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A broader look at today’s business n

Sunday, March 6, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 149

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

War in time of contagion

D

By Rory Visco

O wars and plagues go together?

There were significant outbreaks of infections throughout history that may answer that question.

According to Prof. Francis Gealogo, a professor of history at the Ateneo de Manila University, the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 came about after World War I. It reached the Philippines as soon as WWI ended when many soldiers went home, including American soldiers who were assigned to the Philippines, and those involved in the war that engaged in trade with the Philippines.

Many said because of the war, the influenza pandemic quickly spread throughout the world and as they say, diseases spread faster if there are wars or any form of threats.

When the Europeans conquered the northern and southern portions of America, almost 90 percent of the people of “Old America” perished not only due to the war but also because of the “Old World” diseases that the Europeans brought with them like bubonic plague, syphilis, cholera and others.

Prof. Gealogo said the spread

of diseases becomes faster whenever people from countries involved in wars seek refuge in other areas, which may have physical immunities but are actually disease carriers.

Even wars with smaller scopes may have global effects because of the spread of disease. With wars, supply chains of essential items like food are cut off, thus starving the people of important nutrition and may eventually lead to sickness, even death.

And now the world anxiously awaits what’s happening between Russia and Ukraine after the former invaded the latter more than a week ago.

Implications

DR. ANTONIO LA VIÑA: “In an existential crisis like this, especially if it escalates into a tension with China where we have to make hard choices with our political alliances, it is important to have a true national unity government that can address these worstcase scenarios.” TONYLAVINA.COM

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 51.4700

THE crisis in Ukraine has immediate consequences on the Philippines, Dr. Antonio La Viña, UP Professorial Lecturer of Constitutional Law and former dean of the Ateneo School of Government, said in his presentation “War and Crisis in the Ukraine: Implications for the Philippines” during Episode 89 of the “Stop Covid Deaths” webinar series. The series is being organized by the University of the Philippines in partnership with UP Manila NIH National Telehealth Center and the UP Philippine General Hospital. Episode 89 has the theme, “Giyera sa Panahon ng Pandemya: Apektado ba tayo?,”

BREAKERMAXIMUS | DREAMSTIME.COM

Assessing what the PHL could expect amid the raging Russia-Ukraine conflict, experts recall lessons of previous wars and pandemics.

There are 300 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Ukraine who may be harmed as Russia bombards Ukrainian cities. Some have been evacuated by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Besides the OFWs on the ground, some 200 Filipino seafarers were stuck, as of Thursday, in foreign vessels docked in five Ukrainian ports when the Russian invasion began, said a report by the BusinessMirror. Even OFWs in Europe are worried of a refugee crisis. “Of course, there will be an impact on job opportunities, even in the treatment of OFWs,” he said.

Here in the Philippines, La Viña said the immediate impact would be on energy, oil and gas prices, even in prices of flour and bread. Ukraine is a powerhouse agricultural country, he said, a global producer of wheat and corn where the war will have an effect on production and even create a glut in supply, including the supply chain for Covid-19 vaccines, and then on overall inflation.

“These effects can be felt in a few weeks or so and may soon get worse,” La Viña added.

But much worrisome for him, La Viña said, are some scenarios that he sees may happen in the medium term. He sees a collapse of global cooperation and institutions such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization

(WHO) as they are also affected by this kind of tension. “Russia also has many allies and this might create a stalemate in many decisions.”

Climate-change action may also be affected since time and other positive gains may be lost because global attention may shift on the war instead. Economically, there may also be an impact on trade such as food and minerals, finance since the banking sector may also be affected, and also tourism, plus the rise of war crimes since many people may perish.

But what also worries La Viña more is the fact that what Russia did—and if it gets away with it— may help make China feel more emboldened to do the same thing in the South China Sea, especially on the West Philippine Sea issue, and even Taiwan, an emotional issue for China, he said. “We need to monitor this since there are many security issues if this escalates, and also concern for OFWs in Taiwan.”

Priorities and opportunities

SO, what should be the Philippines’ priorities to prepare for the scenarios mentioned? He believes the country should take a deeper look at its needs. “I think it’s important for us to look at what we can do in terms of diplomacy, our relationships with certain institutions like our issues with Covid-19, where we deal with organizations like the

WHO in terms of our multilateral and bilateral cooperation in terms of the vaccines and treatments.

There is a need to address and anticipate any problems that may arise and develop alternatives.”

La Viña said the country also needs to understand the lessons in history, specifically the pandemic after World War I. “I think the most important part of learning from history there is that the pandemic doesn’t stop even if there’s a war, that it can even become a driver for even worse things to happen since Russia and Ukraine have a significant number of Covid-19 cases, which may escalate and spread to other areas when a refugee crisis happens.”

However, La Viña also sees a silver lining to things happening now, which he said will test the kind of leadership, both today and after the elections. It is important, he said, to demand from Philippine leaders the ability to think strategically, be disciplined and listen to experts to make the right decisions for the country to address the scenarios and consequences. “And it starts even with the current President. In an existential crisis like this, especially if it escalates into a tension with China where we have to make hard choices with our political alliances, it is important to have a true national unity government that can address these worstcase scenarios.”

n JAPAN 0.4458 n UK 68.7330 n HK 6.5854 n CHINA 8.1430 n SINGAPORE 37.9516 n AUSTRALIA 37.7224 n EU 56.9670 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.7188

Source: BSP (March 4, 2022)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, March 6, 2022

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Rich Russians spend big on luxury to halt savings erosion

By Flavia Rotondi, Angelina Rascouet & Andy Hoffman

W

Bloomberg News

ITH sanctions on Russia sending the ruble plunging and keeping stock markets shuttered, the country’s wealthy are turning to luxury jewelry and watches in a bid to preserve the value of their savings.

Sales in Bulgari SpA’s Russian stores have risen in the last few days, the Italian jeweler’s chief executive officer said, after the international response to the nation’s invasion of Ukraine severely restricted the movement of cash.

“In the short term it has probably boosted the business,” Jean-Christophe Babin said in an interview with Bloomberg, describing Bulgari’s jewelry as a “safe investment.”

“How long it will last it is difficult to say, because indeed with the SWIFT measures, fully imple-

mented, it might make it difficult if not impossible to export to Russia,” he said, referring to restrictions on Russian access to the SWIFT financial-messaging system.

‘Giants’ remain

EVEN as consumer brands from Apple Inc. to Nike Inc. and energy giants BP Plc, Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. pull out of Russia, Europe’s biggest luxury brands are, so far, trying to continue operating in the country.

Bulgari, owned by LVMH SE, is far from alone. Richemont’s

Cartier is still selling jewelry and watches, and Swatch Group’s Omega timepieces are still available, as are Rolexes.

“We are there for the Russian people and not for the political world,” Babin said. “We operate in many different countries that have periods of uncertainty and tensions.”

Much like gold, which can serve as a store of value and a hedge against inflation, luxury watches and jewelry can hold or even increase in price amid economic turmoil caused by war and conflict.

Popular watches can change hands on the secondary market for three or four times their retail price. Yet the impact of the invasion on the value of luxury items is creating a potential public relations issue.

“It is true that luxury brands could decide not to serve the Russian market. Rationally, this would be a cost to them, possibly outweighed by the positive communication image they get in other markets,” Bernstein analyst Luca Solca said by email.

Sales in Russia and to Russians abroad account for less than 2 percent of overall revenue at LVMH and Swatch Group and

LUXURY jewelry sits on display in the window of the Bulgari SpA boutique in Moscow. BLOOMBERG

less than 3 percent at Richemont, a “relatively immaterial” level, according to a report this week by Edouard Aubin and fellow analysts at Morgan Stanley.

That’s due, in part, to Russian income and wealth disparities, with a small number of billionaire oligarchs living way beyond the means of ordinary people. The average monthly wage in Moscow is about 113,000 rubles ($1,350 at pre-invasion exchange rates), and much lower in rural regions.

A spokesperson for Swatch Group said the company was monitoring the situation in Russia and Ukraine very closely and declined to comment further. Spokespeople for Richemont, Rolex, Hermes, LVMH and Kering SA declined to comment on their operations in Russia.

What is ‘moral’?

PRESSURE on the major brands is growing. Trade publication Business of Fashion, backed by LVMH, urged retailers to shut down Russian stores and not to ship products online. In a widely shared editorial, Editorin-chief Imran Amed said the move would be “largely symbolic” but that it would show “commitment to a strong moral position.”

‘

We are there for the Russian people and not for the political world. We operate in many different countries that have periods of uncertainty and tensions.’— Jean-Christophe Babin Reaction has been muted, so far. Balenciaga, whose creative director Demna Gvasalia is Georgian, scrapped all fashion content from its Instagram page days before its autumn/winter show in Paris. In its place is the Ukrainian flag and a call to donate to the World Food Program. LVMH said it’s donating €5 million ($5.6 million) to the International Committee of the Red Cross to aid victims of the war. LVMH is also providing financial and operational assistance to its 150 employees in Ukraine, it added.

Bulgari, established in 1884 by Sotirio Bulgari and bought in 2011

by LVMH, is likely to raise prices in Russia at some point, according to the CEO.

Rule of proportionate value

“IF the ruble loses half of its val-

ue, our costs remain euro costs, we cannot lose money on what we sell, so will have to adapt the prices,” he said.

Whatever sales bump they experience, luxury watch and jewelry-makers may soon have difficulty restocking stores. Moscow closed its airspace to European Union countries, and the continent’s biggest logistics firms have halted shipments to Russia.

Burberry Group Plc said it has halted all shipments to Russia until further notice amid operational challenges.

Bulgari plans to keep its stores open and forge ahead with the development of a new hotel in Moscow despite the war. Nevertheless, if the crisis lasts for months “it would be difficult to supply the country,” Babin said.

Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World BusinessMirror

Biden seeks to inflict economic pain on Putin; avoids bigger war

T

he steady drumbeat of retaliatory actions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine comes with some US signaling that it doesn’t want the crisis to spiral out of control.

The US and European allies have led efforts to sanction Russian banks, target politically connected oligarchs, bolster Ukraine’s defenses and rally international opinion against President Vladimir Putin’s war. But the Biden administration has also held off in responding to what it sees as overt provocations from Moscow meant to inflame tensions further.

In the days after Putin announced on national television that Russia’s nuclear arsenal was on a “special regime of highalert combat duty,” US officials repeatedly said they saw little to justify a response. And the Biden administration went a step further Wednesday, postponing a Minuteman-III intercontinental ballistic missile test planned for this week.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the delay “in an effort to demonstrate that we have no intention in engaging in any actions that could be misunderstood or misconstrued,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

Similarly, the administration has avoided potentially provocative rhetoric such as talking about regime change in Russia and has hesitated at times to confirm details of weapons shipments to Ukraine, such as its delivery of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

Several US officials who spoke to Bloomberg News on the condition of anonymity said the approach reflected the Biden administration’s desire to inflict economic pain on Putin while avoiding unnecessary risks with a nuclear-armed adversary. The caution was particularly important, the people said, as Putin faces increasing international isolation, as well as military setbacks in Ukraine.

‘Release valve’

“There has to be some kind of release valve here, some prospect of an off-ramp,” said Richard Fontaine, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security who was an adviser to late Republican SeNator John McCain.

Although Russian officials have called moves by the US and its allies to bolster Ukraine a provocation, Biden and his top aides have repeatedly emphasized that Nato is a defensive alliance, and that no US or Nato troops would be deployed inside Ukraine’s territory.

“Our forces are not engaged and will not engage in the conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine,” Biden said Tuesday in his State of the Union speech, while calling for unity with the Ukrainian people.

As Russian forces press down on Kyiv and other key Ukrainian cities, the US military has sought to establish new channels for talking to its Russian counterparts. Kirby said Monday that the Pentagon is exploring options for a “deconfliction mechanism” with Russia, a strategy it has used in other places where Russian and Western forces are in close proximity, such as Syria.

A plan to avoid unintended conflicts will be important as Ukraine’s air space is contested, Kirby said, because “some of that air space butts right up against Nato territory.” Russia has cited Nato’s eastward expansion as one of its chief grievances and demanded the alliance to pull back from former Soviet bloc countries.

The US needs “to do everything in our power to show President Putin there is a way off on this, accommodations can be made to your security interests, but you can’t do it at the point of a gun barrel,” William Cohen, a former seNator and US defense secretary, told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.

Long table

From the Biden administration’s perspective, the need for caution is intensified by concerns over the way that Putin appears to be making decisions. According to one official, a major concern of the administration is that Putin is seen as increasingly surrounded by an insular inner circle and isn’t receiving dissenting opinions.

Images of the Russian leader sitting at the end of a long table, physically removed from his advisers or visiting dignitaries—a result of Covid-19 precautions—are in many ways a metaphor for the problem, the person said.

To avoid looking consumed by the Ukraine conflict, the US administration has attempted to demonstrate some normalcy in pursuing its broader foreign policy strategy, which is focused on shifting toward Asia.

Blinken’s decision to go forward with plans to visit Australia in mid-February, despite surging Russia-Ukraine tensions, was driven in part by this concern, according to the US officials, as was Biden’s decision to push ahead with an upcoming summit with leaders from Southeast Asian nations in Washington.

Although Biden has mostly won rare bipartisan support for his approach to Ukraine in recent weeks, his decision to postpone the intercontinental ballistic missile test drew some scorn.

US Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the move in a tweet, saying, “Deterrence is about projecting strength and resolve—not sacrificing readiness for hollow gestures.”

But the administration said that diplomacy was its priority, even as that gets more difficult with Russian forces progressing farther into Ukraine.

“We believe that in times of crisis, we believe that lines of communication are in some ways even more important,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told a briefing Monday. “So we have continued to engage the Russian Federation.”

It’s not clear if Putin or his top aides are getting the message— and it shows little sign of deterring his offensive in Ukraine—but its a strategy the administration is committed to for now.

“We are in a very dangerous point in our relationship with Putin,” Cohen said. “It’s hard to predict how he will react.”

Bloomberg News

Sunday, March 6, 2022

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Breakdown of US-Russia diplomacy runs deep, goes beyond Ukraine war

By Matthew Lee & Vladimir Isachenkov

W

The Associated Press

ASHINGTON—Eyeing each other warily across negotiating tables, US and Russian diplomats never much trusted each other. Yet even during the Cold War, they hashed out agreements on the biggest issues of the day.

Now the fierce, mutual hostility over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises a critical question: Is USRussian diplomacy effectively dead?

T he a nswer is c r uc i a l for reasons that go far beyond the Ukraine war and the immediate interests of both nations.

The United States and Russia have been at the center of almost every item on the global agenda, including arms control, space cooperation, cybersecurity and climate change. Progress on those issues and more, such as Arctic policy and maritime and aviation safety, largely depends on the two giants finding common ground.

There hasn’t been a total breakdown in diplomatic ties. For the moment at least, embassies remain open in both capitals despite a festering but unrelated diplomatic spat that has seen the two sides expel dozens of diplomats since 2017. And both Russia and the United States are involved in negotiations about reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, now underway in Vienna.

The well-known “hotline” communication channels aimed at preventing nuclear war remain in place. And the Pentagon has established a “de-confliction line” of direct communication with the Russian ministry of defense to avoid unintended Ukraine military incidents and escalation.

But aside from the Vienna talks, the most recent significant communication between the two sides appears to have been the US notification to Russia on Monday that it would expel 12 Russians from the United Nations on espionage grounds.

Secretar y of State A ntony Blinken, whose spokesman last week accused the Russians of engaging in diplomatic “kabuki theater,” said the door to diplomacy remains open but only narrowly and only if Moscow halts its military offensive.

“What we’ve seen repeatedly is that Russia goes through the pretense of diplomacy to distract and continue on its aggressive path,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday.

“If we determine that there are areas that it’s in our interest to continue to pursue that may involve some engagement for Russia, we’ll continue to pursue that,” he said, adding however that “we’re not going to let Russia dictate in any way what’s in our interests and how to pursue it.”

At the highest level, President Joe Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have not spoken since a roughly hour-long phone call on February 12, in which Biden told Putin that a “Russian invasion of Ukraine would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing.” Twelve days later, Russia invaded.

The last contact between the nations’ top diplomats—Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov—occurred on the eve of the

invasion. On February 23, Blinken wrote to Lavrov to say he was canceling a scheduled meeting in Geneva the next day because he did not believe it would be productive.

Lavrov replied with a cursory note blaming any lack of productiveness on inflexible American positions, according to US officials.

Other than that, the last publicly acknowledged contact may have been the US informing Russia on February 23 that it was expelling the No. 2 at its embassy in Washington in retaliation for Russia’s expulsion of the US deputy ambassador from Moscow in mid-February.

The dearth of contact, apart from angry statements delivered by both sides at the United Nations, is problematic.

“Generally one should preserve the ability to talk, and at the end of the day one usually finds ways to do what needs to be done,” said Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former three-time US ambassador. “Russia won’t be isolated forever, but right now there is a need to send them a message.

We can’t wink at them extinguishing a sovereign country.”

Neumann noted that even during the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s there were secret contacts, often involving intermediaries, despite bluster from both Washington and Moscow, and eventually there was a peaceful resolution. Cooler heads, he said, should prevail eventually as the impact of the lack of diplomacy becomes clearer.

“We, too, will pay a price for isolating Russia,” he said. “But right now that appears to be a price that we should pay (because) we don’t want to give the Russians a free hand.”

With a wide-ranging list of potential areas of cooperation, the Biden administration has sought to ensure that not all contacts are banned. It has barred most US diplomats from formal interactions with their Russian counterparts overseas, but the State Department said Tuesday that US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan has been in touch with counterparts in Moscow in recent days.

The exemptions to barred contacts include not just the Iran talks but discussions with Russia at most international forums like the United Nations. They also include direct talks with Moscow on consular issues, which for the United States means primarily the fate of at least two Americans detained on what Washington says are specious espionage charges.

For Russia, though, the appearance of diplomacy remains. Even as Russian troops have pressed their offensive deeper into Ukraine amid international outrage and increasing international isolation, Lavrov has sought to continue business as usual, talking about arms control in remarks to a UN disarmament conference in Geneva on Tuesday.

US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at the ‘Villa la Grange’ on June 16, 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland. Prospects for meaningful diplomacy between the United States and Russia on any number of fronts are grim as the two countries are locked in their worst confrontation since the Soviet-era Cuban Missile Crisis over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

AP/Patrick Semansky

He spoke via video link after several EU nations barred him from flying there because of a European ban on Russian planes, part of bruising sanctions against Moscow. Lavrov berated the EU members for their “refusal to respect the right to freedom of movement, which is a fundamental human right.”

After repeating a litany of accusations against Ukraine and the West for moves he said were

threatening Russia’s security, Lavrov spoke about Moscow’s readiness to continue the talks on arms control and European security—a statement that rang hollow as the war in Ukraine made such negotiations irrelevant.

He denounced what he called Nato’s policy to contain Russia and its refusal to meet Moscow’s demand to keep Ukraine out of Nato and roll back alliance military deployments in Eastern Europe.

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The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, March 6, 2022

Fed’s Powell tells Senate: Russia’s war on Ukraine to worsen inflation

By Christopher Rugaber

W

AP Economics Writer

ASHINGTON—Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned Thursday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has already driven up oil prices, will likely further magnify the high inflation that has engulfed the US economy.

At the same time, Powell said he is committed to doing whatever it will take to slow inflation, underscoring the Fed’s high-risk challenge in raising interest rates enough to stem price increases without tipping the economy into another recession.

The Fed chair, addressing the Senate Banking Committee on his second day of semiannual testimony to Congress on interest rate policies, stressed his belief that the economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs. His expression of confidence echoed his testimony Wednesday that the Fed can engineer a “soft landing” in which the economy would slow enough to ease inflation even while hiring and growth remain healthy.

“Commodity prices have moved up—energy prices, in particular,” Powell said when asked about the economic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “That’s going to work its way through the US economy. We’re going to see upward pressure on inflation, at least for a while.”

Consumer prices are already rising at their fastest pace in four decades, having jumped 7.5 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier. Gas prices, a key driver of that increase, have soared 40 percent over the past

year. In the view of most economists, the surge in inflation is largely a consequence of a shortage of labor and components resulting from bottlenecked supply chains, much of it resulting from the global economy’s swift rebound from the pandemic recession.

Price spikes, though, have also spread to areas such as rents and restaurant meals, where rapid economic growth and higher wages are driving up costs.

Responding to a question from Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, Powell noted that inflation is generally thought to rise about 0.2 percentage point for each $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil. Oil prices have surged by $40 a barrel since early December to about $110, suggesting that overall inflation will be higher than it would otherwise be in the coming months.

Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, urged Powell to do “what it takes” to control inflation. He praised Paul Volcker, who led the Fed in the early 1980s and who sharply increased the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate to choke off the double-digit inflation of the 1970s. Volcker’s actions also led to a deep recession in 1981-1982.

Shelby asked Powell whether

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on March 3, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Tom Williams, Pool via AP

he, like Volcker, was willing to be “draconian” to “get the inflation under control and protect price stability.”

Powell replied that Volcker was the “greatest economic public servant of the era” and added that, “I hope history will record that the answer to your question is yes.”

But Powell stressed his belief that the Fed can bring down inflation without triggering a recession. The economy grew last year at the fastest pace since the 1980s, the Fed chair noted, the unemployment rate is at a low 4 percent and hourly pay is rising steadily, before adjusting for inflation.

Job openings are near a record high, Powell added, and Americans are quitting their jobs at a record pace, usually for better, higherpaying positions.

“This is a great labor market for workers, particularly for workers” among those in the lowest onequarter of incomes, he said. For these workers, pay gains over the past two years have slightly exceeded price increases, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

On Wednesday, Powell had said that he would propose a quarter-point rate hike at the

Fed’s next meeting in two weeks, which would be the first rate increase since 2018. The Fed chair repeated Thursday that if inflation didn’t decline this year as he expects, he is open to bigger hikes at some later central bank meeting this year.

Powell testified to Congress in his capacity as acting chair, after his term officially expired in February. President Joe Biden has nominated Powell to a second four-year term. But his appointment, along with those of four other nominees to the Fed’s Board of Governors, has been delayed by Republican opposition to one nominee, Sarah Bloom Raskin, as the Fed’s top banking regulator.

Republicans on the committee have boycotted a vote on all Biden’s nominees, including Powell, because of their opposition to Raskin, who they say would use the Fed’s regulatory authority to discourage banks from lending to oil and gas companies. Democrats, as well as many banking executives, counter that Raskin’s views aren’t out of the mainstream and that she simply wants the Fed to consider the risks that climate change poses to the financial system. AP

Banks race to pinpoint sanction risks after Russia clampdown

By William Shaw & Aisha S. Gani

A

t a fintech company in London last week, algorithms fielded thousands of queries per second from banks and businesses trying to get Russian clients off their books.

ComplyAdvantage’s computers and human staff scoured 25,000 information sources, aiming to alert clients within 15 minutes of a new target appearing on the various government sanction lists drawn up since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Algorithms searched for the names of Russian lawmakers, originally written in Cyrillic, and now in languages including Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

“It’s all hands on deck,” said Charles Delingpole, founder and chief executive officer of ComplyAdvantage, whose clients include trading platform eToro and Banco Santander SA. The business has had huge amounts of data requests in recent days and traffic to its website soared 30-fold.

Multiple rounds of sanctions targeting Russia rank as among the most complex ever enforced and have thrust a cottage industry of experts into the spotlight.

Armies of law yers, compliance s pec i a l i st s a nd f i ntec h s a re being deployed to help banks avoid the billion-dollar scanda ls that prev ious sanctions have wrought.

“It’s been like the Super Bowl of sanctions,” said Joel Lange, head of business management at Dow

Jones Risk & Compliance, which handles many banks.

It is a race against time to track down the funds, as the targets of sanctions usually try to move their money swiftly, according to Delingpole. “There are huge challenges and new fronts for attack.

Have the oligarchs just moved their assets to Bitcoin?”

Banks also use companies like LexisNexis and Refinitiv WorldCheck to carry out similar work.

Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, competes with Dow Jones, LexisNexis and Refinitiv to provide financial news, data and information.

Lenders have also lent heavily on their own compliance teams and external lawyers, stretching the capacity of the UK’s pool of sanctions experts.

Their task is particularly challenging due to the speed of the Russia prohibitions and because the emerging rules are not fully aligned across jurisdictions, according to ex per ts. Matthew Townsend, sanctions partner at law firm Allen & Overy, said there aren’t enough specialized lawyers to deal with the challenge. “We’re seeing an unprecedented demand for sanctions-related services, there is a big capacity squeeze,” he said.

Tehran lesson

The stakes are high, as banks have learned the hard way from falling foul of government sanctions against Iran and other countries in the past.

BNP Paribas SA agreed to pay almost $9 billion in 2014 after admitting to processing banned transactions involving Sudan, Iran and Cuba. UniCredit SpA agreed in 2019 to pay $1.3 billion to settle US charges for violating sanctions against Iran that had been hanging over the company since 2011. The same year Standard Chartered Plc agreed to pay more than $1 billion to resolve an investigation into its Iran business.

Banking executives believe mistakes are likely as the industry rushes to impose the still-growing measures against Russia, potentially triggering fines later. Arguments that the problems could not be avoided will not be accepted, as lawmakers and the public have seen banks’ multi-billion pound profits and large bonuses being paid to staff, according to a senior industry figure.

T he direction is to err on the side of caution by extensive dropping of clients, said Michelle Linderman, a partner at Crowell & Moring LLP: “People are talking about totally derisking. Russia could become like Iran was a few years ago, where it ’s a l most complete ly isolated from the wester n world ’s financial institutions.”

European and US banks’ ties to Moscow are limited due to caution in recent years about the political environment, but there are still many individuals, their relatives and multiple businesses that need to be sifted through.

Citigroup became one of the first

banks to disclose its level of connections, saying in a regulatory filing on Monday that it has $9.8 billion exposure to Russia, including through consumer and institutional banking services in the country.

Deliberately unclear

The challenge is compounded by the overlapping of sanctions regimes. The past few days have seen more t han 1,000 pages of sanctions legislation from the European Union, UK, US, Canada and others, according to Crowell & Moring’s Linderman. “With Russian companies often the structure is opaque,” she said. “W here oligarchs have been added there is a heck of a lot of work, people are literally firefighting.”

Added to the problem is what law yers ca l l “strateg ic ambiguity” about the kind of trade that’s prohibited. Guidance from government agencies is often deliberately vague, said Anna Bradshaw, a partner at law firm Peters & Peters. “The reason is the more uncertain you are the more likely you are to be risk averse,” she said. “It’s almost like chess—you have to think several steps ahead at all times.”

It’s all creating work for the sanctions industry. ComplyAdvantage is looking to recruit dozens more staff to help clients ensure they do not break the rules.

Dealing with sanctioned entities “is the kiss of death”, said Delingpole. Bloomberg News

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Russia’s top banks suffer as Western sanctions bite

R

ussia’s two most powerful banks went from their best year ever in 2021 to fighting for their future, with the outlook for Sberbank PJSC only slightly less grim than the Kremlin-friendly VTB Group.

US sanctions imposed on the state-owned lenders over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine caused Sberbank’s European unit to unravel and called into question its ability to pull off a daring bid to become Russia’s version of Amazon.com Inc. VTB’s situation is even bleaker. Unlike Sberbank, the country’s No. 2 bank is being cut off from SWIFT—the messaging system behind much of global trade—and was hit by full blocking sanctions from the US, a scenario that Chief Executive Officer Andrey Kostin once likened to “a declaration of war.”

“VTB historically backed state-led projects and lends money to people and companies that enjoy state support,” said Chris Weafer, the founder of Moscow-based Macro-Advisory Ltd. “Sberbank is the people’s bank and wasn’t linked to Putin’s inner circle.”

Western sanctions are targeting Russia’s financial system with the goal of crippling support for Putin’s war machine.

Sberbank and VTB, which combined account for more than 50 percent of Russian banking assets, were key parts of the Kremlin’s efforts to build a financial fortress capable of withstanding an international backlash.

The state controls 92 percent of VTB and 50 percent of Sberbank. Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, who oversees the country’s defense sector, said that the scale of the sanctions was hard to predict, Interfax reported Wednesday.

In 2021, Sberbank generated about $17 billion of profit at last year’s exchange rates, more than any bank in Western Europe. VTB grabbed the sixth spot in the league table for deals involving Eastern European countries and had ridden a boom in Russian stock offerings.

Now, they face a likely spike in loan defaults as the Russian economy gets slammed by sanctions. As nervous consumers and companies pull money from bank accounts, the lenders will have to find more expensive sources of funds.

The nation’s central bank more than doubled its key interest rate to 20 percent this week in an effort to stem the rout in bonds and the ruble, but that will squeeze banks’ revenue further as costs rise and loan growth stalls. The investment banking deals that were a boon to fees have come to a halt.

“Both Sberbank and VTB are now uninvestable for foreign investors. We expect massive earnings downgrades on spikes in the cost of risk, rising funding costs and a credit crunch.

While capital is shielded from ruble and yields move, funding and liquidity are under immense pressure,” said Tomasz Noetzel, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

Russia has already taken moves to prop up the banks, saying they can continue to use last month’s foreign-exchange rates and allowing them to tap the central bank for liquidity.

That’s meant to guard against collapses like the ones that hit Sberbank’s units abroad, but won’t stop the pain from loan losses and less money coming in.

For now, the companies are saying they’re getting on with basic banking.

“Our focus is on the new challenges that the Russian economy and the financial sector is facing,” Sberbank Chief Executive Officer Herman Gref said on Wednesday after reporting a 64 percent jump in earnings last year. “Our clients, both corporate and retail, have access to their funds in full.”

Sberbank—which has almost 100 million retail clients and holds about half of Russian retail deposits—had invested heavily in an attempt to add services from restaurant delivery to movie streaming and cloud computing. It had expected its e-commerce businesses to contribute as much as 5 percent of total revenue by 2023, but that strategy looks likely to be reined in.

The government “will now probably look to restrict Sberbank’s commercial adventurism,” said Weafer, a former chief strategist at Sberbank Investment Research. “Keeping people’s deposit base is more important than ever.”

Even before the military buildup on Ukraine’s border, the banks had retrenched to become less exposed to international financial markets. VTB’s London office, once 500 strong, had dwindled to about 150 before London Stock Exchange Group Plc suspended its membership last week.

While Kostin has said 90 percent of VTB’s business relates to Russia, swanky offices next to the Bank of England served as a signpost for its ambitions and a platform for deals in regions such as Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

VTB runs a major retail bank, but also maintains close ties with the Russian elite. Last year, it sold a stake in the country’s second-largest retailer to a group run by the son-in-law of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The isolation has already started to bite. VTB’s commodities-trading arm has begun winding down its base metal positions after partners withdrew support.

For Sberbank, the sanctions caused the dissolution of its European arm—which it had already sought to scale back as part of the retrenchment following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. That mainly confines Russia’s largest lender to operations in former Soviet states.

In a stunning fall from grace, foreign-listed shares in Sberbank—which started the year as the best-rated banking stock in emerging Europe—are now at the level of a penny stock.

Both firms remain critical to the economy, but their dimming fortunes have come surprisingly fast. After a September summit between Putin and US President Joe Biden, VTB’s Kostin remarked how a surge in commodity prices could lead to more Russian companies selling shares to the public.

“There is certain ground for enthusiasm,” Kostin told Bloomberg six months ago. Bloomberg News

Science Sunday BusinessMirror

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

Sunday, March 6, 2022

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‘Galunggong’ research breakthrough seen to curb shortage in Philippines T

Illustration of obesity and waist circumference. (From left) as labeled in the original image, the "healthy" man has a 33 inch (84 cm) waist, the "overweight" man a 45 inch (114 cm) waist, and the "obese" man a 60 inch (152cm) waist. The graphic is based on information from Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2000). Wikimedia Commons

27M Filipinos are overweight, obese

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round 27 million Filipinos are overweight and obese, the latest survey of the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) showed.

For the past two decades, overweight and obesity among adults has almost doubled from 20.2 percent in 1998 to 36.6 percent in 2019, the Department of Health (DOH) said in a news release.

Similarly, the prevalence rates of overweight and obesity among adolescents have more than doubled from 4.9 percent in 2003 to 11.6 percent in 2018.

If no action is taken, overall rates of overweight and obesity will continue to rise, the DOH said.

It is projected that more than 30 percent of Filipino adolescents will be overweight and obese by 2030 (Landscape Analysis on Overweight and Obesity in Children, Philippines).

This year’s World Obesity Day on March 4, with the theme “Everybody Needs to Act,” was a call for action at the local, national, and global levels to tackle the increasing rates of obesity, reduce the stigma faced by people living with obesity, and improve the systems that contribute to obesity around the world.

In the Philippines, multi-sectoral and multi-level actions are being undertaken as response to this call.

It is developing the National Policy on Addressing Overweight and Obesity to provide directions and guidance to all stakeholders.

It aims to curb obesity using population-based approaches for prevention, regulatory mechanisms to influence the food environment, management of existing cases and research and surveillance.

It considers double-duty actions that address both under- and overnutrition.

The Department of Health (DOH), National Nutrition Council (NNC), Philippine Association for the Study of Overweight and Obesity (Pasoo), Nutrition Center of the Philippines (NCP), the World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) raise the alarm on growing obesity in the Philippines on the occasion of World Obesity Day. Obesity affects 800 million individuals globally, placing them more at risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers. It has also emerged as a major risk factor for severe disease during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Once considered a problem primarily in high-income and developed countries, it is now a rising health problem in low- and middle- income countries including the Philippines.

According to NNC’s Executive Director Assistant Secretary Azucena M. Dayanghirang, “The NNC coordinates the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition [PPAN] which includes the Overweight and Obesity Prevention and Management Program to promote healthy environments in priority settings including communities, schools, and workplaces."

Dayanghirang said the NNC Governing Board recently approved the Philippine Nutrient Profile Model, which will provide guidance in determining food and beverages that can be marketed to children and as the basis for front-of-pack labelling of food products.

"This tool is intended to influence food manufacturers to produce and reformulate to offer healthier food to consumers,” she added.

The NNC will continue coordinating efforts among stakeholders to effectively address the growing concern on obesity through the formulation of the successor PPAN for 2023-2028.

From the private sector, Pasoo and the NCP promote research and multi-professional collaboration in the field of prevention and management of overweight and obesity.

Local government units are also leading the way in promoting healthy eating and physical activity among individuals and communities.

Quezon City passed Executive Order 16 S-2021 titled, “Quezon City Healthy Public Food Procurement Policy,” which sets nutrition criteria for food procured and served by the city to increase the availability of healthy food among the local constituents.

Similarly, Iloilo City implemented an urban health initiative to promote active transport and enhance physical activity in the city. It is one of the awardees of the Bike Lane Award of the Land Transportation Office.

To strategically address the growing problem of obesity in the Philippines, the DOH, NNC and national partners recommend to take the following actions: Implement policies, legislation and interventions to promote physical activity, including active transport and promotion of green, blue, and open spaces in communities and workplaces; Strengthen and sustain appropriate social and behavior change communication on healthy diet and physical activity; Implement a package of policies and interventions to promote, protect, and support infant and young child nutrition, especially in the first 1,000 days of life to prevent stunting and reduce risk for children to become obese in their later lives; Develop a strategy with corresponding funds, human resources, and accountability mechanisms, including empowering the health system with dedicated programs on obesity across the life stage; Improve data, monitoring, and enforcement of laws and introduce new legislation on marketing and labeling of food products; Provide subsidies to farmers and fisherfolk and increase access to nutritious food; Use social protection programs such as 4Ps to improve access to healthy food, especially in times of disasters; and Promote healthy school food environments for children.

The Unicef said: “Children with unhealthy diets who take little exercise are increasingly prone to depression, underperforming at school and learning, and are at greater risk of debilitating disease like diabetes later in life. Covid-19 poses an additional threat to children with obesity."

"They are more likely to be hospitalized and have a higher likelihood of severe disease.

We must overcome an obesity-promoting environment that entices children with junk food and offers few opportunities for physical activity," said Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov, Unicef Representative in the Philippines.

"Adequate nutrition is a fundamental human right for every child and a pathway to a healthier future,” she said.

he Philippines may no longer need to import galunggong (round scad) and its local price may also go down as a result of a scientific breakthrough at an Iloilo-based research center.

In a world’s first, researchers successfully spawned galunggong in captivity last December 2021 at the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (Seafdec/ AQD) in Tigbauan, Iloilo, marking a critical milestone toward farming the fish, said Rex Delsar B. Dianala, head of Seafdec/AQD Development Communication Section, in a news release.

“Our breeders have been spawning continuously since December until this February, and we now have thousands of galunggong in different larval to early juvenile stages at our hatchery which we hope to further grow to market sizes to prove that we can farm galunggong,” disclosed Seafdec/ AQD Chief Dan Baliao.

Galunggong is dubbed as the poor man's fish in the Philippines. However, the catch of local fishers has seen a decline over the years leading to its increasing prices, now reaching P250 to P300 a kilogram, and controversial moves to import the fish amid closed fishing seasons.

Researcher Ma. Irene CabanillaLegaspi said they started collecting wild galunggong breeders off southern Iloilo and Antique in 2020 as part of a Japan government-funded project at Seafdec/AQD, the same research center responsible for groundbreaking studies on breeding milkfish in the '70s and '80s.

A f ter col lecting galung gong breeders onboard commercia l

Some of the world’s first captive-bred galunggong 48 days after hatching at the Seafdec/AQD in Iloilo. Photo by JF Aldon fishing vessels and through fish t raps, C aba n i l l a-L ega spi ’s tea m transpor ted them to Seafdec/ AQD’s headquarters in Tigbauan and stocked them in fish tanks to prepare for spaw ning.

The breeders they caught in August and October 2021 began laying eggs in December and, as of writing, they continue to produce good eggs.

Though still in an early experimental stage, they already have fingerlings in the hatchery that are more than 50 days old, Dianala said.

‘Very fast’ growth “We observed that the fish were growing very fast. When they reach 20 days old, they have a very fast growth, and we can obtain 2.5-centimeter round scad in 25 days,” Cabanilla-Legaspi said.

Although trials in the hatchery are

Galunggong breeders feeding on krill (small shrimp) during an experiment at the Seafdec/AQD) in Iloilo.

Photo by EV Antolino

still few, Seafdec/AQD Scientist Dr. Leobert de la Peña noted that the galunggong fry also have “very high survival” compared to other marine fish being grown at Seafdec/AQD, reaching as much as 20 percent survival 25 days after they hatch.

Meanwhile, the Seafdec/AQD team will continue to collect broodstock from the wild for more experimental runs. It will also cover studying the fish’s larval development, reproductive development, feeding habits, and the formulation of hatchery, nursery, and grow-out procedures.

“We hope our attempts to grow galunggong will proceed quickly. We are excited to roll out the technology and promote the culture of galunggong so prices may become more affordable as farms can surely augment the catch from the wild,” Baliao added.

Seafdec/AQD Deputy Chief Dr.

Sayaka Ito also noted that round scad is a potential export product for the Philippines as it is now being imported

by Japan as otsumami, a kind of snack or finger food.

The research on galunggong is under an umbrella program at Seafdec/AQD that aims to develop aquaculture technologies on new aquatic species that also includes kawakawa (mackerel tuna or tulingan) and flathead lobster.

The main goal of the research program is to close the life cycle of these species, including galunggong, in captivity and to develop production techniques for hatchery, nursery and grow-out, Dianala said.

Seafdec is a regional treaty organization, with 11 member countries, and is tasked with promoting sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in Southeast Asia. Its Aquaculture Department is based in Iloilo, Philippines.

PhilSA, DND sign MOU for space capabilities, R&D T he Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) and the Department of National D e f e n s e ( DND ) h a v e i n k e d a n agreement to enhance national security and development efforts through Space Science and Technology Applications (SSTA).

PhilSA Director General Dr. Joel Joseph S. Marciano Jr., and Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana formalized the partnership between their respective agencies through a memorandum of understanding (MOU).

PhilSA Deputy Director General for Space Science and Technology Dr. Gay Jane P. Perez and Defense Undersecretary Cesar B. Yano witnessed the signing of the agreement.

Under the MOU, PhilSA and DND will collaborate on the following areas: (1) sharing of know-how on SSTA and other related information; (2) capacity building and joint training on the application of satellite-based technologies including remote sensing, geographic information systems, artificial intelligence, and satellite communications; (3) research and development (R&D), conditional exchange and/or co-location of experts and personnel, and; (4) organizing public conferences, symposia, workshops, and events.

The MOU supports the mandate of PhilSA under RA 11363, or the Philippine Space Act, to implement activities related to National Security and Development, one of the six Key Development Areas in the government’s SSTA development policy.

“Our partnership entails the implementation and advancement of space capabilities and applications that preserve

PhilSA Director General Joel Joseph Marciano Jr. (left) and Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana sign a memorandum of understanding to enhance national security and development through Space Science and Technology Applications on February 3. Philsa photo and enhance the country’s national security and promote development that is beneficial to all Filipinos,” Marciano said.

“The PhilSA assures the DND of active engagement in its defense modernization drive through exchange of information, research and development collaboration, training, and other capacity building in spaceenabled applications,” he added.

Lorenzana expressed confidence that with PhilSA leading the country in SSTA, the Philippine defense and security sector will be able to “reach new heights in research and development.” I n a statement, Lorenzana said: “The MOU between the Department of National Defense

and the Philippine Space Agency recognizes that the mandates of our two agencies go hand in hand, with science and technology playing a crucial part in developing our capabilities to better protect our country.”

He added: “With this partnership, it is hoped that we will be able to discover a new range of opportunities to develop and enhance our national security and defense systems as our agencies jointly explore the development, application and utilization of our nation’s space capabilities.”

The defense chief and vice chairman of the Philippine Space Council (PSC) has also assured that through their modernization program, the defense department and the

security sector “continuously strive to improve and adapt to the fast evolving military technologies.”

Even before the signing of the MOU, PhilSA has been working closely with the defense and security sector.

PhilSA collaborates with different units of the Armed Forces of the Philipines in satellite data product development for maritime domain awareness, area surveillance and monitoring, and other satellite applications for defense and security.

PhilSA also conducts capacity-building activities, such as the training series with the Philippine Navy and the Philippine Air Force on the use of satellite images and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for automated object detection.

The DND has also been working with PhilSA’s in the 2021-2030 Decadal Survey in order to identify, consolidate, and prioritize key challenges in security and defense in the coming decade that could be addressed using space technologies and solutions.

Earlier this year, the PhilSA signed an MOU with the National Coast Watch Center to boost maritime security through space-enabled technologies. With these engagements, PhilSA is committed to utilizing SSTA in support of safeguarding Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity.

PhilSA and DND are part of the PSC, which is the principal advisory body for the coordination and integration of policies, programs and resources involving SSTA. The PhilSA Director General is the PSC head secretariat.

DOST-FPRDI develops moisture meter for bamboo, non-timber forest products

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he first moisture meter for bamboo in the Philippines is now out in the market.

The device was developed by the Forest Products Research and Development Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-FPRDI), in collaboration with DOST- Advanced Science and Technology Institute and Yongden Technology.

The DOST-FPRDI moisture meter is a handheld device that reads the amount of water present in non-timber products.

It is especially calibrated for several bamboo species that are extensively planted in the country and are used for engineered bamboo. These include "kawayan tinik" (Bambusa blumeana J. A. and J. H. Schultes.); giant bamboo (Dendrocalamus asper (Schultes f.) Backer ex Heyne); and "botong" (Dendrocalamus latiflorus Munro).

It is also calibrated to read the moisture content (MC) of bakbak, or the outermost covering or leaf sheath of abaca stalk, and vines.

Built using local spare parts, the DOSTFPRDI moisture meter for bamboo is cheaper than imported counterparts as it only costs P6,500 per unit.

“Knowing the moisture content is crucial in maintaining the quality of bamboo products. Raw materials must have the same moisture content prior to gluing and finishing to ensure that the final product will not crack or split,” explained Project Leader Dr. Marina A. Alipon.

Pointing out the importance of determining the right MC to lessen the chances of insect or fungus attack, Alipon also underscored the need to maintain the moisture level of

products bound for export.

“For exported local bamboo products to perform well, their MC must approximate those prevailing in the country of destination, otherwise the material will distort, shrink, or crack while in service. The fastest and most convenient way to determine the MC is through the use of a moisture meter,” she added.

It was designed following the Institute’s digital wood moisture meter.

The project was funded by the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development.

Interested parties may place orders by messaging DOST-FPRDI at info@fprdi.dost. gov.ph, cc marina.alipon@fprdi.dost.gov.ph.

Apple Jean C. Martin- de Leon/S&T Media Service

The DOST-FPRDI wood moisture meter for bamboo is sold at P6,500 per unit.

DOST-FPRDI photo

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Sunday, March 6, 2022

Faith

Sunday

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

Faithful crowd churches on Ash Wednesday

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sh Wednesday on March 2 saw big numbers of the Catholic faithful in churches in Metropolitan Manila and other provinces to have ash imposed on their foreheads or sprinkled on their heads.

This year’s event was significant because for the first time after two years more number of parishioners were able to go to church when the government placed Metro Manila and other areas to a more relaxed Alert Level 1, while others are on Alert Level 2 on March 1.

Stricter health protocols were set in 2020 and 2021 to prevent the Cov id-19 pandemic f rom spreading. It included preventing people from crowding, including in churches.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on the Liturgy urged dioceses to revert to the imposition of ashes on the forehead.

However, it pointed out the strict observance of the minimum health standards in churches.

Ash Wednesday marks the start

of Lent. It is the start of the 40 days of Lent in preparation for Christianity’s most solemn feast of Easter, with the practices of prayer, fasting, abstinence from some food, and other luxuries, The Vatican News said the imposition of ashes on the forehead or head on Ash Wednesday is a Biblical symbol of repentance, reminding the faithful of man’s sinfulness before God and his mortality.

The priest who imposes the ashes says, “Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return.”

‘Lent is a journey of healing’

In Pope Francis’s homily that was read by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, the pope said the ashes can represent the “emptiness” behind our search for worldly rewards. The pope failed to preside over the Mass

Pope: Addiction to digital media can hurt human relationships

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ATICAN—The Vatican recently released Pope Francis’s Lenten message in which the pope recommended that Lent 2022 can be a time to put down the smartphone and encounter those in need face-to-face.

“Let us not grow tired of fighting against concupiscence, that weakness which induces to selfishness and all evil, and finds in the course of history a variety of ways to lure men and women into sin,” Pope Francis said in the message.

“One of these is addiction to the digital media, which impoverishes human relationships. Lent is a propitious time to resist these temptations and to cultivate instead a more integral form of human communication made up of ‘authentic encounters,’ face-to-face and in-person,” he said.

The liturgical season of Lent began on March 2 with Ash Wednesday. Catholics traditionally mark the 40 days of Lent with the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Many choose to abstain from sweets, social media, alcohol, or other luxuries.

“Let us not grow tired of uprooting evil from our lives. May the corporal fasting to which Lent calls us fortify our spirit for the battle against sin,” Pope Francis said.

“Let us not grow tired of asking for forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, knowing that God never tires of forgiving,” he added.

For his Lenten message this year, the pope chose to focus on a theme taken from Galatians 6:9-10: “Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all.”

Pope Francis underlined that Lent is a time to actively seek out those in need to offer charity and share the love of God. “While it is true that we have our entire life to sow goodness, let us take special advantage of this Lenten season to care for those close to us and to reach out to our brothers and sisters who lie wounded along the path of life,” he said.

“Lent is a favorable time to seek out—and not to avoid—those in need; to reach out—and not to ignore—those who need a sympathetic ear and a good word; to visit—and not to abandon—those who are lonely. Let us put into practice our call to do good to all, and take time to love the poor and needy, those abandoned and rejected, those discriminated against and

Prayer, charity and fasting

Pope Francis said addiction to digital media, like the smartphone, impoverishes human relationships. He urged the faithful to use the period of Lent to put down the smartphone and have authentic face-to-face communication. Lyn B. Resurreccion marginalized,” he pointed out.

“The Lenten season calls us to place our faith and hope in the Lord (cf. 1 Pet 1:21), since only if we fix our gaze on the risen Christ (cf. Heb 12:2) will we be able to respond to the Apostle’s appeal: ‘Let us never grow tired of doing good’ (Gal 6:9),” Pope Francis said.

“We need to pray because we need God,” he added.

“Thinking that we need nothing other than ourselves is a dangerous illusion.

If the pandemic has heightened the awareness of our own personal and social fragility, may this Lent allow us to experience the consolation provided by faith in God, without whom we cannot stand firm.”

Pope Francis signed the Lenten message on November 11, 2021, the feast of Saint Martin, in Rome’s St. John Lateran Basilica.

“In God, no act of love, no matter how small, and no ‘generous effort’ will ever be lost,” the pope said.

“When we sow for the benefit of others, we share in God’s own benevolent love. It is truly noble to place our hope in the hidden power of the seeds of goodness we sow, and thus to initiate processes whose fruits will be reaped by others,” he added.

“Sowing goodness for the benefit of others frees us from narrow self-interest, infuses our actions with gratuitousness, and makes us part of the magnificent horizon of God’s benevolent plan.” Courtney Mares/

Catholic News Agency via CBCP News

The Catholic faithful crowd in churches for the imposition of ash on Ash Wednesday on March 2. Nuns impose ash on the foreheads of the faithful at the Redemptorist (Baclaran) Church in Parañaque City, while Fr. Joselito Buenafe does the same on his parishioners at Santisima Trinidad Parish in Malate, Manila. Nonie Reyes and Lyn B. Resurreccion

owing to knee pain.

He added that it “reminds us that worldliness is like the dust that is carried away by a slight

gust of wind.”

People would do well, he said, to make Lent a time to be “renewed, to nurture our interior life, and

to journey toward Easter, toward the things that do not pass away, towards the reward we are to receive from the Father.”

Lent is a journey of healing that goes day-by-day with a “renewed spirit,” he added, and prayer, charity, and fasting are part of the process.

He pointed that prayer—in the hiddenness of our rooms—becomes “the secret to making our lives flourish everywhere else,” as it is a warm and trusting dialogue that “consoles and expands our hearts.”

May our gaze look at the Crucified Lord, he said, so that our hearts are opened to the “touching tenderness of God, and in his wounds place our own wounds and those of our world.”

Prayer put unto practice should bear fruit in charity, he went on to say, since “Lenten charity, purified by these ashes, brings us back to what is essential, to the deep joy to be found in giving.”

Almsgiving “practized far from the spotlights” can fill our hearts with peace and hope.

He noted that fasting helps us appreciate things for their true worth, and it can include things other than food, “from anything that can create in us any kind of addiction.” And may our prayer, charity and fasting grow and be medicine for everyone, changing history for the better.

Lyn B. Resurreccion

How a cathedral of guns and glory marks Putin’s Russia

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c u rio u s n e w c h u r c h w a s dedicated on the outskirts of Moscow in June 2020: The Main Church of the Russian Armed Forces.

The massive, khaki-colored cathedral in a military theme park celebrates Russian might. It was originally planned to open on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany, in May 2020, but was delayed due to the pandemic.

Conceived by the Russian defense minister a fter the countr y’s i llegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the cathedral embodies the powerful ideology espoused by President Vladimir Putin, with strong support from the Russian Orthodox Church.

T h e K r e m l i n ’s v i s i o n o f R u s s i a connects the state, military and the Russian Orthodox Church. As a scholar of nationalism, I see this militant religious nationalism as one of the key elements in Putin’s motivation for the invasion of Ukraine, my native country.

It also goes a long way in explaining Moscow’s behavior toward the collective “West” and the post-Cold War world order.

Angels and guns

The Church of the Armed Forces’ bell tower is 75 meters tall, symbolizing the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Its dome’s diameter is 19.45 meters, marking the year of the victory: 1945.

A smaller dome is 14.18 meters, representing the 1,418 days the war lasted.

Trophy weapons are melted into the floor so that each step is a blow to the defeated Nazis.

Frescoes celebrate Russia’s military might though history, from medieval battles to modern-day wars in Georgia and Syria. Archangels lead heavenly and earthly armies, Christ wields a sword, and the Holy Mother, depicted as the Motherland, lends support.

‘Cradles’ of Christianity

The original plans for the frescoes included a celebration of the Crimean occupation, with jubilant people holding a banner that read “Crimea is Ours” and “Forever with Russia.”

In the final version, the controversial “Crimea is Ours” was replaced by the more benign “We are together.”

When Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated, calling Crimea the “cradle” of Russian Christianity.

This mythology draws on the medieval

Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces Wikimedia Commons Sergey Sebelev CC by-SA 4.0 story of Prince Vladimir, who converted to Christianity in the 10th century and was baptized in Crimea. The prince then imposed the faith on his subjects in Kyiv, and it spread from there.

The Russian Orthodox Church, also called the Moscow Patriarchate, has long claimed this event as its foundational story.

The Russian Empire, which linked itself to the church, adopted this foundational story as well.

‘Russian World’

Putin and the head of the Russian church, Patriarch Kirill, have resurrected these ideas about the empire for the 21st century in the form of the so-called “Russian World”—giving new meaning to a phrase that dates to medieval times.

In 2007, Putin created a Russian World Foundation, which was charged with promotion of Russian language and culture worldwide, such as a cultural project preserving interpretations of history approved by the Kremlin.

For church and state, the idea of “Russian World” encompasses a mission of making Russia a spiritual, cultural and political center of civilization to counter the liberal, secularideology of the West.

This vision has been used to justify policies at home and abroad.

The Great Patriotic War

Another planned mosaic depicted the celebrations of Soviet forces’ defeat of Nazi Germany – the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is called in Russia. The image included soldiers holding a portrait

of Josef Stalin, the dictator who led the USSR during the war, among a crowd of decorated veterans. This mosaic was reportedly removed before the church’s opening.

The Great Patriotic War has a special, even sacred, place in Russians’ views of history. The Soviet Union sustained immense losses—26 million lives is a conservative estimate.

Apart from the sheer devastation, many Russians ultimately see the war as a holy one, in which Soviets defended their motherland and the whole world from the evil of Nazism.

Under Putin, glorification of the war and Stalin’s role in the victory have reached epic proportions. Nazism, for very good reasons, is seen as a manifestation of the ultimate evil.

The rhetoric of this militant religious nationalism has been on display as Russia threatened to and ultimately did invade Ukraine.

During a speech on February 24, Putin bizarrely called for the “de-nazification” of Ukraine.

He also spoke of fraternal relationships between Russian and Ukrainian people and denied the existence of the Ukrainian state.

In his view, Ukraine’s sovereignty is an example of extreme, chauvinistic nationalism.

Putin’s claim that Ukraine’s government is run by Nazis is absurd. However, the manipulation of this image makes sense in the framework of this ideology. Painting the government in Kyiv as evil helps to paint the war in Ukraine in black and white.

Messianic mission

Tangible geopolitical issues may be driving Putin’s war in Ukraine, but his actions also seem motivated by a desire to secure his own legacy. In his vision of “Great Russia,” restored to its former size and influence, Putin is a defender who must vanquish its enemies.

The Russian president himself appeared in earlier versions of the cathedral’s frescoes, along with Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

However, the mosaic was removed after controversy, with Putin himself reportedly giving orders to take it down, saying it was too early to celebrate the country’s current leadership.

Patriarch Kirill, who has called Putin’s rule a “miracle of God,” said the new cathedral “holds the hope that future generations will pick up the spiritual baton from past generations and save the Fatherland from internal and external enemies.”

This volatile religious nationalism manifests itself in the militarism unfolding in Ukraine.

On February 24, the day the invasion began, Patriarch Kirill called for a swift resolution and protection of civilians in Ukraine, while reminding Orthodox Christians of the fraternal connection between the two nations.

But he has not condemned the war itself and has referred to “evil forces” trying to destroy the unity of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. Lena Surzhko Harned,

Penn State/The Conversation (CC)

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, March 6, 2022

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

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‘One Health approach needed to address bird flu’ The health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants and the wider environment are interlinked.

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By Jonathan L. Mayuga

he government’s Environment department is conducting regular monitoring on migratory bird aggregation sites in light of the reported large-scale outbreaks of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in wild birds in several countries.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Regional Offices and its Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) are conducting regular monitoring on migratory bird sites, including on the annual waterbird count, and on the abnormal wild bird mortalities.

This came as the Philippines reported last week confirmed its first outbreaks of HPAI type A subtype H5N1 that killed over 42,000 quails and ducks in four Central Luzon farms.

Meanwhile, in the United states avian influenza has been detected in a sixth commercial poultry flock in southern Indiana, state officials said on March 1, the Associated Press reported.

Three previous cases were found in Dubois County and two in Greene County. Cases have also been detected in Michigan, in a backyard flock and in a zoo.

Officials have begun euthanizing the 16,500 birds at the latest farm to prevent the spread of the disease.

Avian flu was also detected in New York and Iowa in February.

Chickens are being culled in a Central Luzon farm as part of efforts to contain the H5N6 avian flu outbreak in 2017. Wikipedia Commons

Influx of migratory birds cannot be prevented

avian influenza, [the] BMB issued a Technical Bulletin on Birding Guidelines to reduce negative impacts of recreational photography to wild birds and their habitats,” she said.

Moreover, she said that as a preventive measure, the DENR-BMB issues a public advisory at the onset of migration season and during outbreaks as notified by the DA-BAI. The advisory is then disseminated to concerned offices.

On the other hand, the local government units, she said, are enjoined to support Republic Act 9147, or the Wildlife Act, by protecting wild birds.

It includes the prevention of hunting of wild and migratory birds.

The Philippines’ DENR-BMB Veterinarian Rizza Araceli F. Salinas said the influx of migratory birds cannot be prevented since their long journeys to escape the winter season are necessary for their survival.

As such, the BMB and some selected regional and field offices have been conducting disease surveillance among wild birds in aggregation sites.

“Thus far, all samples collected are negative of the avian influenza virus,” Salinas said.

According to Salinas, the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) of the Department of Agriculture (DA) has published the Avian Influenza Protection Program Manual of Procedures, which serves as a reference for the conduct of active and passive surveillance on avian influenza.

“Though not directly related to

SM Prime: 10 SM Supermalls powered by solar energy

By Rizal Raoul Reyes

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M Prime Holdings Inc., a division of the SM Group of Companies, has invested heavily in energy efficiency programs that harness most of natural sunlight, through solar energy panels and energy-efficient LED lighting systems as part of its policy in pushing sustainability in operations.

In an e-mail interview, SM Prime told the BusinessMirror that solar energy provides power to 10 SM Supermalls, enabling the company to reduce energy consumption by 28 percent, and carbon emissions by 31 percent.

Riding on these initiatives, SM Prime said it will continue its transition to clean energy. Besides investing in energy-efficient programs, he added that the company is broadening its renewable energy investments.

“By the end of 2022, 50 percent of our energy will come from renewable energy sources, making our malls more than just places for leisure and life, but spaces where energy is conserved and generated,” the company explained.

Moreover, SM Prime has joined 2,500 organizations worldwide in supporting the Task Force on Climaterelated Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and its goal of creating a more resilient financial system through better climate risk disclosures.

“Through this, it hopes to continue to drive its business to adopt more sustainability initiatives related to climate change,” SM Prime said.

The company also urged thousands of companies and organizations around the globe in delivering innovative and sustainable lifestyle cities.

Led by its Chairman of the Executive Committee, Hans T. Sy, who re-

mains one of the board members and co-chairman of Arise (Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies) Philippines, a local network of the Global Arise network, led by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), SM Prime said it will remain driven toward a resilient company that can withstand the test of time leading to a sustainable future.

Through SM Cares, SM Prime has been conducting the monthly Trash to Cash as an avenue for the community, including its properties’ tenants, to participate in solid waste management.

Trash to Cash is held every first Friday and Saturday of the month from 10A a.m. to 2 p.m. across all SM Supermalls and select SMDC malls nationwide.

To date, more than 900,000 kilograms of assorted waste have been collected through Trash to Cash.

SM Cares also partnered with the Trust International Paper Corp. to cover collection, transport and recycling waste paper.

The waste paper collected from various offices are documents that satisfy legal and fiscal use in accordance with SM Prime’s Records Information Management System.

SM Prime said it will further commit to the continuous monitoring of accredited service providers in the safe and responsible transport, treatment, storage and disposal or processing of the properties’ generated hazardous waste, compliant to Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ implementing rules and regulations.

“All our initiatives are aligned with SM Prime’s environmental strategy of developing, designing, and building integrated lifestyle cities with sustainability and resiliency considerations in mind,” it said.

Intl scientific task force convened To recall, in response to recent largescale outbreaks of HPAI in wild birds, the Secretariat of the Convention on

the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) convened the Scientific Task Force on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds.

The highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 HPAI virus, plus other subtypes, including H5N8, have caused multiple avian influenza outbreaks in the UK, the Netherlands, Israel and India, the task force said. It added that outbreaks of H5N1 have seriously affected migratory wild birds.

The task force provided recommendations and guidance for authorities and managers of countries affected or at risk of avian influenza.

Wild birds, including globally threatened species, are victims of HPAI viruses causing avian influenza.

Affected sites also include areas of international relevance for conservation, such as protected wetlands.

The scientific group said authorities with responsibility for animal health should apply the “One Health” approaches for communicating and addressing avian influenza, the task force said. This means recognizing that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants and the wider environment are interlinked and acting with a coordinated and unified approach.

It is recommended that surveillance and biosecurity measures be reinforced to reduce spillover risk between poultry and wild birds.

Authorities need to fulfill their international obligations to avoid the culling of wild birds and damage to natural ecosystems, especially wetlands.

Dr. Ruth Cromie, coordinator of the scientific task force said: “Avian influenza represents a One Health issue threatening health across the board. The highly pathogenic viruses are still relatively new in wild birds and this winter’s high levels of mortality remind us of their vulnerability and that working to promote healthy wildlife benefits us all.”

H5N1 is currently the avian influenza lineage most found in Africa and Eurasia in both poultry and wild birds. It affects wildfowl, waders, gulls, cranes, grebes, herons, pelicans, game birds, corvids and raptors, and occasionally mammals, such as red fox, Eurasian otter, harbour and grey seal.

In terms of human health, the currently circulating H5N1 HPAI viruses do not seem to pose the same zoonotic risk—infectious disease that jump from animals to humans—as to the “original” Asian lineage H5N1 (clade 2.2 and their derivatives plus clade 2.3.4.4b H5N6 viruses currently in China), the task force said.

Considering people working on poultry culling operations, the risk can be considered moderate, it added.

Recommendations from scientific task force General recommendations concerning different categories of animals affected include the following.

On wild birds: The task fore said there is no benefit in attempting to control the virus in wild birds through culling or habitat destruction.

All those with responsibilities for animal health are reminded of the advice of FAO and Office International des Epizooties, or the World Organisation for Animal Health, and international obligations under CMS, the Ramsar Convention, and the Agreement on the Conservation of AfricanEurasian Migratory Waterbirds to ensure that there is no consideration of killing of wild birds, spraying toxic products or negatively affecting wetland and other habitats as disease control measures.

On poultry: Responses to HPAI in poultry must follow OIE international standards, guidelines and recommendations on notifications, surveillance, diagnosis, trade, and control measures.

It added that biosecurity should include efforts to prevent the spread of infection from infected poultry holdings to wild birds.

It said that there is a need for reorganization of poultry production systems highly susceptible to avian influenza exposure in order to minimize the risk of virus introduction and further spread On captive birds: There is no justification for any pre-emptive culling of zoological collections, it pointed out.

Protecting the critically endangered pangolin

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hy, slow-moving and mainly nocturnal. They live in forests and grasslands, finding tree hollows or digging deep burrows to sleep and rest in. And when threatened, they curl up into a ball, their tough and thick scales acting as armour to protect their soft bellies.

Meet the pangolin: a unique, prehistoric mammal that has been around for 80 million years. Today, their species are under constant threat from poaching and trafficking, but with governments, conservation groups, and individuals coming together, they may have a shot at survival, a feature story released by the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) said.

There are eight known species of pangolins spread across Asia and Africa. All are listed in the threatened tier of the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In Southeast Asia, two pangolin species consider the region their home: the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and the Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis).

Found in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the Sunda pangolin covers the most geographic range in the region.

Pangolins found in the Philippines, particularly in Palawan Island, were previously thought to be Manis javanica, until recently recognised as a distinct species endemic only to the island.

Like their pangolin siblings across the world, the Sunda and Philippine pangolins have long snouts and tongues, which they use to eat ants and termites.

They are mostly covered in protective scales made of keratin, the same substance that makes up hair, fingernails and horn. The scales, unfortunately, are highly sought by poachers due to cultural beliefs that they possess medicinal properties.

Harmless and shy, the pangolins are threatened by poaching, wildlife trafficking and habitat loss, among others. Photo by Gregg Yan/ACB.

Under threat Both species found in the Asean region are considered critically endangered. Due to their elusive nature, these species are hard to find, so there is scant knowledge about their behaviours and few reliable population estimates.

“Every part of the pangolin has some value in trade: its meat consumed and its scales used in traditional medicine,” said Nosrat Ravichandran, ACB’s protected area specialist. “They are also threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, which causes them to be easily accessible to poachers.”

The name “pangolin” is derived from the Malay word “penggulung,” which means “roller.” Against poachers and hunters, this defence mechanism has unfortunately become the species’s vulnerability, as they become easy to pick up once they roll up into balls.

Stories of the pangolins published across the Internet, more often than not, are depressing stories that tell of their status as the world’s most trafficked mammals.

At least 895,000 pangolins from Asia and Africa have been trafficked internationally from the beginning of the millennium up to 2020.

A study by international non-

governmental organization Traffic found that an estimated equivalent of 7,634 Philippine pangolins were documented to have been confiscated from illegal trade and trafficking between 2000 to 2019.

Besides the seizures, 2,870 frozen Sunda pangolins, weighing over 10 tons, were discovered in a vessel that ran aground in Tubbataha Reef in 2013.

Public awareness and citizen action But growing appreciation about the plight of the wild animals, especially amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which has its roots in wildlife trafficking, can turn the tide on their plummeting population.

The Asean member states have different wildlife laws that seek to protect endangered animals, such as the pangolins, and conserve their habitats.

All Asean member states are also signatories to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which ensures the regulation of the trade of wild animals and plants.

Beyond government policies and regulation, citizen science and involvement are crucial in ensuring that these

pangolins would continue living their shy and quiet lives in the wild for the next 80 million years.

To raise public awareness on biodiversity conservation, the ACB has launched a three-year campaign called #WeAreAseanBiodiversity. “[The] regional campaign, which promotes sharing of inspiring biodiversity stories, can also be instrumental in building stronger partnerships between public and private sector to participate in conservation actions,” said ACB Executive Director Dr. Theresa Mundita Lim. Dr. Arvin Diesmos, director of ACB’s Biodiversity Information Management unit, highlighted the campaign’s crucial role in popularising science, laws, instruments, and statuses of the species and their habitats for many different sectors, especially among the youth.

Diesmos also emphasised the need for the public to know their right sources of information about biodiversity and the natural environment.

“The work of researchers, scientists, conservation biologists, and citizen scientists is more important now than ever before, especially in generating the right kind of scientific information, both technical and popular,” he said.

Lim said the ACB has been working with different sectors to protect and care for these shy and elusive creatures. Initiatives such as the Asean Heritage Parks Programme seek to support areas of high conservation importance that often host pangolins and other wildlife species.

“Keeping pangolins safe means not only protecting their populations in the wild but also the ecosystems that serve as their natural habitats.

Integrated actions that include curbing poaching and wildlife trafficking, habitat protection, and improving the socio-economic conditions of the people living in and around pangolin range areas are encouraged,” Lim said.

A8

Sunday, March 6, 2022

IN PARALYMPICS, ATHLETES’ VOICES REVERBERATE A

THLETES around the world cheered when leaders of the Paralympics booted Russia from the Games. The move, in many eyes, marked the high point of a growing movement by the people who actually deliver the show to find a greater voice in the Olympic world.

“It is because of the athletes,” said Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych, who has been living about 100 miles from Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, fearful of an attack by Russian troops who invaded the country earlier this week.

The tipping point to the rapid turn of events Thursday was “a very, very volatile environment” in the athletes village in Beijing at the Paralympics, according to the head of that organization.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) was faced with the very real possibility that athletes might simply pick up and go home before their Games start Friday. To prevent that, it made an abrupt about-face and chose to ban the Russian and Belarusian Paralympic teams that, previously, were being allowed to compete under a neutral flag.

“We did not think that entire delegations, or

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Minor league baseball, hockey want reprieve from stringent health measures

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INTERNATIONAL Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons (right) and spokesman Craig Spence listen to a question from media during a press conference in Beijing. AP

even teams within delegations, will withdraw, will boycott, will not participate,” IPC president Andrew Parsons said.

Rob Koehler, the head of the advocacy group Global Athlete, called the moment “a clear message to every single athlete about how valuable and important their voices are for change.”

Early in the week, a cadre of Ukrainian athletes aligned with Koehler's group to put out a statement condemning Russia's invasion and asking for an immediate ban of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Olympics and Paralympics. The list of signers to this letter grew by the hour. It encompassed several hundred athletes, when adding the individuals who put their names on the letter to those who were members of the federations and athlete committees that signed on, as well.

It could have been more, but as the letter poignantly stated, “it has been a challenge to speak with all athletes from Ukraine as they are seeking safety in bomb shelters.”

The International Olympic Committee signaled that it heard the message. It urged

all federations to prohibit athletes from those countries from competing. Many took heed of that advice—including ice skating, skiing, soccer, hockey, basketball and others.

But the Paralympics didn't do a ban, explaining it would never hold up in court because of the rulebook. The IOC, with the Olympics in the rearview mirror, also passed on a ban itself.

That decision cast a different light on a New York Times report that China had specifically asked Russia to hold off on any invasion until the Olympics were over. The countries are allies — their presidents held a summit the day after the opening ceremony and declared their strategic partnership had “no limits." It was no shock that China didn't want the start of a war to tarnish its massive sports spectacle.

But the Paralympics bring another 600plus athletes to Beijing to compete over 10 days of skiing, skating and sledding. It is one of the largest gathering of international athletes this side of the Olympics. The removal of Russia's flag, without the removal of the country's athletes was, Parsons said, the “harshest possible punishment we can hand down within our

constitution and the current IPC rules.”

Those rules, however, took a backseat to reality.

The Latvian and South Korean curling teams said they wouldn't take the ice against Russia for an early round match. Other athletes were considering leaving. The IPC could no longer ignore that possibility.

“It is abundantly clear that athletes forced this decision, not sport leaders,” said Ali Jawad, a four-time Paralympian who is on the board of Global Athlete.

The thought of walking away is the most drastic possible option for athletes who spend their lives training for a day or two of glory at the biggest spectacle in sports. For decades, none have willingly made that choice.

The thought of competing in China, with its record of human-rights abuses, was stomachturning to many Olympians. But they all chose to go, in large part because they knew there was no groundswell that would follow them out the door. Boycotting by themselves, they said, would grab headlines for a day or two, but then the world would simply move on.

Athletes posed a bigger threat than that at

the Paras. It was the latest, most striking show of power in a movement that has included victories in the fight over Olympic rules on marketing and demonstrations, a flap over women wearing bikini bottoms for beach handball, pay for women's soccer players and more.

“The list goes on and on, and it shows that when athletes say ‘Things are changing, and they’re changing today,' that it really can happen,” Koehler said.

Russia is likely to take this case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. CAS, the IOC, World Athletics, the World Anti-Doping Agency and dozens more in this long “alphabet soup” of sports organizations have a long history of contorting the rulebooks of international sports to make them say whatever they want.

One example: While, before the war broke out, Russia remained largely eligible in most sports despite eight years of rule-breaking and cover-ups, it was still considered a rogue state in track and field.

It is also, for the time being, persona non grata at the Paralympics. The credit for that goes to a growing group of athletes who wouldn't accept any other option. AP

F1 terminates contract with Russia L

TEXAS Tech wide receiver Erik Ezukanma runs a drill during the National Football League scouting combine in Indianapolis. AP

NFL suspends all protocols, cites ‘encouraging trends’

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HE National Football League (NFL) has suspended all aspects of its COVID-19 protocols, citing recent trends showing that the spread of the coronavirus is declining.

In an agreement with the players' association, the league sent a memo to the 32 teams Thursday in which it mentioned “encouraging trends regarding the prevalence and severity of COVID-19, the evolving guidance from the CDC, changes to state law and the counsel of our respective experts” as reasons for the move.

Should the NFL find reasons to reimpose any aspects of the protocols, it will do so in conjunction with the NFL Players Association.

Teams are required to remain in compliance with state and local laws and may continue “reasonable measures to protect their staff and players,” said the memo obtained by The Associated Press.

Regardless of vaccination status, players and staff no longer must wear face coverings at team facilities, though each club can require it individually. Social distancing signs no longer are required as well.

The league eliminated mandatory testing of players and staff, regardless of vaccination status. Testing will occur only when clinically indicated or at the direction of a team physician.

But each team must have a facility to accommodate anyone who reports symptoms that require testing.

Weight room restrictions, including capacity limits, have been dropped, though each team can impose its own rules for weight room usage.

Contact tracing devices have not been required since January 3, and the service is being discontinued.

The league is encouraging everyone to continue monitoring for symptoms of COVID-19 on a daily basis before entering the team facility. Any individual who tests positive must isolate for five days after the positive test.

No NFL games were canceled during the past two seasons because of the pandemic, though many were moved during the 2020 schedule. About 95 percent of the players and nearly 100 percent of team personnel were vaccinated, the league reported.

The NHL previously dropped virus testing for individuals without symptoms and other distancing protocols. MLB has not made any moves due to the lockout of players and no new collective bargaining agreement. The NBA hasn't altered protocols; Brooklyn Nets coach Steve Nash and Phoenix Suns All-Star player Devin Booker both were placed in health and safety protocols this week. AP

ONDON—Formula One has terminated its contract with the Russian Grand Prix following the country’s invasion of Ukraine, saying Thursday that Russia “will not have a race” in the future.

F1 already canceled this year's race, which had been scheduled to be held in Sochi on September 25. But following further discussions this week, F1 went a step further and ended a contract which ran until 2025.

“Formula 1 can confirm it has terminated its contract with the Russian Grand Prix,” F1 said in a statement. “Russia will not have a race in the future.”

Four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel and several other drivers said last week they would not have raced in Russia even if F1 had decided to go there. Formula One champion Max Verstappen, meanwhile, has signed a new deal that keeps him at Red Bull to 2028.

The 24-year-old Verstappen was rewarded on Thursday for beating Lewis Hamilton to win his first world championship last year, with another five years added on the contract that ran through 2023.

Editor: Jun Lomibao

“Choosing to stay to the 2028 season was an easy decision," the Dutchman said in a statement. "I love this team and last year was simply incredible.

Our goal since we came together in 2016 was to win the championship and we have done that, so now it’s about keeping the number one on the car long-term.”

Verstappen, who made his F1 debut at the age of 17, will open his title defense in Bahrain on March 20.

“Our immediate focus is on retaining Max’s world championship title, but this deal also shows he is a part of the team’s long-term planning,” team principal Christian Horner said.

"With the Red Bull Powertrains division working towards the new engine regulations for 2026 we wanted to make sure we had the best driver on the grid secured for that car.”

Mercedes and Red Bull, on the other hand, dominated the preseason testing of the new generation of cars in Barcelona recently.

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest overall time with Mercedes at the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit on Friday, ahead of teammate George Russell and the Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Verstappen. The Mercedes duo set

their times on softer—and faster—tires.

Hamilton said they were some “interesting few days” of testing.

“It’s not been the easiest or smoothest running, we have some obstacles to overcome," he said. “The car is a lot different to drive than in previous years, as are the tires, but we’re working our way through our program. The whole team has done an amazing job this week.... We’ve got a lot of data to go through from these three days and we’ll just put one foot in front of the other and put in the work.”

Mercedes won seven straight driver titles before Hamilton lost the championship to Verstappen on the last lap of the last race in 2021.

“We’re not fully happy with the balance of the car, but we’re here to learn and we’ve made some good experiments,” Russell said. “We are happy with the direction we are heading in.” McLaren and Ferrari were not near the top of the time sheets on Friday but had already shown their strength on the previous days.

Lando Norris was fastest with McLaren on the first day and Charles Leclerc was quickest with Ferrari on the second day. AP

THE Chattanooga Lookouts and River City Trash Pandas compete in a Double-A game in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in May 2021 AP

ASHINGTON—Laying off 17 people in the Charlotte Checkers front office of 25 felt like gutting a team for chief operating officer Tera Black.

"The front office is a team just as much as the team on the ice," she said. “We never want to go through that again.”

Similar scenes played out across the rest of the American Hockey League (AHL), along with the ECHL, Southern Professional Hockey League and all levels of minor league baseball during the pandemic. Two years in and countless jobs and millions of dollars lost, over a hundred minor league baseball and more than a dozen minor league hockey teams are hoping to finally receive some COVID-19 relief from the US government along with restaurant, gyms and other industries hard hit by the pandemic after being left out of the first round of small business subsidies.

“Everybody who’s in our situation really is deserving of and needs some of this relief,” said Jason Frier, chairman and CEO of Hardball Capital, which owns and operates minor league baseball teams in Columbia, South Carolina; Chattanooga, Tennessee and Fort Wayne, Indiana. “It would help break this sort of vicious cycle we’re in and allow us to make the investments we need to get back up on our feet.”

Unlike major professional sports leagues that could play games in empty stadiums and arenas thanks to TV and streaming revenue, the minors are almost entirely reliant on attendance to stay afloat.

A Minor League Baseball survey found the average team lost over 91 percent of revenue from prepandemic levels—a result of the entire 2020 season being canceled—and the AHL reported leaguewide revenue down 85-95 percent from its last full season in 2018-19.

Not every team was hit that hard, and those owned by Major League Baseball (MLB) or National Hockey League (NHL) affiliates are not eligible for this relief, which could get through Congress as soon as next week as part of big-picture budget bills. Only a handful of Minor League Baseball teams are owned

by MLB franchises, while 21 of 31 in the AHL are owned by NHL teams.

Those who are independently owned had to show at least a 50 percent loss in revenue—and a vast majority are well past that mark.

"We’ve lost millions of dollars in this process," said Syracuse Crunch president and CEO Howard Dolgon, who estimated about an 80 percent loss of revenue and 50 percent depletion of staff for his AHL club. “This is beyond anything anybody could have prepared for.... I don’t think anybody could have realistically anticipated how devastating this turned out to be.”

Charlotte, Syracuse, Lehigh Valley, Springfield and Milwaukee were the AHL teams to join this COVID-19 relief effort. They teamed up with five members each from the ECHL and SPHL and the Minor League Baseball coalition to hire law firm Akin Gump for help in advancing legislation that could help members of smaller independent leagues, too.

After cautious optimism earlier in the year, AHL president and CEO Scott Howson now said, “We’re trying to get it to the finish line." The relief could mean about $500 million spread across the minor league teams involved.

“It’s certainly necessary," Howson said. “It’s needed.” Experts have mixed feelings about additional government subsidies this far into the pandemic, but there's no argument about how deep a hole minor league sports need to dig out of given the financial ramifications of playing in front of limited or no fans.

“They lost their shirts during the pandemic because they don’t have any revenue from media stuff,” Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist said. “The minor league owners have an argument. They are small businesses. They employ a lot of people in the community.”

Minor league executives said costs are roughly 15-20 percent higher now than before the pandemic because of inflation. Syracuse University sports analytics professor Rodney Paul wonders if there's an opportunity caused by inflation for minor leagues to start thriving again as a more affordable alternative.

“In a situation like we are in with high inflation and people might not have money to be able to do lots of things, minor league sports could offer a very nice way for an enjoyable evening, an enjoyable afternoon for people, for families, friends at a pretty low cost,” Paul said.

But not if the experience is subpar. Frier said staffing and other budget cuts have made it harder to put on a good show for fans paying to attend, adding that COVID-19 money could go toward everything from hiring more people to paying off debts and fixing up stadiums and arenas.

“The unfortunate thing is when you try to run a venue with fewer people, fans have a less good experience,” he said. “You have fewer concession stands open and longer lines and that leads to people not having as good an experience and you get into this negative cycle.

But until you’re in a cash position where you can afford to make all of those investments that you need, it’s a tough thing and that’s why we’re looking for this relief.” AP

BusinessMirror

March 6, 2022

Diversity in tech industry: Research shows little improvement

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YOUR MUSI

GLARING AMBIANCE

Alessandra de Rossi’S Café del Mar-inspired music

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: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

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: Lourdes M. Fernandez

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

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: Niggel Figueroa Anabelle O. Flores : Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Darwin Fernandez, Leony Garcia, Stephanie Joy Ching

By Precious Regner

MAGINE yourself on the beach, relaxing, and sipping your favorite drink while gazing at the sun turning the sea a deep tangerine.

While lounging in the sand, you suddenly hear “Glares.” Sensuous and hypnotic electronica that echoes in the still of the day as it turns to night. It’s something you’d have perhaps heard on those Café del Mar compilations of in some Ibiza-influenced soundtrack.

Except, the music is the brainchild of a local award-winning actress Alessandra de Rossi.

“Glares” is the latest single from de Rossi (or “ADR” as she is known in music circles) and her slowly growing personal and music label catalogue.

Personally, she released her first album, Adrift, in 2012. Since then, she has unleashed a steady stream of songs while putting up her own label, AWOOO (A World

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ALESSANDRA de Rossi

Of Our Own) Records. Aside from De Rossi herself, the fledgling independent record label has also signed equally acclaimed artists like Hya and Alfa.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s the music I like,” she sheepishly admits. “It isn’t mainstream but it’s not meant to be. I do hope people listen to my music though.”

The unconventional artist talks about her unconventional sevenminute and four-second single.

“Ang haba, no?” she laughs in reference to the song she recorded in one day along with JeanPaul Verona on guitars, drumprogramming, and synthesizers, and Chris Valera on keyboards and synthesizers.

“My music is a mood and feel

thing,” she shares. “When I think of something, I write it down and see if we can record it quickly. And it sounds exactly like it did in my head when I first thought of it.”

De Rossi is famous for her acting ability and her success as a producer, screenwriter and director.

How does music fit into all of this?

In her words, her music is “like a baby, hiding behind the mother’s skirt.”

And given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, De Rossi is determined to pursue all her passions.

“I wake up with a grateful heart and say I’m ready for today,” she said. “Today may be the longest day I’ll be alive so let’s make the most out of it.”

Hence, she has and continues to dabble in screenwriting, directing, musical scoring, and songwriting— her gifts to the world.

It’s easy to get lost in the “Glares” of Alessandra’s music whether in the beach or just in your head.

“Glares” is released under Lilystars Records and is available in all streaming formats.

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soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | MARCH 6, 2022

BUSINESS

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

6 x 6 Part 2: Another round of new releases BALIWATMAY ZALTIC “Mga Kapitbahay”

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HE Pagsanjan, Lagunabased indie music-maker who goes by the moniker Baliwatmay Zaltic has a self-released EP titled “Tao Po” available on Youtube and Twitter, among other digital platforms. Among the five electronic tracks on the EP, he picked “Mga Kapitbahay” to be the most memorable. He further explained, “Masasabi kong mas tumagos sa akin ang track na yon. Nagpapaalala siya sa akin na marami akong pwedeng ikuwento, at hindi ito maririnig ng ibang tao kung itatago ko lamang. Ang mga kwentong ito ang magsisilbing kalamansi sa sugat ng mga taong nakakatulog na sa mga nangyayaring injustice sa paligid natin.”

The Pinoy DJ also proudly declared, “Words, music, mastering, mixing, design ng album cover, ako po lahat.

Pero kasalukuyan ko pong ipinapasa sa mga indie record label para sana mas maraming makarinig sa akin.”

when he spent most of his time with his guitar weeks after the ECQ was announced. “Yung music po yung nag save ng quarantine ko,” he shared.

Moving forward, he shares his bedroom stories amidst the pandemic as he releases his first single, “Alas Kwatro.” “ Yung madaling araw is my most vulnerable time, that’s why I called it Alas Kwatro,” the young musician said. As the title implies, Aaron wrote the song during the wee hours and got inspired writing his story as he welcomed the dawn.

DREI RAÑA “Wag Mong Paasahin”

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FTER catching Covid-19 and taking a much-needed break from social media, singer/ songwriter Drei Raña returns to the music scene stronger and better than ever. With his latest song, “Wag Mong Paasahin,” Drei takes another fresh approach with an upbeat and happy sound on a song that actually talks about a bad dating experience inspired by the story of his close friend.

“I chose a different arrangement to this song, not the usual instruments na ginagamit ko before,” Drei said. Wag Mong Paasahin will get your feet tapping and your voice humming along to the melody, carrying lyrics that is relatable to an era of online dating.

AARON OBRA “Alas Kwatro”

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IKTOK has dramatically impacted all of us during the lockdowns since 2020.

One of the many talents who dominated the platform is 19-year-old budding singer Aaron Obra. Aaron recalled

challenges of personal anxieties.

With his latest single, “Ready to Start,” he revels in the pain of heartbreaks. “Ready To Start” begins raw, a piano ensemble that has the feel of going to a live performance, with a single spotlight on the performer. “This song is about people who have boundaries when it comes to falling in love and letting them be loved,” Marlo said. “Siguro dahil sa mga past traumas or sa idea nila about love, but when they finally opened up to somebody because this person assured him or her na mahalaga siya, that person allowed them to fall in love.”

MARLO MORTEL “Ready To Start”

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ARLO released his previous single “Bituin” under the

RON MACAPAGAL “Lilim”

MEZZALUNA “I Beg”

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OLLOWING the success of her debut single, “In Situ,” the 20-year-old Indonesian singersongwriter offers another peek into her personal life with her signature storytelling style. “I wrote this song based on a personal experience that I went through back in high school,” the alt-pop artist shares.

“I was really in my feelings and made this song in about 10 minutes. The song was initially really short, but the bridge came along later, and I’m really proud of how it turned out.”

The ballad dives quickly into Mezzaluna’s sultry vocal delivery of disappointment and hopelessness. “I had the intention to create an arrangement worthy of a James Bond theme song,” says the Indonesian newcomer.

“So my biggest inspiration for this track was Adele’s ‘Skyfall’ and Sam Smith’s ‘Writing’s on the Wall.”

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HORTLY after the release of his debut song “Bakit ‘Di Pagbigyan”, a more mature Ron comes back with a new single titled “Lilim” which directly translates to mean shade. This song describes an intimate relationship between grown lovers and how they find comfort in each other.

Ron garnered a lot of supporters during the promotion of “Bakit ‘Di Pagbigyan” and “Lilim” thus gaining a lot of recognition in the entertainment industry. He was awarded as “Outstanding New Male Recording Artist of the Year” in the 3rd Laguna Excellence Awards and was also nominated for “Best New Male TV Personality” in the 34th PMPC Star Awards for Television.

SIN SANTOS “Vibe With Me”

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ILIPINO/Australian Sin Santos makes a remarkable return for his first release of 2022 titled “Vibe With Me.” The song shows a side of Sin Santos that his growing and loyal following have not yet seen – switching his predominantly English songwriting skills to his native Tagalog tongue.

“Vibe With Me” shows the true diversity of Sin Santos’ artistry and how he has come to be one of the most promising global exports from the Philippines. With a soft bed of production assisting him, Sin Santos delivers melodic and consistent vocals throughout the offering of Vibe With Me – a trait that is common in his popular releases.

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Diversity in tech industry: Research shows little improvement

By Donald T. Tomaskovic-Devey, UMass Amherst & JooHee Han, University of Oslo

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he US tech sector is growing 10 times faster and has wages twice as high as the rest of the economy. This industry also wins the race for high profits and stock returns. At the same time, the tech sector’s professional, managerial and executive labor forces are overwhelmingly white and male.

It is not surprising, then, that the field is under a great deal of pressure to diversify its labor force.

As researchers who study inequality, we examined the data to go beyond the picture of diversity in the tech sector as a whole.

In our most recent research, we looked at which types of tech firms increased their work force diversity, by how much and for which groups of people. What we found surprised us.

Our research used machine learning techniques and firm-level data on employment diversity for 6,163 tech firms employing 2,582,342 workers. We used a clustering algorithm to identify groups of firms with similar changes in diversity between 2008 and 2016.

We focused in particular on professional jobs—the programmers, engineers and designers who are the core source of innovation in the sector. We also looked at the managers and executives responsible for human resource practices. We don’t identify specific firms because this data was originally collected by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and our ability to analyze it requires strict confidentiality.

Diversity trajectories We found that 80 percent of firms displayed a pattern of very minimal increases in diversity in their professional labor force, primarily driven by small increases in the employment of

In time for National Women’s Month this March, two researchers wrote about the US tech industry’s diversification efforts. “It appears that the most common tech response to the pressure to increase diversity was to move more women and minorities into executive positions—a defensive response to diversity demands rather than a commitment to promoting employment diversity.” Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash Asian men and Asian women, with declines among non-Asian women and no change among other minority men. We also found that this widespread pattern reflects much slower movement toward employment diversity in this sector than in the rest of the US labor force.

Our findings for the remaining 20 percent of firms astonished us. We found some firms with rapid increases in diversity among professional jobs, and others where diversity declined substantially.

In about 10 percent of firms, we found rapid increases in the proportion of white male professionals, in most the percentage of women fell, but in some, mainly Asian men were displaced. This latter small group of firms also saw growth in all other groups, even Asian women. This pattern permitted white male dominance at the expense of Asian men while making room for all other groups.

More hopefully, we observed a rapid growth in diversity of the technical labor force in two types of firms. In both, the percentage of white men declined by about a quarter. In the larger of these two groups, about 7 percent of tech sector firms, white male professionals were primarily replaced with white and Asian women, although Hispanic and Black men and women saw gains as well. The second group of firms was smaller, representing only 2 percent of tech

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firms. In these, white men were replaced

by Asian men and Asian women, while all other groups declined as well.

We found similar patterns at the managerial and executive levels. Most firms showed little change, but there were small groups with rapid increases in diversity, and others with rapid decreases.

White male executives declined across the sector by 5.9 percent, and we discovered significant increases in the representation of all other groups, even Hispanic women, in the top jobs. It appears that the most common tech response to the pressure to increase diversity was to move more women and minorities into executive positions. This pattern has been described in previous research as being primarily a defensive response to diversity demands rather than a commitment to promoting employment diversity.

When do firms become more inclusive?

We also wanted to figure out which types of firms showed a pattern of rapidly increased diversity. Here we have two more hopeful findings.

Firms where professional diversity was growing rapidly also tended to be among those with rapid overall employment growth. Diversity looks to be good for business—or perhaps innovative, well-run

March 6, 2022

businesses are better at hiring more diverse labor forces.

We wondered whether increased diversity among managers who do the hiring and executives who set the tone was associated with having a rapidly diversifying professional labor force. Here we found that those firms with strong increases in managerial diversity also tended to embrace strong increases in professional diversity. In contrast, strong increases in executive diversity did not reliably raise the chances that a firm would have strong diversity growth among its core professional labor force.

Window dressing or diversity now?

It looks to us as though the recipe for increasing diversity in the tech sector is at least in part to increase diversity at the managerial level. It also looks like increased diversity is good for business, although it is also possible that well-run firms hire more diverse labor forces. Unfortunately, this combination is not widespread. Dramatic improvements in employment diversity are confined to only 10 percent of firms.

We believe that most of the technology industry is stuck in a low-inclusion rut, and a disturbing set of firms are moving backward. However, a handful of firms demonstrate that diversity is possible now. The Conversation