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IT’S NATIONAL DISASTER RESILIENCE MONTH, AND IT’S TIME TO SHINE A LIGHT ON INITIATIVES TO RENDER CHILDREN LESS AT RISK FROM DISASTERS

Shielding the most vulnerable

IN this November 13, 2013, file photo, an aerial view shows the destruction left by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) in the coastal town of Tanawan, a village a few miles south of Tacloban. Haiyan left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million people. AP/WALLY SANTANA

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By Estrella Torres

ISASTERS leave children facing risks of injury, even death, and diseases due to the breakdown of services such as clean water and sanitation.

Globally, there are 535 million children who live in countries prone to disasters, according to the World Risk Report of 2018. It

ranked the Philippines the third most vulnerable to suffer from disasters, next to island nations of Vanuatu and Tonga.

The report takes into account a country’s exposure to natural hazards and its society’s vulnerability. The Philippines fares low in both since it does not have a strong capacity to cope with the negative consequences of natural disasters and a huge segment of population live in disaster-prone areas.

Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan), which struck the Visayan provinces in 2013, has taught the Philippines bitter lessons—mainly, how vital

it is to build resilience to reduce people’s vulnerability to disasters.

More than 7,000 people died, including children, as a result of Yolanda, billed as the strongest cyclone to hit land.

Prior to Yolanda, more than 11 million school children have been affected by major disasters from 2007 to 2012, based on figures from the Department of Education (DepEd). In 2018, at least 43,810 schools bore the brunt of natural hazards such as harsh typhoons,

while 21,949 other schools experienced human-induced hazards.

Partnership

RECOGNIZING the need to build disaster resilience among the young, Save the Children Philippines has partnered with DepEd and Prudence Foundation for the implementation of the three-year Education Safe from Disasters. This is to put in place and automate a management information system to improve disaster management in schools.

The child-rights group also joins the department’s weeklong fair as part of the observance of the National Disaster Resilience Month every July to highlight innovative programs to build disaster resilience in public schools.

The project, launched in January, aims to integrate safety and disaster resiliency in the construction and retrofitting of school buildings.

The program will be pilot-tested in 16 schools divisions in Metro Manila.

Continued on A2

Central bankers playing a dangerous game with asset prices

By Enda Curran & Rich Miller

T

Bloomberg News

HE world’s central banks are in danger of storing up problems for later by taking action to ensure the economic expansion stays on track.

In cutting already low interest rates to bolster a sagging global economy, monetary-policy makers risk fueling asset bubbles that may eventually burst and propping up zombie companies that could keep dragging down growth. They’re also encouraging a dangerous buildup in leverage in a world where total debt is already approaching $250

trillion.

Fed rate cuts “will incite undesired risk taking by borrowers and deepen the eventual next recession,” Steven Ricchiuto, US chief economist at Mizuho Securities USA Llc., said in a July 23 note.

Just this week, UBS Group AG Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti warned looser monetary

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 51.1070

policy ran the “risk of creating an asset bubble.”

Even still, central banks are betting the near-term benefits of countering a global slowdown and trade war jitters outweigh the longer-term costs of yet more easy money. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi have signaled that fresh easing is on the way while a host of emerging economies have already cut borrowing costs.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan endorsed the idea that the US central bank should be open to an insurance interest-rate cut.

Another reason policy-makers at the Fed and ECB are poised to push ahead is their confidence

that lower rates will not lead to an outbreak of unwanted inflation. Indeed, they’ve signaled that they’d welcome a rise in price pressures to help lift inflation rates they reckon are too low. The ECB meets Thursday and the Fed next week.

Powell himself has suggested that the last two US economic expansions ended not because inflation got too high, but because asset markets got too bubbly. In 2000, it was stock prices, especially those of high technology companies. In 2007, it was house prices.

With US stock prices already flirting with record highs and about $13 trillion of bonds yielding negative rates, there’s a concern that history may repeat itself.

“T

he Fed is gearing up to cut rates when growth is around potential, unemployment low, and trade uncertainty threatens to blunt the impact. When the downturn does eventually come, cuts that were seen as needed ‘insurance’ at the time could be viewed in a different light.

Policy space can’t be used twice.”

TOM ORLIK

Chief economist at Bloomberg Economics

Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4705 n UK 63.6742 n HK 6.5388 n CHINA 7.4355 n SINGAPORE 37.3835 n AUSTRALIA 35.5194 n EU 56.9792 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.6274

Source: BSP (July 26, 2019 )

NewsSunday Shielding the most vulnerable BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, July 28, 2019

Continued from A1

Lawyer Albert Muyot, chief executive officer of Save the Children Philippines, said safety in schools guarantees children’s rights to survival and basic education.

He said learners’ safety and security must be ensured as they spend six to eight hours in schools while they are away from parents and guardians.

“Children face the harsh impact of disasters and emergencies, as they miss out on school, suffer injury and worse, deaths,” said Muyot.

Save the Children Philippines estimated that 1.5 million children were seriously affected

by Yolanda. The group reached more than 800,000 children and adults by providing emergency kits, health and nutrition services and alternative classes to displaced learners through Temporary Learning Spaces.

Muyot said local governments should empower children to protect themselves from hazards as part of a disaster resilience program.

“Disasters such as earthquakes, massive flooding and severe typhoons take a heavy toll on children’s lives, particularly those in deprived and marginalized situations,” he said.

Save the Children Philippines

also introduced a program— Batang Empowered and Resilient Team (BERT)—that trains children to become facilitators to help teach other children about risk reduction and resiliency.

The training was first introduced to child survivors of Yolanda to equip themselves with the right knowledge and skills in disaster preparedness. More than 3,000 children in the Visayas have since then become BERT facilitators.

Ashley, then a Grade 5 student from Siempreviva Elementary School in Concepcion, Iloilo, was one of those trained as BERT facilitators. She became quiet and sad after her home and school were damaged by Yolanda.

She subsequently continued school and became a BERT facilitator, which made her more active and outspoken.

“Ashley is very shy and she seldom talks to people, even to our relatives,” said Ashley’s father.

After the BERT training, however, his daughter has become more confident and outspoken. “She constantly tells us that we should always be prepared in times of calamities and that a ‘Go Bag’ should always be ready in case we need to evacuate,” Ashley’s father told Save the Children Philippines.

The BERT training was also introduced to children in Mindanao who face various disaster

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DISTRIBUTION of household kits as part of Save the Children’s humanitarian response to Typhoon Haiyan in Estancia, Iloilo, November 2013. JEROME BALINTON/SAVE THE CHILDREN

risks and hazards from the lingering armed conflict.

At least 6,555 children in remote areas in Mindanao who are vulnerable to disasters and the impact of armed conflict were also trained as BERT child facilitators.

“One of the core principles of children’s rights is to be heard on matters that affect them, including drafting disaster-preparedness plans,” said Muyot.

The training teaches children to differentiate hazards from risks, and educates them on how to respond during emergencies.

The training describes hazards as typhoons, landslides, flash floods, earthquakes, fires (bush fire due to the slash-and-burn practice and household fire as they use firewood for cooking).

At the same time, children in Mindanao are being trained to protect themselves from risks of armed conflict.

Children are trained to identify the risks that they are exposed to in schools and at home, and how to avoid them.

Also, children learn what to do before, during and after a disaster.

This includes essential things they should put in their Go Bag (example: water, flashlight, etc.).

The program also teaches children hygiene and sanitation, including proper hand washing to prevent water-borne diseases like diarrhea.

Through BERT training, children also learn oral health or the proper way of tooth brushing, and what food to avoid to prevent plaque and tooth decay.

The Region 12 office of of DepEd found the BERT training an effective tool to empower children from hazards and risks, and issued a memorandum adopting the module in all schools in the region.

Save the Children Philippines has advocated the passage of Republic Act 10821, or the Children’s Emergency Relief and Protection Act, which mandates national and local government agencies to implement and sustain a comprehensive emergency program to protect children from

disasters and emergencies.

The law prioritizes the protection of children, pregnant and lactating mothers during disaster and emergency situations. It also prevents the extended use of schools as evacuation centers to allow children to resume classes.

The BERT training is also given in the mother tongue to seven community-based schools with children from indigenous peoples like B’laan and Tagkaulo.

At the core of the disasterresilience plans of the government is ensuring child survival and protection from the impact of emergencies.

However, Save the Children Philippines believes every child has the right to be heard and be part of drafting measures that affect them, which include disasterresilience plans.

Estrella Torres is Head of Media and Communication at Save the Children Philippines.

Central bankers…

Continued from A1

“Certainly in a period where asset prices are elevated, you should be a little concerned about actually heating up those asset prices,” Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said in a July 19 CNBC television interview in which he signaled his likely opposition to a widely expected rate cut.

While stock prices aren’t in bubble territory yet, they could end up there over the next six to nine months if investors become convinced that the Fed will, in effect, protect them against losses, said Ethan Harris, head of global economics research at Bank of America Corp.

“If you keep delivering preemptive rate cuts, eventually you do create a bubble,” he said.

Asset markets aren’t the only thing that will benefit from lower rates. Companies that have trouble servicing their debts will, as well.

The share of so-called zombie companies—firms that are unable to cover debt servicing costs from operating profits over an extended period and have muted growth

prospects—has risen to around 6 percent of nonfinancial listed shares in advanced economies, a multidecade high, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Analysis by the Basel-based BIS found that lower interest rates play a role in the prevalence of zombie companies, even after accounting for the impact of other factors. It has also warned that banks are vulnerable to a shakeout in the $1.3-trillion leveraged loan market.

Those companies sap economy-wide productivity growth, not only by being less productive themselves but also because they crowd out resources available to more productive firms.

Monetary boost

TO be sure, rate cuts will boost sentiment in an increasingly fragile period. Business confidence, manufacturing and trade are all hurting and global inflation remains low.

“Yes, they have fueled asset price bubbles, yes there are concerns that some companies have low growth potential and couldn’t

survive a sustained rise in debt servicing costs,” said Gabriel Sterne of Oxford Economics Ltd. “But the more important points are that upside inflation risks are very small, growth too low, fiscal policy too timid—except in the US—and central bankers over the last 10 years too conservative.”

Still, years of low rates have left a troubling legacy. One example: the number of euro-denominated junk bonds trading with a negative yield—a status until recently associated with ultra-safe sovereign borrowers—now stands at 14, according to data compiled

by Bloomberg. At the start of the year there were none.

Global debt jumped $3 trillion in the first quarter of 2019 and now accounts for almost 320 percent of global economic output according to the Institute of International Finance. Worryingly, companies in emerging markets are increasingly relying on short-term borrowing.

“Insurance cuts in interest rates are not without risks,” said Janet Henry, chief economist at HSBC Holdings Plc.

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The World BusinessMirror

Spain’s PM Sanchez vows to avoid a snap election, despite defeat

A

cting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez vowed to avoid a new general election, which would be the country’s fourth in as many years, and will work toward building a coalition which has so far remained elusive despite two parliamentary votes.

“I’m not going to throw in the towel,” Sanchez said in an interview late Thursday with Spanish news channel Tele 5. The four main political parties need “to reflect on what happened and unblock this situation,” he said.

Sanchez’s bid to become Spain’s premier fell short in Thursday’s parliamentary ballot, his second defeat this week, after his Socialist party failed to iron out the conditions for a tie-up with the anti-austerity group Podemos. The loss starts the constitutional clock ticking toward possible new elections in November.

The stalemate will prolong Spain’s political uncertainty as the country continues to recover from the ravages of the financial

crisis. And adding to the turmoil, the country is still in a state of deep angst over the unresolved issue of Catalonia, which wants to break away from the kingdom.

Over a two-month period, Sanchez can in theory continue his efforts to secure a majority and go back to parliament, if invited to do so by King Felipe VI. If he fails, the king would dissolve parliament and call new elections.

Sanchez’s Socialists had been trying to garner the support of Podemos to cobble together a majority in the assembly. Even though they abstained in the vote, Podemos, led by Pablo Iglesias, left open the possibility of continuing to try to find a way to work together.

“I assume my duty,” Sanchez said in the interview, adding that the right-wing parties, the People’s Party and Ciudadanos, must help break the deadlock. “And my duty is to form a government. I will speak to the other parties.”

Bloomberg News

Sunday, July 28, 2019

A3

A dead end for fossil fuel in Europe’s city centers E

ver since Volkswagen AG was found out in 2015 to be rigging engines, harmful car emissions have come under intense scrutiny from consumers and regulators.

Municipalities in Europe have been pushing to get diesel cars, in particular, out of inner cities.

Come 2024, a diesel car won’t get you around Paris or Madrid as the capitals ban all passenger vehicles running on the fuel.

A few yea rs l ater, a l l combust ion d r ivers in a nd a rou nd Ba rcelona, L ondon a nd Rome reliant on cars w i l l lose access.

A l l t ol d , s ome 24 Eu ropea n c it ies accou nt ing for 62 m i llion people are banning diesels over t he ne x t decade, inc luding 13 c it ies t hat ’ l l st r i ke of f a l l combust ion ca rs in a bid to stop fa i l ing em issions l im its.

It’s an inconvenient future that’s already a creeping reality

with bans in Madrid, Hamburg and Paris on older diesel cars, leaving many consumers with little choice but to invest in hybrids or battery cars—and upending the car’s promise of providing unlimited mobility for the masses.

“Many residents of the affected cities, but also many commuters, cannot buy a new car overnight,” said Andreas Radics, a partner at Berylls Consultancy.

“A ban on driving cars in cities without training the other modes of transport is an expensive problem to which neither politicians nor local authorities have yet responded sufficiently.”

Around 12.6 million cars in Europe are affected by restrictions that already apply in local authorities or are to be introduced by 2030, according to Berylls. The number only includes cars registered currently to city residents, leaving out millions of commuters.

Limited bans on older diesels in places like Paris, Madrid and Hamburg have already prompted consumers to desert diesel in droves.

Registrations have slid to 36 percent of total sales across Europe in 2018, down from more than half in 2015, the year of the VW dieselemissions cheating crisis.

Buyers have been sticky on shifting to electric vehicles, favoring gasoline instead in light of patchy charging infrastructure, with less than 3 percent of sales making up hybrid or battery cars last year. It’s a sobering foretaste for carmakers like Volkswagen AG, Renault SA and BMW AG betting on the electric shift and trying to gauge future buying behavior.

I n D e ce mb e r, M ad r id b e gan restricting access to gaspowered vehicles made prior to 2000 and diesel vehicles prior to 2006. Come 2020, older diesel and gas-powered cars won’t be

allowed to enter at all. In Paris, authorities have locked out diesels older than 13 years during weekdays as of this month.

The tug of war between clean air in cities and people’s mobility extends around the globe.

In the US, Seattle plans to ban sales of new combustion cars by 2030. California, home to electric-car leader Tesla Inc., i nt roduced d r a f t leg i sl at ion in late 2018 to scratch sales of new fossil-fuel burning vehicles by 2040 statewide. A range of other states have similar plans from 2050.

Even as city centers are shutting off, BloombergNEF still expects traditional cars to make up nearly half of all new-car deliveries in France in 2030, while electrified vehicles will account for 40percent of demand in Germany. In the US, e-car sales should reach 60percent by 2040. Bloomberg News

A4

News BusinessMirror

Sunday, July 28, 2019

Senate probe finds ‘extensive’ Russian meddling in US polls

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he Senate Intelligence Committee recounted “extensive” efforts by Russia to compromise the US’s election infrastructure from 2014 to “at least 2017” and urged new efforts to deter the threat as the 2020 presidential election approaches.

In summarizing the first part of its final report on Russian efforts to undermine American democracy, committee chairman Richard Burr said Thursday that “in 2016 the US was unprepared at all levels of government for a concerted attack from a determined foreign adversary on our election infrastructure.”

Burr, a North Carolina Republican, said that since then “we have learned much more about the nature of Russia’s cyber activities and better understand the real and urgent threat they pose.”

The Intelligence panel’s warning came a day after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller made a similar plea to combat continuing Russian interference during hearings before two House panels. While Mueller gave an often halting and lackluster summary of his findings on meddling in the 2016 campaign and links to those around President Donald Trump, he was assertive in describing a threat to the American political system.

Amid partisan disputes in congressional committees over the Russia probe, only the Senate Intelligence panel has maintained a

largely bipartisan consensus.

“Given Russian intentions to undermine the credibility of the election process, states should take urgent steps to replace outdated and vulnerable voting systems,” the panel said.

The report recommends using paper ballots and optical scanners and preventing any wireless networking capability in voting machines. It recommends against the new trend toward allowing online voting.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel’s Democratic vice chairman, urged the White House and Congress to do more to shore up election security.

“I hope the bipartisan findings and recommendations outlined in this report will underscore to

the White House and all of our colleagues, regardless of political party, that this threat remains urgent, and we have a responsibility to defend our democracy against it,” Warner said.

The one dissenter from the committee’s consensus was Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, who criticized the recommendation to reinforce the primacy of states in running elections, a position many politicians consider sacrosanct. He called for nationwide cyber-security mandates and voting standards. “ The defense of US national security against a highly sophisticated foreign government cannot be left to state and county officials,” Wyden said. “If there was ever a moment when Congress needed to exercise its clear constitutiona l aut hor ities to regulate elections, this is it.”

No votes changed

The committee, whose public report had significant redactions, didn’t find that Russian government efforts against US elections systems changed any votes in 2016 or that any voting machines were manipulated. That’s a finding likely to hearten Trump, who has tended to minimize concern about Russian interference as a partisan effort to question the legitimacy of his election as president.

Given Russian intentions to undermine the credibility of the election process, states should take urgent steps to replace outdated and vulnerable voting systems.”—Senate Intelligence Committee report

But the committee recommended that any new voting machines include a voter-verified paper backup and said the federal government should consider increasing election assistance to states.

The report found there were strong indications that voting systems in a ll 50 states had been probed.

“Russian cyber actors were in a position to delete or change voter data, but the committee is not aware of any evidence that they did so,” according to the report.

The committee said Russian agents “may have been probing vulnerabilities in voting systems to exploit later” or simply sought to undermine confidence in the elections once their activity was discovered.

Illinois experienced the first known breach by Russians of election infrastructure in June 2016, with Russians accessing up to 200,000 voter registration records, the Intelligence panel found.

The committee is awaiting the declassification of its report on Russia’s social-media efforts and intends to release the rest of its final report in multiple volumes this fall.

The panel said it interviewed more than 200 witnesses and reviewed more than 400,000 documents as part of its probe.

FBI Director Christopher Wray also warned Thursday that election attacks from various sources may escalate. “We’ve yet to see attacks manipulating or deleting election and voter-related data, or attacks taking election management systems offline,” Wray said in a speech in New York. “But we know our adversaries are relentless. So are we.” Bloomberg News

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Renewed federal executions up death penalty’s ‘20 stakes

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ASHINGTON—The question to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, was brutally personal.

“If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Bernard Shaw, a CNN anchor, asked, referring to the Massachusetts governor’s wife. Dukakis said he wouldn’t favor it because “I don’t see any evidence that it is a deterrent.”

The technocratic, largely emotionless response in a debate mere weeks before the election marked the nadir of Democrats’ politically agonized relationship to the death penalty—reinforcing in some voters’ minds that the party was soft on crime. President George H.W. Bush went on to crush Dukakis, winning the Electoral College vote, 426-111.

Four years later, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton projected the opposite message, defending the death penalty on a New Hampshire debate stage, then leaving the campaign trail to return to his home state and preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black inmate who killed a police officer and another man.

In the decade that followed, though, many Democrats were moved by the startling revelations of inmates being wrongly executed and began to rethink their position on capital punishment. In 2014, an Oklahoma execution was problematic enough that President Barack Obama mulled a moratorium on the federal death penalty.

Though that never materialized, his party’s national platform endorsed one two years later, and only one of the 24 Democrats seeking the White House in 2020 — Montana Gov. Steve Bullock — has publicly supported preserving capital punishment in some form.

The issue took on unexpected urgency on Thursday when the Justice department announced that it will begin executing federal death row inmates for the first time since 2003, again raising the political stakes on a topic that’s rarely been a Democratic strength.

And while the party is now much more unified in opposing it than a generation ago, the public is not—potentially casting a long policy shadow over the upcoming primary.

Democratic strategist Mike Lavigne said that, despite the planned federal executions, he doesn’t see the issue as a winner for Democrats because “there’s not a lot of single-

issue voters on the death penalty.”

Still, several Democratic presidential candidates strongly criticized the move, setting up a stark contrast with President Donald Trump. “Capital punishment is immoral and deeply flawed,” Sen. Kamala Harris of California said on Twitter. “Too many innocent people have been put to death.”

About 6 in 10 Americans favor the death penalty, according to the General Social Survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. That’s declined steadily since the 1990s, when nearly three-quarters were in favor.

Even California, the nation’s largest blue state, rejected a capital punishment ban in 2016. Now-Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom used an executive order to declare a moratorium, but prosecutors in the state still sometimes seek the death penalty.

The first federal inmate is scheduled to be executed on December 9—less than two months before the Democratic primary begins with the Iowa caucus—and four other prisoners are set to be put to death over the next six weeks.

Trump has repeatedly endorsed capital punishment for serious crimes, and that’s likely to play well with his conservative base heading into 2020. Republican support for capital punishment has held steady at about 8 in 10 over the past two decades, while about half of Democrats now say they favor it compared to nearly two-thirds in the 1990s.

Pope Francis has declared the death penalty “inadmissible,” but some Christians support it. Since 2015, the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000-plus churches, has acknowledged that Christians differ in their capital punishment beliefs and affirming “the conscientious commitment of both streams of Christian ethical thought.”

“Our weighing in on the topic is not for the purpose of helping or hurting any politician, but it’s to provide a moral context for our leaders in both parties,” Galen Carey, the association’s vice president of government relations, said by phone.

When Dukakis and Clinton were running for president, there were roughly 300 new death sentences annually nationwide, as opposed to around 40 today. Yearly executions peaked at nearly 100 in 1999 and have declined steadily ever since. AP

Hong Kong protests: Yellow Vests show long road ahead B illy has been the butt of criticism from friends for taking part in Hong Kong’s protests. Undeterred, he sees his marching days as just beginning.

“We have to continue to protest until our demands are met,” said the 28-year-old accountant, whom we chose not to identify.

“There is no end in sight.”

That sense of a long road ahead is one of the parallel between Hong Kong’s mass rallies and France’s Yellow Vests movement.

Both are hard to pin down, determined and prone to evolve—a recipe for all sorts of trouble for their governments.

As Hong Kong braces for more protests on Friday, the dilemma for the city’s embattled Chief Executive Carrie Lam is whether she’s willing and indeed able to make concessions as French President Emmanuel Macron did to take the wind out of the protests. For one lesson of the Yellow Vests is that without an adequate response, the demonstrations can quickly overwhelm government to the

exclusion of all other policy-making, and drag on indefinitely.

“We find them ver y inspiring,” Hong Kong opposition lawmaker Claudia Mo said of the French protest movement. “The most direct similarity is the continuation of actions. The most dissimilar is the looting. I just cannot imagine anyone looting shops, cracking cars or burning taxis to make a point—that’s not Hong Kong.”

Demonstrating is very Hong Kong, however. The latest protests began in March in response to plans by the government of the former British colony to bring in legislation enabling extradition to China. Taken aback as the protest wave built, Lam shelved the bill, but the rallies have since expanded to encompass grievances from calls for an independent inquiry into police violence to greater democratic freedoms.

France too is no stranger to street protests. The student demonstrations that rocked Paris in 1968 defined an era, and the Yellow Vest protests that erupted across France 50 years later drew comparisons with their intensity.

What began in late 2018 with groups of the disaffected congregating at roundabouts to chew over their anger at fuel prices quickly morphed into a dramatic attack on the heart of the French state. At its peak, the movement— organized by social-media groups— mobilized hundreds of thousands each Saturday. On December 1, as they marched on central Paris railing against the cost of living and Macron’s governing style, fringe elements burned cars, looted and torched shops, and even vandalized the Arc de Triomphe while fighting running battles with riot police.

Hong Kong also witnessed violence that shocked. Last weekend agitators

Demonstrators hold placards as they walk along Canton Road during a protest in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Hong Kong, China, on Sunday, July 7, 2019. The Hong Kong government said it was taking measures to accommodate a march today through one of Hong Kong’s busiest tourist districts, the latest demonstration in weeks of mass protests against a proposed law allowing extradition of criminals to mainland China. Alex Hofford/Bloomberg

targeted the liaison office of China’s central government in the center of the city, and stick-wielding assailants attacked protesters in a train station.

Kenneth Yeung, a doctoral student from Hong Kong with a focus on social movements at the Université Paris Diderot, straddles both worlds: While interviewing Yellow Vest protesters for his academic research, he’s also part of a group of Hong Kongers living in France that organized some 10 rallies against the extradition bill back home.

“It’s about the pent-up anger that’s accumulated in the five years since Occupy,” he said, referring to the Occupy Central and Umbrella Movement protests which were also related to China’s greater influence on the city. “Today, even those who have

never participated in any movements are thinking they must do their part.”

One common thread is the lack of a unified leadership. Yeung notes that the coexistence of several leaders during Hong Kong’s protests five years ago led to infighting. Tung, t h e a cco u nt a nt, a l s o re fe re n ce d 2014, saying the fact the leaders were subsequently thrown in jail shows the benefit of the absence of a figurehead. Leaderless movements, organizing via encrypted messaging apps like Telegram, adapt and evolve.

“The lack of a leader is the reason the movement is still continuing,” he said of Hong Kong.

The nature and motivation of the two groups are still very different. In France, the Yellow Vests—named after

the warning jackets that French motorists must keep in their cars in the event of breakdown—was an anti-globalization movement that saw in Macron a symbol of an out-of-touch elite that had let them down. Hong Kong’s protests are directed at an altogether different and more formidable foe: an encroaching China and the territory’s China-picked leader, Lam. And China has many more levers at its disposal than Macron.

In France, the protests fizzled after Macron heeded the protesters’ pleas, addressed the nation and initiated a platform to allow citizens to vent their frustrations. After initially ignoring the movement, on December 10 Macron announced €10 billion ($11.1 billion) of tax cuts and increased welfare and pension spending. He organized a national

debate that involved 10,500 townhall meetings and 15,000 “grievance registers.” His response helped take the air out of the movement and sapped its once overwhelming popular support.

For opposition lawmaker Mo, that’s a crucial contrast with Hong Kong. France’s ability to respond democratically merely exposes Lam’s limited room to maneuver, since her administration somehow needs to balance its citizens’ aspirations for greater democracy against relations with Beijing, and its instinct to exercise control.

As Hong Kong prepares for more demonstrations, France too is likely to see Saturday protests, but turnout is now down in the hundreds. All attempts to federate the movement failed. That doesn’t mean the sentiment behind it has disappeared, according to James Shields, professor of French politics at the University of Warwick.

“Most of those people now stay home,” he said. “But their yellow vests are still in their cars, ready to be worn again if Macron presses on with a reform agenda that hits ordinary French citizens in their pockets.”

In Hong Kong, the amorphous prodemocracy push has come to dominate the city’s political landscape, and the lives of its people. That may make it increasingly difficult for authorities to roll back.

C.L., a 28-year-old protester, said he was hoping the demonstrators who stormed into Hong Kong’s Legislative Council earlier this month would stay and occupy the place, like the Sunflower protesters of Taiwan five years earlier, who were also demonstrating against Beijing’s encroaching influence.

“I think Hong Kongers should be more aggressive,” he said. “Like in Venezuela, its people can’t turn back. Everyone’s risked everything.” Bloomberg News

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

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time: ‘Luke 11:1-13’

How should we pray?

Msgr. Josefino S. Ramirez SUNDAY GOSPEL IN OUR LIFE

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oday ’s gospel reading contains the counsels of Jesus Christ on the need and importance of prayer.

Some people mistakenly think that prayer is the mere recitation of a set formulas that we learned when we were young. The vocal prayers, many of them coming from the inspired Word of God or from the rich tradition of the Church, are certainly very valuable and necessary, but prayer is not just the mindless enunciation of these formulas.

Others think that prayer is a matter of rattling off our entreaties and petitions to God. Prayers of petition are certainly and very important element of prayer, but once again, prayer cannot be reduced to that.

Someone has defined prayer as “the lifting up of the mind and heart to God.” That seems to be a fairly accurate and exhaustive description of the prayer that Jesus Christ is describing.

Prayer is an act of the spirit. It can entail our minds, as when we reflect and consider things that have to do with God. It also entails motions of our heart, a kind of impulse and action of our whole being to God. Prayer cannot be reduced to cold considerations, even if it deals with celestial realities.

Vocal prayers, the use of traditional formulas, really help one to pray, because those formulas contain sublime considerations that, if recited sincerely, help us to “ lift our minds and hearts to God.” But we should make these words our own. We should even allow our own spirit to proceed beyond the formula, and talk to God in our own words.

We can talk to God by telling Him about our needs. This is the prayer of petition.

But we can also talk to God, expressing other aspects. Thus, we

can express our admiration (adoration), our gratitude (thanksgiving), and our sorrow (contrition).

All of these are prayers, because all of them are movements “upward” to God. A ll men need to pray, if they are to attain true happiness. We are all on Earth, but we are all on our way to the eternal and definitive life.

If we never lift up our minds and hearts to God, if all our thoughts and yearnings are earth-bound, we can never really direct our lives to their proper goal.

Put another way, if we never ta lk to Chr ist, if we never commune w it h God, how can we love Him and be more united to Him? Besides the need to pray, I would also add that we need to pray systematically, and not only whenever we feel inspired to do so.

When there is an activity which is really necessary, we human beings see to it that it is scheduled out. Thus, most people eat three times a day and, at more or less, fixed hours.

If a person were not to fi x a schedule for meals, and just goes about nibbling here and there, whenever he takes the fancy, that person will not likely be ver y healthy. He will probably eat the w rong amounts, and could not stick to a diet that would be both nutritious and satisf y ing.

If we make it a point to pray regularly, then we can be assured of receiving the nourishment of prayer according to the needs of our soul. Besides, we could actually prepare those moments of communing with God, because we know when and where it will be taking place.

T hen prayer w i l l be rea l source of spir itua l streng th, and it w ill lead us gradually and firmly, to grow in personal intimacy w ith God.

Sunday

Things not always what they seem as Saudi loosens up

B

LOOMBERG—One by one, many of the stringent social restrictions that have defined life in Saudi Arabia for decades are being abandoned. But things aren’t always what they seem.

At a time of unprecedented flux in the kingdom, a possibly deliberate lack of official clarity is sowing confusion among a population split between those for whom greater freedoms can’t come fast enough and more conservative citizens alarmed at the pace of change.

The latest example arrived last week when the government said it would let some stores and restaurants operate around the clock. Even official denials failed to stem speculation that the measure means no more mandatory closures during prayer times.

Another change that may be in the cards is dropping the requirement for women to get permission from a male guardian to travel abroad.

A report in the Okaz newspaper that officials were studying allowing Saudis over 18 to jet off without that consent didn’t specify whether the shift would apply to women—but many jumped to interpret it that way. Two people familiar with the matter said the policy may indeed change soon, confirming reports by the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

Critics held

The ambiguity is typical of the past few years in the kingdom as officials dance back and forth, perhaps in an attempt to gauge how much change is acceptable.

T he upheav a l h a sn’t been

w ithout controversy, but the b a c k l a s h f rom con s e r v at i v e circles has been muted—out of deference to the kingdom’s rulers and also due to a climate of fear that grew as the government cracked down politically, detaining dozens of domestic critics.

“Ambiguous statements are not only a way to test public opinion but also serve as a means to normalize and introduce potential changes, especially relating to social issues that have been contested among Saudis for years,” said Eman Alhussein, a Saudi visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The sense of bewilderment has even spread to Saudi-owned media, usually reliable conduits for government decrees. Television channel Al-Arabiya initially interpreted last week’s move to allow 24-hour trading for some firms as meaning they could now stay open during prayers, and it published a tweet to say so.

‘People lost it’

Some Saudis rushed to celebrate, praising the economic effects of the decision and the personal freedom it gave them.

Others lamented the religious and cultural consequences. Then an official rejected the idea in an interview with the same network.

The tweet was deleted.

If the change did happen, it would amount to another substantial loosening of regulations

N

oah, a righteous man, is the son of Lamech, whose ancestr y can be traced to Seth, one of Adam’s son, born when he was 135 years old (Genesis 5:3).

Lamech who lived for 777 years was 182 when son Noah was born (Genesis 5:28), a 10th-generation descendant of Adam. With Noah, a farmer, God made His Second Covenant with man before he turned 600 years old (Genesis 7:6).

Noah, a righteous man

Samuel Baxter, in the Days of Noah, narrates that there were billions of people living on Earth.

And wickedness prevailed. “Every imagination of man’s heart was evil. God regretted that He made man on Earth, and His heart was grieved” (Genesis 6:5).

God waited for man to have a change of heart and repent. But until the very day the floods came, men were eating and drinking (Luke 17:26-27).

Noah was an exception. He was a good man, an example of righteous living with an enduring faith in an immoral and faithless environment. He preached repentance for sins to others, to no avail.

The Lord told of His plan to destroy the world to Noah. He instructed Noah to build an ark exactly seven times longer than its width. It is interesting to add that according to the study application

of the Bible, this is the same ratio used by modern shipbuilders.

“This is how you shall build it; the length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, its width 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits” (Genesis 6:15).

There was an opening for daylight above and entrance on the sides.

Noah and his family built the ark for 100 days (Genesis 5:32) and (Genesis 7:16). Other bible scholars claim, for 120 days. (Genesis 6:3) When it was finished, Noah was instructed to take in seven pairs, male and female of every clean animal and birds, but only one pair of unclean animals and birds.

(Genesis 7:2-3) Noah was likewise instructed that the arch will have eight passengers: Noah and his wife Naamah, his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives.

The Great Flood

A fter seven days when Noah was 600 years old, rain star ted to fa l l on Ear th. R ain poured for 40 d ays unt i l t he ent ire Ear th and the a l l mountains were submerged.

Bible scholars, however, stated that the flood lasted for a year since Noah was 600 years old (Genesis 7:6) when he entered the ark and the Earth started to dry when he was 601 years old (Genesis 8:13) so he came out of the ark with all the living things.

Mary Fairchild, in Learn Religions, stated that there were about 45,000 animals inside the ark.

Ex pats (migrant workers) take a selfie to celebrate a birthday on the Corniche Promenade in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on September 30, 2018. Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began an overhaul of the economy to reduce its reliance on oil.

In the past two years, the government has lifted a ban on women driving, allowed cinemas to open and sponsored gender-mixed concerts in a country where music was rarely heard in public.

Now there’s talk about relaxing the male guardianship laws, or perhaps even allowing the sale of alcohol.

On Wednesday, businesses continued to shut for their regular 30-minute prayer breaks, but the doors of debate were wide open.

“A decision was issued for shops to open 24 hours a day and people lost it—‘Oh it’s not permissible, woe on us, we’ll die,’” Saudi social-media personality Saeed Al Shahrani said in a widely-viewed video. “Our religion is simple, don’t complicate things for us.”

Doors unlocked

The prayer closures have long been part of the rhythm of life in Saudi Arabia, with cafés, restaurants, grocery stores, shopping malls and pharmacies shutting

down for half an hour or longer at designated prayer times. The practice contrasts with neighboring Muslim-majority states, many of which close businesses for a special Friday prayer but otherwise continue commerce as usual.

The only official clarification on Tuesday’s decision was given

by Khalid Al-Degaither, a deputy at the ministry implementing the change.

In an interview on Al-Arabiya, he said the Cabinet decision “doesn’t touch any previous decision related to prayer times.”

Yet when he was pressed repeatedly by the presenter about whether a shop that opened during prayers would be violating the law, Al-Degaither didn’t commit either way.

Already over the past year, many shops and restaurants in Riyadh have relaxed their approach, quietly keeping their doors unlocked during prayers.

On Wednesday, Okaz said that allowing stores to open during prayers was “imminent,” citing unidentified sources.

In another article in the same edition, it left the question open.

Bloomberg News

Chinese leaders: US ‘fabricating lies’ about millions of detained Uighurs

The Rainbow Covenant

By Corazon Damo-Santiago

Sunday, July 28, 2019 A5

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Noah’s Thanks offering (c.1803) by Joseph Anton Koch. Noah builds an altar to the Lord after being delivered from The Great Flood; God sends the rainbow as a sign of His covenant. Wikimedia Commons

Covenant with man

The ark rested on the top of Mount Ararat, ancient Urarte, North of Mesopotamia, and now Modern Armenia. On the 17th of the seventh month (Genesis 8:4) and on the first day of the 10th month, the mountain top can be seen.

After they were instructed by the Lord to leave the ark, Noah built an altar to pay homage.

When the Lord “smelled the sweet odor” of His offerings, He said: “Never again will I doom the Earth because of man, since the desires of man are evil from the start, nor will I ever again strike down all living things, as I have done” (Genesis 8:21).“And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you

and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Me and the Earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the Warth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and all living creatures of every kind.

Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” (Genesis 9: 12-15).

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

hinese government officials denied mistreating the country’s ethnic Uighur population and said there is “no evidence” that the country is hostile to the minority group’s religion or culture, adding that the US Secretary of State is spreading lies.

According to a letter posted online on July 19 by the Xinjiang government, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should “stop fabricating lies and slander about Xinjiang.”

The letter is signed by Chinese scholars and religious officials.

Xinjiang is a region of northwest China, where most of the Uighur population lives.

At least 1 million Uighur Muslims are thought to be held in what the country has termed “vocational centers” or “reeducation camps,” which have been described by outside observers as concentration camps or internment camps.

The camps have operated since 2014, but their use ramped up in 2016, following the arrival of a new leader in Xinjiang.

An editorial published in the People’s Daily on July 20 claimed that China actually respects religious rights, and said that the United States has an “ulterior motive” to criticize China’s treatment of religious minorities.

“They even use so-called freedom of religious belief as an excuse to undermine China’s national harmony and interfere in China’s internal affairs,” the editorial

said. People’s Daily is published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The editorial further claimed that the camps were necessary to prevent terrorism.

Last week, the Chinese State Council Information Office released a white paper that claimed, among other things, that Xinjiang is a region where religious freedom is respected, and that the Uighur population did not choose to become Muslim.

X injiang “respects citizens’ freedom to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion,” the paper said.

In 2017, Xinjiang’s government banned the wearing of long beards and face veils, and outlawed Uighur naming customs.

The white paper also claimed that Islam came to the Uighurs as a result of slavery and war, and was “neither an indigenous nor the sole belief system of the Uighur people.”

“The Uighur conversion to Islam was not a voluntary choice made by the common people, but a result of religious wars and imposition by the ruling class,” the paper said.

The Pentagon estimates that the internment camps hold up to 3 million ethnic and religious minorities, primarily Uighurs.

If these numbers are accurate, it would mean that about a quarter of the total Uighur population in China is imprisoned.

Catholic News Agency/CBCP News

A6 Sunday, July 28, 2019

Science

BusinessMirror

Sunday

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

Use of radar satellite may prevent another PHL fishers’ trouble at sea

T

By Lyn Resurreccion

he incident in the Reed Bank in South China Sea, where the fishing boat, FB Gem-Ver 1, of Filipino fishermen was rammed by a Chinese vessel on June 9, may be prevented with the use of a radar satellite being contracted by the Philippines with a United Kingdom manufacturer.

“Hopef u l ly, w ith mar itime monitor ing among its [radar satellite] focus areas, we'll have better visibility in those places [including Reed Bank],” said Dr. Joel Joseph Marciano Jr., acting director of Advanced Science and Technolog y Institute of the Depar tment of Science and Technolog y (DOST-A STI).

“Our seas are part of our national patrimony. Yes, we have to invest in this kind of capability.

Fortunately technologies such as this kind of radar satellite exist, which can provide us with this kind of information,” Marciano told the BusinessMirror at the sidelines of the recent forum on “DOST-ASTI Industry 4.0 Technology I/O Initiatives and Opportunities.” The forum was part of the National

Science and Technology Week.

Marciano said the DOST has put out a tender last year for the satellite which was awarded to UK’s satellite manufacturer, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., for an £11-million contract for five years.

United Kingdom’s Ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce said at an earlier forum that it will provide 10 percent of the capacity of Novasar radar satellite to monitor Philippine territorial waters and identify ships coming into the country’s sea lanes.

Marciano said the contract is still being finalized and its operation may start within two months.

He ex plained that a lthough the satel lite has a lready been launched, it is “not yet ready to operate” because it is stil l

Dr. Joel Joseph Marciano Jr. (second from left), DOST-ASTI acting director, at the signing of memoranda of agreement on research collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (Namria). He is joined in the photo (from left) by Engr. Peter Antonio Banzon, chief research science specialist, DOST-ASTI; Dr. Rijaldia Santos, director, Namria; and Engr. Raul Magabo, senior science research specialist, Namria.

undergoing “characterization,” where its systems are tested one by one, and they are looking at the qua lit y of the data.

“Before we start operating it, we are doing very close testings.

It might be ready for commercial service maybe within the next two months,” added Marciano, who is also the head of Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation and Advancement (STAMINA4Space Program).

Marciano explained that with the satellite's radar payload, its imaging is not hampered by clouds

or at nighttime.

He said the maritime environment, besides the imaging of the waters, the presence of ships can be monitored through their automatic identification system (AIS), which is a standard requirement in large ships. This means that the satellite can receive the AIS signal from ships and can identify the ships.

When asked whether the radar satellite could exactly prevent incidents like that in the Reed Bank, Marciano said: “We can start with monitoring the area. We would know how many ships there are.

We can possibly identify the ships because they send out the [AIS] signal. And if they don’t send out a signal, but if we see [identify their presence] there, we can say ‘let us check the area because we are seeing ships here but for some reasons we are not receiving signals [from the ships],’” he said in mixed English and Filipino.

He added that the bidding for the satellite last year “was not prompted by a single event” or any maritime problem in the past, but it was triggered by a “long-standing need” because of the country’s

archipelagic situation.

This technology is significant for the Philippines, Marciano explained, because “we are an archipelago surrounded by water. We also have to be able to monitor, not only our land areas, but also our maritime routes, the fishermen who fish, the exclusive economic zones, etc.”

He added that the technology is not only needed for maritime monitoring but also for scientific pur poses.

“We want to study where the fishing activity is. We can see the marine resources utilization, where the fishermen go, and over time we could track them. [We] can extract valuable data where traditional fishing grounds are. So these maybe coupled with studies on the ground to determine overfishing, where they [fishermen] should go, what kind of marine [life there are.]” he explained.

He added that it could also be used for land areas, although marine is the prime motivation.

“With radar, features like fishpens, which might be difficult to see with vertical images, could be detected,” he said.

He said the Surrey satellite was awarded the bid because it qualified in the Philippines’s requirements, such as in terms of its visit time to the specific area, imaging of the whole country in certain number of days, and provide image day and night not impaired by cloud cover.

I.A.E.A. chief Yukiya Amano dies

PHL cited for cooperation on nuclear technology D

irector General Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who died last week, has visited the Philippines several times when he checked the country’s advances on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy as he commended the country in its extensive applications of nuclear technology in various fields.

Amano, a Japanese diplomat who led the IAEA for a decade and was extensively involved in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and the cleanup of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, has died at 72, the agency announced last week, The Associated Press said.

The latest of Amano’s visits to the Philippines was from February 7 to 10, 2018, when he witnessed the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the partnership between the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (DOST-PNRI).

The MOU was for the implementation of the IAEA Regional Technical Cooperation Project RAS0079 on Educating Secondary Students and Science Teachers on Nuclear Science and Technology, the PNRI said.

Seen as another milestone in the history of Atoms for Peace and Development in the country, the MOU was signed by Science Secretary Fortunato de la Peña and Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones, who was represented by DepEd Undersecretary Tonisito Umali. Amano witnessed the signing of the MOU. The Philippines has been a very active member of the IAEA since it was established in 1958 in Vienna, Amano said. The IAEA has various technical cooperation projects which were completed or are currently ongoing in the Philippines.

PHL as host country of IAEA education project

With the MOU, the Philippines is privileged to be the designated as host country for the new IAEA education project.

The objective of the project is to

help increase the interest of students in the Asia-Pacific region on science and technology in general, eventually leading to future careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

It also seeks to provide a more accurate perspective of nuclear concepts among secondary-school students, and a better understanding of nuclear and radiation applications in their daily lives, the DOST-PNRI said.

“I am confident that this project will lead to an increase in the number of bright young people who will take up their studies in the nuclear field in the coming years. They will then be wellplaced to contribute to the health, wellbeing and prosperity of their countries” Amano said, as he lauded the potential of students across the Asia-Pacific region to contribute to the regional development.

The four-year project will facilitate the training of secondary science teachers and students on nuclear S&T throughout the IAEA member-states through scientific visits, hosting of expert missions, and the conduct of regional and national seminars and workshops. Educational and learning resource materials on nuclear science will also be developed in various formats.

Along with Indonesia, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines previously participated as a pilot country in an earlier IAEA outreach project which introduced nuclear S&T in the region’s secondary schools.

The project was the result of the pilot education outreach project that started a few years back. Amano visited the Philippines in January 2015, where he interacted with the students, teachers and officials of Quezon City Science High School and San Francisco High School.

The two schools are the pilot schools in the IAEA outreach program aimed to encourage high-school students to engage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses and careers, par ticularly on nuclear science and technology.

more available in nuclear medicine centers throughout the country.

Nuke congress keynote speaker

Officials from the IAEA, DOST and DepEd pose for a photo after the signing of the memorandum of understanding for the implementation of the IAEA regional technical cooperation project for nuclear science education on February 8, 2018. With IAEA Director General Amano (fifth from left) are Science Secretary Fortunato de la Peña (fourth from left), Education Undersecretary Tonisito Umali (sixth from left), Science Undersecretary Rowena Guevara (third from left), Ambassador Maria Cleofe Natividad (eighth from left) and DOST-PNRI Director Dr. Carlo Arcilla (seventh from left). PNRI photo

Commended the Philippines

At the end of his one-and-a-half-day visit to the country on January 27 and 28, 2015, Amano commended the Philippines for its extensive applications and projects of nuclear technology in various fields, as well as its cooperation with other IAEA member-states.

“Your country is not only using these technologies for your purpose, but you are also helping other countries in sharing technology, in your region and beyond; this is very important, and I thank you for your cooperation,” Amano said in a statement delivered at the DOST-PNRI. The IAEA chief’s visit to the Philippines was part of his tour of the IAEA member-states of Southeast Asia, that included Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.

He emphasized the ever-increasing role of the IAEA and nuclear applications in the development of countries around the globe.

“In a sense, for me, the IAEA is not only ‘Atoms for Peace’ but ‘Atoms for Peace and Development,’ and this objective needs to be carried out by all the members of the IAEA,” he said.

Addressing questions from journalists

regarding the future of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), he said that “it is your country, your people, who decide whether nuclear power is good for your country or not.”

“The role of the IAEA is to help them [countries] when they decide to use nuclear power. What we do is to help them to use nuclear power safely, securely and sustainably,” he said.

IAEA-assisted facilities

In his January 2015 visit, Amano toured the latest facilities of the PNRI-DOST which received assistance from the IAEA— including the new Electron Beam Facility for more advanced irradiation applications, the Technetium-99m Generator Facility for the production of radiopharmaceuticals and the Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry Laborator y which will make isotope analytical services cheaper and more accessible to researchers.

He also visited the Centralized Medical Cyclotron Facility at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute. It is the second cyclotron to be established in the country that will help make PET radiopharmaceuticals

In December 2015, Amano keynoted the Third Philippine Nuclear Congress in Manila, where he cited that despite the nuclear-plant accident in Japan in 2011 that has led to the closure of all nuclear plants in that country, more than 400 nuclear power plants are still operational in 30 countries and more than 60 new reactors are being built.

He added that nuclear power could contribute to the mitigation of climate change because nuclear power “does not emit climate-change gas” because it emits minimum carbon.

It is one of the lowest emitters of carbon dioxide, when emissions through the entire life cycle are considered, he said.

“It contributes to the mitigation of climate change,” he told the congress, which has the theme “Meeting Challenges through Nuclear Science and Technology for Sustainable Growth.”

“Despite the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011, many countries believe nuclear power can help them to achieve the twin goals of increasing electricity supply while curbing greenhouse-gas emissions,” Amano said in a B usiness M irror news report.

He added that many countries use nuclear power in their energy mix because it can provide the steady supply of baseload electricity needed to power a modern economy.

Lessons learned; nuke power much safer now

He said safety is the key to the future development of nuclear power. The safety record of the nuclear industry “is actually very good.”

“But the Fukushima Daiichi accident was a painful reminder that a terrible accident can happen anywhere, even in a developed industrial country,” he said.

He, however, added that “necessary lessons have been learned” that “extensive improvements in safety have been put in place all over the world.”

He said that nuclear power “is much safer [now] than it was before the accident,” although “nuclear safety will always be a work in progress.”

Technologically, this is an “exciting time for nuclear power” because remarkable research is being done on new generations of reactors, which will be safer and generate less waste, he explained.

“I am confident that technological developments already in the pipeline will make nuclear power not just safer, but much more efficient. I look forward to the development of new nuclear technologies which can generate electricity at competitive prices, with reduced construction times and operating costs,” Amano said in the BusinessMirror story.

Nuclear power forum

Just over a year after he was elected as head of IAEA, Amano visited the P h i l i p p i n e s w h e n h e s p o ke at t h e opening session of the Nuclear Power Forum organized by Center for Energy Sustainability and Economics and Arc Media Global in Manila on December 10, 2010.

He said the IAEA has “provided assistance in strengthening the Philippines’s capabilities in nuclear science and technology, and energy planning,” as well as “advice on developing a Human Resource Development Plan for Nuclear Energy.”

At the forum, Amano said the Philippines “plays an important role at the global level, for example, by chairing the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”

The Philippines assumed presidency of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May 2010, which discussed the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, nonproliferation and disarmament of nations developing nuclear weapons.

Amano also visited the BNPP on December 11, 2010. At that time, Philippine government officials said the IAEA can assess the possible rehabilitation of the plant, which agency has been doing. Lyn Resurreccion

Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror

Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

ESCAPE TO SUBIC

Sunday, July 28, 2019

A7

Diamond Hotel revives long-forgotten Filipino dishes

Ciento Quinse, an extinct Chavacano dish

Subic Bay Freeport, an emerging cruise ship destination

S

Chef Christopher Carangian

Story & photos by Benjamin Locsin Layug

ubic never fails to impress me, being the best place to be when it comes to outdoor activities (cruising, animal safaris, jungle adventures, etc.) and I was not one to refuse joining a three-day/two-night media tour to this recreation haven.

Our temporary home during our three-day stay was to be the handsome, modern and sleek Le Charme Suites Subic, a 46-room, accidental hotel (it was supposed to be a furniture showroom). Within the building are a number of food and beverage outlets including the in-house Mi Tapas, which promotes LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability), as well as the ground floor Teppan 101 (a teppanyaki grill restaurant) and Shabu Shabu (for Japanese nabemono hotpot dishes).

After checking in and freshening up at the hotel, we proceeded, come late afternoon, to the nearby Subic Bay Yacht Club where we were to be treated to an hour-long sunset cruise on board the SBYC-based Selma Star C! Calibre, a yacht owned and skippered

by The Lighthouse Marina Resort President Jesus “Jun” Avecilla Jr. This 36.7-footer Beneteau cruiser racer yacht is a five-time winner of the Borneo International Yachting Challenge in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, as well as the grand prize winner in the Singapore Straits Regatta in 2006, and the ManilaBoracay race in 2006 and 2008.

During our cruise, we espied a variety of watercraft, from local

wooden motorized outrigger boats, luxury yachts, sailboats, speedboats, dinghies, Philippine and US Navy ships, and larger oceangoing vessels. Of course, the piece de resistance of our cruise was the beautiful fiery sunset over the mountains of Zambales.

During our stay, we experienced some of the recreational activities Subic is famous for right inside this “bike-friendly” hotel (it has bike racks to hang your bike in every room plus a wide and spacious elevator for bringing in a bike and other recreational equipment). Some of the ladies burned calories during an early morning spin bike session beside the halfOlympic size swimming pool, or tried their luck at the outdoor rock climbing wall which reaches up to the four-story height of the building. They also toured around Subic itself on board rented bikes. Come evening, we rested tired muscles with a sauna and massage at Tai Chi Wellness Spa. Of course, any visit to Subic is never complete without visiting any of its world-class theme parks. At the sprawling, 25-hectare Zoobic Safari, we got up close and personal with lions and tigers inside their cages, as well as thick-skinned,

Warik-warik from Northern Luzon

By Gelyka Ruth R. Dumaraos

Camayan Beach Resort is right next door to Ocean Adventure open water marine theme park

long-bodied carnivorous saltwater crocodiles from Palawan in their carefully designed natural habitat; traversed the Savannah Trail via an open, red and blue Zoobic Safari train; observed a rare collection of real stuffed animals and skeletons; and watched a group of Aetas perform the dragonfly dance and war dance at the Aeta Village.

We even got to pet a lion cub (while feeding it milk from a bottle) and a juvenile crocodile (of course, with its mouth taped shut).

The highlight of the tour was the Tiger Safari where we had a close encounter with full grown, 500+ pound tigers (we can really see his teeth) within the confines of our customized, colorfully painted “safari” jeepney.

After a delightful and filling lunch at the beachfront restaurant of Camayan Beach Resort, we proceeded to the nearby worldclass Ocean Adventure, the first open-water marine park facility in Southeast Asia. During the 30-minute Dolphin Friends Show at the open, 700-seat El Capitan

Stadium, we watched bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus gili) from Japan show off their skills like walking on water, doing somersaults, synchronized swimming and, finally, swimming with their trainers and catapulting them in the air.

Come morning of our third and last day, we proceeded to the Pamulaklakin Forest Trail, an ecotourism park, where we met up with Aeta tribal elder Dominador Liwanag. Fondly called “Tata Kasoy,” he is a renowned instructor of the Jungle Environmental Survival Training course offered to tourists and American servicemen. Wearing his traditional red bahag and headscarf, he demonstrated to us how to start a fire, make cooking utensils and cook food using the versatile bamboo. After the demo, the others made a short trek to explore the dense forest. Back at the hotel and prior to leaving for Manila, we completed our Subic fun experience by experiencing advanced virtual reality immersion at The Cube.

The bike-friendly Le Charme Suites Subic

Dolphins strutting their stuff at Ocean Adventure.

Pancit Langlang of Imus, Cavite

T

he Diamond Hotel retraced the roots of Filipino flavors as it partnered with culinary heritage Chef Christopher Carangian recently for its annual Filipino food festival.

With a zeal in reintroducing local and traditional dishes for the younger generation, Carangian prepared a gastronomic adventure at the Corniche restaurant, covering long-forgotten dishes from different regions in the country.

“These days, the food that usually becomes more popular are those which are influenced by other countries,” Carangian said. “Filipino food, most especially the ones that are part of our culture and tradition, disappears from the circulation because there are very few demands of it.”

The dishes include the Pancit Langlang of Imus, Cavite, first made popular in El Filibusterismo by Dr. Jose Rizal and made with sotanghon noodles, chicken meat and eggs, quail eggs, shrimps, and vegetables.

The Warik-warik, originated from Northern Luzon, is reminiscent of the Capampangan sisig and the Ilocano’s dinakdakan.

Warik-warik, which liempo cuts are infused with ginger and other aromatic ingredients, is once part of a ritual seeking for gods’ wisdom.

One of Carangian’s favorites, the Ciento Quince, is an extinct Chavacano dish, which combines seafood with liempo. Carangian shared that while he researched for all the other Filipino dishes, he accidentally discovered this dish while attending a wake. One of his friends suddenly shared that Ciento Quince was his favorite dish being prepared by his mother.

He added that in modern

times, ginataang langka dishes in Cavite City and other neighboring towns in Cavite are reminiscent of Ciento Quince, but differ with the ingredients used. For one, Tagaytay City’s ginataang langka recipes are usually paired with wild pig. In coastal areas, seafood like shrimp and crabs are included in the dishes. For those in a budget, kangkong and snails are usually used.

He revealed that these dishes were all-natural, no food enhancers, which ingredients can be picked from one’s backyard.

Carangian is also the founder and president of Razorchef Philippines and Punong Heneral of the Culinary Generals of the Philippines. The group was formed

by Carangian and Angelo Aguinaldo, one of Emilio Aguinaldo’s great grandson, where they first featured the favorite dishes of the country’s first president.

“We are very fortunate that Diamond Hotel is one with our goal of reintroducing long-forgotten Filipino dishes,” he added.

“We are sincere in offering these dishes that are really far from the modern food we have today.

Carangian added that if only the young ones today can try the dishes from the past, they can appreciate more how simple these can be prepared.

He said, “This way, we can promore, too, our local ingredients.

Generally, we envision a new generation who are aware of our culinary heritage and continue to pass it on to future generations.”

Diamond Hotel holds its annual Philippine Food Festival every June in line with the country’s celebration of Independence Day. Corniche restaurant also recreated the Malolos Congress Wine Dinner of 1898, wherein the proclamation of Philippine Independence was ratified in Bulacan.

‘Nurture parks as cradle of nationalism’–new NPDC exec

T

o restore Rizal Park’s old glory as a cradle of Filipino nationalism, as well as to make it the Philippines’s beacon to world, are the two things that Cecille Lorenzana-Romero immediately thought of upon being designated executive director of the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC).

Romero took her oath on July 9 officiated by Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat. The NPDC is an attached agency of Department of Tourism, mandated by Executive Orders 30 and 69 “to develop, preserve and manage Rizal Park, and Paco Park in Manila, and

other national parks that may be assigned to it.”

The 45-year-old new NPDC administrator brings the vision and passion of a 14-year veteran of grade school and high-school teacher, and years of marketing experience.

“I am elated with the opportunity to serve the public under the Duterte administration and there is no ideal place to do it other than the Rizal Park, the site of our national hero’s martyrdom that made Luneta’s hallowed ground the bedrock of patriotism,” says Romero.

She points out that it is the authentic and enduring historical features that make

53-hectare Rizal Park, and the 1-hectare Paco Park very compelling to visit for both foreign and domestic tourists especially at this time of revival of nationalism.

“Ultimately, Rizal Park must remain a true people’s park where Filipino families can commune with nature and have fun,” says Romero, an environmental advocate since her highschool days in Assumption College Makati and in the University of the Philippines where she graduated Mass Communication.

Students, in particular, must have a stake in Rizal Park’s preservation as it provides them

the open space and greenery that most of the local schools lack. “It’s where our young people, whom Dr. Rizal said are the hope of our Motherland, must have free access to scientific study of the exotic trees and the Philippines’s flora and fauna,” says Romero, admitting she cannot help sounding like a teacher.

“It also reminds me of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which inspired Arch. Daniel Burnham to design Rizal Park as a sprawling government center during the early days of American occupation,” adds Romero.

The NPDC executive director says she hopes

to strengthen partnership with the Intramuros Administration and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority to develop integrated public tours of Rizal’s Shrine in Fort Santiago and Rizal Park.

Meanwhile, Romero says she intends to hit the ground running as she welcomes Manila Mayor Isko Moreno’s initiative to rejuvenate tourism in the nation’s capital city.

“We should not waste time cleaning it up and make it environmentally sustainable, safe and secure as it was in its glorious days, a world-class model park,” says Romero.

TOURISM Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat welcomes the newly inducted NPDC Executive Director Cecille Lorenzana-Romero.

Sports BusinessMirror

A8 Sunday, July 28, 2019

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

AMERICAN beach volleyball player Trevor Crabb cools off in a bucket of ice water after competing during a test event at Shiokaze Park, a venue for beach volleyball at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, on Friday. AP

At the Shiokaze Park on Tokyo Bay, the venue for the beach volleyball competition, organizers cooled off the sand with water from firefightergrade hoses. Some athletes immersed themselves in giant buckets of ice water while others used ice packs to beat the heat.

MEMBERS of the Cleanfuel-Motul Racing Team—(from left) Tetsuya Omura, Cleanfuel-Motul Racing Team coach; Ai Koizumi, head mechanic; Ryo Yamada; Marco Atienza, team manager; celebrity racer Dominic Roque; and Taeil Lee, assistant mechanic—in action.

National Electrification Administration Project Manager: Haydee Dimawala

A BusinessMirror Special Feature

Sunday, July 28, 2019

B1

NEA’S GOLDEN YEAR CELEBRATES ITS 13 MILLIONTH CONSUMER CONNECTION

T

By Leony R. Garcia

HE National Electrification Administration (NEA) marks it’s 50th founding anniversary with a series of activities and events for its stakeholders to commemorate the significant event.

Created as an institution in 1969 through Republic Act No. 6038, the NEA is mandated to carry out the total electrification of the country on an area coverage basis.

Since then, the electrification agency, in partnership with the 121 ECs across the country, has come a long way in bringing the nation's rural and remote areas out of darkness.

For the past five decades, all the 90 cities and 1,385 municipalities covering 78 provinces in the country have been electrified by the NEA and the ECs, being the implementing arm of the government.

Moreover, a total of 36,057 of the 36,065 or 99 percent of the barangays nationwide have been energized.

Based on 2015 census of 15,416,144 potential households, 85 percent or 13,027,402, which

translate into nearly 61 million Filipinos in the countryside are enjoying the benefits of electricity.

Highlighting NEA and Electric Cooperatives’ milestones this year is the symbolic switch-on of the 13 millionth consumer connection which is located at the upland villages of Malungon, Sarangani.

Feliza Pangilan: the 13-millionth EC MCO of SOCOTECO-II

NEA Administrator Edgardo Masongsong traveled to one of the farthest off-grid communities of the province on July 12 to lead the ceremonial switch-on of the solar home systems (SHS) distributed among the residents of Sitio Kitbog in Barangay Poblacion.

This is a first in the history of rural electrification, as the million

milestone household connections the NEA and its partner ECs celebrated in the past were all connected to power distribution grids.

Feliza Pangilan, 76-year old farmer and member of the B’laan tribe, is the 13-millionth EC member-consumer-owner under the care of the South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative, Inc. (SOCOTECO-II).

Her house, which sits on a mountainous landscape, is now brightened by a basic SHS unit equipped with a small solar panel, battery, charge controller, LED lights, transistor radio and a universal outlet for charging mobile phones.

Before electricity, Pangilan had been using torches for lighting. After decades of living in the dark, she is now grateful for the solar panels that light up not only her home but that of her neighbors as well.

Speaking in Sarangani B’laan, she thanked the NEA, DOE, SOCOTECO-II and everyone involved in the project for choosing their community as among the beneficiaries of the ASEP in the country.

Off-grid homestead electrification

MASONGSONG admitted that bringing power to the hardest-toreach “last mile”communities is not an easy task, as logistical, financial continued on B3

B2

National Electrifica

A BusinessMirr

Sunday, July 28, 2019 | www.businessmirror.com.ph

NEA @ 50: ONE WITH ECS AND MCOS FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT

CELEBRATING NEA’S EXISTENCE AND IT’S VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS FOR THE NATION

A

By Leony R. Garcia

S of December 2018, the National Electrification Administration (NEA) posted a total collection for the year’s operation the amount of P2.263 billion against amortizations due of P2.223 billion or collection efficiency of 100%.

This made NEA one of the best performing government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) who’s mandate is to carry out total electrification in remote areas of our country.

Indeed, there could never be a socio-cultural, economic development without electricity.

The growth and economic development that in the country, is due to the Rural Electrification Programs (REP) of the NEA.

The REP is part of the national government's efforts to reach out to the Filipinos, especially the poorest of the poor living in the remote and far-flung communities across the country.

NEA’s 50th anniversary this year is aptly themed, “NEA @50: One with ECs and MCOs for Sustainable Rural Development,” celebrating the number of years of NEA’s existence but also the valuable contributions it made for the nation.

NEA granted loan assistance to 19 ECs

A total of 19 electric cooperatives (ECs) availed of loan assistance worth P395 million from NEA as of end-June this year.

The NEA said the amount would be used to bankroll the EC’s capital expenditure projects and working capital requirement.

These include construction of

Electric Cooperatives Emergency and Resiliency Fund Act (ECERF)

sub-transmission and distribution lines, substations, office buildings, rehabilitation and upgrading of distribution system and mini hydro power plant, and acquisition of vehicles and other logistical support.

The loan assistance is part of the fast-track lane being implemented by the NEA, which has supervisory powers over 121 ECs in the country as mandated under Republic Act 10531.

Among those ECs that availed loans were those operating in Pangasinan, Ilocos Norte, Tarlac, Laguna, Occidental Mindoro, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, Ticao Island, Capiz, Zamboanga del Norte, Bukidnon, Davao del Norte, Cotabato, Sulu, Siasi, Agusan del Sur, Dinagat Island and

Surigao del Sur.

The NEA said it also extended P10 million in calamity loan to support the rehabilitation works of the Abra Electric Cooperative. The amount was meant to finance the rehabilitation of the distribution system and other facilities of Abreco that were damaged by Typhoon Ompong (Mangkhut) last year.

For this year, the NEA has targeted P450 million for its financial assistance to ECs through various loan windows. The amount is lower compared with last year’s P1.7 billion target.

“The NEA continues to find ways to assist our ECs in the implementation of their electrification projects,” NEA Administrator Edgardo Masongsong said.

PASSED into law on June 29, 2018, RA 11039 provides an orderly and continuing means of financial assistance to ECs in the form of grants for disaster mitigation, preparedness and rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure after a fortuitous event or force majeure.

Under the law, the NEA will manage and administer the ECERF, which will have an initial amount of P750 million to be taken from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (NDRRM) Fund and will be released to the NEA Quick Response Fund for proper release to qualified ECs. In case of fund deficiency, the NEA may seek the allocation of a supplementary budget, subject to the approval of the President.

The NEA may also accept donations in the form of funds, materials and equipment intended for the restoration and rehabilitation of the ECs' damaged infrastructure, subject to existing auditing rules and regulations and shall be exempt from taxes and duties.

In turn, the ECs shall implement the rural electrification program nationwide as well as ensure the preparedness and mitigation measures to protect the infrastructure from the adverse impact of any fortuitous event or force majeure.

The Proposed Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of ECERF was approved by the NEA Board of Administrators on December 7, 2018 under Board Resolution No. 208.

Capacity Building Program for EC Personnel

IN line with the policy of the state as enunciated in Section 2 (c) of RA 10531 to empower and enable the ECs to cope with the changes brought about by the restructuring of the power industry, the NEA conducted various competency seminars and training programs for the personnel of the ECs attended by 3,298 participants.

Essentially, the seminars and training programs were designed to enhance the core values and FIT skills of the personnel of the ECs to bring about marked improvement in the ECs’ operational efficiency and financial viability.

ISO 9001:2015 Certification

ANCHORED on its Good Governance Agenda, the Agency was able to hurdle the ISO 9001:2015 Surveillance Audit conducted by TÜV Rheinland Philippines, Inc. on December 5, 2018 covering the scope “Provision of Financial, Institutional, Technical and Legal Assistance to the Electric Cooperatives (ECs) which in turn undertake power distribution on an area coverage basis.”

Customer Satisfaction Survey

NEA continuously espouses good corporate governance in order to provide better service to the ECs. This was clearly manifested in the result/report submitted by Contact Asia Services Inc. (CASI) Research, the third-party service provider for the conduct of the EC Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS). The overall satisfaction rating garnered by NEA is at 4.50 or 90%; both scores translate to the verbal interpretation of “Very Satisfied.”

The CSS covered six items namely: Staff and Organization, Regulatory: Policies, Regulatory: Application, Financing, Information and Communication and Facilities. Overall, NEA’s offices/ departments were rated by the respondents with the average levels of satisfaction ranging from “Satisfied” to “Very Satisfied”.

Mobilization of Task Forces

TASK Force Ompong. In September 2018, Typhoon Ompong (Mangkhut) made landfall in Baggao, Cagayan. Ompong has maximum winds of 205 km/h and gustiness of up to 285 km/h. Though it was not a super typhoon under PAGASA’s classification system, it was a powerful tropical cyclone with a huge diameter of 900 kilometers.

A task force composed of electric cooperatives (ECs) from Central Luzon headed north to help restore power in areas left in the dark. Dubbed as “Power Restoration Rapid Deployment Task Force Ompong,” the team augmented the manpower of the typhoon-affected ECs and provided the necessary assistance to restore the electricity service as safely and as quickly as possible.

Task Force Rosita. Typhoon Rosita (Yutu) made landfall in Dinapigue, Isabela on October 30, 2018. The storm came more than a month after Typhoon Ompong left a path of destruction in 19 provinces in Luzon, including Isabela and Quirino. This prompted NEA and ECs to mobilize the Task Force Kapatid (TFK) to help restore power in the provinces of Isabela and Quirino.

TFK is a time and tested spirit of Bayanihan among ECs’ Compact of Cooperation.

TFK pools together volunteers from different ECs to render volunteer service to other ECs which need technical help like energization of hard-to-reach places, to the rehabilitation of dilapidated or damaged electric distribution lines.

EC Overall Performance Assessment

THE 2017 EC Overall Performance Assessment showed an increase in the number of power distribution utilities that are fully compliant with the key performance standards (KPS) of the NEA. Based on the results, the ECs that were rated AAA rose to 87 from 78 in 2016. Of these, 33 ECs received an overall score of 100, which is higher than the 24 ECs that garnered 100 points from the previous assessment.

Meanwhile, all power distributors in Regions VI (Western Visayas), VII (Central Visayas) and CARAGA attained AAA rating, making them the highest performers. Region VIII is the most improved region with 10 of its 11 ECs earning the AAA categorization from the state-run agency.

Additionally, the assessment revealed 76 ECs maintained their AAA status while 20 ECs showed improvement in ratings, 11 of which were to AAA categorization level. The NEA evaluates and determines the overall performance ratings of all ECs annually using the two criteria - KPS (80%) and EC Classification (20%).

The AAA rating is the highest score given by the NEA to ECs that indicates the power distributors' full compliance on four parameters, namely financial, institutional, technical and reportorial requirements. The D rating is the lowest.

Scores and their corresponding ratings are as follows: 95-100 = AAA; 90-94 = AA; 85-89 = A; 75-84 = B; 50-74 = C; and 49 and below = D.

Results of the recent assessment also showed that 83 percent or a total of 101 out of the 121 ECs supervised by the agency have notched either AAA, AA or A status last year. Of the remaining 20 ECs, four improved their performance either from C to B or D to C; 13 ECs manifested improvement in total scores while three retained their performance level.

ation Administration

ror Special Feature

www.businessmirror.com.ph | Sunday, July 28, 2019

NEA’S GOLDEN YEAR CELEBRATES ITS 13 MILLIONTH CONSUMER CONNECTION continued from B1

and topographical problems in the implementation of the rural electrification program remain across the country.

“This magnifies the biggest challenge we are facing to achieve the target of 100 percent total household electrification by 2022, since the Philippines is an archipelagic country,” he said.

But with the support of the national government and international agencies, the NEA continues to explore different strategies such as establishing minigrids and providing small-scale power solutions to extend electrification services to other missionary areas.

Electrifying Sitio Kitbog was made possible under the Photovoltaic Mainstreaming Program of the Department of Energy (DOE) funded by the European Union-Access to Sustainable Energy Programme (EU-ASEP) through World Bank.

As an attached agency of the DOE, the NEA administered

the project across Mindanao through its partnership with the ECs. Around 2,500 households in Malungon, including Pangilan, benefitted from the program with the assistance of SOCOTECO-II.

“Small-scale, distributed solar home systems provide an effective and affordable way to bring light to people without electricity.

Though small in power, solar home systems can bring immense changes to the lives of the people it serves,” Masongsong said.

SOCOTECO-II: non-profit distribution utility

SOCOTECO-II general manager Crisanto Sotelo, meanwhile, is proud to have been part of this milestone in the history of rural electrification, adding that his EC remains committed to improve its 63-percent electrification level.

The non-profit distribution utility serves General Santos City, Sarangani, and the municipalities of Tupi and Polomolok in South Cotabato. SOCOTECO-II plans to

issue additional 7,500 SHS units to other remote households within its franchise area.

For her part, Malungon Mayor Maria Theresa Constantino also expressed gratitude to SOCOTECO-II and the national government for reaching out to the indigenous communities of her municipality and helping to address their needs.

“We will be responsible for the sustainability of this program.

And by sustaining this, God will be glorified, he will pour out blessings upon this town,” she said, hoping that more social projects will come to Malungon for its development.

During switch on ceremony, the NEA also distributed 50 solar lamps to Sitio Kitbog residents as part of the agency’s corporate social responsibility initiative.

Malungon, incidentally, celebrates its 50th founding anniversary this year just like the NEA. For the past five decades, the rural electrification agency and its partner ECs have energized a total

of 90 cities, 1,385 municipalities and 36,057 barangays nationwide.

NEA @50: One with ECs and MCOs for Sustainable Rural Development

“THIS is an opportune time for us to celebrate the gains of Rural Electrification. The success of the Program has been made possible not only with NEA spearheading the electrification efforts of the national government but especially so with the solid partnership of the Electric Cooperatives (ECs) all over the country as our implementing arm, together with the ECs’ MemberConsumer-Owners (MCOs)” said Vicar Loureen Lofranco, the NEA Deputy Administrator for Electric Cooperatives Management Services.

“The road to sustainable rural development has been paved through rural electrification. We need to reinforce the strategic partnership of the NEA-ECs-MCOs in attaining the shared goal for an improved life of our Filipino people, especially in the rural

communities,” she added.

NEA-ECs-MCOs Convention on Rural Electrification

TAKING center stage to this year’s month-long celebration will be the three-day convention to be held at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City from August 6 to 8 tagged as NEAECs-MCOs Convention on Rural Electrification.

In this convention, the NEA will feature the hurdles and success stories in the implementation of the Rural Electrification Program (REP) since its establishment in 1969.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is expected to deliver his Keynote Speech in the Opening Program and witness the unveiling of the NEA 50th Anniversary commemorative stamp and the ceremonial switchon of the milestone 13 millionth consumer connection.

The convention is expected to gather over 1,500 participants from the electrification sector, including key officials from

B3

the government, ECs, EC Allied organizations, as well as representatives from MCOs. Other activities lined up to highlight the celebration include Himig RE (song-writing contest), Kuwentong Dagitab (video documentary), Golden Strokes (painting), and Clicks of Gold (photography) competitions.

10th National Electrification Awareness Month

PROCLAMATION No. 1743, s. 2009 was signed by then President GLORIA MACAPAGALARROYO declaring August of every year as the “National Electrification Awareness Month”, to coincide with the anniversary of the National Electrification Administration. The proclamation enjoins all government corporations, government agencies, private electric distribution utilities, including the electric cooperatives to participate actively in the observance of this event and to give full publicity and recognition to the vital significance of the electrification program in nation building.

The celebration will be concluded with a nationwide tree-planting and line clearing activities to be simultaneously carried out by all ECs supervised by the NEA on August 30.

National Electrification Administration B4

A BusinessMirror Special Feature

Sunday, July 28, 2019

www.businessmirror.com.ph

NEA MARKS NEW MILESTONE WITH OFF-GRID HOMESTEAD ELECTRIFICATION D

ESPITE light rains and muddy terrains, the National Electrification Administration (NEA) made it to the upland villages of Malungon, Sarangani to mark the official energization of the 13-millionth household consumer connection of electric cooperatives (ECs) in the country.

NEA Administrator Edgardo Masongsong traveled to one of the farthest off-grid communities of the province on Friday (July 12) to lead the ceremonial switch-on of the solar home systems (SHS) distributed among the residents of Sitio Kitbog in Barangay Poblacion.

This is a first in the history of rural electrification, as the million milestone household connections the NEA and its partner ECs celebrated in the past were all connected to power distribution grids.

Feliza Pangilan, a 76-year old farmer and member of the B’laan tribe, is the 13-millionth EC member-consumer-owner under the care of the South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative, Inc. (SOCOTECO-II).

Her house, which sits on a mountainous landscape, is now brightened by a basic SHS unit equipped with a small solar panel, battery, charge controller, LED lights, transistor radio and a universal outlet for charging mobile phones.

Masongsong admitted that bringing power to the hardest-to-reach "last mile" communities is not an easy task, as logistical, financial and topographical problems in the implementation of the rural electrification program remain across the country.

“This magnifies the biggest challenge we are facing to achieve the target of 100 percent total household electrification by 2022, since the Philippines is an archipelagic country,” he said in his speech.

But with the support of the national government and international agencies, the NEA continues to explore different strategies such as establishing mini-grids and providing small-scale power solutions to extend electrification services to other missionary areas.

Electrifying Sitio Kitbog was made possible under the Photovoltaic Mainstreaming Program of the Department of Energy (DOE) funded by the European Union-Access to Sustainable Energy Programme (EU-ASEP) through World Bank.

As an attached agency of the DOE, the NEA administered the project across Mindanao through its partnership with the ECs. Around 2,500 households in Malungon, including Pangilan, benefitted from the program with the assistance of SOCOTECO-II.

“Small-scale, distributed solar home systems provide an effective and affordable way to bring light to people without electricity… Though small in power, solar home systems can bring immense changes to the lives of the people it serves,” Masongsong said.

Before electricity, Pangilan had been using torches for lighting. After decades of living in the dark, she is now grateful for the solar panels that light up not only her home but that of her neighbors as well.

Speaking in Sarangani B’laan, she thanked the NEA, DOE, SOCOTECO-II and everyone involved in the project for choosing their community as among the beneficiaries of the ASEP in the country.

SOCOTECO-II general manager Crisanto Sotelo, meanwhile, is proud to have been part of this milestone in the history of rural electrification, adding that his EC remains committed to improve its 63-percent electrification level.

The non-profit distribution utility serves General Santos City, Sarangani, and the municipalities of Tupi and Polomolok in South Cotabato. SOCOTECO-II plans to issue additional 7,500 SHS units to other remote households within its franchise area.

For her part, Malungon Mayor Maria Theresa Constantino also expressed gratitude to SOCOTECOII and the national government for reaching out to the indigenous communities of her municipality and helping to address their needs.

“We will be responsible for the sustainability

of this program. And by sustaining this, God will be glorified, he will pour out blessings upon this town,” she said, hoping that more social projects will come to Malungon for its development.

During the ceremony, the NEA also distributed 50 solar lamps to Sitio Kitbog residents as part of the agency’s corporate social responsibility initiative.

Malungon, incidentally, celebrates its 50th

founding anniversary this year just like the NEA. For the past five decades, the rural electrification agency and its partner ECs have energized a total of 90 cities, 1,385 municipalities and 36,057 barangays nationwide.

Based on a 2015 census of 15,416,144 potential households, 85 percent or 13,027,402—translating to nearly 61 million Filipinos in the countryside—are currently enjoying the benefits of electricity.

Angel Beats Play School offers second chances for children with special needs

Story by Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas Photos by Izzy Toledo

T

HE downpour failed to dampen the spirit of Teacher JC, properly known as, Juan Carlo Candido C. Saquin.

For Saquin, that Saturday in June was a culmination of more than 24 months of building—building capital, building a following, building hope—as he stood in front of a bigger school where he hopes children with special needs could have a second chance.

“This is it,” Saquin said as he opened the doors of his envisioned play school for “second chances” at the second floor of a commercial building along Apolinario Mabini

Avenue in Caloocan City.

A blue sign, with embossed letters spelling out “Angel Beats Play and Development Center” in white, hangs on the door and welcome guests, students and parents to the 82-square-meter unit.

Saquin switches on the lights and the signage lit like a sun peeking through thick clouds that rainy day.

A door on the left leads to the Play School area proper where a wall-installed shoe rack welcomes entrants. On the right is a closed-door room that Saquin said is dedicated to play therapy.

A new haven

THE walls scream vitality: light, vibrant and pastel colors with murals of trees, grasses, landscapes and columns of colors surround the room.

The ceiling whispers tranquility: a sea of blue hue fills the panels from corner to corner with cotton candy-like white clouds floating.

Lights line up the ceiling, appearing like a constellation in darkness.

A slide and a climbing deck stands in the

2 BusinessMirror

middle of the area.

Three colorful rooms are located to the right. The first room is painted red-and-white resembling a canteen, a second painted plain blue and the third painted in plain red.

Plastic chairs of different colors are stacked on one side.

“I want this to be a special school for children who wants to be prepared for challenges and also for second chances,” the 29-year-old Play Therapist and Occupational Therapist Saquin said.

Not satisfied

TWO years ago, this was all a dream for Saquin, who was 27 that time.

Together with long-time partner Eunigem Angeles, 25, they opened Angel Beats in the Summer of 2017.

The school occupied a 28-sqm unit in a mixed residential-commercial building.

They covered the walls with pastel-colored wallpapers, installed a 32-inch LCD TV and sneaked in a small slide.

Saquin borrowed P500,000 to kick-start

JULY 28, 2019

their new-found business. The amount was raised from a bank loan of P200,000 while the rest he borrowed from his mother who’s an overseas Filipino worker.

He told the BusinessMirror he got the idea of putting up a play school after his “horrible” experience as a “shadow teacher” in a school in West Avenue.

Four years in the work, he realized that the education system for children with special needs has a lot of loopholes.

For one, it doesn’t cater to the needs of every kid, especially of those with special needs, Saquin said.

“So, I told my girlfriend [Angeles], why don’t we open a play school? And so we did.”

Getting education

SAQUIN was taking up a Master’s degree on Communication Disorder at the University of Visayas when they put up Angel Beats.

Both he and Angeles still had full-time jobs when they opened the school. They also hired two teacher assistants.

“We thought that there was really a big

BusinessMirror

MUSIC

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PHOTO FROM IMAGO’S FACEBOOK PAGE

BRINGING THE SUNSHINE

KIARA SAN LUIS ON LIVING HER MUSIC DREAM WITH IMAGO

I

byRick Olivares

MAGO’S set at the 70’s Bistro on a rainy Tuesday evening had just started when Kiara San Luis, the band’s new vocalist, paused and uttered, “Kinakabahan po ako.”

Guitarist Tim Cacho smiled then offered, “Okay lang ‘yan.”

The rest of the band—bassist Myrene Academia, drummer Mervin Panganiban, and July XIV guitarist Conrad Javier filling in for Zach Lucero who was out of town–

beamed.

It was a beam with bright hues of satisfaction, one of like an older sibling dotting on the young one, and mayhap, that smile as if to say, “we’ve got something here.”

That “something” is someone.

Kiara San Luis was in her final year at Miriam College and working on her Communications Arts degree when she got a message from Lucero expressing interest to come in as Imago’s new vocalist after Mayumi Gomez got married and moved abroad.

“I used to post videos of myself singing and playing acoustically and now I’m in an actual music video with Imago,” related Kiara.

“Is this for real?”

The band has had two previous talented and pretty vocalists in Aia De Leon and Mayumi Gomez and following in their footsteps can be a daunting task. “The pressure of following them hit me only when I began performing with Imago,” revealed San Luis.

“I just told her to be herself and not try to imitate Aia or Mayumi,”

advised Academia; something that all the other band members echoed at one point or another.

“One of my favorite Imago songs is ‘Akap’ (from the second album, Take 2), and I asked the members what it meant but Tim, Zach, and Myrene said that it means something different to everyone so try not to worry about it and interpret it on my own. So I sing it the way I can but with a lot of respect for what Aia brought into the song.”

Tuesday night at 70s Bistro, San Luis is singing a song written with her in mind. It was also the launch of their new music video of their latest single, “Pag-Ibig na Walang Balik”. Lucero wrote the song in an hour.

Continued on page 6

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JULY 28, 2019 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

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SONY MUSIC PHILI ROSTER OF FILIPIN

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HE international record label has officially welcomed its newest batch of established and upcoming homegrown music acts as part of the growing family.

Led by award-winning folk-pop act Ben&Ben, whose debut full-length album, Limasawa Street recently garnered universal acclaim and impressive streaming numbers to no surprise, Sony Music Philippines’s current roster now includes indie pop-rock outfit the vowels they orbit, young hip-hop prodigy Alex Bruce, folk pop sensation syd hartha, and Wanderband runner-up Nathan & Mercury. As a collective, the latest lineup offers a refreshing spin to the dominant sounds of our time while maintaining a distinctly defined music brand that is at par with global standards.

Ben&Ben, one of the most

SYD HARTA

streamed Filipino artists of all time, has enjoyed commercial success on radio airplays, digital streaming and album sales, merchandise and touring. With Sony Music’s massive reach and impressive multimedia presence, the ninepiece powerhouse is set to build their growing international portfolio further with their brand of crossover, world-infused folk rock that’s taking the country by storm.

Sony PH’s latest signed band the vowels they orbit peaked at #2 on Spotify Philippines Top 50 Viral Charts with their debut single “Selos.” The band’s maiden release talks about “one-sided jealousy,”

SONY MUSIC PHILIPPINES TEAM WITH THEIR NEW ROSTER OF MUSIC ARTISTS

THE VOWELS THEY ORBIT

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soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | JULY 28, 2019

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SIC ON PRINT

IPPINES REVEALS NO MUSIC ARTISTS

BEN & BEN

putting into light a normal situation that one goes through in a romantic relationship.

Another hard-hitting act to watch out for is 12-yearold Pinay rapper Alex Bruce, whose first single “Pull It Off” reached the top 3 of Wave 89.1 charts. One of her songs from the Wish 107.5 Bus guesting in 2018 recently hit more than a million views—a testament to her growing online portfolio.

Sony Music Philippines is also looking forward to cultivating the potential of new artists such as singer-songwriter syd hartha,

NATHAN & MERCURY

ALEX BRUCE

who made a bold statement via the empowering, feminist anthem “ayaw.” Her first official single also topped Jam 88.3’s weekly countdown for a week. Then there’s Nathan & Mercury—a soul-infused alternative outfit who opened for international music stars such as Honne, Clairo, The Kooks, and Two Door Cinema Club this year at Wanderland Music Festival

2019 and earned a nomination at the MYX Music Awards for Favorite Bandarito Performance.

The group—which includes Alex Samonte, Angelo Sison, Daniel Monong and Nathan Huang— fuses elements of pop and R&B with experimentations on jazz, hip-hop, soul, and funk, making it almost impossible to box them in a single genre.

Photos by Trixy Gosadan

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JULY 28, 2019 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

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MUSIC ON PRINT

THE VIRTUES OF A BAND ON THE ROAD

American metalcore crew Of Virtue in Manila L

by Rick Olivares

ANSING, Michigan is almost 13,000 kilometers away from Manila.

Yet on a humid Saturday evening, three of the five members of metalcore band Of Virtue finds themselves performing at the Finite Fest 2019: The Gathering at the One Two Three Block along with two other bands from Hong Kong as well as a smattering of Filipino crews.

“Country number 30,” points out Of Virtue vocalist Tyler Ennis.

The Philippines is the band’s 30th country to visit across three continents.

Of Virtue is logging some serious flyer miles.

Right now, the band is on tour in support of their third album, What Defines You. And the title of the album fits the band perfectly at this point as they reflect on life, being in a band, and being thousands of miles away from home.

Of Virtue—guitarists Damon Tate and Michael Valadez, and Ennis—are on the road without bassist John Fox and drummer Kyle Pruehs who remained home to deal with some family concerns. The brought in a session drummer to sub for Pruehs while Tate manned the bass.

“I think our song ‘I Won’t Break’ from the new album really defines us at this point,” shared Tate.

The band has been around for a while but just when they think they have their second wind, life throws them that proverbial curveball.

Imago...

from page 3

“It’s really flattering and I sing it with all my heart, said Kiara.

Heart. And more.

Kiara brings power in her vocal range that belies her small frame. She’s like The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler or Sixpence None the Richer’s Leigh Nash—tiny dynamite with a winsome nature and amping up on the perky factor.

And Imago is on their third wind.

How many bands can survive the departure of iconic singers?

Lucero and Cacho, the last of the original iteration of Imago, form its heart, while Academia and Panganiban, solid 90s veterans,

When you’re on the road, there are risks,” pointed out Ennis. “That means you cannot have regular nine-to-five jobs and you do odd ones to sustain yourself. People think you are having the time of your life and make no mistake we enjoy this, but you miss out on the comforts of home and events such as family weddings and such. And when there’s an emergency, you aren’t around. That can take a toll on you mentally.”

“But these are choices you make such as being in Manila for this show. It might not be as financially rewarding but it can be okay,” chimed in Valadez.

The night before the band planed into Manila, they were in Singapore and Tate swears he was surprised when the fans sang back word-for-word the lyrics to “Thanks for Nothing” that is on the new album. “That messed him up,” chuckled Valadez. “He literally stopped playing his instrument.”

Knowing the songs, seeing fans buy the merchandise and the albums helps.

“The new album, What Defines You, that is a rebirth of our band, elucidated Tate. “What makes it special is outside our first EP, What Defines You is five people on the same page, same wavelength, same goals, same energy, and same intense output into the album. That is a hard thing to admit because we’ve been around for a while. A good friend advised me if we are really going to continue doing this then we have to take a long hard look at what we’ve done wrong and see how we can address them.”

What Defines You dropped this past May and the band is pleasantly surprised when fans buy the album in places they never even thought they’d be.

“I learned to play the guitar in my basement,” said Valadez. “I never thought I’d be in Tokyo, Istanbul,

and Manila. We are learning about the outside world. Learning that the world is smaller than it is and what a great place it can be.”

“I was playing in small bands and didn’t take it too seriously until people started liking the music,” added Tate. “Then I realized I could make this a goal. Performing in Europe and Asia is a privilege.

We’ve been to some places that isn’t conducive for their own artists to pursue their dream. In that regard, we feel lucky no matter how tough it is to break out.”

One Two Three Block is one of the newest gigging places in the metropolis and has featured its fair share of foreign acts coming over to Manila. Movements was the first band to play here followed by legendary hardcore band, Judge, Sans Visage, Deerhoof, and now, Of Virtue.

On a night where there were major performances in other venues (there was Sadfest at Mow’s and the Rizal Underground/ Color It Red 1990s reunion at 70s Bistro), over a hundred fans bought tickets to Finite Fest 2019. Even as Of Virtue took the stage past midnight, the fans stayed. And the roared and moshed.

“We’re on the other side of the world and there are these people who want to see us play,” summed up Valadez. “They might not know the music but they are interested to see us play. That makes it worth it.”

Check out Of Virtue’s Facebook page to get to know the band as well as to pick up their albums.

give them a solid backbone. But the songs... passed down from one vocalist to another who each put their own stamp on them are timeless.

And Kiara San Luis has in five short months breathed new life into one of the best bands in town.

Right before Imago took the stage, the music video was shown publicly for the first time.

San Luis stood in the back close to the soundboard. She was nervous and she held her fingers tight so she would not fidget.

At times, she looked away.

“Nervous. Shy,” she described her feelings at that moment.

A few songs into Imago’s set, after singing “Pag-ibig

na Walang Balik,” the crowd applauded vociferously. Buddy Zabala, of Moonstar 88, that played earlier during the night, nodded and offered his vote of confidence, “Galeng!”

The young lass who only wanted to form a band after college radiated happiness; an infectious zest of someone fulfilling a dream.

Behind Kiara San Luis, the band too beamed. And played on.

DAMON TATE, TYLER ENNIS AND MICHAEL VALADEZ

opportunity for such educational institution since there were only few play schools in Caloocan,” Saquin said.

They only had three students in the first three months after opening the school.

The number of students slowly rose to nine until it averaged to just 10 students by end-2017. However, the numbers wasn’t enough to sustain the center’s ballooning expenses with figures close to six digits.

“There was a month when we just earned P12,000. I was just eating monay [bread rolls] all throughout the year. I cannot even afford my favorite pares [sweet beef stew],” JC says. “I had to borrow money from my mother to sustain our operations.”

Saquin said he also restructured their curriculum and center’s activities by aligning it with government’s check-list on early childhood development. He hoped this to be the key driver to attract more students.

Engaging the market

THE couple went and talked to all the doctors in Metro Manila who cater to child development to promote and market their center. Luckily, one doctor agreed to refer her patients pro-bono to Angel Beats.

They also spent P1,000 to boost their promotion in Facebook and targeted working Millennial parents in Caloocan.

In the summer of 2018, the number of their applicants suddenly rose ten-fold. They reached a point when applications were even declined applications as they were already fully booked.

The reason behind the increase? Word of mouth, according to Saquin.

“Our Facebook promotion did work,’ he told the BusinessMirror. “But what worked the most was the word of mouth among the parents of our earlier students.”

Saquin said in Tagalog the parents spread the word their children became verbally expressive after enrolling with the school.

From thereon, the number of students in Angel Beats averaged 50. And the number of kids that learned to speak were more than 100 already.

Loans repaid

SAQUIN said they were able to repay loans and debt as the number of their students continued to rise.

And from a 4-member team, they have expanded to 15, with eight main teachers, three out-sourced therapists, two assistants and two administrative staff.

And towards the end of 2018, a rival play school was established across their center, offering exactly the same type of educational services.

This fueled us to expand our knowledge and learn more, Saquin said. So they applied in a Certificate Program for Play Therapy in a Malaysian University.

“Parang Jollibee lang iyan: hindi naman na niya kailangan mag-advertise pero bakit niya pa ginagawa? Para makipagdikdikan,” Saquin said. [Take Jollibee: the company doesn’t need to advertise but it still does because it wants to compete head on.]

But even before completing their certificate program, the rival school shut down in January.

By a twist of fate, the new Angel Beats school is located at the exact place their

competitor used.

Likewise, Angel Beats saw its total student capacity increase from 150 to 250.

Building values

ANGEL Beats offers three types of services: a two-hour thrice a week child preparedness or play and learn program (session), occupational therapy, and play therapy which are both oneon-one sessions.

Angel Beats holds five child-preparedness and play sessions and learn sessions daily with a capacity of 20 students each session.

During the two-hour session, children undergo activities that improve motor skills, independence, social skills, and intellect.

Saquin explains they incorporate values and lessons in the activities, even if an activity involves tossing a salad.

“It’s not really about food, but it’s about them appreciating their food,” he explained.

“We teach them how to cross a road as we want to instill to them community integration.”

Employee engagement

SAQUIN said 90 percent of their students are children with special needs.

The increase in their number of students shows there are a lot of children with special needs who still suffer from social stigma today.

For one, children with special needs are usually not accepted in regular schools due to their delayed skills development and growth, according to Saquin.

He added the trauma experienced by children from attending these schools prompts parents to avoid the formal education system.

Hence, for parents like Joanna Valles, Angel Beats is a gift from a heaven.

Valles enrolled her daughter, who has a mild autism, in Angel Beats when she was 5 years old. Her daughter would be 7 years old soon and is still with Angel Beats.

She told the BusinessMirror that before enrolling in Angel Beats, her daughter usually becomes antsy in public places like

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churches or go into tantrums while they’re in a shopping mall.

“Ngayon, hindi na. Ngayon, kapag nagturo siya ng gusto niya and I tell her we do not have money, she’ll understand it and hindi magwawala,” she added. [Now, she doesn’t do these anymore. If she points out something she wants me to buy, she accepts my explanation that we don’t have the money as she doesn’t go into tantrums like before.]

What Valles said she likes the most about Angel Beats is the staff’s close relationship with the parents. “[Even before we step out from the school to our way home,] they care for our children. They will tell us: ‘Mommy, [you can do this, you can do that]’. And every time we have a concern, they will respond immediately,” she said.

An inspiration

MARIA Rosary Cariaso, one of the pioneer teachers of Angel Beats, still couldn’t believe how the school was able to pull through.

“When we first learned that we are going to expand, I was nervous because that would mean we would have more students.

But it’s right thing to do as we could serve more children with special needs,” Cariaso, known as Teacher Milot, said.

“I have learned to love [and deeply appreciate] my profession each day, especially with the kids we’re handling and teaching.

They inspire me a lot because in spite their disabilities, they tend to make their lives easier,” she added.

Cariaso, 24, recalled she had a student who lost half of a brain but has showed resiliency in developing skills.

“Hindi siya nakakalakad; nagko-crawl lang siya. Pero kahit anong activities namin ay gagawin niya. Kung sasayaw, sasayaw siya,” she said. [He child could only crawl. But he would try to perform activities at school like dancing.”

Cariaso enthuses her experience with children at Angel Beats inspires her “to achieve more in life.”

“Kasi kung sila nga, kaya, ikaw pa ba?”

JULY 28, 2019

she added. [If they’re able to do things despite the challenges, how couldn’t we?]

Time, emotions

SAQUIN arranges the wooden alphabet blocks on a shelf alphabetically. He emphasizes that children with special needs needs empathy.

They must learn how to appreciate their emotions and understand the feelings of other people to grow holistically, he explains.

But most of the time, in this day and age, children lack empathy, Saquin said.

“Parents nowadays devalue emotional growth of their children to prioritize their cognitive advancement, which is unfair for them. They are kids; they need affection,” he added. “That’s why [some people] buy emotions.”

According to Saquin, the overprotectiveness of parents also hampers their children’s social and emotional growth.

Children would tend to be bossy and self-centered if they grew in such environment, he added.

“It’s like having a container of emotions.

If it’s only filled with ‘super-positive’ feelings and there’s no negative emotion at all, children would feel they are the ones in command in the household and the world revolves around them,” he said. “It should be 50-50.”

One reason some children lack empathy could be the lack of time parents spend with their children. This holds true for Millennial parents and parents who manage big businesses, he added.

“They are so busy that they just ask the yaya [child-minder] or driver to drop their children here,” he said. “And that’s quite sad.”

Another culprit to children’s slow development is too much screen time, which has become a trend in baby-sitting nowadays, he pointed out.

Second chances

SAQUIN said he is willing to offer Angel Beats’ services pro-bono to children with special needs on a case to cases basis, such as those belonging to poor families.

Continued on page 8

Youthful Africa to overtake aging Asia in work force

A

FRICA’S potential workforce will likely be larger than that of Asia by the end of the 21st century as both continents wrestle with different demographic and economic challenges.

The number of 15-to-64-year-old Africans today is a quarter of the size of Asia’s working-age population. By 2100, however, Africa will surpass Asia, a Bloomberg analysis of United Nations World Population Division data shows. Asia will be confronted by an aging population, while the shift in Africa will be toward more youth in need of employment.

One caveat for African nations: A fast-growing economy typically requires a robust and growing working-age population and it isn’t clear that economies on the continent will expand enough to provide employment for job seekers. Further, it’s not clear potential employees will have the skills those jobs require.

Nigeria’s potential labor force is projected to rise by almost 350 percent, or 375 million, by the end of the century to more than 485 million. But the IMF recently highlighted substantial inequality in access to education by gender and between the rich and poor in Africa’s most-populous nation. According to a survey conducted by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, a girl born into a family in the poorest fifth of society spends only about one year in school.

“As global supply chains reduce labor inputs with better technology and machines for even lower value-added production, it will be difficult for young workers in Africa

to find unskilled manufacturing jobs in the future similar to those now employing Asian youth,” said William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute.

The number of available employees worldwide will rise an estimated 29 percent to 6.5 billion from 5 billion by the end of the century. Africa’s share will jump to more than a third around 2100 from almost 15 percent currently, according to the Bloomberg analysis. The continent’s workingage population will grow by 2 billion to 2.75 billion in the next 80 years, while Asia’s will decline by 415 million, or 13 percent, the projections show.

“Most people overlook the fact that the Chinese dependency ratio—the workingage to over-65 population—is deteriorating rapidly and is already showing signs of straining,” Lee said.

Globally, the total number of people

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age 15 to 64 will peak at 6.5 billion around 2090, an increase of 1.5 billion from today.

Nearly 80 percent of this gain is to expected to come from low-income countries, with the remainder from middle-income nations. The potential labor force in high-income countries is projected to shrink as birth rates remain low.

The demographic changes will occur in a relatively short period of time. In 2020, everyone over 65 will be supported by an estimated seven workers globally, but by midcentury the ratio will drop to four as the share of seniors increases.

These shifts will create challenges for governments in a number of countries.

Taxation, assets prices and the use of resources will come under pressure while innovations in artificial intelligence, machine learning, engineering and computing power may cause trepidation about employment within many industries.

A recent Oxford Economics report estimates that 20 million manufacturing positions will be lost by 2030 with lowerskilled regions hit the hardest. Oxford’s econometric model found that, on average, each newly installed robot displaces 1.6 manufacturing workers. About 1.7 million factory jobs already have gone to robots since 2000, including 400,000 in Europe, 260,000 in the US and 550,000 in China, the report found.

The labor force in North America and Oceana will increase by close to 38 million and 17 million, respectively, while Europe will experience a decline of 137 million or 28 percent. The working-age population in Latin America and the Caribbean will shrink by 15 percent or 66 million.

While birth rates have fallen sharply in much of the developed world, migration has enabled the population in North America to continue growing. The number of workingage men and women in the US will rise 1.2 percent to 243 million by 2030 and then climb 14 percent to 278 million by 2100.

The number of people in North America living longer 100 years will soar to almost 1.9 million from about 1 million today.

The two most populous nations also are aging fast. By 2050, China and India will account for 31 percent of total population and 39 percent of the world’s seniors.

Meanwhile both will see their share of the global labor force shrink. India’s workingage population is projected to peak around 2050, but 40 years later there will be fewer 15-to-64-year-olds than there are today.

The shift in China will come sooner. Its working-age population already is shrinking and will contract by 27.5 million by 2030.

India’s working-age population is expected to overtake China’s in 2027. The potential labor force in Russia, Japan, Germany and South Korea also will be be reduced because of the slow pace of births and migration.

Bloomberg News

“They just have to show to us that they are really willing to help their children and would cooperate with us in teaching their kids,” he added.

Saquin said they also plan to extend free services to abused children, whether physically or sexually. He said they had a student who grew up in a broken family and was abused by her biological father.

“It broke my heart,” he said. “Imagine, inalisan mo ng panahon maging bata iyong bata.”

[He didn’t give the child the chance to be a child.]

Saquin said the idea of providing free services to children in abusive environment comes from his belief in second chances. He said the Angel Beats school just tries to make second chances possible for children with special needs.

“I have a lot of second chances in life. I grew up in a broken family. My mother strove hard for our family, whatever happened, she made things easier for me,” he said. “Bulakbol ako noong high school; pa-cool kid ako noong college.

Dumadating yung second chances ko kahit hindi ko hinihingi.” [I was a truant in high school; laidback during college. But I was handed out second chances without praying for one.]

Hence, Saquin said, he considers Angel Beats students representing who he was in the past.

“Looking back, para ako din yung mga students ko,” he added.

Hence, the name Angel Beats, named after the eponymous anime series that, according to Saquin and Angeles, is a story of second chances.

“It’s about a place for second chances for souls in limbo that have unfinished businesses.

It gives them the chance to reach certain goals for happiness,” he said. “Seeing this branch open just makes me happy,” Saquin said, smiling while staring at the building across the road that housed the first branch of Angel Beats, a place that offers second chances.

JULY 28, 2019