the standard - 2015 december 13 - sunday

VOL. XXIX NO. 304 3 Sections 24 Pages P18 SUNDAY : DECEMBER 13, 2015 www.thestandard.com.ph [email protected]

DUTERTE, ROXASEXCHANGE BARBS

‘NOYNOY’BECOMES‘NONA’: LPATHREATENS

B7

DONAIREBAGS WBOTITLE IN12 ROUNDS

NEW DESTINATION. People have begun to fl ock to the Blue Bay Walk at the reclamation area near the Mall of Asia in Pasay City. The promenade has become a popular destination for families and couples looking for new destinations in the metropolis. LINO SANTOS

DUTERTE ROXAS

By Rio N. Araja and Francisco Tuyay

AFTER Liberal Party presidential bet Manuel Roxas II criticized him for pro-moting a “mythical” image as crime-buster, independent candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte lashed back at the LP bet and depicted him as an in-experienced manager who has to call on his wife to take hold of a situation.

“Mar has no experience in local governance. He cannot handle stress,” Duterte said during a speech in Taguig City late Friday a� er Roxas publicly dismissed as a “myth” Duterte’s claim that Davao became a safe city under his leadership.

� e remark drew negative reactions from Davao residents, spurring the anti-crime group Volunteers

Against Crime and Corruption suggesting that the Davao City council declare Roxas “persona non grata.”

� e 70-year-old Duterte, who had just been reelected mayor at the time, explained that he went to the Eastern Visayas when Typhoon “Yolanda” struck the region in November 2013 because he was born in Maasin City in 1945.

He said he witnessed how Roxas reacted to the situ-ation in Tacloban City a� er Yolanda � attened the city and killed thousands of people.

“He was looking for � remen and engineers. So I called him aside and said ‘you are looking for o� cials who are also victims’,” Duterte said, noting that Roxas, who was then interior secretary, even � red the Eastern Visayas regional police chief for publicly saying fatali-ties could reach several thousands.

“He would even consult his wife Korina Sanchez sometimes while we were inspecting places in Leyte,” said Duterte, who lived in Eastern Visayas until he turned six years old and his family had to move to Mindanao.

Next page

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By Sara Susanne D. Fabunan

THE state weather bureau ad-mitted on Saturday that it had to change the pre-determined name of the next storm to en-ter the country because the one submitted to the World Meteo-rological Organization sounded a bit too similar to the nickname of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

� e Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration had announced on Friday that if the low-pressure area hovering over the Paci� c on � ursday turned into a storm, it would be named “Melor” in accordance with the WMO list.

However, Pagasa has a sepa-rate list using Filipino names for cyclones entering the country and the next name on the pre-determined list was “Nonoy.”

But, “due to its landfalling char-acteristics and in respect to Presi-dent Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s name,” the name Nonoy was changed to “Nona,” the state-run Philippines News Agency report-ed, quoting Pagasa weather fore-caster Glaiza Escullar.

But Pagasa o� cials said there was nothing unusual in the name and sex change because

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AQUINO GOVT WELLTRAINED—PALACE

BACK ON THE STREETS. Hidden from view during two important international events this year, homeless Filipinos are now back begging for alms with children in tow on the streets of Metro Manila ahead of the Christmas season. EY ACASIO

The VACC, on the other hand, wanted Roxas declared “persona non grata” for the “below-the-belt” remark that the group described as a “very, very big lie.”

“Davao City should declare him as ‘persona non grata’ for spread-ing a very, very big lie,” said VACC founding chairman Dante Jimenez, adding that the group’s Davao chapter has already initiated the process of sanctioning Roxas.

“Mar Roxas did not only shamed

Davao to the world but the Philip-pines as a whole,” said netizen An-gelo Lopez of Roxas’ remark.

He also hit Roxas for his “un-called for” attack on presidential candidate Vice President Jejomar Binay as an “expert in graft and corruption.”

“That is also below the belt,” Ji-menez said. “Why, what does he think of himself? Never mind, he’s at last place in the surveys anyway.”

Roxas made the controversial remark at a forum in the Ateneo de Manila University Friday when he claimed Davao actually has the fourth highest number of crimes in

the country, contrary to the crime-busting image that Duterte wanted to project to voters.

But the Davao City police issued its own rejoinder on social media on Friday and charged that the Roxas camp was glossing over the facts about criminality in the city.

“They are not showing the true facts on this issue. Please share,” the Davao City police said on their Facebook page.

Citing statistics from the PNP and the Department of the Interior and Local Government, Roxas said Davao City logged a crime volume of 18,119 in 2014.

The Davao City police clari-fied that the 2014 crime volume of 18,119 incidents that Roxas mention included “police-initiated operations that yielded positive re-sults especially on anti-drugs and other special laws.”

DCPO said only 6,548 of the 18,119 incidents, or about 36 per-cent, were index crimes, or crimes against persons and properties, and the remaining 11,571 (64 per-cent) were non-index crimes.

Duterte also slammed Roxas for calling him a human rights violator and retorted that the former senator never mentioned that claim when he

sought the Davao City mayor’s sup-port in previous elections.

“[But] now that I am running against him, I am a bad boy for him,” Duterte said.

“The same is true with [Sena-tor Grace] Poe. I was not a human rights violator when she asked me to be her vice president. Now, she is telling everyone that I am a human rights violator,” he said, referring to Poe’s claim that she never asked Duterte to be her running mate.

“She is lying,” Duterte insisted, adding that Poe even invited him to her Corinthian Garden home to discuss the matter.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte made the assurance as Tropical Storm “Melor” en-tered the Philippine Area of Responsibility on Saturday and was renamed “Nona,” according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.

Nona, the 14th tropical cyclone to affect the coun-try this year, entered the

PAR around 4 a.m. when it was 1,110 km east of Maa-sin, Southern Leyte, packing maximum sustained winds of 65 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 80 kph.

It is forecast to move west northwest at 25 kph, but is not expected to directly af-fect the country until Sun-day night when it is forecast to affect the eastern side of Luzon and Visayas.


THE government again assured the public that the country’s storm “frontliners” are well trained to handle calamities even as it warned that Filipinos, particularly those in the Bicol region, should remain vigilant for any eventuality.

The storm is expected to make landfall in Bicol region by Tuesday night even as the northeast monsoon continues to affect Northern Luzon.

The northeast monsoon, or “hanging amihan,” is the cold wind from China and Siberia that blows into the country from late October until mid-February. It is usually associated with the Christmas season.

Meanwhile, Valte said President Benigno Aquino III has ordered the National Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Council to co-ordinate with local agencies in monitoring the situation as Typhoon Nona made landfall to the eastern side of Luzon and Visayas.

Valte also said that the country’s frontliners, in-

cluding the Department of Social Welfare and De-velopment, Department of Health, and Department of Public Works and Highways have already prepositioned necessary relief, medicine and heavy equipment.

Disaster councils across the Bicol Region were also on standby alert on Saturday after Nona entered the PAR.

The RDRRMC on Friday reactivated the Office of Civ-il Defense Operation Center and placed its personnel on 24/7 duty to monitor and advise local disaster coun-cils in the six provinces and disaster agencies on weather updates and disaster prepa-ration scenarios, Bernardo Alejandro, RDRRMC chair-person and OCD regional director, said.

DUTERTE...From A1

the weather bureau peri-odically changes or “re-tires” names depending on some criteria.

Escullar explained that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had something to do with it, too.

She said Arroyo herself had nothing to do with the name change, be-cause the name “Gloria” was already on the pre-set list of names since 2002, but it was replaced with “Glenda” in 2006 since Arroyo was the president at the time.

According to interna-tional conventions, the names of storms in the Asia-Pacific region are chosen from a list sub-mitted by 14 countries with each country get-ting three names that ro-tate over a period of four

years. But there are instances

when member-weather bureaus decide to retire a certain name because of the deaths and damages it has caused.

In the Philippines, Paga-sa retires a storm’s name if it has caused at least 300 deaths or P1 billion in damages, like in the case of “Yolanda” in 2013.

In fact, Yolanda was the third storm name to be re-tired in 2013 following the deaths or damage cause by Typhoon Labuyo in Au-gust and Typhoon Santi in October.

Before Labuyo, at least 10 other names were re-tired by Pagasa due to the same reasons. The retired names are Pablo (2012), Sendong (2011), Pedring (2011), Mina (2011), Juaning (2011), Bebeng (2011), Juan (2010), Pepeng (2009), Ondoy (2009) and Cosme (2008).

‘NOYNOY’...From A1

A3s u n d ay : d E C E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5

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LAWMEN SUSPECT 2 GROUPS BEHIND NGCP TOWER BLAST

NATIONSDRAFTCLIMATEACCORD

PALACE RESPONDS TO POE’S RAP

STREET SMARTS. Skipping shopping malls for the day, a woman inspects the merchandise of bargain stalls at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City on Saturday. JANSEN ROMERO

REACHING THE UNREACHED. Members of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. call on Mandaluyong Mayor Benjamin Abalos after they distributed relief packages to the victims of a big fire in the city last month. The relief team was headed by FFCCCII vice president Domingo Yap, FFCCCII vice president Alex Yap Cho Ty, FFCCCII vice president William Yap Castro, FFCCCII board member Enrique Chua, FFCCCII board member Antonio Cosing, FFCCCII Welfare committee member Ang Cho Lim and FFCCCII president John Lim.


AFTER the camp of presidential can-didate Senator Grace Poe blamed the Palace for the Commission on Elec-tions’ adverse ruling on her candida-cy, the Aquino administration again denied it had anything to do with the poll body’s decision.

“In what came out of the disqualification case, there was a dissenter who is also an appointee of President [Benigno] Aquino. So how can they say the commissioners were controlled or influenced?” asked Presidential Deputy Spokesperson Abigail Valte.

“I think the facts will bear themselves out that these allegations are mere allegations and do not have any basis in fact,” she added.

Valte claimed the administration’s critics can-not even claim that the people who filed the com-plaints were encouraged by the Palace in order to support the candidacy of Liberal Party standard bearer Manuel Roxas II, who is lagging behind in all opinion surveys.

Valte said two of the complainants, former Senator Francisco Tatad and De La Salle Univer-sity professor Antonio Contreras are not LP allies because they have been severely critical of the ad-ministration.

Another petitioner, lawyer Estrella Elamparo, was a former GSIS employee who eventually left and is in no way connected to the administration.

Valte then appealed to the administration’s crit-ics to stop connecting the involvement of the ad-ministration with the petitioners.

“They have their own reasons so let us not con-nect them to the administration because that’s a bit of a hard sell,” Valte said.

But the Poe camp, continued its campaign sor-ties in the provinces and found herself in Isabela province, a known bailiwick of the LP.

“Nothing has changed. We will not allow these political cases to distract us from our true reason for pursuing higher office, which is to bring eco-nomic growth to every Filipino in every part of the Philippines,” Poe said in a statement.

Isabela Gov. Bojie Dy, who had earlier expressed support for LP bet Mar Roxas, invited Poe to be the special guest at the Christmas party of the prov-ince’s barangay leaders.

Poe’s counsel George Garcia said their camp will soon file a motion for reconsideration before the Comelec en banc to seek a reversal of the First Di-vision’s ruling. A similar review has been sought for the ruling of the Second Division.

Poe’s camp had presented more than 400 pages of evidence to prove that she meets the citizenship and residency requirements for president, and has expressed confidence that they would win the legal battle, should it reach the Supreme Court.

Garcia reiterated that “the Supreme Court will have the final say and unless the Supreme Court renders a decision, the fight will go on.”

She said she will remain focused on her work in the Senate and in bringing her platform of government to Filipinos, especially the marginalized who have been deprived of the benefits of economic growth.

LE BOURGET, France—French hosts submitted to cheers and applause Sat-urday a proposed 195-nation accord aimed at curbing emissions of the heat-trapping gases that threaten to wreck Earth’s climate system.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on the brink of tears after presiding over nearly a fortnight of talks in Paris that ran into overtime despite all-night negotiations, delivered the accord to ministers who must now decide whether or not to approve it.

“The world is holding its breath and counting on all of us,” said Fa-bius, his voice occasionally break-ing with emotion.

Describing it as “an historic ac-cord,” Fabius said the agreement would aim to limit warming of the planet since the Industrial Revolution to “well” below 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and strive for an even more ambitious goal of 1.5C (2.7F).

The deal would also mean mo-bilizing a minimum of $100 billion (92 billion euros) a year from 2020 to help the developing world cope with global warming, he said.

Importantly, a new figure for the financing would be set by 2025, Fa-bius said.

Fabius said the overall agreement would be “legally binding.”

Observers said that as the draft docu-ment had yet to be unveiled, it was not immediately clear if the financing would be a legal commitment, which the United States had been resisting.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pressed the world’s envoys to approve the pact. “The end is in sight. Let’s now finish the job. The world is watching. Millions of people depend on your wisdom,” he said.

French President Francois Hol-lande urged ministers gathered in Paris Saturday for UN climate talks, to take the “decisive” step in adopt-ing what he termed an “historic” pact to rein in global warming. AFP

SECURITY forces suspect that the bombing of a power line tower of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines on Thursday were probably committed by two groups.

Supt. Alexander Tagum, North Cotabato police chief, said the bombing of NGCP Tower No. 68 in Barangay Pagangan, Aleosan, North Cotabato could be the handi-work of outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and extortion gangs.

A series of arrests were car-ried out by the police and mili-tary in North Cotabato that dis-mantled a crime syndicate with the arrest of suspected bombers.

The two groups were sus-pected of mulcting the power distribution firm.

Covert and overt opera-tions continue to neutralize the group, police and military leaders said.

Following a 15-hour power interruption caused by the bombing, electricity was back in Cotabato Light and Pow-er Company franchise area and nearby provinces Friday through an alternate source.

An NGCP advisory issued at 12:30 p.m. Friday said: “At 12 noon, NGCP energized the Tacurong-Sultan Kudarat 69kV line to serve as alternate route of the bombed Kibawe-Sultan Kudarat 138kV line to serve Cotabato Light, Cotaba-to Electric Cooperative (Cotel-co) and Maguindanao Electric Cooperative [Magelco].”

It added: “Reports show that the alternate line failed to en-ergize this [Friday] morning due to vegetation hanging on the lines causing a permanent fault. NGCP has since cleared the vegetation. NGCP contin-ues to assess the damages of the bombed tower along the Kibawe-Sultan Kudarat line.”

The 9:28 p.m. Thursday at-tack in Aleosan caused a 15-hour blackout in dozens of towns in the adjoining North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces and in all of the 37 barangays in Cotabato City. Affected areas were six towns in North Cotabato, the whole of Maguindanao and Cota-bato City.

Melfrance Bambi Capu-long, speaking for the NGCP

Southern Mindanao, said today’s scheduled preventive maintenance of Kabacan-Sultan Kudarat substation was cancelled.

Capulong said the schedule was to clear trees and branch-es along the power lines and would have shut off power from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Satur-day. “But due to the bombing incident, NGCP field workers will attend to the toppled tow-er,” she said.

She said NGCP is doing its best to prevent similar inci-dent in the future and improve power distribution activities to better serve its clients.

Despite the restored direct power from NGCP, Cotabato Light communications officer Arlene Hepiga said a 2-3 hours power rotational brownout has to be implemented in its franchise area.

She said the power provided by the Tacurong substation is still not enough to energized all areas of the Cotabato Light franchise which includes the city and parts of Sultan Kudarat and Datu Odin Sinsuat, both in Maguindanao. PNA

IF, AT FIRST, you don’t find what you’re looking for, don’t give up.

It’s not in that mid-rise build-ing with the convenience store. Not in any of the crowded structures on the sides, either. Don’t look for signages because there isn’t one. There is only a nondescript, nearly run-down, two-story house along what used to be Main Avenue near Cubao, on the right side if you’re headed south, staying obscure if not for the heady jazz music that’s piping from its speakers.

Welcome to Tago Jazz Cafe,

named precisely because it does not announce itself the usual way.

Open the door and find yourself in a makeshift bar where a crowd of 25 is considered a full house; 40 an SRO. There is a couch by the door that looks as though it has been slept on by generations of musi-cians. There are a few bar stools and a sprinkling of wooden tables. The lights are makeshift; a drapery and a giant Philippine flag line the walls. One can imagine how common this place looks in the daytime.

Then again, what happens at Tago is always anything but com-mon.

The ground floor is an intimate, if not cloistered, bar with just a few tables. Upstairs on the second floor, right above the stage, live an old woman (the owner’s mother) and

some children (his nephews and nieces).

Yes, for different reasons, many people call this home.

•••

Nelson Gonzales runs the place—“running everything with nothing.” These days, he is the own-er, janitor, security guard, bouncer, cook, guest relations officer, ac-countant/bookkeeper, doorman, busboy.

He is also the default drummer during open jam sessions.

“I don’t have the funds to em-ploy many,” Gonzales, 40, says. So on the business side, the challenge is not even to make money but sim-ply stay afloat. On some nights, the customers are very few. “I’m not some rich guy who owns a jazz bar. I am just a simple and penniless cat who likes to stand up for what I be-lieve in.”

“There are a lot of amazing indi-viduals who have passed through our doors,” Gonzales says. He refers to

both local and foreign artists, famous and obscure, young and old, who have played and still play at the cafe.

Gonzales compares the local art-ists who play at Tago to young cats and heavy older cats. “Here you can freely express yourself, and even be challenged by newer ideas on play-ing...to have a venue for explora-tion, and have someone beside you while you find the answers, and then to have someone mess it all up and question your theories, beliefs, and application. It is the bond that keeps us all together. Here, you have people who can understand you.”

Juni Sitaca, the 26-year-old pia-nist for RSDC who just recently graduated from the UST Conserva-tory of Music agrees: What draws him to Tago are 1) jazz itself and 2) the community.

OPINIONA4

[ EDI TORI A L ]

POE’S WOES

AT HOME IN A HIDDEN PLACE

SENATOR Grace Poe was once the darling of the surveys. The sur-prise top performer in the 2013 senatorial elections also used to be the preferred candidate of those asked whom they would vote for, if elections were held the day they were asked.

The public could not help taking note of the diminutive senator, almost always clad in white with her hair pushed back in a no-non-sense ponytail. She once fell in line at the MRT North Avenue sta-tion as research for the Senate investigation into the train mess. Her photo was in sharp contrast to the press releases of Department of Transportation and Communications Secretary Joseph Emilio Aba-ya who boarded the train while an aide held an umbrella for him.

Poe was also praised for her handling of the hearings on the Ma-masapano killings early this year, and the resulting committee re-port.

Even the Palace took note of the drawing power of the sup-posedly independent senator. President Benigno Aquino III and then Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II met with Poe numerous times to convince her to be the latter’s running mate. She was one of the few who could continue the straight and narrow path of this administration, they said.

All these were before she said no and decided to take her own path. Now, the public is told she willfully lied in her documents just so she could qualify in the race for the highest position in the land. Two separate divisions of the Comelec say she misrepresented the facts pertaining to her citizenship and her residency.

The senator is putting up a brave front saying that the cases are still up for decision by the Supreme Court. We can just imagine how rattled she and her team are by these developments. To be branded as a liar is a serious matter.

Poe’s fall from grace happened as fast as her rise to fame. Now, another candidate has overtaken her in the surveys.

Unfortunately, voters are rarely afforded the opportunity to evalu-ate candidates’ merits—their backgrounds and what they can po-tentially deliver. They fall prey early on to the ugliness of politics in this country. So much for elevating the level of discourse.

A5ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R

S U N D AY, D E C E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5

OPINION

WHATEVER agreement to lower greenhouse-gas emissions emerges from the Paris climate talks, it probably won’t be enough on its own to stop the Earth’s atmosphere from warming to dangerous levels. If the deal gets certain things right, however, it can at least put that goal within reach.

Last week, negotiators had reached agree-ment on one important detail: committing to meet again in 2020 to submit new targets for 2025, and to revisit their plans at five-year in-tervals after that. That schedule is much faster than India and other developing countries had wanted. Of course, there’s no guarantee that fu-ture meetings will bring significantly more ag-gressive emissions targets. But the easiest way for countries to avoid increasing the targets is to not even talk about them.

That leaves one essential provision to be worked out: a transparent mechanism for mea-suring and verifying each country’s emissions. Unless there is a standard by which countries demonstrate that they are reducing greenhouse gases, their pledges will be mostly meaningless. And unless all the countries know which ones are succeeding and which ones are falling short, peer pressure—the motivating principle at the core of climate negotiations—can’t work.

Countries that lack the resources to accu-rately measure and verify their emissions should be given help to do so from richer nations. No country should consider stricter monitoring re-quirements an intrusion on sovereignty; trans-parency is a price the entire world will have to pay for progress.

Another point of contention in Paris that is less important to the final outcome is the Green Climate Fund—that is, the $100 billion a year that richer countries have pledged to provide poorer countries to finance their efforts to reduce emis-sions and adapt to climate change. Negotiators should not let the agreement get bogged down over this. India and other developing countries argue that money should come entirely from govern-ments, while rich countries say private investments should count toward the total.

That debate misses the broader point: Private money is already funding a great deal of clean-energy technology in the developing world. In fact, more than half of all clean-energy investment now goes toward projects in emerging markets, accord-ing to Bloomberg New Energy Finance; in 2014, the total reached $126 billion. Almost two-thirds of that came from other developing nations.

The beneficiary countries should focus first and foremost on making the most of that money, by providing the legal and regulatory framework investors need. Getting more public money into the Green Climate Fund would help, but if gov-ernments don’t kick in the entire amount, that shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

That’s not to say developing countries’ con-cerns aren’t legitimate. Industrialized nations have been largely responsible for the greenhouse gases already emitted. Even if fairness weren’t an issue, let’s face it: Richer countries are going to have to help poorer ones adapt. But all can ben-efit from an agreement that leads to the greatest possible amount of emissions cutting—in this round of talks and beyond. Bloomberg

Twenty-two-year-old Tim Dadi-vas, a drummer and graduate of the Jazz Department of the UST conser-vatory, says that holding jazz events in public places would help people hear and appreciate new music.

Elitist—not!Gonzales will be the first to tell

you that the only thing that makes jazz exclusive is the claim of others that they, and only they, can un-derstand jazz. These are the people who believe they are almighty, and all-knowing jazz geniuses.

Sure, jazz is not easy. “It takes years of hard work and practice to

be able to play a single honest note,” he says. Still, this is not the time for selfish, egoistic and backward attitudes. “We must unite, support each other, survive, and thrive.”

Despite Tago’s unassuming set-ting, it has its fair share of regular customers who appreciate what the artists are doing. “This is just over-whelming and humbling,” Gonzales says. He wishes, though, that more people would be able to see jazz for what it is. Education is key.

His vision? That people are able to appreciate jazz “regardless of race, creed, color, religion, and

social standing...it speaks of life, struggles, trials, tribulations, and the triumph of the human spirit.”

But how can talent thrive and appreciation grow when there is not much support? “The government and big companies don’t support arts and culture in the Philippines anymore. More would rather spon-sor novelty and tasteless forms of performances.”

Hot, live, and in-your-faceJazz is a paradox. It is as univer-

sal as it is intricately individual. In his letter as Unesco ambassador, Herbie Hancock says jazz is “more

than just a musical art form. It is an affirmation of our ability to peace-fully collaborate and cooperate in spite of profound differences—to speak with our unique individual voices while still respecting the col-lective.”

Gonzales adds: “Each artist is dif-ferent, the identity and voice of an artist is his own. His will, actions, tone, execution, taste, and life con-cepts should be respected and recog-nized. He, in turn, must reciprocate. We try to support and challenge one another’s view on many subjects.”

In the end, and though he wish-

es he could do more, Gonzales is happy that he has helped create a home for the stray jazz cats. “As simple as it is, we boast some of the first-grade and the most amazing artists here.”

So if you’re not one to be dis-tracted by big doors, a spacious stage, fancy bar furniture and a complete wait staff, find and get to know Tago. Revel in unadorned, unpretentious music—and you may just feel as though you’ve come home, yourself.

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Rolando G. Estabillo Publisher Jojo A. Robles Editor-in-Chief Ramonchito L. Tomeldan Managing Editor Chin Wong/Ray S. Eñano Associate Editors Francis Lagniton News Editor Joyce Pangco Pañares City Editor Adelle Chua Senior Deskman Romel J. Mendez Art Director Roberto Cabrera Chief Photographer

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WHAT THE PARIS CLIMATE DEAL MUST GET RIGHT

What happens at Tago is always

anything but common.

OPINIONS U N D AY, D E C E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5

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By Florence Panoussian

MEDELLIN, Colombia—When I first mentioned to my kids that I was going to Medellin to inter-view Popeye, they were a bit taken aback. Popeye? The spinach Pop-eye? In Colombia?

My children have only been in Bogota for three months and are too young to know the blood-soaked “narcoterrorism” era that wreaked the country in the 1980s and 1990s, when drug lords fought the government and each other with ruthlessness and force.

I explain to them that Pop-eye is a nickname for Jhon Jairo Velasquez, the hitman for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar who has admitted to killing “250 people, maybe more” and plotting or or-dering another 3,000 murders.

When they hear this, my kids stop laughing. My adopted daugh-ter, who grew up in a notoriously violent township of Johannesburg exclaims: “You’re not going alone I hope?”

“Of course not,” I tell her, say-ing that I’ll be accompanied by our photographer Raul Arboleda as we seek to interview Popeye at the grave of Escobar, his friend and patron.

The cemetery of Itagui couldn’t be more appropriate for such an interview. It lies in the hills sur-rounding Medellin, overlooking the city that was soaked in blood and violence at the end of the last century.

When I get there the day be-fore, I’m a bit nervous, not sure whether the interview will take place at all. Raul shares my anxi-ety—Popeye had already delayed the interview several times, in-cluding the day before, and we’re not at all certain that he’ll end up talking to us.

Just to be on the safe side, we arrive way ahead of time on the morning of Dec. 2, the 22nd an-niversary of the death of Pablo Escobar, who was killed by police in 1993.

Raul had already seen “Pope” in a mall to schedule the inter-view and says he is a wary man who always arrives ahead of his

interviewers, scans the surround-ings and never sits with his back to a potential enemy. When he met Raul, he took the battery out of his cell phone, to avoid being tracked. Conscious that a relative of one of his numerous victims can one day take revenge, Jhon Jairo Velasquez thinks he has been followed since he was freed from prison on Aug. 26, 2014, af-ter serving some 22 years of a 30-year sentence. As part of his early release, he is under police surveil-lance until early 2019.

When we get out of our taxi at

the cemetery, Popeye is already waiting for us, standing in front of the Escobar vault, the final resting place for the drug lord, his parents, his younger brother, uncle, nanny and his bodyguard who was killed with him. Unlike the grave of the so-called “queen of cocaine” Grisella Blanco Tru-jillo, who initiated Escobar to the trade and who was killed in 2012, which has only a handful of wilted flowers, Escobar’s family vault is overflowing with splendid bou-quets.

Popeye comes with a bouquet of sunflowers. Later we will see him kneel to kiss the stone.

He greets us with typical Co-

lombian warmth and friendliness. I expected to see a cynic with a cold stare, a caricature from a gangster movie. Instead I see a charming, smiling, amiable man, who is fascinated by firearms but who has also learned to manipu-late and seduce to survive in the jungle of the drug lords and what he calls the “hell of prison.”

Still I remain skeptical. We sit on a stone bench, just steps away from the graves of three other bodyguards of Escobar.

The 53-year-old Popeye is dressed in a black polo shirt and

faded jeans, with his gray hair closely cropped. I ask a first se-ries of questions to try and un-derstand the complexities of this man. Where was he born? What was his childhood like? When and why did he turn to crime? And of course how did he meet the man who would become his mentor?

He describes his childhood in the village of Yaromal, where he was born on April 15, 1962. His father, a cattle rancher, was very strict and young Jhon wasn’t al-lowed to ride a bike or play with a ball on the street. He says that he didn’t want for anything except “freedom and affection.”

In middle school, he began to

deal drugs a bit, to hide knives at the school. He was fascinated by weapons and at first wanted to go the military route, joining the Marines. While there, the shape of his chin—which he disliked so much that he had it operated on in Miami in later years—earned him the nickname of Popeye.

He then switched to a police academy. But got disillusioned when a superior painted to him what his future was likely to be: “One day the narcos will offer you a 4X4.”

“That was really demotivating.

I wanted to become an officer, not for someone to buy me a car!”

One day, he accompanied a lo-cal beauty to a party at Escobar’s house.

“He came out to talk to me. He had the air of a leader about him, they all know how to act around or-dinary people and around animals.”

The ruthless drug lord Escobar loved animals so much that he would transform his Los Napoles hacienda into a veritable zoo. Af-ter he was killed, the hippos that he kept there would escape. They have since multiplied and haunt the surroundings of Rio Magda-lena. But that’s another story.

Popeye was 23 years old when

he was first hired by Escobar, a man so rich that he at one point proposed to pay off Colombia’s debt if the government would leave him in peace to ply his trade.

“Pablo Escobar Gaviria was an assassin, a terrorist, a drug traf-ficker, a kidnapper, a racketeer, but he was my friend. He had incredible magnetism,” says his former hitman, who spent seven years working for the most feared man in Colombia.

Popeye says he doesn’t re-member how many people he had killed during the “brutal war” against the rival Cali drug cartel, the Americans who wanted the druglords extradited, and against the Colombian state.

“When you reach that level, you don’t count any more. I didn’t mark a notch every time I killed someone.”

He says that at one point he was very rich, but has since lost every-thing and today lives alone. He has a 21-year-old son in New York City, who was conceived when he was in a prison where detainees could meet with women.

He says that he has long been separated from the love of his life, who led him to “choose life” in July 1992, leave Escobar and turn himself in to the police.

“I am alone, waiting for death. But I believe in redemption,” he says, kissing the cross around his neck. He says his greatest pleasure in life at the moment is to go to a corner store to buy a cold beer or an ice cream without having to account to anyone.

“I wasn’t free before. First I was with Pablo Escobar, then in pris-on. Today, I am the master of my own fate.”

He says that when inspiration strikes, he works on a novel. “I already have the title ‘The Parc of the Damned,’” he says.

He then picks up a copy of his memoirs “Sobreviendo a Pablo Escobar” (Surviving Pablo Esco-bar) that I brought with me and that I had placed on the bench.

He writes “For journalist Florence Panoussian, who today at Medellin interviewed me with firmness but respect” and signs: “Popeye, the Angel of Death.” AFP

INTERVIEW WITH AN ASSASSIN

By Leonid BershidskyTHE Oxford Dictionaries’ selection for 2015 Word of the Year—the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji—suggests that UK lin-guists live in a rather carefree world. In other countries, the selections were not as upbeat.

On Friday, the Society for the German Language, or GfdS, published its list of the year’s top 10 words. “Fluechtlinge”—“refugees”—was No. 1. In Russia, a group of academics, writers and journalists led by Mikhail Epstein chose the same word (“беженцы” in Russian). In Austria, a re-cent popular vote organized by Graz Uni-versity’s Austrian German Research Center picked “Willkommenskultur” (“welcoming culture”). Refugees were on many minds in other ways, too: the Austrian No. 2 word was “Intelligenzfluechtling,” or “refugee from intelligence”— a neologism for some-

one dumb, probably also born of the mi-grant crisis.

“Flyktningdugnad,” or “refugee vol-unteer,” is second on the top-10 list of the Norwegian Language Council, and “vluchtelingenhek” (“refugee shelter”) has been shortlisted by the Dutch dictionary group Van Dale (the voting is still going on). “Refugiado” is on the short list of the Portuguese publishing group Porto Edi-tora.

Russia says it has taken in 300,000 refugees from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, bringing the total to 1.1 million. The refugees who dominated the public de-bate in Germany—the country has accept-ed 1 million asylum seekers—have mainly passed Russia by, though some have made their way across the vast country on trains and then crossed the Norwegian border on bicycles. The right-wing Norwegian gov-ernment doesn’t want them—it has begun

an advertising campaign to deter them and it’s even offered to pay asylum seekers to leave. Austria, which receives refugees who have endured hellish journeys by sea to Greece, on foot across former Yugosla-via and then through hostile Hungary, tries to provide some relief. Portugal hasn’t had much of an influx, but even there, there are pro-refugee and anti-refugee demonstra-tions.

Another recurring theme in the “word of the year” selections is terrorism and its implications. In France, the Festival du Mot’s votepicked “laicite” and “liberte d’expression” (“secularism” and “freedom of expression”), the rallying cries after Islamist terrorists attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in January. On the German list, “Je suis Charlie” is No. 2, even though it’s in French. The Dutch shortlist has “cyberkalifaat,” a reference to the Is-lamic State’s Internet success. And Portugal

simply has “terrorismo” on the shortlist.Things seem tougher than last

year, when Germany’s top word was “Lichtgrenze”—the memorable line of lit-up balloons placed along the former Berlin Wall to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its destruction.

The Oxford Dictionaries picked the happy emoji because it accounted for 20 percent of all the emojis used in the UK and 17 percent of those sent in the US. The UK judges also picked lumbersexuals, denot-ing a metrosexual who goes for a rugged lumberjackish look. There were fun neolo-gisms elsewhere, too: “pappakropp” (that’s “dad bod” in Norwegian), and “Flexitarier” (German for a vegetarian who sometimes eats meat).

Even so, crises apparently are where the linguistic evolution is happening most. Po-litical leaders have a lot of work in 2016 to change people’s preoccupations. Bloomberg

IT’S HARD TO PUT A HAPPY FACE ON 2015

Popeye at Escobar’s tomb. (AFP)

[email protected]

S U N D AY : D E C E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5

NEWS

CONSPIRACY EYED IN ECIJA RICE MESSBy Ferdie G. Domingo

CABANATUAN CITY—The National Food Authority is looking into the possible conspiracy between agen-cy executives and employees and some unscrupulous businessmen in the misclassification of 32,695 bags of unmilled rice (palay).

NFA Region 3 director Amadeo de Guzman said it is possible that some of those being investigated may have conspired with some busi-nessmen from whom they bought the poor quality grains and classi-fied them as good quality.

“We are looking into the crimi-nal aspects of this case because they may have bought palay from some businessmen who sold poor-quality palay and later made them

appear as good quality,” he said.He said such practices consti-

tute graft, gross negligence and dishonesty.

Earlier, De Guzman, on or-ders of NFA administrator Renan Dalisay relieved two top officials, five procurement officers and five employees of the agency in Nueva Ecija in connection with the mis-classification of palay.

Relieved were Nueva Ecija NFA

provincial manager George Roca, assistant provincial manager Dan-iel Valenzuela, solar dryer engineer Edmar Torres, quality control of-ficers Cesar Paul C. De Guia and Adam B. Rayo; pest control officer Leo Thereso G. Ramos, acting pro-vincial quality assurance officer Jimmy M. Mallari and and five other employees whose identities he withheld.

De Guzman said four more em-ployees are being investigated by the four-man probe team led by Marcelino Villar Jr. If found guilty, they could face automatic dismiss-al from the service, he said.

Dalisay has appointed De Guz-man and assistant regional direc-tor Marciano Alvarez to replace Roca and Valenzuela, in concur-rent capacities.

Aside from Villar’s probe team, also conducting separate investiga-tions are the security and investi-gation services department (SSID), the internal audit services depart-ment (IASD) and the technical research and services department (TRSD).

De Guzman said the 32,695 bags were not typhoon-damaged but misclassified. He explained that instead of being declared as wet with a moisture content of 15-30 percent, they were made to appear as dry and clean.

Because of the misclassification, the procurement officers made it appear that the procurement costs reached P27.8 million when the ac-tual cost was only P17.9 million, or an over declaration of P9.9 million, he added.

FOOD FEST. With the theme #MaginhawangPasko, the annual Maginhawa Food Festival along Maginhawa Street in Quezon City, attracts people from all walks of life including this female resident who opts for painting among the many activities to mark the event. JANSEN ROMERO

MARCOS, ESTRADA TACKLE DRUG MENACE

RAUL Bernardo Valino, 71, a vet-eran journalist, passed away on Dec. 9, 2015. He was business sec-tion editor of the defunct Times Journal, editor of The Manila Chronicle, deskman of the Ma-nila Bulletin and columnist of Business Mirror, among his nu-merous jobs in the media which included Business Day, Evening News, Asahi Shimbun, Sunstar and Graphic Magazine. His be-reaved wife Celia, children Allen and Donna, Aileen and Dondon and his grandchildren Ian, Jan, Yna, Milo, Pepper, Aidon, Nique, Kaylie and Mico request the pi-ous readers to pray for the eternal repose of his soul. His remains lie in state at Rizal Funeral Homes, Libertad St., Pasay City. His inter-ment is to be announced later.

ZAMBO HEALTH HUB. BDO Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the country’s largest bank, has completed the rehabilitation of Doña Isabel C. Climaco Main Health Center in Zamboanga City, Zamboanga del Sur. To commemorate the completion of the project, the foundation inaugurated and turned over the structure in an event led by BDO Foundation president Maureen C. Abelardo, BDO Foundation program director Rose Espinosa, BDO Zamboanga-Canelar branchhead Rogelio Francisco, BDO Zamboanga-Rizal Street branch head Amabelle Sun, BDO Zamboanga-Veterans Avenue branch head Marillac Castillo, BDO Zamboanga-CityMall Tetuan branch head Annie Wong and BDO Zamboanga branch head Allan Bacalla. Guests included City Mayor Maria Isabel Climaco-Salazar, Vice Mayor Cesar Iturralde and city health officer Dr. Rodel Agbulos.

VALINO, 71

By Joel E. Zurbano

TWO prominent politicians on Saturday took on the drug menace and called for intensified campaign against drug syndicates to prevent the spread of prohibited drugs.

Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed his disappointment with the government’s campaign against drug syndicates although the identities of big-time drug dealers have been unmasked.

For his part, Manila Mayor Jo-seph Estrada promised to wage an all-out campaign against the banned drugs.

“We all know who they are—these drug lords. The PDEA [Phil-ippine Drug Enforcement Agency], they may not say it in public, but if you sit down with the officers they will give you a list of who they [drug lords] are,” Marcos said dur-ing a meeting with officers and members of Rotary Club of Pasay. “Why are we not arresting them, putting them in jail and throwing the keys away?” he said.

“The PDEA 2014 annual report shows that out of the total of 13,792 drug personalities arrested that year two were manufacturers of il-legal drugs, and another two were financiers of the illegal drug trade.”

The senator said lawmen should continue to pursue their normal anti-drug campaign against push-ers and drug dens and increase their efforts in neutralizing big-time drug lords and drug syndi-cates operating in the country.

To bolster the government’s anti-drug campaign, Marcos proposed additional support for lawmen in terms of funding, facilities, equip-ment and better training.

Estrada expressed alarm over the spread of prohibited drugs in 92 per-cent of villages in Metro Manila.

“I am prioritizing the construction and rehabilitation of sports centers so that Manila’s youth will not experi-ment with illegal drugs. I am appealing to you stay out of drugs for those will bring will you no good,” said Estrada telling thousands of young skaters dur-ing the opening of the country’s very first free skate plaza in Paco.

Estrada cited a study by the Philip-pine Drug Enforcement Agency that 92 percent of barangays in the Na-tional Capital Region have recorded cases of involvement of youth in the use of illegal drugs, an issue that he is seriously worried about as a parent and as the father of the city.

Estrada and son Jake Ejercito led the grand opening of the country’s very first free skate plaza which of-fers a safe public venue for skating and BMX enthusiasts and alterna-tive sports-loving youth.

The 1,700-square meter plaza, located in Paco, Manila, is funded by the city government and open to anyone who would want to use the facility free of charge. It is equipped with customary skating obstacles like a 6-ft bowl, China Gap, Fun-Box, Quarter Pipes, stairset, ledges, Snake Run, Wall Ride, Pyramid, banks and handrails, where aficio-nados can practice their skate and bike tricks, and also has a covered court and stage where shows could be held.

SUNDAY: DECEMBER 13, 2015

[email protected] MAJOR PROJECTS PROBED

ROMUALDEZ BILL ON PWDS LINED UP FOR BICAM MOVE

MMDA TAPS SOCIAL MEDIA TO KEEP AN EYE ON TRAFFIC

By Maricel V. Cruz

A MEMBER of the House Independent Bloc on Saturday called for a congressional probe into the alleged irregular and anomalous arrange-ments in the competi-tive bidding for the Cen-tral Luzon Expressway and the new national prisons projects.

In House Resolution 2491, Abakada party-list Rep. Jona-than dela Cruz, member of the Bloc headed by senatorial bet and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Ro-mualdez, urged the House com-mittees on public works and high-ways, and good government and public accountability, questioned the participation of the Obrascon Huerte Lain SA (OHL), an Span-ish construction company, in the bidding for the Japanese ODA-funded Central Luzon Express-way project by the DPWH Bids and Awards Committee and by the DOJ- BAC in the New Nation-al Prisons Project in Nueva Ecija.

Dela Cruz, in the resolu-tion, said he received reports the company has questionable track record, having been involved in a number of rigged bids and anomalous transactions in Spain, United States and Mexico.

He said the company had a long history of anomalous trans-actions and unethical practices involving big-ticket, high-im-pact infrastructure projects such as the bribery of Spanish and Mexican officials resulting in the resignation of the treasurer of the Spanish ruling party, Par-tido Popular.

“Other anomalous transac-tions include the termination of a number of multi-million dol-lar projects in Mexico including its reported exaggerated costing and spending for the Mexican toll road project, Cicuito Ex-terior Mexiquense, defrauding investors and the government of 20 billion Mexican pesos as well as its having engaged in unethi-cal practices and misdeclaration of capacity to undertake the US$246-million Librameinto Norte Highway toll road proj-ect leading to the cancellation of the concession agreement,” Dela Cruz said.

By Joel E. Zurbano

CHAIRMAN Emerson Carlos of the Metro Manila Development Authority on Saturday urged the public to cooperate and re-port illegally parked vehicles and other obstruction on major roads through its newly created website Netizens Watch.

“Motorists can take pictures of illegal vendors, basketball courts, gambling tables and other struc-tures, including road diggings and they can post and upload them on our social media,” said Carlos.

The agency launched the social media reporting system in a bid to muster the public and private sectors in reporting to the agency all traffic obstructions on all roads in Metro Manila, especially the 17 Mabuhay Lanes.

Carlos said the report should

include the name of the sender and the actual picture includ-ing the detailed location where the illegally parked vehicle or the obstruction was spotted and the time it was taken.

The MMDA team tasked to monitor the reports will imme-diately verify all the information and forward it to the Agency’s Traffic Discipline Office under the supervision of director Cri-santo Saruca.

Saruca will then dispatch per-sonnel to clear the area, or in-struct contractors to patch the road diggings.

Carlos said the DO will also enter-tain complaints of extortion commit-ted by erring traffic personnel.

Records showed that traffic volume usually goes up by 25 per-cent during the holiday season.

A composite team from the

MMDA and Highway Patrol Group is scheduled to comb through the Mabuhay Lanes from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily to ensure the routes are free of traffic obstructions.

Based on the regulations, the Mabuhay Lanes should be cleared of any kinds of obstructions 24 hours a day.

The 17 Mabuhay Lanes are al-ternative routes to the 23.8-kilo-meter Edsa. These cover the cities of Mandaluyong, San Juan, Makati, Manila, and Quezon City. It also include secondary roads going to shopping destinations in Metro Manila such as Baclaran in Para-ñaque, Greenhills in San Juan, Di-visoria, and Carriedo in Manila.

Last Friday, Carlos thanked of-ficials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines who pledged to pro-vide assistance to help ease traffic in Metro Manila.

HOUSE Independent Bloc leader and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romual-dez on Saturday said he looked forward to enactment of a measure exempting persons with disabilities from the pay-ment of 12-percent value added tax (VAT) on certain goods and services af-ter the completion of seven lawmakers who will make up the bicameral con-ference committee to work on the final version of the measure.

Romualdez, a senatorial aspirant, appealed to the House and Senate lead-ers to immediately approve the bicam-eral conference committee report on the measure as Congress is scheduled to adjourn next week for Christmas break.

“The Aquino government and Congress leaders can further show its care and compassion to PWDs by finally approving the bill upholding the rights and promotes the welfare of PWDs in the country,” Romualdez, principal author of the House version that was approved on third and final reading by 201 members of the House of Representatives, said.

“I appeal to the national govern-ment to consider my proposal so that we can extend additional genuine assis-tance to PWDs. This is very important to help their plight,” Romualdez said.

The members of the bicameral con-ference committee for the House contin-gent were Marikina City Rep. Miro Qui-mbo, who chairs the House committee on ways and means; Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu, Baguio City Rep. Nicasio Aliping, and Nueva Ecija Rep. Estrellita Suansing, Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon, An Waray party-list Rep. Victoria Isabel Noel, and Abakada party-list Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz as bicameral conferees.

Maricel V. Cruz

MOKA AWARD. Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda (left) congratulates Mrs. Juliette Gomez-Romualdez (center), mother of senatorial candidate and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez after receiving the Most Outstanding Kapangpangan Parenthood Award during the 444th founding anniversary celebration of the province of Pampanga at Holiday Inn Hotel Clark Freeport. VER NOVENO

M/V STARLITE PIONEER, the first brand new state-of-the-art roll on, roll-off vessel manufactured in Japan that will soon ply the Mindoro-Caticlan route is formally inaugurated and blessed on Thursday at Pier 13, South Harbor. Officiating the blessing rites is Father Iwao Ikegami (second from right), joined by Alfonso Cusi, chairman (left), his wife Anne Cusi, and Patricia Ramos (right). ROY DOMINGO

Roderick T. dela CruzEDITOR B1

SUNDAY: DECEMBER 13, 2015

[email protected]@gmail.com

BUSINESS

A NEW mobile app, introduced just five months ago, has elevated the social media experience in the Philippines to another level, with many users becoming instant entrepreneurs by buy-ing and selling items online.

MOBILE APP EMPOWERS100,000 FILIPINO SELLERS

Shopee regional managing director Terence Pang

Shopee, a consumer-to-consumer social mobile market place developed by Garena Group of Singapore, has helped more than 100,000 Filipinos sell items online, even before the platform was formally launched in Makati City on Dec. 9, 2015.

Available for free on Apple App Store and Google Play, the Shopee app is equipped with a secure pay-ment service and features that allow fast and easy shopping and selling transactions. Currently, it has mil-lions of users across Southeast Asia, with half a million in the Philip-pines alone.

Shopee regional managing direc-tor Terence Pang, a Singaporean, says Shopee now has more than 500,000 users in the Philippines, and a quarter of them are sellers.

“If you think about it, we have half a million users, and roughly 25 percent of them are sellers,” Pang says in an interview at Makati Shan-gri La Hotel in Makati City.

Shopee is a mobile platform that allows users to buy or sell items in as fast as 30 seconds. It was soft-launched in Singapore in June and is now available in Indonesia, Thai-land, Vietnam, the Philippines, Ma-laysia and Taiwan.

It has a user-friendly interface with an in-app Live Chat function that enables users to shop and com-municate with one another. It also integrates social features, including hashtag functions, allowing users to easily search for the most popular trending product or keep up with the latest trends.

Shopee also features a seller assis-tant that guides individuals on how to manage their retail businesses on the platform. Sellers can use it to or-ganize inventory and measure store performance.

“We believe that what we provide is a social focused, mobile-focused C2C market. We believe that it is quite a nobel, unique proposition,” says Pang, a UK-educated executive who used to work for Rocket Inter-net’s Zalora.

Garena Online, the company behind Shopee and established by Singaporean entrepreneur Forrest Li, is considered Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest growing Internet and mobile platform company, with Shopee as one of its most successful ventures.

Mobile shopping exploded in 2015, but mobile selling appears to be a bigger phenomenon in 2016. Shop-ee Philippines alone now has over 400,000 product listings, with beauty and fragrance, fashion and toys being the most popular categories.

The Shopee app has been up since June and has quickly drawn 500,000 users in the Philippines because it is easy to use, says Justin Daniel Arce-nas, head of business development at Shopee Philippines.

Arcenas says Shopee’s mobile plat-form allows everyone to be a seller. “Just download the app. Register, snap a picture of any item, put the price details and the description. Then, you are good to sell,” he says.

“From the buyer’s side, just scroll the app, go to a category, sub-cate-gory and chat to the seller and may-be negotiate. Then go to the bank, make a deposit and wait for the shipping by whatever courier like LBC,” he says. “We actually have seen some sellers deliver the items by themselves,” says Arcenas.

For his part, Pang says the num-ber of Shopee sellers is expected to further increase in the coming weeks, as the mobile platform in-troduces new features.

“We believe that as the percent-age of users grow, the number of sellers will also increase to between 30 and 40 percent. We believe it, because it is so easy for anybody to start selling with Shopee,” he says.

Pang says the Philippines is now one of the seven markets served by Shopee, where it has local offices. “It has a huge potential in the Phil-ippine market because there is a very strong entrepreneurial spirt in the Philippines. Everyone is excited to do his or her business here. We see a very good opportunity in the Philippines,” says Pang.

On why he is optimistic about the Philippines, he says the coun-try will see a quick jump towards the mobile side. “The penetration of mobile is going to be very strong and that will help us as a mobile fo-cused business,” he says.

He says Shopee focuses on grow-ing its user base and developing more features to enable all sellers of all types.

“That is something we focus on--breaking down the barriers, in-creasing the safety and security, for us to enable all sellers,” he says.

Shopee employs 60 Filipinos at its local office at Fort Bonifacio, where it has heavily invested in market-ing. “We can definitely say we had a lot of investment. If you look at the size of the team, 60 is quite size-able,” he says.

On why Shopee chose to build a large Philippine team, Pang says the company believes in localization. “We don’t believe it is going to be the same model in Thailand or Singa-pore. A lot of decisions that we make

Shopee regional managing director Terence Pang, Shopee Philippines head of commercial business Macy Castillo and Shopee regional marketing head Agatha Soh at the official launch of Shopee Philippines.

are very local in nature,” he says.Pang says the users themselves

are promoting the mobile e-com-merce platform among their peers on social media. “What we see is that the users are also doing mar-keting for us. That is something we find very unique. The sellers are driving buyers to come,” he says.

Shopee is currently in talks with local logistics companies to facili-tate the shipping of the products sold through the mobile platform. “This will happen in the next two

months,” says Pang.At present, Shopee sellers use cou-

riers such as LBC to deliver the prod-ucts to their buyers, after the payment has been settled through the banks.

Pang says the focus of the com-pany at present is to grow the user base, with the financial model to come later. This is the same strate-gy being followed by Internet start-ups today.

“Of course, where you have buy-ers and sellers, you will have orders and revenues. But for us, that is not

the focus right now. The focus is how you build the ecosystem in the fastest way possible,” Pang says.

“For 2016, we are going to focus on bringing more features, have more comprehensive logistics op-tions. There is a lot of develop-ment work that we aim to do on our product,” he says.

Pang says Shopee addresses com-mon issues faced by users on other existing marketplaces such as fraud, transaction risks and the hassle of face-to-face meetings.

Shopee Guarantee, the platform’s secure payment service, ensures that if products are not received in the previously agreed-upon condi-tion, payment will be refunded to the buyers in full.

Pang says the platform currently has 3 million product listings across seven markets. He says the goal is to become the region’s mobile com-merce destination of choice.

Simply put, he says Shopee aims to build a community of “indi-viduals who are passionate about online buying and selling.”

Roderick T. dela Cruz


BUSINESSSUNDAY: DECEMBER 13, 2015

B2

Yoda chair designer Kenneth Cobonpue

WHY COBUNPUE SELLS OBAMA’S CHAIR

KENNETH Cobon-pue, the Cebu-based furniture exporter who designed the unique chairs where the most powerful leaders in the Asia-Pacific region sat for a Manila dinner in No-vember, is selling six pieces of the so-called Yoda chairs to raise fund for children.

“These six chairs are the orig-inal ones sat on by the Apec [Asia Pacific Economic Coop-eration] leaders,” Cobonpue says in an interview at his posh showroom at The Residences in Makati City.

He says to get the best price possible, the limited edition chairs will be sold in an auction on Dec. 16, with a starting bid of P75,000 for each chair.

“When I was selling these chairs, everybody wanted the one sat on by [US President Barack] Obama. That’s when I got the idea that it is better that I put this up for auction for the children,” he says.

Cobonpue teamed up with the United Nation’s Children’s Fund to auction off the chairs used Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Japa-nese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Mexican President En-rique Peña Nieto, Singapor-ean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.

Asked why he chose the six chairs, Cobonpue says: “They are the ones that are auction worthy.” Proceeds from the auction will benefit Unicef ’s 1,000 days campaign.

“The one with Obama would probably fetch the highest bid,” says Cobonpue.

Cobonpue says true to its name, the chairs were named after the Jedi character in Star Wars movies. “The original design of that was inspired by grass and it is called Yoda after the Jedi,” says Cobonpue, whose mother is also a designer.

Cobunpue says he took inspi-ration from blades of grass to design the Yoda chairs, which are made of high-quality rat-tan reeds. The special edition of the Yoda chair for Apec is wider and taller. It also has armrests and a swivel mechanism that enables one to turn effortlessly in both directions.

“I come from Cebu, I live in Cebu. All natural materi-als are from Cebu. Our main market is the export market. We opened the [Makati] show-room two years ago. Before I opened this, most people were going to Cebu,” says Cobunpue, who made a name for himself after several Hollywood celeb-rities bought his furniture.

Cobunpue says while his pieces are admired for their Unicef Philippines Representative Lotta Sylwander, world-renowned designer Kenneth Cobonpue

and Unicef special advocate for children Daphne Osena Paez

designs, they remain a part of a business. “It is business. Art is just one piece, but this is for mass production,” he says.

Cobunpue, however, says the Apec chairs will not be repro-duced to maintain the exclusiv-ity of the design.

Unicef country representa-tive Lotta Sylwander, a Swed-ish national who is married to a Filipino, says proceeds from the auction will be donated to Unicef, specially to promote the 1,000 days campaign.

“These chairs were used in the Apec meeting, with six presi-dents sitting in these chairs.

They are unique not only in terms of designs, but the fact that presidents sat in these chairs. They have a plaque on each side, to know who sat in these chairs,” Sylwander says.

“We also want to use this op-portunity to talk about the first 1,000 days of child’s life and how important that is and how that really gives a base for the

rest of the child’s life,” she says.“If the child is malnourished

during the first 1,000 days, the child can never catch up. It is a damage which is permanent. They will be forever behind in development. We are talking about one third of the Filipino children. This is a serious busi-ness. We think that the loss to the national economy in terms of GDP is P3.5 billion [an-nually]. If we look at the loss caused by typhoon Yolanda, it is roughly the same,” she says.

Sylwander says the Philip-pines is one of the ten countries in the world with this kind of malnutrition rate. “There is no reason why it should happen in the Philippines. It is a combi-nation of poverty, but it is also very much related to informa-tion and knowledge,” she says.

Sylwander says the best way to promote the health of the child in the first 1,000 days is through breastfeeding. “We inform health personnel to make sure that all children are actually breastfed straight after birth,” she says.

She says proceeds from the Yoda chairs auction will be used specifically for the 1,000-day campaign. “We will focus on hotspots in the Philippines with high malnutrition rate like Min-danao, Bicol, Samar and Leyte. We need to do a national breast-feeding campaign,” she says.

The auction is organized by Unicef special advocate for children Daphne Oseña-Paez.

“Giving children the best start in life is one cause that I staunchly advocate for. Having such historic design pieces con-tribute to that cause embodies the perfect marriage of creativ-ity and social consciousness that Auction for Action was founded upon,” says Paez.

This is the fourth installment of Unicef ’s Auction for Action, which was initiated in 2011, with the first three auctions raising P8.2 million for chil-dren’s programs.



BUSINESSSUNDAY: DECEMBER 13, 2015

B3

Ryan Charland, the president and chief executive of Manulife Philippines, is opti-mistic about the Ca-nadian company’s op-erations in the country next year, given the growing economy and the opportunity to ex-pand the domestic in-surance market.

Manulife Philippines is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corp., a Ca-nadian financial conglomerate considered one of the world’s largest life insurance companies.

“The prospects here in the Philippines are incredible. You have good demographics and low insurance penetration rate, which means insurance has so much room to grow here,” says Charland who joined Manulife Philippines in January 2014.

Charland, who has a degree in Computer Science/Actuarial Science from the University of Toronto, had been assigned to Hong Kong, the United States and Canada, before he was ap-pointed the top executive of Manulife Philippines, one of the oldest financial companies with 108 years in the country.

The Manufacturers Life Insur-ance Company, the company’s first name, began operations in the Philippines in 1907.

Charland has worked for Manulife Financial in various leadership functions in prod-uct development, finance and corporate risk management for more than 10 years.

He says despite the stock market slump which affects the performance of the equity fund, Manulife believes that there is an opportunity in the present situation.

“We notice that people de-ferred their investments, but we think it is a good time to buy. You buy low and sell high. So, it is really a buying opportunity

MANULIFE CEO BULLISH ON PH OPERATIONS

Manulife Philippines launches its latest investment-linked product called Affluence Builder Plus in Makati City. Shown are (from left) Manulife Philippines chief product officer Jasper Cheng, president and chief executive Ryan Charland and chief marketing officer Melissa Henson.

THREE of the country’s biggest mines that voluntarily submitted their operations to third-party scrutiny by an environmental non-government organization posted near-perfect scores in a special ‘green’ scorecard, accord-ing to the Philippine Business for Environmental Stewardship.

The Padcal mine of Philex in Benguet, the mine of Taganito Mining Corp., a Nickel Asia Corp. subsidiary in Surigao del Norte and the mine of Carmen Copper Corp., Atlas Consoli-dated Mining and Development Corp.’s subsidiary in Cebu all scored above 200 out of a possi-ble 210 points based on PBEST’s

environmental performance tracking program.

“Last year we gave businesses a venue where an independent eval-uator can assess their compliance with relevant environmental rules and regulations, and we’re glad that these companies answered our call,” said lawyer Ysan Castillo, PBEST secretary general.

Big businesses should take a lead role in environmental stew-ardship, a field where industries’ resources and culture of innova-tion can be useful, Castillo said.

Developed by renowned ge-ologist CP David, the EPTP was based on the Mining Act of 1995 and its implementing rules and

regulations.The instrument is not intended

to compare companies and min-ing operations because inher-ent differences exist among each mine, PBEST said.

Instead, the site and its opera-tions are evaluated based on their unique environmental situations and their best practices and in-novations would serve as models for responsible mining.

The first batch of EPTP sub-jects, three of the longest and most successful mining op-erations in the country, showed “ample evidence” of reforestation and rehabilitation efforts and de-velopment of the surrounding

communities in areas like health, education and livelihood.

Other specific findings in-clude: Carmen Copper mine re-porting “no incident of effluent quality violation and employing the most number of Pollution Control Officers;” the Padcal mine having the highest ratio of employees engaged in environ-mental related projects at 3 per-cent; and Taganito’s mine having the largest contingent liability and mine rehabilitation fund at P7.3 million.

Philex also has an ISO 14001 accreditation, the only one of the three mining companies, the re-port saud.

PBEST also announced that the country’s first and oldest mining company, Benguet Corp. has also volunteered to join the EPTP proj-ect and has started the first phase of the scorecard’s evaluation pro-cess, the results of which will be announced at a later date.

Castillo said that it is very en-couraging that four of the biggest legitimate large-scale mining companies have joined the EPTP as another platform for the min-ing industry to come clean and show to the public that “respon-sible mining is being done.”

“This as an important step to-wards self-regulation in the ex-tractive industries,” he said.

TOP MINES GET HIGH SCORES IN ‘GREEN’ SCORECARD

right now,” he says.Charland describes the 2016

prospects as good. “We focus on expanding our distribution, spe-cially in the Visayas and Mindan-ao, through our partnership with China Bank and Plantersbank. By the end of this year, we should have 41 branches,” he says.

Charland believes that the partnership with China Bank and Plantersbank for the so-called bancassurance business will expand the reach of Manu-life to the Visayas and Mind-anao.

“We opened 10 branches this year. We expanded...in Visayas and Mindanao,” he says.

Charland says Manulife’s new investment-linked prod-uct called Affluence Builder Plus is also a reason for opti-mism. The product encour-ages investors to start big to reach financial goals sooner.

“Whether it is a bond fund, or equity bond, all the major funds we already have are available on this product,” says Charland. “We also have flexibility. You can withdraw your money if needed in particular point in time.”

Charland says Affluence Builder Plus is the most com-petitive investment product in the market today. “There are a lot of products like this in the market, but none of them is as competitive. I truly believe that this provides the best long-term investment for customers. We are very excited about this prod-uct,” he says.

Affluence Builder Plus, the latest in Manulife’s roster, allows policyholders to build up their funds early on. Through a low entry fee fully paid within the first year, customers are ensured that they are fully invested by the second year.

Affluence Builder Plus gradu-ally builds up wealth through periodic premium payments. Clients can choose to pay small-er amounts with a longer pay period, or larger amounts over a more flexible timeframe. It also has added protection benefits that cover policy owners finan-cially for accidental death or payment of premiums in case of disability.

“We started selling this prod-uct last month and we already had a lot of initial success, so we are quite excited about it,” says Charland. “This is truly the best product in the industry. It is very competitive. We are very excited about it.”

Charland says through Afflu-ence Builder Plus, clients can make premium payments over a five-to-ten year period, and at an amount and frequency they are comfortable with. “Affluence

Builder Plus will help our clients fund their dreams – whether its for retirement, a home, educa-tion or any other large future expense,” he says.

Charland says Affluence Builder Plus is expected to be a big contributor to overall sales volume of Manulife Philippines. “The lowest minimum invest-ment is P100,000 [per year] if you do a five-year payment, or P50,000 a year in 10 years,” he says.

He says the yield of the fund will depend on the performance of the financial markets chosen by the investor. “We have a peso growth fund that is invested in equities, we have a bond fund or you can get a mix,” he says.

Manulife’s investment team manages the fund for investors and places the fund in the stock market or the bond market.


B4

Multiple blasts and gunfire rocked Kabul’s diplomatic quarter after the brazen raid began Friday evening, just hours after President Ashraf Ghani voiced optimism that a peace process with the Taliban would re-sume within weeks.

“Afghan special forces have killed four attackers who were involved in the terrorist attack in Kabul,” in-terior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told AFP. “Unfortunately four policemen were also martyred

in the attack.”The government in Madrid con-

firmed that two Spanish policemen were also killed in the assault, which began when a huge car bomb struck during rush hour on Friday evening.

The powerful blast, which sent a thick plume of smoke into the sky, was followed by multiple explosions through the night along with spo-radic bursts of gunfire.

Security men near the embassy ducked from gunshots as they

RIYADH—Voting began on Saturday in Saudi Ara-bia’s first elections open to female voters and candi-dates, a tentative step to-wards easing restrictions that are among the world’s tightest on women.

Men and women vote separately in the kingdom, where the sexes are strictly segregated.

The absolute Islamic mon-archy, where women are banned from driving and must cover themselves from head-to-toe in public, is the last country where only men were allowed to vote.

More than 900 women are running for seats on municipal councils, the kingdom’s sole elected public chambers.

They are up against nearly 6,000 men com-peting for places on 284 councils whose powers are restricted to local affairs including responsibility for streets, public gardens and rubbish collection.

Gender segregation en-forced at public facilities meant that female candidates could not directly meet the majority of voters—men—during their campaigns.

Women also said voter registration was hindered by bureaucratic obstacles, a lack of awareness of the process and its sig-nificance, and the fact that women could not drive themselves to sign up.

As a result, less than one in 10 voters are women and few, if any, female candidates are expected to win.

But one-third of council seats are appointed by the municipal affairs ministry, leaving women optimistic that they will at least be as-signed some of them. AFP

KABUL—At least four Afghan policemen and two Spaniards were killed in an hours-long Taliban siege near the Spanish embassy in Kabul, the latest high-profile insurgent attack.

FOUR AFGHAN, TWO SPANISH POLICEMEN KILLED BY TALIBAN

MIGRANTS DESPERATE TO LEAVE GREECE

ATHENS—Guylo is a musi-cian, looking for a place of peace to play his guitar. Fares wants to study. Mohammed is waiting for news of his wife and child after becom-ing separated from them en route.

All are migrants trapped in Greece after being barred from continuing their odys-sey through Europe -- and are desperate to get out.

“We are looking for (smuggler) networks, do you know someone?” asks Guylo, 37, who fled fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“I will do anything to get

somewhere where I can be at peace, do my business, play my music,” he says, adding that Paris would be his first choice.

In recent weeks, thou-sands of migrants have been blocked in Greece following a decision by several Euro-pean nations to only allow transit through their borders to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier this week, over 2,000 mainly African mi-grants were taken to Athens from the Greek border with Macedonia to the north, and lodged in a former Olympic taekwondo hall in the south

of the capital.Conditions are poor in the

facility that authorities say can nominally accommodate 300 people in an emergency.

“We sleep on the floor, there are no mattresses, there is no hot water,” says Mo-hammad, a 36-year-old Pal-estinian who became sepa-rated from his wife and child on the Macedonia border.

The migrants receive three meals a day from humanitar-ian agencies, but they sleep on a concrete floor, sanita-tion is basic and brawls are common. Used pasta and soup cartons lay strewn about. AFP

hauled away a limp body and two wounded men through the dark to a waiting ambulance—one bleeding from the head, the other a policeman with a gunshot wound to his leg—an AFP pho-tographer saw.

Sediqqi said the last of the four as-sailants was killed in the early hours of Saturday.

The attack follows a deadly 27-hour Taliban siege of Kandahar air-port this week as the militants ramp up attacks despite the onset of the harsh winter season, when the fight-ing usually calms down.

The Taliban also claimed respon-sibility for Friday’s attack, saying the target was a foreign guest house.

The Spanish embassy was earlier reported to be the target of the at-tack, but Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy clarified that the assault was nearby and not on the compound.

“It was an attack against some guesthouses very near the embassy,” Rajoy said, confirming that all em-bassy staff had been evacuated as Afghan special forces cordoned off the area in Sherpur district in cen-tral Kabul.

Sherpur is home to several for-eign NGOs and the residences of se-nior government officials, including controversial former warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, Afghanistan’s first vice-president. AFP

WORLD SAUDI HOLDS FIRST EVER ELECTION OPEN TO WOMEN

A man kisses a girl as refugees and migrants arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey. More than 886,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year, according to the latest United Nations fi gures. AFP

British soldiers from the NATO coalition carry the body of victim after a car bomb attack near the Spanish embassy compound in Kabul on Dec. 12. AFP

[email protected]

S U N D AY : D e c e m B e R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5

WORLD B5

Washington—the United states will in-tensify its efforts to de-stroy the islamic state extremist group in syria and iraq, secre-tary of Defense ashton Carter pledged over the weekend.

US vowS Stepped Up fight on iSiS

A US-led coalition began bombing the group in both coun-tries last year, after the jihadists overran large areas in a brutal campaign of beheadings and forced religious conversions.

The White House is, how-ever, under growing pressure to do more, with President Barack Obama’s administration criticized by opponents for what they say is a lack of discernable progress in eliminating the extremists.

“We are taking a number of steps... and we intend to take more to strengthen the execution of our strategy and hasten the de-feat of ISIL,” said Carter, speaking at a news conference in Washing-ton alongside Michael Fallon, his British counterpart and ally in the bid to defeat the IS group.

“I expect in a week and two weeks and six weeks and so forth for us to be doing more and build-ing more capability, and having more and more impact every week. That’s the whole idea. That’s what President Obama has asked to us to do, that’s what we have been able to do and we will con-tinue to do,” he added.

Obama will travel to the Penta-gon Monday to take stock of the ongoing military efforts in Iraq and Syria.

The president will hunker down with his National Security Council and then make a state-ment, said his spokesman Josh Earnest. However, it is not ex-pected to herald a major change in strategy. AFP

SEOUL—North and South Ko-rea held a second day of high-level talks Saturday, aimed at easing cross-border tensions just months after a flare-up pushed them to the brink of an armed conflict.

The vice-minister-level talks, with a mandate to address a broad but unspecified range of inter-Korean issues, are the first of their type for nearly two years.

While no substantial break-through is expected, there is room

for tangible progress with both sides seeking the resumption of stalled cooperation projects that have significant symbolic and fi-nancial value.

The talks, held on the North Korean side of the border in the jointly-run Kaesong industrial zone, were a key element of an ac-cord reached in August to end a dangerous military standoff.

At the height of that crisis, fu-elled by high-decibel bellicose rhetoric, both Koreas went on a

virtual war footing after a brief artillery exchange across their land border.

The Kaesong talks began Friday and ran over three sessions be-tween South Korea’s chief delegate Hwang Boo-Gi and his North Ko-rean counterpart Jon Jong-Su.

“The two sides had a broad dis-cussion of pending issues and ex-changed views in a sincere man-ner,” the Unification Ministry in Seoul said.

They met again for 40 minutes

on Saturday morning, before ad-journing to consult with their respective capitals.

“I think it will take time,” Hwang said when asked how long the talks would continue for.

Previous efforts to establish a regular dialogue have tended to falter after an initial meeting—re-flecting decades of animosity and mistrust between two countries that have remained technically at war since the end of the 1950-53 Korean conflict. AFP

Two Koreas hold second day of high-level

son of laTe libyan dicTaTor ‘freed afTer Kidnapping’BEIrUT—Hannibal Kadhafi, the high-living businessman son of the late Libyan dictator, was freed late Friday, several hours after he was kidnapped in Lebanon by an unknown armed group, security sources told AFP.

Lebanese police freed Kad-hafi and were set to question him, one source said, without specifying where the busi-nessman had been released.

A second security source told AFP Kadhafi had been “kidnapped by an armed group in the region of Bekaa while he was travelling from Syria, be-fore being released on Friday night in the same region.”

Bekaa is an eastern strong-hold of Lebanese Shiite move-ment Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said Hannibal Kad-hafi’s kidnappers had demand-ed “information on Mussa Sadr,” a Lebanese Shiite leader

who went missing in 1978.Beirut blamed the disap-

pearance on the longtime Liby-an strongman, and the Kadhafi family was branded persona non grata by Lebanon, espe-cially among members of the Shiite Muslim community.

A former Libyan envoy to the Arab League, Abdel Mo-neim al-Honi, told the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat in 2011 that Sadr had been or-dered killed during a visit to Libya and was buried in the southern region of Sabha.

Late Friday, the Lebanese private television channel Al-Jadid broadcast a video pur-portedly showing Kadhafi.

In the video he appears to have been beaten up and has two black eyes, but he says that he is “well” and calls on “all those who have evidence about Sadr to present it with-out delay.”

It was not clear when or

where the video was filmed.The lavish lifestyles of Kad-

hafi’s family and entourage helped fuel the anger in Libya that sparked the protests that led eventually to the strongman’s ouster and killing in 2011.

Hannibal, born in 1975, was among a group of family mem-bers—including Kadhafi’s wife Safiya, son Mohammed and daughter Aisha—who escaped to neighbouring Algeria after the fall of Tripoli.

In 2008, Hannibal and his wife, the Lebanese model Aline Skaf, sparked a diplomatic in-cident with Switzerland when they were arrested in a luxury Geneva hotel for assaulting two former servants.

The Libyan regime demand-ed that no charges be brought and an apology be made over the allegations that Hannibal had assaulted the pair, a Tuni-sian and a Moroccan. The case was dropped. AFP

HOLIDAY PARADE. cape penguins, also known as african or jackass penguins, dressed in christmas costumes, walk beside guests during a christmas event at the hakkeijima sea paradise in yokohama on dec. 12. AFP

EXPLOSION. Thai bomb squad members inspect the site of a motorcycle bomb attack targeting a police patrol in the Takbai district of Thailand’s restive southern province of narathiwat on dec. 12. AFP

B6 REUEL VIDALE D I T O R

S U N D AY : D E C E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5

[email protected]

Republic of the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources MINES AND GEOSCIENCES BUREAU

North Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City. PhilippinesTel. No. (+632) 928-8642/928-8937 Fax No. (+632) 920-1635 E-mail: [email protected]

INVITATION TO APPLY FOR ELIGIBILITY AND TO BIDOne (1) Lot Drydocking/Repair of 500GRT

Research Vessel (RPS Explorer)P.R. No. 2015-12-954

1. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), through the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for CY 2016 intends to apply the sum of Six Million Pesos (PhP6,000,000.00) being the Approved Budget for the Contract (ABC) to payments under the contract for One (1) Lot Drydocking/RepaiJ- of 500GRT Research Vessel (RPS Explorer). Bids received in excess of the ABC shall be automatically rejected during opening of bids.

The MGB now invites bids for Procurement of One (1) Lot Drydocking/Repair of 500GRT Research Vessel (RPS Explorer).

Delivery of the Goods is required within sixty (60) days upon receipt of Notice to Proceed (NTP). Bidders should have completed. within Five (5) years from the date of submission and receipt of bids a contract similar to the project. The description of an eligible bidder is contained in the Bidding Documents, particularly, in Section II (Instructions to Bidders)..

2. Bidding will be conducted through open competitive bidding procedures using a non-discretionary “pass/fail” criterion as specified in the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 9184, otherwise known as the “Government Procurement Reform Act”.

Bidding is restricted to Filipino citizens/sole proprietorships, partnerships, or organizations with at least sixty percent (60%) interest or outstanding capital stock belonging to citizens of the Philippines, and to citizens or organizations of a country the laws or regulations of which grant similar rights or privileges to Filipino citizens, pursuant to RA 5183 and subject to Commonwealth Act 138.

3. Interested bidders may obtain further information from MGB and inspect the Bidding Documents at the address given below during office hours, from 9:00AM to 4:00PM.

A complete set of Bidding Documents may be purchased by interested Bidders from December 10, 2015 to January 5, 2016 at the address below and upon payment of a non-refundable fee for the Bidding Documents in the amount of Four Thousand Pesos (PhP4,000.00).

Preview of specifications can be downloaded from the website of the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (Phil-GEPS).

4. The MGB will hold a Pre-Bid Conference on December 16, 2015, Wednesday at 2:00PM, at the Office of the Bids and Awards Committee, Mines and Geosciences Bureau, North Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City, which shall be open only to all interested parties who have purchased the Bidding Documents.

Bids must be delivered to the address below on January 6, 2016, Wednesday, on or before 1:30PM. Late bids shall not be accepted. All Bids must be accompanied by a Bid Securing Decl aration or any other bid security in any of the acceptable forms and in the amount stated in ITB Clause 18.

Bid opening shall be on January 6, 2016, Wednesday, on or before 2:00PM, at the Office of the MGB-Bids and Awards Committee. Bids will be opened in the presence of the Bidders’ representatives who choose to attend.

7. The MGB reserves the right to accept or reject any bid, to annul the bidding process, and to reject all bids at any time prior to contract award, without thereby incurring any liability to the affected bidder or bidders.

8. For further information, please refer to:

ENGR. ROBERTO D. CASEROS Head, Secretariat Bids and Awards Committee North Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City Telephone No. 6676700 loc. 153 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.mgb.gov.ph

(SGD)ENGR. JUANCHO PABLO S. CALVEZ Chairman, BAC(TS-DEC. 13, 2015)

Republic of the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources MINES AND GEOSCIENCES BUREAU

North Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City. PhilippinesTel. No. (+632) 928-8642/928-8937 Fax No. (+632) 920-1635 E-mail: [email protected]

INVITATION TO APPLY FOR ELIGIBILITY AND TO BID One (1) lot Information Technology Parts and Peripherals

P.R. No. 2015-12-952

1. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), through the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for CY 2016 intends to apply the sum of Thirty Three Million Nine Hundred Fifty Thousand Pesos (PhP33,950,000.00) being the Approved Budget for the Contract (ABC) to payments under the contract for One (1) lot Information Technology Parts and Peripherals. Bids received in excess of the ABC shall be automatically rejected during opening of bids.

The MGB now invites bids for Procurement of One (1) lot Information Technology Parts and Peripherals.

Delivery of the Goods is required within forty five (45) days upon receipt of Notice to Proceed (NTP). Bidders should have completed, within Five (5) years from the date of submission and receipt of bids, a contract similar to the project. The description of an eligible bidder is contained in the Bidding Documents, particularly, in Section II (Instructions to Bidders).

2. Bidding will be conducted through open competitive bidding procedures using a non-discretionary “pass/fail” criterion as specified in the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act (RA) 9184, otherwise known as the “Government Procurement Reform Act”.

Bidding is restricted to Filipino citizens/sole proprietorships, partnerships, or organizations with at least sixty percent (60%) interest or outstanding capital stock belonging to citizens of the Philippines, and to citizens or organizations of a country the laws or regulations of which grant similar rights or privileges to Filipino citizens, pursuant to RA 5183 and subject to Commonwealth Act 138.

3. Interested bidders may obtain further information from MGB and inspect the Bidding Documents at the address given below during office hours, from 9:00am to 4:00PM.

A complete set of Bidding Documents may be purchased by interested Bidders from December 9, 2015 to January 5, 2016 at the address below and upon payment of a non- refundable fee for the Bidding Documents in the amount of Four Thousand Pesos (PhP4,000.00).

Preview of specifications can be downloaded from the website of the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (Phil-GEPS).

4. The MGB will hold a Pre-Bid Conference on December 16, 2015, Wednesday at 2:00PM, at the Office of the Bids and Awards Committee, Mines and Geosciences Bureau, North Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City, which shall be open only to all interested parties who have purchased the Bidding Documents.

Bids must be delivered to the address below on January 6, 2016, Wednesday, on or before 1:30PM. Late bids shall not be accepted. All Bids must be accompanied by a Bid Securing Declaration or any other bid security in any of the acceptable forms and in the amount stated in ITB Clause 18.

Bid opening shall be on January 6, 2016, Wednesday, on or before 2:00PM, at the Office of the MGB-Bids and Awards Committee. Bids will be opened in the presence of the Bidders’ representatives who choose to attend.

5. The MGB reserves the right to accept or reject any bid, to annul the bidding process, and to reject all bids at any time prior to contract award, without thereby incurring any liability to the affected bidder or bidders.

6. For further information, please refer to:

Engr. ROBERTO D. CASEROS Head, Secretariat Bids and Awards Committee North Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City Telephone No. 6676700 loc. 153 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.mgb.gov.ph

(SGD.) Engr. JUANCHO PABLO S. CALVEZ Chairman, BAC(TS-DEC. 13, 2015)

By Peter Atencio

ONE Championship, the biggest sports promotion in Asia, an-swered the call of Pangarap Foun-dation to help street children.

ONE HOUR IS ALL IT TAKESThe foundation pro-

vides a safe haven for male street children who have suffered mal-nutrition, abandon-ment and other forms of abuse. One Hour seeks the support of corporations and their employees by ask-ing them to donate an hour’s worth of their annual earnings to their projects.

On Thursday, Dec. 11, executives of ONE Championship and their sponsors LG Philippines Electron-ics found their way to a residential compound located beside the Lib-ertad Public Market in Pasay City.

For an hour or so, they interacted with 78 boys

who have been plucked from the streets. Former street children being taken care of by the Pan-garap Foundation.

Rich Franklin, a three-time world champion and now the vice presi-dent of ONE Champion-ship, enjoyed a game of dodge ball with the kids, with local fighter Eugene Toquero, Evolve coach Heath Sims and ring girl Mel Tan.

LG Philippines Elec-tronics, through cor-porate marketing head Mayan Salapantan, was there as the company donated a 40-inch LED TV.

Their advocacy, which is to support in-stitutions who take care of needy children, came on the occasion of Fri-day’s ONE: SPIRIT OF CHAMPIONS at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Brandon “The Truth” Vera beat Paul “Typhoon” Cheng for the inaugural ONE Heavyweight World Championship.

Franklin vowed to donate proceeds of the fight and its support-ing bouts in support of the Reach for the S.K.Y. program.

The program is a project of Children’s Hour, a group which supports the Pangarap Foundation.

“We had fun here to-day, playing dodge ball, broke a little sweat, got active and brought some snacks. It’s our plan is to do community ser-vice every time we come here,” said Franklin.

The project has three aims, which is to pro-vide caring services, healing services and teaching services.

“We are glad this happened. We were able to support them with a TV set,” said Salapantan.

She said more such ac-tivities have been planned with One Championship next year.

Children’s Hour ex-ecutive director Net Gar-cia said they have been faithfully seeking help for the street children through the program for the past 15 years.

“We are happy with the support that ONE Championship has giv-en to Children’s Hour. With the proceeds of the ticket sale, the kids can be provided with medical assistance, feeding and nutrition care,” said Garcia.

She added that the support of companies have helped the program become successful.

Three-time world MMA champion and now vice president of ONE Championship Rich Franklin works up a bit of sweat with former street children as they play a game of dodge ball during the visit of ONE Championship officials to Pangarap Foundation. PETER ATENCIO

Evolve coach Heath Sims and ring girl Mel Tan enjoy a game of dodge ball with the young wards of Pangarap Foundation during the visit of ONE Championship officials. PETER ATENCIO

[email protected]

S U N D AY : D E C E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5

SPORTS

MIKE Tampengco, president of the Philippine Collegiate Cycling, had organized a cycling event dubbed as “Padyak para sa Kalikasan,” set on Feb. 7, 2016 in Gapan, Nueva Ecija.

The event aims to generate aware-ness on the catastrophic effect of climate change and to promote pre-paredness among Filipinos in case of powerful earthquakes.

Aside from the event, also slated are different category competitions prepared by the PPCI such as Open-Team event, Masters, Amateur, Mountainbike, Executive, Women and National Collegiate, where the top 3 winners for each category will receive medals and cash and free meals.

Tampengco said the fun Bike event is a timely project for all who love cycling as their means of physi-cal fitness and sports, as discussed during the meeting with former ICFP Secretary General Manding Bautista.

“The bigger portion of the event is the fun bike, that’s why we had to add additional event which will tap all the diffferen cycling clubs in the country,” Tampengco said

Tampengco said that the event will be handles by Noel Vicencio. president of Nueva Ecija cycling club, in preparation for next year’s World University Cycling Champi-onship in Tagaytay City.

All interested participants, may text or call Mike Tampengco at 0917 890 3240.

“BIKE FOR CLIMATE

CHANGE” SET

NBA scoring leader Stephen Curry drained two free throws with 13.4 sec-onds left in the second overtime, and Warriors swingman Andre Iguodala added two more foul shots with 5.4 seconds remaining as Golden State held off the tenacious Celtics.

The reigning champion Warriors notched their 28th straight win in a streak stretching back to last season.

Their 27th straight win had al-ready tied for the second-longest streak ever, and now they trail only the 33 in a row won by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers.

But it was a close-run thing for a Warriors team missing injured starters Klay Thompson and Har-rison Barnes.

They trailed by five points with 2:07 left in regulation and Boston had two chances to wrap it up in the waning seconds of regular time.

It was tied 103-103 with 2.9 sec-onds remaining when Warriors guard Shaun Livingston blocked a shot by Boston’s Isaiah Thomas.

After Golden State’s attempt to score on an inbounds play failed, the Celtics had the ball with 0.7 seconds to play, but Kelly Olynyk’s jumper wouldn’t fall.

“It hurts. We were there the whole time,” said Olynyk, who came off the bench to score a season-high 28 points.

In a contest that was close through-out, the Warriors appeared to be tak-ing control when they stretched their lead to 11 points in the third quarter.

But it didn’t last long, as Curry struggled through his worst-shoot-ing night of the season.

Curry, who went into the contest leading the league with an average of 32.2 points per game, made just nine of 27 shots from the floor.

Fiercely defended by the Celtics, he made eight turnovers and his two free throws were his only points of

NATIONAL University used a strong second half to turn back de-fending champion Ateneo, 73-60, and complete first round sweep in the UAAP Season 78 juniors bas-ketball tournament yesterday at the Blue Eagle gym.

Justine Baltazar imposed his will in the paint with 18 points, 16 rebounds, and five blocks while John Lloyd Clemente also had 18 points as the Bullpups went per-fect in seven starts but not after overturning a three-point deficit at the half.

Jolo Mendoza was not a factor for the Blue Eaglets, as the last season’s Finals MVP went scoreless in only 15 minutes due to a knee injury.

Ateneo dropped to 5-2 in a tie with De La Salle-Zobel, which ab-sorbed a 66-79 loss to Adamson University.

EJ Agbong played his best game of the season with 20 points and 15 rebounds for the Baby Falcons, who improved to 4-3 card.

Adamson moved in a tie with Far Eastern University-Diliman, a 61-40 winner over University of Santo Tomas, in joint fourth heading to the second round which starts on January 9 after an almost-month long Christmas break. In the cur-tain raiser, UP Integrated School entered the win column with a 104-69 overpowering of University of the East.

The Tiger Cubs finished the round with a 2-5 slate, the Junior Maroons are now at 1-6, while the Junior Warriors remained winless in seven outings.

By Ronnie Nathanielsz

FORMER five-division world champion Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire added another WBO super bantamweight belt to his trophy room, but not after 12 rounds of veritable hell against No.1-ranked Cesar Juarez before an enthusiastic crowd at the Coli-seo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Saturday.

Donaire, the 2012 “Fighter of the Year” and No. 5 in the pound-for-pound rankings at that time, looked like re-asserting his mastery of the 122-pound division as the No. 2-ranked Filipino dominated the early rounds with excellent coun-ter-punching behind a stinging jab, a thundering left hook and a wicked right hand.

A heavy favorite to win, Donaire dropped Juarez twice in Round 4 with a thundering right and then moments

later with a vicious left hook, before he ap-peared to ease off in Round 5, allowing the rugged Mexican to slowly claw back into the contest. Juarez then decided to brawl, push-ing Donaire against the ropes and hammering him to the body, turn-ing the tide in what turned into a brutal waterfront brawl.

Through the middle rounds, Donaire suffered a deep cut on his right eye, which required sev-eral stitches and had a welt under his left eye, while his left thumb was also swollen as he began to dramatically fade. Juarez threw caution to the winds and went after Donaire, in the process leav-ing himself open for some telling counter-punches by “The Fili-

pino Flash,” who ap-peared willing to get hit provided he could land one big counter-punch.

A slip in Round 6 when Donaire tripped over referee Ramon Pena resulted in twist-ing his ankle, which seemed to hamper his movement.

ABS-CBN reporter Dyan Castillejo, who

was at ringside, said Nonito told her he couldn’t get off the ropes because he couldn’t move, stressing that he was not tired. Castillejo quoted Donaire as saying that at one point in the later rounds, he felt like giv-ing up because Juarez was like a bull and was relentless in his aggression.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum paid tribute to Donaire for his un-believable courage.

Although Donaire rocked Juarez a couple of times with telling right and left hooks, his foe continued to storm forward in the typical style of a Mexican warrior and appeared to overcome an initially hostile Puerto Rican crowd with his gallantry and readiness to fight, no matter what the consequences.

Juarez, who had been knocked down before but never knocked out, maintained that reputation as he not only survived the early hammering he received from Donaire. He even had Donaire in deep trouble himself in Rounds 8 and 9, before the Filipino dug deep into his courageous heart in the 11th and 12th rounds, with some telling flurries to win a lopsided decision on the scorecards of all three Puerto Rican judges, but which certainly did not reflect the closeness of the fight—a “Fight of the Year” candidate.

WARRIORS EDGE CELTICS TO STRETCH WIN STREAK

BULLPUPS SWEEP

1ST ROUND

the second overtime.“Nothing was pretty about this

game,” said Curry, who did make six of 13 three-point attempts and all 14 of his foul shots en route to 38 points.

“But we got stops, everybody con-tributed ... considering all the inju-ries we had and this being the end of the road trip—huge win for us.”

Draymond Green contributed 24 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists and a season-high five blocks for the Warriors.

Iguodala scored nine of his 13 points in the two overtimes.

“We continue to fight,” Green said. “We believe in ourselves. We believe in each other and we trust each other. So, nothing new. The same old same old, which has made us who we are.”

The Warriors close out a seven-game road trip at the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday. They are trying to become the first NBA team to go 7-0 on a single road swing.

The drama in Boston dominated a day that also saw venerable veterans Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan clash in San Antonio, where Duncan’s

Spurs defeated Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers 109-87.

The Indiana Pacers, hammered by the Warriors on Tuesday, bounced back with a 96-83 victory over the Miami Heat.

Pacers guard Monta Ellis scored 24 points with six assists and six steals and forward Paul George added 23 points—surpassing the 5,000-point mark for his career.

Heat star Dwyane Wade scored 20 points and passed Gail Goodrich for 48th place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.

THE Golden State War-riors stretched their sen-sational season-opening NBA winning streak to 24 games on Friday with a hard-fought 124-119 double-overtime victory over the Celtics in Boston.

DONAIRE WINS WBO TITLE AFTER 12 ROUNDS OF HELL

Donaire

PLAYING THE EDGE. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors drives to the basket against the Boston Celtics on Dec. 11, 2015 at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. AFP

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[email protected]

ReUel viDAlEDITOR

sports

The Leyte RTR All-Stars boys, the football team to beat in East-ern Visayas, is a prime example of these children. These boys come from different areas across the region (i.e. Tacloban, Ormoc and Biliran), all of which was badly hit by typhoon Yolanda way back in 2013. They survived the devasta-tion from two years ago and they continue to, day by day through their determination and their parents’ relentless efforts to make ends meet.

Last Nov. 24, these boys trav-elled all the way from Tacloban to Manila to join this year’s Alaska Cup, scheduled on the 28th until

the 30th. It was the first for many of them. They were motivated to compete and claim victory against other participants from various parts of the country.

Through the generosity of the Priests of Rogationist Semi-nary College of Philosophy in Paranaque, the boys had a place to stay for a week. They started and ended each day of their journey with a thanksgiving prayer. They jogged every morning with their Coaches and had tune-up games in the afternoon.

They took their training by heart. As Alfer or Ping, the Team’s Under-13 year-old defender said:

InspIred to wInLEYTE RTR ALL STARSMembers of the Leyte RTR All Stars boys, the football team to beat in Eastern Visayas, flash the no. 1 sign.

GROWING up, kids are thought of aiming high, set-ting goals and overcoming their fears. As they move along, they learn these things and they gain a good perspective on how to deal with the obstacles that they encounter. Some are quite incomprehensible and un-beatable. But then, through their persistence and their mentors’ continuous teaching, these children become prepared for greater things.

“The kids from the rest of the competing teams would be big-ger than us, for sure. They can af-ford to eat more meat so we have to show them that we maybe small but we are terrible.”

The boys also had the chance to spend an evening with their idol, Chieffy Calingdog , a former Az-kal player and now, Coach to the La Zalle-Zobel football team. He shared to them how he was able to fulfil his dreams as one of the na-tion’s best players.

Sandy Prieto-Romualdez, the President of the Philippine Daily Inquirer has seen the boys’ play in the past. She is amazed of their determination and skills, hence, to show her support, she took the time from her busy schedule to meet them. As an early Christmas gift, she gave each of the boys a new pair of cleats or soccer shoes, the very pair that they used during the weekend games.

When game weekend came, the Under-14-year-old players were excited to compete with the rest of the Teams. They were no privi-leged kids so, they knew who they

were up against but, instead of get-ting intimated, they gave it their best kick.

Lennon, the “off-the-shoulder” striker uttered, “We can do this! With our passing and defense skills, we can win this.”

True enough, the Team won against Brent International School and ended up with a draw in their succeeding matches with Ateneo de Manila and Ateneo de Cebu.

Jared Troy, the RTR Leyte All Stars’ captain kept the team to-gether. The coaches were all be-hind him. They knew they were up for a good fight. Overall, they placed ninth among the 36 com-peting Teams.

The next day was no different; the Under-13-year-old boys were inspired to win. They wanted to make everyone proud. Even if their opponents were seasoned players, they weren’t faint-heart-ed. They fought to prove them-selves.

In the end, their hard work paid off as they secured the 10th spot, out of the 30 teams in their cat-egory with three wins against La

Salle Greenhills, South Ridge and Puzakal FC.

For a first-timer Team, RTR Leyte All Stars showed everyone in Alaska Cup that they are no underdogs. They are capable of ac-complishing as much and they are willing to go far for their dreams.

The boys’ journey in Manila came to an end last Dec. 1. Their last day was just as memorable. Special thanks to Boot Camp Football Shop in Bonifacio Global City, thru Andrei Mercader, for the balls and gears, Juiet Gomez-Romualdez, Mr. & Mrs. Philip Romualdez and family for open-ing their home and hosting the celebratory dinner.

The boys had a fun-filled expe-rience and are surely looking for-ward to next year’s tournament. They still have a long way to go, but with the right coaching and steadfast training, sooner than later, the Philippines just might have its own Lionel Messi or David Beckham.

But of course, none of these would have been possible, if not for the benevolent donations of the institutions and individuals men-tioned below:

RTR Medical Foundation Ta-cloban City, Mission Tacloban, Office of Rep. Ferdinand Mar-tin G. Romualdez, First District of Leyte, Medical Teams Inter-national USA, Energy Develop-ment Corporation / Calidad Hu-mana, PASAR Foundation,Team Socceroo Football Club, Me-diaVest Philippines Inc., Stra-tuscast, St. Bernard School for Boys, NY USA, Association of Philippine American Organiza-tions of Greater Cleveland Ohio, Henry Moran Foundation, Leyte Football Association, Tingog Sinirangan, Land Rover Club Philippines, Upsilon Sigma Phi, UP Mens Football, UP Womens Football

The Extra Mile Productions, Oplan Hatid Volunteers, Messy Bessy, Counc. Richie Brown of Pasig City, Gabriel Aguilar, Pat and Maricris Joson and Ramon Gueco SiopongcoA member of the Leyte RTR All Stars in action during the Alaska Cup.

The boys come from different areas across the region (i.e. Tacloban, Ormoc and Biliran), all of which was badly hit by typhoon Yolanda way back in 2013.

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LIFE

TATUM ANCHETAE D I T O R

BING PARELA S S O C I AT E E D I T O R

BERNADETTE LUNASW R I T E R

S U NDAY L IF E

l i f e @ t h e s t a n d a r d . c o m . p h @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d

If you are from Marikina or have had occasion to visit the city, you might have seen these banners proclaiming the Marikeños’ pride

at having one of their own receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award for her “single-minded crusade in preserving the endangered artistic heritage” of southern Philippines, in particular, the pangalay, an indigenous dance of Sulu.

The daughter of the late Marikina mayor Gil Fernando Sr. and the older sister of former Marikina Mayor and Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Bayani Fernando, Ligaya Amilbangsa – a 1962 Far Eastern University alumna – fell in love with the dance form during a visit to Jolo, Sulu in the late ’60s where she saw a group of dancers perform. Her marriage to the late Datu Punjungan Amilbangsa (of the prominent clan in Sulu) whom she met at FEU and the subsequent move to Bongao in Tawi-Tawi introduced her to the rich cultural heritage of Mindanao.

For more than three decades, Ligaya immersed herself in the rich cultural life of the Muslim South, recording its performing arts, visual arts, and other traditions that are now endangered. She developed the Amilbangsa Instruction Method, a mode of instruction that gives equal emphasis on technique and creativity, to preserve and propagate knowledge and skills of the dance style, pangalay.

The continuous support of institutions like her alma mater, FEU, has helped Ligaya keep alive

the artistic expressions that link Filipinos to their past through her unwavering tenacity and passion. Among the initiatives that Ligaya and the FEU have embarked on include screenings of “Ang Pagbabalik sa Tawi-Tawi,” a documentary of the 72-year-old lady’s works that have contributed to the preservation of the Muslim South’s culture and tradition.

“I am grateful to FEU for being a steadfast supporter of my life’s purpose of preserving the cultural and historical relevance of indigenous dance forms,” she said, adding that FEU continues to be a venue for academic discussion on this topic. It also provides various forms of assistance in the publication of our dance researches. It was at the FEU Institute of Arts – where she took up her major in 1959 – that gave her a deeper understanding of the craft.

“The world is quickly becoming assimilated and borderless. To have a better appreciation of other cultures, we have to be aware of our own. This is why the support of institutions like FEU is important, so that future generations may continue to understand our artistic traditions,” Ligaya stated.

To further support her continuous campaign on safeguarding artistic traditions, FEU is collaborating with Ligaya to publish an interactive edition of Pangalay: Traditional Dances and Related Folk Artistic Expressions, a book on the Southern Philippine cultural dance of the same name, which will include video demonstrations of the dance steps.

“FEU has long been a bastion of Filipino culture and arts. More than having one of our alumni receive one of the highest honors in Asia,

it gives us even greater pride seeing our students continue to uphold the university’s values as they pursue their own vocation. That is why we give our constant support to our alumni and their worthwhile endeavors,” said FEU president Dr. Michael Alba.

Ligaya Amilbangsa is the second FEU alumni to receive

the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. In 1980, Francisco Sionil Jose – who studied in the Far Eastern University High School from 1939 to 1941 – was recognized for his “intellectual courage and his concern for and encouragement of Asian and other writers and artists.”

Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa’s gift of dance

Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa developed the Amilbangsa Instruction Method that gives equal emphasis on technique and creativity to preserve knowledge and skills about the pangalay dance style

At 72, the Ramon Magsaysay awardee is as graceful as ever

Marikeños take pride in Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa’s accomplishments

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LIFE l i f e @ t h e s t a n d a r d . c o m . p h @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d

“Iwish I had more money so it’s easier for me to heal my heartache and go back to being happy,” I jokingly

told my friend while pouring my heart out over dinner. “No, whether you have money or you don’t, a heartbreak is a heartbreak,” she said, then continued to tell me that everything is simply just a distraction: money, going somewhere, buying things, or if I want to emote like Julia Roberts and do an Eat, Pray, Love in Bali. “By the end of the day you will go back, and you will cry still feeling the empty hole that someone used to fill, so deal with it,” she continued. Umm… okay. Friends – they tell you the truth and smack you in the face when you still won’t get it. Maybe I’ll take the Chinese proverb’s advice, a nap will do for now.

Distractions. Sometimes you need those, too, especially when you are dealing with something in your life – letting go, changes. For almost a month during the photo shoots for The Standard’s Visionaries project, I forgot I was nursing a broken heart. Coming out of a three year relationship does take its toll, but work is a good place to focus and pour out my energy. Seeing and meeting so many amazing Visionaries made me forget about my heart. Besides the occasional heartburn from my acid reflux, I forgot it was there. But then, as my schedule went back to normal, there it was again, knocking like an endless replay of Eternal Sunshine of

a Spotless Mind. It’s true, distractions help but they’re temporary, you have to look within yourself and go through the process. Again, a nap would be good, lol!

My friend messaged me and told me to check out Jenny Santi’s book The Giving Way to Happiness. I borrowed her book and after a few pages I was hooked. She then introduced me to Jenny for a quick email chat since I didn’t get to meet her during her book signing. The book is an enlightening read on the power of “giving.” It features stories of her personal journey and the many stories of the people she had worked with as a philanthropy advisor. It features personal stories of Academy Award

winner Goldie Hawn, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, supermodel and now maternal health advocate Christy Turlington Burns, and philanthropist Richard Rockefeller, among other notable names – successful celebrities, the world’s most generous philanthropists and some Forbes listers.

Everyone has certain things they need to fill in their lives to feel happy – health, money, relationships, even prestige. It depends on each person on what weighs more. “Giving is the most satisfying thing you will ever do,” Jenny mentioned in the book, and itemizes what it can do to a person. Giving can be the source of true happiness; it’s the

best way to recover from worst tragedies, it gives greater pleasure than the creation of wealth, it can heal, and give inner peace among many others. “In my career as a philanthropy advisor, I have heard so many stories from people who are involved in charitable work – whether they are major donors, social entrepreneurs, nonprofit professionals, idealistic young students, or volunteers,” says Jenny.

“I observed something that they had in common. It wasn’t that they had a lot of money to give away – no. Some of them were not giving money, but their time and their talents to something that mattered deeply to them.” She continued,

“What struck me was that these people radiated with purpose and joy. I observed that while giving yields obvious blessings for the receiver, the act of giving holds a wealth of benefits for the giver which are seldom discussed and arguably greater: a sense of purpose, empowerment to overcome trauma, careers that blossom to callings and success elevated to significance.”

Jenny cited scientific studies on how the power of giving activates the same pleasure centers of our brain that are stimulated by food, sex, and drugs. She also cited what scientist’s call the “helper’s high,” the euphoric feeling people get when they help others. Apparently,

studies show that even children feel happier when they give than when they receive.

Giving. Shall I process my grief and learn how to give – maybe not about money, but what can I give? I turned the pages and slowly got myself immersed in the world and science of “giving.” But then as I reached chapter four, From Trauma to Triumph, she gently reminds to “Take care of yourself first,” and that finding happiness through “giving” doesn’t necessary mean to jump on the first chance to help after going through a rough patch. (Hmm… shall I take back all the clothes I gave away after my break up? Just a thought, I really

loved that jacket. Hmm… again, just a thought.)

She narrates what Thich Nhat Hanh (Zen master and peace activist and human rights advocate) told her, “We have to take care of ourselves before we take care of others… if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself – it is very difficult to take care of another person.”

Most of the successful personalities whose stories are shared in this book started out with an achievement for themselves, and then eventually shared what they had after they’ve accumulated wealth, fame and power. I asked Jenny what she could advice for ordinary people and what she

could suggest for them to start with to be able to give the gift of giving for others. “Same advice that I would give anyone. Find your passion, and make that the foundation for your giving. It is not how much you give but how much love you put into it,” shares Jenny.

“While giving can make us feel good, giving can also make us feel depleted,” the author explains. “In the Philippines, we like to guilt-trip people into giving. That doesn’t result in a happy feeling, because people just give to avoid humiliation, to avoid being called ‘cheap’.” She adds, “We need to be proactive – not simply reactive – about our giving. Set aside the time to think about what your options are, and find the best way to give that is aligned with your passion, your capacity, and your personal preferences.”

Jenny Santi wrote The Giving Way to Happiness to inspire and “to tell these stories of what giving does to change the life of the giver.” In a way, the thoughts printed in her book are also a means of “giving” a part of her. It is an inspiring read, and hopefully anyone who leafs through the pages will get some enlightenment. I sure did.

“Give not until it hurts, but until it feels great,” closes Jenny.

For comments, suggestions and violent reactions, you may email me at [email protected]. For my crazy life’s adventures follow me at @tatumancheta on Instagram and Twitter.

THE GIVING WAY TO HAPPINESS

CAROTID ARTERYBY TATUM ANCHETA From

, she gently reminds to “Take care of yourself

could suggest for them to start with to be able to give the gift

Jenny SantiJenny Santi during her book signing in Manila

If you want happiness for an hour – take a nap. If you want happiness for a day – go fishing. If you want happiness for a month – get married. If you want happiness for a year – inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime –help others.

– Chinese Proverb

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S U N D AY : D E C E M B E R 1 3 : 2 0 1 5

Caritas Manila and Couples for Christ ANCOP Global Foundation, Inc. both believe that education is the best way to liberate individuals

from poverty. Hence, the two non-profit organizations strengthened their partnership in educating youth from poor families.

CFC ANCOP president Jaime Ilagan and Caritas Manila executive director Rev. Fr. Anton Pascual recently signed an extended memorandum of agreement. Through the partnership, CFC ANCOP will help fund Caritas’ Youth Servant Leadership and Education Program or YSLEP.

CFC ANCOP and Caritas Manila have been partners since 2013 as both their education programs, YSLEP of Caritas and Child Sponsorship Program (CSP) of CFC ANCOP, are both geared towards using education to reduce e poverty incidence in the country.

With studies showing that attaining a college degree reduces the Filipino

household’s poverty incidence by a staggering 98 percent, the strengthened partnership allows YSLEP scholars to finish college in the identified communities in Pasay City and calamity-stricken areas in Leyte, Western Samar and Compostela Valley. CFC ANCOP will then pave the way for parents of the scholars to participate in and attend the various activities of Couples for Christ.

To date, there are over 5,000 youth scholars nationwide under Caritas Manila’s YSLEP. The beneficiaries of YSLEP undergo various values formation modules and leadership workshops which focus on three core values: self-discipline, moral integrity and social responsibility.

To donate to Caritas Manila’s YSLEP, visit www.caritasmanila.org.ph or call their DonorCare lines at (02) 563-9311, (02) 564-0205, 0999-7943455, 0905-4285001 or 0929-8343857.

POVERTY REDUCTION THROUGH

EDUCATION

Yum! Brands’ fast food companies Pizza Hut and Taco Bell Philippines make it easier for many Filipinos to join the fight against hunger with

its Deliver Hope fundraising campaign, ongoing until January 15 next year.

Customers buying their favorite pizza and tacos can help in the campaign, now on its eighth year, by dropping cash donations to the coin banks, or buying either a postcard featuring Deliver Hope ambassador Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao (P40) or a limited-edition Deliver Hope cup (P50) at any of the 174 Pizza Hut outlets and Taco Bell branches nationwide.

The funds raised by this yearly campaign will go directly to World Food Programme’s ongoing feeding program for schoolchildren in conflict-affected Central Mindanao. Deliver Hope is part of Yum! Brands World Hunger Relief Programme 2015, the world’s largest private-sector hunger relief initiative spanning more than 125 countries and territories.

“The participation of Manny Pacquiao as campaign ambassador adds a special dimension to our Deliver Hope initiative this time around, because we have a world-renowned athlete who was born and raised in Mindanao to help us reach our goal of eliminating hunger in the Philippines,” enthuses Pizza Hut and Taco Bell Philippines chief operating officer Teck Huack “TH” Lim.

Being a Mindanaoan, Pacquiao immediately agreed to be the face and the voice of the campaign. “I chose to join the

2015 World Hunger Relief Programme because I would like to help our countrymen in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao who have little to eat,” Pacquiao says.

“I find it sad that children go to school everyday with almost nothing in their stomachs. With the help of the World Food Programme, they become excited to go to school because food motivates them to study well,” adds the Filipino world champion boxer.

According to WFP Philippines representative and country director Praveen Agrawal, the meals provided through the school feeding program have helped increase the retention rate of students in WFP-assisted schools by over 90 percent – “a testament to how school feeding helps these children stay in school.”

WFP’s feeding program targets 65,000 school children from conflict-affected communities in Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao every school year. WFP provides the children with hot and nutritious meals which consist of rice, mung beans and vegetable oil during regular school days on-site. A meal for one child costs only P10.

“We would like to commend and thank Pizza Hut and Taco Bell for eight years of a strong and continued partnership, making sure that nutritious meals are provided to the children that need it the most,” says Agrawal.

Since 2008, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell have helped raise P27 million for WFP’s school feeding programme in the Philippines.

ONE CUP FOR ZERO HUNGERYum! Brands Inc. delivers hope to underfed schoolchildren

Customers of Pizza Hut and Taco Bell can help in Deliver Hope 2015 campaign to end hunger by buying a limited-edition cup at any Pizza Hut or Taco Bell outlet nationwide

CFC ANCOP president Jaime Ilagan and Caritas Manila executive director Rev. Fr. Anton Pascual sign an extended Memorandum of Agreement to help fund Caritas’ Youth Servant Leadership and Education Program

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IN HIGH SPIRITSPHOTOS BY LORNA LLANES

I have been feeling the spirit of Christmas with profound joy these past few weeks.

First, I volunteered with a group of civic minded and philanthropic ladies headed by Tina Cuevas and Linda Ley for a unique gathering to make the wish of cancer ward patients of the Philippine Children’s Hospital and National Children’s Hospital come true. Through a collaboration with Make-A-Wish Foundation, they were able to grant the wish of two kids (who are patients of the aforementioned hospitals) for a thematic Princess Party held at the leading events place in Quezon City, The Sulo Riviera Hotel.

For a day, Cherdelyn and Kyla were beautiful princesses – a simple wish that has given heartfelt joy to their parents and little guests who were also struggling with cancer. There is strength in the smiles of these children that I find truly inspiring. The selfless love and generosity of the hosts were much appreciated and will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of those who came and celebrated.

Secondly, I was personally invited by the lady president of the Club Bulakeño, Shelly Lazaro, to attend their annual affair held at the Makati Shangri-La Manila. The black tie charity ball was attended by nearly 400 guests from the province of Bulacan and their friends.

The ball was dubbed as the “Celebracion con Erte” and its inspiration was an ode to the Russian-born French artist, Roman de Tirtoff (more popularly known as Erte). True to the theme, most of the women attendees wore 1920s- and 1930s-era inspired gowns and the men were dapper in their tuxedos. The milieu was reminiscent of the movie The Great Gatsby.

And as with every charity ball, the “Celebracion con Erte” was organized to raise funds for those in need in their home province of Bulacan.

“For the last 27 years, we’ve been giving educational assistance to a lot of deserving students in Bulacan, aside from our medical and dental outreach programs,” expressed Shelly Lazaro to this columnist.

She added, “Our annual ball is our biggest fundraising activity. Through

this, we’re able to raise a huge sum to cover at least 70 percent of our scholarship subsidies.”

During the event, they also recognized the “Huwarang Anak ng Bulakan” – a salute to outstanding Bulakeño achievers,

namely: Che Che Lazaro for Media; Roberto M. Pagdanganan for Public Service; Roman Felipe S. Reyes for Accounting; Josefina “Chef Jessie” Sincioco for Culinary Arts; and Bienvenido “Donnie” V. Tantoco III for Entrepreneurship and Retail.

Following the formal awarding ceremonies, the jovial spirit was absolutely felt with the unity of the Club Bulakeño community and their friends as they participated in a fashion extravaganza and an energetic dance medley that kept the crowd rolling with excitement.

Most essentially, I have observed that through this fellowship, they were all impassioned to come together (through dance) with a common mission to raise funds for their beloved province.

“We aim is to have a bigger revenue this year so we can support more scholars and at the same time, extend assistance to other communities through livelihood programs and skills training,” explained Lazaro, one of the movers and shakers (literally and figuratively) of the 27th Club Bulakeño Charity Ball.

In a message, the spirit of Club Bulakeno’s annual fund raising ball was aptly described: “The Annual Ball reminds us that the good that we do today is a seed planted for a brighter tomorrow. May we never become weary in doing good,” said Bienvenido R. Tantoco, Sr., recognized as an “Ama ng Bulacan” by the Club Bulakeño for his many accomplishments and support for their home province of Bulacan.

Their continuous work and persevering service spanning 27 years, all for the common good of those who are in need of aid, is truly noteworthy and inspiring.

And that, in my opinion, should put us all in high spirits!

Cheers to Club Bulakeño!

Follow me on Twitter or Instagram @francis_deleon8.

#INTHEMOMENTBY FRANCIS DE LEON

A dance number with Club Bulakeño’s lady president Shelly Lazaro and president Jonas Cabochan

Jowee Mathay, Roman and Polo Reyes, Chechel and Bernard Tiongson

Jun and Chit Bautista

Chuchi Villar and Lydia Reyes

Dance participants Tess Castro, Jun and Baby Perez, and Sonny Tanchanco

Ann and Atty. Jonas Cabochan Edwin Medalla, Marian Ong-Nuguid and Mari Lacson

Gerard Ramirez, Berna Lomotan and Neneng de Ocampo

Lolet Carillo, Florence Defensor and Gov. Baby Luat

David Lim, Mayenne Carmona, Francis de Leon and Richard Tiu

Noy Ayson and Ellaine Villar

Noy Ayson and Ellaine Villar

Sonny Tanchanco, Atty. Lorna Kapunan and John Gaddi

True to the theme were Bert and Nonie Basilio with Gyngyn Ponce Quizon

‘Huwarang Anak ng Bulakan’ awardees (from left) Obet Pagdanganan, Cheche Lazaro, Jessie Sincioco, Roman Reyes and Donnie Tantoco

Club Bulakeño’s founding members and presidents (from left) Lydia and Gene Reyes, Amb. Bienvenido Tantoco, Shelly Lazaro, Atty. Jonas Cabochan, Ofelia Trinidad and Tess Castro

comfort but also promotes a healthy and holistic approach in life through indoor and outdoor amenities that de-velop and nurture one’s talent and skills.

The community’s creatively de-signed multi-level amenity area fea-tures amenities that go beyond the usual clubhouse facilities. It has a fitness center, a basketball and bad-minton court, an athletic bootcamp, yoga and Pilates deck, an arts and crafts studio, a cooking studio and kitchen, study and library, screening

room, and a crèche and kindergar-ten. These activity areas allow resi-dents to enjoy and foster their own recreational pursuits.

With Century Properties, there are sim-ply countless ways to live a better life. Wouldn’t you want to spend every Christ-mas holiday from here on with your family in a brand new Century home?

Acqua Private Residences is on the border of the vibrant cities of Makati and Mandaluyong.

Home for the Holidays: Why a Century Home should be yours

for all Christmases to come

Paris Hilton enjoys the breathtaking views of Azure Urban Resort Residences; (Inset) A studio unit at Commonwealth by CenturyAn Acqua Iguazu unit inspiration

For most Filipinos living abroad, the Yuletide season is the time to go back home. It is the time for reunions and rekin-dling of ties that matter.

Coming back home is also a chance for them to fully realize their own aspirations for their loved ones. And to many, a home is the single most important reflection of that better life. A home represents that new beginning.

Even more rewarding is that there is now a chance to own not just any home, but a Century home.

Home for the Holidays For years, Century Properties has

committed to enhancing many Filipino lives by providing them with quality homes that also symbolize their life’s successes. It has part-nered with the world’s best in design and in-novation, creating fresh lifestyle concepts for today’s progressive and global Filipinos.

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residential community features magnificent water components including cascading waterfalls, swim-ming pools, a man-made beach covered in fine sand, and the breathtaking Paris Hilton-designed Beach Club. The six hect-are community in Bicutan, Parañaque is also near schools, retail centers, and major roads with direct access to trans-portation, perfect for yuppies, students, growing families and even retirees.

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For details on the Easy to Own Home for the Holidays promo and its special deals for you this season, visit www.century-properties.com or call 0917-5555274

SHOWBITZC6i s a h r e d @ g m a i l . c o m

SUNDAY : DECEMBER 13, 2015

ACROSS 1 Romantic expedition 6 Looks after the hens 11 Fast-talked 16 Steam or fog 21 Needless 22 Go at it 23 Jane Eyre’s charge 24 Napoleon’s fate 25 Less cordial 26 Sing door-to-door 27 Stadium hoverer 28 Needle or rib 29 Affection, briefly 30 Do a comedian’s job 32 Tag 34 Bout ender 36 Beatty of films 37 Lays the table 39 Prince Val’s wife 41 Vice — 43 Long-legged waders 45 Goes no farther 47 Surf sounds

49 Bushed 51 Galore 54 Tennis great — Hart 55 Golfer Grace — 56 Idyllic spot 60 Finds new tenants 61 “Don’t Be —” 62 Take aim (2 wds.) 64 Forum hello 65 Video-game pioneer 66 Authority (hyph.) 67 Lyrics 68 More skillful 70 Ka-pow! 71 Taper 73 Smudges and stains 74 Gofer’s task 75 Butcher block 77 Fuddy-duddy 78 Singing cowpoke 79 Liars’ practices 80 Taos dwelling 82 Kid who rode Diablo 83 Prize money

84 Like a wild party 87 Lord Vader 88 —, vidi, vici 89 Pocket change 93 Open a scroll 94 Is in accord 95 Union man 97 Extinct bird 98 Charred 99 Hopping mad 100 All things 101 Sci-fi regular 103 Weeks per annum? 104 Motto 106 Cheerful 107 Fix a gash 108 Vulcan’s forge 110 Future turtles 111 Cake-pan type 112 Lots 113 Clothes horse 115 Witch’s hex 116 Heavy rain 117 Empty 120 Wax melodramatic 122 Fast-moving snake 124 Martha of dental ads 128 Pub pint 129 Instant lawn 131 It may be false 133 New moon to new moon 135 Fussy dresser 136 Hungarian-born conductor 138 — rings 140 Polish a poem 142 Sit still for 144 D-sharp alias (hyph.) 145 “No Man Is an Island” penner 146 — when? 147 Fallen-rock debris 148 Meaning of “litho” 149 Is a good dog 150 Augmented 151 Loaf ends

DOWN 1 Packs it in 2 Cousin’s dad 3 Law 4 “A Boy Named —” 5 Trillion, in combos 6 Professors 7 Destroys data 8 Snowy-white bird 9 Couple 10 Bear’s advice 11 Speaks rapidly and incoherently 12 Slackers and loafers 13 Conceals 14 Freddy Krueger’s street 15 Cabinet div. 16 Governor, at times 17 Guitar, slangily 18 Frontier saloon plus 19 Folger’s Mrs. 20 Cattails 31 Soda fountain treats 33 Do the trick 35 Tough fabric 38 Gauzy 40 Stir to action 42 Trophies 44 Reuben bread 46 Mischievous prank 48 Hydrox rival 50 Winged god 51 Haik wearers 52 Scent carrier 53 Alpaca kin 54 With caustic humor 55 Chipper 57 The One-L Lama 58 Javelin or marathon 59 Techies 61 Mooch 62 Masked swordsman 63 DEA agents

66 Haughty types 67 Keep an eye on 69 Multiply 72 Run — of (cross) 73 They’re not optional 74 A bit creepy 76 — Rouge 78 Broadcast 79 Slam — (NBA shots) 81 Airheads 82 Mountain retreat 83 Piggy bank coin 84 Ivan’s dollar

85 Arctic dweller 86 Utah’s — Hatch 87 Met celebs 88 Boast about 90 Saturate 91 Roger of 007 fame 92 Wolfed down 94 Bounce 95 Thataway 96 Blow, as a volcano 99 Balcony section 100 Creatures of habit? 102 Mink cousin 105 Caused (2 wds.)

106 More certain 107 Chic 109 “I — — Rock” 111 Lighter fluids 112 Capsized 114 Kind of inspection (hyph.) 115 Group of ants 116 Chandelier alternative 117 Florists’ supply 118 Sky-high 119 Musical instrument 121 Lobster source

123 Change a bill 125 Like a house — 126 Matterhorn echo 127 “En garde” weapons 130 Feathered has-been 132 Oater backdrop 134 Diner special 137 Neutral color 139 San Francisco hill 141 Central 143 Prior to yr. 1

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,

DECEMBER 13, 2015

Warner TV gets into the holiday spirit for the final month of the year, of-fering its Filipino viewers with an entertaining mix of movies coupled

with a rich bunch of Christmas specials from all-time favorite series until Dec. 27.

Its line-up boasts the world’s biggest franchis-es, first-run exclusives for the region and fan-fa-vorites across a wide range of genres from ac-tion, comedy and drama.

‘Tis truly the season to be jolly, with shows such as The Big Bang Theory, Friends, Arrow, and The Flashairing their best Christmas episodes on Dec. 25, starting the entertainment from 2 p.m. onwards.

As for movies, Warner TV offers a wonderful blend of blockbusters, busting out The Dark Knight Trilogy for those with the case of the Monday blues, with The Dark Knight on Dec. 14, and The Dark Knight Rises on Dec. 21, all airing at 9 p.m.

For the weekends, each Saturday is an en-chanted one, with the magical world of Harry Potter, every Saturday, at 9 p.m. – catch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Dec. 12, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows parts 1 and 2 on Dec. 19 and Dec. 26, respectively.

As for Sundays, the epic trilogy of The Lord of the Rings leads the charge – visit Middle-Earth along-side Gandalf, Aragorn, experience the epic battles and rich landscapes, and more, every Sunday at 9 p.m., with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring airing on Dec 13, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on Dec. 20, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on Dec. 27.

Warner TV is available on SKYcable Chan-nel 77, SKYcable HD Channel 197, Cignal HD Channel 119, Destiny Cable (Digital) Channel 77, Destiny Cable (Analog) Channel 80, and Ca-ble Link Channel 30. For more updates on the best in action, comedy and drama, follow on facebook.com/WarnerTVAsia

Sarangani Province, home to the well-loved tasty tuna which abounds on its

waters, sizzled with the recent MunaTo International Mu-sic Festival to mark its 23rd Founding Day anniversary.

Now on its 13th edition, the celebration captured the many facets of Sarangani through a world music-inspired extrava-ganza at the Provincial Capitol Complex in Alabel.

Taking center stage was celebrated traditional sape player Mathew Ngau Jau and the Living Heritage of Malay-sia. The sapeh, a short-necked lute, is the indigenous instru-ment of tribal peoples living along the rivers of Sarawak state of Malaysian Borneo. Ngau Jau of the Ngorek tribe is one of the few professional sapeh players and is recog-nized as the undisputed au-thority on the instrument.

The group also conducted lectures and cultural exchang-es with Tboli indigenous mu-sicians in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato who are known for their age-old “kudyapi” string instrument.

Adding ethnic beat was in-ternational performer Rodelio “Waway” Saway and his Ta-laandig Band who mesmer-ized the crowd with their tribal music reflecting the soul of the lumad tribes of Mindanao. The

Bukidnon-based visual artist was among the 10 winners in the 2012 Gawad Geny Lopez Bayaning Pilipino Award from the Visayas-Mindanao area.

Provincial officials led by Governor Steve Solon, Vice-Governor Jinkee Pac-quiao, and Congressman and “Pambansang Kamao” Manny Pacquiao, and pro-vincial tourism council pres-ident Michelle Lopez-Solonopened the two-day fete.

Solon said that Sarangani has reformatted MunaTo Festival into an international musical extravaganza to cap-ture the province’s 2,000-year old history and showcase its cultural kaleidoscope.

MunaTo is a Blaan word or “first people” referring to the pre-historic primitive inhabi-tants who dwelt in the remote caves of Maitum town.

Other special events were the Dalangen, which displayed the province’s ethnic cultural her-itage through authentic song, dance and apparel. Sarangani is home to Maguindanaoan, Blaan and Tboli communities who live harmoniously.

Meanwhile, the Pearl of Sa-rangani pageant selected the province’s ambassadresses of tourism and goodwill, which was topped by Juvel Odiano, a charmer from Glan town.

Concluding the festivity was Aegis band, known for their

birit notes, which rocked the night away in an open party with local bands joining the jamming sessions.

MunaTo is inspired by the sought-after Rainforest World Music Festival, re-garded as the “Woodstock of Asia”, which gathers the globe’s best ethnic-inspired musicians in Kuching, Sar-awak and draws tens of thou-sands of enthusiasts.

MunaTo MusiC FesT in sarangani

WaRnER TV UnVEiLS hOLiDay PROgRamming Rock band Aegis provided

entertainment to festival goers

Pearl of Sarangani winners with Gov. Steve Solon

Waway Saway of Bukidnon

Mathew Ngau Jau and Living Heritage, a cultural ensemble from Malaysia

Dalangen Sarangani Indigenous People’s Show

SHOWBITZ C7i s a h r e d @ g m a i l . c o m

Nicole Laurel Asensio is a rare breed – she has the blood of music legends. Soprano Fides Cuyu-

gan Asensio is her grandmother and singer/actor Cocoy Laurel is her uncle, where she got her love and passion for music and being a singer/songwriter herself. Growing up from a family of classical and Broadway singers, Nicole happened to found herself the sane genre with a mixture of modern rock.

From the all-girl rock band General Luna, who is now a solo artist and performer, Nicole is ready to show her pure talent alongside with the release of her new solo album Schizoprano, un-der MCA Music.

Nicole admits that she’s doing a total overhaul from being in bands most of her career and it has been life changing. “There’s a part where you need to step out of your comfort zone and learn from other musicians. And when it comes to supportive musical

friends, I am blessed. Musically, I feel more free to collaborate and venture off sound wise – so that’s a plus,” Nicole shared.

Schizoprano came from the word schizophrenic plus sopra-no, which was made possible by Nicole’s friends who are the best in the music industry. “The term “schizoprano” seemed to suit me and my voice just fine. I still sing classical when the occasion calls for it. I don’t think I can remove that from my system.” she said. Her music in this new album will give listeners a unique musical experience, combining classical and rock performance, where Nicole’s voice is perfectly made for. “I also feel thankful for this opportunity and the support from my collaborators, produc-tion, and MCA. I look forward to the doors God will open with this new ticket.” she added.

The tracks from her Schizopra-no album include her carrier sin-gle, “Leader For A Day” with lyrics

taken from replies Nicole’s Face-book status: “What would you do if you were leader for a day?” Other tracks in the album are collabora-tions just like with WilabaliW’s Ian Tayao on the love song “All In All”, rapper Mike Swift on “Huwag Mo Na Ako Mahalin”, and her Philpop song “A Song On A Broken String” and more songs originally com-posed by Nicole and her friends. Another track named “Walang Anuman” whose piano arrange-ment was created by an Italian composer and friend Diedonne Russo, giving her, who gave her a piano riff with a note, “This is my gift to you. Write something in your language.” Nicole teamed up with JC Magsalin of Manila Philharmonic Orchestra to create an orchestral arrangement for the song and emailed to Diedonne Russo with a note, ‘This is my gift back to you.”’

Schizoprano by Nicole is now out in CDs at Astroplus and Astrovi-sion outlets and is available through

digital downloads via Spinnr and iTunes. It can also be streamed at Spinnr, Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, VEVO and Guvera.For bookings and inquiries, contact Sammy Samaniegoof MCA Music Artist Man-agement at +632 9162504 lo-cal 107, +639178565174 and +639209682991 or email [email protected] or [email protected]. For updates on Nicole, log on to the following sites: www.facebook.com/mcamusic or www.twitter.com/mca_music or follow mca_music at Instagram.


NiCole debuts as reCordiNg artist

Fearless diva Jonalyn Viray moves on to the next chapter of her amaz-ing and awe-inspiring career as one of the industry’s top female performers and recording artists.

Jonalyn was catapulted to main-stream prominence 10 years ago after she emerged as the first grand champion of GMA-7’s top-rating singing competition Pinoy Pop Supertsar, which was hosted by Asia’s Songbird Regine Valsquezin 2005. She eventually belted her way to the hearts of millions of Fil-ipinos as one of the resident young divas of GMA-7’s Sunday musical variety shows SOP, Party Pilipinas, and Sunday All Stars. Jonalyn’s massive television exposure paved the way to numerous and consis-tent sold-out shows and concerts both here and abroad.

As a recording artist, Jonalyn recorded two full-length studio al-bums – On My Own in 2005 which was released by GMA Records and a self-titled album in 2013 under Creative Media Entertainment. Her successful recording career spawned such hits as “If We Just Hold On,” “Close To Where You Are,” Nakita Kang Muli,” and “Help Me Get Over You” which was part of the official soundtrack of GMA-7’s groundbreaking primetime se-ries My Husband’s Lover, among many others.

This year, her colorful, de-cade-long journey as an exclusive artist of GMA-7 reached its bit-tersweet conclusion. “My contract with the network expired last May,” reveals Jonalyn. “I owe GMA so much I wouldn’t be who I am to-day if not for the nurturing of the network and its management. It really is a bittersweet feeling be-cause GMA has been my home for 10 years and I will never forget ev-erything they did for me, but at the same time I’m excited with what the future has in store (for me). The

good thing is I could still appear in GMA shows and other networks as well. I am now officially a freelance artist and I’m looking forward to the new phase of my career.”

Today, Jonalyn recently mounted an SRO solo concert at Music Mu-seum titled Journey Into My Heart, which chronicled her musical influ-ences and the certified hits she re-corded. She is also gearing up with the official launch of her 5-track EP titled Heart Of Glass under Creative Media Entertainment, which is set

for release in 2016. The EP’s carrier single, which is also titled “Heart Of Glass,” was produced, arranged, and recorded in the US, and is now available for digital downloading.

As for the next steps of her ca-reer, Jonalyn beamed and simply smiled as she humbly said, “My management team is preparing a number of projects and I’m open for anything. One thing is cer-tain though, I am not closing any doors. Instead, I am maintaining my past relationships and build-

ing new ones.” For updates and more informa-

tion like Jonalyn Viray Official on Facebook and follow her on Twit-ter and on Instagram at @jona-lyn_viray.

HHHHH

Ilustrado wINs back-to-back GMA’s Ilustrado, the first-ever bayaniserye on Philippine prime-time TV, has been sweeping awards both here and abroad.

Alden Richards, played the role of national hero Dr. Jose Rizal in Ilustrado, which won the Silver Award for the Best Program Opening Sequence in the recent-ly concluded PromaxBDA Asia Awards 2015 held in Singapore.

A few months ago, it was also a finalist in the PromaxBDA Global Excellence Award in New York. The groundbreaking bayaniser-ye, produced by GMA News and Public Affairs, utilized complex video graphics to recreate a 19th

century European milieu. Earlier this year, the historical

drama series received a Certifi-cate for Creative Excellence from the prestigious U.S. International Film and Video Festival.

Ilustrado has also earned the nod of Philippine award-giving bodies. It very recently won as Best Drama Mini Series at the 29th PMPC Star Awards for Tele-vision, with the series’ lead star winning Best Drama Actor.

The series was also recognized at the 37th Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA) as the Best Dra-ma Series/Program in November. This is the third year in a row that GMA News and Public Affairs took home the Best Drama Series Award from the CMMA. High-ly-acclaimed TV miniseries Bayan Ko and Titser won the said award in 2013 and 2014, respectively.

GMA Records is set to release the DVD edition of Ilustrado this month.

JoNalyN’s New chapter IN her career From c8

Alden Richards as Dr. Jose Rizal in Ilustrado

Jonalyn Viray

Classically trained Nicole Asensio releases solo album

Album cover of Nicole’s debut album as a solo artist

C8 ISAH V. REDE D I T O R

Unusual pairings become box office surprises. Well, sometimes. Take for example last year’s Jennylyn Mercado and Derek Ramsay. The tandem’s English Only Please was the 2014 Metro Manila Film Festi-val’s sleeper. It started slow when it opened and by the end of the festi-val it had become one of the biggest earning films, its run extending be-yond the festival’s official dates.

Now, the same producer has a new film with another unusu-al pairing – Jennylyn Mercado (again?) and Jericho Rosales(who took over the role originally intended for JM de Guzman who for some inexplicable behavior ended up a cast-off from the film).

The film’s producers of the 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival entry Walang Forever are adamant they did right in choosing Rosales (as a replacement to the wayward De Guzman as Mercado’s leading man).

English Only, Please won for Mercado an MMFF best actress award.

Will Mercado be a back-to-back winner for her role in Walang Forever? Well, that’s for the jurors to decide.

But, the producers are positive the team up will result in good critical notices and favorable box-office results.

Rosales is Ethan, a Tai-

wan-based website developer who falls for Mia (Mercado), a well-accomplished and famous romantic-comedy writer.

The director and producers chime that the actor fits the role to a “T” and they are glad the ac-tor accepted the role despite being the second choice.

“I don’t mind being a second choice, but what is important is I am playing the role and the film has been completed and you are not going to see anyone else but me and Jen,” he said during the

press conference at Kuya J’s restau-rant in Megamall last Tuesday.

Echo and Jen have an undeniable chemistry, and the producers say the tandem will set the screens on fire with their initial team-up. The two actors, the agree, gave justice to their respective roles in the film.

Rosales and Mercado have each a different take on love in Walang Forever. In addition to this, 2014 MMFF best director Dan Villegas, who is at the helm of the film has a fresh twist on the romantic comedy.

In the movie, Mia’s screenplays begin to suffer from her personal problems after breaking up with boyfriend Ethan. They agree to part ways due to differences in priorities.

Mia’s family comes first while Ethan’s world revolves around Mia.

After the breakup, Ethan decides to work and start a new life abroad. Just like his ex-girlfriend, Ethan no longer believes in the concept of “forever,” and so, he chooses to stay far away from home.

Years later, however, Ethan is

forced to return to work on a few things.

He crosses paths with Mia. in one “barkada night.” The encoun-ter turns ugly as the ex-lovers blame each other for the failure of their relationship.

In the end, though, Maita ad-mits to not fighting for her love for Ethan. And they end up in bed.

But the question remains: Are they going to give the relationship another chance at forever or should they just leave their love behind?

Other love teams join the film as characters in flashback scenes reenacting Ethan and Mia’s happy moments as a couple.

So far, the teaser and full trailer of the film together have scored almost six million views on social media.

Do you know that some scenes were shot in Taiwan for some au-thenticity in the film’s geography?Atty. Joji Alonso, producer, explains the choice of title. “The message of the film is wala naman talagangforever. Forever is how you live each day. When you share it with some-body, the memories will always be there forever. Gaya rin ng istorya sa movies ang Walang Forever. The stories will linger forever.”

Whether or not you believe in forever, you would want to watch Rosales and Mercado as Ethan and Mia on Dec 25 in theaters nationwide. And then decide if there’s forever in love. Well, my parents died married to each oth-er, and if that’s not forever for the them, I don’t know what I’d call it.

SHOWBITZ


Will Jericho and Jennylyn pull a box office surprise?

ISAH V. RED

➜ continued on c7

Jennylyn Mercado Jercho Rosales

MMFF entry “Walang Forever” features

Jennylyn Mercado and Jericho Rosales

arguing whether or not there’s “forever” in

love and relation ship

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