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CanadianInquirer CANADA’S FIRST AND ONLY NATIONWIDE FILIPINO-CANADIAN NEWSPAPER FORDTO.CA
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pcinews_twt JUNE 9, 2023 www.canadianinquirer.net VOL. 8 NO. 543

FREEDOM DAY PREP

Philippine flags are up along Aguinaldo Highway in the City of Dasmarinas, Cavite on Tuesday (June 6, 2023). The country will mark 125 years of independence on June 12.

AVITO DALAN / PNA

20
Canada grants visa-
free entry to eligible Summer reading: 5 books

Filipinos that explore LGBTQ teen

and young adult life

BY JOYCE ANN L. ROCAMORA “Canada is a destination of choice for 26

Philippine News Agency
MANILA – Canada has included the
Philippines in its Electronic Travel Au-
thorization (eTA) program granting eli-
gible Filipinos traveling by air for either
business or leisure visa-free entry.
so many around the world. We’re making
it easier for more people to visit Cana- `
da, whether they’re coming to do busi-
How federalism failed
ness, sightsee, or reunite with family Canadian cities during
and friends,” Canadian Foreign Minister COVID-19 Emotional intelligence is
Mélanie Joly said in an Embassy of Cana-
PAGE 10
the key to more successful
❱❱ PAGE 4 Canada grants visa-free entrepreneurs

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2 Philippine News JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY

Gov’t committed to ensuring safety,

welfare of OFWs: PBBM
BY RUTH ABBEY GITA-
CARLOS
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – President Ferdi-
nand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednes-
day assured the overseas Fil-
ipino workers (OFWs) of his
administration’s strong com-
mitment to uphold their safety
and welfare.
Marcos made the assurance
as he joined the entire nation
in observing National Migrant
Workers Day.
In a video message uploaded
on his official Facebook page,
the President said the Philip-
pine government is keeping its
“stronger” ties with the host
countries to make sure that the
OFWs would be accorded a safe
working environment.
“We understand the chal-
lenges that you face being far
from your loved ones, adjusting
to new cultures, and overcom-
ing barrier. And that’s why this
administration will contin-
ue to foster stronger ties with
countries that host our migrant
workers, ensuring safety, wel-
fare, and well-being,” he said.
“As you build your dreams in
far-off lands and seas, do know
that you are not alone. The en-
tire nation stands with you ev-
ery step of the way and all of us
are united in pride and in admi-
ration for the work that gives
you meaning and purpose.”
Marcos hailed the OFWs as
“modern-day heroes” who have
made significant contributions
to both the Philippines and the
host countries.
Their sacrifices and hard
work, he said, have “nurtured
dreams, elevated livelihoods,
and fueled the engine of prog-
ress in our beloved Philippines.”
“Today, I speak before you
with a heart full of gratitude and
appreciation because today, As of 2021, there are about law of Republic Act 8042 or the
we celebrate Migrant Workers 1.83 million OFWs worldwide, Migrant Workers Act of 1995.
Day. We honor our modern-day according to the data released The law mandates the cel-
heroes, our overseas Filipino by the Philippine Statistics Au- ebration of Migrant Workers
workers. In every corner of the thority in December last year. Day in recognition of the valu-
globe, you have left an indelible Migrant Workers Day is cel- able contributions of OFWs to
mark that uplifted both your ebrated every June 7 in com- the country. ■
host countries and our nation memoration of the signing into
in the process,” Marcos said.
“Your contributions have en-
riched the lives of countless in-
dividuals and societies through
your different professions and
capacities. Despite the miles
that separate us, your heart
and soul remain firmly rooted
in our homeland. And your un-
wavering love for our nations
shines bright.”
He also told the OFWs that their
efforts are being appreciated.
“As you commemorate this
day, may your dreams be ful-
filled, your families blessed,
and your hearts filled with the
knowledge that you are cher-
ished and valued,” he said. Pres. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. (PCO)

From Prime Minister Justin Trudeau & Liberal Members of Parliament

Happy Filipino Heritage Month!

Mula sa Punong Ministro Justin Trudeau at ang mga Liberal na MPs

Maligayang Buwan ng Pamanang Pilipino!

John Parm Sukh Rt. Hon. Justin Hon. Hedy Ken Wilson
Aldag Bains Dhaliwal Trudeau Fry Hardie Miao
Cloverdale— Steveston— Surrey—Newton Papineau Vancouver Centre Fleetwood—Port Kells Richmond Centre
Langley City Richmond East Sukh.Dhaliwal@parl.gc.ca Hedy.Fry@parl.gc.ca Ken.Hardie@parl.gc.ca Wilson.Miao@parl.gc.ca
Omar.Alghabra@parl.gc.ca Parm.Bains@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Joyce Taleeb Hon. Carla Hon. Harjit Randeep Hon. Jonathan
Murray Noormohamed Qualtrough Sajjan Sarai Wilkinson
Vancouver Quadra Vancouver Granville Delta Vancouver South Surrey Centre North Vancouver
Joyce.Murray@parl.gc.ca Taleeb.Noormohamed@parl.gc.ca Carla.Qualtrough@parl.gc.ca Harjit.Sajjan@parl.gc.ca Randeep.Sarai@parl.gc.ca Jonathan.Wilkinson@parl.gc.ca

www.canadianinquirer.net
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
BFP report shows Central
Post Office fire ‘accidental’
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – A fire that gutted
the iconic Manila Central Post
Office in Liwasang Bonifacio on
May 22 was purely accidental
in nature, the Philippine Post-
al Corporation (PHLPost) said,
citing a Bureau of Fire Protec-
tion (BFP) report.
In a statement late Monday,
the PHLPost said the BFP has
declared that the investigation
is considered closed and solved
after determining that “the
cause of fire is attributed to sud-
den self-discharge of car battery
(sulfation) to thermal run-away,
Maharlika Investments
Corp. fully operational
before year-end
BY ANNA LEAH GONZALES
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The Maharlika In-
vestments Corp. (MIC) is expect-
ed to be fully operational before
the end of the year, Finance Sec-
retary Benjamin Diokno said.
In a briefing late Friday, Dio-
kno said the Maharlika Invest-
ment Fund (MIF) Act of 2023 is
expected to be signed by Pres-
ident Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
before his second State of the
Nation Address (SONA) in July.
Once enacted into law, Diok-
no said “we’re expected to pre-
pare the implementing rules
and regulations (IRR), we’re
expected to look for people to
man the MIC.”
“That is the direction and I see
this to be fully operational before
the end of the year,” he added.
The Congress approved last
week the MIF Act of 2023.
The MIF will be the Phil-
ippines’ first-ever sovereign
wealth fund that will optimize
national funds by generating
returns to support the adminis-
causing sudden build-up of heat
and pressure and eventually
cause the explosion.”
“Moreover, the presence of
the internal short circuit, the
hydrogen and the volatile gas-
es contained in the battery and
the presence of oxygen as the
oxidizing agent initiated the
ignition. The contributory fac-
tors and the combustibility of
materials fueled and sustained
the ignition sequence,” the
PHLPost statement read.
According to the fire clear-
ance certificate issued by the
BFP, the fire originated at the
southern part of the basement,
more particularly at the Mega
tration’s economic goals.
The Fund will be invested
in a wide range of assets, in-
cluding foreign currencies,
fixed-income instruments, do-
mestic and foreign corporate
bonds, joint ventures, mergers
and acquisitions, real estate
and high-impact infrastruc-
ture projects, and projects that
contribute to the attainment of
sustainable development.
Diokno said the MIC would
have at least PHP75 billion in
paid-up capital this year.
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno (DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE/FACEBOOK)
Manila Storage Room where
office supplies, thinners, paint
cans were piled in close prox-
imity to the car batteries stored
inside the room.
“The BFP report stated that
the combustibility of the load
contents and its enclosed set-up
greatly influence heat build-up
that explains the explosion and
subsequent conflagration, leading
to the full development of fire and
subsequent damage of the nearby
structures,” the PHLPost said.
Postmaster General Luis
Carlos said PHLPost would
now focus on the rehabilita-
tion of the damaged 97-year-old
structure regarded as national
Of the total, PHP50 billion
will come from the Land Bank
of the Philippines while the re-
maining PHP25 billion will be
from the Development Bank of
the Philippines.
Despite concerns that raising
additional investments for the
fund will be quite challenging
this year given the economic en-
vironment both here and global-
ly, Diokno assured that “the Phil-
ippines is in a better position now
❱❱ PAGE 8 Maharlika Investments Corp.
www.canadianinquirer.net
Philippine News
Manila City engineering office workers conduct maintenance work near the Manila Central
Post Office at Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila, on Monday (May 29, 2023). (YANCY LIM/PNA)
historical landmark.
“We welcomed the result of
the investigation from the BFP
to know exactly what really hap-
pened. We will now move on and
concentrate primarily on the re-
covery and rehabilitation of the
iconic building,” Carlos said.
NAIA privatization
possible in Q1 2024
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The privatization
of the Ninoy Aquino Interna-
tional Airport (NAIA) may be
implemented by the first quar-
ter of 2024, an official of the
Department of Transportation
said Wednesday.
“It is doable that there will
be a conclusion that could pos-
sibly be proclaimed by the gov-
ernment,” Transportation Un-
dersecretary for Aviation and
Airports Roberto Lim said in an
interview over ANC.
“That takes time. If there are
more than one participants, we
will have to talk to all of them. It
will take time,” he added.
NAIA’s privatization, Lim
said, would have “upsides” in
terms of efficiency in passenger
and flight movement, and gener-
ate income for the government.
“There is a lot of upside when
you upgrade NAIA. You intro-
duce efficiencies. That means
you can process more pas-
sengers, you can take in more
flights, and more revenues --
means larger share for the gov-
ernment,” he added.
3
Built in 1926, the Manila Cen-
tral Post Office was designed by
Filipino architects Juan Arella-
no and Tomas Mapua.
It was damaged during World
War II, during the Battle of Ma-
nila and was restored in 1946,
right after the war. ■
Lim clarified issues sur-
rounding the airport’s privat-
ization, including the role of the
Manila International Airport
Authority (MIAA) once the pri-
vatization takes place and the
airport employees.
“The relationship between
MIAA and the concessionaire
will be regulator-operator. The
MIAA will continue to oper-
ate as a body that will regulate,
oversee,” he said.
“Generally no loss of employ-
ment. Airport employees will
be offered opportunity to work
when the airport facilities are
privatized,” he added.
All airport assets at the NAIA
still belong to the government
with the private concessionaire
limited to an operations and
management role, Lim said.
Last Friday, the Department
of Transportation and MIAA
submitted their joint proposal
for the NAIA-solicited Public
Private Partnership project for
approval by the National Eco-
nomic Development Authority
Board, giving the private con-
cessionaire 15 years to operate
the airport and recover its in-
vestment. ■
 4 Philippine News
PBBM assures Fil-Chinese group of
improved business climate in PH
BY RUTH ABBEY GITA-
CARLOS
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The government
is doing its best to improve the
business climate in the Phil-
ippines, President Ferdinand
R. Marcos Jr. assured a group
of Filipino-Chinese business
leaders on Wednesday.
During the oath-taking of the
new set of officers of the Federa-
tion of Filipino-Chinese Cham-
bers of Commerce and Industry,
Inc. (FFCCCII), Marcos said
his administration has already
taken the necessary steps to ad-
dress the issues on ease of doing
business in the country.
“Cognizant of the concerns
of the sector, we will contin-
ue to listen and exert efforts to
improve business climate and
foster ease and efficiency of do-
ing business,” Marcos said in
Canada grants visa-free...
❰❰ 1 da release Wednesday.
“Expanding the eTA
program to include
countries like the Philippines
is also an important part of our
Indo-Pacific Strategy, as we look
to further engage in the
region, build on peo-
ple-to-people ties, and
make travel to Canada
easier, faster, and safer
for everyone.”
The Canadian Em-
bassy in Manila said the
inclusion is effective
immediately and cov-
ers Philippine passport
holders who have held
a Canadian visitor’s
visa in the past 10 years
or a valid United States
non-immigrant visa.
With the inclusion, eligible
Filipinos need only to apply for
an eTA instead of a visa.
The eTA application through
Canada.ca/etA is used by Cana-
dian officials to conduct light-
touch and pre-travel screening
of air travelers, and costs 7 Ca-
nadian dollars or about PHP300.
The embassy said most ap-
plications are automatically ap-
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday called for a revitalized
government partnership with the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of
Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII), noting the vital role of the federation
in economic development and national progress. (PCO)
a speech delivered during the
oath-taking ceremony at Mala-
cañan Palace in Manila.
“We have taken note of the is-
sues that you have raised during
our meeting last year and we
have initiated many steps and
adjustments to address those
challenges,” he added.
proved within minutes.
Individuals who already have
a valid visa, meanwhile, can con-
tinue to use it to travel to Canada.
Those who are not eligible for
an eTA, or who are traveling to
Expanding the eTA
program to include
countries like the
Philippines is also an
important part of our
Indo-Pacific Strategy...
Canada by means other than air
(e.g., by car, bus, train, and boat,
including by cruise ship), will
still need a visitor visa.
“Introducing visa-free air
travel will make it faster, easier,
and more affordable for thou-
sands of known travelers from
the Philippines to visit Canada
for up to six months for either
business or leisure,” the Ca-
Marcos said the government
is implementing strategic ini-
tiatives that would benefit the
business sector, including the
digitalization efforts and the im-
provement of tax administration
and fiscal incentives system.
In October 2022, Marcos met
with the FFCCCII to discuss goals
nadian Embassy said. “It will
also help facilitate more trav-
el, tourism, and international
business between our coun-
tries, and help strengthen peo-
ple-to-people and cultural ties.”
Canada’s decision
complements its ex-
isting mobility mea-
sures for the Philip-
pines, including the
country’s membership
in Canada’s Transit
Without Visa program,
which allows eligible
Filipino nationals to
fly through Canada on
their way to or from
the US without a Ca-
nadian visa, as well
as the Student Direct
Stream, which offers
expedited study permit pro-
cessing to those who are apply-
ing to study in Canada.
Foreign Affairs Secretary En-
rique Manalo welcomed the
inclusion and described it as a
“milestone and a striking indica-
tion of Canada’s growing friend-
ship and trust in the Philippines”
and the importance it attaches to
the Filipino community.
www.canadianinquirer.net
and plans to usher the Philippine
economy into the new normal.
Marcos said his administra-
tion would continue to preserve
and strengthen its “reliable”
and “mutually beneficial” part-
nership with the FFCCCII.
“We look forward to further
deepening and strengthening
that relationship through con-
tinuing dialogue and amicable
approaches,” he said.
Marcos said the FFCCCII is
one of the “most important and
trusted” partners of the govern-
ment, acknowledging the fed-
eration’s “high-impact” social
civic projects in the country.
He expressed optimism that
strengthened partnership for the
economic revitalization would
yield “greater benefits for business-
es, our citizens and our country.”
“Rest assured that this admin-
istration will continue to sup-
port this healthy relationship.
It is not only a healthy relation-
“The Philippines considers
Canada as a close partner due
to its well-established peo-
ple-to-people ties and looks
forward to charting a new era
of engagement under this new
policy,” Manalo said.
The latest move from Canada
came following Manalo and Joly’s
meeting in May in Makati City.
During the visit, Manalo and
Joly agreed to elevate existing
bilateral cooperation across so-
cio-economic, political and se-
curity sectors and launch new
initiatives, focused specifically
on climate action and climate
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
ship, it is one that we consider to
be a necessary partnership, and I
think it has been made clear that
the policy of this administration
is to have the critical partners in
the transformation of our econ-
omy,” Marcos said.
“May this partnership be-
tween the Philippine govern-
ment and the Federation live
on for decades to come. Let it
remain to be the government’s
dependable ally in the pursuit
of our aspirations for a prosper-
ous, inclusive and resilient so-
ciety, and a more comfortable,
secure life for us all,” he added.
Marcos also urged the new-
ly elected FFCCCII officers to
sustain the federation’s legacy.
“With your unquestionable and
proven dedication, wisdom and
professionalism, I am certain that
we will have positive influencers
and prime movers in our commu-
nities to ably guide or economy to
greater heights,” he said. ■
transition financing.
The Philippines is among
13 countries added to the eTA,
along with Antigua and Barbuda,
Argentina, Costa Rica, Morocco,
Panama, St. Kitts and Nevis, St.
Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grena-
dines, Seychelles, Thailand, Trin-
idad and Tobago, and Uruguay.
Over the past 10 years, Canada
issued 466,936 temporary resi-
dent visas to Philippine citizens.
These individuals, along
with current US non-immi-
grant visa holders, may now
be eligible for visa-free travel,
said the embassy. ■
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023 5

Get the latest News & Updates

read daily news

from Philippines,
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6 Philippine News
Marcos OKs PH Export Development
Plan 2023-2028
BY RUTH ABBEY GITA-
CARLOS
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – President Fer-
dinand R. Marcos Jr. has ap-
proved the proposed Philip-
pine Export Development Plan
(PEDP) 2023-2028 to improve
the performance of the coun-
try’s exports industry.
Marcos gave his approval
during a sectoral meeting with
the Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI) held at Mala-
cañan Palace in Manila on
Tuesday morning.
“We presented to the Presi-
dent the Philippine Export De-
velopment Plan which DTI for-
mulated pursuant to the Export
Development Act of 1994. This
defines the country’s exports
Gov’t to continue efforts to
make goods ‘more afford-
able’: PBBM
BY RUTH ABBEY GITA-
CARLOS
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The government
will continue to ramp up efforts
to make the basic commodities
“more affordable” for Filipinos,
President Ferdinand R. Marcos
Jr. said on Tuesday.
Marcos made the commit-
ment, as he attributed the con-
tinued decline in inflation rate to
the effective implementation of
government economic strategies.
“Unti-unti nating nakakam-
tan ang kaginhawaang ito sa
pagbaba ng inflation rate sa
apat na sunod-sunod na buwan
at ngayong Mayo ay nasa 6.1
percent na (We are gradually
experiencing relief, with the
inflation rate dropping for four
consecutive months. And this
May, [inflation] is at 6.1 per-
cent),” he said in a Twitter post.
thrusts, strategies, programs,
and projects,” DTI Secretary
Alfredo Pascual said in a Palace
press briefing.
“We sought the President’s
approval which we got with just
some couple of addition to the
plan,” he said.
Pascual said the PEDP 2023-
2028 will capitalize on export
growth opportunities consider-
ing market trends and existing
industries’ competencies in the
Philippines.
Acknowledging that the
Philippines is lagging behind
its neighboring states when it
comes to exports, Pascual said
the PEDP would help improve
the country’s performance.
“It may not yet match the lev-
els achieved by the more pro-
gressive neighbors that we have
but it will certainly improve the
“Batid namin ang inyong han-
garin na magkaroon ng mas mag-
inhawang pamumuhay, kaya’t
patuloy nating pinalalakas ang
mga pang-ekonomiyang hakbang
ng pamahalaan (We are aware of
your desire to have a more com-
fortable life, so we continue to
strengthen the government’s
economic measures),” he added.
Headline inflation clocked
in at 6.1 percent in May, down
from 6.6 percent posted in
April, according to the latest
data from the Philippine Statis-
tics Authority (PSA).
Marcos expressed confi-
dence that his administration is
on the right track to manage the
prices of goods in the country.
“Tanda ito ng patuloy nating
pagtahak sa tamang direksyon
para sa mas abot-kayang presyo
ng mga bilihin (This is a sign that
we are heading in the right di-
rection to provide more afford-
able prices of goods),” he said.
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
volume of our exports,” he said.
Strategic actions
Pascual said the PEDP 2023-
2028 aims to boost the com-
petitiveness of the Philippine
export firms.
He said the plan would
help achieve substantial ex-
ports growth in four identi-
fied clusters, namely industri-
al machinery and transport;
technology, media and telecom-
munications; health and life
sciences; and the modern basic
needs of resilient economy.
Pascual underscored the Pres. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. (PCO)
importance of developing “re-
liable, design-driven, technol- competitiveness of the firms the PEDP 2023-2028 include
ogy-driven, sustainable and themselves,” he added. addressing production con-
forward-looking” exporters to Pascual said the export de- straints, developing a strong
make the Philippines an “agile velopment plan outlines three innovative export ecosystem,
export powerhouse.” strategies actions to develop and increasing the Philippines’
“The export competitiveness the four clusters.
of the Philippines lies in the He said the strategies under ❱❱ PAGE 8 Marcos OKs PH
The latest inflation rate was
discussed in a meeting con-
vened by Marcos at Malacañan
Palace in Manila on Tuesday
morning, Trade Secretary Al-
fredo Pascual said in a Palace
press briefing.
Pascual said the government
intends to remove the bottle-
necks to further tame inflation.
Budget Secretary Amenah
Pangandaman, in a separate
statement, said the Marcos ad-
ministration would continue
implementing economic strat-
egies to keep the inflation rate
well within the target.
Marcos on May 26 signed Ex-
ecutive Order (EO) 28, creating
the Inter-Agency Committee
on Inflation and Market Out-
look (IAC-IMO) to improve the
coordination and action of gov-
ernment agencies in managing
inflation and mitigating the ef-
fects of rising commodity prices
on the Filipino people. ■
www.canadianinquirer.net
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
NBI files raps vs. owners, execs of vessel
in oil spill
BY BENJAMIN PULTA
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The National Bu-
reau of Investigation (NBI) on
Tuesday filed criminal charges
against 35 individuals before the
Department of Justice (DOJ) in
connection with the sinking of
the M/T Princess Empress off
Naujan town in Oriental Mind-
oro province on Feb. 28.
The NBI - Environmental
Crime Division slapped perjury
PBBM swears in Teodoro, Herbosa
as DND, DOH secretaries
BY RUTH ABBEY GITA-
CARLOS, MA. TERESA
MONTEMAYOR
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – President Ferdi-
nand R. Marcos Jr. on Tuesday
administered the oath of office
to Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and Te-
odoro Herbosa as Defense and
Health secretaries.
Teodoro and Herbosa took
oath in separate ceremonies at
Malacañan Palace in Manila.
The oath-taking rites were
held a day after Malacañang an-
nounced the appointments of
the two new secretaries.
Marcos met with Teodoro
and Defense Senior Undersec-
retary Carlito Galvez Jr. and
Herbosa and Health Under-
secretary Ma. Rosario Vergeire
in separate meetings at Mala-
cañan on Monday afternoon.
Teodoro also served as the
secretary of the Department
of National Defense during the
administration of President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
He was also the chairperson
of the National Disaster Co-
ordinating Council during his
tenure as DND chief.
Teodoro also became congress-
man of the First District of Tarlac.
He completed his law degree,
graduated at the top of his class
at the University of the Philip-
pines (UP), and achieved the
and falsification charges against
the vessel’s owners, officials and
incorporators of the oil tanker
and owner RDC Reield Marine
Services.
Earlier NBI and police inves-
tigation indicated the oil tanker
was rebuilt using scrap materials.
The Maritime Industry Au-
thority (MARINA) previously
said it has found probable cause
to file charges against RDC Rei-
eld and issued two cease and de-
sist orders for the firm’s Certifi-
cate of Public Convenience and
top rank in the 1989 Philippine
Bar Examinations.
He also has a Master of Laws
degree from Harvard University.
Teodoro was also recognized
as a Leadership Awardee and
Seminar Academic Excellence
Awardee during his time at the
Air Command and Staff College,
Air Education and Training Com-
mand Philippine Air Force Com-
mand and Staff Course in 2001.
In 2003, he attended the Joint
and Combined Staff Officers
Course, Class No. 1, JCSC in Camp
Aguinaldo, where he was honored
as a Leadership Awardee.
In a post on its official Face-
book page, the Department of
Health (DOH) welcomed Her-
bosa’s appointment.
“The DOH family welcomes
this development, as this is cru-
cial in the Department’s opera-
tions. With this transition, the
DOH ensures that the health-
care services will remain un-
hampered,” the statement read.
Herbosa pledged to con-
tinuously usher universal
health care by sustaining gains,
strengthening health sector
strategy interventions and in-
troducing healthcare reforms.
Philippine College of Phy-
sicians vice president and in-
fectious disease expert Dr.
Rontgene Solante said Herbosa
came from the ranks and pos-
sess a lot of competencies un-
der his name -- a public health
its remaining three vessels.
RDC Reield Marine maintained
that M/T Princess Empress was a
new vessel that fully complied with
MARINA guidelines.
The oil tanker was en route
to Iloilo to transport 900,000
liters of industrial fuel oil from
SL Gas Harbor Terminal in Li-
may town, Bataan province
when it submerged before day-
break, reportedly due to rough
sea condition.
A recent update from the
Office of Civil Defense said out
expert and a professor.
“Hopefully, he can build up
on the programs achieved by
the previous administration in-
cluding that of Undersecretary
OIC Vergeire, which must be
continued, and to improve on it,
and to implement it, especially
the Universal Health Care Law
(UHC),” he said.
Solante also suggested that
public healthcare facilities
should be improved under the
current administration for the
DOH to provide services and
treatments to Filipinos in line
with the UHC implementation.
Herbosa was the adviser of
the National Task Force Against
Covid-19 from 2020 to 2021 un-
der the Duterte administration.
Herbosa holds a medical de-
gree and has extensive expe-
rience in healthcare systems,
public health and emergency
medicine.
Herbosa served as a special
adviser to the National Task
Force Against Covid-19 and
was also an international con-
sultant in several countries,
including Palau, Maldives, Ma-
laysia, Pakistan, India, Bangla-
desh, Nepal, Vietnam, Tunisia
and Thailand, making notable
contributions to emergency
medicine and trauma care.
Prior to his new appointment,
Herbosa held a prominent posi-
tion as a Professor at the College
of Medicine at UP-Manila.
www.canadianinquirer.net
Philippine News
of the 79.33 kilometers (83.74
percent) of affected coastlines,
some 66.433 km have been
cleaned.
The National Task Force on
Oil Spill Management said the
ongoing final phase of the si-
phoning of the oil spill may take
20 to 30 days.
The oil spill has left
PHP58,137,124 worth of dam-
age and losses to fisheries,
affected more than 27,500
fisherfolk, and caused 15 local
government units to declare a
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. with newly-appointed Department of Na-
tional Defense Secretary Gilberto C. Teodoro Jr. (PCO)
Herbosa previously served as
undersecretary at the Depart-
ment of Health from 2010 to
2015, contributing to various
initiatives such as the Hospital
Accreditation Commission, the
modernization of the Philip-
pine Orthopedics Center, and
promoting public-private part-
nerships in Health.
From October 2017 to April
2021, Herbosa served as the ex-
ecutive vice president of the UP
System.
He was also the chief of Di-
vision of Trauma at the Philip-
pine General Hospital’s Depart-
ment of Surgery; chairperson
of the Board for Physicians for
Peace Philippines; and 3rd Vice
President of the UP Alumni As-
sociation.
He also served on the Board
of Directors for the World
Association for Disaster and
Emergency Medicine; medical
consultant or adviser for the
Australasian Registry of Emer-
gency Medical Technicians in
Melbourne, Australia; and as
Regional Education Coordina-
7
state of calamity.
More than 42,400 families
from 107 affected areas in the
provinces of Oriental Mindoro,
Palawan, Antique and Batangas
have been given various forms
of assistance.
The Department of Social
Welfare and Development said
it has distributed more than
PHP611 million worth of assis-
tance like family food packs,
nonfood items, emergency cash
transfers, and cash-for-work in
affected communities. ■
tor for the Hospital Prepared-
ness and Emergencies (HOPE)
Program at John Hopkins Uni-
versity Center for Internation-
al Emergencies, Disasters and
Refugee Studies.
He was also involved in the
development of the STOP
DEATH Program and a mem-
ber of the Safe Surgery Saves
Lives Global Task Force, which
developed the WHO safe sur-
gery checklist.
Herbosa served as a profes-
sor in Emergency Department
at Hospital Universiti Kebang-
saan in Kuala Lumpur, Malay-
sia and at the National Univer-
sity of Malaysia.
He obtained his medical de-
gree from UP-Manila and holds
a bachelor’s degree in Biology
from UP-Diliman.
Herbosa also obtained an
International Diploma Course
in Emergency and Crisis Man-
agement from the University
of Geneva and Postgraduate
Studies in Medicine from the
Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel
Aviv University. ■
8 Philippine News
Correspondent/Hosts
Arianne Grace Lacanilao
Matte Laurel
Violeta Arevalo
Babes Newland
Graphic Design
Shanice Garcia
Ginno Alcantara
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Management
Alan Yong
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Member
Gov’t unveils commemorative
coins for 125th Independence Day
BY ANNA LEAH GONZALES
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – President Ferdinand R. Mar-
cos Jr. on Monday led the launching of the
commemorative coin set for the 125th an-
niversary of the Philippine Independence
and Nationhood (APIN) in Malacañang.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
(BSP) issued the coin set with 100-Piso,
20-Piso and 5-Piso denominations.
The 100-Piso was launched in com-
memoration of the 1898 declaration
of Philippine Independence while the
20-Piso features the Barasoain Church,
which served as the birthplace of the
First Republic.
The 5-Piso, meanwhile, is a tribute to
the bravery of the Filipinos who fought
for the country’s sovereignty in the Phil-
ippine-American War.
The central bank used the latest dig-
ital printing technology in developing
the APIN coin set, which features the
first colored, non-circulation, commem-
orative coins produced by the BSP.
In his remarks, Marcos said the es-
tablishment of a formal currency by any
country is part of the definition of being
a sovereign nation.
“And that’s why we have to see it not
just a very, very souvenir but really a
commemoration of the creation of the
Republic of the Philippines. And it’s en-
tirely appropriate that I have never seen
coins like this before,” Marcos said.
Marcos said it also signifies the cur-
rent level of technological advancement
of the Philippines, noting “we are now at
the forefront and will use the best tech-
Maharlika Investments Corp...
❰❰ 3 compared to years ago.”
“Globally there’s a lot of dis-
tress but for us, we got an up-
grade [from Fitch]. It’s like our star is
shining bright so maybe that will help
Marcos OKs PH..
❰❰ 6 mindshare in the global mar-
ket.
“There are many firms in
the country that we need to help. So, we
need to stratify them so we are able to
focus on those that require more signif-
icant support over others,” Pascual said.
“That’s why we came up with the three
classifications – one, the breakers and
then those that are at the crest and those
www.canadianinquirer.net
nologies, the best techniques, everything
that is good and new for our country.”
“That’s what it means. It just doesn’t
mean that it is a 125th anniversary of the
Independence Day, but it also reminds
us how far we have come and the signif-
icance of what we have achieved in 125
years,” he added.
BSP Governor Felipe Medalla said the
commemorative currencies showcase
the Filipinos’ bravery and promote heri-
tage and pride among the citizens.
He said this is the first time for the
BSP to issue colored commemorative
coins, which is meant as collections and
not for circulation.
Medalla said the currencies are his-
torically significant because these “play
significant roles in our nation’s history.”
“They are witnesses and mirrors of
our unfolding national history,” he said.
Medalla said the currencies “also re-
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. led the launching Monday of the commemorative coin set for the
125th anniversary of the Philippine Independence and Nationhood (APIN) in Malacañang. (PCO)
attract more investments,” Diokno said.
National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon for
her part said that the government would
be “very aggressive” to make sure that
there will be resources for the MIF.
that are creating ripples. The ones that
are breakers or those who have already
broken into the international market
so they are able to or ready export their
products in sizeable volume,” he added.
In 2022, the Export Development
Council chaired by Pascual lowered its
export target to USD105.3 billion from
its initial target of USD130 billion, with
USD62 billion coming from merchan-
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
flect our aspirations.”
“Of course, as I said, it’s very unique
because it has three colors. And those
three colors themselves represent our
aspiration — first, blue: kapayapaan
(peace); second, red: kagitingan (brav-
ery); yellow: kalayaan (independence) at
soberanya (sovereign). As such, we are
issuing these commemorative coins as
part of BSP’s effort to preserve the cul-
tural heritage and promote pride in our
shared history,” he said.
“May these serve as inspiration for us to
continue our collective efforts and work
towards a better, prosperous, and more in-
clusive future for all Filipinos,” he added.
The BSP will announce via its social
media channels when the APIN coins set
will be available for sale.
The coin set will be sold at the BSP
Store https://bspstore.bsp.gov.ph. ■
“Let’s look at this, if Maharlika’s not
there, how do we fund our projects? Be-
fore it’s debt but this time around it can
be equity so we can reduce government
debt,” she said. ■
dise exports and USD43.3 billion from
services exports.
Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pil-
ipinas (BSP) showed that exports of
goods and services last year only reached
USD98.52 billion.
About USD57.45 billion of the
USD98.52 billion were merchandise ex-
ports, while the remaining USD41.07 bil-
lion were service revenues. ■
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
Stress testing Canadian governance
BY MICHAEL WERNICK
Policy Options
Looking back at how our insti-
tutions dealt with the pandemic
can better prepare Canada to
deal with future public health
emergencies or economic shocks
Across Canada, the public sec-
tor struggled to put in place pan-
demic public health measures,
provide emergency relief to
households and businesses, and
continue to deliver a vast array
of services to Canadians. These
efforts are now going through
after-action reviews supported
by an extensive array of officers
and agents of Parliament.
I cannot personally attest
to the inner workings of gov-
ernment during the pandemic
years. My focus here is on Cana-
dian governance – our ability as
a democracy and a federation to
take decisions and, most impor-
tantly, to learn and adapt. Over
the past three years, Canada
has been affected by what can
only be considered a disruption
or “black swan event” – not just
COVID-19 but also the Black
Lives Matter movement, the
discovery of graves at the sites of
former residential schools, the
war in Ukraine and the passing
of Queen Elizabeth II. In retro-
spect, the Canadian federation
performed remarkably well as a
system for taking decisions.
Let’s start with the basics.
Canada is a parliamentary de-
mocracy, based on the West-
minster model, with the unique
addition of a justiciable Canadi-
an Charter of Rights and Free-
doms. It is a federation where
many key services are delivered
by provinces, territories, local
and Indigenous governments.
During COVID-19, parlia-
mentary democracy turned out
to be quite resilient. MPs and
senators learned to use online
platforms to meet and work,
and now they continue to use
hybrid approaches to commit-
tee meetings. At the peak of the
pandemic, parties worked to-
gether to pass emergency relief
Canada News
programs and deferred much of
the scrutiny to later.
Accountability to citizens
was not disrupted or suspend-
ed. With some agility and ad-
aptation by election authorities
and candidates, we had a fed-
eral election; seven provincial
and two territorial elections;
full rounds of municipal elec-
tions; and an assortment of bye-
lections. A million Canadians
voted by mail in 2021, providing
valuable lessons for the future.
A test of all branches and
levels of government
The judicial system and an
array of tribunals continued
to operate. A “dog that didn’t
bark” in Canada would be two
Supreme Court appointments
in 2021 and 2022 with none of
the bitter partisan rancour that
we see south of the border.
Part of our core software is
the role of the Crown. The res-
ignation of a governor general in
2021 and the death of the Queen
in 2022 led to a seamless tran-
sition to their successors while
the institution itself carried on.
Canada’s federation per-
formed well in responding to the
many different decisions that had
to be made. In the United States,
state governments split along
partisan lines and many red state
governors and legislatures ac-
tively fought and undermined
federal initiatives and attacked
federal health officials. In Cana-
da, public health ministers and
officials worked closely together
on vaccine procurement and dis-
tribution, and public health mea-
sures generally moved in step.
Not one of the premiers or
mayors saw an upside to fighting
with the federal government,
not even in January 2021 at the
peak of the disparate coalition of
anti-lockdown, anti-vax forces.
The high degree of alignment
across the federation on public
health measures demonstrably
saved lives. More than 89 coun-
tries had higher death rates –
most notably, the U.S., the U.K.
and France.
The resilience of our federal-
ism had been tested before the
pandemic. Opposition parties
and first ministers also came to-
gether with remarkable unity
and effectiveness when former
U.S. president Trump posed an
existential threat to our econ-
omy. No one bolted and under-
mined the Team Canada unity
that thwarted his threatened
termination of NAFTA as Ottawa
negotiated a new and better deal.
A protest and an untested law
The occupation of central
Ottawa in early 2022 was per-
haps the clearest test of Can-
ada’s governance and federal-
ism. What began ostensibly as a
protest attempting to persuade
democratically elected govern-
ments to change specific poli-
cies morphed into a bizarre set
of demands, including the re-
placement of the democratically
elected Trudeau government.
To borrow a medical metaphor,
the Canadian body politic re-
jected them utterly. Parliament
and cabinet continued to meet.
Canadians continued to support
public health measures and sup-
ported the actions that brought
the occupation to an end. The
solidarity of provincial premiers
didn’t waver. The invocation of
the Emergencies Act and the re-
view into its use was a successful
exercise in resilient democracy.
The response of the broad
public sector that supports
elected governments was re-
markable. The greatest shocks
from the pandemic hit front-line
education and, of course, prima-
www.canadianinquirer.net
ry health care, seniors’ residenc-
es and long-term care facilities.
These systems bent but did not
break. There will be future pan-
demics and health emergencies,
so it is important to integrate
what has been learned and to in-
vest in preparedness.
The resulting economic shock
from closures, supply chain
slowdowns and employee short-
ages points to the need to work
on more robust safety nets for
workers and small businesses.
Beyond the front-line health
response or the emergen-
cy economic relief, typically
change-resistant parts of the
extended public sector made
rapid adjustments at a pace that
normally would take a decade or
more. Some shifts are becoming
enduring parts of the post-pan-
demic normal. Courts and tri-
bunals made quantum leaps in
their approach to work process-
es. Universities and colleges piv-
oted to online instruction and
evaluation. Some workplaces
are embracing platform-based
work tools and severing the link
between where you live and
where you work. But of course,
not all public sector workplaces
have that option.
Less known are the hidden-
in-plain-sight stories of how the
Border Services Agency, the Ca-
nadian Coast Guard and others
kept commerce flowing while
enforcing health restrictions.
Little attention will now be paid
to how public sector organiza-
9
tions kept services running after
sending much of their workforce
home before widespread vac-
cination. For example, the May
2021 census was an outstanding
accomplishment, as were three
successful tax-collection cycles.
Even less attention will be paid
to how the internal services of
the federal government that
make it all possible found ways
to cope and to innovate.
Now, as Canada climbs out of
the pandemic and all the other
associated shocks, it’s worth
recognizing how well this coun-
try continues to do on indexes
of freedom, transparency and
the rule of law. Our basic gover-
nance has remained open and
democratic despite the stress.
Proactive risk-taking in
“peacetime”
Journalist Paul Wells says in
his recent book An Emergency
in Ottawa: “The hardest thing,
when you know how the story
ends, is to remember what it felt
like not to know how it would
end.” We need to avoid suc-
cumbing to hindsight bias when
we go over the record of the last
three years. We also must avoid
the fallacy of composition – to
assume that what is true of a
part is true of the whole – and
avoid generalizing from specific
problems among the hundreds
of public sector organizations
that the entire system is broken.
The challenge now is to cap-
❱❱ PAGE 22 Stress testing Canadian
10
How federalism failed Canadian
cities during COVID-19
BY KENNEDY STEWART
Policy Options
Provinces practically aban-
doned cities to their crises, but
the federal government stepped
up. Let’s revive the ministry of
state for urban affairs.
COVID-19 was a tough stress
test for Canada’s federal system
of government. Our largest cit-
ies continue to suffer significant
pandemic-related economic and
social damage, in part due to pro-
vincial governments sweeping
constitutional responsibilities
they wish to avoid onto munici-
palities. These “creatures of the
province” have become rugs prov-
inces use to hide their problems.
COVID-19 lifted those rugs
to expose a series of longstand-
ing urban crises that provinces
have offloaded onto underpow-
ered municipalities, forcing the
federal government to jump
in with unprecedented direct
municipal pandemic financial
assistance. Anticipating future
crises and acknowledging prov-
inces’ general disdain for mu-
nicipalities, the federal govern-
ment should build a formal line
of communication from cabinet
to local government officials by,
for example, re-establishing a
ministry of state for urban af-
fairs, a position that existed
only briefly in the 1970s.
Any discussion of the Canadi-
an response to COVID-19 must
begin by remembering more than
52,000 Canadians died from the
disease, with equity-deserving
groups being the worst affected.
Rapidly acquiring and distribut-
ing vaccines and implementing
federal economic assistance pro-
grams for individuals and busi-
nesses undoubtedly saved count-
less lives. So, too, did provincial
governments undertaking im-
portant public health measures
such as physical distancing, mask
mandates, and emergency hos-
pital management measures to
reduce infection rates.
World Health Organization
COVID-19 data from G7 coun-
tries shows that Japan lost the
least number of people per cap-
ita, with 59 deaths per 100,000
people. Canada lost the second
least with 138 deaths per 100,000,
Canada News
with both countries well ahead
of the United States, with 340
deaths per 100,000 residents.
I was privy to many confi-
dential conversations about the
federal and British Columbia
governments’ COVID-19 re-
sponse while serving as may-
or of Vancouver between 2018
and 2022. The overall response
from Canada was better than
most. I know this from talking
to mayors around the world. At
international mayoral confer-
ences I attended on Zoom early
in 2020, Italian mayors wept as
they described the unthinkable:
their overwhelmed cities were
digging mass graves to deal with
the crush of COVID-19 casual-
ties. It was horrifying.
The Canadian federal govern-
ment secured critical supplies
and equipment and shut borders
while the B.C. provincial govern-
ment implemented extraordi-
nary public health measures to
battle the virus. Physical distanc-
ing orders were essential to stop
people from becoming infected,
but they also changed Vancouver
and other cities overnight.
Our commercial districts
fell silent, economically dev-
astating workers, businesses
and, less often discussed, many
municipal governments. These
measures also disproportion-
ately impacted, and continue to
impact, marginalized residents
– a fact that Canadians have
yet to come to terms with. The
worst impacted include those
living with employment and
housing insecurity who also of-
ten struggle with mental health
and addiction challenges and
tend to be racialized.
The emergency health orders
early in the pandemic had an
immediate economic impact
on Vancouver. As businesses
closed and people lost their
jobs, city hall faced a dramat-
ic decline in user fee revenues,
with a projected revenue loss of
$189 million for the 2020 fiscal
year. We also projected a whop-
ping 25 per cent of homeown-
ers might only be able to pay
half of their 2020 property tax
bills – resulting in an additional
estimated revenue loss of up to
$325 million. During this ear-
ly stage of the pandemic while
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
operating under the first state pushing to defund the police af- taxes and lessen the threat to this
of emergency in the city’s his- ter George Floyd’s murder. key municipal revenue source.
tory, we faced a projected reve- Thankfully, the Federation of The federal government also
nue loss of approximately $500 Canadian Municipalities began led the response to Vancouver
million – around 30 per cent of to call regular Zoom meetings encampments, with Ahmed
our total annual revenue. With- of the Big City Mayors’ Cau- Hussen, federal minister of
out the ability to run deficits, cus, of which I was a member. housing, providing millions di-
we immediately laid off nearly Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rectly to the City of Vancouver
20 per cent of our 8,000 person and his cabinet colleagues fre- so we could purchase hotels
workforce and discussed other quently attended, and we had and erect temporary modular
measures such as selling city- frank and open dialogues about housing. Patty Hajdu, who was
owned land to keep the lights how COVID-19 was impacting then federal health minister,
on during the worst disaster to us and what needed to be done. increased funding to overdose
hit the city since it burned to In stark contrast, there was response programs, including
the ground in 1886. little in the way of communi- those involving safer supply.
On the social side, a large pro- cation between municipalities I often wonder why Trudeau
portion of British Columbia’s and the B.C. government even did his best to help the City
social housing is in Vancouver’s though provinces are respon- of Vancouver while Horgan
Downtown Eastside, with ap- sible for municipalities under was content to mostly aban-
proximately 160 single-room Section 92 of the Constitution don us. The only explanation
occupancy hotels providing Act, 1867. It is a sad fact that I can come up with is that in
7,000 minimalist rooms in I was only ever able to secure tough times good federal gov-
which residents live by them- one short person-to-person call ernments step up and do all
selves and share bathrooms and with B.C.’s then-premier Hor- they can, even when it involves
other commons spaces. Many gan during the entire pandemic. wading into areas outside their
of those living in these often-di- The federal government constitutional responsibility,
lapidated single rooms are stepped in as things worsened on whereas provinces generally
poor, suffer from mental health the ground and for the first time view municipalities as prob-
and addiction challenges, are in Canadian history provided di- lems to manage rather than
racialized, or are surviving the rect operational funding for mu- partners with which to work.
Canadian Indigenous genocide. nicipalities. Some provinces also It is a good time for provin-
These hotels permit overnight provided funding to keep their cial politicians to reconsider
guests, which allows couples cities and towns afloat, but only how they view municipalities
and families to stay together after the federal government as we continue to sift through
and means someone is near- dragged them to the table. Fed- the COVID-19 pandemic tea
by to provide aid to those who eral economic support programs
overdose from poisoned drugs. helped people pay their property ❱❱ PAGE 15 How federalism failed
Physical distancing orders
forced operators of single-room
occupancy hotels to cancel
their overnight guest policy,
which had two major negative
impacts. First, hundreds of
guests no longer had a place to
sleep and were forced out into
the streets and parks, leading to
an explosion of encampments.
Second, the coroner and public
health officials began report-
ing a massive spike in illicit
drug-related deaths as people
began to use drugs alone in
tents and back alleys as border
closures disrupted the already
extremely toxic drug supply.
Where 248 people died from
toxic drugs in Vancouver in
2019, 423 people died in 2020 –
an increase of 71 per cent.
These emerging catastrophic
conditions were clearly too much
for municipal governments to
handle on their own, especial-
ly with anti-vaxxers terrorizing
health workers and protesters
www.canadianinquirer.net
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
As the U.S. expands work conditions for income
assistance, Canada takes a different tack
BY WAYNE SIMPSON,
University of Manitoba
The Conversation
Only days before a govern-
ment default, United States
President Joe Biden and House
Speaker Kevin McCarthy
reached an agreement to raise
the country’s debt ceiling and
avoid financial turmoil.
One important feature of this
agreement is an expansion of
the work requirements for re-
cipients of Medicaid and food
stamps. These new work con-
ditions could affect millions of
low-income Americans.
The expansion would limit
childless able-bodied adults be-
tween 18 and 55 to only three
months of assistance every three
years unless they meet certain
work-related criteria, like work-
ing at least 20 hours a week.
But while attaching work
conditions to social assistance
has been the norm for U.S. fed-
eral income assistance for a
very long time, this hasn’t al-
ways been the case.
U.S. work conditions for
assistance
The U.S. War on Poverty pro-
vided the impetus for former
president Richard Nixon to
propose the Family Assistance
Plan in 1969 to alleviate poverty
and welfare dependence.
The plan involved a negative
income tax that would have
provided $500 per adult and
$300 per child — regardless of
work conditions — to families
without other income.
Legislation was passed with
bipartisan support in 1970, but
encountered opposition in the
Senate because of concerns
about work disincentives and
welfare dependency. These
concerns could not be alleviat-
ed by preliminary evidence of
an insignificant work response
in the New Jersey Income
Maintenance Experiment.
The Family Assistance Plan
was eventually replaced with
the Earned Income Tax Credit,
which only provides assistance
by topping up the earnings of
low-income Americans. It effec-
tively attaches work conditions
to federal income assistance.
The Earned Income Cred-
it has grown in popularity
through successive U.S. admin-
istrations with enhanced bene-
fits, expanded coverage and ad-
vanced regular payments.
As the major program of cash
support for low-income
families, it works in con-
cert with the federal food
stamps program admin-
istered by states accord-
ing to requirements and
funding.
It’s therefore unsur-
prising that moves to
tighten requirements for
food stamps and Medicaid
would rely on more strin-
gent work conditions.
Canada’s alternative
approach
While work conditions
have long been the norm
for U.S. federal support
programs, Canada has
taken a different path. Even be-
fore Nixon’s Family Assistance
Plan, Canada had instituted the
Guaranteed Income Supple-
ment for seniors in 1967.
Like the Family Assistance
Plan, it was designed as a nega-
tive income tax to supplement
the Old Age Security benefits
for low-income seniors.
The minister of national
health and welfare at the time,
Allan MacEachern, introduced
the measure as a “simple, ac-
ceptable and effective” guaran-
teed income.
While work conditions were
of little concern for the senior
population, MacEachern noted
the supplement could encour-
age work for those who sought it.
The supplement expand-
ed over time and contributed
to reducing seniors’ poverty
in Canada to rates that were
among the lowest in the world.
The federal sales tax refund-
able credit followed in 1986. It
remains modest, but has been
boosted recently to assist low-in-
come families in the inflationary
aftermath of the pandemic.
More substantial is the re-
fundable child tax credit, in-
troduced as a modest benefit in
1978 but expanded to the mod-
ern Canada Child Benefit in
2016. It lifted a significant num-
www.canadianinquirer.net
Canada News
ber of families with children out
of poverty almost immediately.
The common thread in the
construction of this federal in-
come support network has been
the absence of work conditions.
An American-style earned in-
come tax credit was introduced
One important
feature of this
agreement is
an expansion
of the work
requirements
for recipients of
Medicaid and
food stamps.
in 2008, but it remains modest.
Recent research exploring
the potential expansion of this
credit as a replacement for so-
cial assistance and most oth-
er existing tax credits showed
that it would reduce poverty
for families and working-age
singles. However, it would have
significantly less overall pover-
ty impact than similarly priced
guaranteed income models that
don’t have work conditions.
Are work conditions needed?
Work conditions have been at
the heart of opposition to income
support policies for a very long
time. Concerns that a negative
income tax would discourage re-
cipients from working was front
and centre in the design, conduct
and analysis of guaranteed basic
income experiments in the U.S.
and Canada in the 1970s.
The experiments provided
evidence of modest discourage-
ment towards work, and subse-
quent basic income pilot projects
and other similar studies have
not changed this perspective. For
example, there is no evidence of
an adverse work response to the
Canada Child Benefit.
But despite this evidence,
work conditions remain a stick-
ing point for federal aid in the
U.S. — not only among Repub-
licans, but among swing-vote
11
Democrats and the public at
large. This suggests federal aid
work conditions will remain in
place in the U.S.
By their very nature, work
conditions likely provide some
encouragement to low-income
families to find employment to
qualify for benefits. The
U.S. Earned Income Tax
Credit slightly improves
female labour force par-
ticipation.
By design, however,
federal programs with
work conditions attached
are unlikely to improve
deep poverty.
Work conditions re-
main for welfare
The distinction be-
tween the U.S. and Can-
ada’s approaches don’t
extend beyond federal
income assistance. Work
conditions and other bu-
reaucratic measures still
dominate at the state and pro-
vincial level, despite significant
federal funding support.
Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families in the U.S.
strengthened requirements for job
searching and work-like activities,
despite evidence that bureaucratic
measures already in place reduced
welfare participation.
In Canada, provinces still
employ a complex bureaucratic
machinery to receive claims, as-
sess eligibility, deliver benefits,
impose work conditions, police
fraud and non-compliance, de-
termine and recover over-pay-
ments, provide social services
and report to authorities.
While there is little impetus
to remove work conditions and
other bureaucratic controls in
the U.S., there is some move-
ment to reduce barriers to wel-
fare participation in Canada.
Most notably, the Prince Ed-
ward Island legislature has af-
firmed their support for a basic
income to replace current welfare
assistance in the province. This
would separate receipt of welfare
benefits from employment ser-
vices and other work conditions
imposed elsewhere. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
12
Canada’s national food policy is at risk
of enshrining a two-tiered food system
BY VALERIE TARASUK,
University of Toronto, TIM LI,
University of Toronto
The Conversation
Just two days after the re-
lease of the latest statistics on
household food insecurity in
Canada, Agriculture and Agri-
Food Minister Marie-Claude
Bibeau announced the start of
a new phase of the Local Food
Infrastructure Fund.
Launched in 2019 as part of
Canada’s Food Policy, this pro-
gram funds infrastructure and
equipment for local food char-
ity programs and is the only
federal program naming food
insecurity reduction as part of
its goal. However, this approach
to addressing food insecurity is
deeply misguided.
At a time when food insecu-
rity affects almost one in five
Canadians, the latest funding
presumes that food-insecure
households are accessing food
charity and that doing so re-
solves their food insecurity.
Both assumptions are simply
untrue. The problem is far too
big and despite their best efforts,
food charity can only ever pro-
vide limited, emergency support.
Food charity is no solution
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
described the program as part of
fulfilling the government’s top
priority of “making life more af-
fordable for Canadians.” Bibeau
described it as “designed to
strengthen our local food systems
and support the creation of more
food banks, community gardens
and collective kitchens.”
The latest funding announce-
ment is even more explicit in
asserting that food charity is
the solution to food insecuri-
ty. In the news release, Bibeau
said: “Now more than ever, we
must support the work of orga-
nizations and food banks that
help those who need it most.”
In a recent House of Commons
Question Period, Bibeau’s parlia-
mentary secretary, Francis Drou-
in, described the funding as an in-
vestment for food banks, “to help
families put food on the table.”
Millions of Canadians are
food insecure
These remarks suggest that
Canada News
the federal government sees
volunteer-driven, communi-
ty-based food charity programs
as the solution for Canadians
who are unable to afford food for
themselves and their families.
Yet Canada’s massive and ev-
er-expanding network of chari-
table food assistance programs
can’t even keep the problem in
check, let alone reduce or pre-
vent it. Food charity operations
are burgeoning, but more Cana-
dians are affected by food inse-
curity than ever before.
The 2022 statistics show that
6.9 million people in the 10 prov-
inces, including almost 1.8 mil-
lion children, lived in households
struggling to afford the food they
need. That’s more than four
times more than the number of
visits food banks receive.
Seeking food charity is a
strategy of desperation for
food-insecure Canadians,
mostly by those who are severe-
ly food insecure. But there’s no
evidence to indicate that food
charity prevents severe food in-
security or resolves it.
Will buying more refrigera-
tors for community programs,
presumably to facilitate their
handling of the ever-expanding
donations of “food waste” from
major grocery chains and food
processors, truly change this?
Enshrining a two-tiered
food system
The latest call for applica-
tions to the Local Food Infra-
structure Fund is even more
disturbing when we consider its
place as a centrepiece of Cana-
da’s Food Policy.
The Food Policy’s ambitious vi-
sion that “all people in Canada are
able to access a sufficient amount
of safe, nutritious and culturally
diverse food” seemed commend-
able when first announced.
But the vision being imple-
mented through the Local Food
Infrastructure Fund now is a
two-tiered food system — afflu-
ent Canadians purchase premi-
um products at supermarkets,
farmers’ markets and designer
food outlets, while millions of
others line up to receive rations
from volunteers working fever-
ishly to distribute the food re-
jected from that retail system.
The direction of our national
Food Policy is a sharp depar-
ture from the understanding
of food insecurity reflected in
Opportunity for All, a docu-
ment produced by the federal
government under its poverty
reduction strategy.
The first pillar of the vision ar-
ticulated in that landmark docu-
ment is “dignity” — and living with
dignity means having enough in-
come to meet basic needs.
Food insecurity is identified
as a key indicator of poverty, now
tracked to measure our
progress in poverty re-
duction. Unfortunately,
food insecurity reduc-
tion has never been ad-
opted as an explicit ob-
jective of policies led by
Employment and Social
Development Canada,
and so the problem has
festered.
Income-based pol-
icy interventions
needed
Federal income
supports are critical
policy levers to reduce
food insecurity in Can-
ada, but this objective
needs to be incorpo-
rated into how those income
supports are designed.
Despite the federal govern-
ment’s repeated celebration of
the success of the Canada Child
Benefit in reducing the rate of
child poverty from its introduc-
tion in 2016 to 2019, almost one
in four children in the 10 prov-
inces were living in food-inse-
cure families in 2022 – more
than ever before.
www.canadianinquirer.net
Redesigning the Canada Child
Benefit to provide more money
than it currently does to the low-
est-income households would
help reduce food insecurity
among families with children.
The Canada Workers Benefit
and Employment Insurance are
the two federal programs that
support the incomes of workers in
Canada and also have the potential
to impact food insecurity rates.
Most food-insecure house-
holds rely on employment in-
... the latest funding
presumes that food-
insecure households
are accessing food
charity and that
doing so resolves
their food insecurity.
come. This means that having
a job is not enough for many
Canadians to meet basic needs.
It also tells us that our existing
supports for low-wage workers
and those experiencing job loss
are insufficient to bridge the gap.
The recently announced fed-
eral Grocery Rebate, while too
small and short-lived to impact
the alarming rates of food inse-
curity in Canada now, is a step
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
in the right direction.
By giving much needed-cash
directly to low-income Cana-
dians, the rebate reflects the
principles of dignity and inclu-
sion so clearly articulated in the
Poverty Reduction Strategy. By
comparison, the latest call for
funding applications for the Lo-
cal Food Infrastructure Fund is
a big step backward.
Missed opportunities
Although the policy levers
needed to address food insecuri-
ty lie outside of the Ag-
riculture and Agri-Food
Ministry, the Food Pol-
icy was an opportunity
to establish interde-
partmental collabora-
tion with Employment
and Social Develop-
ment Canada to chart
an action plan aimed
at reducing food inse-
curity in Canada and to
begin making progress
towards this goal.
Unfortunately, none
of this came to fruition.
The Food Policy is
slated for renewal later
this year, which could
be a chance for a course
correction. The starting point
must be a shift towards working
in partnership with Employ-
ment and Social Development
Canada to design, implement
and evaluate income supports
that reduce food insecurity. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
Baseless anti-trans claims fuel adoption of
harmful laws – two criminologists explain
BY HENRY F. FRADELLA,
Arizona State University,
ALEXIS ROWLAND,
University of California, Irvine
The Conversation
It has been seven years since
North Carolina made headlines
for enacting a “bathroom bill” –
legislation intended to prevent
transgender people from using
restrooms that align with their
gender identity.
After boycotts threatened to
cost the state more than US$3.7
billion, legislators repealed the
law in 2017. Since then, however,
religious and political conserva-
tives have successfully spread an
anti-trans moral panic, or irratio-
nal fear, across the United States.
As far back as 2001, Repub-
lican lawmakers proposed the
first of what are now nearly 900
anti-LGBTQ+ bills. More than
500 of these were introduced
in 49 state legislatures and the
U.S. Congress during the first
five months of 2023. To date, at
least 79 have passed.
Many of these anti-trans
laws are written and financed
by a group of far-right interest
groups, including the Alliance
Defending Freedom, the Fam-
ily Research Council, the Lib-
erty Counsel and the American
Principles Project.
These groups claim their pro-
posed laws would protect cis-
gender women and girls – those
whose gender identity matches
the sex they were assigned at birth
– from the sorts of violent trans
people that are often depicted in
movies and other media.
But as criminologists, we
know these claims are without
merit. No reliable data supports
the argument that transgender
people commit violent crimes at
higher rates than cisgender men
and women. In fact, transgender
people are more than four times
as likely to be the victim of a
crime as cisgender people.
World News
Expanding reach
Anti-trans laws like the one
enacted in Kansas over the gov-
ernor’s veto reach beyond re-
strooms to limit access to many
sex-segregated spaces, including
“locker rooms, prisons, domes-
tic violence shelters and rape
crisis centers,” based on the sex
assigned at birth to a person who
seeks to use those spaces.
As of the end of May 2023, at
least 18 states had enacted laws
within the preceding 12 months
that limit medically age-appropri-
ate gender-affirming health care
for trans minors, with similar bills
pending in 14 more states. And
Florida’s barrage of anti-LGBTQ+
regulations even prohibits the
mere discussion of sexuality
and gender identity in schools
through the 12th grade. Journalist
Adam Rhodes called these efforts
a “centrally coordinated attack on
transgender existence.”
We believe these laws and
bills illustrate the increasingly
hostile legislative landscape for
LGBTQ+ people despite polls
showing that most people in the
United States want trans peo-
ple to be protected from dis-
crimination in public spaces on
the basis of their gender.
What the data shows
A variety of myths, false narra-
tives, bad science, misconceptions
and outright misrepresentations
undergird anti-trans laws. The
reality, however, is that trans-ex-
clusionary laws do not protect
cisgender women and girls from
harassment or violence. Rather,
they result in dramatic increases
in violent victimization for trans-
gender and gender-nonconform-
ing adults and children.
When laws permit transgen-
der people to access sex-segre-
gated spaces in accordance with
their gender identities, crime
rates do not increase. There
is no association between
trans-inclusive policies and
more crime. As one of us wrote
in a recent paper, this is like-
ly because, just like cisgender
folks, “transgender people use
locker rooms and restrooms
to change clothes and go to the
bathroom,” not for sexual grat-
ification or predatory reasons.
Conversely, when trans peo-
ple are forced by law to use
sex-segregated spaces that
align with the sex assigned to
them at birth instead of their
gender identity, two important
facts should be noted.
First, no studies show that
violent crime rates against cis-
gender women and girls in such
spaces decrease. In other words,
cisgender women and girls are
no safer than they would be in
the absence of anti-trans laws.
Certainly, the possibility exists
that a cisgender man might pose
as a woman to go into certain
spaces under false pretenses.
But that same possibility re-
mains regardless of whether
transgender people are lawfully
permitted in those spaces.
Second, trans people are
www.canadianinquirer.net
significantly more likely to be
victimized in sex-segregated
spaces than are cisgender peo-
ple. For instance, while incar-
cerated in facilities designated
for men, trans women are nine
to 13 times as likely to be sexu-
ally assaulted as the men with
whom they are boarded.
In women’s prisons, correc-
tional staff are responsible for
41% of women’s sexual victim-
ization, with cisgender wom-
en committing the balance of
nearly all prisoner-on-prisoner
violence. Similarly, trans boys
and girls who are barred from
using the washrooms and lock-
er rooms that align with their
gender identity are respective-
ly between 26% to 149% more
likely to be sexually victimized
in the locations they are forced
to use than cisgender youths.
In society at large, between
84% and 90% of all crimes of
sexual violence are perpetrated
by someone the victim knows,
not a stranger lurking in the
13
shadows – or the showers or
restroom stalls. But trans and
nonbinary people feel very un-
safe in bathrooms and locker
rooms, though others experi-
ence relative safety there. In
fact, the largest study of its
kind found that upward of 75%
of trans men and 64% of trans
women reported that they rou-
tinely avoid public restrooms to
minimize their chances of be-
ing harassed or assaulted.
Lies drive harm
Because criminological data
does not support trans-exclusion-
ary laws or policies, advocates of
anti-trans laws often resort to
lies, flawed anecdotal evidence,
or what fact-checkers have called
“extreme cherry-picking” to sup-
port their position.
For instance, one of us doc-
umented how isolated news
stories, often from notoriously
transphobic tabloids, conflate
the actions of sexual predators
with the “dangerousness” of
trans women. Although there
are undeniably examples of ac-
tual transgender people com-
mitting crimes, even deeply
troubling ones, they are not ev-
idence of any behavioral trends
among the broader class of trans
people. No such data exists.
We believe the spate of an-
ti-trans proposals represents a
textbook example of crime-con-
trol theater – an unnecessary,
ineffective and harmful legis-
lative response to unfounded
fearmongering.
Anti-trans laws are not
just baseless. They’re hurt-
ful and damaging, especially
to LGBTQ+ teenagers. Recent
polls indicate that more than
60% of these people experience
deteriorating mental health –
including depression, anxiety
and suicidal thoughts – as a re-
sult of laws and policies aimed
at restricting their personhood.
The criminological research
❱❱ PAGE 20 Baseless anti-trans
14
UK PM Sunak visits Washington to
strengthen ties, watch baseball –
having already struck out on trade deal
BY GARRET MARTIN,
American University School of
International Service
The Conversation
Alongside meetings with
President Joe Biden, U.S. busi-
ness leaders and members of
Congress, U.K. Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak will take in a base-
ball game during a Washington
trip that starts June 7, 2023.
He may be given the honor of
throwing out the first pitch;
many at home will be hoping he
doesn’t drop the ball.
It is a high-stakes visit for
Sunak, his first to Washington
since becoming prime minister
in October 2022. The British
leader will be keen to show-
case his close relationship with
Biden. And he will want to un-
derscore his more stable and
pragmatic foreign policy, in
contrast to his predecessors,
Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Yet Sunak, despite being
prime minister for less than a
year, is under great pressure.
His party remains far behind in
the polls, less than 18 months
before the next general election
is held in the U.K.
He has little time to burnish
his credentials as a leader, and
Washington may not be the
most fertile ground to do so. Bi-
lateral relations between Lon-
don and Washington have been
thorny in recent years, and
three topics illustrate the chal-
lenges – and possible opportu-
nities – ahead for Sunak: trade,
Northern Ireland and security.
The forgotten trade deal
Sunak and Biden will have a
busy agenda during talks due to
take place in the Oval Office on
June 8, but one topic will be con-
spicuously absent. As a Downing
Street spokesperson confirmed
prior to the trip: “We are not seek-
ing to push a free trade agreement
with the U.S. currently.”
This is in stark contrast to
what Sunak’s Conservative Par-
ty manifesto had touted in the
2019 general election – the sec-
ond to take place since a 2016
referendum upset the U.K.’s
World News
trading setup by triggering the
country’s exit from the Europe-
an Union.
The document promised that
in a post-Brexit U.K., 80% of trade
would be covered by free trade
agreements within three years.
Negotiations for a trade deal
with the U.S. began in 2020 un-
der the Trump administration,
but made limited progress. The
pandemic, and the question of
access of U.S. agricultural goods
to the U.K. market, further dis-
rupted talks. In particular, U.K.
concerns about differing food
standard practices in the U.S.,
such as chlorine-washed chick-
en or hormone-treated beef,
complicated discussions.
Yet the broad ideological shift
in American attitudes toward
trade proved the main obstacle.
Since taking office, the Biden
administration has consistently
expressed its skepticism of em-
ulating past free-trade agree-
ments. According to the admin-
istration, these deals have too
often ended up impoverishing
American workers, while en-
riching multinational firms.
That shift on trade policy is
not limited to members of the
administration. Both Demo-
crats and Republicans, even
if for different reasons, have
become more critical of unfet-
tered globalization.
In lieu of any breakthrough
on a trade deal between the two
countries, the U.K. has been fo-
cusing efforts on striking deals
with individual U.S. states. In
particular, the U.K. government
hopes Rishi’s visit can pave the
way for closer partnerships
with California and Texas.
But these will have only a
modest impact at best, when
the U.K. economy is forecast to
grow by only 0.4% in 2023.
The shadow of Northern
Ireland
With trade unlikely to fur-
ther cement U.S.-U.K. ties, Su-
nak will also have to navigate
the divisive question of North-
ern Ireland. There is still strong
bipartisan support in the U.S.
for the 1998 Good Friday Agree-
ment, which ended 30 years of
conflict in Northern Ireland.
This reflects the historic role
played by Democratic and Re-
publican administrations in
helping to mediate and imple-
ment the accord.
In that context, the U.K.’s exit
from the EU served only to fuel
tension between London and
Washington. Brexit negotia-
tions lingered for many years
because of the sheer difficulty
of reconciling conflicting pres-
sures over the status of North-
ern Ireland, which is part of the
U.K. but borders the Republic
of Ireland, which remains an
EU member state.
Throughout the prolonged
Brexit process, American politi-
cians across the aisle repeatedly
expressed their concerns to the
U.K. government. They empha-
sized the need to avoid measures
that could restore a hard border
on the island of Ireland. Among
those airing such views was Joe
Biden, who warned in 2020,
“We can’t allow the Good Friday
Agreement that brought peace
to Northern Ireland to become a
casualty of Brexit.”
Biden’s deeply rooted emo-
tional attachment to Ireland
has hardly abated since he has
been in office. His recent visit in
April, for the 25th anniversary
12/04/2023. Belfast, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak holds a
bilateral meeting with the US President Joe Biden during his visit to Northern
Ireland. (SIMON WALKER / NO 10 DOWNING STREET/FLICKR, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
www.canadianinquirer.net
of the Good Friday Agreement,
was rich in personal signifi-
cance and symbolism.
Most of the trip was viewed as
a homecoming, with Biden visit-
ing his ancestral roots in Ireland.
His time in Northern Ireland was
brief in comparison, with only a
terse meeting with Sunak. And if
the message was not sufficient-
ly clear, later remarks by Biden
at a fundraiser left little doubt
as to the president’s feelings. He
went to the island of Ireland “to
make sure the Brits didn’t screw
around” with the region’s peace
process, he said.
Sunak did win some praise for
the recent Windsor Framework,
which addressed some of the
tension over Northern Ireland.
But he has yet to solve the pro-
longed boycott of power-shar-
ing institutions by the pro-U.K.
Democratic Unionist Party.
Nonetheless, Sunak will have
his work cut out for him to con-
vince Biden that the U.K. can play
a constructive role in further sta-
bilizing Northern Ireland.
Better off sticking to secu-
rity and China
Trade and Northern Ireland
will likely bring little joy for Su-
nak. He will, however, be on far
more fertile ground when the
discussion shifts to the realm of
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
security.
The prime minister has sig-
naled on many occasions his
very close alignment with the
U.S. insofar as tackling China.
At the recent G7 summit in Ja-
pan, Sunak defined Beijing as
“the biggest challenge of our
age to global security and pros-
perity.” And the March 2023
signing of the AUKUS nuclear
submarine deal in San Diego
further confirmed the U.K.’s tilt
to the Indo-Pacific.
Regarding Ukraine, the U.K.
has frequently been at the van-
guard of providing support and
new weapons to Kyiv. In May
2023, Sunak announced a plan,
with Dutch Prime Minister
Mark Rutte, to build an “interna-
tional coalition” to help Ukraine
acquire F-16 fighter jets.
Britain also led the way in
being the first Western coun-
try to supply long-range cruise
missiles to Ukraine. This was
after being the first country to
agree to deliver battle tanks to
support the Ukrainian army.
And that bullishness reportedly
played a key part in convincing
Washington to lift its objection
to sending F-16s to Ukraine.
The alignment in the field of
global security will undoubted-
ly help Sunak’s attempt to in-
gratiate himself with Biden. But
the harder test will be wheth-
er this convergence between
Washington and London can
extend to NATO.
The alliance will hold a
crucial summit in Lithuania
in July, where it will discuss
longer-term plans to support
Ukraine. That will include the
thorny question of offering
NATO membership to Kiev,
which does not yet have unani-
mous support among members.
Even without talk of a trade
deal, in terms of agenda items
on Sunak’s visit, the bases
are loaded. It is questionable
whether he can hit a home run
though. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
US, Chinese warships’ near miss in Taiwan
Strait hints at ongoing troubled diplomatic
waters, despite chatter about talks
BY MEREDITH OYEN,
University of Maryland,
Baltimore County
The Conversation
An encounter in which a Chi-
nese naval ship cut across the
path of a U.S. destroyer in the
Taiwan Strait on June 3, 2023,
has both Beijing and Washington
pointing fingers at each other.
It was the second near miss
in the space of just a few weeks;
in late May a Chinese plane
crossed in front of an American
surveillance aircraft above the
South China Sea.
Meredith Oyen, an expert on
China-U.S. relations at the Uni-
versity of Maryland, Baltimore
County, helps explain the con-
text of the recent encounters and
how they fit within growing ten-
sions between the two countries.
What do we know about
the Taiwan Strait incident?
It came as the U.S. and Can-
ada were conducting a joint
transit of the Taiwan Strait – a
body of water that separates the
island of Taiwan from mainland
China. Washington does these
transits fairly regularly, but not
usually with another country.
As the American destroyer
USS Chung-Hoon and Canadian
frigate HMCS Montreal traveled
up the channel, a Chinese war-
ship passed and veered across the
U.S. vessel’s path at a pretty close
range, according to U.S. Indo-Pa-
cific Command. As a result, the
USS Chung-Hoon had to reduce
its speed to avoid a collision.
The U.S. has characterized
the incident as an “unsafe” ma-
neuver on behalf of the Chinese
and protested that it took place
in international waters.
How federalism failed..
❰❰ 10 leaves, although I am
not hopeful this rela-
tionship will change
too much as it is convenient for
provinces to blame municipali-
ties in tough times. I also think
the federal government should
The perspective from Beijing
is that the U.S. and Canada were
“deliberately provoking risk” by
sailing a warship through Chi-
nese waters.
Who is right? Did it take
place in international or Chi-
nese waters?
The United Nations Conven-
tion on the Law of the Sea stipu-
lates that a country’s “territorial
waters” extend 12 nautical miles
off its coast – anything above or
on the sea in that zone is consid-
ered part of the country’s terri-
tory. After that, there is a further
12-mile “contiguous zone,” over
which a coastal state has rights
to prevent infringement of the
country’s “customs, fiscal, im-
migration or sanitary” laws, ac-
cording to the UN treaty.
Complicating matters, Bei-
jing – a signatory to the Con-
vention on the Law of the Sea,
unlike the U.S. – claims the is-
land of Taiwan as part of China.
Under the U.N. convention’s
stipulations, this would also
mean Beijing can claim the 12
miles of territorial waters off
Taiwan’s coast, as well as a 12-
mile contiguous zone.
But even at its narrowest
point, the Taiwan Strait is
around 86 miles wide. So even
accepting Beijing’s territorial
claim, there would, under U.N.
law, be a channel that falls out-
side its territory.
Nonetheless, Beijing claims
sovereignty of the entirety of
the waters between Taiwan and
China under its exclusive eco-
nomic zone.
Despite not signing the U.N.
Convention on the Law of the
Sea, the U.S. abides by the 12-
mile standard and views a large
chunk of the strait as interna-
recognize that it will have to step
in again during future crises.
One suggestion to better pre-
pare is to improve federal/mu-
nicipal lines of communication
– especially with the mayors
of Canada’s largest cities. This
Aerial view of Taiwan Strait (BREAKDOWNDIODE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, CC BY-SA 3.0)
tional waters.
How common are these
‘near misses’?
The United States has regular-
ly sailed vessels through the Tai-
wan Strait for decades. At times
of tension – notably during the
Korean War and Taiwan Straits
crises of 1954-55, 1958 and 1962
– the U.S. has deployed destroy-
ers in the channel as a deliberate
show of military strength and
support for Taiwan.
This continued after the U.S.
normalized relations with Chi-
na in 1978 until today, with few
incidents that caused the lev-
el of tit-for-tat recriminations
such as in the latest case. But
there have been “near misses”
in the sky, noticeably the recent
airplane-to-airplane encounter
that preceded this incident.
What we have increasingly
seen, though, is Chinese of-
ficials protest these Taiwan
Strait transits by the U.S. And
the number of protests by
China has increased in recent
was last tried under the Pierre
Trudeau government in 1971,
when Robert Andras was ap-
pointed Canada’s first minister
of state for urban affairs. It was
a short-lived appointment, abol-
ished in 1972 because of provin-
www.canadianinquirer.net
World News
years, as tension over Taiwan
has increased.
How does this incident fit
growing maritime tension in
the region?
The past few years have seen
a deterioration in U.S.-China
relations. There have been no
direct, high-level military talks
between the two countries
since 2019. Meanwhile, rela-
tions have further soured on
other topics, such as the ongo-
ing trade war, the issue of Tai-
wan and allegations relating to
the spread of COVID-19.
At times of better relations be-
tween Beijing and Washington,
military transits such as the one
in the Taiwan Strait might have
gone largely unremarked upon.
But amid such tensions, any in-
cident is elevated to the level of
uniquely bad provocation.
The broader context is that
the U.S. regularly holds military
drills and “freedom of naviga-
tion” operations in the South
China Sea. These activities are
cial government opposition and
cabinet in-fighting. However,
this might be worth trying again
as we collectively search for ur-
ban solutions in times of seem-
ingly perpetual crisis. ■
15
used by the U.S. Department of
Defense to demonstrate that the
U.S. has a right to sail in waters
it views as international, even if
they are claimed by nation states.
The concern is that with ten-
sions as they are – and with no
official direct line of dialogue – a
near miss during such a drill, or,
worse still, an actual collision,
could escalate beyond control,
leading to military conflict.
Any significance over why
this happened now?
The near miss came at a curi-
ous time – while top diplomats
and defense chiefs from both
the U.S. and China were attend-
ing the Shangri-La Dialogue in
Singapore.
At that security summit, U.S.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
shook the hand of his Chinese
counterpart, Li Shangfu. But
they didn’t hold a side meeting
– as some observers had hoped.
Austin also underscored the
importance of the Taiwan Strait
to Washington: “The whole
world has a stake in maintain-
ing peace and stability in the
Taiwan Strait. The security of
commercial shipping lanes and
global supply chains depends
on it. And so does freedom of
navigation worldwide. Make no
mistake: conflict in the Taiwan
Strait would be devastating.”
Washington has suggested
that it wants to resume official
talks with Beijing. Incidents
such as that in the Taiwan Strait
underscore the potential need
for such discussions, if only to
avoid encounters escalating
into something more serious. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
This article is part of the Les-
sons from the Rouleau Commis-
sion special feature series.
This article first appeared
on Policy Options and is repub-
lished here under a Creative
Commons license.
16
​​
Australia’s ties with Vietnam are important
in their own right – not just in relation to the
US and China
BY LIAM BYRNE, The
University of Melbourne
The Conversation
Prime Minister Anthony Alba-
nese’s recent trip to Vietnam is a
recognition that Australia’s rela-
tionship with the Southeast Asian
nation is important on its own
terms – not just in how it relates
our broader relationships with
the United States and China.
As such, it was surprising to
see that a nicely executed state
visit to a mid-power in the re-
gion, which resulted in the
mooted upgrading of a “strate-
gic partnership” to a “compre-
hensive strategic partnership”,
had failed to generate substan-
tive headlines, or capture the
public imagination.
Australians need to see the
enhancement of regional part-
nerships such as the one with
Vietnam as having significant
interest to us all, with implica-
tions for our future.
Decades of rebuilding rela-
tions
This is not the first bilater-
al visit of an Australian prime
minister to Vietnam. The most
recent was Scott Morrison’s visit
in 2019. But there was a particu-
lar resonance to this occasion.
This year marks the 50th an-
niversary of the establishment
of diplomatic relations between
Australia and Vietnam. This
was, of course, a particularly
potent moment due to Austra-
lia’s involvement in the war in
Vietnam (known there as the
“American War”).
World’s 1st 5G cruise ship unveiled in China
ANADOLU
Philippine News Agency
ISTANBUL – China on Tues-
day unveiled the world’s first
homegrown 5G large cruise
ship.
World News
Over the course of the war,
more than 60,000 Australians
were deployed to the country
and 523 died. The war and the
means of its prosecution – par-
ticularly conscription – became
heated points of polarisation
domestically.
The cost of the war to Viet-
nam itself was incalculable.
Australian commitment to
the war began to wind down
from late 1970, with the last
Australian troops returning in
December 1972, soon after the
election of the Whitlam govern-
ment. Our involvement formal-
ly ended a month later.
The decades following the
war were devastatingly difficult
for Vietnam as it rebuilt itself
amid international isolation, es-
pecially from the United States.
A large number of refugees fled
the authoritarianism of the new
Communist regime, with many
establishing strong and vibrant
communities in Australia.
In 1986, the Vietnamese
Communist Party announced
its Đổi Mới reforms to transi-
tion the country from a highly
centralised economy based on
state ownership to a form of
market socialism. This began a
process of opening Vietnam up
economically and politically to
the world.
In subsequent years, there has
been a bipartisan effort in Aus-
tralia to consolidate the relation-
ship with Vietnam in both eco-
nomic and defence agreements.
During the visit of Vietnam-
ese Communist Party General
Secretary Nong Duc Manh to
China’s first domestically
built cruise ship, Adora Magic
City, also known as “Mo Du,”
was released into waters in
Shanghai.
According to Chinese Peo-
ple’s Daily, the cruise is the first
5G ship in the world.
Australia in 2009, the countries
upgraded their relationship to
one of “comprehensive partner-
ship”. In 2018, to mark the 45th
anniversary of diplomatic rela-
tions, this was upgraded further
to a “strategic partnership”.
There are obvious econom-
ic and diplomatic benefits to
enhancing the connections be-
tween the countries. According
to the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, trade be-
tween the countries has grown
on average by 8.6% per year
over the past two decades.
But the attitude of the Morri-
son government to Vietnam was
overtly inflected by its harden-
ing hostility towards China.
Morrison trumpeted the
growth in trade during his vis-
it, but within the framework of
his government’s foreign policy
it was clear that such relation-
ships were, relatively speaking,
a sideshow to the main game:
Australia’s future was bound to
the United States.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Vietnamese Prime Minister
Phạm Minh Chính (ANTHONY ALBANESE/FACEBOOK)
With 2,125 rooms in the
24-story ship, the cruise can ac-
commodate around 5,246 pas-
sengers at full capacity.
The work on the cruise began
in 2019 and was built by Shang-
hai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding
Co. under the China State Ship-
www.canadianinquirer.net
Why Vietnam matters
Since its election, the Alba-
nese government has demon-
strated its determination to
rebuild and repair regional
relationships. While this has
included taking the heat out of
the recent tensions with China,
it also included enhancing col-
laborations with countries such
as Vietnam, Malaysia, Indone-
sia and others.
The government’s approach
has not been a repudiation of
Australia’s ongoing defence and
political ties with the United
States, and is far from a pas-
sive stance towards China’s
positioning in the region. The
staunch commitment of the Al-
banese government to AUKUS
makes this abundantly clear.
But it was a recognition that
the overwhelming emphasis of
Australian foreign policy in re-
cent years had diminished the
significance of our relationships
with these middle-sized region-
al countries that were similarly
building Corporation.
“The large cruise ship is the
world’s most complex single
electronic product made up
of over 25 million individual
parts, five times the number of
individual parts used in China’s
first domestic aircraft, the C919,
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
seeking to adapt to the chang-
ing relationships and balance of
power in the Asia-Pacific region.
As a recent prime ministerial
statement outlined,
Stepping-up Australia’s re-
lations with Vietnam is an im-
portant part of the government’s
determination to rebuild Aus-
tralia’s links with the countries
of Southeast Asia.
Vietnam has experienced its
own economic woes of late. It
has a notable reliance on Aus-
tralian coal for its power gener-
ation, and this is likely to remain
the case in the short term. Its
government is authoritarian.
This should not be obscured in
discussions of our relationship.
But Vietnam is a dynamic
country with an economy that has
been on the upswing. It also has a
young population that is increas-
ingly skilled and has demonstrat-
ed itself to be globally connected.
On our side, Australia is a
country increasingly integrat-
ing itself into the region and
exploring new economic oppor-
tunities in renewable energy.
Among the agreements Alba-
nese signed in Hanoi was a $105
million package to help Viet-
nam decarbonise its economy.
Australia also has a large pop-
ulation of citizens with Vietnam-
ese heritage with enduring ties
– both familial and economic – to
Vietnam. Current exchanges in
trade and education are mutually
beneficial, and growing.
And all this is happening
between two countries who,
❱❱ PAGE 20 ​​Australia’s ties with
and 13 times that of the ‘Fux-
ing’ bullet train,” Chinese daily
Global Times reported.
The cruise will undergo two
sea trials in July and August be-
fore being officially launched to
be used for commercial opera-
tions next year. ■
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023 World News 17

Parliament votes in office Denkov Cabinet

BTA
Philippine News Agency
SOFIA, Bulgaria – Parlia-
ment Tuesday voted to elect
Nikolay Denkov as Bulgaria’s
Prime Minister.
The vote in the 240-seat leg-
islature was 132-69 with no ab-
stentions.
In two other votes, the MPs
also approved the composition
and structure of the Denkov
government.
The government then took
the oath of office.
Denkov was designated as
Prime Minister by a coalition
of Continue the Change and
Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB),
which is the second largest
group in Parliament.
After nine months, Denkov
will rotate with Mariya Gabriel
of GERB-UDF, the largest party
in the legislature.
The Cabinet has one Deputy
Prime Minister.
The Agriculture Ministry is
transformed into a Ministry of
Agriculture and Food.
The vote on the government
structure was 132-69 and on the
lineup 131-69, with no absten-
tions for both.
The composition was backed
by GERB-UDF and CC-DB, and
two MPs of the Movement for
Rights and Freedoms (MRF).
The other MRF deputies did
not vote.
One GERB deputy voted
“against”, as did Vazrazhdane,
BSP for Bulgaria, There Is Such
a People and independent Ra-
dostin Vasilev.
The distribution of votes was
similar for Denkov and the Cab-
inet structure.
In an address to the MPs be-
fore the vote, Denkov outlined
the priorities of his cabinet: ur-
gent submission to Parliament
of a budget with a deficit of up
to 3 percent, while maintaining
social payments unchanged and
without increasing taxes; imple-
mentation of the international
priorities for Schengen and the
eurozone to ensure entry in the
Schengen area this year and in
the eurozone from 2025 at the
latest; close cooperation with the
social partners for a balanced de-
velopment of the economy and
human resources with a focus
on research, innovation and ed-
ucation; working in close coop-
eration with the National Assem-
bly to implement the legislative
agenda, including amendments
to the Constitution.
“It was not my childhood
dream to be the Prime Minister in
a country in a bad political crisis,
with a divided society. My child-
hood dream was to be a scientist
and I fulfilled it. This is why, if the
priorities are not accomplished, I
will resign,” he said.
Here is the full Denkov Cabinet:
Prime Minister: Nikolay
Denkov
Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Foreign Affairs:
Mariya Gabriel
Minister of Finance: Assen
Vassilev
Minister of Interior: Kalin
Stoyanov
Minister of Defence: Todor
Tagarev
Minister of Environment and
Water: Julian Popov
Minister of Energy: Rumen
Radev
Minister of Regional Devel-
opment and Public Works: An-
drey Tsekov
Minister of Agriculture and
Food: Kiril Vatev
Minister of Economy and In-
dustry: Bogdan Bogdanov
Minister of Innovation and
Growth: Milena Stoycheva
Minister of Labour and So-
cial Policy: Ivanka Shalapatova
Minister of Justice: Atanas
Slavov
Minister of Health: Hristo
Hinkov
Minister of Education and
Science: Galin Tsokov
Minister of Tourism: Zaritsa
Dinkova
Minister of Transport and
Communications: Georgi
Gvozdeykov
Minister of Electronic Gov-
ernance: Alexander Yolovski
Minister of Culture: Krastyu
Krastev
Minister of Youth and Sports:
Dimitar Iliev ■

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www.canadianinquirer.net
18
Entertainment
‘Across the Spider-Verse’ and the Latino
legacy of Spider-Man
BY REGINA MARIE MILLS,
Texas A&M University
The Conversation
As a Latino literature and
media scholar, a lifelong gamer
and a Guatemalan-American
girl whose dad read her comics
every night, I quickly became
a fan and then scholar of Miles
Morales, the Afro-Puerto
Rican Spider-Man who
first appeared in comic
book form in 2011’s “Ulti-
mate Fallout #4.”
Just seven years after
his introduction, Mo-
rales swung into theaters
in “Spider-Man: Into the
Spider-Verse,” a visually
stunning, 3D-animated
film that won an Acade-
my Award for best ani-
mated feature.
Now, its sequel, “Spi-
der-Man: Across the Spi-
der-Verse,” features two
Latino Spider-Men in
starring roles. Irish-Latino
Spider-Man Miguel O’Ha-
ra of “Spider-Man 2099,”
voiced by Oscar Isaac, is
jumping into the fray. And
although he was a well-re-
ceived Spider-Man as a
Marvel comic book character in
the 1990s, there’s a good chance
you’ve never heard of him.
Breaking the mold
Latino characters, particu-
larly ones who have a starring
role, have traditionally been
underrepresented in main-
stream comics.
Marvel’s first Latino hero,
Hector Ayala, debuted in 1975,
after the success of “Black Pan-
ther.” Written by Bill Mantlo
and drawn by legendary com-
ic artist George Pérez, Ayala,
known as White Tiger, was a
Puerto Rican college student
living in New York. His powers
came from a magical amulet
that bestowed him with speed
and martial arts expertise.
As Latino comics scholar
Frederick Luis Aldama argues,
Mantlo and Pérez avoided many
of the stereotypes that plagued
Latinos in comics, which often
cast Latinos as criminals or drug
dealers. Later iterations of White
Tiger included his niece Angela
del Toro and his sister, Ava Ayala.
The first Marvel Latina super-
hero, also co-created by Mantlo,
was Firebird – real name, Bonita
Perhaps
Spider-Man’s
popularity in
this part of the
world is due
to the fact that
he’s scrappy,
hardworking,
and trying to
help his family.
Juárez – who first appeared in
1981. A Catholic social worker
from New Mexico, she repre-
sented a departure from the
Black and Latino comic charac-
ters who predominately come
from big cities like New York.
Spider-Man’s web extends
into Latin America
In Latin America, Spi-
der-Man has been a popular
character since the hero first
appeared in his own series,
“Amazing Spider-Man,” in 1963.
Marvel licensed Mexican pub-
lisher La Prensa to print Spanish
translations of Spider-Man is-
sues just a few months after its
release in the U.S.
La Prensa also extended Spi-
der-Man’s reach to Argentina,
Chile, Uruguay and Perú. In
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
Mexico, Spider-Man quickly in 1992 as the main star of the spider insignia in an explicit con-
became more popular than any “2099” series, fans embraced nection to his Mexican heritage.
other Marvel character, save for him, with little controversy. Recasting Spider-Man as
his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. It’s possible that O’Hara was an Afro-Latino
So in the 1970s, La Prensa uncontroversial because ques- Then, in 2011, Marvel an-
began to create its own Spi- tions of race and racism didn’t nounced Miles Morales, the
der-Man stories on weeks when factor explicitly into the plots first Spider-Man who was both
Marvel didn’t release a new Spi- of each issue. And perhaps Black and Latino.
der-Man issue. These new sto- O’Hara’s light skin made it easy This time, the responses
ries, like an issue where Peter for readers to forget that he was were more polarizing.
Parker dreams that he married Latino in the first place. Former Fox News pundit
Gwen Stacy, only ap- Yet comics scholar Kathryn Glenn Beck blamed then-first
peared in Mexico. M. Frank argues in the collec- lady Michelle Obama for the
Perhaps Spider-Man’s tion “Graphic Borders” that the creation of Morales, pointing to
popularity in this part of writers of “Spider-Man 2099” a clip of her saying, “We’re going
the world is due to the fact were aware of their hero’s eth- to have to change our traditions.”
that he’s scrappy, hard- nic identity and subtly incor- However, to some fans, recast-
working, and trying to porated commentaries on race ing Spider-Man as Black made
help his family. Or maybe into the series. perfect sense. Walter Moseley,
Latin Americans love his In the comics, O’Hara has an a popular crime novelist, has
luchador-esque costume accent due to his elongated, spi- provocatively argued that the
– Peter Parker did, after derlike teeth, which may reflect original Spider-Man of the 1960s
all, debut his Spider-Man the assumed foreignness of Lati- is actually “the first Black super-
title and threads as a pro- no citizens in the U.S. and the dis- hero,” since his backstory – raised
fessional wrestler. crimination they suffer for it. He by his extended family, growing
An Irish-Latino also embraces his difference in up in poverty and demonized by
swings into the Spi- his own style. As fans have point- the media – was more relatable
der-Verse ed out, his costume mixes a Day
Firebird and White Ti- of the Dead skull with the classic ❱❱ PAGE 22 ‘Across the Spider-Verse’
ger never headlined their
own series, though. And
the Spider-Man who Lat-
in Americans embraced
in the 1960s and 1970s
was white.
So it was a big deal
when Miguel O’Hara took on
the mantle of Spider-Man in his
own series, which ran for four
years.
While the multiverse is a recent
development in the Marvel Cine-
matic Universe, multiple Earths –
each with its own versions of Mar-
vel superheroes – have existed for
decades in the comics.
This has allowed for different
iterations of the same superhero.
Peter Parker is the Spi-
der-Man of Earth-616, the offi-
cial Marvel universe. Miles Mo-
rales began as the Spider-Man
of Earth-1610.
Miguel O’Hara is the future
Spider-Man of Earth-616 in the
year 2099, a post-apocalyptic fu-
ture run by greedy corporations.
When O’Hara first appeared
www.canadianinquirer.net
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
How Chinese superfans became a force of
nationalist activism in the name of their ‘idols’
BY YAN WANG, Lancaster
University
The Conversation
Thanks to the efforts of their
fans, artists like South Korean
band BTS have their faces ev-
erywhere in China (where they
are known as “idols”) – from the
subway, to media articles and
brand collaborations.
In 2016, Chinese fans of Jack-
son Yee (aka Yi Yangqianxi),
a former member of popular
Chinese boy band TFBoys, cel-
ebrated their idol’s birthday in
style. They partied on a cruise
in Shanghai, bought a video ad-
vert in Times Square and flew
cake-shaped hot air balloons
over London and New York.
As in other east Asian coun-
tries, idol fans in China are
changing from passive consum-
ers of products to promoters,
striving to personally grow their
idols’ popularity, reputation and
business value. This develop-
ment added an estimated ¥100
billion (£613 million) to the Chi-
nese idol market in 2020.
Research in 2015 and 2018
found that Chinese idol fans
now also act as one of the main
digital forces in cyber national-
ist activism, supporting the Chi-
nese state’s core values, such as
positive energy and patriotism.
In a paper published earli-
er this year my coauthor Ting
Luo and I analysed the ways
iWantTFC champions “Love is Love” this Pride Month
ABS-CBN
All types of love are on
iWantTFC, the Home of Filipi-
no Stories, as it features a vari-
ety of movies and series in the
special selection called “Love is
Love” in time for Pride Month
this June.
Celebrate love in all of its
forms in “Drag You and Me,”
iWantTFC’s latest original se-
ries that tackles drag culture
and stars Andrea Brillanates,
JC Alcantara, and Christian
Bables. Other iWantTFC orig-
idol fans co-opted nationalism
in their reaction to the COVID
pandemic.
We looked at over 6 million
posts about the pandemic from
December 2019 to December
2020 on Sina Weibo (a twit-
ter-like social media platform
in China) that contained pro-
motional messages about idols.
Through in-depth interviews
with idol fans, we unpacked the
ways they engaged with main-
stream discourse to publicise
and glorify their idols.
These nationalist expres-
sions are often triggered by
political incidents and events.
The most notable example is
the “Diba Expedition”. Follow-
ing the Taiwan election in 2016,
fans organised and swamped
the Facebook pages of Taiwan-
ese politicians with emojis and
memes, for example.
Idol fans are both organised
and disciplined. Our evidence
shows that they also used discus-
sions around the COVID pan-
demic to promote their idols.
How the pandemic influ-
enced fan behaviour
In Weibo posts, idol fans ar-
gued that albums, songs and
films by their idols relate to the
pandemic. Many claim they
made a contribution to pandem-
ic efforts and engaged in charity
work in the name of their idols.
These activities are typical of
the chart-beating behaviours of
fandoms, carried out to boost
inals that viewers may stream
are the girls’ love series “Sleep
with Me” starring Janine Guti-
errez and Lovi Poe, and “Fluid,”
boys’ love (BL) rom-com “Oh,
Mando!,” and advocacy series
“Mga Batang Poz.”
Empowering movies and se-
ries about loving freely and liv-
ing authentically are featured
in BL love stories such as Keann
Johnson and Adrian Lindayag’s
“The Boy Foretold by the Stars”
and its sequel series “Love Be-
neath the Stars,” Black Sheep’s
hit series “Hello Stranger”
starring Tony Labrusca and JC
the popularity of their idols.
Idol fans in our study and
others understand the logic of
celebrity ranking lists on Weibo.
This is when artists need enough
posts, reposts and likes to be on
the trending page, upping their
profile among the wider public.
Fans commonly post and com-
ment on Weibo to create posi-
tive images of their idols.
The public images these fans
have built are also nationalist.
Idols are seen as role models,
who make positive contribu-
tions to society, even in difficult
times. In idol fans’ social media
expressions of national pride and
compliance to state rules during
the pandemic, they posited their
idols as loyal to the nation, the
people and the party state.
As one fan told us:
Alcantara, and the Star Cinema
film “My Lockdown Romance”
starring Jameson Blake and
Joao Constancia.
iWantTFC also showcases
stories on learning how to em-
brace one’s sexuality and being
true to oneself in titles such as
“The Panti Sisters,” “Die Beau-
tiful,” “The Third Party,” and
“Baka Bukas.” Viewers can also
enjoy feel-good and relatable
Thai BL series “2gether the
Series,” “Still 2gether,” “A Tale
of a Thousand Stars,” and “Bad
Buddy,” among others.
Well-loved and classic
www.canadianinquirer.net
Entertainment
We want to make our idol ap-
pear as a high-class artist. To
achieve the goal, we need evi-
dence of our idol being invited for
and participating in performanc-
es/shows by the official media or
the state. [Without recognition
from the state] no matter how
well an idol’s album sells, people
would consider the idol no more
than an online influencer.
Idol fans often interpret “na-
tionalism” as loyalty to national
identity and adherence to the
state’s policies and rules. Many
of them deliberately demon-
strate this understanding in
their fan posts on social media.
For example, idol fans active-
ly joined the state-directed
campaign on China’s National
Mourning Day and expressed
national pride while quoting
LGBT-themed movies are also
available to stream such as
Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos’
“T-Bird at Ako,” Gloria Diaz
and Elizabeth Oropesa’s “Si
Chedeng at si Apple,” and “In
My Life” starring Vilma, John
Lloyd Cruz, and Luis Manzano.
Choose from the complete
list of “Love is Love” selections
and celebrate Pride Month on
the iWantTFC app (iOs and An-
droid) and website (iwanttfc.
com). In other select countries,
watch iWantTFC on a larger
screen with select devices, in-
cluding VEWD, ROKU, and Am-
19
their idols in the posts.
They also purposefully re-
spond to political and social
events as a way to promote
their idols’ nationalist ideals, as
shown in the chart below.
‘Nationalist’ posts about
idols
In addition to commercial
strategies such as subway adver-
tisements, music streaming and
crowdfunding, these fans see
participation in events organ-
ised by the state and official me-
dia as recognition by the state.
Such “official stamps” can
bring both material benefits
and political status and reputa-
tion for their idols, ultimately
boosting their popularity.
Our research has shown that
idol fans engage not only the
commercial logic common in
Japanese and Korean K-pop/
idol culture (more publicity
brings more commercial val-
ue) but also the political logic
propagated by the state in Chi-
na (more “official stamps” bring
more political value and com-
mercial value in return).
The skilful deployment of
nationalism strategies in their
everyday life prepares idol fans,
so that the mantra of “love for
idols” can quickly transform
into “love for the state”. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
azon Fire streaming devices, An-
droid TV, select Samsung Smart
TV models, Telstra TV (in Aus-
tralia), and VIDAA. Visithttps://
bit.ly/iWantTFC_TVDevices for
a complete list of compatible de-
vices, sign-in instructions, and
account activation.
For updates, follow www.
facebook.com/iWantTFC and
@iwanttfc on Twitter and Ins-
tagram, and subscribe towww.
youtube.com/iWantTFC. For
inquiries and concerns about
the service, users can also
send an e-mail to support@
iwanttfc.com. ■
 20
Summer reading: 5 books that explore
LGBTQ teen and young adult life
BY JONATHAN
ALEXANDER, University of
California, Irvine
The Conversation
In recognition of LGBT
Pride Month, The Conversation
reached out to Jonathan Alexan-
der – an English professor with a
scholarly interest in the interplay
between sexuality and literature
– for recommendations of young
adult fiction books that feature
LGBTQ characters. What fol-
lows is a list that Alexander, who
has just stepped down as the chil-
dren’s and young adult fiction
section editor for the Los Ange-
les Review of Books, considers as
“must-reads” for this summer.
1. Darius the Great Is Not
Okay
Written by Adib Khorram,
“Darius the Great Is Not Okay”
is told from the perspective of
a Persian American teen bat-
tling an anxiety disorder while
navigating the complexities
of growing up in a culturally
mixed household. Darius’ par-
ents – an Iranian immigrant
mother and a white father – are
kind and sympathetic, even
as they are dealing with their
own issues, including the dad’s
struggle with mental health is-
sues and the mother’s attempt
to maintain family relations
with relatives in a country that
is not only halfway around the
world but whose government is
viewed with suspicion by many
Americans. Still, Darius’ fami-
ly pulls together, even making
a trip to Iran to visit relatives.
While there, Darius learns
about his cultural background
Baseless anti-trans..
❰❰ 13 is clear that anti-trans
laws do not help
the people they are
claimed to protect. In fact, these
laws inflict harm on people who
Lifestyle
as Persian, makes a lifelong
friend in an Iranian cousin, and
considers his own sexuality.
He might be gay. How will that
complicate his life?
Khorram beautifully handles
the challenges – and pleasures
– of growing up in a cultural-
ly mixed but rich and loving
household while also dealing
with mental health challenges
and identity exploration. And
there are a lot of sweet touches
throughout, including a love of
tea and “Star Trek.” Highly rec-
ommended for its sensitivity
and authenticity.
2. Lark & Kasim Start a
Revolution
Kacen Callender, whose
groundbreaking “Felix Ever Af-
ter” delighted readers with its
tale of a Black trans boy learn-
ing how to navigate being in and
out of love, returns with a new
book just as compellingly real.
Lark and Kasim are old friends
whose relationship has seen
better days. Lark is working
are even more vulnerable. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
hard at being a writer while also
trying to help Kasim figure out
how to handle the complexities
of living at least part of their
young lives in the shadows of
social media. Ultimately, the
book is as much about forging
friendships – and learning how
to handle their evolution – as
about crushes and teen love.
With richly drawn nonbinary
and queer characters, “Lark &
Kasim Start a Revolution” joins
Callender’s previous award-win-
ning books in contributing
beautifully written and deeply
imagined Black, queer and trans
characters that readers of all
kinds will come to love.
3. Last Night at the Tele-
graph Club
Malinda Lo’s National Book
Award-winning novel is set in
mid-20th-century San Francis-
co, in a Chinese American im-
migrant community in which
Lily Hu has to learn to deal with
racism, the “Red Scare” and the
possibility that she might be a
​​Australia’s ties with..
❰❰ 16 within living memory,
were at war.
The experience of
the Vietnam War should remind
all Australians of the dangers of
www.canadianinquirer.net
lesbian. A masterwork of histor-
ical young adult literature, “Last
Night at the Telegraph Club”
introduces readers to how les-
bian communities formed – and
thrived – even during some of the
most repressive and homopho-
bic moments in U.S. history.
Lo’s novel joins her previ-
ous works, such as the ground-
breaking “Ash,” a retelling of
Cinderella from a lesbian per-
spective, in creating exciting
and affirming work for young
queer readers, as well as for
anyone who cares for those
questioning their sexuality and
sense of belonging in the world.
4. Café Con Lychee
Emery Lee’s delicious novel
centers on the rivalry between
an Asian American café and a
Puerto Rican bakery in a small
Vermont town – with both eat-
eries facing competition from a
new fusion restaurant that has
just opened. The families that
own the cafés each have a young
son working in them – Theo and
following our American ally in
pursuing its foreign policy ambi-
tions without regard for our own.
And the current relationship
with Vietnam demonstrates how
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
Gabi, respectively – who have
to learn to overcome their own
rivalry and help their families
survive the precarities of op-
erating a business in a world of
cutthroat capitalism.
“Café Con Lychee” shows how
love survives economic challeng-
es and family foibles as the two
young men move from rivalry to
romance. A sweet and nourish-
ing tale, the book offers readers a
relatable glimpse into making it –
and making out – during a time of
economic upheaval.
5. Aristotle and Dante Discov-
er the Secrets of the Universe
I want to conclude this year’s
summer reading list with an old-
er work – Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s
still beautiful, still vital and still
very necessary paean to young
gay love. Ari and Dante, from
two different walks of life, learn
to find love and self-acceptance
in this beautifully written book.
At the start of the book, Ari is
dealing with family trouble, in-
cluding a brother in prison, and
Dante is perhaps a bit too smart
for his own good. The two meet
at a swimming pool one summer,
setting the stage for a steamy
exploration of friendship that
might turn into something more.
If you haven’t read “Aristotle and
Dante Discover the Secrets of the
Universe,” catch up this summer
with this classic of contemporary
LGBTQ young adult fiction, and
then check out its recently pub-
lished sequel, “Aristotle and Dan-
te Dive Into the Waters of the
World.” Happy reading! ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
we can do it our way. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
5 incredible craters that will make you fall in
love with the grandeur of our Solar System
BY HELEN BRAND,
Australian Nuclear Science
and Technology Organisation,
NATASHA STEPHEN,
Imperial College London
The Conversation
Impact cratering happens
on every solid body in the Solar
System. In fact, it is the domi-
nant process affecting the sur-
faces on most extraterrestrial
bodies today.
On Earth, however, such cra-
ters are often lost over time by
active geological processes, but
elsewhere in the Solar System
there are some truly majestic
examples of impact craters pre-
served for all to see.
Here, we pick our highlights of
what the Solar System has to offer.
1. South Pole–Aitken ba-
sin, the Moon
Our first crater is a big one:
the biggest, deepest and oldest
impact crater on the Moon. It is
2,500km diameter, 6.2 to 8.2km
deep and formed roughly 4.2 bil-
lion years ago. As the name sug-
gests, it is at the south pole on the
far side of the Moon, although
the crater rim can be seen from
Earth as a dark mountain range,
just on the border between the
light and dark side of the moon.
It is a prime site favoured by
lunar scientists to visit and learn
about our Moon’s geology. The
depth excavated by the crater
is almost as deep as the deepest
ocean trenches on Earth. It gives
us a unique view of the interior
of the Moon’s crust, with 4.2 bil-
lion years of history exposed.
In 2019, a rover from the Chi-
nese space agency, Chang’e 4,
touched down in the basin and
carried out the first scientific
experiments there. One of the
most interesting of these was the
Lunar Micro Ecosystem, a collec-
tion of seeds and insect eggs de-
signed to see if life could flourish
in a tiny biosphere on the surface.
2. Unnamed Crater
(S1094b), Mars
There are many famous craters
on Mars, from the homes of Mars
rovers (Gale Crater for Curiosity
or Jezero for Perseverance) to the
hypothesised source regions of
Mars meteorites (Tooting or Mo-
jave). But one of the newest cra-
ters on the red planet is actually
quite a dramatic one.
While Mars rovers claim all
the glory for exploring the Mar-
tian surface, the satellites orbit-
ing Mars have been making dis-
coveries of their own for decades.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter (MRO) was launched in
2005 but is still operational, and
its 16+ years of Mars’s surface
images allow us to make compar-
isons year on year, highlighting
differences between data sets.
On Christmas Eve 2021, NA-
SA’s InSight mission detected
a large “Marsquake” on the red
planet, which MRO data later
helped to identify as a new im-
pact on the other side of Mars.
The vibrant, fresh impact ejec-
ta (“blankets” of material thrown
aside by the impact) can be seen
clearly from space using the con-
text camera data aboard the or-
biter, and thanks to InSight we
even know what it sounded like.
3. Enki Catena, Ganymede
Enki Catena is a chain crater
on Ganymede, one of the Galile-
an satellites of Jupiter. At latest
count, Jupiter has more than 90
moons, a mini planetary system
of its own.
Jupiter’s gravity creates tidal
forces which shape the moons and
give us some of the most interest-
ing geological features we have yet
found, from the volcanoes of Io to
the subsurface ocean of Europa.
There are also strings of craters
found on two of the moons, Callis-
to and Ganymede.
These crater chains were
first spotted when the Voyager
1 spacecraft gave us some of the
first pictures of the surface of
these moons in 1979. They were
thought to potentially be col-
lapsed lava tubes, features that
have been observed on Mars
and the Moon.
However, their origin re-
mained under debate until the
Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet was
observed as it smashed into
Jupiter. The comet was seen
breaking into multiple pieces
and this gave an idea as to how
these chains might form – the
gravity from Jupiter pulls apart
objects into many pieces that
all impact close together.
Enki Catena is a chain of 13
craters which crosses from an
area of dark to bright terrain
on Ganymede. It is 162km in
length and about 10km wide.
The European Space Agen-
cy’s Juice mission will visit the
Jovian system in the 2030s and
allow us to see the surfaces in
greater detail than ever before.
We might even find more of
these crater chains.
4. Occator Crater, Ceres
Ceres is the largest body in
www.canadianinquirer.net
Lifestyle
the main asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter. It is large and
round enough to be considered a
“dwarf planet” (along with Pluto
and three less famous examples,
Eris, Makemake and Haumea).
The Occator crater on Ceres is
impressive because it contains a
bright spot in the centre that has
been observed both from space,
and from Earth at Mauna Kea
Observatory, Hawaii.
NASA’s Dawn mission en-
tered an orbit around Ceres in
2015, and imaged the bright spot
in Occator crater known as “Spot
5”. It’s a three kilometre wide
dome covered in bright salts on
the crater floor, likely resulting
from hydrothermal activity.
Occator crater itself is 92km
in diameter and 3km deep. Sim-
ulations indicate that the im-
pactor (the space rock that cre-
ated the crater) was rougly 5km
across, striking Ceres between
20–25 million years ago.
5. Aurelia, Venus
Venus is sometimes called
Earth’s twin. It is when it comes
to size, but the surface images
we have of Venus show the plan-
ets have very different features.
The best such images were
taken in the 1990s by NASA’s
Magellan spacecraft. Venus has
21
a thick cloudy atmosphere, and
visible-light cameras can’t see
through to the surface. Magellan
was equipped with a radar which
can “see” the surface – but the im-
ages can be harder to interpret.
In radar, dark terrain is very
smooth and bright terrain is very
rough. This makes impact craters
stand out really well in radar im-
ages. The ejecta are very rough,
especially against the surround-
ing volcanic plains, so they ap-
pear bright in the images.
This is Aurelia, a 32km im-
pact crater on Venus.
You can see it stands out
against the grey plains that sur-
round it. The black terrain on
the edges of the bright white
ejecta are smooth flows of rock
that melted when the impact hit.
Speaking of volcanoes on Ve-
nus, recently a group from the
University of Alaska Fairbanks
used this Magellan data to find
the first active volcano on Venus
NASA has three Venus mis-
sions in development over the
next 10 years, so hopefully soon
we will know much more about
our enigmatic twin. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
 22
How COVID lockdowns distorted our
sense of time – new research
BY ARASH SAHRAIE,
University of Aberdeen
The Conversation
The perception of time is a
psychological phenomenon,
meaning external factors can
modify the way we experience
it. For example, time may seem
to fly by when we’re in good
company, whereas if we’re
somewhere we don’t want to be,
it may appear to slow.
The COVID pandemic was a
source of psychological stress
globally, both due to fear of the
virus, and the measures taken to
contain it. A number of studies
have documented distortions to
our perception of the passage of
time during the pandemic.
In a new study published in
PLOS ONE, my student Daria
Pawlak and I have found that
lockdown probably made it
harder for us to accurately
remember the timing of big
events that happened during
the pandemic.
Our starting point was an-
ecdotal comments from our
clinical colleagues who were
finding it difficult to accurate-
ly determine timelines of their
‘Across the Spider-Verse’..
❰❰ 18 to Black New Yorkers.
When Morales came
on the scene, he wasn’t
merely a carbon copy of Peter
Parker, though. He was raised
by his African American father
– an ex-con who had turned his
life around – and Puerto Rican
mother in Brooklyn.
How Morales’ race and ethnic-
ity would play into the stories has
been a point of contention. As
English professor Jorge J. San-
tos, Jr. argues in the collection
“Mixed-Race Superheroes,” the
first comics series featuring Mo-
rales “barely makes any mention
of Miles’s ethnicity.” He didn’t
seem to speak Spanish, nor did
he have any Puerto Rican or Lati-
no friends. He even resisted be-
ing seen as a Black Spider-Man.
That somewhat changed in
the following series, which came
out in 2018 and was written by
Lifestyle
patients’ medical conditions.
In particular, they felt patients
were not correctly reporting
events such as the onset of
symptoms if they began during
the pandemic.
We conducted an online
survey in May 2022 with 277
participants from the UK. We
asked respondents to give the
year in which several notable
recent events occurred, such
as when Brexit was finalised or
when the Evergreen container
ship got stuck in the Suez Ca-
nal. The events took place from
2017 to 2021, and participants
were asked to choose one year
between 2016 and 2022.
We also included a question-
naire on factors related to men-
tal health, including anxiety,
depression, mental and physical
load, boredom and resilience.
We found that participants’
recollection of events in 2021 was
worse than for 2019 and 2020,
and similar to their recollection
of events in 2017 and 2018.
It was expected that partic-
ipants’ recollection of events
that occurred further in the
past would be less accurate. But
their perception of the timing
of events that occurred in 2021
Saladin Ahmed and drawn by
Javier Garrón. In December
2022, Cody Ziglar, a Black com-
ic writer, took over as the head
writer of Morales’ story.
Latino representation in
the Spider-Verse is still some-
what lacking. Araña, a Mexi-
can-Puerto Rican Spider-Girl
conceived in 2004, is the only
other major Latino Spidey
character.
Marvel has tried to highlight
Latino diversity in its other
comics. In 2021, the comics
publisher released an entire
collection showcasing Lati-
no characters titled “Marvel’s
Voices: Comunidades #1.”
The sequel to “Into the Spi-
der-Verse” is sure to make
viewers of color in the U.S.
cheer. As Latino media scholar
Isabel Molina-Guzmán argues,
while race complicates Holly-
– one year prior to the survey
– was just as inaccurate as for
events that occurred three to
four years earlier.
Importantly, participants
who made more errors in event
timing were also more likely to
report higher levels of depres-
sion, anxiety, and physical and
mental load during the pan-
demic, but less resilience. Re-
silience in this context refers
to the degree to which a person
can find creative ways of dealing
with difficult situations, control
their reactions and stay positive
in the face of adversity.
One explanation for these
wood casting and writing, Black
and Latino viewers reacted
very positively to Morales. But
she insists that the movie also
invites longtime fans and au-
diences of all backgrounds “to
stand in Miles Morales’s space”
and root for the mixed-race
teen trying to save the world.
To me, that’s what makes
superhero films starring char-
acters of color so compelling.
These characters are, in many
senses, outcasts searching for
community – in their real lives
and in costume.
As Frank, the comics schol-
ar, notes, these differences can
lead to feelings of alienation.
But they can also be a source
of empowerment. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
www.canadianinquirer.net
findings may relate to how
our psychological state alters
the perception of the passing
of time, such as the perceived
“slowing down” of time when
there is little to occupy the mind.
An altered timescape
Mental health measures
aside, many participants in our
research had difficulty recalling
the timing of events coinciding
with COVID lockdowns.
Interestingly, these find-
ings around poor perception of
event timelines are similar to
those previously reported for
prison inmates.
In the same way that we po-
Stress testing Canadian..
❰❰ 9 ture enough of that
spirit of proactive
risk-taking and sustain
it in “peacetime.” There will be a
tendency by politicians and pub-
lic servants to drift back to old
behaviours and mindsets, where
risk aversion is reinforced by the
feedback loops. There is a clear
and present danger that as gov-
ernments move to address their
balance sheets, they will cut
back on investing in the capabil-
ities of our public sector.
Every shock to the country is
an opportunity to learn, adapt
and commit to do better in the
future. We need to double down
now on investments in training
and leadership development
and in strengthening the supply
chain of ideas, not just about pol-
icy but especially about how the
public sector can work better.
The basic governance of Can-
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
sition ourselves in a landscape
using spatial markers (for exam-
ple, knowing a particular turn in
the road we need to take comes
after a large tree), we use events
– such as birthday celebrations
and family holidays – as tempo-
ral markers in our “timescape”.
We believe that COVID re-
strictions, particularly lock-
downs, removed these markers
that “anchor” us in the times-
cape, and the absence of these
markers distorted our percep-
tion of time. We can remember
events happening, we just don’t
know when they happened.
Our findings build on pre-
vious evidence of altered time
perception during the pandem-
ic by showing that the percep-
tion of event timelines is af-
fected as well as duration (that
is, the feeling time is moving
more slowly or quickly). Fur-
ther research is needed to es-
tablish whether, now that we’ve
emerged from the height of the
pandemic, recollection of event
timelines has improved. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
ada has proven to be resilient.
But now is not the time for com-
placency. It will be important to
put more effort into protecting
democracy and strengthening
our public sector across all parts
of the federation, as our politics
becomes nastier and the space for
public discourse shrinks. That will
help us be ready for the next shock
when it inevitably arrives. ■
Michael Wernick spent his
time during the pandemic writ-
ing Governing Canada: A Guide
to the Tradecraft of Politics pub-
lished through UBC Press.
This article is part of the Re-
silient Institutions: Learning
from Canada’s COVID-19 Pan-
demic special feature series.
This article first appeared
on Policy Options and is repub-
lished here under a Creative
Commons license.
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
Powerlifter Pamati-an wins gold at
2023 ASEAN Para Games
BY JEAN MALANUM
Philippine News Agency
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia –
The long wait is over.
It took 11 years of hard work
and dedication before power-
lifter Marydol Pama-tian finally
achieved success at the ASEAN
Para Games.
On Sunday, the 39-year-old
athlete from Tagana-an, Surigao
del Norte claimed the gold (total
lift) and silver (best lift) medals
in the women’s 41kg category at
the National Paralympic Com-
mittee of Cambodia Hall.
Pamati-an and Latsami Se-
paseuth of Laos both finished
with a total of 216kgs after three
attempts but the Filipina was
awarded the gold medal for be-
ing the first one to get the total.
It was a different scenario in
the best lift when Pamatian had
to settle for the silver medal when
was beaten by Eneng Paridah of
Hangzhou Asiad fun run achieves
goal in Tagaytay
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – Tagaytay City’s
invitingly cool weather provid-
ed the perfect condition for the
Philippine Olympic Commit-
tee’s (POC) successful hosting
of the Hangzhou Asian Games
Fun Run on Sunday.
More than 500 runners par-
ticipated in the ceremonial
campaign aimed to promote
the quadrennial event in Hang-
zhou, China from Sept. 23 to
Oct. 8 this year.
The field included some of
the country’s medalists in last
month’s Cambodia Southeast
Sports
Indonesia in the match-up after
both submitted identical 75kgs
in their third attempts.
“At last, I won the gold and
silver medals. All the hardships
have paid off,” said Pamati-an
after the awarding ceremony.
She is a bronze medalist at the
ASEAN Para Games in Myan-
mar (2014), Singapore (2015)
and Indonesia (2022).
“I’ve been training so hard
and I am happy for what I have
accomplished here in Cambo-
dia. I am also very grateful to
the people who are supporting
me, especially Adeline Duma-
pong-Ancheta, who has in-
spired me all these years,” said
Pamati-an, a single parent to a
15-year-old son.
Paralympian Achelle Guion
also contributed two silver medals
coming from the women’s 45kg
category, duplicating her perfor-
mance in Surakarta last year.
“I am happy for winning the
silver medals,” said the 51-year-
Asian Games, representatives
from the Hangzhou Asian
Games Organizing Committee
(HAGOC) and Olympic Coun-
cil of Asia (OCA) and students
from the host city who gamely
answered the gun at exactly 6
a.m. on Sunday.
“We are proud that the POC,
Tagaytay City and the country
have become part of this sym-
bolic fun run that not only helps
promote the Asian Games but
also reiterates the Philippines’
very important and historic
role why these very games were
organized more than a century
ago,” said POC president Abra-
ham “Bambol” Tolentino, who is
old Guion, who was born and
raised in Sipalay, Negros Occi-
dental province but is now re-
siding in Cainta, Rizal.
Guion lost to Ni Nengah Wi-
diasih of Indonesia, who set a
new Games record of 99kgs in
the best lift to erase the 97kgs
she set in 2022.
Widiasih tallied 293kgs while
the Filipina registered 224kgs.
Meanwhile, rookie Rose Ann
Lita placed fourth in the wom-
en’s 50kg category with a total
lift of 279kgs.
Dang Thi Linh Phuong of
Vietnam ranked first with a to-
tal lift of 279kgs (91-93-95) fol-
lowed by Kamolpan Kraratpet
of Thailand with 175kgs (85-90-
96x) and Nur ‘Aini Binte Mo-
hamad Yasli of Singapore with
155kgs (75-80x-80).
In the men’s division, Romeo
Tayawa failed to repeat his two-
bronze medal performance in
2022 and finished fourth in the
men’s up to 54kg category.
also the mayor of Tagaytay City.
The Philippines is acknowl-
edged as the birthplace of the
Asian Games when the first Far
Eastern Olympic Games were
staged in January and February
1913 in the same Malate area
where the historic Rizal Memo-
rial Sports Complex stands.
“Everything’s perfect, Tagay-
tay City is perfect for this fun
run,” Tolentino said moments
before he was joined by HAGOC
HR Director Chen Qiufang
flagged off the runners in waves
for the 6K, 3K and 1K categories.
Coupled with the fun run was
Tagaytay City’s hosting of the
Hangzhou Asian Games Chil-
www.canadianinquirer.net
Nguyen Binh An of Vietnam
tallied 429kgs (141-143-145) to
win the gold medal while compa-
triot, Huyn Ngoc Phung got the
silver medal with 392kgs (128-
131-133). Thanakrit Makkin torn
of Thailand grabbed the bronze
medal with 236kgs (117-119-126x).
Newcomer Jules Empizo was
fifth in the men’s up to 49kg cat-
egory with a total lift of 160kgs.
Marydol Pamati-an of Tagana-an (PHILIPPINE SPORTS COMMISSION)
dren’s Art Competition where
select masterpieces depicting
the games were picked by POC,
HAGOC and OCA officials from
dozens of entries sent by Tagay-
tay City school children.
OCA Projects and Opera-
tions Manager Wissam Trkma-
ni of Lebanon and Media and
Broadcast Director Jeans Jhou
Jiann of China also graced the
ceremony, along with Philip-
pine-based Chinese represent-
ing the HAGOC.
Among those who joined the
fun run were Cambodia SEA
Games medalists Jason Bala-
bal (wrestling), Sam Morrison
(taekwondo), Jasmine Alkhal-
23
(75-85-90x) behind Pia Laop-
hakdee of Laos with 242kgs
(116x-118-124).
The gold medal went to Le
Van Cong of Vietnam with
496kgs (162-166-168). A. Hadi of
Indonesia tallied 489kgs (160-
163-166) to secure the silver
medal and compatriot Nur Ir-
mansyah won the bronze medal
with 362kgs (117-120-125). ■
di (swimming), Agatha Wong
(wushu), Precious Cabuya and
Mark Julius Rodelas (obstacle
sports), as well as Tokyo Olym-
pics bronze medalist Eumir
Felix Marcial (boxing), Nikko
Huelgas (triathlon) and Cheska
Altomonte (softball).
POC deputy secretaries-gen-
eral Bones Floro and Karen
Tanchanco-Caballero, who is
also deputy chef de mission to
Hangzou, also participated in
the event.
The Hangzhou Asian Games
will be held from Sept. 23 to
Oct. 8 this year. ■
24
Far-right Hindu nationalists are using digital
propaganda to delegitimize India’s wrestler protests
BY ASHIQUE ALI
THUPPILIKKAT, University
of Toronto
The Conversation
For months now, Indian
wrestling athletes, including
Olympic medallists, have been
leading protests in the capital
of New Delhi. They are seek-
ing the arrest of the Wrestling
Federation of India’s president,
Brij Bhushan Singh, who is fac-
ing allegations that he sexually
harassed athletes.
Bhushan Singh has denied
the accusations and has criti-
cized child protection laws that
he claims are being misused
against him.
In response to their calls go-
ing unanswered, India’s Olym-
pic wrestling champions re-
cently threatened to toss their
medals into the Ganges river.
Bhushan Singh is also a
member of parliament from the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP). The wrestlers’ strug-
gle for justice, dignity and a
safe sporting environment has
gained support from civil soci-
ety groups, opposition parties
and farmers’ unions.
However, far-right Hindu
nationalists loyal to the govern-
ment and its Hindutva ideolo-
gy have attempted to bully and
discredit the protesters.
Digital propaganda
A big part of that effort in-
volves using digital propagan-
da like memes, disinforma-
tion campaigns and digitally
altered content. These tactics
have been used to target social
movements in the past, such as
the Bhima Koregaon protests
PH takes silver in ASEAN Para men’s
3x3 wheelchair basketball
BY JEAN MALANUM
Philippine News Agency
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
– The Philippines settled for
Sports
and protest movements against
proposed changes to citizen-
ship and farming laws.
Similarly to the 2020-2021
farmers’ movement, the wres-
tlers’ protest is facing rampant
demonization on social media.
The wrestlers have even been
accused of being linked to the
Khalistanis, a banned Sikh sep-
aratist movement in India.
A digitally altered image of
wrestlers Sangeeta and Vinesh
Phogat recently appeared on-
line showing them smiling in-
side a police van.
These kinds of altered images
are designed to not only create
confusion about the protests, but
also downplay police violence.
During protests against the
government’s proposed amend-
ments to the citizenship law,
apps were set up by Hindutva
supporters to hold fake online
auctions of Muslim women par-
ticipating in protests.
Technology is being used to
spread fake information and
delegitimize protest move-
silver in men’s 3x3 wheelchair
basketball on Saturday, the
country’s first medal at the 12th
ASEAN Para Games here.
The Filipino Warriors, rep-
resented by Alfie Cabañog,
ments. This means we need to
reassess how online disinfor-
mation is challenged.
By the time these claims are
debunked by fact-checkers, the
harm caused by the spread of dis-
information has already taken its
toll on the protest movements.
Studies have demonstrated how
an individual’s pre-existing be-
liefs, knowledge and ideological
orientation significantly impede
their willingness to accept facts
that contradict them.
Online counter-speech
Technology has become a key
driving force behind social move-
ments and protests. Think the
Arab Spring and the Black Lives
Matter movement. It has given
protest movements a greater
ability to expand, build coalitions
and challenge the propaganda
and disinformation of those in
power with counter-speech.
Online counter-speech refers
to how people counteract and
respond to propaganda. It usu-
ally involves polite and non-ag-
gressive responses, sharing
Kenneth Christopher Tapia,
Cleford Tropacio, Rene Maca-
benquil, and John Rey Escalan-
te, fought hard but surrendered
to the Thais, 7-15, at Morodok
Techo National Stadium’s Ele-
www.canadianinquirer.net
fact-checked information and
exposing the logical inconsisten-
cies of messages shared online.
Political communication
scholar Babak Bahador identi-
fies counter-speech as a strategy
of resistance that helps counter
hate speech and propaganda
without infringing on the right
to free speech. Counter-speech
confronts hate-speech, disin-
formation and propagandist
viewpoints head-on to diminish
their influence and popularity
in online spaces.
But in India, where dissent-
ing voices are increasingly mar-
ginalized and silenced, protests
struggle to counter the govern-
ment’s narratives. Social move-
ments face online propaganda
campaigns, use of political bots,
monitoring through spyware
like Pegasus and even internet
shutdowns.
These tactics are designed to
delegitimize dissenting voices,
control the flow of information,
deter popular mobilization,
hide human rights abuses and
unleash a collective punish-
ment on any groups that chal-
lenge the authorities.
In India, well-organized digi-
tal propaganda campaigns have
significant advantages over
protest movements and voices
from the margins. The wres-
tlers protest has benefited from
the support of famous Olym-
pians and their social media
reach. But most protest move-
ments do not have this margin-
al advantage in online spaces.
Challenging propaganda
To support counter-speech
that can challenge the propa-
ganda of governments, experts
and academics need to rethink
phant Hall 2.
The bronze medal went to
Malaysia, which pulled off a
17-8 victory over Cambodia.
The Philippines opened its
campaign with a loss to Thai-
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
how efforts like digital media lit-
eracy programs and fact-check-
ing can effectively respond.
The challenge is significant,
particularly when Narendra
Modi’s government is increas-
ingly trying to control online
spaces. A proposed amend-
ment to the country’s internet
rules would give the govern-
ment more power to police on-
line content. The amendment
would allow the creation of a
fact-checking body that would
have the power to order web-
sites to take down content the
government deems false.
This poses severe risks to
critics and journalists. It would
essentially allow the govern-
ment to penalize any dissent
and target any opposition.
On the one hand, we need to
demand accountability from
online and social media plat-
forms regarding the content
posted and transparency on
their algorithmic operations.
On the other hand, we need
platforms to maintain their au-
tonomy and not yield to govern-
ment pressure for censorship.
Profit-oriented digital plat-
forms alone cannot address
these issues. In order to com-
bat propaganda and disinfor-
mation, it is crucial to support
democratically owned busi-
nesses like platform co-opera-
tives, independent journalism
and develop public service me-
dia and internet platforms that
value truth and transparency
and treat people like citizens,
not consumers. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
land (6-18), but scored victories
over Indonesia (11-5), Cambo-
dia (14-5), and Malaysia (8-7) to
arrange a title showdown with
❱❱ PAGE 26 PH takes silver
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
How AI might soon rescue consumers from
signing up to unfair terms and conditions
BY JENS H KREBS,
University of Portsmouth,
ENGUERRAND BOITEL,
University of Portsmouth,
PARIS BRADLEY, University
of Portsmouth
The Conversation
Most of us buy goods on the in-
ternet without reading the terms
and conditions. We take it as a
given that the clauses in these
standardised agreements are
non-negotiable, and hope that
they are in our best interests.
Too often, however, this
doesn’t seem to be the case. From
laptop makers to airlines to buy
now, pay later companies, there
are endless rows about whether
terms and conditions are fair.
Obtaining hard facts about
the size of this problem is dif-
ficult. But certainly there are
a lot of unhappy shoppers on
consumer forums.
Many, for example, have
experienced difficulties in en-
forcing their contractual rights
or were unaware of what they
agreed to when they bought
something. In such circum-
stances it can be difficult to find
free or affordable legal advice,
BOI foreign investment approvals
surge Jan-May to over P400-B
BY KRIS CRISMUNDO
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – Approved invest-
ments from foreign sources at
the Board of Investments (BOI)
posted a significant increase in
the first five months of the year.
Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI) Undersecre-
tary and BOI managing head
Ceferino Rodolfo told trade
Business
so many probably just give up.
One argument is that people
should just read the contract be-
fore clicking “I agree”, but most
of us don’t have the time or abili-
ty to do so. There will soon prob-
ably be a solution to this, howev-
er. Instead of having to plough
through all the small print our-
selves, we might soon be able to
do it using artificial intelligence.
What exists already
AI tools to analyse legal docu-
ments have existed in a very basic
form for a while. They can flag up
potential issues such as rights vi-
olations that the consumer might
want to investigate further. But
you have to copy and paste terms
sentence by sentence because
the AI is so limited in how much
text it can handle, and they are
designed as a guide to reading
the blurb yourself rather than re-
moving the need altogether.
There are more sophisticated
AI tools that solve the related
problem of reading web policy
documents. Rather than past-
ing in text, you upload the rel-
evant URL. The important but
narrow focus here is on how
web providers use your data.
This makes it easier to teach an
AI model everything it needs to
reporters in a Viber message
over the weekend that foreign
investment approvals surged
in January to May this year by
7,076 percent to PHP403.86 bil-
lion from PHP5.63 billion in the
same period in 2022.
Investment pledges from for-
eign sources now have the larg-
est share in BOI approvals at 76
percent.
The BOI approved
PHP532.27 billion in invest-
know – particularly in such a
heavily regulated area.
With terms and conditions, the
challenge is their varied nature.
Vendors are much more free to
formulate everything in their own
words, which makes detecting
and understanding these much
more difficult for an AI.
There are also lots of variations
between different jurisdictions,
such as “solicitor” in the UK and
“attorney” in the US. This means
that an AI trained with US data
may mislead consumers from the
UK. Yet it’s often not clear in the
ment pledges from January
to May, more than double the
project registrations last year at
PHP205.73 billion.
The pledges came from 106
projects registered with the in-
vestment promotion agency,
which are expected to create
18,883 direct jobs.
Big ticket projects approved
by the BOI in the early parts of
the year were renewable energy,
especially offshore wind projects.
www.canadianinquirer.net
existing tools which jurisdiction
they are designed for.
You might be wondering if
the alternative might be just
to copy and paste terms and
conditions into one of the lat-
est AI chatbots like ChatGPT,
but that’s not a solution either.
These general models are not
specifically trained on legal
texts or legal analysis. This
means that any advice they give
is just as likely to be accurate,
inaccurate or entirely made up.
Fixing the problem
As far as we are aware, no team
Trade Secretary and BOI
chair Alfredo Pascual earli-
er said BOI approved three
offshore wind projects worth
PHP390 billion in the first
quarter of 2023 alone.
Last year, the DTI chief’s let-
ter to the Department of Jus-
tice (DOJ) prompted the latter
to issue an opinion that natural
resources, including renewable
energy, were not covered by the
constitutional limitations on
25
of developers is trying to create a
dedicated terms and conditions
AI for consumers using models
such as Open AI’s GPT-4, which
underpins ChatGPT.
Instead, many AI developers
seem to be concentrating on the
more lucrative area of creating
tools that will automate legal
work for law firms and other
companies. This could even
lead to terms less favourable to
consumers, since the focus will
likely be on cutting costs rather
than improving service quality.
To change this situation, lead
author Jens Krebs and his col-
league Ella Haig at the University
of Portsmouth have been devel-
oping a terms and conditions app
for England and Wales. When
fully developed, it will enable
people to copy and paste an en-
tire document into the prompt.
It will then list any terms that
might unexpectedly affect the
consumer, for example, by fail-
ing to meet legislative standards
such as the Consumer Rights
Act 2015. It will also compare all
terms to those used by compara-
ble vendors to ensure that noth-
ing unusual has been slipped in.
❱❱ PAGE 27 How AI might
foreign ownership.
The DOJ opinion allowed the
amendments to the Renewable
Energy Act, particularly allow-
ing foreign investors’ 100 per-
cent ownership on renewable
energy projects.
On Friday, Madrid-based
BlueFloat Energy announced
that it has chosen the Philippines
as the location of its biggest off-
❱❱ PAGE 30 BOI foreign investment
 26
Emotional intelligence is the key to more
successful entrepreneurs
BY ETAYANKARA
MURALIDHARAN, MacEwan
University, SAURAV
PATHAK, Raymond A. Mason
School of Business, William &
Mary
The Conversation
Entrepreneurs have a key role
to play in achieving the United
Nations 2030 Agenda for Sus-
tainable Development. This ac-
tion plan, which has been adopt-
ed by all UN member countries,
including Canada, was created
to tackle today’s “most pressing
social, economic and environ-
mental challenges.”
While governments play a
central role in achieving these
goals, non- and for-profit organi-
zations can accelerate this prog-
ress through innovation. That is
where entrepreneurs — anyone
who starts or owns a business —
come into the picture.
Canada has one of the highest
levels of entrepreneurial activi-
ty among developed nations and
was recently ranked the best
in the world for social entre-
preneurship. Social entrepre-
neurship focuses on addressing
social issues such as poverty, il-
literacy and discrimination.
To maintain its position as an
entrepreneurial nation, Canada
must continue to foster innova-
tion. Our recent research on how
emotional intelligence at the
societal level impacts entrepre-
neurship can help Canada, and
other nations, accomplish this.
About the study
Using entrepreneurial activity
data from the Global Entrepre-
neurship Monitor in 24 countries,
our study found that entrepre-
neurship flourishes when indi-
viduals in society possess higher
levels of well-being, adaptability,
self-control and sociability.
These are characteristics of so-
PH takes silver..
❰❰ 24 its eventual conquer-
or.
“We started slow.
We just started hitting the mark
at the half, unfortunately it was
too late. The 3x3 is a fast-paced
Business
cietal emotional intelligence — a
measure of the collective emo-
tional intelligence of a particular
society. Emotional intelligence
refers to the ability of an individ-
ual to recognize and understand
their own emotions, as well as the
emotions of others, and use this
knowledge to make decisions.
At the societal level, emotion-
al intelligence plays a vital role
in addressing challenges present
at different stages of the entre-
preneurial process, such as idea
generation, planning the launch,
and growth of an enterprise.
However, the degree to which
each characteristic of emotion-
al intelligence impacts entre-
preneurship depends on the
type of entrepreneurship.
Fostering commercial en-
trepreneurship
Our research found three
characteristics of societal emo-
tional intelligence are more like-
ly to foster commercial entrepre-
neurship: hedonic well-being,
adaptability and self-control.
Commercial entrepreneurship
leads to innovation that con-
tributes to a country’s economic
growth by generating wealth.
1. Hedonic well-being
Hedonic well-being is one of
two types of perceived well-be-
ing. It refers to an individual’s
perception of their own life sat-
isfaction, happiness, optimism
and self-esteem.
Hedonic well-being can help
individuals navigate challeng-
ing situations that arise when
working as an entrepreneur by
providing them with a sense of
control over their situation.
Individuals with high levels
of hedonic well-being are more
likely to have characteristics
associated with successful com-
mercial entrepreneurs.
2. Adaptability
Individuals with high levels
of adaptability are open to new
game so whoever blinks would
be in deep trouble and unfor-
tunately, it was us. In the later
part, we played according to our
game plan and executed well
but it was too late,” coach Ver-
information, willing to let go of
preconceived notions and capa-
ble of adjusting to new or chal-
lenging situations.
An individual’s ability to
adapt in the face of adversity
sets them apart as exceptional.
Individuals that are very suc-
cessful often possess higher
levels of adaptability.
In the context of commercial
entrepreneurship, having a high
degree of adaptability allows en-
trepreneurs to navigate uncer-
tainty and adapt to changes in
the business environment.
3. Self-control
Self-control is a mental pro-
cess that helps individuals align
their thoughts and behaviours
with their goals, particularly
during periods of adversity.
Self-control is beneficial for
commercial entrepreneurs, as it
encourages them to be mindful of
the strategies needed to keep their
goals in line with the ever-chang-
ing business environment.
Because self-control is valu-
able for managing commercial
enterprises, societies that have
more individuals with higher
levels of self-control are more
non Perea said after the game.
The men’s squad duplicated
its 2022 performance, just as
the women’s team placed fourth
anew just like last year.
The Lady Warriors absorbed
www.canadianinquirer.net
likely to facilitate commercial
entrepreneurship.
Fostering social entrepre-
neurship
Our research found two char-
acteristics of societal emotional
intelligence are more likely to
foster social entrepreneurship:
eudaimonic well-being and so-
ciability. Social entrepreneur-
ship, as previously mentioned,
leads to innovation that ad-
dresses social issues.
1. Eudaimonic well-being
Eudaimonic well-being re-
fers to an individual’s perceived
autonomy, self-acceptance,
sense of purpose and ability to
manage their environment.
The characteristics associat-
ed with eudaimonic well-being
motivate individuals to make
greater contributions to the
welfare of others through social
entrepreneurship.
While the characteristics
of eudaimonic well-being are
essential for both types of en-
trepreneurship, societies with
higher levels of eudaimonic
well-being tend to foster an en-
vironment more conducive for
social entrepreneurship.
a 5-8 setback from Laos in the
battle for third place.
Cambodia retained the title
after beating Thailand, 11-9.
“The girls played their hearts
out. I hope we carry the good
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
2. Sociability
The American Psychological
Association defines sociabili-
ty as the tendency “to seek out
companionship, engage in in-
terpersonal relations, and par-
ticipate in social activities.”
Sociability has three facets:
social awareness, emotional
management and assertiveness.
It plays a more significant role
in social entrepreneurship, so
societies with a larger amount
of individuals with this trait are
more likely to facilitate social
entrepreneurship.
Fostering emotional intel-
ligence
Entrepreneurship in Cana-
da, both commercial and social,
needs to flourish to help the
country meet its sustainable
development goals. For this to
happen, Canada should imple-
ment strategies to build emo-
tional intelligence among its
entrepreneurs.
One way Canada could do
this is by investing in programs
to monitor, assess and diagnose
ways to improve emotional intel-
ligence among entrepreneurs.
In addition, given that emo-
tional intelligence can be devel-
oped with training, businesses
and innovation hubs should de-
velop emotional competencies
among their entrepreneurs.
Finally, Canada should im-
plement education curriculum
focused on developing emo-
tional intelligence in students
to shape their entrepreneur-
ial behaviours. By equipping
students with emotional in-
telligence skills, Canada will
nurture a generation of en-
trepreneurs ready to create
wealth, tackle social challenges
and create positive change. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
vibes into the 5-on-5 matches,”
said the 52-year-old Perea, a
former member of the Ato Ba-
dolato-mentored San Beda Col-
lege Red Cubs. ■
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
Social media snaps map the sweep of Japan’s
cherry blossom season in unprecedented detail
BY ADRIAN DYER,
Monash University, ALAN
DORIN, Monash University,
CAROLYN VLASVELD,
Monash University, MOATAZ
ELQADI, Monash University
The Conversation
Social media contains enor-
mous amounts of data about peo-
ple, our everyday lives, and our
interactions with our surround-
ings. As a byproduct, it also con-
tains a vast trove of information
about the natural world.
In a new study published in
Flora, we show how social me-
dia can be used for “incidental
citizen science”. From pho-
tos posted to a social site, we
mapped countrywide patterns
in nature over a decade in rela-
tively fine detail.
Our case study was the an-
nual spread of cherry blossom
flowering across Japan, where
millions of people view the
blooming each year in a cultur-
al event called “hanami”. The
flowering spreads across Japan
in a wave (“sakura zensen” or 桜
前線) following the warmth of
the arriving spring season.
The hanami festival has been
documented for centuries, and
research shows climate change
is making early blossoming
more likely. The advent of mo-
bile phones – and social net-
work sites that allow people to
How AI might..
❰❰ 25 When it spots some-
thing unusual, it will
then advise the con-
sumer to read that part before
deciding whether to go ahead.
The project is currently at the
stage of testing the app on dif-
ferent AI models to see which is
most effective. So far Google’s
Bert is coming out best with 81%
accuracy, testing it against data
where the researchers know
Technology
upload photos tagged with time
and location data – presents a
new opportunity to study how
Japan’s flowering events are af-
fected by seasonal climate.
Why are flowers useful to
understand how nature is be-
ing altered by climate change?
Many flowering plants, includ-
ing the cherry blossoms of Ja-
pan (Prunus subgenus Cerasus),
require insect pollination. To
reproduce, plant flowers bloom
at optimal times to receive visits
from insects like bees.
Temperature is an important
mechanism for plants to trigger
this flowering. Previous research
has highlighted how climate
change may create mismatch-
es in space or time between the
blooming of plants and the emer-
gence of pollinating insects.
It has been difficult for re-
searchers to map the extent
of this problem in detail, as its
study requires simultaneous
data collection over large areas.
The use of citizen science imag-
es deliberately, or incidental-
ly, uploaded to social network
sites enables big data solutions.
How did we conduct our
study?
We collected images from Ja-
pan uploaded to Flickr between
2008 and 2018 that were tagged
by users as “cherry blossoms”.
We used computer vision tech-
niques to analyse these images,
and to provide sets of keywords
what the perfect result should be.
Nothing will be launched un-
til accuracy hits 90% to 95%.
The hope is that the app will
be made available to consum-
er groups like Which? in 2024
and then go on general release
in 2025. The intention is that it
will be free to use.
The key obstacle for such a
project is the lack of examples
of detrimental terms on which
describing their image content.
Next, we automatically filtered
out images appearing to contain
content that the computer vision
algorithms determined didn’t
match our targeted cherry blos-
soms. For instance, many con-
tained images of autumn leaves,
another popular ecological event
to view in Japan.
The locations and time-
stamps of the remaining cherry
blossom images were then used
to generate marks on a map of
Japan showing the seasonal
wave of sakura blossoms, and
to estimate peak bloom times
each year in different cities.
Checking the data
An important component
of any scientific investigation
is validation – how well does a
to train the AI – exactly the
same problem consumers face
if they are brave enough to try
to judge terms and conditions.
The long-term plan for con-
tinuing to increase accuracy in
the Portsmouth app is to sup-
plement and replace its train-
ing data with real data from
consumer organisations, the
government and consumers.
The hope is that the app will
www.canadianinquirer.net
proposed solution or data set
represent the real-world phe-
nomenon under study?
Our study using social net-
work site images was validated
against the detailed informa-
tion published by the Japan Na-
tional Tourism Organization.
We also manually examined a
subset of images to confirm the
presence of cherry flowers.
Plum flowers (Prunus mume)
look very similar to cherry blos-
soms, especially to tourists, and
they are frequently mistaken
and mislabelled as cherry blos-
soms. We used visible “notches”
at the end of cherry petals, and
other characteristics, to distin-
guish cherries from plums.
Taken together, the data let
us map the flowering event as it
be at the forefront of a new gen-
eration of AI tools designed to
make terms and conditions less
opaque. As well as potentially
reducing the number of unhap-
py consumers, these might also
help people who are already
signed up to unreasonable
terms to prepare and present
their case – thereby reducing
the need for lawyers.
If such services take off, the
27
unfolds across Japan.
Out-of-season blooms
Our social network site analy-
sis was sufficiently detailed to ac-
curately pinpoint the annual peak
spring bloom in the major cities of
Tokyo and Kyoto, to within a few
days of official records.
Our data also revealed the
presence of a consistent, and
persistent, out-of-season cher-
ry bloom in autumn. Upon fur-
ther searching, we discovered
that this “unexpected” season-
al bloom had also been noted
in mainstream media in recent
years. We thus confirmed that
this is a real event, not an arte-
fact of our study.
So, even without knowing it,
many of us are already help-
ing to understand how climate
change influences our environ-
ment, simply by posting online
photographs we capture. Dedi-
cated sites like Wild Pollinator
Count are excellent resources
to contribute to the growing
knowledge base.
The complex issues of cli-
mate change are still being
mapped. Citizen science allows
our daily observations to im-
prove our understanding, and
so better manage our relation-
ship with the natural world. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
hope would be that they also
discourage vendors from push-
ing the boundaries of what is
acceptable. If terms and condi-
tions become a bit more favour-
able to consumers, that would
be a huge win for this emerging
technology. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
28
AI clones made from user
data pose uncanny risks
BY DONGWOOK YOON,
University of British Columbia
The Conversation
Imagine, if you will, a digital
doppelgänger. A clone that looks,
talks and behaves just like you, cre-
ated from the depths of artificial
intelligence, reflecting your every
mannerism with eerie precision.
As thrilling as it might sound, how
would you feel about it?
Our research at the Univer-
sity of British Columbia turns
the spotlight onto this very
question. With advancements
in deep-learning technologies
such as interactive deepfake
applications, voice conversion
and virtual actors, it’s possible
to digitally replicate an individ-
ual’s appearance and behaviour.
This mirror image of an in-
dividual created by artificial
intelligence is referred to as
an “AI clone.” Our study dives
into the murky waters of what
these AI clones could mean for
our self-perception, relation-
ships and society. We identified
three types of risks posed by AI
replicas: doppelgänger-phobia,
identity fragmentation and liv-
Holograms and AI can bring performers back
from the dead – but will the fans keep buying it?
BY JUSTIN MATTHEWS,
Auckland University of
Technology, ANGELIQUE
NAIRN, Auckland University
of Technology
The Conversation
Fans can mourn the passing of
music legends for years, the hits
echoing long after the original
voice is silenced. Little wonder,
then, that recent advances in
holographic technology and ar-
tificial intelligence have found a
ready market for performances
from beyond the grave.
But this ability to resurrect
deceased artists in spectral
form raises fascinating ques-
tions about the ethics, artistry
Technology
ing memories.
Cloning AI
We defined AI clones as dig-
ital representations of individ-
uals, designed to reflect some
or multiple aspects of the re-
al-world “source individual.”
Unlike fictitious characters
in digital environments, these
AI clones are based on existing
people, potentially mimicking
their visual likeness, conver-
sational mannerisms, or be-
havioural patterns. The depth
of replication can vary greatly,
from replicating certain dis-
tinct features to creating a
near-perfect digital twin.
AI clones are also interactive
technologies, designed to inter-
pret user and environmental
input, conduct internal pro-
cessing and produce percepti-
ble output. And crucially, these
are AI-based technologies built
on personal data.
As the volume of personal
data we generate continues to
grow, so too does the fidelity of
these AI clones in replicating
our behaviour.
Fears, fragments and false
memories
We presented 20 partici-
and the economic implications
of these modern revival shows.
Since a holographic Tupac
Shakur headlined at Coachella
in 2012, there have been similar
tributes to Frank Zappa and Roy
Orbison. Posthumous tours have
also been staged or proposed for
Whitney Houston, Amy Wine-
house and Ronnie James Dio.
But it’s the holographic per-
formance by a still-living act that
stands as the landmark case.
ABBA, the Swedish pop sensa-
tion that ruled the charts during
the 1970s and 1980s, launched
their ABBA Voyage virtual re-
union tour in 2021, describing
the holographic versions of
themselves as “ABBAtars”.
Our recent study of the “tour”
pants with eight speculative
scenarios involving AI clones.
The participants were diverse
in ages and backgrounds, and
reflected on their emotions and
the potential impacts on their
self-perception and relation-
ships.
First, we found that doppel-
gänger-phobia was a fear not
only of the AI clone itself, but
also of its potential misuse. Par-
ticipants worried that their dig-
ital counterparts could exploit
and displace their identity.
Secondly, there was the
threat of identity fragmenta-
tion. The creation of replicas
threatens the unique individu-
ality of the person being cloned,
causing a disturbance to their
cohesive self-perception. In
other words, people worry that
they might lose parts of their
uniqueness and individuality in
the replication process.
Lastly, participants ex-
pressed concerns about what
we described as “living memo-
ries.” This relates to the danger
posed when a person interacts
with a clone of someone they
have an existing relationship
with. Participants worried that
found a mixture of fan reac-
tions, from some who found it
emotionally satisfying to others
who questioned its authentici-
ty. The results suggest we need
to know more about the enor-
mous cultural implications of
these holographic experiences.
Virtual success
While the music industry
routinely uses the term “holo-
gram” to describe such shows,
it’s not strictly accurate. A true
hologram is a 3D object pro-
duced by the intersection of
light and matter, designed to be
observed from all perspectives.
With the exception of ABBA’s
recently developed holograph-
ic concert, today’s holograms
are more akin to digital videos,
www.canadianinquirer.net
it could lead to a misrepresen-
tation of the individual, or that
they would develop an over-at-
tachment to the clone, altering
the dynamics of interpersonal
relationships.
Preserving human values
It is evident that the devel-
opment and deployment of AI
clones wield profound implica-
tions. Our study not only contrib-
utes valuable insights to the crit-
ical dialogue on ethical AI, but it
also proposes a new framework
for AI clone design that prioritiz-
es identity and authenticity.
The onus lies with all stake-
holders — including designers,
developers, policymakers and
end-users — to navigate this un-
charted territory responsibly.
where images are projected onto
a translucent screen in front of
real musicians, with the virtual
artist seeming to interact with
the band and audience. It’s sim-
ilar to the theatrical optical illu-
sion known as “Pepper’s Ghost”
used by 19th-century magicians.
Creating a convincing audi-
ence experience is a challenge,
however, as fans can be cynical
about such events, and the tech-
nology doesn’t translate well to
YouTube or in photographs.
Some find these shows feel too
much like watching a movie.
Still, the demand and enthusi-
asm for virtual concerts is rising
steadily, with impressive crowd
turnouts and fans paying as much
as US$125 for a ticket. The Roy
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
This involves conscientiously
considering moderation and
user-generated data expiration
strategies to prevent misuse
and over-reliance.
Further, it’s imperative to
recognize that the implications
of AI clone technologies on
personal identity and interper-
sonal relationships represent
just the tip of the iceberg. As we
continue to tread the delicate
path of this burgeoning field,
our study findings can serve as
a compass guiding us to priori-
tize ethical considerations and
human values above all. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
Orbison hologram tour sold an
average of 1,800 seats per show.
‘Ghost slavery’
Our ABBA Voyage study con-
firmed the reasons for this pop-
ularity. After analysing upwards
of 34,000 online comments dis-
cussing the virtual concert, we
found audience members report-
ed positive responses overall.
People mainly appreciated
the opportunity to witness the
legendary band “perform” once
more. Two comments are indic-
ative of the general feeling:
I don’t care if they’re avatars.
Nobody expected ABBA to ever
reunite in any way, shape, or
form, so this is amazing!
❱❱ PAGE 29 Holograms and AI
FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2023
Taiwan targets 320K tourists from PH
BY JOYCE ANN L.
ROCAMORA
Philippine News Agency
MANILA — Taiwan is ramp-
ing up marketing and promo-
tions to attract 320,000 tour-
ists from the Philippines as it
targets to recoup pre-pandemic
arrival figures.
The Taipei Economic and
Cultural Office (TECO) in the
Philippines on Saturday said
Filipino travelers reached
about 510,000 in 2019.
“Since Taiwan’s border has
been open to tourists since Oc-
tober 13 last year, the number
of Filipino visitors to Taiwan
PH gets Muslim-friendly
destination title
BY JOYCE ANN L.
ROCAMORA
Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The Philippines
was named as this year’s Emerg-
ing Muslim-friendly Destina-
tion at the prestigious Halal in
Travel Global Summit 2023,
Tourism Secretary Christina
Frasco announced Friday night.
The Halal in Travel Global
Summit 2023 recognizes desti-
nations, organizations, compa-
nies and individuals who have
made a significant impact on the
Muslim lifestyle travel segment.
The Emerging Muslim-friend-
ly Destination of the Year
(non-Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation member) title, giv-
en to the Philippines on June 1,
is awarded to destinations that
cater to the unique needs and
preferences of Muslim travelers.
“This award is an affirmation of
our collaborative efforts towards
positioning the Philippines as a
preferred destination for Mus-
lim travelers, and strategically
Travel
has grown rapidly, which shows
the high enthusiasm of Filipino
tourists for Taiwan,” it said in a
statement.
The Taiwan Tourism Bu-
reau Kuala Lumpur Office and
the Taiwan Amusement Park
Association held a promotion
conference in Manila over the
weekend to invite Filipinos to
visit the numerous amusement
parks across the island.
Eleven amusement parks,
six travel agencies, and three
airline representatives from
Taiwan came while more than
a hundred Philippine travel
agencies, including the Philip-
pine Travel Agencies Associa-
tion, participated from Manila.
developing our Halal Tourism
portfolio across our regions. This
global recognition also opens up
enormous opportunities for our
country to introduce our rich
and diverse culture and heritage
evident in our Muslim commu-
nities, and our immensely beau-
tiful destinations, including Min-
danao,” Frasco said.
The Muslim travel market is
seen to significantly propel the
growth of global tourism indus-
try with arrivals of Muslim trav-
elers expected to hit 140 million
by end of 2023 and about 230
million in succeeding years,
with estimated expenditures of
USD225 billion by 2028.
In the Philippines, the De-
partment of Tourism is devel-
oping the halal tourism port-
folio and has placed it high on
the priority list in the National
Tourism Development Plan
(NTDP) 2023-2028.
The DOT has also imple-
mented a wide range of services
and amenities designed to cater
to Muslim travelers.
These include the compre-
Chun-Jun, Liao, chair of the
Taiwan Amusement Park Asso-
ciation, said theme parks in Tai-
wan are diverse, some even in-
corporate Taiwan’s aboriginal
culture, hot springs, and flower
viewing, among others.
The bureau’s theme park pro-
motions are on top of its efforts
to highlight Taiwan’s night mar-
ket delicacies, cityscape, and
other popular tourism products.
To date, Taiwan remains vi-
sa-free for Filipino tourists.
Among the parks the bureau
promoted are Leofoo Village
Theme Park, Formosan Aborig-
inal Culture Village, Janfusan
Fancy World, Little Ding-Dong
Science Theme Park, Yehliu
hensive inventory of Halal-cer-
tified dining options and efforts
to increase Halal accreditations
for tourism enterprises, the con-
duct of Halal awareness orienta-
tions with tourism stakeholders,
and information dissemination
on the values, beliefs and prac-
tices of Muslim-travelers.
Recognizing global trends and
preferences of Muslim travelers,
the DOT continues to pursue
sustainable tourism develop-
ment initiatives, and recently
inked a significant agreement
with global health and wellness
tourism leader Agora to position
the Philippines towards provid-
ing quality medical and wellness
tourism offerings, especially to
the Middle Eastern market.
It also organized the very first
Mindanao Tourism Expo and
successfully staged the MICE-
CON in Davao early this year,
and led the Mindanao Tourism
Convergence in Zamboanga
City in collaboration with the
Department of the Interior and
❱❱ PAGE 30 PH gets Muslim-
www.canadianinquirer.net
Ocean World, Farglory Ocean
Park, West Lake Resortopia,
Atayal Resort, Sun-Link-Sea
Holograms and AI..
❰❰ 28 It would be so won-
derful to see them as
I remember them and
transport myself back to my
childhood. It’s like the closest
thing to time travel.
Fans also appreciated the
technical wizardry responsible
for recreating the band in its
1979 prime:
I find the fact they use the Ab-
batars instead of themselves on
stage simply an amazing idea. It
keeps us feeling young and them
timeless.
Not everyone was emotion-
ally moved, though, with some
questioning the authenticity of
the shows. This echoed previous
criticism of holographic shows
as lacking the essential “live” el-
ement of performance, and also
being exploitative – what one
critic called “ghost slavery”.
Replacing the irreplaceable
Recreating an artist is one
thing, but capturing their spirit,
charisma and spontaneous per-
formance style is where motion
capture and AI technologies are
starting to make a real difference.
The process involves a de-
tailed scan of the artist to cre-
ate a 3D digital model which AI
then refines. Next, movements
are digitised through motion
29
Forest & Nature Resort, Shang-
shun World, E-DA Theme Park
and more. ■
capture and transferred onto
the model (again using AI), rec-
reating an artist’s distinctive
performance. AI is also used to
analyse vast recording archives
to mimic the artist’s voice.
For all that, AI’s ability to cap-
ture the spontaneity and charis-
ma of live performances remains
limited. The future of holograph-
ic concerts, then, will likely de-
pend on continued technological
progress, shifting audience reac-
tions, and careful navigation of
the ethical issues raised.
Future applications could also
extend beyond music to educa-
tional displays of historical fig-
ures. Given the success of ABBA
and their Voyage experience, it
might even expand the touring
capacity of living artists.
All this requires a delicate
equilibrium: honouring the art-
ist’s legacy, acknowledging fans’
emotions, and providing an expe-
rience that genuinely transcends
present limitations. Replacing
the irreplaceable may be possible
at some level, but ultimately the
audience will decide. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
 30
Your snacks may be delicious, but are they safe?
BY HELEN ONYEAKA,
University of Birmingham
The Conversation
Food safety is a concern for Ni-
gerians after increasing reports
of food-borne illnesses in recent
years. According to the Consum-
er Advocacy for Food Safety and
Nutrition Initiative (CAFSANI),
consumption of unsafe food in
Nigeria results in about 173 mil-
lion cases of diarrhoea and ap-
proximately 33,000 deaths due
to foodborne illnesses.
The country has over the
years experienced repeated
outbreaks of diseases that can
be transmitted through con-
taminated food, including chol-
era and lassa fever.
Food safety is a global issue
affecting everyone, regardless
of location or social status. Ac-
cording to the World Health Or-
ganization, food-borne diseases
affect an estimated 600 million
people annually, resulting in
420,000 deaths globally.
Nigeria has significant chal-
lenges when it comes to food
safety – behaviour around food
hygiene. For most developing
countries, it can be difficult
to practise food safety when
clean water and sanitation ar-
en’t available. Some of the oth-
er factors that influence food
safety in Nigeria are population
growth, income inequality, long
food supply chains, education
gaps and poor regulation.
As a microbiological expert, I
am often asked, “how safe is my
snack?” The answer to this is not
straightforward. It depends on
various factors like where the
ingredients come from, and how
PH gets Muslim-..
❰❰ 29 Local Government
and the Department
of National Defense.
DOT Undersecretary Myra
Paz Valderrosa-Abubakar ac-
cepted the award on behalf of the
DOT and CrescentRating and
Food
snacks are prepared and stored.
In Nigeria, snacks are small
food items that are eaten be-
tween meals – a quick bite, as
a stand-alone treat or with a
beverage. They may be savoury
or sweet. Examples include
chin-chin, meat pie, puff-puff
(deep fried dough), sausage
rolls (gala), suya (grilled meat),
akara (bean cake), kilishi (dried
beef jerky), roasted corn, plan-
tain and groundnuts.
These are usually available
from street vendors, in local
markets and from supermar-
kets. Supermarket snacks usu-
ally come pre-packaged from
the factories while snacks pur-
chased from street vendors and
open markets are packaged in
a variety of materials such as
newspapers for suya and kilishi,
polyethylene bags for chin-chin
and puff-puff and reused plas-
tic bottles for groundnuts. This
unconventional packaging may
increase the risk of contamina-
tion with microorganisms.
There are simple and effec-
tive ways to make snacks safer
for everyone. Choosing ingre-
dients from trusted sources and
following proper food prepara-
tion and storage methods can
make a big difference.
By following the tips I offer
here, you can enjoy your snacks
and reduce the risk of food-
borne diseases. Remember, “an
ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure”.
Managing the risks
The source of ingredients:
One of the main things that affect
the safety of your snack is where
its ingredients come from. Raw
materials, including fruits, vege-
tables and animal products, can
HalalTrip, for recognizing the
efforts of the Philippine govern-
ment and tourism stakeholders.
“We hope to continue the great
stride on tourism promotion and
economic boost in our country
for our Muslim brothers and
be contaminated with harmful
microorganisms, such as bacte-
ria, viruses, and parasites.
These microorganisms can
cause food-borne illnesses if
they are not properly handled
and cooked.
To reduce the risk of contami-
nation, it is important to buy in-
gredients from trusted suppliers
who have good hygiene practices.
When buying fresh produce,
look for signs of spoilage, such as
mould, discolouration and foul
odours. Avoid buying pre-cut
fruits and vegetables, as they are
more susceptible to contami-
nation. Always wash fruits and
vegetables thoroughly with clean
running water before using them.
There are also things to
watch out for when buying pro-
cessed food. Food processing,
such as canning and freezing,
can kill harmful microorgan-
isms and extend the shelf life of
products. But poor processing
and handling can lead to con-
tamination and spoilage.
sisters who are arriving in the
Philippines and who are sure-
ly welcome to visit and explore
our more than 7,000 islands with
majestic white sand beaches and
warm people,” she said. ■
www.canadianinquirer.net
Safe handling and storage:
It’s important to follow good hy-
giene practices, such as wash-
ing your hands thoroughly with
soap and water before handling
food and using clean utensils and
equipment. To avoid cross-con-
tamination, separate raw and
cooked foods and use different
cutting boards for different types
of food. Cook food to the appro-
priate temperature to kill any
harmful microorganisms present.
Proper storage can prevent
the growth of harmful micro-
organisms and extend the shelf
life of products. Store perish-
able items, such as meats, dairy
products and cooked foods, in
the refrigerator at tempera-
tures of 40°F (4°C) or below.
Keep dry foods, such as
crackers, cookies and chips, in a
cool, dry place away from mois-
ture and heat.
Packaging and labelling:
The packaging and labelling of
snacks provide important and
valuable information about
BOI foreign investment..
❰❰ 25 shore wind projects
with 7.6 gigawatts of
planned capacity.
BlueFloat executives said the
company has yet to register the
projects with the BOI despite
securing the service contracts
JUNE 9, 2023 FRIDAY
their safety. Look out for prod-
ucts with clear, easy-to-read
labels that include information
about the ingredients, nutri-
tional content and allergens.
Products with damaged or
bulging packaging should be
avoided as this could be a sign
of contamination or spoilage.
Symptoms of food-borne
diseases
Knowing the most common
types of foodborne illnesses and
their symptoms is very import-
ant. The most common microor-
ganisms that cause food-borne
illnesses include salmonella, E.
coli, listeria and norovirus.
Symptoms of food-borne ill-
ness can range from mild, such
as nausea and diarrhoea, to se-
vere, such as kidney failure and
paralysis – the inability to move
some or all parts of your body.
If you experience or observe
any symptoms of food-borne
illness after eating a snack, seek
medical attention immediate-
ly. Food-borne infections can
spread quickly, and it is import-
ant to take preventive measures
to avoid the spread. Wash your
handsfrequently and avoid food
preparation or handling until
you fully recover.
In conclusion, ensuring the
safety of your snack requires
careful consideration of various
factors that can affect its quali-
ty and safety. These include the
source of ingredients, process-
ing and preparation methods,
storage, packaging, labelling,
and awareness of common
food-borne illnesses. ■
This article is republished
from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license.
from the Department of Energy.
Rodolfo said the BOI has
PHP1 trillion investment pledg-
es in the pipeline for the year.
BOI targets to hit PHP1.5
trillion in investment approvals
by the end of 2023. ■
 JUNE
JULY 9, 2020
17, 2023 cx328
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