EcoWaste calls on QC gov’t to crack down on sale of banned whitening products

November 21, 2021 | 8:55 pm

AN ENVIRONMENT advocacy coalition that monitors products with toxic content asked the Quezon City government to put a stop to the sale of whitening products banned by the Philippine Food and Drug Administration.

The Ecological Waste Coalition of the Philippines, Inc. (EcoWaste Coalition), in a press release, said they found during a market monitoring activity at least seven brands of skin products with high mercury concentrations being openly sold in the city.

“To protect public health from the health-damaging effects of exposure to mercury in skin whitening cosmetics, we request the Quezon City Government to crack down on the illegal sale of such products,” the group said in a letter addressed to Mayor Maria Josefina “Joy” G. Belmonte.

The seven banned products bought and tested by EcoWaste Coalition were:

Collagen Plus Vit E Day and Night Cream from Indonesia, Erna Whitening Cream, Pakistan-made Goree Beauty Cream with Lycopene, Goree Day and Night Cream, China-made Jiaoli 7-Days Specific Eliminating Freckle AB Set, Jiaoli Miraculous Cream, and S’Zitang 10-Days Eliminating Freckle Day and Night Set.

Mercury is a poison that can cause kidney damage, skin rashes, skin discoloration and scarring, reduced skin resistance to bacterial and fungal infections, anxiety, psychosis, and peripheral neuropathy, according to the World Health Organization.

“We specifically request the City Health Department and other concerned offices to enforce the penalty provision of Quezon City Ordinance No. 2767 to encourage business compliance to the law,” EcoWaste, a network of more than 150 environment groups in the country, said in the letter to the city mayor.

The ordinance bans and penalizes the manufacture, distribution and sale of mercury-containing skin whitening cosmetics in the city. — Marielle C. Lucenio

1 injured in stone-throwing incident at MRT-3 train

November 21, 2021 | 8:55 pm

7-MRT-incident20111121-DOTR-ART-TUGADE-FB-PAGE — DOTR ART TUGADE FB PAGE

A 51-YEAR OLD male passenger was injured due to a stone thrown that broke and severely damaged a train coach window of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3) on Sunday.

The MRT-3 management said in a statement that the incident occurred at 6:51 a.m. at the Taft Avenue Station.

“The passenger was immediately attended to and was given first aid at the Magallanes Station. He was later brought to the San Juan De Dios Hospital at Pasay for further medical attention,” it said.

Based on initial reports, a “scavenger” was later apprehended at a construction site near a hotel along Taft Avenue for possible involvement in the incident.

Further investigation is ongoing for the filing of legal charges against those involved.

The Department of Transportation and the MRT-3 management assured that “necessary steps will also be taken to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.” — Russell Louis C. Ku

Capitalism and Philippine development

November 21, 2021 | 8:18 pm

The thesis of this article is that capitalism is a strong force for development but we aren’t harnessing it enough.

Adam Smith articulated capitalism’s positive contribution to society in Wealth of Nations. Individuals pursuing their respective self-interest will lead to a social good and the efficient allocation of resources. Even Marx didn’t deny that capitalism led to advances in science and the “productive forces.” What he decried was the alleged “exploitation” of the wage workers who produced the goods for the capitalists.

Let’s acknowledge it: Capitalism produced the iPhone, robots, electric cars, drones, Space X, and other technological marvels that have made life more comfortable for us than it was for our parents. Without capitalism too, would the world have gotten vaccines in less than a year to combat a novel virus? Using the new technology of gene editing, Moderna and Pfizer, two private companies, developed a vaccine in record time — in less than a year, although previous vaccines took four years or more to be approved and get to market.

True, the US government had a role too. It developed “Operation Wrap Speed” under which various pharmaceutical companies raced to be among the first to develop vaccines to get emergency use authorization. However, the fact of the matter is that the pursuit of self-interest led to the mobilization of capital and resources to produce something that society sorely needed.

The rise of China is powerful proof of the power of capitalism to transform societies. From being a Third World country in the 1970s, through the power of capitalism, introduced by Deng Xiaoping under the guise of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” it has transformed itself into a technologically advanced world power and, in the process, brought millions out of poverty. It was Deng who said that “I don’t care if the color of the cat is black or white if it catches mice,” and “let some people get rich first,” which were code words for the Chinese Communist Party embracing capitalism.

The agricultural revolution in China started with a very capitalistic reform: the Household Responsibility System, introduced by Deng. The Household Responsibility System enabled farmers to keep what they produced (the household unit was responsible for its own profit and loss), in contrast to the state-directed rural commune system. After the reform, viola! A capitalist reform dramatically increased output, transformed the countryside, and laid the foundation for China’s industrial revolution.

Why am I saying that we aren’t harnessing capitalism enough? I’m not referring to the crony capitalism and the rent-seeking capitalism that’s dominant today in the Philippines today. Crony capitalism is the kind you see being practiced in the Pharmally scandal, an unfit company awarded billions by the government in contracts without bidding because of its political connections. No capital is being put at risk, just “laway” or saliva.

Rent-seeking capitalism, on the other hand, is pursuit of guaranteed profit. It’s guaranteed because a franchise, a tariff, or, in the case of the telco and transport industries, Constitutional restrictions to foreign competition, virtually guarantee their monopoly profits without fear of competition. It’s like a company that somehow owns all the air and charges people for breathing it.

Yes, that’s also pursuit of profit, but society isn’t enriched by it. That’s not true capitalism but rent-seeking capitalism.

We have established that capitalism is a powerful force, but we aren’t using it enough. We aren’t using it to solve our problems in agriculture, education, forestry, and many other industries.

Take, for example, agriculture. What’s the state of agriculture today? It’s mainly peasant, production for use (instead of the market) agriculture. The average age of farmers is 53. Average education is Grade Five-level. Average land size is 1.2 hectares, with many farms at less than a hectare. Because the farm incomes from paltry land sizes using traditional methods of agriculture is so low, many are just part-time farmers, supplementing their income by working as tricycle drivers or other off-farm work. How can they increase productivity if they are just part-time farmers?

Farm labor, though, is growing scarce. Ask farm owners in the countryside, although this is also supported by evidence. With Build-Build-Build, and an opportunity to work in rural construction, farm labor is growing even scarcer. This means that any farm that wants to expand must mechanize, but the small plots of land make mechanization inefficient and unprofitable.

What’s the way forward toward farm modernization? According to Dr. Marife Ballesteros, an expert on land reform and agriculture in the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS), the way forward is commercial farming or agri-business. Yes, capitalistic, for-profit agriculture. We need agricultural capitalists who will use capital, technology, and management to produce agricultural products for sale (not for own consumption) at a profit. This is a far cry from the traditional farming relying on carabaos and rain-fed farming.

These commercial farms need not be plantation farms. They can be family farms, but they must be given the freedom to expand, which under CARL (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law), they aren’t allowed to. For example, if the economics of mechanization dictate that they must cultivate land sizes bigger than the five hectares they are allowed to own, they should be able to do so.

However, under the CARL, they aren’t allowed to go beyond five hectares. It’s not only illegal for agri-businessmen to own more than five hectares, but the law makes it difficult for them to lease land from other less productive farmers because of restrictions imposed by the state.

More capitalism isn’t the answer you get from our so-called farm leaders and politicians to our problems in agriculture. What you get from listening to them is a form of whining: If only government increases the agricultural budget, if only government supports cooperatives, if only there were more support services, if only government stops imports, etc., etc., then agriculture will post miraculous growth. This statist fantasy is an old song, one that has been sung for the past 50 years and has failed.

It’s more capitalism, not statism, which the countryside needs.

In education, capitalism is what made the Philippines a leading educational force in Southeast Asia, but the government is killing it with statist solutions. The private for-profit educational system in the tertiary level is what has attracted students from as far as Iran and Africa to come here, and not just for the English courses.

The remarkable thing about the private capitalist educational system is that it strives for efficiency and innovation. On the tertiary level, it produces qualified graduates at less than half the cost of what State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) do.

However, in education, we are moving toward more statism rather than capitalism. The Free College Tuition Law is an example. It subsidizes state schools, rather than poor students directly. Therefore, state schools are given money whether they perform well or not. Rich kids, such as those attending in the University of the Philippines, get the benefit of free tuition. That law is anti-poor because it ignores the fact that it’s not only tuition that prevents poor kids from attending school but living expenses too.

A capitalistic solution would have been to give the money as direct scholarships to the poor and let the poor decide which school — SUC or private — to attend. That would be a more efficient and capitalistic solution of educating poor students. It will force SUCs to compete.

The government has also given large increases to public school teachers, competing with private schools, but without demanding improved standards of teaching. PISA rankings show that the Philippines rank last among 58 countries in math and science competency.

As a result of the government moving away from capitalism, the private education system is in crisis. It will only be a matter of time before the Philippines loses its reputation as a center for good education.

Another industry that can use a dose of capitalism is forestry. Think about this: Whereas before it used to export logs, the Philippines now imports 75% of its wood requirements. Yet, the Philippines has a huge potential in forestry development: it’s in a tropical zone where trees mature faster, it has large swaths of denuded areas — at least 5 million hectares — that remain unplanted.

However, forestry development can be hugely profitable and is “the flavor the times.” The COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow has declared a global objective of reforesting millions of hectares. Cheap climate finance is available for forestry development. Pension funds worldwide, because of their long investment horizons, are eager to finance forestry development and want them in their portfolio. (Harvard’s Endowment Fund has large holdings in privately developed forests).

Therefore, the potential is there. We just need to enable capitalism to work to replant our denuded forests, instead of focusing on logs bans and the government’s own tree planting program. (The Commission on Audit declared the P6-billion tree planting program a failure.)

However, capitalism works only if there are clear rules and stability of property rights. Forest investors aren’t going to invest in tree plantation, where the product takes 10 years or more to produce, if policies change with every administration. They should also be allowed to harvest what they planted, instead of the government over-regulating the harvesting of planted trees.

Capitalism in forestry need not be exclusive, i.e., exclude the lumads and other upland people who populate the forests. Lumads can be hired as caretakers of the tree farms, or, if they have valid CAD (Certificate of Ancestral Domain) titles over an area, royalties can be paid to their communities. That can all be factored in a capitalist’s return on investment. What capitalists can’t deal with is regulatory and property rights uncertainty.

To deal with declining forest cover, our government has resorted to more statist solutions: more regulations, industry-bans, and frequent changes in rules. The government also blames the industry whenever there’s a flood, even if it’s the sheer volume of rainwater that’s responsible for the flood. However, forest denudation is counter-intuitive to capitalism because the trees are investors’ inventory. Capitalists will seek to keep planting and replanting trees because that’s the source of their recurring profits. That’s the power of self-interest being beneficial to society.

The imagination is the limit of how we can harness capitalism to solve society’s problems. The PPP (Public Private Partnership) is a good program of harnessing the private sector, but it need not be limited to infrastructure only. Take public health. I’m proposing that there should be a PPP for public health, but the measure of accomplishment won’t be reimbursement of health claims, which can incentivize hospitalizations, but rather positive health measures, such as reduction in morbidity, reduction in hospital stays, in disease incidence or quality of life surveys.

More than at any other time, harnessing capitalism to produce growth and transform our society has never been more favorable. Capital has become very cheap and globally mobile.

On the other hand, we have what is increasingly growing scarce in the world — a young large population. (Thailand, for example, is fast ageing while South Korea’s fertility rate is 0.84, the lowest in the world, far lower than the reproductive rate of 2.1 to stabilize the population.) Combining capital with labor will produce jumps in output. In contrast, achieving growth is much harder for those countries with declining populations.

The problem has always been that we make it difficult for capitalism to work its wonders here: we prohibit foreign capitalism in strategic sectors, from public utilities to media; over-regulate the markets; make property rights unsecure; provide an uneven playing field; or don’t respect the sanctity of contracts.

True, there are abuses and excesses under capitalism, but that’s mostly due to crony and rentier capitalism or profit-making backed by political power. Or there are market failures, such as not incorporating the cost of environmental degradation, but that can be solved with proper state policies. However, the government shouldn’t kill the goose before it lays its golden egg.

Instead of risk-based and risk-adjusted policies to curb the abuses of capitalism, government has been wielding total bans: total log ban, total open pit mining ban, total ban on foreign ownership, etc. It’s a lazy and dumb way of managing risks.

So, “Is greed good” as Gordon Gekko says? Yes, if it can be channeled in the right way and if there’s a level playing field.

This isn’t a call to unbridled capitalism. There are anti-trust and other laws addressing market failures that could serve as guiderails for capitalism.

Growing inequality under capitalism is also a problem but it is a different one and requires a different response at a later stage. China has become more unequal (with a GINI coefficient of .465) but what can’t be denied is that it has raised hundreds of millions out of poverty and has become a technological and manufacturing powerhouse. After achieving growth and eliminating poverty, Chinese President Xi Jinping now talks of “common prosperity” and bringing the billionaires to heel.

Allowing capitalism to do its magic should be at the core of all presidential candidates’ economic programs. Instead, if you listen closely, this is what you hear: Agriculture? I will increase the budget for agriculture. Food security? I will ban rice and pork imports. Unemployment? I will end “endo.” Education? I will expand state schools. Energy security? I will reduce oil taxes. Health? I will eradicate corruption in PhilHealth and the health department (as if his or her appointees won’t do the same thing).

The fact of the matter is that the state is a weak force for modernizing and transforming the economy. Only capitalism can do the job.

If we want to eliminate poverty and achieve prosperity, we need to rely, not on the state, but on the transformative force of capitalism.

Calixto V. Chikiamco writes on political economy and is a board member of the Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis (IDEA).

totivchiki@yahoo.com

COVID-19 and the candidates

November 21, 2021 | 8:17 pm

Christmas 2020 might not be gloomy after all. The latest Philippine data on COVID-19 suggest that the pandemic is easing.

COVID-19 cases continue to fall. From a peak of 126,878 cases in the second week of September 2021 (Sept. 9 to 15), the number has dropped to 6,723 cases for the week of Nov. 11 to 17.

Further, the weekly positivity rate (the number of individuals tested positive for COVID-19 as a percentage of the total number of persons tested) fell to 3.2% as of Nov. 13, from the high of 28%, recorded on Sept. 5.

As a consequence, bed occupancy is 24.9% of the total number of beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients, as of Nov. 19. This means that the situation of health facilities is no longer critical and is described as safe. Government accordingly has eased mobility restrictions.

But this does not mean that we can declare victory over COVID-19. The declaration of Secretary Carlito Galvez that we have defeated the Delta variant of COVID-19 is premature.

In truth, it is COVID-19 that has beaten the Philippines. The official number of Philippine COVID-19 cases and deaths does not tell the full story. The Economist (“The pandemic’s true death toll,” updated as of Nov. 20) estimates that excess deaths in the Philippines per 100,000 people can reach between 110 and 220. For a population of approximately 110 million, that means excess deaths ranging between 121,000 and 242,000. The high number of excess deaths also means a much bigger number of infections than what the official tally has registered.

The Economist defines excess deaths as “the gap between how many people died in a given region in a given time period, regardless of cause, and how many deaths would have been expected if a particular circumstance (such as a natural disaster or disease outbreak) had not occurred.” The large gaps, as a result of under-reporting or non-availability of data, among others, account for the rough estimate and wide variance. Nonetheless, The Economist is able to make “highly educated guesses” of the excess deaths through machine learning and the use of 121 statistical indicators.

It is not only high excess deaths that make the Philippine pandemic response a failure. The Philippines suffered the longest lockdown and one of the deepest recessions in the world during the pandemic. While locking down the economy made sense as a deliberate choice to flatten the COVID-19 curve, the Philippine government bungled it. The benefits from temporary lockdown — a fast and sharp reduction of infections and a quicker economic recovery — did not materialize.

That COVID-19 has infected a large portion of our population unnoticed is likely. It is thus plausible that the current decline in the number of cases is but a sign that COVID-19 has for the moment drained itself.

The respite, as it were, is welcome. But we have to remain vigilant and learn the lessons. The pandemic continues to shake the whole world. It might be a matter of time before COVID-19 strikes us again.

Even in countries that have the highest vaccination rates, infections are again rising. This is the result of the hasty relaxation of minimum public health standards like physical distancing and mask wearing and the waning effectiveness of vaccines. Several European countries have re-introduced lockdowns.

On the other hand, Japan’s success in taming the spread of the Delta variant has baffled public health experts. Japan, until recently, was struggling with the pandemic, which even threatened the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. But it turns out that what Japan did is pretty basic: continuing compliance with the minimum public health standards combined with vaccine uptake.

The Philippine situation is more precarious, in spite of the recent decline in cases. The vaccination rate remains low. Based on the data from the National COVID-19 Vaccination Operations Center (as of Nov. 3), only 36.56% of the target population has been fully vaccinated. The government’s goal is to fully vaccinate 70% of the population (equivalent to 77,129,058 individuals).

But even fully vaccinating 70% of the population falls short of achieving herd immunity. In fact, having herd immunity is no longer the practical objective, especially in the wake of the high transmissibility of the Delta variant. Rather, the goal is to prevent the population from getting severe COVID-19 and from dying.

In the National Capital Region (NCR), complacency is seeping in through the opening brought about by high vaccination coverage. The inequitable distribution of vaccines is most glaring when we juxtapose the fully vaccinated rate of 88.48% for the NCR with the rate of 9.84% for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

The rush to commerce and the festivity of the long Pinoy Christmas season also compound the danger of smugness and complacency.

But as the Department of Health (DoH) says: “We would like to remind the public that COVID-19 is still here.” In the same vein, the DoH points out: “The permeable nature of areas in the country combined with inter-zonal work assignments makes the NCR and other areas of the country vulnerable to forward transmission of COVID-19.”

COVID-19 is alive and kicking. It will be with us during and after the May 2022 elections.

Surely, COVID-19 will be the central issue in the elections. The candidate that has a track record in fighting COVID-19 and has a credible and solid program to contain the pandemic will win.

In this regard, the candidate of the incumbent administration is damaged goods. President Rodrigo Duterte’s survey rating on trust and performance, though still high, has started to tumble because of the corruption that became a brazen feature of the government’s pandemic response. This waning of support likewise affects his candidate, Bong Go. Worse, Bong Go has been tainted by his association with the people behind the overpriced procurement of COVID-19 supplies.

How about the frontrunner in the presidential race, Bongbong Marcos? He will likewise stumble. Even setting aside the devastating accusation hurled at him by President Duterte, we echo the President’s question: Ano ang ginawa niyan? What has he done?

So, I googled “Bongbong and COVID-19.” The top results are mainly about Bongbong testing positive for COVID-19.

I likewise googled “Leni and COVID-19.” The top results show both her initiatives and plans to contain the pandemic.

One article is about Leni Robredo’s pandemic response plan titled “Freedom from COVID-19.” Containing COVID-19 is the centerpiece of Leni’s platform. COVID-19 containment paves the way for robust economic recovery, the end of hunger, and the rise of jobs and incomes.

The item about left-leaning Bayan lauding “Robredo’s COVID response plan as solid” was a pleasant surprise for me. And the story titled “Palace appreciates Robredo’s initiatives to fight COVID-19” amused me.

There you are. The most worthy candidate with a track record and solid plan to fight COVID-19 is Leni Robredo.

Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III coordinates the Action for Economic Reforms.

www.aer.ph

The reasons and way forward for unlivable Metro Manila

November 21, 2021 | 8:17 pm

(Part 1)

Cities must serve two purposes. They must serve as drivers of commerce and trade and also enhance the quality of life of its citizens.

Metro Manila accounts for 32% of the country’s gross domestic product. So, yes, it ticks the first box in as far as being an economic driver is concerned. But is Metro Manila livable? Based on the global rankings, it is not. The UK based Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranks Metro Manila at 109^thplace out of 140 cities in term of livability. In Global Finance’s rankings, Metro Manila is dead last out of 134 cities evaluated. To state the obvious, Metro Manila’s mayors have failed to provide decent living conditions for their constituents.

What constitutes a livable city in the first place? According to these global rating agencies, five factors make a city livable and attractive. The first is a favorable urban sprawl. In other words, the prominence of parks, open spaces, and public recreational/cultural centers. The second is inclusivity. Meaning, the city is made for all, not just a narrow elite. This manifests itself in the prioritization of public transportation over cars as well as the absence of gated villages and exclusive sports clubs (especially golf courses since they consume much land). The third is sustainability. This refers to cities that are green, those that operate on a smaller carbon footprint and those that produce their own renewable power. The fourth is resilience. This has to do with a city’s ability to cope and bounce back from natural disasters and black swan events like a pandemic. The fifth is being “smart.” Smart cities are those widely connected to the digital grid, those with efficient supply chain infrastructure (e.g., airports, seaports, cold chain warehouses, and the like) and those whose conditions are conducive to innovation.

Before we even speak about reforms and the way forward, we should first consider some facts about Metro Manila. The country’s capital is one of the densest cities in the world with 13.48 million permanent residents spread over 619.57 square kilometers. This amounts to some 22,277 people per square kilometer. This does not even count the 6 million transients that come from outside to work. For context, downtown Vancouver has a population density of only 5,400 people per square kilometer. As of the 2015 census, 57.4% of NCR’s residents live in condominiums, the average size of which is 50 sq.m., 27.2% live in single houses, and 14% live in duplexes. There are 2.5 million informal settlers.

Only 20% of the population use private cars for daily transport while the rest utilize public transportation. Yet, Metro Manila’s transport infrastructure is built for and around cars. Decent sidewalks and promenades are only accessible in private townships, not in public roads. This is the reason why street life, or commercial and cultural activities along main roads, are either non-existent or poorly developed outside private townships.

As for open spaces, only 0.2% of Metro Manila’s land mass is green and open if the La Mesa dam watershed is factored-out. For context again, the United Nations recommends that there should be nine square meters of open space for every resident of a city. Metro Manila fails miserably in this respect.

Why is Metro Manila bereft of open spaces? Greed is the culprit. Metro Manila’s Local Government Units decided to abandon Metro Manila’s zoning ordinance ratified in the 1990s. This allowed the mayors to sell public spaces to private entities to build gated communities and/or commercial developments. Even no-build zones in seismic fault lines and flood catchments areas were sold off. By disregarding the zoning ordinance, the rich and powerful subsumed the interest and safety of the greater majority.

Converting public open spaces into malls and high-rise towers proved catastrophic. Among its consequences is vehicular traffic. Studies show that a mall or 40-storey office tower can instigate vehicular traffic of 4,000 cars per day. Worse, selling off open spaces reduced our inventory of trees, all of which were chopped-down to make way for property developments. It takes 10 trees to overcome the carbon monoxide of a single car. Data from 2018 shows that there were 1.52 million cars registered in Metro Manila. This means that the city must have 15.2 million trees, at least, to maintain a status quo in air quality. The city falls short by a wide margin. This has accelerated the degradation of Metro Manila’s air quality.

Selling off public spaces worsens income inequality, especially when land is used for a mall or commercial strip. The few families that own malls in prime areas of Metro Manila eventually control the commerce in that locality. As rent-seekers and takers of a percentage-of-sales of every transaction, their economic power over the regular citizen is strengthened in each passing day. Worse, the presence of malls in a community has proven to drive micro, small and medium sized enterprises out of business in their localities.

Gated communities are another problem. They consume large chunks of land yet provide residence to only a select few. They emphasize income inequality in this regard. Further, they hog access to roads and make the city less walkable. Gated communities exacerbate problems which is why the Singaporean government banned them in the 1970s.

Traffic is a consequence of gated communities. Since inner road networks of Magallanes, Dasmariñas, Forbes, and Corinthian Garden are inaccessible for public use, EDSA has become a major artery, a minor artery, a major collector road, a minor collector road, and an access road leading to commercial centers, all in one. This is why the average car speed on EDSA is a pitiful 15 kilometers per hour, typically.

Gated communities are a two-edged sword that debase the quality of life of our non-elite countrymen. They jack-up land prices to a point where housing becomes unaffordable for medium to low-income families. This pushed the working class to live in far flung areas in Cavite, Rizal, Laguna, and Bulacan. A one-way two-hour commute or a two-way four-hour commute has become “normal” for the medium to low level worker, which is criminal in better governed countries. A four-hour commute across 6 million people translates to lost productivity of P120 million a day.

Even the city’s airspace is used for profit by the narrow elite at the expense of the public. Billboards serve no one’s interest except the mayors and their officials, the rich owners of outdoor advertising companies, the landowners, the advertisers. They inundate our highways with ugly tarpaulin making the city even more dense and disorderly. It is another case of the rich and powerful subduing the interests of the public.

As one can tell, a lot of the problems of Metro Manila stem from the decision of the mayors to override the zoning ordinance of Metro Manila and the fact that the interest of the rich and powerful always subverts the common good.

On the next installment of this series, I will write about the solutions to Metro Manila’s woes as we look forward to a new government in 2022.

Andrew J. Masigan is an economist

andrew_rs6@yahoo.com

Facebook@AndrewJ. Masigan

Twitter @aj_masigan

Nature is jilted by untrue lovers

November 21, 2021 | 8:17 pm

Why have the birds stopped singing and flown away from the Arroceros Forest Park?

The Haribon Society and the Wild Bird Club have seen and identified some 30 or so species of migratory birds resting or living in the mini-forest. They chirped and warbled under the darkened canopy of 3,500 endemic or native trees — including 150 centuries-old survivors of World War II, and more trees that are at least 30 years old and older — at the Arroceros Forest Park. Fragile seedlings and younger trees of a diverse variety grow undisturbed, such as the acacia, agoho, anahaw, banyan, kamagong, mahogany, molave and narra, among others.

The Arroceros Park is a natural forest, where the ground cover of small plants keeps the soil moist and rich with the natural compost of fallen leaves and broken twigs. Like a womb, the forest provides natural incubation for life and growth. Between the latticed canopy of the older trees and the speckled ground vibrates the chi of virgin Nature, cooled by the gentle breath of the Pasig River that flows alongside the 2.2 hectare protected forest.

In a study on Manila’s urban green spaces conducted in 2016, Arroceros was found to have the highest proportion of crown canopy cover among the other parks in Manila’s fifth electoral district. It also has one of the highest rates of vegetation, one of the parameters of resiliency that “improves infiltration, reduces surface run off, prevents siltation and ultimately, reduce exposure to flooding,” the study says (https://www.sciencedirect.com). Arroceros’ high coverage of crown canopy also helps in regulating the city’s temperatures, which can sometimes reach as high as 38 degrees Celsius /100 degrees Fahrenheit (https://news.mongabay.com).

“The last lung of Manila” is the only natural park of the city, encapsulated against the heavy pollution of vehicle traffic in the city of about 1.85 million people. The 2019 average pollution index for Metro Manila was 18.2 US AQI (air quality index) which placed it as the 5^th most polluted city in all of the Philippines. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the safe level of air quality ranged from 10 ug per cubic meter of PM2.5, or below. The WHO said that in 2018, there were 45.3 air pollution-related deaths for every 100,000 people in the Philippines. This was the third highest in the world, after China’s 81.5 pollution-related deaths and Mongolia’s 48.8 deaths per 100,000 people. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2016 stressed that “Arroceros Forest Park … can remove 30 tons of particulates per year. It provides a ‘Lung’ for the city.”

The Arroceros Forest Park should be one of the most treasured and protected nature sanctuaries, and it is a historic icon — once the first of three “parians” that contained and suppressed the local Chinese community since the rebellion of Chinese traders in the early Spanish colonial period in the 19^thcentury. The Parian de Arroceros served as a marketplace and trading post for Chinese merchants. Among the commodities traded back then was rice, hence the term arroceros, which means “rice cultivators” in Spanish.

The space vacated by the parian had been used as temporary “holding area” for odds-and-ends of government activities both in the Spanish era and in the American occupation, through World War II. Only after the government’s education department offices, erstwhile “parked” in the area, were transferred to their present location in Pasig in 1993, was the Arroceros Forest Park concept formalized. A memorandum of agreement was signed between the City of Manila and Winner Foundation, a proactive private environment group, to work with the Manila Seedling Bank and manage reforestation efforts to resuscitate and nurture “the Last Lung of Manila” (The Philippine Star, retrieved June 10, 2015).

Did many give much importance to the Arroceros Forest Park as it grew and bloomed into a solitary environment sanctuary in the heart of polluted Manila? Sadly, the stream of elected Manila City mayors did not really respect the forest park (except Mayor Alfredo Lim, who gave Winner Foundation free sway in managing the reforestation). And few common citizens come to visit and enjoy the forest park. There seems to be no deep passion for the environment. Sad.

“Yet, despite the respite the park offers its avian and human visitors, Manila’s mayors have persistently insisted on getting rid of it. Lito Atienza, who served as mayor from 1998 to 2007, allowed a portion of the park to be bulldozed for a new government building, while Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada, a former president and mayor from 2013, wanted to turn the park into a school gymnasium.” (https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/).

Enter Mayor (Yorme) “Isko” Moreno (Francisco Domagoso) after winning over his long-time idol, Mayor Erap, in the 2019 mayoralty elections. Bringing with him his matinee-idol lover boy image in local young-love movies of the 1990s, young and old swooned to romantic hero-worship for what he promised to do for Manila. A big come-on, aside from his good looks and supposed “clean” image is that he was born and raised in the slums of Tondo, Manila, where he spent his childhood supporting his family by scrapping for leftover food and scavenging the trash heaps of “Smokey Mountain.” Surely, Isko would be a passionate lover and protector of the environment.

And so, Winner Foundation and cooperator Manila Doctors Hospital CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) staff met with Isko upon his assumption as Mayor, to plead for the final and official cancellation of former Mayor Erap’s pending project to raze a big portion of the forest park to set up a full-service gym. And Isko signed on Feb. 27, 2020 Manila City Ordinance No. 8607, declaring the land along Arroceros Street as a “permanent forest park” from simply being a “property” (Rappler, March 3, 2020).

“The use and enjoyment of the Arroceros Forest Park must be consistent with the principles of sustainable development and the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology,” the ordinance reads.

The ordinance prohibits the cutting trees, the dumping waste, and any form of excavation in the area. Violators will be slapped with a P2,500 fine for the first offense, P3,500 for the second offense, and P5,000 fine and/or imprisonment up to one year, depending on the court’s discretion, for their third offense. (Ibid.).

But when Regina “Ninit” Roces-Paterno, chair of Winner Foundation, and Chiqui Sy-Quia Mabanta, president, with other environment activists visited the Arroceros Forest Park on Nov. 13, 2021, it was a shock that Mayor Isko was already implementing his September 2021 development plan for the Lawton area, the vicinity of the Arroceros Forest Park. Construction was not supposed to encroach into the nature park but confined only to outside of its perimeter.

Paterno sent this message on Viber:

“I am so sad to report to the Catholic Women’s Club that the City of Manila administration under Isko Moreno has all but ruined the forest in the course of their desire to turn it into a theme park with stairways and elevated walk ways. The CWC area is all but destroyed with two structures being constructed in the front area. In our second project by the bridge, they covered the fishpond and it is used for dumping construction materials and debris.

“I was with a group of environmental organizations and we were all filled with shock and disgust over a complete disregard for environmental laws.

“We hope that it is not too late to halt what is going on. They have hundreds of men working fast and filling the area with concreted grounds and pathways.

“Five natural ponds were filled up with soil and all secondary trees and ground cover were destroyed in their desire to make it look like Luneta. They should have chosen another area because this forest took almost 30 years to grow not counting the 150 pre-war trees. Winner Foundation planted 3,000 trees from Manila seedling bank. And eventually CWC planted more than 100 trees not to mention supported the maintenance of two workers for several years.”

“A sad day for enviromentalists!” Paterno said.

Nature is again jilted by untrue lovers.

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

ahcylagan@yahoo.com

China downgrades its ties with Lithuania for letting Taiwan open its embassy

November 21, 2021 | 8:08 pm

BEIJING — China downgraded its diplomatic ties with Lithuania on Sunday, expressing strong dissatisfaction with Vilnius for allowing Taiwan to open a de facto embassy in the Baltic state, raising tensions in a spat that has also dragged in Washington.

China views self-ruled and democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory with no right to the trappings of a state, and has stepped up pressure on countries to downgrade or sever their relations with the island, even non-official ones.

Beijing had already expressed anger that Lithuania — which has formal relations with China and not Taiwan — let Taiwan open its office in the country, and recalled its ambassador in August.

The Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania opened on Thursday. Other Taiwan offices in Europe and the United States use the name of the city Taipei, avoiding a reference to the island itself, something that has further angered Beijing.

China’s Foreign Ministry said in a brusque statement that Lithuania ignored China’s “solemn stance” and the basic norms of international relations in allowing Taiwan to set up its representative office in Lithuania.

The move “undermined China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs,” creating a “bad precedent internationally,” it said, adding relations would be downgraded to the level of charge d’affaires, a rung below ambassador.

“We urge the Lithuanian side to correct its mistakes immediately and not to underestimate the Chinese people’s firm determination and staunch resolve to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

No matter what Taiwan does, it cannot change the fact that it is part of China, the ministry added.

Taiwan says it is an independent country called the Republic of China, its official name, and that the People’s Republic of China has never ruled it and has no right to speak for it.

Taiwan has been heartened by growing international support for it in the face of China’s military and diplomatic pressure, especially from the United States and some of its allies.

Washington has offered Vilnius support to withstand Chinese pressure, and Lithuania will sign a $600 million export credit agreement with the US Export-Import Bank this week.

Only 15 countries have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Taipei could lose another ally to Beijing after the Honduran presidential election later this month, where a candidate backed by main opposition parties is leading in opinion polls.

If elected, Xiomara Castro has vowed to establish official relations with China. — Reuters

Venezuelans head to regional, local polls as opposition party comes back

November 21, 2021 | 8:03 pm

CARACAS — Venezuelans head to the polls on Sunday in local and regional elections which represent a major challenge for electoral authorities and opposition politicians alike, as the latter return to compete for votes against the government of President Nicolas Maduro for the first time in four years.

During the elections, over 3,000 state governors, mayors and city councils will be chosen across the South American country, which is beset by a long-running recession and hyperinflation.

Opposition politicians had boycotted presidential elections and parliamentary elections in 2018 and 2020 respectively accusing Mr. Maduro’s government of fraud.

Should the opposition lose the 4 state governorships it won in 2017 — out of 23 states — it would lack a powerbase to launch a campaign for presidential elections, due in 2024.

The vote will test the impartiality of Venezuela’s electoral commission, which in May included two opponents among its top five directors, making it the most balanced board in 17 years, its members have said.

European Union election observers will be present at around 1,000 of the 14,400 voting centers, the first such European mission since 2006.

Mr. Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is backed by the United States, among other countries, both urged supporters to vote on Friday night, though Mr. Guaido decried voting conditions.

“I want to see a change in my country, not just in Carabobo but in all of Venezuela,” said Betty Gomez, 48, from the city of Valencia, the capital of Venezuela’s Carabobo state, adding that she planned to vote for an opposition candidate.

Others will back the government’s candidates. Nelson Aparicio, a 44-year-old teacher in Tachira state, which borders Colombia, is betting on the ruling party’s contender to address issues including power cuts and gasoline shortages.

“I believe (Freddy) Bernal doesn’t represent a wealthy demographic, but everyone,” Aparicio said, adding that the country needs to come together in talks. — Reuters

US teenager Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges after divisive murder trial

November 21, 2021 | 8:02 pm

KENOSHA, Wis. — A jury acquitted teenager Kyle Rittenhouse on Friday of murder in the fatal shooting of two men during racial justice protests in a decision that re-ignited fierce debate about gun rights and the boundaries of self defense in the United States.

Jurors found Mr. Rittenhouse, 18, not guilty on all charges: two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide for wounding a third man, and two counts of recklessly endangering safety in protests marred by arson, rioting and looting on Aug. 25, 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Mr. Rittenhouse broke down sobbing after the verdict and collapsed to the floor before being helped back into his chair, his hands shaking. His mother also wept.

Amid a heavy law enforcement presence, several dozen protesters lined the steps outside the courthouse after the verdict was read, some carrying placards in support of Mr. Rittenhouse and others expressing disappointment. By early evening, the crowd had thinned to a handful of people and there was no sign of disturbances in the city.

“We are all so very happy that Kyle can live his life as a free and innocent man, but in this whole situation there are no winners, there are two people who lost their lives and that’s not lost on us at all,” David Hancock, a spokesperson for the Rittenhouse family, told Reuters.

Mr. Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and fired a bullet that tore a chunk off the arm of Gaige Grosskreutz, 28. Mr. Rittenhouse claimed self defense.

US President Joseph R. Biden, who during last year’s election campaign tweeted a video that appeared to link Mr. Rittenhouse to white supremacists, said on Friday he supported the jury’s decision and urged Americans to react with calm. “While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken,” Mr. Biden said.

Elsewhere reactions showed the country’s deep partisan divisions. The verdict was greeted with outrage by many on the political left and celebrated by gun rights supporters.

“It is unconscionable our justice system would allow an armed vigilante… to go free,” the Congressional Black Caucus said in a statement.

The thorny issue of race also hung over the case, although Mr. Rittenhouse and the men he shot were all white. Some Black activists said on Friday the US police and courts would have treated the teenager more harshly if he had been Black.

But conservatives saw the verdict as a validation of the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which grants Americans the right to bear arms.

US congressman Madison Cawthorn, a Republican representative from North Carolina, said on Instagram: “Kyle Rittenhouse is not guilty my friends. You have a right to defend yourselves. Be armed, be dangerous and be moral.”

REPEATEDLY ATTACKED
In reaching its verdict after more than three days of deliberations, the jury contended with dueling narratives from the defense and prosecution that offered vastly different portrayals of the teenager’s actions on the night of the shootings.

The defense argued that Mr. Rittenhouse had been repeatedly attacked and had shot the men in fear for his life. They said he was a civic-minded teen who carried a medical kit in addition to his gun and was in Kenosha to protect private property after several nights of unrest in the city south of Milwaukee.

The violence followed the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake, who was left paralyzed from the waist down.

The prosecution portrayed Mr. Rittenhouse as a reckless vigilante who provoked the violent encounters and showed no remorse for the men he shot with his AR-15-style rifle.

Wisconsin criminal defense lawyer Daniel Adams, who closely followed the trial, called the verdict “very dramatic but not entirely surprising.”

Most lawyers “who looked at the evidence had a feeling the state would not be able to clear the threshold of disproving self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

Live-streamed and dissected by cable TV pundits daily, the trial unfolded during a time of social and political polarization in the United States. Gun rights are cherished by many Americans and are enshrined in the US Constitution even as the nation experiences a high rate of gun violence and the easy availability of firearms.

Mr. Rittenhouse, who testified that he had no choice but to open fire to protect himself, is viewed as heroic by some pro-gun conservatives who consider the shootings justified. Many on the left view Mr. Rittenhouse as a vigilante and an embodiment of an out-of-control American gun culture.

Protests against racism and police brutality turned violent in many US cities after the police killing of Black man George Floyd in Minneapolis three months before the Kenosha shootings.

The Rittenhouse verdict ended the highest-profile US civilian self-defense case since a man named George Zimmerman was acquitted in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, in Florida in 2013.

With so much of that night in Kenosha caught on cellphone and surveillance video, few basic facts were in dispute. The trial instead focused on whether Mr. Rittenhouse acted reasonably to prevent “imminent death or great bodily harm,” the requirement for using deadly force under Wisconsin law.

The prosecution, led by Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, sought to paint Mr. Rittenhouse as the aggressor and repeatedly stressed that he was the only one to kill anyone that night.

RISKY DECISION
Mr. Rittenhouse’s gun was loaded with 30 rounds of full metal jacket bullets, which are designed to penetrate their target. The jury saw a series of graphic videos, including the moments after Mr. Rittenhouse fired four rounds into Rosenbaum, who lay motionless, bleeding and groaning. Other video showed Grosskreutz screaming, with blood gushing from his arm.

Mr. Rittenhouse testified in his own defense last Wednesday in the trial’s most dramatic moment — a risky decision by his lawyers given his youth and the prospect of tough prosecution cross-examination. Mr. Rittenhouse broke down sobbing at one point, and emphasized that he acted out of fear for his life.

“I did what I had to do to stop the person who was attacking me,” he said.

His defense counsel, Mark Richards, said Mr. Rittenhouse has difficulty sleeping at night and was being treated for post traumatic stress disorder. He said the defense team decided to have him testify after they tested two versions of their case before mock juries, one with him testifying and one without.

“It was substantially better when we put him on,” Mr. Richards told reporters after the verdict. “In Wisconsin, if you don’t put a client on the stand, you’re going to lose. Period.”

Mr. Rittenhouse testified that he shot Mr. Huber after he had struck him with a skateboard and pulled on his weapon. He said he fired on Mr. Grosskreutz after the man pointed the pistol he was carrying at him — an assertion Mr. Grosskreutz acknowledged under questioning from the defense. Mr. Rittenhouse testified that he shot Mr. Rosenbaum after the man chased him and grabbed his gun.

Mr. Huber’s parents, Karen Bloom and John Huber, said in a statement they were “heartbroken” by the verdict.

“It sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street.” — Reuters

Lawyer who tried to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss named to election board

November 21, 2021 | 8:01 pm

IN JANUARY, lawyer Cleta Mitchell joined a phone call with then-President Donald Trump as he pressured Georgia’s top election official to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in the state, playing an important role in Mr. Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 results.

Nearly a year later, the longtime conservative has been appointed to the advisory board of a federal agency with a mission to help states conduct secure elections.

Her surprise appointment to the US Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) Board of Advisors shows how once-fringe “election integrity” activists are trying to gain footholds in US institutions in the run up to next year’s congressional elections. And it illustrates Mr. Trump’s continued dominance over his party as Ms. Mitchell and other backers of his stolen-election falsehoods win support from powerful Republicans in Congress.

Ms. Mitchell, part of a small network of Republican lawyers who have for decades pushed the idea that US elections are vulnerable to rampant fraud, left her partnership at law firm Foley & Lardner days after the Georgia phone call. She has since been focused on championing “election integrity” as chairwoman of the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). She began work at the EAC advisory board on Nov. 3.

Research by election lawyers shows voter fraud in the United States is rare, despite what Mr. Trump and his allies have claimed about voting in 2016, 2018 and 2020.

Ms. Mitchell’s appointment, which was made in August but only came to light this week after a tweet by a reporter with non-profit media organization Votebeat, alarmed Democrats and voting rights groups. Although the 35-member board is an advisory body and does not have any specific powers over voting procedures, critics said the appointment gives legitimacy to someone they accuse of undermining faith in the democratic process in the United States.

“I would expect Mitchell to continue to spread disinformation about the actual integrity of American elections,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of watchdog group True North Research and a former deputy assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice.

“Putting Mitchell on the advisory board demonstrates how devoted the Trump party is to rewarding those who spread his claims.”

Mitchell pushed back against the criticism, saying “millions of Americans” are concerned about voting integrity.

“The real outliers are the tiny fraction of Americans who oppose voter ID, who promote an avalanche of unverified mail ballots and who work constantly to eliminate procedures that ensure proper election administration,” she said in a statement to Reuters.

The EAC’s four commissioners said in a statement it was not their role to “comment on or criticize” appointments to the Board of Advisors.

Ms. Mitchell was nominated to the board by conservative members on the US Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), a bipartisan agency that studies allegations of discrimination, including in voting rights.

Her appointment is part of a much larger Republican push to try to exert more control over election administration. At least 18 Republican-led states have passed voting restrictions this year, while backers of false stolen-election claims are running campaigns for secretary of state — the top election official — in election battleground states.

‘HOSTAGE’
Ms. Mitchell said her role was clinched with bipartisan support by the eight-person USCCR, evenly split between conservatives and liberals. But Democratic commissioner Michael Yaki told Reuters that his bloc was subject to a “hostage-like” situation by conservatives.

The commission’s conservative faction refused to ratify Norma Cantu, who was appointed by President Joseph Biden to chair the agency in February, unless certain demands were met, Mr. Yaki and Ms. Cantu said.

“One of the changes the Conservative placed as a condition to ratifying me as the Chair was to create a process for bipartisan nominations to the board of advisors of Elections Assistance Commission,” Ms. Cantu said in a statement to Reuters.

At the time, the USCCR chair put forward nominees, who were then ratified by majority vote, but Republicans asked each of the two political factions to put forward a candidate, Mr. Yaki said.

The conservatives initially wanted J. Christian Adams, a Trump-appointed USCCR commissioner who has, without evidence, alleged “alien invasion” by non-citizens trying to vote illegally in the United States and spent years suing counties to force them to purge voter rolls. Mr. Adams, president of the PILF group, was also a member of Mr. Trump’s election integrity commission, which disbanded without finding evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election.

When Democrats refused to accept Adams, work on the commission stalled, Mr. Yaki said.

Eventually, the two sides reached a deal in which both factions put forward two appointments to boards such as the EAC’s and the opposite side selects one of them.

Mr. Adams told Reuters that the selections should have always been bipartisan. “They weren’t. We fixed that,” he said. “You don’t really think having a bipartisan process is ‘being held hostage do you?’”

On April 30, the USCCR commissioners ratified Ms. Cantu and, minutes later, agreed to change the appointment process. The commission’s four conservatives then put forward two names for the EAC board, according to an internal nomination email reviewed by Reuters: Mr. Adams and Ms. Mitchell.

“Well, do you drink cyanide or hemlock? It’s a Hobson’s choice of nightmarish proportions,” Mr. Yaki said.

Mr. Adams was well-known for his work at PILF whereas Ms. Mitchell was more of an “unknown variable,” Ms. Cantu said. “I am not pleased with the appointment and would have welcomed another choice.” — Reuters

Messi scores maiden Ligue 1 goal as 10-man PSG opens huge lead

November 21, 2021 | 8:00 pm

PARIS — Lionel Messi scored his first Ligue 1 goal as Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) opened a 12-point lead at the top despite playing almost half an hour with 10 men in a 3-1 home win against Nantes on Saturday.

Messi scored with a curled left-footer from outside the box three minutes from time, adding to Dennis Appiah’s own goal after Randal Kolo Muani canceled out Kylian Mbappé’s first-half opener.

The result left PSG with 37 points from 14 games ahead of a Champions League trip to Manchester City on Wednesday, while Nantes are 11^th on 18 points.

Stade Rennais moved into provisional second spot on 25 points after goals by Martin Terrier and Lovro Majer gave them a 2-0 home win over 10-man Montpellier.

Messi has scored three goals in the Champions League since joining the capital club from Barcelona during the close season, but the Argentina forward had not found the back of the net in his five previous appearances in Ligue 1.

“I’m happy with this first goal, I really wanted it. I had several chances before in this match and in the previous matches,” said Messi.

“I am very happy with this first goal in the league, I had already scored in the Champions League. I had chances but I didn’t convert them. I am very happy.”

BRILLIANT START
PSG started brilliantly as Mbappé deflected Leandro Paredes’ long-range strike to put the hosts ahead after two minutes.

The attacking trio coordinated nicely, with Mbappé shifting to the right and leaving more space on the inside for Messi, who came close in the 17^th minute after being set up by Neymar.

Mbappé tormented the Nantes defense with his technique and brutal accelerations as he looked to find Messi.

Nantes goalkeeper Alban Lafont kept his team afloat with several saves as the visitors struggled to get into PSG’s half in a one-sided opening half.

Nantes applied some pressure after the break but their attempts were too weak for Navas, who made his first proper save in the 61^st minute to block Ludovic Blas’ strike.

But the keeper was sent off four minutes later for charging into Blas outside his area. With Gianluigi Donnarumma out with a bout of gastroenteritis, Sergio Rico stepped in between the posts and Neymar was sent back to the bench.

Rico made a brilliant save in a packed goalmouth and parried Kolo Muani’s header in the 76^th minute but the striker followed up and netted with a back heel to put the visitors level.

However, Appiah deflected a Messi cross into his own net in the 81^st before the Argentine sent the Parc des Princes crowd into raptures with his trademark curled strike. — Reuters

Jazz pull away in fourth quarter to beat Kings, win third straight

November 21, 2021 | 7:58 pm

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MIKE Conley and Rudy Gay contributed 3-pointers to a 12-0 spurt early in the fourth quarter Saturday night as the visiting Utah Jazz broke open a tight game en route to a 123-105 victory over the Sacramento Kings.

Donovan Mitchell went for a game-high 26 points, Rudy Gobert 21 and 14 rebounds, Conley 17 points and Jordan Clarkson 16 in a balanced Utah attack that produced the Jazz’s third straight win, their third against the Kings this season and the second at Sacramento.

Richaun Holmes had a team-high 22 points, Harrison Barnes 18, Tyrese Haliburton 17 and Buddy Hield 16 for the Kings, who dropped their third in a row, including their second in two nights. Sacramento was beaten 108-89 at home by the Toronto Raptors on Friday night.

The Kings hung within 86-82 in the first minute of the final period before Conley ignited the game-breaking run with a layup.

He added a 3-pointer, as did Gay, while Gobert and Clarkson chipped in with hoops as the visitors exploded into a commanding position at 98-82 with 9:09 to go.

The Kings got no closer than 13 after that.

The Jazz led by as many as 12 points in the second quarter, but the Kings rallied into a 66-all tie midway through the third period on a Barnes layup.

A driving layup by Haliburton had the Kings within four in the first minute of the fourth quarter before the Jazz ran off.

Hassan Whiteside also notched a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, while Bojan Bogdanović added 10 points for Utah, which had lost its previous two road games at Miami and Orlando.

The Jazz outshot Sacramento 50.5% to 45.1% overall and outscored the hosts 51-30 on 3-pointers. Conley, Mitchell, Clarkson and Joe Ingles drilled three 3-pointers apiece.

Conley’s 3-pointers came on just four attempts. He shot 7-for-10 overall.

Barnes added team-highs with eight rebounds and five assists for Sacramento, which lost its fourth straight at home. The Kings were outrebounded 52-35.

De’Aaron Fox finished with 13 points for Sacramento, while Haliburton had a game-high four steals to complement his 17 points. — Reuters

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