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D.A. weighs foot-and-mouth disease risk of cattle imports for milk production

Gumpanat Thavankitdumrong | Dreamstime.com

FMD-free status at risk T

By Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

he government has identified ways to ensure the billions of pesos that it will spend for its live cattleimportation program would not go to waste, or worse, bring in a disease that could threaten over 21 million cloven-hoof animals in the country.

Documents obtained by the BusinessMirror showed that the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) has submitted to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol a rapid risk assessment of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) from the importation of live cattle from Brazil. “This rapid risk assessment will consider risks of reintroduction of FMD to the Philippines that may be associated with the importation of live cattle from Brazil,” the document read.

According to the documents, FMD is identified as a potential hazard, as it is a highly contagious viral disease of cloven-hoof animals, such as cattle, carabaos, goats, sheep and pigs, which could lead to serious economic losses. Furthermore, the documents noted that the FMD is identified as a hazard to the local livestock sector, as about 21.567 million head of cloven-hoof animals could be threatened by the virus. The risk assessment is impor-

tant, as the Philippines already imported FMD-infected cows from Brazil. The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) recognizes the Philippines as an FMD-free country not practicing vaccination, while Brazil is recognized as having FMD-free zones where vaccination is not practiced (one zone) and FMD-free zones where vaccination is practiced (four zones). The documents noted that the Philippines has a history of live

animal importation from Brazil, which resulted in the destruction of 87 head of Murrah buffaloes out of the 2,046 head that were imported from the Latin American country vaccinated against FMD. “The Philippines, through the Philippine Carabao Center, had a history of importing Murrah buffaloes which are FMD-susceptible animals from a region in Brazil with FMD-free with vaccination status when the Philippines was Continued on A2

The brighter side of Duterte’s tax-reform initiative

By Roderick L. Abad | Contributor

who earn up to P250,000 annually, have already commenced since January 1, 2018. Meanwhile, levy on sugary beverages, fuel, cars and tobacco has increased from the beginning of this year. “We remain hopeful that [full] implementation will be done smoothly and efficiently,” the top executive said.

VEN if the levy on corporate and commercial properties has not been included in the initial package of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, real-estate players and stakeholders believe that the provisions for residential leasing will encourage growth.

“[So] we welcome the first package of Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Bill, or the Republic Act (RA) 10963, as a development in the right direction,” said Monique Pronove, CEO of Pronove Tai International Property Consultants (PTIPC). A priority measure of the government, the law was signed by

President Duterte on December 19, 2017—two decades after the previous tax code was put in place. “Twenty years is a long time, the tax code was definitely in need of a simplification to encourage compliance and increase generation,” she noted. Cuts on the personal income tax of almost 8 million employees,

PESO exchange rates n US 50.3780

On socialized housing

President Duterte leads the ceremonial signing of the 2018 General Appropriations Act and Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion bill as members of Congress stand behind him at Malacañang on December 19, 2017. AP Photo/Aaron Favila

AIMED at simplifying and making the tax code fair for the property sector, the TRAIN law exempts transactions on socialized and lowcost housing worth up to P450,000 and P3 million, respectively, from value-added tax (VAT). This is an improvement from the previously exempted low-cost housing sales for units worth P1.9 million. According to Pronove, the new scheme translates to a maximum

n japan 0.4530 n UK 68.2017 n HK 6.4401 n CHINA 7.7531 n singapore 37.8982 n australia 39.7432 n EU 60.6198 n SAUDI arabia 13.4334

See “Tax,” A2

Source: BSP (12 January 2018 )

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, January 14, 2018

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FMD-free status at risk Continued from A1

then recognized as having a zone with FMD-free with vaccination status also,” the document read. “Of the 2,046 head of imported Murrah buffaloes vaccinated against FMD from Brazil, 87 head were destroyed when found to be positive reactors to NSP FMD Elisa antibodies upon testing in the Philippines,” the document added. However, the remaining animals were allowed to be dispersed in “limited and controlled” areas near the quarantine site and some areas in Nueva Ecija after being tested negative to FMD. Furthermore, the remaining Murrah buffaloes were subjected to stricter quarantine measures and monitoring, and were only dispersed after five years. Piñol earlier announced that the Department of Agriculture (DA) would only source the Girolando heifers it wanted to import from Brazil’s state of Santa Catarina, the lone area with “FMD-free without vaccination” status in the South American country. The documents indicated that the importation of live cattle from the state of Santa Catarina would still follow the conditions set by the OIE under its Terrestrial Animal Health Code. These conditions include the following: the animals showed no clinical sign of FMD on the day of shipment; were kept since birth or for at least the past three months in an FMD-free country or zone where vaccination is not practiced

or an FMD-free compartment; and if transiting an infected zone, the animals were not exposed to any source of FMD virus during transportation to the place of shipment. The documents also showed that the animals should be subjected to a test for FMD with negative results for antibodies and antigen. The BAI would also prolong the quarantine period for the imported cattle in the Philippines by 15 days, lengthening the period to 45 days. Ultimately, the government will destroy all imported cattle should there be any positive result for FMD and other diseases. Based on the documents, the overall risk estimation for the cattle-importation program is “nonnegligible”. “Since entry, exposure and consequence assessments are considered to be high, the risk estimate for FMD is non-negligible,” it read. “Therefore, risk-management measures may be considered for implementation.” Piñol said they are considering an island in Bohol as the center of the DA’s dairy-development program because the department owns a 3,000-hectare lot—called the Ubay stock farm—in the area, which has served as a natural confinement for imported cattle. The agriculture chief said the 5,000 head of Girolando dairy cattle, which the DA will import from Brazil, are expected to produce 22 million liters of milk annually. “The project is expected to provide employment for the local people and additional sources of

Murrah buffaloes

Thavornc | Dreamstime.com

income for the local farmers who would be engaged in the planting of forage and in the fattening of the male offsprings of the dairy cattle,” Piñol said. “When the dairy cattle popu-

lation in the Ubay stock farm has increased, a municipality-based dairy-farming program will be introduced to the different towns of the province to be owned and operated by Bohol farmers and women, thus, turning the whole island into the dairy capital of the country,” Piñol added. Earlier the OIE has greenlighted Manila’s importation of Girolando heifers from Brasilia, provided that it would follow the guidelines from the international agency, according to Piñol. “It must be explained that while the Girolando cattle from Brazil will go through OIE-super-

Tax...

vised quarantine procedures, the animals are coming from a country which still vaccinates against the foot-and-mouth disease,” he said. “As Dr. Jose Osvaldo Barcos, OIE director for the Americas, emphasized, there is no 100-percent guarantee that the animals which tested negative for FMD prior to the shipment would really be free from the disease,” he added. The DA is also targeting to source fertilized cattle embryos from Argentina in its bid to boost the Philippine dairy sector. The government had crafted a five-year dairy and livestock development road map to prop up Philippine

dairy production. The importation of Girolando cattle from Brazil is part of the DA’s plan to ramp up local milk production to meet at least 10 percent of the annual domestic requirement by 2022, and reduce the country’s reliance on imports. The DA is allotting at least P1 billion for the live cattle-importation program. “Our target is to bring in 500,000 heifers by the end of the term of the President. As to whether we will have the money to procure the cattle, the answer will largely depend on the performance of the first batch of heifers,” Piñol said.

continued from A1

of P360,000 savings for starting families due to the VAT exemption. Outside the National Capital Region, residential units sold for P2 million and below will not be covered also by the 12-percent VAT. “This provision supports the move to decongest Metro Manila,” the CEO pointed out.

VAT-exempt condo dwellers

MILLENNIALS, who are mostly the target market of developers for their vertical developments, will likely benefit also from the new legislation. Based on the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), young professionals aged 21 to 35 comprised 47 percent of the labor market. With their strong disposable income, they usually live independently, renting condominium units or apartments near their workplaces. “They will benefit the most in the VAT exemption for lease of residential units being raised from P12,800 to P15,000, as well as the removal of VAT on association dues for condominiums,” Pronove said.

Estate, donor’s taxes made more simple

WITH TRAIN, both the estate and donor’s taxes were simplified to a flat rate of 6 percent in accordance with the assessed value of the property. Estate tax is levied on the transfer of estate from the deceased person to lawful heirs. Under the previous system, transfer of properties valued P200,000 to P10 million above were taxed from 5 percent to 20 percent.

Additionally, with this new policy, surviving heirs are allowed to withdraw any amount from the dead person’s account to cover the expenses related to the transfer of estate. The TRAIN removed the past ceiling of P20,000 withdrawals and imposition of 6-percent withholding tax for all the withdrawals. The donor’s tax, on the other hand, is levied on transfer of the estate by gift or donation. The new law keeps exemptions on estates worth P100,000 and below, and implements a flat rate of 6 percent on properties with value of P100,000 and above, whether the recipient is related or not. “TRAIN simplified the tax policy by removing the 2-percent to 15-percent tax table as previously used,” Pronove said.

‘Bill to build’

After his assumption of office in Malacañang, Duterte placed infrastructure development and Metro Manila decongestion among the top priorities of his administration’s economic agenda. In fact, 70 percent of the P130billion revenue that the TRAIN is expected to generate will be appropriated to infrastructure spending of the national government. This will include the “Build, Build, Build” program of the chief executive. “In general, better infrastructure means more efficient business,” Pronove said, while citing that 30 percent will be allocated for social services.

Keep or lose BPO

OVER the years, the information technology-business process man-

agement (IT-BPM) industry has been the prime mover of the country’s real-estate sector. It has been contributing to the robust office market in Philippine Economic Zone Authority-proclaimed buildings. What’s attracting foreign companies to outsource back-office services to the Philippines is the highly skilled Filipino talents at affordable pay rate. More and more investors prefer doing business in the country due to tax exemptions given them. While IT-BPM remains a strong office-demand driver, preleasing from this vertical slowed down a bit on quarter-on-quarter basis last year. Of the 2017 inventory, the industry committed to rent 41 percent, or 316,000 square meters (sq m). As of December last year, the industry has taken up 143,000 sq m of the 354,000-sq-m pre-leasing supply for 2018. The slowdown in IT-BPM office space take-up could be attributed to limited new entrants coming in to invest in the Philippines. Investments in the sector were put on hold while the government’s tax measures remained unclear. Per the initial draft of TRAIN, VAT exemptions were scrapped for outsourcing firms. This, according to the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippine, would encourage foreign investors to further hold off investing in the country. “Ultimately, the TRAIN bill signed by the President on December 19 retained the tax exemption for BPOs. This was the rainbow after the rain,” Pronove said.

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Heathrow Airport squeezes more passengers onto bigger jet planes

ondon’s Heathrow Airport, which has operated its two runways close to capacity since the start of the decade, managed to squeeze in 2.3 million more passengers last year as airlines deployed bigger planes and carried more people per flight. The traveler tally at the home base of British Airways increased 3.1 percent to 78 million, even as the number of aircraft movements rose just 0.2 percent, Heathrow Airport Ltd. said in a news statement issued on Thursday. The passenger surge shows Heathrow is finding ways of accommodating more customers as it awaits construction of a £16 billion, or $20 billion, third runway that could lift annual capacity to 135 million flyers. Backed by the government in 2016, the new strip still faces a number of hurdles and isn’t due to open until the middle of the next decade. As the United Kingdom prepares to exit the European Union, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said the recorded customer tally shows the airport is “helping to strengthen the British economy as the country seeks to redefine its role in the world.” The hub’s fastest-growing passenger markets were the Middle East, Latin America and Asia Pacific, though Europe and North America accounted for the most people. It also reported a 10-percent surge in cargo volumes to 1.7 million metric tons, led by growth from the United States and East Asia. Bloomberg News

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Cryptocurrencies retreat amid concern of SoKor clampdown

itcoin slumped as South Korea’s justice minister reiterated his proposal to ban local cryptocurrency exchanges, fueling concern that a government crackdown will erode one of the world’s biggest sources of demand for digital currencies.

The minister’s comments to reporters on Thursday were later downplayed by a spokesman for President Moon Jae-in, who said the proposal is just one among several and that nothing has been finalized. Korea’s government unveiled multiple options for cr y ptocur renc y exchange regulation last December 28, including allowing trading to continue under tighter supervision. Bitcoin dropped as much as 12 percent to $12,801, its lowest since Christmas Day, before paring the loss to about 9 percent at 11:40 a.m. London time,

according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Ripple tumbled 18 percent and ethereum slumped 9 percent. G o v e r n m e nt s a r o u n d t h e world are increasing scrutiny of cr y ptocurrencies as soaring pr ices attract ever yone from mom-and-pop investors to Wall Street banks. Korea emerged as something of a ground zero for the speculative mania, play ing host to several of the world ’s most active exchanges. Bitcoin prices in the countr y are persistently higher than those in the United States.

The boom has alarmed Korean authorities. The country’s prime minister has said that cryptocurrencies might corrupt the nation’s youth, while the government warned last December that it would be conducting onsite investigations of exchanges. The finance ministry is studying a cryptocurrency tax. “For the last few months, the Korean government has been making it very clear that they want to bring this speculative activity under control,” said Thomas Glucksmann, Hong Kong-based head of Asia-Pacific business development with cryptocurrency exchange Gatecoin Ltd. “This isn’t really too much of a surprise.” One of Korea’s biggest digital currency venues, Bithumb, said on Thursday that it met brief ly with tax officials this week. The exchange disputed a Reuters report that its offices had been raided by tax and police agents. When contacted by Bloomberg, Korea’s ta x author it y said it doesn’t comment on investigations due to privacy laws.

Coinone, another exchange mentioned in the Reuters report, didn’t reply to requests for comment. An unidentified spokesman told the Financial Times: “They asked for some data such as cryptocurrency trading volume, our exchange’s sales and whether we are paying corporate tax well.” Police have been investigating Coinone’s margin-trading service since last year, according to an official who asked not to be named citing policy. He added that no other large exchanges are under police investigation. A range of negative comments from investors and governments have undercut the market this week. R ipple, for example, is down for a fourth successive day, something it hasn’t done since last October. The market was “reeling” on Thursday over comments by Warren Buffett, eToro Sen ior Ma rket A n a lyst Mat i Greenspan said in a note. The legendary investor said crypto gains will be f leeting. There have also been reports

that China’s government is discouraging mining in the country, home to the majority of that process. “Some interpreted these announcements to mean China will completely shut down mining operations,” said Bloomberg New Energy Finance China analyst Sophie Lu said. “Others feel that regulators are only tightening enforcement” on a process that in any event can move to other countries without threatening Bitcoin’s future. At the same time, buying interest seems to swell unabated. The world ’s biggest cryptocurrenc y exchange, Hong Kongba sed Bi n a nce.com, sa id it ’s adding “a couple of million” registered users every week, with 240,000 people signing up in just an hour on Wednesday. And Rambler News Service reported that Russia’s Finance Ministry plans to allow cryptocurrency trading only on “official ” exchanges, citing Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev. Bloomberg News

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Sunday, January 14, 2018

FBI team to expose Russian social-media manipulation

he Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) plans to alert United States companies and the public about efforts by Russia or other nations to use disinformation and social-media manipulation to interfere in upcoming elections, while being careful not to upset free speech and constitutional rights, a top lawenforcement official said.

The direction that the FBI “foreign influence” task force is heading could dramatically reshape the relationship between government and social-media companies in order to address vulnerabilities that enabled Russia to meddle in the 2016 election. “We’ve been reluctant in some instances to share the amount of information of what we know about what’s happening,” said Jeffrey Tricoli, a top FBI official heading the task force. “You can’t stay with the same strategy if you think there needs to be changes. So, going forward, there’s going to be opportunities for us to share information in better ways.” FBI Director Christopher Wray announced late last year that the task force had been created. But almost everything about it has been secretive to date. Tricoli provided the first extensive public comments about it during an FBI conference in New York on Wednesday co-sponsored by Fordham University. The intention, Tricoli said, is to shine a light on electioninterference efforts while leaving it up to companies and the public to make their own decisions about what to do with disinformation, fake news or contaminated online content. “We’re not here to be the

thought police. That’s obviously, clearly, not something that we would ever want to get into,” Tricoli said. “What’s important is the understanding of what’s behind the veil. Our responsibility in the government is to bring forth that visibility and that transparency to this activity. That’s what we believe is the best way forward.” The task force’s work comes as President Donald J. Trump continues to rail against a probe into Russia’s meddling in the election and whether his campaign or offi-

cials close to him colluded in that effort. Trump, in a news conference on Wednesday with Norway’s prime minister, again called the accusations a “witch hunt.” “There has been no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians, or Trump and Russians, no collusion,” Trump said. “For 11 months, they’ve had this phony cloud over this administration, over our government. And it has hurt our government.” It wasn’t immediately clear how active the task force will be in trying to prevent interference in this year’s Congressional midterm elections. Social-media companies, such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have said they belatedly realized the extent of Russian espionage and influence operations on their networks during the 2016 election and are now taking more active steps to address the problem. The FBI’s new approach contrasts with how the bureau handled Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. At the time, the bureau didn’t say anything publicly about the meddling—and it wasn’t until about a month before the election that the Department

We’re not here to be the thought police. That’s obviously, clearly, not something that we would ever want to get into. What’s important is the understanding of what’s behind the veil. Our responsibility in the government is to bring forth that visibility and that transparency to this activity. That’s what we believe is the best way forward.”—Tricola

of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement about Russia’s actions. The FBI also remained silent until after the election that it was conducting a broad counter intelligence investigation into whether Trump or any of his associates colluded with Russia to interfere in the election. The relatively new task force is a hybrid that brings together elements of the FBI’s cybersecurity, counterintelligence and criminal expertise, Tricoli said. He said the task force is intentionally designed to reflect the hybrid threat from Russia.

Russian denials

Officials in Russia, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly denied interfering in the US election. Adversaries like Russia are blending cybersecurity, criminal and counterintelligence operations in order to distort the truth or prevent people from finding what’s true, Tricoli said. “In that environment, we have to rethink how we do business,” Tricoli said. “The United States may be a little bit new to this game, but this is not something that’s new. Our European counterparts have been dealing with this and, in some instances, been yelling at us that this has been happening for a long, long time.” The task force is seeking to build partnerships with companies, friendly foreign governments and academic institutions, Tricoli said. “The big thing for us right now is just to begin the dialogue with those partners,” he said. “We don’t have the mountain of data that I think people tend to think we have on this threat. We do have some pieces of information that I think can help the conversation, but a lot of it is working in partnership with them because most of that information is actually housed and owned by them.” Bloomberg News

China winning war vs air pollution, at least in Beijing

hina is seeing signs of success in its fight against smog as pollution levels slump dramatically in the capital region Beijing. Concentrations of PM2.5— the tiny particles that pose the greatest health risks—plunged 33 percent from a year earlier in the fourth quarter across Beijing, Tianjin and 26 surrounding cities, Greenpeace East Asia said in a report on Thursday. Levels in the capital alone tumbled 54 percent. The drops come after government policies last year forced millions of homes and businesses to switch from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas. The bluer skies came at a price, as the widespread switching to natural gas contributed to shortages of the fuel, leaving homes frigid and factories shut. Still, improving air quality is a win for President Xi Jinping, who pledged to unleash an “iron hand” against pollution, and anti-coal measures will likely continue, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. “The switch from coal to gas has dramatically reduced pollution,” Bernstein analysts, including Neil Beveridge in Hong Kong, wrote in a report on Thursday. “While there have been problems in implementation, the plan is delivering results.” Replacing coal with gas for residential and industrial use is part of a series of measures to clean smoggy cities, along with closing outdated

Editor: Lyn Ressureccion | www.businessmirror.com.ph

North Korea: Popularity of ‘Fire and Fury’ foretells Trump’s end

In this Tuesday, file photo, copies of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House are on display as they go on sale at a bookshop, in London. AP

EOUL , South Korea— North Korea has found good material to attack US President Donald J. Trump: Michael Wolff ’s bombshell new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. The book paints Trump as a leader who doesn’t understand the weight of his of f ice and whose competence is questioned by aides. Trump and other White House aides have blasted it as inaccurate trash. But it was the top-selling book in the United States last week, and its numbers are likely to grow far higher. On Thursday the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper, run by its ruling Workers’ Party, carried an article about the book’s subject matter, how Trump reacted and why it is selling so well. Its sales reflect “rapidly surging anti-Trump sentiments in the international community,” the article said. “The anti-Trump book is sweeping all over the world, so Trump is being massively humiliated worldwide.” The book ’s popularity “foretells Trump’s political demise,” the article said. Last summer, Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” in an exchange of taunts with the North, which claimed it was examining plans to launch missiles toward the American territory of Guam. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have since traded threats of war and crude insults, as the North conducted nuclear and long-range missile tests. Trump called K im “Rocket Man” on a “suicide mission.” Kim called the 71-year-old American

president “the mentally deranged US dotard.” In his New Year’s address last week, Kim said he has a “nuclear button” that could fire weapons anywhere in the United States, and Trump responded that he has a much bigger and more powerful “nuclear button.” R ecent ly, Nor t h K orea h a s t a ken steps towa rd improv ing t ies w it h r iv a l Sout h K orea i n wh at c r it ic s c a l l a t ac t ic to d iv ide Seou l a nd Wa sh i ng ton a nd wea ken US -led i nter n at ion a l pressu re a nd sa nc t ion s on t he cou nt r y. O n Tuesd ay it h ad it s f i rst for m a l t a l k s w it h S o ut h K o r e a i n a b o ut t wo yea rs a nd a g reed to send a de legat ion to ne x t mont h ’s W i nter Oly mpic s i n t he Sout h a nd hold m i l it a r y t a l k s a i med at easing f ront l ine a nimosit y. B u t N o r t h K o r e a h a s n ’t stopped it s rhetor ic aga i nst Trump. Last week, the North’s state media called Trump a “war maniac” and “madman.” A fter Tuesday’s inter-Korean ta lks, Tr ump said dur ing a phone conversation with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that the US was open to ta lks w ith Nor th Korea “at the appropriate time, under the right circumstances,” according to a W hite House statement. Fire and Fury was released last Friday and sold 29,000 copies through Saturday, NPD BookScan told The Associated Press. Digital sales already top 250,000, and audio sales exceed 100,000, according to John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan, the parent company of the book’s publisher, Henry Holt and Co. It has raised an initial announced printing of 150,000 to more than 1 million. AP

Breach of largest database prompts overhaul in India

A man wearing a face mask rides a bicycle past buildings shrouded in haze in Beijing, China. Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

or illegal steel mills, coal mines and aluminum smelters. Natural gas demand rose 19 percent through October, the latest government data show. It will probably rise by 15 percent this year as Beijing sticks to its anti-coal guns and spurs development of gas infrastructure, Beveridge wrote.

Worth it?

The shift toward cleaner heating fuels proved problematic in November and December, as some regions ran short of natural gas, forcing the government to halt factories to prioritize supplies for residential users and, in some cases, let homes go back to burning coal.

However, “negative effects caused by the transition from coal to gas are relatively small,” making it worthwhile for China to expand the switch and start up nuclear power-plant construction, said Jiang Kejun, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission. The NDRC in December announced a winter-heating plan for northern regions expected to cut coal use by 150 million metric tons by 2021. Natural gas, biomass, heat pumps, direct electric heating and geothermal power will replace the dirtier-burning fuel. Besides a reduction in household coal use,

measures to cut industrial emissions and favorable weather conditions “contributed to the very dramatic reduction in pollution levels” in Beijing and surrounding areas, Lauri Myllyvirta, an energy analyst at Greenpeace in Beijing, said by phone. Nationwide, the air-quality improvement was less dramatic, with a 4.5-percent decrease in PM2.5 levels during 2017, according to Greenpeace. “We shall expect the winter in 2018 to be even cleaner as the government carries out the campaign on coal to gas more thoroughly,” said Tian Miao, a Beijing-based energy specialist at Everbright Sun Hung Kai Co. Bloomberg News

ndia announced it was adding an extra layer of privacy to its virtual identification system following allegations of a major privacy breach in the world’s largest biometric database. The move to allow all citizens to use a virtual ID to avoid sharing their unique identity numbers when using gover nment and other ser vices comes after a news report said personal details of up to a billion citizens enrolled in the program could be illegally accessed for just $8 paid through a digital wallet. Its operator, the Unique Identification Authority of India, said there was no breach. Still, it’s the biggest overhaul of the system—known as Aadhaar— since it was introduced in 2010. Citizens will be able to to generate a 16-digit virtual identity in lieu of their A adhaar number with banks and state departments at the time of authenticating their identity, the government said in a statement. Banks and companies will be given “agency specific” unique

tokens to avoid storing customers’ Aadhaar data, it said. The update marks an “important evolution” of the Aadhaar system but comes too late to mitigate the risk of the misuse of any information that’s already been publicly disclosed, said Saksham K hosla, a research analyst at Carnegie India. At t he sa me t ime, “t he pro cess of generat ing a v ir t u a l ID int roduces more t ra nsact ion costs into a n aut hent icat ion system a lready beset by e xc lusion,” K hosl a sa id. “ T he Ind ia n st ate’s record of l ast-m i le commu nicat ion, espec i a l ly of t ask s requ ir ing a fa ir a mou nt of d ig it a l l iterac y, is not encou rag ing.” The Aadhaar authority will release the application software needed by banks to change their systems by March 1. Companies have until June 1 to fully migrate to the new system. Meanwhile, India’s Supreme Court is scheduled to start a final hearing on the legality of Aadhaar on January 17. Bloomberg News

Science

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Sunday

Sunday, January 14, 2018 A5

Safe products key to growth of Bulacan pyro industry Story & photo by Catherine Joy L. Maglalang | Correspondent

ITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan— Unsafe and substandard firecrackers and pyrotechnics products manufactured illegally in Bulacan province in Central Luzon may soon be a thing of the past.

The Department of Science a n d Te c h n o l o g y - I n d u s t r i a l Technology Development Institute (DOST-ITDI) held a week long seminar training on safe manufacturing and regulation of firecrackers and pyrotechnics at a resort in this city with local government officials and stakeholders as participants. Officials of the the city government of Malolos and the provincial government of Bulacan said they fully support the industry with the proper implementation of laws and regulations. DOST Director in Central Luzon Dr. Julius Caesar V. Sicat said that, with the seminar training the department is pushing for worldclass, relevant and region-based development of the industry. Bulacan, specifically the town of Bocaue, is well-known for fireworks, and it is high time that they face and resolve various issues involving the trade, he said. Sicat added that the DOST will focus on pyrotechnics so that it would no longer be a seasonal industry and make it viable whole year round so that it will supply not only the country but the world with quality products. Sicat said he will urge the Regional Development Council to

strengthen its support to the industry. On the other hand, Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña said the DOST is supporting the Duterte administration policy to utilize the modern technology to provide opportunities and help the local areas to expand and to give them potential to grow. The DOST is also planning to revive and preserve the dying industries in Bulacan, such as the making of bakya (wooden slippers) in Meycauayan, Baliwag town’s buntal (palm leaf) hat and fishponds, among others. “ T he Firework s industr y needs safety procedures, new technologies and must comply with international standards,” De la Peña said. De la Peña added that the DOST had earlier conducted forums on the proper handling and storage of chemicals, new technologies and international standards. De la Peña said the Department of Health wants to reduce the number of casualties from fireworks and firecrackers, which led it to propose the total firecracker ban, but which was prevented when President Duterte issued Executive Order (EO) 28 in June 2017.

Bulacan Gov. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado (fourth from right) hands to Science Secretary Fortunato de la Peña (third from right) the certificate of appreciation during the seminartraining on safe manufacturing of pyrotechnics at a resort in the City of Malolos in Bulacan. Catherine Joy L. Maglalang

EO 28 did not completely ban the use of firecrackers. It stated that firecracker use will be confined to community fireworks display “to minimize the risk of injuries and casualties.” The trend is going to fireworks d isplay like in Dubai, Europe and Japan. Because of the dangers caused by unsafe products that led to government warnings, the number of Bulacan’s fireworks and firecracker manufacturers is now down to less than 100 compared to the previous years. The secretary said the department, together with other governmental agencies, is planning to send local manufacturers to the United Kingdom for them to study and acquire updated expertise on pyrotechnics and firecrackers. The DOST also plans to have a common facility in the province that is compliant with good manufacturing practice and equipped

UK bans microbeads in personal-care products

ONDON—They’re tiny, colorful and harmlesslooking, but these little pellets are being blamed for causing big problems for the world’s oceans and seas. The items in question are plastic microbeads and, on Tuesday, Britain made good on a pledge to ban the manufacturing of personal-care products containing them. So what are these pellets, and what’s all the fuss about?

most valuable natural assets, and I am determined we act now to tackle the plastic that devastates our precious marine life,” Thérèse Coffey, the British environment minister, said in a statement. Sue Kinsey, a senior pollution officer at the Marine Conservation Society, called the microbead ban “the strongest and most comprehensive ban to be enacted in the world.”

What are microbeads?

The United States passed the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, which required companies to stop using microbeads in beauty and health products by July 2017, and Canada’s ban on manufacturing the pellets took effect at the beginning of this year. New Zealand’s ban on microbeads is to take effect in June. Several countries in the European Union have campaigned for a similar ban.

Microbeads are itty-bitty plastic orbs that can be found in exfoliating facial scrubs, shower gels and toothpaste, among other products. They are part of a larger class of microplastics, or pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters, or 0.2 inches, long. (Roughly the size of a grain of rice.) Microplastics exist elsewhere, too. They can be found in chewing gum, industrial cleaning products, synthetic clothing fibers and tires.

Why do cosmetics makers use them?

Manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble, have advertised the exfoliating powers of microbeads, particularly in face and body scrubs. Many of those companies have pledged to voluntarily phase out use of the pellets.

What’s the problem?

About 8 million tons of plastic enter the world’s oceans each year, according to a 2015 report by the journal Science. While microbeads represent only a small percentage of those plastics, there is growing concern about their presence in oceans, lakes and rivers. Microbeads that wash down drains cannot be filtered out by many wastewater-treatment plants, meaning that tiny plastics slip easily into waterways. Fish and other marine animals often eat them, introducing potentially toxic substances into the food chain. A single shower can flush as many as 100,000 microbeads, according to a 2016 report by the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons in Britain. That adds up pretty quickly.

What is Britain doing?

The government pledged in September 2016 to ban the manufacturing of cosmetic products with microbeads, and that ban took full effect on Tuesday. A ban on the sale of such products will come later this year. “The world’s seas and oceans are some of our

Where else are they banned?

Is it enough?

“Microbeads linger—the ones in our oceans will be there for centuries, and they’re still permitted in products other than rinse-off cosmetics,” said Tisha Brown, a campaigner for Greenpeace in Britain. Chris Flower, the director general of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association, said in an e-mail that most of the industry had already phased out microplastics in rinse-off products. He still welcomed the ban, however, saying it “will ensure that all cosmetics companies, now and in the future, are bound by law to not include plastic microbeads in their products.” Flower added that broader action against plastic pollution would be needed.

What other steps is Britain taking against plastic waste?

The harmful effects of plastic on the world’s oceans were documented by David Attenborough recently on the BBC series Blue Planet II. Scenes from the television program include a turtle trying to swim while tangled in a plastic bag, and clumps of plastic trash floating in the open ocean. Prime Minister Theresa May tweeted about the show and the need to act, mentioning Britain’s introduction of a 5-pence (7-cent) charge for plastic shopping bags in 2015. Britain is also considering a “latte levy”—a tax of 25 pence—on disposable coffee cups, which are laminated with plastic to make them waterproof. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has pushed for more public drinking fountains and bottle-refilling stations. New York Times News Service

with a quality-control laboratory in coordination with other local government units and stakeholders in the industry. The DOST and the Department of National Defense have recently signed an agreement for the creation of a research program on the industry. Bocaue Mayor Eleanor J. Villanueva-Tugna said they hold a pailawpasasalamat (fireworks thanksgiving), a grand pyrotechnics musical display for the Bocaueños, so that the residents do not have to go out of town and other places dedicated for fireworks displays. T he mayor added that the fireworks industry is part of the history, culture and tradition of Filipinos. It serves as a source of livelihood for Bocaueños. “We are for safe and proper production. Bocaue strongly condemns the bad practices and supports the modernization of pyrotechnics industry,” VillanuevaTugna said partly in Filipino.

She believes that, if other countries can produce safe and world-st a nd a rd py rotec hnics products, Filipinos can do it better. She wants Bocaue to remain as the No.1 producer of fireworks in the country. Bulacan Gov. Wilhelmino SyAlvarado said 2017 was a crucial year for the industry in the province because of the threat of a total firecracker ban. “It was really a wake-up call for us. We have to talk about quality [products], and that the DOST could be of help. The DOH is still pushing for the banning because of the injuries [caused by substandard products]. The future of the firecrackers depends on it [quality products],” the governor said. Sy-Alvarado added, “Smuggled products are cheap and have good quality. We have to find ways on how we can complete with them as Asean integration is implemented. [We need support from]

banks for additional capitalization, [new technology for] packaging and quality [production], and marketing to be able to compete [successfully].” “We have to do a rethink of the industry. The regulation doesn’t fit the culture of Filipinos in using firecrackers, but I am thankful to the [Duterte] administration for not totally banning the firecrackers,” he said. “Learn and analyze what we are yesterday and what we are today to face the future where coordination of everyone is vital. Live for what we have. Improve what we have in producing quality, low-cost and good products. The national government must regulate and support the development of the industry, such as giving subsidy for the SMEs [small and medium enterprises] because shifting to pyrotechnics will require a much bigger capital,” Sy-Alvarado added. Meanwhile, Provincial Board Member Baby Posadas said the total number of casualties in firecrackers in 2017 decreased by up to 60 percent compared to 2016 figures. Imported piccolo is the primary cause of casualties. Ot her pa r t ic ipa nt s i n t he seminar training are Engr. Celso Cruz, chairman emeritus of the Philippine Pyrotechnic Manufacturers and Dealers Association Inc.; Philippine Fireworks Association President Joven Ong; PPMDAI Vice President Marlene Lea Alapide; and other members and stakeholders of the Bulacan Pyrotechnics Regulatory Board. The 150 other participants were from over the 10 municipalities, including Pandi, Bocaue, Santa Maria, Baliwag, San Miguel, San Ildefonso, Norzagaray, Angat and San Rafael in Bulacan.

Faith A6 Sunday, January 14, 2018

Sunday

Cardinal Tagle hits T greed, lust for power L

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

Pilgrim relics of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus in PHL

uis Antonio Cardinal Tagle of Manila denounced greed and hunger for power, warning that forgetting the importance of serving God is gearing toward “false path.”

At the midnight Mass held a few hours before the annual procession of the Black Nazarene, he said that unless wealth and power are used at the service of society, they risk becoming instruments of abuse. “Life does not lie on power. We were born without power, and when we die, we are powerless, as well. Let us live without being greedy for power and you will be a real person,” Tagle said in his homily at the Quirino Grandstand in R iza l Park in Intramuros, Manila. The cardinal has urged the faithful to be more altruistic and to better look out for the poor and hungry, instead of living on “false lives” and selfishness. “Be an instrument of life for others,” he added during the Mass

attended by thousands of devotees and some top government officials, including Manila Mayor Joseph E. Estrada and Philippine National Police Chief Director General Ronald M. dela Rosa. Also in attendance were dozens of priests and Papal Nuncio Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia. A priest said this marks the first time in recent memory that a papal nuncio attended the celebration, the biggest of its kind in the world. “It’s a great honor for us all devotees that the representative of the pope is present in

Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle and Papal Nuncio Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia pray before the statue of the Black Nazarene before the midnight Mass at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila on January 8. ROY LAGARDE/CBCPNews

this special occasion,” said Fr. Regie Malicdem, rector of the Manila Cathedral. As early as Monday, devotees already gathered at the grandstand where a replica of the 410 -year-old Black Na zarene

Be an instrument of life for others.”—Tagle

image was brought for an overnight vigil. More than 5,000 police and volunteer marshals were stationed within the 6-kilometer stretch of the Traslación from the grandstand to the Quiapo Church, the minor basilica that has housed the Black Nazarene since 1787. The Traslación commemorates the transfer of the venerated image from Intramuros to Quiapo Church. Roy Lagarde/CBCPNews

he pilgrim relics of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus is once again in the Phi l ippines, its four t h t ime, until May 31. A concelebrated Mass was held to welcome the relics at the Shrine of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus in Villamor, Pasay City, on January 12 at 12 noon. It was followed by veneration of the relics and a concert, titled Salamat, Saint Thérèse Musical Tribute, by the Philippine Madrigal Singers was held at the shrine at 8 p.m. Veneration of the relics was held on January 13. On Januar y 14 Masses are scheduled starting at 5 a.m., with the last one on 8:15 p.m. at the shrine. Veneration of the relics is at 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. A departure Mass is scheduled at 6 a.m. on Monday before the relics proceed to Laoag, Ilocos Norte, and to over 40 dioceses from Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao until May 31. The pilgrim relics of Saint Thérèse have visited the Philippines in 2000, 2008 and 2013. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, also called Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, was born on January 2, 1873, in Alençon, France. She died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24. She is one of the most popular

Catholic saints. As a doctor of the church, she is the subject of much theological comment and study, and as an appealing young woman, whose message has touched the lives of millions, she remains the focus of much-popular devotion, the primer on the pilgrim relics’ visit said. Relics are the material remains of a saint or holy person after death, as well as objects sanctified by contact with his or her body. Real or first-class relics include the skin and bones, clothing, objects used for penance and instruments of a martyr’s imprisonment or passion, while representative relics are objects placed in contact with the body or grave of a saint. The Catholic faithful venerate the relics of saints because as intercessors with God for the living, through their relics—a record of the saint—God manifests his presence. “ To welcome t he rel ics of Saint Thérèse is to welcome the saint herself,” the primer said. “In the presence of and contact w ith her [Saint Thérèse] mortal remains, God, who had received from her so many acts of love when she was alive here on Earth, is pleased to manifest His love through the remains of her humanity.” Lyn Resurreccion

Saint Macrina, the Elder, Confessor of Faith

By Corazon Damo-Santiago

abula rasa is a theory of knowledge and psychology that compare the mind to a blank writing tablet which “responds to ideas and convert them to knowledge.” Akin to a white paper full of awareness, it receives ideas from senses and responds to experiences. The law of primacy implies that the home is the first and most important place where children learn. Great imitators the children are. They act what they see. And live what they learn. Parents, grandparents, all members in the home will inf luence the behavior of the children. “Verba movent, exempla trahunt [words move gently, but examples drag forcefully]” is a Latin maxim. “Exemplum tronat [examples thunder],” too. To Saint Macrina, the Elder, is attributed the saintly life of her nine children and grandchildren. Called Confessor of Faith, she taught her family members

how to live faith. And six of them became saints.

Exemplars of faith

Macrina was born in Cappadocia, Eastern Turkey, about 270. The family was pagan until Gregory Thaumaturgus, who became Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Wonder Worker, was assigned as bishop of the city of Neoceasarea, Pontus, now Tokat, Turkey. She became an ardent student of Gregory and trained her nine children on Christian Values. The stories she learned, she repeated to them. She loved Gregory and kept his relics in the family estate in Annesi, her entire lifetime. During the persecution of Emperors Galerius and Diocletian, her husband was martyred. The family escaped and lived in Pontus forest for seven years. Her two sons, who later became Saint Basil the Elder and Saint Gregory, attested that God provided for their needs. For meat, stags appeared in their quarters, which was solely attributed to

God ’s inter vention. After the persecution, they returned to Neocaesarea in Pontus but the Roman authorities seized all their properties so they had to beg and endured mockeries and insults with humility.

Family of saints

B a sil bec a me a l aw yer a nd teacher of rhetoric. He married Emmelia, a beautiful and devout Catholic who also became a saint. The family was known for their generosity throughout Pontus, Cappadocia. Church writers noted that the children of Basil and Emmelia were greatly influenced by Macrina’s piety. Saint Basil, the Great of Caesarea, wrote: “The concept of God, which, in childhood, I received from my blessed mother and grandmother unfolded more completely…. I did not exchange the teaching for another but confirmed those principles which they handed over to me.” The grandchildren remembered and lived the seeds of piety and

Christian perfection their grandmother taught them. Saint Gregory of Nyssa became bishop of the city of Neocaesaria in Pontius (Amayra and Tokat, Turkey). Saint Gregory and his brother, Saint Basil, defended the Orthodox Christianity against the Arian heresy. To them was attributed the approval of the final version of the Creed in the Council of Constantinople in 381. Saint Peter, the youngest brother, likewise, supported his brothers in the Ecumenical Council of 381. He was elevated as bishop of Sebaste in Armenia. Saint Macrina, the Younger, transformed the family estate into a monastery. The feast day of Saint Macrina is January 14.

Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of EducationNational Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.

Mormon church president Thomas S. Monson dies at 90

President Thomas S. Monson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints waves to the audience during the opening session of the Mormon church conference in Salt Lake City on April 4, 2015. Monson, the 16th president of the Mormon church, died after nine years in office. He was 90. AP/Rick Bowmer

ALT LAKE CITY—Thomas S. Monson, considered a prophet by nearly 16 million Mormons worldwide, has died at the age of 90 after a nearly a decade as church president. He expanded the church‘s reach and its transparency and was known for promoting humanitarian causes, despite leading a divisive fight against gay marriage. Monson died on January 2 at his home in Salt Lake City, according to church spokesman Eric Hawkins. Funeral services for Monson was held on January 12 inside the religion’s conference center, which has a 21,000-seat theater, in Salt Lake City. The man set to become the next Mormon church president is a 93-year-old former heart surgeon, whose conservative track record on the religion’s leadership panel has led Mormon scholars to predict he won’t make any major changes. Russell M. Nelson is likely to be formally named to the post in the coming days under long-standing church protocol designed to ensure a smooth handover by giving the post to

the longest-tenured member of the governing Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Nelson has been on the panel for three decades. Monson spent more than five decades serving in top church leadership councils— making him a well-known face and personality to multiple generations of Mormons. A church bishop at the age of 22, the Salt Lake City native became the youngest church apostle in a half century, when he was named to the post in 1963 at the age of 36. He served as a counselor for three church presidents before assuming the role of the top leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 2008. As president of the nearly 16 millionmember religion, Monson was considered a prophet who led the church through revelation from God in collaboration with two top counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Monson’s presidency was marked by his noticeably low profile during a time of intense publicity for the church, including the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns of

Mormon Mitt Romney. Monson’s most public acts were appearances at church conferences and devotionals, as well as dedications of church temples. Monson will also be remembered for his emphasis on humanitarian work; leading the faith’s involvement in the passage of gaymarriage ban in California in 2008; continuing the church’s push to be more transparent about its past; and lowering the minimum age for missionaries. Mormons considered Monson a warm, caring, endearing and approachable leader, said Patrick Mason, associate professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University in California. He was known for dropping everything to make hospital visits to people in need. His speeches at the faith’s twiceyearly conferences often focused on parables of human struggles resolved through faith. He put an emphasis on the humanitarian ethic of Mormons, evidenced by his expansion of the church’s disaster-relief programs around the world, said Armand Mauss, a retired professor of sociology and religious studies

at Washington State University. “President Monson always seemed more interested in what we do with our religion rather than in what we believe,” Mauss said. President Donald J. Trump, religious leaders and well-known Mormons mourned Monson’s death last Wednesday and remembered his life of service. Trump said in a statement that Monson “demonstrated wisdom, inspired leadership and great compassion”and delivered a message of “optimism, forgiveness and faith.” Romney, entertainer Marie Osmond and conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck were among those tweeting memories and condolences. Romney said in a statement that he’ll remember Monson’s compassion for the downtrodden. Osmond tweeted a picture of her embracing Monson, saying he was always there for her family. Beck recalled Monson’s kindness and humility. Condolences also came in from Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who said of Monson, “Service was his motto and humility was his hallmark.” AP

Sports BusinessMirror

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

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Cindy Crawford recreates iconic ’92 Super Bowl ad

Jon Rahm recalls one conversation with his father that allows him to look back on the path he took with no regrets. AP

By Doug Ferguson The Associated Press

ONOLULU—Jon Rahm never lacked for confidence with his golf. His father needed a little more convincing. That’s a big reason Edorta Rahm was so bullish on his son leaving their small town of Barrika in the Basque region of northern Spain for college in America. Never mind that his son didn’t speak a word of English. This wasn’t about improving his golf. He wanted Rahm to get an education. The 23-year-old Rahm returned home last December with the best of both worlds—a degree in communications from Arizona State, and three victories worldwide in his 18 months as a pro that have taken him to No. 3 in the world, the highest-ranked European. Rahm recalled one conversation with his father that allowed him to look back on the path he took with no regrets. “So many parents make the mistake that kids are more than what they really are, and they give them too much confidence,” Rahm said. “My dad was always a few steps away from that. He always thought, ‘Get a degree, just in case.’ He said: ‘Go to the States. Stay there one year. If you hate it, the worst thing happening is you learn English, which is going to be good for you either way.’ “I promised him I would get my degree.” Rahm has done so much in such a small amount of time. He needed only four Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour starts as a pro to earn his card. It

took him only 12 starts to earn his first victory, holing that 50-foot eagle putt from the back of the 18th green at Torrey Pines. He blew away a solid field at the Irish Open. He won the European Tour finale in Dubai. And, with a runner-up finish last week at Kapalua, he became the fourth-youngest player to reach No. 3 in the world since the ranking began in 1986. Of all his achievements, one that doesn’t get enough attention is that college degree. His first trip to America was a flight to Phoenix to check into his dorm. He spoke no English. He was so oblivious to college that he didn’t even realize he had to buy his own sheets for his dorm room. On his first day of class, he brought a pencil and a notebook. Everyone else had laptops. And he graduated in four years, never tempted to turn pro despite winning the individual medal at the World Amateur Team Championship, and the following year tying for fifth at the Phoenix Open when he was a junior. It was that performance that Rahm said convinced his father this golf thing might work out OK. Staying all four years in college is not as common as it once was. Only three players from the top 20 in the world earned their degrees—Rahm, Hideki Matsuyama and Matt Kuchar. Matsuyama finished his final year as a pro. He skipped Bay Hill in 2014 to return to Japan for the graduation ceremony. Rahm’s achievement is notable for the time—four years—and the language barrier. “How I got a 3.6 GPA my first semester, now that is a challenge. I don’t know how I did it,” he said. “I couldn’t

communicate for the first month. The second month was a little better. For the better part of the first year in college, I didn’t understand a single joke. For the better part of the second year, I couldn’t make a joke. Until my junior year, any funny part in me was nonexistent.” He remembers that first class at school—Macro Economics—in an amphitheater with some 360 students. His biggest class in Spain was 30. There were big screens and speakers. The teacher used a microphone. Rahm thought he was in the wrong place. “I thought I might have been at some conference,” he said. His coach forced him to learn English when Rahm was speaking his native language too much with teammate Alberto Sanchez. He had to do a burpee, a full-body exercise used in strength training, for every Spanish word he used. Rahm turned to rap to help speed along the recovery—consider Eminem and Kendrick Lamar to be adjuncts at Arizona State. College isn’t for everyone, or at least not for very long. Jordan Spieth was 19 when he left after three semesters at Texas, and that’s worked out pretty well for him. Ditto for Justin Thomas and his two years at Alabama. Tiger Woods? Years ago, after he three-putted at Bay Hill, he was muttering about his putting when someone jokingly mentioned that, if golf didn’t work out for him, he didn’t have a college degree to lean on because he left Stanford after two years. Woods suggested he could always go to night school. Asked if he would major in economics, Woods smiled and said, “Economics is why I

Future of eSports arrives with Overwatch League

URBANK, California—In the soundstage where Johnny Carson and Jay Leno spent four decades filming The Tonight Show, a former Washington State computer science student named Seagull is pursuing a South Korean teenager with a very big gun. Their characters’ exploits inside Overwatch, the wildly popular multiplayer game not yet two years old, flicker above their heads on an enormous high-definition screen. Hundreds of mostly millennial fans in the renamed, soldout Blizzard Arena put down their Doritos and roar for the combat between these six-player teams, eventually rising in ecstasy when the Dallas Fuel earn an unexpected point against the powerhouse Seoul Dynasty. Here’s the new Johnny. He plays video games for a minimum $50,000 salary, health benefits, a retirement savings plan and a chunk of $3.5 million in prize money. ESports history was made on Wednesday night with the debut of the Overwatch League, the first attempt to present elite computer gaming within a traditional North American sports structure comparable to the National Basketball Association or National Football League (NFL). The league’s 12 franchises represent cities from Shanghai to London, and they build teamwork and stress player development while competing on a weekly schedule stretching into summer. If the eSports industry is still in its adolescence, this well-funded venture is a significant milestone in its maturation. The Overwatch League is about to find out whether fans will grow along with it. “It’s a new frontier,” said Ari Segal, president and COO of the Los Angeles Valiant. “It is the biggest, boldest bet in sports and entertainment maybe since the National Football League and American Football League merged. Maybe since baseball introduced the designated hitter. I don’t even know what it

stacks up against, because it is so different.” Segal had a career as a hockey executive before he moved into eSports last year. He is one of many seasoned professionals from traditional sports and business who couldn’t resist the opportunity to shape the future of professional gaming, which has expanded with all the cohesion of a pipe bomb. Shortly after Blizzard Entertainment published this herobased, first-person PC shooter to acclaim in 2016, the game developer announced plans for a league backed by deeppocketed investors, ranging from NFL owners Stan Kroenke and Robert Kraft to current giants of the eSports scene. They might not all know their way around a mouse, but they know a growing industry when they see it. “I come from traditional sports and, from the outside, it seemed like eSports had grown up as this exciting, massive, organic, somewhat unstructured ecosystem that benefited from that fact, but was also held back by it,” said Pete Vlastelica, president and CEO of Major League Gaming, which operates the league for Blizzard’s parent company. “It felt to me a lot like boxing,” added Vlastelica, a former executive at Fox Sports. “Anybody can create a circuit. Anybody be a trainer. Anybody can sign a fighter. Anybody can win a belt. But what’s the belt? I think boxing suffers from an ambiguity about whether any particular competition means anything, and it felt like that was really similar in eSports.” The Overwatch League aims to end that ambiguity with traditional sports touchstones, and it made sense to the luminaries from sports, tech and business who dominate the list of investors. Kroenke, the billionaire owner of Arsenal and the Los Angeles Rams, also owns the Los Angeles Gladiators, who plan to be based within the vast entertainment complex around his Inglewood football stadium after it is completed in 2020. The Boston Uprising are owned by Kraft’s investment group, and

they might end up based in Foxborough, Massachusetts, to share some training facilities with the New England Patriots. The San Francisco Shock’s investor group includes Jennifer Lopez, Shaquille O’Neal and Marshawn Lynch. The Philadelphia Fusion are owned by Comcast Spectacor, and the New York Excelsior are the property of a venture capital fund sponsored by the Wilpon family of New York Mets fame. Many of the Overwatch League’s owners might not be gamers, but they understand the visceral importance of going to a good event. League commissioner Nate Nanzer is confident it will eventually harness income from ticket sales and concessions and other areas that haven’t meant much in eSports so far. “Why do people go to a Dodger game? You go because it’s more fun to sit with 40,000 other fans and cheer for a home run than it is to do it at home,” Nanzer said. “Video games are so incredibly mainstream right now. It’s such a big part of our fans’ lives. When people play Overwatch, they play a lot of Overwatch. It’s a special moment to go share that with people who have the same passion as you.” Although the geographical specificity of the teams is an important part of their future business plans, those home cities are largely theoretical at this point. For this season and the near future, every team will live in the Los Angeles area and play all its matches in Burbank. Nanzer said the logistics of staging the competition around the globe were too enormous to be solved immediately. AP

left in the first place.” Rahm had every reason to turn pro early, and it never crossed his mind. He was learning. He was having fun. He had a promise to fulfill to his parents. “First of all, there’s probably a lot of [corporate] brands out there that value a college degree. It’s only going to help you out,” he said. “Second of all, it’s never a bad option to educate yourself. Third, college is way too much fun to leave early. “It’s the last time you have no worries in life,” he said, pausing before he added most appropriately, “Not that I can complain right now.”

THE original features Crawford in a tank top and jean shorts—made from her own jeans she brought to set that day—driving a Lamborghini and stopping at a gas station to buy a soda. AP

EW YORK—Cindy Crawford is heading back to the Super Bowl: The model has recreated her iconic 1992 Super Bowl ad for Pepsi, now featuring her 18-year-old son. Crawford recently filmed the commercial, which will debut at Super Bowl 52 on February 4. It includes her son, Presley Walker Gerber, as well as footage from Michael Jackson’s memorable Pepsi commercial. The 51-year-old said she didn’t hesitate to recreate the ad, especially since she was able to work with her son. Crawford says, “I was just a proud mom watching from the sidelines, trying not to annoy him.” The original features Crawford in a tank top and jean shorts—made from her own jeans she brought to set that day—driving a Lamborghini and stopping at a gas station to buy a soda. AP

Miura, 50, extends contract for 33rd season

OKOHAMA, Japan—One of the longest careers in soccer has been extended after 50-year-old striker Kazuyoshi Miura renewed his contract with seconddivision J-League club Yokohama FC on Thursday. Miura, who

will turn 51 on February 26, will enter his 33rd season this year. Miura played in 12 league games last year and scored one goal, breaking his own record as the J-League’s oldest scorer. Miura joined Yokohama FC in 2005 and became the oldest player to appear in a professional match at the age of 50 years and seven days last March, catching global media attention by surpassing England legend Stanley Matthews’s longevity record. Nicknamed “King Kazu,” Miura played for Brazilian club Santos and in Italy with Genoa earlier in his career, and represented Japan’s national team 89 times, scoring 55 goals. AP

Kazuyoshi Miura played in 12 league games last year and scored one goal, breaking his own record as the J-League’s oldest scorer. AP

BusinessMirror

Sunday, January 14, 2018

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The final bullet H

BY Matthew Jacob F. Ramos

er father called it a six-gun. A revolver. It no longer boasted any paint or markings from its original make. Instead, the weapon bore on its surface the colorful history of local gang warfare. Its dry texture echoed the shape of polished bone. And despite the cold nature of the metal, it felt very much alive.

Miriam watched her father bend the pistol forward, exposing the gun’s cylinder to the open air. Nestled in its chambers, sparkling like jewels in an otherwise unremarkable metal container, were four gleaming copper bullets. Two chambers did not sport ammunition. One of which had been scratched and warped to complete deformation. No slug would be able to fit its opening. The only thing this chamber held now was a half-burnt stick of cigarette. Her father’s handiwork, no doubt. “One c ha mber empt y. For safety, one always empty” said Miriam’s father as he took the cigarette out of the gun. “You set the empty chamber next to the firing pin. This way, no accidental discharge. If you want to use it properly, twist the cylinder until a live round aligns with the barrel. Old guns, see? No safety.” Miriam, only nine years of age, was unsure what to do with this information. Only that it meant the world to her father that she and her brother listen. Teodoro, on the other hand, was completely enraptured. His wide eyes caught the glow of the candlelight and his breathing slowed. “Only four?” Teodoro asked. His voice betrayed a hint of disappointment. Their father, a gimpy young man, scratched the stubble from his long face. His ratty hair shook with every move. “Had five before,” he laughed. “A c c i d e nt . N o o n e hu r t , o f course. Just excited, you know? That’s when you both were born. Tried to make many noises. For celebration.” “Like today?” Teodoro beamed. Their father nodded. “Today better. Today, your turn.” T he outside noises of t he street became louder and the sound of sheet metal slamming on concrete punctuated the din. Tondo had always been unkind to its servants and on this particular day, their mother was its plaything. The skin around her face was pockmarked with dirt from the town. But it was the grime and dust of the day that truly emphasized the lack of color on her face. Exhausted, she let the roasted chicken in her hands topple onto the makeshift table. The smile on her lips felt forced. “Happy birthday,” she said to Miriam and Teodoro. The twins leapt from their father’s side and encircled their mother. Their mother’s eyes finally fell on their father. And then to the gun in his hands. She scowled.

“Not in the house!” cried their mother. Sensing the oncoming argument, Miriam dove for her mother’s patchwork skirt and pulled twice. Already, she could hear their father’s jovial yet defensive timbre rising behind her. And as their mother protested, Miriam spoke again. Her voice barely registered. “ I ’ l l b e b a c k l a t e r ,” s h e wh i s pered . The two parents continued to argue as Miriam slipped past them, towards the entrance. Teodoro said nothing, frowning instead at her sudden departure. The door slammed behind her and she emerged into an empty street, its surface caked in dried mud. The weeds that had managed to break through the concrete sidewalk held pieces of plastic and moldy paper. Bottles of beer, long since broken into unhealthy shards of glass, dotted the ground, earmarking whatever recent festivity managed to make its way through the town. This was Tondo, Miriam figured. Not the best place to be out at night. She then pulled a newspaper clipping from her pocket and unfolded it. The newspaper itself was two days old and the article Miriam found was buried underneath pages of local news; of mob arrests surrounding the local gangs; of indecent exposures and drug-fueled crime. But if the article was correct, then the object she was waiting for would reveal itself right around dusk and no later. Scribbled onto the paper was a set of calculations she had made with the assistance of her science teacher—an arcane collection of mathematics that plotted movement quite precisely. Now was the time to prove if they were right. Mir i a m st ra ined her nec k up w a rd s , he r e y e s s k ip p i n g past t he webbing of electr ic wires that snaked their way to each ramshackle home in their street. The skies were bright pink as light, ref lected from distant clouds, revealed tomorrow’s weather forecast. A storm was coming. But for the most part, the heavens were clear. The first star winked into view. No, a planet.Venus, no doubt. But moving across the horizon, barely skirting the limits of perception, was a bright object darting from one edge of the sky to the other. Not a star or a planet, Miriam knew. An object made by mortal hands. An artificial satellite.The first of its kind. When Miriam told her father of this news earlier this morning, he was visibly unsettled. The

Their mother’s eyes finally fell on their father. And then to the gun in his hands. She scowled. “Not in the house!” cried their mother.

communists again, her father grumbled. She couldn’t understand why he appeared so disturbed by it. Maybe even afraid. A crash. The sound of glass shattering. And before that, the muted bark of metal. Miriam then became noticeably aware of a sharp pain in her leg. She winced and her eyes filled with hot tears as she crumpled onto the concrete. People were screaming all around her; the panicked cries of her mother, the angry tone of her father. And little Teodoro, stunned beyond anything she could recognize, watching her struggle on the ground as blood pooled by her feet. In the ensuing chaos, no one thought to take the gun from her brother’s grip. The police would later explain that the bullet had arched in the air and was thankfully not aimed directly at her. By sheer luck, it had fallen where she stood, striking her left shin. This lessened the damage and ultimately saved Miriam’s life. And while this knowledge did little to lessen the sufferings of a young child, Miriam could not stop thinking about Sputnik and all its implications. Some of her father’s fears returned to her and finally made sense. Out there, for the first time in history, was a bullet that simply refused to fall down.

tudents from different dormitories all over the university’s campus gathered around Ilang-Ilang Residence Hall’s common area where a medium-sized television set had been put up. Most of them were crowding around the screen to catch glimpses of Gloria Diaz amongst the other international contenders and pixelated artifacts. Despite the women-only restriction in the dorm, Miriam was surprised to find Teodoro’s face among the male seniors that had gathered there. “Miss Philippines,” Bob Barker asked. The famous celebrity host’s voice remained silky despite an ocean of separation. “In the next day or so, a man will land on the moon. If a man from the moon landed in your home town, what would you do to entertain him?” Many in the living room gasped, puzzling at the borderline absurdity of the question. Miss Universe and the Man on the Moon. In any other time, this would have been

a ridiculous pairing between two cosmopolitan figures. But as she stared at the moonlit lawn outside, she felt a sense of historical inevitability surrounding these circumstances. If Teodoro shared this incredulity, Miriam could not find it in his face. Rather, the young man was sweating, his eyes shifting every which way. It was at that moment that Miriam knew she would not finish the pageant’s question and answer portion. She stood up, offered her space to the nearest senior and began walking out of the hall. Ilang-ilang’s shape was unique among the other dormitories on campus. The four different wings of the building encircled a manicured lawn filled with Caimitotrees. The scents of nectar and moss brought about years of nostalgia. Teodoro, with little effort, broke this illusion with his shadowy presence. His gangly form was an aberration within an otherwise calm lawnscape. Hunched over his shoulder was a large trash bag nearly bursting at the seams. The students who saw him crossing immediately afforded him a wide berth. “ You promised you’ d have them finished by June,” Teodoro scowled. Miriam was more than annoyed. “I only said that I knew how to do it. Helping you was different.” “June!” he spat. “That was a month ago.” Teodoro was barely recognizable these days. The young impressionable child had grown glass eyes and dark layers of skin underneath them. He did carry himself more confidently, however; his childhood meekness replaced by a grin charismatic enough to gain him followers. But most glaring in his ensemble was a triangular tattoo by his neck. Inside the triangle, a lopsided letter ‘H’ resided. Miriam knew the symbol well as did many students on campus. The Alibata equivalent of the letter “K.” The symbol of the Katipunan; now reincorporated into the new student movement: KabataangMakabayan. Miriam’s mind lingered on these thoughts as she and Teodoro slowly made their way up the dorms. They skirted around the prying eyes of residence assistants, hoping to remain unnoticed for as long as possible. She then

“One chamber empty. For safety, one always empty” said Miriam’s father as he took the cigarette out of the gun. “You set the empty chamber next to the firing pin. This way, no accidental discharge. If you want to use it properly, twist the cylinder until a live round aligns with the barrel. Old guns, see? No safety.”

motioned Teodoro into silence as they entered her room. “You’re not listening, Miri,” Teodoro persisted. “Aren’t you angry? Don’t you want things to change for all of us?” “I don’t want to hurt people,” snapped Miriam. But her eyes never left the trash bag dangling on her brother’s shoulders. She could already smell the lingering scent of black powder and it called to her like fresh coffee. “Non-violent protests,” Teodoro corrected. “But we need ways to defend ourselves. Marcos’ cronies have always been armed to the teeth anyways.” Miriam scoffed, her tone bitter. “Non-violent? The other students tell me things about you, Teo. Even people inside your circle are afraid of you. They say you’re dangerous. Often acting alone. Always willing to start a fight.” Her brother laughed, the smile never quite reaching the eyes. “Don’t deny the fact that you were the one who begged me— begged—to get you all of this.” The plastic bag was then dropped onto the dorm room floor. A small bundle of fireworks peeked right through the bag. “All for you and your own weird group. Your own useless ends.” Miriam’s cheeks burned. She dug up a large conical rod from within the trash bag. She recognized it as the leftover pyrotechnics from last month’s Independence Day. Slowly, she tore off one end of the firework and poured its dark entrails on a sheet of aluminum. “Keep the contents dry, always,” Miriam instructed. “Never hot either. Or you’ll lose a finger. Wrap the foil around the powder and seal with adhesive. Electrical tape should be okay. If you use a fuse, you can get a few seconds before it ignites.” Teodoro stared intently but scratched his face. “I need it to do more than lose a finger. Need it to hurt more people.” The request came in two ways to Miriam: one side of her brain was appalled, ready to wrestle the cocktail of explosives away from her brother. The other saw it as a mathematical problem, knowing full well the energies involved in a blast of this scale. “Most military-grade grenades have higher explosive yields. You would have to buy kilograms of black powder just to rival the kind of plastique the army uses.” Teodoro responded with his bare hands. “No money. Have to make do with what we can get. But it has to be stronger.” Miriam scratched her chin. It was an interesting conundrum. “Most of the damage grenades make come from the shockwave,” she mused. “But if we can’t make the explosion bigger, we can try something else. We could load the explosive with dangerous shrapnel, instead. It should multiply the damage. The perimeter fences around some of the buildings here are studded with broken glass. You can chip them off and apply them to the explosive. It won’t kill anyone, I think. But fast-moving glass should be terrible against bare skin.” The smile on Teodoro’s face was full of teeth. “But they will lose more than

fingers, right?” After a heartbeat, Miriam made a grab for the contents on the table. Teodoro was faster, however. And stronger. And when he pulled out the gun from his pocket, she knew he was far more prepared than she was for this encounter. The weapon itself was a piece of their personal history. The mere sight of it made her left leg twitch. “You’re going to make more,” Teodoro demanded. “I will make sure you get your share. But you have to make more.” Miriam stared past Teodoro’s shoulder, out the window, beyond the tree line, and at the pale face of the moon. She wished she were there now, where people were making history. Perhaps, a dark thought announced as it welcomed itself into her mind, this will too.

he Battle at Mendiola was, thankfully, just a bloodbath. Not a massacre. Miriam consoled herself with this fact every few minutes. Just four dead. Just a lot of blood. It was the lack of deaths that seemed to assuage her conscience best. Still, being in the confines of a police penitentiary was enough to keep her on edge. When the door opened, she nearly jumped. Standing in the doorway was her brother. His face was split open, held together by bandages and staples. He walked with a limp as there was now a large puncture wound on his right foot. A fresh trail of pus and ichor ended where he now sat. The smell nearly made her gag. Worst of all was that the police could not be bothered to lend the crippled man a pair of crutches. The only courtesy the authorities did provide was the sense to give them their privacy. When Teodoro smiled at her, his face crumpled into an even worse pastiche of flesh. “We did it,” he said. News of the student protest quickly devolving into violence was still making its rounds weeks after the event. The Marcos regime responded with impunity, cracking hard on the young revolutionaries. Other activists had reportedly gone missing—most likely dead. But the KabataangMakabayan saw this it all as a success. And little of it would have been so effective if they were notso adequately supplied with a cache of pillbox bombs and Molotov cocktails. It was only a matter of time until the authorities knew who gave them the idea. “We got them scared,” laughed Teodoro. “Made us look serious. Tried to make that fascist pig put it down in writing, too. So close.” Miriam made a frantic grab for the collar of Teodoro’s tank top. “You didn’t tell them about me, Teo, did you? This was your fault, do you understand? Only you!” “We did it,” Teodoro muttered. Miriam didn’t know what bothered her more: his utter obliviousness to the current situation or the satisfied smile on his blood-smeared lips. The man would continue mumbling, “We did it” for hours. “ You stupid man!” Mir iam cried. “Because of your actions, the government will do their best to control the supply of black powder now. It was already hard enough to

The wheelchair came to a stop at last and Miriam pulled out a cane for her brother to latch on to. Eight years of prison made her brother slow, lethargic, and averse to be around wide-open spaces. Convincing her brother to come was herculean enough. Thankfully, Teodoro did not complain when offered the cane this time around. get it without a license before. But now, my group needs more of it! More!” And she throttled Teodoro until drool settled on his chin. “Crazy girl…” Teodorowhsipered. “Can’t you see that the future of this country is bigger than your little games? Black powder and bullets.Knives and guns. Your imagination is spread far too thin, Miri. A gun is a weapon. Simple as that. And all guns kill.” She had heard this spiel from her brother before. This was a world of conflict, he once recited. Where the seat of power belonged to those with the biggest sticks. And at the tip of every spear, at the point of every arrow, at the edge of every blade, and at the end of every barrel, only one thing waited for the poor souls who cared little for power. And that was death. That was true for the extinct Mammoth, for the fallen Spaniards, and for the former residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But he was wrong about one thing, Miriam thought. Guns were not dangerous. It was the bullets they hold. And not even all of them were meant to kill. “Teo,” she began. The tone of her voice sliced through the reverie and brought Teodoro back to the present. “Do you still have dad’s gun?” They stared at each other for what seemed like minutes. Teodoroappeared uncertain as he pondered the question. Although laughing was surely the most inappropriate response. “I was able to hide it in my dorm right after I came back from Mendiola,” Teodoro said. “Made sure the pulis couldn’t find it there either. But you should find it easily.” Miriam nodded. And after another brief pause, she asked, “Aren’t you wondering why I want it?” Teodoro laughed. But this time, Miriam found that the smile finally reached his eyes. “First time I pulled the trigger on that thing, I shot myself on the foot. Estupido. And after the second shot missed a guard completely, I knew it wasn’t for me. So you know what? I don’t care what you want it for. Your science experiments or your bombs, I don’t care. But it should stay in the family.” All the violence and blood, Miriam could hear internally, it should stay in the family. Miriam stood up and nodded, taking this as her cue to leave. But before she could walk away, Teodoro grabbed her hand. She was faintly aware of the dried blood that was now being smeared on her skin. Whether her brother was doing this intentionally or by accident, she wasn’t sure. “There’s still one bullet left in the gun, Miri,” said Teodoro. For a moment, Miriam thought he was threatening her. But then, the crippled young man began to sob. “One bullet. Be careful.”

‘I

still don’t understand why I’m here.” The air above Lake Caliraya carried Teo’s

voice over the long stretch of water. And because there wasn’t a single cloud anywhere, visibility was clear for miles. There was also the faint sensation that the lake was much higher than sea level. A shortness of breath, maybe.Or an overabundance of sky. It was the perfect place to watch the New Year’s festivities. People were already gathering around a nearby sandbar, extending telescopes and tiny rockets into the sky. wMiriam watched as Teodoro dragged his wheelchair into the mud. The marsh surrounding them did not take kindly to the rubber wheels. At some point, Miriam knew, Teo was going to have to walk. “So this is what your group does?” Teodoroasked. There was a little more bite in his words than Miriam would have liked. “Therapy? Rehabilitation? In college, you made it sound like you were on some grand mission.” The wheelchair came to a stop at last and Miriam pulled out a cane for her brother to latch on to. Eight years of prison made her brother slow, lethargic, and averse to be around wide-open spaces. Convincing her brother to come was herculean enough. T han k f u l ly, Teodoro d id not complain when offered the cane this time around.

“The social work is secondary to the science,” Miriam explained. “But it’s what lets us get away with what we have already. And it’s good PR. Anything to get Ombudsman whatshisname and the other senators to agree is a good thing. Not to mention allowing us use of this private land.” “And the military?” Teodoro asked. “I heard they’ve been trying to reach you too.” Miriam marveled at her own propensity to shrug off another verbal jab. “They can beg all they want. They’re never taking this from me. Ever.” Teodoro, however, did not appear convinced. That was when a loud hiss erupted from the shoreline. The air cracked and then split in two. Startled, Teodorodropped the cane and collapsed into the sand. A little part of Miriam secretly enjoyed the shock to her brother. Overhead, trailed by a threadthin pillar of smoke, a rocket flew. It lasted seconds. And then the sound dissipated. Wind coming in from the east spread the trail of smoke so that its ghostly features haunted the rest of the lake. Those who were not bothered by Teodoro’s shouting began to clap at the spectacle. The few that were alarmed by the crippled man collapsing warrily made their way to assist him. “Ma’am Dealca?” called a moonfaced young girl. Miriam remembered her from one of her classes. “Is he okay?” the child persisted.

Miriam lowered herself against her brother, positioning the latter’s legs so he could sit upright on the sand. Teodoro seemed to be elsewhere. He shivered with no obvious reason as to why. Still, the man’s eyes were transfixed skyward. “It’s all right,” Miriam said to the growing crowd. “Just keep to the schedule.” The moon-faced girl nodded and ushered everyone else away. “Wow,” said Teodoro. “They actually listen to you.” Miriam laughed. “Within reason. I keep them busy and that keeps them in line. Plus, the work’s demanding. Really demanding. That’s how I get the rehabilitees to focus.” After five minutes, the two siblings managed to get back on their feet. But Teodoro set his eyes to the sky again, steeling himself against the possibility of another eruption of noise. “I still don’t see how putting explosives into the hands of dangerous people can be a good idea. I wouldn’t call missiles ‘therapeutic’ under any context.” Miriam dragged her brother towards one of the encircled groups and told them to move away. This was her project now. And as the crowd receded, Teodorogasped as he spotted the object they had gathered around: a black obelisk that stood one meter tall. Even her h a rdened brot her cou ld not deny that there was something

Someone started counting backwards and that was all anyone could do before their voices mixed into one cohesive whole. Miriam thought of it as the most unifying exercise their group ever performed. It was mathematics in song.

Sunday, January 14, 2018 potent about the simplicity of a rocket. It reminded her of the unmarred features of a scalpel. And scribbled on the rocket’s spine were the painted letters of their hobbyist society: The Fifth Bullet. Their logo was that of a row of bullets; only, the one in the center had jumped ahead of the others and taken off to parts unknown. “It’s clear,” said Miriam, ending her last round of visual inspections. “Let’s join the others before we become part of a new crater.” But Teodoro did not move. He still seemed fixated on the rocket, his fingers lightly brushing against the insignia painted on its skin. “ T his name… Mir i… Dad ’s handgun. What did you do with the last bullet?” Miriam made sure nothing distracted them as they made quick work crossing the final stretch of the sandbar. At the edge of the lake was a designated viewing area the younger ones jokingly called ‘Mission Control.’ This version, however, was the shoestring, budget of its professional counterpart. And it was glorious. Here, sand mixed terribly with all the cabling and metal switches. Miriam noted that they should have set up some tarpaulins on the ground to protect the delicate electronics. Then began the terminal count. Someone started counting backwards and that was all anyone could do before their voices mixed into one cohesive whole. Miriam thought of it as the most unifying exercise their group ever performed. It was mathematics in song. It was her life’s work coming to a crescendo. “The bullet,Miri” Teodoro whispered again. Her brother’s mumblings were distinct amidst the growing noise. “What did you do with the rest of it?” A dozen alibis came to Miriam’s mind. She could have explained that the first bullet was fired long

before they were born. It was made of stone and was only as strong as the person who tossed it. These bows, slingshots, and spears brought people their food and protected their families from would-be predators. The second bullet would probably be a more familiar sight. It carried gunpowder so it no longer relied on muscle alone. These were not clumsy rounds. Instead, they granted the complete certainty of the kill. The third bullet was filled with black powder and was even larger. It was never enough to end one life so these shells were designed to take away entire communities. It advertised the wholesale destruction of buildings, neighborhoods, and towns. Never to be outdone, the fourth bullet assured utter annihilation. It was meant to be the bullet to end all wars. These warheads fired with little warning and needed no gun. At its heart, it bore the power of the atom and unleashed hellfire that burned long after the bullet itself was scrap. “Where is the last bullet?” Teodoro demanded. At zero, the rocket on the launchpad leaped. There was an eagerness to the device that Miriam and everyone there completely respected. This blunt force was what people like Teodoro chased after. But in reality, there was power here that could do more than just maim. The homemade missile continued to rise until the last of its fuel reserves were depleted. Then it crested its highest point and spiraled into a dive. This, Miriam believed, was what Teodoro could not understand. Because if he could be convinced for that bullets were more than just weapons, then he would have known that the last bullet was something else. The fifth bullet could carry people. And take them to the moon.

JIMBO ALBANO

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror

A10 Sunday, January 14, 2017

Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

Color your journey with Rainbow Mountains’ palette

The colors of the mountains were at their most vibrant during sunset.

Story & photos by Joshua Berida

have seen photos of China’s Rainbow Mountains splashed on the cover and pages of magazines, travel web sites and advertisements. I couldn’t believe the contrast, bright yellows and reds, with hints of green and silver. This was the kind of place I have to see to believe.

When I returned to China, this time in Xi’An; I knew I was close enough to the city of Zhangye in Gansu to see the Rainbow Mountains with my own eyes.

Journey to the west

Xi’An is a cosmopolitan city with plenty to offer, whether you’re looking for history, the Terracota Warriors are a must-visit, or you just want to eat delicious local delicacies, the place to go to is Muslim Street. However, this bustling metropolis wasn’t the reason I was heading west into China’s heartland. I booked overnight train tickets to Zhangye with a short stopover in Lanzhou, eager to finally make it to my destination, the Rainbow Mountains. The overnight journeys didn’t only transform the cityscape from a sprawling urban jungle to a small-

er one, but also the landscapes. As I moved further west, lush, green countryside and mountains turned into towering red or yellow rock formations, and into a more arid topography. When these changing scenes, I knew I was moving closer to my destination.

Nature’s work of art

Zhangye, a small city by Chinese standards, served as the entry point for excursions into the Zhangye Danxia, or Rainbow Mountains. The latter took thousands of years to form with the help from climate and tectonic movements. I already spent a day in the city, exploring another site, Mati Si. The owners of the hostel I stayed in and other travelers told me that the best time to see the mountain is during sunset on a clear day, so I decided to go late in the afternoon

Visitors will see reds, whites and yellows when they visit the different viewing platforms of the park.

to get my money’s worth. The weather was perfect the following day, albeit hotter because of the arid climate, but I was eager to finally see the Rainbow Mountains. In Chinese fashion, the park had walls surrounding it and a massive tourist center to buy tickets. Visitors aren’t allowed to go about in their own way (a bus took us to different sections of the park), or walk outside the wooden platforms. These were trivialities that one can overlook. Once we laid our eyes on the stripes of yellows, red soil, dashes of whites and greens, the man-made structures paled in comparison to nature’s work of art.

The Rainbow Mountains were as advertised, however, for the colors to be vibrant, the skies should be clear, with little to no clouds. Fortunately, the skies were just that with only a hint of cloudiness. This didn’t detract from Mother Nature’s color palette; in fact, it gave it a different dimension. The contrast, the play of light and shadow brought out the best in the shades of yellows, whites and reds. It was still early and we made it to the last viewing platform; all the remaining visitors were eager to watch Mother Nature bring out her brush and paint the mountains during sunset. It was an hour or

two of waiting, but it was worth it. The last rays of the sun fell on the mountain’s canvas, the skies were transforming from white and blue to orange and the conditions were falling into place. Nature’s sleight of hand and flick of the wrist revealed a color display. Light and shadow, the color contrasts and just the right amount of sunlight created a spectacle with the colors merging and distinguishing themselves right before our eyes. Before the sun set, we headed out satisfied with nature’s display and artistry.

Sea of yellow

It was only two days after I visited

the Rainbow Mountains, but I was still eager to explore the region looking for places to discover. There was one such place I found by accident on the way to another park in Gansu. It had bright-yellow rape flowers surrounded by quaint houses and verdant, green rolling hills. I asked the person seated behind me what was the name of the place the bus sped by, and she said Biandukou. I felt had to see it again, so I returned the day after I went to the Qilian Mountains in Qinghai to Biandukou. This part of the province was an anomaly, since most of it is arid and dry; however, once one reached the border of Gansu and Qinghai along the mountain range, the weather changed and so did the landscape. Mother Nature was at it again; there was a sea of yellow right before our eyes. Rape flowers, as known locally, blossom during the summer. I was lucky to witness them in full bloom. The display of colors wasn’t reserved for the Rainbow Mountains, but in this part of the province, as well. Despite the rapid modernization of China’s cities and towns, those outside of Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen just to name a few, the countryside still has some of the most beautiful landscapes as epitomized by Biandukou and the Rainbow Mountains. Once again, Mother Nature reminds us that she still stands out amid the man-made structures and approximations of beauty that people create.

Korea expands Incentive Travel Market Welcome 2018 by flying to your dream destination

he number of incentive travel tourists who visited Korea in 2017, excluding those coming from China, reached a total of 183,307—reflecting a 25-percent increase over the previous year. According to Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) Chief Executive Changsu Jung, Korea’s incentive travelers from Southeast Asia is experiencing an upward trend, particularly in Vietnam (56,246, 90.5 percent), the Philippines (4,855, 128.7 percent), and Malaysia (16,681, 27.3 percent). In addition, countries which showed weakness in growth over the past years, rose considerably and are being considered as a new incentive market in the future. The increase in incentive tourism is directly driven by the economic growth of emerging markets in Southeast Asia and the active efforts of the Korea Tourism Organization in diversifying its market. KTO Meetings and Incentives

Team Director Chulbeum Park said, “We have taken several steps to seek new markets and increase the tourist arrivals in Korea. Our major move was to expand the existing support system to attract more incentive groups to Korea last year.” In 2017 KTO has successfully launched its new corporate meetings

and incentive support program and initiated several road shows overseas, together with other Korean tourism providers and convention bureaus. This year, the KTO is expected to continue and add more road shows and other promotional activities for 2018.

mirates is encouraging travelers to ask “Where Next?” in 2018 with a wide range of special offers to destinations across its global network from either Manila, Cebu or Clark. Passengers booking from January 9 to 23 for travel until November 30, can take advantage of trade fares, which start from $599 for Economy Class and $2,170 for Business Class. Fly Emirates and head to its hub, Dubai, as your final destination or as a stopover. Dubai is a cosmopolitan city that has attractions and activities for everyone. With sprawling amusement parks, thrilling desert dune bashing activity, iconic buildings, stunning beaches, worldclass malls and well-preserved cultural sites, Dubai have your interests covered. From Dubai, you can connect

to some of the most popular destinations. Travel to the city of love, Paris, for a romantic escape. Join the excitement for the upcoming royal wedding in London, or go for a stroll on the historic streets of Barcelona. Whatever you want to do, you can rely on Emirates to take you there. Emirates has the world’s biggest fleet of Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s, offering passengers the comforts of the latest and most efficient wide-body aircraft in the skies. Committed to continually push the boundaries on enhancing the comfort and travel experience for passengers, Emirates formally deployed its upgraded on-board lounge on its flagship A380 aircraft in August 2017, then launched completely refreshed interiors for its Boeing 777 aircraft last November, including its highly

anticipated new First Class private suites. With floor to ceiling sliding doors and sleek design features, inspired by the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Emirates’s new suites on Boeing 777 aircraft offer up to 40 square feet of personal space each, with spacious, fully enclosed private suites, laid out in a 1-1-1 configuration, taking luxury and privacy to the next level. Apart from these new upgrades, the featured fares also allow passengers to experience Emirates’s award-winning service from its international cabin crew, gourmet cuisine and its renowned in-flight entertainment system, ice, which offers a vast selection of over 2,500 channels across all cabins. Emirates currently operates in Manila, Cebu and Clark international airports, with 25 weekly flights to Dubai.