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VOL. 8 NO. 280

EXPECTANT

PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa admits during the Senate hearing on Wednesday that it is "not so normal" for a police official involved in a highly controversial case to be sent back to the front lines. Story on page 4.

GRIG MONTEGRANDE / PDI

Lacson: Payoffs at BOC reach P270M a day

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AMOUNT ENOUGH TO WIPE OUT GOV’T’S P147-B BUDGET DEFICIT

BY CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO, JULLIANE LOVE DE JESUS AND LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer CORRUPT BUREAU of Customs (BOC) officials and personnel get P270 million in payoffs daily through the “3 o’clock Friday habit,” Sen. Panfilo Lacson said on Tuesday, basing his estimate on cus-

toms brokers he had spoken with.

Lacson told reporters he asked Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon on Monday during a Senate blue ribbon committee hearing about the 3 o’clock Friday gathering in which customs personnel shared the payoffs, but Faeldon did not reply.

The blue ribbon committee conducted

Advice to women who lose their partners: Till death do us part

13 Former B.C. premier quits as Liberal leader and as member of legislature

❱❱ PAGE 6 Lacson: Payoffs

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❱❱ PAGE 17

Solons: How can people be happy with more taxes?

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Philippine News

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Usec who downgraded case vs Marcos may face graft raps

BY JOCELYN R. UY Philippine Daily Inquirer JUSTICE UNDERSECRETARY Reynante Orceo may face graft charges for what a senator described as an “incredible” testimony he gave during Wednesday’s Senate inquiry into his actions downgrading the charges against police officers implicated in the killing of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. to homicide.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said he wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs to file an antigraft case against Orceo “at the very least because obviously he’s lying, his testimony is not credible at all and it’s part of the cover-up.”

After the hearing, both Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the committee, and Drilon expressed suspicion that the re-

versal of the murder charges against Marcos and his men was part of a cover-up to reinstate the police official and pave the way for his promotion as senior superintendent in six months.

“I am studying if he (Orceo) has liability under the antigraft law for what is [obviously] a cover-up,” Drilon told reporters on Wednesday following the three-hour hearing.

Downgrading the charges

At the hearing, Orceo insisted that he signed the resolution downgrading the murder charges against Supt. Marvin Marcos and 18 others to a lighter and bailable offense without the knowledge of his boss, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II. Lacson also raised doubts on the validity and legality of Or- ceo’s resolution, which apparently was issued beyond the period that the undersecretary was authorized to rule on peti-

tions for review.

Lacson pointed to Department Order Circular No. 19, where Aguirre authorized Orceo and several other undersecretaries to resolve petitions for review filed within July 1 to Dec. 31, 2016.

A panel from the National Prosecution Service told the committee that it issued its resolution recommending the filing of murder charges against Marcos and his men on March 2 this year.

The resolution was transmitted to the respondents on March 6.

The petition for review was filed only on April 5, which Lacson pointed out was also beyond the 15-day period for respondents to file such.

“You could have dismissed it outright,” Lacson told Orceo.

But Orceo insisted that his actions were covered by Circular No. 003, which transferred the power to review petitions

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PNP Chief Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa (right) with Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, Sr. (left) in August 2016 press conference.

PNP'S OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

from state prosecutors to undersecretaries, including him.

“I still stand with conviction that I am authorized under this circular,” he said.

Drilon said there was obvious basis that the resolution downgrading Marcos and others’ murder charges was outside Orceo’s authority.

In a radio interview yesterday, he also brought up the need to summon Aguirre in the next hearing to shed light on his role in the downgrading of the charges against Marcos and his men.

The justice secretary did not show up during Wednesday’s hearing. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

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Palace welcome US envoy’s statement on return of Balangiga Bells

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer

KOUNOSU / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

DOT revives program to lure Fil-Am expats

BY JEROME ANING Philippine Daily Inquirer THE DEPARTMENT of Tourism (DOT) has revived its “Invite Home a Friend” program, targeting Filipino balikbayans or expatriates in North America, particularly young professionals, millennials and social media influencers.

In a statement from Los Angeles, California, Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo said the incentive travel program was first launched by former Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor in 1994 for the US travel market, the Philippines’ second top source for foreign arrivals.

Teo, who is currently in the United States on a business mission, explained that the DOT planned to run “Invite Home a Friend” every quarter of the year via a raffle draw.

Among the program’s initial target markets are the nextgeneration Filipino-Americans and Philippine-born residents of the United States, who are mostly into leisure travels and who consider the Philippines their native country or second home.

Filipino hospitality

The program, as conceived

by Gabor, highlighted the Filipinos’ world-renowned hospitality, which the tourists get to experience. Aside from getting free flights and hotel night stays, the tourists will also get to enjoy with their friends touring beautiful destinations such as Siquijor, Masbate, Negros

Province, Palawan, Cebu, Baguio, Davao and Ilocos.

While the mechanics for the incentive program are still in the pipeline, Teo said she has already instructed the DOT Los Angeles to spread the word among Filipino-American communities.

“We are hoping to award two lucky winners—a balikbayan and a friend nominee—beginning September this year. Travel reward may be used anytime between January and April 2018,” Teo said.

For his part, DOT-Los Angeles attaché Richmond Jimenez agreed with Teo that the program was a great way to thank Filipinos from the United States who continue to not only come to the Philippines by themselves but also often bring along a friend or relative to visit and experience the country.

“Our people are our strength.

With our beautiful destinations as backdrop, it is the company of great people that makes every visit to the Philippines more memorable and worth coming back for,” Jimenez said.

Citing a survey it conducted in 2016, the DOT said it found out that 56.60 percent of travelers visiting the Philippines from the United States were likely to return for a repeat visit. These visitors also stay long in the country at an average of 11.22 nights.

Of the US travelers going to the Philippines, 54.40 percent came upon a friend’s recommendation, while 14.20 percent have friends or relatives in the country. ■

MALACAÑANG ON Sunday welcomed the statement of the American ambassador to the Philippines that the US government was trying to get an “early resolution” for the return of three church bells that American soldiers took as “war booty” from Samar province more than a century ago.

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said the govern-

ment would work closely with the Americans for the eventual return of the Balangiga bells, which the US Army took from a church in Balangiga, Eastern Samar, in 1901.

“We welcome US Ambassador Sung Kim’s remarks on trying ‘to reach an early resolution on the Balangiga bells,’” Abella said.

“The Balangiga bells, as the President mentioned, are an important part of our national heritage,” he said.

In his second State of the

Nation Address before Congress, President Duterte called on the United States to return the bells, noting that American troops had massacred Filipinos in Balanginga during the Philippine-American War in 1901.

“That’s why I say today, ‘Give us back those Balangiga bells.

They belong to the Philippines.

They are part of our national heritage,’” Mr. Duterte said.

On July 27, Kim said the US government knew that the bells were “very important” to the Filipino people. ■

PDEA: NCR most drugaffected region

BY JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE Philippine Daily Inquirer METRO MANILA remains the most drug-affected region with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) able to clear only 23 percent of drugaffected barangays nationwide a year after the government declared an all-out war on the illegal narcotics trade.

According to PDEA Director General Isidro Lapeña, around half or 20,872 of the 42,036 barangays in the country are considered drug-affected.

“Out of these barangays, 66.7 percent or 13,920 are classified as slightly affected, 32.3 percent or 6,744 barangays are moderately affected, while the remaining 1 percent or 208 barangays are seriously affected,” Lapeña said.

A barangay is considered drug-affected when there is a reported presence in the area of drug users, pushers, marijuana cultivators or other drug personalities, drug dens, marijuana plantations, clandestine drug laboratories, and facilities related to the manufacture of illegal drugs.

Citing PDEA data, Lapeña said that the National Capital Region has the highest rate of drug affectation at 96.48 percent, followed by the Caraga region with 86.6 percent and Western Mindwww.canadianinquirer.net

DILG Officer-In-Charge Catalino S. Cuy was the guest of honor and speaker in the ceremonial Covenant Signing and Pledge of Support to PNP’s anti-drug campaign.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PNP-PIO

anao at 86.29 percent.

The region least affected is the Cordillera Administrative region with only 3.49 percent of its barangays affected by the illegal drug trade.

Only 23% are drug-free

The PDEA chief said that from July 1, 2016 to June this year, 4,801 barangays have been declared drug-free. This accounts for 23 percent of drugaffected barangays nationwide.

Lapeña added that these barangays were issued certifications by the oversight committee on the barangay drug-clearing program headed by the PDEA. The committee has provincial representatives from the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Philippine National Police, and the

Department of Health, including local government units as members.

“Before declaring that a barangay is free from illegal drug activities, the committee must convene and validate the nonavailability of drug supply in the area and the absence of drug transit activity, clandestine drug laboratory and chemical warehouse, marijuana cultivation site, drug den, drug pusher and user,” he explained, adding that Batanes is the first and only province to be proclaimed drug-free. It earned this distinction on June 2.

According to Lapeña, PDEA and the government’s InterAgency Council on Anti-Illegal Drugs are targeting the clearing of 5,272 barangays before the end of the year. ■

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Philippine News

AUGUST 4, 2017

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Lacson: Payoffs... ❰❰ 1

a hearing on the 605 kilograms of “shabu” (crystal meth) worth P6.4 billion that the BOC seized in May in a Valenzuela City warehouse. The shipment had passed through the BOC without inspection.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations against Faeldon, the BOC chief continues to have President Rodrigo Duterte’s full trust and will stay in office, according to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez.

P27,000 per container

Citing information from brokers, Lacson said the BOC officials and personnel were getting on average P27,000 to P30,000 per container daily.

The payoffs amounted to P270 million a day because Faeldon has said 10,000 containers go through the BOC daily, Lacson said.

“If you multiply this (P270 million) by 365 days, that is

P98.5 billion a year,” he said.

Lacson said brokers and not the Customs Risk Management Office (RMO) were the ones who encoded data in the BOC system whether a shipment should go to designated lanes.

BOC officials blamed RMO chief Larribert Hilario for not encoding properly in the system the shipment of EMT Trading, consignee of the shabu from Xiamen, allowing the shipment to leave the BOC without inspection.

Asked if he thought Faeldon and other BOC officials should resign over the handling of the P6.4-billion shabu raid in Valenzuela City in May, Lacson said such act was a “personal call.”

It was also up to the President if Faeldon would be fired, he added.

Faeldon in Malacañang

Mr. Duterte met with Faeldon in Malacañang on Tuesday

afternoon, hours after the customs chief came under fire in the House of Representatives over the shabu shipment from China.

“The Chief Executive has expressed his full confidence in Commissioner Faeldon and told him to focus on serving the country,” Dominguez said in a statement.

The BOC is an agency under the Department of Finance.

Mr. Duterte also summoned Senate leaders to Malacañang to discuss the shabu smuggling scandal.

The meeting came a day after the Senate blue ribbon committee investigated the shabu shipment.

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said Mr. Duterte called him, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon for the meeting.

Asked if he would support calls for Faeldon to resign, Sotto said it was a “necessary con-

Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, chairperson of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs, wants to dig deeper into the smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of illegal drugs coursed through the express lane of the BOC. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

sequence” of the agency’s failure to stop the drug smuggling.

Enough to cover deficit

Lacson said the amount of payola, or lost government revenues, in two years could “wipe out” the budget deficit expected to hit P147 billion year.

Lacson asked Faeldon during the Senate hearing on Monday whether the “tara,” or payoffs,

at the BOC had increased because the duties for each container had dropped to P40,000 from P100,000.

Faeldon replied he was just enforcing the law that prohibited “benchmarking.”

Lacson said the controversy over the shabu haul was “not about Faeldon” but about “how the drugs were able to get out of Customs.” ■

PNP-CIDG files criminal rap vs Peter Lim, 7 others over drug operations in Visayas

BY CHRISTOPHER LLOYD T. CALIWAN AND VANESSA PANESA Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA — The Philippine National Police filed a criminal complaint against Cebu-based businessman Peter Lim and several others due to their alleged involvement in illegal drugs operations in Central and Eastern Visayas.

In its July 5 complaint, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) named Lim, Rolan “Kerwin” Espinosa, convicted drug lord Peter Co, alleged drug supplier Lovely Adam Impal, Marcelo Adorco, Max Miro, Ruel Malindangan and Jun Pepito as respondents to the complaint for violation of Section 26 (b) of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act. Lim, along with his co-accused Co, who is currently detained in the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City on drug trafficking charges and Lovely Impal as among those who supplied illegal drugs to Espinosa’s

The complaint said Adorco 5, 2013; 20 kilos from Lim on operation.

“Investigation disclosed during his interrogation and February 16, 2013; and 50 kilos that the group of Espinosa also subsequent investigation fur- from Lim on June 7, 2015.

“Indeed, there was wideknown as “Boss K” was a trans- ther provided the links and porter, trader. Seller and dis- transactions in the illegal drugs spread illegal drug trade in tributor of illegal drugs (shabu) trade with drug transactions Regions 7 and 8 during the in some areas they controlled in from February 2013 to August years of their existing conspirRegions 7 and 8 (Bohol, Samar, 2015 involving at least 90 kilos acy prompting no less than the Northern and Southern Leyte, of shabu sourced from Lim and President of the Philippines to announce those involved in the Biliran and some parts of Cebu). Co. The said illegal drugs ac- illegal drug trade to include PeTheir group was being supplied with shabu for distribution and cording to the complaint were ter Lim, Peter Co, Rolan ‘Kerwin’ Espinosa, trading by Peter and the latter’s Co, Lovely Imfather, Rolando pal, Peter Go Lim Espinosa, to among others,’ name a few,” it part of the comadded. plaint said.

(This) investigation clearly shows that conspiracy to sell, deliver, transport, The offense inIt said this was trade and distribute shabu… existed volved conspirfurther bolstered between and among the respondents. acy to commit when one of “sale, trading, their co-accused, administration, Marcelo Adorco dispensation, of Albuera, Leyte delivery, distriand four others were arrested in a buy-bust op- delivered at a grocery store in bution and transportation of eration on July 8, 2016 wherein Makati City, and distributed dangerous drugs and/or conaside from pointing to Espinosa by Espinosa’s men in Bohol, trolled precursors and essential and his father, the late Albuera, Samar, Northern and Southern chemicals.” “(Their) criminal conspiracy Leyte mayor Rolando Espinosa Leyte, Biliran and some parts of was continuously existing (and as the source or owner of the Cebu. firearms and shabu seized from Specifically, the complaint appears to have been consumthem also identified the three said 20 kilos of shabu were mated) in various places of as among their supplier. sourced from Co on February Makati City to Regions 7 and 8 www.canadianinquirer.net

from February 2013 up to August 2015 at the very least,” read a portion of the complaint. “(This) investigation clearly shows that conspiracy to sell, deliver, transport, trade and distribute shabu… existed between and among the respondents,” it added.

At the same time, the complaint also identified Lim as the same person who surrendered to President Duterte last year after his name was mentioned as among those behind the narcotics trade in the country.

Lim denied any involvement in the illegal activity when he faced Duterte.

Aside from Lim, Espinosa, Co, Impal, Adorco, Max Miro, Ruel Malindangan, “Jaime,” Jun Pepito, a village councilor in Albuera, Leyte also included as respondents in the complaint were individuals identified only by their aliases namely Jeremy aka “Amang,” Ricky,”Warren,”Tupie,”Jojo,”” Yawa,” Lapi,” Royroy,”Marlon,” Bay,”John Doe” (alleged delivery man of Co), “Peter Doe” (al❱❱ PAGE 13 PNP-CIDG files

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

7

Trillanes urges president to fire leftist cabinet execs

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer

Mile Long property in Makati.

WIKIMAPIA.ORG

Sunvar: We’re no squatters

BY JEROME ANING Philippine Daily Inquirer

beside a creek, used to have no access to the main road, had no utilities and were occupied by informal settlers.

SUNVAR REALTY Development Corp. on Friday said it was occupying a prime property in Makati City legally.

“The terms and conditions upon which Sunvar occupies the property belies the allegations and insinuations that it is squatting on the property,” lawyer Alma D. Fernandez-Mallonga, Sunvar’s legal representative, said in a phone interview, referring to the Mile Long property at Arnaiz Avenue and Dela Rosa Street.

Mallonga described Solicitor General Jose Calida’s accusation of squatting against Sunvar as a “mischaracterization.”

In a news conference on Friday, Calida urged the Court of Appeals to lift the temporary restraining order (TRO) it had issued against the government suit filed for recovery of the property and to uphold the rules of court governing ejectment cases.

Calida also said Sunvar had been squatting on the property since 2003.

“Despite notices, Sunvar continue[s] to remain in possession and collect millions [of pesos in] rentals from its tenants,” he said, adding Sunvar owed the government P1.656 billion, excluding interest.

No ‘sweetheart’ deal

Rent paid in advance

“We take exception to accusations that Sunvar is squatting. That’s not accurate,” Mallonga said, adding that Sunvar paid P17 million in advance rentals when it leased the property in 1982.

Mallonga said Sunvar leased the property at a time of political uncertainty and it took risks in developing the area.

“Sunvar had legitimate expectations and assumed good faith in its contract and its development of the area, which the government, the lessee, knew about,” she said.

Mallonga said the property, which lies

She belied accusations of “sweetheart” deal, adding that the price of P733 per square meter Sunvar paid for the 2.9hectare lot was not a loss to the government considering that on nearby developed lots, the price was P1,000 per sq m including the building.

Mallonga said it was better for both sides to wait for the court’s decision on the controversy.

“Sunvar is now before the court [imploring] it to see the commercial transaction from Sunvar’s as well as the small business owners on the property’s point of view. It’s natural for the government to take an opposing view but I just want to emphasize that there is a legal process,” Mallonga said.

“It is for the court to ultimately decide who is in the right. The [Office of the Solicitor General] should not begrudge Sunvar’s right to avail itself of the legal process,” she added.

Sunvar claimed the agreement that it had entered into with the government entitled it to occupy the property not only until 2002 but up to 2027.

Mallonga said Sunvar also found it “strange” that only Mile Long, which was part of a 12-hectare government property, was being reclaimed by the government.

In his news conference, Calida said the Makati Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) ruled in favor of the government in 2015, but the ejection order was stayed by the Regional Trial Court under Judge Winlove Dumayas, who consolidated the case with an injunction suit that his court was also hearing.

“Sunvar never questioned the factual issues of the case,” Calida said, adding Sunvar brought “baseless motions reaching up to the Supreme Court.”

Mallonga said Sunvar’s pleadings were based on legal and factual premises. ■

OPPOSITION Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Sunday urged President Duterte to kick out from the Cabinet members identified with the Left after Mr. Duterte ordered the military to go after the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).

In a statement, Trillanes added that sources in the military had informed him that there were “hundreds” of suspected CPP cadres working in the administration and whowere using government resources to help communist insurgents.

Malacañang on July 26 said that three members of the Cabinet identified with the Left would remain at their posts despite the escalating word war between the Duterte administration and the CPP. Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Mr. Duterte still had trust and confidence in Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo and National Anti-Poverty Commission lead convener Liza Maza.

“They’re there. As long as they’re

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there, we can assume they still have his full trust,” Abella told reporters.

“That is the assumption because no action has been taken against them as far as I know,” he added.

‘CPP-NPA cadres’

Trillanes said “hundreds of CPP-NPA cadres were officially employed by the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development), DAR (Department of Agrarian Reform), Dole (Department of Labor and Employment), NAPC (National Anti-Poverty Commission) and HUDCC (Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council).”

“Moreover, these communists are using the resources from these government offices to stockpile arms and ammunition, which they will use later on against our soldiers,” said Trillanes, a former Navy officer who led the Oakwood mutiny in 2003.

Abella said the NPA and the Cabinet members were different.

“They’re not members of the NPA as far as we can see. What is important is they are doing their job in their agencies, in their departments.” ■

Philippine News

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AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Till death do us part Advice to women who lose their partners: Be strong. God has a purpose

BY JODEE A. AGONCILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Member

THE GROOM was in a blue barong, happiness shining through his eyes as his teary-eyed bride walked down the aisle.

He was obviously in pain, but Clark Fudolig managed to stand tall and proud, having finally fulfilled his promise to give Millie Jane Tique a church wedding.

In her wedding vows, Millie, a human resource officer at the Department of Education’s main office in Pasig City, thanked Clark for making good on the promise he made years ago. She also thanked him “for never giving up, for fighting back, for struggling to live.” She added: “I promise to love you and stay with you until the end.”

But Clark never managed to say his vows, nor could he kiss his bride. Barely making it through the rites at the University of the Philippines Diliman Parish of the Holy Sacrifice, the Fudolig couple had to rush to the Philippine Heart Center, where the groom died of pancreatic cancer shortly after.

The video of the couple’s July 12 wedding titled “Unconditional Love” and posted online by photographer Raymon John Orlanda and Mark Vitasa soon gathered thousands of “shares” and “likes” as netizens said it depicted what “forever” and “true love” meant in these times of uncertainty and momentary dalliances.

It was a wedding that Millie, 37, had looked forward to since they got hitched in civil rites in 2004.

Days before the big day, she had patiently and diligently organized her dream wedding. She bought an RTW (ready-to-wear) wedding gown in Divisoria, contacted the suppliers, talked to caterers, photographers and videographers, and told them how her partner of 14 years would be using a wheelchair during the ceremony.

“I talked to and negotiated with the photographers so they’d be ready should we cancel the whole thing,” Millie said, adding that she had even considered converting the booking into a funeral reception should Clark’s condition worsen.

Clark, 32, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2014, but it was only in May this year that Millie learned about it from her sister-in-law.

Civil wedding

The groom barely had four weeks to live when he flew home to Manila from the United States where he had followed his parents as an immigrant and dreamed of bringing in Millie and their 12-year-old daughter Cane Krissie Jirmei.

Like most couples, they had their ups and downs, with Clark’s cancer posing the biggest challenge to their relationship, Millie said.

Clark was 18 and Millie, 23, when they met in 2003. When she got pregnant with Cane Krissie in 2004, the couple had a civil wedding.

A month later, Clark had to fly to the US to work as an air-con technician. He would visit his family every two years, sometimes staying as long as three months. Most of the time, however, the family bonded online.

“Yumaman sa amin ang Globe. (Globe earned a lot from us). We know all the technology: Yahoo mail, Yahoo chat, Viber, Skype. When I go to coffee shops, I’d always look for Wi-Fi connections.

We always communicated online,” Millie said.

The long distance relationship comforted them both and drew their daughter closer to her dad. “When he was home, they would have time alone to catch up,” Millie said.

Like most couples, they had their ups and downs, with Clark’s cancer posing the biggest challenge to their relationship, Millie said. She and her daughter applied for a US visa twice to take care of Clark, but were denied for having “no strong family ties.”

“We did not intend to stay in the US (but we were not given) humanitarian consideration,” Millie said. Pained by the thought of dying in the US without seeing his family, Clark decided to come home despite feeling very weak.

Millie took care of him without any hint of hurt or worry. “I tried to be strong. I did not show him I was giving up,” she recalled. “Those were the best days of our lives. We made the most of (the time we had left),” she said.

Apologetic

But there were moments when she questioned God, she admitted. “Why Lord? Why me? I’ve waited for this for so long, only for him to leave.” Later however, she felt more reflective. “God

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has a purpose for this. God has a purpose for all of us. I learned about unconditional love. He showed me until the end what sacrifice and love really means,” she said. Women who undergo the same trial should be strong, she added.

Clark for his part was very apologetic about the situation. “I’m sorry. Had I taken good care of my body, we could have been together longer,” he told Millie.

But regrets gave way to pride on their wedding day when Clark, in pain and bald after several chemotherapy sessions, “still managed to smile and radiate happiness and love for his family,” recalled Orlanda.

Every move was tortuous for Clark, even the mere act of breathing, recalled Millie. They could have asked the priest to officiate the rites at the hotel instead, but Clark refused and said it was Millie’s dream to walk down the aisle and have a church wedding.

Their daughter Krissie was as proud: “My dad (was) so great. He made it. He did it, mom,” she said.

Days after, Millie said she felt comforted by the outpouring of support generated by the couple’s online video.

“I did not mourn that much because the messages inspired and motivated me. It feels good to have inspired other people, too. I also want them to know how good my husband (was), how he had fulfilled his promise.”

To remember her husband, Millie had a henna tattoo of Clark on her left arm and plans to have it permanently inked on her.

“Clark knew I loved tattoos but he didn’t want one on me. I asked for his permission the last time we were together. And surprisingly, he agreed.

Maybe he wanted me not to marry anymore,” Millie said, laughing.

“Well, I don’t have plans of remarrying. This is forever,” she said. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

9

CHR chief won’t Philippine police say crackdown quit, cites mandate to target more drug lords

BY JAYMEE T. GAMIL Philippine Daily Inquirer DESPITE SUGGESTIONS that he resign, Commission on Human Rights Chair Jose Luis “Chito” Gascon vowed to continue performing his constitutional mandate. “I will ... perform my lawful mandate as head of an independent nonpartisan constitutional office given the duty to protect and promote human rights in this country,” he said.

Despite suggestions that he resign, Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chair Jose Luis “Chito” Gascon refuses to throw in the towel and vows to continue performing duties mandated by the Constitution.

“I will, to the best of my ability, perform my lawful mandate as head of an independent nonpartisan constitutional office given the duty to protect and promote human rights in this country,” Gascon said in a statement on Thursday.

“I will continue to do so without fear or favor and shall always speak truth to power,” Gascon said in response to chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo.

Panelo had earlier suggested that Gascon resign because he was biased in the performance of his duties.

Panelo made the suggestion after President Duterte remarked in a press conference after his State of the Nation Address on Monday that the CHR was “better abolished.”

When he was mayor of Davao City, Mr. Duterte was investigated for alleged human rights violations.

While the claims were revived when he was campaigning for the presidency, no charges were filed against him.

Since then, Mr. Duterte has repeatedly complained of the bias of the agency, noting that the CHR was quick to fight for the rights of criminals but slow to “raise a whimper” in cases of law enforcers killed on duty.

Gascon, however, said “none of my previous or future actions in public office would ever be motivated by vengefulness, vindictiveness, or subjectivity.”

The CHR will “always abide by constitutional and human

rights precepts in the performance of our duties as we shall keep faith that truth and justice shall ultimately prevail,” he added.

“Secretary Panelo should focus on his job of trying to give the best legal advice he can muster for the Office of the President as I will do what I can in doing my job as best as I can,” Gascon said.

Gascon also reacted to Mr. Duterte’s remark that CHR was “better abolished,” saying the abolition of the CHR would require an amendment to the 1987 Constituion.

He also said Mr. Duterte’s statements removed “any doubt regarding the attitude his administration will take toward respect- ing the human rights guarantees enshrined in the Constitution.”

“The actions during the first year of his presidency coupled with his words said over the same period exhibits an utter disregard for due process, equal protection, and other civil liberties. This has encouraged the deepening of impunity,” Gascon said.

Gascon said Mr. Duterte’s pronouncements “encourage the security forces to act beyond established operations protocols without any attendant safeguards or effective accountability mechanisms to guard against abuse.”

Vice President Leni Robredo also opposed Mr. Duterte’s suggestion to abolish the CHR because it would strip ordinary Filipinos, especially the poor, of protection against abuses.

“If the CHR is abolished, it’s as if we’re really not giving protection to those who have long been suffering in our society,” Robredo said in a school building inauguration in Calabanga, Camarines Sur province.

Robredo said the agency was purposely created and enshrined in the 1987 Constitution because of the country’s experience with human rights abuses at the hands of the government.

“It is enshrined in our Constitution because of our experience with human rights abuses, which our own government officials have committed,” she said. ■

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The Philippine national police chief warned Monday that law enforcers will be going after more drug lords following a raid that left 15 people dead, including a city mayor who was among politicians President Rodrigo Duterte had publicly linked to illegal drugs.

Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa said authorities are building up cases against more illegal drug operators included on Duterte’s list, warning that the police will enforce the law “without fear or favour.”

Officers were about to serve warrants early Sunday to Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. to search his houses for the suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor and at least 14 other people, said Ozamiz police chief Jovie Espenido.

Espenido, who oversaw the simultaneous, post-midnight raids on Parojinog’s residence and three other houses, described the mayor as a “highvalue target on illegal drugs.”

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Policemen were approaching the mayor’s house when his bodyguards opened fire and hit a police car and wounded an officer, sparking a firefight amid a power outage, he said.

Eight people were arrested, including two of Parojinog’s children — Ozamiz Vice Mayor Nova Princess ParojinogEchavez and her brother Reynaldo Parojinog Jr., officials said. The siblings were flown Monday to the national police headquarters in Manila.

Dela Rosa denied allegations of a rubout, saying the operation in Ozamiz resulted in deaths because the police were met with armed resistance.

Asked by reporters who the next drug lords to be targets of police operations will be, dela

Rosa said, “There are many of them because there are many in the president’s list.”

“If they are not doing anything bad, they should have no fear, but if it is validated that they continue to be involved in drugs then they have to prepare themselves,” dela Rosa said.

“The (police) will implement the law without fear or favour.”

Also on Monday, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II ordered the immigration bureau to be on the lookout for seven suspected illegal drug operators, including at least two publicly linked by Duterte to the narcotics trade. Anyone who is the subject of an immigration lookout bulletin needs to get permission from the justice secretary to leave the country. ■

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Philippine News

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Now, Fariñas accuses Anderson of cover-up

BY DJ YAP AND JULIE M. AURELIO Philippine Daily Inquirer DID LAWYER Mandy Anderson, the chief of staff of Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, deliberately leak photos of her Facebook post calling Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez an “imbecile” to deflect public attention from the multibillionpeso smuggling of “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) through the Bureau of Customs (BOC) express lane?

Was the leak the perfect opening Anderson sought to accuse Alvarez of influencepeddling when he allegedly tried to get an “unqualified” Customs official promoted?

This was the conclusion drawn by Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, who confronted Anderson about her Facebook post during the House ways and means committee hearing on Wednesday.

In a group message to House reporters, Fariñas cited the timeline of events to show that Anderson’s allegations against the Speaker were part of “clear machinations to cover up the smuggling of P5 billion of shabu” from China.

Anderson however described Farinas’ conclusion as “an absurd allegation not

backed by a single piece of evidence.”

She added that the “theory would not only be an insult to the other members of the House, but would truly [show] the sad state we are living in, if our elected representatives can be distracted from a major shabu smuggling issue just because of the Facebook post of a ‘nobody.’”

In a June 16 Facebook post where she shared an Inquirer story about Alvarez’s threat to dissolve the Court of Appeals over an interbranch spat in the case of six detained Ilocos Norte officials, Anderson wrote: “I’m hoping and praying he tries so he realizes what an imbecile he is when he fails.”

She added: “Isn’t there anyone else in the House composed of 200-plus representatives who can actually be Speaker?

Nakakahiya na (It has become embarrassing).”

On July 25, “or a day before the hearing on drug smuggling, several House members received a copy of Anderson’s ‘imbecile’ post,” Fariñas said.

Hindsight

“Who could have leaked her private post if not she herself and her cohorts in order to divert the public from the House investigation of the successful smuggling of more than P5-billion

Chief of staff of Customs Commissioner, lawyer Mandy Anderson.

worth of shabu through the BOC Express Lane?” the House official said.

“Hindsight is the best sight—isn’t the dragging of the name of the Speaker by AA (Attorney Anderson) a clear attempt to divert the issue on the BOC’s ineptitude, given all the former military officials in its leadership? Were it not for China’s apprehension in Xiamen of the source of the shabu and its alerting the BOC of the smuggling of almost a ton of shabu, the BOC’s ‘Express Lane’ would have successfully facilitated P5-billion worth of shabu into our country,” Fariñas said.

Beef with Alvarez

Anderson, who said her “imbecile” comment was on a “private” page, later apologized for the post, but explained in an interview after the hearing that her beef with Alvarez had started in May after the Speaker tried to get a BOC of-

FACEBOOK

ficial promoted to Customs operations officer 5.

The BOC official said she refused after learning that the officer, later identified as a certain Sandy Sacluti, was not qualified for the promotion. The Speaker later called her to his office and berated her, Anderson said.

She added that Alvarez’s staff started sending her threatening messages and in a phone call, supposedly told her that the Speaker’s marching orders were to “bring hell to [her] and the commissioner.”

Alvarez earlier denied the allegation, calling it a figment of Anderson’s imagination. But on Friday, he confirmed that he had indeed endorsed a Customs officer for promotion in a May 15 letter to Customs Commissioner Faeldon. But it was not “lobbying,” the Speaker said; just one of his many routine recommendations. ■

Philippine troops capture key bridge near Marawi militants THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Philippine troops have captured a key bridge leading to the main position of Islamic State group-linked militants in the southern city of Marawi but won’t stage a major assault and will instead press efforts to rescue civilian hostages, an official said Monday.

Government troops gained control last week of Mapandi bridge, which leads to Marawi’s interior business district, where just 40 to 60 remaining militants are believed to be holding 80 to 100 hostages, mostly in a large mosque, said military spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla. But a major assault wasn’t imminent, he said.

“We now have direct access to ground zero,” Padilla said at a news conference www.canadianinquirer.net

in Manila, referring to the bridge over Marawi’s Agus River that can now be used to rapidly transport troops and combat supplies. “Our main objective is to rescue the hostages.”

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered troops to ensure the safety of the hostages and not launch a massive assault that can endanger the captives even if that prolongs the militant siege, which has already dragged for more than two months.

More than 650 people have died in the violence, including 45 civilians.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana expressed fears Monday that the militants, who have been using their hostages as human shields, may force some of the captives to serve as suicide bombers.

“That’s one of the fears of our soldiers — they may let loose the civilians but force them to carry bombs,” Lorenzana told reporters. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

11

Panelo reminds retractors You can’t finish us off, Sison tells Duterte of Supt. Marcos’ right to be presumed innocent

BY LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer SUPT. MARVIN Marcos is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court, according to chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo.

Panelo spoke to reporters a day after senators insisted on the prosecution of Marcos for murder instead of homicide, as the Department of Justice had recommended, in connection with the killing of Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. of Albuera, Leyte province, in November 2016. This allowed Marcos to post bail and return to service.

President Duterte has tagged Espinosa as a drug lord in Eastern Visayas. Espinosa was detained on drug charges at the Leyte subprovincial jail in Baybay City when he and another inmate were gunned down in a predawn warrant raid by a police team led

by Marcos on Nov. 5 last year.

“The problem is, ever since, which is a wrong concept and wrong application, our country never observed the constitutional presumption of innocence,” Panelo said on Thursday.

Marcos is back in the Philippine National Police as regional director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

He is likely to be promoted to senior superintendent after six months, according to senators who suspected that the PNP is coddling Marcos and his cohorts and covering up what they had done.

“I think the promotion will be done if you do something new, not because you had killed someone. In the first place, we don’t know if he’s the one who killed [Espinosa] or not. No-

body knows what happened there,” Panelo said.

“That’s precisely why they were being charged, because that’s the speculation. You have to prove that in court beyond reasonable doubt,” he added.

Asked about the likelihood of promotion for Marcos, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said: “It’s better to just let him do his job first and perform, and see if there is any veracity for the new assignment.

So it’s really quite premature [to comment],” Abella said in a press briefing.

According to Panelo, the problem was that people treat those facing charges as if they had already been found guilty.

He defended Marcos’ reinstatement.

“What happened was they have judged him guilty. Everyone has become biased. That’s the problem,” Panelo said.

“What the President is saying, why can’t I reinstate him when we’re paying his salary? Besides, there is the presumption of innocence,” he added. But should Marcos be found guilty, he said the President would not tolerate him, he added.

On Thursday, Sen. JV Ejercito expressed hope that Marcos would go on voluntary leave.

He said in a tweet to reporters that Marcos had become a “liability ... too hot to handle” for the PNP. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the committee investigating Marcos, said what Ejercito suggested was “a waste of time.”

“He shouldn’t have accepted the assignment in the first place if he had the wisdom and sensitiveness to save his superiors and the PNP as an institution from criticisms,” Lacson said of Marcos. ■

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer PRESIDENT DUTERTE “is out of his mind and out of touch with reality” if he thinks he can finish off the communist insurgency in the next five years of his sixyear term, Jose Ma. Sison, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder, said on Sunday.

Sison reminded Mr. Duterte that the armed revolution was rooted in the masses’ fight for social justice, which could not be solved overnight, especially with the existing social order.

“He (the President) cannot finish off in five years an armed revolutionary movement deeply rooted among the toiling masses of workers and peasants, who are fighting for national and social liberation against the big and landlords represented now by him,” Sison told the Inquirer in an online chat.

Despite the government’s pronouncements that it has steadily weakened the communist insurgency, the “revolutionary forces” for the past five decades continue to “grow in strength and spread nationwide,” Sison said.

“The rank-and-file of the revolutionary forces in the Philippines are highly principled and sharp to know the evil scheme of the US-Duterte regime to combine martial rule and ‘Tokhang’ methods of mass compradors murder, and are ready to fight these effectively,” he said.

‘Crazed by power’

Sison accused Mr. Duterte of being “crazed by power and Fentanyl.”

The 72-year-old President has admitted to taking the powerful pain reliever, as prescribed by his doctor, for some of his ailments.

“In the few months or years

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President Duterte awarded medals and extended financial assistance to the wounded police officers during an attack by suspected members of the New People's Army in Guihulngan City.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ahead, the Duterte regime is the one in danger of being overthrown by the people if it does not change its extremely brutal and malicious ways.

“Duterte should start to shake in his boots the moment he sees a broad united front building up against his rule and fascist acts,” Sison said.

Sison said Mr. Duterte “merely pretended to be leftist and socialist,” a position taken by the former’s colleagues in the CPP, its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Philippine National Police Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa said on Saturday that the President had given him the order to “wipe out” communist rebels after the government had finished off the Islamic Stateinspired Maute-Abu Sayyaf coalition in Marawi City.

In his second State of the Nation Address last week, Mr. Duterte announced that he was abandoning peace negotiations with the Left and that the government would focus on the NPA once the Marawi siege was over.

Support for all-out war

Peace and conflict studies

expert Dennis Quilala said support was expected for the allout war against the communist rebels because the President “has prepared the public for this.”

However, Quilala expressed deep concern for the people who would be displaced by the fighting.

“The people who will be displaced need to prepare as well,” he said.

Quilala, a University of the Philippines professor, said Mr. Duterte’s plan would “definitely put pressure on the CPPNPA-NDFP.” He said the Duterte administration could even be successful if local government units (LGUs) would cooperate with the effort to address the communist insurgency, the longestrunning in Asia.

“It’s also difficult [for the national government] if they (LGUs) also pay revolutionary taxes or pay [the NPA] so that they could campaign in their areas,” Quilala said, referring to the “permit to campaign” imposed by the rebels during election season.

He said that “at best, (the insurgency) will be weakened” with such a combined effort between the national and local governments. ■

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Philippine News

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Drugs, guns presented at Priest nabbed ‘en inquest of Parojinog siblings route to motel’ with 13-year-old girl

BY JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE AND MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer THE DAUGHTER and son of slain Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. underwent inquest proceedings on charges of illegal possession of firearms and narcotics on Tuesday, two days after a predawn police raid in which their father and mother and 13 others were killed.

Several firearms and about a kilo of “shabu” (crystal meth) were presented as evidence by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) against Nova ParojinogEchaves, the vice mayor of Ozamiz, and her brother, Reynaldo Jr., during inquest proceedings at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame.

The panel of prosecutors headed by Senior State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera conducted the inquest after determining that the arrest of the Parojinog siblings was valid.

Navera said the Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors had yet to recommend any criminal charge against the Parojinog siblings.

“The prosecutors are still drafting the resolution. We have only concluded the inquest, but there is no finding of probable cause yet,” Navera told the Inquirer.

He said the panel was to issue a resolution today.

‘We didn’t waive our right’

Ferdinand Topacio, lawyer of the accused, noted that the 36hour period within which crime suspects could be detained without charges had lapsed and that he was considering fil-

BY JODEE A. AGONCILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer

Officers were to serve warrants to Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. (pictured) of Ozamiz city to search his houses for suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen allegedly opened fire on the police.

ing an arbitrary detention case against the CIDG. “We did not waive our right to a preliminary investigation so the case was deemed submitted for resolution based on the evidence submitted by the CIDG,” Topacio said.

He said his clients were charged with illegal possession of firearms and ammunition as well as possession of illegal drugs.

“We are seriously considering filing a case against the CIDG for the 36-hour detention without inquest and no charges,” he stressed, pointing out that while the CIDG had been citing “special circumstances” in the police operations against the Parojinogs there was no reason for the delay in the inquest.

Topacio said that the Parojinogs were already at the PNP Custodial Center as early as 9 a.m. on Monday so there was no justification for the delay in the inquest, which should have been done before 6 p.m. on Monday.

According to Topacio, it was only during the inquest proceedings that they were given copies of the search warrant served on the Parojinogs, the affidavit of the arresting officers, as well as an inventory of

the items allegedly seized from the Parojinogs’ compound.

The inquest lasted an hour.

“The CIDG had to ask for breaks to present all their evidence. It’s not a formal submission but they had to present everything they had against the respondents,” Topacio said.

“In an inquest, you have to present all the evidence,” he emphasized.

After the inquest, members of the CIDG were seen leaving the PNP Custodial Center with a tote bag, the long muzzle of a rifle jutting out, and an automatic rifle with tape wound around the grip.

Topacio said the inquest was not the proper forum to question the manner by which the search warrant was served.

He said he expected the prosecutors to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

“In fairness to senior state prosecutor Navera, he assured us it would be resolved with dispatch,” Topacio said, quoting the DOJ prosecutor.

The ruling of the panel that an inquest was proper for the case of the Parojinogs as well as the affirmation of the validity of the arrest “will be the basis of their continued detention,” Topacio said. ■

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A PRIEST who heads a Catholic school was arrested on Friday night as he was allegedly taking a 13-year-old girl to a motel in Marikina City.

Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos, 55, underwent inquest proceedings on Saturday afternoon for alleged violation of the AntiHuman Trafficking in Persons Act following his arrest around 6:30 p.m. on July 28 near Blue Wave Mall on Sumulong Highway in Barangay Sto. Niño.

Areport to Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula, Eastern Police District director, said a joint team from Marikina police and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) caught Lagarejos in his sport utility vehicle (SUV) with the minor.

He allegedly came to know the girl, an out-of-school youth, through a 16-year-old gay “pimp,” who was also arrested that same night.

The arrests were made based on information from the girl’s mother, who earlier alerted the Marikina police.

Suspect tight-lipped

In an interview, the city police chief, Senior Supt. Roger Quesada, said Lagarejos initially described himself as a selfemployed man when arrested but later admitted he was a priest during questioning.

Lagarejos, who remained in detention as of press time, refused to be interviewed by reporters.

Quoting statements from the mother and the arrested gay teenager, Quesada said Lagare-

jos was caught as he was about to take the girl to a motel on Sumulong Highway.

Seized from the gay teenager was his smartphone containing text messages purportedly about his transaction with the priest for the girl.

Sapitula said barangay officials and social workers had actually spoken with the girl a day before the entrapment.

The girl then said Lagarejos actually brought her to a motel for the first time in June and warned her “at gunpoint” not to let other men “book” her.

Based on the suspect’s Linkedin account, Lagarejos is the current president of Cainta Catholic College (CCC) and former parish priest of the Our Lady of Abandoned Parish also in Cainta.

His credentials, which are also listed in the CCC website, include a doctorate degree in Moral Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

P500 payment

During the entrapment operation, Quesada said, the girl’s mother and a police team waited at the spot where Lagarejos was expected to meet with the pimp.

When the priest arrived in his SUV, he was joined in the vehicle by the gay man and the girl.

The gay man later got out after receiving P500 from Lagarejos.

The priest then drove off with the girl but was later stopped by the arresting team along Sumulong Highway. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

13

Solons: How can people be happy with more taxes?

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer MORE TAXES, more happiness?

Economic planners touted on Tuesday the inclusion in the proposed P3.767trillion budget for 2018 of the concept of “gross national happiness (GNH),” a development philosophy popularized by Bhutan in the 1970s.

But at least one lawmaker was unhappy with the expenditure program, wondering: “How could the public be happy with more taxes?”

At the first congressional hearing on the 2018 budget, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia explained how the GNH metric would ensure the budget would be geared toward development goals and help raise the quality of life of Filipinos.

Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck coined the phrase “gross national happiness” in the mid-1970s, rejecting gross domestic product (GDP) as the only measure of progress.

GDP is the value of goods produced and services rendered in a given period.

GNH policies “take into account equality, family integrity, health, gender equity and satisfying jobs, among other things,” according to the Asian Development Bank.

The House appropriations committee chair, Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles, said his panel would take into account the concept of GNH in crafting the budget law.

“We should fund programs to make our people happy. Our national programs should be designed to ensure that our people are generally happy with their way of life,” Nograles said in a statement.

Senator Juan Edgardo Angara (left photo), chairperson of the Committee on Ways and Means, stresses a point on the "Tax Reform For Acceleration And Inclusion" focused on Amending the Estate Tax and Donor's Tax and the Imposition of 8% Gross Receipts Tax on Self-employed and Professionals. With him are Minority Leader Franklin Drilon (left) and Senator Sherwin Gatchalian. At right is Finance Undersecretary Dr. Karl Kendrick Chua.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Hard to achieve

But Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate said the new development indicator would be hard to achieve with the government’s “antipoor tax reform package that would spike the prices of basic services and commodities, and affect the majority of our poor people.”

“The poor will not be happy with the tax reform package because the only sure thing here is that the prices of everything will go up because of new taxes,” Zarate said.

In March, the House of Representatives approved the first of the Duterte administration’s tax reform package, which would lower personal income tax rates but raise taxes on fuels and sweetened beverages.

The budget proposal submitted by the Department of Budget and Management to the House assumes additional revenues from the new taxes.

“We have not even enacted the tax reform package yet [but] they have already included [revenues from the package] in their computation, which is illegal,” Zarate said.

PNP-CIDG files... ❰❰ 6

leged delivery man of Lim) and “Robert Doe” (also an alleged delivery man of Lim).

The filing of the case prompted Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II to place them on immigration watchlist on July 11 to prevent Lim and his co-accused from leaving the country to evade prosecution.

The DOJ has already summoned the respondents to appear at the preliminary investigation slated to begin on August 14 and 17 where they will be given a chance to air their side.

It would be recalled that Lim has been the subject of an investigation by the NBI last year after he was tagged as a drug lord by President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte earlier identified Lim and Espinosa as among the drug lords operat-

The proposed 2018 budget is 12.4-percent higher than this year’s budget of P3.35 trillion and constitutes 21.6 percent of the GDP. Biggest chunk

The education sector will get the biggest chunk of the budget with a funding of P691.1 billion broken down as follows: Department of Education, P613.1 billion; Commission on Higher Education, P13.5 billion; and state universities and colleges, P64.6 billion.

Other agencies with huge budgetary

allocations are Department of Public Works and Highways, P643.3 billion; Department of the Interior and Local Government, P172.3 billion; Department of Health, P164.3 billion; Department of National Defense, P145 billion; Department of Social Welfare and Development, P138 billion; Department of Transportation, P73.8 billion; Department of Agriculture, P54.2 billion; Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, P33.5 billion; and Department of Environment and Natural Resources, P27.9 billion. ■

Friday, August 18, 2017, 10AM-2PM, MHHS-NRC 4802 Fraser St. Vancouver, BC V5V 4H4

BRING YOUR RESUME AND PREPARE FOR THE ON-SITE INTERVIEWS WITH: ing in the Visayas.

Last July 2016, Duterte met with the Cebu-based businessman in Davao City and advised the latter to prove that he is not the Peter Lim identified as a member of a drug triad in the Visayas.

Espinosa is a son of late Albuera, Leyte mayor Rolando Espinosa who was allegedly involved in illegal drugs. The older Espinosa was killed by CIDG operatives last November 2016 inside a jail in Baybay, Leyte.

Adorco and Miro are known top aides of the Espinosas while Impal was identified by Kerwin as the supplier of illegal drugs in the Visayas.

Pepito, on the other hand, is one of Kerwin’s men who would transport the drugs from Matnog , Sorsogon to Ormoc. Leyte. ■

Our Media Partner:

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Opinion

14

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

PUBLIC LIVES

What is the magic behind Digong speak?

By Randy David Philippine Daily Inquirer WHILE these figures suggest an agBy now, people who have listened to President Duterte speak in public a couple of times may have learned to focus less on the information he “gives” than on the information he “gives off.” Not so much on the priorities of his administration, as on who the current objects of presidential ire are. Not so much on what he says as how he says it.

Some people can never get used to this style of public speaking. But, not his legion of admirers. They prefer authenticity over substance, and every speech of the President seems to affirm this for them. They like seeing him unbound and unchanged by the trappings of the presidency. To them, it is a comforting sign that he remains the individual that he is, the sole author of his actions—neither the aloof functionary of an anonymous entity called government, nor the tool of a despised oligarchy.

Mr. Duterte plays this role to the hilt. He manifests impatience and awkwardness, and, sometimes, even contempt, for the rituals that have become integral to the office of the President. The State of the Nation Address is a prime example of these rituals. Most presidents do

their best to embrace the role as- guage; it is also because of the un- the same way that politics itself signed to them in these state func- restrained and raw quality of his has lost much of the aura that used to shroud it in traditional society. tions. They try hard to sound and casual speech.

The image he projects is that of Nowadays, it is not uncommon to look as though they were not reading from a teleprompter, that they someone who talks with author- hear people speak of politics and understand and mean every word ity not because of the office he oc- of politicians in purely negative they speak. Mr. Duterte is differ- cupies but because of the person terms.

In many ways, the rise of antiesent. Indeed, he not only deviates that he is. The Arcade Dictionary from his prepared speech; he also of Word Origins explains the ori- tablishment leaders like President seems to draw satisfaction from gin of the word “authentic” thus: Duterte is symptomatic of these mocking the artifice behind the en- “Etymologically, something that is anti-political times. They repreauthentic is something that has the sent, to the common folk, the antire event. tithesis of the polished statesman, At several points in his sec- authority of its original creator.”

Certainly, Mr. Duterte would be the technocrat, and the professionond Sona, Mr. Duterte tells the operator of the teleprompter to interesting to listen to any time. al politician. Thrust into the nerve stop rolling the text because his He is folksy, friendly, and funny; center of the state by the same electoral exercise eyes were getting they distrust, such tired. Prior to this, The image he projects is that of someone who talks leaders invariably he is seen dutiwith authority not because of the office he occupies but find themselves fully reading the because of the person that he is. hemmed in by the text as though it sheer power of the were something he wanted to quickly get done he loves to crack outrageous jokes, formative routines of the modern with. With the official text in sus- and never runs out of stories to political system.

Their charisma and their willpension, he pauses, takes a deep make a point. His reputation as breath, and squarely faces his au- an endearing thug also precedes fulness notwithstanding, they dience. Then, like the common him. But, if he were not president, soon realize they have no choice folk who identify with him, he pro- I doubt if he would be able to com- but to bow to the authority of the ceeds to “speak from the heart.” As mand the same attention that he systems in place if they are to get though on cue, the audience sits does when he addresses the public anything done. Much as they wish to skirt them, they could not igup to listen intently to the authen- from the high perch of his office.

The public has always looked nore the existing hierarchies of tic voice of the man who occupies up to the office of the President as decision-making and accountabilthe highest office of the land.

This is the magic behind Mr. a source of direction in uncertain ity to which officials in the lower Duterte’s speaking style. Although times, a beacon for a nation in need echelons of government are in he often speaks in a kind of drone, of orientation. Perhaps, in a com- thrall. At every turn, leaders like he is never boring. And, it is not plex society, it no longer serves Mr. Duterte are reminded of the merely because of his colorful lan- this purpose for a lot of people, in imperatives of due process, of the

rule of law, of the inviolability of the principle of separation of powers, of the autonomy of constitutional bodies, and the sanctity of contracts, etc. They have so much power over the lives of their citizens, but they soon discover that the economy is not under their command, nor are the educational, religious, and communication systems of society.

I think that if we want to know where the Duterte administration is headed, we would learn more from carefully scrutinizing the text and subtext of the written Sona (portions of which the President skipped) and the proposed national budget that accompanies it, than from attempting to decipher the deep impulses behind Mr. Duterte’s fulminations.

Like every politician before him, President Duterte has promised radical change under his administration. His fiery rhetoric conveys this in no uncertain terms. But, I think, unless they are specifically named, those whose fortunes are massively affected by the twists and turns of government policy might learn to listen to these offthe-cuff presidential speeches more for amusement than for policy guidance. Having said that, I cannot presume to knowhowthese speeches shape the consciousness of the ordinary folk. ■

Aguirre flip-flops on PCGG abolition

BY MARLON RAMOS Philippine Daily Inquirer DID JUSTICE Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II make another 180-degree turn?

Often criticized for flipflopping on several issues, Aguirre contradicted himself again as he threw his weight behind the proposed abolition of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the state agency created to recover some $10 billion in public funds embezzled by the Marcos family.

Barely two months after expressing his opposition to the plan, the justice secretary shared the opinion of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno that the Department of Justice (DOJ) could carry out the PCGG’s mandate.

Besides, he said the PCGG, an attached agency of the DOJ, and some of the sequestered corporations it had been operating were already wrapping up their operations.

“Actually, corporations under the supervision of the PCGG have been operating for quite some time. We are already for winding up their operations, even the big corporations,” Aguirre told reporters.

“They won’t last long anyway. If the [PCGG] would be abolished and absorbed by [the DOJ], there will be no difference because it’s actually an attached agency,” he said.

Complete turnaround

Aguirre’s remarks were a complete turnaround from his previous opinion in a position paper he sent to the House of Representatives regarding two

proposed bills seeking to dissolve the PCGG and the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC).

Last week, Diokno said the move to stamp out the PCGGwas part of the Duterte administration’s goal to cut down the government’s expenses by downsizing the executive branch.

In objecting to the planned abolition, Aguirre pointed out that transferring the PCGG’s mandate to the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), as contained in House Bills No. 5216 and No. 5233, was unconstitutional.

“The Constitution provides that ‘every bill passed by the Congress shall embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title thereof.’ The Constitution does not allow the insertions of riders in legislawww.canadianinquirer.net

tion, a rider being a provision which is alien or not germane to the subject or purpose of the bill in which it is incorporated,” read a part of Aguirre’s position paper.

In addition, he said the proposed setup might lead to conflict of interest on the part of the OSG, noting there had been several cases where the OGCC and the OSG “find themselves representing opposing sides with conflicting interests.”

Bold statements

“This department sees nothing wrong with the OSG, OGCC and PCGG existing independently of each other. In order to strengthen the OSG, there is no need to abolish the OGCC and the PCGG,” he said.

Aguirre, arguably one of President Duterte’s most controversial aides, had been mak-

ing bold statements and accusations against some of the Presi- dent’s critics, only to retract them later after getting strong public criticism.

Last month, he claimed that opposition Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Bam Aquino met with members of the Lucman and Alonto clans a few days before the Islamic Statelinked Maute terror group laid siege to Marawi City on May 23.

After the personalties he tagged in the supposed plot showed evidence disproving his claims, the justice secretary was forced to take back his accusations and blamed the media for allegedly misquoting him.

This earned him the tag “Fake News King” from youth groups, which brought a complaint against him to the Office of the Ombudsman. ■

Opinion

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

15

AT LARGE

A matter of public safety

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer DEMAND FOR — as well as the resulting high prices of— construction materials is said to be an indicator of the state and pace of development in a country. After all, high demand for cement and other materials needed for the construction of buildings, houses, bridges and other structures is a sign of a robust economy, expressed through rising demand for housing, office space, retail space, leisure areas and other locales for public gatherings and other purposes.

Which is why the price of cement, mentioned in this space earlier, is a matter of public concern. In that previous column, it was mentioned that a newly imposed requirement for an import clearance certificate (ICC) on cement importers could result in an increase in cement prices, slowing the

momentum of the government’s much-vaunted “build, build, build” drive and putting economic growth at risk.

One of the main points raised against the new requirement was that while it was going to be imposed on cement importers, local manufacturers-importers would be exempt.

To clarify, Trade Undersecretary Teodoro Pascua says the new regulation was preceded by consultations dating back to 2016, with industry stakeholders, including manufacturers and importers alike.

The new department administrative order, Pascua added, is “heavily considering the protection of the consumers, especially those like you and me, the ordinary ‘small’ consumers.”

Big-time developers, says Pascua, on their own test the cement that they use for their projects. Developers like SM, Ayala Land, Megaworld, D.M. Consunji and the like could

very well protect themselves and their clients against possible construction failures by conducting their own tests.

“But small-time homeowners and house-builders,” adds Pascua, “have no way of testing the cement they need and so must rely on the assurances provided by hardware suppliers and by government accreditation. *** The only reason the new standards are being imposed, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, is to protect consumers from possible substandard imported cement since lives could be endangered if substandard cement enters the market.

Cement manufacturers-importers, it is explained, are not required to secure an ICC because they have been classified as “low-risk,” therefore likely to ensure product quality since manufacturers of “branded” or recognized cement products

would not risk their companies’ reputation with shoddy products. *** Since June, says Pascua, three civil cases for TROs on the implementation of the new administrative order have been filed by cement importers in different courts in Makati. Two of these cases have been withdrawn or dismissed, so only one case remains pending and is being attended to by the Solicitor General for and on behalf of the DTI. This then is a question of motivation. Cement importers say they are fighting the administrative order because they fear new requirements would lead to unforeseen costs that would force them to raise prices. On the other hand, the DTI says it needs to impose more stringent regulations against imported cement whose provenance and quality it has no way of checking before the product is sold and

used by an unknowing public.

Perhaps, while the issue is still up in the air, the public would do well to leave the matter to the courts, and to the DTI to implement the rules in the meantime. From where I sit, public safety should be a matter of priority, and proper testing and certifying of cement products should be carried out.

In contrast, the DTI says, it is possible that some importers may not be able to account for the quality and vouch for the brand of cement they supply.

As for the issue of possible increases of cement prices because of the new regulation, Pascua points out that the prevailing price of cement in the National Capital Region from 2013 to the present has ranged from P218 to P220 per bag. “So I don’t know where the possible price increase to P300 per bag caused by the testing requirement comes from,” adds the undersecretary. ■

LOOKING BACK

Killing, burning in Balangiga

By Ambeth R. Ocampo Philippine Daily Inquirer IN HIS recent State of the Nation Address President Duterte made a demand for the return of the Balangiga bells taken as war booty during the PhilippineAmerican War. There are three bells displayed as trophies of war in US military bases: two in Wyoming and another in Korea. But hardliners want all and get nothing. I believe we should initially work for the one in Korea and leave the rest for later.

In April 1998 then President Fidel V. Ramos negotiated for much less—half a bell! In a discussion with then US President Bill Clinton he proposed “… what, in my view, was a win-win solution—cut both bells in half, and each country to keep two halves to be restored to their original shapes afterwards.”

Ramos recalled: “President Clinton favored the sharing proposal, but was stymied by an amendment to the National De-

fense Authorization Act (Pentagon Budget) to ‘prohibit the return of veterans’ memorial objects to foreign nations without specific authorization in law.’ The rider was introduced a few weeks before by then Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming who intoned, ‘History brought the bells to Wyoming, and there they should stay.’

“To be sure, as there were groups who objected to the bells’ return, being ‘legitimate spoils of war that enshrine the memory of American soldiers,’ there were more who strongly supported their return to the Philippines— among them, the Wyoming State Senate and House of Representatives, Wyoming Veterans Commission, and National Bishops Conference of America. To his credit, Bishop Joseph Hart of the Cheyenne Diocese, who consistently supported the return of the Balangiga bells, said: ‘Religious objects are inappropriate trophies of war. Church bells are religious artifacts with consid-

erable signifi- cance in Catholic tradition. These bells should be returned to theplace and purpose for which they were cast and blessed.’”

Two decades after the Ramos visit, the bells are still abroad.

They are significant as a reminder of the Balangiga Massacre and the reprisal that arose from it. I shudder to even imagine it.

Balangiga was manned by the US 9th Infantry Company C led by a West Pointer, Capt. Thomas O’Connell. Some members of this company saw action in the Cuban War and the Boxer Rebellion, so they thought their battle experience was sufficient to handle Filipinos they belittled as “gugus” or “niggers” or “monkeys with no tails.” On Sept. 28, 1901, the enemy was roused from bed by reveille at 6:30 a.m. and headed to the mess hall as usual. It was a particularly happy day because mail had arrived, the first in months, carrying letters and packages from America. www.canadianinquirer.net

All was normal until a Filipino police chief grabbed the rifle of an enemy sentry and used it to smash the poor man’s head in.

Then he yelled and the church bells rang. From afar, conch shell horns could be heard and before the enemy could make sense of what was going on, the Filipinos attacked them with bolos.

On the second floor of the convento commandeered as officers’ quarters, O’Connell was still in his pajamas when he realized what was happening. He rushed out, only to be stabbed and hacked to death. His head was chopped off and thrown into a fire. One gruesome account mentions that one of his fingers was bitten off to get his West Point ring.

Lieutenant Bumpus, second in command, was on an easy chair about to open a letter when a bolo man lopped off his face and threw his corpse out the window. When it hit the ground, others gouged the eyes out, and the head was later smeared with

jam to attract ants. Elsewhere in the camp, enemy soldiers were killed still holding their breakfast spoons. One had his severed head on a plate; another severed head was dunked in a kettle of boiling water, the feet cut off so his shoes could be stolen.

Some enemy soldiers fought back, scalding the Pinoys with boiling hot coffee. Another, a hometown baseball pitcher, pelted the Pinoys with canned goods until he ran out of ammunition and was killed.

In retaliation, Gen. Jacob Smith razed Balangiga and gave the infamous order to kill all Filipino males above 10, or anyone old enough to carry arms: “I want no prisoners… I wish you to kill and burn. The more you burn and kill, the better it will please me… I want Samar turned into a howling wilderness.”

A century after the Balangiga Massacre we find ourselves asking not just what to remember but also how we should remember, and why. ■

16

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Canada News As Canadian stations expand local news, experts wonder how successful it will be

BY DIRK MEISSNER The Canadian Press

360B / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Trudeau, Pallister talk northern rail and health care funding in Winnipeg

BY STEVE LAMBERT The Canadian Press WINNIPEG — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday the federal government is willing to use all options to force Denver-based Omnitrax Inc. to repair a flooded-out rail line that has cut off the subarctic community of Churchill, Man. The remote town’s 900 residents have had to have goods flown in, at much higher cost, since the rail line was severely damaged by high water this spring. The rail line was once federally-owned but was sold to Omnitrax in 1997.

Omnitrax has estimated repairs at between $20-$60 million and has said it cannot afford the cost.

After a half-hour meeting with Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, Trudeau said the federal government will demand Omnitrax follow through.

“Omintrax has legal obligations to clean up and to repair the tracks. That is something that we are very serious about making sure that Omnitrax lives up to,” Trudeau said.

The prime minister was asked whether the government might sue Omnitrax for breach of con-

tract if the repairs are not made.

“We’re looking at all options as we ensure that contracts and obligations are respected and fulfilled,” he told reporters.

“We will be using the tools at our disposal to ensure and stand up for the people of Churchill,” he added when pressed further.

Churchill mayor Michael Spence said in a news release that he spoke with Trudeau on Friday night, and that the prime minister noted the importance of the railway to Manitoba’s north.

The rail line was the main topic of conversation for Trudeau during his meeting with Pallister. But the two men also discussed areas of disagreement, such as Manitoba’s refusal to sign on to the national health accord that outlines health care payments to the provinces for the next 10 years.

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government is the lone holdout. Other provinces that have signed on since the deal was announced last fall have been given extra money for services such as home care and mental health.

Trudeau said he is confident he and Pallister will reach an agreement soon.

“I’m very optimistic we’re ❱❱ PAGE 28 Trudeau, Pallister

TORONTO — A year after Canada’s broadcast regulator demanded that English-language TV stations devote more time to local news, some networks are now doing just that.

Bell Media recently announced it’s adding 5 p.m. newscasts to all its local CTV stations, and Rogers is expanding its local newscast format “CityNews” to Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Montreal.

While industry observers are happy to see more emphasis on local again after years of cutbacks, they also wonder how it will be successful in an age when the news industry as a whole is in bad shape, with newspapers closing and advertising revenue shrinking and shifting to digital.

“It’s a good thing, I just don’t understand how it makes money,” said Richard Stursberg, a former CBC executive who heads the writers’ group Pen Canada.

“What we know for sure is that all the conventional news at television networks ... are underwater. They’re all losing money ... and within that, their local news is losing money.

That’s the most recent numbers from the CRTC. So how this works for them, financially, I don’t really understand.”

Ian Morrison, spokesman for the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said he’s taking the announcements about local news expansion with a grain of salt.

“I don’t think they’re investing more money. I think they’re spreading the existing money more thinly,” said Morrison. “They’re pouring water into their wine, and eventually when you pour water into wine, it’s really water and not wine.”

In June 2016, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission demanded www.canadianinquirer.net

English-language stations in nonmetropolitan markets broadcast at least seven hours of “locally relevant programming” each week. In metropolitan markets, like Toronto and Vancouver, that number is 14 hours per week.

Rogers Media announced in June that local versions of “CityNews” will start airing in Edmonton and Winnipeg on Sept. 4. The newscasts head to Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary in winter 2018.

Dave Budge, vice president of television news and information at Rogers, said they’re aiming for “innovation and breaking the mould,” like they have with anchor-free newscasts in Toronto.

“For ‘CityNews’ to succeed in news markets and to provide a service, we’ve got to be different from what’s already available on the existing mainstream TV news outlets,” said Budge.

Local news is “the thing that can help us stand out from the Netflix-es and others of the world, because we own that content and nobody else can compete with a local broadcaster on that,” added Budge.

“It’s interesting because news has become relatively unpopular in terms of broadcasters trying to find a way to monetize it,” said Rick Brace, president of Rogers Media.

“We think that with what we’ve done with City and the way we produce ‘CityNews’ now, that that model across the country is going to work for us and it will be monetizable.”

Rogers plans to hire “scores of people over the next few months,” “primarily young, multi-skilled, multi-platform journalists,” said Budge.

“I think the investment is worth it,” he said. “Television is still the No. 1 source of information, despite the growth of the Internet and digital platforms.

“And what we’ve seen in Toronto is that it can be a strong choice even for millennials,

who, the conventional wisdom is, young people today aren’t going to get their news from television anymore. Well we’ve had triple-digit ratings growth in the 18-to-34 demographic.”

Over at Bell Media, the plan is to air newscasts at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. at all local CTV stations. Previously it only had 5 p.m. newscasts in British Columbia, Alberta and Atlantic Canada. Corus already has local newscasts starting at 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on many of its Global stations.

In July, Bell Media started airing “Live at 5” from all-news channel CP24 on CTV Toronto.

But in the other markets that didn’t previously have a 5 p.m. newscast, it will be a new show to lead into the 6 p.m. news.

“I think we’re going to reach within our own talent base across the system to present the news,” said Mike Cosentino, senior vice-president of content and programming at Bell Media.

“It’s good news for local news, it’s good news for local markets, it’s great news if you’re working at CTV in the news area because it’s an expansion of news.”

Janice Neil, the chairwoman of the school of journalism at Ryerson University, is hopeful the renewed emphasis on local will provide a boost to the broadcast journalism industry and communities looking for representation and check and balances.

Still, Morrison is worried there will be fewer professionals working on local news, resulting in lower production values. He also notes many journalists these days have to multi-task, which results in stories that are recycled on multiple mediums and don’t always work on every platform.

“I’m accusing them of trying to defend themselves, I guess, by giving the impression that everything is going to be OK when in fact is isn’t and there will be further cuts and ultimately station closures.” ■

17

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

Foreign buyers’ tax and other measures under review, B.C. housing minister says

BY ALEKSANDRA SAGAN The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — The British Columbia government is reviewing the foreign buyers’ tax in the Vancouver area and the interest-free loan program to first-time homebuyers to determine whether they have been effective in improving affordability, the province’s new housing minister says.

In an interview Monday, Selina Robinson said she and provincial Finance Minister Carole James will go over real estate transaction data in an effort to decide whether such measures should be kept, revised or scrapped altogether.

“I don’t know that we have any plans to eliminate it,” Robinson said of the 15 per cent

foreign buyers’ levy, nearly a year after the previous Liberal government introduced it for Metro Vancouver.

“There’s certainly enough data that would help us to understand its value, and so, we have to look at that data.”

Robinson said she understands the tax had some impact early on, but that is starting to slip away.

From June 10 until Aug. 1, 2016 — one day before the tax took effect — 13.2 per cent of all property transfer transactions in Metro Vancouver involved foreign buyers, according to data from the B.C. Finance Ministry. From Aug. 2, 2016, until the end of last year, that figure fell to 2.6 per cent.

In the months after the tax, there were signs of cooling in Vancouver’s housing market,

with the number of transactions falling. However, there have been signs that the market may be rebounding, as prices continue to creep up.

The Multiple Listing Service composite benchmark price for all properties in Metro Vancouver was $998,700 in June, an increase of 7.9 per cent from the same month last year, according to the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board.

Tsur Somerville, the director of the University of British Columbia Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate, said the tax may have dampened foreign interest in a city where housing prices are among the most expensive in North America.

But another possibility is that some foreign buyers are not self-identifying as such or have shifted to purchasing proper-

ties, such as presale condominiums, that aren’t covered by the tax, he said.

The foreign buyers’ tax was a contentious move that angered some groups and prompted a class-action lawsuit that is now awaiting its certification hearing in early November.

The claim’s lead plaintiff is Jing Li, a Chinese citizen residing in Burnaby, B.C., who found the $559,000 property she purchased in July would suddenly be subject to an additional $83,850 in taxes after the government announced the tax as her property’s completion date was after August 2.

The proposed suit alleges the tax is unconstitutional.

Robinson was unable to comment on whether her party would fight the action in court.

Before they won the May

election, the NDP promised to bring in an annual two per cent tax on vacant properties, but Robinson said that too is under review.

Andrey Pavlov, a professor who specializes in real estate finance at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said he hopes the government implements policies that would ease development restrictions to increase housing supply.

“Unless we can increase supply, we can tax people at any rate we want,” Pavlov said.

“It’s not going to make any difference because we just don’t have enough units.” ■

Former B.C. premier quits as Liberal leader and as member of legislature

BY DIRK MEISSNER The Canadian Press VICTORIA — Christy Clark, a gifted political campaigner with an ever-present smile, announced her resignation Friday as leader of British Columbia’s Liberal party, one month after her government was tossed from power in a dramatic confidence vote.

Her resignation is effective Aug. 4, the former premier said in a statement. She is also leaving as a member of the legislature serving the riding of Kelowna-West.

“Serving as premier and serving the people of B.C. for the past six and a half years has been an incredible honour and privilege,” Clark said. “I am certain that B.C.’s best days lie ahead.”

Clark broke the news to her Liberal caucus in Penticton where members had gathered to prepare for their new political roles in Opposition after 16 years as government.

An emotional Rich Coleman, a former cabinet minister in the

Liberal government, said Clark stepped aside to allow the party to elect a new leader and begin a process of renewal.

The party executive now has 28 days to set a date and plan for a leadership vote, said Coleman, who will serve as interim leader.

“I’ve never worked with anyone with more passion and love, strength of leadership and management in my entire life,” he said. “What she’s given this province should never be forgotten. It’s a tough day for our family, our B.C. Liberal family.”

Former Liberal cabinet minister Terry Lake said Clark likely struggled with her choice but decided to put the growth of the party ahead of her remarkable political career.

“Given the results of the election and the mood ... of British Columbia, and probably within the party and the caucus, she thought that her stepping aside would be the best thing for all the people involved,” he said in an interview.

Former cabinet minister Bill Bennett said Clark could have stayed as leader, but he under-

stands her choice to make room for renewal.

“I’m not happy about the decision,” he said. “I wish she had hung on, but I understand why she thinks it’s better for the party to have fresh leadership.”

Clark, 51, led a come-frombehind victory in 2013, sweeping her party to a surprise win over the New Democrats who held a 20-point lead in the polls at the start of the campaign.

But she couldn’t pull off a majority government in the election this May, winning 43 of 87 seats in the legislature, one short of a majority.

The Liberal government lost a confidence vote at the end of June.

Clark said that when she offered her resignation to Lt.Gov. Judith Guichon she tried to convince Guichon to call an election. Instead, the lieutenant-governor asked New Democrat Leader John Horgan to form government.

The New Democrats, with 41 seats, formed a minority government with the support of the Greens, who won three seats. Horgan and his cabinet www.canadianinquirer.net

CHRISTY CLARK / FACEBOOK

were sworn in last week.

Horgan said in a statement that Clark was a dedicated servant of the province.

“As an MLA and as premier, Ms. Clark fought passionately for what she believed in,” he said. “I know she will take that passion and energy to her next opportunity.”

Green party Leader Andrew Weaver issued a statement thanking Clark for her service, calling her a fierce advocate for the province both at home and abroad.

“A highlight of my time in the legislature was working directly with Christy Clark to implement sexualized violence policy legis-

lation for B.C.’s post-secondary institutions,” he said.

“Her leadership and willingness to work across party lines on this vital issue has made universities and colleges across this province safer for our students, and for this I am grateful.”

Clark was first elected to the legislature in 1996 and became deputy premier and education minister after the Liberals’ landslide victory in 2001. She left government in 2005 to spend more time with her family.

She won the B.C. Liberal leadership in 2011 and became the first woman in the province to ❱❱ PAGE 28 Former B.C.

18

Canada News

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Pipeline, opioid crisis likely on agenda as Trudeau meets with Vancouver mayor THE CANADIAN PRESS VANCOUVER — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to meet with Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson this morning, but their once-rosy relationship has been threatened by the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Trudeau’s government approved the $7.4-billion expansion last November despite Robertson’s staunch opposition to the project, which would see a sevenfold increase in the number of tankers in Vancouver-area waters.

Robertson and Trudeau have long had a friendly rapport, but

the mayor has said he was “profoundly disappointed” by the decision, calling it a “big step backwards” for Canada’s environment and economy.

The opioid epidemic that has claimed hundreds of lives in Vancouver is also likely to be high on the agenda for the meeting, as is the city’s affordable-housing crisis.

Trudeau took a helicopter tour yesterday of the damage caused by fast-moving wildfires in British Columbia’s Interior and thanked the crews who have fought to the edge of exhaustion to keep people and buildings safe.

He later spoke at a $1,000-a-

plate Liberal fundraiser in Surrey, where he urged the crowd of about 250 people to donate to the Canadian Red Cross to help people displaced by wildfires.

The Liberals have faced criticism over expensive fundraisers attended by the prime minister, but the party says it’s increased transparency by requiring the events to be posted publicly three days in advance and providing guest lists no more than 45 days afterward.

Inside the banquet hall last night, Trudeau urged supporters to help the Liberals get re-elected in 2019. Canada needs to keep going in the same direction, he

said, “at a time when the world is turning toward the politics of division, populism and fear.”

“Canada’s showing there’s a different way to govern, a different way to operate — a place grounded in reason and bringing out the best in our neighbours instead of fighting against the worst,” he said.

All around the world, people are anxious about themselves, their children and their communities, he said.

“Politicians always have a choice. You can either draw on those anxieties and fear and try and play off of them and win because of them ... or instead we

can pull together and give ourselves the tools as a society to meet those challenges head on.”

The speech drew loud applause from the primarily South Asian audience.

Trudeau also urged the crowd to remember that “we’ve got some competition,” as the Conservatives have chosen a new leader, Andrew Scheer, and the New Democrats will have a new leader by the end of the year.

“Their supporters aren’t waiting until next year to make a donation or volunteer their time. They’re doing it now, and we need to be doing that work right now, too.” ■

A year in the sun:

N.W.T. community’s solar experiment a success

BY BOB WEBER The Canadian Press COLVILLE LAKE, N.W.T. — A year after his tiny Arctic community became a test case for solar power in the North, it’s the sounds that Alvin Orlias notices.

“I’m standing outside right now and it’s quiet,” said the superintendent of Colville Lake’s unique solar-diesel power plant. “You can hear birds chirping in the background.”

The Dene hamlet of about 150 people north of Great Bear Lake made history last year by becoming the first in the North to replace its near-derelict diesel generator — a common problem in the region — with a combination of diesel, batteries and a solar array capable of generating 160 kilowatts.

The idea was to use diesel as a backup and during the winter, and turn to the sun for everything else.

Twelve months later, that’s about how it’s worked out, said Myra Berrub of Northwest Territories Power Corp.

“During periods when the batteries are loaded up or we’re getting good production out of the solar facility, we can in fact turn off the diesel. The community has

made comment that it’s quiet.”

Berrub said about one-fifth of the town’s annual energy use now comes from the sun, even though the panels produce almost nothing between November and January. Just as important, the batteries allow more efficient operation of the diesel generator.

The corporation estimates that it saved 37,000 litres of diesel fuel just from solar generation.

There have been bugs in adjusting and balancing the capacities of both systems. But the panels themselves are highly reliable and Orlias said he can resolve most problems on-site.

It’s a vast improvement over the old generator, which shut down an average of 31 times a year.

Colville Lake could be a glimpse of the future.

Outside Yukon’s abundant hydro power, almost all Canadian Arctic communities depend on giant diesel generators that get their expensive, highcarbon fuel delivered over ice roads and on barges.

A 2015 Senate committee concluded northern electricity systems are “aging, underperforming and at capacity.”

Northern premiers regularly request federal funds to deal with the problem.

Some renewable energy al-

ready functions in the Arctic.

Biomass — also known as “wood stoves” — heats many homes. Wind turbines have been installed outside Whitehorse as well as in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. Northwest Territories Power also operates solar arrays in Fort Simpson.

Interested observers from around the circumpolar North have already visited Colville Lake to take notes.

Berrub cautions that the community’s approach won’t simply be duplicated across the North.

“All our communities are different. There is no cookie-cutter approach on this.”

Wind may be more appropriate for some places. Others may not be as open to trying something new.

The Colville solution is also expensive.

The total cost was about $8 million and required $1.3 million in government funding.

Calculations on how long it will take for the savings in diesel to pay for the solar panels haven’t been done yet.

But people like the new arrangement, said Orlias.

“I come to work at 8:30 in the morning and it’s quiet. The sun is out and generating power and powering the town.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

Edmonton couple in tiny condominium shocked by massive power bill THE CANADIAN PRESS EDMONTON — A couple who moved into a tiny downtown Edmonton condo say they were shocked to get their first power bill for a whopping $11,253.

Colten Yamagishi and Vivian Kwan have lived in the 600-square-foot condo across from Rogers Place for less than a month.

Yamagishi says he suspected it was simply a mistake when he saw the bill indicated they had used more than 122,000 kilowatts of power — enough to light up the entire 30-storey building they live in.

But when they called the city power company Epcor, they were told it was no mistake, it was their fault and they had to

pay the amount in full.

Yamagishi admits they ran into some problems when they first tried to register on Epcor’s website.

He says he couldn’t find the actual address and he figures the form ended up processing his application for the entire building.

A spokesperson for Epcor tells CTV News the couple was mistakenly charged and the file is now being investigated.

“We’re looking at everything that happened here, and that’s one of the things we’re looking at, but that’s going to take some time,” says spokesman Tim LeRiche.

Epcor has voided the bill and cancelled the account, and the couple now plans to use a third-party company that works directly with Epcor to make sure they’re charged only for the power they use. ■

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20

World News

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Court says 2 Venezuela opposition leaders back to prison

BY MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN The Associated Press CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Two of Venezuela’s leading opposition figures were taken from their homes in the middle of the night by state security agents on Tuesday in President Nicolas Maduro’s government’s first moves against prominent enemies since a widely denounced vote granting the ruling party nearly unlimited powers.

The Venezuelan Supreme Court said in a statement that Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma had violated the terms of their house arrest by criticizing the government in messages released on social media in recent days.

The court, which is controlled by Maduro allies, also said that it had received “reports from official intelligence sources” that the two men had been planning to flee.

Relatives and allies of Lopez and former Caracas Mayor Ledezma earlier reported on social media that both had been detained. Lopez’s wife posted what appeared to be video of him being taken from their home after midnight.

“They’ve just taken Leopoldo from the house,” Lilian Tintori wrote on Twitter. “We don’t know where he is or where they’re taking him.”

Allies of Ledezma posted video of a man who appeared to be the opposition leader be-

ing taken by state security as a woman screams for help for neighbours.

“They’re taking Ledezma!” she cries. “It’s a dictatorship!”

Attorney Juan Carlos Gutierrez said the government’s decision to return Lopez to prison was “completely arbitrary” and said Lopez had obeyed the conditions imposed on his house arrest and had never had plans to flee.

Lopez had been released from the Ramo Verde military prison on July 8 after serving three years of a 13-year sentence for inciting violence at opposition rallies. Many human rights groups considered him a political prisoner.

Ledezma was also detained in 2015 and has been under house arrest. Both leaders recently posted videos online denouncing Maduro’s decision to hold a vote for a constitutional assembly with the power to overhaul Venezuela’s political system.

Maduro said Monday evening he had no intention of deviating from his plans to rewrite the constitution and go after a string of enemies, from independent Venezuelan news channels to gunmen he claimed were sent by neighbouring Colombia to disrupt the vote as part of an international conspiracy led by the man he calls “Emperor Donald Trump.”

“They don’t intimidate me.

The threats and sanctions of the empire don’t intimidate me for a moment,” Maduro said on national television. “I don’t listen to orders from the empire, not

now or ever ... Bring on more sanctions, Donald Trump.”

A few hours earlier, Washington added Maduro to a steadily growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials targeted by financial sanctions, escalating a tactic that has so far failed to alter his socialist government’s behaviour. For now, the Trump administration has not delivered on threats to sanction Venezuela’s oil industry, which could undermine Maduro’s government but raise U.S. gas prices and deepen the humanitarian crisis here.

The sanctions came after electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted Sunday to create the constitutional assembly — a turnout doubted by independent analysts while the election was labeled illegitimate by leaders across the Americans and Europe.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council said turnout in Sunday’s vote was 41.53 per cent, or 8,089,320 people. The result would mean the ruling party won more support than it had in any national election since 2013, despite a cratering economy, spiraling inflation, shortages of medicine and malnutrition. Opinion polls had said some 85 per cent of Venezuelans disapproved of the constitutional assembly and similar numbers disapproved of Maduro’s overall performance.

Opposition leaders estimated the real turnout at less than half the government’s claim in a vote watched by government-

President of the Senate, Senator Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL) received the visit of opposition activists to the current Venezuelan government. They are: Lilian and Mitzy, wives of Leopoldo Lopez, People's Will party leader and mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, arrested by order of President Nicolás Maduro.

JANE DE ARAUJO / AGÊNCIA SENADO / FLICKR

allied observers but no internationally recognized poll monitors.

An exit poll based on surveys from 110 voting centres by New York investment bank Torino Capital and a Venezuela public opinion company estimated 3.6 million people voted, or about 18.5 per cent of registered voters.

The constituent assembly will have the task of rewriting the country’s constitution and will have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.

Maduro has said the new assembly will begin to govern within a week. Among other measures, he said he would use the assembly’s powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of pro-

tests that have killed at least 120 and wounded nearly 2,000.

Along with the U.S., the European Union and nations including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain and Britain criticized Sunday’s vote. Maduro said he had received congratulations from the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua, among others.

Maduro called the constitutional assembly in May after a month of protests against his government, which has overseen Venezuela’s descent into a devastating crisis during its four years in power. Due to plunging oil prices and widespread corruption and mismanagement, Venezuela’s inflation and homicide rates are among the world’s highest, and widespread shortages of food and medicine have citizens dying of preventable illnesses and rooting through trash to feed themselves. ■

Doctors Without Borders reject Italy’s migrant rescue rules THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MILAN — Doctors Without Borders and others refused Monday to sign onto a new code of conduct drafted by Italy’s Interior Ministry for non-governmental organizations rescuing migrants at sea, as Italy seeks to increase security amid the unrelenting flow of migrant arrivals.

Italy’s government drafted the code after allegations

emerged that some nonprofits were co-operating with migrant traffickers. Authorities have said that organizations that didn’t sign the code would risk being denied access to Italian ports.

Humanitarian groups sought changes in the government’s draft, objecting especially to rules requiring that they allow armed police to board their vessels and that they don’t transfer migrants to other ships, but bring them back to port them-

selves.

Doctors Without Borders director Gabriele Eminente said in Rome that the humanitarian group refused to accept allowing armed police aboard, saying the presence of weapons “conflicts with the principals we have throughout the world.”

According to the European Union’s border patrol agency Frontex, NGOs account for some 40 per cent of sea rescues. Hundreds of thousands www.canadianinquirer.net

of migrants are brought to Italy each year after being rescued in the central Mediterranean after embarking from Libya in unseaworthy smugglers’ boats.

The aid groups say allegations that they are co-operating with migrant smugglings make their risky job even more dangerous by undermining trust in their work.

Just two of about 10 organizations, Save the Children and MOAS, agreed to the rules. Save

the Children said its ship, Vos Hestia, already operates “in great part” in accordance with the new code.

Also refusing to sign were the German groups Jugend Rettet and Sea Watch, which both argued that the rules violate the law of the sea, according to the news agency ANSA. It quoted Titus Molkenbur of Jugend Rettet as saying that the code “doesn’t help us do our work, which is to save human lives.” ■

21

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22

Community News

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

PAL receives award for Cabin Service PHILIPPINE AIRLINES has been adjudged “Fourth Best Airline Worldwide for Cabin Service” by SmartTravelAsia.

Com readers.

Smart Travel Asia, an independent online travel magazine over the last 15 years with

airline surveys and reviews, conducted the poll from May to June 2017 with an estimated 30,000 respondents. The survey covered the carrier’s international and domestic cabin service.

No less than PAL Chairman

BIBAK - BC held its Annual Grand Kanyaw on July 22, 2017 at Aldergroive Provincial Park.

Dr. Lucio C. Tan accepted the award from the online publication’s Executive Director Socci Cristi at the PAL Corporate Headquarters in Pasay this morning.

Chairman Tan was joined by PAL President and COO Jaime

J. Bautista together with EVP Treasurer / Chief Administrative Officer Stewart Lim, SVP Airline Operations Ismael Augusto Gozon, VP Inflight Services Bud Britanico and AVP/ Director of Cabin Services Ana Alvarez.

Dr. Tan congratulated the men and women of Cabin Services (PAL/PALex), Catering and all units/departments involved which led the airline to garner this recognition.

Readers voted in an open, free and fair poll. ■

Up U.P. and Away: Evyn Santiago

PHOTO COURTERSY OF VIC VARGAS

BY EMAR SY ANOTHER FIL Canadian basketball player has received and accepted a full athletic scholarship offer from a top notch university in the Philippines. Evyn Santiago, a Toronto native, is a veteran campaigner in the last two SM NBTC under Team Canada Crossover of Coach Mike Cruz. In his last stint he was selected to play at the All Star Game against the top high school players in the Philippines. During this campaign he has caught the eyes of most of the local coaches because of his long range shooting capabilities and athleticism.

With this he has received interest from the University of Santo Tomas and Far Eastern University and received formal offers from San Beda College, Arellano University and University of the Philippines.

And after deep consultation with his family and friends he decided to accept the offer from the University of the Philippines of Coach Bo Perasol. Coach Bo mentions that Evyn will be great addition to his team because of his length and shooting capabili-

ties. He plans to make Evyn the sniper for the UP Fighting Maroons in their UAAP campaign this season which will start in September. Evyn flew to the Philippines last July 11 and now in the States with the UP Maroons for a two weeks training at the renowned Impact Basketball in L.A. UAAP is one of the most prestigious collegiate basketball in the Philippines. It is where most future PBA players hone their skills and talent before going professional. Its member universities includes Ateneo de Manila, De LaSalle, University of Santo Tomas, Far Eastern University, National University, University of the East and the University of the Philippines.

Evyn’s journey was made possible through the efforts of Crossover Sports Canada and its supporters. Crossover Sports Canada is a player management company that helps Fil Canadian players find playing opportunities in the Philippines.

It’s grassroots program through Durham Crossover helps train kids at a very young age. It’s partnership with the Filipino Basketball League provide healthy and friendly competition for local ball clubs in Canada.

From all of us here in Canada we would like to congratulate Evyn on this wonderful opportunity and wishes him all the best. And just like my favourite super hero may you continue to soar high up U.P and away! ■

MULTICULTURAL HELPING HOUSE

SOCIETY Annual Caregivers Conference and Coronation of Miss Caregiver 2017.

PHOTO COURTERSY OF CHRISTIAN CUNANAN

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World News

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

23

‘No chaos,’ Trump insists as he swears in new chief of staff

BY CATHERINE LUCEY The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Hoping to turn the page on a tumultuous opening chapter to his presidency, President Donald Trump insisted on Monday there is “no chaos” in his White House as he swore in retired Marine Gen. John Kelly as his new chief of staff.

In an Oval Office ceremony, Trump predicted Kelly, who previously served as Homeland Security chief, would do a “spectacular job.” And the president chose to highlight the rising stock market and positive jobs outlook rather than talk about how things might need to change in his White House under Kelly.

Trump on Friday ousted Reince Priebus as chief of staff and turned to Kelly, who he hopes will bring military discipline to an administration weighed down by a stalled legislative agenda, infighting among West Wing aides and a stack of investigations.

While Trump is looking for a reset, he pushed back against criticism of his administration with this tweet: “Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages raising, border secure, S.C.: No WH chaos!”

In fact, economic growth averaged 2 per cent in the first half of this year, a pace Trump railed against as a candidate and promised to lift to 3 per cent. The stock market first hit a record under President Barack Obama and has kept growing. The unemployment rate, too, started to decline on Obama’s watch. And wage gains have been weak.

Trump on Monday convened his first Cabinet meeting with Kelly at his side, telling his team it is “doing incredibly well” and “starting from a really good base.” On how he would deal with rising tensions with North Korea, Trump said only: “It will be handled.”

Seated across from Trump was Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has stayed on the job while Trump has publicly savaged him in interviews and on social media.

Kelly’s success in a chaotic White House will depend DOD PHOTO on how much authority he is John Kelly. granted and whether Trump’s dueling aides will put aside failed effort by Senate Repub- opened Sunday when Russian their rivalries to work together. licans to overhaul the nation’s President Vladimir Putin said Also unclear is whether a new health care law. the U.S. would have to cut its chief of staff will have any influIn addition to the strains in embassy and consulate staff in ence over the president’s social the West Wing and with Con- Russia by several hundred unmedia histrionics. gress, Kelly starts his new job der new sanctions from MosFormer Trump campaign as tensions escalate with North cow. In a television interview, manager Cory Lewandowski, Korea. The United States flew Putin indicated the cutback was who was ousted from the cam- two supersonic bombers over retaliation for new sanctions in paign in June 2016, said on the Korean Peninsula on Sun- a bill passed by Congress and NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he day in a show of force against sent to Trump. expected Kelly Trump plans would “restore to sign the meaorder to the sure into law, staff” but also the White House And anybody who thinks they’re going stressed that has said. After to change Donald Trump doesn’t know Trump was unPutin’s remarks, Donald Trump. likely to change the State Departhis style. ment deemed “I say you have the cutbacks “a to let Trump be regrettable and Trump. That is what has made North Korea, following the uncalled for act” and said ofhim successful over the last 30 country’s latest intercontinen- ficials would assess the impact years. That is what the Ameri- tal ballistic missile test. The and how to respond to it. can people voted for,” Lewan- U.S. also said it conducted a sucWhile Trump is trying to redowski said. “And anybody who cessful test of a missile defence fresh his team, he signalled that thinks they’re going to change system located in Alaska. he does not want to give up the Donald Trump doesn’t know Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D- fight on health care. On Twitter Donald Trump.”

Calif., said on CBS’ “Face the Sunday, he said: “Don’t give up Kelly’s start follows a wild Nation” that she hopes Kelly Republican Senators, the World week, marked by a profane ti- can “be effective,” and “begin is watching: Repeal & Replace.” rade from Trump’s new com- some very serious negotiation The protracted health care munications director, the with the North and stop this fight has slowed work on president’s continued criticism program.”

Trump’s other policy goals, inof his attorney general and the Another diplomatic fissure cluding a tax overhaul and in-

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frastructure investment. But Trump aides made clear that the president still wanted to see action on health care. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” that senators “need to stay, they need to work, they need to pass something.”

Asked if nothing should be voted on in Congress until the Senate votes again on health care, Mulvaney said: “Well, think — yes. And I think what you’re seeing there is the president simply reflecting the mood of the people.”

On Saturday, Trump threatened to end required payments to insurance companies unless lawmakers repeal and replace the Obama-era health care law. He tweeted that if “a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!”

The payments reduce deductibles and co-payments for consumers with modest incomes. Trump has guaranteed the payments through July, but has not made a commitment after that.

White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway said on “Fox News Sunday” that Trump would make a decision on the payments this week.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who opposed the efforts to move a health bill forward this week, said on CNN that cutting the payments would “be detrimental to some of the most vulnerable citizens” and that the threat has “contributed to the instability in the insurance market.”

The House has begun a fiveweek recess, while the Senate is scheduled to work two more weeks before a summer break. ■

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24

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Entertainment After MMFF snub, Rachel Alejandro asserts: Whole world should see ‘Ang Larawan’

BY BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR. Philippine Daily Inquirer TO SAY that the movie version of the musical, “Ang Larawan,” is a passion project for singeractress Rachel Alejandro can very well be the understatement of the year.

She feels so strongly about the movie version of the musical that she thinks nothing of fielding it again in the second round of the selection process for the Metro Manila Film Festival. Loy Arcenas’ “Ang Larawan,” which is based on Nick Joaquin’s play “A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino,” didn’t make it in the first round of script selection for the MMFF. “We are planning to resubmit it, as a finished film, this October and we’re hoping to make it in the final four,” Rachel tells the Inquirer.

Although she admits feeling disappointed about the snub, she has “only positive thoughts” this time around. “We’re pushing on,” she waxes optimistic.

“We know our film deserves a

slot. We feel that we have a better chance of being seen by the most number of Filipinos during the Christmas break.”

She insists that “Ang Larawan” should be on everyone’s must-watch list. “The world, not just Filipinos, should see it.”

She compares it “to a window to our past and a mirror showing who we are at the core.”

Rachel plays Paula to fellow theater luminary Joanna Ampil’s Candida in the movie, which tells the story of spinster sisters grappling with the passing of a genteel era. “It’s about many things, but the simplest way to describe it is that it’s a story about love for family and howthat love, against all odds, still triumphs in the end,” she explains.

She hopes that young people will get reacquainted with this literary gem through the latest big-screen adaptation. “Many people, especially millennials, may get baffled by the lead characters’ choices, but we hope it will spark discourse and make us at least reconsider our beliefs and values.

The soundtrack of “Ang Lar-

@ RACHELJALEJANDRO / INSTAGRAM

awan” will be released (under Star Music), later in the year.

In the meantime, Rachel is neck-deep in work, tackling the role of the Lady of the Lake in Upstart Productions’ “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” onstage at the RCBC Plaza until Aug. 12.

(Tickets at TicketWorld and Upstart, 0917-8116516.)

Apart from her job as a performer, Rachel also heads the health-food delivery company The Sexy Chef. “I call myself a worker bee,” she quips. “I have a day job, a night job and everything in between. As a result, I

have financial security, peace of mind and a comfortable lifestyle.”

She, however, has learned a valuable lesson, growing up in the business of show. “I realized a long time ago that money and fame can’t make you truly happy.”

For this reason, among many others, she keeps heeding the call of the stage. For at least a couple of months each year, I work in musical theater, to recharge my batteries and feed my soul,” she relates. “I wish it was all I did, but unfortunately, it cannot be your

bread and butter.”

Apart from Paula and the Lady of the Lake, there are other dream roles on her wish list.

“I would love to play Glinda in ‘Wicked,’” she enthuses. “I recently caught Cynthia Nixon in ‘The Little Foxes,’ as chilling, calculating Regina Giddens.

How she made the character so human and real was pure magic. I would love to get a crack at a nonsinging role someday.”

For now, she gets to combine two loves, music and acting, onstage and onscreen.

Since April, she has been studying under different voice teachers for “Spamalot.” “The keys of my character’s songs are not within the normal range of my alto pop singing voice. They are at the breaking point between my chest and head voice.”

So, Rachel labored hard to strengthen her pipes. Plus, she’s also trying to master a proper British accent, with the help of a pal who’s a true Brit.

Why go through the wringer at all? She owns up that she’s “addicted to hearing the audience laugh.” “I live for it!” ■

John Prats: No to showbiz career for my daughter until age 16

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer “I DON’T want to rob her of her childhood,” said actor John Prats of daughter Lily Feather, who turned a year old in April.

If he could have his way, John, who became an actor at age 8, would not allow his child to join the biz until she is old enough.

“Maybe when she turns 16 or 17,” the actor said. His sister, Camille, started acting way earlier—at age 5. “Maybe Feather can do TV commercials with her mom, but that’s it.”

John is married to actress Isabel Oli. “I’d like to think that I grew up normal. I only taped ( for ‘Ang

TV’ in the 1990s) every Saturday and that was just like play to me.

I know I’ve missed a lot while growing up. I don’t want that for her,” said the “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano” cast member.

Too early to tell

John said it was different for his nephew Nathan, Camille’s son with late husband Anthony Linsangan. “He is 9 and we could see that he is really interested in the arts. He dances and does commercials. He even asked his mom if he could join ‘Goin’ Bulilit.’ With Feather, it’s still too early to tell.”

Fatherhood suited John, many observed. “I guess they’re right,” he reacted. “It’s so fulfilling to be a father. I’m happy

that Feather is now old enough to interact with us. Her first word was ‘mama.’ It’s because she is always with Liv (Isabel’s nickname). Between us, Liv is the disciplinarian. I’m her opposite—Feather goes to me if she wants a particular toy at the mall because she knows I will buy it for her.”

The 33-year-old John added: “I’ll probably be strict with Feather when she becomes a teenager. Right now, I just want to enjoy [time with] her first. I get scared when I imagine her being all grownup, although I believe that raising your child well will make a big difference.”

Emotional struggles

John said he could relate to www.canadianinquirer.net

the emotional struggles of his “Banana Sundae” costar Pokwang, whose daughter Ria Mae would be leaving for Paris to study. “I told her that life is really like that. You can’t keep your child from leaving especially if her reason is to fulfill her dreams. I don’t know how I would handle that problem when it’s my time to face it.”

He said it was good that he had Isabel to help him make crucial decisions. “Liv is a hands-on mom. It’s OK with her not to work until Feather is old enough to be left to a nanny.

Recently, I’ve been working almost every day,” said John, who is also a cast member of “Ang Panday,” an entry in the 2017 Metro Manila Film Festival.

“Liv would often tell me she misses me, but we share the same motivation. We have goals as a family, so we both make sacrifices. Recently, we were able to buy a lot. We’re saving up so we can build our house there.”

John said Isabel missed working, too, but whenever the actress was away—like taping for shows such as “Ipaglaban Mo” or “Maalaala Mo Kaya,” she would miss Feather so much.

“Liv is the clingy type. If she could buy a trailer truck to bring Feather to every taping location, she would. Like me, she doesn’t want to miss any important moment in our daughter’s life.” ■

Entertainment

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

25

‘Dunkirk’ conquers ‘Emoji,’ Christian, Bobby ‘Atomic Blonde’ at box office help spread awareness of lupus

BY LINDSEY BAHR The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — “The Emoji Movie” survived negative reviews but couldn’t conquer “Dunkirk,” which had enough fight left to conquer the box office for a second weekend in a row.

Down only 44 per cent from its first weekend, director Christopher Nolan’s World War II film earned $28.1 million to take first place, according to studio estimates on Sunday. “Dunkirk” has grossed $102.8 million domestically to date.

Sony Pictures Animation’s “The Emoji Movie” finished second with $25.7 million. The film featuring the voices of T.J. Miller and Anna Faris as anthropomorphized emojis got pummeled by critics. It’s currently resting at a dismal 8 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences still turned out.

“It’s great when the critics and audiences are in sync but in the end it comes down to: Has the film reached the intended audience?” said Adrian Smith, Sony’s president of domestic distribution. “Seeing these results, it clearly has.”

Sony is expecting the film, which cost an estimated $50 million to produce, to play well for the rest of the summer.

The divide between reviews and a film’s success has been a continuing topic this summer, as some films, such as “Baywatch,” capsized under poor reviews, and others like “The Emoji Movie” seemed immune.

“Kids don’t care about reviews, and there is a severe lack of family films in the marketplace,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for comScore.

But “The Emoji Movie” also fell at the box office throughout the weekend after a strong Friday when it placed No. 1, which Dergarabedian thinks could be due to negative word of mouth on social media. By contrast, the extremely well-reviewed “Dunkirk” rose throughout the weekend.

Also holding on quite well is Universal Pictures R-rated

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer

STILL FROM THE MOVIE DUNKIRK.

comedy “Girls Trip,” which fell a miniscule 36 per cent from its debut weekend to take third place with $20.1 million.

Even in weekend two, “Girls Trip” beat out the splashy new Charlize Theron actioner “Atomic Blonde,” distributed

by Universal’s boutique label Focus Features. “Atomic Blonde” opened in fourth with $18.6 million.

“We think it’s a really solid opening for the movie and think that the film is going to have a nice long life at the box office for the summer,” said Lisa Bunnell, president of distribution for Focus Features.

Theron produced and stars in the film about a British spy on a mission in Berlin near the end of the Cold War. It cost an estimated $30 million to produce.

While reviews were generally positive, audiences gave the film a middling B CinemaScore, which could affect its word-ofmouth potential.

In fifth place was “SpiderMan: Homecoming” now in its fourth weekend in theatre. The new web-slinger added $13.5 million which bumped its domestic total to $278.4 million.

“Homecoming” has now officially passed both “Amazing

Spider-Man” movies at the North American box office, although it is still lagging significantly behind the Tobey Maguire “Spider-Man” films.

While the summer box office remains down from last year, audiences are still turning out for some of the buzzier specialty releases. Annapurna Pictures rolled out the Kathryn Bigelow film “Detroit,” about an incident during the 1967 riots, a week before its nationwide launch in 20 theatres in 10 markets including Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Atlanta.

“We were doing early word of mouth screenings, and they were very strong. People were hanging in the lobby of theatres after talking and talking. We decided to kick-start the conversation early,” Annapurna distribution president Erik Lomis said. “We’re really excited to launch this picture.”

“Detroit” earned a strong $365,455 from the limited launch.

Also playing well in limited release is the Al Gore-led climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” which took in $130,000 from four locations. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

lupus.

Quoting the late American vice president Hubert Humphrey, Bobby stressed the im“WE NEED to let others know portance of having a solid supthat there is hope for people port group when battling any who have lupus (a chronic au- illness. toimmune disease). There are a “In anything, whether it is allot of ways to fight it.” coholism or drug addiction, it’s Singer-actor Christian Bau- a big help when you have peotista said this at the recent ple you can talk to,” said Bobby, launch of the book “Living Bet- who cohosted the book launch ter With Lupus,” published by with Trisha Duncan (a lupus Hinge Inquirer Publication. patient).

“It’s hard to fight any battle As a husband, Bobby said without support,” Christian ex- it’s tough living with a lupus plained. “If you’re feeling some- patient, “but you have to be thing, let others know about it accepting and more patient. immediately. I’m pretty sure You have to understand that help will come for you.” they have their bad days, and “In fact, when I checked on- on those days, they’re very irline, I discovered ritable and tired. that there are Like the other day, quite a few celebshe was shouting rities who have at someone on it. Their schedthe phone. When ule is tougher I asked her about than most peoIn anything, it the next day, whether it is ple, but with the she just laughed alcoholism right informaat herself. You see, or drug tion and medicathey are getting addiction, tion, they’re able the worse end of it’s a big to manage it.” the deal compared help when Among those to you, who don’t you have who have admithave it.” people you ted having lupus “This is great,” can talk to. are Selena Gohe said about the mez, Toni BraxHope For Luton, Seal, Nick pus Foundation’s Cannon, Lady (HFL) move to Gaga and the late come out with a Michael Jackcomprehensive son. guidebook on the Christian, who performed disease. during the book launch, re“The bigger goal is to make called to the Inquirer having a information and medicine acfriend afflicted with the same cessible to those who can’t afillness. ford it. Managing lupus isn’t “She’s a manager. When at cheap. Thankfully, the number work, I could sometimes see of patients in the Philippines is that she was in pain. But she not that big.” never let this interfere with her “Living Better With Lupus” work or her relationships with is authored by Akbayan Rep. me and our other friends. She Emmeline Aglipay-Villar, also a knows that we’re here for her,” lupus patient, and doctors Ansaid the cast member of GMA7’s geline Magbitang-Santiago, Ev“My Love from the Star.” elyn Osio-Salido and Geraldine Like Christian, TV host- ac- Zamora-Racaza. tor Bobby Yan promised to use Villar, who is also HFL his celebrity status and influ- founder, said another goal is to ence to help spread aware- ness produce booklets or stories in of lupus. comic-book form about lupus “The best healing therapy is that will be distributed in bafriendship and love,” said Bob- rangay health centers all over by, whose wife is afflicted with the country. ■

26

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Lifestyle It’s ‘game’ time

BY RUEL S. DE VERA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE DAYS turned into hours and then into minutes— inching toward 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time on July 16 (9 a.m., July 17 in Manila)—toward the biggest premiere in television history. This world seemed to come to an end. And, with the world watching, the world of Westeros began anew.

When HBO’s “Game of Thrones” (“GoT”) commenced its much anticipated seventh season, it had transformed into what Time magazine called “the world’s most popular show,” its cover story stating that more than 23 million Americans and viewers in over 170 countries followed the dark fantasy drama.

But those numbers don’t really matter. For everyone who waited nearly a year for the show to return, it was personal.

“GoT” was back, seemingly just for you.

Which element is your favorite? The characters are compelling, the world building solid. But perhaps the single biggest thing going for “GoT” is its sheer unpredictability. Fan favorite characters die all the time on this show, often in the most unexpected ways.

This was not always the case.

Adapted by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss from George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, the “GoT” books already boasted four best-selling iterations (over 50 million copies in print) by the time the HBO series got underway in 2011.

While the show had the

hallmarks of the cult-worthy fantasy epic ( dragons, magic, zombies), it was “GoT’s” ability to weave a relatively realistic thread into an outrageously intriguingly clash of families among the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, notably the Starks of Winterfell, the Baratheons of King’s Landing and the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Then, there is the fallen Targaryen family. Life on Westeros is brutal, unforgiving and mysterious. The characters cover a wide range of human strengths and frailties—some brood, others plot, some hew to their ideals, others transgress— enough that we really can see ourselves in them. What would you do if you were Ned Stark?

“GoT” was also the beneficiary of the fortuitous rise of binge watching, which is how many viewers caught on the show, feverishly burning through the ten-episode seasons as quickly as they could. Yet when they caught up, the binge-watching generation had to do one thing they never expected: They had to wait seven days between new episodes. And then, after the season was over, they waited almost a year for the new one.

And they did—in increasing numbers.

They could hear Ramin Djawadi’s distinctive theme song in their heads as they obsessively pored over the everchanging animated opening sequence for clues. They rewatched episodes. They tried to untangle the treacherous lineage and birthrights of certain characters. Those who hadn’t watched the new episodes were tortured by others threatening to spoil the show for them.

“GoT” made stars out of newcomers like Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner. It made superstars out of veteran characters like Lena Headey, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and, notably, Peter Dinklage. Outsiders and NBA stars alike watched it. It made it OK to follow a show about fantasy. It made “Winter is coming,” “You know nothing, Jon Snow” and “A Lannister always pays his debts” catchphrases. It made you want to know what the dragon’s names are (for the record: Dracarys, Drogon and Viserion).

Readers, Watchers

There was originally a schism between those who had read the books first (Readers) and those who first watched the show (Watchers) as skirmishes occurred over things like spoilers and changes made to the original plot. Readers were often deemed snobbish, while Watchers dubbed bandwagoners. It sometimes got downright nasty online.

But all this changed once the show outstripped the events depicted in the novels. Martin had been considerably delayed in finishing the sixth book, “The Winds of Winter” (still nowhere in sight) and who knows when the final volume, “A Dream of Spring,” will come out. Martin has famously told Benioff and Weiss how it all ends, but as the show overtook the books, the events on TV also began to diverge wildly from the books. Now, we are all Watchers. The seventh season begins with what seems like a memory of the infamous “Red Wedding,” but it is gloriously

www.canadianinquirer.net

The thrilling battle for the iron throne continues.

just Arya Stark finishing the job at House Frey. The White Walkers continue their inexorable march. Bran and Meera arrive at the Wall. “He’s coming for us,” Bran says of the Night King. “He’s coming for all of us.” Gathering the houses of the North, Jon Snow comes into disagreement with Sansa on tactics while Littlefinger does what Littlefinger does.

Now on the Iron Throne, Cersei plots with Jaime to defend King’s Landing from invasion even as she mulls a pact with Euron Greyjoy. “Enemies everywhere,” Cersei warns. “We are surrounded by traitors.” In Oldtown, Sam is hard at work to become a maester when he encounters an unexpected inhabitant of one of the cells.

Beginning of the end

On her way to King’s Landing, Arya meets Ed Sheeran, seriously. The Hound and Beric Dondarrion talk about divine justice and ponders visions in the cold. Finally, Daenerys Targaryen and company arrive at Dragonstone, her childhood home and abandoned by Stannis Baratheon. She looks over

KLAPI / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

the chessboard-like map of Westeros. Then she asks: “Shall we begin?”

Yet that episode—aptly called “Dragonstone”—is the beginning of the end. After it will come six more episodes this season and then (reportedly longer) six episodes in its eighth and final season. Watchers will be caught in a dreadful yet delicious dilemma—celebrate and savor the arrival of new episodes while also counting down toward the end of what may be the greatest show ever on television.

Things happen quickly as seen in the second episode “Stormborn,” full of reunions—both welcome and unwelcome—and even more are promised in the coming future.

Tomorrow, another sevendays’ wait ends.

For now, we ring in the ninth hour on what is the first or the last day of the week, depending where you are, by paying homage to a terrific, terrifying world that rises from each screen like a revenant or a dragon. Who will die? Who will survive?

What will happen?

Whatever happens, we will all be watching. ■

Lifestyle

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

27

MAN’S MAMMOGRAM:

Writer gets test usually done on women

BY ANDREW DALTON The Associated Press PASADENA, CALIF. — When I arrived for my first mammogram it didn’t take long for my sense of secrecy to shatter.

Behind the counter were five young women, unoccupied and anxious to help.

“Andrew Dalton, appointment for 8:45,” I say.

“What for?” one asks.

With five sets of eyes on me, I say, “Mammogram,” maybe a little too loudly, trying to prove I’m unembarrassed to be a man getting a procedure almost exclusively done on women.

“Oh,” one says, “that’s over at the breast centre.”

Of course. The breast centre.

On one level, this is a world I know all too well. My family is fraught with breast cancer: My mom had it twice and died from it, and my big sister had it. My daughter, now 13, has the same history on her mother’s side.

But I found when it came to the details and realities, I knew nothing.

Here are a few things I learned: Men have a small amount of breast tissue, similar to girls before puberty. Like any set of cells, it can become cancerous.

Breast cancer is about 100 times more common in women, according to the American Can-

cer Society. About 2,500 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in U.S. men in 2017, and about 460 will die from it.

Men’s symptoms are the same as women’s: Lumps or thickening in breast tissue, changes to breast skin, nipple discharge.

My personal education began a week earlier with a routine physical, when I told my doctor of a slight pain near my lymph nodes. Because of my family history, she wanted a breast ultrasound.

The lab decided a mammogram would be more useful. In retrospect, the case was fairly thin for that, adding my experience to those highlighted in several major recent studies that found the tests are overordered.

I confess curiosity helped drive me to forge ahead and that despite the seriousness of what the test might reveal, I see the humour in it.

“I should probably schedule a Pap smear too,” I thought.

I start calling it my “manogram,” thinking I’ve coined the term, then learn that’s reserved for prostate exams.

Also, I worry about how I’ll look with my shirt off.

Which brings us back to the breast centre.

I’m happy after check-in to see five men among the 20 people in the waiting room. I’m far

from alone!

Then I notice each is with a woman who presumably is the one readying for a mammogram.

I’m also told I’ll get an instant reading afterward. I was only braced for the process, not the diagnosis.

This sends me scrambling to group-text my sisters and girlfriend, all of whom have been through this, and whose support is a perfect hand-hold.

“Hugs! Yeah, they typically tell you while you’re there, if it’s diagnostic and not a routine check-up,” my sister Emily writes.

I wish I’d asked them more before.

I get emotional as I wait, imagining how often my mother sat through days like this,

and much worse.

A discreet nurse summons me into a small room. The medical technician looks at my button-down shirt and tells me I don’t have to take it off, just open it.

If there’s one thing I thought I knew about mammograms, it’s that it’s always a topless affair.

I ask if she gets many men.

“Just had one yesterday,” she says. “I get a few a month.”

The machine looks like a combination dental X-ray and George Foreman Grill. I stand diagonal to it. She positions my “breast” between the two plates.

I can see this would be easier if you had more “grabbable” breasts. She has to kind of squeeze my chest to “create” a breast, as a shirtless boy would,

goofing off for his friends. Then the machine itself squeezes down.

I have a twinge of pain, but as medical procedures go it barely counts as uncomfortable.

“What’s it like if someone is bone-thin, or has rock-hard pecs?” I ask.

“It can be a little harder,” she says.

I, apparently, am not that hard.

She takes two images on the right, then two, each at a different angle, on the left, where the problem was. It’s over remarkably quickly.

The moment of truth arrives within 10 minutes: The radiologist says I don’t have cancer.

The problem is common gynecomastia, a slight excess of breast tissue. Its causes are many, its consequences few.

I let loose a sigh of relief, but I’m mostly excited to spread the good news to the rest of the family. We’ve had too little of it when it comes to breast cancer.

My relief is sweet but brief. I realize all I’ve done is dodged one extremely rare cancer. All the ruthless everyday ones common for men — prostate, colorectal, testicular — loom large as ever.

For men whose mammograms don’t provide the relief mine did, survivor stories and resources can be found at the Male Breast Cancer Coalition. ■

Yes, you can buy happiness if you spend it to save time

BY SETH BORENSTEIN The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Yes, you can buy happiness — especially if the money saves you time.

People who dole out cash to save time on things like housekeeping, delivery services and taxis are a little bit happier than those who don’t, new research finds.

Researchers surveyed more than

6,000 people in four countries and also ran an experiment, giving people $40 for two weeks. One week, they had to buy something material, like a

shirt. The next week, they paid to save themselves time. People said they felt happier after saving time than buying stuff.

“Money can buy happiness if you spend it right,” said University of British Columbia psychology professor Elizabeth Dunn, co-author of a study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The right way is paying someone else to do the timec o n suming drudge work that www.canadianinquirer.net

you don’t like, said study lead author Ashley Whillans at the Harvard Business School.

When people do that, they report feeling greater life satisfaction in general and happier that day. But when they buy material objects, it tends not to bring people the happiness they expect, she said.

Lynda Jones, a retired critical care nurse in Indianapolis, has been hiring a housekeeper since she got out of college and said it’s the one thing that kept her from burning out in the high stress job. Now she also has a grocery delivery service.

“It’s really not that expensive when you think about what my time costs,” Jones said Monday.

“You can always get money. You can’t buy back time.”

Earlier research found that using money to help others or have good experiences — like a spa day or travel — also make people happier than buying things, Dunn and Whillans said.

The survey was done in the United States, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Except for the U.S., the countries rank near the top of global happiness reports. In general, buying time increases Americans happiness about 0.77 on a 10-point scale, with similar increases in the other countries, Dunn said. That may not seem ❱❱ PAGE 30 Yes, you can

28

Lifestyle

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

New Pinoy sleuth urged to offer hope Maria Fres-Felix created Inspector SJ Tuason after growing up with Nancy Drew and meeting an inspiring real-life female cop

BY RUEL S. DE VERA Philippine Daily Inquirer WELCOME A new Filipino detective to follow: Police Inspector SJ Tuason, the protagonist of the book, “Crimetime: Inspector SJ Tuason Case Files”

by Maria L.M. Fres-Felix. “Crimetime” introduces Tuason and features four cases to be solved. Tuason is a tough but compassionate investigator, easy to root for.

Crime is something Filipinos live with on a daily basis, but crime an also be employed as a compelling element in fiction, especially if you throw in the race to solve the crime as seen in detective novels. Take for example the 2002 novel “Smaller and Smaller Circles” by F.H. Batacan, in which a Jesuit forensic anthropologist who races against time to stop a serial killer in Payatas.

“Smaller and Smaller Circles” would later be bought and published by New York-based imprint Soho Crime: A motion picture adaptation directed by Raya Martin will be coming to cinemas soon.

Now, welcome a new Filipino detective to follow: Police Inspector SJ Tuason, the protagonist of the book “Crimetime: Inspector SJ Tuason Case Files,” by Maria L.M. Fres-Felix and published by Anvil Publishing.

“Crimetime” introduces Tuason and features four cases to be solved. Tuason is a tough but compassionate investigator, easy to root for. She covers homicide cases in the fictional

lead a party to victory two years later.

Her government became known across Canada for consecutive surplus budgets while other provinces struggled with deficits.

Clark faced the prospect of sitting on the Opposition benches and was likely to be reminded of her education policies that led to a lengthy legal battle that ended with a Supreme Court of Canada victory

could soon be reached that would allow Manitoba to access the extra money for home care and mental health services without giving its nod of approval to the three per cent increases.

“We’re not going to likely ever agree to that. But on the separate deal, in terms of ... mental health support, home care, we’ve been in negotiation on that for some time, as you know. And, further discussion today, and we’re both optimis-

tic that our officials can arrive at an amicable resolution of the issues there,” the premier said.

Manitoba received the three per cent increase automatically this year despite its lack of an agreement with Ottawa.

Trudeau attended a community event Saturday where he announced $35 million — just under half the total cost — for a horticultural attraction called Canada’s Diversity Gardens at Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg. ■

Serial retiree

Maria Leonida Maquera Fres-Felix—Dada to friends— owes the start of her interest in crime fiction to a certain fictional teenage sleuth.

“I enjoyed reading Nancy Drew as a child and later developed a fascination for mystery and crime,” she said.

Fres-Felix has an Economics degree from University of the East and a master’s degree in Development Economics from Williams College in Massachusetts. She worked at Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas before retiring. She came out of retirement to work in corporate communications for the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation before retiring again in 2012.

“I’m a serial retiree,” she said with a laugh.

She wrote as much as she could in the time she could find.

The award-winning writer is the author of three books: the young adult novella “‘Sup,” and the short story collections “Making Straight Circles” and “Boy in the Platinum Palace and Other Stories.”

She already had some interest in crime as a subject early on. “Both my earlier collections had one crime story each, so it was like expanding on what was already there,” she ex-

Former B.C.... ❰❰ 17

In the process, Fres-Felix crafted an utterly believable character who gets stuck in traffic in her beat-up Sentra, meets uncooperative witnesses and is hampered by a lack of technology, thus reflecting the challenges posed by a flawed Philippine justice system. “This is not television. I wanted to show that not everything you see on TV is real. The kind of show you get from the States

and sometimes Canada, everything is there. But here, no, they still use the physical logbook.”

Out of that emerged the heroine. “I wanted a female detective because I wanted to show that, even if we’re hopeless and many people don’t trust the police, there really are very good men and women who are trying to do the right thing.” That’s how SJ Tuason was born.

Fres-Felix kept working on the Tuason character until she was just right. “Originally, she was a little bit harsher. But then I met this lady inspector who was my resource person. I softened and toned down the character because her intention was really to help and she was so soft-spoken.”

In Fres-Felix’s detailed and clear prose, “Crimetime” shows Tuason overcoming all kinds of obstacles to solve the murders assigned to her, including a photobomber in Quezon Memorial Circle who proves to be dead, a victim clad in a Princess Amidala costume, and even a case that has to do with Tuason’s past. Readers are driven to evaluate the suspects and the clues just as Tuason does.

She submitted the manuscript to Anvil in March 2016 and “Crimetime” arrived on bookshelves in April 2017.

Fres-Felix is circling a possible sequel for submission later this year even though she didn’t originally think Tuason would be a recurring character.

“I had so much fun with Tuason, I just decided to keep working with her. “This time it’s going to be a full-length novel instead of several stories. ■

Lakeview area, but clearly operates in Quezon City. This QC—she calls its Kyusi in the book—is so real it feels like nonfiction, with so many details that can only come from realworld experience. “Crimetime” feels like FresFelix’s dark love letter to the city.

MARIA L.M. FRES-FELIX / FACEBOOK

plained. “As you may know, aspiring writers are told to write the stories they want to read, and I did just that. I guess as an economist, it would be a natural progression. Economics, usually called the dismal science, is also the science of choice. It dissects how consumers choose the products they buy, and how businesses choose the ones they produce. Crime fiction can also be seen as a fiction of choice, where the detective and the readers choose who among the suspects is the culprit. Crime fiction can also provide a means of social commentary because crime knows no boundaries. And yes, most importantly, it’s fun to write.”

She really got into writing after her first retirement in 1998.

“On and off, I was the driver and yaya for my daughter, so I would write when I was waiting for her,” she recalled. She also took up classes at the University of the Philippines. Her return to work interrupted her writing, but took to writing full-

time after her second retirement in 2012.

“Crimetime” began as just one story and evolved on its own. “I didn’t really intend to have a short story collection,” Fres-Felix said. “But I wrote one and it was so much fun, I kept writing, and then suddenly I had a collection.”

She said it was given that the book would be set in the Philippines and whatever she didn’t know, she researched. She visited police stations and talked to cops.

Flawed justice system

Trudeau, Pallister... for teachers in November 2016.

The Clark government’s approval of the $8.8-billion Site C dam project is also likely to be the focus of much debate as the NDP government plans to submit the project to a review process.

Lake said it must have upset Clark to walk away from the political battles looming on the horizon.

“Success is not for quitters,” Clark’s government said in a February 2016 throne speech. ■

❰❰ 16

going to get to a positive resolution on the health care issue in short order,” the prime minister said.

Pallister said he remains opposed to the federal offer because it raises federal health care payments to the provinces by only three per cent a year.

Under a previous accord struck a decade ago, the payments went up six per cent a year.

Still, he said, an agreement www.canadianinquirer.net

29

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

Sports Malaysian marvels With a construction war chest equivalent to a whopping P5.9B, Kuala Lumpur shows off gleaming venues as it prepares to host next month’s 29th SEA Games

BY JASMINE W. PAYO Philippine Daily Inquirer

spectacular light show. “It has a three-dimensional dynamic facade,” says Nalgunalingam.

“Each one of those blades can be programmed into any kind of color, any kind of graphic, dynamic pattern,” says Wightman. “It almost becomes a big digital wall. So we can have images, logos, bouncing balls going across the facade, which can be interesting at night.”

Inside, the refurbished stadium looks just as stunning.

It boasts a seating capacity of 85,700, a new blue athletics track and football pitch, modern locker rooms, luxurious suites, high-definition big screens and state-of-the-art lights and sounds.

“The new seating has a pixelated effect,” Nalgunalingam points out. “It means if the stadium is empty, with the different colors that we use, it will look as if the stadium is full capacity.”

Aside from the National Stadium—which was recently

But it’s no rush job. From form (note the unique perforated steel facade of the Axiata Arena, where badminton will KUALA LUMPUR— Twisted be played) to function (check blades wrap the old stadium. the movable floor of the warmLike a huge accordion that goes up pool at the National Aquatic all the way round, the structure Centre, which can go all the way looks striking by day and glows up and serve as a multifunction proudly at night. space), everything has been All set to impress for the 2017 well thought, planned and exSoutheast Asian Games, Kuala ecuted in the RM500 million Lumpur clearly did more than P5.9 billion) project. just a facelift for the Bukit Jalil How Malaysia impressively National Stadium, ground zero rejuvenated its sports facilities for Malaysia’s sporting extravawould make many Filipinos ganzas for two decades. wish for the same for the his“It’s like we stripped it to the toric yet dilapidated Rizal Mebones and gave it new flesh and morial Sports Complex. skin,” says Nalgunalingam SatIt only has a 25,000-seat gunalingam, general manager track and field stadium and virof Malaysian Resources Corp. tually all facilities desperately Berhad (MRCB), a leading urneed a major upgrade, but takban property and infrastrucing cue from Malaysia, beauty ture company tasked to develop can be uncovered even in the the sprawling Kuala Lumpur oldest of monuments.

Sports City.

KL’s sports complex—which Up close, all the 678 blades will have a second phase of conlook different—they twist at struction after the Games and various points to include a comgive the facade a mercial area— wave-like design also features a from a distance. canopy walkway But the new NaWhen we do this kind of project in linked to the other countries, it can take up to 30 tional Stadium is train station. months. This took 15 months. So it’s more than just a “When you absolutely amazing. visual treat. come from the “At t a c h i n g MRT station, such a dynamic most likely you’ll facade to an exget roasted beisting building is quite com- shortlisted as a finalist at the fore you reach here,” says Nalplex,” says project architect World Architecture Festival gunalingam. “So we now have a Brett Wightman of Populous, a 2017 in Berlin—MRCB and covered walkway that also gives global architectural design firm Populous also worked their an experience of a grand arrival that developed worldclass ven- magic on the National Aquatic to the stadium.” ues like the London Olympics Centre, the Axiata Arena and There’s even ample green Stadium, the Yankee Stadium the National Hockey Stadium space as thousands of trees and and even the Philippine Arena inside the complex in just over shrubs nestle inside the comin Bulacan three years ago. a year. plex. “There are different kinds “Each one of those twists is Inquirer got invited to pre- of levels in the plaza where peocustom-made,” adds Wight- view the sports complex in a re- ple can rest,” says Wightman. man. “These blades twist for cent regional media tour.

“We want people to spend a lot a reason. The top part of it is “Out of all the projects we’ve of time in this space.” flat—what that does is it blocks done around the world, we’ve The athletes, of course, will the sun. And as it turns verti- done this project in record be the star of the show when cal, it starts twisting that allows time,” says Wightman. “When the SEA Games fires off on Aug. natural ventilation.” we do this kind of project in oth- 19. But with the impressive KL Light-emitting diodes (LED) er countries, it can take up to 30 Sports City as backdrop, it will also line every groove, which months. This took 15 months. surely make the region’s sportcan turn the stadium into a So it’s absolutely amazing.” ing spectacle a marvel. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

@PHILYOUNGHUSBAND10 / INSTAGRAM

Davao Aguilas’ nest lures Y’husbands

BY CEDELF P. TUPAS Philippine Daily Inquirer IN A stunning move, national team stars Phil and James Younghusband are leaving FC Meralco Manila—after playing for the Sparks the last six years—to sign a five year deal with the Davao Aguilas.

Meralco made the announcement on its official facebook account on Saturday, just a few hours before the Sparks were to play the Aguilas in the Philippines Football League—the last match of the Younghusband brothers for the Sparks.

Aguilas owner Jefferson Cheng told the Inquirer he was actually surprised with Meralco’s announcement since the transfer has yet to be finalized.

But the businessman confirmed that talks between Davao and Meralco over the Younghusbands’ transfer were making headway and could be completed by next week.

The acquisition of the Younghusbands continued Davao’s signing spree during the transfer window, which already includes Jason de Jong and Simone Rota from Ceres Negros.

The club recently acquired a kit sponsorship deal with San Miguel Corp., the logo of which is now emblazoned on the Aguilas’ jerseys.

While Meralco is in second with 24 points, Davao has yet to win in 11 matches in the PFL, drawing five times and losing

six matches to be at seventh.

The brothers have been the face of the Meralco franchise since 2011 when the club was still playing in the United Football League. They ruled the UFL Cup in 2013.

“It is with great sadness that FC Meralco Manila announces today (Saturday) that James Younghusband and Phil Younghusband will be leaving the club and transferring to Davao Aguilas FC during the current PFL transfer window,” the club said in a statement. “The match today against the Aguilas in Tagum will be their final game in Meralco colors.”

The club said it “made an earnest attempt to keep James and Phil in Manila with an offer of a contract extension.” The brothers’ three-year deals were set to expire at the end of August, which meant they were allowed to talk to other clubs for a possible move.

“But the brothers elected to pursue this opportunity with Davao. They asked for a release from their current contract and we have granted it, allowing them to sign with the Aguila,” the statement read.

A source said Meralco offered a two-year deal.

“In the end, the decision boiled down to the length of the contract,” said the source.

“Davao showed they wanted the brothers in the club.”

Financial terms of the transfer as well as the brothers’ contract were not disclosed. ■

30

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Business Power co-ops seek tax exemption

BY RONNEL W. DOMINGO Philippine Daily Inquirer STATE-MANAGED ELECTRIC cooperatives across the nation, all 121 of them, should be spared from a comprehensive tax reform program that the Duterte administration is pushing vigorously, according to the National Electrification Administration (NEA).

NEA Administrator Edgardo Masongsong said the agency was pursuing support from the Department of Justice on NEA’s position that tax privileges accorded to power cooperatives registered with the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) be applied also to the 121 utilities.

According to the CDA, the Cooperative Code grants cooperatives tax exemption “to enable them to develop into viable and responsive economic enterprises and thereby fulfill their purpose of serving the need of the members.”

“We are looking forward to have the favorable opinion of the DOJ that the electric cooperatives registered with NEA be tax-exempt as well,” Masongsong said.

He said the NEA was engaged in discussions along this line with energy committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives as well as the departments of Energy and of Finance.

Citing Republic Act No. 10531, which amends the NEA

Charter to strengthen the agency, Masongsong said all nonstock and non-profit rural energy distribution utilities were entitled to preferential rights granted to cooperatives under the Local Government Code of 1991 and other related laws.

He said that RA 10531 allowed NEA to prioritize the grant of incentives to electric cooperatives that were managed effectively and efficiently and which complied consistently with its mandates and directives.

Last June, Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua said cooperatives were among interest groups that have been very vocal in seeking exemptions from tax reform.

“For those who want exemptions, I tell them that there is no

Trudeau government bolsters Canadian team in U.S. in prep for NAFTA talks

BY JOAN BRYDEN The Canadian Press OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is beefing up its team in the United States as it prepares a full court press to defend Canada’s interests in the looming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Sources say the government is creating a new position of deputy ambassador to the U.S. and is filling it with one of this country’s foremost trade experts: Kirsten Hillman.

Trade-savvy individuals are also being appointed as consuls general in Atlanta, San Francisco and Seattle and the government is actively considering opening new consulates in other parts of the U.S. Here at home, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, the lead minister on NAFTA, is creating a special council to advise her on all aspects of the trilat-

eral trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico.

The council will have about a dozen members, representing the groups that have the most at stake in the negotiations, which are to begin on Aug. 16 in Washington.

And in a sign that the government is determined to take a unified, non-partisan Team Canada approach to the talks, the council also includes James Moore, a minister of both industry and heritage in Stephen Harper’s previous Conservative government, and Brian Topp, a veteran NDP strategist who ran for the federal party leadership in 2012 and who most recently served as chief of staff to Alberta’s NDP premier, Rachel Notley.

The advisory council and the new raft of diplomatic appointments to the U.S. are to be announced Wednesday.

Sources, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the announcement, told The Canadian Press the objective is

to assemble the strongest team possible to protect and advance Canada’s interests in the NAFTA negotiations.

Dispatching Hillman to Washington to backstop Ambassador David MacNaughton was touted as a particularly critical addition to the team.

She was most recently an assistant deputy minister at Global Affairs, where she was responsible for leading Canada’s trade negotiations agenda, including exploratory free trade discussions with China and ratification of the Canada-European Union trade agreement.

Hillman was also Canada’s chief negotiator for the TransPacific Partnership, a trade agreement among 12 countries, including Canada and the U.S. Although Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the TPP upon becoming president, experts believe much of the content of the deal could wind up being imported into a modernized NAFTA. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

PATRICK ROQUE / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

free lunch,” Chua said. “If (one party is given) an exemption, somebody else would have to (take up that burden). It cannot be that everything is free from heaven.”

“In the DOF, we are not here to defend a sector or promote (a particular) interest,” he said.

“We’re here to raise money for

this entire country’s needs and to look after this country’s future.”

Even then, Chua said the DOF was open to discussing interest groups’ concerns and considering their proposals.

In terms of efforts toward full, nationwide electrification, the NEA’s latest goal is to achieve this by 2022. ■

Yes, you can... ❰❰ 27

like much but it is statistically significant, Whillans said.

Income doesn’t matter. Rich or poor, spending money to save time seems to make people happier, Whillans said. And if anything, the data suggested that people with less money were able to get a bigger happiness boost from time-saving purchases than those with more, she said.

Yet, only 28 per cent of the people surveyed spent money to save time, an average of $148 per month.

In the $40 experiment, the researchers picked 60 people at a Canadian science museum.

When the people spent the money on things, their average happiness score was 3.7 on a five-point scale. But when they spent it to pay a neighbour’s kids to do yardwork or get lunch delivered or take a taxi rather than a bus, their score averaged 4, a small but statistically significant difference, said Dunn , co-author of the book, “Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending.”

Not only is the phrase “money can’t buy happiness” wrong but so is “time is money,” Dunn

said. Earlier studies show people are less likely to volunteer their time or help the environment when they think of time as money, she said.

Outside researchers in happiness praised the research.

“Research shows that people in rich nations are more stressed than people in poor ones, which at first does not seem to make sense. But part of the stress is this time pressure — too much to do and one cannot get everything done,” said happiness researcher Edward Diener at the University of Illinois. “So buying time through purchases makes a lot of sense.”

Whillans put her findings to the test when she moved from Vancouver to the Boston area.

She paid for someone to get rid of all of the boxes from her new house and hired housekeeping and grocery delivery services — a change from graduate student life.

“I was surprised,” Whillans said. “Wow, this really does feel great.”

Similarly, Dunn had been fighting with her husband about getting a housekeeper.

Now, she said, “I win” and they are getting a housekeeper. ■

Business

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

31

Tax reform seen Do you know what’s hiding positive for stocks in your ETF?

BY DORIS DUMLAOABADILLA Philippine Daily Inquirer

on mobile load and 3.3 percent more on broadband.

Quick-service restaurants were also identified as potential beneficiaries, with 4.3 perTHE MUCH-ANTICIPATED cent slated for dining out, while legislation of the first phase of travel was also seen to get a the Duterte administration’s boost, taking 3.4 percent of the tax reform program this year bigger wallet. will propel the local stock baHowever, the study noted rometer to as high as 8,700 by that higher excise tax might end-2018 as tax cuts put more cause a short-term slowdown money into consumers’ pock- in growth in the automobile ets, regional investment house sector.

CLSA projected.

On personal income tax, In a 112-page special report CTRP package 1 seeks a shift in July titled “Tax us, please!” from a flat 30-percent to a prowritten by the Philippine re- gressive tax rate wherein insearch team led by Alfred Dy, dividuals who earn more are CLSA analyzed the impact of taxed higher, while individuals the tax reform program, the who earn less than P250,000 first package of a year will not be which is targeted taxed at all. Those to raise P133.8 who earn P5 milbillion or 0.8 perlion or more a year cent of gross doA price to will be placed in earnings mestic product a maximum tax ratio of (GDP) in 2018. bracket of 35 per18.4x means “Tax hikes are cent. investors rarely met with Assuming that are willing cheers but the package 1 will be to pay 18.4 Comprehensive passed within times the Tax Reform Prothis year, CLSA kind of gram (CTRP) reiterated its money they is something to “bullish” market expect to celebrate,” the view, upgrading make from study said. its yearend 2018 companies CLSA commisPhilippine Stock in the PSEi sioned a nationExchange index basket. wide survey of (PSEi) target from 1,200 Filipinos 8,600 to 8,700, aged between while affirming its 21 and 59 across end-2017 target of seven income 7,900. brackets to gain Given that in a glimpse of how the proposed the last five years the PSEi has CTRP package 1— and particu- traded at an average price-tolarly the lowering of personal earnings ratio of 18.4x, CLSA income tax— would affect con- said it seemed that the market sumption. was “fully valued this year but “All told, average take home still has some considerable pay could increase by 7 percent upside in the next 18 months.” from which our respondents A price to earnings ratio of hope to save 26.9 percent of the 18.4x means investors are incremental earnings with the willing to pay 18.4 times the remaining 73.1 percent going kind of money they expect to to consumption,” the research make from companies in the said.

PSEi basket.

The survey also suggested Investors should focus on the that banks would benefit from key beneficiaries of Package 1, more deposits and loans while particularly those who stand to retailers could be winners too benefit from the higher disposas people allot an extra 13.8 per- able-income windfall. These cent for groceries, CLSA said. companies are Ayala Corp., Telecommunication com- Globe, Jollibee, Metro Pacific, panies are also seen to gain as PLDT, Puregold, Robinsons CLSA’s respondents said they Retail and Security Bank, CLSA would spend 2.8 percent more said. ■

BY JAMES ROYAL The Associated Press EXCHANGE-TRADED FUNDS have swept the stock market over the past decade and been a blessing for many investors. But while large index-based funds, such as those that track the Standard & Poor’s 500, may fairly represent the index’s stocks, smaller niche ETFs don’t always deliver strictly what their names promise, and you might wind up indirectly buying a lot of something you didn’t really want.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid ETFs entirely. After all, top investor Warren Buffett recommends S&P index ETFs as the top choice for most investors. But if a tightly focused investment is what you’re after, you have to know what’s in your fund.

So why bother with ETFs? Index mutual funds are similarly cheap and diversified, but they don’t offer ETFs’ flexibility and focus. ETFs trade throughout the day like stocks, while mutual funds are priced and traded at the end of the day.

So investors can move in and out of ETFs quickly and easily.

Plus, ETFs offer an increasing range of investment themes, slicing and dicing the market by almost any category imaginable — capitalization, industry, value, country and more. If you really want to bore in on a specific sector, ETFs can let you do that — at least, that’s the idea.

Take a look at the iShares MSCI Spain Capped ETF, which is meant to give investors access to large and midsized companies in a single country, according to its fund manager. But while the fund does use stocks listed in Spain, the revenues of those companies largely come from outside the country. According to asset manager Horizon Kinetics, the top 10 companies within this ETF, which account for more than two-thirds of its total assets, derived 53 per cent of their www.canadianinquirer.net

sales from outside Spain as of Dec. 31, 2016.

The iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF has a similar issue. The fund means to be U.K.focused, but it’s stuffed with global multinationals, which derived 64 per cent of their revenue from outside the U.K. in 2016, according to Horizon Kinetics.

These aren’t isolated events; mismatches can occur in many funds. Small-company ETFs might have little exposure to truly small companies, preferring to shade into more liquid midsize firms. And as Horizon notes, supposedly value-themed ETFs may deliver less growth and yet be more costly than the overall S&P 500, so hardly a value.

If you want to figure out what’s really in an ETF, you’ll have to dig beyond its name.

What’s going on?

The rise in ETF investing has created a market where fund managers are awash in cash that must be placed in themed investments. Over the past decade, more than $1 trillion has moved from actively managed stock mutual funds to passively managed stock index funds and ETFs. The more money an ETF has, the more it will be forced to chase larger companies, since these stocks can more easily absorb the dollars flowing in.

But there’s a limited selection of large, liquid companies. And, returning to the earlier examples, these companies tend to operate globally, so only small

percentages o f their revenue come from any one country. It ends up being hard for an ETF to get “pure” exposure to, say, Spain or the U.K. What can investors do?

The first step is understanding that a niche ETF might not be quite as focused as its name suggests. Then you can find out much of what a fund does own, because each ETF details its top 10 stakes, including names and position sizes.

But you’ll have to dig deeper — into the EDGAR database on the Securities and Exchange Commission website, for example — if you want to determine how much business a company does in a certain niche. That defeats much of the purpose of this kind of ETF: speed and simplicity.

The information the ETF provides can also help investors who assume that a themed fund will help them diversify their portfolio. For example, in the Spain fund, the top position, Banco Santander, makes up more than 18 per cent of the fund’s assets — so if you already own that stock, or another fund that contains that stock, your portfolio’s diversity will actually suffer.

With so many funds investing in the same large companies, you might end up with a bigger allocation to one company than you want. So if you’re looking to ETFs for diversification — or for a precisely targeted investment — read the fine print first. ■

32

AUGUST 4, 2017

FRIDAY

Technology ‘Sexual romance 2.0’: Experts say N.S. intimate photos case unlikely to deter teens

BY ADINA BRESGE The Canadian Press BRIDGEWATER, N.S. — It had all the trappings of a typical teen romance, until it became part of a high-profile case that shines a light on the consequences of mixing digital images and sexuality.

The 14-year-old girl had known the boy since they were young. When they talked in class, he would compliment her looks and tell her that he liked her.

The boy would talk about how they could trust each other, according to court documents, then asked her for photos, including full nudes.

“He asked her repeatedly and explained that it was ‘no big deal,”’ the documents said.

The boy is one of six male teenagers in Bridgewater, N.S., who have admitted to distributing intimate images of at least 20 girls between the ages of 13 and 17 without their consent. They will be sentenced in Bridgewater provincial court Monday.

When the six were charged in July 2016, four of the accused were 15 years old and the other two were 18. However, all were under 18 when the offences were committed, which means their identities are protected from publication under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The victims’ identities are also protected.

The case is one of Canada’s largest involving a relatively untested law designed to com-

bat the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

A Crown attorney said in March that he hopes the case raises awareness about the criminal consequences of this kind of behaviour, but experts say the law may do little to deter teenage sexuality.

“It’s not clear that the law will be deterrent one way or the other, especially in the world of teenage hormones and sexuality run amok,” said Wayne MacKay, a law professor at Dalhousie University.

Documents submitted in court said two Dropbox accounts were created for the purpose of sharing dozens of intimate images of girls in various states of undress, including fully nude.

An agreed statement of facts said everyone who uploaded photos either knew outright or were “wilfully blind” to the fact that the subjects didn’t consent to their distribution.

In the statement, the photos’ subjects cited a variety of motivations for sending the images.

Some young women felt pressured by what they described as persistent requests for intimate images, while others said they were vying for boys’ affections or just joking around, the statement said.

The document said one 13-year-old girl was repeatedly asked for sexual photos by one of the accused over the course of several days, despite persistent rejection.

“The next day at school (the boy) and his friends were clustered near her locker and gave

her the impression that they were talking about her. She felt pressured,” the document said, noting that she ended up sending the photos out of fear that he would spread a rumour about her.

McKay said it can be hard to draw the line between flirtation and coercion in intimate images cases, particularly when they involve young people.

He said the Bridgewater case shows the digital distribution of such images can reinforce high school social dynamics — like boys bragging about their sexual conquests, while girls are shamed for theirs — but saidtechnology poses new potential for harm.

“I still think it’s important that we not minimize too much because that does send the wrong message that this is just boys being boys,” he said.

“Some of these things have gone on forever, but because of the nature of social media and technology, the images and the damage is ongoing forever, potentially.”

The intimate images bill, which became law in 2015, was introduced after the death of Nova Scotia teen Rehtaeh Parsons, which captured national attention.

The 17-year-old died by suicide in 2013 after a photo — of what her family says was a sexual assault — was circulated among students at her school in Cole Harbour, N.S. Lara Karaian, a criminology

www.canadianinquirer.net

professor at Carleton University, said in the age of “sexual romance 2.0,” the circulation of intimate images has become the norm, and teens’ attitudes have shifted accordingly.

“This is not a trend that is going away. This is a new mode of sexual expression for young people,” Karaian said in an interview. “How much are we willing to use the law against so many young people who are doing this?”

McKay agreed that the legislation on intimate images has lagged behind pace of technology and said we have to look outside the courtroom to ad-

dress this growing phenomenon.

In the Bridgewater case, McKay said the distribution of images appeared to be so “systematic” that he thinks legal consequences could be appropriate.

He said the six accused could face court-ordered restrictions at the sentencing hearing Monday, including a prohibition on access to the Internet.

“For young people in the modern world, limiting their social media is what they’ll take note of,” he said. “For some, it may even be a bigger deterrent than time in custody.” ■

Technology

FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

33

YouTube throws more support behind Canadian creators with spotlight channel

BY DAVID FRIEND The Canadian Press TORONTO — YouTube is putting a bigger bet on its most successful Canadian creators with a channel dedicated to promoting local talent.

The video streaming platform unveiled “Spotlight Canada” on Monday, a curated page that highlights some of the nation’s standout videos. It’s the first time a country has been singled out with its own curated content section.

The debut of the page features a selection of past vi-

ral hits, including astronaut Chris Hadfield’s collaboration with the Barenaked Ladies from space, the Tragically Hip performing “Bobcaygeon” in Kingston, Ont., last summer, and a selection of trending music videos from Canadian artists. There’s also a section highlighting indigenous musicians and one for “Canada’s favourite YouTube creators.”

Another feature called “Creator on the Rise,” which debuts Wednesday, unearths the hottest Canadian clips on YouTube each week. The selection is chosen by algorithms that factor in view count and subscriber

growth.

YouTube says the entire page will be refreshed each month with a new slate of videos.

It’s a pilot project, but Marie Josee Lamothe, a managing director at YouTube’s owner Google, says it makes sense to select Canada as the testing ground for championing homegrown content.

Some of the world’s biggest YouTube stars, including breakout creators Lilly Singh, AsapScience and Gigi Gorgeous, transcended the country’s borders and racked up millions of views on their viral clips.

“The objective is to showcase Canada’s top stars, but also to help discover emerging Canadian talent,” said Lamothe.

“What we want to do is bring a focus to the diverse Canadian voices that create this content.”

YouTube says recent data has shown a notable increase in viewership for Canada.

In the first half of this year, the amount of time Canadians spent watching YouTube videos jumped by 30 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Within that same window, watch time for Canadian channels soared 230 per cent in In-

dia, 70 per cent in the U.S. and 60 per cent in Australia.

Lamothe says for those reasons alone it makes sense for YouTube to invest more in content from Canada.

Google has already opened a 3,500 square-foot facility at the downtown Toronto campus of George Brown College aimed at giving creators the tools they need to make their videos better, like green screens and other high-end technology.

“It’s important to promote our own local talent,” added Lamothe. “(This is) a big, fastgrowing fan base that is worth supporting.” ■

Digital ‘absolutely cannibalizing’ cash as stores, shoppers snub bills

BY ALEKSANDRA SAGAN The Canadian Press

on, after recently opening the doors to his Mad Radish restaurant venture where he has a no-cash policy in place at both Ottawa locations.

“I just feel like the benefits are enormous and so why not try it?” says Segal, who aligns faster service with better customer experience.

He says it’s too soon in his new endeavour to know just how much expediency will be gained, but he believes tapand-pay methods will always be more efficient than cash exchanges.

For Bekerman, the switch to cashless transactions has freed up his restaurant managers

thought were a lot more meaningful,” he says.

For both Mad Radish and Iq Food, the reception to their VANCOUVER — Over the next cashless payment systems has year and a half, Alan Bekerman been mostly positive so far. plans to grow his healthy fastThe stereotype may be that food chain Iq Food Co. from older generations are technolfive to up to 11 locations and not ogy laggards, but Segal says the a single one will accept cash. tween demographic — where “It was one less thing that we kids may only receive spending had to think about, which is a money from parents as opposed huge benefit,” says Bekerman, to their own bank accounts — who tested the idea at two locapresents the only challenge. tions when he first opened in But Mad Radish is currently February 2016 before expandworking on a solution, like a reing the pilot to all five of his Toloadable gift card, he says. ronto eateries earlier this year.

Bekerman says he has only He’s one of a growing number heard of a few instances of conof retailers who believe shunsumer grumblings when his ning cash helps company first customers as it made the switch speeds up serto digital payvice and frees up ments. The comstaff to focus on The highest paid folks in the plainants includrestaurants can actually spend that less mundane ed an executive time doing things that we thought tasks. assistant whose were a lot more meaningful.

It’s a choice boss handed over some in the incash to pay for dustry say is lunch and a few likely to become folks who solely more commonused cash or Bitplace as tap-and-pay cards and from doing archaic tasks such coin due to privacy concerns. digital wallets increasingly as counting paper throughout Consumers, in part, may be replace bills and coins, sav- the day to more productive un- driving the trend toward digiing merchants and customers dertakings like coaching team tal-only payments. precious time by not having to members.

“Cash is significantly down fumble with cash at the queue.

“The highest paid folks in the as a preferred payment device,” It’s something DavidsTea co- restaurants can actually spend says Angela Brown, CEO of Mofounder David Segal is banking that time doing things that we neris Solutions. www.canadianinquirer.net

In the second quarter of 2017, 39.5 per cent of payment transactions used tap-and-pay methods, according to data from the debit and credit payment processor. That’s up from 30.86 per cent the year before.

Moneris predicts that figure will jump to 50 per cent by the end of the year.

The escalation comes as digital wallets gain a foothold in Canadians’ smartphones. Google’s Android Pay launched in the country at the end of May, while Apple Pay has been available now for more than a year.

The increasing availability

of these types of methods will significantly increase noncash payments in the long run, Brown says.

Last year, the company predicted cash purchases will compose only one-tenth of all money spent in Canada by 2030, and she says the firm remains confident that will be the case as both consumers and businesses begin to prefer the convenience of digital payments.

The growth in tap-and-pay cards and digital wallets “is absolutely cannibalizing cash transactions.” ■

AUGUST 4, 2017

34

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FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2017

35

Travel Bulacan’s many faces–from the grandiose to the spooky to the bloody

BY CONSTANTINO C. TEJERO Philippine Daily Inquirer AS A showcase of history and culture, San Miguel town is an exemplar not only in Bulacan but also for the country to emulate.

Renowned for so-called Bulacan sweets (pastillas de leche, bottled santol), it is also home to artists (kundiman composer Nicanor Abelardo, musician Francisco Buencamino, baritone José Mossesgeld Santiago, writer Virgilio Almario) and revolutionary figures (Simon Tecson, Trinidad Tecson, Felipe Buencamino, Dr. Maximo Viola), and summer capital for presidents (Manuel Quezon, Manuel Roxas and Sergio Osmeña).

Millennials have become aware of their rich heritage, and some like Enzo Buencamino have joined a local government unit monitoring and doing an inventory of every other piece of built heritage in their town. They want to preserve and protect anything old, antique or ancient—from the Baroque-style Church of San Miguel Arcangel (circa 1860s) to the few extant colonial-era kamalig or granaries.

Buencamino has even turned his ancestral house into a mini museum. In the sala presided over by the centuryold icon of Maria Salome are antique household tools, farm implements and artifacts. He has neatly filed on a table a fragile collection of old photographs, scraps of paper, record books, for visitors to scrutinize.

Unlike some other places where the extravagance of the culture is reflective of the loudness of the people’s character traits, Bulacan has a very rich but relatively quiet culture. So we tend to forget that some of the country’s most grandiose structures are in this province.

Think of the Philippine Arena. With a seating capacity of about 52,000, in a 140-hectare zone in Bocaue and Sta. Maria towns, it is considered the world’s biggest indoor arena.

Massive complex

Think of the Shrine of St. Andrew Kim, also in Bocaue—a complex of massive structures with Korean architectural motifs, footpaths with bowers, well-manicured grounds, herb gardens and a river view. The place is managed

by Korean nuns.

A loquacious guide for a tour of the

complex is Fr. Vicente Robles, under whose parish the shrine is. He shows statuary and murals depicting the saint, locally known as San Andres Kim Tae-Gon. Fleeing religious persecution in Korea during the Joseon Dynasty, Kim TaeGon sailed to Macau to study, then to the Philippines, where he lived as a seminarian at Hacienda de Lolomboy in the late 1830s. Upon returning to his homeland as a priest with a group of French missionaries in 1845, he was arrested and executed with the missionaries and over 100 converts. He was canonized in 1984.

In a patch of undergrowth can still be found the stump of an ancient tree under which the future saint used to study.

Its trunk and branches Father Robles had fashioned into a stylized altar table as a relic.

In nearby Sto. Cristo Church, the seat of Father Robles’ parish, most design elements have been Filipinized, from the door to the altar. The priest has built a capacious structure that looks highly personalized.

Overwhelming sight

A more massive structure with a more dizzying landscape architecture is the Grand Basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes in San José del Monte City. It has a Stations of the Cross route traversing a hill and an exact replica of the grotto of Lourdes in France.

But unquestionably the most overwhelming of Bulacan’s grandiose structures is the statue of Christ at the National Shrine of Divine Mercy in Marilao town. At 100 feet high, it is reportedly the tallest such image in the world.

There, too, are religious structures in the area that are much smaller but no less significant.

The Church of Sta. Monica in Angat town, built in 1758, is remarkable for its Rococo-Baroque architecture. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescos have been painstakingly replicated here by folk artists, though modified and indiginized.

In 1805, Fr. Manuel Blanco was assigned as its parish priest. It was here where the young Augustinian friar, while going around town collecting and studying native plants, conceived the monumental book “Flora de Filipinas.”

Casa Real of Malolos City.

Baroque style, has a richer, bloodier history.

RJ Ligamzon, president of the Parish Commission on Youth, tours visitors around with a running commentary that raises one’s hair.

It was inside this church, in the morning of Nov. 30, 1896, where Gen. Anacleto Enriquez, Trinidad Tecson and nearly 100 other katipuneros and many locals were trapped by the Guardia Civil. About 800 perished, mostly women and children. The blood spilled on the church floor reportedly reached ankle-deep.

That five-hour battle was what inspired Gregorio del Pilar to join the revolution against Spain.

San Rafael is said to be the model for the town of San Diego in José Rizal’s novel “Noli Me Tángere.” Between the church and the rectory is a cramped space where, it is believed, the real-life brothers Basilio and Crispin were maltreated by the sacristan mayor.

On one wall is a painting depicting the cruel scene. Some years ago, on the opposite wall, it is said bloodstains could

Bloodier history

The Church of San Juan de Dios in San Rafael town, built in the 1860s in Partido www.canadianinquirer.net

AEROUS / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

still be seen.

On one end of the small room is a lifesize statue of a seated Rizal, poised in writing. Farther, on the other end, is a crevice between the stone walls, said to be an ancient well. It was believed to be the pit where the sacristan mayor threw the corpse of 7-year-old bell-ringer Crispin.

Three halls of the rectory have been turned into a parochial museum, small but quite comprehensive.

The ghost of a woman is said to be haunting the place. (Could it be Sisa looking for her boys?)

Rich display

How historical this province is was underscored by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines’ (NHCP) decision to transfer the Museum of Political History from the NHCP Building in Manila to the Casa Real of Malolos City.

Built during the Spanish era, demol❱❱ PAGE 36 Bulacan’s many

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Wyoming's Wind River Mountain Range.

Wyoming reservation readies for solar eclipse tourists THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CASPER, WYO. — Tribal officials on Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation are preparing for visitors looking for a prime spot to view next month’s solar eclipse by blocking off sacred sites and opening parts of the reservation to campers willing to pay $500 for a permit.

More than 10,000 people are expected to come to Fremont County and the reservation, whose Crowheart community is on the centre line of the Aug. 21 eclipse, The Star Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/2uKR7Ro).

Some residents of the reservation, such as Crowheart Store owner Lloyd Haslam, are underwhelmed by the fact that their location is one of the best spots in the 14 states where the moon’s passage will completely block the sun.

Haslam will keep additional supplies and gas on hand — his is the only service stop for miles — but he’s skeptical that more than a few people will actually buy the $500 camping permits.

“I’ve had people all summer talking about it as tourist people come in and stuff,” he said. “Heck, I could care less.”

Two casinos on the reservation are offering eclipse packages and lodging,

while a non-profit organization is offering teepee stays.

Three swaths of land will be open to people who buy camping permits for the week leading up to the eclipse. Viewing the eclipse for the reservation’s side roads also will require a day permit.

However, tribal officials warn the camping areas won’t have garbage cans or toilets. It’s strictly pack out what you pack in, said Art Lawson, the Shoshone and Arapaho Fish and Game director.

Lawson is in charge of most of the eclipse planning on the reservation, and he’s only been on the job for three weeks.

He figures it would take 20 or 30 game wardens to adequately patrol the reservation’s lands. He’ll have just three, plus officers brought in from Montana by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Lawson said he plans to put up signs to tell travellers that the open spaces bordering state roads are private land requiring special permission to access. He also plans to block off some of the more sensitive sacred sites and graves.

He has already had to deny a German film crew’s plans to film the eclipse from a spot on Crowheart Butte.

“I’m like, ‘No, absolutely not,’” Lawson said. “There are grave sites and everything around Crowheaert Butte.” ■

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ished in 1964 and reconstructed in 1980, Casa Real opened late last year as the NHCP’s 18th museum to be modernized.

It has state-of-the-art facilities and a rich display of life-size dioramas, murals, graphs and interactive video tracing our political history from precolonial times to the present, though one wishes there were more authentic artifacts. As it is, most of the documents and vintage photographs here are photocopies, and many of the cultural bric-a-brac are replicas. www.canadianinquirer.net

Couldn’t curators perhaps borrow from current owners some authentic items such as the scoop of sand from the ground where Rizal fell in Bagumbayan; the original inkwell used in the signing of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato, or even the ornate bed used by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo when he headquartered in San Miguel de Mayumo?

Stuff like those need to be exhibited in a proper museum so they could be seen by as many Filipinos as possible, to keep the patriotic heart forever burning. ■

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Food Rose wine gives chicken breasts flavour of Provence

BY MELISSA D’ARABIAN The Associated Press BONELESS SKINLESS chicken breasts are a convenient go-to for so many cooks, from paleofollowers to budget-shoppers to busy moms. The mild flavour makes it incredibly versatile, so it’s easy to slip this cut of chicken into almost any recipe or flavour profile. It’s one of the leanest cuts of meat available, with a quarter pound boasting 34 grams of protein, and only 4 grams of fat.

The challenge with such low fat is, of course, keeping the meat tender and juicy. Even a minute or two extra of cook time can take dinner from succulent to stringy and tough. Grilling breasts brings extra risk, since cooking temperatures are high, narrowing the timing window, so it’s even more important to get it just right. A few tips will help tremendously here.

The biggest challenge is getting the inside meat to cook before the outside meat gets tough, so the best move you can make is to use smaller chicken cutlets. Organic or free-range chicken breasts solve this problem completely, or if you have larger conventional cutlets, trim them in half or thirds before cooking. Next, avoid cooking the meat when it’s super cold, by allowing it to sit at room temperature for a half hour before grilling. And heat the grill only to medium high, or if using charcoal, avoid putting breasts on the hottest part of the grill. Chicken breast meat is usually done a minute or two before I suspect it will be, so I always rely on an inexpensive meat thermometer, so I’m sure to remove the chicken right at 160 degrees, and let it rest for five minutes to keep the meat at maximum juiciness.

This recipe for Chicken Breast Provencal is inspired by ingredients typical of the region of Provence in the south of France, but easily found in a well-

This eggplant gets sweet, sour thanks to vinegar, tomatoes THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA

stocked American supermarket.

Rose wine is the secret behind the simple marinade that imparts a lightly sweet flavour, but if you have a floral white wine at home, it will do the trick nicely, too. Olives — try to grab a handful of interesting ones at the salad bar _and roasted red peppers from a jar add Mediterranean colour, and a tiny bit of balsamic syrup brings a bit of welcomed acidity. Your family will enjoy this dish because of its flavours, while you’ll know how healthy it actually is.

Chicken Breasts Provencal

Start to Finish: 15 minutes, plus marinating Yield: 4 servings • 4 chicken breasts cutlets, about 5 ounces each • 1/3 cup rose wine (or fruity white wine) • 1 tablespoon olive oil • 1 tablespoon dried herbes de Provence (or mix of oregano, marjoram and thyme) • 1/4 cup jarred roasted sweet red peppers, sliced, oil drained • 1/4 cup high-quality olives • 1 tablespoon balsamic syrup • Kosher salt • Black pepper In a bowl or resealable plastic

bag, place the chicken, wine, olive oil, herbes de Provence, salt and pepper and mix well to coat the chicken breasts. Let marinate for at least 30 minutes at room temperature or up to 8 hours refrigerated, allowing the final 30 minutes to be at room temperature. When ready to cook, heat the grill (or a grill pan, if indoors) to medium high and lightly oil the grates. Lightly blot excess marinade off the chicken breasts and grill until cooked through and meat is 160 degrees on a meat thermometer, about 4-5 minutes per side.

(Using a meat thermometer will help avoid overcooking.) Remove the chicken from the grill and place directly on warmed dish or platter. Top with the roasted red peppers and olives and drizzle with the balsamic syrup. Let chicken rest a few minutes, and serve. (For a quick homemade balsamic syrup: boil about 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar with 1/2 teaspoon of brown sugar in a small saucepan until reduced by half.) ■ Nutrition information per serving: 241 calories; 91 calories from fat; 10 g fat (2 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 86 mg cholesterol; 436 mg sodium; 5 g carbohydrate; 1 g fiber; 2 g sugar; 27 g protein.

TRADITIONAL RECIPES seem to be part of a collective conscience of sorts, and eggplant caponata is no exception. All around Italy (and the world), chefs and grandmothers and uncles are making a variation of this sweet and sour eggplant dish. And while each region and family has its own variation on method and ingredients, the same overall idea prevails.

In the simplest of terms, eggplant caponata is cooked eggplant and other ingredients in a sweet and sour sauce. Those “other ingredients” can be a number of things, but most commonly include peppers, onions, garlic, raisins, and capers.

The beauty of caponata is that it can be made in advance and served at room temperature and it’s a perfect accompaniment to meat or fish or on top of crostini.

In Italian cooking, the combination of sweet and sour flavours is known as agrodolce.

It typically refers to a cooked mixture of vinegar and sugar or other sweetener, and can be served over roasted meats, on toasted panini, or as an ingredient in a composed pasta dish.

In eggplant caponata, it is the sauce that binds the other ingredients together, giving the dish its characteristic sweet and sour qualities.

In this version, the vegetables are tossed with vinegar and tomatoes, then roasted in a single layer until they are soft and caramelized. Because eggplant holds so much moisture, it is often salted and drained before cooking.

Eggpland caponata Makes 10 servings (about 6 cups) Start to finish: 1 hour 45 minutes (Active time: 15 minutes)

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• 1 eggplant (about 1 pound), peeled and cut into small dice • 2 tablespoons salt • 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into small dice • 3/4 cup minced onion • 1 teaspoon minced garlic • 1/4 cup olive oil • 2 cups canned diced tomatoes • 2 tablespoons tomato paste • 2 tablespoons basil chiffonade • 1 teaspoon minced marjoram • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar • 1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan Preheat the oven to 250 F. Place the eggplant in a large bowl and sprinkle with the salt, tossing evenly to distribute.

Place the salted eggplant in a colander and allow to drain for 20 minutes.

Quickly rinse the eggplant under cool water, then place on paper towels to absorb excess moisture.

In a large bowl, combine the eggplant with the bell pepper, onion, garlic, and oil and toss to combine. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and toss to thoroughly combine.

Spread the vegetable mixture evenly on a baking sheet and roast for about 45 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and lightly browned.

Remove the pan from the oven and add the basil, marjoram, and vinegar. Gently fold the ingredients together.

Transfer the caponata to a glass or stainless steel container with a lid. Let cool to room temperature, then stir in the cheese. Refrigerate the caponata in a covered glass or stainless steel container for up to a week.

The flavour will improve if the caponata is allowed to rest for at least 24 hours before use. ■ Nutrition information per serving: 114 calories; 56 calories from fat; 6 g fat (1 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 2 mg cholesterol; 527 mg sodium; 13 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 7 g sugar; 2 g protein.

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COOKING ON DEADLINE:

Deviled Burgers

BY KATIE WORKMAN The Associated Press SOME GOOD ground beef, preferably not too lean (when making burgers, fat is our friend), and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper is all you need to make a fine burger most days. But on some other days, you might want a burger with a bit more zing, more interest, more panache.

Some days might call for a deviled burger.

Shallots, mustard, chili sauce, hot sauce — just a little bit of these ingredients turn plain burgers into “can I get this recipe?” burgers. If you are looking for more heat, just increase the amount of dry mustard and/or chili powder.

Note that this recipe calls for ancho chili powder, a ground spice made of 100 per cent ancho peppers. It’s available in the spice section of most supermarkets. This is different from a general chili powder,

sometimes called chili blend or chili seasoning, which contains a mix of ground chilies, garlic, cumin, oregano and maybe additional spices. But if that blend is what you have on hand, it will still make a burger with portfolio.

These burgers, like all burgers, can easily be made into a cheeseburger, using whatever cheese you like, from cheddar to Emmental to provolone to blue cheese to a good old slice of American cheese. The seasonings in the meat take well to a variety of cheeses, from pungent to mild. It’s a question of whether you want to keep pumping up the flavour or just add some meltiness to the equation.

Instead of ketchup on top, you might also try a bit of the chili sauce. A slice of sharp onion keeps the flavour ratcheting upwards.

Bring it, you say? Oh, it’s on.

Deviled burgers

Start to finish: 25 minutes

Makes 6 large burgers or 8 medium burgers • 2 pounds ground chuck (80/20) • 2 tablespoons chili sauce • 2 tablespoons finely minced shallot • 2 tablespoons minced parsley • 1 tablespoon jarred horseradish, squeezed well to remove excess liquid • 1 tablespoon dry mustard • 2 teaspoons chili powder • 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper • Sliced or crumbled cheese, if desired • 6 split burger buns To Serve: • Ketchup, mustard, chili sauce • Lettuce • Tomatoes • Onions • Pickles Form the patties: Place the chili sauce, shallot, parsley, horseradish, mustard, chili

powder, salt and pepper in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the meat. Use your hands to lightly but thoroughly mix the seasonings into the meat. Divide the beef into six or eight even portions, and use your hands to form even, round patties, about 3/4-inch thick. Use your fingers to press a small indentation into the middle of each patty.

Make the burgers: Place the patties on the grill and cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until they are cooked to your lik-

ing. During the last minute of cooking, place the cheese over the burgers, if desired. Also place the buns on the grill and let them toast lightly, if desired.

Place a burger on the bottom of each bun, and top as desired.

Place the bun top over the burger and serve. ■ Nutritional information: 520 calories; 292 calories from fat; 32 g fat (12 g saturated; 2 g trans fats); 107 mg cholesterol; 668 mg sodium; 24 g carbohydrate; 1 g fiber; 4 g sugar; 31 g protein.

Crispy Shrimp Tacos are baked, not fried

BY SARA MOULTON The Associated Press FROM TACO trucks to Mexican restaurants, tacos are just about everywhere these days.

And why not? A taco is exactly as handy, versatile and filling as a sandwich, and crunchy to boot. Lots of folks dream of making these fried corn tortillas at home, but some pull up short at the prospect of having to deep-fry them. The solution?

Don’t fry them. Baking will bring tacos to crispy perfection and allow you to shape them into shells in the process.

That said, I discovered while developing this recipe for Crispy Shrimp Tacos with Cole Slaw and Chipotle Cream that not all corn tortillas are created equal. Some are thick-ish and some are thin-ish. Some are drier and some are moister.

Given that there’s no way of predicting these qualities in the brands you buy at the store, you just need to pay attention to the tortillas as they bake and adjust

accordingly. Some brands will require more time than others to become crispy.

Before being baked, the tortillas need to be steamed a bit so they don’t crack when you shape them. Then you brush them very lightly on both sides with oil (or with vegetable oil spray, if you prefer), drape them directly over a bar of the oven rack and bake them until crispy. (See recipe for details.)

I recommend baking them in two batches of four tortillas each because when you open the oven to shape them, the oven temperature drops. If you’re shaping all eight at once, the temperature will drop a lot and the tortillas will take forever to crisp.

The shells can be made ahead and parked in a bowl at room temperature. Then you can turn to the preparation of whichever fillings you want. (Here I propose coleslaw, grilled shrimp and chipotle cream.) When the dinner bell chimes, just set out all the fixings and let people dig in for themselves.

Crispy Shrimp Tacos with Cole Slaw and Chipotle Cream

Start to finish: 1 hour Servings: 4

• Eight 6-inch corn tortillas • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus extra for brushing the tortillas • 1/4 cup mayonnaise (low-fat if you prefer) • 1/4 cup Greek yogurt or sour cream • 1 teaspoon minced chipotle in adobo sauce • 1/2 teaspoon adobo sauce from the can • 1 tablespoon plus 2 1/2 teaspoons fresh lime juice • 3 cups finely shredded cabbage • 1 cup coarsely shredded carrots • 1 cup thin strips red bell pepper (about 1-inch long) • 1 pound medium shrimp (31/35), peeled and deveined • 1 firm ripe avocado, cut into cubes • 1/2 cup cilantro leaves www.canadianinquirer.net

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Wrap 4 tortillas in foil and heat them on the middle shelf of the oven until they are pliable, about 5 minutes (or wrap them in a moist towel and microwave them for 30 seconds). Remove them from the foil, brush them lightly on both sides with the oil and carefully (so as not to burn yourself ) drape each tortilla over a metal bar on the middle rack of the oven so that the sides of the tortillas are hanging down and bake them for 5 minutes. Open the oven, and using tongs, lift up the tortillas, spread them open a bit by pulling the two sides apart (they will still be pliable), and bake them on the rack for another 3 to 5 minutes or until they are crispy all over. Prep and bake the remaining 4 tortillas following the same procedure.

Meanwhile in a small bowl combine the mayonnaise, yogurt, chipotle, adobo sauce and 1 teaspoon of the lime juice and stir well. Add salt to taste and about 1 tablespoon water or

enough to make the sauce pourable.

In a medium bowl combine the cabbage, carrots, red pepper, remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice, 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil and salt to taste and toss well.

Preheat the grill to medium.

In a medium bowl toss the shrimp with the remaining 2 tablespoons oil and salt. Thread the shrimp onto skewers (preferably double skewers) and grill them, turning them once for 2 to 3 minutes total or until just cooked through. Transfer to a serving bowl.

To serve: Put all of the components of the tacos — the shrimp, coleslaw, avocado, chipotle cream and cilantro — onto a serving platter and let your guests build their own tacos. ■ Nutrition information per serving: 486 calories; 249 calories from fat; 28 g fat (4 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 150 mg cholesterol; 861 mg sodium; 39 g carbohydrate; 11 g fiber; 9 g sugar; 21 g protein.

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