m

info@canadianinquirer.net
sales@canadianinquirer.net

facebook.com/
Philippine
Get this Great Offer and start
CanadianInquirer CANADA’S FIRST AND ONLY NATIONWIDE FILIPINO-CANADIAN NEWSPAPER FORDTO.CA
your journey in a new 2022 Edge

1.99% 60 * on most new

twitter.com/ 2022 Edge
APR Models
pcinews_twt NOVEMBER 11, 2022 www.canadianinquirer.net VOL. 8 NO. 515 Purchase Financing Months

LUNAR ECLIPSE

The Lunar eclipse as seen from Antipolo City, Rizal province on Tuesday evening (Nov. 8, 2022). A total lunar eclipse is when the sun, Earth and moon are aligned, with Earth in the middle. The
moon will pass through the center of the Earth’s shadow.
JOEY O. RAZON / PNA

PBBM, DOE tackle 23

‘immediate, medium-term’
plans for energy dev’t
BY RUTH ABBEY GITA-CARLOS
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – President Ferdinand R.
Marcos Jr. on Wednesday convened a
meeting with officials of the Department
of Energy (DOE) to discuss “immediate
and medium-term” interventions to de-
velop the country’s energy industry.
The meeting between Marcos and DOE
officials was held at Malacañan Palace in
Manila on Wednesday morning, hours
before he flew to Cambodia to participate
in the 40th and 41st Association of South-
east Asian Nations (Asean) Summits and
Related Summits next week.
“President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
conferred with officials of the Department
of Energy Philippines and other relevant
agencies to discuss immediate and medi-
um-term plans for energy development
❱❱ PAGE 6 PBBM, DOE tackle
Fighting inflation doesn’t directly
cause unemployment – but that’s
still the most likely outcome
25
`
Midterms 2022: 4 experts on the
effects of voter intimidation laws,
widespread mail-in voting – and
what makes a winner Is Twitter’s ‘blue tick’ a status sym-
bol or ID badge? And what will
PAGE 13
happen if anyone can buy one?

Advanced equipment and testing available

We direct bill most insurance companies:

Square One
Sun Life Green Shield
Manulife Blue Cross
Great-West Life Claim Secure Valid only at
Located in Square One Industrial Alliance Square One
inside Pearle Vision
If you are 19 years old and under or 65 years old
905-277-3052
and older, you are covered under OHIP**

visit www.drshekari.com *Eye exams available by Independent Doctors of Optometry inside Pearle Vision.
to schedule your eye exam*
12/31/2021.
2 NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY

www.canadianinquirer.net
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
‘Register anywhere’ to pilot in 5 NCR malls
starting Dec. 17
BY FERDINAND PATINIO
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The Commission
on Elections (Comelec) will pi-
lot the Register Anywhere Proj-
ect (RAP) for 10 weekends start-
ing Dec. 17 in five malls in the
National Capital Region (NCR).
In a statement Wednesday,
Comelec spokesperson John
Rex Laudiangco said the RAP
will be held every Saturday and
Sunday until Jan. 29, 2023.
However, there will be no
Murder raps filed vs Bantag,
others in Percy Lapid slay
BY BENJAMIN PULTA,
CHRISTOPHER LLOYD
CALIWAN
Philippine News Agency
MANILA — The Department
of Justice (DOJ) on Monday an-
nounced the filing of murder com-
plaints against suspended Bureau
of Corrections (BuCor) Director
General Gerald Bantag in con-
nection with the ambush-slay of
broadcast commentator Percival
“Ka Percy Lapid” Mabasa.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crisp-
in Remulla said the Department
of the Interior and Local Gov-
ernment, the Philippine Nation-
al Police, and the National Bu-
reau of Investigation have filed
murder complaints against Ban-
tag, BuCor Deputy Security Of-
ficer Ricardo Zulueta, and per-
sons deprived of liberty (PDLs)
linked to the death of Lapid and
the supposed middleman in the
case earlier identified as Jun or
Crisanto Villamor.
The PDLs facing murder com-
plaints were identified as Mario
Alvarez, Joseph Georfo, Chris-
tam Ramac, Ricky Salgado, Ron-
nie Dela Cruz, and Joel Reyes.
“The principle that we ad-
opted here in charging the mas-
termind is the totality of all the
facts given to us by all the wit-
nesses and all the circumstanc-
es attendant to the killing. So
it’s a totality test,” Remulla said.
He added that “the totality
registration on the following
dates -- Dec. 24, 25, 31, 2022
and Jan. 1, 2023.
He said the malls will be de-
termined by the poll body at a
later date.
“To emphasize, a public
demonstration will be conduct-
ed before the actual roll-out,
with the date/s therefore to be
announced later on. At the mo-
ment, every step of the process-
es are currently being studied
and improved, most particularly
on the information technology
infrastructure part,” he added.
of all the acts points out to the
participation of and responsi-
bility of those being charged.”
Remulla urged Bantag and
Zulueta to give themselves up
and face the charges.
“I’d like to ask Zulueta and
DG Bantag to surrender and
face the charges. If they are
innocent, the law will uphold
them and if they are guilty then
they have to face the conse-
quence,” the justice official said.
Remulla, however, added
that he has already ordered a
lookout bulletin against the two
officials of BuCor.
Bantag was one of the 160
“persons of interest” in the Lapid
case earlier identified by the PNP.
NBI lawyer Eugene Javier
said that witnesses’ statements
showed there was a “clear and
direct line of communication”
from Bantag and Zulueta to
gang leaders who then commu-
nicated with Labra and later co-
ordinated with Galicia.
It was Galicia who orchestrat-
ed and executed the killing of
Lapid through his gang members
and the latter’s contacts outside
the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).
This, he said, led to the par-
ticipation of the self-confessed
gunman, Joel Escorial, and his
accomplices.
It was also found out in the
investigation that Bantag had a
clear motive to order the killing
of Lapid because of the latter’s
continued exposė against the
During the pilot period, Lau-
diangco explained any qualified
applicant residing anywhere in
the Philippines can convenient-
ly register at the RAP booths in
designated NCR malls.
“They may submit their ap-
plication form, documentary
requirements and have their
biometrics taken on-site. Previ-
ously, only the residents of the
locality where the mall is locat-
ed were allowed to register in
mall registration sites. The sub-
mitted documents and captured
biometrics data shall then be
former on his show, “Lapid Fire”.
And as for Villamor, “it was
an attempt to cover up the mur-
der of Percy Lapid.”
Lapid, a hard-hitting tabloid
and radio commentator was
gunned down on Oct. 3 in Las
Pinas City.
Due process
In the same briefing, Depart-
ment of the Interior and Local
Government (DILG) Secretary
Benjamin Abalos Jr. assured that
Bantag and other accused in the
case will be accorded due process.
This came after the suspend-
ed corrections chief earlier said
he would rather die than go to
jail while denying involvement
in the killing of the veteran
broadcaster.
“Kung ano ang mangyari na
proseso, alam naman natin may
proseso po ito, may karapatan
ang isa para sagutin ang bintang
sa kanya. Kung ano ang maging
desisyon kailangan ipapatupad
po namin ito at andiyan po ang
NBI at PNP para ipatupad ang
magiging desisyon po dito sa
kasong ito (As for the process,
we know that there is a process,
one has the right to answer the
accusation against him. What-
ever the decision is, we must
implement it and the NBI and
PNP are there to implement the
decision in this case),” Abalos
told reporters.
Retired military chief Grego-
rio Catapang Jr. took over the
helm of the Bureau of Correc-
www.canadianinquirer.net
Philippine News
indorsed and transmitted by the
recipient RAP teams to the OEO
(Office of the Election Officer)
of the district/city/municipality
having jurisdiction over the res-
idence of the applicant for the
requisite verification, publica-
tion/posting, and Election Reg-
istration Board (ERB) Hearing,”
he added.
The operational plan of the
project was approved by the
Commission en banc on Oct. 26.
As part of the approved opera-
tional plan, Comelec conducted
the initial internal end-to-end
(BOYING REMULLA/FACEBOOK)
tions (BuCor) as its officer in
charge following President Fer-
dinand R. Marcos Jr.’s order to
place Bantag under indefinite
preventive suspension follow-
ing the death of Jun Villamor,
an inmate tagged as the alleged
“middleman” in the killing of
the journalist.
The NBI said in its timeline of
events, the order to kill Mabasa
was coursed through six lay-
ers before it reached confessed
gunman Joel Escorial.
Bantag and Zulueta were
named principals by induce-
ment while the others were
principals by indispensable co-
operation.
The filing of the cases came
after the NBI and PNP secured
persons of interest (POIs), who
are mostly persons deprived of
liberty (PDLs), who provided vital
information about the killings.
PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo
Azurin said Zulueta has been
in hiding a few days ago while
there is no arrest warrant yet
against Bantag.
Authorities are now locating
Zulueta and Bantag.
3
demonstration of the RAP at Rob-
insons Place Manila on Nov. 4.
Comelec Chairperson George
Erwin and Commissioner Rey
Bulay led the activity aimed at
fine-tuning the system before it is
officially rolled out to the public.
“The senior officials and de-
partment heads in attendance
were provided an opportunity
to witness and experience first-
hand the areas that would ben-
efit from further improvement,
so that any issues may be swift-
ly and adequately addressed,”
Laudiangco said. ■
In a statement, the PNP chief
also expressed hope that justice
and the rule of law shall prevail.
“With overwhelming piec-
es of evidence secured and the
custody of the confessed gun-
man, Joel Escorial, we have es-
tablished strong foundation for
this case. It was also reinforced
by object and testimonial ev-
idence from the sister of the
deceased co-conspirator Jun
Villamor along with the presen-
tation of the latter’s dying dec-
laration,” he added.
Azurin also assured the slain
broadcaster’s family of the
PNP’s continued collaboration
with the DOJ in the pursuit to
bring full closure to the case.
“We likewise assure our jour-
nalists and the public in general
that the PNP is doing its best to
prevent the occurrence of sim-
ilar crimes in our communities
to provide a safer place to live
and enjoy for the Filipino peo-
ple,” he said.
Meanwhile, Malacañang ex-
pressed hope that the filing of
❱❱ PAGE 21 Murder raps filed
4 Philippine News
PBBM to raise seafarers’ role;
climate change mitigation at APEC
BY AZER PARROCHA
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – President Fer-
dinand R. Marcos Jr. will shed
light on the role of the coun-
try’s maritime crews and sea-
farers in ensuring stable supply
chains when he participates
in the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) Econom-
ic Leaders’ Meeting (AELM)
in Thailand next week, Mala-
cañang announced Monday.
In a Palace press briefing, Un-
dersecretary Cheloy Garafil, of-
ficer-in-charge of the Office of
the Press Secretary (OPS), con-
firmed that Marcos will be join-
ing other heads of state at the 8th
APEC Economic Leaders’ Meet-
ing in Bangkok from Nov. 16 to 19.
This will be the first APEC
meeting for the President and
his administration. It will also
be the first in-person meeting
of the 21-member regional eco-
nomic bloc since the coronavi-
rus pandemic hit at the start of
the year 2020.
House passes 11 bills at resumption of session
BY ZALDY DE LAYOLA
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The House of
Representatives has approved
11 national and local bills on
the third and final reading on
Monday, calling it a productive
resumption of the session after
over a month break.
“We immediately buckled
down to work on the first day of
our resumption of session. It was
a productive day,” said Speaker
Martin Romualdez on Tuesday.
Romualdez said instead of
giving privilege speeches, the
House members passed bills
that seek to promote the safety
of private and public buildings
and infrastructure, protect the
environment and boost tour-
ism in the country.
The House approved House
Bill (HB) No. 5087 seeking to
include the National Building
Code as a subject in engineering
and architecture courses and as
part of licensure examinations
Office of the Press Secretary officer-in-charge Undersecretary Cheloy Garafil
(OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY)
Aside from maritime crews
and seafarers, Garafil said oth-
er topics that will be raised by
Marcos are the importance
of empowering micro, small,
and medium-sized enterprises
(MSMEs) and their inclusion in
global value chains, the need to
ensure food and energy securi-
ty, and climate change mitiga-
tion and adaptation measures.
Garafil said Marcos will also
participate in the APEC CEO
for these professions.
Deputy Speaker and Pam-
panga 3rd District Representa-
tive Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales
Jr. said his bill “aims to safe-
guard life, health, property, and
public welfare.”
The two other proposed
laws of national application
are HB No. 5110, which seeks to
“strengthen the conservation
and protection of Philippine cul-
tural heritage through cultural
mapping and enhanced cultural
heritage education program,”
and Bill No. 3622, which would
extend the life of the Philippine
Aerospace Development Corp.
by another 50 years.
The corporate life of the state
corporation, which is under the
Department of National De-
fense (DND), is set to expire on
Sept. 5, 2023.
The two bills’ principal au-
thors are Pangasinan Rep.
Christopher de Venecia, and
former Speaker and Marin-
duque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Ve-
lasco and Ilocos Sur Rep. Kris-
Summit which is a meeting of top
business leaders in the region.
“He will meet with top ex-
ecutives of Thai companies to
discuss business opportunities,
investments, and expansion
plans,” she said.
She said Marcos will also
have the opportunity to meet
with leaders of economies to
discuss the country’s bilateral
relations and seek paths toward
mutual economic benefits.
(HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PHILIPPINES/FACEBOOK)
tine Singson-Meehan.
The House also adopted
three resolutions condoling
with the families of those who
died during the onslaught of Se-
vere Tropical Storm Paeng; ex-
pressing solidarity with Paeng
victims; and condemning the
senseless killing of veteran
broadcaster Percy Lapid.
The resolutions were au-
thored by Speaker Romualdez,
www.canadianinquirer.net
DFA Multilateral Affairs and
International Economic Re-
lations (UMAIER) Assistant
Secretary Eric Gerardo Tamayo
said Marcos will be having bi-
lateral meetings with six coun-
terparts, but arrangements are
still being finalized.
Garafil said the President
will also meet with the Filipino
community in Thailand.
The APEC was established
in 1989 with the primary goal
of supporting sustainable eco-
nomic growth and prosperity in
the Asia-Pacific Region.
The 21 member economies of
APEC are the Philippines, Aus-
tralia, Brunei, Canada, Chile,
China, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Japan, South Korea, Malaysia,
Mexico, New Zealand, Papua
New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singa-
pore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand,
the United States, and Vietnam.
The Philippines has hosted
APEC meetings twice, in 1996
and 2015.
Positive outcomes
Meanwhile, Tamayo ex-
pressed confidence that the
Majority Leader and Zambo-
anga City Rep. Manuel Jose
“Mannix” M. Dalipe, Minority
Leader and 4Ps party-list Rep.
Marcelino Libanan, senior Dep-
uty Majority Leader and Ilocos
Norte Rep. Ferdinand Alexan-
der “Sandro” A. Marcos, Tingog
party-list Reps. Yedda Marie K.
Romualdez and Jude A. Acidre.
The eight other measures
of local importance and their
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
President’s participation at the
APEC would result in “positive
outcomes.”
Tamayo, who is also the Di-
rector-General of the Philippine
APEC National Secretariat, said
Marcos will push for APEC to
revitalize its role as a driver of
global economic growth.
Before the pandemic, he said
the Asia-Pacific Region had
been the significant driver of
global economic growth. How-
ever, this was disrupted by the
global health crisis.
“...The challenge before us is
to facilitate the rapid recovery
of economies arising out of the
pandemic and also to under-
take the necessary measures
to also counter the disruptive
forces that affect the current
economic situation around the
globe,” he said.
“It is important for us to be
able to highlight the fact that
economies need to future-proof
the region in responding to these
disruptions coming from the
pandemic and other disruptions
around the globe,” he added. ■
principal authors are:
-- HB 5167, declaring the Tu-
gonan Waterfalls in Barangay
San Lorenzo, Prosperidad, Agu-
san del Sur, an ecotourism site,
by Representatives Afelito Bas-
cug and Eddiebong Plaza.
-- HB 5168, declaring the im-
mediate environs of the Nation-
al Shrine of our Mother of Per-
petual Help, popularly known
as Baclaran Church along Roxas
Boulevard in Parañaque City, a
heritage site and a tourist desti-
nation, by Rep. Edwin Olivarez.
-- HB 5169, declaring Mount
Arayat located along the bor-
ders of the towns of Arayat
and Magalang in Pampanga as
an ecotourism destination, by
Deputy Speaker Aurelio “Dong”
Gonzales Jr.
-- HB, declaring the Luzon
Datum in Barangay Hinanggay-
on in Mogpog, Marinduque as a
tourist spot, by Rep. Lord Allan
Jay Velasco.
-- HB 5171, declaring the Cebu
❱❱ PAGE 7 House passes 11
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022 5

Get the latest News & Updates

read daily news

from Philippines,
Canada & the World
www.canadianinquirer.net
The one and only daily Filipino-Canadian live news
6 Philippine News
PBBM to sign EO Quezon farmers trained
reserving idle on adapting to climate
lands for housing change
projects
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
BY AZER PARROCHA
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – President Ferdi-
nand R. Marcos Jr. is set to sign
an executive order (EO) reserv-
ing idle government lands for
housing projects.
In a press release issued Mon-
day, Malacañang said the EO will
implement Section 24 of Repub-
lic Act No. (RA) 11201, which
mandates several government
agencies to jointly identify idle
state lands suitable for housing
and rural development.
Under RA 11201, an inven-
tory will be conducted by the
Department of Human Set-
tlements and Urban Develop-
ment (DHSUD), Department
of Agrarian Reform (DAR),
Department of Agriculture
(DA), Department of Environ-
ment and Natural Resources
(DENR), Department of the
Interior and Local Government
(DILG), and the Land Registra-
tion Authority (LRA) to identi-
fy these lands, estimated to be
more than 16,000 hectares, to
be used for socialized housing.
Marcos said the EO “will not
create new regulations but will
just enforce the existing law.”
According to the President,
putting all these government
assets will “ensure flexibility in
deciding which of these lands
should be used for housing.”
Marcos is set to meet with
banks and financial institutions
(OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY)
to assist the DHSUD in realiz-
ing its goal of building 1 million
housing units per year or 6 mil-
lion by the end of his term.
RA 11201 gives the housing
agency power to take and ad-
minister government lands
that have been idle for 10 years
or more and use these for urban
development.
Under RA 11201, the housing
department is empowered to
own and administer govern-
ment-owned lands that have
not been utilized for the pur-
pose they have been originally
reserved or acquired for at least
10 years and identified as suit-
able for urban development.
DSHUD Secretary Jose Acu-
zar earlier told the President
that it had acquired the commit-
ment of the Development Bank
of the Philippines (DBP) to the
government’s housing program.
In late October, Marcos called
on government financial institu-
tions and private banks to assist
government efforts to address
the country’s housing backlog of
more than 6.5 million.
He said giving incentives to
private entities would further en-
courage them to take part in the
building and financing aspects to
support the housing program.
Representatives from BDO,
Metrobank, Union Bank, Ayala
Corporation, and China Bank,
likewise, expressed support for
the housing program and com-
mitted to help in the crafting of a
financing system to carry it out. ■
BY MARITA MOAJE
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – At least 30 farm-
ers from Quezon province were
trained about the impacts of
climate change and how to
adapt and mitigate its effects
on their farms.
In a press statement, the De-
partment of Agrarian Reform
(DAR) said the farmers were
Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries
(ARBs) from the Samahan ng
Nag-iimpok na Magsasaka of
Brgy. Poctol (SNMP). The par-
ticipants attended the Climate
Change Awareness where they
were taught about the impact
of climate change on farming
and how they can address this
without sacrificing the quality
and quantity of their harvests.
Perlinda Fombuena, one of
the ARBs who completed the
Sustainable Vegetable Produc-
tion Project said the training
would help them address the ef-
fects of climate change on their
PBBM, DOE tackle..
❰❰ 1 and power supply in
the country,” the Office
of the President (OP)
said in a Facebook post.
The Office of the Press Sec-
retary (OPS), in another state-
ment posted on its official Face-
book page, said Marcos wanted
the DOE, headed by Secretary
Raphael Lotilla, to make sure
that the country has sufficient
energy supply.
Marcos is expected to raise
during the upcoming Asean
Summit pressing issues, includ-
ing energy security, the OPS said.
“Prayoridad ng administra-
syon ni PBBM ang sektor ng en-
erhiya at inaasahang isa ito sa
mga tatalakayin ng Pangulo sa
darating na Association of South-
east Asian Nations Summit sa
Cambodia (The energy sector is
given priority by the administra-
tion of PBBM, and it is expected
to be discussed by the President
in the upcoming Association of
Southeast Asian Nations Summit
in Cambodia),” it said.
The DOE is “actively updating”
www.canadianinquirer.net
farms, adding that it gravely af-
fects their harvests.
“With the help of the DAR,
the changing climate or weath-
er is no longer an obstacle for us
to grow vegetables and fruits,”
Fombuena said.
Agriculture
is extremely
vulnerable
to climate
change.
DAR Provincial Agrarian Re-
form Officer Cornelio Villapando
said the training is expected to
help farmers better understand
how to adapt to climate change.
Last month, Senator Cynthia
Villa urged the government to find
solutions that could address cli-
mate change’s effects on farming.
the Philippine Energy Develop-
ment Plan, as part of the govern-
ment’s effort to explore alterna-
tive energy sources, the OP said.
Marcos is pushing for the
transition to renewable energy
to mitigate the worst impacts of
climate change on the country.
In his first State of the Na-
tion Address (SONA) delivered
on July 25, Marcos said the use
of renewable energy will top
his administration’s climate
change agenda, as he believed
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday (Nov. 9, 2022) meets with
officials of the Department of Energy to discuss immediate and medium-term
plans for energy development. (OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT/FACEBOOK)
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
A report from the Interna-
tional Food Policy Research In-
stitute (IFPRI) states that global
climate change poses significant
risks to those whose livelihood
depends directly on agriculture.
“Agriculture is extremely
vulnerable to climate change.
Higher temperatures even-
tually reduce yields of desir-
able crops while encouraging
weed and pest proliferation.
Changes in precipitation pat-
terns increase the likelihood
of short-run crop failures and
long-run production declines.
Although there will be gains in
some crops in some regions of
the world, the overall impacts
of climate change on agricul-
ture are expected to be neg-
ative, threatening global food
security,” the IFPRI study reads.
DAR said the training is part
of its intervention program
in response to the directive of
President Ferdinand R. Marcos
Jr. to strengthen the resilience
of agrarian reform communities
(ARCs) to climate change. ■
that it would help slow down
the effects of climate change.
The DOE is preparing for the
second green energy auction by
June 2023 after the success of the
first one held in June this year.
The Green Energy Auction
Program was undertaken to sup-
port and facilitate immediate
and timely investments in new or
additional renewable energy ca-
pacities to utilize more sustain-
able supply sources to meet the
country’s electricity demands. ■
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
No major hitches as public schools
join full F2F class
BY STEPHANIE
SEVILLANO
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – Almost 98 percent
of public schools nationwide have
joined the full face-to-face classes
on November 2, the Department
of Education said Monday.
In a press briefing, Education
spokesperson Michael Poa said
only 2.36 percent have resort-
ed to blended learning modal-
ity, adding that “97.5 percent
po ng lahat ng public schools ay
nag-implement na po ng five-day
in-person classes… Ito pong (97.5
percent of all public schools have
implemented five-day in-person
classes… This) blended learning,
I would have to emphasize na
this is a moving number.”
Generally, the transition to a full
in-person setup went smoothly ex-
cept for typhoon-hit areas, he said.
“Naging maayos ‘yung
pagre-resume natin ng classes.
Wala naman tayong major inci-
dents although syempre, may-
roon pa rin tayong apektadong
schools dahil pa rin po sa ty-
phoon Paeng (The resumption
of classes went smoothly. No
1.5K troops join AFP’s 6th joint
unilateral exercise
BY PRIAM NEPOMUCENO
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – More than 1,500
active and reserve military
personnel will be participat-
ing in this year’s iteration of
the “DAGIT-PA” exercises of
the Armed of the Philippines
(AFP) which formally opened
on Monday.
“DAGIT-PA” which stands
for “Dagat-Langit-Lupa” is an
AFP-wide/AFP-only exercise
that integrates Philippine Navy,
Philippine Air Force, Philip-
pine Army, and AFP Special
Operations Forces to level up
capabilities to accomplish mis-
sions in the sea, air, and land.
“In light of the prevailing
complexities of our domestic
major incidents were reported.
But of course, there were still
the affected schools due to Ty-
phoon Paeng),” he added.
Poa said schools that conducted
blended learning were either used
as evacuation centers or have sus-
tained infrastructure damage or
still under cleanup operations.
As of November 6, at least
435 schools are still being used
as evacuation centers while 324
schools have sustained infra-
structure damage.
“Tayo naman po ay nakiki-
pag-ugnayan na sa mga LGUs, na
ma-decamp na kung pwede ‘yung
ating mga paaralan (We are al-
ready coordinating with the local
government units if our schools
could be decamped),” Poa said.
The DepEd, meanwhile,
assured the downloading of
necessary funds for the clean-
up and building of temporary
learning spaces.
Besides the effects of Paeng,
some Metro Manila schools
also faced challenges due to
congestion.
“At least sa NCR, talagang may
congestion that’s why may mga
schools tayo na ipagpatuloy ang
blended learning modality (At
and global security environ-
ment, it is critical that we, in the
AFP, continue to strengthen our
joint operating concept through
the enhanced interoperability
and cohesive employment of
our various competencies in the
conduct of a wide spectrum of
security operations, disaster re-
sponse, and community devel-
opment efforts,” AFP chief-of-
staff Lt. Gen. Bartolome Vicente
Bacarro said during the opening
rites at the AFP General Head-
quarters in Camp Aguinaldo,
Quezon City.
Bacarro was joined by AFP
Education Training and Doc-
trine Command (AFPETDC)
head and this year’s exercise
director, Brig. Gen. Marvin
Licudine and AFP deputy chief
of staff for education, training,
least in NCR [National Capital
Region], there is really conges-
tion. That’s why there are schools
still continuing the blended
learning modality),” Poa said.
Padrino system
Meanwhile, the DepEd de-
fended Department Order 49,
saying it only reiterates exist-
ing civil service policies and
intends to uphold professional-
ism among employees.
“You know what we are trying
to depoliticize here is the pa-
drino system, basically… Parati
nating sinasabi na ah basta may
padrino ka, dun lang matutu-
gunan ‘yung request mo (We
always say that as long as you
have connections, that will only
be the time that your request
shall be responded to). And
that’s not true. We in DepEd, we
want to be as responsive as we
can to the needs of our teachers
and our personnel,” Poa said.
He added that the DepEd has
its “proper channels” and even
a direct line to the office of the
secretary, denying that DO 49
infringes on teachers’ and per-
sonnel’s freedom of expression.
The DepEd clarified that
communication on social me-
and doctrine Rear Adm. Donn
Anthony Miraflor.
Members of the Joint Staff
and representatives of Major
Service Commanders also at-
tended the opening ceremony.
Meanwhile, Western Com-
mand (Wescom) chief Vice Adm.
Alberto Carlos and command-
ers of other participating units
joined the ceremony through
virtual teleconferencing.
This year’s training will be
held in Wescom’s joint opera-
tional area until Nov. 18.
Among the significant events
in “DAGIT-PA” are air defense/
counter-air operations, mari-
time security operations, am-
phibious operations, combined
arms live-fire exercises, urban
operations, and urban warfare.
More than 1,500 active and
www.canadianinquirer.net
Philippine News
dia between teachers and learn-
ers is not discouraged, as long
as it covers class instructions.
“What are we discouraging?
‘Yung communication outside
the school setting… For as long
as we’re talking about instruc-
tion, as long as we’re talking
class matters, hindi po ‘yan out-
side the school setting. Ano po ba
‘yung gusto nating ma-discour-
age dito? ‘Yung nagiging very
personal na ‘yung relationship
between the teacher and the
learner (That’s not outside the
school setting. What do we want
to be discouraged about? The
Students walk under the colorful umbrellas hanging near the exit gate of Jose
P. Laurel Sr. High School in Project 4, Quezon City on Nov. 8, 2022. (ROBERT
OSWALD P. ALFILER/PNA)
reserve forces from the Army,
Air Force, Navy, and Marines,
as well as AFP Special Opera-
tions Command and AFP Cyber
Group, will be participating in
the exercise.
Other government agencies
such as the Palawan Provincial
Disaster Risk Reduction Manage-
ment Office and the Philippine
Coast Guard will also participate.
Among the assets to be used
are the Army’s new C-206 air-
craft and armored vehicles;
the Navy’s patrol ship, landing
dock, naval helicopters, and
fixed-wing aircraft; Air Force’s
FA-50PH, A-29B “Super Tu-
cano” and C-130 aircraft; and
Marines’ amphibious assault
vehicles. ■
7
[instances] were relationships
between teacher and learner be-
come very personal),” he said.
Vice President and Educa-
tion Chief Sara Duterte earlier
said the DO 49 also aims to pro-
tect teachers and learners from
criminal activities, whether they
be suspects or victims, recalling
the instances of sexual harass-
ment against learners, and a
teacher being killed by a learner.
As of now, teachers involved
in alleged sexual harassment
in Cavite are under preventive
suspension while the probe is
ongoing. ■
House passes 11..
❰❰ 4 Safari and Adven-
ture Park in Barangay
Corte, Carmen, Cebu,
a tourism destination, by Rep.
Vincent Franco Frasco.
-- HB 5172, distinguishing the
Dao tree located within the sec-
ondary forest in E. Pelaez Ranch
in Bayombong, Barangay Cug-
man, Cagayan de Oro City, as the
Cagayan de Oro Heritage Tree
and declaring it as a tourist attrac-
tion, by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez.
-- HB 5173, declaring the
Guinsaugon Eco-adventure
Park in Barangay Ginsaugon,
St. Bernard, Southern Leyte, a
tourism designation, by Rep.
Christopherson Yap.
-- HB 5174, declaring the Passig
islet in Barangay Bato, Sta. Cruz,
Davao del Sur, as an ecotourism
site, by Rep. Tracy Cagas.
The House will shortly send
the 11 bills to the Senate for its
own consideration. ■
8 Philippine News
Correspondent/Hosts
Joanna Belle Deala
Arianne Grace Lacanilao
Jgab Lacanilao
Matte Laurel
Violeta Arevalo
Babes Newland
Graphic Design
Shanice Garcia
Ginno Alcantara
Arlnie Colleene Talain Singca
Account Manager
Kristopher Yong
Director/Producer
Boom Dayupay
Photographers/Videographers
Ginno Alcantara
Management
Alan Yong
For photo submissions, please email
editor@canadianinquirer.net
For General Inquiries, please email
info@canadianinquirer.net
For Sales Inquiries, please email
sales@canadianinquirer.net
or visit
‘www.canadianinquirer.net/advertise-with-us/’
Philippine Canadian Inquirer is located at
#1820-666 Burrard Street
Vancouver BC V6C 2X8 Canada
Email: info@canadianinquirer.net,
sales@canadianinquirer.net
Instagram: @pcinews_ig
Twitter: @pcinews_twt
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/pcinews
Philippine Canadian Inquirer
is published weekly every Friday.
Copies are distributed free throughout Metro
Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Greater Toronto.
The views and opinions expressed in the articles
(including opinions expressed in ads herein) are those
of the authors named, and are not necessarily those of
Philippine Canadian Inquirer Editorial Team.
PCI reserves the right to reject any advertising which
it considers to contain false or misleading information
or involves unfair or unethical practices. The advertiser
agrees the publisher shall not be liable for damages
arising out of error in any advertisment.
Member
PH logs lowest unemployment
rate since Covid-19 onset
BY KRIS CRISMUNDO
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – Unemployment rate in Sep-
tember 2022 stood at 5 percent, the lowest
in more than two years, the Philippine Sta-
tistics Authority (PSA) reported Tuesday.
In a press conference, PSA chief and
national statistician Undersecretary Den-
nis Mapa said the number of unemployed
Filipinos in September fell to 2.5 million,
or 183,000 lower than the 2.68 million citi-
zens with no jobs the previous month.
The number of jobless Filipinos during
the month was also lower by 1.78 million
from 4.28 million unemployed a year ago.
“This means 50 out of 1,000 individu-
als in the labor force have no job,” Mapa
said in Filipino.
On the other hand, employment rate
in September 2022 was at 95 percent,
which translates to 47.58 million Filipi-
nos who have jobs.
This is higher than the August 2022
employment rate of 94.7 percent, and
also higher than the September 2021
rate of 91.1 percent.
He identified sectors with largest
month-on-month increase in employ-
ment. These include manufacturing,
up by 780,000 jobs; education, up by
159,000 jobs; public administration and
defense, compulsory social security,
Construction of New Manila Int’l
Airport in Bulacan in full swing
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The construction of the
New Manila International Airport in
Bulacan, some 35 kilometers north of
Metro Manila, is in full swing, with De-
partment of Transportation (DOTr)
Secretary Jaime Bautista leading the in-
spection over the weekend.
In a news release issued Monday, the
DOTr said Bautista was joined by San
Miguel Corporation (SMC) president
and CEO Ramon Ang and other trans-
port officials during the inspection in
the town of Bulakan.
Bautista assured stakeholders of the
new international airport that the gate-
way will soon be open for business. Op-
erations at the new gateway are targeted
to start in 2027.
Land development works are now being
done at the airport’s 1,693-hectare site.
www.canadianinquirer.net
up by 128,000 jobs; transportation and
storage, up by 56,000 jobs; and real es-
tate activities, up by 13,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, underemployment rate
also increased to 15.4 percent in Septem-
ber this year from 14.7 percent in its pre-
vious month. This means 296,000 more
employed Filipinos want to have addi-
tional hours of work in their present job
or an additional job.
Despite challenges concerning infla-
tion, Mapa is optimistic that the country
will sustain unemployment rate near
the 5-percent level for the remaining
Workers assemble Christmas lanterns made of capiz shells and coconut tree-shaped frames with
lights at a stall on Dapitan Street in Quezon City on Oct. 10, 2022. (ALFRED FRIAS/PNA)
Works on the PHP735-billion air-
port officially started on Sept. 18, 2019,
when the government, through the
DOTr, signed a concession agreement
with San Miguel Aerocity Inc. (SMAI), a
wholly-owned subsidiary of San Miguel
Holdings Corp., and the infrastructure
arm of SMC.
The DOTr and the SMAI are working
together to make sure that the project
complies with environmental protection
requirements, particularly flood mitiga-
tion, considering the Environmental and
Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) which
was conducted prior to the commence-
ment of works at the airport site.
Once built, the new international air-
port will be fully owned by the govern-
ment under a “build-operate-transfer”
program.
Once operational, the new gateway
will not only help decongest the Ninoy
Aquino International Airport (NAIA)
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
months of the year.
He added the average unemployment
rate for this year is close to the pre-pan-
demic level, which is at 5.1 percent in 2019.
Mapa said the average unemployment
rate for the first nine months of the year
stood at 5.8 percent.
The country logged its highest un-
employment rate since the onset of the
Covid-19 pandemic at 17.6 percent in
April 2020.
The average unemployment rate in
2020 was at 10.4 percent. ■
as the capital’s main gateway, but will
also be a “game changer” and catalyst
of economic growth in Central Luzon.
Phase 1 of the airport will have a capac-
ity of 35 million passengers per annum,
is expected generate more than 1 million
jobs, and rake-in increased foreign di-
rect investments and higher exports.
Under the 50-year concession agree-
ment, SMAI will undertake the financ-
ing, design, construction, supply, com-
pletion, testing, commissioning, and
operation and maintenance of the new
international gateway.
With a design capacity of up to 100
million passengers annually and plans
for four parallel runways, the New Ma-
nila International Airport is expected to
help decongest the NAIA and enable the
airports in the Greater Capital Region
(Metro Manila and nearby provinces) to
meet forecast passenger demand. ■
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Improving equity, diversity and inclusion
needs more than just lip service in education
BY CHRISTOPHER
ALCANTARA
Policy Options
Wholesale changes need to
be made to approaches to edu-
cation if educators are really se-
rious about EDI policies, inside
and outside the classroom.
As issues of equity, diversity
and inclusion (EDI) become sa-
lient in Canada, many public in-
stitutions have responded. Most
school boards and universities,
for instance, have some sort of
EDI plan or policy detailing how
they will uphold these principles
in all of their activities.
In practice, however, policy
implementation is hard, and
many institutions end up engag-
ing in what political scientists
and sociologists term decoupling.
This concept describes instances
where organizations adopt new
policies that give the appearance
of responding to major changes
in public opinion without imple-
menting new policies in any
meaningful way.
Overcoming decoupling
requires significant and con-
scious effort from organiza-
tional leaders and employ-
ees and from those who are
served by the organization.
This is especially true when
it comes to elementary, sec-
ondary and post-secondary
education in Canada.
In my city, the local school
board has been trying to imple-
ment its EDI policy in several
ways. It renamed two elemen-
tary schools due to concerns
about allegations of racism and
discrimination associated with
the original namesakes. It reg-
ularly hosts and promotes var-
ious thematic months and days
honouring marginalized groups
in Canada, such as Black Cana-
dians and Indigenous commu-
nities. More recently, the board
offered its teachers the option
of taking some paid days to bet-
ter incorporate EDI into their
teaching practices.
Canada News
All these efforts are positive
and should be applauded. But
underneath their surface is a
strong undercurrent of con-
scious or unconscious bias
against and resistance to equity,
diversity and inclusion.
Equity means “the removal of
systemic barriers and biases en-
abling individuals to have equal
opportunity to access and bene-
fit from the program.” Although
it’s only been a short time since
the new school year started, my
family has already been bom-
barded with dozens of requests
from schools to pay for day plan-
ners, class supplies, music and
athletic uniforms, extracurricu-
lar activities (sports and arts en-
sembles) and school field trips.
For high income families, these
fees are not a problem of course.
But for middle- to low-income
families, they are a systemat-
ic barrier to equal opportunity.
Some might say that students that
can’t afford the fees don’t need to
participate in sports teams, music
... policy
implementation
is hard,
and dance groups or field trips.
That might be true, but it’s also
true that not being able to partic-
ipate in these activities because
of one’s financial situation is – by
definition – inequitable.
Of course, many will say that
the obvious solution is simply to
call for provincial governments
and local school boards to pay
for these activities. Sure. But
at the same time, teachers and
leaders need to think harder and
more carefully about whether
certain things, like music and
athletic uniforms, are necessary
to student success given the in-
equities involved.
Or they might explore novel
solutions like providing stu-
dents with a school branded
t-shirt that they can use for
all sports teams, music and
dance ensembles, and other
school-related activities that
require visual homogeneity.
How about diversity, which is
defined as “differences in race,
colour, place of origin, religion,
immigrant and newcomer status,
ethnic origin, ability, sex, sexual
orientation, gender identity, gen-
der expression and age?”
Earlier this year, I attended
the local Kiwanis music festival
to listen to four or five local high
school bands compete for musi-
cal excellence. I was immedi-
ately struck by three things, all
of which surprised me given the
board’s EDI policy.
First, there was little to no
ethnic diversity among the stu-
dents who had chosen to play
in these bands, yet 2016 Census
data suggests that about 16 per
cent of residents in my city are of
non-European descent.
Second, every single
band director that evening
seemed to be a white man,
without exception.
Third, the compositions
chosen to expose students
and audiences to ethnic di-
versity, such as the piece,
“Terracotta Warriors,” were
almost exclusively written
by white male composers.
The successful implementa-
tion of policies promoting diver-
sity requires descriptive repre-
sentation. This is a term used to
describe instances where the so-
cio-demographic composition of
employees and leaders is expect-
ed to mirror the larger society in
which the organization is embed-
ded. When descriptive represen-
tation is achieved, it can increase
diversity by creating role-model
effects, in which members of un-
derrepresented groups become
more likely to join groups and
participate in activities that they
had previously not joined or par-
ticipated in before.
www.canadianinquirer.net
It can also lead to better sub-
stantive representation. This
means increasing the number of
people from marginalized groups
in an organization can also in-
crease the likelihood that issues
relating to those groups will be
addressed. Properly implement-
ing diversity policy means hiring,
all else being equal, more leaders
and employees from underrepre-
sented groups.
What about inclusion, which
is defined as “the practice of en-
suring that all individuals are
valued and respected for their
contributions and are equally
supported?”
A key barrier to inclusion is
the school curriculum. Most
music programs, for instance,
are designed to teach and re-
produce the Western classical
tradition. The songs students
play have been composed main-
ly by white men.
Music history focuses on
Western European composers
and musical traditions and the
method of learning is rooted in
standard notation rather than
learning music by ear, a prac-
tice found in many non-Euro-
pean cultures.
In high school English classes,
some students continue to read
Shakespeare every year. In art
classes, some students struggle
with the dilemma of whether to
9
confront their teachers about not
being able to complete an assign-
ment that requires them to draw
images that go against their reli-
gious beliefs (such as the faces of
creatures that have souls).
Fostering inclusion means
radically rethinking school cur-
riculums by centering learn-
ing around exposure to diverse
voices and approaches beyond
the traditional ones. It means
spending less time learning
about dead European compos-
ers and exposing children to the
diverse Canadian composers of
modern music. It means ensur-
ing that students read novels
written by the many acclaimed
Canadian authors from diverse
backgrounds.
Decoupling is a major prob-
lem for many organizations
and institutions in Canada. We
can overcome EDI decoupling
by pushing organizations, like
schools, to hire more diverse
voices and broaden their scope.
We also should ask them to pay
more attention to the invisible
financial and non-financial bar-
riers that exist underneath the
surface of our daily practices
and expectations. ■
This article first appeared
on Policy Options and is repub-
lished here under a Creative
Commons license.
10
Power to the people: How Canada can build a
more connected and responsive Parliament
BY NICK VLAHOS, University
of Canberra
The Conversation
Canadian citizens, like those in
many other democratic countries,
struggle with a lack of trust in
their federal and provincial legis-
latures, their major political par-
ties and members of Parliament.
One of the primary reasons
is because the public is discon-
nected from political institu-
tions and their representatives.
While our parliamentary sys-
tem does offer opportunities for
the public to provide some input
via public consultations, many
of those initiatives are limited by
the fact that citizens cannot set
the agenda, deliberate on issues
they believe are important or
make binding policy decisions.
One proposed solution to this
problem has been to empower
the public through institution-
alized representative delibera-
tive processes — especially reg-
ularly scheduled and revamped
town halls. There are also calls
Jacob Hoggard’s celebrity did not protect him
from the consequences of sexual assault
BY JOANNA POZZULO,
Carleton University, EMILY
PICA, Austin Peay State
University
The Conversation
Actors, movie executives, so-
cialites, broadcasters, singers
and royalty are a few examples of
members of high-status groups
with individuals who have been
accused of sexual crimes.
Some of these high-status peo-
ple have been found guilty while
others have not. As psychologists
who study factors that influence
juror decision-making, we are in-
terested in the role of “status” on
jurors’ perceptions of guilt and
credibility.
Jacob Hoggard, former front-
man for the Canadian band
Hedley, was recently found
guilty of raping a woman in a
Toronto hotel room in 2016. He
Canada News
for the creation of a permanent
structure for citizen delibera-
tion, like the Ostbelgien Mod-
el that consists of randomly
selected and demographically
representative “mini-publics.”
Canadians have pioneered
the respected National Citi-
zens’ Assemblies on Electoral
was found not guilty of groping
and raping a teenage fan. Hog-
gard was sentenced to five years
in jail and granted bail pending
an appeal. He is currently fac-
ing a sexual assault charge in
northern Ontario.
Sexual assault mispercep-
tions
There is a perception that
sexual assaults are committed
by awkward loners who are un-
known to the victim, late at night,
when no one else is around. This
perception is in stark contrast to
the reality, however.
In both Canada and the Unit-
ed States, approximately 80 per
cent of sexual assault occurs
between a victim and perpe-
trator who are known to each
other. The perpetrator may be
a partner, friend, acquaintance,
co-worker or even a celebrity.
In 2014, CBC fired radio host
Jian Ghomeshi after he was ac-
Reform and Democratic Ex-
pression, funded in part by
the federal government. They
also do well in innovating the
delivery of certain public ser-
vices like transportation, but
the country has yet to explore
how it can strengthen democra-
cy through representative and
cused of sexual assault by mul-
tiple women. In a high-profile
trial in 2016, Ghomeshi was ac-
quitted of all charges.
Sexual assaults are more
likely to occur in private spaces
such as a home or hotel room
than in public locations such as
dark alleyways.
It is estimated that only 20
per cent of sexual assaults are
reported to police. In a related
issue, victims may delay report-
ing for numerous reasons. For
example, victims may think
that they will not be believed,
the victim does not want to see
themselves as a victim or they
fear revictimization during the
court proceedings.
#MeToo and the changing
landscape
In 2017, the hashtag #Me-
Too prompted victims of sexual
misconduct to share their sto-
ries, representing a watershed
www.canadianinquirer.net
constituency work.
Rebooting Canada’s politi-
cal system
There is evidence from the
Connecting to Congress and
Connect to Parliament, projects
in the United States and Austra-
lia respectively, that Canada can
transform its political system to
be more efficient and responsive.
This could lead to a public
that’s more willing to be en-
gaged in politics, learn and con-
verse with their neighbours and
have favourable opinions of pol-
iticians, even if they’re aligned
differently on the political spec-
trum. It’s achieved by designing
meaningful deliberative town
halls where members of the
public get to have a say in policy.
In Australia, Connecting to
Parliament hosted a series of de-
liberative town halls in the dis-
trict of Fenner, near the capital
of Canberra, between residents
and their MP, Andrew Leigh.
The topic was about reversing
the ban on mitochondrial dona-
tion, a reproductive technology.
In 2020, the Australian govern-
moment in sexual violence. Vic-
tims used their voices to gain
closure on their experiences.
The #MeToo movement re-
sulted in increased reporting
of sexual assault. Specifically,
the number of sexual assaults
reported to police between
2016 and 2017 rose 13 per cent
in Canada and 17 per cent in the
United States.
Allegations of sexual assault
have been reported years and de-
cades after the assaults occurred.
American professor Chris-
tine Blasey Ford came forward
in 2018 to detail a sexual assault
that occurred 36 years earli-
er, when she was 15 years old.
She felt compelled to share her
story when her alleged perpe-
trator, Brett Kavanaugh, was
nominated to the U.S. Supreme
Court. Allegations against Ka-
vanaugh have not been tried in
court, and he was appointed to
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
ment decided to permit a free vote
on the topic, and Leigh allowed
his constituents to have their say
and determine his vote through a
series of online and in-person de-
liberative town halls.
So far, deliberative town halls
have been held with individual
elected members of the U.S. Con-
gress and Australian parliament,
but not systematically rolled out.
How Canada can boost civ-
ic engagement
I believe Canadian officials
must build on this model on
a large scale, consistent with
Canada’s pledges on public
engagement in the Open Gov-
ernment Partnership, which
is already exploring how to es-
tablish a permanent forum for
public dialogue. The federal
government could use a dem-
ocratic action fund to host the
conversations.
Canadian Parliament should
hold two rounds of online/of-
fline civic engagement in Can-
ada after every election cycle
❱❱ PAGE 16 Power to the
the Supreme Court in 2018.
Memory and time
It has long been established
that memory is not like a video
recording with an exact image
being stored for later recall.
Memory can be influenced by
factors that include stereotypes,
suggestive and leading ques-
tions, stress at the time of the
event and the delay between the
incident and when the victim is
asked to recall the event.
The longer the delay between
the event and the recall, the
more likely the accuracy of the
memory is diminished.
We conducted a study to ex-
amine mock jurors’ perceptions
when an incident is reported 15,
25 and 35 years later. We also
looked at whether perceptions
were influenced by the type
of sexual offence (harassment
❱❱ PAGE 15 Jacob Hoggard’s celebrity
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
A Canadian senator aims to end the
widespread financial backing of fossil fuels
BY BRUCE CAMPBELL, York
University, Canada
The Conversation
The United Nations climate
change conference, COP27,
has begun in Sharm el-Sheikh,
Egypt. In the lead-up to the
conference, UN Secretary Gen-
eral Antonio Guterres said the
recent Intergovernmental Pan-
el on Climate Change report
revealed “a litany of broken
climate promises” by govern-
ments and corporations.
“It is a file of shame, cata-
loguing the empty pledges that
put us firmly on track toward an
unlivable world,” he said.
Canada is high on the list of
empty pledges. The government’s
COP26 commitment to reduce
carbon emissions by 40 to 45 per
cent by 2030 — enacted by the Ca-
nadian Net-Zero Emissions Ac-
countability Act — is not only seen
as an inadequate target, it’s also
been sharply criticized for lacking
the necessary action to meet its
commitments. That’s deservedly
so, given its poor track record in
meeting past targets.
A report commissioned by
(@SENROSAGALVEZ/TWITTER)
the International Institute for
Sustainable Development has
found that high-income coun-
tries like Canada must cut oil
and gas output by 74 per cent
by 2030 and end production
by 2034 to keep global warm-
ing within 1.5 C. And yet Cana-
da’s national energy regulator
anticipates oil production will
keep increasing until 2040 and
decline only slightly after that.
Financing oil production
Despite the proliferation of
climate-related disasters across
Canada and around the globe, the
Liberal government of Prime Min-
ister Justin Trudeau bought — and
continues to guarantee — bank
financing of the Trans Mountain
pipeline. It will carry oilsands bitu-
men to the West Coast.
The federal government also
approved the Bay du Nord oil
development project off the
coast of Newfoundland, which
aims to double oil production
by 2030. The Coastal GasLink
pipeline across Northern Brit-
ish Columbia is also supported
by government money.
Governments have turned a
blind eye to the role of financial
institutions that are responsi-
ble for the lion’s share of money
pumped into the Canadian fos-
sil fuel industry.
The Big Five banks — RBC, TD,
Scotiabank, BMO and CIBC —
are among the 20 largest funders
of fossil fuels globally and have
loaned or invested more than
$900 million in fossil fuels since
the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Roughly 20 per cent of their
directors also serve on the
boards of fossil fuel companies.
Sun Life and Manulife Insur-
ance together hold almost $20
billion worth of investments in
coal companies.
Despite touting their
questionable sustainable
financing credentials, Can-
ada’s major financial insti-
tutions have only commit-
ted to reducing the carbon
intensity of their fossil fuel
clients’ activities. They
have yet to commit to re-
ducing absolute emissions.
In the public sector,
Export Development
Canada provides oil and
gas companies with con-
siderable financing, loan guar-
antees and insurance.
Canadian and Québec pen-
sion plans hold billions of dol-
lars in fossil fuel investments.
While the Québec plan — CDPQ
— has committed to divest from
oil producers by the end of
2022, the Canada Pension Plan
continues to explicitly rule out
divestment.
Senator proposes real cli-
mate action
Amid this sea of hypocrisy,
delusion and denialism — “Blah
blah blah,” in the words of cli-
mate activist Greta Thunberg
— there are a few bright spots in
Canadian Parliament.
One resides in the Senate.
Independent Québec Sen.
Rosa Galvez, one of Canada’s
foremost experts in pollution
www.canadianinquirer.net
Canada News
control, was a professor of en-
vironmental engineering at La-
val University for more than 25
years before being appointed to
the Senate in 2016 by Trudeau.
Galvez has called for ambi-
tious and coherent government
intervention to address the
risks that financial institutions
pose to climate and to shield
financial institutions from sys-
tem failure.
She’s called out conflicts of
interest by bank directors who
concurrently serve on fossil fuel
corporate boards, alleging earlier
this year: “It’s just a big family…”
It is a file of shame,
cataloguing the
empty pledges...
In March 2022, Galvez tabled
Bill S-243, the Climate Aligned
Finance Act, aimed at holding
governments and financial insti-
tutions to account for their ac-
tions. She outlined her legislation
in a keynote speech at the Group
of 78 conference in September.
The act would:
• Hold corporate directors,
officers and administrators ac-
countable for meeting the com-
panies’ climate commitments.
• Mandate corporate climate
action plans and targets with
annual progress reports.
• Ensure that boards have the
necessary climate expertise and
ensure no conflicts of interest
exist.
• Align existing laws for the
relevant government organi-
zations to climate priorities,
11
including requiring the federal
supervisor, the Office of the Su-
perintendent of Financial In-
stitutions (OSFI), to mandate
climate targets.
Facing pushback
A recent report examining
the carbon footprint of banks
is calling for the adoption of the
Climate Aligned Finance Act as
soon as possible.
However, it faces major push-
back from financial and fossil fuel
corporations and from politicians
and senior government officials.
To stand a chance of be-
coming law, it will require ag-
gressive advocacy by
climate-committed cit-
izens’ groups and politi-
cians at all levels of gov-
ernment. If successful,
it would be an important
step toward phasing out
fossil fuel production in
Canada in line with sci-
entific and UN warnings.
The Trudeau govern-
ment’s climate incremen-
talism doesn’t inspire
optimism. The record of
most provincial governments
inspires even less. The rise of au-
thoritarian populism accompa-
nied by climate denialism within
a large segment of the Conserva-
tive base presents an even more
disturbing roadblock to effective
action on climate change.
In the 1930s, philosopher An-
tonio Gramsci wrote of “the pes-
simism of the intellect, the op-
timism of the will,” contrasting
his pessimistic analysis of the
present with hope for the future.
With planetary survival in
peril, voices like Galvez’s offer
some optimism. But she’ll need
Canadians to rally around her
proposals — and fast. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
12
B.C. will need a mix of direct electrification
and renewable natural gas
BY PETER WILD, ANDREW
ROWE
Policy Options
To meet provincial GHG tar-
gets, a diverse combination of
energy carriers is required for
resilient and sustainable ener-
gy systems.
In the fall of 2021, B.C.’s pro-
vincial government released
an ambitious climate plan, the
CleanBC Roadmap to 2030,
which outlines inno-
vative and aggressive
targets for significant
reductions in provin-
cial greenhouse gases
by 2030. This includes
a world-leading poli-
cy to introduce a GHG
emissions cap that will
require gas utilities to
reduce GHG emissions
by more than 47 per cent
from 2007 levels. For
now, only broad direction
on the cap has been pro-
vided but when imple-
mented, it would place
a significant obligation
on gas utilities to make
steep GHG reductions on
behalf of their custom-
ers in the buildings and indus-
try sectors – two of the largest
emitting sectors in B.C.
In the buildings sector, im-
mediate action would be need-
ed to decarbonize natural gas
consumption for space heating
and water heating, which pro-
duce more than eight million
tonnes of GHG emissions annu-
ally (figure 1). More than half of
the buildings in B.C. (more than
one million dwellings and busi-
nesses) are heated with natural
gas, meaning that complying
with the cap will require asser-
tive action by utilities.
FortisBC, the largest gas util-
ity in the province and the own-
er of an electric utility in the
southern interior, recently filed
a renewable gas tariff applica-
tion that would require all new
buildings to be allocated renew-
able natural gas for their full
gas consumption. Renewable
natural gas is derived from bio-
gas, which is produced from de-
composing organic waste from
landfills, agricultural waste and
wastewater from treatment fa-
cilities. The biogas is captured
Canada News
and cleaned to create renew-
able natural gas, which is also
called biomethane.
FortisBC would acquire ad-
ditional supply of renewable
natural gas from B.C. and be-
yond as a core strategy to make
immediate reductions in the
carbon intensity of the gas it
delivers and in the resulting
GHG emissions. Others are
looking to electrification of new
and existing natural gas heat-
ing with heat pump technology.
The pathways
to comply with
the cap and their
consequences
on the broader
energy system and
economy are not
well-understood.
The B.C. building electrification
road map outlines strategies for
all new, and most replacement,
domestic hot water and space
heating systems in the province
to be high-efficiency electric
(i.e. heat pumps) by 2030.
The pathways to comply with
the cap and their consequences
on the broader energy system
and economy are not well-un-
derstood. Researchers at the
Institute for Integrated Ener-
gy Systems at the University of
Victoria evaluated the impact of
different technology options to
address carbon emissions in the
buildings sector and found that
B.C. faces profound choices and
consequences depending on the
strategies it chooses to employ.
Using an energy system mod-
el, decarbonization pathways
for residential and commer-
cial heating demands in Metro
Vancouver were analyzed. The
model looked at upstream ener-
gy supply and downstream en-
ergy demand sectors to develop
least-cost approaches for two
pathways – one relying on sub-
stituting natural gas with elec-
trification for heat, and another
substituting natural gas with re-
newable gases such as biometh-
ane and hydrogen made from
renewable electricity. While
both approaches will likely be
needed, the analysis shows re-
newable natural gas may be the
most cost-effective strategy.
A key focus of the analysis is the
development of annual hourly de-
mand profiles for heat and hot wa-
ter specific to the temperatures of
a given region, in this case Met-
ro Vancouver. Resolving
hourly demand profiles is
critical to planning and op-
eration so that both energy
and dependable capacity
are supplied for the times
of the year when demand
is high and resources are
limited.
The study found that
both pathways require
significant additional
electricity-generation
capacity, either to sup-
ply electric heat pumps
directly or to power pro-
duction of electrolytic hy-
drogen. In this study, this
additional capacity re-
quirement is met by new
wind and solar installa-
tions. In the direct electrifica-
tion pathway, the variability of
the renewable supply and the in-
creased peak electricity demand
due to the new heating loads
also require installation of sig-
nificant energy storage capacity
(pumped hydro or lithium-ion
batteries) to ensure system re-
liability. In the renewable gas
pathway, the gas system buffers
demand and supply variations
using existing gas storage capa-
bilities, refurbished and expand-
ed for hydrogen storage.
The costs of both the electri-
fication and the renewable gas
pathways are highly sensitive
to overall heat loads and to vari-
ability in the renewable elec-
tricity supply. Electrification is
more cost-effective when mild
temperatures and lower heating
needs allow existing generation
capacity to meet peak demand.
However, a resilient energy sys-
tem capable of withstanding an
extended period with little wind
or solar availability that coin-
cides with cold weather events
requires a significant addition
of electrical storage capacity to
www.canadianinquirer.net
maintain reliability. More than
350 GWh of electric-energy
storage capacity could be need-
ed to endure a cold-weather pe-
riod coincident with low wind
and solar generation. Of the
nine scenarios evaluated, seven
showed cost benefits for the re-
newable gas pathway.
As noted, building heating
needs are only one of the de-
mands requiring decarboniza-
tion and may be relatively easy to
mitigate compared with industry
and transportation demands. As
GHG mitigation becomes more
stringent and broadly imple-
mented, the pathways we pursue
will need to be robust under a
wide range of scenarios.
In finance and investment,
we see portfolio diversification
used for risk-management. The
findings described above for gas
systems suggest that a similar
benefit can be realized via diver-
sification of low-carbon energy
supply and delivery that invoke
multiple energy infrastructure
systems for system-wide de-
carbonization. The benefit of
diversification can be difficult
to understand because much of
the value comes from aspects
of transmission and delivery,
which are inherently more com-
plex than a metric such as the
cost of energy produced by a
supply technology. For electric-
ity, delivered cost is becoming
less about the energy cost and
more about the cost of system
infrastructure and reliability.
Thinking more broadly about
Canada, our heating require-
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
ments are unique in the world.
Norway, Sweden and Finland
are often used as reference
points, but as reported in 2021
by the Canada Energy Regula-
tor, the population-weighted
average temperature for Cana-
da is colder than the geographic
average for these Scandinavian
countries. This means that the
average temperature in cities
in Canada, which tend to be in
warmer locations close to the
southern border, are still cold-
er than average temperature
across these Nordic regions.
Canada remains one of the
coldest countries in the world,
and cold temperatures increase
the need for heating.
As B.C. develops its policy to
meet its GHG targets, it will be
in the best interest of the prov-
ince that pathways based on
both direct electrification and
renewable gas are considered.
Given the scale of fossil fuel
combustion that will need to be
eliminated across all sectors of
the B.C. economy, repurposing
the gas system to provide key
services using renewable gas
may be the most cost-effective
strategy to meet its GHG tar-
gets and warrants further con-
sideration by policy-makers
and researchers. ■
This work was funded through
a grant from Mitacs supported
by Fortis BC, Inc.
This article first appeared
on Policy Options and is repub-
lished here under a Creative
Commons license.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Midterms 2022: 4 experts on the effects of
voter intimidation laws, widespread mail-in
voting – and what makes a winner
BY THESSALIA MERIVAKI,
Mississippi State University,
BERTRALL ROSS,
University of Virginia,
JEFFREY LAZARUS,
Georgia State University,
MARA SUTTMANN-LEA,
Connecticut College
The Conversation
With control of Congress
and statehouses at stake, vot-
ers across the nation headed
to the polls on Election Day
2022. That was after more than
42 million people had already
voted early or by mail. The Con-
versation asked four scholars
to give us their initial observa-
tions on the voting, in an elec-
tion whose outcome may be be
determined by voters’ concerns
about the economy and democ-
racy – and whose full results
will take days to know.
What really influences an
election
Jeffrey Lazarus, Georgia
State University
When people talk about elec-
tions, they frequently focus on
how issues and events, as well
as candidates’ attributes, affect
who wins and loses: “He’s such
a wooden speaker!” “She’s soft
on crime!” However, the most
important factors influencing
elections are mostly out of can-
didates’ control.
Political insiders and schol-
ars call these “the fundamen-
tals”: the state of the economy
and the approval rating of the
president. Together, they set
the stage for everything else
that happens in an election.
In 2022, the fundamentals
have been running pretty strong-
ly in Republicans’ favor. First,
President Joe Biden is a Demo-
crat and pretty unpopular, with
approval ratings in the low 40s.
Second, even though the econ-
omy is pretty healthy by some
measures, with unemployment
World News
under 4%, most headlines are
focused on high inflation. When
you combine an unpopular pres-
ident with a shaky economy, it’s
a recipe for the president’s party
– this year, the Democrats – to do
poorly at the polls.
Even when two candidates of
the same party run in the same
state and one does better than
the other, systematic factors,
not their positions or campaign
strategies, usually explain the
difference. For example, in
Georgia, where I live and teach
political science at Georgia State
University, Democrats Stacey
Abrams and Raphael Warnock
are running for governor and
U.S. senator, respectively. The
results aren’t in yet, but polls
point to Warnock doing signifi-
cantly better in his race than
Abrams in hers. Assuming that
bears out, what’s the reason be-
hind the difference?
It’s not because Warnock ran
a good campaign and Abrams
didn’t. Rather, three factors
are helping Warnock but not
Abrams, and all three are out of
their control.
First, Warnock is an incum-
bent, while Abrams is a chal-
lenger; incumbents fare bet-
ter than challengers. Second,
Warnock’s opponent, Herschel
Walker, is beset by a number of
high-profile scandals; Abrams’
opponent, Republican Gov.
Brian Kemp, has kept clear of
any major financial or personal
problems. Third, the fact that
Abrams is a woman makes a
difference; for a number of rea-
sons, women face more difficult
electoral environments. Fac-
tors like voter stereotypes and
increased media scrutiny result
in female candidates’ getting
about 3 percentage points less
than similar male candidates.
Most of the time, the story
lines voters tend to focus on –
the issues that are important to
us or the candidates we love or
hate – have much less influence
over the outcomes of elections
than many give them credit for.
Mail-in voting remained
secure, despite concerns
Mara Suttmann-Lea, Con-
necticut College; Thessalia
Merivaki, Mississippi State
University
Days before this year’s mid-
www.canadianinquirer.net
term election, news broke of
challenges to thousands of
mail-in ballots in state races
that may determine control of
the U.S. Congress.
In Pennsylvania, the state
Supreme Court ruled election
officials should not count mail
ballots missing a date on the
outer envelope. And a judge
blocked a request from the Re-
publican nominee for secretary
of state in Michigan, Kristina
Karamo, that most absentee
ballots be thrown out.
These challenges to mail-in
voting are echoes of long-sim-
mering election concerns that
boiled over during the conten-
tious, COVID-19-tinged 2020
presidential election. The 2022
election cycle featured a contin-
uation of misinformation about
the security of mail-in voting
and the integrity of ballot counts
that take several days.
It is true mail ballots are more
likely to be rejected because the
additional steps voters need to
take to cast a ballot create more
potential for mistakes. But that
is the result of measures that
protect against fraud, not ev-
idence of it. Some states like
California, Florida and Illinois
allow for the “preprocessing” of
ballots before Election Day to
ready the ballot for counting, in-
cluding verifying voter eligibili-
ty. But many states do not allow
this process to begin until Elec-
tion Day, which means counting
may last a few days, including in
states with key Senate races like
Pennsylvania and Georgia.
At least in some states, voters
whose mailed ballots are reject-
ed have some time to “cure” or
correct administrative errors
in their submissions. This may
mean the results of key races
cannot be completely counted
for some time after the election.
In many states, however, vot-
ers are not given the opportuni-
ty to correct errors. That’s true
13
in Wisconsin, where Republi-
cans recently won a court rul-
ing preventing some mail bal-
lots from being counted when
the witness address is not com-
plete. And in other states, like
Pennsylvania, the legal process
for fixing errors is unclear.
Our research shows that
many problems with mail bal-
lots can be mitigated ahead of
time if election officials com-
municate effectively with their
constituents about voting by
mail. Voters whose election
officials make more efforts to
teach people the proper proce-
dure make fewer mistakes that
lead to ballot rejection.
Black and Latino voters
undeterred by anticipated
Election Day threats
Bertrall Ross, University
of Virginia
For many Black and Latino
voters, the 2022 midterm elec-
tions have been remarkable for
what did not happen. Threats
of voter intimidation appeared
overblown, and attempts to
suppress Black and Latino
turnout didn’t seem to work –
at least not that we know of as
polls closed on Election Day.
Misinformation that targets
minority voters is nothing new.
But a rash of new state election
laws triggered widespread anxi-
ety among civil rights advocates
over the potential consequenc-
es for showing up at the polls.
Yet, as in every other election
since the adoption of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, Black and
Latino voters overcame real
and perceived efforts to sup-
press their increasing ability to
affect the results of local, state
and federal elections.
In important ways, the 2022
election season has deviated
from historic, often violent dis-
crimination against minority
voters exercising their citizen-
❱❱ PAGE 16 Midterms 2022: 4
14
COP27: three reasons rich countries can
no longer ignore calls to pay developing
world for climate havoc
BY LISA VANHALA, UCL
The Conversation
Payments from high-emitting
countries to mitigate the harm
that climate change has caused
in the most vulnerable parts of
the world is finally on the agen-
da for discussion at a global cli-
mate change summit, more than
30 years after the idea was first
articulated by delegates from
small island developing states.
Loss and damage is the term
used by the UN to describe these
impacts of climate change that
cannot be prevented and to which
people cannot adapt. These in-
clude lives that have been and will
be lost, communities displaced
by rising seas, extreme weath-
er and famine, livelihoods and
cultural heritage destroyed and
ecosystems damaged beyond re-
pair because of a failure to arrest
greenhouse gas emissions, and so,
global temperature rise.
The UN’s Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
reported that approximately 3.3
to 3.6 billion people are highly
vulnerable to climate change.
Many of them live in west, cen-
tral and east Africa, south Asia,
central and South America, as
well as in small island developing
states, such as Vanuatu in the Pa-
cific, and in the Arctic.
As countries in these regions
divert more of their wealth to-
wards preparing for and recov-
ering from storms, spreading
deserts and melting glaciers, they
are left with less money to cut
their emissions and contribute
to meeting the 1.5°C goal agreed
at the negotiations in Paris in
2015. Rich countries, who are
responsible for most emissions,
promised US$100 billion (£87.2
billion) a year in aid in 2015.
But a recent UN report found
that international finance to
help the most vulnerable coun-
tries adapt to climate change
(with bigger sea walls, for in-
stance) has amounted to less
than one-tenth of what is need-
ed, and the gap between the two
is widening. The US, UK, Canada
and Australia are among the big-
gest laggards when their histor-
World News
ical responsibility for climate
change is taken into account.
There has been no separate
funding to address the damage
already caused by warming.
At COP26 in 2021, develop-
ing countries proposed a loss
and damage finance facility to
help communities recovering
from disasters and compensate
them for what they have lost al-
ready. The EU and US resisted
this in the final days of talks.
Instead, the Glasgow Dialogue
was established: a series of dis-
cussions about how to arrange
funding to help countries bear-
ing the brunt of climate change.
Delegates from developing
country were sorely disappoint-
ed. Instead of material support,
they got another talking shop.
But many of these same
negotiators are heading into
COP27 with new resolve. Here
are three reasons why loss and
damage is becoming harder for
rich countries to ignore.
1. The latest science
Attribution science, which
clarifies the links between ex-
treme weather events and emis-
sions, has taken great leaps
forward in recent years. Across
more than 400 studies, scientists
have examined wildfires in the
US, heatwaves in India and Pa-
kistan, typhoons in Asia and re-
cord-breaking rainfall in the UK.
Broadly, this research shows
the poorest and most vulner-
able are bearing the heaviest
burden despite having contrib-
uted the least to the problem.
This growing evidence base bol-
sters the case for reparations.
2. Climate impacts are es-
calating
The deadly floods in Paki-
stan in August are the latest in
a series of disasters to push loss
and damage up the global agen-
da. According to a recent study,
as much as 50% of the rainfall
would not have happened with-
out climate change.
Pakistan’s leaders have said
that wealthy countries must
help pay the bill. After all, it is
the latter’s actions that precip-
itated the disaster. Pakistan’s
historically low emissions
mean its own contribution to
climate change is negligible.
From droughts in Somalia
to floods in Nigeria, extreme
weather during 2022 has also
heaped suffering on African
countries with little culpability
for climate change. Given that
COP27 will be held in Egypt and
has been dubbed “the African
COP”, these arguments will be
brought to the fore.
3. Growing momentum
outside of the UN process
The increasing number and
importance of lawsuits brought
against countries and com-
panies failing to reduce their
emissions highlights growing
frustration with negotiations
under the UN Framework Con-
vention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). As long as rich
countries continue to evade the
loss and damage issue, vulnera-
ble countries and communities
– and their lawyers – will search
for alternative solutions.
That is not to say they hav-
en’t had some notable recent
successes. The UN Human
Rights Committee (UNHRC)
decided in September that the
Australian government is fail-
ing to protect the Torres Strait
Islanders from the effects of cli-
mate change. This sets a prec-
edent in international human
rights law which could one day
www.canadianinquirer.net
extend to governments and in-
stitutions which have affected
people further afield.
But, outside the UN, poorer
countries are organising to ex-
plore ever more sophisticated
diplomatic and legal ways of
applying pressure on rich coun-
tries. At COP26, the prime min-
isters of Antigua and Barbuda
and Tuvalu launched a commis-
sion to explore the kinds of com-
pensation small island states
might seek under international
law. A group of countries led by
Vanuatu is heading for the In-
ternational Court of Justice.
Since high levels of debt hin-
der their ability to recover from
the ravages of climate change,
African and small island leaders
are demanding debtors (includ-
ing development banks and rich
countries) write off, suspend or
reschedule payments so that
vulnerable nations can spend
more on cutting emissions and
adapting to climate change.
These proposals have been
called “debt for climate swaps”.
The International Mone-
tary Fund recently announced
a resilience and sustainability
trust to help shield the financ-
es of vulnerable countries from
climate disasters, suggesting
development policy is slowly
shifting. This followed cam-
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
paigning by Mia Mottley, the
prime minister of Barbados.
Strings attached
Some rich countries are now
taking action, suggesting a
growing acknowledgement that
this funding cannot be delayed
forever. In September, Denmark
was the first UN party to pledge
finance – about US$13 million
– to address loss and damage.
The G7, under the leadership
of the German presidency, has
launched an initiative to expand
access to financial aid in the im-
mediate aftermath of climate di-
sasters through improvements
to existing insurance and social
security schemes.
Because these initiatives have
come outside of the UNFCCC
negotiations, donor countries
are free to dictate the terms of
their support, sidestepping a
process that should be about
meeting the needs of vulnera-
ble communities. Much of their
funding will go into insurance
schemes. Many of the insurance
firms that would benefit are
based in Europe and the US.
Insurance payouts may be a
lifeline for drought-scarred small
farmers and flooded homeown-
ers. But some risks are uninsur-
able, especially those with a slow
onset, such as those resulting
from sea-level rise. Then there
are less tangible harms, such as
lost livelihoods, illness and bio-
diversity loss. Insurance against
cyclones won’t compensate fish-
ers in Tuvalu who stand to lose
their coastal fisheries as coral
reefs succumb to warming.
The next front in the loss
and damage debate will involve
exploring whether providing
finance as a form of solidarity
(rather than compensation) is
more palatable for rich coun-
tries. If that money is wrapped
up in insurance schemes, de-
signed to enrich consultants, it
won’t really help poor countries.
Progress at COP27 will be deter-
mined by whether these nations
feel the UNFCCC is even capa-
ble of helping them. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Girls are held up as figureheads of political
change, but they don’t want to do it alone
BY ROSIE WALTERS, Cardiff
University
The Conversation
Girls are at the centre of glob-
al movements for indigenous
rights, climate justice, gender
equality and civil rights. Educa-
tional activist Malala Yousafzai
was awarded the Nobel peace
prize at 17.
Greta Thunberg has inspired
millions of her peers to campaign
for climate action: she began a
series of school strikes when she
was 15. Iranian and Afghan girls
are taking to the streets to de-
mand their rights to an education
and basic freedoms.
But our understanding of
girls’ involvement in politics is
still limited, and their opportu-
nities to participate are all too
often tokenistic.
Girls have historically been
excluded from most political
institutions and movements
because of both their age and
their gender. While all children
and young people are excluded
from voting in elections and
standing for government, girls
and young women have to deal
with the additional barrier that
politics is still seen by many as a
“man’s game”.
Around the world, women
still make up just 21% of gov-
ernment ministers and 26% of
parliamentarians. Perhaps that
is why research shows that girls
and young women who are al-
Jacob Hoggard’s celebrity..
❰❰ 10 or assault). Mock ju-
rors read a mock-trial
transcript depicting
an alleged sexual offence.
We found that mock jurors
held more favourable percep-
tions of the defendant when
the alleged offence was harass-
ment compared with assault.
Delayed reporting also affected
jurors’ perceptions: Surpris-
ingly, a longer delay (25 years),
compared to a shorter delay (15
years), increased guilty verdicts
for sexual assault.
These results suggest that
jurors in sexual offence cases
are more likely to believe older
accusations than those that are
more recent.
Greta Thunberg holds a climate change rally at the Greek Amphitheater in
Denver, Colorado on October 11, 2019. (ANTHONY QUINTANO/FLICKR, CC BY 2.0)
ready involved in community
organising and activism are re-
luctant to describe themselves
as “political”.
But girls are leading political
change – whether on the world
stage or in their own communi-
ties. In research with girls across
nine different countries, my
co-authors and I found that girls
are taking part in everyday acts
of resistance, winning a bit more
freedom for themselves and
their friends as they navigate
their way through childhood.
Girls lead movements
Girls push back against in-
equalities in their communi-
ties, challenge unfair rules that
stop them from doing every-
thing their male peers are able
Celebrity defendants
In 2017, actor Kevin Spacey
was accused of sexually assault-
ing Anthony Rapp when he was
only 14 years old in 1986. Spac-
ey was cleared of assault in this
case last month. More than 30
accusers have come forward
since Rapp five years ago, also
alleging Spacey engaged in sex-
ual misconduct with them.
Unfortunately, Spacey isn’t
the only celebrity to be accused
of sexual misconduct. There
were allegations of sexual as-
sault against Bill Cosby ranging
over a span of 40 years. Cosby
was convicted in 2018 of sexual-
ly assaulting a Canadian woman
at his home in suburban Phila-
to and demand fairer treatment
from parents and elders.
They set up girls’ rights or
feminist clubs in schools and
take action on issues they care
about, even though they often
experience stigma for doing so.
And, of course, girls take part
in, or even lead, global political
movements.
One 2019 study found that
daughters were particularly
good at convincing their parents
of the evidence that our climate
is changing as a result of human
activity. The increase in climate
concern was most dramatic
among fathers and conservative
parents. So, we know that girls
are not just politically active, but
that they are also effective polit-
delphia in 2004. His conviction
was later overturned and he
was released from prison.
We conducted another study
to examine how the social sta-
tus of the defendant (low or
high), victim social status (low
or high), victim gender (male or
female), and the reason the vic-
tim was unconscious during the
assault (consuming alcohol ver-
sus consuming cold medicine)
influenced mock jurors’ deci-
sions in sexual assault cases.
Participants read a mock-tri-
al transcript and provided
credibility and guilt ratings. A
defendant of lower social sta-
tus was more likely to be seen
as guilty when the victim was
www.canadianinquirer.net
World News
ical communicators.
But UK media coverage of
girls’ activism still often misses
the mark. I analysed UK me-
dia representations of Malala
Yousafzai in the aftermath of
her shooting by the Pakistani
Taliban. I found that she was of-
ten portrayed as younger than
she was and as a helpless victim
of forces beyond her control.
Despite the fact that
Yousafzai had been campaign-
ing and blogging for some time,
speaking out even after threats
to her life, almost nine times
out of ten, the newspapers in
this study quoted somebody
else’s words in explaining her
story and its significance.
Help – not hope
While there is also plenty of
positive media coverage of girl
activists, it often risks present-
ing the issues they are cam-
paigning on as already solved.
Greta Thunberg is calling for
adults to urgently address cli-
mate change, but media cover-
age of her activism can adopt
a reassuring tone, focusing
on Thunberg herself and her
amazing qualities, or her abil-
ity to inspire millions of other
youth activists like her.
As she raises the alarm about
the need for urgent action,
many adults see her as evidence
that everything is going to be
OK. As Thunberg said in a 2019
appearance at the UN: “You all
come to us young people for
hope? How dare you?”
unconscious due to alcohol
consumption. In terms of ex-
amining perceptions of the vic-
tim, when the defendant was of
high social status (for example,
a star quarterback), the victim
was perceived as having more
control of the situation.
Conversely, in other studies
that we have conducted, we ha-
ven’t found that a defendant’s
social status had an impact.
Guilt and status
The perceptions of who per-
petrates sexual offences con-
tinue to be called into question
as allegations against unlikely
perpetrators surface.
There may be a sense that
celebrity status provides pro-
15
For more than two decades
now, we’ve seen internation-
al institutions, governments,
NGOs and transnational corpo-
rations embrace the idea of girl
power. Everyone from Nike to
the World Bank has been keen
to tell us of the importance of in-
vesting in girls, so that they can
fulfil their spectacular potential.
The narrative goes that if you
educate and empower a girl, she
will go on to use that education
for the better of humanity. Girls,
we are told, will save the world.
But girls don’t want to save
the world all by themselves. Nor
should they have to. The issues
they care most about are not
problems of their making.
Girls need more meaningful
opportunities to participate
in decision-making, and they
need adults to resist the temp-
tation to feel reassured that
young people have got the most
important issues under con-
trol. They need support in their
efforts at organising, because
they still face so many barriers
in terms of funds and platforms
to speak from.
As has been shown in Iran
and Afghanistan in recent
weeks, girls are phenomenal-
ly brave in standing up to the
injustices they face. But they
shouldn’t have to do it alone. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
tection against accusations of
wrongdoing by feeding into the
“halo effect,” which is the ten-
dency for positive perceptions
in one area of your life to influ-
ence perceptions of other areas
of your life.
Victims can take solace that
delayed allegations of sexu-
al assault against high-profile
defendants can be prosecuted.
High-status defendants can be
tried in a court of law and some,
like Hedley’s Hoggard, are
found guilty. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
16
North Korea’s flurry of
missile tests raises alarm –
but are we seeing
anything new?
BY BENJAMIN HABIB, La
Trobe University
The Conversation
The sustained frequency and
intensity of North Korea’s mis-
sile launches in recent weeks
has refocused attention on the
Korean Peninsula at a time
when the danger of great power
war seems more immediate.
Yet the basic strategic bal-
ance on the Korean Peninsula
remains as it has for decades:
mutual deterrence based on
overwhelming US military supe-
riority and its nuclear umbrella
on the one hand; North Korea’s
ability to inflict unacceptably
significant damage to Seoul on
the other. Even in the context of
North Korea’s nuclear weapons
proliferation, this strategic bal-
ance has remained remarkably
stable since the Korean War.
There are several possible
reasons North Korea is testing a
range of ballistic missiles at this
time. If we step back from the im-
mediate detail of the tit-for-tat es-
calations and rhetorical machis-
mo, there are familiar patterns in
its behaviour and in the reactions
of the US and South Korea.
Demonstration of deter-
rence
Missile launches are a
demonstration of North Ko-
rea’s deterrent capability. They
show enemy states the country
has the ability to strike the en-
emy targets it claims. Testing
also helps North Korea ascer-
tain how its adversaries might
respond to those capabilities in
the event of hot conflict.
North Korea’s diverse range
of missile systems are the back-
bone of its deterrence posture
and its nuclear weapons capa-
bility. Its missile systems need
to be able to attack a variety of
different targets at different
distances, defeat the missile
defence systems of its adver-
saries, and have mobile launch
capabilities so an enemy attack
cannot destroy them all at once.
For this deterrent to be credi-
World News
ble, North Korea needs to demon-
strate to its enemies that these
systems work. Hence the tests.
Technological develop-
ment and training
Missile launches test the
technology itself. Once the
technical aspects of each mis-
sile system are mastered, fur-
ther testing helps personnel
train command and control and
launch protocols.
In January 2021, Kim Jong-
Un announced a five-year weap-
ons development plan to bolster
and modernise the weapons in-
ventory of the Korean People’s
Army. This plan included a num-
ber of new missile systems such
as submarine-launched missiles,
intermediate-range missiles for
targeting South Korea and Ja-
pan, and intercontinental ballis-
tic missiles capable of targeting
the continental United States.
An argument can be made
that some of the recent missile
activity is related to technolog-
ical mastery and command and
control training.
Strategic signalling
North Korea has used missile
tests for strategic signalling.
This might include communi-
cating displeasure to its adver-
saries, testing the resolve of an
incoming president in Wash-
ington or Seoul, or as a pinprick
escalation for coercive diplo-
matic bargaining.
In this context, North Korea’s
behaviour through the past
month represents a pendular
swing back toward escalation,
with an incoming conservative
government in Seoul.
Newly elected South Korean
President Yoon Suk-yeol came to
office promising a more muscular
North Korea policy in response
to the breakdown of Moon Jae-
in’s summit engagement with the
DPRK. Yoon’s “audacious” plan
for massive economic assistance
to North Korea is conditional on
its denuclearisation.
Yoon has also promised more
assertive responses to North
Korean provocations, essential-
ly repackaging the policies of his
right-leaning predecessors Park
Geun Hye and Lee Myung Bak.
As it did during these previous
periods of conservative rule in
Seoul, North Korea in 2022 has
responded to this retreat from
engagement with escalation.
North Korea’s reaction to
joint US-South Korea military
exercises has also been pre-
dictable. This month’s Vigilant
Storm airforce exercises were
the largest mobilisation ever
for this event. It comes on the
back of South Korea’s Hoguk
military exercises and the
large-scale joint US-South Ko-
rea Ulchi Freedom Shield exer-
cises, the first joint field train-
ing in nearly five years.
While usually held annually,
the Moon Jae-in administration
wound back joint US-South Ko-
rea military exercises as a con-
fidence-building measure in its
inter-Korean summit diploma-
cy. The exercises were then fur-
ther curtailed due to the COVID
pandemic. After a five-year hi-
atus, this year’s resumption of
joint exercises rekindles what
was an annual source of tension.
Internal signalling
North Korea has used mis-
sile tests for internal signalling
to domestic audiences, as a nod
to important constituencies in
the military establishment, as
a demonstration of strength
and technological prowess to
its public, and as a distraction
during times of internal crisis.
The long-range ballistic
missile launched from a mo-
bile platform in the vicinity of
Pyongyang on November 2 is in-
teresting as a public demonstra-
tion of strength, because of the
visibility of the missile launch to
residents of the capital.
Such a demonstration makes
sense in the context of the even
greater hardship experienced by
the North Korean people over
the past three years. The conver-
gence of the COVID pandemic
with successive disaster im-
pacts from typhoons, floods and
❱❱ PAGE 21 North Korea’s flurry
www.canadianinquirer.net
Power to the..
to introduce publicly
10
❰❰
informed and deter-
mined legislation on
any given issue.
It would work like this: A first
round of 338 deliberative town
halls would consist of every feder-
al MP conducting a riding-based,
deliberative mini-public,
crowd-sourcing community ideas
via a survey in advance, and then
choose to submit a collectively
agreed-upon idea.
Elected officials in Parlia-
ment would then commit to se-
lecting a menu of issues on the
basis of a free vote, and these
would move forward for further
rounds of consideration.
In the second round of this
process, MPs would then go
back to their community for
more discussion on the select-
ed issues, and put forward just
one, which the MP would then
vote for in a parliamentary
ranked-ballot conscience vote.
The top selection would
move forward for parliamen-
tary scrutiny. The mechanism
could also apply to the Senate,
or other levels of government.
Ultimately, there is room for
tweaks and improvement, and
further public participation via
online input during the initial
rounds and then at the latter
stages of parliamentary reading.
Power to the people
Problems with party politics
abound, largely driven by the fu-
Midterms 2022: 4..
❰❰ 13 ship rights guaran-
teed under the 15th
Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution.
Instead of the white suprem-
acists of the past striking fear
among minority voters, the fear
during this 2022 midterms was
the possible chaos dozens of new
state election laws could create
for minority voters. Those new
laws were passed as a result of for-
mer President Donald Trump’s
conspiracy theories that he lost
the 2020 election because of
widespread fraud. Trump’s wide-
ly disproved theories led several
states to enact new election laws
that many civil rights activists and
Democrats argued were attempts
to suppress the minority vote.
The problem with the 2020
presidential election was not
widespread fraud, but rather
the way some people reacted
to widespread voting by Black
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
sion of executive and legislative
powers that enforces party dis-
cipline to ensure laws are passed.
This process would help
solve the issue of backbenchers
lacking influence, which by
default also undermines local
constituents. This also offers a
new way for private member’s
bills to be developed and gives a
level of influence to the public.
If we aim for repeated and open
interactions between politicians
and the public, it will enhance our
arguably very limited parliamen-
tary engagement efforts.
The design of these deliber-
ative town halls would have to
involve considerations of inclu-
sion and efficiency.
That means selection proce-
dures would have to ensure that
the participants are diverse, that
moderation is inclusive of all
opinions, information is balanced
with the potential use of local
experts on the subject, and deci-
sion-making is transparent. From
there, there must be online and/
or in-person opportunities to par-
ticipate and build connections.
Canadian democracy de-
mands new ways of engaging
citizens in Parliament. It’s time
to act on this demand. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
and brown Americans for Joe
Biden. It was more than coin-
cidental that GOP challenges in
2020 were made in cities with
significant numbers of Black
and Latino voters, such as De-
troit and Philadelphia.
Although it is too early to
estimate actual voting turnout
numbers, Black and Latino vot-
ers have cast their ballots re-
gardless of perceived voter sup-
pression laws or intimidation.
In an election in which the
threats appeared different from
those of the past and the pros-
pects of democratic backslid-
ing greater than ever, Black and
Latino voters proved their resil-
ience, with turnout numbers ex-
pected to match or exceed that
of the last midterm election.■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022 World News 17

Ukraine war: Serbia is shifting closer

to Russia – here’s why
BY ANDI HOXHAJ, UCL
The Conversation
Putin is the world leader that
Serbs admire the most and 95%
of Serbs see Russia as a true ally,
compared to only 11% who see the
EU that way, despite the EU being
Serbia’s major financial support-
er, according to a recent poll.
And 68% of Serbs said in the
same poll that they believed
Nato, not Vladimir Putin, had
started the war in Ukraine, with
82% against the sanctions im-
posed on Russia.
While much of Europe is
backing Ukraine in the current
war, Serbia is taking a very dif-
ferent position. In Serbia, the
government and the public
both display high levels of sup-
port for Putin and Russia.
For example, Serbia has not
imposed sanctions on Russia or
distanced itself from Putin.
Instead, Serbia has signed
an agreement with Russia to
“consult” each other on for-
eign policy issues. Putin and
the Serb president Aleksandar
Vučić also have signed a new gas
agreement, and the state-con-
trolled Air Serbia airline has
doubled its flights from Bel-
grade to Moscow.
All this runs counter to the
EU’s foreign policy decision to
sever some of its ties with Putin
over Ukraine. Serbia, as an EU
candidate state, is expected to
do the same.
After Putin invaded Ukraine,
he had strong support in Ser-
bia, where multiple rallies were
held in his honour. Graffiti on
walls in Belgrade, Serbia’s cap-
ital, also included the “Z” sym-
bol, which has come to repre-
sent public support for Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine.
Since the war in Ukraine
began, a mural depicting Pu-
tin with the flags of Russia and
Serbia and the word “brother”
were seen in Belgrade. Bill-
boards featuring a picture of
Putin and the words “happy
birthday to President Putin
from Serb brothers” with the
letter Z printed much larger
than the others were put up to
mark Putin’s 70th birthday.
Serbia and Russia have a long
history of close ties due to their
shared Slavic and Orthodox heri-
tage. The Serbian language is also
closely connected to Russian.
Since sanctions on Russia
were put in place following Pu-
tin’s attack on Ukraine, Serbia
has emerged as the top loca-
tion for Russian businesses and
highly qualified individuals,
particularly in the tech indus-
try, to relocate to in order to es-
cape sanctions.
The most recent political alli-
ance between Serbia and Russia
is founded on a deep sense of
resentment toward Nato for its
role in the establishment of new
republics that were a part of the
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia,
namely Kosovo and Ukraine.
Putin and Vučić argue that
Serbia and Russia have been
wrongly portrayed as aggres-
sors when they are only trying
to protect their ethnic brothers.
The main driving force be-
hind the recent increase in sup-
port for Putin is Serbia’s hopes
that a Putin victory in Ukraine
will somehow enable them to
regain control of parts of Koso-
vo and other parts of the Bal-
kans. Recently, Vučić has gone
so far as to suggest that Serbia
might interfere in Kosovo to
defend its Serbian minority.
His threats were made in part
as a result of pressure that Pu-
tin applied on Vučić to threaten
an armed incursion into Koso-
vo and to destabilise the Bal-
kans and draw attention away
from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But neither Putin’s actual influ-
ence in the Balkans nor Serbia’s
facilitation of Russia’s geopolit-
ical goals in the region are being
taken seriously by the EU.
Since Vučić came to power ten
years ago, Serbia has maintained
a facade of neutrality between
Russia and the EU. He has done
a good job of playing the two
sides against one another to in-
crease Serbia’s bargaining pow-
er on issues like energy, security,
EU membership, and prolong
the recognition of Kosovo by
five EU member states. Mean-
while, Serbia’s adherence to EU
foreign policy has significantly
decreased from 64% in 2020 to
45% in 2022.
This strategy has been suc-
cessful for the interests of Ser-
bia, which is the primary recipi-
ent of EU funding in the Balkans
and is considered a frontrunner
to join the EU by 2025.
The main source of Putin’s
influence in the Balkans is Ser-
bia, and as part of cementing
that Vučić has welcomed a Rus-
sian military installation into
Serbia. According to Nato, the
facility acts as a hub for Russian
espionage operations.
❱❱ PAGE 20 Ukraine war: Serbia

The 2022 Edge is Changing the Game

The 2022 Ford Edge offers a ride as smooth as its design. With refined power and style, the Edge is guaranteed to turn a few heads wherever you go.

There are different models for you to choose from this year. From the well-equipped SE to the sporty Edge ST, the 2022 Edge has a model to suit
everyone’s needs.
Bring On The Future with the 2022 Edge.
Feel the excitement of the 2022 Edge, with attention-grabbing style and standard tech like SYNC4A, a 12-inch touchscreen, and Intelligent
All-Wheel Drive. It offers a suite of standard and available driver-assist technologies with the sensors and cameras that make you aware of the
other vehicles and objects all around you.
To enjoy a peace of mind and a happy driving experience, take advantage of the Ford November offer: Get 1.99% APR Purchase Financing for
up to 60 months on most new 2022 Edge models. Visit your local Toronto Ford dealer for a test drive to feel the Edge.

Find out more at FORDTO.CA

www.canadianinquirer.net
18
Entertainment
J-Wave to the World: Netflix Teams up
with TBS Holdings’ THE SEVEN to
Make Live-Action Hits
NETFLIX
Today we’re delighted to en-
ter a strategic partnership with
THE SEVEN, a cutting edge
production company owned by
TBS Holdings (Tokyo Broad-
casting System Holdings, Inc),
one of Japan’s top media com-
panies. Over the next five years,
THE SEVEN will produce mul-
tiple original live-action titles
that will be exclusively avail-
able to Netflix members across
190 countries.
We are no stranger to THE
SEVEN’s roster of big-name
creators. Akira Morii, who has
partnered with us to produce
both seasons of the successful
Love is Us: GMA Network inspires us to
embody the true meaning of love this Christmas
GMA NETWORK INC.
GMA Network official-
ly launches “Love is Us This
Christmas” – a simple yet pow-
erful 2022 Christmas Station
ID (CSID) theme – as the true
essence of this season is God’s
great love for us, and we are the
living embodiment of His love.
The much-awaited Kapuso
holiday video was first seen last
November 6 on All-Out Sundays
which showcased the colorful
ensemble of Kapuso artists and
personalities bannered by Jes-
sica Soho, Dingdong Dantes,
Michael V, Heart Evangelista,
Dennis Trillo, Alden Richards,
Bea Alonzo, and Marian Rivera.
“Dalawang taon na tayong
nagpa-Pasko nang hindi magka-
kasama. Ipinagdiwang natin ang
pinakamasayang araw ng taon sa
Alice in Borderland series and
is now working with us on Zom
100: Bucket List of the Dead and
Yu Yu Hakusho , leads develop-
ment and production efforts
at THE SEVEN, while leading
visual effects producer Tomo-
fumi Akahane ( Assassination
Classroom , The Confidence
Man JP , Yu Yu Hakusho ) will
bring fantastical and out-of-
this-world stories to screen.
This collaboration further
deepens our relationship with
TBS, whose popular drama se-
ries are already being streamed
on Netflix. THE SEVEN will
also have access to an expan-
sive new studio lot of almost
1000 square meters, slated to be
one of the largest and most ad-
kanya-kanya nating mga bahay.
Bagamat masaya rin naman
ang mga nagdaang Kapaskuhan,
iba pa rin ‘yung magkakasama
tayo sa paggunita sa araw ng
Kanyang kapanganakan. Kaya
ngayon, babawi kami!
Ipadarama namin sa inyo
ang aming pagmamahal at pas-
asalamat dahil miss na miss na
namin kayong lahat!
[It’s been two years of cele-
brating Christmas apart. We
celebrated the happiest day
of the year in our respective
homes. Although the past hol-
iday seasons were likewise
joyful, remembering His birth
while being together still hits
different. We’ll make up for it
this year! We’ll make you feel
our love and gratitude because
we missed you all so much!],”
said the Kapuso celebrities as
they open the station ID.
vanced soundstages of its kind
in Japan when completed next
year, ensuring best-in-class
quality for Netflix productions.
THE SEVEN aims to tell sto-
ries from Japan in new ways,
unbound by traditional creative
limitations. Our partnership
gives them the scale in produc-
tion and budget, the creative
freedom, and the reach to share
their groundbreaking show-
stoppers with the world.
If Alice in Borderland , which
returns for a highly anticipat-
ed second season next month,
is anything to go by, we know
what we can expect of the films
and series to come — big, spec-
tacular, complete with dazzling
visual effects.
In the six-minute video, the
faces of the Kapuso Network
were seen setting up a Christ-
mas party and opening their
homes for merrymakers to cel-
ebrate the most joyous time
of the year with their family,
friends, and fans – something
that they haven’t done in the
(SUPPLIED)
www.canadianinquirer.net
There is a growing appetite
for well-produced Japanese
programming both domestical-
ly and internationally and to-
Akira Morii, Tomofumi Akahane, Tatsuo Sugai at THE SEVEN (NETFLIX)
past few years during the height
of the pandemic.
Christmas station IDs have
become an annual tradition
for both GMA and the viewers.
It encapsulates the Network’s
message of gratitude to the Ka-
puso viewers’ for making GMA
the Philippines’ leading broad-
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
gether with THE SEVEN, we’ll
deliver our best shows and best
stories to our members. ■
cast network reaching millions
of Filipinos through its growing
list of 95 TV stations located
nationwide. As a way of giving
back, GMA wholeheartedly
gives only the best for its loyal
Kapuso in all possible ways.
Prior to the launch of the full-
length 2022 GMA CSID, the Ka-
puso Network gave viewers and
netizens a musical treat when
it initially released the lyric vid-
eo of this year’s newest holiday
theme song. “Love is Us this
Christmas” was performed by
the powerhouse vocals of Kapu-
so singers led by Julie Anne San
Jose, Christian Bautista, Aicelle
Santos, Mark Bautista, Maricris
Garcia, Garrett Bolden, Jeremiah
Tiangco, Anthony Rosaldo, Thea
Astley, Mariane Osabel, XOXO,
Zephanie, and Vilmark Viray.
❱❱ PAGE 24 Love is Us:
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Bulking and cutting:
is it safe for your metabolism?
BY CHRISTOPHER
GAFFNEY, Lancaster
University
The Conversation
If you’ve ever spent any time
online trying to figure out the
best way to build muscle or get
in shape, you’ve probably come
across a celebrity, athlete or
fitness influencer somewhere
advocating for the “bulking and
cutting” method.
While this method certainly
isn’t new – indeed, it first became
a phenomenon in the 1960s
thanks to bodybuilders – it con-
tinues to be popular, even among
amateurs, because many claim
it’s the best dietary method for
efficiently building muscle while
also losing fat. But this could ac-
tually be harmful, especially if
followed for a long period of time.
Bulking and cutting involves
two distinct phases, which can
lead to significant fluctuations in
weight – at least for bodybuilders.
During the bulking phase,
you consume a calorie surplus,
usually with a diet high in both
protein and carbohydrates. This
is supposed to promote an “an-
abolic” (building) state, where
you can build new muscle tissue
Belfry at Dumaguete church named
Important Cultural Property
BY MARY JUDALINE
PARTLOW
Philippine News Agency
DUMAGUETE CITY – The
Diocese of Dumaguete through
its Commission on Church Cul-
tural Heritage is now preparing
for the installation of a marker
by the National Museum de-
claring the Cathedral Belfry
here as an Important Cultural
Property (ICP).
Lifestyle
and grow in size. For bodybuild-
ers, this phase normally takes
place during the off-season,
when they aren’t competing. But
many people who aren’t body-
builders may choose to bulk
during the colder months.
Bulking also tends to lead to
an increase in fat, which is why
the cutting phase is needed after-
wards. This phase involves eating
in a calorie deficit in order to pro-
mote a “catabolic” (breakdown)
state which will lead to fat loss
and enhanced muscle definition.
On average, a bulk is typically
4-6 weeks and a cut is typically
longer, around 6-8 weeks.
Your metabolism
Increasingly, there are con-
cerns online that bulk and cut cy-
cles can “break” your metabolism.
Indeed, this concern does have
some element of truth – though
it isn’t quite that straightforward.
Research does show that ex-
treme weight loss – losing more
than 28kg over ten to 23 weeks –
can lower your resting metabol-
ic rate (the number of calories
your body burns before doing
any sort of physical activity), at
least in obese study participants.
However, it’s currently uncer-
tain whether or not this change
remains permanent. This is why
Msgr. Julius Perpetuo Her-
uela, chair of the Commission
on Church Cultural Heritage,
on Monday said the marker will
be installed at the century-old
belfry of the Cathedral of St.
Catherine of Alexandria, also
known as the Campanario de
Dumaguete, on Nov. 23.
“We are happy that this has
now come to fruition as it is re-
ally important to recognize the
Cathedral Belfry not only for
its religious but historical sig-
gradual weight loss is better, as
research shows it preserves your
resting metabolic rate better.
In addition, the more weight
gained during a bulk, the more
likely there is to be an increase in
fat, too. More body fat means less
insulin sensitivity. With time,
this could lead to type 2 diabetes.
And, ironically, this can make it
more difficult to build muscle, as
insulin needs to work properly in
order to do so. But, at least in the
short term, research shows that
two weeks of overeating does not
appear to blunt your ability to
build muscle, even in people who
are overweight.
Bulking phases can also lead
to an increase in the number of
fat cells, more so on a severe bulk.
While dieting can reduce the fat
actually stored in these cells, it
doesn’t reduce the number of fat
cells we have. This may make it
easier to gain weight in the future.
The relentless focus on nu-
trition with bulking and cutting
could also result in disordered
eating. Indeed, in a 2019 study of
348 female bodybuilders, 47%
were identified as having an eat-
ing disorder, while nearly half had
used methods such as purging to
control their weight. Whether a
similar relationship exists in men
nificance to the people, the city,
and the Church,” Heruela said
in mixed English and Cebuano.
The National Museum had
earlier sent teams to inspect the
watch tower, which was built
sometime in the 1800s, to warn
residents from Moro invaders
coming to this capital city and
nearby areas.
With its declaration as an Im-
portant Cultural Property, the
National Museum will now have
the implementing authority and
has not been established.
How to do it safely
Ultimately, severe weight
fluctuations are associated with
greater risk of poor health and
metabolic syndrome (the com-
bination of diabetes, obesity and
high blood pressure). So if you are
planning to try bulking and cut-
ting for whatever reason, it’s im-
portant to do it safely and without
extremes to avoid risk of harm.
Some people online advocate
for the “dirty bulking” method
to achieve rapid weight (and
muscle) gain. This is done by
consuming large amounts of
calories, with no foods off lim-
its. Some people may also use
high calorie shakes and “mass
gainers” (high calorie protein
shakes) during this period.
But eating too many pro-
cessed foods can lead to an in-
crease in cholesterol and blood
responsibility for the mainte-
nance of the belfry, Heruela said.
“The belfry was declared as
an ICP because it has unique
cultural properties found lo-
cally, possessing outstanding
historical, cultural, artistic, and
scientific value, which necessi-
tates the structure’s protection
and conservation,” he added.
The National Museum had
made the declaration some
time in 2020 but due to the
Covid-19 pandemic, the official
19
sugar levels, which may lead to
cardiovascular disease and dia-
betes over time. Even as little as
four weeks eating an unhealthy,
high-calorie diet can see young,
healthy adults begin to show
changes in their body that are
associated with type 2 diabetes.
Dirty bulking can also lead to a
potential increase in liver fat,
which can ultimately lead to liv-
er damage in the form of non-al-
coholic fatty liver disease.
There’s no evidence that a
dirty bulk is any better than a
clean bulk for building muscle.
But given the potential harms
that may come from an un-
healthy, high-calorie diet – even
just for a couple of muscles – it’s
probably best avoided.
During the cutting phase, it’s
important to avoid using ex-
❱❱ PAGE 27 Bulking and cutting:
ceremony to mark this signif-
icant event had to be delayed,
the priest said.
It was also originally timed
for the celebration of the 400
years anniversary of the St.
Catherine of Alexandria parish.
Heruela is hoping that the
local government will issue an
ordinance to help preserve the
watch tower, considering it is
the most popular landmark
of the city and in fact is in the
city’s seal or logo. ■
 20
Scared of needles? Claustrophobic?
One longer session of exposure therapy
could help as much as several short ones
BY BRONWYN GRAHAM,
UNSW Sydney, SOPHIE H LI,
UNSW Sydney
The Conversation
For the one in 13 people who
suffer from phobias, the mere
mention of spiders, heights, en-
closed spaces or other triggers
can cause distress.
Fortunately, phobias are high-
ly treatable with a psychological
therapy called “exposure ther-
apy”. This type of treatment in-
volves interacting with the phobic
triggers in a safe environment.
Our recent review showed a
single, longer session of exposure
therapy is the most time-effi-
cient treatment format for pho-
bias, leading to large reductions
in symptoms in as little as a few
hours. Unfortunately, an arbi-
trary rule in the Medicare rebate
scheme financially discourages
treatment delivered this way.
When a fear becomes a phobia
We all fear certain objects or
situations. For some people it
is snakes or spiders, for others
it’s public speaking, driving over
bridges or crowds. Fear becomes
problematic, and may warrant a
diagnosis of specific phobia, when
it is excessive in relation to the ac-
tual threat posed, persistent and
causes significant impairment or
disruption to daily life.
Phobias are among the most
common mental health condi-
tions worldwide. People with
phobias go to great lengths to
avoid the things that trigger
their fear, often with negative
consequences. For example,
people with blood-injection-in-
Ukraine war: Serbia..
❰❰ 17 Putin uses the Bal-
kans, particularly Ser-
bia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, as a bargaining
chip in his dealings with Nato
and the EU. He has even sought
to use Nato intervention in for-
mer Yugoslavia in 1990s to sup-
port his attack on Ukraine.
Putin backs Balkan politi-
cians
Putin has also been effective
Lifestyle
jury phobia may refuse routine
medical care, or vaccines, en-
dangering their health.
The good news is exposure
therapy is a highly effective
treatment for phobias. Exposure
therapy helps people gradually
confront their fears without es-
caping them. This could involve
handling nonvenomous spiders
(in the case of spider phobia), or
entering an enclosed space (in
the case of claustrophobia).
Exposure therapy changes
beliefs about how dangerous a
feared object or situation actu-
ally is, which makes the person
less anxious the next time they
encounter it.
One long session? Or more
short ones?
Exposure therapy can be deliv-
ered in a single, long session last-
ing several hours. Alternatively, it
can be delivered in lots of shorter
sessions. But which treatment
format should a psychologist – or
person with a phobia – choose?
A longer single session may
be more attractive to the client
because it’s easier and cheaper
to arrange work or school ab-
sences, childcare and transport.
To make an informed choice,
we need to compare the effec-
tiveness of the two treatment
formats – in other words, how
well and how quickly they work.
Our meta-analysis, to be pub-
lished in the December edition of
Behaviour Research and Thera-
py, combined the outcomes of 67
separate studies examining 1,758
adults and children treated for
phobia using single-session or
multi-session exposure therapy.
We found both treatment
in endorsing or backing politi-
cal candidates and parties that
can enhance its reputation and
weaken the influence of Nato
and the EU across the Balkans.
The conservative Democratic
party of Albania received close
to US$500,000 (£443,000)
during the 2017 parliamentary
elections, according to a recent
declassified US intelligence re-
port. Some lawmakers in Mon-
formats brought about large re-
ductions in fear and avoidance.
However, single-session exposure
therapy took an average of 2 hours
and 40 minutes to complete.
Multi-session exposure therapy
took an average of 5 hours to com-
plete – almost double the time.
Our results show that while
both treatment formats are high-
ly effective, single-session is the
more time-efficient option. Psy-
chologists could embrace this
new evidence as one means of
tackling rising patient waitlists.
However, in Australia, single-ses-
sion treatments have a hidden
cost – and this is due to how Medi-
care rebates are structured.
Medicare rebates and cost
The Better Access initiative
was launched in 2006 to improve
access to mental health care in
Australia. Medicare rebates are
available for ten separate sessions
of psychological treatment per
year by an eligible health provider
tenegro, North Macedonia, and
Bosnia and Herzegovina also
received funding from Russia.
The rest of Europe has not
fully recognised Russia’s influ-
ence in the Balkans and Ser-
bia’s role in advancing Putin’s
geopolitical objectives. Some
members of the European Par-
liament have suggested that the
EU needs to reevaluate Serbia’s
membership.
www.canadianinquirer.net
(extended to 20 sessions until De-
cember 2022 due to COVID).
The maximum rebate is cur-
rently A$131.65 for a session
of 50 minutes or longer with a
clinical psychologist.
But rebates must be distrib-
uted over 10 separate sessions.
If people seeking treatment
for a phobia were to opt to re-
ceive several hours of expo-
sure therapy in a single session,
their maximum rebate will be
$131.65. Yet psychologists typ-
ically charge by the time spent.
That means the treatment is
more expensive on a per hour
basis, and the upfront cost of
single-session treatment is
substantially greater than for
multi-session treatment.
Imagine Mary and Sally, two
people with spider phobia, re-
ceive exposure therapy from
Helen, a clinical psychologist.
Helen charges an hourly rate of
$280, as recommended by the
The EU states, in particular
Germany and France, are still
divided over Putin’s consider-
able influence in the Balkans,
and have only expressed their
“disappointment” with Vučić’s
decisions.
Putin’s influence in the Bal-
kans shouldn’t be ignored and
since Serbia has made it obvious
that it wants to deepen its ties
with Russia, the EU shouldn’t
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
Australian Psychological Society.
Sally’s total cost for one three-
hour session would be $840 with
a rebate of $131.65 ($708.35 out-
of-pocket, to be paid immedi-
ately). Mary’s total cost for five
hour-long sessions would be
$1,400 with a rebate of $658.25
($741.75 out-of-pocket, to be
paid over five weeks or more).
So the out-of-pocket costs are
similar under the current rules.
However, Mary receives almost
twice the amount of treatment
time and payments are spread
out over many weeks. Having
to pay out more for one long
session, makes the upfront cost
more prohibitive for Sally.
If rebates were calculated by
the hour, then Sally’s out-of-
pocket costs could be reduced
to $445.05. And she would have
fewer sessions to arrange or
miss work for.
Removing barriers
Anxiety disorders like phobias
cost the Australian economy over
$5 billion each year in treatment
costs and productivity loss. In the
year 2019 to 2020, $1.4 billion, or
$53 per Australian, was spent by
the government on Medicare ben-
efits for mental health services.
Removing barriers to access-
ing evidence-based psychologi-
cal treatments is a major priori-
ty. A simple change to the Better
Access policy would remove the
financial barrier to single-ses-
sion exposure therapy, at no ad-
ditional cost to the government.
This could be achieved by grant-
ing a rebate based on time, not
the number of exposure therapy
❱❱ PAGE 23 Scared of needles?
be duped by the facade of neu-
trality that Vučić’s has skilfully
maintained over the years.
If the EU cautions Serbia that
a EU candidate state’s relations
with Russia cannot be “business
as usual” then it may have to re-
think its pro-Russia policy. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Koalas, parrots, frogs and orchids share our
cities. Their fate depends on protecting each
one’s habitat, not just 30% of all land
BY SIMON KILBANE, Deakin
University
The Conversation
The global 30x30 target aims
to protect 30% of the planet by
2030 to secure its biodiversity.
This involves legal protection
for land and sea areas designat-
ed as national parks and nature
reserves. Australia has joined
more than 100 countries in this
bold initiative.
However, if we are to ade-
quately protect all species, we
must acknowledge we never
start with a blank slate. As a
major academic review of frag-
mented ecosystems observed:
“Conservation managers must
work with the remnants and vir-
tually never have the opportu-
nity to design a reserve network
before an area is fragmented.”
The areas we choose to protect
must include ecosystems where
biodiversity is under pressure
from human land uses. Australia’s
urban areas still have a surprising-
ly high level of biodiversity.
Our major cities are home to
almost 380 threatened species.
They range from the western ring-
tail possum, koala and grey-head-
ed flying fox to the orange-bellied
parrot, red-crowned toadlet and
several orchids. Indeed, 39 en-
dangered species are found only
in our cities and towns.
These urban areas also in-
clude threatened ecological
communities such as the bank-
sia woodlands of the Swan coast-
al plain in Perth and blue gum
high forest of the Sydney region.
So, what does the 30x30 tar-
get mean for our cities and how
we protect their biodiversity?
Many areas are poorly pro-
tected
To protect biodiversity it’s
North Korea’s flurry..
❰❰ 16 drought has presented
the nation with its most
significant system-
ic challenge since the Arduous
March period of the 1990s.
The sustained pace of missile
launches may serve as a distrac-
tion to focus the North Korean
not enough to simply protect
30% of land in general. Austra-
lia’s National Reserve System
prescribes a comprehensive, ad-
equate and representative ap-
proach. This divides the coun-
try into 89 distinct bioregions
and 419 subregions.
The latest data suggest that
simply achieving 30% protection
for all these areas will be difficult.
As the maps below show (dark
green areas have 30% or more
protection), Australia meets
this target in only 29 of its 89
bioregions, and 96 of 421 subre-
gions. Is this is an improvement
from a decade ago when a mod-
est target of 10% protected area
had been achieved in only 57 of
89 ecoregions?
Even the 30% target may not
be adequate. And yet achieving
it will be difficult in the face of
worldwide challenges such as
climate change, invasive spe-
cies and the issues of resourc-
ing and managing an ever-ex-
panding network.
How do we protect urban
biodiversity?
Adequately protecting biodi-
Orange-bellied Parrot (DAVID COOK/FLICKR, CC BY-NC 2.0)
people’s gaze on the external ene-
my rather than their own distress
and the government’s role in it.
We’ve seen this before
In North Korea’s current
flurry of missile launches we see
the repetition of old patterns of
escalation and response. While
versity in the cities and towns
where most Australians live
will be especially difficult.
For example, a cursory look
at protected area data for Syd-
ney, situated across one biore-
gion, Sydney Basin, suggests
good progress, with 40.99% of
its area protected.
However, at the level of its
subregions, the picture is differ-
ent. Pittwater (31.62%), Yengo
(58.55%) and Woollemi (71.81%)
have high levels of protection.
But look at how little land is pro-
tected in the subregions that sit
entirely within Sydney proper –
only 3.13% for Cumberland.
The picture is similar across
all of Australia’s urban areas. To
achieve comprehensive, ade-
quate and representative protec-
tion of our biodiversity, we are
going to have to think differently.
How can we better plan our ur-
ban landscapes, or perhaps retro-
fit these areas, to provide habitat
for our imperilled species?
5 approaches to protecting
biodiversity
Here are five approaches
drawn from practice around
there is still risk associated with
any escalation of tension on the
Korean Peninsula, this is far
from uncharted territory. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
www.canadianinquirer.net
Lifestyle
Australia and the world that
could help.
1. A philosophical reframing
Biodiversity protection
should not just occur in remote
regions. It’s an issue closer to
home. Urban and commercial
development directly threatens
56 of Australia’s 255 flora and
fauna species on the IUCN Red
List of Threatened Species.
2. Green infrastructure
Green infrastructure can cre-
ate a network of urban forest,
foreshores and creek lines, parks
and open spaces. In this way, we
can reconnect fragmented habi-
tat patches. This interconnected
network has both ecological and
human-related benefits.
Bolstered by a healthy ground-
swell of public and policy sup-
port – who wouldn’t want more
green space? – there’s a growing
momentum to reshape our cit-
ies. Notable initiatives include
the Perth Biodiversity Project,
the Sydney Green Grid and Mel-
bourne’s Urban Forest Strategy.
The benefits for ecosystems
come from water retention and
flood management and increas-
ing plant cover – so important
for reducing urban heat island
impacts. People’s mental health
and wellbeing benefit from
spending time in these green
areas. Evidence even suggests
greener streets and suburbs
have higher real estate values.
3. Creative conservation
choices
Finding conservation candi-
dates in urban areas requires
imagination and creativity.
Why not consider disused in-
dustrial lands, cemeteries,
poorly frequented golf courses,
our roof tops and the ubiqui-
tous suburban nature strips?
If we radically reconfig-
ured or “rewilded” our streets
Murder raps filed..
❰❰ 3 murder charges against
Bantag would mean
that justice will be
served to the family of Mabasa.
“The President is aware of
the situation and hopefully it
will pave the way para talagang
(so that) justice will be served
21
and gardens we could create
more urban habitat. More di-
verse and local plantings and
“backyards for wildlife”-type
schemes seem a safe bet.
4. Rethinking our idea of
urban development
The above options are the
lowest-hanging fruit. What
would happen if we radically
rethought our profit-driven de-
velopment model of suburbani-
sation? We could create a better
balance between the habitats of
humans and all the other spe-
cies we share our cities with – as
a matter of ecological justice.
We might need to use col-
laborative tools and scenario
planning to visualise possible
impacts and benefits. This will
help us better combine thinking
about people, place and ecology.
5. Fostering ecological lit-
eracy
Starting with learning from
how Australia’s lands have been
managed through traditional
ecological knowledge, we need
to foster a deeper appreciation
of the nature that exists under
our noses. Incorporating eco-
logical knowledge into educa-
tion from as early as possible
will build ecological literacy
This might then temper our
desire for exotic plantings. We
might even have second thoughts
about cat or dog ownership given
their impacts: Australia’s 3.8 mil-
lion pet cats kill up to 390 million
animals every year.
It will take a monumental ef-
fort to rethink our country and
our cities to preserve their bio-
diversity. Australia has just be-
gun a worthwhile but difficult
journey. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
to the family of Mabasa,” Un-
dersecretary Cheloy Garafil, of-
ficer-in-charge of the Office of
the Press Secretary (OPS) said
in a Palace press briefing. (with
report from Azer Parrocha/Anne
Lorraine Bustamante and Irish
Marie Caidoy-trainees/PNA) ■
22
Pickleball’s uphill climb to
mainstream success
BY JOSH WOODS, West
Virginia University
The Conversation
Most newer sports are hy-
brids of older ones, and pickle-
ball is no exception. The prog-
eny of tennis, badminton and
pingpong, pickleball is played
by singles or doubles teams who
hit a ball back and forth over a
3-foot-high net until one oppo-
nent commits a fault.
In 1965, the inventors of pick-
leball played with what they
had – a repurposed badminton
setup, pingpong paddles and a
perforated plastic ball.
Today’s 4.8 million American
pickleballers have much more
to play with: In the U.S. there are
38,140 courts, 300 manufactur-
ers of pickleball equipment and
hundreds of grassroots clubs.
There’s been a good amount of
speculation about the explosion
of pickleball’s popularity. But
now the sport seems poised to
burst into the mainstream, with
Lebron James and other lumi-
naries of the NBA and NFL re-
cently announcing large invest-
ments in the professional circuit.
Still, the young sport is not im-
mune to growing pains. As I ar-
gue in my book “Emerging Sports
as Social Movements,” the popu-
Qatar ready to host prestigious World Cup
BY ASHRAF SIDDIQUI
Philippine News Agency
DOHA – Tiny State of Qatar
in Arabian Peninsula has gained
prominent and prestigious
status among the world body
through it’s a positive and strong
role in various sectors across
the world. Its role as a strategic
partner in the political arena in
solving major conflicts; meeting
energy requirements across the
regions; programs like Educa-
Sports
larity of some fledgling sports
may seem self-evident in splashy
headlines. But their less visible
social undercurrents ultimately
shape whether they’ll continue
to attract new players and fans.
Pickleball’s feudal period
For an organized sport to grow,
it needs structure – a common
set of rules, rankings, equipment
standards, scheduled events and
a sense of identity that can unite
players and fans.
At present, pickleball’s so-
cial fabric is spread thin and
woven together by a network
of competing interests. For ev-
ery headline about pickleball’s
miraculous growth you can
also find stories about conflicts
and infighting among various
leagues and governing bodies,
as well as between pickleballers
and tennis players.
The sport has three profes-
sional leagues battling for con-
trol of the pickleball kingdom.
It has two international govern-
ing bodies: the International
Federation of Pickleball and the
World Pickleball Federation.
The lesser lords of pickleball
also feud with tennis players
over dual-use courts and plans
for expansion in public parks,
with reports of “turf wars” and
“a tug-of-war” between the two
racket sports.
tion Above All, WISE and WISH
in the development of medicine,
science and research are among
numerous services for the eleva-
tion of humanity.
Sport is a culture in Qatar as
witnessed from ‘Qatar Nation-
al Sports Day’, 2nd Tuesday of
February of every year is a pub-
lic holiday to promote healthy
lifestyle and promoting the
importance of exercise in dai-
ly life. Moreover, the hosting of
various regional and world level
tournaments as well as Qatar’s
“Picklebalkanization,” anyone?
Internal squabbles are com-
mon in emerging sports move-
ments. Cornhole, disc golf and
esports, for instance, have faced
similar challenges. In some cas-
es, conflict can be a good thing.
It may spur innovation. But
it can also leave some would-
be fans, sponsors and players
wondering whom they should
watch, invest in or play for.
Compared with traditional
racket sports, pickleball is less
expensive, requires less space
and may be more compatible
with the aches and pains that
come with age. And unlike oth-
er emerging sports, pickleball’s
future seems bright. But for now
it has more in common with
French feudalism of the ninth
century – when territorial dis-
putes were commonplace – than
a modern unified sport move-
ment headed for the Olympics.
Birds of a feather dink to-
gether
If two strangers meet in a bar
and happen to share an inter-
est in pickleball, they won’t be
strangers for long. Shared pas-
sion is the glue and fuel of emerg-
ing sports communities. But the
human tendency to bond with
those who are like us also poses
a problem for sports seeking to
achieve widespread popularity.
holding of various positions in
the ranking of various sports has
cemented strong confidence in
Qatar’s deep passion and dedi-
cation in the field of sports not
only in the sport of soccer.
Another feather is now added
to its worldwide reputation in
sports on the timely completion
of a challenging innovative in-
frastructure required in hosting
mega sports event level of FIFA
World Cup with a style and inno-
vation to be followed in the future.
The decision to host a mega
www.canadianinquirer.net
Pickleball seems to have more gender parity than other sports.
Sociological studies show
that our love of sameness part-
ly explains why our groups and
social networks tend to be ho-
mogeneous, such as male-dom-
inated occupations, predom-
inantly white community
groups, and friendship circles
united by a single religion. For
grassroots sports, which spread
through social networks, the
sameness problem can limit
growth by narrowing the flock
to those with similar feathers.
Pickleball insiders like to talk
about the sport’s relatively bal-
anced gender ratio, which stands
at roughly 60% to 70% men and
30% to 40% women. The newest
professional league, Major League
Pickleball, is promoting the sport
through mixed-gender competi-
tions, with teams comprising two
men and two women – a unique
format in the male-dominated
world of pro sports.
sport like of FIFA World Cup by
Qatar, a small country to many
was a mistake, a simple dream
as mentioned by then US Pres-
ident Barrack Obama on the
night of 2nd December 2010.
He had said that FIFA made a
‘wrong decision’ and that too
ahead of the United States.
The US had lost in final voting
against Qatar by 14-8 in Zurich.
However, Father Amir HH
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa
comments were “We will de-
liver with passion and make
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
But grassroots sports sprout
from the ground up, and long-
term growth depends partly
on the demographic diversity
of core players. Pickleball may
be trending younger, but one-
third of its avid players are of
retirement age. Roughly half the
population of pickleball play-
ers probably saw the Apollo 11
moon landing. Calculating accu-
rate statistics on niche commu-
nities is difficult, but based on
my review of multiple academic
and journalistic sources, pickle-
ballers are predominantly older,
white, affluent and suburban.
For instance, two survey-based
studies with large samples esti-
mated the proportion of white
players at 93.5% and 94.1%.
Demographic homogene-
ity is a tough trend to buck. Of
course, some sports, like golf
❱❱ PAGE 27 Pickleball’s uphill climb
sure this is a milestone in the
history of the Middle East and a
milestone for Fifa. On behalf of
millions of people in the Middle
East, thank you for believing in
us, thank you for having such
bold vision. I can promise we
will not let you down.”
2022 World Cup is first tour-
nament in Middle East, 2nd
time in Asia jointly organized in
2002 by Japan and South Korea.
Now less than three weeks
❱❱ PAGE 26 Qatar ready to
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Fighting inflation doesn’t directly cause
unemployment – but that’s still the most
likely outcome
BY MICHAEL P. CAMERON,
University of Waikato
The Conversation
You may have seen the news:
in its attempts to tackle infla-
tion, the Reserve Bank is going
to increase unemployment. The
idea can even seem to come right
from the mouths of experts,
including the bank’s governor,
Adrian Orr. Speaking recently to
an industry conference, he said:
Returning to low inflation
will, in the near term, constrain
employment growth and lead to
a rise in unemployment.
Similar sentiments have
been expressed by independent
economists and commentators.
But is it as simple as it might
appear? What is the relation-
ship between inflation and un-
employment, and is it inevita-
ble that reducing one will lead
to an increase in the other?
Historic highs and lows
Like other developed coun-
tries, New Zealand has been going
through a period of historically
high inflation. The latest figures,
for the September quarter of
2022, show an annual rise of 7.2%,
only slightly lower than the 7.3%
recorded for the June quarter.
Inflation is the highest it
has been since 1990. The sto-
ry is similar across the OECD,
where inflation averages 10.3%,
including 8.8% in the UK and
8.2% in the US.
At the same time, New Zea-
land is experiencing a period of
very low unemployment, with a
rate of just 3.3% for September
2022, following 3.2% in the June
quarter. These are near-record
Scared of needles?..
❰❰ 20 sessions. Ten rebates
could be made avail-
able in a calendar year,
irrespective of whether they are
Business
lows, and the rate has not been
below 4% since mid-2008.
So, right now New Zealand
is in a period of historically low
unemployment and historically
high inflation. At first glance,
that might suggest that in or-
der to return to low inflation,
we may inevitably experience
higher unemployment.
The Phillips Curve
The idea that inflation and
unemployment have a negative
relationship (when one increas-
es, the other decreases, and vice
versa) dates back to work by
New Zealand’s most celebrated
economist, A.W. (Bill) Phillips.
While working at the Lon-
don School of Economics in the
1950s, Phillips wrote a famous
paper that used UK data from
1861 to 1957 and showed a nega-
tive relationship between unem-
ployment and wage increases.
Subsequent work by econom-
ics Nobel Prize winners Paul
Samuelson and Robert Solow
extended Phillips’ work to show
a negative relationship between
price inflation and unemploy-
ment. We now refer to this rela-
tionship as the “Phillips Curve”.
However, even though this
relationship between inflation
and unemployment has been
demonstrated with various data
sources, and for various time
periods for different countries,
it is not a causal relationship.
Lower inflation doesn’t by it-
self cause higher unemployment,
even though they are related. To
see why, it’s worth thinking about
the mechanism that leads to the
observed relationship.
Collateral damage
If the Reserve Bank raises the
used in a single session or spaced
out over different sessions.
Other studies have inves-
tigated the feasibility of in-
official cash rate, commercial
banks follow by raising their
interest rates. That makes bor-
rowing more expensive. High-
er interest rates mean banks
will lend less money. With less
money chasing goods and ser-
vices in the economy, inflation
will start to fall.
Of course, this is what the Re-
serve Bank wants when it raises
the cash rate. Its Policy Targets
Agreement with the govern-
ment states that inflation must
be kept between 1% and 3%. So
when inflation is predicted to be
higher, the bank acts to lower it.
At the same time, higher in-
terest rates increase mortgage
payments, leaving households
and consumers with less dis-
cretionary income, and so con-
sumer spending falls. Along
with reduced business spend-
ing, this reduces the amount of
economic activity. Businesses
therefore need fewer workers,
and so employment falls.
So, while the Reserve Bank
tensive treatment formats for
other mental health conditions
beyond phobias, panic disorder,
with promising results. ■
www.canadianinquirer.net
raises interest rates to combat
inflation, those higher interest
rates also slow down the econ-
omy and increase unemploy-
ment. Higher unemployment
is essentially collateral damage
arising from reducing inflation.
Great expectations
That’s not the end of the story,
though. After its 1960s heyday,
the Phillips Curve was criticised
by economists on theoretical
grounds, and for its inability to
explain the “stagflation” (high
unemployment and high infla-
tion) experienced in the 1970s.
For example, Milton Fried-
man argued there is actually
no trade-off between inflation
and unemployment, because
workers and businesses take in-
flation into account when nego-
tiating employment contracts.
Workers’ and employers’
expectations about future in-
flation is key. Friedman argued
that, because inflation is ex-
pected, workers will have al-
ready built it into their wage
If this article has raised issues
for you, or if you’re concerned
about someone you know, call
Lifeline on 13 11 14.
23
demands, and businesses won’t
change the amount of workers
they employ.
Friedman’s argument would
suggest that, aside from some
short-term deviations, the
economy will typically snap
back to a “natural” rate of un-
employment, with an inflation
rate that only reflects workers’
and businesses’ expectations.
Symptom or cause?
Can we rely on this mech-
anism to avoid higher unem-
ployment as the Reserve Bank
increases interest rates to com-
bat inflation?
It seems unlikely. Workers
would first have to expect the
Reserve Bank’s actions will lower
inflation, and respond by asking
for smaller wage increases. Right
now, however, consumer inflation
expectations remain high and
wage growth is at record levels.
So, we can probably expect
unemployment to move up-
wards as the Reserve Bank’s
inflation battle continues. Not
because lower inflation causes
higher unemployment, but be-
cause worker and consumer ex-
pectations take time to reflect
the likelihood of lower future
inflation due to the Reserve
Bank’s actions.
And since workers negotiate
only infrequently with employ-
ers, there is an inevitable lag
between inflation expectations
changing and this being reflect-
ed in wages. Alas, for ordinary
households, there is no quick and
easy way out of this situation. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
24
Twitter and Elon Musk: why free speech
absolutism threatens human rights
BY SARAH GLOZER,
University of Bath, EMILY
JANE GODWIN, University of
Bath, RITA MOTA, ESADE
The Conversation
For a man who made a fortune
from electric cars, the Twitter
takeover has turned into a fairly
bumpy ride so far. Soon after buy-
ing the social media company for
US$44 billion (£38 billion), Elon
Musk said he had “no choice”
about laying off a large propor-
tion of the company’s staff.
He has already faced a backlash
over his move to charge Twitter
users a monthly fee for their “blue
tick” verified status. And those
users should also be concerned
about plans from the self-pro-
claimed “free speech absolutist”
to reduce content moderation.
Moderation, the screening
and blocking of unacceptable
online content, has been in
place for as long as the internet
has existed. And after becoming
an increasingly important and
sophisticated feature against a
rising tide of hate speech, mis-
information and illegal content,
it should not be undone lightly.
Anything which weakens
filters, allowing more harmful
content to reach our screens,
could have serious implications
for human rights, both online
and offline.
For it is not just governments
which are responsible for up-
holding human rights – busi-
Bank launches unified QR link
to help small firms
BY JOANN VILLANUEVA
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – Asia United Bank
(AUB) launched on Monday its
Unified Card QR Link, which al-
lows the bank’s PayMate users
to accept Mastercard and Visa
payments using only one quick
response (QR) code which is ex-
pected to be a big boost to micro
and small businesses.
In a virtual briefing, AUB se-
nior vice president and Cards
Business
Elon Musk (STEVE JURVETSON/FLICKR, CC BY 2.0)
nesses are too. And when differ-
ent human rights clash, as they
sometimes do, that clash needs
to be managed responsibly.
Social media has proved itself
to be an extremely powerful way
for people around the world to
assert their human right to free-
dom of expression – the freedom
to seek, receive and impart all
kinds of information and ideas.
But freedom of expression is
not without limits. Internation-
al human rights law prohibits
propaganda for war, as well as
advocacy of national, racial or
religious hatred that consti-
tutes incitement to discrimi-
nation, hostility or violence. It
also allows for restrictions nec-
essary to ensure that rights or
reputations are respected.
So Twitter, in common with
other online platforms, has a re-
sponsibility to respect freedom
of expression. But equally, it has
and Acquiring Business Group
head Mags Surtida said the new
product is an enhancement
of their Mastercard QR Link,
a first in the market, that was
launched in 2021.
“This is the reason we im-
mediately developed a Unified
Card QR Link so our AUB Pay-
Mate merchants can accept
both Mastercard and Visa pre-
paid, debit, and credit card pay-
ments from their customers,”
she said.
Surtida said the unified link
a responsibility not to allow free-
dom of expression to override
other human rights completely.
After all, harmful online con-
tent is often used to restrict the
freedom of expression of oth-
ers. Sometimes, online threats
spill over to the offline world
and cause irreparable physical
and emotional harm.
Any moves to remove con-
tent moderation therefore risk
breaching corporate human
rights obligations. Unlimited
freedom of expression for some
almost inevitably results in the
restriction elsewhere of that ex-
act same freedom. And the harm
is unlikely even to stop there.
Musk claims that Twitter will
now become a more democrat-
ic “town square”. But without
content moderation, his pri-
vately owned version of a town
square could become dysfunc-
tional and dangerous.
will benefit over 30,000 AUB
PayMate merchants and is
helpful especially to small en-
trepreneurs because they do
not need separate point-of-
sales (POS) terminals to accept
these payments.
“With the Unified Card QR
Link, merchants, big or small,
need not worry if they can meet
the required volume of trans-
actions as we made the card ac-
ceptance at no additional cost
to them,” she added.
Meanwhile, Surtida is op-
www.canadianinquirer.net
Twitter – again, like most
other social media platforms
– has long been linked to overt
expressions of racism and mi-
sogyny, with a flood of racist
tweets even surfacing after
Musk closed his deal.
And while Musk reassures us
that Twitter will not become a
“hellscape”, it is important to
remember that content moder-
ation is not the same as censor-
ship. In fact, moderation may
facilitate genuine dialogue by
cracking down on the spam and
toxic talk which often disrupt
communication on social media.
User friendly?
Moderation also offers re-
assurance. Without it, Twit-
ter risks losing users who may
leave for alternative platforms
considered safer and a better
ideological fit.
Valuable advertisers are also
quick to move away from online
spaces they consider divisive
and risky. General Motors was
one of the first big brands to
announce a temporary halt on
paid advertising on Twitter af-
ter Musk took over.
Of course, we do not yet know
exactly what Musk’s version of
Twitter will eventually look like.
But there have been suggestions
that content moderation teams
may be disbanded in favour of a
“moderation council”.
If it is similar to the “oversight
board” at Meta (formerly Face-
book), content decisions are set
to be outsourced to an exter-
timistic of the continued ex-
pansion of their credit card
business, saying the bank has
“definitely recovered from the
pandemic era.”
“All we’re waiting for is for
the conduct of travel,” she said,
noting people have started to
travel again, which is positive
for consumer spending.
Surtida said they are “happy”
with the rise in their card hold-
ers’ online transactions, adding
that non-performing loans re-
main manageable. ■
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
nal party representing diverse
views. But if Twitter has less in-
ternal control and accountabili-
ty, harmful content may become
a harder beast to tame.
Such abdication of responsi-
bility risks breaching Twitter’s
human rights obligations, and
having a negative impact both
on individuals affected by harm-
ful content, and on the overall
approach to human rights ad-
opted by other online platforms.
So as one (extremely) wealthy
businessman claims to “free”
the blue Twitter bird for the sake
of humanity, he also gains com-
mercial control of what has been
conceived as being a relatively
democratic social space until
now. What he does next will
have serious ramifications for
our human rights in a digital age.
Content moderation is by no
way a panacea and the claim that
social media platforms are “ar-
biters of the truth” is problem-
atic for many reasons. We must
also not forget the emotional
and psychological toll of human
content moderators having to
view “the worst of humanity” to
protect our screens. Yet, saniti-
sation of social platforms is also
not the answer. The internet is a
better place when the most suc-
cessful platforms engage in hu-
man rights-focused screening
– for everyone’s benefit. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
Love is Us:..
18 The jingle was com-
❰❰
posed and arranged
by Ann Margaret
Figueroa with lyrics by Emman
Rivera and Jann Fayel Lopez.
The year 2022 has given us,
Filipinos, hope to celebrate
Christmas once again with all
our loved ones. And as we slow-
ly go back into how things were,
the Kapuso Network urges ev-
eryone to selflessly give our
hearts just like how He loves us
– the highest form of love.
Watch GMA Network’s 2022
Christmas station ID #Lovei-
sUsThisChristmas on GMA’s
YouTube and Facebook pages or
visit www.gmanetwork.com.■
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Is Twitter’s ‘blue tick’ a status symbol or
ID badge? And what will happen if anyone
can buy one?
BY TIMOTHY GRAHAM,
Queensland University of
Technology
The Conversation
Following Elon Musk’s ac-
quisition of Twitter on Octo-
ber 27, the world’s richest man
proposed a range of controver-
sial changes to the platform.
With mounting evidence
that he is making it up as
he goes along, these pro-
posals are tweeted out in a
stream-of-consciousness
manner from Musk’s Twit-
ter account.
Primarily to raise reve-
nue, one of the ideas was to
charge US$8 a month to ob-
tain a verified status – that is,
the coveted blue tick badge
next to the account handle.
Within the space of a few
days, the paid verification
change has already been rolled
out in several countries, includ-
ing Australia, under the Twitter
Blue subscription service.
More than just verification
According to Twitter, the blue
tick lets people know an account
of interest is authentic. Current-
ly, there are seven categories
of “public interest accounts”,
such as government office ac-
counts, news organisations and
journalists, and influencers.
Yet this seemingly innocuous
little blue icon is far from a simple
verification tool in Twitter’s fight
against impersonation and fraud.
In the public view, a veri-
fied status signifies social im-
portance. It is a coveted status
symbol to which users aspire,
in large part because Twitter’s
approval process has made it
difficult to obtain.
That’s partly because the blue
tick has a controversial history.
After receiving widespread con-
demnation for verifying white
supremacists in 2017, Twitter
halted its verification process for
Technology
more than three years.
There’s a fundamental mis-
match between what Twitter
wants the blue tick to mean ver-
sus how the public perceives it,
something the Twitter Safety
team itself acknowledged in 2017.
But they didn’t resolve it.
When Twitter resumed veri-
fying accounts systematically
in 2021, it wasn’t long until the
... a verified status
signifies social
importance.
process began to fail again, with
blue ticks being handed out to
bots and fake accounts.
Moreover, the public is still
confused about what the blue
tick signifies, and views it as a
status symbol.
Lords and peasants
Musk’s stream-of-conscious-
ness policy proposals may re-
flect his own preference for
interacting with verified ac-
counts. Despite his repeated
claims of “power to the people”
and breaking the “lords and
peasants” system of verified
versus non-verified accounts,
I ran a data analysis of 1,493
of Musk’s tweets during 2022,
and found that more than half
(57%) of his interactions were
with verified accounts.
Evidently, having a verified
status makes one worthy of his
attention. Thus, Musk himself
arguably views the blue tick as
a status symbol, like everyone
else (except Twitter).
However, Musk’s US$8 blue
tick proposal is not only mis-
guided but, ironically, likely to
produce even more inauthen-
ticity and harm on the platform.
A fatal flaw stems from the
fact that “payment verification”
is not, in fact, verification.
Fact from fraud
Although Twitter’s verifica-
tion system is by no means per-
fect and is far from transparent,
it did at least aspire to the kinds
of verification practices jour-
nalists and researchers use
to distinguish fact from fic-
tion, and authenticity from
fraud. It takes time and ef-
fort. You can’t just buy it.
Despite its flaws, the veri-
fication process largely suc-
ceeded in rooting out a siz-
able chunk of illegitimate
activity on the platform,
and highlighted notable
accounts in the public in-
terest. In contrast, Musk’s
payment verification only
verifies that a person has US$8.
Payment verification can’t
guarantee the system won’t be
exploited for social harm. For
example, we already saw that
conspiracy theory influencers
such as “QAnon John” are at risk
of becoming legitimised through
the purchase of a blue tick.
Opening the floodgates
for bots
The problem is even worse at
larger scales. It is hard enough
to detect and prevent bot and
troll networks from poisoning
the information landscape with
disinformation and spam.
Now, for the low cost of
US$800, foreign adversaries can
launch a network of 100 verified
bot accounts. The more you can
pay, the more legitimacy you can
purchase in the public sphere.
To make matters worse,
Musk publicly stated that veri-
fied accounts who pay US$8 will
be granted more visibility on
the platform, while non-veri-
fied accounts will be suppressed
algorithmically.
www.canadianinquirer.net
He believes this will solve
hate speech and fake accounts
by prioritising verified accounts
in search, replies and mentions.
If anything, it will have the op-
posite effect: those with enough
money will dominate the public
sphere. Think Russian bots and
cryptocurrency spammers.
Consider also that the ability
to participate anonymously on
social media has many positive
advantages, including safety for
marginalised and at-risk groups.
Giving users tools to man-
age their public and personal
spheres is crucial to self-iden-
tity and online culture. Punish-
ing people who want to remain
anonymous on Twitter is not
the answer.
Worse yet, connecting social
media profiles to payment ver-
ification could cause real harm
if a person’s account is compro-
mised and the attacker learns
their identity through their
payment records.
A cascade of consequences
Musk’s ideas are already caus-
ing a cascading series of unin-
tended consequences on the
platform. Accounts with blue
ticks began changing their pro-
file handle to “Elon Musk” and
profile picture to parody him. In
25
response, Musk tweeted a new
policy proposal that Twitter han-
dles engaging in impersonation
would be suspended unless they
specify being a “parody”.
Users will not even receive
a warning, as comedian Kathy
Griffin and her 2 million fol-
lowers discovered when her
account was suspended for par-
odying Musk.
Musk’s vision for user verifi-
cation does not square up with
that of Twitter or the internet
research community.
While the existing system is
flawed, at least it was systemat-
ic, somewhat transparent, and
with the trappings of account-
ability. It was also revisable in
the face of public criticism.
On the other hand, Musk’s
policy approach is tyrannical
and opaque. Having abolished
the board of directors, the
“Chief Twit” has all the power
and almost no accountability.
We are left with a harrowing
vision of a fragile and flawed
online public square: in a world
where everyone is verified, no
one is verified. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
 26
Is the global decline in democracy linked
to social media? We combed through
the evidence to find out
BY STEPHAN
LEWANDOWSKY, The
University of Western
Australia, LISA OSWALD,
Hertie School, PHILIPP
LORENZ-SPREEN,
Max Planck Institute for
Human Development,
RALPH HERTWIG, Max
Planck Institute for Human
Development
The Conversation
Here are two common ways of
thinking about democracy in the
online era. First, the internet is
a liberation technology and will
usher in an era of global democ-
racy. Second, you can have social
media or democracy, but not both.
Which is more correct? There
is no doubt democracy is in re-
treat around the globe. Even sup-
posedly stable democracies have
recently seen events incompati-
ble with democracy and the rule
of law, such as the violent assault
on the US Capitol in 2021.
To understand the role of
social media in this process,
we carried out a systematic re-
view of the evidence linking
social media to ten indicators
of democratic wellbeing: polit-
ical participation, knowledge,
trust, news exposure, political
expression, hate, polarisation,
populism, network structure,
and misinformation.
We reviewed almost 500 stud-
ies across different platforms
in countries around the globe,
and saw some broad patterns
emerge. Social media use is
linked to an increase in political
engagement, but also increases
Qatar ready to..
❰❰ 22 are left in the realiza-
tion of then a dream
to many, to me it was
a vision not simple dream, very
well calculated, well planned,
designed in an innovative and
unprecedented style, well orga-
nized and well-selected team.
HH The Amir, Sheikh Tamim
bin Hamad AlThani in his mes-
sage at the 51st annual session
of Shura Council on Nov. 1 said,
“Our meeting today is taking
Technology
in polarisation, populism, and
distrust in institutions.
Different kinds of evidence
In our review, we put greater
weight on research establishing
causal links between social me-
dia and indicators of democrat-
ic wellbeing, rather than just
correlations.
Correlations can be inter-
esting, but they cannot prove
any outcome is caused by social
media use. For example, sup-
pose we find a link between so-
cial media use and hate speech.
It might arise because people
who produce hate speech use
social media more, rather than
because using social media trig-
gers hate speech.
Causal links can be established
in a number of ways, for exam-
ple through large-scale field ex-
periments. Participants may be
asked to reduce Facebook usage
to 20 minutes per day or turn off
Facebook altogether for a month.
(Both interventions led to an in-
place against the backdrop of the
state and the people’s preoccupa-
tion with preparing to host a his-
torical event that constitutes one
of our most important national
projects, which is the World Cup.
The global interest in this event
as well as in the host country re-
veals the extent of significance
of this event for our country. It
is the most important sporting
event, yet it is not a mere sporting
event, but rather a major human-
crease in wellbeing, and abstain-
ing from Facebook altogether
also significantly reduced politi-
cal polarisation.)
More engagement, more
polarisation
Across the 496 articles we
considered, most correlation-
al rather than causal, we found
a mix of positive and negative
effects. As often happens in sci-
ence, the pattern is complicated
but can still be interpreted.
On the positive side, we
found digital media use relates
to higher political engage-
ment and greater diversity of
news exposure. For example,
a study in Taiwan found infor-
mation-oriented social media
use increased political partici-
pation. However, this was only
true if the user believed an in-
dividual can influence politics
through online actions.
On the negative side, we
found considerable evidence for
effects such as fostering polari-
itarian occasion.”
HH the Amir said, “In short,
it is an occasion in which we
portray ‘who we are’, not only
in terms of the strength of our
economy and institutions but
also in terms of our civiliza-
tional identity. This is a great
test for a country the size of
Qatar that impresses the whole
world with what it has already
achieved and is achieving.”
The first match on the in-
www.canadianinquirer.net
sation and populism, and reduc-
ing trust in institutions. The ef-
fects on trust in institutions and
media were particularly pro-
nounced. During the pandem-
ic, digital media use has been
shown to be associated with
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
Another negative outcome of
social media use, in a range of
political contexts and on var-
ious platforms, appears to be
increased political polarisation.
We found increased polari-
sation was also linked to expo-
sure to opposing viewpoints in
one’s social media feeds. In oth-
er words, being exposed to the
words of political opponents did
not bridge the political divide.
Rather it seemed to amplify it.
Links to violence
We also found a strong and
pervasive association between
social media use and populism.
More social media use trans-
lates into a greater vote share
for populist parties.
Studies in Austria, Sweden
and Australia have found ev-
idence for an association be-
tween increased social media
use and online right-wing radi-
calisation. Studies in Germany
and Russia have provided caus-
al evidence that digital media
can increase the incidence of
ethnic hate crimes.
For example, the German
study found local outages of
Facebook (due to technical
faults or internet interruptions,
for example) decreased violence
in those locations. The authors
of the study estimated that 50%
less anti-refugee sentiment on
social media would reduce vio-
auguration ceremony of the
long-awaited tournament will
take place on 20th of November
at the iconic architecture of Al-
Bayt stadium in AlKhor in pres-
ence of 60,000 overwhelmed
spectators including expected
dozens of heads of states, prime
ministers and other dignitaries.
Around 20 days are left in
the inauguration of the mega
football world cup here in Qa-
tar. It will be right to say that
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
lent incidents by 12.6%.
The distribution of effects
around the world was also strik-
ing. Positive effects on political
participation and information
consumption were most pro-
nounced in emerging democ-
racies in South America, Africa
and Asia. Negative effects were
more evident in established de-
mocracies in Europe and the
United States.
No simple answers
So, to return to where we be-
gan: is the internet a liberation
technology? Or are social media
incompatible with democracy?
There are no simple yes or
no answers. There is, however,
evidence that digital media im-
pact political behaviour global-
ly. This evidence warrants con-
cern about the adverse impacts
of social media on democracy.
Facebook, Twitter and oth-
er social media are not per se
incompatible with democracy.
Democratic welfare, however,
requires that scientists careful-
ly study the social effects of so-
cial media. Those effects must
be evaluated and regulated by
voters and elected policymak-
ers, not a small clique of su-
per-rich individuals.
We have seen small but im-
portant steps in this direction.
The Digital Services Act of the
European Union is one. Anoth-
er is the proposed Platform Ac-
countability and Transparency
Act (PATA) in the US, though
its fate is uncertain. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
completion of all arrangements
for hosting 2022 FIFA World
Cup by the State of Qatar has
not only defused all the doubts
about its capability rather
strengthened much confidence
in its leadership role in the
sports sector too. ■
Ashraf Siddiqui, a well known
journalist, and having rich expe-
rience of over four decades in Gulf
States
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Why Meta’s share price
collapse is good news for
the future of social media
BY RENAUD FOUCART,
Lancaster University
The Conversation
Facebook may not be the orig-
inal social media platform but it
has stood the test of time – until
recently. Meta, the company that
owns Facebook, Instagram and
WhatsApp, saw its value plummet
by around $80 billion (£69 billion)
in just one day at the end of Octo-
ber, after its third-quarter profits
halved amid the global slowdown.
Meta is now valued at around
$270 billion compared with more
than $1 trillion last year.
Several issues have caused
investors to turn away from the
social media giant, including fall-
ing advertising revenue, a con-
flict with Apple over its app store
charging policy, and competition
for younger audiences from new-
er platforms such as TikTok.
Meta’s chief-executive Mark
Zuckerberg has also used his
majority control to double
down on his ambitions for the
“metaverse”, a virtual reality
project on which he has already
spent more than $100 billion
– with questionable results ac-
cording to initial investor and
media reaction. Zuckerberg has
promised even more investment
in the metaverse next year.
It’s tempting to describe this
spending spree as a billionaire’s
“insane fantasy”, but there is a
simpler explanation. As dominant
platforms compete for a limited
amount of advertising revenue,
regulation – particularly when it
differs between countries or re-
gions – has created space for more
competitors. This is good news for
new social media companies, but
it also means that the only way
Meta is likely to be able to keep its
dominant position is by placing a
massive bet on the technology of
the future. Zuckerberg believes
that means the metaverse, but
this remains to be seen.
Tech’s changing fortunes
Even with its recent troubles,
Meta owns the largest social net-
work in the world. Those recent
results that caused investors to
flee in their droves still showed
total revenues of $27 billion and
profits of $4.4 billion.
To maintain its position as
market leader in the past, Meta
has typically bought its most
promising competitors as early
as possible. Integrating these
newly acquired startups into the
company’s ecosystem helped to
maximise advertising revenue
and preclude competition.
Research shows that digital
markets are typically dominat-
ed by a single firm, but also that
these firms tend to be much
more specialised than the ma-
jor companies of the past. Meta
is only active in social media
and makes money almost ex-
clusively by selling advertising.
Attempts by such firms to
expand into other areas typi-
cally fail – know anyone with
a Facebook phone? And while
you may not remember Goo-
gle’s attempt at social media, iP-
hone users are probably at least
aware of Apple’s maps app.
So Facebook relies on con-
sumers using devices produced
by other tech companies to make
money. But as global social media
advertising revenue slows down,
this is becoming more difficult.
Apple has begun charging Meta
for the revenue it makes from
iPhone users, for example. And
research shows that, when two
companies compete to make
money from the same captive
source, their successive markups
not only push prices higher for
consumers but also keep profits
lower for both firms.
Global domination fail
Meta’s strategy has, until re-
cently, allowed it to rule social
media in western markets – but
not in China, a country of more
than 300 million social media
users. Since 2009, Facebook has
been blocked by the country’s
“great firewall”, the largest and
most sophisticated system of
censorship in the world.
Reported attempts to adapt
Facebook to suit Chinese gov-
ernment media control have
never been successful. And so,
Chinese company ByteDance
was able to launch a news plat-
form called Toutiao in 2012
without having to compete with
a dominant social network.
In 2016, ByteDance launched
Douyin, a social media plat-
form for publishing short vid-
eos which was subsequently
released to the rest of the world
in 2018 as TikTok.
Despite not being profitable,
ByteDance’s market capitalisa-
tion is now estimated at around
$300 billion – versus Meta’s
current £270 billion valuation.
It is also popular among young-
er users that tend to be much
more avid social media users.
Meta cannot simply buy Tik-
Tok: it is too big, not publicly
traded and under tight control
by the Chinese government.
Zuckerberg’s firm has instead
tried to compete by launching
similar features on Instagram.
Ironically, the only large mar-
ket where this strategy is really
working is India, a country that
banned TikTok in 2021 due to a
military conflict with China.
❱❱ PAGE 29 Why Meta’s share
www.canadianinquirer.net
Technology
Pickleball’s uphill climb..
22 and NASCAR, have
❰❰
expanded their reach
without solving the
sameness problem. But given
the nation’s reckoning around
race and gender, a successful
push for greater diversity could
be the one thing that separates
pickleball from the crowd of
dreamer upstarts.
Will the revolution even
need to be televised?
That sports grow when main-
stream media pay attention to
them seems obvious. Increased
media coverage from ESPN or
CBS attracts more participants
and consumers, enticing spon-
sors and fostering stronger
sport institutions.
Yet, as a growth strategy, buy-
ing airtime on ESPN – which
sports like cornhole and ax
throwing are doing – may pro-
vide little more than airy hope.
As pickleball strives to expand
its audience, it faces stiff com-
petition from traditional sports
brands like the NFL and NBA,
as well as emerging brands like
esports, mixed martial arts, disc
golf, cornhole, drone racing,
round net, darts and ax throwing.
With so many options, some
sports just won’t make it big.
The history of emerging sports
is filled with booms and busts.
Interest in gambling sports like
jai alai and horse racing has
declined tremendously since
the late 20th century. ESPN’s
X Games popularized alterna-
tive sports like skateboarding
in the late 1990s, but some dis-
ciplines, like street luge, were
left behind. Drop “poker” in a
Google Trends search box and
you’ll see that the Texas hold
Bulking and cutting:..
treme methods such
❰❰ 19
as supplements that
promise to help you
shed weight. Not only is there
no evidence these work, some
have even been associated with
causing liver toxicity.
While bulking and cutting
may be a popular method,
there’s little evidence to suggest
it’s superior for building muscle
or losing fat over other methods.
But if you really want to try it, it’s
best to do this in a “clean” way.
During the bulking phase, avoid
processed, high fat and high
sugar foods. Focus on eating
nutrient-dense foods, and only
increase calories moderately
(by around 500 calories daily) to
27
‘em boom lasted for about three
years, from 2004 to 2006.
The next big thing in sports
may not boom at all. Given that
younger consumers are migrat-
ing to streaming services, the rev-
olution may not be televised to a
mass audience but instead will be
streamed to die-hard fans.
Niche sports like pickle-
ball may have an advantage as
sports spectatorship fragments.
For small sports, a modest au-
dience with slow but steady
growth could be a recipe for
sustainable success. There are
numerous options for watch-
ing pickleball matches, such as
YouTube channels, livestreams
via Facebook, fuboTV, and some
coverage on broadcast and ca-
ble channels, but demand for
live coverage remains modest.
Ultimately, with so many
shiny new sports to choose
from, the winners will be deter-
mined not by flashy media expo-
sure or top-down commercial
forces but rather by bottom-up
community development. No
matter how hot the publicity
gets around pickleball, the con-
sumer base for watching the
sport will draw heavily on peo-
ple who already love playing it.
The love of any sport has roots
in culture – not commerce.
If pickleball lives up to the
hype, it will do so on the backs
of volunteers and grassroots
organizers who can transform a
loose network of casual players
into an international commu-
nity of pickleball fanatics. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
avoid excess weight gain.
When cutting, reduce calories
moderately with the aim of only
losing 0.5% to 1% of your body
weight per week – so 0.4kg to
0.8kg per week for a person who is
80kg. Not only is this safer, it will
still help you achieve your desired
fat loss without muscle loss.
Of course, you may be able to
gain muscle without gaining any
fat, by only moderately increas-
ing the amount of calories you eat
daily. This will make it possible
to gain muscle slowly over time,
while minimising fat gain. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
28
The Royal Treatment: Five Dazzling
Locations Behind the Stately TV Series
Hitting Screens this Fall
BOOKING.COM
From castles to internation-
al tours, the royal family visits
some of the most prestigious
and beautiful places around the
world making them some of the
most seasoned travelers around.
Viewers will get a glimpse of
these scenic backdrops in the
popular and award-winning bi-
opic of the British monarchy
which airs a fifth season on 9th
November. After the passing of
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
II in September, viewership of
the series has increased as many
wish to immerse themselves in
her extraordinary life and the
incredible legacy she leaves be-
hind. With over a third (37%)*
of global travelers intending to
visit a destination that was fea-
tured in a TV show, we present
five filming locations where the
best scenes from this dramati-
cally regal TV series were cap-
tured. From medieval cities in
the UK to Mediterranean coasts
and mountainous highland
ranges, there’s a destination for
every traveler to feel like a mem-
ber of the royal family.
Winchester, United Kingdom
The medieval city of Win-
chester has had special rela-
tions with kings and queens for
centuries, as the home of King
Arthur’s mythical roundtable.
Today, Winchester is a charm-
ing destination and one of the
smallest cities in the UK, per-
fect to explore by foot. Blessed
with beautiful architecture and
quaint streets featuring cozy
cafes and independent bou-
tiques, visitors can dawdle and
take in the welcoming atmo-
sphere. The historical jewel of
the city is Winchester Cathe-
dral, which was used as a film-
ing location in the series for
the rehearsal of the glamorous
British royal wedding that took
place in 1981. Also posed as St
Travel
Paul’s Cathedral and Westmin-
ster Abbey across the five se-
ries for dramatic wedding and
funeral scenes, the cathedral is
one of England’s largest and is
widely acknowledged as a mag-
nificent gothic masterpiece. For
history fanatics, a City Literary
Heritage Walking Tour will
give visitors the opportunity
to discover the most notewor-
thy authors from the UK who
called Winchester home. From
the city’s 12th-century gateway
to the grand Great Hall and
Jane Austen’s house, the tour
is a fantastic way to soak up the
culture followed by a tipple in
a local pub. Outside of the city,
nature enthusiasts can venture
to the surrounding woodland
and meadows for a brisk coun-
try walk or stroll by the River
Itchen for picturesque views.
Where to stay: Located just
a short walk from Winchester
Cathedral and the city center,
Wykeham Arms is a charm-
ing inn dating back to the 18th
century offering visitors a cozy
stay. Tucked away in the quiet-
est corner of the city, the hotel
offers delicious heartwarming
food and local ales which guests
can tuck into next to the roaring
The Wykeham Arms in Winchester. (HENRY BURROWS/FLICKR, CC BY-SA 2.0)
log fire. For the 29% of travelers
who plan to book a pet-friendly
accommodation on their next
vacation*, the inn welcomes
animals so guests can go on
brisk dog walks with their furry
friends – corgis approved.
Cape Town, South Africa
South Africa has played its
own starring role in the hit series
as the go-to filming location to
capture both tropical and mes-
merizing scenes. Used as the
backdrop for some of the most
famous historical royal tours of
the Commonwealth, filming lo-
cations in South Africa have dou-
bled up as Kenya, Melbourne,
the Amazon and Bermuda across
all five series. Visitors can, quite
literally, find the diversely rich
places behind these tropical
destinations along the stunning
Western Cape where the magnif-
icent Atlantic and Indian oceans
meet. The incredible capital city
of Cape Town is a popular desti-
nation for both royals and global
visitors – a multicultural haven
boasting golden sand beaches
and crowned by the magnificent
Table Mountain which can be
conquered by foot or cable car.
The city’s delicious seafood and
local wines are a must-try and
www.canadianinquirer.net
whale watching and a visit to the
penguins at Boulders Beach is
fantastic for nature enthusiasts.
For a once in a lifetime birds-eye
view and to travel in style like a
royal, travelers can book a Sce-
nic Helicopter Flight to take in
the incredible landscape of Cape
Town from above and fly over the
world-renowned beaches of the
western seaboard.
Where to stay: The Cape Town
Skyroof apartment LOADSHED
PROOF Ocean Views offers
guests a luxurious stay fit for
royalty with unbelievable views
of the city and ocean. Windsurf-
ing and hiking can be enjoyed
in close proximity to the apart-
ment and the stay even offers
BBQ facilities, perfect to enjoy
the South African lifestyle. Fea-
turing a private pool and luxe
outdoor hot tub, guests can un-
wind on the sun terrace with a
relaxing dip. The apartment is
also a Booking.com Travel Sus-
tainable stay and offsets a por-
tion of its carbon footprint.
Scottish Highlands, United
Kingdom
The British royal family’s love
affair with Scotland is undeniable
and this, of course, extends to the
picturesque Scottish Highlands.
The Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich in London. (NEIL HOWARD/FLICKR, CC BY-NC 2.0)
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
One of the most beloved places of
Her Late Majesty the Queen, the
spectacular scenery surrounding
Balmoral Castle was the back-
drop of countless summers for
the royal family. With 83% of
travelers reporting that beautiful
natural scenery is a key motiva-
tion for their next vacation,* the
Scottish Highlands offers trav-
elers an unforgettable trip deep
in nature, along with its many
romantic castles and fascinating
history. The dramatic landscapes
feature in the hit series, which set
the stage for Balmoral at the Ard-
verikie Estate in Kinloch Laggan
– a grand location with Victori-
an roots and an incredible ball-
room used for traditional Scot-
tish dancing known as reeling.
For active travelers who would
rather wear walking boots rather
than kilts, the UK’s largest na-
tional park in Cairngorms offers
jaw-dropping views and incred-
ible hiking trails, cycling, water-
sports and skiing in the winter
season. For visitors wishing to
see many of the postcard-worthy
sites in a day, a Loch Ness and
Highlands of Scotland Tour de-
parts from Edinburgh and takes
❱❱ PAGE 29 The Royal Treatment:
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Tulips made of
recyclables attracts
tourists in La Union village
BY HILDA AUSTRIA
Philippine News Agency
SAN JUAN, La Union – A
community vegetable garden in
Barangay Casilagan here featur-
ing tulip flowers made of almost
9,000 recycled plastic bottles
has been drawing tourists to the
village since it opened last week.
In an interview on Friday, its
village chairperson, Sani Subido,
said the plastic bottles were col-
lected from the homes of constit-
uents, and from officials them-
selves during their meetings.
“We initially thought of cre-
ating landscapes along our ba-
rangay roads. But our secretary
suggested instead to make tulip
flowers” he said.
The project was established
The Royal Treatment:..
❰❰ 28 travelers from Stirling
Castle to Glencoe and
from Loch Laggan to
Loch Ness – monster sightings
cannot be guaranteed but trav-
elers are strongly encouraged to
keep their eyes peeled and cam-
eras at the ready.
Where to stay: Balsporran Bed
and Breakfast offers a welcom-
ing and cozy stay in a remote lo-
cation surrounded by stunning
scenery – and just a short drive
away from Kinloch Laggan and
the Ardverikie Estate. Before an
active day of hiking or cycling, or
some more leisurely fishing on
the nearby river, guests can tuck
into warming Scottish porridge
to give them the energy needed
to explore the Highlands. Trav-
elers can relax and refuel after a
day of adventure with a delicious
cream tea of scones and jam for
the proper royal treatment.
Malaga, Spain
Located on the Mediterranean
coast of the Costa del Sol, and sit-
uated in the Andalusian region
of Spain, Malaga doubled up as
Australia during the tour of the
then Prince Charles and Princess
Diana in 1983. It has also been
presented as the glamorous is-
land of Mustique in the TV series.
Recently this year, the stars of
the show were spotted on a glam-
in a 500-square meter land lent
by Subido’s kin.
“It used to be our communi-
ty vegetable garden, but we did
not plant on it lately because
we thought the owners will al-
ready utilize their land. Howev-
er, it was again lent to us so we
A vegetable farm in Barangay Casilagan, San Juan, La Union features tulip flowers made
of almost 9,000 pieces of recycled plastic bottles. (CASILAGAN SANJUANLU/FACEBOOK)
orous speedboat in the local area
of San Telmo filming an exciting
scene for the upcoming series.
Travelers can experience a cruise
along the coast themselves by
booking a Sailing and Swimming
Cruise in Málaga on an incredi-
ble catamaran, and relax on the
boat’s deck and dive into the crys-
tal blue ocean in style. Besides a
huge stretch of sunny beaches,
Malaga has a lively atmosphere
popular with both tourists and
locals who appreciate the blend
of ancient and modern culture.
Visitors can explore the trendy
bars and food markets offering
delicious local tapas and discover
the old town full of streetside ca-
fes and historic squares.
Where to stay: Vincci Larios
Diez is a luxurious boutique ho-
tel in the heart of Malaga and a
short walk from La Malagueta
Beach and the San Telmo area
– the key filming location used
in the show. Featuring a fantas-
tic restaurant serving a modern
spin on Spanish cuisine and styl-
ish, modern interiors, the hotel
also boasts panoramic views of
the city. Guests can recline on a
sun lounger on one of the hotel
room’s terraces and order a cool-
ing cocktail at the end of the day.
London, United Kingdom
Taking center stage in all of
created the tulip farm on it. We
also continued to plant vegeta-
bles for the consumption of the
whole community,” he said.
Ever since the village at-
traction was opened last week,
❱❱ PAGE 30 Tulips made of
the series of the royal drama,
London is a fantastic metropo-
lis and home to some of the UK’s
most important royal land-
marks. Steeped in history, Lan-
caster House poses as Bucking-
ham Palace on screen as a grand
duplicate of the royal residence
and is just a stone’s throw away
from the real palace located in
St James’s in London. The Roy-
al Navy College in Greenwich
also boasts impressive histori-
cal exteriors that are often fea-
tured in dramatic scenes in the
hit show. For travelers wishing
to see the capital from a royal
perspective, a Buckingham Pal-
ace Tour and Changing of the
Guard puts visitors in the heart
of the British monarchy where
they can explore the lavish state
apartments of the British sover-
eign – full of precious artworks
and elegant furniture. Travel-
ers can also venture east to ex-
perience the Tower of London
and Crown Jewels Tour to see
the nation’s most dazzling and
precious treasures firsthand.
Where to stay: Just a short
walk from the filming location
of Lancaster House, 9 Hert-
ford Street offers classic and
stylish apartments on a lovely
residential street in glamorous
Mayfair. Situated near Hyde
www.canadianinquirer.net
Travel
Why Meta’s share..
❰❰ 27 Fair competition
At the same time
that TikTok has been
expanding beyond Meta’s
reach, western regulators have
also started to examine the im-
pact of the lack of competition
in digital markets on innova-
tion. While research shows that
the winner-take-all nature of
highly innovative markets is
typically good for consumers,
this is only true when all com-
panies get a fair chance to be-
come dominant.
In addition to recent rulings
against tech company domi-
nance by its highest court, the
European Union also recently
introduced the Digital Markets
Act. This outlaws many practices
used by dominant firms to pre-
serve their status in a market.
Similar legislation is ex-
pected from the US after the
November midterm elections,
while the UK has forced Meta to
sell gif library Giphy to ensure
it doesn’t decrease competition
in the online advertising sector.
All of this means that, for
Park, guests can enjoy the city’s
stunning green space or head to
the nearby Shepherd Market,
a small square known for its
cute boutiques and wonderful
restaurants. After a day in the
bustling city, guests can curl up
on a sofa with a cup of regal En-
glish tea by the warming fire. ■
*Research commissioned by
Booking.com and independent-
ly conducted among a sample
of 48,413 respondents across 31
markets (2,000 from USA, 1,864
from Canada, 1,999 from Mexico,
2,003 from Colombia, 2,005 from
Brazil, 2,002 from Argentina,
1,020 from Chile, 1,777 from Aus-
tralia, 818 from New Zealand,
1,999 from Spain, 2,002 from
Italy, 1,998 from France, 1,990
from UK, 2,005 from Germany,
2,003 from Netherlands, 985
from Denmark, 999 from Swe-
den, 910 from Croatia, 918 from
Switzerland, 1,986 from Belgium,
998 from Russia, 953 from Israel,
1,999 from India, 1,990 from Chi-
na, 901 from Hong Kong, 1,775
from Thailand, 1,001 from Sin-
gapore, 975 from Taiwan, 1,800
from Vietnam, 1,757 from South
Korea, 1,001 from Japan). In or-
der to participate in this survey,
respondents had to be 18 years of
age or older, had to have traveled
29
Facebook to remain dominant,
Meta needs to invest in its own
products. To be the market
leader of tomorrow, the compa-
ny cannot simply count on buy-
ing up promising startups.
But its metaverse is a nebu-
lous project and an odd bet. Af-
ter all, Google has already failed
to drum up interest in Google
Glass, even though the technol-
ogy behind it was successful.
What has changed to convince
normal people to regularly
wear virtual reality headsets?
The only alternative for Meta
may be to find a better idea in
which to invest. In the mean-
time, regulation continues to
protect potential competitors.
This is great news for consum-
ers and creators alike: now
might be the best moment to
launch an innovative social
media format that can actually
compete with giants like Meta
to become the market leader. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
at least once for business or lei-
sure in the past 12 months, and
planning to travel in 2022 and
be either the primary decision
maker or involved in the decision
making of their travel. The survey
was taken online and took place
in January 2022.
**Research commissioned
by Booking.com and conducted
among a sample of adults who
plan to travel for business or lei-
sure in the next 12-24 months. In
total 24,055 respondents across
31 countries and territories were
polled (including 501 from Argen-
tina, 1003 from Australia, 500
from Belgium, 1001 from Brazil,
500 from Canada, 1000 from
China, 1007 from Colombia, 1001
from Croatia, 508 from Denmark,
1002 from France, 1000 from
Germany, 1005 from Hong Kong,
1000 from India, 502 from Israel,
1003 from Italy, 1002 from Japan,
500 from Mexico, 501 from The
Netherlands, 501 from New Zea-
land, 500 from Peru, 1000 from
Russia, 1005 from Singapore,
1002 from South Korea, 1002
from Spain, 501 from Sweden, 501
from Switzerland, 504 from Tai-
wan, 500 from Thailand, 1000
from the UK, 1002 from the US
and 501 from Vietnam). Respon-
dents completed an online survey
in August 2021.
 30
Why some like it hot: The science of spiciness
BY ROBERTO SILVESTRO,
Université du Québec à
Chicoutimi (UQAC)
The Conversation
Spiciness, or its perception,
occurs in most cuisines world-
wide. The chilli pepper of the
genus Capsicum (family Sola-
naceae) is one of the world’s
most widely used spices, found
in thousands of recipes and
sometimes eaten as a stand-
alone dish. One in every four
people on the planet currently
eats chillies on a daily basis.
As a forest eco-physiologist, I
study the adaptation traits devel-
oped by plant organisms to inter-
act with other living beings and
the surrounding environment.
The research on chilli pep-
pers and spiciness represents an
outstanding example of multi-
disciplinary science. Several re-
searchers in the last decades have
provided information and curi-
osities about this most unique
and desirable oral sensation.
A brief history
Chilli peppers were un-
known to much of the world
until Christopher Columbus
made his way to the New World
in 1492. Several origin theories
flagged different parts of South
America as “the” spot where
chillies came from.
A phylogenetic analysis
found that they are native to an
area along the Andes of western
to northwestern South Amer-
ica. These ancestral wild Cap-
sicum were “small red, round,
berry-like fruits.”
The earliest evidence of do-
mestication dates back to 6,000
years ago in Mexico or northern
Central America. Chilli peppers
were introduced into Europe
in the 16th century. Current-
Tulips made of..
❰❰ 29 tourists were coming
in as the admission is
free.
“But we have placed donation
boxes. The collection from the
donation boxes will be used for
the maintenance of the place,”
Food
ly, there are five domesticated
chilli peppers species.
The five domesticated species
are Capsicum annuum, C. chin-
ense, C. frutescens, C. baccatum
and C. pubescens. The species
with the most varieties is the
C. annuum, which includes the
New Mexican jalapeño and the
bell pepper. The Habaneros and
scotch bonnets instead belong
to the C. chinense, while Tabas-
co peppers are C. frutescens.
The South American ajis are C.
baccatum, while the Peruvian
rocoto and the Mexican Manza-
no are C. pubescens.
Nowadays, more than three
million tons of chilli peppers are
produced yearly for a global mar-
ket that is well over US$4 billion.
Why chilli burns?
Spiciness is a burning sensa-
tion caused by capsaicin in food.
When we eat spicy food, capsa-
icin stimulates receptors in our
mouth called TRPV1 receptors
and triggers a reaction. The
purpose of TRPV1 receptors is
thermoreception — the detec-
tion of heat. This means they
are supposed to deter us from
consuming food that burns.
When TRPV1 receptors are
activated by capsaicin, the sen-
sation we experience is linked
to the feeling of encountering
something hot, near the boiling
point of water. However, this pain
is nothing more than an illusory
side effect of our confused neural
receptors — there is nothing ac-
tually “hot” about spicy food.
Not all chillies are equal
Different degrees of spiciness
exist according to the chilli you
are eating. In 1912, pharmacist
Wilbur Scoville created a scale
to measure the pungency (spici-
ness) of chilli peppers. This scale,
measured in Scoville Heat Units
(SHU), is based on the capsaici-
Subido said.
The village chief said they are
now planning to transform the
tulip farm into a Christmas vil-
lage come December.
With the newly-established
village attraction. Subido said
noid sensitivity experienced by
people eating hot chillies.
On the standard Scoville heat
scale, bell peppers (SHU=0) are
on the bottom. Jalapeño pep-
pers can range anywhere from
2,500 to 10,000. By comparison,
Tabasco peppers are between
25,000 to 50,000 units, and ha-
banero chilli ranges between
100,000 to 350,000.
The world’s hottest pepper —
the Carolina Reaper — goes all
the way up to 2.2 million units.
Bear spray — two per cent cap-
saicin — is advertised at 3.3 mil-
lion units, and pure capsaicin
hits 16 million at the top of the
Scoville scale.
Human pleasure
Psychologist Paul Bloom
writes: “Philosophers have often
looked for the defining feature
of humans — language, rational-
ity, culture and so on. I’d stick
with this: Man is the only animal
that likes Tabasco sauce.”
Bloom was right. There is not
a single animal that enjoys hot
pepper, but we are not the only
animal species eating chillies.
Capsaicin is what makes chilli peppers taste hot.
they are hoping to encourage
everyone to recycle their solid
waste to protect the environ-
ment, especially with the global
warming trend.
“We continuously encourage
residents to have two bins - one
www.canadianinquirer.net
Mammals, like mice and squir-
rels, share the same spicy food
receptors humans have, and
they tend to avoid hot peppers
as food sources.
Birds eat hot peppers — but
they can’t actually feel the heat.
Birds have different receptors
from humans and are biologi-
cally unable to register the ef-
fects of capsaicin.
Explaining the reason for the
evolution of capsaicin is not that
easy. Some argue that it is an
adaptation to select birds to eat
chilli fruits. Birds don’t chew or
digest seeds like rodents, and
they transport them far away.
Other studies have suggested
that capsaicin is also an effective
deterrent against the attack of
parasitic fungi, and the heat sen-
sation in mammals is a side effect.
Some experts argue that
humans like chillies because
they are good for us. They have
some beneficial effects on hu-
man health. They reduce blood
pressure and may have some
antimicrobial effects. The pain
of chillies can even overwhelm
for the recyclables and one for
non-recyclables. We also placed
trash bins all over the community,
and it helped our barangay less-
ened garbage collection,” he said.
He added that their barangay
is serious in solid waste man-
NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY
and help manage other pains.
Another hypothesis can be
described as benign masoch-
ism. Psychologist Paul Rozin
suggests that there’s a sort of
thrill similar to the fun of riding
a roller coaster. In an interview,
he explained: “Mind over body.
My body thinks I’m in trouble,
but I know I’m not.”
Reducing the burn
What happens when a food is
too hot to handle? The ability of
several common beverages to
put out the fire, or reduce the
oral burn from capsaicin, has
been tested.
With capsaicin, a glass of wa-
ter will be ineffective because
capsaicin is hydrophobic — the
molecule does not bond with
water. Although it needs to be
thoroughly proven, ethanol in
a cold beer might even increase
the burn perception.
Beverages with a significant
amount of sugar can help be-
cause activating the taste of
sweetness basically confounds
our brain. Too much stimuli to
handle will reduce the pungen-
cy of chillis.
A glass of milk, a few spoons
of yogurt or ice cream will calm
the burning sensation. These
products are usually sweet, but
there’s more: casein — the pri-
mary protein in cow’s milk —
attracts capsaicin molecules.
Casein molecules surround the
capsaicin molecules and wash
them away, in the same way that
soap washes away grease.
So the next time you want
to try a new hot sauce or spicy
dish, do not forget to order a
glass of milk. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
agement because it is good for
the environment, and is good
for the people as well.
“We just want a clean envi-
ronment for everyone,” Subido
said. ■
 NOVEMBER
JULY 11, 2022
17, 2020 cx328
1

CANADA

PINOY EXPRESS DELIVERY

TRUCK OR CARGO AVAILABLE FOR RENT WITH A DRIVER.
Driver will help: Load-Pack-Unload

Perfect for: *Furniture Pick-up *Online Purchases

Room * Bachelor * 1-2 Bedroom
No More Hassle and Headache of going out to Rent.
Just pick up the phone and will show up at your door.
Let your Kababayan help you!!! We Speak your language
Maraming Salamat

Call: (416) 841-0244 for more details.

Leave a Message and we will call you back.

Electronic Technicians Needed

Experience in Low Voltag
Electrical System
installation and Servicin
Computers with Networking
Email resume to suda@alarmboss.com
Call 416-432-1902

CHRISTMAS SIGNING BONUS!!! TIN TIN DIM SUM Spectrum Health

re Ca
is Hiri
Do you have: Personal Support
W orkers
Cleaning, sweeping and moping experience (Outside Retail)
Experience in using a power washer & leaf blower
Enjoy Working Outdoors
Proudly serving fresh
and not frozen dim sum allday who w ant more!
Good time management skills and can work unsupervised
Have your own transportation $10.99 only More hou
rs
Iron Platter Style (w ith rice & veg in soup)
Competitive Pay Rates Tonkatsu Com bo (Chicken or Pork)
Spicy Ram en Pot
$500 Signing Bonus
Pay Via Direct Deposit

6455 Macleod Trail SW, Unit 192A, Calgary, AB T2H 0K9

(Located inside Chinook Mall)
Please email your resume to S ec uredG ro u p
info@securedsecuirty.com or fax 604-239-0251 securedsecurity.com
(403) 253-7742 Learn mo
re atw w w.spectrumhealth
care.com

www.canadianinquirer.net
 32 NOVEMBER 11, 2022 FRIDAY

Get this Great Offer and start

your journey in a new 2022 Edge

1.99 % *
60
on most new
2022 Edge
APR Models
Purchase Financing Months

FIND OUT MORE AT FORDTO.CA

Vehicle(s) may be shown with optional equipment. Dealer may sell or lease for less. Limited time offers. Offers only valid at participating dealers. Retail offers may be cancelled or changed at any time without notice. See your Ford Dealer for complete details or call the Ford Customer
Relationship Centre at 1-800-565-3673. For factory orders, a customer may either take advantage of eligible raincheckable Ford retail customer promotional incentives/offers available at the time of vehicle factory order or time of vehicle delivery, but not both or combinations thereof. Retail offers
not combinable with any CPA/GPC or Daily Rental incentives, the Commercial Upfit Program or the Commercial Fleet Incentive Program (CFIP). ©2022 Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited. All rights reserved.

www.canadianinquirer.net