BusinessMirror May 12, 2024

MONEY,MONEY MONEY,

At $2 million per minute, Treasuries mint cash at record pace to regain role as income source

By Michael Mackenzie and Liz Capo McCormick Bloomberg

FOR the first time in nearly a generation, fixed income is living up to its name.

This, at a certain level, is simply the consequence of benchmark rates in the US jumping from 0 percent to over 5 percent in a span of two years. But at a time when all of Wall Street seems fixated on whether the Federal Reserve will actually cut interest rates this year—and heated arguments break out over whether the 10-year US bond should yield, say, 4.5 percent or 4.65 percent—it’s easy to lose sight of one important fact: That after being held hostage by zero-rate policies for almost two decades, US Treasuries are finally reverting back to their traditional role in the economy. That is, as a source of income that investors can lock in and rely on, year after year, for years to come—regardless of where yields are at any given moment. The numbers tell the story.

Last year, investors pocketed nearly $900 billion in annual interest from US government debt, double the average over the previous decade. That’s set to rise as over 90 percent of Treasuries carry coupons of 4 percent or more. In mid-2020, just 5 percent yielded that much. Because of the higher interest, investors are also better shielded against any jump in yields. Currently, rates would need to go up by over three-quarters of a percentage point over the next year before Treasuries start to lose money, at least on paper.

Over the past decade, that margin of safety at times virtually disappeared.

“With the help of our friends at the Fed, they did put the income back in fixed income,” said Anne Walsh, who oversees about $320 billion as chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners Investment Management. “As fixed-income investors, we get to reap the benefits of higher yield. That’s a good thing.”

Two recent economic trends have worked in their favor.

First is that, while inflation is tantalizingly close to the point where the Fed might consider cutting rates, lately, progress toward its 2-percent goal has stalled. That’s pushed out rate-cut expectations into at least the latter part of the year.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, is simply that the economy keeps humming along (despite some signs of cooling in the labor market), which suggests the Fed won’t need to lower rates all that much when it does begin.

Wait and see FED Chair Jerome Powell underscored that wait-and-see approach in his remarks last week after the central bank held rates steady, while the traders currently see just two quarter-point cuts by yearend. At the start of the year, they priced in as many as six.

“Nobody is focused anymore

“With the help of our friends at the Fed, they did put the income back in fixed income. As fixed-income investors, we get to reap the benefits of higher yield. That’s a good thing.” — ANNE WALSH, CHIEF

on what could go wrong if the wheels come off with the economy,” said Blake Gwinn, head of US interest-rate strategy at RBC Capital Markets. “And every month that goes by is another month that a cut didn’t happen.” As a result, safe assets like Treasuries—from one-month Tbills to 30-year bonds—now have something to offer anyone looking for income.

Money, money, money IN February, the Congressional Budget Office projected that interest and dividends paid to individuals will rise to $327 billion this year—more than double the amount in the mid-2010s—and

keep increasing each year over the coming decade. In March alone, the Treasury Department paid out about $89 billion in interest to debt holders—or roughly $2 million a minute.

It’s no small irony that the newfound income from Treasuries may itself be playing a role in keeping the “higher-for-longer” narrative intact. A small, but growing number on Wall Street argue that, along with the surge in stock prices, the interest paid on Treasuries and other bond investments is creating a material wealth effect among Americans, with the extra cash acting like stimulus checks supporting the surprisingly resilient economy.

Of course, the whole point of owning US government bonds is that they aren’t supposed to lose money, are less volatile than equities and will provide a fixed rate of return above inflation. There’s no sugar-coating the fact that the very reason Treasuries are back in demand as a buy-and-hold option—after years of yielding next to nothing—is because of brutal losses in recent years in the face of rampant inflation and the aggressive rate hikes to combat it.

That reset, however painful, has now paved the way for higher future returns and a “more normal” fixed-income market.

Investors have responded by piling in. Money-market funds— which invest in short-term securities like T-bills—saw their assets swell to a record $6.1 trillion last month. Meanwhile, bond funds raked in $300 billion in 2023 and $191 billion so far this year, reversing outflows in 2022 that were the biggest in recent memory, according to EPFR data. Direct sales of Treasuries to individuals have jumped, too.

All told, the amount of debt held by households and non-profits has surged 90 percent since the start of 2022 to a record $5.7 trillion, according to Fed statistics.

Dan Ivascyn, chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co., says the reset in yields for high-quality debt of all kinds, from Treasuries to corporate bonds, will have broad implications for the buyout firms, hedge-fund managers and private-credit shops that drew in hundreds of billions of dollars when rates were at rockbottom lows.

Back to the future

HE also noted that bonds are now a “tremendous value” versus stocks.

By one measure, known as the Fed model, they’re more attractive versus US equities than at any time since 2002.

“We’re seeing far more inquiries for fixed income than we’ve seen in the last almost 15 years,” Ivascyn said. Investors are asking themselves “why am I making it so complicated when I can get 6% percent, 7 percent, 8 percent from bonds? So it’s opening up a whole new buyer base.”

There is, of course, no certainty this will stay the case. But there are solid reasons to believe that yields won’t revert back to their post-financial-crisis levels even after the Fed starts cutting rates. That means fixed income will likely remain in demand.

For starters, nagging worries about inflation, fueled in part by trends like the de-globalization of supply chains, will likely keep rates from falling too far as investors demand protection against the risk their income will be eaten away by the rising cost of living. After accounting for inflation, yields are now back above 2 percent. The last time that happened on a sustained basis was prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

Then, there’s the massive US deficit, which is all but certain to be financed by a never-ending supply of new bonds. Not only is that likely to keep yields elevated, but it will also provide a burgeoning source of interest income for bond investors, month after month.

“It seems like going back to the future—a little bit back to some normal times,’’ said Matt Eagan, a money manager at Loomis Sayles & Co., which oversees roughly $350 billion. “It’s quite a big turnaround.”

China’s factory overcapacity alarms world, but there’s no quick fix in sight

By Bloomberg News

THE groundswell of complaints about China’s factory output keeps getting louder, but there’s no sign Beijing is ready for fixes that might backfire on its vulnerable economy.

This week European Union leaders, who are threatening tariffs on electric cars, were the latest to scold China about overcapacity. Before she met visiting President Xi Jinping, the bloc’s chief Ursula von der Leyen said she’s hoping for action in the “short term.”

She’ll likely be disappointed. China did announce proposals Wednesday to slow expansion in the battery industry, but they’re not binding. Meanwhile the state planning agency last week published a four-part rebuttal of claims that the country has too much capacity to make cleanenergy products. It said Chinese industry is competitive thanks to innovation, not subsidies.

That’s become Beijing’s standard line about high-tech industries like EVs and solar panels. They’re crucial to Xi’s blueprint

for reviving the economy—which is why China probably won’t stop supporting them, however much it’s urged to. They’re strategically important for other countries too, which is why trade barriers are going up.

But China’s trade partners— ncluding friendly ones like Brazil—are also raising objections about all kinds of products lower down the value chain, from steel and petrochemicals to excavators. In many of these areas, surpluses emerged as an unwanted side effect of the real-estate slump weighing down China’s economy. Beijing hasn’t figured out how to halt that slide yet, except by turning to high-tech as an offset, so both types of over-production are set to persist.

“There is no single, quick fix for China’s overcapacity chal-

lenge,” says Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC Holdings Plc. In clean energy the root cause is China’s “robust investment,” he says, while in more traditional industries the problem is weak demand, “especially from faltering housing construction.”

What’s ultimately needed, according to Neumann, is “a twopronged approach” to balance supply and demand, which involves stabilizing China’s housing market and helping consumers to spend more.

But that’s a big ask—as even some of China’s strongest capacity critics admit.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent visit was dominated by the issue. Her team repeatedly chided Beijing for steering state funds into key industries, propping up money-losing companies and flooding world markets with exports that threaten the livelihood of local firms.

The US view is that China should rely more on demand from its own consumers, and less on the rest of the world. Yellen acknowledged the scale of that challenge. “This is a complicated issue that involves their entire macroeconomic and industrial strategy,” she told reporters in Guangzhou. “It’s not going to be solved in an afternoon or a month.”

Right now, far from being ready to shoulder more of the burden of driving growth, Chinese households and local governments are tightening their belts after the housing crash.

With domestic demand weak, the industrial capacity utilization rate dropped last quarter to the lowest since the pandemic hit in early 2020. Factories are pivoting to overseas markets, exports have soared and prices plunged.

The solar panel industry is one case where there’s a glut, after a massive expansion led to a price war and a collapse in profitability.

In autos, the picture is more complex. Capacity use dropped sharply in the first quarter of this year, but major exporters of EVs— like BYD Co. and Tesla Inc.—have been running at higher levels than the industry overall, according to estimates from JSC Automotive. That points to a growing number of idle factories that used to make petrol cars and got caught out by China’s rapid switch to EVs. One fix for the EV tensions

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent visit was dominated by China’s overcapacity issue. Her team repeatedly chided Beijing for steering state funds into key industries, propping up money-losing companies and flooding world markets with exports that threaten the livelihood of local firms.

may be for Chinese firms to start producing in other countries.

Japan’s economic standoff with the US in the 1980s eased after Japanese carmakers invested in American plants. Chinese firms are starting to follow that path in Europe, South America and Asia, with backing from Beijing. The Communist Party’s main decision-making body said last week it would “support private enterprises in expanding overseas markets.”

Xi’s European itinerary included stops in Hungary, where BYD plans a factory—and France, where Prime Minister Bruno Le Maire said his country would welcome one, too. But that’s a longer-run strategy. BYD says it’ll take three years to start producing in Hungary. And it may not work in the US, where there’s growing hostility to any Chinese investment.

In older industries, there’s a precedent from almost a decade ago when China tried to deal with massive overcapacity in steel and aluminum. It forced the industry to rationalize and closed down less-efficient producers.

Yellen and her Treasury colleagues say Beijing should take a

similar profit-focused approach to industries now.

“The share of money-losing firms in China is as high as it’s been in decades,” Jay Shambaugh, undersecretary for international affairs, said last month. “You’ve got firms that are not really responding to what the market will bear.”

But closing firms and cutting jobs in a weak economy is a highrisk move. What’s more, China’s policies of the 2010s didn’t lead to a substantial decline in output. And lately the problem has reared its head again, with steel exports surging to an eight-year high and triggering complaints worldwide.

In all of this, the underlying issue is that China’s state-led expansion of manufacturing isn’t matched by growth in consumption at home, says Camille Boullenois, an analyst at Rhodium Group.

“There are only a few ways companies can deal with it: they can under-utilize their production capacity, keep goods in inventories, export more, or import less,” she says.

“We’re seeing all these effects at the moment in China.” With assistance from Karthikeyan

URSULA VON DER LEYEN, right, with Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron following their meeting in Paris on May 6. BLOOMBERG

Editor: Angel R. Calso

How Novo Nordisk became Europe’s most valuable company and global powerhouse

By Sanne Wass & Naomi Kresge

THERE is no escaping Ozempic and Wegovy. The diabetes and obesity drugs are a global phenomenon. They’ve won over the rich and famous, generated billions in sales and blown open a new market for weight loss drugs, which Goldman Sachs estimates will reach $100 billion a year by 2030.

The development of semaglutide, the key ingredient in the medicines, has also transformed their maker, Novo Nordisk, into Europe’s most valuable company, with profound implications for its home country of Denmark. Novo’s market capitalization of more than $570 billion is bigger than the Danish economy. Its philanthropic foundation is now the world’s largest, with assets twice those of the Gates Foundation. The drugmaker’s income tax bill in Denmark last year was $2.3 billion, and its massive investments and heightened production helped the domestic

economy expand almost 2 percent—more than four times the EU average. That drove record government spending on defense, the green transition and support for Ukraine. Without Novo’s contribution, the Danish economy would have stagnated.

Little in Denmark can escape Novo’s gravitational pull. Its agenda influences educational and research priorities, and politicians consider the company’s perspective before making decisions on immigration policy or new infrastructure development. The drugmaker has created thousands

of jobs in the six-million-person country—and more will come as Novo expands across multiple locations—but even citizens with no ties to the firm benefit from its gains. Danish pension funds are flush from record returns on Novo shares, and mortgages are cheaper as booming diabetes drug exports have forced Denmark’s central bank to keep interest rates low.

Novo’s enormous scale in Denmark also comes with risks, both for the company and its home market. Its every move is met with media scrutiny, making it especially vulnerable to public backlash and regulatory shifts. And a strategic misstep by the company would have a trickle-down impact on public coffers, scientific research and even jobs for the next generation of Danish university graduates.

While Novo can’t anticipate how its decisions might affect Denmark, Chief Executive Officer Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said in an interview, he’s also realistic about the drugmaker’s potential impact in its home country and elsewhere. “When you have superpowers,” he said, citing Swedish children’s story Pippi Longstocking, “you have super responsibility.”

Such outsized influence can be a liability in a culture where humility is so deeply rooted that an unofficial social code exists to discourage

flashy displays of success. And Novo has taken measures to downplay its stature: When the company rented Copenhagen’s famed Tivoli Gardens amusement park in September for a private two-day staff party, the drugmaker asked guests not to post pictures on social media for fear of repercussions, according to local media.

And this week, following months of debate over rising public spending on Novo medication, the firm quietly reduced prices for Ozempic in Denmark by nearly a third.

For now, Novo has an almost iconic status amongst Danes— policymakers included. There is an “extreme political attentiveness” to Novo, said Christoph Houman Ellersgaard, an associate professor at the Copenhagen Business School who researches Danish elites. Yet Novo is in a delicate position. If it continues to expand, so too will the power and influence it exerts in Denmark.

And if it stumbles or falls, the country’s economy and society will feel the effects.

Economists call this the “Nokia risk,” referencing the Finnish telecommunications giant whose collapse, beginning in the first decade of the 2000s, dragged down that country’s entire economy. Not only did the then-phonemaker’s decline

wipe out thousands of jobs, but the ripple effects extended to Finnish universities, businesses, and the public sector, all of which relied on its success.

Some already see parallels.

“If Novo continues to be most of the growth in the Danish economy, then there’s a problem when the profit stream from Novo shrinks,” said Herman Mark Schwartz, a politics professor at the University of Virginia who researches small countries disproportionately dependent on single firms.

“And it will shrink.”

Ripple effects

ON a spring afternoon in the former fishing village of Kalundborg, Mayor Martin Damm steered his Mercedes through a series of detours to avoid the afternoon rush hour, when thousands of scientists, robotics engineers and assembly line workers stream out of Novo’s local manufacturing hub.

Damm proudly pointed out the trucks, cranes, and piles of dirt that represent the factory’s—and the town’s—promising future.

Novo has operated in Kalundborg since the late 1960s, producing about half the world’s insulin there. Now, the drugmaker is spending 60 billion kroner ($8.6 billion) to build and renovate a

cluster of factories within its complex, which is more than half the size of London’s financial district. Among the drugs they’ll produce is semaglutide.

The surrounding area is also being transformed. Novo and the foundation that controls threequarters of its voting shares are helping fund a train station, biotech college and a research lab in the area. Two universities plan to launch degree programs in Kalundborg, and a highway is being built to connect the town to the capital.

“A decade ago, people who came from Copenhagen would call Kalundborg ‘Novosibirsk,’ because it was far out in the middle of nowhere,” said Damm, who’s been in the job since 2010. “Today, it’s known as Novo City.”

As Novo’s fortunes have risen, so too have Kalundborg’s. Corporate tax revenue from Novo is estimated to have jumped more than tenfold since 2011, and the unemployment rate has dropped by about two-thirds. In 2022, the municipality’s economy expanded by 27 percent. As corporate tax coffers have swelled, elected officials have cut taxes six times in the past ten years and invested in initiatives including a new harbor park.

Local businesses have benefited

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How Novo Nordisk became Europe’s most valuable company and global powerhouse

significantly from the so-called Novo effect. Damm drove by a gas station that prepares up to 66 pounds of pork every morning to meet booming demand for sandwiches among construction workers at Novo’s site. A flower shop in the town center has been exceptionally busy preparing welcome bouquets for new Novo employees. According to the 61-yearold mayor, every new job at Novo creates three somewhere else, and the company anticipates that its construction in Kalundborg will produce 1,200 new roles.

Among the company’s most important recruiting pipelines is the University College Absalon, which moved its Kalundborg campus next door to Novo’s factory in 2021 after a $4.2 million donation from the drugmaker.

The ties between Novo Nordisk and Absalon go beyond large checks. Novo offers student internships, hosts factory visits, donates equipment to the college, provides guest lecturers, and makes suggestions as to how the school’s curriculum could be

optimized to better suit the company’s needs. Students, most from abroad, are drawn to Absalon’s biotech program because of the near-guarantee of a job at Novo or one of the town’s other industrial companies; many work part-time at Novo while studying.

It’s all part of an emerging research hub: In 2022, the site welcomed a Novo Foundation-funded lab, where graduate students collaborate with the drugmaker and local companies on research related to pharmaceuticals and bioproduction. Later this year, the Technical University of Denmark—also supported by the foundation—and the University of Copenhagen will break ground on the Absalon campus, offering biotech-tailored degrees.

As Ozempic and Wegovy revenue have surged at Novo, grantmaking has kept pace. In 2023, the Novo Nordisk Foundation awarded a record $1.3 billion to projects related to innovation and science.

No other foundation in Denmark—including those attached to large companies like Carlsberg, Lego and Maersk—comes anywhere close to Novo’s reach.

The foundation backs 27 percent of Denmark’s medical research. It sponsors the work and salaries of 9,500 scientists—almost as many as work at Novo itself. Last year, the foundation gave away its first Obesity Prize for Excellence in collaboration with the European Association for the Study of Obesity. The winner was a researcher from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen. Concerns over academic freedom and research priorities have grown alongside Novo’s funding footprint. Wiebke Marie Junk, an associate professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen who researches lobbying, said that the danger potentially posed by a large company like Novo is that its interests could overshadow or even compromise work on other subjects or views. “With these big investments in societal progress also come the ability to set the agenda,” she said. Because universities in Denmark must co-finance grants, some have expressed worry over the foundation’s large donations tying up university money and resources.

“We shouldn’t make a big successful company that tries to contribute to Danish society the villain,” Junk said. “But we should be able to have a discussion about how our democracy is affected by the fact that these developments potentially shift power.”

Political ties

EARLIER this year, a small scandal erupted in Kalundborg when residents learned that city leaders had met behind closed doors with Novo executives and lobbyists at least 14 times since late 2019. Meeting agendas showed that the company’s representatives had delved into civic issues—the quality of the elementary school, Kalundborg’s overstretched housing market, questions around urban development—raising eyebrows among locals. Political access of this kind is highly unusual in Denmark, which prides itself on its egalitarianism.

To Damm, there’s nothing inappropriate about the meetings, which he said facilitate the exchange of information. Not everybody agrees. “We have a democracy,” said Niels Erik Danielsen, a municipal board member from the

opposition Red/Green Alliance. “I don’t think it’s a good thing that a large company has direct influence on the municipality’s policy.”

Novo’s ascendance has ensured access to high-ranking politicians and influence over national policy. Jorgensen, Novo’s CEO, is now on the board of Denmark’s central bank. Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and former research and development chief at Novo, said he meets “very often” with government ministers to compare notes on where Denmark is heading.

Education and Research Minister Christina Egelund announced in November that the government would consider measures to attract more international students to Denmark after the company made clear that this was an issue.

“When this is a barrier for Novo Nordisk, then we have to look at it,” she said at the time.

Politicians have in the past been willing to make accommodations to keep large companies happy— in 2007, the government changed a proposed tax bill after Maersk, Denmark’s most valuable company at the time, threatened to move

some units abroad. But the line between protecting a company’s competitive edge and giving it preferential treatment can sometimes be hazy.

Experts have warned that Denmark’s growing dependence on Novo makes it harder for elected officials and civil servants to contest conditions that benefit the company and its foundation. That can translate into delicate questions going unasked, said Ellersgaard, the researcher at Copenhagen Business School. By way of example, he cited lawmakers’ failure to challenge the foundation’s allocation of tax-free nonprofit money into research that ultimately benefits Novo Nordisk. He also mentioned the board’s excessive power over Danish society via its grantmaking. In response to questions about the foundation’s relationship to the drugmaker, Thomsen dismissed the notion that there was any bias in its grantmaking. “We don’t support the company, but we do create a fertile ecosystem where there’s good education,

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$25 billion bet: Derivatives market surges as firms hedge climate risks

By Sam Potter

MARTY MALINOW’S mom never could get her head around what her son did for a living. To friends, she said he was “a stockbroker that does something with the weather.” Malinow couldn’t really object—he knew most people had no clue about financial contracts based on things like sunshine, rainfall and wind.

That’s beginning to change. Against a backdrop of rising climate volatility and social shifts, demand for weather derivatives is surging.

Average trading volumes for listed products jumped more than 260 percent in 2023, according to the CME Group, with the number of outstanding contracts currently 48 percent higher than a year ago. And that publicly traded corner could make up as little as 10 percent of all activity, according to industry estimates; outstanding derivatives may be worth as much as $25 billion based on notional value.

“There’s a lot more trajectory to our business right now,” says Malinow, the founder and chief executive officer of advisory firm Parameter Climate. “The heightened fragility from direct weather volatility, supply-chain issues, inflation, geopolitics. It means weather can eat up a bigger part of the bottom line now.” Wall Street’s better-known weather bets, catastrophe bonds, are also riding high following a year of bumper returns. But this boom is playing out in derivatives, which provide a different kind of hedge: Protection from less severe but more common meteorological threats. While a cat bond may pay out if a 100-year storm tears through a community, a weather derivative can compensate a tourism business if there are too many rainy days, or a farmer if a hot summer stresses her crops.

In response to the soaring demand for its listed derivatives—all based around temperatures—the CME expanded its offerings last year. Now traders and companies can buy options that cover Philadelphia, Houston, Boston, Burbank, Paris and Essen, Germany, in addition to established contracts covering locations like Chicago, New York, London and Tokyo. In their August debut, 5,000 “Heating Degree Day” options (tied to how cold it gets) traded for Essen alone.

“We’re in market version 3.0,” says Scott Klemm, chief revenue officer at Arbol Inc., which structures products for companies looking to hedge their weather risk. “The growth trajectory where we are now has way more runway, way more upside.”

Facing the threat

PART of the jump in demand is driven by corporations newly confronting their exposure to the elements. In some cases, it’s because their operations have already been impacted, in others because they’re responding to investor and consumer pressures. In many jurisdictions, regulators are beginning to compel companies to quantify just how much of a threat the weather is to their business.

Most large and listed European companies are now required to disclose what they see as risks and opportunities from environmental factors. In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized rules in March that would make it mandatory for companies to publish information describing the climaterelated risks that may impact their business, as well as any mitigation steps they’ve taken.

“All of these companies have weather risks that they’re not hedging, and now they have to deal with it,” says Nicholas Ernst, managing director of climate derivatives at BGC Group, a market intermediary. “We’re starting to move into this much larger financial market.”

The SEC plans remain the subject of intense debate, with the watchdog facing lawsuits not only from groups challenging its authority to introduce such regulation, but also from those who say the rules don’t go far enough. Regardless, the expectations of investors and other stakeholders mean there is increasing pressure on businesses to identify and address their risks.

It has simply gotten much harder for corporations to dismiss the issue in a way they have historically, reckons Arbol’s Klemm. “How many times did we read an earnings report or listen to an earnings call and the officers of the firm said, ‘You know, it was, it was a really wet, wet spring. It impacted our bottom line.’ Shoulder shrug, move on?” he says.

Malinow, who describes himself as the éminence grise of the market, was an early recruit to one of the world’s first weather-derivatives desk at Enron Corp. In more than a quarter century helping companies hedge their exposure to Mother Nature, he’s created contracts for everything from cold cattle (shivering burns more calories, which can mean less meat) and subsea power cables (they can’t conduct electricity well when their connection points get warm) to turkey mortality (birds die if it’s too hot).

But historically weather derivatives have mostly been used to cushion energy companies from fluctuations in demand caused by shifting temperatures. Power suppliers face clear and predictable risks: If a summer is cooler than expected, people won’t use air conditioners as much, and in a mild winter, heating demand might wane. Options based on temperature indexes can help offset any hit to their income.

For example, Star Group LP, a US-based supplier of home heating and air conditioning products and distributor of heating oil, uses hedges to help mitigate the impact of warm weather on cash flows. According to its financial statements, the contracts meant the company could receive up to $12.5 million if temperatures experienced during the coverage period of November through March crossed certain thresholds. After receiving payouts in recent financial years—including the full benefit in 2023—the maximum payment has risen to $15 million for the contracts payable in 2025. The firm declined to comment.

Energy companies are also contributing to the current boom, albeit for fresh reasons. Solar panels, wind farms and hydropower generation are at the mercy of sunlight, wind speed and rainfall, respectively, meaning as producers shift to renewable sources they face new supply-side fluctuations on top of more traditional swings in consumption.

“That intermittency, along with the volatility of the natural gas market, has reinvigorated the weatherderivative space,” says Klemm at Arbol, which recently raised $60 million in a funding round to help fuel its expansion.

Malinow’s firm, Parameter Climate, works with companies keen to insure against these kinds of threats. That includes energy suppliers with their increasingly complex needs, as well as businesses that are considering weather hedges for the

first time.

“There are other verticals out there with embedded weather risks that have yet to be unpicked, like onshore and offshore construction, agriculture and transportation,” he says. “There are a lot of companies that don’t even know how to begin to address their risk, and this will contribute to future market growth as they learn.”

New tech ADVANCES in meteorological science and technology are giving rise to new and more sophisticated products. A classic weather trade might look like the one used by Star Group, but Syngenta, a multinational producer of seeds and pesticides, has hit on another way to deploy derivatives to enhance its offering to farmers.

Under its AgriClime program, Syngenta pledges a cash refund for up to 30 percent of a farmer’s purchase of certain crops if nature fails to provide the right growing conditions. So when heavy rainfalls threaten a barley harvest, for example, growers won’t be wiped out. That happened in the UK’s last planting season, and Syngenta says it made payouts to 99 percent of its hybrid barley customers.

The program is underpinned by derivatives. The exact structure of such contracts can vary (calls, puts and swaps are common variants), but typically they involve a buyer with weather risk—say, Syngenta—paying a premium to a seller who takes on that risk, promising a payout if certain meteorological measures are met. Insurance companies and sometimes hedge funds or other investment firms usually take the other side of the trades.

Syngenta says its program has proved a wild success. The AgriClime offer now covers a range of crops over more than 50,000 farms in 17 countries, according to Peter Steiner, the firm’s global head of weather and credit risk management.

“In many countries and areas the climate got more volatile, weather risk became more difficult,” he says.

“Syngenta AgriClime has proven that derivatives aren’t only effective for hedging company balance sheets, but that with the right technology and processes, they can protect multiple individual end users.”

Old doubts

THE growth of the weather market risks resurrecting an unanswered question of moral hazard: Does mitigating the financial impact of weather on corporations reduce their incentive to tackle their own contributions to manmade climate change? As one academic wrote in 2014, that “could increase the negative impact of the actions of those benefiting from these markets, at the expense of the majority and particularly those most vulnerable to climate change.”

Industry practitioners insist it’s a net positive, pointing to the market’s key role in helping fund renewable power projects, as well as protecting communities from climate challenges. “We’re able to ease the pain of some of these massive global problems,” says Dave Whitehead, co-CEO for Speedwell Climate, which provides the detailed meteorological data underpinning many weather trades. “We’re not solving the problems, but we’re creating situations where governments can fund rebuilding projects in the event of a disaster.”

It’s the more practical concerns that have held back the growth of weather trading thus far. The industry took a big hit during the financial crisis, with one study re -

cording a 50 percent drop in the notional value of the weather-derivatives market as risk takers withdrew from more exotic, harder-to-hedge positions.

Weather derivatives are also highly specific—often a bespoke contract based on localized risks—and frequently short term. That severely curtails secondary trading activity. There’s also “basis risk,” which refers to a derivative’s effectiveness as a hedging tool. In the case of the weather market, basis risk can lie in geography (if the point of measurement deciding a contract isn’t close enough to the location seeking protection), in the timing of when the contract is effective, and in the fact that the payout isn’t tied to the actual economic impact that occurs.

For all the challenges, market players now seem as optimistic as they’ve ever been.

Maria Rapin, the CEO of Nephila Climate, oversees an investment strategy that steers capital to businesses and institutions facing increased financial exposure to weather volatility. Rapin says that 20 years ago, eyes would glaze over when she talked about her work at a major insurance firm structuring catastrophe bonds and helping transfer weather risk.

“Now people are like, ‘wow, you’re at the center of everything,’” she says. “This is mainstream.” With assistance from Justina Lee/Bloomberg

Divide and conquer: Xi Jinping’s European tour reveals China’s strategy to split the continent

By Bloomberg News

OTHER than photo opportunities and some local delicacies, Chinese President Xi Jinping didn’t get— or give—much during his two days in France with President Emmanuel Macron this week.

Yet Xi’s swing through Eastern Europe proved more productive, allowing him to add Serbia to the list of countries supporting his vision of global order and lean into the increasingly strained relationship between Hungary and the European Union. Although Xi talked about avoiding a “new Cold War,” his diplomacy has revived the divisions of the last one by pitting Europe’s east against west. Here are some of the key takeaways from the trip—and what to watch in the months ahead.

No dealmaking in France MACRON had hoped that, through building a closer personal connection, he could persuade the Chinese leader to influence Vladimir Putin to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Xi hasn’t shifted China’s stance much. “China understands the repercussions of the Ukraine crisis on the people of Europe,” he wrote in an op-ed published in the French newspaper Le Figaro. That’s about

as much empathy Xi has shown since the beginning of the conflict. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who joined a trilateral meeting in Paris, also highlighted the war’s “existential nature.” Xi later pushed back on Brussels’ pressure and warned against using the conflict as a tool to criticize China. If Xi had hoped to drive a wedge between the EU and the US, he didn’t get much success. After a meeting with Xi, von de Leyen said that the bloc is prepared to use all tools available to push back what she called China’s unfair trade practices, which remain a concern in the US. Xi has categorically denied such claims.

Playing nice earns more yuan XI announced a range of new investments in Budapest while touting Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Hungary as a model for what the European Union’s relationship could look like with the world’s second-largest economy. He also brought pledges to build infrastructure that will help spread products across the trading bloc from Chinese factories planned for Hungary. BYD Co., the Chinese EV giant, previously picked the country as the site of its first European

Continued

Random Thoughts on Mommyhood

It’s not always about problems, motherhood is actually a lot of fun. You get to relive your own childhood with toys and cartoons. You get to introduce that child to the wonders of the world – bubbles, ice cream, cheesy fries, and as they grow older, music by your favorite boy band.

By Maan D’Asis Pamaran

WHEN does one actually stop being a mom? From what I see in my own mother, well, never. My siblings and I are all grown up and raising our own families, but Mama would still pop into our family group chat to ask whether we have had lunch and to remind us to take our vitamins.

You see, once we give birth to our babies, we are responsible for them for the rest of their lives. Scary, especially as we are really just pretending to be grown-ups ourselves. Plus, babies don’t come with a manual, so you have to figure out everything on your own. Then, when you have figured out one thing, such as getting them potty-trained or being able to sleep through the night, they will throw another challenge your way, maybe chickenpox, last-minute UN Day costumes, or gasp—the first heartbreak. I’ve lost count of the number of times I stormed the heavens to beat the closing time

of a school supplies store because I need to buy popsicle sticks or green cartolina, for an assignment that was given two weeks ago. Motherhood is a journey, and it can be on a bumpy road until you learn to put up a reminder board on your refrigerator door.

If you want to have an extra challenge, try raising a picky eater. One boy went through a phase when all he would eat was either egg or nuggets. He would eat pasta, provided there was no sauce on it. One day, he tried spaghetti with a little sauce on it, and discovered that it wasn’t bad after all. That incident thankfully gave him the confidence to eat other foods, which I make sure to serve variety of. I am proud to say that he has developed a healthy appetite and is this close to eating us out of house and home. His brothers call him The Vortex, because we ae sure that there will be no leftovers when he is around. My advice in connection with this, is that motherhood should come with

role modeling for healthy eating. They really just learn to feel (and eat) their way through the world by copying you.

As a mother of four boys, I also served the roles of referee and nurse. I would be working on my computer and one guy would come to me holding his arm because someone bit him. One boy stuck his finger inside the electric fan’s grills, “to see if he can stop the blades from spinning”. The scar is on his finger still and he thinks it is cool.

You learn to be vigilant. When they are too quiet, you know something is up and you need to immediately account for their whereabouts. When they start cooperating, you need to be extra wary. I have only recently learned that when I was out for work, they would slide down the stairs using a mattress as a toboggan. One must build a strong, prayerful relationship with their guardian angels.

It’s not always about problems, motherhood is actually

a lot of fun. You get to relive your own childhood with toys and cartoons. You get to introduce that child to the wonders of the world – bubbles, ice cream, cheesy fries, and as they grow older, music by your favorite boy band. One of my proud parenting moments consists of a videoke duet with one of my kids to the Backstreet Boys hit “I Want It That Way” at a barangay perya. They get away with a lot of things, mostly because I am the instigator. Like Regina George’s mother in Mean Girls said, “I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom.” But all in all, they are pretty good boys. Our home is built on hugs. What do you want for Mother’s Day, my kids would ask each year. Yes, this may be the opportunity for payback for the stretchmarks, wrinkles, and sleepless nights and I can ask them for things I want, like airconditioning. Yet, each year, my answer is the same. I just want them to continue being the best sons a mom can wish for.

ENCHANTED KINGDOM THROWS MUSICAL TREAT ON MOTHER’S DAY

ENCHANTED Kingdom (EK), the first and only world-class theme park in the Philippines, offers celebrates Mother’s Day today with a special concert featuring momand-daughter performing artists Pinky and Karel Marquez.

“An Enchanting Mother’s Day Concert,” featuring the notable musical and theater artists will start at 6 p.m. at the Spaceport Grounds. They will be accompanied by the Women of Song and Music Making Company as they serenade the audience and pay tribute to all mothers.

“Here at Enchanted Kingdom, we appreciate and salute these wonderful women

Why mommy Dimples Romana is smiling these days

“HAVING three kids while working is a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, I am surrounded by good people - both family and friends,” said multi-awarded actress Dimples Romana. Married to businessman Boyet Ahmee, the couple have been together for 21 years. She calls him Papa B and says that the secret to her motherhood journey is a solid family where they ensure their kids are all well and happy: “Family. They are my strength. And a lot of prayers. Many, many prayers," she replied in Filipino. . Now that she's back in the limelight after being a full-time mother especially to her young-

est child, two-year-old Elio Juan Manolo or Baby Elio, Dimples admits she's back to balancing her time between home and work. “No matter how busy I get and how crazy our shoot schedules go, I make sure intentional ang pagset ko ng time with my family,” she said. Her only daughter, the eldest, is Christiana Amanda Lauren or Callie. She is studying in Austalia and received her pilot’s license last year. Her second child, Alonzo Romeo Jose, 8, loves sports. Despite her kids' active life, she and Boyet still insist in spending time together and with a no-gadget rule at that: “No phones muna, no other distractions. Just them."

Dealing with stress

Of course, having multiple roles can takes its toll on any mom, including the professionally accomplished Dimples who realized that life is not just all about work. She said, “Recently, I realized the importance of selfcare because. I almost reached a burnt-out stage. I got worried. That’s when I really took a step back and reassessed what needed to be done."

The answer, says Dimples, is taking solo road trips, going on a date with herself at cafés and restaurants, and reading good books to cultivate a calm mind. She also regularly keeps an eye on her spiritual well-being through prayer and meditation. She also tkes supplements like Actimed Quality Genetics that she buys from Generika Durgstore.

Blooming with good health and thriving as an actress, Dimples says being a mother is still her favorite job. "Life has really changed nowadays. We truly have to count our blessings with each joyful, healthy, and safe day where our family are free from any illnesses."

After all, being a mother, Dimples emphasized, isn't just about nurturing a child's wellbeing but giving them a sense of purpose as well. She said, “It’s having the ability to raise children who will hopefully make the world a kinder, safer, and happier place for all."

RELAX, MOM, YOU DESERVE IT

who make our lives magical through their unconditional love, care and support for their families. Hopefully through this experience, we would also be able to make Mother’s Day more enchanting,” said EK’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Cynthia R. Mamon.

EK’s "Ilaw ng Tahanan: A Magical Mother’s Day Promo," which is in collaboration with

Happy mom, happy life. Dimples Romana with husband BoyetAhmee and their three kids, Callie, Alonzo,vand baby Elio. Photo courtesy of Actimed.

The Biden-Netanyahu relationship

is strained like never before. Can the two leaders move forward?

By Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller & Julia Frankel The Associated Press

WASHINGTON—President

Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have long managed a complicated relationship, but they’re running out of space to maneuver as their views on the Gaza war diverge and their political futures hang in the balance.

Their ties have hit a low point as Biden holds up the delivery of heavy bombs to Israel—and warns that the provision of artillery and other weaponry also could be suspended if Netanyahu moves forward with a widescale operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Netanyahu, for his part, is brushing off Biden’s warnings and vowing to press ahead, saying, “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.”

“If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails,” he said. Biden has long prided himself on being able to manage Netanyahu more with carrots than sticks.

But the escalation of friction over the past seven months suggests that his approach may be long past its best-by date.

With both men balancing an explosive Mideast situation against their own domestic political problems, Netanyahu has grown increasingly resistant to Biden’s

public charm offensives and private pleading, prompting the president’s more assertive pushback in the past several weeks. “If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem,” Biden said in a CNN interview Wednesday, laying bare his growing differences with Netanyahu.

Biden aides nonetheless insist the president is unwilling to allow the US-Israel relationship to truly rupture on his watch. They cite not only the political imperative—a majority of Americans support Israel—but also Biden’s personal history with the country and his belief in its right to defend itself.

The president’s aides, watching how pro-Palestinian protests have roiled his party and the college campuses that have been breeding grounds for Democratic voters, have mused for months that Biden could be the last classically

pro-Israel Democrat in the White House.

Their optimism about their ability to contain Netanyahu may be falling into the same trap that has vexed a long line of American presidents who have clashed with the Israeli leader over the decades.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Thursday declined to say whether Biden informed Netanyahu of his decision to suspend shipment of 3,500 bombs when the leaders spoke earlier this week. But he said Biden has been “direct and forthright” with Netanyahu about his concerns.

Biden and Netanyahu have known each other since Biden was a young senator and Netanyahu was a senior official in Israel’s embassy in Washington.

They’ve hit rough patches before.

There were differences over Israel building settlements in the West Bank during Barack Obama’s administration when Biden was vice president. Later, Netanyahu vehemently opposed Biden’s push to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal sealed by Obama and scrapped by Donald Trump. Netanyahu chafed at Biden prodding him to de-escalate tensions during Israel’s bloody 11-day war with Hamas in 2021.

The leaders went more than a month earlier this year without talking as Biden’s frustration with Netanyahu grew over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The relationship remained workable despite such differences between the center-left Democrat and the leader of the most far-right coalition government in Israel’s history.

But with the Biden-Netanyahu

relationship now coming under greater strain than ever before, it is unclear how the leaders will move forward.

Netanyahu is caught between public pressure for a hostage deal and hard-liners in his coalition who want him to expand the Rafah invasion, despite global alarm about the harm it could do to some 1.3 million Palestinians sheltering there. He’s made clear that he will push forward with a Rafah operation with or without a deal for hostages.

The Israeli leader vowed to destroy Hamas after its October 7 rampage in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and some 250 were captured and taken hostage. But his public standing has cratered since then, as he faces pressure to find a pathway to a truce that would bring home the remaining hostages and the remains of Israelis who have died in captivity.

He’s resisted an investigation into what led to the intelligence and military failures leading up to the Hamas attack. All the while, he’s still facing legal problems, including a long-running corruption trial in which he is charged with fraud and accepting bribes.

Netanyahu’s political survival may depend on the Rafah offensive. If he reaches a hostage deal that stops short of conquering Rafah, hardliners in his coalition have threatened to topple the government and trigger new elections at a time when opinion polls forecast he would lose.

“To keep his partners on board and prevent them from pre-empting an election, in which Likud will be decimated and he will be turned out of office, he needs to keep the

How Novo Nordisk became Europe’s most valuable company and global powerhouse

Continued from A4 there’s good science, there’s good technology,” he said.

Jorgensen, Novo’s CEO, has said that the company doesn’t seek out special treatment in its home market. Yet it has benefited from the country’s laissez-faire approach to pharmaceutical pricing. Drugmakers in Denmark are free to set their own prices—a policy that came about as a result of the country’s large pharmaceutical industry, said Jakob Kjellberg, professor and health economist at the Danish Center for Social Science Research. That allowed Novo to charge almost twice as much per Ozempic dose than in larger European markets, while a generous reimbursement policy for the drug means that public insurance covers most of the costs.

The policy has led to a massive bill for Denmark’s public health care system. Danish authorities spent $200 million on Ozempic in 2023—eight percent of all spending on medicine, and twice as much as the previous year. Officials warned that should costs continue to surge, it would necessitate cuts.

Anders Kuhnau, chairman of Danish Regions, the body representing Denmark’s regional public health care authorities, worried about the spike during an interview with Danish national broadcaster DR, calling it “very large and surprising.”

“The consequence,” he said late last year, “is that we’ll have to take money from hospitals, which are already under pressure.”

Several months earlier, Denmark’s Reimbursement Committee, which advises the Danish Medicines Agency on which drugs should be covered, recommended ending

subsidies for Ozempic due to the costs.

The public backlash put pressure on Novo to lower its prices—this week the company reduced Ozempic’s cost in Denmark from $188 to $125 per month. “Ozempic has been on the market in Denmark since 2018,” the company wrote in a statement, “and locally it is normal for the price of a drug to be reassessed during the life cycle.”

Nokia risk LAST year, nine civil servants from the Danish economy ministry visited Novo in preparation for the government’s triannual economic review. The 228page document, published in August, mentioned Novo Nordisk 31 times and included several references to Ozempic and Wegovy—a highly unusual move for a report that ordinarily refrains from mentioning companies or products by name. While the authors noted that Novo has “a limited significance” in terms of employment relative to production—the drugmaker has about 28,000 employees in Denmark—the report nevertheless sparked concern that the country was on a trajectory similar to Finland’s under Nokia. In the late 1990s, the phonemaker’s rise transformed the Nordic nation from a raw materials producer to a high-tech knowledge economy, lifting the gloom in a country devastated by a severe recession and the near-overnight disappearance of Soviet trade. At its peak, Nokia accounted for 4 percent of Finnish GDP, and was—like Novo—Europe’s most valuable company, generating half the country’s economic growth and bringing in a fifth of all corporate tax. Yet the company’s failure to keep up with competitors brought this to

an end. In 2009, beset by a European debt crisis, Finland’s GDP declined by 8.1 percent—with Nokia’s downfall estimated to be responsible for almost half. Finns failed to resize their public sector accordingly, and the country has not generated a budget surplus since then.

Danish officials have shrugged off suggestions the country is facing a “Nokia risk.” Stephanie Lose, Denmark’s minister of economy, said in an interview that because much of Novo’s production happens abroad, the company is not “deeply infiltrated in the Danish economy.” She pointed to employment as an example.

“I don’t think you should be worried about a potential effect on the domestic economy, or employment and GDP growth” should Novo face challenges, Lose said.

Whether or not that proves to be true, Novo’s size is already causing issues in Denmark: Businesses complain about the drugmaker vacuuming up workers with high-paying job offers; even the armed forces have lost officers to Novo. Novo’s massive construction plans are tying up permitting offices, causing delays for other companies. And real estate agents in Kalundborg report that senior citizens looking to downsize have been forced to leave town because the inflow of Novo employees makes finding a rental home nearly impossible.

It’s also increasingly clear that while Novo may be growing too big for Denmark, the Nordic country is becoming too small for Novo.

“Novo is starting to find it difficult to recruit because the kingdom isn’t any larger,” Thomsen, the foundation CEO, reflected during an interview at his office in northern Copenhagen. With the

philanthropic organization running out of places to invest inside Denmark, he said, it’s planning to distribute more grants in countries such as the US.

“Danish society simply cannot absorb all the money the foundation has to hand out,” said Kurt Jacobsen, a professor at Copenhagen Business School who wrote a book about Novo.

Ironically, Novo’s massive success is what may ultimately enable Denmark to wean itself off the drugmaker. “Novo Nordisk is helping to cement Denmark’s position as one of the leading areas within pharma/medtech/biotech in Europe,” said Claus Berner Moller, vice president at ATP, Denmark’s largest pension fund, which holds shares in Novo. “This could make it easier in the future to attract capital and professional expertise from outside, which will help the entire industry and thus limit Denmark’s dependence on Novo Nordisk in the long term.”

In the meantime, threats to the drugmaker’s dominance are already looming. Rival Eli Lilly & Co. introduced a more effective and slightly cheaper obesity medicine this year that analysts expect will eventually become the world’s best-selling drug. And regulatory interference poses another major risk, especially in the US, its biggest market by far. Novo’s patents on Ozempic and Wegovy expire in the US in 2032 and in Europe a year earlier, according to the company’s annual report. Even though investors expect Ozempic sales to start a slow decline sooner than that, it still gives Novo—and Denmark—time to diversify beyond diabetes and weight loss drugs. With assistance from Kati Pohjanpalo and Christian Wienberg/Bloomberg

‘total victory’ myth alive—and that is only possible by avoiding a deal with Hamas,” wrote Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist and author of a Netanyahu biography, in the Haaretz daily.

Aviv Bushinsky, a former spokesman and chief of staff for Netanyahu, said the Israeli leader remains focused on the war’s primary goal—defeating Hamas—because of concerns about his image and legacy. He said Netanyahu has spent his career branding himself as the “tough guy on terror.”

“He thinks this is how he will be remembered. He’s been promising for a decade to cream Hamas,” Bushinsky said. “If he doesn’t, in his mind he’ll be remembered as the worst prime minister of all time.”

Biden, meanwhile, faces mounting protests from young Americans, a segment of the electorate critical to his reelection. And he’s faced backlash from Muslim Americans, a key voting bloc in the battleground state of Michigan. Some have threatened to withhold their votes in November to protest his administration’s handling of the war.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Biden ally who has been frustrated by the administration’s handling of the war, said Thursday Biden should go further and suspend delivery of all offensive weaponry to Israel.

“The United States does and should stand by its allies, but our allies must also stand by the values and the laws of the United States of America,” Sanders said. “We must use all of our leverage to prevent the catastrophe in Gaza from becoming even worse.”

At the same time, Biden is facing

bruising criticism from Republicans, including presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee Trump, who say that his decision to hold back weapons is a betrayal of an essential Mideast ally.

“What Biden is doing with respect to Israel is disgraceful. If any Jewish person voted for Joe Biden, they should be ashamed of themselves. He’s totally abandoned Israel,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.

Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Biden’s move is “simply a nod to the left flank” that is handing “a great victory to Hamas.” Friction between the US and Israeli leaders is not without precedent.

President George H.W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s relationship was strained as the Republican administration threatened to withhold $10 billion in aid to thwart new settlement activity in the West Bank. Obama and Netanyahu’s relationship was marked by mutual distrust over the Democrat’s effort to reignite the Middle East peace process and forge the Iran nuclear deal.

“There were always workarounds if the heads of government really don’t get along. We may get to that,” said Elliot Abrams, a senior national security official in the George W. Bush administration. “But of course, this may be a sort of problem that solves itself in that one or both of them may be gone from office” in a matter of months.

AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami contributed reporting. Frankel reported from Jerusalem.

Divide and conquer: Xi Jinping’s European tour reveals China’s strategy to split the continent

car factory; the country is also a hub for battery production.

Hungary’s cash-strapped government has been looking to lock in financing and fresh stimulus for its economy. Among the agreements is money for a costly upgrade of the country’s aging rail network and the construction of a long-delayed connection between Budapest Airport and the capital’s downtown, according to Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. Hungary will also seek to deepen cooperation with Huawei to advance digitalization in the country.

No limits with Serbia

SERBIAN President Aleksandar Vucic threw Xi a grand reception in Belgrade, with a crowd cheering and waving national flags. The scene was a PR win for him in China, as was Xi’s wining and dining in France—which even became a trending topic on the social media platform Weibo.

Vucic declared “the sky is the limit” between the two countries, an echo of Moscow’s no-limits friendship with Beijing (and perhaps a reminder of support for Russia and its agenda). Xi also got Serbia to sign up to be a “community with a shared future,” becoming the first European country to join China’s efforts to build a coalition that challenges the US-led world order.

As a show of economic benefits a friendly partner could enjoy from China, Xi said a Free Trade Agreement with Serbia will take effect on July 1, adding that his nation will expand imports of agricultural products and begin more direct flights. The two country’s central banks will also work on a clearing arrangement in yuan to help strengthen their business and trade ties. Serbia also says it would keep a portion of its foreign currency reserves in yuan, proportionate to the nation’s debt to China, which is rising.

Pivoting to the East, again

IN Hungary, Xi praised Orban’s “independent” foreign policies, as he called for Budapest to lead the region’s relations with China.

Chinese state media went so far as to call Hungary “the most Western of Eastern nations,” in an attempt to highlight cultural similarities between the two countries.

(There aren’t many.)

This isn’t China’s first effort to divide the bloc. Beijing set up a mechanism to strengthen ties with 16 central and eastern European nations in 2012. But enthusiasm for the framework gradually waned; countries bristled at widening trade balances while China also failed to deliver on pledges of billions of dollars in investments. (Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which triggered a broader rethink of relations with China.) Lithuania and three Baltic nations have all formally announced their decision to quit, effectively rendering the format obsolete.

In Belgrade, Xi also vowed to “never forget” the bombing of the Chinese embassy by NATO forces on the 25th anniversary of the attack. US missiles killed three Chinese journalists in a 1999 strike that the White House later called a mistake and blamed on faulty maps. Xi didn’t seem to have visited the site of the former embassy.

What to watch next CHINA and France signed 18 bilateral cooperation agreements during Xi’s visit. There is likely a truce on cognac; China’s Ministry of Commerce started an antidumping investigation into liquor products from the EU earlier this year, a move that came in response to the EU opening a probe into China’s electric vehicle subsidies last October. The EU can impose provisional EV subsidies after nine months, so that July deadline is approaching. Xi also said that China “welcomes” French farm products and cosmetics, but if the disputes over China’s excessive manufacturing

Genetically engineered food crops on trial

By Joel C. Paredes

AGRICULTURE

biotechnologist Dr. Rhodora R. Aldemita recalled that she was first introduced to the “Golden Rice” project as early as 2002 during her post-doctoral studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany.

As a scientist scholar from the Philippine Rice Institute (PhilRIce), she was asked to collaborate with Dr. Peter Beyer, a German biologist who invented with Zurich-based scientist Dr. Ingo Potrykus the “first generation” of the genetically engineered rice variety that can help cure Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD).

The golden rice laboratory was then housed at the Institute of Plant Sciences Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, with Potrykus as professor emeritus.

The Rockefeller Foundation provided initial funding for the development of the genetically engineered rice variety which accumulates beta-carotene, commonly known as vitamin A, in the grain.

This essential vitamin, however, is not available in sufficient amounts. The World Health Organization had reported that about

250 million preschool children are affected by VAD, and that providing children with vitamin A could prevent about a third of all under-five deaths.

Eventually, Aldemita became part of the golden rice team in the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in 2005, with funding from the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation.

After two decades of research and development in the Philippines to study its viability in the country, the government finally granted a permit allowing the commercial planting of the Malusog Rice, the Golden Rice variety tailored for the country’s condition and tastes.

But last April 17, the Court of Appeals revoked the permit, bringing to a halt the commercialization of golden rice and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) eggplant based on a case filed by

Greenpeace. the Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pagunlad ng Agriculture (Masipag) and other environmental groups.

The Appellate Court concluded that in the absence of scientific consensus on its safety genetically modified crops should not be commercially cultivated.

The genetically engineered eggplant known as Bt talong, which was developed by experts from the Institute of Plant Breeding of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, on the other hand, was also approved for food and feed consumption—after also two decades of research— after it was found to be resistant to eggplant fruit and shoot borer, the most destructive pest of eggplants.

As early 2013, Bangladesh has started commercializing its Bt eggplant, which allowed farmers to drastically reduce their use of pesticides by 80 percent or more.

The Appellate Court concurred with the petitioner’s claim on the need to follow the so-called precautionary principle of waiting to approve new crops and activities until scientists reach a consensus that they are safe for humans and the environment.

Aldemita, now the executive director of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agr-Biotech Applications, said the appellate court’s ruling surprised the Asian science community,

“This could have a rippling effect, considering that the Philippine regulatory system had been the model for the region,” she said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gabriel O. Romero, executive director of the Philippine Seed Industry Association, noted that the Philippines is already a leader in biotechnology, particularly after the government allowed the commercialization of its first genetically modified (GM) crop—the Bt corn—while

DOST researches bag awards at Geneva tilt

DELEGATES from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) won awards at the recent 49th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva (IEIG).

Considered one of the world’s largest invention exhibition, the event showcased more than 1,000 innovations and inventions across over 40 organizations and universities.

In collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Geneva exhibition recognizes inventions that respond to global problems, contribute to the advancement of innovation on a global scale, and contribute to the economic and technological development of a country.

The inventions and technologies that were featured were from the Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI), the Philippine Textile Research Institute (PTRI), and the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI)—which addresses different fields from healthcare and agriculture, to food and water, to sustainable fashion, said Matt Jerome Casequin of DOST-Technology Application and Promotion Institute.

The inventions and technologies that were featured in the Geneva exhibit were the following:

n The “Flavored Salt and Food Seasoning” presented by Ms. Mariciar Carandang from DOST-ITDI won a bronze.

Inspired with a desire to add value to locally-produced salts, Carandang and her team infused traditional salts with bursts of flavors, a concept that emerged in 2015 during a stakeholders meeting with local salt producers.

Drawing on indigenous ingredients, they crafted a

blend that not only excites taste buds but also boasts of a lower sodium content and wealth of added minerals, without preservatives.

The DOST-ITDI’s flavored salt emphasizes the potential for collaboration and innovation by establishing partnerships with salt producers, flavor companies, and culinary experts.

n Another technology from the DOST-ITDI was the “SafeWaTrS Mobile Water Disinfection System” presented by Engr. Prima Joy Margarito.

The technology won a silver as a transformative solution, ensuring access to clean and safe drinking water.

Tackling the pressing issue of water scarcity during disasters and in rural areas plagued by contamination or disruptions in water supply, providing access to safe drinking water, the invention runs on solar energy, making it eco-friendly and able to operate even in areas without electricity.

Engaging in applied research

and development, the DOSTITDI focuses on cultivating novel insights, technologies, and advancements within industrial manufacturing, mineral processing, and energy sectors.

The institute facilitates knowledge translation, technology transfer, and commercialization. It cultivates expertise in pioneering technology and product innovation.

n The “New Hemostat Technology” presented by Charito Aranilla of the DOSTPNRI won the silver award.

The technology filled a gap in the healthcare, emergency response, and defense sectors, providing sustainable, accessible, and affordable biomedical devices for emergency health intervention.

The New Hemostat Tech was also a DOST National Invention Contests and Exhibits (NICE) Likha Award winner for Outstanding Creative Research in 2022.

n Another silver award

was bagged by the PNRI for “Carboxymethyl Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels.”

Lorna Relleve presented it for its versatility and wideranging applications in various industries, including healthcare and agriculture.

CMHA Hydrogels offer a safe, biocompatible alternative to conventional products, free from toxic residues.

n The DOST-PNRI’s “Super Water Absorbent Gels” received a bronze award for its promise to revolutionize irrigation methods, enhance crop productivity, and mitigate the adverse effects of drought. It was presented by Relleve and Aranilla.

“Sometimes our researches do not work. But do not give up easily, just keep on trying until you get it right,” Relleve said.

The DOST-PNRI spearheads research and development initiatives, and provides regulation to ensure compliance with established safety protocols, safeguarding the well-being of radiation workers

adopting a stringent biosafety regulatory policy.

“For more than 20 years we have been positively benefiting from GM corn. Now we are sending bad signals to the farmers who have been seeking quality seeds if they were to get out of the poverty situation,” he said.

The CA decision, he said, also threatened to put to a halt the importation of GMO products which will adversely affect the feed industry since 70 percent of feed ingredients for livestock— poultry, hog raisers and even fisheries are from GMO soy and GMO corn.

While there are locally produced GMO corn seeds, the country still relies on imports for most of the supply, Romero said.

If the local supply to produce feeds is not enough, this might also impact the price of feeds in the market and subsequently impact the price of pork, chicken, and even cultured fish in the local

and the public at large.

It conducts extensive research on radiation and nuclear techniques, materials, and processes.

It likewise facilitates the dissemination of research outcomes to end-users through technical extension and training services.

n A bronze award was bagged by the DOST-PTRI for its” Spinnable Lignocellulosic Bamboo Textile,” an eco-friendly bamboo-based fabric.

The material offers softness, breathability, and moisturewicking properties ideal for various clothing applications offering a sustainable alternative that aligns with regulatory frameworks and consumer expectations.

“The experience here in Geneva brought us up to speed with the developments in the field,” said DOST-PTRI Director Julius L. Leano Jr. at the 49th IEIG.

“We were able to see the opportunities that we have, not just for the technology but also to further improve it and make it even more relevant,” he added.

n Also from the DOSTPTRI, the “Lyocell and Natural Fiber-Blended Yarns” secured a bronze for its superior quality and durability while being environmentally friendly. It served as an example of the immense potential that sustainable textiles hold in today’s fashion industry.

Evangeline Manalang, who presented the technology, said that the journey was very exciting.

“When we arrived in Geneva, we saw more than a thousand inventions…[which] were very impressive. But Filipino inventions are also worth showing in the global stage,” she added.

The DOST-PTRI conducts applied research and

markets, he explained. But for Dr. Eufemio T. Rasco Jr., an academician at the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), the Philippines has stringent biosafety regulations on genetically engineered crops.

The opponents of the GM crops, he lamented, merely “want that researchers can assure that the technology is completely safe and has to have a completely zero possibility so it will not have a bad effect.”

“This is one requirement that is really difficult or impossible to satisfy,” according to Rasco, a professor emeritus at UPLB and author of the book, “Unfolding Gene Revolution,” which explained the ideology, science and regulation of plant biotechnology in the country.

The reason why scientists continue to conduct research, he explained, is to ensure that the “probability of risks is lower than those being used by farmers and consumers.”

“There’s no technology that is risk-free. That’s why the approach of regulators of the GMO technology is to look at the relative safety, compared to ordinary products,” he said.

Proponents argue that genetically engineered crops will not only yield higher harvests but can resist diseases and pests.

The Appellate Court should consider that government should also ensure food security as the main component for economic growth, they pointed out.

development for the textile sector, transfers research findings to end-users, and provides technical services and training.

To adapt to industry changes, it regulates an integrative approach by aligning critical roadmaps, engaging stakeholders, fostering growth through development centers and modern facilities, advancing technology, and connecting Filipino products to global markets.

n The Lyocell with Natural Fiber-Blended Yarns, and two other technologies— the Super Water Absorbent Technology, and the Pili Seal— also won special awards from the King Khalid University Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, an institution that empowers individuals to transform innovative ideas into successful ventures.

n Besides the DOST-RDIs, two other NICE winners that participated in the 49th IEIG won awards. They were the Multi-Fuel Dryer invented by Prof. Zaldy Fernandez of the Mariano Marcos State University (silver), and the Pili Seal by Engr, Mark Kennedy Bantugon (bronze).

The global event serves not only as a competition but, more importantly, as an opportunity to showcase Filipino technologies at international platforms, giving them limitless possibilities to engage with international adapters.

Science Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr. said the IEIG and other international competitions will serve as a challenge to the DOST System to strive more in producing and in sending capable technologies that can be showcased in the global stage.

The participating inventors were recognized after the DOST flag ceremony on April 29.

DR . Rhodora R. Aldemita

DR . Eufemio T. Rasco Jr.

DR . Gabriel O. Romero

A10 Sunday, May 12, 2024

THE Catholic Church’s social action and justice arm has echoed the Supreme Court’s ruling that red-tagging constitutes “threats to a person’s right to life, liberty of security.”

Caritas Philippines hailed the major ruling as a “game-changer” for human rights defenders and a “crucial step” toward a safer nation.

“This decision is a victory for

Faith Sunday

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph

Caritas PH: SC ruling on red-tagging a game-changer

justice and a crucial step for a safer Philippines,” said its president, Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo.

“Red-tagging has instilled fear and silenced dissent for far too long.

The Supreme Court’s ruling sends a clear message that such tactics will not be tolerated,” he said.

Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, vice president of the national Caritas and himself a target of red-tagging, said the practice creates a

“climate of fear and intimidation”.

“In my own diocese of San Carlos, I’ve seen how it can discourage people from speaking out on issues affecting the marginalized,” Alminaza said.

The High Court’s decision, according to him, is a vital step toward protecting Filipinos who advocate for peace and justice.

The prelate also said that the SC decision is a vindication for the

victims of red-tagging.

“For too long, individuals and communities have been silenced and ostracized based on mere accusations,” Alminaza said.

“This ruling offers a glimmer of hope and a chance for healing. We urge those who have been redtagged to seek support and know that they are not alone,” he added.

Caritas Philippines urged the government and the military to

uphold the SC ruling and ensure the safety of all Filipinos, regardless of their political beliefs.

“We call on all sectors of society to work together to foster a more tolerant and respectful environment where open discourse and dissent are encouraged,” Bagaforo said.

In its decision, the SC granted activist Siegfred Deduro a writ of amparo, which allows a person to

seek various remedies from the courts, such as protection orders. Deduro, a former Bayan Muna lawmaker, said in his petition that he was tagged by state forces as having links to the communist New People’s Army.

The SC pointed out that Deduro should not have to “await his own abduction, or worse, death” before the court recognizes red-tagging is a serious threat to life. CBCP News

Latter-day Saints new temple to serve

200,000

members around Pangasinan

TBy Lyn Resurreccion

HE Filipino people love the Lord, their church leaders, and their family, and they are very loyal to their nation and to.their church..

These are the qualities of Filipinos that struck Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, the highest governing body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, during his stint in the country as the Philippines Area President from 2002 to 2004 Oaks returned to and resumed his bond with the Philippines together with his wife, Kristen, when he led the dedication of the new temple of the Church of Jesus Christ in Urdaneta, Pangasinan, on April 28.

It is the Church’s third temple in the country, in addition to those in Manila and in Cebu City.

It should be noted that since its first missionaries have set their foot in the country 63 years ago, on June 5, 1961, the Church has gained more than 800,000 members.

This made the Philippines the fourth country with the largest Latter-day Saints membership in the world.

Building temples

HIGHLIGHTING the importance of temples, Oaks, explained in an interview with the BusinessMirror via Zoom that the Church of Jesus Christ build them in the “center of the concentration” of their members. where they could come “to worship and strengthen them spiritually.”

It is also “good for the local economy” from people coming from other parts of the province or other areas to worship there, he added.

Mrs. Oaks said their members come to the temple to “feel close to Jesus.”

“In our religion, we come together for baptism…to worship our Savior and make covenants and promises to Him,” she pointed out.

Why build the temple in Urdaneta?

OAKS explained that the choice of Urdaneta was not made by the top leaders of the Church. It was based upon the “recommendation of the leaders” of the Church in the Philippines.

“They looked to a temple district and they showed us that about 200,000 of our 800,000 members in the Philippines live within a suitable distance in Urdaneta,” he said.

Mrs. Oaks said: “Ultimately it was a spiritual choice. Our prophet has a major responsibility and one of them is [building] temples. And

he makes the selection. We believe that God allowed him to make the selection there.”

The Church’s current 17th President and Prophet is Russell M. Nelson, according to their website.

Oaks added: “He would not pick the exact site, but he would say that he wanted to build another temple in the Philippines to bless a concentration of members.”

The religious leader pointed out that only Latter-day Saints members are allowed to enter the temples when they are already dedicated.

The temples are closed on Sundays. On weekdays, members hold their “temple recommend, certifying their full compliance with the standards and objectives” of the Church.

However, even members have limited access to the temples.

“We have certain time for services but we want the maximum number of our members to come to the temple,” he said. On Sundays, Latter-day Saints members worship in their home chapels or wards, he explained.

Mrs. Oaks said their members come to the temple because they feel close to Jesus Christ.

“In our religion, we come together for baptism…to worship our Savior and make covenants and promises to Him,” she said.

Increase in number of members in PHL

THE Latter-day Saints membership in the Philippines ballooned from about 500,000 to about

900,000 within 20 years after Oaks’s mission in the country..

The Filipino people “recognize that… we have more resources to learn about our Savior Jesus Christ than the Bible. We love the Bible but the Book of Mormon is an additional witness to Jesus Christ,”

Oaks said.

He explained that the Book of Mormon tells about the ministry of Jesus in the American continent after Jesus’ resurrection.

“People are drawn to the teachings they find in Latter-day Saints faith,” he said.

He added that they help in raising children and in making families stronger, in assisting members in helping one another, and even nonmembers of the church.

“We have a large humanitarian services enterprise,” he added.

Mrs. Oaks agreed that they have the same services worldwide.

“We have the same curriculum for children, young women and young men. We want to [be closer] with the Heavenly Father. We value the family. It is so important to us. Filipinos also love the family, and they love each other,” she said.

With the increase in the number of members in the Philippines, three more temples are under construction and seven are being planned to be built in the country. Other factors that make Filipinos join the Church

THE Philippines is a Christian nation, different than its neighbors in Asia.

“We begin with people who love Jesus Christ. We offer them

opportunities to learn more about Him and the fulness of his Gospel. The temples themselves stand for that,” Oaks said.

Mrs. Oaks said the Church of Jesus Christ is a “demanding religion.” Its members have to come to church every week, and read the scriptures and pray everyday.

In addition, the youth come during the week, while the whole family has activities on Monday night.

“When I say demanding…it is a Church you devote your life to,” she added.

Oaks said that in many religions, you come to church on holy days, Christmas, Easter or on saints’ days.

“In the Church of Jesus Christ, we teach the importance of going to church every Sunday,” he said.

He added that 20 percent of their members are in the church every Sunday. So with 800,000 members in the Philippines, they would have 160,000 members going to church on Sundays.

“We have a very participatory religion, and that is very important to our members,” he said.

Mrs. Oaks added that members “like to do service… to be involved in the community, to get back to the community,” in projects like helping in schools, immunizations, health care, vision care, or providing wheelchairs not just for members but for those not of our faith in the community..

“You don’t have to be a member to receive those services,” she pointed out.

Memories from his first PHL mission

OAKS said he could not forget “the loving, loyal culture and nature” of the Filipino people.

“They love the Lord, they love their church leaders, they love their family, and they are very loyal to their nation and to their church,” he said.

Mrs. Oaks said she could not forget the Filipino Church members who would run to her 6-feettall husband “surround him and hug him.”

She also loved working with the youth, as Mrs. Oaks has worked among children when she served

for many years on the Board of Primary Children’s Hospital, according to a briefer.

“I like little children. Filipinos love to sing, and I love singing with them. Just everyone we work with, they became our dear friends. It was not like they were employees. We love each other.dearly,” she said.

The Latter-day Saints leaders don’t wear priestly garb and are dressed in white just like the members “to promote closeness” with them, Oaks noted.

“There is no distinction in our temple worship between the highest official in the church or the most humble who is just starting in their membership,” he pointed out.

Catholic, Church of Jesus Christ similarities, differences

OAKS said both churches are hierarchical. The pope is the leader of the Catholic Church, while the president is the head of the Church of Jesus Christ.

“We look to a hierarchical organization for leadership. We have local leaders but they look to leaders not to their congregation for policy,” he said.

The difference, he said, is in the priesthood authority.. The Catholic Church looks at the succession from Peter.

In the Church of Jesus Christ, the basic priesthood authority was lost in the centuries after Jesus Christ.

“It has to be restored by heavenly messengers who appeared to the first prophet of our church, Joseph Smith in 1820. From that time we have been a restored church with priesthood authority,” Oaks pointed out.

Mrs. Oaks said they have great respect for the Catholic Church.

“I have been to a Catholic school. They are great teachers; great people,” she said.

Humanitarian services

Besides spiritual work, the Latterday Saints take care of the welfare of people in need, not only of their members.

According to Oaks, as the Church have over 17 million members from about 117 countries, it has resources from its members’ tithes.

“We give worldwide over a billion dollars a year for humanitarian services.” he said. In the Philippines, 346 humanitarian projects were created in 2023, with 16 percent growth from 2020 to 2023. He cited that among them was the distribution of 13,500 food kits to affected residents during the flood in many parts of the country in January.

Likewise, over 22,000 food kits and thousands of hygiene, kitchen and shelter kits were distributed to survivors of typhoons in August and September in 2023. Oaks said: “Not just in dollars, also human services are given shoulder to shoulder to people, not only to members of our Church.”

‘Follow the Commandments of God’ IN his message to Filipinos amid the challenges they have been experiencing in their daily lives, Oaks recalled an experience he had a week after he arrived in the Philippines with his wife in 2002 for his two-year mission. He recounted that he was awakened from sleep with a strong spiritual impression to look into the Book of Mormon.

“I was drawn to a sermon by a prophet who predicted the coming of Jesus Christ,” he said. He recalled that the prophet talked to people about the principles of the Christian religion. The sermon, Oaks said, contained words which he used as the major subject in his teaching in his mission in the country. It is from the Book of Mormon in the Book of Mosiah, Chapter 4, Verse 10, which says: “And again, believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you.”

He said the following words from the verse “were emblazoned” in his mind: “Now if you believe all these things, see that you do them.’”

“My challenge. then and now, to the Filipino people is that you have the commandments of God, you know what you need to do… be faithful to our Savior. If you believe those things, see that you do them. be faithful, follow the direction of the prophets of God,” he pointed out.

For her part, Mrs. Oaks said:

“We love you [Filipinos] so much. It is evident that you have been doing that [following the commandments of God] or the Lord will not have given another temple. where so many more beautiful things could come [with the love of] Jesus Christ. We just love the Philippines. We are so proud of them [Filipinos].”

PRESIDENT Dallin H. Oaks, accompanied by his wife, Sister Kristen Oaks, leads the dedication of the Urdaneta, Pangasinan, Temple on April 28. The temple is the third operating temple in the Philippines and the 190th dedicated temple in the world.

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Taking the path to net zero carbon

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

MORE and more companies are going green, implementing environmental programs beyond the usual tree-planting, and introducing innovative solutions to the problems as a result of climate change.

Some companies integrate disaster risk reduction into their business plans.

Others take on the challenge of substantially reducing carbon footprints through energy conservation, while others shift to a low-carbon, renewable energy path.

Today’s buzzword, however, goes beyond mere greening or introducing energy conservation measures.

The mission and vision of every company are evolving, from leading to a linear, to circular economy and from resilience, to sustainability—net zero.

Demystifying net zero BUT what is net zero, compared to carbon neutrality?

During her lecture, Ping Manongdo, country director Philippines and assistant director of Partnerships of Eco-Business, said carbon neutrality and net zero are often interchanged.

While both concepts aim to mitigate the impacts of climate change by reducing and removing emissions, she said they differ fundamentally in definition, strategy, and effect.

“Net zero means cutting carbon emissions to a small amount of residual emissions that can be absorbed and durably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere,” she said.

On the other hand, carbon neutrality refers to a state where a person, organization, or country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are balanced by offsetting those emissions by purchasing carbon credits.

While the Philippines has already submitted an ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution wherein it commits to a projected GHG emissions reduction and avoidance of 75 percent, it does not yet have a hard net zero target, making it the only Asian nation that has not committed to such status.

“The Philippines has set a target to increase renewable energy in its energy mix by up to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040. With economic capacity growth projected at 6 percent per year, experts say the country is not set to meet this target,” she said.

Media training

DURING the Net Zero 101 Media Training held at a Taguig mall on April 16 organized by the Net Zero Carbon Alliance, Lloyd Cameron, Economic and Climate counsellor of the British Embassy Manila, underscored the need to communicate the plight of the most vulnerable and report on the opportunities for those who choose to proactively lower their carbon emissions, highlighting the impacts of climate change.

“[This is] because people are never going to demand action unless they care, and people are never going to care unless they understand. That is your role—to make that connection, to build that understanding. We need accurate and impactful media coverage about these issues and why they matter to everyone,” he addressed the participants.

The event drew 80 journalists, corporate communicators, government agency representatives and industry leaders to share insights and knowledge on how to best communicate the challenge of the changing climate. Participants learned about and discussed numerous topics related to more effective net zero media reporting, including the crucial role of finance in driving the transition to a net zero economy, accountability among enterprises and policy-makers, and the complex nature of international climate negotiations.

The Net Zero 101 Media Training was in

partnership with leading sustainability and environment, social and governance media and intelligence online platform EcoBusiness, and the British Embassy Manila.

From neutrality to zero ESTABLISHED by First Gen’s renewable energy arm, Energy Development Corp. (EDC) on September 20, 2021, NZCA is a pioneering private sector consortium advancing progress on carbon neutrality toward net-zero emissions by 2050.

This aligns with the climate action goals of the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

In establishing the NZCA, Federico R. Lopez, EDC chairman and CEO, said every single industry today will be affected by the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

He said taking the necessary actions that prepare companies and the country for these massive shifts in how the world works will be worthwhile investments with immeasurable returns.

NZCA aims to form strategic partnerships that encourage other companies to commit to taking immediate action to become carbon neutral and eventually net zero, said Frances Ariola, head of Corporate Communications of EDC and lead convenor, NZCA.

“The NZCA is anchored on EDC’s mission to forge collaborative pathways for a decarbonized and regenerative future,” she said. Currently, the NZCA has 22 member companies.

Private-sector role

ATTY. Allan V. Barcena, EDC assistant vice president, head of Corporate Support Functions, and NZCA executive director, emphasized the important role of the private sector.

He said that in the face of climate change, the role of the private sector in contributing to the global net zero objectives despite the current absence of a formal government commitment cannot be overemphasized.

“NZCA as a private sector alliance is the start. We need to commit and align with the global pledge to reach net zero by 2050; we measure and we take action. It is a cycle that we need to be involved in,” he explained.

During the event, best practices and case studies on net-zero initiatives and climate action were shared in panel discussions with corporate sustainability experts from NZCA member companies, such as Unilever, Holcim, Mondelez, Cemex, Arthaland Corp. and Drink Sustainability Communications.

He said the NZCA is open to companies, big or small, that are willing and able to reduce carbon emissions and take the part towards Net Zero.

Secretary Robert E.A. Borje of the Climate Change Commission said: “I am filled with a sense of optimism and determination as the discussions we have had today laid the path forward in our collective journey toward a climate resilient, sustainable and net-zero future.”

“I am particularly delighted with the commitment of the NZCA to championing private-sector action on net zero. Your leadership and dedication are essential in overcoming the challenges ahead and accelerating progress toward our shared agenda. It is only through continued collaboration, innovation, and determination that we will overcome the climate crisis,” he added.

Media network

DURING the event, aparticipants came together to initiate the formation of the Net Zero Media Network.

This new network aims to foster collaboration, share resources, and enhance the quality of reporting on sustainability and net zero initiatives.

The collective effort underscores the commitment of media professionals to driving informed dialogue and action on climate change through impactful journalism.

La Union’s surfing spot now a marine biodiversity haven

By Bernard L. Supetran

WAVE riders and beach bums can look forward to a more exciting and earth-friendly experience in Urbiztondo, the famed surfing village in San Juan, La Union.

This. with the launch of “PawiCAN: A Sustainable Waste Management Project” by executive assistant firm Athena as part of its contribution to saving the planet Earth.

Launched during the recent Earth Day celebration, the corporate social responsibility project aims to promote marine biodiversity, waste management and environmental stewardship among locals and tourists.

The highlight of the activity was a public demonstration of the assembly of scientifically-certified coral reef substrates before they were transplanted underwater by members of EcoSurf, a local surfing instructor group and freedivers who are also into environmental advocacy.

The surfers underwent a coral planting certification organized by Fostering Education and Environment for Development (FEED) under the personal instruction of Annuar Abdullah, president and CEO of Malaysia-based environmental conservation organization Ocean Quest Global.

The volunteer participants underwent a rigid training on the production of coral planting solution, which helps

coral growth at the lowest possible impact to the ocean, without using cement or old tires.

The tedious process seeks to restore the underwater coral cover for fishes to spawn and provide bountiful catch for the fisherfolk.

The undertaking was a collaborative effort of Athena with the San Juan Resort Restaurant and Hotel Association, Dragon 8 Junkshop, and the Municipal Government of San Juan, and FEED.

“La Union is a hallmark for sustainable tourism and environmental protection, and we are honored to work with the locals to promote waste management, as this aligns with Athena’s aim to improve quality of life through maintaining a clean environment,” says Athena Chief Marketing Officer Victoria Alcachupas.

She explained that marine pollution by solid wastes is a serious threat to coral reefs, and the volume of threatened coral reefs worldwide will rise to 90 percent by 2030 if no conservation interventions are taken to minimize local stressors.

Athena also unveiled artistically-

designed sea turtle-shaped garbage bins to represent the efforts to conserve the pawikan, one of the endangered marine animals in La Union.

Made by home-grown visual artist John Parmisano, the pawikan garbage bins are prominently located at the beachfront of Urbiz Garden and other high foot traffic points, and also goes along with educational visuals on proper waste segregation and recycling.

Alcachupas said that their firm believes in the “pawi-CAN” philosophy, which seeks to foster a culture of teamwork among stakeholders in order to encourage synergy for the benefit of the community.

She noted that the project will undergo a five-month monitoring, with the collected plastic wastes to be used for another beachfront art installation, to help heighten public environmental awareness, particularly on the need to reduce the use of plastics.

She added that the initiative is aligned with this year’s Earth Day global theme of “Planet vs. Plastics,” which aims to significantly cut down the production of plastic materials by

up to 60 percent by 2040.

“The Pawi-CAN Sustainable Waste Management Project in La Union emphasizes Athena’s commitment to responsible plastic disposal and recycling, while also serving as a call for individuals to join the cause,” Alcachupas concludes.

Meanwhile, San Juan municipal Mayor Arturo Valdriz expressed optimism on the long-lasting impact of the said initiatives.

“We hope that with these efforts, locals and beachgoers alike will develop a greater awareness of their solid waste disposal habits, keeping our precious waters clean,” Valdriz adds. Popularly known as “El Yu,”short for La Union, San Juan is recognized as the “surfing capital of the north” and is home to hundreds of tourist establishments and thousands of workers, which contribute exponentially to locally-generated waste materials.

With a clean beach and surfing area, and a seabed rich in aquatic life, San Juan stakeholders wouldn’t just be surfing the waves, but also riding the wave of a new paradigm in sustainable tourism.

‘No corals, no fish:’ Luxury resort in Mactan promotes coral planting

& photos

Story

by John Eiron R. Francisco

MACTAN, Cebu—One of the premier luxury hotels and resorts on this island offered an innovative initiative that pays homage to the development of marine sanctuary by allowing guests in coral planting just a few meters away from the shore.

“Aside from giving experience to the guests, it’s also part of the company’s initiative to give back to the environment,”

Lourdes Jimenez, Sheraton Cebu Mactan Spa and Recreation assistant manager and in-house marine biologist, told the B usiness M irror

Jimenez explained that the coral planting initiative doesn’t involve physically planting corals. Rather, it constitutes one of the methods used for coral rehabilitation worldwide.

Jimenez emphasized that while individuals may not directly perceive the presence or impact of corals in their daily lives, their existence plays a crucial role in sustaining ecosystems.

She underscored the interconnectedness, saying: “No corals, no fish,”

highlighting the importance of corals in supporting marine life and, ultimately, human sustenance.

According to Oceana, a nonprofit international organization dedicated to ocean conservation, healthy reefs play a crucial role in supporting fisheries, while inadequate reef fishery management often results in coral degradation Proper management of tropical reefs can result in the production of 15 tons of seafood per square kilometer (sq km) an -

nually, which is essential for approximately 6-million reef fishers worldwide and their families.

The Philippines, with nearly 1-million reef fishers, is particularly dependent on this resource.

Meanwhile, the country’s coral reefs have been experiencing continuous and rapid deterioration. According to a recent study, 90 percent of the reefs are classified as poor to fair, with none in an excellent state.

The worsening state of the reefs is compounded by the destruction of marine habitats due to various activities—dumpand-fill projects, destructive fishing, pollution, climate change, and other humaninduced pressures.

According to Jimenez, with the current global warming, a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature poses increased risks, particularly impacting corals due to rising water temperatures.

“If you see a white coral, it’s dying already. It’s not dead, but dying, because of the temperature of the water,” she explained.

She emphasized that individuals have their own methods to aid in alleviating the

impact of global warming on underwater ecosystems, which ultimately affects everyone.

While consumers have the convenience of purchasing fish from various sources, such as markets and supermarkets, she highlighted the hardships faced by fishermen due to the depletion of coral reefs.

Previously, fishermen could spend half a day at sea and return with 2 kilograms (kg) to 3 kg of fish.

However, the current situation requires them to spend the entire day or even evening, with minimal yield. This shift underscored the tangible effects of environmental degradation in fishing livelihoods.

Since the hotel opened in September 2023, it has already engaged over a hundred guests in coral planting activities.

However, the resident marine biologist noted the importance of scheduling these activities during the right time, weather conditions, and water quality. She added that their efforts to develop a marine sanctuary will require considerable time, as coral growth averages just 1 centimeter a year before reaching maturity and being transplanted to the seabed.

ATHENA’S

THE participants and the poster at the Net Zero 101 Media Training.

RIDING the waves in Urbiztondo, La Union SCREENSHOT HOTEL guests join in coral planting efforts,

I’m Black. I’m disabled. And now this.

ORTO ALEGRE, Brazil—

PVanderson Chaves has faced many challenges in more than a decade as a Paralympic fencer, but none as fearsome as the massive floods in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.

The waters washed away his equipment, dozens of medals, his passport—and might have even thwarted his chances of reaching the Paris Games in September.

Chaves’s ground-floor apartment, ideal for his wheelchair, lies in an elevated area of state capital Porto Alegre. Still, that didn’t spare him from becoming one of the 230,000 people displaced by the floodwaters.

Days later, his home remains submerged, his few remaining belongings fit in a car, and it’s affecting his mental health ahead of two key competitions next week for him to secure his Paralympics berth.

“There’s no way this wouldn’t affect me. To compete and to train well, you need to be well psychologically. And I’m not,” Chaves told The Associated Press at the Gremio Nautico Uniao, a club that has been turned into shelter for about 300 people since the floods began.

“I come from an impoverished area of Porto Alegre, everything for me is more difficult to achieve,” he said. “I am Black, I am disabled. And now this.” The fencer competed at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and at Tokyo in 2021. For many years, he has been among the best in the Americas in foil and sabre. He needs to score a few more points in two competitions in Sao Paulo to ensure he gets to travel to Paris. And to get that ticket, he will have to count on donated gear and an unexpectedly tiresome trip because Porto Alegre’s airport is flooded, too. Chaves will travel from Porto Alegre to Florianopolis on Tuesday in a minivan for about six hours and 460 kilometers. Then he will take a short flight to Sao Paulo, so he can compete from next Thursday into the weekend. His main rivals, who come from Argentina and the US, will be training and fine-tuning until then as they seek to overtake the Brazilian in the world rankings and reach Paris.

“I went to my mother-in-law’s house, this is my first day back at the club. It is like war here, I don’t even know whether I would have my mind to train,” said Chaves, who has needed a wheelchair since an accident with a firearm at age 12. “But if there was some training I would be here, that was always my outlet.”

There’s little chance that he will return to his apartment anytime soon, with heavy rains still forecast. That’s why authorities are rushing to rescue survivors of massive flooding that has killed at least 100 people and left another 130 missing.

‘Open

Storms were expected in the state on Thursday, with hail and high wind.

Chaves’s coach, Eduardo Nunes, says the fencer will face trouble beyond the mental stress and the unexpectedly long trip in his attempt to qualify for the Paralympics.

“He will have new gloves. For a soccer player, that’s like having new boots. He could get blisters with that, the gloves won’t be softened. His outfit also needs to be softened, and he won’t have time to do that and get used to moving around with it. Those little details will affect him. But he can overcome all that,” Nunes said. “The toughest thing will still be his mental health. To focus on what he needs to focus.”

Fencers from Brazil and the United States have offered Chaves clothing and equipment. If he secures a spot in Paris, Brazil’s government will automatically grant him better resources to compete.

Chaves believes his challenges can be turned into positives if he qualifies. He still hopes he can find some of his medals.

“I know that a lot of children, a lot of wheelchair fencers, get inspiration from me,” Chaves said in an emotional tone at the training facility, where donations for homeless people were piling up in the next room. “I motivate them. I can use this to encourage them, and I can use it to encourage myself to go after this, too.

“I like to wake up watching the medals, thinking that the following week there’s going to be more medals there,” he said. “That’s something that gives me extra motivation. And that’s because I know that I still have it all

always wins’ campaign, Olympic showcase, rendezvous for Paris unfurls

AMSUNG Electronics Co.

SLtd.—a Worldwide Olympic and Paralympic Partner—officially kicked-off its “Open always wins” campaign which celebrates the brand’s shared values of openness with the Olympic and Paralympic Games that are under a hundred days ahead.

The company also announced the grand opening of its Olympic™️ rendezvous @ Samsung | ChampsElysees 125 showcase.

Samsung’s “Open always wins” message articulates the brand’s belief that openness enables new perspectives and infinite possibilities and will serve as the heart of its Paris 2024 programming.

The new campaign, which debuted recently, brings “Open always wins” to life through the stories of Team Samsung Galaxy skateboarder Aurélien Giraud (France), Para sprinter Johannes Floors (Germany) and breakdancer Sarah Bee (France) and demonstrates how being open enables

you to do extraordinary things.

“As a Worldwide Olympic and Paralympic Partner, Samsung has been driving innovation and delivering cutting-edge technology and experiences at the Games for nearly 40 years,” said TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics.

“The way we enjoy the Games has evolved dramatically over time, with technology playing a critical role in bringing the Olympic spirit to life,” Roh said. “This is even more true as we embark on a ‘Games wide open,’ and we are excited to bring Olympic fans and athletes closer than ever by opening up new experiences and meaningful connections at Paris 2024 with our ‘Open always wins’ campaign.”

Samsung also unveiled a brand new showcase, Olympic™️ rendezvous @ Samsung | Champs-Elysees 125, which will take Olympic and Paralympic Games fans on an epic journey to Paris 2024 through iconic experiences.

Padel Pilipinas wraps up successful Philippine Open

NADINE SEBASTIAN and Jaric Lavalle topped the mixed beginners category while Dale Montealto and Hamda Buamin ruled the intermediate division of the Padel Pilipinas Philippine Open’s culminating tournament recently at the padel facilities in Mandaluyong.

Tao Yee Tan and Bryan Saarenas also Argiwon the

mixed open division, with Lance Cañizares and Catrine TorpBjerrehus finishing second in the event held in partnership with Play Padel and Le Garde.

Nadine Sebastian and coach Jaric Lavalle also emerged champions in the mixed beginners section.

“We’re really excited because we really trained hard for this,” said Sebastian, whose partner Lavalle praised padel as a “great step for us from recreational and

They will get to relive the biggest highlights of Games past with Galaxy and explore Samsung’s latest innovations, and create lifelong memories with Galaxy AI.

In creating this showcase, Samsung collaborated with the visionary Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, whose groundbreaking work mirrors the remarkable spirit of Olympic and Paralympic athletes., constantly pushing boundaries and redefining possibilities.

Inspired by Parisian Salons from the Age of Enlightenment, the space is designed to celebrate openness to new perspectives and possibilities through reflections and optical illusions that evoke feeling of

openness, harmony and connection.

“The entire space is designed to celebrate Samsung’s commitment to openness,” Nouvel said. “The abstract graphic façade captures the reflections of movements and lights that appear and disappear in an instant, while the matte, reflective white mirrors in the lobby invite discovery of latest innovations.”

The Olympic™️ rendezvous @ Samsung | Champs-Elysees 125 was inaugurated with a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by TM Roh; Team Samsung Galaxy ambassadors French surfer Joanne Defay, UK breakdancer Karam Singh and French Paraswimmer Ugo Didier; Anne-Sophie Voumard, Television and Marketing Services Managing Director for the International Olympic Committee; Pierre Rabadan, Deputy Mayor

as beginners” in the sport.

“Amazing turnout and we’re happy to see more new faces joining the tournament,” said tournament director and coach Bryan Gasacao. “We have players from different levels and representing various nationalities.”

The open was held in two phases—from April 25 to 28 and May 2 to 5—with many-time tennis champion Johnny Arcilla teaming up with pro Joseph Serra in winning the men’s final at the expense of Raymark Gulfo and Argil Lance Cañizares. Nigel Rimando and Vinz Toribio also topped the men’s intermediate class followed by the pair of Lemon Cruz and Bryan Saarenas in the first phase while Senator Pia Cayetano and Tao Yee Tan claimed the women’s open title.

“Always grateful for the unending support of Padel Pilipinas, Play Padel community, our family, and friends,” Tan said. “Winning with my partner [Cayetano] is special for me. With training and hard work, I am sure we can only get better.” Mayumi Toribio and Violeta Volodkeviciute topped the women’s intermediate category of the event Padel Pilipinas executive director Jackie Gan hailed with optimism over the continuous growth of the sport.

“We have so much in store for Padel Pilipinas, not just tournaments and weekly clinics,” Gan said. “We are looking forward to promoting Padel and discovering more talent as we bring our grassroots programs to every corner of the country.”

in charge of Sport, Olympic and Paralympic Games for the City of Paris; and Étienne Thobois, Director General of the Paris Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“We’re excited to see our shared values celebrated for these ‘Games wide open’ at this Olympic™️ rendezvous @ Samsung,” said Anne-Sophie Voumard, Managing Director, International Olympic Committee Television and Marketing Services.

The Olympic™️ rendezvous @ Samsung, located at 125 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, is already open to the public and wioll run until October 31 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 11 am to 8 p.m. on Sundays.

Wimbledon girls finalist suspended at 18 for doping

LONDON—Wimbledon girls finalist Nikola Bartunkova was provisionally suspended by the International Tennis Integrity Agency for doping on Thursday.

The agency said the 18-yearold Czech player tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine at tournaments in Trnava, Slovakia, and Maribor, Slovenia, in February and March, respectively.

The medication, known as TMZ, also was found in high-profile positive tests given in 2021 by Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva and 23 Chinese swimmers who were preparing for the Tokyo Olympics. Bartunkova was beaten by Clervie Ngounoue in last year’s Wimbledon girls singles final. She also reached the singles semifinals and the doubles final at the 2022 Junior French Open. She is ranked 282nd. Bartunkova is banned from all sanctioned tennis events pending an ITIA hearing. Paula Badosa, meanwhile, said she and Stefanos Tsitsipas are no longer a love match.

The tennis power couple has broken up.

Badosa wrote on social media recently that the pair “decided to amicably part ways” after being a couple since last year.

“We have shared a journey filled with love and learning, and it is as friends with immense mutual respect that we now choose to move forward on our own paths,” Badosa posted. “We are grateful for the support of our friends, family, and all who have been part of our story. As we transition into this new chapter of our lives, we continue to wish each other nothing but the best in all our endeavors.”

Badosa is a 26-year-old who was born in New York City but represents Spain and has been ranked as high as No. 2. She is currently No. 101 after a series of injuries that have limited her tournament appearances lately. Her record is 6-9 this season. The best Grand Slam showing of Badosa’s career was a run to the quarterfinals at the 2021 French Open.

PARALYMPIAN fencer Vanderson Chaves poses in the gym where he trains in Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil. AP

THE top finishers in the tournament strike a winning post—(first row) Dustine Gaviño, Peach Orbe, Vinz Toribio, Anna Luz and Heinrich Gasacao; (second row) Maxine Sebastian, Dennis Maglinas, Nadine Sebastian, Jaric Lavalle, Hamda Buamin, Catrine Torp-Bjeerrehus and LA Cañizares; (third row) Qoqo Allian, Senator Pia Cayetano, Tao Yee Tan, Bryan Saarenas and Dale Montealto.

THE Olympic™️ rendezvous @ Samsung | Champs-Elysees 125 is inaugurated with a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by TM Roh; Team Samsung Galaxy ambassadors French surfer Joanne Defay, UK breakdancer Karam Singh and French Para-swimmer Ugo Didier; Anne-Sophie Voumard, Television and Marketing Services Managing Director for the International

The unexpected joys of Shanxi

2024

YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! Why Macca in Manila should happen

Barring any unforeseen glitches, surely 100,000 more Filipinos will watch the biggest concert in the Philippines in recent years.

Last of two parts

LAST Sunday, May 5, I wrote about the possibility of Paul McCartney performing in Manila as part of the Asian leg of his recently completed Got Back tour, in which the superstar musician played 35 shows in the United States, England, Australia, Mexico and Brazil from April 28, 2022 to December 16, 2022.

The response from readers was overwhelming, which means many Filipinos are hoping to catch Macca (as the British press fondly call McCartney) live in concert,

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especially now while he can still sing his immortal songs even at 81 years old.

SHAUN

But other readers expressed doubt about a Manila date when the Asian leg is announced, citing as main reason the infamous incident that marred the Beatles concert in Manila some 58 years ago.

What really happened on that fateful day, when the Fab Four was scheduled to perform two shows, a 4PM matinee and an 8PM main show, on July 4, 1966 at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium?

I will quote Tony Barlow, the Beatles’ then press officer, from his 2005 book, John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me: The Real Beatles Story, as well as the band’s road manager Neil Aspinall, and the Beatles themselves in the 1995 TV documentary The Beatles Anthology.

Barrow recalled the arrival of the Beatles entourage on July 3, 1966 at the then Manila International Airport:

“The tour itinerary prepared by [promoter] Ramon Ramos Jr. was never discussed properly that evening between [then Beatles manager] Brian Epstein and the rest of us. I doubt if he even read it thoroughly or even noticed the crucial bit suggesting that the Beatles might ‘call in on’ the First Lady, the President’s wife, Imelda Marcos, at three o’ clock on Monday afternoon ‘before proceeding on from Malacañang Palace directly to the stadium for the first concert.’

‘Casual proposal’

THE wording Ramos used made this sound like a casual proposal rather than a command from the President’s office—not a fixed and formal appointment so much as something to be talked about as a possibility.

“The group (Beatles) had finally reached their suite at the Manila Hotel at 4 a.m. They were sleeping when two high-ranking

government officials arrived later in the morning and announced that they would be escorting the Beatles to the Palace.

“The officers spoke coldly: ‘This is not a request. We have our orders. The children who wish to meet the Beatles will assemble at 11...’

“Vic [Lewis, an employee of Epstein] threw on a shirt and trousers, phoned me and we went to see Epstein, who was having a late breakfast. Vic told me:’ ‘I have to warn him that these people are hot-blooded. A snub would be unwise.’ Unsurprisingly, Epstein refused to compromise: ‘I’m not even going to ask the Beatles about this. Go back, Vic, and tell these people we’re not coming.’”

George Harrison: “The next morning we were woken up by bangs on the door of the hotel, and there was a lot of panic going on outside. Somebody came into the room and said, ‘Come on! You’re supposed to be at the palace.’ We said, ‘What are you talking about? We’re not going to any palace.’

“You’re supposed to be at the palace! Turn on the television.”

“We did, and there it was, live from the palace. There was a huge line of people either side of the long marble corridor, with kids in their best clothing, and the TV commentator saying, ‘And they’re still

not here yet. The Beatles are supposed to be here.’

‘100,000 people’ came

Aspinall: “Although people kept saying it was a failure in the Philippines, the Beatles did two gigs to about 100,000 people, after the Marcos thing, and all the fans had a really good time. They really enjoyed it.”

A copy of concert poster listed six front acts: The Reycard Duet, Wing Duo, Lemons Three, Eddie Reyes and D’ Downbeats (featuring a young Joey” “Pepe” Smith on drums and vocals), Dale Adriatico, and Pilita Corrales. Smith was quoted in a documentary by Nilo Ilarde: “Ringo gave me a pair of drumsticks.”

McCartney squeezed in a little time to walk around Ermita and bought a painting by BenCab.

But things turned sour just as the Beatles were about to fly out of the airport. They were confronted by thugs, “some in military uniform. Guns were brandished and fired into the air,” recounted Barrow.

McCartney: “It was an unfortunate little trip...”

Perhaps now is the perfect time to put closure to that “unfortunate little trip.”

Sources, who declined to be identified since they are not authorized to speak in behalf of the artist, told this columnist that Macca’s Manila date might happen for two nights in the last quarter of this year at the Philippine Arena.  I am declining any further comment in deference to Macca’s management and the local promoter. Let’s just wait for the official announcement.

Barring any unforeseen glitches, surely 100,000 more Filipinos will watch the biggest concert in the Philippines in recent years. Perhaps President Bongbong Marcos can himself apologize to Macca in behalf of the Filipino people over what was apparently a terrible miscommunication.

CONCERT poster for the 1966 Manila concert of The Beatles

PAUL MCCARTNEY in 2022 (AP PHOTO, FILE)

THE Beatles in 1964, two years before they performed in Manila (AP PHOTO, FILE)

LIKE A COMET

Ben&Ben lights up the music charts again with latest single

By Reine Juvierre S. Alberto

Who do you consider a comet in your life?

ACOMET is a large body of ice and dust that orbits the sun. When a comet travels, it can be seen passing by Earth but for only a brief moment. It comes and goes, otherwise, it could cause destruction.

In Ben&Ben’s new single “COMETS” released on May 10, the award-winning nine-piece folk-pop band observed how people, like a comet, orbit into one’s life and eventually, leave.

“Comets, which are beautiful things to look at, they only pass. They don’t stay,” vocalist and lead guitarist Miguel Guico told  SoundStrip  in an interview.

No, “COMETS” is not another “sawi” song or about brokenheartedness. In this pop-rock track, the band explored the ephemerality of relationships, not just romantically, but of all sorts. Looking back, the feeling of loss and other emotions that come with it might prevail.

But in true Ben&Ben fashion, the feeling of gratitude, hope, love, and positivity remains embedded in the song, like how  “Sa Susunod na Habang Buhay ” and “Leaves” was written.

Miguel told SoundStrip that doesn›t always have to be a bad thing because in the end, they may realize that they have contributed significantly to each other›s lives for the better even if they did not end up.

The band is composed of twin brothers Miguel and Paolo Guico, Agnes Reoma (bass), Poch Barretto (electric guitar), Keifer Cabugao (violin), Patricia Lasaten (keyboards), Toni Muñoz and Andrew de Pano (percussions), and Jam Villanueva (drums).

Paolo, the band’s vocalist, joked that if a comet would stay longer on Earth, it might cause the end of the world.

“COMETS” was written back in 2020 during the pandemic when the band moved in together in a beach house. With no internet connection at that time, one of the band’s pasttime was to look at the stars at night.

Since then, the collective jammed out to the song but has never officially released the song. So what took the band four years to finally finish the song?

Out of the echo chamber

MORE than just a band, Ben&Ben is a tightknit group that has a process of doing their things, they said.

Miguel illustrated an echo chamber where all of them are contained, agreeing to their beliefs and opinions in music—one of which is “COMETS” still incomplete and not knowing what was missing.

Despite the band’s massive success producing hit songs, such as  “Kathang Isip”  and  “Araw-Araw,”  Miguel shared to SoundStrip that they needed to grow further musically during the past years.

Miguel took note that they needed to

about their new single “COMETS”

go out of their comfort zone and to try new and different instruments than their usual to finish the song, but Petra was the “key” in putting it all together.

“ Maganda yung nadudulot ng bagong tao na galing sa labas dahil sa fresh perspective na hindi namin nakikita  [It’s good what a new person from the outside brings because of a fresh perspective that we don’t see],” Miguel stressed, referring to when Petra came and the band finally figured out what was lacking.

Andrew compared Petra similarly to a thesis adviser, editing bits and pieces of the manuscript to send the intended message clearer.

“It’s still totally Ben&Ben. [There’s just] extra guidance of someone else’s musical taste,” Andrew assured.

Full and heavy “COMETS” is Ben&Ben’s subtle sidetracking from their previous songs known for its melodious folk, pop, and rock styles. As Andrew referred to the song: “Busog siya [It’s full].”

Miguel said the track has a heaviness to it that they have not reached yet in their previous songs, having a different “vibe” to it.

Pat played around the synthesizer apart from

her usual keys. Meanwhile, Miguel swapped his acoustic guitar to an electric one, rocking out with the band’s electric guitarist Poch.

“We always like to match the music to the message of the song. Mabigat siyang kanta eh [It›s a heavy song]. It›s not an easy message to hear and to share,» Andrew chimed in.

From MNL, with Liwanag AS the country’s no-fuss most sought-after band—with a musical featuring all their songs and sharing the stage with Ed Sheeran in his concert, among others—Ben&Ben cemented their success after being hailed as Spotify Philippines’ “No. 1 Most Streamed OPM Artist for 2023” for the fifth consecutive year.

With approximately 5.4 million monthly listeners in the music streaming platform, Paolo said the recognition was one of the things they least expected amid the memorable events that transpired last year.

“It became a wind of inspiration to pursue our bigger dream right now which is to really share our music all over the world,” Paolo mused.

Despite making waves internationally through performing in various music festivals around the world, such as Hong Kong’s Clockenflap Music & Arts Festival 2023, Austin’s South by Southwest Muic Festival 2020, the band still sets its sights globally to reach more listeners.

Paolo shared that the band plans on connecting deeply with other countries in Southeast Asia, performing in different shows and stages this year. Apart from collaborations with other artists and producers, Paolo said: “Ultimately, its spending time with people who you want to connect with—the listeners.”

Paolo said they will introduce themselves and their music to foreign audiences and see if they could connect. If so, he said they will keep that relationship and nurture it by starting from scratch.

But of course, the band’s dedicated fanbase, fondly called “Liwanag,” will never be left dazzling bright alone.

“We hope to bring “liwanag” all over with us. Together, we will send that message of hopeful realization outside the Philippines,” Paolo said, hinting a new full-length album to be released by the end of the year.

Ben&Ben’s “COMETS” is out now on all digital music platforms worldwide via Sony Music Entertainment.

BEN&BEN PHOTO COURTESY OF BEN&BEN

BEN&BEN talks

with SoundStrip at the Liwanag House in Robinsons Galleria. PHOTO BY REINE ALBERTO

TROPHIES and awards received by Ben&Ben displayed at the Liwanag House PHOTO BY REINE ALBERTO

BEN&BEN’S Liwanag House will soon be opened to the public on May 18. PHOTO BY REINE ALBERTO

MERCHANDISE, such as t-shirts, will soon be sold at the Liwanag House on May 18. PHOTO BY REINE ALBERTO

The unexpected joys of Shanxi

By Rio Constantino Contributor

Editor’s note: This is the author’s second story on his 11-day China trip with his father. The first, titled “History and pork guts in wintry Beijing,” was published in Y2Z on April 14.

Long before I ever stepped foot in China, my friend Tom (that’s his English name) told me many stories about growing up in his beloved hometown of Luliang, a seldom visited municipality in the province of Shanxi, several hundred kilometers west of Beijing.

The houses, Tom said, to save on construction costs, were often carved directly into the mountainside. The rock provided natural insulation against winter, which was always cold and dry. Food came in the form of millet, oats, and wheat, sometimes also mutton, goat meat, potato noodles, cucumbers, and aged black vinegar. But definitely not seafood. The ocean was so far away that Tom spent the first twenty or so years of his life without ever eating a fish. By all accounts it was a small and sleepy village. So, when I finally got the chance to visit late last February with my father, traveling by plane and rail during a snowy winter season, I expected to see what might best be described as a medieval hamlet: fallow fields, oxen, some small brick hovels huddled together against a frozen sky.

Instead, we arrived at the Luliang station by sleek green express train. (“Only our town has a green train,” said Tom with more than a hint of pride.) His nephew picked us up in an electric car. I stared a bit dumbly after getting inside. The car’s entire dashboard was a LED touchscreen.

My friend’s memories were apparently a bit outdated. Forget fish, I could quite clearly see the brand-new Nike sneakers shining from the windows of a corner outlet. Towering yellow cranes loomed over block after block of half-done apartments. High-rises, fashion boutiques, bars. Was that an Apple store?

The streets flew by in dazed surprise. “Tom,” I exclaimed. “This has to be the biggest small town that I’ve ever seen!”

I shouldn’t have been shocked. Many things have changed since Tom’s childhood. China has become the second largest economy in the world. And for Shanxi at least, the galloping economic transformation has been fueled by one particular commodity: coal.

Shanxi’s black mineral

SHAN x I contains a full third of China’s coal deposits. It produces over 300 million tons each year. Fortunes have been made by this black mineral, millionaires born by it. In 2012, a coal mining magnate reportedly spent over 10 million dollars just to finance his daughter’s wedding. The fossil-fuel industry is so entrenched that the provincial capital, Taiyuan, hosts a huge coal museum with a life-sized replica mine situated in the basement.

When I managed to visit the coal museum one chill afternoon, a few days before heading to Luliang, I suddenly found myself conversing with a friendly young man who had approached me out of the blue.

“Hello,” he said. “Speak English?”

Mingjie—that was his name—was a second-year undergraduate studying online logistics at Suzhou University, near Shanghai by the coast. Think Amazon, Alibaba, Lazada. He had just come home for winter break. Having heard me speak, he had jumped at the chance to practice his English.

“Where do you come from? Manila? Is it hot there? Do you know Shopee?” Together we inspected the miniature factories, the model drills, the mounted slabs of anthracite. “Factories get big,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “Very, very big.”

We talked about his friends, his fondness for anime, his plans to travel abroad. How many languages did he know? “Four,” said Mingjie. Mandarin, some English, a bit of Russian, and, of course, the language spoken by the people of his hometown, x iaoyi. “Only we speak it,” he said.

Hidden diversity

CHINA can easily seem monolithic, even monotonous, to the unsuspecting foreigner, but if you scratch the surface a little, an incredible diversity presents itself. Luliang, Tom’s heartland, also has its own language. So do the neighboring towns. It’s a situation that should be familiar to any Filipino. The Chinese might share a common writing system, but at the same time every corner of the country hides its own speech, its own dialect, its own lively lingo, slang, and vernacular.

Hours passed in lively conversation. Finally, near the exit, by a slab of anthracite, I asked Mingjie, “Why’d you come to this

museum? It doesn’t seem the place to learn more about supply chains.” He paused. “I wanted to know where I came from. My father is an engineer,” he said. “He supervises a plant. This,” he explained, gesturing around him, “is what’s paying for college.”

Despite the overwhelming volume of material flowing from its mines, Shanxi remains one of China’s poorer provinces. The average income of its residents lies considerably below the national average. Accidents plague its workers. Twelve were killed in mine accidents just this March alone.

At the same time, however, Taiyuan itself is a sprawling modern metropolis. The roads are well-kept, the streets are clean, and any smokestacks polluting the countryside are kept well away from the eyes of prying foreigners. Skyscrapers and highrises line the main thoroughfare. In what may be the biggest of all ironies, Taiyuan was the first city in the world to replace its entire taxi fleet with electric vehicles. Fossil-fuel automobiles in general are startlingly rare. Just as shocking is the price of air fare. You can find flights from Manila to Taiyuan for less than a plane ride to Davao.

In fact, it’s a mystery why there seem to be so few foreign tourists in Shanxi. There are certainly more than enough fascinating landmarks to visit. At the Jin State Museum, you can find tombs far older than even the Terracotta Warriors. The museum literally lies on top of the original archaeological excavations. Glass walkways extend over the remains of ancient princes lying stiff in deep pits, along with their chariots, their bronze axes, and the countless tortured skeletons of their sacrificed warhorses, who were buried alive with their masters.

The only difficulty about Shanxi’s museums is the lack of translations. All signs are in Chinese. To understand them you need to hire a guide, or better yet, get the help of a local.

“We are surrounded by the sea” BACk at Luliang, during our last full day there, the entire town was busy preparing for the Lantern Festival to mark the first full moon of the new lunar year. There would be a parade led by a dancing dragon and, later that evening, a grand firework show.

First, however, my father and I needed to find breakfast outside our hotel. Rapid

economic growth aside, Luliang retains a lot of its small-town charm. People turned their heads around to take another look at us as we walked. Not out of rudeness— the locals were very welcoming, and Tom’s family kindly hosted us for dinner every evening there—but out of amazement. Foreigners are so rare Tom had to help the hotel staff when we were checking in. He went behind the desk, clacked on the keyboard, and showed them how to process our passports.

The icy streets led us to an old school, to a frozen temple turned Communist monument, and to alley upon alley of handsomely weathered neighborhoods. The cave houses persist, surviving quietly beside towering new apartments.

Finally, our wanderings led us to the fascinating spectacle of a man frying bread outside a tiny cafeteria. The man regarded our attention with bemusement, but his wife, noticing potential customers, enthusiastically waved us inside.

She sat us down a long counter. There was no menu. Instead, she gave us each a small bowl filled with a grey, gelatinous paste. My father and I looked at each other. We poked the paste with a plastic spoon, prodded it. Eventually, the lady, noticing our confusion, approached to show us how it was done. First, use your spoon to cut the paste into strips. Then, drizzle aged black vinegar, matured to sweet perfection, into the resulting grooves. Last, add chili oil to taste. Enjoy.

After several minutes the bowls were empty. The lady whipped out her phone with its translation app. She typed on the screen. “That’s oat paste,” she said. “Do you have oats where you come from?”

It quickly became clear that the lady was glad to have us simply because we were fascinating guests from a far-away land. “Do you eat noodles? Dumplings?” she asked. “What about millet, rice, wheat?” Her husband came in. “Does it snow in the Philippines?” he asked. “No,” I typed back. “It’s always hot back home. Not snow, but the ocean. We are surrounded by the sea.” The man nodded in admiration. His wife’s eyes gleamed. Always summer, nets full of fish, endless plains of crystal blue water? What a wonderful place. How rich, how lucky, their expressions seemed to say, this young man’s nation must be.

The author with his friend, Mingjie (clockwise); an old gate in Luliang; the more developed area in Luliang; and a view of the Coal Museum of China in Taiyuan