Opinion Trump’s DACA failure is Congress’ opportunity By Michael Bloomberg Valley entrepreneur who AN EXECUTIVE’S job is to make tough decisions and convince people to follow you. That’s what CEOs are hired to do—and it’s what we elect presidents to do. By punting the legal status of young immigrants to Congress without offering his own proposal, President Trump has failed an important test of executive leadership. But his failure is Congress’ opportunity. The administration’s threat to rescind the legal status of 800,000 individuals brought to the US illegally by their parents would be a monumentally bad economic decision that —in its cruelty toward innocent people—would also be patently un-American. Business leaders I speak with from around the country, and from every major industry, understand that deporting these young people would adversely affect the labor supply as well as consumer demand. Growth would suffer, innovation would move overseas, and the future of our country would be dimmer. There is no sound economic case to be made for deporting a young, productive workforce and surrendering the real benefits they provide our country. According to a new analysis by New American Economy, a coalition of business leaders I co-chair, the young people who qualify for the Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, earn almost $20 billion in income annually. They pay more than $3 billion in local, state and federal taxes, and they contribute almost $2 billion to Social Security and $470 million to Medicare. Another study found that passing a DREAM Act to keep young immigrants here instead of sending them abroad would pump over $300 billion into the US economy over the next two decades. Immigrants and their children have founded more than 40 percent of our Fortune 500 companies. Think of the next Main Street entrepreneur who grows his or her company to employ many local residents. Or the next Silicon
builds a company that benefits millions of Americans —and keeps America at the forefront of the global economy. Think too of the next award-winning teacher, or life-saving doctor. They are called Dreamers because they are pursuing the great American dream: the chance to work hard, play by the rules, and build a better life for yourself and your children. Deporting them would deprive local communities of talented, hard-working and law-abiding young people, and deprive the country of the brains and brawn it needs to continue leading the world economy. Our coalition of business leaders has a deep regard for the rule of law, and we understand the desire to see all immigrants held to the same standard. But children brought here illegally by their parents did nothing wrong—and in order to stay, they must pass background checks and prove they are going to school, have graduated, or have honorably served in the military. Doing so demonstrates that they are law-abiding and productive members of their communities, and it gives them the opportunity to qualify for DACA, which grants them two things: temporary protection from deportation to a country many do not remember and whose language they may not speak, and a renewable, two-year work permit. In the past, members of the House and Senate have introduced a variety of bipartisan bills to give these young people a more permanent place in American society. Until Tuesday, those in Congress who oppose deportation—and I believe it’s a strong majority, as it is among Americans—had the luxury of sitting back and allowing Obama’s temporary fix to remain in place. That is no longer a viable option. The future of the American dream—for all Americans—depends on our willingness to keep it open to all young people who pursue it. And that now depends on Congress having the courage to lead where the president will not. Bloomberg
IF YOU see a space scientist looking forlorn this month, it’s probably because Nasa’s Cassini mission to Saturn is about to end. There’s nothing anyone can do about it; the spacecraft has already been kept operational for nine years past its planned expiry date. And now it’s out of fuel. But Cassini will be missed. Since 2004, it’s been scrutinizing the most recognizable planet in our solar system—and many of Saturn’s rings and moons. Now the space scientists operating the craft have found a way to make its Grand Finale especially memorable and important, by shifting its orbit to collect extra data, even as it prepares for a fatal dive into Saturn itself. If space scientists were collectively asked to name the highlights of what Cassini has taught us about Saturn, they might shout in unison, “Titan!” That’s Saturn’s largest moon and the only body in the solar system outside of Earth that has a thick, nitrogen-dominated atmosphere and liquids that
persist on the surface. Titan’s liquids are not water, but rather methane, ethane and other hydrocarbons. Nevertheless, this moon might have the right stuff to provide the complex chemistry that’s needed to create a suitable environment for life. Titan is so special to space scientists that the Cassini mission included the Huygens Probe, which in 2005 descended through the moon’s atmosphere, landed, and sent us the first images of its surface. This is how we learned that Titan also shares with Earth many geologic features, including river drainage systems, lakes and dunes. After giving Titan its due, scientists would point to Enceladus, another of Saturn’s moons, but much smaller—just 500 kilometers in diameter, with a surface that’s mostly solid ice. In 2005, Cassini flew through plumes of vapor emanating from a saltwater ocean beneath the ice near Enceladus’s south pole. This liquid ocean is probably in contact with rock below and may receive energy from tides
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Is justice a legal concept? PENSEES FR. RANHILIO CALLANGAN AQUINO ALMOST all of the time, when a court resolves a dispute—a claim to what the Constitution awkwardly characterizes as a “legally demandable right” —its reference will be the law, and that is expected to be the case. Similarly, when the constitutionality of a statute is in issue, or the validity of an executive act, the inflexible reference point will be the Constitution, and once more that is as it should be so. Now, to say that a decision is legally correct, is that the same thing as saying that it is just? Many will feel uncomfortable with that equation, but then the question immediately follows: If one is not willing to concede to the law’s
dictates the title of justice, what then is the latter’s measure? This is not only a philosophical conundrum. It is a difficulty that makes itself felt also in the realm of law, especially in the application of the law. So it is that under the traditional precepts of hermeneutics, when a “literal interpretation” (itself a troublesome concept) leads to “absurd” results—and unjust, unfair, unreasonable will count as “absurd”, then since it should be presumed that the Legislature intended what is just, then recourse must be to a nonliteral construal. So too, it is accepted that principles of equity play a role in judicial decisions, although always with the caveat that they may not substitute for positive law —the positivism of modern, bourgeois law! Justice Isagani Cruz put it well in one of his decisions:
The law is interpreted to achieve just results. And Justice Justo Torres put it with almost mystical lyricism when he wrote: “The
There is also something constant and invariable about social realities that makes, say, torture or the abuse of children universally repugnant.
measure of a law is the measure of its justice.” But that does not yet answer the question: Whence, the principles of justice? A
natural law theorist will insist that reason yields the principles of justice. Rawls advances an interesting theory: If people were hypothetically ignorant of their own inclinations, biases, prejudices, preferences and on the assumption that they are reasonable, they would choose to have as wide a range of liberties as is possibly compatible with a similar range for others. Ricoeur, with typical acuteness, traces the issue of justice takes up the problem of justice from the juridical where one asks “Who is the subject of rights?” Through the moral: “Who is the subject worthy of esteem and regard or respect?” To the anthropological: “What is the basic characteristic of the self that makes it capable of esteem and respect?” The itinerary is difficult, and the answer is hardly straightforward, but we
cannot withdraw from reflecting on justice, especially when we are worried that the spate of unabated EJKs is making our society an unjust society, and when the deliberate culture of fake news and “alternative truth” is wreaking havoc on our sense of what is right— and shaking to the core our concept of justice! True, social realities that form the contexts of discourses on justice are “constructs” but there is also something constant and invariable about them that makes, say, torture or the abuse of children universally repugnant, and that allows for universal condemnation of its perpetrators. r a n n i e_ a q u i n o @ c s u . edu.ph rannie_ aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph rannie_aquino@outlook. com
QC to Naia in 30 minutes VIRTUAL REALITY TONY LOPEZ FOR the first time, the Philippines, one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies, will have a mostly underground and earthquake-proof subway system, in the national capital and nearby provinces. Part of the subway will be operational before President Duterte leaves office on June 30, 2022. Completion is another three years, in 2025. Total cost is P355.6 billion, making it the Duterte administration’s single largest project ever. As originally planned, the subway will run for 25 kms, from Mindanao Avenue in Quezon City to Taguig. Today, on a good day, that will take you at least two hours in Metro Manila’s horrendous traffic, one way. With a subway, 30 minutes from Quezon City, and you are at your destination, assuming train speed of 80 kph, double the speed of MRT3. The cabinet, meeting as the economic planning body National Economic and Development Authority, approved the project last week. The underground railway will be built by the Duterte government, with
financing from the Japanese government at very concessional, almost interest-free, loan. The loan agreement is expected to be signed this November in Manila at the summit of Asean leaders and their dialogue partners, which include the United States and Japan, by Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japan is also financing another railway, this time above ground, from Manila’s Tutuban station of the old PNR to Malolos, Bulacan. The so-called Green City Rail will cost P211.46 billion. The concentration of mass railways from north Manila to areas further north reflects a policy shift—away from the rich provinces of the Calabarzon—Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon, to Central Luzon which the government thinks is a better bet for growth, long term. Central Luzon, or Region III, after all, is mostly flat lands, near major water sources (like Angat and Pantabangan), and has two assets Calabarzon does not have—the Clark airport (whose passenger capacity is being doubled from the present 4.2 million) and the Subic seaport, 110 kms north of Manila, and which has a cargo capacity of 600,000 of 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
Cassini’s last photos will be spectacular By Sabine Stanley
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2017
and radioactive elements, which could provide important catalysts for the development of life. Future missions to Enceladus can be designed to look for evidence of life without landing on the surface, by sampling the plumes expelled into space. These are just two of Cassini’s many significant discoveries. The Grand Finale is guaranteed to add more. For years, Cassini had been orbiting close to Saturn’s equatorial plane, in order to efficiently investigate the moons. But beginning in late April of this year, the spacecraft shifted course and has been flying on a path more perpendicular to the equator, a north-to-south elliptical route that reaches a point closest to Saturn about once a week. These orbits include dramatic passes between Saturn and its rings that allow Cassini to observe the planet in unprecedented detail. With the completion of each one, the scientific community exhales deeply, relieved that the spacecraft has survived for another round. Twenty of the planned 22 orbits
have been completed. The last one, in which the spacecraft is to descend into Saturn’s atmosphere and burn up from exposure to the high pressures and temperatures, is set to take place on Friday, Sept. 15. The Cassini mission has been a constant presence in the careers of many space scientists working today, whether it was under development, traveling to Saturn, or carrying out its extended missions. Sept. 15 will mark the end of an era, and this comes with an immense sense of loss. Yes, there are other fantastic missions under way in our solar system. But Cassini is special. The data it has provided have advanced our understanding of the solar system, and informed our search for life elsewhere in the universe. On Sept. 15, I will raise a glass to this wonderful mission and all the scientists and engineers who made it possible. I will say goodbye and thank you to Cassini for inspiring my work and demonstrating what remarkable things humans can accomplish when they work together. Bloomberg
Currently, Southern Luzon or Region IV-A, contributes 17 percent (almost P3 trillion) of the national economic output or GDP; Central Luzon shares a paltry 9 percent (P1.575 trillion). However, Region IV-A has five things Central Luzon does not have— proximity to NAIA which handles 35 million passengers a year, the Batangas international seaport (110 kms south of Manila and with a capacity of 400,000 TUEs), scenic Taal Lake (which is triggering an unprecedented building and tourism boom along both sides of the Aguinaldo Highway from Silang, Cavite to Nasugu, Batangas), sprawling Laguna Lake (a major water source and a circumferential road in the future), and a vibrant entrepreneurial class—Cavite, Batangas and Cavite have proud SME entrepreneurs and gentlemen farmers. Finally, with climate change in 100 years when sea levels rise one meter, Central Luzon has a greater possibility of sinking (as it did in 1972 when Manila Bay had a date with Lingayen Gulf in Central Luzon), than Southern Luzon a huge chunk of whose area are mountains. This may explain why even before the Mega Manila subway project could
break ground, it is already being expanded, to cross under the South Expressway onto the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Mega Manila means Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite and Laguna, plus Metro Manila (which has 16 cities and one town). Mega Manila has 15,059 sq kms and a population that will hit 19.5 million in 2030 (from 15.3 million in 2010). Eventually, the subway will extend in the south, from Naia to Dasmariñas City, Cavite, a distance of 20.7 kms, and north, from Mindanao Avenue, to San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, another, 15.4 kms., extending the line to 61 kms, and increasing capacity from 370,000 passengers daily in its first year, to 1.7 million. How firm is the subway project? Says Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who sometimes speaks as if he is selling you Manila’s Jones Bridge in Chinatown: “I don’t want bola-bola. I want this project finished.” Apart from fast-tracking the project, he also asked that the subway extend to Naia. Just so he wouldn’t be ribbed for the colossal failure of his Land Transportation Office to issue plastic driver’s licenses, Tugade last week announced the availability plastic driver’s licenses—on a selective basis. You apply at LTO
today for a license, you won’t get your plastic card. A friend of mine applied the other day. She did not get the plastic. A subway for Metro Manila is actually an old idea. It was first broached during the presidency of BS Aquino III, by the Japanese. A study was finished for the Japan International Cooperation Agency in March 2014. With Aquino’s Daang Matuwid, the subway never took off and remained underground in the mind of BS III. Duterte has dusted off the study and adopted the subway as his centerpiece Build, Build, Build infra project. Golf tournament On a personal note, may I endorse the golf tournament of alumnae of the College of the Holy Spirit for the CHSAF Scholarship Program, this Monday, Sept. 11, 2017, at scenic Sta. Elena Golf Club (take Cabuyao Exit of the South Expressway in Laguna). Please contact Tellie Francisco 893-002; 0917-825-7378; or CHS Secretariat, c/o Cora Parco 735-5986, 0917-271-9325. CHS alumae need to raise money from tuition for scholarships. Holy Spirit tuition is P70,000 a year; so you know how much to contribute to the fund.
Reynaldo
problem of extra-judicial killings, whether the reality or the perception of it. If he really wants to preserve the honor of the organization that he clearly loves so much, he should stop crying about it and start doing something about it. That can’t be stated any more simply. *** Should the general decide to take our advice, we’d add a final recommendation: Start by looking for slimy
things under the rocks in Caloocan. Even after a change in leadership of the PNP in that city following the death of Kian, we were still presented with the killings of Carlo and Reynaldo. Something may truly not be right with the Caloocan PNP. But General Bato, for now, is the only man we can depend on to find out for us.
Policies like these won’t make everything right— but, widely adopted, especially starting in middle school (when girls tend to be most enthusiastic about computer science), they can help to close the gap. Technology companies can follow suit—by recognizing, measuring and counteracting implicit and explicit bias, by genuinely welcoming female interviewees, and by closing the pay gap. The technology-consulting company Accenture, aiming to achieve a 50-50 male-female workforce by 2025, has, in India, created a women-only career track for technical architects and, in the US, established a rule that new parents—fa-
thers and mothers alike— not travel for work for the first year, to get rid of the “mommy track.” Salesforce monitors its payroll and adjusts salaries to close the gender gap. (Bloomberg LP has adopted similar approaches, increasing the number of women in engineering by 60 percent over the past three years, albeit from a low base.) The Google memo perpetuated several misconceptions. Perhaps most damaging was the suggestion that efforts to attract women to jobs in computing are bound to fail and have already gone too far—that the gender gap is intractable and should even be allowed to widen. In this, it couldn’t have been more wrong.
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Neither will all those tears convince us about the passion of the general, let alone his competence, to lead in the reform of his organization. I was, frankly, floored by his admission, during Senator Poe’s hearings, that there was still no command plan or strategy in place to address the
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has managed to boost the female share of computerscience majors to 50 percent in the past 15 years. How? The school expanded the female faculty and made the curriculum more inviting to talented students with limited exposure to computer science. It assigned classes according to students’ past programming experience—to prevent long-time enthusiasts from intimidating novices. And it told students that STEM careers pay well. (The average starting salary for software engineers from Harvey Mudd is more than $100,000.)
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