the standard - 2015 march 22 - sunday

Basketball’s loss, is Philippineathletics’ gain

Lucio Tan’sVoyage

VOL. XXIX NO. 38 3 Sections 24 Pages P18 SUNDAY : MARCH 22, 2015 www.manilastandardtoday.com [email protected]

CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK


B8B1

AFP-BIFF CLASHESLEAVE 120KHOMELESS

Displaced. Mothers and children gather to avail themselves of the food and medical assistance brought in by the ARMM government at an evacuation site in Barangay Libutan, Mamasapano, Maguindanao as the military intensifi es its ‘law enforcement operations” against the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Below, children play cards to while away time at another evacuation center in Barangay Tambunan II, Guindulungan, Maguindanao. FILE PHOTOS BY OMAR MANGORSI

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A2Lawyers’virtuesextolled A3

Center nowserving mercy,compassion

LAWMAKER EXTOLS VIRTUES OF LEGAL PROFESSION

A2s u n d ay : M a R C H 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

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By Maricel V. Cruz

WHILE some lawyers have tar-nished the image of the legal pro-fession, “lawyers have innate hon-or, honesty and integrity in their blood” and are able to “become the vehicle of the nation to uplift its suf-fering from dimensional disputes.”

This was the challenge Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez hurled at his fellow lawyers during the national convention of the In-tegrated Bar of the Philippines in Cebu City on Saturday.

“Some members of the IBP had distorted and dishonored the maj-esty and novelty of the law pro-fession. They had eroded the faith and confidence of the citizenry as

the agents for good governance.,” Romualdez said.

“Now is the time to initiate and pursue the legal and moral renais-sance of the law profession under the steerage or mastership of the IBP,” said the congressman who also leads the independent bloc of lawmakers in the House of Representatives.

“The main culprit in IBP’s dilemma is the nonchalant or indifferent disposi-tion of lawyers in the rough and tumble of legal practice. Many are blinded with purely the monetary considerations to solve or win legal cases,” he said.

Romualdez noted that lawyers, consciously or unconsciously, con-spire or assist clients to subvert and circumvent laws, many trivialize or even desecrate the ends of justice

and many have also made justice an expensive commodity instead of de-fending the idea that “those who have less in life must have more in law.”

“I still recall when I was young, when I say my ambition is to be a lawyer, people would joke - you want to be a liar?”

“This stigma still persists. The IBP must expunge this misimpres-sion. Lawyers have innate honor, honesty and integrity in their blood. The irony is that the few scalawags are more popular than distinguished lawyers,” he said.

Romualdez stressed the signifi-cant role of the IBP being the “the critical and effective instrumental-ity with the moving force to curb the abuses of one sector or agency

over the others.”“The IBP binds all lawyers. Only

the lawyers under the aegis of the IBP can make possible the renewal and revival of the national rel-evance of the IBP in the life of the nation and people.

“Notwithstanding, the brickbats against lawyers, law has been highly regarded as the noblest of all pro-fessions, though its members are not immune from temptations and other varied maladies

“This is so because the law profes-sion is the imperative and constant element of any important decision, venture or change, more often with good intentions and beautiful after-maths rather than ill motives with catastrophic fallouts,” he said.

“The issues of IBP are the fall-outs, echoes and reverberations of the misconduct, unsavory attitudes and misperceptions of the members of the IBP. Accordingly, only the members of the IBP may untangle or unlock the solution.

“The challenge you have raised for the members of IBP may well be the beginning of the renewal and revival of national relevance of the law profession,” Romualdez said.

“With the passage of time with the renewed attitude and sincere coop-eration of the members, the IBP will succeed to renew or revive its nation-al relevance and become the vehicle of the nation to uplift its suffering from dimensional disputes requiring the wisdom of lawyers,” he added.

military sees new phase THE military may end clearing operations against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters next week after the United Nations High Commission on Refugees expressed alarm that more than 120,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Mindanao since January.

widely the ongoing law and order operation will extend and this is hindering the safe and dignified return of the displaced people,” he said.

He went on to say that “women and children could potentially be exposed to exploitation and abuse, given their lack of income and community protection. The limited provision of food, medicine, water and temporary shelter could exacerbate these vulner-abilities.”

The Philippines military launched an offensive ear-lier this year against the Bangsamoro Islamic Free-

dom Fighters, an extremist break-away group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The offensive, including attacks with artillery and helicopter gunships, has taken place in poor farming areas on Mindanao island, where Muslim rebels have for decades fought for inde-pendence.

Baloch said an estimated 13 municipalities in Magu-indanao and North Cotaba-to had been affected by the eight weeks of clashes.

More than 120,000 had been displaced and sought shelter in schools, public buildings and ma-

drasas, he said.But he acknowledged,

“the estimated number of displaced could be higher, since it does not include people hosted by relatives and friends.”

Baloch also warned that the numbers were “expect-ed to grow as the fighting extends to the local com-munities ... already hosting many of the displaced.”

The volatile security situ-ation is meanwhile block-ing UNHCR from access-ing many of the affected areas, he said.

UNHCR expressed par-ticular concern for the safety of civilians, including

women and children, stuck in the conflict area.

While civilians did not seem to be targeted directly, they were getting caught in the crossfire, Baloch told AFP.

“Women and children could potentially be ex-posed to exploitation and abuse,” he warned, pointing out that many found them-selves without income or community protection, and with very limited access to shelter, food, medicine and water.

“UNHCR appeals to all parties of the conflict to ensure the safety of civilians while the law and order operation is un-derway,” he said. AFP

“UNHCR is concerned about the safety of civilians as the conflict spreads into local villages,” spokesman Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Humanitarian agencies, including UNHCR, in Min-danao are working closely with the local authorities to

monitor the conditions of displaced people inside and outside the shelters.

“We have provided some blankets, jerry cans, sleep-ing mats, mosquito nets and plastic sheets, but more aid is needed urgently,” Mr. Baloch said.

“It is unclear how long or

Lawyers’ ConVention. Leyte Congressman Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez delivers his message during the Integrated Bar of the Philippines 15th National Convention of Lawyers at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City. Ver noVeno

A3S u n d ay : M a R C H 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

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SERVINGMERCYIN LEYTE

BUSINESS LEADERSSCORE MAKATI ROWWHILE Makati City employees rallied behind beleaguered Mayor Junjun Binay, business leaders have expressed concern at the con-fusion caused by the government’s defiance of a court order stopping Binay’s preventive suspension pending a preliminary investiga-tion.

“They have to resolve this in the soonest time possible,” Management Association of the Philip-pines president Francisco del Rosario Jr. said in an interview aired over CNN Philippines.

Del Rosario said people who are getting licenses, permits, and approvals from city hall, if their projects are delayed and will likely incur additional costs.

“The thing that we would hate to see is that the institutions are not able to implement and are not able to smoothly implement whatever actions they want to take. And they are causing disruptions be-cause of it,” said Philippine Chamber of Commerce

chairman emeritus Donald Dee in a separate inter-view aired by the news station.

“We will be accused by investors that in the Philippines, everything is inefficient, everything doesn’t work. We don’t know who’s leading, who’s supposed to make decisions. These kinds of things we cannot afford to have,” Dee added

“The business community expects that justice will be served,” Del Rosario said. “So if something wrong is perceived to have happened, for example, corruption, they really expect the justice system to implement the laws and file cases if need be.”

On Friday, Acting City Administrator Vissia Ma-rie Aldon said city councilors, department heads and division chiefs of the city government of Makati have refused to accept a memorandum signed by Vice Mayor Romulo Peña as ‘acting mayor’.

In his memorandum, dated March 19, 2015, Peña informed city officials of his assumption of the post and cites its supposed legal bases, includ-ing issuances from the Department of Justice, Of-fice of the Ombudsman and Department of the Interior and Local Government.

Aldon, who was appointed by Mayor Jejomar Erwin S. Binay last March 16 to replace former City Administrator Eleno Mendoza, Jr., said the different offices and departments of the city gov-

ernment will not heed Peña’s memo, including his directive for all city officials to submit to him for approval all city ordinances, official documents and official actions.

“We recognize Mayor Jun Binay as the chief executive of Makati. We have to respect the deci-sion of the courts. To us city officials, not once did Makati have two mayors. We only one mayor, and that is Mayor Binay,” Aldon said.

The city official assured constituents and the public that the city government of Makati contin-ues to function normally, with all its departments and offices carrying out their respective tasks.

City information officer and spokesperson Joey Salgado said the prevailing concern among city of-ficials including Binay was the “long-term impact” of the political standoff not only on Makati’s local economy but on the national economy.

“We all know how important Makati is to the Philippine economy, being the country’s financial center. We have every reason to worry about the negative perception being created in the minds of foreign investors by this situation where the execu-tive department, the DILG secretary no less, for political purposes is impeding services and will-fully violating an order of the court. What signal does that send to foreign investors?” Salgado said.

By Sara D. Fabunan

A STORM may have forced Pope Francis to rush through the or-phanage and elderly home that was built in his honor when he vis-ited Palo, Leyte last January 17, but the facility has since been serving heaps of mercy and compassion as the pope had intended during his visit.

Called the Pope Francis Cen-ter for the Poor, the five-building facility was conceived by Palo Archbishop John Du who recently showed off the center to Ambas-sador Merceditas Tuason and her daughter Rosanna Tuason-Fores, president of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines.

Construction of the P60-million facility began in July last year and funded by the Vatican charity Cor Unum. It was completed shortly before the pope arrived in the country and Francis was scheduled to lead its inauguration during his visit to the town.

But on January 17, the pope’s vis-it to Leyte was cut short by a storm that was threatening to ground all flights, so the pope had to rush back to Manila and the formal pa-pal blessings were canceled.

But the country’s envoy to the Vatican will soon be able to report to the pope that the center is fully operational and actually serving the people for whom it was intend-ed. Tuazon, known for her involve-ment in various charities, person-ally interviewed the orphans and elderly at the facility.

Meanwhile, the National Secre-tariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace is set to enter the second phase of its aid work for Yolanda victims beginning April and will will focus on interventions geared toward sus-taining resilient communities.

NASSA Executive Secretary Fr. Edwin Gariguez said that the next phase of the Catholic Church’s re-habilitation program for Typhoon Yolanda survivors will focus on interventions geared towards sus-taining resilient communities.

“If the first phase of our inter-ventions centered in building back structures and systems destroyed by the calamity, this time we shall be focusing our efforts on various sustainability measures,” said NAS-SA Executive Secretary Fr. Edwin Gariguez.

PALACE RENEWS EVACUATIONCALLS FOR FILIPINOS IN LIBYABy Sara Susanne D. Fabunan

THE Palace again called on all 4,000 Filipi-nos working in strife-torn Libya to avail of the government’s repatriation program, add-ing that the Department of Foreign Affairs is already having a hard time in repatriating Filipinos and this is expected to get worse in the near future.

In a radio interview, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte feared that since the DFA started its repatriation effort in July 2014, the efforts has now getting harder and challeng-ing when commercial flights to and from Libya was suspended.

“Right now, the government is having a hard time with the logistics, commercial flights are not allowed to enter unlike before. Right now, the process to repatriate them is very complicated,” Valte lamented in an interview over a state-run

Radyo ng Bayan.“The challenges become greater as the days

pass,” she added.She said the DFA has been repeatedly calling

for an immediate evacuation since it raised Crisis Alert Level 4 in Libya in July last year.

When the situation in Libya started to become volatile, Valte said 13,000 Filipinos were in Libya and only 4,000 remain.

“That’s why we’ve been repeatedly making the call to please come home because the situation there is now very different,” she added.

Since commercial flights to and from Libya were stopped, the DFA was forced to use land transfers to Tunisia where Filipinos are then flown to Manila.

Valte also urged families of the OFWs in Libya to convince their loved ones to heed the govern-ment’s call for immediate evacuation as it is no longer safe for Filipino workers to remain there.

Philippine Ambassador to Vatican Mercedes Arrastia Tuason (center)and daughter Rosanna Tuson-Flores, president of the Philippine Tourism Congress, meet with Archbishop John Du after the celebration of the Holy Mass at the rebuilt Santo Nino Church in Tacloban City. The church was damaged by super typhoon Yolanda. Ver NoVeNo

Walk for life. Members of the Knights of Columbus join their families and friends in a march on Roxas Boulevard in Manila on Saturday to dramatize their stand against anti-life measures. DANNY PATA

opinionA4

[ EDI TORI A L ]

COMIC RELIEF

We know there is no ac-counting for taste, but one wishes our leaders would try to get good advice from peo-ple who know better. This is particularly important when it comes to public structures and fixtures that are ex-pected to be there for a long time and are seen by many everyday. I am tempted to

also include the recent trend at Malacanan Palace and in other venues, which involves putting up some tacky back-drop during official state functions, but I guess we can ignore those installations of plastic doves and bahay kubo since they are mercifully put up for just one-time events.

Those of us who had to pass by Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City everyday of our lives had to contend with those hideous marshmal-lows-on-sticks street lamps for many years until most of

them finally and thankfully gave way to the elements. Unfortunately, many of the red and white streetlamps in Manila along Quirino Av-enue are still there even if most of them have degener-ated into eyesores – most do not function anymore, have broken glass cases, and are in various stages of decay, twist-ed this way and that. Rem-nants of many other ugly streetlamps still litter our thoroughfares nationwide – many of them carrying po-litical logos and insignias

AestheticAlly chAllenged

WITHOUT meaning to, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV could be funny. Take for example his latest declaration that the ruling Liberal Party may no longer

draft Senator Grace Poe as the party’s standard-bearer for the vice-presidency in 2016 because she had the gumption to release an “unfavorable” report against President Be-nigno Aquino III on the Senate probe of the Mamasapano incidet that her committee had investigated.

Summing up her committee report, Poe had said that Aquino was “ultimately re-sponsible” for the Mamasapano carnage that killed 44 commandos of the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force, a statement that resonates with the opinions of the vast majority of Filipinos.

But in Trillanes’ yellow-tinted brain, Poe committed a grave offense against the LP, which sources said had been wooing the female senator because she continues to lead the surveys among VP aspirants.

Trillanes’ declaration also boggles the mind, since he himself isn’t a member of the LP, but ran under the banner of Nacionalista Party of former senator Manny Villar.

There is also one fact that Trillanes conveniently sidesteps – that because Poe enjoys a high trust rating among Filipinos, it is the LP that needs her to boost its sagging image, and not the other way around.

But what takes the cake was Trillanes’ follow-up statement that he would run as vice-president in 2016, because “the people are not ready for a Trillanes presidency.”

So let’s see. Trillanes, an NP senator, does not want LP to draft Poe, an independent, as vice-president, but offers himself for the post. Trillanes didn’t elaborate whether he would run as NP’s candidate or under LP’s banner, but lately, the good senator had been consistent in defending Aquino’s honor you’d think he was a “true-yellow” disciple since he decided to enter politics.

Trillanes’ declaration to run as vice-president makes for an interesting story. We don’t know if he’d been reading the surveys, but the latest Pulse Asia polls show that Poe retained her no. 2 position with 14 percent (behind Vice President’s Jejomar Binay’s 29), while Trillanes had a measly two percent – among those perceived to be running for president next year.

In the survery for perceived vice-presidential candidates, Poe has consistently landed on top, while Trillanes’ name was nowhere to be found.

Or maybe Senator Trillanes was aware of the surveys, which may have prompted him to say that “the people are not ready for a Trillanes presidency.”

But following this strange logic, the question that is begging to be asked is this: are the Filipinos ready for a Trillanes vice-presidency? Or do Filipinos like him at all, even now as senator?

Again, we ask Senator Trillanes to re-read the surveys since he seems to need a healthy dose of reality check.

On the other hand, maybe we should perhaps allow the good senator to continue issuing statements such as this. In these hard times, we all need a bit of comic relief to lighten our days.

ARE WE THERE YET?

BONG C. AUSTERO

...our leaders insist on building more hideous structures and contribute even more to the continued uglification of our

surroundings. It is already bad that there is squalor and decay courtesy

of poverty, pollution, and the general lack of interest in sustaining

a healthy environment; must our leaders aggravate things?

A5ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R

S U N D AY, M A R C H 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

OPINION

MY friend Aileen would have been cel-ebrating her 39th birthday three days from now. But she never went past 32. She died six and a half years ago from a lingering heart ailment.

I had known her since grade school but it was in sophomore year in high school that we became particularly close. She and I, along with a handful of other girls from our section, discovered we liked hanging out together. We named our group Teen Petite because at that time we were teenagers and, well, liked to think we were petite.

Among us all, Aileen was the most independent. She was the youngest child in a brood of five. Her mother had died when she was a baby. Her siblings were all much older than she was—when we were in high school, only she remained a student. All of them had graduated col-lege and had jobs and lives of their own. Their father lived in another place. I re-member her living with relatives near our school. No wonder she was the most mature among us, always ready with ad-vice on anything: clashing with your el-ders, maintaining your grades, and try-ing to get yourself noticed by your crush.

It was at her relative’s house that their LPG tank exploded. Aileen suffered third degree burns and had to miss many weeks of school. When this accident happened, she already knew she had her mother’s frail heart—a condition she shared with three other siblings. I re-member thinking, “Quota na sya! Why did it have to happen, still?”

All these did not stop her from giving much of herself. On her best days, Aileen was an active leader, steering club activi-ties and participating in outreach proj-ects. At our graduation, she received the leadership award.

She started college—behavioral studies, if I am not mistaken—but did not � nish, her sickness making it impossible for her to sustain the energy for the daily com-mute aside from the demands of school.

Our group kept up during college and beyond, and we used to kid Aileen about her being NBSB—no boyfriend since birth. She did not seem to mind. It was often at the condo unit she shared with her older sister where we met. The rest of us stepped into the so-called real world. Aileen must have felt she was but an onlooker, but she was good-natured about it. She was still always ready with advice that was always so lovingly given you would not resent it. She was the el-der sister we all wished we’d had.

MISSING OUT

(think B for Binay in Makati, or P for Petilla in Leyte). There ought to be a law that regulates the design and construction of streetlamps in this country.

Worse, our leaders insist on building more hideous structures and contribute even more to the continued uglification of our sur-roundings. It is already bad that there is squalor and decay courtesy of poverty, pollution, and the gen-

eral lack of interest in sustaining a healthy environment; must our leaders aggravate things?

Our leaders cut down perfectly healthy trees on the center island of Senator Gil Puyat Avenue in Pa-say and Makati a few months ago to give way to a road widening project. The end result is that Gil Puyat is now wider but still hope-lessly gridlocked at peak hours because the main problem is still

there – the four major bus termi-nals that choke traffic. Just one bus trying to maneuver in or out of a terminal already brings traffic to a complete standstill for a few min-utes– imagine what happens at rush hours when 20 or 30 of these buses compete for passengers, space, and time. Worse, our leaders did not provide for pedestrian crossing so there’s mayhem anytime of the day.

Continued on A6

CHASING HAPPY

ADELLECHUA

Continued on A6

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OPINIONS U N D AY, M A R C H 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

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Missing... From A5

In 2008 her condition turned for the worse and one day she was gone.

I was sad at her passing, but I felt sad AND angry for her sake that she had gone so soon. I felt she was cheated. Cheated out of life, out of its fullness. Aileen has never experienced many of the things we took for granted -- getting a degree, go-ing out late at night, meeting people,making mistakes, hav-ing a job, “settling down,” be-coming a mother. And it was through no fault of her own. I thought it was unfair.

***Our barkada still gets to-

gether regularly even as we are no longer teenagers (now pushing 40!) and only one has remained petite. We have regular events like Christmas lunches and the summer get-aways, but in between these we take spend time with each other, just because.

Sometimes we bring our kids along (out of these meet-ings, some of our kids have formed friendships among themselves and it is just love-ly). We gab about what has happened to members of our batch, and share the ups and downs of the superwomen that we are. All these take place with food as backdrop.

Every now and then we would remember Aileen and wonder: If she were around, what would be her opinion on this and that? What piece of advice would she dish out? Would she, as always, emerge as the right and wise one?

Years hence, and I think I have reconsidered my view. I used to believe that my friend had been so disempowered by her illness that she missed out on many things. I used to be in-dignant at this injustice—how come other people are given very long lives when they make nothing of themselves and are a parasite to other people while she was only given 32 years?

What occasioned this epiph-any, I do not know. But now I do not anymore feel that my friend had been cheated out of life. She was, after all, able to do as much as she could given her limited time. She touched many lives and inspired us to be as wise, as levelheaded, as uncritical of others as she was.

My friend, Aileen, was an awesome woman. I have stopped thinking about what she could have been and in-stead now celebrate what she was during her time with us.

She did not miss out. But oh, how we miss her.

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Aesthetically...From A4

In the past, people could at least take some physical and psychological com-fort from the greenery that used to be there. There used to be a mini-forest and what passed off as mini parks in the mid-dle of the avenue. They have taken all of these down and replaced them with the most horrid of all fixtures – huge pots in hideous pink and brown. So from Roxas Boulevard all the way to Dominga Street just a little beyond Taft Avenue, one is as-saulted by the sight of these ugly cement pots sitting on top of pillars. The pots are being planted with young ficus trees that for the next few months and years, will look scraggly. Yes, they fell down

fully-grown beautiful trees so that they can install ugly pots planted with min-iature trees.

This kind of thoughtlessness, nay, boorishness, is unfortunately preva-lent in our country. Everywhere one goes we can actually see examples of how lack of aesthetic sensibility is foisted on the citizenry by some despot seemingly unacquainted with the con-cepts called simplicity and elegance. In other countries, a construction site is kept from public view by walls painted over with splash of colors that bring joy and visual relief to onlook-ers. Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare is dotted sporadically with “artworks” that invite derision, anger, or at the

very least, confusion – as in “what’s are those supposed to be?” I have nothing against dark, brooding, abstract art-works; I collect some myself. But on our major thoroughfares where people need something to distract them or lighten up their disposition while be-ing stuck in traffic or while inhaling toxic fumes? In construction sites all over the Metro, there are not only no attempts to hide the ongoing destruc-tion, the efforts to pick up debris and clean up the surroundings are pitifully kept to a minimum. Our public struc-tures – terminals, waiting sheds, train pillars - are covered in grime.

The sad part is that our leaders don’t seem to care.

By Jeanne Cummings

CAMpAIgN finance reformers have been on a steady losing streak in the courts and Congress. But they may fi-nally have found a champion who can elevate their cause: pope Francis. “We must achieve a free sort of election cam-paign, not financed,” the pope told an Argentine magazine in an interviewre-leased this week. “Because many inter-ests come into play in financing of an election campaign and then they ask you to pay back. So, the election cam-paign should be independent from any-one who may finance it.”

To drive his point home, the pontiff added: “perhaps public financing would allow for me, the citizen, to know that I’m financing each candidate with a giv-en amount of money.”

The pope’s remarks come in the midst of corruption scandals in his na-tive Argentina. But American advocates of curbing the influence of big money in politics were eager to seize on his message. “We have just gained a great new ally with a worldwide voice for public financing campaigns,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder of Democracy 21.

“We greatly appreciate his words and wisdom on this subject.” Drew Ham-mill, a spokesman for House Demo-cratic Leader Nancy pelosi similarly embraced the pope’s “call for an end to the contaminating influence of money in our democracy.”

The pope has not shied from political controversy. On a January visit to the philippines he said Catholics don’t “have to be like rabbits,” seemingly opening an uncertain new chapter in the birth control debate. And he stunned some conservatives when he expressed toler-ance toward homosexuals. “If someone is gay, who searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he said.

Brian Burch, president of Catholic Vote, a conservative group with half a million members, interpreted the pope’s campaign finance rhetoric as a product “of exasperation with a culture of corruption in his home country, and perhaps others.” Burch noted, however, that there is no official church doctrine on funding campaigns. “It remains per-fectly acceptable for Catholics in the United States to prefer our own election system that relies on voluntary dona-

tions, robust free speech and transpar-ency,” he said.

The Catholics on the Supreme Court no doubt agree. Catholic Jus-tices Samuel Alito, Anthony Ken-nedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas formed a ma-jority that has dismantledcampaign finance regulations on First Amend-ment grounds—including the court’s ruling in theCitizens United case, which paved the way to unrestricted spending on electioneering. (Associ-ate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another Catholic, dissented in the case.)

“The Supreme Court has opened the floodgates to unlimited spending by corporations, unions and individu-als,” said Trevor potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center. “But what the pope is pointing out is that it doesn’t have to be the only way elections are funded.”

The pope will have an opportunity to expand on his campaign finance views in September when he issched-uled to speak before a joint session of Congress. He was invited to appear by House Speaker John Boehner and pe-losi. Both are Catholic.

The PoPe v. CiTizens UniTed



A7S U N D AY : m A r c h 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

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‘Forbes Park’ not For housing

Ifugao town requires use of CCTV in businesses

Ilocos trading post pressed

Traffic blocked. Maintenance men of the Department of Public Works and Highway start fixing portions of Edsa in Kamuning as part of the road re-blocking, which causes heavy traffic. MaNNY PalMero

YouNg builders. Young volunteers at work in a Habitat commu-nity that is rising in Brgy. Culiat, Quezon City, one of the ten locations nationwide engaging over 4,000 youth volunteers tasked to build homes for the poor. MaNNY PalMero

In a position paper submitted to the House committee on natural resources, DENR-CAR regional director Engr. Paquito T. Moreno, Jr. said the disposition of the land to qualified homelot applicants is not feasible.

“We regret to inform the House committee on natural resources that the Department of Environ-ment and Natural Resources op-poses the passage of House Bill No. 4976,”Moreno stressed.

HB 4976 seeks to exclude 3 hectares of land from Parcel 2 of Proclamation No. 10, otherwise known as Forbes forest reserva-tion, situated at Residence Section ‘D’ Baguio City and to declare the same as residential land open for disposition under the provisions of Republic Act No. 730.

Forbes forest reservation was established on February 9, 1924 as forest reserve and bird sanctu-ary by Governor-General Leonard

Wood under the jurisdiction of the then Bureau of Forestry. The Proc-lamation covers 3 parcels of land, one containing an area of 298,510 square meters, Parcel 2 containing an area of 168,615 square meters and Parcel 3 containing an area of 212,266 square meters.

Several portions of Parcel 1 and 2 were earlier segregated from the reservation through Proclamation No. 773, series of 1970 containing an approximate area of 80,890 square meters and Republic Act No. 8963, series of 2000 containing an area of 37,932 square meters, disposing the same for housing purposes to the actual qualified occupants under the pertinent provisions of the Public Land Act and RA 730.

Moreno explained that the land parcels cover the barangays of Cabi-net Hill, Engineers’ Hill, Marcoville, DPS Compound and Manuel Roxas. Likewise Parcel 3 is subject for re-

lease through House Bill No. 3829.The DENR-CAR official said that

Parcels 1 and @ of the Forbes forest reservation form part of the contigu-ous remaining forested area primary functioning as a watershed in the heart of the city, critical to the water needs of the nearby barangays.

The Baguio Water District op-erates and maintains six pumping stations and that the area is also being protected by civic organiza-tions like the Baguio Regreening Movement in coordination with the city government.

Moreno revealed that BRM, through fund solicitations, caused the fencing with hallow blocks and inter-link wires covering 20 hectares unoccupied and densely forested area of the forest reserva-tion, including the construction of guard houses with the end view of protecting natural forest from en-croachment by squatters.

by dexter a. see

BAGUIO CITY—The Cordillera office of the Depart-ment of Environment and Natural Resources has re-jected a proposal to set aside three hectares from the Forbes Park forest reservation for housing purposes, saying the reservation is one of the major sources of city’s water supply.

LAMUT, Ifugao—The town gov-ernment is requiring business es-tablishments in the municipality to install Close Circuit Television camera or video surveillance sys-tem or face sanctions.

This requirement is pursuant to a municipal ordinance approved in November last year.

CCTV cameraS must be put in place in strategic location of busi-ness establishments, educational institutions and public places con-sidered as high risk to lawless ele-ments, according to the ordinance

Banks, pawnshops, grocer-ies, hardwares, gasolines station, department stores, lending insti-tutions, multi-purpose coopera-tives, hotels/motels, entertainment centers and car dealerships which transact and deal with monetary transactions with actual capital of P300, 000.00 and above are cov-ered by the ordinance.

The equipment will be inspect-ed by a task force before the issu-ance of a certificate of compliance that would be a prerequisite to the granting of a business permit.

The task force may however conduct regular or spot inspec-tions to determine compliance with this ordinance.

Any establishment is required to preserve the continuous digi-tal images recorded by the system for no less than 30 days for review and reference purposes and after 30 days, the feeds or recording shall be preserved and stored for safekeeping for a period of not less than one year and maybe be dis-posed at the lapse of such period at the option of the owner.

The feeds or digital images recorded by such system may be presented upon request by the court of competent jurisdic-tion and other law enforcement agencies including the municipal mayor. dexter see

BAUKO, Mountain Province— Mayor Abraham B. Akilit is eye-ing the establishment of a vegetable trading post in Tagudin, Ilocos Sur which will be operated by the mu-nicipal government to help decon-gest the La Trinidad-based vegetable trading facility. The Ilocos post can also open bigger market opportuni-ties for highland vegetables coming from northern Benguet and Moun-tain Province, he said.

Akilit said the municipal govern-ment intends to purchase a 1-hectare land as trading post side in partner-ship with the Tagudin.

He explained the investment of the municipal government for the pur-chase of the property could be easily recovered primarily through rentals that in turn could finance develop-ment projects and enhance the deliv-ery of basic services to the residents.

He said the completion of the Al-uling bridge in Cervantes, Ilocos Sur and the near completion of the con-creting of the Mountain Province-Ilocos Sur road reduced travel time from the locality to Tagudin, Ilocos Sur to only about two hours from four hours.

The Tagudin trading post will not be competing with La Trinidad but will be serving as an alternative for farmers coming from northern Ben-guet and Mountain Province.

He is optimistic that the munici-pality’s economic enterprise project could be realized the soonest in or-der to allow the local government to internally generated funds which could be plowed back to their con-stituents through the implementa-tion of various development projects and improve the delivery of basic services in the future. dexter see

SUNDAY: MARCH 22, 2015

editorial@the standard.com.ph



A8

PH invokes majestyof law in sea disPute

‘make power plana must’

wifi users’ rules sought

Landmark. Workers polish the National Museum signage on Saturday March 21, 2015 as the building undergoes retrofitting and repainting. The iconic edifice is the official repository established in 1901. dannY PaTa

mInUS OnE. Fans of the

english-irish pop boy band based

in london one Direction troop

to the concert ground of the SM

Mall of Asia on saturday march

21, 2015. one of the group’s member Zayn

malik won’t be able to join the

concert. dannY PaTa

In justifying the country’s resort to arbi-tration of the territorial dispute with Chi-na, Jardeleza said: “We may be a small na-tion, but we come from a proud race. We may have less in armament, but we have a mighty weapon, the majesty of the law. With this self-defense instrument, we thus have sought to bring China to arbitration.

“China’s grand claim to cover almost the entire South China Sea, and all the maritime features therein, has no ba-sis in international law,” Jardeleza said, in his keynote speech at the forum on “Borders and Cross-Border Enforce-ment” at Harvard Law School recently.

The South China Sea, part of which is known in the Philippines as the West Philippine Sea, is a semi-en-closed sea in Southeast Asia. The Sea–which covers almost three million square kilometers—is surrounded by six states namely: China, the Philip-pines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, and by Taiwan.

Jardeleza stressed that the Philip-pine government was prompted to

seek international arbitration after “years and years of diplomatic nego-tiations have failed to resolve our dif-ferences with China.”

“To protect our sovereign rights and our heritage, the Philippine gov-ernment, under the leadership of our President, Benigno S. Aquino III, opt-ed to turn to international law and the compulsory and binding dispute set-tlement procedures of the UNCLOS,” the SC magistrate said, referring to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

“In the Philippine claim, we seek a ruling that will, among others, declare invalid China’s nine-dash line, having no basis in law . . .” he added.

Before being appointed justice as the 15th justice of the Supreme Court, Jardeleza served as the So-licitor General as well the Philippine agent in the arbitration case before the United Nations tribunal.

Acting Solicitor General Florin Hilbay is now handling the country’s

arbitration case against China. Jardeleza pointed out that the coun-

try’s bid for arbitration, which invoked a remedy under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Un-clos), was pursuant to country’s adher-ence to international law.

“Our decision to turn to arbitration, as a remedy provided by international law, proceeds from our unshakeable belief in the rule of law even on cross-border mat-ters. If we have a written constitution gov-erning the use of our oceans, then surely, we, as nations using principled argumen-tation, can peacefully settle differences in interpretation and application,” the Phil-ippine magistrate said.

Jardeleza strongly urged China to heed the invitation of the Tribunal to participate in the arbitral proceedings.

“China has so far refused to partic-ipate in the arbitration proceedings despite continuous and many invi-tations from the tribunal. Again we ask: Under a regime of law, wouldn’t the world be better off if China con-tributed to the argumentation, so that by its reasoned elaboration, it could enlighten everyone on the le-gal bases for its ambitious claim over almost all of the South China Sea?” the SC justice said.

According to Jardeleza, the arbitra-tion case is a “golden opportunity” for China to engage in dialogue not just

with the arbitration panel “but, in a larger sense, with all of mankind.”

As to the question on whether China would comply with the tri-bunal ruling favorable to the Phil-ippines, the SC magistrate said the largest of the claimant nations in the South China Sea dispute was “legally obliged to comply with the ruling.”

Should China ignore such a rul-ing, Jardeleza said that it would be a “clear and open violation of its inter-national legal obligations.”

“This, with all due respect, is a mat-ter China should consider, mindful of its international prestige and influence. We would, of course, prefer China to pres-ent itself as a responsible and law-abiding member of the international community, and thus abide by an international arbi-tral award,” the magistrate said.

“This decision should be viewed by the rest of the world as fair and just. More particularly, the award will be reflective of the established rules of international law,” he added.

“We are aware that there is no in-ternational policeman empowered to enforce decisions of public law tribu-nals. We nevertheless have this article faith that the constable of world pub-lic opinion will convince and conse-quently persuade China to bring itself back within the international legal order,” the magistrate said.

By rey E. requejo

Supreme Court Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza has asserted the country’s rights over the disputed West philippine Sea, saying that China’s claim over the entire South sea lacks basis in international law.

By maricel V. Cruz

A MEMBEr of the House Mi-nority Bloc on Saturday batted for the compulsory implemen-tation of the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) by heavy users of electricity with power generat-ing capability to make the pro-gram effective in addressing the expected power supply shortage until July this year.

Isabela rep. rodolfo Albano III, member of the committee on energy, said the Department of Energy should make the ILP mandatory to ensure that the targeted shortfall of 745 MW of power is achieved during the critical months.

Albano explained that the ILP as the major solution adopt-ed by the executive and legisla-tive branches of government to augment the thin power reserves from March to July this year may not be much effective if it is done on a “voluntary” basis.

“What happens if these iden-tified heavy power users refuse to join the ILP and continue to draw heavily from the national grid? The ILP would then be rendered ineffective and inutile,” Albano, former executive direc-tor of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC), said in a statement.

Albano’s proposal came after House Joint resolution 21 that was supposed to grant President Aquino III emergency powers to address the energy supply shortage this summer failed to win the approval of Congress. reason: Lawmakers were dead-locked on the “no-pass on” pro-vision which was intended to spare consumers from having to pay extra for the cost of power generation.

The House of representatives and the Senate adjourned their session Wednesday for a Holy Week break without the approv-al of joint resolution.

Albano said the government must make the ILP mandatory and compulsory to make it work.

By Joel E. ZurbanoSENATOr ralph recto has asked the Depart-ment of Science and Technology to make sure that the state-sponsored Free Wifi project na-tionwide would benefit the right people and not those who are fond of taking self-portrait of themselves.

“We don’t want it to become corporate headquarters of the Facebook generation or those who are fond of selfies. There should be users’ rules,” said recto, who sponsored the project’s P1.4 billion funding in the 2015 national budget.

The government will roll out free Wi-fi hotspots in 967 towns in Metro Manila and 14 key cities this July.

recto said that “hospitals, schools, trans-port hubs and libraries must be prioritized.

We would like these Wi-Fi areas to create val-ue, promote education, help trade and travel, and be a lifeline to those who are in distress.”

He earlier told the DOST to pilot the project in some public hospitals so the pa-tients or those attending to them will be able to communicate with family members and medical staff.

“If you’re a son of an overseas Filipino worker and you would like to Skype with your father who is in the Middle East be-cause your mom has been stricken ill, then you can do it within the hospital premises,” explained recto.

The senator said Wi-Fi will also be set up in Public Employment Service Offices to help the jobless search for employment, and frontline government offices which draw the longest queues and the largest crowds.

BUSINESSRoderick T. dela CruzEDITOR B1


[email protected]@gmail.com



CONTINUED ON B3

NEW YORK—Lucio Tan, the 80-year-old billionaire chairman and chief executive of Philippine Airlines, and his wife Carmen have recently completed a round trip between Manila and New York, with a stopover in Vancouver in less than five days.

PAL chairman Lucio Tan (left), his wife Carmen (second from left) and PAL president Jaime Bautista (right) recognize Rebecca Verzosa-Santos, PAL’s first international stewardess who flew on the first Manila to California flight in 1946, during a reception at New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan Hotel. Santos now lives in New York.

LUCIO TAN’S VOYAGEAlong the way, Tan delivered

three speeches, chatted with journalists, shook hands and took “selfies” with airline passengers, sang with Martin Nievera and clapped for a 90-year-old former PAL flight attendant in New York.

Tan says he is happy to take the long trip. “I am very happy to be here to welcome you to the inaugural flight to New York City,” says the once camera-shy Tan, who heads an empire of businesses ranging from air transport, airline services, travel, banking, alcohol and tobacco, hotel, real estate, education, agriculture and trading.

Proud momentTan is not the only person who

takes pride about PAL’s return to New York, after an 18-year absence in the world’s financial capital. Tourism Undersecretary

Benito Bengzon says the return of PAL to New York is “certainly a proud moment for Philippine aviation, proud moment for Philippine tourism and certainly a proud moment for us Filipinos.”

Tan feels comfortable inside the Boeing 777-300ER (PR 126) that took him from Manila to Vancouver to New York and on board the Airbus A340-300 (PR 127) that brought him back to Manila. “I wish to thank my PAL family for their effort in making this US east coast service a reality,” he says. The trip took about 19 hours, each way.

PAL president and chief operating officer Jaime Bautista says it is Tan’s dream to return to the Big Apple. “PAL is today back in New York because of the vision and drive of one man--our chairman Dr. Lucio C. Tan. It was

also under Tan’s leadership 18 years ago that PAL first flew to the city. He has made sure we would return no matter how long it took under his watch,” says Bautista.

PAL’s Manila-Vancouver-New York service, covering 14,501 kilometers, takes about 16.5 flying hours, making it the airline’s longest route. The new service operates between Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 and New York’s John

F. Kennedy International Airport’s Terminal 1.

“Although this is billed as an inaugural flight, it is not the first time for PAL to New York. From September 1996 to August 1997, we operated a service to Newark Liberty Airport that initially introduced our brand here in the Big Apple. Deep in our hearts, we knew that one day, PAL would be back in New York. After 18 years, that day has come and that day is March 15,

2015, which is also our founding anniversary,” says Bautista.

The 74-year-old airline, the oldest in Asia which flew its first aircraft from Manila to Baguio on March 15, 1941, is embarking on US network expansion this year following the lifting of the Category 2 rating to Category 1 by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

First flight attendantTan met 90-year-old New Yorker

Rebecca Versoza-Santos during a gala at the New York Hilton Manhattan Hotel in celebration of PAL’s return to New York after an 18-year hiatus.

Bautista says Santos is the first post-war international flight attendant. She was 22 and was the only flight attendant when PAL flew a DC-4 for a 41-hour first trans-Pacific flight across the Pacific Ocean to bring home 40 American soldiers to Oakland, California on July 31, 1946.

Santos, who now lives in the Chelsea section of New York, served with the airline for 41 years, wrote

Lucio Tan sings with Martin Nievera on board PR 126.

A view of Manhattan , New York skyline from New Jersey

By Alena Mae S. Flores

FEDERICK Levy, the French co-founder and chief executive of Cash-CashPinoy.com describes an e-commerce website as a shop that never sleeps.

Levy says CashCashPinoy.com is one such shop, and it keeps him on his toes 90 percent of the time. In the past four years, CashCashPinoy.com has become a buzz word in the Philippine e-commerce indus-try.

Launched in 2010, the website has be-come the “go to” site for Filipino consumers who look for products to buy online.

The CashCashPinoy.com founders saw the opportunity for e-commerce business in the archipelago by proposing an online platform where Filipinos could find what-ever they wanted, from electronic gadgets to fashion accessories, from restaurant dis-count vouchers to home furniture, from travel offers to beauty treatments and many more at discounted prices.

“Filipinos are deal-driven consumers. They buy anything as long as it is a good deal. If the deal is good, they buy it. Fili-pinos are very smart consumers. They are very aware of pricing and value for money,” Levy says.

Married to a Filipina, Levy came to the Philippines in 2007, looking for business opportunities in the digital space.

Levy says while he initially looked at Sin-gapore and Hong Kong to put up his busi-ness venture, he finally decided to invest in the Philippines.

He says the strong English-speaking work force and exciting possibilities in the coun-

try’s budding digital space convinced him that the Philippines “is a land of opportu-nity.”

In 2007, Levy and his partners founded NetBooster, the number one digital agency in the Philippines with representations in Manila, Shanghai and Jakarta.

“I’m a digital veteran, used to do that a very long time. I created the first digital agency in the 90s in Europe named Rouge. So I had significant experience on digital,” Levy says.

Levy says he felt he came to the Philip-pines at the right time when there was demand from the market, but there was no specific structure to address such needs.

He says NetBooster be-came a quick and spec-tacular success, handling well-known brands in the country. Levy then looked at the emerging e-com-merce industry and what business opportunities can be derived from it.

“We saw some impres-sive data. The appetite for digital by Filipinos was very high so we saw that as an opportunity to jump to the next milestone, which is e-commerce,” he says.

In 2010, CashCashPinoy.com became the first professional e-commerce business in the country. Levy says Filipinos became aware of the potential of the Internet on e-commerce with the launch of Cebu Pacific’s P1 fare.

He says Filipinos were encouraged to go online if they wanted to get the chance of getting low fares from Cebu Pacific. “Cebu Pacific forced Filipinos to buy online the P1

fare,” he says.Levy says e-commerce transactions are

more convenient and provides Filipinos with access to good quality goods at dis-counted prices,

“I really believe CashCashPinoy has a so-cial effect, social responsibility to Filipinos, How many Filipinos have access to goods, places in the world that they did not have access?” he says.

CashCashPinoy.com buyers range from 18 years old and above with 65 percent women and 35 percent men. It currently has

over 1.2 million members.According to Levy, the

first purchase of CashCash-Pinoy.com buyers is a criti-cal one. The challenge is to keep consumers interested in what CashCashPinoy.com has to offer,

“If someone buys one time, that means we’ve failed…There’s not a lot of e-commerce in the country, so a lot of those buying on CashCash, they’re buying for first time. But once they purchase, they realize there’s nothing to fear,” he says.

CashCashPinoy.com cur-rently has a 64-percent re-

purchasing rate, which is quite high in the e-commerce industry.

Levy also believes that there is still a very huge untapped buyers market out there. “On that angle, evangelization is part of the process. We still need to reassure them. We have to have very appealing products to the consumers,” he says.

Levy says CashCashPinoy.com is consid-ered a “private shopping club” which means that the company has to continuously offer something new to its consumers.

The company also has to keep pace with technology developments at all times. “Now 60 percent of our users is mobile-based. We have to consider that for the next version of CashCash,” Levy says.

“We need to continue innovating at Cash-Cash to improve the consumer experience. That’s what makes the job exciting,” he says.

CashCashPinoy.com has made available cash on delivery, as a response to consumer demand. It also launched a phone support structure, in addition to chat and e-mail be-cause it is what the consumers want.

Levy’s management style of an open of-fice structure has helped the company grow into what it is today. As a start up firm, Levy has to oversee everything, design not only the digital setup, but also the office layout as well.

“A company like us, we call it a start up. If they have a specific name, it’s for good rea-sons. If you arrive in something, you have to build it from scratch. So you’re pioneer-ing, you’re from zero, you have no mistake to avoid, you are the one leading the way,” he says.

“Here, there is no office because trans-mission of information is critical. I don’t have an office, only a desk in the middle of my team,” he says.

Levy says another challenge he encountered along the way is that a lot of people needed to be trained. Eventually, he found out that some people rose to the occasion and thus were giv-en the promotion they deserved.

Today, CashCashPinoy.com employs 120 people, of whom only three are foreigners. “Here everybody can talk to me about ev-erything. Everybody has their five minutes to prove me that I’m wrong or whatever,” Levy says.

Levy says he listens to everyone regard-less of their ranks in the workforce, because “a good idea can come from everywhere.”


BUSINESSSUNDAY: MARCH 22, 2015

B2

CashCashPinoy has become the “go to” site for

Filipino consumers who look for

products online.

HOW CASHCASHPINOYFOUND THE MONEY TRAIL

CashCashPinoy.com founder Federick Levy


BUSINESSSUNDAY: MARCH 22, 2015

B3

FROM B1

PAL’s first manual for flight attendants and trained Japan Airlines’ first cabin crew. A graduate of the University of the Philippines and De La Salle University, she later joined the United Nations in New York. It was a fitting tribute for a New Yorker, as PAL marked its return to the Big Apple for the first time in 18 years, says Bautista.

Tan’s voyage actually began in Jinjiang, Fujian, China where he was born on July 17, 1934. His parents brought him to the Philippines as a toddler. He grew up poor in Camarines Sur and he had to work as a laborer at the Bataan Tobacco Factory to help pay for his education.

Through hard work, he obtained a degree in Chemical Engineering from Far Eastern University in Manila. He eventually became a successful businessman and one of the richest in the Philippines.

From Manila, he expanded his business empire to Hong Kong, China and Guam. PAL’s return to New York extended his operations to the world’s financial hub, a goal that almost every tycoon has in mind.

Shared historyUS Ambassador to the Philippines Philip

Goldberg says “PAL’s return to New York is symbolic to both countries. It is a testament to our friendship, common history, our shared heritage.”

“Our ties are further strengthened by over 3 million Filipinos in the United States and it is no surprise that PAL is now going to help service the community on the east coast,” he says.

“The airline industry, the air traffic between our two countries is growing. Tourism is growing and this is a wonderful opportunity to add another route. New York is the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps and the capital of the world. It is a known destination for so many business people, the fashion industry, the food industry, the museums, Broadway, all of the things that people will enjoy,” says Goldberg.

The American diplomat says he is pleased that PAL decided to fly a Boeing aircraft for the inaugural flight. “The aircraft that PAL will be flying is a Boeing with General Electric engines and we know you are going to have a very safe and very nice flight,” he says. “I am sure there will be announcement of new routes to the United States in the months ahead not only because it is such an important market, but because of the deep relationship between

our two countries,” says Goldberg.Goldberg’s counterpart agrees. “The US

and the Philippines have special relationship that dates back to over a hundred years. We have a shared history. We have shared values in terms of democracy and freedom of speech. The Americans that come to the Philippines feel so much at home. There is no language barrier, because English is spoken by so many Filipinos,” says Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Cuisia Jr.

Skilled pilotsBautista says PAL’s modern aircraft and

highly skilled pilots will ensure safe and convenient flights across the Pacific Ocean. “If you try Philippine Airline flights, you will experience very smooth landing. We are very proud about our own pilots. We hire only Filipino pilots. We don’t hire foreign pilots at this time, although we are not banned from hiring foreign pilots,” he says.

“Right now, PAL has an average age of a little more than three years. It makes the airline more operationally efficient,” he says.

The flag carrier, which started flying to New York via Vancouver in September 1996 ended the operation in August the following year, because of the restrictions associated with the Category 2 rating imposed on the Philippines by the US Federal Aviation Administration, according to Bautista.

Return to New York“We started our flights to New York in

1996 and during that time, the Philippines was under Category 2, as downgraded by the Federal Aviation Administration. Because we were under Category 2, PAL could not add new airplanes because that was a penalty for being under Category 2. It is the airlines that were being penalized, but because Mr. Lucio Tan wanted to have presence in the United States, and especially here in New York, we entered into a wet lease agreement with an American carrier but that wet lease agreement did not become successful, because it was a little bit costly,” says Bautista.

“So we stopped our operations to New York, to Newark Liberty Airport after one year, but we continued our operations to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and Guam. Since then, we have increased our presence to the west coast of the United States from four flights a week in Los Angeles, four flights a week in San Francisco. Now, we have 11 flights a week in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Recently, we have increased

our presence in Honolulu, from three flights a week to five flights a week. We have also increased our presence in Guam from four flights a week to daily during the Christmas season. These are the routes that we operate here in the United States,” he says.

US destinationsThe New York service brought to five its

total US destinations, following Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and Guam.

Bautista says PAL’s on-time performance has been improving, except for issues surrounding airport congestion. “Right now, we are reporting an on-time performance of around 80 percent, which is a little bit below industry standard, but this is because of a lot what you call external factors in the Philippines,” he says.

“If we will not consider the external factors, which include airport congestion, because effectively we have only one and a half runways in Manila and with so many flights, there are admittedly delays because of these external factors. But if we do not consider these external factors, the average on-time performance of PAL’s flights reported on a regular basis is over 95 percent and this is because we have implemented a lot of reforms in terms of operating our airplanes. We take advantage of new technologies. Our airplanes are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment,” says Bautista.

Bautista says PAL aims to further increase its number of flights to Canada and the United States. “We are operating four flights a week to New York. Under our existing agreement with Canadian and US authorities, we can operate a maximum of only five flights a week. For us to be able to increase the frequency to New York via Vancouver, we need to work with the Canadian government,” he says.

Daily flights“Our people really wanted a daily flight

because a daily flight is a better product than four times a week, but since we are still in the development stage, we started with four and then maybe we can increase it to five using all the entitlements and then work with both the FAA and with the US and Canadian authorities to have more entitlements,” says Bautista.

“We continue to study possibilities of flying to new destinations in the US, because the US is a very big market of PAL, having 3 million Filipinos in the US,” he says.

LUCIO TAN’S VOYAGE Bautisa says the Manila-New York service will be beneficial to over half a million Filipinos residing in the US east coast, including 253,000 in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, 90,000 in Virginia, 75,000 in Washington D.C. and environs and 31,000 in the Philadelphia metro area.

“We have very good bookings on the flight from Manila to Vancouver to New York,” says Bautista, referring to the inaugural flight. We carried more than 300 passengers from Manila to Vancouver. There were 50 who got down in Vancouver, but there were 40 who joined us in Vancouver to New York. For the return flight from New York to Manila, admittedly, the load factor was not that good. There were a little over 100 passengers, but there were passengers who took the flight from Vancouver to Manila,” he says.

“We are in the early stage of development of the route. We are expecting that this route will become a very busy route, considering that there are like 250,000 Filipinos in New York and New Jersey area. Plus we will be able to carry passengers from other east coast cities like [Miami] Florida. We are also working with some American carriers, as partners. We don’t have code-share agreement, but we have already prorate agreements to allow us to offer attractive fares from Manila to New York to other east coast destinations. We are expecting that the load will improve in three to six months,” says Bautista.

Tourism boostTourism officials say the new Manila-

Vancouver-New York service will help the Philippines attain its goal of attracting 1 million tourists from the US annually. Michelle Dy, the officer-in-charge of the Tourism Department in New York, says PAL’s flights between Manila and the US east coast will encourage more US tourists as well as Filipino-Americans holding US passports to visit the Philippines. “This is exciting news for east coast travellers who now have access to convenient flight options to Manila,” says Dy.

The US emerged as the second largest tourism market of the Philippines in 2014, next to South Korea. International visitor arrivals in the Philippines rose 3.3 percent in 2014 to 4.83 million from 4.67 million in 2013.

South Korea kept its position as the leading source market with 1.175 million visitors, followed by the United States with 722,750 arrivals. The number of visitors from the US grew 7.14 percent last year, data from the Tourism Department show.

Earnings from inbound tourism in 2014 hit $4.84 billion, up by 10 percent from $4.4 billion in 2013. Visitors from Korea had the highest contribution at P61.02 billion, while the United States contributed P41.43 billion and Canada added P8.48 billion.

“We share the excitement and optimism of Philippine Airlines as it returns to the US east coast because this now allows the Department of Tourism to reach out to a very important geographic market—New York, many parts of the US east coast and many parts of Canada. The flight connects not only to Manila, but also many island destinations in the Philippines,” says Bengzon, the Tourism undersecretary.

Visit PhilippinesPAL’s flight PR 126 departs Manila every

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 11:50 p.m. Arrival in Vancouver is 8:50 p.m. on the same day. After a two-hour transit stop, the service departs for New York at 10:50 p.m., touching down at Terminal 1 of JFK International at 7 a.m. the following day.

The return service, PR 127, departs New York at 11 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, arriving in Vancouver at 1:50 p.m. It departs the Canadian city at 3:20 p.m. and lands in Manila at 8:35 p.m. the following day.

PAL offered a round-trip all-in fare of $1,174 or P52,830 for the inaugural Manila-Vancouver-New York service.

Roderick T. dela Cruz

Lucio Tan takes a “selfie” with a PAL passenger.

world


B4


HALF OF VANUATU’S POPULATION HIT BY CYCLONE

multiple suicide blasts

The killings were the first claimed by IS in Yemen and rep-resent a strong show of force by the group in a country where rival Al-Qaeda is the most prominent jihadist organisation, and which reacted by saying it would not at-tack mosques.

Charred bodies and pools of blood were seen at the site of the blasts, which targeted supporters of the Huthi Shiite militia that has seized control of the capital Sanaa.

Worshippers rushed the wounded to hospitals in pick-up trucks, while others removed mu-tilated bodies.

One suicide bomber struck in-side Badr mosque in southern Sanaa while another targeted wor-shippers as they fled outside, wit-nesses said.

A third suicide bomber targeted Al-Hashush mosque in northern Sanaa, while a fourth struck out-side the mosque, according to the Saba news agency, which is now controlled by the Huthis.

Nashwan al-Atab, a member of the health ministry’s operations commit-tee, told AFP 142 people were killed and at least 351 wounded.

Huthi TV said hospitals had made urgent appeals for blood do-nations.

The imam of the Badr mosque was among the dead, a medical source said.

Another suicide bomber blew himself up outside a mosque in the northern Huthi stronghold of Saa-da, a source close to the militia said.

Only the assailant was killed, and tight security at the mosque prevented the bomber from going inside, the source added.

In an online statement, the Sa-naa branch of IS said the attacks were “just the tip of the iceberg”.

“Infidel Huthis should know that the soldiers of the Islamic State will not rest until they eradi-cate them... and cut off the arm of the Safavid (Iranian) plan in Ye-men,” the statement said.

The Huthis are accused of re-ceiving support from Iran.

IS, a radical Sunni Muslim organi-sation, considers Shiites to be heretics.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penin-sula issued a statement saying it had nothing to do with the bombings.

“We stress that we abide by the instructions of Sheikh Ayman Za-wahiri, to avoid targeting mosques and markets... to protect the lives of innocent Muslims,” it said. AFP

Multiple suicide bombings claimed by the islamic State group killed at least 142 people Friday at Shiite mosques in Yemen’s capital—one of the strife-torn coun-try’s deadliest ever ji-hadist attacks.

142 die as JiHadisTs aTTaCK sHiiTe MOsQUes iN YeMeN

More than half of the South Pa-cific island nation Vanuatu’s pop-ulation has been affected by Cy-clone Pam, the UN said Saturday as the death toll rose to 16.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam barrelled into the archipelago a week ago, bringing sustained winds of some 250 kilometres (155 miles) per hour which devas-tated entire communities.

“Around 166,000 people, more than half of Vanuatu’s population, have been affected by Tropical Cy-clone Pam on 22 islands,” the of-

fice for the Coordination of Hu-manitarian Affairs (oCHA) said in a situation report.

“Food stocks and water reserves are being exhausted and will not last more than a couple of weeks across the affected islands.”

The agency said the confirmed death toll had risen to 16, as aid workers were able to reach new areas, with completed assessments covering 15 islands.

Aid agencies have stressed that potable water, food, shelter and health were a priority in the after-

math of the storm which hit late on March 13.

The latest assessment found damage to food crops was extensive.

“Coconut and banana planta-tions have been particularly dev-astated, which will have signifi-cant longer-term impact,” oCHA said, noting that most people liv-ing on the outer islands grow their own food.

In some areas local residents would not only lose their main source of income due to damage

to crops such as copra, but their food security would be threatened by the loss of livestock, such as pigs and poultry, it said.

In its situation report, oCHA said that access to some commu-nities was still hindered across the sprawling nation which is made up of more than 80 islands.

But it said between 50 and 90 percent of local dwellings were esti-mated to have been damaged by the fierce winds which pounded Vanu-atu as the eye of the storm hovered over the nation for hours. AFP

THOUSANDS GREET POPE IN MAFIA COUNTRY TeNS of thousands of people on Saturday greeted Pope Francis as he headed deep into mafia ter-ritory, visiting jailbirds and the poor in Naples amid heightened security.

The pontiff arrived in the poor, crime-ridden Scampia area of the city in a popemobile and was im-mediately plunged into a crowd of children and young people, two of whom managed to pose for a selfie with the pontiff.

“Corruption stinks, corrupt society stinks,” he told residents, adding that “we all have the po-tential to be corrupt and to slip into criminality”.

Up to 800,000 people were ex-pected to turn out throughout the day in the southern Italian city to greet the Argentine pon-

tiff, who last year declared war on organised crime by “excom-municating” all mafiosi from the Catholic Church.

Security was tight for the visit: apart from risks posed by gangsters with a grudge, the pope has been threatened by the Islamic State group and trips outside the Vatican are considered prime opportuni-ties for assassination attempts.

After a massacre at a Tunisian museum this week claimed by the IS group, all eyes with be on the elderly pontiff ’s safety, with 3,000 extra policemen deployed along the route he will take, including snipers on the rooftops.

Before his arrival in Scampia, Pope Francis began the day at the ancient roman city of Pompeii. AFP

Pope Francis greets the crowd as he arrives for a pastoral visit and a mass at the Piazza del Plebiscito on March 21, 2015 in Naples. Up to 800,000 people were expected to turn out throughout the day in the southern Italian city to greet the Argentine pontiff, who last year declared war on organised crime by “excommunicating” all mafiosi from the Catholic Church. AFP

Yemeni supporters of the separatist Southern Movement gather in the southern city of Aden on March 20, 2015, in celebration a day after the escape of the General Abdel Hafedh al-Sakkaf, the special forces chief in Aden. A top Yemeni officer linked to the Shiite militia opposed to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi escaped an assassination bid near the southern city of Aden, a security official said. AFP

[email protected]

S U N D AY : M A r c h 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

WORLD



B5ArMAN ArMErOE D I T O R

Lee Kuan Yew’s heaLth worsens

sokor, china and japan envoys meet

The 91-year-old, widely cred-ited with transforming the city-state into one of Asia’s wealthiest economies, has been in the Sin-gapore General Hospital for more than six weeks and is being aided by mechanical ventilation, a form of life support.

“Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s condition has worsened,” the office of his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said in a terse midday statement.

The government said earlier in

the week that he was already criti-cally ill.

Floral tributes and cards dedi-cated to Lee have started to pile up outside the hospital as Singaporeans showed affection for the authoritar-ian leader who modernised Singa-pore but is criticised by rights advo-cates for his iron-fisted rule.

“I cannot bear just sitting at home and listening to the news, not being able to do anything,” retiree Phua Siew Lian, 88, said as

she set a bouquet of sunflowers at a designated spot outside the hos-pital building where Lee is being cared for under tight security.

Lee was prime minister from 1959, when colonial ruler Britain granted Singapore self-rule, to 1990. He led Singapore to inde-pendence in 1965 after a brief and stormy union with Malaysia.

His deteriorating health has cast a pall over preparations for the city-state’s 50th anniversary of in-dependence on August 9, an event known as “SG50”.

Some Singaporeans were also seen at the hospital saying quiet prayers after leaving flowers. The hospital, Singapore’s biggest and oldest, is located just off the cen-tral business district.

The prime minister posted the

latest health bulletin on his Face-book page and was immediately flooded with messages of support for him and his father.

He visited a community centre where residents offered tributes and encouragement for the patri-arch to fight on.

“Dear Papa, Hope you get bet-ter!,” he wrote on a banner.

On the elder Lee’s watch, Singa-pore became a financial hub and high-tech industrial centre despite its lack of natural resources, and Western leaders often sought his views on Asian politics.

But the British-trained lawyer has also been criticised for jailing political opponents, and driving his critics to self-imposed exile or financial ruin as a result of costly libel suits. AFP

THe foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan met for the first time in nearly three years in Seoul on Saturday, in an effort to calm regional tensions rooted in territorial and historical disputes.

After a series of bilateral meet-ings, which included discussions on a possible summit between the countries three leaders, the top diplomats sat down for their first formal talks since April 2012.

Although the Northeast Asian neighbours have strong economic ties, overall relations have long been tainted by unresolved issues dating back to Japan’s colonisa-tion of the Korean peninsula and occupation of parts of China be-fore and during World War II.

The lingering animosities, fu-

elled by ongoing sovereignty rows over island territories, have seen Beijing and Seoul maintain a frosty distance from Tokyo in recent years, hindering co-operation be-tween the three Asian powers who collectively account for roughly 20 percent of global GDP.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has described their lack of reconciliation as a “missing link” for peace and stability in east Asia.

And Washington is troubled by what it calls the “strategic liability” posed by the rift between South Korea and Japan—its two main military allies in Asia—and would prefer they focus on forming a united front against an increasingly assertive China. AFP

The health of independent Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew has wors-ened, the government said Saturday as one of the foremost figures of 20th century Asia struggled with severe pneumonia.

chinese state mediatags us as

‘kibitzer’CHINeSe state media turned to Yiddish on Saturday in the war of words over territorial disputes, criticising the United States as a “kibitzer” for what it called med-dling in the South China Sea issue.

A commentary published in english by the official Xin-hua news agency was headlined “America the Kibitzer”—which refers to an onlooker who gives unwanted advice–in this case re-garding the South China Sea.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, a position that conflicts with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as with Taiwan.

US officials have called for a multilateral agreement to end all actions that risk further inflam-ing tensions in the region, which includes US allies.

“Uncle Sam has long been in the grip of many addictions, such as muscle-flexing, preaching and borrowing, but there has turned out to be one more: kibitzing,” the commentary said.

The commentary followed re-marks by Commander of the US Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Rob-ert Thomas, calling for patrols of the South China Sea as well as US senators urging a strategy to deal with China’s land reclamation in the disputed region.

Thomas this week called on Southeast Asian nations to form a combined maritime force to patrol areas of the South China Sea, Bloomberg News reported.

“If ASeAN members were to take the lead in organising some-thing along those lines, trust me, the US 7th Fleet would be ready to support,” Bloomberg quoted Thomas as saying.

ASeAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. AFP

celestiAl show. a picture taken on march 20, 2015 shows a partial solar eclipse of the sun visible over a mosque in the southern Lebanese port city of tyre. AFP

A poster of elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew is surrounded by messages of support and flowers outside the Singapore General Hospital where he remains critically ill in the Intensive Care unit (icu) in singapore on march 21, 2015. the health condition of singapore’s Lee kuan yew “has worsened”, the government said, as the critically ill founding leader of the city-state entered his seventh week in hospital. AFP

B6 REUEL VIDALE D I T O R

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

[email protected]

Republic of the PhilippinesDEPARTMENT OF FINANCE

Roxas Boulevard Corner Pablo Ocampo, Sr. StreetManila 1004

DEPARTMENT ORDER NO. 033.201511 MARch 2015

SUBJECT: AMENDMENT TO DEPARTMENT ORDER NO. 44-2014, OR THE POST ENTRY GUIDELINES UNDER THE FISCAL INTELLIGENCE UNIT, DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE, PURSUANT TO EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 155,S.2013

This Department Order is being issued to amend Department Order (DO) No. 44-2014 with respect to post-entry audit of import transactions.

Section 1. Section 9 of DO No. 44-2014 is hereby amended to read as follows:

“Section 9.Assessment and Collection. -Upon receipt of the FARR and after the determination of the appropriate administrative penalties, if any, the Commissioner of Customs shall issue to the importer:

a. A collection letter directing the importer to pay, within ten (10) working days from receipt thereof, the deficiency duties admitted in the Reply to PEAF, and the appropriate fines and penalties; and/or

b. A formal assessment of deficiency duties and demand letter directing the importer to pay within ten (10) working days from receipt thereof, the deficiency duties not admitted in the Reply to PEAF, and the appropriate fines and penalties.

Within five (5) days from receipt of the FARR, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall act on the findings stated in the FARR in accordance with the provisions of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, as amended.”

Section 2. Repealing Clause. - All provisions of orders, memoranda, circulars, or other issuances or parts thereof which are inconsistent with this Department Order are hereby deemed repealed and/or modified accordingly.

Section 3. Effectivity. - This Department Order shall take effect immediately upon publication.

CESAR V. PURISIMA Secretary of Finance

RE: Amendment to Department Order No. 44-2014, or the Post Entry Guidelines Under the Fiscal Intelligence Unit, Department of Finance, Pursuant to Executive Order No. 155, s. 2013

CESAR V. PURISIMASecretary of Finance

Amendment to Department Order No. 44-2014, or the Post Entry Guidelines Under the Fiscal Intelligence Unit,

N O T I C E

Industry & Investments Building, 385 Sen. Gil J. Puyat Avenue, Makati City, PhilippinesTrunkline: 897-6682, 895-3640, 895,3641, 895-3657, 895-3666

Website: http//www.boi.gov.ph • P.O. Box 1872 Makati City

(TNS-MAR. 22, 2015)

Notice is hereby given that SAN BUENAVENTURA POWER LTD. CO. is applying for registration with the Board of Investments (BOI) as New Operator of 500MW (Gross) Supercritical Coal-Fired Power Plant on a Pioneer Status with project to be located in Barangay Cagsiay I, Mauban, Quezon under Book I of E.O. 226 otherwise known as the Omnibus Investments Code of 1987. Any person with valid objection/s on the above-mentioned project may file his/her objection in writing, under oath, with the BOI within three (3) days from the date of this publication.

(Sgd.) NESTOR P. ARCANSALIN Director

Resource-based Industries Service

“I’m speechless and honored to have had this opportunity. We worked hard for this and so did the other team. It’s a weird feel-ing, undefeated,” said Ahomiro.

The Lady Eagles be-came the second team in league history to finish with a perfect season in women’s volleyball. Previously, the La Salle Lady Spik-ers won all of their 14 matches in capturing the outright champi-onship in 2004.

Rather than be sat-isfied after grabbing their second consecu-tive UAAP title the At-eneo Lady Eagles want more and are targeting a possible three-peat.

The biggest reason for another title is Alys-sa Valdez. The regular season MVP has com-mitted to return next season to give Ateneo that rare third consecu-tive UAAP title.

“I have one more year. For now it’s the national team. That’s next for me if given the chance. It’s a long way to go. Kailangang alagaan ko sarili ko (I need to take care of myself),” said Valdez.

Three veterans will graduate from the Lady Eagles. They are 6’0” middle blocker Aer-ieal Patnongon, libero Denden Lazaro and open spiker Ella de Jesus.

But the team returns with a virtually intact

Ateneo De Manila University Lady Eagles star player Alyssa Valdez (2) spikes the volleyball through a pair of double-teaming La Salle Green Spikers. Rather than be satisfi ed after grabbing their second consecutive UAAP title the Ateneo Lady Eagles want more and are targeting a possible three-peat. RICHARD ESGUERRA

By Peter Atencio

FINALS Most Valuable Player Amy Ahomiro was overcome with emotion upon realizing the Ateneo Lady Eagles went undefeated all season long, tallying 16 consecutive victories, in the 77th University

Athletic Association of the Philippines women’s volleyball tournament.

lineup. Among those returning next sea-son with Valdez and Ahomiro are Michelle Morente, Therese Gas-ton, Julia Morado, Isa-belle de Leon, Jhoanna Maraguinot, Bea Tan, Madeleine Madayag, Kassandra Sequillana and Jamie Lavitoria.

The squad arguably becomes stronger next season. School officials said Ana Gopico, who is recovering from injury, will be back. Then there are the three recruits from the United States and Canada which in-cludes six-foot spiker Kat Tolentino from Canada.

The title match was watched by 20,705 screaming fans who trooped to the game at the Mall of Asia Arena. Valdez added they nev-er expected the finals to go this way and for the Lady Eagles to stay un-

beaten in 16 games.In the champion-

ship the game, Valdez, tallied 20 hits for the Lady Eagles. Morado, who was named Best Setter, had six points.

“Training and plan-ning for this game went well,” said the Lady Ea-gles’ Thai coach Anu-sorn Bundit, who flew home to Bangkok to be with his family the fol-lowing day.

The Thai empha-sized the importance of enjoying the game in order to be able to give your best as a player.

“To my players. I told them to play hap-py, and if they play happy, they will win,” said coach Bundit.

The Lady Eagles were indeed happy as they went on to sweep all of their 16 games.

La Salle, which lost Ara Galang and

Camille Cruz to inju-ries, was not so happy. They barely gave At-eneo a semblance of fight in the final set, with Mary Joy Baron and Mika Reyes giving nine and eight points. La Salle managed to hang on to a 12-9 lead, before Ahomiro and Valdez led a 7-2 run, and move ahead, 17-14.

La Salle coach Ramil de Jesus commended his players for giving their all despite the big handicap.

“Sabi ko sa kanila, hindi natin kailan-gang yumuko. Kahit kulang tayo, di kai-langan maiyak o umi-yak. Heads up tayo sa laro (I told them not to bow their heads. Even if they were not com-plete, they should not despair. We need to play heads up volley-ball),” said de Jesus.

Ateneo De Manila University Lady Eagles players and supporters rejoice after defeating the De La Salle University Green Spikers to win their second consecutive UAAP Women’s Volleyball title. ARVIN LIM

AIM TO CONTINUE TITLE RUNLADY EAGLES

[email protected]

ARMAN ARMEROE D I T O R

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

SPORTS



GOLF CHAMP. Davao City Vice Mayor Pulong Duterte receives his trophy from his father, Mayor Rody Duterte after fi nishing overall net runner-up in the recent Mayor Rody Invitational Golf tournament held at the Apo Golf and Country Club. DS

This is the question that is foremost among badminton fol-lowers after siblings Mark Shelly and Malvinne Ann Venice ‘Poca’ Alcala once again posted impres-sive victories in the recent 8th Prima Pasta Badminton Open Championship at the Powers-mash courts in Makati City.

Mark Shelly Alcala, who is known for his superb endurance and stamina, outlasted current national player Ross Leonard

Pedroza in the championship round, 23-16,23 -21 to grab the men’s singles Open title in the event participated by over two thousand local badminton play-ers nationwide.

The 16-year-old Allied Vic-tor prized catch who is the reign-ing singles champion in last year’s Singapore Badminton Open in the U-17 class, and the Toby’s Open juniors titlist in late last year’s Bingo Bonanza Open Division

By Eddie G. AlineaLOS ANGELES, Califor-nia—Filipino boxing pride Manny Pacquiao took time out from his hectic train-ing schedule Friday to wel-come his wife, Sarangani Vic. Gov. Jinkee and his five children who flew in here from Manila.

The World Boxing Or-ganization welterweight titlist personally wel-comed Jinkee and chil-dren Jimwell, Michael, Princess, Queennie and newly-born Baby Israel at the Tom Bradley Airport from where they rode to-gether to their mansion in Plymouth Blvd. here.

“Biglang sumaya na naman ang bahay,” the Sarangani Congressman

exclaimed while having dinner with his family upon their arrival. “Buo na naman kasi ang pamilya.”

Pacquiao cancelled his scheduled morning road-work at the Griffith Hills and gym activity at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood to savor the presence of his wife and children who he said he missed very much since leaving the country last February 28.

Pacquaio, a devout fam-ily man. hugged his children one-by-one andc carried Baby Israel in his arms.

“Dikdikan na ang en-sayo habang palapit nang palapit ang laban,” he said, referring to his coming welterweight unification face-off with undefeated

American Floyd May-weather Jr., owner of the World boxing Council/World Boxing Association 147-pound crown.

“And I also want to have some time with my family on the day of their arrival. Matagal-tagal na rin na-man kaming di nagkikita. Puro tawag sa telepono at sa skypes na lang,” Pac-quiao said.

Jinkee, for his part, thanked God for the good trip and for guiding them to a safe travel to this city.

“Maganda ang naging biyahe namin at salamat at nakarating kami ng ligtas dito upng magkasams-sa-ma kami muli,” Jinkee said.

“Sabik na sabik na rin na-man kaming magkitakitang muli. Lalo na ang mga bata

na makita muli ang Daddy nila., “ Jinkee added. “When we were still in the country, halos hilahin na nga naming ang mga araw para bakasy-on na at makalipad na kami papunta dito.”

“Mas Masaya na ako ngayon na magkakasama na kaming pamilya. Sala-mat sa Panginoon,” Pac-quiao said.

“Now that we are again to-gether, praying together and going to church together, the more I will be focused on my training for the coming May 2 fight, our biggest fight,” he added.

“Now that all of us are here, lalo na akong mai-inspire sa ensayo. My fam-ily’s presence will motivate me further to winning that fight,” Pacquiao added.

champion, went on to also capture the Prima Pasta U-19 boys singles crown by beating Cayel Pajarillo in the finals, 21-18,21-17 for his sec-ond consecutive title in the annual badminton tilt.

“I’m in almost perfect condition now. I wish I can play and repre-sent our country in the near future and I’m ready,” said the young Al-cala, who acknowledged the full support of badminton patron Conrado Co and Allied Victor team manager Mrs. Pacita Co.

His older sister, former na-tional women’s badminton player Malvinne Ann Venice ‘Poca’ Alca-la, (Allied Victor/UP), turned back Bianca Ysabelle Carlos of Ateneo de Manila University, 21-14, 9-21,

21-17 in the championship round to clinch the women’s singles title.

“Medyo naibalanse ko na po ang aking time sa pag-aaral at pag-lalaro ng badminton. Lately po kasi natutok ako nang husto sa studies kaya na-relax ang ating pag-maintain being top player dito sa atin kaya ngayon heto na ko and I’m willing to play for the country again given another shot for the national team,” said Malvinne Ann, the Philippine Sportswriters Association’s bad-minton player awardee recently.

Marky and ‘Poca’ also wish that if they are given a chance to play internationally, their father/coach. former national badmin-ton coach Malvin Alcala will be

the one to coach them. “The Alcala siblings deserve to

be in the national team based on their latest triumphs and supe-rior performance internationally and locally. The time for that is now and let’s not waste it,” said Pacita Co, who is also the man-ager of the UAAP Badminton champion team of the University of the Philippines.

Other Allied Victor/UP stan-douts who shone in their events in the Prima Pasta tournament were Paola Beatriz Bernardo in U-19 girls singles and teammate Aldreeen Concepcion, who took the silver in the same category, and Jeline Masongson, who reached the semifinals.

RULE BADMINTON TILTRULE BADMINTON TILTRULE BADMINTON TILTALCALA SIBLINGS

By Danny Simon

SO what’s stopping sports officials from tap-ping the power-playing Alcala siblings for the

national badminton team?

PACQUIAO REUNITES WITH JINKEE, KIDS

Mark Shelly Alcala displays impressive form against his opponent in the fi nals. At right, older sister Malvinne in mixed doubles action.

right a� er taking instructions from his new coach Shaun McGinnley of Saddle-back College.

Last March 13, Stuart heaved 68.86 meters to earn the gold medal in the hammer throw event of the Ben Brown Athletics meet at the track stadium of the California State University-Fullerton campus.

It’s in the bloodHis father John is a retired insurance

executive and his mom Rowena is from Arayat, Pampanga. John used to play American football for the University of

Texas from 1981 to 1985 and was even-tually dra� ed by the Miami Dolphins.

His parents were among his loved ones, who were watching when Stuart heaved the iron ball to a distance of 16.52 meters at the start of the 2015 Philippine National Open Invitational Athletics in Sta. Cruz, Laguna on � ursday.

Stuart went on to deliver a pair of golden � nishes to make his presence felt in his � rst tournament on local soil.

� e former varsity at the University of California-Riverside plucked the gold medal in the men’s shot put competi-tion, before coming close to smashing the national record in the men’s ham-mer throw.

� is allowed him to edge his potential Southeast Asian Games rival in Hussin Adi Ali� udin of Malaysia (16.21 me-ters) and national team mainstay Eliezar Sunang (16.05 meters) of the Housing Sector.

Later that day, he tallied 64.57 meters in the men’s hammer throw competi-tion, nearly breaking the national re-cord of 68.86 meters, which he him-

self notched in the Ben Brown Championship. Stuart’s

throw in the Ben Brown tournament made a lot of eyes pop as it was six meters better than than the current record set by � antipong Phetchaiya of 62.33 meters in the 2013

Southeast Asian Games! Caleb’s beginnings

In 2014, Stuart was named Male Field Athlete of the Year by � e Big West af-ter clearing 66.84m to take his second career championship in the hammer throw.

Stuart came in fourth in the discus, with a top mark of 49.96m.

Also while at UC-Riverside last year, he set the school record in the hammer throw with a top mark of 67.34m on March 28 at the UC Riverside Spring Track Classic.

He also set the school record in the weight throw (indoor event) with a mark of 20.02m on Jan. 17, 2014 at the UW Husky Classic.

A di� erent sportStuart said he was never in athletics

back in high school because his interests back then was in American football. He was also a forward with the high school basketball team at the Riverside Poly.

But things changed when he went to college at the University of California-Riverside.

He could not make the cut to men’s basketball team, as the felt he was too short at 6’2” and most for players who were forwards were taller than him.

“I just wanted to stay in shape. So I joined the track team because I wanted to stay in shape,” recalled Caleb.

It turned out basketball’s loss, is Phil-ippine athletics’ gain.

SPORTS

Riera U. MallariEDITORB8


[email protected]



Caleb Stuart (right) gets pointers from athletics’ legend Arnel Ferrera. ROMAN PROSPERO

right a� er taking instructions from his new coach Shaun McGinnley of Saddle-back College.

Last March 13, Stuart heaved 68.86 meters to earn the gold medal in the hammer throw event of the Ben Brown Athletics meet at the track stadium of the California State University-Fullerton campus.

It’s in the bloodHis father John is a retired insurance

executive and his mom Rowena is from Arayat, Pampanga. John used to play American football for the University of

Texas from 1981 to 1985 and was even-tually dra� ed by the Miami Dolphins.

His parents were among his loved ones, who were watching when Stuart heaved the iron ball to a distance of 16.52 meters at the start of the 2015 Philippine National Open Invitational Athletics in Sta. Cruz, Laguna on � ursday.

Stuart went on to deliver a pair of golden � nishes to make his presence felt in his � rst tournament on local soil.

� e former varsity at the University of California-Riverside plucked the gold medal in the men’s shot put competi-tion, before coming close to smashing the national record in the men’s ham-mer throw.

� is allowed him to edge his potential Southeast Asian Games rival in Hussin Adi Ali� udin of Malaysia (16.21 me-ters) and national team mainstay Eliezar Sunang (16.05 meters) of the Housing Sector.

Later that day, he tallied 64.57 meters in the men’s hammer throw competi-tion, nearly breaking the national re-cord of 68.86 meters, which he him-

self notched in the Ben Brown Championship. Stuart’s

throw in the Ben Brown tournament made a lot of eyes pop as it was six meters better than than the current record set by � antipong Phetchaiya of 62.33 meters in the 2013

SPORTS SPORTS

BASKETBALL’S LOSS,IS PHILIPPINE

ATHLETICS’ GAIN

By Peter Atencio

CALEB Stuart’s long

journey started in a rather

unusual way.It all began when the Philippine Blu

Girls’ national so� ball team went to the United States last July to train for the Asian Games, seeing action in the General Tire World Cup of So� ball IX in Irvine, California.

His sister Morgan Stuart hooked up with members of the delegation in an e� ort to display her skills and eventu-ally become a part of the team.

� e 25-year-old Morgan was a shortstop/third baseman on the Uni-versity of Washington’s Division I so� ball team back in college and was a member of the team that won the NCAA 2009 so� ball national cham-pionship in Oklahoma City before she graduated in 2011.

Coach Randy Dizer remembered that day when they met her mother Rowena Pineda-Stuart during prac-tice and she invited them to lunch at their home.

While at the Stuart’s, Dizer said he saw pictures on the wall and records of performances in various athlet-ics meets of Morgan’s brother Caleb, rousing his curiosity.

A call to commissioner Jolly Gomez of the Philippine Sports Commission that a� ernoon con� rmed Dizer’s hunch that Caleb’s performances were all within reach of records made in the Southeast Asian Games.

“Jolly (Gomez) immediately sent them (records) by email. I realized they (records) were all worth golds in the SEA Games. A� er that, Mr. Go-mez talked to the mother. � en, they sent his resume. And that was the start,” said Dizer, recalling the events which took place at the Stuart house-hold eight months ago.

Inspired by a change in coach six months ago, the 24-year-old Caleb began re-shaping his athletic life

Fil-Am sensation Caleb Stuart throws the metal to a gold-clinching distance in the PH National Open. ROMAN PROSPERO

LIFEg l w e e ke n d @ g m a i l . c o m

C1BAMBINA OLIVARES WISEE D I T O R

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S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5

stand ard/stand rd/

noun

an idea or thing used as a measure, norm, or model in comparative

evaluations

C2 BAMBINA OLIVARES WISEE D I T O R

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5

g l w e e ke n d @ g m a i l . c o m

LIFE

At some point, I have been judged by people who know me for having either ludicrously high standards or shamefully low ones bere� of any self-respect. Let’s not get into what those are, but some of those observa-

tions admittedly hold water while others, in my opinion, do not. Eventually, that got me asking myself: what’s in a standard? It was during the FIFA World Cup in Mexico some ten thousand throwback � ursdays ago that I found myself glued to the television watching in awe as Diego Maradona weaved his magic on the pitch. At the time, all I knew was that he was the greatest footballer of that era and I some-how concluded that there was no reason my standard of play couldn’t be like his. My epiphany lasted all of � ve minutes and came to a grinding halt a� er I stepped outside with a ball and discovered that run-ning while dribbling it entailed too much multi-tasking, not to mention skill and co-ordination. � e year was 1986 and I credit it as the epoch when I � rst understood what

standards truly meant. I am not a deeply re-ligious person, but I concede that this reve-lation would not have been possible without some help from the “Hand of God”. Of course, setting one’s standards is not as sophomoric as the eye-opener I experi-enced that summer. Standards are subjec-tive, dictated by myriad factors that possi-bly begin in one’s subconscious while still in the womb, developed throughout the formative years, in� uenced by peers, pro-fessors, the media, and so on. Soon a� er my delusions of football great-ness, I then set the standards of my ambi-tions sky high—literally—when I decided I should become an airline pilot. A� er writ-ing a letter to PAL inquiring what the re-quirements and quali� cations were, I was ecstatic to receive a reply from them saying all that was needed was a degree in engi-neering or physics. � is whim, however, was shot down in a � ery blaze like a drone by a surface-to-air missile a� er two years of drudgery under an obnoxious physics pro-fessor with halitosis convinced that New-ton’s laws of motion were child’s play. � en, there was the English literature professor, a sadist of sorts who seemed to

take great pleasure in making me read the work of Geo� rey Chaucer whose poetry may as well have been written in Greek as far as my adolescent mind was concerned. Sheer torture. Prior to deciphering “� e Canterbury Tales”, my literary standard was an ‘80s “classic” called “Choose Your Own Adventure” and unlike reading Chaucer, not only would it not give me a nosebleed, I could even decide how the story ended. � at way, all my standards were satisfacto-rily met. So what’s in a standard? I guess it can be said that like destiny, there are times that standards are in fact in our own hands. We can either raise them or lower them to suit the occasion, go with the � ow, or just be-cause. Alcohol has a knack for lubricating standards and opening our minds to set-ting new ones—be it higher or lower. Our standards for cuisine, humor, and even members of the opposite sex can either shoot up the charts or go down the drain a� er one too many (more o� en the latter, in my experience). Anyone who has been tipsy can attest to this. In vino veritas. Let’s raise a glass to new standards. Cheers!

� e late Louie Beltran and I were invited to join the Manila Standard In 1988—he to write his top-rating daily column “Straight from the Shoulder”, I to edit a new concept for a Sunday supplement

to the fairly young daily broadsheet. � e invitation came from Josine Elizalde, Beltran’s producer of the television version of his newspaper column and the sister-in-law of the businessman behind Manila Standard News, publisher of the broadsheet, the late Manda Elizalde. � e concept given me was exciting. It replicated the broadsheet size of W magazine, the successful monthly fashion magazine in the United States. I called the magazine S, for Sunday Standard. � e � rst cover featured Patricia Panlilio, photographed by Mandy Navasero, and though the printing had much to be desired, S created quite a stir for being the � rst of its kind in the local industry and the impact such a huge cover made.

Because of this visual impact, S was able to draw the support of master photographers in the industry who agreed to lend their skill to the magazine for the measly budget that was allowed by management. Wig Tysmans, Patrick Koenigswarter, Neal Oshima, Bien Bautista, and Jun de Leon took turns photographing the cover and the cover story. It stood out among other Sunday magazines until, through changes in ownership, it was shrunk to the size of an ordinary magazine, then changed to a fortnightly stand-alone magazine under the name Savvy, until its discontinuance in 1999. My life in Manila Standard counted 11 years. Apart from producing the weekly and fortnightly publications, there was also one experience that will always be a high point in my years with the company. On 31 August 1997, the world was shocked by the news of Princess Diana’s tragic death. A week later management asked me if I could produce a special magazine about the beloved princess. My daughter, who was then in high school, was a British royalty fan. For years she collected

books about the royal family, beautiful tomes brought home to her from abroad by her aunts living outside the Philippines. Of course she had a lot of co� ee table books on Diana. I got materials from my daughter’s books to use in the special 8-page magazine I simply called Diana. A� er I put it to bed nearing midnight, I went home satis� ed that I accomplished the task given me...and fell asleep exhausted. � e next morning, I was awakened by the incessant ringing of my mobile phone. It was the production manager and the circulation manager calling to tell me to go to o� ce early to see something Manila Standard has not seen before. Newspaper dealers were queuing at the o� ce, all wanting to get the Diana special issues. It was selling like hot cakes on the street. � e o� ce had to promise to reprint as the dealers placed additional orders. � e reprinting was done for a few more days until the demand dwindled and died. But that was such a great feeling: to come out with a product that had such a high demand from the reading public.

THE SCHUUR

THINGBY BAMBINA OLIVARES WISE

stand�ardnoun

principles of conduct informed by notions of

honor and decency

DEBATABLE STANDARD

stand�ardnoun

a level of quality or attainment

JAZZ STANDARD

stand�ardnoun

a form of language that is widely accepted as

the correct form

READING STANDARD

“We’ve all been there,” said Diane Schuur in between songs that chronicled the inevitable cycle

of love, from the heady early days of infatu-ation to the moments of despair and regret. Her voice at 61 is still limpid, even if at times it faltered, mostly at the beginning. In Manila recently for the Philippine Inter-national Jazz Festival at Solaire, the Gram-my Award-winner found the time to sing at an intimate, private concert at the Philam-life Tower. Starting out with “S’ Wonderful,” Dee-dles, as the queen of contemporary jazz from Tacoma, Washington, was nicknamed as a child, segued smoothly to “How In-sensitive,” “I Remember You,” and “I Get Along without You Very Well,” tackling all the great American standards with ease. “Here we become a little more sponta-neous,” she remarked, performing a bit of Gershwin, a bit of Jobim, a bit of Stan Getz and even a bit of Miles Davis. Her rendition of “Louisiana Sunday A� ernoon” brought the house down, followed by her � nal number, “For Once in My Life.” Deedles, who has been coming to the Phil-ippines since 1988 for various concerts, has sung with all the greats – Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Stan Getz, B.B. King and the Count

Basie Orchestra to name a few. Her list of collaborators also includes Barry Manilow, Jose Feliciano and Stevie Wonder. She has also performed at the White House twice. For this concert, she took her place at the piano, and accompanied by a small rhythm section, belted out songs from her latest al-bum, I Remember You (with Love to Stan and Frank), which was released last year. � e album is a tribute to two men who were major in� uences on her music and her career: the jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and the crooner Frank Sinatra. Schuur called them “two of my most im-portant mentors. All the songs were previ-ously recorded by one or both of them… � is is a very personal album about my life experiences.” Getz, in fact, is credited with discover-ing her at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1979, when she was 26 years old. As the story goes, Getz was in the audience when Schuur came on stage and belted out a gos-pel suite with the late drummer Ed Shaugh-nessy’s band. He was blown over by what he’d heard. Victor L. Schermer, a critic writing for allaboutjazz.com, called Schuur “that rare songbird who is equally competent as a jazz singer and a pops entertainer. While some

vocalists go with more lucrative popular music and some take the road of jazz artist in the pure sense, Schuur is able to straddle the two careers.” And that perhaps explains the enduring appeal of Diane Schuur. � ere is something simultaneously approachable and haughty about her, the way she chooses music that most everyone above the age of 40 is famil-iar with, and performs them � awlessly, as a seasoned entertainer would. Yet she in-fuses her performances with jazzy rhythms and emotional depth without melodrama or histrionics, o� en scatting with con� -dence, like a true artist would. She was destined to be a musical artist. She may have been born blind, but she had perfect pitch, and even taught herself piano initially by ear. Now wheelchair bound, Schuur grew up surrounded by jazz, with an amateur pianist for a father and a moth-er who had amassed an impressive collec-tion of Duke Ellington and Dinah Wash-ington albums and home, and played them o� en. In fact, as a toddler, Schuur had al-ready learned Washington’s iconic “What a Di� erence a Day Makes.” Listen to her sing the standards live, or stream her music, and you’ll see what a dif-ference Diane makes.

WHAT’S IN A STANDARD?

REMEMBRANCE OF ISSUES PAST

JAMI LEDESMA

CHIT L. LIJAUCO

American Standard (United States)

(Yes, there are standards for

these, too!)

C3BAMBINA OLIVARES WISEE D I T O RLIFE

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5


POP GOES THE POP STANDARDS

stand�ardnoun

a tune or song of established

popularity

POP STANDARD

STANDARD-BEARERSAs brand names go, “Standard” may not be the most exciting one out there, but it almost often communicates an assurance of quality and reliability. Moreover, it works well no matter what product it is applied to: a hotel, a bank, and even a newspaper.

Here we present some well-known Standard-branded items:

Local or abroad, English or Tagalog, fast or slow, happy or heart-wrenching, pop standards have always ranked high on any Filipino’s playlist, making their way to our playlists, show bands, and karaoke sessions. Here are lists of albums, songs and song choices that have made the standard cut.

NEW

SPA

PER

S

HO

TELS

BA

NK

S

The New Standard (Manila)

The Standard (Hong Kong)

The Evening Standard (London)

Standard Chartered (Global)

Standard Bank (South Africa)

Standard Bank and Trust (United States)

OIL REFINERIES & GAS STATIONSStandard Oil Company & Trust (United States)founded by John D. Rockefeller no less in 1863

The Standard, High Line (New York City)

The Standard East Village (New York City)

The Standard Downtown LA (Los Angeles)

The Standard Spa Miami Beach (Miami)

The Standard Hollywood (Los Angeles)

COMPILED BY TROY BERNARDO/THE SOCIAL STANDARD

TOIL

ETS

5 SONGS THAT ARE

PINOY KARAOKE

FAVORITESDon’t Stop Believing

by Journey

My Way by Frank Sinatra

I Want It That Way by The Backstreet Boys

Dancing Queenby ABBA

My Heart Will Go Onby Celine Dion

via 25travels.com

5 TOP POP STANDARDS

ALBUMSIt Had to be You

(The Great American Songbook)

by Rod Stewart

Michael Buble by Michael Buble

Moonlight Serenade by Carly Simon

What’s New by Linda Ronstadt

Take A Look by Natalie Cole

via top40.about.com

BONUS TRACK: 5 TOP CLASSIC

OPM SONGSManila

by Hotdog

Di Bale Nalang by Gary Valenciano

Pumapatak Ang UlanAPO Hiking Society

Umagang Kay Ganda by Tilie Moreno

and Ray-Ann Fuentes

Awitin Mo at Isasayaw Ko

VST & Company

5 SONGS MOST LIKELY

TO BE INCLUDED

IN ANY STANDARDS

ALBUMThey Can’t Take That

Away From Me

The Way You Look Tonight

Moonlight Serenade

Moondance

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

THE POP STANDARDSLocal or abroad, English or Tagalog, fast or slow, happy or heart-wrenching, pop standards have always ranked high on any Filipino’s playlist, making their way to our playlists, show bands, and karaoke sessions. Here are lists of albums, songs and song choices that have made the standard cut.

5 SONGS MOST LIKELY

TO BE PERFORMED BY A FILIPINO HOTEL BAND

THROUGHOUT ASIA

Faithfully by Journey

Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars

I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor

Dancing Queen by ABBA

Anak by Freddie Aguilar

via CNN.com

song of established

It Had to be You (The Great

American Songbook) by Rod Stewart

Michael Buble by Michael Buble

Moonlight SerenadeMoonlight Serenadeby Carly Simon

What’s New by Linda Ronstadt

Take A Lookby Natalie Cole

via top40.about.com

via CNN.com

stand�ardnoun

an idea or thing used as a measure, norm, or model in comparative

evaluations.

BRAND STANDARD

5 SONGS MOST LIKELY

TO BE PERFORMED BY A FILIPINO HOTEL BAND

THROUGHOUT ASIA

5 TOP POP STANDARDS

ALBUMS5 SONGS

MOST LIKELY TO BE

INCLUDED IN ANY

STANDARDS ALBUM

BONUS TRACK: 5 TOP CLASSIC

OPM SONGS

5 SONGS THAT ARE

PINOY KARAOKE

FAVORITES

C4 BAMBINA OLIVARES WISEE D I T O R


LIFES U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5

It’s all relative, or course, but the standard is really high when it comes to certain luxury essentials in life.

FOR HERIt’s all relative, or course, but the standard is really high when it comes to certain luxury essentials in life.

FOR HERFOR HERFOR HERFOR HERstand�ardadjective

used or accepted as normal or average

LUXURY STANDARD

Love BraceletCartier

BB PumpsManolo Blahnik

Birkin BagHermès

Chanel No. 5 Perfume

Gondolo WatchPatek Philippe

Silk ShirtJoseph

It’s all relative, or course, but the standard is really high when it comes to certain luxury essentials in life.

Diamond Solitaire RingDamiani

Diamond Ring set in PlatinumJanina for Jul Dizon Heritage Trench Coat

Burberry

Engagement RingTiffany

DAMIANI SILVER VAULT, RUSTAN’S MAKATI TIFFANY RUSTAN’S MAKATI AND RUSTAN’S SHANGRI-LA (HOWEVER, PLS NOTE THAT CURRENTLY, RUSTAN’S DOESN’T CARRY ENGAGEMENT RINGS OF TIFFANY) CARTIER RUSTAN’S MAKATI, RUSTAN’S SHANGRI-LA AND NEWPORT RESORTS WORLD JANINA FOR JUL DIZON THE MANILA PENINSULA AND EDSA SHANGRI-LA PATEK PHILIPPE GREENBELT 5 HERMÈS GREENBELT 3

MANOLO BLAHNIK IFC MALL, THE LANDMARK AND ELEMENTS, HONG KONG JOSEPH SM AURA PREMIER CHANEL RUSTAN’S DEPARTMENT STORES BURBERRY GREENBELT 4. SHANGRI-LA PLAZA MALL AND RUSTAN’S MAKATI

Silk ShirtJoseph

Hermès

Heritage Trench CoatBurberry

C5LIFEg l w e e ke n d @ g m a i l . c o m

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5

FOR HIMFOR HIMFOR HIM

SCAN THE ICON

TO WATCH A ROLEX

VIDEO

APOM Pour HommeMaison Francis Kurkdjian

Damier BriefcaseLouis Vuitton

Dom Perignon Champagne

Brogues Church’s

Rolex Oyster Watch

TuxedoGucci

Brooklands SaloonBentley

MAISON FRANCIS KURKDJIAN ADORA, GREENBELT 5 CHURCH’S UNIVERS, ROCKWELL LOUIS VUITTON GREENBELT 4 BENTLEY BENTLEY SHOWROOM, 201 EDSA, MANDALUYONG ROLEX FOR A FULL LIST OF RETAILERS, VISIT ROLEX.COM DOM PÉRIGNON DOMPERIGNON.COM GUCCI GREENBELT 4

BAMBINA OLIVARES WISEE D I T O R

C6 ISAH V. REDE D I T O R

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5

i s a h r e d @ g m a i l . c o m

SHOWBITZ

ACROSS 1 Huge blossom 6 Sell hot tickets 11 Candy base 16 Inferior in quality 21 UFO pilot 22 PC message 23 Cease-fire 24 Castle that danced 25 Dunkable treat 26 Fictional bell town 27 PC chip maker 28 Come clean 29 U2 producer 30 Monsieur, in Bonn 32 Perimeters 34 Work the soil 36 Snaky fish 37 Alley game 39 Greedy king of myth 40 Packing crate 41 WWW addresses 42 Yore, of yore 43 Sheep shelters 44 Convenes

46 Based on eight 49 Ice-fishing tool 50 “Omigosh!” 51 Does a double-take 55 Bird beaks 56 Stamp holder 57 Hull sealants 58 Shiny wrapping 59 Cotton gin name 60 Aquarium scavenger 61 Lose hair 62 Cousin’s mother 63 I-70 64 Teutonic 66 Say in fun 67 Fender nick 68 Kind of hunter 69 Tummy 70 Yield, as territory 71 Seed containers 72 New days 73 Crafty one 74 Samba kin (2 wds.) 76 Isaac Newton’s title

77 Israeli port 80 Cease 81 Swimming — 82 Band instrument 86 Florence’s river 87 Parking lot sign 88 Seine tributary 89 Some are friendly 90 Drink with scones 91 Roof problem 92 Pharaoh’s amulet 93 Ham and sausage 94 551, to Ovid 95 With delight 97 Bedroom slipper 98 Keeps away from 99 Intuit 100 Of the stars 101 Godiva’s title 102 Neglects 103 Animal fats 104 Paper-folding art 106 Archaeology finds 107 Wrecker’s job 108 Pet-shop cuties 111 Quick letter 112 Fluctuates (hyph.) 113 Harm 117 Bracket type 118 “Have — — news for you!” 119 Goethe masterpiece 120 King of gorillas 121 Apply makeup 122 Bucks 124 Jet-setters’ need 126 Fossil rock 128 Ammonia compound 130 Dry run 131 Cause of food poisoning (2 wds.) 132 Comforter stuffing 133 Ultra-lite (hyph.) 134 Erik the composer 135 Concrete reinforcer

136 Oui and ja 137 Medieval tale

DOWN 1 Officer in training 2 Companionless 3 Curtain material 4 Modern, in Munich 5 Busy place 6 Grills a steak 7 Naval rank below Capt. 8 Battery size 9 Kind of veto (hyph.) 10 Dawdler 11 Messy places 12 Vases with feet 13 Clean a fish 14 Synthetic fiber 15 Chutney, e.g. 16 Nursery rhyme girl 17 Suffix for “forfeit” 18 Defiant reply 19 Pay homage 20 Raises one’s voice 31 Wind up 33 Neon or nitrogen 35 Looking like a rake? 38 Potpie veggies 39 Ski slope bump 40 Puts the lid on 41 Letters on an F-16 43 Block-shaped 44 Surround 45 Budget item 46 Large Russian lake 47 “People” person 48 ‘Vette rival (hyph.) 49 Delon of cinema 50 Type of lock 52 Kitchen tool 53 Son of Uranus 54 Goes downhill 56 Take by force 57 “Scram!” (3 wds.) 58 Winery casks

60 Mead subject 61 Hunks’ assets 62 Non-soap opera 65 Diva Anna — 66 Witty remark 67 Symbol of peace 68 Cayuse 70 Spring 71 Fishing gear 72 Drizzles 74 Lion’s share 75 Snack 76 Gives the pink slip 77 Yoga type

78 Fields of study 79 Out of place 80 Dock 82 Silo companions 83 Waiter’s request 84 Fixed a squeak 85 Hits dead-center 87 Logger’s job 88 Just 89 Matches 91 Truth stretcher 92 Import vehicle 93 Donahue et al 96 Major-leaguers

97 Lansbury role 98 Malt alternative 99 Babe in the woods? 101 Trellis 102 Long journey 103 Accommodations 105 Review (2 wds.) 106 Debt memo 107 Light brown 108 Gnats, to us 109 Very very 110 Braid 112 Arafat (var.) 113 Transvaal trekkers

114 DeMille movies115 Egypt’s Anwar —116 Stone monument118 Wight or Capri119 “Deck the Hall” syllables120 Bauhaus member123 Moo goo — pan125 Show distress127 Circulars129 Cohort of Curly

A N S W E R F O R P R E V I O U S P U Z Z L E

CROSSWORD PUZZLE SUNDAY,

MARCH 22, 2015

Hong Kong — Italian fash-ion designers Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce told CNN they

respect how all people live a� er the uproar over their comments about children born through in vitro fertilization (IVF). � e comments triggered a so-cial media spat and calls for a boy-cott by singer Elton John. In an exclusive interview on Wednesday, Dolce said his views on IVF were private, personal be-liefs based on his sense of a tradi-tional Sicilian family. “I believe in the traditional family,” he said. “It is impossible to change my culture for some-thing di� erent. It’s me... I respect all the world, all the culture.” Dolce said he did not judge people who chose the procedure, although he previously made con-troversial statements to the Italian magazine, Panorama, referring to IVF babies as “chemistry children and synthetic children.” He was quoted in the magazine saying, “Wombs for rent, sperm

selected from a catalog... Who would agree to be the daughter of chemistry? Procreation must be an act of love, now not even psychia-trists are prepared to deal with the e� ects of these experiments.” His comments drew � erce de-nunciation from John. “How dare you refer to my beautiful children as ‘synthetic,’” he posted on his Instagram on Sunday. John has two children with husband David Furnish through IVF. “Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #Boy-cottDolceGabbana.” Several Hollywood celebrities tweeted in support of John’s sen-timents, including Ricky Martin, former tennis player Martina Navratilova and creator of TV show Glee, Ryan Murphy. Gabbana had � red back on so-cial media, calling for a counter-boycott of John and defending the “freedom to speak.” Dolce and Gabbana appeared

to disagree over IVF though. On Wednesday, when Gabbana was asked whether he supported having children through the proce-dure, he responded: “Yeah, I don’t have anything bad, because the beauty of the world is freedom.”

DON’T BOYCOTT US BECAUSE YOU DISAGREE WITH US � e initial comments from Dolce and Gabbana struck some as hyp-ocritical coming from a gay cou-ple that was romantically involved until 2005 (they continued work-ing together a� er the breakup). Dolce’s comment was seen as an attack on gay and lesbian families. But Gabbana said they weren’t telling anyone how to live their lives. “We love gay couple. We are gay. We love gay couple. We love gay adoption. We love everything. It’s just an express of my private point of view,” he said. Dolce told CNN he was not boycotting the artist, “I love the music of Elton John.” He said he believed they could end the dispute, “Every people re-

solve everything by talk... we start to talk, the problem is resolved.” � e pair said they respected how people chose to live their lives, including the use of IVF, and said others should also re-spect di� erences in opinion. “Every people [has] freedom for choosing what they want. � is for me is democracy. I respect you because you choose what you want. I respect me because I choose what I want... � is just my point of private view,” Dolce said. Gabbana said they could have expressed themselves using better language to the Italian magazine, but appeared taken aback by the social media backlash. “Boycott Dolce & Gabbana for what? � ey don’t think like you? � is is correct? � is is not correct. We are in 2015. � is is like medi-eval. It’s not correct,” Gabbana said. While advocates and celebrities chimed in on the dispute over the weekend, perhaps Gawker said it best: the feuding over IVF “hasn’t taken o� beyond the feeds of mul-timillionaire Twitter.”

� e U.P. College of Mass Communication (UP CMC) is now accepting nominations for the annual U.P. Gawad Plaridel, which recognizes media practitioners who have excelled in print, radio, � lm, television, or new media and have per-formed with the highest level of professional integrity in the interest of public service. For 2015, the 11th U.P. Gawad Plaridel will be given to an outstanding � lm practitioner. � e award is named a� er Marcelo H. del Pilar (nom de plume, Plaridel), the sel� ess propagandist whose stewardship of the reformist newspaper, La Solidaridad, helped crystallize nationalist sentiments and ignite libertarian ideas in the 1890s. Like Plaridel, the recipient must believe in the vision of a Philippine society that is egalitarian, participative and progres-sive; and in media that are socially responsible, critical and vigi-

lant, liberative and transformative, and free and independent. Eligible for the awards are Filipino individuals who have excelled in the � eld of � lmmaking as producer, director, scriptwriter, actor, production designer, scriptwriter, musi-cal scorer, etc. Aside from their probity and integrity, these media practitioners must have produced a body of work that is marked by excellence and social relevance and must have achievements recognized nationally and/or internationally. Individuals and institutions may nominate potential recip-ients. Institutions include media corporations, professional media associations, media advocacy groups, educational in-stitutions, cultural foundations, and NGOs. Previous nomi-nees may still be considered for this year’s award. All current full-time faculty and sta� of the UP CMC are disquali� ed from the nomination.

� e deadline for submission of nominations is 5. p.m. on April 30. � e recipient of the U.P. Gawad Plaridel 2015 will be announced in May. � e awarding will be in August in commemoration of Del Pilar’s birth anniversary. � e awardee will receive the U.P. Gawad Plaridel trophy (designed by National Artist Napo-leon Abueva) and will deliver the Plaridel Lecture address-ing issues relevant to the state and practice of Philippine media. � e recipient will have a place of honor at all cere-monies and functions of the College. � e recipient’s portrait will be hung at the U.P. Gawad Plaridel Gallery located at the College lobby (Plaridel Hall, U.P. Diliman). Nomination forms and award guidelines are available at the UP CMC Website (http://masscomm.upd.edu.ph) and at the UP CMC O� ce of Extension and External Relations (UP CMC-OEER). Interested parties may call (02) 981-8500 loc. 2668 for details.

U.P. GAWAD PLARIDEL 2015 NOMINATIONS OPEN

MAXIM BLINKOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

DOLCE & GABBANA REACT TO

ELTONJOHN’S CALL FOR BOYCOTT

Elton John calls for a boycott of

everything Dolce & Gabbana after the

designers comment about IVF children

MAXIM BLINKOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce call for boycott too of Elton John

C7ISAH V. REDE D I T O RSHOWBITZ

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5


From C8

ROBIN PADILLA GLAD INTERNET

NOW AVAILABLE TO MOST FILIPINOS

At the media launch of the partnership between wireless services leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) through its value brand Talk ‘N Text and Facebook to introduce the Internet.org app, o� ering a set of mobile internet services – including useful education, news, health, messaging and communication – without data charges last Wednesday, Robin Padilla, the service’s brand ambassador said in Filipino, “I am very happy that this has happened. I have long been pushing for this so that our fellow Filipinos, even in the remotest ar-eas of the country, will be empowered. � anks to Smart and Internet Org. for making this possible.” For its initial phase, Internet.org app allows Filipinos to enjoy free access to a bu� et of 24 websites featuring informative and practical content, including Facebook and Messenger, on their mobile phones. Internet.org is a Facebook-led initiative that aims to make mobile Internet services available to two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected. Smart is the � rst telco to launch with Internet.org app in the Philippines, and the launch marks the � rst time the Internet.org app will be available in Southeast Asia. Since 2014, Internet.org has rolled out in six coun-tries, including Colombia, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, India and Zambia, enabling people to browse useful in-formation and websites with zero data charges. Bannering the Internet.org app launch in the Philip-pines is Smart’s budget brand Talk ‘N Text, which tar-gets the larger mass segment of the population. � e ser-vice is also available for Smart and Sun subscribers. � e services can be accessed from the Internet.org Android app or by visiting www.internet.org from a mobile bro “We are working with operators, content partners, and governments from all over the world to address the barriers that prevent people from connecting and join-ing the knowledge economy. We are excited to bring In-ternet.org app to the Philippines and give people access to internet services and tools that can help create new ideas and opportunities,” said Markku Makelainen, di-rector of global operator partnerships at Facebook. “Smart’s partnership with Facebook is a big boost to our ‘Internet for All’ campaign, an advocacy we have been strongly pushing for. By launching Internet.org app with Facebook in the Philippines, we are making useful information within reach of millions of Filipi-nos,” said Smart president and chief executive o� cer Napoleon L. Nazareno. � e Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines estimates that only 38 percent of the country’s population had Internet access in mid-2014. Subscribers may download the Internet.org app on Google Play Store. � ey may also simply text INTER-NET to 9999 to enjoy the services. Padilla said, “If not for things like this that supports my advocacy, I would have le� and lived somewhere else. But I have a commitment to Talk N’ Text and the other companies with which I have endorsement deals, so I am here to stay. When they (Smart) asked me to be the face of this project and explained to me how this would impact our fellow Filipinos, I immediately said, ‘OK, let’s do it.”

Music icon Rihanna stars in her � rst ani-mated voice role in DreamWorks Ani-mation’s Home along

with the multi-talented Jennifer Lopez as they play mother-daugh-ter role where their singing voices can also be heard in the movie’s upbeat and endearing songs about family and friendship. Rihanna stars as the voice of Gra-tuity Tucci, known as Tip, a feisty, independent and very relatable girl who is having to fend for herself when her mother is captured by an alien species, the Boov, along with all the other humans on Earth. � e Boov have been moving from planet to planet in search of somewhere to call home and when they land on Earth, they decide to settle there. Tip is alone, other than her beloved pet cat called Pig. She encounters Oh, a purple Boov (Jim Parsons) who has an odd command of the English lan-guage. He is actually very helpful and wants to befriend Tip, but initially she doesn’t trust him and doesn’t want to get to know him. Oh wins her over by � xing her broken-down car, turning it into an amazing � y-ing vehicle, � e Slushious, with the power to soar above the planet. Tip is on a mission to � nd her mother; Oh is escaping from the mean leader of the Boov, Captain Smek (Steve Mar-tin); and together they embark on an extraordinary journey. Oh and Tip soon strike up a strong friendship, discovering that, in fact, they have a lot in common. Among other things, Tip teaches her new friend about music – and the fun of dancing.

Jennifer Lopez, who had previ-ously worked with Johnson on the director’s animated box-o� ce hit Antz, voices Lucy. “To work with Jennifer again, a� er 17 years, was such a treat,” he says. “She brings the warmth and power you’d expect in a mother separated from her daugh-ter. Jennifer’s performance becomes the emotional center of the movie. “One of the � lm’s most emotional moments,” Johnson continues, “was talking with Jennifer about families separated and then reunited, and sharing some of her ideas and expe-riences to make the moment where Tip and Lucy reunite really pro-found. Jennifer is the full bandwidth – entertainer, actor, � lmmaker and producer.” Rihanna is another fan of her on-screen parent. “Everybody wants J-Lo to be their mom!” she exclaims. “Her voice is so sweet and vulner-able; you feel safe just hearing her voice and performance. You believe she’s Tip’s mother.” Music plays a big role in shap-ing Home’s humor, characteriza-tions and themes – no surprise, given Rihanna’s involvement with the project. In addition to essaying Tip and contributing key songs, the pop sensation was very involved in shaping the � lm’s entire soundtrack, which weaves songs from her and other contemporary artists, includ-ing Kiesza, Charli XCX + Stargate,and Ester Dean, into the tradition-al � lm score. “I’ve had an incredible time working on some of the � lm’s mu-sic,” says Rihanna. “I really enjoyed working closely with Tim Johnson

and music producers Stargate to ensure that, lyrically and musically, the songs were exactly what were needed for a given scene,” be it fun and upbeat, cutting edge, or emo-tional. Johnson says he couldn’t have asked for a better partner. “We have a story that takes us around the world, and the voice of humanity is the voice of contemporary pop music – Rihanna,” he explains. “She delivers an incredible music experi-ence.” “Rihanna is two people in Home,” adds Buirgy. “She’s the actress voic-ing a 12 year old, and the incred-ible music superstar. She expresses much of the humor and emotion via song.” One of Home’s highlights is Oh’s introduction to Earth music, spe-ci� cally Stargate’s “Dancing in the Dark.” Oh pretends he’s appalled by the music but his body betrays him: Oh’s foot starts tapping and his hips start moving to the beat. Unable to resist, he begins boogeying down like there’s no tomorrow – with no control over his own body. � e fun and crazy sequence speaks to the heart of Oh’s journey of coming to love what it means to be human. � e scene was choreographed by Beau Casper Smart, who danced for hours to create reference foot-age for the animators, who then “Boovi� ed” the moves. ]Move to the beat of “Home” when it opens in theatres nation-wide in 3D and 2D screens on March 26 from DreamWorks Ani-mation and 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

THE MUSIC OF ‘HOME’

Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez lend their voices to the characters in the animated film Home


C8 ISAH V. REDE D I T O R

S U N D AY : M A R C H 2 2 : 2 0 1 5

SHOWBITZ

� ese days, everyone is into “instant” things – instant co� ee, instant meals, instant photos, and many more. As the world continues to evolve, a lot of things are becoming instant which make life easier, comfortable and be-yond imaginable. But what if that in-stant thing came in unexpectedly and you were unprepared? What would you do and how would you handle it? Beginning today, another family-friendly drama series unfolds on TV for those who like their things instant. Top billed by multitalented Kapuso actor Gabby Eigenmann, the series is called InstaDAD and it revolves around the life of Kenneth, a famous chef and one of the most eligible bachelors in the metro. He decides to remain single a� er a heart break from � rst love, Des. One day, fate turns Ken’s life upside down as he learns that he is a father of not just one, but three daughters: Marikit portrayed by Gabbi Garcia, the boyish, adventurous and athletic one but very protective of her two sisters; Mayumi played by Ash Ortega, the eldest among three, poised and smart just like her mother; Maaya played by Jazz Ocampo, the most sociable, girly and fashionable among them. Since he is clueless about being a fa-ther, Ken struggles in dealing with the di� erent personalities of his triplets. Meanwhile, the triplets are also not

used to the new family set up where they will face a series of family and teenage issues. Completing the cast of this family-oriented series are Matet de Leon as Gracia, the older sister of Des and aunt of the triplets; Juancho Triviño as Dwight, a varsity player and Ma-yumi’s boyfriend; Prince Villanueva as Ikot, a musically-inclined, hopeless romantic who is secretly in love with Mayumi. InstaDAD is a contemporary show that discusses the sweet, adventurous and challenging aspects of parenthood. � e series becomes even more exciting as the family faces obstacles that will surely test Ken’s abilities as a father. InstaDad premieres on April 5 a� er Sunday All Stars

★★★★★IBilibers, it’s time to join the hosts today. � e show has an exciting episode begin-ning with the segment “Brake Magnet.” Using an aluminum plate, wit-ness how this can stop a paper plate’s movement. For the show’s bilibabols, be awed by how � oating objects will go under-water and those that you think will go under will stay a� oat. Isn’t that unbelievable? And in the next experiment, paper trick will be the main focus. What about speed and illusion? Chris Tiu will explain that And since the show is about sinking and � oating, the show visits Ocean Park and let’s � nd out how big a role water plays in the lives of all sea creatures. IBilib airs Sunday mornings on GMA Network. Continued on C7

SIMPLYRED

SIMPLYRED

ISAH V. RED

‘InstaDAD’ is a contemporary show that discusses the

sweet, adventurous and challenging

aspects of parenthood. The series becomes even more exciting as the family faces obstacles that will surely test Ken’s

abilities as a father

SHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZ

used to the new family set up where

FUN & EXCITEMENT ON SUNDAY AFTERNOONS

SHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZSHOWBITZ

Matet de Leon

Prince Villanueva

Junacho Triviño

Gabby Eigenmann plays a chef who finds out he sired triplets played by

Gabbi Garcia, Ash Ortega, and Jazz Ocampo

the standard - 2015 march 22 - sunday

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