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PNP winning the war against illegal drugs with lesser body count

Why less drug suspects are being killed

An elderly woman smiles as policemen walk past her house as they conduct a visit to homes at a poor community as part of a government antidrug crackdown in Manila on January 29, 2018. AP/Aaron Favila

T

By Rene Acosta

he issuance of supplemental operational guidelines and the involvement of other stakeholders in the campaign against illegal drugs are contributing to the success of the relaunched “Oplan Tokhang” and “Double Barrel Reloaded,” the Philippine National Police (PNP) said.

While a comparison between the old and the reinstituted antidrugs drives could not be made, or be considered as both success stories already as the PNP insists, it is, however, noted that the current campaign is turning out to be “less bloody”—as PNP chief Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa had wanted it to be.

“The reduction in the number of deaths among drug suspects in the campaign against illegal drugs, dubbed Double Barrel Reloaded, may be attributed to the efforts of the PNP leadership in implementing the supplemental guidelines in the conduct of Project Tokhang,”

PNP Spokesman Chief Supt. John Bulalacao said.

Double Barrel is the anti-illegal-drugs campaign aimed against so-called high-value targets, while its twin—Tokhang—which is its softer side, targets drug users and even peddlers around the country.

Tokhang employs persuasion by visiting the homes of illegaldrug users and convincing them to surrender or stop their illicit habit and activities.

Hitting the target

A news statement released by Bulalacao’s office several days ago said Continued on A2

PNP Chief Director Gen. Ronald dela Rosa holds a machine gun as a chaplain sprinkles it with holy water during blessing rites of newly procured equipment at Camp Bagong Diwa on February 1, 2018. AP/Aaron Favila

Pinay Mae Williams makes London crave for Filipino food

I

By Roger Pe

t all began with canapés.

When her father passed away in 2011, Mae Magnaye-Williams started a small catering company in London, producing canapés for corporate and private events.

Guests raved about them and craved for more. Her secret: she added a Philippine twist to each piece.

MAE WILLIAMS, helping make Filipino cuisine a buzzword in the London food scene.

Managing the kitchen with her London staff.

Her foray into catering evolved into what is now a popular London pop-up and supper club restaurant: Pepe’s Kitchen—named after her father who taught and inspired her to follow a passion she thought she never had: cooking.

She came up with this idea when demands were getting high.

tic Filipino ingredients and way of cooking to a cosmopolitan setting,” she narrates.

“Our regular menu changes every three months. Majority of our diners are non-Filipinos, although most of our private bookings come from Filipinos,” Williams says.

Her most popular dishes are

Visayan humba, kinilaw, kare-kare and brazo de Mercedes. She, too, produces homemade ube, durian and barakong kape flavored ice cream, bestsellers all in the restaurant.

In setting up the supper club, Williams not only wanted Londoners to experience the best Filipino food in the city, she was also look-

Here, she serves traditional, regional and street food dishes presented in a modern way.

“The most important element in Pepe’s Kitchen is my memory.

Memories of the way food is prepared, how it looks and tastes in the Philippines. The key for me is taking those memories, authen-

PESO exchange rates n US 52.1580

ing at an opportunity to share customers about Philippine history, culture and her growing up years in the Philippines.

While the Brits have heard about Asian cuisine, Williams says they have little knowledge about how good Filipino food is. Thank God, times are changing.

Born in the Philippines, Williams is a self-taught chef and the culinary force behind Pepe’s Kitchen. Mae founded the supper club in 2011 where she delighted paying guests in the front room of her flat. Since then, she has gone on to cook for ambassador functions at the Philippine Embassy and various street food festivals. She has even cooked alongside John Torode for UKTV’s New British Kitchen.

“London’s foodie scene is beginning to embrace new cuisines, the trend is growing globally, and over in New York, Filipino cuisine is the latest emerging food trend.

So, indeed, this is a great time to showcase Filipino food,” Williams says.

Homesick Pinoys find refuge in Williams’s place. The dishes she serves remind them of home, taking them back to their families and different Philippine regions.

For non-Filipinos or first timers, Williams says she would often hear positive comments. Like they Continued on A2

n japan 0.4955 n UK 73.5323 n HK 6.6461 n CHINA 8.2414 n singapore 39.6126 n australia 40.1147 n EU 64.1700 n SAUDI arabia 13.9088

Source: BSP (March 23, 2018 )

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Why less drug suspects are being killed Continued from a1

that Tokhang has already bagged 12,185 drug suspects and forced the surrender of 4,458 drug users around the country.

The statement quoted the data provided by the office of Director Camilo Pancratius Cascolan, chief of the PNP Directorate for Operations.

The arrests of the more than 12,185 drug personalities by the different drug-enforcement units of the PNP were made through the 7,744 operations that were carried out.

The Police Regional Office

10 recorded the highest number of Tokhang activities with 1,016 that turned in 529 drug surrenderers, followed by Police Regional Office 3 with 1,005 Tokhang activities that caused the surrender of 656 drug users.

From December 5, 2017, up to March 5, about 118 drug suspects have died in operations, which, in some cases, have also snuffed out the lives of operating policemen.

In the early part of the campaign, the Philippines shocked the international community when the casualties in the anti-illegal drugs war soared to unimaginable num-

bers. There were conflicting reports, though, as some reports pegged the number of deaths from a little over 1,000 to more than 20,000.

Tokhang was relaunched on January 28 along with the Double Barrel.

The PNP said Malacañang is scheduled to release the latest data on the anti-illegal-drugs campaign shortly.

Loosening the will

Bulalacao said the twin campaigns have also loosened the will of drug suspects to resist after it was implemented at the start of

the Duterte administration, thus, resulting in lesser deaths.

He said the lesser casualties arose from the “waning resolve among drug suspects to put up a fight with the police, being aware of its possible consequences.”

The PNP spokesman said that since the continuing operation has decimated the number of drug personalities, it also follows that the number of deaths should decrease.

“The reduction in the number of deaths among drug suspects in the campaign against illegal drugs, dubbed Double Barrel Reloaded, may be attributed to the reduced

number of high-value targets and street-level targets, considering that the bulk of the suspects had been arrested already,” Bulalacao said.

He reiterated the “pro-life” stand of the PNP and that the police force has put into practice its “respect for human rights.”

Still, Bulalacao said, “It should be noted that the number of arrested suspects and surrenderers that are alive is far bigger than those who got killed, proof that allegations on EJK [extrajudicial killing] are not true.”

The guidelines, considered as

the “Bible” of policemen involved in the anti-drug operations, strictly spell out and govern their activities in the conduct of the antidrugs drive.

It does not also allow policemen to be involved in the operation unless they have been ingrained with the guidelines and their training.

The guidelines mandate that Tokhang should be carried out during daytime and no weekend operation, and its implementation should be accompanied by humanrights advocates and even the Church or members of the media.

Pinay Mae Williams makes London crave for Filipino food Continued from a1

would be surprised to know that Filipino food has depth, in terms of flavor and color. She has also observed that whenever British and European nationals would try Filipino food, they would always know what makes it distinct and then would try more.

Williams relates an interesting episode on her life as a Pinay chef in London: While preparing for the launch of a Filipino rum brand in autumn of 2014, she noticed a casually dressed guy, wearing a baseball cap backwards, came into the kitchen shouting: “Whose kitchen is this?

Whose kitchen is this?”

With a confused look on her face, she answered: “Uhm, the bar, Trailer Happiness.” To which the guy frowned and shouted: “No, who is in the kitchen? Who is here?”

By now she thought she was in trouble and said softly: “Pepe’s Kitchen.” The guy then laughed and shouted: “Yeah, I know, but who is

cooking? Who do I speak to, who is the boss?”

By now, she really felt on the spot and told him: “I don’t know the owner of the bar, I haven’t met him!” while her staff was watching, not knowing what to do. The guy then asked: “Who do I speak to about Pepe’s Kitchen? Who is the boss?”

She then laughed, realizing what the guy meant and said: “Me, I am, you can speak to me.” He handed her a business card and introduced himself as the owner of Trailer Happiness Bar.

He said he would like to discuss with her to man the bar’s kitchen on a more regular basis because of her delicious Filipino pulutan (finger food). That led to a three-month chef residency, and the dishes she whipped up every single day became blockbusters on the menu.

By this time, her delectable creations and culinary wizardry would spread by word of mouth.

No less than the Philippine Em-

bassy in London contracted her to serve food for visiting dignitaries on many occasions.

When the Philippines’ tourism ad campaign was launched in the city, the scrumptious food she served stole the show, putting her and Filipino cuisine in the spotlight.

Managing the business

Williams manages everything in Pepe’s Kitchen from A to Z. She actually built the website herself, as well as produced the graphics and acted as its photographer.

“I use social media regularly and try to blog as much as I can.

When possible, I experiment with Filipino dishes and flavors. In running my events, I manage the stocks and finances, too. I’m also a wife and mother to two little girls.

That’s how busy I am,” she says.

Along the way, Williams met many British-Filipinos who were looking for their own cultural identity and closer connection to home.

Among them was Kristian Kabuay, a baybayin (pre-Spanish Filipino alphabet) expert, who eventually designed and incorporated baybayin graphics into her logo.

Now doing well in London’s restaurant scene, Pepe’s Kitchen recently partnered with some Filipino brands to cater to high demands for Filipino food, while also putting ample attention to her supper club baby.

Pioneering Pinay chef

Williams is most proud of the people she had influenced after establishing her restaurants. They have become chefs who are now helping raise the level of awareness for Filipino cuisine in London.

Prior to launching Pepe’s Kitchen, Williams was featured on UKTV with John Torode (of UK Masterchef fame), one of the rare times people saw a Filipino cooking on UKtv.

Born in Pasay and lived in Quezon and Batangas provinces

until seven, Williams attended Immaculate Concepcion School in Baybay, Leyte. She and her younger sister migrated to the UK when she reached 14, petitioned by her mother who had been working in London for many years.

They lived in Sevenoaks, Kent, and only moved to greater London when she attended Saint Charles College. She is married to a secondgeneration Filipino, Adrian Williams, a digital media expert who is successful in his own right.

As a self-employed Pinay, Williams manages herself professionally. “When I employ people, I believe in being fair as I have high standards and strong work ethics,” she says.

Upbeat on Pinoy cuisine

Williams considers Filipino cuisine as the next big thing. “Filipinos are on UKtv, they are in every hospital and are successful in most of the things they do. Our presence is definitely being felt in the UK,”

Williams proudly exclaims.

For Filipinos who want to be successful in London, her advice: “Be proud of your culture and do not feel inferior to anyone else.

There’s more to Filipinos than the stereotypes, all we need to do is just show them,” she says.

Having lived in the UK for many years, Williams has learned that doing things properly is far more effective than cutting corners. “Quality over quantity is the key to success,” she adds.

Her take on the discrimination issue: “London is such a cosmopolitan city that people are really interested in learning new cultures than living in the past,” she says.

She notes that there are more Filipinos in London now. “These include children of OFWs and their children who look Filipino but are British,” she says.

From roughly 18,000 in 1986, the Filipino population in the UK has ballooned to about 250,000 in 2011 and now counts to almost 400,000.

Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds and Barrowin-Furness have a significant number of Filipino communities, with Greater London home to the largest number of Filipinos.

Hardworking husband

Mae’s husband Adrian works in sales and business development of digital advertising. In 2014, he cofounded a mobile tech startup in London, which has become hugely successful.

According to him, London is the financial centre of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).

When other industries and companies develop globally, London usually gets involved. In the digital space, London is often the gateway to the US and likewise the gateway for US companies into EMEA, similar to Singapore in Asia.

Both Adrian and Mae are very active as founding members of Philippine Generations, a nonprofit organization and supplementary school aiming to inspire young Filipinos to bring them culturally closer to the Philippines.

“We are children of migrant workers or OFWs. Many people, especially in the Philippines, forget that their kababayan go abroad to work and send money back home,” Adrian says.

“One day, these OFWs will retire and return home, no longer sending money back. They often leave behind children, who grow up as Filipinos in the countries of their birth, often earning three to four times what their parents earned, raising their own families and, in the process, losing their identity,” Adrian laments.

The two, together with three other second-generation Pinoys in the UK, aim to make a difference by educating them to be more aware of the Philippines thousands of miles away. Be it just learning about the culture, visiting the country, experiencing it more, getting involved in social issues or introducing Filipino food to the world like they do best.

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Naia district asks Customs chief to lower collection goal

By Recto Mercene

Saturday, March 24, 2018

A3

DOT chief lauds stakeholders’ commitment to rehab Boracay

ureau of Customs (BOC) officials at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) are appealing to Commissioner Isidro Lapeña to reduce their collection target of P4.2 billion every month.

“Sir, every customs employee at the airport is doing their best to reach the collection target.

But as early as this month, I can say that we’re not able to reac h t he t a rget,” Na i a-BOC Head Car melita Ta lusan told the commissioner.

Lapeña has threatened that every district collector who is not able to reach their quota would be removed from their posts.

Talusan aired her appeal to Lapeña during the first Naia Port Assembly meeting held at the Customs house terminal 1, where the commissioner was the guest of honor.

Talusan presented to Lapeña and other deputy BOC commissioners a performance chart of the airport for revenue collection in the past few years.

In 2015 the quota was P34.7 billion, but only P31.2 billion was collected. In 2017 the target was P41.9 billion, but only P35.8 billion was realized. For 2018 the quota is P55 billion.

Talusan said collecting billions of pesos in revenues to meet the quota “is next to impossible at the Naia because the airport is known as a provider of public service, where taxable goods brought in by passengers are mostly perishables.”

Ta lusan, who for ma l ly assumed her post on Monday, replaced law yer Vincent Philip Maronilla, who failed to meet the monthly target of P4 billion.

Maronilla was appointed district collector only last December.

Maronilla and two other Customs port collectors, who also were not able to meet their monthly collection goals, were transferred by Lapeña to other ports.

Talusan said she has already told her subordinates to urge importers to double their importation.

However, she was told that some of the importers have said: “But we are not allowed to bring in imported cars.”

It is public knowledge that some importers have engaged in the illegal importation of expensive cars, which brings them lucrative income in return.

The Naia-BOC ’s sources of income are the duties and ta xes levied on cargoes deposited from accredited bonded warehouses, such as PairCargo, Philippine Skylanders Inc., Cargo H au s, A i r21, M i a scor, DHL , TMW/KM, and Central Mail and Exchange Center.

A m i nor sou rce of t a xes i s t he one col lec ted f rom a r r ivi ng pa ssengers f rom t he t h ree ter m i n a l s.

The so-called billionaire ports include the Port of Manila, Manila International Container Port and Port of Batangas, which collect twice or thrice the Naia-BOC. Talusan stressed that their income are derived from the importation of pharmaceutical, gadgets and aircraft parts, including raw materials for garments.

Pharmaceuticals include antibiotics and other pharmacological and curative items, vitamins and food supplements. The “gadgets” are electronic products like Samsung smartphones and tablets; while aircraft parts are mostly engine parts and related materials for the repair, maintenance and replacements of commercial airlines.

Other items, she said, which are not as big as the three (pharmaceutical, gadgets and aircraft parts) also help boost their collection. “But this is far from attaining the assigned target,” Talusan added.

About 10 years back, the BOC’s airport district derives a substantial income from taxes levied on branded bags brought in by passengers, such as Channel, Louie Vuitton, Gucci and others.

However, this practice eventua l ly ended when President Duterte asked the Customs bureau to lay its hands off luggage brought in by overseas Filipino workers (OFW.).

Lapeña recently warned he will replace heads of the Customs ports and airports by more competent collectors if the 17 col lection por ts a l l over t he countr y are not able to meet their quota.

The commissioner, apparently moved by Talusan’s appeal, said he and his deputy commissioners will study how they can reduce— if possible—the collection target for Port of Naia.

“We will study Talusan’s appeal if we can reduce, if possible, the quota for the Naia district,” the customs chief said.

Parts of Davao City, Panabo City to experience brownouts next week

Megaworld to include museums, urban artworks in townships

Davao Light and Power Co. Inc. will conduct 15-minute power interruptions on March 26 and 27, affecting customers connected to Panacan and San Vicente Substations.

The power interruption on March 26 will be from 4 to 4:15 a.m. This will be necessary to facilitate upgrading of the 13.8-kilovolt line at San Vicente Substation.

Customers affected are those from Rachoville going to Nanyo, Malitbog, Manay up to Tubod.

Meanwhile, the service disruption on March 27 will also be from 4 to 4:15 a.m.

This service disruption will be necessary to facilitate the preventive-maintenance servicing of one of the power transformers in Don Ramon Aboitiz Substation.

Particularly affected are customers near Iglesia ni Cristo Church in diversion road going to Panacan proper, Malagamot up to Ilang.

Davao Light apologizes for the inconvenience brought about by this scheduled power interruption. But it will exert all efforts to restore electric service as scheduled or earlier. However, there may be instances where restoration may extend beyond the schedule due to unavoidable circumstances.

Customers are advised to contact Davao Light’s 24/7 Call Center Service at 229-3572 for any power interruption that will fall outside the given indicated schedule.

roperty giant Megaworld is integrating museums and urban artworks in its various township developments across the country.

Just last weekend, the company opened the P110-million Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art (Ilomoca) inside its 72-hectare Iloilo Business Park township in Mandurriao, Iloilo City. The 3,000-square-meter museum is the first contemporary art museum in the whole of the Visayas and Mindanao. It features three main galleries that house artworks of both national artists and local Ilonggo artists. The museum also has its own theater room called The Box and the Museum Shop, which sells merchandise customized with some works of renowned artists.

“Ilomoca is a concrete manifestation of our goal to create urban townships that have their own charm and character. We want to curate our developments in such a way that they seamlessly blend with the local culture and promote tourism,” says Kevin L. Tan, senior vice president of Megaworld.

Aside from Ilomoca, the com-

B

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo | Special to the BusinessMirror

D

ESPITE calls for the government not to push through with its planned closure of Boracay Island, the Department of Tourism (DOT) welcomed the local government of Aklan and the island’s stakeholders’ commitment to support the rehabilitation of the popular tourism destination.

Aklan Gov. Florencio Miraflores spoke before the interagency Task Force Boracay on Thursday and presented the stakeholders’ “pledge of commitment...to address pressing concerns on the island,” a news statement from the DOT said.

“We are one with you in the need to balance tourism development w it h env i ron ment a l protection and preservation. We recognize the fact that the status of Boracay as the premier destination of our country can only be maintained by the conscious and determined efforts of all stakeholders to immediately undertake the necessary mitigating measures to resolve the critical environmental problems arising from the rapid and unregulated growth of our local tourism industry,” part of the letter to President Duterte said.

The 42 signatories of the letter include tourism industry associations, other business groups and local government units. Among these are the Boracay Foundation Inc., Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Boracay and Kalibo, various local executive leagues, labor groups and other stakeholders, the DOT said.

“We welcome the initiative of Governor Miraflores to fly here to Manila to personally meet with us and present their plan of action for their beloved Boracay,” said Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T.

Teo. “The pledge of commitment, if carried out according to schedule, would serve to shorten the duration of the rehabilitation.”

This developed as Interior Assistant Secretary for Plans and Programs Epimaco V. Densing III confirmed that the task force already sent its recommendation to the President to close the island for six months, starting on April 26. “Yes [it’s the same recommendation as before]. There’s already an official written recommendation to the President transmitted today [Friday],” said Densing in a text message to the BusinessMirror.

He added that the photo of the letter from the three secretaries— Teo, Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu and Interior Officer in Charge Eduardo M. Año—containing said recommendation, which has gone viral, was “authentic.” The letter, sent through Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea, was signed by Año on Friday morning. Densing expressed hope the announcement

Aklan Gov. Florencio Miraflores (right) appeals to Task Force Boracay not to close the island—as he presents the commitment of the provincial and local governments, and of island stakeholders to fast-track their own rehabilitation plans—as Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu listens on.

by the President will be made “soonest.”

Meanwhile, Miraf lores and i ndu s t r y s t a k e hol d e r s h av e also been united in pleading to Duterte not to close Boracay. In a joint news conference on Thursday morning, the stakeholders warned of massive unemployment and loss of revenues, including taxes paid to the government, if the island is closed. (See, “Boracay closure could lead to government’s loss of over P6.7 billion in taxes,” in the BusinessMirror, March 23, 2018.”)

In an interview with CNN Philippines on Thursday evening, Miraflores said the local and provincial governments have committed to clean up the island’s drainage system by May 31, as part of their pledge to the task force and to the President. He also revealed that business tycoon Lucio Tan has offered to assist in the rehabilitation of the existing drainage system.

He said he attended the task force meeting to show what the

The pledge of commitment, if carried out according to schedule, would serve to shorten the duration of the rehabilitation.”—TEO

P

Roof art in Uptown Bonifacio.

pany is also putting up another museum in its 35.6-hectare township in the city of San Fernando in Pampanga, the Capital Town.

The “heritage” museum at the Capital Town will pay tribute to the historic Pampanga Sugar Development Co., where the township is located. Significant artifacts of the

old sugar central will be housed in this museum, which will be integrated within the proposed mall development that will also take some design inspirations from the sugar central.

Further south, another museum is being planned to be developed at the 30-hectare The Mactan

Newtown. With the township’s close proximity to the historic Lapu-Lapu and Mactan shrines, the museum is envisioned to highlight the personalities and events during the Battle of Mactan, one of the most significant moments in Philippine history.

At present, the company is also

province of Aklan, the local government of Malay and island stakeholders are doing to help speed up the rehabilitation of Boracay. “We’ve already substantially completed the inspection, the opening up of this drainage system, now the sealing of the discharges of these establishments into the drainage system and we are very confident by May 31, we can finish this on time and show that the e. coli count in that beach [Bulabog] can be reduced to what is the standard,” he said.

He added, “We have submitted our letter of appeal and we are asking for the reconsideration of the interagency group [not to close the island]. [But] we will continue with our rehabilitation, whether it is closed or not, together with stakeholders.”

The Aklan governor also presented mitigating measures to address the sewerage problem; solid-waste management issues; the demolition of illegal structures in forestlands, wetlands and easement areas; completion of a circumferential road; and decongestion of traffic.

Erring establishments violating the 25+5 easement rule have already initiated self-demolition, allowed the reclamation of the sidewalk on the main road, and removed illegally parked vehicles, the DOT said, citing Miraflores’s presentation.

aggressively putting up urban art installations across its townships as part of its “spruce up” efforts to promote art and design in its developments. These include bronze monuments, creative pedestrian crosswalks, wall, roof and floor murals, as well as digital art signages.

“In every township that we build, we want to see arts, culture, history and heritage to be part of the development’s overall character. This way, we don’t only build communities. We build destinations that promote tourism,” Tan explained.

The company sees tourism as one of the key drivers of its existing and even upcoming township developments.

“During the past years, we saw the influx of tourists in our townships, particularly in our lifestyle malls, because of what we offer beyond shopping and dining. At Venice Grand Canal in McKinley Hill, for example, visitors from various parts of the country and the world have come to see the beautiful architecture, and they end up dining and shopping in the mall,” Tan revealed.

A4

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Saturday, March 24, 2018

Hey, kid! The Central Bank wants your pocket money

T

he Central Bank’s new hero is Raj Hortaleza, aged 11. While most of his friends trooped to shopping malls to spend their Christmas money last holidays, Hortaleza put the $57 he received in the bank, adding to the $2 per week allowance he’s been saving.

“My parents always tell me not to spend too much on unnecessary things,” he said. “In case of an emergency, I can use it for something more important.”

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas wants more like him to raise one of the lowest savings rates in Asia and help sustain the nation’s economic growth. Six of 10 Filipino adults don’t put money aside and most of those who do keep it in piggy banks or safe boxes, according to the Central Bank. So it is targeting kids to try to instill the saving habit.

“It’s strategic,” said Governor

Nestor A. Espenilla Jr., 59, who championed inclusion programs such as the use of electronic wallets and better credit access for farmers and rural entrepreneurs when he was a Central Bank deputy. “Preferences that are formed in early life stay into adulthood.”

The Central Bank has expanded

the availability of deposit accounts for children and teenagers, published comic books and made lesson plans about financial planning for high-school teachers.

As a proportion of its population, the Philippines has the most adults without a deposit account in Southeast Asia, according to World Bank estimates. It’s a deficit that the International Monetary Fund says the nation needs to narrow to sustain over 6 percent growth, among the world’s fastest.

In the past, most Filipinos were subsistence farmers with little spare cash to save. But the country has thrown off its mantle of “Asia’s sick man” and strong domestic consumption has kept economic growth fizzing. A steady f low of funds from an outsourcing boom, record-low interest rates, a nd Philippine workers abroad sending money home have helped raise

It’s strategic. Preferences that are formed in early life stay into adulthood.”—Espenilla

disposable incomes and lifted at least 2 million people out of poverty this decade, according to World Bank estimates.

“It’s been proven that Filipinos don’t plan finances because they weren’t taught about it,” said Alvin Ang, an economics professor at the Ateneo de Manila University who has studied how households save and invest.

“Traits of financial planning— even just saving—are things that are acquired from parents or elders.”

Ang said in many regions of the country, people historically have relied on community support to survive and the areas that have the strongest links to savings are the ones prone to major natural disasters, such as typhoons or volcanic eruptions.

A key to the success of the Central Bank drive will be to ensure those who are educating the children also save, Ang said.

“You can’t teach about saving if you don’t save,” he said. “It’s easy to say, but it’s hard to do.”

‘Kiddie’ deposits

P o l icy- ma k e r s l a s t y e a r raised the age limit to 19 years from 12 years for a savings account that can be opened with just a $2 deposit. The product, known locally as “Kiddie Accounts” was first unveiled nationally in 2011 and now has about 1.4 m i l l ion accou nt s, Central Bank data show. Together, they contain about $577 million, a total that’s risen by almost one-third in the past three years.

Developing financial-management skills at an early age lessens social and financial vulnerability and reduces the risk of poverty, according to the United Nations. More than two-fifths of the 107 million Filipinos will be below the age of 20 at the end of 2018, the government statistics agency estimated. That makes it one of the youngest countries in Asia.

For b a n k s , s u c h a s BD O Unibank Inc., the nation’s biggest lender by assets, signing up young savers not only increases the capital available for investment in future, but also their customer base. Parents can open a Junior Saver account for kids from 0-12 years old with as little as P100 ($1.92) and the deposits start earning interest upon reaching P2,000.

“These kids will be the next generation of customers who provide loyalty to the bank,” BDO said in an e-mail. “We want to be there starting from youth to adult life.” The bank said it uses communication channels such as its web site, Facebook, ATMs and branches to drive awareness of its Junior Savers accounts.

This year, the Central Bank will almost triple the number of its resource centers around the country to 285. At these venues, you can find graphic novels, guides and books discussing savings and economic matters. In February the bank released the third of a series of comic books explaining financial concepts through the story of fictional teenagers David and Milo. A phone app and computer game for teenagers are being considered for next year.

Eleven-year-old Hortaleza, for one, has got the message. He wants to be an entrepreneur or a lawyer and he’s already wondering how to make his savings work a little harder. “I heard that there are products where you can leave money and it will earn. I’d like to know more about that.”

Editor: Lyn Ressureccion | www.businessmirror.com.ph

PAL ready to adjust Boracay flights once island’s closure is implemented

By Recto Mercene

F

our-star carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) on Friday said that, in anticipation of any government decision to close or cut back tourism activities on Boracay Island for a temporary period, the carrier will be ready to make the appropriate adjustments to schedules of flights to and from Caticlan (Boracay) Airport and Kalibo International Airport.

“We will be ready to assist passengers in rebooking, refunding and rerouting their flights in such a scenario,” PAL said in a statement.

“Our adjustments will depend on the scope and duration of the Boracay closure, and we will also take into account the need to retain some flights to serve the residents and businesses in Kalibo and the rest of Aklan province.”

A BusinessMirror special report said local carriers will be incurring massive losses from the planned closure of Boracay Island, even as they continue to wait for the final word from the government when the closure will start and for how long.

Sources in the aviation sector have raised some rough estimates on the industry losses based on a two-month closure— from April 26 to June 26—after the airline representatives met with Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo on March 13.

Paolo Misa, marketing head for Air Juan, which operates scheduled and charter flights between Manila and Boracay, and Busuanga and Caticlan, told the BusinessMirror they “will take a big hit,” adding that the Boracay/Caticlan routes account for about 15 percent of the airline’s business.

The Manila-Boracay nineseater seaplanes cost about $4,000 (P208,000) to charter, one way. With summer being the peak travel season, he added, the carrier usually has about one chartered flight a week to Boracay. For a twomonth closure alone, that will cost the airline at least P1.66 million, based on the fare

quoted above. Misa admitted that the impact on the airline’s finances will be higher if carriers are made to absorb cancellation or rebooking fees.

The Department of Tourism (DOT) is pushing the closure of Boracay Island in Aklan because of the worsening sewage conditions there, aside from uncontrolled growth by developers.

The government has initiated a massive cleanup in Boracay this month after President Duterte cited the island’s sewage problems, calling it a “cesspool,” and threatened to shut the world-famous beach resort down.

Repor ts sa id t hat some 850 establishments have been served show-cause orders by an interagency council for easement violations and not connecting to the sewerage treatment plant.

The DOT also temporarily ceased the processing of new and expiring accreditation certificates to establishments in Boracay that are not complying with environmental laws.

PAL said their adjustments will depend on the scope and duration of the Boracay closure, and “we will also take into account the need to retain some flights to serve the residents and businesses in Kalibo and the rest of the Aklan province.”

PAL Spokesman Cielo Villaluna said the airline also intends to help minimize any impact on tourism, its passengers and the airline operations by redirecting flights to other routes where PAL can continue to promote domestic and international tourist travel for the Philippines during the temporary closure period.

“PAL will make the necessary public advisories to inform and update the f lying public, for our passengers and travel partners. We will continue to closely monitor the situation, pending any final government announcements, and coordinate with the DOT and the other concerned government agencies in support of the efforts to rehabilitate Boracay Island,” she added.

Galaxy to buy Wynn Resorts stake in move that could reshape Macau

G

alaxy Entertainment Group. Ltd. agreed to buy a stake in Wynn Resorts Ltd., in a surprise move linking two of the biggest operators in Macau and Las Vegas that could reshape the gaming landscape in the Chinese territory.

The investment comes as former chairman Steve Wynn separately sold his remaining 8 million shares in Wynn Resorts, eliminating one of his last ties to the casino company he founded. Wynn Resorts sold 5.3 million newly issued shares of common stock to Galaxy, giving the competing Macau casino operator an estimated 5-percent stake in the company, according to a statement on Thursday. The new shares were sold at close to market price at $175 each, for a total of about $927.5 million.

“This is a unique opportunity to acquire an investment in a globally recognized entertainment corporation with exceptionally high-quality assets and a significant development pipeline,” Galaxy Enter tainment Group Vice Chairman Francis Lui said in a statement.

The agreement, linking the largest Macau operator with a major Las Vegas pioneer, could shake up Macau’s gaming industry at a pivotal time, as the world’s biggest gaming hub unveils plans in coming months on how it will review and give out operating licenses. The tie-up could be an opening for a local operator to win more of the $33-billion gaming industry that’s been overshadowed by US operators.

Potential acquirer

The sale of new shares to Galaxy,

controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Lui Che-Woo, positions the company as a potential suitor if Wynn Resorts were up for sale.

“Over the longer run, Galaxy may be a potential acquirer of Wynn Macau, and the initial purchase gives Galaxy a first bite at the company,” according to a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. note by analysts led by Vitaly Umansky. While he said Galaxy may not want to buy all of Wynn Resorts, “a Galaxy acquisition of Wynn Macau assets would create the leading Macau gaming company.”

The swiftly moving developments at Wynn Resorts were sparked by Steve Wynn’s departure in February following allegations of sexual misconduct. While the Las Vegas-based company is also under investigation by casino regulators in Nevada and Massachusetts, its Macau unit, along with other operators in Macau, is facing uncertainties as the territory plans to lay out rebidding details of casino concession licenses that will start to expire from 2020.

“The risk of potentially not regaining the Macau gaming concession specifically due to allegations against Steve Wynn are too great not to be immediately dealt with,” said David Bonnet, partner at Delta State Holdings Ltd. “With Galaxy now as a major shareholder, it reduces the potential uncomfortable questions that any gaming regulators, specifically Macau regulators, will have in the upcoming license rebidding.”

The investment also comes as some analysts speculate Beijing is seeking to reduce foreign interests in Macau’s gaming industry. Bloomberg News

Sports BusinessMirror

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

A5

Saturday, March 24, 2018

DLSU eyes 10th straight Final Four appearance

MY BALL!

Trinidad and Tobago’s Darlene Ramdin and Bang Pineda dive for the loose ball as Generika-Ayala escapes past a gritty Cignal squad, 26-24, 18-25, 16-25, 25-22, 15-11, on Thursday night in the Chooks to Go-Philippine Superliga Grand Prix at the Filoil Flying V Centre. Ramdin catches fire in the deciding set to power the Lifesavers to a thrilling win their second in seven matches.

D

EFENDING champion De La Salle eyes its 10th straight Final Four appearance when it faces a back-againstthe-wall University of the East (UE) in Season 80 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) women’s volleyball action today at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan City.

The Lady Spikers, who seized the top spot by winning eight of their 10 games, are trying to become the first team to enter the semifinals season in their 4 p.m. match against the Lady Red Warriors.

Riding the momentum of four consecutive wins capped by a come-from-behind 25-17, 21-25, 16-25, 25-20, 15-5 victory over Far Eastern University (FEU) last week, De La Salle Head Coach Ramil de Jesus stressed that the best is yet to come for his team.

“It’s not yet their best movement as a team. There are still unforced errors and they lack communication inside the court. It’s not yet perfect,” de Jesus said. “They should not lose their self-confidence during the game. When you commit errors, make up for it. You cannot carry your mistakes all-game-long.”

The Lady Tamaraws, who yielded to De La Salle to fall third place with a 6-4 win-loss record, try to bounce back when they battle the sixth-placed University of the Philippines Lady Maroons (3-7) at 2 p.m.

“We cannot afford to lose more games because we want to end up at No.1 or 2. This is the turning point of our season if we want to reach the top, we have to work hard,” said FEU Head Coach George Pascua, who will be facing a UP side that is hanging to a slim hope of advancing further this season.

De Jesus cautioned his wards against upset-conscious UE, which snatched two wins in its 10 games.

“When UE changed its coach, their character became different,” said de Jesus, referring to Lady Warriors interim coach Rod Roque, who won two of his first five games.

“They have nothing to lose. They are not giving up through their well-organized floor defense. So we can never underestimate UE.” Eyes will be on the battle of the league’s top two liberos—De La Salle’s Dawn Macandili and UE’s Kath Arado.

Joint second placers FEU and Ateneo, which have identical 8-2 cards, battle separate foes in the men’s tournament.

FEU faces winless UE (0-10) at 8 a.m., while Ateneo takes on UP (3-7) at 10 a.m. Lance Agcaoili

UNDER SUSPICION N

By Brian Mahoney The Associated Press

EW YORK—After 20 years in the NBA, Dirk Nowitzki can’t be fooled.

He knows when teams aren’t giving an honest effort, when they are out there playing but not playing to win.

“It’s pretty obvious,” Nowitzki said.

Easy to spot, the NBA is finding tanking not so easy to stop.

It’s a problem for the league office, which has fined owners, chastised teams and sent out league-wide memos on the topic. And with big brother watching,

teams are abiding by the letter of the law, but arguably not the spirit of its intent.

Tanking is viewed as a solution—sometimes the only one—for some teams and their fans, hoping something good can come from being bad if they cash in at the lottery and land a top draft pick.

Nearly a third of the 30 NBA teams are brutally bad this season and it’s hard to believe some aren’t losing on purpose. Phoenix, Memphis, Atlanta, Orlando, Dallas, Sacramento, Brooklyn, Chicago and New York should all lose 50 or more games, and only the Nets aren’t motivated to lose—they don’t own their first-round pick.

Everyone else comes under suspicion when something strange happens: n What was leading scorer Dennis Schroder doing on the bench for the entire fourth quarter of Atlanta’s onepoint victory over Phoenix on March 4? n Why did Tyreke Evans foul Chicago rookie Antonio Blakeney attempting a three-pointer with 1.8 seconds left and Memphis leading Chicago by one? n Are some of these guys on injury lists really hurt?

New York hosted its own version of March Badness over the last week, with the Knicks and Nets both playing Nowitzki’s Mavericks, before Memphis and Chicago came to the city on the same sad Monday. That’s five of the nine

bottom teams—including the only two known to have been contacted by the league office because of their tactics.

Here’s how it looks where currently winning really doesn’t seem to be everything:

CUBAN “MESSED THAT UP”

TANKING is a discussion for fans and media. Nobody from a team ever dares talk about losing on purpose.

Except Mark Cuban.

When the Dallas owner went on Hall of Famer Julius Erving’s podcast in February and said he told his players that “losing is our best option,” the league fined him $600,000 for “public statements detrimental to the NBA.” That put a spotlight on the Mavericks. So if they were planning on packing it in and trying to add more young legs in the draft for Nowitzki’s expected swan song, they had to change plans.

“Well, I think Mark messed that up for us,” Nowitzki said, with a straight face.

They went on a recent stretch of three wins in four games—two were against the Grizzlies and Knicks— and Nowitzki insists teams are still tanking despite the league’s mandate.

“There’s obviously some teams that are going for some losses now, and we’re one of the teams that still

PROPONENTS of the Manila 10s International Rugby Festival are shown during the tournament’s launching at the Cafe Curieux in Bel-Air, Makati. They are (from left) Tournament Director Max Chicken Stewart, Lady Volcanoes player Rara Sales, Philippine Volcanoes player Lito Ramirez, MJC Vice President for Marketing Eduardo Ramirez de Arellano, Manila 10s Chairman Clair Barberis, Manila 10s Tournament Draw and Seeding, David Feeney, and Philippine Rugby Football Union Secretary-General Ada Milby.

INTERNATIONAL RUGBY FESTIVAL GETS GOING T HE San Lazaro Leisure Park (SLLP) in Carmona, Cavite, comes alive today as 24 foreign and local teams in five divisions of varying skill levels face off in the 30th staging of the Manila 10s International Rugby Festival.

Rugby players of all shapes, age and sizes fly in from all over Asia, Oceania and the United Kingdom to converge at the SLLP’s 100-meter patch of grass to compete side by side their Filipino counterparts over a weekend of fun and social 10-a-side rugby.

“It is dubbed by ESPN as the best social rugby tournament in the world,” Tournament Director Max Chicken Stewart said.

Cup 2017 champions Singapore Barbarians and and Shield titlists Tokyo Gaijin won’t be around to defend their titles, but the RFC Eagles (Plate), the Taipei Baboons (Bowl) and the SCC Growlers (Veterans) are raring to protect theirs in the tournament presented by the Nomads Rugby.

The Ibons and the Manila Samurais start off the heavy 35-game schedule at 9 a.m., before fellow Group A teams Subic Sharks and Tush Burkeyz square off at 9:14 a.m.

The 27-game quarterfinals, semifinals and finals are scheduled on Sunday.

Other teams in the mix are the Taipei Baboons, SKF Mavericks, Manila Carabaos and the Manila Hapons of Group B; Seoul Survivors, Clark Jets, Bush Turkeyz

and Albay Bulkans of Group C; Manila Nomads, Makati Chiefs B, Cebu Dragons and Pot Bellied Pigs of Group D; B2Gold Larrikins, Eagles RFC, Makati Chiefs A and RMDK Tigers of the Cup Division; and Extinct Volcanoes, Fiji Golden Oldies, SCC Growlers and Taiper Silverbacks of the Veterans Category.

The Manila 10s was the first-ever rugby tournament held in the Philippines and has come a long way since it was first held in 1989 at the Nomads Sports Club in Merville Park, Parañaque, where then Club President Albert Robert put out a directive for all the sports sections to hold a special event to celebrate their 75th anniversary.

It started as a way for the local, and then only, rugby club in the country, the Manila Nomads to play rugby at a competitive level without having to tour regularly.

The first tournament featured five teams playing in a one-day tournament, but the popularity of the tournament quickly grew the competition to 16 teams playing across two days.

Today, it is still the premier rugby tournament in the country. Manila 10s is held one week before Hong Kong Sevens every year, allowing clubs from around the world to participate in the tournament prior to watching Hong Kong Sevens.

Entrance to San Lazaro Leisure Park is free and open to the public. Food, drinks and official M10s merchandise will be available for sale at the Park.

DID Mark Cuban mess up for the Mavericks? AP

wants to win and we’ll see where we end up at the end in the draft,” he said. “But we’re still playing. We want to have a winning culture for our young guys.”

JUST THAT BAD?

IF the Knicks are tanking, they are being out-tanked.

New York went 1-16 in a recent 17-game stretch, managing only to beat fellow lottery-bound Orlando, in a freefall that should’ve been able to take the Knicks close to the bottom. Instead, they remarkably remain the best of the worst, remaining ahead of the other eight in the standings—which means, behind them in lottery odds.

With Kristaps Porzingis lost to a torn ACL last month and Carmelo Anthony traded in the off-season, the Knicks don’t have the talent to win often. But Coach Jeff Hornacek believes there’s a reason the other bad teams can’t win, either.

“The top teams are always there but I think that middle group, teams that are seeded in the playoffs 7, 8, guys that are just outside that, those are some pretty good teams nowadays,” Hornacek said. “So if you are one of those bottom teams, you used to be able to beat those teams occasionally. Now it’s tough to beat those guys, too.”

INJURIES & TANKING

CHICAGO came to New York on Monday night without Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen and Kris Dunn, its three top scorers. Bulls Coach Fred Hoiberg said they were all hurt, and people down the street at the league office were likely wondering.

When the Bulls stopped playing starters Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday earlier this season, the league reminded them of the new resting rules, which allow Commissioner Adam Silver to fine teams who sit multiple healthy starters in road games.

So the Bulls started playing Lopez and Holiday again—sort of.

They went the whole first quarter at Detroit on March 9, combining for 15 points as the Bulls led by five. Neither got off the bench again, and the Pistons outscored them by 21 the rest of the way.

But Hoiberg wasn’t worried about creating any further trouble by playing without the three players acquired in the Jimmy Butler trade with Minnesota last summer. He insists they were injured.

“When they’re ready to go,” Hoiberg said, “they’re going to be back out there playing again.”

Portugal sticks to winning formula from Euro 2016 P ORTUGAL has few unanswered questions going into the World Cup, with coach Fernando Santos sticking to most of the squad that won the European Championship two years ago.

Santos hasn’t finalized his 23-player list, but he will be keeping the core of players who helped Portugal win its first major title in France.

Santos will make a few final tests in the friendlies against Egypt on Friday in Zurich and against the Netherlands on Monday in Geneva, but there won’t be many changes to the final squad.

“We have 70 percent of the final list (playing in these friendlies),” Santos said. “And some players were not available, so if we consider the previous list as well, then we are very close (to that final list).”

More than 15 players from the Euro 2016 squad are practically guaranteed to make it to Russia, including Cristiano Ronaldo and most regular starters from that tournament.

From the team that started in the final against France two years ago, only Nani and Renato Sanches were not included in Santos’ list for the upcoming friendlies.

Here’s a closer look at Portugal three months before the World Cup:

ATTACK

Portugal’s attack again will be carried by Ronaldo, who was key for the team’s success in France and has been in top form with Real Madrid.

The forward had a slow start to his season but has scored 21 goals in his last 11 matches in all competitions. He has scored at least one goal in his last eight matches and is back in the race for top-scorer in the Spanish league with 22 goals, three behind Barcelona forward Lionel Messi.

He will likely have a different attacking partner from two years ago for the World Cup, though, with Gelson Martins and Goncalo Guedes gaining space up front.

During Euro 2016, the forwards included Ricardo Quaresma, Nani and Eder, whose extra time goal in the final against France helped Portugal clinch title.

Quaresma is the only forward from that squad who is likely to make it to Russia.

MIDFIELD

Raphael Guerreiro and William Carvalho are expected to anchor Portugal’s midfielder again, with Joao Mario, Andre Gomes, Adrien Silva and Joao Moutinho fighting for a spot to play closer to the attack along with Bernardo Silva, who was not in France two years ago.

DEFENSE

Santos is likely to keep his starting central defenders from Euro 2016, with veterans Pepe and Bruno Alves in charge. The right back will probably remain with Cedric Soares, but there could be a change in the left back position because Fabio Coentrao is set to make the squad for Russia.

GOALKEEPER

Rui Patricio was in goal during the tournament in France and is set to start at the World Cup as well.

Portugal conceded five goals in its seven matches at Euro 2016, but none in the semifinals or the final.

The reserves will likely be Anthony Lopes and Beto, the only one who was not in the winning squad in France.

BusinessMi

A6 Saturday, March 24, 2018 | Editor: Jun Lomibao

THE Velodromo Municipal do Rio in Rio de Janeiro is not turning out to be a white elephant.

International competition returns to Rio

T

HE 2018 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships at the Velodromo Municipal do Rio in Rio de Janeiro mark the first time since the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games that an International Federation has returned to the Barra Olympic Park for an event of this stature.

The 250-meter track was designed by Schuermann Architects, a design firm that had previously designed the Laoshan Velodrome for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in China. Constructed of Siberian pine, the track saw three world records and a

total of six Olympic records set over the course of the 2016 Games.

At the Paralympic Games, Brazil had its biggest cycling result in history, with Lauro César Chaman winning both a silver medal in the men’s road race and a bronze medal in the individual time trial. On the track, Chaman (a C5 athlete) finished fourth in the individual pursuit and 12th in the time trial.

Chaman’s two medals were the first-ever won by a Brazilian in cycling at either the Olympic or Paralympic Games. Chaman won three medals—one

silver and two bronze—at the 2017 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships, and will lead Brazil’s 11-rider team in Rio. Since the Games, the velodrome in Rio has been part of the Olympic Training Center—the Center consists of six venues used during the 2016 Games, plus new facilities created in the Barra Olympic Park. The Center was inspired by national programmes such as those at the Australian Institute of Sport, United States Olympic Training Center, and the English Institute of Sport.

FROOME IN HOT W C ASO seem determined to push David Lappartient and the UCI to expedite the Chris Froome case before the start of the Tour de France on July 7.

UCI News

WOMEN TAKE CENTER STAGE

THE aim is to increase the pool of qualified female coaches, who could in the future also mentor other aspiring female coaches.

T

HEY come from nine different countries, five different continents and vastly differing cycling backgrounds. But for two weeks they have come together at the UCI World Cycling Centre (WCC) in Aigle, Switzerland, to participate in the combined Coaching (Level 2) and Mechanics (Level 1) course.

Hailing from Fiji, Egypt, Botswana, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil, India, Estonia, Hungary and Spain, these women largely outnumber the men on the twoweek course and nearly all benefit from an Olympic Solidarity scholarship. They have concrete ideas about how to develop cycling in their respective countries and their participation in the latest UCI WCC Coaching course is a sign of their #PressforProgress, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day. UCI WCC High Performance Manager Belinda Tarling explained that the women had been identified via their national federations. The aim was to increase the pool of qualified female coaches, who could in the future also mentor other aspiring female coaches.

“Female athletes in our sport now number very close to 50 percent but female elite level coaches are almost invisible,” Tarling said.

“Although it is not necessarily essential to have 50 percent female coaches, women should have an equal opportunity to qualify.”

Belinda Tarling added that Olympic Solidarity had been very proactive in awarding scholarships for women attending the course.

UCI ACTIONS IN FAVOR OF WOMEN

This latest offer comes on top of scholarships offered by the UCI each year to women taking part in the annual UCI WCC Sport Director course.

UCI President David Lappartient said the current course was part of the international federation’s continuing effort to support women athletes and women working in cycling’s professions. In January the UCI received an international award for its initiatives to empower women in sport.

“Tremendous progress has already been made to improve the position of women in our sport, and we will not stop there,” he said. “As president of the

UCI, I will continue to focus on further increasing the professionalism of women’s cycling and ensuring that both the athletes and those working for the sport get the opportunities they deserve. It is wonderful to see these women coaches training here at the UCI headquarters.”

Estonian Maaris Meier, now 35, was part of the first intake of mountain bike trainee athletes at the UCI WCC back in 2002. She competed in the Athens 2004 Olympic road race and won the silver medal at the 2008 World University Cycling Championships in MTB cross-country Olympic.

Now Maaris Meier is back in Aigle to train as a coach.

Currently residing in Portugal, the Olympian welcomes and coaches Estonian athletes for training camps of two to four weeks.

“I know how hard it is for young athletes. I really wish I’d had someone to look up to when training in Estonia.”

She continues: “I don’t want to be ‘just a former athlete who coaches.’ I want to have a qualification and work with my national federation.”

According to the former athlete, women in Estonia needed to gain confidence and receive a boost to get into the sport. In my country, everything is done by men and it’s hard to get your foot in the door. But once you have, you have their respect.”

A relative latecomer to the sport, Gobona Mantle, 34, from Botswana, started cycling just seven years ago and quickly found herself on the podium of women’s races.

Now that her 11-year-old daughter is showing signs of promise as a cyclist, Gobona Mantle has decided to take action. She has already started a training program in schools and hopes to identify young talent that could give her daughter some competition.

“I didn’t have a coach, and it has been a struggle. I am sure there are a lot of kids with potential but a lot of them cannot participate because there is not the support, they don’t have bikes and there are no coaches. I hope that when I go back home I can help. A lot of the girls are just scared. I want to give them the opportunity to take things one step at a time and feel comfortable on their bike.”

UCI news

DAVID LAPPARTIENT: Can you imagine if Chris Froome rides the Tour de France without a decision? It would also be difficult for him.

HRIS FROOME’S hopes of winning a fifth Tour de France are reportedly under threat, with race organiser ASO ready to try to block the Team Sky rider from starting this year’s race due to his ongoing salbutamol case.

The Press Association Sport news agency has claimed that ASO will refuse to let Froome line up in the Vendee region on July 7 if his case has not been resolved. PA sport cited “two senior cycling sources.” Two sources have also confirmed the possibility to Cyclingnews.

Froome exceeded the allowed levels for salbutamol en route to victory at last year’s Vuelta a España, but because salbutamol is considered a specified substance, the Team Sky rider remains free to race pending the resolution of the case.

Froome has always denied any wrongdoing, saying that he respected medical guidelines for the use of his salbutamol asthma inhaler. He began his season at the Ruta del Sol and recently rode Tirreno-Adriatico. He has been announced for the Tour of the Alps stage race in Italy and Austria next month and is determined to push on with his plans to target the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in 2018.

UCI President David Lappartient has previously tried to pressure Team Sky to suspend Froome from racing but he acknowledges that Froome has a right to race under UCI rules. Lappartient has accepted that a verdict is unlikely to be reached before the Giro d’Italia, but on Wednesday, after the UCI presented its new strategy to fight mechanical doping, he said that the decision “must be on the table before the Tour de France,” adding, “I hope so because it would be a disaster for everybody if it’s not the case.”

ASO seem determined to push Lappartient and the UCI to expedite the Froome case before the start of the Tour de France on July 7. Under UCI WorldTour rules the 18 WorldTour teams must accept the participation of all UCI WorldTeams. However, Cyclingnews understands that ASO traditionally have unique rights in the contracts with teams for the Tour de France, which may give them extra powers to safeguarding the image of the race and so stop a rider competing in their race.

ASO is understood to be confident it could resist any legal challenge from Team Sky, possibly dragging the case into the French civil courts. However, ASO was forced to back down in a similar case in 2009 when it tried to stop Tom Boonen from riding the Tour de France following his out-of-competition positive test for cocaine. Tour de France Director Christian Prudhomme also accepted that Alberto Contador had the right to ride the Tour de France in 2011, as

Lappartient: It would be difficult for Froome to ride Tour de France without a verdict U CI President David Lappartient admitted recently that Chris Froome’s salbutamol case is unlikely to be resolved before the Giro d’Italia but has reiterated calls for a verdict or some kind of decision before the start of the Tour de France on July 7.

“I hope the decision can arrive before the Tour de France, even for Chris Froome. Can you imagine if he rides the Tour de France without a decision? It would also be difficult for him,” Lappartient in Geneva said after presenting the UCI’s new strategy to combat mechanical doping.

“We need it before the Tour de France. But due to the fact this case is really specific, it takes more times than we were expecting.”

The UCI press office had warned that Lappartient would only speak about the new mobile x-ray cabinet created to scan bikes and other aspects of the UCI technological fraud strategy. However, the Froome case is the elephant in the room at every UCI event while lawyers from both sides debate the case. Lappartient is also keen to defend the UCI’s position while avoiding entering into the merits of the case.

Froome exceeded the allowed levels for salbutamol en route to victory at last year’s Vuelta a España, but because salbutamol is considered a specified substance, the Team Sky rider remains free to race pending the resolution of the case.

Froome has always denied any wrongdoing, saying he respected medical guidelines for the use of his salbutamol asthma inhaler. He began his season at the Ruta del Sol and recently rode Tirreno-Adriatico. He has been announced for the Tour of the Alps stage race in Italy and Austria later

this month and is determined to push on with his plans to target the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in 2018.

Lappartient has previously tried to pressure Team Sky to suspend Froome from racing but he acknowledges that Froome has a right to race under UCI rules. That has not stopped him suggesting that his presence at the Tour de France before a final verdict “would be a disaster for the image of cycling”.

He repeated that position in Geneva.

“I think the decision must be on the table before the Tour de France. I hope so because it would be a disaster for everybody if it’s not the case,” Lappartient said to media at the event, including Cyclingnews.

“But we can’t force a decision without respecting our own rules and the process. This case, believe me, is not so easy. We will not take an urgent decision just to have a decision before the Tour de France and not respecting the rules and also not respecting the rights of the rider.”

Lappartient accepts it is the UCI’s responsibility to handle the case and does not want race organizers to try to refuse a rider on ethical grounds. He also confirmed that the UCI would not try to provisionally suspend Froome before a verdict is reached.

“I think it’s the job of the UCI to deal with this matter, it’s not up to the organizers. Some of them are worried about the consequences for their race and they wonder if they will have to try to refuse a rider. I hope we will be able to resolve the matter as soon as possible, so that we will not have this discussion with the organizers. It’s not their job or mission, it’s up to the UCI, Wada, CAS, all the key stakeholders,” Lappartient explained.

“It’s true that we have this power [to provisionally suspend a rider] but for salbutamol, this has never been done in the past, so we must also respect the rights of Chris Froome. It’s not possible to have specific treatment for him.

We can see that all other international federations, nobody has taken the decision for any athlete in the world. If we are the only international federation and we suspend one rider just for salbutamol, then we would be on the wrong side and we’d lose if we went to CAS [Court of Arbitration for Sport]. I also want to respect the rights of the riders.”

However, Lappartient confirmed that if the Froome case was sent to the UCI Anti-doping Tribunal and he was found guilty of an alleged anti-doping violation, he would be immediately suspended. Froome could only appeal to the CAS to overturn the UCI Anti-doping Tribunal verdict.

“If this goes to the Tribunal it will be up to the Tribunal to decide. If they decide to give a penalty a one-year suspension or whatever, then this will apply immediately,” Lappartient said.

Froome criticized Lappartient for suggesting to the BBC that it “would be a disaster for the image of cycling” if Froome rode the Tour de France sub-judice.

Today Lappartient defended his right as UCI president to speak out.

“Can you imagine if the UCI had said nothing since December?” he asked with indignation.

“That’s impossible due to the reputation [high profile] of the rider. I’d never make any comment or reveal any details of the case. But I think I can express the point of the UCI on the consequences for our sport, without dealing with the matter of the case.” Cyclingnews

irror CYCLING

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph | Saturday, March 24, 2018 A7

E STILL WATER

UCI uses mobile x-rays, thermal imaging cameras to fight mechanical doping T

he awaited the appeal process of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Contador finished in the 2011 Tour de France, but was later stripped of his results after the CAS banned him for two years.

ASO refused to comment on the reports it may try to block Froome from the Tour de France. However, during Paris-Nice Prudhomme described the delays in the Froome case as “completely grotesque,” calling on the UCI to act.

“What we want is a response. We need a response, not just for us at the Tour de France but for all the organizers, so that there isn’t a rider they’ll later say shouldn’t have been at the start. It’s mad. It’s completely grotesque. We need a response.”

LAPPARTIENT STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

David Lappartient seems stuck between an obligation to respect the UCI’s rules concerning the Froome case, the pressure of ASO, and trying to defend the wider image of the sport as the case is mired in legal discussions and arguments.

On Wednesday Lappartient appeared to acknowledge ASO’s pressure to ensure Froome’s case is resolved before the Tour de France. He argued that it is the UCI’s responsibility to handle the case and does not want race organizers to try to refuse a rider on ethical grounds. He again confirmed that the UCI would not try to provisionally suspend Froome before a verdict is reached.

“We can’t force a decision without respecting our own rules and the process. This case, believe me, is not so easy. We will not take an urgent decision just to have a decision before the Tour de France and not respecting the rules and also not respecting the rights of the rider,” he told media at the presentation in Geneva on Wednesday, including Cyclingnews.

“I think it’s the job of the UCI to deal with this matter, it’s not up to the organizers. Some of them are worried about the consequences for their race and they wonder if they will have to try to refuse a rider.

I hope we will be able to resolve the matter as soon as possible, so that we will not have this discussion with the organizers. It’s not their job or mission, it’s up to the UCI, Wada, CAS, all the key stakeholders.”

The UCI Professional Cycling Council—the body that regulates professional cycling, is due to meet today, with Prudhomme due to attend as a representative of the AIOCC race organizers association. Cyclingnews

CHRIS FROOME is in danger of being blocked from the Tour de France.

From the pool to the track

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Tajikistan’s athletes are putting the Scott bikes to good use.

Making a difference in Tajikistan

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ROMISING road and track cyclists in Tajikistan received a boost with the arrival of nine bikes sent from the UCI World Cycling Centre (WCC) in Aigle, Switzerland.

The donation was part of the World Cycling Centre’s UCI-supported “Bikes for the World” program, which last year saw 202 bikes (121 road and 81 track) shipped to 25 countries on four continents. The bike frames are offered by the WCC’s partners and assembled by the center’s professional mechanics.

In training, at races, on the road or around the velodrome, Tajikistan’s athletes are putting the Scott bikes to good use, including at training camps at the World Cycling Centre Satellite in

Korea, and at the recent 2018 Asian Road Championships in Myanmar.

As part of the “Bikes for the World” program, clothing, wheels, bike components and accessories are also regularly sent to National Federations.

UCI President David Lappartient has pledged to further increase support to NFs through the UCI Solidarity Programme, which this year sees the UCI commit 2M CHF to support the development efforts of the 190 national federation members worldwide. This amount should reach 4M CHF by 2022 and is in addition to the UCI’s overall plan to finance the UCI World Cycling Centre’s missions through an investment of 3.8M CHF in 2018 to enhance its operations.UCI News

ESS than two years after winning Paralympic gold in Rio de Janeiro as a swimmer, New Zealand’s Nikita Howarth returns to the site of her victory; this time as a cyclist competing at the UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championships.

Howarth became New Zealand’s youngest ever Paralympian at the age of 13 when she competed in swimming at the London Paralympic Games in 2012.

She returned to the Paralympics in Rio to win gold (200-meter individual medley) and bronze (50-meter butterfly) medals in swimming.

Howarth was born with a congenital bilateral arm deficiency, with no right hand and her left arm ending below the elbow.

However, post-Rio, Howarth began looking for new challenges. Inspired by a school visit back when she was eight from retired Kiwi track cycling Olympic and UCI World Champion Sarah Ulmer, Howarth decided to give the sport a try.

After attending training camps with the New Zealand national team, Howarth discovered a new aptitude, which has since translated into bronze medals at the recent national track championships, in the 500-meter time trial and the 3,000-meter individual pursuit.

Howarth admitted in a Paralympic New Zealand interview, “I didn’t expect to get this far. To get to Worlds 18 months after I finished swimming is pretty extreme for me. I just want to prove that I’m a good athlete, doing two sports is an achievement in itself I think, and a medal or two wouldn’t hurt, but that’s long term stuff.” UCI News

HE UCI has announced its new strategy to fight mechanical doping, revealing a series of techniques that include a new mobile x-ray cabinet at major races, the option of thermal imaging cameras in races and the continued use of the magnometric tablet devices, with RFID tagging and the use of miniature magnometer trackers are also options for the future.

UCI President David Lappartient listed “credibility” as one of five key areas in his election manifesto last year, and this includes taking a much stronger stance against mechanical doping in the peloton to stop it being what he described as a “hot topic.”

“We’re going to do our utmost so that we won’t have future cases of technological fraud. The sport has suffered from doping in the past and we don’t want our other riders to suffer anymore,” Lappartient said at the presentation in Geneva, attended

by Cyclingnews.

“Cycling is magnificent sport, one of the most beautiful sports.

People must be able to believe in the results; that’s why we continue to fight against doping. Technological fraud is easier to resolve than doping. We want to avoid videos on social media that sometimes cast doubts in fans’ minds. We want fans to support and believe the results achieved and also by the work done by the UCI. It’s our responsibility to guarantee the results and we’re determined to do that.”

Former UCI President Brian Cookson and the UCI Equipment Manager Mark Barfield first introduced the use of the tablet device to try to detect mechanical doping, but doubts were raised about the validity of the tablet device and its software.

Barfield was soon shown the door when Lappartient beat Cookson to be elected UCI president last September.

He quickly hired former French rider JeanChristophe Péraud as the new UCI Equipment manager, and he worked on the x-ray cabinet machine for the 2018 season. Bob Stapleton, chairman of the board of USA Cycling and newly elected to the UCI Management Committee, is also part of the UCI technical commission and sat alongside Lappartient and Péraud at the presentation in Geneva.

“Technological fraud requires a forceful

intervention from UCI before it damages our sport,” Stapleton said. “We believe this strategy addresses all fraud scenario and are up the challenge.”

The UCI claimed the new strategy will ensure that 150 days of racing will be covered by the bike checks in 2018, across road, cyclo-cross, mountain biking and track racing. The UCI said 50 percent of all WorldTour races would be covered. The UCI has teamed up with VJ Technologies from Lausanne, which already created x-ray devices for the aerospace, defense and automotive industries, to create the new x-ray cabinet. The UCI has ensured the methods and equipment are validated and certified by independent laboratories.

The mobile x-ray cabinet is the UCI’s newest weapon against mechanical doping, and the machine was on show after the presentation. It should reveal any hidden motors in the frame and wheels, without dismantling the bike. The x-ray cabinet is made of a protective lead shield in order to ensure safety for the UCI staff carrying out the checks and so respecting national laws regarding x-ray equipment.

The UCI confirmed that it has also teamed up with CEA Tech—part of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission—to work on a small embedded magnometer tracker device.

However, this appeared to be very much a work in progress with no clear timeline on its development.

Lappartient confirmed that the study of performance data and television images had also been considered, but will not be used in the short term.

However, to control suspicious wheel and bike changes during races—which perhaps hide mechanical doping systems—the UCI is considering the introduction of RFID tags to track a bicycle or wheels before, during and after the race, is being investigated.

Fines for mechanical doping of technical fraud offenses have also been increased.

The rider concerned will be suspended for a minimum of six months and fined between CHF 20,000 and CHF 200,000. The rider’s team or other entity the rider represents could also be sanctioned and fined between CHF 100,000 and CHF 1,000,000.

In addition to the above, any action or omission by a person or entity subject to the UCI regulations enabling, encouraging, facilitating, covering up or otherwise intentionally assisting in a technological fraud shall be sanctioned by a suspension of a minimum of six months and a fine of between CHF 5,000 and CHF 200,000.

Cyclingnews

AFTER the Rio Olympics, Nikita Howarth began looking for new challenges.

OurTime BusinessMirror

A8 Saturday, March 24, 2018 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

www.businessmirror.com.ph

6 more centenarians receive ₧100,000 cash gift from Manila

By Roderick L. Abad @rodrik_28

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Contributor

IX Manileños who reached their 100th birthday were recently honored and gifted with P100,000 each by Mayor Joseph E. Estrada at the San Andres Sports Complex.

The mayor said the cash handouts from the city government were a token of appreciation for the centenarians’ contributions to society during the prime of their lives.

“You have sacrificed much so that the present generation now enjoys the fruits of your labors,” Estrada said, while wishing them happiness on their natal day.

The recipients were Leonila de la Fuente Acacio and Asuncion Angque Angeles, both from District 4; Leandra de Paz Valles, District 5; and Celedonia Eugenio, Bonifacio Santos and Araceli Garcia Manuel, District 6.

Apart from monetary assistance, the mayor also distributed 18 wheelchairs and announced other assistance packages provided by the city to all the city’s elderly, such as free maintenance medicines and medical services, and

other laboratory tests in all stateowned and operated hospitals and health-care facilities.

Estrada said senior citizens can avai l themselves of f ree maintenance for hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, high cholesterol, cough, colds, influenza and other illnesses.

Senior citizens could get prescription for their disease after consultation and diagnosis from doctors and medical personnel in the 59 community health centers locally.

The pro bono medicine includes Losartan, Amlodipine and Metoprolol for hypertension, Simvastatin and Gliclazide for high cholesterol and Metformin for diabetes.

For one month, a sick and poor elderly could receive P3,000 worth of maintenance medicine and other services, such as free regular physical examination,

MANILA Mayor Joseph E. Estrada greets one of the city’s six newest centenarians during the recent celebration he hosted to honor them. MANILA MAYOR’S OFFICE

cardiac-stress test and endoscopy, among others.

Manila Health Department head Dr. Benjamin Yson revealed the local government allotted P70 million for free maintenance

medicines for the senior-citizen residents.

Meanwhile, Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (Osca) assistant head Hermie Salonga noted a total of 145,830 residents aged 60 years

and older have been registered with his office as of December last year.

Osca records showed that around 56 centenarians already received their P100,000 cash gifts from City Hall. Other perks are

a P500 birthday cash and an annual P6,000 social pension from the Department of Social Welfare and Development-National Capital Region, in coordination with the city government.

Seniors can also avail themselves of free movies from all cinema houses in the city every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

“Sad to think, but we all know where we are going. That’s why we also give a P5,000 ‘burial assistance,’” Estrada told to 600 seniors who attended the post-Valentine event on March 9.

Reaching out to more elderly in the city, the mayor encouraged all senior citizens to enlist themselves with Osca in order to receive the free assistance packages entitled to them.

“In order to avoid complaints that you don’t receive your benefits, I beg you to ensure that you’re included in the list of senior citizens in Manila. Please check if you are a registered senior citizen of Manila,” he said.

“From the bottom of my heart, I want to impart to all of you that ‘children and elderly are taken good care of in Manila.’ On this occasion, we, the senior citizens, are in the good hands of our city government,” he added.

In the coming weeks, about 8 centenarians will receive their P100,000 cash gifts from the mayor.

DSWD in W. Visayas to delist 1,280 senior citizens get pensions sans fanfare in Laguna town non-eligible social pensioners A

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LOILO CITY—The Department of Social Welfare and Development Region 6 (DSWD 6) on Tuesday warned of the expulsion of non-eligible beneficiaries from the Social Pension Program.

DSWD 6 Regional Director Rebecca Geamala, in a media interview, said their department has recently received reports there were nonqualified senior citizens included by the local government units in their list of program beneficiaries.

“We will be delisting non-eligible elderly in the program. While we know this might offend some, we have to follow the guidelines,” she said.

Based on the department’s guidelines, qualified beneficiaries of the social-pension program include those who are 60 years old and older; who are frail, sickly or with disability; without regular income or support from family and relatives; and without pension from private or government institutions.

“Some are also receiving pension from the Government Service Insurance System [GSIS] and Social Security System. That is a big no-no. No matter how small they are receiving in their pension from such agencies, they cannot avail themselves of the social pension from the government

because we have to abide by the guidelines,” Geamala added.

Judith Tanate, the DSWD 6 focal person for Persons with Disabilities and Older Persons, said there are currently 365,908 beneficiaries of the social-pension program in the whole region. Iloilo province has the most number of beneficiaries with 147, 736.

This year the department allotted P2,195,448,000 for the pension of the beneficiaries. Each of them is receiving P1,500 every quarter.

However, Tanate said they could not determine yet the number of beneficiaries who would be delisted from the program, as they are still securing the official list of pensioners from other private and government institutions so they could cross-match them with the list of beneficiaries of socialpension program.

She said they have secured so far the list of pensioners from the GSIS and the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office. The DSWD here enjoined all local government units in the region to ensure that only those who are qualified should get the social pension and to effect immediately the delisting of those who are nonqualified.PNA

Cebu Capitol launches service caravan

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EBU CITY—The provincial government of Cebu brought basic services to the people of the Third District in Balamban town in Cebu on Monday.

The event was the first of a series of “Serbisyo Karaban” (Service Caravan) activities of the capitol this year.

Gov. Hilario Davide III and Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale started the day by distributing agri-engineering tools and equipment to farmers and wheelchairs, eyeglasses and cash incentives to senior citizens in the district.

The provincial government also conducted a medical, dental and surgical mission at the Cebu Provincial Hospital in Balamban, where the governor was among the donors in

the blood-letting activity.

Davide also inaugurated a twoclassroom building worth P2 million in Biasong Elementary School in Balamban.

Magpale officiated the first outof-town session of the Provincial Board (PB) this year at the Balamban Municipal Session Hall.

The PB holds at least four out-oftown sessions a year to bring their services closer to their constituents.

The Cebu Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office also conducted a seminar on Environmental Law Enforcement during the activity. Cebu Province’s Third District is comprised of the towns of Balamban, Pinamungajan, Toledo City, Barili, Tuburan, Asturias and Aloguinsan. PNA

LAMINOS, Laguna—The local government distributed last Thursday P1,500 each to 1,280 senior citizens of this town sans the pomp, pageantry and fanfare by politicians stealing the show for election mileage.

A laminos Mayor Loreto M. Masa directed both the concerned town officials of the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs (Osca) and Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office (MSWDO) not to

entertain or invite political wannabes and aspiring politicians including him to the distribution of the cash grants to elderlies.

Osca head Aida D. Domondon said the mayor instructed them to strictly observe “no politicking” or at least avoid any “political color” that may arise from the handing over of financial assistance to the elders by politicians who want to take advantage of the occasion.

This is to observe transparency

and propriety in government transactions that the funds earmarked for the senior citizens are from the government coffers and not from the politicians’ pockets. Domondon said a Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) 4-A regional office, in coordination with the Osca and the MSWDO, turned over the social pensions to the 1,280 recipients from the town’s 15 barangays starting Wednesday at the multipurpose center here.

She said that the social pensions for the senior citizens cover the 1st Quarter Calendar Year 2018 disbursements of the financial grants to qualified beneficiaries.

She also said the pension beneficiaries were screened based on the DSWD criteria through the assistance of the MSWDO and the village officials in Alaminos’s 15 barangays where four are classified as urban, while 11 are rural barangays. Ruben E. Taningco/PNA

My Lai ceremony highlights peace, but dark memories recalled

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Y LAI, Vietnam—Talk of peace dominated the 50th-anniversary commemoration of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, but among the hundreds in the audience were survivors and a former United States Army photographer whose gruesome images galvanized antiwar opinion.

Their disturbing tales were a sharp rejoinder to the ceremony’s peaceful sentiments.

The memorial events were held on March 16 at the site of the 1968 massacre by American troops of 504 unarmed Vietnamese villagers, mostly women, children and elderly men.

A provincial official addressing the crowd mentioned the killings, but scrupulously avoided naming the US as the two nations steadily improve their relations.

The audience included Sgt. Ron Haeberle, who photographed the aftermath in My Lai, and survivor Tran Van Duc, who was 6 at the time and whose slain mother was photographed by Haeberle.

The two men bonded after they met in 2011. Duc lives in Remscheid, Germany, and a German cinematographer, curious about the connection, put him in touch by a message on Facebook to Haeberle in Ohio.

Duc recalled some US soldiers appearing at his family’s house soon after landing by helicopter, who then herded him, his four siblings and their mother out onto a trail, where American troops began shooting at them.

“The American soldiers set up machine guns at the bridge, then started to fire at us,” Duc told The Associated Press. “At that point, I had to witness the most painful moment in my life—the cries, the screams of terror.

My mother pushed me into the rice field, so I survived.”

Duc’s mother, wounded in the stomach and thigh, tried to cover him and his 14-month-old sister. After the shooting, the soldiers moved along to the village. Duc’s sister began to cry, and their mother, fearful she would draw the soldiers to return, told him to take her

IN this March 15 photo, United States army photographer Ron Haeberle (left) speaks to Do Thi Chi, a survivor of the My Lai massacre in My Lai, Vietnam. More than 1,000 people are marking the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, using the event to talk of peace and cooperation instead of hatred. AP Photo/Hau Dinh

to his grandmother’s house, 7 kilometers (4 miles) away.

“Take Ha to grandma. If you stay here, US soldiers will kill you when they come back,” were the last words Duc heard from her.

Clutching his sister, Duc looked back to see his mother try to grab a bag to get something to staunch her bleeding, but he knew she was in desperate condition.

By the time his grandmother and other villagers returned to recover the remains of their loved ones, they had already been buried.

Baby Ha and another sister survived, but two of Duc’s other sisters were killed.

Duc and Haeberle on Thursday visited the trail where the three, along with about three dozen other people, were shot down.

Haeberle’s shocking photos were published first in November 1969 in The Plain Dealer, the biggest newspaper in his home state of Ohio, and then in Life magazine and all around the world. He had been using his

Army-issue camera to take photos of fellow soldiers to be dispatched to their hometown papers, a standard military public-relations practice that, he acknowledged, did not work so well that day.

It was a technicality that brought the pictures of the carnage to public view; he also carried his personal camera, a Nikon F, for which he had one roll of color film, which meant he did not have to turn in photos to the army’s Public Information Office.

The photo that disturbs him the most, he said, was “the woman with the brains lying beside her head. Because, later on in life, I found out it was Duc’s mother. That to me was upsetting.”

Haeberle came upon the killing scene after being dropped off by a helicopter in the second wave entering the village. With no enemy—the Viet Cong, the VC—in the area firing at them, he had an unmolested view of the atrocities.

“We started going toward the highway, and I noticed over my left shoulder that there were a group of people being, like, they were guarded there, about three or four soldiers around and they were all squatted down and, OK, I walked about another 10, 15 yards, I hear firing.

“I turn around, look over my shoulder.

People get up trying to run, and I figure that something’s wrong. And we heard, you know, a lot of shooting in the village — nobody was shooting at us. We all heard all rapid-fire automatic — you know, it’s just, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on. Then we got down near the trail, there were three people coming toward us, their hands up: ‘No VC, no VC.’ Two children and an old man.

“I thought the soldiers around me, there’s only about three or four, they were going to go ahead and search them or question them.

We’re standing there and, all of a sudden, this guy opens up, and shoots them.”

It was just one of several such shootings he witnessed.

The coldblooded killing was mindboggling to Haeberle, who was 26 at the time, about six years older than the average troops in Charlie Company.

Later, he concluded that the American soldiers were badly trained, scared, bitter, and since they couldn’t understand why the Vietnamese villagers seemed hostile, they considered them to be just like the Viet Cong guerrillas they were fighting.

“You know, ‘They’re all VC, everybody’s VC.’ And I ask myself, are babies VC, or little children VC? B-------, they’re not. It’s just a frame of mind they were in.”

Haeberle gave his camera, the one he shot his famous photos with, what he called his My Lai camera, to Duc, who he says installed it on an altar in his home in Germany.

“The camera captured the image of his mother,” Haeberle said. “That was the last photograph. Even as horrific as it was, he had a photograph. He had the camera.” AP

BusinessMirror

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

/

DREW BARRYMORE and Timothy Olphant in Santa Clarita Diet

GLOBE POSTPAID OFFERS NEW SEASON OF ‘SANTA CLARITA DIET,’ LIMITED-TIME FREE NETFLIX AFTER the success of its debut season on Netflix in 2017, the horror-comedy series Santa Clarita Diet is finally back, still headlined by Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant.

The show is immensely enjoyable for Barrymore’s fans, as she brings the same bubbly charm to the screen reminiscent of her other onscreen heroines in movies, such as Ever After, 50 First Dates and The Wedding Singer.

In the latest season, suburban wife Sheila (Barrymore) and supportive husband Joel (Olyphant) both struggle to face the obstacles of nosy neighbors, law enforcers and finding a cure to the cause of her transformation and her cadaver cravings. As Sheila enjoys her newfound energy and confidence, which she attributes to her “diet,” she struggles to keep her humanity intact as her family tries to feed her and find a cure.

The single-camera series, which counts Drew and Timothy in its list of producers, can be enjoyed on Netflix through Globe Postpaid plans. Globe Postpaid customers can get six months’ worth of Netflix free with Plan 999 and up.

For information, visit goo.gl/8q2mhH.

Google to ban cryptocurrency and related advertisements NEW YORK—Google says it is going to ban advertisements for cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, as well as related content like trading advice and cryptocurrency wallets.

The new policies, which also ban other complex financial products, will go into effect in June.

The Mountain View, California-based company announced the change on Wednesday.

The move follows a similar step by Facebook earlier this year. The social-networking giant updated its ad policy in January to ban financial products often associated with deceptive practices, including those involving cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. AP

Saturday, March 24, 2018 A9

B&O Play presents its luxurious take on wireless earphones PRIMETIME

DINNA CHAN VASQUEZ @dinnachanvasquez luckydinna@gmail.com

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&O Play recently released the E8, a pair of wireless earphones, along with two premium headphones. As expected, the three devices that come from the brand that’s an offshoot of Danish audio brand Bang & Olufsen look and feel sleek and expensive.

If you’re to judge the E8 by appearance, it gets a 100/100.

Aside from the E8, B&O Play also released two new flagship headphones, the H8i and the H9i.

The Beoplay H8 has been given a more contemporary design with anodized aluminum discs that have been streamlined to flush with the ear cups.

The mono-arm has been redesigned to give the H8i a cleaner and more minimalistic look. The playtime from Beoplay H8 to H8i has also been increased by more than 100 percent. The H8i plays up to 30 hours with Bluetooth and ANC on. With just one click, you can turn off the music and the ANC at the same time to listen to your surroundings. The H8i also has a proximity-sensor feature that automatically pauses your music or video streaming when you remove the headphones. When you put the headphones back on, the music or video starts playing again. There is also dual device connectivity.

The wireless Beoplay H9i, on the other hand, has

an over-ear wearing style with a headband made of a solid but lightweight aluminum frame covered with stitched cowhide leather and anodized aluminium ear cups. Underneath the soft lambskin ear cushion is adaptive memory foam that adapts to the shape and curve of the ear for supreme comfort and breathability. But let’s go back to the E8, which is the one that I’m using right now. The E8 is not my first Beoplay device. I have the H8, which I love but can only use at home because it’s quite big.

The E8 is perfect in size and function. I love it because it doesn’t have those dangling little sticks of the Apple AirPods. It’s also a plus that the E8 comes in black or charcoal color schemes. True story: My daughter was wearing faux AirPods on the MRT and there were two men in front of her yakking about how they pitied her because she was fat and deaf. They thought the faux AirPods was a hearing aid.

You won’t get into that situation with the B&O Play E8 wireless earphones. It comes in a leather-bound case that’s shaped like a bean or pebble with a braided fabric strap attached. The case, by the way, can charge the earphones twice. When you take the case out of your purse, there’s an element of humble bragging involved. It’s like you’re saying, “My earphones are better than yours.” You’re not even thinking that, but it’s true.

If you place the earphones into the charging case, it triggers a sensor and they automatically power down.

The case is magnetized so the earphones are safe and secure. The case includes different-sized ear tips.

The Beoplay E8 is designed to be waterproof, dustproof and sweat-resistant so you can actually use it outdoors without any fear.

To use, take the earphones out of the charging case, tap on the aluminum encircled touch interface and you’re all set to listen to music, switch between tracks, take calls and activate Transparency Mode

and voice commands. Everything is controlled by the intuitive touch interface on the earphones, so you don’t even have to take your smartphone out of your pocket or bag.

Beoplay E8 delivers up to four hours of music in one charge. For two additional charges on the move, just snap the earpieces into the pocket-friendly charging case.

The earphones were tuned by acclaimed Bang & Olufsen sound engineers for a rich, full-bodied and precise soundstage that will leave your ears wanting more. Each earpiece has a 5.7-mm dynamic speaker, a small electromagnetic transducer, NFMI technology and a Bluetooth 4.2 chip with Digital Sound Processing that allows for dynamic sound tuning and sound without interruption.

The sound is superb, as expected. At a certain volume level, the E8 shuts out other noises except whatever it is you’re listening to. The Bluetooth connection is also solid so there’s none of that hissing sound you normally get with wireless headphones and earphones that aren’t B&O Play.

The only con is that if you have inner ear contraption issues, you’d have a problem with this.

The E8 needs to be cleaned regularly for this reason.

But the superb design and performance more than make up for this.

Do I love it? Yes! Would I shell out over P15,000 for it? Yes, I would. If you can’t live without listening to music or watching videos on the go, you need the Beoplay E8.

The new devices and other B&O Play audio products are available at select Rustan’s Department Stores and soon at Mobile 1 and select Power Mac Centers; the B&O Play Stores in Solaire Resort & Casino and The Podium; the B&O Kiosk in Greenbelt 5; and Plug n Play at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3. ■

YouTube tries to crack down on conspiracy videos AXA and eCompareMo.com ink partnership AXA Philippines, one of the country’s top insurance companies, and eCompareMo, the Philippines’s No.1 financial supermarket, recently sealed a strategic partnership to allow customers to easily purchase insurance online.

Available on their site are MyAmbition and Smart Traveller, two of AXA’s leading products.

Present during the signing of partnership agreement were (from left): eCompareMo Chief Commercial Officer Ched Limson and director and Cofounder Stephanie Chung, with AXA Philippines President and CEO Rahul Hora and Chief Distribution Officer Marie Raymundo.

BY BARBARA ORTUTAY The Associated Press NEW YORK—YouTube says it’s cracking down on conspiracy videos, though it’s scant on the details.

Conspiracy videos abound on YouTube, whether it’s about the Earth being flat or school shootings being staged. YouTube, its parent Google, Facebook and Twitter are all facing challenges with the spread of misinformation, propaganda and fake news.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said at a conference on Tuesday that the company will include links to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to try to debunk videos espousing conspiracy theories.

But Wikipedia itself has had its share of credibility issues, as the service lets anyone edit its content, whether that person is a pedigreed expert or an online troll. Though Wikipedia has tried to address that—in part by restricting edits on high-profile or controversial pages—it isn’t immune from hoaxes and

its own conspiracy theories.

In a statement on Wednesday, YouTube said the links will include other “third-party sources” besides Wikipedia, though YouTube isn’t identifying any. The organization that runs Wikipedia said on Wednesday that it had no formal partnership with YouTube, but welcomed the use of Wikipedia resources.

YouTube said the move is part of a broader initiative to crack down on misinformation, though it did not give details on what else is in the works.

While conspiracy videos are nothing new on YouTube, the topic received renewed attention in recent weeks as videos falsely claimed that students speaking out about the February 14 Florida school shooting, which killed 17 people, were “crisis actors” who were not really there when it happened. One such conspiracy video was the top trending video on YouTube until the company removed it—although many similar videos remained up, illustrating the difficulty in instituting any sort of crackdown.

Conspiracy videos, to be sure, are not against YouTube’s policies. In the crisis actor case, the company said it removed the video because it violated its rules against harassment.

As such, YouTube is unlikely to ban misinformation entirely. Instead, it may adopt Facebook’s tactic of de-emphasizing such content and making it less likely to be seen. As it stands, critics say YouTube is doing the opposite.

“What keeps people glued to YouTube? Its algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with—or to incendiary content in general,” Zeynep Tufekci, a University of North Carolina professor who studies the social impact of technology, wrote in a recent New York Times essay. Tufekci said that as users click through video after video, excited by “uncovering more secrets and deeper truths,” YouTube leads us down “a rabbit hole of extremism, while Google racks up the ad sales.”

BusinessMirror

A10 Saturday, March 24, 2018

Industry-leading training program for next-gen tech talent launched F5 NETWORKS (www.f5.com) announced recently the Super-NetOps initiative, an Asia Pacific-first training program aimed at helping businesses and the wider information-technology (IT) industry more effectively embrace automation, unlock new levels of performance, address lingering skill gaps and help IT professionals deliver critical network operations functions through DevOps methodologies.

Evolving threat landscapes and multicloud environments have driven an increased demand for application services to be delivered in a more automated way. This demand for greater efficiencies within the IT infrastructure has created a gap in professionals skilled in both essential and emerging technologies—a key point that businesses have identified as an obstacle to success.

“When speaking with many of our customers, a common theme rings through—the gap when it comes to work practices and collaboration between the NetOps and DevOps teams,” said Adam Judd, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, China and Japan for F5 Networks. “As the need for IT services exceeds the capabilities of manual, task-based approaches, F5 is committed to meeting this challenge head-on, and helping the industry grow with the right tools and talent.” F5’s global Super-NetOps program aims to provide participants with a combination of essential and emerging networking skills. Its aims to shake up the network operations (NetOps) community to facilitate stronger collaboration with developers (DevOps) and fuel a shift from manual task-based practices to achieve unprecedented levels of automation, continuous improvement and business return on investment. Already trialed with hundreds of F5 customers, the course has been specifically structured to break down operational silos and reduce time-to-service from days to minutes, all while ensuring applications meet necessary compliance, policy, and performance standards.

In the coming months, F5 will roll out an expanded curriculum, including security-focused automated deployment methodologies for the burgeoning DevSecOps role. Other topics set to feature include application language frameworks and third-party automation toolchain enablement.

“As a majority of Asia-Pacific businesses look to expand their offerings of digital products and services through to 2020, network operations expertise is more important than ever, especially as businesses look for faster, smarter and safer applications. The pressure is on traditional IT teams to enable the orchestration and agility needed to succeed in a digital economy by embracing programmability. The future is very much automated, and there’s no one better suited to automating the network than the engineers and architects that know how to keep the engine of the Internet economy running,” Judd added.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Breaking up with Facebook?

It’s harder than it looks

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BY BARBARA ORTUTAY The Associated Press

EW YORK—Facebook’s latest privacy scandal, involving Trump campaign consultants who allegedly stole data on tens of millions of users in order to influence elections, has some people reconsidering their relationship status with the social network.

There’s just one problem: There isn’t much of anywhere else to go.

Facebook has weathered many such blow-ups before and is used to apologizing and moving on. But the stakes are bigger this time.

Regulatory authorities are starting to focus on the data misappropriation, triggering a 9-percent decline in Facebook’s normally high-flying stock since Monday. Some of that reflects fear that changes in Facebook’s business will hurt profits or that advertisers and users will sour on the social network.

The furor over Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm accused of stealing Facebook data, follows a bad year in which Facebook acknowledged helping spread fake news and propaganda from Russian agents. It also comes less than three months after CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the world that he would devote the year to fixing Facebook. Instead, things seem to be getting worse.

“It’s more serious economically, politically, financially and will require a more robust response in order to regain users’ trust,” said Steve Jones, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Yet leaving Facebook, like ending a long marriage, isn’t remotely simple. Starting with the little things.

Arvind Rajan, a tech executive from San Francisco who deactivated his account on Monday, suddenly discovered he needs to create new usernames and passwords for a variety of apps and web sites. That’s because he previously logged in with his Facebook ID. It’s a pain, he said, “but not the end of the world.” And because he is bothered by Facebook’s “ham-handed” response to recent problems, the inconvenience is worth it.

For other users looking to leave, it can feel as if there are no real alternatives. Twitter? Too flighty, too public. Instagram? Whoops, owned by Facebook.

Snapchat? Please, unless you’re under 25—in which case you’re probably not on Facebook to begin with.

Facebook connects 2.2 billion users and a host of communities that have sprung up on its network. No other company can match the breadth or depth of these connections—thanks in part to Facebook’s proclivity for squashing or swallowing up its competition.

But it is precisely in Facebook’s interest to make users feel Facebook is the only place to connect

with others. Where else will grandmothers see photos of their far-flung grandkids? How will new mothers connect to other parents also up at 4 am with a newborn?

“My only hesitation is that there are hundreds of pictures posted over 13 years of my life that I do not want to lose access to. If there was a way to recover these photos, I would deactivate immediately,” Daniel Schwartz, who lives in Atlanta, said in an e-mail.

People eager to delete their profiles may find unexpected problems that point to how integral Facebook is to many activities, said Ifeoma Ajunwa, a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. “It is getting more and more difficult for people to delete Facebook, since it’s not just as a socialmedia platform but also almost like a meeting square,” she said. Parents could soon realize that their child’s soccer schedule with games and pickup times is only on a Facebook page, for example. Many businesses also schedule meetings via Facebook.

“It’s more and more difficult for people to feel plugged in if you’re not on Facebook,” Ajunwa said.

There are no signs, so far, that users are leaving in droves—and advertisers go where the eyeballs are, so they aren’t leaving either. Research firm eMarketer hasn’t changed its estimate that worldwide ad spending on Facebook will climb 22 percent this year to nearly $49 billion.

Still, if “Facebook were forced to change the way it uses data or the way its ad products work, then advertisers may become less enamored with it,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with the firm.

Not surprisingly, Facebook doesn’t make it easy to leave. To permanently delete your account, you need to make a request to the company. The process can take several days, and if you log in during this time, your request will be canceled. It can take up to 90 days to delete everything.

There’s a less permanent way to leave, deactivation, which hides your profile from everyone but lets you return if you change your mind.

Lili Orozco, a 28-year-old office manager for her family’s heating and cooling company in Watkinsville, Georgia, deleted her account in December. She was upset that every new app she downloaded would ask for her Facebook contacts.

And while she liked staying in touch with people, she was irritated by the conspiracy stories her highschool friends would share. “Falsehoods spread faster on Facebook than the truth does,” she said. She now gets her news from Twitter and shares pictures with friends through Instagram.

■ AP Technology Writer Mae Anderson in New York and Associated Press Writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this story.

Philippine Airlines acquires leading-edge airlines solutions systems

BY RIZAL RAOUL REYES ALTHOUGH leading national carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) recently received Skytrax’s coveted four-star rating, President and COO Jaime Bautista said it continues pushing in developing better products, systems and services.

In line with this direction, the Lucio Tanled company has signed a landmark agreement with Madrid, Spain-based advanced airlines systems provider Amadeus to deliver an extensive transformation of the airline’s core technology systems. Bautista said PAL will adopt the full Amadeus Altéa Suite, a complete Passenger Service System that aims to streamline and improve all core passenger processes for the flag carrier, including reservation, inventory, departure control and flight management. He added the deploying the new system will enable PAL customers to enjoy a smoother experience, from booking to boarding.

“We want Philippine Airlines to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s best airlines. We are immensely proud of our four-star rating, but it has only inspired us to work even harder. Our mission is to represent the best of the Philippines, and the best of the Filipinos to the world. So our next goal is to get that fifth star by 2020,” Bautista pointed out it a news statement.

“Philippine Airlines should offer a passenger experience that’s truly representative of the

Philippines and a source of pride for our people. We are expanding and modernizing our fleet, opening new routes, but, most important, we are sharpening our customer service excellence. We need technology that will capably support our ambitions, but also a partner that shares our vision. Accordingly, after a rigorous evaluation, we found that in Amadeus,” Bautista explained.

Once adopted, Bautista said the next-

generation Amadeus Altéa Suite airline IT system will help PAL enhance customer experience by delivering a more consistent and personalized customer service, develop new revenue streams, and improve operational efficiency. Moreover, PAL will get tangible benefits, such as faster and simpler check-in for travelers, the ability to reaccommodate disrupted passengers in a matter of seconds, improved on-time performance, and consistent automatic application of

customer preferences at every touch point.

Bautista pointed out that deploying the Amadeus system will support PAL’s ambitions to join an airline alliance. More than two-thirds of Star Alliance airlines, three-quarters of Oneworld airlines and half of SkyTeam airlines use Altéa. As a community platform for airlines, Altéa enables better integration between partner airlines, with real-time sharing of availability, fares, customer and booking information to deliver a harmonized customer experience across the alliance.

Cyril Tetaz, executive vice president for airlines of Amadeus Asia Pacific, said he is confident PAL will become a major force in the global arena. “It’s clear that Philippine Airlines’s business strategy is en route to further propel it into the future of travel, where its customers need it to be, and we’re extremely proud to walk that path with the airline. We are committed to Philippine Airlines’s success in the long term, and look forward to delivering continual collaboration to ensure today’s agreement matches the expectations of its travelers,” he said.

“We warmly welcome Philippine Airlines to the Amadeus Altéa community, where it joins leading airlines around the world which similarly value the flexibility and customer centricity brought to them by Amadeus’s technology,” he added.

By the end of 2017, 199 customers had contracted either of the Amadeus Passenger Service Systems (Altéa or New Skies) and 195 had implemented them.

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Saturday, March 24, 2018 A11

Karlie Kloss teaches teenage girls how to code

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KARLIE KLOSS and a group of Kode With Klossy scholars take a selfie in her office in New York to announce the 2018 all-girls coding boot camp.

Kloss started the camp in 2015 to empower girls to learn to code and become leaders in the tech industry.

BY CAROLINE TELL New York Times News Service

EW YORK—Earlier this month, Karlie Kloss invited four teenage girls to her homey office on Lafayette Street in SoHo, where she runs Klossy, a fashion, multimedia and philanthropic organization.

Dressed in a navy blue blazer, black turtleneck and cropped jeans, Kloss, 25, breezed in and hugged the girls, complimenting one’s bright yellow sweater, another’s combat boots. “I feel like you’ve all grown so much since I last saw you,” she said.

She walked over to the pristine kitchen, with its white subway tile backsplash and restaurant-grade appliances, and grabbed some goodies. “But first, we cupcake,” Kloss said as she led the young women into a conference room decorated with a bronze chandelier, modern art and flower bouquets. Her campers turned giddy as they took their seats around a wooden table.

“Beyond just wanting to hang out with you guys, I want you to be a part of our big announcement,” Kloss said. “You’re the reason we want to keep growing this.”

She was referring to Kode With Klossy, the coding camp she started in 2015 to empower girls to learn to code and become leaders in tech. Kloss went around the room, asking what each had been up to since attending her coding camp last summer.

Valeria Torres-Olivares, 18, from Princeton, New Jersey, was first to speak. She was accepted to Princeton University, where she’ll major in computer science. The room erupted into cheers. She also talked about the coding class she started at the Princeton Public Library with her younger sister Kyara, 14, a fellow camper.

“We made it girls-only so our students would have an environment they feel safe in,” Torres-Olivares said. “When boys are in the classroom, it’s harder.”

Another camper, Hope Dunner, 19, had completed a computer science internship at Microsoft. Victoria Johnston, 17, finished an internship at Viacom and wants to use coding to pursue activism. “I’m creating a documentary series that combines fashion and personal stories, like what makes you different and unique,” Johnston said. “I’m also learning to come out of my shell.”

Kloss beamed. “This is so awesome, you guys.” she said. A model of 11 years (she was discovered at a benefit fashion show in her hometown, Saint Louis), Kloss became the face of brands, including Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein and Versace. In her travels, she often found herself hobnobbing with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and realized how technology was transforming society.

“I remember I had met Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram, and I said, ‘You created a product that touches hundreds of millions of people,’” she said. “‘What do you know that these hundreds of millions of people don’t know?’ I wanted to understand that language and skill set.”

GEORGE ETHEREDGE/ NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Kloss took a two-week class at the Flatiron School, a coding boot camp in lower Manhattan where she learned to build Web apps using the program Ruby.

Kloss said she has always been fascinated by how things work. “I’ve always been interested...in science and math,” she said. “That’s where I excelled as a student long before my modeling career.”

The next year, she started her coding scholarship program at the Flatiron School, which has since expanded to 50 camps in 25 cities, where 1,000 girls this summer can learn basic HTML/CSS, Ruby and JavaScript, virtual-reality programs, gaming and even artificial intelligence.

“I love that they’re taking their experiences as 15-year-old girls in America and translating them into actual projects,” Kloss said. “They’re going to build the algorithms of our future because they have different life perspectives of the world.”

Kloss has a worldly perspective herself. A fulltime model, she is on the road for much of the year.

“Yesterday I woke up in Paris, and today I woke up in New York,” she said.

Her closest friends include Taylor Swift. They have

vacationed together and have sat courtside at a New York Knicks game. Despite Internet gossip suggesting otherwise, the pair continues to be good friends and they talk frequently. “Don’t believe everything you read,” Kloss said.

She is also close with Serena Williams. They sit on the board of Oath, the Verizon subsidiary that owns AOL, Yahoo and other digital content brands. “Serena is one of the most extraordinary women on the planet,” Kloss said.

“She challenges the status quo in so many ways, and I learn from her constantly.”

What has people talking, however, is Kloss’s longtime boyfriend, Joshua Kushner, 32, a venture capitalist and a founder of the health insurance startup Oscar Health. His older brother is Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to President Donald J. Trump and the husband of Ivanka Trump.

Kloss refused to comment on her relationship. “My relationship has nothing to do with this interview,” she said. But she has not been shy about sharing her political views on Instagram. She recently posted an image for March for Our Lives, a protest against gun

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Rise of mobile artificial intelligence CONTINUED FROM A12 hardware level, GPU and various types of customized AI chips keep coming, promoting the growth of computing power of semiconductor hardware.

With algorithm and chips working together at the same time, AI computing power makes several dozen or even several hundred leaps every year. In the past, due to constraints in performance and technology, development of AI applications was confined to the cloud.

But nowadays, with the joint advancement of algorithm and chips, On-Device AI will unlock much more room for the imagination of application developers, and phones can support more real time, more powerful and more intelligent AI applications.

With Huawei releasing its new flagship, the P20, in a few days, can we expect even more advanced AI capabilities?

Everything has yet to be official but from all the information we’ve gathered in the past couple of weeks, we know that the P20 series will offer several choices, namely, the P20 Lite, P20 (regular) and P20 Plus (or will it now be called Pro?), though we’re still unsure if Huawei will be bringing all three variants to the Philippine market.

As far as the “leaked” photos, it shows that the P20 will feature a bezel-free screen and a “notch” similar to the one on the iPhoneX. The P20 Lite is said to be a 5.6-inch display with a resolution of 2250x1080 pixels with an LCD panel, while the P20 has slightly bigger 5.8-inch display. The P20 Pro is rumored to have a 6.1-inch OLED screen.

The three look visibly similar except that the smaller P20 Lite has larger bezels and has the fingerprint scanner on the rear of the handset, whereas the P20 and P20 Pro have the fingerprint scanner on the front.

All have a raised dual camera unit, but the P20 Pro breaks out a third lens on the rear. The Huawei P series has always been made for photography and it has stood out because of its partnership with Leica.

The P20 and P20 Pro looks to further that partnership and if the leaked specs are to be believed, the Pro version might just have a whopping 40-MP, 20-MP and 8-MP sensor for its triple rear camera.

I expect that Huawei and Leica will continue the RGB and monochrome setup but its intriguing as to how they will utilize the third camera. Wide angle? 4x zoom?

The small notch looks to house the front-facing (24-megapixel?) selfie camera and a sensor, which will most likely be used for AI and facial-recognition purposes.

As to how the P20 will use AI, I think we can expect more improvements on the language-translation feature. I also think it would be able to recognize more scenes/objects, or maybe the P20 will now be able to further distinguish objects or identify specific food items and show you just how many calories it contains.

Are you excited about the P20? What new features are you hoping to see? We’ll have more information in the coming weeks.

VIVO UNVEILS NEW FLAGSHIP, THE VIVO V9

AFTER establishing a strong presence in the local smartphone market last year with the Vivo V7+ and Vivo V7, the brand seeks to further its claim as the smartphone of choice of the selfie-centric generation with its new flagship phone for 2018: the Vivo V9.

Launched last Thursday at the Nobu Hotel City of Dreams, the Vivo V9 comes with a Full View Display, Dual Rear cameras, and features the now famous “notch.”

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, the Vivo

violence planned by teenage survivors of a Florida high-school shooting, as well as a photo from the 2018 Women’s March. On Election Day 2016, she posted a photo of herself voting with the hashtag #ImWithHer. Joshua Kushner’s Instagram feed is less overtly political, but he reportedly donated $50,000 to March for Our Lives.

After the girls’ introductions, the campers made their way to a small room and assembled on a beige couch. They gathered to record a 45-second video, shot on a smartphone, to invite girls to apply for this summer’s camp.

“I have to do this type of stuff all the time, and I always get nervous,” Kloss said. “We’ll do as many takes as we need.”

The group did a few sequences, with each girl flubbing a line and breaking into nervous laughter.

Kloss extended a swanlike arm to create the perfect selfie angle, and tapped record.

“You know that feeling when you’ve got all your girls by your side and you feel like anything’s possible?” Kloss said into her iPhone. “Well that’s me right now.” ■

V9 does look a lot like the iPhone X, (especially the black variant) because of the notch on the front screen and vertical dual-camera placement at the back, but instead of the Apple logo, the Vivo V9 has a very responsive fingerprint sensor in its place. Turn the phone on and you’ll be greeted by familiar looking icons and wallpapers that look crisp and clear on the V9’s 6.3-inch IPS screen, which has a resolution of 2280x1080. If you love watching movies or playing games on your mobile device, you’ll enjoy the V9’s Full View Display.

The V9 uses a 2.2 GHz Snapdragon 625 Octacore processor and comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage—expandable via the triple slot tray (2 SIM card slots and one for microSD) and a 3260mAH battery.

On the back of the phone are the dual rear cameras, a 16 MP and 5 MP with f/2.0 aperture.

The secondary camera allows you to get those bokeh shots (blurred background) which can make your photos look a bit more artistic and your portrait shots stand out.

Since it’s really meant for those who love to take selfies, the main camera of the V9 is its front camera.

The 24-MP camera takes awesome selfies, has an improved beauty mode and supports AR, or those augmented-reality stickers that a lot of young people seem to love because it can make them look like kittens, dogs, etc., and add other cute stuff to their selfies. The front cam can even shoot 4K videos.

Besides the above-mentioned fingerprint scanner, you can also set up facial recognition to unlock your phone. Set up is easy, although using it to unlock your phone is a bit slower and less secure. I still have to test it thoroughly as to how accurate it can be.

I’ll have a full review and will announce the official pricing of the V9 via my social-media accounts, so be sure to follow @whereiseduy on Instagram and Twitter. ■

THE all-screen Vivo V9

BusinessMirror

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

Saturday, March 24, 2018 A12

Rise of mobile artificial intelligence THE TECHNIVORE ED UY

whereiseduy@gmail.com

“Any AI smart enough to pass a Turing test is smart enough to know to fail it.”—IAN MCDONALD, RIVER OF GODS

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HILE smartphone companies continue to highlight features, such as bezel-less screens, DSLR-like camera capabilities, higher screen resolutions and longer battery life, all of which are much easier to understand for the regular consumer, the more interesting developments are happening deep within the phone’s internals. Not just in terms of processing power or graphical capabilities, but artificial intelligence or AI. According to research from Counterpoint’s Components Tracker Service, 1 in 3 smartphones, or roughly more than half a billion, shipped in 2020 will natively embed machine learning and AI capabilities at the chipset level.

Apple’s Bionic system on chip (SOC) will drive native AI adoption in smartphones, making the iPhone maker a leader in the AI-capable chip market through 2020. Huawei comes in second in the market with AI-capable smartphones when it launched its HiSilicon Kirin 970 SOC. The initial driver for the rapid adoption of AI in smartphones is the use of facial-recognition technology by Apple in the iPhone X. With advanced SOC-level AI capabilities, smartphones will be able to perform a variety of tasks, such as processing natural languages, including realtime translation; helping users take better photos by intelligently identifying objects and adjusting camera settings accordingly—things which, by the way, the Huawei Mate 10 smartphone series can already do.

Experts say this is just the start as machine learning will eventually make smartphones understand user behavior in an unprecedented manner. By analyzing user behavior patterns, devices will be able to make decisions and perform tasks that will reduce physical interaction time between the user and the device.

HUAWEI’S A.I. STORY WITH the release of their most recent flagship products, Huawei hailed the advent of a never-beforeseen AI development strategy: from chip planning to phone manufacturing carrying the AI platform. The Huawei Mate 10 with Kirin 970 chip was hailed as the “first mobile phone AI chip.”

Device Side AI, or On-Device AI, is one of the most talked-about topics in AI in recent years; it refers to a concept that the collection and calculation of data and decision-making are all performed on the end device.

Compared with cloud AI, On-Device AI is featured by enhanced stability, less time delay and a commitment to protect user privacy at the same time.

However, its computing power is still not in the same league as cloud computing, but with the popularization of AI, On-Device AI is garnering greater acclaim in the market. On-Device AI requires corresponding chip/board on the hardware end device.

“The project of Kirin 970 was established two years ago,” said Eric Zhou, marketing director for Huawei’s Wireless End Device Chip Business Department, who has been in the chip industry for 12 years. He said the most important factor in defining a chip was prognosis.

Huawei’s team detected a major bottleneck in the AI industry, computing power, and with such inadequacy, both the training and application of in depth learning would be greatly restricted.

Compared to the previous Kirin 960, Kirin 970 is equipped with newly added NPU specializing in processing AI computing, and, moreover, it is featured by optimized functions, higher energyefficiency ratio, better communication and other optimized solutions, such as Android version upgrades, with its energy-efficiency ratio

especially remarkable.

It claims to be an AI chip, because it provides a new structure for mobile computing of AI, called HIAI, which boasts a unique integrated NPU (NeuralNetwork Processing Unit).

“As we look to the future of smartphones, we’re at the threshold of an exciting new era, Mobile AI = On-Device AI + Cloud AI,” Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said in one of his interviews. “Huawei is committed to developing smart devices into intelligent devices by building end-to-end capabilities that support coordinated development of chips, devices and the cloud. The ultimate goal is to provide a significantly better user experience.”

Kirin 970 is powered by an 8-core CPU and a new generation 12-core GPU. Built using a 10 nm advanced process, the chipset packs 5.5 billion transistors into an area of only 1 cm. It is the first mobile AI computing platform featuring a dedicated NPU. Compared to a quad-core Cortex-A73 CPU cluster, the Kirin 970’s new heterogeneous computing architecture delivers up to 25 times the performance with 50 times greater efficiency. Simply put, the Kirin 970 can perform the same AI computing tasks faster and with far less power. In a benchmark image recognition test, the Kirin 970 processed 2000 images per minute, which was faster than other chips on the market.

At an event held in London in January of this year, Huawei gathered together experts on AI and human behavior to put our minds at rest about how the technology will help free us from mundane decisions, and actually encourage creativity further.

According to research done by Huawei, we make about 35,000 decisions a day and AI can help free our minds from some of the mundane decisions we have to make and instead help us concentrate on the more important things we have to deal with. By using its sensors and data, the NPU can make the jump from collecting and analyzing data, to eventually intelligently using that data to help us make decisions.

“AI needs to make our lives easier,” Huawei Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Garrihy said. “We can forget things because AI will remember for us, and then go on to make an even better decision when it does. It could unlock human potential.”

The third-biggest smartphone manufacturer believes AI will become mainstream in terms of mass awareness this year.

Some AI functions that can already be achieved by the Mate 10 include: 1. RECOGNITION OF SCENES: The Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro have honed their skills with 100 million pictures, and can recognize 13 scenes and objects intelligently.

After recognizing the scenes/objects inside the lens (such as a still flower or a running human), the system will adjust camera setting or conduct deblurring automatically according to the property of the objects, and thus producing a picture that better fits the scene.

2. A.I. BEAUTIFICATION MODE: With built-in facial-recognition technology, Mate 10 phones are able to detect human face and beautify the image automatically, alternating dynamic effects every three seconds. Even when another human face moves in front of the camera, AI beautification can still function precisely.

3. A.I. NOISE REDUCTION: With its in-depth learning algorithm, Kirin 970 is capable of reducing noises and enhance vocal signals effectively. Success rate of its voice recognition amid vehicle noise has risen from 80 percent to 92 percent.

4. VOICE TRANSLATION: The Mate 10 carries AIdriven voice translation system that is customized

by Microsoft. With the support of NPU, it can achieve real-time, back-and-forth text translation and image recognition translation at a speed 300 percent faster than traditional translation, and it is capable of translating 50 languages.

The Mate 10 also comes with a special AI application, whose function is to switch off unnecessary apps running in the background while guaranteeing user experience by analyzing local data to understand user’s habits.

For the time being, the development of the AI industry is in full swing, with scenes of prosperity across the whole. On the algorithm level, numerous researchers are conducting studies in different fields of AI, and their endeavor has not only bred black technology like AlphaGo but also has constantly optimized the application of algorithm. On the

CONTINUED ON A11

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FROM the top: Huawei P20, P20 Lite and P20 Pro, which will be unveiled at a major Paris event next week.