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LOW RANKING IN WORLD GIVING INDEX SHOWS FILIPINOS’ LACK OF GENEROSITY

Translating ‘bayanihan’ into giving

HILE the bayanihan spirit is among the innate attributes of Filipinos globally, the Philippines ironically trails behind other countries—compared especially to some of its Asian peers—when it comes to generosity in supporting personal, corporate or social causes through crowdfunding, according to a top executive of a homegrown fundraising platform.

“I think we’re very much behind already in terms of crowdfunding,” Gava Founder and CEO Ann Cuisia-Lindayag told the BusinessMirror. “In other countries, particularly Westerners, it’s been already practiced over the last five to six years, whereas, here, it’s just starting around.” Proof of this, she said, is the latest result of the

World Giving Index 2016 report of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), which ranks the Philippines 47th out of the 140 countries surveyed in terms of generosity. The country went down a notch from No. 46 in 2015.

Participating nations in the study were based on three giving behaviors: Donating money to a

good cause, helping a stranger and volunteerism. Overall, Myanmar again topped the recent survey— already three years in a row—followed by the US and Australia.

Other Asian markets that made it to the Top 20 include Sri Lanka at No. 5; Indonesia, No. 7; United Arab Emirates, No. 10; Uzbekistan, No. 11; Turkmenistan, No. 15; Bhutan, No. 18; and Kuwait, No. 19.

Meanwhile, some memberstates of Asean, such as Malaysia (No. 22), Singapore (No. 28) and Thailand (No. 37), also fared well in the index. Vietnam (No. 64) also performed rather unsatisfactorily in the study.

When it comes to donating money, Myanmar still leads, with a score of 91 percent, followed by Indonesia at 75 percent. Other Asian performers are Thailand at No. 12, with 63 percent; Sri Lanka, No. 17, 61 percent; and Singapore, No. 19, 58 percent.

For the Asean region, Malaysia is at No. 21, with 57 percent; Cambodia, No. 39, 42 percent; Vietnam, No. 48, 34 percent; and the Philippines, No. 88, 21 percent.

Nuvolanevicata | Dreamstime.com

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By Roderick L. Abad | Contributor

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D.A.’s PiÑol renews drive for ‘clean’ food imports

The ‘meat’ of the story T

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

he Philippines is exhausting possible measures to ensure that food—particularly imported ones— being sold in the local market is safe for consumption.

The latest of the government’s action in securing Filipinos’ health is a series of measures imposed against meat imports coming from Brazil.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol on July 20 ordered the dispatch of a technical team that would investigate Brazilian meat establishments exporting meat to the country.

This comes after he ordered the temporary ban on all meat imports from Brazil after salmonella was detected in some of the shipments from the Latin American country.

“In the meantime that [we] are conducting tests, we can temporarily stop the importation from Brazil and then clear them [meatpacking plants] one by one,” Piñol

PESO exchange rates n US 50.8830

told reporters in an interview on July 20.

“It will be a total ban of all Brazilian companies. But we will clear them one by one as we conduct the validation,” Piñol added.

The Department of Agriculture’s (DA) technical team would physically inspect and investigate all accredited Brazilian foreign meat establishments (FMEs) approved to export meat and meat products to the Philippines.

“They will check the facilities and then, as soon as they are cleared, we will lift their bans one by one,” Piñol said.

Interventions

The government’s latest intervention comes almost four months after Brazil’s “rotten meat scandal” broke

and made headlines in March.

In that month, the government had subjected all meat imports from Brazil to mandatory inspection and laboratory tests to ensure that these are safe for consumption.

This was done after Brazil’s federal police raided companies that allegedly bribed government inspectors to allow the shipment of rotten meat and meat tainted with salmonella.

Foreign news reports indicated 21 meat-packing plants were targeted by the police in an operation dubbed as “Operation Weak Flesh,” while three meat-packing plants have been shut down by the Brazilian government.

A news wire report revealed that BRF, the world’s biggest poultry exporter, and JBS, the world’s

PiÑol: “If you could remember when we exported oysters that were reportedly positive with salmonella, the US immediately banned us. Why are we going to be lenient when they are the ones violating our safety provisions? They are so strict when we violate their standards and then we are going to be lax on them? I think that’s unfair. We are talking here about the health of Filipinos.”

top beef producer, were part of the dozens of firms targeted in the police probe. However, both companies have denied any wrongdoing and assured consumers that their products meet rigorous quarantine standards, the report added.

The scandal forced major buyers of Brazilian meat to either suspend imports or impose more restrictions on shipments.

Earlier this month, the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS), an attached agency of the DA, found out that nearly 500 kilograms of imported meat from Brazil tested positive for salmonella.

Trade-off

The agriculture chief is cognizant that imposing a blanket ban on Brazil would affect Manila’s meat

trade, as the South American country is one of the country’s major sources of meat. Brazil accounts for 6 percent of the Philippines’s annual meat imports.

“We cannot do anything about it. We have to make sure that our consumers are protected more than anything else,” Piñol said.

“Trade can always resume the moment things are cleared. Our first and foremost priority would be the safety of our consumers,” Piñol added.

Meat Importers and Traders Association (Mita) President Jesus C. Cham told the BusinessMirror that the ban could result in higher prices of meat and meat products in the local market due to fewer sources of imports.

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n japan 0.4547 n UK 66.0360 n HK 6.5151 n CHINA 7.5293 n singapore 37.2442 n australia 40.4876 n EU 59.1922 n SAUDI arabia 13.5702

Source: BSP (21 July 2017 )

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A2 Sunday, July 23, 2017

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Translating ‘bayanihan’ into giving Continued from A1

“The No. 88 out of the 140 [nations] is pretty, pretty very low,” Lindayag said of the country’s position in the donation segment. “We feel that we should not be on that rank. We feel that Filipinos are very giving. We have this term bayanihan, but why is it not translated into giving?”

Still unacceptable

She said crowdfunding, or even the simple act of fund-raising, remains unacceptable for others at present.

Within her circle, in fact, she conceded that there are some who are reluctant to donate a portion of their salary to a certain cause for the reason that they worked hard for the money they earned.

“For them, it’s totally mindboggling, or very odd for them to give. I was surprised there are those people with such thinking, even if they have this capacity to give. And I feel sorry for people who are not being able to use themselves [or] to use their resources to be blessings to others,” she said.

Giving is not all about the money, according to her, but also “assisting people not known to you or giving your time to others.”

In these ways, the Philippines, though not leading, does well as compared to its other counterparts in the region. To wit, it claims the No. 7 spot in the index for the volunteerism category, just five notches below Myanmar at No. 2, and four steps behind Indonesia that

settled at No. 3.

In the segment of helping a stranger, Myanmar is No. 27 at 63 percent; Bangladesh, No. 47, 56 percent; and the Philippines, No. 52 at 55 percent.

“So we may have this burden, but we have this desire to really impart the culture of generosity among our people,” Lindayag noted.

Hindrances

THE lack of generosity among Filipinos nowadays could be attributed to various factors, such as the lack of awareness, security concerns, poor technology infrastructure and the “Third World” mind-set of being the recipient of international aids, especially in times of uncertainties.

While it’s natural for the locals to share with others what they have, the CEO said, somehow, most of them don’t know how to do it, or where to begin to create an impact to others.

She added that some are not privy to various ways to course their assistance, whether in kind or cash, except the traditional nongovernmental organizations, charitable institutions, or concerned government agencies.

The awareness on crowdfunding in the forms of donation— reward-based, equity-based or lending—is also not that evident among the populace.

“So probably it’s just a matter of really the awareness and trust,” she said.

What’s also contributing to

the “not so good” performance of the Philippines in the index is the technology that comes with crowdfunding.

“It could be the technology scare,” she said, citing the fright of the people to give their personal and financial details that may be hacked by cybercriminals.

While there is a high Internet penetration in the country, most people still get access online through free data.

“So when they are moved to the next site to give, that’s when the fallout happens,” Lindayag explained. “They could not continue with the process because of the low Internet speed.”

Another hurdle is the culture of dependency; that the Philippines, as a Third World country, can count on the support of the international community, especially its allied nations, during tragedies and other crises.

“The media and other elements in the society somehow inculcated that certain mind-set that we are always the receiver of help from others,” the CEO pointed out.

From receiver to giver

EXPERTS agree that the volume of crowdfunding across Asia will be $92 billion by 2025. Lindayag believes on the potential of the Philippines to take a pivotal role in this field.

With this in mind, she is bullish that the country could be in the same level of Myanmar as the consistent top biller in the World Giving Index in the next few years.

“I hope by 2020 [or] before 2020, we will be like them,” she said, citing that concerted efforts from the public and private sectors, as well as the people, will help attain such goal.

Apart from correcting the above-cited hindrances to crowdfunding, she added that “the integration with the banks and some compliances” with existing policies must be implemented.

“It’s a big market. We can only wish that a lot of people will be more aware about it,” the CEO of Gava stressed.

She, likewise, suggested that the potential for raising funds through crowdfunding will grow with the help of the high penetration of social media here.

“Since there are about more than 50 million Filipinos who are in Facebook, for instance, it could also be used as a platform to get support from the public,” she said.

Lindayag added “enablers” are needed to ignite the “giving heart” and the bayanihan spirit that are already possessed by Filipinos.

“That’s why we have this Gava; we believe that there’s power in giving together. We believe that we want to help people, being able to help other people,” she said of their fund-raising platform.

Piloted in the Philippines, Gava is a crowdfunding platform that enables the people to share what they have to others. It offers convenient service, multiple pay-

ment methods and transparent platform for personal or institutional campaigns.

Developed by Gava Tech Pte. Ltd., the platform already has raised around P12 million since it piloted in February. The amount came from donated funds to around 300 campaigns out of almost 1,000 posted causes in its web site www.gavagives.com.

“We want everyone to participate in this goal of improving our World Giving Index [ranking],” Lindayag said, while citing their vision to be the leading fund-raising platform of Southeast Asia by 2020. “Gava aims to cultivate the virtue of generosity and make it a lifestyle. We want to build a community of donors.”

The ‘meat’ of the story Continued from A1

“It will have a huge impact. For [mechanically deboned meat], this negates the lifting of the ban on Dutch poultry,” Cham said in an email.

“The DA should immediately lift the poultry ban on other European Union countries in order to increase the supply. For beef, I’m afraid there are very few alternatives,” he added.

Cham said the government should expedite its investigation in order to avert any spikes in the prices of meat in the local market.

“It is unfortunate that the DA has decided to ban Brazil until the plants are inspected. Brazil is an important source of meat for the Philippines,” he said.

“To minimize the impact, we urge the DA to inspect the plants expeditiously, at the same time, adhering to the standards of the international Codex Alimentarius Commission, of which the Philippines is a member,” he added.

‘Zero-tolerance’

The Mita president has urged the DA to reconsider its zero-tolerance policy on salmonella, saying that the tests conducted by the government on meat imports is not in accordance with the Codex Alimentarius.

Under MC9-2008-5, fresh meat and offals, chilled meat and offals, frozen meat and offals and chilled/ frozen comminuted meat/offals are classified under cases 1 and 10.

According to the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF), cases 1 of raw meat for total plate count (TPC) include: carcass meat before chilling, chilled carcass meat, chilled edible offal, frozen carcass meat, frozen boneless meat, frozen comminuted meat and frozen edible offal.

Meanwhile, case 10 is used to measure the presence of salmonella in cooked poultry meat, according to ICMSF. And case 4 is for the test of E. coli in fresh and frozen fish.

“Obviously it is physically impossible for meat and offal to be both raw and cooked at the same time. It has to be one or the other.

As well, chicken MDM [mechanically deboned meat] is not fish,” Cham said in a letter addressed to NMIS Executive Director Ernesto S. Gonzales dated July 13.

“Hence, we respectfully request that MC9-2008-5 be withdrawn and reissued to adhere to Codex Aimentarius Commission recommendations. As a logical consequence, we request that the zero-tolerance policy on salmonella on raw meat be discontinued,” Cham added in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the BusinessMirror.

Citing the reasons above, Cham said it is wrong for the Philippines to ban Brazil imports solely on the basis of salmonella.

“Excessive bacteria would be an acceptable justification, provided that their products consistently exceeded the limits,” he said. “The

Philippines is applying the wrong tests and consequently arriving at the wrong conclusions and policy.”

Cham added that salmonella in raw meat is not a concern as all bacteria found in raw meat would be killed by cooking, especially when very well done, like what Filipinos usually do.

“Salmonella in fully cooked ready-to-eat processed meat is dangerous. But you can see from the international standards it is not a concern in raw meat,” he said.

“The concern in raw meat is the total bacteria population or Aerobic Plate Count, also referred to as TPC. As long as TPC is within limits then the meat is fit for human consumption. Meaning, it is fit for cooking, not necessarily safe if eaten raw or half-cooked,” he added.

Duty-bound

Sought for comment, Piñol maintained the efficacy of the government’s zero-tolerance policy, reiterating that they are duty-bound to ensure that the meat being sold and eaten by Filipinos are safe.

“If you could remember when we exported oysters that were reportedly positive with salmonella, the US immediately banned us.

Why are we going to be lenient when they are the ones violating our safety provisions?” he said.

“They are so strict when we violate their standards and then we are going to be lax on them? I think that’s unfair. We are talking here about the health of Filipinos,” he added.

“I can understand the concern of the traders, it’s business for them. But they have to understand our position as well, because we are looking after the food safety of our Filipino consumers,” Piñol added.

However, the agriculture chief said he is open in discussing the policy with the meat industry stakeholders.

“While we have to make a policy on that, we just cannot implement what they are recommending. We have to study it, we just cannot change policies overnight,” Piñol said. “We have to call industry stakeholders again and discuss this with them.”

‘It is safe’

In a communication to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Brazil assured fellow member-countries that it is taking steps to correct the anomalies revealed in the March rotten-meat scandal.

One of which is updating its Sanitary Inspection Regulation with the objective “to fight economic fraud and improve food safety”.

“The new regulation establishes severe penalties for irregularities ranging from heavy fines to losing of the federal inspection approval seal [SIF], in case of persisted noncompliances,” Brazil said during a recent meeting of the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Committee this month.

Brazil, through its Ministry of Agriculture, also established the “compliance program”, which aims to enhance the mechanism in preventing and correcting business misconduct.

“Private companies in the agribusiness sector may enroll in the program and be certified with the Agro+Integridade seal,” it said.

During the meeting, Brazil also emphasized that the irregularities found in the involved companies were related to economic fraud and did not compromised the country’s food safety on meat sold locally and exported abroad.

“We therefore remain confident that our sanitary controls are robust and trustworthy, and we thank our trade partners that have expressed confidence in our system by keeping their markets open to our animal products,” Brazil said.

“It should be emphasized that the identified nonconformities did not pose a risk to consumers’ health nor put in question the efficiency of the control systems. The lessons learned in this case were useful in the process of updating and improving our inspection regulation,” Brazil added.

Based on the list available on the NMIS web site, as of September 16, 2016, there are about 56 accredited Brazil-based FMEs approved to export meat and meat products into the Philippines.

However, the document showed that the validity of the accreditation of all 56 FMEs in Brazil are “for revalidation”.

Some of the accredited Brazilbased FMEs include JBS S/A and BRF S.A., the companies involved in the South American country’s rotten-meat scandal.

Data obtained from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed that the Philippines imported 20,716.616 metric tons (MT) of meat and meat products from Brazil from January to May. Beef imports accounted for 31.62 percent, or 6,551.453 MT, BAI data showed.

Chicken imports accounted for more than half of the meat and meat products purchased from Brazil, or about 62.64 percent. The Philippines imported 12,977.167 MT of chicken meat and products from Brazil during the five-month period.

In 2016 Brazil exported a total of 55,581.853 MT of meat and meat products to the Philippines.

The figure was 5.86 percent higher than the 52,505.429 MT recorded in 2015.

Beef accounted for 33.3 percent of meat purchases from Brazil. Government data showed that beef imports reached 18,524.966 MT, 69.04 percent higher than the 2015 record of 10,959.168 MT.

More than half of the country’s meat imports from Brazil were MDM of chicken. Chicken MDM imports last year reached 30,557.036 MT, 18 percent lower than the 37,314.374 MT posted in 2015.

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The World BusinessMirror

Trump cutting hundreds of planned regulations

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ASHINGTON—The Trump administration has withdrawn or delayed 860 proposed regulations in its first five months, the beginnings of a reg u lator y overhau l meant to bolster economic growth.

Federal agencies have withdrawn 469 proposed regulations compared to a fall 2016 report when Barack Obama was president, according to figures from the White House budget office. This includes 19 regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more.

Another 391 regulations have been delayed for further evaluation and consideration.

“It’s really the beginning of a kind of fundamental regulatory reform,” Neomi Rao, head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said on Wednesday. A report on the regulatory actions was being released on Thursday.

Federa l agencies ex pect to complete 1,732 regulations this year, roughly a 20-percent reduction compared to the fall of 2016.

President Donald J. Trump’s push to deregulate has led to concerns among environmentalists, labor unions and consumer watchdogs. The Natural

Resources Defense Council has filed lawsuits, saying that suspended rules regarding methane leaks violate the Clean Air Act. Public Citizen, a consumeradvocacy group, issued a report on Wednesday saying the deregulation push has been about rewarding cor porate elites, such as automakers and Wall Street firms.

The Trump administration said the Obama administration introduced rules in the last five months of fiscal 2016 that imposed $6.8 billion in annual costs on the economy, while the rules imposed during its first five months have imposed no costs.

Some of t he r u les i nvolve m a k i n g go v e r n me nt re g u lations less burdensome.

T h e I nt e r i o r D e p a r t m e nt s ay s it pl a n s t o re du c e t he p ap e r w or k bu rd e n for out doorsmen, fish restorat ion pro g r a m s a nd Nat i v e A me r i c a n t r i b e s . T he L a bor Depa r t ment intends t o s t re a m l i ne t he ap pro v a l process for ne w apprent ice sh ip prog r a m s. T he Fe der a l R a i l road A d m i n i st r at ion i s pl a n n i ng a r u le to g ive r a i l ro a d s more f l e x i b i l it y for c ho osi ng d i f fe re nt t y p es of p a s s e n ge r t r a i n s . AP

Sunday, July 23, 2017

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France says ‘we want our money back’ as Brexit talks wrap up

F

rance insisted that the UK pay a Brexit bill of as much as €100 billion, or $115 billion, underlining the hurdles to substantial progress in negotiations toward a new relationship with the European Union (EU).

As the second round of talks wraps up in Brussels, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire used a hearing in the French Parliament in Paris on Wednesday evening to take a hard line on what the EU believes the UK owes the bloc in terms of liabilities and obligations.

To drive his point home, he evoked the spirit of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when she won a rebate on Britain’s payments to the central EU budget, complaining that the UK was losing out despite being one of the biggest contributors.

“I w i l l say what Margaret Thatcher used to say: ‘We want our money back ’,” Le Maire said, citing the €100-billion figure that has been on the high end of the amounts touted. “We can

always debate the amount, but the fact that the United Kingdom must pay what it owes to the European Union budget is a non-negotiable prerequisite at the start of the talks.”

Brexit Secretary David Davis returned to Brussels on Wednesday night and, with his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, will have lunch together and chair a meeting of negotiators who have spent the past three days thrashing out issues, such as Britain’s financial obligations and the rights of European citizens in the UK.

Stumbling blocks

The so-called Brexit bill has proved the biggest stumbling block, with the two sides setting out vastly different stances on how the UK’s obligations should

Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, arrives ahead of a Eurogroup meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels, Belgium, on July 10. UK companies are overwhelmingly opposed to Britain walking away from talks to leave the European Union without a deal, a survey by the British Chambers of Commerce shows. Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

be calculated. The UK has now acknowledged that it will be on the hook when it leaves the bloc in March 2019, but hasn’t gone much beyond that. Br itish officia ls spent much of the week quizzing EU negotiators on where they believe the UK is liable. Britain will not commit to a figure until much later in the process.

Negotiators never expected any major breakthroughs during the first week of talks, but the pressure will mount when they return for scheduled sessions at the end of August and in September and October before EU leaders are asked to deem there has been “sufficient progress” at a summit

on October 19 and 20. That would enable discussions to begin on a future trading relationship and a possible transition period.

The UK government is keen for talks to move on to trade, but back home the notion of paying the EU is politically toxic, possibly even more so now that Prime Minister Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority in June’s election.

Differences remain also on the protection of rights for EU citizens in the UK and British nationals residing in the EU, with EU officials saying this week ’s talks have thrown up some new differences of opinion between the two sides. Bloomberg News

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The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Trump ends covert aid to Syrian rebels trying to topple Assad I

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Poultry farms in India resemble superbug reservoirs, study finds

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resident Donald J. Trump has ended the clandestine American program to provide arms and supplies to Syrian rebel groups, US officials said, a recognition that the effort was failing and that the administration has given up hope of helping to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The decision came more than a month ago, the officials said, by which time the effort to deliver the arms had slowed to a trickle.

It wa s ne ver publ ic ly a nnounced, just as the beginnings of the program four years ago, were officially a secret, authorized by President Barack Obama through a “finding” that permitted the CIA to conduct a deniable program.

News of the troublesome program soon leaked out.

It joins similar failed efforts to deliver arms and money to groups seeking to overthrow governments that Washington found noxious, most famously the Kennedy administration’s disastrous effort to do away with the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba.

The White House had no comment. But the decision is bound to be welcomed by t he Russians, whose military has backed Assad’s government and relentlessly attacked some of the rebel groups that the US was supplying, under the guise of helping to eradicate terrorists.

On Tuesday Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, charged that the US had helped destabilize the region, and portrayed Iran as merely defending its interests. Washington, instead, views Iran’s aid to the Assad government as part of an effort to restore itself as a major regional power.

From the start, there were doubts t hat ar ming d isorganized, often internally fractious forces would succeed. Officials in the Obama administration conceded t h at t here w a s no way to predict the future loyalties of those who received US arms, despite a lengthy vetting process. T h at problem— getting the weapons into the right hands and assuring they were not passed on to others and used against US troops or allies—

plagued the effort soon after it was proposed by Hillary Clinton, who was then secretary of state, and David H. Petraeus, the CIA director at the time.

Trump’s decision was first reported by The Washington Post.

But it was foreshadowed as early as April, when the Trump Administration said that ousting Assad, whose government has fought a civil war that has taken roughly half a million lives, was no longer a priority. Instead, the US and Russia have been discussing cease-fire zones in the country, the first of which went into effect this month.

Those discussions have been possible because Assad, secure in his support from Moscow and Tehran, no longer sees a fundamental threat to his ability to remain in power. And Trump’s decisions amounted to an acknowledgment that no escalation of the program, which began in 2013 in concert with the CIA’s counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan, was likely to yield a different result.

When it began, the initial objective was to force Assad to the bargaining table, in a series of negotiations that then-secretary of state John Kerry took up in earnest in late-2015. But each agreement—for cease-fires, and deadlines for a political “road map’’ for elections in the country—fizzled. Kerry fumed that

A displaced Syrian girl who fled with her family the battle between US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and the Islamic State militants from Raqqa City, waits to receive food at the entrance of the main kitchen of a refugee camp in Ain Issa town, northeast Syria, on Wednesday. The Trump administration has terminated its secret program to supply arms and supplies to Syrian rebels waging a war to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. AP

Obama was not willing to provide the kind of military pressure on Assad that might bolster the diplomacy. Obama, for his part, was leery of entering another Middle East war whose outcome he could neither control nor predict.

The program became less relevant as the Russians increased their presence in Syria, targeting and badly weakening the CIAbacked rebels, who were the most capable of the opposition fighters.

That helped the Assad government claw back and consolidate territorial gains.

“This is a big deal, but it’s been a long time coming,” Charles Lister, a Syria analyst for the Middle East Institute in Washington, said. “It’s the biggest indication so far of the administration’s having given up on the opposition.”

“After all, the Southern Front has consistently been our most reliable anti-Assad partner,” Lister said, referring to opposition forces fighting Assad in the southern part of the country. “It’s also the result of strong Jordanian pressure, as Amman has been pushing a freeze for a long time. So it was probably inevitable, but it’s nonetheless very significant.’’

He added it was “a big mistake

This [end of US help to Syrian rebels] is a big deal, but it’s been a long time coming. It’s the biggest indication so far of the administration’s having given up on the opposition.”—Lister

in my mind.”

Other independent experts sa id it wa s u nc lea r whet her Trump’s decision would impact fighters defending areas held by the opposition.

At its height, the program was run through operations rooms in Jordan and Turkey, supporting rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army who were deemed not to be extremists.

But the pressure on Assad was not great enough to force him to enter negotiations to end the civil war. Nor was it sufficient to clear the way for the rebel groups to take over major cities or approach the capital, Damascus. The program also sought to bolster socalled moderate rebels against extremist factions like the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda.

When the history of the effort is written—and the documents surrounding it are declassified— historians will doubtless seek to learn why the rebels lost ground for years, to Syrian government forces and their Russian and Iranian allies, and to extremists.

After the rebel ’s expulsion from the eastern half of the city of Aleppo last year, it became clear that they no longer posed a serious threat to Assad’s rule.

But stopping the covert program, which mainly helped rebels near the Turkish border in northwestern Syrian and along the Jordanian border in the south, will not affect the fight against the jihadis of the Islamic State in the east. A different program there run by the Pentagon is supporting a Kurdish-Arab militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces.

New York Times News Service

ndian poultry farms aren’t just rearing chickens—they’re also breeding germs capable of thwarting all but the most potent antibiotics, researchers found.

Random tests on 18 poultry farms raising about 50,000 birds each in India’s northwestern state of Punjab found that two-thirds of fowl harbored bacteria that produce special enzymes, known as extended-spectrum beta-lactamase, that destroy most penicillin- and cephalosporin-based antibiotics. Of tested birds destined for meat consumption, 87 percent had the super germs, a study published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives showed. That compared with 42 percent of egg-laying hens.

Farms supplying India’s biggest poultry-meat companies routinely use medicines classified by the World Health Organization as “critically important” as a way of staving off disease, an investigation by Bloomberg News showed last year. The latest research, the largest of its kind in India to date, highlights the consequence of this for the nation’s food supply.

“This study has serious implications, not only for India but globally,” said study author Ramanan Laxminarayan, director at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy in New Delhi, in a statement. “We must remove antibiotics from the human food chain, except to treat sick animals, or face the increasingly real prospect of a postantibiotic world.”

Mutant germs

Worldwide, animals receive about twice the volume of antibiotics that humans do. Much of it is administered in doses that speed growth in livestock, but aren’t strong enough to kill all the bacteria, leaving mutant germs to not only survive, but thrive and potentially spread.

That’s alarming veterinary and medical experts, who say the practice is stoking infections that no medicine will cure. Drug-resistant diseases have the potential to cause a level of economic damage similar to—and probably worse than— that caused by the 2008 financial crisis, the World Bank said in September. It could add as much as $1 trillion a year to health-care costs by 2050 across the globe.

Of the 16 farms in Punjab that answered questions on antibiotic use, all used the medicines to treat sick birds and to stave off disease, while two-thirds also used the drugs to spur chick growth. The researchers compared drug use with levels of resistance present in 1,556 E. coli specimens collected from more than 500 birds.

Superbug ‘reservoirs’

“Our findings suggest that antimicrobial use for growth promotion promoted the development of reservoirs of highly resistant bacteria on the studied farms, with potentially serious implications for human health,” Laxminarayan and colleagues wrote in the study.

Farmhands who handle the birds often wear open-toe shoes, providing “a conduit of entry for resistant bacteria and resistance genes into the community and hospitals, where further personto-person transmission is possible,” they said. “Withdrawal of non-therapeutic use of agricultural antimicrobials in India would be prudent to protect public health,” the authors said.

‘Ecological problem’

A ntibiotic resistance is an “ecological problem that spans humans, food-animals and the environment,” Laxminarayan said in an e-mail. Genes that enable bacteria to evade anti-infective agents are widespread, and are frequently transferred between environments and microbial species in India, spurred by indiscriminate use of the medications in both human and veterinary medicine.

“Easy access to high-end antibiotics, inappropriate prescription practices and lack of awareness are major issues,” he said.

More than 56,000 newborns die annually in India because of bloodstream infections that aren’t cured by first-line antibiotics, Laxminarayan estimated in a paper in the Lancet last October. “It is worrying that resistance-related infections and deaths in India are approaching epidemic proportions.” he said.

Agricultural systems in emerging economies such as China and India have increasingly turned to antibiotic-dependent intensive farming methods in order to meet the surging demand for protein as dietary habits change and incomes rise. Chicken is the most-consumed meat in India. It’s cheaper than other meats and is subject to fewer religious prohibitions or cultural taboos. Consumption has increased more than 30 percent since 2013, outpacing all major markets, according to US Department of Agriculture data.

A 2015 study predicted the use of antibiotics in livestock could more than quadruple by 2030 in some parts of India, primarily driven by “extreme” growth in chicken consumption. Broiler production is mainly concentrated in the states of Tamil Nadu , A nd h ra P radesh, M aharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana, the USDA said in a report last December.

Bloomberg News

Less than 1 aircraft carrier? The cost of North Korea’s nukes P YONGYANG, North Korea— When North Korea decided to go nuclear, it committed to a huge investment in a program that would bring severe sanctions and eat up precious resources that could have been spent boosting the nation’s quality of life.

Money well spent?

Leader Kim Jong Un seems to think so.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs have, without doubt, come at a high cost, but the North has managed to march ever closer to having an arsenal capable of attacking targets in the region and—as demonstrated by its July 4 test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)—the US’s mainland.

Good, solid figures for just about anything in North Korea are hard to find. So what follows should be taken as ballpark guesses, at best. But here’s a look at how much that arsenal might cost the North, and why

Kim might think that’s the price he must pay to survive.

The nuclear pricetag

South Korea has estimated the cost of the North’s nuclear program at $1 billion to $3 billion, with the higher number combining nuclear and missile development.

For context: one nuclear-powered Virginia-class attack submarine costs the US Navy about $2.5 billion. The USS Gerald Ford, America’s newest aircraft carrier, has an $8-billion price tag, not counting development costs.

South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense estimated the cost of the first 31 ballistic missiles Kim test-launched from when he took power in late-2011 until July last year at $97 million. It put the price of each Scud at $1 million to $2 million; each Musudan from $3 million to $6 million; and each submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) at $5 million to $10 million. Up until July last

In this April 15 file photo, navy personnel sit in front of a submarine-launched “Pukguksong” ballistic missile as it is paraded across Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have without doubt come at a severe cost. Even so, the North has managed to march ever closer to having an arsenal capable of attacking targets in the region and—as demonstrated by its July 4 intercontinental ballistic missile test launch—the US’s mainland. AP

year, Kim had launched 16 Scuds, six Rodongs, six Musudans and three SLBMs. Inc lud ing t he l au nc h t h is month of its first ICBM, North Korea has conducted 11 tests, launching 17 missiles, so far this year.

North Korea’s total defense spending is usually estimated at about a quarter of its GDP, which would put it between $7 billion and $10 billion.

Where does it get the money?

That’s a matter of heated debate. But the $2 billion it made in exports in 2015 would not begin to cover it. North Korea is also believed to have relied on foreign currency sent by tens of thousands of laborers dispatched abroad, as well as exports of illegal weapons and cybercrime.

Its military-spending-to-GDP ratio far exceeds any other coun-

try, but in monetary terms it spends much less than its neighbors, including South Korea and Japan, and its budget is absolutely minuscule when compared to the US. Curtis Melvin, a researcher at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said that if the South Korean nuclear-program estimate is correct, it would be a significant—but not necessarily destabilizing—draw on the North’s economy. “ This is expensive, but probably a cost the country can absorb without fomenting much resentment among North Korean elites,” he added. “In fact, North Korean elites would probably feel less secure without a nuclear program even if its costs relative to the economy as a whole were higher.”

Melvin said the economic situation for common North Koreans would have to be in near ruin, with domestic resentment among elites

reaching dangerous levels, before North Korea would reconsider its nuclear program.

“Current signals indicate that North Korea is nowhere near this breaking point,” he added.

Burden or bargain?

The bottom line is that regime survival is Kim’s primary objective.

There is no way North Korea could keep up with its richer and more technologically advanced neighbors in a conventional arms race. While certainly expensive, the North’s nuclear strategy is in one sense a potential source of savings—once developed, maintaining a viable nuclear deterrent is less costly than paying for its conventional, million-man military. Once it has reliable nuclear arms, North Korea could reduce its spending on other areas of the military and redirect those savings toward the domestic economy.

It’s possible Kim has already begun doing that. AP

Science

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

BusinessMirror

Sunday

Sunday, July 23, 2017

A5

‘Food security is the most challenging task’

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he Philippine population, which now stands at a little over 100 million, tests government’s propensity to achieve food security for a nation, which ranks as the 12th most populous in the world.”

In his keynote message, Science Secretary Fortunato P. de la Peña persuaded the National A g r ic u lt u re a nd Aqu at ic Re sources Research and Development Network (NA ARRDN) to muster its best effort in ensuring the most productive research and development (R&D) effort toward attaining food security.

“Food security, which is by far the most challenging task facing the Philippines, can best be addressed through collaborative research and development efforts, the right priorities and the best strategies,” the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) chief executive pointed out during the recent sixth anniversary celebration of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and

Science Secretary Fortunato P. de la Peña addresses the audience composed of researchers, scientists, farmers and fisherfolk, teachers, media practitioners and Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) staff and officials during PCAARRD’s sixth anniversary celebration. Victor V. Oro, Applied Communication Division/PCAARRD

Awards, new ties mark DOST-PCAARRD’s 6th anniversary

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he Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Nat u ra l R esou rces R e search and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD) week-long celebration of its sixth founding anniversary last month puts the spotlight on several activities, including the national Symposium on Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (NSAARRD).

Researchers, institutions and media recognized

NSA ARRD showcases the outstanding contributions of individuals and institutions in the improvement of the agriculture, aquatic and natural resources sectors through research and development (R&D).

The winners recognized in the NSA ARRD Research Categor y include the papers, “Development of innovative feed supplements and feeding schemes for increa sed goat product iv it y” (third place); “Molecular markers for mango cultivar identification and genetic characterization” (second place); and “S&T management approaches against Fusarium wilt [Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc)] on Cavendish in Mindanao” (first place).

For the development category, the winners include the papers, “Assessment, Capacity Building and Rehabilitation of Selected Pablo-Stricken Communities in Davao Region” (third place); “Promotion of forage-based pellets for goats as a feeding option and portable pelletizer as potential enterprises” (second place); and “Enhanced productivity of Lakatan and Saba/Cardaba in Region 12” (first place).

Also recognized during the PCAARRD anniversary were the Dr. Elvira O. Tan Awardees. The award honors Filipino scientists and researchers for their exceptional publication of R&D results, which support the advancement of the country’s national economy and food security. It was established in 1987 as a tribute to Dr. Elvira O. Tan, an outstanding researcher and prolific writer.

The winners of the awards include the papers, “The SLT2 mitogen-activated protein kinasemediated signaling pathway governs conidiation, morphogenesis, fungal virulence, and production

of toxin and melanin in the tangerine pathotype of Alternaria alternata” for the Agriculture category; “Non-enzymatic isolation of somatic cells from Kappaphycus spp. and Eucheuma denticulatum [Solieriaceae, Rhodophyta]” for the Aquatic Sciences category; and “Urbanization adjacent to a wetland of international importance: The case of Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary, Metro Cebu, Philippines” for the Natural Resources and Environment category.

Moreover, the anniversar y highlighted awardees of the Pantas Award, which recognizes outstanding scientists/researchers and research administrators, as well as the Tanglaw Award, which awards laudable research institutions. This year’s Pantas awardee for the Outstanding Research/Scientist category was Dr. Porfirio M. Aliño, deputy director for Research of the University of the PhilippinesMarine Science Institute.

T he Outstanding Research Administrator award went to Dr. William C. Medrano, vice president for Research and Development and Extension and Training (RDET) of the Isabela State University.

The Tanglaw award was granted to the Benguet State University under the leadership of Dr. Feliciano G. Calora Jr. The Ulat Sipag Award, previously known as the PC A ARRD P rofes s ion a l Me d i a Aw a rd s, has been revised to run parallel with the other three awards given during the PC A ARRD anniversar y, namely, the Pantas, Tanglaw and Ugnay, which are all in Filipino words.

The award recognizes the important role and valuable support of media practitioners as a vital link between the science and technology (S&T) sector and its clients in technology commercialization and adoption.

The winners of the Ulat Sipag Award under the print category are Julio P. Yap Jr. of the Agriculture Magazine (third place); Rainier A. Ronda of Philippine Star (second place); and Paul M. Icamina of Malaya Business Insight (first place). The lone winner under the broadcast category was Dr. Custer C. Deocaris of Radyo Agila.

Launch of publications on marine resources

Three important publications

in relation to the coral assessment and restoration efforts of the country were launched during the celebration of the PCAARRD’s sixth Anniversary.

The books are titled Corals of the Philippines: A Field Guide Focusing on Threatened Species; Reproductive Patterns of Selected Coral Species in the Philippines (Handbook); Culture and Rearing Techniques of Corals f rom Lar vae (Manua l); and Beyond the Depths: The Benham Bank Seamount Exploration.

T he f i rst book w a s c reated to he lp sc ient i st s a nd st a ke holders recog n i z e v u l nerable a nd end a ngered cora l s pec ies i n t he Ph i l ippi ne w aters. T he h a ndbook prov ides i n for m at ion on t he cora l a natomy, l ife c yc le, re produc t ive biolog y of cora l s f rom ac ross t he Ph i l ip pi nes, wh i le t he m a nu a l pro v ides t he genera l biolog ic a l a nd phy sic a l con sider at ion s i n cora l se x u a l propa gat ion.

The book on the Benham Bank documents the corals, algae and other marine resources found during the exploration.

T he book s were publ ished through the National Coral R&D Program, which is supported by the PC A ARRD to address the challenges in the protection and preser vation of the countr y’s coral reefs.

Launching of new initiatives

T hr ee new i n it i at ives were launched, including the Graduate Research and Education A ssist a ntsh ip Prog ra m for Technology (GREAT) program, PCA ARRD Knowledge Management Portal and the Biotechnology Information System.

GREAT is an innovative scholarship program being implemented by the PCAARRD together with the Science Education Institute, another DOST agency. The program is expected to enable qualified graduate students to become active players in generating quality research that addresses the country’s priority concerns in the Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources (AANR) sector.

Meanwhi le, the PC A A R R D Knowledge Management Portal was developed to support the operat ions a nd f u nc t ions of the DOST-PCA ARRD Innovation and Technology Center. The portal has three major modules that

aim to showcase the farms and industr y encounters through the S&T agenda; provide access to PCA ARRD’s developed technologies, and provide the public a collaboration platform.

The portal can be accessed at https://dpitc.net. The public can collaborate with PCAARRD and other users by signing up in the community page.

The Biotechnology Information System is a collaboration among the Department of Agriculture through its Biotechnology Program Office; Bureau of Agricultural Research, the DOST through the PCAARRD, and Commission on Higher Education.

The system is an inter-agency web-based repository that allows inputting and initial screening of R&D proposals on agriculture and fisheries biotechnology submitted to respective funding agencies.

Through this common repository, coordination among agencies is strengthened, R&D programs are complemented, and utilization of government funds is maximized.

Strategic public-private partnerships

As an effort to hasten technology transfer and commercialization, four new strategic publicprivate partnerships were established between the PCA ARRD and its partners.

The PCAARRD, along with the Association of PAQE Professionals Inc., Philippine Association of Agriculturists Inc., Gawad Kalinga (GK) Community Development Foundation, Inc., GK Enchanted Farm and LandCare Foundation of the Philippines Inc. signed the memorandum of understanding.

T he par tnerships were established to promote S&T as a platform for A ANR products, innovation and environmental resiliency. The council is elevating its technolog y transfer and com me rc i a l i z at ion pl at for m through the DOST-PC A ARR D I n no v at i o n a n d Te c h no l o g y Center (DPITC).

DPITC aims to provide a venue for convergence of AANR stakeholders from the academe, public, private sectors, non-governmental organizations and international partners to strengthen existing and forge new public-private partnerships for technology commercialization. S&T Media Service

Development (PCAARRD), one of the sectoral councils of the DOST. Anchored on PCA ARRD’s anniversar y theme, “Responsive S&T to Secure Food for T he People and Progress to the Nation”, de la Peña said certain concerns and priorities through which PCA ARRD and its allied agencies could truly be responsive in terms of attaining food security and progress.

He encouraged the NA ARRDN to optimize its gains by adapting to the challenges brought about by climate change and a seemingly changing hostile environment caused by erosion, f looding and drought, among other agricultural travails.

He a lso cha l lenged the NA ARRDN to strengthen its information and communication

technology-enabled services to provide quickly the countr y’s farming communities with scientific knowledge that will increase their productivity and income.

The science chief underscored, as well, the need to create a huge appreciation in agriculture and fisheries-related courses among students, especially those in the primary and secondary levels.

This is to encourage them to join the agri-aqua industry and be responsible in supporting the country’s growing demand for food.

Along this line, he recognized the importance of the forum “Student-Teacher Agri-Aqua Ambassadors for Innovation and Livelihood”, which formed part of the anniversary celebration.

De la Peña also challenged the NAARRDN to rally behind the government’s resolve to effect the delivery of science initiative in the regions, especially where food production needs to be improved, where industry needs to grow and where innovation needs to be developed.

“Stronger R&D must be situated in the country’s poorest regions, so that the ordinary citizens can feel the services of the government,” de la Peña said. S&T Media Service

Saguiguit to receive 2017 Seameo Service Award

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r. Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr. director of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca), is among the recipients of this year’s Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (Seameo Service Award, having meritoriously served the center for four decades.

Seameo bestows the accolade on outstanding staff of the Seameo regional centers, network and secretariat who exemplify excellence and commitment for the success of their respective organizations.

To be presented at the 49th Seameo Council Conference from July 24 to 26 in Jakarta, Indonesia, the award comes on the eve of the completion of Dr. Saguiguit’s unprecedented third term as Searca director. This biennial meeting gathers the Ministers of Education of the 11 Seameo member-countries in Southeast Asia.

The Seameo Service Award adds to Dr. Saguiguit’s numerous distinctions received from national and international/foreign institutions for his exemplary development work in the agricultural sector.

These include the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole (Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit) given by the French government for his efforts to strengthen cooperation between France and the Philippines and Southeast Asia in the areas of agricultural research, education and culture.

He was also conferred the Honorary Doctorate Degree in Applied Economics from Thailand’s Maejo University for his noteworthy contributions to agricultural

Saguiguit

education and human-resource development in Thailand and in Southeast Asia.

In 2013 Dr. Saguiguit was named Outstanding Alumnus in Regional Institutional Development and Distinguished Alumnus for Agriculture and Rural Development by the University of the Philippines Los Baños Alumni Association for his significant contributions to the development of institutions working toward agricultural and rural development in Southeast Asia. He also received Vietnam’s Medal for the Cause of Education in recognition of his efforts to improve the country’s education system.

Dr. Saguiguit also received, on behalf of Searca, an award for significant contributions to Myanmar’s human-resource development in agriculture. Under Dr. Saguiguit’s leadership, Searca increased its collaborations on research and capacity building projects— including graduate scholarships and shortterm training courses—with national and international development agencies and donor organizations that flourished during his term.

Why are dogs so friendly? The answer may be in 2 genes

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ail-wagging, face-licking, jumpin-your-lap friendliness is what dog lovers adore and cat people scorn.

But like it or not, the incredible sociability of many—although not all—dogs is universally recognized. It sets dogs apart from their wild relatives. Even the most socialized, friendly wolf is cold company compared with a Labrador retriever in full face-licking mode.

B u t w h a t p ro d u c e s t h i s s o c i a l exuberance? A team of researchers reported on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances that the friendliness of dogs may share a genetic basis with a human disease called Williams-Beuren syndrome.

Humans with this developmental delay, caused by mutations in a region of genes, show a variety of symptoms that include intense and indiscriminate sociability.

A group of scientists from Princeton, Oregon State University and other institutions

combined behavioral and genetic studies of 16 dogs and eight captive, socialized wolves to pin down changes in two genes on a region of one chromosome that were associated with hyperfriendliness in dogs.

The two genes, GTF2I and GTF2IRD1, are also associated with Williams-Beuren syndrome in humans, said Bridgett M. vonHoldt, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University and an author of the study.

VonHoldt and her colleagues studied a stretch of DNA in dogs that includes about 29 genes. The deletion of part or all of this section seems to cause the human syndrome. They sought out structural changes in the genes, like deletions or transposition of DNA to another location.

The study is a first step in what has proved a difficult area of genetic research: finding the roots of complex behavior.

New York Times News Service

Faith A6 Sunday, July 23, 2017

Sunday

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

A look at why a Saudi woman’s miniskirt sparked an outcry

The woman, whose name has not been released, defied the kingdom’s conservative dress code, which requires all women, even foreigners, to wear long, loose robes known as abayas in public.

Most Saudi women also cover their hair and face with black veils.

It is common in Saudi Arabia to see heavily blurred or pixelated images of women’s faces on billboards and storefronts—in stark contrast to the many towering images of senior male royals displayed across the country.

In some segments of society, even uttering a woman’s name in public is taboo.

High-level foreign dignitaries have been the exception to the rule. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, American first lady Melania Trump and the president’s daughter, Ivanka, did not cover their hair or wear abayas on official visits to Saudi Arabia this year, though they did dress modestly.

Last December another Saudi woman posted a picture of herself in public without the abaya on, but she was wearing a black coat and a long, colorful skirt. She

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was detained and interrogated for five days. Her current legal status is unclear.

Deeply conservative country

A mystic is born

D The shock

By Corazon Damo-Santiago

t 10 years old, Bridget had a vision of Christ on the cross and asked, who treated him like this. The Lord answered: “They who despise me and spurn my love for them.” Since then, the Passion of Christ became the center of her spiritual life.

An ascetic and visionary since she was 7, Saint Bridget received personal messages and revelations. One day, the Lord revealed to her the number of blows He received during His passion, which she had desired to know.

“I received 5,475 blows in my body. If you wish to honor them in some way, pray 15 Our Fathers and Hail Marys.”

The Lord also taught her 15 Our Father and 15 Hail Mary for an entire year in the church of Saint Paul in Rome. Compiled by the Order of Little Souls of the Merciful Heart of Jesus, the prayers are titled, the “Secret of Happiness.”

UBAI, United Arab Emirates—A short video of a Saudi woman walking around in a miniskirt and crop top sparked an outcry after going viral, leading to the woman being detained for several hours.

The woman was eventually released without charge, but the incident and the online debate it ignited point to the tension in Saudi Arabia between proponents of its conservative, state-enforced strictures and those pushing for greater rights.

Here’s a look at why the video caused such an uproar.

Saint Bridget, patron of Sweden

Saudi Ar abia is a deeply conservative country that is governed by an austere interpretation of Islam widely known as Wahhabism, which draws heavily on the kingdom’s tribal and patriarchal customs.

The country is home to Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, which draw millions of Muslim around the world for pilgrimage.

The kingdom is ruled by a monarch whose power is rooted in the support of influential Wahhabi clerics. Saudi judges also adhere to conservative interpretations of the faith.

Other countries are governed

by Islamic law, but none enforce the Saudi government’s strict interpretation of it. Foreign women wear bathing suits on public beaches in nearby Dubai, and can be seen in jeans and shorter dresses at malls in Kuwait and Qatar. In Iran, and among ultraorthodox Jews in Israel, women are required to dress modestly.

Gender segregation

Cafes and restaurants in Saudi Arabia are typically gender segregated, requiring women to enter through separate doors and be seated out of view of single men.

It remains illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia. Women also need the consent of a male relative, usually a father or husband, before

A Saudi woman seen through a heart-shaped statue walks along an inlet of the Red Sea in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. A young Saudi woman has sparked a sensation online by posting a video of herself in a miniskirt and crop top walking around in public, with some Saudis calling for her arrest and others rushing to her defense. AP

they are allowed to travel abroad or obtain a passport.

Despite some openings for women in recent years, clerics in Saudi Arabia have spoken out against women driving and against women working jobs where they might interact with unrelated males. Most universities and schools are segregated by gender.

Most Saudi women do work are in teaching jobs, though women have also run in local elections and hold posts in the country’s top consultative body, the Shura Council.

Religious police

Saudi Arabia curbed the powers of the religious police last year.

The all-male force can no longer make arrests or pursue people in car chases, though they still patrol the streets and public places ensuring unrelated men and women are not mingling.

The religious police, officially known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, ensure that both women and men are dressed modestly. Men can run afoul of the rules by wearing shorts that stop above the knee or by sporting long or outlandish hairstyles.

A f ter t he m in isk ir t v ideo surfaced, the religious police referred the case to other agencies to investigate it. The woman was questioned by security officials in Riyadh.

Openings

Last month the king named his son as heir to the throne. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 31, has spearheaded a Vision 2030 plan to overhaul the country, including modernizing aspects of society.

Also last month King Salman announced that public prosecution powers would be moved from under the interior minister’s purview to that of the royal court, directly under the monarch. A new attorney general was also named in the reshuffling.

As part of Vision 2030, the go ve r n me nt h a s pu she d for more entertainment for youth, allowing musical concerts that were once banned and even a Comic-Con event.

The kingdom announced last week that girls would be allowed for the first time to play sports in public school and have access to physical-education classes. AP

Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

The faithful take photos of the image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel during her feast at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Quezon City.

Fr. Ernesto Montuerto, OCD, celebrates the Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in New Manila, Quezon City, during the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on July 16. Photos by Lyn Resurreccion

FR. Ernesto Montuerto, ocd, delivers the homily.

On June 14, 1303, while the curate of Rasbo was praying for the happy deliverance of Bridget, a luminous cloud enveloped him and the Blessed Mother appeared and said: “A child has been born at Birger; her voice will be heard by the entire world.”

Born to a family in Uppsala, Sweden, her parents were Birger Persson, governor of Uppland, one of the richest landowner of the country, and Ingeborg.

At 13, she married Ulf Gunmarsson, Lord of Narke, who became governor of the province of Nerecia. In their 28 years of marriage, they had four sons and four daughters, one of them became Saint Catherine of Sienna.

In 1335 she was appointed lady-inwaiting to Queen Blanche of Namur and Swedish King Marcus II. A contemplative in action she made attempts to change their frivolous lifestyle but was not entirely successful.

After the death of their youngest son, Gudmar, Bridget and Ulf made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. On their return, they decided to live the rest of their lives in monasteries, but Ulf died.

Bridget donned the clothing of a penitent and started to live a life of an ascetic. Visions and celestial revelations became frequent, and insistent that she started to believe the devil was deceiving her, she confided them to Peter Olafsson, her confessor who was prior of Alvastra.

Assured they are of heavenly origin, the prior and Matthias, canon of Linkoping

translated the celestial revelations to Latin.

In 1349, unafraid, she disregarded a plaguestricken Europe to travel to Rome for the Holy Year of 1350.

With her daughter Catherine, they engaged in works of mercy, sheltering homeless and sinners. They likewise involved themselves on political and social dimensions of mystical revelations of the Lord to Bridget: “Warnings in times of unrest and corruption, reforms in the church, abuses of abbots and bishops and the return of the popes from Avignon to Rome.”

“The world would have peace if men of politics would only follow the gospel,” she announced, as she advised kings and princes in power.

From the papacy of Saint Clement V (1305-1314) to Pope Urban V (1362-1370) the popes lived in Avignon, France. A total of seven popes, reigned in Avignon.

She traveled to establish peace between England and France. She likewise worked to bring the pope back to Rome and openly denounced the nobility at Naples and Cyprus for their wrongdoings. Her prophecy on a friendly meeting between Pope Urban V and Emperor Charles IV did happen.

Unique Blue Church

In 1370 she made specific instructions to construct a seminary, now called the Blue Church after the unique color of its granite and insisted that an abbess “signifying the Virgin Mary preside over both nuns and priests,” as recorded by Matthew Milliner in “Not So Secular Sweden.”

She founded the Order of the Holy Savior, a double monastery for men and women at Vadstena. The men and women lived in separate monasteries but used the same church for religious activities.

In imitation of Christ’s 12 disciples, it has 12 priests to personify the 12 apostles of Saint Paul. It has four deacons and lay brothers and 60 nuns to preach the apostolate of priests. Only the nuns’ congregation exists today.

Saint Bridget died on July 23, 1373, in Rome at the age of 70, and buried in Vadstena, Sweden. She was canonized

by Pope Boniface IX on October 7, 1391, which was confirmed by the Council of Constance in 1415. n Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater RedemptorisCollegium in Calauan, Laguna, and Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.

Vatican court rejects motions to dismiss in hospital case

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ATICAN CITY—A Vatican tribunal rejected attempts by two former executives of the pope’s children’s hospital to dismiss an embezzlement case, asserting last Tuesday it could prosecute them on charges they diverted nearly a half-million euros in hospital donations to renovate a top cardinal’s penthouse.

Lawyers for former hospital president Giuseppe Profiti and ex-treasurer Massimo Spina argued that the Vatican court had no jurisdiction to prosecute activities of a hospital foundation that was located in Italy, not the Vatican.

But tribunal presiding Judge Paolo Papanti-Pelletier rejected the motion as the trial opened and set a new round of hearings for September 7 to 9.

Profiti has said the funds he used from the Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) hospital foundation to renovate Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s apartment were an investment, since he intended to use the flat for future fundraising events for the hospital.

Bertone agreed to host such parties, saying he would take care to ensure that “third parties”—not the foundation—would pay for any renovations needed.

He subsequently said he paid €300,000 of his own money for the work because he couldn’t find anyone else to pay, and didn’t know that the foundation had also paid €422,000 to the same builders.

The scandal is the latest to strike the Holy See as Pope Francis works to clean up centuries of shady business dealings in the walled-in, 44-hectare offshore city state, the world’s smallest. And it comes as Francis copes with the fallout from the embarrassing exit of his top financial adviser, Cardinal George Pell, who returned to his native Australia last week to face trial on sex abuse charges.

Bertone, the former Vatican secretary of state, wasn’t charged or placed under investigation in the case, even though he personally benefited from the donations.

After the scandal broke in 2015, Bertone made a €150,000 “donation” to the hospital for research, but insisted it wasn’t in any way repayment for the money spent on his flat.

Also spared prosecution by the Vatican were the Castelli Re construction company and its owner, Gianantonio Bandera, a longtime Bertone associate who received around €750,000 for the whole project.

It’s not clear if Italian authorities will launch their own investigation into the deal.

Profiti and Spina face between three and five years in prison and fines starting at €5,000 if found guilty of embezzlement by the Vatican court, which asserts jurisdiction over crimes committed on Vatican territory or by its public officials.

The penalty can be reduced if the amount diverted is repaid before the trial starts.

Prosecutors accuse Profiti and Spina of a conspiracy to “illicitly use money belonging to the Baby Jesus foundation to benefit Bandera.”

The indictment makes no suggestion of kickbacks or any other wrongdoing, merely that money belonging to the hospital foundation instead went to “completely extra-institutional” uses.

Profiti has said none of the donations used was intended for childcare.

During the hearing, Spina’s lawyer argued that his client could not have transferred money from the foundation because he did not have the authority, and said a letter Bertone wrote that is part of the court file proved it.

He suggested that he might call the retired Vatican secretary of state as a witness if further clarification were needed. AP

Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror

Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

Sunday, July 23, 2017

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Uncovering Sarangani’s lush marine life Story by Arabelle Jimenez

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Underwater photos by Garri Immanuel Tadlip Surface photos by Jake Narte

arangani might be synonymous to its favorite son, boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, but not everyone knows that one of his diversions when not training for a fight is diving around Sarangani Bay’s bestkept dive spots.

Divers prepare to plunge in Sarangani Bay

Maasim Reef

DOT night for Sarangani Dive Safari

Lemlunay House Reef

Maasim Reef

Lemlunay House Reef

Maasim Reef

Kept under the radar of many divers, this rich body of water is a secret no more as the provincial government of Sarangani and the Department of Tourism Region 12 (DOT 12) recently held the first Sarangani Dive Safari.

Held from April 29 to May 1, 14 divers from all over the country joined to experience the abundance of marine life beneath the rich body of water known for the world’s tastiest tuna.

Media divers and underwater photographers from Manila, Cebu and Davao were welcomed by Gov. Steve Chiongbian Solon, Provincial

Gov. Steve Chiongbian Solon briefs Sarangani Dive Safari participants

Tourism Council Chairman Michelle Lopez-Solon and DOT 12 Regional Director Nelly Nita Dillera.

“It takes tough people like you coming from different regions outside of Sarangani to come and experience what we have, and tell the whole world how beautiful Sarangani Bay is,” Dillera said.

“We are trying to recover the negative impressions of Mindanao, and through you, we can change this reaction and promote Sarangani as a new diving destination,” she added.

One of the country’s unheralded beautiful bays, the province of

Sarangani has been proclaimed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as a Protected Seascape and listed as one of the country’s Key Marine Biodiversity Areas.

It covers an area of 215,950 hectares with a 226.4-km coastline, covering the municipalities of Maitum, Kiamba, Maasim, Alabel, Malapatan and Glan in Sarangani, and General Santos City. “ We a re doing ma r ine - preser vat ion ef for ts as we a re in t he m idd le of a protected seascape. We have wha le sha rk s, sperm whales, yellow-fin tuna,

pi lot wha les, dolph ins, c low n f i shes, l ion f i shes, sergea nt f i shes a nd se a t u r t les,” e nt hused, Gover nor Solon who is a lso a cer t if ied d iver.

He added, “We are happy that you are here and help us spread the good news for the future of diving tourism in Mindanao.”

Its coral resources cover more than 2,293 hectares spread over 20 coral-reef areas with about 60 important live hard coral genera, 411 reef species in 46 families.

Sea grass cover is placed at 912 hectares, with 11 species in the coastal towns.

The Dive Safari exploration is a mixture of easy and difficult dives. Upon reaching Lemlunay Resort in Maasim town, a night dive was immediately scheduled.

This dive took place at the house reef, where some critters come out only at night. An interesting marine behavior the divers witnessed was a bobhead squid feasting on a shrimp. Other critters that showed up were cuttlefishes, nudies, a lobster, Spanish dancer and parrot fish.

Lemlunay, which means “paradise” in the Blaan tribal language, has the South Point Divers shop— the only dive center in the province. Just below it is the Tinoto Wall or Tinoto Express which is known for drift diving.

Tuka Marine Park

The following day’s dive was at Tuka Marine Park in Kiamba town. The divers experienced some current and low visibility, which are natural elements in diving, depending on the season.

The two dive sites revealed oneof-a-kind giant bumphead parrot fishes, approximately 2 meters long, looking like a herd of cows underwater. These gentle giants are found in the shallow waters at around 10 feet, and can be seen even by snorkeling. Other interesting marine life found were dorid nudis, various chromodiris, bat fishes and sea turtles.

Maasim Reef

Not for the faint of heart, this dive is more for advanced divers.

Experienced divers witnessed strong currents, did negative ent r ies, a nd u sed a descent line to reach down to Maasim Reef. The bottom offered better v isibi lit y, mi lder cur rent and a more astounding garden of marine f lora.

T he reef boasts of juvenile white-tipped sharks nest ling under a table cora l, as wel l as huge fan cora ls and g igantic bat fishes.

Rocky Beach

Derived from huge, sloping rocks descending to the bottom of the dive site, this boasts of colorful fishes, surrounding colorful sea fans. It is home to a school of napoleon wrasse, and a ribbon eel. Soft and hard corals decorated the rocky area, with sea stars basking in the rays penetrating through the waters.

It was an easy drift dive, which eventually led the divers back to the Lemlunay House Reef.

T he success of the Dive Safar i is just the initia l step in promoting dive tour ism in the prov ince, in line w ith the DOT 12’s “Sox is Next” campaig n.

With a profusion of an amazing marine life, even the Pambansang K amao would admit t hat Sa ra nga ni ’s under water world packs a knockout punch.

PHL jockeys for position as Asia’s freediving capital

Guillaume Néry and Julie Gautier explain some of their most famous freediving videos

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ACTAN, CEBU—As the Department of Tourism (DOT) positions the country as the Freediving Capital of Asia, famous freediver and Philippine Freediving Ambassador Guillaume Néry will be at the forefront of the charge.

“I feel very proud and very honored to be the ambassador, but it’s also a responsibility.

The Philippines is full of treasures, full of incredible marine life and that’s what makes a place attractive for free divers,” said Néry during the Philippine Freediving Expedition press conference last Wednesday in ShangriLa’s Mactan Resort and Spa. Néry, arguably the most popular freediver at present, cited the country’s huge potential to be the top destination in the region due to its amicable weather conditions providing warm waters all year round with minimal wind and current, close proximity deep waters, and its people.

“And what makes a place incredible for freediving is also the people. Unique people to support this activity and here you have more and more freediving centers opening all over the Philippines,” added Néry, who teaches and conducts training at the Centre International de Plongee en Apnee, the main freediving club in France.

Philippine-based freediving center with branches in Moalboal, Cebu, Coron and El Nido, Palawan, Siargao, Surigao del Norte, and Hong Kong, Freediving Planet is one of the pioneer freediving centers in the country and is DOT’s partner in arranging the monthlong expedition of Néry.

The expedition that took off with a three-day freediving workshop participated in by locals and foreigners, press conference, yoga session with Néry’s wife Julie Gautier, screening of five Les Films Englouttis films, and meet-and-greet at Mactan, Cebu,

will also explore emerging freediving destinations around the country.

Nery will be touring the Barracuda and Kayangan Lake of Coron alongside its famous shipwreck dive sites and Cathedral Cave, conducting marine conservation activities with Sulubaaï Environment Foundation and discovery mermaiding with Odessa Mermaid Academy in El Nido. Another three-day workshop is slated in Moalboal from August 4 to 6 with the final leg at Davao for a freediving interaction with the Badjaos, infamous sea gypsies of the country.

The DOT recognizes the potential for the watersport activity to attract more tourists in the county targeting 10 percent of European divers engaging in freediving as a recreational sport.

“Our National Tourism Development Plan identifies diving as one of our primary tourism products. We feel as we advance we have to come up with specific segments, like advance and beginner dive, underwater macro photography and now freediving, which we can establish and be competitive in the global market,” said DOT Undersecretary for Tourism Development Benito Bengzon Jr., who is also a certified open-water diver.

The DOT and Néry will also explore the possibility of staging a freediving world championship in the next years in its continuing bid to establish the country as a top freediving destination.

“I’m very proud to be the ambassador for Philippine freediving because I really believe that the Philippines can become a central place for the development of freediving, not only in Asia but all over the world,” Néry claimed.

Baybay City lights up with 16,000 Blossoms park

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he city of Baybay, Leyte, recently opened the 16,000 Blossoms park, a mountaintop garden adorned by 16,000 LED lights, as part of its 10th cityhood day.

Located at the Lintaon Peak, the city’s highest point, the park is comprised of white and red roses embedded in the grassy meadow forming the phrase I Love Baybay.

According to Baybay City Mayor Carmen Cari, the park is part of the city’s tourismdevelopment plan, which will transform the area into the Lintaon Ecotourism Zone.

Once completed, the park will have an information center, view deck, pavilion, picnic areas and other tourist facilities.

The zone overlooks the city, the Camotes Sea, and the nearby islands of Cuatro Islas in Inopacan town and Camotes in Cebu.

A tall image of the city’s patron saint Immaculate Conception will also be erected to make it a pilgrimage site due to its proximity to the Diocesan Shrine of San Antonio de Padua.

The said church, which draws over 300,000 devotees annually to venerate the saint’s image that is believed to be miraculous, is the region’s top cultural attraction and part of Baybay’s more than 647,000 annual day visitors, the highest in Region 8, based on data from

the Department of Tourism. Cari said she will endorse the project to the Regional Development Council (RDC) of Eastern Visayas to make the site as a regional attraction to boost its tourism potentials.

Baybay, the biggest municipality in Leyte, was proclaimed a city on June 16, 2007, and was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2012 after a series of legal battles.

It is host to the Visayas State University, one of the country’s biggest agricultural learning institutions, a long coastline, a heritage lane showcasing ancestral houses, and several factories of pulp paper and virgin-coconut oil.

Sports BusinessMirror

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Sunday, July 23, 2017

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

THEY SHOOT, THEY SCORE, AND MILLIONS WATCH

Scott Comeau (center), an employee with Ballislife, shoots video during the UAA Finals at the LakePoint Sporting Community Champions Center in Emerson, Georgia. NYT

By Tim Casey

New York Times News Service

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EW YORK—Some of the best teenage basketball talent in the country went to a gymnasium in Manhattan on a Friday night in April to show what they could do, and some of the country’s best-known coaches—Villanova’s Jay Wright, Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey—had turned up to see the show.

And so when it came time for the weekend’s marquee matchup, the coaches watched particular players, and the players sneaked glances at particular coaches.

Underneath the baskets, men with the video cameras simply went about their work. In this game, their focus was on several players who are projected as potential NCAA and even NBA stars, including a 6-foot-5 forward named Scottie Lewis.

Lewis, 17, is one of the best college prospects

Makati vs Ilocos anew in Vigan

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URGING Kaya Makati tries to keep its hold of the lead when it visits Ilocos United today in the Philippine Football League (PFL) at the Quirino Stadium in Vigan City.

Four days ago, Kaya Makati scored a 5-2 win over Ilocos United behind Jordan Mintah’s hat trick at the University of Makati Stadium. The Makati-based team tries to reassert its mastery of Ilocos, this time in a road game at 7 p.m.

Kaya already won four straight matches for 23 points, while Ilocos lost eight games with only three points—all from draws.

Stallion Laguna, meanwhile, takes on skidding JPV Marikina at the Rizal Memorial Stadium at 4 p.m.

Stallion Laguna beat Marikina, 2-0, in Biñan last Wednesday for its first win in the league. The team has seven losses and four draws.

All JPV defenders are expected to gang up on Stallion striker Jesus Melliza, who scored two goals in the their last outing. JPV has lost its last three matches to remain in fifth place. Lance Agcaoili

in the Class of 2019. Saint John’s offered him a scholarship after the first game of his freshman season at Ranney School in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.

In the months after that—as word of his upside spread—nearly a dozen more programs did the same. But to the men with the video cameras and a growing number of basketball fans who religiously watch Internet videos of promising players, Lewis was already a household name.

How popular was he? A video of his highlights posted online in February 2015—before he entered high school—was titled, without a hint of understatement, “8th Grader Scottie Lewis is UNBELIEVABLE.” It has racked up more than a halfmillion views on YouTube, and it was later cross-posted on dozens of basketball websites. Shot by a company called City League Hoops, the two-minute and 48-second video showed Lewis, then 14 or 15, making acrobatic dunks and jumpers, blocking shots and performing spins in the lane—his every movement accompanied by a looping, forgettable soundtrack.

“It took me a while to get used to people knowing who I am and the videos just popping up,” said Lewis, who will begin his junior year in high school this fall.

“I think it’s good for me. It’s good for my brand. It’s good for my name.”

The highlight mixtape—usually a collection of dunks, blocks, long jump shots and flashy passes—is nothing new, of course, even if coaches often discount their value as a talent-evaluation metric. But in the past decade the phenomenon has grown, both in volume and in its focus on ever younger subjects, with the help

USA Gymnastics names safe sport director amid scandal

of a group of companies devoted to documenting and spreading the word about basketball’s next big thing.

These days, even talented middle schoolers are spotlighted. A video featuring LeBron James’s 11-year-old son has been viewed more than 2 million times. A similar mixtape of a tiny seventh-grade guard from Chicago produced several multiples of that figure.

The increasingly professionalized Internet mixtape business may trace its roots to 2005, when a 19-yearold junior college student in Northern California, Matt Rodriguez, and a few of his friends started a company called Ballislife.

Rodriguez and his friends, part of a group that liked to share highlight videos online, were drawn to the idea of discovering players before anyone else, and of documenting potential NBA All-Stars when they were still relatively unknown teenagers.

“You always hear a lot of stories about the pros when they were in high school, what seems like a myth, about what happened in their games,” Rodriguez said. “For us, we just wanted to be able to capture those moments when we were young kids, just to say, like: ‘Here’s the footage with the story. This is how crazy it was.’”

Soon Rodriguez was devoting more than 60 hours a week to Ballislife while attending art school in Southern California. At the same time, he was developing relationships with top local high-school players, most notably DeMar DeRozan, who became a guard with the Toronto Raptors, and traveling the country to chronicle the rise of future All-Stars like James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.

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POCARI, AIR FORCE BELLES TRY TO ZERO IN ON SEMIS J

OINT second-placers Pocari Sweat and Hair Fairy-Air Force try to move closer to the semifinal round when they take on separate foes today in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Open Conference at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan City.

Both teams will try to improve on their 3-1 won-lost records, with the Jet Spikers facing the Power Smashers at 4 p.m. and the Lady Warriors facing Akari-Adamson at 6:30 p.m.

Victories would guarantee Pocari and Air Force at least a playoff for the semifinals.

The two teams had contrasting outings last week.

Air Force won its second straight game after surviving BaliPure in five sets, 23 -25, 25-21, 25-19, 18-25, 15-11.

Defending champion Pocari Sweat, on the other hand, absorbed its first defeat after a 4-0 start at the hands of

Creamline, 25-15, 17-25, 25-19, 25-19.

Myla Pablo, ranked second in the Most Valuable Player race, stressed that her team will bounce back and sweep their remaining games to make it in the semifinals.

“We want to sweep our last three games for another Final Four appearance and we are preparing for that,” Pablo said. “But we cannot count Adamson out because they have a lot of new talented players.”

Adamson and the Power Smashers are teetering toward the semifinals. The Lady Falcons hold a 1-3 record, while the Power Smashers are 1-4 and are on the brink of elimination.

In men’s play, Army takes on Instituto Estetico Manila at 10 a.m., while Gamboa Coffee battles Café Lupe at 1 p.m.

Lance Agcaoili

MYLA PABLO will again be at the forefront of Pocari Sweat’s campaign.

NDIANAPOLIS—USA Gymnastics is turning to a longtime children’s rights advocate and a former prosecutor to help address issues that have plagued the organization, amid a sexual abuse scandal that has shaken one of the US Olympic movement’s marquee programs.

Toby Stark, who spent the last seven years as executive director of the children’s advocacy group Chaucie’s Place, will serve as the director of safe sport for USA Gymnastics. Stark will oversee all aspects of USA Gymnastics safe sport policies, guidelines, educational programs, reporting and adjudication services.

Mark Busby, who focused on child abuse and sex crime cases while with the Marion County prosecutor’s office, will provide in-house legal counsel.

Both hirings are in response to recommendations made by former federal prosecutor Deborah Daniels, who in an independent report released last month called on USA Gymnastics to make a complete culture change.

“These two professionals will help us better protect athletes and continually enhance the systems and processes we have in place,” Ron Galimore, chief operating officer for USA Gymnastics, said in a statement. “Bringing this expertise to USA Gymnastics is another important step because the well-being of athletes is a top priority.”

USA Gymnastics is facing multiple civil lawsuits filed by former athletes, who claim the organization was negligent for failing to monitor a longtime team doctor now facing multiple charges of sexual in Michigan.

Larry Nassar, who spent more than 25 years working with USA Gymnastics, pleaded guilty in federal court last week to accumulating thousands of images of child pornography. Nassar is awaiting trial in three cases alleging that he sexually molested a total of nine girls at his campus clinic, home or a gymnastics club in the Lansing area. AP