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Federal shift now in first gear Lawmakers flesh out emerging Federal Republic of the Philippines

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By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

The TWG is expected to consolidate the Resolution of Both Houses 8 and the proposed changes that will be submitted by PDP-Laban Federalism Institute Executive Director Jonathan E. Malaya and Local Government Development Foundation Executive Director Edmund S. Tayao.

Malaya and Tayao are expected to finish their draft of the proposed Federal Constitution next week.

Meanwhile, the TWG is expected to submit to the mother committee its consolidated resolution by November for approval, while the plenary debates will start in January next year.

onstitutional reform is a definitive pedestal for the government to finally address the deep-rooted problems besetting the country, such as poverty, inequality and corruption, among others, experts contend.

In fact, changing the form of government was President Duterte’s battle cry since Day One of his election campaign. This drew support from both the majority and minority blocs in the House of Representatives.

Deputy Minority Leader and Party-list Rep. Eugene Michael B. de Vera of Arts and Business Science Professionals and Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr. of Pampanga have led the move to change the 1987 Constitution through the filing of Resolution of Both Houses 8, constituting the Senate and the House of Representatives, the 17th Congress, into a constituent assembly to propose revisions to the 1987 Constitution by adopting a federal form of government and for other purposes.

In an interview with the BusinessMirror, de Vera said instituting constitutional reforms could help improve the “quality of life” of Filipinos.

“[In filing the bill I told the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments that] you may adopt this in toto, amend it, but you can totally disagree with it and totally disregard it. But I told them at least we have something to start with. This could be our guide and they do agree,” de Vera added.

The federal form of government, the lawmaker said, will provide a venue for equal distribution of resources and decentralization of powers, which will

benefit largely the far-flung regions and provinces of the country.

De Vera added it requires a bold makeover to eliminate built-in bias for so-called Imperial Manila and spur countryside development.

“So why federalism? Of course, it is the clamor right now. It’s a form of government that divides sovereign power among the national government, which is the central government, and regional governments are the state government so that each government has some independent authority, as compared to a unitary government where the national centralized government holds ultimate power,” he said.

Proposed structure

Under Resolution of Both Houses 8, the Philippines will have two levels of government. The first tier is the federal government, which is presidential in form and with a bicameral legislature. The second tier is the regional government, which includes a regional assembly and component local governments consisting of the provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays.

The resolution said the President has all the powers under the 1987 Constitution and elected at large.

It said the legislative power is vested in the Federal Congress of the Federal Republic of the Philippines, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

However, the Senate shall be composed of at least two to six senators per region. The senators will be elected at large of each region. A region with more than 5 million, 6 million, 7 million and 8 million inhabitants shall have an additional one, two, three and four senators, respectively.

The resolution also said that in the first election after the ratification of the new Constitution, the senators who obtained the lower number of votes in their respective regions shall serve for three years only and the rest for the full term

Ball rolling

Recently, the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments created a technical working group (TWG) to start drafting the new Philippine Federal Constitution.

“With the filing of Resolution of Both Houses 8, the ball is now rolling,” de Vera said.

The TWG will draft the new Constitution in the absence of the Constitutional Commission (Con-com), a body of experts to be formed by the President that will help Congress in proposing Charter changes.

According to de Vera, the members of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments are set to meet next week to divide the tasks in fine-tuning the proposals.

President Duterte (center) attends a news conference with Senate President Aquilino L. Pimentel III (left) and House Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez at Malacañang on March 13. Changing the form of government was Duterte’s battle cry since Day 1 of his election campaign. AP/Aaron Favila

Continued on A2

As battle winds down, Mindanao ulama seek end to Marawi bombardment

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slamic scholars, the ulama, in Mindanao have condemned the rebellion in Marawi City, and have pledged to work with the Duterte administration in rooting out violent extremism in the region.

But while the ulama have vowed to work with the Duterte administration in ending the problem of extremism in the South, they also asked the military to stop its aerial bombardment of Marawi City.

The military has been bombing members of the Maute-Islamic State

Group since the rebellion broke out in May in an effort to flush them out, although their number has already dwindled to not more than 40 as of last military count.

Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo M. Año said the battle with the terrorists is already winding down, although military

PESO exchange rates n US 51.3010

officials could not give a definite period as to when the operations will finally end.

Enough!

In this June 9 file photo, evacuees stay at a crowded evacuation center on the outskirts of Marawi City. AP Photo/Aaron Favila

During a three-day conference held from August 14 to 16 in Iligan City, members of the Regional Ulama Council (RUC) have pleaded with Duterte to stop the bombings and look after the needs of displaced families.

The religious leaders said the Commander in Chief should also visit the internally displaced families to show that he commiserates with them.

“Such can be done by assuring the IDPs [internally displaced

persons] of food security and livelihood training; by strengthening and enhancing the relief assistance and distribution by governmental line agencies, and by giving assistance to the ulama in providing the IDPs spiritual and religious training, especially among the youth, so that they will not be lured into joining extremist ideologies,” the ulama said.

The ulama voiced their strong support to the fatwa declared by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the declaration of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Darul Ifta (Fatwa Council) against violent extremism.

See “Marawi,” 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 )

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, August 20, 2017

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Federal shift now in first gear Continued from A1

of six years. In the succeeding elections, senators elected at large by the qualified voters of each region shall serve for six years.

On the other hand, the resolution said the House of Representatives shall be composed of the district representatives and party-list representatives. Unless otherwise provided by a subsequent law, the seats allocated to party-list representatives shall be filled via election in accordance with Republic Act 7491.

The measure said the Federal Supreme Court shall exercise all power given under the 1987 Constitution, while there shall be established in each region a regional court of appeals, which shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear cases within the territorial boundaries of the region.

The Sandiganbayan shall be reorganized and distributed in the National Capital Region, Calabarzon, Central Luzon, Central Visayas, Bicol and Davao regions.

The resolution said the President shall exercise general supervision over regions. The regional governors of each region shall exercise general supervision over their respective provinces, highly urbanized independent cities, independent component cities and independent municipalities. The provincial governors shall exercise supervision over each province with respect to their component cities and municipalities, and the city mayors and municipal mayors

with respect to their component barangays.

17 regions

Under the resolution, the Federal Republic of the Philippines shall be divided into 18 regions, including the National Capital Region, Ilocos, Cordillera, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Bicol, Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao, Soccksargen, Caraga and Bangsamoro.

The measure said each region shall be governed by a regional governor who shall exercise executive power and regional assembly, which will be a unicameral legislature.

It added the local government units (LGUs) provided for under the 1987 Constitution shall continue to be governed by the provisions of the Local Government Code of 1991, as amended, unless the Federal Congress will provide otherwise.

The resolution also clarifies the country’s sovereignty over the territorial seas, while the rights, jurisdiction and duties over the exclusive economic zone shall be exercised subject to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other rules of international law to further strengthen the government’s claim over the disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Revenue, taxes

The resolution added all revenues and taxes collected by the LGUs or by the agencies of the Federal gov-

ernment in accordance with the Local Government Code of 1991 shall be divided thus: 20 percent shall accrue to the Federal government and 80 percent to the regions.

Of the share accruing to the regions, 30 percent shall go to the region concerned and 70 percent shall be apportioned among the provinces, cities, municipalities and barangay according to the formula stated in the Local Government Code.

It said the financial requirement of the LGUs created by the regions or by the provinces, cities, or municipalities shall be borne by the creating entity.

It added that every province, city, municipality and barangay shall have the power to create its own sources of revenues and to levy taxes, fees and charges as provided by law, subject to such limitations as the Federal Congress may provide, consistent with the basic policy of local autonomy. Such taxes, fees and charges shall accrue exclusively to the LGU concerned.

According to de Vera, their proposals also include possible allowance of private corporations/ associations to hold alienable lands for a period longer than 25 years through regional law to be passed by the regional legislature.

He said another economics provisions that are included in the measure are the possible transfer or conveyance to foreign individuals, corporations or associations through a regional law and possible allowance of foreign corporation to own certain areas of investments, public utilities, mass

changing the form of government was President Duterte’s battle cry since Day One of his election campaign. This drew support from both the majority and minority blocs in the House of Representatives. AP/Bullit Marquez

media and advertising industry in order to attract foreign investors through a Federal law.

Under the measure, the lawmaker said the central money authority will have representatives from each of the regions.

Elections

The resolution said the first election of members of the Congress of the Federal Republic of the Philippines and regional legislature, regional governors and vice governors and local elective

Marawi...

They also vowed their support in purging the terrorists out of Marawi and in pushing for peace and development in Mindanao.

The religious scholars also promised to be involved in the rehabilitation of the battle-stricken city, especially in terms of “moral, spiritual, social, educational and regional aspects”.

They recommended that ulama be deputized to monitor the implementation of the reconstruction and rehabilitation in Marawi City.

Collaboration

THE Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) commander, Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr., said multisectoral collaboration must be propagated to counter terrorism in Mindanao.

“The Wesmincom has a peculiar area of jurisdiction as it combats the Abu Sayyaf in ZamBaSulTa [Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi] area, the local terrorist group and the communist terrorists in ZamPeLan [Zamboanga Peninsula and Lanao provinces] area, and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in Central Mindanao,” he said.

Aside from Galvez, those who attended the conference were Defense Undersecretary Cesar Yano, Maj. Gen. Melquiades Feliciano, Lanao del Sur Vice Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. and Iligan City Mayor Majul Gandamra of Marawi City.

Accreditation of Islamic schools

While vowing to cooperate with the government in the fight against extremism and in propagating true Islamic teachings, the ulama, however, wanted the government to accredit Madaris, the traditional Islamic and Arabic schools in the country.

With this, they pushed for the revival of the Office of the Undersecretary for Madaris Education in the Department of Education.

The ulama also requested that the vacancy in existing national offices for Muslims, such as the presiding justice and associate justices of the Sharia appellate court, be

officials under this Constitution shall be held on the second Monday of May 2019.

It added that of the senators first elected under the new Constitution, 18 senators who obtained the lowest number of votes in their respective regions they were representing shall serve until noon of June 30, 2022. The rest shall serve until noon of June 30, 2025.

Members of the House of Representatives and the regional legislatures, regional governors,

regional vice governors and local elective officials shall all serve until noon of June 30, 2022.

Also, the six-year term of the incumbent President and Vice President elected in the May 9, 2016 elections shall end on noon of June 30, 2022.

The resolution said that, upon ratification of this proposed Constitution, the present Congress shall be dissolved and the incumbent President shall exercise legislative powers until the first Federal Congress is convened.

continued from A1 filled up by qualified Muslims.

Gandamra welcomed the initiatives of the religious leaders and said, “I acknowledge the voice of the ulama to participate, not only in the physical rehabilitation, but also in the moral-recovery programs intended for the affected persons.”

Adiong, who was present during the culmination of the activity, said he is aware of the importance of the conference.

Adiong added that the military and police needed the support of all sectors of society, especially saying that threat is imminent since violent extremism has already penetrated different levels of society.

No reinforcement for terrorists

As the battle in Marawi nears its end, the military asked the 29 town officials of Lanao del Sur to implement measures to preempt the “spillover of the conflict”, and the infiltration and recruitment of terrorists in areas of the province.

Galvez urged the officials to assist the government troops in preventing enemy reinforcements, as he noted the terrorists were already running out of ammunition and food.

“We are nearing the end of this prolonged battle with the penetration of our troops into the main battle area, but we beseech your consideration and assistance.

We believe that the top leaders are still in the battle area, but we do not discount the possibility of reinforcement and retreat. This is where the key involvement of local government units comes in,” Galvez said.

Addressing the town officials, Galvez said, “It would be best if you look after your lakes and your respective areas.”

Officials of the Lumba-Bayabao municipality said checkpoints have been established by members of the Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team (BPAT), and passage of motorboats along Lake Lanao was also being monitored within their coastal barangays.

“We are preparing our con-

stituents so that we will be able to make ourselves ready. We want our BPATs to be trained so that we can take appropriate actions when needed,” said one of the officials.

He also recommended that a system be implemented to validate the identities of local terrorists.

Balindong Mayor Benjamin Bagul said he had been monitoring movements to prevent the entry of possible reinforcements in his area.

However, Bagul noted that fishing activities within their lakeshore barangays have been limited due to security restrictions.

“We have registered and authorized 126 pump boats, however, we are also affected by the tightening of security as fishing can no longer be done from 3 to 5 a.m., but only at 6 a.m. and beyond,” he said.

Galvez said that he will bring the issue for resolution and that he believes it would be best to have fishermen in the lake area from time to time so that they, too, can also serve as watchers who will report suspicious boats to authorities.

Masiu Mayor Nasser Pangandaman also shared his good practice of repainting the fishermen’s boats and assigning control numbers to each. According to Pangandaman, those who violate regulations will be seized by the local government.

An official of Kapatagan town said there are some folks from other municipalities in Maguidanao who come to their town to recruit would-be members of the terror group.

In response, Galvez said, “You can create your inner defense. If you need it, we can provide you with training and support for security if you request for it. We will not leave you in this fight. We will make forces stay within the area.

You will not be left out, you just have to do your part.”

“For now, help your security sector swiftly address the present problem in Marawi by guarding your respective areas. Do not allow these terrorists to use your towns as recruitment areas and safe passage,” he added.

The World BusinessMirror

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Sunday, August 20, 2017

A3

How a blue pill is stopping HIV from Sydney to San Francisco

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yle, a 29-year-old Sydneysider, never knew a time when HIV wasn’t a persistent and pernicious threat— until he began popping a pill to prevent it.

The blue, oval-shaped antiviral tablet, known as Truvada, that Kyle takes daily is the subject of a study in Australia’s New South Wales state that, in less than a year, has helped drive new cases of the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus among gay and bisexual men to the lowest since 1985.

“It feels good to be a part of that,” said Kyle, a retail assistant who joined a program called preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in January to ease his fear about being infected with HIV during sex on the occasions he doesn’t use a condom. “I do feel a lot safer.”

Thirty-six years after a rare lung infection in gay men in Los Angeles heralded the start of the AIDS epidemic in North America, the deadly disease is firmly in retreat globally. For the first time, more than half of all people living with HIV are on virus-suppressing treatment that staves off symptoms and prevents transmission.

And thousands of people are using Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Truvada in the PrEP trial that’s curbing the spread in communities from London to San Francisco.

PrEP reduces the risk of HIV from sex by more than 90 percent if the pill—a fixed-dose combination of the drugs tenofovir disoproxil and emtricitabine—is taken daily. As cheaper, generic versions of Truvada made by Mylan NV, Cipla Ltd. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. become more widely available, doctors and public health researchers are testing its ability to slash HIV incidence in the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, where it’s mostly transmitted by heterosexual sex.

Impact in Africa?

“The global epidemic is driven in eastern and southern Africa, and it’s driven predominantly among women,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of New Yorkbased advocacy group AVAC, which tracks more than 40 ongoing and planned PrEP studies across the world. “To really end the global epidemic, we have got to figure out if oral PrEP can have an impact in Africa like it can in other places.”

HIV diagnoses at the UK’s busiest sexual health center— London’s 56 Dean Street clinic in Soho—plunged 42 percent last year, and in San Francisco they have halved since PrEP was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in July 2012.

“You see this very dramatic decline in new infections that wasn’t seen just when we were treating people,” said Sharon Lewin, director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne and a member of the International AIDS Society’s governing council.

Gilead counted 136,000 people taking Truvada as PrEP at the end of the second quarter, compared with 60,000 to 70,000 a year earlier. That’s still a fraction of the 1.2 million American adults at

significant risk of becoming HIVpositive who researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say are candidates for the regimen.

Profitable pill

Preventative treatment now accounts for about half of the pill ’s US sales, Kev in Young, Gilead’s COO, said in July. The 13-year-old medication’s sales reached $3.57 billion in 2016, accounting for almost 12 percent of revenue for the Foster City, California-based company. “ It cer t a i n ly re present s a growth opportunity in the US— until generics hit,” said Asthika Goonewardene, a biotechnology analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence in New York. “Beyond the societal benefit, this is an old drug, and even with the likely discounts and rebates to ensure coverage, the margin is good and a volume play is very lucrative to Gilead’s earnings.”

Gilead doesn’t expect competition from generic versions of Truvada in the US until 2021, CEO John Milligan said last month.

Patent protection means that the medicine costs about $17,258 per person a year in the US, Andrew Hill, a senior visiting research fellow in the pharmacology department at Liverpool University, and colleagues told the International AIDS Conference in Paris in July.

That compares with an annual cost of about $67 per person for a generic version in India.

Truvada’s patent expired on August 1 in Australia, and Mylan will find out on Friday whether a panel advising the government there recommends subsidizing a generic version for PrEP, slashing the cost to the Australian government of the preventative treatment. Generics are already available in France, Milligan said in March.

“Once it comes off patent, you are going to wind up a getting a much larger use of it,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in a telephone interview.

“It will be more accessible from an economic standpoint.”

Side effects

While that will help drive down the prevalence of HIV, it may also have some less desirable effects.

Kyle, the PrEP participant in Sydney, said he had one bout of chlamydia in his first six months on the program and admits his condom usage has gone from “sometimes” to “rarely.”

“To be honest, it’s not a big increase in my experience of STIs— not to say that I was constantly catching things,” he said.

Another difference now is that Kyle is being screened quarterly for infections as per PrEP guidelines, which means any disease will be treated sooner—reducing the risk of him passing it on—than if he stuck with his usual schedule of a checkup every six-to-nine months, he said. The tests also check for a small risk of kidney damage from Truvada and allow doctors to monitor for a decrease in bone density known to occur in some people after taking PrEP for a few years.

Bloomberg News

Libya gets better at keeping oil flowing as industry stabilizes

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ibya’s getting better at resolving stoppages in its oil industry, underpinning a growing perception that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) member is closer to becoming a stable producer again.

That’s because of the duration of the incidents. W hile in prior years protests could shutter fields for months and years, now the stoppages are being resolved within days and barely hindering f lows.

Sharara, Libya’s biggest field, had several short disruptions this year, including two this month, after being closed for more than two years. Mustafa Sanalla, chairman of state-run National Oil Corp., was quick to visit Sharara this week to resolve the latest dispute, offering to revise security measures.

“One f u nd a ment a l c ha nge that allows upstream activities to restart quickly after a disruption is that Sanalla is willing to get

on the ground, visit the sites and demonstrate his commitment to local communities,” Geoff Porter, founder of New York-based North Africa Risk Consulting, said by e-mail on Wednesday. “There is a level of trust that was missing for a long time.”

Libya is rev iv ing its oi l pro duct ion a nd e x por ts in spite of cont inu ing pol it ica l u ncer t a int y. In Ju ly cr ude production was at a four-year high and ex por ts were the most in three yea rs, accord ing to d at a compi led by Bloomberg. W h i le t he e x pa nsion has helped Libya’s oi l - de p e nde nt e conomy, t he O pec is t r y ing to c ut globa l suppl ies. T hat ef for t has been undermined by recovering out-

put at O pec members L iby a a nd Niger i a.

‘Recovered impressively’

“Libyan production has recovered impressively and part of that is certainly that recent disruptions have proved short-lived but I still think it would be wrong to describe the oil sector as stable,” Richard Mallinson, a geopolitical analyst at Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said on Wednesday by email. “There has been plenty of tension with the government in Tripoli as Sanalla’s requests for extra funding for maintenance and to address local issues have largely been ignored.”

The country pumped 1.6 million barrels a day before a 2011 revolt set off years of fighting between rival governments and militias. Workers at the Zueitina export terminal said last week they wou ld not load tankers until their demands were met, including getting 20 months of back pay, union head Merhi Abridan said on Saturday. The port reopened this week when workers were told their demands will be met, he said.

Under Sanalla’s tenure which started in May 2014, Libya has

signed contracts with international companies, ended a blockade of ports, restarted exports and reopened fields, including Sharara in December following two years of closure. Oil production was at 250,000 barrels a day when he took over. In July output was 1.02 million barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Libya’s output will be about 1.2 million barrels a day by the end of the year “if everything goes well,” said Derek Brower, managing director of research at Petroleum Policy Intelligence, a UK-based consulting company, said August 10 by e-mail. However, the potential for disruptions is “high” and true stability can only return “if locals genuinely feel like they are getting a dividend from rising oil production and income.”

I n Ju ly r iv a l le ade r s e m barked on a new effort to reunify their country, agreeing to hold elections. “Paradoxically, the closer we get to a political solut ion, t he more u n st able production is going to become,” Porter of North Africa Risk Consulting said. “Political solutions create losers and in Libya, the losers will be armed.”

Bloomberg News

Asia stocks drop on Spain attack and Trump turmoil

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sian stoc k s e x tended a global slide after terrorists struck a crowded tourist street in Barcelona, exacerbating unease triggered by mounting concerns about dysfunction in President Donald J. Trump’s administration and US policy paralysis.

Equities fell in Tokyo, Sydney and Seoul along with US equity-index futures after the S&P 500 Inde x on T hursd ay tumbled 1.5 percent, its secondbiggest drop for 2017. Volatility in Japan jumped after a measure of market f luctuations spiked higher during US trading, while Treasuries rose with the yen as investors sought havens. Gold maintained gains.

US stocks declined amid concerns Trump’s stimulus plans are in increasing peril and amid heightened terror fears after at least 13 people died when a van

plowed into pedestrians in Barcelona. Speculation surfaced at one point that Gar y Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. president who’s Trump’s top economic adviser and has been a figure of assurance to investors in an unorthodox W hite House, might resign. Markets were calmed temporarily on reports that Cohn, who has been leading efforts on ta x reform, would stay.

It’s been a tumultuous week for the administration, w ith Trump disbanding two advisory councils staffed by Ceos and slamming Republican members of Congress who were critical of his polarizing remarks following violence in Virginia. Meanwhile, the terror news was a reminder that geopolitical risks remain a threat, with nerves still raw after last week’s escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

E a r l i e r, E u r o p e a n s t o c k s dropped as minutes from the region’s last central bank meeting revealed worries among officials that the currency could overshoot. Gold and tin were among the best-performing metals, and zinc traded near a 10-year high.

Here are the main moves in markets:

Stocks

Japan’s Topix index fell 0.9 percent as of 9:24 a.m. in Tokyo, Australia’s S&P/500 Index was down 1.3 percent and the Kospi index declined 1.1 percent.

Contracts on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index were down 0.3 percent. Futures on the S&P 500 declined 0.1 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.9 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was down 0.6 percent.

Currencies

The yen rose 0.2 percent to 109.37 per dollar, after advancing 0.6 percent on Thursday.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed. The euro was little changed at $1.1725 after slipping 0.4 percent on Thursday. The Australian dollar was also little changed, at $78.85 US cents.

Bonds

Yields on 10-year Treasuries were at 2.19 percent, little changed on the week. Australian 10-year note yields lost more than two basis points, to 2.62 percent.

Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.2 percent on Friday to $46.99 a barrel, heading for a 3.7-percent slump on the week.

G o l d w a s l it t l e c h a n g e d a t $1,287.92 an ounce. Bloomberg News

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The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, August 20, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Military drills emerge as key obstacle to United States-North Korea talks

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In this August 14 file photo, a protester kicks the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier after it was pulled down in Durham, North Carolina. Bombarded by the sharpest attacks yet from fellow Republicans, President Donald J. Trump dug into his defense of racist groups by attacking members of own party and renouncing the rising movement to pull down monuments to Confederate icons. AP

Under fire from GOP, Trump digs in on Confederate icons

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RIDGEWATER, New Jersey— With prominent Republicans openly questioning his competence and moral leadership, President Donald J. Trump on Thursday burrowed deeper into the racially charged debate over Confederate memorials and lashed out at members of his own party in the latest controversy to engulf his presidency.

Out of sight, but still online, Trump tweeted his defense of monuments to Confederate icons—bemoaning rising efforts to remove them as an attack on America’s “history and culture.”

A nd he berated his cr itics who, with increasingly sharper language, have denounced his init ia l ly slow and t hen u lt imately combative comments on the racial violence at a white supremacist rally last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Trump was much quicker on Thursday to condemn violence in Barcelona, where more than a dozen people were killed when a van veered onto a sidewalk and sped down a busy pedestrian zone in what authorities called a terror attack.

He then added to his expression of support a tweet reviving a debunked legend about a US general subduing Muslim rebels a century ago in the Philippines by shooting them with bullets dipped in pig blood.

“Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” Trump wrote.

Trump’s unpredictable, defiant and, critics claim, racially provocative behavior has clearly begun to wear on his Republican allies.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, whom Trump considered for a Cabinet post, declared on Thursday that “the president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to” in dealing with crises. And Sen. Dan Sullivan

of Alaska tweeted, “Anything less than complete & unambiguous condemnation of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK by the @ POTUS is unacceptable. Period.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Trump’s “moral authority is compromised.”

Trump, who is known to try to change the focus of news coverage with an attention-grabbing declaration, sought to shift on Thursday from the white supremacists to the future of statues.

“You can’t change history, but you can learn from it,” he tweeted.

“Robert E. Lee. Stonewall Jackson—who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish....

“A lso t he beaut y t hat is be i ng t a ken out of ou r c it ies, tow ns and parks w ill be greatly m issed a nd never able to be compa rably repl aced! ” “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” he tweeted.

Tr u mp met se pa r ate ly on Thursday at his golf club in nearby Bedminster with the administrator of the Small Business Administration and Florida Gov.

Rick Scott, a longtime Trump supporter. Trump also prepared for an unusual meeting on Friday at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland with his national security team to discuss strategy for South Asia, including India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Vice President Mike Pence was cutting shor t a longplanned Latin America tour to attend the meeting.

Though out of public view, Trump sought to make his voice heard on Twitter as he found himself increasingly under siege and alone while fanning the controversy over race and politics toward a full-f ledged national conf lagration.

He dissolved two business councils on Wednesday after the chief executive officer members began quitting, damaging his central campaign promise to be a business-savvy chief executive in the Oval Office.

And the White House said on Thursday that it was abandoning plans to form an infrastructure advisory council.

Two major charities, the Cleveland Clinic and the American Cancer Society, announced they are canceling fund-raisers scheduled for Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, amid the continuing backlash over Trump’s remarks.

Meanwhile, rumblings of discontent from his staff grew so loud that the White House had to release a statement saying that Trump’s chief economic adviser wasn’t quitting. And the president remained on the receiving end of bipartisan criticism for his handling of the aftermath of the Charlottesville clashes.

On Thursday he hit back hard— against Republicans.

He accused “publicity-seeking” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina of falsely stating Trump’s position on the demonstrators.

Anything less than complete & unambiguous condemnation of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK by the @POTUS is unacceptable. Period.”—Sullivan

He called Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake “toxic” and praised Flake’s potential primary election opponent.

Graham said Wednesday that Trump “took a step backward by again sug gesting there is moral equivalency” between the marching white supremacists and the people who had been demonstrating against them.

Flake has been increasingly critical of Trump in recent weeks.

Pressured by advisers, the president had softened his words on the dispute on Monday, two days after he had enraged many by declining to single out the white supremacists and neo-Nazis whose demonstration against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statute had led to violence and the death of a counter-protester in Charlottesville.

He returned to his combative stance Tuesday—insisting anew during an unexpected and contentious news conference at Trump Tower that “ both sides” were to blame.

Aides watching from the sidelines reacted with dismay and disbelief and privately told colleagues they were upset by the president’s remarks, though not upset enough for anyone to resign.

The resignation speculation around Gary Cohn, head of the National Economic Council and a Jew, had grown so intense by Thursday that the White House released a statement saying reports that Cohn was stepping down were “100 percent false.”

But not all of Trump’s aides were unhappy with his performance.

Adviser Steve Bannon’s job security in the White House has become tenuous—Trump offered only a “we’ll see” on Tuesday when asked if his chief strategist would remain in his post—but Bannon has been telling allies that the president’s news conference would electrify the GOP base.

And in a pair of interviews on Wednesday, Bannon cheered on the president’s nationalist tendencies and suggested that a fight over Confederate monuments was a political fight he welcomes. “ T he race-identit y politics of the left wants to say it’s all racist,” Bannon told The New York Times. “Just give me more.

Tear down more statues. Say the revolution is coming. I can’t get enough of it.” AP

ens of thousands of troops from the US, South Korea and several other countries will conduct drills over the next few weeks to prepare for a possible war with Kim Jong Un’s regime.

T he annual U lchi-Freedom Guardian military exercises starting on Monday routinely spark condemnation from North Korea, and this year is no different. The state-run Korean Central News Agency this week called them “rec k less saber-ratt ling” and warned that they could spark an accidental war.

The drills are important for another reason: China has called on the US to halt them in order to start talks with North Korea, part of its freeze-for-freeze proposal that would also require Kim to suspend nuclear and missile tests.

The US rejects this outright, and scaling down the drills now would make President Donald J. Trump look weak so soon after his warnings of “fire and fury.”

Still, some former American officials and analysts are saying at least some drills should be up for negotiation. William McKinney, a retired Army colonel who spent more than 40 years involved in USKorea military relations and planning, said the US should consider suspending larger exercises—provided it gets something in return.

Neither the one next week or a large one usually held in March would impact US readiness, and they could be replaced with more targeted drills that focus on command and control systems, he said.

‘Bargaining chip’

“If there is a point in time when a degree of trust exists between the two parties for a quid pro quo agreement, then one or both exercises might be up for being suspended,” said McKinney, the nonresident Korea chairman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I am not looking to see a unilateral suspension, but at some point they might be a bargaining chip.”

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that the exercises were important for the alliance to maintain the ability to defend itself. They could be reduced if North Korea were to pursue denuclearization and cease ballistic missile tests, he said.

“As long as the threat from North Korea exists, we need to maintain a high state of readiness to respond to that threat,” Dunford told reporters in Beijing.

Military exercises are “not currently on the table as part of the negotiations in any way.”

Tensions on the Korean peninsula appeared to calm down this week after Trump praised Kim for waiting to fire missiles over Japan into waters near Guam.

He has previously said military force is an option to prevent Kim from gaining an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that

could deliver a nuclear weapon to the US.

‘Buck passing’

In the past, the drills have raised tensions. During last year’s exercises, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submarine and put its military on the highest alert.

Formal talks on North Korea’s nuclear program collapsed in 2009, and the US has resisted restarting them until Kim demonstrates a commitment to denuclearization and halts tests of missiles and nuclear devices.

North Korea, on the other hand, wants the US to drop its hostile policies before agreeing to talks.

China’s proposal for talks isn’t sincere, according to Ryan Hass, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“The dual-freeze approach is China’s attempt at buck passing and moral equivalency between US actions and North Korean actions,” Hass said. “Buck passing in the sense that Beijing is not making a genuine effort to leverage a freeze. They are making a genuine effort to pin responsibility on the United States.”

L ast yea r’s U lc hi-Freedom Guardian event involved nearly 80,000 troops in land, sea and air drills. The US and South Korea haven’t released many details on this year’s event.

Burned before

Some analysts see room for maneuver. Kim’s regime only wants the US to cancel military drills that prepare for removing him from power and detonating nuclear weapons, Joel Wit, a former state department official, wrote in the Atlantic magazine on August 13.

“A s any infor med militar y planner will tell you, that’s possible while also maintaining the readiness of American forces on the Korean peninsula,” wrote Wit, who met with North Korean officials in Geneva after Trump’s election win. “And had Pyongyang ha lted testing in 2015, Washington wouldn’t be facing the imminent threat of a North Korean ICBM today.”

The US has been burned before when it suspended military exercises. In the 1990s the large-scale Team Spirit exercises between the US and South Korea were canceled several times in a bid to get the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear program. Pyongyang eventually reneged on an agreement to dismantle its nuclear reactors— one among many reasons the US doesn’t trust North Korea.

Still, that shouldn’t stop the US from exploring a deal, said John Delury, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. “If you are going to suspend exercises you should get something pretty good from the North Koreans for it,” Delury said.

“It is not something to do as a simple goodwill gesture.” Bloomberg News

Venezuela’s Maduro regime steps up crackdown on critics and dissidents

V

enezuela’s government is intensifying its crackdown on critics of President Nicolas Maduro, ordering the detention of the husband of former Public Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz and separate investigations of prominent opposition leaders.

Ortega said in a post on her Twitter account that secret police were raiding the family’s home in Caracas. The Supreme Court later ordered the arrest of her lawmaker husband, German Ferrer, accusing him of leading an extortion ring out of the prosecutor’s office.

“It’s revenge for fighting against the totalitarianism that exists in Venezuela,” she wrote on Twitter, blaming the raid on Maduro and Diosdado Cabello, a high-ranking socialist party official who brought the suit against her husband. Ortega had been the highest-ranking member of Maduro’s administration to break ranks with the government before she was deposed this month by a newly convened

legislative super body, the constituyente. She has since fled and gone into hiding.

The constituyente late Thursday stripped Ferrer of his parliamentary immunity and authorized the Supreme Court to put him on trial. The raid came just as a so-called truth commission established by the constituyente announced investigations into Julio Borges, president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, and Freddy Guevara, the assembly’s vice president, claiming that they promoted violent antigovernment protests that have left more than 100 dead.

The campaign of repression is already well advanced. The Venezuelan chapter of Transparency International says that 40 of 77 opposition mayors have been threatened or punished by the government since 2013, with some removed and jailed, some having their powers curtailed and some barred from leaving the country. Bloomberg News

Sports BusinessMirror

Editor: Jun Lomibao | mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

Sunday, August 20, 2017

A5

COUNTDOWN ON Jeff Van Gundy is leading the US team as an international basketball rookie. AP

RED, WHITE AND WHO? T

A WORKER walks past the countdown clock at the main business district in Jakarta. AP

J

By Stephen Wright The Associated Press

AKARTA—Indonesia starts a one-year countdown clock on Friday as it races to complete venues to host an Asian Games that it hopes will showcase the archipelago as a leading nation in the region and boost its perennially light medal total.

The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) originally selected Vietnam as host of the event, which is held every four years, for 2018. But the country’s Communist Party government pulled out in 2014 citing cost concerns.

Indonesia stepped in on the proviso it would be allowed to stage the games in 2018 and in two main host cities, leaving Jakarta and Palembang four years to get ready instead of six.

Problems immediately ensued because funds were scarce—the government budget had already been set for 2015—and authorities in Jakarta and at a national level spent months working at cross purposes.

One year from the opening ceremony, organizers can point to substantial progress, but a sense of trepidation lingers.

Children’s Games unfurls in Davao

A

TOTAL of 35 volunteers from Muslim, lumad and Christian communities underwent a training program to assist participants in the Sports for Peace Children’s Games set this weekend at the Mergrande Ocean Resort in Toril, Davao City.

Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) consultant Sergio Opeña, also overall in charge of the Children’s Games, said the Ate and Kuya were trained not only as volunteers but as community leaders who will continue to promote grassroots sports program in line with President Duterte’s directive to bring sports to the countryside.

The training was held at the Sacred Heart Spirituality Center in Barangay Catalunan Grande. It featured team building, leadership, basic child psychology, leadership, sports as a vehicle for peace and vision of PSC, among others.

Participants came from Barangay Pañalum, Barangay Sirawan and Barangay Sasa, while Muslim and Maranao volunteers were from the Mini Forest along Boulevard. Churches involved were Saint Jude Thaddeus Parish, San Pedro Parish and Fatima Parish.

Brother Noelvic Deloria of the Brothers of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart led the training that was facilitated by the Kaliwat Theater Group.

“The Ate and Kuya concept will be replicated all over the country.

They will become Volunteers for Sports. Every 10 children in the Games will have an Ate or a Kuya who will lead them during the two-day interfaith children’s games for peace,” Opeña said.

The volunteers are aged 18 to 25.

Some 350 Muslim, Lumad and Christian children aged 12 years old and below will participate in the Games where they will all be staying at the beach resort.

Similar programs will be held in other parts of the region, including Digos City, Island Garden City of Samal, Mati City and Panabo City.

The Games are a brainchild of PSC Chairman William Ramirez.

“In the end I’m only human,” said Erick Thohir, a businessman and part-owner of Italian football club Inter Milan, who is head of the 2018 Asian Games organizing committee. “Of course, there is some pressure, some nervousness, but we have to be confident because this is a big event for our country.”

The games, expected to involve more than 9,000 athletes from 45 nations, as well as 8,000 media and officials, will be split among several cities.

The main stadium is in the heart of the notoriously traffic-clogged capital Jakarta and the east of the city is home for a new velodrome and equestrian center. Palembang on the island of Sumatra, which staged the 2011 Southeast Asian Games, is the other main sports venue. Some sports, including football, will take place in West Java cities, such as Bandung, Bekasi and Bogor.

The main stadium, which was used when Indonesia first hosted the Asian Games in 1962, is buzzing with construction workers. Among the renovations, its old wooden benches have been removed and replaced with modern seating in red and white—the colors of the Indonesian flag—to seat about 80,000.

The construction of the athletes’ village is almost finished and many major venues are more than 80 percent complete, and projected to be done

by October.

But the velodrome and equestrian center, which are being totally rebuilt, aren’t expected to be completed until May of next year, leaving a tight window for rectifying any problems. Officials say five or six international-standard football stadiums are needed in West Java, but only two are up to scratch so far.

“We need to really be pushing hard” said Thohir, who met earlier this week with the provincial and central governments to accelerate the work.

National pride is at stake.

“We’ve been waiting for this opportunity for decades,” said bank employee Trivandi Pohan, as he ate lunch at a Jakarta mall. “This is an opportunity for us to show the world that we are a great nation.”

Indonesia is the world’s third-largest democracy and a member of the Group of 20 major industrialized and developing economies, but tends to perform below its weight in global affairs.

RUN IN OCTOBER

Assistant Product Manager for Nutrilite Mia Jamisola (from left), along with Amway Philippines Marketing Manager Dulce Ricafort, Runrio Events Inc. President and CEO Rio dela Cruz and Runrio Events Inc. PR and Events Manager John Montalvan announce the Fifth Nutrilite Health Run in October. The annual run is a national initiative that advocates wellness and healthy living and aims to gather more than 12,000 runners in Manila and Davao. NONIE REYES

Successive governments have been mostly consumed by responding to frequent natural disasters, terrorism, communal conflicts and other crises in a country where corruption and poverty are still widespread.

“The government would like to make a positive point for the public that Indonesia as a big country should do better, like any other big country,” said Organizing Committee Vice President Gatot S. Dewa Broto, who is also a senior official at the youth and sports ministry.

There are also hopes that staging the games will boost Indonesia’s sporting prowess. The country of more than 260 million people won four gold medals at the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea, placing 17th on the medal standings, and is aiming for a top-10 performance next year.

The government is spending about 25 trillion rupiah ($1.8 billion) on games infrastructure. Organization and running of the games is expected to cost about 4.5 trillion rupiah ($330 million) with only a portion provided by the government and the majority to be funded by sponsorships and ticket sales.

With elections due in 2019 a successful games would score political points for Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the first Indonesian president from outside the ranks of the elite or military.

Jokowi has made improvement to Indonesia’s creaky or nonexistent infrastructure his top priority since being elected in 2014.

A new international terminal at Jakarta’s main airport opened earlier this year and a traffic flyover near the main stadium was recently completed.

However, subway and light-rail projects in the capital, where traveling 5 kilometers in peak hour can take two hours or more, are unlikely to be completed until 2019.

Thohir emits a rueful laugh when asked how athletes will cope with Jakarta’s daily “carmageddon” as they travel the 20 kilometer-plus distance between the village and the main venues—a journey officials say should not take more than 45 minutes.

A police general has been seconded to the organizing committee and special lanes, athlete convoys and use of the city’s bus-only lanes are being discussed to reduce the slow travel times.

“I’m not an expert but I trust him,” Thohir said of the general. “He will find a solution.”

HE jerseys say USA, though that’s about all that will be recognizable.

When the US men’s basketball team returns to action later this month, fans might be left wondering, “The red, white and who?”

The Americans are cautiously entering a whole new basketball world, one in which not only are the best US players not available, but neither are any in the National Basketball Association (NBA). LeBron James, Kevin Durant and the stars might show up in a few years for the Basketball World Cup and Olympics, but only if a group of minor leaguers can get them there.

It’s all part of Fiba’s new qualifying format and the road starts at the AmeriCup 2017. It’s a tournament the Americans don’t need to win—and aren’t sure they can—but one they have to play to make themselves eligible for the events that will matter.

“It’s going to be really interesting,” USA Basketball men’s National Team Director Sean Ford said. “We don’t know. We’re flying blind a little bit.”

Even the Americans’ best-known commodity is a bit of an unknown now.

Jeff van Gundy coached in the NBA Finals and is analyst for them every year on ABC, but he’s leading the US team as an international basketball rookie. He is busy brushing up on the nuances of a game that can be played and officiated completely differently than in the US. He begins on Thursday in Houston for training camp, where he will seek the 12 players who will travel to Uruguay and possibly Argentina for the AmeriCup and the potentially better-prepared opponents who wait.

“What we have to do is match and exceed their passion, how hard we play, how together we are as a group,” Van Gundy said, “because when the US has not succeeded in international competitions, it’s because there wasn’t as much maybe sacrifice as you need, or maybe you were deficient in one skill that was important.”

It’s the Americans’ first appearance in the former Fiba Americas tournament since 2007. Their starting lineup in that romp to gold—James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd and Dwight Howard—was one of the strongest the US has ever assembled.

The 17 players in camp with van Gundy include Kendall Marshall, Reggie Williams, Darius Morris and Marshall Plumlee, players good enough to play in the NBA but not stick.

The Americans haven’t needed to play in their zone championship since because they’ve won every Olympic and world title, exempting them from qualifying. But Fiba has revamped its qualification system to look more like soccer’s, where national teams will play home-and-away games against teams in their pool.

But some of the windows are during the NBA season—the opening games are scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend—and players under NBA contract won’t be permitted to play. So the Americans plan to primarily use players from the NBA G League, with perhaps some who have been playing overseas.

“Look, no one’s going to feel sorry for us. But we know that this is different and we’re going to have to figure out how to be successful in a different model,” Ford said. “There’s always unknowns, but there’s probably more unknowns because No. 1, we don’t know how good we need to be. We don’t know how good we can be.”

Ford considers the prospective players a notch below the NBA, calling them “survivors, grinders, competitors.” That’s far from the level that suited up for Mike Krzyzewski for a decade or would play for Gregg Popovich in 2019 and 2020, but van Gundy is eager to work with them in his first coaching assignment—not counting his daughter’s youth league—since he was fired by the Rockets in 2007.

“There’s very few LeBron James of the world—obviously one—or great players who have it easy. These guys’ careers have not been easy and so I really admire their persistence, their grit and their determination,” van Gundy said. “To get to work with them and coach them, that was part of the pull for me.”

With limited time and options, the Americans know the AmeriCup could be a challenge. Ford said they hope to reach the semifinals in Argentina and see what happens from there.

They will need to start winning come November, when they open their first-round pool that includes Puerto Rico, Mexico and Cuba.

The US has to finish in the top 3 there, playing their other windows of games in February and June and July, to advance to another pool that will include three teams among Argentina, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay, from September 2018 to February 2019.

Another top-3 finish then would clinch their spot in China in 2019.

They will have a deeper field of candidates later who will be in shape from playing with their G League teams. But, they also could lose a player they like if he plays well enough for them in August to get a contract in the NBA or overseas.

There are many uncertainties, though Ford said there is one constant. AP

Faith A6 Sunday, August 20, 2017

Sunday

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

70 years after Pakistan-India split, Sikhs search for home

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ESHAWAR, Pakistan—Radesh Singh’s grandfather was just 11 years old when he left his village in India’s Punjab province to move to Peshawar, in the far northwest of the country on the border with Afghanistan.

The year was 1901: The British ruled the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan wasn’t even a glimmer in the eye of its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and Peshawar held the promise of work and adventure.

Singh’s grandfather would never return to his village, not even in 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was divided into majority Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, generating one of the largest migrations in modern history and unleashing a brutality that left few untouched as mobs of Hindus and Muslims turned on each other.

Singh’s family is neither Hindu nor Muslim but Sikh, a religious minority in both countries. In the 70 years since Partition, they have waged a secessionist uprising in India demanding outright independence for India’s Punjab state where they dominate.

They have felt increasingly less at home on either side of the border, but particularly so in recent years in overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan as they, too, have become victims of local Taliban violence.

Singh said poverty kept his grandfather in Peshawar, located at the foot of the famed Khyber Pass and dominated by fiercely independent ethnic Pashtun tribesmen. “It’s not easy to start over at zero when you have very little,” he said.

The hostility in the immediate aftermath of 1947 was brief in the northwest, Singh said. It was followed by decades of peace.

The decision to stay in the new countr y now ca l led Pa k istan seemed like a good choice at the time. The Sikhs had lived peacefully for centuries alongside their Pashtun Muslim countrymen.

After all, Singh added, Sikhs had a glorious history in the northwest. For a time in the 18th century they oversaw a dynasty.

Their capital was Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore. It was a Sikh ruler, Ranjit Singh, who rebuilt Peshawar’s infamous Bala Hisar Fort, an imposing walled fortress that some historians say is as old as the city itself, which traces its origins back more than 2,000 years.

Today Sikhs are among Pakistan’s smallest minorities. They are easily identifiable because of their tightly wound and often colorful turbans, and because they share the surname Singh.

The CIA Factbook estimates that 3.6 percent of Pakistan’s 180 million people are non-Muslims, including Sikhs, Christians and Hindus.

Until 1984, Singh said, Pakistan’s Hindus and Sikhs lived as one in northwest Pakistan.

T heir children married, they even worshipped together. But then India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.

“They [Hindus] cut all relations with us. They said Pakistani Sikhs are like all Sikhs everywhere. No difference. They said, ‘From now on, we will be separate from you,’” Singh recalled.

Today Sikhs are battling with the Pakistan government for ownership of dozens of Sikh temples that they call gurdwaras; while it is slow going they have managed to reclaim some of the buildings.

Many were abandoned in 1947 and taken over by Muslims who arrived from India. The Pakistan government, which took over the

buildings after 1947, allowed the squatters to remain.

In a congested neighborhood in Peshawar’s old city, Singh stepped through large steel gates that opened on to a sweeping courtyard. It no longer resembled a house of worship, but Singh said it was once a vibrant gurdwara attended by hundreds of Sikhs. Now two families call it home.

Two clotheslines crowded with clothes drying in the blistering midday sun stretched from one end of the courtyard to the other.

A child’s plastic toy sat idle nearby.

Elsewhere in Peshawar, an armed guard, his rifle slung loosely by his side, stood guard at the city’s largest Sikh temple, an ornate marble building that dates back 250 years. Inside a half dozen Sikh men sat on plastic chairs.

It is a short, bureaucraticlooking man, a Muslim, who has the final say about who enters the gurdwara. He works for the government body that oversees properties vacated by people who fled to India in 1947.

After phone calls made, names recorded, passports handed over and more phone ca l ls made, the doors to the gurdwara were opened, revealing a cavernous carpeted room and ornate pillars decorated with hundreds of tiny mirrors. In a small room at the far end of the upper story, two students read the Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s holy book.

Singh, who heads a council representing the Sikhs in Pakistan, said that since his homeland began to turn toward radical Islam, particularly in the Pashtun heartland, young Sikhs have been looking to leave.

“They want to go to another country, not to India or Pakistan,” he said, but every country eyes them with suspicion. Even Indians, he added, see his Pakistani passport and question his intentions, suggesting he wants to agitate for Sikh secessionism, the battle that resulted in Indira Gandhi’s death and a dream still held by many Sikhs on both sides of the border.

For Singh, Pakistan’s slide into intolerance began in the late1970s with the former Soviet Union’s invasion of neighboring A fghanistan. Pakistan’s military dictator Zia-ul Haq set the country on the course of Islamic radicalization, as jihad became a rallying cry to defeat the communists in Afghanistan, he said.

Extremism worsened after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by a US-led coalition, he said. The tribal regions were gradually overtaken

by Taliban and in 2013 several Sikhs were killed, their limbs severed. The brutality of the killings and the threats sent thousands fleeing Pakistan, Singh added.

He said today Pakistan’s intolerant use blasphemy—a crime that carries an automatic death penalty—as a weapon against minorities and fellow Muslims alike.

“That is why we have a fear in our hearts, that this law can be used against us,” he said. The mere accusation of blasphemy can incite mobs to violence.

“In the last nearly 40 years we have been facing the boom, boom [mimicking the sound of explosions] in every city of Pakistan,” Singh said. “In a long time we have not heard any sweet sounds in our Peshawar, but still we love our city.” AP

Christ embracing Saint Bernard, oil on canvas, by Francisco Ribalta. Wikimedia Commons

By Corazon Damo-Santiago

B

ernard of Clairvaux, a contemplative activist, is one of the most powerful and influential figure of the High Middle Ages (1001-1300). Having influenced tremendously the political, literary and religious life of his time, the 12th century is called the Bernardine Period.

As a mariologist the phrase Omnia por Mariam is attributed to him. He doffs his hat and exclaims Ave Maria when he sees a statue of the Blessed Mother that one day it answered, “Ave Bernard.”

Of Mary, he counsels, “In danger, in doubt, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. With her for guide you shall never go astray while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall under her protection, you have nothing to fear.”

Charismatic personality

Pakistani Sikh Radesh Singh (left) talks at a temple in Peshawar, Pakistan. Seventy years after Partition of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan’s Sikhs say neither India nor Pakistan feels like home for a young generation searching for peace and security elsewhere. AP/Muhammad Sajjad

Church hopes for return of stolen head, hands of Our Lady of Mount Carmel statue

T

he longing is never far away. But neither is the hope. More than four decades after a thief left a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel headless and handless, church authorities are still hoping that they would find its way back home soon.

Their return, Augustinian Recollect Fr. Rommel Rubia said, would also put a special meaning as the country will mark the 400th anniversary of the icon’s arrival in the Philippines next year.

“Hopefully, by next year, they will be returned. It will be a big challenge for us but we will never know,” said Rubia, head of the Order’s Commission on Culture, Heritage and History.

The priest rallied the devotees to help in searching for the statue’s head and hands made of ivory, which are believed to be still in the country. “Let us all work for the return of the original ivory head and hands of the Virgin,” he said.

Fr. Joy Zabala, rector of the Minor

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot, Doctor of the Church

A replica of the original image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel de San Sebastian on top of the main retablo of Basilica Minore de San Sebastian CBCPNews

Basilica of San Sebastian, said the exact whereabouts of the stolen parts of the Marian statue remain unknown.

But initial information reaching his office,

he said, revealed that the ivories were sold to an antique collector. “So the thief already profited from it,” Zabala said.

A gift from the Discalced Carmelite nuns

in Mexico, the image arrived along with an Augustinian Recollect mission to Manila in 1618.

She remains the patroness of what is now the San Sebastian Basilica in Quiapo, Manila, and devotion to her and the Holy Scapular of Carmel continues to run deep among many Catholics.

In 1991, Saint John Paul II himself declared the country’s only all-steel building a Shrine of the Canonically Crowned Image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

It was in July 1975 when the original ivory head and hands of the statue were stolen from the main retablo of the church.

Zabala said they are willing to negotiate for the return of the icon’s ivory parts “but just the same we need to identify the person who bought them.”

“If they want to return it quietly, then no questions asked... thank you!” he said. “And if you want us to buy it again, then tell us and we will raise the funds in order to recover them.”

Roy Lagarde/CBCPNews

Bernard’s parents, Tescelin de Fontaine and Alethe de Montbard, belonged to the highest nobility of Burgundy.

Born in 1090 in Fontaines, France, he was a cheerful, handsome, intelligent and lovable student. He was schooled in a college at Chatillon, known for its piety and recollection. He continued to study Theology and Scriptures.

At 22, while at prayer, he felt God’s calling to religious life. He presented himself to Saint Stephen, the Abbot of the Benedictines at Citeaux. With him were 30 young noblemen; four of them are his brothers, friends and relatives, all willing to join the monastic way of life.

After three years, he was sent with 12 monks to a forested place in the valley of Wormwood to establish another Cistercian community, which he called Clairvaux.

The center became known for hard work, self-denial and prayer.

His reputation for holiness spread that 130 monks entered the monastery, which included his father.

O n Ju ne 25, 1115, C l a i r vaux—the white monks known tod ay a s t he Trappi st s, w a s founded. It contributed to the renewal of the church in Europe, and new monasteries were established in the Dioceses of Chalons in 1118, Autum in 1119 and Laon in 1121. A general chapter was convened and on December 23, 1119, Pope Calixtus approved the constitution of the order.

After 40 years, it had 300 monasteries in Europe.

Much-sought-after peacemaker

Bernar d t rave led to br i ng peace and unity in the church.

He was a mediator and counselor of several civil and ecclesiastical councils. A confidant of five popes, he, too, was one.

W hen schism broke in the church due to the election of two popes, he was chosen to judge between the rival popes. He, likewise, worked relentlessly to condemn the unorthodox teachings of Peter Abelard, Arnold of Brescia and Gilbert de la Poree.

Bernard was also tasked to preach about the Crusades—the military expeditions organized by the church to liberate the Holy Land from Islam, which started in 1096. With the defeat of Christians at Edessa and with the fall of Holy Land under the powers of Seljuk Turks, Pope Eugenius III called for the Second Crusades (1147-1150) and commissioned Bernard to preach about it.

Traveling from Italy to Germany and France, he inspired people to join the Crusades to reassert Christian domination in the Holy Land. Two armies marched to the Holy Land, led by Kings Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany. The Crusades was a failure.

Historians attributed the defeat mainly to lack of cohesiveness and cooperation. It was a situation that was logistically demanding. But, Bernard was blamed. He deemed it his duty to send an apology to the pope and included this in his Book of Considerations.

‘Doctor mellifluus’

Pope Pius XII , on the occasion of the eighth centenary of Bernard’s death, described his teachings as mellifluus, the Latin for “sweet as honey.” As a contemplative concerned with the issues of life, he was described as “imbued with resonance and a poetic genius,” by Encyclopedia Britannica.

Allied to his gift to communicate well, God gifted him with healing. He restored the speech of an old man so he can confess his sins before his death.

Among his literary outputs are the Treatise on Grace and Free Will, Theology of Christian Holiness, Commentary on Song of Songs and Treatise on Love of God. He died at the age of 63 on August 20, 1153. He was buried in Clairvaux Abbey and transferred to Troyes Cathedral in 1792. He was canonized in 1174 by Pope Alexander III and declared Doctor of the Church in 1830 by Pope Pius VIII. Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna and Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.

Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror

Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

Sunday, August 20, 2017 A7

A homage to history

By Vernon Velasco

I

HAD seen Rizal Park Hotel somewhere, but I can’t quite remember where. If I may hazard a guess, it might be in a picture-perfect postcard lost in a pile of its kind, gathering a veneer of permanent dust.

Rizal Park Hotel’s grand porte cochere defining the familiar façade of the stately white structure.

After 30 years of abandonment, the old Army and Navy Club is restored accurately to bring back its old charm. The photo shows structure’s selfsame octagonal lobby.

Because, at the outset, the hotel is an item from another time, something that gives you an instant affinity with the place and merits the same whimsical regard as when you look at a starry night sky and you suddenly have a feeling you were once there.

Essentially, the hotel in question wedged in a nook right smack at kilometer zero is, if you will, a revival of the phantom-old Army and Navy Club that once became a derelict of the past.

In 1911 the Army and Navy Club ( built as early as 1898) was established as part of Daniel Bur nham’s Cit y Beautif u l

Movement. Designed by American architect William Parsons, who, what with the dominant use of arches, was also behind the design of the august city’s iconic historical landmarks, the club was an exclusive happening place in the early-1900s of American military officers and A-list of old who danced away twisted on the f loor in nightgowns until the wee hours.

With a reputation as among the best of its type in the world, the structure having weathered 30 years of abandon to this day old patrons would walk down the august halls savoring every

As they were back in the day, the rooms at Rizal Park Hotel are as stately and elegant, sans the gloomy feel to it.

part of the American social club with hints of nostalgic recall: a happy dance, a tête-à-tête, a first kiss on the poolside from a G.I. named Patterson.

Like most national-heritage structures, the plan was to restore, retrofit and rehabilitate the architectural monument to

bring back the spirit of the place and recapture its old charm.

Because what is now aptly named R izal Park Hotel plays a cultural role, one that celebrates histor y and a beacon at the center of a world heritage city, whose track on progress is hinged on cultural tourism and

revitalizing old downtowns.

The restoration and redevelopment of the club into a boutique hotel put into principal consideration the building’s historical significance, preserving its original beams and columns by retrofitting them, while the floor slabs were reinforced concrete.

The original grand staircase (which was once trodden by icons with commensurate historical significance, think Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Adm. George Dewey, Leonard Wood) punctuate the same octagonal lobby, and the fullglass windows pronounced by extruded window ornaments are in place, instead of the original capiz.

The club’s balcony railings were precast; Doric columns retained; the grand porte cochere defining the familiar façade of the stately white structure beckons the way it did in the days of yore.

The boutique hotel tinged in light and earthy colors; the floors paved with tiles instead of carpets, Rizal Park Hotel has 76 guest rooms (standard room, deluxe room, junior suite, premier suite, premier suite with ante room, army navy club suite), which, as the hotel general manager Paolo Sumera puts it, are “elegant and as is back in the day, sans the gloomy feel to it” As Army Navy was the place to be for a gourmand food trip, an al-fresco courtyard decked with old, old photos of officers dining in their uniforms has a merry mix of East and the West, Filipino and American, steaks, bagnet, thermidor, a pie stuffed with tender slabs of chicken (no matter that a finedining Chinese restaurant, as well as a hotel bakery and deli, are also in the works).

Like the old Army Navy Club, the hotel will have an infinity pool or two that will be situated knit next to a gym in the building’s annex. This, while a sky bar and a coffee bar will be in place of what used to be called the drunk’s row, a long bunk commandeered by officers who were at it until daylight, spinning tall tales and musings about a history waiting to happen.

Batanes: Beyond Postcard-Perfect Sceneries

old bicycle- making frequent stops to read the news out loud on a portable PA system wherever people are gathered.

The practice of pagmamano is alive and well in Batanes. We were told by our tour guide not to be surprised if kids would approach us, ask for our hand and bring it to their forehead while bowing toward us.

Ivatan Cuisine

Eating good food is one of life’s great pleasures. Pension Ivatan, a hotel and restaurant, became one of our food stops to recharge our batteries from the flurry of island activities we have. We ordered the Ivatan Platter, which is a medley of viands consisting of grilled Dibang (flying fish), grilled tuna, Luñis (Ivatan pork adobo), Uved (banana pith with mixed ground meat), Steamed Tatus (coconut crab), crispy beef ribs, vunes (taro stalks), fern salad and turmeric rice.

The feast of flavors was served on kabaya (breadfruit leaves).

For desserts, we had kamote flan and kamote roll—both of which we can’t stop eating and thought of ways we could make these desserts back home.

For refreshments, bottomless pours of lemongrass juice cooled us off from the heat.

Philtoa Batanes Caravan

S

By Cesar M. Cruz Jr.

easoned travelers have compared the topography of Batanes to that of New Zealand and S cotland.

The northernmost group of islands in the Philippines remains a top-of-mind destination of avid Filipino travelers.

For this reason, the Rediscover Batanes Caravan by the Philippine Tour Operators Association (Philtoa) was a rousing success.

Consumers, tour operators and Philtoa officers all took time off from their busy schedules to explore and imbibe the beauty of Batanes; whether it will be for the first time or the nth time. The four day-and-three-night itinerary consisted of a North Batan Island Tour, Sabtang “Island Discovery” and a Batan South Tour.

The marriage of breathtaking landscapes and seascapes remains to be the main reason to visit Batanes. Indeed, time stops when you explore its grandeur. Your inner voice seems to speak louder as nature drowns down the noise of negativity. Just try standing atop Vayang Rolling Hills or Marlboro Hills (a view that seems to be lifted from the pages of National Geographic) and be mesmerized by nature.

Diversity of flora and fauna

One need not be a photographer nor a researcher to appreciate the charms of Batanes—wanting to be as close to nature as possible is good enough reason.

Rediscovering Batanes

Basco Light House on Naidi Hills

“You have varieties [of flora and fauna] endemic to the place and also a lot of migratory fauna coming into the island of Batanes. Even, for example, the common tree you see in the lowland area—what you see here is actually the dwarfed version of these trees. You don’t really see them growing that high because of the weather condition.

In Batanes the wind and the adversity of some weather conditions make the fauna interesting and quite unique,” Philtoa President Cesar Cruz beams with pride.

Getting into the action, our group embarked on an hour-long nature trail walk toward and from the Nakayama burial grounds, a site of archaeological significance.

The location is marked by stones forming the shape of a boat with the tip pointing toward the sea.

Cultural immersion

To know a place is to interact (and live) with its people. Caravan participants got a chance to experience living like native inhabitants of Sabtang island when we had a homestay accommodation. This writer, along with several of his group mates, got to stay overnight at the limestone house of Nanay Masing. She is a kind, old lady who will not trade living in her stone house with living abroad. As with this writer’s interaction with other locals, he noticed a healthy sense of Ivatan pride in them, at the same time maintaining a down-to-earth and wellmannered demeanor.

We also witnessed how a bandillo, or “town crier”, spreads the news of an upcoming brownout among the town people.

A woman in her 30s would pedal her trusty

“All these things you have seen before is always being enhanced still by nature. It caters to low-impact tourism. Everything is still intact, the way you have seen it five, 10, or 15 years ago. There is some developments happening—there is now a 24-hour electrical service in most parts of the island. There is now the communication system, but still, you have to thank the people of Batanes in putting some hold in rapid development, in terms of infrastructure, in any tourism destination,” Philtoa Cruz concluded.

Rediscover Batanes is one of the seven caravans that will be presented at the annual Philippine Travel Mart from September 1 to 3 at the SMX Convention Center under the theme “50 Shades of Fun at Visit Asean @ 50”. Philtoa is copresenting the 28th Philippine Travel with the Tourism Promotions Board.

Bohol to host vintage-car rally

T

our de Cebu, the country’s only 1 , 0 0 0 - ki l o m e te r s to u r i s t i c a n d historic sports-car rally for vintage cars, returns to the bucolic province of Bohol from October 20 to 22 for its fourth edition.

Dubbed Touristic Rally, Across the Visayas, the motoring event is inspired

by Italy’s Mille Miglia rally which gives emphasis on time accuracy over speed.

Better known as a time-speed-distance rally, participating cars should be model 1972 or older, and must be at the checkpoints at the designated times.

Presenting the annual motoring event are the Performance and Classic Enthusiasts (PACE) of Cebu and the Manila Sports Car Club (MSCC).

Over 50 participants are expected to join, including international drivers from Hong Kong and Singapore.

Last year’s edition kicked off in Cebu City and made its way to Tubigon, Bohol, onboard a roll-on, roll-off (Roro) boat.

Thirty-three vintage cars made its way through the scenic route of Bohol’s landscape and capped each end of the Bohol route at the triple A luxury resort Be Grand Resort in Panglao Island.

Behind the wheels were the crème de la crème of the country’s motoring community, such as CNN Philippines’s automotive journalist James Deakin; wo r l d - re n ow n e d d e s i g n e r Ke n n e t h

Cobonpue; and business tycoons Michael Lhuillier, Darren Deen, Rep. Red Duran of Cebu and hotelier Grand Benedicto.

First-time and youngest participant, Martin Aguilar, took home the trophy as the champion for the third Tour de Cebu.

“The reason we’re coming back is because it was just so phenomenal last year [the Tour De Cebu event] in Bohol; from the amazing hosting of the local government and students—the local support was high,” enthuses PACE Chairman Michael Lhuillier.

He said the race was conceptualized to celebrate a decade of friendships formed and shaped by the open road, but has blossomed into a major driver for road tourism, highlighting the beautiful roads and the scenic spots in the Visayas.

He added that the tour has captured the imagination of many classic-car enthusiasts and fans, as well as contributed to the fact that “It’s more fun in the Philippines”.

The Bohol route is still being finalized, but local tourism officials said this year’s event will pass through the lesser-known, but equally scenic, roads.

Th e e ve n t i s m a n a g e d a n d c o organized by Tradeshow International Inc., while rally management is handled

by Pro Dynamix Management by Pepon Marave, with the support the Province of Bohol, the Municipality of Panglao and Be Grand Resort.

Science

BusinessMirror

A8 Sunday, August 20, 2017

Sunday

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

Setup elevates MSMEs to higher level

By Rizal Raoul Reyes @brownindio

C

auayan City, Isabela-based Agricomponent Machineries and Construction Corp.

(AMCC), one of the top suppliers of modern agricultural machineries and equipment in the country, experienced business challenges in its operations during its fledgling days. It had limited fabrication equipment, resulting in inadequate production capacity and low production due to slow production processes from 1993 to 2012.

Betis Crafts Inc. (BCI) in Concepcion, Tarlac, needed the assistance for the introduction and adoption of cutting-edge woodworking technologies, to upgrade the existing processing facilities and address quality issues to be able to meet the quality and quantity demand of current and target markets.

The Bohol Bee Farm Resort and Franchising Corp. needed upgrading of its homemade ice cream, processing technologies to increase production capacity and to extend product shelf life. Furthermore, it also aimed to upgrade the skills of its workers through technology.

These micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and many others, turned to the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (Setup) for succor.

A creation of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) in 2002, Setup aims to support Filipino entrepreneurs in key metropolitan areas and economic hubs in the countryside and provide MSMEs distinct competitive advantage, DOST-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD) said.

MSMEs

The DOST recognizes that MSMEs sec-

tor is a vital cog to the economy. Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data cited that MSMEs compose 99.5 percent of the 900,914 establishments in the country as of 2015. It generated a total of 4,784,870 jobs in 2015 against 2,981,819 by large enterprises.

Moreover, MSMEs contributed almost 61.6 percent of the total jobs generated by all types of business establishments. Of these, 29.4 percent, or 2,285,634 jobs, were generated by micro enterprises; 25.3 percent, or 1,968,452, by small enterprises; and 6.8 percent, or 530,784, by medium enterprises.

Aware of the impact of the MSMEs as growth driver, the DOST assumed the role of enabling the MSMEs through the appropriate use of science, technology and innovation to move them higher in the value chain.

Setup

Through Setup, the DOST is able to respond to the public’s demand to improve access to technologies and breakthroughs developed by the different DOST facilities. Setup’s objective is to help MSMEs utilize technological innovations and scientific processes that improve business productivity and efficiency.

Setup assisted MSMEs to improve their productivity and increase efficiency through the infusion of appropriate DOST technologies.

MMSEs, especially those based in the provinces, are empowered by providing them with technologies that offer stronger capability t o become more productive, competitive (locally and globally) and bankable. Thus, MSMEs are given the opportunities to become major players in the international arena of commerce and industry, the DOST said.

Setup focuses on facilitating technology transfer and assessment but also assists MSMEs through different interventions: 1) seed fund for technology acquisition, 2) equipment acquisition, 3) technical trainings and consultancy services (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points and Good Manufacturing Practices, Quality and Environmental Management System), 4) packaging and label design; 5) database information system, and 6) support in the establishment of product standards including testing and calibration of equipment.

Game changer

I n its 15th year, there is no doubt that Setup is a game changer and has invigorated and transformed the MSMEs with technology-backed business activities and strategies. These innovations have opened up a new avenue of economic growth that will promote inclusive growth, the DOSTPCIEERD said.

Setup has since accomplished several milestones: 1. The total funding assistance for Setup beneficiaries as of 2016 is P3.336 billion; 2. The total number of assisted enterprises as of 2016 is 4,363 with a record of 37-percent productivity improvement; 3. The total number of jobs generated as of 2016 is 167,939; and 4. The number of technology interventions as of 2016 is 50,370, consisting of consultancy services, training, packaging assistance, design and labeling.

Setup beneficiaries

n AMCC: The company sought the support of the DOST’s Cagayan Valley office through Setup. The DOST provided assistance

worth P2.165 million. It enabled AMCC to acquire a highly mechanized equipment.

The Hydraulic Press Brake was purchased and series of technical trainings were provided to improve AMCC’s services.

As a result, its production capacity increased and the skilled workers were able to craft high quality and innovative outputs.

Over the years, AMCC’s market expanded and is now sharing its success to other firms and people. The company is outsourcing metals and job contracts to DOST-assisted MSMEs, including Genez’s Welding Shop, Pablo’s Welding Shop, Matallog’s Welding Shop and Sammy’s Welding Shop.

The firm also extends on-the-job trainings for Technical Education and Skills Development Authority students.

Besides, AMCC has its own research and development plan. It has developed innovative products, which are now being commercialized. Also, the company accepts customized fabrication and after sales services for their clients.Through Setup’s assistance, AMCC’s stature got a boost resulting in becoming a member of the Equipment Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) R2, an organization for metal equipment manufacturers in Cagayan Valley, and in Metals International Association of the Philippines.

It was also able to develop a good working relationship with the other members of EMC, as they allowed the corporation to use their materials. These materials are fabricated and purchased by local and international enterprises, including local start-up businesses. The growth AMCC’s business enabled them to establish a production center indicating AMCC’s business continue to soar even higher.

n BCI: Before the DOST’s intervention in 2012, BCI produced 11,236 furniture units, including beds, chairs, cabinets and tables.

After utilizing and maximizing the technologies provided by Setup, BCI achieved a 40-percent increase in production volume to 15,757 furniture units in 2016.

In 2016, after BCI have fully utilized and maximized the woodworking technologies provided by Setup, a volume of 15,757 combined furniture units were produced which is equivalent to a high of 40-percent increase in production. This increase means a significant return for the business.

Before the Setup intervention, the gross sales was P102.254 million in 2012. In 2016, BCI posted an increase of 64 percent to P167.88 million annual gross sales, five times higher than the projected increase of 11 percent. Furthermore, the 2016 sales was the highest recorded sales in the history of BCI and is expected to increase in years to come.

BCI attributed the increased in gross sales to the expansion of export market.

BCI also beefed up its work force. The 240 regular employees in 2012 increased to 270 workers in 2016. On top of this, the additional 225 man-year project-based and extra workers were hired from 2012 to 2015.

About 95 percent of production volume is exported to Europe, Midde East, North America and Asia, and 5 percent are sold to domestic buyers. The firm has individual and institutional buyers in Iran, Dubai, Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the US. BCI regularly participates in furniture shows/trade fairs/exhibit in Singapore, China, France and Italy. One of these, is the Maison & Objet Show in Paris, the premier furniture exhibit that showcases world’s

leading designers and artisans.

BCI also maintains a showroom in Guagua, Pampanga, for its walk-in clients and local buyers. The firm also participates regularly in exhibits organized by Philippine International Furniture Show, Manila Fame and Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions. n Bohol Bee Farm: One of the recent top 5 finalists among the 16 regional finalists in the Search for Best Setup Adoptor, Bohol Bee Farm sought the expertise of the program for upgrading of its processing technologies to increase production and to upgrade the skills of its workers through technology in its earlier years of operation.

Setup provided consultancy services and technical assistance. Consultancy services included the manufacturing productivity extension program and food-safety consultancy. Technical assistance were the provision of food safety and good manufacturing practice, processing plant layout, training on basic food sanitation, hygiene and current good operation/manufacturing practices, product packaging and labeling and product development to increase product shelf life.

After availing itself of Setup’s expertise, Bohol Bee Farm’s income from its homemade ice cream reached P8.16 million, from P4.68 million before intervention. Gross sales increased to P16.32 million after Setup intervention, from P9.32 million before the intervention.

This year Bohol Bee Farm was cited as Inspiring Tourism/Negosyo Entrepreneur Award by the Department of Trade and Industry, Go Negosyo. In 2013 the company was cited as the top taxpayer of Bohol by the Central Visayas office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Journey

»life on the go

BusinessMirror

Editor: Tet Andolong

Sunday, August 20, 2017

A9

Iloilo’s eclectic expressions Story & photos by Bernard L. Supetran

A

SK any jaded traveler on his ideal destination and, chances are, he’ll tell you he loves the place with the perfect blend of the old and the new facets of a provincial urban center.

Such is the case of Iloilo City, which is an eclectic mix of old world charm and a bustling metropolis living side by side.

Widely known for the soughtafter world-famous Dinagyang Festival, it first became a city during the Spanish era and was bestowed by Queen Regent Maria Cristina the title “La Muy Leal Y Noble Ciudad” (The Most Loyal and Noble City).

It was later called “Queen Regent’s City in the South” because of its prominent place in the political, economic and religious landscape during the colonial era.

A journey to Iloilo’s checkered past begins with Jaro, the heritage and upscale district of the city, then and now. In this quintessential village proudly stand the colonial-era ancestral homes, which have survived the ravages of time, the destruction of World War 2 and the neglect of the new generation of owners.

A few notable mansions remain resplendent and serve as cultural gems, not just of the district, but the whole of Iloilo province, as well. Among these are Casa Mariquit, the mansionturned-museum of former Philippine Vice President Fernando Lopez; and the Magdalena Jalandoni mansion, which now hosts the Kasanag Well-Being Center that offers traditional Ilonggo hilot massage.

Another noteworthy mansion is the stately Nelly Garden, which is said to be Iloilo’s “Queen of Heritage Houses”, which was built in 1928 and patterned after the Beaux Art of French chateaus. The former home of philanthropist and statesman Don Vicente Lopez and his wife Doña Elena Hofileña, this used to be the watering hole of local gentry for social events during the colonial days.

Others have become “living museums” inhabited by new owners, while others have undergone adaptive reuse, such as restaurants, convenience stores, offices and shops, to give them a new lease on life.

An iconic structure in the plaza is the Cathedral of the Our Lady of Purification, the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Jaro.

This church, where orator-hero Graciano Lopez Jaena was baptized, is of special note as its postcard-pretty belfry is located across the street.

Meanwhile, Calle Real or J.M. Basa Saint, the downtown area which hosted shop houses of Chinese traders and ilustrado houses underwent urban renewal to bring back its glory days. Aside

Sinamay loom weaving at Camiña Balay nga Bato

from being eye candy with their spruced-up facades, guests can actually enter the old buildings and marvel at its well-preserved conditions, and savor the good old-style food at the homegrown restaurants.

On the other side of the city is the quaint Molo district, another heritage village, which has managed to preserve its soul despite urbanization. Commonly known for the tasty pansit molo ground pork broth, the area’s core is the Gothic-style Church of Saint Anne and boasts of an all-female saints standing on each pillar. Built in 1831, it is said that Dr. Jose Rizal made a pit stop here to pray and admired its ornate religious art.

The hallowed walls of this majestic church will reverberate with music as the Manila Symphony Orchestra, the country’s oldest orchestra, performs Filipino and Western classics on August 25 as part of Iloilo’s 80th City Charter Day observance.

A stone’s throw away is the Camiña Balay nga Bato, the 1865 Avanceña House, which is now a one-stop curio shop, sinamay and hablon weaving room, café and a living museum where guests can interact with the local folks.

In the nooks and crannies of the city are other equally intriguing antediluvian structures in La Paz and Arevalo, which have interesting tales to tell and native delicacies to offer.

But the Queen’s City as it is, Iloilo isn’t frozen somewhere in time. It is, in fact, a fast-growing metropolis evident in its changing skyline propelled by the opening of the new international airport in Cabatuan town in 2009.

In the early 1990s, the local government adopted the shortlived battle cry “Think Big, Think Iloilo”, which aims to make it a super-city in the country’s south.

Two decades later, this gung-ho attitude is paying dividends, as the city is among the preferred locations for business and leisure, not only in Western Visayas, but by the big players in the industry.

Its modern face is evident in the Iloilo Business Park, a master-planned community project of Megaworld in the old airport site in Mandurriao. The enclave is teeming with malls, star-rated hotels, restaurants, high-rise office buildings, condominiums, and recreational and tourism related establishments.

At the core of this expansive property is the state-of-the-art Iloi-

Church of Santa Anne Robbie Robles

Iloilo River Esplanade Robbie Robles

lo City Convention Center, which aims to make the city a new hub for MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) on a par with the country’s best.

This new spanking events place will play host to a gala concert of the Manila Symphony Orchestra on August 26 and the national convention of the prestigious Association of Tourism

Nelly’s Garden

Officers of the Philippines this October, which will gather thousands of the country’s domestic tourism frontliners.

Another source of the Ilonggo’s pride of place nowadays is the Iloilo River Esplanade, a 1.2-kilometer landscaped path for walking, biking, jogging and open-air recreational activities.

Regarded as one of the country’s

most stunning baywalks, the Esplanade is anchored on the successful revival of the once-polluted river, which is a showcase of the people’s will to protect the environment with its mangrove reforestation at the river banks.

While shuttling between the old and modern facets of Iloilo, feast on local cuisine, such as batchoy, chicken inasal, binakol,

Casa Mariquit

pansit molo and laswa cooked the traditional and contemporary way, in the numerous stand-alone and mall-based dining outlets.

If you can’t have enough of the city’s eclectic expressions, the bigger world of Iloilo province and Panay Island, and everything in between, are yours for the taking.

Journey

»life on the go

A10 Sunday, August 20, 2017

Editor: Tet Andolong

Where luxury meets affordability

L

By Faye Pablo

UCKY for us, the recent Asean Summit gave us a chance to enjoy a prolonged weekend getaway, which allowed us to enjoy the scorching heat of the sun in each of our favorite local tourist spots.

Since it was declared quite late, however, booking a reservation at a cost-friendly hotel/ resort became quite difficult for most of us.

So, while browsing for the best and nearest spot to spend the long weekend, I chanced upon a promo on Metrodeal, a site that offers discounted vouchers in establishments that offer both luxury and affordability. Right away, I bought the voucher for only P2,000 per night at Amihan del Sol at the Boracay of the South—Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro.

To reach Puerto Galera, you have to travel three hours by

land onboard a bus to Batangas port and another hour by sea to Muelle Pier in Puerto Galera. To avoid any hassle, it’s best to book a roundtrip ticket when you arrive at the Batangas port, then spend just P50 to reach Amihan del Sol by shuttle.

Once you set foot in Amihan del Sol, you have to ascend 109 steps to reach the resort proper, where the staff will welcome you with an ice-cold drink, which is genuinely refreshing.

From the resort, the view is breathtaking. You will see the beauty and serenity of Puerto Galera, surrounded by trees and the sparkling, diamond-like clear

water of the ocean. It is truly magical. When we entered the rooms reserved for us, we found that they were ready for occupancy. Mine was just perfect. It beckoned to me to relax and unwind from the stress of the city.

Minimally designed and decked in white and brown, the ambiance was earthly and conducive to a natural island escapade.

The light-colored curtains and sheets made we want to stay in bed all day.

Worthy of mention is its fivestar bathroom equipped with a huge bathtub wherein you can enjoy a relaxing candlelight bubble bath. The resort has an infinity pool and Jacuzzi, and, since there are only five rooms, you are guaranteed that the pool will never be crowded because of too many guests. You can actually have the whole pool to yourself while getting a tan, viewing the sunset or when you feel like taking a dip at night.

The room was made extra special because of the veranda, which opens to the view of the Puerto Galera White Beach. Since Amihan del Sol is located along the highway of Aninuan, Puerto Galera, it is actually 20 minutes away from the famous White Beach. The very accommodating staff will assist you in getting a ride to the White Beach and back to the resort, choosing your meals or searching for another room when you want to extend

your stay in Puerto Galera in the event Amihan is fully booked.

Checking into a world-class hotel in the metropolis really costs a lot. It’s a good thing there is a place like Amihan del Sol. Staying there is something that all working millennials should experience.

Note: Amihan del Sol will be closed from June to August for renovation. In the meantime, you may visit www.amihandelsol.com for inquiries and updates.

Five distinct features of a family-friendly resort M

OST children have a daily routine of experiences that may unwittingly shield them from significant learning opportunities.

Taking them out of that “daily bubble” allows them new perspectives that can “reshape how they view the world”, according to stuffedsuitcase.com.

With 157,000,000 entries generated by the search words “traveling with kids’’, parents today apparently perceive family travel as one of the more effective ways to reshape and broaden their children’s horizons. “We have families of various nationalities that have been visiting us annually for some time now. A few come as often as four times a year,” said Mark Cerqueda, director of operations for Miniloc Island, one of the four El Nido Resorts in Northern Palawan.

The other island resorts in the collection are Apulit, Lagen and Pangulasian.

Even infants and toddlers traveling with parents are part of Miniloc’s guest profile, attesting to the readiness of the island resort, along with the three other properties, to cater to families.

Parents traveling with their children prioritize destinations that allow them to have significant

simply enjoy the sand and surf or want time to read books, they also have the option to spend the day at a beach club.

learning experiences, as well as to meet their other key needs, said Joey Bernardino, marketing director of El Nido Resorts. Here are some of those needs.

Ready for rain

A wide range of activities that preferably don’t include gadgets or TV

Miniloc’s location within a quiet cove within a protected bay gives rise to its most appreciated amenity, a private finesand beach enjoyed by babies, as well as adults. In addition, island hopping, snorkeling, kayaking, sunset cruising and stargazing, among other ecotours and activities, are all part of the room rate.

This arrangement encourages families to try them all—to the delight of active children, most of whom stop looking for entertainment from a TV set after their first day at Miniloc. (There are none in the rooms.) But nothing is quite as memorable as swimming with the resident silver jacks with assuring guides nearby.

Safety first

At El Nido Resorts, life vests for every guest are required for every boat trip. Moreover, every activity is supervised by a guide equipped to apply first aid and life-saving procedures.

El Nido Resorts’ long experience in garnering high guestsatisfaction ratings include being prepared for bad weather when guests may be confined indoors. Film showings, cooking and tinikling sessions and ecodiscovery lectures are some of the ways the staff keep visitors engaged. In addition, they are quick to tickle young minds with activities, like leaf origami, hat weaving, table tennis, foose ball and board games.

Accommodations for families

The guides, who undergo nature-interpretation courses, are also trained to make guests highly appreciate their unique surroundings distinguished by dramatic limestone cliffs and crystal-blue waters, as well as to help guests adjust their snorkeling gear. Just as important, they veer guests

away from risky and nonenvironmentally friendly activities, like stepping on the corrals or wading into the world-famous Small Lagoon, where they may step on a stingray and risk getting bitten. El Nido Resorts guests are provided a dinghy into the lagoons for their convenience and safety.

Flexibility of schedule

At every El Nido Resort, a guest’s itinerary for the day is coordinated by a guest activity coordinator. This setup allows families some flexibility should a child decide to take a nap or take an extended bathroom break. Should a family decide to

Miniloc’s sea view rooms, which accommodate four, are convenient for families. Like the other El Nido Resorts, Miniloc provides a special rate for children under 11 years old while those under 6 years old stay for free. Nevertheless, the staff are helpless against one common occurrence—children tearfully begging their parents at the time of departure to extend their stay in El Nido Resorts or to move residence to this Palawan paradise.

Journey

»life on the go

Editor: Tet Andolong

Sunday, August 20, 2017 A11

Ashark Club opens T

By Jacqueline Salvador-Marvida

HE newest Chinese club opens its doors with a complete package for entertainment and events at the MOA Complex in Pasay City.

Ashark Club is the newest destination in the Metro that combines the best in ChineseFilipino cuisine, KTV entertainment and the finest event facilities in the country. Ashark Club takes its name from an actual live shark housed in the venue, which symbolizes fine dining and an aggressively modern aesthetic. The club serves as a conference venue, which can cater to big and small dining enthusiasts. The dining room can accommodate up to 200 guests, which is on second floor of Golden Phoenix Hotel.

The sprawling club occupies 1,600 square meters of floor

space divided into an expansive dining hall with four KTV rooms, which are equipped with modern sound systems and larger-thanlife screens, as well as seven VIP and conference rooms.

With Ashark Club’s KTV, the guests will get a complete dining and leisure experience through first-class state-of-the-art audio and video equipment, including touchscreen menu songs and massive flat-screen televisions.

Each room features a remote-controlled dining table, its own wash room, top-quality hardwood flooring, plush coffee tables and leather lounge chairs. Beautiful chandeliers gracefully hang

inside the KTV rooms alongside amazingly crafted paintings, wall décors and other accessories. Light fixtures change its colors as one sings along. An anteroom and service windows are available for the restaurant staff to provide first-class service of Ashark food and drinks without disturbing the fun.

Ashark Club takes pride when it comes to the authenticity of its food. It has its own team of culinary masters, led by Chef Mike Cheng, whose expertise comes all the way from Hong Kong. Chef Mike specializes in Cantonese cuisine. A total of seven chefs are in the team, in which five are Chinese and two Filipino chefs.

Dining is truly a gastronomic experience as guests go on to discover China’s interesting variety of regional dishes with their own distinct flavors and origins, like Szechuan, Cantonese and Hunan.

Must-try sumptuous dishes include marinated O.X shank, deep-fried Juglans Resia, assorted vegetable with salad, abalone with mixed dry seafood in thick soup, deep-fried pigeon, steamed red grouper with

Ashark Club lobby

peanut oil, deep-fried pechay, sautéed snow diced beef with black pepper, marinated jelly fish with black vinegar, sautéed prawns with long jin tea, pan-fried lamb chop, polonchay with wanton in soup and fried

may also “fish” for their own meal at the big aquariums that house live prawns, crabs, lobsters and different kinds of fish to satisfy one’s palate.

Visit www.asharkclub.com for more information.

Plush, luxurious KTV room

Private room

Dining room

rice with salmon.

All dishes are meticulously prepared using spices and ingredients sourced from China.

Guests peruse the many dishes from an iPad complete with photos, description and prices. They

Flying with African cheer

Thule Subterra Carry-On 40L Red

E

THIOPIAN Airlines, Africa’s largest airline, shares with us a moment of cheer as international travel publisher Rough Guides reports Ethiopia, its mother country, to be the top vote among the world’s most welcoming countries according to the site’s global network of followers.

As a country that was never colonized, Ethiopia’s tribal customs and welcoming disposition stems from the traditions of its ancient people. Exemplifying true African spirit and genuine service, Ethiopian Airlines gives us a glimpse of warm Ethiopian hospitality beginning in-flight.

A true marker of its cultural identity is the practices of its friendly and accommodating crew. Dressed in traditional Ethiopian costume, members of the cabin crew, along with the aircraft’s pilots and ground crew, were all trained at the Ethiopian Airlines flight academy in its capital, Addis Ababa. Hospitality goes beyond smiles and warm greetings, with quick moving staff members ready to address the needs of each passenger. Described to be among the kindest people on earth, the Ethiopian offers an experience of pleasant accommodation, reliability and positivity.

Recently awarded as the Best Airline in Africa in 2017’s Skytrax World Airline Awards, Ethiopian Airlines is also known to have the largest single in-flight catering facility in the continent with the capacity of producing over 100,000 meals every day. It received the “Outstanding Food Service by African Carrier” award this

year and offers a wide array of wines and special beverages within its business-class services. Dishes, such as the Injera, Ethiopia’s sourdough-risen bread, is served with rare Ethiopian spices, such as the Berbere-infused Doro wat; a spicy and red stew, which is enjoyed along a colorful mix of savory sauces and unique flavors. The airline also offers international choices, including Chinese, Indian, Italian and halal meals, among others.

“Ethiopian Airlines has been flying Filipinos to Ethiopia and the rest of the world via its hub in Addis Ababa since 2015. We keep the African spirit very much alive through our brand of service and hospitality. Filipinos love food and we know that Ethiopian dishes, although different from Filipino dishes, offer flavors that may be appreciated by the Pinoy palate,” Ethiopian Airlines Country Manager Solomon Bekele said.

“Together with our exceptional inflight services, we want Filipinos to have a unique flight experience like no other, offering them comfort and convenience through their travels, at the same time giving them the best that our culture has to offer. Ethiopia is not only a country with a distinct identity, but we also believe that we are a gateway to the rest of the world,” Bekele said.

At present, Ethiopian Airlines flies four times weekly from Manila to Addis Ababa with access to over 92 international destinations all over the world.

Thule Subterra Luggage 70CM Blue

Thule Subterra Luggage and Duffel 55CM Blue

Subterra Travel Backpack 34L

ting lot, the Subterra Luggage is a handy 2-in-1 piece that conveniently splits into two independent carry-on compliant pieces, making it easier for you to stay organized.

Choose between packing all your valuables into one large checked piece of luggage or two smaller carry-ons. The stylish duffel also handles smoothly as it is reinforced with tough, oversized wheels and V-tubing telescoping, which makes weaving through airport lines a cinch.

It allows for effortless travel, thanks to the piggyback strap attachment loop that allows an additional bag to be hooked on.

Live big, while packing just the bare minimum. Ensuring you a hassle-free travel, this carryon fits neatly in overhead bins and complies with carry-on requirements for most airlines. No more extra time spent waiting in line for check-in.

Enjoy a life with no limits as Thule gives you the comfort, security and convenience to live in the moment.

Going over and beyond W

HEN faced with the demands of modern travel, a luggage is rarely built to last. Thanks to Thule’s extensive experience in designing products for the toughest outdoor and indoor environments, it has developed a collection that won’t just look good on your first trip away, but in all your travels for years to come.

Whether you’re exploring exotic cities and cultures across the globe, or discovering your roots in the farthest corners of the Philippine islands, Thule becomes your ultimate travel partner with its newest collection of sleek, durable bags and luggage—Subterra. Stylish, versatile and resilient, the Thule Subterra travel bag collection offers luggage and backpacks that help you live out your wildest adventures.

Subterra Carry-On 40L

A light packer’s and adventurer’s dream, the Thule Subterra Carry-On is a versatile, softsided bag designed to help maximize packing space. It can be car-

ried two ways: as a backpack and a shoulder bag (all straps neatly tuck away when not in use). Stuff your clothes, pack away your valuables, as well as separate your shoes and dirty laundry from your other belongings with ease, thanks to its multipurpose compartment. For business executives and young professionals, the carry-on has a separate sleek laptop sleeve with tablet storage, PowerPocket and accessory organization. Feel more secure while you’re on the go.

Subterra Luggage 70cm/28"

This 2-in-1 travel and duffel bag sports a wide-mouth access and divided main compartments to easily pack and organize your travel essentials. The spacious rolling duffel also protects your valuables from the elements with durable, water-resistant materials. Easily access your keys, wallet and smaller items through the zippered pocket, while keep belongings in place throughout your trip with the external compression straps.

Techies and young working professionals don’t have to worry about their prized gadgets and devices as they can snugly pack their valuables in the travel backpack. The nifty backpack functions both as a travel bag and an everyday backpack, so enjoy its versatility in your everyday life, too. Safely store your laptop (15" MacBook Pro or 15.6" PC) in the padded laptop sleeve with SafeEdge construction and secure flap closure, and keep your accessories, such as cords and chargers, neatly put away in the internal PowerPocket and packing cube. (Use the same cube to pack clothes for effortless travel.) Additional storage is available for your tablet with the dedicated pocket with soft, interior lining. Easily access any of your devices through the wide roll top opening with magnetic closure, side zippers and access panels.

Subterra Luggage 55cm/22"

A must-have for the jet-set-

Journey BusinessMirror

»life on the go

A12 Sunday, August 20, 2017

Editor: Tet Andolong

Dining like Duterte in Davao

Kadayawan Festival food

I

THE TOURISM ADVOCATE

F you want to understand President Duterte, try eating like him.

Energy drink Kinutil

That’s a food challenge, which I took up recently while in town for a business conference.

It started with the Dabawenyo energy drink Kinutil (the opposite of inutile), made of age-sharpened cacao, fermented coconut (tuba) and a raw egg for good measure.

With a bit of brown sugar and served with a sticky brown-rice cake, I definitely felt charged-up, like the workers who rely on the hot beverage for energy.

The next presidential delicacy I dug into was fresh head of tuna stewed in vinegar. I am told this is one of the President’s favorite meals. One thing is for sure, you can’t delicately eat this with a fork and spoon. If you want to get at the good stuff, you must be prepared to get your hands dirty.

I found the fatty and rich eye to perfectly contrast the sour broth, which I crammed finger-full of rice into and slurped away happily.

Marco Polo Davao’s lechon

My handshake left an aroma the rest of the day.

In the middle of the tour, we had our earthly delights interrupted by the divine Olive Puntaspinas, who holds the distinction of being the foremost cheese maker in the Philippines. We sat at her tasting table and sampled a soft, ripe, blue-veined goat cheese called blush, which could stack up to any European cutting board.

Olive’s strong rough hands and easy smile almost distract you from a keen mind that invents

and explores through her food.

The dairy industry of the region is proudly supported by local establishments, like Marco Polo, who have the distinction of serving the best-tasting fresh milk I have ever had in an Asian Hotel.

Then came merienda…can I call it that? heaviest snack in the history of snacks. We had this rich, oily pork stew, which our guide laughed as he referred to it as “antiaging”. My mouth salivated and my arteries trembled.

The humble family eatery, where

we sat on stools and ate with the owner, was plastered with banners supporting the President and photos the two of them together. Clearly, we were dining on the most delicious political pork ever, guiltless in intent, if not in cholesterol.

Back at the Marco Polo, they were celebrating K adayawan sa Davao, an annual festival of the city, which comes from the greeting Madayaw, which roughly translates to “All the best”.

Arts, plushy Eagles and T’nalak

are spilling over everywhere, but I’m looking for something a little more “11 tribes and spices”.

Davao loves celebrating its tribal heritage and the hotel put ethnic delicacies front and center.

I got through Maranaw, Tausug and Kalangan dishes before tapping out, but you could taste the love of culture and pride of place in every bite. Maybe this is what it’s like to live in the Philippines where our culture is loved and honored. I’m going to bed, full and happy.