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NUMBER OF MOBILE-FIRST CONSUMERS RISING RAPIDLY IN PHL
Screen shopping: The new window shopping By Roderick L. Abad | Contributor
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ARK ZUCKERBERGLED Facebook (FB) urged local businesses to start planning now on how they could leverage on the power of mobile—the new “shopping cart” for the current breed of Filipino consumers—in preparation for the so-called Ber months, when “screen shopping” usually picks up in time for the holiday season.
“Christmas is culturally important for the Filipino people. What’s interesting is that shopping and consumer spending increase during this time of the year,” Facebook Managing Director for Southeast Asia Kenneth Bishop told reporters during a media briefing for new insights on mobile-first shoppers held recently at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. Given this trend, he said, businesses are paying attention and focus shar ply on w inning over the online buyers dur ing this per iod. Based on the “Facebook 2016 Holiday Study” conducted by Ipsos Marketing and commissioned by FB that was released in January, the Philippines saw the highest growth of 83 percent on average in mobile-first shoppers. This is more than double the 30 percent average figure across the globe.
Proof that the holiday season is celebrated the longest in the country, Filipinos start their shopping binge as early as September, with half of them continuing on past Christmas and New Year to benefit from January sales. “So t he hol id ay consu mp tion period starts in September, it peaks in late November, and also it’s very high in December. So you can see that consumption and shopping online significantly increase throughout Q4 [fourth quarter],” the executive said. The research, likewise, showed that mobile now plays a pivotal role in the Filipino consumer’s shopping journey, as three of five shoppers utilize their phones to discover what to buy for their family members, friends and loved ones, and even for themselves. In fact, two of three Filipinos use FB, where they could get inspiration on next purchases, and 63
percent use FB to research for gift ideas. About 91 percent admitted FB has influenced their holiday shopping. One in two buyers, on the other hand, said they turn to Instagram when purchasing during the period. Bishop said many people in their platform are buying products after engaging them with the business. To wit, three of five Filipinos buy online after they discover a product or brand posted on FB. Of the conversions from this social-networking site, 70 percent use their mobile gadget. W hat’s more, FB users made 17 percent more online conversions on FB than the average in September 2016, and 18 percent more in January versus 2016 pre-holiday average. Beyond online, mobile is also complementing Filipinos’ onground shopping experience. Per
the study, 50 percent of Filipino purchasers, or 1.27 times more than the global shopper average, tap their smartphones when shopping in-store to take advantage of the best deals during the holiday period. Around 53 percent of those sur veyed ag reed that smar tphones enabled them to make more-informed buying decisions. Respondents who use their smartphones in-store said they do it to compare prices (70 percent), compare products (61 percent), read product reviews (60 percent) and take photos (53 percent). But for the majority, it’s all about convenience, as 42 percent of those who use mobile prefer it over going to the brickand-mortar store on the busiest time of the year. Three of five order online, then pick up their purchases in-store. Continued on A2
Mindanao banana growers winning war vs Panama disease By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas
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he Department of Agriculture (DA) is now seeing a better future for banana growers in the Davao region, as the area starts to recover from the infestation of the fusarium wilt two years ago. DA R eg ion 11 sc ience re search specialist Virgilio Gutierrez said the government is now monitoring the outcome of the inter ventions it had undertaken to resolve the incidence
of fusarium wilt that affected at least 15,500 hectares of plantations in southern Mindanao. “We are just monitoring now the interventions that we gave to the affected farmers. We are making the follow-ups, despite the lack in budget, as part of the high-value crop development program of the regional office,” Gutierrez, who is also DA’s focal person for fusarium wilt, told the BusinessMirror. Dav ao d e l Nor t e w a s t he most affected prov ince in the
PESO exchange rates n US 50.5460 n japan 0.4545
The good thing we can do is that we should be aware on how to manage the disease. For example, we should be knowledgeable on how it spreads and what can be done to prevent it from spreading to unaffected areas.”—Gutierrez
reg ion, fol lowed by Compostela Va l ley, Davao Cit y, Davao del Sur and Davao Or ienta l, according to Gutier rez. The DA has poured in P102.2 million worth of interventions throughout 2015 and 2016 to the farmers affected by Panama disease, a type of fusarium wilt popularly known as fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4). Under the Panama-disease control program of the DA, a farmer would be paid P500 for every wilted plant or stump of banana
that would be burned according to quarantine protocols. The payment was intended to encourage farmers to obser ve proper disposal of each banana plant affected by the fusarium wilt, a soil borne fungus that attac k s t he roots of t he banana plants and turns leaves into wilted yellow. The original strain of the disease was already virulent that it had wiped out t he pl a nt at ion s i n Pa n a m a , hence its common name. Continued on A2
n UK 66.0485 n HK 6.4725 n CHINA 7.4984 n singapore 37.1935 n australia 40.2498 n EU 59.0276 n SAUDI arabia 13.4797
Source: BSP (28 July 2017 )
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Sunday, July 30, 2017
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NUMBER OF MOBILE-FIRST CONSUMERS RISING RAPIDLY IN PHL
Screen shopping: The new window shopping Continued from A1
“So with mobile, it means that they can avoid a lot of line, and this is more convenient, and it’s easier to sort of order online than in the store,” the managing director said.
‘Screen shopping’ with mobile device
MOR E a nd more people a re spending a lot of time online across various mobile gadgets, thus, making “screen shopping” as the new “window shopping”, according to Bishop. Based on the “PACE Study 2015: Philippines” that was done by Starcom in October last year, Filipinos spend more time (2.9 hours) on their smartphones than any other types of media, including television or TV (1.40 hours), radio (1.15 hours) and newspapers (0.47 hours). When they’re connected on their mobile phones, they consume close to 96 minutes viewing videos, or 1.46 times compared to global average.
“ T his is super common in Southeast Asia, where we see the video time spend, [or] video consumption, is higher than the rest of the world,” he said, adding that the locals are glued more on the screen of their mobile devices even while watching TV. Per the Millward Brown AdReaction research in October 2015, nearly 70 percent of Filipinos on FB multiscreen while watching TV. On the other hand, a study of 1,304 Filipino social-media users aged 18 plus on FB conducted by TNS in January last year bared that one in three minutes spent watching TV is done via the social network. Meanwhile, the “Analytic Partners, 2016; Analysis based on over 3,200 campaigns from 2010-2016” research of the Advertising Research Foundation revealed that pairing digital with TV campaigns drives stronger return on investment (ROI). In fact, 60 percent more in ROI is achieved when combining FB with TV.
60
The percentage of Filipino smartphone users who utilize their mobile gadgets in searching for future purchases Shifting ad spend to digital, mobile
AS mobile technology becomes more pivotal in the Filipinos’ shopping experience, businesses and brands in the Philippines are moving some of their ad budget to digital and mobile platforms, based on “ Total Media, Digital
and Mobile Internet Ad Spending in the Philippines”, 20152020 report of eMarketer in December 2016. The study found out that digital advertising is at 16 percent of the total ad expenditures in the Philippines for 2016. W hile ad spend on mobile was only at 3.6 percent by the end of last year, it ref lected over 150-percent growth from the previous year. Mobile-advertising spend is expected to double in 2017 to make up 7 percent of overall advertising allocation. With this is mind, Bishop advised enterprises and advertisers to utilize mobile as their second shopfront, while creating campaigns that suit mobileviewing behavior, both online and in-store. “ That should lead them to rethink how they organize their advertising campaigns and media plans to win the mobile-first shoppers during the holiday period,” he said.
One example of a mobile-first campaign is Magnolia’s debut of its innovative new Avocado Macchiato ice-cream f lavor on FB, with the aim of reaching millennials through creative video and mobile-optimized ads. The monthlong campaign featuring popular “Alden and Maine” celebrity love team that ran between November and December last year achieved impressive results on all major brand metrics, including ad recall that increased by 16 points. “Mobi le -sav v y m i l lenn i a ls spend the majority of their time discovering and consuming content on their mobile media feeds. Facebook has put us front and center with our target demographic, mainly through the use of effective video to increase reach and sales,” Elmer Villasanta, group product manager, Magnolia Ice Cream San Miguel Purefoods. To he lp compa n ies bet ter connect with the online market and eventually achieve ver y
real tangible results, FB offers them its platform to reach out to more consumers. “Mobile is inf luencing the shopping behavior of Filipino consumers during the busy holiday season where people are discovering brands and products,” Bishop said. “We are committed to helping businesses win consumers during the holiday season by connecting them with the more than 63 million mobilefirst Filipinos on Facebook.” FB continues to grow, with 2 billion people added to its network each month worldwide and 316 million across Southeast Asia. It hosts 70 million business pages globally, 8 million business profiles and 5 million active advertisers. “This is growing significantly over the past few years, and the big part of that has been growing in Southeast Asia. So these mobile-first consumers are becoming mobile-first businesses, as well,” Bishop stressed.
Mindanao banana growers winning war vs Panama disease Continued from A1
“About 7.147 million of small ba na na g rowers benef ited throughout the program, receiving various interventions distributed to them,” Gutierrez said.
New harvest
For t he prog ram, t he DA bought some 1.333 million of Panama-resistant banana varieties that were ready to be planted, according to Gutierrez. These varieties include giant cavendish tissue cultured (GCTC) variant 218 and variant 219, the only two varieties of cavendish banana recommended to be planted again in the Panama-affected soil. Gutierrez said the government started the distribution at the start of 2017 some 200,000 plantlets harvestable after seven months. “[It has been] estimate that the farmers will harvest about 2,132,800 boxes of bananas, which have an income of P37.324 million at P175 per box at current price,” he added. The DA official said out of the 15,500 hectares affected by fusarium wilt, they have provided inter ventions in at least 10,000 hectares. T he inter ventions include eradication of pest, dispersal of biocontrol agents for fusarium w ilt, and distr ibution of seeds of cacao, coffee and vegetable for crop shifting. “ T he remaining 5,000 hectares are owned and managed with those who have capability to solve the pest. So, the 10,000 hectares rea l ly involved small banana growers, which is the pr ior it y of t he depa r t ment,” Gut ir rez added. “But we conduc ted trainings on how to control and manage the disease for a l l concer ned far mers.” Gutierrez said the GCTC 218 and 219 varieties were well-accepted by the local banana growers, to the extent that more and more farmers
wanted to buy the diseaseresistant varieties. “The farmers really liked 218 and 219 as a resistant variety against fusarium. In fact, there are a lot of farmers who want to buy more,” he added. “But because we are short of budget, we can only prioritize the small banana growers.”
Prevention
But Gutierrez is aware that the region’s recovery is just the start of a bigger challenge: Prevention. “We really don’t have an assurance that we won’t be hit again by Panama disease. As long as there are bananas, there’s really no guarantee that Panama disease will not strike again,” he said. “The good thing we can do is that we should be aware on how to manage the disease. For example, we should be knowledgeable on how it spreads and what can be done to prevent it from spreading to unaffected areas,” he added. Gutierrez also said there is a need for the government to establish a laboratory where GCTC 218 and 219 will be produced to cater the needs of the local industry for such varieties. “And we do not stop with these varieties. We are conducting continuous selection process, because it doesn’t mean that these varieties [218 and 219] are enough,” he added. “We should continue the selection process in determining resistant varieties.” If there’s any benefit at all out of the infestation, Gutierrez said, banana growers in Region 11 are now more aware of the complexities of Panama disease, and they are better prepared than before. “ I t h i n k t he y a re more equipped now, particularly those in the areas affected by Panama [disease]. The farmers know how to correctly manage the incidence of such disease now,” he said. “But I cannot also say that it
applies to all banana growers. There are still some small growers who are not knowledgeable about the matter,” he added. Gutierrez said there has been no new reported incidence of Panama disease in the country this year. In a news report, the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) estimated that the industry loses a rou nd 55. 5 m i l l ion boxes of harvest, estimated to be worth some $333 million, from Panama disease. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations identified TR4 as a major threat affecting the global banana production, affecting the livelihoods of local populations and especially income opportunities for smallholder banana farmers. “Besides jeopardizing harvests and, thereby, income opportunities, TR4 also raises the price of production because of the high costs of preventative measures and treatments of affected plantations,” the FAO said. “Of direct and particular concern is the impact of banana diseases on global trade, particularly if importing countries react with import restrictions, tightened SPS [sanitary and phytosanitary] measures or additional controls,” the FAO added. FAO s a id t he d i sea se w a s d iscovered around 1992 t o 19 9 3 i n M a l a y s i a a n d s pre ad qu ic k ly to Ta iw a n a nd C h i n a , where most of a l l its ba na na-produc ing a rea s were a f fec ted . “Production in Australia’s Northern Territory, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines has also been severely affected by TR4,” it said. “In 2013 TR4 was furthermore discovered on a farm in northern Mozambique, as well as in Oman and Jordan, and in 2015, it was found in Lebanon and Pakistan,” it added.
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Airbus slashes A380 output, says A320 fix is ‘unreliable’
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irbus SE announced a new cut in production of its slowselling A380 superjumbo, casting further doubt over the flagship program’s future, while warning that engine glitches are still weighing on deliveries of the single-aisle A320 that’s due to become its largestvolume model. The A380 build rate will be reduced to eight jets a year in 2019, down from 15 this year and 28 in 2016, Airbus said on Wednesday. While the company aims to eke out the backlog in anticipation of revived demand as airports get busier, it said the handful of ongoing contract negotiations may not produce sales. “Even if we should get another order before the end of the year, that will not change the needle on our rate decision, except if we would get an unexpectedly high order,CEO Tom Enders told reporters. Continuing issues with the revamped A320neo version of Airbus’s narrow-body workhorse remain a major concern, Enders said, with fixes developed by engine supplier Pratt & Whitney proving unreliable under operating conditions. The company also took a charge against cost
overruns on the troubled A400M military-transport plane as second-quarter earnings tumbled 27 percent. Airbus shares fell as much as 4 percent and were trading 3.3 percent lower at €72.21 as of 9:04 a.m. in Paris. The stock has gained 15 percent this year, valuing the Toulouse-based company at €56 billion, or $66 billion.
Winglets
The A380 was already due to see production cut to one aircraft a month from next May, and the reductions mean that it is no longer breaking even on a perplane basis. The company has long since given up on recouping the program’s €25 billion in development costs. Airbus last month offered an enhanced version of the A380 featuring fuel-saving winglets, which combined with an already-
announced layout revision accommodating 80 more people would shave 13 percent from perseat costs. Dubai-based Emirates, the leading superjumbo buyer, is exploring the upgrade with a view
to buying 20 planes, though Tim Clark, its president, had wanted a more significant upgrade featuring new engines. Airbus stood by its full-year forecast for a mid-single-digit
“Even if we should get another order before the end of the year, that will not change the needle on our rate decision, except if we would get an unexpectedly high order.”—Enders
percentage gain in earnings, free cash flow matching the €1.4 billion achieved in 2016, and 700 jetliner deliveries, though Enders said that depends on engine suppliers “meeting their commitments.” The issues with Pratt’s geared turbofan mean that delivering the close to 200 A320neos targeted—of which just under half are powered by the United Technologies Corp. division—has become “more challenging,” Airbus said. It handed over 59 Neos in the first six months.
‘Maturity issues’
“ There are just too many ma-
turity issues on this engine,” Enders said. “ That is frustrating for us, that’s frustrating for t he c u stomers. We h ave too many removals of engines on aircraft that are in ser vice. The situation for us all is ver y unsatisfactor y.” While the handover of Prattpowered Neos was initially held up by cooling problem that required airlines to delay startup in hot conditions, the latest glitches-concern issues spanning bearings to the combustion chamber and plates, the CEO said. Airbus’s second-quarter earnings before interest and tax fell to €859 million from €1.18 billion a year earlier, excluding one-time items. Analysts had predicted a figure of €914 million. The company took a €70-million charge against the A400M, adding to the €7billion of charges over the past decade. It said that meeting agreed technical capabilities and managing associated costs remains “highly challenging.” A i rbu s w a s more posit ive about its latest A350 wide-body airliner, which is in a critical phase of its production ramp up. While the model has been plagued by supplier issues concerning seats and cabin fittings, leading Qatar Airways Ltd. to cancel four planes last month, some 30 aircraft were handed over in the first half, up from 12 a year earlier and one short of the target. Bloomberg News
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Freed from ISIS, women bear heavy toll from sexual slavery
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HARIYA CAMP, Iraq—The 16 year old lies on her side on a mattress on the floor, unable to hold up her head.
Her uncle props her up to drink water, but she can barely swallow. Her voice is so weak, he places his ear directly over her mouth to hear her. The girl, Souhayla, walked out of the most destroyed section of Mosul this month, freed after three years of captivity and serial rape when her Islamic State captor was killed in an air strike. Her uncle described her condition as “shock.” He had invited reporters to Souhayla’s bedside so they could document what the terror group’s system of sexual abuse had done to his niece. “This is what they have done to our people,” said Khalid Taalo, her uncle. Since the operation to take back Mosul began last year, approximately 180 women, girls and children from the Yazidi ethnic minority who were captured in 2014 by the Islamic State, or ISIS, have been liberated, according to Iraq’s Bureau for the Rescue of Abductees. Women rescued in the first two years after ISIS overran their ancestral homeland came home with infections, broken limbs and suicidal thoughts. But now, after three years of captivity, women like Souhayla
and two others seen last week by reporters, are far more damaged, displaying extraordinary signs of psychological injury. “Very tired,” “unconscious” and “in severe shock and psychological upset” were the descriptions used by Dr. Nagham Nawzat Hasan, a Yazidi gynecologist who has treated over 1,000 of the rape victims. “We thought the first cases were difficult,” Hasan said. “But those after the liberation of Mosul, they are very difficult.” The shock expresses itself in women and girls who sleep for days on end, seemingly unable to wake up, said Hussein Qaidi, the director of the abductee rescue bureau. “Ninety percent of the women coming out are like this,” he said, for at least part of the time after their return. Both Souhayla and her family asked that she be identified, as well as photographed, in an effort to shed light on their community’s suffering. Her uncle posted her image on Facebook immediately after her release with a description of what ISIS had done to her. For over a year, Taalo said, he had known his niece’s location,
Souhayla eats dinner in her uncle’s tent, a white bandage covering an IV site and a scar from her effort to slit her wrist during her captivity, in Shariya, Iraq. Three years after about 180 women, girls and children from the Yazidi ethnic minority were captured by the Islamic State, they return home with broken spirits and psychological trauma. Alex Potter/The New York Times
as well as the name of the Islamic State fighter holding her. He enlisted the help of a smuggler, who, at great risk, photographed Souhayla through the window of the house where she was being held and sent the images to her family. But it was too perilous to try a rescue. Souhayla escaped on July 9, two days after an air strike collapsed a wall in the building where she was being held, burying another Yazidi girl who had been held alongside her and killing the captor who had abused them, her uncle said. At that point, she was strong enough to clamber through the rubble and make her way to the first Iraqi checkpoint. When her family drove to pick her up, she ran to embrace them. “I ran to her and she ran to me
and we started crying and then we started laughing, as well,” said Taalo, the brother of Souhayla’s father, who remains missing after the Islamic State took over their hometown. “We stayed like that holding each other, and we kept crying and laughing, until we fell to the ground.” But within hours, she stopped speaking, he said. By the time they reached the camp where her mother and extended family had found refuge after the Islamic State overran their village, Souhayla slipped into what appeared to be unconsciousness. The doctors who examined her have prescribed antibiotics for a urinary tract infection. She also shows signs of malnutrition. Neither explain her extreme
symptoms, said her family and one of the doctors who examined her. “I’m happy to be home,” she whispered with difficulty into her uncle’s ear, in response to a reporter’s question, “but I’m sick.” The Islamic State had been ruling Mosul for two months in 2014 when the group’s leaders set their sights on Sinjar, a 60-mile-long, yellow massif to the north. Its foothills and mountain villages have long been the bedrock of life for the Yazidi, a tiny minority who account for less than 2 percent of Iraq’s population of 38 million. The centuries-old religion of the Yazidi revolves around worship of a single God, who, in turn, created seven sacred angels. These beliefs led the Islamic State to label the Yazidi as polytheists, a perilous category in the terrorist group’s nomenclature. Relying on a little known and mostly defunct corpus of Islamic law, the Islamic State argued that the minority’s religious standing rendered them eligible for enslavement. On August 3, 2014, convoys of fighters sped up the escarpment, fanning out across the adjoining valleys. Among the first towns they passed on their way up the mountain was Til Qasab, with its low-slung concrete buildings surrounded by plains of blond grass. That’s where Souhayla, then 13, lived. A total of 6,470 Yazidis on the mountain were abducted, according to Iraqi officials, including
Souhayla. Three years later, 3,410 remain in captivity or unaccounted for, Qaidi of the abductee rescue bureau said. For the first two years of her captivity, Souhayla made her way through the Islamic State’s system of sexual slavery, raped by a total of seven men, she and her uncle said. When the push for Mosul began, she was moved progressively deeper into the area hardest hit by the conflict, as security forces squeezed the terrorist group into a sliver of land near the Tigris River. The area was pummeled by artillery, air strikes and car bombs, and strafed by helicopter-gunship fire. As the Islamic State began losing its grip on the city, Souhayla’s captor cut her hair short, like a boy’s. She understood he was planning to try to slip past Iraqi security forces, disguised as a refugee, and take her with him, her uncle said. Taalo now spends his days nursing his niece back to health. To sit up, she grasped one of the metal ribs holding up her family’s tent and pulled herself into a sitting position, as her uncle pushed from behind. But soon her strength was sapped, and she flopped back down. He used a washcloth to dab her forehead, as she lay in his lap. Her mouth fell open and her eyes rolled back. After her escape, almost two weeks passed before she was able to stand for more than a few minutes, her legs unsteady. New York Times News Service
Russia sanctions bill exposes Trump’s legislative tug-of-war W
ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump is likely to sign a tough new sanctions bill that includes proposed measures targeting Russia—a remarkable concession that the president has yet to sell his party on his hopes for forging a warmer relationship with Moscow.
Trump’s vow to extend a hand of cooperation to Russian President Vladimir Putin has been met with resistance as skeptical lawmakers look to limit the executive power’s leeway to go easy on Moscow over its meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The House this week passed the legislation,
419-3, to enact new sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea, clearing the far-reaching measure for action by the Senate, where its future is less certain. Sen. Bob Corker, Republican-Tennessee, had said he wants to reexamine the bill’s North Korea portion, potentially delaying it before legislators
President Donald J. Trump sits in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Tuesday. Trump is likely to sign a tough new sanctions bill that includes proposed measures targeting Russia, a remarkable concession that the president has yet to sell his party on his hopes for forging a warmer relationship with Moscow. AP
take their August recess. But late Wednesday he announced that he sees “a path forward on legislation to sanction Iran, Russia and North Korea” following“very productive discussions.” The proposed measures target Russia’s energy sector as part of legislation that prevents Trump from easing sanctions on Moscow without congressional approval. Two administration officials say that Trump is likely to sign the bill, despite ongoing wrangling over language and bureaucracy. Faced with near-unanimous bipartisan support for the bill in both the House and Senate, the president finds his hands are tied, according to two administration officials and two advisers with knowledge of the discussions. The officials added that the president has been reluctant to proceed with the bill, even after it was revised last week to include some changes that American and European companies sought to ensure that business deals were not stifled by new sanctions. Trump has privately expressed frustration over Congress’s ability to limit or override the power of the White House on national security matters, saying that it is complicating efforts to coordinate with allies—particularly those in Europe that have taken a different approach to sanctions. The administration officials and advisers demanded anonymity to discuss the private sanctions deliberations. Asked Wednesday about the president’s position on the bill, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the Associated press, “the president strongly supports sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea,” but did not elaborate further. “There is a tremendous and unprecedented effort by Congress to assert its influence on Russia and foreign policy because it does not trust the president,”said Elizabeth Rosenberg,
senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former senior adviser at the Treasury Department. “Lawmakers are so distrustful of the administration that they are imposing requirements to conduct congressional review of attempts by the president to roll back sanctions and, in some instances, prevent him from doing so,” Rosenberg said. Lawmakers have been keen to implement a sturdy clampdown on North Korea’s confrontational actions—most recently after its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. They’ve also traditionally favored a policy that keeps Moscow in check for its own aggressive measures in Eastern Europe and Syria, as well as its efforts to disrupt elections in the US and across Europe. Earlier, Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, had objected to the House’s decision to include penalties targeting Pyongyang in the bill, saying he’d prefer to keep the North Korea sanctions in a separate measure. His comments sparked an immediate rebuke from Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who blamed Republicans for “yet another delay...to prevent the bill from landing on the president’s desk before we leave for the recess.” Corker said that “going forward,” the House has committed to quickly “consider and pass” modifications to the language of the North Korea bill. Trump hasn’t threatened to reject the bill even though Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other senior administration officials had objected to a mandated congressional review should the president attempt to ease or lift the sanctions on Russia. They’ve argued it would infringe on the president’s executive authority and tie his hands as he explores avenues of communication and cooperation between
the two former Cold War foes. Russia’s ambitions to be on equal footing with the US suffered a setback in 2014 when the Obama administration authorized sanctions against sectors of the Russian economy, including financial services, energy, mining and defense. The administration also sanctioned people in Putin’s inner circle accused of undermining peace in Ukraine. Add to that falling oil prices and a weak ruble, and Russia’s economy was shackled. Sanctions relief is important to Russia’s broader objective of superpower status, shown by its bullish Syria policy. Syria’s Russianbacked military made major gains in rebelheld eastern Aleppo in recent days and rebel resistance appeared to be crumbling. While Moscow and Washington are continuously at odds over Syria, the Obama administration did not impose any Syria-related sanctions. Trump’s positions on Russia are generally hard to assess because he’s often stepped away from his more controversial proposals. In his meeting this month with Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations summit in Germany, Trump said he repeatedly addressed the topic of Russia’s meddling in the US election. But he never directly answered questions about whether he believed Putin’s claims that Russia had nothing to do with it. “There is a bipartisan consensus to confront Russia across the board—from its actions in Ukraine, Syria, cyber, its election meddling — you name it,” said Boris Zilberman, a Russia sanctions expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Russia is the driving force in the sanctions bill,” he added. “So we see the legislative branch now trying to send a clear message to the executive branch on where they stand on the issue.” AP
Science
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PHL wins 2 bronzes in 2017 intl chemistry Olympiad
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he Philippines won two bronze medals in its maiden par ticipation in the 2017 International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) held in Mahidol University Thailand early this month. The bronze medals were won by Charles Jerome Bartolo and Arthur Reiner de Belen. The other chemistry Olympians were Keren Duque and Israel Aguba. Their coach was Xandra Junio, while the head of delegation was Dr. Jose Andaya. T he fou r Oly mpi a n s were chosen after rigorous eliminations via the regional eliminations and then the Philippine National Chemistry Olympiad. The top 4 became the official representatives of the Philippines to the IChO. Prior to the IChO, the Olympians were trained in the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) Main Campus, Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University. The Philippines was able to compete this year after two
consecutive years as observer. A ll the four students came from the PSHS system. Bartolo is from PSHS Central Luzon Campus, Duque is from PSHS Cagayan Valley, while de Belen and Aguba are from PSHS Main Campus, together with Junio. The Philippines’s participation in the IChO was made possible by the Kapisanang Kimika ng Pilipinas (KKP) and the Philippine A ssociation of Chemistr y Teachers (PACT), led by Dr. Nestor S. Valera, Dr. Eric Punzalan, Dr. Jose M. Andaya and Jen Sy. T he Ph i l ippine Federat ion o f C he m i s t r y S o c ie t ie s a nd it s me mb e r - or g a n i z at ion s — K K P, PAC T a nd t he Integ rated C hem ists of t he Ph i l ippines— prov ided f ina nc i a l suppor t. The Olympians’ travel was generously sponsored by Philippine A irl ines, t hrough t he facilitation of Dr. Lucio Tan’s Foundation for the Upgrading of Secondary Education.
School kids learn how to get ready for disasters
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n Japan school children are taught early about disaster preparedness. In the Philippines, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) gathered up schoolchildren to talk about hazards during the recent celebration of 2017 National Science and Technology Week. This event was made possible with the cooperation of different DOST agencies, like the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP) and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs); Manila Boys Town in Parang, Marikina, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development Center in Pasay City. The event, the first of its kind in the country, had for its audience schoolchildren in Grades 5 and 6 and those from low-income families who are most vulnerable to natural hazards. The children were chosen by DOSTNRCP as part of its advocacy to promote the many technologies and research and development efforts being done by Filipino scientists and engineers in the field of disaster-risk management. The research council partnered with Pagasa, Phivolcs and Philippine National Research Institute (PNRI) because it believes that the NSTW is a perfect venue for these kids from poor communities with less opportunities to learn and experience the many benefits of science, technology and innovation in improving their lives. D r. Vi c e n te B. M a l a n o, Pa g a s a administrator, opened the session by informing the audience of the many programs being implemented by the DOST and its attached agencies to minimize the risks of natural hazards. This is also part of the information dissemination and education program of the DOST in order to equip communities with basic science-based knowledge on the effects of strong typhoons, floods, earthquakes and others.
Science Undersecretary Dr. Renato U. Solidum Jr., for disaster-risk reduction and climate-change adaptation, discussed the importance of knowing the different meteorological and geological hazards and the importance of preparing for these. “Do you remember the earthquake in Ormoc last Thursday afternoon and the Supertyphoon Yolanda [international code name Haiyan] where many people died? Why did they die? They died because they were not prepared,” Solidum said in Filipino. Senior weather specialist of Pagasa, Sharon Juliet M. Arruejo, discussed how clouds are formed, the different types of clouds, rain, thunderstorm and other facts about weather. Later, using a pet bottle with rubber suction, she showed a simple experiment to help the schoolchildren visualize how clouds are formed. After having fun while learning the basic information on typhoon and flood, the kids got to discover the different types of geological hazards, like earthquake, tsunami, ground rupture, ground shaking and liquefaction. Phivolcs science research specialist Daniel Buhay invited three kids to join him on stage to demonstrate the “duck, cover and hold” exercise, a simple preparedness technique to survive an earthquake. Later, Carl M. Nohay and Joseph R. Tugo of the DOST-PNRI discussed a lesser known hazard called radiation. They talked about the different types of radiation, its negative and positive effects, and hazards and prevention on exposure to radiation. They also had a live demonstration on radiation detection using state-of-the art equipment. Tina Cerbolles of the Information Office of DOST-PNRI talked about the different knowledge products and services that the institute offers in its main facility in Quezon City that benefit many sectors of society, like business and industry, medicine, food processing and agriculture. S&T Media Service
Deadline for Searca scholarship application for MA, PhD on July 30
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he deadline for the submission of applications for the graduate (master’s and PhD) degree scholarships in agriculture and related sciences for school year 2018-2019, offered by the Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca), is on July 30. The scholarships are open to Filipinos, as well as nationals of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. The applicants must be regular employees of government agencies or academic or research institutions and not more than 35 years old at the time of application. Filipino applicants must submit their
applications to the Commission on Higher Education, while those from other Southeast Asian countries must submit to their respective education ministries. The Searca scholarships are tenable at University of the Philippines Los Baños, Institut Pertanian Bogor and Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Kasetsart University in Thailand. The scholarships cover tuition and other school fees; allowance for travel and books or supplies; thesis/dissertation funds; health insurance; and a monthly stipend for food, lodging and incidental expenses. Scholarship application forms and the complete list of requirements may be downloaded from the Searca web site.
The Philippine team to the 58th International Mathematical Olympiad have their photo taken with Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) and Mathematical Society of the Philippines (MSP) officials. (From left are) Ruby Cristobal (DOST-SEI), Dr. Richard Eden (ADMU/MSP), Clyde Wesley Ang (bronze-IMO), Shaquille Wyan Que (bronzeIMO), Farrell Eldrian Wu (silver-IMO), Albert John Patupat (silver-IMO), Kyle Patrick Dulay (silver-IMO), Sean Anderson Ty (bronze-IMO), Dr. Louie John Vallejo (UPD/MSP) and Eng. Albert Mariño (DOST-SEI). DR. MARIAN ROQUE, UP INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS/MSP
PHL IMO team bags 6 medals, maintains No. 17 world ranking
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ll six members of the Philippine contingent to the 58th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) each won a medal—or a total haul of three silvers and three bronzes—to maintais the country’s all-time highest rank of No. 17 out of 111 countries that participated in what is regarded as the grandest stage in mathematics. Despite falling short of a gold medal after winning two last year, the national team held strong by bringing home a staggering six total medals against 600 other contestants. The team arrived from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 13. Leading the medal haul are Kyle Patrick Dulay of Philippine Science High Schol-Main Campus,
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Albert John Patupat of De la Salle University Integrated School and Farrel Eldrian Wu of MGC New Life Christian Academy who all garnered silver medals. Meanwhile, Shaquille Wyan Que of Grace Christian College, Sean Anderson Ty of Zamboanga Chong Hua High School and Clyde Wesley Ang of Chiang Kai Shek
The number of countries that participated in 58th International Mathematical Olympiad, which is regarded as the grandest stage in mathematics
College secured bronze medaul. Team Leader Dr. Richard Eden of Ateneo de Manila University, and Deputy Team Leader Dr. Louie John Vallejo of University of the Philippines Diliman, both from the Mathematical Society of the Philippines (MSP), guided the team in the competition. Department of Science and Technology-Science Education In-
stitute (DOST-SEI) Director Dr. Josette Biyo welcomed the team upon their arrival and congratulated them for maintaining “an equally best performance” from the previous year. “The science community had high hopes after our great feat last year and our team certainly did not disappoint us. We performed very well and maintained a very high ranking. These kids are truly among the best in the world and we are very proud of them,” she said. DOST-SEI, along with MSP, jointly organized the country’s participation to the IMO, as well as in the Math Olympiad Summer Camp held in February that served as the training ground for the team. There, 22 national finalists from the 2017 Philippine Mathematica l Oly mpiat were screened for the six slots in the Philippine Team. Other sponsors of the team include Hyundai Asia Resoures Inc. Foundation and Manulife. S&T Media Service
Hot enough for you? Try eating something hotter T
here are less daunting methods to beat the summer heat than by wolfing down stillboiling chicken soup for lunch. But followers of a Korean tradition say that few are as effective. Their mantra is “yi yeol chi yeol,” or “fight fire with fire,” and their weapon of choice is samgyetang, a whole young chicken or Cornish hen stuffed with glutinous rice, ginseng root, red dates and garlic, served piping hot in its own broth. At the peak of summer, and especially on “sambok,” the three days of the year Koreans believe to be the hottest, according to the lunar calendar, many of them seek out roiling bowls of samgyetang in the belief that it replenishes nutrients, improves circulation and helps balance the body’s internal and external temperatures. “The concepts that make it good for you on a hot day are rooted in traditional Korean medicine and are very old,” said Maangchi Kim, the Korean-Canadian cook book author and YouTube star. Her video on making samgyetang has been viewed more than 1.4 million times. The dish predates written records, Kim said, but an early printed recipe for what is now called samgyetang appeared in a 1917 Korean cookbook and called for ginseng powder instead of fresh roots. By the 1960s, refrigeration had
Samgyetang (Chicken soup with ginseng) Korea.net made fresh ginseng easier to buy, and the practice of eating the soup as a summer tonic, thought to refresh and reenergize, spread widely. Those wilting under the sun still turn to it, often instead of chilled foods, as a way to cool down. “If I have something cold on a hot summer day, I may feel some relief as it goes down,” said Kim, who lives in New York City. “But the temperature difference between my body and the environment becomes too large, and after a while, I actually feel hotter than before.” “If I have some hot samgyetang,” she added, “I sweat a bit, and my body feels more in sync with the environment.” Skeptics might ask for scientific evidence—and be surprised that some exists. A 2012 study at the University of
Ottawa found that drinking warm liquids on hot days can lower body temperature more than drinking cold liquids can because it activates the body’s natural cooling system: perspiration. When sweat evaporates, some of our body heat leaves with it, making us feel cooler. The theory was put to the test on a recent 84 Farenheit-degree day at Hansol Nutrition Center, which despite its name is not a shop stocked with vitamins and whey protein, but a Korean restaurant in the Murray Hill section of Queens, known for its samgyetang. “It’s one of the best-selling items on our menu in the summer,” said Peter Ro, an owner. “Especially in hot weather.” The dish comes to the table at full boil in an earthenware pot, and as tradition dictates, it is served under-
seasoned. Salt is added at the table to the diner’s taste: Each pinch helps bring the soup into focus, its richness cut by the sweet red dates and a faintly medicinal tang from the ginseng. “We very much concentrate on the stock,” Ro said. “We try to adhere to the traditional way of preparing it.” He said his recipe is a secret. But samgyetang is almost always made from just a handful of ingredients, with none of the pungent, spicy flavors that Korean cuisine is often known for in the West. The chicken is stuffed with aromatics and simmered until the meat can be pulled easily from the bones with chopsticks. At Hansol, the soup is silkier than many versions, most likely from an extra helping of starchy rice in the stock. Otherwise, it’s typical of the uncomplicated comfort dish that has steamed up Korean kitchens for generations. Whether it provides relief from the heat ultimately depends on one’s definition of relief. Any cooling effect is not always immediate. “I guess we’re thinking more toward the longer-term benefits,” Ro said. “The food you intake will have an effect on your health, and that makes you feel better.” Kim, though, swears by its tempering qualities. “It might only be psychological for me, as a Korean,” she said. “But it feels like it’s working.”
New York Times News Service
Faith
Sunday
www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion
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Church launches campaign for toys for Marawi children
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The number of individuals who were displaced by the armed conflict in Marawi City
The poster of Caritas Philippines’s “Share the joy, give a toy” campaign. CBCPNews
T he toy c a mpa ig n , c a l led “Share the joy, give a toy,” hopes to bring back the happiness and provide comfort to children, who are recovering from the trauma brought by the ongoing conflict. Caritas Philippines said the campaign targets to give new or preloved toys and educational materials to at least 3,000 children who evacuated in Iligan City, and to other disaster-affected areas. Apart from basic necessities, like food and nonfood items, Caritas Philippines Executive Secretar y Fr. Edwin Gariguez said there is an urgent need to address the psychosocial needs, especially of children. “The trauma brought by the armed conflict were evident in the faces of the civilians, especially to the children, who were robbed of a peaceful and memorable childhood. Through this campaign, we hope to help ease the trauma,” Gariguez said.
he Catholic Church’s socialaction arm has launched a campaign to help put a smile back on faces of the children of Marawi City.
465,674
The provision of toys will form part of the psychosocial interventions of the rapid-response appeal recently launched by Caritas Philippines with the Diocese of Iligan. “We are also encouraging children who will be donating toys to write simple cards or notes, with inspiring messages for the children of Marawi,” he added. Donations can be dropped off at Caritas Philippines office in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines headquarters in Intramuros, Manila, until August 11. The church agency said new or preloved toys, as well as educational materials, for children will be accepted as long as they are “clean and in good condition.” It added that toys that are scary-looking, pigs or wild-animal replicas, weapon-like, toxic, battery-operated and damaged/ soiled are discouraged. Caritas is currently implementing a P10-million humanitarian response to the Marawi crisis, covering the essential needs of at least 3,000 families, or 15,000 individuals, in Iligan City. Data from the Office of the Civil Defense-National Emergency Operations Center showed a total of 102,860 families, or 465,674 individuals, were displaced by the armed conflict in Marawi City. CBCPNews
Pope donates for drought, conflict-stricken East Africa
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OME—As an unprecedented gesture, Pope Francis has donated €25,000 to the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) efforts supporting people facing food insecurity and famine in East Africa. Pope Francis said the funds are “a symbolic contribution to an FAO program that provides seeds to rural families in areas affected by the combined effects of conflicts and drought.” The pontiff’s remarks were contained in a letter addressed to FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva by Msgr. Fernando Chica Arellano, permanent observer of the Holy See to the UN food agencies in Rome.
Pope Francis’s gesture stemmed from a pledge he made in a message to FAO’s conference on July 3 and was “inspired also by the desire to encourage governments,” Chica stated in the letter. Famine was declared in parts of South Sudan in February and while the situation has eased after a significant scaling up in the humanitarian response, some 6 million people in the country are still struggling to find enough food every day. Meanwhile, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in five other East A f r ic a n cou nt r ies — Som a l i a , Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda—is currently estimated
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lost sizable support from independents and some Republican voters. But polls show white evangelicals remaining loyal— and essential to stabilizing his political standing. “Pray for him as he faces critics and opposition,” evangelical leader Franklin Graham wrote of the president on Wednesday on Facebook, describing the transgender ban as “a bold move.” Trump tweeted earlier in the day his plan to block transgender people from serving in the US military “in any capacity,” citing “tremendous medical costs and disruption.” The White House did not say what would happen to those thousands of transgender troops already serving. The announcement signals a reversal from former President Barack Obama’s decision to open the armed services to transgender people, a policy that also required the Pentagon to pay for gender-transition surgeries and hormone therapy. The issue was barely on the radar for some national conservative leaders, who said privately they were far more concerned with
The Ignatian Spirituality By Corazon Damo-Santiago
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eceive, Lord, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will.... Give me only your love and your grace. With this I am rich enough and have no more to ask.” These were the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the “largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church.” A Spanish noble, he desired to be a knight in shining armor, but a cannon ball shattered his leg in the Battle of Pamplona in 1521. While convalescing he read the Life of Christ by Robert Saxony and a collection of the Lives of Saints. “Since these men were as human as I am, I could be as saintly as they are,” was a spiritual realization that inspired him to be a religious despite family objections.
‘Ad majorem Dei gloriam’
Children in the town of Embetyo, Eritrea OCHA/Gemma Connell
at about 16 million, which marks an increase of about 30 percent since late-2016. Pope Francis, who has made solidarity a major theme of his pontificate, is set to visit FAO’s
headquarters on October 16 to mark World Food Day. This year the event is being held under the slogan: “Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development.” IPS
Trump transgender ban nod to Christian conservatives A SHINGTON—His agenda stalled and his party divided, President Donald J. Trump veered into the nation’s simmering culture wars by announcing plans to ban transgender people from serving in the military. Much of the political world— prominent conser vatives and Trump administration officials, among them—was surprised and confused by the president’s sudden social-media pronouncement. But on the ground in North Carolina, Tami Fitzgerald was elated. “It was pretty high up on our wish list,” said Fitzgerald, executive director for North Carolina Values Coalition, which has fought for that state’s so-called bathroom bill. Fitzgerald said she found it “ridiculous” that the American taxpayers were being forced to pay for treatment and surgery that violates the conscience of most of the American public. Tr ump’s abr upt announcement amounted to a direct political lifeline to his most passionate supporters. In his chaotic first six months in office, Trump has
Portrait of Saint Ignatius de Loyola by Peter Paul Rubens Wikimedia Commons
defunding Planned Parenthood, protecting religious freedom and amending the tax code to allow nonprofit religious organizations to engage in politics. But for Christian conservatives across middle America who make up much of Trump’s base, We d ne s d ay ’s a n nou nc e me nt served as a powerful reminder t h at he re m a i n s com m it te d to their values. For emphasis, perhaps, Tr ump fol lowed his morning tweet with an afternoon message in all capital letters: “IN AMERICA WE DON’T WORSHIP GOVERNMENT—WE WORSHIP GOD!” In Iowa outspoken social conservative Steve Scheffler praised Trump’s decision and lamented the evolution of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement. “Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have even been talking about these issues where people can’t figure out what gender they are,” said Scheffler, a Republican national committeeman. “It’s pretty sad we’re at this point.” It may not be front and center in Washington, but in city halls and
statehouses, debates continue to rage over LGBT rights, particularly as transgender people seek access to bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identities. Trump largely sidestepped the issue before the election, vowing instead to defend LGBT rights. In the spring of 2016, he invited transgender reality star Caitlyn Jenner to use whichever bathroom she chose at Trump Tower. But after six months in office, he’s in desperate need of political momentum. The Republican president has yet to convince the Republican-led Congress to enact any major legislation. An independent investigation probing Russian interference in the 2016 election has expanded to Trump’s closest aides. And the president is publicly quarreling with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his most loyal Cabinet member. Trump won over 81 percent of white evangelical voters in the 2016 election, according to exit polls. The Pew Research Center found this spring that Trump’s approval rating was twice as high among white evangelical Protestants than the general public. AP
Be a soldier of Christ “for the greater glory of God,” was his resolve when he regained his health. After a general confession in the Benedictine Abbey in Montserrat, Spain, he stripped off his richly garments and gave them to a beggar. Before the statue of the Blessed Mother, he offered his armor and sword on the eve of her feast in March 1522, For almost a year, he prayed unceasingly, beg ged for alms and fasted. His bedroom on the fourth f loor of the family castle eloquently depicts his metanoia. Beneath a brocaded canopy in his wooden statue with a book on the left hand and eyes staring at the heavens is written: “Aqui se entrego a Dios Iñigo de Loyola [Here Ignatius Loyola surrendered to God]” wrote James Martin, SJ, in The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything: A Spirituality For Life. The cadence of spiritual insights he experienced convinced him he was being called for a deeper relationship with God. He spent a year of solitude in prayer describing in his autobiography his mystical experiences. The “eyes of his understanding opened, he understood both spiritual and matters of faith… of learning, with so great an enlightenment that everything seemed new.” Inspired beyond belief, he drafted his insights in Spiritual Exercise, better known as Ignatian Spirituality. Since everything is within the realm of spiritual life, a Jesuit most likely will define Ignatian Spirituality as “finding God in all things.” Fr. David Donovan, SJ, implies since nothing can be hidden “everything can be opened up before God.”
Quest for God
A bridge is a structure which serves as a pathway to transport people or objects from one point to another. The bridge can be made of different components—wood, ropes, bricks, steel, cement and
even glass with each type having its advantages and disadvantages. However, they have one commonality—offer a passage from one place to another. Religious orders, organizations and spiritual leaders offer different ways to grow spiritually. Saint Ignatius calls this a “way of proceeding” for people to grow in faith and find the freedom to become the person one is “meant to be—to love and to accept love, to make good decisions and to experience the beauty of creation and the mystery of God’s love.” The Order of the Jesuits calls this spirituality for Christian believers and seekers who desire a genuine relationship with God, the Ignatian Spirituality. Since everything is within God’s authority and competence and everything affect man’s relationship with God, Ignatian Spirituality is about finding the true God in all things and everyone. This is the greatest adventure in life for “our hearts are restless until it rests in you,” according to Saint Augustine. In Friendship Like No Other, Fr. William A. Barry, SJ, recommends that the faithful need to relate to God to mature in faith.
Man in the modern world
The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World states: “Man’s dignity demands that he acts according to a knowing and free choice.” Thus, choice is prompted within or motivated from external pressure. “Man’s dignity demands he acts with a knowing and free choice.” But worldliness is an unsurmountable barricade to moral choice since the dawn of civilization. In a sensual world, the trappings of pleasure, power, prestige and pesos are benchmarks of a good life. These affect, to unprecedented degree, man’s disordered affections. Needs are relegated to the background, only wants prevail often in the pyramid of preferences. To live simply is inward mobility in a consumer society. For status have symbols, making it difficult to regulate desires when aiming for upward scales in the art of living. Ignatian Spirituality then is about “freedom and detachment, God in his goodness gifted man freedom to will.” The Vatican says, “Only in freedom can man direct himself toward goodness…authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man.” “Conquer oneself and regulate one’s life…that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment.” Saint Ignatius’s feast day is celebrated annually on July 31. Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna and Mater Redemptor is College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.
Sports BusinessMirror
Editor: Jun Lomibao | mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph
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By Graham Dunbar The Associated Press
ENEVA—The Olympic family of sports is in a period of turmoil one year after a troubled Rio de Janeiro Games. A slew of critical headlines for sport’s world governing bodies in the past week has tarnished soccer’s International Football Federation (Fifa), swimming’s International Swimming Federation (Fina) and boxing’s International Boxing Association (Aiba) organizations. A common theme is allegations of financial mismanagement to retain power and influence in the sports-governance world that typically involves firstclass travel, five-star hotels and access to political leaders. Personal enrichment is alleged against a rising star of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), former sprinter Frankie Fredericks. Track-and-field body
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TURMOIL ATOP SPORTS BODIES
International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) suspended Fredericks last week from its ruling
committee during a probe of the $300,000 payment to his company on the day in 2009 that Rio was chosen to host the 2016 Olympics. Fredericks denies any wrongdoing. The state of Aiba’s institutional finances led its executive committee to pass a vote of no confidence in President Ching-Kuo Wu. An IOC executive board member, Wu denied reports Aiba risks bankruptcy because investors want their money back. Another IOC board member, Patrick Hickey, has been “self-suspended” for 11 months since being arrested in Rio for alleged links to scalping Olympic tickets. The IOC, which passed a 2014 resolution urging sports organizations to commit to improved governance, declined comment on Wednesday on recent issues facing Summer Games sports:
Fifa
Fifa’s Senior Vice President Angel Maria Villar is in a Spanish jail facing a range of corruption allegations. Villar, who has led Spain’s football federation for 29 years, was among four arrested this month, including his son. Gorka Villar, who was a Fifa reform adviser in 2015, allegedly benefited from deals linked to friendly matches involving Spain’s national team.
INTERNATIONAL Amateur Boxing Association President ChingKuo Wu poses with referees in the ring after the final matches at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro last year. AP INTERNATIONAL Swimming Federation Vice President Husain Al Musallam (left), President Julio Cesar Maglione (center) and Executive Director Cornel Marculescu attend a news conference in Budapest, Hungary, during the world championships recently. AP
Spain’s top sports authority suspended Villar for a year on Tuesday. Fifa’s ethics committee has not announced any measures. Villar is the second Fifa Council member linked to alleged criminal wrongdoing this year. Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, an IOC member from Kuwait, was implicated in a Brooklyn federal court document in April for allegedly funding bribes to Asian football officials through accounts of the Olympic Council of Asia, which he leads. The sheikh denied wrongdoing though resigned from Fifa within days.
appeared to be “bent on creating a false narrative in the media”. The New York Times and British daily The Guardian claimed Aiba cannot afford to repay money from Azerbaijani and Chinese investors in pro boxing subsidiaries. Wu promised to give Aiba members a fuller financial picture and hold a special congress within months. The IOC withheld Rio Olympic revenues from Aiba last year, and said on Wednesday it is “seeking more information, to be able to determine whether further action is required”.
IAAF
THOUGH Frankie Fredericks has been in the spotlight since March, track’s Monaco-based body suspended him only last week. The ruling explained Fredericks wants to keep his IAAF Council seat, though he agreed to stay away from the world championships in August. The four-time Olympic medalist retains his IOC membership though has no active role during investigations. Fredericks was an IOC board member at the time of the Rio vote. His company accepted $300,000 payment allegedly sourced from a Brazilian businessman. Fredericks said he was paid for a consultancy contract with the son of Lamine Diack, who, in 2009, was IAAF president and an IOC member. The Diack family is being investigated by French state prosecutors.
IOC
FINA
THE first vice president of swimming’s world body is Husain al-Musallam, also from Kuwait and a longtime aide to Sheikh Ahmad. Al-Musallam was reelected unopposed last Saturday by Fina members, despite being identified as “coconspirator 3” in the Brooklyn case. The sheikh is “coconspirator 2”. Fina cleared al-Musallam as a candidate because “there was no case to answer” according to its rules. In a federal court in Brooklyn, a Fifa audit panel member from the US territory of Guam admitted taking
six-figure bribes to help Kuwaiti interests in football politics. Al-Musallam and Sheikh Ahmad are still a member and chairman, respectively, of the IOC’s Olympic Solidarity Commission. It has a $500-million budget to help sports bodies and athletes ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
AIBA
THE boxing body often seems in turmoil. This week Wu faced a rebellion by senior colleagues who he said
FREDERICKS and Hickey were among the few IOC members to miss meetings this month in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the 2024-2028 Olympic bid contests. Hickey has been in Ireland trying to clear his name since December, when he was allowed to leave Brazil to receive medical treatment. The Sheikh Ahmad-led Association of National Olympic Committees loaned Hickey $430,000 to pay his bail money. If their absences were expected, Sheikh Ahmad’s decision to skip Los Angeles and Paris officials presenting their projects was more surprising. The Kuwaiti royal is seen as a key ally in IOC votes, in part because of leading Lausanne-based ANOC. It is unclear if he has traveled to Switzerland, where federal prosecutors have a longstanding investigation of Fifa, since the Brooklyn court hearing.
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Cousin Ofelia
By Antonio Hernandez
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sat on a fallen tree at the edge of the village. The hot field stretched before me up to the horizon, and the brightness of the sun hurt my eyes. Once in a while, I would take a swig of ginger broth from a bottle that my sister prepared for me earlier that morning. She had been awake all night, hovering over the various relatives who had converged on the village for her wedding. It was to be grandest wedding ever seen in this corner of the province, and all around her, relations and friends chattered in various accents, a tribute to the size of my grandfather's clan. But I found the crowd incomplete until I had seen the arrival of my cousin Ofelia from the highlands. I nagged my sister for confirmation that Tia Elena was bringing her down for the wedding. I had not seen her for four years, but memories of the games we played sat very clearly on my mind. At the age of nine, she still cries a lot, my aunt had written ahead of them. She inherited her father's sadness, it seems. I found those phrases strange because the Ofelia I remembered had a bright smile as she waved goodbye to us across a f looded stream. We visited their farm in the mountains one rainy season, and we left for the lowlands just as the monsoon weather was gathering strength. Everybody knew that the coming rains would bring difficulties, but even in the face of such hardship I had never seen her cry. At around noon, when most of the broth had disappeared down my throat, my vigilance was finally rewarded by the appearance of a horse-drawn
calesa in the distance. I raised my arms in greeting, feeling a little foolish under that hot sun. As the carriage drew abreast I ran alongside the horse, still unsure whether Ofelia was in the vehicle or not. I saw a woman in black with a sad but smiling face, and I recognized Tia Elena, the woman with the Castilian face who was the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish soldier. I shouted happily and she waved her arm in recognition. I ran dangerously close to the horse, and the cuchero waved me away with his horsewhip. "Where is Ofelia? Where is Ofelia?" I kept shouting against the noise. Tia Elena smiled and moved aside to show a shy face hiding behind her shawl. I saw the tear-stained cheeks flushed by hours of travelling. I saw the round, innocent eyes that registered fear of the strange surroundings, fear of this boy running wildly alongside the carriage. The sight of her tears suddenly drained my energies and I slowed down to a trot. I watched the calesa as it entered the village with the tearful Ofelia burying her face into her mother's lap. On all sides, people gathered by their windows to watch the new arrivals come in. The whole clan gathered before the house to welcome Tia Elena and her daughter, who had to travel the farthest just to attend this wedding. Even without that distinction, my aunt would still occupy an honorable place in the guests' table because of her Iberian looks. Her aquiline nose stood apart in a sea of f lat noses, her white skin was a sensation in the brown world she was born in. She waved wanly to the crowd as she alighted, with pale Ofelia clutching her hemline. I made myself as conspicuous as possible, hoping for an expression of recognition from my cousin. I am here, my beaming face was virtually shouting, remember the time we risked a spanking by burying ourselves in the rice granaries? The crowd parted and allowed them up the stairs, my mother and sister leading the way. As
she went past me, I tugged at Ofelia's sleeves. She looked at me and raised her arms defensively, and then she moved to the other side of her mother. The rush of relatives pushing upstairs then hid them from view. I sat on an empty bamboo bench and drank the rest of my sister's ginger broth, crushed by the rejection. I did not see them for the rest of the afternoon but later that evening, Tia Elena came down to help with the cooking. Her soft, Mediterranean face lit up when she saw me and she wiped her hands hastily and planted a kiss on my cheeks. "How you have grown," she said. Her face reminded me of the picture of saints in the nearby chapel, although hers was sadder. Years later, I would learn that Tia Elena's looks were the blessing and the curse that brought her isolation from the rest of her family. Half sister to four brothers and six sisters (my mother among them), she was always a curiosity being shown off by my great grandfather. Her father was a soldier from Castille who had been exiled to the Philippines for minor thefts. On the last months of Spanish rule, he was assigned to a detachment that gave token resistance to the advancing Americans. Passing by this village half a century before my generation, he met my grandmother, then just newly widowed, and he stayed just long enough to get her pregnant. The resulting child was a sensation in the village, envied by her sisters and brothers, a white child whose only maternal inheritance was her dark hair. "Where is Ofelia," I asked. She smiled uncomfortably, the lines around her mouth showing clearly by the light of the stove. "I am afraid she is not well. The crowd makes her feel uncomfortable. Go find out how she is. I left her sleeping in your sister's room." I went upstairs and tiptoed past relatives resting in hallways and under tables. I listened closely in front of my sister's room and when I heard voices
I pushed the door open. Four or five women were already asleep in various positions around the room. In a corner I saw my sister cradling Ofelia like a baby, talking to her softly and swaying as if to lull her to sleep. "When is mother going to be finished?" I heard Ofelia ask. At that moment, my sister saw me and she motioned for me to come in. Ofelia raised her eyes and looked at me suspiciously. "You remember your cousin, don't you?" my sister asked. "He told me about the games you played up in the mountains. Would you like to play with him now?" I edged closer to the two of them. "How are you, Ofelia?" I whispered. "I watched you come in this afternoon. Did you see me run with the horse?" By the light of the lamp, I saw the fear creeping back into her face. My sister hugged the girl closer and I stood up to leave the room, but then she addressed her next question to me. "When is my mother going to be finished?" I knelt down once more beside her, thankful for her acknowledgement of my presence. "She will be here soon. You should see the buntings downstairs. Paper lanterns that glow in the dark, lamps that rotate by themselves. Things you never see up in the mountains. Would you like to see them now?" My sister saw the chance to be able to return to her preparations. She helped Ofelia to her feet and, to our surprise, she allowed us to lead her towards the door. As all three of us stepped around the sleeping bodies, I held my cousin's hand and I shuddered at its coldness. I felt an intense desire to turn around and do a foolish dance, to f ly through the air and do handstands, anything just so I could make Ofelia smile again the way she was smiling across that f looded river ages ago. Instead, I walked her across that creaking house, trying to understand her fear in the dark, wondering what it was that made her grow old.
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efore dawn the next morning, a procession of gaily-coloured carriages set out in the dark for the wedding ceremonies in the central part of town. I sat next to Ofelia by the window, our chins set firmly on the hard bamboo sills. Before us, lanterns shone at various heights, throwing our front yard into a kind of light that I had never seen before. "So many people," Ofelia murmured to herself. She clasped her hands in veneration of something that she would remember for a long time. Below us, Tia Elena waved at us from a one-horse tilburin. A few yards away, my sister sat resplendently in her f lower-bedecked calesa, while mother fussed over her in the cramped space of the carriage. In one corner of the yard, a brass band hired at great cost from a distant town stopped tuning up and started playing its softest tune. The first of the vehicles started pulling out of the yard, which emptied fast as the onlookers scampered after the procession. Even the drum major got the drift of things and waved his musicians into the street. When the last spectator disappeared around the bend, I looked around and saw that, save for the cooks downstairs, only Ofelia and I were left in the house. I helped her down from the bench and we went to the kitchen, where the tables were set and waiting for the guests to return. The house felt strangely quiet after the commotion of the last two days. "What new games have you learned since we last played?", I asked. "I am good in hiding". "That is an old game. Surely you played hide and seek even before we knew each other." "I like the hiding without the seeking. I like dark places, places where old clothes are kept, places that smell of cobwebs." "We have a granary like that under the backstairs. I hide there whenever I get in trouble." Ofelia's face lit up for the first time. Emboldened, I led her past the kitchen and we went down the back way. The sun had just come up from behind the mountains and the crowd was trickling back into the front yard. I felt a delicious feeling of escape as I led my cousin to a small door barely visible under the bamboo ladder. The door met an obstacle on my first push but it yielded after a few more tries. I pushed Ofelia into the darkness and I was surprised at her eagerness to be swallowed by the gloom. We went past the stored odds and ends until we reached the corner where the unhusked rice was stored knee-deep against the wall. She sat on some empty sacks and I sat across from her, trying to imagine what to say next. In the darkness I heard Ofelia sigh and I knew from the muff led sound of it that she had her head on her knees.
By Simon Anton Diego Baena MARAWI And the days separate the eyes from the wounds You find a child gathering the old footprints that child carving
"Remember the last time we did this in San Alfonso?" I asked, but no answer came. For the next hour or so, nothing I said could elicit a response from Ofelia. Occasionally, she would sigh and shift her head a little, but she gave no indication that she was aware of my presence. Finally, I reached out to assure myself that she was still there and I touched an unresponsive shoulder. It is not surprising, the way she had turned out, I remembered my mother whispering to my sister. Her father's family had this malady that set them apart from others. Her uncle was an addled priest who once shocked his parish by preaching in his underwear. Her father, a goat-farmer from San Alfonso, killed himself by jumping from a palm tree after the maggots ate half his brain. Tia Elena may be the fairest among us, but her luck ran out the moment she met Ofelia's father. Above us I heard the slippers going slap-slap against the bamboo f loor. At the same time, we heard the brass band approaching with a lively tune that brought both of us to our feet. We scampered back to the opening and ran towards the front yard, forgetting to close the granary door behind us. We came into the scene just as the wedding carriage was pulling into the yard. My sister's resplendent wedding gown occupied a large part of the passenger seat, almost obliterating the happy groom beside her. My sister's makeup had by now been messed up by countless kisses but her big smile shone through. People stepped forward to help the newlyweds get down from the unsteady two-wheeled vehicle. A few squeals went up as my sister's gown got caught in the carriage's various protuberances. As her feet touched the ground, a large cheer went up, and then things started going wrong. A well-meaning old man named Gabriel stepped forward from the crowd and lit the first of several fireworks. As the missile shot up with an angry swish, the crowd broke into ooohs and aaahs. The noise startled my sister and her groom, who did not expect this part of the celebration. Nevertheless they joined the crowd in applauding the first explosion that spread like an oversized umbrella in the sky. I looked at Ofelia to see how she was taking the noise. I was gladdened to see her upturned face with a half smile on it, but I saw, too, that her hands were clasped together so tightly that the knuckles and fingers seemed bloodless. Gabriel, the well-meaning fool then lit his second rocket, but he moved back much too early. The missile shot up at an angle, hit the awning of a second f loor window and then arched back towards the ground. It went past the horse, which caused the animal to bolt upright, knocking most of the wedding group to the ground. The errant rocket then richoceted madly around the yard, scattering people and furniture around like paper toys. And then, with a deafening explosion, the firecracker ended its journey a few feet from where Ofelia and
his own image on the rock The howling festers The light has enough room to navigate now The crow is present at all points of departure
I stood frozen. As a delayed reaction, I threw myself to the ground, my head reeling as if the rocket exploded between my ears. A continuous high-pitched scream filled my head and I must have spent several minutes rolling in the ground with my hands on my ears. Eventually somebody helped me to my feet and for the first time I noticed the absence of Ofelia. As the stunned crowd sorted itself out I ran from group to group calling her name out. Somewhere along, a distraught Tia Elena joined me and we went through the whole house and yard but the search turned up nothing. "The granary," I shouted to my aunt. I ran to the back of the house and into the still open door, groping my way towards the corner where we sat but I found the spot empty. I burrowed deep into the pile of rice but Ofelia was not there. I went out and rejoined Tia Elena, who by now was becoming hysterical. A woman was shouting from the backyard. She remembered seeing a girl running through the back gate towards the woods. "She was as pale as a sheet", the woman said. Tia Elena pleaded for some people to go with us and we ran towards the trail that led to the hills at the back. A few yards on, we reached a fork in the trail. "Somebody go down that track towards the river," a man shouted. "We will cover the trail to the hills." Instinctively, I turned left and joined the group heading for the river. Tia Elena, unfamiliar with the terrain, hesitated for a while and then ran after me. We fanned out into the meadows sloping towards the river, calling out Ofelia's name until we reached the edge of the water. In the heat of summer the river had been reduced to a weak stream and we all jumped into the shallow water. We scanned the deeper parts of the river while others climbed into the clearing at the other side. We were into the search only a few minutes when somebody ahead shouted: "I found
Sunday, July 30, 2017
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her. She’s here.!". Tia Elena ran forward and screamed. Ofelia lay motionless with her face down on waters two or three inches deep, her slippers f loating serenely beside her feet. A dozen hands shot out and lifted her from the stream. To everybody's relief she gasped and coughed convulsively the moment she was turned upright. Tia Elena asked the men to set her face down on the sand and for the next ten minutes, she massaged the water out of her lungs. A trickle of blood f lowed from her left ear and her knee was bloodied by several falls. She kept her eyes shut tightly even after she had gained full consciousness, and no amount of pleading from me or her mother would make her release her clenched fists. I kept calling out her name, but the sound of my voice seemed to be pushing her deeper into her hiding place. We carried her rigid body back to the house, where the celebrations had been set on hold because of the mishap. Gabriel sat crying like a child beside the stairs, still clutching his unused rockets. A man was offering him beer to calm him down. My mother came forward with some towels and they wrapped the pale child in it. My sister had by now slipped out of her wedding dress and she helped carry Ofelia into a bedroom. I tried to get inside before the door could close but a neighbour pulled me back. I stood by that doorway for a long, long time, my hands still clutching the slippers that I found f loating near Ofelia. Muff led explosions were repeating themselves at the back of my head, explosions that would stay with me for the rest of my life. I started counting them. When I reached a hundred, I understood that they were ticks in a gigantic clock, and that they were counting down the last few moments of my childhood. I arranged the slippers very neatly by the doorway. I looked around and saw people trying to recover the remnants of the broken buntings. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and then went downstairs
Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror
A10 Sunday, July 30, 2017
Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua
Loving Mindanao with ease By Leony R. Garcia
I
Photos by Teddy Pelaez
love Mindanao. Just the fact that my mother hailed from Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte, and my father was once an adopted son of Mindanao—made me love this home of my lineage. It was there where Tatay met and fell in love with my Nanay.
THE author tries her hand in weaving Growing up in a quite closely knit family, I found it exciting whenever my parents’ relatives come for a visit, and I enjoyed listening to their banters and story with their thick Mindanaoan accents. That was why I was more than happy to have my first out-of-town assignment as a journalist in Davao City sometime in the late-1980s. The moment I set foot in this vast, not yet populous and stillundeveloped city at the time, the more I fell in love with Mindanao, even if our group was told “that the New People’s Army [NPA] had just left the city”. Meaning it used to be NPA-infested until such time the city decided to put up the Apo Duwaling Festival, which, today, has come to be known as Kadayawan. Since then, I have always wanted to come back to Davao and see the rest of Mindanao. I even asked my parents to come back home and make Mindanao our provincial haven. Luckily, I am able to visit Davao again in 2000 to experience Davao’s premier destination, the Pearl Farm, along with Eden Nature Park, Malagos Garden and the Philippine Eagle Mountain Resort. I’ve been to Siargao island in Surigao del Norte once, sometime in 1998, to see the upcoming surfing destination and its famous Cloud Nine at the time. With a three-hour fast drive from Davao City, we passed by Butuan City. From Surigao City we took the
B’laan youth in traditional clothing at the Lamlifew Village Museum
Davao’s lifesavers in training
Rows of tuna at the General Santos Fish Port Complex roll-on/roll-off to Dapa Port, Siargao, and to our destination. I was back again in Davao in 2016, that time to experience the Davao Fun sale activities, along with “your island for a day” Buenavista Island and the private Banana Plantation. Of course, I revisited Eden Nature Park, Malagos Garden and the Philippine Eagle Mountain Resort, and went to other places to experience the Davao food and drink crawl, its world-famous 911 and emergency response center and be with the local painters and artists at the new Seda Hotel. My wish to see more of Mindanao came recently dur ing the coverage of CPR Caravan in General Santos (GenSan) City. GenSan was the 12th hop of the CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) caravan, dubbed the “CPR on W heels & Wings” campaign, an advocacy undertaking initiated by the Philippine Heart Association (PHA), in collaboration with the Department of Tourism (DOT). Its ultimate goals are to transform every Filipino home, municipality/city and tourist destination into a CPR-ready community and make every Filipino 10 to 65 years old a lifesaver; to be on a par with Asian and Western nations that have been CPR-ready for years; and to put the Philippines on the international CPR-ready map.
The caravan’s previous stops were Boracay; Iloilo City, Guimbal and Banate, Iloilo; Tacloban and Ormoc, Leyte; Maasin, Southern Leyte; Davao City, Cagayan de Oro, Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental; and Pasacao, Camarines Sur.
GenSan: Tuna Capital of the Philippines and more Despite the vast idle lands of GenSan, I find it a lovable city. Easily, its main attraction is the world boxing icon and currently senator of the land, Manny Pacquiao, and a visit to GenSan is never complete without dropping by and having photos in his mansions. Mansion No. 1 has practically become some sort of a museum that the Pacquiaos allow the public to explore. Mansion No. 2 is still home to the family whenever they are in GenSan. Except for the vast basketball courtcum-mini training gym and the big receiving room, a portion of the mansion is still off-limits to the public. It is there where they stay. The last time was in December 2016, where the family gave gifts to their neighbors and constituents. Mansion No. 3 is an ongoing construction with a 200-hectare block composed of several housing units and a mini garden. Also under construction is the church/worship center. He also has a roadside hotel bearing his name fronting a commercial building that hosts several business
establishments, including Jinkee Pacquiao’s boutique that sells branded and imported bags. The famous General Santos Fish Port Complex is at Barangay Tambler. The “Tuna Capital of the Philippines” is the largest producer of sashimigrade tuna in the country. The fish port is equipped with modern facilities that comply with international standards on fish-catch handling. The fish-port complex’s administration gave our group a tour of the place when, at the time was 6 a.m., fishing boats from the Philippi nes’s neighbor i ng cou nt r ies were there to sell their catch after a month of fishing in the high seas. Therefore the various fish on sale were coming from Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia. This writer couldn’t resist a photo taken with the yellow-fin tuna while it was being weighed. This fish variety can weigh as much as 200 kilograms, according to workers in the fish port.
The Lamlifew Village Museum The Lamlifew Village is home to the B’laan tribe of Sarangani, some 35 kilometers away from General Santos Cit y. With around 1,000 families in this mountain community, the indigenous group thrives through farming while the women weave and produce accessories while teaching the younger generation to
preserve their cultural heritage in their spare time. Lamlifew is one of the tiny hamlets of Barangay Datal Tampal of the town of Malungon, Sarangani Province. The Lamlifew Village Museum was inaugurated at the National Museum of the Philippines in December 2007. It was launched in November 2008. Today, it is a functioning museum that manages a small but important artifact collection. It reaches out to Mindanao schools to engage in dialogue about the B’laan ethnolinguistic group. The museum was initiated by the Lamlifew Tribal Women’s Association (LTWA)—the first duly Securities and Exchange Commission-registered cultural organization completely initiated and operated by a Philippine indigenous community. The LTWA set about a cooperative-style beading workshop with a small-scale sales arm. The women have also worked to refresh understanding of and skills in ikat-dyeing and weaving, among themselves, with the help of their elderly virtuosos; and in relation to all those from beyond their village who inquire about their identity. When our group arrived, villagers welcomed us with a traditional song and dance number. One of the elders served us sweet tomato cooked in the olden-day style—inside the grilled bamboo. Their black coffee is one of the best coffees I have tasted in recent years!
Lake Sebu, South Cotabato Known for its three lakes, the majestic seven waterfalls, Seven Falls Zipline adventure and more, Lake Sebu is one of the most popular tourist destinations in southern Philippines. One of its beautiful and most popular resorts is Punta Isla Lake Resort. Punta Isla offers the lake for a day tour. It is also a home of tilapias, where Lake Sebu is famous for. It is only in Lake Sebu where you can taste a variety of tilapia delicacies, from kinilaw, sinugbang tilapia, spicy fillet, tilapora and a lot more.
The placid lake of Lake Sebu can be found in A llah Valley near the municipality of Surallah, South Cotabato. Surrounded by rolling hills and mountains covered with thick rain forest, the lake has an area of 354 hectares (870 acres), with an elevation of approximately 1,000 meters (3,300 feet). The lake’s shores and the surrounding rain forest are home to the indigenous T’bolis, Tirurays, Ubos and Manobos. One of the major groups, the T’bolis are known for their weaving skills and brassware production, as well as fishing skills. The rest of the population is composed of Ilokabos, Bicolanos and Ilocanos. Lake Sebu is a three-hour fast drive (100-120 kilometers per hour by private car!) from General Santos City. W hen our DOT tour guide informed us that he’s taking us to a T ’ boli tribe, we thought there must be a village nearby Saranggani. So when we were almost “ f lying” passing by Koronadal and into South Cotabato, we wondered and asked each other, “Nasa Mindanao pa ba tayo [Are we still in Mindanao]?” Thank God, the long highway of Mindanao is properly cemented, and there was literally no traffic with lesser buses, private cars and trucks traversing the road. We’re more than glad we made it at past 5 p.m. so we were able to see the captivating beauty that was Lake Sebu. Since we were not able to tour the T’boli museum, we just ate grilled tilapia and savored the coolness of Lake Sebu, Mindanao’s summer capital. We were back at GenSan just in time for our dinner with the PHA delegates from Manila. Looking at the map of the Mindanao regions, I’ve only been to Soccsksargen, the Davao reg ion and Caraga—just almost half of Mindanao. I wish to experience the rest of Mindanao in the days to come. One week after our brief experience of Soccsksargen, the war in Marawi erupted. I wish it would end soon.