Philippine Canadian Inquirer #266

m info@canadianinquirer.net

sales@canadianinquirer.net A (888) 668-6059 facebook.com/ Philippine

CANADA’S FIRST AND ONLY NATIONWIDE FILIPINO-CANADIAN NEWSPAPER

CanadianInquirer twitter:

APRIL 28, 2017

www.canadianinquirer.net

@PhilCanInquirer

VOL. 4 NO. 266

President Duterte (center), Philippine and Russian officials pose with clenched fists on the deck of the guided Russian Missile cruiser Varyag which was docked at the Pier 15 in Manila on Friday.

JOAN BONDOC / PDI

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN DRUG WAR

12

Palace hopes complaint in int’l court won’t lead to an investigation

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO, JULIE M. AURELIO, AND LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer MALACAÑANG HOPES the International Criminal Court (ICC) will not listen to confessed murderers and in-

vestigate President Duterte for crimes against humanity over the thousands of killings in his war on drugs.

There is no reason for the information submitted to the ICC by lawyer Jude Josue Sabio to prosper to an investigation, presidential spokesperson Ernesto

SC allows resumption of Torre de Manila construction

16 Why not decriminalize drug use? VP urges gov’t to study Portugal move ❱❱ PAGE 7

❱❱ PAGE 8 Palace hopes

Three ways politics touched Canadians this week

2

APRIL 28, 2017

$0 transfer fee to send money to the Philippines.

Always with CIBC.

With CIBC Global Money Transfer™, you can send money abroad with no transfer fee.* All at a competitive exchange rate. Simply set up a transfer from your CIBC account online, using your mobile device or computer, and you’re on your way to sending money to over 45 countries worldwide. It’s easy and your money will arrive as early as the next day.**

Try it yourself at cibc.com/globaltransfer or visit a CIBC Banking Centre today. *Transfer up to $10,000 CAD with no additional fee. CIBC foreign exchange rates apply. A Global Money Transfer transaction counts toward your allowable transaction limit; bank account transaction fees may apply. Must have a CIBC chequing, savings or personal line of credit account to send a CIBC Global Money Transfer. **Most transfers are completed by the next business day; however, some transfers require 2 to 3 business days to be completed. CIBC Cube Design & “Banking that fits your life.” are trademarks of CIBC. All other trademarks are owned by CIBC.

www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY

Philippine News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

3

Preliminary conference on Marcos poll protest vs VP Robredo set in June

BY CHRISTOPHER LLOYD T. CALIWAN Philippines News Agency MANILA — The Supreme Court (SC) sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) on Wednesday granted the motion filed by former Senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr., to set a definite date for the preliminary conference on his electoral protest filed against Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo.

SC spokesman Theodore Te announced on Wednesday during their en banc session in Baguio City where the high court is holding its annual summer session.

“The PET granted protestant’s (Marcos) motion for the setting of the preliminary conference and has set this case for preliminary conference on June 21, 2017 at 2 in the afternoon, without prejudice to the Tribunal’s resolution of all remaining pending incidents,” the Tribunal said.

Also in the same resolution, the Tribunal said it would conduct the preliminary conference on Robredo’s counterprotest at the same time.

“Considering, however, that Rule 3 of the 2010 PET Rules mandate that the rules are to be liberally construed to achieve a just, expeditious and inexpensive determination and disposition of every contest before the tribunal, the PET has deemed it proper to conduct the preliminary conference of both protests jointly and that the issues raised during the preliminary conference should include issues of the protest and the counter-protest,’ it added.

The resolution also directed both parties to file their preliminary conference briefs with the Tribunal and serve the same on the adverse party at least five days before the date of the preliminary conference.

Further, the Tribunal also requires both parties to file their respective preliminary conference briefs, which contain the following: On Tuesday, the PET denied the petition filed by Robredo seeking reconsideration of its March 21 resolution and directed her to pay the cash deposit as stated in the said resolution regarding the election protest filed by Marcos.

“The PET denied protestee Robredo’s motion for reconsideration of the Resolution dated March 21, 2017 and directed protestee Robredo to pay the cash deposit as stated in the Resolution dated March 21, 2017 within a non-extendible period of five days from notice of Resolution,” the Tribunal said.

In the same order, the high court de-

Vice President Leni Robredo pays courtesy call on President Rodrigo R. Duterte.

KING RODRIGUEZ / MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

ferred action on Marcos’ omnibus motion to dismiss the counter protest until Robredo complies with the directive to pay the deposit.

Last March 21, the PET ordered Marcos to pay PHP66,223,000 for the 132,446 precincts for his election protest against Robredo to proceed.

In its three-page resolution, PET ruled that Marcos should pay PHP36,023,000 on or before April 14 and PHP30-million on or before July 14 while Robredo is required to pay PHP8 million on or before April 14, and PHP7,439,000 on or before July 14.

Last April 17, Marcos went personally to the SC Clerk of Court to pay the first installment.

In an open letter to the PET, Marcos’ friends and supporters said that the second tranche amounting to PHP30 million would be paid on or before July 14.

The total amount would cover the cost for the resolution of Marcos’ election protest against Robredo.

Robredo, on the other hand, was reportedly required to pay the cash deposit in PHP8 million last April 14, which fell on Good Friday, and another PHP7,439,000 on or before July 14.

But Robredo reportedly failed to pay the partial PHP8 million and instead filed a manifestation last April 12.

It will be recalled that Marcos filed an election protest against Robredo in June 2016, contesting 39,221 clustered precincts which are composed of 132,446 established precincts. Robredo, meanwhile, filed a counter-protest, questioning 8,042 clustered precincts which are composed of 31,278 established precincts.

Marcos has assailed Robredo’s plea and asked the PET to dismiss her coun-

ter-protest since she failed to settle the first installment as directed by the Tribunal.

In arguing for the dismissal of the counter-protest, Marcos cited Rule 34

of the 2010 PET Rules which states “if a party fails to make cash deposits or additional deposits herein required within the prescribed time limit, the Tribunal may dismiss the protest or counter-protest, or take such action as it may deem equitable under the circumstances.”

Marcos also cited two decisions in election cases-Perla Garcia vs House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal and Rep. Harry Angping and Bienvenido William Lloren vs. Commission on Elections and Rogelio Pua Jr. in which the SC upheld the summary dismissal of the cases for failure to make the required cash deposits within the prescribed time limit.

Marcos earlier said he decided to file the electoral protest due to the series of frauds, anomalies and irregularities that marred the May 9 elections and that such activities made sure he would lose to Robredo, the vice presidential candidate of the administration’s Liberal Party.

Robredo won the 2016 vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos who got 14,155,344 votes. ■

THE FAITHLIFE FINANCIAL DIFFERENCE

Money, Faith & You You believe faith and finances go together. So do we. Let’s start a new conversation about being wise with money and how generosity is an expression of your faith.

To learn more about blending faith and finances and to receive a FREE copy of YOUR NEW MONEY MINDSET visit faithlifefinancial.ca (while quantities last) Contact one of our Financial Representatives:

RONALDO SISON, FIC rsison@faithlifefinancial.ca

MARY JANE CASTILLO, FIC mcastillo@faithlifefinancial.ca

GERRY CARDENAS gcardenas@faithlifefinancial.ca

GREATER TORONTO

WINNIPEG

GREATER TORONTO

647. 457. 1592

204.227.9652

905.366.3840

FaithLife Financial is a financial services organization that helps Christians blend faith and finances to be wise with money and live generously – strengthening families and communities.

PROTECTING FINANCIAL FUTURES

www.canadianinquirer.net

•

LIVING CHRISTIAN VALUES

•

BUILDING A BETTER WORLD

4

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Christy Clark and her BC Liberals have badly neglected health care for years. That neglect has led to longer wait times for surgeries and too many patients are in hospital hallways.

Seniors care is suffering, yet people at the very top have enjoyed big tax cuts. Christy Clark is not working for you and your family.

Authorized by Amber Hockin. Financial Agent. 604-430-8600

www.canadianinquirer.net

CHRISTY CLARK NOT WORKING FOR YOU.

Photo source: FLICKR, Province of British Columbia

FE CT YO U? HO W AR E HE ALTH CA RE CU TS GO IN G TO AF

Philippine News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

www.canadianinquirer.net

5

6

Philippine News

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

GO

Unlimited Calls, Unlimited talk time to Globe subscribers

60 cents lang per day!

for a 1 year prepaid subscription

NO WIFI NEEDED NO ACTIVATION FEE

For the 1st 1000 Subscribrers

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Sign-up @ www.unli-g.com or Call 1-888-980-8380 Calls can be made to Globe Postpaid and Prepaid, TM, Globelines and bayanPHONE. in partnership with

www.canadianinquirer.net

Philippine News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

7

SC junks Estrada plea to dismiss graft raps over PDAF scam A total of 109 drug surrenderers finished the six-month extensive and wholistic drug rehabilitation program of the Ifugao Reflection Camp.

LIZA T. AGOOT / PNA

Why not decriminalize drug use?

VP urges gov’t to study Portugal move

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer IS DECRIMINALIZING drug use the better alternative to killing drug addicts?

Vice President Leni Robredo suggested on Friday that the Philippines look to the example of Portugal, which made the radical decision of decriminalizing drug use in 2001, leading to lower drug-related deaths and declines in drug abuse among its citizens.

Robredo was the guest at a forum in the University of the Philippines in Los Baños when she was challenged by a student to offer an alternative to the government’s deadly drug war, which has left thousands dead since last year.

She said the government should study the best practices by countries that found solutions to the drug menace, and cited Portugal as a “triumphant” example, according to a transcript of the exchange sent by her staff.

Robredo did not directly propose following the Portuguese government’s policy of decriminalizing drug use, but noted how the European nation dramatically shifted its focus from looking at drug abuse punitively to treating it as a health issue requiring treatment and reintegration.

She contrasted it with the failed drug campaigns by state forces in Latin America, most of which had focused on violent methods.

“If we only study the drug campaigns around the world, we will see that the countries that used violence in combating drugs never succeeded. Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico —these countries used force, they fought fire with fire.

Many lives were lost but they were not successful,” she said in Filipino.

“Who were successful?” she asked the students.

“One of those is Portugal. What did Portugal do? Portugal found a system to combat drugs that was peaceful and orderly. They reformed their laws; they

strengthened rehabilitation [of addicts]; they fixed their institutions responsible for rehabilitating. They were triumphant,” Robredo said.

Portugal decriminalized personal possession of all drugs in 2001.

This did not mean possessing drugs for personal use became legal, but rather, it was considered an administrative violation punishable by fines or community service.

According to the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, Portugal registered lower drug use levels than the European average since the decriminalization policy took effect in 2001.

Drug use also declined among those aged 15-24, the population most at risk of initiating drug use, the UK-based group said in a 2015 report.

“Overall, this suggests that removing criminal penalties for personal drug possession did not cause an increase in levels of drug use,” the foundation said.

It noted, however, that besides decriminalization, Portugal instituted corresponding social and health reforms that aided the new drug policy.

“This tallies with a significant body of evidence from around the world that shows the enforcement of criminal drug laws has, at best, a marginal impact in deterring people from using drugs,” it said.

In the UP forum, Robredo said it was important to learn from the experience of other countries facing drug problems.

“Why don’t we look at the best practices and try them, because we have enough lessons in the past from other countries to determine what works and what doesn’t,” she said.

She said she wished to pursue community rehabilitation for drug dependents.

“Many of those who surrendered were not really drug dependents but occasional drug users. Why don’t we create a program for them?” she said.

Robredo noted how congested Philippine jails were, with more than half of the inmate population incarcerated for drug-related offenses. ■

BY CHRISTOPHER LLOYD T. CALIWAN Philippines News Agency MANILA — The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied with finality the motion for reconsideration filed by former Senator Jinggoy Estrada to junk the graft charges against him filed before the Sandiganbayan in connection with his plunder case involving the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam.

SC spokesman Theodore Te announced the directive during summer session of the magistrates in Baguio City.

“The Court denied with finality petitioner Estrada’s motion for reconsideration of its January 24, 2017 Resolution for not having raised any new and substantive arguments to merit a reconsideration. In the January 24 Resolution, the Court denied the petition for certiorari and prohibition since the Sandiganbayan committed no grave abuse of

www.canadianinquirer.net

discretion in not suppressing the questioned disbursement reports and the testimony of witness Benhur Luy,” Te read the decision.

Estrada pleaded to order the Sandiganbayan 5th Division to dismiss the charges against him for lack of merit.

Estrada alleged that the anti-graft court must junk the graft charges against him in view of his indictment for plunder which is anchored on very same allegations.

He alleged that the Sandiganbayan has committed grave abuse of discretion in denying his plea to dismiss these charges after the anti-graft court issued as resolution dated July 14, 2016 and October 4, 2016.

Recently, the SC en banc junked Estrada’s appeal after he questioned the preliminary investigation conducted by the Ombudsman which eventually indicted him before the Sandiganbayan.

The high court has also junked the petition of Estrada questioning the arrest warrant earlier issued against him. ■

Philippine News

8

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Palace hopes...

Abella told a news briefing in the Palace on Tuesday.

Sabio, a lawyer for confessed Davao Death Squad (DDS) hit men Edgar Matobato and Arturo Lascañas, asked the ICC to investigate Mr. Duterte and 11 other officials for the killings of 1,400 people in Davao during Mr. Duterte’s term as mayor of that city and for the slayings of more than 7,000 people since he launched his war on drugs after taking office as President last June.

The information relies heavily on the Senate testimonies of Matobato and Lascañas, who admitted to being members of the DDS and killing hundreds of people on orders from Mr. Duterte, who formed the hit squad when he was mayor of Davao City. ❰❰ 1

Publisher Philippine Canadian Inquirer, Inc. Correspondents Jane Moraleda Cheng Ilagan Katherine Padilla Deby Mangabat Phoebe Balubar Socorro Newland Bolet Arevalo Gerna Lane Sotana News Anchor Manny Noel Abuel Administration Head Victoria Yong Graphic Designer Shanice Garcia Photographers Angelo Siglos Vic Vargas For photo submissions, please email editor@canadianinquirer.net For General Inquiries, please email info@canadianinquirer.net For Sales Inquiries, please email sales@canadianinquirer.net PHILIPPINE PUBLISHING GROUP Editorial Assistant Christelle Tolisora Associate Publisher Lurisa Villanueva In cooperation with the Philippine Daily Inquirer digital edition Philippine Canadian Inquirer is located at 11951 Hammersmith Way, Suite 108 Richmond, B.C. V7A 5H9 Canada

Email: info@canadianinquirer.net, sales@ canadianinquirer.net Philippine Canadian Inquirer is published weekly every Friday.

Copies are distributed free throughout Metro Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Greater Toronto.

The views and opinions expressed in the articles (including opinions expressed in ads herein) are those of the authors named, and are not necessarily those of Philippine Canadian Inquirer Editorial Team.

PCI reserves the right to reject any advertising which it considers to contain false or misleading information or involves unfair or unethical practices. The advertiser agrees the publisher shall not be liable for damages arising out of error in any advertisement.

Member

Democratically elected

“It would really be deeply disappointing if the court took the word of admitted murderers as the basis for action against a head of state who was democratically elected by a Filipino electorate that want[ed] nothing more than an end to an epidemic that [was afflicting] millions of our countrymen and women, that [was] responsible for a crime wave that [had] been terrorizing many parts of our country for decades,” Abella said.

The submission to the ICC was just “propaganda,” he added.

For the Catholic Church, Sabio’s move gives the ICC an opportunity to take action on the violation of human rights in the Philippines.

Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said the submission of information to the

PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

court was a “very good step” toward an investigation “so that the whole world will know that crimes against humanity, seemingly sanctioned by the government, are being committed in this Christian country.”

Baste expressed hope that the submission to The Hague court would lead to a halt in extrajudicial killings in Mr. Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs.

“It is our hope that this move will inject fear into the hearts and minds of the accused officials so that they will eventually and sincerely put a stop to these merciless killings,” he said.

Headed for dustbin

But Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the Senate committee on public order and illegal drugs, said in a text message that the information was headed for the dustbin if it was based on the testimonies of “perjured witnesses.”

Matobato and Lascañas testified to separate Senate inquiries on the DDS killings in Davao but the senators set

aside their accounts for having no probative value.

Matobato’s testimony was thrown out by the justice committee headed by Sen. Richard Gordon—one of the 11 allies of Mr. Duterte sought to be investigated by the ICC—after it was learned that he had been charged for the kidnapping and murder of a Pakistani whom he had claimed was a DDS target.

Lascañas confirmed the existence of the DDS in his testimony to Gordon’s committee last October, but turned around in January and, testifying to Lacson’s committee, claimed Mr. Duterte formed the death squad and ordered the killings.

Lacson said he doubted the ICC would investigate Mr. Duterte, as the international court would take the case only if Philippine courts were unwilling or unable to prosecute the people charged for the killings.

The ICC accepts cases from individuals, nations or the United Nations Security Council. ■

ERC chair accused of more irregularities

BY MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer THE CHAIR of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Jose Vicente Salazar, may have to face his battles alone after the four commissioners of the agency tasked with regulating the power industry on Thursday brought a complaint against him to the Civil Service Commission (CSC).

In a joint affidavit, ERC Commissioners Alfredo Non, Gloria Victoria Taruc, Geronimo Sta. Ana and Josefina Patricia Asirit accused Salazar of violating laws and policies by arbitrarily designating individuals to career positions in the ERC, among them his first cousin.

“As can be gleaned from the foregoing, the charges against ... Salazar clearly involve dishonesty, oppression and grave misconduct,” the commissioners said in a 17page complaint.

Suspension

The commissioners asked the CSC to

hold Salazar administratively liable and to suspend him pending the investigation of their complaint.

“After all that has been said and done, the commission merely wants to promote good governance and checks and balances within the ERC,” they said.

“And we sincerely believe that this could be achieved if the policies of the agency, including the management thereof, could be shared by all members of the commission,” the commissioners added.

Salazar, a former justice undersecretary, has been blamed for the death of ERC director Francisco Villa Jr., who killed himself in November last year supposedly because the ERC chair had been pressuring him to approve graftladen supply contracts.

Wthout concurrence

President Duterte threatened to abolish the ERC after Salazar’s refusal to quit his post following Villa’s death and despite several allegations of corruption.

www.canadianinquirer.net

In their complaint, the commissioners said the ERC chair made “irregular appointments” and promotions of personnel in the agency without the concurrence of the five-member commission.

Key posts

They said Republic Act No. 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act, which created the ERC, clearly stated that the authority to designate the agency’s executive director and other officials was vested in the entire commission and not in the ERC chair alone.

Worse, the commissioners claimed Salazar named personnel to key posts in the ERC despite their failure to meet the minimum requirements set by the civil service law.

Among those designated by Salazar was his cousin, Esteban Lorenzo Jose Riva, who was concurrently appointed as head executive assistant and officer in charge of the agency’s finance service. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

9

Nobleza, Dongon undergo tactical interrogation at Camp Crame

BY PERFECTO T. RAYMUNDO Philippines News Agency MANILA — Supt. Maria Cristina Nobleza and her alleged boyfriend Reener “Ren Ren” Dongon, a suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), are now undergoing tactical interrogation at the Philippine National Police (PNP) National Headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

The two suspects arrived in Camp Crame at about 10 a.m.

Tuesday from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 in Pasay City.

Nobleza and Dongon left

Tagbilaran City, Bohol at 8 a.m.

Tuesday onboard a commercial flight.

They were immediately taken to the PNP Directorate for Intelligence headquarters in Camp Crame.

Nobleza wore a checkered blue polo while Dongon wore a black polo T-shirt.

She was among those arrested in a checkpoint in Bohol for allegedly attempting to rescue an ASG member who was wounded in an encounter in Clarin, Bohol.

Nobleza was suspected to be a conspirator and protector of ASG bandits.

Menahile, the PNP is determining whether Nobleza’s hus-

band is indeed the country’s current police attache in Pakistan.

Nobleza confirmed to Dela Rosa that her husband is returning to the country.

Dela Rosa confirmed that Nobleza was assigned in the intelligence group, but she is not a “deep penetrating agent (DPA)”.

Authorities raided the house of Nobleza in Malaybalay, Bukidnon on Monday night where various firearms, bomb components and documents were recovered in connection with the alleged plans of terroristic activities of the ASG bandits.

A certain Al Mohammar and

Leila lauds ‘brave’ cops for speaking up on killings

BY JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE Philippine Daily Inquirer

ded in the national police force as the vigilante death squad of the President is only the logical action coming out of Duterte’s policy of summary executions in Davao, and how this can be transplanted to the national stage once he has adopted said policy at the national level when he became President,” De Lima said.

The senator lauded the members of the PNP who were interviewed by the news agency for attesting to the allegation that extrajudicial killings are state-

and congressional allies,” De Lima said.

She expressed hope that the truth would come out about “how a President took hold of a DETAINED SEN. Leila de nation’s consciousness to proLima on Saturday renamed the mote social cleansing as a final so-called Davao Death Squad solution to the nation’s prob(DDS) to the “Presidential Death lems, the same way Hitler hypSquad” even as she predicted the notized the German people.” end of the vigilante group after “Let us learn from history policemen have been coming and know that final solutions forward to reveal its activities. that consist of state-sponsored “The secrecy that shrouds murders in massive scale, even the nationwide operations of if not in Holocaust proporthe Davao Death tions, can only Squad, now lead to the detransformed into struction of a the Presidennation’s social, tial Death Squad Human rights is universal. It is not a moral and culof President fashion statement. tural fabric. Now Duterte, will not that evidence of last for long. Althis continues to ready, brave and surface, we must honorable men of the PNP are sponsored and are carried out ask ourselves if we want to go breaking their silence to tell the on orders of the President. on supporting the carnage,” she world the truth behind the as“With DDS insider testimo- said. sassins and killers spawned in nies coming from former DDS “Human rights is universal.

Davao’s underbelly,” De Lima members Arturo Lascañas and It is not a fashion statement. said in a statement from the Edgar Matobato, as well as con- Sooner or later, the judgment Philippine National Police cus- firmation coming from PNP of- of history of how we treated our todial center in Camp Crame. ficials, there ought to be no lon- fellow human beings, whether The senator issued the state- ger any doubt that there exists we fought for them or cheered ment in reaction to a Reuters an international criminal case on their slaughterers, will catch special report on April 18 based for crimes against humanity up with us. When that time on an interview with members against the President, his PNP comes, we must make sure we of the PNP. Chief and commanders, and are standing on the side of jus“That the DDS is now embed- high ranking cabinet officials tice,” De Lima said. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Acting provincial police director Sr. Supt. Henry Biñas discusses the peace and order situation in Negros Oriental as he urges barangay captains, law enforcers and civil authorities to be on the lookout for suspicious personalities in their communities.

PNA

two minors were inside Nobleza’s house when authorities conducted the raid.

Policemen also raided No-

bleza’s temporary residence in Panglao beach in Bohol where bomb-making materials were also recovered. ■

SC to hold special en banc session for Bar Exam results deliberation on May 3

BY CHRISTOPHER LLOYD T. CALIWAN Philippines News Agency MANILA — The Supreme Court (SC) set for May 3 the special en banc session to deliberate on the results of last year’s Bar examinations.

This was bared by SC Public Information Office through their Twitter account on Wednesday.

The special session usually deliberates on whether to maintain or adjust the passing grade.

“The SC will hold a special en banc session to deliberate on Bar 2016 results on May 3, 2017.

Results will be released thereafter,” the SC PIO (@SCph_ PIO) said.

A total of 6,831 law graduates took most grueling Bar examination in November last year at the University of Sto. Tomas facilitated by the high court’s committee on the 2016 Bar exams chaired by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.

Of this, 3,317 are first-time examinees while 3, 514 are retakers.

The Bar exams covers eight subjects - Political Law, Civil Law, Taxation, Labor Law, Criminal Law, Remedial Law, Mercantile Law and Legal and Judicial Ethics.

In the 2015 Bar exams, a total of 1,731 passed, representing 26.21 percent of the total of 6,605 takers.

A graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Law topped the 2015 Bar exams with a rating of 87.4 percent.

The SC lowered the passing rate from 75 to 73 percent in the 2015 Bar exams.

In the last 10 years, the highest passing rate was during in the 2011 Bar exams with 31.95 percent of 5,987 examinees passed or a total of 1,913.

The exam was held for several years at the De La Salle University campus in Taft, Manila but the SC decided to move it to the UST in 2011 after DLSU ended its contract due to several construction activities in that year. ■

10

Philippine News

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Institutionalization of 4Ps pushed House leaders

BY AZER N. PARROCHA Philippines News Agency MANILA — A Senator on Tuesday urged his colleagues anew to pass a measure that seeks to turn the anti-poverty strategy Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps) into a law for the benefit of poor Filipino families.

The 4Ps, under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), is an intervention which gives conditional cash transfer (CCT) to the “poorest of the poor” Filipinos.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara made this call noting that poor Filipino families would suffer if the 4Ps may be discontinued should the next administration

decide to scrap it.

“The program may be subject to discontinuance by future administrations, despite its promising results in reducing poverty and promoting human capital development,” Angara said.

Angara stressed that there is a need to institutionalize the 4Ps through legislation to sustain its success, particularly in addressing the needs of the poor.

Under Senate Bill 310 titled “Institutionalizing the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to Reduce Poverty and Promote Human Capital Development”, Angara seeks to institutionalize 4Ps and mandate its continued implementation.

His also provides loan assis-

tance for those who will be able to complete the entrepreneurship and/or livelihood training programs.

The senator noted that at present, the 4Ps is a mere policy program that can easily be stopped by any administration in the future.

Citing various studies, Angara said that 4Ps reduced the total poverty and food poverty among its beneficiaries by up to 6.7 percentage points. Meanwhile, estimates had shown that the program reduced both total poverty and food poverty by up to 1.4 percentage points in 2013 at the national level.

As of August 2015, there are about 4.4 million active household-beneficiaries, which include some 10.2 million schoolchildren aged 0 to 18. ■

LRTA provides certificates to passengers affected by derailed trains

BY AEROL B. PATENA Philippines News Agency MANILA — The Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) will provide certificates for commuters who will be affected by breakdown of trains in the Light Rail Transit (LRT) system.

The LRTA said this is part of efforts of government to address the recent incidents of derailment of trains in the major railway systems in Metro Manila particularly the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3).

The agency, in its letter to Department of Transportation (DOTr) Undersecretary for Railways Cesar Chavez, explained that the certificates to be given to employees who regularly ride the LRT will ask employers not to deduct their salaries in the event they will be late for work due to delays caused by malfunctioning trains.

The LRTA maintains a record on incidents of train derailment which will become the basis for the granting of the delay certificates.

He urged commuters to visit train stations or call hotline

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade (center).

8888 to claim their delay certificates.

Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) has given Busan Universal Rail Inc. (BURI), the maintenance provider of MRT-3, seven days to explain the derailment of one of its trains last week or face cancellation of its contract.

DOTr Usec. Chavez served a notice to BURI a day after the derailment, which happened after the passengers got off at the MRT North Avenue Station in Quezon City.

The train’s gearbox reportedly snapped causing the train

PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

to slip off the tracks.

Meanwhile, Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta (PBA) Partylist Rep. Jericho Nograles urged the House of Representatives to investigate the incident as he claimed the MRT-3 management and BURI deliberately hid the derailment from the public.

House Resolution (HR) 487 calls on the transportation committee headed by Catanduanes Rep. Cesar Sarmiento to question MRT officials and maintenance provider Busan Universal Rail, Inc. (BURI) about its substandard services. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

slam complaint vs Duterte before ICC

BY FILANE MIKEE CERVANTES Philippines News Agency MANILA — Two leaders of the House of Representatives on Tuesday criticized the filing of a case against President Rodrigo Duterte before the International Criminal Court (ICC), dismissing it as another attempt to discredit the government.

House Appropriations Committee chair and Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles said the complaint, which was filed by self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato’s lawyer Jude Sabio, is part of a “ploy” to put the President in a bad light before the international community.

Nograles pointed out that the complaint has no “real legal basis” and “bereft of any hard evidence” for the prosecution of President Duterte over crimes against humanity.

“The case filed against the President in the ICC, as most Filipinos know, is the latest step in the destabilization plot against the Duterte administration. This is complete waste of time because any lawyer would say there is no basis to prosecute the president for alleged crimes against humanity,” Nograles said.

The Davao City lawmaker said the objective of the filing of the case is to topple the Duterte administration and generate sympathy to weaken the Chief Executive’s “overwhelming popular support”.

Nograles said the ICC has no jurisdiction to prosecute the President because existing Philippine courts remain “very credible and functional”.

“The legal and judicial system in the Philippines is functional and equipped enough to deal with the complaints. It’s not as if we are so helpless and powerless a state that we need the ICC to come in and acquire jurisdiction over us,” he explained.

For his part, House Dangerous Drugs Committee chair and Surigao del Norte Rep. Ace Barbers dismissed the complaint as a “propaganda for self-aggrandizement.”

“The International Criminal Court complaint is nothing more but an attempt to grab the headlines and enjoy his three minutes of fame at the expense of President Duterte and Speaker Alvarez and all other accused,” said Barbers.

Barbers noted that the complaint is “bereft of merit” and insufficient in evidence considering that there is no direct link proving that the President committed the crimes being charged against him.

“Atty. Sabio offered as evidence the findings of the Human Rights Watch, one that is not even a fact-finding body,” Barbers added.

The Surigao del Norte solon said that despite plots to besmirch the current administration ahead of the country’s hosting of the ASEAN Summit, Duterte still enjoys solid public support and his reputation is as “solid as the Rock of Gibraltar”.

Sabio filed a 77-page complaint against the Chief Executive and 11 senior government officials before the ICC on Monday, accusing them of crimes against humanity through administration’s aggressive campaign against illegal drugs.

Sabio, in his complaint, cited the similarities in the drug war when Duterte was mayor and now as president including police participation, element of hitman, reward system for killing, reward in cash, a kill list, among others.

Aside from Duterte, also charged for violating different provisions of the Rome Statute, to wit: Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre; Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa; Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez of the House of Representatives; Former Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno; Police Superintendent Edilberto Leonardo; Senior Police Officer 4 Sanson “Sonny” Buenaventura; Police Supt. Royina Garma; National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Dante Gierran; Solicitor General Jose Calida; Senator Richard Gordon and Senator Alan Peter S. Cayetano. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

11

Arroyo blames Aquino for China island-building

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer

Sea dispute at the launch of the veteran lawyer’s “primer” on the Philippines’ maritime area, which tackles mainly Republic Act No. 9522, passed by Congress during the Arroyo administration, defining the country’s archipelagic baselines.

Arroyo said China did not protest the Philippines’ baselines, which in effect defined the country’s sovereignty over these areas, except Panatag Shoal (international name: Scarborough Shoal) and the Kalayaan group.

Mendoza said there was “relative quiet and peace” in the South China Sea during the Arroyo administration.

strategic direction should be to emphasize our economic relations and transcend to the extent that we can matters and issues between us.”

In 2013, the administration of President Benigno Aquino III challenged China’s claim to almost all of the South China Sea at The Hague tribunal.

THE CAMP of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Thursday accused the Aquino administration of “provoking” China into building artificial islands in the South China Sea by submitting the territorial dispute between the Duterte’s strategy two countries to international The tribunal handed down arbitration. a decision on July 12 last year, Speaking at a news conferruling that China’s claim had no ence with Arroyo and her forbasis in international law and mer executive secretary, Eduthat it had violated the Philipardo Ermita, lawyer Estelito pines’ right to fish and explore Mendoza said China had cateresources in the West Philipgorically stated that the Philippine Sea, waters within Mapine case in the nila’s 370-kiloUN-backed Permeter exclusive manent Court economic zone of Arbitration in the South Chiin The Hague It’s hard when you carry a heavy na Sea. had provoked it burden. But maybe God is telling me President into building arto go back to him and I should stand Duterte, a selftificial islands, by it. styled socialincluding on a ist who came to shoal in the Kaoffice last year, layaan Island upended PhilipGroup in the Spratly archipel“Now what is catching atten- pine foreign policy by refusing ago. tion not only of the countries to assert the country’s victory Three times, Arroyo, in a bordering the South China Sea and instead making friendly naughty tone, emphasized that is practically [the] continu- overtures to China and Russia the artificial islands were built ing tension in the South China while steering the Philippines

by China “during the previous Sea, the posturing of the naval away from the influence of its administration.” might of the US, China and oth- longtime ally the United States.

“In effect we were fighting in er countries that did not exist Arroyo and Ermita also deThe Hague. Maybe we are win- during the Arroyo administra- fended the defunct—and conning in The Hague. But China tion,” he said. troversial—Joint Maritime made it a point that they were Arroyo said she was briefed Seismic Understanding, saying winning in the waters of the by government agencies like it was a research effort in the South China Sea. That would the National Security Council South China Sea by the Philipnow be the most difficult prob- (NSC) and the National Map- pines, China and Vietnam that lem of President Duterte, the ping and Resource Information did not affect the countries’ islands built during the Aquino Authority on the South China claims in the disputed wateradministration,” Mendoza said. Sea on Wednesday. way.

Arroyo also defended Mr. Mendoza ‘primer’ Strategic direction Duterte’s actions and stateArroyo—who now holds the She said that at the NSC meet- ments in dealing with the terseat of the second district of ing in Malacañang last year, ritorial dispute between the Pampanga in the House of Rep- attended by all former Presi- Philippines and China. resentatives—Mendoza and Er- dents, she emphasized that “as “He knows what he’s doing,” mita tackled the South China far as China is concerned, our Arroyo said. ■

www.canadianinquirer.net

GIL NARTEA / MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

LP slammed for ‘playing it safe’ on impeachment

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer A MINORITY congressman on Saturday taunted the Liberal Party (LP) lawmakers who declared they would not support any impeachment complaint against both Vice President Leni Robredo and President Duterte, saying it was a case of the Liberals “waving the white flag.”

ABS Rep. Eugene de Vera said the 15 LP lawmakers led

by Deputy Speaker Miro Quimbo were only playing it safe, knowing LP did not have the numbers should the Dutertecontrolled supermajority decide to impeach Robredo, LP’s nominal leader.

“The stand of the Liberal Party not to support impeachment cases either against President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Leni Robredo is a safe political strategy on the part of the LP to let VP Robredo stay in office,” said De Vera, a deputy minority leader.

An impeachment complaint would require at least one-third votes, or 98 votes in the 292seat House of Representatives, before it is transmitted to the Senate, where the respondent would be tried by the senators sitting as judges.

“It will be next to impossible that the LP can amass the said re-

quired votes with only 32 memberships and half of it aligned with the majority,” he said.

On the other hand, the President’s ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) and its allies “can easily muster the one-third votes for the impeachment of Vice-President Robredo,” De Vera said.

“Both PDP-Laban and LP are not blind to these sentiments in the lower chamber. With LP adopting this stance, it appears to wave the white flag,” he said.

Quimbo on Friday said 15 Liberals belonging to the majority coalition met with Robredo on Thursday, during which they reached a consensus to block the attempts to impeach the “leaders of the land.”

The Liberals also reassured Robredo of their support after she came under fire from Mr. Duterte’s allies following her submission of a video clip to a United Nations side meeting criticizing the government’s drug war last month.

Administration allies, including Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, were incensed by Robredo’s move, setting in motion at least two bids to impeach her.

Mr. Duterte meanwhile is facing an impeachment complaint over the drug war and the alleged mishandling of the South China Sea dispute. ■

12

Philippine News

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

SC allows resumption of Torre de Manila construction

BY CHRISTOPHER LLOYD T. CALIWAN Philippines News Agency MANILA — The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday allowed the resumption of the construction of Torre de Manila condominium owned by the DMCI Project Developer Inc. located near Luneta Park.

SC spokesman Theodore Te announced the directive during summer session of the magistrates in Baguio City.

In a 9-6 vote, the SC lifted the temporary restraining order (TRO) it issued in June 2015 against the construction of the building and dismissed the petition of the Knights Of Rizal (KOR) seeking the demolition of the building for supposedly ruining the view behind the monument of national hero Jose Rizal in Luneta Park.

The SC ruled that there is no law prohibiting the construction of the building and also rejected the argument of KOR that DMCI violated several laws mandating the protection and preservation of the Rizal Monument by defacing the visual corridors of the monument.

“The Court dismissed the petition for mandamus for the reasons that the Court has no jurisdiction over the subject matter, the petitioners have no standing to sue and they stand to suffer no injury. Furthermore, the Court also found that there is no law that prohibits the construction of the challenged Torre de Manila. As a consequence of the judgment rendered today (Tuesday), the temporary restraining order issued by the Court is lifted,’ Te read the decision penned by Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.

Those who voted to allow the violated by DMCI. resumption of the condominThe group also noted that ium’s construction are Chief the Rizal Monument has been Justice Ma. Lourdes P.A. Sere- declared as a National Cultural no, Associate Justices Carpio, Treasure and as such is entitled Presbitero J. Velasco, Jr., Lucas to the full protection of the law.

P. Bersamin, Mariano C. Del It will be recalled that the SC Castillo, Bienvenido L. Reyes, held oral arguments on the case Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe, Mar- in August 2015 and submitted vic M.V.F. Leonen, and Noel G. it for resolution but it took the Tijam. justices nearly two years before Those who opposed the con- it finally resolve the case. struction are Associate Justices The project’s developer has Teresita J. Leonardo-De Cas- repeatedly asked the SC to tro, Diosdado M. Peralta, Jose resolve the case and lift the C. Mendoza, and Alfredo Ben- restraining order it issued in jamin S. Caguioa and Samuel R. June 2015 that prevented the Martires. For his part, Associ- completion of the building, sayate Justice Francis H. Jardeleza ing they are suffering losses and are no provisions in Republic filed separate dissenting opin- damages to third parties, espe- Act 10066 or the National Culion. cially the buyers of units in the tural Heritage Act of 2009, RA With thus ruling, the Con- condominium.

4846 otherwise known as the sunji-owned DMCI Project DeThe company said it has al- Cultural Properties Preservaveloper Inc. can now continue ready spent PHP1.28 billion for tion and Protection Act and with the construction of the the construction of the build- Republic Act No. 7356, the law 49-storey building. ing and will stand to lose about creating the National CommisThe petition sion for Culture was filed in Sept. and the Arts 2014 while the that protect the SC held oral arbackground or guments on the It’s hard when you carry a heavy backdrop of any case in August burden. But maybe God is telling me historical or cul2015. to go back to him and I should stand tural property.

The KOR arby it.

Sought for gued that DMCI a comment, acted in bad faith DMCI Homes and violated zonwelcomes the ing ordinances of the city gov- PHP4 billion in capital invest- fair and just decision of the Suernment of Manila aside from ments and unrealized profits if preme Court. existing guidelines on monu- the case is not resolved and the “Moving on, we will immements when it proceeded with TRO is not lifted sooner. diately resume construction to the construction of the controIt also argued that contrary to finally end the undue suffering versial building. the view espoused by petition- of our stakeholders, most espePetitioner had cited Republic er, government heritage agen- cially our workers and future Act No. 4846 (Cultural Prop- cies have no jurisdiction over residents who depended on our erties Preservation and Pro- the building since it was built commitment to complete the tection Act), Republic Act No. on private property outside of project,” DMCI said in a state7356 (law creating the National the Rizal Park or any heritage ment.

Commission on Culture and zone, and that the Rizal MonuDMCI Homes also said it will the Arts) and Republic Act No. ment was declared a national immediately advise its custom10066 (National Cultural Heri- cultural treasure one year after ers and future residents on the tage Act of 2009 or an Act Pro- the developer obtained all gov- updated construction timeline viding for the Protection and ernment permits and started since the initial target compleConservation of the National building. tion date has been critically Cultural Heritage) as the laws It also explained that there affected by the long-standing

www.canadianinquirer.net

HARIBONEAGLE927 / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

TRO. The company vowed to continue its thrust of providing quality homes to address the need for mid-income housing and urban renewal in the City of Manila.

For its part, the KOR respects the decision of SC on the Torre de Manila issue.

“The Order of the Knights of Rizal respects the decision of the Supreme Court on the Torre de Manila issue. We thank the public for carrying this issue with us and for making the same as a test case for Philippine Heritage for whatever the outcome would have been.,” the KOR said in a statement.

“The public support that was expressed in favor of our stand was an indication not only of the importance of the National Monument but also to the continued relevance and reverence our National Hero, Jose Rizal still enjoys. Beyond this, may we preserve the value of our National Cultural Treasures and remain to live the Rizal Way,” the KOR added. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

13

Danding’s bid to dismiss case junked

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer BUSINESSMAN EDUARDO “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. lost his petition to the Sandiganbayan to dismiss the threedecade-old civil forfeiture case seeking to recover the windfalls he allegedly made from “behest loans” under the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship.

In an 11-page decision promulgated on April 18, the graft court’s Second Division threw out for “lack of merit” Cojuangco’s May 2015 motion to dismiss

the civil case lodged against him by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was tasked to recover billions of pesos in ill-gotten wealth.

In his motion, the San Miguel magnate and Marcos crony had invoked his right to a speedy trial, arguing that the case had been pending for 28 years with little progress as a result of delays on the prosecution side.

“There is a clear intent—nay, inability—to prosecute the present case. Still, all these years, the case has continuously been hanging over the heads of defendants like the sword of Da-

mocles,” his motion read in part.

But in the decision penned by Associate Justice Michael Frederick Musngi, the court said Cojuangco failed to establish that there had been a violation of his constitutional right to a speedy disposition of the case.

An examination of the arguments of both parties revealed that “there were no vexatious, capricious and oppressive delays in the proceedings of the subject cases,” the court said.

“The plaintiff did not deliberately delay proceedings in this case but only exercised its legal remedy of filing the motions”

seeking partial judgment of the case, it added.

The court said Cojuangco had also failed to raise his right to a speedy trial “in a timely manner,” and was thus deemed to have waived it.

Finally, the Sandiganbayan ruled that both the plaintiff—in this case the people of the Philippines—and the defendant were prejudiced by the delay.

“Jurisprudence dictates that individual rights do not preclude the people’s right to public justice,” it said.

This was not the first attempt on Cojuangco’s part to have the

cases resolved and junked. He filed motions to dismiss in 2001 and in 2005, but both were denied in 2013.

Under Civil Case No. 0033, Cojuangco stands accused of securing loans from state-run banks for his businesses under the Marcos regime. He was one of several former business associates of the late dictator sued by the PCGG. The former Tarlac governor and congressman, an uncle of former President Benigno Aquino III, had sought to dismiss the civil case, which over the years had branched into eight complaints. ■

China drives away Pinoys from Spratlys Lawmaker urges DFA to file a strong protest against China for firing warning shots to drive away Bataan fishermen from Union Bank in the heavily disputed Spratly archipelago

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer A CONGRESSMAN on Thursday urged the government to file a strong diplomatic protest against China for firing warning shots to drive Filipino fishermen away from Union Bank, in the heavily disputed Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea. Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano, who has filed an impeachment complaint against President Duterte for his defeatist stance in the South China Sea dispute, urged the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to demand an explanation and an apology from China for the incident.

In a statement, Alejano condemned “in the strongest terms” the “aggressive acts” of the Chinese Coast Guard, which reportedly fired warning shots to prevent the Filipinos from fishing in Union Bank.

Within PH economic zone

One of five regions in the Spratly archipelago, Union Bank is located 230 kilometers west of the Philippine coast, well within the country’s 370km exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Alejano said.

A large, drowned atoll in the center of the Spratly archipelago, Union Bank has about 20 reefs whose ownership is disputed by China, the Philippines

and Vietnam. land, who had been encouraged China claims almost all of the to report to police or Coast South China Sea, parts of which Guard officials. are also claimed by Brunei, MaAlejano said the actions laysia, the Philippines, Vietnam of the Chinese Coast Guard and Taiwan. “constitute[d] a violation of our China occupies Union Bank, sovereignty and territorial inand has built artificial islands tegrity that we must all protect on three of the reefs there, all and defend.” claimed by the Philippines— The incident warrants a Mabini Reef (internation- strong response from the Phil- About 50 persons join the tour of the Russian guided missile cruiser "Varyag," ally known as Johnson South ippines, he said. which is on a goodwill visit to the Philippines, as it opened its doors to the Reef ), Gavin Reef (Gaven Reef ) Alejano urged the DFA to public. and McKennan Reef (Hughes “file a strong diplomatic protest JOEY O. RAZON / PNA Reef ). against China and demand an Television reports on explanation and [an] apology” Robespierre Bolivar said in a China rejected the ruling, inWednesday said the Chinese for the incident. statement on Thursday. sisting it had “undisputed sovCoast Guard drove away Fili“Once and for all, let us assert Bolivar gave assurance that ereignty” over the South China pino fishermen from Mariveles our rights by concrete actions once it had confirmed the re- Sea but offering a settlement town, Bataan province, from … Otherwise, other countries, port, the DFA would raise the with its rivals through bilateral Union Bank on April 9. particularly China, will contin- matter with Chinese officials in negotiations.

The report quoted some of ue to abuse and disrespect us as a meeting next month.

Instead of asserting the the fishermen as saying the a country,” he said.

Last year, the Philippines Philippine victory, President Chinese Coast Guard fired six won a judgment from the UN- Duterte, who was elected last warning shots backed Perma- year, set it aside, saying the to force them to nent Court of Ar- country was no match for Chiturn around. bitration in The na’s military might.

Gen. Eduardo Hague in a chalA self-styled socialist, Mr. Año, chief of staff Once and for all, let us assert lenge to China’s Duterte made friendly overof the Armed our rights by concrete actions claim to nearly tures to China and visited Forces of the … Otherwise, other countries, all of the South Beijing in October to begin rePhilippines, on particularly China, will continue to China Sea. pairing relations that had been Thursday said abuse and disrespect us as a country.

The tribu- frayed by the Philippine arbithe incident was nal invalidated tral action. under investigaChina’s claim, Alejano filed an impeachtion. declaring that it ment complaint against Mr. He said the had no basis in Duterte last month, alleging the military had received sketchy Still verifying report international law and saying it President betrayed public trust reports of the incident, which The DFA, however, had yet to had violated the Philippines’ and violated the Constitution happened near Gavin Reef. verify the harassment report. right to fish and explore for re- by refusing to challenge China Año said authorities were “We are currently verifying sources in the West Philippine on its incursions into Philiptrying to locate the fishermen, this report with our security Sea, waters within the country’s pine territory in the South Chibelieved to have returned to agencies,” DFA spokesperson EEZ in the South China Sea. na Sea. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

14

Philippine News

APRIL 28, 2017

Charity begins at PCSO line

BY JODEE A. AGONCILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer SEEKING HELP from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is like knocking on heaven’s door. Hours before dawn, a queue about 100 meters long starts to snake around the PCSO office at the Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City. Some patients sleep near the hospital gate. His must be one of the hardest jobs around.

How do you provide help for seriously ill patients with seemingly unlimited medical needs from government’s limited funds?

It’s a question that Dr. Larry Cedro, charity sector assistance manager of the PCSO, has to grapple with daily.

“We do provide assistance to almost all ... but we always tell the public that the role of the PCSO is to augment (their funds). So we check the condition of the patient, especially if the patient is the breadwinner.

The question is how to provide an equitable distribution of funds,” Cedro said. It’s almost like deciding who lives and dies.

To help resolve that, the PCSO’s Individual Medical Assistance Program ( Imap) uses the patient classification system being adopted by all hospitals and prescribed by the Department of Health.

“There’s an appropriate amount to be given,” said Cedro, adding that they take into account whether the patient is confined in a public or private hospital.

Classification

“For instance, if you are admitted in the charity ward of a government hospital and you are classified as F, then you are entitled to receive 100 percent (of your medical expense). If you’re admitted to the pay section of a government hospital, you are entitled to receive 90 percent. In a private charity ward, you can receive a maximum of 70 percent, and in a private hospital, your (subsidy is not) going to exceed 60 percent,” Cedro said.

When it comes to dialysis, the PCSO has developed its own package to complement PhilHealth’s 90-day dialysis package.

For the 90 treatments cov-

Probe of Kadamay’s takeover sought

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer

BEN BRIONES / PNA

ered by PhilHealth, the PCSO covers 14. The PCSO also provides 14 syringes of Erythropoietin since PhilHealth is limited to procedures, Cedro said.

For chemotherapy, there is an enrollment system where the PCSO can cover 50 percent of the total treatment cycle.

“If there are six cycles of chemo, we cover three. But there are other assistance programs like Roche’s Access program that covers 50 percent of the remaining treatment. So, if a patient needs 18 cycles, Roche will cover half, the PCSO will shoulder five and the patient will shoulder the remaining four treatments,” the PCSO official said.

Data culled from the PCSO shows that there are 50 provinces in the country with operational Imap. Of these, Sorsogon, Zamboanga del Sur, Misamis Occidental and Zamboanga del Norte have increased their Imap allocation for those needing medical assistance.

Requirements

To avail themselves of PCSO help, patients must present the following requirements: valid IDs, the accomplished IMAP application form, the original copy of the statement of account, endorsement from medical social services, relevant laboratory results, progress notes from a physician, medical abstract and a histopath, or biopsy results for chemotherapy patients.

Patients are expected to submit the complete requirements during the first application and interview.

A patient can reapply for an-

other subsidy after 30 days.

This, for “Jerry,” would have an impact, since a cancer patient needs treatment every 21 days.

Other sources of assistance

“If you rely solely on the PCSO, you will die,” he said.

Patients should seek out other sources of assistance to make sure they don’t miss their scheduled medication, he added.

According to the PCSO general manager Alexander Balutan, the agency has spent a total of P3.93 billion for hospital confinement for 145,531 beneficiaries out of 319,091 applicants in 2016.

Financial help for hospitalization remains the leading type of assistance sought by patients over the years, he added.

Assistance for chemotherapy comes next, with the PCSO spending P1.95 billion for 46,423 patients. Dialysis is third, with the agency spending a total of P81.7 million for 5,679 patients.

In line with President Duterte’s “free medicine” program, the charity agency is currently enhancing delivery of health services especially in cases that need immediate medical attention, Balutan said.

The current administration has been relying on Small Town Lottery, which is expected to generate around P27 billion to P30 billion this year, to increase the PCSO funds.

In 2016, the agency spent a total of P7.99 billion for medical assistance—an increase of 14.3 percent from 2015—which benefited more than 300,000 Filipinos, the PCSO said in a statement. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY

SEN. ANTONIO Trillanes IV wants a Senate inquiry into the illegal takeover of government housing projects in Bulacan province by an organized group of land grabbers, which he insists is a front organization of communists.

In a statement, Trillanes said he had filed Senate Resolution No. 345 that also sought to look into the national security implications of the occupation of these houses built for the police and the military by the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay).

Sought for comment, Trillanes underscored the need for an inquiry, especially since some Cabinet officials on top of government housing were alleged members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The senator sought the inquiry even as the Senate and House agreed last week to file a joint resolution allowing the National Housing Authority (NHA) to reaward the government houses to certain sectors, including the informal sector such as Kadamay.

The joint Congressional resolution allowing the reawarding of the houses was in keeping with President Duterte’s wish to turn them over to the urban poor families who forcibly occupied them last March. The President in turn had promised to build better homes for the police and military.

Sen. JV Ejercito is leading a Senate probe into the Kadamay issue and is set to conduct, along with some legislators, an ocular inspection of the houses

occupied by Kadamay in Pandi town and San Del Monte City in Bulacan on Tuesday.

Trillanes said the illegal occupation of these houses were “deliberate” and “orchestrated” and part of the CPP plan to “consolidate and expand.”

He said another militant group identified with the CPP had barricaded another government housing project in Montalban, Rizal.

Asked what could be the motive of communist front organizations to occupy government land, Trillanes said they could be probably “testing the waters for insurrection.”

In his resolution, Trillanes said that he had received information that Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr., NHA general manager Marcelino Escalada Jr. and Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor chair Terry Ridon were involved in the CCP. Evasco is allegedly a member of the CPP, and was elected CPP Central Committee member in the 8th Central Committee Plenum (1981) in Mt. Susung Daraga, Bicol province.

Escalada is reportedly a fullCPP member while Ridon was allegedly elected CPP Central Committee member in the 13th Central Committee Plenum (2012) in Quezon City.

“If said reports are true, the wholesale takeover of several communities by Kadamay may mean the creation of sanctuaries for communist groups in Bulacan, which is strategically located near the National Capital Region,” Trillanes said.

“We need to enact a remedial legislation to ensure that use of force and violence is not resorted to in the future by groups seeking housing assistance from the government,” he said. ■

Senator Joseph "JV" Ejercito (center), chairperson of the Senate Committee on Urban Planning and Resettlement during the ocular inspection of housing units illegally occupied by Kadamay members.

AVITO C.DALAN / PNA

Opinion

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

15

AT LARGE

Passengers’ revenge

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer SELDOM HEARD in the cacophony surrounding government allegations of tax evasion by local tobacco firm Mighty Corp. is the side of the folks who will bear the brunt of the burden should the company close its doors.

Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar Dulay suggested last week that as early as May the tobacco firm might have to cease operations as a penalty for using “fake” tax stamps and thereby evading proper tax payments. This came on the heels of a series of revelations and accusations that Mighty, a homegrown firm that was founded soon after World War II, had been evading taxes mainly by producing bogus tax stamps, totaling P9.6 billion in back charges. By law, the Bureau of Internal Revenue is authorized to cancel the license to operate of companies found

guilty of tax evasion.

But if Mighty’s factory in Bulacan is shuttered, the biggest number of people to be adversely affected by it would not be the Wongchuking family or its factory workers, sales force and other allied workers. The most deeply affected would be local tobacco farmers, most of them in the Ilocos.

As well, farm workers hired on a seasonal basis following the tobacco farming cycle and numbering much more than the farmers themselves would lose their livelihood.

Mario Cabasal, national president of Naftac or the National Federation of Tobacco Farmers and Cooperatives, which counts a total membership of 55,000, says his fellow farmers are dreading the day Mighty would have to cease operations.

This is because, he says, Mighty is the only cigarette manufacturer that buys the “low-grade and reject” parts

of tobacco plants from them.

The other tobacco concern also buys along with Mighty the premium or “high-grade” tobacco leaves, he says, but only Mighty pays attention to the less desirable parts of the plant, which is mixed in to formulate its cigarettes. It’s the money they earn from selling the low-grade tobacco that gives farmers a comfortable edge and continued assurance of their livelihood. *** The toll that a closure of Mighty, the second-largest tobacco concern in the country, would take is considerable.

Around 6,000 direct and indirect employees or workers of Mighty would lose their jobs; that means about 30,000 citizens adversely affected, including the workers’ families. The farmers themselves number about 55,000, and, counting their families, the total would cometo a staggering 300,000.

Cabasal says he alone hires 10 agricultural workers to do field work, so if they and other workers hired by tobacco farms lose their livelihood, the toll could reach nearly a million.

But the issue has ramifications beyond those directly engaged in the tobacco industry.

All those living in tobacco-producing provinces would likewise be affected, for if the affected farmers stop producing tobacco, then the provincial governments would no longer be entitled to a share of the “sin tax” imposed by Republic Act No. 7171. *** “This is why we are appealing to President Duterte to address the issues being raised against Mighty,” says Cabasal.

The firm’s owners have sought a compromise regarding their alleged tax liabilities, and there has been an apparent turnaround since the President said he was open to talks

with Mighty to settle its case.

Instead there have been threats of closure and cancellation of Mighty’s license to operate, and even an order to arrest Alexander Wongchuking, the corporation’s president.

Perhaps those itching for a confrontation with—if not the closure of—Mighty, should consider that by shutting the door to any form of compromise, they will be hurting more people than a single family, firm, or community. Tobacco farming and the manufacture of tobacco products date back to the Spanish colonial times.

And whatever one’s opinion may be of smoking and its toll on health and survival, the fact remains that cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products are still legal. In fact, by passing the Sin Tax Law, the state even sought to profit more from the industry, with a large chunk of the proceeds going to health programs. ■

LOOKING BACK

Forgetting as part of remembering

By Ambeth R. Ocampo Philippine Daily Inquirer HISTORY IS contested territory because one story can be remembered by different people in different ways. So it is always more engaging to do historiography than history because in trying to understand how history is written, how it is constructed and deconstructed, remembered and forgotten, readers get a glimpse of the historian’s mind, the milieu in which he or she writes, the context and complexity that make one history different from the next.

Reynaldo C. Ileto’s 1979 work “Pasyon and Revolution” has been hailed as the single most important monograph on the Philippines in the last century, the one book that defined his career. Naturally, a groundbreaking book such as this has an equal share of detractors, who predicted that Ileto would

be blighted by the Cornell curse, of being a “one book wonder.”

Fortunately, Ileto has broken the spell and has launched a new book, “Knowledge and Pacification”—his fourth, if we are to count his little-known monograph on Datu Uto as a book.

Ileto’s latest book is different from the first simply by its form; mercifully, it is not a doctoral dissertation but a collection of essays in three groupings, each building on one theme. The tone is conversational, at times personal, and we see the historian looking at the past from the prism of his life and times: for example, comparing his view of America with that of his father, the (in)famous Gen. Rafael Ileto whose nickname evolved from “Apeng” (the Pinoy nickname for Rafael) to “Rocky” (not after the buff silver-screen boxer but the nickname given him at West Point to distinguish him from a classmate with the same name).

Ileto weaves Philippine history into his own life, focusing on the generation gap between the strong-willed military father and the reflective scholar-son that was filled in by the nurturing of a mother who flits in and out of the narrative but is given her due at the end of this most personal essay. Even the “Acknowledgements” reads like an outline of Ileto’s professional life and the people along the bumpy way to scholarship who readers should thank for inspiring this book.

While Ileto details how his views on the past were formed by mentors, professors, classmates and friends, a glaring omission emerges from the collection: There is no essay on how he developed from criticism, how he was actually honored by his detractors. Friendly praise is never the same or as formative as unfair criticism from an enemy. One fine example from history concerns www.canadianinquirer.net

Rizal, who told Marcelo H. del Pilar that he was on the receiving end of too much praise and needed a frank opinion on his novels. Del Pilar obliged, and Rizal was none too happy for it.

All throughout the book Ileto draws on decades of archival research: from materials in what used to be called the Philippine Insurgent Records, to documents on Tayabas in the Philippine National Archives, to material on Jose P. Laurel, Artemio Ricarte, and the controversy over the 1957 Rizal Law and the hidden gems in the Mauro Garcia collection in Sophia University, Tokyo. He calls our attention to the PhilippineAmerican War and how this is, for many different reasons, remembered or forgotten.

Is there a specific term or name for the space between remembering and forgetting? My fruitless search led me to Mnemosyne of Greek mythology, the personification of memory.

For nine consecutive nights she slept with her nephew Zeus, resulting in the nine muses—one of them Clio, Muse of History.

Mnemosyne is associated with Lethe, one of the five rivers of Hades, where souls to be reincarnated drank to forget their past lives. Lethe was also the river of unmindfulness, the personification of forgetfulness and oblivion. Maybe the book should have been titled “Memory and Pacification” rather than “Knowledge and Pacification”?

Why is history always bent on remembering, negating, or forgetting? Some histories, as Ileto clearly shows in the book, are examples of forgetting. Perhaps that is the subject of another book—forgetting as part of remembering, because what we remember and what we choose to forget say a lot about who we are, where we came from, where we want to go, and why we are the way we are. ■

16

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Canada News Housing, emissions and children: three ways politics touched Canadians this week

BY HEATHER SCOFFIELD The Canadian Press OTTAWA — Save for the several thousand pot-smoking protesters who lit up outside the Peace Tower on Thursday, Parliament Hill was an island of quiet this week — even as global forces battered the country’s sense of security.

MPs were mainly in their ridings for the Easter break, and several cabinet ministers were south of the border preaching the wonders of the federal agenda.

But reminders of the unpredictability of powerful international events hailed down around them, with terrorists striking again in Paris and U.S. President Donald Trump suddenly turning his protectionist wrath on the “disgrace” that is Canada.

At the same time, there were concrete developments on housing, greenhouse gas emissions and the rights of children.

Here are a few ways federal politics touched us this week: Deflating the bubble?

When decision-makers from three levels of government met Monday in Toronto to discuss that region’s runaway housing prices, the takeaway was an agreement to do no harm.

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau, his provincial counterpart Charles Sousa and Toronto Mayor John Tory made a pact to refrain from doing anything that would drive prices

Trudeau and then-U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to chop methane emissions by more than 40 per cent from 2012 levels by 2025 by cracking down on the oil and gas sector.

Since then, Trump has rolled back some of Obama’s climate provisions. Trudeau’s government has said repeatedly it would stick to its plans, regardless of Trump. But on Friday, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said competitiveness with the U.S. has pushed Canada to take a second look at the methane commitment and to proceed more slowly.

Children and their rights

Finance Minister Bill Morneau, left, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau enter the House of Commons to present the Liberal government's 2017 budget.

ART BABYCH / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

even higher. The pact would preclude boosting incentives for first-time homebuyers — always tempting when an election is at hand.

After agreeing on what not to do, the politicians turned individually to what actions they could take to cool the Torontoarea market without destroying wealth and stability elsewhere in the country.

Ontario made the biggest splash, rolling out 16 measures, including a 15-per-cent tax on foreign homebuyers and stiffer rent controls.

But there is little agreement on what the root causes of the surging prices are. Tory talks about strong economic growth

attracting attention. Ontario’s measures suggest foreign buying is to blame. The head of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says it’s not all foreigners.

And the federal government, after studying the alarming market dynamics in Toronto and Vancouver for years, is collecting more data, which suggests it still doesn’t know exactly what is going on.

Gassy politics

The Trudeau government’s best-laid plans on climate change are running into some friction.

The Conservatives asked the Library of Parliament to figure out how much revenue

the federal government was collecting off provincial carbon taxes in Alberta and British Columbia.

The answer came this week: $280 million over the next two years, despite Ottawa’s arguments that carbon taxes would be revenue neutral for the federal books. The figure prompted an outcry from the Conservatives, many of whom are dead-set against federal plans to promote carbon taxes.

Then came word that worries about Trump and his new approach to climate change were prompting a slowdown in plans to cut emissions from methane.

Last year, to much fanfare,

GOOD NEWS! Unli-G Subscribers BE THE LUCKY SUBSCRIBER to win a FREE ticket to the Philippines

1-888-980-8380 www.canadianinquirer.net

The Canadian Human Rights Commission, a watchdog that hears comp laints from the public and can take them to court, has issued its 2016 report and is raising the alarm about the protection of the rights of children.

The commission has gone to bat for years for First Nations children on reserve, arguing they receive substandard social services. Now, the commission is expanding its glare to immigrant children held in detention, children who are struggling with gender identity and children who are bullied because of their disabilities.

Indeed, more than half of the complaints received by the commission in 2016 were related to disability, and almost half of those were linked to mental health.

The government says it is working hard on all fronts. ■

P I R T A WIN OME TO BACK H

INE P P I L I PH

S

in partnership with

Canada News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

17

Christy Clark optimistic as B.C. election approaches halfway mark THE CANADIAN PRESS VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s election campaign is nearing the halfway point and one party leader says she’s feeling optimistic, but acknowledges that the race is far from over.

Liberal Leader Christy Clark spoke to media at the starting line of the annual Sun Run in Vancouver on Sunday, saying her party is working hard to get its message out before voters head to the ballot box on May 9.

“There’s a reason there’s 28 days in a campaign, because we spend every day talking about the things that we stand for and

the things that we believe in,” she said.

The Liberals are campaigning on a job creation and economic growth platform, and Clark said that will require standing up to the U.S. in order to secure a new softwood lumber deal amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric.

“We’ve got to make sure we stand up for British Columbia and get this softwood deal done.

We’ve got to make sure we keep taxes low because we’ve got to be competitive compared to the United States, absolutely with this Donald Trump government,” she said.

Meanwhile, the NDP is pledg-

ing to make life more affordable for British Columbians, with promises like $10-a-day daycare and scrapping tolls on two busy bridges in Metro Vancouver.

Clark criticized the NDP on Sunday, saying their plaform “appears to be changing ever day,” and gave the party’s stance on scrapping medical services premiums as an example.

The NDP have pledged to do away with the fees, but Clark says it’s unclear how they intend to make up the revenue.

“It’s kind of a moving target when they’re changing their policies every day,” she said.

One man standing at the

HRISTY CLARK / FACEBOOK

race’s starting line heckled Clark as she readied to run, calling on her to go back to the

corporate boardroom before Liberal staff stepped in and he stopped. ■

Finance minister can’t say how much foreign buyer tax will affect housing market

BY ALLISON JONES AND JESSICA SMITH CROSS The Canadian Press TORONTO — Ontario’s finance minister can’t say how much a tax on foreign homebuyers — the centrepiece of the Liberal government’s new package of housing measures — will affect the red-hot Greater Toronto Area market.

Economists and real estate experts have raised questions about the effectiveness of the new 15-per-cent levy, pointing to the government self-admitted lack of housing data.

When asked on Friday whether the government had any evidence to suggest foreign speculators were driving up house prices in the region, Finance Minister Charles Sousa cited a survey by the Toronto Real Estate Board that suggested foreigners were involved in about five per cent of property purchases.

Realtors have also offered anecdotal evidence about foreigners placing bids via phone calls, he said.

“Non-Canadians who are investing here are playing a role, so we’re taking that to heart,” Sousa said in an interview.

The Toronto Real Estate

Board — which represents that we have full understand- many economists, we believe about 45,000 realtors and bro- ing of who’s buying, why they’re that the NRST (Non-Resident kers — said its survey of 3,500 buying and to what purpose Speculation Tax) will help to remembers, conducted late last and we’ll see how it proceeds,” duce speculative behaviour in year, found that 4.9 per cent he said. the housing market, and cool deof transactions in the Greater Until that happens, it appears mand for residential properties Toronto Area involved foreign Sousa — like many others in the in the Greater Golden Horsebuyers. province — is left with unan- shoe.”

The board called that a mini- swered questions.

Once legislation passes, the mal amount and not detrimen“Does it have an effect, does tax will be effective retroactivetal to the housing market. it create greater fairness in the ly to April 21.

“From our standpoint we feel system, does it enable people Foreign buyers who subsethat any public policy decision who are feeling frustrated and quently get citizenship or perthat’s pointed manent resident at the housing status, as well as market should foreign nationhave some emals working in pirical evidence We’re now going to ensure that all Ontario and into back up the isthe boxes are ticked, that we have full ternational stusue and from our understanding of who’s buying, why dents will be eliperspective, bethey’re buying and to what purpose gible to have the yond our survey and we’ll see how it proceeds. tax refunded. we haven’t seen Sousa’s office that,” the board’s said the new tax market analysis is expected to director Jason be revenue neuMercer said Friday. angry that they’re going into tral, and any money coming Starting this week, home- bidding wars and they feel in would be used to offset the buyers are required to give that it’s because someone who decrease in revenue from land information about their resi- doesn’t live in Canada is park- transfer tax. dency and citizenship status ing their money?”

“The goal is to provide some and how they intend to use the His staff later said he was stability to the marketplace and property. Sousa said the gov- speaking rhetorically. ensure everyone is paying their ernment will now be able to “These are the kinds of ques- fair share.” assess “the degree and the im- tions we asked ourselves as we Ontario had initially dispact” foreign buyers have on determined what measures to in- missed the idea of a foreign the market. clude in our Fair Housing Plan,” buyer tax like the one imple“We’re now going to ensure spokeswoman Jessica Martin mented last in Vancouver, saythat all the boxes are ticked, said. “In line with the view of ing the Toronto-area market www.canadianinquirer.net

was different. But on March 9, Sousa backpedalled on the issue, saying he didn’t know if foreign or domestic speculation was driving demand.

In the Greater Toronto Area, the average price of detached houses rose to $1.21 million last month, up 33.4 per cent from a year ago.

Another part of Ontario’s housing plan is a review of rules for real estate agents, aimed at making the homebuying process more transparent.

Sousa has said he knows buyers are “pissed” about bidding wars. On Friday he said he’s investigating how more transparency can be added to the process, including whether buyers could be informed about other bidders and their offers.

“I mean, consumers would certainly like it,” he said.

However, Sousa said it’s not clear what “degree of disclosure” there should ultimately be and added that homeowners will always want to ensure they can maximize their profits.

He’s also concerned about unethical practices in the industry involving “fake bids,” used to entice real buyers to increase their offers, and “double-ending,” where a real estate agent represents both buyer and seller in a deal and gets commission on both. ■

18

Canada News

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Border towns quietly Important taxmobilizing to help refugee filing changes claimants coming to Canada to be aware of

BY MORGAN LOWRIE The Canadian Press

BY SAMANTHA PRASAD, LL.B.

PLATTSBURGH, UNITED STATES — As the flow of asylum-seekers crossing into Canada continues, residents in towns along the Canada-U.S. border are quietly mobilizing to help the travellers who pass through in search of better lives.

Janet McFetridge, a resident of Champlain, N.Y., said she started seeing taxis passing by her house in November, around the time Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

“It’s just unusual because you don’t usually see cabs out here, so it’s very noticeable” she said.

Most of the taxis were heading to Roxham Road, a popular illegal crossing spot where people hop a small ditch into Canada in order to file asylum claims from within the country.

McFetridge said she and others in the area wanted to know how they could help.

“At first we were concerned about (winter) clothes, but then we’re also concerned now about the larger picture of if they’re sent back from Canada, are they going to be able to go somewhere?” she said in an interview.

“The greater Plattsburgh area is looking for some system where people will be able to house them and get them on their way safely.”

What has emerged, she says, is a coalition of churches, citizens and social organizations.

The group, which calls itself Plattsburgh Cares, is considering ways to offer food, shelter, transportation or legal advice to people who are heading to Canada or who are turned back.

People who cross the border illegally and file their refugee claims in Canada are generally allowed to remain pending their hearing dates.

But McFetridge worries some people could still end up in the area while in transit, or if they are turned back at an official border checkpoint due to the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Coun-

THE TAX-FILING deadline is almost upon us. For your 2016 tax return, the government has made a few changes to various credits and deductions, and has added some services, which it says are designed to make the painful act of filing taxes less painful. We’ll see. Here’s a summary of the tax changes you should be aware of when filing your 2016 return.

New benefits and credits

SPEND A DAY TOURING, LLC / FLICKR

try Agreement, which states refugees must file their claims in whichever of the two countries they reach first.

As the last sizable American town between New York City and the Canadian border, Plattsburgh has also seen a rise in the number of asylum-seekers passing through, said Mayor Colin Read.

“At first we thought it was maybe just a blip, a post-November thing, but it hasn’t been slowing down,” he said in a recent interview.

Read, who advises the Plattsburgh Cares group, says the city wants to make sure the asylumseekers aren’t taken advantage of.

That means ensuring city police are sensitive to issues of profiling, and trying to prevent taxi drivers from gouging clients going to the border, which he admits can be difficult because they operate outside city limits.

At a nondescript gas station just outside the town, taxi drivers line up for the arrival of the 3:20 p.m. bus from New York City.

One of the drivers, who declined to give his name, said he takes passengers to the border on a regular basis.

His company charges $100 for the trip, he said, adding that other companies charge more than double that amount.

Read, who says he has heard of drivers charging $300 for a ride, said groups like Plattsburgh Cares could help by offering food, a couple of days’ lodging and some advice to families who are split up or who are considering a run to the border.

“We’re trying to figure out how develop a network so whatever they do, they do so with full information,” said Read.

Read, who said the city is consulting with the Attorney General’s office to ensure everything is done legally, said he doesn’t see the group’s actions as a way to help people avoid immigration policy.

“I don’t think this is an issue of immigration policy, it’s an issue of making sure people aren’t exploited,” he said, adding most of the people who transited through had valid visas to be in the United States.

On the Canadian side of the border, a group of citizens in Hemmingford, Que., also recently held an event to see how they could support the border jumpers.

That event included writing letters to Canada’s prime minister and immigration minister to ask them to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement, so refugee claimants could present themselves at the border instead of crossing illegally, group members said. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Canada Child Benefit.

The new Canada Child Benefit (CCB) is a tax-free monthly payment made to eligible families to help with the cost of raising children under the age of 18.

The CCB is meant to replace the Canada Child Tax Benefit, National Child Benefit Supplement, and the Universal Child Care Benefit.

Northern Residents’ Deduction. If you have lived, on a permanent basis, in a prescribed northern or intermediate zone for a continuous period of at least six consecutive months, you may be eligible for a Northern Residents’ Deduction. For 2016 and later years, the basic and the additional residency amounts used to calculate the Northern Residents’ Deductions will be increased to $11 per day from $8.25.

Teaching supplies credit.

Eligible educators may be able to claim a 15% refundable tax credit based on up to $1,000 of eligible teaching supplies bought during the tax year.

New CRA services

Express Notice of Assessment. This new service delivers an instant assessment result message and provides a Notice of Assessment directly to your certified tax software the next day. To use the service, you must be registered for online mail and you must file electronically, using a certified tax software.

Account alerts. As a fraud prevention measure, this new service notifies you by email

when an address has changed, banking information for direct deposit has changed, or if mail sent to you by the CRA was returned. You may register for this service through “My Account” on the CRA website or the MyCRA mobile app.

Account links. You can now access the CRA My Account and the My Service Canada Account (online sign in) through a single sign-in session.

MyBenefits CRA mobile app. You can use the CRA’s new web-based mobile app to securely view your next benefit payment dates and amounts, the status of your CCB application, update your marital status, and change information about children in your care.

Enhanced services

Online mail. This service provides the option of signing up to receive certain CRA correspondence in your secure, online CRA My Account instead of by paper mail.

Throughout 2016, additional types of correspondence were added to the online mail service, including benefit notices and slips, and instalment reminders.

Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP).

The CVITP helps Canadians with modest income and those in a simple tax situation by preparing their tax returns free of charge. In order to expand this program to more communities, the CRA recruited more organizations and volunteers to help such Canadians do their taxes and ensure they are receiving the credits and benefits they are eligible for.

Auto-fill my return. Enhancements to this service include extended log-in sessions so you can stay logged into the service for a longer period than before, more tax slips, and the use of the service for previousyear returns.

MyCRA mobile app. The MyCRA mobile app now allows you to update your marital status and sign up for account alerts. ❱❱ PAGE 38 Important tax-filing

World News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

19

Old guard rallies around newcomer Macron for French runoff

BY ANGELA CHARLTON AND ELAINE GANLEY The Associated Press PARIS — France’s established parties are rallying around the man who helped shut them out of the presidential runoff, maverick centrist Emmanuel Macron — an alliance of convenience aimed at keeping farright Marine Le Pen out of the Elysee Palace.

Support for Macron also poured in Monday from the seat of the European Union, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jewish and Muslim groups troubled by Le Pen’s nationalist vision.

European stock markets surged, and France’s main index hit its highest level since early 2008, as investors gambled that the rise of populism around the world — and its associated unpredictability in policymaking — may have peaked.

For all the paeans to Macron’s unifying vision in divided times, it is now up to French voters to decide whether to entrust him with this nuclear-armed nation in the May 7 presidential runoff. Polls consider him the front-runner but that’s no guarantee that the French will come together to stop Le Pen the way they stopped her father, JeanMarie Le Pen, from reaching the presidency in 2002.

France’s divided political mainstream, rejected by an angry electorate, united Monday to urge voters to back Macron and reject Le Pen’s far-right agenda.

Politicians on the moderate left and right, including French President Francois Hollande and the losing Socialist and Re-

publican party candidates in Sunday’s first-round vote, manoeuvred to block Le Pen’s path to power.

In a solemn address from the Elysee palace, Hollande said he would vote for Macron, his former economy minister, because Le Pen represents “both the danger of the isolation of France and of rupture with the European Union.”

Hollande said the far-right would “deeply divide France” at a time when the terror threat requires solidarity. “Faced with such a risk, it is not possible to remain silent or to take refuge in indifference,” he said.

Voters narrowed the French presidential field from 11 to two in Sunday’s first-round vote, and losers from across the spectrum called on their supporters to choose Macron in round two.

Only the defeated far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, pointedly refused to back Macron.

The contest is widely seen as a litmus test for the populist wave that last year prompted Britain to vote to leave the European Union and U.S. voters to elect Donald Trump president.

Le Pen, meanwhile, is hoping to peel away voters historically opposed to her National Front Party, long tainted by racism and anti-Semitism.

On Monday, she took a step in that direction, announcing she was temporarily stepping down as party leader, a move that appeared to be aimed at drawing a wider range of potential voters and was in keeping with her efforts in recent years to garner broader support from the left and right.

“Tonight, I am no longer the president of the National Front.

I am the presidential candidate,” she said on French public television news, adding that she wanted to be “above partisan considerations.”

National Front party officials also joined the chorus, noting that a vote for Le Pen would be a natural move for those fed up with the status quo.

“The voters who voted for Mr. Melenchon are angry voters. They can be in agreement with us,” Steeve Brios, the mayor of Le Pen’s northern bastion of Henin-Beaumont, told The Associated Press, adding that those far-left voters sought choices “outside the system.”

Choosing from inside the system is no longer an option.

Voters rejected the two mainstream parties that have alternated power for decades in favour of Le Pen and the untested Macron, who has never held elected office and who founded his own political movement just last year.

Macron’s optimistic vision of a tolerant France and a united Europe with open borders is a stark contrast with Le Pen’s darker, inward-looking “French-first” platform that calls for closed borders, tougher security, less immigration and dropping the shared euro currency to return to the French franc.

Le Pen went on the offensive against Macron in her first public comments Monday. “He is a hysterical, radical ‘Europeanist.’ He is for total open borders.

He says there is no such thing as French culture,” she said.

Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, made it into a presidential runoff against Jacques Chirac in 2002 and was crushed. Many commentators expect the same

Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron.

FREDERIC LEGRAND - COMEO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

fate for his daughter, but she has already drawn far more support than he ever did and she has transformed the party’s once-pariah image.

Louis Aliot, a National Front vice-president and Le Pen’s companion, insisted that Le Pen offers an alternative for anyone skeptical of the EU and France’s role in it.

“I’m not convinced that the French are willing to sign a blank check to Mr. Macron,” he said.

But Macron’s party spokesman, Benjamin Griveaux, scoffed at the idea of Le Pen as an agent of change.

“She’s been in the political system for 30 years. She inherited her father’s party and we will undoubtedly have Le Pens running for the next 20 years, because after we had the father, we have the daughter and we will doubtless have the niece,” he said, referring to Marion Marechal-Le Pen. “So she is in a truly bad position to be talking about the elites.”

Merkel wished Macron “all the best for the next two weeks.” And the German chancellor’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, tweeted that “the result for Emmanuel Macron shows:

France AND Europe can win together! The centre is stronger than the populists think!”

Macron came in first in Sunday’s vote, with just over 24 per cent while Le Pen had 21.3 per cent. Francois Fillon, the scandal-plagued conservative Republican party candidate, came in third with just shy of 20 per cent of the vote, just ahead of Melenchon. Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon, whose party holds a majority in the legislature, got just 6 per cent of the vote. Turnout was 78 per cent, down slightly from 79 per cent in the first round of presidential voting in 2012.

Protesters angry over the results burned cars, danced around bonfires and dodged riot police overnight at the Place de la Bastille and Republique in Paris. Twenty-nine people were detained at the Bastille, where protesters waved red flags and sang “No Marine and No Macron!” ■ Ganley reported from towns around northern France. Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet, Lori Hinnant, Thomas Adamson and Philippe Sotto contributed from Paris.

Saudi king names son as US envoy as ties boosted with Trump

BY ANGELA CHARLTON AND ELAINE GANLEY The Associated Press RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA — Saudi Arabia’s King Salman issued a decree late Saturday naming one of his sons, an air force pilot who has taken part

in coalition strikes against the Islamic State group, as the kingdom’s new ambassador to the U.S. The appointment of Prince Khaled bin Salman to Washington signals the kingdom’s eagerness to strengthen bilateral ties under President Donald Trump. As the king’s son, the

prince has a direct line to the Saudi monarch.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s third largest defence spender.

Prince Khaled’s appointment positions him as an influential broker in deals with U.S. manufacturers.

Saudi-U.S. relations had cooled under the Obama adwww.canadianinquirer.net

ministration after Washington pursued a nuclear accord with Shiite-ruled Iran that the Sunni-ruled kingdom strongly opposed. Saudi Arabia and Iran are regional rivals, and back opposing sides in the wars in Syria and Yemen.

Relations with the Riyadh have improved since Trump

took office. King Salman dispatched his most powerful son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also defence minister, to meet Trump at the White House last month. Saudi Arabia was quick to praise Trump’s missile strike ❱❱ PAGE 20 Saudi king

20

World News

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

South Korea, allies brace for North Korea follow up act

BY JOHN CARUCCI The Associated Press SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF — North Korea marks the founding anniversary of its military on Tuesday, and South Korea and its allies are bracing for the possibility that it could conduct another nuclear test or launch an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.

North Korea often marks significant dates by displaying its military capability. It so far has carried out five nuclear tests.

Such a move could test the developing North Korea policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has reportedly settled on a strategy that emphasizes increased pressure on North Korea with the help of China, the North’s only major ally, instead of military options or trying to overthrow North Korea’s government.

Trump spoke by phone with both the Japanese and Chinese leaders Monday. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV quoted President Xi Jinping as telling Trump that China strongly opposes North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and hopes “all parties will exercise restraint and avoid aggravating the situation.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump agreed to urge North Korea to refrain from what Abe called provocative actions. “The North Korean nuclear and missile problem is an extremely serious security threat to not only the international community but also our country,” the Japanese leader told reporters in Tokyo after-

ward.

Recent U.S. commercial satellite images indicate increased activity around North Korea’s nuclear test site, and third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un has said the country’s preparation for an ICBM launch is in its “final stage.”

South Korea’s Defence Ministry has said North Korea appears ready to conduct such “strategic provocations” at any time. South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, the country’s acting leader in place of ousted President Park Geunhye, who has been arrested over corruption allegations, has instructed his military to strengthen its “immediate response posture” in case North Korea does something significant on Tuesday’s anniversary.

There is also a possibility that North Korea, facing potential changes in regional dynamics as Washington presses Beijing to pressure North Korea more aggressively, opts to mark the anniversary with a missile launch of lesser magnitude. North Korea separately fired what U.S. officials said were a Scud-type missile and a midrange missile earlier this month, but the launches were analyzed as failures.

While the U.S. has dispatched what Trump called an “armada” of ships to the region, including an aircraft carrier, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press that the administration doesn’t intend to militarily respond to a North Korean nuclear or missile test. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Monday that South Korean naval ships will conduct a training exercise

with the aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson.

In a statement released late Friday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry accused Trump of driving the region into an “extremely dangerous phase” with the dispatch of the aircraft carrier and said the North was ready to stand up against any threat posed by the United States.

With typical rhetorical flourish, the ministry said North Korea “will react to a total war with an all-out war, a nuclear war with nuclear strikes of its own style and surely win a victory in the death-defying struggle against the U.S. imperialists.”

Adding to the tensions, North Korea detained a U.S. citizen on Saturday, bringing the number of Americans being held there to three. The reasons for the detention of Tony Kim, who taught accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, weren’t immediately clear.

Under Kim’s leadership, North Korea has been aggressively pursuing a decades-long goal of putting a nuclear warhead on an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

Last year, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests, which would have improved its knowledge in making nuclear weapons small enough to fit on longrange missiles. It also launched a long-range rocket last year that delivered a satellite into orbit, which Washington, Seoul and others saw as a banned test of missile technology.

On April 15, North Korea offered a look at its advancing

nuclear weapon and missile programs in a massive military parade in Pyongyang honouring late state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current ruler.

The displayed military hardware included prototype ICBMs and new midrange solid-fuel missiles that can be fired from land mobile launchers and submarines, making them harder to detect before launch.

The parade also featured previously unseen large rocket canisters and transporter erector launcher trucks, or TELs. This indicated that North Korea is developing technologies to “cold-launch” ICBMs, ejecting them from the launch tubes before they ignite in midair, which would prevent its limited number of ICBM-capable launcher trucks from being damaged and also allow the missiles to be fired from silos.

Analysts say North Korea is also likely developing solid-fuel ICBMs, and that some of the

canisters might have contained prototypes.

North Korea had earlier shown signs it was working on a new ICBM. In March, North Korean state media reported that the country successfully conducted a ground test of a new highthrust rocket engine, which it said was a breakthrough for its space program and efforts to create “Korean-style strategic weapons.” Kim was quoted as saying “the whole world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won today carries.”

While North Korea almost certainly needs more time to create a solid-fuel ICBM, test launches for its existing liquidfuel ICBMs, including KN-08s and KN-14s, could come much sooner.

Experts say these missiles could one day be capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States, although North Korea has yet to flight test them. ■

the kingdom has been bombing a Yemeni faction aligned with Iran for more than two years.

The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news website says the prince studied briefly at Harvard University and Georgetown University. The news website says he trained at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, but that a back injury forced him to stop flying.

He has been an adviser at the

Saudi Embassy in Washington since late last year.

U.S. officials say the Trump administration is considering ways to boost military support for the Saudi-led fight against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.

The U.S. already is helping the Saudis with intelligence and logistical support for the bombing campaign in Yemen, and could assist with greater intelligence support to counter Ira-

nian influence there.

Prince Khaled will be replacing Prince Abdullah Al Saud, who served in the post for just 18 months. Though a member of the royal family, Prince Abdullah was not seen as part of the inner Al Saud circle and is not a direct grandson of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdulaziz.

Days before being relieved of his post in Washington, Prince

Abdullah published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for continued U.S. resolve to end the conflict in Syria.

He said Saudi Royal Air Force jets operating out of a base in southern Turkey have conducted more than 340 strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria since February. ■

South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn.

REPUBLIC OF KOREA / FLICKR

Saudi king... on a Syrian military base in response to an apparent chemical weapons attack on civilians.

Prince Khaled is a former F-15 pilot who graduated military-aviation training from Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi in 2009 and took part in anti-IS strikes in 2014 as part of the U.S.-led coalition.

He also participated in flight missions over Yemen, where ❰❰ 19

www.canadianinquirer.net

Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

World News

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

21

Airstrike kills Doctor’s arrest brings attention 8 family members to US female circumcisions in northern Syria

BY JOHN CARUCCI The Associated Press

BY PHILIP ISSA The Associated Press BEIRUT — An airstrike killed eight family members, five of them children, as they fled fighting between U.S.-allied Syrian forces and Islamic State militants on Monday, according to local activists, who said the strike appeared to have been launched by the U.S.-led coalition.

Al-Qaida’s leader meanwhile urged his followers and other militants in Syria to unite and prepare for protracted jihad, or holy war, against what he called an “international satanic alliance,” apparently referring to the Syrian government, its ally Russia, and the U.S., all of which are targeting the group.

The family was fleeing fighting in the northern Syrian town of Tabqa when their vehicle was struck, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said the five children were between six months and 15 years old.

The activist-run Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently also reported the airstrike, saying a family was killed.

The US.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which also include Arab fighters, are trying to expel IS from Tabqa before moving on to Raqqa, the de facto capital of the jihadi group.

Tabqa is 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest of Raqqa.

The U.S. and its allies are believed to be the only forces flying missions over Tabqa.

The Observatory said the U.S.backed fighters entered Tabqa on Monday but the town remains largely under IS control.

The Islamic State group and al-Qaida have been bitter rivals since they split apart in 2013, with the former claiming to represent the world’s Muslims in an apocalyptic showdown with the West and the latter fighting alongside the Syrian opposition.

Al-Qaida won allies among the opposition early in the civil war because of its military prowess.

Al-Qaida’s official branch, the Nusra Front, changed its name to the Fatah al-Sham Front and formally cut ties with al-Qaida last year, but is still widely seen as being linked to the global terror network.

In a recording released late Sunday, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Syria’s various jihadi factions to unite in order to wage guerrilla war.

He cast the Syrian conflict as part of a wider struggle aimed at imposing Islamic rule on the region and beyond. The local leaders of the Fatah al-Sham Front have tended to portray its struggle as being confined to Syria.

The Fatah al-Sham Front is perhaps the most powerful rebel-aligned faction, but dozens of other factions — both hardline Islamists and more mainstream groups — are also battling Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces. Fatah al-Sham Front is the commanding faction in Idlib, the rebel-held province in northwestern Syria.

Zawahri, who became the global leader of al-Qaida after Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid in 2011, made his last public broadcast in May 2016, when he issued an audio message calling for unity among ❱❱ PAGE 25 Airstrike kills

DETROIT — Zehra Patwa learned only a few years ago that during a family trip to India at age 7, she was circumcised, which is common for girls in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Patwa, 46, doesn’t remember undergoing the procedure, which is also called female genital mutilation or cutting and which has been condemned by the United Nations and outlawed in the U.S. But she doesn’t want to.

“I have no desire to get that memory back. ... Psychologically, it feels like a violation, even though I don’t remember it,” said Patwa, a technology project manager from New Haven, Connecticut, who now campaigns against the centuriesold practice.

The recent arrest of a Michigan doctor accused of performing the procedure on two 7-yearold girls from Patwa’s own Shiite Muslim sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, highlights how female genital mutilation is alive and well in parts of the Western world where its adherents have migrated and formed communities.

Depending on the culture, female circumcisions are performed on girls of various ages and by various methods, and they are seen as a way of controlling a girl’s sexuality, maintaining her purity or even making her more fertile as she grows into adulthood. Critics, though, say it can cause complications during childbirth, make intercourse painful and eliminate any pleasure a woman can derive from sex.

Dr. Jumana Nagarwala is accused of performing the procedure on two Minnesota girls that left them with scars and lacerations. Her attorney, Shannon Smith, insists that Nagarwala conducted a benign religious ritual that involved no mutilation.

Prosecutors on Friday charged two other Bohras, Dr. Fakhruddin Attar and his wife, Farida Attar, with conspiracy.

Fakhruddin Attar owns the Detroit-area clinic where the alleged procedures were performed in February, and investigators say the couple knew Nagarwala was doing the prowww.canadianinquirer.net

cedures after business hours.

There are more than a million Bohras in the world, most of whom live in India. No one knows how many there are in the U.S., but it’s estimated there are about 25,000 and that they have about 20 mosques and gathering places.

Patwa, who is part of the activist group Speak Out on FGM, said that given its clandestine nature, it’s hard to estimate how many people perform female circumcisions in the U.S. But there are a small number in the Bohra community who are known by elders and tend to be clustered around large cities with Bohra mosques, she said.

When many Bohra girls are age 6 to 8, their parents approach — or are approached by — a “secret network” of female elders about getting the girls cut. There is then an informal vetting process to make sure a request is legitimate and not an attempt to expose any activities, Patwa said.

“Everybody knows somebody who has gotten their daughter cut ... but nobody wants to rat out their family members or friends,” she said.

A spokesman for the Syedna, the Bohras’ religious head in Mumbai, India, could not be reached for comment. The two men vying to succeed the Syedna, his half brother and the son of a former Syedna, have different views on female circumcision. The half brother says it is time to end the practice of female circumcision. The former Syedna’s son, whom most Bohras accept as their new leader, says the tradition must continue and notes that Bohra men are also circumcised.

“Men have to do it, and even women have to do it,” Syedna Muffadal Saifuddin said in a speech last year.

The World Health Organization said the practice of removing or injuring female genital organs has no known health benefits but has been performed on roughly 200 million women and girls in 30 countries.

Multiple Islamic scholars and experts say the practice is cultural, not based in religious principles. Those who don’t have their daughters circumcised are subjected to pressure,

and those who do believe they are protecting the girls.

Although Patwa and others describe it as a widespread practice, it’s not universally performed among the Bohra. Sahiyo, a Mumbai-based organization that campaigns against the procedure, estimates that about 80 per cent of girls within the community have had it done.

She said she attends a Bohra mosque near Boston, which she describes as a welcoming and largely educated and tolerant congregation, but not one in which the procedure they call “khatna” is openly discussed.

“Part of my campaigning is always, ‘We have a problem within our community. We can only deal with it as a community,” she said. “We can expose it, but other people aren’t going to swoop in and help us.”‘ Patwa said many Bohra mosques, including hers, have sent letters to members encouraging them not to engage in khatna because it could be considered illegal. But she said some critics don’t see this as a serious attempt by mosques to end the practice, but rather as legal cover.

Dr. Mohammed Arsiwala, president and CEO of Michigan Urgent Care and a board member of the Michigan State Medical Society, said he was a Bohra until about five years ago. He has shared his concerns about the procedure through a resolution presented to the state medical group, which adopted a policy several years ago labeling it unethical for doctors to perform.

Jiwajee Bhai Bootwala belongs to the Minneapolis-area Bohra community, which he said consists of about 25 to 30 families. He said he doesn’t know of anyone involved in the practice and didn’t know about the families who went to Michigan, or if they even belong to his group. Still, he said, the news will spoil his community’s image.

“The law for the country is part of your faith,” he said. “So we would never do something against the laws of the country.” ■ Associated Press writers Amy Forliti in Plymouth, Minnesota, and Muneeza Naqvi in Mumbai, India, contributed to this story.

22

Community News

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Canada’s largest apparel and My Canada textile sourcing show to welcome Exhibition at Art large South Asian delegation Square Gallery CANADA’S LARGEST apparel and textile sourcing show, Apparel Textile Sourcing Canada (ATSC), has announced the participation of a large South Asian delegation at the upcoming event, August 21-23.

“We are thrilled to announce that approximately 25 percent of this year’s ATSC show will be dedicated to exhibits from South Asian apparel and textile manufacturers, with India taking a leading role,” said Jason Prescott, CEO of JP Communications, Inc., producer of ATSC, which will take place at the Toronto International Centre.

“ATSC 2017 will foster unparalleled business connections between local Canadian companies and leading South Asian producers of apparels and textiles who see tremendous opportunity for collaboration with the Canadian industry,” Prescott said.

In addition to India, other South Asian countries participating in ATSC 2017 include Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. At least 60 South Asian companies are expected to showcase their latest and greatest offerings at the show.

The first of its kind apparel,

THE MY Canada art exhibition reception opened on April 5, 2017 at the Art Square Gallery across the Art Gallery of Ontario in downtown Toronto. The

Artist Network juried group show is a tribute to Canada’s 150th and runs from April 3 to April 17, 2017 featuring a variety of work by select artists. ■

APPAREL TEXTILE SOURCING CANADA / FACEBOOK

textile and fashion event in Canada, ATSC was introduced to provide Canadian businesses with the convenience of connecting with international suppliers on their home turf, Prescott explained. “Now, Canadian companies have the luxury of staying local and avoiding expensive and unnecessary international travel,” he said.

“The event connects Canada to the world of global trade and, now, provides a particular focus on the trending styles and textures of South Asian goods, all in Toronto.”

Through a comprehensive trade show and conference,

ATSC 2017 will also provide attendees with key insights needed to navigate the international sourcing process, including how to do business with India and other South Asian countries.

ATSC is supported by many international governmental associations including the Bangladesh High Commission, led

by Dewan Mahmud, First Secretary (Commercial) at Bangladesh High Commission. ■ For more information or to register, visit http://www.appareltextilesourcing.com. Registration is free of charge.

L-R: Artists Sarah Nemeth and Michelle Chermaine in front of Michelle’s painting Life-giving Water at the My Canada exhibition at the Art Square Gallery.

L-R: TV radio host/artist Michelle Chermaine with fellow artists Barb Lewis and Zolen Georgievski in front of Michelle’s painting Life-giving Water at the My Canada exhibition at the Art Square Gallery.

LBC extends to AC Tristar Marketing Corporation a Special Employee Benefit Program LBC CANADA, the leading provider of moving packages and goods thru sea and air to the Philippines, extends a special offer to AC Tristar Marketing Corp., the LBC’s Employee Benefit Program in sending balikbayan boxes to the Philippines.

The LBC Employee Benefit Program allows Filipino-Canadian business and enterprise to add value to their company by extending a benefit from LBC services to their employees and affiliates. With the Employee Benefit Program, employees, consultants and affiliates of AC Tristar Marketing Corporation, enjoys a lower rate in sending

padalas to the Philippines. The benefit includes a $10 discount in sending sea cargo boxes and a 10% discount on air cargo services.

AC Tristar, the Authorized dealer of Saladmaster in Canada, owned by Alfredo “Pidoy” Pacis and Carmela “Ting” Pacis, with its office at 302 Bridgeland Avenue, Toronto, has been in dealership business since 1999. It employs Filipino Canadian and invites Consultants to conduct cooking shows.

In a signing event, Sales and Marketing Mon Solis handed the agreement to AC Tristar President Pidoy Pacis, and Vice

President Carmela “Ting” Pacis last March 28, 2017 to spread LBC Smiles. www.canadianinquirer.net

LBC Sea Cargo Service offers a solution provider for kababayans sending boxes in a

convenient, secure and reliable manner. Our kababayans can send balikbayan boxes to their loved ones in the Philippines with 5-8 weeks delivery time.

LBC’s Air Cargo Service is becoming the convenient way to send “padalas” to our loved ones. This is the fast and efficient way of sending parcels and documents to the Philippines with 7-15 days delivery time.

At LBC, our kababayans gets unparalleled assistance when it comes to operations. LBC has a 24/7 Call Center in all countries where we are present to provide round the clock support to customers. ■

23

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

Get the latest News & Updates

read daily news from Philippines, Canada & the World www.canadianinquirer.net The one and only daily Filipino-Canadian live news

www.canadianinquirer.net

24

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Entertainment The education of Lotlot

BY BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR. Philippine Daily Inquirer

CineFilipino movie.

“It tells a beautiful story,” she pointed out. “I am sure lots of viewers will be able to relate to it. Plus, they’ll get to pick up many lessons, too.”

Lotlot herself was able to identify with her character, manic mom Precy, who is having a difficult time letting go of her firstborn (Darwin Yu), who’s going off to college.

“Like Precy, I’m also a single mom,” she explained. “Sometimes, she is no longer sure if she’s doing the right thing. She is torn between meddling and forcing her children to do what is correct or letting go and letting them learn their lessons

LOTLOT DE Leon’s cup runneth over. The actress is busy both on the show biz and home fronts. Apart from taking care of her bustling household, she is also managing The South Grill restaurant in BF Parañaque with her boyfriend, Fred El Soury.

These days, tapings of the GMA 7 soap, “Destined to be Yours,” keep Lotlot preoccupied, along with the promo rounds for her indie film, Dexter Hemedez and Allan Ibañez’s “1st Sem,” which opens in cinemas on April 26.

She knows that having a theatrical run is a big gamble these Communication is important days—more so, Listening to your kids is a must, if your film is a Always make time for them. small indie production that’s not supported by a major distributor. “I’m excited and nervous on their own, even though it at the same time,” she told the is painful for her to see them Inquirer. make mistakes with their Lotlot feels strongly that choices in life.” more people should see the In her own family, Lotlot en-

deavors to strike a healthy balance between being her kids’ friend and being a stern mom.

“I stand my ground as a parent when it’s necessary. I try to be as honest to them as possible— in a way that they can understand, though. When I need to be brutally frank, I can be, too.”

Janine and Jessica, two of her kids with actor Ramon Christopher Gutierrez, have already graduated from college. “Next year, my son Diego will graduate naman. Maxine, my youngest, is now in Grade 9.”

Lotlot feels strongly about education because she had to stop schooling when she got married as a teenager.

She admitted that she was pretty “handson” when it came to her too. kids’ schooling in their younger years. “With Diego and Maxine, they’re more independent now.

But they know that I’m always here when they need me.”

She owned up that being a parent is a never-ending learning process for her, as well. “I

SCREENSHOT FROM YOUTUBE

still follow my gut feel when I need to make decisions. For example, when they ask permission to go out with friends … sometimes, it’s OK; sometimes, it’s not. It depends on the situation, really.”

She can be both strict and lenient, she insisted. “Kids need to realize that they should always tell the truth to their parents. Communication is important Listening to your kids is a must, too. Always make time for them. Even if you are a friend to your kids, they need to understand your role as a parent. Respect should always be there.”

Lotlot, the mom, was once a child, too.

She has a simple wish: She hopes her parents, acclaimed actors Nora Aunor and Christo-

pher de Leon, will get to watch her first indie film, “1st Sem.” “If there’s a chance, sana they can see it. It’s a simple movie with a lot of heart,” she remarked.

Her kids Jessica, Diego and Maxine have seen it, while Janine is raring to catch it soon.

“They said my character is close to the real me. Akong-ako raw!”

She’s extremely proud of this little film, which has won awards in Hyderabad, India (including a special acting citation for Lotlot) and will be screened in Houston and Seoul in the coming weeks.

“My wish is that Filipinos would love our film the same way that foreigners did when they saw it abroad,” she quipped. ■

Heart Evangelista-Escudero steps out of her comfort zone in Follow Your Heart HOW FAR can relationship goals stand the ultimate test when real or reel celebrity couples find themselves in an unfamiliar world?

Beginning April 23, Sunday afternoons will be extra fun and challenging as Kapuso actresshost Heart Evangelista-Escudero joins celebrity couples as they step out of their comfort zones in Follow Your Heart.

Follow Your Heart is GMA Public Affairs’ newest reality show that dares real and reel celebrity couples to face demanding challenges faced by common folk.

Each episode features two

celebrity pairs who will take on the challenges of raising children — and money — for their adoptive family. Together, they will look after the children and perform household chores such as washing clothes and cooking.

It’s a show where drama, action, and entertainment are rolled into one.

The task does not end here as the celebrity couples must battle it out in a series of fun games where cash prizes are at stake for their newfound families.

The winning host family will receive P50,000 while a consolation prize of P25,000 goes to the non-winning host family.

Fans will definitely see another side of Heart in her latest www.canadianinquirer.net

project. “Never been seen iyong mga ginagawa namin. Matu-

tuwa sila dahil mas makikilala nila kami bilang mga artista, kung sino kami sa totoong buhay” says Heart.

Aside from hosting the show, Heart immerses herself in the challenges as well. “Ginawa ko iyong mga challenges. And iyong iba mahirap siyempre dahil summer pero sobrang ang dami kong natutunan,” says the Kapuso actress-host. “Expect [na] nila na talagang lahat kami na mafi-feature sa show [ay] magi-step out talaga sa aming mga comfort zones,” she adds.

For its pilot episode, Follow ❱❱ PAGE 36 Heart Evangelista

Entertainment

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

25

With tears, tattoos, Prince fans 2 groups arrested remember him a year later in Coachella

cellphone thefts

BY AMY FORLITI AND JEFF BAENEN The Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS — For Prince fans, the one-year anniversary of his shocking death from an accidental drug overdose is a time for sadness and celebration.

It was a year ago Friday that the music superstar was found dead at Paisley Park, the suburban Minneapolis recording complex where he lived.

Fans from around the globe have flocked to Paisley Park, now a museum, for a four-day celebration that includes performances by Prince’s former bandmates and panel discussions. Fans who didn’t want to pop for a $549 ticket to get into Paisley could head to a street party outside First Avenue, the club he made famous in “Purple Rain.” And the Minnesota History Center is staging a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia, including his iconic “Purple Rain” costume.

Here’s a look at how some of Prince’s fans are remembering his legacy and mourning his loss.

A 6-hour drive for Prince

Mary Adams and her 10-yearold daughter, Rachel, visited First Avenue on Friday to pose for a picture in front of Prince’s star, repainted from silver to gold soon after his death.

The duo drove six hours from Kansas City, Missouri, listening to Prince the whole way.

“I needed to come here,” said Adams, 50. “This is where it began.”

Adams grew up listening to Prince. After he died, she got her first tattoo — Prince’s glyph adorned with open lilies — on her arm.

“He’ll always be with me now,” she said.

Adams said Prince’s tenacity and drive to do things his own way helped Adams, an actor, realize it was OK to be herself.

“He inspired me to be me, and I love him for it — and I always will,” she said, choking up.

She planned pilgrimages to the Minneapolis house made famous in the movie “Purple Rain” and to Prince’s old neigh-

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SCOTT PENNER / FLICKR

bourhood. She and her daughter went to Paisley Park but weren’t allowed to leave a memorial — a purple lei and a card — at the fence outside.

“This should be a time when we should all be able to go there and pay our respects and say our goodbyes — and it feels like you have to pay a small fortune to get in, and it breaks my heart,” she said.

“I don’t think he would dig that.”

Feeling the loss

Malinda Listenbee, 46, of Huntsville, Alabama, wore a Prince shirt as she and her husband Ulton waited to enter Paisley Park.

She recalled hearing about Prince’s death a year ago by overhearing nurses talk about it while at a doctor’s appointment. She said it felt like she lost a family member.

“He was a caring person, a giving person, and it just felt like I knew him,” she said.

The couple had already been to Paisley Park once, in November, when they took a VIP tour and played on Prince’s pingpong table.

“I feel like this is a time to celebrate,” she said. “This is a happy space.”

Prince’s purple army

Rhonda Soso, of Compton, California, was among fans shooting pictures outside Paisley Park. She wore a pendant of Prince’s symbol, which she had also spray-painted in black along the legs of her white pants.

Soso said she was there “just to be part of the purple family, the purple army.”

She said it was difficult to no longer have Prince, but “his spirit, his energy is still with us.”

Locals love their prince

Liz Larson, 36, of Minneapolis, stopped by the star outside First Avenue on her way to work Friday to pay her respects.

She said her mother was a singer in the 1980s and would sometimes hang out with Prince at First Avenue. Larson remembers being at concerts there herself when Prince would suddenly show up to play.

Prince’s music “was something you could always put on if you wanted to make people dance at a party,” she said. “It would always shift the mood.”

Larson felt isolated last year when Prince died — travelling on business with co-workers who didn’t share her grief. This year, she planned to be at First Avenue’s dance party Saturday with her husband and 6-monthold son — in a Prince onesie.

Ryan Matson, 39, of Ramsey, also stopped by Prince’s star to get a photo. He said he had always liked his music, but “after he died, you started liking his songs all over again.”

He planned to go home after work, have a few beers and watch “Purple Rain.” ■ Baenen reported from Chanhassen, Minnesota. Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski contributed. www.canadianinquirer.net

INDIO, CALIF. — Police have arrested five people in the theft of more than 40 cellphones, cash and credit cards at the Coachella music festival in the Southern California desert.

Indio police say multiple festival-goers reported the thefts, and investigators identified two separate groups of suspects who had multiple phones on them Saturday.

The Desert Sun reports (http://desert.sn/2poJYF2) that five people were booked

into Riverside County jail on theft and conspiracy charges.

Police believe two women, 35-year-old Angela Trivino of New York City and 38-year-old Viviana Hernandez of Los Angeles, were working together. They identified the other group as 29-year-old Brenda Cansino of Miami, 27-year-old Marco Leon of Los Angeles and 25-year-old Sharon Ruiz of Van Nuys.

It’s unclear whether they have attorneys.

One man was arrested at Coachella with more than 100 cellphones in his backpack on April 14. ■

Airstrike kills... fighters in Syria.

Meanwhile, authorities began a sixth round of evacuations on Monday for civilians and fighters from the opposition-held neighbourhood of al-Waer in Homs, Syria’s third largest city, activists and Syrian state media reported.

Government forces have besieged the neighbourhood since 2013, according to the Washington-based monitoring group Siege Watch. Rebels, opposition activists and their families agreed to vacate the district in an agreement signed in March in exchange for the end of hostilities. The government will retake control of the neighbourhood after the last of twelve rounds of evacuations are complete, in an expected three to four weeks, according to local media activist Osama Abou Zeid.

He said about 16,000 people are expected to leave the neighbourhood, instead of reconciling themselves with the government’s notorious security services. Siege Watch estimates there have been 60,000 people trapped under the siege.

An estimated 1,800 people, including some 500 fighters, left on Monday, said Abou Zeid.

They are being taken to Jarablus, a town on the Turkish border that is under the control of Turkish troops and Syrian opposition forces.

❰❰ 21

Tens of thousands of people living in besieged areas around Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo — Syria’s largest city — have surrendered after prolonged sieges in exchange for safe relocation to opposition-held areas elsewhere in the country.

Another 8,000 people have left two pro-government towns in northern Syria, which were besieged by rebels.

Critics say the population transfers are redrawing Syria’s map along sectarian and political lines.

In northern Syria, warplanes struck the town where a chemical attack that was widely blamed on government forces killed nearly 90 people earlier this month. The government has denied using chemical weapons.

The airstrikes in the opposition-held northern town of Khan Sheikhoun killed at least four people and wounded 10 others, according to the activist-run Thiqa News Agency and Edlib Media Center. It was not immediately clear who carried out the strike.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least five people, including a child, were killed in the attack on a vegetable market. ■ Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and Hashem Osseiran in Beirut contributed to this report.

26

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Lifestyle How your selfie could affect your life insurance

BY BARBARA MARQUAND The Associated Press A SELFIE reveals more than whether it’s a good hair day. Facial lines and contours, droops and dark spots could indicate how well you’re aging, and, when paired with other data, could someday help determine whether you qualify for life insurance.

“Your face is something you wear all your life, and it tells a very unique story about you,” says Karl Ricanek Jr., co-founder and chief data scientist at Lapetus Solutions Inc. in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Several life insurance companies are testing Lapetus technology that uses facial analytics and other data to estimate life expectancy, he says. (Lapetus would not disclose the names of companies testing its product.)

Insurers use life expectancy estimates to make policy approval and pricing decisions. Lapetus says its product, Chronos, would enable a customer to buy life insurance online in as little as 10 minutes without taking a life insurance medical exam .

Life insurers already gather other data with your permission to get insight beyond the information you supply on the application. For example, they often pull motor vehicle records, prescription drug histories and reports from an insurance industry database of certain information disclosed on past individual life and health insurance applications.

Many life insurance companies are exploring how to use additional data, statistical models, artificial intelligence

and other techniques to help make quick decisions to ease the policy buying process and boost sales. Consumers don’t like the wait on the typical application process, which can take weeks and often requires a medical exam.

Time and testing will tell which new approaches prove effective, says Robert Kerzner, president and CEO of LIMRA, a life insurance trade group.

“This one may or may not meet the vetting process to make carriers comfortable,” he says.

It’s important for the consumer to feel comfortable, too.

It’s one thing to post a selfie on Instagram, another to send it to an insurer for analysis.

And it’s crucial for consumers that any technology an insurer uses works. Their claims may not be fully paid if insurers make inaccurate predictions and go belly up.

on your face and extract certain information, including your body mass index, physiological age (in layman’s terms, how old you look) and whether you’re aging faster or slower than your actual age.

Ricanek says the program can detect makeup, but not plastic surgery. It verifies identity by comparing the photo to the one on your driver’s license.

The insurer would combine the results with your application answers and, if it chooses, any other information it typically pulls. If approved for coverage, you could buy a policy immediately online.

Several of the largest life i n -

It’s written all over your face

I f Chronos is adopted by an insurer — which would need to get regulatory approval from states to use it in the underwriting process — here’s generally how it would work.

You’d upload a selfie to the insurer online and answer health and other questions.

The facial analytics technology would scan hundreds of points

surers contacted for this story declined to comment on the Lapetus product or the potential use of facial analytics in the underwriting process.

Ricanek worked on facial recognition technology for

www.canadianinquirer.net

the FBI’s Biometric Center of Excellence and is a computer science professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He started Lapetus with S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lapetus launched Chronos, its first product, in November 2015.

Shortening the wait

Insurers are in a tough spot because consumers are used to buying products instantly. But it can take a month or longer to approve coverage if the insurer requires a medical exam.

Exams cost insurers money, says Samantha Chow, a life insurance and annuities senior analyst for Aite Group, a research and advisory firm in Boston.

And fewer people are buying. In 2016, an estimated 9.4 million individual policies were sold, down from 17.7 million individual policies in 1984, according to LIMRA. Consum-

ers don’t like waiting. Only 42 per cent of consumers said it was OK to wait a month for policy approval, and less than 18 per cent said waiting for two months was acceptable, according to a 2015 study by LIMRA and Life Happens, another trade group.

Chow tested the Lapetus platform as part of research of automated underwriting for Aite. She says the ease of the process could appeal to consumers who want a quick way to buy coverage.

Photo ops

Ricanek says his company’s market research found that consumers are willing to share photos with insurers if they get something back, such as the opportunity to buy coverage quickly.

Amy Bach, executive director of consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, says such technology could be good for consumers if it makes the application process easier.

But she says she is concerned that insurers may rely too heavily on new technology and find later that their risk projections were off.

Meanwhile, Lapetus is exploring how facial analytics may identify early signs of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or dementia. And it’s developing a feature that it says will be able to tell whether someone ever smoked. Among the clues are early signs of crow’s feet around the eyes and under-eye bagging.

“Smoking is going to be written on your face,” Ricanek says.

“Even if you stopped smoking, once it’s written, it’s there.” ■

Lifestyle

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

27

Match for mutts? New website helps people adopt the best dog

BY MARK PRATT The Associated Press BOSTON — People looking for the perfect family pet tend to choose a dog based on appearance or breed — but that’s barking up the wrong tree.

“If you think they’re cute, you bring them home,” said Jodi Andersen, a dog trainer and author.

That’s why Andersen, along with MaryAnn Zeman and Sharon Mosse, founded the new online business How I Met My Dog. It works like Match or eHarmony, fitting humans with dogs based on what really matters: personality, lifestyle and behaviour.

Several other online services match people with pets, but the founders of How I Met My Dog say they take things to a new level with a more detailed, science-based questionnaire that narrows the number of dogs that meet a human adopter’s lifestyle and expectations.

The service is needed because about 4 million dogs per year are handed over to shel-

ters and rescues, they said. Too many end up back in shelters, and too many are being euthanized because they can’t find good homes.

“The system we’re using now is broken and has to be fixed,” Andersen said.

Placing a pet in the wrong home is one of the biggest concerns at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which finds homes for thousands of dogs and other animals every year, spokesman Rob Halpin said.

Persuading adopters not to fall in love with the first dog they see is a major issue.

“Sometimes our emotions take leave of our senses,” said Halpin, who was not familiar with How I Met My Dog. The MSPCA has “adoption counsellors” who try to ensure people are matched with the right dogs, but Halpin embraced the idea of services that smooth that process.

“We welcome the notion of technology helping people do some of the hard work it takes to pick the right pet,” he said.

How I Met My Dog, which also helps people who want to find a new home for a dog they just can’t live with anymore, so far has partnered with 24 Boston-area shelters and rescues.

The plan is to role it out nationally by the end of the year.

A person looking to adopt fills out what the founders call a “PET profile” for personality, expectations and training style. Are you a couch potato or an active athlete? Do you want a dog that gets along with children? Are you a disciplinarian when training a dog or more laid back?

The dog profiles are completed either by the shelter staff or the current owner.

The algorithm matches the humans with dogs that complement their lifestyle.

“For example, if you have kids, you will never see a dog from us that doesn’t get along with kids,” Zeman said.

Once the website matches someone with a dog, it’s up to the adopter to meet that dog in person. The shelter or owner ultimately determines whether

Finn and the Spen family. Finn is one of the many dogs who were sucessfully adopted through How I Met My Dog. HOW I MET MY DOG PHOTO

there’s a match.

Pawfect Life Rescue, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, was one of the first rescue organizations to sign on with How I Met My Dog. “They have been pretty spot on so far with having the right people come and look at the right dog,” Pawfect Life founder and president Julie Uthoff said.

The Fredette family, of Waltham, Massachusetts, adopted their dog, Roscoe, from Pawfect Life after being matched through How I Met My Dog. Kate Fredette, her husband and two children had

been thinking of getting a new dog for about a year, but they just didn’t know how to ensure they would get a good fit.

“It was confusing,” Fredette said.

They obviously wanted a dog that gets along with children.

They wanted a dog they could take on family trips. They wanted a social dog they could take to the park.

They couldn’t be happier with Roscoe, a 4-month-old mixed breed.

“Mornings are so much better around here,” Fredette said. ■

Halal food market surging in Canada

BY LOIS ABRAHAM The Canadian Press TORONTO — A growing Muslim community in Canada has led to swelling sales of halal food, which has some grocers, manufacturers and eateries seeking ways to profit from the boom.

“It’s a huge business. It’s an $80-billion business around the world. In Canada, it’s about $1 billion and it’s growing ... by 10 to 15 per cent a year, which is quite significant. It’s much more than other categories,” says Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Halal means permissible in Arabic and refers to foods that have been prepared according to Islamic law. Animals must not suffer when they’re slaughtered and must not see another animal be killed. Pork and its byproducts and alcohol

are among forbidden items not allowed in the making of halal foods.

While Canadians are increasingly seeing more halal products stocked by the big supermarket chains, the complexity of the supply chain has led to concerns about mislabelled food or fraud.

Contamination and traceability were motivating factors for the formation of the Halal Monitoring Authority of Canada, says chief operating officer Imam Omar Subedar.

A presentation on malpractices in the halal industry he attended in 2004 was eye-opening.

“What we were exposed to was really, really bad. There was just no ethics, no controls, no nothing. It was very sad.”

The HMA launched in 2006 with one certified chicken product. Now there are hundreds, with 30 inspectors in Ontario, three in Alberta, two

in Quebec and a representative in B.C. There are plans to start operations in Saskatchewan.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency approved guidelines for halal products just last year.

“Halal unfortunately has been heavily abused and this is why CFIA has gotten involved, which is unprecedented. The government doesn’t get involved in religion, but for halal they did because of the malpractices that had been going on,” says Subedar.

Salima Jivraj, an on-the-go mom who founded Halal Food Festival Toronto in 2012 and runs the website Halalfoodie.ca, says the mainstream availability of halal products now means she can avoid multiple stops at independent shops during her weekly shopping trip.

“I want to go to a grocery store because I’m busy,” she says. “Retailers are noticing now — ‘how can we hone in on this?’” www.canadianinquirer.net

Sobeys Inc. launched the store Chalo FreshCo in 2015 in Brampton, Ont., with separate halal and non-halal meat counters and an assortment of rice, spices, lentils and snacks for South Asian customers.

Loblaw Companies Ltd. has launched its own halal brand, Sufra, and also sells other brands of halal chicken, beef, lamb, yogurt, turkey and gummy candies.

Jivraj suggests a lot of Muslims unknowingly eat non-halal products.

“Immigrants come to the country and they might not necessarily know that they have to look out for halal. Coming from countries that are 100 per cent halal, it might be a new concept for them,” says Jivraj.

Reading labels doesn’t always tell the entire story. Candies, yogurt, jellies, baked goods and pharmaceutical products may contain gelatin, which can be derived from pork. Animal

shortening such as lard and brewer’s yeast are not halal.

Vanilla extract flavouring contains alcohol.

“There’s going to be more and more demand being driven for things like bakeries, confectionery, dairy including cheeses because a lot of animal byproducts are found in all sorts of categories in grocery and the consumers are realizing this as well and they’re being more vigilant in the products that they buy,” says Jivraj.

Meanwhile, big fast-food chains like Pizza Pizza, KFC, Popeyes and Nandos have added halal options to their menus, while The Halal Guys, a fastcasual franchise that started as a food cart in Manhattan with huge lineups, is opening a Toronto location on May 5.

“If there is more food offered to consumers they will buy more essentially,” says Charlebois of the rise in halal offerings. ■

28

Lifestyle

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Catch ancient maps exhibit ‘Mapping the Philippine Seas’ European seafarers recorded a Bajo de Masinloc–now the Scarborough Shoal–when they mapped out Las Islas Filipinas in the 1600s

BY CEDELF P. TUPAS Philippine Daily Inquirer MORE THAN geography and political territories, ancient maps tell stories about history, conflict, culture, trade and even myths. This probably explains the enthusiasm of map collector Jaime Laya as he tours Lifestyle around the current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, “Mapping the Philippine Seas.”

As the backgrounder says, it showcases “rare historical maps and charts of the archipelago drawn from the early 16th century to the end of the 19th century.”

Laya showed how these seemingly innocuous records were used not only to trace shorelines and topography, but also to indicate trade routes, cultural practices, early forms of racial profiling, and even the occasional red herring meant to throw off a navigational rival.

Laya also collects rare books, paintings, antiques and all manner of precious tchotchkes (“Name it, I probably have it”).

Laya is part of a handful of quiet but very knowledgeable group of enthusiasts called the Philippine Map Collectors Society (Phimcos) that celebrates the 10th year of its foundation with an exhibit of 165 original maps and sea charts from their own collections, the Government Service Insurance System’s collection, and others in the private sector.

The oldest on display is a map said to be drawn by Italian explorer Antonio Pigafetta, of two oddly-shaped islands called “ZZubu (Cebu?)” and Mattan (Mactan)” that was submitted to the King of Spain when Ferdinand Magellan’s crew returned in 1522 from circumnavigating the globe.

Laya also noted a “fascinating” map done by Sebastian Munster (c. 1540) that “came close to the present count of 7,641 islands”—so the Philippines supposedly has had that number of islands all along.

Another, drawn 14 years later

by Giovanni Battista Ramu-

sio, presents “better-shaped islands” already identified as “Vendanao,” “Cyabu,” “Humunu (Homonhon?)” and a tiny island called “Puzon (Luzon?).”

Laya, a former budget minister, Central Bank governor and education minister, believes that the Europeans must have recorded the names phonetically, the spelling based on how they pronounced their vowels.

Thus there are latter-day French maps showing islands that are labelled “Sooloo (Sulu),” “Baseelan,” “Seeassee (Siasi)” and “Booleepongpong (Bolipongpong).”

A British map refers to the country’s extreme northern channel as “Bashee,” while Dutch records speak of islands called “Luconia (Luzon ’yan?) and “Mindora.”

There was another that is obviously one of Laya’s favorites, a map detailing an encounter between Spanish and Dutch naval forces in Manila Bay sometime between the 1590s and the 1650s when their countries engaged in the Thirty Years War. “In the Netherlands’ war for independence, the Dutch brought their war to the East,” said Laya. “They blockaded Manila Bay to jeopardize Spain’s galleon trade. The Dutch ships (drawn on the map) waited for the Spanish ships from Cavite.

The Spanish, although outnumbered, defeated the Dutch.

It was the victory attributed to Our Lady of La Naval. The devotion to La Naval started in 1646. Interesting that nobody remembers the war.”

He then noted a tiny detail on the map, an exploding volcano drawn near the Cavite coastline.

An inaccuracy, Laya said, because the mariners did not see Taal Volcano acting up miles off the coast.

“A sailor did not see the actual volcano but took note of the smoke,” said Laya. “The eruption was visible from the bay. Had they seen the volcano, they would have noted it was inside a lake and that would have been on the map.”

“There was heavy competition for commercial and co-

lonial supremacy among the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Spaniards in the 16th and 17th centuries,” said Laya. “Maps were valuable secrets and published maps were often drawn to mislead enemies, trade competitors and pirates.”

A “small, nonexistent Isle de S. Joannes” east of Surigao for example, appears on a 1596 map.

“Surveying equipment was the simplest and unintentionally or not, early maps had misplaced, misshapen, missing or fictitious islands,” he said.

Laya was visibly affected by a fullsize reproduction of the Selden Map, whose original is on display at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University.

The original hand-drawn map, he said, was said to be produced for a Chinese merchant in the early 1600s and shows China, Japan, Indochina, the Philippines and Indonesia “with mountains and vegetation drawn Chinese-style.”

Thin lines indicated trade routes across the South China Sea and 126 towns all over Luzon were indicated in Chinese characters.

“The map could have been made here because there is a character hualang, meaning Spaniards that was (a term) used only by the Manila(based) Chinese,” said Laya.

“However, other terms and motifs used raise Aceh in Sumatra as another possibility.”

It is stories like this that causes the adrenaline rush among Phimcos members led by president Jaime Gonzales.

Former energy secretary and economic development executive Raphael Lotilla, another Phimcos member, happened to walk in during Laya’s tour and quickly noted that European seafarers recorded a Bajo de Masinloc, currently referred to as Scarborough Shoal, when they mapped out Las Islas Filipinas in the 1600s.

Laya turned to a map drawn

by Englishman Robert Dudley who recorded a “La Seccagna de Bolinao (the shallows of Bolinao)” on a map drawn while he was in Italy around 1661. www.canadianinquirer.net

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF MANILA / FACEBOOK

Among those displayed is a Southeast Asia map by Vincenzo Coronelli (c. 1688) that Laya said “delineates maritime boundaries of Isole Filippine… that satisfyingly encompasses (current-day) Scarborough Shoal, the Spratlys and Benham Rise.”

There is also an “extraordinarily rare” 1734 map by Fr. Pedro Murillo-Velarde S.J., that Laya describes as “the most accurate map produced” around 1734 showing major rivers, towns and shallow areas in the South China Sea called “Galit,” “Panacot” and “Lumbay.”

Laya said “‘Panacot’ is Scarborough Shoal, the first reference to which is a label on another map (London, c. 1753), called ‘The Scarborough Capt.

Deavergne Struck.’”

(Later, a US Coast and Geodesic Survey map released in 1900 referred to the same as Bajo de Masinloc, which the government now calls Panatag, Laya said.)

Laya also praised the Murillo-Velarde map for including vignettes that depict scenes of urban life with Spanish elite (shaded by an umbrella-bearer), Chinese, Armenians, Indians and Africans engaged in daily routines; rural culture and maps of Guam, Manila, Cavite and Zamboanga.

He also called attention to an “increasingly accurate” map on display at the exhibit’s entrance that was annexed to the 1898 Treaty of Paris “showing the Philippines so accurately as to look as if drawn from a satellite photo.”

Lotilla, a lawyer and known expert on the country’s claim to certain islands in the West Philippine Sea, said he was drawn to collecting maps when he started out as an associate professor at University of the Philippines right after graduation in the mid-1980s.

“Imagine doing this on a public school teacher’s salary?” he said. “At that time, not too many people were interested in the South China Sea. I was teaching international law, constitutional law at UP. In my case, it was the academic interest over national territory and the emergence of the Philippine (claim) that made me look into the maps and the charts.”

Lotilla, director of the UP Institute of International Legal Studies, said that a significant number of maps in his collection of “a hundred or so” were helpful in “putting together documents on the national territory.”

Laya started with a map bought for $10 from a street vendor in Florence, Italy.

“It was a Venetian map dated 1718 (by Venetian printer and map publisher Antonio) Zatta,” he said. “I asked the vendor in Spanish whether he had a map of the Philippines—the first map I got in 1966.” Thus began his lifelong passion for map collecting.

Apart from serving as snapshots of the economics and politics of a particular period, ancient maps are also art items, Laya said.

Older maps, he noted, have “decorative compass roses and allegorical figures like mermaids and sea monsters, saints and cherubs, flora and fauna, natives and their boats.”

A small Murillo-Velarde map has San Francisco Javier “on a seashell pulled by sea horses.

He was thought to have visited the Philippines and is shown holding a cross that he had lost at sea and that was retrieved by a large crab,” Laya said.

At one point, Lotilla who was listening in on the conversation, exclaimed that a map by Zatta such as what Laya has now costs already $2,000. “Ayoko namang ibenta (I don’t really want to sell it),” Laya replied. ■

29

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

Sports Ateneo, La Salle Host Western Visayas, Northern duel anew for Mindanao athletes shine UAAP title Palarong Pambansa:

BY PRIMO P. AGATEP Philippines News Agency SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, ANTIQUE — James Lozanes of host Western Visayas established a new meet record in the secondary boys’ javelin throw and Jay Ann Labanosa of Northern Mindanao became the first gold medalist of Palaro when she ruled the lung-busting secondary girls’ 3,000 meter run, setting the tone in Monday’s competition of athletics at Binirayan Sports Complex here.

Lozanes, 17, pride of Antique posted his record breaking throw of 59.46 meters on his third attempt, eclipsing the four-year old record of Central Luzon’s Bryan Pacheco (57.81) recorded in 2013.

“I’m so happy. My coach just told me to do my best, and I did it,” said Labanosa in the vernacular.

Labanosa, 5th of eight siblings of a farmer, clocked 10:36.67 minutes for the win and her first gold in the Palaro.

Actually, the 17-year old Labanosa, Grade XI and pride of Manolo Fortich (Bukidnon), was

BY CEDELF P. TUPAS Philippine Daily Inquirer

James Lozanes.

with the second-pack of runners, until she made her move on the last lap and overtook fellow Northern Mindanaon, Jie Ann Calis, the meet holder and now representing the National Capital Region (NCR).

Calis settled for silver (10:41.15) while Maria Junalisa Abutas of Ilocos Region took the bronze (10:44.68).

Other winners in the secondary boy’s javelin throw were Ronald Lacson (Western Visayas), who took the silver at 57.30 meters; while Northern Mindanao’s Manny Maquiling settled for bronze with 54.66 meters.

REGI ADOSTO / FACEBOOK

Cesar Fernandez of Negros Island Region (NIR) captured the gold in the secondary boy’s high jump at 1.90 meters in his first attempt beating Kent Celeste of Ilocos Region, who posted a similar 1.90 meters but cleared the horizontal bar in his second attempt good for silver. Ernie Calipay of Central Visayas took the bronze (1.85 meters).

In shot put girls’ elementary, Southern Tagalog’s Maria Sally San Jose took home the gold at 10.70 meters, Rhealyn Decosta of Western Visayas silver (9.98 meters); while Northern Mindanao Juwelisa Sarabosing got the bronze (9.43 meters). ■

Pacquiao says Horn fight will show he’s not done yet THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA — Manny Pacquiao says his July 2 world title bout with Jeff Horn is his chance to tell the boxing world “I’m not done yet.”

The 38-year-old Pacquiao, an 11-time champion across eight weight divisions and now a member of the Philippines senate, had intended the WBO world welterweight title fight in Brisbane with 29-year-old

school teacher Horn to be a stepping stone to a more lucrative bout with former welterweight world champion Amir Khan. But Pacquiao now says the bout gives him a chance to let the boxing world know he’s still at the top.

“I want to defend my crown and prove I am still there in boxing — I am not done yet in boxing,” Pacquiao told a news conference in Brisbane on Monday. “Despite my business in the office as a senator I am

still handling my boxing career.

Boxing is my passion. I started when I was young — it’s part of my life.”

Pacquiao, who has record 596-2, said he is still in shape and as good as ever.

“It depends on how you discipline yourself, how you train and prepare yourself,” he said.

“It’s a matter of discipline.”

Horn had his first professional fight in 2013 and is 16-0-1 with 11 by KO. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

WITH ITS top hitter returning to form, Ateneo churned out an impressive 25-22, 25-10, 16-25, 2624 win over FEU on Sunday to book a sixth straight finals appearance opposite fierce rival De La Salle in the UAAP women’s volleyball at Mall of Asia Arena. Jho Maraguinot, sidelined for two games due to a knee injury, finished with 14 hits. With its top hitter returning to form, Ateneo took care of business with an impressive 2522, 25-10, 16-25, 26-24 triumph over Far Eastern U on Sunday to book a sixth straight finals appearance opposite fierce rival La Salle in the UAAP Season 79 women’s volleyball at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.

Jho Maraguinot, sidelined in the last two games of the elimination round due to a knee injury, got Ateneo going in the first two sets and finished with 14 hits, while Bea De Leon, Michelle Morente and Jia Morado sustained their solid play for the top-seeded Lady Eagles.

Just like the Lady Spikers, who needed four sets to eliminate 15time winner University of Santo Tomas Tigresses on Saturday, the Lady Eagles also had their share of struggles in putting away the Lady Tamaraws.

“We’re just happy to be back in the finals because not a lot of people expected this,” said Mo-

rado.

The Lady Eagles, Seasons 76 and 77 champions over their archrivals, were uncharacteristically sloppy in the third set and nearly lost steam after taking an early lead in the fourth, where the Lady Tamaraws rallied from 4-10 down to gain set point at 24-23 on Jeanete Villareal’s hit.

But Anna Gopico saved the FEU set point and Heather Guino-o committed an error, before Morente wrapped up the win with a kill off the block.

It was only fitting that Morente finished off the match for the Lady Eagles as she sat out last season to focus on academics. She had 16 points, on top of 15 digs, while De Leon added 12, including three blocks.

With superstar Alyssa Valdez graduating after its finals loss to La Salle last year, there were doubts if Ateneo could retain its lofty status in the league, with FEU, National U, University of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas keeping its core from last season.

But the Lady Eagles grew from strength-to-strength as the season wore on, coming up with one gutsy performance after another, including a sweep of their two elimination round games against the Lady Spikers.

FEU nursed hopes of an upset after pushing Ateneo to the limit in their two elimination round meetings. Michelle Morente of Ateneo (right) goes for a kill off Remy Palma of FEU. ■

RETIKANO.NET

30

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Business Canada export bank eyes PH Companies not complying with Bangladesh garment plan

BY DORIS DUMLAOABADILLA Philippine Daily Inquirer

AS OFFERS of development funding from China and Japan pour in, Canada also wants a bigger piece of the Philippine growth story as its export credit agency Export Development Canada (EDC) seeks more opportunities to fund infrastructure projects and other key industries.

In an e-mail interview with the Inquirer, EDC regional vice president for Asia international business development William Brown said EDC was anticipating more Canadian businesses wanting to invest and sell more products to the Philippines as Canadian exporters and investors seek opportunities in emerging markets.

The domestic sectors that EDC is most bullish about include food processing, clean technology, pulp and paper, information and communications technology and aerospace-related industries.

EDC also expects to play a bigger role in the country’s infrastructure sector given President Duterte’s ambition to bring the Philippines to a golden age of infrastructure.

“EDC’s funding is disbursed according to customer needs and opportunities for trade between Canada and the Philippines. EDC can be a valuable resource to Philippine corporations in the infrastructure sector by providing financing and introducing them to leading Canadian infrastructure companies,” Brown said.

“Rail, clean technology and power are all key industries that EDC and Canada can contribute to in the Philippines.

We also have in-depth experience in financing PPP (publicprivate partnership) projects.

This will augur well with the President’s agenda in bringing more private capital to support infrastructure development in the Philippines using the PPP model,” he said.

As funding from Asian eco-

BY JULHAS ALAM The Associated Press

nomic giants like China and Japan flow more abundantly to the Philippines, Brown said EDC—being “one of the most progressive export credit agencies”—had many competitive advantages compared to other financiers.

“EDC’s strong capital position means that it can handle transactions of all sizes, from the very large to the small, for companies in support of transactions involving Canadian supply or services. We also like to partner with other commercial banks on their syndicated financing facilities to grow the reach of our support,” Brown said.

Brown said that apart from offering innovative and reliable financing, what would set EDC apart from other financiers was that it could serve as a supplychain talent scout.

“This unique EDC key value proposition means that EDC helps companies in the Philippines reduce costs and increase efficiency and innovation by introducing them to Canadian companies with the exact capabilities they need or want.

Canadian companies are renowned for their world-class technology and services, which is an attractive feature for foreign buyers,” he said.

EDC recently opened a branch in Singapore to func-

tion as its financing hub in Asia.

Brown said this meant that EDC could now bring its globalscale financing business closer to projects and companies in Southeast Asia and the Philippines by processing transactions in real Asia time, eliminating the previous 12-hour delay to connect back to the financing teams in Canada.

“EDC’s financing is now offered more quickly and effectively, which will significantly benefit both Canadian companies operating in the Philippines as well as Philippine companies seeking financing,” he said.

As an export credit agency, EDC focuses on providing financial services to companies that buy from Canadian companies or those that have Canadian supply and services in their corporate value chain. Funds from EDC can be used for capital expenditure or project finance requirements, either through bilateral or syndicated corporate facilities.

EDC has been present in Southeast Asia for a long time through a representative office in Singapore since 2007. EDC also recently opened a representative office in Jakarta, Indonesia, to complement EDC’s other representative offices in Asia: Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

DHAKA, BANGLADESH — Dozens of global clothing companies are not complying with a plan to ensure better safety in Bangladesh garment factories following the deadly collapse of a building four years ago, a rights group said Monday.

Only 29 out of 72 recently contacted companies are releasing information about how they source their products in Bangladesh, and “many brands have held out completely,” New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report.

That makes it impossible to hold them accountable for ensuring safe conditions at factories they work with, the group said.

Bangladesh’s garment industry has invested more than $1 billion in safety improvements since April 24, 2013, when the Rana Plaza garment factory complex collapsed outside Dhaka, killing more than 1,130 workers and injuring 2,500.

The collapse highlighted grim conditions in the country’s garment industry, the second largest in the world with about 4,000 factories employing about 4 million workers and earning $25 billion a year from exports, mainly to the United States and Europe.

Only 17 companies are now meeting the minimum disclosure standard, while some others are starting to move in the right direction, the report said.

“But the industry still has a long way to go,” the group said in a statement. It said the 72 clothing and footwear companies were contacted in the past year by a coalition of labour and human rights organizations

that endorsed a Transparency Pledge, which urged the companies to adhere to a minimum standard for publishing supply chain information. They said the minimum standard reflects corporate disclosure practices and aims to foster a level playing field in the industry.

Following the 2013 disaster, global clothing companies joined U.N. agencies and the Bangladesh government in promising to improve safety standards.

Representatives from North American and European brands have visited the country’s garment factories to suggest improvements or sever ties with factories that failed to improve.

The government has also hired more than 350 new factory inspectors and passed legislation setting up a workers’ welfare fund and allowing stronger union representation.

The companies say the efforts are paying off.

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a group of 29 North American brands, lauded the industry’s progress over the last four years. The group has 775 factories in its network.

“Our comprehensive programs have begun to transform an industry once repeatedly touched by tragedy,” it said in a statement Monday.

“Most importantly, our efforts have directly translated into lives saved: Not a single garment worker has perished in an Alliance factory since our remediation work began,” it said.

Low wages in the South Asian country have attracted global apparel brands and retailers. ■

Business

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

31

Trudeau, Italian PM affirm trade bonds in face of Trump protectionism

BY MIKE BLANCHFIELD The Canadian Press OTTAWA — One day after Donald Trump called Canada a “disgrace” for policies that hurt American farmers, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he plans to be respectful and engage with the U.S. on a fact-based approach to solve problems.

“I will stand up for Canada’s interests, I will stand up for Canadians,” Trudeau said Friday during a news conference alongside the visiting Italian prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni.

“The way to do that is to make arguments in a respectful fashion, based on facts, and work constructively and collaboratively with our neighbours.”

Trudeau offered that reply to the U.S. president’s latest antiCanada trade tirade, one in which Trump savaged Canada for creating a new lower-priced classification of milk product that he argues is hurting U.S. producers.

Both Trudeau and Gentiloni, who was in Washington himself on Thursday, were keen to display their support for free trade and open borders — including

the Canada-EU free trade pact — in the face of growing populist opposition.

Trump’s presence was strongly felt during the visit, as is becoming almost routine with most of Trudeau’s international interactions.

In the wake of his own visit to the White House, Gentiloni said Canada and Italy share a common, pro-trade world view and that they live in “interesting times.” He also said the antitrade movement is bigger than one single country — the U.S. “The United States president’s opinions are perfectly legitimate,” the Italian leader said through a translator.

“But we have to be aware of the fact that this push that goes against free trade as a catalyst for world growth ... that is why we need to work politically, culturally and economically to fight against this trend.”

Italy is to host the G7 leaders’ summit next month, which will be part of Trump’s entry into the world of multilateral summitry. Trudeau said the subject of the upcoming summit formed a large part of his talks with Gentiloni. Trudeau also said he will have an audience with Pope Francis in Vatican

City after the G7 talks.

Trump on Thursday praised Italy’s contributions to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and its efforts to promote stability in Libya.

Italy has also committed to increase its defence spending to two per cent of gross domestic product, the target Trump wants all NATO members to reach. Trudeau, however, has long insisted Canada is already doing its fair share.

Gentiloni said Italy supports free-trade agreements and its economy relies on exports. The remark stood in contrast to Trump’s latest denunciation of the North American Free Trade Agreement — the president said this week he’s anxious to see some “some very big changes” to the pact.

As he offered congratulations on Canada’s 150th birthday, Gentiloni said the two countries share “the same line” on many issues.

Trudeau also lauded the “tremendously strong” trade ties between the two countries.

“We are living in interesting times and this common vision, I think, will be helpful for us and for the world,” Gentiloni said.

RIME MINISTER'S OFFICE PHOTO

Trudeau thanked him for Italy’s support bringing the Canada-EU free trade deal together.

“On a broad range of things, we find ourselves tremendously aligned,” Trudeau said, who visited Europe last winter to praise free trade agreements, including the Canada-EU pact.

Trump’s arrival on the broader world stage is set to happen in late May. It will start with the NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels,

just before the G7 leaders meet in Italy — summits which both Trump and Trudeau are expected to attend.

Trump has roundly criticized many of the world’s international institutions, and once called NATO obsolete.

The G7 summit will be important for Trudeau because it will serve as a handover of sorts for next year, when it becomes Canada’s turn to host the gathering. ■

Britain’s back in favour for corporate deals despite Brexit

BY PAN PYLAS The Associated Press LONDON — Britain has reclaimed its place as one of the top five countries that firms look to make deals in, just six months after dropping off the list in the wake of the country’s surprise to leave the European Union, according to a survey released Monday.

In its half-yearly report of business executives, consulting firm EY said Britain has rebounded to be the third most attractive destination for mergers and acquisitions, behind the U.S. and China. Last October, in the wake of the Brexit vote, it had slumped to seventh and out of the top five for the first time in EY’s seven-year history of assessing deal intentions.

Steve Krouskos, EY’s global head of transactions, said that irrespective of the Brexit vote, Britain remains a “major force in the global economy and a centre of deal-making activity.”

In the City of London, Britain has the most comprehensive financial sector in Europe and most commentators think the government, whoever wins the upcoming general election, will seek to retain that status in the Brexit discussions and that Britain will remain an open and transparent place to do business.

Last month, before she called the general election for June 8, Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered the twoyear process by which Britain will leave the EU. There’s now growing talk that whoever wins the election will be in a better

position to get a transitional deal with the EU that might last around three years.

In all, Krouskos thinks that elections can have a shortterm impact on the appetite for corporate deals, but that longer-term issues such as rapid technological change are what really drive firms.

“Geopolitical and policy uncertainty is a permanent feature of the boardroom, but technology-enabled disruption poses a greater challenge to many business models,” he said. “The exponential pace of disruption and transformation is compelling executives to engage in M&A. Companies need to innovate to follow rapidly changing customer preferences and buying assets can be the fastest way to radically reshape their business for future www.canadianinquirer.net

growth.”

As a result, the interest in deals remains high. According to EY’s survey of 2,300 executives across 43 countries, the majority of whom are CEOs, 56 per cent of companies expect to actively pursue deals in the next 12 months. That’s down a percentage point from October, but six points higher than a year ago and way above the survey’s long-run average.

“Executives recognize that staying on the deal sidelines could mean they are sidelined from securing future-proofing assets,” Krouskos said.

EY’s findings echo those of specialist Mergermarket, which this month found that global deal-making has remained resilient this year in the face of uncertainties, with deals worth $678.5 billion announced in the

first quarter, 8.9 per cent up on the previous year’s value.

Already this year, Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest maker of health care products, has announced its largest-ever acquisition — the pending $30 billion purchase of Swiss biopharmaceutical company Actelion. And British American Tobacco has offered $49 billion bid for the nearly 58 per cent of rival Reynolds it doesn’t already own.

Getting deals through isn’t always easy and this year has shown that. Recent failures include the proposed $30 billion tie-up between the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse and most dramatically Unilever’s rebuff of a $143 billion approach from Kraft ❱❱ PAGE 33 Britain’s back

32

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Technology Taiwan’s “hacker minister” reshaping digital democracy

BY YOUKYUNG LEE The Associated Press SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF — Taiwan’s “digital minister” Audrey Tang, a computer prodigy and entrepreneur who taught herself programming at age 8, says she’s a “civic hacker,” who like a locksmith uses specialized skills to help rather than harm.

Appointed by leaders hoping to better connect with young voters who helped sweep independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen into office last year, 35-year-old Tang is using her expertise to more directly involve the public in policymaking, and to counter “fake news.”

“Just by getting people to listen to the ideas that they don’t like, basically, develops their immune systems,” Tang said in an interview with The Associated Press while visiting Seoul for the annual Codegate international hacking competition.

“If people have already considered carefully even the position of people they don’t agree with, they already have some kind of inoculation in their mind, so that they will not fall victim to rumours,” she said.

Keeping the public engaged is crucial given Taiwan’s status as a self-ruled democracy of 23 million people that separated from the Chinese mainland amid civil war in 1949.

Communist-ruled Beijing insists the two sides are part of a single Chinese nation. Public opinion on the issue is divided.

One of Tang’s initiatives is an

artificial intelligence-powered duce classes on “information system called Pol.is that aggre- technology and media literacy” gates and shares public views for all school years to help stuon policy issues to help deter- dents learn to distinguish rumine the exact degree of sup- mours and falsehoods from facts. port for a particular position.

“The idea is not about spotThe government can use that ting ‘fake news’ but about bedata, for example, in negotia- ing able to make decisions ... so tions over regulating Uber and that people don’t get swayed in other taxi services, Tang says. one way or another based on ruThe approach reflects an ef- mours,” Tang said. fort to encourage deep thinking Taiwanese are keen on on- Audrey Tang. and listening on a mass scale, line forums like Twitter, whose unlike the fragmented and 140-character limit for posts faTang is Taiwan’s first trans“half-baked” ideas often found vours writing in Chinese ideo- gender government minister, in social media posts, said grams that often can say more a rarity especially in East Asia, Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, a research with fewer characters than in where outspoken conservative associate at Centre of Taiwan English. groups often publicly condemn Studies, SOAS University of Tang objects to the term “fake sexual minorities.

London. news,” saying it’s unfair to jourNot so in Taiwan, she says.

“It is important that Taiwan- nalists. But she says she finds “I would say I’m just postese government is thinking U.S. President Donald Trump’s gender or post-genre, meaning about practicing deliberative enthusiastic use of Twitter “re- that I don’t think there should democracy,” said Rawnsley. freshing.” be things that only one gender “While the exshould do,” said plosion of social Tang, who early media platforms on showed she creates many exhas a mind of her citing opportuThe idea is not about spotting ‘fake own. nities for public news’ but about being able to make Seeking ways expression and decisions ... so that people don’t get to streamline mass participaswayed in one way or another based math calculation, it also leads on rumours. tions, she taught to a phenomherself computenon where ever programming eryone wants to while only 8. She talk, but few care to listen.”

Trump’s short declarations, dropped out of school by the Tang’s digital-friendly stance though often surprising, leave time she was 14. By the time she includes allowing top-level little leeway for misinterpreta- was 20 she had already started computer game players in Tai- tion, she contends. a software company in Silicon wan to serve an alternative “If I make all my messages Valley. form of the island’s compulsory self-contained and short, then A dry wit, she quips that military service. That gives pro- there’s no danger of being taken sometimes people mistake her fessional e-sports “League of out of context. That’s the basic height, 180 centimetres, for her Legend” players the same op- thing I’ve learned,” Tang said. apparently genius-level IQ. portunities an Olympics med- “@realDonaldTrump uses Tang’s involvement in poliallist would get.

Twitter ... the way it is meant to tics took off during Taiwan’s Next year, she plans to intro- be (used),” she said.

Sunflower movement of 2014,

www.canadianinquirer.net

DAISUKE1230 / FLICKR

when she became well known for helping officials interact with citizens using the internet during the protests against a trade agreement with Beijing.

Given the ever-present risk of cyberattacks, as digital minister one of the first things Tang did after joining the Cabinet was to make government information systems more secure and then rigorously test them for loopholes.

“The utmost importance is to get people to still see the internet as a secure place ... so that people can still form communities where it is still possible to talk with strangers, to learn from strangers,” she said. “Basically, if we don’t do our job right on security on the internet, it becomes a fragmenting force instead of a community force.”

The risk is that the online world would become a place where people live “essentially in their own realities, and that is as undemocratic and as nonhumane as we can imagine,” she said. ■ Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed.

Technology

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

33

Icelandic language at risk; Google Earth invites robots, computers can’t grasp it you to ‘get lost’ exploring the planet

BY EGILL BJARNASON The Associated Press

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND — When an Icelander arrives at an office building and sees “Solarfri” posted, they need no further explanation for the empty premises: The word means “when staff get an unexpected afternoon off to enjoy good weather.”

The people of this rugged North Atlantic island settled

by Norsemen some 1,100 years ago have a unique dialect of Old Norse that has adapted to life at the edge of the Artic.

Hundslappadrifa, for example, means “heavy snowfall with large flakes occurring in calm wind.”

But the revered Icelandic language, seen by many as a source of identity and pride, is being undermined by the widespread use of English, both for mass tourism and in the voice-controlled artificial intelligence devices coming into vogue.

Linguistics experts, studying the future of a language spoken by fewer than 400,000 people in an increasingly globalized world, wonder if this is the beginning of the end for the Icelandic tongue.

Former President Vigdis Finnbogadottir told The Associated Press that Iceland must take steps to protect its language. She is particularly concerned that programs be developed so the language can be easily used in digital technology.

“Otherwise, Icelandic will end in the Latin bin,” she warned.

Teachers are already sensing a change among students in the scope of their Icelandic vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Anna Jonsdottir, a teaching consultant, said she often hears teenagers speak English among themselves when she visits schools in Reykjavik, the capital.

She said 15-year-old students are no longer assigned a volume from the Sagas of Icelanders, the medieval literature chronicling the early settlers of Iceland. Icelanders have long prided themselves of being able to fluently read the epic tales

BY ANICK JESDANUN The Associated Press

Former President Vigdis Finnbogadottir.

SCREENSHOT FROM A WOMEN POLITICAL LEADERS VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

originally penned on calfskin.

Most high schools are also waiting until senior year to read author Halldor Laxness, the 1955 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, who rests in a small cemetery near his farm in West Iceland.

A number of factors combine to make the future of the Icelandic language uncertain.

Tourism has exploded in recent years, becoming the country’s single biggest employer, and analysts at Arion Bank say one in two new jobs is being filled by foreign labour.

That is increasing the use of English as a universal communicator and diminishing the role of Icelandic, experts say.

“The less useful Icelandic becomes in people’s daily life, the closer we as a nation get to the threshold of giving up its use,” said Eirikur Rognvaldsson, a language professor at the University of Iceland.

He has embarked on a threeyear study of 5,000 people that will be the largest inquiry ever into the use of the language.

“Preliminary studies suggest children at their first-language acquisition are increasingly not exposed to enough Icelandic to foster a strong base for later years,” he said.

Concerns for the Icelandic language are by no means new.

In the 19th century, when its vocabulary and syntax were heavily influenced by Danish, independence movements fought to revive Icelandic as the common tongue, central to the claim that Icelanders were a nation.

Since Iceland became fully independent from Denmark in

1944, its presidents have long championed the need to protect the language.

Asgeir Jonsson, an economics professor at the University of Iceland, said without a unique language Iceland could experience a brain drain, particularly among certain professions.

“A British town with a population the size of Iceland has far fewer scientists and artists, for example,” he said. “They’ve simply moved to the metropolis.”

The problem is compounded because many new computer devices are designed to recognize English but they do not understand Icelandic.

“Not being able to speak Icelandic to voice-activated fridges, interactive robots and similar devices would be yet another lost field,” Jonsson said.

Icelandic ranks among the weakest and least-supported language in terms of digital technology — along with Irish Gaelic, Latvian, Maltese and Lithuanian — according to a report by the Multilingual Europe TechnologyAlliance assessing 30 European languages.

Iceland’s Ministry of Education estimates about 1 billion Icelandic krona, or $8.8 million, is needed for seed funding for an open-access database to help tech developers adapt Icelandic as a language option.

Svandis Svavarsdottir, a member of Iceland’s parliament for the Left-Green Movement, said the government should not be weighing costs when the nation’s cultural heritage is at stake.

“If we wait, it may already be too late,” she said. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

NEW YORK — Google Earth is getting a revival, as the 3-D mapping service reorients itself to become more of a tool for adventure and exploration.

A central feature in the new Google Earth is Voyager.

Google has partnered with such groups as the BBC and NASA to add video clips, photos and text narratives to three-dimensional representations of particular locations.

The Jane Goodall Institute, for instance, lets you journey to spots in Tanzania that inspired its founding chimpanzee expert. You can also get overlays of chimpanzee ranges and compare imagery from 2005 and 2014 to see the effects of forest restoration efforts.

The producers of “Sesame Street” show off Muppets from co-productions around the world; the map shows where the Muppets live and offer stories about the region and its culture.

Separately, a new “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature takes you to a location selected at random.

Google Earth is highlighting some 20,000 lesser-known destinations — the kinds of places locals might frequent or know about, such as the Indonesian island of Bunaken , part of a na-

tional marine park.

Google Earth used to be the place to go to for satellite views and 3-D images stitched together from aerial fly-bys.

A software download was required, limiting its use. Google Maps has incorporated many of those features, making Google Earth even less necessary.

Tuesday’s update is about giving you a reason to use Google Earth again. Google says that while Maps is about getting you to a destination, Earth is about immersing you there, or “getting lost.”

With the update, Google Earth now works on Google’s Chrome browsers for desktops. It still requires an app for phones and tablets because of the heavy graphics involved; Google is rolling out updates for Android, but there’s no Google Earth app for iPhones or iPads yet.

Some older features will still require a software download on desktops. That includes maps of Mars and the moon through a partnership with NASA. Google also announced an update to a virtual-reality version of Google Earth. It now works with Facebook’s Oculus Rift, not just the HTC Vive.

But it won’t work with cheaper, phone-based VR systems, such as Google’s Daydream and Samsung’s Gear VR. ■

Britain’s back...

Heinz. And Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to consolidate his media empire with Twenty-First Century Fox’s purchase of Britain-based Sky is no done deal following the British government’s decision to give regulators more time to weigh the matter because of the election.

One concern that’s risen in the wake of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president is that the global economy is heading for a period of increasing protectionism. However, despite speculation about trade barriers, Krouskos said

❰❰ 31

cross-border M&A has already been a hallmark of 2017, with a resurgence of deals between the United States and Western Europe. According to the survey, only 36 per cent of companies now plan to focus on domestic deals in the next 12 months.

“For many companies, crossborder deals are a necessity — successful companies will find ways to navigate challenges such as rising nationalism,” Krouskos said. “Executives are evaluating a wide range of M&A geographies to secure market access and grow customer base.” ■

APRIL 28, 2017

34

CANADA

CAREGIVER NEEDED ASAP

Wanted: PERSONAL ASSISTANT - HOME CARE

Seeking a full time caregiver to assist in an English speaking household environment, to provide personal Care, hygiene, cooking, assist in all aspects of daily routine, with day outings, appointments to a social and demanding middle-age high-quad Male. With light house & yard keeping duties.

Permanent – Full time $14.00/hour - for 40 hours per week Anticipated start date: As soon as possible Location: Scarborough, Canada (1 vacancy)

Applicant must be Canadian Citizen, Permanent resident, Foreign Worker. Living-in and with valid Drivers license for adapted minivan.

Completed Caregiver’s course or nursing qualifications. Emphasis will be based on reliability, communication skills, comprehension, trust, honesty, loyalty, initiative & flexibility.

Rate of Pay: $13.00/h, plus benefits. Guaranteed 168 hours bi-weekly (plus free R&B). Location: Devon. Alberta. To appy email Glen at maryglen@telusplanet.net

Wanted homecare personal assitant to provide care to an 85 years old elderly female suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Duty includes administer bedside and personal care to client such as aid in ambulation, bathing, personal hygiene and administration of medication.

Prepare and serve nutritious meals. Perform routine housekeeping duties such as laundry and ironing clothes and linens, washing dishes, making beds and house cleaning. Taking the designated individual for walks, park, malls and doctors appointments and any other duties deemed necessary to assist the designated individual with day to day living. Preferably with 1 year to less than 2 years of work experience in elderly care. Must speak and write English.

Completion of highschool graduate equivalent in Canada.Optional accomodation available at no charge on a live-in basis. (This is not a condition of employment)

email resume to: eymard.lumbre@yahoo.com

St. Louis Bar and Grill (Bolton Location) 301 Queen St. S

Now Hiring Line Cooks - Cook menu items in cooperation with the rest of the Kitchen staff - Clean up kitchen and stock inventory - Proven cooking experience - Accuracy and speed in executing assigned tasks We have an amazing group of people working here and we are currently growing very quickly! We are looking for the right team member(s) to join our fabulous team!

Please reply to our email and you will be contacted promptly.

Email at stlouisbolton@gmail.com

HIRING

COOK (Short Order Cook) Restaurant Name : GABBY’S GRILL AND TAPS FULL TIME OR PART TIME (Great Salary for Full Time with benefits) Schedule : To be discussed with Manager Send resumes to: flores63@yahoo.ca or call 416902-2336 2899 Bloor Street West

Wanted: Real Estate Secretary Permanent – Full time $26.50 hourly for 40 hours/week

OLIGO SARMA CANADA IMMIGRATION SERVICES

Work Setting: Property and Real Estate Law Employer: Event Tours Realty Location: Scarborough Knowledge of English language is a must; College graduate or other non-university certificate or diploma; work experience at least 2 years to less than 3 years; area of work experience –Statistics, Reports and records, Invoices, Financial statements, Correspondence, Contracts, Charts, tables, graphs and diagrams; knowledge of Business Equipment and Computer Applications - MS Excel; MS PowerPoint; MS Word; Electronic mail; MS Outlook is essential

Apply by email to: hr@eventtoursrealty.com Call/sms:647.996.2273

www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

35

Travel Memphis: 1 city, 2 days, 4 attractions

BY BETH J. HARPAZ The Associated Press MEMPHIS, TENN. — My ultimate destination was Mississippi to explore blues history. But to get there, I flew in and out of Memphis, Tennessee, an hour’s drive from the Delta. With one day in Memphis on either end of my itinerary, I decided to visit four attractions there that would add to the music and civil rights themes of the Mississippi trip.

Those four Memphis stops, plus an evening listening to music on Beale Street, were perfect bookends for my Mississippi sojourn. But these attractions also make an easy and interesting two-day itinerary whether you use Memphis as a gateway for other parts of the South, or as a destination unto itself.

Stax Museum of Americal Soul Music

One of the first things you see at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music is an exhibit portraying a Mississippi country church. That’s because soul, like so many genres of pop music, has roots in the Delta.

The Stax recording studio was founded by a white sister and brother, Estelle Axton and Jim Stewart. But in an unusual arrangement for the era, Stax was also a place where whites and blacks worked together. And Stax’s roster of black stars, including Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers, proved enormously popular with both black and white audiences, first in Europe and ultimately at home.

Stax eventually went bankrupt but the museum was built on the original site and does a terrific job showcasing everything from costumes to cars to walls of hit records. Videos of TV and concert performances will have you dancing your way through the exhibits.

Sun Studio

Sun Studio calls itself the “birthplace” of rock ‘n’ roll, and as every music fan knows, there’s a straight line from the blues to rock. Among the Mississippi natives who recorded at Sun Records were B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf and Ike Turner.

Turner played keyboards on what some regard as the first rock single, the Delta Cats’ “Rocket 88,” released by Sun in 1951.

But it was an 18-year-old who wandered into the studio in 1953 named Elvis Presley who took Sun’s fortunes bigtime. Presley recorded two dozen songs with Sun before switching to a national

Left: Elvis Presley's grave at Graceland. Right: The Stax Museum of Americal Soul Music. It is a replica of Stax recording studio. It celebrates the legacy of Stax Records and its artists as Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, and many others.

GERRY MATTHEWS AND PIERRE JEAN DURIEU/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

label to manage his rocketing career.

An iconic photo displayed at the studio, dubbed the “Million Dollar Quartet,” shows Presley back at Sun in 1956, sitting at a piano with Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash.

Lively guided tours of Sun Studio walk visitors through its hit parade with music clips and engaging anecdotes — including the tale of Sun founder Sam Phillips’ improvised repair of a busted amp. He shoved a wad of paper inside and the fuzzy distortion became part of the label’s trademark sound. You’ll stand in the footsteps not only of the label’s early stars but also more recent visitors like rock giants U2.

National Civil Rights Museum

The story of the blues can’t be told without looking at black history, from musical traditions brought here by enslaved Africans, to the music shared by black labourers eking out a living on Delta cotton plantations in the early 20th century.

One place to put that history in context is the National Civil Rights Museum, located in the former Lorraine Motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The museum has extensive exhibits on slavery, segregation and the protests that powered the civil rights movement. Allow several hours to take in the engrossing displays, which include video footage of marches, riots and news reports from the era, along with engaging interactive exhibits that offer interviews with ordinary

people reflecting on their personal experiences.

King was in Memphis to support striking garbage workers when he was shot while standing on a hotel balcony. On your way in, you see the balcony from outside, but at the tour’s end, you’ll see the spot where he was murdered from inside the hotel. It’s a stunning, heart-stopping vantage point that brings you face to face with that watershed moment. April 4, 2018, will mark 50 years since that day.

Graceland

No trip to Memphis is complete without visiting Graceland, the mansion Elvis Presley bought in 1957 and lived in until his death 20 years later. The house — which feels remarkably small by 21st century standards — is a time

www.canadianinquirer.net

capsule, complete with green shag rugs and carved animals in the famous Jungle Room. Guests are shuttled through by the hundreds in a remarkably efficient fashion, with each visitor issued an iPad and headphones so you can get information about what you’re seeing at your own pace. The King is buried in the onsite Meditation Garden, along with his parents and grandmother. There’s also a memorial gravestone for his stillborn twin brother.

But visiting the house is only half the fun. A $45 million complex opened at Graceland in March, adding displays that look at his career from his start at Sun Records, to his work in Hollywood, to his Vegas jumpsuit era. One area showcases his cars, another looks at his influence on other entertainers. ■

36

Travel

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

Where has all the Bangkok’s sidewalks get less parking gone? Alberta spicy as food carts removed ski resort facing shortage of spaces

BY KAWEEWIT KAEWJINDA The Associated Press

THE CANADIAN PRESS BANFF, ALTA. — A popular ski resort in Alberta is asking people to make some noise about a planned parking ban on a road that leads to the slopes.

Parks Canada notified Sunshine Village near Banff last fall that it was closing the road to parked vehicles next ski season.

The resort is asking members of the public to sign a petition and write their MPs to voice their displeasure.

Sunshine’s main lot has room for 1,600 vehicles, but the resort says that often fills up and hundreds of skiers and snowboarders use the access road to park.

Officials say the ban is being brought in because of concerns over avalanches and pedestrian safety.

Sunshine has requested a judicial review of the decision.

A spokesman for Sunshine Village says the ban will have consequences.

“I think it is going to create chaos. I don’t think that Parks Canada has really thought through how this is going to

work,” said Dave Riley.

“Are they going to park a car or truck in the middle of the access road and turn people away and, if so, where are they going to go?”

Sunshine Village says it may have to increase costs if the parking crunch results in fewer visitors to the hill.

Those who use the resort say they are concerned, but they understand that something needs to be done.

“Somebody needs to come up with a good idea for parking because it’s absolutely crazy on the weekends,” said skier Michael Hehrn. “Quite often during the week there is no place to park.”

“There is no parking in here on a busy weekend or any long weekends. It’s pretty crazy,” said snowboarder Nathan Stregger. “I’ve parked a good three or four kilometres back.”

The resort says it has received about 1,000 emails since it launched a support website a week ago. Sunshine Village hopes it can drum up enough support so that the federal government takes notice and steps in to reverse the ban. ■

Heart Evangelista-Escudero...

Your Heart goes to Lake Pandin in San Pablo, Laguna to test celebrity couples Mark Herras and Winwyn Marquez; and LJ Reyes and Paolo Contis. From making and riding their own rafts to fishing, the Kapuso stars will take on the various challenges to win the game.

Mark and Winwyn will accompany the hardworking couple Lotlot and Romeo Sales.

Romeo builds makeshift boats that tourists ride to cross Lake Pandin. Lotlot, even while seven months pregnant, helps out by pulling the rope that moves the raft across the lake. The couple has eight children.

Meanwhile, LJ and Paolo take on the tasks of couple Or❰❰ 24

lando and Gina Tolentino. Like Lotlot, Gina also works the rafts on Lake Pandin. Orlando, on the other hand, is a fisherman.

The catch he gets from the lake at dusk are sold by Gina the following morning.

Who will win between Mark and Winwyn and LJ and Paolo?

Join Heart as she steps out of her comfort zone and faces her most challenging role to date. ■ Watch real and reel celebrity couples take on the mission of raising a family in Follow Your Heart, beginning April 23 in Asia Pacific and North America, and April 24 in the Middle East and North Africa only on GMA’s flagship international channel, GMA Pinoy TV.

BANGKOK — Efforts by authorities in military-ruled Thailand to impose order on the chaotic capital city have a fresh target: cheap and tasty pad thai.

The latest crackdown by Bangkok city officials is going after the vendors whose carts sell everything from Thailand’s signature noodles to spicy tom yum goong soup have become institutions on the capital’s hot and humid sidewalks. The stalls with their metal folding tables and rickety plastic stools serve as a gastronomic go-to for budget-conscious locals and adventurous tourists alike.

“Street food is a big part of daily life,” said Nont Nontiskul, 29, a stockbroker who has lived in the city’s trendy Thonglor area for more than a decade.

“Even people who eat at pricy restaurants every day can’t avoid street food. It’s faster, tastes better, and costs less than half the price.”

Officials see street food as an illegal nuisance and have warned hawkers in Thonglor to clear out by Monday. They’ve said the evictions soon will expand to other neighbourhoods.

Officials have been emboldened by the military junta that has ruled the country since a 2014 coup and has stressed the need to clean up Thai society, whether it is corrupt politicians or crowded footpaths.

That has led to sometimes ham-fisted crackdowns on everything from street markets to beach umbrellas to overpriced lottery tickets. Observers say the poor, many of whom were supporters of the ousted government and its populist policies, have borne the brunt of many of the junta-backed campaigns and that the clean sidewalk effort will hit the vendors and their working-class customers hardest.

Thai crackdowns on corruption, prostitution, pollution, road safety and what-have-you — even those by the junta — are notoriously ephemeral, but officials are talking tough.

Boontham Huiprasert, a www.canadianinquirer.net

ANANSING / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Bangkok district chief tasked with clearing out the sidewalks under his jurisdiction, said street food vendors are being evicted to fight traffic congestion and the accumulations of garbage.

About 90 Thonglor vendors and their carts will have to leave by Monday, after which the crackdowns will expand to neighbouring streets, Boontham said. Violators could be fined up to 2,000 baht ($57).

“Just don’t sell on the sidewalks,” Boontham said. “People who sell stuff on the sidewalks, they don’t pay rent. There are so many out there now, so we have to organize society.”

In fact, the food sellers say they do pay rent in the form of small monthly under-the-table payments to city officials. It’s an open secret that Bangkok’s sprawling shadow economy is made possible by payoffs to powerful figures, often with ties to police or the military. Boontham said he was unaware of any payoffs and that it was not official practice.

Suchin Wannasutr has been selling khao kha moo — stewed pork leg — for 40 baht ($1.15) a plate on Thonglor’s sidewalks for more than 20 years. The 47-year-old said he has been diligent about keeping up his monthly payoffs of 1,000 baht ($28.60), which is the same sum neighbouring vendors say they have been charged.

He is now preparing to open

a real restaurant, about 1.5 kilometres (a mile) away from his sidewalk spot. He will share the rent of 35,000 baht ($1,000) a month with three fellow street vendors.

“I have to stay in the area because I have regular customers here,” Suchin said. “I’m doing whatever I can just to send my kid through school. Once she graduates, I will move out of Bangkok. It’s tough here.”

Critics say the government needs to do more to help vendors and to help preserve some the unique chaos that gives Bangkok its soul, which is rapidly being lost to government regulations and redevelopment for condos, shopping malls and office towers.

If the campaign against street food sticks, tourists will no longer stumble upon fried worms, grilled pork intestines or the legendarily smelly fruit durian.

And it’s unlikely the hip bars and fancy restaurants will be handing out food in plastic bags sealed tight with a knotted rubber band.

“I feel like I am losing my job and I have no idea what to do next,” said 39-year old Ubolwattana Mingkwan, who sells coffee for 30 baht (85 cents) a cup. “I can’t afford to pay Thonglor’s rent prices.”

“I’ve asked city officials for help and understanding,” she said. “All they say now is ‘No, no, no.’ They said they’ve already received their orders.” ■

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

37

Food COOKING ON DEADLINE:

Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Dressing

BY KATIE WORKMAN The Associated Press THIS LEMON sauce is such a simple way to dress up roasted asparagus, the pinup vegetable of spring ... or any simply cooked asparagus for that matter, such as grilled, steamed or sauteed.

In fact, this sauce is also a quick and easy way to dress up pretty much any plainly cooked vegetable, from potatoes to green beans to broccoli.

The sauce is vivid with citrus and a bit (not too much!) of hot sauce. The creaminess comes from creme fraiche, and sour cream or Greek yogurt could be substituted in if you like. You can make it ahead of time and store it in the fridge for a few days.

If you are using thicker asparagus, think about peeling the lower parts of the stalks, which results in a stalk that is tender from stem to stern. After trimming the bottom inch

or so off the asparagus, simply take a vegetable peeler and peel off the green outer layer (which can be tough) from the bottom of the stalk, roughly 2-3 inches.

Lastly, if you would like to add a sprinkle of fresh herbs on top, anything from parsley to basil to chervil would be lovely.

Another great option would be to drape a slice of prosciutto over each portion of dressed asparagus, which could also make a stylish appetizer.

Roasted asparagus with creamy lemon dressing

Serves 6 to 8 Start to finish: 25 minutes

Roasted Asparagus: • 2 pounds medium-thick asparagus • 1 tablespoon olive oil • Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste Lemon Dressing: • 3 tablespoons fresh lemon

juice • 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest • 3 tablespoons creme fraiche, sour cream or plain Greek yogurt • 1/2 teaspoon hot sauce, such as Sriracha, or to taste • 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil • Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Trim the bottom 2 inches from the asparagus and, if desired, peel the lower 2 inches of the stalks. Place the asparagus in a shallow baking pan or rimmed baking sheet. Don’t worry if the stalks overlap a bit. Drizzle the tablespoon of olive oil over them and toss gently to coat the asparagus evenly. Sprinkle on the salt and pepper, toss again

and spread out in the pan.

Roast the asparagus for about 10 minutes, until just tender and slightly browned. Remember that they will continue to cook a bit after you remove them from the oven, so take them out while they’re still a little firmer than you would like.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, zest, creme fraiche and Sriracha until smooth. Slowly pour in the 1/3 cup olive oil, whisking all the while until the dressing is thick, then season with salt and pepper.

Let the asparagus cool slightly, and while still warm drizzle some of the lemon sauce over it.

Serve right away with the rest of the sauce passed on the side for people to add if desired. ■ Nutrition information per serving: 157 calories; 123 calories from fat; 14 g fat (3 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 4 mg cholesterol; 154 mg sodium; 6 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 3 g sugar; 3 g protein.

Toss veggies into hummus, roast them and enjoy a tasty crust

BY MELISSA D’ARABIAN The Associated Press I REMEMBER being told in marketing class back in graduate school that the fastest growing food category in America was hummus. Hummus, our professor insisted to us disbelieving students, would soon be ubiquitous. I should have heeded his advice and leveraged that bit of 1991 foresight in some way.

Chances are that if you have been to any kind of gathering lately, you have partaken in a hummus and veggie platter.

Stores are filled with endless varieties of premade hummus, and homemade recipes flood the internet. With protein and fiber-filled garbanzo beans leading the ingredient list, it’s

a filling dip that turns baby carrots and bell pepper slices into a worthy snack that will actually fill you up a bit. Both kids and adults seem to like hummus, so it is equally comfortable at a cocktail hour as it is at a kids’ soccer field.

The problem is: You always have leftovers. At least we do.

Usually, I serve a couple of varieties, along with a triple-sized stock of veggies, because you never really know if the crowd skews more broccoli than carrots, so having veg backup seems wise.

After one of those occasions, I had the idea to toss the leftover veggies into the hummus and roast them. The hummus clung to the veggies just enough to give it a caramelized and tasty crust, and with one recipe, two leftovers were used up to

create a whole new side dish or appetizer: Hummus-Crusted Roasted Vegetables.

The key is to roast at high heat, and to preheat the baking sheet, which will accelerate the caramelization of the veggies. Usually, I just toss the vegetables with the hummus in a large bowl with my hands.

But, I’ve also thinned out hummus with a few tablespoons of lemon juice or water to make a batter to coat the veggies more completely, like a hummus tempura. Either way works.

Flavoured hummus, like roasted garlic or red pepper, doesn’t usually need a boost, but feel free to stir in extra garlic, herbs or spices (a spoonful of pesto is delish). Even plain hummus works great, and takes about a minute to put together.

Tired of the usual? Try something creative with your veggies and hummus!

After baking, sprinkle on a pinch of salt and squeeze of lemon, and your hummus-crudite platter will have found new life.

Hummus-crusted roasted veggies

Start to finish: 30 minutes Servings: 6 servings

• 1 cup baby carrots • 1 cup broccoli florets • 1 cup cauliflower florets

www.canadianinquirer.net

• 1 cup bell pepper slices (red or yellow preferred) • 1 small onion or fennel bulb, peeled and quartered • 1 cup prepared hummus • Garlic or spices, if desired (optional) • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt • Lemons for squeezing Line a large baking sheet with ❱❱ PAGE 38 Toss veggies

Food

38

APRIL 28, 2017

FRIDAY

For brunch, what could be easier than a versatile frittata?

THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA WE’VE ROMANTICIZED brunch to the point that in certain cities, we will wait in a twohour line to eat waffles with a side of French fries. But if you’ve served brunch at home, you know that a two-hour line can be a picnic compared to the stress of getting a full meal on a decorated table before noon.

It’s a struggle to resist the urge to overcomplicate a party.

But the truth is, a simple, wellexecuted meal is more enjoyable for your guests than one that leaves you frantic in the kitchen. The simple answer for your brunch woes? A frittata.

Think of a frittata as a crustless quiche, which is great since the crust is the hard part — the rest is just cutting veggies and cracking eggs. The beauty of a frittata is twofold: It can be filled with the odds and ends from your refrigerator, and it can be made ahead of time and served at room temperature.

Frittatas are typically studded with a combination of meats, vegetables, and cheese, but the versatility of the dish is its greatest asset. This Spring Leek Frittata calls for leeks, peppers, and goat cheese, but your ingredients are limited only by your imagination. Leftover grilled veggies, baby spinach, and scraps of cheese can all

find a home in your frittata.

The texture of a frittata is soft and custardy and depends on the balance between cooked eggs and added liquids. Because a soggy frittata is the quickest way to ruin brunch, it’s important to manage the moisture content of your add-in ingredients.

Quickly pre-cooking your ingredients is the best way to make sure extra liquids don’t end up sabotaging your hard work. If you’re using greens, like spinach or chard, give them a squeeze once they’re cooked to get out as much moisture as possible.

Most often, we see frittatas baked in large dishes and sliced into wedges for serving. This is a great option for a buffet or casual brunch party, and if you would prefer, this recipe can be made in a 9- or 10-inch baking dish (lightly butter the dish before adding the ingredients, to make serving easier). But made individually, these frittatas are a special main dish for a sitdown brunch. What’s better is that you can personalize them to suit your guests’ preferences.

Though these frittatas are simple enough to prepare just before serving, making them ahead of time means brunch in a snap. CIA Chef Bruce Mattel says, “Fully prepare all of your ingredients a day ahead, like grating cheese, cooking the vegetables, and beating the eggs.

You can even make the frittata

an hour or two prior and serve it at room temperature. What could be easier?”

For a spread that’s as beautiful as it is satisfying, serve your frittatas alongside a mix of hot and cold accompaniments like fresh asparagus, smoked salmon, and first-of-the-season strawberries. Now, what’s for lunch? Stay tuned.

Spring leek frittata

Start to finish: 25 minutes (Active: 10 minutes) Servings: 4

• 1 leek • 5 large eggs • 3 tablespoons whole milk • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter • 1/2 red bell pepper, diced (about 3/4 cup) • 3 oil-packed sundried tomatoes, diced • 1 tablespoon finely chopped chives • 2 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled (optional) Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place four 12-ounce crocks, ramekins, or stoneware baking dishes on a baking sheet. Transfer to the oven to warm.

Trim the dark green leaves and root end of the leek. Cut in half lengthwise, then thinly slice each half. Transfer the sliced leek to a bowl of cold wa-

Important tax-filing... ❰❰ 18

Other changes

Income- Splitting Tax Credit.

The family tax cut has been eliminated for the 2016 year and future tax years. However, if you are receiving a pension, you may be able to split your eligible pension income with your spouse or common-law partner to reduce your taxes.

Children’s Fitness Tax Credit. For 2016, the maximum eligible fees in the year is reduced to $500 from $1,000, though the additional amount of $500 for children eligible for the Disability Tax Credit has not changed. Therefore, the maximum credit is reduced to

$75 ($150 for a child eligible for the Disability Tax Credit).

Children’s Arts Tax Credit. For 2016, the maximum eligible fees in the year is reduced to $250 from $500. The additional amount of $500 for children eligible for the Disability Tax Credit will not change.

Therefore, the maximum credit is reduced to $37.50 ($112.50 for a child eligible for the disability tax credit).

Home Accessibility Tax Credit (HATC). For 2016 and subsequent tax years, you can claim a non-refundable tax credit for eligible expenses incurred for work performed, or goods acquired for a quali-

ter, separating the layers with your fingers, and let rest for 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to gently transfer the leeks to another bowl, being careful not to disturb any sediment at the bottom of the bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, and black pepper. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the red pepper, tomatoes, and reserved leek and cook until the vegetables are softened, about 6 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the chives.

Remove the hot baking dishes from the oven. Evenly distribute the cooked vegetables among the dishes. Cover the vegetables with the egg mixture, dividing it evenly among

the four dishes.

Bake the frittatas until the eggs are set, but still slightly jiggly on top, about 13 minutes (see note). Remove from the oven and immediately top the frittatas with crumbled goat cheese, if using. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Chef’s Note: The cooking time will be influenced by the type of material, size, and shape of your baking dish. Keep an eye on your frittata and adjust the cooking time, as needed. ■ Nutrition information per serving: 183 calories; 108 calories from fat; 12 g fat (6 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 284 mg cholesterol; 400 mg sodium; 7 g carbohydrate; 1 g fiber; 3 g sugar; 11 g protein.

Toss veggies... fying renovation of an eligible dwelling of a qualifying individual.

Reporting the sale of your principal residence.

Starting with the 2016 tax year, you are required to report basic information (date of acquisition, proceeds of disposition, and address) on your tax return when you sell your principal residence to claim the full principal residence exemption. You do not have to pay tax on any capital gain when you sell your house as long as it was your principal residence for all the years you owned it and you did not use any part of it to earn income. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

parchment paper and place inside the oven.

Preheat the oven to 425 F, with the sheet pan in the oven. In a large bowl, toss the vegetables with the hummus, (and any optional garlic or spices if using), using your hands to coat the veggies. Do not worry if the mixture is a little clumpy or uneven. Once the oven is hot, remove the sheet pan, and carefully lay out the coated vegetables on the tray. Return to the oven and roast for 10 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the oven, and quickly turn the vegetables over. Return the vegetables to the oven and roast until desired tenderness, about ❰❰ 37

10-15 more minutes. Remove from heat, sprinkle with salt and lemon juice, and serve.

Chef’s note: Feel free to swap out vegetables for 4-5 cups of your favourites — a great way to use up hummus-crudite platter leftovers! Another version: stir enough lemon juice or water just until the hummus is smooth and creamy, like a thick batter, before tossing in the vegetables.

Nutrition information per serving: 101 calories; 36 calories from fat; 4 g fat (1 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 270 mg sodium; 13 g carbohydrate; 5 g fiber; 4 g sugar; 5 g protein.

Food

FRIDAY APRIL 28, 2017

www.canadianinquirer.net

39

40

APRIL 28, 2017

www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY