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Dangerous UP

The University of the Philippines (UP) has been in the news lately. But it is not only because its graduates’ have been topping one licensure exam after another and its rising to 69th place from 71st among the world’s best 500 universities. It is also because of the threat to defund it and its being red-baited by no less than the President of the Philippines.

Taking their cue from him, as incoherent and as sub-literate as they are, the regime’s keyboard army of trolls and Neanderthals are attacking it from whatever slime pit they crawled out of.

The usual regime hacks masquerading as print and broadcast journalists have also weighed in. They have joined their accomplices in social media in trying to put down a 112-year-old institution that since its founding has demonstrated that, trapped in the pre-Enlightenment 17th century as this benighted land may be, there was at least one moment in its sorry history when it did something right.

It was this country’s then US colonial overlords who founded the University of the Philippines in 1908 to break the monopoly of the friar autocracy over education and to bring their newly acquired colony into the 20th century from the Medieval Age to which three centuries of Spanish rule had condemned it.

Not incidentally, however, was it also intended to be an instrument of soft power. Together with the rest of the speak-English-only public school system the colonial regime created, it was meant to convince the next generations of Filipino professionals and leaders to embrace and regard as their own the culture — the dominant ideas, values, beliefs and conventional wisdom — of the colonial power.

So successful has that experiment been that rather than the nest of revolutionaries some of its detractors now say it is, UP is still a work in progress, an enterprise rooted in the colonial and domestic elites’ drive to preserve, through their control of the public mind, the economic, political and social order. It is yet to fully grow into a truly Filipino university. But over the past 11 decades of its existence, it has become the Philippines’ primary intellectual resource by making academic freedom an irrevocable principle in discharging its multiple responsibilities of teaching, doing research, and making the skills and knowledge of its professors available to the rest of Philippine society.

Under US colonial rule, UP expanded the fields of study and professions Filipinos could access. Even more significantly, it opened its doors to women 300 years after Spain consigned them solely to kitchen and bedroom. There was already a hint of it in the 1917 Carlos P. Romulo-led student protest against a Manila newspaper’s criticism of a Filipino’s being chosen UP President. Romulo’s fellow UP alumnus Salvador P. Lopez’s pioneering work Literature and Society was another, later sign. But it took more than 40 years after its founding for UP to develop among some of its faculty, students, and alumni the awareness and appreciation of the need to challenge the fundamentals of colonial culture and to fashion in its place an alternative to it worthy of the independent nation the Philippines is supposed to be.

Out of the ruins of the Second World War a few UP professors and some of its alumni began to question the Philippines’ continuing dependency on the United States and its status as a neo-colony, and together with it, the claim that this “show window of democracy in Asia” was the best of all possible worlds.

It was neither supported nor shared by every UP constituent. But encouraged by the academic freedom the Constitution guarantees, the process of reimagining, and the hope of eventually reconstructing the Filipino reality continued in the 1950s and 1960s. Ferdinand Marcos’ declaration of martial law in 1972 momentarily halted it. But by brutally demonstrating how vital freedom is to the life of the mind, the dictatorship unwittingly contributed to its becoming part of the UP culture of dissent, free inquiry, and social criticism that eventually led to the progressives’ proposing what they believe to be a viable alternative to the prevailing political, economic and social order.

That alternative — authentic independence, industrialization by and for Filipinos, thoroughgoing land reform, the democratization of political power — is neither communist nor even socialist. But because any reform program if ever implemented will inevitably affect its interests, it has so earned the fear of the powerful as to cause them to label its current proponents as “rebels” and “terrorists,” and to actually consider what no other administration including that of Ferdinand Marcos even dared imagine: the shutdown of UP.

Just as the disenfranchisement of ABS-CBN network was a form of censorship meant to intimidate independent journalists and the free press, many suspect that the “communist-terrorist” bogey, although it can actually lead to UP’s being harassed out of existence, is also a warning to all dissenters and critics whether in or out of UP of what civic engagement can cost them.

However, like the many graduates of UP who are in its service, the regime knows fully well that the national university of the Philippines is far more complex an institution than the “recruiter of communists” its deriders claim it to be.

Despite the student call for graduates to “serve the people,” not everyone educated in it becomes a servant of the poor and the powerless. Many indeed serve only their public- and private-sector patrons, their families, and themselves. The reality is that just like any other university in this country and the rest of the planet, UP is an essentially conservative institution. The libertarians, progressives, and reformists among its faculty are outnumbered by the conservatives and outright reactionaries who daily drum into the heads of their students the admonition to obey authority, to be silent even in the face of the worst atrocities, and to advance and protect their interests and those of the powerful. By following what many think is sage advice, some UP graduates indeed become exceedingly wealthy and/or immensely powerful themselves.

UP’s being another “communist front” is therefore not so much what the oligarchy and its police and military minions fear. What worries them most is the freedom that true learning requires and with which the Constitution endows it because it is that freedom that has nurtured the intellectual daring and the culture of free inquiry resident in the best of its faculty, students, and alumni (and even among its worst).

Because freedom is the essential condition to learning, and they look at knowledge as dangerous because it empowers free men and women with the capacity to question their monopoly over political power, their corruption, mendacity, and sheer incompetence, the dynasts will have none of it: neither in society at large, nor in the press, nor in any institution that dares call itself a university. Its constituents’ allegiance to the exercise of that human right is what makes UP a dangerous threat in the eyes of every regime that has ever been in power in this alleged democracy.

Without freedom neither the press nor a university can be true to their shared responsibility of examining and interpreting the world. The power elite and its flunkies in and out of government are in that sense not only the foes of knowledge. They are also the primary obstacles to the changes this country desperately needs — and to which they falsely claim to be committed. 

 

Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro).

www.luisteodoro.com

Reaping benefits from the pandemic: Rethinking growth and inequality

If there is anything useful about COVID-19, perhaps it is its devastating impact on the nation especially on the poor. Not for anything else, but many see it, and soon enough, many will feel and learn from it.

As a result, the civil society is now more prepared to accept the economic sense of providing income support for displaced workers especially from manufacturing and services, those whose skills would not allow them to work or conduct webinars in the comfort of their homes. Cash transfers are also vital for the very poor who have been further debased by the need for more soap and water, face masks and face shields — or otherwise risk arrest and denial of mobility. We realize now that the many years of neglect of our health sector would pay us back with nearly unbridled upsurge of COVID-19.

Bad governance that allows social inequality to persist is anathema to promoting inclusive and self-sustaining growth.

Yes, poverty alleviation in the Philippines has been showing some good progress in recent years. Poverty incidence had declined from 25.2% of the population in 2012 to 16.7% in 2018. Inflation for the bottom 30% of income households had receded from a high of 6% in 2014 to 2.7% average for the first 10 months of 2020. The percentage of households with savings had risen from 32.7% in the first quarter of 2016 to 37.8% in the first quarter of 2020, before the pandemic.

But the pandemic could be heartless. Various surveys including those by the SWS on the people’s gauge of their finances and security and the BSP’s own consumer and business expectations surveys — all good leading indicators of the national income accounts and income distribution — point to the virtual negation of such positive traces of social progress. People feel poorer and are afraid to go out even to look for work because of the virus. Consumers are not eager to go out and spend on food or personal items, while business has been intimidated from increasing capacity. Voluntary social distancing has left deep wounds and scars that could take years to completely heal.

In the Philippines, while we are proud of having achieved uninterrupted economic growth for the last 84 quarters or 21 years, moderate inflation, and turnaround in public finance and external payments position, we are now challenged to explain why one bout with Kid COVID knocked us down, not once but so far, three times. We need to reassess our institutions and policy framework to avoid a repeat of this ignominious performance.

Without doubt, the pandemic is just one of those shocks that could test the resilience of economies and civil societies. There is increasing evidence that economic growth could be more fragile, less robust in fact, when it is not inclusive and the fruits of development accrue only to the upper crust of society. The pandemic simply unmasked the sad reality of the weak support in some societies for public policies that offer better opportunities in education, health and nutrition, business and politics.

In many of our previous columns, we cited Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz as having traced the genesis of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 to income inequality. Since then, economics literature has birthed work after work demonstrating the vulnerability to economic contraction of those economies with high or worsening inequality in the years and decades before the crisis.

No less than the staff of the IMF, of all international financial institutions, have arrived at a similar conclusion. For instance, IMF senior staff Jonathan Ostry, Prakash Loungani and Davide Furcere in 2018* argued against policymakers’ faith in and propensity to promote growth through supply-side measures and defer distributional issues. They considered this a dangerous gamble and proposed that simultaneous focus be given to both the size of the pie and its distribution.

Our tragic experience with the pandemic should keep us reflecting beyond the usual advocacy of reducing barriers to entry in both services and products markets, the call for greater flexibility and less friction in the labor markets and of course, adherence to the rules of globalization. We have been good students of the Fund for our own good. We supported the Fund’s past policy advice on the removal of various impediments to trade and investments and championed the increase in economic efficiency and factor productivity through, among others, a general framework of market-based liberalization and deregulation.

Of course, we were not utterly wrong in pursuing growth in this neoclassical fashion. The Fund itself found strong evidence among its member countries that structural and policy reforms were partly instrumental in attaining good economic performance. In our case, with improved business conditions, foreign investments poured in, local capitalists enjoyed greater access to bank credit, resource allocation worked, and we started on a growth roll for 21 years. Credit rating upgrades turned euphoric as our credit spreads tightened to the levels of emerging markets with higher investment grades.

Again, the problem was that a single episode with a black swan, or a fairly predictable risk event like COVID-19, was enough to bring us to our knees. We have not been that resilient and self-sustaining.

IMF’s Jonathan Ostry in Finance and Development of June 2018 argued that growth and inclusion do not have to be mutually exclusive. “With the right policies, countries can pursue both objectives.”

Otherwise, we risk going through a vicious cycle between secular stagnation, when demand is persistently deficient, and secular exclusion, when growth benefits only those in the upper layer of income distribution, precisely because the many who are poor and are at the bottom do not have what it takes to support demand and promote growth.

We dread what will happen next.

Good indicators do not lie.

They show many businesses going under water and closing down especially in many malls across the archipelago, consumer and business sentiments remaining pessimistic this quarter and the next quarter, or even the next 12 months. What else is the meaning of the survey of senior loan officers indicating tighter lending standards and BSP data revealing still elevated lending rates? Or high frequency indicators of Google, Apple, and Waze still showing limited mobility?

It will be helpful especially for economists in the public sector to consider reassessing their infatuation with another Nobel laureate, Robert Lucas, who wrote in 2003, and was quoted by Ostry: “Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution.”

Private sector economists who are in the advocacy business will also do well to remember that if economic growth is accompanied by worsening inequality, as what seems evident following the pandemic, economic costs could be very excessive. The public treasury will be hard pressed to produce revenues from weak sources.

The point here is for policy makers and private sector supporters to advance policy reforms with complete staff work on both their implications on growth and efficiency as well as on distribution and social equity. It is in this spirit that we hope CREATE can create more space for growth as well as for social equity.

Indeed, some policy changes do give rise to sensitive growth-equity trade-offs. The Fund staff, for instance, argued that liberalizing the capital account while increasing growth, could also aggravate inequality. We agree with their suggestion that it would not be correct to reverse the reform but instead to improve the initial design of policy in order to achieve a more broad-based and broadly-shared economic growth. Inclusive growth does not have to be singularly skewed.

The issue of minimum wage is another. It makes no sense to violate the law and depress the annual adjustment on the ground that it discourages business. What is important is to allow wage gains in line with productivity increases. Better wage agreement would somewhat prosper the labor sector and fuel consumption expenditure. During this pandemic, it cushions the sorrow of the working class, and provides one answer to slow business. Empirical studies show that minimum wage hikes could narrow wage disparities. If part of a broader policy, they could lead to significant poverty alleviation. There should be less reason for both physical and economic lockdown when more people have more resources to comply with health protocols.

Failure to achieve a more inclusive, more equitable growth will give space to ultra-nationalist, populist, and protectionist advocacy. It would not be good to waste this crisis on a growth model that will not yield resiliency to last even a single round with Kid COVID.

* “Are New Economic Policy Rules Needed to Mitigate Rising National Inequalities?” in Global Rules and Inequality: Implications for Global Economic Governance, edited by Jose Antonio Ocampo. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

Diwa C. Guinigundo is the former Deputy Governor for the Monetary and Economics Sector, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). He served the BSP for 41 years. In 2001-2003, he was Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. He is the senior pastor of the Fullness of Christ International Ministries in Mandaluyong.

‘Even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten’

So declared the US Supreme Court.

And as with many things wrong with New York right now, the cases of Agudath Israel v. Cuomo and Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo arose from typical Governor Mario Cuomo bluster.

Despite acknowledging that the increasing number of COVID-19 cases were not serious, particularly as seen from many other States, Cuomo decided to impose religious attendance restrictions on a predominantly Jewish community in New York. As asserted by the lawyers from the Becket Fund (which represented the Jewish petitioners), Cuomo “heavily restricted worship, closed schools, and prevented Jewish families from celebrating holidays while mere blocks away, schools were open and restaurants were serving customers. Far from being scientifically justifiable, Cuomo himself has admitted that his drastic actions were taken out of a concern for public opinion, not public health, saying the lockdown zones were ‘a fear driven response’.”

In the meantime, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn was also subjected to similarly discriminatory and arbitrary restrictions: in-person attendance for church services was limited to either 10 or 25 people, regardless of the actual capacity of the church (and many of the churches in that diocese could easily accommodate hundreds or even thousands of parishioners). The Diocese further pointed out that Cuomo’s measures imposed “‘devastating’ and ‘spiritually harmful’ burden on the Catholic community,” a burden all the more despotic as secular establishments, “everything from supermarkets to pet stores,” were allowed to stay open.

Both Agudath Israel and Catholic Diocese cases went through the gauntlet of cases, losing before federal courts, then the 2nd Circuit Court, thus setting up the appeal before the US Supreme Court.

Interestingly, a few months before, the US Supreme Court denied almost similar petitions from California’s South Bay United Pentecostal Church and Nevada’s Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley. In the first case, Chief Justice John Roberts bizarrely sided with the four liberal justices, giving more importance to the fact that “local officials are actively shaping their response to changing facts on the ground,” all the while ignoring (as Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh point out) that there was no good reason – scientific or otherwise – to treat houses of worship less than secular establishments or businesses. Nevertheless, that same vote would prevail for the Nevada case, with the liberal justices predictably voting against religious rights. However, the tide seemed to change come October: in the case of Leibovits v. Cuomo, an attempt was made to shut down Bais Yaakov Ateres Miryam, a New York Orthodox Jewish girls’ school. This despite the latter implementing competent health protocols, underscored by the fact that the school – after months of being open – did not even have one single COVID-19 case. In this instance, New York backed off after the case was filed, acknowledging it had no basis to impose such a closure.

These cases essentially call to mind 2018’s Masterpiece Cakeshop case (where the owner Jack Phillips refused to create a cake specific for a gay wedding), particularly for the blatant display – as can be similarly seen in the present cases – of progressive hostility to religion. Thankfully, the US Supreme Court would have none of this nonsense: “religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.”

In the Philippines, after the battering that religious rights have had (see the RH Law and St. Scholastica cases), religious freedom has seemingly experienced a resurrection (pun intended) of sorts. In Celdran vs. People of the Philippines, the Court of Appeals ruled (and sustained by the Supreme Court): “religious freedom … has a preferred position in the hierarchy of values.”

Going back to Agudath Israel and Catholic Diocese, the Supreme Court (with a majority this time of Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett) granted a request for injunction on Nov. 25, noting that the petitioners “have shown that their First Amendment claims are likely to prevail, that denying them relief would lead to irreparable injury, and that granting relief would not harm the public interest.”

The Supreme Court also highlighted the discrimination: Cuomo’s measures essentially say that “while a synagogue or church may not admit more than 10 persons, businesses categorized as ‘essential’ may admit as many people as they wish. And the list of ‘essential’ businesses includes things such as acupuncture facilities, campgrounds, garages, as well as many whose services are not limited to those that can be regarded as essential, such as all plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics and all transportation facilities.”

And thus Gorsuch’s marvelous concurring statement: “It is time – past time – to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques.”

Hopefully, the foregoing inspires a greater assertion of and respect for religious rights in the Philippines as well.

 

Jemy Gatdula is a Senior Fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.

jemygatdula@yahoo.com

www.jemygatdula.blogspot.com

facebook.com/jemy.gatdula

Twitter @jemygatdula

A dialogue on child protection

The highlight of the Ako Para Sa Bata Conference was the participation of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (UN SRSG) on Violence against Children (VAC). Dr. Najat Maalla M’jid had a virtual dialogue with the panel of articulate youth delegates from the provinces of the three clusters of Luzon-Oriental Mindoro, Visayas-Capiz, and Mindanao-Davao.

Patrizia Benvenuti, Child Protection Chief, UNICEF Philippines introduced Dr. Najat M’jid. She explained that VAC is a global advocate for prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against children. “The SRSG acts as a bridge builder and a catalyst of actions in all regions, and across sectors and settings where violence may occur. She mobilizes action and political support to maintain momentum around this agenda and generate renewed concern at the harmful effects of violence on children; to promote behavioral and social change, and achieve effective progress.”

Dr. Najat, a multi-awarded champion of VAC, has devoted the past three decades to the promotion and protection of children’s rights. She was Head of the Pediatric Department and Director of the Hay Hassani Mother-Child Hospital in Casablanca, Morocco, her country of origin. She has served as UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. She reports to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.

Instead of a speech, there was a lively dialogue wherein Dr. Najat interacted with the youth. Moderator was Faye Balanon, UNICEF Child Protection officer. Here are some relevant excerpts.

“How COVID-19 has impacted the children’s lives in the Philippines,” Dr. Najat asked.

The delegates in the panel replied: “The Filipino youth are coping with the new normal. We are tired and stressed, sometimes depressed. But this is a wrong mindset. We should remain positive.”

They revealed that most Filipino parents lost their jobs and not all families were given the government-promised ayuda food assistance. This situation has pushed the poor hungry children to become involved in cybersex and exploitation.

“Filipino youth are mentally drained, stressed, anxious and depressed. Sometimes, they commit suicide.”

“The youth in the city are mentally exhausted and they have higher risk of getting COVID-19. The youth in the provinces struggle with their online learning due to poor internet connections and they have limited access to health services.”

“How can we reach the most vulnerable children?”

“Through distance learning by providing modules with psychosocial activities to aid children’s mental health. We need to identify the geographically isolated youth, those who need our help, and to coordinate with barangays in identifying them,” the delegates said.

“The situation is similar with other children worldwide, wherein the pandemic increased the inequalities that are already existing. This pandemic impacted the services that are already weak,” Dr. Najat said.

Her synthesis included the following:

• Great impact of mental health, education.

• Differences of impact between urban and rural areas.

• Stress on the families due to huge impact on socioeconomic status.

• Disparity on education and access to remote learning/internet.

• Increased risk of child sexual exploitation and child marriage.

“We have heard a lot of many youth initiatives. It’s not possible to prevent, respond and recover in all matters concerning children without putting children at the heart of the decision — listening to them informing, empowering them. Many children in the world are part of this youth initiative.” Dr. Najat commented.

“How can we make sure that child participation — ethical, inclusive, meaningful, empowering — is synthesized in all policy responses before, during and after the pandemic? How are we going to influence policy makers?

“Some policy makers are maybe listening but really hearing… This is our big challenge. I want policy makers to recognize that children are part of the solutions and not mere beneficiaries… not just one shot participation,” Dr. Najat said.

The youth delegates — Vincent, Jass, Cheverly and Noella of Team Positive — replied:

“The Youth today must be part of the solution. … If the youth is persistent, intelligent, innovative, engaged in research, we can form solutions. Youth leaders have these capacities.

“We can prove to them that we can be more and we can do more. We must build partnerships with youth organizations and the National Youth Commission… for our insights and suggestions to be heard… Communication is important. We need a lot of knowledge to have confidence to use our voice as the instrument to change something.”

Jodelyn, Team KaTEENig, added, “We should hear the voice of the youth and their problems and relay these to policy makers.”

Zandra and Kim of Team SK Nabunturan said: “We have passed resolution in Sangguniang Kabataan about programs to be discussed and implemented in the barangay council.”

“The youth holds the future of our nation.”

Dr. Najat synthesized,

• Using social media, connecting and partnering with other organizations, advocacy and raising awareness in changing the mindset of policy makers.

• You can do more and we need to provide you support to do more without “instrumentalizing” you.

• You are passionate and you believe in what you are doing. You are the future but you are also the present.

• You are involved in the implementation, monitoring and providing petitions.

“Share lessons learned. What I saw worldwide… youth and young children have lots of things to tell. There are many groups of children who are involved in building networks with schools and the community in preventing violence against children, to raise awareness, change mindset and work peer to peer….

“During this pandemic, there are child-led initiatives that provide peer-to-peer support, provide mental health, share experiences and build bridges even though confined,” Dr. Najat said. “Build bridges with others. Share your experiences. You have a great opportunity to have a strong movement with you, and for you.”

She observed that worldwide violence has increased — inside the home and online. There is cyber bullying, hate speech, and the enrolment of children in violent extremist groups. Vulnerable children have no access to services. The expected increase in poverty in 2021 will have an increased risk in child labor, child trafficking, child sexual exploitation, child marriage and discrimination.

“We are working on building back better. Here we need you,” she told the delegates. “Children have to be involved in designing, implementing and monitoring. (They) are seen as part of the solution.”

The UN SRSG and the Youth shared their parting messages.

“[Being a] child rights defender is about behavior and attitude… culture, values of listening and sharing and being humble. It is really important…,” Dr. Najat emphasized. “The children are the future of the nation. I am truly convinced that you are part of the solution. You are innovative and creative. You have the resolution …in implementation. You can collect many voices. We can use my mandate to provide the support needed.”

The youth leaders replied, “Youth should be God-fearing, good role models to inspire others to do better.”

“We are still showing our resiliency and innovative ways in keeping up with the new condition. Our service is… of the youth, by the youth and will be forever for the youth. It has been an incredible journey to be a part of this dialogue. Thank you for hearing the voices of the children.”

Congratulations to the 12th APSB Conference organizers and speakers, Child Protection Network Foundation, and UNICEF for this enlightening, relevant theme of “Care of the child against Violence in the time of Disease” and the far-reaching series of 23 webinars. It has focused on the most important issues and it has given the Child the much-needed voice. Hopefully, there will be an immediate, positive response. Mabuhay ang Bata!

 

Maria Victoria Rufino is an artist, writer and businesswoman. She is president and executive producer of Maverick Productions.

mavrufino@gmail.com

Japan to phase out new gasoline cars by mid-2030s

ALL NEW vehicles sold in Japan by the mid-2030s will be hybrid or electric as the government begins to unveil concrete steps for reaching its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, broadcaster NHK said.

Japan’s economy ministry is targeting “100% electrification” over approximately 15 years, a move that would gradually bump gasoline-engine cars out of the new car market, NHK reported, citing unidentified sources. A spokesperson for the ministry couldn’t immediately confirm the report.

A new vehicle market consisting of only hybrid and electric automobiles would be a significant shift, given they only make up about 29% of Japan’s 5.2 million new motor vehicle registrations, according to Japan’s Automobile Manufacturers Association. While Toyota Motor Corp. popularized hybrid vehicles with the Prius and the country’s automakers are among the world’s top producers in the segment, the domestic market for electrified vehicles has plateaued in recent years. Last year, both plug-in hybrid and EV registrations fell year-on-year, JAMA data show.

“If this is indeed a Japan-wide decision and it really happens, it will definitely provide a new demand stream for power and it will be good news for utilities,” said Daine Loh, a power and renewables analyst at Fitch Solutions. On balance however, it’s “unlikely to see electricity consumption rise in the mid-2030s given low real GDP (goss domestic product)growth rates and an aging population,” Mr. Loh said.

With its latest plan, Japan joins a slew of other countries seeking to reduce their carbon emissions by moving away from gasoline vehicles over the coming decades. The UK said last month it would end the sale of new cars that run only on fossil fuels by 2030. France has also pledged to take new gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles off the market by 2040.

CHINA, FRANCE
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga unveiled an ambitious goal to decarbonize Japan in his first policy speech to parliament in October, but few details were provided on how the country will achieve the target. Japan’s carbon emissions have been on a downward trend, but they need to fall faster to meet the 2050 goal, according to an analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Japan’s economy ministry plans to formally set targets by the end of the year, according to NHK.

Elsewhere in Asia, China is poised to give fossil-fuel powered cars more time to co-exist with electric vehicles. The head of a panel advising the government on the matter said in September that the country shouldn’t set a firm timeline for phasing out of cars that run on fossil fuels. The panel proposed a new-energy vehicle target of 15% to 25% for 2025, with this figure rising to 50% to 60% for 2035.

About 3.8 million electric vehicles were on the road in China at the end of 2019, and that’s expected to grow to 80 million by 2030. The number of hydrogen cars, meanwhile, is projected to hit 1 million by 2030 from about 6,000 at the end of last year.

Singapore plans to phase out fossil-fuel powered cars by 2040, following in the footsteps of European countries such as France and Norway. — Bloomberg

Italy bans Christmas midnight mass amid pandemic

ROME — Italians will not be able to attend midnight mass or move between regions over the Christmas period, a top health ministry official said on Wednesday, as the country battles high coronavirus infection rates and deaths.

Italy has been reporting more daily coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) fatalities than any other European nation in recent weeks and, while the increase in new cases and hospital admissions is slowing, the government is worried about gatherings over Christmas.

Junior Health Minister Sandra Zampa said Christmas Eve mass must end by around 8:30 p.m. so that worshippers can return home before a 10 p.m. curfew, and people should not invite non-family members home for Christmas lunch or other celebrations.

“From Dec. 20, people will only be able to travel outside their own region for emergencies such as to care for a single parent,” she said in an interview with private television channel La7.

The government has already said ski resorts will be closed over the Christmas and New Year period.

The cabinet is meeting late on Wednesday to decide the details of restrictions over coming weeks, which Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is expected to outline at a news conference on Thursday.

The existing restrictions, which have put much of the industrial north under partial lockdown and limited business activity, are due to expire on Thursday.

Italy saw 684 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, down from 785 on Tuesday, and 20,709 new infections, the health ministry reported earlier.

The first Western country hit by the virus, Italy has seen 57,045 COVID-19 fatalities since its outbreak emerged in February, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain’s. It has also registered 1.642 million cases.

Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Wednesday the government had options to buy 202 million COVID-19 vaccine shots from various companies and was awaiting clearance for their usage from European Union (EU) drug authorities.

“We finally see land, we have a clear route to a safe harbour… It seems likely that from January we will have the first vaccines,” Mr. Speranza told the upper house Senate.

He said the main part of the Italian vaccine campaign would be conducted between spring and summer 2021, with health workers, elderly people and those living in nursing homes getting the first shots, and the army involved in distribution. — Reuters

Britain’s Prince Harry suggests COVID is rebuke from nature

LONDON — Britain’s Prince Harry has suggested that the coronavirus pandemic is a rebuke from nature as he called for more action to tackle climate change.

The prince spoke during a conversation about the environment with the chief executive of a streaming platform for climate documentaries.

“Somebody said to me at the beginning of the pandemic, it’s almost as though Mother Nature has sent us to our rooms for bad behaviour, to really take a moment and think about what we’ve done,” Harry said.

“It’s certainly reminded me about how interconnected we all are, not just as people but through nature. We take so much from her and we rarely give a lot back.”

Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have spoken out on issues such as race and the environment since stepping down from their roles as working members of the royal family at the end of March and moving to California.

The prince, who has been criticised in the past for his use of private jets, urged people to imagine being a raindrop in order to help repair the Earth.

“Every single raindrop that falls from the sky relieves the parched ground,” he said. “What if every one of us was a raindrop? If every single one of us cared? We do, because we have to, because at the end of the day nature is our life source.”

Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have stepped up warnings that deforestation, ecosystem destruction and illegal trade in wildlife can increase the risk of disease transmission from animals to people, and have urged tighter controls. — Reuters

Gin Kings go for 3-0 series lead

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo, Senior Reporter

THE Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings seek to pin down the TNT Tropang Giga further in their best-of-seven PBA Philippine Cup finals series as they go for a commanding 3-0 lead in Game Three on Friday at the Angeles University Foundation Sports Arena in Pampanga.

Displaying their trademark “never say die” ways in the previous match, the Kings came charging back and took Game Two, 92-90, to move closer to winning the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) All-Filipino title.

Stanley Pringle and Aljon Mariano towed Barangay Ginebra to the victory, with the other key cogs stepping up late.

The explosive Pringle was top-notch throughout the contest, finishing with a team-high 34 points to go along with eight assists and six rebounds.

Mr. Mariano, meanwhile, came off the bench and had 20 points and nine rebounds.

TNT had a seven-point lead, 84-77, with less than five minutes left to play and seemingly in control on the way to the win.

But Barangay Ginebra had other plans, rallying back to level the count at  84-all with 1:53 to go.

The Tropang Giga had their chances to create distance anew, but could not consummate them, which the Kings made them pay for it.

Scottie Thompson, who struggled offensively all game long, drained a clutch three-pointer, his lone basket in the match, with 30 seconds left on the game clock to make it 87-85 in favor of Barangay Ginebra.

It was leverage the Kings took full advantage of, with free throws from LA Tenorio in the closing seconds securing the win for them.   

Jared Dillinger had eight points for Barangay Ginebra with Japeth Aguilar and Jeff Chan adding six points apiece.

For TNT, Roger Pogoy had a game-high 38 points as he tried to compensate for the absence of leading scorer Ray Parks, Jr., who missed Game Two after reaggravating a left calf injury in the series opener.

The Tropang Giga are hoping to have him back in harness come Game Three.

Backstopping Mr. Pogoy last game was Simon Enciso with 15 points, followed by Jayson Castro with 13 points and six dimes.

JP Erram had a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds.

“We are thankful to win tonight, but I think we still could have played better. There is not much to celebrate just yet because games could go either way moving forward,” said Kings coach Tim Cone following their Game Three win, taking note of how TNT had Barangay Ginebra needing scramble in each of the first two matches.

“A 2-0 lead means nothing for a team like TNT and I truly believe that. So, we cannot be comfortable at this point knowing that TNT dominated us for much of the first two games,” he added.

Game Three of the PBA Philippine Cup finals is set for 6 p.m.

Rene Catalan, Jomary Torres in ONE: Big Bang card today

ONE Championship gets its December offering going on Friday with “ONE: Big Bang”, which will feature two Filipino fighters in Rene “D’Challenger” Catalan and Jomary “The Zamboanginian Fighter” Torres in the card.

Happening at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, Mr. Catalan (6-3) takes on Bokang “Little Giant” Masunyane (7-0) of South Africa in a strawweight clash while atomweight Torres (4-4) collides with Ritu “The Indian Tigress” Phogat (3-0) in a pair of three-rounders.

Catalan-Masunyane is a replacement fight to that involving Filipino flyweight Danny Kingad, which had to be cancelled after one member of his team tested positive for the coronavirus.

Mr. Catalan, 41, who is the third ranked fighter in his division, is out to bounce back after losing (submission) in his title shot in November last year to reigning champion and compatriot Joshua Pacio.

He is using the Masunyane fight as springboard to position himself for another go at the strawweight division apart from being back in the swing of things after months without Circle action because of the pandemic.

“I feel excited to be back in competition. This is what I love to do. It’s where I belong,” said Mr. Catalan, who won a silver medal for the Philippines in sambo in last year’s Southeast Asian Games.

“My goal is to come up and take the top ranking in the division, so expect me to fight strong. I am hungry and I will fight like it so I can reach my goal of being number one again and challenging the champion once more,” he added.

TORRES FUNK
Meanwhile, Ms. Torres is looking to go back to the win column, after coming out empty in her last fight fives, the most recent being a no-contest.

The Filipina fighter, out of the Catalan Fighting System, opened her ONE career by winning her first three fights before hitting the rough patch.

“I want to win this fight for my family, to make them proud, and to help them. I want to knock her (Phogat) out,” said Ms. Torres, who made her ONE debut in 2017.

Adding, “I know I’m the underdog here and people think I have very little chance in beating her. But I think I will surprise a lot of people.”

ONE: Big Bang is headlined by the light heavyweight kickboxing world championship fight between titleholder Roman Kryklia of Ukraine against challenger Murat Aygun, who is representing the Netherlands and Turkey.

It will be broadcast over One Sports+ at 8:30 p.m. One Sports will air the event on a same-day delay at 9 p.m. TV5, meanwhile, will air the event on a next-day delay at 11 p.m. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

FIBA takes pride in successful staging of qualifiers

NOVEMBER was a busy stretch for world basketball governing body International Basketball Federation (FIBA) as it hosted a number of Continental Cup qualifiers; an effort it took pride in as these were successfully staged despite a myriad of challenges.

Done in extraordinary circumstances because of the ongoing situation with the global coronavirus pandemic, FIBA pushed through with the continental qualifiers last month after action was suspended early this year.

Seventy-eight qualifying games, which featured 72 teams and 870 players from around the world, were played in protected environment “bubbles” across 15 different cities in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

Under the bubble, tournament participants were holed up in a specific area to allow them to have a close contact in a very defined and exclusive setup to guard against the spread of the coronavirus and so as to have less disruption.

Guided by health and safety protocols it has set up, done in consultation with various groups, particularly the World Health Organization, FIBA was happy to report that extensive precautionary measures were successfully and consistently implemented throughout the staging.

In all bubbles, it reported, only four games were postponed as protocols were applied.

FIBA said it was a testament to its “capacity to organize operations safely on such a large scale with its regional offices.”

PRECAUTIONS DONE
In the lead-up to the qualifiers, where the Philippines participated in (Asia) and went 2-0 in its games in Bahrain, FIBA made sure it covered all the bases with the health and safety of all participants in mind.

In preparation for the qualifiers, 18 webinars were organized to increase the understanding and awareness of the coronavirus protocols among the hosts, participating national federations and local authorities, with more than 400 participants in total.

To ensure a safe environment in the bubbles, all athletes and team members had to present two negative coronavirus tests before travelling to the bubbles — with one test done no later than 72 hours before the departure and another one five days previously.

Participants were tested again upon arrival. More than 5,000 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests were submitted before travelling and more than 4,000 PCR tests were organized on-site.

To help it in its conduct of the Continental Cup Qualifiers, FIBA drew from its experience previously of hosting events in bubbles from the FIBA 3×3 World Tour 2020, the Basketball Champions League Qualifiers and Final 8, as well as the recently concluded FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2021 Qualifiers.

Next for FIBA is the third and final window of the Continental Cup Qualifiers in February next year, which will also be done in bubbles.

PHILIPPINES AS HOST
Meanwhile, the country serving as host for one of the bubbles in the third window could be a possibility after the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas offered the Philippines as a site.

SBP said it has reached out to FIBA and is eyeing Clark, Pampanga, as the bubble venue.

The local basketball federation has also talked to officials of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority for the bubble hosting, similar to what the Philippine Basketball Association has done. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

National team players call out PHILTA on the ITF suspension

“GET your act together.”

That was the appeal made by national tennis players Treat Huey and Johnny Arcilla to the Philippine Tennis Association (PHILTA) after the body was suspended for two years by the sport’s international governing organization, jeopardizing the participation of Filipino netters in future competitions.

Recently, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) moved to suspend PHILTA for two years over the latter’s refusal to submit reportorial requirements, including amendments to its constitution to diversify its membership.

PHILTA reportedly continued to refuse to heed the long-standing request, leaving the ITF with no choice but to hand down the tough decision.

Messrs. Huey and Arcilla have added their voices in calling out PHILTA for its failure to avert the suspension, more so since it comes amid very tough times for tennis, and sports in general, because of the global coronavirus pandemic.

“If my fellow players are barred from the Davis Cup and other international team competitions, it would be a huge blow to our livelihood in an already-trying time,” said Mr. Huey in a statement.

“The athletes should not suffer because of the shortcomings of PHILTA which we have no control over and are not even made aware of. I really hope that there will be positive changes moving forward, starting off with the holding of an election. My ultimate hope is to have a unified and a more efficiently run organization that will ensure that all the tennis players in the country will be properly taken care of,” added the long-time national player, who also expressed longing to get back into action after the forced layoff this year because of the pandemic.

Similar reforms are also being asked by Mr. Arcilla, a veteran campaigner for the country in the Davis Cup.

“PHILTA must fix its affairs and address this issue. It has to make positive changes for the betterment of Philippine tennis by instituting programs for national athletes,” he said.

Adding, “Players like us are the ones suffering, especially the juniors players who are affected by this suspension.”

ITF President David Haggerty said they gave PHILTA the chance to address the issues before handing down the decision, but nothing came out of it.

The ITF and the local tennis stakeholders are now awaiting the next moves of PHILTA. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

GAB to hold virtual professional sports summit this weekend

THE Games and Amusements Board (GAB) is set to hold the Second Professional Sports Summit on Saturday, Dec. 5.

Done via Zoom Teleconferencing to adapt to the existing conditions with the coronavirus pandemic, the one-day virtual event, with the theme “Leadership in Crisis,” will gather anew experts and stakeholders to discuss various matters geared towards shoring up different facets of the local professional sports scene.

The summit will be divided into two parts, with the morning session focusing on different topics related to boxing rules, mental health, and laws related to professional sports, among others.

In the afternoon, there will be a live session, where different sports icons and national leaders are expected to attend and share their thoughts and experiences.

Senator Sonny Angara, who is also the chairman of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), is expected to be back in this year’s edition of the summit.

Invitations were also extended to Sen. Bong Go, chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports; Sen. Joel Villanueva and Sen. Manny Pacquiao.

Some of the country’s sports icons such as former world boxing champion Gerry Peñalosa, pool legends Efren “Bata” Reyes and Django Bustamante, Asia’s first Grandmaster Eugene Torre, and former Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Best Import Sean Chambers will also be gracing the event.

The summit comes at a time where professional sports is trying to get back on track after being sidelined for months by the pandemic.

Since October, leagues like the PBA, Chooks-to-Go 3×3 Pilipinas and Philippines Football League have successfully resumed activities but operated under strict health and safety protocols that GAB and other regulating and government bodies crafted. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

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