dyurnalista

Scientists seek support for PH double barrier reef

2012-03-05T11:27:00.002+08:00

[Published in the BusinessMirror newspaperMarch 04, 2012. Photos and text by DennisD. Estopace, Reporter, BusinessMirror]

Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu –The manta ray’s tailwas the last thing journalists saw as the sun’s rays sparkled on the wideblue-green expanse of one of the world’s six known double barrier reefs.

The latter may disappear forever.

And with the reef’s disappearance, so wouldthe manta ray and the other 2,000 species of marine life that have made the DanajonDouble Barrier Reef their home.

“Expect tsunamis, weakened by the reef, toinundate whatever they come to,” Angelie C. Nellas said, giving emphasis to theprotective role of Danajon Bank, which covers a 214.6-hectare marine park andsanctuary she and her colleagues have been trying to save since 2003.

Nellas, senior biologist of Project SeahorseFoundation for Marine Conservation Inc., pointed to an area that has beenheavily-damaged by dynamite or blast fishing.

Thirty feet below the surface of that areais a graveyard of coral reefs, she told reporters shipped on a motorized boatby Nellas’s group partner Chevron Philippines Inc. Tuesday morning.

Her colleague, Rosemarie R. Apurado, toldBusinessMirror that it would take more than five years to revive a square meterof corals, which she said took 6,000 years to form.

“The depletion is faster than the abilityof corals to renew itself. We need to stop overfishing and allow the corals tobreathe new life to the sea. Else, the next generation of fisherfolks wouldn’thave anything to fish.”

Apurado said that since 1995 when theyestablished the first marine protected area (MPA) in Danajon Bank, thedepletion and destruction of the coral reefs have been estimated to be at a10-percent rate per annum.

That has increased to up to 30 percent adecade later, she added.

The depletion, however, has been going onsince the 50s, according to Apurado, as the Danajon Double Barrier Reef or DanajonBank has been a critical fishing ground for thousands of fishers from Cebu,Bohol, Leyte and Southern Leyte.

These are the four provinces that coverDanajon Bank, a 130 kilometer-long, 272 square-kilometer coral area. The bankrepresents one percent of the total coral area in the country.

The proximity of the village of Caubian,one of 30 under this municipality, to Danajon Bank has become both a burden andcurse for its 2,114 residents.

According to a press briefing material,most fishers using illegal methods were from Caubian, an island-village thatrelies on a generator for electricity and on bottled water for drinking.

“It’s easier to throw and throw [dynamite]than use nets,” fisher Rolando Madrazan told reporters at a guardhouse builtsmack at the center of the Project Seahorse Foundation’s project, the Mintanaw Multi-useMarine Park and Sanctuary in Danajon Bank.

But with that practice, the MMMPS area has only37 percent live hard coral cover, 17 percent dead coral with algae, 29 percentsand and coral rubbles, and low fish density of 16 for every square meter.

Madrazan, however, said they are now alsofeeling the effects of blast fishing as they fish farther and farther fromshore.

Likewise, at least three residents havelost their hands due to mishandling of explosives. Residents like 77-year-oldLope Siton have become living symbols of the ill-effects of blast fishing.

Apurado said because of these, they workedto have government declare a portion of the Danajon Bank a marine protectedarea, making the MMPS the first multi-use MPA in the country.

It has a regulated fishing zone (62hectares), seaweed farming zone (55 has.), sustainable use zone (37 has.) and50- hectare strictly no-take or core zone.

A boatman pushes a boat away from the village of Caubian, an island immediately benefiting from Danajon Bank's rich marine life. Photo by Dennis Estopace (Nokia e63, 28 February 2012)

Madrazan said they are seeing changes withthe establishment of the MMMPS.

According to a press briefing material, commerciallyvaluable species like rabbit fish, crabs, squid, seaweeds, “lukot” (Dolabellaauricularia or wedge sea hare), and “urok” (Silver pompano) have been returningto the area.

“We just hope they could return faster,”Madrazan said in the local Visayan dialect.

Apurado said they share in that hopes, too,with their partnership with Chevron that began three years ago.

Cherry Ramos, Chevron coordinator forpolicy, government and public affairs, told BusinessMirror that theirpartnership with PSF is now focused on providing livelihood to the people ofCaubian and other villages that have been dependent on the sea.

Ramos said that they are thinking ofopening the sanctuary to tourists and generate more visitors.

“This natural beautiful wonder is just anhour’s boat ride away from the city [Lapu-Lapu]. If Australia has its GreatBarrier Reef, we should promote the Philippines’ only double barrier reef.”

Ramos said Chevron has spent about P4million into the project in the last three years.

“The key is sustainability. Because we’rein the business of harvesting energy from nature, we have to do it in a verysustainable way.”

She added that having more eco-touristsgoing to Danajon Bank may help not only raise consciousness over the importanceof the double barrier reef –a natural protection against tsunamis– but alsowean fishers from destructive fishing practices.

Ramos said that they are planning to havetourists pay certain fees as a form of donation to sustain marine conservation.

The guardhouse, a concrete edifice with twofloating docks, is part of this plan, she said adding that more than guardingthe MPA, “it would also serve as a platform for education on marineconservation.”

Currently, the people of Caubian have beenengaged in seaweed and crab growing and trading, with Cebu and the resorts inOlango Island as markets.

Chevron and PSF claims “a nearby resortemploys Caubian residents” while “money lenders also extend loans to Caubianresidents whereas before they stay away from Caubian.”

A fisherman looks toward the sea, as if mulling the future
under the Mintanaw Marine Park and Sanctuary.
Photo by Dennis D. Estopace (Nokia e63, 28 Feb. 2012)

The two also said that trips to the MMPSare also “increasing,” citing visitors from Mandaue City, Mactan ExportProcessing Zone employees, resort guests (for swimming), development NGOs fromMindanao and LGUs from Zamboanga Peninsula.”

“We need more people to be aware of thisvaluable marine treasure, which few people even from Cebu know about. Thevision for MMPA is to become a well-managed dive destination so that nearbyvillagers can have an alternative source of livelihood. Danajon Bank’s truevalue lies on the preservation of its marine habitats for eco-tourismpurposes,” a statement quoted Chevron executive Raissa Bautista as saying.

Bautista failed to see neither the mantaray nor its tail as it splashed under the sea.

But she’s not worried.

With hopes that scientists, corporateexecutives, and local public officials placed on Danajon Bank as an eco-tourismsite, Bautista knows the manta ray will return.

And so will she.

She Took My Cat: Two men, two tales of love

2012-02-13T23:29:00.000+08:00

THE floorboard creaked. No meow.
Even before opening the screen door to an apartment he shared with Liza –his wife of a decade, and Luigi –the Persian cat they bought in 2003 from Pennsylvania, United States, Joey knew something’s amiss.
His left hand stayed on the aluminum door handle; his right on the tied stems of a dozen red roses wrapped in wax paper. He hoped he was wrong with his instincts, as he knew he has been several times.
A tear tried to escape his eyes but a deep breath held it at bay. A snap-of-a-finger moment has passed but Joey knew he’s one of an unknown number of men –real men, whose wife left them.
It was Valentine’s Day.
“I miss Luigi,” 35-year-old Joey Castañeda (not his real name) says over couples of bottles of beer at a watering hole near the university where he and Liza, a History professor, met in 1999.
I take my hand off the table lest he expects me to pat or hold his.
“F__k you, I’m not gay,” he says, voice almost slurring. His hands are also nowhere on the table top.
“Maybe you’re becoming one,” I profferred, since he’s been hanging out more with men rather than dating women as, technically, Castañeda is single.
“What’s that, like a zombie? That being gay’s like a virus that ‘turns’ you into something?” he says before saying the F-word again.
The 5’5” and stocky Castañeda adds it would have been easier if that was the reason Liza, who’s now teaching at a college in Europe, left him nearly three years ago.
“There were no signs. I still had my body odor and obnoxious personality but, hey, those were, and still are, my good points – the things I believe Liza loved about me.”
Castañeda thinks the relationship “sort of ‘drifted,’” five years after coming home when Liza got her master’s degree in the US.
He said he would go home late at night and Liza would already be sleeping while she would already be out in the morning to teach when he wakes up.

SIXTYISH Luis Guerrero agrees that “drifting” happens in relationships.
“But I wouldn’t say that that happened with me and Jun,” says Guerrero who had a 2-decades-long gay relationship with Mario Cruz Jr. (not their real names), a Filipino-Chinese engineer.
“I think we reached the point of our individual maturity; that we knew the relationship have helped us grow and feed our own needs. It’s now brotherly love. The sex isn’t important and not thought of anymore.”
Jun and Guerrero, a development worker, lived under one roof in the former’s ancestral home in Manila.
They met mid-afternoon of February 14, 1975, at a tailoring shop in Malate.
“He had everything I admired physically in a man: straight hair, slanted eyes, and mestizo. I knew, right there and then, that I love him and that he’s happy and ‘gay’.”
The two moved in together after a lot of hulabaloo in Cruz’s conservative Chinese family. Guerrero, meanwhile, admitted to his parents that he’s homosexual. He was 22 that time while Cruz was 24.
“There were no role-switching; that’s only in movies and research papers. It was plain and simple love between two men.”
After five years of living together, however, Cruz said he wanted to have children.
“I knew that the hole I had was good for things other than bringing out babies. And I love him so much I told him to find somebody who can bear his children.”
But they still stayed together in one house. After a decade, Guerrero eventually moved out to the house beside Cruz and his wife.
“Our intimacy further grew than stopped,” says Guerrero who moved back to the house he and Cruz shared as “spouses.”
Cruz and his family now lives in Quezon City but Guerrero said they still meet once a month to talk.
“Just talk, like when we did during our younger years when we ‘dated’.”

AND talk did Castañeda and his wife did after Liza moved into the house of Marie, a common friend who also left her husband, Alex Mariano –not their real names.
“It’s kinda surreal. Like you’re watching yourself on TV,” Castañeda said, his hands back to resting on the table.
“What did you talk about?” I asked, pulling the bottle of beer close to my chest.
“Luigi, of course. I miss the cat. Badly.”
Castañeda said this Valentine’s Day, he’s going to Annie’s where Liza left Luigi.
“Would you be bringing Luigi roses?”
“F__k you. I’m not gay. Luigi’s a tomcat.”
“So you say. So you say,” as I lugged on the beer and thought of Guerrero and Cruz, and the all-male and all-female couples sharing tables in the bar who may or may not be thinking of love and its many intricacies.

[Note: I submitted this to my editor February 10, 2012. I guess it didn’t merit printing in our newspaper.]

Mind Museum’s T. rex touted to teach science

2011-12-19T18:04:00.000+08:00

T’WAS a bone of contention—pun intended—to have a complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the country’s first world-class science museum.

“We wanted it to be all-Filipino; a pure Filipino science museum, but the T. rex is something that we don’t have but still wanted Filipino kids to see,” Manny Blas, managing director of The Mind Museum at Taguig, told reporters.

Standing upright at the ground floor of the two-story museum stands Stan, the T. rex, the first in the country and forms part of the 5-percent imported exhibits of The Mind Museum.

“This is 95-percent made, designed, and vetted by Filipino scientists, engineers, artists and academicians,” Blas said after the soft opening of the museum Thursday evening.

The T. rex—nicknamed Stan after Stan Sacrison, who discovered in 1987 the most complete T. rex skeleton unearthed—is one of 250 exhibits the museum will offer to the public when it fully opens in March next year.

“Between now and the first day of March 2012, we’re going to allow guests strictly on by-invitation basis only to iron out the kinks; sort of a dry-run,” Blas explained.

Indeed, most of the exhibits have not yet been installed in the all-white building that was cleared of scaffoldings and cleaned on Tuesday.

The fashion mirrors, three sets of two upright 12-foot mirrors, remain bare at the mezzanine level while there are still open areas in the total 12,500-square-meter exhibition space.

Nonetheless, the 4-foot-robot Mimo, is already up and about at the Technology Gallery. The black and white Mimo is the museum’s in-house obstacle-avoiding robot—built-in sensors cause it to turn to unblocked areas.

One of six, the technology gallery can now also offer guests to turn the solar turbine lever, which lights up a model city if it relies on the power of the sun.

There are also solar bugs floating on three suspended cages. The “bugs” and a scale-model turtle moves when a halogen lamp, serving as the “sun,” is turned on.

There’s also a scale model of a draw-bridge, complete with toy cars, and a control that makes the bridge go up and down.

Blas said that the museum is essentially interactive.

“Though the T. rex looks scary, we wanted people to discover not to be afraid of science; that science is as exciting and thrilling as it is intellectually rewarding.”

Stan, the T.rex, stands proud in the Mind Museum at Taguig. Photo courtesy of the Bonifacio Arts Foundation Inc.

The museum’s other galleries are the Universe, Corridors, Atom, Life and Earth.

But what wowed Blas is the exhibit of the 10 most beautiful experiments in science.

He noted the experiment on gravity by Sir Isaac Newton, wherein the exhibit showed that a 10-kilo object falls in the same speed as a 1-kilo object.

“This only goes to show us that scientific experiments can be as simple yet elegant but can still open up a whole new world.”

Begun building nearly two years ago, The Mind Museum costs about P1 billion from donations of 85 individuals, organizations and families.

Blas said that the revenues, mainly from entrance fees, would go back to maintain the museum as well as to pay for traveling exhibits every quarter beginning in the latter part of 2012.

About 400 square meters of the museum would be allotted for these traveling exhibits, one of which could be on the science of forensics, according to Blas.

He said that the entrance fees are initially P450 for students and teachers of private schools and P150 for those in public schools. Those not connected with schools would be charged P600.

Blas added that while they won’t offer group rates or fees, the Mind Museum would sell 3-hour time-based visits.

“The average stay is about 90 minutes to two hours and about 500 people can stay inside comfortably.”

Hence, guests can go online, pay via credit card or to accredited banks, and choose from four 3-hour time slots beginning 9 a.m., Blas explained.

“If they [guests] step out of the door and say ‘science is fun and it’s okay to be a scientist or engineer,’ then we’ve done our job.”

[Published in the BusinessMirror Saturday, 18 December 2011, Patricia Montes's birthday, by Dennis D. Estopace / Reporter ]

“Habeas Corpus,” the Musical

2011-12-12T14:04:00.000+08:00

Cover of the souvenir program for the 1986 musical "Habeas Corpus". Illustration Jove Benosa.

REDEMPTORIST priest Rudy Romano was abducted in 1985. Neither hisbody nor his captors, presumed to be government soldiers, were discovered.

To emphasize the wanton disregard for human rights of fierce criticsof then-President Ferdinand Marcos, members of Fr. Romano’s CongregatioSanctissimo Redemptoris and other Catholic Religious communities staged “HabeasCorpus,” a play about the disappeared.

The title “Habeas Corpus” is a legal term in Latin that means "youmay have the body" and, as such, captured the firm demand of fathers,mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends against Marcos and his regime’s armedand paid henchmen.

The entry into force December last year of the InternationalConvention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearanceconnotes that disappearance is pervasive outside the Philippines. As tyrannyknows no boundaries, so does the fate of the forces against it.

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (www.afad-online.org),a member of the International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances(www.icaed.org), offers data on the historicity and extent of this atrociouscrime against common people who speak out against injustice.

During a spring cleaning, I discovered this souvenir program for themusical drama “Habeas Corpus,” written by then-fellow aspirants to priesthoodIno Cueto and Nory de Dios. Cueto has since become a Redemptorist priest whileDe Dios has immortalized himself in published stories.

Then-seminarian now also Redemptorist priest Ollie Castro composed,arranged and performed the songs for the play that, if time permits ajournalist like me, will also be uploaded in this blog.

In their joint statement, the Families of Victims of InvoluntaryDisappearance (FIND, www.find.org.ph) and AFAD urge the Philippines to sign andaccede to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons fromEnforced Disappearance.

Yes, it is ironic that the Philippines missed a historical eventwith its absence when the Convention entered into force in December 2010, andwhich has now 88 signatories and 26 State parties.

“Relatives of the disappeared have been lobbying for the past 16years for the passage of a law penalizing enforce disappearance,” the AFAD saidin a statement.

“FIND and AFAD reminded President Benigno Simeon-Aquino III of hispromise of ‘providing truth and justice for all’ and of his inauguraldeclaration that ‘where we allow crimes to go unpunished, we give consent totheir occurring over and over again.’”.

“It is about time for the President to walk the talk. This, he owesto the Filipino people whom he considers to be his boss,” the statement quotedAFAD Secretary General Mary Aileen Diez Bacalso as saying.

There are ten anti-disappearance bills pending before the current15th Congress: four in the Senate and six in the House of Representatives.

For more information, please contact the following:

Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances

Rms. 310-311 Philippine Social Science Center Building
Commonwealth Avenue, Diliman, 1103 Quezon City Philippines
Telefax: 00-632-4546759 Telephone Number 00-632-9274594
Mobile 00-63-9177924058
Email afad@surfshop.net.ph
website www.afad-online.org

Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance
4-D Maningning St., Sikatuna Village, Quezon City 1101 Philippines
P.O. Box AC 546 Cubao, Quezon City 1135 Philippines
Telefax: 00-632-4350068
Telephone Number 00-632-9210069
Email mail@find.org.ph

website www.find.org.ph

UP Paralegal Volunteers Organization
Malcolm Hall, UP College of Law
University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City
Mobile: 0917 881 75 88

News: PNRI moves to close gap in Kodak’s closure

2011-12-08T13:00:00.001+08:00

THE Philippine government is spending P17million to continue protecting workers exposed to radiation as Eastman KodakCo.’s support would stop next year.

“The money would basically go to purchasingof equipment and materials,” Philippine Nuclear Research Institute director AlumandaM. dela Rosa said.

Dela Rosa cited the establishment ofOptically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) Dosimetry System as part of the PNRI’sprojects for next year.

Dela Rosa said that the alternativepersonnel monitoring system would not be a building but produce film badges inview of the announcement by Eastman Kodak that this sole PNRI supplier woulddiscontinue supplying personal monitoring films under the Kodak Industrexbrand.

Aside from the photographic film dosimetercommonly called as film badge, the PNRI also maintains a thermoluminescentdosimeter (TLD).

These systems are used to monitor personnelworking with radioactive materials and other sources of ionizing radiation suchas X-ray equipment who “could be could be potentially exposed to and receiveradiation doses due to the nature of their occupation,” according to a documentobtained by BusinessMirror.

The document, citing Estrella S. Caseria assource, noted that the “PNRI is the only agency in the country that providespersonnel monitoring services to occupationally exposed workers to support themin their radiation safety programs and their compliance to regulations.”

Caseria is noted as officer-in-charge ofthe PNRI Radiation Protection Services (RPS).

Dela Rosa said that there are 10,000personnel from approximately 4,000 institutions needing the PNRI’s personnelmonitoring services.

She explained that these workers are providedpersonal dosimeters every two months.

In 2009, the PNRI have issued around 68,500dosimeters.

“This number is expected to increase in thenext few years due to the rising demand for the wide applications of ionizingradiation,” the document with Caseria’s name said.

However, unlike TLDs, film badges are notreusable.

The document said that annual purchase ofmonitoring films is required, costing more than P3 million a year “and subjectto increasing prices and limited supply in the international market.”

But while “TLDs are more accurate, robust andfaster to process compared to the film badge dosimeters, the number of TLDsprovided is limited in supply because the required capital outlay is much moreexpensive.”

The document added that more than 85percent of the clients availing of personnel monitoring services use the film badgedosimeters.

Snapshot of cover of one of many documents that can be downloaded from the PNRI website.

“With the discontinuance of supply of KodakIndustrex films, supply would be a major issue next year,” Dela Rosa said atthe press briefing kicking off the celebration of the 39th Atomic Energy Week.

The sustainability of the supply of thefilmbadges is also becoming an issue. Just recently, Kodak Industrex, the onlysupplier of Personal Monitoring Films used by the Institute for its serviceshas recently announced the by the 4th quarter of 2011.

“There is, thus, an urgent need to look forbetter and alternative dosimeter systems to replace the film badges. It is alsovery essential for the PNRI to upgrade its services to continue providingreliable and consistent personnel monitoring to workers to ensure not onlytheir safety but also that of the public.”

But while the document bearing Caseria’sname pegged the cost of upgrade to optically stimulated luminescence dosimetersreplacing film badges at nearly P42 million, Dela Rosa said they requested onlyP17 million for the photographic film dosimeter.

[Published in BusinessMirror December 6, 2011]

Genome center seen to advance PHL science

2011-12-05T16:40:00.001+08:00

BusinessMirror.com.ph Home Science Genome center seen to advance PHL science

Genome center seen to advance PHL science

Saturday, 03 December 2011 16:54 Dennis D. Estopace / Reporter

IT’S not in his kiss; it’s in his genes.

Filipinos now have a chance to clear up paternity issues and harvest highly resilient farm crops with the launch of the country’s first gene study center.

We may even be able to study the genes of boxer Manny Pacquiao, according to Edison Liu of the Genome Institute of Singapore, one of six members of the advisors of the Philippine Genome Center (PGC).

“We are proud to say that the Philippines has finally stepped up to the challenge of realizing the full potential of intellectual advancement and national progress through genomics,” Science Secretary Mario Montejo said during the launch of the PGC last week.

Montejo recognized that Liu and the other members of the PGC International Scientific Advisory Board—the top geneticists in the world, who, he said, “voluntarily agreed to help boost national intellectual capacity…in putting forward genomics in the Philippines primarily for the benefit of the Filipinos.”

Carmencita David Padilla, PGC executive director and University of the Philippines professor, said the PGC’s output could lead to locally produced medicine and fight criminality.

Its program on agriculture aims to improve plant varieties and animal breeds “using molecular market-assisted selection and breeding.”

The PGC’s priority crops are indigenous to the Philippines: abaca, saba banana, pili and coconut.

Another program is on forensics and ethnicity that could help in investigations by studying evidence from crime scenes as well as the genetic history of Filipinos.

A fourth program is on biodiversity for drug diversity and bio-energy, where current projects include producing vaccines from marine snails.

Other programs are on DNA sequencing and providing a genotyping facility, bioinformatics core facility, and on health.

According to Padilla, 10 percent of the budget for the PGC is dedicated to ethical, legal and social issues.

However, Padilla declined to cite how much the UP spent to build the PGC.

“It’s been tough starting without money but then-President Emerlinda Roman told us to just start it.”

In his keynote speech, Montejo acknowledged that the “establishment of a genomics initiative in a developing country, however, is no easy task—requiring a critical mass of scientists and experts to drive the intellectual progress of the program, as well as sufficient resources to support the cost and infrastructural demands of research and development.”

The Department of Science and Technology head added that his department recognizes “the immense transformational power of genomics in addressing national issues in health and nutrition, food security, environmental conservation and industrial sustainability.”

Gregory Pototsky Exhibition

2011-11-12T15:44:00.001+08:00

Academy of Kindness International and Olga Bare

in cooperation with the Embassy of the Russian Federation

Presents

Gregory Pototsky

painter and sculptor

Exhibition Area, 2nd Floor

LRI Design Plaza

210 Nicanor Garcia St.,

Bel-Air II, Makati, Philippines

[Exhibition opens to public November 18]

Pablo Picasso’s Suite Vollard in Manila

2011-11-07T21:10:00.000+08:00

Pablo Picasso’s SuiteVollard, created in Paris,1930-1937

Owner: FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE and its Instituto de Cultura

Description:100 etchings of different techniques on watermarked Montval paper

Commissioned by the art dealer andeditor Ambroise Vollard, Pablo Picasso created one hundred copper etchingsbetween September 13, 1930, and march 1937 that have come to be known in arthistory as the Suite Vollard.

In 1938, the set of 100 printsappeared in two different formats, one large (760x500mm) on vellum paper,signed by the artist with red or black pencil, and 50 copies per plate. Theother, smaller version (445x340mm) is on laid Montval paper, watermarked with“Vollard” or “Picasso”, and produced in runs of 250 copies.

Today, the small format is found spreadout as single prints in different private and public collections, and only someof these sets, such as the FUNDACION MAPFRE’s are preserved in their entirety.The complicated history of the work’s origin, the varied themes and diversetechniques used, such as graver, etching, aquatint, color wash and drypoint,and even combinations thereof, encouraged their dispersion and there are fewcomplete collections currently in existence. The Suite Vollard makes up, as such, one of the most importanthistoric-artistic testimonies of the 20^th century.

The complete series includes threeportraits of Ambroise Vollard, five plates referred to as the Battle of Love, or Rape, created in 1933; forty-six plates from The Sculptor’s Studio (forty etchings from March 20 to May 5, 1933,and six between January and March 1934); four plates of Rembrandt (created July 27-31, 1934); fifteen plates of The Blind Minotaur, created from May17-June 18, and September 22-October 22, 1933; and twenty-seven variedcompositions. The etchings do not follow a logical sequence in their images;their chronology follows more current events and the artist’s personalexperiences.

In twenty-seven of the one hundredcopper plates that make up the SuiteVollard, Picasso takes on very diverse topics that were mostly alreadypresent in his work like the bathers, the jugglers, and the circus. Some ofthem, such as the woman-model, in SuiteVollard acquire an inverse classicism, full of serenity, enormity andbalance.

The Suite Vollard fully reflects the Picasso-type dialectic thatfluctuates between order and violence, classicisms and disfiguration, serenityand chaos. All of Picasso’s influences can be seen in the series, his delusionsof grandeur and his deep Mediterranean culture.

The Metropolitan Museum of Manila willhost Pablo Picasso’s Suite Vollard, openingto the public on November 10, 2011 up to January 8, 2012. The Met is located atthe Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex, Roxas Boulevard, Manila. For moredetails please call 5211517 or visit their website at www.metmuseum.ph.

News Story: Peace negotiator blasts warmongers in media

2011-11-05T21:22:00.000+08:00

GOVERNMENT chief peace negotiator TeresitaQuintos-Deles chided warmongers in Philippine media for fuelling sentiments todeclare an all-out war against Moslem armed separatist groups in Mindanao.

“Many have fueled the clamor that we launchan all-out war against the MILF. It did not help that many members of mediamade this into a simple ‘them-versus-us’ case,” said Quintos-Deles, PresidentialAdviser on the Peace Process.

Peace doves fly on the grounds of the historic Hazrat-i-Ali mosque,
in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.
(UN Photo/Helena Mulkerns)

Secretary Quintos-Deles spoke to some ofthe 28 students graduating from a Dual Campus Masters in Peace Studies on October24, the day that President Benigno S. Aquino III rejected calls to launch an all-outwar against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The rattling of sabres came after 19soldiers were killed in an encounter in Al-Barka, Basilan while hunting allegedarmed members of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group.

Quintos-Deles quoted five paragraphs fromPresident Aquino’s statement that disavowed “knee-jerk reactions that willjeopardize our efforts to address the roots of conflict in the region.”

“Consider the context and the history inyour reporting,” Quintos-Deles told this reporter after the graduation ceremonyat the Ateneo de Manila University.

She said that sobriety and introspectionare more important at this stage, “so that we could be guided on what to donext.”

Quintos-Deles said that media can considerfirst the costs of an all-out war.

“During Erap’s time, what happened? Twomillion civilians were displaced. And it’s a generational thing; the pain andsuffering doesn’t only include that generation.”

Nearly 11 years ago, the military under thegovernment of President Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada captured the MILF headquarters atCamp Abubakar in the southern island of Mindanao after declaring an all-out war.

“Look at Maguindanao, it remains an areawith the lowest human development index,” Quintos-Deles said.

She added that media should consider that“it will take 15 years before you bring a region up on its feet again after anarmed conflict.”

Nonetheless, Quintos-Deles said the Aquinogovernment remains focused on peace negotiations with five armed groups.

“We intend to end all armed conflictswithin this administration,” she said in her speech adding that the Aquinogovernment is reviewing the implementation of signed peace agreements with theMoro National Liberation Front in 1986 and two splinter groups of the CommunistParty of the Philippines’s armed wing New People’s Army.

Quintos-Deles told this journalist thatthese are “some of the factors at play that should be considered” in the publicdebate on the conflict in Mindanao.

“And media has a big role to play in this.”

Photojournalists vie for Forestry Photo Award

2011-10-10T21:50:00.000+08:00

Photographs by Nonie G. Reyes of BusinessMirror newspaper would be one of many to be exhibited.

God’s Love I Felt Through Mother B (Poem)

2011-09-30T16:18:00.000+08:00

Mothers knowbest, the old adage is correct

Old and wise, gentleand kind, other than that she’s perfect

Though the yearsand time haven’t been as kind to us

Her demeanor anddecisiveness, never she created a fuss

Everyone canstand and shout, “She made me feel important...

Rain, sleet, orsearing heat; amid wealth and great want.”

Deign many timescash and confidence fell short I sought her

In times oftroubles, always her homestead was I a bother!

Dennis, my name,she utters with words of assurance and comfort

I bet my fingers,toes and all can never match her worth

Be as it may hermodesty abounds larger than life

A humilityattested to by comrades, friends, and my wife

You can searchover and yonder for such caring friend

Or wait centuriesfor such gift to fall from Heaven

Never can weagain have such luck, following the trend

Ever can we onlyhope that one in a hundred seventy-seven

The chances ageneration can be blessed, smiled upon by Allah,

As we are –loved andcared for by Mother Didi Bayoneta.

Turumba Festival 2011 (Video)

2011-09-20T21:00:00.000+08:00

This short video, taken using a Nokia e63 mobile phone, shows some of about 3,000 people of Pakil, Laguna, marching towards the church in tune with music from three brass bands.

under power

2011-09-13T19:00:00.000+08:00

Beside a power station on Pedro Gil in Manila, a woman sleeps and appears oblivious to the danger and the passers-by.
Photo taken via Nokia e63, 2megapixels, September 12, 2011, by Dennis D. Estopace

Journalists with Kids

2011-06-10T21:28:00.000+08:00

THERE are journalists who are good fathers. I am not one of them.

Fortunately, I was blessed with having a good wife and equally good daughters.

One of them is Katha Ma-I who we named after the land the natives called before the arrival of Spanish colonizers: May-i. Ergo, her name captures the creation of the land before colonization.

Our youngest, we named Ani Laya, which means “harvest of freedom” or “free harvest.” Laya, 7, is like her Ate Katha when the latter was at her age: always doodling and drawing.

We encourage them to wield a crayon, pencil, pen, on paper and walls since my wife and I believe doing so enhances not only their motor functions but also their creativity. Children can also best express how they feel when they doodle.

To commemorate Father’s Day, 2011, I thought of posting here some of Ani Laya’s drawings that, hopefully, she can look back years from now and forgive whatever misgivings I may have and may commit or omit as I perform my duties and responsibilities as a father and as a journalist.

A happy Father’s Day to all.

Shoes and the Journalist

2011-05-12T18:57:00.000+08:00

My Itti leather shoes
before being sent out to the shoddy corners.
Photo taken via Nokia e63 in Quezon City.

THERE’S a pebble in my journalism because of my brand new shoes.

It’s been three days since the wife and I shopped for a pair of shod –two, actually, the other for my 67-year-old father.

Shoes, like clothes, are very important to reporters, especially those always pounding the pavement to get from one coverage to another.

The latter is more out of forced circumstances: some reporters’ meagre wages don’t allow the daily use of a car or a regular cab fare affordable.

This is why I miss the Loft brand, pairs of which I used to buy at any SM Department Store before these were pulled off the shelves five years ago.

This would make the Loft leather wingtip shoes, the last pair I bought, still in shape for six years now.

My wife, who’s also picky on what her feet are in, is less lucky since my Loft branded pair have been to countries she’s never been before.

Without a lofty brand available, I settled for the Itti brand.

The last pair I bought a year ago was not as sturdy as the Loft-branded products but was as cheap –“inexpensive” or “affordable,” as some chief executives would say.

These pairs, which I bought for under US$25, are soft leather shoes that can be worn as formal and casual wear.

The most expensive pair I bought recently was online at US$82, a Land’s End brand using Jack the Scribbler’s credit card. It’s worth less than that if we exclude shipping from the United States.

Of course, with that tag price, the Land’s End brand is a, err, shoe-in for off-road walking.

The only beef I have with it is that it comes with thermal protection so that my feet are kept warm and dry during snow in the Philippines.

Right.

The Itti brand doesn’t have that since its shoemakers agree the chances of meatballs raining in the sky is as sure as having Metro Manila dumped with snow.

Still, one of Itti’s pairs could have been cut a little below the ankle bone. That’s where it’s been hurting since I tried on one of the pairs I bought.

One of my editors suggested I take a jog in my new shoes, which when I did only hastened the bruising and not the softening of the imitation leather. Band-aid became an investment. But an ice pack also helped lessen the sore.

I chose Itti since the old pair like it was supposed to after everyday use: hugging the feet, lifting not rubbing against the ankle, and still looking presentable.

Coffee-growing advocate Chit Juan has advised that I shouldn’t be a cheapskate when it comes to shoes.

“You only have one set of feet; why go cheap on them?”

So I did search because I found wisdom –as I always do– in Chit’s words after looking at how mangled my feet have become with the “affordable” shoe pairs I bought.

But the branded ones I looked into meant giving up my month’s salary in exchange for style, fit, comfort, and the foreign shoe manufacturer’s name, which was embossed or etched on the sole.

I could have gone back to Marikina, since I also bought several pairs there years ago. But these only took months of use as the sole cracked easily.

So I stuck to my strategy of buying several “cheap” pairs that I use interchangeably to lessen their depreciation.

Still, if a reporter can afford the designer shoes, I say invest in these and hold on to it for as long as the shoemaker, a similarly low-paid worker, lives.

However, a study by the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (http://www.itglwf.org/lang/en/sportswear.html) should make us have second thoughts on buying designer brands.

The “widespread use of forced and non-remunerated overtime points to a failure by brands to ensure that the volume and the price of goods agreed with their supplier can be delivered within legal boundaries.”

But the report, titled “An Overview of Working Conditions in Sportswear Factories in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines,” focused on multinational companies in the sportswear manufacturing industry.

That’s another story worth walking into.

***

[CUTTING THE B---S---:

This blog entry never received in any form or substance compensation,

whether in the past, present, and future,

from companies carrying the brands mentioned.]

***

Whenever my shoes hurt, I try to recall many Filipinos
still can't afford one, designer brand or not,
like this boy passing by on the market
in Bantayan Island, Cebu, Philippines.

Pinoy children on highway of death

2011-04-25T19:47:00.000+08:00

"Bata, batuta,

'samperang muta

di ka mahal ng mundo

inulila't iwinala

sino ang aangkin sa 'yo...

...Ngunit sa ibabaw nang lahat

ako'y pinahahanga mo

Saan nakukuha ang lakas

Makipaglaro sa aspalto"

Full video of Joey Ayala's "Bata Batuta"

Photos: Palm Sunday Ushers Holy Week Commemoration in PH

2011-04-20T16:02:00.000+08:00

Palm Sunday formally begins among Filipino Catholics the commemoration of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The following are photographs taken April 17, 2011, during the blessing of palm fronds -actually, coconut leaves- called palaspas in the vernacular at the Church of the Holy Sacrifice, University of the Philippines campus, Diliman, Quezon City.

Video shows Fr. Raymond Joseph Arre blessing the palaspas.

Globe says ready for disaster

2011-04-16T15:04:00.000+08:00

BANTAYAN ISLAND, Cebu–Listed firm Globe Telecom Inc. said it is ready for disasters in view of an aftershock hit Japan and evacuation began for communities near Taal volcano.

“Globe's mission-critical systems are designed for resiliency. This is achieved not only through the installation of redundant components, but also through disaster-recovery sites [that allows us] to operate in a back-up site in case one of its facilities fails,” Edgar C. Hapa said.

Hapa of Globe’s enterprise business continuity risk management product and services delivery replied to BusinessMirror after a 7.1-earthquake hit Japan a month after an undersea seismic activity hit the north Asian country and caused disruptions in cellular phone communications and Internet connection.

On Saturday, authorities said evacuation of residents near Taal Volcano has begun after an Alert Level 2 was raised.

Taal Volcano’s …seismic network recorded six volcanic earthquakes during the past 24 hours, the PhiVolcs said in its bulletin dated April 10.

To note, Metro Cebu and Mandaue City were submerged in January after a heavy downpour that lasted for several hours.

Hapa said in an email message the company would add a fourth data center as part of its redundancy system. He, however, was not in a position to disclose the location or the amount of investment for this data center.

“At present, we have three IT data centers, which are geographically distant from each other to reduce the possibility of simultaneous system downtime due to man-made (sabotage, power failure, labor strike, fire) and natural calamities (earthquake, flooding, typhoon, avian flu).”

Hapa added that the new data center “will be located in a carefully selected site that is not vulnerable from flooding, severe earthquake ground movements.”

Likewise, Hapa said the data center was designed using inputs from consultants and recommendations from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and the Earthquake Impact Reduction Study of Metro Manila by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency.

A man stands under the overpass in Quezon City
waiting for the rain to pass, a day in January 2011.

“Globe’s IT systems are properly tiered or ranked according to business impact so that the necessary infrastructure, technical support and processes are appropriated to ensure business continuity. The disaster recovery platforms and processes are also regularly tested to ensure that they will work when needed, and enhanced if necessary.”

Hapa added that like other telecommunications companies, Globe is “fully aware of the importance of telco services especially during and after a disaster.”

“As a major player in the utility industry providing telecommunication services, avoidance of operational disruption is a must both in normal conditions and during emergency/disaster situations.”

Aside from continuously undertaking emergency and disaster preparedness programs for the corporate offices and major facilities, they are also reviewing our service level agreements (SLAs) with them and their disaster response capabilities to ensure that we can rely on their continuous support in case of contingencies.”

This is so because the uptime of the information technology systems is also dependent on the support structures of IT equipment vendors.

“Disaster preparedness and response has always been an integral part of Globe Telecom’s operations, with the safety and security of its employees being the paramount concern, along with the protection of its property and assets,” Hapa added.

Expert says need to heal ailing PH healthcare sector

2011-04-14T19:37:00.000+08:00

Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go speaks to reporters on health financing. Photo courtesy of Maclang & Associates Inc.

PHYSICIAN Kenneth Hartigan-Go said the poor should no longer shoulder the healthcare spending of wealthy Filipinos.

This can only be done, Dr. Hartigan-Go said, through a new payment system to replace the current one that is based on the “Fee for Service” (FFS) concept.

The FFS, according to the consultant of the Zuellig Family Foundation Inc., is a practice where patients are charged according to each service discharged during the treatment.

The new system, which Hartigan-Go said is now practiced in a few hospitals in the country but has been institutionalized in Singapore, Thailand and the United Kingdom, is the case payment.

“It’s like the paluwagan system, wherein there’s a global package of funds from which the payment for healthcare is taken and the patient is charged a small amount.”

Hartigan-Go said, however, that understanding and higher consciousness over this health financing are crucial since “strengthening health financing would strengthen the health system.”

“And everything will fall into place.”

Hartigan-Go said coming up with a new system of spending for health care, including human resources and equipment, aims to reduce out-of-pocket expenses to only 15 percent.

“An average number of Filipinos have to spend transportation, accommodation, and food, among others; with costs close to 60 percent. They borrow from their relatives and neighbors.”

Direct or OOP payments for medical bills usually include professional fees of doctors, prescribed medicine and laboratory tests, and, in many cases, the travel expenses to the urban areas for advanced health care intervention.

The large OOP expenses, Hartigan-Go said, is inimical against the poor as “only the rich are able to afford healthcare because they can afford OOP.”

However, he said there’s a need to provide incentives to doctors and physicians so that they neither won’t order unnecessary laboratory tests nor prescribe drugs that add up to the expenses of the patient, especially if they’re poor.

“The idea is not to take from poor more money.”

Hartigan-Go said the savings from this payment method can go to the upgrade of the medical facility and other technological development.

The quality of health services provided to the poor, nonetheless, shouldn’t be less because they pay less, he added.

This can be done if the people are aware that they have this right to quality health service, Hartigan-Go said adding the government should also be aggressive in explaining the case payment method to the private sector.

Hence, he noted they will go back to Cebu where they held a summit on healthcare in January, to the northern Philippines, and to Laguna for healthcare literacy training sessions.

Hartigan-Go said about 40 tertiary hospitals would pilot test the case payment method.

[Story filed with BusinessMirror newspaper on April 12, 2011.]

Lawyer says fuel stockpiling won’t solve high oil prices

2011-04-13T17:33:00.000+08:00

NON SEQUITUR, a partner of former Napocor chief Cyril del Callar said of government’s move to subsidize fuel consumption of the public transport sector.

“Injecting supply in the market doesn’t mean lower oil prices; it doesn’t follow,” lawyer Jose Moises F. Salonga told some 120 participants of a 2-day conference early April on “Doing Business Amidst New Threats.”

Speaking on behalf of Del Callar, Salonga said that the Philippines cannot control oil prices as the Energy Department reported a 0.25-centavo increase in the common prices of gasoline Tuesday.

In its oil monitor report, the Department of Energy revealed that while the price range for diesel, automobile LPG, and 11-kilogram liquefied petroleum gas products remained unchanged since March 29, gasoline products increased from the P52.10-to-P58.12 per liter price range, to P51.85-P57.87 by April 5, 2011.

Government can’t do this by stockpiling or regulating prices, Salonga said adding that doing so would only place the state in a precarious financial position.

“What if government bought US$2 billion worth of oil in March and the prices drop by April?”

Salonga noted that stockpiling is also expensive as it requires P1.8 billion or at least US$30 million, excluding US$600 to US$700 million spending for storage tanks.

Stockpiling, he explained, is the last of an eight-phase DOE plan to ensure oil supply that includes coordination with industry players (phase 1) and international collaboration (phase 7).

As it is, Salonga said, industry players are mandated by law to ensure a 30-day stockpile.

The Ateneo Law School graduate spoke four days after President Benigno C. Aquino III issued Executive Order 32, instituting the public transport assistance program or “Pantawid Pasada.”

The EO issued April 1 was anchored on a view that the socio-political crisis in Middle East and North African countries like Libya, Qatar, Bahrain, and Yemen, “triggered the high fuel prices.”

The EO cited the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Energy Contingency Committee for the Philippine government to “adopt a contingency program to address the adverse effects of the oil price hikes on the prices of fuel, food and other basic commodities, particularly among the vulnerable sectors of the society, such as the public transport sector, the riding public, and the consuming public.”

However, Salonga said the high oil price in the world market is mainly due to speculation “and actually should be going down in view of the adequate oil supply.”

Citing International Energy Agency data, Salonga said that the price of oil, which hovered above US$100 per barrel is estimated to be overpriced by US$20.

“Supply actually exceeds demand and based on our analysis, supply won’t run out in the next five years.”

Still, Salonga said he’s not against stockpiling.

“But let’s call an emergency stockpile as emergency stockpile. I’m more predilected for reducing taxes than the fuel subsidy program.”

[Original story sent to BusinessMirror newspaper on April 5, 2011.]

Construction halted in Makati City?

2011-02-26T18:24:00.000+08:00

A day after newspapers published a story halting construction of buildings in the Makati commercial and business district, I chanced upon this project at Buendia.

Noel Cabangon sings for Cory's private sector-run group

2011-02-26T18:13:00.000+08:00

Paring Down Patio Carlito

2011-02-05T16:38:00.000+08:00

FOOD and drinks don’t matter when one has a great conversation with a kindred soul.

But when caffeine the morning after fails to shake off the intoxication, one can’t help but recall the food and drink shared before four hours of alcohol-induced sleep.

The drink is easily dismissable –it’s the tepid yellow brew labeled “light” made by a company now going into heavy power generation.

The food, well, that’s another matter.

The plate of sisig was served with half of it bopis, the waiter even proudly told me and fellow journalist Miguel Camus.

It was served on a sizzling plate on a canvass-covered patio where the owner parked deep brown square tables and straight chairs.

The absence of sizzle and smoke that usually accompanied such dish was expected since our order arrived 20 minutes late.

Maybe the waiters thought the nubile ladies in sleeveless shirts across our table were hungrier. The lesson there was to eye less cleavages and more on what’s not on the end of their forks.

We could have skipped ordering the five pieces of shrimp the bar dubbed “gambas.” Gathering from the speed the plate was cleaned, this dish fared better than our first order.

But Miguel, who paid for Friday night’s tryst with a geezer who incidentally dragged him to this haunt that just opened days after the new year, was indefatigable. He opted to ask for beef salpicao.

Either our appetite returned or a high-spirited discussion of journalistic future that only three of a dozen pieces of beef stock lay on the plate. They lay there inviting, begging to avoid the fate of the sisig: unwanted, left to chill in the al fresco world, and definitely going literally to the dustbin of its short history as pork.

I rejected the urge to clean the plate.

As ANC business reporter Paeng told us, people don’t go to Patio Carlito for the food.

“What’s exciting is the company kept,” he said before dashing off to his table.

Of course, a pocket of thirtysomethings in bedroom clothes add spice to the evening of the boys and their beer.

In a way, Paeng was right.

The evening was one of the best a business journalist could have after a day of covering the sashaying stock market and the solid insights of Jesuit priest Father Ben Nebres.

But it was all because of Miguel, who took care of the former, who not only had the temperament of a Benedictine monk but the courage to listen to a has-been Casanova ramble on about life in and outside the newsroom.

Food and drinks don’t matter if you have Miguel as company.

But I believe he deserves something better than Patio Carlito’s.

[Disclaimer: This post was written sans receiving compensation in any form from any entity interested in Patio Carlito bar’s present and future business. Photo from http://turoturo.blogspot.com/2011/01/great-things-can-be-found-just-around.html who, as can be gathered from the blog post title, may have been floored by the resto’s offering.]

New Year messages

2011-01-11T20:31:00.000+08:00

I just cleaned up the inbox of my mobile phone and read these gems of Season’s Greetings. Hope you enjoy reading as I did before pushing these missives into the dustbin of frequency.

Happy New Year!

Love. Hope. Peace. Joy. A bounty of blessings from our family to yours & those whom you hold dear. Happy New Year! -Jeric S., Manila Water.

Thanks for being part of my 2010. Here's to the coming year full of my best wishes for you:-) –Edythe of AIM

May the coming year bring more blessings to you and your loved ones! –lynn, lawrence, sasha & liam –Lynn, British Embassy

May the New Year bring good tidings to us, our families and our country. –Danton Remoto of UNDP

Another year has passed, a year of challenges and triumphs, a year of learning, memories... and a year to be grateful for. May the coming year bring us closer to our dreams. Happy New Year! :-) –Redge L., PR

For eight years this decade, we put up a 'crazy idea' into an organized form of journalism. The new decade beckons, but hope's there this crazy idea becomes crazier. THANK YOU for everything. Happy new year! –Jeremaiah, OFW Journalism Consortium

Commander Bilog sa yo! Melon, pakwan, chico, dalanghita, peras, duhat! –Alex U., illustrator

PARA DI MALASIN ANG NEW YEAR, huwag mo isali [ang mga] prutas na bilog na may itim ang buto tulad ng pakwan, chico, atis, atbp. ‘Wag maghanda ng ice cream para di matunaw ang swerte. ‘Wag maghanda ng may apat ang paa tulad ng baka, baboy, at kambing at baka tumakbo ang swerte. ‘Wag din mga isda at lamang dagat: malulunod ang swerte. ‘Wag din maghanda ng may pakpak tulad ng manok at pabo, para di lumipad ang swerte. ‘Wag ka na kayang maghanda? Ha Ha Ha, HAPPY NEW YEAR! –Dan, my brother

Happy New Year! Year of d Rabbit! Year ng mga Playboy! Hahahahaha –Richard P., classmate in Paco Catholic School batch 1985

AND MY FAVORITE OF ALL:

From the Dancers of Ms. U., Massagers of Sky Fleet, Talents of Air Force One, Floor Manager of Alibangbang, Pickup Girls of Malate, Roomboys of Sogo, GROs of Asian entertainment and Receptionists of Victoria: We would like to greet our No.1 Customer a HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Sir, punta kayo ulit, may mga bago tayo! –Ruel C., Malaya reporter

Govt turfing ills ails one PH map

2010-12-09T18:32:00.001+08:00

[Submitted by: Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, to BusinessMirror December 2, 2010]

HAVING one national map helps evaluate natural resources –where these
are abundant and scarce, identify disaster prone areas, pinpoint human
and commodity traffic flow, and, generally, get to where one wants to
go by following a road network.
The Philippines doesn't enjoy these benefits because it has several
maps and mapping system relative to a government agency or unit.
"We're missing out on the social and economic development one national
map brings," former National Mapping and Resource Information
Authority (Namria) official Francisca N. Dayrit said.
Dayrit, who's now executive vice-president of Geodata Systems
Technologies Inc., a private company specializing on map creation and
management software, spoke to reporters Thursday or nearly a month
before a 2-day conference in Manila.
Dayrit credits the action on the leak at West Tower to the
availability of a map by the Makati City government, which she said is
a GSTI client.
"It [the drilling to locate the leaking pipe under a condominium] was
only delayed because of the elections and the purchase of more
sophisticated equipment. But because they have a map, the UP NIGS
people were able to bore a hole in a specific location."
She also cited the Manila Water Co.'s investment to have bode well for
the utility firm's move to cut non-revenue water loss from 67 percent
to just below 13 percent.
"They have maps where you can even see the meter."
Manila Water recently awarded a mapping provider for a P29-million
project in the Rizal province, according to persons involved in the
bidding. GTSI lost in the bid.
Other companies that benefited from having a basic map are those in
the fast-food delivery business and in logistics that help in managing
sales territory and identify customers and routes.
Dayrit noted that having one national map could also help spur
businesses like those in tourism and in global positioning system
(GPS) technology.
Likewise, having one cuts costs and generate revenue for government
because ten could buy just one basic map from government and each just
add their own layer relative to their core business like power and
water distribution, she added.
Dayrit added having one national map provides empirical data
especially during elections since data could show a specific number of
voters in very specific boundaries.
"A lot of information's disjointed. For example, I voted for my
barangay but I later found out in the tax mapping that I was giving to
the adjoining village."
Having one national map, she said, sets a standard that every entity
can follow and further develop.
"It can also spur people's participation because anyone can just draw
a map of their street or community and submit this to the barangay
whose officials will then consolidate the data, whether it contains
medical or health services, educational institutions' location, etc.,
and submit these to the municipal government and so on."
Citing Namria data, the Philippines needs 13,000 basic map sheets, 24
percent of which are urban areas.
But as of 2010, only 400 map sheets have been completed.
A mapsheet contains the basic information of streets, buildings, and
major utilities. Dayrit said one mapsheet can be accomplished within
two months.
Dayrit said the most important thing is to have a framework for
development; "one operating picture of where we are and where we want
to go."
However, she noted that government executives have to agree to work on
this common goal.
"They need to work together lest we really want our country to move forward."
To note, GSTI sells its products costing anywhere between P150,000 to
P4 million, some of which includes provision of training to buyer's
employees.

[Photo shows aerial view of Tomas Morato, Quezon City, Downloaded from
http://www.geodata.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=140&Itemid=210]

Dinosaurs at Dinner

2010-12-03T12:54:00.001+08:00

THE San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts was crooning about
being swayed ("Iduyan Mo") after I washed the grime my body collected
during the day.
Oh, what a day it was. The watch said it's already half-past one in
the morning and nerves continue to pump my fingers to the events that
unfolded Thursday and insights over a tall paper cup of coffee between
a fellow newspaper journalist covering the Securities and Exchange
Commission beat.
This is why citizen journalism would only work if they become like us:
eating, drinking, and breathing news even as the President sleeps,
alone or with somebody, again, our concern.
It's another Thursday evening of swapping the stories behind the
stories we tried successfully and unsuccessfully pinned down and
punched on our keyboards.
The harried waiter of Mang Inato amused to discover us sitting on the
same chairs in the same seating arrangement: our sponsor, Jeremaiah,
to the right of Philippine Star defense beat reporter Ace and who's
sitting directly across me, a general assignments reporter for the
BusinessMirror. To my left, again, Ruelle, a five-year veteran of
Malaya, the first mosquito press.
Raising a finger, Ace, who prefers this brightly-lit watering hole
beside a nightclub for the tweens, orders our common favourite:
deep-fried chicken skin. We know it's one of the reasons why voices
increase a decibel above the ordinary, but we ask for it anyway,
readying ourselves for the adrenaline rush the debates these dinners
infuse.
These dinners began five years ago as a Dutch treat in a Quonset hut
beside the stair landing of the train station in Quezon Avenue and on
a square meter of land that is now part of a shopping mall. It began
with just fellow BusinessMirror reporter Villy and I, nursing a couple
of bottles of beer to evaluate the stories we filed during the day,
the public and private officials hunting us to either praise or
threaten us with lawsuits, and the juicy tidbits on key players in our
industry: the Philippine news media.
Others joined us and before long, the grilled pork barbeque haunt
became too small. Also, it had to give way to the construction of the
place its developers call Centris Shopping Complex.
Several bars in front of the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Network replaced
that but Villy's luck, the bad side of it, rubbed off on these
establishments that closed or moved out.
Three years ago, we discovered DInoy's, a dimly-lit booze place beside
a Laundromat and gated apartment row along Scout Albano. We grew a
liking to the place because of the friendly treatment we got from the
waiters Eison and Bryan, who epitomized personalized service.
They knew who wanted the sizzling hotdog or Hungarian sausage (if
available) and how many cups of rice accompanied that order. They
already knew how many bottles of beer should be opened and to whom to
give it to. They tell us weeks ahead the days they'll be closed and
when they'll be opening. They introduced us to their mother, who cooks
one of the best tokwa't baboy Villy said he tasted.
Most of the times, they'd automatically lower the volume of their
speakers when all 12 journalists are there. Yes, there's now a dozen
journalists that were introduced to what we jokingly refer to as the
"Dinoy's Press Club."
While the range of topics grew far and wide, there was a simple rule:
anything said there should remain kept in the back of those who
listened and offered information.
Of course, there were breaches but the source of the leak was openly
chided, castigated and reminded that we have been trained to exercise
self-restraint, especially on information.
Last night, the topic was citizen journalism and how much information
journalists are duty-bound to reveal or keep from the public.
The consensus leaned on citizen reporting and that journalism is best
kept in the able hands of professionals. The bungled twitter entry of
a self-proclaimed eventologist connected to well-heeled sections of
Philippine society was used as basis.
Aside from ethics, those present last night –two are Jeremaiah's
students in the University of Sto. Tomas– noted the institutional
protection accorded to some journalists could not be enjoyed by
citizens and may put their and their family member's lives at risk.
"We are aware of the dangers of liberal application of rules as well
as the benefits of rigorous organization of facts. Let's not place
these additional burdens to the public," one of those at the dinner
said.
In between poking fun at imbecile editors and our stupidity, talk also
goes to relationship, the absence or possibilities of it and with
other or the same gender.
But like all good things, the evening must end.
Like clockwork, Jeremaiah signals for the check and while we show
hands moving to get wallets, again he admonishes us.
"Having this on me is the least I can do for good journalism."
So we go back to our respective nests, with tired hearts because of
too much laughter or chicken skin but spirited enough to hunt
confidently for what keeps it pumping the next days: news and the
responsibility to share it with the Filipino people.
Oh, may I add: looking forward again to another Thursday to these
dinners where, borrowing from a line in Howard Kurtz's story
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/26/AR2009042602297.html),
candor is the entrée.

Hey Jude in Charts

2010-12-02T15:19:00.001+08:00

[got this from good friend IFB, Ateneo Law School '54]

Journalism and Forgiveness

2010-11-19T17:46:00.000+08:00

[Thanks to UST Journalism Professor Jeremaiah M. Opiniano for humoring me on the subject. Apologies to Jack the Scribbler for borrowing this warning: This entry contains 776 words of self-aggrandizement and may intervene in your more important tasks like updating Facebook status.]

A RUMOR prompted my return to Facebook.

Church of the Holy Sacrifice parish priest Raymond Joseph Arre
speaks about forgiveness. Video grab by Dennis Estopace.

For one, I wanted to dispel the rumor. For another, I wanted to be in the know if other rumors abound, whether or not these involved me or people in the Philippine media industry.

The tale of the tape goes that I disdain going on trips abroad that are purely junkets; that is, traveling to other countries wherein reporters are not required to submit stories. Supposedly, the sponsor is “generous” enough to spend shareholder money on journalists.

While that is true –that I prefer an overseas coverage that would be worth the trip as well as the substantial investment of the trip’s sponsor, I never declined an assignment, whether overseas or not, from my editors.

What I didn’t know was there was such a junket and someone may have tried to make me look bad to the company sponsoring the trip.

As I told a fellow reporter who told me about the rumor: I only learned there was a trip after I learned of the rumor. In addition, my editor-in-chief knew why I took a long vacation leave and, hence, could neither assign me to such a trip nor believe I will sneak under official lines for a junket.

There was one time I inadvertently forgot to tell my editor about an official overseas coverage. But that was just one time; one moment of recalcitrance.

Anyway, in this year’s rumor, someone apparently wanted to lend credibility to a 3-day junket for select reporters, at my expense.

I got pissed. A fellow reporter wants to f__k with me.

My anger, however, easily waned after recalling a good sermon by Church of the Holy Sacrifice parish priest Raymond Joseph Arre.

It was the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time and the eve of my vacation leave, when I listened to Rev. Fr. Arre share his views on forgiveness -a word that may be far from the vocabulary of some Filipino journalists.

Fr. Arre cited the story of Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector in Jesus's time, who climbed a sycamore tree just to see the prophet.

According to the Gospel of St. Luke [Lk 19:1-10], Zacchaeus promised to give half of his possessions to the poor and “repay four times over” whatever he extorted from anyone.

Fr. Arre said Zacchaeus was already forgiven even before his lips uttered the words of penance.

I am a journalist, not a tax collector; extorted from, not an extortionist.

But sitting on a brown pew inside the church –yes, some journalists attend Eucharistic celebrations– I recalled having approached a fellow journalist who felt I did him wrong.

After a year of not speaking to each other, I called and asked him for help in a writing project that didn’t materialize. It could be considered my way of saying sorry; of asking for forgiveness. We have renewed our friendship since then.

Fr. Arre’s sermon brings me back to the rumor-monger who may think I am privileged to be given overseas assignments.

I can only ask forgiveness, if he or she feels deserving of such trips as I come across as someone disdainful of such “perks” enjoyed by business reporters.

I believe journalists should strive to have or develop such virtue of forgiveness; asking for and giving it.

I think if we have wronged the public because of factual error, or extorting news or amassing fortune and fame at their expense, we should be ready to ask forgiveness. I also think a government executive or public official who has shown remorse, resigned from office, and returned to the public institution the dignity it deserved, asked for forgiveness, we should report it as so.

Both instances, however, occur few and far between in these islands.

Maybe this is because media owners are wont to protect market share than strengthen the institution represented by journalism. Maybe this is because public officials have dragged institutions to the abyss with their obfuscation of what is decent and what is larceny.

Still, I know there are journalists out there who have a sense of decency to say sorry to the public as well as rein in giving forgiveness to those who have wronged and continue to do wrong to the public.

If there are fellow journalists who felt I have wronged them, please forgive me. You can have all the overseas assignments you want, especially those that are really junkets.

And I forgive you for thinking the contrary and for spreading rumors that I disdain junkets. While the latter is a personal choice, I always try to follow where my editors point me to.

That is called obedience; another Christian virtue requiring another lengthy entry.

Happiness is a Poem

2010-11-16T16:30:00.000+08:00

[Here’s a poem from a book of rhymes and limericks that I read to my daughters Sunday night and was encoded by my eldest Monday. We all like it and hope you do, too.]

Mr. Nobody

Author Unknown

I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done,
In everybody’s house!
There’s no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr. Nobody.

‘Tis he who always tears our books,
Who leaves the door ajar,
He pulls the buttons from our shirts,
And scatters pins afar;
That squeaking door will always squeak,
For, prithee, don’t you see,
We leave the oiling to be done
By Mr. Nobody.

He puts damp wood upon the fire,
That kettles cannot boil;
His are the feet that bring in mud,
And all the carpets soil.
The papers always are mislaid,
Who had laid them last but he?
There’s no one tosses them about
But Mr. Nobody.

The finger marks upon the door
By none of us are made;
We never leave the blinds unclosed,
To let the curtains fade.
The ink we never spill; the boots
That lying round you see
Are not our boots --- they all belong
To Mr. Nobody!

Late Afternoon After Pacquiao Fight

2010-11-15T19:40:00.000+08:00

Photo below shows some Filipinos were in shopping malls like this one in Quezon City after the televised fight of boxer Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas.

Video grab by Dennis Estopace.

Ten Things That Help Me Sleep

2010-11-11T15:08:00.000+08:00

Photo taken by Ani Laya M. Estopace, 6.

I WAS a walking dead when I woke up late morning.

My shoulders ached and my feet refused to shuttle me to the bathroom with half-open eyes and slow neurons. Since I was gifted with the insight of the three stooges, I immediately concluded lack of sleep was the culprit; except for the slow neurons -it’s natural.

I remembered two friends of mine had the same experience –lack of sleep, not being zombies: a professor in a Church-run school and a writer as prolific as yours truly (based on my unintelligible standards, of course).

Anyway, I wrote up this list to help me remember what to do and what to avoid so I can avoid these late morning realizations and go back to doing what I do best: sleeping.

[Caution: May contain contents inappropriate for my 14-year-old daughter and people like her who are smart enough to see beyond the couched seriousness, which are few and far between, of contents.]

[Disclaimer: No scientific evidence offered; sarcasm abundant. These forward-looking statements are based on the experience of the author and should be regarded as professional advice only by idiots.]

1. Engage in a physical release of body fluid. Ooops; for sensitive readers: it’s a three-letter word that starts with the letter S and ends with the letter X. It’s neither a contraction of the word saxophone nor the word “sucks,” although both are tools for satisfaction. Whether and however one does this, with the presence or absence of willing participant or participants, is the least of my concerns. But based on my limited knowledge of the subject, it works! Doesn’t it, dear? Heh.

2. Clean the house. Do the household chores if there’s nobody to do it to. But sweep the floor or scrub the toilet tiles with little noise as possible, especially if neighbours or housemates are already down the rabbit hole at 12 midnight.

3. Walk, or do some exercise. I’ve recommended this to my friend who teaches journalism and has been yawning almost every afternoon at the office. Since I live inside a university campus, walking outdoors is safe. I also get to see the place where somebody recently dumped a corpse as well as meet a group of young informal settlers (read: squatters) out to have fun in the unlit recesses of the tree-filled fields.

4. Read a boring material. If the requirements for the first item in this list are absent, especially the consenting partner, grab a book or material you’ve put off reading a century ago. Go for titles like “The intricate life of a mite trainer.” I also recommend reading notes to annual reports, disclaimers appended to financial statements, and end-user license agreements. I guarantee not finishing the second sentence.

5. Watch a boring movie. If you’re not fond of the intellectual exercise called reading (which makes me wonder how you got to this point so far), then try watching television to sleep. TV shows today are so helpful in deadening the mind and shocking the brain to a stoic state. I’ve done this while in hotels on an overseas business trip and after #s 1, 3, and 4 remained ineffective. Of course, expect to wake up either with a white noise in the middle of an eerie morning or a sky-rocketing electricity bill to shock you back to sleep.

6. File things. Maybe it’s time to arrange in chronological order the receipts you’ve stored in nook and crannies. Maybe it’s time to put in alphabetical order the calling cards you’ve amassed for the past decade. I’ve done this and remained effective in making me go from A to Zzzzz even before I reach B.

7. Soak in a tub or take a warm bath. I've done this in a hotel that had a bathroom with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. There was a satisfaction of looking at the landscape of Singapore at night while naked under water and suds. Also good as a prelude to #1 in this list, or after cleaning or filing. This is also an opportunity to clean using cotton buds almost every body orifice. I said, almost! But I won’t stop anybody getting a kick of sticking cotton buds in the nether regions, …yuck. I can’t even finish the previous sentence.

8. Paper works. Some fall to sleep after bringing an attaché case full of paperwork from the office; others, just the mere thought of extending slavery after eight hours of number crunching lulls them to stupor. There’s also origami, which I do, because there’s certain calmness in folding paper. Also, I’ve been recycling papers that have one side bare: cutting these into pocket-size pieces and, using superglue, make them into notepads.

9. Empty the mind. There’s nothing like freeing the mind from worries, especially when and where to reach the first item on this list, as a better sedative. Some count sheep; others count backwards from ten or until there’s nothing except blankness of thoughts. “It is a dimension that's as vast as space and as timeless as infinity”…nunininununini... I heard some politicians have perfected emptying the mind since there was nothing to take out from it in the first place.
10. Surf blog entries like this. Wow. If you reached this stage, you really need to see a sleep doctor since I never expected such boring entries like this can keep you up. However, the Internet is a sixth dimension of sorts that offers a lot of mind-numbing tools. However, I’d rather you get a life.

Many things -such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly- are done worst when we try hardest to do them.

[quotation attributed by http://thinkexist.com/quotations/sleep

to C.S. Lewis, author of “The Chronicles of Narnia”]

Urban utopia: Ho Chi Minh City’s proletarian perks have a surprising taste

2010-11-01T17:06:00.000+08:00

[Blogger's Note: The President's speechwriter's twisted twits prompted me to post this story I wrote for BusinessMirror newspaper in October 21, 2007. It's about another city in Vietnam, which I visited when I was 38, but hope gives an overview of why wine and how men look piqued the speechwriter's interest rather than a country's rich culture.]

Vietnameses' daily life is never without motorcycles,
which they use to go around Ho Chi Minh City
as well as transport or sell products.
Photo by Dennis D. Estopace

HO CHI MINH CITY – Some Asian destinations offer no pretensions. This city is one of them.

Vietnam’s urban center, named honoring its communist leader, allows guests to seep into its transformation from a war-ravaged capital to a place where one can escape the trappings of bourgeoisie pettiness.

From the airplane’s nose dive to slice through white mist toward Tan Son Nhut International Airport to the bustling city streets, the tempo of changes clutching its ten million people is at once felt.

The whole city itself is hot, literally, with high humidity and temperatures hitting above 30. Figuratively, there’s the prominence of red and gold colors in almost every mid-rise building lining the road from the airport.

The airport itself is undergoing transformation to the chagrin of Filipino workers and tourists that pine for the opening of Terminal 3. Tan Son Nhut is a notch above the Philippines’s old international airport in the sense that is has horizontal escalators or “walk-alators,” says one Pinoy working for an oil exploration project here.

Airlines staff said Tan Son Nhut airport, which is undergoing renovation and expansion, would become wi-fi ready in the next three months. Hence, they are preparing a new computer system for check-in and boarding. PAL staff were flown here to train Vietnamese on the new system.

Outside, the whole city is pulsing with life. Just sit and sip one of the many home brewed coffee at several cafés dotting the road to feel its beat. Everywhere, and at any time of the day, two-wheel vehicles like scooters, bicycles, and motorcycles carom here and there on the streets. It seems every Vietnamese –whether in jeans, mini-skirts, and the traditional cheongsam– has somewhere to go to and things to do.

Most of the restaurants here offer a view of the road so guests can ponder the symmetry that weaves these vehicles.

Even steel rickshaw driver Tung couldn’t explain why there’re few if no motor vehicle accidents in the city.

One reason could be the language barrier. Most Vietnamese speak French as second language. In halting English, Tung says the Vietnamese know how to move quickly.

A Vietnamese woman in traditional Vietnamese garb
prepares to ride her motorbike
after buying fruits and flowers at Ben Thahn Market.
Photo by Dennis D. Estopace

“We survived American bombs; we survive driving,” the 40-year-old Tung says in front of Ben Thanh Market where he and other drivers of a rickshaw –a two-wheeled bucket seat welded in front of a bicycle– offer one-hour city tours for US$15 (VND242,460 at US$1=VND16,164).

Ben Thanh Market, to note, is one of the reasons why Ho Chi Minh is a must destination for shoppers.

Located on District 1 and a five-minute walk from Caravelle Hotel where Hewlett-Packard Co. billeted Asian journalists, Ben Thanh is the most central of Ho Chi Minh City's many huge indoor markets.

From the entrance across a horse-riding monument of Ho Chi Minh, the market is organized according to rows of products. The first street block-long stalls sell garments and textiles, the second row offer lacquerwares and handicrafts, then dried and cooked food, fruits, and flowers.

An hour before it closes at 6:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. in the Philippines), Ben Thahn remains packed with shoppers walking sideways along the aisles between stalls. The scent of linseed oil and dried shrimp mixes with human sweat and a bargain hunt, replacing the familiar smell of cordite and sulfur four decades ago.

Indeed, Ben Thanh is a utopia for shoppers not only because they could become instant millionaires for US$100 (VND1.6 million) but also because product prices could be haggled lower. A t-shirt hand-embroidered with Ho Chi Minh’s face could go for US$2.47 from the initial price of US$3.10 (VND50,000).

“What’s your price,” a vendor would say if a potential buyer asks then tries to move away. The negotiations go on until each reach their comfort zones. It’s best to go first to Ben Thahn just for a look-see and return for the actual purchase.

Fellow journalist Racquel devised an alternative to the must-carry calculator: a piece of paper. There she wrote tiered exchange rates, as in VND16,000= US$1=P44; VND65,000=US$4=P176; and, VND78,000=US$5=P220.

“The last one’s my pivot point,” Racquel said explaining that “anything higher than US$5 would be really spending.”

For the historian and the proletarian-spirited traveler, one notable must-go place here is the War Remnants Museum on Vo Van Tan Road. Opened to the public in 1975, the museum offers the reason what makes the Vietnamese tick. The eight permanent thematic exhibitions bare the numbing truth of the Vietnam War that began when the first American soldiers landed in Da Nang March 8, 1965.

Museum collections offer an in-your-face look at war: from methods of torture to the effects of 44 million liters of Agent Orange through photographs by 134 journalists, through sculptures, and actual ordinance.

A foreign tourist walks toward one of the cannons used by the Americans during their failed attempt to subjugate Vietnam and now is one of the collections at War Remnants Museum. Photo by Dennis D. Estopace

An empty stomach and open mind could help visitors suck in everything the museum offers. It is advisable to go to here before visiting the Co Chin Tunnels to experience how the Vietnamese survived the 14 million tons of explosives dropped from B-52 bombers during the war.

If you’re as slender or thin as the Vietnamese, drop into the pitch-dark tunnel some of which lead to several rooms underground where they cooked, slept, and kept as silent as moles during the war.

Above, travelers could fire an AK-47, the most powerful assault rifle invented by man and widely used by Vietnamese guerillas, for 250 dong (US$0.25) per bullet. Don’t bother hiding the bullet shell as souvenir; the tour guides would know how many are missing.

Packaged tours to the tunnels and the museum, excluding entrance fees, begin at US$4 per person (US$1=16,164 dong).

A two-day stay in this city is worth more for these reasons alone.

As the orange sky glows, the Asian visitor to these places could begin to dig deeper in his or her heart the pride of being non-Caucasian, living simply and loving a country.

This makes one wonder why so-called Filipino revolutionaries noisily promising to drive out the “white devils” –as Tung calls Americans– in Philippine political-economy passed off the warmth of Vietnam as refuge, opting for the stark cold weather of the The Netherlands.

SIDEBAR:

How to go there: via PAL, which now flies daily, and Cebu Pacific, four times a week.

Where to stay: Caravelle Hotel is where 100 journalists from Asia-Pacific region were billeted. Located on Lam Son Square, District 1, Caravelle’s rooms begin at US$250 a night. Stay at the topmost floor (24th, smoking) to get a great view of the city. District 1, to note, is considered the commercial and business district with high-end stores like Dolce Gabanna and Louis Vuitton operating side by side local-brand shops.

Motorcycles form part of the Vietnamese’s daily life.
Photo by Dennis D. Estopace.

Where to eat: Lemon Grass, a block across Caravelle, is a four-storey restaurant offering mild-Vietnamese food, which is light on the use of lemon grass, a staple in Vietnamese cuisine. Try the soft-shell crab and, of course, the spring rolls. In 2007, there were two branches of Jollibee, one of which is near the museum at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai road. Also, check out the Mandarin restaurant on Ngo Van Nam Street and their eight-meal course.

How to move around: Taxis of the sedan and off-road types could be easily flagged but know ahead how much the fare would cost since some drivers charge double than what the meter shows. From the Caravelle to Ben Thahn, for example, the five-minute ride’s just under VND17,000 or US$1. Better yet, walk.

What to carry: Umbrella or hat, for protection against the sun or rain; cash; camera; street map; and, high alertness, especially when crossing streets.

Portrait of a Business Paper as Filipino

2010-10-29T16:51:00.000+08:00

[This is a story I wrote for BusinessMirror in celebration of that newspaper's fifth year October 5. Am posting an edited version here to commemorate Nick Joaquin, who I tried to honor through this 817-word story.]

THEY don’t read newspapers like the BusinessMirror; they savor the experience.

They allow the words to drip like honey into the cerebellum, enriching a broad view of Philippine business.

That was how the paper was conceived five years ago, after several months of dry-runs and focus-group discussions.

The old hands of Filipino journalism and the youngbloods in business reporting decided to throw away the blandness in today's news gathering, reporting and writing on markets, the economy, and events important to people buying and selling everyday.

They became fiercely loyal to harnessing the elegance of the English language sans denigrating the language of business.

By avoiding a bifurcation of economics and politics, BusinessMirror broke the mold that business journalism was only for those adept at jargons.

By breaking the mold of a business paper, BusinessMirror devoted ample space to sports and lifestyle, motoring and gadgets, science and technology –news and information equally-savored by those doing business.

And by doing so, the paper reached sections of the population neglected by the lumbering giants of print media: young men and women burning with a spirit to grow in and with their country through business.

The paper helped stoke the fire of entrepreneurship and prop the flagging confidence to grow of small businesses, of scientists and technologists, and of mid-size investors.

At the same time, those seasoned in the ways of the market discovered that another credible source of information and opinion helped rather than befuddle an already-crowded media industry.

Indeed, BusinessMirror’s debut in 2005 was at a time the business of reporting business was clutched in a monopoly.

The ancients’ view held there was no more room in an inn filled with newspapers. Some said they failed to find logic behind the paper’s decision to go into print in an Internet age.

The paper’s owners, however, may have found solace in George Bernard Shaw who said that "some men see things the way they are and ask, ‘Why?’ Some dared to “dream things that never were and asked, 'Why not?'"

The market responded by returning the respect the paper bestowed on the reading public.

Months before it turned one, the paper’s story on labor-management relations in a globalized era won a top award in the 17th Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism.

Three years later, the paper was honored for having received the prestigious United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) Award for excellence in reporting on humanitarian and development affairs.

A year later, in 2009, Abano would again bring honor to the paper and Philippine journalism as she received the highest recognition during the Developing Asia Journalism Awards.

Of course, the market’s sweetest gesture was when the Rotary Club of Manila named BusinessMirror Newspaper of the Year award in 2007, or barely two years since the paper began.

It was a feat since the paper’s competitor was recognized by the Rotary Club only after more than a decade of existence.

By not shortchanging the reading public, the BusinessMirror has further enhanced its reputation as a credible incisive source of news and information not only of business but of the context of the deals and relationships involved.

In the end, according to the Sunday Call newspaper, writing on the The New York Times’s 50th anniversary, such reputation is a journal’s “real capital.”

Paraphrasing Sunday Call’s piece: in these days when the rise of so-called “new” media fuels the buzz of white noise and continuous sensationalist and gotcha journalism, the demand for decent business writing is greater.

But, indeed, “one need not be dull to be respectable,” the Sunday Call penned.

BusinessMirror, in the past five years and in the next five years, would tread on that path to make business journalism and the paper “very interesting.”

Here, what comes to mind are the characters in A Portrait of the Artist As Filipino that the late Nick Joaquin assigned the role of journalists.

One notable character there is Bitoy Camacho, a reporter given the temerity of a veteran newsman and the temperament of a greenhorn.

Joaquin gave Camacho's character the intelligence reserved for the learned as the reporter opened the scene by comparing the old Manila to the Tyre and Sidon; “a Babylon in commerce and a New Jerusalem in its faith.”

Camacho is presented both a professed lover of Spanish poetry and a willing student of art awed by the portrait of an artist on his career’s twilight years.

BusinessMirror and its reporters, hopefully, would attain the luminous role that Joaquin bestowed on Camacho as the paper now has made its mark like the portrait did on the characters in the late national artist’s seminal work.

News: Jobs growth slow amid business optimism

2010-10-29T10:06:00.001+08:00

[Filed by Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, for BusinessMirror October 14, 2010]

A BETTER Christmas this year; but with less number of employed.

So says economist Victor Abola who presented the Dun&Bradstreet Inc. business optimism index (BOI) showing a positive outlook for the fourth quarter (Q4) by 260 companies.

Abola's holiday cheer is shared by those in the construction and retail sectors that continue to push up volume of sales, net profits, and new profits.

Overall BOI for Q4 this year is up six points to 70 percent, according to the D&B survey done mid-September in the midst of a sharp drop in 10-year T-bond yields and strengthening peso.

"The growth is coming from volume of sales in the retail sector as Christmas nears and spending is expected to increase. Expect corporate giving to also increase," Abola said on Thursday.

The BOI in net profits is also up 13 points to 63 percent; the same with new orders at 33 percent (up four points).

Personally, Abola said, he "expects robust growth [in gross domestic product] above six percent in the third and fourth quarters."

However, the growth has remained fallow in terms of jobs, as six of eight sectors covered expect slower job creation by 9-point lower in the fourth quarter. Only the construction and retail sectors expect employment to increase.

Abola said this can be explained by the continuous activities in the construction sector as developers "continue to build subdivisions and condominiums."

Likewise, the retail sector, having posted a decline in inventory on higher Christmas sales, will need to hire and expected to hire temporary workers.

The biggest decline in jobs growth expectations level are in the transport, communications and utilities sector and the services sector, which include business process outsourcing companies.

Other sectors that expect slower job creation this quarter include: manufacturers of durables; manufacturers of consummables; wholesalers; and, finance, insurance, and real estate.

"They're not hiring people at the same pace as in Q3 but at a reasonable rate," Abola said.

He emphasized the rising optimism of the electronics sector despite the strengthening of the peso.

Abola credited this to the increased volume of sales rather than the strategy of hedging against the weakening greenback.

"PEZA firms now have brighter outlook than all firms in general."

Abola also noted that the country's exports is expected to lead growth "and continue to be robust."

"But the main explanation is not the United States," he said citing that the country's exports by destination is now the East Asia and Asean bloc, forming 51.70 percent of trade.

The US is now just a little above the EuroZone as a destination of Philippine exports, composing of 16 percent and 15.20 percent, respectively.

Japan, also a traditional importer of Philippine products, has a 12.7-percent share of the exports pie.

Combined, however, these countries form less than 45 percent as a destination, Abola noted.

Abola said he expects a strong peso to continue to negatively affect exports, remittances of overseas Filipino workers, and BPOs.

It also has a bad effect on tax collections, he added.

Abola said based on his computation, for every peso increase in the currency's value on an annual average, the government loses P15 billion on tax revenue.

[Photo caption: Grocers fill up carts in a supermarket in Quezon City. Ringing cash registers boost optimism of retail business sector but a death knell for unemployed in other industries.]

What absolution of plagiarism contributes to Supreme Court integrity:

2010-10-26T17:19:00.001+08:00

An Affair to Keep

2010-10-25T14:15:00.000+08:00

I’VE been having an affair for seven years.

My wife of 16 years –we celebrated our anniversary October 22– has approved of it, most of the times.

I’m lucky since I married a woman who not only has an impeccable taste in cute things –none of which relates to me– but also was blessed with the patience of a monk.

A monk’s patience was also required for me to enter this affair that began in 2003 with a phone call from Arnold, who was then a reporter covering the central bank beat for the Manila Times.

The call arrived as I was waiting for a squid to turn brown on a grill under a makeshift canopy in the middle of the dessert. That’s how I describe that field between a cemented subdivision and the tree-lined hill in Zambales, the province inundated by volcanic ash from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

That call started my affair, not with Arnold, now the Times’s business editor, but with journalism, the Philippine version.

It’s been said that journalism hasn’t been kind to marriage.

I’ve heard stories of couples who broke up because the journalist spouse spent more time chasing a story and out of the home than on a chaise lounge watching romantic TV shows like The Walking Dead.

I’ve also heard stories of fathers missing their children’s important activities in school.

I recall being out of the country when the school principal called my wife to an urgent meeting because a bully mistook my daughter for a wimp. My wife dutifully chided my daughter for using an expensive Parker pen in stabbing the bully‘s arm. As her punishment, my wife cut short their usual 2-hour-long dinner in our favorite pizza place.

I agreed she could’ve used a cheaper pen.

The pizza, and of course, time with my family, is one of the high costs of this affair I have with journalism.

I want to emphasize this is the Philippine version of journalism because the affair requires high costs. One of these costs is the price of beer, which increases in reverse proportion to my ability to pay during trysts with those also having their own jealously-guarded affairs with journalism.

Yes, there are also people like me who have maintained affairs with journalism but kept their marriage and the sanity of their spouses intact.

For some, doing so was as easy as PAG-ASA predicting a typhoon.

For my part, I never allowed my affair with journalism get the upper hand of my better half.

Like journalism, I learned it’s better to seek out and bare the truth –being true to my life partner, than allowing lies to cover up other lies.

Oh, there are arguments, over my inability to fend off the attraction of creditors, for one.

But being truthful has kept us together everyday for nearly a decade now.

That’s why this affair with journalism, the Philippine version, is something I intend to keep.

Fail: touch pad directory

2010-10-21T19:48:00.000+08:00

There's a new kind of shop in this mall that caters to "Photogoraphers."

Animahenasyon 2010

2010-10-20T16:08:00.001+08:00

How GSIS killed a mother

2010-10-19T18:19:00.001+08:00

Good read. Hope GSIS can.

http://raissarobles.com/2010/10/19/gsis-killed-my-mother/

News Video: Netsuite

2010-10-15T16:22:00.000+08:00

[Video of Netsuite Inc. chief executive Zach Nelson in a press conference Thursday on Oneworld.ph. Video taken by Dennis Estopace, reporter, using a mobile phone.]

News Video: Netsuite

2010-10-15T15:50:00.001+08:00

[Video of Netsuite Inc. chief executive Zach Nelson in a press
conference Thursday on Oneworld.ph. Video taken by Dennis Estopace,
reporter, using a mobile phone.]

News Video: Telus Philippines's president J. Infante

2010-10-12T14:23:00.000+08:00

[This video by Dennis Estopace requires a Quicktime player.]

World Bank Contest

2010-10-08T12:58:00.001+08:00

The World Bank Group kicked off on Thursday its "Apps for Development"
competition, the first global contest of its kind.
In a statement datelined Washington, the WB said it challenges
"software developers and international experts around the world to
enter the contest."
Entries must be filed by January 10, 2011.
"Help change the world by using the World Bank's data collection to
help find solutions to today's development challenges," the statement
quoted president Robert B. Zoellick as saying.
"Create applications to analyze and tackle the world's long-standing problems."
The competition challenges developers to create software applications,
tools, data visualizations or "mash-ups" –whether web-based, mobile,
through SMS, smart phone, desktop, or tablet.
There are only two requirements for entries: use the World Bank Data
Catalog and address one of the eight Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).
"The World Bank is seeking creative 'apps' that bring ground level
insights of the development challenges posed by the MDGs," the
statement also quoted WBG development research data group director
Shaida Badiee.
"Our collection of global data on the economy, human development and
the environment is a remarkable resource. The apps created in this
competition will allow policy makers, researchers, and civil society
to track the impact of policies, develop new solutions, and measure
improvements more accurately."
"We'd like to see examples of developers everywhere using our data and
combining it with their own data to build really useful applications
addressing local problems. That's the power of crowdsourcing
innovation and that's the essence of the challenge," the statement
also quoted World Bank Institute innovation practice manager Aleem
Walji.

Monday

2010-10-07T15:40:00.001+08:00

October 4, 2010 / Monday [682 words]

ABOVE-NORMAL pitch voices and Steppenwolf crooning about a Highway to
Hell brought me out of slumber at 7:00 a.m. It's going to be a good
day.
I slid out of the beige cotton sheets at the same time admonishing my
youngest daughter to finish her cup of warm chocolate.
"Hurry up. We're gonna be late for school," I said gently rubbing her
hair and then telling her 17-year-old yaya to put a little bit of cold
water in the cup.
After doing so for my own cup of hot coffee, I browsed through the
files I downloaded Saturday but which I failed to do so Sunday as I
cleaned up the room and files that have been wanting my attention
since August.
The trip to my daughter's school, run by the local Protestant church,
was uneventful, thankfully. She told me we were 20 minutes early for
the 8:30 class and I asked her why so.
"There's going to be a birthday party," she beamed. I mentally kicked
myself for not bringing a gift she can share with the celebrant and
her classmate whose parents, I know from experience, are going to feed
the 18 students in my daughter's senior kindergarten class.
There and then I remembered forgetting two items even after having
packed the night before the things I planned to bring with me Monday:
my mother's senior citizen ID card and the gift for my daughter's
classmate.
When I checked my To-Do list for the day, I noticed forgetting to list
these items.
It has been difficult for me to schedule in detail in advance –as in
months ahead– my activities and items to prepare for a particular day.
I can't seem to resign from the fact that as a general assignments
reporter for a newspaper precludes me from doing so.
I have used PERT-CPM and followed Peter Drucker's advice to break down
every project into activities. The latter has been working so far but
it's still not a hundred percent effective since there's nothing
constant in my job except change.
My fellow reporter VG can attest to my meticulous drawings of matrices
on pieces of paper recycled from press releases and hand-outs. I
divide the free white space into seven columns and two rows where I
place the days, dates, and the activities I plan to do so on each box.
Just one call from the desk will make me crumple the schedule rendered
useless because of a reportorial assignment.
I can imagine those in the police beat who can't predict a murder or
suicide of a member of a prominent family. The recent hostage-taking
incident would have thrown a wrench into their schedule.
"Hey, honey about that lunch, can we move it later? Oh, wait,
someone's firing a gun. Raincheck?"
Good thing there's nothing like that over the weekend. For VG,
however, he says he's cursed since many marine accidents almost always
occur either late Friday evening or early Saturday morning, after he's
scheduled a free time with his wife.
"Dear, about that road trip to the north, can we move it nearer the
sea or along the coast line? There's a good place near the Coast Guard
office."
So I rely on lists. I list the activities to do before taking a shower
and where to go after having put on my clothes. I list these almost
two weeks before the day they're planned to be accomplished.
You can call it being anal but the system has helped contain my sanity
in the ever-changing world of hunting or writing the next story.
Listing has also given me the illusion that there is order in what I
do. And it's also fun putting a red checkmark on my accomplishments
for the day –like brewing coffee– and a circle for the things
unaccomplished –like doing research or writing the story bumped so far
ahead of its deadline.
For the more valuable things, however, like painting a smile on my
daughter's face for having me bring her to school, which is a rarity,
it's a list always written in my heart.
***
News agencies carried reports on President Benigno Aquino III's dance
with the Catholic church on reproductive health issues and the offer
of some fraternities of reward for the capture of the bomber who threw
a grenade in last week's bar examination at the De La Salle University
in Taft, Manila.

***
New website visited: www.ranker.com, which lists the top of whatever,
submitted by readers.
***
Quote of the Day: "Innovation is not the product of logical thought,"
Albert Einstein as quoted by Mac Taylor in CSI NY's episode on
"nexting."
***
New word of the Day: "Nexting" (v.) the process of hitting a key on
the keyboard to meet a random person in a video-chat feed.

[Photo of Makati skyline after an evening downpour. Taken via Nokie
e63 from a table of two drunks near Makati Medical Center.]

Vendors say new site for San Mateo’s public market ‘environmentally hazardous’

2010-10-02T20:04:00.000+08:00

[Guest post: Ivy A. Garcia, University of Santo Tomas Journalism program]
SAN MATEO, RIZAL—VENDORS operating in a public market at Brgy. Gitnang Bayan II here said the relocation of this municipality’s decades-old public market to an area near the Marikina River poses many environmental hazards.

The San Mateo Public Market will be refurbished for the building of a planned Pamantasan ng Bayan ng San Mateo and the marketplace will be transferred to Kambal Road that’s not near to both the San Mateo Dumpsite (a waste transfer station) and to a slaughterhouse, but also near the San Mateo River.

Speaking on behalf of the market’s vendors, Atty. Gioan Legazpi said market vendors plan to file a water pollution control and abatement case against the San Mateo local government before the Pollution Adjudication Board of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA).

The opposition stems largely from the environmental hazards and alleged violations of some existing laws that the relocated public market’s new location will pose.

Legaspi said it is okay to relocate the public market to a place that is not a hazard-prone area like the planned one in Kambal Road.

Legaspi approximates that the new site for the public market is less than 10 meters from the river bank.

Legaspi cites Presidential Decree 1067, or the Water Code of the Philippines, where article 51 provides that “the banks of rivers and streams, and the shores of the seas and lakes throughout their entire length and within a zone… of 20 meters in agricultural areas and 40 meters in forest areas… to the easement of public use (for) recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing and salvage.”

“No person shall be allowed to stay in this zone longer than what is necessary for recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing, or salvage or to build structures of any kind,” article 51 of PD 1067 provides.

Legaspi also said local officials of San Mateo failed to secure an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) from DENR for the new site of the public market. As well, the planned site of the public market also lacked an environmental impact statement system, this being required by Presidential Decree 1586.

Since the new site is also near the Laguna Lake, Legaspi said constructing the market in the planned site has no “discharge permit” from LLDA.

According to Republic Act 4850 that created the LLDA, a discharge permit is the authorization LLDA gives to any industry or establishment that discharges any liquid wastes or regulated effluents to the Laguna Lake.

The proposed site of the new public market is, Legaspi claims, even near the San Mateo Waste Transfer Station. Thus, Legaspi says the site violates section 15 of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, or RA 9003, which provides that no establishment shall be set up within 200 meters from open or controlled dumps, or from sanitary landfills.

School for a market

The existing site of San Mateo’s public market was once a patch of land since the early 1950s, and vendors covered their stalls with umbrellas or cloth. In 1992, during the time of former San Mateo Mayor Amo Santos, this patch of land was cemented and a two-storey building was constructed.

“Maria,” who has been a vendor at the market for 44 years, said the facility “is still a public market”.

But the construction of the second storey was left unfinished and unused until the administration of then Mayor Jose “Peping” Diaz finished construction and made the second floor a local college.

This school, called the Pamantasan ng San Mateo, is sometimes called “U.P.” for “upper palengke [market]”.

Maria said the planned location for the public market is rarely visited because the area’s foul smell comes from the San Mateo landfill, and “it floods there easily” since the San Mateo River is just a “few meters” behind.

But current San Mateo Mayor Jose Rafael “Paeng” Diaz, son of the older Diaz, said protestors are people “who hate discomfort and who don’t want to be relocated” since they have been used to being in the old place.

As for the waste transfer station in Kambal Road, Diaz said it will be moved to a sanitary landfill in Brgy. Pintong Bukauwe, which has been operating since 1990.

Diaz added the site of the new San Mateo public market will have a site development plan, a larger parking area, and a “more organized” drainage system.

As well, Diaz said the new market will also have a sewage treatment plan to cover the waste water coming from the planned market’s wet section.

This is unlike the current market, Diaz claims, where the waste water system goes straight to San Mateo’s drainage system.

“So it will be cleaner [in the wet section of new public market’s site]. Nobody will fall even when the area’s slippery; no rats and cockroaches will roam around. There will also be a more orderly electrical system compared to the existing market’s electrical system that looks like a spaghetti,” Diaz said.

The Pamantasan ng Bayan ng San Mateo has been a plan of former Mayor Jose “Peping” Diaz.

In the current Pamantasan that has 600 enrollees, tuition fees per semester cost only P4,000. Before, the tuition is only P2,000 per semester.

Mayor Diaz also said that current place of the old market is an ideal site for the Pamantasan ng Bayan ng San Mateo, because it is at the center of the town,

The relocation of the market in Gitnang Bayan II may also ease traffic on the main road, the younger Diaz said.

[Disclaimer: This article was edited by Ms. Garcia’s professor Jeremaiah M. Opiniano. To reach the author, email: vhygarcia_04@yahoo.com]

News [Archive]: RP firms behind Asian neighbors’ in governance ranking

2010-09-30T18:47:00.001+08:00

[Submitted by Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, to BusinessMirror on Sept. 26, 2010.]

A RESEARCH being sold for US$350 tagged Philippine companies as lagging those in eight other Asian nations in governance.

Responsible Research Pte. Ltd. ranked the Philippines as just a notch above the People's Republic of China but at the ninth position according to the research firm's proprietary Asian Sustainability Rating (ASR) for 2010.

"Outside of a few top-performing companies the Philippines universe is characterized by widespread non-disclosure," the Singapore-based company said in a statement.

"Reflecting on the deeply entrenched culture of corporate philanthropy many companies see sustainability as the activities of the company foundation rather than an embedded part of corporate practice," it added.

Responsible Research noted that two companies in the Philippines ranked low among 542 publicly-listed companies it applied ASR with.

Food and beverage conglomerates San Miguel Corp. and Jollibee Foods Corp. were in the 474th and 502nd position, respectively, among the total rated firms. Responsible Research gave a low 11 percent to San Miguel while Jollibee was ascribed nine percent.

The highest is a hundred percent ASR to which no company reached. The highest rating of 87 percent was ascribed by Responsible Research to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. The lowest ASR of three percent were ascribed to five companies, two of which were domiciled in Taiwan and one each in India (Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd.), Indonesia (PT Delta Dunia Makmur Tbk.), and South Korea (GS Holdings Corp.).

South Korea led the ASR per country ranking, followed by India, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

In the statement, Responsible Research said its ASR methodology "is based on a set of 100 sustainability indicators, split into four … categories –General, Environment, Social and Governance, which cover disclosure on the main elements of ESG [environment, social and governance] risk."

According to the report released mid-September, Responsible Research scored all companies "across the same ESG factors based on publicly available information only."

"In order that the end results are as unbiased as possible, there is no engagement or questionnaire of the companies in the methodology."

The firm's statement, however, contradicts this when it said that "few companies in our universe are willing to provide a direct named contact for ESG queries from stakeholders."

"Normally, when a contact is given, it is often someone in the PR or corporate communications office, revealing a commonly held belief in Asia that sustainability reporting is more of a marketing tool to prove a company's 'green' credentials," it added.

Two other companies in the Philippines fared better in the ASR: Ayala Land Inc. (ALI), ranking 15 of the total 532 companies, and Manila Water Co. (MWC) at 64. Both, to note, are subsidiaries of Ayala Corp.

ALI was given a 78-percent ASR while MWC got 61 percent.

The report said that it analysed 20 companies in the Philippines, which got a 29% country ASR, tailing Hong Kong with 33-percent ASR, but ahead of China that was given a 20-percent ASR.

"Outside of the top three or four companies, our Philippines universe is characterised by a widespread lack of disclosure on environmental and social indicators and mostly immaterial reporting in general," the report said.

It added: "Reflecting on the deeply entrenched culture of paternalistic corporate philanthropy, many companies in the Philippines see sustainability as the company Foundations' activities, rather than an embedded part of business practice."

The Philippines, to note, had the lowest free float market capitalization of US$20 billion among the ten countries. China has the highest free float market capitalization at US$1.951 trillion.

Responsible Research said that companies included in the ASR who "would like to access [its] full indicator breakdown" can do so by paying the equivalent of P15,050 (at US$1=P43).

US media titan Bradley asks RP rich help for child protection

2010-09-29T17:06:00.001+08:00

[Submitted by Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, to BusinessMirror Sept. 28, 2010. Published Sept. 29, 2010. Photo here courtesy of CPNFI.]

AMERICAN publisher David G. Bradley has called on the Philippines's wealthiest to sustain programs against child abuse of the group he funded out of his personal pockets since 1997.

"There's an unbelievable concern for children and energy for their protection from the Filipino people. And the Philippines went from student to an authority on child protection," Bradley, currently owner of the Atlantic Media Co., said from Washington via online video feed.

Bradley spoke to reporters days after facilitating the 90-minute audience of US-based media with President Benigno Aquino III in Washington, D.C., United States, where the 56-year-old media titan also lives.

He said the work of the Philippines to curb child abuse has brought it the responsibility to raise the issue to the regional level.

Bradley referred to the group he established 13 years ago, the Child Protection Unit, now Child Protection Network Foundation Inc., which he said has the largest database of cases at 7,505 for 2009 only.

"It's the first professional society on child protection and offers a lot of research that can address this problem."

Lawyer Katrina Legarda said that the problem of child abuse is compounded by the spike in cases of gang-rape that the CPNFI is currently documenting.

These, she said, usually involves drug abuse and bullies in schools.

"So if you have daughters, warn them on their friends, especially if these are boys," she said adding that parents should also guide children on online social networking sites.

Bradley also noted that most of the cases of abuse his group recorded show seven of 10 are children of overseas Filipino women workers.

"That this monstrous crime is happening to a country with lots of good people, to a Catholic country, is incredulous."

CPNFI board president Irene Martel Francisco said that their CPU in the Philippine General Hospital receives an annual average of 1,145 children.

Legarda said ten percent of 114 comes from Cavite.

The Foundation has 34 centers across the country and Francisco said they want to have one in each province or a total of 81 within the next five years.

She added that they are targeting to raise P4 million in a charity ball in November to start working on this goal.

Francisco said that only P9,576 is needed a year for a child to survive abuse once he or she is brought to one of their centers.

The amount would cover medical check up and medicines, legal fees, psychological counseling, and home visits by social workers.

"It's a small amount considering the big effect the services provided to a child."

Francisco, however, clarified that Bradley wouldn't stop from funding the Foundation's work.

"I'm doing this because of the relationships I've nurtured with the Filipinos since I was there when I was 21," Bradley said.

Schneider Electric reaction on blog entry

2010-09-28T21:54:00.001+08:00

[The press relations agency tapped by Schneider Electric Philippines Inc. sent an electronic mail seeking corrections on my previous entry titled "Schneider re-enters data center market." Am publishing the mail, with some editing, to wit:]

"Dear Dennis,

Thanks so much for accommodating my call and my request. As discussed on the phone, we would like to make the following corrections on your blog:

1. The …more appropriate title would be "APC by Schneider Electric strengthens their position in the data center market." APC [American Power Corp.] never left the data center market. APC however merged with MGE UPS and eventually the proper rebranding is "APC by Schneider Electric" – with Schneider Electric being the mother company of MGE UPS. The company should always be referred to as Schneider Electric because there is another company called Schneider – and more popularly known in the pen and writing equipment business.

2. Eastern Telecommunications is just among the recent data center case studies that agreed to a press announcement. As a proof point that this does not commence their re-entry into data center, they have also previously made joint announcements with RCBI, CIGI, and IP-Converge, among others.

3. We commend you for being resourceful and getting the SEC figures for Schneider Electric. However, just to clarify we would like to point out that the SE tag does not yet include APC, which is still under MGE tag. While your source maybe an official SEC paper, we think this should be pre-qualified since the announcement last Friday comes from Schneider Electric's IT Business Unit – or what we officially brand as "APC by Schneider Electric".

Perhaps not having the Schneider Electric Philippines financial figure in the article would be most appreciated since the business unit you are interested in is still undergoing the restructuring, which we are not privileged to access....if you would consider.

Again, many thanks for your continued support. We appreciate your taking time to attend our events, coming up with the most intelligent and challenging questions and for taking time to initiate your own researches.

News: Schneider re-enters data center market

2010-09-27T10:28:00.001+08:00

[Submitted by: Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, for BusinessMirror
September 27, 2010]

FRENCH firm Schneider Electric (Phils.) Inc. has re-introduced its
power support products in the Philippine data center market after
sales and income dropped last year.
Schneider re-launched on Friday the upgraded version of its product
targeting businesses relying on computer servers.
According to Kevin Hughes, the company's manager for cooling products
in Asia-Pacific and Japan, the decision to reintroduce products
launched in January is based on results of a June 2009 survey that
revealed majority of chief information officers prioritize modular
cooling as a design for data centers.
It's still relevant because the technology we have in the United
States "relate to what's happening here and is also applicable,"
Hughes said.
Cooling has been a requirement for power-hungry computers used by many
data centers that rely on continuous operation of their equipment.
According to Hughes, a high-density data center requires more air and
more cables.
"Power usage is the number one issue for most large-company IT
executives over the next two to four years," Hughes's colleague Sim
Chia Wei said.
Wei, business development manager for Asean, added that another market
trend is that "physical infrastructure costs will equal, and then
surpass, [information technology] equipment costs."
"Market conditions are perfect for introducing management tools to
effectively manage the physical environment," he told reporters in a
press conference.
Schneider introduced an upgraded version of its infrastructure
products after the company entered the new year with a 19.89-percent
drop in net sales to P601.5 million from P750.94 million in December
2008. The drop in sales was despite cutting cost of sales by 22.9
percent to P392.6 million from P509.2 million in 2008, according to
the firm's latest report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Schneider's Philippine office also saw its net income drop by 17.43
percent in 2009 to P57.21 million from P69.3 million in the previous
year.
The company, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of France-incorporated
Schneider Electric SA, also said in its financial statement to the SEC
that it reduced its employees in 2009, slightly increasing its
miscellaneous expense to P3.748 million.
But while costs for salaries, wages and benefits to employees went
down by 16.59 percent to 70.27 million, only 0.82 percent or P203,229
was cut for its management fees from P27.57 million in 2008.
Schneider is banking on a new deal by its business unit American Power
Conversion Corp. (APC) with Eastern Telecommunications Philippines
Inc. to support the company's re-entry into the data center market.
A statement said APC would supply solutions for the data center and
manage and oversee the project. IBM Philippines Inc. will implement
the project, the statement added.
Country sales manager Ian de la Rosa said during the press conference
the products would be imported from a Schneider manufacturing unit in
other countries.
"There are still no indications when these will be manufactured in our
plant [in Rosario, Cavite]."

Archive News: Despite low cash, Lenovo exec upbeat on RP

2010-09-25T15:07:00.001+08:00

[Submitted by Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, to BusinessMirror
September 01, 2010]

THE local executive of the world's fourth-largest computer maker is
upbeat Lenovo will expand its Philippine operations, despite beginning
the year with low cash.
"The double-digit [10.2-percent] market share that we now enjoy is
very important. As you gain more market share, you see you're on the
road to profitability and you can scale up the business in terms of
other avenues," Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. Philippine Representative
Office executive Maria Victoria Agorrilla said.
Agorrilla, Lenovo country general manager, spoke to BusinessMirror
after Lenovo announced year-over-year sales of US$5.1 billion in its
first quarter ended June.
The Beijing, China-headquartered manufacturer that bought the computer
segment of US firm International Business Machine (IBM) Corp. said in
a statement dated August 19 that the volume of its computer shipments
during its first fiscal quarter was double than industry expectations
at 48.1 percent worldwide.
"Net cash reserves as of June 30 totaled US$2.2 billion," the statement added.
The company's Philippine sales office, on the other hand, began its
operations with 96.29-percent lower cash at P0.662 million compared to
when it began with P17.895 million in 2009, the company said in its
financial report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Lenovo said in its report to the SEC that its representative office
"doesn't earn or derive income from operations in the Philippines."
All of its expenses are financed solely by its head office in
Singapore, it added.
To note, remittance from the Singapore head office to the Philippines
for fiscal year 2010 went down by 48.90 percent to P11.04 million from
P21.62 million in the company's previous fiscal year that begins
April.
But while Agorrilla said company policies restrict what she can
announce, she noted that Lenovo has identified the consumer and small
businesses segment as "growth areas" in the Philippines.
"In the enterprise segment, we already have a foothold because of the
IBM heritage, so we have to look into new markets for growth. The
consumer and small business are growth areas for us, that's why we're
putting a lot of efforts to capture those two markets."
Currently, Lenovo is selling computers in the Philippines under its
Think and Idea series that begin above US$500 each. The company's
laptop computers segment remains its biggest source of revenue with a
60.5-percent share in worldwide sales.
After re-purchasing the mobile business it sold, Lenovo said it has
launched its smartphone business in China during the first quarter
that began April this year.
"We're part of the brands that really saw the influx of mobile users
in the Philippines. More people are tuning up to mobile internet
devices and eventually there will be phones like these," Agorrilla
said.
However, she added there's "no specific date for this part of the
world" for the launch of Lenovo's smartphone.
"But if we're doing well, then we should be there [in the smartphone market]."
Lenovo's Philippine business is operated by ten employees, according
to its filing with the SEC. It is also tax-exempt being a
non-generating revenue enterprise.

News: Newly-independent software firm says RP still Asia base

2010-09-25T14:56:00.000+08:00

[Submitted by Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, to BusinessMirror, August 26, 2010.]

HAVING exited from Emerson Electric Co., business software-maker
LANDesk Software Inc. said Thursday it will retain the Philippines as
its operations base for Southeast Asia.
"We see areas where we can grow faster in Southeast Asia and Asia,
particularly China. We see there's a right staff in the Philippines to
be the headquarter for Southeast Asia," LANDesk vice-president for
Asia-Pacific Andrew Ruse said three days after the company announced
its purchase by Thoma Bravo LLC.
The Salt Lake City, Utah, US-based LANDesk makes software to manage
computers in a business like doing an inventory of its machines or how
many computers it has as well as the software installed in these
computers. Ruse said they also make and sell security products running
on a network of computers. Some of these security features are
installed as part of laptop computers made by Lenovo Corp., a Lenovo
executive said.
LANDesk was originally with Intel Corp. when its a hundred or so
employees put up a separate company in 2002. It was bought by Avocent
in 2006, which was subsequently bought by Emerson in October last
year.
The company has been operating in the Philippines through Avocent
subsidiary Touchpaper and then through Emerson.
Ruse said that after the Emerson purchase of Avocent, they asked
management to help them spin off.
"There were many options but we settled the best would be tapping
private equity," Ruse said adding they saw Alabama-based firm Thoma
Bravo as a "good fit."
While Ruse said they can't disclose the purchase amount, LANDesk
claims to have contributed to the 20-percent annual revenue growth of
Avocent.
He said they are still targeting a 20-percent growth this year but may
have to "wait for the expectations of our new bosses [in Thoma
Bravo]." Ten of its 800 employees worldwide are in the Philippines.
Ruse also shares the optimism the firm's operations Philippines can
carve a share in the US$2.1-billion global enterprise management
software market and the US$2.5-billion business security management
software market.
A statement quoted LANDesk chief executive Steve Daly as saying that
the company eyes the "500 million personal computers with five billion
Internet-protocol connected devices in the corporate environment
today."
"When you make money and have a good product, everybody wants you,"
Ruse said on the day he flies to Hong Kong to check on LANDesk's
operations there.
He said the company has filed incorporation papers to the Philippine
Securities and Exchange Commission but the Thoma Bravo acquisition
will still be completed end-September.
No figures were disclosed.

Demolition

2010-09-24T16:56:00.001+08:00

[Blogger's Note: The post below was based on an email sent by Urban
Missionaries-AMRSP on September 23, 2010, citing Rommel Yamzon as
source.]

FOUR residents were injured after government employees attempted to
evict informal settlers on a land near a shopping mall in the former
Philippine capital.
According to a document sent by Church-based nonprofit group Urban
Missionaries, the four were: Nita Estabillo, 47; Florebi Agasita, 30;
Teody Gacer, 54; and, Alberto Cavosa, 60.
The four were residents of a plot of land named after a French
Catholic saint in a village called Bagong Pag-Asa (New Hope) where
violence reportedly ensued when employees of the National Housing
Authority (NHA) attempted to evict around 600 families living there,
according to the documentation of the Task Force Detainees of the
Philippines (TFDP).
The report said these employees carried mallets, pickaxes and crowbars
apparently as tools to demolish the self-built houses of these
families who "refused" the demolition.
The report added that the four suffered bruises when the settlers and
the demolition team members threw stones and debris against each
other.
The UM document noted that a firetruck's water cannon was also used
against the settlers.
The report noted that "the demolition team was able to enter the area
and destroy several shanties located at the northern side of the
community."
While the document cited about 300 police were in the area, it didn't
say what action these personnel used to prevent, stop or encourage the
violence.
The UM report suspects that Ayala Land Inc. moved to demolish the
informal settlers' homes because it plans to develop a business and
commercial district on the property, which is owned by the NHA.
The report claims the publicly-listed company of the Zobel de Ayala
clan will spend about
P22 billion project to develop the 29.1-hectare property.
"Residents have refused an offer to be relocated at a resettlement
site in Montaban, Rizal citing poor living conditions, high
transportation costs and lack of amenities, such as water and
electricity. Community leaders demand an on-site relocation since
their source of livelihood is only within the metro. They insist that
the government should instead build a medium or high-rise building
where they would all live in. Moreover, community organizations are
currently lobbying to have a moratorium to suspend all demolition and
evictions against informal settlers."
The UM document is asking fellow Filipinos to write to government
authorities "urging them to:
Call upon competent authorities to carry out a prompt, effective,
thorough, independent and impartial investigation into these events,
and ensure that adequate, effective and prompt reparation, is granted
to the victims;
Strictly observe the Urban Development and Housing Act or UDHA
(Republic Act 7279) that lays down the mandatory requirements for the
valid execution of eviction and demolition orders;
Guarantee the respect of human rights and the fundamental freedoms
throughout the country in accordance with international human rights
standards."
Government authorities named included President Benigno Aquino III,
who is in the United States for top-level meetings as well as to grace
a fund-raising event organized by the Ayala Foundation Inc.
For additional information, please contact: Task Force Detainees of
the Philippines (TFDP) / 45 St. Mary Street , Cubao, Quezon City 1109,
Philippines / Telephone: (632) 4378054 / facsimile: (632) 9113643 /
email: tfdp1974@yahoo.com / website: www.tfdp.net

Media coverage of 2010 Philippine polls

2010-09-22T19:01:00.000+08:00

Video of University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication former Dean Luis Teodoro citing points of study of media coverage of the Philippine national elections last May 2010. Video by Dennis D. Estopace, September 22, 2010, JV del Rosario Conference Room, Asian Institute of Management Conference Center, Makati City.

Journalism: Looking at the Roof from the Basement

2010-09-20T13:41:00.001+08:00

MONDAY will be the last of two lectures I and fellow BusinessMirror

newspaper reporter Villy Cabuag would give to a class of junior
journalism students of the University of Sto, Tomas.
It is, indeed, ironic since just when I was beginning to like giving a
lecture, it had to end. Some good things never last, as the cliché
goes.

It's not the money that makes giving the lecture a good thing. The only payment we get is booze and food paid out of the hallowed pockets of UST Professor Jeremaiah Opiniano.

[Photo shows Professor Opiniano and reporter Cabuag preparing slide presentation at Rm. 204 of the UST. Photo by dde/Sep. 15, 2010.]

Half-dragging us out of the beer table, Jeremaiah –the only one sober among a pack of hungry, beer-thirsty, and fat-packed reporters– thought our experience as journalists is credible enough to subject

third year students to the whimsical wisdoms of two dork-looking guys.
Though mistaken, we avoided giving Jeremaiah a heartache, so we indulged him, foolishly believing that journalism professors are half-serious in teaching.
What we shared last September 15 to his Wednesday evening class we generally would repeat tonight at 7:30 p.m.
Villy is expected to cite his experience in covering the beat –the routine and the lack of it, as well as offer some tips for those who are crazy enough like us to tread the path we've taken.
Villy's lecture would hopefully prepare the students who will go on an internship prior to their climb to senior year.
I also plan to make the students answer three multiple-choice format questions I asked the students the other night. To wit:

1. I want to become a journalist because: (a) I want to be famous; (b)
It's the easiest way to earn; (c) It looks like a cool job; (d) I want
to change society; (e) all of the above; and, (f) none of the above.
2. I'll be good in journalism because: (a) I have the looks; (b) I'm
talented; (c) I'm gung-ho; (d) I have the heart for it; (e) all of the
above; and, (f) none of the above.
3. A successful journalist is (a) famous and well-known; (b) rich;
(c) hard-working; (d) ___________ (place any name here); (e) all of
the above; and, (f) none of the above.

Basically, the questions provide a self-exercise (a) to allow students
to check their motivation; (b) to see their views on journalists; and,
(c) as a segue to my discussion points.
These discussion points became more relevant at the gab fest of
journalists called MediaNation at the Taal Vista Lodge, Tagaytay, over
the weekend.
Sponsored by the Asia Foundation and the US Embassy in the
Philippines, the conference was participated by journalists of all
shapes and sizes, types of media, and stature: from the diva to the
deviants; from the old hands to the heading old; and, from the
Manila-based to the barrio-mastered.
The point I emphasized, which Atty. Raul Pangalangan thanked me for
expressing, is the power structure involved, regardless of new or old
media.
Filipino journalists, based on my experience in the field, are at the
mercy of their owners and the market.
Aside from keeping faithful to their profession, Filipino journalists
have to strive harder to avoid getting co-opted by the system or,
because they refuse to do so, getting axed.
As I recommended to Jeremaiah's students, journalists have to develop
their market value to at least have leverage in achieving the lofty
levels of professionalism.
Nonetheless, there were two good points raised during the 2-day
MediaNation Conference that I may add in my lecture Monday: developing
the collective market value of journalists at the bottom of the
pyramid and getting by with the cards dealt.
By doing so, I hope, our professionalism will save us and ultimately
save the profession.

NASA says Cebu astronomer records Jupiter flash

2010-09-11T19:13:00.001+08:00

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(http://www.nasa.gov) said an amateur astronomer from Cebu was one of
several enthusiasts able to record objects that burned up in Jupiter's
atmosphere on Aug. 20.
A statement dated September 10 said that Christopher Go of Cebu
"confirmed the flash also appeared in his recordings."
"Professional astronomers, alerted by email, looked for signs of the
impact in images from larger telescopes, including NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in
Chile, and Gemini Observatory telescopes in Hawaii and Chile."
Go was one of the amateur astronomers using backyard telescopes who
NASA said were the first to detect a small object that burned up in
Jupiter's atmosphere on Aug. 20.
Professional astronomers at NASA and other institutions followed up on
the discovery and gathered detailed information on the objects, which
produced bright spots on Jupiter.
It was the second fireball that amateur astronomers detected. The
first was on June 3.
The June 3 fireball released five to 10 times less energy than the
1908 Tunguska meteoroid, which exploded 4-6 miles above Earth's
surface with a powerful burst that knocked down millions of trees in a
remote part of Russia. The second, on Aug. 20, was first detected by
Japanese amateur astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa.
"It flashed for about 1.5 seconds and left no debris observable by a
large telescope," the statement said.
It added that "scientists continue to analyze the Aug. 20 fireball,
but think it was comparable to the June 3 object."
"It is interesting to note that while Earth gets smacked by a
10-meter-sized object about every 10 years on average, it looks as
though Jupiter gets hit with the same-sized object a few times each
month," the statement quoted, JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office
manager Don Yeomans as saying.
The statement added that "scientists saw no thermal disruptions or
typical chemical signatures of debris, which allowed them to put a
limit on the size of the object."
"Based on the data, the astronomers deduced the flash came from an
object - probably a small comet or asteroid - burning up in Jupiter's
atmosphere. The object likely had a mass of about 1-4 million pounds,
about 100,000 times lighter than another object that hit Jupiter in
July 2009."
Images and videos of the two impacts can be viewed at:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/jupiter20100909.html

News: QC court rules vs. firm of Noynoy’s uncle

2010-09-10T14:50:00.001+08:00

THE Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) ruled to dismiss the case
filed against MRT Development Corp. (MRT Devco) by Trackworks Rail
Transit Advertising, Vending and Promotions Inc., an advertising firm
chaired by President Benigno S. Aquino Jr.'s uncle.
In a copy of the court's decision given to BusinessMirror, Assistant
City Prosecutor Reuben Ritzuko T. Veradio said that it recommends the
case filed by Trackworks "be dismissed for lack of probable cause and
for lack of evidence."
The decision last month by the QC-RTC is the fifth loss in a string of
lawsuits filed by Trackworks against executives of MRT Devco and its
new advertising manager Media Puzzle Inc. (formerly Progressive Global
Trading Services Inc.).
The court document said the complaint of Trackworks, which is chaired
by Herminio S. Aquino, began when government employees "brought down
its giant billboards on the extreme sides of EDSA" when typhoon
Milenyo struck Metro Manila in September 2006.
That time, Trackworks is on a second contract lasting ten years
beginning December 2005 with MRT Devco.
This contract renews the first that granted Trackworks "the exclusive
advertising rights to undertake activities related to the
conceptualization, design and sale of advertising space, media and
promotion events in and outside the premises of the MRT," the company
said in its recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company's SEC filing added that "the contract covers the interior
and exterior areas of all 13 stations and railway structured owned by
the MRT DevCo, as well as the interiors and exteriors of 73 trains
cars."
In its latest financial report to the SEC, Trackworks posted
advertising revenue of P265.25 million in 2004, which was higher by
50.32 percent than the advertising revenue in the previous year of
P176.45 million.
Its net income also zoomed by more than 200 percent to P39.69 million
in 2004 from P12.36 million the previous year.
That time, Trackworks had a total of eight officers, 66 rank and file
employees and 74 manpower complement.
Aquino, which owns 251,660 common shares of the total 11,554,009
shares, is the half brother of the President's late father Senator
Benigno Aquino Jr.
The company filed its complaint after Media Puzzle reportedly
installed its own tarpaulin ad on Trackworks' advertising structure or
billboard on April 30, 2010.
To note, Media Puzzle is owned by five shareholders owning 20 percent
each of the company that had a paid up capital of P625,000 when it
registered with the SEC in 2008.
Based on court documents, Trackworks said it "lost possession of the
billboard in the amount of" P5 million "and was deprived of its right
to obtain advertising income" in the amount of P1 million a month.
However, the QC-RTC court said that since MRT DevCo terminated its
"lease-advertising" contract, the company "was within the bounds of
the law."
"Respondents could not be charged for grave coercion since their acts
are not "without authority of the law" even assuming …that their acts
have resulted in 'preventing Trackworks from doing something.'"
The court added that the respondents could also not be held liable for
robbery or malicious mischief, as Trackworks alleged, "since they did
not take any personal property by means of violence nor did they
deliberately caused damage to the property of another due to hate or
revenge."

[Originally submitted September 02, 2010, to BusinessMirror. Text and
photo by Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter. Photo of MRT Quezon Avenue
station stairs after a heavy downpour.]

News: RP realtors join foreigners in LEED bid

2010-09-09T18:40:00.001+08:00

[Submitted to BusinessMirror newspaper September 05, 2010. Photo by:
Dennis Estopace of Greenbelt 5, Makati City.]

PHILIPPINE businesses have joined the band-wagon in getting certified
by the United States' Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design
standard for new and existing buildings, according a LEED consultant.
Dean Barone, president of Barone International Inc., cited the
buildings vying for LEED certification include that of Zuellig Pharma
Corp.'s in Makati City; Aegis People Support in Cebu; and, Ayala Land
Inc.'s Nuvali Evotech One in Laguna. Likewise, three buildings in
Taguig City – Fort Bonifacio Development Corp.'s The Mind Museum,
Megaworld Corp.'s One Campus Place, and Sun Life Center– are also
seeking certification.
Others that submitted LEED certification checklist to the US Green
Building Council include the Asian Development Bank for their
headquarters in Manila, SM Development Corp. for its Aria building
project, the Centennial Hotel in Baguio City, the Arya Residential
Towers in Taguig, for its Shangri-la at the Fort also in Taguig, and
Makati Place in Makati.
According to Barone, a 100,000-square feet (sf) LEED building saves
US$1.50/sf in energy costs or US$150,000 annually in savings.
He said that an owner who invested US$400,000 in green technology and
standards to get the US$1.50/sf energy savings gets a US$4/sf premium.
The payback of investment is approximately 29 months, he said.
"Commercial real estate properties are valued as a multiple of 'net
operating income', or dividing the income by the capitalization rate
by roughly six percent. If the building reduced its annual energy
costs by US$150,000, the capitalized rate of 6% would result in an
incremental increase of property value by US$2.5 million," Barone said
in his presentation Thursday.
He added that the result of investing US$400,000 in annual savings of
US$150,000 would be to yield a return on investment of 625 percent.
"With a 6-percent annual capitalization rate, the green investments
add US$2.5 million to the value of the building (US$150,000 savings
divided by 6% rate) or an increase of US$25 per sf with an investment
of US$4/sf. This is equivalent to a net increase value of US$21sf,"
Barone claims.
He added that the value of the LEED project when completed would
increase from US$27.5 million to US$30 million.
"If the building owner or developer decided to sell their LEED
building, it is the norm for green buildings to command 30% premium
price over similar non-LEED buildings."
Already LEED-certified are the Texas Instruments' building in Clark,
Pampanga (gold) and the shared services building of Shell Shared
Services (Asia) B.V. in Makati City (silver).
The USGBC has four levels of LEED certification. A basic LEED
certification garners 40+ points, silver 50+, gold 60+, and platinum
80-100 points.
These points are given to buildings after scoring in key categories:
site sustainability (26-30 points possible); water efficiency (10-11
points possible); energy and atmosphere (35-37 points possible);
materials and resources used (14 points possible); quality of indoor
environment (15-16 points possible); and, innovation and design
process (6 points possible).
There are prerequisites, though, Barone said citing these as reducing
water use and energy consumption by 20 percent each, including
commissioning services for building systems, eliminating the use of
all CFC refrigerants, establishing a recycling program, and improving
the indoor air quality. Likewise, the building must ban cigarette
smoking in the area.
Citing USGBC data, Barone said green buildings are healthy because
"occupants are healthier and more productive."
"In the US, people spend, on average, 90% or more of their time
indoors. So since green buildings typically have better indoor air
quality and lighting, these, on average, save US$58 billion of sick
time from work annually and add US$180 billion in increased worker
productivity annually."
Barone said that existing buildings can be applied for certification.
Likewise, the USGBC, he said is piloting a certification of
neighborhood and communities.

Philippine Columbian Association

2010-09-08T15:40:00.001+08:00

Got this message on September 7 from my good friend Lourdes Berin,
executive director of the Urban Missionaries, missionary arm of the
Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines.

"Welga na po ngayon ang phil.Columbian union dhil sa dismissal ng 56
regular na mggwa pati opisyales. UNION BUSTING. 1 welgista kanina ang
sinagasaan ng 1 sasakyang ngpumilit pumasok sakay ang mga eskirol.
Anumang suporta ay maari nating ipaabot sa unyon upang patatagin ang
picketline."

Urban Missionaries can be reached at 7215916.

News: Scottish firm says to make RP manufacturing base for waste-to-energy machines

2010-08-27T15:25:00.001+08:00

[Originally sent August 10, 2010 for BusinessMirror newspaper by
Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter. Copyright of BusinessMirror. Photo
courtesy of Nana Nadal, public relations and events management for
Mackay Holdings Inc.]

MACKAY Holdings Inc. said they plan to infuse US$50 million (P2.35
billion) initially to build two to three factories to manufacture its
waste-to-energy turbines.
"The margins are there and there's a huge demand for these types of
technology," chairman and founder James Ronaldson Mackay told
reporters on Tuesday.
Mackay said they plan to export their turbines, which can convert 300
tons of solid waste into 150 tons of fuel pellets, to China and the
Middle East.
He claims executives from the Middle East are coming in to sign a
US$44.4-million contract to purchase the technology.
Terry Brown, president and chief executive of subsidiary Mackay Green
Energy Inc., said they also signed three joint-venture contracts on
Tuesday. One of these contracts, for a 2-megawatt turbine, is worth
US$4.8 million.
Brown explained they are initially considering the Subic Bay Freeport
Zone to build the plants.
He added that the average turbine, outfitted from a Rolls Royce jet
engine, with a 250-kilowatt per hour power, would be imported from
Australia. The 2-MW turbine would be shipped from the United States.
The first turbine's already arrived, according to Brown.
He added that the first turbine manufactured in the Philippines is
expected to be finished by early or mid-October this year.
"Between now and October, we're qualifying the contractors and
sub-contractors for the plants," Brown said.
He explained that a 250-kwh turbine, the smallest unit, can power
1,200 rural homes.
"It's portable and can be placed anywhere. However, we don't plan to
place it at the end of a 300-meter transmission line."
He added that a unit can be online after six months.
Mackay said that the equipment will be sold mainly to cooperatives or
local power distributors.
He added they already signed a 25-year joint venture contract with the
Baguio City government to install one machine.
Brown and Mackay said they're not worried of the supply of solid waste
that a 250-kwh unit will burn at 1,900 degrees centigrade.
Brown said they estimate that Metro Manila alone produces 10,000 tons
of solid waste a day.
"I'll be long gone before zero-waste happens," Mackay said.
Still, the turbine may need replacement after 15 years, he said.
Mackay estimates the global green energy market is valued at $48 billion.
Mackay Holdings is a privately-held company that has interests in the
properties, green energy, construction plant and equipment services,
and life sciences business.

For each child that's born

2010-08-24T19:33:00.001+08:00

[Song credited to Ysaye Barnwell]

1. For each child that's born
A morning star rises
And sings to the universe
Who we are (2x)

2. We are our grandmothers' prayers
We are our grandfathers' dreamings
We are breath of the ancestors
We are the spirit of God

3. We are mothers of courage
And fathers of time
Daughters of dust
The sons of great visions we're
Sisters of mercy
And brothers of love
Lovers of life
The builders of nation we're
Seekers of truth
And keepers of faith
Makers of peace
Wisdom of ages.

Repeat #2

Uncanny Pinoys: [Mobile Photo] Rules 2

2010-08-22T18:45:00.001+08:00

[Sign inside a Metrorail station toilet asking users not to use the
basin to wash their feet. Apparently, some do.]

Uncanny Pinoys: [Mobile Photo] Rules

2010-08-22T18:38:00.001+08:00

[Photos of a poster containing rules for using a toilet of an
establishment in Quiapo, Manila. Honesty's the best policy.]

Uncanny Pinoys: [Mobile Photo] Steel Man

2010-08-22T18:20:00.001+08:00

[Sign says "Wanted Steel Man." Taken after covering a real estate
firm's stockholders' meeting in Quezon City. The project must really
be in need of a man of steel.]

News: Mackay brings breast cancer tests to rural RP villages

2010-08-20T15:14:00.001+08:00

[submitted to BusinessMirror Aug 10 for Aug 11, 2010]

Written by: Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter /
[535 words / 2,775 characters (spaces not counted)/ 3,290 characters
(spaces counted)]
[pack reporting-based / document-based]

NEW Philippine investor Mackay Holdings Inc. said it plans to bring
breast cancer detection to the masses by marketing its patented
electro-senagram (ESG) machine.

Company chair and founder James Mackay told reporters on Tuesday that
their patented technology competes against the mammogram machines
installed in hospitals that are either far from provinces or charge
fees ruralfolks can't afford.

"Where I come from [Scotland], the hospitals are 200 miles from our
town. You can imagine the distance it takes for health to reach common
people."

Mackay claims that their machine is not only affordable at less than
under US$30,000 (approximately P1,410,000) each, it is also portable
and non-evasive.

"When you get a mammogram, you get radiation, so if it's not cancer,
it might be afterwards. This one has no radiation, no pain, requires
no hospital," that is even few and far between in the Philippines.

Mackay said that the first buyer they had is the Quezon City
government under then-Mayor Feliciano Belmonte who offered free breast
detection to employees using the ESG machine.

However, Mackay said the company is meeting a "lot of resistance" from
hospitals in the Philippines in the market for their equipment.

Hospitals won't like to hear of us because they bought old mamogram
machines they haven't milked profits from, he added.

Hence, Mackay said they're trying to sell their machines to local
government units or enter in a joint-venture with local village-based
companies.

According to chief executive Terry Macdonald, the machine also offers
recurring income for doctors because they need to replace sensors. But
he claims the cost is only at US$25 per patient.

The outright purchase can be recouped by 20,000 patients, he added.

Macdonald said they are not competing head on with major hospitals but
only "giving alternative options" to Filipino women above 15 years old
who may have to check for breast cancer susceptibility.

According to the Department of Health, breast cancer has overtaken
lung cancer as the most common illness in terms of incidence in Metro
Manila and Rizal.

The DOH said in a statement that breast cancer led the top ten cancer
sites for both sexes.

Citing World Health Organization data, a Mackay presentation said that
deaths from cancer worldwide are projected to continue rising, with an
estimated 12 million annual deaths by 2030.

"Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women and the second
leading cause of cancer death. Breast cancer diagnostics represents a
US$6-billion global market," the company's presentation added.

"In Europe and the West, they spend so much money on very expensive
technology but only a few can get the test," Mackay said adding that
with their technology, they aim to lower cost and extract high volume
of users.

"Early detection –and that's the case fro most cancers, will save so
much money. You cut down the burden on government and on insurance
companies. Ultimately, you help the government, the health system."

Mackay Holdings secured the technology after it purchased last year
Biofield Inc., which it renamed MacKay Life Sciences Inc.

Mackay's story goes that the company was offered to him by a doctor
from mainland China who eventually died of liver cancer but wanted to
bring breast cancer detection "to the masses."

Insults

2010-08-19T19:37:00.001+08:00

[Sent by email from friend at the Ateneo Alumnia Association]

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." –Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." –Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." –William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" –Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." –Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." –Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." –Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one." –George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one." –Winston Churchill's response to George Bernard Shaw

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." –Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." –John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." –Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." –Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." –Paul Keating

"He had delusions of adequacy." –Walter Kerr

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" –Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." –Mae West

"Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee!" –Lady Astor to Winston Churchill at a dinner party

"Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it!" –Winston Churchill's response to Lady Astor

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." –Moses Hadas

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." –Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." –Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." –Thomas Brackett Reed

"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." –James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." –Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." –Forrest Tucker

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any one I know." –Abraham Lincoln

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts – for support rather than illumination." –Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." –Billy Wilder

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." –Oscar Wilde

"You, Mr. Wilkes, will die either of the pox or on the gallows." –The Earl of Sandwich

"That depends, my lord, whether I embrace your mistress or your principles." –John Wilkes's response to The Earl of Sandwich

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." –Winston Churchill

Legacy of Hope and Triumph

2010-08-12T16:32:00.001+08:00

About the book

FOR eight decades, a rare breed of Fipino women passed the torch of enlightenment and empowerment to cast away the darkness of social despair, economic inequity, and political incapacity, which centuries of colonial masters brought in this part of the world. Slivers of light gave hope to indigenous women struck down from their lofty place in tribes, to señoras and señoritas hobbled from pursuing university education, and to all women displaced in the electoral process.

This book chronicles the passing of the torch held above the shoulders of the leaders and members of the National Filipino Women's Club of the Philippines. This book shines the light on the lives, loves, losses and liberation the clubwomen as they searched in every nook and cranny for their rightful place in history.

Such women are Josefa Llanes Escoda and Mrs. Trinidad Legarda, shown in this book's cover photo marching with the Girl Scouts of the Philippines, a platform for women's development they helped organize and lead.

Pepa, as Mrs. Escoda wanted people to call her, embodied the clubwomen's quintessential leadership: having the humility to serve even at the cost of having the light of life flicker away. Legarda, the first woman president of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, personified the power of music to heal and bring forth a country from the ashes of war.

Both, like the Girl Scouts marching behind them, had chins up, heads held high, confident of their future and at peace with their past. Still, they mirror the sophisticated bearing of leaders.

There are many of them in this book; women who were confident of their self and their multi-faceted roles when the times called for bravery and selflessness, in times of struggle against servitude and self-determination.

Their images and their roles are scattered across this book, divided into significant points of Philippine history.

Part One bares the seed of hope and its planting on soil drenched by the blood of heroes. Part Two reveals the clubwomen's quest for servant leadership. Part Three covers the triumphs and travails of clubwomen as history marched on.

This book, hence, is as much a story of the National Federation of Women's Club of the Philippines as it is a compilation of stories of the hopes and triumphs of Filipino women shaping a nation.

About the Book designer

Media Wise Communications Inc./MUSE Books is recognized for its expertise and professionalism in publishing for more than thirty years through arts, travel, and culture Muse Magazine.

Led by impressionist painter Ramoncito Ocampo Cruz, Media Wise also shared with readers the sophistication and elegance of Philippine culture and arts through "150: The Ateneo Way," a coffee table book celebrating the sesquicentennial of the Ateneo de Manila University.

This seminal book gave Media Wise its latest in a string of awards,

Flagship product Muse magazine also reaped a special citation from the Catholic Mass Media Awards in 2008.

That same year, the magazine was recognized by the International Association of Business Communicators during the Philippine Quill Awards under the communication creative division-publication design category.

Pursuits, a magazine created, designed and published for the Insular Life Group of Companies by Media Wise was also given a Philippine Quill Award under the communication skills division-publications category.

Media Wise Communications Inc./MUSE Books also won the 2001 Anvil Award of Merit for best annual report for the De La Salle University System's President's Report. In 2005, Media Wise Communications Inc./MUSE Books won another Anvil Award of Merit (Institutional and Corporate Programs Category -Public Affairs Management & Communications, Arts & Culture) for its work on the Department of Tourism's Biyaheng Sinko-Sinko.

For leading Media Wise Communications Inc./MUSE Books, chief executive Ramoncito Ocampo Cruz was recognized in 2003 by the Consumer League of the Philippines Foundation (CONPHIL) as Filipino Role Model of the Year for Arts and Culture.

News: Abu Sayyaf

2010-08-04T19:35:00.001+08:00

[Statement of United States Department of Justice]

Founding Member of Abu Sayyaf Group Pleads Guilty to 1995 Hostage Taking Involving US and Philippine Citizens

WASHINGTON, July 28 -- The Justice Department announced that Madhatta Haipe, a citizen of the Philippines and founding member of Al-Harakat Al-Islamiyyah, also known as the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), pleaded guilty today in federal court in the District of Columbia to four counts of hostage taking in connection with the 1995 abduction of 16 people, including four US citizens, in the Philippines. The guilty plea was announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; and Charlene B. Thornton, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Honolulu Field Office.

According to the factual proffer in support of the guilty plea, to which Haipe agreed in court, at the time of the hostage taking, Haipe was serving as the General Secretary of the ASG, or second-in-command of the organization, under the Amir. The Amir of the ASG had directed that members of the group engage in kidnappings for ransom in order to raise funds for the group and to raise the public's awareness of the group's purpose. The ASG was subsequently designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Secretary of State, and remains so designated today.

As admitted by Haipe as part of his guilty plea, on Dec. 27, 1995, several armed members of the ASG kidnapped 16 individuals, including four U.S. citizens, one U.S. permanent resident alien, and 11 Philippine citizens, in the rugged area around Trankini Falls, near Lake Sebu, in southern Mindanao, in the Philippines. The hostages, including six children, were forced to march up a mountainside. Some of the adult hostages had rope tied around their hands or neck.

Haipe informed the hostages that they were being kidnapped for ransom, and he individually questioned some of the hostages to determine the amount of ransom to be demanded. Later that same day, Haipe decided to release four of the 16 hostages to allow them to collect a ransom totaling at least one million Filipino pesos (equivalent to about $38,000 U.S. dollars, at the time). Haipe threatened that if the released hostages told anyone about the kidnapping, then hostages would be killed.

After releasing the four hostages, Haipe and his group forced the remaining hostages to continue marching up the mountainside to evade capture by the Philippine authorities. Four days later, on December 31, 1995, Haipe and his group released the remaining hostages after a ransom was paid.

"For roughly 15 years, FBI agents, Justice Department prosecutors and authorities in the Philippines relentlessly pursued this matter on behalf of the victims, who were held hostage and threatened with death by this Abu Sayyaf leader. With today's guilty plea, Mr. Haipe is finally being held accountable for his actions," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

"Today's guilty plea sends a clear message –we will never tire in our pursuit of justice for those who seek to harm American citizens, whether at home or abroad," said Ronald C. Machen Jr., United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. "Today's guilty plea demonstrates that there will be serious consequences for those who commit such crimes."

"The FBI Honolulu Division has investigated this matter in close coordination with the Philippine authorities for approximately 15 years," said Charlene Thornton, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Honolulu. "Through this international cooperation, despite the time and distance, we have managed to bring to justice a defendant who had sought to harm our U.S. citizens abroad."

Haipe, who is now 48 years old, was indicted for this crime by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. in November 2000. In August 2009, he was extradited from the Philippines to face the charges against him. He is now scheduled to be sentenced before Judge Richard Roberts on Dec. 14, 2010. He faces up to life in prison on each of the four counts to which he pleaded guilty. As part of the plea agreement, the government may advocate for a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.

The Department of Justice and the FBI, working with their partners in the Philippines, have vigorously pursued this case for years. The investigation was conducted by FBI Honolulu Field Office, with substantial assistance from the Philippines Department of Justice, the Philippine National Police, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. The Criminal Division's Office of International Affairs and, in particular, Robert Courtney, the U.S. Justice Department's Attache to the Philippines, also provided substantial assistance in this case.

The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gregg Maisel and Anthony Asuncion of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, as well as Trial Attorney T. J. Reardon, III, of the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, 202-514-2007, WWW.JUSTICE.GOV, TDD 202-514-1888 http://www.justice.gov/

Rules

2010-08-04T14:26:00.001+08:00

[Got this from my friends in the Ateneo Alumni Association.]

MMDA RULES

CODING:

1. No window hours: Makati, Malabon and Las Pinas. Number Coding is in effect from 7am to 7pm.

2. No number coding: Taguig, Marikina andParanaque. Feel free to roam anytime.

3. Pasig City has window hours of 9am to 4pm (note the 1 hour additional to the normal 10-3pm window). San Juan has window hours now according to MMDA website.

4. Pasay City is implementing Number Coding except on the following roads: Ninoy Aquino Avenue, MIA Road , Domestic Road , Portions of Airport Road , Sales Road , Tramo.

5. EDSA, C5, Pres. Diosdado Macapagal Avenue, Roxas Blvd ( Pasay ) have window hours

6. For the rest of Metro Manila (Caloocan, Mandaluyong, Manila, Muntinlupa, Navotas, parts of Pasay, Pateros, Quezon City, Taguig, andValenzuela) number coding is in effect (window hours of 10am-3pm is also observed).

TOOLS AGAINST MMDA OFFICERS:

1. Call MMDA hotline (136) METRO BASE at 0920 9389861 0920 9389861 or 0920 9389875 0920 9389875 and ask for an Inspectorate. They will send inspectors to the place where these MMDA officers are extorting, even while you are arguing out of your apprehension.

2. MMDA officers are not allowed to group together in order to apprehend. They are not even allowed to stand together in groups of 2 or more. The only time they are allowed to work together is for special operations

3. Swerving IS NOT a traffic violation. Moving one lane to the left or right is not swerving, no matter where on the road you do it. And it is even less of a violation when you do it with a signal. Swerving is defined as shifting 2 or more lanes very quickly. So you can argue your way out of this, and call the Metro Base for help.

4. Using the yellow lane is a traffic violation and will get you a ticket. However, buses are really not allowed to go out of the yellow lane, so if you see selective apprehension of private cars only, you may complain.

5. MMDA has confirmed that your license MAY NOT BE CONFISCATED at a traffic apprehension. The only time they can do so is if you are part of an accident, or it is your third violation and you have not settled your fines yet. They are only allowed to give you a ticket, which you can contest.

5. Also, you are free to ask any of these officers for their "*mission order, which is written by their supervisor. If they apprehend you for a violation that is not in their mission order for the day, you can report them and they will receive disciplinary action.

News: Cascal

2010-08-02T19:11:00.001+08:00

Wastewater firm says to go private

CASCAL N.V., which operates a water and wastewater business in the Philippines and seven other countries, announced July 27 from London, United Kingdom, it will go private by October 27, 2010.

The company said its last day of trading of its common shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) would be on August 4, 2010.

On August 5, 2010, "the effective date of the delisting, the Company plans to file a Form 15 to deregister its common shares under Section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended," the company said.

"Upon the filing of the Form 15, the company's obligation to file certain reports with the [US] Securities and Exchange Commission, including Forms 20-F and 6-K, would immediately be suspended. The Company expects that the deregistration of its common shares would become effective 90 days after the date the Form 15 is filed with the SEC."

Aside from the Philippines, Cascal said it provides services to customers in the UK, South Africa, Indonesia, China, Chile, Panama, and Antigua. It added its customers "are predominantly homes and businesses representing a total population of approximately 4.7 million."

News: Avon

2010-08-02T19:04:00.001+08:00

Avon says Philippines cushions softening Japan market

BEAUTY products-seller Avon Products Inc. said the "strong growth" of its Philippines second-quarter 2010 sales of 14 percent (9% in constant dollars) "offset continued softness in Japan."
The company known for its direct selling model through "Avon ladies" said its "over-all Asia Pacific's second-quarter revenue increased 8% year over year, or 1% in constant dollars."
"The region's active representatives and units sold were each up by 3%. Operating profit rose 123% versus the 2009 quarter. The region's operating margin was 11.3% versus 5.5% a year ago. The region's adjusted operating profit rose 9%. Adjusted operating margin was 11.2%, flat versus a year ago."
In a statement dated July 29 from New York, the company said its second-quarter 2010 total revenue hit $2.7 billion, which it said is 8-percent higher than the revenue it reported in the same period last year.
"Constant dollar sales rose 7% as foreign exchange contributed 1 percentage point to growth. Beauty sales in the second quarter of 2010 were up 9% versus the prior-year period, and increased 7% on a constant dollar basis. active representatives grew 5%. Total units and beauty units both rose 1%, and price/mix rose 6%."
The company said it saw its revenue in China plunging to 32% year over year.
"Units sold decreased 46% and active representatives were down 18%. China had an operating loss of $2 million compared with $7 million in profit in last year's second quarter."
Avon blamed its "continued transition away from a hybrid model to one which focuses on direct selling and deemphasizes retail" as having negatively impacted its region?s revenues.

News: AT&T says to upgrade Asia-Pac undersea cable

2010-07-30T21:06:00.000+08:00

AMERICAN communications holding company AT&T Inc. announced July 27 "the planned expansion of its network capacity for the Asia Pacific region through the upgrade of the APCN2, of which AT&T is part of the ownership group."

In a statement issued from Hong Kong, the company said "the fourfold rise in capacity in the dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) cable will increase the original design capacity from the existing 10Gb/s [gigabyte per second] DWDM to 40Gb/s expansion."

"This represents one of the world's large-scale upgrade of a major undersea cable network."

The statement explained that the existing APCN2 "is an undersea telecommunications network of cables that spans 19,000 kilometers and connects ten landing points across Asia Pacific, including in China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan."

"APCN2 is a key component of AT&T's global backbone and along with several other subsea cables in the Asia Pacific region. It provides high-speed bandwidth and helps enable the diversity needed to support meshing capabilities provided by the AT&T global network. The APCN2 is designed to provide connectivity with other major trans-oceanic cable networks linking the USA, Europe, Australia and other parts of Asia."

AT&T claims it "owns or leases capacity on more than 85 submarine cable systems, spanning more than 433,904 fiber-route miles around the globe, including several submarine cable routes that it uses to carry traffic between the Asia Pacific region and North America."

The company added that it plans to spend US$1 billion this year "as part of its overall 2010 global network investment to scale its delivery of applications, mobility and cloud services for global companies, to expand small business services within the United States and to continue extending its network globally."

The company said it expects the upgrade "to be completed by the second quarter of 2011."

[The blogger hasn"t receive any form of compensation from the company cited herein in exchange for the re-write of its press release.]

Ponderisms

2010-07-28T22:16:00.000+08:00

(Got this from my wife Patricia who, I guess, also received it in her email inbox. Witty.)

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.

Life is sexually transmitted.

Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, 'I think I'll squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out?'

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

Do you ever wonder why you gave me your email address?

Abs-Cbn

2010-07-04T17:44:00.000+08:00

Lensmen asks court to stop Abs-Cbn harassment

CAMERAMEN of Abs-Cbn Broadcasting Corp. sought the court's help to stop the publicly-listed media firm from coercing them to sign contracts invalidating years of service.

In documents filed June 29, the 17 workers asked National Labor Relations commissioner Romeo L. Go to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Abs-Cbn management's threat of dismissal if they fail to sign a new contract.

A letter signed by the company’s human resource account management head Jovelyn Sy warned one of the workers "the company will consider your silence as confirmation of your assent to the Petition [for Injunction] and the withdrawal of your conformity to your employment contract dated 16 June 2010.”

The TRO, which the workers paid P10,000 for from pooled money, was supposed to be heard June 29. Courts normally hear TRO applications as urgent and usually enforced immediately.

Go was absent during the hearings Tuesday and Thursday.

Based on Sy's letter, the workers sought Abs-Cbn “from compelling complainants to sign a) employment contract whose terms are prejudicial to the workers, [and] b) quitclaims/waiver and release herein complainants shall waive their right over the decision of the Commission recognizing complainants as regular employees and carrying with (sic) it the benefits of the regular employees under the Labor Code and also the benefits of the regular employees under the respondents CBA [collective bargaining agreement].”

The workers also asked the court to annul and not to implement the contract, waiver, quitclaims and release that they said they signed “out of fear.”

According to the petition, the workers said that Abs-Cbn’s management led by chair Eugenio Lopez III have been coercing complainants as early as February 2010 “to sign a new contract together with the quitclaims and waiver.”

“Should they fail to sign or accept the offer complainants shall [lose] their employment.”

The workers allege that Lopez issued the threat on June 15 at the company’s “Umagang Kay Ganda” studio “should they refuse to sign the new contract, quitclaims and waiver until midnight of June 16.”

A video of Lopez issuing such threat and which is available in online social network site YouTube quoted him as saying “From now on, yung mga hindi magpipirma ng kontrata, wala ng trabaho. In the past we have allowed it to go on. As of tomorrow, hindi na pwede po. So you either sign or find another job.”

According to the NLRC, the petition for injunction for a TRO will be recommended to Go late Friday or early Monday.

Alenaire

2010-06-21T13:53:00.000+08:00

Cool head: A fried deal with Daikin fails to thaw Alenaire chief’s outlook

THE coolest business this side of the Pacific is now heating up.

“We expect to complete our line of products this year,” Alenaire Airconditioning Phils. Inc. (AAPI) chief executive Alfredo Lagman Jr. said.

Jun, as he’s called, has recently led his company out of the cold, so to speak, after a dispute with former Japanese partner Daikin Industries Ltd. was settled out of court early last year.

According to Jun, reviving the glory days of Alenaire was a promise he made to his father, the senior Lagman, who entered into a joint venture with Daikin in 1998.

The joint venture was supposed to be the platform to export its locally made air-conditioning units to the global market, Jun said. “But we saw it wasn’t working out as we hoped, so we filed for a divorce of sorts.”

The “divorce” papers were signed only last year after nearly five years of litigation—roughly as long as the life of their “marriage” with the Japanese under the Daikin-Alen Air Conditioning Inc. (DAACI).

Full Story Online: http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23440:cool-head-a-fried-deal-with-daikin-fails-to-thaw-alenaire-chiefs-outlook&catid=49:personal-fortune&Itemid=74
Originally published in Personal Fortune March 2010 issue

1,750ft

2010-06-02T17:12:00.000+08:00

Zambia

2010-05-06T21:13:00.000+08:00

THIS Southern African Republic is the destination in an all-expense paid travel for three winners of a contest for graduate students in seven countries, including the Philippines.

The contest, called “World Briefing: Telling the Malaria Story,” will choose among blog posts “that focuses on the current malaria burden and the ways in which [this] generation can make progress in the fight.”

According to the document sent by Rachel Alkon of New York, US-based Ruder Finn, the contest is open to graduate students in the United States, Ecuador, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Philippines and Venezuela, up to 35 years of age and currently enrolled at an accredited university.

Those eligible for these criteria can enter (how-to-enter) the contest through three steps: develop a blog post in English of 500 words or less; develop a “tweet” (or sentence of 140 characters or less) explaining why you should win the contest; and, sending the blog post, tweet and official documentation to enter@malariacontest.com by 11:59 PM EST on Monday, May 31, 2010.

“Contestants must provide a copy of a valid passport and official documentation verifying enrollment in a graduate program (e.g. transcript, admission letter) during the contest period (March 2010 – October 2010).”

The document said that between June 1 and June 12, 2010, “agents of the Contest Sponsors will evaluate all of the submissions and select the top six entries (two from each of the following regions: Latin America/Asia; Europe; and the United States) based on a set of criteria.

Contest Sponsors are nongovernment group Malaria No More and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.

The document said the entry will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

* Does the entry explain why the contestant’s generation should care about malaria, and what they can do to make progress?
* Does the entry illustrate a fresh perspective on the global effort to end malaria deaths?
* Does the entry illustrate what the applicant plans to do in his/her lifetime to help fight malaria?
* Does the entry explain how he/she will use the experience to educate/encourage others to join the fight against malaria?
* Is the entry concise and easy-to-read?
* Is the entry well-written?

The document said that between June 12 and June 26, 2010, the Sponsors will post the top six (6) submissions on Malaria No More’s contest Web site (www.worldbriefing.org).

It is also during this period that “the general public will have the opportunity to review and vote for their favorite entry.”

“To determine the three winners, the Contest Sponsors will assemble a task force of judges from across the globe comprised of representatives from Novartis, Malaria No More, and/or a college professor or journalist. Between June 12 and June 26, 2010 the task force will also review and score the top 6 submissions based on the criteria described above. The Contest Sponsors will determine the three winners based on a weighted formula that considers the votes of the task force and general public."

The three winners will be announced the week of June 28 and will travel with the Novartis team to Zambia.

“During the trip, students will learn about current efforts underway to control malaria, travel to local clinics as well as meet with physicians, healthcare workers, patients, and leaders from the Novartis Malaria Initiatives team and Malaria No More.”

The contest fact sheet and official rules/guidelines available online at http://www.worldbriefing.org/.

Nukes

2010-05-03T17:19:00.000+08:00

Pinoys among youths in 6 countries vs. nuclear arms –survey

YOUNG people from the Philippines share the sentiments of their fellow members in Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International (SGI): no to nuclear weapons.

The survey conducted January to March 2010 revealed that majority (68.8% or 439) of the 638 youth from the Philippines says nuclear weapons don’t contribute to the peace and stability of the international community.

This reflects the majority view (59.6% or 2,598) of those polled in six countries: 4,362 people from their teens through 30s in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom.

In a statement released Thursday, SGI said their members took the survey in advance of the 2010 Review Conference in May of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

According to a UN document, the NPT “is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament.”

“The NPT represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.”

The President-elect of the Review Conference is current Ambassador of the Philippines to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Libran N. Cabactulan.

The SGI poll revealed 67.3% said the use of nuclear weapons was not acceptable under any circumstances, with only 17.5% seeing it as acceptable as a last resort if a country's survival was threatened.

Some 369 (57.8%) youth polled from the Philippines said they don’t accept their use under any circumstances with 117 or 18.3% saying they accept the use of nuclear weapons as a last resort if a country's survival was threatened.

Interestingly, a hundred or 2.3 percent of those polled said they accept the use of nuclear weapons as a normal method of combat just like any other weapon. Thirty-five of these (5.5% of the total) came from the Philippines.

Some 264 youth (6.1%) said the use is acceptable to prevent international terrorism or genocide.

A total of 59.1% said they would feel safer if nuclear weapons were abolished.

A total of 395 youth polled from the Philippines (61.9%) said the same while 91 (14.3%) said they would feel otherwise. On the other hand, 131 (20.5%) said they’d neither feel safer or less safe while 21 had no answer.

Asked which countries possess nuclear weapons, 66.9% of the total number of respondents identified the US, 48.7% said Russia, 30% China, 19.8% the UK and 19.8% France.

Fewer respondents were aware of the nuclear weapons possessed by India, Pakistan and Israel, while 40.7% thought North Korea had them.

Within the nuclear states, just 59.2% of US respondents were aware that their country possessed nuclear weapons, and only 43.2% of UK respondents were aware of their country's possession.

A statement quoted SGI student group leader Takahisa Miyao as saying he is encouraged by the results.

"Building on the widespread rejection of nuclear weapons by youth is key to efforts toward their abolition."

Between January and March 2010, Soka Gakkai youth members in Japan collected 2,276,167 signatures on a petition calling for the adoption of a Nuclear Weapons Convention which would prohibit the development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use and threat of nuclear weapons.

SGI said the 50-year-old group has 12 million members in 192 countries and territories.

2010-04-30T20:41:00.000+08:00

Group goes hi-tech in teaching streetkids

NON-GOVERNMENT group Lingap Pangkabataan Inc. has gone high-tech with its work among the urban streetchildren, whom Unicef estimates to have more than doubled from an estimated 50,000 in 2002.

Lingap launched on Tuesday its mobile education van retrofitted with two computers and a wireless Internet connection that would tour five communities in Quezon City.

The van, which cost more than P1 million, helps us go to streetchildren than have them go to us, which in our experience was very difficult to do, according to Lingap staff Cathyrine Eder.

Eder said that before the van, children must go to the group’s center in Cubao to study alternative learning sessions, which is equivalent to finishing elementary or high school.

“Though we give them transportation allowance, they tend to latch on the back of jeepneys, which is dangerous, or they skip class.”

According to Eder, these are just some of the reasons the children cite why they withdrew from schools.

Jesus S. Far of the United Nations Children’s Fund added that aside from poverty, most streetchildren drop out from schools because they feel safer on the streets –or were born there.

Streetchildren, Far said, are either escaping physical or sexual abuse and exploitation in their families or have made the streets their homes since they were born.

He noted that the latest data posts streetchildren at 250,000 in major cities nationwide.

“They can only have three possible scenarios: get jailed, be killed, or commit a crime. If their parents are incapable of giving them protection and nurture them, somebody should.”

Lingap is one of seven NGOs that Unicef has been helping to attend to streetchildren. It will pilot the mobile education van that Far said Unicef hopes to replicate in other cities outside Metro Manila.

Far said the Unicef shelled out P1.4 million for this project. Private companies Sony Ericsson and Ericsson Telecommunications Inc. provided P0.5 million each for the van.

Eder said that having this kind of technology and mobility would hopefully make the kids more focused on learning rather than solely on surviving the harsh conditions of living in the streets.

The van, she said, will stop by one community for a day to teach streetchildren for three hours.

Acording to Far, Lingap teachers will teach basic life skills like how to say No, the different types of touch, how to solve problems, and decision-making processes.

Most of the materials, Eder said, would be downloaded and available on the Internet and would use computer games.

Lingap, a nonprofit organization established in 1981, saw its cash assets decline by 34.54 percent in 2008 from P4.8 million in 2007, its latest report to the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

[Original story submitted to BusinessMirror newspaper on April 20, 2010. Copyright 2010 © BusinessMirror]

Thomson Reuters latches on to $19B market from RP

2010-04-30T17:12:00.000+08:00

FINANCIAL information provider Thomson Reuters Corp. is latching on to a market that its executives estimate to be worth $19 billion, using one of its offices in the Philippines as a launch pad.

This was according to Vin Caraher, president of the group’s United States Core Legal business segment, who added that the amount excludes the content and the technology in this market.

Caraher claims that the other player in that market, Reed Elsevier Inc.’s LexisNexis, is half the size of his company’s share, especially with the formal opening Thursday of the division’s Philippine office.

The company, which was formed when Thomson Corp. acquired Reuters Group Plc two years ago, currently has 275 full time employees in its two-floor office in Taguig City.

Caraher said they plan to enlist an additional 30 local employees on May 24.

The office began operating in June last year but Caraher declined to cite how much the company spent for its construction and lease.

“It’s proprietary information we can’t divulged.” The company will report its first quarter performance next month.

According to the company’s 2009 annual report, its legal segment under the Professional Division “provides information, decision support tools and services to legal, intellectual property, compliance, business and government professionals throughout the world.”

Thomson Reuters’s John Elstad explained that the legal division, which contributed US$3.6-billion in revenue last year, acquires information like statutes from the courts and other agencies in the US.

Elstad, senior vice-president of Legal-editorial operations, told reporters that these are mainly primary law content, or information generated by government entities like administrative ruling.

He added the data are processed, codified, proofread, analyzed and validated by Filipino employees and packaged as product for the customers as print, digital, or online format.

Raoul Teh, Philippines’s senior site officer, said they received a recommendation that Thomson Reuters look into doing such process for the country’s legal system.

“It’s an interesting suggestion.”

But Caraher said despite the job area is focused on the US legal system, “it’s not legal outsourcing.”

“We’re hiring and training them as our employees.”

However, he said there are 34 customer contact service staff of the total 375 employees who promote the product after 10 p.m.

Elstad added that they just don’t gather data but analyze and “add value to it.”

Global content operations-Manila site officer Roel Roque told BusinessMirror the company will still maintain its office in Ayala, Makati City, while some of their 1,600 employees will transfer to Taguig.

Thomson Reuters’s Philippine office was initially established as a regional headquarters in 2007 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thomson Reuters Finance S.A., a company organized in Luxembourg whose ultimate parent company is the Thomson Reuters Corp.

The Thomson Corp Pte Ltd (Philippines) RHQ is registered with the Board of Investments and, hence, entitled to certain incentives, including a preferential rate of 10% on taxable income; exemption on the payment of all kinds of local taxes, fees or charges; and, tax and duty free importation of training materials and equipment.

It started commercial operations on January 1, 2008, its report to the SEC said.

PAL to shed 3,000 jobs next month

2010-04-19T11:56:00.001+08:00

SOME 3,000 workers are set to lose their jobs by end-May as the country’s flag carrier Philippine Airlines Inc. (PAL) will implement its spin-off/out-sourcing plans, president Jaime B. Bautista’s letter to the union said.

“Further to our 09 September 2009 letter officially advising you of the spin-off/outsourcing plan of the company in compliance with the current PAL-PALEA CBA [collective bargaining agreement], please be informed that PAL will spin-off 1) in-flight catering services operations 2) airport services (i.e., ground handling, cargo terminal/cargo handling, and ramp handling) and, 3) call center reservations effective at the close of business hours on May 31, 2010,” Bautista said in a letter to the PAL Employees’ Association officials.

PALEA president Gerardo Rivera told BusinessMirror on Sunday that he estimates the company to spend about P3 billion for “an illogical business decision that would not even save that much as well as contrary to what we think investors want: industrial peace.”

Rivera said they were slightly caught in a surprise with the content of Bautista’s letter dated April 16, 2010, “since he didn’t raise this during our meeting with him on April 8.”

Rivera said Bautista even assured the PALEA leaders the ills of PAL –a US$46.5-million obligation maturing by June 2010, among others– wouldn’t affect the manpower.

“Sure, there were what I call pocket outsourcing, with some jobs being outsourced, but not at this scale and imminence.”

In his letter, Bautista said the company “implemented a manpower rationalization program affecting more than 400 executives and administrative employees” since September last year.

Bautista cited as a basis for the restructuring “staggering losses of over US$350-million (more than P15-billion) in the last two years, [leading to] the company's equity position as of February 2010 [dropping] precariously to US$1.1 million.”

He wrote that “apart from a series of cost-cutting initiatives, PAL approached several investors but none of them were interested. They said airlines are the last business they want to go into given the fact that in 2009 alone. more than 20 airlines went bankrupt.”

Bautista added that they “approached government for help but it, too, was in dire financial straits.”

Hence, he said, “PAL has to act quickly and decisively by spinning off” its operations.

“All affected regular positions will be deemed abolished from PAL's table of organization effective at the close of business hours on May 31.”

Rivera said the union “will not take this issue sitting down as the welfare of the families of those affected are at stake.”

He added beginning Monday, they will try to sit down with the management to find alternative options to this decision.

Rivera also said they will exhaust legal means to respond to this issue.

He said only a thousand of the estimated total 4,000 PAL employees won’t be affected by the lay-off if it pushes through.

PAL’s parent company, PAL Holdings Inc., was thinly traded two days before Bautista sent his letter.

The stock price remained at P3 at its closing, hitting only P3.05 as its highest level, with trade volume merely a hundred thousand and a value of P300,250 at its last trading day April 14.

PAL’s parent was able to reduce its net loss in the nine months ending December 2009 by 93.67 percent to P0.911 million from a P14.4-million net loss in the same period in 2008.

Yeah, right

2010-04-04T18:34:00.000+08:00

Imagine

2010-03-23T21:59:00.000+08:00

IMAGINE two stories using the word imagine and getting published in the same day.

It’s uncanny, as the following stories were published in my favorite newspaper:

The first, titled “How social is too social?,” was for the Perspective section of BusinessMirror. The second, titled “Separate but equal?” was published in the Sports section and written by Bernard Fernandez of the Philadelphia Daily News.

Both were published March 8, 2010.

Here are the ledes:

By David Armano: “Imagine walking up to an ATM, inserting your card and checking your balance. As you do this, a small crowd of people forms around you, peering over your shoulder. Some are friends, some family, some casual acquaintances—some you don’t even know. Uncomfortable situation? Absolutely.” (http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22674:how-social-is-too-social&catid=34:perspective&Itemid=62Imagine)

By Fernandez, with a New York dateline: “Imagine you are the owner of the Hope Diamond or some similarly large, one-of-a-kind gem. Now, imagine that circumstances dictate that you turn that stone over to a diamond-cutter who splits it into two smaller, still-glittering but undeniably less valuable pieces.” (http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22692:separate-but-equal&catid=31:sports&Itemid=65)

I don’t know if the two writers know each other and I guess it would be a stretch to say they agreed to use the word “Imagine” as their first word for their respective lede.

Closer to home, we have the following stories, also published in the same day and from one news agency (Inquirer.net) via GoogleNews (http://news.google.com.ph/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn), with the same ledes that took off from the headline:

“Aquino scores removal of parents' posters along Manila road” This was the reaction by Liberal Party standard bearer and Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III to government moves to remove banners that had pictures of his parents along Roxas Boulevard in Manila because these supposedly helped his campaign.

“Peace possible via interfaith dialogue” This was the message of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo to more than 120 foreign delegates from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) gathered in Manila for the Special NAM Ministerial Meeting on Interfaith Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace and ...

Either the writer or the editor in each of the story lacked the ability to “imagine” in crafting the first lines.

The importance of first lines is emphasized by Dublin, Ireland novelist Gemma O'Connor in her first book, “First Lines,” a copy of which goes for P10 at the previously-owned book section of National Bookstore Panay branch.

The opening lines, she wrote, “are often what make [the constant reader] read on or slip the volume back on the shelf.”

In my experience as a journalist, the first line, the lede or the first graf, is the kicker. It should grab the reader’s attention and lead him or her to the next paragraphs.

The first line should make a Filipino worker in Rome sit up and almost spill his cup of coffee or forget all about it, rapt at a story written by someone thousands of miles away.

But crafting the first line’s not an easy task.

I squirm on my seat, nib on a pen’s end, shuffle papers on my desk, sometimes for hours, just to get the words for the first line out.

The frightening thing for me is a blank page staring at me, hauntingly taunting, daringly daunting.

The second scariest thing is thinking I’m letting down the reader with a half-assed first line; writing just so to get it done and over with.

Writing the first line is an art that requires passion and high regard both for the written word and the reader.

Unfortunately, I may not have any of these.

What I may have is the patience to acquire even one element when tapping on the keyboard for the first line.

Imagine that.

Carriers

2010-03-15T14:07:00.000+08:00

SOME movie scenes make me cry; Carriers carried one of the saddest that did.

Released in September 2009 by Paramount Pictures, the original direct-to-video format Carriers shows the hard choices mainly by four people in an apocalyptic era of a deadly virus spread.

One of the choices made was the abandonment of a father Frank (played by Chris Meloni of Law and Order fame) and his daughter Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) in a town sucked dry of life by an airborne virus.

Mainly, this and the other choices were by Brian (Chris Pine, Star Trek), with the other three –Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci), Bobby (Piper Perabo), and Kate (Emily VanCamp)– just countervailing points of weak rationality.

Brian’s predilection was summed up by the doctor Meloni sought for a serum for his daughter: “Sometimes choosing life is just choosing a more painful death.”

But Meloni still carves up hope, goading Jodie to walk to a potty. She takes three steps but the virus has weakened her so Frank hugs and carries her.

While keeping a masked Jodie to his chest, Frank walks across a desolate street, both singing “the itsy-bitsy spider...” as the SUV sequestered by Brian and the three drove off to another direction.

There's a sense, however, that sadness will linger and the choices they made will haunt them.

It’s a same theme that runs in films penned and megged by master story-teller George Romero albeit in this case house, supermarket, and nuclear silo is the whole America.

Government abandonment, a similar theme in most apocalyptic movies, leads to chaos and the breakdown of rationality, leaving the choice of right and wrong to the individual.

The impotence of the State justifies the privatization of choice: Brian acts as judge, jury, and executioner.

However, the speed by which Brian acquired the power to decide who lives or dies –he shoots those who refused to give gasoline, not because they were infected– is as fast as having lost it as they near their goal, which is a beach frequented by him and brother Daniel. The beach clearlt symbolizes the time past, shown in a montage of sepia images of the toddler brothers.

Human comprehension, however, fails to assuage the horror of Brian’s character’s choices: their attenuating cause as well as the consequences.

This, I guess, is the point of this movie by sibling-directors Alex and David Pastor, since despite survivors having reached the edge of a salty expanse, sadness lingers.

Maybe the Pastor brothers pinned these to what their characters have become with the choices the characters made along the journey.

For all its flaws –as some critics pointed out in their reviews, Carriers is a movie that pokes the brain with questions.

It challenges the weight we give to values that help us rise above baser instincts to survive at the expense of the frail, weak and dispensable Other.

The movie also stirs the possibility of the latter scenario if the State leaves in an SUV, leaving us on a desolate street of hopelessness.

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create,

to overcome, to endure, to transform,

to love, and to be greater than our suffering.”

–Nigerian author Ben Okri