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JULY 14, 2017

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VOL. 7 NO. 277

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ARRIVAL HONORS

The annual fluvial procession for Bocaue town's most revered religious icon, the Holy Cross of Wawa, takes its usual route on the Bocaue River on Sunday in the area where at least 270 devotees died 24 years ago when the pagoda carrying the icon overturned.

NINO JESUS ORBETA / PDI

Speaker pushing for 5 more years of Martial Law

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer HOUSE SPEAKER Pantaleon Alvarez said on Saturday he would push Congress to extend martial law for five years, spanning the remainder of President Duterte’s term, to give the country’s leader time to eradicate terrorism and

insurgency in the troubled region.

“If I can convince my colleagues, I will push for an extension until 2022, because two months is too short. Five months or one year or two years is too short,” Alvarez said in an interview with the Inquirer.

Mr. Duterte has said he had no plans

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No limit to Martial Law powers – SC

17 Historama ❱❱ PAGE 22

❱❱ PAGE 10 Speaker pushing

Medical student sentenced to life for murder

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JULY 14, 2017

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Philippine News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

3

Commission to submit BBL draft on July 17

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer THE PROPOSED Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) is set to be submitted to President Duterte in a bid for him to certify it as urgent in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) to Congress on July 24.

Mohagher Iqbal, chief peace negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), told the Inquirer that the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) would submit the draft BBL to Malacañang on July 17.

Iqbal said the BTC had received word on the final schedule of the BBL submission, moved several times for various reasons.

The BTC, a joint panel comprised of representatives from the government, the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), hopes the President will certify the bill as urgent for Congress’ passage in his Sona.

Iqbal earlier told the Inquirer that Mr. Duterte reiterated during the Eid al-Fitr celebration in Malacañang two weeks ago his promise to pass the BBL. Stalled peace process

“The sense of urgency is still in the statement of the President ... He said whatever he promised to the MILF, we should hold on to it because he would fulfill that,” Iqbal said.

Geoffrey Hartman, a fellow at the Washington-based think tank Center

the establishment of the new Bangsamoro region, which will supersede the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the greater the possibility that the younger ones will be attracted to joining more radical groups like the Mautes, Iqbal said.

Battle for legitimacy

Passengers of public and private vehicles undergo security check at Barangay Hinaplanon Tambo, Iligan City.

OLIVER MARQUEZ / PNA

for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that the Marawi siege, led by the Maute-Abu Sayyaf coalition, “highlights the perils of a stalled peace process.”

“The Philippine government should move forward on the BBL in order to preserve the central role of the MILF and prevent further defections to more extreme groups,” Hartman said.

He warned in a June 29 commentary regarding fears that the breakdown in the government peace process with the MILF “would lead to disillusionment and a return to violence, exacerbated by the influence of international jihadist movements like IS (Islamic State), appear to be coming to pass.”

“The Maute-Hapilon coalition represents a threat to even the MILF, and there are indications that the Maute group has been successfully stealing away young MILF followers disillusioned with their leadership’s continued cooperation with the Philippine government despite the stalling of the peace process,” Hartman said.

Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon is said to be the IS “emir” in Southeast Asia.

The longer the Moro people wait for

This is why not only the MILF, but also some analysts, believe that the passage of the draft BBL is key to dealing with the threat of terrorism in the country, according to Iqbal.

For one, it would provide a legitimate entity to fill the ungoverned spaces in Central Mindanao that have become terrorists’ lairs.

“The challenge [to the MILF] is very confrontational and harsh,” Iqbal said of the Maute group.

“If you ask the Maute group, they look at the MILF as a non-Islamic organization. The real challenge is the battle for legitimacy,” he added.

It is also a battle for “supremacy, territory and recruits,” Iqbal said.

Iqbal said the Maute group indeed wanted a bigger territory and had been enlisting young people who were “attracted to something daring and to new ideas.” ■

THE FAITHLIFE FINANCIAL DIFFERENCE

Korean Embassy donates P5M to Marawi victims via Red Cross

BY JODEE A. AGONCILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer THE KOREAN Embassy on Wednesday donated P5 million to displaced victims of the raging armed conflict in Marawi City through the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).

Korean Ambassador Kim Jaeshin turned over the donation to PRC chair Sen. Richard Gordon as a demonstration of the two countries’ long history and friendship since the Korean War. “On behalf of the Korean government, I would like to extend my sympathy to all evac- uees of Marawi City. Our donation, even if it’s not big … is a token of our friendship with the Philippines,” Kim said.

“I hope the donations will relieve difficulty for some evacuees in Marawi.

We Koreans hope this instance will be solved as soon as possible… The next

steps will be the Koreans’ participation in the rehabilitation and rebuilding of Marawi,” Kim said.

“We cannot forget the participation of Filipino soldiers during the Korean War. When we think of the casualties, it is not really acceptable. We will walk together to deter terrorism,” he said.

During the turnover ceremony, Gordon showed Kim a map of Lake Lanao and briefed him about the current state of Marawi City, and the assistance given by the PRC in terms of relief and psychosocial support.

“Your donation will go a very long way,” Gordon said, noting that Korea has always been a good partner of the PRC. Gordon said the PRC was providing clothing, portable toilets, maternity goods and medical support.

He said access to movies and childfriendly spaces to the victims would also be provided. ■

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4

Philippine News

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Why won’t Thailand copy PH style of fighting illegal drugs?

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer PRESIDENT DUTERTE’S bloody drug

war may not be a suitable template for Thailand, as the country’s strategy is not to fight drugs with anger but compassion, according to the Thai secretary general of the Asean Inter-Parliamenta-

ry Assembly (Aipa).

After the failure of Thailand’s own violent crackdown on illegal drugs in the early 2000s, Aipa Secretary General Isra Sunthornvut said his country would

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now rather focus on rehabilitating drug addicts.

“What works in the Philippines might not work in Thailand and what works in Thailand might not work in the Philippines,” he told a media briefing early Thursday evening at the close of the meeting of Asean lawmakers in Manila.

Sunthornvut added, however, that Thailand and the Philippines could still learn from each other’s experiences.

“It’s a watch-and-learn and we’ll see how it goes, as long as we’re serious in this fight, as long as there are examples for us to adapt to,” he said.

Aipa’s fact-finding committee, composed of parliamentarians from Asean’s 10 member economies, had a meeting in Manila hosted by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and other Philippine lawmakers to discuss regional cooperation to combat the drug menace.

Each country gave a report on its campaign against illegal drugs, as concerns were raised over drug trafficking activities in Southeast Asia. The Philippines boasted a substantial drop in the narcotics trade and the crime rate since the start of the drug war.

Mr. Duterte has waged an aggressive campaign against illegal drugs since his assumption to office last year, leaving thousands of suspected users or pushers dead in police operations and vigilantestyle killings and triggering accusations of widespread human rights abuses.

But Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Barbers, chair of the House dangerous drugs committee, said there was no discussion of human rights violations during the Aipa meet.

“I don’t see any reasons why we should connect the issue of human rights to the campaign of the Duterte administration in the war against drugs,” Barbers said at the same briefing.

Sunthornvut acknowledged that his country had gone through a similar phase as the Philippines, launching an all-out offensive against drug dealers and users.

“There was a time when [the campaign] was to stand and yell at the drug users. And then they changed that to ‘let’s have compassion, let’s understand them,’” he said.

“But it’s always been alongside the policies and ideas like King Rama the Ninth when he said, ‘You can’t fight drugs with anger, you have to be compassionate because it’s your fellow countrymen, so try to find ways to help understand,’” Sunthornvut said. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

5

Duterte says siege may end soon but IS threat will persist

BY JIM GOMEZ The Associated Press MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday that a disastrous siege by Islamic State group-aligned militants of a southern city may end in 10 to 15 days but warned that the threat posed by the brutal group will continue to plague the country.

Duterte said he would try again this week to travel to Marawi city to be with government troops but acknowledged that bad weather and the danger posed by the militants’ deadly firepower have frustrated his travel plans.

“I think in 10 to 15 days it’ll already be OK,” Duterte said of the protracted urban battle with the militants, whose supply of weapons has surprised him.

“But remember the new scourge is ISIS, it will continue to haunt us,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group, in a speech before busi-

ness executives.

Duterte said last Friday he would likely extend 60 days of martial law he imposed in the southern Philippines to deal with the Marawi crisis because the situation remains critical.

Hundreds of gunmen who attacked mosque-studded Marawi, a centre of Islamic faith in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation, on May 23 are believed to belong to at least four local armed groups that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and joined in a loose alliance. Several foreign fighters also joined the insurrection. An unspecified number of gunmen are believed to have slipped out of the lakeside city.

After 50 days of ground assaults and airstrikes, troops have recaptured most areas of the city, with the death toll recently surpassing 500.

Military spokesman Brig.

Gen. Restituto Padilla said 381 militants, 90 soldiers and policemen and 39 civilians have been killed in the fierce streetto-street fighting. About 300

civilians remain trapped in their homes in areas of fighting or are held by the militants, he said.

Security officials received intelligence about the planned attack days before the unprecedented Marawi siege unfolded, but they, along with the president, have acknowledged they underestimated the militants’ firepower.

“We knew that they were ... all of them were there,” Duterte said. “But what I really didn’t know ... the large number of firearms ... the supply doesn’t end.”

The militants’ vast arsenal reflects a failure to address the spread of firearms in the volatile region, where insurgents and armed groups controlled by politicians have long had a presence. “The problem would not have erupted in this magnitude if the proliferation of loose firearms was addressed years earlier,” Padilla said.

Duterte has attempted twice to travel to Marawi to join government forces but said Tuesday that heavy rain and the dan-

AFP Spokesperson Brigadier General Restituto Padilla provides updates on the ongoing anti-terror operations in Marawi City during the Mindanao Hour at the Kalayaan Hall of Malacañan Palace on July 10, 2017. Padilla declared that the soldiers are in high morale due to the support of the public and recovery efforts for residents of Marawi City are underway. Also in the photo is Presidential Communications Assistant Secretary Ana Marie Banaag.

PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

ger posed by the militants have scuttled his plans. In his latest attempt last Friday, the toughtalking president donned a military camouflage uniform and carried an assault rifle.

“I was circling Marawi, I could not land. I could not go down nearer because we may get hit by a Barrett calibre 50 by

chance,” Duterte said, referring to a powerful machine-gun that the militants have used.

“It’s not braggadocio,” said Duterte, who has backed troops by visiting their camps, the wounded and attended the wakes of slain soldiers. “It’s just that I don’t want to go there when it’s already peaceful.” ■

Police: Indonesia bomb maker 2 men on drug watch wanted to join Philippine fight list killed in Pasig THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Indonesian police said Monday that a man whose home-made bomb accidentally exploded in the West Java city of Bandung was obsessed with the idea of joining Islamic State groupaffiliated militants who’ve occupied parts of a city in the southern Philippines since mid-May. West Java police spokesman Yusri Yunus said that Agus Wiguna, 21, was arrested following the explosion on Saturday at his rented house and was probably acting alone.

Yunus said a written document found in the house showed Agus’ pledge of allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr alBaghdadi. He said that Wiguna learned about IS and how to

assemble a bomb from the internet.

The pressure cooker bomb allegedly prepared by Wiguna exploded unintentionally but caused no casualties. It was the second terror-related incident in Bandung since February, when police shot a suspected militant after his bomb exploded in a vacant lot and he fled into a municipal building and set it alight.

Police said Wiguna planned to begin his attack on July 16 at a cafe, then a restaurant and a church, all in Bandung.

He also admitted to wanting to join IS militants fighting in the Philippine city of Marawi after carrying out his planned attacks.

“That is his confession, but we still need a deeper investigation,” Yunus said.

Indonesian police have ar-

rested more than 40 suspected militants following a twin suicide bombing on May 24 in Jakarta that killed three officers and injured 11 other people, including five civilians, in the deadliest militant attack in the capital in a year.

The Jakarta attack was blamed on members of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, a network of Indonesian extremist groups that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Southeast Asian neighbours Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have agreed to intensify their fight against violent Islamic militants. Analysts say the southern Philippines is at risk of becoming a new IS base as territory it controls in Syria and Iraq is captured by an international coalition seeking to defeat the group. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

BY JODEE A. AGONCILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer TWO MEN who police said were included on the barangay drug watch list were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in separate incidents in Pasig on Thursday night and early Friday morning.

A report to Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula, Eastern Police District (EPD) director, said Randy Hayuhay, 27, a market stall helper, was traveling on his motorcycle when shot several times on Baltazar Street, Barangay Palatiw, around 6:05 p.m. on Thursday. Hayuhay died on the spot.

According to a police officer assigned in Palatiw, a woman arrived at the station the following morning to claim the motorcycle, saying it was

merely pawned to Hayuhay by her son, a drug user fresh from rehab, for P5,000 in cash and “shabu” also worth P5,000.

Hayuhay left behind his live-in partner and two young children.

Hours after the Palatiw incident, around 2 a.m. on Friday, Ian Ilagan was killed in his house on Pahit Street in neighboring Barangay Pinagbuhatan.

The Pasig police said the 36-year-old Ilagan was with his live-in partner when two assailants entered and fired at the man. The shooters fled on a motorcycle.

According to EPD data, there were 181 fatal shooting incidents in Pasig City from July 1, 2016, to June 2017, or during the first year of the Duterte administration. As to the other cities covered by the district, Mandaluyong had 73, Marikina had 47, and San Juan had 32. ■

6

Philippine News

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Maute down to its last 80 fighters – AFP With the fighting in Marawi now on its seventh week, the Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists have been reduced to just 80 men. Some 800 houses still have to be cleared and around 300 civilians are believed trapped there.

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE MAUTE terrorists and their Abu Sayyaf allies are now down to their last 80 fighters in Marawi City but there are still about 800 houses that have yet to be cleared by security forces.

The fighting was in its seventh week, said Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, but there were about 300 civilians still trapped in the war zone.

As of 6 p.m. on July 6, Padilla said security forces had killed 353 terrorists and recovered 426 high-powered firearms. At least 85 soldiers were killed.

“As to the death of some of the Maute brothers, there is indication that one has died but until such time that the grave is located, we cannot categorically confirm,” he said.

Still a war zone

“In some areas, they are no longer returning fire unlike in previous weeks. Now, it’s intermittent but there are still areas where they are fighting hard,” Padilla said.

“That means their stockpile could still be there and they may still have enough. These are the areas that we are focusing on and addressing,” he added.

“For those whose residences have not been damaged, once

the commander of the 1st Infantry Battalion, said they continue to deal with sniper fire, grenade launchers and mortar fire every day.

“But their resistance continues to wane. On a scale of 110, it is just 1 now,” Tampus said.

“The situation varies [from one area to another] but here [in the Bangolo bridge area], the resistance is not the same as before.”

‘Fierce fighters’

Soldiers of the Philippine Army wave as they wait for their comrades on their way to reinforce troops at the battleground.

OLIVER MARQUEZ / PNA

with the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group on Thursday to determine how to fight the terrorists’ online propagandists.

“We’re coming up with appropriate measures to expedite that process. In the process of monitoring and taking down social media accounts that are proven to be supportive of terrorNew front istic activities, While the we need to work fighting in with social meMarawi continWe have to make calculations and test- fire many times before we get to dia companies,” ues, Padilla said perfect the shot. he said. the military is But the realalso fighting a life fighting is crucial battle to still waged by stop the spread of Islamist propaganda. (but) it grew to more than 120. men on the ground who are The military had identified Now, we’re monitoring about saying it’s not as easy as some people may think. around 300 social media sites 300,” he added.

Lt. Col. Christopher Tampus, Padilla said the military met spreading the propaganda of the hostilities have ended and the all-clear signal has been given, they will be assisted in returning to their homes,” Padilla said.

The military has started putting up a tent city of 3,000 tents that can serve as temporary shelter for those whose houses were damaged.

Maute terrorists and it has only managed to shut down some of these sites.

“There are about 54 or 64 sites that have been taken down but there are still 300 that are being monitored,” Padilla told reporters.

“Previously, we were monitoring only less than a hundred

Tampus said his men have reduced their formerly many foes to about 10 gunmen near Raya Madaya Bridge.

Sgt. Erlito Pacaña said the fighting has been fierce since they first got off their vehicle and were met with an explosion.

Pfc. Mark Erwin Rule, 24, a native of Zamboanga del Sur, said his team was also sent to Barangay Basak Malutlut where they confronted a large number of “fierce fighters.”

Even soldiers assigned to take down enemies from a distance found the job difficult.

“In our case, we are assigned with the mortar unit. We have to make calculations and testfire many times before we get to perfect the shot,” Pfc. Jonard Pedido said.

“It’s really not that easy,” said Pedido’s spotter, Sgt. Jeffrey Baybayan, a veteran gunner who fired 13 shells before hitting a target in the heart of the city earlier this week. ■

Martial law vs terrorism a fallacy, says SC justice

BY MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer IMPOSING MARTIAL law to fight terrorism is a “fallacy,” according to Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, the lone dissenter in the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of President Duterte’s martial law order in Mindanao.

The court spokesperson on Tuesday announced that the magistrates voted 11- 3- 1 to support the constitutionality of the President’s declaration,

throwing out three petitions that questioned the factual basis of the emergency. Three justices partially agreed with the decision.

Not yet released

The texts of the majority decision and the concurring and dissenting opinions had not been released as of press time on Wednesday.

Leonen, who tweeted to reporters excerpts from his dissenting opinion, challenged his colleagues on the 15-member tribunal to stand up against efforts to “clothe authoritarian-

ism in any disguise with the mantle of constitutionality.”

He said members of the Islamic State-inspired Maute terror group that stormed Marawi City on May 23, prompting the emergency proclamation, should not be regarded as rebels, but terrorists “capable of committing atrocious acts.”

“Never again should this court allow itself to step aside when the powerful invoke vague powers that feed on fear but could potentially undermine our most cherished rights,” Leonen said.

“Never again should we fall www.canadianinquirer.net

victim to a false narrative that a vague declaration of martial law is good for us no matter the circumstances,” he stressed.

Lesson in history

“History teaches us that to rely on the iron fist of an authoritarian backed up by the police and the military to solve our deep-seated social problems that spawn terrorism is fallacy, “ he said.

The magistrate said the tribunal, in dismissing the petitions against Mr. Duterte’s Proclamation No. 216, should “exorcise with passion” what he

described as “the ghost of [Ferdinand] Marcos’ martial law ... whenever its resemblance reappears.”

“We should temper our fears with reason. Otherwise, we succumb to the effects of the weapons of terror. We should dissent—even resist— when offered the farce that martial law is necessary because it is only an exclamation point,” he said.

“The terrorist wins when we suspend all that we believe in.

The terrorist wins when we replace social justice with disempowering authoritarianism,” he said. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

7

AFP prefers ‘askal’ for K-9 duty

Apology is Trillanes’ ‘honorable way out’—Sotto

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer

sure their accuracy … at least 95 percent. So, it’s not really easy to acquire new dogs. These are top-of-the-line dogs based on international standards,” Aquino said.

“It could be said that there’s a shortage but that does not mean that we are remiss in our duties,” he added.

Ideally, the PSG should have 30 bombsniffing dogs this year but it has only 27, according to Aquino.

He said the PSG had set aside P3.5 million to acquire three additional dogs.

The last time the PSG acquired bombsniffing dogs was in 2004.

THE “ASKAL” (“asong kalye,” or street dog) or “aspin” (“asong Pinoy,” or Filipino dog) is better suited for K-9 security unit duties than “imported” breeds, a military spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“Our aspins are acclimatized to the weather and so they do not get tired easily when the weather gets hot,” said Brig.

Gen. Restituto Padilla, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Padilla noted that a Belgian Malinois, a German Shepherd or a Labrador as- From Australia, US signed to shopping malls would lie down He said the PSG could get its bombafter a few hours. sniffing dogs from “He’s already tired Australia, the United because he’s not acStates and Canada. climatized,” said the “But not all aspins AFP spokesperson.

These personnel are meant for (K-9 senow will be He made the curity duties). There filling those comment after beare aspins that adapt gaps so more ing asked about the and there are those inspections ...

Commission on Auwho learn quickly,” stricter standards dit (COA) report that Padilla said. to follow in there was a shortage “Our soldiers know screening bags of K-9 bomb-detectthat. They know how and other ing dogs to protect to identify (the smart equipment, and President Duterte. ones),” he added. other measures “I read that earlier Padilla said aspins that could but … I think the AFP serving in the AFP’s perhaps make up is already in the proK-9 units were confor that gap. cess of getting more sidered part of its canines, but it will “enlisted” personnel. take a little bit more Training puppies time to get them,” he “They are provided said.

“You know how tedious our procure- serial numbers and we also have a cemment and acquisition [process] here in etery for those who sacrificed their lives in the service. They are also serving in the Philippines is,” he added.

Mindanao,” he said.

More security personnel The training of dogs begins when In the meantime, Padilla said more they are still puppies, according to Pasecurity personnel would be deployed dilla. to protect the President amid the K-9 The Air Force has a K-9 training fashortage. cility in Clark Air Base, while the Army “These personnel now will be filling has training facilities in Fort Bonifacio, those gaps so more inspections ... strict- Taguig, Tanay, Rizal, and Fort Magsayer standards to follow in screening bags say, Nueva Ecija. and other equipment, and other mea“So, a handler will be assigned a puppy sures that could perhaps make up for to train and that puppy will work with that gap,” he said. that handler all throughout his career,” In its report, the COA said the Presi- Padilla said. dential Security Group (PSG) had only He said dogs played a “very important 20 dogs left as of Dec. 31 last year, short role” in security operations, particularly of the ideal 25 for “effective bomb-de- in sniffing out bombs or illegal drugs. tection operations during presidential “They have a very, very keen sense of smell. They can detect even a small parengagements.”

Despite the AFP’s preference for ticle of drug or gunpowder or any resiaskals, the PSG spokesperson, Lt. Col. due that anyone can have in a container Michael Aquino, said the PSG would get or a bag,” he said.

“Many K-9s are serving in the Armed additional dogs from abroad.

Forces to detect bombs, illegal drugs, and to search for people who are in the International standards “We are stricter in the PSG. We mea- battle zone,” he added. ■

APOLOGIZING FOR calling some senators “wimps” and “lapdogs” would be an “honorable way out” for Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, a colleague said on Wednesday.

Sen. JV Ejercito said that if Trillanes gave an apology, “that would be the end of the story” in his book.

“An apology would be good probably for the institution, not for me but for the institution. We have to maintain decency, parliamentary ethics,” he said at the Kapihan sa Senado press forum.

In the same forum, Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III was asked whether he thought Trillanes would apologize.

He said he wouldn’t know but agreed that “it could be the honorable way out.”

No comment

Trillanes did not comment on this.

Trillanes angered his colleagues on Monday when he told a press forum that the Senate was no longer the last bastion of democracy because its members were lapdogs of the Duterte administration

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and too scared to investigate its abuses.

Ejercito, who had said that the ethics committee should do something about Trillanes’ offensive remarks, made clear he had no intention of filing a complaint against his colleague.

Sotto, who chairs the ethics committee, said he would only look into the matter if a complaint was filed against Trillanes.

Wrong terms

But he opined that Trillanes used wrong terms in venting his frustration over the Senate’s apparent nonaction on resolutions he had filed seeking inquiries into certain issues.

“Because if you say we are puppets, that means Malacañang was dictating on what we must do. Malacañang has no hand in resolutions and no one is dictating on us,” Sotto said.

Besides, it’s the chair of a committee who decides whether to take up resolutions, the majority leader said.

“That is the way the Senate works,” Sotto said.

Ejercito reminded Trillanes that the Senate rules bar the use of unparliamentary language against a member or a public institution. ■

Philippine News

8

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

No limit to Martial Law powers – SC Eleven of the Supreme Court justices saw no constitutional restrictions to President Duterte’s discretion to declare martial law. But the Chief Justice said there were parameters and these must be observed.

BY MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Member

THE SUPREME Court has dismissed fears that the proclamation of martial law in Mindanao would lead to a dictatorial regime and declared that there was no constitutional limit to President Duterte’s sole discretion to exercise extraordinary emergency powers to deal with a rebellion.

The majority decision, penned by Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo, said the nation was facing a “crisis of such magnitude and proportion that we all need to summon the spirit of unity and act as one undivided nation, if weare to PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO overcome and prevail in the struggle at hand.”

Edsa People Power Revolution. It was ‘Unjustified fears’ “Can we not sheathe our swords and crafted precisely to prevent the nation In this case, it held that enough safepause for a while to bury our dead, in- from falling again into a dictatorship. guards had been written into the 1987 cluding our differences and prejudices?”

Three petitions were brought to the Constitution to prevent abuse of the said the 82-page ruling. high tribunal questioning the sufficien- President wielding extraordinary emerThe majority decision was released cy of the factual basis for Mr. Duterte’s gency powers. late Wednesday, a day after the Supreme martial law order. Opposition lawmak“Considering the country’s history, it Court spokesperson announced that the ers led by Rep. Edcel Lagman said that is understandable that the resurgence justices, voting 11-3-1, had supported the President’s report to Congress on of martial law would engender appreMr. Duterte’s Proclamation No. 216 that his proclamation contained “false, in- hensions among the citizenry. Even the also suspended the privilege of the writ accurate, contrived and hyperbolic ac- court as an institution cannot project a of habeas corpus following the rampage counts.” stance of nonchalance. However, the imin Marawi City on May 23 by Islamic portance of martial law in the context of State-allied terrorists.

Power of judicial review our society should outweigh one’s prejuChief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno The high court held that its “power of dices and apprehensions against it,” the and Associate Justices Antonio Carpio judicial review does not extend to cali- court said. and Benjamin Caguioa concurred with brating the President’s decision.”

It said the significance of martial law the majority, but averred that the proc“To do so would be tantamount to an should not be undermined by unjustilamation should be confined to Marawi incursion into the exclusive domain of fied fears and past experience. “After all, and several other provinces, not the the executive and an infringement on martial law is critical and cru- cial to the the prerogative that solely, at least ini- promotion of public safety, the preserwhole of Mindanao. vation of the nation’s sovereignty and Justice Marvic Leonen was the sole tially, lies with the President.” it said.

“In determining the existence of re- ultimately, the survival of our country,” dissenter, arguing that the Marawi conflict only needed calling out the military bellion, the President only needs to the tribunal said.

Martial law, the court said, “is vital convince himself that there is probable to deal with it, not martial law. for the protection of Carpio warned the country not only his colleagues not to against internal ene“play with the fire of mies but also against martial law, which Can we not sheathe our swords and pause those enemies lurkcould turn into ashes for a while to bury our dead, including our ing beyond our the very Constitution differences and prejudices? shores.” that (we) are sworn It said the “the to preserve and dePresident’s duty to fend.” maintain peace and 1972 ML debacle cause or evidence showing that more public safety is not limited only to the “The court must never allow the 1972 likely than not a rebellion was commit- place where there is actual rebellion; it debacle to be ever repeated again,” Car- ted or is being committed,” the tribu- extends to other areas where the prespio said, referring to President Ferdi- nal said, adding that it did not have the ent hostilities are in danger of spilling nand Marcos’ martial rule that lasted 14 resources available to the President to over.” years. make such determination.

The court, the ruling said, “cannot The court appeared to adopt the doc- simply take the battle of Marawi in isola“With this wisdom from hindsight, the court must now stand firm and ap- trine in the 1971 Lansang case, following tion. As a crime without predetermined ply the clear letter and intent of the 1987 the bombing of the Liberal Party rally in bounds, the President has reasonable Constitution without fear or favor,” he Plaza Miranda, that the suspension of basis to believe that the declaration of added. the privilege of the writ was a political martial law ... in the whole of Mindanao The new Constitution was promulgat- question. is most necessary, effective and called ed after the ouster of Marcos in the 1986 for by the circumstances.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Philippine News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

9

Breakout growth of economy seen

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE ECONOMY grew 6.68 percent during the first three quarters of the Duterte administration, and can experience breakout growth at 7 percent with the passage of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said on Thursday.

“We expect to grow close to the targeted 7 percent throughout the year,” Dominguez said.

The economic strategy of President Duterte is bearing fruit, with GDP (gross domestic product) growing 6.68 percent during his first three quarters, or “faster than [those of ] all other administrations,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said on Thursday.

“We expect to grow close to the targeted 7 percent throughout the year,” he said.

Dominguez noted that the average inflation rate for the first 11 months of the administration is 2.64 percent.

“Again, this is the lowest registered of all previous administrations,” he said.

Moreover, he said, the national government debt as a percentage of GDP declined from 43 percent as of the end of June 2016 to 41.9 percent by the end of March.

“The reduced debt load allows us enough flexibility to pump-prime our economy,” he said.

“With the passage of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program, we can guarantee a breakout growth of above 7 percent and sustain this into the medium term,” the finance chief said.

Dominguez said the faster economic growth would enable the government to bring down the poverty rate from 21.6 percent today to 14 percent in 2022.

‘Fiscally secure’

The country, he said, was “fiscally secure” as the government collected P2.09 trillion in revenue from July 2016 to May this year.

“That is 7 percent higher than the same period the previous year,” he said.

Dominguez said the Bureau of Customs confiscated P8.4 billion in smuggled goods from August 2016 to June, or seven and a half times more than the P1.2 billion seized in smuggled goods registered in 2015.

Learning from the previous administration’s experience, Malacañang has opted not to use public-private partnerships (PPPs) in funding major infrastructure projects so that these could at least get started on time.

Dominguez said a review of the PPPs showed that it took three years for a

AVITO C. DALAN / PNA

PPP- financed project to get off the ground.

“That’s why the last administration was only able to do four projects, right?

Because the PPP process is very long,” he said.

“We cannot wait to negotiate for three years, then after three years, ‘ OK, this is only when we start.’ We can’t do that. We have to start now,” he added.

P3.6-T infra program

The Duterte administration is embarking on a P3.6-trillion infrastructure program that will be funded through a tax reform program and new loans.

“We know that we don’t have to go through the long negotiations for the PPP, OK. Now, we have a large capacity

DOTr asked to develop ‘reasonable’ standards for Grab, Uber

BY AZER N. PARROCHA Philippines News Agency MANILA — A senator on Wednesday appealed to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to develop ‘reasonable’ standards for transport network vehicle services (TNVS) or ride-sharing applications such as Grab and Uber to make public transportation more convenient.

Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV made this call after the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) on Tuesday (July 11) fined Grab and Uber PHP5 million each for violations of various terms and conditions.

LTFRB said that Grab and Uber violated the terms and conditions of their Certificates of Transportation Network Company (TNC) accreditation under Memorandum Circular 2015-016.

Representatives from Uber and Grab admitted that a number of their vehicles have operated without certificates of

public convenience (CPC) or provisional authority (PA).

Aquino, meanwhile, said that legislation is needed to create and institutionalize an appropriate regulatory framework for TNVS and to distinguish it from public transport services.

“I urge the LTFRB to address this issue of penalties for rideshare companies.

Then we can focus on passing legislation to develop the industry and to ensure these new transport networks are held accountable for offenses,” Aquino said.

Last year, Aquino submitted a measure, Senate Bill No. 696 or the Rideshare Support Company Act. He pointed out that the government must work with TNVS as it improved the quality of service for commuters.

“In any industry, increased competition often leads to improved quality, improved service, and lower prices for consumers. For the commuting public, this is a change they have long clamored for,” Aquino said. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

to borrow. And our interest rate that we pay is lower than the interest rate that the private sector pays,” Dominguez said.

He pointed out that the government retained the option of turning existing projects into PPPs. “Once the project started, or... even in the middle of the project, we can turn it over and make it PPP. We can sell the project and we can use the funds to repay our loan,” he said.

Dominguez said this could be done in operation and maintenance (O&M) projects.

“We’ll start the project, and most likely, we will use public-private partnerships for the O&M portion because the government is not good at O&M,” he said. ■

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Philippine News

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Asean solons urged to copy Du30 drug war

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer SPEAKER PANTALEON Alvarez on Wednesday urged Southeast Asian lawmakers to support antinarcotics campaigns like President Duterte’s war on drugs, as he expressed concern over the region becoming a major transshipment hub for illegal drugs.

Alvarez asked parliamentarians from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to show “political will and cooperation” in their countries’ campaigns against narcotics, saying the 10-member bloc could not afford to ignore the adverse effects of illegal drugs on the Asean community.

Speaking at the opening of a meeting of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (Aipa) in Pasay City, Alvarez recalled Mr. Duterte’s call for unity among Southeast Asian leaders to deal with the drug menace during the 30th Asean summit hosted by the Philippines earlier this year.

“I take this opportunity to urge you to do the same. With political will and cooperation, we will dismantle the massive illegal drug trade apparatus,” said Alvarez, the incumbent

financial difficulties and other Isra Sunthornvut, thanked the Aipa president.

“Drug trafficking has re- challenges families could face if Philippines for hosting the mained a major security con- members became drug addicts. meeting and urged legislative Alvarez cited the Asean com- bodies in the region to combine cern in the Asean community,” he said. munity’s initial moves to face their efforts to combat the drug “Worse, the region has be- the problem with the adoption menace. come a major transshipment last year of the Asean Work At the same meeting, Surigao hub for illegal drugs by transna- Plan on Securing Communi- del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Bartional organized crime groups ties against Illicit Drugs 2016- bers, the chair of the House to meet the demand of an in- 2025. committee on dangerous drugs, creasingly growing interna“As legislators, we support challenged his fellow Asean tional market for illegal drugs,” this vision by introducing mea- lawmakers to take bolder steps he said. sures that could strengthen in battling illegal drugs.

Thousands of people have mechanisms to stop the probeen killed in police operations duction, trafficking and abuse Bold steps “I say it is time to take bold, and vigilante-style attacks of illicit drugs in our countries,” courageous steps, and to bring since Mr. Duterte launched Alvarez said. more of our colhis war on drugs lective weight more than a year into forging a ago. tighter, more The killings Should we continue to just be a factdecisive collabohave drawn confinding body or should we contribute ration against cerns from the more meaningfully and decisively to illegal drugs,” United States, free our region from the scourge of he said, as he acEuropean Union illegal drugs? cepted the chairand United Namanship of the tions over huAipa committee man rights violations in the meeting.

Philippines, but the country’s “In so doing, the world will He also urged Aipa memberAsean neighbors have been states to enhance cooperation again witness the tenacity of support- ive under the nonin- in law enforcement and the the Asean spirit, our unity of terference policy of the region- criminal justice system, raise purpose and our leadership in al bloc. awareness and educate all sec- Asia,” Barbers said.

He said Asean’s joint effort in tors of society, especially the Impact on society youth, and engage local com- fighting illegal drugs dated back “We cannot ignore the im- munities, schools and the me- to the signing of the Asean Decpact of drug use on society— dia to support the realization of laration of Principles to Combat the Abuse of Narcotic Drugs especially [on] the family and a drug-free Southeast Asia. the youth,” Alvarez said, citing The Aipa secretary general, in Manila in 1976.

“Today it is time for our group to reach deeply into our collective conscience and wrestle with this question: Are we going to move forward and step up our game?” he said.

“Should we continue to just be a fact-finding body or should we contribute more meaningfully and decisively to free our region from the scourge of illegal drugs?” he said.

Presenting the Philippine report on its drug campaign at the meeting, Deputy Speaker Raneo Abu cited a “substantial drop” in the narcotics trade as well as the crime rate in the wake of Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs.

The Batangas lawmaker said that less than a year since Mr. Duterte assumed office, the government had dismantled nine illegal drug laboratories, seized about P13 billion worth of crystal meth (shabu), and sequestered around P19 billion worth of drug-trade-related evidence.

More than 1.3 million drug users have voluntarily surrendered and are undergoing rehabilitation and reintegration into the community, he said.

After 62,751 police operations and the surrender of 1,306,389 drug users, Abu said the crime rate had decreased by 28.57 percent. ■

own “independent study” of the situation in the South.

“I just have to rely on the word of the Armed Forces and the police because they are the ones keeping this republic healthy and alive,” he said.

“When they say it’s no longer dangerous and everything is okay, then that is the time that I will lift martial law.”

Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said the military would assess the security situation in Marawi and other parts of Mindanao before making any recommendation to the President.

“This assessment and study is still ongoing,” Padilla told reporters on Friday. He said Mr. Duterte wanted the AFP recommendation on his desk before the end of the 60-day martial law period.

2022.”

“Why? To stop this thing.

This is not just Isis, there’s also the rebellion of the NPA that’s more than 40 years,” the Davao del Norte congressman said, referring to the IS and to the communist-led New People’s Army.

The Constitution states that Congress, upon the initiative of the President, “may extend such [martial law] proclamation or the suspension [of the writ of habeas corpus] for a period to be determined by the Congress, if the invasion or rebellion shall persist and public safety requires it.”

Asked if he favored expanding martial law to cover the rest of the country, Alvarez said this would need to be discussed.

“Let the executive declare it first, then we will look at their grounds,” he told the Inquirer. ■

Speaker pushing... of lifting martial law, unless security authorities told him the situation in Mindanao was no longer critical.

The President placed the entire Mindanao under martial law on May 23 following the siege of Marawi City by militants from the Maute group and its Abu Sayyaf allies. Both terror groups have sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

“No,” he said, when asked by journalists on whether he would lift martial law before his second State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 24.

“I consulted the [military and the police] and [they] said it was critical,” the President said on Friday in Davao City. “It will be the Armed Forces and the police who will say if it’s no longer critical.”

He said he did not have his ❰❰ 1

Young Maranao kids spend some time to watch television as part of the psychosocial care provided by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and other entities to help kids cope from the crisis.

OLIVER MARQUEZ / PNA

Under the Constitution, martial law could be imposed for 60 days, unless extended by Congress. Mr. Duterte’s Proclamation No. 216 will expire on July 22, before he delivers his Sona. www.canadianinquirer.net

“For me,” Alvarez said, “if the President asks for an extension, my personal position—not the position of the House of Representatives—is, as a Mindanaoan, I want to extend it until

Philippine News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

11

PCSO chief asks PNP to intensify Certify BBL, Duterte urged anti-illegal gambling campaign

BY CHRISTOPHER LLOYD T. CALIWAN Philippines News Agency MANILA — Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office General Manager Alexander Balutan urged the Philippine National Police (PNP) to assist the agency in stamping out illegal gambling such as jueteng that continue to mess up with the monthly revenue collection of the state-run Small Town Lottery (STL).

In a statement Wednesday, Balutan said the illegal numbers game is still rampant in some areas, competing with STL games being operated by PCSO’s Authorized Agent Corporations (AACs).

Balutan has reminded the PNP to fulfill its responsibility to eradicate all forms of illegal numbers game and protect the operation of STL based on a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with PCSO. Under the MOA, the PNP agreed to step up the fight against illegal gambling. In return, the PCSO will give the PNP a share of 2.5 percent of its earnings.

To date, the PNP has received Php154 million from the PCSO. “I had hoped that the PNP would stand true to their oath to implement President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 13,” Balutan said, who is retired major general of the Philippine Marine Corps (PMC).

He said that based on PCSO’s monitoring and reports from AACs, some local police officials allegedly continue to receive payolas from gambling lords who operates the illegal numbers game.

“Ang nangyayari, ‘yung maliliit lang gaya ng bet collector ang hinuhuli nila at hindi

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer

PCSO General Manager Alexander Balutan.

ang mga malalaking isda gaya ng illegal gambling financier.

Kaya patuloy pa rin ang illegal na jueteng, masiao at iba pang uri ng illegal numbers game sa ibang mga lalawigan sa bansa (What’s happening is that they catch the small fry like bet collectors and not the big fish like illegal gambing financiers.

Hence, banned activities like juetend, masiao and other illegal numbers game in different areas in the country),” Balutan lamented.

Balutan also warned erring police officials to stop using gambling lords to sabotage STL operations instead of convincing these financiers to go legal.

“We sincerely tried to involve them in what we believe will serve the people. Instead, they have chosen to serve crime lords,” he said.

Duterte had chosen Balutan to lead PCSO instead of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) as he was earlier promised with hope that the former general who has the moniker “Mandirigma” in the military could help him eradicate illegal gam-

PNA PHOTO

bling in the country.

Balutan said he was very happy with his mission to help needy Filipinos and he welcomed the mission because it was a dramatic change from his 33-year career in the military.

“But it doesn’t mean that I have forgotten how to fight just because I retired. I feel insulted by the temerity of these people.

My oath to my countrymen stands until the day I die,” the general said, citing Marawi City as an example.

He said he had been to Marawi several times in his career and he could not recall any negativity because of the kindness of the Maranao people.

“Now, this kind of people is suffering, that beautiful city is in ruins because of the followers of Satan. I’m trying to help them now but I am prevented from giving what I want to give.

I could do so much more if not for the minions of satanic gambling lords,” Balutan said.

“To the gambling lords, understand this, you are my mission now and I intend to accomplish it,” Balutan stressed. ■

www.canadianinquirer.net

peace accord signed by the Philippine government and MILF in March 2014.

The BBL defines the baSECRETARY JESUS Dureza, sic structure of the proposed presidential adviser on the Bangsamoro autonomous state peace process, on Tuesday said in Mindanao, a key feature of he would recommend that the the federal form of government latest version of the proposed being pushed by Mr. Duterte Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) and his allies. be transmitted immediately to Senate President Aquilino Congress and certified as an ur- “Koko” Pimentel III and Sen. gent bill without prior revision Sonny Angara, chair of the Senby Malacañang. ate committee on local govern“Unlike what they did in the ment, on Tuesday said they last administration — when were optimistic of Congress’ they tinkered with proposed support for the measure.

BBL first — our Pimentel said recommenhe was told by dation is that a BTC member as soon as the that “this version President reOur people are is less constitulosing hope in ceives it, he will tionally objecMindanao and turn it over to tionable” than they are looking the Speaker of the first draft. for solutions the House and Angara believes and BBL is the Senate Presithe proposed law one possible dent,” Dureza “will have a good solution. said. “But, as you chance if it has know very well, the full backing of the President the administramakes the final tion and if there’s call.” an extensive conMohagher Iqbal, who was sultation that will happen.” chief peace negotiator of the “Our people are losing hope Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao and they are look(MILF), had told Inquirer that ing for solutions and BBL is one the Bangsamoro Transition possible solution,” he said.

Commission (BTC) was ready The previous Congress failed to submit the draft BBL to to pass the first proposed BBL Malacañang on July 17. under the Aquino administraIqbal, a member of the BTC, tion in the wake of the fallout was hopeful that Mr. Duterte from the Mamasapano massawould keep his promise of a cre in early 2015. “homeland” for the BangsamIn a speech in Iligan City last oro people in Mindanao in month, Mr. Duterte promised three years’ time. to push the passage of the new The BTC, comprised of rep- BBL. resentatives from the govern“That’s the truth,” he said. “I’m ment and the Moro rebels, not joking … On the third year hopes the President will certify [of my term], God willing, it will the bill as urgent in his State of be there and you will see how we the Nation Address on July 24. will build our country.” ■ The crafting of the law is part of the implementation of the With a report from Jocelyn R. Uy

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Philippine News

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

How is Bato taking Speaker Alvarez: Robredo, allegations of Sereno may face impeachment Aguirre against SAF men in Bilibid?

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer

BY JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE AND MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer WHILE SAYING that he does not believe the allegations, Philippine National Police chief Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa has ordered an investigation into the suspected connivance between members of the PNP Special Action Force (SAF) and some inmates behind the resurging drug trade inside New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

During a surprise visit to the state penitentiary in Muntinlupa City on Wednesday, Dela Rosa assured the over 400 SAF men assigned there of his faith in their integrity.

“It’s not that I believe the allegation but I need to address it because it is very serious. We are not fighting an ordinary organized crime syndicate. This is drugs, a billion-peso industry that is being destroyed by our efforts. So it is but normal that they would get back at us by destroying us,” Dela Rosa said.

When he asked the SAF troopers if they were involved in the resurgence of the drug trade at NBP as alleged by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, they replied in the negative.

According to Dela Rosa, he cancelled his morning commitments to address the “very serious allegation” against the unit, asking them: “If this is true, who can I depend on?”

“From the very beginning I told you, I can depend on nobody else at the PNP but you

because you are the most disciplined. You are here to address the problem of illegal drugs at the NBP that is why I have strong confidence in you,” he said.

He informed them that he had ordered the Directorate for Intelligence and Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management to look into Aguirre’s claim.

“I really hope that the allegation is wrong. In order to be fair to the accuser and in order to be fair to the accused, we must conduct an in-depth investigation… The institution may be ruined if it is true but we have to weed out whoever is involved,” Dela Rosa said.

He pointed out that those involved in the multibillion narcotics industry would always attempt to destroy the PNP. “So continue discharging your job.

Even if you are sad. Even if your morale is low. Show everyone that you are professionals.”

“I have nobody to replace you with. All our troops are engaged in Mindanao so you have to hang on. You disprove the allegation,” Dela Rosa said.

Aguirre, meanwhile, turned to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for help in stemming the revival of the illegal drug trade at the NBP. Aguirre ordered NBI director Dante Gierran to investigate and prepare possible criminal and administrative cases against the inmates and SAF commandos concerned.

He also directed Gierran to prepare a report on the actions taken by the NBI to implement his order. ■

VICE PRESIDENT Leni Robredo and Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno face the prospect of impeachment as the 17th Congress enters its second year, according to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

“That’s why this second year of Congress may become more colorful,” the House leader told the Inquirer in an interview on Saturday.

Alvarez said he was collecting evidence to build possible impeachment cases against Robredo and Sereno, who had incurred his displeasure on separate occasions in recent months.

“Before I file that, I need to complete all the supporting documents. Like the case with the Chief Justice, once the documents are ready, I will not hesitate to file,” he said.

Alvarez insisted he was not “threatening” the two officials, as he would do what he said should he be able to gather enough evidence.

Sought for comment, the Supreme Court said it would not comment on political issues.

Robredo had no immediate reply when the Inquirer contacted her staff for comment.

Asked why he was targeting Robredo and Sereno when President Duterte himself avoided directly attacking either of the two high officials, Alvarez said it was the nature of his office.

“Let’s understand the President. He cannot impeach anyone. He cannot impeach the Vice President or the Chief Justice. But we in Congress, especially the House, have the exclusive right to impeach the Vice President, the Chief Jus-

www.canadianinquirer.net

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

tice, the justices of the Supreme Court and [officials of ] constitutional bodies,” he said.

“That’s why I’m speaking out,” he added.

Earlier, Mr. Duterte assured Robredo that she would finish her term. He also said he would abide by the Supreme Court’s decisions on pending cases involving his administration.

Alvarez said the Vice President “betrayed the public trust” in March when she sent a video message to a UN side meeting criticizing the government’s war on drugs.

On March 16, Robredo’s message to the side event of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna sparked a political firestorm as it coincided with the filing of the first impeachment case against Mr. Duterte.

Two impeachment complaints were subsequently filed against Robredo, but no House member came forward to endorse either of them, prompting the filers to submit them to the Speaker’s office.

Alvarez has not acted on the two complaints yet.

As for Sereno, the Speaker said he was investigating reports that she tried to influence Court of Appeals (CA) magis-

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trates to defy the House in the case of six Ilocos Norte officials who were cited in contempt and placed under House custody in May. He said he would move for Sereno’s impeachment “if there’s truth to the reports.”

Alvarez said the investigation would determine whether Sereno forced CA Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr. to sign a joint statement asking the House to reconsider its show-cause order against three CA justices, who earlier ordered the release of the “Ilocos 6.”

He said he was also checking other reports that Sereno told the three CA justices not to comply with the House leadership’s orders placing the Ilocos 6 under detention, prompting their issuance of a release order granting the officials bail.

The six officials have been detained by the House good government committee since May 29 for refusing to answer questions about the alleged irregular purchase of P66.45 million worth of vehicles using tobacco excise funds at the behest of Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos. ■

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

13

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Opinion

14

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

PUBLIC LIVES

Why is SC ruling on martial law disturbing?

By Randy David Philippine Daily Inquirer The recent Supreme Court decision declaring Proclamation No. 216 constitutional is the latest addition to a long list of judicial rulings on the executive’s use of extraordinary powers in dealing with urgent situations. But, unlike previous rulings since 1986, this one reflects a disturbing return to the paradigm of a strong presidency.

Two aspects of the majority’s ruling confirm this.

First, the high court manifests what seems to me an almost dutiful readiness to affirm the President’s action, and a profound reluctance to undertake an impartial review of the sufficiency of the factual basis for declaring martial law, as the 1987 Constitution mandates. The ruling says: “A review of the aforesaid facts similarly leads the Court to conclude that the President, in issuing Proclamation No. 216, had sufficient factual bases tending to show that actual rebellion exists.”

This may suggest a conclusion arrived at after a thorough review by the Court. But, the ruling betrays its nervousness in undertaking its review function by adding: “After all, what the President needs to satisfy is only the standard of probable cause for a valid declaration of martial law and suspension

of the privilege of the writ of habe- like Metro Manila, what will stop suspected enemy lairs within the as corpus.” The Court, in effect, de- the President from extending the city proper, the raiding of homes, clares that the chief executive only scope of martial law to cover the the commandeering of private facilities, the widespread destruction needs to produce evidence that re- entire country?

The ruling states: “The Consti- of private and public property, and bellion probably exists for martial tution grants him (the President) the restriction of civil rights and law to be considered valid.

Second, and more crucially, the the prerogative whether to put freedoms. In the face of an emerSupreme Court’s ruling on Procla- the entire Philippines or any part gency situation, the Constitution mation No. 216 practically cedes to thereof under martial law. There is suggests a thoughtful calibration of the President the absolute right to no constitutional edict that martial the appropriate response.

There is no way one can look at determine the territorial scope of law should be confined only in the martial law. “Clearly, the power to particular place where the armed images of devastation in Marawi determine the scope of territorial public uprising actually trans- today without asking whether any application belongs to the Presi- pired. This is not only practical but of this could have been avoided, or dent… To reiterate, the Court is not also logical.” I submit that this is whether the state is not obliged to pay reparations to equipped with the those whose livecompetence and If the military says that some elements of the Maute lihood and proplogistical machinand Abu Sayyaf groups fighting in Marawi have been erties have been ery to determine spotted in other parts of the country beyond Mindanao, destroyed. To ask the strategical vallike Metro Manila, what will stop the President from this is surely not to ue of other places extending the scope of martial law to cover the entire take anything away in the military’s country? from the heroism efforts to quell the and sacrifices of rebellion and restore peace. It would be engaging a virtual surrender of the Court’s the military in their valiant effort in an act of adventurism if it dares review powers, a shameful abdica- to clear Marawi of the Maute terto embark on a mission of deci- tion of its essential constitutional rorists. It is certainly worth notphering the territorial metes and function with regard to martial law. ing that none of the abuses associThe Court adds: “Martial law is ated with martial law during the bounds of martial law.” I find this an urgent measure since at stake Marcos years have been reported statement dangerous.

This unnecessary admission by is the nation’s territorial sover- in the Marawi crisis. The distinct the Court paves the way for a na- eignty and survival. As such, the impression that one gets is that our tionwide declaration of martial President has to respond quickly.” soldiers have acted only with utlaw. If the military says that some What that response may entail in most professionalism and concern elements of the Maute and Abu practice can include a broad range for the public welfare and safety, to Sayyaf groups fighting in Marawi of things under martial law. As the the point of putting their own lives have been spotted in other parts events in Marawi have shown, it in extreme danger. That, indeed, is of the country beyond Mindanao, can include the aerial bombing of very reassuring.

But, one cannot be complacent about the dangers that martial law poses to ordinary citizens, particularly since the Commander in Chief himself has a tendency to express a perverse acceptance of such abuses when speaking to the troops.

As Justice Antonio Carpio warns in a separate opinion, in which he affirms the validity of martial law for Marawi but not for the whole of Mindanao: “The Court cannot simply gloss over this Presidential mindset that has been publicly broadcast to the nation and to the world. Any sign of acquiescence by the Court to this Presidential mindset could be fatal to the survival of the 1987 Constitution and our democracy. The Court cannot play with the fire of martial law which could turn into ashes the very Constitution that members of the Court are sworn to preserve and defend, a tragic event that once befell the Court in 1972 and brought the Court to its lowest point in its history.”

In 1972, Marcos was so confident he had popular support that he threatened to declare a revolutionary government if the Supreme Court struck down his martial law proclamation. The high court decided not to, wrongly believing this was the only way to preserve the rule of law. One hopes we are not seeing history repeat itself. ■

Charter set geographical restriction on ML, says Sereno

BY MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer CONTRARY TO the belief of most of her colleagues on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said the 1987 Constitution set a geographical restriction on President Duterte’s prerogative to put the country or any part of it under martial law.

In her 51-page dissenting opinion, the Philippines’ first female Chief Justice argued that “it is possible and feasible to define the territorial boundaries of martial law” under the 1987 Charter.

Section 18, Article VII of the Constitution states that the President “in case of invasion or rebellion, when public safe-

ty requires it ... may place the Philippines or any part thereof under martial law.”

“The phraseology of the Constitution is purposive and directed ... The phrase ‘when public safety requires it’ can only mean that the court must ask whether the powers being invoked is proportional to the state of the rebellion and corresponds with its place of occurrence,” Sereno said.

Additional powers

She stressed that the majority ruling penned by Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo failed to discuss the additional powers the President would acquire by imposing military rule and its effects on the people’s civil liberties.

Interestingly, Del Castillo

cautioned during oral arguments in the court that Mr. Duterte’s decision might “embolden” him to implement martial law nationwide.

Sereno said Mr. Duterte did not have “unbridled discretion as to when, where and how martial law is to be declared.”

“The Supreme Court, as the guardian of the Constitution, has the obligation to see to it that these parameters are complied with,” she said. “The court, as the vanguard of the rule of law, must see to it that the rule of law is upheld.”

She said that Mr. Duterte, who had repeatedly said he could end decades-old unrest in Mindanao with martial law, “cannot broaden its use to solve other social ills.”

“The danger of misusing marwww.canadianinquirer.net

tial law is related to the need to protect the military from returning to its misshapen role during the Marcos martial law (era),” she said.

No factual evidence

Sereno, along with Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, rejected this, pointing out that there was no factual evidence showing that the Maute-led rebellion was happening all over Mindanao.

She lamented that her colleagues “emaciated the power of judicial review by giving exces- sive leeway to the President.”

Sereno said the majority ruling only led to “the absurdity of martial law in places (that are)

terrorism- and rebellion-free” like the provinces of Dinagat Islands and Camiguin.

While she agreed with Carpio that martial law must be imposed in Marawi, Sereno said it should also cover the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and Sulu from where many of the supporters of the Maute group hailed.

“The military has said as much: there are places in Mindanao where the Mautes will never gain foothold. If this is so, why declare martial law over the whole of Mindanao?” said the Chief Justice.

“There is insufficient showing that the requirements of public safety necessitated the declaration of martial law over the entire Mindanao,” Caguioa said. ■

Opinion

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

15

AT LARGE

A peso for Leni

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer DOES ANYBODY have P7.5 million lying around? That is the amount that Vice President Leni Robredo has to raise for the second tranche of the “service fee” to cover her part of the election case filed by defeated VP candidate Bongbong Marcos.

You don’t have to wonder where the former senator and “junior” of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos will source the huge amount needed for the protest he filed (your guess is as good as mine where the wealth his family retained is kept for safekeeping). Indeed, the P66 million that the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) is charging Marcos to pursue his complaint is small change considering the billions of dollars his family is alleged to have salted away from the years his father had absolute sway over national affairs (and coffers).

But before she sought—and won—the vice presidency, Robredo was “just” a congresswoman. And while her late husband Jesse had been a long-time mayor of their native Naga, and then interior secretary, he had built such a reputation for honesty and probity that any hint of corruption on his part was deemed absurd. And we must remember that even while she was already in Congress, Leni had such abstemious habits that she took public buses to go home to Naga and then return to Manila on weekends.

So we have to ask: Where will Robredo find the P15.43 million she is required to turn over to the PET, especially now that the second tranche is due on July 14?

No wonder that in this country, only the very rich and powerful (and criminal) have the gumption to run for office, given the high cost of politics.

That’s why a group of wom-

en, all of whom believe in Robredo’s rightful claim to the vice presidency and who wish to prevent a Marcos from having such close proximity to the presidency, recently launched a drive to help the Vice President fight off the Marcos challenge.

Lawyer Purificacion Bernabe, speaking on behalf of the “Piso para sa Laban ni Leni” organizers, says that more than just raising funds for Leni’s counter protest, the fund-raising project would also serve as an avenue for ordinary Filipinos “to stand together and protect their votes” which sent Robredo to the No. 2 post in the land.

The women behind the “Piso para sa Laban ni Leni” are all awardees of The Outstanding Womenin the Nation’s Service (or TOWNS) and are asking the Supreme Court to allow them to take part in Robredo’s counterprotest. The women are led byNina Lim-Yuson, founder of the Museo Pambata, and in-

clude former Human Rights commissioner and columnist Paulynn Paredes Sicam, singer Celeste Legaspi-Gallardo, former BCDA board member Zorayda Alonzo, former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman, and Ateneo de Manila University Press director Karina Bolasco.

By latest count, the “Piso para sa Laban ni Leni” has raised over P400,000. If the PET gives the organizers the go-ahead, the money raised will go directly to the PET, but if the PET junks their appeal, the money will be donated to the Office of the Vice President’s Angat Buhay program. None of the money will pass through Leni’s hands.

Another controversy, in this country and at this time when controversies seem to come pouring in without letup, involves the recent resignation of three members of the executive committee of the coming Metro Manila Film

Festival. The three are film academic Rolando Tolentino, documentary maker Kara MagsanocAlikpala, and multi-awarded screenwriter Ricky Lee. In a recent statement, the three said that when they were invited to sit in the Execom, they were “excited to maximize the gains of the MMFF 2016,” which was notable for the strong presence and performance of “indie” movies. But, they said, they decided to resign when they realized that the other members of the committee—including commercial producers—were “putting too much emphasis on commerce over art.” In other words, the committee seemed bent on returning the hegemony of “family-friendly” formulaic movies to the Festival, as seen from the list of the initial four approved movies. One step forward for the local film industry last year, and two steps back to execrable commercial products this year. ■

LOOKING BACK

‘Bibinquera ng presidente,’ etc.

By Ambeth R. Ocampo Philippine Daily Inquirer Doreen G. Fernandez, the pioneering scholar of Philippine food culture, started with a food review column in the premartial-law Manila Chronicle, where she shared the byline with her husband Wili: He did the eating while she did the writing. As a professor of English, she learned early on that the real challenge was to transmit the sensory experience of gastronomy in words. She was not one to use the weatherbeaten adjective “delicious” and drew from her wide reading, travel and conversations to relate food with literature, history, the arts, geography, even the weather. In time she sought to find in our food that elusive thing we call national identity.

It has been 15 years since Doreen passed away in New York City, but she remains current in the writing of people who had the pleasure to meet her in

person, or people who took off from her published writings to go into their own research in Philippine food culture.

I began digging up old notes on food at the time the nation was born after interviewing Gene Gonzalez on the food served during the fiesta to commemorate the ratification of Philippine Independence in September 1898. For almost a century we knew only what the founding fathers had for lunch because the menu was reproduced in Harper’s History of the War in the Philippines (1900)— until I came across the dinner menu in the Museo de Oro in Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro. I amstill hoping to find the breakfast or merienda menus, but the data in the lunch and dinner menus can give us a sense of the pride and celebration that went into those meals.

It is something that made Nick Joaquin declare that the Malolos Menu is just as significant

as the Malolos Constitution, because it was tangible proof of the birth of the nation.

Biak-na-Bato is just a footnote in Philippine history, but we have the documents on Emilio Aguinaldo’s expenses from May 1897 to February 1898 that can be reviewed for more than mere accounting.

In the expenses for July 1897, for example, all written in Tagalog on a ledger, we see the President dispensing doles to the sick, the wounded, and the poor in the amount of P10 since June 7. On the first of July, 4 reales were given to one Captain Martinez for cigarettes—a regular expense, it seems, like food. When cigarettes were unavailable, Aguinaldo spent for tobacco leaf, and I presume the soldiers rolled their own smokes.

On July 2, Pio del Pilar was given P40 to cover his soldiers’ expenses; on July 5, Lt. Victor Samaniego and Treasury Guards were given 4 reales in www.canadianinquirer.net

allowances. Not all our soldiers were Filipino; there were three Spaniards on the payroll identified only as: Ardebol, Martinez, and Lopez, who received P1, 1 real, and 12 centavos. There were entries for clinic attendants and even an herbolario named J. Putex.

The President had more than one cook; the “second cook” was Pedro, who was paid 1 real and 12 centavos. Cook No. 1, or the chief presidential kusinero, was named Ninoy, and there were disbursements for cooks’ salaries on July 14 and 19.

Aguinaldo and his men always paid for food and supplies they took from people in the countryside, unlike the Spanish and American forces who were hated for freeloading. The archival documents show regular disbursements for rice—both polished bigas or unhusked palay— as well as fish and milk. The types of fish were not specified; the milk was not identified as coming from cow,

carabao, or goat.

In the 1900 ledger we find disbursements for chicken, eggs, and lechon, but in the years 1897-1898 there are no expenses for meat and poultry. There must have been some celebration or someone’s birthday on June 16, 1897, because there is a record of a merienda. May 25 and 27 list down the expenses of puto served to the soldiers for breakfast. On June 6, 1897, there was a payment for suman consumed by the soldiers, as well as P1 paid for achara, caramel and sugar. In another document there is a disbursement of a salary or honorarium paid to an unidentified woman who was listed only as “bibinquera ng presidente” (or the President’s personal bibingka maker).

Each time I review these lists of expenses, I realize that God is indeed in the details. In these accounts dismissed by other historians as trivia, we find the human face in the struggle for freedom and independence. ■

16

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Canada News Ontario seeks public input on $15 minimum wage

BY ALLISON JONES The Canadian Press

missioned their own, which the coalition said will be complete next month.

“To plan effectively and protect jobs, employers need predictability and time to adjust the cost of other inputs where we can,” the coalition writes.

“There is no way to absorb and adjust to a 32 per cent hit in less than 18 months.”

Karl Wirtz, the CEO and founder of a packaging company in Brampton, Ont., said he may have to consider bankruptcy.

“This is something that has got me scared out of my mind,” he said.

The minimum wage increase will mean an extra $1 million for WG Pro-Manufacturing’s 200 — soon to be 245 — employees, Wirtz said. About half of them make minimum wage and the rest will have to get commensurate pay bumps, he said.

needs of businesses, smaller ones in particular.

“We want to ensure there’s not unintended consequences, TORONTO — Ontario’s bid to because these are complex poliraise the minimum wage to $15 cies,” he said. an hour — a move that is feared “If there’s more work to be by businesses but has the supdone in terms of the details and port of some prominent econopotential unintended consemists — is being put to the pubquences, that’s something we’re lic this week. certainly happy to do with our The Liberal government’s business community.” proposed legislation on labour A recent study out of Seattle reforms, which also includes made headlines for concludequal pay for part-time working that its minimum wage iners, increased vacation entitlecrease was actually detrimental ments and expanded personal to low-income workers. But its emergency leave, starts commethodology has been critimittee hearings Monday that cized and it bucks the trend of will travel the province. similar studies concluding the The bill would boost the minopposite, noted Canadian econimum wage, which is currently omist Lars Osberg. set to rise with inflation from He is one of 50 economists in $11.40 an hour to $11.60 in OcCanada who just signed a letter tober, up to $14 on Jan. 1, 2018, in support of a $15 minimum and $15 the following year. wage.

Businesses are “For many strongly opposed years, many in to the increase, the economics particularly the profession were quick pace of it.

We want to ensure there’s not also very conunintended consequences, because A coalition of cerned about these are complex policies. groups includthis possibility of ing the Ontario disemployment Chamber of of people with Commerce, Resminimum wage taurants Canada jobs,” said Osand the Canadian Franchise AsThe company, which does co- berg, an economics professor at sociation are sending Premier packaging for foods and confec- Dalhousie University.

Kathleen Wynne a letter Mon- tionery products, is focused on “A whole raft of new studies day, slamming the “arbitrary” growth, Wirtz said, and as such in the last 20 years have indiincrease. is operating within tight mar- cated that disemployment effect “Many Ontario employers, gins. He hasn’t budgeted for an is very small...On average you especially small businesses, are extra million dollars a year and could say it’s small to negligible.” now considering closing their is locked into contracts with While businesses’ concerns business because they do not big customers. The only way he are understandable, he said, have the capacity to successful- sees out of the pricing structure studies show that increasing ly manage such reforms,” they is bankruptcy. the minimum wage increases write.

“I want all of our workers to people’s purchasing power, as “The business community have a good income and good well as consumption and ecowas wholly aligned with your ability to have a good lifestyle,” nomic activity in general. government’s previous ap- Wirtz said. “I respect that.

“So in that sense it’s stimulaproach, which allowed for in- Truthfully, I do. But you have to tive to the macroeconomy,” he creases to the minimum wage give businesses an opportunity said. that were predictable and pro- to phase it into their program.

Ontario’s legislative comtected against arbitrary politi- So yes, let’s shoot for $14, let’s mittee will travel this week to cal decision-making.” shoot for $15, but scale it over Thunder Bay, North Bay, OttaBusiness groups had been the next coming years.” wa, Kingston and Windsor, and calling for the government Economic Development next week to London, Kitchento first perform an economic Minister Brad Duguid said the er, Niagara Falls, Hamilton and analysis, and have now com- government is sensitive to the Toronto. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Gros Morne Park in Atlantic Canada.

MICHEL RATHWELL / FLICKR

A $24.5M effort will promote Atlantic Canada as a top travel destination THE CANADIAN PRESS STEADY BROOK, N.L. — Ottawa and the Atlantic provinces are teaming up with industry to spend $24.5 million over three years on touting Atlantic Canada as a top travel destination.

Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said Tuesday estimates based on business cases suggest the plan could deliver big returns.

“This investment is so critical because it’s going to help generate $200 million in export revenue for Atlantic tourism businesses over the next three years, add 200 new businesses to the sector and create 6,000 new jobs,” he told a news conference as Atlantic premiers and federal ministers met in western Newfoundland.

Ottawa will provide about $11.4 million as the four Atlantic provinces and local tourism industry associations chip in the rest.

The project will target vacation markets in the U.S., the United Kingdom, China and Germany.

“We need to make sure that people recognize this can be a great destination for them and their families,” said Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil.

“There are things that we will do individually as provinces, but I think we do better when we market this region collectively.”

Rob Moore, the Conservative opposition critic for Atlantic Canada, pointed out that the Atlantic Canada Tourism Partnership and the Atlantic Canada Agreement on Tourism have boosted the region internationally since 1994.

“This is simply, for the most part, a renewal of that program,” he said of Tuesday’s announcement. “They’ve renamed it.”

Moore said the region relies disproportionately on a seasonal industry worth about $5 billion a year and the equivalent of 57,000 full-time jobs, according to the Atlantic Canada Agreement on Tourism website.

“I worry about the centralization of decision-making under ❱❱ PAGE 20 A $24.5M

Canada News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

17

‘HE WAS PICKING UP BLOODY MONEY.’

Medical student sentenced to life for murder

BY ALY THOMSON The Canadian Press HALIFAX — William Sandeson arranged a drug deal to kill a fellow university student and steal nine kilograms of marijuana, a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge said Tuesday before sentencing the former medical student and track athlete to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Sandeson was charged two years ago with first-degree murder in the death of 22-yearold Halifax resident Taylor Samson, a physics student at Dalhousie University whose body has yet to be found.

“Where’s Taylor, Will?” Samson’s mother Linda Boutilier shouted to Sandeson as he was escorted out of the courtroom.

The sentence and parole eligibility period are automatic for a conviction of first-degree murder, though Sandeson was given credit for 693 days in custody.

When asked by Justice Josh Arnold if he would like to address the court, the 24-year-old shook his head, and in a hushed tone replied, “No, my Lord.”

Samson’s brother, 22-year-

William Sandeson.

NOVA SCOTIA SUPREME COURT

old Connor Samson, told the court the crime has left him feeling lost and scared.

“I’m afraid to lose someone who’s really close to me,” he said in a victim impact statement.

His voice broke as he spoke about his older brother, saying he now fears for the family’s safety.

Sandeson, sporting a buzzcut and a closely cropped beard, appeared emotionless and stared in the direction of Connor Samson as he read the statement during the sentencing hearing.

Arnold said it was on Aug. 15, 2015 that Taylor Samson went to Sandeson’s downtown Halifax apartment to sell nine kilo-

grams of marijuana for $40,000 as part of a prearranged deal.

Samson was last seen alive on a video recording captured by Sandeson’s surveillance system that night. There were no images of Samson walking out when police reviewed the recordings, court heard.

The judge said Sandeson shot Taylor Samson while he was sitting at a kitchen table.

Arnold then described the moment a pair Sandeson’s track teammates, who were visiting next door, looked inside Sandeson’s apartment after hearing what they believed was a single gunshot.

“Mr. Samson was slumped over in a chair, dead, with blood

running out of his head. Money and drugs were on and around the kitchen table covered in Mr. Samson’s blood,” Arnold told the court.

“Mr. Sandeson was running around his apartment, not seeking to help Mr. Samson, but instead telling (his friends) that he had to clean up. He was picking up bloody money.”

Arnold said DNA matching Samson’s genetic profile was recovered from a handgun, black duffel bag and other items seized from Sandeson’s Henry Street apartment and his family’s farm in Truro, which is north of Halifax.

He said Sandeson had a $200,000 line of credit that was co-signed by his mother to pay for medical school, but in August 2015 — before he even started classes at Dalhousie University — more than $70,000 of that money had been spent.

Crown lawyers had argued Sandeson, motivated by greed, devised a scheme to kill Samson and steal the marijuana to pay off his debts. Arnold said there was no evidence Sandeson had $40,000 cash to pay for the drugs.

In his closing arguments,

defence lawyer Eugene Tan conceded there was a “violent incident” at the apartment that night, but he said his client had always maintained there was someone else in the apartment.

Tan has reportedly filed a notice of appeal of his client’s conviction.

In the courtroom, Samson’s childhood friend Ryan Wilson stared at Sandeson as he read a victim impact statement Tuesday. He said Samson had a great sense of humour and would laugh so loud “your ears would ring.” “(He) hugged so hard, your ribs would hurt,” said Wilson, who has a TS1 tattooed on his wrist — Samson’s initials and his team number in baseball.

“I never get to feel that loving friendship again.”

Wilson’s was one of 18 victim impact statements filed with the court. Several were read ❱❱ PAGE 18 Medical student

QUEBEC FLOODS:

Cabinet minister calls for patience from affected residents THE CANADIAN PRESS MONTREAL — Quebec’s public security minister is again urging victims of this spring’s floods to be patient as the government works its way through thousands of requests for assistance.

Martin Coiteux says he understands the frustrations peo-

ple are feeling.

He held a news conference in Montreal on Tuesday, one day after people voiced those frustrations at provincewide public consultations on a proposed government decree.

The decree would address who can rebuild homes affected by the flooding that hammered various parts of the province

just a few months ago.

Coiteux says 278 municipalities were flooded and more than 5,000 residences affected, while 4,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes.

He said the government will take information gleaned from the public consultations before issuing the decree, possibly this fall.

CIRCUMCISION NEWBORN

OLDER INFANTS

a final report to everybody who has received a visit from an inspector,” he said.

The government is dealing with about 3,000 files in all.

Coiteux added the government has spent about $23 million so far — funds that include the cost of purchasing sandbags and relocating people who had to leave their homes. ■

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18

Canada News

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

B.C. overdose warning Past firefighting efforts have made B.C. forests more fire prone: expert system aims to alert users about potentially deadly drugs

BY LAURA KANE The Canadian Press

BY CAMILLE BAINS The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — Medical health officers in the Vancouver area are aiming to quickly warn drug users about clusters of overdoses and batches of contaminated drugs based on reports from people who use illegal substances.

Sara Young, the regional leader of mental health and substance use for Vancouver Coastal Health, said the data would help staff decide what action needs to be taken to prevent fatal overdoses in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis.

The pilot project started Tuesday with an online web form and a texting service that can be used by people who have registered to receive alerts, said Young, who worked with substance users to create the alert process.

“We talked to people who are currently using substances and the feedback that we got was that we really needed to make this a simple system that could be used with a flip phone.”

Young said service providers who may witness an overdose and call 911 could also report information including the date it occurred, the town or neighbourhood where a substance was bought, and its physical description.

Participants can also upload a photo of the drug and its packaging and do not need to provide their names as part of the project called Real-time Drug Alert and Response, or RADAR. Currently, information about overdoses is analyzed from multiple sources including emergency departments, overdose prevention sites and Insite, a supervised injection site in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“But that process can be slow and take a number of days,” Young said. “If we can get information from people about what a specific batch looked like or what packaging it was con-

tained in then we can quickly send alerts to the people who signed up to the system and say, ‘Hey, watch out for this particular batch.’ “ Young said drug users who are warned about so-called bad drugs tend to take precautions to protect themselves and their peers by using a smaller amount of drugs, going to an overdose prevention site or not using alone.

The project, which also involves the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, is expected to run for eight months in the large Vancouver Coastal Health region that includes Richmond, the North Shore, Bowen Island, the Sunshine Coast and Bella Bella.

Nearly 1,000 people died of opioid overdoses in British Columbia last year, and 253 of the fatalities were in the Vancouver Coastal area.

Dr. Thomas Kerr, associate director of the BC Centre on Substance Use, said involving drug users, who are the experts on issues directly affect them, would be useful among other efforts underway during the overdose crisis that has claimed so many lives.

“The technology side is maybe a little bit different,” Kerr said. “I worry about who will get missed because of that requirement of participation but I think any information that can be brought to bear on the response is helpful.”

The RADAR project, which was launched as part of a joint task force last summer in response to the provincial overdose response, could be expanded across Canada, Young said.

British Columbia declared a public health emergency in April 2016 as the painkiller fentanyl was increasingly detected in multiple fatalities.

Since then, provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall has been working with health authorities, first responders and the BC Coroners Service to improve the sharing of data between organizations. ■

VANCOUVER — British Columbia has been so successful at putting out wildfires in recent decades that it has actually created a situation where its forests are more prone to flames, says an expert.

Lori Daniels, an associate professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, said firefighting efforts over the last 60 to 100 years have allowed for denser forests with a lot of dead material on the ground.

Now, when the province has hot, dry weather and lightning strikes or there is a human ignition, the fires are much more severe and fast-moving, she said.

“The irony is we tried to protect our forests from fire and we created a situation where they’re much more susceptible and the fires are more damaging,” she said.

The province declared a state of emergency on Friday after about 140 new fires broke out.

By Sunday, crews were battling 220 blazes.

Daniels said in the past, the fire season began around the third week of July with the majority of fires starting in August.

But over the past decade, B.C. has seen several years where hot and dry weather has begun earlier in July, she said.

The last time B.C. called a state of emergency over wildfires was in 2003, but even then the fire danger ratings only started to hit very high or extreme levels in August, she said.

Currently, the whole southern two-thirds of B.C., including coastal areas, have very high or extreme ratings.

It’s hard to tell with cer-

BC WILDFIRE SERVICE / FACEBOOK

tainty whether climate change is the culprit, but the current patterns are consistent with climate-change predictions for fire activity made 20 years ago, said Daniels.

“We are on the path that was projected related to climate change,” she said. “And as we look to the future, the kinds of fire weather conditions we have now that we consider extreme, when we project forward based on climate change predictions, they become more like our average conditions.

“This is very disconcerting and it is a serious concern for us.”

Kevin Skrepnek of the B.C. Wildfire Service said the current scale and intensity of the fires was unusual for the first week of July and officials are planning ahead.

“We have to not just be looking at the short-term period, but also for the months ahead of us too, if this tempo is to continue,” he said.

The service is bringing in about 300 personnel from out of province, a decision that Skrepnek said was made not only to bolster capacity but also to manage fatigue among B.C. crews.

“That’s why we’re not only bringing in fire crews, but also support staff, co-ordination

officers, things like that, just to make sure that we’re pacing ourselves for what potentially could be a pretty protracted season.”

The province has already spent $46 million of its annual $63 million firefighting budget.

Once that threshold is reached, the service has immediate access to contingency funds, said Skrepnek.

Daniels said the mountain pine beetle also made B.C. forests more susceptible to fires, resulting in many dead trees that dried out and fell to the ground, creating more fuel for flames.

B.C. should actively manage the dense dead material on the forest floor, she said.

She also advised homeowners to check their roofs to see if there are needles or branches that would burn if an ember landed on their house. As well, they shouldn’t have lots of dead vegetation in their yard or firewood stacked against their house, she added.

Anyone who lives in a fireprone community should be acting now to make sure they are prepared for a worst-case scenario, said Daniels.

“Waiting until we see smoke or waiting until we’re being told we might have to evacuate is too late.” ■

medical school at Dalhousie University within a week of the slaying.

During questioning by police, Sandeson offered three different explanations for what happened the Taylor Samson, including one version that de-

scribed unidentified assailants entering the apartment in body suits and whisking Samson away.

After an eight-week trial, a jury deliberated for 22 hours before delivering a guilty verdict on June 18. ■

Medical student... aloud Tuesday.

At the time of his arrest, Sandeson had already completed one year of medical school in the Caribbean, was a track and field athlete, worked two jobs and had a girlfriend. He was due to start ❰❰ 17

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FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

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* This introductory BlueSky TV and Internet 150 offer includes the Small TV plan and applies to new customers only. New customers must not have subscribed to the selected Shaw service (Internet, Video or Phone) or bundle in the past 90 days. Offer subject to change without notice. Price shown does not include tax. Promotional first-year pricing of $79.90/mo. is only available to new customers, existing customers receive Internet 150 and BlueSky TV for promotional two-year pricing of $129.90/mo. on a 2-year ValuePlan. Regular rates apply after promotional period and are subject to change. Not all Shaw services are available in all regions. The BlueSky TV equipment and modem you rent or purchase may be new or refurbished. Equipment not purchased by you must be returned to Shaw if any of your services are cancelled. A maximum of twelve (12) TVs can be connected, requiring three (3) BlueSky TV HDPVRs with three (3) portals for each. You may not resell any Shaw services. ^ The 2-year ValuePlan is available only as an Internet and TV agreement when including BlueSky TV. Internet and BlueSky TV agreements require a minimum entry service level of Limited TV combined with Internet 150. Shaw Phone services may be added or removed at any time outside of the 2-year ValuePlan. Under the Internet and BlueSky TV 2-year ValuePlan, customers receive a complimentary BlueSky TV HDPVR and BlueSky TV portal when subscribed to Internet 150 and Small TV or higher. Otherwise, a monthly rental fee of $15 per month per BlueSky TV HDPVR and a monthly rental fee of $5 per month per BlueSky TV portal will apply. Free installation as part of a 2-year ValuePlan. Early cancellation fees apply and will be calculated based on the number of months remaining in the 2-year ValuePlan multiplied by the early cancellation fee ($20 per month for the Internet and BlueSky TV agreement). Details on 2-year ValuePlans can be found at shaw.ca/valueplandetails. © 2017 All Shaw services are subject to our Joint Terms of Use and Privacy Policy located at www.shaw.ca. © 2017 Shaw Cablesystems G.P.

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20

World News

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Emails show Trump Jr. embraced help said to be from Kremlin

BY CHAD DAY AND ERIC TUCKER The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s eldest son revealed Tuesday that he was eager to hear damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government, disclosing a series of emails that marked the clearest sign to date that Trump’s campaign was willing to consider election help from a longtime U.S. adversary.

The email exchange posted to Twitter by Donald Trump Jr. showed him conversing with a music publicist who wanted him to meet with a “Russian government attorney” who supposedly had dirt on Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” The messages reveal that Trump Jr. was told the Russian government had information that could “incriminate” Clinton and her dealings with Russia.

“I love it,” Trump Jr. said in one email response.

As the emails reverberated across the political world, Trump Jr. defended his actions in an interview with Fox News, blaming the decision to take the meeting on the “million miles per hour” pace of a presidential campaign and his suspicion that the lawyer might have information about “underreported” scandals involving Clinton.

Trump Jr. said the meeting “really went nowhere” and that he never told his father about it because there was “nothing to tell.”

“In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently,” Trump Jr. said.

Democrats in Congress voiced outrage and insisted the messages showed clear collusion, with California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the

House intelligence committee, declaring that “all of the campaign’s previous denials obviously now have to be viewed in a different context.”

Yet Republicans — who stand the most to lose politically from Trump’s Russia ordeal — did not join in the condemnation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was confident Senate investigators would “get to the bottom of whatever happened.” And Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the intelligence committee, cautioned that the emails were “only part of the picture.”

Trump Jr., who was deeply involved in his father’s presidential campaign, portrayed his decision to release the emails as an effort “to be totally transparent.” In fact, they had already been obtained by The New York Times.

Hours after the son posted the emails, the father rose to his defence.

“My son is a high quality person and I applaud his transparency,” the president said in a statement read to reporters by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Although Sanders declined to answer questions about the emails, she stood by the White House’s longstanding insistence that no one in Trump’s campaign colluded to influence the election.

The messages were the latest disclosure to roil the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the election and potential collusion with Trump’s campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have said the Russian government meddled in the election through hacking to aid Trump.

As congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigate, the emails will almost certainly be re-

viewed for any signs of co-ordination with the Kremlin, which the White House and Trump Jr. have repeatedly said did not take place. A spokesman for Mueller, the former FBI director, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

In the emails — dated early June 2016, soon after Trump secured the GOP nomination — music publicist Rob Goldstone wrote to Trump Jr. to connect him to Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya. Goldstone wrote that the information “would be very useful to your father.”

“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. replied in one of the emails. Days later, Veselnitskaya met with Trump Jr. on June 9 at Trump Tower in New York.

Veselnitskaya has denied ever working for the Russian government.

The emails show Goldstone telling Trump that singer Emin Agalarov and his father, Moscow-based developer Aras Agalarov, had “helped along” the Russian government’s support for Trump. The elder Agalarov was involved with Trump in hosting the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The two men once also had preliminary discussions about building a Trump Tower in Moscow, but they fell through. Trump also appeared in a music video with the younger Agalarov.

In his email, Goldstone said that the “Crown prosecutor of Russia” offered to provide the information on Clinton to the Trump campaign in a meeting with Aras Agalarov. There is no such royal title in the Russian Federation, but Goldstone — who is British — may have been referring to the title given to state prosecutors in the United Kingdom.

In Russia, the top justice official is Prosecutor General Yury

an Atlantic Canadian.

“We’re looking for the 32 Atlantic Liberals to stand up more for the region.”

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen also told the news conference a pilot project

announced last year to increase immigration to Atlantic Canada is working.

More than 200 candidates have been endorsed to apply for permanent residence and more than 400 employers can

Donald Trump, Jr.

A KATZ / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Chaika, the equivalent of the attorney general in the United States. Chaika is longtime confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin and was directly appointed by him.

Representatives for the Agalarovs didn’t respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. Attempts to reach Chaika at his office were unsuccessful.

In one email, Goldstone said he could send the information about Clinton to Trump’s father first directly “via Rhona” — an apparent reference to Rhona Graff, the elder Trump’s longtime assistant from his days at the helm of the Trump Organization.

Though the emails weren’t posted in full until Tuesday, word of their existence had emerged on Monday. In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Goldstone described the information as purported evidence of illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee. It’s unclear what proof, if any, Veselnitskaya provided during the meeting.

Trump Jr.’s account of the meeting, its nature and purpose has evolved over the past several days, giving further fuel to critics who say the president and those around him have not been forthcoming as the Russia saga has unfolded.

On Saturday, in his initial

description of the encounter, Trump Jr. said it was a “short introductory meeting” focused on the disbanded program that had allowed American adoptions of Russian children.

Moscow ended the adoptions in response to Magnitsky Act sanctions created in response to alleged human rights violations in Russia.

A day later, Trump Jr. changed his account, acknowledging that he was told beforehand that Veselnitskaya might have information “helpful” to the Trump campaign, and was told by her during the meeting that she had something about Clinton.

In his most recent description of what occurred, on Tuesday, Trump Jr. said he had believed the information he would hear about Clinton would be political opposition research.

“The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official,” Trump Jr. said in the Tuesday statement. “And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act.” ■

now recruit immigrants for job openings, he said.

Hussen announced a new service team of 12 federal workers to help cut through red tape.

“This team will help employ-

ers, provincial governments and candidates themselves to navigate the immigration system. They will answer inquiries in real time, and they will also be able to do some outreach and promotion work.” ■

Associated Press writers Nekesa Mumbi Moody in New York, Julie Bykowicz, Mary Clare Jalonick, Michael Biesecker, Stephen Braun and Matthew Daly in Washington, and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.

A $24.5M... this government,” he said in an interview.

Moore noted that Bains, a minister from Ontario, also oversees the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency — a portfolio traditionally held by ❰❰ 16

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World News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

21

China controls information Beachgoers form about ailing Nobel Prize laureate human chain to rescue family in water

BY GERRY SHIH The Associated Press

BEIJING — As China’s government faces mounting international pressure to grant imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo his wish to leave the country for treatment of advanced liver cancer, it’s fighting back with a familiar strategy: information control.

From co-ordinated leaks of hospital surveillance video to a near-total news blackout for Chinese-language media and social media, the Chinese government’s sprawling propaganda apparatus has revved up efforts to contain the controversy surrounding its most prominent political dissident.

In an update Tuesday afternoon, the hospital treating Liu said he remains in critical condition and is now on dialysis and organ support.

Liu was convicted in 2009 of inciting subversion for his role in the “Charter 08” movement calling for political reform. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later while in prison.

Chinese media have hardly mentioned repeated calls by the U.S., the European Union and others for Beijing to let Liu leave on humanitarian grounds.

On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert again urged China to parole Liu so he can receive medical care at a location of his choosing.

Chinese state media have provided extensive coverage this past week of President Xi Jinping’s recent achievements, especially his travels to Russia and Germany, which they portrayed as a massive public relations triumph for China.

On Tuesday, state newspapers including the official People’s Daily and the Englishlanguage China Daily trumpeted Xi’s call to “unswervingly advance” China’s judicial reform and improve the military.

Meanwhile, the daily barrage of questions about Liu fired off by the international press at foreign ministry news briefings has been excised from the ministry’s published transcripts, as if they were never asked.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Liv Ullmann reads text by Liu Xiaobo: I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement.

MARTA B. HAGA/MFA, OSLO

The few mentions of Liu in the state media’s overseas-oriented English editions in recent weeks contained denouncements and tough language aimed at foreign audiences.

“It is probably out of politics that some people and forces are requesting Liu to be treated abroad,” the nationalistic Global Times tabloid, published by the People’s Daily, said in an editorial Tuesday headlined “Liu’s cancer treatment mustn’t be politicized.”

“Today’s China is stronger and more confident, and will not yield to Western pressure,” it said, accusing unidentified overseas forces of “squeezing Liu for their political goals.”

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated on Tuesday that China hopes other countries can “respect China’s judicial sovereignty and not use such an individual case to interfere in China’s domestic affairs.”

The response is a reflection of the party’s fear of showing weakness “either at home or abroad,” said Andrew Nathan, an expert on Chinese history and politics at Columbia University.

Any sign of giving way “would only encourage domestic enemies and foreign critics,” Nathan said, adding, “Been tough up to now, better continue being tough to the end.”

A more subtle effort to shape the narrative came this week when a video from Liu’s hospital room emerged just as the government was saying that he was too sick to be transported abroad and was already receiving worldclass treatment in China.

Surveillance video from Saturday leaked to Englishlanguage Chinese state media showed two foreign doctors at

Liu’s bedside telling his wife, Liu Xia, that the medical team assembled by China’s government was doing its “utmost” for her husband.

However, in a subsequent statement that was ignored by Chinese media, the German and American doctors said Liu was capable of travelling abroad, and the German Embassy in Beijing lashed out at China for “selectively leaking” the video to state media in a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality.

“It seems that security organs are steering the process, not medical experts,” the embassy said. “This behaviour undermines trust in the authorities dealing with Mr. Liu’s case, which is vital to ensure maximum success of his medical treatment.”

The hospital video leak followed a familiar pattern.

After Liu’s diagnosis was made public in June, a jailhouse video montage quickly found its way onto YouTube that showed him playing badminton with a prison guard, chatting with his wife during a visit and sitting for a teeth cleaning — all intended to show a decent quality of life behind bars at Jinzhou Prison.

At one point, he was shown remarking about the “great care” that prison authorities have shown for his health.

Watson Meng, who runs the overseas Chinese-language media site Boxun that reposted the video, told The Associated Press that he believed it must have been released by the authorities as part of their propaganda campaign.

Outside of official channels, ❱❱ PAGE 29 China controls

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PANAMA CITY BEACH, FLA. — Strangers on a Florida beach formed an 80-person human chain to help rescue members of a family who had been caught in a riptide and pulled too far from shore, but emergency workers say they also helped bring distressed people to safety.

Panama City Beach Deputy Fire Rescue Chief Larry Couch said that when his rescuers arrived, two people were on the beach after being in distress in the water. They refused treatment. At the same time, people in the water were forming a human chain to help six others who were struggling in the water. Fire department rescuers later brought two of those people to shore, Couch said.

Roberta Ursrey and her family were enjoying the day at M.B. Miller County Pier on the Gulf of Mexico when she noticed her sons were missing, the Panama City News Herald reported. She went looking for them and soon heard them screaming from the water that they were trapped by the current.

Others warned her not to go in the water, but Ursrey, her mother and five other family members swam to the boys’ aid, but then found themselves also trapped in 15-feet of water.

Jessica Simmons, who had stopped with her husband at the beach for dinner, had just found a discarded boogie board when she saw people pointing at the water. She thought they were pointing at a shark, but when she realized people were drowning, she jumped on the board and began swimming toward Ursrey’s family.

“These people are not drowning today,” Simmons remembers telling herself. “It’s not happening. We are going to get them out.”

Meanwhile, Simmons’ husband and some other men started a human chain to bring everyone back to shore. Some couldn’t swim, so stayed in shallow water. Eventually, about 80 people were involved and got to within feet of the family.

Simmons, her husband and some others then towed the

family to the chain, which passed them back to shore.

The deputy fire chief, Couch, said his rescuers brought two people in, towing one with the boogie board.

“The human chain, that was a great thing to happen,” he said.

“But a lot of statements, that police and fire rescue didn’t do anything, that was totally false.”

Ursrey’s mother suffered a major heart attack during the ordeal and remains hospitalized. A nephew suffered a broken hand.

Otherwise, everyone was safe.

“I am so grateful,” Ursrey said.

“These people were God’s angels that were in the right place at the right time. I owe my life and my family’s life to them. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.”

The swimmers were in the water an hour and a half after the county and city’s lifeguards had left the area. Will Spivey, who is in charge of lifeguards for Panama City Beach, says the Gulf of Mexico looks placid — but looks can be deceiving.

“The sand up here is really fine. That’s why our beaches are so pretty. It moves pretty quickly, too. But sandbars can shift,” he said. “What happens is, people either over estimate their abilities or they underestimate the power of that open water environment.”

While Spivey said he’s glad the human chain helped, he’s seen other scenarios where amateur rescuers have gotten into trouble themselves while trying to rescue people from rip currents and other difficult conditions. There was a yellow flag on the beach that particular day, he said, which means there were medium hazards and moderate surf conditions.

Simmons said she was impressed by everyone working together to rescue the family.

“It’s so cool to see how we have our own lives and we’re constantly at a fast pace, but when somebody needs help, everybody drops everything and helps,” Simmons told the newspaper. “That was really inspiring to see that we still have that.

“With everything going on in the world, we still have humanity,” she added. ■

22

Community News

JULY 14, 2017

HISTORAMA'S 5TH ANNIVERSARY PRESENTATION AT MICHAEL J. FOX THEATRE

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FRIDAY

Community News

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

PISTA NG BAYAN AT SOUTH MEMORIAL PARK

PICPA VANCOUVER INDUCTION OF NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND OFFICERS

BOOK LAUNCH - BIODIVERSITY IN THE PHILIPPINES

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23

24

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Entertainment Coco Martin on the best way to silence MMFF critics

‘1st sem’ tours the United States

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer

BY BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR. Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE BEST way to silence critics is by coming up with a good film,” said Coco Martin, whose fantasy-adventure film “Ang Panday” was chosen to be part of the lineup of this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) in December.

The Inquirer sought his reaction to the resignation of three of the 24 members of the executive committee over the direction of the festival.

“We tried our luck last year but didn’t make the cut—that’s OK. We just didn’t give up on the dream of entertaining our audience,” said Coco, whowill cowrite “Ang Panday” with Joel Mercado, as well as direct and star in it.

“We all have different opinions, different tastes ... We were chosen so we will just have to work doubly hard to show people that we deserve this.”

Asked for his message to the MMFF organizers, the actor said: “There always seems to be protests (on the choices of finalists) every year. I hope that they will be able to settle whatever disagreements they have this time. We should remember why we are doing this. This is for the industry, for the Filipino audience.”

Coco promised to come up

NEXT STOP for Dexter Hemedez and Allan Michael Ibañez’s “1st Sem” is the United States.

The Cine Filipino film will be shown in three festivals in California and New York in August and September.

The “dramedy,” which topbills Lotlot de Leon, Darwin Yu and Alan Paule, will be screened at the San Diego International Kids Film Festival, set in California from Aug. 25 to 27.

This year’s San Diego kiddie fest features over 150 films from at least 30 countries.

The event seeks to emphasize “positive educational impact on children and the youth… and actively supports innovative films from around the globe.”

Then, it will be presented at the Columbia Gorge International Film Festival, to be held in Big Bear Lake, California, from Sept. 18 to 24.

Now on its 11th year, the Columbia Gorge fest aims “to showcase, promote and connect deserving filmmakers… within the local, national and international community.”

Lastly, the duo’s debut movie is part of the lineup of the 12th Buffalo Niagara International Film Festival in Niaga-

Coco Martin.

with a film that would be “worth their (viewers’) trip to the cinemas and their hardearned money ... We want to make sure that we will not be left behind, particularly in terms of special effects and storytelling. This is my first directorial job. I want this project to be something I can proudly show my future children.”

“Ang Panday” is based on the fictional comics character of the same name that was created by Carlo J. Caparas and illustrated by Steve Gan. The late Fernando Poe Jr. made four films on the well-loved superhero in the 1980s, all

of which were shown at the MMFF. “This is a modern take on an old story. I will not play the same Panday character of FPJ; mine will continue his legacy. I will inherit his magical sword,” explained Coco at a recent press conference.

Some 70 percent of the “Ang Panday” cast are members of the cast of Coco’s top-rated action-drama series, FPJ’s “Ang Probinsyano.”

Binibining Pilipinas International 2017 Mariel de Leon, daughter of actors Christopher de Leon and Sandy Andolong, will be Coco’s leading lady. ■

ra, New York, from Sept. 20 to 30.

The Niagara fest’s website describes “1st Sem” as “a coming-of-age story on failure and loss” and a “reexamination of a mother-and-son relationship.”

“It also offers an inside look at a middle-class Filipino family and its community,” the site related. “It shows how a single parent and extended family members sacrifice so much so that their children can succeed” in life.

According to its website, this fest “not only captures the essence of what filmmaking is all about, it also encapsulates the essence of the filmmakers themselves.”

Hemedez related that although they won’t be able to grace the San Diego fest, they will attend the Columbia Gorge and Niagara fests and the Long Beach screening with lead star De Leon.

Ibañez told the Inquirer: “We feel blessed for these screenings. We hope that Filipino communities in the US will continue supporting the movie.

We are thankful to the festivals’ organizers for giving us this chance. We are excited to be there, to represent the film and participate in the different activities.” ■

What does Mike de Leon say about the MMFF brouhaha?

BY BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR. Philippine Daily Inquirer AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER Mike de Leon weighs in on the latest controversy hounding the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).

According to initial reports, De Leon will field his comeback movie, “Citizen Jake,” as an entry in the finished-film round

of the MMFF. He recently told the Inquirer that he is having second thoughts about participating in the December festival.

For a bit of film history: De Leon’s “Kisapmata” bagged the major awards—including best picture, screenplay and director—in the 1981 edition of the MMFF. He earlier joined the festival with another acclaimed movie, “Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising” in 1977—a “gold-

en” year in Philippine cinema where the likes of Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Mario O’Hara, Eddie Romero and Celso Ad. Castillo competed for the top prize. (Castillo’s “Burlesk Queen” emerged triumphant in that hotly contested and controversial festival.)

De Leon’s comments on the MMFF came out on the “Citizen Jake” Facebook page. He denied that he had submitwww.canadianinquirer.net

ted the film in the screenplay round of the selection process.

He cited two reasons for not submitting the script: “One, a film festival entry should always be a film, not a script. This is just common sense. Two, aside from a handful of names, the identities of the…members of the selection committee were never revealed to the public. Why? Who are they? What are their credentials?”

He quipped, alluding to the fact that the MMFF is spearheaded by the Metro Manila Development Authority: “They (MMDA personnel) may be qualified (or not) to solve Manila’s traffic nightmare, but does this qualify them to pass judgment on film scripts and finished films? Did all these members read all the scripts?

Apparently not. ’Yun lang muna. (That’s all for now.)” ■

Entertainment

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

25

Comedy auteurs who write, act, direct could hit Emmy jackpot

BY LYNN ELBER The Associated Press LOS ANGELES — When Emmy Award nominations are announced Thursday, multiple champagne toasts may be in order for a multitasking troupe of sitcom stars.

Aziz Ansari, Donald Glover and Issa Rae are among those who lead shows they also created or co-created, write and sometimes even direct, and who could reap a welcome embarrassment of Emmy riches.

They are TV’s comedy auteurs, with people of colour and women well-represented in their top ranks. While it took the industry decades and new platforms like streaming to give them opportunities, the TV academy isn’t wasting time in granting deserved recognition.

As with its big-screen sibling, the Oscars, the Emmys are under pressure to give diversity its due, said Tom O’Neil, author of “The Emmys” and editor of Gold Derby, an awards handicapping website.

“The Emmys need to demonstrate that they’re relevant in a modern, rainbow-spanned world,” O’Neil said. “If they fail, then liberal Hollywood looks like all talk, no sincere action.”

“Master of None” is the brainchild of Ansari, the South Carolina-born son of immigrants from India, and Alan Yang, his Asian-American creative partner. Glover’s “Atlanta” and Rae’s “Insecure” reflect their perspectives as AfricanAmericans.

Netflix’s sophomore “Master stab at the sitcom. The first, a of None” already boasts a 2016 pilot titled “Head of the FamEmmy for Ansari and Yang for ily” and starring Reiner as Rob best writing, as well as nods Petrie, didn’t evoke network that year for best comedy series interest. and for Ansari as actor and diIn interviews, Reiner has rector. said he realized he was wrong FX’s “Atlanta” and HBO’s “In- for the role of a New York City secure” are in their first year of comedy writer and family man. competition, with Glover al- Reiner, who is Jewish, certainly ready the winner of a Golden wasn’t right for TV then: The FEATUREFLASH PHOTO AGENCY / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Globe in January for best com- year the show debuted, virtu- Alan Yang and Aziz Ansari. edy actor and Rae earning a ally all family sitcoms featured Globes nomination as best ac- stringently non-ethnic charac- widowed mom. front-runners. tress. ters with surnames including Fast forward to today. Getting But it took the expansion of The matriarch of this ex- Cleaver (“Leave it to Beaver”) Ansari cast in “Master of None” cable and streaming to widen panding auteur family, Lena and Nelson (“The Adventures wasn’t an issue, Yang said, given the field and give more opporDunham’s “Girls,” is in the run- of Ozzie and Harriet”). his credentials as a writer, a tunities to more unique voices. ning for its sixth and final seaAs TV and culture historian stand-up comedian and an acAmong them: Comedy Censon on HBO. David Marc observed in a 1989 tor on TV sitcoms, including tral’s “Broad City” from Ilana The Emmy Awards are set to article , America as depicted in “Scrubs” and “Parks & Recre- Glazer and Abbi Jacobson; Tig air Sept. 17 on CBS with host 1960s sitcoms had become so ation.”

Notaro’s “One Mississippi” and Stephen Colbert. white, Anglo-Saxon and ProtPut his experience together Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Flea“Definitely, ‘Girls’ was really estant that, on “Father Knows with that of Yang, an execu- bag,” both on Amazon; BET’s influential,” said Yang. “When Best,” the Anderson family’s tive producer on shows includ- “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” was the last time a female cre- “seemingly Hispanic gardener ing “Parks & Recreation,” and created by and starring Kevin ator in her mid-20s got to make (played by Natividad Vacio) “Master” proved to be “one of Hart, and Jill Kargman’s “Odd her own HBO show? That goes by the name of Frank the easier sells,” he said.

Mom Out” on Bravo. doesn’t happen. You might Smith!”

The distinctive voice that Kargman, who created, stars have a 25-yearAnsari had de- in and helps write the show old star, but to veloped through about a square peg in the world have that person his comedy gigs of upper-crust Manhattan also be creator was part of the mothers, said the cable channel The Emmys need to demonstrate and director and appeal to Netflix: readily took a chance in 2015 on that they’re relevant in a modern, writer, it showed “It’s the speci- a 40-year-old writer who wasn’t rainbow-spanned world. it could work.” ficity and of the a professional actor. The show While the sepoint of view, begins its third season Wednesries was pivotal and the authen- day. for the multiticity,” Yang said.

“Bravo is so used to plucktalented Dunham and other Two sitcom-topping comediThe current welcome mat for ing people from obscurity and women hoping to follow her, it ans, Lebanese-American Dan- diversity was the result, first, of giving them reality shows, I drew fire for its all-white lead ny Thomas and Joey Bishop, lobbying by civil rights group don’t think they batted an eye,” cast. Ethnicity remains TV’s who was Jewish, were the rare dismayed by the predomi- Kargman said. The channel’s bigger hurdle, as it has from the exceptions, while no shows nantly white casts on broad- flexibility, coupled with the medium’s early days. about black, Asian or Latino cast networks, which now boast pioneering work of Dunham When “The Dick Van Dyke American families aired un- inclusive shows such as ABC’s and others, made this “the right Show” debuted it 1961, it was til “Julia” arrived in 1968 with sitcom “black-ish” and NBC’s time” for her and “Odd Mom creator Carl Reiner’s second Diahann Carroll starring as a drama “This is Us,” both Emmy Out.” ■

Madonna welcomed in Malawi as ‘daughter of this nation’

BY GREGORY GONDWE The Associated Press BLANTYRE, MALAWI — Madonna was welcomed in Malawi on Tuesday for the official opening of a hospital children’s wing funded by her charity and named after one of the four children the pop star has adopted from the impoverished southern African nation.

“You started by adopting four Malawian children, now we are adopting you as the daughter of this nation,” President Peter Mutharika declared at the ceremony.

“There are so many things I never imagined I will do. I never imagined one day I will build this kind of a hospital,” said Madonna, who explained that she grew up without a mother and wanted to give the best to Malawian children.

“Never give up on your dreams,” she added.

The Mercy James Institute for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care, located at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in the city of Blantyre, was built in collaboration with Malawi’s health ministry. It has already started some activities, and Madonna said last week that the institute had completed its first surgery.

The four children she adwww.canadianinquirer.net

opted from Malawi are David Banda, Mercy James, Stelle and Estere. The children’s wing was named after 11-year-old Mercy.

Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi, was founded in 2006 to address the poverty and hardship endured by the country’s orphans and other vulnerable children. It has built schools and funded the new pediatric unit, which began construction in 2015 and includes three operating rooms dedicated to

children’s surgery, a day clinic and a 45-bed ward.

Madonna, 58, visited the site last year.

“When you look into the eyes of children in need, wherever they may be, a human being wants to do anything and everything they can to help, and on my first visit to Malawi, I made a commitment that I would do just that,” Madonna said in a statement to The Associated Press last week. ■

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JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Lifestyle Bad behaviour is trending online, inspiring it in real life

BY SANDY COHEN The Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Young children know that name-calling is wrong. Tweens are taught the perils of online bullying and revenge porn: It’s unacceptable and potentially illegal.

But celebrities who engage in flagrant attacks on social media are rewarded with worldwide attention. President Donald Trump’s most popular tweet to date is a video that shows him fake-pummeling a personification of CNN. Reality TV star Rob Kardashian was trending last week after attacking his former fiancee on Instagram in a flurry of posts so explicit his account was shut down. He continued the attacks on Twitter, where he has more than 7.6 million followers.

While public interest in bad behaviour is nothing new, social media has created a vast new venue for incivility to be expressed, witnessed and shared.

And experts say it’s affecting social interactions in real life.

“Over time, the attitudes and behaviours that we are concerned with right now in social media will bleed out into the physical world,” said Karen North, a psychologist and director of the University of Southern California’s Digital Social Media Program. “We’re supposed to learn to be polite and civil in society. But what we have right now is a situation where a number of role models are acting the opposite of that ... And by watching it, we vicari-

ously feel it, and our own attitudes and behaviours change as a result.”

Catherine Steiner-Adair, a psychologist and author of “The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age,” said she’s already seeing the effects.

She said she’s been confronted by students across the country asking why celebrities and political leaders are allowed to engage in name-calling and other activities for which they would be punished.

On some middle-school campuses, “Trumping” means to grab a girl’s rear end, she said.

And teenagers have killed themselves over the kind of slut-shaming and exposure of private images Kardashian levelled at Blac Chyna, with whom he has an infant daughter.

“We are normalizing behaviours, and it’s affecting some kids,” Steiner-Adair said. “And what’s affecting kids that is profound is their mistrust of grown-ups who are behaving so badly. Why aren’t they stopping this?”

Social media satisfies a human need for connection. Users bond over common interests and establish digital relationships with their favourite public figures, following and commenting on their lives just like they do their friends’.

Gossip is a bonding activity, and it doesn’t take a Real Housewife to know people love to share dirt about others’ perceived misdeeds. Collective disapproval creates a

feeling of community, regardless of which side you’re on. Having a common enemy is “one of the strongest bonding factors in human nature,” North said.

With 352,000 retweets, Trump’s CNN -pummeling post isn’t in the realm of Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie (3.4 million retweets).

And Kardashian’s r a n t against Chyna paled in popularity with Beyonce’s Instagram pregnancy announcement, which collected 8 million likes.

Still, Trump’s attack tweets have proven his most popular, according to a new study by Ohio State University Professor Jayeon “Janey” Lee. “Attacks on the media were most effective,” Lee said of her analysis of tweets posted during the presidential campaign.

“Whenever Trump criticized or mocked the media, the message was more likely to be retweeted and ‘favourited.’ “ Trump, who has 33.4 million Twitter followers, has defended his social-media approach as “modern day presidential.”

Cyber incivility, particularly when practiced by cultural leaders, can have a profound impact on human relations, North said.

www.canadianinquirer.net

Studies show that young people who witness aggressive behaviour in adults model and expand on that behaviour.

She pointed to Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura’s famous “Bobo Doll Experiment,” which found that kids who saw adults hit a doll in frustration not only hit the doll as well, but attacked it with weapons.

Social media is an atmosphere devoid of the social cues that mitigate behaviour in real life, she said. When violating social norms in person, there’s immediate feedback from others through body language and tone of voice. No such indicators exist online, and retweets can feel like validation.

Cruel and humiliating posts often become “an instant hit online,” Steiner-Adair said.

“It’s one of the best ways to be-

come popular.”

Viral posts then get mainstream media attention, spreading digital nastiness into everyday conversation.

By not expressly rejecting cruel or hateful online behaviour, “we are creating a bystander culture where people think this is funny,” she said.

“When we tolerate leaders — in the popular media like a Kardashian, or a president — behaving in this way, we are creating a very dangerous petri dish for massive cultural change,” Steiner-Adair said.

Young people, who may be the most plugged in, are getting mixed messages as they form their moral concepts.

“It behooves us all to question why we are participating in this mob of reactivity,” Steiner-Adair said, “and what are the character traits we need to model for our children.” ■

Lifestyle

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

Simply fin-tastic

RIGHT AT HOME:

Adherents of a relatively new sport fit for mermaids combine skills, grace and yes, tailfins, to make waves

BY JASMINE W. PAYO Philippine Daily Inquirer JUST THE sight of a monofin thrilled a young Tehillah Magaso. Looking much like a mermaid tail, the monofin got all the kids curious. And it was no surprise that Tehillah, a swimmer most of her young life, had the fin latched to her feet in no time.

“I felt like I was Ariel in ‘The Little Mermaid,’” she says.

That “love at first sight” moment, as Tehillah calls it, came during a demonstration of finswimming. Then a relatively new sport, finswimming was introduced to different schools and pool clubs in the country, including Leyte Sports Academy where Tehillah, now 15 years old, is a scholar.

“During my childhood, I’ve always wanted to be a mermaid,” Tehillah says in Filipino.

“When I saw the fins, it was love at first sight for the sport.”

But just like her beloved Disney mermaid princess who struggled walking when her fins turned into human legs, Tehillah also learned that exchanging legs for fins wasn’t easy.

Although the pool has always been like a second home, Tehillah felt like a rookie swimmer all over again. “It was hard,” recalls Tehillah. “[The monofin] was heavy. It felt tight on my feet. It took me one and a half months to adjust.”

Then there’s also learning the undulation—pretty much like mermaid moves where a swimmer treads the water in a wavelike motion. “It’s graceful and it’s the fastest way to swim,” says Philippine team coach Mary Ann Reyes. “It looks like the swimmers are on the surface, like they’re flying on the water.”

Since a different skill set is required, a good swimmer doesn’t exactly make for a good finswimmer. Mariana Reyes, a senior member of the national team, attests: “I’m not classically trained in swimming. I’m not a good classical swimmer, but I’m a good finswimmer. You just have to know the basics so that if your fin goes off, you know how to swim.”

Traditional wing chairs with modern twist

BY KIM COOK The Associated Press

Although the monofin will initially feel alien, regular training will make a swimmer feel like it’s an extension of the body. “The swimmer and the monofin should be one,” says coach Ann. “It’s 50 percent skills and 50 percent monofin.”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be the most expensive monofin,” she adds. “But when you’re able to match the skill of your swimmer and the monofin, that’s when you get a good time, a good performance. You should really have that mermaid feeling.”

And for Tehillah, that feeling has translated into a medal haul. Just last May, the Baybay City athlete and the national team bagged 13 gold, six silver and seven bronze medals in the Taiwan National Age Group Finswimming Competition in Kaohsiung City. The impressive run also earned them a slot in the 16th Asian Finswimming Championship in South Korea this November.

“They’re young, dynamic and competitive,” coach Ann says of the team, composed of swimmers aged 13 to 16. “When you’re dealing with the younger ones, the absorption of skills is easier.”

For the past years, the Philippine Finswimming Federation Inc., which was recognized by the Philippine Olympic Committee only in 2009, has discovered talents from Palawan, Laguna and Leyte. And its grassroots search quickly re-

27

sulted to a successful program.

In 2011, the national finswimming team debuted with a gold in the Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, Indonesia, as then 14-year-old Danielle Faith Torres ruled the 50-meter surface event. The Puerto Princesa City sensation, who now helps the team as an assistant coach, topped her event despite training for less than a year.

“It was our first time to compete in the SEA Games and we got gold right away,” coach Ann recalls. “I myself got surprised with Danielle.”

Unfortunately, finswimming got struck out in the next SEA Games editions. But that 2011 victory ended the country’s aquatics drought in the biennial meet. And with the Philippines trailing the region in competitive swimming—with Singapore even boasting an Olympic gold medalist in Joseph Schooling—finswimming may just be the next best thing as it makes a SEA Games comeback in 2019.

“I really like the sport because I never thought that with an equipment, I get even stronger in the water,” says Tehillah.

But just like any sport, she adds, it takes a lot of hard work.

“You have to be physically and mentally strong,” the young talent says. “The training gets really hard. There were times when I got so tired that I wanted to quit. But I love the sport.

And if you really love it, you’ll keep going.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

NO MATTER how old you are, you might have grown up in a home with a wing chair.

This classic chair dates back a lot farther than any of us, according to Bronia Suszczenia, co-founder of the Yorkshire, England-based interior design firm Art from the Start. “The first wing chair appeared in the late 1600s, but it was not until after 1720 that its popularity became widespread,” she says.

Why the wings? A clue may be in the chair’s alternate name, fireside chair. The idea was that the wings protected you from drafts, while the roomy, upholstered seat was a cozy spot from which to enjoy a cheery blaze.

The wing chair’s enduring appeal is its comfortable, convivial nature, and its usefulness, says New York designer Charlotte Moss.

“It’s the quintessential easy chair. It invites curling up and kicking back,” she says. “And they’re wonderfully versatile.

I like to use them at the heads of dining tables, or in a cozy corner with an ottoman, or two facing each other with a fireplace in between.”

Today’s designers are having some fun with this classic style, tweaking its curvy silhouette, going wild or woolly with upholstery, and updating the legs in different colours or materials.

Pottery Barn’s Hayes wing chair, for example, has a barrelcurved back and low-profile arms, so you can tuck your feet up. Leather hues include caramel, forest green, midnight and berry red. The smaller-scaled Manning chair, in a creamhued fabric, sports chic contemporary button tufting; it’d be a nice choice for a master bedroom. (www.potterybarn.com) Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams’ Emmet chair hybridizes a wing and club chair. In buttery, aniline leather, it’s a wel-

coming spot to settle. (www. mgbwhome.com) At Rove Concepts, Danish modern designer Hans Wegner’s classic Wing chair is offered in leathers and cashmere, tweed and boucle wool. (www. roveconcepts.com) An exaggerated wingback and arms characterize Wegner’s 1951 Papa chair. He named it for its distinctive sculptural arms, which resemble a big bear’s paws. France and Son offers it in fun midcentury modern hues like orange, teal blue and olive. (www.franceandson.com) Arne Jacobsen’s iconic Egg chair for Fritz Hansen (available at Design Within Reach) is a biomorphic take on the wing chair; its fluid curves and swivel base have kept it a favourite of modernist aficionados for almost 60 years. (www.dwr. com) Tom Dixon’s Wingback collection is the British designer’s update on the wing chair and its 18th century cousin, the balloon back. The chairs and sofas have a sexy swagger, in luscious Kvadrat fabric upholstery and ebony or blond oak legs. (www. tomdixon.net) The angles of Italian midcentury design inspire West Elm’s new Marcelle wing chair, with dramatically scaled aniline leather wings and arms.

The Hemming swivel chair nods to classic Danish design, with a low-slung and roomy seat, enveloping high back and wings. Two new colours: rich caramel-toned saddle, and an inky Aegean blue. (www.westelm.com) Toronto firm Powell & Bonnell’s Chatsworth reading chair takes a different approach.

The chair is armless, and sleek planes form the wings, giving the piece an urbane sophistication. (www.powellandbonnell.com) Tov Furniture’s Gramercy wing chair, upholstered in a luxe, golden-toned, crocodileprinted velvet, shows off a sexy set of faceted Lucite legs. (www. tovfurniture.com) ■

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Lifestyle

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

7 ways parents can get their kids excited about writing

BY MOLLY SPRAYREGEN The Associated Press WHETHER YOU’RE writing an email or a novel, it’s vital these days to understand the craft of telling a story and telling it well.

For kids, writing well helps not only at school but with many offthe-page skills, from confidence to creative problem solving.

What children may not understand is that writing can also be fun. Educators say there are many things parents can do at home to get kids excited about writing.

Here are seven: Use what the love

Show your children there’s more to writing than book reports and research papers. Those are important, yes, but the first step to helping kids enjoy writing is giving them freedom to write about what they love.

“Every child, even the most reluctant writer, has something they’re excited and passionate about, and there’s a way in,” said Marjolaine Whittlesey, a teaching artist associate at The Telling Room, a Maine-based non-profit writing centre.

Youth-oriented creative writing centres around the country use similar techniques. Tim Whitaker, founder and executive director of Mighty Writers, in Philadelphia, said his group

listens to what kids are interested in — from superheroes to girl power to basketball — “and we build our writing topics around that.”

Begin visually

Help kids learn to create new worlds out of pictures — ones they draw themselves or ones they find. Amy Rosenbluth, cofounder and executive director of Lake Erie Ink, an Ohio-based youth writing centre, said her organization’s comic-making camps are among its most popular.

“When you’re writing a comic, you’re learning all the elements of writing a short story, or really writing anything,” she explained. “We teach them storyboarding. They start out with character development, then setting, conflict, all the same elements, but you get to draw your character first before you add the words.”

Share peers’ writing

Kids may feel more motivated to write when they’re exposed to work by their peers, said Caroline Patterson, executive director of the Missoula Writing Collaborative in Montana. “Several times we’ve had students who hear work by kids their own age and go, ‘Well, I could do that,”’ she said.

Many youth writing organizations, like New York City-

based Writopia, publish student work online that parents can share with their kids.

Avoid criticism

“Be an ally to your writer — celebrate and love whatever they’re writing,” said Rebecca Wallace-Segall, executive director of Writopia.

Parents should be “laughing when the child is trying to be funny, being moved when there is something emotional . these are very sensitive moments.

These are high stakes moments when a child is sharing their writing. Don’t take them lightly, don’t laugh in a condescending way even if it feels a little bit off — hold all that in.”

That helps kids feel heard and excited about their work, which will lead to more writing.

Rosenbluth, of Lake Erie Ink, urges parents not to focus on spelling and grammar when their children are working on creative writing.

“Spelling and writing don’t have a lot in common,” she said.

“Writing is thinking. It’s creating.”

This doesn’t mean you can’t go back and work on the mechanics later, she stressed, but they shouldn’t be the starting point.

Demonstrate that the pen has power

Brian Townsend, a Chicago-

based fifth-grade writing teacher in the Kipp Charter Schools network, tries to show his students how they can use writing to make a difference. He shares motivational speeches and inspirational songs to demonstrate how good writing can communicate powerful messages. He even had his students write letters to their senators about a bill that would affect the food served in their cafeteria.

He wanted to remind them of the real purpose behind writing: to effect change.

Change the questions

Jaya Mukherjee, a program manager at a youth literacy centre in Chicago, Open Books, said parents can use writing

prompts that might be more effective than starting with a direct question. Ask young writers, for example, to list 10 things they would save from their home if it were on fire, and then have them pick one item from their list and write about why they chose it. That approach might remove the daunting feeling of staring at a blank page.

Write with them

Several experts said sitting down to write beside your child can be a powerful technique. As Whittlesey said, “By doing it alongside them, I think we’re demonstrating that we’re excited about writing too, and that it’s accessible to everyone.” ■

Crafty Christians apply paint, stickers, stencils and clip art to their Bible

BY CASSANDRA SZKLARSKI The Canadian Press TORONTO — When mixedmedia artist Marjolaine Walker is feeling creative, she reaches for her pens, paints, stamps and clip art. Then she grabs her Bible — and fills it with decorative flourishes.

The Ottawa-area mother-offour says this is how she likes to unwind, and connect with God. “Some people definitely think it’s sacrilegious or whatever to make a mark in the Bi-

ble,” says the 43-year-old, who lives in Richmond, Ont. “To me, a Bible that is read and studied does not look brand new. It just doesn’t.”

Walker’s unorthodox hobby is called Bible-journaling — not quite scrapbooking, and definitely not your traditional Bible study.

It essentially involves writing out or illustrating biblical concepts in the book itself. This can involve elaborate lettering, drawing, painting, stickers and pasting — often in the margin or interleaves, but sometimes

covering the actual text.

It’s a Pinterest-primed pastime that’s taken hold of a dedicated following, mostly involving younger Christian women looking for a new way to express their faith, says Shanna Noel, a pastor’s wife who is credited with starting the movement in 2014.

Noel says she inadvertently kicked off a trend when she posted images of her own Bible art online.

“Journaling Bibles were only meant really for taking notes with your ballpoint pen in the www.canadianinquirer.net

margin and that’s kind of how people were using them. I got mine and just instinctively started doing this creative notetaking process in my Bible,” the 36-year-old says from her home in Olympia, Wash.

“I was just so on fire for it but I didn’t want to share it with anyone because I thought this was wrong, I didn’t want to go to like Christian jail or anything.

But once I did start sharing on my blog it just kind of went viral from there.”

Overwhelmed by comments and questions about how to

start, she started a Facebook group that has swelled to 40,000 members and set up an Instagram account called Illustrated Faith that boasts 104,000 followers.

Noel also shares her techniques at conferences, craft supply stores and churches, and sells journaling products online. She says one recent gig took her to South Africa to run a class for 125 participants. She heads to Edmonton in January to teach at a conference there. ❱❱ PAGE 38 Crafty Christians

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FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

Sports Independent review confirms decision for Horn over Pacquiao THE CANADIAN PRESS SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — An independent review of the scoring in Manny Pacquiao’s contentious WBO welterweight world title loss to Jeff Horn has confirmed the outcome in favour of the Australian former schoolteacher.

A Philippines government department asked the WBO to review the refereeing and the judging of the so-called “Battle of Brisbane” in Australia on July 2 after Horn, fighting for his first world title, won a unanimous points decision against Pacquiao, an 11-time world champion.

In a statement late Monday, the WBO said three of the five independent judges who reviewed the bout awarded it to Horn, one awarded it to Pacquiao and one scored a draw.

WBO President Francisco Valcarcel asked the judges, who came from different countries and remained anonymous,

to assign their own scores to rounds, saying the results would be tabulated to ascertain which rounds each fighter won using an average scale based on 100, 80 and 60 per cent.

Based on the analysis, the WBO said Pacquiao won the 3rd, 8th and 9th round by 100 per cent, the 5th round by 80 per cent and the 11th by 60 per cent. Horn was given the 1st, 6th and 12th rounds by 100 per cent, the 2nd, 4th and 7th by 80 per cent and the 10th by 60 per cent.

“From the results, it can be established that Pacquiao won 5 rounds while Horn won 7 rounds,” the WBO statement said.

A further step of combining the independent judge’s scores for each round with the bout judge’s scores for each round also confirmed a win for Horn, the WBO said.

The Philippines Games and Amusements Board (GAB) last week urged a review, saying it wanted to protect the integrity

China controls... unauthorized discussion of Liu has been swiftly punished. A police document that surfaced on the Internet this week described how a 38-year-old man in central Hunan province had been detained for seven days for discussing Liu’s situation on WeChat, a social media messaging app.

Local police in the city, Zhangjiajie, said they could not respond to questions about the case and referred inquiries to the provincial propaganda and foreign affairs offices, which did not respond to queries.

News searches for Liu’s name on Baidu, China’s largest internet search engine, have turned up no hits since February.

Searches on WeChat also turn up empty.

Many supporters of political reform inside China have in❰❰ 21

of the sport.

The fight, in front of more than 51,000 people at a rugby stadium in Brisbane, was scored 117-111 by Waleksa Roldan and 115-113 each by Chris Flores and Ramon Cerdan — Roldan’s score coming in for most criticism. Pacquiao had Horn in wobbling and in trouble in the 9th round, but couldn’t finish him off. Horn rallied late to hold on for a points decision and remain unbeaten in 18 professional fights.

“It gives me evidence behind me that I can just use now. Instead of saying ‘I think I won the fight,’ now a heap of other people — professionally — think I won the fight,” Horn told reporters in Brisbane on Tuesday as he prepared to board a flight for Los Angeles. “It’s definitely nice to have it finally put on paper.

“Now just to have it clear in front of us is good.”

Pacquiao had a rematch clause in his rich contract for the fight, and speculating is

MANNY PACQUIAO / FACEBOOK

mounting about another showdown in Australia in November.

GAB chairman Abraham Kahlil Mitra last week welcomed the WBO’s decision to conduct the review, saying it would send a strong signal that any sign of leniency, abuse of authority or wrongdoing would not be tolerated.

“Our feeling is, if you’re quiet,

you’ll get abused but if you complain, they’ll be careful ... Manny is a senator, a champion, but was like wrestled there, abused by them,” Mitra told The Associated Press in the Philippines’ capital after the WBO confirmed it would review the scoring. “If it can be done to him, it can be done to any other Filipino boxer.” ■

Magsayo scores magnificent KO stead taken to Twitter, which is inaccessible in China without special software, to circumvent government censors. Bao Tong, a 85-year-old former top Communist Party official who has been under house arrest for decades, began learning to tweet this week because he has been forbidden from giving media interviews or publishing articles about Liu, according to his son, Bao Pu. “China’s state-run media ... won’t even report relevant information,” the elder Bao fumed in one tweet. In another, he commemorated Liu’s calls for freedom, referring to the first line of China’s national anthem, “Rise up, all those who don’t want to be slaves.” ■ Associated Press writer Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.

BY ROY LUARCA Philippine Daily Inquirer MARK MAGSAYO, Jeo Santisima and “Prince” Albert Pagara trounced their foreign foes in Cebu on Saturday. Magsayo stopped Nicaraguan Daniel Diaz (1:46, first round) to keep his WBO international feather crown; Santisima floored Tanzanian Goodluck Mrema (1:18, first round); and Pagara stopped Patomsith Pathompothong (four rounds).

What was supposed to be 32 rounds of boxing got cut to just six Saturday night as Mark Magsayo, Jeo Santisima and “Prince” Albert Pagara trounced their foreign foes in Pinoy Pride 41.

Magsayo stopped Nicarawww.canadianinquirer.net

guan Daniel Diaz in 1:46 of the first round to retain his World Boxing Organization international featherweight crown in the 12-round main event at IEC Convention Center in Cebu City.

Santisima was even more imposing as he knocked out Tanzanian super bantamweight champion Goodluck Mrema in 1:18 of the first round of the 10-round supporting bout.

Continuing his climb back to the top, Pagara sent Patomsith Pathompothong to the canvas and to the hospital in four rounds of another 10-rounder.

Living up to his “Magnifico” moniker, Magsayo first downed Diaz with a right-left combination to the head, followed it up with left hooks, and then finished the job with more lefts.

The 22-year-old Magsayo stretched his win run to 17, 13 by knockouts, while Diaz dropped to 23-8-2, 15 KOs. Rising star Santisima rocked a charging Mrema with a combination and then sent the Tanzanian flat on his back with a solid overhand right to the jaw.

It was the 12th straight win, 11 by knockout, for the 21-yearold Santisima, who climbed to 14-2. Mrema absorbed his first loss after 16 straight wins.

Pagara, now 27-1 with 19 KOs, landed a wicked left to the solar plexus, flooring the Thai, whowas eventually taken to the hospital on a stretcher, with one second to go in the fourth round.

Pathompothong, who did not sustain a broken bone, dropped to 16-10. ■

30

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Business EU seeks more Gov’t assures support to collective approach to startup communities in PH dealing with bad loans PHILIPPINES NEWS AGENCY

BY PAN PYLAS AND RAF CASERT The Associated Press BRUSSELS — European Union finance ministers have backed proposals to jointly address the issue of non-performing loans in the banking sector, which has been an economic problem particularly in Italy and Spain.

At a regular gathering on Tuesday, the finance ministers outlined policy actions to reduce the EU’s total stock of bad loans, which amounted to nearly 1 trillion euros ($1.14 trillion) at the end of 2016 — equivalent to 6.7 per cent of the bloc’s annual GDP, or 5.1 per cent of total loans.

“Non-performing loans are a problem for the banking industry for which solutions have until now been mainly defined at the national level,” said Toomas Toniste, Estonia’s finance minister who was chairing the meeting as his country has taken over the rotating 6-month presidency of the EU. “We need a more collective approach,” he added.

Among the measures pro-

posed is reform of insolvency and debt recovery frameworks, changes in bank supervision and developing so-called secondary markets where “distressed” assets can be sold.

The scale of the problem varies hugely between EU countries, according to a report prepared for ministers. Sweden’s bad loans amount to only 1 per cent of the nation’s economy, while Greece’s account for a massive 46 per cent.

Italy is one big economy that’s been contending with loans gone bad.

Its banks have been worn down by some 360 billion euros ($400 billion) in loans that won’t be paid back in full as a result of years of crisis and subdued growth that’s made it difficult for firms and households to service their debts. The scale of the non-performing loans stands a little below 20 per cent of the banks’ total loan stock, a level that weighs on their propensity and ability to lend.

Last week, the Italian government took control of bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena un❱❱ PAGE 36 EU seeks

MANILA — The Philippine government has assured its support to startup communities in order to grow the sector.

During the ASEAN Dialogues Business Beyond Borders Tuesday, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Startup Ecosystem Development Program Policy Consultant and Program Director Kristine Alcantara noted that the government is supportive to the growth of the sector.

In DTI alone, the agency launched the Slingshot MNL during the country’s hosting of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2015 which aimed at boosting startups in the region.

Alcantara said that with the success of Slingshot MNL during APEC, the government continued the program and made it an annual summit for startup communities.

In fact, DTI will hold Slingshot MNL in October as part of the country’s hosting of ASEAN summit this year.

The DTI has also launched QBO Innovation Hub, a startup innovation hub which aims to

Assistant Secretary Kissinger Reyes, of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), delivers his opening remarks during the ASEAN 2017 Dialogues: Business Beyond Borders.

JESS M. ESCAROS JR. / PNA

link innovators, explorers, investors, academic institutions, start-up mentors, funders, and enablers that will improve the local startup ecosystem.

Alcantara said DTI targets to roll out QBO in other Negosyo Centers in the country.

Moreover, she noted the government is pushing for five-point action agenda that will promote the growth of the startup ecosystem.

The five-point agenda are closer collaboration between

government and industry, addressing legal and regulatory barriers, bolstering government support through services and access to capital and resources, strengthening existing institutions that support the startup ecosystem, and establishing a Philippine innovation economic zone.

Alcantara said the government will roll out next year the startup ecosystem development plan as Startup Pilipinas. ■

Meralco customers to see ‘slight’ increase in July bills

BY RONNEL W. DOMINGO Philippine Daily Inquirer CUSTOMERS OF Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will pay an additional 7.6 centavos per kilowatthour in the July billing period as both contracted and spot market prices saw an uptick.

This meant that a typical residential customer using 200 kWh would see an increase of P15 from the previous month’s bill, Meralco said in a statement.

The distribution giant said the adjustment was “slight” and

comes after a record rate reduction of P1.43 per kWh implemented last month.

The latest price change brings the generation charge to P8.25 per kWh, which Meralco said was comparable to the level seen in January 2010.

Meralco noted its distribution, supply, and metering charges have remained unchanged for 24 months or since July 2015.

The firm said the July increase was tempered thanks to a refund ordered by the Energy Regulatory Commission in May.

“The July (2017) rate reflects the refund of over-recovery on pass-through charges from January 2014 to December 2016 totaling around P6.9 billion,” Meralco said.

For residential customers, the refund translates to a reduction of 79 centavos per kWh, which Meralco is implementing in three installments from June to August.

The refund is not shown as a separate line item but is embedded in the different passthrough items indicated in the bill. These include charges for www.canadianinquirer.net

generation, transmission, and system loss as well as subsidies for lifeline and senior citizen customers.

According to Meralco, the increase in the generation charge was mainly due to higher prices charged by independent power producers (IPPs) and also at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

“The cost of power sourced from the IPPs increased by P0.1751 per kWh due to peso depreciation and lower plant dispatch,” Meralco said.

“Purchases from the WESM

also increased by P0.4548 per kWh mainly due to billing adjustments, which include the additional compensation approved by the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. for the must-run unit (MRU) operations of Malaya power plant from 2012 to 2015,” the company added.

To cover its total supply needs, the distributor sources 40.8 percent from IPPs and 12.4 percent from the spot market.

The rest are sourced through long-term power supply agreements. ■

Business

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

Embracing sustainability

BY AMY R. REMO Philippine Daily Inquirer

BY THIS time, the value of going “green” or “sustainable” is already well ingrained in the consciousness of most Filipinos. The effort is obvious: from families investing in making their homes “smart” through the installation of solar panels and energy efficient lighting fixtures for example; developers creating communities that are sustainable and environment friendly; to government agencies pushing for policies that would mandate the “greening” of company operations, manufacturing facilities, and buildings, among others.

Building resilience

There is a good reason why this is so. The devastation wrought by many typhoons and other natural disasters that had hit the country in the past decade had prompted the need to build the country’s resilience against climate change. This meant investing more in green architecture to make structures more sustainable and more efficient.

“As the Philippines is in a typhoon belt and the ring of fire, the country is susceptible to typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. These are a huge threat to the sustainability in the country,” Miguel Guerrero, chair of Green Architecture Advocacy Philippines and managing partner of Asian Architects, said in an e-mail interview.

“An aspect of green architecture is also disaster resilience.

We have an urgent need to design and build more disaster resilient structures and com- munities and this is critical at the moment,” Guerrero added.

Remarkable progress

Today, the green building sector in the Philippines, unsurprisingly, continues to see promising growth as evident in the number of certified sustainable buildings.

After all, it does make more sense to switch to sustainable green buildings and structures as this move can already yield anywhere between 20 and 40 percent savings on utilities for the average Filipino family.

“There is significant progress in the Philippine market with

7% breakout GDP growth seen

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer

Green Mark certified Citadines in Salcedo Village, Makati.

more companies starting to understand the importance of green building and sustainability in future-proofing the economy and country,” explained Louise Chua, project director of Build Eco Xpo (BEX) Asia at Reed Exhibitions.

“One example of the progress made is the green building certification schemes made available in the Philippines, and the fact that many building projects are taking the initiative to get certified under their requirements. One such scheme is the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED),” Chua said.

Data from Reed Exhibitions showed that there are 245 LEED projects in the local market, and 61 have already received the certification, representing a square footage of 16.98 million. Under the Green Mark certification scheme originating from Singapore, there are two certified Green Mark projects in Manila, namely Citadines Salcedo Makati and the As- cott Bonifacio Global City.

“Over the last 10 years of organizing BEX Asia, we have also seen a rapid increase in event participation and attendance from the Philippines. Philippines ranks second in overseas attendance at the event behind Malaysia, highlighting how the Philippines’ building industry is taking sustainability seriously,” Chua added.

Embracing sustainability

The Philippines, however, still has a lot to do as far as greening and sustainability are concerned.

For one, achieving a wider scale adoption of such measures remains a goal. There’s also a need to keep up with new

cutting edge technologies and solutions that offer better ways of building resilience.

Here is when events such as BEX and MCE Asia—two trade shows for the green building and energy efficiency across industries—provide a much needed platform to connect industry players across the region and allow for a sharing of best practices. Such events also allow companies to showcase their respective technolo- gies and solutions.

BEX Asia is set to welcome international visitors at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore from September 12 to 14.

It will be held in conjunction with Mostra Convegno Expocomfort (MCE) Asia, a regional HVAC-R, water and energy exhibition and International Green Building Conference (IGBC), the premier conference that encourages the collaborative sharing of ideas among stakeholders, policymakers and government agencies.

“In its 10th edition this year, BEX Asia has continued to evolve as a linchpin in the transformation of the building and construction industry. We are proud to bring the region’s best minds together and provide industry players with access to the latest tools, technologies and expertise they need to propel sustainable building forward,” Chua said.

“We hope that more developers and building owners in the Philippines will see the value of going green, beyond the initial costs that need to be incurred. As one of the top 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change, it is vital for all stakeholders in the Philippines to embrace sustainability for a better future,” Chua concluded. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

31

P1.2 billion seized in smuggled goods registered in 2015.

Learning from the previous administration’s experience, Malacañang has opted not to use public-private partnerships (PPPs) in funding major infrastructure projects so that these could at least get started on time.

Dominguez said a review of the PPPs showed that it took three years for a PPP-financed project to get off the ground.

“That’s why the last administration was only able to do four projects, right? Because the PPP process is very long,” he said.

“We cannot wait to negotiate for three years, then after three years, ‘OK, this is only when we start.’ We can’t do that. We have to start now,” he added.

THE ECONOMIC strategy of President Duterte is bearing fruit, with GDP (gross domestic product) growing 6.68 percent during his first three quarters, or “faster than [those of ] all other administrations,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said on Thursday.

“We expect to grow close to the targeted 7 percent throughout the year,” he said.

Dominguez noted that the average inflation rate for the first 11 months of the administration is 2.64 percent.

“Again, this is the lowest registered of all previous administrations,” he said.

Moreover, he said, the national government debt That’s why the last as a percentage P3.6-T infra program administration of GDP declined was only able from 43 percent The Duterte to do four as of the end of administration projects, right?

June 2016 to 41.9 is embarking on Because the percent by the a P3.6-trillion inPPP process is end of March. frastructure provery long.

“The reduced gram that will be debt load allows funded through a us enough flextax reform program and new ibility to pumploans. prime our econ“We know that omy,” he said.

“With the passage of the we don’t have to go through the Comprehensive Tax Reform long negotiations for the PPP, Program, we can guarantee OK. Now, we have a large capaca breakout growth of above 7 ity to borrow. And our interest percent and sustain this into rate that we pay is lower than the medium term,” the finance the interest rate that the private sector pays,” Dominguez chief said.

Dominguez said the faster said.

He pointed out that the goveconomic growth would enable the government to bring ernment retained the option of down the poverty rate from turning existing projects into 21.6 percent today to 14 percent PPPs. “Once the project started, in 2022. or… even in the middle of the project, we can turn it over ‘Fiscally secure’ The country, he said, was and make it PPP. We can sell “fiscally secure” as the govern- the project and we can use the ment collected P2.09 trillion in funds to repay our loan,” he revenue from July 2016 to May said. this year.

Dominguez said this could be “That is 7 percent higher done in operation and maintethan the same period the previ- nance (O&M) projects. ous year,” he said.

“We’ll start the project, and Dominguez said the Bureau most likely, we will use publicof Customs confiscated P8.4 private partnerships for the billion in smuggled goods from O&M portion because the govAugust 2016 to June, or seven ernment is not good at O&M,” and a half times more than the he said. ■

32

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Technology Under the covers: Sleep technology explodes

BY DIDI TANG The Associated Press NEW YORK — Pillows that track your snoozing patterns?

A bed that adjusts based on how much you twist and turn?

Companies are adding more technology into their products, hoping to lure customers craving a better night’s sleep.

Some specialized businesses are making gadgets that promise to measure and improve the quality of slumber, while massmarket retailers like Best Buy are offering simpler ideas like the effect different lighting can have on falling sleep. But with ever-growing options, people may find items that are getting more sophisticated — but may still not be accurate.

The interest in sleep has intensified. The number of sleep centres accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine nearly tripled from 2000 to 2015, the group says. People are more likely to brag about how much they spent for a mattress than on their clothes, says Marian Salzman, CEO of Havas PR North America.

“Sleep is the new status symbol,” she says.

It’s a big business. One of the more expensive products is Sleep Number’s 360 Smart Bed, which runs from $3,449 to $4,999. It makes adjustments based on how restless people are while they’re sleeping. The Zeeq pillow, which sells for $299 and is from bedding brand REM-Fit, monitors snoring and can gently vibrate to nudge someone into a different sleep position.

“I’m willing to spend more

on sleep technology because Apple, whose own Apple bed awake. it will hopefully help me fall Watch tracks activity and ofIn fact, San Francisco-based asleep quicker, stay asleep lon- fers sleep-tracking experiences startup Hello, the maker of a ger and be more rested when I through third-party apps, de- product aimed at tracking sleep wake up,” says Frank Ribitch, clined to talk about the future via a clip attached to a person’s a self-described gadget junkie of Beddit. Leppäkorpi noted bedsheet, recently announced from Martinez, California, who before the acquisition that Bed- it was shutting down amid retracks his sleep with apps con- dit had been working with sleep ports the device didn’t correctly nected to a Sleep Number bed labs like the MIT Lab, which track sleep patterns. and the Zeeq pillow. used the devices to collect data Still, Kushida Insufficient sleep is a public on patients. believes the health concern, federal officials At the Stanford Sleep Medi- consumer say, with more than one-third cine Center, neurologist and p r o d of American adults not getting medical director Clete A. Kushenough on a regular basis. That ida tests new therapies and can contribute to problems medications. Over the past two like obesity and diabetes. And years, the analysis has exa study published by the Rand panded to wearable deCorp. put the financial loss to vices. The scientists U.S. companies at up to $411 bil- assess how well lion a year. the devices Finding solutions could be match the a lucrative enterprise. Earlier centre’s this year Apple Inc. bought o w n Finland-based Beddit, which overnight was making an app and sleep sleep studmonitoring device that’s placed ies, which use under the sheet on top of the measures such as mattress. The $150 sensor be- heart rate and brain gins tracking when a person lies wave activity to deterdown, and analyzes data such mine the length and the as the portion of time someone is in bed asleep before waking up.

Insufficient sleep is a public It also monitors health concern, federal officials say, heart rate, temwith more than one-third of adults perature, movenot getting enough on a regular ment — and even basis. snoring. “ P r e v i o u s l y, it was about the sleeping pill and people didn’t want to talk stages of sleep. ucts are getting betabout sleep apnea,” Lasse LepKushida’s conclusion? “Con- ter and will be able to a c c u päkorpi, co-founder and now sumer wearable devices are not rately monitor and solve sleep former CEO of Beddit, said be- there in accurately detecting issues in the next five to 10 fore Apple bought the company. the stages of sleep,” he said. The years.

“Snoring is embarrassing. But problem: They focus on moSeparate from gadgets, some this has been untapped oppor- tion, which can be deceptive stores are highlighting sounds tunity.” since a person could be lying in and smells they say can help

www.canadianinquirer.net

people sleep better. Longtime insomniac favourite HSN Inc. offers a $299 Nightingale Sleep System that masks indoor and outdoor noises. Best Buy has a Philips Lighting’s system that works with devices like Nest and Amazon Alexa to let people choose the colours and brightness of lights and program them to turn off at certain times or respond to the sun.

And a company called Sensorwake is launching a product in the U.S. that releases smells like fresh linen it says can help you sleep better.

If nothing worked and you’ve had a fitful night, you

c a n least be woken up more gently.

The same company makes a $99 olfactory alarm clock, with scent options that include a strong espresso. But if you let it go for three minutes without shutting it off or hitting snooze, it’ll start making noise — good if you have a stuffy nose. ■ at

AP Video Journalist Terry Chea in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Technology

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

33

Candy Crush addicts get new outlet as video game comes to TV

BY LYNN ELBER The Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Candy Crush addicts, and you know who you are, put down your mobile device immediately. Then you can watch “Candy Crush,” the TV game show.

Expect breezy, energetic fun from the CBS series debuting 9 p.m. EDT Sunday with host Mario Lopez, said executive producer Matt Kunitz, whose credits include “Wipeout” and “Fear Factor.”

Nearly 200 billion game rounds were played in the Candy Crush Saga last year, according to its maker, King. To entice people to watch it on TV, “Candy Crush” supersizes the visuals and the action.

Two specially designed video walls, each made up of 55 monitors and measuring more than 20-by-25 feet, require contestants to physically scramble as they compete for the weekly $100,000 prize.

One wall is placed horizontal-

ly on the stage floor, the other is perpendicular to it, and players in safety harnesses scoot across and up and down the screens.

They make candy matches by, natch, swiping squares a la the mobile game.

The stunt team that handled Lady Gaga’s rig during her airborne entrance to this year’s Super Bowl halftime show did the same for “Candy Crush,” with the same injury-free success, Kunitz and CBS said. Taping is completed.

When the show was pitched to the network, Kunitz said, they asked CBS executives to imagine “if you were playing on your phone and got sucked through and were in a Candy Crush arena.”

The video walls were key, he said.

Their surfaces needed to withstand running, jumping and sliding and respond only to the swipe of contestants’ hands.

Producers ended up going with a company, MultiTaction, that had created a 44-monitor wall for the Australia’s Queensland University of Technology.

That was the world’s biggest, Kunitz said, until “Candy Crush” came along — and he points to a Guinness World Records citation attesting to that.

Each monitor has 32 cameras to record the flurry of hand swipes.

Many video games have been translated to the movie screen, from “Super Mario Brothers” to “Tomb Raider” to “The Angry Birds Movie,” but it’s rare, if not unprecedented, for a game to come to television, said Sebastian Knutsson, a King executive who helped develop Candy Crush.

The game’s simplicity “actually translates very well” to TV, he said, and the audience’s perspective allows them to see opportunities more readily than the contestants who are so close to the oversized boards.

How protective did he feel of his baby during its TV adaptation?

“It’s been very important to us that this stay true to the core of how you play the game, and that it wouldn’t break what we think of as the core rules of Candy Crush,” Knutsson said from Stockholm.

RODGER EVANS / FLICKR

That doesn’t mean the TV show had carte blanche.

King shared a Candy Crush style guide with details on the colour and size of each candy character, Kunitz said. It was so precise that it dictated the dimension of the line around each character and their size in relation to each other.

It was understood that some things might change slightly on TV, Kunitz said, and, in turn, he appreciated what was at stake.

“There’s a huge expectation from the audience of what this show should be, because hundreds of millions of people play the game,” he said. “I wanted to

make it bigger and more spectacular and prime-time. That’s a fine balance. You don’t want to mess up the brand. And it is a brand, a massive brand.”

Nearly two-dozen different challenges for players help make each episode feel unique, he said.

While great effort went into the production, Kunitz said he hopes that viewers will be unaware of all the work and simply enjoy the show.

“It’s just fun. That’s all it is,” he said. “We’re not grossing anyone out, no one’s wiping out, no one’s 300 feet in the air hanging from a helicopter. It’s just pure summer fun.” ■

Samsung on a roll as data demand for memory chips soars

BY YOUKYUNG LEE The Associated Press SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF — Samsung Electronics is on a roll thanks to booming sales of memory chips required by the increasingly data-based economy.

The company, the world’s largest supplier of memory chips, said Friday that its operating profit soared 72 per cent in the April-June quarter over a year earlier to a record high.

Samsung has the most advanced memory chip production technology.

Robust semiconductor sales amid a massive expansion of data use offset sluggish growth in smartphone sales in the last quarter, the company said. The results beat expectations, putting Samsung on track for its highest profit ever in 2017.

The South Korean tech giant put its April-June operating profit at 14 trillion won ($12.1 billion), compared with 8.1 tril-

lion won a year earlier. Sales rose 18 per cent to 60 trillion won ($51.9 billion).

Other milestones may be waiting. Samsung’s quarterly profit may have surpassed Apple’s for the first time, and Samsung’s semiconductor revenue, which had been second to Intel’s, likely surpassed the U.S. company’s in the second quarter, analysts said.

The Suwon, South Koreaheadquartered company’s financial performance has usually mirrored trends in the global economy or followed cycles in the consumer electronics industry, such as how often users upgrade their televisions or smartphones.

That is no longer the case.

Now data is driving its growth.

“To process and analyze big data, data storage comes first and this is the driving force behind Samsung’s record-high profit,” Hwang Min-sung, an analyst at Samsung Securities, said in a report. “Consumers’ data usage exploded and

companies are not saving their money to invest in servers for data storage and data analysis.”

Global tech companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook are scurrying to add more servers for their databases to store, analyze and process the massive data generated from connected devices by consumers surfing the internet to stream videos and music, sharing and viewing photos and files online and using mobile applications.

The adoption of artificial intelligence and growth of the “internet of things” that takes vehicles, refrigerators and even mundane objects like toothbrushes online will drive even higher demand for microchips that can handle more data with speed and energy efficiency.

Analysts estimate that Samsung’s semiconductor division, which makes DRAM and NAND chips for mobile devices and servers, generated nearly 8 trillion won ($7 billion) in April-June, or 60 per cent of its www.canadianinquirer.net

quarterly profit.

That’s close to what Samsung’s semiconductor division used to earn in a full year.

Analysts forecast Samsung’s quarterly semiconductor profit will continue to rise because none of its rivals are likely to catch up or match its knowhow and investment in memory chip production.

Samsung said earlier this week it plans to spend 20.4 trillion won ($18 billion) in the next four years to expand capacities of memory chips in its South Korean plants. It also is considering adding production lines in China.

OLED screens, advanced displays that display crisp, highly saturated colours, are another plus.

Samsung controls more than 90 per cent of the global market for mobile OLEDs, and is using the screens for the curved displays of its Galaxy smartphones. Apple is widely expected to adopt OLED screens.

Analysts said smartphones

had a mixed impact on Samsung’s performance, with higher costs outweighing robust sales of Galaxy S8 smartphones. On Friday, Samsung began limited sales of recycled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, which were discontinued last year after they overheated and burst into flames.

While the company’s financial performance has excelled, Samsung’s de facto leader and vice chairman, Lee Jae-yong, is in jail in connection with a corruption scandal that topped South Korea’s president.

Hearings on charges that Lee engaged in bribery and other offences are expected to wrap up in August.

Some analysts believe Lee’s plight could inhibit other top managers from making the kinds of bold decisions that enabled the company to forge ahead in areas like memory chips and OLED screens.

Both resulted from years-ago investments of money and effort into the technologies. ■

JULY 14, 2017

34

CANADA

Wanted: PERSONAL ASSISTANT - HOME CARE Permanent – Full time $14.00/hour - for 40 hours per week Anticipated start date: As soon as possible Location: Scarborough, Canada (1 vacancy) 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

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FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

35

Travel Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem on Ramadan: Beauty shop across ‘Veronica’ station!

BY LITO B. ZULUETA Philippine Daily Inquirer SIXTH STATION of Via Dolorosa: “Veronica” wipes the face of Jesus, and his face gets imprinted on the linen cloth.

Because we made the entry to Jerusalem from St. Stephen’s Gate rather than Damascus or Jaffa Gates that are the favorites of tourists and pilgrims, we were left to make free and figurative connections between Via Dolorosa and Mount of Olives.

Mount of Olives, of course, was any pilgrim’s entry to Old Jerusalem in biblical times.

Bethphage was the village on that mountain to where Christ sent his apostles to fetch a donkey for his triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11:2). And today’s Franciscan shrine in Bethphage is where the traditional Palm Sunday procession of the Catholics starts.

When the procession reaches the western slopes of the Mount of Olives, the procession will surely pass the Church of the Pater Noster and the Dominus Flevit.

When it crosses the Kidron Valley, devotees and penitents will surely relive Christ’s Maundy Thursday agony in the gardens of Gethesamane and look with tender sympathy at the Basilica of the Agony, which was built where Jesus prayed that the cup be taken away from him but only if it was God’s will and where he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot.

Basilica of the Agony

Gethsamane’s name came from the olive press that was used to process the olives and extract the oil (the Hebrew “gatshemanim” means “oil press”). We entered the compound leading to the Basilica of the Agony, which tends in its gardens the olive trees under which Christ prayed in agony on the eve of his passion.

A courtyard fenced in the olive trees which was at the side of the church. Our Jewish tour guide Mendy Gonda instructed us to check the front entrance so that we could better appreciate the architecture, especially its facade where graced the familiar mosaic by Italian professor Giulio Bargellini depicting the Gethsamane episode.

The mosaic was above the four pillars of Franciscan friar-architect Antonio Barlucci, where sat sculptures of each

Via Dolorosa

Dome on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Israel.

of the four evangelists with key passages from their respective accounts of the garden incident.

As in the Church of the Beatitudes, also a Catholic site under the custodianship of the Franciscans, devotees and pilgrims in the Agony church were constantly reminded by the brown friars to observe silence.

Inside the basilica, huge throngs of people milled about in semi-darkness as Barlucci had done away with the clerestory, a traditional lighting device in ecclesiastical architecture.

Adding to the deep sense of pallor were the alabaster panels dyed in purple that engulfed the interiors in the the somber, austere color of Lent and penitence.

In the apse of the basilica was the mosaic by Aquiles d’Achiardi depicting Jesus reclining on the rock of agony and around him the slumbering apostles. On one side of the altar was another mosaic

by Mario Barberis depicting the “Kiss of Judas.”

its memorial, all sinners of the world are represented there.

Spanish Dominican Fr. Pedro Tejero Gonzalez, late professor at the Ecclesiastical Faculties of University of Santo Tomas, in his “A Journey Through Gospel Lands (Life Today Publications, 1989), probably the only Holy Land guidebook published in the Philippines, writes about the nocturnal Holy Hour liturgy of the Franciscans every Holy Thursday in which Gospel passages of the Agony are read: “Pilgrims from all over the world, united in one faith, one Lord and one baptism, have come to be with Jesus at the time when he underwent the most distressful hour of his passion, choosing to suffer and die on the cross, taking upon himself the sins of mankind.”

The Agony basilica is the Church of All Nations—and All Sinners—indeed.

Church of All Nations

Depending on one’s point of view, it may or may not be deplorable that nowadays the Agony basilica is more popularly called the Church of All Nations, since its construction in the 1920s was made possible by donations from several nations.

The new name hardly identifies the church as a “holy site” associated with Christ’s agony.

But then again, the site is truly multinational, and by the contributions of different nations for its preservation and www.canadianinquirer.net

Having traced Christ’s prayerful agony in the Mount of Olives, we entered Jerusalem via St. Stephen’s Gate and started the Via Dolorosa.

In his Oxford Holy Land guidebook, Father Murphy O’Connor, OP, was forthright and even blunt: “The Via Dolorosa is defined by faith, not by history.”

It’s true that Byzantine pilgrims on Holy Thursday used to go in a procession from the Eleona church (the Domus Flevit) in the Mount of Olives to Calvary, entering St. Stephen’s Gate and following somewhat the present route, “but there were no devotional stops along the way,” he wrote. By the 8th century, there were a number of stops but the route was different.

In the Middle Ages, according to Murphy-O’Connor, there were two rival groups of Christians that organized two different routes!

In the 14th century, the Franciscans organized devotional processions that even went out of St. Stephen’s Gate although the most popular stops, of course, were between the House of Pilate and the Holy Sepulchre since they were the most associated with the final hours of Christ.

On the other hand, religious groups in Jerusalem started a similar devotion but with only eight stations.

In the 15th century, international pilgrims who went back to their own countries also organized a similar devotion but improved on it by interpreting passages in the Gospels, so that they came up with 14 stations. ❱❱ PAGE 36 Via Dolorosa

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Travel

JULY 14, 2017

‘Corner Gas’ revs up walking tour of Saskatchewan town where series was filmed

BY JENNIFER GRAHAM The Canadian Press ROULEAU, SASK. — The theme song to the TV show “Corner Gas” featured the lyrics “you think there’s not a lot goin’ on.

Look closer, baby, you’re so wrong,” and that’s the case in the small Saskatchewan town where the series was filmed.

Along a dusty gravel road about 50 kilometres southwest of Regina is Rouleau, also known as the fictional town of “Dog River” in “Corner Gas.” On one sunny morning this summer, visitors came to the town from Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia and the United States.

“We have the whole TV series at home, so we’ve been watching all the DVDs and my daughter really likes the whole series. So we thought we’d just stop and show her where ‘Corner Gas’ was all filmed at,” said Blaine MacDonald from Minnesota.

“It’s a lot of fun to come around and see all the buildings and all the history of what Brent Butt did with the TV show.”

It happened to be the same day the town of Rouleau and the creators of “Corner Gas” launched a one-hour self-guided walking tour of “Dog River.”

The tour has 14 locations where “Corner Gas” was filmed during the summers of 2003 to 2008 and again in the summer of 2014 for a movie.

There are bronze plaques with QR codes at each site that can be scanned on a smartphone to tell a story about the show, link to video clips and

Still from the TV show “Corner Gas.”

give a sneak peek of what the town will look like in the animated “Corner Gas” series set to debut next year.

“It’s great,” said Don Neste from Mission, B.C., who was one of the first to try the new QR codes.

“I think people that know about Dog River or the show will definitely stop in and check it out.”

Visitors can also go inside many of the buildings because they’re real businesses in town.

Grab a burger at the Dog River Hotel or go to the post office and get a free postcard with the cancellation stamp from “Dog River.”

Cora Burkitt, the postmaster in Rouleau, said most times people want to mail the postcard.

“I had a family in here just last week from South Carolina who specifically came here for (the postcard) and mailed it back to

themselves,” said Burkitt.

The gas station on “Corner Gas” and “The Ruby Cafe” were both sets created for the show and were not intended to be permanent structures. They were taken down last November.

Rouleau Mayor Grant Clarke says there is hope money can be raised to build the gas station again for people to visit.

But Clarke said all the stops on the walking tour are great and “fans and folks are gonna like it.”

On that sunny morning when temperatures hovered near 30 C, Clarke said he knows his favourite stop.

“I like the bar actually.

I’m from Saskatchewan,” he laughed.

The hope is that by getting a grip on bad loans, the Italian economy can move on.

Spain has also had its problems. Banco Santander, for example, paid the symbolic sum of 1 euro to take over local rival Banco Popular, a long-troubled lender that the European Central Bank warned was “failing

or likely to fail.” That was the first time the ECB had effectively pulled the plug on a bank since it getting new powers aimed at preventing financial institutions from disrupting government finances through bailouts, as they did during the eurozone’s debt crisis. ■

If you go

Rouleau, Sask., is about 50 km southwest of Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan. ■

EU seeks... der a relaunch plan that includes the disposal of 28.6 billion euros in bad loans at a big discount to their original value.

The bailout includes the use of taxpayer money to shore up the bank, something new EU rules try to avoid, but was cleared by EU authorities. ❰❰ 30

www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY

Via Dolorosa...

The Dominican biblical scholar declared the 14-stop Way of the Cross was a “European tradition.” “Since pilgrims expected to find in Jerusalem what they were accustomed to elsewhere, the European tradition prevailed.”

Which is not to say that Christ did not really go the way of the Via Dolorosa and everything was a but a sad but beautiful fiction.

Murphy-O’Connor said Christ’s Way of the Cross was true, but it could not have started at the Antonia Fortress where today’s Via Dolorosa usually begins, but most probably from near the Jaffa Gate where there stood once a platform before Herod’s Palace. Since Pilate used to stay there when he was away from Caesaria, it was probably there where he washed his hands off any responsibility for Christ’s execution.

Moreover the actual Via Dolorosa would have been even more horrendous, the Dominican scholar pointed out, as Christ would have been led to very narrow passages where bystanders could have freely struck his face, kidney and even genitals.

Perhaps the stark details of what really happened should buttress the “truth” of the Via Dolorosa. The devotional across the centuries has acquired the truth of history: the Latin “devotionem” is a noun of action, as in making a pledge, consecrating a vow or performing a sacrifice.

When devout pilgrims and sincere penitents unite themselves with the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, truth is established, nay consecrated, even if certain details of history are elided.

The first two stations (Jesus is condemned and Jesus carries his cross) are located near the Church of Flaggelation of the Franciscans in the Ecce Homo arch.

The third station (Jesus falls the first time) is located at the corner of Tell-Wad Street where now stands a chapel that was restored by Polish Catholics in 1948.

One of the rocks on the wall is traditionally believed to have impressed Christ’s hand as he pressed himself up from the fall. Pilgrims nowadays reverentially place their hands on the declivity. ❰❰ 35

The fourth station (Jesus meets his Mother) stands in front of an Armenian Catholic church over the gate of which is a striking lunette with the relief of Christ meeting Mary.

The fifth station is where the uphill trek toward Calvary starts and the street is called “Street of Dolors.” In this station, Simon the Cyrenean from Libya was asked to carry the cross in place of the severely weakened Christ.

Meeting ‘Veronica’

The sixth station is about 80 paces away, the traditional site of the house of Veronica, who was said to have come forward with wet linen to wipe the face of Christ and whose charity was rewarded when his suffering visage was imprinted on the cloth that she thereon kept as a holy relic.

The story is not in the New Testament and is clearly apocryphal although it is not exactly untrue and even unhistorical.

As the saga of the rediscovery of the famous Veil of Manoppello in a Franciscan church in the Abruzzi region of Italy only in the last 20 years shows, the Veronican tradition arose out of the disappearance of the veil of the Resurrected Christ from the Vatican during the Sack of Rome in 1527.

As a compensation for the loss of the sublime relic, the devotional imagination crafted the beautiful story of “Veronica,” which is really a portmanteau of the words “vera” (truth) an “ikon” (image). “Veronica” therefore is “the true image” of Christ. Hence, an apocryphal story or a myth is not necessarily untrue. It could even be more true than reality in the context of Aristotle’s famous pitting of poetry versus history: “Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history.”

Ironically across the sixth station was a women’s shop called NHB (which stood for “Nutrition, Health, Beauty”).

Its very bright display window showed female models in various stages of dishabille to show off the curves and fruits of their intense dieting, fitness regimen and zealous skincare. Because these models were obviously scrimping on the fabric to show off their bods, none would have any clothe to spare to wipe off any dusty pilgrim’s face, much less the dolorous Christ’s. ■

FRIDAY JULY 14, 2017

37

Food Serve Clam Tomato and Bacon Stew with grilled garlic bread

BY SARA MOULTON The Associated Press COOKED HARD-SHELL clams are an unbeatable twofor-the price-of-one delight.

You get the clams themselves and the clam liquid they give off as they cook, which creates an instant sauce with astonishing depth of flavour. And it’s simple. You just combine the clams with some liquid (and aromatics, if you want — here I’ve added scallions, garlic and tomatoes), cover them and let them steam until the shells open.

The only tricky part is that all clams don’t cook at the same pace. The first specimen might open after just 5 minutes while the last one luxuriates for three times as long. If you allow that first clam to hang out until the last clam opens, it’ll end up rubbery. Accordingly, it takes a tough cook to make a tender clam. Check the steaming clams frequently and pull each one out of the pot the second its shell opens.

This very same recipe also works using a different kind of bivalve mollusk, namely mussels. You’ll need about 4 pounds of these critters. Method-wise, proceed as with the clams, re-

moving each mussel as it opens.

Clam or mussel, this sea creature must be well-cleaned before it’s steamed. Start by filling a large bowl with cold water. Add the mollusks and swirl them around, then lift them out of the bowl. Dump out the sand on the bottom of the bowl, refill the bowl with clean water and repeat the procedure until the bathed clams leave no sand.

Canadian bacon adds some meat and smoke to the finished dish. (Also, it’s leaner than traditional bacon.) Of course, the pescatarians among us are welcome to leave out the bacon. Likewise, folks who aren’t into alcohol can substitute water for the wine.

Finally, those who dislike basil can use cilantro instead.

But please don’t skip the garlic bread. It’s easy to make and key to the recipe. And there’s no better way to sop up all that luscious clam broth.

Clam Tomato and Bacon Stew with Grilled Garlic Bread

Start to finish: 1 hour Servings: 6

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil • 1 cup chopped Canadian bacon • 1 cup sliced white part of scallions and 1/2 cup sliced green part of scallions

• 1 cup medium chopped green bell pepper • 2 teaspoons minced garlic • 2 cups medium chopped ripe tomatoes • 1 cup dry white wine • 4 dozen cherrystone clams, cleaned well • 1/2 cup packed basil leaves, coarsely chopped • 1 recipe Grilled Garlic Bread (recipe below) In a large saucepan or Dutch oven large enough to hold all the clams, heat the oil over medium-high heat, add the bacon, reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon starts to brown around the edges. Add the sliced white part of scallions and the bell pepper. Cook, stir-

ring occasionally, for 5 minutes.

Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the white wine and the clams, cover the pot and steam, transferring the clams as they open to a bowl. Discard any clams that do not open.

Remove all the clams from their shells and return them to the pot with the tomato mixture. Reheat over medium-low heat until just hot. Stir in the basil and scallion greens.

To serve: Put 2 pieces of the grilled bread into each of 6 soup plates and spoon one-sixth of the clam mixture on top.

Grilled Garlic Bread

• 6 (1/2-inch thick) slices country bread

• Extra-virgin olive oil for brushing the bread • 1 garlic clove, halved Preheat a grill or grill pan over medium heat. Brush both sides of the bread slices with the oil. Add the bread to the preheated grill and grill until it’s nicely marked and crispy on both sides (about 2 minutes a side). Remove the bread from the grill and while it’s still hot, rub one side of each slice with the cut side of the garlic.

Nutrition information per serving: 393 calories; 145 calories from fat; 16 g fat (2 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 75 mg cholesterol; 1,020 mg sodium; 33 g carbohydrate; 4 g fiber; 4 g sugar; 21 g protein.

Crave the Louisiana waterfront? Try our Oyster Po’ Boy THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA YOU NEED a vacation. All of you. Even if you just got home from a 20-day Caribbean cruise, you probably still need a vacation.

But as the graphs and charts and news reports have been reminding us, Americans aren’t great at taking those vacation days and getting away. So if you’re guilty of not giving yourself the down time you deserve, the least you can do is create a

mini-staycation at dinnertime.

On Taco Tuesday, we visit the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas, and on Winesday Wednesday we kick back in the vineyards of Napa Valley. But lucky for you, it doesn’t have to be Mardi Gras Monday or Second Line Saturday (forgive us) for you to visit another food favourite destination, New Orleans.

All you need is some sweet jazz music and a recipe.

This Oyster Po’ Boy from The Culinary Institute of America will transport you to a warm afternoon by the Louisiana

waterfront. A po’ boy is a Louisiana-style sandwich of meat, fish, or shellfish on soft but crusty French bread. We won’t be so bold as to say what should be on a po’ boy, because from town to town, and even block to block, the rules shift. But in general, po’ boys are simply dressed with lettuce, tomato, onion, and maybe mayonnaise, mustard, and pickles.

Fat and crunchy fried oysters are a natural po’ boy filling because they are abundant in the warm waters of the Gulf, making them readily available

and inexpensive. Even if you’re not an oyster person, and we know there are plenty of you out there, a fried oyster is really a horse of a different colour. Cooked oysters lose the slimy quality that people usually complain about. Coated in a crunchy, golden-brown cornmeal coating, they become downright tender and sweet.

Just like wine and cheese, oysters are a product of their terroir_meaning the environment in which they grow and live. Water temperature, local ecology, and even weather can

www.canadianinquirer.net

influence the texture and flavour of the oyster, meaning that an oyster harvested from the Pacific Northwest will be notably different than ones harvested in the Gulf or off the coast of New England.

“Oysters from the colder north waters tend to be very complex and briny in flavour, while the West Coast oysters tend to be fruity and floral, almost cucumber-like in flavour, and the Southern oysters tend to be the least flavourful,” said ❱❱ PAGE 38 Crave the

Food

38

Crave the...

The Culinary Institute of America’s chef-instructor Gerard Viverito.

It’s for this reason that we don’t mind battering and frying these beautiful oysters, or loading them up with cocktail sauce or Louisiana hot sauce. Sure, they’re great on their own, but they are mild enough that it won’t be overpowering when we dress them up. And isn’t getting dressed up one of the best parts of vacation? ❰❰ 37

oysters to a paper-towel-lined tray.

Carefully lower the lemon slices into the hot oil and fry until the white pith begins to brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to the towel-lined tray.

Spread about 2 tablespoons of NOLA sauce on one half of each roll. Evenly distribute the fried oysters, lemon, tomatoes, and lettuce between the rolls and sprinkle with salt and pepper before serving.

NOLA Remoulade Sauce

Oyster Po’ Boy

Servings: 4 Start to finish: 45 minutes

• 3 cups cornmeal • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour • 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed • 1 teaspoon Creole seasoning • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more as needed • 1 quart shucked oysters, welldrained • Vegetable oil, as needed for frying • 1 lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed • 1/2 cup NOLA Remoulade Sauce (recipe follows) • 4 French bread rolls, about 6 inches each, split • 2 medium tomatoes, sliced • 1 head lettuce, shredded • Salt and pepper as needed In a medium bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, salt, Creole seasoning, and pepper.

Add the oysters and toss until well-coated.

Fill a heavy-bottomed saucepan with about 2 inches of oil.

Over medium heat, bring the oil to about 350 F. Working in batches, fry the oysters until they are golden brown all over, about 3 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked

Servings: 8

• 8 cornichons • 2 teaspoons capers • 2 green onions, chopped • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice • 1 tablespoon Creole mustard or a whole grain mustard • 1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley • 1 cup mayonnaise • 1/2 teaspoon paprika • 1 teaspoon hot sauce • Kosher salt, to taste • Ground black pepper, to taste In a food processor, combine the cornichons, capers, green onion, lemon juice, mustard, and parsley. Pulse until finely chopped.

Add the mayonnaise, paprika, and hot sauce. Pulse to blend.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Use immediately or refrigerate in a covered container until needed.

Nutrition information per serving: 863 calories; 266 calories from fat; 30 g fat (5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 111 mg cholesterol; 1640 mg sodium; 122 g carbohydrate; 10 g fiber; 6 g sugar; 29 g protein.

JULY 14, 2017

FRIDAY

Go ahead, dive into the veggie noodle world with ‘zoodles’

BY MELISSA D’ARABIAN The Associated Press VEGETABLE “NOODLES” are super trendy, and summer is the best time to make them since the king of veggie noodle — zucchini — is ubiquitous, and inexpensive.

Go ahead and load up, because zucchini is a true powerhouse of vitamins. One cup provides over a third of your daily vitamin C, and about 10 per cent of five additional vitamins and minerals, and weighs in at under 20 calories.

While “zoodles” are easily the most popular noodle, noodles can be made from a variety of vegetables. Try other summer squashes, winter squash such as butternut, beet, carrot, sweet potato, and parsnips. Veggie noodles are easy to make, too. You can buy an inexpensive spiralizer to make quick work of cutting perfectly-shaped noodles.

Or, you can even use your vegetable peeler to shave long, thin ribbons from your vegetables; no special equipment needed. Cooking the noodles is quick: usually by steaming or sauteeing briefly. Some veggies, like summer squash, can be left completely raw if you want, and made into a cold summer noodle-like salad.

If you have been seeking the perfect recipe to dip your toe in the veggie noodle world, today’s recipe is perfect. Sunshine Vegetable Ribbons can be made in mere minutes using only a vegetable peeler and a pan as equipment. The flavours are bright and familiar: a little garlic, lemon, toasted pine nuts

and nutty parmesan cheese.

Serve this as a pretty first course, as a side dish or even as a vegetarian main course with a thick slice of crusty Italian bread on the side. Once you’ve mastered the vegetable peeler noodle, get creative and explore the endless options for this new technique, swapping in vegetables for pasta in your favourite recipes.

Sunshine vegetable ribbons

Servings: 4 Start to finish: 15 minutes

• 2 large carrots, peeled • 2 crookneck squashes (yellow summer squash) • 2 zucchini • 2 teaspoons olive oil • 1 garlic clove, minced • 2 tablespoons lemon juice • 2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts • 1 ounce parmesan cheese, shaved into shards with a vegetable peeler • Lemon zest or fresh herbs for garnish, optional • kosher salt

• Freshly ground black pepper Use a vegetable peeler to shave long, thin ribbons (like flat noodles) of the vegetables.

(You will likely have a thin core remaining of each vegetable that you’ll have to use for another purpose.)

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large saute pan.

Add the garlic and saute for one minute, until fragrant. Add the vegetable ribbons, a pinch of salt, and stir. Add the lemon juice and cover with a lid for just one minute (or longer if you want very soft ribbons). Remove the lid, and remove from heat.

Serve on four plates, topped with pine nuts, parmesan cheese, black pepper and lemon zest or fresh herbs, if desired.

Nutrition information per serving: 128 calories; 66 calories from fat; 7 g fat (2 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 6 mg cholesterol; 408 mg sodium; 13 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 7 g sugar; 6 g protein.

Crafty Christians...

Evangelizing seems to be a powerful element to the movement, and comes just as organized religion in general faces steady declines in membership.

Deb Tempelmeyer of Parasource Marketing & Distribution says her Paris, Ont., company supplies wide-margin Bibles favoured by mainline Protestant churches — including Anglican, United and Pres❰❰ 28

byterian — but doesn’t have a Catholic version.

Avid crafter Joanne Fink, who is Jewish, says she’s been incorporating Old Testament scripture into her work for decades but doesn’t mark up her Bible.

“We consider it sacrilegious to write in the Bible,” says Fink, co-author of the recently released “Bible Journaling: Creative Techniques to Express

Your Faith.”

“My Jewish friends, if any of them are inclined to do this would do it in sketchbooks and journals, the way I usually do.”

And that’s OK, she says, noting there are no rules.

“In my mind, Bible journaling refers to the intentional practice of reading scripture and then writing or illustrating your response to that scripture.

And it’s a way for growing close www.canadianinquirer.net

to God.” Walker says she grew up Roman Catholic and recalls being told that only a priest could read and truly understand the Bible.

“It was like a sacred object that you would never write in it or anything like that,” she says, adding that she no longer identifies with a specific denomination.

She now attends a Free Methodist Church where she says

congregants are encouraged to dig into scripture. Bible journaling fits in well with that kind of attitude.

“There are literally thousands of women that found it hard to read the Bible because they weren’t connecting and when they started Bible journaling they started doing Bible studies,” says Walker.

“It’s not just an art form, it’s literally time spent with Him.” ■

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