Marcos certifies as urgent Senate bill...

legislature to bypass the threeday rule or the constitutional requirement for bills to be approved on third and final reading three days after it is approved on second reading.

House bill marked as urgent Marcos earlier certified as urgent the House bill that seeks to create the Maharlika fund, which allowed the lower chamber to pass it in just 17 days from its filing.

In his message to the House, Marcos said he was certifying the Maharlika fund bill as urgent

"in order to establish a sustainable national investment fund as a strategic mechanism for strengthening the investment activities of top performing government financial institutions, and thus pump-prime economic growth and social development."

Debates on the Maharlika fund bill have been ongoing for a week now, with senators taking turns asking questions to Sen. Mark Villar who is shepherding the passage of the measure in the upper chamber. After interpellations end, the period of amendments will start. Once senators finish introducing further amendments to the bill, the Senate can pass the Maharlika fund measure on second reading and right away approve it on final reading.

Under the Senate measure, the fund’s initial capital will come from the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines, dividends from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp, and from the privatization of government assets. g

Ramon Royandoyan Philstar.com

THE head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is eyeing opportunities on how they could boost their support to the Philippines’ creative industry, which is still reeling from pandemic-induced woes.

Kathi Vidal, the director of the USPTO and Commerce undersecretary, lauded the Philippine government's efforts to pass legislation to support the country’s creative industry.

“The ability to grow jobs in the Philippines through the creative industry is phenomenal, given your workforce, given how young they are, given how talented they are in that space,” she told Philstar. com in a limited engagement with the news media on Monday, May 22.

Missing Fil-Am teen found dead in Riverside County

A FILIPINO American teenager, who was previously reported missing in Moreno Valley, was found dead, according to police.

The Riverside County SheriffCoroner’s Bureau announced that the remains of 16-year-old Jordan Caoile, a student at Vista Del Lago High School, were discovered on Thursday, May 18 in an open field in Moreno Valley.

The cause of his death has not been announced, but foul play is not suspected and no suspects are being sought, according to Sgt. Wenndy Brito-Gonzalez.

Caoile was reported missing on May 15, dressed in light grey sweatpants, a blue/black sweater and an Adidas backpack. A search subsequently was launched for the teenager with flyers being shared on the ground and on social media. His parents, Randy and Karen Caoile, took to social media to announce their son’s passing.

“We want to thank everyone who has been helping with our search for Jordan. The support we received from the community and social media has been tremendous. We cannot thank you all enough,” they wrote in a post.

They provided the update that “he has been found but with a heavy heart unfortunately he is no longer with us.”

The post added,”Please continue to keep Jordan in your thoughts and prayers. We ask as a family if you could please assist with removing any posters or flyers you come across.”

“Please respect our privacy as we come to terms with our loss,” they wrote.

A GoFundMe (www.gofundme. com/f/caoile-family-fundraiser) has been started to help the Caoile family with expenses associated with their loss. (AJPress)

Republic Act 11904 or the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act lapsed into law on July 27 last year. The measure is geared towards aiding the development of the creative industry sector.

This sector contributed 7.3% to the country’s gross domestic product last year. This is equivalent to P1.6 trillion, leapfrogging 12.1% year-on-year as the creative industry largely benefitted from the easing of mobility restrictions towards the end of 2022.

Vidal’s three-day tour in the Philippines, alongside a meeting with the head of the country’s intellectual property office, marked a first of sorts. This was her first visit to the Philippines as director of the superpower’s patent office, part of a broader initiative of the United States to strengthen its economic alliances amid the backdrop of regional tensions against China.

The USPTO has been active in the region since the mid-1970s.

“What we plan to do in the next meeting is a listening session, I wanna hear how we can support the Philippines more, how we can support artists in the Philippines, not just the larger organizations that might show up to a meeting like this but all the artists out there that are not showing up,” she said.

“That’s something we’re solving for in the U.S. as well,” Vidal added.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines signed a memorandum of understanding with the USPTO in 2021.

Intellectual property woes

As it is, the creative industry sector’s prominence could grow

To stop hate, step out of the...

Stopping the hate, or even bringing the crime level down, will take a multifaceted approach.

Collaboration key to stopping hate

“No one thing can solve this,” said attorney Laura E. Ellsworth, who helps lead the Global Community Service Initiatives for the law firm Jones Day. “But it is solvable.”

Collaboration, in particular, will be key to finding a solution.

Dennis Santiago, chief operating officer of the National Diversity Coalition, said the traditional isolated response in which groups help and advocate for only the people they work with, albeit well-meaning, can have unintended consequences because the groups can end up at cross purposes.

Instead, he called for a more collaborative response to find what works for everyone.

California State Treasurer Fiona Ma encouraged people to recognize both what they have in common and the strength in their differences.

“I try to get everyone to think about our commonalities,” she said, adding that California has one the world’s biggest economies “because of our great diversity.”

She acknowledged the role of politics in the rise of hate.

“As elected officials, we need to stay away from partisanship,” Ma said. Otherwise, “people listening to start becoming negative.”

She also addressed the importance of people looking out for each other.

“When we know … someone is being attacked … we can notify each other,” Ma said. But when we aren’t aware or we don’t warn others, that makes it easier for perpetrators to continue committing hate crimes.

She said movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop AAPI Hate showed how “in California, when one of us is impacted, we do stand up.”

The impact of Black Lives Matter has been felt across the world.

Tracking hate in Europe

It “really affected us” in Europe, said Maria Daniella Marouda, chair of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance.

The murder of George Floyd started discussions about post-colonialism, racial profiling, and systemic racism on the continent.

The commission monitors racism and intolerance in Council of Europe member states.

Finding problems is not an issue. Doing something about them can be another matter.

Marouda said it is “so easy to find racist messages but so hard to counter.”

She said that “recognizing hate speech” while, at the same time, “protecting freedom of expres- larger in the coming years, as the Marcos Jr .administration believes so. In the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028, the government trained its sights on this sector to fatten its contribution to economic growth and drive innovation.

Vidal spotlighted that the Philippines could attract more investments provided the country fosters growth in its intellectual property (IP) ecosystem.

Data provided by the USPTO revealed the United States is the top patent filer in the Philippines, with patent filings growing 9.3% in 2022.

“The fact that you’re not on the 301 list, the fact that you’re committed to IP, creative industries, makes it a very ripe area for investments,” she said.

The Philippines has stayed out of the U.S.’s watch list of countries with IP violations for a decade now. As it is, counterfeiting and piracy remain a perennial problem across the world, as the Philippines has made considerable efforts to curb them.

The European Commission flagged four markets in the country, Greenhills Shopping Center and Divisoria counting tagged as two, as hotspots of counterfeit goods. g sion” could be a “difficult balancing act.” But, she noted, hate speech goes “beyond anything that can be defended” by free speech protections.

If hate speech isn’t stopped, it can have serious consequences.

“Hate speech doesn’t always lead to hate crimes,” said Tamás Berecz, general manager of the International Network Against Cyber Hate in the Netherlands. But “hate crimes are almost always preceded by hate speech.”

Ellsworth put it more bluntly: “Hate speech is the seeds of genocide.”

To try to find solutions, Marouda said the commission “looks beyond legislation.”

For one, it looks for “promising practices” in some countries that can be used as an example for others.

Marouda said it also looks for places “where victims can go and complain” but acknowledged that even if they technically have somewhere to go, they may not feel comfortable doing so.

“Minorities … don’t feel safe,” she said. “They don’t trust institutions such as the police.” Therefore, it is necessary to build trust to make people more likely to report incidents.

More education, more communication

Both Marouda and Berecz addressed the importance of education in effecting change.

“Inclusive education … we consider very important,” she said.

He called for education from an early age on hate speech and discrimination, in general, as well as digital media literacy.

Santiago says he “would like to see a cultural shift in terms of public policy,” one that is built on more communication among different groups and that does not continue the wrongs of the past into the future.

In his closing remarks, Bob Huff, who co-founded the Act Against Hate Alliance with wife Mei Mei, referenced the common saying, “If you see something, say something.” (Huff, a Republican, was minority leader of the California state Senate in 2012-15.)

“We all see something,” he said, “so we all need to say something.”

(Danielle Parenteau-Decker/Ethnic Media Services)

Danielle Parenteau-Decker is managing editor for Richmond Pulse, a community news and media outlet committed to amplifying the voices of underserved residents in the city of Richmond, California.

California State Assembly passes...

of the world when it comes to banning these dangerous additives.

We don’t love our children any less than they do in Europe and it’s not too much to ask food and beverage manufacturers to switch to the safer alternative ingredients that they already use in Europe and so many other nations around the globe.”

Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated the connection between the chemical additives named in AB 418 and alarming health outcomes, including increased risk of cancer, behavioral issues in children, harm to the reproductive system, and damage to the immune system. As a result, the EU and many other nations already have prohibited their use in food, and many major brands and manufacturers — including Coke, Pepsi, Gatorade, Dunkin Donuts, Papa John’s Pizza, and Panera — have voluntarily stopped using these additives in their products. Unfortunately, chemical companies in the U.S. have been able to exploit a major loophole in federal regulations to avoid mean- ingful independent review by the FDA of numerous food additives, thereby placing the U.S. far behind many other nations when it comes to food safety. If signed into law, AB 418 would require companies to make modifications to the recipes for products sold in California and likely prompt a nationwide transition to safer alternatives.

“For decades, the FDA has failed to keep us safe from toxic food chemicals,” said Scott Faber, EWG Senior Vice President for Government Affairs. “The chemical companies keep exploiting a loophole that allows for food additives that have not been adequately reviewed for safety by the FDA. And the FDA consistently fails to reassess chemicals, even in light of new science. The food and confectioners industries know the review process at the FDA is broken.”

AB 418 has now moved to the State Senate, where it is expected to be heard in committees in the coming weeks. (Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel’s Office Release)