BusinessMirror September 20, 2020

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DATA CHAMPION

TEACHING LIFE IN A PANDEMIC

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Sunday, September 20, 2020 Vol. 15 No. 346

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Experience is the best teacher, it’s been said, and as the Philippine education system preps for blended learning, the challenge of the times is becoming part of the lesson plan.

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Text & photos by Bernard Testa

HESE days, Neriza Solidarios is among thousands of publicschool teachers feverishly preparing for what’s probably the biggest challenge of their career: ensuring they and their students successfully migrate to a “blended learning” forced by severe limits on classroom interactions as a pandemic rages.

While much of the accounts about the challenge to the school system—to the Department of Education, the school officials, teachers and students and their parents forced to supervise them at home— have lately dwelt on connectivity

woes and the financial constraints of teachers and students struggling with getting the right devices and paying for Internet connections, teacher Neriza is reprising her usual “telenovela” routine as she distributes modules to parents and

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guardians of pupils enrolled in their school. Of course, they practice social distancing and other safety protocols in the distribution of modules prepared, with much effort during the pandemic’s lockdowns, by the school’s teacher manpower.

The modules are part of what’s called blended learning— where, in certain places classroom teaching will not be fully substituted by online classes, but supplemented with modules distributed to the children’s homes or their schools; for pickup later as they are accomplished.

Her life, their lessons

BUT to Ma’am Neriza Solidarios, every start of the school year will still be a “tele-Neriza“ life story, modules or not.

“Alam nila ’yung buhay ko, ’yun ang pang inspire ko sa kanila; ’yung narating ko ngayon, values na natutunan ko nung nag-aaral pa ako, kasi sa kanila, kahit sabihin nating ma-

hirap ’yung buhay nila, hindi nila dinanas ’yung dinanas kong hirap [They know my life, I use it to inspire them; how far I’ve come, the values I picked up while studying. To them, no matter what difficulties they face, they didn’t experience the extreme hardship I felt].“ She said she just wants to let her students understand her experiences, especially in these times when the pandemic has caused so much anxiety among the young, on whom Covid-19 has forced circumstances they never experienced. “When I go to their houses, and I see they’re small but they have a TV set, I note that.”

She lets them know her house when she was their age “was made of nipa and bamboo; our stove and clothes iron ran on charcoal, we had no electricity, while all of their home devices run on electricity; so they realize that they’re not in such dire difficulties after all.”

Solidarios, a master teacher at

San Juan Elementary School Unit 1 on Gen. Ricarte Estrella Street, Cainta, Rizal, recalls in a raspy voice how, “Kahit na ’yung mga suwail at maliligalig na mga lalaki, e umiiyak sila. ’Yun ang gusto kong ma-feel nila, magkaroon sila ng self-want or value sa pag-aaral [Even the most hard-headed or angst-ridden boys, they cry. I want them to feel that, so they’ll want so hard to continue studying, or value their education].”

The old net bag

GETTING to be a full-fledged teacher was, after all, a long struggle for Neriza, who recalls being so poor when growing up with her mother in Agusan, that she went to school with only an old net bag to carry her stuff. On several occasions, she got to school realizing “my pencil had fallen through that orange, red and blue net.”

So, she told herself, “life cannot be like this always.” She vowed

to her mother that things will be better. The promise came at the end of a long journey.

Composed but teary eyed, she narrated to the BusinessMirror how she uses her life story to entice, inspire and motivate her Grade 6 students. It’s something she found effective before the pandemic, and believes will become even more so in these trying times.

After all, she said, what makes her character and reputation resonate in the school as a strict disciplinarian of a teacher and class advisor are the lessons life has taught her.

Truly, she likes to stress, experience is the best teacher.

“If you experienced something in life that had a good impact on you, you must share that with the students and their parents; yes, even the challenges and all the trials.” If one succeeds in pursuing her dreams as she did, that’s also worth sharing: “we didn’t grow Continued on A2

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Source: BSP (September 18, 2020)

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A2 Sunday, September 20, 2020

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Teaching life in a pandemic Continued from A1

rich, but we are satisfied and found fulfilment, we are contented, that’s the main essence of life,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Neriza continued her story, as parents and guardians started to line up to get their modules at their humble school grounds.

Bully boy

HER baptism of fire came 22 years ago in this same school, and proved to be a blessing in disguise.

“As a new teacher, I was strict in attendance, in ensuring students come to school, do their assignments, do all of their assignments.”

Her first encounter with a rude student, a total bully, on her first teaching day was an epic fail.

The Grade 6 boy kept answering her back, so she was forced to warn him: “Kapag hindi ka tumigil nang kakasagot nang pabalang, itong chalk na ito ay ipapakain ko sa ’yo.

Hindi talaga ako nagbibiro [If you don’t stop answering in a disrespectful manner, I’ll make you eat this chalk, I swear].”

She regretted losing her calm.

“I wept in frustration. It was the first time I experienced dealing with such a rude boy. He kept warning me he’ll report me to authorities, he’ll go to any forum, and he wouldn’t stop threatening me.”

Neriza was sorry it happened, and the grandmother who chased her and scolded her for the unfortunate incident turned out to be also as vulgar as her grandson.

But soon as she lifted her fate to God, the tide turned. With the classmates’ version of the story all weighing in her favor, the boy eventually admitted his fault. Later on, she became good friends with the family, who thanked her for the guidance she provided the student.

Years later, he grew up a fine young man, and is now a settled man with a big heart.

Since then, she has carried that reputation of instilling discipline and inspiration in her class.

Elementary, high-school days

HER first day in class will, as always, include a retelling of her experience as a young lass walking with just one uniform and a pair of shoes during elementary and high school.

“I studied elementary in Sitio Bukid-Bukid, Barangay La Union, Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte, a 30-minute walk from our house.

“But when I reached high school, I had to start walking the 5-km distance at 6 am so I can reach school by 7:30. Going home, I must start walking at 4:30 pm before it gets dark.“ Her mother would often give her lunch baon of rice and salted

fish “but grilled, because we had no cooking oil to fry it with.”

When she was in high school in Candelaria Institute in the town, “I only had one pair of shoes, a Grosby, a gift from one of my siblings, and I used that from first to fourth year high school, and by that time, it had nearly broken down into pieces, riddled with holes.”

She is beyond resilience, but it has toughened her spirit and molded her character—a winner.

“My mama was so determined that whatever happens, I should be able to finish my education,” she said.

That, she added, “was our only assurance to ourselves that in time, life will be better, if I graduate.”

On weekends, her mother would drag her along to dances in their tiny sitio, as there were always events there—a Mr. and Miss contest, a fund raising, where “we would peddle candy, biscuits, coffee, Milo. That was also our source of income, besides mama’s taking care of pigs.”

Her mother, she noted, “had such a high regard of education, and she swore that would be her most important legacy to me.”

She was the middle child in a brood of five girls. The two older ones are twins; and there are two more girls after her.

Their father left them when she was young, to work in Manila, taking the twins with him.

Her two aunts, siblings of her

TEACHERS from San Juan Elementary School on Gen. Ricarte Street in Estrella, Cainta, Rizal, hold a dry run of distributing learning modules to parents and guardians of students enrolled in their school. They practiced social distancing and other safety protocols in the activity, expecting the same challenges as schools reopen after months of delay due to the pandemic on October 5.

mother, took her younger sisters, one in Iligan and one in Cotabato.

So she and her mother were left to survive on their own.

College days

HER college days were as busy and as tough as elementary and

high school.

She went to Philippine Normal University in Agusan del Sur, around 65 km away from home.

She stayed in a boarding house and would come home on weekends; her allowance was just P175 for a week—to cover her fare, food

and projects. “Sometimes I would bring rice” to the boarding house.

Her mother occasionally worked in the rice fields as a harvester in exchange for rice. Nanga­ nganihan is their local term for farm worker or helper.

“Maybe my talent was in managing finances, how to stretch such meager funds. Since our boarding house was beside a river, we would gather camote leaves just to get by.”

They would alternate eating these with sardines, often stretching one can across several meals. Her boardmates “were as poor as I was, we had the same plight.”

With just one set of uniforms, she would wash it right away after school so she can still use it the day after. “I never complained, because that was our life. My mind was simply focused on being able to graduate. I knew that would lift us up.”

With that in mind, she even used her mind over her heart.

Because she didn’t want any distraction from her promise to her mother, she broke up with her boyfriend, the president of the student council, a nice young man who always helped her with her projects and everyday challenges.

Their parents approved of their relationship, but she thought it best to first keep a distance from him. “I told him, if I’m meant for you, then we’ll end up together.”

Firm but penniless

SHE stopped in her third year in college because their finances were just too drained.

She and her mother took jobs at a snack bar, to earn money for her schooling.

With her modest savings, she bought a boat ride to Manila to check on her father and twin sisters.

“I wanted to see him and my sisters, who had sent me clothes, and telegrams. These didn’t come so frequently,” so she visited them personally.

She then went back to the province, determined to finish her fourth year.

The dreaming never died. “Everytime I’d see an airplane I’d ask myself, ‘when can I ride one. Will that chance ever come?’”

After graduation she went to Manila for her board exam, and stayed with her father for a while, working in his company, Mr. Ed Foods Corp., as a salesclerk selling hot-dog buns on Ayala Avenue in a food cart. “I worked by day and went to review school at night at Philippine Normal University, Manila campus.”

After the oath-taking as a teacher, she worked full time, and stayed in the commissary quarters in Pasay City of the sandwich maker company where she met her future husband Jude Solidarios, her supervisor.

There were a lot more trials in their early married life, but as always, her perseverance proved more effective than surrendering to life’s problems.

She eventually started her teaching career after so many trials as a wife and a mother, eventually succeeding to become master teacher.

Her parents, now both seniors, stay in the province, in separate quarters but civil. The rest is history.

School opening

WHEN this pandemic-era class opening takes place on October 5, she knows that something will be missing, and she will miss the first physical encounter for the first time. But Mrs. Solidarios is upbeat.

These technology-savvy gradeschool pupils, combined with the experience of their seasoned teachers, and the relentless efforts of DepEd—led by teacher Leonor M. Briones—that education must go on regardless of Covid, might be one great lesson plan.

Who knows? Teachers have always been known as the classroom’s second mothers. Time will tell whether, the distance restrictions aside, teachers can still keep that role. Mothers—in a reversal of roles—now become their home’s “second teachers.”

October is Teachers’ Month, and Ma’am Neriza can’t wait to share her story.

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

The World

U.S.-China mutual investment slumps as ties sour–Report

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wo-way investment between the US and China slumped to the lowest in almost nine years during the first half of 2020 as relations between the world’s biggest two economies deteriorated to their worst in decades.

Combined direct and venture-capital investment between the countries totaled $10.9 billion in the period, the lowest level since the second half of 2011, according to analysis by the US-China Investment Project, whose lead organizations include Rhodium Group and the National Committee on US-China Relations.

The total would have been even lower were it not for a large acquisition in the US that was carried over from last year.

Completed Chinese direct investment in the US increased to $4.7 billion in the first six months, from $3.4 billion a year earlier. This year’s figure was boosted

by Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s $3.4-billion purchase of a minority stake in Universal Music Group Inc. Overall transactions remain low as the US imposes stricter controls on Chinese investment, especially in technology.

American direct investment in China fell 31 percent to $4.1 billion, a trend that’s unlikely to reverse in the near term.

However, US investment into financial services is one area that had significant growth, as companies such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. look to take control of their joint ventures in mainland China.

The drop in flows comes as US President Donald Trump makes a hard line on China a central plank of his reelection campaign with tensions between the nations on everything from trade to human rights.

“So far, China’s response to more aggressive US policies has been restrained, but US investors could face a backlash if relations continue to sour,” according to the report.

The US move against Chinese owned video app TikTok on national security grounds could be the start of a wider trend, the report cautioned.

“Numerous other companies— both Chinese firms operating in the US and US firms with a presence in China—could face pressure to divest,” the report warned. Bloomberg News

This upstart Chinese brokerage is now bigger than Credit Suisse

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ast Money Information Co., founded by a 49-year-old former stock commentator, is one of the big winners in China’s wildest stock frenzy in half a decade.

Shares in the online broker and market data provider have rocketed 78 percent this year, giving it a market value of more than 200 billion yuan ($29 billion). That puts it among the world’s biggest traded institutional brokers, making it more valuable than even Credit Suisse Group AG, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Its founder, a former analyst and columnist who goes by his pen name, Qi Shi, has become very rich. After starting the firm in 2005 as Shanghai Dong Cai Information Technology, his 21-percent stake is now worth $6.2 billion. His father and wife, the second- and third-largest shareholders, own another 5 percent combined.

Like the popular Robinhood Markets Inc. app in the US, East Money has found a sweet spot with tech-savvy youth as millions, stuck at home amid the coronavirus, turned to stock trading. Its revenue swelled 67 percent in the first half of 2020 and its net income more than doubled. Unlike the crowded US scene, where Robinhood and E*Trade Financial Corp. are slashing fees to zero, the company has been able to keep charging customers on trades, but at a lower rate than the traditional brokers.

It has a leg up on its local rivals, analysts and investors say, being the only Chinese Internet broker with licenses to trade stocks and sell mutual funds, which make up 90 percent of its revenue. The firm runs a popular chat forum, called Guba, where millions of investors swap stock tips and rumors, while it also sells market data to institutional investors.

“The stock rally is linked to the rarity of its business model,” said John Zhou, Shanghaibased managing director and fund manager at MQ Investment, who has East Money as one of his top 10 Chinese stock holdings.

“It’s a financial data provider and broker, it fits in both camps and is the only player in its own field.”

Qi was not available for an interview and the company declined to comment. It also declined to divulge how many users it has, but Daiwa Capital Markets estimates its stock app has about 11.4 million monthly active users and its mutual fund app about 10.9 million.

Among Chinese stock-market apps it only lags behind Hithink RoyalFlush Information Network Co.’s 17.3 million clients, Daiwa said in an August report.

In a rare interview with China Business News in 2014, Qi Shi, which means “as a matter of fact” in Chinese, said his push to create an online platform for communication and information for investors stemmed from being an “introvert.”

From its start as an information provider, East Money branched out in 2015, obtaining a license when it bought broker Tongxin East Fortune Securities Co Ltd. It secured a mutual

fund license in 2018, allowing it to run its own funds on top of selling third-party products.

8,000 funds

Clients can pick from more than 8,000 mutual funds from 140 asset managers on the site. Its transactions jumped 83 percent to 568 billion yuan in first half of this year, surpassing even the 334 billion yuan in sales

by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the nation’s largest bank.

The firm charges 0.25 percent on stock trades and offers a rate as low as 0.15 percent on mutual fund transactions.

Max Wang, a 29-year-old working in sales at a fund manager in Shanghai, is an avid user. He first found the site when he was an intern back in 2015, using it to check prices and data, and then started making purchases.

“It basically has every mutual fund product for sale so you don’t need to open many accounts with various brokers,” Wang said.

“I find some features very smart. With one click they can automatically allocate my idle money to various selective money-market funds to diversify risks.”

Stock trading fees are low across China, with securities firms charging fees from just above zero to about 0.25 percent, while top brokers such as Huatai Securities Co. and Guangfa Securities Co. charge above 1 percent on some popular mutual funds.

Of the 31 analysts that follow the firm, 28 have a buy rating. Daiwa analysts led

by Leon Qi maintained an underperform rating in August, citing East Money’s now unappealing valuation of 7.3 times forward price-to-book ratio. The average for Chinese brokers is 1.59 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The analyst is also more bullish on Hangzhou-based RoyalFlush because it spends more on research and development, has a more diverse revenue base and isn’t saddled by the costs and risks of owning a brokerage.

‘Killer’ chat

B ut Da i Da n m i a o, a S h e n z h e n - b a s e d analyst with Guosen Securities Co., said East Money has a strong point in its “killer” stock-forum chat site. “Users are ver y attached given its high social network element, they can easily open a stock account after active discussions on certain stocks with one click,” Dai said.

While Dai said the broker is at the mercy of volatile markets and faces competition from companies such as Ant Group, which obtained license to sell funds in 2015, its broad array of products and user loyalty put it at an advantage.

For now, its users are sticking. “There are other investing web sites and apps such as Alipay which are also handy,” said Max Wang.

“But I have got used to East Money’s web site and app over the years, I don’t think I will switch easily.” Bloomberg News

BusinessMirror

Sunday, September 20, 2020

A3

Trump, California leaders clash over climate’s role in wildfires

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onald J. Trump and California state officials sparred over whether climate change is contributing to out-of-control wildfires across the West, after the president insisted that poor forest management drives the conflagrations.

Wade Crowfoot, the secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency, told Trump in a recent meeting in Sacramento that a warming climate is making the state’s fires worse.

“We want to work with you to really recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests, and actually work toget her w it h t h at sc ience,” Crow foot told the president.

“The science is going to be key. If we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.”

Trump responded: “It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch.”

“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot said.

“I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump responded.

Natural disasters have battered the US in recent weeks.

More than 5 million acres have been burned across the West Coast this season, killing dozens of people and ruining air quality from Canada to Mexico. On the Gulf Coast, residents of Louisiana and Mississippi are bracing for Hurricane Sally. It’s one of 20 named storms in the Atlantic this year, marking the fastest such a tally has been reached in records going back to 1851.

Biden criticism

On Monday, Trump’s Democratic opponent for reelection, Joe Biden, assailed him in a speech on the fires, saying Western states would not be safe from the regular blazes as long as the president remains in office.

“He fails to protect us,” the former vice president said in a speech delivered outside the Delaware Museum of Natural History. “And from the pandemic, the economic freefall, the racial unrest, and the ravages of climate change, it’s clear that we are not safe in Donald Trump’s America.”

He added: “If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if more of America is ablaze?”

Trump flew into Sacramento after a weekend campaign swing through Nevada to discuss the fires with California officials, including Governor Gavin Newsom.

He arrives as the US National Weather Service has issued warnings for critical fire conditions in southeast Oregon and northeast California, with wind gusts up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) per hour and humidity as low as 7 percent Monday.

Already, wildfires have burned more than 3.2 million acres in California, an area larger than the State of Connecticut. There have been 24 fatalities. At least 10 people have died in Oregon, Governor Kate Brown said in a news conference. A nother 22 are missing.

Newsom on Fr id ay arg ued

that f lawed forest management practices of the past can’t explain the state’s worsening fire seasons. Ca lifor nia has been stepping up its use of controlled burns to thin out vegetation a nd h a s acce ler ated c ut t i ng firebreaks around v ulnerable communities, he said.

But the recent drought and a tree-killing beetle infestation, both of which Newsom tied to c l i m ate c h a nge, h ave k i l le d more than 150 million trees across the state, leaving ample fuel for fires.

“I’m not going to suggest for a second that the forest management practices in the state of California over a century-plus have been ideal,” Newsom said Friday in Butte County, surrounded by scorched trees. “But that’s one point. It’s not the point.”

State officials provided Trump and his retinue an eight-page briefing packet that documented rising average temperatures in California, showed how much land in the state is under federal control and explained that the state government spends six times as much as the federal government on wildfire prevention in California.

One page was nothing but a photo of burning buildings and trees with the words “10 OF THE 20 MOST DESTRUCTIVE CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES WERE IN THE LAST 5 YEARS” in large type.

The president has frequently criticized California’s Democratic leaders for, in his view, failing to adequately manage the state’s forests to reduce fire risk.

About 57 percent of Ca lifornia forests are land ow ned and ma naged by federa l agenc ies, accord ing to t he Universit y of Ca l ifor nia. Newsom’s br ief ing pac ket sa id t hat just 3 percent of t he st ate’s forests a re on l a nd ma naged by t he st ate gover nment.

In August, Newsom’s administration reached an agreement with the US Forest Service to jointly reduce fire risk on at least 500,000 acres of public lands each year.

Tr ump c la imed before t he meeting that an unnamed European leader told him his country has more explosive trees than C a l i for n i a , before d i s put i ng state officials who said climate change was contributing to outof-control West Coast wildfires.

‘More explosive’ trees

“I was talking to the head of a major country and he said, ‘We are a forest nation. We consider ourselves a forest nation.’ This was in Europe. I said, ‘That’s a beautiful term,”’ Trump told reporters after landing in Sacramento.

“He said, ‘We have trees that are far more explosive’—explosive in terms of fire—but ‘we have trees that are far more explosive than they have in California, and we don’t have any problem.’”

Trump said that “I think a lot

of things are possible” in response to a question about whether climate change is driving the western wildfires.

“With regard to the forest, when trees fall down, after a short period of time—about 18 months—they become very dry.

They become really like a matchstick,” Trump said. “And they get up; you know, there’s no more w ater pou r i ng t h rough, a nd they become ver y, ver y—they just explode. They can explode.”

“Also leaves,” he added, “when you have years of leaves, dried leaves, on the ground, it just sends it up. It’s really a fuel for a fire. So they have to do something about it.”

He said the state should cut more firebreaks through its forests, again comparing California to European forests that he said are better managed.

“They also have to do cuts. I mean, people don’t like to do cuts but they have to do cuts,” he said.

“So if you do have a fire and it gets away, you’ll have a 50-yard cut in between so it won’t be able to catch in the other side.

“They don’t do that,” he said of California. “If you go to other countries, you go to Austria, you go to Finland, you go to many different countries and they don’t have problems.”

After taking office, Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord negotiated by President Barack Obama, calling it unfair. On Monday, he suggested the US shouldn’t undertake efforts to mitigate climate change because other countries can’t be trusted to follow suit.

“Is India going to change its ways? And China going to change its ways? And Russia—is Russia going to change its ways?” he said.

“You know, so, you have a lot of countries that are going to have to change because they make up— we’re just a small speck.”

Bloomberg News

Journey

»life on the go

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Sunday, September 20, 2020

BusinessMirror

Editor: Tet Andolong

A Surreal Moment at the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt

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Story & photos by Marky Ramone Go

orward! Remember that from these monuments yonder 40 centuries look down upon you,” Napoleon Bonaparte declared to his troops as they geared for the Battle of the Pyramids in July 1798.

Indeed, the history of the great pyramids goes back to one the earliest civilizations on Earth. This fact made my experience of being there feel more surreal in real life.

I remember looking at the pyramids with wide-eye wonder while standing motionless, as I lost myself in a spectacular now kind of

moment. There is no better way to cap our Holy Land trip than a chance to see the Great Pyramid of Giza up close.

Childhood fascination streak

I’ll have to go back to my childhood to trace when my fascination with the pyramids of Giza

in Egypt started. It must be our geography class showing photographs of landmarks around the world that captivated me and f licked my wanderlust switch on. It was also during this time that I learned about the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal in India and Petra in Jordan.

The pyramids stood out among the rest, as it represents a stunning construction marvel by some of the earliest civilization known to man. Even at a young age, I was already in awe at how human beings built the pyramids. (cue for Alien theories) There’s no better way to bookend the best travel writing assignment I’ve had so far, than a trip to Cairo to see the pyramids up close.

We were still inside our bus when I caught sight of the three pyramids.

Instantly, the hairs on my arms stood up and a jolt of excitement shot through my body. I can’t believe I’d finally see the day when I’m inching closer to these amazing landmarks of the planet.

As soon as we got out of our bus and bought our tickets, I separated from our group and just made a mad dash to the pyramids. Appearing bigger as I come closer.

The massive slobs of stones piled on top of each other arrested my attention. Glistening under the bright sheen of the sun, I see sparkle from everywhere. A surreal moment just got real.

The Pyramids of Giza

Also known as the Giza Necropolis, the Giza Pyramid complex is where the Great Pyramid of Giza stands along with two other smaller pyramids: The Pyramid

of Khafre and the Pyramid of Menkaure. The Giza, aside from the biggest, is also the oldest being constructed between 25802560 BC. It remains as the only surviving Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

As if sensing my jubilation, our guide asked me to do a jump shot in front of the pyramids.

Not wanting to take much of his time, I jumped four or five times and to his credit, he captured me in fine form mid-air.

That photo—other than garnering 800 plus likes on my Facebook—is framed and displayed inside my room. Forever reminding me of that wonderful moment when I finally realized a childhood desire to see the pyramids of Giza.

We spent at least an hour just walking around the complex.

While some from my group ventured out to find a shade to rest, I regaled at the sweltering shower of the sun by remaining closer to the pyramids.

I figured, I’d spent almost a lifetime waiting for this chance, so I might as well milk every second I have to be as near as possible to these monuments that “look down upon me.”

As I saw our guide from afar mentioning for us to board our bus, I ran back to the outer walls.

I rubbed my hands on some of the stones as if trying to imprint some of the history of the Pyramid of Giza on myself. I also realized that it was the fitting thing to do, as if stamping my journey that began when I was touching the glossy pages of travel magazines to finally seeing and even feeling the pyramids with my bare hands.

Science

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

BusinessMirror

Sunday

Sunday, September 20, 2020 A5

Philippine Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology awards 8 scientists, researchers

‘The real value of science is public good’

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By Lyn Resurreccion

but it is the research assistants who “do the hard work.”

He added that by providing work to research assistants “we are not supporting just one person but their entire family.”

He explained: “By enabling the human resources here [outside of Metropolitan Manila], we elevate the quality of human resources in the provinces.”

he recognition given to us awardees is not just a recognition of our excellence.

It is a recognition of how much we have given back and how much we have served the community. We perform science not for us but for the good of the community. That is the real value of our science.”

This was the message of Dr. Jonel P. Saludes, one of the eight scientists and researchers who were awarded by the Philippine Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology (PhilAAST) for their contributions to science and research.

The awardees were announced on September 8 during a virtual news conference that preceded PhilAAST’s 69th three-day annual convention on September 9 to 11.

It had the theme “STI as Drivers of Growth in the Regions.” STI stands for science, technology and innovation.

The awardees

n Dr. Jonel P. Saludes, a professor of Chemistry at the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City, was awarded the Gregorio Y. Zara Award for Basic Science Research for his work in establishing three science research centers—the Center for Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Center for Natural Drug Discovery and Development, and the Center for Heritage and Indigenous Cultures. n Dr. Annabelle V. Briones, director of the DOST-Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI), was conferred the Gregorio Y. Zara Award for Applied Science Research for her work on DOST Mosquito Ovicidal/Larvicidal Trap System, a contraption that supported the government initiatives in reducing the dengue incidence in the country.

Briones was also involved in many research and development initiatives that are geared towards industry productivity. n Prof. Sandra V. Navarra, head of Rheumatology Department at the University of Santo Tomas Hospital, received the Paulo V. Campos Award for her works as clinical trials investigator and for publishing studies in the field of lupus, spondyloarthropathy and other rheumatic diseases. n Dr. Desiree M. Hautea, former director of the Institute of Plant Breeding of University of the Philippines Los Baños, was conferred the Leads Agriculture Award for her contributions in the use of modern biotechnology and other innovative technologies for agriculture, including the research for the adoption of Bt eggplant in the Philippines. n Dr. Francis Aldrine A. Uy was the recipient of the David M. Consunji Award for Engineering Research for his various notable eng ineer ing and innovation projects, including the Usher sensor that monitors structures against earthquakes.

He is the dean of Mapua Institute of Technology School of Civil, Environmental and Geological Engineering. n Edgardo G. Vazquez bagged the Ceferino Follosco Award for Product and Process Innovation.

n Prof. Kathleen B. Aviso was awarded the Dr. Michael Purvis Award for Sustainability Research n Dr. Salvacion R. Gatchalian was posthumously honored with the Dr. Lourdes Espiritu Campos Award for Public Health. She recently died of Covid-19.

Regional conferences

PhilAAST, founded in September 1951, is a nonprofit association of scientists and technologists in the country that helps promote the value of STI in the country.

Dr. Jaime C. Montoya, Phil A A ST president and concurrent executive director of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, said the Phil A AST convention from September 9 to 11, four Regional Cluster Symposia were held by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) offices in Regions 6, 11, 8 and 2.

Montoya said PhilAAST is promoting its vision of nurturing an S&T-inclined Filipino community by ensuring a wholistic approach across all regions in the country.

Bt eggplant two decades in the making

Answering questions from the media, the awardees gave the status of their respective researches and inventions, some of which spanned even a couple of decades.

Hautea said the genetically modified Bt eggplant, which technology development is over after almost two decades, is just awaiting the nod of the government’s biosafety agency for its release to the market. “ We just have to wa it for a l it t le t ime. Once t he seed s a re approved for commerc i a l use, we w i l l ma ke t hem ava i l able to t he fa r mers,” she repl ied to t he quest ion by t he BusinessMir ror du r ing t he webina r.

She explained that the government has been checking each biotech crop for its safety for the people, animals and the environment “so that no questions could be raised against it when it is released to the market.”

The controversial Bt eggplant faced a legal hurdle that reached the Supreme Court to stop its mu lti location f ield tr ia l and eventual commercialization. The Court later decided in its favor.

Bt eggplant is already commercially available in Bangladesh.

Research is important for doctors

For Navarra, during the pandemic, doing research is very important for doctors and researchers because many data from the patients are gathered and have to be processed.

Since quarantine protocols were imposed, the doctors setup teleconsultation from which they find out the needs of the patients.

“That is the purpose of clinical

‘Not just money’

The eight Philippine Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology awardees with Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña; PhilAAST President Dr. Jaime C. Montoya; Dr. Reynaldo de la Cruz, chairman of the awards committee; and Director Richard P. Burgos of DOST-STII during the virtual news conference on September 2. Screenshot by Lyn Resurreccion

research. [From] our patients, who are not Covid-19 positive, we get information, which we analyze so that we can give [them] the best of care,” she said.

Making buildings, bridges safe from earthquake

Uy, inventor of Universal Struct u ra l Hea lt h Eva lu at ion a nd Record ing System, sa id nine privately owned buildings were inst a l led w it h Usher system earthquake sensors.

Among government buildings, with funding from the Departments of Science and Technology (DOST), and of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), 10 buildings have sensors from at least 22 planned in Metropolitan Manila.

Four bridges, out of the 10 being targeted, were equipped with the sensors, Uy replied to the question from the BusinessMirror.

He said the price of their technology is a lot lower than the P1 million to P2.5 million per unit from foreign competition.

Besides, they are offering low down payment and easy instalment plans to encourage businesses to use the system.

With the guidelines issued on building safety by the DPWH and the National Structural Code, and with the Big One earthquake that could happen anytime, he said “we should make sure of our safety.”

Reviving drug discovery from marine resources

For his part, Saludes said their drug discovery program aims to look for new antibiotics that will work against multidrug resistant bacteria, or the flesh-eating or drug-resistant bacteria, wherein ordinary antibiotics are no longer effective.

They have a huge marine biobank of “3,000 beneficial bacteria that can produce antibiotics,” he said in reply to the BusinessMirror’s query.

Saludes said besides having their researches published in scientific journals, they want to have them developed as finished products.

“It is only through IP [intellectual property protection] that the discoveries of Filipinos and the IP that belongs to Filipinos could be properly protected,” he said.

He recalled the experience on erythromycin antibiotic which was discovered in 1949 and patented in 1952 by a multinational company.

“The Filipinos did not receive a single centavo from it,” he said.

Ilozone is the commercial name of erythromycin.

“Ilo came from the the word I loi lo because t he benef icia l

bacteria came from Iloilo’s soil,” he explained.

In reviving the effort to discover drugs from Iloilo, he said, “This time, it is fully funded by Filipino taxpayers through the DOST.”

Decent homes for a decent nation

Vazquez, who constructs prefabricated houses using the modular matchbox principle, said the labor component in house construction is 30 percent.

“I would rather that you build your own house so you save 30 percent,” he said, adding that he is willing to share his technology so “you can build your own home and become a contractor and earn money.”

“We are very short of homes in this country.... If we build homes for the nation, help build homes for the poor, we can become a very good nation,” Vazquez said.

Energy mix

Asked on the future of alternative energy now that the government is considering nuclear energy, Aviso said the Philippines is very fortunate that a big proportion of its energy comes from renewable energy.

It would be best for the country to explore different kinds of technologies to provide for its increasing need of energy, she said.

But as an agricultural country it has a lot of resources in terms of agricultural residues.

On the possible use of nuclear energy, she said “it depends on the country’s priority and with regard to environmental impact and the risks we have to take.”

She added that there are emerging technologies, such as those providing negative emission, that does not only generate energy but also sequester carbon-dioxide emission and help prevent global warming and climate change.

Innovation for the poor

On innovations in science that reach the poor, Briones said ITDI has been offering online trainings for people’s livelihood for free during the pandemic via YouTube, ITDI Facebook and web site.

Among them are processing of fruits, vegetables, fish and meat and other technolog ies that people could use for home and expand on a bigger scale, Briones explained.

For his part, Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña said among the assistance of the DOST to the poor are scholarships at the tertiary level.

He said 10,000 to 12,000 scholarships were awarded for the coming school year, wherein around 60 percent of the beneficiaries

are poor.

“In the stories of these scholars who graduate every year you could see how their families rise from poverty. They help their younger siblings get education,” de la Peña said.

He added that nine scholars from war-torn Marawi even graduated with honors.

Meaning of the award

The awardees were one in saying that the awards they received are not theirs alone but they are sharing them with their research assistants who made the hard work in their researches.

They also said that the main beneficiaries of their projects are the Filipino people and to give pride to the country by creating quality inventions.

For Vazquez, he said, “Whenever we invent, we make lives better, the Filipinos will benefit.”

He added: “We want to prove to the world with presentation that is substantial and beautiful that we can be proud of. That will make the value of the invention much higher,” he said.

He urged the government to “give more emphasis to S&T,” with more budget “not only 0.005 percent” of GDP. He said S&T in the country is way behind other countries, adding that big nations attained their current status because of S&T. Vazquez promised: “We, the inventors, will prove that we can do it. We can give a lot of jobs to Filipinos, and increase the pride of the Filipino people, as a people, as a nation.”

True measure of success

While there are many challenges, Navarra said the young people “should not to be intimidated by research,” adding that it just needs a “leap of faith.”

“It is important to be relevant to the times,” such as during the pandemic, she said.

Her advise to doctors and medical students: “Always remember to put your patients at center stage.

They are our purpose. They are the reasons for our endeavors.”

She added: “It is said that the measure of the teacher’s success is in the students. We are all merely instruments in this path that we take. We hope that with this opportunity, on behalf of my co-awardees, that we have set the stage for our young people to carry on and become better than us.

That is a true measure of success.”

Elevate the quality of human resources

Saludes said scientists and researchers “have creative minds”

For his part, Uy said the award is very significant for Mapua because Usher technology was its first commercialization project since the university was established in 1925. The same goes for his staff.

He explained that it is “not just money” that inventors like him are after.

“It is all about showing what the Filipino innovators and scientists can do for our countr y and the discipline we are into,” he said.

He added that given an award in the name of Consunji, a civil engineer like him, makes the award “more meaningful.”

A lot of accomplishments

Hautea said “a lot of accomplishments” were made in the almost two decades of work on Bt eggplant.

Her young teammates were able to finish higher education and become excellent researchers in different sectors of the science community.

It was also able to educate the people on modern biotech.

Happy that the research is an “example of a product of research that originated from the laboratory to the fork,” Hautea admitted that the project was a “learning experience for her.”

“I am a bench scientist but I will bring this to the farmers’ fields,” she said.

“If we put our mind in bringing something for our target beneficiaries, no matter how difficult and how long the ride, we will eventually get there,” she added.

‘Will be treasured forever’

Dr. Ed Gatchalian, husband of Dr. Salvacion Gatchalian who accepted the posthumous award for her, said hav ing received a number of awards, this one “would be another gold in her [Dr. Salvacion’s] crown,” he said in Filipino.

Since this is the first time the specific award was given by PhilA AST, “we will treasure this forever,” he said, “ T his is ver y sig nificant for us. It is one recog nition that you cou ld not come across ever y day or even in your lifetime. Sa l ly had to g ive up her life for what she thought would be ver y good for the countr y,” Gatcha lian said.

Challenge to help improve GII ranking

De la Peña said he is challenging PhilAAST to help to improve the ranking of the country in the Global Innovation Index (GII) since the organization has members all over the country.

The Philippines’s GII ranking in 2020 jumped to 50 from 54 in 2019, or a big leap of 50 steps since 2014, a mere six years.

He said they will ask Phil A AST “to help us in this mission to be more inclusive, to have more researchers in the regions and to have more investors who will invest in S&T in the regions, and help us inf luence our local leaders to think about S&T. That is my challenge to Phil A AST.”

Faith

Sunday

A6 Sunday, September 20, 2020

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

PHL now has 17 minor basilicas Q uezon City’s oldest Church was formally declared a minor basilica recently, making it the 17th Catholic place of worship in the Philippines with such title and dignity.

The Franciscan-run Santuario de San Pedro Bautista was elevated to a minor basilica status in solemn rites led by Bishop Honesto Ongtioco of Cubao.

In his homily, Ongtioco said that becoming a minor basilica is not only about its histor y and patrimony but a recognition of its special role and mission in evangelization.

The parish community led by its pastor, he said, is then challenged more than ever to seek new ways of service and to be steadfast in evangelization.

“But above all the Church is mother because of her love, thus,

this sanctuary must have that mark of motherhood, that charity that is the heart of all missionary efforts in the Church,” Ongtioco said.

Being a basilica, he added, is not only a privilege but as in the case of any honor in the Church, “it carries with it the obligation to service.”

The ceremony came after Pope Francis in early June approved the petition to elevate the parish Church into a minor basilica.

In making a Church a basilica, a designation made through the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the

Bishop Honesto Ongtioco of Cubao leads the celebration of the solemn declaration of the Santuario de San Pedro Bautista as a minor basilica in Quezon City on September 14. Eric Paul Guanlao/Diocese of Cubao

Sacraments, the pope declares the Church to be one of his own.

There are over 1,800 minor basilicas in the world, and the

second in the Cubao diocese.

The designation binds San Pedro Bautista to the four major basilicas in Rome: St. Peter, St. John

Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls.

Basilicas are granted the privilege of an “ombrellino”—a red and

yellow, cone-shaped canopy—and a “tintinnabulum,” a bell mounted on a pole that can be carried in processions.

Basilicas are also permitted to use the crossed “papal keys” on banners and signs.

The celebration took place as the country continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.

Ongtioco encouraged the faithful to visit the minor basilica, especially those who are greatly affected by the situation. “ This has always been a place of rest and healing for troubled souls and it will continue to be,” he said.

The new minor basilica is one of the country’s oldest Churches, which dates back to 1590. The Church is located in the same area where the parish’s patron saint, San Pedro Bautista, stayed when he was in the Philippines.

St. Pedro Bautista is a Franciscan missionar y and a known theologian. He ser ved in the countr y for 10 years before he was sent to Japan where he was martyred. CBCP News

cardinal: Deal with China Tacloban churchgoers get new option: Drive-in Mass Vatican can help ‘normalize Church’s life’

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ACLOBAN CITY— Churchgoers at the St. Josemaria Escriva Mission Station in this city have now an option to physically hear homilies from a priest through a “drive-in Mass.”

The drive-in Mass in Apitong village called “Park and Attend the Mass” is scheduled every Sunday at 6 p.m., according to mission station parish priest Rev. Fr. Kim Margallo.

“The drive-in Mass is just an additional schedule of St. Josemaria Escriva Mission Station to accommodate those who cannot attend the Mass inside the Church due to immune compromise or those who are not qualified for QR [quick response] coding,” Margallo said in a statement.

He added that he may

The outdoor Mass in Apitong village in Tacloban City. The St. Josemaria Escriva Mission Station in this city hold a “drive-in Mass.” Josemaria Escriva Mission Station

have another additional schedule for drive-in Masses if more parishioners are not accommodated in the 6 p.m.

Mass.

Catholic Churches in the city have already opened

their doors for churchgoers who wanted to physically attend the Mass, strictly complying with minimum health protocols set by the Department of Health.

Handwashing, body

temperature check, QR code scanning, wearing of face mask and physical distancing are among the requirements needed to be followed by parishioners who wanted to attend the Mass inside the Church.

Churches in the city also offer online Mass for those who cannot attend the service.

Margallo added that he was thinking of doing it long ago but only implemented it now due to movement limitations due to coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

“Now is the right time since people are afraid to go to Mass for the fear of close contact yet they are hungry for the message [of God],” he added.

Margallo added that the parish offers regular Masses at 7 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. for walk-in churchgoers. PNA

Prelate calls for solution, stop to Negros Or. killings

D

UMAGUETE CITY—Following the latest spate of murders and shooting incidents in Negros Oriental, Bishop Julito Cortes of the Diocese of Dumaguete reiterated his call to local government officials and law enforcement units to “stop the killings.”

At the same time, he instructed parish priests to pray the Oratio Imperata Against Killing in all of the Masses in the diocese, starting this Sunday and the tolling of Church bells at 8 p.m. daily until further notice “as a concrete expression of this call.”

An Oratio Imperata is an obligatory liturgical prayer when a grave need arises.

The Oratio Imperata Against Killing was prayed after the ordination of two priests at the Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria here.

Fr. Nathaniel Gomez, the diocese’s spokesman, also read the bishop’s statement.

The call to action to solve the spate of killings in Negros Oriental came as the Catholic Church also celebrated the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, which recalled the agonies that the Blessed Virgin

Dumaguete Bishop Julito Cortes, who led the faithful in last week’s ordination of two new priests in the diocese, reiterated his call to local government officials and government instrumentalities to step up the fight against criminality. He issued a statement and the Oratio Imperata Against Killings to be read in all Sunday Masses for an indefinite period in response to the violence pervading Negros Oriental. Judy Flores Partlow/PNA

Mary suffered from Jesus’ young age, until His death on the cross and burial.

“On this day, too, we bring to the Blessed Mothers’ intercession the many sorrows that have plagued our lives and our communities in the past months, but especially in these recent days,” Cortes said.

Some of the latest violent incidents in the province include the shooting-to-death of a former vice

mayor and councilor of Pamplona on September 10; the attempt on the life of the son of a former mayor of Bindoy; the shooting of a lay minister; and the fatal shooting on Tuesday night of a store helper who reportedly had a pending case.

Cortes lamented that in the midst of the threat of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) “it is ironic that even as scientists and medical professionals seek to

find a cure to the coronavirus and save lives, there are persons and forces in Negros Oriental whose intent is to kill and to create a climate of fear among its lawabiding citizens.”

“We call then on government officials and on government instrumentalities, whose mandate is to establish peace and order, to have the resolve to stop the killings and the will to bring the perpetrators of these unexplained and unresolved killings to justice,” the prelate said.

Cortes said that the diocese is looking once more at gathering different stakeholders for “circles of discernment” in response to the current peace and order situation in the province to perhaps address the situation and see “what we can do as part of the community.”

He said that every Negrense has the right to feel safe each day and not live in fear, “bothered that somebody with the intent to kill is following him or her.” “ T he moment a Neg rense feels that the streets, the establishments, even our homes have become unsafe, that moment signifies the death of us all,” he added. PNA

V

ATICAN—The Vatican expects to renew its interim deal with China on the appointment of bishops, as part of efforts to “normalize” the life of the Catholic Church in China, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said recently.

“With China, our current interest is to normalize the life of the Church as much as possible, to ensure that the Church can live a normal life, which for the Catholic Church is also to have relations with the Holy See and with the pope,” Parolin said, according to Italian news agency AgenSIR. A Bloomberg News report on September 9 said the accord is due to be rolled over, possibly for another two years, in the coming weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter who declined to be named discussing confidential talks.

A Vatican spokesman declined to comment.

“Our perspective is on this ecclesiastical theme,” Parolin added, noting that this goal should also take place “against a backdrop of peaceful coexistence, the search for peace and overcoming tensions.”

Cardinal Parolin spoke to journalists on the sidelines of a private event with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, held at the Italian Embassy to the Holy See in Rome, on September 14.

Responding to questions, Parolin also said the Vatican’s intention “is that [the deal] be prolonged, that we continue to adopt it ad experimentum.”

“If there is the same intention on their part too? I think and hope so,” he said, calling the results of the two-year provisional agreement “not particularly exciting.”

The provisional agreement signed by the Vatican and China on September 22, 2018, is due to expire in October.

Parolin spoke at an event titled “Forty-five years after the Helsinki Accords, Cardinal Silvestrini and the Vatican Östpolitik,” organized by the Italian ambassador to the Holy See.

Crosses removed, Church buildings demolished

Following the Vatican-China agreement in 2018, state officials in different regions of China have continued to remove crosses and demolish Church buildings, and underground Catholics and clergy continue to report harassment and detention.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the stateaffiliated Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Zhejiang province’s Chinese Catholic educational administration committee issued new regulations on the reopening of Churches requiring Chinese “patriotism” to be added to the celebration of the liturgy.

There are also more than 50 dioceses without bishops on the mainland of China.

Despite mounting international condemnation of China’s internment of more than 1 million Uighurs in concentration camps, where human-rights agencies have reported repeated actions of crimes against human rights and “genocide,” the Holy See has not commented publicly on the situation.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said on September 10 that China’s interim deal with the Vatican has been “implemented successfully.”

The Chinese government spokesman also said that the Vatican and China had “accumulated more mutual trust and consensus through a series of positive interactions” since the beginning of 2020, citing mutual support during the Covid-19 pandemic.

China: Vatican a ‘soft superpower’

Relations between the Vatican and China were broken off in 1951 and reaching a settlement with the Communist Party has proved elusive, especially as President Xi Jinping presides over the most widespread crackdown on religious freedom since it was written into the country’s constitution in 1982.

Chinese authorities have jailed Catholic priests, demolished places of worship and detained hundreds of thousands of Muslim ethnic Uyghurs in reeducation camps.

So any rapprochement with Beijing is sensitive, especially since China’s ultimate goal would be for the Vatican to cut ties with Taiwan.

The democratically-run island, which China regards as a part of its territory, counts the Vatican as its last partner in Europe. It retains official ties with only 15 nations worldwide.

That puts the tiny walled city state inside Rome at the center of a geopolitical minefield at a time when tensions between the West and China are running high.

“China wants to talk to the Vatican because it realizes the Vatican is a soft superpower—when the Pope speaks, everyone listens,” said Francesco Sisci, a senior researcher at the Renmin University in Beijing.

The US administration has sought to bolster Taiwan’s diplomatic profile, warning countries against cutting ties and sending Health Secretary Alex Azar to make the US’s highest-level visit since recognizing Beijing in 1979.

Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil predicted during his own subsequent trip there this month that Taipei would see similar support from European officials.

For its part, the Vatican seeks more protection and a degree of legitimacy for an estimated 12 million Catholics in China that are currently divided between a state-run authority where the government names the bishops and an “underground” Church loyal to the pope.

China wary

The agreement, which has not been published, gives both sides a say in appointing the Church’s bishops in China. Under the accord, proposed bishops are picked by elections and the bishops’ conference in China, then put forward to the pope, who has power of veto, according to a person familiar with the issue.

China is wary of making the provisional agreement a permanent one, according to Wang Yiwei, a former Chinese diplomat in Brussels and director of China’s Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University. It also remains unsure about the Vatican’s future direction, he said.

For Lawrence Reardon, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire who studies China-Vatican ties, restoring relations with the Vatican would be a propaganda coup for China.

It is problematic for the pope because the Vatican is seeing more repression of Catholics and it doesn’t want to sacrifice its Taiwanese followers.

Even with both sides wary, the direction of travel is clear. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, in a rare high-level encounter at the Munich Security Conference in February.

Wang said at the time that China is “willing to further enhance understanding with the Vatican side.”

Catholic News Agency and Bloomberg News

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Sunday, September 20, 2020

A7

‘Nilad para sa Maynila’ Researchers discover new

plant species in Pampanga

The Pyrostria arayatensis, the newly discovered plant species in Mount Arayat National Park.

Dr. Marlon Suba, AUF and UST researchers

C

By Ashley Manabat

ITY OF SAN FERNANDO—After three years of botanical exploration, a team of researchers from the Angeles University Foundation (AUF) in Angeles City and the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila discovered a new plant species—the Pyrostria arayatensis .

The new species of plant was discovered in the 3,715-hectare Mount Arayat National Park (MANP) in this province.

Researchers Dr. Marlon Suba, Dr. Axel Arriola, Dr. Grecebio Jonathan Alejandro, Nicolas Raphael Arcangel, Jomari Jalipa, Joaquim Gerardo Jurilla and Jose Manuel Villaseñor discovered the new species in the lowland forest of the MANP while conducting a botanical study.

According to Suba, the discovered species belongs to the family Rubiaceae and is endemic to the Philippines.

He said the study was par t of his dissertation in the UST and was published in the international scientific journal Annales Botanici Fennici on August 10.

In the Philippines, Pyrostria is currently represented by P. elmeri, P. obovatifolia, P. oligophlebia, P. ramosii, P. subsessilifolia and P. trifloral , while the conservation status of P. arayatensis is still unknown, the study said.

Paquito Moreno Jr., executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Central Luzon, said the discovery of the new plant species is an indicator that MANP has sustained its healthy biological diversity, as rare native plants continuously grow in the area.

“Even at the very start when this group of researchers applied for a gratuitous permit to do their research in the area, we were positive that something good and noble would come out of this,” Moreno said.

He added that preserving the ecological value of MANP is among the priorities of the DENR in the region since diverse flora and fauna flourishes on the mountain while serving as a natural habitat to rare and threatened species of plants and animals.

He reminded the public that not all could do bioprospecting, exploration and scientific research on wildlife in a protected area. They have to secure a gratuitous permit or clearance from the Protected Area Management Board, the governing body in charge of the management and operations of the protected area.

Th e D E NR urged the public to protec t and conser ve MANP as an impor tant e co s y s te m i n the Central Luzon. It said t h at a ny d i s t u r b a n ce s t h at t h re ate n i t s b i o d i ve r s i t y i s stric tly prohibited under Republic Act 11038, or the Expanded National Integrated Protec ted Areas System ( En i p a s ) Ac t o f 2018.

Po a c h i n g a n y w i l d l i f e, c u t t i n g a n d transporting of timber and forest products and illegal occupation of lands within the protected area are just some of the activities not tolerated by the Enipas law, and any person found violating its provisions may be penalized or imprisoned, Moreno said.

Statistics show that MANP is home to 49 species of trees and plants, 86 species of birds, 14 species of mammals, and 11 species of reptiles.

Of these, two species of plants are endemic to the area: the flame tree ( Brachychiton acerifolius ) and the Chamberlain’s pitogo ( Cycas chamberlaini ).

I n 1 9 3 3 , t h e n - P re s i d e n t M a n u e l L .

Quezon signed Presidential Proclamation 594 establishing the Mount Arayat National Park.

Today, MANP became the initial components of the National Integrated Protected Area System Act of 1992, or Republic Act 7586.

It has been endorsed already for legislation through House Bill 4420, establishing MANP as a protected landscape, sponsored by Pampanga Third District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales, Jr. The bill is expected to further strengthen conservation efforts in the area and will tap local communities as partners in the protection of MANP.

Lute turtle rescued in Culasi; hawksbill on Guimaras Island

The leatherback turtle (left) was rescued at Barangay Malacañang in Culasi, Antique, while the hawksbill sea turtle was rescued at Sitio Banacan, Barangay Cabalagnan, Nueva Valencia, on the island province of Guimaras.

F

or hundreds of years, marine turtles lived in the vast oceans and they coexist with humans in many countries and shores each time they visit land.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had reported many sightings of marine turtles nesting in Western Visayas.

Boracay Island, for one, has been tagged as the “turtle haven” because of the simultaneous releases and discovery of turtle nesting sites on the island.

A leatherback turtle—the world’s largest known marine turtle and the fourth-heaviest modern reptile behind three crocodilians—was found and rescued at Barangay Malacañang, Culasi town, in Antique province by the Community ENR Office (Cenro) on September 7.

The marine turtle was reported by Mark Jay Ortega as it was tangled in fish traps in the area.

It has a thick leathery skin with longitudinal ridges instead of a hard shell.

Leatherbacks are the only turtle that does not have a hard shell. It has a curved carapace length of 115 centimeters and width of 82 cm.

After tagging, it was immediately released back to the sea. Leatherbacks are also called leathery turtle, lute turtle, or just luth.

Ellen Flor Solis of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) noted that this is the second leatherback turtle that was reported rescued on Panay Island.

Solis has been working with sea turtles rescue for the past 15 years.

Another turnover, tagging and release were done at Sitio Banacan, Barangay Cabalagnan, Nueva Valencia town, on the island province of Guimaras on September 9 to the rescued hawksbill sea turtle.

The marine turtle was caught in a net and was reported to the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office and Provincial ENR Office of Guimaras.

Hawksbills have narrow, pointed beak. Their overlapping scales on their shells form a serrated look and is the turtle’s distinctive feature.

Such colored and patterned shells make hawkbills highly valuable and were commonly sold as “tortoiseshell” in markets.

They are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conser vation of Nature’s Red List.

Factors that affect their decline include loss of nesting and feeding habitats, excessive egg collection, pollution, coastal development and they are the most threatened by wildlife trade.

The marine tur tle was released back to its habitat through the joint effor ts of the Nueva Valencia municipal government, B a ra n g ay Ca b a l a gn a n a n d Prov i n c i a l E N R Office, represented by Rhett Ar thur Diana, Env i ro n m e nt a l M a n a g e m e nt S p e c i a l i s t I I , and other staff from Taklong Island National Marine Reser ve.

“Turtles are one of the oldest creatures still in existence, with an average life span of 100 years. We laud the efforts of those who helped the release of trapped turtles and we continue to urge the general public to help us strengthen the protection of our natural resources—both in land and water,” said DENR 6 Regional Executive Director Francisco E. Milla Jr. The protection of marine turtles and other animals are part of the Enhanced Biodiversity Conservation which is one of the 10 priority programs of Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu.

Greening Manila Bay Mangroves at the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area. PHOTOS COURTESY OF DENR/SCIS

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By Jonathan L. Mayuga

he Manila Bay, world-famous for its beautiful sunset, has been in the news in the past days over the so-called white-sand beach-nourishment project.

However, amid the controversial project is the relatively quiet initiative, the “Nilad para sa Maynila,” for a five-year mangrove-reforestation project worth P3 million to bring back the iconic nilad mangrove in the tidal creeks of Manila.

It is part of regreening Manila Bay, as well as to make the place climate-change resilient.

To be implemented by the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB), the research and development arm of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the project is in partnership with the local government of the country’s capital city, Manila, in support of the Manila Bay Rehabilitation Program.

It is the “greening” part of the engineering interventions in Manila Bay, which has gained economic importance with its massive growth and development over the last half century.

However, along with development came the destruction of coastal and marine ecosystems, including the decimation of mangroves in many parts of the Manila Bay region.

What is nilad?

Scientifically called Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea, nilad is one of the 40 known mangrove species found in the Philippines.

Like all mangroves, it is a natural filter and a barrier to wave action, and helps in the removal and sequestration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Published botanical literature in the Philippines claimed that Manila got its name from nilad— ”Maynila” to mean “dominated by nilad” or “there is nilad”—as the iconic mangrove species once thrived in Manila Bay, according to the Project Brief of the Nilad for Maynila.

Sadly, however, despite the many ecosystem goods and services the species provides, its population along the coast of Manila has been practically decimated.

Enhancing resiliency

The project aims to bring back nilad in the tidal creeks and river mouths in Manila, where they once thrived, and to enhance the city’s resilience to the worse impacts of climate change.

The plan involves the planting of young nilad trees grown from areas, such as Pagbilao, Quezon, through earth-balling.

The target launching would be in November as the ERDB is “still preparing the earth-balled planting materials to increase survival,” ERDB Director Henry Adornado told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on September 10.

As part of the project, Adornado said they conducted a survey of potential sites in Manila for nilad field planting and identified four potential project sites.

The sites are near Baseco in Tondo; a vacant lot adjacent to a floating restaurant near Hotel H2O in Intramuros; the back of new Sewage Treatment Plant building adjacent to the Manila Yacht Club; and the island or plant boxes along Baywalk on Roxas Boulevard.

Important ecosystems function

Like all mangroves, nilad, which is “endemic to Manila Bay,” plays very important ecosystems function, Assistant Secretary Ricardo Calderon said.

A forestry expert, Calderon, the concurrent director of the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), said bringing back nilad to Manila Bay will help nourish and revive life in the coastal and marine ecosystems.

Sought for reaction, Calderon told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on September 11 that mangroves are breeding ground of fish and mollusks—including crabs, shrimps and shellfish—hence, making mangrove forest a natural food-production area.

“In our mangrove reforestation project in Cebu, fishermen no longer need to go further out of the sea to fish. They just fish in the mangrove area,” Calderon said.

Green and grey intervention

Calling “Nilad for Maynila” a laudable “green” intervention in Manila Bay, he said there are areas in the bay that are naturally inhabited by mangroves, such as nilad.

One of the areas is the Las PiñasParañaque Wetland Park, also known as the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area, which was declared a Ramsar Site because it has been identified as a migratory bird site as it is visited by tens of thousands of birds every year.

A Ramsar Site is a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an intergovernmental environmental treaty established in 1971

by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It came into force in 1975 in

A nilad mangrove plant.

Ramsar, Iran.

“There are certain areas where mangroves can survive, especially those with brackish water. It is their preferred habitat. They usually grow in mouths of rivers,” he said.

He said the ERDB has identified areas that are suited for mangrove reforestation during previous studies conducted with DENR-BMB experts.

Regreening Manila Bay, Calderon said, is needed the same way as the “grey” intervention or hard engineering, such as the construction of a breakwater that will cushion the impact of a tsunami or storm surge during strong typhoons as mangroves do not survive in some coastal areas.

Mangroves-rich Pagbilao

According to Adornado a project site of the ERDB in the Pagbilao mangrove swamp, he said, has wildlings and saplings of nilad enough to bring patches of green to Manila Bay. “Careful consideration will be made not to injure the root system during the extraction of the planting materials,” the ERDB Project Brief of the Nilad for Maynila said.

To diversify the species composition, not only nilad will be earthballed and used for out-planting and regreening. It will also use the species that live closely with nilad, such as the endangered gapasgapas and tawalis, the project brief added.

It said the earth-balled materials will be reared in the Pagbilao mangrove nursery for two months for recovery and conditioning. After which, they will be transported to Manila.

Beyond Manila

According to Adornado, while the project is initially set only for Manila, they are eyeing to cover other areas around Manila Bay, such as Parañaque and Cavite, and beyond.

“The City of Manila is just a pilot area for the project. When perfected, we will replicate it in other areas, and encourage other concerned offices to revert back mangrove trees around Manila Bay,” he said.

Adornado underscored the importance of regreening Manila Bay, taking note that mangrove that naturally protects coastal communities have been decimated by destructive human activities over the years.

Nilad, for one, is important because it naturally occurs in the Manila Bay region.

“The entire Manila Bay, spanning from Cavite to Bataan, has about 994 hectare covered by mangroves. We don’t know yet how much of this 994 ha is covered by nilad. But in the coast of Manila City alone, this species is practically not visible despite its historic role in having Manila’s name [taken from it],” Adornado said.

A welcome development but...

Asked for comments, environmenta l g roups welcomed the

project but chided the measly budget allotted for what they described as the “right path ” to Manila Bay rehabilitation.

Atty. Gloria Estenzo Ramos, vice president of Oceana Philippines, a nongovernment oceans conservation advocacy group, said bringing back nilad where Manila got its name is “good.”

“That’s good but they [project proponents] are not supposed to plant them [nilad] in their natural habitat,” said Ramos, who lamented the fact that many mangrove areas are being threatened by destructive development projects in Manila Bay. Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, said the DENR leadership should fully support the ERDB initiative to restore mangroves in Manila Bay. He pointed out t hat more budget should go to mangrove reforestation.

“Imagine the ecosystem restoration that is possible if ERDB’s P3million budget is bolstered by the P389-million fund allocation wasted on the Manila Bay white sands.

It would benefit the Filipino people in terms of food security, pollution and erosion control, eco-tourism, and natural beautification,” he told the BusinessMirror via Messenger on September 15.

Meanwhile, citing a study by Primavera and Esteban in 2008, Fernando Hicap, national chairman of the fisherfolk organization Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), said mangrove planting costs at least $607.7 or P28,881.6 per hectare.

This means, he said, that the P3-million budget for the project could only plant at least 104 hectares of mangroves compared to the thousands of hectares already destroyed by reclamation projects over the past decades.

“We question the measly budget for mangroves when there is almost a whopping P400 million for a comparatively useless beach nourishment project through dolomite filling,” Hicap said via Messenger on September 14.

“The DENR’s mangrove-patches project reeks of a cover-up of its dolomite white-sand fiasco,” the Pamalakaya leader added.

Such “measly” budget, he lamented, would do little to nothing in the rehabilitation of Manila Bay because reclamation projects that wipeout remaining mangroves are pushing through.

“If the DENR is really sincere in its mangrove reforestation, it must thoroughly study, along with the communities and the science sector, which critical areas should be rehabilitated and the appropriate types of mangroves to be installed.

Otherwise, it would be another waste of public funds,” Hicap said.

“Moreover, they should scrap all the environmental compliance certificates issued to big-ticket reclamation projects in Manila Bay,” he said.

Sports BusinessMirror

A8 Sunday, September 20, 2020

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

CDC WELCOMES PBA IN CLARK T

HE Clark Development Corp. (CDC) welcomed the decision of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) in choosing the free port as the bubble venue for the league’s 45th season Philippine Cup. PBA Chairman Ricky Vargas cited the suitability of the free port to host the bubble in terms of safety, protocol control, proximity to hospitals and its ability to take care of the mental health of players during the bubble.

CDC, together with Bases Conversion and Development Authority, expressed elation over the PBA decision.

“We express our gratitude to the PBA Board of Governors for choosing Clark for its bubble tournament and we are eager to help the PBA to start actual on-site preparations,” CDC President-CEO Noel Manankil said.

NLEX Road Warriors Head Coach Yeng Guiao said Clark is more than capable of meeting the requirements for the PBA bubble, including accommodation, security and proximity. He said Clark has first-class amenities suitable for such a huge event.

With league adopting a full bubble format, the 12 PBA teams will be accommodated at the Quest Hotel inside the free port for two months. They will then be transported to gyms in the free port for training and preparation.

Players, crew and officials are expected to arrive in Clark on September 26, with scrimmages scheduled to start on September 27.

The Angeles University Foundation Sports and Cultural Center will be the official venue for the Philippine Cup. Clark has been among the preferred destinations for numerous sports-related

activities and has been recognized by the Philippine Sports Tourism Awards as the “Sports Destination of the Year” for 2015 and 2018. It has also hosted various international and local events including the 30th Southeast

Asian Games last December.

The PBA board of governors on Thursday night decided to resume the season that was abruptly stopped in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic despite government

restrictions on team and indoor sports while quarantines are imposed.

The league chose Clark over about half a dozen other potential bubbles, including Subic, El Nido in Palawan, Smart Araneta

Coliseum and even Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Only one game was played in the Philippine Cup which opened in March.

EUMIR FELIX MARCIAL trains in earnest for professional debut.

MARCIAL FLYING TO U.S. TO START PRO TRAINING

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THE Quest Hotel will house the Philippine Basketball Association teams during the bubble.

Coach Pido’s advise to next UST coach: Love the school

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IDO JARENCIO—who coached University of Santo Tomas (UST) to its last University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball crown in 2006—has one important message to whoever gets the job to handle the gutted Growling Tigers: Love the school.

“I really can’t say much, but whoever it is who would coach the UST, he should truly love the team,” Jarencio told BusinessMirror.

“He should be the one who will not compromise the reputation of the team, the players and the university.”

“He should be someone the players would look up to,” he added.

Jarencio was a first-time UAAP and UST coach in 2006 when he won for the Tigers their 18th crown—the most in the league— in a classic finals showdown with Ateneo, then coached by Norman Black. He went on to coach the Tigers for eight seasons before getting a call of duty for Northport (then Harbour Centre) in the Philippine Basketball Association.

Interestingly, what Jarencio achieved as a coach—clinching a UAAP—title, he never achieved as a player with UST. UST is in dire straits following the resignation of key Tigers in the aftermath of the controversial Sorsogon City bubble conducted by the also resigned Head Coach Aldin Ayo. UST is currently searching for Ayo’s replacement and at the same time potential sanctions from the government and the UAAP for the Sorsogon City bubble.

Jarencio, meanwhile, said that as a PBA coach with NorthPort, everyone in the league has to sacrifice for the season to resume with the Philippine Cup on October 9 inside the Clark bubble.

“We really have to sacrifice for the league because this is what we want,” he said. “We want to give our supporters [fans] good games and we want them to stay calm amid the pandemic. So we have to sacrifice a bit.”

Everyone involved in the PBA’s resumption will be strictly confined inside the Clark bubble—meaning unauthorized individuals will not be allowed inside the bubble and those who leave the facility will never be allowed to return.

“It is much better because it is safer for the players and officials to be in one place.

I support PBA for that,” he said. “I think it’s about time to start playing, it’s been a while since we last played. I’m sure all the players are excited to play.” Annie Abad

PIDO JARENCIO expresses his concern for his alma mater.

Annie Abad

Victoria Lee joins One

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OMEN’S mixed martial arts (MMA) prodigy Victoria Lee—younger sister of world atomweight champion “Unstoppable” Angela Lee and lightweight titlist Christian “The Warrior” Lee—recently signed with One Championship, according to Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong.

“I feel extremely excited and motivated to be part of the world’s largest martial arts organization, One Championship,” Lee said.

“Inspired by watching my older brother and sister compete on the biggest global stage of

OKYO Olympics-bound boxer Eumir Felix Marcial will fly to Los Angeles anytime this month to begin his training in earnest as a professional.

Marcial signed up with world boxing icon Manny Pacquiao’s MP Promotions and is penned to for his first professional fight in November. MP Promotions, however, has yet to announce the date and venue of his fight, more so his opponent’s identity.

“My promoters have yet to announce the details of my first professional fight, and who I will fight,” Marcial told BusinessMirror in a telephone interview. “But I need to train early to be in top shape if ever I am called to climb the ring.”

The 24-year-old Marcial, along with Irish Magno, earned tickets to the rescheduled Tokyo Games from the Olympic qualifiers in Amman, Jordan, last February.

And because boxing opened up to pros and amateurs, Marcial opted to turn pro as he awaits the Tokyo Olympics.

“I remain focused on the Tokyo Olympics.

It’s my promise to my parents, the Filipino people, the Abap [Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines],” said the Zamboanga City pride Marcial, who bagged a silver medal in last year’s world championships in Russia.

Marcial, a gold medalist in last December’s 30th Southeast Asian Games in Manila, said turning pro will never be a hindrance for his Olympic dream.

“My expected opponents in Tokyo have also turned pro, so I believe it’s still a level playing field at the Olympics,” he said.

Marcial and his fellow national athletes continue to train online under the supervision of Abap coaches as the government still restricts combat sports amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Everything’s online, but I run [jog] every so often,” he said. “I also send videos of my personal training [at home in Cavite] to my national coaches.”

martial arts competition, I am ready to take my career to the next level and compete with the world’s best martial arts athletes.”

Born into a family of world champion martial artists, Lee was introduced to martial arts by her parents, who both trained and developed her skills from a young age.

Following in the footsteps of sister Angela and brother Christian, Lee is considered one of the top female mixed martial arts prospects in the world.

At just 16 years old, Lee already boasts of a growing list of impressive accolades,

including a 2019 International Mixed Martial Arts Federation Junior World Championship, two Pankration Junior World Championships and a 2019 Hawaii State Wrestling Championship, among others. She is also a 15-time NAGA Expert Champion.

At such a young age, Lee has already accomplished much in her career. But by joining One Championship, she enters an organization teeming with the world’s best martial arts talent.

Angela says Victoria is a better version of herself at her age, and is excited for Victoria to take the world by storm.

Lee will join a stacked women’s atomweight division, where her older sister reigns as the division’s queen.

After Beirut blast, a young surgeon finds new sense of duty

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BusinessMirror SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

HOOKED ON INDIE POP Fil-Aussie Bryan Estepa on hindsight and self-reflection

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By Edwin P. Sallan

ASED in Sydney but born in the Philippines, singer-songwriter Bryan Estepa found his musical calling during his teens after his family moved to the Land Down Under.

Fil-Aussie Bryan Estepa

Publisher

: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

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

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

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By the time he was 14, Bryan was more drawn towards music than anything else.

“My Walkman constantly played a rotation of Beatles, Bee Gees, Hendrix, Clapton and you will more likely find me playing or listening to the footy on AM radio, rather than watching a basketball game,” he recalled in a recent article he himself wrote for the web edition of Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).

Although he was more partial to rock and became even more excited to discover grunge and indie music, Bryan was still very much an impressionable teen at the time and noticed “how much of the Filipino-Australian youth’s identity was defined and fashioned by Black American culture.” Being “clueless and insecure,” he felt compelled to, in his own words, “follow the herd.”

“For a few years, I dressed like a member of Bel Biv Devoe, listened intently to R&B and fumbled my way through my first discos - but I’d always felt out of place. Finding that balance between what was culturally expected of me and accepting the person I was beginning to be became a hard task,” he admitted.

That all changed when Bryan found himself at the center of Sydney’s burgeoning indie music scene as he not only became enamored with Australian alternative rockers like You Am I, Smudge, The Clouds, Front End Loader but soon fronted his own band, Swivel and did the rounds of pubs there during the late 90s.

“It dawned on me early on that I was a rare sighting on stage at those gigs - a gigging FilipinoAustralian musician…I was part of a predominantly Anglo dominated scene but never have I felt like the odd one out. No one gave a damn that I was a shade darker than my band mates. The music was the common denominator [and]…[a]s extremely connected as I was to my roots, this was the first time in my life where I felt like I belonged to a

community. One that represented my ideals and interests with little judgement,” Bryan noted in the same article.

It didn’t take long for Bryan then to start recording his own music, initially with Swivel and later on his own. Spreading his wings and widening his horizons, Bryan went on to travel across the USA and performed at open mic nights that eventually inspired him to write songs that would make up his debut EP, "Start Again" in 2003.

Since then, Bryan has gone on to release six well-received solo albums (All The Bells And Whistles, Sunday Best, Vessels, Heart Vs Mind, Every Little Thing and Sometimes I Just Don’t Know) featuring songs generally characterized by “hooks that soar in jubilation or pull on melancholic heartstrings.”

One thing that clearly stands out in all of these releases is Bryan’s “knack for crafting melodic minimasterpieces” as pointed out by Australian music critic Jeff Jenkins in his review of the former’s 2019 release, Sometimes I Just Don’t Know for Rhythms, the country’s roots rock magazine.

Now Bryan is back to elevate his craft and showcase his guitardriven brand of indie pop in “Admit Now, Pay Later” for Lilystar Records/Rock Indiana which features the production of multi

ARIA and APRA award-winning Australian songwriter Josh Pyke.

“I have known and admired Josh for a long time now. He is one of my favourite Aussie songwriters and a real inspiration [so] I made the decision early on to really step back and let him produce and engineer this song. We have similar influences, being from the same generation, but Josh brings a different sensibility and approach to production and arranging that is not all in my musical vocabulary. Because of that, it made it really exciting to work with him and watch him take the song to places I otherwise never would have thought of,” Bryan noted.

In describing “Admit Now, Pay Later,” Bryan said the song “touches on hindsight and self-reflection.”

“I guess it’s part of the process of understanding and coming to terms with life’s curve balls,” he added.

For his part, Josh Pyke is all praises for Bryan’s musical sensibility and what he considers as their joyful collaboration experience.

“Bryan’s sense of melody is really strong which informs everything in his songs. His lyrics are really authentic and heartfelt and for me that’s the key of a good song. From there it’s a matter of pushing the boundaries of what the arrangement and sonics can be, to tell those stories. As a great writer and collaborator, he’s got a classic pop sensibility but is really open to feedback and experimentation which made my job as producer really fun and free,” Josh further elaborated.

Bryan Estepa’s “Admit Now, Pay Later” is his follow-up to his earlier 2020 release, “Weight in Gold” and is scheduled for release on major streaming platforms on September 18.

IC

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | SEPTEMBER 20, 2020

BUSINESS

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

Drown out your pandemic blues

ST. WOLF Rmnnts Vol I

The Itchyworms

proves themselves equally adept at reflecting the nuances of sadness in these troubled times.

THE ITCHYWORMS Waiting For the End To Start

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FIRST single, the blues rocking “Armageddon Blues” from a forthcoming album titled "Waiting For the End To Start" couldn’t help but raise alarm about end-times messaging in a period of pandemic induced stress and dis-ease. When the album got finally released, the artists concerned, The Itchyworms, put the initial distress to rest with nine original compositions that are musically satisfying to accompany lyrics that are far from run of the mill moon-in-June rehashes.

That said, the band’s first album for Sony Music Philippines is a journey to the ‘end’ sugar coated with some of the most melodic pop-rockers this side of OPM. “The Silence” is driven by a neat shoegazing undertow. A splash of doowop imbues “Give Me A Love Song” with a quiet soulful fire while a psychedelic riot runs through shifting sonic hues of “Mary Walter In The Water.” “The Life I Know” should be the most beautiful ode to the lonely and distraught this year, bar none.

A melancholy undercurrent flows through the album’s literate lyrics and the way they are delivered. Meaning, the once fountain of happy-go-lucky joviality that’s The Itchyworms

MOANING Uneasy Laugher

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OR their sophomore release for pioneering grunge label Subpop, LA-based trio Moaning sighs and whines their way across the gloomy landscape of post-punk ‘80s. They raise the ghosts of just about everyone who mattered then from Joy Division to the Cure to even The Chameleons.

Some pundit has uncharitably described “Uneasy Laughter” to have the redemptive value of archeological digging. It’s unfair since a lot of music going around today came from the pre-punk ‘60s and ‘70s and they don’t exactly smell like something rescued from the grave. To name three, The Beatles, The Stones and Led Zeppelin, come to mind.

So here goes Moaning’s brief trawl through the early days of new wave: the reverb vs. distortion clash in “Make It Stop,” the electroshock of “Fall in Love,” the jagged Kraftwerk recall of “Coincidence of Fate” and the definitive New Order in 2020, namely “Ego”.

Fuck the copycat police! This kind of post-punk should be a joy to listen to anytime, anywhere.

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ONSTRAINED by lockdown, Pinoy four-piece St. Wolf chose to reimagine some of their early singles in the new sound of a remix.

Surprisingly, “Lapastangan”, their latest composition in the 4-song EP shines brightest, reminiscent in attitude, fortitude and punky ethos of the golden years of electronica in early ’00s.

“Jealousy” fares better over the original only because it plugs boy band blah in the remix. On the other hand, “Papara” is a weirdly cool stitching of vocodered vocals, skittering drums and extended soul jazz jams in its 6-minute ripple. In all these, an irritating cat’s meow issues at unexpected moments.

reprises a similar vocal move subsequently in “Who’s Fooling Who” and closer “Paradise for One.” Lest potential fans mistake him for a mere revivalist, or worse, a copycat, James with his great improvising band in tow, does the cha-cha in “Brother or Other” and the Latin vamp in his original composition, “Till Hear From You.” On the whole, “Nick of Time” is largely a throwback tribute to another era of good music. It’s definitely good enough to dance to, get pleasantly drunk to cuddle up to and yes, make unhurried love to. Swell!

STRYPER Even the Devil Believes

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THE JAMES HUNTER SIX Nick of Time

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OUL groove is at the heart of James Hunter Six’s latest release.

Brit singer James Hunter leads a four-piece band whose patented musicality leans towards the legacy of The Temptations, Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson and probably the roster of artists in the Motown stable.

That’s pretty obvious at the starting gate of the “Nick of Time” album where the opening track, “I Can Change You,” sees James headed towards Sam Cooke domain. He

merican Christian metal band Stryper continues to hustle hard to get the Good News across to believers and heathens alike.

They initially found chart action on Billboard’s Hot 100 with their appropriation of New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) influences in the service of the Christian faith.

Their seventeenth and newest album titled “Even the Devil Believes” remains founded in NWOBHM, but sufficient room is given to thrash and power metal.

In fact, NWOBHM tropes like guitar solos and blitz drumming fit right into power metal’s hyperventilating vocals and melodic finesse.

You get the usual dose of dispatches from the Golden Book from the Crucifixion to making sacrifices clearly proclaimed above the new metal mayhem.

For young fans, it may be enough to headbang to in the name of salvation.

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After Beirut blast, a young surgeon finds new sense of duty

By Sarah El Deeb

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The Associated Press

EIRUT—It was a night Dr. Bassam Osman says changed his life. At around 6 p.m. on August 4, the 27-year-old surgical resident was about to leave his daily hospital shift. Then a massive explosion shook Beirut.

The floodgates opened and hundreds of wounded poured into the American University of Beirut Medical Center, one of Lebanon’s best hospitals.

The medical staff of around 100 doctors, nurses and aides juggled priorities and space in treating the torn-up and bloodied men, women and children.

They sutured wounds by mobile phone lights when electricity conked out. The wounded kept streaming in because several other hospitals closer to the port were knocked out of service by the blast.

Veteran doctors who had worked through Lebanon’s civil war said they’d never seen anything like it. In six hours, they used up a year and a half’s worth of emergency supplies.

Osman ended up working the next 52 hours straight. He treated more than two dozen patients. He lost one.

“There was no moment in my life where I felt more in touch with my own and my surrounding humanity,” Osman said of those 52 hours in a tweet afterward.

Osman, at the beginning of his career, finds himself in a medical field far different from what he expected when he entered the profession.

Dr. Bassam Osman, a 27-year-old surgical resident, poses for a picture, in Beirut, Lebanon. AP Lebanon’s health facilities were once considered among the region’s best. In a short time, they have been brought to near collapse, battered by Lebanon’s financial meltdown and a surge in coronavirus cases, then smashed by the Beirut explosion.

But the blast has also given Osman a greater sense of duty. That day’s trauma, he says, forged a deeper emotional bond between doctors and patients, left with no one else to trust in a country where politicians and public institutions take no responsibility.

The disaster, caused by explosive chemicals left untended for years at Beirut’s port, has stoked anger at Lebanon’s corrupt officials, who are also blamed for driving the

country of 5 million into near bankruptcy.

More than 190 people were killed in the explosion, thousands hurt, and tens of thousands of homes were wrecked.

“Day by day, these [crises] are becoming our normal life,” Osman told the AP. “We are tired...It feels like one long marathon.”

Harder days may be ahead, he feels.

The blast exacerbated shortages in medical supplies caused by the financial crisis.

Replacement supplies are not coming fast enough.

In one of Osman’s recent operations, lack of supplies nearly turned a small but critical procedure into invasive surgery. Osman and the other surgeons didn’t have the right size balloon to expand the patient’s arteries and were about to open her chest, before they found a way to improvise a replacement.

Medical facilities hit by the economic meltdown are laying off staff. More doctors are emigrating. Osman’s salary, denominated in Lebanese pounds, dropped in value from nearly $1,300 to just around $200 a month because of the local currency’s crash.

It will cost nearly $30 million to repair health facilities damaged by the blast, the World Health Organization estimates.

Eight hospitals and 20 clinics sustained partial or heavy structural damage. Two hospitals remain largely out of service.

One, deemed totally unsafe, has to be leveled and rebuilt.

The blast damaged the WHO’s main warehouse for medical supplies, destroying a shipment of Covid-19 protective equipment. It destroyed an Covid-19 isolation center used for migrant workers and vulnerable groups, and damaged centers for HIV and tuberculosis.

The strained health system faces a coronavirus surge. Since the August 4 blast, there has been a 220-percent increase in reported infections, according to the International Rescue Committee.

Covid-19 patients are filling hospital

and ICU beds. More than 25,000 confirmed cases have been reported, and 8 percent of all tests are coming back positive, according to the lead Covid-19 doctor Firas Abiad.

More than 250 people have died. The number is expected to rise, with 115 patients in ICU, up from single digits before July.

The increase is partly due to the explosion’s after-effects, including overcrowding in health facilities, displaced people sheltering with family and friends, and disrupted water networks and loss of hygiene items, said Christina Bethke, a WHO coordinator of the emergency response.

Hit by the financial crisis, many cannot afford medical treatment. In the weeks preceding the explosion, Osman said he and his colleagues thought things had hit their worst when they saw people leaving the hospital because they couldn’t pay for admission.

Then the blast came.

There is a new “intensity of emotion” between doctors and patients, Osman said.

Patients want to talk.

Needing to unburden themselves, they talk about how they lost their homes, what happened to them in the blast, how they can’t afford treatment—“then they start talking about the whole situation in the country,” he said.

“People can trust us, not only with their health but also their emotions...I think the emotional injury is much more severe than the physical one,” he said.

Osman said he welcomes it. “I try to make it personal with patients,” he said.

“I’m not here just to do my job and leave.”

Osman has two more years in his residency, then he plans to go on a fellowship abroad. He said that previously it was “a question mark” whether he would return to Lebanon when it was over.

After the explosion, he is certain he will.

“After I witnessed how much potential there is to give as a doctor in a country like Lebanon...I realized that the question marks have all gone away.”

Helping children hope

By Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez

W

ith classes now being conducted mostly online, exacerbated inequity in education has emerged as a major setback for disadvantaged children who lose out on the opportunity to keep learning.

Humanitarian organization Save the Children Philippines (SCP) aims to reverse these issues by raising funds for students from marginalized families

through several initiatives, including “Humanity as One, Protecting, Educating.” Also known as “HOPE Online” (https://bit. ly/3hF458w), the virtual fundraising event was mounted in August to support Project ARAL, or the Access to Resources for Alternative Learning program.

“Children are at the epicenter of the pandemic,” said SCP Chief Executive Officer Alberto Muyo. “Children without access to help with their learning will be left further behind

when they return to school.”

Project ARAL recently gathered personalities in a threepart discussion series hosted by ambassadors Xia Vigor, Katarina Rodriguez and Ria Atayde.

The program covered Covid-19sensitive adaptive activities, as well as inclusive educational lessons that support the development of children and promote positive parenting and resilience.

Proceeds from the engagement provided educational

4 BusinessMirror

Xia Vigor (from left), Katarina Rodriguez and Ria Atayde for Project ARAL of humanitarian organization Save the Children Philippines supplies, age-specific learning modules and digital devices for learners from poverty-stricken communities in Caloocan, Navo-

September 20, 2020

tas, Malabon, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM, and Eastern Samar.