AN ARTIST-activist, whose popular character ‘Juana Change’ wore a military uniform during an anti-government rally last Monday, could be facing legal trouble as the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) plans on making her “accountable” for such action.
By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Reporter
THE Emilio Aguinaldo College Generals look to go beyond the .500 mark in Season 93 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as they engage the Perpetual Help Altas in the opener of seniors play today at the FilOil Flying V Center in San Juan City.
NEW YORK — MTV has rid itself of gender-specific categories as the network revealed nominees Tuesday for this year’s Video Music Awards, in which rapper Kendrick Lamar is in the lead.
In the age of President Donald Trump and the fierce backlash he has generated among cultural leaders, MTV also announced a new category of “Best Fight Against the System” to recognize activist music.
The awards will air worldwide from Los Angeles on Aug. 27. Reflecting its social media push, the music and youth culture network announced the nominations through posts by well-followed figures on Instagram.
Lamar, one of the most acclaimed figures in hip-hop, received the most nominations at eight, including Video of the Year for “HUMBLE.” — an ironic look at fame in which he appears clad as the pope and as Jesus in The Last Supper.
Tied for second with five nominations are Katy Perry for her sci-fi amusement park fantasy “Chained to the Rhythm” and The Weeknd for his star-studded “Reminder.”
The Video Music Awards for the first time will not divide by gender with a new Artist of the Year prize incorporating the top male and female categories.
The network said in a statement that it was out to “break barriers” and had a positive response when it eliminated gender groups at this year’s MTV Movie and TV Awards.
Nominees for Artist of the Year include four men — Lamar and The Weeknd, along with Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran — and two women, Ariana Grande and Lorde.
Virtually all major US awards including the Grammys and Oscars have separate male and female categories.
The rare awards that mix male and female nominees include the Mercury Prize — which, with an arthouse sensibility, recognizes the top British or Irish album each year — and the Juno Awards for Canadian artists.
SERIOUS NOTES FOR GALA PARTY
Winners in the major categories are determined by voting by fans through the awards’ Web site, vma.mtv.com.
The Video Music Awards have usually been more about the spectacle than the ultimate winners, with the network gladly offering a global platform to celebrities.
Pop culture moments of past galas have included Lady Gaga wearing a dress of raw meat, Madonna making out on stage with Britney Spears, and Beyonce showing off a baby bump for her first child with Jay-Z.
But taking a serious turn, MTV announced the new “Best Fight Against the System” award to celebrate videos “that inspire viewers to stand up and fight injustice.”
The nominees include John Legend’s “Surefire,” whose video dramatizes anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, and the celebratory “Immigrants: We Get the Job Done” from the blockbuster musical Hamilton.
Other nominees are the diversity-hailing “Black SpiderMan” by biracial rapper Logic, Big Sean’s “Light” about overcoming adversity including racial discrimination, and Alessia Cara’s “Scars to Your Beautiful” about body image.
Also in the running is “Stand Up / Stand N Rock #NoDAPL,” a hip-hop anthem led by Black Eyed Peas’ Taboo to rally against the Dakota Access Pipeline opposed by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe on environmental and cultural grounds.
Nominees for Best New Artist — often a sign of fast-rising stardom — were R&B singers SZA and Khalid, rappers Kodak Black and Young M.A., pop songwriter Julia Michaels and Noah Cyrus, the 17-year-old actress and sister of Miley Cyrus who is readying her debut album. — AFP
HEAVY RAINS in the last two days brought about by tropical storm Gorio left many parts of Metro Manila flooded yesterday and one local government official soaked in public flak for failing to make a timely announcement on the cancellation of classes.
CEMEX Holdings Philippines expects cement sales to recover in the second half of 2017 after a continued slowdown in the second quarter, amid heightened competition and the longer-than-expected shutdown of one of its plants.
In a quarterly report to the stock exchange on Thursday, the cement manufacturer said its net income plunged 69% to P136.52 million in the April to May period, from the P436.12 million pro forma income it booked in the same period in 2016. Net sales dropped to P5.6 billion in the second quarter, as both cement prices and volumes slowed due to the sector’s competitive environment.
“In terms of the competitive landscape, indications are there are a lot of competition for both volume and price, very robust competitive situation… Markets remain challenged in terms of pricing, and going for demand,” CHP Vice-President for Strategic Planning and Marketing Paul Vincent Arcenas told analysts in a conference call on Thursday.
CHP reported domestic gray cement volumes fell by 3% during the second quarter, and 6% year to date. Domestic gray cement prices also dropped 9% year on year in the second quarter.
The decline was further attributed to weak demand, marked by the government’s delayed infrastructure spending and growth in the private sector, as well as the shutdown of its APO cement plant in Cebu last May.
“The APO shutdown was equivalent to 15% of our cement capacities, because of the unexpected shutdown,” CHP Treasurer Vincent Paul Piedad said.
This brought the company’s year-to-date earnings to P486 million, 46% lower than what it delivered in the first half of 2016. Net sales slipped 14% during the January to June period to P10.98 billion, from P12.71 billion a year ago.
Despite slowdown in the first half, CHP maintained its 3% sales volume growth target for the full year.“We are expecting high single-digit growth for the second half. We look at private consumption and the government spending,” newly appointed CHP President and Chief Executive Officer Ignacio Alejandro Mijares Elizondo said during the briefing.
Mr. Mijares expects an uptick in economic activity in the second half to help boost CHP’s sales, as well as the absence of any scheduled shutdown at the company’s facilities.
The CHP executive also noted that they will leverage on the use of their port terminals to maintain their market base, and recover customers they may have lost to competition.
“We could easily conclude that we have lost some temporary market share. We intend to recover our position in the second half of the year,” Mr. Mijares added.
Mr. Arcenas added they are ramping up marketing activities in order to maintain CHP’s reach.
CHP’s cement products are sold under three brands. The Island and Rizal brands are sold in Luzon, while APO is available in the Visayas and Mindanao region. Meanwhile, its ready-mix concrete product under the Promptis brand is sold in Metro Manila.
This year, the company has earmarked P2.085 billion for capital expenditures, with P918 million to be used for maintenance capex, P889 million for solid plant expansion, and the remaining P277 million for other strategic expenses.
CHP targets to start operations of the $225-million integrated cement-production line at its Rizal facility by the fourth quarter of 2019. The facility will add 1.5 million metric tons (MT) to its current capacity of 5 million MT.
CHP is the local unit of Mexican cement and construction materials company Cemex S.A.B. de C.V.
Shares in CHP dipped by 74 centavos or 10.51% to P6.30 each on Thursday.
LONDON — Were it not for Tom Cruise and Mary Poppins, Britain’s economy might not have gained any speed at all during a sluggish second quarter.
The film industry was one of the few areas of Britain’s economy that really rolled in the last quarter, according to official figures out on Wednesday.
The industry accounted for almost a quarter of all economic growth between April and June — or 0.07 percentage points of the 0.3% growth over the period, to be exact.
Without it, Britain’s growth rate would have been stuck at 0.2%, the same as during the first quarter.
Much of the activity came from the production in Britain of new films such as M:I 6 — Mission Impossible starring Cruise, and Mary Poppins Returns with Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, both due out next year, as well as a slew of independent films.
Major film productions usually employ thousands of people, including designers, caterers, lawyers, transport staff, camera crew and artists, and typically have budgets running into hundreds of millions of pounds.
Some bumper box office returns also boosted the British economy in the second quarter.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 raked in £41 million ($54 million) in the second quarter, according to the British Film Institute, while Fast and Furious 8 and Wonder Woman generated £29.6 million and £21.8 million respectively.
The Office for National Statistics said motion picture activities had grown by 72% since 2014, probably boosted by tax credits introduced by former Finance minister George Osborne.
The British Film Institute said the value of film production in Britain had hit a record high of £1.6 billion in 2016. Its figures for the first half of this year are due out on Thursday. — Reuters
LOS ANGELES — Emmy-nominated actor Jason Bateman was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday, 30 years after breaking into the movies in Teen Wolf Too.
Friends star Jennifer Aniston, who appeared in five films with Bateman, and Will Arnett, his cast mate on television’s Arrested Development, gave speeches paying tribute to his staying power.
“I just simply feel very, very grateful and fortunate to have had a chance to hold my job in a business that’s not known for its longevity,” said the 48-year-old actor.
He added that he felt lucky “being able to work with enough good people to not only learn an enormous amount, but to find in them some friends that have changed the way I see the world.”
Bateman received Emmy nominations for his portrayal of Michael Bluth in Arrested Development in 2005, when it aired on Fox, and 2013, when it was streamed on Netflix.
The actor can currently be seen in Netflix’s Ozark as a financial planner who relocates from Chicago to a summer resort community in the Missouri Ozarks and has to pay off a Mexican drug lord.
The father-of-two made his TV debut at the age of 12 with a recurring role on the NBC period family drama Little House on the Prairie.
He appeared in the NBC comedies Silver Spoons and It’s Your Move in the early to mid-1980s before transforming into a teen idol through his role on another of the network’s sit-coms, The Hogan Family.
Bateman starred with Aniston in Horrible Bosses (2011) and its 2014 sequel as well as 2010 romantic comedy The Switch. They also appeared together in The Break-Up (2006) and, 10 years later, Office Christmas Party.
“Having longevity in this business is not easy, especially starting out as a child actor,” said Aniston, 48, who brought out pictures of Bateman as a young star. “Usually that’s a story that doesn’t always end well. When I actually met Jason it was kind of looking like it could go either way.”
But Aniston went on to describe him as a “fantastic partner in crime,” “the most generous straight man” and a “dear friend.”
“He is the loveliest man to be around. He always gives you deep connection, full attention, authenticity and some of the deepest belly laughs I can remember,” she said. — AFP
MRC ALLIED, Inc. has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Chinese firm to look into the renewable energy projects in the Philippines that have been identified by the local company.
The listed miner and property developer, which has diversified into renewables, told the stock exchange it inked the MoU with China energy engineering group Guangdong Power Engineering Co., Ltd. (GPEC).
GPEC is described as a Guangzhou-based company engaged in the exploration, development and construction of energy projects.
MRC Allied said the MoU confirms both parties’ interest in developing renewable energy projects in the Philippines.
Sought for details of the discussions, MRC Allied President Gladys N. Nalda said the MoU would allow GPEC to look into the renewable energy projects of the company “and explore possible partnerships to implement these projects.”
She said this is only a preliminary deal, but both parties expect “to execute a more concrete and definitive agreement” before the end of the year.
Shares in MRC Allied rose 2.99% to close at P0.345 each on Thursday.
In its disclosure, MRC Allied said GPEC will conduct due diligence for one year from the signing.
“The purpose of the due diligence is to allow GPEC to make a decision to pursue renewable energy projects with MRC,” the company said.
“The parties are bound by the terms and confidentiality,” it added, citing this to continue while the MoU is in force and within one year thereafter.
MRC Allied, which has recently took in Former Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla as independent director, earlier this month entered into a similar agreement with Merge Energy and Environment Corp. (MEEC).
It described MEEC as “a domestic private corporation engaged in the business of exploration and development of renewable energy resources such as but not limited to biomass, geothermal, oil and gas.”
Ms. Nalda previously said that MRC Allied was looking at “orphan” plants or those that failed to secure a guaranteed feed-in-tariff (FiT) in the race to subscribe to the installation target set by the Department of Energy for solar, wind, biomass and run-of-river hydroelectric power projects.
Last month, MRC Allied announced an ambitious target of putting up at least 1,000 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy (R.E.) in the next five years.
Ms. Nalda said the target capacity is in line with the company’s vision to be one of the “major players in the Philippine power industry” by 2022.
For 2017, the company has a total 160-MW capacity in the pipeline. These are solar farms Clark Green City, Pampanga and in Naga City, Cebu, with a target installed capacity of 100 MW and 60 MW, respectively.
The company’s renewable energy projects are to be pursued mainly through its subsidiary Menlo Renewable Energy Corp. and other affiliates.
MRC Allied, through Menlo, recently launched a partnership with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and Sunray Power, Inc. to develop a 100-MW solar power plant inside the Clark Green City, the envisioned environment-friendly city, that approximates the development of Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.
The P5-billion project has a power supply agreement plus a long-term lease with BCDA. It is connected to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines’ transmission line. The project is expandable by 60 MW.
In Cebu, subsidiary Menlo is planning to build the P3-billion, 60-MW solar farm within MRC Allied’s property in Naga City. The project is targeted to supply electricity to the Visayas grid or offer its output to large power consumers within and around southern Cebu.
To fund the energy projects, the company is planning to raise funds either on its own or with strategic partners, Ms. Nalda had said.
A STACKED card is on offer by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) this weekend as it holds “UFC 214” in Anaheim, California.
ZAMBOANGA CITY — A high ranking official of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has denied that they are recruiting new members to undergo training at Camp Jabalnur, Lanao del Sur then assimilated into the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
MONTREAL — Organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) — the largest in North America — will focus this year on female directors, screenwriters and actresses, in response to criticism that such events are too male-dominated.
“Today’s announcement cements that the future is female (and so is TIFF’s programming),” the organizers said in a statement Tuesday, promising a women-heavy lineup for the 400,000 visitors of the 10-day movie fest, which begins on Sept. 7.
The event is scheduled to showcase Kings, the latest movie by Turkish-French director Deniz Gamze Erguven, whose 2015 Mustang was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Her new work focuses on the 1992 race riots in Los Angeles and stars Oscar-winner Halle Berry and James Bond actor Daniel Craig.
Other highlights will be Mary Shelley by Saudi Arabia’s first female director Haifaa Al Mansour, which stars Elle Fanning as the English author of the Gothic horror tale Frankenstein, and Dee Rees’ Mudbound, a story of racial tensions in the segregated American South.
Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain will star in director Susanna White’s Woman Walks Ahead, about a Brooklyn painter who travels to Dakota in 1890 to do a portrait of Sitting Bull.
Emma Stone, who won an Oscar this year for musical La La Land, will also star in War of the Sexes, the story of tennis legend Billie Jean King’s showdown with Bobby Riggs.
In another retelling of sports history, Margot Robbie plays scandal-plagued US Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya.
David Gordon Green’s Stronger starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany, which looks at the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, is also certain to create buzz in Toronto.
The Toronto film festival, which runs this year through September 17, has become a launch pad for Oscar-conscious studios and distributors, attracting hundreds of filmmakers and actors to the red carpet in Canada’s largest city. — AFP
