is feared to reach 10,000; especially in Tacloban City. Even evacuation centers were not spared, having been washed away by the raging waters of the storm surge.

Scores remain missing, unaccounted for, unheard from;

and the nerve-wracking plight of those who anxiously await word continues. Theirs is a crisis of a different sort: One that is more internal, besieging the mind and soul.

Such is the case for FilipinoCanadian sisters, Rowena and Leonora Lagunzad, who—although safe in the comforts of their Canadian home—have gone three days, as of this writing, without knowing the whereabouts of their entire family.

month; in which time to hear from their family, or for a semblance of order to be restored to the city, whichever should come first.

“Kung hindi namin sila makita within a month—mahaba na yan—no matter what, uuwi kami. We have to find out kung ano yung sinapitan nila.

(If we do not find them within a month—and that’s the maximum length of time—no matter what, we will return home. We have to find out what has befallen them.),” they said.

In search of a better life

Rowena and Leonora hail from Tacloban City. They—like many others—moved to Canada in search of a better life for themselves and their entire family.

The burden of migrant Filipino workers remains such: Upliftment of self, immediate family, even the extended family.

Rowena was hired directly to Canada, while Leonora was a domestic worker in Singapore, who moved to Canada to join her sister. Both are now employed in a home-based daycare center for children.

The sisters recount that life in Canada has been good, and that they are well-able to provide for family back home. They have managed to give their parents the happiness of a comfortable enough life, and to put their younger relations through school.

For this, the sisters are grateful.

All that, however, now hangs in the balance, as they wait for news of the welfare of their parents, brothers, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles; all of whom reside in Tacloban City.

As I listened to the interview, I heard many things: The din of their young wards playing in the background; the tinge of veiled fear as they answered questions about their loved ones; the hope in their souls; and the willful determination to rise above circumstance.

Children of the storm

The sisters recalled how, growing up in Tacloban City, they were no strangers to storms; having witnessed several howlers, including Category 4 typhoon Undang in the ‘80s.

“Walang kuryente for 2 months, pero walang water surge; walang ganun. Pero washed out pa din talaga yung school rooms namin, (Power

Nora and Rowena Lagunzad (inset) with their group and the source of their strength, CDWCR’s Singing Nannies.

was out for two months, but there was no water surge; there was no such thing. Nonetheless, our school rooms were washed out.),” Rowena recounted.

They concede that although they knew at the time that the storm wreaked havoc, they were too young to truly know the extent of the havoc.

Not so this time.

“Na-shock kami sa nangyari, hindi naming akalain ganito ang mangyayari (We are shocked about what has happened, never realizing that the damage would be this great.),” they said; painfully and fullyaware of the miserable state of their hometown.

In a tone of fatalism and realism, they added: “Pero hindi mo naman sasabihin sa bagyo “Wag ka dumating sa Tacloban’! (But then, you cannot very well tell the storm ‘Don’t hit Tacloban!’).”

Sitting, hoping

waiting,

searching,

It has been three days since the Lagunzad sisters have heard anything of their family’s well-being and whereabouts.

Three long days.

They look at online lists of survivors and missing persons.

They watch the news. They rely on friends and relatives in Cebu and lesser-affected areas. They watch the news again, until they grow weary of seeing unburied corpses.

Nothing.

“Wala, parang ubos na yung aming idea kung saan kami maghahanap, (There is nothing; it’s as though we’ve run out of ideas where to search.)” they said.

They prattle off a list of first www.canadianinquirer.net

names of their missing kin; I cannot keep up: Constancio, their Dad. Irene, their mother.

Constancio Jr., their brother.

Edwin, another brother. The list goes on, and is—sadly— quite lengthy.

They do all they can to remain optimistic, but not knowing is taking its toll.

“Mahirap. Basta malaman lang namin (It’s difficult. But as long as we find out of their status)—we will accept the good part or the bad part of it,” they shared.

“Positive nalang kami, kahit masama na ang news; sino ba naman ang may gusto ng masama? (We stay positive, even when the news is bad; whoever wants bad news, anyway?) We do what we can to stay positive.

Ang worry, wala naman magawa. Kung may magawa ang worry to find them, we’ll do it until mahanap sila (Worry can do nothing, really. If worry could produce results, we would not stop worrying until our relatives are found.),” they added.

“Kung tayo ay magmumukmok, ano ang idudulot ng pagmumukmok? (If we brood about it constantly, what good will this do?) Whatever pa ang nangyari sa kanila, they won’t be happy na makita nila ang pagmumukmok (Whatever has befallen them, they won’t be happy to see us constantly brooding.),” Leonora followed up.

When asked if they had plans of returning to Tacloban to search for their family, both sisters said that this would not be advisable at the moment, given the uncertainty of the situation in the city. But they have given it a maximum of 3 weeks to one

Rainbow after the storm

Optimism and hope, prayer are all they have left. These keep them going.

They long for their relatives to give them a sign or let their whereabouts be felt; “paramdam”, as it is called.

The sisters appeal to the Philippine government to speed up search and relief operations, and to properly bury the corpses littered helter skelter. It is disrespectful to the dead, they say, and it is disturbing to see.

It is their desire that the Canadian government send clean water and military teams to help with operations, if possible.

Still, their biggest desire remains: That they would see “a rainbow after the storm. A light shining in darkness,” they revealed. And this, they desire for all those affected, not just for themselves.

One of the sisters (I cannot place the voice) laughs timidly and says: “I like that rainbow…”

So do we.

We, at the Philippine-Canadian Inquirer, join the world in doing what we can do to help our brethren in need. We unite in faith and prayer for all those suffering, and for healing to be upon the Philippines. And we keep hope alive, alongside all those still searching for loved ones, for resolution. ■ UPDATE: Rowena Lagunzad was interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with the facilitation of Philippine Canadian Inquirer. During the interview with CBC’s Susan da Silva, Rowena’s parents called to say they were safe and doing okay. The interview was aired on November 11, 2013 at CBC’s 5pm and 6pm news.

Seen & Scenes

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 32

ROSEMER ENVERGA GETS FWN AWARD IN THE U.S.

WINTER ESC

Rosemer Enverga received an award from the Filipina Women’s Network (FWN) under the Founders and Pioneers Category during FWN’s Tenth Filipina Leadership Summit. Enverga was recognized for her passionate and unselfish volunteer work with various organizations and events in Canada.

The “Winter Escapa the Philippines (WE campaign was prese rector Vernie Velard cago office. The eve Philippine Canadian (PCCM) in Winnipeg Winter Escapade To Philippine destinatio 24, 2014. St. James Romy Zetazate

Upon acceptance of the award, Enverga thanked all her supporters and reiterated that the award is a tribute to the work of all the people who supported her and an honour for all the passionate and dedicated Filipina-Canadian volunteers all over Canada .

Some of the distinguished awardees of the FWN included Loida Nicolas Lewis, Chair, Reginald F. Lewis Foundation ; Dr. Tess Mauricio, GMA TV host; Cora M. Tellez, President and CEO Sterling Health Services; Nina Aguas, COO Philippine Bank of Communications; Jocelyn Ding, VP, Google; Delle Sering-Fojas, CEO of 77soft.

Amb. Gatan leads Team Philippines-Canada in engaging prospective tourism partners: Gille Lamontagne of Qatar Airways and Patrick Corriveau, Sales Director, Groupes Vacances

with Ms. Evelyne Ca Cassis

FILIPINO SENIORS CLUB OF BC

Filipino Seniors Club of BC crowned its Ms. Universe-2013, celebrate and dedicated the evening to a fundraising for Bohol at Capri Hall, V October 27, 2013.

IT’S HALLOWEEN TIME The Knights of Columbus Council 8809 (San Lorenzo Ruiz) hosted a Halloween costume party at the St. Thomas More Parish corner Ellesmere Road and Dormington Drive, East of Markham Road, On October 26, 2013. Shown in photo from seated left to right include Josefino “Pors” Canlas, Placido “Dong” Mineque, Emmanuel “Manny” Yanga, and Joy Pangilinan, staff member of I-Remit.

Standing is Domingo Trinidad. St. Jamestown News Service, Dindo Orbeso

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

Conferment of FSCBC Honorary Membership to Consul General Neil Frank Ferrer and Deputy ConGen Anthony Achilles Mandap

The Matriarch of FSCBC, Mrs. Domeng Bagunu

FSCBC Ms. Uni and Escort Rog

FSCBC Universe Agnes Ugui Dancers

Seen & Scenes

33 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

CAPADE

PH ENGAGES POTENTIAL TOURISM PARTNERS AT MONTREAL TRAVEL SHOW

ade-It’s more fun in E-IMFIT Ph) Tour” ented by Tourism Dide-Morales of the Chient was held at the n Centre of Manitoba g this October. The our will run across 6 ons from January 18stown News Service,

28 October 2013 – With a view to increasing visitor arrivals from Canada, Philippine Ambassador Leslie B. Gatan attended the 25th International Tourism and Travel Show (ITTS), one of the biggest consumer fairs in Canada and an established launch pad for Canadian travellers and vacationers.

On 26 October 2013 at Place Bonaventure, Ambassador Gatan led Philippine Embassy officials and Department of Tourism representative Mitchelle Dy, in networking with business development and marketing managers from the Canadian travel industry while pushing the country’s It’s More Fun in the Philippines (IMFIT PH) brand as well as Team Philippines-Canada’s Winter Escapade tour package at the consumer show.

with Mr. Marc Ancuta, President, Celebritours

Pamana dancers perform the Burong Talo (Left) and the Singkil (Right) as young ambassadors for Philippine tourism

The Philippines was among 100 countries represented at ITTS by tourism offices, tour operators and travel agencies vying for the attention of 35,000 visitors to the event, more than 70% of whom were planning to make a travel-related purchase in the next six months.

Visitors warmly applauded the cultural presentation by the PAMANA ng LuzViMinda Philippine Folkloric Dance Companywhich created a positive impression of Filipino culture at the ITTS’ Place d’animation Évasion on October 27.

assis, President, Voyages

ed some birthdays Vancouver, BC on

The Ambassador and his team initiated exploratory discussions with potential partner tour operators namely, Incursion Voyages, Celebritours, Groupes Vacances, and small group specialist Journeys of Discovery as well as prospective partner carriers such as Qatar Airways, Korea Air and Eva Air while ensuring the visibility of Philippine Airlines through corporate give-aways.

Ambassador Gatan promotes Team Philippines-Canada’s Winter Escapade to ITTS visitors

“ITTS is a highly-anticipated annual event affording visitors the opportunity to discover new travel destinations, including the Philippines.

We are here to position the Philippines in a growing Canadian longhaul market and to expand awareness of our IMFIT PH brand,” Ambassador Gatan stated.

JOHN MCCALLUM IN VANCOUVER MP for Markham-Unionville and Liberal Multiculturalism John McCallum meets with members of the Filipino media in Vancouver at the Kumare Restaurant in Richmond, B.C.

iverse Agnes Uguil ger Albay

UPAABC PAYS COURTESY CALL TO CONGEN FERRER Members of the University of the Philippines Alumni Association in British Columbia (UPAABC) paid a courtesy call to new Vancouver Consul General Neil Ferrer on October 30.

il and the Chichiquita

www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

34

Entertainment

Dingdong Dantes speaks about NCCA appointment

Nikki Gil enjoys her freedom after the breakup

BY KATHERINE MARFALTEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer

BY KATHERINE MARFALTEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer

WEEKS AFTER being appointed as of one of National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Goodwill Ambassadors, Dingdong Dantes reacted on the controversy, involving netizens’ disagreement over NCCA’s decision.

In a text message to PEP, he said, “We are all ambassadors of who we are and what we represent. Like for me, I am proud to represent my family name, my country, my industry, my network, and the youth.”

He added, “Whether I am cited, recognized, patronized or not, I will continue to strive to represent and be a better version of myself. In this case, it does not mean that we are the best at what we do. I humbly think that no one can ever be best without the help of one another. In this situation, in our beloved rich culture, I hope for us to all just help each other in enriching what I believe is a very precious wealth of our country.”

Dantes, who was also chosen as NCCA ambassador for the Youth in 2009, thanked NCCA for choosing him again.

The announcement was first posted on Nov. 3 on the Facebook page of the Philippine Arts Festival (PAF), an NCCA project.

The post read: “The ambas-

A CLOSED chapter of her life—this was how Nikki Gil described her five-year relationship with Billy Crawford.

During a press conference for her latest endorsement Filipino apparel “Maldita,” the 26-yearold entertainer seemed to be more comfortable in discussing her past romance.

She explained that what she and Crawford had was a “nightmare” that she doesn’t want to dwell on again, “No more na.

I think we’ve both been given enough time to make it work.

I’ve wasted enough time and energy on that matter. It’s time to move on and no looking back.”

Gil, however, said she’s not dismissing the idea of being friends with the singer-dancer again. Though, she’s firm that it won’t happen anytime soon.

PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK PAGE OF DINGDONG DANTES

sadors are expected to advocate and stir everyone’s interest in our culture and the arts scene with many fun-filled, exciting, and educational activities particularly in the coming monthlong Philippine Arts Festival in February 2014.”

Some netizens commented that the decision is “populist” and “self-serving.”

Meanwhile, Rene Napenas, head of the NCCA’s public affairs and information office, in an interview with GMA news said that the celebrities were not meant to represent a specific art form; instead, they will serve as celebrity spokespersons.

Aside from Dantes, other chosen celebrity ambassadors include Boy Abunda (Philip-

pine Arts Festival), Leyte Representative Lucy Torres-Gomez (Dance), Sarah Geronimo (Music), Shamcey Supsup (Architecture & Allied Arts), Ogie Alcasid (Heritage), Piolo Pascual (Culture), Venus Raj (Dayaw: An event highlighting Filipino indigenous cultures), and Jericho Rosales (Taoid (NCCA’s National Heritage Month).

In a post on its Facebook Page, the PAF addressed the netizens’ reactions, “We hear you all, and we’ll do something about this. Rest assured that your comments will not go in vain. The Philippine Arts Festival is for the people and we, the PAF Secretariat, will make sure that your suggestions and reactions will be heard by the committees.” ■

Enjoying singlehood

Four months after the breakup, Nikki came to a realization

that she has more freedom now to accept challenging and daring acting projects.

“I’m more carefree now. I don’t have to consider the feelings of anyone else if I have to kiss someone for a scene” she said.

Nikki plays a kontrabida (villain) role as Mystica Delaver in “Maria Mercedes” where she has kissing scenes with Jake Cuenca.

She also shows her provocative and sensual side in her rather steamy TV commercial for Maldita.

Despite all these, she cleared that posing for men’s magazines is not for her. “It’s not like I have a market for men’s magazines. Parang no, it’s not me so I will save you the agony of having to see it.”

She added, “I’m still not compromising anything that will make me feel uncomfortable.

Kasi (Because) it will show and it will rob your audience of a good story if I feel uncomfortable with the character I’m playing.”

Nikki hopes to do Independent films and musical plays again when her schedule permits her. ■

PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK PAGE OF NIKKI GIL

Entertainment

35 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Arida: I did my best

BY ARMIN P. ADINA Philippine Daily Inquirer

PHOTO FROM RUFFYBIAZON.PH

PLACING FOURTH in the Miss Universe pageant was a source of joy for Philippine bet Ariella Arida, and she hoped this somehow brought happiness to a nation battered by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

“What happened in the country is very disheartening.

But I hope I made them happy.

I did my best,” the 24-year-old beauty queen told mediamembers on a phone conversation from Moscow.

Arida, a chemistry graduate from the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, said

‘Be Careful’ not ending soon

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer “I NEVER lost faith in love, but getting married is a different story. One should be really prepared for it,” said actress Jodi Sta. Maria, whose fiveyear marriage to businessman Pampi Lacson is in the process of being annulled. They broke up in 2010.

They have a 7year-old son, Thirdy. Sta. Maria said she had become “more realistic” since tying the knot eight years ago.

She has admitted dating actor/ Cavite Vice Gov. Jolo Revilla.

Sta. Maria was nudged into discussing love and marriage only because of the coming wedding of her character Maya de la Rosa in the popular ABS-CBN drama series “Be Careful With My Heart,” and Ricky “Ser Chief” Lim, played by Richard Yap. “Our viewers have waited a long time for this,” the actress said during a media gathering on Monday. “It will look like a real wedding. We will even have rehearsals, a counseling session, a prenup pictorial and an AVP shoot. Plus, an after-wedding party and reception!”

Entourage, honeymoon

Entertainment writers were provided a copy of the bridal entourage for the “Lim-De la Rosa Nuptials.” Ser Chief’s son Luke (Jerome Ponce) is best man; daughters Nikki (Janella

she monitored the situation in the country even when she was deep in the competition.

“As soon as I woke up (this Saturday) morning, I checked the situation in Tacloban. It gave more sense to my fight here,” she said.

“I pray that even if I did not get the main prize, I was still able to give them hope. Because it’s all for them, it’s for the Philippines.”

Arida landed in the Top 16 by garnering the highest score in the online poll among visitors of the pageant’s website. She earned the judges’ nod to advance to the Top 10 and eventually to the Top 5.

Spain’s Patricia Yurena Rodriguez placed second, followed

Reality bites for the Gutierrezes

BY BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR. Philippine Daily Inquirer

‘Wedding’ ushers in chapter that includes parenthood for Maya and Ser Chief.

PHOTO FROM RUFFYBIAZON.PH

Salvador) and Abby (Mutya Orquia), are maid of honor and flower girl, respectively; Maya’s nephew Pocholo (JM Ibañez), is the coin and ring bearer. Sta. Mariawill wear two gowns by Avel Bacudio.

Business unit head Ginny Ocampo said several network departments—online, digital, promo, marketing, sales, security and publishing—were involved in the “wedding.” “We also sought the help of Star Records and Star Home Video,” Ocampo said. The wedding and reception scenes will be shot from Nov. 10 to 15 for a weeklong airing that starts Nov. 17.

Maya and Ser Chief’ will honeymoon in Japan, Sta. Maria told INQUIRER. “It’s been Maya’s dream to experience snow and Ser Chief naturally wants to grant her wish.”

Ocampo said the original plan was to have the actors fly to the United States, but that the schedule was too tight. “Japan is closer,” she explained.

“They will leave on the 16th and return to Manila on the 20th for the after-wedding party.”

Codirected by Jeffrey Jeturian and Mervin Bondial, the series premiered on July 9, 2012. Sixteen months later, Ocampo still can’t believe it lasted so long. “We were gunning for just 13 weeks,” she said, “because we had a very simple story. But the viewers just loved the characters!”

The exec said there was no immediate plan to end the show and that, in fact, the wedding would start a new chapter in the lead characters’ life together.

“One thing is certain: We will get to witness Maya become a mom.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

by Ecuador’s Constanza Baez.

Brazil’s Jakelyne Oliveira completed the Top 5.

The Philippines has two Miss Universe winners—Gloria Diaz (1969) and Margie Moran (1973).

It was the fourth straight year the Philippines finished in the Top 5.

“I’m very thankful. I feel that my answer may have fallen short but I’m nonetheless happy with my answer,” Arida said.

To her fans and supporters who could not accept the judges’ decision, Arida said: “When (2012 winner) Olivia (Culpo) gave me a buss after the contest, she told me ‘I was rooting for you.’ That was enough to make me happy.” ■

RUFFA HAS no qualms appearing without makeup.

Think “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” crossed with “The Love Boat” and “The Addams Family.”

When Inquirer announced via Twitter last Thursday that the Gutierrez clan was set to topbill a reality show, the response among netizens was immediate and electric, ranging from the apoplectic to the apocalyptic.

Entitled “Inside Showbiz Presents It Takes Gutz to be a Gutierrez,” the planned reality show can very well be a lightning rod for controversy (and online haters).

During the show’s launch at Thai Bistro in Robinsons Magnolia, Raymond Gutierrez was unperturbed: “In this age of social media,” he said, “I eat haters’ [posts] for breakfast.”

In front of heartthrob-twin Richard and beauty queen-sister Ruffa, Raymond unabashedly declared, “I will be the star of this show!”

Talk about chutzpah.

Actually, the show was Raymond’s idea. He brainstormed with Michael Carandang, former producer of “America’s Next Top Model,” and TV100 of One Mega Group, on the venture.

Richard conceded that Raymond was the “concept” guy in the family.

After the hubbub at the launch had died down, Raymond explained to Inquirer: “I said [I would be the star] only in jest. People don’t know that I have a sense of humor. In this show, they will finally see that I can be light-hearted and funny.”

His mother’s son

Such feisty remarks prove that Raymond is indeed the son of tempestuous “mommager” Annabelle Rama.

But patriarch Eddie Gutierrez could be equally combative: “I’m proud of my family. We can look anyone straight in the eye because we didn’t steal anything from the country. We worked hard for all the things that we have.”

As expected, the matriarch unleashed a mouthful, alluding to another controversial clan, those beautiful battling Barrettos.

“I am shocked by what’s happening in show biz now, parents fighting with their children,” Annabelle said. “In our family, Eddie and I have the final say. We won’t let our children push us around.

That’s because Eddie and I still work for our own money and we don’t rely on our children.”

Ruffa said, ever so diplomatically, “Each family is unique …

I’d rather mind my own business.” ■

Entertainment

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 36

MTRCB calls representatives of “Unang Hirit” to attend a conference pertaining to Arnold Clavio’s controversial remarks

BY KATHERINE MARFAL-TEVES Philippine Canadian Inquirer AFTER ARNOLD Clavio drew flak from netizens who had watched his phone patch interview with Atty. Alfredo Villamor, alleged pork barrel queen Janet Napoles’ new lawyer, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) has called on the representatives of the GMA 7 morning show “Unang Hirit” to attend a conference on Monday, November 11.

The controversial interview happened on Tuesday, November 5. The veteran anchor’s irritation began when Villamor said that he’s not sure if Napoles will attend the Senate hearings on the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund), saying that he was hired for Napoles’ illegal detention case.

“Eh sino po ba ang dapat naming kau-

sapin dito?” (Then, who must we interview for this matter?) Clavio asked.

But his next statements were just as widely- criticized.

He said irately, “Pasira ka ng araw eh. Tatawa-tawa ka pa!” and “Wala po akong nakuha sa inyo.” (You ruined our day. You are even laughing! I really didn’t get anything from you).

As of posting time, the video of the interview has 14,274 hits.

In a text message to Yahoo Philippines OMG!, MTRCB chair Atty. Toto Villareal said, “We also want to hear the program’s side and how they can selfregulate vs any incident similar to the alleged one.”

Meanwhile, on Thursday, November 7 via “Unang Hirit,” Clavio said he just wanted to shed some light on the issue, but he also expressed his apologies to those who were offended by his remarks. ■

‘Wedding’ ushers in chapter that includes parenthood for Maya and Ser Chief.

PHOTO FROM RUFFYBIAZON.PH

Alice OK with baring more skin for TV role

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer LESS THAN a year after she filed for divorce from her Canada-based husband, actress Alice Dixson admitted she has started dating once again.

The “For Love or Money” lead star, however, remained tight-lipped on the identity of the new guy, and simply let in that he wasn’t from show business.

Alice said she was the type who would “always go for the more stable relationship. I don’t like anything short-term, especially not a one-night-stand. I don’t like to feel like I’ve been used. I want to have a healthy friendship with somebody. I don’t choose a man based on physical attraction.”

Alice married businessman Ronnie Miranda in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, in May 1999. She filed for divorce in Vancouver last December, citing irreconcilable differences. She denied that a “third party” caused the breakup.

Alice plays the rich and beautiful Kristine Almonte in “For Love or Money,” the Kapatid network’s latest weekly drama. Directed by Mac Alejandre, the story revolves around the newly married couple Edward and Roselle Villanueva (played by Derek Ramsay and Ritz Azul).

Conflict arises when Edward, a fashion photographer, meets Kristine, a wealthy older woman who offers to pay P10 million for a chance to spend 10 nights with him.

Younger men

“I personally don’t know a lot of women who have long-lasting and successful relationships with men who are way younger than they are,” Alice shared with the INQUIRER. “But I’m glad that TV5 has finally come up with a show that tells the story of an empowered lady.” www.canadianinquirer.net

Alice added, “If I were asked whether or not I approved of older women dating younger men, I’d say, why not? If a woman enjoys the relationship, if she is happy, and she’s not hurting anybody, then she should go for it. Life is short, after all.”

The former beauty queen, however, said dating younger men was never her thing. “A guy shouldn’t be more than eight years my junior. Also, I would have to see his maturity level. If he is my age but is still immature then I’d definitely get turned off, too.”

Alice gave this advice: “Should these women find themselves at a crossroad in their lives, at a point when they want to get into a relationship with somebody younger, they should also use their heads and not just their hearts.”

Asked how her new beau reacted to her decision to bare more skin, Alice replied, “Wala lang. He knows that it’s part of my job.”

Mature enough

The 44-year-old actress revealed that she agreed to wear a two-piece red swimsuit for the first time in the series.

She explained her decision to go daring: “I think I’m mature enough to handle a sexy role, or wear a bikini on TV. I’ve always been conservative, even after I joined Binibining Pilipinas.” (She won the Binibining Pilipinas-International title in 1986.)

“However, I decided to go for it because the role called for it.”

The actress elaborated: “What do I want to embody? I can say that women, at a certain age, would also like to be told they are beautiful. If they still have it, I think they should flaunt it.”

Good advice

“For Love or Money” airs Thursdays on the Kapatid network’s prime-time block. ■

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

37

Lifestyle

How London school challenged Pin Pals Wanted for the Filipino designer Rockin’ Bowl-O-Rama 2: ‘I felt raw,’ says Roland Alzaté of his stint at Central Saint Martins.

Next week, Look of Style Awards names his 2 lucky successors Bowl For Love

BY ANNELLE S. TAYAO Philippine Daily Inquirer LAST YEAR’S Look of Style Awards grand prize winner Roland Alzaté says he joined the competition “not necessarily to win.”

More than anything, Alzaté just wanted to showcase what he could create, particularly the fabric he had developed with weavers in Kalibo, Aklan, a kind of hybrid piña.

It’s this motivation he hopes to see in this year’s contestants. “I hope the finalists would give it their mightiest best… to compete well-prepared,” says the head fashion consultant of Suyen Corp.

(HerBench). “I believe that you have to give your best in every way you can even if it’s just for your self-fulfillment.”

Since it was started four years ago by Look Magazine, INQUIRER Lifestyle and the British Council, the Look of Style Awards has been gaining prestige because of the opportunity it gives budding designers to gain exposure and access to Central Saint Martins. This is the significant effort of the British Council.

The past winners are Pablo Cabahug, who now has a growing clientele, and Geof Gonzales.

For the first time last year, the Look of Style Awards went on a nationwide search for designer participants.

This year, it has two categories—apparel and accessories.

There will be two winners.

The finalists’ collections will be presented in a fashion show on Nov. 14 at Buddha Bar on Kalayaan Ave., Makati City.

Both winners will receive an all-expense paid trip to the United Kingdom. The winner of the accessories category

will be given the opportunity to enroll in a short course at Sheffield Hallam University in South Yorkshire.

As in previous Look of Style winners, the designer who wins the grand prize in apparel will go to the prestigious Central Saint Martins (CSM) in London, also to take up a short course.

craft.

Shortly after his London stint, Alzaté found himself in Canada, where he presented his first Bench collection and Roland Alzaté collection at the 1st Canada Philippine Fashion Week, held last June.

He’s also in talks with other retail companies abroad.

“I feel much better now when I design. I explore more now rather than just go with everything I get inspired with and draw. I try to look deeper,” Alzaté says. “The experience at CSM made me a lot more explorative.”

Apprenticeship

Short courses

Alzaté spent three months at CSM, from March to May, and in that period took up short courses: Creating New Concepts; Building a Fashion Collection; Designing a Fashion T-shirt Collection; Exploring Your Fashion Design; and Cool Hunting Fashion.

The most difficult course, he says, is Creating New Concepts.

“The class challenged all the rules and standards I have in fashion. I felt ‘raw’ after that class, exhausted,” says Alzaté.

“But I learned so much about ‘getting inspiration’ not directly from fashion, but from life in general, then turning it into a story through fashion.”

Alzaté spent a lot of time outside the classroom as well. He explored museums and galleries, like the David Bowie Gallery and Hayward Gallery. He took time to watch plays such as “Matilda” and “The Lion King,” taking in as much art as he could to further inspire his

Before winning Look of Style, Alzaté won “Weaving The Future,” a design competition by the Fashion Design Council of the Philippines. He has also had a number of highprofile clients, among them Lucy Torres-Gomez and Cindy Yap Yang (McDonald’s Philippines).

He learned about fashion design and business mostly from his two-year apprenticeship under Noel Crisostomo.

“He (Noel Crisostomo) allowed me to play a part in every aspect of the design process,” says Alzaté. He also apprenticed a couple of months for Francis Libiran, who helped him “gain interest on softer fabrics, flirtatious designs.”

Like any fashion designer, Alzaté hopes to become a global icon. He’s even making a list of VIPs he wants to dress—why not? Kate Middleton, Victoria Beckham, actress Rooney Mara, DJ Diplo and Russian designer Ulyana Sergeenko (“She challenges me”) are just some of the names on Alzaté’s list.

“I hope to someday, soon, be a great inspiration for many young designers,” he says. ■

VANCOUVER, BC—Bowlers and non-bowlers alike are invited to the second annual “Rockin’ Bowl-O-Rama” fundraiser.

On Saturday, November 16, starting at 3 p.m., Pinoy Pride Vancouver will host an afternoon of camaraderie and fun at Rev’s Bowling Centre in Burnaby.

Gary Lising, PPV’s Co-Chair, says that Bowl-O-Rama is about celebrating unity and love. “Rockin’ Bowl-O-Rama was started to encourage harmonious relationships in our community. It is important to have inter-community events like these so that fellowship is extended to everyone. What better way to enjoy a Saturday afternoon than to play a friendly game of bowling surrounded by family, friends and LGBTQ supporters.”

With the $25. ticket donation, participants will receive 2 games of bowling, shoe rental, 2 slices of pizza, unlimited pop beverage and free parking.

Players can register as a Team (5 bowlers per team) or Individual. PPV will form teams among the individual registrants.

“We want our guests to have a really good time so we always inject a fun element in all our

events”, adds Stella Reyes, Cochair for Pinoy Pride Vancouver. “This is a costume bowling event and some of the awards that will be given away are “Bong-gacious” Award for Best Team Costume, “Pin Pal Winnerzzz” Award for Top Team score, “La Vidang-vida” Award for Top Individual Score and “Thank You, Girl!” Award for Lowest Score.”

Proceeds will help Pinoy Pride continue its mission of promoting understanding and acceptance within the community. This event will also initiate the group’s fundraising efforts for next year’s Pride Parade.

For tickets and information about attending “Rockin’ BowlO-Rama 2: Bowl For Love,” or to become a sponsor and/or donate raffle items, contact Stella Reyes at (778)865-5982. Info is also available on the Facebook page of Pinoy Pride Vancouver.

Registration deadline is November 12, 2013 by 5pm.

For individuals and groups who wish to donate to PPV’s Pride Fund, here is the account info—Account Name: Pinoy Pride Vancouver, TD Canada Trust Acct. No. 0926-5225916, TR#94630-004. ■

Lifestyle

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 38

LBC kicks off football drive for Mindanao kids There are no competing teams, just a collective passion for the beautiful game and a desire to spread hope in conflict-affected provinces.

DUST OFF your old boots, bring out the jerseys you have outgrown and dig out those old balls and training equipment. With heightened interest in football in the Philippines, a number of humanitarian organizations now see the sport as a tool to transform the lives of marginalized children. The country’s top courier company LBC shares this vision and launches “Drop Off, Kick Off,” a campaign to collect and distribute new or used football gear and equipment to aspiring football players who need it the most, like those in conflict-affected areas in Mindanao and inner city streets of Metro Manila.

Simply drop off new or used football shoes, kits and equipment donations to LBC branches in the USA and Canada.

(Contact www.facebook.com/ LBCFoundation or https:// twitter.com/LBC_Foundation for more information). LBC will then take care of the shipping and turn them over to its partner beneficiaries.

For this project, LBC Foundation is lending support to organizations such as Football for Peace in Mindanao, a program of the Philippine Marine Corps. “Sports competitions are known to erase differenc-

es,” shared Lt. Col. Stephen Cabanlet, in charge of the project.

“Sports, like football, are used as a common ground for people coming from different cultures, regions and religious beliefs.”

Other beneficiaries are Gawad Kalinga (GK) SipaG, Fairplay For All Foundation and the Lipad Project to name a few.

All of these organizations have proven that football can provide a child with the values and life skills that are vital in his or her development such as teamwork, discipline, leadership, perseverance and trust.

“GK SipaG feels that at the core of every great person lies a strong foundation of values such as discipline, hardwork, servitude, and love for others. Teaching these core values through football, GK SipaG looks to bring about positive change among its participants in order for them to lead productive lives,” shares Head of GK SipaG Kevin Goco.

Football can break the cycle of poverty for children like those living around the Payatas dumpsite. “Our vision is to bring the boys’ and girls’ teams for the Philippines to the Street Child World Cup, compete and look to win the competitions, and to prove that there is a future for the kids.” says Roy

Moore, Fairplay For All Foundation Executive Director.

“Being in the business of delivery and courier services, LBC is in the best position to bridge the donors, especially those living overseas, and the organizations that are challenged to find funds to purchase proper shoes, clothes and equipment for kids to play,” says LBC Foundation Operations Head Nena Wuthrich. “Together we can help share the dream of football to these children.”

This campaign is supported by the football community that in-

cludes members of the Philippine Men’s National Football Team and the United Football League, Chieffy Caligdong, Aly Boromeo, Simon Greatwich, Roel Gener and twins Marvin and Marvin Angeles; and from the Philippine Women’s National Football Team or Malditas, Samantha Nierras.

The “Drop Off, Kick Off” campaign runs on the idea of hope and resilience, virtues often displayed in the football field.

As reality shows us the inequity in the country, LBC believes that we can level the playing field for these kids by teaming

up with scattered movements eyeing the same goal—improving the lives of Filipino children through football.

Drop off Kick Off is a project under LBC Foundation’s “Move it Forward” campaign which harnesses the strength and reliability of its core business of shipping and logistics to provide a means to transforming Filipino lives. ■

also one in conducting telethons to raise funds.

Everyone is just helping.

Even government organizations are doing their best to send help to the affected areas. While some would still engage in debates, I believe that majority of the organizations are doing their best to ease the pain and sufferings of our countrymen.

The Department of Health (DOH) has sent medical teams to Tacloban City and other affected areas. Health Undersecretary Teodoro Herbosa said, “The idea is to make the health system function again. Our first goal is to make the hospitals function, especially if they are not structurally damaged.”

The Philippine Medical Association (PMA) has also activated its Doctor on Boats program, deploying a barge with a 1,000-

ton capacity that can carry about 15 10-wheeler trucks to deliver relief items and provide medical assistance.

The Commission on Elections has also lent 700 generator sets to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) to be used as a temporary source of power in the affected areas.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Philippine Red Cross, along with other government organizations had also done its share.

Indeed, the Bayanihan spirit is very much alive.

Even celebrities are doing their part. Anne Curtis organized a garage sale that accumulated more than 300,000 pesos (CAD$8,000) to be donated to “Sagip Kapamilya,” while

Angel Locsin was seen packing relief goods at 1:30 a.m.

Celebrities also pledged their time to answer phone calls through their networks’ telethons. Celebrity basketball tournaments and concerts will also be held to raise funds.

Restaurants are also partnering with some government organizations to raise money, while some of them are holding “dine for a cause” to provide financial assistance to the victims.

International support was also overwhelming; over 22 countries had already pledged financial assistance plus jets to make the delivery of relief goods faster and efficient.

The Vatican has recently pledged $150,000 as emergency aid to the Philippines.

Even kids from the United States had offered their help by

selling lemonade to raise funds for the victims.

For a list of LBC branches please visit www.lbcexpress.com or call 1800-338-5424 (USA) or 1888652-2522 (Canada)

Heroism after...

I was surprised and took me a while to answer him.

I told him that he didn’t need to donate money; if he wants to help, he can just pack relief goods. I even asked him to join me and my group to a warehouse to pack donated goods.

But he was persistent. “Hindi, ibibigay ko pa din yung mga napagbentahan ko. Tulong ko ‘to sa kanila. Wala silang damit, wala silang pagkain. ( No, I will still give all my earnings. It is my help to them. They don’t have clothes; they don’t have food.),” he said ❰❰ 29

United we stand

If there’s one positive thing that is happening in our country now—it must be unity.

Competing corporations are now joining hands to help the victims; rival T.V. networks are

www.canadianinquirer.net

Appeal for more help

Have you already pledged your help?

You can donate clothes, not necessarily old or torn ones. I am sure you can donate some of your new ones. Just imagine the simple joys that it could bring to the victims.

You can pledge money. Any amount you can share will be a tremendous help. But if you can sacrifice not buying a gadget or clothing this month, please do, so you can give more.

You can pledge your time. Go to a warehouse. Line up. Don’t be bothered with the long lines; you will surely have a chance to pack relief goods.

These are just small sacrifices, but it can help our countrymen stand tall again. ■

39 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Strong Community Support for Christmas Fundraiser Inspires CDWCR’s Singing Nannies; Program Includes Tagalog and English Carols, Folk Dances and Pera o Kahon raffle prizes WITH BARELY two weeks before the November 23rd Pasko na Naman CDWCR fundraiser at the UBC Asian Centre Auditorium, the performers at this Philippine Christmas Celebration held their first dress rehearsal on November 10th. The program includes musical renditions by the Rosario Strings, choral singing, duets, solos, Philippine folk dances, a three-piece band, and community singing of popular Christmas carols. Opening the event will be the Honourable Neil Frank Ferrer, the newly arrived Philippine Consul General for British Columbia and the rest of Western Canada. Marieton Pacheco of ABS-CBN’s Balitang Canada will be the master of ceremonies.

“We want the audience to be singing Christmas carols all the way home after the show,” says Kimwell del Rosario, lead violinist of Rosario Strings, who has generously agreed to produce the whole program. Kim has just returned from Manila where he performed at several concerts at the Philippine Cultural Centre. He arranged the music for “The Singing Nannies and Friends,” who will sing the Pasko na Naman Medley of four popular Philippine carols as well as Gabing Tahimik, the Tagalog version of Silent Night. The choral group will also lead the audience in a sing along of such favourites as Joy to the World, Jingle Bell Rock, Feliz Navidad, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

“The Singing Nannies & Friends” are former and current caregivers Carina Alamil, Mary Love Bantique, Cathy Bernabe, Lotis Caluza, Judith Diesta, Cherryl Flores Ramilo, Teresa Ginodepanon, Vivian de Guzman, Ludy Inting, Nora Lagunzad, Rowena Lagunzad, Lorina Serafico, Rose Taruc, Revielynnne Tucay. Their “Friends” are community volunteers Marilyn Cunanan as choral director with Darla Tomeldan and Eleanor Laquian as guitarists.

Featured soloists in the program are Leanne McLaren who will sing What Christmas Means to Me, Lotis Caluza with Himig Pasko, Revielynne Tucay with All I Want for Christmas, Ludy Inting and Mary Love Bantique with Christmas is in Our Hearts and Michael and Leanne McLaren, with Silent Night Lord Make us Worthy and Mary Did you Know. Lotis, Ludy and Mary Love are former caregivers who have “graduated” from the Live-in Caregiver Program. Revielynne, who has been winning prizes in singing contests since

childhood was sponsored by her husband who came as a caregiver. Leanne is the daughter of painter and flamenco dancer, Esmie Gayo McLaren and her husband Michael.

An exciting feature in the program is the popular bamboo dance (Tinikling) and the skillful balancing of drinking glasses on heads and hands in the Binasuan. The folk dancers are Kyla Rose Edejer, Rebecca Banzon, Andrea Banzon, Aimee Jo Fines, Rachel Ambrosio, Macy Santa Elena, Clyde Velardo and Felix Capitulo from the Philippine Cultural Arts Society (PhilCas). Lady Maridel David, John Sanggalang and Homer Reyes, who make up the METRO BAND will perform Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

In line with its fund raising goal, the Christmas celebration includes a 50/50 Raffle where the lucky winner will get 50% of the proceeds from all raffle tickets sold. Tickets for the raffle are 2 for $5.00, 5 for $10, 12 for $20 and $30 by an arm’s length (about 25 to 30 tickets depending on the length of the buyer’s arm). Julie Diesta, CDWCR Coordinator, encourages people to pool their money and “buy tickets by the arm’s length” to maximize their chances of winning. The awarding of door prizes will feature the popular Filipino game of Pera o Kahon (Money or Box) where winners will be asked to choose between a box containing a surprise gift or an envelope with cash or a gift certificate of varying amounts. Mable Elmore, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Vancouver-Kensington will award the prizes.

Strong Community Fundraiser

Support

proved by members of the CDWCR Phoning Tree who tirelessly contacted friends and supporters all over Metro Vancouver. The event was widely promoted with publicity through Melissa Remulla-Briones of Philippine Canadian Inquirer, Ted Alcuitas of Philippine Asian News Today, Erly Juatco of Philippine Asian Chronicle, Cholo Insua of Planet Philippines, Irene Yatco of Philippine Journal, and other Filipino community publications.

The business enterprises that donated prizes or bought space in the Souvenir Program have been included in the list of “Supporters of CDWCR” and individuals who have provided support in cash or in kind are included in the “Friends of CDWCR.” Most telling of the valuable work that caregivers provide the people of Vancouver are the generous contributions from many appreciative donors who had employed them in the past or

for

Officers and members of CDWCR are overjoyed at the generous support for the fundraiser from members of the Greater Vancouver community. The assistance of Ding and Marilyn Cunanan, Mel Tobias and the enthusiasm of the members of ACAT (Anyone Can Act Theatre) were key elements in the early stages of the project. The CDWCR Steering Committee and community volunteers were vital in the planning and development of the program. Artist Leonardo “Jun” Cunanan of Dahong Pilipino (who designed the flyer and Souvenir Program) was greatly involved from the beginning to the end of this campaign.

The sale of tickets was greatly imwww.canadianinquirer.net

currently employ them as nannies or housekeepers.

A l s o at the venue will be paintings with Christmas themes by artists Danvic Briones and Esmie Gayo McLaren. The audience is invited to meet and talk with the artists during the intermission. Twenty percent of sale of artwork from that evening will benefit CDWCR. Major sponsors of the event are the UBC Centre for Southeast Asia Research, the Institute of Asian Research, the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, the Asian Centre, the Philippine Canadian Inquirer, Scotiabank and Times Telecom (PCI, Juan TV and Juan Radio). ■

Business

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 40

Spike in food prices seen following ‘Yolanda’ Bangko Sentral sees muted impact on agricultural output

BY PAOLO G. MONTECILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer CONSUMERS CAN expect a slight uptick in commodity prices this month as a result of damage caused by typhoon Yolanda on key food-producing areas of the country, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.

However, the spike in prices, which may push up overall inflation for November and December, is expected to be temporary given moves of the national government to ensure that the effects of the typhoon is minimized.

“The government has been proactive in its preparation for this typhoon and everything that it brings,” BSP Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo said. “Much has been done, so the impact on rice (prices) might be limited.”

For his part, BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said the central bank was ready to provide assistance to areas where damage caused by Yolanda was greatest.

These measures include “regulatory forbearance (for banks) and liquidity support, as

we have done in the past,” Tetangco told the IN QUIRER. Meanwhile, Guinigundo said that Typhoon Yolanda came after the start of the main harvest season for most farmers.

He said while many farmlands were likely devastated by the supertyphoon, most crops may have already been taken out of the ground.

Guinigundo, who heads the central bank’s

monetary stability sector, said that while the government was able to put measures in place to prepare for the typhoon, damage to infrastructure and agriculture was inevitable.

He said this may cause tight-

ness in the supply of goods that come from the affected areas and are consumed in other places of the country.

“Prices of basic commodities might be pushed somewhat higher, but the impact on whole-year inflation might be muted,” he said.

From amonetary policy standpoint, Guinigundo said the BSP’s inflation target for the year remained intact, indicating that current policy settings remained appropriate despite the expected spike in food prices in the remaining two months of the year.

The amount of money average households spend on food is the biggest component of the inflation “basket” tracked by the National Statistics Office (NSO).

The government, through its monetary policy tools that influence interest rates and the behavior of banks in terms of lending, has an inflation target of 3 to 5 percent for 2013 and 2014. The BSP expects inflation to average 2.8 to 2.9 percent for 2013, before accelerating to 4 percent in 2014. ■

According to a study co-sponsored by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think-tank, TTIP could create as many as 750,000 jobs in the United States. The European Commission estimates it would inject 120 billion euros ($161 billion) yearly into the economy of the 28-nation trade bloc, and lead to hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

“The TTIP would be the cheapest stimulus package imaginable,” the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade said in a report.

Frances Burwell, the Atlantic Council’s director of Transatlantic Relations and Education Programs, said that as well as administering a welcome jolt to the American and European economies, TTIP could estab-

lish health and safety rules that would become standard not just for America and Europe, but for China and other rising economic powers.

“If you look forward, the U.S. and Europe in 20 years will be a smaller part of the global economy. We need to figure out ways to stay competitive,” Burwell said an interview. “And also we need to figure out ways to reinforce the rules that have helped us to be competitive and protect the safety and security of our citizens in terms of the goods they buy, the foods they eat.”

A first round of TTIP talks was held in Washington in July.

Negotiators will return there the week of Dec. 16. At a minimum, the Europeans are hoping to announce results in some areas by 2014. ■

Trade agreement... ment shutdown, was expected to discuss services, investment, energy and raw materials, and regulatory issues.

A deal could include a reduction in tariffs. But negotiators say the biggest boon, to business and consumers alike, could come from trimming the red tape that often makes it difficult to buy and sell across the Atlantic.

One European study has found that dealing with regulations and bureaucracy on the other side of the ocean can add 10 to 20 per cent to the price of an imported item, like a car.

TTIP could make it possible for a vehicle deemed safe for sale in Europe to be sold in the United States, or vice versa, without additional tests or adaptations being needed. ❰❰ 23

www.canadianinquirer.net

Members of... when emergency crews reach areas cut off by flooding and landslides.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said the government is considering activating the Disaster Assistance Response Team to help typhoon victims. The DART is largely a military team that can provide a variety of services such as emergency medical care and clean water. An advance team of officials has been sent to the Philippines to assess whether the DART should be deployed, Baird said Sunday.

As news of the damage continued to worsen, a number of Canadian churches drew together groups of people eager to help support victims of the typhoon in some way.

Ebcas, who witnessed the previous deadliest Philippine storm 22 years ago, urged his congregation to contribute whatever they could to a parish fundraising effort.

“What we need is quick response. Financial assistance will be the number one way of helping our people,” he told reporters outside the Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Parish.

The storm has severed telephone links to many areas, leaving many Canadian Filipinos distressed over what has become of their relatives.

“There is so much to worry about because we cannot communicate with our family back home,” said Toronto resident Josephine Herrera, who came to Canada in 2002.

She said her family home had been damaged and her two sisters were stranded in a central island city, cut off from their children in an area walloped by the fierce storm.

“At this very moment I want to do everything I cannot do because I am far away from them,” Herrera said anxiously.

Nellie Vandht, 50, lives in the Vancouver area, but is originally from Tacloban. She said she has not been able to reach her aunts, uncles and cousins in Tacloban, where her father is also buried.

“They’re gone. They’re wiped off,” she said, fearing the worst.

Vandht said news of the damage has devastated many in Vancouver’s Filipino-Canadian community who were forced to leave their families in the hopes of providing a better life for them while working in Canada.

“We don’t have two, three jobs here just for ourselves, but be❰❰ 18

cause our loved ones are there and they need our help, so we do this,” she said. “That is most difficult, leaving your loved ones there.”

Vandht has joined a local TV show host and a local business owner in organizing a fundraiser on Thursday that will feature tribute artists and a silent auction. All proceeds will go towards the Canadian Red Cross.

Power has yet to be restored after the typhoon unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes and schools.

Minister of International Development Christian Paradis announced Sunday that Ottawa will match each dollar of typhoon aid donated by Canadians to registered charities. The government earlier said it would contribute as much as $5 million to support humanitarian organizations helping typhoon victims.

A massive relief operation is already underway, with some Canadian organizations sending teams to the Philippines.

A four-person rapid response Global Medic crew left Toronto for the Philippines on Sunday, taking with it water purification units and other supplies.

Spokesman Andrew Budziak said the team is going to the devastated central islands with little heads-up knowledge of the scene they’ll find on the ground.

“It’s so hard, even for people in the Philippines, to get an idea of what’s going on,” he said.

“We’re hearing reports of mass graves. But there are still areas in the country that nobody’s been able to reach.”

Meanwhile, Jessie Thomson, the director of CARE Canada’s humanitarian assistance and emergency team said his organization plans to provide immediate essentials like shelter, water and food to communities that have lost everything.

Typhoon Haiyan raced across the eastern and central Philippines this weekend, inflicting serious damage to at least six of the archipelago’s more than 7,000 islands.

It weakened as it crossed the South China Sea before approaching northern Vietnam, where it was forecast to hit land either late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

Canadians needing urgent consular help following Typhoon Haiyan can email sos(at) international.gc.ca or call collect 613-996-8885. ■ With files from Diana Mehta

Sports/Horoscope

41 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

NBA, NBPA make second Vaunted left saves Donaire $250,000 donation to Philippines aid

BY CEDELF P.TUPAS Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Associated Press NEW YORK—The NBA and the NBA Players Association have made a second $250,000 donation toward relief efforts in the Philippines, this time to World Vision.

World Vision said it sent a flight Monday to Manila that included 5,000 blankets and 3,000 tarpaulins to be used to help survivors build temporary shelters following Typhoon Haiyan,

which may have left thousands dead. World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, said there are nearly 400,000 people affected by the disaster.

The NBA has been working with the organization in various efforts in the region since 2009.

T h e NBA and the union made a joint $250,000 donation to UNICEF on Sunday.

Further information is available at http://www.worldvision.org/. ■

ON THE brink of defeat, Filipino four-division world champion Nonito Donaire Jr. turned to his signature punch to stop a rampaging foe and help lift the spirits of a grieving nation.

Trailing on two scorecards with the third a tie, Donaire hammered out a technical knockout victory over Australian-Armenian Vic Darchinyan in the ninth round of their 10 round non-title featherweight clash at American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The US-based Donaire, known as the Filipino Flash, first sent Darchinyan almost crawling out of the ring with the same left hook that knocked him out in their first meeting as flyweights in 2007.

Although the now 37-yearold Darchinyan easily beat the mandatory eight-count, he was never the same.

Donaire was whaling away at Darchinyan, who was trapped in a corner, when referee Laurence Cole stepped in to stop the bout in 2 minutes 9 seconds of the ninth.

“It was the Philippines’ win,” said the jubilant Donaire after the come-from-behind victory that hiked his record to 32-2-0 (21 KOs).

“Thank you Lord for keeping me safe and (with a) sound mind.

(Also for) Helping me see what needs to be done,” he added in his statement posted on Facebook just over an hour after the win.

Donaire, who raised his three-month old son Jarel in the ring after the win, said he finally heeded the call of his corner—which for the first time featured his estranged father Nonito Sr. along with trainer Robert Garcia—to throw more punches in the last two rounds.

Despite a banged cheek that he said would require an X-ray, Donaire finally caught Darchin-

yan on the attack with his vaunted left followed by a right that dropped his foe on all fours.

Although no title was at stake unlike in their first meeting when Donaire wrested Darchinyan’s title, the win was a big career boost for Donaire, whose stature took a nosedive following a loss last April to unbeaten Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux in their world super bantamweight unification title bout.

Darchinyan, who fell to 395-1 with 28 knockouts, jarred Donairewith vicious blows in the early rounds. He kept on punishing Donaire just before the bell rang for every round.

Entering the penultimate round, two judges had Darchinyan winning at 78-74, while another had it even at 76.

In terms of punches thrown, Darchinyan had the edge (259234) but Donaire landed more (80-52) according to figures from Compubox. ■

HOROSCOPE ARIES

CANCER

LIBRA

CAPRICORN

(MARCH 21 - APRIL 19)

(JUNE 22 - JULY 22)

(SEPT 23 - OCT 22)

(DEC 22 - JAN 19)

Because your working life is going well, you might indulge in daydreams in which you’re at the top of the heap, perhaps even famous! This is a good place to start on your path to advancement, but don’t stay there.

Use your practicality to map out a workable course of action. Dreams don’t come true by themselves.

They manifest through planning and hard work.

TAURUS (APRIL 20 - MAY 20) Your mind may be on spiritual or philosophical subjects and considering fascinating new ideas. Some of these may come from faraway lands, which might have you considering travel. Friends or groups may bring these ideas your way or you could present the concepts to them. Take a walk before going to bed or you’ll never get to sleep with all these ideas buzzing through your mind!

Today your mind may be on romance. If you’re married, you’ll grow closer to your partner. If you’re single but involved, the relationship could move to the next level of commitment. If you aren’t involved, expect to meet someone new and exciting. Warm feelings of unity and intimacy could fill your heart. See and accept your partner as he or she is.

You might host a group meeting or other social event. Your guests may be artistically or spiritually inclined.

The evening should be a social success and an inspiring experience. Before they come, make sure everything’s in place and working, from light bulbs to kitchen equipment. You don’t want minor malfunctions to put a damper on the evening.

Today you should feel especially idealistic, imaginative, intuitive, and spiritually inclined. You project an otherworldly aura that attracts more attention, such as admiring glances, than you’re used to.

Love matters should be going well now, as a fairytale atmosphere permeates your life. Enjoy it while you can. You’ll be back to reality in a few days!

LEO

SCORPIO

AQUARIUS

(JULY 23 - AUGUST 22)

(OCT 23 - NOV 21)

(JAN 20 - FEB 18)

You feel wonderful and you’re looking great. Expect to draw some admiring glances! The only downside to this is that you feel stronger than you are. If you try to get too much done today, you might tire yourself out and feel exhausted tomorrow. Eat right, get enough rest, and pace yourself. You’ll still accomplish everything you need to do.

GEMINI

VIRGO

(MAY 21 - JUNE 21)

(AUG 23 - SEPT 22)

If you’ve been thinking about writing, this is the day to get started. Your mind is particularly sharp and your imagination rich. Unusual developments, mostly positive, could take place in your neighborhood. You might not know the facts about exactly what’s going on, and a lot of unfounded rumors could be circulating. Reserve any opinion until you know the truth.

SAGITTARIUS

You might walk around in a romantic, imaginative, spiritual fog with your head in the clouds. Everything may seem perfect and wonderful - perhaps too wonderful to be true. Working with equipment of some kind, perhaps computers or other electronics could help you hang on to reality. You might take this opportunity to train in computer graphics or sound engineering.

PISCES (FEB 19 - MAR 20)

(NOV 22 - DEC 21) Romance might take a front seat in your thoughts today.

You could have some unusual dreams tonight.

They might be romantic or they could prove artistically inspiring, or both. Write them down, for they may reveal new facts about you that could make a difference. Your thoughts about money could sway between confidence and panic.

Don’t lose sight of the facts!

A romantic haze surrounds love relationships. You could be thinking that your romantic partner has stepped out of a fairy tale. Yet even storybook heroes and heroines have flaws - but flaws can be endearing! Your creative energy should be very high. Artistic projects may have an otherworldly quality about them that boosts their quality and impact. Go for it!

Money matters continue to go well, though you don’t feel as secure about them as you should. A previously unsung talent, perhaps for the arts, healing, working with technology, or all three could come to light. You could look into ways to train it. You might want to explore different options.

Your decision might surprise you.

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Romantic notions about friends seem to be the energy driving you today. You might see a longtime friend in a new light as a possible romantic partner. A group could seem to be the answer to all your problems. You could suddenly be convinced that you have the most wonderful friends in the world. An outlook like this can be good as long as you don’t start thinking everyone’s perfect!

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

42

Travel

Tasting lounges about to give Vancouver’s flourishing craft brewers a boost

BY JAMES KELLER The Canadian Press VANCOUVER—About once a week, Scott Greff walks a block and a half from where he lives in Vancouver’s trendy Main Street district, a large glass growler in hand, to a small brewery nestled between an otherwise unremarkable strip of offices, storage bays and autoshops.

Inside the three-month-old tasting room at 33 Acres Brewing Co., Greff can fill up his growler with about two litres of any of the microbrewery’s three different varieties (his favourite is 33 Acres of Life, a hybrid between a lager and ale).

If he isn’t in a hurry, he can grab a glass of beer to stay, like he did on this recent fall evening.

Even on a weeknight, the brewery is teeming with people, either saddled up to the bar or huddled around several tables in a sparsely decorated white-coloured tasting room that has an almost rustic cafeteria feel. Outside, a popular food truck sells fish tacos, leaving an aroma of hops and salsa hanging in the air.

There are countless bars and restaurants just a few blocks away, but instead, Greff is here, sipping on a beer that was brewed in a large production room on the other side of the taps.

“It’s a lot more casual,” says Greff.

“It’s between a coffee shop and a pub. ... And I love the idea of a growler, taking it and getting it to go.”

33 Acres is one of a growing number of microbreweries and distilleries that have opened up in recent years as Vancouver undergoes something of a craft beer renaissance, with more than a dozen operations either open or expected to open soon, largely sprinkled throughout the rapidly gentrifying indus-

33 Acres of Life Brewery.

PHOTO FROM 33ACRESBREWING.COM

trial areas that skirt the city’s downtown core.

And the city’s breweries—not to mention craft beer aficionados—are about to receive a boost, thanks to new liquor laws that will allow them to open full-scale lounges, serving more of their own products on site.

Up until this year, provincial and municipal liquor laws allowed breweries and distilleries to operate scaled-down tasting rooms that allowed customers to give products a try. They could give away all free samples they wanted, but could legally only sell each customer a single 12-ounce glass before cutting them off.

This past spring, the B.C. government updated its legislation to allow so-called tasting lounges, effectively lifting the 12-ounce cap. Municipal governments have been slowly updating their own bylaws to match, but many of the region’s breweries expect to secure their updated liquor licences within

the next few weeks or months.

The City of Vancouver, which finalized its updated bylaws in July, says it expects to eventually hand out at least 15 tasting lounge licences to local breweries and distillers. That total doesn’t include similar operations in neighbouring communities such as North Vancouver and Surrey, which are also following suit.

Josh Michnik, one of the owners of 33 Acres, says there’s something special about getting the beer directly from the people who make it.

“I think it’s going that way in multiple industries, not just craft brewing, but also local foods and local craft distilleries and local clothing—local everything,” he says.

“If people can get their products made by their neighbour, why wouldn’t you?”

About four blocks from 33 Acres, right along Main Street, is Brassneck Brewery. Brassneck opened last month, brewing a collection of complex ales

and porters, and its tasting room has been standing-roomonly since it opened.

Other breweries such as Main Street Brewing Co. and Red Truck Beer, which is relocating to the area with a new brewery and diner, are expected to arrive in the area soon.

Another pocket of microbreweries has sprouted up on the north end of Commercial Drive in the city’s east end, such as Storm Brewing, Parallel 49, Coal Harbour Brewing Co., and Powell Street Brewing, most of which already operate small tasting rooms and hope to take advantage of the new lounge rules. Another, Bomber Brewing, is also expected to open by the end of the year.

Across the water in North Vancouver sits Bridge Brewing Co., which styles itself as a nanobrewery, and Deep Cove Brewers and Distillers, which, as the name suggests, is about to add vodka to its repertoire of beers.

In Surrey, Central City Brew-

ing, which makes the popular Red Racer IPA, recently opened a new 6,000-square-metre brewery and distillery.

The Vancouver-area’s burgeoning craft beer industry has even sparked a new tour company, appropriately named Vancouver Brewery Tours, which organizes three-hour tours that hit up several breweries for $69.

Michael Tod, one of co-owners of Parallel 49, said beer drinkers in Vancouver no longer need to look enviously to cities with more established craft beer industries, such as Victoria, Seattle or Portland.

“It seems like they’re popping up everywhere,” says Tod. “Five years ago, we were 15 years behind Portland, as far as our beer culture. Now, we’ve narrowed that gap considerably.”

The region’s updated liquor laws aren’t just helping beer drinkers. The city also boasts several new distilleries that are making local vodkas, gins and whiskies, and they, too, are hoping to take advantage of the new tasting lounge rules.

One of them is Odd Society Spirits, also located in east Vancouver, which opened last month. Odd Society has enlisted the help of a nearby brewery to create the mash of malted barley and water needed to make hard liquor.

Right now, the distillery can only offer free samples of its vodka (and, eventually, gin and whisky), but Odd Society founder Gordon Glanz hopes to obtain the tasting lounge license next year, serving house-made martinis and cocktails in a room that sits just a few metres from two gorgeous copper stills.

“People come and see how you make the alcohol, but they’re not allowed to sit down and drink it—it’s just a step in the whole process that’s missing,” says Glanz. ■

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

43

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Dining

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 44

DIY BRGR: My Kind of Project

BY CHING DEE Philippine Canadian Inquirer IN THE quest to find the city’s best burger, one doesn’t simple go to a burger joint and order their bestseller. Sometimes, you have to dig deep and search your soul in order to come up with the best burger in town.

That’s exactly the experience that you’re in for when you step in to The BRGR Project—a burger joint that lets you design (and name!) your own burger.

One Sunday evening, I found myself with my favorite eating partner (see: boyfriend duties) at Jupiter Street, Makati, one of The BRGR Project’s three branches.

Right as we let the door slowly swing closed behind us, a bus boy handed us two clipboards and a marker. Now, being a neophyte burgerista (as you may have noticed, I just made that word up), I did not expect such a detailed way of coming up with my own belly stuffer. I just thought we’d come in, look at their stuff, and point at what we like.

So, we sat down at a table and took our sweet time to come up with our own burger masterpiece—a burger reconnaissance, if you will. After about 15 minutes, we’re done. According to their studies, there are 259,200 possible burger combinations at The BRGR Project.

No wonder! In order to come up with your own masterpiece, you have to choose from five kinds of BRGR patty: 100% Angus Beef, 100% beef, Chori, Chicken, and Tofu; four buns: sesame seed, potato (I know, I’m curious, too), oatmeal, brioche; six types of cheese: bleu, mozzarella, gruyere, cheddar, garlic cream cheese, cheese sauce; eight delectable premium toppings: bacon, Canadian bacon, sautéed mixed mushrooms, chili con carne, pepperoni, fried Portobello, caramelized onions, onion rings; ten too-awesome-to-becalled-basic basic toppings: mango salsa, pineapple slices, jalopeno peppers, sliced red onions, sliced white onions, egg, sun-dried tomatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles; and then top your burger with one (or more!) of the eight sauces: wasabi mayonnaise, barbeque sauce, teriyaki sauce, marina-

BRGR by Yobic Arceta My ‘Going Nats’ Burger

Yobic’s NGL’s BRGR

ra, pesto, buffalo wings sauce, special BRGR sauce, and garlic sauce.

I came up with my “Going Nats” burger (as homage to my coffee name: Natalie). To be honest, an accident taught me that barbeque sauce and pesto go really well together. I forgot to erase pesto in my checklist, but it turned out really really good. My creation is a juicy and perfectly tender 100% Angus Beef patty smothered in garlic cream cheese, topped with fresh lettuce and a giant tomato slice, succulently sautéed mixed mushrooms, crunchy and tasty Canadian bacon (like regular bacon, but nicer), and finished off with superb pesto and tangy barbeque sauce with just the right amount of spicy kick to turn “Going Nats” up a notch. A sesame seed bun tried its best to contain all the awesomeness.

I spent more time coming up with it than eating the entire thing. I devoured it with gusto.

What can I say—fate and I make an excellent burger.

Yo decided to name his burger

Ceiling Art

Chili Cheese Fries and Soda Float

NGL’s BRGR (his coffee name is Nigel) and it had 100% Angus Beef patty with garlic cream cheese and cheddar, Canadian bacon, sautéed mixed mushrooms, and their special BRGR sauce. He enjoyed it immensely as well, vowing to come back for another masterpiece of our own. By the way, their special BRGR sauce is like your typical fry sauce: one part mayo, one www.canadianinquirer.net

part ketchup.

We also ordered their soda float (two scoops of creamy vanilla ice cream on root beer) and chili cheese fries (wedges of golden brown spuds doused with their chili con carne and cheese sauce). It’s impossible not to finish your meal when your food is that good!

Like Yo, I vow to come back to The BRGR Project to try their

“Sloppiest Joe,” because that chili con carne is absolutely divine.

Visit The BGRG Project in 38 Jupiter cor Planet Sts., BelAir, Makati; The Grand Towers, Vito Cruz (Pablo Ocampo) St., Malate, Manila; and 122 Maginhawa, Teachers Village, Quezon City. You can also check them out at www.facebook.com/thebrgrproject. ■

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013

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Seen & Scenes

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2013 46

Publisher Philippine Canadian Inquirer Editor Melissa Remulla-Briones editor@canadianinquirer.net

The Singing Nannies with violinist and show producer Kimwell del Rosario (far right) and friends Eleanor Laquian (guitarist), Marilyn Cunanan (choral director) and Darla Tomeldan (guitarist) (far left).

Message for Tacloban from The Singing Nannies THE DEVASTATION wrought by Yolanda has reached Canada and touched some members of the Singing Nannies who are performing in Pasko na Naman, CDWCR’s fundraiser to be held on November 23 at the UBC Asian Centre Auditorium. Here are their messages for Tacloban and the Philippines.

Rose P. Taruc I am very sad [about] what happened to the people in Tacloban. I keep them in my prayers since I heard about this disaster. It’s very heartbreaking for us Filipinos here.

Carina Alamil Sana po ang mga tao ay magbigay ng tulong, lalo na po dito sa Canada dahil hindi po tayo hirap dito. Ang pinaka importante po ay prayer; magtulungan po ang buong mundo. [I hope everyone tries to help, especially here in Canada because we have it better here. What’s important is prayer; for the world to help one another.]

Catherine Bernabe Filipinos are resilient and strong people. Alam ko [I know] we will get through this. Work together, lalo na yung ating politicians [especially the politicians]. Sana yung pagtulong sa ating mga kababayan ay genuine [I hope the help they do is genuine]. Yung mga pondo na dapat para sa ating mg kababayan ay ibigay sa kanila para makabangon ulit [The fund that is for our countrymen should be given to them so they can stand up again].

Teresa Ginodepanon Nandyan yung pagmamahal lagi [That love will always be there].

Keep praying.

Wag mawalan ng pag asa [Don’t lose hope]. Pagsubok lang atin ng Diyos yan [It is just one of God’s trials].

Cherryl Ramilo Sana mabigyan ng suporta ng gobyerno ang mga napinsala. Sana maayos yung mga taong napinsala. [I hope the government gives its support to those who were affected. I hope everything gets better for those who were affected.]

Ludivina Inting Sana naman maaccept nila ang lahat ng pangyayari ngayon. Ang message ko lang sana malakas ang spirit nila. Sana matanggap nating lahat at ipag-pray na maayos din lahat yon. Wag lang mawalan ng pag-asa. Never quit. [I hope they accept everything that’s happening to them right now. I hope their spirit are strong; I hope we can all accept this and pray that everything will be okay; to not lose hope; never quit.]

Judith Diesta Syempre as a Filipino it’s really sad na sunod-sunod pa yung calamities na nangyayari sa Philippines. Kaya nga nung napanood ko sa TV, talagang very shocked ako tapos makikita mo yung mga tao, kung anong nangyayari sa kanila. Yung message ko lang naman na sana matapos na

yung kalamidad na dumarating sa Pilipinas. Nagpapasalamat din ako na maraming tumutulong all over the world; kung meron lang din talaga akong matutulong bakit hindi. So yun lang, tatagan lang nila yung loob nila although alam naman natin, nasa Filipino culture natin yon. [As a Filipino, it’s really sad that calamities have been happening to the Philippines, one after the other. That’s why when I watched it on TV, I was shocked to see the people, they are suffering. My hope is for these calamities to stop. I am thankful that there are a lot of people all over the world who are trying to help out; if only I can help, I would. Strength of heart is my wish for them; resiliency is in our culture.]

Revielynnn Tucay Let’s pray for them, that’s the best thing we can do.

Mary Love Bantique I know our country is facing terrible times right now.

What I can impart are my prayers. In my church, we are gathering any kind of help for the people of Tacloban. Just hold on. Filipinos are very matulungin [helpful] and I know we can surpass this.

Vivian de Guzman Kahit na nasalanta [Even though [you are] severely affected], be strong. We have to do our best para makatulong kahit na konti [to help even if it’s just a little]. If we give a little bit of donation, somebody who needs it will benefit.

For more details on the concert, please see related story on page 39.

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