Aboitiz and SFELAPCO donates P7-M for construction of school

in San Fernando
LOCAL NEWS

San Agustin Integrated School Annex in the City of San Fernando is the beneficiary of the new soon-to-
be constructed building by the Aboitiz Power and its service partner San Fernando Electric Light and
Power Company

This as SFELAPCO and Aboitiz Power officers were in the city over the weekend for the groundbreaking
ceremonies of the new building.

The event was attended by Aboitiz Power Corporation first vice president Juan Alejandro Aboitiz,
SFELAPCO senior manager Jesus Patricio Lazatin, Maribeth Marasigan of Aboitiz Foundation, Principal
Mario Deraco and Vice-Mayor Jimmy Lazatin.

The project will feature four classrooms in a two-storey building that can cater to the needs of the 350
students of the said school. The project is made possible through the joint donation of Aboitiz Power,
Aboitiz Foundation and SFELAPCO.

Vice-Mayor Lazatin said that the project is a welcome development as it would answer the need for
additional classrooms of the school. The school currently hosts double shifting of classes to
accommodate the entire student population.

"This is a clear example of how the partnership with the private sector can for the local community,"
Lazatin said.

Meanwhile, Aboitiz Power Corporation first vice president Juan Alejandro Aboitiz said that the project is
part of the corporate social responsibility program of Aboitiz Power and SFELAPCO. He added education
is part of the major priorities of Aboitiz with its corporate social responsibility program with SFELAPCO.
Philippines shows promise despite losses to Indonesia,
Thailand in ASEAN Grand Prix
SPORTS NEWS
Finally, after all the hoopla involving its formation, the Philippine women’s volleyball team got to know
how it stood in the scheme of things.
Its heart-breaking five-set defeat at the hands of Indonesia, 25-21, 26-28, 12-25, 25-18, 15-9, in Friday’s
A Grand Prix opener gave a glimpse of what the much-followed squad is capable of doing.

“You know we are a strong team, we have our definite strengths and weaknesses so we were able to get
through and show what we are made of and what we can do well,” said top spiker Kalei Mau.

“But you know it’s not how you started, it’s how you finished so I thought, obviously Indonesia wanted it
more,” added the FIl-American open hitter, who scored 15 points versus Indonesia.
For starting libero Dawn Macandili, the game revealed how little they know each other on court.

“They (Indonesia) are not that tough, but I think we need to develop chemistry on the court,” said
Macandili.
Head coach Shaq delos Santo said he is thankful of the outcome because its showed team’s character
which is essential in its quest to medal in the coming Southeast Asian Games.

“The coaching staff is very proud of the players because they gave everything they got,” he said. “We
just fell short. We need this kind of exposure and finally to get get completed.”

The Philippines missed the services of key players Alyssa Valdez and Mika Reyes who are recuperating
from minor injuries and will join the team in the coming training camps.

Mau also felt that the team was coming in hot because of the short time they were allowed to warm up
inside the busy Terminal 21Mall courts.

“I thought we didn’t really get off to a good start for the game. We’ re actually starting to with a super
crunchtime of a warm up,” said Mau. “I didn’t actually get to to my pre-game ritual, everything was
kinda off from the beginning.”

She added: “And the girls, we just didn’t have the energy going into the match. So, I think the next game
we gotta change that if they’re gonna give us a little bit of time to warm up or we probably gotta do that
on our own before we get here.”

The Philippines went on to drop its second game in a row but the team went down swinging before
yielding a 25-13, 25-21, 23-25, 25-20 loss to perennial Southeast Asian Games champion
Thailand Saturday afternoon.
Mau paced the Filipinas anew with 12 points against the Thais.
The Nationals hope to end their campaign on a winning note against Vietnam on Sunday.
Ambushing reason, common sense
EDITORIAL

Any lowly subordinate knows the abysmal feeling — he says something he thinks is good for the work,
his boss and the company, only to be undermined by his superior with a bald denial, or a claim to the
contrary.
Salvador Panelo must know the feeling. How many times has he said one thing on the Malacañang
podium as the President’s mouthpiece, only for the garrulous top banana to say yet another thing,
forcing Panelo to scramble for even more convoluted attempts at clarification that he himself, in his
salad days as the go-to defense counsel for the country’s high and mighty, would have laughed out of
the courthouse?

Take last Tuesday, when Panelo took to task a new US-made documentary being shown in film festivals
abroad about President Duterte’s war on drugs. Directed by James Jones and Olivier Sarbil, the film, “On
the President’s Orders,” follows Filipino policemen as they carry out the President’s bloody centerpiece
domestic program over six months from 2017 to 2018.
Panelo hadn’t seen the film; nevertheless, based on news reports about it, he blasted the work as
biased, defamatory and “bordering to [sic] black propaganda.”

“The Palace is vexed by the continuous spread of disinformation against our country’s campaign against
illegal drugs and criminality,” moaned Panelo. “Even the title of the docufilm reeks with malice, making
it appear that the drug-related deaths were done upon the orders of [Duterte].” No, he insisted: “Drug-
related killings are absolutely not state-initiated nor state-sponsored.”
One must admit — if stringing together sentences into a full-throated defense were the sole basis for
whether a lawyer does good by his client, Panelo is certainly earning his keep well as the booster-in-
chief of the President.
Except… Is the President even appreciative? Does he delight in seeing his spokesperson and chief legal
counsel all bristled up in righteous indignation over perceived slights to his beloved boss, only for the
boss himself to pull the rug from under the guy?
Mere hours after Panelo’s early-evening interjection that no, horrors no, the President isn’t behind the
sheer orgy of killings that has defined his administration, Mr. Duterte, also in Malacañang, blurted
something out before a gathering of newly appointed officials that, in one fell swoop, virtually made
Panelo out to be, well, a teller of tales, a spinner of yarns, a fabulist.
The President doesn’t order killings? Mr. Duterte himself all but begged to disagree: “Loot, p—mo,
nanalo pa na mayor. Inambush kita, animal ka, buhay pa rin!”
That was how the President admitted to the whole nation that he had ordered the ambush of Vicente
Loot, the former mayor of Daanbantayan, Cebu, whom he had tagged in 2016 as a “narco-general.”
In 2017, Duterte said, “I told Loot, you son of a whore… I will kill you.”

A few months later, right before the May 2018 elections, gunmen fired at Loot in Daanbantayan at a
port, wounding four people, though Loot escaped unharmed. Mr. Duterte, offering no evidence, then
laid the blame for that foiled ambush on his one-time rival in the presidential race, Mar Roxas.
But this time, it appeared the President couldn’t be bothered with having to stick to that cover story
anymore, and so ended up bragging off the cuff about his tough-guy exploit right in Malacañang.
Could the admission be any more direct? “Inambush kita”: I ambushed you or I had you ambushed —
either way, the claim of responsibility was plain, clear and unambiguous, and sounded even proud, to
any reasonable ear.
Spare a thought for what must have been a thoroughly stricken, mortified Panelo the moment he got
wind of the President’s incriminating words; imagine the midnight oil burning into the wee hours as the
presidential defense squad desperately hunkered down to attempt to craft, yet again, a sober-sounding
explanation-cum-reinterpretation of the President’s statement that they themselves wouldn’t gag on;
failing that, whatever they could dash off to stanch the damage to the President.
Here is the outstanding piece of apologia-deconstruction Panelo and his team managed to bewilder the
public with the next day: “What the President intended to say was: ‘Inambush ka na, buhay ka pa.’ That
has been his line as shown by the transcripts of some of his previous speeches every time he touches on
the topic of General Loot’s ambush.” It was all, as usual, a confusion over the President’s Bisaya way of
talking since “he is not proficient in Filipino,” chirped Panelo.
Ambushing reason, common sense, the plain truth — ah, the enviable life of a presidential spokesperson
these days.
UN Chief basks in climate spotlight, amid global conflict clouds
WORLD NEWS

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will position himself on the

frontline against climate change as he presides over a UN
emergency summit, a role some say he turned to after difficulties in
resolving global conflict.
Speaking about rising temperatures, the 70-year-old recently told
journalists, smiling discreetly: “I don’t pretend I rule the world. My
main objective is to make as much noise as I can.” 
In May, he traveled to the South Pacific where rising sea level
threatens entire island nations and more recently to the hurricane-
ravaged Bahamas, witnessing a devastation the likes of which he
said he had never seen.
Mobilizing the globe’s movers and shakers against climate change is
paramount in the eyes of Guterres, who served as Portugal’s prime
minister from 1995 to 2002 and often mentions not wanting to leave
his grandchildren a destroyed planet.

However, the focus on climate change marks an evolution for

Guterres, who arrived in the role in early 2017 under the belief that
his predecessor, South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon, had already achieved
great things with the 2015 Paris climate accord.
“Guterres wanted to focus instead on crisis management,” said
Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, noting in the same
breath that Guterres’ “crisis management failed first in Cyprus, then
this year in Libya.”

In Libya, Guterres’ humiliation was severe. He traveled to the

country to personally advance prospects for a political solution, only
to have one of the negotiating parties launch a deadly offensive to
seize the capital of Tripoli in the wake of his departure.

The secretary-general’s human rights efforts around the world have

resulted in meager gains, with many NGOs believing he could do
much more.
While the UN helped broker the end to a decades-old dispute
between Greece and Macedonia, which resulted in the latter
country’s name change to the Republic of North Macedonia, little
has come of efforts to halt conflict in Syria and Yemen or ethnic
cleansing in Myanmar.

Following the Monday climate summit, Guterres will steer the UN

General Assembly, herding 91 heads of state, six vice presidents, 45
heads of government and more than 40 ministers through
“diplomatic fashion week” or “diplomacy speed dating” as the New
York gathering is often called at headquarters.
Potential conflict in the Middle East between the United States and
Iran will dominate discussion at the General Assembly, where
Guterres will adeptly work his skill at behind-the-scenes diplomacy
to reduce tensions, in sharp contrast with his flashier center-stage
efforts on climate change.
On a daily basis, Guterres, who sets his watch ahead by three-
quarters of an hour — deeply disturbing to some dignitaries who
have visited him — says he strives to manage jetlag and admits that
he doesn’t sleep on airplanes.
The practicing Catholic said that one of the difficulties of his job is
doing “everything I can for the billions of people that live in very
difficult circumstances in the world.”
It’s these sorts of interpersonal skills that have earned him praise
from the majority of ambassadors working at the UN.
Even amid a push by US President Donald Trump to slash UN
funding, Guterres has persevered, only just beginning to make
sense of an organization he might like to head for a second term.
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Gasoline prices spike up by P2.35/liter; diesel by P1.80/liter
BUSINESS NEWS

It will be an extreme financially draining week for Filipino consumers as prices of gasoline will
climb by a hefty P2.35 per liter; while diesel prices will rise by P1.80 per liter this week.

The price of kerosene will also go up by P1.75 per liter – and this will come as a punishing blow
not just for households but also for industries relying on this commodity, including those in the
fishing sector as well as the aviation industry.

As of press time, the first one to send its cost adjustment advisory was Pilipinas Shell Petroleum
Corporation; and the price hikes will be effective 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday (September 24).

The actual price adjustments just seesawed slightly from the initial estimates of the oil
companies, because Friday trading in the world market has yet to be concluded when they
hinted of the price trends.

The surge in prices this week is manifestly triggered by the drone strike on the facilities of Saudi
Aramco last Saturday (September 14) – and its affected production accounts for roughly 5.0-
percent of world oil demand.

As culled from the monitoring of the Department of Energy (DOE), “the drone attack on Saudi
Arabia state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais resulted
to damages and crude oil production suspension of 5.7 million barrels per day or nearly 60% of
the country’s average production.” As of August this year, Saudi Arabia’s production stood at 9.8
million barrels per day.

The affected processing facilities of Saudi Aramco are two of its largest – with 7.0 million barrels
per day in Abqaiq; and 1.5 million barrels per day in Khurais.

By far, according to market watchers and analysts, “the drone attacks caused one of the largest
oil spikes in crude oil history,” with the Dubai crude as benchmark for Asian refiners rising by
about US$9 per barrel as of Tuesday (September 17) to the level of US$67.55 per barrel from a
leaner US$58 per barrel prior to the drone assault.

Nevertheless, the rally in prices immediately tapered off toward the weekend to US$62 per
barrel, as Saudi Aramco assures “immediate recovery”; while other global producers
guaranteed replacement for the lost barrels.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has a stockpile of 187.9 million barrels as of June, as culled from the
Joint Organization Data Initiative (JODI) – which infers then that the oil kingdom still has a supply
shield that could stretch for roughly 26.8 days.

At the same time, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) indicated that
beyond Saudi’s capacity, its member-countries have spare capacity of 0.7 million barrels per
day; while Russia said it could still lean on 0.25 million barrels of oil spare capacity.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) or the oil stockpile of the United States is also holding on
to 644.8 million barrels of crude oil in four sites in Texas and Louisiana, based on data provided
by the US Department of Energy.
PH's Masungi Georeserve
receives UNWTO recognition
TRAVEL AND TOURISM

The Masungi Georeserve in Rizal province has received an international

recognition for its sustainable tourism practices at the annual World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO) Awards in Saint Petersburg, Russia on Thursday.

Masungi Georeserve was nominated last year as a global finalist for the UNWTO
Awards for Enterprises, the flagship awards of the global tourism sector, along
with two other finalists from Italy and India.

The three were chosen among around 190 applications from 71 countries that
vied in the three awards categories: Public Policy and Governance, Enterprises,
and Non-Governmental Organizations. The 2019 UNWTO Awards for Enterprises
eventually went to Community Impact by V Resorts, V Resorts (under the aegis
of Bliss Inns Pvt. Ltd.), India.

"When we first started geotourism at Masungi, we hoped that guests would see
something special in it like we did. Fast forward to today, the project is receiving
its third international nod from no less than the United Nations World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO)," the Masungi Georeserve said in a statement Thursday.

"Our wish came true, for the world to see something special in a piece of rock
that was abandoned many years ago, and for the world to come together to
protect it," it added.

The destination, known for its sprawling limestone landscape and trails perched
on towering trees, is located at Kilometer 47, Marcos Highway in the town of
Baras, Rizal.

For over a decade, the Masungi Georeserve Foundation has sustained and
increased measures to protect the 2,700 hectares of vulnerable land, often
targeted as a site for quarry and illegal logging.

Although challenges persist in its conservation efforts, the foundation said the
UN recognition strengthens their resolve to further protect the destination.

"We will not, as we have not, shy away from facing the complex challenges in
conservation and innovation in the Philippine setting.
On behalf of the Masungi family, thank you for supporting us in your own
different ways," it said. Early this year, the conservation area was also
nominated for the World Travel & Tourism Council's Destination Stewardship
Award. (PNA)
An online museum that
immortalizes years of
martial rule
CULTURE

 Last year, during Ferdinand Marcos' 99th birthday, the Official

Gazette's Facebook page posted a tribute to the then-dictator, saying
that Marcos declared martial law "to suppress communist insurgency,"
and that he "stepped down" from power "to avoid bloodshed" at the
height of the People Power Revolution. The post was called out by social
media users for 'historical revisionism' and for downplaying the role
that Marcos played in the oppression of human rights. This is one
glaring reality showing how Filipinos remain divided over the memory
of martial law.

Since its declaration in 1972, martial law has always carried with it
two opposing narratives — one perpetrated by Marcos propaganda that
depicted martial law as the herald of a New Society that will bring
about 'change' and 'progress,' and the other, which displayed the
various human rights violations, evidenced by curtailed freedom of
speech and accounts of individuals who were tortured, jailed, and/or
killed.                                                                       

The opposing narratives are what the newly launched online portal,
Martial Law Museum seeks to address. Spearheaded by the Ateneo de
Manila University, the platform is a community response to reclaim
national memory and promote engaged citizenship; a resource with a
mission to reveal extensive information gathered of the 14-year
dictatorial rule in order to educate the public of the truth.

"Like it or not, this dichotomy is out there in the public arena and to
deny its existence is to fool ourselves into a state of mindless oblivion
or deliberate forgetfulness," says historian Maria Sereno Diokno,
during her keynote speech at the launch of the online museum.
For Diokno, it is necessary and significant that Filipinos memorialize
the shared experience of oppression and resistance to oppression,
especially at this time in the Philippines where there is a perceived
"creeping authoritarianism." She cites the 'problematic' actions of
government bodies of today, like the National Historical Commission of
the Philippines' (NHCP) decision to give historical markers both to
Marcos and her father, Jose "Ka Pepe" Diokno.

Her family, upon hearing the decision on Marcos' burial, refused to

accept NHCP's marker for her father. “How can two diametrically
opposed historical roles — one of a dictator, the other of a defender of
freedom and privacy — be rewarded equally by the nation's historical
body? By conferring historical recognition upon both Filipinos, the
NHCP board, in my family's view, sets a moral equivalence to
oppression and resistance to oppression.

Arjan Aguirre, project director of the Martial Law Museum, says that
what jolted the team into creating the website was the burial of the
dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Another motivating factor for
them was the near victory of Bongbong Marcos during the 2016
elections.

The platform is not purely about the dictator and his family; the
information goes beyond the Marcos reign. "Our initiative is not just
against a person, it's more of an initiative to engage a phenomenon
called dictatorship or authoritarian rule,” he says. “We are here to
commit ourselves to those things that are usually affected ... by
authoritarian rule: human rights, democracy, freedom, individual
dignity, etc."

Aguirre also adds that it is a communal, intergenerational initiative,

which means that all the information in the website is a collaborative
effort among past and present generations, academic institutions, and
civil society groups that all aim to present the truth about the
dictatorship.

The website presents three pillars: Mag-aral,

Magturo, and Manindigan. The Mag-aral library enables visitors of
the website to experience all of the content and the exhibits. Joshua
Uyheng, the project's head of research, says that they took a
chronological approach in presenting data and information under
the Mag-aral tab. "It's divided into four key sections: the beginnings
of martial law, martial law in the Philippines, the end of martial law,
and lessons of martial law," he says.

As Mag-aral is the main educational plank of the website, it goes into

the specifics of Marcos' speeches, his massive network of cronies, the
heroes who fought martial law, as well as a list of things Imelda
Marcos left when the Marcoses fled Malacañang, among many others.
Uyheng believes that within these documents, readers should be able
to evaluate whether any of Marcos' promises were fulfilled, how much
wealth the Marcoses have amassed over the years, and what Filipinos
endured during this time.

As mentioned by Aguirre, the initiative is not purely about the

Marcoses. Uyheng adds that they also included what Filipinos can
learn from this phenomenon. "What we want is not just for students or
visitors of the site to know the facts about martial law, but also what
we can learn from the entire historical experience," he says. "There's
really a more conceptual and deepened discussion on what democracy
versus authoritarianism is … what are [our] rights under the
constitution and how they can enact and engage citizenship."
Fil-Am teens' 'tinikling with
a twist' performance goes
viral
ENTERTAINMENT

They only wanted to pay tribute to their Filipino culture, but little did they know that it would catch
the attention of people on social media.

California-based dancers Olivia Mendoza and Mireya Paulos wanted to pay tribute to their Filipino
roots and decided to perform tinikling, a traditional Filipino folk dance they have seen their aunts and
uncles perform in the past.

"It's just something super different. Not a lot of people, especially if you're not Filipino, have seen it
before," Mendoza told NBC Los Angeles.

The performance was for Mendoza's 18th birthday celebration last August.

What made their tinikling dance stand out is the added a hip-hop song, "My Type" by rapper
Saweetie, to their performance.

Snippets of the video caught the attention of Saweetie, who reposted it in her Instagram account.

"Mahal ko ang kababayan kong Filipino (I love my Filipino people)," Saweetie wrote in the caption.

According to Mendoza and Paulos, the recognition inspired them to continue performing and sharing
their tradition to Filipinos in the area.

Paulos, who also choreographed the performance, posted a video of it on her YouTube channel.
Bots might prove harder to detect in 2020
elections
SOCIETY

In the journal First Monday, research by Ferrara and colleagues Luca Luceri

(Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana), Ashok Deb (USC ISI),
Silvia Giordano (Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana),
examine bot behavior during the US 2018 elections compared to bot behavior
during the US 2016 elections.

The researchers studied almost 250,000 social media active users who
discussed the US elections both in 2016 and 2018, and detected over 30,000
bots. They found that bots in 2016 were primarily focused on retweets and high
volumes of tweets around the same message. However, as human social activity
online has evolved, so have bots. In the 2018 election season, just as humans
were less likely to retweet as much as they did in 2016, bots were less likely to
share the same messages in high volume.

Bots, the researchers discovered, were more likely to employ a multi-bot

approach as if to mimic authentic human engagement around an idea. Also,
during the 2018 elections, as humans were much more likely to try to engage
through replies, bots tried to establish voice and add to dialogue and engage
through the use of polls, a strategy typical of reputable news agencies and
pollsters, possibly aiming at lending legitimacy to these accounts.

In one example, a bot account posted an online Twitter poll asking if federal
elections should require voters to show ID at the polls. It then asked Twitter
users to vote and retweet.

Lead author, Emilio Ferrara, noted, "Our study further corroborates this idea that
there is an arms race between bots and detection algorithms. As social media
companies put more efforts to mitigate abuse and stifle automated accounts,
bots evolve to mimic human strategies. Advancements in AI enable bots
producing more human-like content. We need to devote more efforts to
understand how bots evolve and how more sophisticated ones can be detected.
With the upcoming 2020 US elections, the integrity of social media discourse is
of paramount importance to allow a democratic process free of external
influences."
Countries backing Iceland resolution never gave PH anything
worthwhile-Locsin
FRONTPAGE

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Sunday defended the

alleged order to refuse grants and aid from other countries who
voted to approve a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
resolution calling for probe on the Philippines’ drug war killings.
“Experience showed the same countries that voted for the Iceland
resolution never gave or lent us anything worthwhile or offered with
conditions more onerous than the loans we’d have to pay back,”
Locsin said in a tweet.

Locsin was responding to former Commission on Election (Comelec)

commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal who argued: “If ‘we don’t need
money’ from countries, it means we don’t need money from
everyone. Not just some. Because if we still take out loans and ODAs
(official development assistance) from some but reject from others,
well…”

The Inquirer earlier reported that a confidential memorandum dated

August 27 from the Office of the President ordered a suspension of
all negotiations or signing of all loan and grant agreements with the
countries that voted in favor of the UNHRC resolution last July 11.