Issuu

ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS

2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS

BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018)

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS

PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY

DATA CHAMPION

VAXX-TO-VAXX

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Sunday, June 13, 2021 Vol. 16 No. 242

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 12 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

ASSAULT

By Rory Visco

T is now exactly one year, two months and 29 days, or a few days short of 15 months, since the first community quarantine was imposed in the country March 15, 2020.

We’ve already seen various levels of quarantines that everyone thought were just reincarnations of a popular kind of local rum. Or even lockdowns (granular, localized, special concern) that it seemed grappling with the SARSCoV-2 virus and the Coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) disease was like a wrestling match. It was a painful struggle for everyone, so the news of Covid-19 vaccines arriving in the country brought some promise that this virus and the accompanying lethal disease it carries with it could soon die a natural death.

The vaccines will come

IN February 2021, the first batch of these vaccines began to arrive in the country like the 600,000 doses of CoronaVac vaccines created by Chinese biopharma firm Sinovac, a donation by the Chinese government. In March, 525,600 doses of the AstraZeneca brand arrived under the Covax Facility of the World

FR. AUSTRIACO: “What will happen now is we have bubbles of herd immunity, and slowly the different herds will come together, and the hope is that the entire country will become one giant herd immune against Covid-19.” NJKOZUB/CC BY-SA 4.0

Health Organization (WHO) as a donation, and 1.4 million (1 million procured, 400,000 donated) doses, again from Sinovac. In April, Sinovac delivered another 1.5 million doses, while in May 80,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines from Russia (procured)

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 47.7280

landed in the country, plus another 2 million from Sinovac (procured), and 2,030,400 doses from AstraZeneca and 193,050 doses from Pfizer BioNTech arrived, both under Covax. According to National Task Force Against Covid-19 Chief Implementer and Vaccine Czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., 11 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines will arrive this June, with 5.5 million from Sinovac, one million of Sputnik V, 250,000 doses from Moderna, 2,280,00 of Pfizer-BioNTech and 2,028,000 of AstraZeneca from the Covax facility. And by far, he said the delivery of 2.2 million of Pfizer-BioNTech and 1 million CoronaVac doses last week was the biggest single-day vaccine delivery in the country. The vaccine czar still expects around 11 million doses to be delivered next month, and an additional 17 million doses by August. His estimate is that by September or October, the full inoculation of the A4 priority group—the economic frontliners—should have been completed. So far, Galvez said that as of June 7, the government already administered more than 6 million jabs to priority groups A1 (healthcare workers), A2 (senior citizens), A3 (persons with comorbidities), and A4 (economic frontliners), while 1.6 million are already fully vaccinated or received both doses.

Are we ready to go back to normal? WITH these vaccines now arriving slowly but surely in the Philippines, OCTA Research fellow Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, OP, a molecular biologist and Catholic priest, said in a recent virtual media event that in the Philippines, it is important to raise the percentage of vaccination so that the percentage of viral transmission will go down. “It is a gradual process or transition as the vaccination rollout increases.” He also explained two concepts: “containment” and “herd immunity”, and posed the question: “How much of the population should be vaccinated?” To achieve containment, 40 to 50 percent of the people should be vaccinated, with an attack rate of one per 100,000 population. For herd immunity, it should be 70 to 80 percent with an attack rate of practically near zero, he said. When containment happens, it protects the people because future surges will dramatically decrease, the economy will be allowed to reopen, and it means vaccinated persons can gather normally without masks or face shields or even physical distancing. He cited the case of the US, which is still in containment and has not yet reached herd immunity, but many states have already lifted restrictions like the wearing of masks. Fr. Austriaco said outbreaks may still occur or cluster in con-

tainment, but it would be difficult for the virus to spread. As for herd immunity, he said a herd of vaccinated people “protects” the unvaccinated ones from the virus. With herd immunity, he said, the virus also starves and dies so it can no longer spread and it will allow people to go back to the “old normal.” However, he noted that the presence of the Covid-19 variants poses a challenge because of high transmissibility, so the threshold now increases to higher than 80 percent to achieve herd immunity. He explained as well that for complete herd immunity to happen, it should be built at every level of society, in each household or family, barangay, office or business, municipality or city, with 70 percent vaccination at every level. “What will happen now is we have bubbles of herd immunity, and slowly the different herds will come together, and the hope is that the entire country will become one giant herd immune against Covid-19,” Fr. Austriaco emphasized. “This is the advantage of herd immunity. We can forget about Covid-19, and herd immunity will end the pandemic.” In terms of numbers, Fr. Austriaco said that to achieve containment, the vaccination strategy is to focus on a priority area first such as the National Capital Region (NCR) and eight other areas (Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Pampan-

INKDROPCREATIVE1 | DREAMSTIME.COM

Along with the rest of the world, PHL mounts grandest bid to keep the Covid-19 virus at bay with a full-scale inoculation program ga, Rizal, and also Metro Cebu and Metro Davao) now called NCR+8. With an estimated population of 37 million in NCR+8, around 33 million doses are needed to fully vaccinate 45 percent of the population, which is about 16.6 million people. For herd immunity, about 52 million doses are needed to vaccinate 70 percent, or 25.9 million (every adult in NCR+8), of the 37 million population. How long will it take to administer 52 million doses? It depends on the number of doses administered, he said. If it’s 250,000 per day in NCR+8, containment will happen sometime in October, and herd immunity will be reached before Christmas if vaccination is done at 200,000 to 300,000 doses daily starting June 1 to November 30, 2021. So, are you ready to be vaccinated? Or, are you one of those who think that Covid-19 vaccines will put nanochips in our bodies or make us turn into human magnets? Or, are you waiting for more developments, given that these vaccines are all under emergency use authorization and the usual full range of clinical trials has not happened because of the urgent response required of the crisis? So far, many are already itching to go out without masks or shields, and it can only be achieved if at least 95 percent or higher of Filipinos are fully vaccinated. Take your pick.

n JAPAN 0.4365 n UK 67.6640 n HK 6.1506 n CHINA 7.4659 n SINGAPORE 36.0592 n AUSTRALIA 37.0035 n EU 58.1088 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.7275

Source: BSP (June 11, 2021)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, June 13, 2021

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Biden needs more than $52B to counter China in chips RESIDENT Joe Biden’s blueprint for the US semiconductor industry marks an ambitious effort to set industrial policy for a critical sector of the economy, but the strategy will need more money and global support to take back chip supremacy and preempt a rival effort from China.

The White House on Tuesday outlined a sweeping plan to secure the conduits for critical products from medicines to chips, responding in part to the growing economic and political sway of its Asian rival. Semiconductors—the basic yet incredibly sophisticated components in most every modern device—took centerstage in a 250page White House report, which highlighted Beijing’s “ultimate goal of cyber sovereignty and establishing first-mover advantage.” The US Senate expressed bipartisan support by passing a bill offering $52 billion to bolster domestic chip manufacturing the same day. That’s aimed at reassuring industry leaders like Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-

facturing Co. (TSMC) as they consider expanding investments in production capacity in the country. It’s a hefty pledge, but the money will go fast in an era where a single advanced wafer fab runs more than $10 billion. China has made technology advances a major plank of its 14th five-year plan, with President Xi Jinping pledging $1.4 trillion over six years to secure a lead in sectors like chips, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving. South Korean companies like Samsung and SK Hynix Inc. are committing $450 billion over a decade on chip research and expansion, while TSMC alone has earmarked $100 billion over the next three years. “$50 billion is a great start but this is an expensive industry

with heavy levels of subsidies being proposed across multiple geographies,” said Anne Hoecker, a partner at Bain & Co. The investment “provides more assurance for semi manufacturers to make large, multi-year investments.” Biden is demonstrating a willingness to break with the laissezfaire traditions of the US, calculating the semiconductor industry merits a different approach given the deep government involvement in other countries. He has powerful allies in his corner, in nations that command leads in different sectors of the giant global chipmaking apparatus.

The approach

AMONG the goals outlined in Tuesday’s report is an effort to entice more private investment from abroad and leverage US diplomatic muscle. TSMC and Samsung are currently in talks to secure vital incentives to build advanced chip plants in the US, which would instantly elevate both US semiconductor know-how and capacity. The White House also called for effective multilateral export controls that would “protect US national security interests by limiting advanced semiconductor capabilities in countries of concern.” The Netherlands is home to ASML Holding NV, which enjoys a

BLOOMBERG

By Bloomberg News

virtual monopoly over the market for advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment—essential in making the most advanced 5-nanometer chips and beyond. It’s been unable to ship any EUV systems to China as the Dutch government hasn’t renewed its export licenses for Chinese customers. Meanwhile, Japan’s Tokyo Electron Ltd. and Nikon Corp. supply sophisticated gear to first-tier chipmakers such as Intel and also Chinese companies.

‘Imaginary enemy’

BEIJING fired back against Biden’s blueprint and the Senate bill, saying the US was creating an “imaginary enemy.” While China is committed to “developing a win-win relationship” with the US, the legislation “distorts the facts, and slanders China’s development path and domestic and foreign policies,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday during a regular news briefing in Beijing. Biden’s plan is in part a reflection of a growing concern globally. The world’s heavy dependence on a handful of crucial Asian-based chip suppliers like TSMC was exposed this year after a global supply crisis idled factories at several US automakers, threatening to cut $110 billion in sales. The European Commission set out plans in May to diversify supply chains and carry out regular sector reviews to tackle its lack of industrial independence in strategic areas, including semiconductors. China’s rising threat is the other long-term danger. The country remains at least several generations behind Taiwan and the US in chip design sophistication. But China’s track record of being the world’s factory floor and vast reams of data could give it a leg up in certain pivotal segments, such as the labor-intensive but vital work of assembling and packaging semiconductors, or the younger field of AI-enabled chips. In a sign of the urgency of that effort, the nation’s top semiconductor executives and senior policy makers converged on Nanjing this week for the three-day World Semiconductor Conference to brainstorm future approaches and cement alliances. Advanced chip packaging offers China a chance to push performance by combining a number of chips in one package, but it’s

WHITE HOUSE REPORT RECOMMENDATION

KEY PROVISIONS

1. Promote investment, transparency and collaboration, in partnership with industry, to address the current shortage

Commercial diplomacy to promote investments by foreign firms in the domestic semiconductor industry and ensure fair allocation of supplies to American firms.

2. Fully fund the CHIPS for America provisions to promote long-term US leadership

At least $50 billion in funding for domestic production incentives to secure mature node supply chains for critical industries. Additional appropriations may also support Department of Defense R&D.

3. Strengthen the domestic semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem

Calls on Congress to fund incentives to support essential chip manufacturing supply industries, including fabrication equipment, materials and gases. Investment in radiation-hardened microelectronics data collection, storage and analytics.

4. Support SMEs and disadvantaged firms along the supply chain to enhance innovation

Small Business Administration to promote US small semiconductor firms and connect them to commercial value chain via a clearly mapped “growth chain.”

5. Build a talent pipeline

Department of Labor funds to be used to support pathways to semiconductor employment through apprenticeships. More high-skilled visas, eliminating visa limits by country and exemptions for highly skilled STEM talent.

6. Work with allies and partners to build resilience

Pursue international research and development partnerships and policy harmonization to address unfair trade practices. Bilateral engagement with South Korea on mutual and complementary semiconductor investment.

7. Protect the US technological advantage

Targeted export controls to address semiconductor supply chain vulnerabilities. Collaboration with key supplier allies on multilateral controls to guard US national security. Committee on Foreign Investments of the US reviews of semiconductor-related foreign investments.

ultimately not a replacement for fundamental semiconductor development, Bain’s Hoecker said. “China has been chasing the rest of the world over the past decade. But as the performance of chips increases significantly slower today than in previous years, it’s for sure that China will be able to close the gap with the leaders,” said Wu Hanming, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, a state-backed research institute that houses elite scientists.

A shot in the arm

IN the short term, Biden’s blueprint promises a shot in the arm. A $50-billion federal program to incentivize domestic semiconductor

manufacturing would add $24.6 billion annually to the US economy, the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics estimate. It would generate 280,000 permanent jobs, of which 42,000 would be employed in the semiconductor industry directly. “The US semiconductor goal is simpler than China’s. It only needs to re-shore chip manufacturing, and is already well on the path to doing so,” said Dan Wang, technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “China’s challenge is to master not only the manufacturing of chips, but also invent the equipment—which are some of the most complex instruments in the world —to produce them.”

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Indians already ravaged by virus now slammed with medical debt

An influential Chinese economist said the government’s move to allow families to have three children could lead to a short-term increase in births, but “we cannot expect the effect to continue for a long time.” Bloomberg

China can’t reverse declining birth rate, top economist says By Tom Hancock

recently a n nou nc e d “three child” policy won’t prevent a long-term trend toward lower annual births in China, and the country will struggle to raise the retirement age by more than a couple of years by 2025, an influential Chinese economist said. “I don’t think we can drastically raise the birthrate,” Yao Yang, dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, said in an interview. The government’s move to allow families to have three children could lead to a short-term increase in births, but “we cannot expect the effect to continue for a long time,” he said. “We’d better prepare for an aging society,” said Yao, one of a group of economists who consulted with President Xi Jinping and top economic official Liu He last year. “That is the destiny of East Asian societies.” Yao said that despite an aging population, rising productivity could sustain the economic growth rate close to its potential of 5.5 percent to 6 percent over the

next decade. China should maintain high levels of investment in urbanization, education and research, he added. “Other people say investment should not be a driver for China’s growth,” he said. “I don’t agree with that. China still needs capital.” To slow the pace of a decline in its work force, Beijing has announced plans to “gradually” raise the national retirement age—currently one of the lowest in the world at 50-55 for women and 60 for men—in the next few years but has not given a timetable. There is an added urgency to the reforms as China experienced a baby boom in the 1960s, and that cohort is already reaching retirement age, Yao said. Retirement reforms could be slow though, Yao said, adding that he didn’t think the government will raise the retirement age too much because of “social resistance.” One “realistic” option would be to raise the age by an average of six months a year over the next five years, resulting in a 2.5 year increase by 2025, Yao said. By 2030, the retirement age for men and women could be five years higher than current levels. Bloomberg News

Evergrande tycoon Hui loses $20 billion as investors revolt

ust eight months after celebrating a narrow escape from financial disaster, Chinese billionaire Hui Ka Yan finds himself back in crisisfighting mode. Resurgent concerns about the health of China Evergrande Group, Hui’s flagship property company, have pushed its stock to within a hair’s breadth of the lowest level since March 2020. Bondholders are rushing for the exit too, spooked by missed payments at the developer’s affiliates and a report that regulators are probing Evergrande’s ties to an obscure bank in northern China. It’s yet another dramatic turn of events for a tycoon whose ups and downs are extreme even by the standards of China’s volatile markets. At $19 billion, Hui’s net worth has tumbled by about a third since he clinched a deal with investors to avert a cash crunch in September. It’s down by more than half from a 2020 peak, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The turmoil has the potential to spread much wider. With 1.95 trillion yuan ($305 billion) of liabilities—including dollar bonds that sit in portfolios from Hong Kong to London and New York—Evergrande is the world’s most indebted real-estate company and one of the most systemically important borrowers in China. If Hui fails to revive investor confidence, a liquidity crisis could ripple through the country’s financial system and beyond. The risk has grown serious enough that Chinese regulators recently told banks to conduct a fresh round of stress tests on their exposure to the junk-rated developer. “If it was in trouble, it clearly would have a significant impact on the Chinese housing market and the general economy,” Lan Deng, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies real-estate development in China and the US, said

by e-mail. “Not only would it expose its lenders to greater financial risk, there could also be possible chain effects spreading across the different sectors of the Chinese economy, given how deeply the economy is tied to real estate development.” Evergrande didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. It pledged earlier this week to arrange payment for overdue commercial paper at its affiliates and has said its dealings with Shengjing Bank Co., a lender in which it owns a stake, are compliant with Chinese law. The developer has defended its use of sales discounts on certain properties and this week resumed buying back shares, snapping up about HK$475 million ($61 million) worth since Monday. It plans to meet at least one of China’s key regulatory borrowing limits for real-estate companies—known as the “three red lines”—by the end of this month. Hui has options as he tries to put Evergrande on a sounder financial footing. His empire has raised billions of dollars in recent months by selling equity in its property management arm and electric vehicle unit, which is more valuable than Nissan Motor Co. despite having yet to sell a single car. Evergrande has several other units that could be candidates for listings, including its bottled water affiliate and an online home- and car-sales platform. It’s also benefiting from a buoyant Chinese property market, said Maggie Hu, professor of real-estate finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The company took in nearly 52 billion yuan of cash in May as contract sales climbed 6 percent. It can free up even more cash by slowing land acquisitions and offloading some investment properties and tourism assets, said Edwin Fan, a director at Fitch Ratings. Bloomberg News

By Bibhudatta Pradhan & Vrishti Beniwal

n the shadows of the Taj Mahal, shoemaker Shyambabu Nigam worked for years to save enough money to buy his wife Anju a small house with a view of the iconic 17th century mausoleum. Yet in just a matter of months, they were forced to give it up. A fter A nju fel l ser iously il l with Covid-19 last year, the couple turned to a mix of subsidized government hospitals and more expensive private clinics to treat the illness and pay for two openhear t surger ies t hat fol lowed. The total costs amounted to more than 600,000 rupees ($8,230)— roughly six times Nigam’s annual income. While the sale of his modest two-bedroom house covered most of that amount, he was also forced to borrow money from friends and sell one of his three leather sewing machines. “First we fought to save her life and now we are fighting to survive with a huge financial burden,” said Nigam, 42, from the room he now rents in a low-income village of Kachhpura near Agra in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. “Please give us any work. My two sons and I will work day and night to get out of this crisis.” Nigam is among roughly twothirds of Indians that don’t have any health insurance, compounding the problems facing India’s economy as it tries to recover from the shock of a rare contraction last year. Overcrowded government hospitals with long lines and poor facilities prompt people to spend out of pocket for better treatment in the private sector. While the virus has affected the poor across the globe, the impact can be exponentially greater in countries like India where public spending on health care is among the lowest in the world. The signs of pain are

everywhere: Loans against gold and debt defaults are rising while savings, vehicle sales, company profits and government revenues are falling. There has also been a clear shift in consumer spending from clothes, shoes and personal care goods toward pharmaceuticals, as medication shortages and panic prompted many Indians to sell motorcycles, gold and even their farm animals to pay for life-saving treatment on the black market. The soaring expenses included vials of the antiviral drug remdesivir as well as private ambulances that ferried desperate families scouring for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders. “This time what we see is the double whammy of health expenses plus loss of livelihood and related food insecurity,” said Dipa Sinha, a professor of economics at Ambedkar University in Delhi. “If people are selling assets that give them livelihood then it impacts future incomes as well.” Making matters worse, until recently government-approved treatment guidelines included some medicine not recommended by the World Health Organization. Until early June, India Health Ministry’s approved treatment protocol listed remdesivir even though the global health body discouraged use of the drug for Covid-19 in late 2020 after a large international clinical trial showed that it offered negligible protection against death in hospitalized patients. The government had also recommended other untested therapies such as the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin,

an anti-parasitic treatment. Convalescent plasma therapy remained on the list despite the Indian Council of Medical Research’s own studies finding little benefit. Officials from the National Health Authority, responsible for implementing country’s flagship public health insurance program, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the federal Ministry of Health. In rural areas, “people are either left to die or go bankrupt trying to find that life-saver drug or other solution,” said Ajay Mahal, a professor in health economics and global health systems research and deputy director of the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne. “The state should begin by offering people an option—a strong and affordable primary care sector—instead of leaving them to their devices to unqualified providers and running around getting drugs from pharmacists, fake or genuine,” he added. In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a flagship program dubbed the world’s largest health insurance plan offering financial risk protection against catastrophic health expenditure to roughly 107 million poor and vulnerable families—or close to 40 percent of the population. Yet the new policy hasn’t “effectively improved” access to health care, according to a working paper by Duke University researchers. Even government-run hospitals can be costly for the poor: Nigam said he paid a subsidized rate of 200,000 rupees for one of his wife’s bypass surgeries. “I don’t have government health insurance because I didn’t know I was eligible,” he said. “Now I am trying, but there is a long backlog.” The rising medical debt poses a risk for Modi ahead of key state elections next year, including one in Uttar Pradesh—the country’s most populous state—where Nigam lives. His government’s approval ratings have fallen to 51 percent this year from 75 percent in 2019, according to a survey released May 29 by LocalCircles, an India-based polling company. Modi’s personal approval rating dipped to 66 percent on June 8, down from a high of 76 percent a year earlier, Morning Consult’s Global Leader Rating Tracker found.

Even before the pandemic struck, India’s out-of-pocket expenses on health care were among the highest in the world, accounting for about 60 percent of total health expenditure. Public health spending—including both the federal and state governments—hovered well below 2 percent of gross domestic product, a number that rises to 3.5 percent when including the private sector. That compares with 5.4 percent of GDP in China and a global average of nearly 10 percent, according to World Bank data. While there’s no data on how many Indians have been pushed to financial ruin by medical debt, researchers at Azim Premji University found that the virus erased decades of gains by pushing an additional 230 million— more than the entire population of Pakistan—into poverty last year. More than 90 percent of people borrowed a median amount of 15,000 rupees during the pandemic, they said, adding that the impact is expected to persist. Loans taken to meet outof-pocket expenses on health can be more damaging than other household debt because the illness “limits one’s ability to work, leading to depletion of household savings and unanticipated economic shocks,” said Sunil Kumar Sinha, an economist with India Ratings and Research. A study in April and May among a poor community in the eastern state of Jharkhand that found 58 percent had already borrowed money and 11 percent had sold assets during the pandemic, according to John Paul, director of the Centre for Rural Development at The/Nudge Foundation. “With no fallback options like savings or insurance, even basic necessities like food have become a challenge to poor households,” he said. Deep in India’s hinterland the crisis is even more dire, with villagers being forced to reduce their food intake in order to pay for treatment. In Jharkhand, 24-year-old Soni Devi borrowed 10,000 rupees and sold three of the family’s six pigs to pay for Covid treatment for her mother and three children. Now she’s struggling to feed her family. “There is not much rice left at home,” said Devi. “We will die if we don’t get work.” Bloomberg News

Covid shows risk of obesity, and challenge of weight loss By Candice Choi

The Associated Press

EW YORK—Jennifer Bergin was already obese and pre-diabetic before the pandemic, and learning she also had high blood pressure made her worry about how sick she might get with Covid-19. She began walking three hours a day, eventually losing 60 pounds. “I just knew I was a prime candidate for getting it and not recovering,” said Bergin, a 50-year-old resident of Charlotte, North Carolina. Now 170 pounds and 5 feet, 4 inches tall, she is no longer considered obese, but would like to continue improving her health. Since the early days of the pandemic, health officials have warned that obesity and related conditions such as diabetes were risk factors for severe Covid-19. It was another reminder of the many underlying health issues often signaled by obesity—as well as of how stubbornly difficult sustained weight loss can be. Even faced with such risks, it’s not clear how common Bergin’s dramatic weight loss may be. Across the country, countless people of all body sizes have either gained or lost weight during the pandemic. For some like Bergin, no longer commuting to an office meant more time for walking, eating out less and greater

control over what she ate. But for others, being stuck at home meant moving less and eating more because of stress, anxiety, depression—or just proximity to the kitchen. The spectrum of weight changes underscores the complexities of obesity, including how much of a role a person’s circumstances can play in their health, said Karen H. Yeary, an obesity researcher at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, N.Y. That’s contrary to the notion that losing weight is just a matter of willpower, she said. “It takes a lot of effort and energy to eat healthy and then to lose weight,” Yeary said. Another reason tackling obesity is so difficult: Weight gain often happens slowly over years, making it easier to dismiss as a health issue. In the US, an estimated one in four adults are considered obese, and another one in three are overweight. It’s often not until a major health scare, like a heart attack or a notable deterioration in lifestyle, that people are motivated to lose weight, said Eric Plaisance, an obesity researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And though the pandemic illuminated the risks of obesity, he said people were already used to hearing about

how unhealthy it is to be overweight. “It usually takes a much greater, life-changing event at a personal level,” he said of what often triggers successful weight loss for people. That was the case for Mickey Beatima, a 29-year-old Seattle resident who started trying to lose weight a couple months before the pandemic, when his diabetes led to eye problems. “That really hit me,” said Beatima, who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and has gone from about 300 pounds to 170 pounds. The pandemic accelerated his efforts by making weight loss easier. He was no longer getting takeout, going out with friends or gathering with his family for their customary feasts. He also found solace in dancing to YouTube videos, and was motivated by the knowledge that getting healthier would reduce his risk for severe Covid-19. “If I were to get it and I was still 300, I think it would be way more of a battle than if I got it today,” Beatima said. Christian Hainds, a 42-year-old resident of Hammond, Indiana, also lost about 50 pounds during the pandemic, and at 180 pounds and 5 feet, 11 inches tall is no longer considered obese. His weight had crept up over the years, peaking at around 230 pounds. But it wasn’t until he was diagnosed

as diabetic around the start of the pandemic that he felt the urgency to make changes—especially since data was emerging that it was one of the conditions that was more likely to lead to severe coronavirus disease. “All of those long-term scary things that can happen because of obesity no longer became long-term concerns,” Hainds said. For many others, the spotlight the pandemic put on risks of obesity has faded as vaccines and treatments have dampened the threat of the virus, said obesity researcher Yeary. That might lessen the sense of urgency that was helping to motivate some people. The circumstances of the pandemic that made weight loss easier for some— more time for long walks, eating out less—are also going away. Beatima, for example, is spending more time with his family again and has put some weight back on. But he’s not worried about it derailing his overall fitness goals, because, he said, the pandemic gave him perspective on how his weight was tied to what he valued, such as being healthy enough to spend time with his nieces and nephews for many years to come. “That new ground is understanding the value of my physical health, my social health and my mental health,” he said.

Sunday, June 13, 2021

The World BusinessMirror

Senators eye $579 billion in new infra spending, $1-trillion plan

ASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of senators is eyeing an infrastructure deal with $579 billion in new spending as negotiators try to strike a nearly $1-trillion deal on President Joe Biden’s top priority, according to those briefed on the plan. The 10 senators have been huddling behind closed doors, encouraged by Biden to keep working on the effort after he walked away from a Republican-only proposal this week unable to resolve differences. The senators are briefing their colleagues privately and cautioned changes could still be made. “Our group—comprised of 10 Senators, 5 from each party—has worked in good faith and reached a bipartisan agreement on a realistic, compromise framework to modernize our nation’s infrastructure and energy technologies,” the senators said in a joint statement. “This investment would be fully paid for and not include tax increases,” they added. “We are discussing our approach with our respective colleagues, and the White House, and remain optimistic that this can lay the groundwork to garner broad support from both parties and meet America’s infrastructure needs.” The White House said Democratic senators briefed the administration on the emerging plan but questions remain. “The President appreciates the Senators’ work to advance critical investments we need to create good jobs, prepare for our clean energy future, and compete in the global economy,” said deputy press secretary Andrew Bates. “Questions need to be addressed, particularly around the details of both policy and pay-fors, among other matters.” The president and Congress have been straining to reach an agreement on his ideas for an infrastructure

investment, stuck over the scope of the package of road, highway and other projects and how to pay for it. Lawmakers say the group’s tentative agreement represents important progress in fashioning a bill that can pass such an evenly divided Congress this year, but they are also aware that it could easily unravel. A person familiar with the negotiations but unauthorized to discuss them publicly said the cost would be $974 billion over five years, as is standard for highway spending, or $1.2 trillion if spread over eight as Biden proposes. At that size, the new package would be more than the previous Republican-only effort of $330 billion in new spending in a $928-billion package, but still short of the $1.7 trillion over eight years Biden is seeking. It appears the group is running into the same problems that Biden and lead Republican negotiator Sen. Shelley Moore Capito confronted in agreeing on how to pay for it. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a lead negotiator, would not disclose the final tab. Asked if the new spending was at $600 billion, he said “the president said that was his goal. So I don’t think anybody felt like they had to exceed his goal.” Another member of the group, Sen. Jon Tester, D -Mont., s a id they are “fairly close” on a topline amount, but are still debating how to pay for it. One option is to include potential revenue from uncollected income taxes, he said. “We still have to talk,” Tester said. One Republican not in the group,

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., rushes to the Senate chamber for votes, at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday, June 10, 2021. Sen. Warren is working with a bipartisan group of 10 senators negotiating an infrastructure deal with President Joe Biden. AP/J. Scott Applewhite Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana, said he was told the package would prov ide nearly $1 trillion—including $579 billion in new spending over t he basel ine for t ra nspor t at ion projects. Braun also said parts of it would be paid for with untapped Covid-19 relief funds, which has been a nonstarter for the White House. “They have come up with similar to what I think Capito was working on, but my understanding is it would be a little more money,” he said. Biden tasked the senators to keep working as he set out for his first overseas trip after talks collapsed this week with Capito and the GOP senators. T he president is seek ing a sweeping investment in not just roads, highways and bridges but a lso broadband, electr ic vehic le charg ing stations and other aspects of what he v iews as the new economy, paid for with a hike in the cor porate ta x rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. Republicans prefer a more narrow focus on fixing existing transportation systems, with more modest investments elsewhere. They oppose tax hikes to pay for the new spending, and while the 10 lawmakers said the package would not include tax increases, Sen. Mitt Romney, RUtah, said the package does propose that the gas tax be indexed to rise

at the rate of inf lation. The federal gas tax, now at 18.4 cents per gallon, has not increased since 1993. The White House has made clear that indexing the gas tax for inf lation or imposing an electric vehicle mileage tax would be nonstarters. They would violate the president’s red line against raising taxes on A me r ic a n s w ho e a r n le s s t h a n $400,000 a year. With the Senate narrowly split, 50-50, and most legislation requiring 60 votes to advance past a filibuster, Biden is seeking a bipartisan agreement to ensure passage. At the same time, he is also instructing Democrats who control the House and Senate to prepare to pass portions of the package on their own, under special budget rules that enable approval with 51 votes in the Senate. In the evenly-divided Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris serves as a tie-breaking vote. Meanwhile, a House panel advanced legislation early Thursday that serves as an important building block for that chamber’s infrastructure efforts. The bill aims to boost federal spending on roads, bridges, transit and rail. The $547-billion package passed mostly along party lines by a vote of 38-26 and will likely be considered by the full House later this month. AP

Leak of billionaires’ tax data draws GOP outcry over privacy By Marcy Gordon

AP Business Writer

A SH I NGTON — R e pub licans in Congress are alarmed by the leak of confidential IRS data to the investigative news organization ProPublica, enabling it to reveal that famous billionaires including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg paid little in US income tax at times. A senior IRS official said Thursday that a federal criminal investigation into the leak has been requested. Taking a detour from the debate over President Joe Biden’s tax overhaul plan, the GOP lawmakers are demanding to know how the private tax data was disclosed and they are pressing the Treasury Department and the IRS to pursue anyone who violated the law. “Taxpayers must have the utmost confidence in federal institutions that house their personal and confidential information,” a group of Republican senators said in letters demanding an investigation. “Regrettably, it appears personnel with access to Americans’ personal and confidential information are misusing protected information for political reasons. Treasury and the IRS must hold accountable any and all individuals who broke federal law by inappropriately sharing the confidential tax information and tax returns of multiple Americans.” Douglas O’Donnell, a deputy IRS commissioner, said at a hearing by a House panel that the Treasury

Department, which oversees the IRS, has referred the matter for investigation to the FBI and the US attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. Both getting access to and disclosing the confidential tax data are problems, O’Donnell said. “We too want to know what happened, urgently.” The law provides for potential criminal penalties for federal employees or other individuals who leak tax information. The ProPublica report published Tuesday on the wealthiest people in America was based on IRS data—long held as sacrosanct—delivered by an anonymous source. For Democrats, the revelations affirmed their long-standing accusations that the IRS gives big corporations and wealthy individuals a free pass while hounding lower-income people. Democrats held up the new report as a prime exhibit in the national dialogue over the vast and widening inequality between the wealthiest and everyone else. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a tweet: “Our tax system is rigged for billionaires who don’t make their fortunes through income, like working families do. The evidence is abundantly clear: it is time for a #WealthTax in America to make the ultra-rich finally pay their fair share.” The report showed that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos paid no income tax in 2007 and 2011. Tesla founder Elon Musk’s income tax bill was zero in 2018. Financier George Soros went three

straight years without paying federal income tax. Overall, the richest 25 Americans pay less in tax—an average of 15.8 percent of adjusted gross income—than many ordinary workers do, once taxes for Social Security and Medicare are included, ProPublica found. They all used perfectly legal tax strategies, which is why the ProPublica report stoked the debate over the loopholes, shelters and offshore havens available to the wealthy and giant corporations courtesy of the federal tax code. The report intruded on the debate over Biden’s sweeping tax plan, which must be approved by Congress. Seeking revenue to finance his multitrillion-dollar plan to boost infrastructure, families, education and job training, Biden is targeting the wealthy for higher taxes. He wants to raise the top tax rate to 39.6 percentfor people earning $400,000 a year or more in taxable income, estimated to be fewer than 2 percentof US households. The top tax rate that workers pay on salaries and wages now is 37%. Biden proposes to nearly double the tax rate that high-earning Americans pay on profits from stocks and other investments. Inherited capital gains would no longer be tax-free. The plan also would raise taxes on corporations, affecting wealthy investors who own corporate stocks. As they raise the alarm on privacy of tax data, Republicans also are denouncing what they see as a related intrusion: a new financial reporting proposal that is nestled in Biden’s tax plan. Aimed at helping the IRS collect taxes, it would

call for US banks to report to the agency most flows into and out of personal and business accounts, including bank loans and investment accounts. Banks aren’t wild about it, either. The aim is to give the IRS a better view of underreported income by individuals and businesses, according to the plan architects. Wealthier taxpayers’ earnings from investments and business activities would be reported to the IRS the way wages and salaries are. Republican lawmakers see it as an assault on taxpayers’ privacy. The requirement would bring “a drastic increase in the amount of private, sensitive information reported to the IRS by financial institutions about deposits or withdrawals made by any individual or business in savings, checking, or other accounts of as little as $600,” the senior Republicans in tax policy, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, told IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in a letter. “Taxpayers who are already concerned about having their local banks turned into monitoring and reporting agents of the IRS now must also worry about whether data collected and reported to the agency are secure.” An array of trade groups representing big and small banks and credit unions have objected to the proposal, saying their members already provide “significant data” to the IRS and other regulators. The proposal “would impose cost and complexity that are not justified by the potential, and highly uncertain, benefits,” the groups said in a recent statement to a Senate panel.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Journalists demand action against online harassment By David Bauder

AP Media Writer

EW YORK—The Associated Press’ recent firing of a young reporter for what she said on Twitter has somewhat unexpectedly turned company and industr y attention to the f lip side of social media engagement—the online abuse that many journalists face routinely. During internal meetings after the Arizona-based reporter, Emily Wilder, was let go, several journalists expressed concern over whether the AP would have the backs of employees under attack from the outside. “The Emily Wilder situation triggered this for many people on the staff,” Jenna Fryer, an AP sportswriter who spoke at one of the meetings, said in a subsequent interview. Wilder was fired last month because of what the company said were tweets on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that violated AP’s social-media policy against offering opinions on contentious issues. Before her firing, a conservative group had sparked an online campaign against her over her pro-Palestinian views, and while the AP has said it wasn’t responding to pressure, her dismissal ignited debate over whether the news organization acted too rashly. Journalists are often subjected to racist or sexist slurs, vile insults and threats of rape, dismemberment or other violence from online readers. Online harassment is hardly unique to journalists. But the visibility of reporters makes them particularly vulnerable to attack, said Viktorya Vilk, program director for digital safety and free expression at the literary and human-rights organization PEN America. Fr yer, who covers auto racing, said she “was in tears daily” over online abuse she received for coverage of a noose found last year in an A labama garage stall used by Nascar’s only full-time Black driver. She said the only time she heard from the company about harassment was when a manager remarked that Fr yer had gotten a lot of it. “Sometimes you feel like you’re on a total island,” she said. The news agency says it has worked with law enforcement in many cases when its journalists were attacked online. Still, following the meetings, the AP ordered a study on whether more can be done. “I can speak from personal experience that we have not been ignoring this,” said Julie Pace, the AP’s Washington bureau chief. “What we have to do is put this on a par with the way we handle what we have traditionally viewed as security threats for our journalists—if you are going to Syria, or if you’re covering protests that could potentially become chaotic.” News organizations were often quick over the past decade to press their journalists to build social-media profiles, recognizing it as important to their brands, but slow to see its dangers, said Vilk, who has worked with more than a dozen media outlets on this issue. Women and minorities usually have it worse. Vilk believes the preponderance of white men in management has contributed to the industry’s delay in reacting. Some members of the AP’s race and ethnicity reporting team approached their editor, Andale Gross, following Wilder’s firing with concerns over whether the company would support them if their stories or tweets proved controversial, he said. Racist slurs and threats happen frequently to the reporters he supervises, who include Blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans, and AP security has responded to a number of them, he said. The team’s story two weeks ago about racism in the military provoked many hateful messages from people who said they were in the military—essentially proving the article’s point, he said. “I don’t want people to think it should be accepted or tolerated,” Gross said. “But it comes with the territory of the things we write about. We know that every story we produce, we can be dealing with an onslaught of racism.” The National Association of Black Journalists has offered members help on the problem through in-person information sessions and webinars, said Dorothy Tucker, NABJ president. Nearly three-quarters of 714 female journalists surveyed said they had experienced online attacks, according to a study released in April by Unesco and the International Center for Journalists. Twelve percent sought medical or psychological help. The survey said 4 percent left their jobs and 2 percent quit the business altogether. Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote in March about receiving “viciously misogynistic name-calling and sexualized fantasies about dismembering me.” “Unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to comprehend how deeply destabilizing it is, how it can make you think twice about your next story, or even whether being a journalist is worth it,” she wrote. Taylor Lorenz, a reporter at The New York Times, wrote on Twitter this spring about the “unimaginable” attacks she had received online. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that the harassment and smear campaign I’ve had to endure over the past year has destroyed my life,” she wrote. “No one should have to go through this.” Both journalist Glenn Greenwald and Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson belittled her concerns. “Destroyed her life? Really?” Carlson said on the air. “By most people’s standards Taylor Lorenz would seem to have a pretty good life, one of the best lives in the country, in fact.” A “suck it up” attitude or feeling that nothing can really be done about online harassment leads many journalists to stay silent. Anne M. Peterson, a veteran sportswriter for the AP, said she has received lewd pictures online and a threat from someone who chillingly attached a Google image of her house. She has never reported an incident to management. The AP’s Pace, who also writes stories and appears on television, said she has been a target of abuse and has had to address it for employees she manages. “There have been moments when I sort of chalked it up to, ‘Yeah, this is part of the job,’” she said in an interview. “I know I’m in a highprofile job.... Then there are moments where they really cross a line, or if it affects your personal safety or your family where you think, ‘No, this is not something I should have to put up with. This is unacceptable and scary.’” “So we don’t want to normalize it,” she said. “We don’t want people to feel like they have to sit there and take it.” Online attacks in general have worsened. The Pew Research Center said in January that 41 percent of US adults say they have been harassed online, up from 35 percent in 2017. The percentages of people who say they have been threatened or sexually harassed online have both doubled since 2014, Pew said. There are signs that the problem is being taken more seriously in newsrooms. One indication is a greater willingness to publicly back journalists under attack. That happened this past winter, when Washington Post reporter Seung Min Kim was criticized for asking Sen. Lisa Murkowski her reaction to something President Joe Biden’s failed nominee for budget director, Neera Tanden, had tweeted about Murkowski. Kim’s boss, Post national editor Steven Ginsberg, said the attacks were “wildly misguided and a bad-faith effort at intimidation. What she did was basic journalism.”

Science

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

BusinessMirror

Sunday

Sunday, June 13, 2021 A5

PHL to launch big Mula satellite in space by 2023

he Philippines' biggest Earth Observation satellite to date will be launched in space in 2023, and it is expected to provide “a wide range of socio-economic benefits.” The development of a bigger Earth Observation satellite called the Multispectral Unit for Land Assessment (Mula) is underway, a news release from the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) said. Sustaining the gains made in the microsatellites Diwata-1 and Diwata-2, the commercial-grade satellite Mula will be “the first of the next generation of satellites that will further strengthen the country’s space technology research, development, and innovation activities.” Weighing 130 kilograms, Mula can capture operational-quality images of approximately 100,000 square kilometers of land area daily. Mula will carry a TrueColour camera capable of capturing 5m resolution images with a wide swath width of 120 kilometers. Its nine spectral bands can be used for different environmental applications such as disaster management, land use and land cover change mapping, crop monitoring, and forestry management.

Newest satellite initiative

Last February, Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña said in a report that the newest satellite initiative was being developed by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-funded Advanced Satellite and Know-how Transfer for the Philippines (ASP) Project. This is part of the department’s priority agenda under the “emerging technologies sector of providing space technology applications to public services.” The University of the Philippines Diliman and the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) are implementing the project in coordination with PhilSA, which will oversee its completion, launching in 2023 and management and operation thereafter. Mula is being designed and manufactured together with the British

company Surrey Space Technology Ltd. (SSTL), a major provider of small satellite development and knowhow-transfer.

Socio-economic benefits

“We are all very excited to start the development of Mula,” PhilSA Deputy Director-General Dr. Gay Jane Perez said. “Equipped with the acquired technical know-how and capabilities through our experiences in building Diwata and Maya satellites, we are now moving forward with our first operational and industrial quality satellite aimed towards providing a wide range of socio-economic benefits for the country,” she said. Perez, also the ASP Project Leader, added, “With its capability to capture higher resolution images, we will be able to better monitor terrestrial ecosystems, as well as our land and marine resources to ensure both agricultural productivity and environmental integrity. In addition, we will also be able to assess environmental conditions to be more proactive in disaster management and mitigation.” She also explained that while Mula will be the first of the next generation of satellites aimed at further strengthening the country’s space technology research, development, and innovation activities, the initiatives won’t start from scratch. Rather they are a continuation of unwavering efforts to capacitate the country in developing capabilities towards building a space ecosystem and adding value in space. “This is of course done not only to keep up with the global competitiveness but most importantly, it is so we can minimize our reliance on foreign technologies, so we can have our own scientists and engineers whose expertise in space science and technologies can be targeted and tailored specifically to the needs of our land and our people,” she said.

A 3D render of the Philippines' Mula satellite. Photo courtesy of SSTL

New benchmark

In a statement, SSTL Managing Director Phil Brownnett said that incor porating Tr ueColour into Mula’s 130-kg-mass category “will be a new benchmark for Earth Observation capabilities at this mass and price point.” TrueColour was derived from SSTL’s Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite. T he satellite w ill also come equipped with two other payloads: Automatic Identification System and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, which can be utilized for ship and aircraft detection and tracking. The preliminary mission objectives of the satellite were determined based on a needs assessment conducted by the ASP Project of the Space Technology Applications Master y, Innovation and Advancement (Stamina4Space) Program with various stakeholders in the Philippines during the first quarter of 2020. Since the first phase of the KnowHow Training and Transfer for TrueColour kicked off in December 2020, over 30 Filipino engineers have remotely attended a small satellite system design course conducted by SSTL. Nine engineers are currently undergoing full immersion for the satellite design and manufacture process in the United Kingdom, having just passed the Qualification Status Review—an important design phase milestone. Simultaneously, ASP’s local team has been continuing its mission definition and know-how transfer efforts.

Filipino ‘astronaut’

Mula Project Manager Engr. John Leur Labrador said the planned multispectral imager calibrated for land assessment can be likened to having our own “astronaut” in space. “We can think of this spacecraft as a Filipino astronaut tasked to take images of our natural resources while monitoring aircraft and ship activity in our country at the same time,” he said. “We aim to significantly increase the land area captured by this satellite compared to our previous ones, effectively increasing the information gathered from the produced images.” Having worked on the country’s’ small satellite projects since 2015, Labrador felt privileged for the opportunity. “It's inspiring to think how far we've come, but at the same time, moving forward is an everpresent challenge,” he shared. “However, I'm confident that we are headed in the right direction, spearheaded by this project and the multitude of space technology ventures we are pursuing. These activities will bring Filipinos closer to our goal of playing a significant role in the rapidly expanding and high potential field of space technology.”

Training Filipino engineers

De la Peña noted that the advancement of space research and development in the country has been part of the DOST’s priority goals. “The creation of the PhilSA during my service as DOST Secretary is something that I will always be proud of,” he said. “More than the building of in-

frastructures and creation of micro-satellites, we have to train our young Filipino engineers. It is very crucial for us to build a competent pool of human resources who will train and inspire the next generation of Filipino scientific minds,” he pointed out. He also commended the young Filipino engineers for “continuously working hard to produce promising research and development outputs,” particularly their work on the Mula satellite. “I am very happy to note that they have just passed the Qualification Status Review, which is a crucial stage in the satellite's design phase throughout their satellite development training with the SSTL. Kudos to the whole team!” he said. PhilSA Director-General Dr. Joel Marciano said satellites are also built with the objective of boosting local industrial capabilities for producing high-reliability systems. “These are differentiated by their ability to work well in difficult and harsh environments such as space, and can be at the core of globally competitive products,” he said “Furthermore, we use the satellites to generate images and other data, which we control and mobilize to support evidence-based policies for better governance, leading to productive communities and inclusive development. This is in line with PhilSA’s mission of value addition and creation from space that supports societal benefit and economic development.”

Challenges and difficulties

DOST-ASTI Chief Science Research Specialist Engr. Alvin E. Retamar, meanwhile, said that the team faced several challenges that were compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic. “We had to ensure that all documents are crafted according to what is required, all compliance boxes are ticked off, and proper coordination is made with various offices, which were often done at dizzying speeds like an orbiting satellite moving at 7 kilometers per second,” he said. Retamar likened the project's beginnings to a space sci-fi journey, with the engineers' deployment to the United Kingdom right before the Covid-19 travel restrictions being a real-life adventure in itself. He also noted that this project

Lawmakers push passage of Science for Change Program Act

R&D investments will offer science-based solutions to PH woes

awmakers are pushing for the passage of the Science for Change Program (S4CP) Act to make the country “more responsive” to challenges and problems through investments on research and development (R&D),” the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said in a news release. Sen. Panfilo Lacson and Albay Rep. Joey Salceda pointed out the need to invest in R&D through videos posted on the DOST-S4CP Facebook page. The program seeks to “accelerate science, technology and innovation in the country to keep up with developments that will shape [its] future.”

Trust, confidence in science

L acson, who authored Senate Bill 1303 establishing S4CP, said “R&D has always been an imperative for a country that aspires for development.” “We must put our trust and confidence in science in charting our direction as a nation, onward and upward,” Lacson said. Meanwhile, Salceda, who filed the S4CP bill as early as 2016 in the 17th Congress, pointed out that the program “allows us to be self-reliant, effective and capable of harnessing R&D to resolve our challenges as a nation.” “In the face of a global health crisis, we need knowledge-driven solutions and evidence-based answers,” he said. “The S4CP bill outlines how our

R&D investment will help improve every facet of the economy and our society. Our most important national problems: climate change, food security and even the pandemic demand a scientific response,” Salceda added. Lacson also emphasized the “need to remain competitive, especially now that our country faces great economic upheaval,” the DOST-S4CP news release said.

Innovative, competitive firms

The DOST cited the project with Herbanext Laboratories Inc., managed under the Business Innovation through Science and Technology (BIST) program, as one of the “significant accomplishments” of S4CP. The BIST, the industry sub-program of the S4CP, assists Filipinoowned companies to innovate and be competitive through the acquisition of new and relevant technologies for research, whether these are hardware or software. Through BIST, Herbanext will scale-up its R&D technology for the local production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for the country’s herbal drug industry. The company also provides livelihood to indigenous communities in Negros Occidental. To date, some Ati communities are among the groups harvesting herbal plants such as tawa-tawa for Herbanext, doubling their usual monthly income from gathering forest materials.

Herbanext President Philip Cruz with members of the Ati community in Sitio Marikudo, Kabankalan, Negros Occidental.

Academe-industry partnerships

Another S4CP sub-program, the Collaborative Research and Development to Leverage Philippine Economy (Cradle), has funded 70 academe-industry partnerships for R&D totaling to about P320 million. Cradle aims to improve the country’s innovation ecosystem by facilitating the smooth transition of new technologies from universities and research and development institutes to industries. DOST cited the Payment Innovation for Solar-Home-System Ownership by Lay Away Routine of the University of Southeastern Philippines and LeadTech Inc. as a Cradle project nearing completion. The project will provide solarhome-systems (SHS) to off-grid communities in Davao de Oro and Talaingod, Davao del Norte.

It will also develop a platform for real-time monitoring of SHS health and usage along with a payment innovation for SHS component ownership through a lay away routing. Me a nw h i l e , t h e p r o j e c t o f Batangas Egg Producers Cooperative (Bepco) and University of the Philippines Diliman optimizes the use of low-value chicken eggs by producing instant dried chicken egg white powder and granules through spray drying and agglomeration technologies. Bepco has managed to find an income-generating technology to create shelf-stable products for its business through R&D.

Regional innovation hubs

The Niche Centers in the Region for R&D (Nicer) program provides

institutional grants to higher educational institutions in the regions for R&D capacity-building to improve their science and technology (S&T) infrastructure. The program has, to date, established 35 R&D centers in 17 regions of the country with a total funding of P1.7 billion. The DOST recently approved the creation of the Center for Sustainable Polymers of the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute Technology (MSU-IIT). T he prog ra m w i l l opt i m i z e the derivatives gained from coconut and fish processing waste to develop value-added industrial polymer products such as foam, polyurethane-modified concrete and nutraceuticals.

Engaging R&D experts

A n other S4CP sub - prog ra m is the R&D Leadership Program (RDLead), which further develops and strengthens the research capabilities of the academe, research and development institutions and other government line agencies nationwide. To this end, R&D leaders, who are local S&T experts with strong leadership and innovative policy proficiencies, are engaged to train, direct and support their R&D goals. The program has, to date, engaged 39 experts to assist 34 institutions in the country.

marks the DOST-ASTI's second time working with SSTL, with the first one being the capacity-sharing agreement signed by the two parties in 2019 for NovaSAR-1. "I must note that the familiarity should help us move things forward as we take some of the guesswork out for both parties. All these efforts and factors brought us to where the project is now and we all look forward to its completion. Until that day, tasks remain, the road is still long, so may the odds be ever in our favor,” he said. Secretary Dela Peña also disclosed how the DOST through ASTI has spearheaded various initiatives that helped build a strong foundation for this endeavor. “Indeed, we have come a long way since the launching of the Diwata-1 microsatellite to the International Space Station in 2016, but there is still a lot of work to be done. We have just started,” he said.

Budget needed

“To sustain our momentum, it is crucial that resources continue to be available for our satellite development and space applications activities, which are all aligned with our national development goals. This is recognized in the Philippine Space Act, no less,” Marciano added. PhilSA submitted its 2022 budget proposal to the Department of Budget and Management, with the development of Mula being included in its flagship program, ‘Build, Build, Build in Space-Philippine Satellites as a Vital Component of a National Information Infrastructure.” Established on August 8, 2019, after the Republic Act 11363, or Philippine Space Act was signed into law, PhilSA builds on the foundation created by the development, launch, and operation of Earth Observation microsatellites Diwata-1 and Diwata-2 and CubeSats Maya-1, Maya-2 and the upcoming Maya satellites under Stamina4Space together with Japanese university partners. “Stamina4Space, like all government-funded programs, has a termination date,” said Stamina4Space Program Leader Dr. Maricor Soriano. “Developing Mula is a fitting finale that allows the transition of satellite development from an academic, research setting to an operational, PhilSA-led endeavor.”

Mabborang is the new DOST usec for Regional Operations

he Department of Science and Technology (DOST) has a new Regional Operations undersecretary in the person of Engr. Sancho A. Mabborang. Mabborang took his oath of office before Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña on June 7. He succeeded the late undersecretary Dr. Brenda L. Nazareth-Manzano, who died in February. “I am pleased to officially announce the appointment of Engr. Sancho A. Mabborang as the [DOST]’s Undersecretary for Regional Operations,” de la Peña said in his Facebook post on Monday. Formerly from DOST-Region 2, Mabborang has been considered a model regional director, de la Peña said. "He introduced many timely, relevant, and innovative programs in his region that has demonstrated Science for the People," the Science chief said. The nationwide project Onestore.ph, which he coordinates, has become a good tool or medium during the pandemic, when online ordering and delivery has become a new normal.

Faith

Sunday

A6 Sunday, June 13, 2021

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

Pope to priests: Be shepherds with ‘the smell of the sheep’

ope Francis recently recalled a favorite imagery of a pastor, urging that priests be “shepherds with the ‘smell of the sheep,’” grounded in the situation of their flock. He made the remark to the community of some 19 French student priests who reside in the hostel of the Church of St. Louis of the French in Rome.

Shepherds with ‘smell of the sheep’ “The studies you undertake in the various Roman universities prepare you for your future tasks as pastors and enable you to better appreciate the reality in which you are called to proclaim the Gospel of joy,” he told some 19 priests of the ‘national church of the French’ in the Italian capital. He said they should not go into the field to apply theories without considering the environment in which they will be working or the people entrusted to their care. “I wish you to be shepherds with ‘the smell of the sheep,’” the pope said, repeating once again the analogy he used in his homily at the Chrism Mass on March 28, 2013, two weeks after his election. He said pastors should be “people capable of living, of laughing and crying with your people, in a word, of communicating with them.” He expressed concern that sometimes reflections and thoughts on priesthood are laboratory sample: this priest, that priest and so on. He said priesthood isolated from the people of God, is neither a Catholic priesthood nor a Christian one. “Strip yourselves of your pre-constituted ideas, your dreams of greatness, your self-assertion, in order to put God and people at the center of your daily concerns,” the Pope said, stressing that a pastor is one who

puts God’s holy faithful people at the center. For those priests who would like to be an intellectual, not a pastor, the Pope said, it is better for them to be lay persons. A priest has to be a pastor in the midst of God’s people because God has chosen him for that.

feel the fidelity of God ’s love and His closeness.

Challenges of community life

St. Joseph as a model

Pope Francis also noted that priests living together in a community are bound to face some challenges, such as individualism, self-assertion, and indifference. He warned them against “the temptation to create small closed groups, to isolate oneself, to criticize and speak ill of others, to believe oneself superior, more intelligent.” The Pope said that gossip is a habit of closed groups, of “bachelor” priests who talk and malign others, undermining all. “We need to let go of this habit and look at and think about God’s mercy.” The Pope wished that they always welcome one another as a gift. “In a fraternity lived in truth, in the sincerity of relationships and in a life of prayer, we can form a community in which we can breathe the air of joy and tenderness.” The Holy Father encouraged a community life of sharing and prayer with joy. He said, “The priest is a man who, in the light of the Gospel, spreads the taste of God around him and transmits hope to restless hearts.” To those visiting their communit y, they can communicate the Gospel values of a “diverse and supportive fraternity”, and make them

In this regard, the Pope offered to them the model of St. Joseph, inviting them to “rediscover the face of this man of faith, this tender father, model of fidelity and trusting abandonment to God’s plan”. St. Joseph, he said, teaches us that faith in God includes believing that He can work even through our fears, our frailties and our weaknesses. Our frailties are a “theological place of encounter with the Lord,” the Pope said, adding, a “fragile priest,” who knows his weaknesses and talks about them with the Lord, will do well. He said “Superman” priests end up badly. “With Joseph,” the Pope said, “we are called to return to the experience of simple acts of hospitality, of tenderness, of gift of self.”

Pope Francis with French priests studying in Rome during a meeting at the Vatican on June 7. Vatican Media

Joy and sense of humor The Pope also urged the young French priests to build a Church that is entirely at the service of a world that is more fraternal and in solidarity. They should not be afraid to dare, to risk and to go forward, assured that with Christ they can be apostles of joy and be grateful for serving their brothers and sisters and the Church. This joy should be accompanied

by a sense of humor, the Pope pointed out, adding, “a priest who does not have a sense of humor is not pleasing, something isn’t right.” “Imitate those great priests who laugh at others, at themselves and even at their own shadow,” he said, adding, “a sense of humor is one of the characteristics of holiness”, as he pointed out in his Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et Exultate. Recalling their priestly ordination, he reminded them that they have been anointed with the oil of joy and are to anoint others with the oil of joy. He said only by remaining rooted in Christ can they experience a joy that moves them to win hearts. “Priestly joy is the source of your action as missionaries of your time,” he said.

Gratitude to God Another virtue the Holy Father encouraged the young priests to cultivate is gratitude to God for what they are to one another. “With your limitations, your frailties, your tribulations,” Pope Francis reminded them, “there is always a loving gaze resting on you and giving you confidence.” Gratitude “is always ‘a powerful weapon,” he said, which “allows us to keep the flame of hope burning in moments of discouragement, loneliness and trials.” Robin Gomes/Vatican News

Tarlac’s Mater Dolorosa canonically crowned as the ‘Mother of Novaliches’ awaits hers

he venerated image of Mater Dolorosa de Capas was canonica l ly crow ned on June 5 by Archbishop Charles John Brow n, apostol ic nu nc io to t he Philippines, at a Mass at the San Sebastian Cathedral in Tarlac City. Meanwhi le, Pope Francis has granted the canonical coronation of the image of Our Lady of Mercy, the “Mother of Novaliches” diocese in Quezon City. T he D iocesa n Sh r i ne of O u r L ady of Merc y pa r i sh, where t he im age is enshr i ned , ha s yet to a nnounce t he d ate for t he pont if ica l coron at ion. A pontifical coronation is a pious institutional act, wherein the Pope, through a bull, designates a crown or stellar halo to be added to a Marian image under a specific devotional title in a particular area or diocese.

A first for Tarlac diocese The first canonical coronation in the 58-year history of the Diocese of Tarlac took place nine months after the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments approved its petition on October 1. The image, also known as Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Capas, is enshrined at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish Church in Dolores, Capas. In his homi ly, t he nuncio asked t he fa it h f u l to t u r n to Ma r y to p r a y f o r “o u r d i f f i c u lt i e s , t h e sor rows, t he sad ness of ou r hum a n l ives.” “Let us allow her to present them to Jesus, the Heavenly Father,” Brown said. “Let us remember that in our Catholic

Archbishop Charles Brown (center back), apostolic nuncio to the Philippines, leads the canonical coronation of Mater Dolorosa de Capas at the San Sebastian Cathedral in Tarlac City on June 5. Capas Information Office photo The “primera” or original image of the Nuestra Señora de la Merced enshrined at the Diocesan Shrine and Parish of Our Lady of Mercy in Novaliches, Quezon City. PJ Mediavilla photo

faith, sorrow will be turned into joy. That joy will have the last word.” “These sorrows will be turned into joy because Jesus is the joy of our heart and Mary is the mother who brings that joy into the world,” he said. Seven other prelates, led by Tarlac Bishop Enrique V. Macaraeg ,attended the ceremony, along with several priests, nuns and lay faithful while observing health protocols. “Bishop Macaraeg dreams to a have a center of Marian devotion in the region and hopefully this w ill be it,” parish priest Fr. Melv in P. Castro. He said the devotion to the Mater Dolorosa, which was honored with an episcopal coronation in 2018, has

been recorded to have started as early as 1923.

Spiritual bond of affinity The approval of the canonical coronation of the “Mother of Novaliches” was announced at the Corpus Christi Mass on June 6 at the shrine-parish presided by Archbishop Charles Brown, apostolic nuncio to the Philippines. T he Ma ss a l so ce lebrated t he g ra nt i ng of “spi r it u a l bond of a f finit y” bet ween the par ish and the Papa l Ba si l ic a of St. Ma r y Major i n Rome. The privilege means that all indulgences granted in the basilica will be gained in the diocesan shrine. “In May, we received the Spiritual Bond of Affinity document with Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome,” the parish said in a Facebook post. “With gratitude and joy, we are now on the Pontifical Coronation of Our

Lady of Mercy,” it added. The post included a copy of the letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments approving the parish’s petition for pontifical crowning. The document dated May 24 was signed by Archbishop Arturus Roche, the secretary when the dicastery was still waiting for a new prefect. Pope Francis eventually appointed Roche as the congregation’s new head on May 27, replacing Cardinal Robert Sarah, who retired from the Vatican post in February. In Januar y t his year, Bishop Robert Gaa of Novaliches declared Our Lady of Mercy as the second patroness of the 18-year-old diocese. On September 24, the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, the parish will also celebrate its 165th anniversary. Aimee Yeo

and Minnie Agdeppa/CBCP News

CEAP to confer highest award on Fr. Bernas and Sr. Sta. Ana

he country’s largest association of Catholic educators will confer the “Pro Deo et Patria” award posthumously on Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas, SJ, and Sr. Maria Anunciata Sta. Ana, SPC. The Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) said the award will be conferred in a ceremony on November 9. The Pro Deo et Patria is the CEAP’s highest award for “deserving individuals who manifest exemplary attitude for God and country.” It i s a l s o g i v e n t o t h o s e w h o demonstrate “ faithf u lness to Cat holic teachings as par t of s e r v i c e t o G o d .” The CEAP said the decision to give the award to Fr. Bernas and Sr. Sta. Ana was made during its recent national board meeting.

Fr. Bernas was a known constitutiona l law ex per t who became a member of the Constitutiona l Commission that drafted the 1987 Philippine Constitution. He served as the 28th president of the Ateneo de Manila University. Fr. Bernas died on March 6, 2021 at the age of 88. Sr. Sta. Ana was a renowned church musician and one of the first to compose Filipino liturgical music after the Vatican II in the 1970s. In 2005, she was awarded the trophy of Pioneers of Philippine Liturgical Music during the Vatican II Commemorative Concert and the “Patron of the Arts Award” in 2019. She was the dean of the College of Music and the Performing Arts of St. Paul University Manila since 2003. Sr. Sta. Ana passed away on August 8, 2020 at the age of 85. CBCP News

Pilgrims return to Spain’s ‘El Camino’ paths after pandemic

ANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain—Committing to the pilgrim’s path has for centuries been a source of renewal for those willing to put their lives on hold and spend days, weeks or even months crossing Spain along the Camino de Santiago, a journey that takes hikers to the reported burial place of the apostle St. James. But after a year of being kept off the Way of St. James due to pandemicrelated travel restrictions, soul-searchers hoping to heal wounds left by the Covid-19 are once again strapping on backpacks and following trails marked with a seashell emblem to the shrine in the city of Santiago de Compostela. Some travelers taking to the Camino are like Laura Ferrón, whose marriage ended during Spain’s lockdown and who fears she might lose her job because the bank she works for plans massive layoffs. She and two lifelong friends flew from their homes in Spain’s North Africa enclave of Ceuta to spend a week walking the final 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the pilgrimage route. “This helps you let it all go. This pandemic has taught us to give more importance to what we have and to take a good long look at yourself,” Ferrón, 33, said while resting on a climb near Arzúa. The village in the green hills of northwest Spain is about two days away from the medieval cathedral in Santiago that is the traditional ending point. The Camino de Santiago is actually a series of paths that fan out beyond the Iberian Peninsula and spread across Europe. Whichever route one takes, they all end at the Santiago’s baroque cathedral, where believers can visit what is said to be the tomb of James, the apostle who, according to Catholic tradition, brought Christianity to Spain and Portugal. The pilgrimage has its roots in the alleged discovery of the tomb in the 9th century. Pilgrims have come to Santiago for a millennium, but the number of both believers and nonbelievers making the trip boomed in recent decades after regional authorities revived the route. It is now supported by a wide network of religious and civic organizations and served by public and private hostels at prices for all pocketbooks. Over 340,000 people from all over the world walked “El Camino” in 2019. Only 50,000 walked it last year, when Spain blocked both foreign and domestic travel except during the summer months. Before a state of emergency that limited travel between Spain’s regions ended on May 9, only a handful of Spanish pilgrims were arriving in Santiago each day and registering with the Pilgrim’s Reception Office to receive their official credential for having completed the pilgrimage. Now that travel is again permitted, more people from Spain and elsewhere in Europe are walking the ancient path, although many of the hostels that cater to pilgrims are still closed. A few hundred arrive in Santiago each day, compared to the several thousand exhausted pilgrims swinging their walking sticks along the city’s cobblestone streets during a typical summer.

Spain’s Health Ministry has reported the deaths of over 79,000 people from Covid-19. As it did around the world, the disease took its biggest toll on the country’s oldest residents. “For old people, one year of pandemic has felt like five,” Naty Arias, 81, said while walking the Camino with her 84-year-old husband and two of their daughters. “And like my husband says, we don’t have that much time left anyway, so we have to make the most of it.” The numbers of pilgrims arriving in Santiago over the next year-and-ahalf will be boosted after Pope Francis extended the 2021 holy year dedicated to St. James through 2022. For Roman Catholics who take part in the pilgrimage, walking it during a Jubilee Year gives them the chance to receive the plenary indulgence, which grants them the full remission of the temporal punishment for their sins. The last Jubilee Year for the trail was in 2010. Santiago Archbishop Julián Barrio said he is cautiously optimistic that some 300,000 pilgrims could turn out this year, as long as the pace of Spain’s vaccination program and the health situation worldwide continue to improve. He expects many to come seeking solace from the pain of the pandemic. “The Way of St. James, in this sense, can help us. It is a space that helps us recover our inner peace, our stability, our spirit, which without doubt we all need, given the difficulties that we have in facing the pain and the ravages of the pandemic that sometimes leave us speechless,” Barrio told The Associated Press. Daniel Sarto, 67, joined three friends on the trail, looking to relax after months of stress from seeing his Barcelona-based trade show company bring in zero revenue. “It has been a very, very, very hard year. Psychologically, it is very sad constantly thinking that this is going nowhere, about what will happen to our employees,” Sarto said. “This is a relief being here, without a doubt. My wife told me that I had to get out of the house. I had to come.” Mental health experts agree that the pilgrimage can lead to emotional healing for both faithful Roman Catholics and the large number of non-Catholics who are drawn to make one. Dr. Albert Feliu, a health psychologist and lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, said preliminary results from a survey of 100 pilgrims point to a reduction of stress and depression that surpass those seen after regular vacations. The survey was part of a multi-year study of the benefits of walking the Camino de Santiago being done by clinical researchers from universities in Spain and Brazil. Manu Mariño, the director of Quietud Mindfulness Center in Santiago, is also involved in the research. He has gone on the pilgrimage 24 times. “The Way of St. James is a very good place to help us realize that suffering forms part of life, and that our suffering depends on how we relate to what we are experiencing,” Mariño said. “You learn to live with just what is necessary, which means exactly what you can carry in a backpack.” AP

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Illegal wildlife trade threatens PHL birds By Jonathan L. Mayuga

‘A

single blue-naped parrot has a use value of up to P185, 981 over the course of its lifetime. Killing and keeping illegally acquired parrots is prohibited by RA [Republic Act] 9147, or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act,” the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) posted on its Facebook page on May 22. Native parrots are not the only bird species under grave threat because of habitat loss and hunting for the live bird trade. Most birds in the Philippines are. In a recent online lecture on the live bird trade in the country organized by the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, Emerson Sy, a wildlife trade specialist, said that illegal wildlife trade is a multi-billion industry. Globally, he said, illegal wildlife trade is a $10 billion to $25 billion industry. The live bird trade, he said, worsened during the pandemic with the myna and parrot topping the list of birds being traded locally.

Big industry

“Apparently, the Philippines is losing $1 billion a year due to illegal wildlife trade,” Sy said. The illegal wildlife trade has also given birth to another industry—the manufacture and sale of a variety of hunting tools, traps and snares developed to catch wild animals. Like wildlife, these tools are now being traded through social media platforms. This is not surprising, Sy said, because of the popularity of social media platforms. The number of Facebook users in the Philippines is expected to reach 88 million by 2025, according to Lu.

Bird trade hotspots

Palawan and Mindoro in the

Mimaropa region are among the illegal wildlife trade “hotspots” for the live bird trade. Grace Diamante, executive director of the Mindoro Biodiversity Conservation Foundation Inc., told the BusinessMirror through Messenger that she is aware of the rampant illegal wildlife trade that targets native birds in Mindoro. “The DENR, PNP [Philippine National Police], DA [Department of Agriculture] and other relevant agencies should work hand in hand to strengthen legal framework to establish a law enforcement chain, strengthen port monitoring and increase awareness of the adverse effect of this illegal activity,” Diamante said. Sought for comment, Indira Dayang Dayang Lacerna-Widdman, executive director of the Palawanbased Katala Foundation Inc. (KFI), confirmed to the BusinessMirror via Messenger that the population of the native parrot population is declining in Palawan. “The main reasons are habitat destruction and poaching for the pet trade,” she said. She said that Palawan has the global stronghold of the katala, or the red-vented cockatoo, and has the highest density also of the blue-naped parrots, the reason why it is targeted by poachers. “Philippine cockatoo has been protected by KFI and local partners [wildlife wardens, LGUs [local government units], DENR and PCSDS [Palawan Council for Sustainable Development] in the past, and poaching has been prevented or much reduced in the various project sites,” she said. Mostly poached in Palawan are blue-naped parrots which are still widespread in the province but threatened by habitat destruction and the illegal pet trade.

Global problem

Asean Centre of Biodiversity Executive Director Theresa Mundita

club now has close to 200 members all of whom are avid bird watchers. “ We started as an e-group called Birdwatch Philippines, and eventually were ‘forced’ to formalize the group as we cannot approach government agencies or other organizations and identify ourselves as an e-group,” Mike Lu, the club’s president, told the BusinessMirror through e-mail on June 8.

Creating a database

The elegant tit is an endemic Philippine bird. Mike Lu/Wild Bird Club of the Philippines

S. Lim said the problem of live bird trade is not unique to the Philippines as it is happening in other parts of the world. In Southeast Asia, poaching or hunting of birds is also a serious problem. “Most birds we confiscated before were for the pet trade. They would be the psittacins [parrots, cockatoos and macaws f rom Sout h A mer ic a]. T here are also studies of demand for songbirds from Asia,” Lim told the BusinessMirror through Messenger on June 8. “On August 2019, a man was caught smuggling 814 birds using a Malaysia-registered bus into Singapore through Woodlands Checkpoint. The smuggled birds were kept in 15 containers stored in modified compartments by the bus’ rear tires,” she said.

Popular pets

Lim, a former director of the DEN R- Bio d i ve r s it y M a n a ge ment Bu reau, sa id bird s a re popular pets because of their beauty. Their colorful feathers, their ability to mimic humans like the “talking” mynas and cock atoos, or their beautiful “singing” voice like the orioles and sparrows, make them ver y much in demand.

Occasionally these birds would be poached or hunted for food like tikling [buff-banded rail] and megapod, or as a trophy in the case of the Philippine eagle, according to Lim. Even though there are laws against poaching birds, she said it persists mainly because of difficulty in enforcement. The illegal wildlife trade is also prevalent, she said, because of poverty and the lack of livelihood opportunities for communities living in and around bird habitats. This, plus the lack of awareness on the long-lasting impact of the depleting bird population, make illegal wildlife trade a bigger problem. Lim said the insufficient incent ives for protec t ion, a nd sometimes, the fees and penalties outweighing the potential revenue from the illegal wildlife trade, are not helping stop the impunity.

Bird watching

The Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, a group founded on July 14, 2003, continues to advocate the protection and conservation of birds. From 14 bird enthusiasts who founded the group on Facebook, the

‘Quality of management,’ not only quantity, important for protected areas

he Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, hosted a webinar on the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas in a bid to improve the effectiveness of the region’s protected areas. “Now more than ever, ensuring the quality and the effectiveness of the management of protected areas, as well as integrating biodiversity concerns across other sectors, public health, and socioeconomic concerns, need our urgent attention,” ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim said in her message. She said monitoring the effectiveness and conser vation outcomes is an ongoing endeavor in the Asean, especially as the region gears towards building resilience from emerging diseases and climate change risks. The webinar was supported by the European Union, German Development Bank and Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) through the Biodiversity Conservation and Management of Protected Areas in Asean Project, Small Grants Programme and the Institutional Strengthening of Biodiversity Sector in the Asean II Project, respectively. IUCN Regional Director for Asia Dr. Dindo Campilan emphasized that many protected and conserved areas are not being ef-

Screenshot of the Asean Webinar on the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas. ACB

fectively and equitably managed, citing the findings of the United Nations Environment ProgramWorld Conservation Monitoring Centre’s Protected Planet report released in May. “It is not just the quantity of protected and conserved areas that matters; it is also the quality of their management and their governance,” Campilan said. The IUCN Green List, the first global standard of best practice for area-based conservation, is a program of certification for protected and conserved areas— national parks, community conserved areas, nature reserves, Asean Heritage Parks and other areas—that are delivering successful conservation outcomes through effective management and fair governance. W h i le t he I UC N R ed L i st highlights the world ’s species

in d anger of e x tinction, t he IUCN Green List recognizes excellence in the management of protected and conser ved areas around the world. In Asia, interest in the IUCN Green List process is growing rapidly, according to Dr. Scott Perkin of the IUCN Asia Regional Office. Green List processes are currently underway in Bhutan, China, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Republic of Korea and Viet Nam. Asia already has 10 Green Listed sites and at least 25 more sites are formally engaged in the process. The 240 participants, many of whom were protected area authorities, experts, and representatives from the Asean member states, were given a walkthrough of the Green List, including its indicators and procedures. Representat ives f rom Viet Nam and Malaysia also shared

their experiences of Green Listing process. In the case of Viet Nam’s first Green List site, Van Long Nature Reserve, Nguyen DucTu of IUCN Vietnam said the Green List process had been very useful in identifying gaps and implementing action plans according to international standards. Van Long Nature Reserve, a lowland inland wetland located in northern Viet Nam, supports the world’s largest population of critically endangered delacour’s langur (Trachypithecusdelacouri). Dr. Madhu Rao, a member of the IUCN Green List Management Committee, pointed out that achieving the biodiversity targets in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework will require protected and conserved areas to be more ecologically representative and to cover areas important for biodiversity. “Expansion is not enough. Existing and new areas need to be effectively managed and located in the right places,” she said, explaining the quality elements of protected and conserved areas. Lim also said the lessons and insights from the Green Listing process will significantly contribute toward efforts to achieve one of the proposed goals under the post-2020 global biodiversity framework—to enhance the connectivity and integrity of natural systems that will be made part of the protected areas system.

Lu said that besides birdwatching, members play an important role in helping create a database of bird sightings. He noted that while the club is mainly a recreational birdwatching group, members get to learn about habitats, the ecosystems and the importance of conserving such ecosystems. “Club activities are for fun and nature appreciation. Education and conser vation are natural outcomes of these activities,” he said. According to Lu, it was in 2000 when he got hooked on birds after c ha nc ing upon t he book , “Complete Guide to Birds of the Ph i l ippines,” at a book store. “I started looking for green spaces in the metropolis where birds can be seen. I also started to look for other birdwatchers and found a few and we would go out and list what we saw and, thus, started the bird sightings records for Metro Manila. Eventually, we started birdwatching outside the city and also recording what we have seen,” he said “It is exciting that we are building a database of bird sightings because no one else in the country is doing it, not even the DENR or the academe,” he said.

Benefits of bird watching

Lu s a i d b i r d w a t c h i n g h a s m a ny b e nefits. Members of the group get to enjoy bird watching

in different places, help organize activities like bird festivals and are invited in talks. “For me, it is a form of relaxation, a form of instilling discipline and patience. It fulfills my desire of traveling and discovering new places. It also provides an opportunity to make new friends not just in my country but all over the world,” he said. He added: “I have always been fascinated with wildlife. Growing up, I was disappointed that there are no herds of antelopes or zebras when we go to the countryside. We do not even have rabbits or squirrels in our gardens. I thought the Philippines was so poor we do not even have any wildlife here.”

Unique bird-watching site

According to Lu, while the Philippines is a biodiversity hotspot, it still makes a unique birdwatching site. “In terms of bird species, more than 30 percent of the over 700 species found in the Philippines are [endemic to the country],” he said. He pointed out, however, that problems like habitat destruction through illegal logging, slashand-burn farming and destructive development projects—such as mining, road construction, land reclamation, real estate development—and human activities like hunting and poaching, pose serious threats. “While the laws are very strict, the implementation is very lax,” he pointed out. He said there is a need to str ict ly implement t he l aws, which would solve more than half of the problems the country is facing in protecting wildlife. Asked if the government is doing its best to protect our wildlife, he replied, “No, no, no, no. We can talk for hours on this topic alone.”

Invest in nature, govt and private agencies told

finance group has urged government and private agencies to invest in nature, saying such investment can generate globally $350 billion per year in improved ecosystem services and contribute to the elimination of pandemics, a news release said. As the country celebrated the International Day for Biological Diversity this year, Biodiversity Finance Initiative (Biofin) Philippines, a financing strategist project of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), prodded policy-makers to contribute to financing the country’s 13-year biodiversity plan. Biofin indicated in a news release that the Philippine Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which started in 2015 and will last until year 2028, will cost P24 billion annually. A budget deficit of P19 billion yearly exists. “According to Campaign for Nature, Protecting the world’s land and ocean resources outweighs financial costs at least five-to-one. Globally, this can lead to $250 billion in increased yearly economic output, plus $350 billion in improved ecosystem services annually,” Biofin’s Angelique Ogena said. The other critical reason for investing in nature is human health itself. When watersheds and forests are destroyed, direct interaction between humans and wildlife happens, thus exposing mankind to unknown diseases. “ The International Day for

Biological Diversity puts us at the center of conservation efforts in the fight to save biodiversity amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” Ogena said. “Seventy-five percent of emerging infectious diseases in humans originates from zoonotic pathogens. That is enough reason to revisit and reprioritize resources toward the improvement of natural resources management especially in protected areas to prevent future pandemics,” she added. Biof in, co-implemented by the United Nations Development Program in the Philippines, seeks to raise awareness on the economic and ecological values of protected areas. The campaign aims to increase Biofin’s revenue by establishing partnerships with the private sector and other agencies that can have common mission to support protected areas. Biofin is lobbying with Malacañang to proclaim the period spanning June 2021 to May 2022 as the “Year of the Protected Areas,” and June of each year as the “Month of Protected Areas.” Both are in support of Republic Act 11038, or the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act. “Nature is a reliable provider of our daily basic needs such as clean water for drinking, air for breathing and other resources such as medicine, jobs, and climate change mitigation to create a more resilient nation,” Ogena said.

Sports BusinessMirror

Sunday, June 13, 2021

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

TRAINING IN VEGAS F

OR USA Basketball, the last stop before the Tokyo Olympics will be Las Vegas.

The men’s and women’s national teams will hold training camps in Las Vegas in July, they announced Thursday, and they’ll be playing seven exhibitions there against other Olympics-bound national teams as well. USA Basketball will open its men’s training camp, led by Coach Gregg Popovich, in Las Vegas on July 6. The Olympic men’s teams from Australia, Nigeria, Argentina and reigning Basketball World Cup champion Spain will also be spending some time in Las Vegas; Argentina will start its training camp there this month. The US women’s training camp under Coach Dawn Staley will likely open around July 12; the WNBA break for the Olympics starts after the games of July 11. The Olympic women’s teams joining the US in Las Vegas are Australia and Nigeria. It’ll all take place at the MGM Resorts, which was announced as USA Basketball’s training camp home and resorts partner with the sides having now agreed to a multi-year sponsorship deal.

“USA Basketball is proud to expand its partnership with MGM Resorts,” USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley said. “We’re excited to bring our national teams to their properties as we prepare for the challenging competition that lies ahead this summer.” The US men are seeking a fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal, the US women their seventh in a row. Both will enter the Olympics ranked No. 1 by Fiba, the sport’s international governing body— though it remains unknown who the Americans will have on their rosters for the rescheduled Tokyo Games. Those rosters could be set by the end of June. Some top National Basketball Association players such as Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers and Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers have expressed some interest in being part of the Olympic team. Others, such as LeBron James and Anthony Davis—Los Angeles Lakers

USA Basketball Coach Gregg Popovich opens the training camp in Las Vegas on July 6. AP teammates who were dealing with injuries when their season ended last week—are not planning to join the team. All teams in Las Vegas will be taking part in what USA Basketball described as “comprehensive health and safety protocols, including mandatory and regular Covid-19 PCR testing, administered to

Refugee team of 29 athletes picked for Tokyo Olympics

ENEVA—The refugee team for the Tokyo Olympics will have 29 athletes competing in 12 sports, including a medalist at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games who left Iran citing institutional sexism. The team selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday was drawn from 55 athletes who fled their home countries and got scholarships to train for the games in a new home country. Kimia Alizadeh is among them five years after she became the first Iranian women to win an Olympic medal. She took bronze in taekwondo at age 18. Alizadeh is based in Germany after she defected from Iran and criticized wearing the mandatory hijab headscarf. “I have a great feeling to have made a decision for my life that would definitely change my future,” she told reporters in Germany in January last year. The 29 athletes—a rise from 10 in the inaugural refugee team at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics—are also originally from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Congo, Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iraq, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela. Nine from Syria is the most from any country. They will compete in swimming, athletics, badminton, boxing,

A MAN jogs around the National Stadium where the Olympic opening ceremony is scheduled for July 23 in Tokyo. AP canoeing, cycling, judo, karate, shooting, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling. “ You are an integral part of our Oly mpic community, and we welcome you w ith open arms.” IOC President Thomas Bach told the athletes when announcing their selection, adding they would “send a powerful message of solidarity, resilience and hope to the world.” Swimmer Yusra Mardini is now set to be a two-time Olympian after also racing in the 100-meter freestyle and butterfly in Rio. “I feel very, very lucky to be

part of the team,” Mardini said at an IOC-hosted online news conference, acknowledging a “huge responsibility” to represent 80 million refugees worldwide. “In an ideal world we would not have to have a refugee team, but this is the situation right now,” said the 23-year-old from Syria who now lives in Germany. The team will be managed in Tokyo by officials from the IOC and the United Nations’ Geneva-based refugee agency, the UNHCR. “Surviving war, persecution and the anxiety of exile already makes them extraordinary people,”

athletes, coaches, officials and staff in accordance with Fiba and USA Basketball recommendations and CDC guidelines.” Those concerns are why the international teams opted to spend time in Las Vegas. Argentina’s men’s team is conducting the entirety of its three-week camp there before flying to Tokyo, simply because it believes

a controlled environment and less traveling between different countries will minimize virus-related risks before the Olympics. “We were lucky and, at the same time, we deserved it to get an organization like USA Basketball to extend this invitation to us,” Argentina Coach Sergio Hernandez said. “In such a complicated context

UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi said in a statement, “but the fact that they now also excel as athletes on the world stage fills me with immense pride.” The refugee athletes will compete against 205 national teams with identifier EOR, for the French acronym of the team name. The Tokyo Olympics are from July 23-August 8. One national Olympic team will be missing in Tokyo. North Korea said in April it would not send a team, citing a need to protect its athletes from the “world public health crisis.” The IOC said after an executive board meeting opened Tuesday that it told governing bodies of Olympic sports to now reallocate entries for Tokyo which were due to be taken by North Korea. In other business, the IOC said two if its 103 members are stepping down for personal reasons—Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and United States cross-country skier Kikkan Randall, who was elected by athletes. New members can be appointed at a meeting in Tokyo ahead of the July 23 opening ceremony, and nominations are set to be announced Thursday. The meeting in Tokyo next month includes a proposal to formally amend the Olympic motto by adding the word “together” in Latin. It will become “Citius, Altius, Fortius—Communis,“ or “Faster, Higher, Stronger—Together.” AP

PSC unfurls IP webinars

Interschool cyber league semis on

INESKI Philippines is gearing up for a series of finals in the National Interschool Cyber League (NICL) this month. The NICL is a banner program under Mineski’s Youth Esports Program (YEP) and is the first major collegiate Esports league in the Philippines with virtual multigame tournaments, featuring Valorant, Dota 2 and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Qualifiers kicked off last April 13 and the NICL received 920 active player registrations spread across 184 teams, 170 unique schools and 81 YEP chapters across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Of the 184 teams, 76

registered for Valorant and another 76 registered for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. T hirty-two teams registered to compete in Dota 2. Players and their respective teams from all over the country battled it out through rounds of qualifiers, semifinals and the recently concluded regionals. All these lead to the highly anticipated finals, where the best teams from different universities will be competing for the first-ever NICL Championship title for their respective games. The Valorant semifinal round opened on Independence Day Saturday with the finals set on Sunday. The Dota 2

semifinals are on June 19 and the finals on June 20. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang closes the 2021 NICL with semifinals on June 26 and the finals on June 27. “ We env ision Y EP to be an inclusive platform that nurtures Esports players and fans in the collegiate level,” said Mark Navarro, countr y manager of Mineski Philippines. “NICL is one such program that creates a competitive atmosphere, yet gamers of all skill levels and backgrounds are welcome.” YEP is a joint initiative between Mineski Philippines and the Philippine Collegiate Champions League.

it doesn’t get better than this.” The games are set up as part of five doubleheaders, and fans will be able to attend the matchups at MGM’s Michelob Ultra Arena. Tickets go on sale next week. The Nigeria-US women’s game will be a prequel to the teams’ Olympic meeting on July 27 in Tokyo, the first game there for both of those teams. Nigeria and the US are both in Group B at the Olympics, along with Japan and France. The Australia-Nigeria men’s game is also the warmup for an Olympicsopening matchup. They’ll play in a Group B game on July 25. The men’s teams from Spain and Argentina—the teams that played in the World Cup final at Beijing in 2019—are both in Group C for the Olympics. They’ll both spend some time in Las Vegas but are not scheduled to face off there before flying to Japan. Las Vegas will see the top 4 men’s teams in the Fiba rankings there for the exhibitions: The US is No. 1, Spain No. 2, Australia No. 3 and Argentina No. 4. Nigeria is ranked No. 22. The US women also hold the No. 1 Fiba ranking, and its July 16 opponent Australia is ranked No. 2 in the world. Nigeria’s women are ranked No. 17. AP

Eddy Alvarez celebrates with teammates after placing second in the 5000 meter short track speedskating relay final during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in this February 21, 2014, file photo. Alvarez helped the US reach the Olympic baseball tournament and could become only the third American to win medals at the summer and winter Games. AP/Darron Cummings

HE Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) will launch the 2021 Indigenous Sports and Games Webinar Series on June 24 with Association for International Sports for All (TAFISA) Secretary-General Wolfgang Baumann serving as resource speaker of the web series. The webinar, dubbed: “Preserving and Promoting the Rich Cultural Heritage of our Ancestors,” is a follow-up of last October’s activity “Preservation of culture and heritage through Indigenous Sports and Games.” The forthcoming webinars aim to highlight the rich and colorful culture and traditions of the Indigenous Peoples (IPs) of the country. PSC Commissioner Charles Raymond Maxey said that he is expecting some 1,000

participants—government officials, IP stakeholders, educators and Indigenous Peoples (IPs). “We’re going international for our 2021 webinar series. We are very honored and excited to have Secretary-General Baumann as our speaker,” Maxey said. Maxey said that more virtual activities are scheduled for this year under the Indigenous Peoples Games Program. “We have already planned a series of webinars for October this year to coincide with the observance of the Indigenous Peoples Month,” Maxey said. The webinar is held in partnership with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. The activity, sponsored by Pocari Sweat, will be streamed live via PSC’s social-media pages.

Alvarez tries to add baseball medal to speedskating

DDY ALVAREZ can display his medal, along with his mettle. Alvarez told his unusual story when he met his new US baseball teammates last month in the old Los Angeles Dodgers clubhouse in Vero Beach, Florida. “This feels like a little bit of a redemption trip for me, because there’s the feeling of listening to someone else’s national anthem when you were so close to winning,” he said. “At the end of the day, standing on the Olympic podium on the top is what we’re all really searching for here.” Seven years ago, Alvarez was part of a four-man short track speedskating team that fell 0.271 seconds short of Russia in the 5,000 meter relay and won a silver medal at the Sochi Olympics. Last weekend, the 31-year-old Miami Marlins minor league infielder helped the US qualify for the Olympic baseball tournament. “I never thought it was going to be possible because baseball was taken out of the Olympics,” he said. “It just so happened that the stars aligned.” While for most sports the Olympics is a matchup of its best players, in baseball it is merely the best of the rest—as in, those not in the major leagues. Major leaguers are off-limits to Olympic teams, and big league general managers sometimes discourage top prospects from being available. Alvarez made it to the major leagues last year with Miami

following a coronavirus outbreak among the Marlins. He became the first non-baseball Olympian in the major leagues since Jim Thorpe with the New York Giants and Boston Braves from 1913-19, after he won gold medals in decathlon and modern pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Games. A 5-foot-9 switch-hitter, Alvarez hit .189 (7 for 37) with one double and two RBIs during a callup from August 6 to 19 and a one-game return on September 6. Olympic rings on the knob of his bat were visible. That brief stretch in the majors earned him $93,238 in big league pay—a huge increase from his weekly $5,133 salary back in the minors this season. Alvarez was batting .222 with one homer and five RBIs this season through May 23 at Triple-A Jacksonville before leaving for the Americas Olympic qualifying tournament. He appeared in 15 games with the Marlins during spring training. “I think Eddy will get back to the big leagues. He’s a kid that obviously has had to fight in his life for a lot of things and work hard,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “Everybody needs guys that could do all of things that he can do. I thought the game last year was probably good for him. It got a little fast. I thought he was trying almost too hard to try to force the issue at times. But he did a lot of things that show you that this guy can play at the big league level.” AP

BusinessMirror

June 13, 2021

Gucci digitally outfits Gen Z in metaverse foray with Roblox

BusinessMirror JUNE 13, 2021 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

MUSIC IS THE BEST MEDICINE

James Arthur on the healing powers of love over adversity

By Stephanie Joy Ching

RESH from the huge global success of his song ‘Train Wreck’, James Arthur recently returned to the music scene with a well-received new single “Medicine.”

Publisher

: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

Editor-In-Chief

: Lourdes M. Fernandez

Concept

: Aldwin M. Tolosa

Y2Z Editor

: Jt Nisay

SoundStrip Editor

: Edwin P. Sallan

Group Creative Director : Eduardo A. Davad Graphic Designers Contributing Writers

Columnists

: Niggel Figueroa Anabelle O. Flores : Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Darwin Fernandez, Leony Garcia, Stephanie Joy Ching Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez : Kaye VillagomezLosorata Annie S. Alejo

Photographers

: Bernard P. Testa Nonie Reyes

Y2Z & SOUNDSTRIP are published and distributed free every Sunday by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror Publishing Inc. as a project of the

The Philippine Business Mirror Publishing, Inc., with offices on the 3rd Floor of Dominga Building III 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner Dela Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines. Tel. Nos. (Editorial) 817-9467; 813-0725. Fax line: 813-7025 Advertising Sales: 893-2019; 817-1351,817-2807. Circulation: 893-1662; 814-0134 to 36. www.businessmirror.com.ph

A song that blends pop punk and punk rock sensibilities with some added hip hop flavor, “Medicine” is the first song on James’ upcoming album and is considered to be the singer-songwriter’s most “autobiographical” to date. “‘Medicine’ is an uplifting ode to self, to relationships, to community and connection, and to the healing, restorative powers of love over adversity. It is, you might say, the perfect song for spring 2021,” he pointed in a recent virtual interview with SoundStrip and other Philippine media. The album’s conception came about when James suffered a massive panic attack last January 2020 in the middle of his European tour. The event forced him to cancel the tour and undergo therapy. By March 2020, he was strong enough to push through with his UK Arena Tour, which he describes as “probably the best tour I’ve ever done.” This resulted in “Medicine” becoming a snapshot of James’ struggles with mental health in 2020 and how he lived and survived through them. It allowed James to think of what his “medicine” is, which he quickly found out was exercise, his loved ones, and of course, creating music. “Writing music is the best form of therapy for me,” he recounted, “I’m very lucky to have an outlet such as music to channel any mental health issues I was going through. I think we wrote this song to encourage people to think about what their medicine is during a dark time. Anything that makes you feel better, I wanted people to think about that,” Moreover, as someone “who

made it to the other side”, he feels a “sense of duty” to raise awareness of the problem. “Anything that I can do to use my voice and my platform to raise awareness is important,” he shared. “I feel a responsibility to do that, having been through mental health issues and trauma in my life and making it to the other side. It’s a very difficult thing to talk about your mental health or your health in general, but it’s the biggest step, just to try and speak because you’d be surprised at how many people

JAMES Arthur

would relate to you.” In line with speaking up about his widely known mental health struggles, the album also allowed James to reflect on other things in his life, such as his thoughts on becoming a father. Though he stated that his upcoming album has no overarching theme, he did admit that writing the album made him do more “soul-searching” in addition to experimenting with “a melting pot” of pop punk and hiphop trap sounds. “I’m doing a lot of soul searching on this album. That’s kind of what it’s always been for me, especially when it comes to writing lyrics. With the type of music that I make, I think it’s important for me to connect to people and to relate to people. And in order to do that, I have to look inside myself and be introspective,” he said. “Medicine” is now available on all streaming platforms nationwide.

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | JUNE 13, 2021

BUSINESS

SoundSampler by Tony M. Maghirang

BRAVE NEW MUSIC To rage against the creeping darkness

here are those who make music to entertain, to pamper your pleasure center, to maintain the way things are. And there are musicians who create so-called alternative music that does not follow the conventions of live, love, laugh in their imaginative yet roaring creations. Then there are those who’d rather upset the apple cart to sound the alarm that something’s horribly wrong about the way things have become.

In the wake of the unpredictable Covid-19 pandemic, the up-setters are slithering out of the woodwork and making their presence felt from the sidelines. We give voice and space to what fires up their unconventional minds.

and hardcore. But The Exsenadors aren’t exactly out to burn down everything in musical rage and lyrical spite. They said they’re using mid-tempo rockers as fillers in between loud fast tracks so their listeners won’t easily get bored. So they’ve got a couple of love song sounding cuts and a tune about making bike lanes safe.

THE EXSENADORS

THIS three-piece Pinoy punk band declares that they’re anti-fascist band from Quezon City. Their debut full-length titled ‘Heartlessness And The Systematic Perpetuation Of Despair’ is a catalog of songs with harsh titles like “Dead Bodies,” “Executioner.” “Endless Struggle” and “Dahas.” In a PM to Soundstrip, the band said the album title is a summary criticism of the current regime which perpetuates hopelessness through its oppressive anti-poor machinery. Lyrics such as “The bloodshed continues and who’s giving the order?” and “Grasp well the bladed songs, oppose and defeat oppression” blend well with the trio’s firm grasp of punk rock, Oi!

ANTIPARA

FOUR-MAN band Antipara. released a single titled “Patalsikin Na Yan” and the immediate reaction is that it has to be about kicking out the biggest political prick of them all in this damned land. On their social media page, Antipara stated that their new song is “Para sa lahat ng trapo, kurakot at ginagawang negosyo ang posisyon sa gobyerno!” Their subsequent PM to Soundstrip further clarified, “We’re just here to voice out yung mga hinaing ng mga Pilipino sa bansa natin. Yung inspiration namin sa “Patalsikin Na Yan” ay galing sa iba’t-ibang klase ng

estado ng bawat Pilipino, tulad namin. “Ang government naman ever since hindi sila flawless, We are not pro or anti. Hindi siya one sided story. there is more to it.” They also said their song simply expressed their fervent wish for changes in a rotten system that consistently corrupts anybody, saint or sinner, put in charge of it.

looks inspired by recent headlines minus the daily Covid-19 dread.

DICTA LICENSE

PANDAY SINING MUSIC COLLECTIVE

THERE’S not much detail the Collective’s bandcamp page but their social media page says a lot about their political persuasion, which does not fall strictly under the DDS or Dilawan side of the political divide. Their 2021 EP named “Kontrapulis” tells a lot more right from the title about their feelings towards mainstream society, especially the so-called protectors of civilians, The tracks on the EP tackle more than the police in our midst. Album opener “Salapi” takes on labor issues while its closer “Mayday” resurrects the three “isms” (e.g. imperialism and so on) that have bedeviled this country from a Marxist viewpoint. Sandwiched between them, the triad “Makiakab,” “Tiktok” and “Basta Pulis Ekis” exposes the illegal and often deadly operations of what the Police General usually calls the few rotten eggs among the dedicated and honest national police force. In real life, the album actually

“PAGBIGKAS,” the new album from Dicta License, comes out after a 16-year wait for a follow-up to the trio’s acclaimed debut. The sophomore release has been variously described as “more than a return to form” and “a long-overdue album that confronts and comforts.” The group’s confrontational element goes out right at the starting track, “Bagong Bayani.” where over a thudding drum and bass, a dare is issued “Hinahamon ng panahon, sinong tutugon?/ Nasisindak sa sigaw, henerasyon na hilaw, nasan na ba (Mga bagong bayani)” A parallel sentiment is echoed in “Salita,” Amid a blast of insistent pounding, the frontman asks, ““Tumahimik ka na lang, ano ba’ng naitulong mo? Akala mo kung sino, ano bang naiambag mo?” It’s a challenge to those who’d rather sit on the sidelines while human rights violations and murders most foul go unchecked almost every day. Some kind of comfort is offered by excerpts from Fr. Albert Alejo’s spoken-word “Sanayan Lang ang Pagpatay” and Jose W. Diokno’s ‘A Nation For Our Children’ speech. Then again, they provide uneasy breathing space because they cast a grim portent on a nation where murder is a profession and children are constantly at risk.

Gucci digitally outfits Gen Z in metaverse foray with Roblox price of 475 Roblox, roughly $4.75. Only 851 of the bags were available during two releases, making it the rarest piece in the collection, compared with the 2.6 million wide-brim denim hats that were snapped up for free. Unlike NFTs, the astronomically priced Dionysus bag cannot be traded outside of the Roblox platform, making it seemingly a vanity investment for a super-fan.

By Colleen Barry The Associated Press

ILAN—Anyone whose virtual alter ego is wandering around the Roblox online game platform these days might run into other avatars sporting Gucci handbags, sunglasses or hats. The digital-only items were part of a limited Gucci collection for Roblox, a step by the fashion house that prides itself on Italian craftsmanship to enter an expanding virtual space where many of its youngest admirers already are at home. Players in the metaverse—where virtual worlds, augmented reality and the Internet meet—say the big-name fashion collaboration represents a new era of virtual-real world interplay, a space in which smart product placement meets the desire of consumers to express their personalities in the virtual world. While the Gucci Garden space on Roblox was open for two weeks last month, the platform’s 42 million users could spend from $1.20 to $9 on collectible and limited-edition Gucci accessories. Items were hidden in the virtual Gucci Garden, which echoed real-world Gucci Garden exhibitions in Florence and other global cities. Some items were offered for free, and the exclusivity was underlined with limited time releases. The experience allowed Roblox’s core demographic—roughly ages 9 to 15—a digital entrée to the rarified world of luxury goods that few can dream of in the real world. Now that the space is closed, the limited-edition items have even greater cachet. According to the developer, more than 4.5 million items were “won.”

‘The whole point of a fashion brand is to stand out’

This computer generated image shows a Gucci virtual garden on Roblox. The Italian fashion house that prides itself on hand-craftsmanship is dipping its toes into an expanding virtual space where many of its youngest fans already are at home. Roblox via AP

Nothing new Many parents may scratch their heads at paying real money to accessorize an avatar, but Generation Z players have long been prepped for this evolution. They ran through physical streets and parks to intercept and capture Pokemon Go characters, part of an augmented reality mobile game that launched in 2016. Many took the edge off pandemic lockdown by playing with real-world friends over gaming platforms. On Roblox, dressing up avatars is old hat.

they want to represent their digital selves through fashion.” While the Gucci items users bought only can be “worn” on the Roblox platform, it is just the tip of the metaverse iceberg. Similar items made and traded in the metaverse are known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—digital objects backed by blockchain technology certifying their authenticity, and often uniqueness. NFTs, which might be anything from personalized “skins,” or costumes, for avatars to digital art, can be traded ad-infinitum, po-

“Many parents may scratch their heads at paying real money to accessorize an avatar, but Generation Z players have long been prepped for this evolution.” “Gen Z, they sometimes see virtual products as more valuable than physical products,” Christina Wootton, the vice president for brand partnerships at Roblox, said. “We are definitely seeing that on Roblox, where it is all about storytelling and self-expression. There are so many people who come together and socialize and connect with their friends, and

tentially growing in value with each trade. Their ownership is not limited to any single platform. Even on Roblox, which has its own marketplace where items can be traded, the Gucci Dionysus Bag with Bee was resold for over $4,100 worth of Robux—exceeding the price of a real Gucci Dionysus bag and a huge premium of the original

The metaverse’s potential for the fashion world goes well beyond the world of gaming and extends into digital ecosystems that are still under construction. It’s only natural that fashion would pave the way for the less digitally savvy consumers, who may shy away from Bitcoin and balk at multimillion-dollar sales of NFTs that have captured the attention of artists and collectors alike. “Fashion brands have to go where other people are not going. The whole point of a fashion brand is to stand out,” Allen Adamson, cofounder of marketing consultancy Metaforce, said. For Gucci, the biggest return on investment from the Roblox tieup “is to become part of that generation’s world,” Adamson said. “No one shares ordinary,” Adamson said. “‘My avatar is wearing a Gucci belt’ is a little different” and perhaps even catchier for a certain audience than spotting a real Gucci bag on the street. Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri said that more than generating revenue, the Roblox collaboration was a way to tap fresh creative veins and stay apace of an evolving world where fashion, music, films and technology increasingly mashup. “Who knows what the industry will look like in 10 years? We want to start before everyone else to get up to speed,” Bizzarri said at the physical Gucci Garden opening in Florence. “Certainly, they are not operations that bring a lot of business now, but they could be a source of business tomorrow.”

Gen Z spending more now than it did pre-pandemic

K boomer, you may have money, but you’re not spending it. Younger consumers, even though they have less saved than older Americans, are the ones opening their wallets as the US economy recovers. Millennials and members of Generation Z are spending even more than they did before the pandemic as vaccines proliferate around the world, American Express Co. Chief Executive Officer Steve Squeri said during a recent virtual investor conference. “We assumed there was such pent-up demand—not only for travel, but such a pent-

up demand for consumer goods—that the US recovery would be like it is right now,” Squeri said. “When you look at your millennials and your Gen Zs right now,” they’re at “125-percent spending of what their preCovid levels were in 2019.” That’s helped revive overall spending on AmEx’s cards, which nevertheless remains down this quarter compared with pre-pandemic levels. Covid-19 forced the company, long known for its cards that provide special perks for travel and dining, to reshape its business and focus its rewards on things like wireless and streaming services. As vaccines

4 BusinessMirror

abound, AmEx is benefiting as consumers get back to vacationing and eating out. While consumers have returned to the skies for domestic travel, businesses have yet to get their workers back on the road, Squeri said. AmEx now believes corporate travel won’t return to its pre-pandemic levels until 2023, he said. The company is eyeing whether it can offer debit cards in markets outside China, Squeri said. Still, he cautioned, the firm is wary after a previous experiment offering prepaid debit cards to unbanked individuals ended with the division being dismanJune 13, 2021

tled less than a decade after its inception. Squeri said that American Express is “very conscious about the brand” and needs to decide whether offering a debit card would fit in with the company’s largely highend and aspirational products. “It really didn’t work for us—the unbanked was really not our customer, and the prepaid market was not our customer, and we learned that,” Squeri said. “But is there something in between our everyday credit card and the prepaid card? And that potentially could be a debit card. That all needs to be worked out.” Bloomberg