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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016

Opinion

Adelle Chua, Editor mst.daydesk@gmail.com

EDITORIAL

POP GOES THE WORLD JENNY ORTUOSTE

THE CROCHETED HILLARY BLANKET: FIBER ARTS AS WOMEN’S ACTIVISM

WHAT WAS HE THINKING?

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ONE of the more amazing artifacts to come out of the recent United States general election was a gigantic PeptoBismol pink blanket depicting Hillary Clinton’s face, entirely hand-crocheted and draped across a billboard on a New Jersey highway.

The portrait of the erstwhile US presidential candidate was stitched in black and white, and the accompanying text read: “#I’mWithHer.” The artwork consisting of 94,880 stitches was created by PolishAmerican artist Olek with the help of 38 volunteers as a show of support for Clinton.

There are other fiber artworks on the internet that have similar purposes and sentiments: cross-stitched Hillary campaign logos (the blue H with a red arrow as the bar), an embroidered “A woman’s place is in the White House,” and depictions of a blonde woman in a blue pantsuit created entirely in thread. (Fiber artworks about Donald Trump are, in general, rather more negative.)

For a millenia, textile crafts— spinning and weaving, embroidery, knitting and crochet—were performed by women and thus identified as women’s work. The purpose was at first functional—to make clothes and house linen such as sheets—then decorative—to decorate the clothes and sheets made.

In her book “Woman’s Work, The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times” (1994) Elizabeth Wayland Barber refers to Judith Brown’s theory on why these skills became the near-exclusive province of women—it was linked to child-bearing.

Because only females can breastfeed, they could not perform chores that took them away from the house for long periods. In order to be productive while caring for children, they had to occupy themselves with work. To avoid risking the safety of the children, the work had to be the kind that was simple, repetitive and not likely to require much concentration, easily interruptible and just as easily resumed—among them sewing, spinning, and cooking.

As society developed social hierarchies, in some cultures the women of the upper classes, who had servants to do the common housework, spent their considerable leisure time doing fancy needlework.

They created not only embellished clothing and linen, but also wall hangings that depicted scenes real and imaginary, with the most famous being the Bayeux Tapestry—artworks, in other words. Female servants or needle workers did the plain sewing.

Sewing and other fiber crafts became strongly identified with women. But because these domestic activities did not generate profit, men undervalued and marginalized them.

With changing tastes and technologies in modern times, women no longer need to make their own clothes. This development, as well as the rise of feminism, have encouraged women to deliberately reclaim and practice the traditional arts to express their personal, ideological, and political views. In fact, as in the case of Olek’s Hillary blanket, fiber arts has long been used to support a cause or candidate or advocate an action, an

he Philippine National Police is not exactly in the best of places now.

Controversy has hounded the police organization for a long time.

In recent memory, there was Mamasapano. Allegations that some members of the PNP are involved in criminal syndicates or are not screened properly for any sign of mental imbalance. And with the entry of the Duterte administration, supposed extra-legal operations where suspected drug users or drug pushers are arrested because of planted evidence, or alleged resistance to arrest.

Just last week, we were dumbstruck at how a detained drug suspect, Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, was shot dead in his cell at the sub-provincial police station. That police officers were called to the Senate to give their own account of the fantastic incident did not help allay our fears that we were not necessarily safer with this present batch of cops.

And while all the attention was in Leyte, in the mysterious death of the mayor who may have known too much, the head of the PNP was nowhere near here.

Director General Ronald dela Rosa was instead in the United States, providing moral support to boxing icon—incidentally, also senator—Emmanuel Pacquiao from his front-row seat to the event.

Dela Rosa came home a few days later, as part of the Pacquiao entourage.

At the airport he appeared uneasy, as though he were trying to make himself inconspicuous. It was impossible he did not realize the gravity of what just happened in Leyte, especially in relation to the government’s war against drugs but also the questions on human rights violations.

But he chose to stay and enjoy the match—and some other perks from the pugilist-senator. Dela Rosa has admitted Pacquiao took care of his and his family’s airfare, accommodations, even some allowance.

Now he is home to take the heat, and rightly so.

It is inconceivable that Dela Rosa, for his position, would be blissfully ignorant of anti-graft laws. He has no excuse whatsoever, and he has to answer painful questions. Ombudsman Conchita CarpioMorales will look into whether Dela Rosa could be liable for graft for accepting Pacquiao’s treat.

The PNP already has a lot on its plate, and it has yet to show the people it is their protector above anything else.

What on earth was the chief thinking — if he ever did so, at all?

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A MESSAGE TO GIRLS LONG STORY SHORT ADELLE CHUA

MANY thought former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would become the first female president of the United States. Despite having her own set of controversies, the former first lady was seen as the superior choice over her rival, billionaire businessman Donald Trump. The debates held in the weeks leading to the November 8 polls

showed that she had the intellect, the diligence and the disposition to lead the most powerful nation in the world.

Surprise, surprise. She lost.

In her concession speech, Clinton graciously exhorted her followers to keep an open mind and give Trump the chance to lead. She acknowledged that

the campaign had been “vast, diverse, creative, unruly and energized,” thanked everyone who had helped, and expressed pride and gratitude nonetheless. She told the youth that over the course of their lives they would experience success and heartbreaking setbacks, but that they should never stop fighting.

Most importantly, she talked about that highest and hardest glass ceiling which nobody has yet shattered.“Someday, someone will,” she said wistfully.

To little girls, Clinton said: “Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity Turn to B2

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016 mst.daydesk@gmail.com

EVERYMAN

JUST ONE BULLET

By Chin Wong A FRIEND with an ear for good music once challenged me with this hypothetical dilemma.

“You’re in a room with Barry Manilow and Jose Mari Chan but you have only one bullet in your gun,” he said. “Who do you shoot?”

That was many years ago, when Chan was crooning about a Beautiful Girl and asking Can We Just Stop and Talk Awhile?

Manilow was starring in a CBS film based on his hit song Copacabana, after inflicting upon us saccharine songs such as Mandy, I Write the Songs, Even Now, Looks Like We Made It, and Somewhere in the Night.

You’d think that people would have had enough of Silly Love Songs, but Manilow and Chan, each in their own inimitable way, showed me that it just wasn’t so.

Now my friend is not a violent person, and his hypothetical question was obviously meant in jest. I’m sure if he were really locked in a room with Manilow and Chan—and they both started singing— he’d be more likely to shoot himself than any of the two crooners.

The point he was making, of course, was this: which of the two sappy singer-songwriters was more cloyingly annoying?

The years have given me some perspective on this question.

Manilow, now 73, isn’t played very much these days, except perhaps on Throwback Thursdays and on Oldies but Goldies stations. He was last in the news in April 2015, when he married his longtime manager and partner, Garry Kief, ending decades of speculation that he was gay.

In February 1994, Manilow sued a Los Angeles radio station, KBIG, seeking $13 million in damages and $15 million in punitive damages, claiming that one of their advertisements was causing irreparable damage to his professional reputation. The ad, a 30-second spot, suggested that people listen to KBIG because it does not play Manilow’s music.

Two days after the lawsuit was filed, KBIG agreed to drop the commercial poking fun at the singer.

So Somewhere Down the Road, Manilow isn’t doing too much damage to our sap-sensitive ears, and we’ve learned that we can smile without him, after all.

But Jose Mari Chan, now 71, is a different matter altogether.

Although we know him mostly for his music, Chan has also been involved in running the family’s sugar business— perhaps the reason his songs of love are so syrupy.

Starting his career as the host and singer of a TV show called 9 Teeners in 1966, Chan released his first single, Afterglow, in 1967.

His first long playing album Deep in My Heart was issued in 1969 and in 1973, he represented the Philippines in the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo where his song Can We Just Stop And Talk Awhile went into the final entries.

In 1986, he released A Golden Collection of his hits, then released Constant Change three years later that went on to win Album of the Year in the Awit Awards.

It was in 1990, however, that Chan did the most damage to those of us with sucrose-intolerant musical diets, with the release of his album Christmas in Our Hearts, which continues to haunt us every year.

That’s because every October, without fail, the department stores and malls dust off their Jose Mari Chan CDs and blast his carols to remind shoppers they have only three months more before Christmas, so they better get their act together.

Chan probably didn’t quite have this in mind when he sang “may the spirit of Christmas be always in our heart”—but given how early Christmas comes to the Philippines, the words seem oddly prophetic—but no less annoying.

Wong is associate editor of Manila Standard.

A MESSAGE...

From B1 in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”

Sometime in October, at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, First Lady Michelle Obama talked to girls as well. It was just a few days after the circulation of a video of Trump bragging about how he had groped a woman. Sometime in 2005, when Trump was on his way to tape a cameo appearance in an episode of “Days of our Lives,” he told a reporter: “When you’re a star, they let you do it...you can do anything.”

He later on apologized. He claimed it was just locker-room talk.

Obama thought it betrayed a pattern of how Trump had treated women all his life: “In this election, we have a candidate who over the course of his life and the course of this campaign, has said things about

SPECIAL REPORT (Notes from the 22nd Conference of Parties United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Morocco)

FEAR AND HOPE: CLIMATE CHANGE AND A TRUMP PRESIDENCY

By Renee Karunungan DONALD Trump has officially become the 45th president of the United States of America, a win that has sent some shock and worry for environmentalists and climate activists around the world.

The US elections came at the same time that the 22nd Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change was happening in Marrakech, Morocco.

The COP is an annual conference of governments to discuss how to prevent dangerous man-made climate change.

Last year’s COP in Paris produced the Paris Agreement, a climate treaty hailed as historical by many.

The Paris Agreement was built on the foundation of trust and was built on more than two decades of negotiations. While over a hundred countries have already ratified it and while it has officially taken effect last Nov. 4, it still stands on fragile ground. Countries do not want to see another failure such as the Kyoto Protocol, where big carbon emitters such as the United States and Canada withdrew from.

The United States is an important party to the negotiations. It has, and have, until today, influenced the negotiations strongly. This is largely because the US ranks first out of 185 countries, responsible for 30 percent of global historic emissions from 1850-2012. From 2012, the United States has ranked second to China, producing 17 percent of global emissions. This means that without the United States, the biggest carbon emitter, the Paris Agreement will mean nothing.

Trump, a vocal climate skeptic, has sent fears of a reversal of the progress that has been made in recent years in terms of climate action. Trump, during his campaign, has said that climate change “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive” and that if elected president, he will “cancel” the Paris

Perla Baltazar, Department of Agriculture; Julia Wolf, Food and Agriculture Organization; Undersecretary Gloria Mercado, serving as the Philippine Head of Delegation; Antonio La Vina, Ateneo School of Government; Railla Puno, Climate Change Commission; and Kathleen Anne Capiroso of the National Economic and Development Authority.

Agreement. He has also said that he will take out all funding from US climate change related programs, including giving funding to the UNFCCC. Trump is known to support extracting and drilling for oil, coal, and natural gas.

In fact, in the lineup of possible cabinet positions, Trump has seemed to make it a priority to put all climate skeptics in his administration. According to an article by Politico, Trump might put Forrest Lucas, an oil executive, or Sarah Palin, whose campaign in 2010 was “Drill, baby, drill!” as interior secretary.

According to Jesse Bragg of Corporate Accountability International, the interior secretary is an important position as it oversees the National Parks System in the US and more importantly the Bureau of Land Management.

“These are where lease agreements for fossil fuel extraction happen on national lands. It’s an important position for stopping expansion of fossil fuel extraction projects in the US,”says Bragg.

And quite more obviously, the energy secretary and the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) also play an important role when it comes to climate and environment. The US’ climate plans and pledges to the UNFCCC rests largely on their Clean Power Plan which seeks to mitigate carbon emissions from coalfired power plants.

The EPA is seen to be handed over to Myron Ebell, a known climate skeptic and an official at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It is an organization well-known for opposing progressive environmental policy. They have also been involved in the investigation on Exxon Mobil on spreading climate denial despite knowing about climate change in the 1970’s.

Harold Hamm, on the other hand, is a candidate as energy secretary. Hamm is the CEO of Continental Resources, a major oil producer, and has been advocating to cut down on oil and gas regulations so that the US can produce more.

Trump’s clear stand on climate change, together with these new people in his government will certainly hamper any efforts being made today by the rest of the world.

But while many have become quite fearful that the US might pull out of the Paris Agreement soon, Segolene Royale, French minister for environment and COP 21 president, assured that it will not be too easy for the US to do so.

“The Paris Agreement prohibits any exit for a period of three years, plus a year-long notice period, so there will be four stable years,” she said.

Carroll Muffet, president of Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL),

also sees it as a must for the US to keep to its promise.

“The Paris Agreement was signed and ratified not by a President, but by the United States itself. As a matter of international law, and as a matter of human survival, the nations of the world can, must, and will hold the United States to its climate commitments,” said Muffet.

Other organizations are now trying to see this as an opportunity for Trump, who is also a well-known businessman, to invest in renewable energy able to compete with other countries starting to do so.

“President-elect Trump has the opportunity to catalyze further action on climate that sends a clear signal to investors to keep the transition to a renewable-powered economy on track. China, India, and other economic competitors are racing to be the global clean energy superpower, and the US doesn’t want to be left behind,” said Tina Johnson of Climate Action Network US. Meanwhile, the negotiators inside COP 22 continue with business, knowing that climate change will not wait for the US to take action before it hits any of their countries.

Karunungan is an outreach manager for Climate Tracker.

HOW HIGH IS THE SKY?

By Pecier Decierdo THE sky and sea both seem really huge.

Infinite, even. The greatness of their sizes often tempts poets and writers into comparisons of superlatives. When something seems boundless we say, “The sky is the limit.”When a contribution seems too small to be significant we say, “It’s a drop in the ocean.”

I suspect this is why the human imagination has a hard time feeling the urgency of the threat that our civilization has on the sky and seas. That is the case despite the fact that the science is clear: a few decades of industrial activity, by just a fraction of the human population, have had drastic impacts on our atmosphere and oceans. We people have managed to break the sky and the seas, and it’s threatening to make our planet unlivable for so many organisms that call it home.

That includes us people.

Given how big the atmosphere and oceans are, how can the activity of puny humans be a threat to their balance?

There are two reasons. First, the health of the atmosphere and oceans is very delicate. Increase their average temperatures by a tiny bit, and you’ve got a fever. Because of the complexity of the webs that connect different parts and aspects of the atmosphere and oceans, it’s easy to mess it all up.

It’s similar to when you put a pair of earphones in your pocket. There are just a few ways to keep the pair untangled, but so many ways for it to be tangled up.

Thus, when you put an untangled pair of earphones in your pocket, they tangle women that are so shocking, so demeaning...this is not something that we can ignore,” Obama said, pointing out that the comments were not made in an isolated incident.

And now this man – who behaves like a bully and a bigot, and who did not hesitate to call a woman “piggy” – is POTUS. Obama captures well how women feel when they are subjected to terror, violation and intimidation: “We try to keep our heads above water, just trying to get through it, trying to pretend like this does not really bother us, maybe because we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak.”

And if such words are jarring to women, imagine what it tells our little girls. “What message are our little girls hearing about how they should look like, how they should act? What lessons are they learning about their value as professionals, as human be-

up on their own really quickly. The web of inter-connections in the atmosphere and the oceans is far more complicated than the wires in your earphones.

Second, the atmosphere and the oceans are not as big as we humans think.

How heavy is the sky? That is, what is the mass of the atmosphere? The answer is around 5 billion billion kilograms. That’s not easy to imagine.

How about the oceans? That answer is around 14 hundred billion billion kilograms. Again, that is not easy to imagine.

It’s very surprising, even to me, when we learn that the stars in the known universe can outnumber the grains of sand in all the beaches of Earth. But that’s because our brains were not designed to comprehend such numbers.

To understand how small the atmosphere and oceans are compared to how we treat them, we can visualize them as balls. Imagine the Earth were the size of a basketball. If you gathered all the gases in the atmosphere into a ball, it would be about the half the size of a PingPong ball. All of the Earth’s water gathered together would be about the same size.

If you were to gather together only the liquid fresh water, it would be about the size of a pinhead. A pinhead compared to a basketball!

Here’s another way to think of it.

Imagine a globe, perhaps like the one you have on display in your school’s library.

If the Earth were that globe, the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, even at their thickest, would be thinner than the paint.

Here’s another way to visualize just how thin the atmosphere is. Imagine

Never doubt you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every opportunity. ings, about their dreams and aspirations?”

Back here at home, you have a president and a Cabinet secretary snickering like naughty schoolboys as they talk about checking out the Vice President’s legs. But what chief executive talks about his colleague as though she were some collection of body parts?

Then again, this is the same president who does not hesitate to make catcalls and who once joked about wanting to be the first, among others, to rape a woman. The

yourself driving a car going at 60 kph, the speed limit of Commonwealth Avenue. If you had a tunnel that went from one end of the Earth to another, our imaginary car would take 112 hours to cross the tunnel. But if our car can move vertically up like a rocket ship traveling at 60 kilometers per hour, then it would reach the end of the atmosphere’s lowermost layer, the troposphere, in just under 10 minutes!

In 45 minutes the car would have crossed the entire stratosphere, the next layer in the Earth’s atmosphere. By then you would have passed through 95 percent of the atmosphere’s mass.

One standard definition for outer space has it start at 100 km above sea level. Our imaginary car traveling up at 60 kph can reach outer space in 1 hour and 40 minutes.

That is how thin the fragile atmosphere that separates us here in the living world and the rest of the cosmos where there is void.

For a long time, we humans have been dumping things in the sea and in the sky as if they were infinite, as if they can take everything in stride. Since the industrial revolution, that has not been true.

We cannot keep on dumping things in the atmosphere and the oceans and pretend it’s not going to ruin them. Our sky and sea are fragile. If we want a future we and many of our fellow living things can thrive in, we should start treating the atmosphere and oceans as very limited resources.

Decierdo is resident astronomer and physicist for The Mind Museum.

point is not how pretty or not a woman is.

The point is that she has autonomy over her body, her feelings, the course of her life.

The Philippines may appear genderprogressive in some areas, but remember this is still a country where, given the choice of whom to send to school, families easily pick out the sons believing that the daughters will be married off, anyway, and trained to perpetuate the cycle of keeping house and rearing children while doing nothing for themselves. There remain places where a woman has the duty of serving the man’s needs, bringing his children into the world, and tolerating his boorish behavior.

I have two girls at home, ages 16 and 22. Many years ago, they were advised by a relative to look for suitable husbands—affluent foreigners, if possible—so that they could lead comfortable and successful lives. Thank God we don’t see that relative a lot anymore these days. My girls do look

THE CROCHETED...

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approach termed craftivism.

Craftivism, says Ele Carpenter (2010) is “a social process of collective empowerment, action, expression, and negotiation…engaging in the social, performative, and critical discourse around the work is central to its production and dissemination.”

The women artists, who use each stitch and loop of thread and yarn to convey with their hands and bodies the ideas they hold important, are also shaping the world as they interpret it and want to see it according to their own values and beliefs.

On her website, Olek describes her poetics: “A loop after a loop. Hour after hour my madness becomes crochet.

Life and art are inseparable…I crochet everything that enters my space…What do I intend to reveal? You have to pull the end of the yarn and unravel the story behind the crochet.”

The knitted Hillary dolls, the crossstitched pieces that say “Such a nasty woman”—these are not mere curios.

Each of these artifacts capture a moment in time, a piece of history, and a trove of meaning. Each is an individual expression of a desire to change society by using the so-called “lesser” crafts as subversive tactic.

And each has a story to tell—not only of Clinton, Trump, the US election, but also of the maker’s courage to stand up for what they believe in.

Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember.

after themselves and take care of how they look not because they are waiting for some boy to pluck them out like a flower, adore, validate and protect them.

In fact, those two girls are kicking a*s and finding their place in the world on their own. They just happen to be gorgeous and confident doing so, thank you very much.

So Trump is president, Duterte is president, and we have all these other problems in the world and in our country that demand attention. Everyone must participate in finding solutions and implementing them: everyone good and deserving and brilliant and hardworking. It just so happens that some of them, ideally half or even more, happen to be women.

And before they are women, they are girls first. So let’s start them young by telling them there is nothing they cannot do. adellechua@gmail.com

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016 mst.daydesk@gmail.com

SIKHISM. Indian Sikh devotees pay respects during a procession at the Golden Temple in Amritsar on November 12, 2016, on the eve of the 547th birth anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak. Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh religion. AFP

MYANMAR PROBES CHINA-BACKED DAM

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ANGON—Myanmar is probing whether to resume construction on a controversial Chinesebacked dam, state media reported Saturday, with promises to listen to fierce public opposition to the project.

The fate of the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam in northern Kachin state has hung in the balance since it was abruptly halted by Myanmar in 2011 following protests over environmental and safety concerns.

The hydropower project came to symbolise China’s economic dominance in

formerly junta-run Myanmar and now poses a delicate challenge to the country’s new civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The veteran activist is eager to prevent renewed protests at home but also wants to maintain healthy ties with top investor Beijing, which has been lobbying her

government to unfreeze the project.

China also holds strong sway over ethnic rebel militias along the two countries’ restive border and has a key role to play in peace talks that Suu Kyi is determined to make progress on.

A commission advising Suu Kyi’s administration on whether to scrap the dam submitted its first report to her government on Friday, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar.

It said an environmental and social impact assessment was underway and that the commission had

already met local officials and other stakeholders.

A final decision on the project’s fate would take into consideration environmental costs, the “desires and opinions of local people and societies and potential effects on foreign investment”, the report added.

Local opposition to the dam has been fuelled by a mix of concerns, including its location near an active seismic fault line, the impact of flooding on local residents and a general lack of transparency in a project viewed as a resource grab by Beijing.

AFP

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NOTICE TO CUSTOMERS OF DLPC TO CLAIM METER DEPOSIT REFUND

In compliance with Resolution No. 12, Series of 2016 issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Davao Light and Power Company (DLPC) hereby notifies its Customers that they may now claim a refund of their meter deposit.

What is a meter deposit?

It is an amount previously required from customers during application for a new service connection to guarantee against loss or damage of the electrical meter installed. This is different from the Service or Bill Deposit which is paid as part of a customer’s application for service to guarantee payment of bills, and is equivalent to the estimated one month bill of the customer.

Who may claim the meter deposit refund?

Any person or entity registered as a distribution service customer of DLPCwho has paid the meter deposit as required by DLPC, and has not received a refund [directly or by way of credit] thereof is eligible for the meter deposit refund. The registered customer’s heirs, successors-in-interest or his duly authorized representative may also claim on his behalf. This is subject to the exception provided under Section 10 of ERC Resolution No. 8, series of 2008.

What is the mode of refund to be given to the eligible customers?

Eligible Customers will be refunded in cash if the amount is less or equal to PhP4,000.00, and with check if the refund amount is greater than PhP4,000.00.

How long will it take to process the refund?

Verification and processing of refund would take atmost two (2) months after application and the submission of all requirements. Thereafter, customer will be notified if he is still entitled for the meter deposit refund or if it was already availed/credited in 2009 after the effectivity of the ERC Resolution No. 8 Series of 2008 or the “Rules to Govern the Refund of Meter Deposits to Residential and Non-Residential Customers”.

When is the deadline for claiming the meter deposit refund?

Under ERC Resolution No. 12, Series of 2016, consumers may claim the refund on meter deposit until December 31, 2017. All unclaimed deposits after December 31, 2017 shall become the subject of an escheat proceeding.

How will the customers claim the meter deposit refund and what are the requirements needed?

To claim the meter deposit refund, the customers may visit the DLPC service centers located at DLPC Ponciano Office, SM City Davao, SM Lanang Premier and Panabo branch and submit the following requirements: For Residential Customers 1.

Registered customers 1.1 Original or photo copy of DLPC electricity bill; 1.2 Accomplished Meter Deposit Refund Application Form 1.3 Official Receipt showing payment of Meter Deposit (if available), 1.4 Original and photocopy of one (1) valid identification card with photo and signature,such as but not limited to Driver’s license, Passport, Professional Regulatory License, SSS/GSIS ID, TIN ID, Philhealth ID, Senior Citizen ID, Postal ID, Original NBI Clearance and Comelec Voters ID. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS (If claimants are other than the Registered Customers/Account holders)

BLAST INSIDE LARGEST US BASE IN AFGHANISTAN KILLS FOUR KABUL—Four people were killed Saturday in an explosion inside the largest US military base in Afghanistan, NATO said, with local officials blaming a suicide attacker posing as a laborer for the major security breach.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast inside the heavily fortified Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul, which wounded 14 others as the insurgents ramp up their nationwide offensive before the onset of winter, when fighting usually ebbs.

The nationalities of those killed and wounded were not immediately known after the explosion, which highlights rising insecurity in Afghanistan nearly two years after US-led NATO forces formally ended their combat operations.

“An explosive device was detonated on Bagram Airfield resulting in multiple casualties. Four people have died in

the attack and approximately 14 have been wounded,” NATO said in a statement.

“Response teams at Bagram continue to treat the wounded and investigate the incident.”

The blast was caused by a suicide attacker who blew himself up near a dining facility inside the base, said Waheed Sediqi, spokesman for the governor of Parwan province where Bagram is located.

“We don’t know the identity of victims yet but the attacker was one of the Afghan labourers working there,” Sediqi told AFP. The United States has around 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, with the largest contingent stationed at the Bagram base.

The brazen attack represents a major security breach inside what is regarded as one of the most heavily guarded military installations in Afghanistan. AFP

MACAU FORMER PROSECUTOR FACES NEARLY 2,000 CHARGES MACAU—Macau’s disgraced former top prosecutor faces nearly 2,000 criminal charges, according to the Chinese gambling enclave’s highest court, which will try Ho Chio-meng next month.

Ho, who was Macau’s prosecutor general for 16 years until 2014 and was once tipped for the job of the city’s leader, was arrested earlier this year as he attempted to travel to Hong Kong, according to media reports.

The 1,970 charges Ho faces include abuse of power, fraud, money laundering, illegal sharing of economic benefits and even starting a criminal syndicate, according to a statement from the city’s court of final appeal released Thursday.

Ho’s case will be heard on December 5, the statement added.

The charges also include an alleged 44 million patacas ($5.5 million) he took in kickbacks, reports said.

The trial is one of the biggest corruption cases involving government officials in the former Portuguese colony since 2009.

That year, former transport and public works minister Ao Man-long was found guilty on a number of corruption charges and sentenced to 29 years in jail. AFP

2.

Heirs or Succesors-in-Interest of the Registered Customers 2.1 Death certificate or proof of death of the registered customer; 2.2 The heir/s must present proof of filiation or any pertinent document that will prove the successional right, such as but not limited to the birth certificate of the heir/s and their ascendants, or marriage certificate; 2.3 The successors-in-interest to the registered customer must present proof of transfer of rights and obligations over the property, including the meter deposit from the previous owner of the property, such as but not limited to the Deed of Sale; and 2.4 Undertaking that there are no other legal heirs of the registered customer

3.

Duly authorized representative of the registered customers: 3.1 Special Power of Attorney from the registered customer stating that he/she is authorized to receive the refund in behalf of the registered customer together with a valid ID of both the Registered Customer and the claimant.

For Non-Residential Customers 1.

Registered customers 1.1 Original or photo copy of DLPC electricity bill; 1.2 Accomplished Meter Deposit Refund Application Form 1.3 Official Receipt showing payment of Meter Deposit (if available) 1.4 Original and photocopy of one (1) valid identification card with photo and signature, such as but not limited to Driver’s license, Passport, Professional Regulatory License, SSS/GSIS ID, TIN ID, Philhealth ID, Senior Citizen ID, Postal ID, Original NBI Clearance and Comelec Voters ID.

2.

Heirs or Successors-in-Interest of the Registered Customers 2.1 Death certificate or proof of death of the registered customer; 2.2 The heir/s must present proof of filiation or any pertinent document that will prove the successional right, such as but not limited to the birth certificate of the heir/s and their ascendants, or marriage certificate; 2.3 The successors-in-interest to the registered customer must present proof of transfer of rights and obligations over the property, including the meter deposit from the previous owner of the property, such as but not limited to the Deed of Sale; and 2.4 Undertaking that there are no other legal heirs of the registered customer

3.

Duly authorized representative of the registered customers: 3.1 Special Power of Attorney from the registered customer stating that he/she is authorized to receive the refund in behalf of the registered customer together with a valid ID of both the Registered Customer and the claimant.

4.

Corporation or any Registered Entity 4.1 Letter of request signed by the Owner or General Manager of the Corporation or Registered Entity 4.2 Board Resolution or Secretary’s Certificate stipulating the request to DLPC for the meter deposit refund 4.3 Original and Photocopy of one (1) valid primary identification card with photo and signature of the Owner, General Manager or officer of the Corporation or Registered Entity

5.

Government Accounts 5.1 Letter of request signed by the authorized high-ranking official of the concern government agency 5.2 Board Resolution or Secretary’s Certificate stipulating the request to DLPC for the meter deposit refund 5.3 Original and photocopy of one (1) valid primary identification card with photo and signature of the authorized high-ranking official of the concern government agency

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS (If claimants are other than the Registered Customers/Account holders)

(MS-NOV. 13, 2016)

B4

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016 mstdaydesk @gmail.com.ph

World

MORE RALLIES VS TRUMP N

EW YORK— Demonstrators took to the streets in Miami, Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to oppose Donald Trump’s election as president for a third straight night of nationwide protests Friday.

People gathered in New York’s Washington Square neighborhood in lower Manhattan, some carrying enormous red balloons and placards with hearts and the words “peace and love.”

Others held signs reading “Your Wall Can’t Stand in Our Way” – a reference to the anti-immigration barrier the billionaire real estate baron has promised to build on the US border with Mexico.

The city’s local ABC affiliate said an estimated 4,000 people gathered at the site, while others descended on Union Square and marched through Midtown and still more converged outside Trump Tower.

The New York Police Department reported that 11 people had been arrested as of late Friday, the New York Times said.

Demonstrators said they wanted to show solidarity with those they felt may be targeted by Trump’s policies once he takes office in January, including Mexicans and Muslims.

“We’re here to support the people that Trump has insulted, to show our children that we all have a voice, and to stand up for people’s rights,” Kim Bayer, 41, told AFP. Organizers plan another large demonstration in the same Washington Square location on Saturday, and more protests are expected across a number of cities over the weekend.

Meanwhile, about a thousand protesters took part in an apparently spontaneous demonstration in Miami, hoisting signs against racism and opposing the deportation of undocumented immigrants as they walked down Biscayne Boulevard.

At a small protest in California, about two dozen women wearing shorts and sports bras locked arms and staged a brief flash mob-style protest in the middle of a freeway south of Los Angeles Friday, causing traffic to come to a standstill.

Since Trump’s shock victory on Tuesday over Democrat Hillary Clinton, who had been widely tipped to win, thousands have protested in cities across the United States.

While most of the demonstrations have been peaceful, officials said some erupted in violence that caused property damage. AFP

Protesters hold placards calling for the resignation of South Korean President Park GeunHye during an anti-government rally following presidential scandal in central Seoul on November 12, 2016. AFP

MASSIVE PROTEST HEAPS PRESSURE ON SOKOR’S PARK SEOUL—Tens of thousands of men, women and children joined one of the largest anti-government protests seen in Seoul for decades on Saturday, demanding President Park Geun-Hye’s resignation over a snowballing corruption scandal.

Police had planned for 170,000 people, but organizers said they expected a final turnout of up to one million for what was the third in a series of weekly mass protests that have left Park fighting for her political survival.

On the back of official appeals for calm, police deployed around 25,000 officers, many of them in full riot gear, while police buses and trucks blocked every access road – major or minor – around the presidential Blue House.

As with the previous protests, the huge crowds were extremely mixed, with high school children rubbing shoulders with retirees and young couples marching with babies or young children.

“Park Geun-Hye must resign because she didn’t take good care of our country,” said 11-yearold student Park Ye-Na. The scandal engulfing Park is focused on a close personal friend, Choi Soon-Sil, who is currently under arrest on charges of fraud and abuse of power.

Prosecutors are investigating allegations that Choi, 60, leveraged their personal relationship to coerce donations from large companies like Samsung to non-profit foundations which she set up and used for personal gain. AFP

FESTIVAL. Cambodian dragon boat rowers rehearse on the eve of the Water Festival in Phnom Penh on November 12, 2016. Cambodia celebrates its annual water festival which is one of the main festivals people celebrate from November 13 until 15, attracting thousands from other provinces of the country. AFP

ZUCKERBERG AMONG FACEBOOK USERS MISTAKENLY DECLARED ‘DEAD’

REACH FOR THE SKIES. The moon is pictured over a statue of the first Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome early on November 12, 2016. AFP

SAN FRANCISCO—Facebook accidentally declared its founder Mark Zuckerberg and many other users dead on Friday, acknowledging after fixing the problem that it had committed a “terrible error.”

“For a brief period today, a message meant for memorialized profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts,” a Facebook spokesperson told AFP. “This was a terrible error that we have now fixed.”

Media reports indicated that some two million errant memorials were posted on profile pages.

Even Facebook co-founder and chief executive Zuckerberg was memorialized in a message at his profile page expressing hope that people who loved him would take comfort in posts people shared in tribute to his life.

“Poor Mark,” read an @JudiD23

tweet that included weeping face emojis. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

The social network apologized and said it worked as quickly as possible to correct the problem.

Comments tagged #FacebookDead or #FacebookRapture went viral at Twitter, with people joking that the scenario marked a fitting end to tumultuous week.

“I think this is Facebook’s way of flagging the people who died inside on Tuesday,” read a tweet from @billkalpak, referring to the upset win of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the US presidential elections.

A darkly humorous post on Twitter by @JnPhillip was in the form of a note reading “Dear Facebook, Donald Trump does not get inaugurated until January 20th. Nuclear annihilation occurs Jan. 21st.” AFP

CHINA SHIPS SAIL NEAR DISPUTED ISLANDS: JAPAN TOKYO—Chinese coast guard vessels sailed into territorial waters around disputed islands in the East China Sea on Saturday, Japan’s coast guard said, marking the second such incident in a week.

The four ships entered the waters surrounding the island chain, controlled by Japan and known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in China, at around 10:30 am (0130 GMT) and left within two hours, according to the coast guard.

A similar incident last Sunday prompted Tokyo to lodge a complaint with China’s foreign ministry through its embassy in Beijing, saying the uninhabited islets are “an inherent territory of Japan.”

Japan has made dozens of protests through diplomatic channels this year over what it says have been more than 30 days of intrusions by Chinese vessels in the contested waters.

The two countries have been locked in a long-running dispute over the islands, which are believed to harbour vast natural resources below their seabed, with China claiming them as its own. AFP