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FPI-FIGHT IT STUDY SHOWS AT LEAST P900B WORTH OF GOODS SMUGGLED INTO PHL FROM 2011 TO 2015
‘Illicit trade is crime against humanity’
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By Rosabell C. Toledo | Correspondent
n a span of five years, illicit traders were able to smuggle at least P904.6 billion worth of goods into the country, a multi-industry study by the Fight Illicit Trade (Fight IT) Movement revealed. The total amount of smuggled goods that successfully entered the Philippines from 2011 to 2015 is pegged by the study at a much higher value, as the P900-billion figure only covers eight industries with so-called frequently smuggled products: petroleum, steel, resins, wood, cigarettes, sugar, palm oil and automotive batteries. Fight IT, a movement launched in 2015 under the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), commissioned the study, which was conducted by the University of Asia & the Pacific (UA&P). Fight IT presented the results of the illicit-trade research to officials of the Department of Finance during FPI’s 25th Silver Anniversary Assembly at a hotel in Manila on Friday. The study identified massive gaps in the Bureau of Customs’s (BOC) fulfillment of mandate, with alarming government revenue losses due to illicit trade bared. For instance, the economic impact
of illicit trade on the country’s GDP from 2011 to 2015 was valued at P495.5 billion. Furthermore, the decrease in domestic production or gross output was estimated at P1.1 trillion, while the number of displaced workers due to smuggling was at 291,070. FPI and Fight IT Chairman Jesus L. Arranza expressed dismay over these “worsening” figures, citing that the prevalence of smuggling “deprives the government of rightful revenue that could be used for projects relating to poverty reduction and infrastracture development, among others.” “Illicit trade cuts across all industries—from agricultural products to heavy industries. It is a crime against the economy and humanity that calls for a zero-tolerance approach from all of us. It is a serious economic problem that robs the government of billions of pesos in revenues, harms consumers and undercuts Continued on A2
Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) Chairman Jesus L. Arranza (fourth from left) hands over the study on the MultiIllicit Trade Sector Facility to Finance Assistant Secretary Mark Dennis Y. Joven (third from left) during the group’s general membership meeting on Friday. Witnessing the event are Dr. Rolando T. Dy, executive director of the Center for Food and Agri-Business of the University of Asia and the Pacific, and Project leader and FPI President George S. Chua. NONIE REYES
Slow Internet speed helping PHL fend off cyber felons
I
By Roderick L. Abad | Contributor
strategy of targeting newly discovered vulnerabilities with massive, global attacks and increasingly malicious payloads. This is just being the tip of the iceberg and potentially the start of a new wave of attacks we are in for in the future in the form of ransomworms,” the regional director said.
F there’s one benefit from slow speed of Internet in the Philippines, it could be that the country is less vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to a network security provider’s top executive. “For the last two quarters, there have been reports about the various online threats, especially some of the kinds of ransomware that are happening right now in the Philippines,” said Jeff Castillo, Fortinet regional director for Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. He cited the spread of WannaCry, which reportedly hit a couple dozen of companies here, and Petya recently. WannaCry pioneered a new sort of ransomware/worm hybrid, something Fortinet calls a ransomworm, released by a hacker group known as the Shadow Brokers. Petya, on the other hand, uses the same worm-based approach of WannaCry, even targeting the exact same vulnerability, but with a much
PESO exchange rates n US 51.3010
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Fortinet Senior Pre-Sales Consultant for Southeast Asia and Hong Kong Nap Castillo, warned, though, that local companies and even the general public should not be complacent about this, as the country remains a target of cyber criminals. “Nobody is exempted from this,” he told the BusinessMirror at the sidelines of the company’s recent news briefing in Makati City. Unlike in the previous years, the new digital economy means organizations rely on data as both a critical resource and an essential source of revenue. Given this, cyber felons have upped the stakes once again with the new high-profile attacks that are more sophisticated than ever.
New breeds of ransomware in PHL
more potent payload that can wipe data off a system, and even modify a device’s Master Boot Record, rendering the device unusable. These types of ransomware,
nevertheless, were quickly curbed unlike the worms of the past that launched massive attacks, some of which affected exponentially more devices and organizations than
this latest round of threats. “I believe that the WannaCry and Petya attacks were simply shots across the bow. They are part of an insidious new opportunistic
CITING the latest data from FortiGuard labs, Nap Castillo bared that the incidence of WannaCry in the domestic market is more than that of Petya. “But compared to other countries, we have actually very minimal number of cases,” he stressed, citing that WannaCry has infected around 230,000 computer systems from over 150 nations worldwide. Japan has recorded the highest rate of infection at 67 percent, followed by Taiwan and Mexico at 7 percent each. Both India and Finland registered 4 percent, while Hong Kong, Peru and Thailand posted 3 percent. China and Uruguay recorded only 1 percent. Contrary to a couple of thousands Continued on A2
n japan 0.4682 n UK 66.0449 n HK 6.5576 n CHINA 7.6872 n singapore 37.5474 n australia 40.4457 n EU 60.1504 n SAUDI arabia 13.6799
Source: BSP (18 August 2017 )
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‘Illicit trade is crime against humanity’ Continued from a1
legitimate local manufacturers,” Arranza said. Arranza cited the Fight IT research in identifying two methods of conducting illicit trade: outright smuggling and technical smuggling. He said technical smuggling is more prevalent nowadays. Outright smuggling, he explained, happens when goods are brought into the country without the due knowledge of BOC officials. On the
other hand, technical smuggling happens not only with customs officials’ knowledge of it, but at times even through their own orchestration. It is mostly characterized by undervaluation and underdeclaration of goods. Either way, smuggled goods escape proper tax assessment, allowing illicit traders to offer and distribute goods at lower prices—effectively killing local manufacturers who pay the right taxes. Because of this, local manufacturers are unable to keep up
with reduced prices of smuggled goods, subsequently forcing them to retrench employees or even close factories. Also, with huge government losses due to smuggling, unemployed and wageearning Filipinos can hardly depend on social-welfare programs to get by, Arranza explained. These bountiful and cyclical national issues birthed by the sustained prevalence of smuggling is exactly what Fight IT works to reduce, their commitment being “to protect consumers, safeguard
government revenues, preserve jobs and ensure a level playing field among legitimate Philippine industries.” Finance Assistant Secretary for the Revenue Operations Group Marc Dennis Y. Joven received Fight IT’s study on behalf of Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III. He commended Fight IT’s advocacy against smuggling, and promised to exert every effort “to make the BOC less vulnerable to corruption.” “We will be relentless in re-
forming and reinventing the BOC. If we have to privatize certain aspects of the bureau to weed out corruption, so be it,” Joven said. However, Arranza said he is not supportive of proposals to privatize the bureau’s operations. “The corruption situation in the BOC is really bad, but I do not agree with privatization. Let it be government, but implement competitive exams and interviews to identify the rightful leaders— strictly no recommendations from anyone, ever,” Arranza said.
He also expressed faith in Customs Commissioner Nicanor E. Faeldon’s integrity in the face of controversies, the most recent of which is the successful slipping of some 600 kilograms of methamphetamine past the bureau’s supposedly strict security checks. “I have talked to Faeldon, and I do believe he is trying to rid the BOC of corruption. However, if the problem is systemic, if an institution is corrupt to the core, one person will not be enough to fight it,” he said.
Slow Internet speed helping PHL fend off cyber felons Continued from a1
detected daily by Fortinet alone in these countries, the company has tracked only about 50 to 250 incidents a day in the Philippines. “I think the benefit of having a very slow Internet is this one. They [cyber criminals] are not able to proliferate WannaCry to the Philippines unlike Japan, etc., with very fast Internet,” Castillo said. “Luckily, there’s still no major complaint that appears over the Internet that they have been victimized by WannaCry in the Philippines.” The senior consultant recalled that spikes on WannaCry ETERNALBLUE and Double Pulsar detected by Fortinet only came after The Shadow Brokers released a group of exploits, including ETERNALBLUE, allegedly created by the US National Security Administration (NSA). The NSA toolkit started to leak on April 28. The WannaCry ransomware came out on May 13. “Maybe someone’s got the NSA toolkit and developed a ransomware out of that ETERNALBLUE toolkit,” he shared. “So, before May, we already saw some
attempts to exploit this toolkit. The same with the DoublePulsar exploit kit, [which] we have detected several attempts, as well.” On June 28 the industry was again attacked by another ransomware infection that was Petya. Immediately after, NotPetya also emerged. “They are almost the same; like twin brothers. But they have very slight differences, like the way they encrypt the Master Boot Record and the notification. Petya shows a blinking skull after encrypting your computer; NonPetya doesn’t,” Castillo said. Another Petya variant was recently detected by Fortinet. It’s called the GoldenEye, which, according to him, the “technique is also the same”, though, with “a little modification”.
Ransomware rises on digital economy
THREAT intelligence on ransomware has shown significant strength, which, over the past three years, increased by more than 150 times. This type of malware inhibits some aspects of access or control. From the name itself, it demands
payment to bring back the system to normal operation. It attacks both enterprise networks and regular computer users. This malicious software comes in three forms: blocking, locking and encrypting ransomware. Locky is by far the most active and famous ransomware. The most common attacked vectors are still the e-mail, Adobe, MS Office and web sites. “And now, this ransomware exhibits worm-like behavior to crawl over the network to find possible victims to infect,” the senior consultant of Fortinet revealed. The success of ransomware could be attributed to wide adoption of digital currencies or crypto currencies, such as bitcoin, litecoin ukash, dogecoin, ripple and monero, among others. “These are the financial or the ransom that they accept nowadays. And these bitcoins, or these digital currencies, have monetary value,” he explained, while citing bitcoin as the most popular digital currency they demand for payment since “it costs around $2,700 apiece”. “For WannaCry, they actually ask for around 20 bitcoins. And
to round down the value it’s over P2 million.” Apart from being easy to monetize ransomware, cyber criminals are also adopting digital currencies because they can be transferred from one digital wallet to another with a very impossible traceability. “So, unlike the old days, wherein there are some money used and fictitious bank accounts that you need to open to transfer this ransom, digital currency is more easy to move around,” Castillo said. Ransomware is, likewise, rampant these days due to angst over loss of documents and files, as well as limited timescale for payment, “In the event that your computer has been encrypted by a ransomware, reporting it to the law enforcers doesn’t make any help because it’s already a loss data,” Castillo noted. While most of the victims do not come in the open to admit that they paid ransom, different studies show that this is the case for some. In fact, three CryptoLocker studies deduced payment rates at 41 percent, 3 percent and 0.4 percent. Following takedown, analysis suggested that around 1.3 percent
of the victims have actually gave in to the demands of their attackers. The regional adviser of Fortinet cautioned the victims that paying ransom should be their last and desperate resort. “It depends on the data that have been compromised. If it’s really worth paying the ransom, then you can also assess if there’s really a possibility that the system will return to normal operation. Once you’re infected, your’e already at the mercy of the owner of the ransomware. So it’s a case-to-case basis,” he pointed out.
Top target verticals
HEALTH-CARE and education industries are the prime targets of cyber criminals, with 31 percent and 20 percent incident rates, based on statistics from FortiGuard Labs. “They are the ones who have the capability and possibility to pay,” Castillo said, while citing other sectors are also becoming easy preys for the fraudsters on the Web. These include technology at 14 percent; telco/carrier, 8 percent; government, 7 percent; manufacturing, 5 percent; banking/ finance, 4 percent; retail/hospital-
ity, 3 percent; construction, 3 percent; food and beverage, 2 percent; energy and utilities, 2 percent; and media/communications, 1 percent. Since there are a lot of big companies or conglomerates in the Philippines that also do business abroad, as well as establishments or companies that host personal records, he also cautioned them to be wary of cyber attacks. “These big companies are good targets for cyber criminals, and ransomware is the easiest way to infect their networks,” he said. “Actually, one of the targets of the owner of WannaCry is the Philippines, that’s why they have the Filipino [as among the 28 languages] version of ransomware note.” Moving forward, the threat horizon remains wide and is expected to expand further, per the 2017 risk predictions from FortiGuard Labs. “Fortinet sees that ransomware is just the gateway of malware. There will be more ransomware coming up,” Castillo added, while enumerating that there will be very focused attacks against high-profile targets, such as celebrities, political figures and large organizations. Another prediction is that the technology will have to close the gap on the critical cybersecurityskills shortage. “Nowadays, the cybersecurity skills are becoming lesser and lesser as the cyber criminals are becoming advance and more creative. We also need to cope up. We need to educate all users on the Internet that they need to be careful whenever they see some interesting topics on social media or attachment on your e-mails. So think first before you click,” he pointed out. With the increasing trend on mobility, Jeff Castillo, on the other hand, projected that this could also be a new channel for cyber felons to thrive in. “One of the things that we’re looking at right now is, because of the widespread of the smartphone, it can be a triggering device to get anything from your side,” he said. “I think each person is very responsible for his action. So it means if you’re aware or not, or even not sure, you can verify it first before you open up.” The Internet of Things being widely adopted, likewise, is a potential area for online threats that the public should also take extra caution with. “This is also something that we need to be careful of. That’s why we suggest we do our own part to avoid infection. Thats the key,” Nap Castillo said. “Let’s be proactive and, as much as possible, safeguard our networks at the very beginning. We must see to it that our computer system is always up to date and all the necessary security patches are installed. Don’t stop the virus scan scheduled on your computers. Let it run.” “The good guys like the Fortinet, we don’t let the bad guys reign. We don’t let them do all of these stuff freely. So we are here to help the customers and the cyber world users. That’s why we came out with these signatures, infection and blocking techniques to help our customers to stop these kinds of threats.”
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A3
Govt intensifies drive vs overfishing
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By Jonathan L. Mayuga
he Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), Oceana Philippines and Futuristic Aviation and Maritime Enterprise Inc. (FAME) are stepping up the pilottesting of radio frequency-based vesselmonitoring system (VMS) in preparation for the full-scale nationwide enforcement of Republic Act (RA) 10654, or the amended Fisheries Code.
On Wednesday representatives from the BFAR, Oceana and FAME successfully installed transponders onboard three commercial fishing vessels, whose owners or operators agreed to pilot-test the technology. This is the first time that operators of commercial fishing vessels have acceded to the request of Oceana, which facilitates dialogues with various stakeholders, in preparation for the implementation of RA 10654. Ronaldo Aguila, technology specialist of FAME, said the solar-powered transponders were installed in two small-scale and one medium-scale fishing vessels. A transponder is a device that helps track and monitor vessels during fishing expedition. The transponders emit radio-frequency signals, which allow data receivers to record movement and pinpoint a host vessel’s exact location, somewhat similar to that of a global positional tracking system.
Vessel classification
Commercial fishing is classified depending on the capacity of the vessels. Small-scale commercial fishing is fishing with passive or active gear utilizing fishing vessels of 3.1 gross tons up to 20 gross tons. Medium-scale commercial fishing utilizes active gears and vessels of 20.1 gross tons up to 150 gross tons. Large-scale commercial fishing utilizes active gears and vessels of more than 150 gross tons.
Prohibitions
Commercial fishing is prohibited within the 15-kilometer municipal fishing ground. Fishing is also illegal in marine protected-areas (MPAs). R A 10654 states that no municipal, commercial or distant water fishing vessel shall engage in fishing activity without
complying with the vessel-monitoring measures promulgated by the BFAR in coordination with LGUs. Tampering, switching off, or disabling the VMS device is also punishable by law. Since VMS application in the Philippines is relatively new, almost all commercial fishing vessels have no monitoring device. Transponders will allow government regulators, as well as operators, to pinpoint the exact location of a vessel with transponders as they move. The installation of the transponders on Wednesday was done in the presence of the BFAR, represented by Aga Khan M. Salong, a member of the Quick Response Team of BFAR Region 12; and lawyer Rogert Guzman, legal and policy officer of Oceana. Oceana, an ocean conservation advocacy non-governmental organization, is pushing for the implementation of the amended Fisheries Code, particularly the provision mandating the installation of vessel-monitoring device in commercial fishing vessels.
Encroachment
According to Oceana, commercial fishing vessels continue to encroach and catch fish even in municipal fishing grounds, and are sometimes “raiding” MPAs or “no-take” marine reserves, which constitute a serious violation of RA 10654, which lapsed into law on February 27, 2015.
Targets
General Santos City is considered the tuna capital of the Philippines. Many commercial fishing companies there engage in catching the commercially viable tuna for export. The city also hosts eight large tuna-canning factories, which export canned-tuna products. The city’s fish port is also the
YELLOW fin tuna WWF
only fish port in the Philippines that passed the European Union standard. Commercial fishing companies are reluctant to install transponders in their fishing fleets because of the cost. Several operators of commercial fishing vessels in the Visayas have defied BFAR and Oceana’s appeal to test the technology, fanning fears that commercial fishing companies will give regulators a hard time in enforcing R A 10654. Meanwhile, Oceana Philippines, led by its vice president, environmental lawyer Gloria Estenzo-Ramos, said LGUs can help stop commercial fishing vessels from raiding municipal fishing grounds, including their local MPAs, by requiring commercial fishing companies to install transponders in their fishing vessels as a requirement for the issuance of business permits. Likewise, she said the Department of Environment and N at u r a l R e s o u r c e s ( DE N R ), t h rou g h t he P rote c te d A re a
Management Board (PAMB), can also require the installation of vessel-monitoring devices for commercial fishing vessels that pass through national MPAs to track their movements. On April 7 the PAMB of the Tañon Strait Protected Seascape (TSPS) passed a resolution requiring commercial fishing vessels to install vessel monitoring device. Oceana Philippines had expressed alarm over the depleting fish catch as a result of overfishing, mainly by commercial fishing companies. A rou nd t wo -t h i rd s of t he countr y’s fishing grounds are a lready over f ished and the fish being caught are getting sma l ler and sma l ler, including the lowly sardines. Through the vessel-monitoring device, the government, particularly the BFAR, LGUs and even the operators of commercial fishing vessels themselves will be able to know whether their fishing vessels are in the right fishing ground and are not fishing outside their designated fishing grounds.
Despite all the meetings we had with them [commercial fishing companies]…and the meetings are spearheaded by the BFAR, still they refused to pilot-test VMS. Maybe because it is just a pilot-testing and it is not yet required, that is why they are defying us and the BFAR to pilot-test.”—Ramos
PHL courts China, Japan for $135-B power push T he Philippines is seeking investment from China and Japan for $135 billion worth of power projects that President Duterte’s administration is ready to fast-track. The Southeast Asian nation has held discussions with China, Japan, Russia and other countries about helping it boost generation capacity by 43 gigawatts in the coming decades to stabilize its power supply as the economy expands, according to Energy Secretar y Alfonso G. Cusi. Projects endorsed by his office will be approved within 30 days under an order recently signed by Duterte, instead of the months or even years it had taken proponents in the past, he said. “There’s a lot of expressions of interest to invest in the Philippines, and we’re going to make it easy for investors,” Cusi said in an interview on Wednesday in Taguig City. “We are open to all parties, all countries. In all the trips we had, we made the sales pitch.” The world’s two biggest economies after the US have poured billions into the region’s energy development. Japan
has either sponsored or financed 21 projec ts with a combined value of $23.7 billion that are currently under construction or planned in Southeast Asia, while China has backed 21 projects worth $32.8 billion, according to BMI Research. The President has tried to develop closer ties with China since taking power last year, as he seeks both new power plants and offshore gas resources, particularly for the island of Luzon, which accounts for about two-thirds of the economy but has precarious electricity supplies. The forecast power needed through 2040—roughly three times the generation capacity of Singapore—will support economic growth encouraged by airports, railways and bridges that the President has promised to build, Cusi said. The Philippines also plans to star t building by next year a P100billion ($1.95-billion) liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to supply plants that generate a combined 3.5 gigawatts of power. The facilities now rely on the Malampaya gas field off Palawan province, which is expected to be depleted by 2024.
LNG imports
The LNG terminal project, to be built in Batangas province south of the capital Manila, will have an initial annual capacity of 5 million metric tons when it starts by 2021 and will include a power plant with a capacity of between 200 megawatts and 800 MW, Cusi said. It will later be expanded to 10 million tons, as the nation has ambitions to be a LNG trading hub for Asia, Cusi said. Tokyo Gas Co., Osaka Gas Co. and Mitsui & Co. have been “nominated” by the Japanese government for the LNG project, which will be developed by a consortium headed by state-run Philippine National Oil Co., Cusi added. Private Philippine companies are welcome to join, he said. Tokyo Gas and Osaka Gas don’t have firm plans to join Philippine power projects, but are looking at the opportunity, spokesmen from both companies said on Thursday. The two firms, along with Mitsui, signed an agreement in June to consider joining the LNG project, the spokesmen said. A spokesman for Mitsui didn’t respond to a request for comment.
China has committed to a $6-billion investment in the Philippine energy sector. Building fossil fuel-fired power plants and renewable-energy projects were “extensively” discussed with Chinese companies, which were also invited to take part in the LNG project, Cusi said. The Philippines will decide on its LNG terminal partner this year. “I think we can only marry one,” Cusi said, when asked if both Japanese and Chinese investors can be part of the consortium. The Southeast Asian nation’s total installed capacity rose 14 percent to about 21.4 gigawatts last year, with Mindanao posting the highest growth at 31 percent, according to Department of Energy data. That’s left the southern island with a 33 percent power-reserve margin, which measures the amount of maximum capacity available above peak demand. The Visayas has 22 percent, while Luzon only has 7 percent. The government is planning to spend P52 billion to link the three island regions so they can share power, Cusi said. Bloomberg News
This will also boost rescue effort in case the vessels get lost at sea, had engine trouble or capsize during strong typhoons, Ramos said. LGUs, according to Ramos, can make this mandatory by passing local ordinances, imposing a stiffer penalty and higher fines, for owners and skippers of their fishing vessels. “Some local government units in Cebu and Bohol are looking into passing local ordinances requiring commercial fishing vessels to install vessel-monitoring device,” Ramos said. He added that during policy dia log ues, representatives of commercial fishing companies admitted sneaking into municipal fishing grounds to catch fish. They are also against the mandator y installation of vesselmonitoring device. “Other commercial fishing companies are seeking an extension. But we disagreed. They should adhere to the policy of vesselmonitoring systems,” Ramos said.
Continuous dialogue
Danilo Ocampo, Oceana Philippines campaign manager, said the BFAR-led dialogue in partnership with Oceana was recently held in Naga. “The consultation meeting in Naga went well. We encountered no major problem,” he said. The dialogues for the Visayas and Mindanao will be held starting this week. In the Visayas, particularly Ne g ro s , com me rc i a l f i s h i n g companies, R amos lamented, appear to be defiant and would not even grant requests for pilot-testing of vessel monitoring
device in any of their f leets. Oceana has an ongoing pilottesting of vessel-monitoring devices in several noncommercial fishing vessels in Tañon Strait, since commercial fishing companies have rejected their appeal for test-runs. “ Despite a l l t he meet i ngs we had with them (commercial fishing companies) … and the meetings are spearheaded by the BFAR, still they refused to pilot-test VMS. Maybe because it is just a pilot testing and it is not yet required that is why they are defying us and the BFAR to pilot-test,” Ramos said. The group is testing two technologies, FAME’s technology and another from the United States. Both could be obtained at a low cost, according to Ocampo. The Pelagic Data System from the US uses a mobile data-based system, while FAME makes use of radio frequency signals. Pilot-testing was done in several noncommercial fishing vessels that operate in the provinces of Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Cebu. Oceana is also currently testing the Filipino VMS technology in San Carlos City and in Siquijor. “These technologies are affordable. The Filipino company is charging only P800 a month. We believe it is affordable,” he said.
Need
According to Ocampo, enforcing the VMS under the amended Fisheries Code is urgently needed to regulate and stop overfishing that has been causing fish-stock depletion in the Philippines. The amended Fisheries Code imposes stiffer penalty and fines for violators of the VMS. Section 119, which refers to noncompliance with VMS, states that upon a summary finding of administrative liability, the owner or his representative operating the fishing vessel faces punishment with confiscation of catch, suspension or revocation of license and an administrative fine equivalent to twice the value of the catch or P10,000 for municipal fishing or community service in case of failure to pay the fine; P250,0000 for small-scale commercial fishing; P500,000 for medium-scale commercial fishing and P2.500 for large-scale commercial fishing. In case the violation is committed outside national jurisdiction, the administrative fine shall be equivalent to five times the value of the catch or twice the amount of the corresponding fines for municipal fishing, small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale commercial fishing.
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The World BusinessMirror
Saturday, August 19, 2017
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Malaysia GDP growth beats forecasts as economy expands 5.8%
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alaysia’ s e conomy grew faster than economists forecast in the second quarter, fueled by stronger consumer spending and a pickup in manufacturing. Its GDP rose 5.8 percent from a year earlier, after climbing 5.6 percent in the first quarter, Bank Negara Malaysia said on Friday. The median estimate of 26 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 5.4 percent. GDP rose a seasonally adjusted 1.3 percent from the previous three months.
Big picture
Paramedics tend to one of the many pedestrians struck by a van driving through crowds on Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous street. The New York Times
Van hits pedestrians in Spain’s worst terror attack in a decade
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pain was hit by its worst terrorist attack in more than a decade on Thursday, when a van driver plowed into dozens of people enjoying a sunny afternoon on one of Barcelona’s most famous thoroughfares, killing at least 13 people and leaving 80 bloodied on the pavement. Hours later, the Catalan police said they foiled a second van attack, in the seaside town of Cambrils, 70 miles to the south, fatally shooting four people. A fifth died later of wounds, the police said. The suspects appeared to be wearing explosive belts, according to Spanish news reports. Six civilians and one police officer were injured during the episode, the Catalan emergency services said. The Barcelona attack was at least the sixth time in the past few years that assailants using vehicles as deadly weapons have struck a European city. The police cordoned off the Plaza de Cataluña and Las Ramblas in the heart of Barcelona, both tourist destinations, and began a chaotic pursuit for the attackers. Two people were later arrested, including a Moroccan man whose identification documents had been used to rent the van. But the Barcelona police said neither was believed to be the driver, who escaped on foot and remained at large on Thursday night. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Barcelona assault, which shattered a peaceful afternoon in one of Europe’s most picturesque cities. President Donald J. Trump and other Western leaders quickly condemned the attack and pledged cooperation. In a sign of the confusion that prevailed after the Barcelona attack, local television reported one assailant, armed with a rifle, had run into a restaurant and was besieged by the police. The police said the entire incident was false. Witnesses described people screaming and running for their lives as the van driver wove back and forth just after 5:30 p.m., apparently trying to hit as many people as he could. Police officers swept through the area near Las Ramblas, a wide boulevard with a large pedestrian section, moving people out of the area. Videos taken by w itnesses p o s t e d on l i ne s ho we d me n , women and children motionless on the ground amid broken umbrellas and chairs, in the shade of
trees, many bleeding profusely, while paramedics and friends knelt to comfort them as police sirens wailed. Whitney Cohn, a mathematics teacher from Montebello, New York, was walking along the mall with her husband and two daughters, on the way back to her hotel after visiting a museum, when the van came careening through the crowd, throwing people aside like dolls as screams pierced the air. She grabbed her daughters and started running. “It was flying,” Cohn said in a telephone interview from a nearby restaurant. “The van missed us by a sec.” Other w itnesses descr ibed chaos as people dropped their belongings and fled as the van entered the mall and accelerated, hitting people indiscriminately, among them children, women and the elderly. Among the seriously injured was a 6-year-old girl hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage, an official at Vall Hebron university hospital said. People streamed onto side streets, many of them weeping. “It was horrific,” said Sergi Alcazar, a 25-year-old photographer who arrived 10 minutes after the attack to find victims lying amid broken umbrellas, chairs and café tables. Until Thursday, Spain had been spared from the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Europe—many involving vehicles plowing into crowds—claimed by extremists in France, Germany, Britain and elsewhere. Keith Fleming, an American who lives just off Las Ramblas, told The Associated Press (AP) that he was watching television when he heard a noise, looked out over his balcony and “saw women and children just running and they looked terrified.” Fleming said the street was deserted, with the exception of police officers with guns drawn or in riot gear. “It’s just kind of a tense situation,” the AP reported him as saying. “Clearly people were scared.” Maj. Josep Lluis Trapero, a senior police official in Spain’s Catalonia region, said at a news
conference that the police were investigating a possible connection between the van attack and a gas explosion the previous night in Alcanar, a town south of the city, which killed one person and injured several others. One person, a Spaniard from the Spanish territory of Melilla in Morocco, had been taken into custody in Alcanar, he said. A second man, identified as Driss Oukabar, a Morrocan citizen, was arrested in the northern Catalan town of Ripoll when he walked into a police station and reported his documents had been stolen. Trapero said neither man appeared to be the driver of the van, which came to a stop near the city’s opera house. The driver escaped on foot, he said. “It was clearly a terror attack, intended to kill as many people as possible,” Trapero said. A national police official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss on continuing investigation, said at least three vans had been rented under Oukabar’s name. As night fell, the Barcelona police were frantically searching for the two other vans, combing the streets and underground parking garages, the official said. A counterterrorism expert, who was briefed on the details of the investigation, said late Thursday that the police now believed the plot initially involved the use of explosives and a large truck. “Part of the plan was they tried to rent a larger truck, but they didn’t have the right permit and so they ended up getting” smaller vans, said the expert, who requested anonymity to share information that had been disclosed to him in confidence. He added that the building in Alcanar where the explosion occurred Wednesday had been packed with gas canisters, as well as other materials used to make explosives. US counterterrorism officials in Washington said they were in contact with the Spanish authorities to offer any assistance, but underscored that the investigation had just started. Trump said on Twitter that the United States would “do whatever is necessary to help”, telling Spaniards to “Be tough & strong, we love you!” Pro-Islamic State accounts on the Telegram messaging service shared news of the attack. One channel, called “Expansion of the Caliphate,” posted video of the scene of the violence alongside a message in Arabic. “Terror is filling the hearts of the Crusader in the Land of Andalusia,” it said. In the past year, the Islamic St ate h a s de voted resou rces to translating their channels
and messages into Spanish. Although countries like France and Britain have repeatedly been named in IS propaganda urging followers to plan and stage attacks, Spain has been less in the cross hairs. The country has, however, been a transit point for recruits of the militant group, both for those going to Syria and those returning. The Spanish police arrested nine people in April who they said may have been connected with deadly attacks in France and Spain. The Barcelona attack appeared to follow the playbook of recent assaults in which attackers drove vehicles into crowded stretches of large European cities. “While it’s not clear whether the attackers corresponded with ISIS prior to the operation, it’s clear that the methods used in the attack is something ISIS encouraged and incited over and again,” said Laith Alkhouri, a director in New York of the business-risk intelligence company Flashpoint. In the French resort city of Nice, a man drove a rental truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day on the seaside Promenade des Anglais last year, killing 86 people. A few days before Christmas last year, a driver in a stolen van mowed down shoppers at a holiday market in Berlin, killing 12 people and wounding dozens. At least seven civilians were killed and dozens wounded in June when knife-wielding assailants sped across London Bridge in a white van, ramming numerous pedestrians before emerging with large hunting knives to attack the capital’s Borough Market, a crowded nightspot. The IS claimed responsibility, saying the attack had been carried out by “a detachment of Islamic State fighters.” That attack was reminiscent of another, on Westminster Bridge in London on March 22, when Khalid Masood, 52, drove a car into pedestrians, killing four people. He t hen fata l ly stabbed a police officer near Parliament before he was shot and killed. The police treated that attack, in which 50 were wounded, as “Islamist-related terrorism.” There have been other deadly attacks using vehicles that were not related to Islamist extremists. A British man rammed a rental van into a congregation of Muslims leaving prayers in North London during Ramadan, and a man who was part of white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, drove his car into a crowd on Saturday, killing a woman. New York Times News Service
Malaysia’s economy is gaining momentum, as it grows at the fastest pace in more than two years. The global trade recovery has spurred exports, with Malaysia outperforming its peers in the region as earlier weakness in the currency helped to keep its manufacturing industry competitive. The World Bank raised the nation’s growth forecast in June by the most in East Asia, projecting a 4.9-percent expansion this year. Central bank Governor Muhammad Ibrahim told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that growth will probably exceed the official forecast of 4.8 percent this year. The bank last month held its benchmark interest rate at 3 percent, as inflation pressures eased and growth prospects strengthened. Speaking in general terms, Muhammad said, “When economic growth is entrenched, and if inflation is essentially benign, it gives Bank Negara a bit more flexibility in terms of policy.” “But as far as we are concerned, we will look at the data objectively,” he said. “Our next meeting will be
in September, early September, so we will look at it and see where we should move forward.”
Economist takeaways
“M alaysia’s better-than-expected economic performance was largely driven by private consumption, which printed much stronger than we had expected,” said Weiwen Ng, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Singapore. “Although Malaysian exports have undoubtedly benefited from strong global demand and a weaker currency, the improvement has been narrowly concentrated in the electronics segment and geographically to China. These characteristics do question the longevity of the export cycle.” The ringgit strengthened after the data, paring its decline against the dollar on Friday. The currency was trading at 4.2960 as of 1:07 p.m. in Kuala Lumpur, taking its gain this year to 4.4 percent. The key stock index fell 0.2 percent.
Other details
Consumer spending surged 7.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, while government expenditure growth slowed to 0.2 percent from 6.8 percent. Investment held up in the quarter, expanding 7.4 percent from a year earlier. Exports climbed 9.6 percent, while imports rose 10.7 percent. Services, the biggest sector in the economy, increased 6.3 percent, while Manufacturing growth accelerated to 6 percent from 5.6 percent. Current-account surplus widened to 9.6 billion ringgit from 5.3 billion ringgit in the first quarter. Bloomberg News
Senior officer on damaged ship to be relieved of command
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he captain of a Navy warship that lost seven sailors in a collision with a commercial container ship in June will be relieved of command and nearly a dozen others face punishment, the Navy’s second-ranking admiral said on Thursday. Ad m. Wi l l i a m Mora n, t he vice chief of naval operations, told reporters that the top three leaders aboard the USS Fitzgerald, which was badly damaged in the collision off the coast of Japan, will be removed from duty aboard the ship. They are the commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson; the executive officer, Cmrd. Sean Babbitt; and Master Chief Petty Officer Brice Baldwin, who as the ship’s command master chief is its most senior enlisted sailor. The actions are being taken by Rear Adm. Joseph Aucoin, commander of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, based at Yokosuka, Japan, because he lost confidence in the three, Moran said. In addition, nearly a dozen face nonjudicial punishment that has yet to be determined, Moran said, adding that details on those actions are to be announced on Friday after they are completed. Moran said the actions are to be taken shortly, although the Navy’s investigation into how and why the USS Fitzgerald collided with the container ship in June has not yet been completed. “Serious mistakes were made by members of the crew,” Moran said, adding that he could not fully detail those mistakes because the investigation is ongoing. He said “the bridge team,” or the sailors responsible for keeping watch on the ship’s bridge to ensure it remains safe, had “ lost sit uat iona l awareness,”
which left them unable to respond quickly enough to avoid the disaster once the oncoming container ship was spotted. Separately, the Navy released the results of a review of events that took place aboard the ship after the collision, focusing on the crew’s ef for ts to control damage, save lives and keep the ship afloat. The crash occurred in the predawn hours of June 17 off the coast of Japan in an accident-prone area known for congestion. That is within Japanese territorial waters. The seas were relatively calm, and visibility was unrestricted. The bow of the container ship, the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal, slammed into the Fitzgerald’s right side above the waterline, quickly flooding several areas inside the ship, including a berthing, or sleeping, area. Of the 35 sailors who were in Berthing 2 at the time, 28 escaped. Seven drowned. The collision knocked out external communications and cut power in the forward portion of the ship. T he Nav y re v ie w of wh at happened aboard the ship following the collision found that the seven deaths could not be blamed on misconduct. It commended the response by the ship’s crew, singling out two sailors for taking extra steps to help other out of the f looded berthing space—actions that it said likely saved the lives of at least two of their shipmates. “No damage control efforts, however, would have prevented Berthing 2 from flooding completely within the first two minutes following the collision, or the deadly circumstances in that situation,” the review said. AP
Sports BusinessMirror
Editor: Jun Lomibao • mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph
Saturday, August 19, 2017
MIGUEL TABUENA kisses his Aboitiz Invitational trophy. ROY DOMINGO
Dawn Nicole Macandili is named Second Best Libero.
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HAMISH BOND has been selected in the New Zealand cycling team. AP
A6 Saturday, August 19, 2017 | Editor: Mike Besa
Revisiting Forest Hil
It’s come a The first tee on the Palmer course.
THE BusinessMirror renews its support for BRAFE Golf. BRAFE Golf committee members Edmund Datuin, Albert Garcia, Roy Peña and George Elazegui celebrate with BusinessMirror Publisher T. Anthony C. Cabangon and Golf editor Mike Besa (third and fourth from left, respectively).
Brafe 12–More golf for education T he BRAFE Golf Tournament was organized by Bro. Rafael Donato (Bro. Rafe to all his friends) in 1988 to provide scholarships to financially challenged but deserving students at De La Salle University Lipa. In 1998 the foundation extended its scholarship assistance to top-ranking students from barangay high schools (national high schools) in the province of Batangas. It has since been providing free tuition and fees so that qualified candidates can earn a university degree from De La Salle University Lipa. Former classmates of Brother Donato,
along with former students and friends, conceived and organized BRAFE Golf in 2005 as a vehicle to raise funds for the foundation. The tournament has become somewhat of an institution. It is arguably the largest nonclubsponsored tournament in the country. The fact that the event has been held for 12 years is a testament to its success and the generosity of the Lasallian community. By the conclusion of the tournament’s 12th edition, BRAFE Golf will have raised over P11 million for the foundation and given a lot of deserving disadvantaged teens a lifeline to a better life
through a Lasallian education. The BusinessMirror has been a staunch supporter of BRAFE Golf having been a media sponsor of the tournament since its inception. The BusinessMirror is proud of this relationship and of the good that it does and will continue to support BRAFE Golf in the years to come. BRAFE 12 tees off on the second of October 2017 at the Eagle Ridge Golf and Country Club. Interested parties may contact Marites Santos at (02) 524-6549 or 0928-322-4217 for ticket information. Reservations may be also made at Eagle Ridge. Mike Besa
Philippines to host Asean Senior Golf Championships
FPASGI External VP Gen. Romulo F. Narcida (Ret., from left), Transportation Undersecretary Felipe A. Judan, 34th Asean Cochairman Raymundo A. del Rosario, 34th Asean Cochairman Melito S. Salazar Jr., Tourism Assistant Secretary Frederick Alegre, Board Adviser Gen. Melchor P. Rosales (Ret.), NGAP President Carlos Cosculluela Jr. and Board Adviser Gen. Jose P. Magno Jr. lock arms in a show of unity for the Asean Senior Golf Championships
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he Asean Senior Golf Championships are conducted annually by the Confederation of Asean Senior Golfers’ Associations (Casga), an organization composed of the senior golfers’ associations of most of the Asean countries. Only Myanmar, Vietnam, Lao PDR and Cambodia have yet to join Casga. Casga members take turns hosting the championships, which breeds familiarity and fraternity among the participants. The Philippines has historically been the most successful nation in the team events. Eddie Bagtas owns the most individual championship victories, having won the individual plum three years in a row. The venue for 2017 is the sprawling Eagle Ridge Golf and Country Club in General Trias, Cavite. The club is currently busying itself with preparing the golf courses that are to be used for the event. With the championships being held in the Philippines,
look for a very strong showing by the host country. The Philippines has won both the gross and net team events a total of 16 times since the tournament’s inception. No bets against Eddie Bagtas winning a fourth straight individual plum, either. The championships bring a good deal of tourist traffic to the host country. The Philippines can expect around 320 golfers and nonplaying companions. This will have a significant impact on the local tourism industries affiliated with the tournament. Hotels and restaurants, tourist destinations, shopping and leisure establishments will share the bounty. It is for this reason that the Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) has gotten behind the Asean Senior Golf Championships. The DOT has made the growth and promotion of golf tourism one of its key projects. The Philippine Golf Tourism Board was established earlier in the year to spearhead the project and these
championships, if anything, validate the DOT’s initiatives in the sector. Consider if you will that the tournament could pull in from P13 million to P15 million in tourist revenues. Not very much, yes, but this is one three-day event. Thirty or 40 of them would amount to a significant jump in tourist revenue from this sector alone. Golfers are high-value travelers. They’re generally not shy about spending money and prefer middle to upscale accommodations. Golf hasn’t been a priority in the past, but it is a lucrative market. Thailand and Malaysia have done very well making golf one of their tourism priorities. So it behooves the country to put our best collective foot forward for the Asean Senior Golf Championships. We are hosts to our neighbors. Each of us that has contact or whose work has an impact on the event is now an ambassador for the country. Our hospitality and generosity will be returned with interest. Mike Besa
TaylorMade Golf’s TP5 and TP5x Golf Balls
The best all-around golf ball on the planet? I n the game of golf, the most stringent demands placed on a piece of equipment are on the golf ball. We need a ball that doesn’t spin much to get maximum distance off the tee. But we also need that same ball to react with high spin for the approach and finesse shots into and around the green. The cover needs to be durable enough to resist scuffing with the iron and wedge shots. In the past, we had to pick golf balls that offered the best compromise for your game. If you needed more distance off the tee, you generally gave up a bit of control coming into the greens and vice versa. Durability was always an issue. Those soft covers that offered the best spin and feel never really lasted very long. But in the golden age of golf technology, compromise is a dirty word. The science has evolved to the point where one golf ball can do everything
that the golfer demands of it and do it well. I’ve always liked TaylorMade’s five-piece golf ball in all their iterations; from the original Penta to last year’s Tour Preferred golf balls, each has performed admirably. I would have no trouble gaming them in an important match. There were high expectations then, for the 2017 TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x. Their predecessors are among the most highly regarded in the industry so nothing but the highest performance was the goal. As is the current fashion, TaylorMade introduced two variants; the TP5 and the TP5x. Both use the same five-piece construction but are engineered differently. The TP5 flies a bit lower and spins a bit more, while the TP5x flies higher and spins less. The TP5x is longer with the driver and behaves better in the wind. It feels a bit firmer on short game shots and with the
putter but it’s not clicky by any means. The TP5 is a great all-around ball. Distance with the driver is long but, perhaps, not quite as long as the TP5x. Distance control is stellar. It feels noticeably softer off the putter and with wedges around the green. Both balls use a three-piece core that reacts progressively when struck fully with the longer clubs. It keeps spin low, while providing explosive response on full strikes. Both use two-piece covers; a soft-cast urethane cover and a semi-rigid inner cover creates the maximum interaction between the cover and the grooves of your club. I’m also pleased to note that the cover is remarkably durable. I played 36-holes of golf with a TP5x and the only damage it showed was some fading of the number. My friends were hard-pressed to pick the used ball out of the sleeve. I gave a sleeve to one of them and he put one ball through 54-holes of golf and reported that the cover, although showing a little more wear, still looked presentable. The interesting thing is how TaylorMade managed to make a golf ball that spins less and still performs around the greens. Normally, the ball that spins the most performs the best with the short game. TaylorMade has made up for that using the
five-piece construction. If the speed of the shot is such that it interacts with the core, then spin is reduced. Again, if the speed of shot slow enough so it doesn’t activate the core, the two-piece cover is the primary influence on spin and trajectory. The new cover technology virtually forces the soft urethane cover into the grooves creating spin on short shots. How they managed to make it durable is beyond me. After going through a sleeve of each ball, it was apparent that we had a keeper. As tour-caliber golf balls, both perform up to expectations. Distance control is automatic but on full hits we were getting a half to a full club more distance than our respective gamers. The added distance was most apparent with the driver. You’ll be hitting shorter clubs into the greens of par 4s. Furthermore, both balls (but the TP5x, especially) exhibited exemplary performance in windy conditions. We’re all involved in a continuing search for any bit of tech that will help us get every iota of performance from our golf game. Here is a golf ball that hands it to us in a box. It’s long off the tee, responsive into the greens and will stand up to the abuse heaped on it. It’s in the bag! Mike Besa
www.pinoygolfer.com | Saturday, August 19, 2017 A7
lls’ Palmer Course
long way T
Story & photos by Mike Besa
he Arnold Palmer course at Forest Hills Golf and Country Club bears special significance to BusinessMirror Golf; it was the first golf course featured when this section was redesigned back on the 13th of August 2013. The golf course was brand-new back then, quite literally an infant as far as golf courses go having just opened for play earlier in the year. The back nine was the greener of the two having just been completed just months before. When you play a course this new, it’s an interesting exercise to give it a few years then play it again to see how it’s progressed. And, yes, it’s come along very nicely, indeed. It’s almost inconceivable that it’s taken me four years (almost to the day!) to return. To be honest, because I only played it a couple of times back then and have stayed away so long, I’d forgotten many of the nuances of the golf course, but as the round progressed, it came back to me. They were all good memories, too. For those that haven’t had the pleasure of stalking the Palmer’s fairways, this is a ball strikers’ course just like its sibling, the Nicklaus course (which we featured just two issues ago). You need to have decent control of your golf ball to keep it here. It is a mountain course but it’s not as penal as some others. Neophytes will do best to play the forward tees. You’ll gain a better appreciation for the golf course more from there. Most important is that the golf course is playable. All you need are a few rounds under your belt so you know what to expect and what will be asked of you. Once you figure it out, it’ll grow on you. It’ll make you a better golfer. The Arnold Palmer signature course sits on one of the hilliest parts of the vast Forest Hills property. It is not overly long at 6,808 yards from the tips and instead relies on clever design and diabolically fast greens to provide resistance to scoring. The fairways are narrow and precise placement of the golf ball off the tee is imperative for a good score. This is a golf course on which you’ll have to think your way around for the best results. The Palmer is a fitting counterpoint to the original course at Forest Hills: the Nicklaus, which is long and offers generous landing areas better suited for those who like to bomb it off the tee. The final hole on the Palmer course
The 15th green
I’ve always said that you can tell a lot about a golf course from the opening hole. Standing on the Palmer’s first tee, you get that. The relatively short par 4 plays completely uphill. The fairway is generous but get used to playing from uneven lies. Those nice, even lies you’re used to at the driving range will feel alien to you after a full round here. I’ve played a few Arnold Palmer designs and the one thing they all have in common are blind shots. A blind shot is hitting a golf ball to a target that you can’t see. All the golf courses that bear his signature in this country ask you to hit shots like this. The track at Forest Hills is no exception. The tee shots on four and five are blind, as is the one on 16 but more on that later. Suffice it to say, if you’re not comfortable with them, you’ll have to trust your skill and alignment to put the ball in play here. There are a lot of memorable holes here. Four is a simple hole on the face of it. The fairway is a long way below the tee box and only part of it is visible from up top. The best line is over part of the forest below. The fairway is ringed by the hazard so it’s essential to keep your ball in the fairway. Having found the fairway, the next task is to club appropriately for the approach into the elevated green. This green, like many others, sits at an oblique angle to the fairway. Only be best shots will hold, others less than perfect will trundle off the back of the green. Five is a gorgeous par 4. A good drive up the left side of the fairway just over the right side of the bunker there will put you in the mayor’s office, the perfect place from which to attack the flag. The rolling fairway gives you a great look at the green framed by bunkers and the forest beyond. The 602-yard par-5 ninth hole is the one handicap. It plays shorter than you might expect since it plays downhill all the way. The green is best approached from around 150 yards away; this gives you the flattest area from which to play to the elevated green. Once on, the green is small and straightforward. The first and last holes of the Palmer course are closeted in the most scenic part of the golf course. The juxtaposition of forest habitat with manicured fairway are a visual feast. What an appropriate setting to begin and end nine holes of golf. They both a challenge to play. Both start from elevated tees and play to elevated greens. The difference is that No. 10 plays uphill all the way while 18 does
not. They are not only gorgeous but they will test your skills. As you would imagine, there are many holes with strong visual impact. The elevation changes on the second nine seem to be even more extreme than on the first. The beauty of the second is that you see some of the other holes from your vantage point on the golf course. The three finishing holes present the gauntlet; the true test of this golf course. Sixteen is a puzzle that you solve off the tee. The relatively short par 5 shows you just one part of the fairway from the tee box. The tree in the fairway marks a pond smack in the fat part of the short grass. Lay back and it’s work to carry both hazards so you have a reasonable club going into the green. If you must lay up between the water hazards, then hitting the green in regulation becomes almost impossible. Most golfers won’t have a choice but long hitters have another option. It’s a 220-yard carry to the sliver of fairway between the hazards. If you can pull that off then the hole becomes a lot easier. Seventeen is a real monster. At 447-yard long, it was always going to be a handful but having to play over a ravine to the green while unsighted puts the degree of difficulty of this hole off the scale. It is a ludicrously difficult hole for the amateur. Care should be taken to avoid a really big number. The finishing hole offers a moderately difficult target from the highest point of the closing nine. The view from the top is just stunning. Once the fairway is found, you can’t relax. You’ll have to club appropriately to the elevated green which offers a good chance for a closing birdie. The members of Forest Hills Golf and Country Club are lucky to have two fantastic golf courses; each quite different from the other that offer a good variety of golf. The Nicklaus is longer and more open and the Palmer done in the style of a real mountain course. Both will test your mettle as a golfer. The club has recently purchased new maintenance equipment to replace the current fleet. The effects of the investment are already evident but both golf courses should continue to improve, as the longterm effects of their program become evident. The members of Forest Hills can be proud of the two golf courses at their club. They are a worthy addition to golf in the Philippines and have raised the bar for golf clubs in the North of the metropolis.
OurTime
A8 Saturday, August 19, 2017 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos
BusinessMirror
‘Mang’ Ben, who served and built structures, still nimble at 80 years I
news@businessmirror.com.ph
Proposed system to report elderly abuse tested in Iloilo municipality
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By Katrina Mina | Special to the BusinessMirror
HE pitter-patter of the rain worries everyone. It signifies a shift, one characterized by the many battles met with soaked rugs and fast-filling pails. It had been perfectly summer the day before, with air as hot as a hair dryer. But as the fickle skies bring the glory of rain the next day, people scatter fast, trying very hard to keep themselves dry. Above it all is a wiry man whose sturdiness amplifies his short frame. He climbs from roof to roof, jumping and clinging on every available post. His moves—which would put Spider-Man to shame —often garner screams from the watching crowd, launching everybody’s heart to the base of their throats. But he never falters, never wavers. He stands tall, mind and hands fixed on the job at hand. People in the community call him Mang Ben, and he’s almost 80.
He has few words for a man who did a lot during his prime. But he tells the story of when he used to fiddle not only with pickaxes, shovels and levels, but also with guns. “Noong panahon, noong medyo malakas-lakas pa, humahawak ako sa malalaking building,” he said proudly, gesturing to his north where beneath the crowd of houses and trees is a university. “Dito sa UP, tatlong building ang napatapos ko dito. ’Yung UP Hostel, Engineering
at tsaka ’yung Broadcast City, ’yung Channel 13? Oo, ako ang humawak niyang mga yan hanggang natapos. ’Yan ang remembrance ko dito sa UP.” Mang Ben has been a foreman for 32 years, when he worked to finish important buildings in the country, some banks, some schools and universities. But further back in his life was a completely different sky he battled, where blood poured in torrents. He started to train for the military during his late teenage years in Cagayan de Oro. He worked for government officials for a while, serving as armed escort for people. Then he entered the military, where he spent 26 years of his life fighting in different parts of Mindanao. “Eh awa ng Diyos, basta mabait ka lang, hindi abusado, mabubuhay ka,”
he said, remembering near-death moments in his life. “May destino kami sa Jolo. Eh wala, ’yung kalaban namin pala nandun na nakaumang sa may tabi pala. Galing kaming Zamboanga, patawid. Eh inabangan kami. Tambang! Ilan lang kaming natira? Pito! May dalawang batalyon kami, dalawang tig-24.” He laced his hands with a piece of cloth. Back then, he didn’t think he would still see his mother alive. He just swam, dropping all his baggage except for a gun, paddling all the way to safety. When he made it to Zamboanga, he sold his gun and never returned to service. “Ang hirap. Eh kung hindi ako umalis ng serbisyo ko, patay na rin ako,” he said. He never gets tired. Today, he still accepts carpentry work for neighbors, fixing electrical wirings and patching roofs when it starts to rain. Years might have weathered his hands, but their strength never changed. He still has the principled heart he possessed when he was younger, and the playful glint in his eyes when faced with a tall pillar he needs to overcome. “Kayang-kaya ko pa rin. Kahit 80 na ang edad ko, nagtatrabaho pa rin ako,” he said proudly.
Study: Aging populations set to spur higher interest rates
In Maribong they have a case of neglect, although it was unintentional on the part of the family. Galila explained there are families, especially in far-flung areas, not equipped to take care of their elderly. The case was being monitored and the elderly was provided with medical assistance. Meantime, 20 others were given livelihood assistance. They are identified to be on the “red flag for abuse”, specifically neglect. As a measure, they were provided with livelihood assistance. They are also considering food support to those identified to be at risk. Apart from neglect, other forms of abuse could be psychological, physical, financial and even sexual, she said. Meantime, Galila urged family members of the elderly “not to let them feel they are useless because they are old”. She said they should understand them because they have a different dynamic. Senior citizens should also come out and report if they feel they are being abused. If they are ashamed to do so, which is usually the case, then they can share the information with their peers for a start, she said. The pilot-testing of Resppec will last for two years. A memorandum of agreement was entered into by the local government of Lambunao and the DSWD for the project. PNA
6,720 Capampangan indigents get cash aid, free PhilHealth
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GING populations in China and Europe are poised to transform the global economy by sparking a jump in interest rates that may set the stage for a showdown between the old and the young. So said Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan, painting a sweeping picture of the future economic landscape in a new paper published by the Bank for International Settlements. In it, the London School of Economics professor and former Morgan Stanley economist push back against the popular view that an aging population will slow growth and drag down rates. The research contrasts with models cited by the Federal Reserve (the Fed), which project that inflation-adjusted real rates are intrinsically tied to potential growth. “The demographic sweet spot is already behind us, and both the equilibrium real interest rate and inflation have probably already stopped falling,” Goodhart and Pradhan wrote. “Future problems may now intensify as the demographic structure worsens, growth slows, and there is little stomach for major inflation.” A three-decade rush of new workers from Asia and other emerging markets has juiced returns for bond investors, thanks to weak price growth, creating a sweet spot for capital owners that’s now reversing, the authors write. But demographic trends are poised to be the driving force for the price of labor and capital across large economies and a graying population will, in turn, drain savings ratios and offset a corresponding reduction in investment spending, which tends to fall when demand is lower. That dynamic should spur a rise in the effective cost of capital, or real rates, the authors reckon, pushing back against a view held by Fed researchers that real rates will stay low amid weak potential growth. Bloomberg News
LOILO CIT Y—The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is hoping to get a clear picture of the extent of elderly abuse to back the passage of a law giving protection to senior citizens. Social Welfare Officer 1 Jewel Rose C. Galila last Friday said they need data to prove elderly abuse; hence, data banking through the Reporting System and Prevention Program for Elder Abuse Cases (Resppec) was initiated. Resppec is currently being piloted in Barangays Gines and Maribong in Lambunao, Iloilo. Lambunao was chosen to represent Western Visayas, one of the four regions in the country where the initiative was pilot-tested. Others are in Region 1, Region 11 and the National Capital Region. Based on the latest information, Lambunao has around 11,000 senior citizens; Maribong has more than 330, while Gines has 103. The profile of senior citizens in these areas was taken, to include the skills they could impart to their peers. A Protective Committee for Senior Citizens (PCSC) was established for a start. PCSC is a multisectoral council that looks into the welfare of the elderly. Galila said the pilot areas were “super active”, especially in Gines. A core group was created to receive information on cases of neglect, which is a form of abuse.
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MARKETING JOBS FOR THE ELDERLY Inventory Officer Debbie de la Rosa (left) of Natasha in Isabela leads the distribution of apparel and personal-care products at the Santiago City branch to walk-in dealers, including elderly members of the sales network. The direct-selling firm provides jobs and business opportunities to a number of senior citizens nationwide. LEONARDO PERANTE II
Rehab of Leyte’s health facilities completed
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ARIGARA, Leyte—The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Leyte Second District engineering office has completed the rehabilitation of three rural health units in Leyte out of eight targets funded under the health department’s Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP). The field office completed the rehabilitation of Burauen District Hospital, Tunga Rural Health Unit (RHU) and the Carigara RHU. The rural health units of Capoocan and Jaro and the Carigara District Hospital are still ongoing, while the RHUs of Burauen and Pastrana have yet to be started. A total of P25.654 million was allotted for the rehabilitation of these RHUs and district hospitals. District Engineer Carlos Veloso said these health facilities are being built the way public schools are constructed. The buildings are designed to withstand strong winds and heavy rains during the typhoon season. W hen Superty phoon Yolanda devastated most of Leyte province in 2013, many RHUs in towns were damaged, which made health-care deliver y critical to all affected communities. The rehabilitation of these RHUs will mean more healthcare facilities for children and the elderly, consultation rooms, minor surgery and treatment rooms, pharmacy, dental clinic, labor room, breast-feeding area and birthing clinic, among others. PNA
EXICO, Pampanga—At least 6,720 indigent Capampangans received cash assistance and free Philippine Health Insurance Corp. member data records (MDRs) under the provincial government's program “Alaga Ka, para Maayos na Buhay”. Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda last Friday said the distribution, held separately in the towns of Mexico, Santa Ana and Apalit, aims to help the poorest of the poor avail themselves of the basic health services in rural health units and accredited gover nment-run hospitals. Pineda added the beneficiaries were identified through the national household-targeting system for poverty reduction by the Provincial Social Welfare and Development.
She said the Duterte administration is keen on providing free medical assistance to financially incapable patients who are seeking consultations, examinations a nd me d ic at ion s, e s p e c i a l ly those confined in government hospitals. The governor said the Duterte administration has allotted P105 million for the province’s medical assistance program alone. “I am urging the recipients of the program to avail themselves of the basic health services from 11 district and provincial hospitals in the province. Likewise, I am also appealing to the elders to immediately obtain their senior-citizen cards, which is guaranteed as the PhilHealth membership card automatically,” she added. PNA
She just won 3 gold medals for her swimming and she’s only 73
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ANIELA Barnea, who is 73, typically swims for up to an hour and a half, seven days a week. At her age, that kind of workout, during which she covers nearly 2 miles, is noteworthy. Even more so is the fact that Barnea, who lives in Palo Alto, California, is a record-breaking swimmer and senior athlete who competes in sanctioned races for her age group in events around the world. At the 2017 US Masters Swimming Spring Nationals, in Riverside, California, she won three gold medals in the women’s 70- to 74-year-old age group. These included the 100-yard and 200yard breaststroke finals and the 200yard individual medley finals. Hundreds of thousands of senior athletes like Barnea compete regularly in athletic events throughout the world, including the National Senior Games Association, Masters Swimming and USA Track and Field Masters programs. Races are divided into five-year age increments starting at age 35 and ending at 100 to 104. Generally, the athletes range in age from 50 to 100. A recent documentary, Impossible Dreamers, produced by Eric Goldfarb
and Eric Howell through Better World Film Group, follows senior athletes who are amateurs as they train for competition. In addition to Barnea, the 75-minute film (which can be viewed on Netflix and Amazon) spotlights a 91-year-old tennis player, octogenarian racewalkers and septuagenarian sprinters, weightlifters and boxers. Barnea is among the youngest featured in the movie. Donald Cheek, known as Doc, a resident of Clovis, California, is an international gold medal Masters sprinter at 87. Cheek repeatedly wins in the 85-to-89 division, competing in the 50-, 100-, 200and 400-meter events. In October in the Huntsman World Senior Games in Saint George, Utah, he set the Games’ record for 100 meters at 17.38. Gary Player, the 81-year-old retired professional golfer, also appears in the movie, to offer fitness tips in a 20-minute boot camp workout included in the documentary. That instruction is geared toward amateur athletes of all ages who yearn to stay active and, perhaps, to compete. Barnea’s latest athletic challenge is the 17th Fina World Masters Championships in Budapest this month. To pre-
pare, she swims double workouts and hits the gym three or four times a week. “I don’t want to be another Mark Spitz or Michael Phelps,” Barnea said. “I just want to be first.” She schedules her workouts around the time she spends with her three grandchildren and her part-time job as a foreign-language tutor for the Palo Alto Unified School District. It’s “kind of boring swimming back and forth, back and forth, but when you have a goal, it’s not,” Barnea said. “It’s like meditation to me. It’s very peaceful. There is something very soothing about being surrounded by water.” For many older people, though, exercising can be a challenge. That’s why the producers of Impossible Dreamers decided to give viewers workout tips. “We didn’t want viewers to feel inspired by the film and then go back to their regular habits the next day,” said Eric Goldfarb, the filmmaker. “We caught up with several of the athletes after the film’s production to get their demonstrations on safe exercises for older adults; different movements that are simple, maximizing bodily benefits and fun.” New York Times News Service
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The Millennials BusinessMirror
Saturday, August 19, 2017
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Developmentally disabled and going to college
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ALF-a-dozen students, some in Syracuse University t-shirts, sat around a conference table joking about appropriate job-interview outfits. No bathing suits, pajamas or Halloween costumes. Added their instructor, not joking: “No tank tops.”
Then Brianna Shults, leading the workshop with a kindhearted but no-nonsense approach, launched into the Q and A section. “So if I identify my interview outfit, should I wear it to bed the night before so I’m all dressed and ready?” “No!” the group responded in unison. “And before you put your clothes on, what’s the most important step?” “Shower!” a few called out. Shults, an internship and employment coordinator, closed the conversation with a sartorial tip that experience has taught her needs mentioning: “No dirt y clothes!” Why not? Meghan Muscatello piped in: “Because then you’d be smelly.” The room erupted in laughter. “And if you have a cat or a dog, make sure you leave it hanging so they don’t get it all hairy.” This might sound like a typical lesson in the age of anything-goes office wear, but these millennials aren’t so typical. Muscatello and her peers belong to a pioneering group of students with significant intellectual disabilities who are enrolled in Syracuse’s InclusiveU.
The goal
THE students—about 60 are expected this fall—have various degrees of disability, often with related developmental disorders. One communicates through a picture board and an iPad; a helper supports her arm as she taps out words. Another, a movie buff who wrote a play for his theater class, has Asperger’s syndrome. A sports enthusiast who interned this past spring with the Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team has Down syndrome. During the first three years, the students choose “majors” and audit five to six college classes that align with their interests. They complete homework and take tests, ungraded, with the help of note takers, who are supplied by the university to sit with them in class. Popular majors: disability studies, sport management and food studies. Favorite classes: first aid, “Animals and Society” and “Peoples and Cultures of the World”. The students also take a spattering of electives, like hip-hop dance, jewelry making and photography. For their fourth year, they intern on campus. All the while, they attend workshops— on e-mail etiquette, workplace chitchat and résumé writing— and spend time with student volunteers at trampoline parks, basketball games and pizza parlors. The goal: to become employable.
Altered expectations
FIFTY years ago, young people w it h intel lect ua l d isabi l it ies were often institutionalized or kept home, out of the public eye. Thanks to 1975 legislation now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, more than 90 percent of them now go to public schools with mainstream students. And that, experts say, has altered expectations around what they ought to achieve. Brian Skotko, the codirector of the Down syndrome program at Massachusetts General Hospital, sees 250 patients with the condition a year. He makes this observation: “Parents with newborn ba-
bies now want to know, ‘What are the possibilities for school? What are the college and independentliving opportunities?’ ” The hope for their children is that they can learn to shoulder jobs and live quality lives. Today, there are some 265 work-readiness college programs for students like the ones at InclusiveU, according to Think College, a federally funded coordinating center at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. That’s a big leap from 2004, when there were just 25. Unlike programs for high-functioning students on the autism spectrum, these award certificates, not degrees.
College helps
WHAT the students want upon graduation are good jobs, not s ho r t - t e r m g i g s r e s t o c k i n g shelves or handing out fliers on street corners, but employment that relates to their interests and plays to their strengths. Therapists, economists and philosophers have long equated happy, fulfilling lives with meaningful work, no matter one’s intellectual ability. Some research indicates that college helps. A 2015 survey by Think College of some 900 intellectually disabled students found that those who spent most of their time in traditional classes, soaking up campus culture and fine-tuning their social skills, had better job rates than those who spent most of their time in specialized classes. The length of time a student spent in a program also increased their chances of employment. But the same survey found that only 40 percent of students exiting programs in 2015 were in paid jobs within 90 days of leaving. That’s a lot better than the 7-percent employment rate for similarly disabled adults within the general population, as reported in a 2011 study. But it’s still a dispiriting number.
Commitment reputation
SYRACUSE University, which has offered a loosely monitored classauditing program since 2009, has struggled to get its students paid positions. It has not tracked employment, but informal interviews with 30 certificate recipients indicated that only about a third were employed for at least two days a week this past spring, making at least a minimum wage. One graduate had landed a position in the campus parkingpermit office after an internship there. Not so lucky was a 2012 graduate who got a job wearing a billboard sign outside a pizza chain. He promptly quit. Another did volunteer work checking patients in at a hospice. To improve outcomes, the university overhauled the program in 2014, rebranding it as InclusiveU. And with a $2 million federal grant, Shults was hired to design the internship year and work shop c ur r ic u lum, whic h replaced a fourth year that had been purely academic. The first class will graduate in 2019, but already Cate Weir, Think College’s program director, cites InclusiveU as a model. Syracuse has a long-standing reputation for commitment to disability advocacy, starting in 1946 when it opened a special
Delvon Waller gets help reviewing for a final exam at InclusiveU at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, on May 1. Work-readiness programs for the intellectually challenged aim to prepare students for a dream job. Less than half will find one within 90 days of leaving. Heather Ainsworth/The New York Times
education research department and began attracting top talent in the field. In recent years, the university has done high-profile work in communication methods for individuals with disabilities and now has 10 disability-related centers. One is the Lawrence B. Taishoff Center for Inclusive Higher Education, which houses InclusiveU.
Honest balance
BETH A. Myers, the director of the Taishoff Center, said that students in the newly revised program begin brainstorming their career plans when they arrive as freshmen and are guided to think deeply about their interests, their strengths and their weaknesses. The challenge is striking an honest balance between being too optimistic and not stretching them enough. “Low expectation is a serious issue with this population,” said Bud Buckhout, who oversees the program. “But you don’t want to overwhelm people, either.” For some, striking that balance has led to disappointment. Bob Pangborn, a 22-year-old dramaturge with autism, spent his teens performing in community theater. At Syracuse he learned that acting was an unreliable profession. He was encouraged to consider something more practical, like ushering at a movie theater. The conversations led Kaitlyn O’Reilly, who was born with a rare chromosome abnormality, to take a disability studies class popular among sociology majors. Her endof-semester assignment was an evaluation of campus crosswalks unfriendly to visually impaired students. She and her note taker had created a map showing where to put raised street markings and audio boxes.
Grading scale
THE room was silent as O’Reilly, who has a speech impairment that can make it difficult to understand her, stood next to a podium and went through the locations on the map, displayed on a whiteboard. “These ones are good, these ones are bad and these ones are half not OK, half good,” she said, pointing at green, yellow and red dots on the map—a color-coded grading scale. After her presentation, her professor wondered if crosswalks deep inside the campus were more problematic than ones in areas popular with visitors. O’Reilly said yes. Then a student told the class that she herself had noticed how unsafe one of the crosswalks O’Reil ly had mentioned was, even for students who are not impaired. O’Reilly nodded knowingly. “Yeah, you don’t know where
you can walk across the street.” O’Reilly, who is in her first year in the program, said the presentation had given her a sense of her own power. “I felt very proud of myself,” she told me. Shults sees her getting an internship at one of the campus’s disability centers. O’Reilly says she thinks she’d like to work with children. Muscatello, who at 28 is in her final year, knows exactly what kind of career she wants. She envisions herself in an office wearing nice clothes, answering phones, filing papers and having lunch with colleagues. InclusiveU helped her develop that vision.
More respect
WITH an IQ around 65, Muscatello finds simple things, like work manuals and basic textbooks, challenging. Big words confuse her, and her math skills don’t go past third grade. But she is funny and warm, with an easy smile. She likes Harry Potter books, natural-disaster movies and her cat. And “I love it here,” she said of the campus. Muscatello spent her teens in a special program in high school and then entered a life-skills program for students with intellectual disabilities. On completion, she landed a job at a Price Chopper, stocking shelves. At first, she liked unloading jars of applesauce and cans of tomato soup. But eventually the work felt demeaning. When mayonnaise jars broke or one-pound bags of flour cracked open, it was Muscatello who was asked to do the cleanup. “I’d go home all covered in flour,” she said. “You could stick me in the oven and bake me like a cake.” She would cut her hands when cleaning up glass. Her mother, a labor and delivery nurse, wanted more challenging work for her daughter and more respect. “I wanted more of a people job for her.” Muscatello did, too.
Exhausting work
THIS past year, Muscatello participated in three campus internships. In the fall, she interned in the repair shop. The first few days, the program’s job coach shadowed her as she learned how to fill out work-order forms when complaints came in that light switches or elevators weren’t working. Once on her own, Muscatello found the work manageable but boring. For her second job, she worked in the day-care center reading to preschoolers, helping them with yoga poses and, once, calming them when a raccoon got stuck in the playground. But she found the work exhausting. She found her sweet spot in her third internship, working as an as-
sistant in the quiet, carpeted offices of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families. The hope was that maybe she could stay on after the internship. I first met Muscatello in the office break room at the institute. She was learning how to deliver mail and deal with the stubborn paper shredder, and trying to remember who was whose assistant. When an officemate teased her that the boxes she was delivering might be too heavy for her, she insisted: “I’m capable of carrying some of the heavy boxes.” She does not want to be underestimated.
Dreams, concerns
ONE spring morning on the North Shore of Long Island, dozens of eager parents, some from as far away as Illinois, meandered around the tree-lined campus of the New York Institute of Technology, which houses the Vocational Independence Program, a three-year residential program with about 45 students. Staff members stood behind folding tables inside a sprawling lobby to hand out glossy promotional material, while parents nibbled on muffins and bagels. More than 1,000 students have enrolled since its inception in 1987. Once the group had settled in the auditorium, Paul Cavanagh, the senior director, told parents about the 3-to-1 student-to-staff ratio, the extensive job training (traditional college classes, internships at nearby hotels and restaurants) and life-skills classes (banking, budgeting, cooking, apartment living). But the school has not kept records of postgraduate employment. Parents took notes. During the questions segment, one parent wanted to know whether there were enough athletic activities. ( Yes, baseba l l and vol leyba l l games are organized by the students.) Was there an IQ cutoff? (No.) What is the screen-time policy? (Students manage their own screen use.) Touring classrooms, computer labs and a coffee house where students hold meetings, talent nights and parties, parents talked about their dreams and concerns. A New Jersey mother of an 18-year-old with a developmental disability thought the time away from home would be good. “For him, not me,” she said woefully.
Think college
MANY of the parents said they were looking for something new for their sons or daughters: an environment where not everybody catered to their every whim, where they were allowed to stumble a bit and take some risks, which they hoped would allow them to build the kind of resil-
ience necessary for independent lives and fulfilling jobs. The New York Institute of Technology has the priciest of the programs, at $50,730 in tuition a year (plus $12,220 for room and board). The Syracuse program averages around $23,200, depending on what classes a student takes. (It will host its first boarder this fall.) Both fees include the cost of mentors and note takers. Nationally, the average cost without support staff, according to Think College, is $11,000. Such revenue contributes to the proliferation of work-readiness programs. The growth is also a result of a 2008 rewrite of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which led to the establishment of Think College. It allowed these students, many without a high-school diploma or comparable, to use federal financial aid for the first time if they attend an approved program. Syracuse expects to be able to award financial aid by this fall. (Students in some states can use a special Medicaid fund to pay their expenses. School districts— required by law to support educational opportunities for disabled students until age 21—also help foot some of the bills.)
Special education
SOME take issue with the programs for supporting what they consider an impractical but prevalent idea—that everyone should go to college—and giving students a false sense of academic accomplishment while costing taxpayers and parents. Instead, they believe these students ought to be funneled into more cost-effective and targeted vocational training programs and apprenticeships. “If we are going to really help people with significant disabilities, it’s not by pretending they can go to college and do college work,” said James M. Kauffman, a professor emeritus of education at the University of Virginia who has written extensively on special education. Weir of Think College says such thinking too narrowly defines how a college education benefits students, ignoring much of the socioemotional learning that happens for those in their late teens and 20s—with disabilities and without—while clocking time on a campus. Further, she says, just because students don’t get 100 percent of what is taught in a class does not mean they haven’t benefited. “ T his isn’t for ever ybody,” Weir said. “But it should be a choice. Students with disabilities shouldn’t be told, ‘You can’t have a choice other people have.’”
Difficult journey
MUSCATELLO’S experience illustrates just how hard the journey can be. When I went to visit her a second time at her internship, she was sitting quietly behind the front desk dressed in black slacks and golf shirt. She had a laminated cheat sheet on the desk by her side that her job coach, Angela McPheeters, had made for her. It had all the staff names, their job titles and their extensions in large print. An administrative assistant sat by her side, giving her the day’s assignment: to empty black binders that had been used for a recent conference, remove the tabs, and place them in a box on the floor. Muscatello also worked the phones. But when she picked up a call for someone in the entrepreneurship office, she got confused and couldn’t say the word. Another time, pressing the buttons gave her trouble. Her supervisor had told her that if she got better with the phones, there was a good chance they’d hire her. New York Times News Service
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A10 Saturday, August 19, 2017
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Let me take a selfie ❶ More families can now enjoy free YouTube in Makati
primetime
diNna chan vasquez @dinnachanvasquez luckydinna@gmail.com
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Coleen Garcia and Robi Domingo show off the Oppo F3 Red Limited Edition smartphone.
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The new Oppo Concept Store at SM Aura
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efore the dawn of the front-facing camera, we took our selfies (if we did at all) “blindly” using our mobile phones. I use the word blindly because many of the selfies were headless or partially so. Selfies or selcas (self-cam pictures) are a recent phenomenon. Every self-respecting netizen needs a good selfie; one the person could use as a display photo or profile picture. Over 50 percent of every person’s phone camera roll is usually dedicated to selfies. Not all of these images are posted online but they’re there. Actually, I think the best profile picture is the one taken by a professional photographer in a studio, complete with lights and background, but what do I know? All my selfies are horrible. They make me look worse than I do in real life. I’m no beauty, okay, but that big-nosed droopy-eyed person in my selfies is a stranger. Teenagers, on the other hand, are experts. My daughter and her friends take the best selcas and that’s even before they use filters. Even friends my age take the best selfies. So it’s me, not my age. The phone’s front camera is not just for selcas. It can also be used to take your picture that will serve as a passcode to open your mobile. But back to selfies now. A good selfie can get you a date on Tinder, Grindr or GROWLr. In these dating networks, you are judged by how you look. I’m not saying you have to be attractive. Beauty is subjective. What’s beautiful to one might be monstrous to another. So basically, a selfie just needs to pass a certain person’s standard to get noticed. If you don’t think your selfies are perfect, they are so many ways to improve them and, no, losing weight is not involved in this process. You can use apps which you can download from the App Store or Google Play to make your teeth whiter or cheeks thinner, or even change the colors of your lips. Selfie Editor, for instance, can make your skin look airbrushed and enlarge or diminish certain features. FaceTune lets you edit your selfies and does other things, such as make you look like you’re wearing lipstick when you’re not. Some phones have a beauty filter. Others give your image the Bokeh effect, defined as “the pleasing out-of-focus blur in a photograph”. When you think of a mobile phone that produces
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great selfies, the Oppo F3 comes to mind. Oppo F3 calls itself the “selfie expert”. It has a dual front camera setup (16 MP+8 MP), which also has a group-selfie mode. Oppo recently launched the F3 Red Limited Edition during the opening of the Oppo Concept Store at SM Aura. “Selfies are now made more fashionable with the new Oppo F3 Limited Edition Red. I’m really excited for everyone to try this new and sleek smartphone,” actress and Oppo brand ambassador Coleen Garcia said. “The new F3 Red Limited Edition smartphone answers the need of our customers who are looking
for a more stylish, chic and sleek smartphone. Oppo believes smartphones should not only be multifunctional but be bold enough to stand out as it’s part of everyone’s daily essentials,” said Stephen Cheng, Oppo Philippines brand marketing manager. The F3 Red Limited Edition is now available at Oppo Concept Stores nationwide and on Lazada as the exclusive online store for only P15,990. Check out bit.ly/OPPOF3Red via Lazada for more details. For a complete list of Oppo Concept stores, go to bit.ly/ F3RedEdition. For more details about the Oppo F3, visit the Oppo Philippines Facebook page, or log on to www.oppo.com/ph.
Facebook envisions Watch feature as TV for social media By Barbara Ortutay Associated Press
NEW YORK—Facebook envisions its new Watch feature as TV designed for social media, a place where users comment, like and interact with show creators, stars and each other—and never leave. It’s a potential threat to Twitter, YouTube, Netflix and other services for watching video, including old-fashioned TV. Yet, its success is far from guaranteed.
While people watch a lot of videos on Facebook, these are mostly shared by their friends, seen as users scroll down their main news feed. Getting people to see Facebook as a video service is like Walmart trying to sell high fashion, or McDonald’s peddling high-end food, said Joel Espelien, senior analyst with The Diffusion Group, a video research firm. Sure, it’s possible, but something is off. “It’s very difficult to change people’s core perception of what your brand is,” he added. Facebook has already had a special video section, but it mainly shows a random concoction of “suggested” videos. The new Watch section replaces this. Some US users got Watch on Thursday; others will get it over time. The idea behind Watch is to let people find videos and series they like, keep up with them as new episodes appear, and interact with the show’s stars, creators and other fans. People’s own tastes, as well as those of their friends, will be used to recommend videos. Daniel Danker, a product director for video at Facebook, said the most successful shows will be the ones that get people interacting with each other. “Live does that better than almost anything,” he said. Facebook wants to feature a broad range of shows on Watch, including some exclusive to Facebook. Users who already follow certain outlets, say, BuzzFeed, will get recommended shows from those pages. But Espelien wonders whether Facebook users will tap (or click) the Watch tab when with another tap of the finger they can “click over to Hulu or Netflix or whatever”. Though Facebook might want you to think otherwise, Espelien said there’s no boundary keeping you from straying. Advertising details are still being hashed out, but typically the shows will have five- to 15-second ad breaks. Facebook said show creators will decide where the ads go, so they can be inserted during natural breaks. But it might be a tough sell for advertisers used to a predictable, reliable audience that television has had, Forrester Research analyst Jim Nail said in an e-mail. Facebook’s big challenge, he added, will be to train users “to establish a Watch habit”.
Globe At Home recognizes the increasing demand for better connections online and offline, and is reinventing family day with the new and improved Globe At Home GoBIG plans, which are now available in more locations in Makati. With the new GoBIG plans, families can watch more videos as it comes with 100GB of free YouTube. Starting at Plan 1299, customers can enjoy 300 GB of data allocation per month with speeds of up 5 Mbps. Other families can also choose more data with Plan 1599, which has a data allowance of 400 GB and speeds of up to 10 Mbps, or Plan 1899, which has 500 GB of data and speeds of up to 50 Mbps. Globe At Home (shop.globe.com.ph/broadband) is now present in more areas in Makati, including the following locations: Avida San Lorenzo, Avida West Tower Makati, Avignon Tower, Beacon Tower, Cityland Building Herrera, Discovery Primea, Eton Parkview Greenbelt, Eton Residences Legaspi, Eton San Lorenzo Makati, Forbes Park/ Urdaneta/Bel-Air, Greenbelt Chancellor, Greenbelt Excelsior, Greenbelt Madison, KL Mosaic, Laureano Di Trevi, Linear Tower, Magallanes, Mosaic, One Central, One Lafayette, One Legaspi Park, One Rockwell, One Roxas Triangle, Oriental Garden, Park Terraces, Raffles Tower, Ritz Tower, Rockwell, Rufino Tower, Salcedo Square, San Lorenzo Village, Senta Alveo, Shang Grand Tower, Shang Salcedo Place, Signa Designer Residences, Somerset Suites, The Columns Ayala, The Columns Legaspi, The Lerato, The Regency, The Residences at Greenbelt, Three Central, Three Salcedo Place, Tuscany Building and Two Central. “Our Globe At Home GoBIG plans encourage families to better enjoy their connected life with bigger data and faster, more reliable speeds. With the addition of free YouTube, every home now has access to endless content whether they like sports, arts and crafts, funny home clips and informative news,” Globe At Home Senior Vice President Martha Sazon shares. Apart from free YouTube, Globe At Home customers can also enjoy six months of free access to Netflix and Disney Channel apps for award-winning original content and children’s shows; and a two month subscription to HOOQ for a diverse selection of local and foreign titles. For areas where Globe At Home expansion is currently under way, customers can still experience fast and reliable speeds with the first ever Globe at Home Prepaid Home WiFi that provides 50-percent stronger signal than mobile Wi-fis. Customers can get it for only P1,999 in all Globe stores nationwide and enjoy 10-GB free data. Globe Telecom is optimistic it will be able to provide better customer experience to other locations in Makati, as more homeowners associations (HOAs) respond positively to the company’s continuing infrastructure build. This is by providing the necessary support in securing permits and right-of-way approvals. In an open letter released earlier this year, Globe called on HOAs around the country to lend their support so that telecommunications companies can continue expanding their facilities and provide more homes with connectivity, especially in this digital age.
PayMaya pushes for more cashless-transaction solutions By Lorenz S. Marasigan DIGITAL-payments provider PayMaya Philippines has rolled out mobile-payment technologies in over 350 business establishments enabled by Smart Wi-fi, as it continues to campaign for the use of cashless tech in the country. PayMaya Philippines President Orlando B. Vea said his group has provided SmartSpots partner food parks with mobile point-of-sale terminals, allowing customers to swipe their Mastercard or Visa prepaid, debit, or credit cards to pay for goods. “These are exciting times for mobile payments. We’re partnering with as many communities as we can, including SmartSpots merchant establishments. For cashless technologies to work, it’s important to build the ecosystem so we can drive critical volume,” he said. In May PayMaya also started rolling out PayMaya Scan-to-Pay, the country’s first quantitative restrictions (QR) code-enabled mobilepayment system. The company continues to equip merchants in SmartSpot locations with QR code capabilities, allowing consumers to conveniently pay by simply scanning the QR codes of the merchant through their PayMaya app. QR code technology is not new, with many applications already in the market. What’s new for Filipinos is the payment integration capability brought by PayMaya Scan-to-Pay. The PayMaya Scan-to-Pay delivery system provides important benefits for both merchants and consumers. For consumers, it makes for lesser errors and faster payments via smartphone. All the user has to do is to tap the scan button at the PayMaya app, point the camera at the QR code, and the merchant’s payments details are automatically filled, eliminating mistakes. For merchants, all they have to do is to display the QR code at their store and they can start accepting mobile payments even without a point-of-sales terminal. “PayMaya fully complements our SmartSpots areas as payments complete the circle of the digital life already enabled by the speed of Smart Wi-fi access and commerce. We’re making people experience cashless transactions like never before,” Smart Communications Inc. Assistant Vice President Gabby Cui said. PayMaya is the only app-first and card-first payment solution in the Philippines. It is a subsidiary of PLDT Inc.
BusinessMirror
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Saturday, August 19, 2017 A11
Globe launches SEA-US submarine cable for enhanced Internet connectivity
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By Rizal Raoul Reyes
t was not only a milestone for Globe Telecom when the telecommunications arm of Ayala Corp. launched on August 11 the $250 million Southeast Asia-United States (SEA-US) submarine-cable system which provides direct links between Davao and the US for richer and enhanced Internet connectivity for businesses in Mindanao and the rest of the country. Ernest L. Cu, president and CEO of Globe, said the latest initiative of the company presents a lot of potentials for the country, especially in the digital economy. “First-world connection is more than just fast Internet but is also about building a better nation that transcends borders and opens infinite possibilities for everyone,” he said in his speech. “We are excited about this development because of the immense benefits the underseacable system will bring to the Philippines. For one, it will provide support for the expanding business requirement for data in the Mindanao region, where the cable landing station is located, and in the country as a whole. This will also ease our dependence on international cable systems and ensure the resiliency of the country’s Internet connectivity,” he added. Cu said the cable system gives Globe more muscle in terms of bigger capacity. Any cable today is faster and with a larger capacity compared to the old ones. Cu recalled the last time they deployed cable was five years ago using the TGINA. “This is a whole generation of cable in terms of speed and capacity,” he said. In effect, it allows us more bandwidth to the US, according to Cu. So far, he said the company is future-proof for as long as five years. But later, Cu added Globe will have to adapt to the additional needs of the consumers. With the enhanced capacity, Cu said Globe will also be promoting inclusive growth by allowing small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to have a bigger bandwidth capacity. By having greater Internet access, Cu added SMEs can now pursue more and bigger business opportunities in local and overseas markets. “When you lay fiber or you fortify longterm evolution [LTE], the use case for that is for the home and for businesses,” Cu said. “The use case between SMEs and consumer are very similar. The bandwidth requirements are still the same,” he added. The SEA-US cable system is connected to the Globe cable-landing station in Barangay Talomo, Davao City, which also houses the power-feed
(FROM left) GTA COO Andrew Gayle, Globe Telecom Chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, PT Telkom Director of Wholsale and International Service Abdus Somad Arif, Information Secretary Rodolfo A. Salalima, Globe Telecom President and CEO Ernest Cu and RTI Corp. CEO Russ Matulich officially link the Philippines to the world in the South East Asia-United States cable-system launch.
equipment necessary to run the system. Outside of Luzon, the undersea cable is the first direct connection of Globe to the US via Guam, Hawaii and California, offering faster transmission of data to the US. The facility also completely bypasses the Taiwan earthquake zone to ensure continuity of service and greater resiliency. This is expected to prevent a repeat of a 2006 incident where major international cables were broken because of the Taiwan earthquake, resulting in the isolation of the Philippines for a few days in terms of Internet connectivity. Peter Maquera, senior vice president for Globe Enterprise Group, also commented that, “The facility will be most beneficial to businesses which require higher bandwidth and network resiliency at cost-efficient rates.” He added, “With the commercial operations, our customers can expect a
Consumer Reports pulls Microsoft laptop recommendation Consumer Reports is pulling its recommendation of four Microsoft laptops after one of its surveys found that users were complaining about problems with the devices. The consumer-advocacy group said on Thursday that it can no longer recommend Microsoft laptops or tablets because of poor reliability compared to other brands. Microsoft said the findings don’t accurately reflect Surface owners’“true experiences”. The consumer group says Microsoft machines
have performed well in laboratory testing. But a subscriber survey found start-up and freezing problems. The devices losing their “recommended” status are the Surface Laptop (128-GB and 256-GB versions) and Surface Book (128-GB and 512-GB versions). Consumer Reports last pulled laptop recommendations in 2015, when ratings were removed for two Hewlett-Packard laptops and one made by Lenovo. AP
This is Yoga that you don’t have to sweat out This isn’t your Bikram Yoga. Lenovo’s Yoga Book with Windows is rolling out with two brand-new colors: Ruby Red and Pearl White, which will be hitting stores in September. Pricing for the Yoga Book starts at $499 manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) for the Android version and $549 MSRP for the Windows version. Pricing and availability may vary from country to country. Prices do not include tax or shipping or options, and are subject to change without notice; additional terms and conditions apply. Reseller prices may vary. Onshelf dates may vary by geography and products may only be available in selected markets. Lenovo (www.lenovo.com/lenovo/ph/en) is of course the $45-billion global Fortune 500 company that’s a leader in providing innovative consumer, commercial and enterprise technology. Its portfolio of high-quality, secure products and services covers PCs (including the legendary Think and multimode Yoga brands), workstations, servers, storage, smart TVs and a family of mobile products, like smartphones (including the Moto brand), tablets and apps.
more resilient network necessary for the continuity of their operations, as well as greater route flexibility and better future support for bandwidthdependent applications and services consistent with the growing trend of companies shifting their business critical operations to digital.” The 14,500-kilometer SEA-US international cable system uses the latest 100-gigabits-persecond transmission technology to deliver an additional 20-terabits-per-second (Tb/s) capacity. Such additional capacity will cater to the exponential growth of bandwidth between the two continents. The system was built by a consortium of seven international telecommunications companies, and links five areas and territories that include Manado (Indonesia), Davao (Philippines), Piti (Guam), Oahu (Hawaii, US) and Los Angeles (California, US).
Aside from forming part of the SEA-US consortium, Globe is also a member of an international consortium of telecommunications and technology companies operating the Southeast Asia-Japan Cable (SJC) system. SJC is an 8,900km cable system linking seven territories that include Brunei, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the Philippines, including the option to link with Thailand. The cable infrastructure is currently being upgraded to bring an increase of 6.5-Tb/s capacity with state-of-theart 100-G technology. Globe Telecom has also made investments in the East Asia Cable system, Asia Pacific Cable Network-2, Tata Global Network–Intra Asia cable system, the City to City cable system, and is interconnected with major Trans-Pacific Cable systems that encompass Unity, Tata Global Network-Pacific and the Japan-US Cable Network.
First new-generation Nokia smartphone is here HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, has announced the Nokia 8, a high-performance, beautifully crafted smartphone designed with content creators in mind. The Nokia 8 brings three world-firsts to Android smartphones, including a debut collaboration with Zeiss optics. With performance and pure Android at its heart, as well as the most advanced aluminium-unibody design to date, the Nokia 8 represents all the hallmarks of a true flagship Nokia smartphone. The Nokia 8 introduces a worldfirst in enabling Dual-Sight video to be livestreamed natively and in real time to social feeds, such as Facebook and YouTube. Dual-Sight simultaneously harnesses both the front and rear cameras in a split-screen visual for both photos and videos. With just one touch, this world-first livestream capability gives more immersive experiences for those who love to create and share special memories. Nokia 8 is also the first smartphone to feature Nokia OZO Audio, placing exclusive Hollywood technology in the palm of your hand. OZO spatial 360-degree audio brings a fully immersive audio experience to your 4K video. Leading-edge 360-degree audio capture ensures the
playback lets you truly relive the moment so your memories never fade. At 4.6-millimeter thin at the edge and just 7.3-millimeter slim on average, the phone’s seamless unibody is precision milled from a single block of 6000 series aluminium and its pure design has been refined through a 40-stage process of machining, anodizing and polishing. Select models feature a high-gloss mirror finish that has taken over 20 hours to complete to achieve a flawless look. The phone features Qualcomm’s powerful Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform and paired with a pure, secure and up-todate Android experience. The Nokia 8 has been designed from the ground up with the consumer in mind to deliver unique content capture and sharing experiences. This requires it to be as meticulously designed on the inside as it is on the outside. To keep your phone working harder for longer, the company’s design, innovation and engineering teams worked hand in hand. The result is a fulllength graphite-shielded copper cooling pipe that dissipates the heat generated by the high-performing system across the full length and breadth of the handset. The Nokia 8 runs cooler in even the most demanding situations. Nokia 8 will be available in four colors: Polished Blue, Polished Copper, Tempered Blue and Steel, and will be available at a global average retail price of €599 with roll out throughout September.
Primetime: Let me take a selfie
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Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com
BusinessMirror
Saturday, August 19, 2017 A12
Dual cam-dentity: Why your next phone should have two cameras the technivore ed uy
selfie camera, also supporting the portrait mode and including Leica technology that is smart enough to recognize if there are more people in the picture and, consequently, make the shot wider. For an even more professional photography experience, the Eisa recommends the Huawei P10 Plus,” read the description on their website.
The dual-camera story
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2017 is the Year of the Dual Cam, as almost every smartphone brand, even the local ones, has had their own take on the two-camera setup not only for their flagship devices but even for their midtier models. ED UY
“Photography is the story I fail to put into words.”—Destin Sparks arlier this year Huawei initiated a couple of hashtags that best “captured” what would turn out to be the smartphone trend of 2017—#GoDualCamNow and #YearOfTheDualCam. Turns out, 2017 is the Year of the Dual Cam, as almost every smartphone brand, even the local ones, has had their own take on the two-camera setup not only for their flagship devices but even for their midtier models. And with the Asus Zenfone 4 set to release this week and the Samsung Note 8 (rumored to be Samsung’s first dual-cam smartphone) set to be unveiled later this month, it looks like the trend has now become the norm for smartphones. As I am writing this piece, the Huawei P10 has been awarded by the European Imaging and Sound Association (Eisa), as the Best Smartphone Camera for 2017-2018, an award it rightfully deserves— which I’m sure all the P10 users like me would proudly attest to. Starting with the Huawei P6 in 2013, EISA members who represent expert media across the full sphere of consumer electronics, have recognized the Huawei P Series as Best Consumer Smartphone for four consecutive years because of its impressive specifications, beautiful design and a natural user interface. “Huawei’s latest flagship is an improvement in almost every respect. Starting with its design, including a diamond-cut chassis and brave new colors, through to the faster and more secure Kirin 960 octa-core chipset and finishing with the shining star—the Leica-branded cameras. The dual system on the back of the Huawei P10 now has a 20 million-pixel monochrome sensor and a 12 million pixel-color sensor, enabling the introduction of a brand-new Portrait mode for stunning portrait photography. On the front is an 8 million-pixel F1.9
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The dual-camera technology isn’t actually something new. Believe it or not, the first “phone” to have two cameras was the Samsung SCH-B710 released way back in 2007 (two months before the original iPhone) and was designed with 3D capture in mind. On the other hand, the first “smartphone” to have a dual camera was the LG Optimus 3D, which was announced in February 2011, followed shortly by the HTC Evo 3D in March of the same year. Both of these phones used dual lenses to allow them to take 3D video and 3D photos. Unfortunately, smartphone 3D cameras didn’t catch on, and it took a few years before the dual lens could make a comeback. In 2014 HTC went for a different approach with the One M8 introducing the Duo Camera and UltraPixel, which improved low-light performance and the ability to modify focus and add depth effects. But it was Huawei, under its subbrand the Honor 6 Plus, that made the technology more accessible for those who wanted to join the dual-camera party. The Honor 6 Plus, with its P15,000 price range, was launched mid-2015 and quickly became a big hit in the Philippines. Its main camera consisted of two 8-megapixel OmniVision sensors. Like the M8, the Honor 6 Plus used the technology to boost autofocus speed and allow for adjustable bokeh. Bokeh gave photos an almost DSLR effect that I started to bokeh all my shots (especially the close-up ones). Building on that momentum, Huawei then partnered with renowned camera-maker Leica to design what would turn out to be its most successful smartphone to date—the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus. The P9’s two cameras do different things. The
Upgrading your home Wi-fi experience has never been this easy
THE D-Link DIR-878
One of the world’s biggest suppliers of home-networking products, D-Link (www.dlink-intl.com) launches a new AC1900 MU-MIMO Wi-fi Gigabit Router, the D-Link DIR-878. It’s a powerful wireless-networking solution designed for SOHO environments. By combining high-speed 802.11ac Wi-fi with dual-band technology and Gigabit Ethernet ports, the DIR-878 provides a seamless networking experience with a high degree of convenience and flexibility for SOHOs. The DIR-878’s SOHO-class advanced security features help keep data safe from unwanted network intruders. These features, together with the increased range and reliability of Wireless AC technology, help provide a protected network for devices in your home or office. The DIR-878 upgrades your network to the latest dual-band high-speed wireless technology to bring you lightning-fast Wi-fi speeds of up to 1,900 Mbps, so you can meet the increasing demand from multimedia
applications. Enjoy seamless high-definition streaming media, Internet phone calls, online gaming and content-rich web surfing throughout your home or office. In addition, 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet ports give you solid, dependable wired performance for devices such as Network Attached Storage (NAS), media centers and gaming consoles. The built-in Quality of Service (QoS) engine allows you to prioritize important traffic to ensure that your favorite applications are receiving optimal bandwidth. Sharing your Internet connection doesn’t have to be a complicated process; just open a web browser to access the setup wizard and follow the easy step-by-step instructions to get started. Configure, apply and set up WPA/WPA2 wireless security in minutes with the wireless network setup wizard, or use Wi-fi Protected Setup (WPS), which establishes an encrypted wireless connection to new devices without the need to enter settings or create passwords. The access-control features allow you to restrict access to your network, giving you greater control over network users. If setting up through web browser is not your cup of tea, the D-Link QRS app (iOS and Android) will able to guide you through the setup and running it effortlessly.
first camera has a traditional RGB sensor, which means it takes color photos, while the second has a monochrome sensor, which only captures scenes in black and white. With this setup, the P9 captures more details and add better dynamic range. It’s no surprise that the Huawei P10 further improves the P9’s camera with the Leica Dual Camera 2.0. This time, the company has paired a 12MP sensor with a 20MP monochrome unit behind f/2.2 lenses, and the results are simply stunning. The new version also uses precise 3D facial detection, dynamic illumination, as well as natural portrait enhancements to produce stunning artistic portrait shots in Leica image style. It even adds a Leica front camera to make your selfies look even better, and
automatically switches to wide angle shots for “groufies”. So what about the other manufacturers? Well, each brand has their own approach and use for their dual lenses. LG (rear) and Oppo (front), for example, use their dual cameras to capture a wider angle. The LG G6’s wide angle lens can capture a canvas that is wider than the human eye (and other camera phones) can see. Those who have used it say it makes for a great travel companion if you love shooting those stunning landscapes and architectural structures, as the 125-degree lens can give you a more epic view. Oppo and Vivo’s dual front-camera setup, on the other hand, is more suited for those who love taking “groufies”, as the wide angle front lens can capture more people. Another use of the secondary lens is for optical zoom—a feature that’s highlighted by the Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom and for shooting portraits like the iPhone 7 Plus. Last, the second camera can also be used to give your photos more depth. This is utilized by most of the budget phones with dualcamera setups. This enables your smartphone to mimic DSLR’s bokeh or background-blur effect. If you are looking for a more affordable phone with a dual camera, the Huawei GR5, for example, is an excellent choice with its 12 MP f/2.0 with PDAF and 2 MP secondary sensor with LED flash. So there you have it. Whether its to capture more natural-looking photos, wider angles, increase zoom levels or give your photos more depth, dual cameras have taken smartphone photography to the next level. Without a doubt, dual cameras are definitely here to stay. What happens next? Triple cameras? Four lens? Your guess is as good as mine. Proud owner of Huawei P10? Be sure to check back next week as we give you some tips and tricks to make the most of your P10 or P10 Plus. Tech Thoughts: “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.”—Andy Warhol
Can’t see the eclipse? Tune in online or on TV LOS ANGELES—Ronald Dantowitz has been looking forward to Monday’s solar eclipse for nearly 40 years. An astronomer who specializes in solar imaging, he’s been photographing eclipses for more than three decades and will be using 14 cameras to capture the August 21 celestial event. The cameras have solar filters to capture the eclipse in its partial phases, along with custom modifications that can photograph the corona and light wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye, allowing scientists to view and study the sun’s temperature and composition in a way only possible during a total eclipse, he said. Dantowitz, who is based at Dexter Southfield School in Brookline, Massachusetts, is lending his expertise to NOVA’s Eclipse Over America, airing at 9 p.m. EDT on Monday on PBS. That hourlong special, which will incorporate his images, is among the extensive coverage planned on TV and online of the first solar eclipse to cross the US in 99 years. Still, witnessing totality—when the sun is completely obscured by the moon—is best done with the naked eye, not a camera, Dantowitz said, adding that protective lenses are needed to view partial phases of the eclipse. “Enjoying totality by eye is more rewarding,” he said. “There is much to see: stars during the daytime, the million-degree solar corona and seeing the sun blacked out during the daytime. “I have been waiting almost 40 years for this eclipse, and, although I will be operating 14 cameras during totality, I will certainly take a moment to gaze at the eclipse the same way people have done for thousands of years: with wonder.” For those not in the 14 states comprising the eclipse’s “path of totality”, here’s a look at some of the viewing opportunities online and on TV: n “Eclipse of the Century”: In partnership with Volvo, CNN plans two hours of livestreaming 360-degree
coverage accessible in virtual reality (CVR) through Oculus and other VR headsets, beginning at 1 p.m. EDT. Accompanying television coverage will include reporting from Oregon, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina. n “Eclipse Over America”: The PBS science series NOVA is planning a quick turnaround on its eclipse documentary premiering on Monday. Senior Executive Producer Paula S. Apsell said Eclipse Over America, which delves into why eclipses occur and what scientists can learn from them, will incorporate images of the event from across the country shot earlier that day with Dantowitz’s high-tech cameras. n “Great American Eclipse”: The Science Channel will broadcast its live coverage from Madras, Oregon, from noon to 4 p.m. EDT, with commentary from educators and astronomers from the Lowell Observatory. n “The Great American Eclipse”: David Muir will anchor ABC’s two hours of live coverage, with correspondents reporting from viewing parties across the country. NBC also plans live coverage, with Lester Holt hosting special reports at 1 and 2 p.m. EDT featuring correspondents reporting from Oregon, Illinois, Wyoming and South Carolina. Shepard Smith will break into typical broadcasting on Fox News Channel from noon to 4 p.m. EDT to update viewers on the eclipse and introduce footage from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and observatories around the country. n “Solar Eclipse”: Through the Eyes of Nasa: Nasa will offer hours of coverage online and on Nasa Television beginning at noon Eastern. It plans livestreaming of the eclipse beginning at 1 p.m. EDT with images from satellites, research aircraft, highaltitude balloons and, especially, modified telescopes. n “The Total Solar Eclipse”: The Weather Channel is kicking off its live coverage at 6 a.m. EDT and continuing throughout the day with dispatches from seven locations along the “path of totality”.