Businessmirror december 16, 2017

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TRANSCO STARTS PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION INTO A TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES PROVIDER

PAVING THE WAY FOR THE

RODJULIAN | DREAMSTIME

THIRD TELCO PLAYER

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By Lenie Lectura

RESIDENT Duterte’s policy pronouncement of breaking the duopoly in the telco industry via the entry of a Chinese third player has moved every stakeholder concerned.

The National Transmission Corp. (Transco), for instance, has started gathering support for its plan to include telecommunications services in its charter, so it could partner with the third player.

“I already forwarded to the secretary of the Department of Energy [DOE] and to our board my position paper to convert Transco from utility company to a utility

telco,” Transco President lawyer Melvin Matibag said.

The DOE, for its part, said it would support Transco’s plan. “It is good to provide consumers more choices,” Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi said.

Transco was created under Republic Act (RA) 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) of 2001.

Since March 1, 2003, Transco operated and managed the powertransmission system that links power plants to the electric-distribution utilities nationwide. The same law mandated the privatization of Transco through an outright sale or management concession agreement.

Precious assets

FOLLOWING a public bidding

conducted in December 2007, the Transco concession was awarded to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), which eventually secured a congressional franchise to operate the transmission network through RA 9511.

Transco turned over the management and operation of its nationwide transmission system to Continued on A2

PHL’s airport of the future must be built now

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By Roger Pe

IX (at one point, seven) of the world’s 10 best airports are in Asia, and the first three are also in the region. What do all of them have in common? They are destinations by themselves, almost entirely resembling resorts, built by architects and engineers with impeccable design, efficiency and utmost passenger comfort in mind.

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.3980

They were intended to give more, not just what any people would probably think what a normal airport is—duty-free shopping, departure lounges, boarding gates, nothing more. But there’s more.

Singapore’s Changi Airport, as everyone knows, is an attraction by itself. It is an airport that you don’t mind getting marooned for hours, or days, because you will never run

out of things to do in this “resort” of an airport.

From the time it was opened in 1981, it now serves over 24 million passengers a year with a wider selection of shopping, dining and relaxation choices, designed to give passengers the best airport experience of their traveling time.

Bottom line is, it has not exceeded its terminal handling capacity and

keeps rolling with the times.

After a revamp in 1991, it added Terminal 2 and has become a nonstop entertainment hub. No wonder, it’s been consistently named Asia’s best airport, and then, as world’s best.

In 2008 it launched Terminal 3 and positioned itself as a “Green Terminal,” with natural skylight and attractions you would never expect to see in an airport. Imag-

ine butterfly, fern, sunflower, cactus and orchid gardens featuring over 200 varieties of foliage and butterfly species, making you feel invigorated even if you are in the middle of a busy airport.

This year Changi opened Terminal 4 and brought a whole new world of innovations that redefined people’s travel experience, See “Airport,” A2

n JAPAN 0.4490 n UK 67.6946 n HK .4550 n CHINA 7.6251 n SINGAPORE 37.4651 n AUSTRALIA 38.6553 n EU 59.4192 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.4395

Source: BSP (15 December 2017 )

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Paving the way for the third telco player Continued from a1

the NGCP in January 2009. Ownership of all transmission assets, however, remains with Transco.

Realizing how precious Transco’s assets are, Matibag said Transco can be the third player in the lucrative telco business currently dominated by giants Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Globe Telecom Inc. “Some experts in telco are saying that only the government can compete with the two telco giants. No one else can come in.

So, if it’s government combined with somebody that has the technical and financial capabilities to do it, then here comes a third player,” he said.

Need for franchise

THE fiber-optic cables owned by the state span 6,154 kilometers, or 160,779 fiber kilometers, which, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said, “can accommodate the needs of a third or even fourth telco [player].”

The support of the DOE, however, is not enough.

Transco’s charter must be amended. It needs Congress’s approval.

“We will ask Congress to amend our charter to include telecommunications as business of Transco. In the amended charter, the franchise to operate a telco can be included. We have the facilities nationwide.

In fact, Globe and Smart lease some of Transco’s towers to provide services to remote areas,” Matibag said.

He did not say when, but he already informed some of the lawmakers about this—and they are receptive to the idea.

“I have been doing the informal talks already. Most of the congressmen, senators I talked to are very interested and will sponsor it,” he said.

China partner

EARLIER, Duterte asked China to try to invest in the Philippine telecom industry.

DICT Officer in Charge Eliseo Rio Jr. said the Chinese government selected China Telecom to invest in the Philippines upon invitation by the President during a bilateral meeting on November 16.

For this to happen, China Telecom needs to partner with a Philippine telco firm.

Rio said the government is now looking at who will partner with China Telecom on a 60-40 ownership basis.

This makes it more pressing for Transco’s charter to be amended, if it wants to enter the telco business and partner with China Telecom.

“We want to push Transco to be part of…whatever project it is, considering the owner of the facility is Transco,” Matibag added.

Another emerging player

ALSO seeking to be a major player is Philippine Telegraph & Telephone Corp., which had said it was talking with China Telecom and Datang Telecom about strategic partnerships.

The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) is also ready to do its part to realize Duterte’s pronouncement.

The antitrust body said it could be approached by Transco for advice in relation to the state corporation’s plan to venture into telecommunications.

PCC Chairman Arsenio M. Balicasan said the potential entry of a joint venture between the government and a private corporation would have “to undergo the competition lens.”

However, since no concrete details have been divulged yet by Transco, the PCC official said his office can, at the moment, provide guidance.

“We also have an advisory role,” Balicasan noted, referring to PCC’s mandate that ensures businesses compete and consumers benefit.

“In some cases, especially working with other government agencies, we don’t have to wait for the formation of the joint venture. We can contribute, discuss, we can give advice. That’s what we also do in Congress, when they craft laws, franchises, when it comes to improvement in efficiency of the sector,” the PCC chief said.

Previously, Matibag said his office has received strong interest from 10 firms willing to forge a partnership to pursue Transco’s plans.

Balicasan said he will wait for Transco’s final direction on this, but pointed out that they need to work closely together, since this involves a government project.

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Airport…

Continued from a1

which, in turn, defied our expectations on what an airport should be.

Changi Airport is literally a tourist attraction by itself. Inside, the terminals are all connected by a network of trains, so getting around is pleasurably convenient.

It is also profuse with attractions, enough to make you linger or probably change your flight arrangements and stay within with its incredible confines.

It also has a 4D cinema, entertainment deck and a slide. On top of that, there is a free Internet kiosk, free city tour available if you have at least five hours of transit, which runs daily at regular times and goes for two hours. Similarly, all the rest on the Best Airport list offer the same, in varying degrees of convenience, comfort and efficiency.

More than 70 million passengers passed through Dubai International’s three terminals in 2014, making it the busiest airport in the world. The yearly passenger figure is expected to hit 100 million by 2020, when the emirate hosts the long-awaited World Expo.

Since it opened in 1960, Dubai International Airport has evolved to become not just a vital airline hub, but also an experience in itself. Nowadays, even if passengers don’t have time to get out and experience the city, the airport offers more than enough through entertainment and other indulgences to spend the hours between connecting flights.

Ah, when can we have an airport similar to them?

Will we continue to hear about plans and more plans? Why didn’t we think about it 20 years prior?

We’ve heard about a number of proposals to build our “dream” airport in Laguna, Sangley, Bulacan, eastern board of Quezon province and Clark. Will they all just be plans?

If we want to make it big in tourism, we should think big and address some lingering issues now, like air traffic brought by congestions on runways of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia). We need more than just two runways to declog arriving aircraft during peak hours. For as long as these are treated with short-term, Band-Aid solutions—until the next term, we will not emerge on the airport efficiency category list, and tourists, who judge a country by the kind of airport they see, will shy away.

Great airports boost a country’s tourism program. It is the first thing tourists see the moment they

step out of the plane. It goes without saying that it is the window to our soul, and is often used by a nation as a way of expressing pride.

“Every major airport is a status symbol trying to demonstrate the wealth and power of a country,” Richard Gammon, global director of aviation and transportation of HOK (Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum), the largest US-based architecture and engineering firm, said.

Mega-airports take long to build. Beautifully designed airports need great architects and interior designers who benchmark their work on some of the world’s best. Efficient airports need the best engineers and manpower to run. If we want our tourist target figures to leapfrog to a number it has never been, we must do something we have never done—build that dream airport now, because it will take years to finish.

A super airport could have gotten us into fourth spot in the Asean Tourist Arrival ranking. Indonesia has long claimed it. Vietnam has overtaken us and Cambodia is breathing down our neck.

Without a super infrastructure, all our tourism promotions, advertising and marketing efforts will go to naught.

We heard about building a new “aerotropolis” in a 2,500-hectare property in Bulacan to eventually replace the Naia with multiple runways serving 50 million to 100 million passengers yearly. We heard about a consortium planning to reclaim 2,500 hectares of land in Sangley Point, Cavite, to be converted into a new international airport, seaport and industrial estate. Likewise, a group has also offered to assume operations and develop Clark Airport, modernize the facility, build new terminals and have three parallel runaways over a 50-year concession period. We are waiting with bated breath.

Whether it is in Sangley, Clark, Bulacan or wherever, our government officials must think of the next generation of Filipinos and our country’s pride.Our next-generation airport must be built now and the government should not prolong it any longer.

New generation of airport design is increasingly focusing on the airport as a destination, instead of just a thoroughfare. “We spend so much time in airports now and architects are revisiting how to make airports friendlier places to spend that time, and creating the ideal guest experience from checking in to arrival time,” Gammon said.

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Australian inquiry finds decadeslong epidemic of child abuse

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roya l commission investigating the sexual abuse of children in Australia found on Friday that the nation was gripped by an epidemic dating back decades, with tens of thousands of children sexually abused in schools, religious organizations and other institutions.

The commission, the highest form of investigation in Australia, urged the government to consider and respond to its conclusions and 189 recommend ations, among them the establishment of a new National Office for Child Safety and penalties for those who suspect abuse and fail to alert the police, including priests who hear about abuse in confessionals. It also urged Australia’s Roman Catholic leadership to press Rome to end mandatory celibacy for priests. “ Tens of t hou sa nd s of children have been sexually abused in many Australian institutions,” said the report, which was particularly critical of Catholic organizations.

“We will never know the true number. Whatever the number, it is a national tragedy, perpetrated over generations within many of our most trusted institutions.”

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the commission had exposed “a national tragedy.”

The commission’s chairman, Justice Peter McClellan, said the panel heard from more than 1,000 witnesses over nearly 15 months in discovering the magnitude of the abuse.

“It is not a case of a few rotten apples,” the report said.

“Society’s major institutions have seriously failed. In many cases those failings have been exacerbated by a manifestly inadequate response to the abused person. The problems have been so widespread, and the nature of the abuse so heinous, that it is difficult to comprehend.”

Australia created the commission in 2012 to investigate decades of sexual abuse i n re l ig iou s i nst it ut ions, schools and other establishments—the only country in the world so far to initiate such a sweeping governmentled inquiry. More than 4,000 institutions have been implicated in abuse allegations, the commission found.

Austra lian gover nment investigators found 4,444 victims of abuse and at least 1,880 suspected abusers from 1980 to 2015, most of them Catholic priests and religious brothers. The report released on Friday said 62 percent of the survivors who had told the commission they had been abused in religious institutions had been abused in a Catholic facility.

Responding to the findings, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne offered “our unconditional apolog y for this suffering and a commitment to ensuring justice for those affected.” He said many of the panel’s recommendations would have a significant effect on the way the Catholic Church operates in Australia.

“Central to this Royal Commission is the painful truth that so many children were abused, trust was destroyed and innocence lost,” the archbishop said. “They are sons

and daughters, brothers and sisters—this should never have happened. As a bishop I express my deepest sorrow.”

The inquiry, which cost the Australian government A$373 million ($286 million), was unmatched in its scope in examining a scandal that has shaken the Roman Catholic hierarchy worldwide.

“Our inquiry revealed numerous cases where leaders of religious institutions knew about allegations of child sexual abuse but failed to take effective action, often with catastrophic consequences for children,” the report said.

The most damaging revelations centered on scandals in towns like Ballarat, the hometown of Cardinal George Pell, who this year became the highest-ranking Roman Catholic prelate to be formally charged with sexual offenses.

In Ballarat a police officer investigated a pedophile ring at local Catholic schools and said up to 30 victims had since killed themselves.

The charges brought in June against Pell, one of Pope Francis’s top advisers, followed years of criticism that he had at best overlooked, and at worst covered up, the widespread abuse of children by clergymen in Australia.

In addition to calling for the establishment of a National Office for Child Safety, the commission urged passage of laws that would penalize those who failed to alert the police if they suspected an adult “was sexually abusing or had sexually abused a child.”

Delving into sensitive territory for the Catholic Church, the report also recommended that clergy be required to report suspected abuse that they had heard about during confession. Church officials, however, argue that confidentiality is integral to the ritual, and Hart took issue with the proposal.

“I would feel terribly conflicted, and I would try even harder to get that person outside confessional, but I cannot break the seal,” he said, referring to the seal of absolute secrecy around what is said in the confessional. “The penalty for any priest breaking the seal is excommunication, being cast out of the church, so it’s a real, serious, spiritual matter,” he added.

T he pa nel a l so recommended that the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference pressure the church ’s leadership in Rome to “consider introducing voluntary celibacy for diocesan clergy,” saying that mandatory celibacy for priests contributed to child abuse.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who had called for the establishment of the royal commission, said that previous efforts to conduct such an inquiry were resisted, despite efforts by whistle-blowers to expose the abuses.

“Increasingly as more and more survivors came forward, the question became, how do we respond to this?” she said.

“There were a number of factors to consider that troubled me quite deeply.”

She said that in formulating the inquiry, she found that previous such efforts hadn’t given survivors the sense of healing or closure they sought. The New York Times

In this August 25 file photo, a tourist takes a photo from Pennsylvania Avenue of the illuminated White House in Washington. The White House is embarking on a major campaign to turn public opinion against the nation’s largely family-based immigration system ahead of an all-out push next year to move toward a more merit-based structure. AP/Carolyn Kaster

White House in campaign for immigration overhaul

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he White House is embarking on a major campaign to turn public opinion against the nation’s largely family-based immigration system ahead of an all-out push next year to move toward a more merit-based structure.

The administration was laying the groundwork for such a drive even before an Islamic State-inspired extremist who was born in Bangladesh tried to blow himself up in Midtown Manhattan on Monday. It is assembling data to bolster the argument that the current legal immigration system is not only ill-conceived, but dangerous and damaging to US workers.

“We believe that data drives policy, and this data will help drive votes for comprehensive immigration reform in Congress,” White House Spokesman Hogan Gidley said.

White House officials outlined their strategy this week exclusively to The Associated Press, and said the data demonstrates that changes are needed immediately. But their effort will play out in a difficult political climate, as even Republicans in Congress are leery of engaging in a major immigration debate ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

The issue is expected to be prominently featured in the president’s January 30 State of the Union address. The White House also plans other statements by the president, appearances by Cabinet officials and a push to stress the issue in conservative media.

The administration is stressing key numbers: Department

of Homeland Security data that shows nearly 9.3 million of the roughly 13 million total immigrants to the US from 2005 to 2016 were following family members already in the United States. And just one in 15 immigrants admitted in the last decade by green card entered the country because of their skills.

Other planned releases: a report highlighting the number of immigrants in US jails, assessments of the immigration court backlog and delays in processing asylum cases, and a paper on what the administration says is a nexus between immigration and terrorism.

Critics have questioned the administration’s selective use of sometimes misleading data in the past.

T he pro p o s e d mo ve aw ay from family-based immigration would represent the most radical change to the US immigration system in 30 years. It would end what critics and the White House refer to as “chain migration,” in which immigrants are allowed to bring a chain of family members to the country, and replace it with a points-based system that favors education and job potential—“merit” measures that have increasingly been embraced by some other countries, including Britain.

Gidley said that for those looking to make the case that the US is ill-served by the current system, “transparency is their best friend.”

“The more people know the real numbers, the more they’ll begin to understand that this is bad for American workers and this is bad for American security. And quite frankly, when these numbers come out in totality, we believe it’s going to be virtually impossible for Congress to ignore,” he said.

The public is sharply divided on the types of changes President Donald J. Trump is advocating.

A Quinnipiac University poll in August found that 48 percent of voters opposed a proposal that Trump has backed to cut the number of future legal immigrants in half and give priority to immigrants with job skills rather than those with family ties in this country. Forty-four percent of those polled—including 68 percent of Republicans—supported the idea.

The White House hopes to see Congress begin to take up the issue early in 2018—though it has yet to begin discussions with congressional leaders over even the broad strokes of a legislative strategy, officials said.

Trump has laid out general principles for what he would like to see in an immigration bill in exchange for giving legal status to more than 700,000 young people brought to the US illegally as children. These include the construction of a border wall, tougher enforcement measures and moving to a more merit-based legal immigration system. In September Trump gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative fix to allow the young immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” to stay in the country, creating an early-2018 crisis point he hopes will force Democrats to swallow

some of his hard-line demands.

After Monday’s incident in New York and the truck attack there in October, DHS quickly released information on the suspects’ immigration statuses, and Trump amplified his calls for ending the two programs that brought them to the US. For those who have been pushing for an end to chain migration for decades, it’s a welcome push.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, which advocates for lower immigration levels, among other changes, recently began a national radio campaign warning of what it sees as the dangers of chain migration and the diversity visa lottery program. The group has spent close to $1 million over the last month and a half on its campaign.

And NumbersUSA, another group that advocates for lower immigration levels, launched a national six-figure ad campaign on Thursday “to educate on Chain Migration categories.”

Guillermo Cantor, research director at the American Immigration Council, counters that the administration is ignoring the benefits of a family-focused immigration system and the values that drove the country to adopt it in the first place.

Research, he said, has shown that allowing immigrants to reunite with their families is one of the best integration tools. And family members bring their own skills, as well as support networks and other benefits, such as help with child care. “ T h i s i s a s o c i e t y t h a t ’s founded on family values,” Cantor said, arguing that, for many who have become citizens or legal residents, reuniting with sibl i ngs a nd ot her e x tended family members is crucial. AP

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MPIC rolls out Christmas-themed trains

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By VG Cabuag

etro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) on Friday launched the Christmasthemed four-car trains of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT 1) showcasing traditional Filipino values.

The designs highlighted Filipino holiday concepts, such as Simbang Gabi, colorful parol (lanterns), Misa de Gallo, Noche Buena and traditional greetings extended by children to their elders.

MPIC—present in infrastructure business such as toll roads, railway, power generation and distribution, water and wastewater services and health care industries—will continue deploying the trains until January next year.

Light Rail Manila Corp., a jointventure group between MPIC’s Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and the Philippine Investment Alliance for Infrastructure’s Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) PTE Ltd., currently operates and maintains the LRT 1 line. It is also behind the planned LRT 1 Cavite extension project.

“We want to get Filipino commuters of the LRT 1 in a holiday mood, but, at the same time, we want to give them a deep feeling of the cherished values that we at MPIC hold dearly during this time of the year,” said Melody del Rosario, company vice president for corporate communications.

“The parol is as important to Filipinos as the Christmas tree to Western culture; without the parol Christmas wouldn’t be complete,” she said.

“The lanterns were used by people to light their paths during the customary dawn Masses called Misa de Gallo or Simbang Gabi, because electricity was unavailable at the time in many rural areas. Such lanterns are now more likely to glow with electronic lights, but the concept remains the same—a guiding light in the darkness for Filipino worshippers wanting to congregate and pray,” she added.

Del Rosario said the Christmas decorations in the five LRT trains denote respecting family values as part of the Filipino culture and sharing of blessings, especially to those who are in need.

The Christmas-themed trains are currently making regular runs throughout the LRT 1 north-tosouth route, from Roosevelt station to Baclaran station.

Some passengers will be given candies for kids, beep cards and other surprises at any given time of the day on Christmas, the company said.

As tensions ease, China keeps building on disputed islands

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ensions over China’s island-building in the South China Sea may have eased in the past year, but Beijing has kept busy. New satellite imagery shows China has built infrastructure covering 72 acres (28 hectares) in the Spratly and Paracel islands during 2017 to equip its larger outposts to be air and naval bases.

The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative closely tracks developments in the South China Sea, where China and several Asian governments have conflicting territorial claims. It said on Thursday there has been construction of hangars, underground storage, missile shelters, radar arrays and other facilities.

The activity comes as China joins what are likely to be protracted negotiations with Southeast Asian nations on a “code of conduct” for South China Sea. Tensions with the United States on the issue have also eased, despite Washington’s criticism of Beijing’s conduct.

The construction is the followup phase to a campaign of land reclamation that was completed by earl- 2016 in the Spratlys, an island chain where Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam also have claims. According to the Pentagon, China has added more than 3,200 acres (1,248 hectares) of land to the seven land features it occupies in the area.

China also seems to have halted smaller-scale operations to expand islands in the Paracels that lie farther north, the initiative said.

The US and others have accused Beijing of further militarizing the region and altering geography to bolster its sweeping claims across the South China Sea. China says the man-made islands in the Spratlys, which are equipped with airstrips and military installations, are mainly for civilian purposes and to boost safety for fishing and maritime trade.

Greg Poling, the initiative’s director, said China had seized a diplomatic opening after the election of Philippine President Duterte, who adopted a conciliatory stance toward Beijing over their territorial dispute. It’s also been less of a focus for President Donald J. Trump’s administration, preoccupied by North Korea’s nuclear threat and trade disputes with China.

“It’s gotten off the front pages, but we shouldn’t confuse that with a softening in China’s pursuit of its goals. They are continuing all the construction they want,” Poling said. The most construction has been on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratlys, including hangars alongside its 10,000-foot (3,000-meter) airstrip, underground structures likely intended to house munitions or other materiel, hardened shelters for missile platforms, and communication and radar facilities, the initiative said.

It also noted that China has deployed new military aircraft at Woody Island in the Paracels. At the end of October, the Chinese military released images of J-11B fighter planes there for drills. In mid-November, Y-8 transport aircraft were spotted on the same island that may be capable of electronic intelligence gathering.

Marine Lt. Col. Christopher Logan, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Thursday that he could not comment in detail on US assessments of the region but that “further militarization of outposts will only serve to raise tensions and create greater distrust among claimants.”

The United States does not claim territory in the South China Sea but has declared it has a national interest in ensuring that the territorial disputes there are resolved peacefully in accordance with international law and that freedom of navigation and overflight are guaranteed.

China has opposed what it calls US meddling in an Asian dispute. AP

The Metro Pacific Investments Corp. launched five Light Rail Transit Line 1 trains gaily decorated in Christmas theme, showcasing traditional Filipino values, coined as Biyaheng Pasko. ROY DOMINGO

Gokongwei foundation highlights role of education in PHL’s industrialization G

okongwei Brothers Foundation (GBF) is celebrating its 25th anniversar y with a firm commitment to making a lasting impact on education in the Philippines. “ Fro m t h e b e g i n n i n g, I kn e w education would be the foundation’s primary advocacy. Why? Because it is my belief that education is the only way to save this country,” JG Summit Founder and Chairman John Gokongwei Jr. said.

GBF was established in 1992 by Gokongwei and his brothers Johnson, Henry and James.

“We have to strengthen our hold on our science and engineering courses.

That’s the only way to help our country industrialize,” he said.

G B F ’s f i r s t m a j o r p ro j e c t wa s establishing in 1999 the GBF Technical Training Center (TTC), a P150-million facility envisioned to be a world-class continuing school for engineers.

In 2011 GBF gave significant endowment leading to the establishment of the De La Salle University Gokongwei College of Engineering (DLSU-GCOE).

At present, three of seven scholarships administered by GBF suppor t college students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). More than half of GBF’s 484 scholars are undergraduate students enrolled in STEM courses.

JG Summit President and GBF Board Secretary Lance Gokongwei sees investment in STEM as having a big impact on the Philippine economy.

“It’s always been the belief of my father that the Philippines needs to broaden its base beyond just providing services—to have real institutionalized capabilities in terms of manufacturing in order for us to have a broader-based economy that can compete more effectively throughout the world. We want to make investing in STEM the main focus of our foundation,” he said.

Concurrent with its efforts to hone

GBF Founder and Chairman John L. Gokongwei Jr. says the foundation will remain committed to improving education in the Philippines in the years to come.

future scientists and engineers, GBF devotes itself to providing quality technical-vocational education to produce skilled workers.

In 2014 GBF, together with Universal Robina Corp. Branded Consumer Foods Group (URC-BCFG), established GBF Iskolar ni Juan Tech-Voc program, a fully subsidized one-year scholarship for highschool graduates or out-of-school youth.

Boarded at the GBF TTC, scholars t a k e G B F ’s s i g n a t u r e Te c h n i c a l Education and Skills Development A u t h o r i t y - re g i s t e re d p ro g r a m i n mechatronics and instrumentation ser vicing, followed by on-the j o b t ra i n i n g a n d e m p l oy m e nt a s production operator at URC-BCFG. As of October 2017, all 93 graduates of the program have been hired by URC-BCFG.

Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng, GBF general manager, believes education gives underprivileged youth the opportunity to succeed.

“I feel happy whenever I hear about how youths who had no options suddenly felt that their future was brighter because of this scholarship.

Through helping one person, the scholars are able to help their families and, hopefully, their communities as well—bigger and bigger circles,” she said.

Prior to the DLSU-GCOE endowment, GBF also gave educational support leading to the establishment of the Ateneo John Gokongwei School of Management in 2002.

Endowments to DLSU and Ateneo have funded facility building and improvement, scholarships and student enrichment, and

We have to strengthen our hold on our science and engineering courses…That’s the only way to help our country industrialize.”—Gokongwei Jr.

research and faculty development.

As of September 2017, GBF has produced 337 graduates through its college, technical-vocational and highschool scholarship programs.

Aside from running scholarship programs and the GBF TTC, the foundation also collaborates with strategic partners inside and outside JG Summit for causes related to education.

In 2011 GBF donated 18 t wo classroom preschool buildings in various provincial sites through the Aklat, Gabay, Aruga, Tungo sa PagAngat at Pag-Asa Foundation.

Lance Gokongwei said his family, thankful for the opportunities education has led to, wants to pay it forward.

“We try to level the playing field by giving equality of opportunities for one of the most critical determinants of future success: access to education. Hopefully, we are able to help a few thousand Filipinos achieve a level of education that they may not have had,” he said.

John Gokongwei himself was unable to complete his university education.

But it was his innate curiosity and love for learning that helped him become a successful entrepreneur.

D espite his success as a selftaught man, Gokongwei put premium on formal education, sent his siblings to the best schools he could afford at the time, and eventually pursued a master’s degree for himself.

“He saw the difference that education made in his life and that of his siblings, and he wanted to share that opportunity to as many Filipinos as he could,” Lance said.

M a r ki n g i t s 2 5 t h a n n i ve r s a r y, GBF produced a video and magazine commemorating its milestones and stories of impacted lives.

In a letter sent to JG Summit & Affiliates employees, Lance is hoping the stories will be a “source of inspiration for you as they are for me in striving to make lives better.”

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FROOME: I HAVEN’T

Saturday, December 16, 2017 A5 TOUR de France and Vuelta a España winner Chris Froome said “it is not a positive test.”

BROKEN RULES On September 7 Chris Froome dropped his main rival Vicenzo Nibalu on the final ascent to Alto de Santo Toribio de Liébana of Stage 18, recouping 21 of the 42 seconds he lost on the previous stage to extend his race lead to 1:37.

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T the end of a trying day, Chris Froome defended himself against the now public adverse analytical finding for excessive amounts of asthma medicine salbutamol that threatens to see his Vuelta a España victory annulled.

On September 7 Froome dropped his main rival Vicenzo Nibalu on the final ascent to Alto de Santo Toribio de Liébana of Stage 18, recouping 21 of the 42 seconds he lost on the previous stage to extend his race lead to 1:37.

But his urine sample taken that day showed twice the allowed limit of the asthma drug salbutamol, a result confirmed by the B-sample analysis. In the video interview by the BBC, Froome seemed confident in defending himself to the International Cycling Union (UCI).

“I can understand a lot of people’s reactions, especially given the history of the sport. I think this is obviously a very different case. This is not a positive test,” Froome stated.

“As it stands the UCI have asked me for more information regarding my use of salbutamol, which is a very common medicine used for treating asthma. I think all the asthmatics out there will know what salbutamol is.

“Obviously I’ve only been too happy to try and help the UCI fill in the blanks there and to give all that information up, along with the team, to try and get to the bottom of what happened here.

“I’ve certainly shared everything I have with the UCI and told them exactly—I have a clear routine when I use my inhaler and how many times I use it. I’ve given all that

information to the UCI to help get to the bottom of this.”

Nibali, meanwhile, has reacted bluntly on the Froome issue, describing it as terrible news for him and for the sport, while in a statement issued earlier, the Vuelta organization said that it had yet to receive formal notification of the matter.

Froome sealed a Tour de France-Vuelta a España double in September after leading the race for 18 of its 21 stages. The Briton surprisingly emerged as a belated Grand Tour contender by placing second at the Vuelta in 2011, and went on to place on the podium in 2014 and 2016 before landing victory this year.

“Regarding the news about Christopher Froome’s unfavorable test result during La Vuelta 2017, Unipublic, the organizer of La Vuelta, wishes to communicate that it will await the UCI’s official conclusions,” Unipublic said in a statement.

“The regulatory entity has launched an investigation and the position of La Vuelta’s organizer is one of extreme caution, as it hopes for this issue to be resolved as quickly as possible.”

Froome and Team Sky was notified of the finding on September 20, the day he finished third in the elite men’s time trial at the UCI World Championships in Bergen.

The result was later confirmed by analysis of the B-Sample.

News of Froome’s adverse analytical finding was broken by The Guardian and Le Monde newspapers early on Wednesday morning, and later confirmed by both the UCI and Team Sky. In a press release the WorldTour team has said they are committed to establishing the facts and

understanding what has happened.

Salbutamol is classed as a specific substance, and an adverse analytical finding does not result in a mandatory provisional suspension, though Froome will face a sanction if he is unable to provide a sufficient explanation for the elevated levels of salbutamol in his antidoping sample.

Nibali, who placed second overall in Madrid, would be awarded Vuelta victory if Froome were to be stripped of the title.

Froome announced two weeks ago that he would ride the Giro d’Italia in 2018, although his participation is at risk if he cannot provide an explanation for the elevated levels of salbutamol in his antidoping sample from the Vuelta.

Diego Ulissi and Alexandre Pliuschin were each given nine-month suspensions following positive tests for salbutamol in 2014.

Delgado’s reaction

Speaking to Radio Marca, two-time Vuelta winner Pedro Delgado said it would be sad if Froome was stripped of his Vuelta victory.

Delgado returned a positive test for probenecid en route to his 1988 Tour de France victory, but escaped sanction as the substance was not on the UCI banned list at the time, even though it was prohibited by the International Olympic Committee.

“It’s a product that’s used to treat asthma, and it’s known that Chris Froome has this condition and has the authorisation to use this substance,” Delgado said. “It’s very sad if he’s going to lose the Vuelta, although I don’t think it will affect the season to come.” Cyclingnews

JUICY INCENTIVE

B

NEGROS-CEBU FINALE! V

ISAYAS rivals Ceres Negros and Global Cebu battle for the inaugural Philippines Football League (PFL) championship today at the Panaad Park and Football Stadium in Bacolod City.

The “Visayas Clasico” finale kicks off at 7 p.m. and is expected to go down the wire and become a fitting highlight to the first professional football league in the country.

Global Cebu and Ceres Negros proved that they still the two best clubs in the

UKRAINE’S Wladimir Klitschko (left) and Britain’s Tyson Fury exchange blows in a world heavyweight title fight in November 29, 2015, at the Esprit Arena in Duesseldorf, Germany. AP

country—they same way they did in the defunct United Football League—as they ousted separate foes in the two-leg semifinals series last week and book tickets to the Asian Football Confederation Cup 2018.

The No. 4 seed Global is hoping to complete its Cinderella run by becoming the inaugural PFL champions.

The Cebu-based team made two amazing comeback in the two-leg

semifinals—a 2-1 win in the first leg and a 1-1 draw in the second—to take down erstwhile leader Meralco with a 3-2 aggregate victory at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.

Ceres Negros, on the other hand, eliminated Kaya Makati with a 3-1 aggregate—winning the first leg, 1-0, through Stephan Schrock’s goal and escaped with a 2-1 triumph in the second leg behind Iain Ramsey. Lance Agcaoili

Ex-NHL star’s wife: Trump made advance on me inside elevator

British boxing body to decide N on lifting Fury’s suspension

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ONDON—Former world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will have to wait until next year to discover whether his suspension from boxing will be lifted.

The British Boxing Board of Control (BBB of C) suspended Fury in 2016 for drug and medical issues, amid a separate UK AntiDoping (Ukad) investigation.

That Ukad case ended on Tuesday when Fury accepted a backdated two-year doping ban for elevated levels of nandrolone in urine samples following a fight in February 2015.

Acknowledging the Ukad decision, the BBBofC said on Wednesday: “Tyson Fury’s boxing-license suspension will be considered by the stewards of the board in January.”

Robert Smith, general secretary of the BBBofC, said the priority is making sure Fury is “healthy, mentally fit and physically fit” to resume fighting.

“He obviously has work to do to lose weight and get fighting fit, and that may take some time,” Smith said, “but we have to make sure he is mentally and physically OK. We will take our time and do the job properly. We won’t be rushed into anything.

“He’s been off for a long time and you can’t just click your fingers and get back into a competitive boxing ring. We have to satisfied with regard to his medical health.”

Smith predicted Fury will need “one or two warm-up contests” before challenging for the world title again. AP

ERLIN—Germany’s players will each receive a €350,000 ($410,000) bonus if the team defends its World Cup title next year in Russia.

The German soccer federation says it has agreed to a performancerelated bonus system for the team, as it did for the successful 2014 World Cup campaign and the last two European Championships.

Bonuses will only be paid upon reaching the quarterfinals, when each player would receive €75,000 ($90,000). That will increase to €125,000 ($150,000) for reaching the semifinals, €150,000 ($175,000) for third place and €200,000 ($235,000) for reaching the final.

Only Italy (1934 and 1938) and Brazil (1958 and 1962) have won back-to-back World Cup titles.

EW YORK—The wife of Hall of Fame hockey player Luc Robitaille has tweeted about an advance she says Donald J. Trump made on her more than two decades ago in an elevator at Madison Square Garden.

Stacia Robitaille wrote on Monday on Twitter that Trump “was aggressive & told me I was coming home with him. I laughed, stating I was married to a Ranger. He guaranteed me my husband didn’t make as much money as him. #ThisIsOurPresident.”

The couple married in 1992. Luc Robitaille played for the New York Rangers from 1995 to 1997 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009. He currently is president of the Los Angeles Kings.

Stacia Robitaille responded to criticism in a second tweet , saying: “I’m not a liberal lefty and I’m not looking for attention. Just felt bad keeping it to myself.”

More than a dozen women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the last year.

He denies the allegations.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, meanwhile, twice turned to Jerry Jones when asked about his relationship with the powerful

Luc Robitaille and wife Stacia Robitaille attend Echoes Of Hope’s Third Annual Luc Robitaille Celebrity Charity Poker Tournament in Los Angeles in June 2013. AP

Dallas Cowboys owner who tried to scuttle his contract extension.

“Jerry, do I look like I take it personally?”

Goodell asked after the second question as Jones, the recent Hall of Fame inductee, winked at him. “’No’ is the answer to that question.” A new five-year deal for Goodell had been signed for a week when owners gathered for meetings at a luxury Dallas-area hotel on Wednesday.

And while Jones was conciliatory, even hugging Goodell when replacing him on the podium, the outspoken billionaire wasn’t conceding anything.

Goodell was a bit defiant himself on another topic, contradicting his own lead spokesman who had said earlier in the day that Goodell considered the contract that now runs into 2024 to be his last.

“I haven’t made any determinations,” Goodell said. “This is something that I’m looking forward to the challenges. I think our league is in a great position. But we obviously have challenges, just like any other industry.”

Goodell overcame the challenge from Jones, who threatened to sue over the extension in a dispute that arose after Goodell’s decision to suspend star Dallas running back Ezekiel Elliott for six games over domestic-violence allegations in a case prosecutors didn’t pursue.

Jones has denied that Elliott’s suspension played a role in his objections over the power the commissioner wields or his concerns about the way the NFL was handling protests involving the national anthem.

The 75-year-old Jones also was at odds with Atlanta owner Arthur Blank, chairman of the six-person compensation committee that had been unanimously approved in May to complete a deal with Goodell. Jones wanted all the owners to approve the deal.

For Jones, the victory came in owners agreeing to consider changes to the power of the commissioner’s role through the league’s constitution. AP

A6 Saturday, December 16, 2017 | Editor: Mike Besa

2018 MELBOURNE WORLD CUP

OF GOLF ANNOUNCED; SET TO BE

CONTESTED AT THE SANBELT REGION’S

THE METROPOLITAN CLUB

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elbourne, Victoria, Australia, December 5: The PG A TOUR , on behalf of the International Federation of PGA Tours, announced today that the 59th edition of the World Cup of Golf will return to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, w ith T he Metropolitan Golf Club playing host to 28 two-person teams representing their respective countries from November 21 to 25, 2018. As one of five events cosanctioned by the International Federation of PGA Tours, the Melbourne World Cup of Golf is a truly global and historic event, which has been played 58 times since 1953 in 25 countries, and is the only event that sees the world ’s best come together and compete for their countries, outside of the Olympics.

“The World Cup of Golf has been a celebrated and valued tradition in the game for decades, and the International Federation of PGA Tours is proud to see that tradition continue in 2018 with the best players from around the globe convening at The Metropolitan Golf Club,” PGA Tour

Com m i ssioner Jay Mon a h a n said. “Golf in the Sandbelt region speaks for itself, and we appreciate The Metropolitan Golf Club opening its doors for this historic team event.”

What differentiates the Melbourne World Cup of Golf is the oppor tunit y for the highestranked player from each competing country to choose his playing partner, thus maximizing the camaraderie and competitive spirit. The 2018 event will continue with the same format from 2016, with the first and third days of competition played as four-ball (best ball) format and the second and final days as foursomes (alternate shot) play.

Several organizations (Visit Victoria, Golf Australia, the ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia, Lagardere and the PGA TOUR) worked in collaboration to ensure the stretch of professional golf in Australia with three consecutive world-class events (the Emirates Australian Open, the Melbourne World Cup of Golf and the Australian PGA Championship) would become a reality for Australia’s golf fans in 2018.

“It is a true thrill to bring this

unique, global team event back to Melbourne and the Sandbelt region,” said Robyn Cooper, executive director of the Melbourne World Cup of Golf. “We appreciate the strong cooperation of all involved to ensure Australia’s golf fans would be able to enjoy this spirited team competition in the Sandbelt region. A special thank you goes to Golf Australia and Lagardere for working with us to resolve some scheduling challenges. The group’s overall combined efforts are certainly in the best interests of golf fans here in Australia.”

The Melbourne World Cup of Golf brought significant global star power to the Sandbelt region in 2016, with 17 of the top 50 players in the world on hand, including the likes of Adam Scott, Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler, Jimmy Walker, Alex Noren, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Shane Lowry, Byeong Hun An, Russell Knox and more. Players outside the top 50 at the start of the 2016 event that are currently among the top 50 include Jon Rahm (No. 4), Marc Leishman (No. 13) and Jhonattan Vegas (No. 43).

The Melbourne World Cup of Golf affords players one of the few opportunities to represent

their country in an international competition, which continues to attract some of the best players in the world to compete in this unique event. Fans attending the 2018 Melbourne World Cup of Golf can expect a world-class field. In 2016, the field included: 273 total international victories 67 combined World Cup of Golf appearances 17 of the top 50 players in the world 4 of the top 10 players in the world 18 with Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup experience

The 2018 event will mark the third consecutive playing of the World Cup of Golf in the Sandbelt region. Danes Søren Kjeldsen and Thorbjørn Olesen captured the 2016 edition at K ingston Heath Golf Club, while Aussies Adam Scott and Jason Day were victorious at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club in 2013.

Following the 2018 Melbourne World Cup of Golf, the Sandbelt region will once again grab the spotlight as the 2019 Presidents

Cup is staged at Royal Melbourne for a third time.

“We’re getting it done—making Victoria Australia’s home of golf by bringing the best domestic and international tournaments right to our doorstep,” said John Eren, minister for tourism and major events.

“The flow on effects from these types of events are huge—they give visitors another reason to come to Melbourne and make our economy stronger.”

The 2018 Melbourne World Cup of Golf will mark the sixth time in the tournament’s history that it will be played in Australia, which is the second-most all-time behind the United States (11).

The World Cup of Golf in Australia: Year

Winning Country/Players

1959

Australia (Peter Thomson/Kel Nagle)

1972

Chinese Taipei (Hsieh Min-Nan/Lu Liang-Huan)

1988

United States (Ben Crenshaw/Mark McCumber)

2013

Australia (Jason Day/Adam Scott)

2016

Denmark (Søren Kjeldsen/Thorbjørn Olesen)

“Our aspiration is for the Melbourne Sandbelt to become a buc ket-list destination for golf enthusiasts globally, and that’s why we are thrilled to once again partner with PGA TOUR to showcase Melbourne’s courses to the world. In 2016 we highlighted Kingston Heath, in 2018 we celebrate Metropolitan and in 2019 the Royal Melbourne Golf Club hosts the Presidents Cup,” said Peter Bingeman, Visit Victoria CEO. “These three award-winning courses, together with the stunning fairways of Victoria, Commonwealth, Huntingdale, Yarra Yarra and Peninsula Golf Clubs, are within 90 minutes of Melbourne, allowing golfers to enjoy the fairways by day and the laneways, restaurants and bars of the city by night.”

Widely regarded as one of the finest championship courses in Australia, The Metropolitan Golf Club shares a common origin with The Royal Melbourne Golf Club in 1891, and consistently enjoys a reputation as one of the

Headline: Bringing Home The Gold at the World Amateurs Golfers Championships

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or the very first time, the Philippines sent its firstever delegation of 14 (11 players) to the World Amateur Golfers Championship and Invitational (WAGC and Wagi) in Malaysia to represent, compete and make our country proud and they didn’t disappoint.

Leading the charge for the Philippines was Tonito Payumo of First Gen Corp. and once the No. 1 ranked junior tennis player in the Philippines. Payumo was crowned champion of Division 1, (individual handicap 0-5 of Wagi) with a four-day score of 74, 70, 81 and 70 (aggregate 295) to win by four strokes over Petr Bilek of the Czech Republic.

Oliver Gan of the Philippines came second runner-up with a 300 aggregate score tally also in Division 1 of Wagi, while Mabel Salivio garnered second runner-up honors in Division 3 (individual handicap 11 to 15 of WAGC) with a 293 aggregate.

The World Amateur Golfers Championship and Invitational is the largest amateur golf tournament in the World and has been commemorated 22 times in nu merous cou nt r ies f rom around the globe. Every year, tournaments are held in over 45 different countries and the winners are sent abroad to compete in the World Finals.

This year, the World Finals was held from November 18 to 25 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The tournament had over 330+ golfers from 38 other countries that were in attendance.

After two practice rounds, all competitors played four days and 72 holes of competition in four of the top championship courses in Malaysia: The Mines Resort & Golf Club, Kota Permai Golf & Country Club, Sungai Long Golf & Country Club and Templar Park Country Club.

Representing the 2017 Team Philippines were: As a team, Team

World Amateur Golfers Championship (5-man team) Div 1 (0-5 HCP)-Gerald Katigbak (Riviera Golf Club), 5th place (298 aggregate) Div 2 (6-10 HCP)-Augusto Cruz (Beverly Place Golf), 6th place (305 aggregate) Div 3 (11-15 HCP)-Mabel Salivio (Camp Aguinaldo Golf), 3rd place (293 aggregate) Div 4 (16-20 HCP)-Marc Leviste (Summit Point Golf), 7th place (305 aggregate) Div 5 (21-25 HCP)-Alfredo Abarintos (Mt. Malarayat Golf), 11th place (305 aggregate)

World Amateur Golfers Invitational (2-man team) Div 1 (0-5 HCP)-Tonito Payumo (The Orchard Golf/ Manila Golf Club/ Anvaya Golf Club), 1st place (295 aggregate) Div 1 (0-5 HCP)-Oliver Gan (Wack Wack Golf and CC), 3rd place (300 aggregate) Div 1 (0-5 HCP)-Don Padilla (Forest Hills Golf), 5th place (304 aggregate) Division 2 (6-10)- Mickey Tan (Sta. Lucia), 6th place (305 aggregate) Div 4 (16-20 HCP)-Francis Talion (Ayala Greenfield Golf), 11th place (328 aggregate) Div 5 (21-25 HCP)-Errol Chua (GolfPH), 8th place (325 aggregate)

Philippines performed. Overall, Team Philippines’s five-man team (Katigbak, Cruz, Salivio, Leviste and Abarintos) ranked No. 7 in scoring points among 38 other countries and two-man team (Payumo and Tan) finished sixth out of 74 teams after leading the tournament at the halfway point.

Team Captain of Team Philippines is Errol Chua, while Edward Co is cocaptain. Both Errol and Edward not only made sure the players were ready to perform at their best for four straight days but also led Team Philippines in bringing home one of the most prized possessions of the night: The 2017 Tumba Trophy Named after the late Sven Tumba (WAGC founder), the Tumba Trophy is given every year to the country that embodies the overall vision that Sven Tumba had, which is “Sport Promotes Friendship and Business.” Team Philippines not only excelled on the golf course, they did so by playing as

a team, making new friends and having the most spirit.

Next year, there will be over 15 local qualifiers and a twoday National Final to determine the team to be sent to the World Amateur Golfers Championship

www.pinoygolfer.com | Saturday, December 16, 2017 A7

How Many Wedges

Should You Have

in Your Bag?

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best conditioned and most beautiful courses in the country. The Metropolitan Golf Club’s rich tour nament histor y inc ludes the World Golf ChampionshipsDell Technologies Match Play (2001), Men’s Australian Open, (1930, 1936, 1951, 1979, 1986, 1993, 1997), Australian PGA C h a mpion s h ip (19 3 0, 19 3 6 , 1951, 1966, 1968), Women’s Aust ra l ia n O pen (20 09) a nd the Australian Masters (2014).

“The Metropolitan Golf Club is extremely proud to be selected to host the World Cup of Golf 2018,” said Marcus Harty, Captain of The Metropolitan Golf Club. “ The tournament has a rich history featuring the greatest golfers from across the eras and we look forward to welcoming the current generation of greats to Metropolitan. We are excited that we will have the opportunity to further showcase the Melbourne Sandbelt to the world, particularly our own ‘Metro’ with its unique architecture and highly regarded course conditioning.”

to be held in Johor, Malaysia in 2018. Santa Lucia Land Inc. was the title sponsor, while Philippine Airlines was the official airline partner of Team Philippines at the World Amateur Golfers Championships.

By Mike Besa

his is a topic that gets a lot of feedback from our readers.

There is so much choice that it’s confusing. Which wedge do I get? How many wedges should I carry? What lofts should I get? What’s bounce? What are the different sole designs for?

Next to the putter, the wedge is the club that most golfers will use the most in a round of golf. Since most amateurs hit precious few greens in regulation, they will wind up using a wedge of some sort or other each time they miss a green. With room for just fourteen clubs in the bag, it can be tough deciding which ones to put in, and which ones to leave out.

This will probably come down to a choice between losing a wedge and adding a fairway wood to improve your chances of hitting more long par 4s and par 5s, or losing a fairway wood and adding a wedge, so you don’t have to hit as many awkward half and three-quarter shots from inside 120 yards.

Your set of irons already comes with a pitching wedge, which has a loft of 44 to 47 degrees. The most common method to determine which wedges you should be carrying is to figure out the loft of your pitching wedge and choose wedges with gaps of 4 to 5 degrees to fill out your bag.

The most important factor to consider is the design and shape of the sole of your wedges. This is vital because the sole design determines how the wedge interacts with the turf. Using the wrong wedge from a tight lie will often result on the ball being bladed across the green just as the wrong wedge played from a wet, spongy lie will result in chunking the ball.

Of vital importance is bounce. Bounce is defined as the angle created by the ground and the sole of the bottom of the club from the trailing edge to the leading edge. You’ll notice that if you place a wedge down in the playing position on top of a table that the leading edge is often a small distance above the table top. The higher it is off the surface, the more bounce the wedge has and the closer it is to the table, then the wedge has a low amount of bounce.

On your wedge, bounce performs exactly the way its name suggests—it makes the club bounce back up into the ball after contact with the ground. On wet, soft turf or in a bunker, bounce is indispensable. On tight lies, you need a wedge with less bounce; typically, less than 10 degrees. On soft turf or in bunkers, you need something on the order of 12 to 14 degrees to be effective.

If you come into the ball at a steep angle and take deep divots, then you need wedges with more bounce. Conversely, if you have a shallow angle of attack and like to just brush the grass with the sole of the wedge, you can do with less bounce.

If you like to play short game shots with the clubface open, you’ll need a wedge with some relief in the heel of the clubhead.

This will allow you to open the clubface without raising the leading edge of the clubface too much. This helps you get under the ball on a tight lie.

If you have difficulty hitting shots with anything less than a full swing, it will be advantageous to carry an extra wedge to enable you to hit the required distance. If this sums up your wedge play, the best way to achieve your ideal gaps between clubs is to get even loft gaps. In this four-wedge system, starting with your 45-degree pitching wedge, you can then add a gap wedge at 50 degrees, a sand wedge at 55 degrees and a lob wedge at 60 degrees, which should equate to 8 to 12-yard gaps for the average golfer.

The most common choice for club golfers, three wedges leaves you with room for two fairway woods, which is often more important for players who lack the distance tour professionals can muster.

If you do choose a three-wedge system, we recommend something along the lines of a pitching wedge at 46 degrees, a gap wedge at 52-degrees, and a lob wedge at 58 degrees, which gives you even 6-degree gaps between clubs, which should give you the versatility you need.

It might sound complicated but understanding what the requirements of your technique, your preferences and tendencies are and the type of surfaces you play on determines the number and types of wedges you need to have in your bag. Get this right and you’re going to save a lot of strokes during your round.

OurTime

A8 Saturday, December 16, 2017 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

BusinessMirror

‘Padalagan sa Bitoon’ highlights NegOr town’s Christmas celebration

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UMAGUETE CITY—For 82-year-old Sylvia T. Vendiola, celebrating Christmas in her native town of Bacong in Negros Oriental would not be complete without the age-old tradition of the “Padalagan sa Bitoon” (Race of the Stars), which she and other Roman Catholic Church members look forward to every year during the holiday season.

Vendiola, an active member of the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) of the Saint Augustine of Hippo Parish in Bacong, said the Padalagan sa Bitoon has been around since she was still a child and the Catholic Church in her hometown shifts into a festive mood with this particular event.

It begins on the first day of the nine-day aguinaldo (dawn) novena Masses prior to the Christmas Eve Eucharistic celebration through the Feast of the Three Kings, which falls sometime in early-January.

The Padalagan sa Bitoon, an informal name given to the activity, involves the attaching of two huge stars to ropes with pulleys, which allow them to travel from the choir loft above the main entryway of the church down the aisle to the altar and then back.

Apart from the stars, another object in the form of a cloud, which the locals call nubi (cloud), hangs from the ceiling at the altar and keeps on flapping up and down during the Mass, but springs a “surprise” during the Christmas Eve Mass.

Also part of the entire production is the Belen, or the Nativity Scene at the right-hand corner of the church near the altar, where the Child Jesus is lying in a manger surrounded by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, the three Magi and the other key figures of this popular Christmas scene.

The stars and the nubi are put up and remain in their original places on the first Aguinaldo Mass on December 16 and thereafter, with the dawn Masses held every 4 a.m. until December 24.

But during the Christmas Eve Mass, as the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is being sung, and the bells are rung and the Church lights up to welcome the “birth of Jesus,” the stars are released from the choir loft, being pulled speedily to the altar like they were racing against each other.

At the same time, the nubi suddenly opens up, letting out an “angel,” which is then pulled straight toward the Nativity scene.

Exuferio Tinguha, who has served in the Church as an organist for 29 years, said the stars symbolize a comet and the star that had guided the Three Kings who went in search of the Child Jesus in Bethlehem.

Tinguha, who teaches liturgical music at the local seminary, believes this entire production during Christmas dates back to more than 100 years.

He said he remembers his grandmother, who would have been more than 100 years today if alive, telling him stories about the Padalagan sa Bitoon.

It is a tradition closely associated to Bacong, he added.

A few other Catholic Churches, like those in Zamboanguita and

Siaton, have a similar feat, but these are not quite the same as that of Bacong, he said.

And that is because apart from the stars, the nubi and the Nativity Scene, the Bacong Church choir boasts of singing Latin liturgical music at Christmas, Tinguha added, beaming with pride.

Not only that. Bacong Church, listed as a national cultural treasure, is home to a centuries-old pipe organ, one of the few remaining Spanish pipe organs in the country.

Acquired in the mid-1800s, the pipe organ was restored and completed in October 2009, and now is a main attraction of the church.

Tinguha said that on Christmas Eve, he plays the pipe organ and the choir members, some elderly like 82-year-old Sylvia Vendiola, manage to climb the steep stairs to the choir loft where the musical instrument is situated, to sing in the Mass.

There are at least 10 members of the choir who sing in Latin, including Vendiola, but the oldest member, 97-year-old Hilario Enoferio, has stopped singing with the group because he could no longer go up the stairs to the choir loft, Tinguha said.

The Bacong way of celebrating Christmas is truly a unique experience for outsiders and a tradition that must be continued for the next generations, said Simplicia Baro, a member of the municipal council.

The 74-year-old councilor, also an active Church volunteer and the president of the Sacred Heart Organization in Bacong, describes the Christmas spirit of their town as truly a bayanihan example.

Volunteers craft the stars and the nubi, put them up inside the church, put up the Nativity Scene and even donate the banana plants with clusters of fruits—a common Filipino tradition known simply as the banana Belen, she said.

People in Bacong even provide for the snacks for the volunteers, she added.

As for the “banana Belen, it is also an old tradition where people put up the banana plants with fruits on their doorways, so that when carolers come, the homeowners give the fruits

to them instead of coins or candies as is practiced in modern day, she said.

The parish priest of Bacong, Msgr. Julius Perpetuo S. Heruela, explained the religious significance of all this, saying these are catechetical practices that reflect the faith and spirituality of the Catholic faithful.

“Symbols speak a lot,” he explained, citing that of the nubi that opens and lets out an angel, likening it to the opening of the heavens with the angels coming down and singing “Glory to God in the Highest” in celebration of Christ’s birth.

The Belen is also catechetical, and is biblical as expressly described in the Bible, just as the stars are also aptly depicted as what is written about the Three Kings who were guided by the Star of Bethlehem, he said.

These are practices that are catechetical with priests of the olden days using such symbols to make it easier for the people to know and understand the life of Christ, he added.

And because the celebration of Christmas culminates during the Feast of the Three Kings, it is also aptly portrayed that on this day, when the Magi “go home,” that the stars also “depart” in this Bacong Church production.

Thus, on the Feast of the Three Kings, the stars are once more made to “travel” this time from the altar back down the aisle to the choir loft.

The culmination of the Christmas celebration in Bacong on this day picks up and becomes more cheerful, with people in high spirits and full of joy, as some of them, including children and adults, running after the stars, believing that they receive abundance of blessings by doing so.

In some instances, candies and coins are distributed to the children.

While the Padagan sa Bitoon may seem to be a repetition of the previous years’ production, every Christmas is always a different experience and it leaves the people with a joyful appreciation of the blessings that they receive all year round as they look forward to it the following year, the parish priest said. PNA

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Dumaguete mayor calls for ‘cease-fire’ on landfill issue

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U M AG U E T E C I T Y— City Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo called for a “cease-fire” in verbal tussles during the Christmas season regarding issues surrounding the proposed purchase of a lot intended for the sanitary landfill, among others. Remollo issued the statement as he switched on the Christmas lights of a giant Christmas tree at the Quezon Park on Thursday evening.

The activity, witnessed by residents, was led by local officials, depa r t ment head s, ba ra ngay captains and council members, including City Councilors Alan Gel Cordova, Michael Bandal and Lilani Ramon.

Christmas is a time for family and friends. They come to the city to celebrate Christmas and it is annoying for them to hear heated arguments on air, Remollo said.

The mayor was hoping the coming year would be a very blessed year for Dumag ueteños w ith many developments coming up, including economic, infrastructure and sports-development programs.

Meanwhile, from 12,500 in the previous year, the number of indigent families who will receive “white gifts” this year doubled to 25,000. There would be an increase in the amount given to the beneficiaries from P300 to P400 per recipient, including persons with disabilities and senior citizens.

The mayor also announced there is a pending proposal to extend financial assistance to the elderly who will reach the age of 80 years. The proposal is to extend P10,000 every five years until they reach 100 years old.

In preparation for the massive infrastructure project, the city council approved an appropriation of more than P43 million for the purchase of heavy equipment so that all projects in the barangays will be fast-tracked.

Remollo just signed a program of work worth P23 million for the repair of the damaged portion of dikes along the Banica River, including the spillways in Bagacay, Taclobo and Candau-ay.

But Remollo said this is only temporary as the long-term approach is to construct bridges in lieu of spillways.

As to the proposed location of the sanitary landfill (SLF), the chief executive of the city was hoping for its approval by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Remollo said that when the DENR sends the go signal, he will proceed with the project because he can no longer in conscience witness residents and Dumagueteños, in general, suffer the effects of the dump in Candau-ay.

The mayor is aware of the objection by some quarters but he enjoined them to have an open mind.

He called on them to be part of a delegation to be sent to Bayawan City in the south of the province to see for themselves how the SLF of Bayawan City operates.

For 10 years it has been operating without foul odor coming out of the facility. In fact, the recent jamboree was held near the facility a few weeks ago, he said.

Remollo added that, like previous administrations, he can just let go of this project to avoid the controversy of locating the SLF site in another site within Dumaguete, “but I cannot just close my eyes and stay idle; we have to do what is good for our people and we’re not afraid of losing votes,” he said.

He added he cannot frustrate the will of the majority of the people to have a sanitary landfill and so everybody has to sacrifice for every development in the city.

Also coming up is the unveiling of the Dumaguete signage at the view deck of the Rizal Boulevard before the year ends, with the markings “Dumaguete Philippines #DumaGeTmE.” Also anticipated by residents is the installation of close circuit television cameras all over the city on the second quarter of next year, as well as the groundbreaking of the restoration of the original portion of the city hall on January 8, 2018.

It will be the first in the history of the city that a portion of the old city hall will be restored to its original form and become the regional museum; the front portion will be landscaped all the way to the Quezon Park and the Belfry tower at the Cathedral.

With all these developments, Remollo foresees a different fiesta and Christmas celebration next year. PNA

More elderly means Singapore ‘time bomb’ ticks louder in 2018 Indian philanthropist made adopted son of Pangasinan

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EXT year marks an ominous turning point for Singapore’s graying population, according to research

by Francis Tan, an economist at United Overseas Bank Ltd. in Singapore.

In 2018, the share of the population that’s 65 years and older will match those younger than 15 for the first time, Tan wrote in a report on Wednesday. As the elderly population starts to crowd out the youth, the “demographic time bomb” may mean changes to taxes, immigration rules and social services, he said.

“Singapore is facing one of the toughest economic and social challenges since its independence in the form of a rapidly aging work force and population,” Tan said.

At this rate, seniors in Singapore’s population will make up more than double the share of the youngest residents in 2030. Tan uses a compounded annual growth rate rather than adjusting for potential policy changes or alteration of trends, such as fertility rates, meaning officials could still help redraw those lines, or at least make them appear less menacing, over the next decade.

With already the oldest population in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Singapore of 2030 will probably look a lot like the demographics-embattled Japan of 2016, Tan’s figures show.

That’s all making policy more complicated as the city state seeks to ensure the elderly population is cared for without curbing the well-being of younger residents.

One way to increase the labor supply would be to ease immigration restrictions, a move that would have to be done at a managed pace to avoid worsening the “foreigner assimilation issue” in Singapore, even though the country can’t afford zero immigration, Tan said.

Singapore tightened rules on the hiring of foreigners in the wake of the 2011 election, amid voter discontent over gridlock and competition for employment, property and education. Bloomberg News

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PINEAPPLE CHRISTMAS LANTERNS Mang Leopoldo, 60, carries a bamboo pole where his creations— pineapple-shaped Christmas lanterns —hang for the people of Angeles City, Pampanga, to see and buy. LAILA AUSTRIA

INGAYEN, Pangasinan—The Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) here has passed an ordinance making an Indian philanthropist an adoptive son of the province for his various philanthropic works that benefited a lot of Pangasinenses.

Dr. Ashok Vasandani, president of the Rotary Club of Dagupan, received a copy of the resolution during the regular session of the SP on Monday.

Vasandani, a businessman and civic leader, appeared before the SP along with members of his family and other members of the Indian community in Dagupan.

He said he will continue his humanitarian works, especially for the indigent families in the city.

Through the Rotary Club of Downtown Dagupan, Vasandani has been going around Pangasinan distributing wheelchairs to persons with disabilities, indigents who are sick and senior citizens.

He added he does not know the persons with disabilities in Pangasinan and allowed members of the SP to distribute these to their respective constituents who need these most.

Thus, he allotted five wheelchairs to each of the 14 board members and 10 to Vice Gov. Jose Ferdinand Calimlim.

A longtime citizen of Dagupan, Vasandani was the only member of the Indian community who is a recipient of a doctorate degree honoris causa from the Lyceum Northwestern University for his philantropic works.

His son, Rocky, is the incumbent president of the Dagupan Bangus Jaycees. PNA

The Millennials BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Saturday, December 16, 2017

A9

Offered a chance, Chan wants to return the favor Part One

challenge. But I, together with my team, always come up with fresh ideas for start-up programs and get feedback on what works, as well as finding ways to engage an everincreasing number of partners and organizations. It’s been a great privilege to have had the opportunity to execute and turn this idea into a reality and continue to build on it.

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

T

@brownindio

OWER cranes lured her back.

Ten years ago, Katrina Rausa Chan graduated at the Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in materials science and engineering with additional major in business administration.

But the United States was still reeling from an economic recession and tensions against immigrants were running high.

A Christmas trip to her homeland one day gave her a different view: tower cranes everywhere, she said.

In an e-mail interview with the BusinessMirror, Chan, now 28 and the current executive director of Qbo Innovation Hub, bared her journey from an atmosphere of recession to a budding ecosystem of start-ups in the Philippines.

In this question and answer, Chan also shared the roots of her patriotism, planted during her life as a student of the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) fondly called by alumni as “Pisay”.

You had the chance to stay in the United States, the land of opportunities, but you came back. Why?

Around the time that I graduated and while I definitely had good career prospects, the US economy was still in the early stages of recovering from the recession and there was a generally negative sentiment, fear

and anger about jobs going to immigrants. (But when) I went home for Christmas break there were literally cranes, cranes and cranes everywhere.

The Philippine economy was experiencing rapid growth. Our (credit) ratings had recently been upgraded to investment grade and optimism was palpable. There was so much potential.

I think I made the decision then to continue my journey in the Philippines. I’d also seen so many things that I understood could be implemented here but weren’t yet being done.

Start-ups were one of those things.

In the US my smartest, most accomplished friends were turning down massive offers from Wall Street and corporates to work in tech or put up their own companies.

I came home and start-ups weren’t even a thing.

In classic millennial fashion, I just felt like the work I would do here would be more meaningful and impactful. I could actually make a difference or introduce something

Purpose

Maxine Mamba

inspired

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APPINESS is sweet and cloying. It is sunshine and roses.

Even if I never got that analogy of roses being all that great, for one, they are so thorny. If anything, happiness as sunshine and roses should be an analogy for purpose.

Purpose is deep. Purpose is about grit. Grit is the new word that determines success. It is the one word that seems to determine if your child will have a future or not.

The funny thing is, you don’t have to be a child grit-bearer to have grit. I got mine in adulthood. I think it is the very challenges of “adulting,” that is, the demand on an adolescent or young individual to fulfill his or her obligations to his or himself and society at large that produce this grit.

Grit isn’t something you are born with. I was a spoiled child in so much as I had all the love I wanted. I never needed anything I didn’t already have or could have and I was happy. Then adulting came, and wreaked havoc on my pretty little world.

Then it became a choice: Get some grit, or lose to life.

That is all it is really: Happiness is a choice.

Yet, the more you choose to fight, to be more than you’ve ever been, to heed the call of reality, that’s when you start having grit. You take grit with every step that you take. Like the military, the badges of honor are received after the war, after the fighting, after the mud and blood have all been washed away.

That’s when you can say that you are a champion.

Where is purpose then?

Purpose is your flag across the line of fire. It is the beat of the war drums in your heart that keeps you taking one step after another, even long after your body has been shod with bullets. It is the mad love that drives you to live when all logic of past experience is telling you that you should be dead by now.

Purpose is the soundtrack to your movie. And during your lowest moments, those few strings of music are enough to fill your heart with a fire

Do you sometimes feel frustrated the way the local economy goes as far as the start-ups are concerned?

katrina rausa chan

new versus being an indistinguishable cog in a giant machine.

What really tipped the scales, clichéd as that sounds is, is that I really did want to try and make a difference for this country. In Pisay we were taught about being an iskolar ng bayan and were instilled with a sense of patriotism. The Philippines and the Filipino people have so much more to offer than just good beaches, karaoke, domestic helpers and Manny Pacquiao, which are basically the things people would respond with whenever I’d mention I was a Filipino.

I chose to come back because I, perhaps naively, believed I could achieve something meaningful, especially in science and technology, and, of course, for personal reasons, so I could be with my family and enjoy home cooking.

So you joined Qbo. What do you really do there?

(As) director of QBO, I lead our team’s overall operations, strategy and partnerships. In addition to managing our stakeholders, growth and fund-raising, I also work with and advise start-ups directly. In a lot of ways, QBO is actually my “start-up”.

And as with any other startup, everyone in the team has to be scrappy and wear multiple hats. I’m the occasional web-site developer, HR head, tech support or marketing and social-media manager, too.

I see my main role as figuring out how we can develop and sustain QBO and ultimately achieve our vision of “Filipino start-ups changing the world” by “growth-hacking” the start-up ecosystem in the country.

Every day presents a different

Absolutely.

As Uri Levine, the cofounder of Waze, has been quoted as saying: “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution”. The problem we’ve fallen in love with at QBO—to build a thriving start-up and innovation ecosystem in the Philippines—is a complex one because in a way, you’re working against the established status quo, in daring to say that anyone who can execute on an idea and solve a problem, even a couple of kids in a garage, or a kubo, can create a dent.

The way I see it, there was never a shortage of talent or passion—of skilled entrepreneurs, gifted inventors, and minds bent on changing the world. But often, start-ups died along with their ideas in the early stages of their growth. Starting and growing a business was hard enough but, in the Philippines in particular, there was an incredible amount of friction.

There’re people (who) wanted to lend a hand to start-ups but no straightforward way of figuring out how to connect them. There isn’t very much risk capital available, especially for founders who didn’t have the right last name or connections. There were ambiguous policies and complexities in both setting up and shutting down businesses that made it more difficult for

start-ups to achieve some velocity and break through.

For the few that are making it, (we’ll) be doing more to highlight and celebrate success stories. It can definitely challenge your patience when you know you’re on the verge of something and also know you’re yet to realize its full potential.

Finding solutions to these challenges was the very motivation behind setting up QBO, the country’s first public-private initiative for start-ups and key to it all is the very Filipino term of bayanihan. Collaboration is at the core of everything that we do.

Involving the government, for example, was a key piece that I believe is important if we were to achieve broad, systemic change at scale. I knew of initiatives, such as Spring in SG and Start-up Chile, which is the largest LatAm start-up program. Both were quite successful and fully government driven.

Of course, we also drew inspiration from Silicon Valley, an ecosystem/environment that’s produced some of the most successful startups in the world.

What was valuable about hubs and what they all have in common is that, they “seeded” the momentum and created a pull that drew in and brought together not only the founders but also the entire support ecosystem to cater to the start-ups: companies to work with them, investors to fund them, professionals to service their needs, students to work for them and so forth. We realized that what the Philippine startup ecosystem needed was something that acted as this focal point for dynamic collaboration to develop a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, assist startups a nd encou ra ge t he i r g row t h.

To be continued

Hey, ‘budtender,’ over here to carry on.

So, what if you haven’t found happiness?

In the path of life, sometimes all you have to do is follow your duties and desires. That’s right I said duties. Sometimes people think that their purpose is something far away that they have to find.

It’s some rare gem in the middle of the temples of the Tibetan Himalayas or hidden in some Asian continent for white people, and in the heart of a white guy for most Filipinas.

Yet, purpose sometimes can take on the color of your favorite house rag.

Sometimes what we have been used to doing every day for the people we love is part of our purpose. We see it as common place, because we think that purpose is a many feathered rainbow pheasant that flies into our lives and changes everything around us.

The truth is, sometimes it is. But sometimes, purpose comes in solid and somber tones like duty, devotion, loyalty, faithfulness and sacrifice.

That doesn’t sound sexy to the generation that loves selfies and traveling the world, but there it is.

Sometimes our purpose is simply to love the people that are closest to us. Sometimes our purpose is defeating the sin that has lived in the dark corners of our families for years. Sometimes it is waging a war against the demons of lust, greed, sloth, selfishness and ego.

If you think that purpose should be unique to you, think about your family and everyone around you. There are reasons that they are “stuck” with a person, such as you. There is something you can offer them that would catapult their growth greatly.

Now some of you are thinking that I’ve digressed. You want to find your purpose, not make other people happy, right? Why am I talking about the needs of others? Shouldn’t it be all about you?

Should it?

It really shouldn’t be all about you. Really. That is what suicidal people have in common. They are stuck in the state of entropy. The vacuum inside their soul is only aware and sucks the life out of them.

Your purpose is to be a gift to this world and, most of all, the people around you.

Maxine Mamba is a regular contributor to the Millennials page of the BusinessMirror. The views expressed in her column, however, do not necessarily reflect those of the BusinessMirror’s. E-mail her at millennialuniverse@yahoo.com.

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OS ANGELES—Carli Jo Bidlingmaier was talking to a group of 20-somethings in a living room in the Bel-Air neighborhood here, weeks before the wildfires. She was explaining that consuming marijuana allows a woman to awaken her yoni, a Sanskrit term for vagina favored by Hollywood bohemians.

“Everybody stand up!” she shouted. The crowd, all women seated on pillows on the floor, leapt to their feet.

Bidlingmaier, a former casting producer for The Bachelor, vigorously shook her hips. She was leading the women in a so-called cannabis sensuality circle that seemed like something out of 1960s Esalen: joints, frank talk about sexuality, meditation and—at the end of the night—a headlong plunge into a big bowl of strawberries and dark chocolate.

“It is our divine right to enjoy our pleasure,” Bidlingmaier said. No one disagreed.

In January California will join the list of states where recreational marijuana is legal, among them Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Alaska. With researchers tallying California’s marijuana sales at $7.7 billion last year, the socalled green rush has already turned gold. Next year, the Standard hotel in Hollywood plans to open a dispensary for edibles. “It’s exploding in a good way,” said Emerald Castro, a brand ambassador for cannabis start-ups. “There are a lot of professionals on board.”

Cannabis sales, currently for medicinal purposes, are primarily a cash business. (Federal laws prohibit the use of banks for illegal drugs.) And with restrictions on advertising, the industry retains something of a quaint dorm-room vibe.

That means parties. Lots of them. Parties to educate and inform new users. Parties to connect to friends who partake. And parties to sell, sell, sell cannabis to an unfamiliar public, most of whom still think “Girl Scout Cookies” are for eating, Moby-Dick is a novel and Skywalker is Luke’s last name, rather than chic new strains.

Along with the sensuality circles, there are get-togethers for gamers who smoke pot, marijuana Christmas parties, classes where artists can puff and paint. There are studios where yogis smoke sensimilla with their shavasana and members-only coworking spaces where entrepreneurs can enjoy a dab of hash while poring over data-flow diagrams and accounting receipts.

“It all comes down to not feeling like a criminal, being seen as a criminal,” said Doug-

las Dracup, 31, whose Hitman Coffee Shop on South La Brea Avenue is one of these spaces.

Parties, he said, have “set the stage for the industry to flourish.”

A different kind of high tea

IN a gated office building off Sunset Boulevard, tucked between a parking lot and two motels, about 25 people gathered on one recent Saturday for “White Rabbit High Tea.” Jessica Cole Eriksen, 34, began hosting tea parties in April 2016 after working as a nanny in Ireland, where brew was a daily ritual.

“I’m rolling joints so, everyone, let’s get rolling,” said Eriksen, who brought a box filled with masks and hats for people to wear. “I’m so happy you are here on this lovely afternoon.”

Some were friends or guests who read about the tea party, which cost $65, online. “I saw it on Instagram last month, and I thought I would come,” Bridgett Davis said, in between puffs under her leopard-print hat. “In December I’m going to pull out my mink. It’s a different kind of crowd, not teenagers or millennials.”

Holden Jagger, a former executive pastry chef at the Soho House who started a cannabis cooking and cultivation business last year, prepared the meal. The table was set with place cards, gold lace paper napkins and strategically arranged ashtrays. There was no pot in the roasted corn and buttermilk scones. But there were plenty of joints, vape pens and edibles on the table. A server wearing a crimson dress and rabbit ears poured peach green tea.

Tara Dawn Roseman, an eyebrow aesthetician, examined a bottle of lotion infused with medical marijuana.

“My dad loves this stuff,” said Roxanne Dennant, whose company, Fruit Slabs, makes cannabis-infused fruit leather. “He rubs it on his hands. My hands are always hurting,” Roseman said.

“Then use some!” Dennant said. “They are on the table to be used.”

There were a lot of products to try: cannabis-infused cellulite cream, lip balm, chocolate cookies and small bottles of artisanal buds from Northern California. Roseman brought some pot from home, which she dumped on a plate so she could roll a joint. Platters of finger sandwiches were passed.

“Do you find yourself with friends that want to talk about something else?” Dennant said. “We can’t. We are passionate.”

Sufficiently stoned

ERIKSEN refrained from smoking because she was pregnant. She watched as guests eyed the buds on the table. “You get a gift bag so you don’t need to pocket anything,” she said.

As caramel popcorn and apple-pie cookies were passed, the table grew silent. A man put a zebra mask over his face and scrolled through his cell phone. “I was just staring off into the sky and thinking, ‘I am sufficiently stoned,’” Dennant said. Davis said, “You feel like not talking so much anymore.”

Jagger joined the table. “I had a mom give me a cookie once,” he said, recalling his early 20s.

“I just couldn’t talk for a while. My arms were moving, but my mouth wasn’t working. She put a whole plant into butter, and it was pretty strong.”

When he was a younger man, Jagger said, he prided himself in baking potent cookies.

Nowadays, cooks are better at tempering the high. “The idea that we can manage it,” he said, “takes the fun out of it.”

Taking care of the stars

MAYA Cooper was dressed in raspberry tights, gold chains and a blue kufi, a tableau that looked vaguely like vintage MC Hammer. It was the day before Halloween, and Snoop Dogg was hosting his wife’s birthday party, a 1980s-themed bash in an industrial building near the airport.

“It’s my job to know everybody,” Cooper said, holding court in a hazy, smoke-filled lounge packed with couches and a bar crowded with jars of marijuana bud, rolling papers and smoking accessories.

Cooper, 31, is the associate director of marketing for Merry Jane, a digital media company started in 2015 by Snoop Dogg to promote marijuana culture. She is better known, though, as a “budtender” to the stars. An Ohio native who once worked for Rolling Stone, she said she taught Gwyneth Paltrow how to use a vape pen. She has hosted bud bars at parties for Diplo and Calvin Harris, the music producers. Cooper has even spun cannabis-infused sugar into cotton candy for Miley Cyrus at a birthday party for Cyrus’s boyfriend, Liam Hemsworth.

These days marijuana is marketed like coffee beans. Humboldt’s Finest, a collective from Northern California, was that night’s sponsor.

Among the strains scrawled on a menu were Sunset Sherbet (“luscious melty treat”), Cookies (“an uplifting, potent high”) and OG Kush (“for total body melt”). A guest sidled up to the

bar and asked for six joints and some buds for a bong. On the dance floor, where Snoop Dogg was twirling with his wife, trays of pre-rolled joints were passed by female servers.

In January Cooper teamed up with a dispensary to host a bar at the 30th birthday party for Cade Hudson, a talent agent who works for Creative Artists Agency. The party was held on the roof of an apartment complex in Beverly Hills, and about 200 people showed up. Singer Nick Jonas asked for a joint, Cooper said. Others kept their distance. “Sometimes celebrities will pass by,” she said. “They aren’t interested in coming to the station. So we bring the gift bag to them.”

Notoriously grabby

COOPER said sponsors don’t get paid to give away product, which makes a bar a costly proposition.

The average price of a joint is about $3.50; small batch or craft cannabis costs twice that.

“It’s hard to regulate celebrities,” she said.

“They are used to having whatever they want.”

The music crowd is notoriously grabby. So much so, she toyed with the idea of making people who give parties pay. Cooper said they ran out of pre-rolled joints halfway through the night at a Def Jam event during Grammy week.

“People kept coming back to the bar,” she said. “They try to pretend like they are someone else. They kept stuffing their pockets. Someone even came over to the table, but this time with his hat off. I said, ‘I still recognize you.’”

A bake sale, so to speak

WHEN Jessica Assaf talks about marijuana, she always uses the word “she.”

“It is the female plant that creates this precious flower,” she said one evening at a party in Venice. The booming cannabis market is filled with female entrepreneurs.

“We are a community,” said Assaf, a former beauty and marketing executive. “And we show up for each other.”

Indeed. About 100 people crowded a fencedin yard at the home of Abby Gould, an acquaintance of Assaf’s who works for a firm that invests in the cannabis industry. Lit candles were placed on wooden railings. A singer playing acoustic guitar serenaded guests gathered on the front lawn under a string of lights. No one was sipping chardonnay. The crowd was there for a “Bake Sale” sponsored by Cannabis Feminist, the company Assaf founded a year ago to sell marijuana-wellness products at home. New York Times News Service

BusinessMirror

A10 Saturday, December 16, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

WOMEN, famous and otherwise, made their voices heard loud and clear, and they became Time’s Person of the Year.

Spreading joy absolutely free CHRISTMAS is the season of giving, but one doesn’t have to spend big bucks to make this occasion memorable.

For its holiday promo, Freenet, Voyager Innovations’s free Internet platform, is giving away ultimate freebies to its users, including a brand-new Chevrolet Spark, on top of the must-have gadgets, such as MacBook Air laptops and iPhone 7 units.

Ongoing until the second week of January 2018, Freenet will be giving away two units of Macbook Air and eight units of iPhone 7 to its lucky users.

This will culminate on January 17, when Freenet will then draw the winner of the Chevrolet Spark. To get a chance to win any of these coveted prizes, all one has to do is download the Freenet app, register using his or her mobile number and fill out the raffle form. This automatically earns the user five raffle entries. Existing Freenet users, meanwhile, can earn a raffle entry just by accessing Freenet’s partner apps and sites, free of data charges.

“Christmas has always been a special occasion for us Filipinos. We don’t have to break our bank accounts just to spread some holiday cheer, or simply give out good vibes on an ordinary day. With Freenet, not only are the Filipinos able to shop, book rides and interact with their friends online, free of data charge, but they also get rewarded for doing so.

Now, that’s the kind of online experience we want them to get.” Heidi Garayblas, head of integrated marketing for Hatch, Voyager Innovations’s marketing-technology arm.

Available as a free download from Google Play Store and Apple App Store, Freenet is the free Internet platform of Voyager Innovations under its marketing technology arm, Hatch. It allows Smart, Sun and TnT subscribers to access the top apps and sites for news, shopping, travel, lifestyle, health, banking and finance, free of data charge.

Once registered, users can already browse through the apps and sites inside the Freenet app without having to worry about unwanted data charges. Users, regardless of their mobile-network provider, can also opt to complete in-app missions that will not only earn them additional raffle entries, but will also get them data or “MB” credits, which they can use to surf the web sites and apps outside of Freenet.

The free Internet platform also offers its users free access to social-media sites Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, along with Wattpad and gaming apps Clash of Clans, Clash Royale and Mobile Legends, from 6 to 8 pm everyday, which is otherwise known as the Netzee hour.

This holiday season, users can all the more take advantage of Freenet’s offerings. By accessing the app, one can easily shop in Lazada or Takatack for Christmas gifts, connect with distant loved ones on social media, or book a flight for a holiday getaway, all free of data charge.

“Our commitment is to bring the digital life closer to more Filipinos, especially the unconnected. That’s why we are ceaselessly working to provide a worry-free and rewarding online experience to our users. These new offerings from Freenet are just a part of our bigger mission at Hatch and Voyager Innovations. This is to help create a one connected country, a nation without digital divide,” said Dindo Marzan, Hatch managing director.

‘Feminism’ is the word of the year PRIMETIME

DINNA CHAN VASQUEZ @dinnachanvasquez luckydinna@gmail.com

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OBODY is really surprised that MerriamWebster’s word of the year for 2017 is “feminism.”

It’s been a good year and also a bad one for women. Good because after centuries of struggling for equality, they finally got the world’s attention, thanks to social media and hashtags like #MeToo. Bad because accounts from Hollywood and other corridors of power revealed influential, powerful men abusing women, and their victims understandably felt helpless, unable and, ultimately, unwilling to complain. Until now.

The hashtag #MeToo has been used millions of times in 85 countries.

A friend of mine, who was a victim of abuse, had to uninstall her Twitter app on all gadgets because it was all too much for her. And I understand her.

Nobody really gets over sexual abuse. It’s a pain that lives in your heart and mind forever.

Another female friend, meanwhile, said all the noise about sexual abuse on Twitter was making her head spin. “It’s too much for me, honestly,” she said.

I’m not surprised that some of the choices for Word

of the Year included “complicit” and “empathy.” They are, somehow, related to feminism and sexual abuse.

But feminism is not confined to speaking out against sexual abuse. It is, to me, a state of being. It represents a movement about women demanding the same rights men have enjoyed for generations.

Merriam-Webster defines feminism as “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes” and “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.”

Time Magazine gave the honor of Person of the Year to the “The Silence Breakers,” who drove a worldwide conversation that continues today about sexual harassment and assault.

In my opinion, it has never been a better time to be a woman. A lot of things online may be noise but now, a woman can post a picture of herself in a bikini on Facebook or Instagram and only someone who is sick in the head will call her a “slut.” In the future, women can post whatever they want without any fear.

I’ve said to close friends that we may not be the ones to benefit from #MeToo and other feminist movements online, but our children and our children’s children will have better lives. Our daughters and granddaughters will have better lives because of this.

But more than the stories of abuse and manipulation of women by powerful men, women stood out in 2017 because many of them finally came into their own, thanks to the Internet.

The Internet gave so many women a voice. I have seen so many of them call out men who catcalled them on the streets, fondled them on the MRT, or said something inappropriate in the workplace.

They’ve finally found the courage to say, “It wasn’t

my fault.” I admit that in the past, I have been guilty of saying things like, “She shouldn’t have worn that if she didn’t want the wrong kind of attention.”

No one wants the wrong kind of attention, and guess what? She and any other female didn’t wear that pair of short shorts to be catcalled or fondled. It’s not anyone’s fault when men don’t respect women, save for the parent(s) who raised such men. When a man sexually assaults or abuses a woman, it is not because she wore something revealing or behaved inappropriately. It’s the man who didn’t behave inappropriately.

I remember how this young man would tweet about being depressed and suicidal. Of course, a lot of females responded to his tweets. They said he could message them if he wanted to talk. Well, guess what? Depressed and suicidal guy only wanted to talk to the beautiful ones, many of them minors. He victimized so many girls, sliding into their DMs and saying inappropriate things. He got called out for that.

Thankfully, this stopped him cold.

I’m glad that social activist and former Social Welfare Secretary Judy M. Taguiwalo is still around to witness everything that’s happening. Taguiwalo has been a feminist long before many people knew the word existed. A senator came under fire when he brought up her being an unmarried mother, calling Taguiwalo as someone “na-ano.”

If you read interviews about Taguiwalo, you’d be pleasantly surprised at how feminism comes so naturally to her. Her guiding principle is, “A woman’s place is in the struggle.”

It is not easy being a woman, even in this day and age. But it is better that our voice is now heard. We cannot be ignored. ■

Apple orchestrates deal for song-recognition app Shazam SAN FRANCISCO—Apple has bought Shazam, the maker of a song-recognition app that Apple’s digital assistant Siri has already been using to help people identify the music playing on their iPhones.

The companies didn’t disclose the price of the acquisition announced on Monday. Technology news site Recode previously reported Apple is paying about $400 million for Shazam, citing three unidentified people familiar with the deal.

Apple Inc. issued a statement describing Shazam as “natural fit” with its services.

“We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam,” Apple said.

The Cupertino, California, company declined to say whether Shazam’s app will still be available after the deal closes.

Some of Shazam’s features conceivably could be blended into Apple’s music-streaming services, which has accumulated more than 27 million

subscribers since the company created it in 2015.

Siri began drawing upon Shazam’s technology to answer questions about songs as part of a 2014 update to the iPhone’s operating system.

The Shazam deal marks Apple’s biggest acquisition in music since paying $3 billion for Beats Electronics’s line of headphones and music service in 2014.

Digital services have been playing an increasingly important role for Apple as the sales of iPhones—the company’s main moneymaker— have slowed. Software and other services generated $30 billion in revenue during Apple’s last fiscal year, a 23-percent increase from the previous year.

Shazam was founded in 2002 and made one of the first apps for the iPhone. It has about 250 employees working at its London headquarters and seven other offices in the United States, Australia and Germany. AP

THE Apple logo looms over a store-location entrance in Dallas. The tech company has bought Shazam, the maker of a song-recognition app that Apple’s digital assistant Siri has already been using to help people identify the music playing on their iPhones. AP

Globe and SM team up for seamless digital experience in Supermalls through GoWiFi

FROM left: Annie Garcia, president of SM Supermalls; Jeffrey Lim, president of SM Prime Holdings; Hans T. Sy, chairman of the executive committee, SM Prime Holdings; Ernest Cu, president and CEO of Globe Telecom; and Willy Ocier, president of Philippine Global Communications.

IMAGINE seamless digital connection while shopping and dining in SM Supermalls.

Through the partnership and collaboration of Globe Telecom and SM Supermalls, mallgoers will now be able to experience quality connectivity with GoWiFi Auto. This premium GoWiFi service allows customers to surf all day in 34 selected SM malls nationwide.

Ernest Cu, president and CEO of Globe Telecom; Hans Sy, chairman of the executive committee of SM Prime and Willy Ocier, president of Philippine Global Communications Inc., signed a memorandum of agreement on November 23 at China Blue, Conrad Hotel, to roll out GoWiFi Auto.

“The new GoWiFi access in SM Supermalls is in line with our company’s mission to create wonderful experiences for customers that include premium connectivity even while they are

out with their family and friends,” Cu elaborates in a statement.

He says having GoWiFi access in all 34 SM malls gives customers a swift and dependable option when they connect to the Internet while shopping, dining inside the mall.

The landmark partnership was witnessed by Globe Telecom executives, including Don Rae, head of the WiFi Business Group; Christopher Cheng, vice president of the WiFi Business Group; Adrian Te, director of the WiFi Business Group and Dominador Perez, head of rollout and deployment, WiFi Business Group.

SM top executives who joined Sy included Jeffrey Lim, president of SM Prime and Annie Garcia, president of SM Supermalls.

Globe GoWiFi Auto is a seamless way to connect to WiFi automatically while in a GoWiFi coverage area. Customers who avail

themselves of the GoWiFi Auto will be able to connect automatically to the Internet and enjoy uninterrupted browsing without ads, and without having to enter usernames and passwords.

GoWiFi Auto also allows customers to connect automatically when moving to other locations within the mall and extends browsing time beyond the free daily time allotted to users.

A one-time free trial allows new users to access GoWiFi Auto for three days from the moment of successful activation on the GoWiFi portal.

The free three-day trial promo runs until December 31.

GoWiFi Internet access can be used by Globe and TM customers, as well as customers from other networks. Both prepaid and postpaid users can use the paid premium GoWiFi service where charges can be deducted through their load and postpaid bill.

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Alexa, can I do my holiday shopping through you?

BY JOSEPH PISANI The Associated Press NEW YORK—It was a few weeks before Christmas and time to put my voice assistant to the test: Could I just shout out the gifts I needed to buy without having to get on a smartphone or computer?

Alexa, the virtual assistant inside my Echo Dot, is really good at reordering stuff I already bought on Amazon. But asking it to order new items was trickier: I had to be precise and know exactly what I wanted to buy. There were times I had to rephrase orders until it could understand me. And other times I just gave up and went to my phone to make an order.

Voice shopping is supposed to be the future, and Amazon—which was far ahead of its competitors in offering it—has pushed customers to use it this holiday season by offering earlier access to deals that way. Other retailers are betting on voice shopping, too: Walmart, Target and dozens of others have teamed up with Google to sell merchandise through the technology company’s voice-activated devices.

Shopping by voice has some pitfalls—like hindering the ability to research options and comparison shop for the best price, or changing your mind about something in your cart.

Amazon.com Inc. said “shopping with Alexa is really exciting” but it is still early on, and that it “continually learns and adds more functionality.”

And Alexa did try to be helpful, sending photos to my smartphone or suggesting other products.

PLAYING WITH WORDS TOILET Trouble, the board game that sprays water on players from a plastic toilet, was on top of my niece’s wish list. But Alexa didn’t know what it was at first. When I said, “Alexa, order me Toilet Trouble,” it responded: “Amazon doesn’t have the Toilet Trouble you previously bought.” I wasn’t sure what that was about—I hadn’t bought the game before and searched my past orders to make sure I wasn’t mistaken.

Alexa offered to sell me another game, called “Yeti.”

“Would you like to buy it?” it asked. I said no, but it was pushy: “OK. You know, seeing is believing. Would it help to view this on Joseph’s phone?” It sent me a link to the listing for Yeti through the Alexa app, but I still didn’t want it. I tried another way to ask for the game: “Alexa, order me the Toilet Trouble board game.”

That worked, and the $10.76 game was at my door two days later.

BUNGLED BOOK BUYING I MOVED on to a children’s book: “Alexa, order Should I Share My Ice Cream?” It thought I needed my caffeine fix and tried to reorder something from Starbucks. So I asked in a different way: “Alexa, order the book Should I Share My Ice Cream?” It again tried to buy something from Starbucks. On my third try I included the author’s name, Mo Willems. That still confused Alexa: “I’m not quite sure how to help you with that.”

I gave up and bought the book using my phone.

This was a good illustration of how voice shopping can be slower than scanning a site and clicking.

QUICK COOKER ORDERING THIS was fast and easy: “Alexa, order me an Instant Pot Mini.” It recognized the brand and size right away, gave me the price of the pressure cooker and asked if I wanted to buy.

NO SWEATER FOR ME VOICE shopping is not for browsers. There was a blue cashmere sweater I had seen on Amazon that I wanted to buy, but couldn’t remember the brand. “Alexa, order navy blue cashmere sweater.” It read me the top result, but it was a women’s sweater. I asked again, specifying it was for men. This time Alexa wanted me to reorder a navy blue hoodie I bought in March.

Analysts have said voice shopping can work best when you don’t have strong preferences about what brand of batteries or detergent you buy.

In this case, I did care. So I’ll buy the exact sweater I want from the app.

Saturday, December 16, 2017 A11

Some of Facebook’s early friends now its sharpest critics

BY BARBARA ORTUTAY The Associated Press

N

EW YORK—Some of Facebook’s former friends are starting to express some serious doubts about the social network they helped create.

Facebook exploits a “vulnerability in human psychology” to make and keep users addicted to the platform, Sean Parker, the company’s first president, said in a public forum last month.

Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook vice president who joined the company in 2007, recently told an audience at Stanford that the company is “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

And Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist and early investor in both Facebook and Google, wrote that both companies “threaten public health and democracy” in an August USA Today opinion-editorial.

It has been a rough year for the tech industry, especially social-media companies. It opened with concerns about fake news and “filter bubbles” that can shield people from contrary beliefs, segued into pressure on Facebook and Twitter to clamp down on trolling and online harassment, and culminated with congressional hearings into Russian agents’ alleged use of their platforms to meddle with the 2016 presidential election .

All of that, of course, came against a steady drumbeat of tweets from United States President Donald J. Trump, who used the service to praise his allies and castigate his foes, often in inflammatory fashion.

But the unkindest cut of all may have come from three people who helped build Facebook in its early days. In early-November Parker told

the news site Axios that Facebook was built to answer the question, “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” He called its stream of comments, “likes” and reactions a “social-validation feedback loop that exploits how human brains work.” A few days later, McNamee wrote another essay for The Guardian in which he argued that Facebook and Google have used “persuasive techniques developed by propagandists and the gambling industry,” combining them with modern technology to maximize their profits while pushing “appeals to fear and anger” and other material that reinforces filter bubbles and addictive behavior.

Palihapitiya piled on too, saying at a Stanford Graduate School of Business talk last month that he feels “tremendous guilt” about helping create tools that have widened social divisions.

He recommended that people take a break from social media.

Facebook, in an e-mailed comment, said it is “working hard to improve,” and noted that it’s not the same company it was when Palihapitiya, who left six years ago, worked there.

“We’ve done a lot of work and research with outside experts and academics to understand the effects of our service on well-being, and we’re using it to inform our product development,” the company’s statement read.

“We are willing to reduce our profitability to make sure the right investments are made.”

Not all early investors are critical. LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman acknowledged in an interview concerns around how social-media systems are causing what he called “lightly addictive behavior.”

But, he added, “that’s also been true of television, that’s also been true of sugar.” ■

SEVERAL people with tight connections to Facebook—some as early investors, some as former officials—are going public with a critique of the company and social media more broadly. They say Facebook and social-media systems undermine democracy and exploit the human psychology to get people addicted to their platforms. In response, Facebook says it is “working hard to improve.” AP

QUID PRO QUO EMERGES AS THE VICTOR OF THE ASIA PACIFIC PREDATOR LEAGUE 2018 NORTH LUZON QUALIFIERS THE third qualifier of the Asia Pacific Predator League 2018, the region’s biggest world-class gaming tournament, ends as Quid Pro Quo emerges the victor taking home P30,000.

Held in TNC San Fernando, La Union, a total for 35 teams competed, with SG Dragons and Jhazchloe coming in at second and third place.

The brainchild of gaming giant Predator Gaming, the Asia Pacific Predator League 2018 (www.predator-league.com) is a brand-new Dota 2 league and the most anticipated eSports competition. The Philippines joins the action together with six other countries, namely, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Hong Kong and Indonesia, where the final round will be held.

Quid Pro Quo, the victor of the recently concluded North Luzon Leg in the Philippines, was formed only in September, when the team’s current manager decided to take players from other existing gaming teams to form an all-new team.

A previous winner of the TNC Cup Marikina Branch Qualifier,

Quid Pro Quo is currently in Muntinlupa for its bootcamp.

The North Luzon Regional Qualifiers is one of four Regional Qualifiers in the Philippines, which will last for approximately three months until January 2018. Each with a prize pool of P30,000, the Regional Qualifiers are held in various areas of the country, namely, Mindanao (Bukidnon), the Visayas (Bacolod), North Luzon (La Union) and National Capital Region (Marikina).

The winners of these qualifiers will move on to compete at the National Finals. The victor of the National Finals will then represent the Philippines in the Predator League final round, and will compete against the national winners of the other Asia-Pacific countries for the total prize pool of $150,000.

In the Philippines the Predator League 2018 eliminations are done with TheNet.Com, the gaming company’s regular eSports partner. The Asia Pacific Predator League 2018 is also supported by the Philippine Dota pride, TNC Pro Team-Dota 2.

LA Union Quid Pro

Microsoft taps WSI to promote their ESD product

BY RIZAL RAOUL REYES

AS Philippine businesses pursue their respective automation process, Microsoft Philippines has tapped major information technology (IT) reseller Word Systems Inc. (WSI) to push the software giant’s electronic software delivery (ESD) product to the local market.

Irene Chua, WSI vice president for consumercommercial division, said the company is bullish about its partnership with Microsoft, as it has been successful in the Philippines since it started selling the earlier versions of Windows operating system.

“There is huge potential for the ESD business, which is expected to grow 10 percent yearly to gain between 10 percent to 20 percent of the Microsoft retail-box business. We project a revenue between P20 million to P40 million within the next five years, which is why it’s important for resellers to kick-start their ESD program and be the first to market with us,” declared Chua in a news statement.

Chua said businesses will benefit in using ESD as it eliminates inventory costs, freight charges and warehouse-stocking fees resulting in lower software costs for customers. Moreover, she said all featured

MICROSOFT Philippines COO and Chief Marketing Officer Christian Lim (third from left) shakes hands with WSI Business Development Manager Cherry Tan to launch their campaign to recruit e-tailers to the new Microsoft Electronic Software Delivery program. Joining them are WSI ESD Product Specialist Mildred Estoesta (from left) and Microsoft Philippines Channel and Device Marketing Manager Charlene Angela Ho.

Microsoft products are always available and never out of stock. She said IT retailers don’t need fees or additional resources to offer ESD, as these companies already have sales personnel promoting Microsoft

products. Chua said the selling process is simple, as customers can purchase Microsoft software through their preferred resellers, who in turn issue a purchase order to WSI. WSI then logs the order through the ESD portal, and once this cycle is completed, the customer receives the product key at their authorized e-mail address within the same or next business day.

These ESD products can be used by customers for a wide range of IT equipment, including desktops, laptops, tablets and even smartphones. Meanwhile, this gives distributors a greater avenue to servicing the needs of their business and consumer clients.

The Microsoft products that are available nationwide through ESD are Office 365 Home and Personal, Microsoft Office 2016 (Home and Student, Home & Business for PC and Mac), Office Professional, Visio Professional and Standard, Project Professional and Standard, as well as Windows OS (Windows 10 Home and Pro), among others. Chua said WSI’s 35-year track record in the industry as being the main reason Microsoft chose their company for this endeavor, and expressed confidence that WSI can grow the ESD business just as they have nurtured other Microsoft products in the past.

Some of Facebook’s early friends now its sharpest critics A11 Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

BusinessMirror

Saturday, December 16, 2017 A12

A whole new (Monster Hunter) world THE TECHNIVORE ED UY

whereiseduy@gmail.com

F

OR the not so hardcore gamers, or those “seasonal” ones who make use of the holiday break by binge-gaming or finishing up those saved games in their hard drives, there’s one more incentive for you to wrap up those unfinished quests before the year ends.

MONSTER HUNTER WORLD AS you all know, Capcom’s third-biggest franchise title (after “Street Fighter” and “Resident Evil”) is coming out this January, and if you’ve ever played any of the “Monster Hunter” games you know that, once hunting season begins, it almost never ends.

Last month, I had the opportunity to sit down with two of Capcom’s lead developers—Yuya Tokuda (Game Director) and Ryozo Tsujimoto (Game Producer), thanks to our friends from Datablitz. Big shoutout to Sir Winston, Orpha and Sara for making these things happen. That’s why I only get my games from them!

I must admit, I’ve been a left behind in the series. I played the first Monster Hunter on the PS2 and barely got past the initial quests when it came to the PSP version, not because I lost interest but it was just quite difficult for me.

The presentation had already started when I arrived, and they were in the middle of showcasing some of the new stuff both in software and hardware, including the limited-edition Rathalos PS4 Console, which is also expected to hit the Philippines next month. But first, a quick recap. Monster Hunter (or Monsuta Hant”) is an action role-playing game where players take the role of a Hunter. Hunters are given quests by locals to slay or trap large monsters across various landscapes.

Its main appeal lies in amassing loot or items gained from slaying these monsters, gathering resources, and quest rewards to improve their weapons, armor and other items, which, in turn, allow the players to face more powerful monsters.

While initially a single-player game, the succeeding titles allow up to four-player cooperative play, with all Hunters working together to take down monsters— and that’s where its biggest appeal is. I remember a meeting a group of friends who would gather every weekend to just play Monster Hunter for hours!

The series has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, principally in Japan and other Asian countries, but has had little success in the Western market due to the game’s difficult learning curve. The battle elements are often frantic and exciting because

of the time limit. Players need to time their attacks carefully in response to the monster’s own. Think “Destiny” meets “Dark Souls” with monsters that look like dragons and dinosaurs—you get the idea.

In the next part of their presentation, Mr. Tokuda played a demo (similar to the one playable at the ESGS) to highlight some of the interesting new features of the game. They introduced us to a couple of monsters, like the Great Girros and Radobaan—which, by the way, looked really awesome and very tempting to hunt—and the featured monster, Nergigante!

Watching Tokuda play, you could feel the intensity, as this monster is capable of dealing high amounts of damage and can do one-hit KOs. He gave us some tips, saying Negigante’s horns indicate status—if white, it is more susceptible to the hunter’s attacks. On the other hand, if it is black, it indicates that it is in rage mode. Tokuda said the environment will play a huge factor in gameplay (both for the hunters and the monsters). The flora and fauna around you, for example, can be utilized on top of the players’ items, meaning you can use vines as traps or use those stun toads to paralyze enemies.

He added that there will also be “monster vs monster” encounters during your quests, and that there’s an Exploration/Expedition mode, which will allow players to freely roam the map outside of quests.

to the controls and gameplay. And while it won’t be easy, they said the difficulty will increase a bit more gradually. There’s even a fully voiced and animated guide, called “The Handler,” who will pop up on screen to explain the game’s basic mechanics.

“We want to meet the expectations of players who have been into Monster Hunter even before World,” Tsujimoto said. As such, all 14 weapons from previous entries in the series are back to make veteran players feel right at home using their favorite hunting gear.

Tokuda added the game’s “world” is two or three times bigger than that of previous entries, which also means that you can expect even bigger monsters this time.

“Tall as mountains,” he described.

The areas will also be seamlessly connected allowing the hunters to explore and move from one zone to another without a loading screen.

As I mentioned earlier, the biggest appeal of Monster Hunter is being able to hunt with friends and, in Monster Hunter: World, the new “drop-in, dropout” feature allows players to enter quests alone and still have friends enter the game mid-battle. Up to four people can take on a quest together. And, as they say, friends who slay together, stay together.

Monster Hunter: World will be released on January 26, 2018, on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and will be available first at Datablitz.

A BRAVE NEW WORLD WORLD is the first Monster Hunter game that’s really designed for online play, and it’s the first title to rethink some of the series’ most off-putting conventions.

Mr. Tsujimoto said they brought the series back to consoles because of the clamor of fans to recreate and upgrade the core Monster Hunter experience. He added that there’s a much larger development team working on the title to fully utilize the capabilities of current-generation consoles.

“I think the platform that we’ve been putting our games on has been a limitation in the West due to the difference in how much further reach there is in Japan on portable hardware. So now that we’re coming back to console, as has been much requested by our fans, I think that’s one of the hurdles already gone for the Western audience to get into this series,” Tsujimoto pointed out in a previous interview.

While the visuals are probably the most noticeable upgrade, the developers said they will be introducing a lot of new features to breathe new life into the franchise while retaining the core concepts that longtime fans of the game have enjoyed.

Perhaps the most welcome additions to the game, however, is that it’s become more accessible to noobs and wannabe hunters. If you’ve played any of the games, you know that Monster Hunter can be a bit too difficult. It has steep learning curve that requires a lot of patience and, while a favorite of hardcore fans, it has discouraged a lot of interested players from really spending time with the game.

For World, the Capcom guys promised that they will give players a longer time to learn and get used

PROTECT YOUR X LAST week, I finally got the Iphone X or 10 from Smart. I figured it would be cheaper to get it on a Smart postpaid plan for P3,199 instead of buying the device and shell out a huge amount money outright.

Smart’s iPhone X plan P3,199/month has a lock-in period of 24 months. The amount includes a P1,700 cash out and Plan 1499 that gives you unlimited texts to all networks, 60-minute calls to all networks, 9GB data allowance per month, a free app of your choice (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Waze) and free one-month Gadget Shield. Moreover, the monthly device fee can be charged to your monthly bill at the get-go for greater convenience. As such, you don’t need to worry about coughing up a huge initial cashout payment, or max out your credit card.

But what made getting the Smart iPhoneX more memorable was that I got it on the same day as Kris Aquino, who went to the Smart store in SM Megamall to document how she got her iPhone X. She initially teased that she was going to be “meeting an X” in her Instagram post, which got people talking. Turns out, the X she was referring to was the latest iPhone.

Because her appearance was unannounced, the people there were surprised to see Kris and her crew arrive at the Smart store. She began by asking why she should give the X a chance even though she already has the iPhone 8 Plus. Convinced, she proceeded to the customer-service desk to to sign up and unbox her phone. She tried FaceID, the Animoji, and even took a selfie with the staff, who assisted her.

They then shot an episode for her YouTube channel, wherein she continued talking about her other Xs—or exes—before ending it with why she

decided to get the X on a Smart Plan. As Kris said, “Lets be honest with ourselves: If you’re an Apple fan, the iPhone X is your dream gadget and probably the only thing you want for Christmas, right?”

I must say, I love my Huawei Mate 10 phone, but even I can’t deny that the iPhone 10 is an equally stunning device.

Just like when people ask me what camera I use when I take a selfie (Mate 10), I also hear whispers of admiration whenever I take out my iPhone X. And because I’ve made quite an investment on the X, I’m certainly not entrusting it to just any other case. So, even before unboxing my phone, I immediately went to find an Otterbox case.

OtterBox has set the standard for protection from the very beginning and is still the No. 1-selling smartphone case in the United States, and it continues to uphold that tradition with a full lineup of cases for the iPhone X. Starting with Defender Series, OtterBox has innovated 26 different case styles for iPhone over the past decade. Case designs have evolved to be more sleek and accommodate an ever-increasing number of features, but one thing has remained the same: trusted protection.

Each iPhone case design undergoes a minimum of 24 tests across more than 238 hours to earn the OtterBox Certified Drop+Protection seal. These tests ensure lasting protection from drops, bumps, scratches and dings.

If you’re looking for something fashionable, check out the Symmetry Series. It has a sleek and raised beveled edge that provides extra protection for the touchscreen during facedown drops. I got a clear one with glitters as I wanted to show off the silver back of my phone.

Also available in classic solids, trendy graphics, fully clear and clear graphics, it’s the perfect fashion statement. Then there’s the Pursuit Series, which guards against drops, dust and dirt intrusion, and is perfect for an outdoor adventure or average day in the office. This two-piece case snaps around each device for a perfect fit.

The Defender Series is the original protective case for iPhone with 10 years of design and development behind it. The rugged multi-layer case features a shell and outer slipcover to absorb and dissipate shock.

Other cases you could choose from are the Commuter Series, with the outer shell and inner slipcover combining to pull shock away from the device, and port covers keep debris out. The Strada Series Folio offers a luxurious 100-percent genuine leather cover and trusted protection. A new variant I discovered is the uniVERSE Case System, featuring a slim, protective OtterBox case with a modular rail mount on the back that allows the attachment of a variety of accessories.

Now that you have your glass back protected, you might also want to get the Otterbox Alpha Glass to protect that beautiful front screen. The Alpha Glass is compatible with all Otterbox cases.

OtterBox is available at OtterBox retail kiosks, Power Mac Center, iStudio, InBox and Mobile1. ■