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SOME leftist activists on Mon-day, Dec. 21, reacted to the seem-ingly “pro-American” answer of Miss Universe 2015 Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach in the first round of the question-and-answer portion of the pageant night on Monday, Dec. 21 (Philippine time) in Las Vegas, United States.

During the question-and-an-swer portion, Wurtzbach was asked on her stand on the rees-tablishment of US military bases in the country.

Citing the shared history of the

Philippines and the US, Wurtz-bach said that the Philippines is “very welcoming” to the Ameri-cans.

“I don’t see any problem with that at all,” she said.

Gabriela Women’s Party-list Representative Emmi de Jesus said that the newly-crowned Miss Universe’s stand “contradicts her concern for humanity.”

“We hope she will have a change of mind and heart on this issue by learning the history of our nation under US colonial rule,” de Jesus said.

The lady solon hopes that that

Leftist leaders hope Pia Wurtzbach’s ‘pro-US’ sentiment will change

MANILA – The Department of Justice (DOJ) Monday, Dec 21 started the preliminary inves-tigation of six airport person-nel tagged in a bullet-planting scheme at the Ninoy Aquino In-ternational Airport (NAIA).

Two of the respondents, Of-fice for Transportation Security (OTS) personnel Marvin Garcia

DOJ starts probe on ‘tanim bala’

MANILA – Department of Tourism (DOT) officials on Monday, Dec. 21 dawn sur-prised the 5 millionth person to visit the Philippines this year.

Tourism Assistant Secretary Alan Canizal and Undersecre-tary Benito Bengzon Jr. warm-ly welcomed and greeted the lucky Filipino-American female tourist at the Ninoy Aquino In-ternational Terminal 2.

The lucky visitor, 23-year

DOT surprises PH’s 5 millionth visitor

LOS ANGELES – A dry cleaning company agreed to pay its workers more than $93,000 in back wages after investigators from the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that JB French Dry Cleaners violated the minimum wage, overtime and record keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Upon learning of its errors, JB French Dry Cleaners, at 6040 Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles, quickly agreed to comply with the

Los Angeles dry cleaners must pay workers $93K in back wages

LABOR groups and people supportive of the candidacy of Davao City Mayor Ro-drigo Duterte and Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Saturday, Dec. 19, said they have repackaged the tandem as “Team Al-DuB.”

A take from the phenomenal noontime show love team between Alden Rich-ards and Maine “Yaya Dub” Mendoza, popularly known as “AlDub,” the politi-

Duterte-Marcos is the new ‘AlDuB’by ROSETTE ADEL

Philstar.com

by IZA GABRIELLE IGLESIASManilaTiames.net

by EDU PUNAYPhilstar.com

by ARIES JOSEPH HEGINAInquirer.net

“I WANT to show the world – the universe, rather – that I am confidently beautiful, with a heart.”

Those were the words of Miss Philip-pines Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, 26, who took home the crown for Miss Uni-verse 2015 on live television Sunday, Dec. 20 at the Planet Hollywood Re-sort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“To be a Miss Universe is both an

honor and a responsibility. I will use my voice to influence the youth and to raise awareness to certain causes, like HIV awareness, that is timely and relevant to my country which is the Philippines,” she said, during the final question-and-answer portion of the night.

In true beauty pageant fashion, the final crowning did not go without drama and a surprise ending when show host Steve Harvey, a comedian and talk show personality, accidental-

ly announced Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez Arévalo as the winner, but backtracked a few moments later to proclaim Wurtzbach as the true Miss Universe.

“I have to apologize,” Harvey said on live television, as a tearful Miss Co-lombia smiles and flashes her crown. “The first runner-up is Colombia. Miss Universe 2015 is…Philippines.”

The cameras showed the speech-less, stunned face of Wurtzbach, who

SIX days before Christmas, the three Democratic presidential candidates faced off in New Hampshire for the final Democratic presidential debate of 2015 and offered their opinions on issues such as terrorism, gun control, healthcare and foreign policy.

Hosted by ABC, the two-and-a-half hour debate took place Saturday, Dec. 19, in New Hampshire where Vermont Sen. Bernie Sand-ers holds the lead, despite former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s significant national

Host Steve Harvey mistakenly announces wrong name, creates confusion and controversyby ALLYSON ESCOBAR

AJPress

Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley take stage in �nal 2015 Democratic presidential debate

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Wurtzbach will lend her voice to call out the supposed abuses of the Americans to Filipinos.

Meanwhile, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) Secretary General Renato Reyes Jr. said that the question given to Wurtz-bach was leading.

”It was calculated to elicit a YES, considering that the contes-tant was under a lot of pressure. Saying NO to US troops, in front of a predominantly American crowd, would harm her chances of winning,” Reyes said.

He said that by going with the “safe” answer, Wurtzbach did not jeopardize her chances of

winning.Reyes hopes that the beauty

queen’s answer isn’t her “final, final” answer, a nod to the re-sponse given by Miss Universe 4th runner-up Venus Raj in 2010.

“I hope she would find time in the future to sit down with the victims of abuses by US troops. Hindi naman siguro yun ang (Perhaps that isn’t the ) FINAL, FINAL answer nya,” he said.

Meanwhile, former Bayan Muna party-list lawmaker Teddy Casino Jr. said that Wurtzbach should have acknowledged the problems between US and the Philippines.

“She could have at least ac-

knowledged that there are prob-lems that have to be addressed re. US bases in PH,” Casino said on his Twitter page.

“Pag-uwi ni Pia (When Pia comes home) she should be briefed by Gabriela on the issue of US troops in PH to help her get a better perspective,” he added.

Wurtzbach’s victory was shad-owed by a gaffe committed by pageant host Steve Harvey who erroneously crowned Miss Co-lombia Ariadna Gutierrez as the winner.

The 26-year-old Cagayan de Oro beauty is the third Filipina to take home the crown, after a 42-year title drought. ■

Leftist leaders hope Pia Wurtzbach’s…t

old New York-based Gabby Grantham, received a bouquet of flowers from the DOT officials which caught her by surprise.

Canizal said that Grantham will also be receiving a package tour with hotel accommodation as a prize for being the 5 millionth visitor in the Philippines.

“I thought I was in trouble,” Grantham said.

It was Grantham’s second time to visit the country while the last time was when she was still sev-en years old.

Grantham, born to a Filipino

mother and American father, flew via Philippine Airlines flight PR103 and landed in Manila at 3:48 a.m. She planned to visit her grandparents in Cebu and explore Palawan in her two-week stay in the country.

Meanwhile, Canizal said the next to be welcomed and re-warded will be the 6 or 7 mil-lionth foreign tourist.

Bengzon described welcoming the 5 millionth visitor as a very significant event.

“This milestone is a result of the collaborative and sustained efforts of all partners in tourism

industry,” Bengzon said.He said that motivation to push

harder is better than the head-count.

“The fact that we have crossed the 5 million mark is that we are already in the big league,” Beng-zon said.

“This will allow us to compete more strongly against other des-tinations in the region. After the 5 millionth mark the next will be 5 millionth,” he added.

DOT eyes to have 5.2 million tourist arrivals before 2015 ends and aims to double the visitors by 10 million next year. ■

DOT surprises PH’s 5 millionth…t

and Ma. Elma Cegna, appeared in the hearing at 2 p.m. before investigating prosecutor Honey Rose Delgado.

The other respondents, Phil-ippine National Police-Aviation Security Group (PNP-ASG) op-eratives Police Insp. Adriano Junio, SPO4 Ramon Bernardo and SPO2 Romy Navarro and Ro-lando Clarin, did not appear and instead sent their lawyers.

All respondents asked for more time to answer the allegations in the complaint filed by Lane White, the American mission-ary reportedly victimized by the scheme last September, and his stepmother Eloisa Zoleta.

They wanted to have copies

of the evidence gathered by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), including CCTV footage, before they would submit their respective counter-affidavits.

The prosecutor gave them un-til Jan. 8 next year to answer the charges.

Garcia and Cegna were charged for planting evidence under Republic Act 10591 or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunitions Regulation Act.

On the other hand, the police officers were charged with rob-bery and extortion and violation of Republic Act 7438 or the Act Defining Certain Rights of Per-sons Arrested, Detained or under Custodial Investigation and Du-ties of the Arresting, Detaining or

Investigating Officers. They were also charged with graft.

White was arrested last Sept. 17 and charged with possession of a .22 caliber bullet, which was supposedly detected when his baggage went through the x-ray scanner at the NAIA.

White said his refusal to cough up P30,000 allegedly demanded by OTS personnel in exchange for his release led to his detention for six days at the PNP-ASG and the filing of charges against him for violation of RA 10591 before the Pasay City Regional Trial Court.

The Pasay court allowed White to post bail of P40,000.

The court has dismissed the case against White, who left the country last week. ■

DOJ starts probe on ‘tanim…t

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cal “AlDuB” refers to Alyansang Duterte-Bongbong.

Bongbong is Marcos’ nick-name.

Duterte, the feisty mayor whose certificate of candidacy as a substitute candidate for Presi-dent of PDP-Laban was recently accepted by the Commission on Elections, topped a recent pre-election survey, dislodging Sen. Grace Poe. Sen. Alan Peter Cay-etano is Duterte’s running mate.

Marcos, son and namesake of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, is running for Vice Pres-

Duterte-Marcos is the new…ident as an independent and is in tandem with Sen. Miriam Defen-sor-Santiago.

“We are volunteer groups, we do not have anything to do with the campaign line of Duterte-Cayetano and Miriam-Bongbong because there are two tandems here. It was not started from just one group. This Team AlDuB was made by several groups, we are just trying to unify to solidify the win of Mayor Duterte and Senator Bongbong,” Col. Jose Pallarca said.

According to Terry Tuazon, secretary-general of Lakas

Manggagawa Labor Center, one reason they have chosen the two because both are against con-tractualization, outsourcing and the so-called 555 labor scheme.

“They have pronouncement that they are against this. Sabi nga natin ang manggagawang Pilipino ang producers ng wealth ng ating bansa, sila yung nagpa-patakbo ng ating lipunan. Pero sila din yung uri sa ating lipu-nan na pinapabayaan ng ating gobyerno,” Tuazon told the me-dia.

“During the regime of President

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was standing towards the back with the other top third finalist, Miss USA Olivia Jordan from Oklahoma. Wurtzbach hesitantly came forward to be crowned, while Harvey apologized again and told the Filipina-German ac-tress and model to take her first walk as the new Miss Universe.

“I will take full responsibil-ity for this. It was my mistake. It was on the card,” Harvey im-mediately said, flashing the card onscreen as the show’s credits began to roll. “Horrible mistake, but the right thing. I could show it to you right here. Please don’t hold it against the ladies…it was still a great night.”

Fellow Colombian Paulina Vega, last year’s winner, had no choice but to awkwardly un-crown Arévalo and hand the title over to Miss Philippines, who was dressed in a stunning blue evening gown by Filipino de-signer Albert Andrada.

“I’d like to apologize whole-heartedly to Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines for my huge mistake. I feel terrible,” Harvey tweeted not long after the show. “Secondly, I’d like to apologize to the viewers at that I disappointed as well. Again it was an hon-est mistake. I don’t want to take away from this amazing night and pageant. As well as the won-derful contestants. They were all

amazing.”The public was in a laughable

uproar after Harvey’s original tweet – “I want to apologize em-phatically to Miss Philippians and Miss Columbia” – misspell-ing both countries’ names was swiftly deleted.

The official Miss Universe Twitter account also released a statement, calling the incident a direct result of “human error,” and apologized to each contes-tant, their families, and fans.

“The excitement of live TV was evident tonight on The Miss Uni-verse stage with over 10 million live fan votes tabulated. Unfortu-nately, a live telecast means that

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Marcos, he gave benefits during Labor Day. It only stopped dur-ing the leadership of President Corazon Aquino until today, kaya sa palagay namin si Bongbong ang kaniyang plataporma ay na-katuon sa pagkalinga, pagasikaso at pagbibigay benipisyo sa ating working class,” he added.

Tuazon said he was jailed three times during Martial law for he was an activist, however, he is now campaigning for Marcos be-cause people should now move forward.

“Let’s give Bongbong a break to lead the Philippines. Yung kasalanan ng ama ay hindi na-man pwedeng kasalanan din ng anak. Hindi ako nagtanim ng galit. Ang kailangan ng ating bayan ay isang leader na kayang disiplinahin hindi lang ang mga mahihirap kundi pati na yung mamamayang umaabuso sa taas

at yung military na abusado. Kaya ako naniniwala na ang tan-dem duterte-marcos ay people’s choice,” Tuazon said.

Pallarca, meanwhile, said that they are tired of hearing leaders who are full of excuses and who are blaming past administrations. He said that it is about time that leaders who will assume in the of-fice have the responsibility to be accountable and who will make solutions for the problems ahead and the problems to be inherited in the past administration.

“Kung hindi nila lalapatan ng solusyon ay dapat hindi po natin dapat sila iboto. Si Mayor Duterte lang ang nagsabing ‘When I as-sume command, wala na akong problema sa nakaraan, gagawan natin ng solusyon’. Si Bongbong naman also stood by his prini-ciples,” Pallarca said.

On the other hand, Atty. Raul Lambino, who was the spokes-

man of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, said he start-ed supporting Duterte as early as April 2014 when the mayor started going on a nationwide speaking tour purportedly to campaign for a shift to the fed-eral form of government.

“Hindi na ako nagpatumpik-tumpik pa dahil sa pagkakakilala ko kay Mayor Duterte sa husay sa pamumuno sa Davao City. Yung pag suporta ko naman kay Senator BongBong bilang pangalawang pangulo ito po ay commitment naming mga taga Norte and Cen-tral Luzon, hindi bababa ng 90 per-cent ay naniniwala kay Sen. Bong-bong Marcos,” Lambino said.

Lambino cleared that he is not a Marcos loyalist, in fact he was anti-Marcos when he was young-er, but according to him he have seen huge difference between Senator Marcos and the regime of President Marcos. ■

Duterte-Marcos is the new…t

FLSA and to pay $93,505 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages totaling $187,010 to 26 workers.

The case came to the attention of labor authorities through the effort of a community and non-profit alliance which has compo-nents in the Latino and Filipino communities.

Specifically, the firm paid the majority of the employees work-ing at its four locations a bi-weekly salary without regard to the number of hours employees actually worked.

For some employees this sal-ary, divided by the number of hours worked, was not enough to cover the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour. When employees worked beyond 40 hours in a workweek, they were not paid legally required overtime.

The affected employees worked an average of 50 to 60 hours per week. In addition, the employer failed to properly re-cord all hours worked for each of its employees.

“It is the responsibility of em-ployers to learn about and imple-ment the laws and regulations that apply to their businesses,” said Francisco Ocampo, assis-tant director of the Wage and Hour Division’s district office in Los Angeles.

“Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for violations. The Wage and Hour Division offers a great deal of compliance assistance and stands ready to help both workers and employers. Workers are en-titled to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” Ocampo added.

Investigators learned about this case thanks to the Employ-ment, Education, and Outreach (EMPLEO) program’s labor assis-tance helpline at 1-877-55AYUDA (help, in Spanish). EMPLEO has helped more than 10,000 work-ers recover more than $15 mil-lion in back wages since it began 10 years ago in San Bernardino, California.

This alliance of community and nongovernmental organizations, along with local, state and fed-eral agencies, and Central Amer-ican and Mexican consulates, provides assistance to Hispanic-workers on employment related issues. EMPLEO serves workers throughout California, and also in Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Wash-ington, and Hawaii. The alliance launched EMPLEO-Pinoy in Los Angeles last September to help Filipino workers.

Simply paying employees a sal-ary does not mean they are not entitled to minimum wage and overtime. The FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay require-ments for individuals employed

in bona fide executive, adminis-trative, professional and outside sales positions, as well as certain computer employees.

To qualify for exemption, em-ployees generally must meet cer-tain tests regarding their job du-ties and be paid on a salary basis at not less than $455 per week. On June 30, 2015, the Wage and Hour Division announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to update the regulations defin-ing, which white-collar work-ers are eligible to receive pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. For more information visit www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/NPRM2015.

The FLSA requires that cov-ered, nonexempt employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, as well as time and one-half their regular rates for every hour they work be-yond 40 per week. The law also requires employers to maintain accurate records of employees’ wages, hours and other condi-tions of employment, and pro-hibits employers from retaliating against employees who exercise their rights under the law. For more information about federal wage laws administered by the Wage and Hour Division, call the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Infor-mation also is available at http://www.dol.gov/whd. (Inquirer.net)

Los Angeles dry cleaners must pay workers…t

human error can come into play. We witnessed that tonight when the wrong winner was initially announced.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” said Arevalo in a video message later posted by the Miss Universe account. “I’m happy for all what I did to [reach] this dream.”

At a post-pageant press confer-ence, Wurtzbach shared her sen-timents about the crowning. “I felt calm when I was called first run-ner-up, because I felt like it was fate. But when they announced that I was Miss Universe, I had mixed emotions. I was happy be-cause I really wanted to win, but felt sad for Miss Colombia,” she said, according to Inquirer.

“I was confused,” she told En-tertainment Tonight. “I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

Pia said she even tried to reach out to Miss Colombia after the show, to apologize, but “I couldn’t get near her, as she was sur-rounded by the Latin American contestants. She was crying and then there was a crowd around her, the girls who were comfort-ing her. I was actually very close to her already, but I decided that maybe it was bad timing to do it now--to apologize to her for what happened. So maybe I’ll do that in the future.”

“I won Miss Universe based on the judges’ vote…it’s not as if I took the crown from her,” she added. “I had to ask [them] many times, ‘Did I really win? Am I re-

ally Miss Universe? Are you go-ing to take the crown from me now?’ And they said, ‘No, you’re really the winner.’”

“It’s a very non-traditional crowning moment, isn’t it? Very…2015,” Wurtzbach later said, laughing.

The 26-year-old Wurtzbach was born in Stuttgart, a large city in southwest Germany, and grew up in Cagayan de Oro. She attended secondary school in Quezon City, as well as culinary arts school in Metro Manila, and speaks Tagalog, English, and German.

She appeared in several TV and film roles under Star Magic Talent, going by the stage name Pia Romero. Known for her de-termination and strong personal-ity, Wurtzbach has been training for beauty pageants since late 2012. She competed in several competitions including Binibin-ing Pilipinas and Miss Universe-Philippines, winning the title as successor of Mary Jean Lasti-mosa.

After three tries at the Binib-ining Pilipinas crown, Pia also hoped that her fans worldwide can learn from her story.

“Wow, what an honor it is to represent our country in the most prestigious pageant ever. This may very well be the high-light of my life. Absolutely no regrets,” she said in an earlier Instagram post, the night before the big show.

“Of course most importantly, I hope I inspired you. Never

give up on your dreams and be-lieve that dreams do come true! Walang susuko! Ang Pilipino, palaban (No giving up! The Fili-pino is a fighter),” she wrote, ac-cording to Rappler.

The following day after her win, the pageant queen posted a stunning photo with her crown and sash, with the caption: “42 years of drought and now it final-ly reigns. Mabuhay! Maraming salamat po sa inyong lahat!”

When asked by Harvey about US military presence in her home country, Wurtzbach grace-fully responded, “I think that the United States and the Philippines has have always had a good re-lationship with each other. We were colonized by the Ameri-cans and we have their culture and our traditions even up to this day, and I think that we’re very welcoming with the Americans. And I don’t see any problem with that at all.”

Filipinos react, Colombia in uproar

On the Internet, the announce-ment was met with mixed reac-tions: shock, anger, excitement, and an abundance of humorous memes.

“Our Miss Philippines didn’t get her shining moment,” a fan said on Facebook. “It feels like she and our country were robbed of the winning moment, shame!”

“It was a horrible mistake that hurt both [Colombia and Philip-pines], because Miss Philippines didn’t get her time to shine. And

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lead. Former Maryland Gov. Mar-tin O’Malley also participated in the debate.

During the early stages of the discussion, Sanders apologized to Clinton for a breach of voter data – which is typically shield-ed by a firewall from other op-ponents – involving at least one campaign aide.

“This is not the type of cam-paign that we run, and if I find anybody else involved in this, they will also be fired,” the sena-tor said.

Clinton then thanked Sanders for the apology and the debate pressed forward without much time spent on the breach.

“Now that, I think you know, we have resolved your data, we have agreed on an independent inquiry, we should move on. Be-cause I don’t think the American people are all that interested in this,” she said.

Foreign policy and terrorismTerrorism consumed the first

half of the debate, and all candi-dates agreed that air strikes on ISIS were necessary, as well as a Sunni army to fight jihadi fight-ers on the ground.

Clinton expressed support for sending special operations forces to Syria. And when asked if she would shoot down a Syr-ian military aircraft or Russian airplane, she responded that she didn’t think it would come to that point.

“We are already de-conflicting air space.

“I am advocating the no-fly zone because I think it would help us on the ground to protect

Syrians; I’m also advocating be-cause I think it gives us some le-verage in our conversations with Russia,” she said.

Sanders was much more skep-tical about American involve-ment beyond bombing, and said the US cannot fight the Islamic State and the Assad regime si-multaneously.

“I worry too much that Secre-tary Clinton is too much into re-gime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be,” Sanders said.

In his opening statement, O’Malley addressed the issue by saying the United States would only defeat ISIS “if we hold true to the values and the freedom that unites us, which means we must never surrender to them terrorists, must never surrender our Americans values to racists, must never surrender to the fas-cists pleas of billionaires with big mouths.”

Gun controlFollowing an ISIS-inspired

mass shooting in San Bernardino earlier this month, the former Secretary of State also said she does support Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s idea that arming more Americans will make citizens safer.

“Guns, in and of themselves, in my opinion will not make Americans safer. We lose 33,000 people a year already to gun vio-lence. Arming more people to do what I think is not the appropri-ate response to terrorism,” Clin-ton said.

Sanders cited that more than half of the population in Vermont

– a state with virtually no gun control – owns guns, but said he believes there is a consensus on sensible gun safety regulations.

“Who denies that it is crazy to allow people to own guns who are criminals or are mentally un-stable? We’ve got to eliminate the gun show loophole. In my view, we have got to see that weapons designed by the military to kill people are not in the hands of ci-vilians,” he said.

O’Malley cited his own track record when responding to the issue, saying he was the only can-didate on Saturday’s stage that approved comprehensive gun safety legislation with a ban on combat assault weapons. How-ever, he said he would not con-fiscate semi-automatic rifles that an estimated seven to 10 million Americans currently own.

Government programs and the middle class

Contrasts emerged between Sanders and Clinton when it came to addressing domestic is-sues. Clinton vowed she would not raise taxes on the middle class, specifically those making less than $250,000 annually.

“That is off the table as far as I’m concerned,” Clinton said. “That is a pledge that I am mak-ing.”

She said the cost of paid leave could be covered by increasing taxes on the wealthy.

However, Sanders said Clin-ton’s plan would exempt every-one but 2 to 3 percent of Ameri-can families, and it would rule out the possibility of any new programs similar to Social Se-

Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley take stage…t

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that’s devastating to Colombia, to have that taken away right when you thought you won,” said Mariel Camiling from Chino Hills, CA.

Immigration activist Jose An-tonio Vargas tweeted: “WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?!?” and later, “Imagine if [Steve Harvey] DID NOT correct his mistake be-cause he feared the reaction??”

Broadway star Lea Salonga also chimed in, “Mabuhay ka, Pia Wurtzbach! Congratulations! We have something to smile about! This high is going to last us awhile!”

Salonga also said: “I shall re-frain from the #MissUniverse host-bashing today. He takes full responsibility for the error and in the end, he righted the wrong. Let’s keep it classy, everyone.”

Philippines presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda commented Wurtzbach for her poise and grace throughout the competition and during the an-nouncement. “In the first few moments of the original an-nouncement, she showed tre-mendous poise and control, and even more tremendous gra-ciousness when the real verdict was finally announced,” Laci-erda said.

Past winners, including Mar-garita “Margie” Moran-Flo-reindo, the last Filipina Miss

Universe crowned in 1973, also criticized the incident.

“It robbed [Pia] from the glory of that moment, of the excite-ment and waiting to be called Miss Universe and hearing the rejoice of all the Pinoys watching it. That was the most unfortunate part of the whole contest. Unfor-tunate, but she won. That’s all that matters really.”

Another former Miss Universe Philippines, Gloria Diaz, told TV Patrol that Harvey should pay a fine of “$100,000, to Miss Co-lombia and to the Miss Universe [Wurtzbach].” Diaz won the title in 1969.

Other Filipinos were not happy with certain aspects of the re-sults, arguing it was a “shallow victory.”

Arturo P. Garcia, national coordinator of Justice for Fili-pino American Veterans (JFAV) said in an email, “We respect-fully disagree to the statement of winner of Miss Universe Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach for saying that ‘the Philippines and the US have always had a good re-lationship.’ Injustice and racial discrimination in America still prevails. It is due to the fact that until today, 250,000 Filipino-American soldiers who served this country in WWII had their benefits exclusively rescinded by the US, and remained un-recognized and denied of their

rights and benefits as American soldiers…Colonization is the ex-ploitation and oppression of a people. Historically, the US has subjugated the people of the Philippines through plunder, rape, and genocide.”

“We have not won. Our win-ning is very shallow for our peo-ple still fighting for true indepen-dence, freedom, and justice. We understand Ms. Wurtzbach for [in] her mind she ‘won,’ but at the expense of the great patriotic and brave heart of all patriotic Filipinos,” he added.

“I’ll tell you what I think I’d do…I’d make ‘em a co-winner; it’d be very cool,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (who was cut off from NBC in June amid controversial comments, and later sold the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants to WME/IMG), told Matt Lauer on the Today Show.

In Colombia, celebration turned to anger just moments later as the real results were announced. “They took away her crown” and “the shortest reign in history” was voiced on Twitter, and the hashtag #RespecttheCrown be-came the country’s top trending topic. #Colombiazoned was also trending on social media.

“I was watching Miss Universe with my family. We started a huge celebration when they said Colombia had won the Miss Uni-

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curity, which are funded by na-tional taxes.

“She is disagreeing with FDR on Social Security, LBJ on Medi-care, and with the vast majority of progressive Democrats in the House and the Senate, who are fighting to end the disgrace of the United States being the only ma-jor country on Earth that doesn’t provide paid family and medical leave,” Sanders said.

The senator discussed his own proposal for paid leave, which he said would cost the average household just $1.61 per week.

“Now, you can say that’s a tax on the middle class. It will pro-vide three months paid family and medical leave for the work-ing families of this country. I think, Secretary Clinton, $1.61 a week is a pretty good invest-ment,” he said.

Donald TrumpSanders and Clinton also

agreed they dislike Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Sanders said Trump’s popular-ity reflects Americans’ fears of another terrorist attack and put it in the context of stagnant wages, increasing inequality and wide-spread disaffection with the po-litical process, according to The New Yorker.

“Somebody like a Trump comes along and says, ‘I know the answers. The answer is that all of the Mexicans, they’re criminals and rapists. We’ve got to hate the Mexicans. Those are

Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley take stage in…your enemies. We hate all the Muslims, because all of the Mus-lims are terrorists. We’ve got to hate the Muslims.’ Meanwhile, the rich get richer,” he said.

Clinton called Trump, who suggested a controversial ban on all Muslims entering the United States, a powerful tool for the Is-lamic State.

“He is becoming ISIS’ best re-cruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical ji-hadists.”

Steve Elmendorf, a veteran of Democratic presidential and congressional campaigns, said focusing on Trump was a good strategy for the democratic can-didates.

“He provides a useful foil to re-mind Democrats what the stakes of the election are,” Elmendorf, who is supporting Clinton, told The Wall Street Journal.

Even if Trump doesn’t win the nomination, Elmendorf told the Journal that “it’s in the Demo-crats’ interest to make the Re-publican Party own him.

Winners and losersVarious publications had dif-

ferent takes on who won Satur-day’s debate.

The New Yorker magazine said there were no winners; Wash-ington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza said Clinton won, while Sanders and O’Malley lost; in an opinion piece, Fox News contributor Douglas Schoen wrote that Clinton won, execut-ing a “masterful strategy,” while O’Malley lost.

“The former secretary of state was the only one on stage Sat-urday night who looked like she could step into the presidency tomorrow,” Cillizza wrote, cit-ing that her knowledge was evi-dently significantly greater than her opponents, and that she of-ten focused on the differences between Democratic candidates and Trump rather than disagree-ments between members of her

party.Cillizza pointed out that

O’Malley attempted to portray Sanders and Clinton as old Wash-ington politicians and highlight that he was the youngest candi-date. However, Cillizza said this made him appear too scripted and forced.

Schoen wrote Clinton was “the most balanced candidate on how she’d manage the economy.”

He also wrote that Sanders was “completely sincere and passion-ate, showcasing his major selling points.”

While O’Malley has experi-ence, Schoen said he is not ap-pealing to voters.

“[O’Malley did] his best, but flopped on a number of issues. He took swipes at both Clinton and Sanders that won’t resonate with viewers and voters,” he wrote.

Separate from the issues dis-cussed, Cillizza said there was no justification for hosting the final debate less than a week before Christmas.

“Unless the goal is to en-sure that said debate is lightly-watched and, therefore, any mis-takes made by the presumptive frontrunner are lessened,” he wrote on “The Fix,” a political blog for the Post.

Republican National Commit-tee Chairman Reince Priebus ex-pressed a similar view.

“It’s clear the Democrat estab-lishment worked hard to bury their debate on a Saturday night just days before Christmas, when few would be watching, in order to prevent the American people from seeing Hillary Clinton’s re-cord of dishonesty and her role as the architect of the Obama ad-ministration’s failed strategy for confronting radical Islamic ter-rorism,” Priebus said in a state-ment.

The final debate came less than two months before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hamp-shire primary. (Agnes Constante / AJPress)

verse title for the second straight year,” said Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, according to Radio Nacional. “They put the crown on [Arévalo’s] head. The photos are there to prove it. To me, as a Colombian, she is still Miss Universe.”

Fil-Am Jenine Nerecina from Northridge, CA expressed her overall excitement, pride and joy for her country. “When I first heard that Pia won, I couldn’t believe it. I was filled with ex-citement and pride that the Philippines is gaining deserving recognition. I am so proud that in these modern times Filipinos are actually making a difference, and that the world is finally see-ing it!” she exclaimed.

“Humility is one of the most im-portant attributes in our culture, and Pia showed that throughout the competition,” Nerecina add-ed. “It feels amazing to be a part of this moment because this is going to be a part of history!” ■

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FEATURESOPINION

I WOULD like to apologize to everyone I have called an idiot for believing that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte deserves to be president of the Philippines in spite of his womanizing, his potty-mouth and his homicidal bluster.

On reflection, there is in all of us a kind of idiocy that causes us to resort to extreme options in the face of intractable problems or severe aggrava-tions. Call it jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Call it suicidal or masochistic. Or call it some-thing we will regret in hindsight. But at the point in time that the idiot in each one of us is ticked off, who the hell cares.

Sluggo Rigor, who publishes and edits the Fil-ipino-American Bulletin, a newspaper in Seattle, Washington, must have thought that I myself had reached the tipping point, when I wrote a column item entitled, May Angal!!!??? Circa 2015.

“May angal?” is Tagalog for “Any complaints?” which is what the neighborhood toughie tells you to your face when he bullies you, knowing you can’t do anything about it.

My piece was a litany of instances of impunity, incompetence and insensitivity on the part of the Aquino administration that have left the citizenry hurling unprintables at the President and his key officials. In each instance, this administration’s response – or the message communicated by its inaction - has been the equivalent of, “May an-gal???!!!”

Sluggo was so upset himself that he suggest-ed launching a contest that would urge Pinoys in the Philippines and overseas to submit “May angal???!!!” incidents attributable to the Aquino government. In fact, Sluggo started it off with his own long list. I promised him that I would use his piece in one of my columns.

At any rate, the kind of frustration felt by Sluggo Rigor and I and many otherwise intelligent folks has stirred the inherent idiots in us. Some have already succumbed to their idiocy as shown in the

latest Pulse Asia and SWS sur-veys on presidential preferences.

Even assuming that the surveys were flawed, the emergence of Duterte as the first choice even among socio-economic classes ABC (who are supposed to be more financially well off, better educated, more enlightened and better informed) cannot be dis-missed. These folks are fed up and don’t care if Duterte is Beelzebub himself. As far as they are concerned, he will at least solve their problems - and let the devil take care of the rest.

They seem to think that Duterte is offering not one silver bullet but an arsenal of silver bullets that will – if we are to follow their logic – extinguish criminality in all its permutations (the drug men-ace, particularly), cleanse the government of graft and corruption, infuse the bureaucracy with com-petence and efficiency, provide the business sec-tor with a safe and secure environment in which to grow their enterprises and, as a result, create job opportunities which will, in turn, bring about the much-sought inclusive prosperity that will guaran-tee a bright future for every Filipino family.

This fantasy is naïve and obviously born out of desperation and Duterte has been milking it, vow-ing to make it all come true over people’s dead bodies. Take it or leave it. To use an American idiom, it’s Duterte’s way or the highway.

Blinded by their frustration, they fail to see that Duterte’s way will bring the country to the edge, where vigilante justice is the norm. They also fail to see that there are other ways to achieve their elusive goals without giving the funeral parlors a windfall.

Duterte’s admirers have even likened him to Lee Kwan Yew, conveniently overlooking the fact that Singapore never resorted to extra-judicial killings even while being authoritarian and very tough in

dealing with official graft and corruption, sending bureaucrats to jail if perceived to be living be-yond their legitimate means.

Lee Kwan Yew and his new government also set an example of strict morality, civility and ur-banity – a stark contrast to the vulgarity and low-life bluster of Duterte.

Duterte’s fans and admirers talk about “the need to enforce discipline” among the citizenry, forget-ting two things: (a) they themselves make up the citizenry and should learn to discipline themselves without a gun being cocked at their temples, and (b) there is a difference between a disciplinarian and an executioner.

As Mayor of Olongapo, Dick Gordon was a dis-ciplinarian. He enforced the kind of civic discipline – including traffic discipline - that we in America automatically observe, like making a full stop at stop signs, even in the dead or night or in the mid-dle of nowhere.

An online write-up about Gordon as Mayor of Olongapo states: “When Dick Gordon was first elected, Olongapo was known as ‘Sin City’ for the rampant prostitution and rowdy night clubs in its infamous Red Light District, populated by GIs from the US naval base in nearby Subic. Under his lead-ership, Olongapo became a ‘model city’ through his innovative programs such as raising police accountability through ID systems, proper health and sanitation, waste management and the strict observance of color-coding in public transport.”

And then, of course, there’s Gordon’s un-matched track record of raising Subic from the ashes and converting it into a bustling Freeport – through volunteer effort and not at the point of a gun.

Vice-presidential candidate Leni Robredo was right when she reminded Duterte that Naga City,

under her late husband, Mayor Jesse Robredo, was considered one of the most business-friendly and livable cities in the Philippines, with poverty and unemployment significantly lower than the national average, with a successful housing pro-gram that alleviated rampant squatting, and with greatly improved levels of literacy and sanitation.

Did Robredo have to do it with a death squad? Not at all. He applied governance by consensus, empowering the citizenry through the Naga City People’s Council. For his sterling performance, Robredo received the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

Indeed, without belittling his achievements in Davao City, Duterte does not have a monopoly of effective governance. There are many others who have either matched or surpassed his perfor-mance without being vulgar and homicidal, from Albay governor Joey Salceda to former Marikina Mayor Bayani Fernando, to former Puerto Princ-esa Mayor Edward Hagedorn, to Iloilo Mayor Jed Mabilog, who ranked 5th among the Top Ten World Mayors in 2014.

Vice-President Jejomar Binay who was May-or of Makati for over two decades, was ranked 4th among World Mayors in 2006, and managed a deficit-free government throughout his entire tenure while providing educational, health care and other social services that became the template for other progressive local executives. And during the incumbency of Mayor Junjun Binay, Makati was one of twenty world cities that matched the stringent 37120 ISO certification in 2014, and one of only nine rated platinum. The certification was given to Makati by the International Organizational Standards of Geneva, Switzerland, for meeting 98 out of 100 indicators intended to measure a city’s social, economic and environmental performance.

With due respect to those who are completely sold on Duterte, his way is not the only way – nor is it the best. (gregmacabenta@hotmail.com)

Duterte’s way isn’t the best way

GREG B. MACABENTA

Street Talk

THE Commission on Audit had been, even through martial law, one of the most pres-tigious agencies of our Republic, its reputa-tion untainted by graft or partisanship.

With just a few months remaining for this inglorious Administration, the COA will be left as another institution damaged by President Benigno Aquino 3rd, who has turned it into a political weapon.

Even in this rather late stage of the electoral game, this yellow regime is us-ing the COA for its political ends, as in a report mysteriously leaked the other day alleging unliquidated funds of the Office of the Vice President. The next day, of course, as if on cue, was anoth-er accusation against Binay by former Makati vice mayor Renato Bondal – yes, the same accuser whose allegations have been proven false, yet hogged the headlines of the Philippine Daily Inquir-er’s front pages for 44 nearly consecu-tive days. (See http://www.manilatimes.

net/inquirer-vs-bi-nay/155669/) It’s the familiar flurry of ac-cusations for a vilifi-cation campaign.

I had been asked in the comments section of my column why I haven’t written much about the allega-

tions against Binay. My simple answer is: Why should I, when the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which claims to have the biggest circulation (Manila Times is just no. 4 among the broadsheets) seemed to have found as its newest cause this year the demonization of the Vice Presi-dent? Why should I help it in its project, which could have been undertaken for not-so-noble reasons?

I am not only talking about its news sections. Columnist Solita Monsod, its most widely read columnist, must have written over 50 columns against Binay, with many of the occasional contribu-tors trying to show off, unsuccessfully, their polemical skills to vilify the candi-date. Fair play, I say, so I have presented the other side to the allegations, most

of which, I think, had been indisputably debunked as pure lies. And these lies, the Ombudsman insists, should be in-vestigated in the courts.

For example, both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Environment and National Resources (DENR) records showed that the Batangas estate be-longed to a Chinese-Filipino business-man, and not to Binay. The Makati Building II’s costs were comparable in terms of price per square feet to Sen-ate President Franklin Drilon’s Iloilo Convention Center, or to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) branches in three provinces, which all had the same contractor. Binay’s “crime” is his inar-ticulateness or his campaign staff’s in-efficiency in debunking and burying the corruption allegations against him.

But back to the COA. It was astonish-ing that former chair Grace Pulido-Tan claimed, when she stepped down, at the pork-barrel investigations what her leg-acy was: the pork-barrel exposés. How on earth could she claim that, given the fact the probe had been ordered un-dertaken by her predecessor who was

appointed by President Arroyo, and when most of those investigated under her administration, and charged, were opposition figures like senators Enrile, Estrada, and Revilla?

Pulido-Tan herself said two years ago that a special audit was also being un-dertaken to investigate the pork-barrel funds released during Aquino’s Admin-istration, from 2010-2012.

The report had been completed and I myself viewed a TV report in 2013 by broadcast journalist, Anthony Taberna, about that investigation. A camera even panned a copy of the actual report.

Two years after it was completed, COA hasn’t released the report. And she has the gall to claim that she did her part in Aquino’s anti-corruption crusade?

Is it because the COA itself received P143.7 million in 2012 from President Aquino’s scandalous “Disbursement Acceleration Plan” (DAP), which the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitu-tional? Or was it because Pulido-Tan has been angling for a position in the Supreme Court when it announced a vacancy in 2012? (Aquino, instead, ap-pointed Marvic Leonen, who is as inex-

perienced in legal practice as the Chief Justice is. Is Tan still hoping she will be the last Aquino appointee in April 2016, when Justice Martin Villarama retires?)

In the past, those appointed by Presi-dents as COA chair and members were people of unquestionable integrity, without the slightest taint of partisan-ship, such as Teofisto Guingona (chair 1986 to 1987), Eufemio Domingo (1987-1993), Celso Gangan (1994-2001), Guillermo Carague (2001-2008) and Reynaldo Villar (2004-2008), who ordered the special pork-barrel audit. It had also been a tradition for the other two members of the commission to be appointed among the COA’s veteran auditors, especially for those who spent their entire professional career in the agency.

Contrast that to Aquino’s appointees to the COA:

• A nearly retired Heidi Mendoza – who had vowed to pin down Binay on corruption charges many years ago, jumping several pay levels – was appointed as one of the three COA commissioners. It was Mendoza who

RIGOBERTO TIGLAO

Commentary

COA: Another institution Aquino damaged

GIVEN the unsure situation the world is facing today, we are look-ing for some sort of a sign this Christmas—something that could calm our fears about what lies ahead. Times may be difficult, but Christmas and its spirit of love, faith and hope will always endure. It’s that time of the year—when war, conflict, political differences, disputes and ill wishes come to a grinding halt, replaced by warm tidings of love, hope, peace and generosity.

Christmas wish

For Pres. Benigno Aquino III, “this is the time for reunions. This is the time to bond with each other and also commune with God, and we are re-energized for all of the challenges in the coming years.” Aquino wishes Filipinos to have a peaceful, clam and optimistic Christmas celebration.

Meanwhile, Pres. Barack Obama and the first family arrived in Hawaii on Saturday, Dec. 19 to celebrate their annual Christmas vacation. But before heading to Hawaii, Obama and First Lady Michelle stopped by in Southern California to console the loved ones of the victims of the San Bernardino shooting, where a married couple opened fire on the husband’s co-workers at a workplace holiday party. At least 14 people were killed in the shooting.

“You had people from every background, every faith. Some described loved ones who had come to this country as immigrants, others who had lived in the area all their lives, all of them extraordinarily proud of the work they were doing to keep people healthy and safe” Obama shared. “As difficult as this time is for them and for the entire community,

they’re also representative of the strength and the unity and the love that exists in this community and in this country.”

With less than a year left in office, Obama vowed to focus on the US-led campaign to defeat IS. “Since taking this office, I’ve never been more optimistic about a year ahead than I am right now,” he said. “And in 2016, I’m going to leave it out all on the field.”

Earlier this month, Obama also listed down the top 10 things that happened in 2015.

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Not just for spreading holiday cheer—but also for list makers. You’ve got wish lists; Santa’s list; and of course, a blizzard of year-in-review lists. So I de-cided to get in on the action,” Obama said.

Among the country’s recent achievements in-cluded in the President’s list are the positive per-formance of the economy, more Americans getting health coverage, and the US-led campaign on cli-mate change and terrorism.

The President said that it’s been a good year and that he is confident of bigger things in the new year.

Editorial

“And the number one reason I’m optimistic go-ing into 2016: It’s you—the American people. All of this progress is because of you—because of workers rolling up their sleeves and getting the job done, and entrepreneurs starting new businesses. Because of teachers and health workers and par-ents—all of us taking care of each other. Because of our incredible men and women in uniform, serv-ing to protect us all. Because, when we’re united as Americans, there’s nothing that we cannot do,” Obama concluded.

So as we look for answers, and as we try to search for Christmas and its true meaning in these troubled times, we must be reminded that our fo-cus should not be on what we don’t have today. Christ was born in a manger, with hardly any pos-sessions. And yet His birth is a symbol of hope for all Christians.

Christmas is also about sharing more than mate-rial things. It is embracing its true meaning, and knowing that it should always be in our hearts. (AJPress)

u

DATELINE PHILIPPINES

MANILA – Public satisfaction with the country’s top leaders plunged in the fourth quarter of the year, with Senate President Franklin Drilon and Vice Presi-dent Jejomar Binay suffering the biggest drop, a survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

The survey, conducted from Dec. 5 to 8, found Drilon’s net satisfaction score dipping 35 points from a “good” 42 in Sep-tember to a personal record-low “neutral” 7 (38 percent satisfied, 31 percent dissatisfied).

Binay’s net satisfaction rating, meanwhile, slipped nine points to a personal record-low of “moder-ate” 24 (52 percent satisfied, 28 percent dissatisfied) from 33 (58 percent satisfied, 25 percent dis-satisfied) in September.

The Vice President’s net sat-isfaction score used to be very good to excellent from March

2011 to September 2014, and good from December 2014 to September 2015, the SWS said.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno also suffered a five-point decrease in her satisfaction rat-ing, hitting a personal record-low of “neutral” -1 (29 percent satisfied, 31 percent dissatisfied) from September’s 4.

SWS noted that out of its 13 sur-veys conducted since December 2012, Sereno obtained moderate rating in eight and neutral in five.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr.’s net satisfaction rating like-wise fell in the fourth quarter to a “neutral” -1 (31 percent satisfied, 32 percent dissatisfied) from 5.

The results of the Fourth Quar-ter 2015 Social Weather Survey on public satisfaction with the vice president, Senate president, House speaker, chief justice and top government institutions were published in the newspaper Busi-nessWorld on Monday, Dec. 21.

The same survey showed that satisfaction with the performance

of key government institutions went down in the fourth quarter of the year.

The Senate’s satisfaction rat-ing went down by 14 points to “good” 30 from 44.

The House of Representatives’ score dipped 10 points to “mod-erate” 16 from 26 in September.

The Supreme Court suffered a five-point drop to “moderate” 22 from 27 in September.

The rating of the Cabinet as a whole also plunged to “moder-ate” 11, from 16 in September.

The SWS interviewed 1,200 adult respondents nationwide.

It has sampling error margins of plus or minus three percent-age points for national percent-ages and plus or minus six per-centage points each for Metro Manila, balance of Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.

NotedMalacañang said it will bear

in mind the results of the latest SWS survey. (With report from Delon Porcalla)

SWS: Satisfaction rating of top government execs down in Q4

provided Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, when she testified in Chief Justice Renato Coro-na’s impeachment trial, with grossly false analysis that artificially bloated his bank accounts. For that monumental fabrication that whipped up a mob against the Chief Justice, she, together with Car-pio-Morales, should have resigned their posts.

• Jose A. Fabia was appointed a COA member in 2014. Who is he? The Director-General of the Philippine Information Agency since Aquino as-sumed office, up until 2012, when he reached the government’s retirement age. He replaced a for-mer Liberal Party Cadiz City mayor Rowena Guan-zon, who served only a year, since she was given what Aquino thinks is a more important task, as

Commission on Elections member. (I am hopeful, though, that Guanzon, at the end of the day, would live up to her lofty principles.)

• Aquino in March appointed Michael G. Agui-naldo as COA chair. Aguinaldo was the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs of the Office of the President since Aquino assumed office, and reportedly his classmate in their Ateneo days.

Isn’t that, in his hubris, Aquino’s way of practi-cally telling the country: “The COA, one of my fa-vorite political weapons, has been attached to the Office of the President”?

It is a wasteland of damaged institutions that Aquino will be leaving us with when he steps down in office a few months from now. (Manila-times.net)

COA: Another institution Aquinot

BUENAVISTA, Guimaras– “We did not come out for money. It’s easy to prove if she is part of our family or not.”

This was the reaction of sib-lings of the alleged biological mother of Sen. Grace Poe on the cash reward offered for informa-tion that would lead to the true identity of Poe’s biological par-ents.

Junie Rodriguez said they came out because none of those who were believed to be Poe’s kin turned out to be her relatives.

“We only want to help her in her (disqualification) case. We would be bothered by our con-science if she lot and we knew we could have done something but did not,” Rodriguez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview at Barangay East Va-lencia in Buenavista town on Guimaras Island where most of the siblings reside.

Jesus Nograles Rodriguez Jr., a retired labor judge in Bacolod City, has offered P300,000 for “solid and credible” information that could point to Poe’s real par-ents. The retired judge said he and his golf buddies would pool the amount.

Rodriguez claimed he was nei-ther a supporter or a friend of Poe. He only wanted the truth to come out so the country could move forward.

In a statement, Poe thanked Rodriguez and his friends for helping find her biological par-

Rodriguez siblings say they came out to help Poe, not to get reward

ents.“It is no secret that I have

spent many years trying to find my biological parents. All found-lings want to know who their real parents are. All foundlings go through a difficult process, grow-ing up — as a child, as a teenager and even as an adult—they won-der, they ask. I am no different. I went through the same ordeal. I have been yearning to know,” she said.

Questions on Poe’s biological parents have been used as basis in pending disqualification cases related to her presidential candi-dacy in next year’s elections.

Her critics have claimed that she could not prove her status as a natural-born Filipino citizen, a Constitutional requirement in running for president, because the identities of her biological parents have been unknown all these years.

But Poe has repeatedly said that determining the identities of her biological parents is sec-ondary to their legal basis for the legality of her candidacy.

She said she has been push-ing for the rights of foundlings as determined by international law and jurisprudence.

According to Junie, his fam-ily does not know if the retired judge is related to them but the reward offer has no bearing on their claim.

Junie is the eight of 12 siblings whose eldest, Victoria, is believed to be Poe’s biological mother.

He said Victoria died in 1996 at the age of about 50 due to heat

stroke in Sultan Kudarat in Min-danao.

“We have this gut feeling that (Poe) was the baby who was giv-en up for adoption by our sister,” said Teresa Rodriguez-Victoria-no, Junie’s younger sister.

Poe was reportedly abandoned and later found in the baptismal font of the Jaro Cathedral in Iloilo City in 1968.

Junie and Teresa Rodriguez-Victoriano said Poe was brought by Corazon Javellana from Buenavista, Guimaras to Tessie Ledesma Valencia in Jaro District in Iloilo City who in turn gave Poe to couple Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces, Poe’s adoptive parents.

Junie said their youngest sibling, Lorena Rodriguez-de Chavez, and two other daughters of Victoria have undergone DNA testing to determine blood ties to Poe.

“We would be happy if it will turn out positive but if not, it will be okay for us because we tried to help,” he said.

Victoriano said they were hurt by insinuations and talks that they only came out for money.

“We grew up with the belief that she is our niece. We could have come out when she became senator but we did not want to pull her down from where she is now because we are poor and she is better off in her position. But no one has been proven to be her true family,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. (With a report from Carla P. Gomez, In-quirer Visayas).

by HELEN FLORESPhilstar.com

by NESTOR P. BURGOS, JR.Inquirer.net

SEAFOOD CITYREGULAR AD

FPFC

COMMUNITY J O U R N A LBusiness News

MANILA – The United States Millennium Chal-lenge Corp. (MCC)’s decision to grant the Philip-pines another package of development assistance was a recognition of good governance in the coun-try, Malacañang said Monday, Dec. 21.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said the country’s benefactors such as the MCC have been showing continued confidence in the government’s capabil-

ity to deploy resources for the attainment of prior-ity development objectives.

“Such achievement reflects the global commu-nity’s admiration for the Philippines as Asia’s ris-ing star,” Coloma said.

In his meeting with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Manila on Nov. 18, President Aquino said the Philippines was proud to an-nounce that the first MCC compact was nearing completion and that the country had been deemed eligible for a second package ■

‘PH second Millennium Challenge package proof of good governance’

THREE industrialists leading the Philippine Disaster Recov-ery Foundation (PDRF) have pledged a combined P42 million from their energy businesses to establish the world’s first private disaster relief center.

PDRF president Rene Meily said in an interview on Friday,

Energy tycoons team up for disaster ops center

Dec 18, that the group’s co-chairs, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala and Manuel V. Pangilinan, as well as Edgar O. Chua of Shell Companies in the Philippines, committed P10 million from each of their business groups to estab-lish and operate the Disaster Op-erations Center (DOC).

Zobel is chair and CEO of Ay-ala Corp., which is growing its energy business. Pangilinan is

chair of the Philippine Long Dis-tance Telephone Co. and Metro Pacific groups, which lead power distributor Manila Electric Co. (Meralco). Chua is country chair of Shell Companies in the Philip-pines.

Meily said Zobel and Pang-ilinan also committed a yearly contribution of P2 million each from their business groups over

MANILA – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has lowered the projected growth of cash re-mittances from overseas Filipi-nos due to the global economic slowdown as well as the weaken-ing of other currencies against the US dollar.

BSP deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo said the growth of cash sent home by Filipinos to their loved ones in the Philip-pines is slightly lower at four percent, instead of the earlier projection of five percent.

The BSP was earlier looking at a five-percent growth target for cash remittances from Filipinos abroad to $25.6 billion this year. The amount of money sent home by Filipinos abroad grew 5.9 percent to $24.35 billion in 2014 from $22.98 billion in 2013.

However, cash remittances grew only by 3.7 percent to $20.64 billion from January to October this year compared to $19.91 billion in the same period last year.

“I think we need to recall that the major markets for our over-seas Filipino workers have also been affected by the general slowdown in the global economy.

So their propensity to employ overseas workers, including Fili-pinos, would also be moderated by such softness in the economic performance,” he said.

Guinigundo also said the de-risking by global banks by en-forcing stricter regulatory mea-sures on remittance business in compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guid-ance has affected the growth of cash remittances.

He pointed out some of the do-mestic bank accounts in global

banks have been closed due to money laundering concerns such as terrorist financing and others.

“So you see some migration of remittance from the banks to remittance or money transfer op-erators. Perhaps there could be some or less data capture on that front so it is very difficult to say that we are seeing a more per-manent or a new normal in terms of remittances,” he explained.

However, he assured there is continued strength in terms of

MANILA – Millions of work-ers nationwide were promised higher salaries by the last quar-ter of next year if Sen. Grace Poe becomes president.

Sen. Francis Escudero, Poe’s vice presidential running mate, said the reduction of income tax rates will form part of her priori-ties in her first 100 days in office,

Chiz vows lower income tax if Poe becomes president

consistent with the plan to install a “government with a heart.”

“I know that it is hard to raise salaries, but even if that could not be done, the take-home pay of our people could become big-ger if taxes are lowered,” he said in Filipino.

The former chairman of the Senate committee on finance is pushing for lower income taxes to boost workers’ take-home pay and help them keep up with the

rising cost of living.“Senator Grace’s and my ob-

jective is to lower taxes and pass that bill in the first 100 days of her term to show and prove that from start to end that the govern-ment we would like to establish has a heart,” he said in Filipino.

Escudero said lowering income tax, which at 32 percent is the highest in Southeast Asia, is the best way to ease the burden of

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by AUREA CALICAPhilstar.com

by LAWRENCE AGCAOILIPhilstar.com

by RIZA T. OLCHONDRAInquirer.net

by CHRISTINA MENDEZPhilstar.com

Remittance growth target lowered to 4% this year

The U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said it correctly, there is “no Plan B” for the human race; for there is just no alterna-tive for the rich and poor countries, if the deal in Paris among 200 nations fell apart.

Today, we at the Inter-national Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), representing some 340 ruling, oppo-

sition, and independent parties from 52 countries in Asia, and our fraternal sister organization in Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPPAL), and the African organization we encouraged to set up, the Council of African Politi-cal Parties (CAPP), call on our colleagues in Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and Africa to assist our governments, parliaments, private sectors and our citizens to ratify as needed and actively support the agree-ment that will help us mitigate and adapt to the ravages of climate change.

We are restructuring our recently established Global Parties Climate and Ecological Alliance (GPCEA), composed of political parties and civil society organizations, as a united effort in the battle against climate change and hopefully serve as a modest contribution to the Paris accord. Its first com-mittee has just been set up in Beijing.

With the violence in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, we urge the re-vival of the Global Interfaith Dialogue which we helped initiate at the U.N. in 2004, through an “Interfaith Summit,” among Christians, Muslim Shi’ites and Sunnis, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and other religious groups to reduce the unspeakable continuing violence and the politico-religious conflicts and tensions in various parts of the world.

We declare anew that we want no new Cold War in the Asia Pacific. Nor do we wish any state in our home-region to play either the “American Card” or the “China Card” or the “Russian Card.” We see no reason the relation-ship among the great powers should be adversarial. We see no differences among them that sustained diplomacy, sincerity, humility, understanding and realpolitik cannot resolve.

We welcome the landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, Germany, France and China, which will help defuse tension and contribute to peace in the region. It should be followed by a ceasefire and a difficult but now absolutely neces-sary negotiated peace among the combatants in Syria.

On a related issue, the European Union and the U.N. must sit down togeth-er on a solution for the raging tragedy of hundreds of thousands of refu-gees fleeing from the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa.

We endorse and support China’s revival of the ancient overland Silk Road and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives, which symbolize our ‘connectedness’ across distinct cultures, even competing economies - and even conflicting geopolitical ambitions. We see in this cross-cultural ex-change through trade and economic and political partnership and people-to-people symbioses the major forces needed in the battle against poverty and violent extremism, and the promise of inclusive mutual prosperity and durable peace in our region, in the world, and in our time.

At the start of 2016, we also welcome the establishment of the ASEAN Eco-nomic Community as a major milestone in regional economic integration.

And on April, 2016 in Jakarta, our standing committees of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPPAL), and the Council of African Political Parties (CAPP), will hold an historic trilateral

As we approach the New Year 2016, we send you our sincerest Christmas Greetings and thank the Almighty for His many blessings, above all, for the

great breakthrough in Paris, the historic universal agreement on climate change, perhaps the most challenging problem facing our planet earth.

61 Tamarind Road, South Forbes Park, Makati City. Metro Manila, Philippines Tel. 632 812 0288; 632 810 6093 / Fax 632 844 6511 Email: venecia@pldtdsl.net

meeting, which is a great first step towards a tri-continental alliance among the political parties of Asia, Latin America and Africa, and which we hope will eventually lead to a global grouping with the parties in Europe and North America.

This has been a major effort of the ICAPP Standing Committee, the 4-man Bureau, and our active Secretariat based in Seoul.

The raging disagreement in the South China Sea with conflicting sover-eignty claims, may be settled, we believe, by temporarily shelving the issue of sovereignty, undertake joint exploration and joint development, as we proposed in 2004-2005, to revive the 3-nation Seismic Agreement officially signed and undertaken by Manila, Beijing, and Hanoi in 2005-2006, and then convert the zone of conflict into a Zone of Peace, Friendship, Coopera-tion and Development.

Whatever the result of the arbitration case pending in the U.N. Tribunal, there is a need for China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan to sit down on a reasonable acceptable geo-political settlement in the South China Sea, which will benefit all the parties, relieve the pressure on the frontline states of China, the Philippines and Vietnam, and which could also be the basis for a similar settlement in the East China Sea be-tween Japan and China in the Senkaku Straits, the Daioyou Straits to the Chinese.

Founded in Manila in September 2000, we are pleased to note that ICAPP has broadened and deepened its reach, with the creation of the now ac-tive ICAPP Women’s Wing and the ICAPP Youth Wing; the ICAPP Medical Emergency Forum (IMEF), recently renamed ICAPP Program for Disasters Assistance (IPDA); the newly-created ICAPP COPPPAL Business Council (ICBC), composed of business leaders from Asia and Latin America, which aims to expand business cooperation and linkage between the two conti-nents; and the ICAPP Media Forum.

ICAPP is also activating its ties with the Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA), composed of 41 parliaments in Asia, which the ICAPP helped initiate and establish, and which could someday lead to an Asian Parliament, like the regional legislatures of Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

In the Philippines, we support President Benigno Aquino III’s breakthrough peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and ask the Congress to finally pass the legislation to implement the peace accord to neutralize extremists seeking to radicalize peaceful Muslim elements in the south. We urge revival as well of the government peace talks with the Communist New People’s Army, the longest running insurgency in Asia.

Even as we look back to what we were able to do - with your steadfast sup-port, understanding, friendship and unwavering commitment in 2015, we look forward to the challenges of 2016 and the future, confident we shall be together in contributing our modest capabilities in charting a better future for our peoples, our region and the world, and in promoting our dream of the 21st Century as a truly Asian Century.

We earnestly thank the Almighty for a Blessed and Joyful Christmas and for a Prosperous and Peaceful 2016!

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The Class of 1965 of the Pampanga High School will hold “TULA ampong SAYA,” its 50th Anniversary Reunion, this coming December 29-30, in San Fernando Pampanga, Philippines. All 1965 graduates of the Pampanga High School (PHS), formerly the Jose Abad Santos High School (JASHS), and their spouses are welcome to all scheduled events. Admission is free. The celebration will begin with BISPERAS on December 29 from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, enjoying fun games, old music, and togetherness at the DIASPORA FARM RESORT in Santa Barbara, Bacolor, Pampanga. On December 30, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, join us for KAPIYESTAN, a provincial fiesta luncheon featuring familiar Kapampangan dishes, at the Mulang Galang orchard in San Antonio, Mexico, Pampanga. The evening of Dec. 30 will conclude with TERAKAN, a gala dinner-dance from 6:30 pm to 12 midnight, at the Fortune Hongkong Seafood Restaurant in the San Fernando, Pampanga. Enjoy a fun evening of dancing to the retro music of Decadas and the mellow songs of folksinger Jerry. Class ‘65ers, please join us in celebrating our 50th Golden Anniversary! Full details on preparations, events and venues can be found on “TULA ampong SAYA,” on Facebook. For donations, interest in the 50th Anniversary Reunion souvenir memory book, highlighting the successes of individual Class ‘65ers and the accomplishments of the PHS Class ’65 Foundation, Inc., please contact the jubilee reunion organizing committee in the Philippines: Joseph Deang (0927-228-8588); Erlie Aquino Estandarte (0929-219-0248); Corazon Cunanan (0939-118-2888; 0926-660-35540); Cecille Morales Bernas (0932-509-2646); and Marcial Morales (0918-915-9095); and Dan Galang 0929-427-9308; 045-966-0764). In the US and Canada, please contact Dan Galang at (510) 487-5551 or at (510) 648-1047.

Attention all graduates of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the Philippine College of Commerce: join us in our FIRST GLOBAL REUNION being organized by the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Alumni Association, USA Inc. scheduled on May 27-29, 2016 (Memorial Day Weekend) at the New Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. We promise a weekend of fun-filled activities, of friendship and camaraderie as we reminisce our best memories during our high school and college days. There will be lots of entertainment, singing and dancing and photo opportunities with your classmates and friends.

For more information, please contact any of the following: Loi Herrera at 562-544-8210 or loiherrera@yahoo.com; Monette Santillan-Rivera at 818-970-8317 or Monette_santillan@yahoo.com; Rose Mejia at 323-997-3838 or Rosemariemejia@kw.com; Marissa Sugay-Palanca at 818-281-7460 or marispalanca@yahoo.com; Rose Maghari at 661-794-8906 or rmaghari@gmail.com; Sally Mendoza at 323-695-0235 or sally.mendoza616@yahoo.com; Honeylette De Leon at 562-480-5743 orhoney@worldclassfreight.com; Virginia Herbito at virginiaherbito@gmail.com; Connie Acosta at 323-854-5303 orconnieacosta1@att.net; Violeta D. Cristobal at 310-880-5808 or vee@cristobalcpa.com; Jun Mapoy at 323-627-5326 or jcmapoy@yahoo.com.

All are cordially invited to the Feast of Santo Niño de Cebu on Saturday, January 9, 2016, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Bellflower, California, organized and sponsored by the Santo Niño de Cebu Association of Southern California, Inc., a non-profit religious organization. The Eucharistic Celebration will be presided by the Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, His Excellency Bishop Oscar A. Solis at 10:00 am followed by the traditional procession of the image of Santo Niño de Cebu, fiesta lunch and Sinulog pre-sentations. Food and financial donations are welcome, and all donations are tax deductible. For further information, you may contact the association President, Danny C. Diluvio at (323) 252-4991 or email at: dannydiluvio1@gmail.com.

We invite you be a part of our annual celebration of an old-time Filipino Christmas tradi-tion, Simbang Gabi, a project of the Filipino Catholics of Saint Paul the Apostle Ministry. Simbang Gabi (meaning “Night Mass”) will occur each morning for 9 straight days, starting December 16 to 25, with Mass starting at 5:30am. Everyone is welcome to celebrate the joyful upcoming birth of Jesus Christ! Light breakfast will be provided after each mass at the Maher Hall of St. Paul the Apostle Church (14085 Peyton Dr, Chino Hills, CA 91709). We are currently in need of volunteers to help serve breakfast or assist us in serving at the Mass as ushers or Eucharistic ministers. We gladly accept and encourage individual or group volun-teers. Please spread the news and invite your friends to this joyous community gathering. If you are interested in helping please call any of the following; Tara Villavicencio - (909) 210-4891, Emily Jiao - (909) 248-8791, or Rick Jiao (909) 248-8790.

Fr. Jose Joseph Parathanal of Holy Trinity Parish, San Pedro District, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, invites all to join Fr. Joseph Parathanal’s Pilgrimages to EASTERN EUROPE, OL-GUADALUPE/Colonial Mexico, and INDIA. During the journey, pilgrims will pray to God for healing of body, mind and spirit especially for healing of the world from violence, terrorism and climate changes. Trip dates are: Divine Mercy/Infant Jesus of Prague/Austria/Hungary/Medjugorje (Eastern Europe) April 17- April 30; OLGuadalupe and Colonial Mexico - June 20 - June 27; and Mother Teresa/St. Thomas/St. Alphonsa/St. Euprasia/St. Chavarra (India) - Sept. 15 - Sept. 29, 2016. For more details and pilgrimage information, please contact Bernadette at bcorp1114@hotmail.com or call 323-344-1548 & 323-547-6618.

Santo Niño Cruzada USA, with the participation of the Cathedral Knights of Columbus and a Sinulog group, is inviting everyone for a holy mass to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the Feast of Santo Niño, the Divine Infant Jesus, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles (555 W Temple St, Los Angeles, CA 90012) on Sunday, January 17, at 3:30pm. The main celebrant is Monsignor Kevin Kostelnik, with Father David Gallardo as concelebrant. For more information, please contact any of the following offic-ers: Romy & Tess Esturas (213-387-9682), Rey & Tess Edpao (818-469-7292), Lilia Figuracion (626-394-2661, Carmen Estrada (213-413-2881), Fe Montana (323-218-1587), Ester Paredes (213-864-1149), Fe Reyes (213-413-5286), Laurie Dolorfino (213-407-0097), and Cherry Guerrero (213-632-2096).

HOVERBOARDS are among the must-have gadgets this Christmas, just make sure to leave them at home before your next flight.

Local carriers Cebu Pacific Air and Philippine Airlines an-nounced Monday that they are banning the carriage of the self-balancing personal transport

PAL, Cebu Paci�c ban ‘hoverboards’ over safety concernsvehicle, saying their powerful lithium-ion batteries may sponta-neously catch fire.

Hoverboards and similar de-vices will no longer be accepted for check-in and for hand car-riage abroad all flights starting Monday, Dec. 21, 2015.

The move follows recent an-nouncements by foreign carriers like Singapore Airlines, Delta, United, American and British Airways in recent days.

“Hoverboards run on high-powered lithium-ion batteries, which have been widely reported to have a tendency to overheat or spontaneously ignite,” Cebu Pacific said in a statement on Monday.

“These devices pose a fire haz-ard risk and are deemed unsafe for transport especially in an aircraft’s pressurized cabin and cargo stowage spaces,” it added.

A PAL spokesman said these

devices, and other like it, will also be prohibited aboard their flights.

Delta said in its own statement that the issue revolved around the inconsistent labelling of the device’s lithium-ion batteries.

“Delta reviewed hoverboard product specifications and found that manufacturers do not con-sistently provide details about the size or power of their lithium-ion batteries,” it said.

The US carrier said some de-

vices have battery specifications above their government’s man-dated 160 watt hour limit allowed aboard aircraft.

“While occurrences are un-common, these batteries can spontaneously overheat and pose a fire hazard risk,” Delta said.

Hoverboards, which do not hover, typically refer to two-wheeled devices, separated by a platform and controlled by the rider’s feet.

Their popularity has skyrock-eted in recent months, and the devices are distributed and mar-keted under a variety of brands. Buyer’s guides have also cropped up reviewing hoverboards along-side other consumer devices like smartphones and television monitors.

Rocket Internet-controlled online retailer Lazada lists dis-counted Hovertrax hoverboards on its website, with prices rang-ing from P8,000 to P18,000. ■

a period of three years to firmly establish the operations of the DOC.

Chua has yet to confirm Shell’s yearly contribution to the PDRF, Meily said.

To be located in Clark, Pam-panga province, with a satellite office at Shell House in Makati City, the PDRF-run DOC will coordinate the efforts of private companies during calamities.

The satellite office at Shell House will likely be established first, “by early next year,” and the DOC may be up and running by end-2016 or early 2017, Meily said.

When there are no calamities, the DOC headquarters will be used as a training center and as an office for disaster prepared-ness planning, he said.

The pledges followed commit-ments made during the launch of the PDRF in April, when business leaders announced they would establish a high-tech disaster operations center and a quick-re-

sponse system to help businesses prepare for disasters and resume business quickly after one.

Complementary workThe aim, Meily said, is to com-

plement and not to replicate gov-ernment disaster risk reduction and response work.

Aside from Zobel and Pang-ilinan, the PDRF is cochaired by Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, who was present during the PDRF board meeting on Dec. 18 that discussed plans for the DOC.

Board members present dur-ing the discussion were Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. president and CEO Erramon I. Aboitiz, First Philippine Holdings chair and CEO Federico R. Lopez, Phinma CEO Ramon del Rosa-rio Jr., National Competitive-ness Council cochair Guillermo Luz, who will head the DOC task force, Coca-Cola vice president for public affairs Adel Tamano and Manila Water Co. Inc. group director for operations Geodino Carpio.

Board adviser George Con-sunji, president and COO of DM Consunji Inc., was also present.

Science Secretary Mario Mon-tejo attended the meeting as a resource person presenting the work of Project Noah (Nation-wide Operational Assessment of Hazards) and how it aids the government in responding to di-sasters.

Launched in 2012, Project Noah uses airborne light detec-tion and ranging (Lidar) technol-ogy to map the country’s terrain down to the barangay level.

Learning seriesThe proposed learning series

to be offered at the DOC includes rapid earthquake damage assess-ment system training from the Philippine Institute of Volcanolo-gy and Seismology; weather 101 and tropical cyclone 101 from Weather Philippines, and disas-ter preparedness training for small and medium enterprises in Metro Manila from the Universi-ty of the Philippines Institute for Small-Scale Industries. ■

Energy tycoons team up for disaster…t

salaried workers, who pay the big-gest chunk of the total income tax.

Recently, the Senate and the House of Representatives each approved on final reading the proposed Salary Standardization Law (SSL) of 2015, which man-dates a P226-billion compensa-tion hike spread over four years for the national government’s 1.53 million civilian, military and uniformed personnel.

Escudero said the government must go beyond raising the sal-ary of state workers by lowering income tax rates, a move that would also benefit the private sector that employs most of the country’s workforce.

Around 39 million people are in the nation’s labor force, of which 36 million are in the pri-

vate sector.In last five years, private sec-

tor workers have received mini-mal pay hikes, the latest of which was in April this year when the National Wages and Productivity

Chiz vows lower income tax if Poe…

Commission implemented a P15 adjustment in the daily minimum wage in Metro Manila, raising the minimum pay to P481 for workers in the non-agriculture sector, Escudero said. ■

t

by MIGUEL R. CAMUSInquirer.net

ATTY. KENNETH URSUA REYES

Barrister’s Corner

IT is very common for ben-eficiaries of family based petition to wait many years before their petition’s priority date becomes current. This is usually the case with US Citizen parent petitions to adult son or daughter. This is also common among petition’s between Siblings. What happens when the Petitioner dies? Are all those years of waiting wasted? Not quite. Normally, the Petition is automatically revoked once the Petitioner dies.

However, all is not lost by the death of the Petitioner. The beneficiary has a couple of op-tions depending on whether they are inside the US or outside the US. The beneficiary may either avail of the INA § 204(l) which was signed into law in 2009 if the beneficiary is inside the US at the time the petitioner’s death and continues to reside inside the US.

Alternatively, if the benefi-ciary is outside the US, benefi-ciary may seek to reinstate the petition based on humanitar-ian grounds. The DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security) may ex-ercise discretion “for humani-tarian reasons” to reinstate the petition and to allow the Affi-

Reinstating a deceased petitioner’s family-based petitiondavit of Support requirements to be satisfied by the qualify-ing I-864 of a spouse, parent, mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, grandparent, or grandchild or legal guardian of the beneficia-ry, as long as the petition was “approved” prior to the Peti-tioner’s death.

If the beneficiary is inside the US either in legal status or grandfathered by INA §245(i) and the priority date on the pe-tition is current, the beneficiary may apply for adjustment of sta-tus. The beneficiary may also apply for an employment autho-rization card.

DHS discretion does not mean “guaranteed” approval. The case will be evaluated on a case by case basis. Some of the factors that the DHS may consider are 1) disruption of an established family unit; 2) hardship to US citizens or law-ful permanent residents; 3) beneficiary is elderly or in poor health; 4) beneficiary has had lengthy residence in the US; 4) beneficiary has no home to go to; 5)undue delay by USCIS or consular officer in processing petition and visa; 6) and Ben-eficiary has strong family ties in

the United States.The beneficiary must be pre-

pared to show proof of the origi-nal I-130 that was filed, proof of I-130 approval if approved, a copy of the Petitioner’s death certificate, proof of substitute sponsor’s relationship to the beneficiary, and meet all the I-864 requirements.

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ATTY. LAWRENCE YANG

Debt Relief

NO one has anything good to say about the IRS. Tax collectors were much hated even during the time of Jesus two thousand years ago. Jesus was walking along the street when He saw Matthew sit-ting in his tax collector booth, then Jesus called Matthew to be His disciple. Client had a con-firmed Chapter 13 plan since 2013. The plan paid for her 2013 income tax owed of $10K, and $50K arrears in her mortgage. These are the only creditors that she owed. She had a 2nd trust deed of $100K, which was fully forgiven by Bank of America af-ter we filed her motion to avoid the 2nd trust deed. She had $60K credit card debt which all got discharged in her Chapter 7 case the year before. This was re-ally an extreme reorganization of her financial affairs that we were doing. Phase 1, she discharged all unsecured debt. Phase 2, was to handle the IRS and the $50K arrears on the mortgage. Things had gone quite well. The $100K second trust deed had com-pletely disappeared in an instant right after we filed the LAM mo-tion. We really did not expect that Bank of America would just forgive the entire 2nd mortgage. Our strategy was to argue that client did not have to pay Bank of America anything as unsecured debt upon approval of the motion to avoid lien because the previ-ous chapter 7 discharge wiped out the promissory note, so there was nothing to pay even as the lien was stripped. I wasn’t sure that the court would buy this argument but it was logical and legally correct.

IRS seeks to dismiss client’s chapter 13Client with good income wants chapter 7

to discharge $70K credit cardsThe next step we took was to

work on a loan modification for the first mortgage. This worked out really well too. Not only did Nationstar reduce payment by $800 a month, it updated the loan such that there were no more ar-rears. Therefore, the loan modi-fication cured the $50K arrears. With the LM in place, client was now completely current on her mortgage. Nationstar wrote a letter to the trustee saying that the LM cured the default and no more payments in the plan to Na-tionstar were needed!

So, the only debt left unpaid was the IRS of $10K. However, client failed to pay IRS her 2014 tax liability, which was $14K. This created a big problem be-cause non-payment of the 2014 tax liability is a violation of the terms of the confirmed plan. A violation of the terms of the plan is legal ground to dismiss the case. Thus, the IRS filed a motion to dismiss case. To set things right, we had to oppose the IRS motion to dismiss on the ground that if Nationstar withdrew its prepetition proof of claim which showed a $50K default which no longer exists, the plan could be modified to pay the IRS in full over the rest of the life of the plan. We also filed an objection to the proof of claim of Nationstar because the loan modification wiped out the arrears of $50K. Hopefully, these will all combine to prevent the case from being dismissed.

Second client is 57 years old. He had a good paying job for 20 years. He cleared $150K a year every year for the last 20 years

working 18 hours a day because he was so dedicated to his work. Although he was paid well, the kind of work he did was very stressful and it affected his mind. He would have nightmares in-volving what he saw at work. A lot of gore and blood, and he saw the evil that men do. He decided that it was time to start again in life without too much stress. Any-way, he had already qualified for a good pension. He said the mon-ey wasn’t worth the stress that he had to go through every day. The guy was a nervous wreck. He still owed $70K of credit cards. He owned a house with a reasonable mortgage payment of $1800 and two-car payments total of $1,000. He takes it easy nowadays. Does a little part time work here and there. His wife still works. With his pension and part time income, there’s enough to cover monthly expenses, but there is no money left to make minimum payments of $2K on his $70K credit cards. These have to go. With his fresh start in life, he will have no more $70K of credit card debt. This is what he wants, and it makes a whole lot of sense.

“Come to Me, all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28

MONETTEADEVA MAGLAYA

ImmigrantLiving: 101 and Beyond

LEST we forget, Christ is the reason for the season. The gen-erosity personified by the iconic Santa Claus figure comes from the love of God who sent His only begotten Son as a gift to the world. We need to refocus with laser sharp accuracy on what is truly important about the sea-son.

So say Merry Christmas in-stead of Happy Holidays if you agree. Those who wish to stay politically correct will say Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings. Businesses who cater to all de-nominations and do not wish to “offend” will stay the course of political correctness. It’s a mat-ter of survival these days given

Christ is still the reason for the season“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.” — Roy L. Smith”

the cultural climate.But take heart, it seems the

pendulum is swinging. Soon the scourge of political correctness in our time and all its dark as-saults on morality, truth and goodness will go the way of the dodo.

The weather is highly unusual in most parts of the world this year but if you tune in to sky watchers’ websites and yahoo news segments devoted to sci-ence, the heavens are putting out spectacular light shows seen during midnight and the early morning hours.

If you live in Los Angeles, go

check out the schedule at the Griffith Park Observatory. Tune out of the internet. We live too much in our heads gawking, gaping tethered to our phones. We become virtual slaves to our ipads and our computers — our eyesight becoming progressive-ly weak, our derrieres getting bigger, our muscles getting flab-bier and sadly, our lives becom-ing predictably boring. We fail to see the big picture.

We need to stop living virtual lives. We need to CHOOSE TO REALLY LIVE with all our senses and marvel at the heavens. If you live in areas with very little light

pollution or you can find a group of friends who love to watch the night sky with their telescopes on higher ground, bundled up like Eskimos for the frigid hours of the night and early morning hours with their thermos full of hot cocoa, you can really feel the velvet grandeur of the night skies around this time of the year.

At no other time during the year is the line, “Nobody can con-ceive or imagine all the wonders

there are unseen and unseeable in the world.” more appropri-ate to ponder than at Christmas time when all the splendors of the world around us, if we look carefully and listen well, take on special meaning.

Christmas is a time for remem-brance of things past, mostly the good ones. We ought to edit out and leave the unwanted footage of those memories that are best left forgotten on the cutting room floor.

Above all, it is a time to say “THANK YOU”, a time to draw lessons from the year just past in order to use a new and fresh sup-ply of God’s gift called TIME, giv-en in equal measure to all men, rich or poor, from one glorious day to the next.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! * * *

ST. MARTHA’S Catholic Church in Valinda, Calif., fosters the beautiful cultural tradition of its Filipino parishioners by celebrating the Sim-bang Gabi or Misa de Gallo every December. This year’s theme: “Lord Jesus, Son of Mary, Mold Us into One Family of New Evangelizers.” Nine days

of 5:00 a.m. Masses welcome the coming of Je-sus at Christmas. Priests from different parishes are invited at every Mass, and a light breakfast is served at the Mc Namara Hall. Bishop Oscar Solis will be the celebrant on Dec. 24, the last day of the Simbang Gabi. ■

Filipino parishioners celebrate Simbang Gabi

consumption expenditures that have been supported by remit-tances.

Likewise, he noted steady in-vestments especially in the real estate business that is supported by cash remittances from Filipi-nos abroad.

“So I think at this point it is dif-ficult to say that we are seeing a more permanent shift to a lower normal remittances which we should see some recovery mov-ing forward,” Guinigundo said.

For his part, BSP managing director Francis Dakila Jr. said

some Filipinos abroad could be holding on to their earnings over-seas instead of sending them to their loved ones to the Philippines due to the strong US dollar.

“To some extent the reduction in remittances may also be the re-sult of a feedback process. As the peso weakens and as you see the budgetary requirements of the families are stated in pesos, then you actually need less dollars in order to support these require-ments. We don’t actually have all the information as to how much of the compensation is being re-tained in banks abroad,” he said.

Remittance growth target lowered to 4% this…For 2016, Guinigundo said

remittances are expected to in-crease four percent to $26.3 billion on account of the steady deployment of Filipino workers, greater diversification of country destinations, and shift to higher-skilled types of work.

“Looking at the rate of deploy-ment, we continue to see sus-tained resiliency in the deploy-ment of our workers abroad,” he added.

Cash remittances serve as a major source of foreign exchange that serves as buffer against ex-ternal shocks. ■

t

St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church Simbang Gabi 2015WE invite you be a part of our annual celebra-

tion of an old-time Filipino Christmas tradition, Simbang Gabi, a project of the Filipino Catholics of Saint Paul the Apostle Ministry. Simbang Gabi (meaning “Night Mass”) will occur each morning for 9 straight days, starting December 16 to 25, with Mass starting at 5:30am.

Everyone is welcome to celebrate the joyful up-coming birth of Jesus Christ! Light breakfast will be provided after each mass at the Maher Hall of St. Paul the Apostle Church (14085 Peyton Dr,

Chino Hills, CA 91709). We are currently in need of volunteers to help

serve breakfast or assist us in serving at the Mass as ushers or Eucharistic ministers. We gladly ac-cept and encourage individual or group volunteers. Please spread the news and invite your friends to this joyous community gathering.

If you are interested in helping please call any of the following; Tara Villavicencio - (909) 210-4891, Emily Jiao - (909) 248-8791, or Rick Jiao (909) 248-8790. ■

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T A J

MDWKMAGAZINEWednesday, DECEMBER 23, 2015

PHOTOS BY DING CARREON

by CHRISTINA M. ORIEL / AJPRESS

The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - December 23, 2015

2 cover story

Bridging the culinary culture between Los Angeles and Manila

Walter & Margarita Manzke brings accessible dining to two different settings

ON an unusually warm fall morning, the scene at Repub-lique — a French-leaning eatery in Los Angeles — captured that quintessential laid-back aura familiar to those who frequent cafés across the city. Natural sunlight penetrated the glass windows and shone down the open-air atrium, as the rustic communal tables filled up with an assortment of patrons either shielded behind their laptops or engaged in discussions with one another.

Dishes like a Shakshouka (fried egg, stewed tomatoes & peppers, black kale, yogurt, cilantro, baguette), a slab of French toast, and pork belly adobo fried rice exited the kitchen and made their ways to patrons who had a moment to dine leisurely. Earlier, as what typically happens every morn-ing, a line formed for the newly baked, aromatic pastries (any-thing from a pecan sticky bun to a flaky chocolate croissant) graciously arranged behind the glass counter.

The casualness of it all felt more like a Saturday around brunch time, rather than during the middle of the week.

By 6 pm, the service transi-tions into a relatively more refined, sit-down setting where decadent items like caviar, escargot and foie gras are on the menu, as are dry-aged and braised meats and dishes with cross-cultural elements. Yet, ab-sent are stiff, white tablecloths or rigid dress codes that need to be followed in order to dine there.

The dualism — literally night and day — of the space is the brainchild of chef Walter Manzke and his wife Margarita (or Marge, for short), alongside restaurateur Bill Chait, as a way to make a dining establishment accessible for any meal of the day, while still delivering quality ingredients and dishes.

Since 2013, the restau-rant/café/bakery/wine bar has inhabited the walls of a historic, Old Hollywood building con-ceptualized and built by Charlie Chaplin in the 1920s, which later became the joint site of fine-din-ing restaurant Campanille and city-favorite La Brea Bakery. The building has since been restored for Republique’s purpose, using Yakal wood for the furniture and thousands of tiles imported from

the Philippines, where Marge is originally from.

The daytime concept was an undertaking pushed by Marge, who heads the pastry depart-ment; however, it wasn’t initially well-received.

“When we opened at dinner, it fell into place quite easily. But this whole concept of breakfast and lunch was a huge challenge. Most of our clientele didn’t accept the idea of doing this counter service. They wanted it to be a restaurant and not a café,” Walter said. “When we opened, Marge was here at 4 in the morning baking pastries and filling up the cases, only to sell five of them and watch the staff eat the rest.”

But, being open throughout the day resonated with those who want to nosh while doing work or have a decent meal in the middle of the day.

“It really paid off because it is an important and successful part of this business. It makes it two restaurants — we have people who come here every day and go through dinner sometimes, those who only come in the day [and] people who only come at night. We definitely have two restaurants with two different clientele,” Walter said.

In creating the dinner set-ting, Walter synthesized his previous culinary experiences by taking elements of French cuisine and fine dining, as well as the cultures of those working in the kitchen. Drawing from Asian influence, dishes are served in more generous, family-style por-tions, enabling diners to taste a little bit of everything and not be limited to the parameters that come from a fine dining estab-lishment.

“All of that is blended together as a restaurant that is young, vibrant, has energy and is most importantly, very easy and unpretentious,” he added. “I always wanted Republique to be a place where you could come for any reason at any time. It’s as important for me that it’s a place that when you’re driving by and you look into the window that you’re draw in and you just want to come into the bar and have a drink. You can come by during the day, have a cup of coffee and work on your laptop, just like it’s any other café. You can also come here for a special occasion, and everywhere in between. It’s a place where you should be comfortable to come for any reason at any time.”

In just two years, Republique has won over critics, topping best-of lists, including Los Angeles Magazine’s ‘Best New Restaurant’ for 2014. Forbes has named it a restaurant slated to become an LA classic. Marge’s pastries have garnered her the title of LA Weekly’s Best Pastry Chef for 2014 and a nomination for Outstanding Pastry Chef by the James Beard Foundation earlier this year.

A culinary power coupleWalter and Marge respec-

tively grew up with a love for

food. In San Diego, he was sur-rounded by seasonable produce in his family’s backyard and went on to study business and restau-rant management before going on to famed kitchens, such as Patina, El Bulli and Le Louis XV in the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo under Alain Ducasse.

In the Philippines, Marge grew up in the kitchen at a res-taurant in Quiapo and at White Rock Resort, a hotel and res-taurant outside of Manila, both of which were owned by her parents. She studied pastry at Le Cordon Bleu in London, then received a degree in culinary arts at The Culinary Institute of America in New York.

Their worlds converged in Los Angeles, where Walter re-turned after working in Europe and where Marge began her career at Spago and Patina.

“We met at the kitchen at Patina. I was the chef du cuisine there and Marge, most of the time she was there, was working at the fish station. Then when we started dating, I was the manager and that’s really not the right thing to do so she left and began working with a friend of mine at Mélisse [a Michelin-starred French restaurant in Santa Monica] and became the sous chef there,” Walter said.

The couple worked together again when they moved to Carmel in 2002, where they spent five years at places like Bouchée, Cantinetta Luca and l’Auberge Carmel. At Bouchée, Marge developed her pastry skills by baking bread and other pastries by scratch.

“We wanted to leave Carmel [and] felt that it was time to open a restaurant. We knew Carmel was not the place to do so because it was a little too sleepy,” Marge said. “But it was a long road before we even opened [Republique].”

Added Walter, “there was something that steered us back to LA. Going from working as an employee to opening a restau-rant is difficult for anyone — it’s a huge step. It’s a whole new set of skills and everything. We decided that in order to do that, we had to work for somebody to get to know people and LA again because we had been gone for five years.”

In 2007, they re-opened Bastide, which lasted for two years, and went on to work at Church & State, where Walter was the head chef and Marge was a server, and later pastry chef. The first conceptualization

for Republique was planned for a location in Downtown’s Arts District, before it had develop-ments like today.

Bringing the brunch culture to Manila

In between talks about their own restaurant, the couple experienced a period in which they described what seemed like “everything in the world was going wrong for us.” Then, Marge’s sister, Ana De Ocampo, approached them about a res-taurant project in Manila.

By 2012, the couple, along with Ana and Church & State’s former sous chef Allen Buhay, opened Wildflour Café + Bakery in Bonifacio Global City.

“We got more and more involved in that and decided to be partners. My sous chef from Church & State, Allen Buhay, was interested in moving back to Manila, where he is [origi-nally] from,” Walter said. “Now he’s our partner and he runs the day-to-day operations in the kitchen, while Ana runs the majority of the business and op-erations. They’re the ones there doing most of the work.”

Opening the restaurant was a challenge because, at the time, that part of Fort Bonifacio didn’t get a lot of foot traffic. The slow business almost made the Manzkes tune into the criti-cism and pack up back to Los Angeles.

“Everything about Wildflour, people criticized. When we opened up, we had these black stenciled, barely visible signs on the window, which we still have, and people were saying we had to put up big signs. Everybody thought the decor was bad. All we heard was every reason why we would fail. It was just kind of doing what we knew and liked here in LA and it all fell into place,” Walter said.

But after a few food blog-gers posted about the restau-rant, tables were constantly filled within the week, to the point where people would walk out because of the slow service.

“We went from one extreme to the other and we hadn’t planned for that. But every day after that going forward, Wild-flour, especially during lunch, has never had a slow day,” he added.

The couple calls Wildflour, “an accessible middle-class restaurant” and Republique’s counterpart in the Philippines, crediting its success to Filipinos’ connectivity to overseas food trends and more disposable

income from the younger work-ing generation. Essentially, they want what people here in other big cities are eating, and have the spending power to get it.

A lot of similarities can be pointed out between the two restaurants: an open kitchen floor plan, wooden furniture, exposed brick walls, cases with pastries baked in house and brunch items, from the signa-ture Croque Madame to kimchi fried rice.

Those dining there won’t feel as if they’re in Metro Manila, but rather catapulted into the middle of the brunch culture in a city, such as LA or New York.

“As far as restaurants in the Philippines, with the ambiance of Wildflour, I don’t think there’s anything like it. It’s very much like you can take the restaurant and put it in LA or San Francisco or New York. People like to feel like they’re in a different place. When you enter, you feel like you’re not in the Philippines,” Marge said, also emphasizing the ingredients used to prepare the dishes.

Wildflour is also famous for replicating Dominique Ansel’s “cronut,” during the height of the trend, branding it a croissant-donut that attracted hordes of customers, only to be sold out in just a few hours.

“The cronut trend is defi-nitely the thing that made me believe and confirm what I’m talking about: Filipinos have a close eye on the rest of the world and when they see some-thing, they want it more than anybody and are willing to stand in line and fight over it. They literally will do anything to get it. I think that what Marge did with the cronut was us feeding Dominque Ansel’s PR. It started when he started it and died [for us] when it died for him,” Walter said.

Marge continued, “even with the cronut, if we didn’t make our own croissants, we wouldn’t have been able to do it…We can make a lot of things and not just get stuck with what we can get from others.”

To date, there are four Wildflour locations at the Po-dium Mall and Makati’s Salcedo Village and Legazpi Village, and there are plans to open more. Next to the location at Fort Bonifacio, the team recently opened Farmacy, an ice cream and soda fountain, where they make their own ice cream fla-

Chef Walter Manzke and his wife Margarita Photo by Michelle Park

Kimchi Fried Rice Photo by Michelle Park

AJPress photos by Ding Carreon

Continued on Page 3

entertainment 3The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - December 23, 2015

Bridging the culinary culture...From Page 2

Miss Spain wins Miss World 2015by ARMIN P. ADINA

Inquirer.net

MISS World Philippines Hill-arie Danielle Parungao scored a Top 10 finish and topped the “Multimedia” event in the 2015 Miss World pageant held at the Crown of Beauty Theater in Sanya, China, on Saturday night.

Prior to the final cut to the Top 5, Parungao ranked fourth in the Miss World “leader-board” based on points she earned from the preliminary events.

In the Miss World pageant, all delegates undergo a series of preliminary activities, where they earn points to help boost their chances of bagging the title.

Aside from bagging the Multimedia Award, Parungao also figured highly in the “Top Model” and “Beauty With A Purpose” events, the latter with her charity project called “Katuwang” which aims to curb infant and child mortality in depressed communities.

The 24-year-old nursing graduate from Nueva Vizcaya also sustained the Philippines’ strong running in the global tilt, which was ignited by Gwen-doline Ruais’ first runner up finish in 2011.

In 2013, Megan Young gave

the Philippines its first victory in the London-based global tilt. Queneerich Rehman finished in the Top 15 in 2012, while last year’s representative Valerie Weigmann cracked the Top 25.

For the pageant’s 65th stag-ing this year, the crown went to Spain’s Mireia Lalaguna Royo, a 23-year-old Pharmacy student from Barcelona. She also re-ceived the “Top Model” award.

Russian delegate Sofia Nikitchuck, who ranked first in the Top 10 leaderboard, finished second. Indonesia’s Maria Harfanti, who topped the “Beauty With A Purpose” race, placed third.

Jamaica’s Sanetta Myrie and Lebanon’s Valerie Abou Chacra rounded up the Top 5.

Guyana’s Lisa Punch, who performed a song number dur-ing the coronation ceremonies, topped the Talent competition, while Namibia’s Steffi Van Wyk scored the highest in the Sports and Fitness challenge.

Vietnam’s Trn Ngc Lan Khuê earned the highest public votes and was included as the 11th finalist through her People’s Choice Award. She also topped the World Fashion Designer Dresses contest.

Young was tapped to host the pageant for the second year in a row, along with re-

turning host Tim Vincent and Angela Chow.

This year’s competition had 114 delegates.

Lalaguna’s victory marked the first-ever win for a Spanish contestant.

Not present was Miss Cana-da, Chinese-born Anastasia Lin, who had been prevented from boarding her connecting flight to Sanya from Hong Kong last month after China refused her a visa.

Lin is an outspoken critic of Chinese religious policy and a follower of the Falun Gong meditation practice, which was

Miss World Philippines Hillarie Danielle Parungao.

‘A Second Chance’ now highest-grossing Filipino �lm of all timeTHIRD time may be the

charm but A Second Chance has the glam.

John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo’s romantic drama is now the highest-grossing Filipino movie of all time, rak-ing in P566 million worldwide as per Star Cinema executive Roxy Liquigan.

Liquigan posted the an-nouncement via Instagram with the straightforward post “now the highest grossing Filipino movie of all time” together with the movie’s poster.

A simple hashtag #P556M-Worldwide was the icing.

Coco Martin : Finding happiness on Christmasby PABLO A. TARIMAN

Philstar.com

MANILA—His struggling days are over, he has moved from his humble abode to this special enclave he calls his dream home and for now, he lords it over Philippine television through his top-ratingteleserye, “Ang Probin-syano.”

On this early evening presscon where everyone went through the agony of coping with worsening traffic, Coco Martin remains cordial, if, convivial as he gives everyone he knows a welcome hug.

For now, he is asking support for his latest project, “Beauty and The Bestie,” which is an entry in the coming Metro Manila Film Festival.

But in this latest starrer, there is no leading lady to speak of, no gripping love story to look forward to and no special kilig to make the heart grow fonder.

When Coco shows up, he is with someone dressed like the fashionable Amor Powers (of “Pangako Sa’Yo”) — elegant in white, hair brushed to reveal elegant black and gold in his hair

and with that trademark stiletto heels worn comfortably like sec-ond skin. Looking ladylike and at some point feigning helplessness, hoping to see a helping hand, Coco’s screen partner is a wel-come change from drama and his proper introduction to comedy.

Like it or not, Coco and Vice Ganda are studies in contrast.

He is a drama actor, the part-ner is a comedian honed by many years as a stand-up comedian.

Coco is a man of few words, Vice can in fact outtalk anyone.

He is the personification of discretion, the other loves to throw caution to the wind secure in the thought that his gift for articulation is an excuse to put anyone on the spot.

But in private setting, things are different.

When Coco talks, Vice listens even if the former can be blunt about certain things.

When Coco asks about Vice’s love life, he can be very detailed like asking him how much he is spending on his lover of the mo-ment. If he is a waiter, he quotes a much lower price. But if the guy has status, Vice is capable of

admission he pays much higher.But only if Coco is the one

asking.“With Coco, I can be painfully

honest. With him, I can open my life and not regret it. We go a long way back in showbiz. We also witnessed each other’s hard climb to the top. But one thing that is admirable about Coco is his penchant for simple happiness. With bigger income, I wanted to go abroad, buy this and that and be alone with some-

“A Second Chance” beat the previous record holder “The Amazing Praybeyt Ben-jamin,” one of the entries in

the 2014 Metro Manila Film Festival starring comedian Vice Ganda, by a whopping P100 million. (Inquirer.net)

Continued on Page 4

Continued on Page 4

Steak Tar Tar Photo by Sierra Prescott

vors and cones. But in the coming year, the

couple is most excited about importing Pink’s Hot Dogs to the Philippines, once the construc-tion of the Shangri-La Hotel in Fort Bonifacio is completed. Richard Pink, who came into Walter’s other restaurant Petty Cash (a taqueria) for dinner one night approached him about bringing Pink’s to Asia, which was always a plan for the iconic hot dog stand.

“I’ve been told the people there love everything American. It wouldn’t surprise me to have to tailor to Filipino tastes a little, but our menu will have that Pink’s style everyone’s familiar with. We are even importing the hot dogs,” Pink said in an inter-

view with The Daily Meal. Patterned after an “LA-style

Biergarten,” the Manzkes shared that it will have a bar, picnic tables, stands for hot dogs and hamburgers and ice cream from Farmacy.

“It’ll be a fun place [and even] more accessible than Wildflour. We’ll keep the same formula of Wildflour in that we’ll bake all the bread, make all the fries from scratch -- it’ll be qual-ity ingredients,” Walter added.

As for the future of Repub-lique — despite its praises — the Manzkes said that it is continu-ally a work in progress, and it never feels like the restaurant is fully opened yet.

“All of this exists because of Marge’s support. For me, the most important restaurant is in

the Philippines and it’s maybe, who knows, where our future is. But we’re very fortunate to be at both places and I’m very hon-ored and humbled of our suc-cess there. I have a lot of people to thank for it. We’ve provided great jobs a lot of people in the Philippines,” Walter said.

Coco Martin

Bea Alonzo and John Lloyd Cruz

PH bet reaches top 10, wins multimedia evemts

4The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - December 23, 2015

features

Tropical holiday perksMANGO MIX

by MARTIN JASON

L. ITA-AS

MOONLIGHTING

by MYLAH DE LEON

A Christmas wish

A WEEK before Christmas, we’re crammed with Christmas wishes, checking them twice, the

naughty or the nice part. It is a seasonal splendor of a heart’s wish for Christmas.

I cannot remember no time in my life when an interesting man was not the object of my interests, if not search.

Unlike some women, I’ve never had the patience of an edu-

cator, nor the zeal of a reformer. You see, I prefer the finished

product: not a man incapable of growth, but one who has man-aged to acquire those percep-tions, tastes and attitudes which consititute, to me, the measure of my man’s worth.

What was my yardstick? Well, in my younger days, my pre-liminary judgements were largely visual, elegance in appearance and manners, I believe that class is elegance and price gently influencing… the old of notion of refinement, a kind of carriage, a way of moving and dressing, the use of voice and hands, which proclaimed a being superior in perception and attainment, who doesn’t bludgeon sensibility and obliterate taste.

There should be a refinement of behavior that commensurates with the possession of money and comforts; to discriminate between healthy freedom and sick license, in his demeanor.

A man who has never been exposed to other societies can-not be interesting. I am speaking of a reasonable familiarity with foreign cities and peoples, art and customs.

For the wholeness of a man to me suggest, primarily, a refine-

to, but he is not missing oth-ers as they enter, a flick of the eyes does it. For in all ways, this man is not obvious. He would no more appear to examine a woman up, than he would move his lips while reading… his senses are trained and his reflexes quick. And how did he get that way? From experience, observation, and deduction…He is educated in life.

This man I wish for…I do not mean the elegance

of the Diplomat, nor French ac-tors or Italian princes. They are not real enough.

He could simply be that boy next door, who would hold your hand with proper lightness, and look into your eyes just long enough to create surface tension -- who, in a well modulated voice won’t rush you.

He makes a flattering show of savoring your intelligence (and if my intellectual efforts are at this disposal, why not every material resource I possess?) and is not overcome by Pinot Noir or long black eyelashes. He doesn’t be-guile – his sophistry is natural. He knows that the ardent look can be more effective than a hasty grab. The amorous lurch is not a compliment to me.

How he lives, what he sur-rounds himself with is index

enough of his charm or lack of it. Are there no classics on his bookshelves? Does his record cabinet bulge with rock or jazz but lack Bach, Verdi or Pro-kokiev? A simple man is a limited man. His heart maybe gold, but his company will be leaden.

I am beginning to think other women will find this, my wish of a man, as an urbane monster: effete, affected, immoral, snob-bish even unreliable. Call it my romantic hubris.

He is certainly urbane, but with an appreciation of the natu-ral world high in his category of perceptions.

A man unaware or unmoved by the sea is merely half alive. As for the imputed defects, I do not hold them as such.

Instead of effete, I would say civilized; instead of affected, effective; instead of immoral, curious; instead of snobbish, superior.

He is kind to those who are weak; generous to those who love him; ruthless to those who will order him around; and fierce to the arrogant.

For me, this is the man, I wish would fill my stockings this Christmas Eve. If only there was a Santa.

***E-mail Mylah at moonlightingmdl@aol.com

WITH the holidays come ca-maraderie, delicious food, peace, goodwill and the cold weather. Lots and lots of cold winds and freezing snow. Yes, holidays at home can be a magical experi-ence of togetherness for every-body, but you can easily do that in other places without losing the sense of. This includes tropical islands and warm countries in the world.

Here are a few reasons why spending the holidays out on a tropical vacation with the family is just as great as spending it at home with one another:

A different feelTraveling to a warmer

country for Christmas can be an amazing experience. You can re-ally immerse yourself in a totally different culture and live them, all while enjoying the much needed downtime you get from staying at home in the holidays. It may seem a little foreign if you’re not used to traveling during the holidays, but this is definitely an experience that you need to try once in order to open your world.

New menuThe same old holiday dinners

can get a bit stale year after year. Traveling to a tropical country during the season can help you explore not just new places and attractions but new dishes to try as well. Tropical countries near the ocean often have bountiful seafood harvests while the tem-perate countryside has delicious slices of rich meat coupled with fresh and crisp veggies. Turn your usual menu upside down with a taste of foreign flavors.

Sunbathing in the winter time

What are the best parts of tropical countries during the holiday seasons? Sun, fun, sand and sea! While it might be chilly or even snowing back at home, you’ll be lounging near the pool or the seaside in your swimsuit, soaking in the delicious rays of the sun. Don’t forget the sun-screen though or you might end

up more red and tan. Take note of the climate differences and pack accordingly from bottled water for avoiding dehydration to wearing light clothes to avoid feeling stuffy.

Holiday memories on the go

Instead of sending the relatives a Christmas card of the family posing in front of the fireplace, send one of the clan enjoying group sunbathing on the sand. Both pictures are equally warming and adorable in their respective ways. It’s important for you to grow as people while growing closer as family members. Experiencing new destinations and things together can significantly knit a family closer while paving the way for funny, cute and amazing photo opportunities that will last a lifetime.

Switching up routinesSwitching up your holiday

routines can really bring the fun back into your seasonal break. Constantly going through the same cycle over and over again can get boring as the years go

by. Changing up the routine can help bring the excitement and spark back into your celebrations and can make for an interesting opening to mixing and matching new and old practices for the next years.

Get on board a vacation to the tropical havens of the world to experience a different kind of holiday now! Maybe you’ll love it. Maybe you’ll prefer to stay home. But no matter how you feel about it, it will be a new experience that you and your family will remember.

***Mango Tours is a provider of quality, affordable and convenient travel services that include low-priced airline tickets, customized Philippine and International Tour Packages, Cruises, Land Transfers, Passport and Visa Concerns. It is the #1 producer of reliable travel services particularly when it comes to Philippine travel arrange-ments to the Filipino-American community in the US Mango Tours is able to provide its customers with a number of travel options at affordable rates because of its consolidator contracts with over 11 airlines. Book your travel bookings with Mango Tours by calling its 24/7 U.S. toll-free number at 1-866-2-MANILA (1-866-2-626452). Visit www.mangotours.com to know more about its latest promos and travel offers.* *Advertising Supplement

Coco Martin: Finding happiness on...From Page 3

one special. Coco has the habit of asking me about my latest acquisitions. I open up easily. But sometimes he’d make me feel so guilty because it takes only a few simple things to make him happy. He would often tell me that a person can be happy with just the basic things. From him I learned that happiness is not about latest acquisitions but more like how you feel inside and how you care for (others).”

In another level, Coco admits this film with Vice is his introduc-tion to comedy, which he says is not his forte.

It is also Coco’s first film with direk Wenn Deramas.

Another side of Coco is nar-rated by direk Wenn.

“In the beginning, he is always open to a good collabo-ration mainly because comedy

is strange territory for him. So, I guided him on how can be himself and still elicit humor. Even for a comedy film, he takes everything seriously. When I real-ized how he gave everything in a scene, I just told myself this is one hell of an actor who can last more than 200 years. His dedica-tion is amazing and his humility is even more astounding.”

Coco admits working with Vice and direk Wenn is a totally new experience for him — he who has no track record in com-edy. “I am glad I was guided ef-fectively and coached every step of the way,” he adds.

Still, Coco would not feast on compliments.

He checked the rushes and reviewed how he fared. He was happy with what he saw.

As for direk Wenn, he could feel a good work when he sees

one. He points out: “If this latest film is a thesis, I’d say I’d easily get a grade of 1. That’s how con-fident I am I did a good job.”

As for Coco, he knows he gave it everything he had with the help of co-actors and a sensi-tive director.

On the other hand, Christmas for him is always about spending it with his family.

For him, happiness is not always about things he can buy but more about things he can share.

He concludes: “When you spend it with your family and your loved ones, you can’t go wrong where you will find happi-ness on Christmas Day.”

“Beauty and The Bestie” also stars James Reid, Nadine Lustre, Alonzo Muhlach and Marco Masa (Nathaniel) will open on Christ-mas Day in the Philippines.

Miss Spain wins Miss World...outlawed by China in 1999.

She said that after she won the Canadian title, Chinese se-curity agents visited her father, who still lives in China, in an apparent attempt to intimidate her into silence.

China has hosted the com-petition seven times, starting in 2003, part of its attempts to

From Page 3 project a more modern, outgo-ing image. However, the con-troversy over Lin’s attendance illustrates the authoritarian communist government’s de-termination to do so on its own terms, regardless of the cost to the country’s reputation.

Neither Beijing nor the Lon-don-based Miss World Organi-zation has commented on the

controversy.It was the second consecu-

tive year that outside events intruded on the competition. Last year’s contest in London was marred by the murder the month before of Miss Honduras and her sister in that country.

The first Miss World contest was held 64 years ago in Brit-ain.

The late Francisco de Leon

ment of the senses. The eye that has not ap-

preciated Michealangelo’s David in Florence or the Cathedral of Charters is not a sophisticated eye. The hand that has not felt the rough heat of an ancient wall in Sienna, or the sweating cold of Salzburg stein of beer is an in-nocent hand.

So are the fingers that have not traveled, in conscious and specific savoring, over the con-tours of many different women.

You will recognize this man across the room. Easy in his clothes, hand well-groomed, oh no, not manicured. He does not laugh loud or often. He looks directly at the woman he speaks

5The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - December 23, 2015

6 The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - December 23, 2015

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