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2 survivors of capsized ship back home, to get gov’t aid

TWO FILIPINO SURVIVORS of a cargo ship that sank off Japan arrived in the Philippines on Saturday and will be getting cash aid from government as well help in finding new employment, according to the Labor department.

“We are also looking at possible job opportunities for them in other shipping companies in case they want to get back at work as soon as possible,” Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said in a statement on Sunday.

Chief officer Eduardo Sareno and deck crew Jay-nel Rosales were rescued by the Japanese Coast Guard after their vessel, M/V Livestock 1, capsized during a typhoone earlier this month.

Another Filipino crew member, Joel Canete Linao, whose remains were recovered by the Japanese Coast Guard, was flown in Friday.

His family will also receive assistance and benefits from the government. The vessel’s 43-man crew included of 39 Filipinos. — Gillian M. Cortez

What would happen to UHC law if PhilHealth is abolished, asks agency chief

PHILIPPINE HEALTH Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) President Dante A. Gierran said abolishing the agency would be “counterproductive,” especially with the Universal Health Care Act just at the start of implementation.

“It’s not good. It’s counterproductive to the Filipino people. You know, the President has just approved the Universal Health Care Act. Now, what will become of that law if the President abolishes the institution?” he said in an interview with CNN Philippines on Sunday.

The law, which automatically makes all Filipinos members of the state insurer, was legislated last year and its implementation started this year.

According to Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III,  President Rodrigo R. Duterte last week said he wants privatize or abolish PhilHealth, which has been marred with allegations of various irregularities and corruption.   

Both chambers or Congress launched inquiries on the agency and Mr. Duterte also created a task force to investigate alleged anomalies.

The task force’s initial report was submitted last week, recommending the filing of administrative and criminal cases against PhilHealth’s top officials, including its former president, Ricardo C. Morales.

Mr. Gierran, who was appointed to lead PhilHealth on August 31, said the agency’s administration under his watch should be given a chance to clean up the system. — Gillian M. Cortez

Reds knocks on VP’s door for peace talks in ‘post-Duterte scenario’

THE POLITICAL arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) aims to reopen peace negotiations with the government in a ‘post-Duterte scenario’ and plans to start laying the groundwork now through talks with Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo, who chairs the opposition party.

In a statement posted on CPP’s official website, National Democratifc Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Interim Negotiating Panel Chairperson Julie De Lima said they should “engage the constitutional successor to press for the resumption of the peace negotiation.”

“The NDFP, including its panel, should hold discussions with opposition parties, in particular, the Liberal Party LP,” she said.

In a separate interview, Bagong Alyansa Makabayan Secretary General Renato M. Reyes, Jr. told BusinessWorld that all options for peace should be explored even if Mr. Duterte’s administration already ended the peace talks.

“All options for peace should be explored, including options beyond the current administration. The people demand substantial reforms which are addressed through the peace negotiations,” he said.

Ms. Robredo has yet to respond to the proposal. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

Towards a fairer and more investment-inducing CREATE

THE government’s CREATE (Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act) recovery program, now a pending bill in Congress, proposes to reduce the corporate income tax (CIT) from 30% to 25% or a loss of an aggregate P625 billion in fiscal revenue in five years. This amount of pre-condoned CIT will only grow into the trillions in the future as the economy recovers and grows. This bonanza for business is granted to private registered corporations in the hope that they will then turn and invest the tax savings in jobs and income-creating projects to hasten the recovery. Unfortunately, as economic experience in past economic crises tells us, during an economic free fall, risk-averse business will place much of this bonanza in riskless government treasuries and central bank deposits, thus, defeating the avowed purpose. This profligate generosity to the rich in currently constituted CREATE contrasts with the resistance of the Department of Finance (DoF) to a true debt condonation for agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) which has a large scale-up potential for productivity and investment in the farm sector (the condonation in Bayanihan II is only band aid). This unfairness is a moral stinker!

If we must have CREATE, we have to at least make it fairer and more investment-inducing by: a.) widening the bonanza net to include the condonation of the principal of ARB debt which amounts to P58 billion; and b.) make the bonanza for the top 1,500 corporations conditional on some socially beneficial, market sustainable, and quickly implementable investment to move the economy to a more efficient, more Mother Earth-friendly, and more resilient next normal. My friend and fellow op ed writer Filomeno “Men” Sta. Ana also suggested some form of investment conditionality (BusinessWorld Online, July 5, 2020).

The aim of b.) above is to increase the overall supply of power which has so long bedeviled our power quality and improve its resilience, while reducing our dependence on imported fossil fuel and our carbon footprint to boot. We should deploy CREATE to incentivize the adoption of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) generation by large private corporations. At present there are hectares upon hectares of idle rooftops already owned by large businesses. Besides keeping solar radiation and heat out of our work areas, these rooftops could be repurposed to host solar PV installations. They can become urban solar farms engendering a new revenue stream! All the evidence to date point to the market increasingly favoring solar PV power generation over fossil-based generation, even over other renewables. The cost of solar PV-generated power has achieved — and even surpassed — parity with fossil-fueled power generation in many solar radiation-rich jurisdictions, especially for large consumers who mind the levelized cost of electricity. The attraction of solar PV generation in 2020 no longer rests on good corporate citizenship alone but even more seriously on an attractive bottom-line proposition.

Being located on rooftops, rooftop solar PV installations have unique cost advantages: they will avoid the opportunity cost of alternative use of farm areas associated with large-scale land-based solar and wind farms; they avoid costly transmission losses and associated fees; they avoid miscellaneous charges such as the universal charge; they avoid NIMBY issues and many costly environmental regulatory and permitting hurdles. They are modular — you can build up capacity as needed. Being distributed and, especially when paired with local storage, means resilience and power can flow even when the grid is down. The rooftop solar PV market in the Philippines is now very competitive with many solar installers. An added bonus, we locally produce solar panel modules in Laguna, Philippines. Solar PV investment is as close to being shovel-ready as one can imagine. Construction can start tomorrow and workers are hired. The chief hurdle to rooftop solar PV installations is no longer economics but a mindset comfortable with the social ecology of the 19th century fossil-driven centralized power technology and suspicious of the new.

How can CREATE help to usher in a new power revolution? Append a one-line eligibility requirement for the 25% CIT: a corporation in the top 1,500 will pay 30% CIT until it has installed a rooftop solar PV generation capacity the equivalent to at least x% (say, 20%) of its daytime power use backed up by a corresponding battery or other environment-friendly power storage (say, liquid metal storage already available in the market in lieu of back-up gas or oil fired generators). For those firms without substantial idle rooftops, equivalent modalities to satisfy the socially beneficial and market-sustainable investment requirements may be found. They may, for example, rent idle rooftops from other firms who have them in excess or even from households and schools. Such rooftop solar PV rent contracts now exist in the country. For example, Solar Philippines rents the rooftop of SM North parking building and supplies power to its host. Or they can put up independent energy storage companies serving the grid, or an independent rooftop rental company. Grid-scale energy storage have the feature of avoided cost: Negros Island during the day has now surplus power from abundant solar and biofuel (bagasse-based) generation but the limited inter-island submarine cable capacity means this can’t be exported; thus, these precious capacities are instead curtailed and wasted. Having grid-scale energy storage will avoid the cost of curtailment and avoid using coal-fired power at night. Having met the CIT reduction condition, these firms now qualify to pay the lower 25% CIT.

This will open up a new investment avenue for large and new businesses and provide a new growth spark for the recovering Philippine economy. The 5% tax differential will serve as a contingent tax on idle rooftops, which tax liability disappears as soon as the condition of solar PV installation and storage is met.

Private businesses will not invest to raise production in an economy of shrunken demand. But they can, and should, invest today to reduce the cost of producing output in preparation for the competitive marathon in full recovery. While this can be done in other ways, installing rooftop solar PV generation and storage ensures an investment that is socially beneficial, market-guided and of short gestation. The private sector has for decades complained but left to the government to resolve the poor quality and high cost of power in the country. Now is the time to step up and be part of the solution. What could be more comforting for private corporations in this age of stakeholder responsibility than marrying the love for Mother Earth and the bottom-line in rooftop solar PV farms? With, we hope, a little nudge from CREATE!

 

Raul V. Fabella is an Honorary Professor of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), a member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and a retired professor of the University of the Philippines. He gets his dopamine fix from hitting tennis balls with wife Teena and bicycling.

The struggle of memory against forgetting

Today, September 21-, marks the 48th anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos’ proclamation of martial law in the Philippines.

Recently, a social media debate erupted over a Tweet expressing a sentiment that has been rehashed time and time again: that the youth do not understand what they’re talking about when they speak out against the Marcos regime and martial law, as they did not live to experience it. The Tweet in question posited that the younger generation, when condemning martial law, is simply condemning a construct.

I was born in 1998 — 12 years after the dictator was overthrown by the People Power Revolution and almost 30 years after the declaration of martial law. Growing up, I was made very much aware of the atrocities of the Marcos regime, in large part because of the people who raised me.

Martial law and the EDSA revolution were a never-ending point of conversation both at home and in school. I’ll never forget the chills I felt in Grade 3 when researching for a history project, I read about Eman Lacaba. He was the poet, writer and activist who was killed upon capture, with the bullet fired at close range entering his mouth and piercing his skull. I was moved every single time I watched a student production of Desaparesidos or Dekada ‘70. In my freshman year in college, my English professor asked us to write a profile about someone who lived through martial law, and so I interviewed a family friend who had been incarcerated for years during the Marcos regime.

My parents and the educational institutions responsible for my formation made an effort to inform me of the facts and constantly expose me to all kinds of stories about martial law. This led me to seeing martial law atrocities not as a construct, but as a reality. When I express my condemnation of the violence and torture, widespread cronyism, and pillaging of the country’s resources during Marcos’ regime, I am doing so not because my parents or my schools brainwashed me into believing a certain narrative, but because they were responsible enough to tell me the truth and present me with facts.

The Tweet in question insinuated that we do not have the license to denounce historical events we did not live through. But I don’t necessarily have to live through the Japanese occupation to understand the gravity of crimes against Filipino comfort women.

When people try to paint martial law atrocities as a construct, or something that is subjective, it allows historical narratives to be falsified and our national memory to be distorted. It leads to revisionism and denialism, in the interest of “moving on.” It sweeps aside and invalidates the stories of all those who suffered and moved the struggle for freedom forward.

The spread of disinformation and the deeply divided political atmosphere have created fertile ground for Marcos supporters to attempt to undermine national memory. And it’s working — YouTube videos and Facebook posts glorifying the regime and peddling outright lies get thousands of views and shares. Earlier this month, the Congress approved a bill proclaiming Sept. 11 a special non-working holiday in Ilocos Norte to commemorate Ferdinand Marcos’ birth anniversary, for his “life and contributions to national development as a World War II veteran, distinguished legislator, and former president.” The bill received 197 affirmative votes.

And then we have the people who tell us to “move on and let go.” But we can never move on, because evidently, Marcos is still here.

He is still here through his wife Imelda, and his children, Bongbong and Imee, who not only have yet to return their ill-gotten wealth, but also wield an alarming amount of political power as legislators. They still have monopoly over the political space and are insidiously twisting the narrative in their favor, time and time again.

And of course, Marcos’ authoritarian regime persists today in the Duterte administration and its tactics. Both the Duterte and Marcos regimes have attacked press freedom and shut down the broadcasting network ABS-CBN, allied with the military and police, carried out extra-judicial killings and other human rights abuses, and portrayed themselves to be dismantling the oligarchy. The climate of impunity and oppression during Marcos’ era has found its way back to our current political landscape.

Now, more than ever, is the time for Filipinos, most especially the younger generation, to revive our collective memory and to resist those who deny and whitewash the atrocities committed during martial law and rehabilitate Marcos. As Milan Kundera wrote, the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

 

Pia Rodrigo is the communications officer of Action for Economic Reforms and a Political Science graduate of Ateneo de Manila University.

Trends in the e-commerce marketplace

As I write this, thousands of companies are under pressure to re-invent their businesses to adapt to the new normal. Products must be re-engineered to better suit home consumption, distribution channels must shift to direct deliveries, and brick and mortar retail outlets must morph into online stores. All these must be done in a matter of months or for as long as cash  runways lasts.

Manufacturers, retailers and restaurateurs must set aside the business practices they’ve perfected over the years and learn how to succeed in e-commerce and modern trade (supermarket and convenience store distribution). It is a gargantuan task — it is like asking a medical doctor to become a competent engineer in just six months. But regardless of how daunting the process of re-invention may be, businessmen must rise to the occasion if they are to survive in the post-COVID-19 world.

Businesses undergoing re-invention must answer several basic questions. They must decide how to tweak their products (or services) to better suit the market’s new preferences; they must determine the attributes that will make their products stand out and be competitive. They must identify their target market and the most efficient distribution channels to get to them. Making these decisions require timely and accurate data on consumer behavior.

Last week, I wrote about the shift in Filipino consumers habits and how e-commerce is now in the mainstream. Businesses today must have a digital strategy to stay relevant. Hence, this piece talks about e-commerce trends.

New York City-based McKinsey and Company, one of the world’s most trusted management consulting firms, recently released a report that accurately describes consumer behavior in digital marketplaces. Although the survey was conducted in America, the trends generally hold true for all market-driven economies like the Philippines. Released just three weeks ago, the report contains meaningful insights that will surely help existing and would-be e-commerce merchants.

Who exactly are the big spenders in e-commerce and what are they buying? The study shows that Millennials, or those aged 25 to 40 years old, lead the way in e-commerce adoption. The five product categories that Millennials spend most on are (from highest to lowest): Home entertainment products (e.g. Netflix), books and magazines, consumer electronics, non-food children’s products (strollers and toys), and groceries.

Generation X, or those aged 35 to 45, have also taken to e-commerce but not to the same extent as Millennials. They spend 55% of what Millennials do. The five product categories purchased most by Gen Xers are: home entertainment products, books and magazines, fitness and wellness products, non-food children’s products, and vitamins and supplements.

Generation Z, or those aged 10 to 25 years old, spend an even smaller fraction of the pie and their purchases are largely focused on apparel, footwear, at-home entertainment products (eg. video games) and food delivery.

Baby boomers, or those 55 years old or older, have generally not adopted to e-commerce and their share of the pie is too small to be relevant.

In terms of future growth, the 10 product categories seen to register the highest e-commerce growth include (from highest to lowest): over-the-counter medicines, groceries (including food, household supplies and personal care products), alcoholic beverages, furnishings and appliances, food take-out, fitness and wellness products, vitamins and supplements, non-food children’s products, snacks, jewelry, apparel, skincare and cosmetics.

The study also shows that brand loyalties were shattered by the pandemic. Nearly half of all respondents said that they switched brands primarily due to the unavailability of their usual brands in both brick and mortar stores and on the internet. Other respondents said that they were attracted by cheaper prices and promotions from competing brands. What is surprising is that among those that have switched brands, as many as 75% said they will continue using the new brands they switched to. For e-commerce merchants, this means the market is now open and ready to be wooed away from their usual brands.

So what product attributes matter most to e-commerce customers in the post-COVID-19 era?

No surprise, hygiene has emerged as the most important consideration. The survey shows that it is no longer enough for merchants to practice hygienic protocols in their back-of-house operations. These days, it is equally important to communicate these protocols to the market. Customers need assurances that the products they consume are safe. Further, merchants who employ technology to enhance hygiene, particularly contactless activities, have an advantage.

About 59% of respondents claim that their incomes have been negatively affected by the pandemic; 54% say that they are already finding it difficult to make ends meet. That said, consumers will continue to cut-back on non-essential items and will stick to buying only the essentials.

What product categories constitute “the essentials”? The top 11 “essential” categories, in order of importance, are: groceries, take-out food, snacks, non-food children’s products, fast-food restaurants, casual and fine-dining restaurants, skincare and cosmetics, apparel, footwear, furnishings and  appliances, and jewelry.

As people spend more time at home, we need to know what activities consume most of their time. The activities most indulged in gives us an idea of what goods and services will likely me more sellable.

Not counting office work, the home activities where time is mostly spent are: cooking, home improvement projects, watching movies, exercising, social media, texting and chatting, reading online news and watching television.

Fifty three percent of all respondents said they still fear going out of the house and will continue to stay at home. For the e-commerce merchant, this means home based products will continue to be in high demand until such time as a vaccine becomes commercially available.

No one said that the process of re-imagining, restructuring and re-tooling a business is easy. But executed well and backed by accurate information, businesses will not only adapt to the new normal — they will thrive.

 

Andrew J. Masigan is an economist

No to assault on press freedom, no to de facto martial law

IT IS CAUSE for anger that six months into a pandemic and the longest lockdown in the world, Filipinos have neither pressing nor complete information in their hands.

There has been no communication even about how the government migrated us from one type of community quarantine to another and back again. Except for the statistics of the infected, the dead, and the survived — numbers we are left to accept blindly — there appears to be no roadmap to navigating the pandemic. The health sector itself — “Keep us alive. We are the last defense. Keep us alive.” — has long been pleading for one. But if the IATF has a playbook, only the IATF knows.

Yet the people, left uninformed and excluded from discussion of policy, are quickly labeled “pasaway” and, worse, blamed for the rise in numbers. With this, officials not only do nothing to quell the fear on the ground, they further add to the alienation between themselves and the people. Officials so easily forget that this is still a democracy, and that in a democracy those voted into power are mere representatives of the people to promote economic and social good and those appointed into positions of authority are simple extensions of a people’s mandate.

Officials forget, too, that a democracy — even during a crisis or, most especially, during one — requires that there be transparency, that there be accountability in governance. Which requirements are fulfilled only when there is throughout the republic free press, free speech, and free expression. The road is cleared for totalitarian leadership when people do not have these. Seizure of state power is made easier when people do not have the information, cannot speak out, and are hesitant to investigate acts of corruption and bad governance.

Government knows this.

The heavy hand of the state has long been manifesting itself. The feisty Inquirer was first to be browbeat publicly by the President. Then came the progressive social news network Rappler, whose offices are in constant threat of being padlocked. After a long, testy relationship with the President, multimedia pillar ABS-CBN was effectively eviscerated when a Congress subservient to the President denied the network a new franchise. And returning to the scene is Red-branding, a terrifying practice by both the police and the military to suppress the media.

Cementing all this is the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). Certified as urgent by President Rodrigo Duterte on June 1, passed by Congress on June 3 or within three fast days of Duterte urging it, and submitted by the Upper and Lower Houses to Duterte on June 9, the ATA was signed into law by the President on July 3, 2020. The bill moved into law with a dizzying energy uncommon to our lawmakers, and yet this is the law to kill free press, free expression, and free speech in one blow. Already, 30 petitions — including one filed by Antonio Carpio, himself a former Supreme Court associate justice — have been brought before the Supreme Court questioning ATA on constitutional grounds.

As the petition of a group of journalists, academics, and lawyers pleads: “The protection of the Freedom of Speech is the one true constant in Philippine constitutional jurisprudence because it constitutes the cornerstone of our democracy. Without the freedom to speak truth to power, all our other freedoms mean nothing.”

We are not dismissive of the dangers that terrorism poses. We know them to be real. But already in place was the Human Security Act of 2007, which defined terrorism with particulars and whose sanctions were cognizant of human rights. That has now been repealed by the ATA of 2020. Execution is, of course, the ultimate test of any law. With the Human Security Act, there was at least the promise of power being balanced by accountability. With ATA, the government has given itself all the power but, frighteningly, none of the accountability.

ATA is de facto martial law — and this early it telegraphs abuse. So, we hold the line. We stay on watch.

Arguably a step as sinister as deposed President Ferdinand Marcos’s 1972 martial law, it institutionalizes a super body, called the Anti-Terrorism Council, populated by the President’s men, coming directly under the Executive Department, and answerable only to the President.

This is a Council with the power to designate who is a “terrorist” under a law so broad and nebulous that, under the wrong hands, anyone making noise can be said “to seriously destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, economic or social structures of the country, or create a public emergency or seriously undermine public safety.” Arrest follows.

Individuals questioning the government’s use of the COVID-19 budget, for instance, or groups protesting their hunger and lack of jobs under the worst recession in the country in 30 years — all can be arrested as terrorists just for making noise. As National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., vice-chair of the Anti-Terrorism Council no less, said one day after ATA was signed into law: “Kung tahimik naman sila, huwag silang mababahala.” (“If they are quiet, they should not worry.” — Ed.)

The press takes a direct hit.

ATA’s Section 9 would penalize content, making a terrorist out of anyone whose writing “incites” or “invites” or “proposes” to someone else to commit a terrorist act. In other words, it does not matter what you wrote or what you intended, the Council need only decide that you are guilty of inveigling someone, and it can have you arrested. As a “terrorist,” you then have your assets frozen and your electronic devices searched and seized, as you are arrested without warrant and locked up without charges for up to 24 days.

Without question, all this has a chilling effect.

We, concerned members of the College Editors Guild of 1969-1972, are living witness to dictatorship. We made the willful choice in 1972 to keep writing. We stood witness to a country being run aground by a Strongman. We worked to get the information out there to a people whose constitutional guarantees had been wiped out by a Strongman’s absolute greed and absolute power.

For this, we paid the price. Our stories are many, our chronicles slim. In the book Not On Our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened. We Were There., we managed to put together how our young lives were thrown off kilter, how we came under arrest and imprisonment, how we bore torture and exile, how our careers were derailed or crushed, and how our families paid the price with us.

Today, the signs are creeping up around us again.

We know that, once again, we need to safeguard our right to speak in every medium and platform. We know that we need to protect press freedom from every assault. We support those who have brought the case against ATA to the Supreme Court. We wait with vigilance and, even as we are angered by Malacañang and Congress failing us, we trust that the highest court in the land does the right thing. The very quality of our lives and the lives of those who come after us is at stake here.

We will not have de facto martial law. Not on our watch.

Concerned Members of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines 1969-1972

Thai protesters challenge monarchy, seek reforms

BANGKOK — Openly challenging the monarchy of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn, thousands of protesters marched in Bangkok on Sunday to present demands that include a call for reforms to curb his powers.

Protesters have grown ever bolder during two months of demonstrations against Thailand’s palace and military-dominated establishment, breaking a longstanding taboo on criticizing the monarchy — which is illegal under lese majeste laws.

The Royal Palace was not immediately available for comment. The king, who spends much of his time in Europe, is not in Thailand now.

The marchers were blocked by hundreds of unarmed police manning crowd control barriers.

Protest leaders declared victory after handing police a letter detailing their demands. Phakphong Phongphetra, head of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said on a video broadcast from the scene that the letter would be handed to police headquarters to decide how to proceed.

“Our greatest victory in the two days is showing that ordinary people like us can send a letter to royals,” Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak, told the crowd before it dispersed.

At the biggest demonstration in years, tens of thousands of protesters on Saturday cheered calls for reform of the monarchy as well as for the removal of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former junta leader, and a new constitution and elections.

Shortly after sunrise on Sunday, protesters cemented a plaque near the Grand Palace in Bangkok in the area known as Sanam Luang, or Royal Field.

It reads, “At this place the people have expressed their will: that this country belongs to the people and is not the property of the monarch as they have deceived us.”

Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said police would not use violence against protesters and it was up to the police to determine and prosecute any illegal speech.

Bangkok authorities would need to determine whether the plaque is illegal and if it is it would need to be removed, Bangkok’s deputy police chief Piya Tawichai told reporters.

Far from all Thais support the new plaque, which resembles one that had commemorated the end of absolute monarchy in 1932 and which was removed from outside a royal palace in 2017, after Vajiralongkorn took the throne.

“Who voted or elected them to deface public property like this?” wrote Somchai Chaihat on Twitter of the new plaque. “Trash it.”

Thai authorities have said criticising the monarchy is unacceptable in a country where the king is constitutionally “enthroned in a position of revered worship”.

Protests that began on university campuses have drawn increasing numbers of older people. That includes red shirt followers of ousted populist prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra who had clashed for years with pro-establishment yellow shirts before Prayuth seized power in 2014.

“The new generation is achieving what their parents and grandparents didn’t dare. I’m very proud of that,” said Somporn Outsa, 50, a red shirt veteran. “We still respect the monarchy, but it should be under the constitution.”

Protesters say the constitution gives the king too much power and that it was engineered to allow Prayuth to keep power after elections last year. He says that vote was fair.

The next protest is scheduled for Thursday. Protest leaders called on Thais to take Oct. 14 off work to show their support for change.

“Radical change is hard in Thailand, but the movement has at least kept the momentum going,” said Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of political science at Ubon Ratchathani University. — Reuters

Taiwan president says combat drills show China is a threat to whole Asian region

TAIPEI — The last two days of Chinese aircraft approaching Taiwan demonstrate that Beijing is a threat to the entire region and have shown Taiwanese even more clearly the true nature of China’s government, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Sunday.

Multiple Chinese aircraft flew across the mid line of the Taiwan Strait and into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone on Friday and Saturday, causing Taiwan to scramble jets to intercept. China claims Taiwan as its own territory.

At a news conference in Beijing on Friday about China’s U.N. peacekeeping efforts, China announced combat drills near the Taiwan Strait and denounced what it called collusion between the island and the United States.

The exercises took place as US Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Keith Krach was in Taipei, the most senior State Department office to come in four decades.

Speaking to reporters, President Tsai denounced China’s drills.

“I believe these activities are no help to China’s international image, and what’s more have put Taiwan’s people even more on their guard, understanding even better the true nature of the Chinese Communist regime,” she said.

“Additionally, other countries in the region also have a better understanding of the threat posed by China,” President Tsai added. “The Chinese Communists must restrain themselves, and not provoke.”

China’s air force on Saturday put out a video showing its nuclear capable H-6 bombers, which have been involved in many Chinese fly-bys of Taiwan, exercising.

One montage shows a simulation of an H-6 attack against an air base which appears by its runway layout to be the main US air force base on Guam.

Asked about that footage, and China’s decision to release it while Krach was in Taiwan, President Tsai said China’s recent activities where a threat broader than just to Taiwan.

“China’s existence is indeed aggressive and will bring a definite threat.”

China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Most people in democratic Taiwan have shown no interest in being run by autocratic China. — Reuters

Liberal Americans mourn passing of icon Ginsburg

WASHINGTON — Grief-stricken Americans gathered at makeshift memorials around the country on Saturday to mourn the death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal, feminist icon, as President Donald Trump signaled his intention to fill the vacancy weeks before a heated election.

Mourners heralded Ginsburg’s groundbreaking legal career and expressed dark worries about the country’s direction. Democratic Party vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, joined crowds outside the steps of the US Supreme Court in Washington on Saturday morning.

Ginsburg was “a titan — a relentless defender of justice and a legal mind for the ages,” Ms. Harris wrote in a tweet with a photo of the visit. “The stakes of this election couldn’t be higher,” she added.

Visitors to the Supreme Court left flowers and signs during the day, many with young children in tow. By Saturday evening the crowd swelled to fill the street in front of the courthouse. Mourners listened to an a capella group sing “A Change Is Gonna Come,” the civil rights era anthem, and to speakers including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Amanda Dym, an 18-year old college student, she’d known about the “notorious RBG,” was when she was younger, but didn’t realize how much work she’d done for women’s rights until she saw a documentary about the judge’s life. “I don’t know where the country would be without her,” she said, adding that she was “scared for the future of our democracy.”

Ginsburg, 87, died on Friday night from pancreatic cancer . Trump now has a chance to expand the US top court’s conservative majority as a presidential election looms at a time of deep divisions in America.

Candlelight tributes to Ginsburg started Friday evening and are expected to continue through the weekend. Hundreds also protested outside Republican US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home in Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday.

On Friday, McConnell said the Senate would vote on any replacement nominated by President Trump. The Republican president now has a chance to appoint his third justice and give the court a 6-3 conservative majority.

Protesters noted that in 2016, McConnell refused to act on Democratic President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, after conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died 10 months before a presidential election, saying it was too close to voting day.

“Don’t be a hypocrite,” said protestor Steve Tonnemacher.

Republicans narrowly control the Senate with a 53 of 100 members, and Democrats need a simple majority vote to stop any Supreme Court nominee.

Demonstrators chanted “Ruth sent us,” and “Ditch Mitch.” Protester Carol Edelen blasted McConnell saying “He will not advocate for any of our issues and to use this occasion to push his agenda, his power forward, is just unacceptable, just totally unacceptable.”

GINSBURG’S DEATH AS WAKE UP CALL
Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women in Washington, said she was moved to hear the blowing of many shofars – the traditional ram’s horn used to herald the start of the new year — at a vigil for Ginsburg at the Supreme Court on Friday evening.

“It’s a literal wake-up call to the Jewish people that we need to work together, and better ourselves,” said Katz. “We cannot simply mourn Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We must take action to honor her legacy, to fight for a fair court and to continue to protect women’s rights.”

Feminist activists fear that a third justice picked by Trump would give the court’s conservative majority a better chance of overturning Roe vs. Wade, the landmark decision holding that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion.

Hollywood celebrities paid tribute online. “I am heartbroken,” actor Jennifer Lopez wrote on Instagram. “She was a true champion of gender equality and was a strong woman for me and all the little girls of the world to look up to.”

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cynthia Enloe channeled her grief by making a poster encouraging motorists to honk in honor of the pioneer of women’s rights, and stood at a busy intersection on Saturday morning.

“When I heard the terrible news of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last night, my first thoughts and all my friends on email and text was, ‘This is horrible, it cannot get worse,’” Ms. Enloe told Reuters. “But then I thought, they want us to get depressed, and I thought I will do the opposite of being depressed. I will go out and make a poster and stand at the intersection and let people honk their support.”

A trailblazing women’s rights lawyer before she joined the court in 1993, Ginsburg — popularly known by her initials RBG — emerged as an unlikely pop icon in recent years, her image emblazoned on coffee mugs, T-shirts and children’s books.

In New York, an image of Ginsburg and the alternating messages “thank you” and “rest in power” were projected on the front of the New York State Civil Supreme Court building in Manhattan. Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled plans Saturday to erect a statue of Ginsburg in New York City’s Brooklyn borough where she was born.

More than 200 mourners held a candlelight vigil in San Francisco on Friday night and marched through the city’s Castro district. They carried a large sign that said “We won’t let you down RBG.” — Reuters

PBA ready for season restart

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo, Senior Reporter

BELIEVING that the league has done a good job covering all the bases, Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) officials said they are ready to resume their currently suspended season when given the go-ahead.

Targeted for Oct. 9, the PBA season restart took further form last Thursday when the league announced that it would be holding a “bubble” at Clark City in Angeles, Pampanga, for the resumption of action.

The decision was arrived after a meeting of the PBA’s Board of Governors aimed at finalizing the details of the restart of the season, which has been shut since March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the bubble setup, which is similar to that employed in the National Basketball Association, players, coaches, and staff of the teams and the league will be holed up in one location for the duration of the tournament and will be shuttled to and from the hotel and the playing venue.

Games will be played at the Angeles University Foundation while the teams will be staying in the nearby Quest Hotel.

It will be a compressed tournament for the PBA, lasting only two months and will feature two games daily. And the league expects to crown a champion by the second week of December.

“We’re ready and we’re excited. The Commissioner’s Office has done a good job with the plans, and they’re ready to execute as soon as we’re given the go-signal,” said PBA board chairman Ricky Vargas at the online press conference following the board meeting.

The PBA is reportedly spending around P65 million for the restart and the league has expressed its commitment to see its success.

“We will push through. It’s a go once we are allowed to,” said PBA Commissioner Willie Marcial.

The league is now awaiting approval to proceed from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).

It already wrote to the IATF and Mr. Marcial said they are expecting to get a response later this week.

Once they get the approval, the league will have the teams start doing scrimmages in preparation for the Oct. 9 restart.

Right now, teams are allowed to do modified workouts, with only four players on the court each time as part of measures to guide against the spread of the coronavirus.

Mr. Marcial said they will be strict in implementing measures once at the bubble.

For one, players caught violating league restrictions will be fined heavily and suspended.

“If they go out of the bubble, they will not have a salary for one month, fined P100,000, and suspended for five games in the next season,” said the PBA commissioner.

Players, however, have the option to opt out from participating in the bubble if they choose to do so, but it must be done prior to entry.

To ensure that players are taken care of inside the bubble, Mr. Marcial said they will make sure that proper amenities are available.

He said Quest Hotel is capable of catering to every need of 350 people participating, including 25 from each of the 12 teams. Dedicated buses for the teams will also be on hand.

Recreational amenities for video games, billiards, and table tennis, among others, are set to be provided.

Participants, too, can make use of golf and watersports facilities in Clark.

Coronavirus testing, through antigen tests, will be strictly enforced.

Meanwhile, all games in the bubble will be shown live on One Sports and PBA Rush with livestream on ESPN5.com. Games on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday will be simulcast on TV5.

First game will start at 4 p.m., while the second is at 8:00 p.m.

Tournament format will see a single round-robin elimination, with the top four seeds having twice-to-beat advantage in the quarterfinals. The semifinals will be a best-of-five affair, and the finals best-of-seven.

Celtics bounce back from consecutive losses, cut Heat Series lead to 2-1

MIAMI HEAT FORWARD BAM ADEBAYO (13) blocks a shot by Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0).  — REUTERS

JAYLEN BROWN scored 26 points, Jayson Tatum had 25 and 14 rebounds, and the Boston Celtics recovered from back-to-back tough losses to beat the Miami Heat 117-106 in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals Saturday night near Orlando.

Kemba Walker added 21 points and Marcus Smart 20 as the Celtics avoided falling behind 3-0 in the best-of-seven series. Boston shot 48.2% (41 of 85) as a team, outscoring Miami 60-36 in the paint.

Bam Adebayo had 27 points and 16 rebounds, and Tyler Herro scored 22 to lead six players in double figures for the Heat, who lost for just the second time in their 12th playoff game. Jimmy Butler had 17 points.

“We didn’t play hard enough,” Butler said. “We weren’t playing basketball the way that we have been to win the games that we have been winning.”

Game 4 will take place Wednesday (Thursday, Manila time).

In the wake of falling behind 2-0 in the series after Thursday’s defeat, Celtics players reportedly aired their frustrations in a raucous locker room scene. The team responded, boosted further by the return of Gordon Hayward (six points in 31 minutes) from an ankle injury that sidelined him since Aug. 17.

“I didn’t expect to play him that much,” said Celtics coach Brad Stevens. “I thought he looked pretty good. … He asked to come out a couple times — the wind caught up to him a couple times — but I thought he did what he’s done all year.”

“I’m extremely tired right now. My ankle is pretty sore, but I’m proud of the way we fought and proud of us getting the win,” Hayward said.

Boston never trailed, carrying a 13-point advantage into the second half for the second straight game. But unlike in Game 2, when they were outscored 37-17 in the third quarter, the Celtics maintained control and entered the fourth up 89-74.

Despite Boston leading by as much as 20 in the final period, Miami got within seven, 109-102, after Duncan Robinson nailed a 3-pointer and hit 1 of 2 at the line following a Brown flagrant foul with 1:03 left. Adebayo trimmed the deficit to five with 55.9 seconds to go, but Smart hit eight free throws as the Celtics held on.

“I don’t think we finished today as well as we would have liked, but we played some good basketball all the way through,” said Brown.

Boston was up 31-22 after one and grew its lead to 12, 36-24, on a Walker 3-pointer with 10:14 left in the first half. Miami responded with a 13-4 run to get within three, Herro nailing a trio of treys during the stretch.

The Heat were back within three, 51-48, with 3:22 remaining, but the Celtics ended the quarter on a 12-2 spurt to lead 63-50 at the break.

“They came out with great force in this game, and you do have to credit them for that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. — Reuters

Pole-vaulter EJ Obiena grateful for season he had

“WE FINALLY CAME TO SAY GOODBYE to the weird 2020 season. My 2019 self wouldn’t have predicted that 2020 would be so unpredictable. It has been a roller-coaster ride since January and still doesn’t show signs of slowing down,” wrote Filipino pole-vaulter EJ Obiena on his Facebook page.

IT WAS far from an ideal season but Filipino pole-vaulter EJ Obiena is grateful for the year he had competing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Tokyo Olympics-bound Obiena saw his campaign take unexpected turns, but had it strong once he resumed his season last month.

“We finally came to say goodbye to the weird 2020 season. My 2019 self wouldn’t have predicted that 2020 would be so unpredictable. It has been a roller-coaster ride since January and still doesn’t show signs of slowing down,” Mr. Obiena, 24, wrote on his Facebook page, following his bronze-winning showing at the Rome leg of the Diamond League on Friday.

It turned out to be the last tournament for him for the season as he would not be able to compete in the Doha Diamond League later this week because of visa problems.

But despite that, Mr. Obiena takes pride and delight in having performed well, placing in the top three in six of the eight tournaments he competed in, including winning gold at the 59th Ostrava Golden Spike in the Czech Republic on Sept. 9.

He capped things off with a bronze and season-best performance in Rome where he cleared 5.80 meters, eclipsing his previous best for the year of 5.74 meters in the Ostrava tournament.

Mr. Obiena thanked everyone who was part of his interesting 2020 journey, including his Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov who is overseeing his training in Italy, just as he vowed to continue working hard in preparation for the rescheduled Olympics in Japan next year.

“Thank you so much for everyone who has been a part of this weird season. I would like to think we did OK, considering everything. One one’s, two two’s and three three’s with a total of 6 out of 8 decent finishes. Let’s bounce to 2021 with the lessons of 2020 and keep moving forward,” he said.

Mr. Obiena qualified for the Olympics last year and was preparing hard for it before organizers of the Games made the tough decision to push back the quadrennial sporting meet from July this year to 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Filipino pole-vaulter is among four to date who have qualified for Tokyo. The others being gymnast Carlos Yulo and boxers Eumir Felix Marcial and Irish Magno.

The Philippine Sports Commission and Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association have been rallying behind Mr. Obiena in his Olympic push notwithstanding the many challenges posted by the pandemic. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

ONE Championship signs up Angela Lee’s younger sister

WORLD titleholders Angela and Christian Lee get to see their family represented further in ONE Championship after the promotion signed up their younger sister, Victoria, last week.

In an announcement, ONE said it is excited to welcome the 16-year-old Victoria to its fold, with Chatri Sityodtong, the promotion’s founder and chairman, describing the former as “arguably the single greatest pound-for-pound female prospect in the world today.”

Despite her young age, Victoria has accomplished a lot in martial arts, making signing her a no-brainer for ONE.

She won in the 2019 IMMAF Junior World Championship, has two Pankration Junior World Championships, and a Hawaii State Wrestling Championship title, among others. She is also a 15-time North American Grappling Association Expert Champion.

“I feel extremely excited and motivated to be part of the world’s largest martial arts organization, ONE Championship. Inspired by watching my older brother and sister compete on the biggest global stage of martial arts competition, I am ready to take my career to the next level and compete with the world’s best martial arts athletes,” said Victoria.

“I want to thank my parents for teaching me and guiding me, and for allowing me to chase my dreams. I promise all the fans that I will continue to train hard and develop my skills, and that I’ll be ready when I get the call to step inside the ONE Circle,” she added.

Interestingly, Victoria is set to compete in the atomweight division in ONE, which her older sister Angela has been dominating.

Older brother Christian, meanwhile, is the ONE lightweight champion.

“I am so happy for Victoria and extremely proud of her. She is a very gifted and driven young woman. She told us that this is her dream – to be a professional fighter – and as a family, we are going to support her fully,” said Angela of her sister turning professional.

No details have been given yet as to when Victoria will make her debut.

Meanwhile, ONE Championship finished the third of its ONE: A New Breed series on Friday in Thailand.

ONE featherweight muay thai world champion Petchmorakot Petchyindee Academy of Thailand retained his title by defeating Magnus Andersson of Sweden by way of a third-round technical knockout.

Next for the promotion is ONE: Reign of Dynasties on Oct. 9. – Michael Angelo S. Murillo

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