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VOL. 8 NO. 281

BY NIKKO DIZON Philippine Daily Inquirer PATRICIA BAUTISTA says her husband, Comelec Chair Andres Bautista, has undeclared wealth, like P329 million in 35 accounts with Luzon Development Bank and a condo unit in San Francisco, California.

After meeting with President Duterte, the wife of Commission on Elections Chair Andres Bautista submitted last week to the National Bureau of Investigation an affidavit, saying that the Comelec chief might have amassed nearly P1 billion worth of ill-gotten wealth.

Patricia Paz “Tish” Bautista submitted the affidavit on Aug. 1, five days after she sought an audience with Mr. Duterte in Malacañang to tell him that she had

LYN RILLON / PDI

Wife says poll chief has ill-gotten wealth 10

discovered several passbooks as well as bank and real property documents under her husband’s name and some of his relatives that were not included in his 2016 statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).

Bautista declared a net worth of P176.3 million in his SALN. In her affidavit, Patricia, 47, said she was disclosing “certain information and documents that would show that Andy (Bautista’s nickname) might have had, or currently has, misdealing and corrupt practices while in government service.”

Impeachable offense

“I understand that since Andy holds the position of Comelec chair, he is liable to be impeached should there exist valid ❱❱ PAGE 7 Wife says

Chief justice faces 2 impeachment raps

16 Philippine president on human rights: “Don’t go there” ❱❱ PAGE 6

Hot, dry conditions see 28 new wildfire starts in less than two days in B.C.

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FRIDAY

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

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DOH tries prevention vs HIV

BY JOCELYN R. UY Philippine Daily Inquirer

Kin of girl ‘trafficked’ by priest get safehouse Marikina mayor comes to family’s aid after momreported threats

BY JODEE A. AGONCILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer

All expenses paid

He added that the city government would shoulder the rent for the house as well as the family’s expenses until their THE FAMILY of a 13-year-old girl who lives return to normal. accused a priest of paying her for sex has Lagarejos was arrested on July 28 been moved by the Marikina City gov- in Marikina City as he was driving to a ernment to another house for their own motel with the minor. According to the protection. girl, the priest had booked her twice beMarikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro fore through her 16-year-old friend. She told the Inquirer on Thursday that said that she was paid up to P3,500 each they decided to transfer the girl’s fam- time. ily to an undisclosed location after her She and the pimp are now under the mother reported receiving threaten- protective custody of the city’s social ing phone calls from welfare department. strangers.

The pimp faces a One of the callers nonbailable charge identified himself as for violating the Antia Major Rosales from According to the Trafficking of Pergirl, the priest Mandaluyong City sons Act and is set to had booked her who claimed he was undergo diversion twice before the girl’s uncle. programs since he is through her also a minor.

According to the 16-year-old Teodoro said the girl’s mother, he anfriend. She said city government grily demanded to that she was paid speak to the minor would help in the up to P3,500 and when she reyoung girl’s case. each time. fused, he hinted that Among the lawyers it would be better for assigned to her were them to drop the case Rodaflor Laracas of against Msgr. Arnel the Public Attorney’s Lagarejos.

Office and Princess Feliciano, head of Another caller also made the same the city’s gender and development divirequest, asking the mother to not file sion. charges “kung maaari” (if possible) The prosecutor has yet to set a date for against the 55-year- old parish priest of the preliminary hearing of the case.

St. John the Baptist in Taytay, Rizal.

Teodoro expressed disappointment “That’s the time we thought the family over the case filed against Lagarejos, needed to be relocated. We did not ex- saying he should have been charged pect her to be receiving threats but the with the trafficking of a person in relamother told me there were people who tion to child abuse instead of the less had been asking her not to file a com- serious charge of use of a trafficked plaint or just drop the case [against the person. priest],” Teodoro said. ❱❱ PAGE 7 Kin of

A PILOT program of the Department of Health (DOH) designed to prevent the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from further spreading in the country appears to heed the saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Called Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PReP), the program features a pill that program participants were expected to take on a daily basis, according to health and program officials.

Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial said PReP was meant to protect members of a particularly vulnerable group known as men having sex with men, or MSM, who are not yet sick with HIV. “The pill is taken the way people living with HIV are also taking their own pill,” said Dr. Gerald Belimac, program manager of the DOH Philippine National AIDS Council.

He said PReP had been im- plemented in many countries where it had been shown to be a powerful HIV prevention tool.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), clinical trials have shown that PReP, if applied properly,

can provide nearly complete protection from HIV infection. Success results, though, could vary according to how the anti-HIV drug was taken.

PReP is being tested by a private community-based organization and DOH partner in Mandaluyong City, Belimac said. The organization provides the drug while WHO exercises “rigorous supervision,” he said.

The program, which started only last month, targets 200 healthy men who have sex with men.

“We are evidence based,” Ubial said.

“If the evidence will show that it is effective, we will explore using that strategy in the future because there’s a different context for every population group.”

She cited condom use as a strategy that might not be applicable as an HIV prevention tool for “some population groups.”

She said, though, that the PReP pill had not been found to prevent other sexually transmitted diseases. “So the MSM who are under PReP are still vulnerable to other sexually transmitted infections that can also lead to death,” she said.

Male-to-male sex remains to be the main mode of HIV transmission in the Philippines, according to DOH data. Of 38,114 HIV cases reported from January 1984 to October 2016, a total of 28,947 belonged to the MSM category. ■

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Philippine News

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Philippine president on Higher penalties await human rights: “Don’t go there” overcharging taxis, ‘colorum’ in NAIA

BY JOSH LEDERMAN The Associated Press MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte met Monday with America’s top diplomat, where he voiced solidarity with the U.S. amid global concerns over North Korea’s nuclear program and angrily dismissed media questions about human rights abuses by his government.

Duterte and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met in President Rodrigo Roa Duterte gives a warm welcome to US Secretary of State Manila at a regional Asia gath- Rex Tillerson who paid a courtesy call on the President.

ACE MORANDANTE / PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO ering. It was the highest-level interaction to date between a member of President Donald men and soldiers have died on Islamic State group exporting Trump’s administration and me. The war now in Marawi, violence into Southeast Asia Duterte, accused by human what caused it but drugs? So and beyond. rights groups of flagrant abuses human rights, don’t go there.”

Nearly 700 people have died in his bloody war against illegal But ahead of the meeting, in the intense fighting, includdrugs.

Duterte’s presidential spokes- ing 528 militants and 122 solIf the two leaders discussed man, Ernesto Abella, said the diers and policemen, since those or other U.S. concerns topic would indeed come up, hundreds of black flag waving about Duterte’s government, along with other pressing mat- gunmen stormed into buildings they didn’t do so in public. In- ters such as global terrorism and homes in the business disstead, the two focused on the threats, economic co-operation trict and outlying communities alliance between the two coun- and security in Marawi, the of mosque-studded Marawi, a tries and on the North Korea city that has been under siege centre of Islamic faith in the issue as reporters were allowed by pro-Islamic State group southern third of the predomiin briefly for the start of their militants for more than two nantly Roman Catholic nation. meeting. months.

“I see no conflict — no conEntering an ornate, wood“We also welcome the oppor- flict at all in our helping them paneled hall in the Philip- tunity to address concerns such with that situation and our pine leader’s palace, Tillerson as human rights if and when views of the human rights conwas introduced cerns we have to members with respect to of Duterte’s how they carry Cabinet, shakout their counter The war now in Marawi, what caused it ing hands with narcotics activibut drugs? So human rights, don’t go each.

Duterte ties,” Tillerson there. welcomed the told reporters American and before the meetsaid he said he ing. He added knew the U.S. that it appeared was concerned about Pyong- raised,” Abella said in a state- the Philippines was “beginning yang’s missile program. ment. “We have always includ- to get that situation under con“You come at a time when I ed this issue in our discussions trol.” think the world is not so good, and engagements with foreign To that end, Tillerson said especially in the Korean Penin- governments, particularly the U.S. has been providing the sula,” Duterte said.

Western democracies.”

Philippines with surveillance Earlier, as they shook hands, The U.S., too, said ahead of capabilities, training, inforthe two ignored a shouted the meeting that human rights mation and aircraft to help it question about whether they’d would be among the topics on fight the militants. He said the discuss human rights. And at the agenda. equipment includes a few Cessa news conference after their Human rights groups have na aircraft and a few drones. meeting, Duterte bristled but questioned the Trump ad“The real challenge is going didn’t answer directly when ministration’s willingness to to come with once they have the asked whether human rights engage with Duterte. But Til- fighting brought to an end how had come up. lerson argued there’s no con- to deal with the conditions on “Human rights, son of a tradiction presented by the U.S. the ground to ensure it does not bitch,” Duterte said, arguing he decision to help his country re-emerge.” ■ shouldn’t be questioned about fight the militants, whose inalleged violations given the surgency in the Philippines has Associated Press writer Jim Gomez contributed to this report. challenges he’s facing. “Police- stoked global fears about the www.canadianinquirer.net

BY MA. CRISTINA ARAYATA Philippines News Agency MANILA — Abusive taxi drivers and “colorum” vehicle operators at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) should be wary of higher penalties awaiting them.

The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) on Tuesday signed a memorandum of agreement to better address public transportation issues in NAIA, and further monitor compliance of public land transportation vehicles to laws and traffic rules and regulations.

“Penalties will be much higher,” said MIAA General Manager Ed Monreal, to let the abusers feel that the two agencies are serious with their campaign.

Taxi drivers who are overcharging their passengers, “colorum” vehicle operators and other violators can expect PHP120,000 to PHP200,000 for every violation, as compared to the previous PHP1,000 violation fee.

Monreal added that bus operators will now be charged PHP1 million for a violation.

The airport GM explained that the increase was due to

the huge number of violators they have seen, and because operators could easily get the PHP1,000 violation fee from their passengers.

He also noted that MIAA’s joint effort with the LTFRB is also in time, now that the peak season is coming.

For his part, LTFRB Chairman Martin Delgra III emphasized that his agency needs to take care of the passengers, and reminded them to assert their rights.

Passengers can report directly via the LTFRB numbers or hotlines, or at the MIAA. Delgra said the LTFRB will have two teams from its Central and NCR offices, who will man the NAIA everyday. The Airport Police Department will help them.

Reminders

Monreal said many violations have already been reported to his office, and many of these were already resolved.

To ensure the smooth flow of MIAA’s joint effort with the LTFRB, he reminded passengers not to communicate with solicitors and drivers of unmarked vehicles.

“We don’t have control on unmarked vehicles,” he noted.

He added that MIAA has also no control over taxis hailed outside the airport’s premises. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

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Wife says... ❰❰ 1

and sufficient grounds to hold him in trial for an impeachable offense under Sec. 2, Article XI of the 1987 Philippine Constitution,” Patricia said in the affidavit.

Bautista was appointed to the Comelec by then President Benigno Aquino III in May 2015. In 2010, Aquino named Bautista chair of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, the agency tasked with going after the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family.

Among the pieces of information Patricia disclosed to Mr. Duterte and the NBI, which were not in Bautista’s SALN: • 35 Luzon Development Bank (LDB) passbooks with a total balance of P329,220,962 • A foreign currency account with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.

(RCBC) with $12,778.30, or P640,959.53 (at P50.16 [as of Aug. 4] to $1.00) • An RCBC peso account with P257,931.60 • An HSBC account with HK$948,358.97 or P6.10 million (at P6.43 to HK$1.00) • A condominium unit in One Bonifacio High Street at Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig City • A condo unit in The District in San Francisco, California Patricia said that except for two adjoining condo units in Pacific Plaza Towers at BGC in Taguig City, the family home, she was not aware of the 13 other real properties listed in her husband’s SALN. Her lawyers said this meant Patricia had no hand in the purchase or acquisition of these properties because her husband always kept her in the dark when it came to their assets.

Patricia said in her affidavit that based on her own assessment, the cumulative value of the properties at their acquisition costs was between P250 million and P300 million, “definitely more than P158.5 million” that Bautista declared in his 2016 SALN.

Overseas interests She also said that she dis- covered investments abroad “in the form of his interests in corporations and loan agreements” that were not declared in his SALN: • Bauman Enterprises Ltd., a company established in the British Virgin Islands on Sept. 29, 2010; a trustee company that Bautista set up with Bank of Singapore.

• Mantova International Ltd., established in Brunei Darussalam on April 26, 2011.

• Mega Achieve Inc., established in Anguilla, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean, on July 15, 2014.

“I previously confronted Andy about these companies and he bluntly denied that he was involved in any way with any of them. However, it is highly suspicious why he would have copies of pertinent documents relative to such companies when he claims that he does not have any involvement with any of those,” Patricia said in her affidavit.

Of the 35 LDB passbooks, Patricia’s name appeared in only one. She told reporters on Friday that she was unaware that she had an LDB passbook.

Seeking separation

Patricia narrated to reporters her discoveries that she included in her NBI affidavit and the life she had with her husband of 17 years from whom she had been wanting to separate since 2013.

She said it was out of “fear” of Bautista and his network that she sought an audience with Mr. Duterte.

Patricia has filed a case of violence against women and children with the Taguig City Prosecutor’s Office, accusing her husband of “emotional and economic sabotage” against her and their children.

But it still bothered her that she had all the documents that might be proof of misdealing and corrupt practices, she said.

Patricia’s lawyers said Bautista could

not accuse her of stealing his passbooks and other documents because she found them in their conjugal house.

“I am getting scared … I am holding these stuff. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how farreaching it is. I don’t know what to do, right?” Patricia said.

“So I would think that the safest place to bring this is there (referring to Malacañang), because at the end of the day, this is the President. This is as high as it goes,” she added.

Meeting with Duterte

Patricia said she was able to arrange a meeting with Mr. Duterte through friends she did not name.

They met at the Music Room of the Palace on July 26 for two to three hours.

Patricia’s lawyers were present.

After Patricia narrated what she knew, she said the President told her that he would help in “whatever way he could.”

“I think he was surprised as much as I was,” she said.

In the course of their meeting, Patricia said the President summoned NBI Director Dante Gierran to the Palace.

When Gierran arrived, Patricia said the President “endorsed us to the NBI director, who had since been the one coordinating (with her legal team).”

Patricia said she executed the affida-

Kin of... ❰❰ 3

‘He got off easy’

“It could have been a nonbailable case against the priest had they related it to child abuse. They failed to emphasize [that the case involved a] minor. It was as if the child was an ordinary [sex worker]. Nakalusot tuloy [He got off easy]. The priest was able to post bail,” he said, adding that they were just after the protection of the young girl.

“This is not a fight between the government and the Church. The bottom line here is we are all after the protection and the best interest of the abused kid,” Teodoro stressed.

“We did not intend to arrest a priest. Never

in our wildest imagination [did we think] that the suspect would be a monsignor,” he said.

Before she was caught in the company of the priest, the girl had been apprehended for violating the curfew in Marikina City. Her mother also told Teodoro that in the past months, she had noticed changes in her daughter’s behavior, particularly after her [mother] separation from her husband.

Since his arrest, Lagarejos has been relieved of his posts by the Antipolo diocese. He faces an investigation by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines which will be conducted by Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

vit for fear that some of her family’s finances and properties might have been accumulated from “illegal or immoral acts or conduct” during her husband’s time in office.

“I want to make a distinction of the ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ money that forms part of our conjugal property as husband and wife. After all, Andy had worked in the private sector before joining the government and his income from the private sector was substantial as well,” she said.

However, she can not make the distinction herself since it is Bautista who “controls most, if not all, of our finances,” she said.

She added that her husband knew she had in her possession all the documents she mentioned in her NBI affidavit.

Financial support cut

“As his reprisal, Andy has purposely cut off any financial support that he has previously given to me and my family, in the hopes that this act would pressure me to give up the documents and information I have against him,” she said.

Patricia also said in her affidavit that she believed her husband, “although extremely professionally qualified, should not be allowed to hold any government position as a consequence of the possible ramifications of what I have found.” ■

Philippine News

8

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

‘Bakwit’ schools need more teachers

BY JODEE A. AGONCILLO Philippine Daily Inquirer

Publisher Philippine Canadian Inquirer, Inc. Correspondents Katherine Padilla Michealina Vallarta David Joanna Belle Z. Deala RO-Angelica T. Equio Bea Kirstein T. Manalaysay Carlo Jacob Molina Socorro Newland Bolet Arevalo Administration Head Victoria Yong Graphic Designer Shanice Garcia Photographers Angelo Siglos Vic Vargas For photo submissions, please email editor@canadianinquirer.net For General Inquiries, please email info@canadianinquirer.net For Sales Inquiries, please email sales@canadianinquirer.net PHILIPPINE PUBLISHING GROUP Editorial Assistant Christelle Tolisora Associate Publisher Lurisa Villanueva In cooperation with the Philippine Daily Inquirer digital edition Philippine Canadian Inquirer is located at 11951 Hammersmith Way, Suite 108 Richmond, B.C. V7A 5H9 Canada

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Member

“I WANT to be an engineer to build a school for ‘lumad,’” Dwayne Colas said.

“I want to build something we can call our own so they will stop calling us ‘school for the NPA,’” he said, referring to the communist New People’s Army.

“If I become an engineer, I can put a mark on the blueprint, and tell them I built the school for the tribal community, not for rebels,” he added.

Colas, 17, is one of 109 Grade 6 to 12 students who temporarily live and study at “bakwit” school—school for evacuees—that opened at the University of the Philippines’ International Center (IC) in Diliman, Quezon City, on Monday.

Like his classmates, his eyes sparkled, he spoke with conviction as he sat on the floor of the school, certain his dream would come true.

First in Metro Manila

UP is the first school in Metro Manila that has given space to lumad (indigenous people), about 200 of them, who fled martial law and “militarization” in the Caraga and Davao regions in Mindanao.

Most of the lumad communities have been in UP since June, staying in the IC dormitory.

Chancellor Mike Tan, who chairs the Save Our Schools Network, supports the communities and their right to continued education.

Ruis Valle, Save Our Schools Network spokesperson, said the students would continue normal schooling, using the Department of Education’s regular curriculum in an alternative setting in Metro Manila.

“Most of the students chose to remain in Manila, as they fear being attacked, bombed or harassed in their previous schools,” he added.

Other schools, such as the University of Santo Tomas and De La Salle University, have expressed their intention of accommodating lumad students.

The children will be given indigenous people education and grounding on defending their right to self-determination, ancestral land and education, Valle said.

The same alternative setup has been used in past evacuations, such as in the UCCP Haran Center in Davao City and at the Tandag Sports Complex in Surigao del Sur province, where students were displaced by attacks on lumad communities, including the Manobo of Agusan del Sur, Mansaka of Compostela Valley and B’laan of Mt. Matutom.

During the flag-raising ceremony, the students at the UP International Center sang the national anthem with anticipation and depth, probably drawn from their experience in Mindanao.

BRO. JEFFREY PIOQUINTO, SJ / FLICKR

“We urge you to lend your ears for the lumad children, Mr. President. Please ask them and not your war-mongering military advisers,” Valle said in a statement.

He cited Mr. Duterte’s recent threat to bomb lumad schools, and the statement of Gen. Eduardo Año, the military chief of staff, that he would bomb the lumad schools “so NPA could no longer use the structures.”

More teachers

Valle said the school was looking for more volunteer teachers who had the heart to teach the displaced children.

“The students are just 20 percent of all the lumad students left in the province. There are more left who have stopped schooling,” one of the teachers at the school said.

Currently, there are 22 volunteer teachers who left Mindanao to teach the students who were evacuated to Metro Manila.

Colas left his mother and sibling “to sacrifice and study” in Manila for his family’s future.

Wearing his traditional costume, teacher Ramil Miguel asked his 30 students about their dreams, as if to set an atmosphere of hope and anticipation in the classroom.

Most of the students wanted to be teachers, a few wanted to be agriculturists, while two wanted to become engineers. Only one wanted to be a doctor.

Miguel, who hails from Soccsksargen, was wounded in one of the attacks against the lumad.

“I was shot while teaching a class.

They wanted the school operations to stop and the best way to do that was to stop the teacher,” he said.

Another volunteer teacher, Arjay Perez, 24, secretary general of the Association of Community Educators, had the same dedication and passion for teaching lumad children.

“Their tears and cries and their desire to learn move me. Education is the only thing they want, yet they are being deprived of it. I want to help the poorest of the poor,” he said.

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Donations

The teachers—some are fresh graduates, some have experience of four years at most—passed up the minimum P20,000 that they could get as teachers at regular schools.

Instead of a salary, they get only a P4,000 allowance to cover their most basic needs.

“I can feel that my vocation is really in helping the most vulnerable. Teaching is a profession and I can feel I’m living out my calling by helping the lumad,” Perez said.

The school needs more donations, such as blankets, food, school supplies and more clothes, as most of the students had at most two sets of clothing when they left their hometowns.

The classrooms have no electric fans, chairs and tables. The students have no uniforms and textbooks.

In one classroom, the teacher uses manila paper pasted on the wall as blackboard.

The walls are empty, save for some streamers and posters about martial law.

Hanging outside one classroom were recently washed laundry.

The students’ food came from private and church groups in the provinces.

Traumatized

Unlike the majority of the students, “John” sat quietly beside his mother, Babelyn Sanong, who monitored him in the classroom.

John, 11, remained traumatized after witnessing how his father, Kama, a pastor with the Association of the Dulangan Manobo Evangelical Church, was dragged by soldiers from their house in Sultan Kudarat.

Kama is still in jail for illegal possession of firearms. The evidence against him was planted, according to Sanong.

John’s teacher Luisito Penaloza, an Ilonggo, said he would teach John using a more careful approach.

“We will not force him to catch up with his other classmates. We will take it easy. We will subject him to more counseling,” he said. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

9

Solons question athletes on BOC payroll

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer ABOUT 30 basketball and volleyball players, including Kenneth Duremdes, Marlou Aquino and Alyssa Valdez, were hired as “technical assistants” of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) last year although their only apparent function was to play for or coach the agency’s teams in tournaments.

BOC officials allegedly placed the active and retired sports stars under departments like the Office of the Commissioner or the Intelligence Group to skirt government audit rules, lawmakers investigating irregularities in the BOC learned on Wednesday evening.

Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon confirmed the appointments of the athletes during the hearing called by the House ways and means committee on Wednesday, but he defended their employment, saying he had consulted lawyers who assured him it was aboveboard.

Still on BOC payroll

Some of the athletes remain on the BOC payroll, while others have left, Faeldon told the House panel.

Deputy Speaker Raneo Abu,

who confronted the BOC officials about the hiring of the players, agreed that there was nothing wrong with employing athletes to BOC positions—but only if they were qualified.

If they were hired by the agency for the sole purpose of playing sports, that might be an issue of misuse of government funds, he told reporters on Thursday.

“We have already asked the BOC to show us the 201 files of the players,” the congressman said.

Abu said there seemed to be a disconnect between the hiring of players in the bureau and Faeldon’s earlier pronouncement that the BOC had strict rules for its employment process when he called out cases of influencepeddling by members of Congress in the agency.

Faeldon’s ‘hypocrisy’

Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, chair of the House dangerous drugs committee, slammed Faeldon’s “hypocrisy.”

“Look who’s talking! Faeldon tarnished the reputation of the entire House of Representatives by insinuating that lawmakers are endorsing promotions or employment to the bureau of certain personnel,” Barbers said.

“customs personnel.”

Seven of the athletes, including Duremdes and Valdez, were placed under the Office of the Commissioner, while 19 others were under the Intelligence Group. One player was put in the Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group.

BOC Transformers

BOC Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon.

PCOO

“Yet, it turned out he has employed sports people with dubious qualifications for their position,” he added.

Last week, Faeldon’s chief of staff Mandy Anderson accused Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez of bullying her to force the promotion of an unqualified customs officer, which Alvarez denied.

Then on Wednesday, Faeldon lashed out at lawmakers and other government officials for trying to influence promotions and assignments at the BOC. Quirino Rep. Dakila Cua, chair of the ways and means panel, said he was hurt by Faeldon’s allegations.

“These [basketball and volleyball] players were not endorsed by congressmen but were ‘self-hired’ and they’re still there,” he said.

Daily time record

During the hearing, which lasted until past 11 p.m., Abu asked the customs officials to confirm the authenticity of a document bearing the names of players hired by the BOC. The BOC special order, dated Sept. 27, 2016, lists down 28 basketball and volleyball players. Signed by Faeldon, the document authorizes Anderson to sign the daily time record of the

In October 2016, Duremdes coached the BOC Transformers team in the charity basketball league UNTV Cup, which was participated in by teams from other government agencies.

The customs team’s beneficiary was Caritas Manila Inc. As controversy swirled around the athletes’ appointments, Cua said it should not take away from the bigger issue of P6.4 billion worth of illegal drugs that entered the country through the green lane of the BOC. He said the five crates clandestinely carrying 605 kilos of “shabu” (crystal meth) seized by the BOC recently were part of a larger consignment of 23 packages. “They only [seized] five so where are the other 18?”

“That’s potentially tantamount to more than two tons of shabu in the market. There could be that much shabu circulating in the market worth P22.5 billion. I want to focus on that,” Cua said. ■

Stay cool. Stay alive, Duterte tells troops in Marawi

BY LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer “STAY ALIVE and fight cool …

Do not go into [battle] in a rage [lest] you put yourself in trouble,” President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday cautioned soldiers on his second visit to Marawi to buoy their morale.

Mr. Duterte also promised to reward soldiers who proved themselves exceptional in the more than two months’ gunfight with extremist groups that have aligned themselves with the Islamic State.

“Let’s not rush. Anyway, [the fighting] is in the homestretch,” the President said, quoting a briefer that described the Marawi conflict as “winding [down] and entering its critical stage.”

finish this. And we will go into a President Duterte also reiterated his promise to set up a P50 “Remember, this is a war, very strict regimen,” he added.

Rewards await brave fighters, billion trust fund for the educaand you’re fighting bullets,” Mr. Mr. Duterte said, from guns to tion of the soldiers’ children.

Duterte said.

Since he had already signed “You will have so many sur- trips abroad.

“The valor [awardees], these the free college tuition bill into prises coming your way. I hope that [you] stay alive, fight cool tough ones [will get trips law, he said the trust fund could be used for those and not be in a who want to purhurry. Do not go sue further studinto a rage beies, as in medicause if you’re ancine or law. gry, you will put If you all have to sacrifice yourselves, do it. We will really finish this. And we In the same yourself in trouwill go into a very strict regimen. speech, Mr. ble,” the PresiDuterte again dent told soldiers talked about the in Barangay Kilaillegal drug probla in Marawi. lem that, he said, “I hope that there would be less heartaches abroad]. Maybe Hong Kong; it was one of the root causes of the and you’d be able to clean up will be free. If you want, bring Marawi conflict, and lashed out Marawi [and] get rid of the ter- a partner or spouse,” the Presi- anew at his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III. rorists. I hope nobody would dent said.

Mr. Duterte had earlier called meet tragedy,” Mr. Duterte said.

“If you don’t want to, tell us “If you all have to sacrifice which actress you want and we’ll the former President a “fool” yourselves, do it. We will really make a request,” he added in jest. for questioning the effectiveFighting bullets

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ness of his antidrug campaign.

“That hurt,” Mr. Duterte said, referring to Aquino’s comment on Tuesday, when the former President said that “it seems, nothing has changed” on the illegal drugs front.

The former Chief Executive told reporters that during his term in 2015, statistics showed that there were 1.8 million drug users in the Philippines. At the end of 2016, Mr. Aquino said the number of drug users in the country remained at 1.8 million.

“That’s insulting. Many of my soldiers died and my police were wounded,” Mr. Duterte said.

“So if you’re careless and say that ‘nothing happened,’ I’d really lose my cool. So don’t just comment on this because you don’t know the real score,” he added. ■

10

Philippine News

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Chief justice faces 2 impeachment raps

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer PRESIDENT DUTERTE’S allies on Wednesday filed an impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, but no member of the House of Representatives came forward to endorse the complaint.

Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) chair Dante Jimenez and Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. (VPCI) president Eligio Mallari submitted the first complaint against Sereno to the House secretary general.

But without an endorsement, the complaint was not considered to have been officially filed.

Lawyer Lorenzo Gadon also announced that he was filing another impeachment complaint against Sereno, but he said he had not done so as of Wednesday afternoon.

Gadon told reporters that a number of House members had expressed willingness to endorse it but said he wanted to read the complaint first.

“They wanted more [of their colleagues] to sign the complaint, not just one or two,” he said. Under the 1987 Constitution, an impeachment complaint

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may be filed by a non-House member only if it is endorsed by a House member.

The Inquirer tried to contact Sereno for comment but her office said the Chief Justice had yet to read the complaints against her.

Violation of Charter

In their 16-page complaint, Jimenez and Mallari cited five instances in which Sereno committed culpable violation of the 1987 Constitution or betrayal of the

administration.

“The listed litany of lapses committed by respondent Sereno is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Many, many more are shrouded in mystery,” Gadon said in the document.

“Court officials have been mum for fear of respondent Sereno, as they do not want to be wrapped within her wrath. These wrongdoings can only be unraveled through an investigation of a coequal body,” he said.

Sereno, according to Gadon, was untruthful when she deliberately excluded in her initial statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) the exorbitant lawyer’s fees amounting to P37 million from the Philippine government as part of a team of local private lawyers in the Piatco case.

This does not include “the amounts she received from the US law firms and the Manila International Airport Authority, for the same purpose.”

public trust.

“Not only once or twice or thrice, but five times, she disregarded the Supreme Court en banc. When they decide on rulings, all justices should sit on it, not her alone. What she did was she made Lavish lifestyle decisions, created offices, refused to fill “To evade payment of appropriate vacancies, without consulting other jus- taxes, respondent Sereno never reporttices,” Jimenez said. ed this to the Bureau of Internal Rev“The scary thing here is we have a dic- enue. Consequently, respondent Sereno tator, one who does not consult her own never paid taxes for her extortionate atpeers. This is very dangerous in a demo- torney’s fees,” Gadon said. cratic country,” he said.

He also alleged that Sereno repeatJimenez and Maledly used her influlari accused Sereno of, ence to manipulate among other things, judicial appointgiving members of her ments, including staff allowances for “the short list of foreign travel charged The listed the Judicial and Bar litany of lapses to Supreme Court Council (JBC) to committed by funds without approvexclude then Solicirespondent al of the full court. tor General Francis Sereno is just They said Sereno H. Jardeleza, for the tip of the also betrayed the pubpersonal and poiceberg, so to lic trust “through inexlitical reasons… and speak. cusable negligence” for curtailing the Presisitting on the applicadent’s power to aptions for the posts of point him.”

Gadon said the Supreme Court deputy Chief Justice used clerk of court and chief attorney, which had been vacant for three public funds to finance her “extravagant years and eight months, and the two po- and lavish lifestyle” by ordering the pursitions for assistant court administrator, chase of a brand-new luxurious Toyota which had been vacant for four years and Land Cruiser 2017 worth P5 million as her personal vehicle, while her colleagues six months.

They said Sereno culpably violated had to be content with cheaper models.

He also accused Sereno of staying in the Constitution in issuing an administrative order creating the new Judiciary opulent hotels when attending conferDecentralized Office and reopening the ences in the Philippines and abroad, and Regional Court Administration Office in flying business or first class together Western Visayas in the absence of an au- with her staff and security.

“Sometime in 2016, respondent Sereno thority from the full court. organized an international conference Litany of lapses in Shangri-La Boracay and got herself Gadon sent reporters a copy of his billeted in the Presidential Villa, easily a complaint. It accused Sereno of a “litany P200,000-a-night room,” he said. of lapses,” including not declaring P37 Sereno “obstructed justice by ordermillion in lawyer’s fees in her net worth, ing the Muntinlupa City judges not to ispurchasing a luxury car with public sue warrants of arrest” on drug charges funds, manipulating judicial appoint- against Sen. Leila de Lima, the lawyer ments, and pressuring judges to defy the said. ■

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Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

11

Treaty prohibits US airstrikes in PH soil — Palace

BY JOSE CIELITO REGANIT Philippines News Agency MANILA — Malacañang on Tuesday said that any direct participation in combat operations by US troops, including airstrikes, is prohibited under the Philippine Constitution and the mutual defense treaty between the two countries.

“While PH-US military alliance remains solid and robust, US military assistance to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is limited to technical assistance, information sharing and training,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement sent to reporters.

Abella further clarified that under the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board with the US under the purview of the PH-US Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951, standing protocols have been put in place that, even to this day, is being followed.

“It does not involve any boots on the ground nor any direct participation in combat operations, such as the air strikes reportedly being planned against Islamic State-inspired groups in the Philippines. This is a matter prohibited by our law and Constitution,” Abella stressed.

The Palace official added that there was no discussion of airstrikes when Duterte visited the Joint Special Operations

Task Force Trident in Marawi City last Friday.

Abella’s statements followed earlier reports which claimed that the US Department of Defense is considering a plan that would allow its forces to conduct air strikes against ISIS targets in the country, particularly in Mindanao area.

Philippine military and defense officials have earlier denied any talks with the US government regarding the use of its armed drones against ISISinspired terror groups in the Philippines.

Department of National Defense (DND) public affairs office chief Arsenio Andolong said the DND has had no discussions whatsoever on the

Bautista sees nothing wrong on the proposed lifestyle check

supposed use of US drones to strike against Daesh-inspired terrorist groups in the country.

“The AFP Chief-of-Staff, Gen. Eduardo Año, said that at present such a measure is not within the provisions of the Mutual Defense Treaty. Direct military actions are only allowed during an actual foreign invasion by another state actor. Hence, such a proposition has to undergo a process and an agreement must be reached that should have the approval of both the highest officials of our nations,” Andolong emphasized.

The AFP is currently locked in fierce combat with Maute Group terrorists following a botched attempt to arrest Abu

Makati gov’t hikes medical aid budget by 50%

BY FERDINAND PATINIO Philippines News Agency

BY ERIKA SAULER Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA — Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Juan Andres Bautista sees nothing wrong on the proposed lifestyle check among ranking poll body officials. ”I have no problem with a lifestyle check on me... no problem whatsoever,” he said.

Asked if he was able to discuss it with the Commissioners, the poll body chief said he did not attend the en banc meeting on Tuesday. ”It was not in the en banc meeting but I have met with several of them one on one,” Bautista said.

On the other hand, he did not discount the possibility of taking a break. ”As you know at this point I’m open to different possibili-

THE MAKATI City government has allotted P900 million for its free medicines program this year, a 50-percent increase from last year’s budget of P600 million.

Mayor Abby Binay asked the city council to increase the budget for the Makati Health Plus program, better known as Yellow Card, to ensure that it would be sustained with adequate funds throughout the year.

In July, the Makati Action Center made door-to-door deliveries of free main`tenance medicines and vitamins worth P7.2 million to some 4,099 senior citizens age 70 and above and to bed-ridden beneficiaries identified by the Makati Health Department (MHD).

PNA

ties…we will see,” the Comelec head said.

On Monday, Senator Grace Poe called for a lifestyle check on top officials of the poll body in connection with the allegations of having ill-gotten wealth hurled against Bautista.

Meanwhile, the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) supported the call of the senator, saying that it will

help ensure the integrity of poll officials.

“You have to be beyond reproach. You have to have integrity, especially if you handle sensitive matters. There must be no conflict of interest,” said NAMFREL Secretary General Eric Alvia.

He added, “An independent body should do it and must be done regularly.” ■

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Sayyaf Isnilon Hapilon and ISIS “emir” in Southeast Asia last May 23.

DND Secretary Delfin Lorenzana likewise said that no discussions regarding airstrikes from whatever platforms hitting local targets transpired at his level.

However, both officials expressed their appreciation for the reported desire of the US to help the Philippines fight ISISinspired terrorist groups in the country.

Terrorism has indeed become a global menace that the community of nations must unite against.

ASEAN of late has issued strong statements on the matter. ■

According to MHD records, there are 232,672 Yellow Card beneficiaries to date, including 42,335 seniors and 171 persons with disabilities.

The program covers medicines for hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, dyslipidemia, en- larged prostate, gout, cough and colds, sexually transmitted infections, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, seizure disorder, allergy, ulcer, vertigo and gastrointestinal problems, among others.

Free multivitamins for children, adults and pregnant patients, as well as oral and injectable contraceptives, are also provided.

The authorized distributor is Planet Drugstore with eight outlets to cater to their respective clusters. ■

12

Philippine News

AUGUST 11, 2017

Duterte: I’m not trying to please Chinese leader

Duterte reminds miners to follow rules ‘Protection of the environment must be made a priority’

BY LEILA B. SALAVERRIA Philippine Daily Inquirer PRESIDENT DUTERTE assured mining companies that they could continue operating in the country as long as they followed the rules and the law, including those that protect the environment, Malacañang said yesterday.

Mr. Duterte met with representatives of the mining companies in Malacañang on Thursday, a little over a week after he warned them in his State of the Nation Address that he would tax them “to death” if they would not spend to restore the area they had damaged with their activities.

Otherwise, he would have to put a stop to mining, he added.

“The Office of the Presidential Spokesperson gave the information that during that meeting with the miners, the President essentially said that for as long as mining groups, whether big or small, follow the rules on mining and keep environmental laws in mind, then there will be no problem and they can continue with their operations,” said Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra.

Mr. Duterte reiterated his administration’s policy on mining.

A priority

In his Sona last week, the President had said that protecting the environment was paramount. “The protection of the environment must be made a priority ahead of mining and all other activities that adversely affect it one way or the other.

And this policy is nonnegotiable,” he said.

BY PHILIP C. TUBEZA Philippine Daily Inquirer

PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

He also warned them to refrain from the unbridled and irresponsible destruction of watersheds, forests and aquatic resources. The mining firms, he said, were responsible for the “full and quick clean-up, restoration and rehabilitation of all areas damaged by mining activities, and the extension of all necessary support to the communities that have suffered mining’s disastrous effects on their health, livelihood, and environment, among others.”

During his meeting with the mining executives on Thursday, the President also discussed his administration’s anti-drug campaign. Photos released by Malacañang showed Mr. Duterte holding up his list of drug suspects, updated as of July 25. Duterte was accompanied by Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go and Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu.

FRIDAY

Firm desire

Cimatu has also assured the public that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources under his watch was still “one with the President in his firm desire to rid the country of abusive and irresponsible miners that are concerned only with profits and care nothing for the environment and our countrymen.”

Duterte seemingly echoed in his Sona statements made by Cimatu’s predecessor Gina Lopez, a known antimining advocate, over her stint the past year as environment secretary. Lopez, Duterte’s first choice as environment secretary, failed to secure confirmation from the Commission on Appointments after she had ordered the closure and suspension of 28 mining operations across the country. Duterte appointed Cimatu, the former chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, in her stead. ■

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PRESIDENT DUTERTE has assured that he wasn’t “trying to please” Chinese President Xi Jinping amid the South China Sea row, but admitted Manila has gained from its friendly relations with Beijing.

The President recalled that he had insisted on the Philippine claim to the West Philippine Sea before Chinese leaders when he last visited Beijing in May. “Xi Jinping has been good to me. And we’re trying to, not really please him but ah—you know, that China Sea will always be there,” Mr. Duterte said at the 26th anniversary of the Bureau of Fire Protection in Quezon City on Wednesday night.

“They cannot carry it away.

You want to take Palawan? Go ahead. Take half of it. If you can carry it, it’s yours. If not… leave it there,” he added in jest.

Duterte said Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Armed Forces chief Gen. Eduardo Año, and Philippine National Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa were present when he told the Chinese leaders during a meeting that he was going to allow drilling for oil in the disputed West Philippine Sea. “I said, ‘I will drill oil in our territory.’ What was the answer in the bilateral there? In not so many words, they said that could mean war. Weare not going to war with them,” he said.

“Their missiles can reach Manila… I don’t have fireworks that can reach that far,” he added in jest.

The President said he then

told the Chinese leaders that he understood the situation and that he was there to maintain friendly ties between Beijing and Manila.

“I said I don’t want to go to war and let us just be friends.

Just know that someday we will have to talk about it (the territorial dispute) because that is ours. That is ours. Yes. I said I understand. We are both claiming it as ours,” Mr. Duterte said.

“But someday you have to talk to me. I will not do it now because I come here in good faith and I want to be friends with you,” he said.

China claims 90 percent of the 3.5-million-square-kilometer South China Sea, running into conflict with many Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines. It has constructed structures on reefs and atolls to bolster its claims.

An international tribunal in The Hague in 2016 rejected China’s argument that it has historic rights over most of the sea.

Mr. Duterte also noted that after his visit, the Chinese sent P370 million worth of firearms and ammunition while another shipment is expected in September.

“There’s another shipment, a second batch, that will arrive in September. It’s free,” he said, noting that he got the firearms by just talking to them.

He then taunted the critics of his policy on China.

“If you are brighter than men, why is it that I’m the one who’s President?” he added. ■

Philippine News

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

13

Aquino mum on Duterte’s tirade, but allies react

BY NIKKO DIZON AND CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO Philippine Daily Inquirer A FORMER aide and a political ally did the fighting for former President Benigno Aquino III, who chose to keep mumafter his successor, President Duterte, called him “gago” for citing data that showed no change in the number of drug users despite a bloody war on drugs by Mr. Duterte.

On Wednesday at a speech during the 113th anniversary of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Mr. Duterte said Aquino commented on the drug war “as if nothing happened.”

“Gago ka (You’re a fool),” Mr. Duterte ranted. “Go into drugs and see if I don’t behead you,” the President added.

While Aquino chose to re- main silent, a former aide took up the cudgels for him.

“To call P-Noy (Aquino’s presidential nickname) gago is not a reflection on PNoy’s argument,” said Edwin Lacierda, former presidential spokesperson, in a tweet.

“It is a reflection of your uncouthness,” Lacierda said, addressing himself to Mr. Duterte.

“Cursing never elevates public discourse,” he added.

Different view

Lacierda also defended Aquino against what appeared to be a reference made by Mr. Duterte to the former President’s tendency to stick to the script in delivering speeches.

He said Aquino had given impromptu speeches, too, but none of Mr. Duterte’s was “memorable.”

At the Senate, one of the few remaining members of the Liberal Party (LP), which had been the country’s most powerful political party during Aquino’s term, also fought back for the former president.

NOYNOY AQUINO (P-NOY) / FACEBOOK

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, LP president, said there was no need for Mr. Duterte to resort to cuss words or insults if he disagreed with someone’s views.

“We believe that addressing the drug problem should be viewed primarily as a health problem with the corresponding rehabilitation programs for those afflicted,” Pangilinan said, defending Aquino’s view that the killings of drug suspects had done little, or nothing, to stop the drug menace.

The campaign against drugs, said Pangilinan, should “not just be viewed as a law enforcement problem.”

While not really an ally of Aquino, Sen. Grace Poe said that what she found objectionable was Mr. Duterte’s use of cuss words.

She said the President’s cuss words could prompt children to also curse.

“Do we agree with that?” said Poe. “As long as you know what’s right or wrong.

Just a reminder, SPG (strict parental guidance),” said the senator, former head of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.

Numbers don’t lie

Onthe eighth death anniversary of his mother, democracy icon Corazon Aquino, Aquino cited official data that showed no change in the number of drug users from end 2015 to end 2016.

Aquino said data given him by the end of 2015 showed there were 1.8 million drug users in the country.

The Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB)

Nationwide Survey on the Nature and Extent of Drug Abuse is updated every end of the year.

By the end of 2016 when Aquino was no longer President, the DDB survey showed that there were still 1.8 million drug users.

The survey earned the ire of Mr. Duterte who fired DDB head Benjamin Reyes in May for “contradicting” the President’s data on drug users.

Mr. Duterte had repeatedly said there were at least 4 million drug users in the country.

“All I can say is if there were 1.8 million [drug users] during our time and their survey still said 1.8 million after a year of an all-out war against drugs, the numbers are the same,” Aquino said in an interview after ceremonies for Cory’s death anniversary.

“The minimum question would be ‘Why has there been no change?’” he added.

Without directly referring to the killings of thousands of drug suspects, either by police or unidentified gunmen, Aquino cited a constitutional provision mandating the state to protect all its citizens.

If citizens had been murdered, said Aquino, it was the state’s duty to bring the murderer to justice. ■

Friday, August 18, 2017, 10AM-2PM, MHHS-NRC 4802 Fraser St. Vancouver, BC V5V 4H4

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Sanctions await AFP members in PRRD's narco-list

BY LESLIE GATPOLINTAN Philippines News Agency MANILA — While still to review President Rodrigo Duterte's latest narco-list, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) assured the public that sanctions will be meted out to military personnel found in cahoots with the illegal drugs syndicates.

But prior that, a detailed investiga-

tion will be conducted against these individuals found in the Chief Executive's narco-list, said AFP public affairs office chief Col. Edgard Arevalo on Wednesday.

If found guilty, these personnel will be subjected to summary dismissal proceedings after which they will be charged and prosecuted by authorities.

"We will not allow the AFP to be tainted by personnel involved in the illegal drugs trade," Arevalo said in Filipino. ■

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Opinion

14

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

PUBLIC LIVES

Family matters, state issues, and FB in Singapore

By Randy David Philippine Daily Inquirer IT WAS something one would not have expected in a place like Singapore, with its technocratic, business-like, and sometimes cold exterior. But, one day in early July, while visiting Singapore, I sat mesmerized before a television broadcast of an ongoing session in the Singaporean parliament. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was telling his colleagues how awkward and sad he felt about having to take up a tangled “family matter” before a session of parliament.

The matter, which had erupted on Facebook, concerns his differences with his two younger siblings over what to do with the ancestral home that their late father, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, had left behind. The PM’s brother, Lee Hsien Yang, and sister, Dr. Lee Wei Ling, wanted the house demolished in accordance with their father’s last will.

The modest, late-19th-century, two story structure with the redtiled roof on 38 Oxley Road, just off busy Orchard Road, was where the nation’s founding father and his wife lived from 1950 until his death in 2015. It was where they raised their three children. It was also where the People’s Action Par-

That was the entire purpose of ty, which has governed Singapore tled quietly within the family but, since it became independent, was unable to find a common ground the two day parliamentary session founded. Many PAP meetings were since their father’s death, the that I had the privilege to watch. held in its basement dining room, younger siblings decided to go pub- Other ministers spoke in order to and one can assume that count- lic to express their disaffection. Us- reiterate their trust and confidence less historic caucuses that decided ing their Facebook accounts, they in their leader and to plead with the future of the nation took place accused their brother, PM Lee, of the protagonists to rise above their in this house. In short, it is a home abusing his power as a government private selves, and not tarnish the that had become a public monu- official by manipulating state agen- great memory of the nation’s father ment because of the role it played cies to overturn their father’s ex- by dwelling on an issue that has distracted the whole nation. plicit wish, and to harass them. in the nation’s history.

As a sociologist with a specific It was a very serious charge, by But, Lee Kuan Yew would probably not be the extraordinary per- all accounts. PM Lee, in his role as interest in the complex interweavson that he was if he did not think elder brother, refused to respond ing of various forms of communication—in this differently on such instance, that of matters. A few In the end, he felt compelled to give his version of family relations years before he what happened if only to show that at no point did he and the intimacy died, he met with harness public power to pursue a personal objective. that permeates the government’s them, on one hand, chief ministers to explain why he wanted the house by trading public accusations with and that of politics and statecraft demolished after his death. He his siblings, or, worse, by taking and the formal norms that unwas a towering figure in his na- them to court. But, as the Prime dergird them, on the other—I was tion’s history, but the last thing he Minister, confronted with allega- filled with wonder and endless wanted was for his people to build tions of wrongdoing by his own questions.

How is it possible for a man with a personality cult around him. He relatives, he could not just ignore wished for his people not to be the accusations. In his view, a very a tenacious vision like Lee Kuan sentimental about “relics frozen private matter had regrettably as- Yew to succeed in keeping together in time,” or to rest on past achieve- sumed public import. He felt he a small nation in the periphery of ments, but to build on these suc- was being attacked no longer just Malaysia and Indonesia, and transcesses by working hard. He was a as a brother, but also as the leader forming it into one of the world’s practical man until his death. The of the government. In the end, he wealthiest and most orderly societministers told him they would like felt compelled to give his version of ies, and yet seem unable to ensure to preserve the house, and, accord- what happened if only to show that unity and harmony within his own ing to their account, he seemed in- at no point did he harness public family?

What was he like as a family man? power to pursue a personal objecclined to heed their request.

While he seemed to have carefully The matter could have been set- tive.

groomed each of his three children to assume responsible roles in Singapore—Lee Hsien Yang is a Cambridge and Stanford graduate and was for many years CEO of SingTel, Lee Wei Ling is a neurosurgeon and head of the National Neuroscience Institute, and, of course, Lee Hsien Loong is prime minister—one wonders how often he was able to talk to them, especially after he stepped down from office. What would he have said to his children if he were alive today?

It’s difficult to say. A parent can only do so much. Clearly, Lee Kuan Yew was a complex man, but there was a side of him that is not very well known. He adored his wife, his intellectual partner and equal for all the 63 years they were married.

Here’s an account by the writer Judith Tan of a rare visit to 38 Oxley Road: “[W]e could hear him in the adjoining room reading to his wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo. She had become bed-ridden after a series of strokes. Mr. Lee, known for his fiery speeches, spoke in a gentle voice as he read to her from The Sunday Times. She was not able to answer him but, without fail, he read to the love of his life every single day—alternating between news, her favorite poems and novels—for 18 months until her death in October 2010.” ■

Malampaya funds: Where’s P25B?

BY DJ YAP Philippine Daily Inquirer STATE AUDITORS have raised red flags over a P25 billion discrepancy in the current balance of the Malampaya Fund as the government treasury’s status reports and account books reflected different totals for cash releases and remittances.

The differences, according to the Commission on Audit (COA), amount to nearly P21 billion in cash releases and some P4 billion in remittances as of December 2016, “casting doubt on the reliability of the balance of the Malampaya Fund.”

In its annual report on the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) for 2016, COA cited sizable discrepancies between two records of the controversial fund, which represented government

der Presidential Decree No. 1445, the head of agency should “see to it that reconciliation is made between the balances shown in the reports and the balances found in the books of the agency.”

royalties from the offshore natural gas project in the CamagoMalampaya Reservoir in the West Philippine Sea. Based on the BTr’s report under the title “Department of Energy (DOE)-Malampaya Special Account in the General Fund 151,” a total of P232 billion was remitted to the national treasury by the DOE from 2002 to 2016, COA said.

Record mess

Figures don’t match

On the other hand, P42 billion was released from the fund to finance government energy projects, leaving a balance of P189 billion, the agency said.

But the figures did not match those in subsidiary ledgers kept by BTr’s National Cash Accounting Division (NCAD) under the tag “Cash- Treasury/ Agency Deposit Special Account-DOE-Malampaya.”

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NCAD records showed that remittances and releases from the Malampaya Fund amounted to P236 billion and P21 billion, respectively, over the same 12-year period, leaving a balance of P214 billion, COA said.

COA noted, however, that no ledger for remittances was actually available for 2002 in www.canadianinquirer.net

the second record as the BTr’s NCAD only began keeping track of it in 2003.

State auditors said the disparity gave rise to an “unreconciled fund balance between the two records” totaling P25 billion after subtracting total releases from total remittances.

COA reminded BTr that un-

It said further review revealed that the differences noted in the records were attributed to “non-inclusion of adjustments made in the status/monitoring sheet.”

In 2013, top government officials including former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo were charged with plunder in connection with the alleged diversion of P900 million in Malampaya funds meant for typhoon victims to bogus foundations controlled by alleged pork scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles. ■

Opinion

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

15

AT LARGE

Proud to be a ‘Yellowtard’

By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer I GUESS you could call me a “Yellowtard,” as opposed, I suppose, to a “Dutertard,” both politically incorrect pejoratives invented by believers of the President and his predecessor to insult each other.

Now that ex-president Benigno Aquino III has broken his one-year self-imposed vow to “keep quiet” and refrain from issuing public statements on the state of the nation under PRRD, the gloves are off. Asked after the Mass in observance of his mother’s eighth death anniversary of his opinion regarding the President’s “drug war,” Aquino opined that he thought the situation had not changed on the illegal drugs front, despite the deadly war on drugs under Mr. Duterte which has resulted in thousands of deaths and more than a million arrests.

This was enough for the for-

mer Davao mayor to “release the Kraken,” the monster that lurks so closely beneath the veneer of civility that he struggles to maintain. He challenged Aquino to “enter the illegal drug trade” so he, the current leader, could “cut off your head, you crazy guy.” Then he added: “What do you mean nothing happened? You fool.”

In the record of the President’s foulmouthed rants, I suppose the riposte to Aquino can be considered rather tame.

But we all know, too, that he isn’t one to confine himself to tirades and insults in response to a perceived attack. Somehow, he will find a way, a harder, harsher way, to get back at Aquino and teach him a lesson. *** But, being an Aquino, P-Noy should be used by now to adversity and to assaults like Mr. Duterte’s. Indeed, his eldest sister Ballsy put it succinctly when she thanked those who

attended their mother’s memorial Mass. In times both good and bad—“when the Aquino name was sweet smelling, and now that it isn’t” was how she put it—the same motley group of relatives and friends still showed up, wearing their hearts on their yellow sleeves.

The experience of being pariahs—politically and even socially—was first felt by the Aquinos shortly after the war, when Benigno Sr., the father of Ninoy, had to endure taunts and social isolation when he was investigated for his participation in the Japanese-sponsored wartime government. This was, remembered Ninoy’s sister Tessie (Oreta), the impetus for his determination to make good in politics and thereby redeem the Aquino name.

Indeed, it was a rapid rise from mayor to senator for the outspoken Ninoy, but when Marcos declared martial law and Ninoy was among the first

to be incarcerated, Cory and their children endured their own days in the desert. Cory recalled restaurant patrons hastily exiting the premises when she entered, sometimes with her children. When a good friend approached her and greeted her effusively, Cory was delighted but told the friend, “For your own sake, you should leave me right now.”

And there could be no worse form of isolation than Ninoy’s assassination, only after which did friends and associates come flocking, inspired by the popular anger that his death unleashed.

Perhaps it is this experience that taught Cory—and later PNoy and his siblings—about the impermanence of friendships based on flimsy grounds like proximity to power. *** In this highly charged atmosphere of toxic politics, colors and gestures have taken on a

strange kind of power. We have been divided into “yellows” and “reds” and maybe even “greens” and “oranges.” One has to take care where to put one’s hands and how (and whether) to form a fist while posing for selfies, for gestures have a way of defining your political loyalties.

On the first anniversary of the Edsa Revolt, my family decided to celebrate the occasion by venturing to the closed highway with all of us clad in yellow, including our then baby daughter who shares a birthday with Edsa.

When a friend saw the photos we took, she shook her head and commented: “You’re so yellow!”

It was a poke I took with good nature, but also with pride. And I still embrace the color to this day. Maybe a once-trending color that has fallen out of favor has a way of changing its meaning. As someone once wrote of Ninoy, by his death he turned the color of cowardice into a symbol of courage. ■

LOOKING BACK

History’s formidable collections

By Ambeth R. Ocampo Philippine Daily Inquirer H. OTLEY Beyer is a name not memorized by schoolchildren anymore, because his “wave migration theory” that once explained the peopling of the Philippines in prehistoric times has been debunked and replaced by yet another theory. Nevertheless, Beyer remains a formidable name in the history of Philippine anthropology and archeology because at the time of his death in 1966 he was the acknowledged Dean or grandfather of these disciplines. He had spent most of his adult life in the Philippines collecting all sorts of materials from Stone Age tools to tektites that found their way to the Philippines from outer space.

He collected books, magazines, manuscripts, and all sorts of Filipiniana including term papers of his students from the prewar University of the Philippines that were arranged by topic or region and bound into 150 volumes now

a resource known today as the “Beyer Ethnographic Papers” now preserved in the National Library of Australia.

Beyer and his obsessive collecting resulted in a collection once housed in the old Watson Building, near Malacañang, before it was dispersed after his death. Now all I have to go on are photographs of Beyer in his library and museum. His grandson, and two former students: E. Arsenio Manuel, the eminent anthropologist; and Alfredo Evangelista, archeologist and for a time acting National Museum director related what the museum was like. The late Fr. Bernardo Ma. Perez, OSB, once recalled his meeting with Beyer that led me to dig up a series of articles on collectors and collecting he published in the Sunday Times Magazine in 1961. Beyer, then almost 78 years old, received Perez in his pajamas on a Sunday morning and showed him what I can only imagine to be Ali Baba’s cave

that was described as: “a vast assemblage: fossils, porcelain fragments, and ceramics representing several hundred thousand years of history, all housed in glass cabinets and bathed in the dim, grayish light that filters through frosted glass and oyster shell windows… dim corridors… sitting room overflowing with his collection: books of all sizes lining the walls, cardboard and wooden boxes containing tektites stacked on desks and tables, piles of large boxes on the floor, Igorot woodcarvings here and there…The Beyer collection and, indeed Prof. Beyer himself inhabit the second floor of the somewhat NeoClassic Watson building on what is now J.P. Laurel St., formerly known as Aviles. The place is officially called the Museum and Library Institute of archeology and Ethnology of the University of the Philippines.

In these more scholarly than cheerful surroundings, Prof.

Beyer works, sleeps, and takes www.canadianinquirer.net

most of his meals.”

Like the Beyer collection, another that did not survive division was that of Felipe Resurreccion Hidalgo, nephew of the great 19th century Filipino painter Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. He kept a house on what is now R. Hidalgo Street near San Sebastian Church bursting with all manner of things: from precious paintings to stamps, from gold coins and religious images in ivory to cigarette labels. Perez described the place as follows: “One evening I stood before the front door [of a fine old stately house from Plaza del Carmenor from the yard of San Sebastian Church] a door high enough for a carriage of state to pass through and massive enough to shut intrusion…On my right as I entered was Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s replica of Christian Virgins exposed to the populace…on my left was the Barge of Charon…both paintings are not only the largest Hidalgos in Don Felipe’s collection, but the

most famous as well…The paintings are under glass. The evening reflections on them seemed to give them a curious animation.

Directly in front of me was a grandiose arrangement: a large colored sketch of Juan Luna’s Roman wedding, and elegant and ferocious Chinese bronze lion, a pair of wooden saints, and surrounding all these a carved gilded Chinese arch, dripping with fruit flowers, leaves and birds.

Beyond this was the staircase, its dark polished, glimmering wood adding to the heavy air of antiquity. Light came from one solitary lamp over the arch, and the paintings and sculptures seem to float on shadows. I felt like one who had discovered a long abandoned treasure chamber…”

These great collections are but a faded memory now, just like the cheeky remark left by the Smithsonian director in Don Felipe’s guestbook: “there are many things in the Hidalgo collection that are not in the Smithsonian.” ■

16

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Canada News Canada’s hope to get climate change into NAFTA could prove difficult

BY MIA RABSON The Canadian Press OTTAWA — U.S. President Donald Trump’s stance on climate change may end up being the biggest stumbling block in NAFTA talks when it comes to the environment.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated Friday during a tour of eastern Ontario that he wants climate change, reducing emissions and moving to a low-carbon economy to be written into the new NAFTA when Canada, the U.S. and Mexico begin renegotiating the deal later this month.

“We are certainly looking for a better level playing field across North America on environmental protections,” Trudeau said.

However with Trump withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate change agreement, referring to climate change as a “hoax” and pledging to return the U.S. coal industry to its glory days, the White House and the Canadian government are pretty far apart on many environmental issues.

Even getting the words “climate change” into the agreement could be a struggle.

A government official speaking on background told The Canadian Press last week, that on the environment side, Canada will be looking to the free trade agreement recently signed with Europe, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, as a template.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland has referred to CETA as the gold standard of trade agreements when it comes to the environment and said she wants to push CETA’s environment chapter with the U.S. and Mexico on NAFTA. However, several trade experts say the United States is going to be pushing for the environment chapter in NAFTA to be more closely aligned with the now-defunct Trans Pacific

Partnership or TPP. One key difference?

CETA mentions climate change. TPP does not.

“CETA is more relevant to Canada and the TPP is more relevant to the United States,” said Peter Clark, an international trade expert and president of the Ottawa firm Grey, Clark, Shih and Associates.

Several American states are stepping up to maintain their climate change commitments despite the federal government’s pullback, however NAFTA isn’t being negotiated at the state level.

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, said whether Canada can push the U.S. into adding climate change protections and mitigation to NAFTA may depend on how influential state governments can be in the talks.

“Major economies like California and northeastern states that already have various forms of carbon pricing may have a real interest in this,” he said.

Canada’s coming national price on carbon adds further fuel to the debate, as some will be looking for Canadian industries affected by the carbon price to get protections, maybe even in the form of a carbon tax applied at the border on goods coming from places in the U.S. where there is no such policy.

Clark said mischievously he recommends Canada seek a border adjustment carbon tax at best, but at a bare minimum he believes Canada should require the Paris Agreement be added to a list of multilateral environment agreements to which NAFTA countries must belong.

In its list of objectives for NAFTA released last month, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said it wants NAFTA to require signatories to adopt and uphold their obligations under several such pacts, including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

“I think Canada should immediately add the Paris accord

to that list,” said Clark.

CETA also has what it is known as the “precautionary principle,” which means a party proposing a development or an action has to prove it won’t harm the environment, even if only some, not all, scientists agree it could be harmful.

In CETA there is also a provision which says that the costs of pollution are borne by the polluter and requires Canada and Europe to prioritize trade in environmental goods and services related to renewable energy and co-operate on climate change adaptation and mitigation. It also makes clear that foreign companies cannot claim compensation when they believe a government’s environmental regulations or policies harm their business.

Canada has been subject to several such challenges under NAFTA and lost many of them, paying millions in compensation.

TPP, on the other hand, includes a provision to allow countries to suspend trade benefits with a country that doesn’t respect its environmental responsibilities.

One area where both Canada and the United States agree is in bringing the environment chapter into the main NAFTA papers. In 1994 it was included as a separate annex.

Including it as its own chapter in NAFTA would make whatever environmental obligations it puts forward subject to the agreement’s dispute resolution provisions.

However, Clark said Canada cannot really insist that environmental provisions are make-or-break requirements.

“I can’t see us walking away over it,” he said. “It’s important, but what kind of leverage do they have?”

If Canada says it will leave the table unless Trump agrees to put climate change into the agreement, he’s likely to say ‘fine, go ahead’, said Clark.

“This is not really a typical trade negotiation,” he added. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

BC WILDFIRE SERVICE / FACEBOOK

Hot, dry conditions see 28 new wildfire starts in less than two days in B.C. THE CANADIAN PRESS KAMLOOPS, B.C. — A combination of lightning and tinderdry conditions has led to more than two dozen new wildfires starting in British Columbia over a two-day period.

Kevin Skrepnek of the BC Wildfire Service said the majority of the 17 fires that started Monday were the result of lightning.

Another 11 fires had started by midday Tuesday, bringing the total number of fires currently burning in the province to 146.

Since April, there have been 928 fires and just over 500 of them have been confirmed to be naturally caused while another 364 were human caused.

Skrepnek said the numbers are consistent with previous years where roughly 60 per cent of fires are natural and 40 per cent are caused by people.

Bans on campfires for most of the province as well as the use of off-road vehicles on public lands in the Cariboo, Kamloops and Southeast fire centres re-

main in place as preventative measures.

“We remind everyone to remain vigilant ... and just (be) extremely careful with any activity that could potentially spark a wildfire,” Skrepnek said.

Brent Barclay of the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture said an estimated 30,000 farm animals are within the fire-affected areas, and losses have not yet been tallied.

Roughly 500 ranchers have received support or information through emergency response crews and the province is spending $6 million on rebuilding fences along highways and Crown ranges to protect livestock and drivers.

Other efforts to support ranchers include relocating livestock or delivering feed, but Barclay said it’s unclear when ranchers and other agriculture workers can expect any financial compensation.

“The province is in negotiations or discussions with the Government of Canada around ❱❱ PAGE 20 Hot, dry

17

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

Man apologizes for kissing Radio Canada reporter on live TV at Montreal concert

BY SIDHARTHA BANERJEE The Canadian Press MONTREAL — An unidentified man who kissed a Radio-Canada reporter on the cheek without her consent during a live broadcast last Friday has apologized for his actions.

Journalist Valerie-Micaela Bain also said late Monday that she wouldn’t file a criminal complaint after she received the unwanted embrace from a concertgoer as she went live from Montreal’s Osheaga music festival last Friday.

Startled, she shoved him away and yelled at him before calmly continuing her report.

She later posted photos and video of the man to Facebook in an effort to track him down, making clear she found it neither adorable or flattering.

“In the end I would like him to understand why his gesture is unacceptable,” she wrote.

Bain took to social media again Mon-

RADIO-CANADA

day evening, publishing an apology she received from the man — a father of two who said he was ashamed and regretted the unwanted gesture.

In a note to the reporter, he admitted he’d gone too far in his actions, explaining he did it to try to get a laugh out of his entourage.

“I sent as a message that it was funny, even normal, to kiss a journalist during a report on the cheek,” he wrote asking

forgiveness. “I can not find any words that justifies my gesture.”

The federation representing Quebec journalists says the public needs to be reminded such behaviour is unacceptable.

Stephane Giroux, head of the Quebec journalists’ federation, believes it was a clear-cut case of sexual harassment.

“You would not do that to a random person on the street,” Giroux said Monday.

“What makes you think you can do this to

a reporter on television doing her work?

“For me, it’s mind-boggling that an adult male would think that he has a right to do this.”

The incident follows others in which on-camera female reporters were heckled with a notorious vulgar phrase, often abbreviated to “FHRITP.” There have been several cases in North America, including one involving a heckler screaming it at a reporter covering a Toronto FC soccer game.

Some newsrooms across the country have instituted procedures and guidelines, with some hiring private security.

“I don’t think it should (have to) be that way,” Giroux said.

“I think adults should have a lot more judgment than that.”

Bain said she now considers the matter closed, but hopes there’s a lesson learned from it.

“I hope that this incident will remind us that we must not trivialize attacks as small as they are,” she wrote. ■

Cop buys shirt, tie for alleged thief who was taking them for job interview

BY SIDHARTHA BANERJEE The Canadian Press TORONTO — A Toronto police officer who purchased a shirt and tie for an alleged shoplifter after learning the young man needed the clothing items for an upcoming job interview said Tuesday that he wanted to show kindness to someone who had fallen on hard times.

Const. Niran Jeyanesan said he wasn’t rewarding the behaviour of a hardened criminal when he made the purchase, but rather using his discretion as an officer in deciding that this case merited credit card charges rather than criminal ones.

“He was very remorseful, very ashamed,” Jeyanesan said of the teen. “... I could see that this is truly a mistake and this person wanted a chance at life.”

Jeyanesan said the case unfolded on Sunday night when he and his partner were called to a Walmart in the city’s north end in response to a report of shoplifting.

Such calls are routine, but Jeyanesan said the details of this incident quickly caught his attention.

The would-be thief had attempted to steal a long-sleeved shirt, a tie and a pair of socks, he said, adding such items are not common targets for shoplifters.

Jeyanesan said the unusual merchandise prompted him to try and dig deeper and find out the reasons behind the teen’s actions.

The story he heard was of a young man in a time of crisis, he said.

His family had recently lost their home after his father — the principle bread-winner — fell seriously ill, he said, adding the 18-year-old felt mounting pressure to fill the financial void and help provide for his parents and younger siblings.

Jeyanesan said the teen had secured a job interview for a “service industry position,” but did not have professionallooking clothes to wear.

As the interview date approached, he resorted to shoplifting out of desperation and a lack of awareness of other options available to him.

“We try to get everybody’s story when we attend calls. Everyone has their own battles that they’re fighting,” he said. “It doesn’t excuse them, but behind every action there’s a reason why this person is doing it.”

Before police transported the teen back to the station for some additional questioning, Jeyanesan decided he would acquire some suitable clothes for the teen.

He went back into the store to try and select something himself, but didn’t know the teen’s size. He eventu-

ally asked the manager to hand over the original shirt and tie, which he purchased for about $40. He opted not to acquire the socks.

Jeyanesan did not present the clothes to the teen himself, but rather left them with the other belongings he had surrendered when entering the police station.

The teen found his interview outfit waiting for him when he recovered his possessions and walked out of the police station without any charges.

Toronto police spokesman Mark Pu-

gash praised Jeyanesan’s compassionate approach to the situation, calling it an intelligent use of his officer’s discretion.

“He understood the importance of what happened, that this could easily be seen as a crossroads in this young man’s life, and took the very commendable decision to assist in the way he did,” Pugash said.

Jeyanesan said he has not been in touch with the teen since Sunday. Not even to find out the results of the job interview, which was set to take place on Tuesday. ■

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18

Canada News

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Americans crossing into Canada carrying guns with ‘alarming frequency’ THE CANADIAN PRESS SAINT JOHN, N.B. — Six Americans have been charged with bringing handguns across the New Brunswick border so far this summer, as a Canadian prosecutor says it’s proving difficult to let otherwise lawabiding people know they can’t bring firearms on vacation.

“The offences continue to occur with alarming frequency during the summer months,” federal prosecutor Peter Thorn said from Hampton, N.B. Five men — three from Florida, two from New England — pleaded guilty and were fined between $1,500 and $2,000, he said.

Thorn, who has prosecuted these cases for years, said most of the people caught are “respectful and law abiding citizens of the U.S.A.” who are unaware handguns are prohibited in Canada.

He said many don’t realize

they can legally declare firearms and leave them behind as they enter the country. Many of the tourists are 60 and older, and from the South.

The Canadian government has issued travel advisories, and there is signage at the border, but some Americans keep bringing their guns and lying about it, he said.

Thorn said each time he handles a case, he asks the judge for a sentence that will deter others from travelling armed, but word doesn’t seem to filter back to the U.S. “Unfortunately, whereas the offenders reside in the U.S.A., it is highly unlikely that the sentencing message will ever reach those who could take heed or notice of the message,” Thorn said in an email to The Canadian Press.

The first case at St. Stephen, N.B., this summer came May 20.

A 69-year-old New Hampshire man admitted he had a .357

Magnum in his glove compartment as border guards inspected his SUV. He was fined $1,500.

Two days later, a 27-yearold Maine woman was charged with failing to declare a prohibited handgun at St. Stephen.

She has pleaded not guilty and will face trial in Saint John, N.B., on March 23, 2018, Thorn said.

On June 9, a 66-year-old Tavernier, Fla., man denied having a gun in his motor home — until border officers found a Smith & Wesson 9 mm in a locked safe.

He was fined $1,500.

On June 23, a Hampton, Fla., man arrived with two undeclared guns, including a prohibited .25 calibre Raven Arms handgun. He was fined $2,000.

On July 11, there were two cases within hours.

A 59-year-old New Hampshire man heading for Roosevelt Campobello International Park denied having guns while entering Campobello, N.B.,

from Lubec, Maine, and was targeted for a search.

He told officers he wanted to return to the U.S. but it was too late. Officers found a .38 in a storage case in his motor home, as well as undeclared alcohol and two grams of suspected marijuana. He was fined $2,000.

That same day, a handgun was seized from a 64-year-old Jacksonville, Fla., couple at St. Stephen. It was found, undeclared, in the woman’s suitcase, where her husband had hid it without telling her, Thorn said. “(The woman) stated that she specifically told her husband not to bring his handgun into Canada,” said Thorn.

The man pleaded guilty, telling Judge Andrew LeMesurier of the New Brunswick provincial court they were coming to Canada to escape the heat.

The judge joked the “heat” found him — and that he should know by now to listen to his wife. The Jacksonville man was

fined $2,000.

The Canadian Border Services Agency said such seizures are common.

In 2015, the agency seized seven guns in St. Stephen, up from five the previous year, it said. Nationally, it seized 671 firearms in 2015, 313 of which were prohibited in Canada, mostly in Ontario and B.C. Last summer, Thorn said border agents seized a gun about once a week at St. Stephen.

On one weekend in August last year, two Texas men separately tried to bring hidden guns across at St. Stephen. On one October weekend, two retirees in their mid-60s from southern states arrived hours apart, both carrying weapons and both denying it. ■

S. Korean prosecutors seek 12-year jail term for Samsung heir on bribery raps PHILIPPINES NEWS AGENCY SEOUL — South Korean prosecutors on Monday sought 12 years in prison for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, an heir apparent of Samsung Group, the country’s biggest family-run conglomerate, on bribery charges.

Special prosecutors, who had investigated the corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, said in the final court hearing of the Samsung heir that the case was a “typical corruption offense” based on cozy ties between politicians and businessmen, which severely damages the constitutional value.

The team of Park Young-soo, who was named independent counsel in November last year for the corruption case, demanded 12 years of imprisonment for Vice Chairman Lee,

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

while asking 7 to 10 years in jail for four other former Samsung executives.

The undertrials had continued false statement and excuse during the past court hearings

KBS VIEW

that lasted for over five months, according to the special prosecutors.

Lee, the third-generation Samsung heir, was brought into custody on Feb. 17 and was www.canadianinquirer.net

indicted 11 days later on five charges of bribery, embezzlement, perjury, hiding assets overseas and concealing the proceeds of criminal acts.

The princeling of South Korea’s richest family was charged with paying, or promising to pay, about 43.3 billion won (USD38.4 million) in bribes to ousted President Park Geunhye and her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil, who was at the center of the influencepeddling scandal.

The payment was suspected of being made in exchange for political favors in the controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates seen as crucial to the father-to-son power transfer of the Samsung family.

The merger between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T was made possible as the national pension fund, which is in charge of retirement savings for nearly half of the 50 million population, supported the 2015 merger. The National Pension

Service (NPS) was then-biggest shareholder of one of the two Samsung units.

The merger was extremely crucial to the third-generation Samsung chief to inherit the management control from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee who has been hospitalized in 2014 for heart attack.

Samsung was the biggest donor to two nonprofit foundations, which Choi allegedly controlled for personal gains.

As the impeached Park was branded as an accomplice to Choi, bribing Choi would be equivalent to bribing Park.

Samsung also signed a contract of millions of U.S. dollars with a German company owned

by Choi and her daughter to finance the daughter’s equestrian training in the European country.

The Samsung vice chairman was also accused of lying under oath during a December parliamentary hearing over the presidential scandal. ■

19

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

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20

World News

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Teenager attacked by flesh eating sea creatures in Melbourne PHILIPPINES NEWS AGENCY SYDNEY — A teenager from the city of Melbourne in Australia remained in hospital on Monday, after being mauled by mysterious sea creatures when going for a swim at the beach over the weekend.

Sixteen-year-old Sam Kanizay had played a game of football on Saturday and afterward decided to take a dip at a beach in the popular tourist location of Brighton in Melbourne when after half an hour in the water, trouble struck.

When Kanizay emerged from the water, he thought he still had sand on his legs, so he went back in, only to continue to be attacked by tiny little sea creatures, according to his father, Jarrod Kanizay, who told local media his son started bleeding profusely when he got out of the water the second time.

“He went back to his shoes and what he found was blood on his legs, they ate

through Sam’s skin and made it bleed profusely,” Kanizay said.

After taking his son to the hospital, the senior Kanizay said that despite the initial treatment, his son continued to be affected by whatever it was that was attacking his legs.

“As soon as we wiped them down, they kept bleeding, there was a massive pool of blood on the floor,” Kanizay said. ”No one knows what the creatures are. They’ve called a number of people, whether it’s toxicity experts or marine experts, and other medics around Melbourne at least — no one (knows).”

This uncertainty prompted the concerned father to return to the beach armed with fresh meat and a wet suit, and he captured some of the creatures, with some speculating that they are in fact a variety of sea lice.

Until a determination can be made as to the cause of the injuries, local authorities are unable to act upon the matter. ■

Hot, dry... ❰❰ 16

an agri-recovery program,” have their headlights on and watch out Barclay said. “I do not know for any wildlife. when that will be completed The smoke continues to pose a health but that is one of the first steps in the risk for infants, the elderly and people whole process to receive funding and with chronic health conditions as well. that was initiated several weeks ago.”

An air quality advisory from EnvironWildfires are also causing havoc for ment Canada that already covered the travellers through several areas of prov- southern half of the province has now ince and it threatens a main route be- expanded north past Smithers in northtween Alberta and western B.C. British Columbia Deputy provinthrough Kootenay cial health officer National Park.

Bonnie Henry said Parks incident The smoke people with medicontinues to commander Jane cal conditions are pose a health Park said people advised to stay in risk for infants, should expect the well-ventilated and the elderly and Highway 93 to conair conditioned envipeople with tinue to be affected ronments, keep necchronic health by the fire that has essary medication conditions as burned about 130 handy and have a well. square kilometres of plan to get treatment forest and brush. if they experience Highways 97 and complications.

99 in B.C.’s Cariboo While there is still region have also been closed off and on no significant rain in the forecast to for weeks because of the wildfires. douse the fires, Skrepnek said inflow A B.C. Ministry of Transportation winds from the ocean are expected to spokesman is encouraging travellers roll in by Friday and clear the smoke to look for updates about the closures hanging over the south coast. through DriveBC’s website or Twitter The change in weather could bring account. cooler temperatures and rain, but he People are also warned heavy smoke said it could also cause fire-fuelling is causing poor visibility on roads that winds to pick up. ■ are remaining open and drivers should www.canadianinquirer.net

21

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

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22

Community News

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Ben Kwawukumey – The latest addition to UST Growling Tigers

BY EMAR SY DID YOU see that Coach Mike?

That was a great pass! Indeed, the kid has great vision and is just what I needed for my team.

Words uttered by UST Growling Tigers mentor and head coach Boy Sablan during one of his practices. Words he used to describe the plays of his latest addition to his wards, Ben Kwawukumey.

Ben was a member of the Team Canada Crossover that participated at the SM NBTC last March 2017 and 2nd Dreamers 18U Boys International Challenge Champion Team in the Philippines. During this stint he has impressed coaches with his blinding speed and dazzling plays. He received offers to play for College of St. Benilde – La Salle with another Canadian prize recruit Robert Ocampo. However, it took him some time to decide to play in the Philippines and the CSB offer was no longer available. But just like a blessing in disguise UST lost its starting PG Renzo Subido and needed replacement before the new UAAP Season 80 begin in September.

Crossover Sports Canada top honcho Mike Cruz recom-

BK is in the HOUSE!

Ben during his stint at the SM NBTC playing against New Zealand.

mended Ben to his good friends Coach Gina Ramos and Boy Sablan. He mentioned what happened to Ben’s offer and is now available if UST is still interested. Ben flew with the other Canadian recruits on July 11 and reported for practice the earliest possible time. And there it was just like what a doctor prescribed Ben fit in easily to Coach Boy’s fast paced system.

The UST Growling Tigers family was very happy to have him and very much excited to see him play with them for the upcoming season.

University of Santo Tomas is considered as the oldest university in the Philippines. The

school is widely known for their programs on Architecture and Medical Science. They also own the most overall championships in the UAAP. UST is also one of the founding member of the UAAP and the NCAA. Their basketball program is considered one of the best and tied with University of the East with the most Men’s Senior Basketball titles with 18.

And with Ben’s addition UST is looking forward to improve from their last year campaign where they failed to reach the final four. As coach Boy mentioned his arrival would help lessen the burden from his star Marvin Lee on bringing down

Ben with UST Coaches Gina Francisco and Boy Sablan and Crossover Sports Canada Mike Cruz.

the ball. Ben will definitely increase their tempo and help distribute the ball to their designated scorers with his first pass attitude.

From our Fil-Canadian basketball community we wish you all the best and success on your

new journey. Make us all proud and may your new opportunity inspire and motivate our youth to continue to play and improve in their craft. We are very proud as you become the latest addition to the UST Growling Tigers family. ■

How busy Millennials can become investment couch potatoes

BY ROBYN K. THOMPSON, CFP, CIM, FCSI THE “COUCH potato” portfolio is so named because it takes a “passive” approach to investing.

It is predicated on the theory that markets are efficient, or smarter, than any single person. Studies have shown that the passive, or couch potato, investment strategy on average beats about 80% of professional money managers over time. For time-squeezed Millennials who would rather do almost anything else than manage money, this strategy can make a lot of sense.

What’s the difference between “active” and “passive” investing?

When it comes to investment

strategy, investors are generally in one of two camps, active or passive. Active managers try to beat the market by buying and selling securities in hopes of making a profit. Passive investors simply buy the market. In a passive, or couch potato, portfolio, you buy a piece of the entire market instead of trying to make a call on which company or asset class will do better than another.

To accomplish this, an investor would buy a series of both equity and fixed-income index mutual funds or exchangetraded funds (ETFs) and simply hold them. Exchange-traded funds are cheaper than mutual funds, with an average MER of 0.5% compared with 2.5% for actively managed mutual funds. Straight off the hop, you put 2% more in your pocket and

you have achieved diversification, because you have bought the entire market.

There are investment risks associated with the couch potato portfolio, as there are with any investment strategy. If the market drops steeply, as it did in 2008, your portfolio will drop right along with it. But the opposite is also true. If the market rallies, your portfolio will rise in value.

Because your various holdings are likely to change in value over time, once a year, you should “rebalance” your couch potato portfolio back to its original asset weightings.

provide return over and above the market after fees, or whether markets are in fact “efficient” and will outperform an activemanagement style over the long term. If you select the passive, couch potato portfolio, be prepared to stomach the ups and downs of the market solo. If you select actively managed mutual funds, be prepared to pay a higher fee and have the support of a professional money manager or advisor during market turmoil.

Personally, I believe in using both strategies. I deploy what’s called a passive strategy with an active overlay, buying the market and making only small calls in an attempt to outperform.

What are the costs?

How to get started

What are the risks?

The question is whether you believe that active managers can www.canadianinquirer.net

Create an investment plan that matches your risk-tol-

erance level. For example, it makes absolutely no sense to say you’re a conservative investor and then jump into trading penny mines on the TSX Venture Exchange. Once you’ve set your investment plan in motion, track it weekly or monthly.

If you select the passive, couch potato portfolio, be prepared to stomach the ups and downs of the market solo. If you select actively managed mutual funds, be prepared to pay a higher fee and have the support of a professional money manager or advisor during market turmoil. Personally, I believe in using both strategies. I deploy what’s called a passive strategy with an active overlay, buying the market and making only small calls in an attempt to outperform. ■

World News

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

23

Trump, North Korea trade escalating threats of fire

BY FOSTER KLUG AND MATTHEW PENNINGTON The Associated Press SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF — North Korea and the United States traded escalating threats, with President Donald Trump threatening Pyongyang “with fire and fury like the world has never seen” and the North’s military claiming Wednesday it was examining its plans for attacking Guam.

The comments follow reports that North Korea has mastered a crucial technology needed to strike the United States with a nuclear missile.

Despite regular North Korean threats against Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometres) from the Korean Peninsula, it is extremely unlikely that Pyongyang would risk the assured annihilation of its revered leadership with a pre-emptive attack on U.S. citizens.

Still, the competing threats and Trump’s use of North Koreastyle rhetoric — Pyongyang has long vowed to reduce Seoul to a “sea of fire” — raise the already high animosity and heighten worries that a miscalculation might spark conflict between the nuclear-armed nations.

The North Korean army said in a statement distributed by the state-run news agency that it is studying a plan to create an “enveloping fire” in areas around Guam with medium- to longrange ballistic missiles. The statement described Andersen Air Force Base on Guam as a “beachhead” for a potential U.S. invasion of North Korea it needed to neutralize. It was unlikely the North’s threat was a direct response to Trump’s comments to the camera at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which deals with mat-

ters related to North Korea, said the North’s army statement hurts efforts to improve inter-Korean relations. Ministry spokesman Baek Tai-hyun said Seoul remains committed to both dialogue and sanctions for solving the North Korean nuclear problem and called for Pyongyang to stop its provocations.

Trump spoke hours after reports were published that indicate North Korea can now wed nuclear warheads with its missiles, including its longestrange missiles that may be able to hit the American mainland. The North has strived for decades to have the ability to strike the U.S. and its Asian allies, and the pace of its breakthroughs is having far-reaching consequences for stability in the Pacific and beyond.

The nuclear advances were detailed in an official Japanese assessment Tuesday and a later Washington Post story that cited U.S. intelligence officials and a confidential Defence Intelligence Agency report. The U.S. now assesses the North Korean arsenal at up to 60 nuclear weapons, more than double most assessments by independent experts, according to the Post’s reporting.

“North Korea had best not make any more threats to the United States,” said a sternlooking Trump, seated with his arms crossed and with his wife beside him. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

“He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

The remarks appeared scripted, with Trump glancing at a paper in front of him.

They evoked President Harry Truman’s announcement of

The skyline view of Ryugyong Hotel, an unfinished 105-story pyramid-shaped skyscraper & the first tall building in Pyongyang city.

the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, in which he warned of “a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

But it wasn’t clear what Trump, who is prone to hyperbole and bombast in far less grave situations, meant by the threat. White House officials did not elaborate.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement afterward saying, “We need to be firm and deliberate with North Korea, but reckless rhetoric is not a strategy to keep America safe.”

The Trump administration considers North Korea to be America’s greatest national security threat and tensions have steadily escalated this year.

Pyongyang responded angrily to the U.N. Security Council’s adoption this weekend of new, tougher sanctions spearheaded

by Washington. The sanctions followed intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, the second of which was estimating as having a range that could reach more of the U.S. mainland. The newly revealed U.S. intelligence assessment indicates those missiles can carry nuclear warheads.

Denouncing the U.N. sanctions through state media, the

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North warned: “We will make the U.S. pay by a thousand-fold for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country.”

For North Korea, having a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike America would be the ultimate guarantee against U.S. invasion.

It is an ambition decades in the making. North Korea began producing fissile material for bombs in the early 1990s and conducted its first nuclear test explosion in 2006. Four subsequent nuclear tests, the latest a year ago, have accelerated progress on miniaturizing a device — something North Korea already claimed it could do.

Over that span, multiple U.S. presidents have tried and failed to coax or pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear ambitions.

The secrecy of the North’s nuclear program and the underground nature of its test explosions make it very difficult to properly assess its claims.

But the new assessments from Japan and the U.S. suggest that doubts over the North’s abilities are receding.

In an annual report, Japan’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday concluded that “it is possible that North Korea has achieved the miniaturization of nuclear

weapons and has developed nuclear warheads.” Japan, a key U.S. ally, is a potential, front-line target of North Korean aggression.

The Post story, citing unnamed U.S. intelligence officials, went further. It said the Defence Intelligence Agency analysis, completed last month, assessed North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, including by intercontinental missiles.

Officials at the agency wouldn’t comment Tuesday.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence also wouldn’t discuss the report.

It’s unclear how North Korea’s new capabilities will immediately affect how the U.S. approaches the country’s regular missile launches and occasional nuclear tests. The U.S. military has never attempted to shoot a North Korean missile out of the sky, deeming all previous tests to pose no threat to the United States. The U.S. could weigh military action if the threat perception changes.

The calculation of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal at 60 bombs exceeds other assessments, which range from around one dozen to about 30 weapons. The assessments are typically an estimate of the amount of plutonium and enriched uranium North Korea has in its inventory rather than how much of that material has been weaponized. It’s unclear how many, if any, miniaturized warheads North Korea has built.

Last month’s ICBM tests highlighted the growing threat.

Both missiles were fired at highly lofted angles and landed at sea near Japan, but analysts said the weapons could reach Alaska, Los Angeles or Chicago if fired at a normal, flattened trajectory.

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24

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Entertainment Susan Roces: I empathize with grandmoms who mourn the loss of loved ones in Marawi

BY MARINEL R. CRUZ Philippine Daily Inquirer LIKE HER character Lola Flora in “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano,” veteran actress Susan Roces said her heart bled for the loved ones who were left behind by the soldiers who perished in the ongoing war in Marawi City.

On Thursday, Roces and other cast members of the toprating TV series paid a visit to the 153 injured soldiers currently staying at the AFP Medical Center (or V. Luna Medical Center) in Quezon City. These military men had been sent to either Marawi or other conflict zones, Roces reported.

“What about the people whom the dead soldiers left behind? I empathize with the

mothers, wives and grandmothers who are mourning the loss of their loved ones. How many Lola Floras are out there?” asked Roces, adding that Lola Flora continued to mourn the deaths of her policeman son Pablo (Tonton Gutierrez) and grandson Ador (Coco Martin).

“I told all of the soldiers that I am honored to have met them, and that the Filipino people are fortunate to have them fighting for our freedom and security. Marawi is far from us here in Manila. We can never tell for sure, but what’s happening there could happen here, too, if not for them,” she told the Inquirer. “We owe them that much.”

The veteran actress added: “I encourage people to do whatever they can to show the soldiers

that they are appreciated — send good words to them. This is something that they can hold in their hearts when they’re out

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there fighting.”

An ABS-CBN report quoted Maj. Marissa Narag, V. Luna, Medical Center’s personnel

management division chief, as saying: “Most of the injured soldiers requested to see Cardo in person.” She was referring to “Ang Probinsyano” lead star Coco Martin, who plays SAF (Security Action Force) member Ricardo Dalisay.

Also present were Martin’s leading lady, Yassi Pressman, who shared the stage with him to serenade the soldiers.

Cast members Awra Briguela and Jhong Hilario performed a dance number at the hospital’s auditorium. Also present were Ejay Falcon, Louise delos Reyes, Yam Concepcion and Jeff Tam. Roces explained that it was Kapamilya reporter Chiara Zambrano who organized ❱❱ PAGE 33 Susan Roces

Entertainment

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

25

Musicians reflect on surviving gruelling schedules in wake of Bieber’s tour exit

BY DAVID FRIEND The Canadian Press TORONTO — Justin Bieber is finally offering fans an explanation for backing out of his Purpose World Tour, and while he’s not sure many will understand his decision, some fellow roadweary performers say they can relate.

The Stratford, Ont.-raised pop star posted a lengthy Instagram message on Wednesday detailing why he abruptly exited his tour last week, leaving ticket-holders chasing refunds.

“I’ve learned the more you appreciate your calling the more you want to protect your calling,” he wrote.

“I want my career to be sustainable, but I also want my mind, heart and soul to be sustainable. So that I can be the man I want to be, the husband I eventually want to be and the father I want to be.”

While jet-setting around the world and staying in five-star hotels might seem like a nice lifestyle to outsiders, country singer Keith Urban says he can sympathize with Bieber. He says life on the global tour circuit is a constant struggle of “trying to keep a balance” between meeting the expectations of fans and staying healthy.

“People keep adding into artists’ schedules more and more,” says the Grammy-winning musician, who has frequently toured for more than 15 years.

“At some point you have to say, ‘I’m just a human being, I can’t do all of these things and deliver a great show.’”

Bieber abandoned his tour with only 14 shows left on the schedule — including two at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre — and originally offered little explanation.

The “Love Yourself” singer had played 153 concert dates since the tour launched in early 2016. It was an astronomical amount by any measure, with only a few month-long breaks interspersed between the marathon runs across six continents.

Few other artists embark on such a gruelling schedule. Superstars like Rihanna, Drake

and the Weeknd book their own world tours with far fewer dates.

Singer-songwriter John Mayer came to Bieber’s defence, tweeting: “when someone pulls remaining dates of a tour, it means they would have done real damage to themselves if they kept going. We’ve lost so many great artists lately. I give Justin (thumbs up) for realizing it was time to call it. You should too.”

How some pop stars manage to pull off massive tours is a wonder to Urban, who notes that each show comes with its own set of responsibilities in the digital age.

For example, he says what used to be a simple “meet and greet” with a small group of fans before a concert has ballooned in size as corporate sponsors jump on board and increase their demands. In some instances, that can include line ups of contest winners, the families of the company’s executives, and others who somehow landed on the guest list.

And musicians are often expected to pose for selfies with each fan that’s purchased a VIP ticket package, which are sold by artists and record labels looking for new revenue streams. Bieber scrapped his meet and greets in early 2016, saying they made him “drained and unhappy.”

Then there’s press interviews, the sound check, and eventually the actual performance.

Once the day is over, it starts all over again in a different city or country — often a different time zone.

Vancouver rockers Brian King and David Prowse of Japandroids say their gruelling 230-date tour for their album “Celebration Rock” nearly destroyed their friendship, even though they were the ones who kept agreeing to more shows.

“For a long time the band had this mentality that we’ve got to seize all these opportunities because we don’t know how long it’ll last,” Prowse said in an interview earlier this year.

“We just had a really hard time saying no.”

But as the duo crossed through South America, Europe and Asia,

they started to feel exhaustion and depression setting in.

“We just didn’t have any time to recover,” Prowse said. “It’s pretty easy to feel a bit dark when you’re touring that long.”

Billy Talent guitarist Ian D’Sa says the Toronto-based band learned from experience that extensive tours can be damaging. They used to play months of tour dates at a time, but now pledge to keep each leg of concerts limited to about a month.

The guitarist likens the monotony of tour life to the movie “Groundhog Day,” in which Bill Murray is caught in a day that repeats over and over.

“I’ve seen other bands implode because of the touring schedule,” D’Sa says.

“It’s just being around each other so much that ... you’re going to eventually get on each other’s nerves.”

But deciding when to call it quits when an entire crew of musicians, roadies and management are relying on the tour’s income can be painful.

David Clayton-Thomas, singer in Grammy-winning rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears, learned that early in his career.

“You’re carrying a big load, you’re feeding a lot of mouths,” he says.

“When it came time to vote, ‘Do we go on tour, how many dates do we do,’ everybody voted for as many as possible.”

But the singer says few people, outside the band itself, were tied to the responsibilities of the entire tour’s hectic schedule.

“If the trumpet player blew his lip out halfway through the tour they sent in another trumpet player,” he says. “Of course the singer can’t do that. I had to be there every show.”

Clayton-Thomas left Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1972 after touring became too much to bear. He would play solo performances for decades, but eventually made the call a number of years ago to limit his time on the road.

“You don’t want to be the one to say, ‘OK guys, it’s over,’ but at a certain point in your life you have to make that decision,” he says.

“You can’t keep doing it forever.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

OVIDIU HRUBARU / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Taylor Swift expected to testify in groping case in Denver

BY TATIANA FLOWERS The Associated Press DENVER — A few moments at a backstage photo session four years ago are about to be relived, as lawyers for pop star Taylor Swift and a former disc jockey she accuses of groping her begin picking jurors in their dueling lawsuits.

Radio host David Mueller sued the singer-songwriter, saying he was falsely accused and that she should have called police instead of his bosses, who fired him soon after the June 2013 encounter. He’s seeking up to $3 million in damages.

Swift countersued, claiming sexual assault, setting up the civil trial where she is expected to testify amid tightened courthouse security.

Jury selection is to start on Monday. Opening statements were expected to begin Tuesday in the case that could last two weeks. Court documents say it is unlikely that either side will settle.

Swift is seeking a verdict that awards her $1, while holding Mueller responsible and “serving as an example to other women who may resist publicly reliving similar outrageous and humiliating acts,” her lawsuit says.

Mueller is also expected to

testify, along with Mueller’s former boss and members of Swift’s entourage.

Mueller, then 51, was a morning host at a country music station when he was assigned to attend Swift’s concert at the Pepsi Center in Denver. Mueller was backstage with his girlfriend when they met with Swift, then 23, in a curtained enclosure.

They posed for a photo and left.

Later, Swift’s bodyguard confronted Mueller with the allegation that he had reached under the singer’s dress and grabbed her buttocks.

Mueller denied the allegation and asked that they call the police. He and his girlfriend were escorted out of the arena and a member of Swift’s team called his boss.

Swift never went to the police. She tried to keep the situation “discreet and quiet and confidential” and was upset by Mueller’s claim that “for some reason she might have some incentive to actually fabricate this story,” her attorney, Douglas Baldridge, has argued in court.

Mueller’s attorney, Gabriel McFarland, argues that Mueller may have been misidentified after someone else touched Swift.

Swift’s mother and a member of her team are also defendants in the lawsuit filed by Mueller. ■

26

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Lifestyle Activated charcoal the new black? The black substance has hit the mainstream

BY VICTORIA AHEARN The Canadian Press

Indoor grow gardens bring your gardening inside

BY KIM COOK The Canadian Press A TASTY salad of tender pea shoots. Handfuls of fragrant herbs for the stew. Snack veggies for lunch boxes.

Keeping a fresh supply of greens and herbs on hand can be challenging as the growing season winds down, or if you don’t have a garden. But now you can plop a planter anywhere in your house, set a few timers, and in about 10 days you’ll be nibbling greens like a contented rabbit.

All year round.

There are a variety of indoor grow gardens on the market that come with everything you need: planter, planting medium, seeds, fertilizer and a highintensity grow light. Smart tech and remote controls adjust lighting and moisture levels,

so even if your thumb’s not the greenest, you can still find success.

Linnea and Tarren Wolfe of Vancouver, British Columbia, decided to design a home grower after watching their kids gobble up sunflower and peashoot microgreens “like potato chips.”

Linnea Wolfe advises home gardeners to do some research into the benefits of the edible, immature greens known as microgreens.

“Most of them only take about 7 to 10 days to grow,” she says. “You can mass-consume them, and the health benefits are extraordinary.”

The indoor garden trend is part of a, well, growing movement, says New York landscape architect Janice Parker. ❱❱ PAGE 30 Indoor grow

TORONTO — A darkness is seeping into the food and lifestyles worlds these days, affecting everything from ice cream to bottled drinks and face masks.

Activated charcoal, a black detoxifying substance traditionally used medicinally to help treat a drug overdose or poisoning, is now being put into a multitude of consumer products that are creating a sensation on social media with their shocking colour.

Toronto ice cream shop iHalo Krunch is making headlines — and many Instagram posts — with its black, activated charcoalinfused coconut flavour that also comes in a black waffle cone.

“People love it, they love the colour,” says Charlene D’Aoust, owner at iHalo Krunch.

“We put just enough that it actually adds the colour to the cone without having to add food colouring but that it’s still safe to consume.”

Calgary-based Well Juicery has also jumped on the trend with its recently launched coldpressed lemonade line that includes an activated-charcoal beverage.

“It’s actually our No. 1 seller right now,” says company cofounder Zack Lister.

“I couldn’t even believe when I looked at our most recent sales figures, just on a monthly

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basis, that the activated-charcoal drink was outselling our green juice.

“I think a lot of that has to do with the marketing aspect as well, especially these days with all these Instagram influencers and people looking for cool content.”

Activated charcoal is largely flavourless and often derived from coconut husks. It’s traditionally used in acute cases like poisoning because it can bind up toxins in the gut by a process called adsorption, says Josh Gitalis, a functional medicine practitioner and clinical nutritionist in Toronto.

“It uses an electrical charge and there are microscopic spaces in the activated charcoal where all the toxins go into, and then it helps your body eliminate it so you’re not absorbing it into the bloodstream,” he says.

Gitalis says he always has activated charcoal on hand at home and when travelling in the event of food poisoning or consumption of contaminated water. He advises buying certified activated charcoal that has a Natural Product Number and only administering it after calling a poison control centre and getting guidance.

Some health experts also caution not to take activated charcoal at the same time as prescription drugs, as it can interfere with their absorption.

Activated charcoal has also been used in water filters and marketed as a tooth-whitening

agent and as a topical treatment for things like bug bites and poison ivy rash.

It’s becoming popular in part because of a growing interest in gut health, says Andrea Hardy, a registered dietitian in Calgary.

Hardy says the tiny amount being put into mainstream food items like ice cream these days won’t hurt unless consumed in extremely large quantities. But it also likely won’t have any major beneficial effects either, she adds.

“There are no studies that support that ... there are toxins in your gut that you have to worry about unless you’ve taken something you shouldn’t in a dose you shouldn’t,” says Hardy.

“If people are looking for it truly for gut health, I think there are far better things that are going to promote gut health than using activated charcoal.”

D’Aoust says she doesn’t market her ice cream as healthy, noting it’s more of a novelty that particularly appeals to the millennial generation.

“Some people come into the store and they say, ‘Oh, so it’s a healthy dessert’ and we say, ‘No, absolutely not. There are some detox properties to the charcoal but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to cut any of the sugar or anything else that’s in the cone or in the ice cream,’” says D’Aoust.

“Ice cream is ice cream. But in some ways I do know that it does have detox properties. I say everything in moderation.” ■

Lifestyle

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

27

Fun sex is healthy sex: Why isn’t that on the curriculum?

BY LUCIA O’SULLIVAN Professor of Psychology, University of New Brunswick DAMN — we forgot to teach our kids how to have fun sex.

Most news covers the sex lives of young people in terms of hookups, raunch culture, booty calls and friends with benefits. You might think that young people have it all figured out, equating sex with full-on, self-indulgent party time.

Despite my decades as a researcher studying their intimate lives, I too assumed that the first years of consensual partnered sex were pleasurable for most, but got progressively worse over time. How else to explain the high rates of sexual dysfunctions reported by adults? I was wrong.

Our research at the University of New Brunswick shows that young people (16 to 21 years) have rates of sexual problems comparable to those of adults. This is not just a matter of learning to control ejaculation timing or how best to have an orgasm. Their sex lives often start out poorly and show no improvement over time.

Practice, experience and experimentation only help so much.

This project came to be after a former colleague at my university’s health centre told me that many young women complained of pain from vulvar fissures (essentially tearing) from intercourse. The standard of care is to offer lubricant, but she began to ask: Were you aroused? Was this sex you wanted? They would look at her blankly. They had been having sex without interest, arousal or desire. This type of tearing increases a young woman’s risk of STIs, but also alerted my colleague to a more deep-seated issue: Was sex wanted, fun and pleasurable?

What emerged from our first

study was verified in our larger study: Low desire and satisfaction were the most common problems among young men followed by erectile problems.

Trouble reaching orgasm, low satisfaction and pain were most common among young women.

Was this a select group? No. Overall, 79 per cent of young men and 84 per cent of young women (16-21 years old) reported one or more persistent and distressing problems in sexual functioning over a twoyear period.

cally report that parents fail to communicate about topics important to them, such as jealousy, heartbreak, horniness and lack of horniness. Parents’ messages are usually unidirectional lectures that emphasize avoiding, delaying and preventing. Young people dismiss these talks, especially in light of media portrayals of sex as transformative and rapturous.

Sex in Canada’s schools

Despite what you might think from their over-exposed social media bodies, today’s youth start sex later and have fewer partners than their parents’ (and often their grandparents’) generation did. A recent U.S. national survey found that young people have sex less often than previous generations.

Did years of calamity programming in the form of “good touch/bad touch,” “no means no,” and “your condom or mine” take a toll? Perhaps that was intended as so much of our programming is designed to convince young people of the blame, pain and shame that awaits them in their sexual lives. If we really believe that young people are not supposed to be having sex (that it should just be reserved for adults in their reproductive years and no others, thank you), it might as well be unpleasant, dissatisfying or painful when young people have sex, right?

Young people are overstressed, over-pampered and over-diagnosed. They are also under-resourced for dealing with challenges in their sexual lives. This is how a bad sex life evolves.

Parents make efforts to talk to their children about sex and believe they get their messages across. Yet, their children typi-

Canada’s schools deliver fairly progressive sex education across the provinces. But they do not resemble the comprehensive approaches offered in countries such as The Netherlands and Switzerland. Those countries have teen pregnancy rates as low as 0.29 per cent of girls aged 15 to 19. Canada’s rate is 1.41 per cent, far higher than many European countries (such as Italy, Greece, France and Germany) but consistently lower than the United States.

Thankfully.

These rates are a general metric of youth sexual health and key differences in the socialization and education of young people. They reflect the extent to which we are willing to provide a range of sexual information and skills to young people. More progressive countries reinforce messages that sex can be a positive part of our intimate lives, our sense of self, our adventures and connection. Young people in those countries have healthier and happier sexual lives. They know how to enjoy sex while preventing infections and unwanted pregnancy.

Many countries, including Canada, are swayed by a vocal minority who strongly believe that teaching young people about the positive components of sexuality will prompt unhealthy outcomes, despite all evidence to the contrary. When parents and educators fail you,

before the two ICBM launches had demonstrated the longest potential range of the missiles test-fired by the North.

Not all technical hurdles

have been overcome, however.

North Korea is still believed to lack expertise to ensure a missile could re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere without the war-

Parents focus on disaster

and peers lack credi b i l i t y, where else are you to turn?

Porn lessons in freak

E n ter porn.

Young people turn to porn to find out how things work, but what they learn is not especially helpful. Porn provides lessons in exaggerated performance, dominance and self-indulgence. The relationships are superficial and detached. Producers rely heavily on shock value and “freak” to maximize viewer arousal, distorting our understanding of what is typical or common among our peers.

Of course young people turn to porn to find out how sex happens. It’s free, easily accessible and, for the most part, private.

One young man in our interviews said, “I learned a lot about what goes where, all the varieties from porn, but it’s pretty intimidating. And, I mean, they don’t look like they’re loving it, really loving it.”

Our research makes painfully clear how few messages young people have learned about how to have fun, pleasurable, satisfying sex. They may seem selfindulgent to you, but then nobody took on the task of saying, “Sex should be fun, enjoyable and a way to connect. Let’s talk about how it all works.”

Fun sex as safe sex

ter he d i d n o t reali z e that there was move-

ment involved.

Without a platform of positive communication with our youth about sexuality, and specifically about how sex unfolds and can brighten life and improve health and well-being, there is no room for them to address new challenges in the sexual realm. The World Health Organization’s alarming report of the rise of antibiotic resistant gonorrhea, for instance, will sound like another dire warning from an endless stream. Nobody is consistently motivated by threats.

We must talk to young people about how to have fun sex. This will help to offset the chances that young people struggling with problems in their sexual lives now will develop sexual dysfunctions and relationship strain that distress so many adults. These lessons will arm them with the information and skills required to keep them safe and to seek effective solutions when problems emerge.

Best of all, they will be healthier and happier now and as adults as a result. ■

Did anyone teach you these lessons? A friend and esteemed fellow researcher told me that he learned how sex worked by viewing his dad’s porn magazines. The only problem was that in his first sexual encoun-

This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site.

head burning up. And it’s still working on striking targets with accuracy. ■

Washington. Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, Deb Riechmann in Washington and Catherine Lucey in New Jersey contributed to this report.

Trump, North... ❰❰ 23

North Korea threatened to hit Guam with its Hwasong-12 missiles, which it says can carry a heavy nuclear warhead and

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Pennington

reported

from

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Lifestyle

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

At transgender camp, children as young as 4 find safe space

BY JOCELYN GECKER The Associated Press EL CERRITO, Calif. — In some ways, Rainbow Day Camp is very ordinary. Kids arrive with a packed lunch, make friendship bracelets, play basketball, sing songs and get silly. But it is also extraordinarily unique, from the moment campers arrive each morning.

At check-in each day, campers make a nametag with their pronoun of choice. Some opt for “she” or “he.” Or a combination of “she/he.” Or “they,” or no pronoun at all. Some change their name or pronouns daily, to see what feels right.

The camp in the San Francisco Bay Area city of El Cerrito caters to transgender and “gender fluid” children, ages 4 to 12, making it one of the only camps of its kind in the world open to preschoolers, experts say. Enrollment has tripled to about 60 young campers since it opened three summers ago, with kids coming from as far as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. - even Africa. Plans are underway to open a branch next summer in Colorado, and the camp has been contacted by parents and organizations in Atlanta, Seattle, Louisiana and elsewhere interested in setting up similar programs.

On a sunny July morning at camp, the theme was “Crazy Hair Day,” and 6-year-old Gracie Maxwell was dancing in the sunshine as a Miley Cyrus song blasted from outdoor speakers.

The freckled, blue-eyed blonde wore her hair in a braid on one side, a pigtail on the other and snacked on cereal as she twirled and skipped.

“Once she could talk, I don’t remember a time when she didn’t say, ‘I’m a girl,’” said her mother, Molly Maxwell, who still trips over pronouns but tries to stick to “she.”

“Then it grew in intensity: ‘I’m a sister. I’m a daughter. I’m a princess,’” Maxwell said. “We would argue with her. She was confused. We were confused.”

Living in the liberal-minded Bay Area made it easier. The Maxwells found a transgender play group, sought specialists, and at 4 years old, let Gracie

grow her hair, dress as a girl and eventually change her name.

“I see her now, compared to before. I watch her strut around and dance and sing and the way she talks about herself. If she was forced to be someone else,” the mother trails off. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

Gender specialists say the camp’s growth reflects what they are seeing in gender clinics nationwide: increasing numbers of children coming out as transgender at young ages. They credit the rise to greater openness and awareness of LGBT issues and parents tuning in earlier when a child shows signs of gender dysphoria, or distress about their gender.

“A decade ago, this camp wouldn’t have existed. Eventually, I do believe, it won’t be so innovative,” camp founder San- Here in Canada, attendees of the Toronto Pride Parade hold a "LOVE IS LOVE" sign.

SHAWN GOLDBERG / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM dra Collins said. “I didn’t know you could be transgender at a very young age. But my daugh- es on identifying and helping swer to that is some people kids want. Therapy sessions are transgender children to “so- know it at 3, and some people extended to parents at a supter knew for sure at 2.” port group after morning dropCollins’ experience as the cially transition” - to live as the know it at 30.”

Diane Ehrensaft, director of off. Many counsellors are transmother of a transgender girl, gender they identify with rathnow 9, inspired her to start the er than the one they were born mental health at the Univer- gender, which offers campers camp, and another for 13- to with until they’re old enough to sity of California, San Francis- upbeat role models.

“I want to show these kids 17-year-olds called Camp Kick- decide on medical options like co’s Child and Adolescent Genpuberty blockers and later, hor- der Center, says enrolment what a confident, happy, sucin’ It. there has tripled over the past cessful trans person looks like,” “A lot of these kids have mone treatments.

The Center for Transyouth few years with a “sea change — said camp director Andrew been bullied and had trauma at school. This is a world where Health and Development at maybe we can even call it a tsu- Kramer, 30, who goes by AK none of that exists, and they’re Children’s Hospital in Los An- nami — in the number of little and came out as a transgender in the majority,” Collins said. geles, started a decade ago with kids showing up with their man at 26. “We teach them they are normal, deserving of love, “That’s a new experience for about 40 patients, now has over families.”

She fields a and not alone.” kids who are growing numOne family travelled from used to hidber of calls from Africa to enrol their son in the ing and feeling families over- camp for its full three-week small.”

I see her now, compared to before. seas, including summer session. The 9-yearFourth grader I watch her strut around and dance South Africa, old goes by the name Nao at Scarlett Reinand sing and the way she talks about Ethiopia, Hong Rainbow but has not publicly hold, Collins’ herself. If she was forced to be Kong, Belgium, come out as a transgender girl. daughter who someone else... I don’t even want to England and oth- The family asked that their last was born a boy, think about that. er countries that name and the country where says at camp she lack resources. they live be kept confidential, can be herself. “I Studies show fearing repercussions there. feel comfortable transgender Nao’s mother, Miriam, said for being who I am and who I want to be,” says 900 people, ages 3 to 25, en- adults have higher rates of sui- she watched her child blossom Scarlett, a confident 9-year-old rolled in its program, with 150 cide and depression than the at camp. Nao was happier and in a frilly skirt who wears her on its waiting list, said Johanna general population. A 2016 less prone to outbursts, made Olson-Kennedy, the clinic’s study by the University of friends, opened up about school dark hair long and wavy.

Washington’s TransYouth Proj- bullying, and wants to return There is little comprehensive medical director.

“I just think there’s a lot ect, published in the journal next summer. data on young children who “I think for the first time, identify as transgender, but more openness to the under- Pediatrics, found trans children experts say as the number of standing that trans adults start who live as their preferred gen- (Nao) feels like just a normal young people coming to their as trans kids,” Olson-Kennedy der and are supported by their kid,” Miriam said.

Before flying home, she said, clinics increases, the prevailing said. “When people say, ‘Isn’t parents have the same mental this too young?’ my question health outcomes as other kids Nao wrote a note to the camp’s medical guidance has shifted. counsellors. It read: “Thank The favoured protocol today back to them is, ‘Too young for their age.

At Rainbow Day Camp, a you, for making me feel so hapis known as the “gender affir- what? How young do people mative” approach, which focus- know their gender?’ The an- therapist is on hand to talk if py.” ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

29

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

Sports The Rizal Memorial Sports Complex is saved for now — but for how long?

BY CATHY CAÑARES YAMSUAN Philippine Daily Inquirer ADVOCATES OF heritage conservation want the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) to start drafting a comprehensive plan (not a master plan as earlier written) to rehabilitate the 83-year-old Rizal Memorial Sports Complex (RMSC), following the decision to “terminate … negotiations” with Manila City Hall for its sale to a private entity.

Officers of the Heritage Conservation Society (HCS) are also calling for a law allowing the PSC “full control” of the 8.4-hectare prime property in Manila’s fifth district where the sports complex stands. This is to prevent Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada and his political successors from again attempting to sell RMSC. Manila City Hall insists it is in possession of “several land titles with the registry of deeds” to prove ownership of the land—something that worries those who fear the local government will eventually sell it.

This, despite PSC chair William “Butch” Ramirez’ announcement at a congressional hearing on July 31 that he has withdrawn from talks with Estrada’s team, after seeking Malacañang’s clearance to back out.

“After one year of negotiations, it was not the price, but more of preserving what RMSC

stands for— its history, its passion and spirit, which are priceless,” Ramirez told sports reporters.

“PSC officers thought we would just rehabilitate Rizal Memorial following consultation with the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and National Historical Com- mission of the Philippines (NHCP),” he added.

Heritage status

Earlier, Ramirez admitted interest in relocating PSC and about 100 Filipino athletes under its care to a spanking 100- ha sports complex soon to rise in Clark Field, Pampanga province, under the auspices of the Bases Conversion Development Authority.

His disclosure came after rumors that businessman Ricky Razon is eyeing RMSC for conversion into a commercial center.

Insiders, however, recall details discussed on Tuesday that suggest talks between the PSC and parties interested in RMSC broke down because they could not agree on how much the storied sports complex on Pablo Ocampo St. ( formerly Vito Cruz) in Manila should go for.

Parties present at the hearing said the BCDA pegged RMSC’s “valuation” at P10 billion.

Those who wanted to buy were willing to pay the PSC “only between P2-2.5 billion” for maintaining the property.

HCS president Mark Evidente said the most urgent action

was to pass a law “to secure the heritage status of RMSC and its role in Philippine sports and assign the land to the PSC so the commission acquires full control of the area.”

Conservation

The HCS is heartened by opinions aired by several House committee members who were open to declaring RMSC a property of the national government, if only to prevent Manila officials from selling it.

Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, a vocal opponent to the sale, likened RMSC to “Luneta Park that also cannot be disposed of.

With RMSC being the single most important sports stadium in the country, it is the obligation of the national government to provide for its rehabilitation even without privatization.”

In a phone interview, Erice concurred that selling RMSC to a private entity would mean “mas mapapaganda, but profit would be the motive if that happens. Dapat conservation and enhancement of the area for the use of the Filipino.”

The NHCP declared the sports complex a “national historical landmark” ons April.

The declaration prohibits the demolition of its heritage stadium buildings.

Specter

HSC chair Liliane Rejante Manahan warned that until there was a law that makes it clear RMSC should not be sold to a private party, “there is a

PATRICKROQUE01 / ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA

specter hanging over the building.”

She recalled the old Jai Alai building on Taft Avenue—an Art Deco treasure high on conservators’ watch lists—was demolished in the middle of the night when Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza was incumbent mayor of Manila.

Also, the old Meralco head office on San Marcelino St. was destroyed during the time of Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim. Concerned citizens lamented the loss of the building designed by architect Juan Arellano.

“Mr. Ramirez sent a letter to the City of Manila putting a halt to negotiations. One of the reasons was because the price was not right. What happens if the price is right?” Manahan asked.

Evidente and Manahan point to the urgency of a conservation management plan (CMP) to ensure that RMSC will be saved.

“Not a mere master plan, but a CMP that will guide development in a way that respects and

honors our national heritage,” Evidente said.

Restoration architect Michael Manalo of the National Commission for Monuments and Sites said there already existed a “good mix” of schools, residences and commercial establishments around RMSC. “What is needed is to fix the linkages from one to the other …

It is not the development of the stadium to include other uses that is critical, but the overall plan for the district that seeks to make it more dynamic,” he pointed out.

In his news conference Tuesday, Ramirez said he had realized, after numerous consultations, that rehabilitating RMSC would be the best action for now.

“We have to listen to people, because if not, we might make the wrong decision,” he said.

Ramirez added he intended to keep all moves surrounding RMSC transparent. “Walang hocus-pocus. We will seek a master planner.” ■

Filipino sports “warriors” ready for 2017 SEAG battle

BY PRIMO AGATEP Philippines News Agency MANILA — A fitting salute to our Filipino warriors bound for the 29th Southeast Asian Games (SEAG) in Kuala Lumpur.

On August 10 before dusk, some 495 battle-tested national and developmental athletes will be given a send-off party aimed at boosting their morale and confidence in matching skills against the athletes from nine other ASEAN countries.

Top officials led by Philip-

pine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman William “Butch” Ramirez, who will represent President Rodrigo Roa Duterte; Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr; and Cynthia Carreon, president of the local gymnastics federation and the www.canadianinquirer.net

Philippine delegation Chef-demission; will lead the momentous activity to be held at the CITEM building in Pasay City.

“Buong Bansa, Pugay Kamay Sa ‘yo Atletang Pilipino.

Kampeon Ka sa Bilis, Gilas at Galing,” will mark the theme’s event.

The Philippines will be participating in 41 events in 37 sports disciplines out of the 38 calendared by host Kuala Lumpur, which will be hosting the biennial meet for the sixth time. ❱❱ PAGE 35 Filipino sports

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AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Business PSEi seen to hit new highs

BY DORIS DUMLAOABADILLA Philippine Daily Inquirer THE LOCAL stock barometer is seen to probe new highs past 9,300 next year as corporate earnings catch up with stock valuations and as the government’s tax reform program ushers in a new virtuous cycle for the Philippines.

April Lee-Tan, head of research at leading online stock brokerage COL Financial, said in an interview at the sidelines of COL’s mid-year market briefing for premium clients on Saturday that the Philippine Stock Exchange index could climb by at least 8 percent next year from COL’s revised forecast of 8,700 for the end of this year.

This suggests a PSEi outlook of 9,396 for next year.

The PSEi outlook for 2018 is in line with expected pace of growth in corporate earnings.

“At worst, there’ll be an 8 percent EPS (earnings per share) growth forecast for 2018,” Tan said. “It’s a little bit slow, but if you think about it, the major difference is that fundamentals have caught up with prices.”

As such, Tan said next year’s surprises would likely be more on the upside.

During the investors briefing, Tan said that in the two times that the PSEi breached the 8,000 level, there was an “overshoot” of share price relative to

EPS growth.

“I know that earnings growth has not been exciting in the past few years but ... even with say 5, 6 or 7 percent (EPS) growth, your earnings will eventually catch up and now, we are finally catching up,” Tan said.

At the same time, Tan noted that global risks have abated.

“We’re seeing synchronized global growth for the first time in a long while,” Tan said. This much improved global economic environment has in turn supported growth in the country’s export earnings and remittance flows.

Another catalyst is the expected legislation of the tax reform program this year. This is seen to put 20 percent more money in most people’s pockets (as reduction in personal income tax is seen to benefit 90 percent of taxpayers), while infrastructure spending is seen to rise to 7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2022 from 4 percent this year.

As a macro effect, the country’s GDP growth is targeted by the government to accelerate to 7-8 percent. “I think it can be done,” Tan said. “The best part is it will happen without us going beyond the 3 percent [to GDP] deficit cap which could lead to a ratings upgrade and another virtuous cycle for the economy.”

“A virtuous cycle is when you can borrow cheap, you can grow economy faster. Inflation is low,

peso is stable,” Tan said, noting this was an opposite of the vicious cycle seen by the Philippines before the government’s fiscal position was stabilized by the increase in the value added tax rate to 12 percent at the twilight of the Arroyo administration. On the corporate sector, Tan said there had been an improving picture, with a lot of positive surprises particularly in the gaming, telecommunication, consumer, financial and property sectors.

COL’s top stock picks are property firms Megaworld Corp. and Ayala Land Inc., Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., multiformat retailer Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc., integrated gaming resort operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp., Manila Electric Co. and Semirara Mining and Power Corp.

Among smaller cap or less liquid stocks, COL’s favored stocks are Vista Land & Lifescapes, East West Bank, Union Bank of the Philippines, Melco Resorts Philippines and Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. In the case of Metrobank, Tan said she was not too worried about the recent internal fraud discovered in the bank.

At worst, she said this would reduce the bank’s equity by only 1.2 percent.

“Its position as one of the big three banks makes it a major beneficiary of growing demand for loans,” Tan said. ■

dining room tables and coffee tables come to mind. Or in ‘dead’ spaces that have no light or interest,” she says.

She recommends growing plants with both flavour and flair: “Chives, dill, rosemary, fennel, basil and nasturtiums all have gorgeous flowers and beautiful foliage”.

LA Farms’ vertical garden would make a vibrant addition to a sunny kitchen or sunroom.

A circulating pump brings a soothing burble of water up

and through the tower-shaped planter.

So what to grow in it, if you’re a novice?

“Leafy greens such as arugula, kale and butter lettuce, and herbs such as parsley, cilantro, thyme and oregano prove to be easiest for indoor growing,” says LA Farms’ founder, Wendy Goodman, of Los Angeles.

“These plants require less light, have an easy germination process and typically grow more quickly than other produce.” ■

Indoor grow... ❰❰ 26

“The technology of these kits simplifies hydroponic gardening at its best, and makes it available to all,” she says. You don’t need a yard, or favourable weather.

“What a pleasure to have fresh herbs, flowers and vegetables, and experience a connection to nature no matter where you are,” says Parker.

She thinks these kits shouldn’t just be relegated to the kitchen.

“I’d put them anywhere —

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AVITO C. DALAN / PNA

ASEAN economic integration to drive inclusive growth

BY LESLIE GATPOLINTAN Philippines News Agency MANILA — Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states have vowed to promote their economic integration agenda which can drive inclusive growth and reduce development gaps in the region.

“We will continue our initiatives to provide greater opportunities for our peoples and to narrow the development gaps in ASEAN,” said an ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on the 50th anniversary of ASEAN released on Tuesday.

They said the region will foster the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) towards its vision of an economy that is highly integrated, competitive, innovative, dynamic and inclusive, with enhanced connectivity and integration with the global economy.

“ASEAN values the benefits of opening and strengthening economic ties that have promoted economic growth across Southeast Asia,” noted the ASEAN leaders.

They will also support entrepreneurship and the role of science, technology and innovation as the region’s industries and enterprises, particularly

micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), integrate into the global value chains.

“We will implement our commitments under the multilateral trading system and in various free trade arrangements,” they added.

ASEAN leaders will continue strengthening the regional bloc and its institutions and mechanisms.

“As a model of regionalism, we are determined to further develop ASEAN’s capacity to fulfill its commitments and responsibilities as a major global player,” they said.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of ASEAN. ASEAN leaders also committed to improve the quality of life of their citizens, as they recognized them as the “greatest resource and asset of our region”. ”We will promote peopleto-people exchanges. We will consolidate our socio-cultural initiatives and opportunities to collectively deliver and fully realize human development and sustainable development,” they said.

Likewise, ASEAN vowed to continue promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, equitable access to opportunities and poverty eradication. ■

Business

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

31

Casinos embrace esports even as they work to understand it

BY WAYNE PARRY The Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Casinos are slowly embracing competitive video game tournaments as a way to help their bottom lines, but the money is coming from renting hotel rooms to the young players and selling them food and drinks, not from turning them into gamblers.

Like most other ways gambling halls have tried to attract millennials and their disposable income, it hasn’t been easy.

Atlantic City was first city in the nation to adopt skill-based slot machines to woo millennials but bailed on them after a few months when the response was underwhelming.

Competitive video game tournaments, known as esports, are a growing industry around the world. The fast-paced action, vivid graphics and often violent on-screen action is catnip to millennials, the audience casinos are targeting as their core slot players grow old and die.

But it’s been difficult to move them from the video console to the craps table.

“Everybody’s still trying to figure out, how do you make this appealing for the consumer and make sense for the business? How do we all profit from this?” said Kevin Ortzman, Atlantic City regional president for Caesars Entertainment, which owns three casinos in the city.

The company in March hosted an esports tournament at Caesars that drew about 900 competitors and spectators.

The bottom line result was encouraging, if not dynamite.

“We certainly experienced a spike in our hospitality offerings — the hotel, food and beverage side of things,” Ortzman said. “We didn’t see as much on the gambling side, which we weren’t terribly surprised by.”

But he said coming up with ways to attract millennials is a necessity for the casino industry as a whole, adding that esports players could be cultivated to embrace casinos for video game competitions the way their parents and grandparents went there to play slot machines.

Gambling requires discretionary income and free time, things that people starting

their careers or families may not have in abundance, said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

“The big question is whether people who are 40 or 20 now will begin to play casino games as they get older,” Schwartz said. “This isn’t a given.”

Schwartz agreed the real money for casinos in esports tournaments comes from ancillary spending on food, drinks and hotel rooms.

The Caesars video tournament offered $200,000 in prize money, including a $70,000 top prize, that lured players like Jose Mavo, of Charlotte, North Carolina, who has been playing competitively for a decade and has become a casino customer as a result of being in tournaments hosted by gambling halls.

“We had a tournament in Vegas, and that was the first time I went to a casino, so ever since then, I’ve been gambling quite a bit,” he said, listing blackjack and roulette as favourites.

Alec Collins, of Piedmont, South Carolina, who goes by the competitive name Shock, is only 18, so he’s three years away

“Everybody’s still trying to figure out, how do you make this appealing for the consumer and make sense for the business?”

from gambling legally. But it’s something he’d like to try then.

“I love Atlantic City so in a few years I would definitely come back and experience the casino a little bit,” he said.

Until then, he added, referring to the video game competition, “We’re just here to shoot our guns.”

Wall Street sees growth potential in esports. Deloitte Global pegged the worldwide esports market last year at $500 million, up from $400 million in 2015, and estimated the industry has a global in-person or online audience of nearly 150 million people a year.

Newzoo, a company following the esports market, predicted in a report that esports will generate nearly $700 mil-

lion this year, including media rights, ticket and merchandise sales, brand partnerships and game maker investments. The company projects that figure will surpass the $1.5 billion mark by 2019.

One of the biggest supporters of esports among casino owners is Seth Schorr, CEO of the Downtown Grand in Las Vegas, whose casino regularly hosts video game tournaments that, he said, “make a little bit of money.” But Schorr said the tournaments offer other revenue opportunities, including suites for groups and meal packages.

“Is it the silver bullet? Of course not,” he said. “Is it one tactic in an overall strategy? Of course it is.” ■

IMF exec: PH economy seen to hit potential growth in near term

BY JOANN VILLANUEVA Philippines News Agency MANILA — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) remains optimistic on the Philippine economy’s output in the near term amid the recent cut of its 2017 growth forecast to 6.6 percent from 6.8 percent.

Luis E. Breuer attributed this to the slower domestic expansion in the first quarter of 2017 at 6.4 percent from quarterago’s 6.6 percent and year-ago’s 6.9 percent.

In a briefing Tuesday, the IMF Article IV Consultation on the Philippines Mission chief explained that the slower growth, as measured by gross domestic product (GPD), is understandable given the impact of election spending on the economy last year.

He pointed out that outlook for the domestic economy for the next three years remains strong at 6.8 percent.

“In general, we see the economy growing close to potential and that is very good,” he said.

GDP growth in the first quarter this year is below the government’s seven to eight percent full year target but economic officials are optimistic on the full-year results.

Breuer is all hopes for the approval of the Duterte administration’s tax reform proposals, now pending in Congress.

He said the tax reform will generate resources that will be used for the administration’s priority programs on infrastructure investments and social services, among others.

It will also serve as an insurance against volatilities in the financial market, especially

since the government targets to finance the construction of its infrastructure projects, pegged to amount to about Php8-9 trillion until 2022, he said.

“It’s going to protect the confidence, the trust that the private sector, both domestic and international, have on the conduct of economic policies in the Philippines,” he said.

The IMF Mission chief said the reforms are important because it will also modernize the way funds are used.

He said reforms happen in every generation and it is high time that the Philippines experience one again.

“We grant significant importance on this tax reform,” he said, citing his optimism that tis will eventually be approved

by Senators.

The first package of the proposed tax reforms was passed www.canadianinquirer.net

by the Lower House in third and final reading last May. Once Senators approved it a copy of which will be submitted for a bicameral committee hearing and then submitted to the President for signature.

“We hope the first phase of tax reform does produce an important downpayment on generating additional revenues to finance priority investments, infrastructure, social services, education, and healthcare,” he said.

“If we see broadly a tax reform that generates around two percentage point of in all of its phases over the medium term, we would say that’s a very successful tax reform,” he said.

Meanwhile, the IMF official raised the need for the amendments in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Charter, noting that these “will serve the Phil-

ippines well for many, many years.”

He said there is a need to modernize the legal framework that guides the actions of the central bank, both on supervisory functions as well as its mandate to ensure that inflation remains manageable.

“This new law or the amendments to the law provide a number of tools that are very important for BSP to catch up with rapidly changing economy,” he added.

“In addition, amending the bank secrecy law and anti-money laundering framework to be more in line with international standards would be important to maintain financial integrity and confidence,” the IMF said in a statement issued after the Article IV Consultation scheduled from July 26 to August 9, 2017. ■

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AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Technology SoftBank adding technology ambitions, with ARM, robotics

BY YURI KAGEYAMA The Associated Press TOKYO — Photo ops of SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son sometimes show him chatting happily with his company’s humanoid robot, the childlike Pepper, or grinning as President Donald Trump heaps praise on him for creating American jobs.

It’s clear Son, Japan’s richest person, stands out in Japan Inc. He is no “salaryman” president, those typical executives who rise gradually and quietly through the ranks, Japan-style, in a corporate culture that frowns upon mavericks and tends to squelch self-made ventures.

Since founding SoftBank in 1981, Son, a Japanese of Korean ancestry who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, has won both criticism and accolades as a daring investor who has gathered partners in diverse technology sectors from around the world.

Sometimes those adventures cost him. But often, they have paid off.

SoftBank Group Corp. reported Monday a 98 per cent drop in its April-June profit at 5.5 billion yen ($50 million) on losses stemming from investments in the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba.

Quarterly sales rose 3 per cent to 2.19 trillion yen ($20 billion), while the Tokyo-based company’s operating profit, which highlights core operations, logged a 50 per cent in-

crease year-on-year as its U.S. strategy in the businesses it inmobile carrier Sprint, previ- vests in, without exerting outously a drain on the bottom right control or overhauling line, boosted profitability. their management, he said, inThe first telecoms carrier stead collaborating on a shared to offer the iPhone in Japan, vision of what he called the “inSoftBank has bought British formation revolution.” semiconductor company ARM. “We don’t try to stamp our Its acquisition of U.S. robotics colour on our group compapioneer Boston Dynamics is nies,” he said. “We feel a brand awaiting regulatory approval. should be free.”

Recently, it has announced it Son’s spectacular rags-towill invest in Encored, a U.S. riches story, making one big company specializing in IoT acquisition after another intechnology in the energy sector. cluding an approximately 40 Son believes artificial intelli- per cent stake in Yahoo in the mation. He can act, and he can gence combined with data gath- 1990s, has left many skeptical make decisions.” ered by billions of sensors will over what appears to be a risky In a recent, nearly three-hour benefit people more than the way to run a business, said Sa- presentation in Tokyo, Son pre19th Century Industrial Revo- toru Kikuchi, a senior analyst at sented some of the ventures he lution, helping to treat cancer, SMBC Nikko Securities Co. is partnering with, including deliver accident-free driving But as he added stakes in one OneWeb, whose founder and and grow safer food. technology powerhouse after chairman Greg Wyler wants to Son also has money to invest: the other, names like Microsoft use satellites instead of undera private fund he ground cables to set up last year provide affordfor global investable internet acments in the cess for everySon believes artificial intelligence technology secone. combined with data gathered by tor, called the ViHe showed billions of sensors will benefit people sion Fund, with off Spot, a fourmore than the 19th Century Industrial the potential to legged robot Revolution. grow to as much that can climb as $100 bilsteps and dance. lion. Trump has ARM’s chips are praised him for found in nearly promising to invest $50 billion Corp., Novell, Cisco Systems, all smartphones and wearables, in U.S. startups to create 50,000 Ziff-Davis and Comdex, Son he noted. Data gathered from jobs. has shifted gears when neces- such omnipresent sensors proSon stressed at a news con- sary, adjusting his portfolio and vide far more comprehensive ference Monday that his com- often emerging a winner and data than what can be gathered pany was neither an old-style winning trust from key inves- through mobile phones or comJapanese “zaibatsu,” a business tors, Kikuchi said. puters, Son said. conglomerate with roots dating “His goal is to become the No. “Those who rule chips will to the 19th century Meiji Era, 1 company in the world through rule the entire world. Those nor a venture capital outfit pur- expanding in the technology who rule data will rule the ensuing a quick payback. area,” he said. “He has the abil- tire world.” Son said. “That’s SoftBank tries to influence ity to gather money and infor- what people of the future will

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MIKI YOSHIHITO / FLICKR

say.”

SoftBank also runs a solar power business, which Son plunged into with fervour after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan. His business empire also includes financial-technology, ride-booking services and a baseball team, the Softbank Hawks.

Takenobu Miki, who worked closely with Son in the late 1990s and early 2000s, says Son excels in bringing together partners whom he thinks will be instrumental in the future.

Big Japanese companies often hoard resources like money, facilities and employees.

Son doesn’t, says Miki, who now has his own business, Japan Flagship Project Co., which provides consulting and project management, among other services.

He says those who criticize Son for chasing quick bucks misjudge him.

“What you don’t want is an unprofitable company,” said Miki. “And he has a passion, a dream.” ■

Technology

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

33

Hackers demand millions in Google CEO slams ransom for stolen HBO data memo on gender as employee reportedly fired

BY TALI ARBEL AND FRANK BAJAK The Associated Press

NEW YORK — A group of hackers posted a fresh cache of stolen HBO files online Monday, and demanded a multimilliondollar ransom from the network to prevent the release of entire television series and other sensitive proprietary files.

HBO, which had previously acknowledged the theft of “proprietary information,” said it’s continuing to investigate and is working with police and cybersecurity experts.

In a swaggering five-minute video from “Mr. Smith” to HBO CEO Richard Plepler included in the dump, the hackers used white text scrolling on a black background to deliver an ultimatum. In short: Pay up within three days or see the group, which claims to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of HBO shows and confidential corporate data, upload entire series and sensitive proprietary files.

Specifically, the hackers demanded “our 6-month salary in bitcoin,” and claimed they earn $12 million to $15 million a year from blackmailing organizations whose networks they have penetrated. They said they would only deal directly with “Richard” and only send one “letter” detailing how to pay.

The dump itself was just 3.4 gigabytes — mostly technical data that appears to provide a topography of HBO’s network and to list network-administrator passwords. It includes what appear to be draft scripts from five “Game of Thrones” episodes, including one upcoming episode, and a month’s worth of email apparently from the ac-

BY BARBARA ORTUTAY The Associated Press

From left: First Minister Peter Robinson, actress Emilia Clarke, Richard Plepler, Chief Executive of HBO and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

KELVIN BOYES / PRESS EYE PHOTOGRAPHY

count of Leslie Cohen, HBO’s vice-president for film programming.

The network reiterated Monday that it doesn’t believe that its email system as a whole has been compromised.

The video text was written in often flawed but fluent English peppered with misspellings and pop-culture references.

The hackers claimed it took them about 6 months to breach HBO’s network. Their biggest threat appears to be dumping videos of future shows online with their logo “HBO Is Falling” superimposed.

Many of the more than 50 internal documents in the dump were labeled “confidential,” including a spreadsheet of legal claims against the network, job offer letters to several top executives, slides discussing future technology plans and a list of 37,977 emails called “Richard’s Contact list,” an apparent reference to Plepler.

One screenshot labeled “Highly Confidential” by the hackers listed folders such as “Penguin Random House,”

“Licensing & Retail,” “Legal,” “International” and “Budgets.” Another document appears to contain the confidential cast list for “Game of Thrones,” listing personal cellphone numbers and email addresses for actors such as Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey and Emilia Clark.

So far, however, the HBO leaks have been limited, falling well short of the chaos inflicted on Sony in 2014. In that attack, hackers possibly associated with North Korea unearthed thousands of embarrassing emails and released personal information, including salaries and social security numbers, of nearly 50,000 current and former Sony employees.

The video letter uploaded Monday claimed the hackers spend a half million dollars a year to purchase “zero-day” exploits that let them break into networks through holes not yet know to Microsoft and other software companies. It claims HBO is the hackers’ 17th target and that only three of their past targets refused to pay. ■

done ahead of time,” observed Roces, pointing out that the show has recently aired episodes on terrorism. “We never planned it.”

Roces is the wife of the late action king Fernando Poe Jr., who wrote and directed the original version of “Ang Probinsyano.”

The actress has only good words for Martin, who is also part of the program’s creative team. “He is so dedicated to his craft. What’s good about him is that fame and fortune have not changed him. He’s very passionate about his work—it is his priority now, whether on and off the screen.” ■

Susan Roces... ❰❰ 24

the event. Several ABS-CBN executives joined them, too, she added. The show will soon air its 100th week.

“We are able to sustain viewers’ interest because we air what’s current. Our topics are timely. I don’t know how this is possible because our script is

www.canadianinquirer.net

NEW YORK — A memo written by a male engineer at Google about gender differences sparked a quick rebuttal from Google after it circulated widely online.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai denounced the memo in an email on Monday for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes” and said he was cutting short a vacation to hold a town hall with staff on Thursday. The engineer, James Damore, was fired, according to Bloomberg , which cited an email from him.

An email sent to an address believed to be used by Damore was not immediately returned; Google declined to comment.

The engineer’s widely shared memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” criticized Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for “alienating conservatives.”

Google’s just-hired head of diversity, Danielle Brown, responded earlier with her own memo, saying that Google is “unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success.” She said change is hard and “often uncomfortable.”

The battling messages come as Silicon Valley grapples with accusations of sexism and discrimination. Google is also in the midst of a Department of Labor investigation into whether it pays women less than men, while Uber’s CEO recently lost his job amid accusations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.

Leading tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Uber, have said they are trying to improve hiring and working conditions for women. But diversity numbers are barely changing .

The Google employee memo, which gained attention online over the weekend, begins by saying that only honest discussion will address a lack of equity. But it also asserts that

women “prefer jobs in social and artistic areas” while more men “may like coding because it requires systemizing.”

The memo, which was shared on the tech blog Gizmodo, attributes biological differences between men and women to the reason why “we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.”

While the engineer’s views were broadly and publicly criticized online, they echo the 2005 statements by then-Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who said the reason there are fewer female scientists at top universities is in part due to “innate” gender differences.

Brande Stellings, senior vicepresident of advisory services for Catalyst, a non-profit advocacy group for women in the workplace, said the engineer’s viewpoints show “how ingrained, entrenched and harmful genderbased stereotypes truly are.”

“It’s much easier for some to point to ‘innate biological differences’ than to confront the unconscious biases and obstacles that get in the way of a level playing field,” Stellings wrote in an email.

Google, like other tech companies, has far fewer women than men in technology and leadership positions. Fifty-six per cent of its workers are white and 35 per cent are Asian, while Hispanic and Black employees make up 4 per cent and 2 per cent of its workforce, respectively, according to the company’s latest diversity report .

Tech companies say they are trying, by reaching out to and interviewing a broader range of job candidates, by offering coding classes, internships and mentorship programs and by holding mandatory “unconscious bias” training sessions for existing employees.

But, as the employee memo shows, not everyone at Google is happy with this. ■ Technology Writer Ryan Nakashima in Menlo Park, California, contributed to this report.

AUGUST 11, 2017

34

CANADA

Wanted: PERSONAL ASSISTANT - HOME CARE Permanent – Full time $14.00/hour - for 40 hours per week Anticipated start date: As soon as possible Location: Scarborough, Canada (1 vacancy) Wanted homecare personal assitant to provide care to an 85 years old elderly female suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Duty includes administer bedside and personal care to client such as aid in ambulation, bathing, personal hygiene and administration of medication.

Prepare and serve nutritious meals. Perform routine housekeeping duties such as laundry and ironing clothes and linens, washing dishes, making beds and house cleaning. Taking the designated individual for walks, park, malls and doctors appointments and any other duties deemed necessary to assist the designated individual with day to day living. Preferably with 1 year to less than 2 years of work experience in elderly care. Must speak and write English.

Completion of highschool graduate equivalent in Canada.Optional accomodation available at no charge on a live-in basis. (This is not a condition of employment)

email resume to: eymard.lumbre@yahoo.com

Wanted: IN HOME CAREGIVER/NANNY - ONTARIO Pays $11.54/ hour Care for a Child/children Permanent Full time 8hrs/day 40h/wk Benefits: OHIP.WSIB Req: Completion of Canadian High School At least have experience in 1-2 years as a Nanny or FT | Caregiving Training School JOB TASK: Look after child/children, meal preparation, inddor / outdoor companionship, light housekeeping.

EMPLOYERS: Sudduf/Aaraz #2584 Valley Ridge Road Oakville ON ahraaz.wyne@gmail.com (647-996-2273) Christopher/ Jennifer #08 Columbine Ave. Toronto ON jennifer.posnikoff@bell.ca Liza Sotto#51 Hawkview Blvd.Woodbridge ON lizavillanueva173@yahoo.ca (905-553-0681) Dhona Ursua #05 Bay St. Blvd.Scarborough ON dhonarizaursua@yahoo.ca (647-937-2884) Rahul Kukreja #7 Lyric Ln Toronto ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Shruti Joshi #17 Appleview Rd. Markham ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Musbah Farhat #820 Stargazer Dr. Mississauga ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Shehnaz Almakki #119 Beckenridge Dr. Markham ON supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) An Coke #125 Village Grn Sq Unit 2203 Scarborough ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Marivic 90 Glacier Cres. Scarborough ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Kirby #91 Fairfield Dr King City ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Raoet # 128-42 Pinery Trl Scarborough ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Katrina 204-1262 N. Galloway St. Regina Saskatchewan Supremeccc@yahoo.com (1-306-550-3782 | 647-996-2273) Rumeeza Khan 3814 Mayla Dr Mississauga ON supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273)

IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS? OLIGO SARMA CANADA IMMIGRATION SERVICES call/sms 647-996-2273

ELDERLY CAREGIVER

Wanted: IN HOME CAREGIVER (ONTARIO) Pays $14/hour Permanent/Full time 8hrs/day 40h/wk Benefits: OHIP WSIB

Perform housekeeper and other home management duties under general direction of employer. Plan and prepare meals independently or with employer, and may serve meals.

Companionship Outdoor and Indoor Activities. 2 years of experience as a Elderly Caregiver 40 hours a week Full Time at least 24 months 8 hrs a day $14 an hour

Req: Completion of Canadian High School atleast have experience in 1-2 years as a FT Caregiving Training School. Companionship indoor/outdoor, meal preparation, cooking, household chores, help in handing the needs during the toileting & eating.

EMPLOYERS: Irene Kukuk #28 Grandriver Crt. Brampton ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-537-9844 | 647-996-2273) Aurora Bonaldi#67 Strathburn Blvd North York ON dbonaldi@sympatico.ca (647-996-2273)

Required Education: High school or equivalent Required Experience: Elderly Caregiver: 1 year Required Language: English

Marilyn Uniana #784 Arthur Park Ave.Woodstock ON supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Supriya Gupta #68 Truman Rd Willowdale ON supriyagupta27@yahoo.ca (647-996-2273) Viginia Malbog #50 Jeremy Pl Brampton ON supremeccc@yahoo.com (416-666-4463) Virgienette #1601-25 Lower Simcoe St. Toronto ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (647-996-2273) Alex Veser #896 Avenue Rd. Toronto ON Supremeccc@yahoo.com (416-720-1398)

Contact: Alex Sander Vezer (416-720-1398)

IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS? OLIGO SARMA CANADA IMMIGRATION SERVICES call/sms 647-996-2273

896 Avenue Rd, Toronto, ON M5P 2K6, Canada

www.canadianinquirer.net

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

35

Travel Tourists explore massive blast that levelled Atlantic Canada’s biggest city

BY MICHAEL MACDONALD The Canadian Press HALIFAX — The top tourist draw in Halifax at this time of year has to be its sprawling waterfront boardwalk, which features some of the city’s best restaurants, shops and galleries. At one end of the picturesque two-kilometre walkway, you’ll find Casino Nova Scotia, and at the other, the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.

For history buffs, however, the main attraction this year is at the midway point, inside the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

The museum, perhaps best known for its Titanic exhibit, recently opened an expanded display of stories and artifacts commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion.

It was the worst man-made disaster in Canadian history, and its anniversary is being marked in multiple ways in the city, where visitors can find multiple relics and commemorations.

The massive blast, just after 9 a.m. on Dec. 6, 1917, was caused by the collision of a Belgian relief ship and a French munitions vessel carrying TNT through the narrowest part of the harbour.

Entire neighbourhoods were levelled by the resulting shock wave and tsunami.

More than 1,600 homes and businesses were destroyed, many of them burning to the ground after their coal stoves tipped over. Windows were broken as far away as Truro, about 100 kilometres away. And the ground shook in P.E.I. Almost 2,000 people were killed. Another 9,000 were injured, hundreds of them blinded by flying glass.

The maritime museum’s latest exhibit is called “Collision in the Narrows.”

Among other things, it includes twisted metal fragments that were hurled across the city, including a piece of the SS Mont Blanc’s rudder hinge, which weighs several hundred kilograms.

The items mostly come from the museum’s collection of explosion artifacts, which is still growing 100 years later.

“Every year in the springtime, the frost heaves up pieces of the Mont Blanc,” says Roger Marsters, curator of marine history. “We get new offers of donations every year.”

To be sure, the city’s north end is still marked by the explosion.

Every year on Dec. 6, a memorial ceremony is held at the Halifax Explosion Memorial Bell Tower at Fort Needham, which overlooks the area devastated by the blast.

Craig Walkington, chairman of the Halifax Explosion anniversary advisory committee, says this year’s ceremony will pay tribute to those who survived the explosion. Earlier this year, the city issued an invitation to those who survived the blast to come forward for recognition.

At least 18 people, including a 105-year-old woman, have responded to the call, though little is known about who they are, Walkington said.

“We want to recognize those who were alive at the time of the explosion, and hopefully be able to find someone who can actually talk about their own personal memories,” Walkington said in an interview.

Not far from the bell tower, which is being refurbished, is the Hydrostone, one of the most tangible legacies of the disaster, known these days for its charming restaurants, shops and cafes. The unusual neighbourhood was built after the explosion in only 10 months.

Casino Nova Scotia.

It includes 324 dwellings — mostly row houses, some duplexes and a few detached homes — designed by Montreal architect George Ross. All of the homes are made from tough, fireproof concrete blocks meant to look like cut granite, a welcome feature for tenants who had seen so many wood-frame homes burn to the ground.

The area is also notable for its short, parallel, one-way streets and back lanes.

But its most distinctive feature is the wide, grassy boulevards in front of each row of homes.

Other evidence of the explosion is littered across the city.

More than three kilometres from the blast site, in the middle of a residential neighbourhood on Spinnaker Drive, a humble monument provides mute testimony to the incredible power of the explosion. A 500 kilogram hunk of metal — the shaft from the anchor of the Mont Blanc — sits atop a granite pedestal in a small, tree-lined park.

Across the harbour, in Dartmouth’s north end, a similar monument fea-

Filipino sports... ❰❰ 29

A tough challenge await the Filipino athletes, who will try to surpass the 29-36-66 (goldsilver-bronze) medal haul to finish 6th overall in the 2015 games held in Singapore.

For the record, the Philippines joined the regional sports meet in 1977 and the Filipino athletes’ sacrifices finally bore fruit by winning the overall championship in 2005.

It first hosted the biennial meet in 1981 and then in 1991 despite the two natural calamities — Mt Pinatubo eruption and the July 16 (1990) “killer” quake — wherein sports became one of the unifying factors in the Filipino’s resiliency.

In this year’s Southeast Asian Games, sports again hopes to inspire the Filipino spirit of togetherness amid challenges. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

MEUNIERD / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

tures a twisted, 500-kilogram cannon from the stern of the ship. It, too, was thrown more than three kilometres. A new website, called “100 Years 100 stories” (https://100years100stories.ca/), includes an interactive map that shows the various memorials and exhibits across the city.

The website has become a clearing house for all of the events and locations associated with the upcoming anniversary. It also includes stunning archival photos and heartbreaking stories from that grim time.

A grainy 13-minute film shows flattened homes, relief workers trudging through the snow, shattered windows, mangled factories, and wounded people being carried on stretchers to be treated in railway cars.

One of the most touching photos is that of 23-month-old Annie Welsh, who was found in a burned-out home, sheltered by the ash pan of a stove. She would later become known as Ashpan Annie, a well-known resident of Halifax who died at the age of 95 in 2010. ■

36

Travel

AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Fort Santiago will soon have another attraction

BY AZER N. PARROCHA Philippines News Agency MANILA — Fort Santiago’s Baluarte de Santa Barbara, the fortress once used as headquarters for the US Army in 1904, will soon become a venue for training Filipino youth to be architects, designers, and engineers, the Intramuros Administration (IA) said Friday.

Intramuros Administrator lawyer Guiller Asido said the fortress will soon be known as the iMake History Fortress LEGO Education Design Learning Center which will be an interactive center for students and at the same time will feature LEGO learning materials to present the rich history of Intramuros and the Philippines.

“This project will be an additional destination of learning in Fort Santiago which we will be open to every person regardless of age,” Asido said in a press conference in the future learning center.

“This would make Fort Santiago and Intramuros, not just a cultural and historical structure but already an inclusive area for creativity, learning, and experience,” he added.

Asido said that the learning center will house a lecture

area, a scale models wall, a dark room, LEGO displays, and a moving LEGO exhibit among others.

Once completed, he said that he expects the learning center to be another “destination” in Fort Santiago and lure more tourists. Entrance to the learning center will not have additional costs.

“We are expecting more than double the number of people who are going to visit Fort Santiago. We are targeting more than one million in a year,” Asido said.

“It’s already part of the entrance fee (in Fort Santiago),” he added. Entrance fees in Fort Santiago are priced at PHP50 for children and students and PHP75 for adults.

The learning center was conceptualized by the IA in partnership with FELTA Multi-Media Inc., the exclusive partner of LEGO Education in the Philippines.

It will begin restoration — including adding lights and airconditioning units — in September and is expected to be finished

by October. Asido said that restoration of the fortress will cost less than a million pesos.

Scale model competition

As the restoration of the fortress awaits completion, un-

dergraduate students offering programs in architecture, industrial design and engineering from various universities and colleges have been invited to participate in a nation-wide scale model competition using white LEGO bricks.

A total of 12 groups (with three to five members each) from different participating schools will be tasked to use white LEGO bricks to construct 12 Intramuros landmarks in the scale model.

Landmarks for scale modeling will be given to each participating group via a lot.

Below is the list of competing schools and the Intramuros landmark assigned to them: (1) Polytechnic University of the Philippines — San Ignacio Church (2) Don Bosco Technical College Mandaluyong — Recoletos Church (3) Technological Institute of the Philippines Quezon City — 7th Manila Cathedral (4) New Era University Quezon City — 6th Manila Cathedral (5) University of Baguio — Ayuntamiento de Manila (6) Columban College Olongapo — 8th Manila Cathedral (7) Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila — Palacio del Gobernador (8) National University —

LEOVIERNES1 / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Santo Domingo Church (9) Kalinga State University — San Agustin Church (10) University of Santo Tomas — Lourdes Church (11) Surigao State College of Technology — San Francisco Church (12) De La Salle-College of St. Benilde — Intendencia Eminent external architectural experts and architects will be invited as members of the jury for judging the final output of each student group.

The group that wins first place will receive a cash prize worth PHP50,000; PHP30,000 for the second place winner; PHP20,000 for third; and consolation prizes.

Representative of the fifth district of Manila Cristal Bagatsing, meanwhile, commit-

ted to providing an additional PHP15,000 prize money for winners.

Competition duration is set from July 21 (deadline of registration) to September 30 (deadline for submission).

FELTA Multi-Media Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer Mylene Abiva said that there will be no limit to the number of LEGO bricks used. However, dimensions of each scale model entry should be 1:100 meters with each being at least 70 percent made of LEGO bricks.

“This is an exercise in creativity and we don’t want to make (regulations) stringent,” Abiva said. However, she said that there will be limitations to the size of the scale model. ❱❱ PAGE 38 Fort Santiago

‘A salty taste’: Families vent about trips lost to outage

BY JONATHAN DREW The Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. — Vacationers turned away by an island power outage say they’ve gotten few answers about whether they’ll get back money they spent on cancelled or interrupted trips.

The outage caused by a construction accident forced an estimated 50,000 visitors to leave Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, and others never made it to the popular vacation spots because of evacuation orders that are still in place. Utility officials are hoping to have power restored by early next week, but that will be too late to salvage many vacations.

“I do hope that we’re refunded. We did not step one single foot onto the island,” said Tianna Lee, who was travelling from

Connecticut on Saturday when she heard about the evacuation for Hatteras Island. She said she hasn’t gotten an answer about whether her family can recoup the $1,700 they spent to rent a beachfront condo for this week.

Scores of vacationers like her are now navigating the sometimes confusing process of seeking repayment for lost travel expenses. Some are filing claims with travel insurance companies, while others are seeking refunds from the property owners. Travel insurance plans vary, and many don’t cover man-made disasters.

Local business owners are upset, too, and filed at least three lawsuits against PCL Construction, the company that damaged the underground power lines on July 27 while working on a new bridge between islands.

The lawsuits, which are seek-

ing class-action status, argue the company’s workers failed to take proper precautions to ensure its work didn’t financially harm nearby businesses. One of the lawsuits includes a vacationer as a plaintiff.

Workers were setting aside equipment that wasn’t in use when they caused a massive power outage, according to the state Department of Transportation. Spokesman Tim Hass said workers stuck the steel casing in a spot where they intended to leave it temporarily. The long, tube-like metal device is used to ensure the proper angle and depth for concrete pilings that support the bridge.

The damaged transmission cables were buried under more than 7 feet (2 metres) of sand where the accident happened, utility officials said.

A PCL Construction spokeswww.canadianinquirer.net

woman didn’t respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.

Kivi Leroux Miller filed a claim at the urging of her rental company, Ocracoke Island Realty, after her vacation was cut short.

“I’m trusting them because they’re the ones who sold us the insurance,” she said.

The travel insurance plans, marketed under the Trip Preserver brand, have a road closure provision that will likely apply, but the claims are evaluated individually, said Linda Fallon, senior vice-president of Arch Insurance Group.

Customers of another rental company, Surf or Sound Realty, had the option before their visits of buying travel insurance that was underwritten by AIG. Surf or Sound issued a statement urging its customers to

file claims; AIG said it’s evaluating Outer Banks claims on an individual basis and has begun paying some of them.

Andrew Vessey, who spent $2,700 on a Surf or Sound rental this week, said he’s filed a claim and is waiting to hear back. The Raleigh resident started a Facebook group for similarly situated renters to vent and compare notes, and it’s grown to more than 800 members. Despite frustrations, his family has “some hope with the travel insurance.”

Lee, the mother from Connecticut, said her family didn’t purchase travel insurance, but she’s still frustrated by a lack of communication from Surf or Sound.

“I don’t know that we’ll ever go back to the Outer Banks,” she said. “It kind of puts a salty taste in your mouth.” ■

FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017

37

Food COOKING ON DEADLINE: Serve blueberry pie with a cinnamon French toast crust Panko-crusted Fish with Tzatziki

BY SARA MOULTON The Associated Press

HERE’S A ridiculously simple summer dessert — the happy marriage of blueberry pie and French toast with a little cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top. It’s perfect not only for blueberry lovers, but also for those home cooks who consider themselves dessert-impaired.

For all of their wonderfulness, blueberries can be unpredictable, even in season. Some are sweet as candy. Others are tart enough to make your whole head pucker. Naturally, then, whenever you plan to make a recipe with blueberries, you have to start by tasting them. If the batch at hand is too sweet, ratchet up the acid in your recipe. If they’re too tart, add more of the sweetener.

My favourite blueberry sweetener is maple syrup. The two go beautifully together.

But be sure that your maple syrup is robust. Until just a few years ago, the strongest-tasting maple syrup was labeled Grade B. But then the labeling system was changed. Now your eyes should be peeled for the words dark or robust on the label. In general, the darker the colour, the stronger the flavour.

The filling is thickened with cornstarch, which has a tendency to clump up. Prevent clumping by carefully mixing the cornstarch into the berryand-maple-syrup mixture at the start of the recipe, then give it a second vigorous stir twothirds of the way through the baking period.

One of this recipe’s bonuses is its versatility. Evenings you can serve it hot, right out of the oven, topped with whipped cream or ice cream — and call it dessert. Mornings you can serve it cold, topped with yogurt — and call it breakfast. Either way, you’ll find it delightful.

Blueberry Pie with Cinnamon

BY KATIE WORKMAN The Associated Press

French Toast Crust

Start to finish: 1 hour, 15 minutes (30 active) Servings: 6 4 cups blueberries 1/3 cup dark maple syrup 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon table salt 2 large eggs, beaten lightly 1/3 cup whole milk 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 6 slices homemade-style white or whole-wheat bread, crusts discarded 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream for garnish Preheat oven to 400 F. In a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate toss the blueberries with the maple syrup and the lemon juice. Combine the cornstarch and the salt in a small strainer and sift the mixture evenly over the blueberries. Stir the blueberries gently, using a rubber spatula until the cornstarch is dissolved and evenly distributed. Cover the pie plate with foil and bake the blueberries on the middle shelf of the oven for 20 minutes. Take the dish out of the oven, lift up the foil and

stir the blueberries gently with the rubber spatula, scraping the bottom of the dish to mix everything well. Cover and bake another 10 minutes.

In a bowl combine the eggs, milk and vanilla. Cut the bread slices in half diagonally. In a small bowl combine the sugar and cinnamon. When the blueberries are done, remove the foil and working with one bread half at a time, dip the bread in the egg batter, until it is well moistened but not soggy, letting the excess batter drip off and then place the slice on top of the blueberries. Continue with the remaining slices and the remaining batter, arranging the slices in an overlapping decorative pattern. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the bread slices and bake the pie for 12 to 15 minutes or until the bread slices are golden brown. Serve right away topped either with the ice cream or the whipped cream. ■

ANY FLAKY white fish would be perfect in this recipe. You just want a mild, moist fish, which then will be encased in a crunchy coating, and a base for the flavourful, creamy and crunchy sauce. Serve this up with some steamed or sauteed green beans to round out the plate.

Tzatziki is one of the most classic Greek sauces, served with everything from pita (as a dip) to lamb to seafood. It’s a refreshing mix of cucumber, garlic and yogurt, and then the options broaden. You can add any number of fresh herbs, such as dill, oregano, mint, parsley, even the fronds of fennel bulbs.

You can swap out the garlic for shallots, or another member of the onion family. Olive oil is often added for a bit of richness, and there is usually some sort of acid, like lemon juice or vinegar, to give it a little kick. I added some chopped fennel to this version because I love its anise-y flavour. The amount of garlic is fairly light; add more if you wish.

Different cultures have their own versions of cucumber yogurt sauce, and if you like tzatziki, it’s worth digging in deeper.

Nutrition information per serving: 235 calories; 29 calories from fat; 3 g fat (1 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 73 mg cholesterol; 270 mg sodium; 47 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 26 g sugar; 6 g protein. www.canadianinquirer.net

And if you like tzatziki as much as I do, you may want to make extra to serve up with pita chips the next day, or perhaps dollop it on a piece of grilled chicken or a chop. Leftover roasted meat thinly sliced and piled into a pita with tzatziki makes a great makeshift gyro.

Tzatziki is best eaten within a day of making it, as the mixture can start to become watery from the cucumbers.

Panko-crusted fish with tzatziki

Serves 4 Start to finish: 45 minutes

1 small cucumber • 1/2 cup minced fennel • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste • 4 (6-ounce) fillets barramundi, tilapia, haddock, halibut or other mild, firm-fleshed white fish • Freshly ground pepper to taste • 2 eggs, beaten • 1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs • 3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley • 2 tablespoons olive oil • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano ❱❱ PAGE 38 Panko-crusted Fish

Food

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AUGUST 11, 2017

FRIDAY

Serve grilled BLT salad with buttermilk dressing

BY SARA MOULTON The Associated Press WHEN I first heard about folks grilling romaine lettuce, I was pretty skeptical. Lettuce is supposed to be crisp. Grilling would make it soggy. What’s the point?

Now, having tried it myself, I see the point. Grilling the romaine not only really amplifies its flavour, it also adds the same lip-smacking smokiness that grilling produces in any food.

And all it takes is two minutes on the grill to get the job done.

For this recipe for Grilled BLT Salad with Buttermilk Dressing, the romaine is halved and grilled on just one side and then served as a wedge. This, of course, is how iceberg lettuce is served in the steakhouse (minus the grilling, but plus Russian or blue cheese dressing). Here the wedge is topped with the fixings of a BLT sandwich, including grilled bread. Does the grilling soften up the lettuce, as feared?

Indeed it does, but only the wedge’s outside layer. Happily, the core remains crunchy.

Rather than slathering this salad with glops of too-rich mayonnaise, I’ve drizzled it with an herbed buttermilk dressing: two parts buttermilk to one part mayo. Most of the buttermilk to be found in the

supermarket these days is lowfat, but I’ve recently discovered a whole-milk version, and if you don’t mind the extra calories, I highly recommend it.

The dressing’s one essential ingredient is garlic, but the other flavourings are up to you. Not a fan of tarragon or scallion?

Use dill, chives, basil or oregano instead. Are there family members who don’t eat meat? Swap in smoked salmon for the bacon. Looking to move this salad from the side of the plate to its centre? “Beef” it up by adding grilled chicken or shrimp. However you do it, you’ll discover, like me, the unexpected joys of grilled lettuce.

Grilled BLT Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

Start to finish: 45 minutes Servings: 4

For the dressing: • 1/4 cup mayonnaise • 1/2 cup buttermilk • 1/2 teaspoon finely minced garlic • 3 tablespoons finely chopped scallion (white and green parts) • 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon • 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice • Kosher salt and black pepper For the salad: • 2 cups halved cherry toma-

Fort Santiago... ❰❰ 36

Extra challenge

Participating students expressed excitement in embarking on a new challenge of building landmarks using LEGO bricks.

Francis Cortez, an architecture student representing the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, said that he found the challenge “fun and easy” because the landmark assigned to them — the Palacios del Gobernador — is still existing.

“I think it would be easier for us since we got a landmark that’s still existing,” Cortez said. Other groups were given landmarks that no longer exist and would have to rely on research and photographs.

John Ruiz, an architecture representing National University, said that it would be a challenge since his team will be using LEGO blocks for the first time.

toes • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt • 6 slices bacon • 3 slices rustic bread, crusts removed • Extra-virgin olive oil for brushing the lettuce and the bread • 2 hearts romaine, halved lengthwise, leaving the cores intact Preheat the grill to medium.

Make the dressing: In a medium bowl combine all the ingredients and whisk well. Add salt and pepper to taste and set aside.

Make the salad: In a colander toss the tomatoes with the salt and let drain while you prepare

the rest of the salad.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add the bacon and cook until crisp on both sides, about 5 minutes total. Transfer to paper towels to drain and crumble when cool.

Brush the bread on both sides with some oil and grill the bread until toasted on both sides, about 1 to 2 minutes a side. Transfer to a rack, let cool and cut into squares.

Brush the cut sides of the romaine with oil and add the romaine to the grill, cut side down. Grill just until the romaine is lightly charred on the cut side, about 2 minutes.

Transfer the romaine halves to each of four plates, cut side up. Top each portion with onefourth of the tomatoes, croutons and bacon; drizzle some of the dressing over each portion. ■ BLT Salad: Nutrition information per serving: 168 calories; 68 calories from fat; 8 g fat (1 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 34 mg cholesterol; 546 mg sodium; 19 g carbohydrate; 2 g fiber; 2 g sugar; 5 g protein.

Buttermilk Dressing: Nutrition information per serving: 79 calories; 69 calories from fat; 8 g fat (1 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 6 mg cholesterol; 160 mg sodium; 1 g carbohydrate; 0 g fiber; 1 g sugar; 1 g protein.

Panko-crusted Fish...

“It’s challenging and we have to consider details of the structure but I believe we can do it.

We’ll work as a team,” he said.

All praises

Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark to the Philippines Jan Top Christensen lauded the IA and FELTA-Multi Media Inc. for their latest development.

Christensen was invited since LEGO, the popular plastic toy bricks, is manufactured in Billund, Denmark.

He revealed that the idea of restoring the fortress into a learning center was floated during a coffee conversation.

The Denmark Ambassador also welcomed 70 years of diplomatic Philippine-Denmark relations which he said has “deepened” through the years.

Department of Tourism

(DOT) Undersecretary for Administration and Special Concerns Rolando Cañizal, meanwhile, expressed hope that the learning center and the contest would provide a “greater appreciation” for the Philippines’ heritage.

“We hope that this project will not only give training to young people but will also become a venue to inculcate a deeper understanding of our heritage,” Cañizal said.

“Through this iMake completion, the DOT hopes that more Filipinos, especially the young generation would allude to giving importance to our cultural asset ass significant tourism resources of this country,” he added.

Abiva said that the iMake History Fortress Architecture Scale Model Competition is the first in the world of its kind. ■ www.canadianinquirer.net

❰❰ 37

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice • 1/2 teaspoon finely minced garlic • 1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt Peel the cucumber. Slice in half lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon.

Grate the cucumber using the large holes on a box grater, or the grating blade in a food processor. Toss the cucumber with the fennel and salt, and place in a strainer over a bowl or in the sink.

Season the fish with salt and pepper. Place the egg and panko into two separate shallow bowls. Stir the parsley into the panko.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Dunk each fillet in the egg, so that is it well coated, then dredge each filet in the panko mixture. Place

the coated fillets in the hot oil and saute the fish for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until cooked through and golden brown. Transfer the fish to a paper towel-lined plate.

Use your hands to squeeze the cucumber mixture to press out any extra liquid, then place in a medium bowl. Add the mint, oregano, lemon juice, garlic and yogurt. Stir well, and add pepper and any additional salt as needed (remember the cucumbers and fennel were salted at the beginning).

Serve the fish hot, with a spoonful of tzatziki on the side. ■ Nutrition information per serving: 427 calories; 117 calories from fat; 13 g fat (3 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 196 mg cholesterol; 473 mg sodium; 29 g carbohydrate; 2 g fiber; 5 g sugar; 45 g protein.

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