Edge Davao 5 Issue 224

VICE MAYOR RODRIGO R. DUTERTE said he would not hesitate to part ways with double-faced leaders

and members of the Hugpong saTawong Lungsod, the local political party which he heads, if they persist in supporting candidates not officially endorsed by

Hugpong, and worse if these bets are identified with former House Speaker Prospero C. Nograles, his archrival.

Duterte, who is running for city may-or in next May’s elections, aired his stern

THERE are more plots to kill bombing Temu-gen “Cocoy” Tulawie now that his trial has been ordered transferred to a Regional Tri-

al Court in Manila.This was bared by lawyer Mary Ann Arnado,

secretary general of the Mindanao People’s Cau-

cus, who is one of the defense lawyers of Tulawie, a human rights activist charged with complicity

EDGEP 15.00 • 20 PAGES

www.edgedavao.netVOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013

Serving a seamless societyDAVAO

FTULAWIE, 11

FRODY, 11

Page 16The Economy

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Sports

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Page A1Indulge Page A1

Supreme Court okays petition of Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan for transfer of venue

Threats to lifeof Cocoy more

Makahadlok!

Reiterates support for Louie, Mylene, Sid

Slams Joji for use of call center against Dutertes in last election

Rody warns 2-faced Hugpong supporters

By Che Palicte and EJ Dominic Fernandez

Tulawie trial moved to Manila, but...

REVEALED. Temugen “Cocoy” Tulawie’s mother Darwisa Tulawie (left) and mother-in-law Iluminada Sangkula (right) together with Mindanao People’s Caucus secretary general lawyer Mary Ann Arnado reveal that they received information about a plot to kill Cocoy in a Manila jail that’s why they’re asking

for support that he remain detain in Davao City in the weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao yesterday. Lean Daval Jr.

VOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013THE BIG NEWS2 EDGEDAVAO

FINDIE, 11

FARISE, 11

Starting tomorrow

DR. Gay Martinez La-pus, who specializ-es in adult cancer,

said smoking is still the number one cause of can-cer.

In yesterday’s weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao specifically during the discussion on the National Cancer Con-sciousness Week with me-dia practitioners, the lady oncologist said smoking causes more than four out of five cases of lung can-cer and also increases the risk in over a dozen other cancers, including can-cer of the mouth, larynx, pharynx, nose and sinus-es and esophagus.

Dr. Lapus said smok-ing causes 80 to 90 per-cent of cancer cases and the incidence rate keeps growing, adding that the implementation of

the Sin Tax Law could decrease the number of smoking-related cancer cases.

The World Health Or-ganization (WHO) says one-third of cancer cases are preventable and one-third curable if detected early, she said.

“We would like to ad-vice people that if they want to make sure that they are positive for can-cer they should come to see a doctor for early de-tection and avoid finan-cial problems,” Dr. Gapus said, adding that if the public is educated about cancer prevention there would be less fear about it. She said many adult cancer cases are caused by unhealthy lifestyle and can be avoided if people abandon practic-es known to put at risk.

Smoking is leading cause of cancer, says oncologistBy Che Palicte

SOME 3,000 to 3,500 lawyers from all over the country are

expected to converge in Davao City for the twin events of the 40th anni-versary of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and the 14th National Conven-tion of Lawyers to open formally on Wednesday.

Lawyer Carlos Za-rate, former president of the hosting IBP Davao City chapter, told report-ers covering the weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao annex at Ecoland that the gath-ering’s formal opening at the SMX Convention Center of SM Lanang

Premier will feature for-mer Senate President Edgardo Angara, one of the earliest IBP national presidents, Senator Peter Allan Cayetano and Su-preme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno as key speakers.

“The IBP chose to hold the anniversary in Davao City because Davao now has a bigger convention center as well as in rec-ognition of the big role that Davao played in the history of the IBP,” Zarate said.

He recalled that in 1985, three Davao law-yers, namely, Larry Ilag-an, Antonio Arellano and

Marcos Risonar, were ar-rested for their relentless fight against violations of human rights prevailing at the time.

“Their case is now included in the Supreme Court Records Annotat-ed which is now known as the ‘Ilagan Doctrine’ of the Constitutional law,” Zarate said.

Some of the topics to be discussed during the event include the Man-datory Continuing Legal Education where law-yers need to get 36 units, the Framework Agree-ment on the Bangsamor-ro, the justice system and topics related to the

ongoing election season. Zarate also said that

lawyers are affected by the many new innova-tive rules implemented by the Supreme Court.

He said some of the laws in the Revised Pe-nal Code were written during the American oc-cupation in the 1930s, adding that this means, a lot of the laws are al-ready “jurassic” and should already be re-moved.”

He said certain laws have to be changed in order for them to be po-litically correct and rel-evant to the realities of the 21st century. EJDF

Thousands expected to attend national lawyers’ gab in DavaoBy EJ Dominic Fernandez

CONVENTION. Lawyer Carlos Isagani T. Zarate (left) promotes the 40th Integrated Bar of the Philippines founding anniversary and the 14th National Convention of Lawyers which will tackle various issues such as the decriminalization of libel and the

cross-border practice of law during Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao yesterday. Also in the photo is Cipriano “Peping” Domingo, author of the controversial indie film “Malan”, who talks about marketing the film internationally. Lean Daval Jr.

ISIAIAH 60:1 Arise, Shine, for the glo-ry of the Lord rises

upon you.”Pastor Danny Lag-

damen, National Director of Arise Philippines quot-ed this verse from the Bi-ble to show his optimism that Arise Davao 2013 on January 17, 18, and 19 will succeed in reaching out to, and addressing the, problems of the youth.

While announcing the event, Pastor Lagdamen said at the Kapehan sa Dabaw held at SM Ecol-and, “Arise aims to reach out to the young people in our community and all over the country and ed-ucate our youth and lead-ers to understand their

role as people of the com-munity.”

“The glory of God and the youth taking respon-sibility as part of God’s mobilization in reaching out to the young people of this generation will definitely make this event successful,” he added.

The movement al-ready has 137 volunteers coming from different churches and, because Arise aims to reach out to every city this year, it will be simultaneously happening on Quimpo Boulevard in Davao City, Oval Covered Court in General Santos City and the Sarangani Provincial Captiol Gym in Sarangani

‘Arise’ positive of its success“

UPCOMING. Pastor Danny Lagdamen of Arise Davao promotes the upcoming simultaneous Arise Davao and SOCSARGEN rallies which aim to reach out to young people and make them

closer to God in the weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao yesterday. Lean Daval Jr.

DESPITE being pulled out of the 2012 Sineng Pam-

bansa National Film Fes-tival due to a dispute be-tween the producer and the director, the indie film “Malan” will be marketed internationally.

According to Cipri-ano “Peping” Domingo, poet and former news-man who wrote the poem which was the basis of the screenplay , said a special screening of the film is scheduled this Wednes-day for a select audience whose critique will be used to subject it to fur-ther editing to enhance his eligibility in the inter-

national market. During yesterday’s

Kapehan sa Dabaw held at SM City Davao at Ecol-and, Domingo also said , his group still looking for a company that will sup-port the film’s sally into the world market.

“We want to make the film more presentable to international audiences,” he said.

The special screening is slated at the Cinema-theque Davao on Wednes-day, Jan. 16 at 10 am. and open only to invited members of media and marketing experts.

Domingo has high hopes for the Davao film

industry “because Min-danao is a melting pot of culture and every story that comes from Mindan-ao is considered ‘noble’.”

He added that the film to be screened, “will be the producer’s cut, mean-ing it will still retain the scene with the ‘torrid kissing’ which screenplay writer, Don Pagusara said, is offensive to the B’laan tribe around which the story revolves.

Domingo clarified that he does not take sides with any of the parties – director Benjamin Gar-cia or screenplay writer Pagusara of Buhilaman

Indie film ‘Malan’ vying for int’l audience: author

VOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013

BANKING on its ini-tial wins in terms of disaster response

and emergency relief, the provincial government of Davao del Norte is taking further steps in improv-ing its system to sharpen the data it gets from the ground during disasters.

The province has con-ceptualized a model for the systematic reporting of disaster loss, after Gov-ernor Rodolfo del Rosario mandated the frontline offices of the Capitol to put in place vital mech-anisms for the standard accounting of extent of damages.

He said accurate dam-age assessment following the impact of major ca-tastrophe is very useful in determining the needs of the victims and the strate-gies for appropriate assis-tance essential to help the affected areas return into normalcy.

“We must establish all the necessary systems that we can think of, so we can come up with a credible and quality re-port,” del Rosario intoned,

during the workshop on the establishment of a management informa-tion system (MIS) on the impact of disasters on agriculture held by the Provincial Agriculturist Office (PAGRO).

The governor cited the final consolidated report on the impact of

Super Typhoon Pablo to the province of Davao del Norte, which sustained damages to agriculture worth P3.562 billion, as well as, to infrastructure costing P143.8 million.

Del Rosario revealed the standard template generated at the disaster MIS workshop shall be

replicated to other front-line offices of the Capitol, such as the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Division, Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office, and Provincial Health Of-fice, among others.

After polishing it, Cap-itol will subsequently roll

out the new system to the different local govern-ment units of the prov-ince, to institute a uni-form and quick reporting of damage assessment from the affected baran-gays and municipalities.

This is very vital in producing an accurate fi-nal calamity report in the

shortest possible time, according to the governor.

Del Rosario also ap-pointed OIC-Provincial Information Officer Ro-mulo Tagalo as the official spokesperson for the me-dia and other organiza-tions seeking information directly from calamities in the province.

FPNP, 11

3EDGEDAVAO SUBURBIA

SYSTEMATIC. Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario gestures as he stressed the importance of having a systematic accounting of disaster loss in order to produce an accurate report on the extent of damages brought by calamities. [NO-BAGS]

DavNor firms up data capture system

TENSION remains high in the town of Datu Piang, Ma-

guindanao as dozens of families were forced to leave their homes after warring clans engaged in an intense gun battle that left four people killed. The incident happened during the implementation of gun ban.

Military reports said the group of Commander Benaw and Commander Duma, who have links to the Moro Islamic Liber-ation Front (MILF), at-tacked their long time adversary Commander Quiapo, a former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) commander, in the village of Damabalas Saturday morning.

The source said there has been a long feud among the warring par-ties. The motive is report-edly to avenge the death of the relatives of Ben-aw and Duma, who were killed by Quiapo in Datu Piang last year.

Police officials in the area remain mum on the incident by not respond-ing to calls and text mes-sages.

The firefight that started around 5:30 a.m. lasted for several min-utes, reports said.

A civilian who was caught in crossfire was reportedly brought to the Cotabato City hospital. [Ferdinandh Cabrera / MindaNews]

4 killed in Maguindanao firefight despite gun ban

THE Compostela Valley Province is grateful for the free plowing

services in rice and corn fields extended by the De-partment of Agriculture (DA) Regional Offices 10 and 12 to the Typhoon Pab-lo victims.

DA Region 10 sent two farm tractors while DA Re-gion 12I sent eight tractors to facilitate the plowing of the farmers’ fields.

Corn fields located at Brgy. Mapaca, Brgy. San Miguel, and Brgy. Osmeña,

and the rice fields at Brgy. Lagab, Brgy. Aurora, and Brgy. Siocon were the first barangays of the Municipal-ity of Compostela to benefit the service.

In the first week of Jan-uary alone, the rehabili-tation teams were able to plow about 61 hectares of corn field and 34 hectares of ricefield in the first 3 barangay-beneficiaries as revealed by Mr. Eduardo Sa-lomon, Area Supervisor of DA-12 Rehab Team.

This endeavor really

supports to the agri-indus-try recovery strategies set by Governor Arturo T. Uy to help the farmers pull through from the damage done by the typhoon.

Municipal Agriculturist Teodolfo Lora also shared that aside from the plowing service, certified rice seeds and vegetable seeds are also distributed. Corn seeds will also be given as soon as the weather will go back to its normal condition. [GRACE ALMEDILLA/ GILBERT CA-BAHUG, IDS-COMVAL]

DA Region extends free field plowing service to ComVal

GOVERNMENT troops clashed with around 40 members of the

Bangsamoro Islamic Free-dom Fighters (BIFF) in the remote coal-rich village of Ned in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, leaving a militia-man dead, the military said Sunday.

1Lt. Betheul N. Barber, public affairs officer of the 27th Infantry Battalion, said the firefight ensued after government troops responded to report from civilians that armed men have been sighted in the area.

The government troops have been deployed in the area two days before the firefight that occurred around 5:50 a.m. Saturday, he said.

Barber identified the slain militiaman as Rene

Amar Pernal. His body was recovered around 8:40 p.m., or around 15 hours after the encounter began, and later brought to the military patrol base in Ba-rangay Ned, about four ki-lometers from the encoun-ter site, the military official said.

Pernal was a member of the 7th CAFGU (Citizens Armed Forces Geographi-cal Unit) Active Auxiliary of South Cotabato.

Barber said the military has still no information if the armed group also suf-fered fatalities.

2Lt. Angelo Peralta, team leader of the troops that traded fire with the armed men, said the clash occurred in Ned’s Sitio Ku-milat.

Peralta said they were conducting active defense

patrol when the armed men fired on them.

He said the armed men are headed by a certain Ud-tog and a certain Mod, both from Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat.

Barber said that ad-ditional troops were de-ployed on Saturday aboard a helicopter due to the re-mote location of the area.

Another team was de-ployed on Sunday also through a helicopter ride to help in the clearing op-eration in the area, Barber said.

Barber said the armed men could have been in the area for quite some-time already, noting that Barangay Ned “has been the highway of armed men going towards Maitum in Sarangani.”

Last year, military of-

ficials in South Cotabato said that the New People’s Army was trying to estab-lish a presence in Barangay Ned.

San Miguel Energy Corp., a unit of San Miguel Corp., has set up a base camp in Barangay Ned in a bid to extract massive coal deposits in the area.

Studies showed that the Daguma Mountain Range, which straddles Ned, contains coal resourc-es of 426 million metric tons. Initial exploration and drilling has blocked 55 million metric tons of min-able reserves in 526 hect-ares of the mountain range.

San Miguel had an-nounced plans to build a coal-fired power plant with Ned as the source of raw material. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)

Gov’t troops clash with BIFF in coal-rich town

POLICE units in Re-gion12 were placed on full alert status

over the weekend in con-nection with the start of the 150-day firearms ban on Sunday in preparation for the May 13 midterm local and national elec-tions.

Chief Supt. Alex Paul Monteagudo, Region 12 police director, said Mon-day the upgrading of the area’s alert status was

part of the strategies set by the Police Regional Of-fice 12 in its comprehen-sive security plan for the upcoming elections in the region.

Region 12, which is also known as the Soccsk-sargen Region, comprises the provinces of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, North Cotaba-to and the cities of Gen-eral Santos, Koronadal, Tacurong, Kidapawan and

Cotabato.“We’re currently ob-

serving maximum per-sonnel deployment and this will continue until the end of the election pe-riod,” the official said.

As of Monday morn-ing, Monteagudo said they have completed the activation of police check-points that were assigned to specifically implement the firearms ban in the

PNP in R12 on full alert as poll gun ban starts

VOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 20134 EDGEDAVAOSCIENCE/ENVIRONMENT

AFTER a year of discussions, the barangay coun-

cil of Fuentes in Pantukan municipality has signed a Memorandum of Agree-ment (MOA) with St. Au-gustine Gold & Copper Ltd (SAGCL) to develop a man-grove forest in Sitio Bu-cana of Barangay Fuentes.

SAGCL is the Toronto–listed mining firm devel-oping the King-king Cop-per-Gold Project (KCGP) in Pantukan, Compostela Valley province.

Company and govern-ment representatives offi-cially launched the project in Sitio Bucana last month. The Department of Envi-ronment and Natural Re-sources (DENR) helped craft the MOA through its Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) in Maco, Provincial Agriculturist Office (PAGRO), and Mu-nicipal Agriculturist Office (MAO).

The project will help protect the coastal area of Sitio Bucana from further erosion as the coast line recedes. Several homes in the area have been de-stroyed by strong waves,

especially during the Habagat (west monsoon). The coastline has receded approximately 100 meters in the past five years.

Mangroves serve as coastal breakwaters when the trees a fully grown. Previous mangrove plant-ing projects near Sitio Bucana have not been suc-cessful because seedlings typically cannot survive the harsh conditions.

Barangay officials, lo-cal residents and the KCGP Technical Environmental Team agreed that while mangrove trees are the most feasible solution to combat erosion, the chal-lenge remained: how to ensure the seedlings take root during strong and high tides.

KCGP environmen-tal team members tried a new approach. Recent studies showed that cer-tain species of mangrove have a better survival rate if the seedlings can be protected from the strong tides. For the project to be successful, the KCGP team knew that they had to collaborate with gov-ernment agencies, local government and the com-

munity.Following a series of

meetings the barangay officials of Fuentes and KCGP agreed to craft a partnership agreement in which all parties had some responsibility for the project’s success. The parties include govern-ment agencies, local gov-

ernment units, KCGP and local residents.

The mangrove proj-ect covers five hectares of coastline in Brgy Fuentes. The KCGP Environmental Team has built protective fences to shield the seed-lings from weather and tides. The project will start with a thousand seedlings,

which are housed in a mangrove nursery in Sitio Bucana. If 35 percent of the seedlings survive, the project will be considered a success.

Fuentes Brgy Capt. Elizabeth Mabiscay says she appreciates KCGP’s hardwork and dedication to this project.

“Daghang salamat sa KCGP tungod kay nakita nako ilang tinuuray nga pagtabang aron masolusy-onan ang atong problema diri sa Bucana” (I’d like to thank SASI for showing their sincerest intention in helping us out with our problem here in (sitio) Bu-cana.)”, Mabiscay said.

King-King mining firm signs mangrove forest project partnership agreement

FORMER Las Pinas Rep. Cynthia Villar on Saturday led the

clean-up drive at Manila Bay in the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat & Eco-Tourism Area or LP-PCHEA where some 1,500 sacks of garbage were col-lected by thousands of vol-unteers.

Villar, also managing director of Villar Foun-dation, underscored the need to clean our environ-ment to prevent flooding.

“Protection of the envi-ronment will save us from disasters and calamities.

Calamities are added bur-den to us. It can make one poorer because all efforts would be futile if properties acquired through hard labor will only be destroyed by floods and other calamities,” explained Vil-lar.

To avert occurrence of this worst scenario, Villar cited the need to clean our rivers, our creeks and oth-

er bodies of water espe-cially Manila Bay.

She said the LPPCHEA, also called Freedom Is-land, which is accessible from the Coastal Road, is a very important area for the nearby cities of Las Pinas and Paranaque and some municipalities of Cavite to prevent flooding.

“All our waters go here, said Villar who served as Las Pinas City

congresswoman for three terms or nine consecutive years.

She said, regularly cleaning Manila Bay of tons of garbage and other debris is in consonance with the foundation’s partnership with radio DZRH.

This year’s clean-up drive has for its theme, “Makabagong Bayanihan Manila Bay Clean Up”.

The Villar Foundation had inked a Memoran-dum of Agreement (MoA) with Manila Broadcasting Company (MBC) repre-sented by radio station DZRH in its Manila Bay Cleanup drive.

“The Villar Foundation and DZRH agree that this is not only a joint coopera-tive undertaking, but more importantly, it is a major public service activity that would help contribute to the promotion of a livable, healthier and ecological sustainable Manila Bay,” read the MoA.

The Villar Foundation together with students and other volunteers also conduct weekly clean-ups. “The more partners we work with, the better it will be for the environ-ment,” she said.

First cleanup drive for the year attended by thousands of volunteers

Villar Foundation partners anew with DZRH in cleaning up Bay DID you know that

light emitting diode (LED) lamps use

only about 26% of the electricity that compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and traditional incandescent light bulbs use? Now imagine how much energy we can save if every Filipino household replaces all its older light bulbs with LED lamps.

Demand on natural resources has doubled in the last 50 years. We are currently using the equivalent of 1.5 planets to sustain our needs. Given the challenge of finite resources, we need to find ways to do more while using less energy.

Guided by this, leading renewable energy advocate World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines (WWF-Philippines) partnered with Philips Electronics and Lightings, Inc. (Philips) to help Filipinos adopt simple steps to use energy wisely and reduce their ecological impacts on the planet.

Energy efficiency simply means using the least possible amount of energy to get a job done. For the average Filipino consumer, energy efficiency is a way to reduce electricity costs and improve the planet’s health at the same time.

W W F - P h i l i p p i n e s and Philips have been

partners for two years in implementing the Bright Kidsprogram, which has educated thousands of public elementary students about energy efficiency and conservation.

This 2013, Philips has taken its commitment to protect the environment a step further by supporting Earth Hour and its accompanying climate change adaptation program, Beyond the Hour.

Providing additional support for WWF-Philippines’ sustainability and conservation programs, Philips plans to turn over 150 solar-powered lamps for the organization’s project sites, research facilities, and partner rural communities which are susceptible to power interruptions.

“Philips has partnered with WWF-Philippines again in the hopes of establishing a better and more sustainable environment. Since it is our company’s objective to improve overall the health and well-being of communities, we intend to equip and educate Filipinos with simple yet integral steps to help them use energy more efficiently while enjoying an ideal quality of life,” says Ms. Fabia Tetterroo-Bueno, Philips country manager.

Establishing a bright, sustainable future through energy efficiency


MALACANANG on Monday lauded the Philippines’ im-

provement in the Heritage Foundation’s 2013 Index of Economic Freedom as the country jumped 10 notch-es in ranking.

“The Philippines jumped 10 notches in ranking, making our econ-omy the 97th freest in the world with an Economic Freedom Score of 58.2 in contrast to last year’s rank-ing of 107th with a score of 57.1,” said Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacier-da.

Among Southeast Asian nations, Lacierda said, the Philippines re-corded the highest score improvement of 1.1 points -- “a trend of continuous growth over the past two years, bringing our coun-try even closer to the world average score of 59.6 and above the Asia-Pacific re-gional average of 57.4.”

In its 2013 Index of Economic Freedom, the Washington-based Heri-tage Foundation said the Philippines’ economic free-dom ranking in 2013 is the highest since 2006 when the country ranked 96th.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippines ranked 17th out of 41 countries even as its over-

all score was slightly below the world average.

The report noted the country’s improvements in investment freedom and freedom from corruption, outweighing a decline in business freedom, labor freedom and monetary freedom.

“Although the perceived level of corruption has declined in recent years, more effective anti-corrup-tion measures need to be institutionalized,” the Her-itage Foundation said.

The Washington-based think tank also cited the Philippine economy, which has been on a steady path of expansion, growing at an average annual rate above 4.5 percent over the past five years.

“The government has pursued a series of legis-lative reforms to enhance the entrepreneurial en-vironment and develop a stronger private sector to generate broader-based job growth,” it said.

According to the foun-dation’s index, the top 10 freest economies are Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Mauritius, Denmark and the United States.

In Southeast Asia, the Philippines trailed Malay-

sia (56th) and Thailand (61st), but was ahead of In-donesia (108th) and Viet-nam (140th).

Lacierda said the Aqui-no administration was “encouraged” with the country’s improvement in

the Heritage Foundation’s 2013 Index of Economic Freedom.

“This prominent inter-national evaluation shows continued improvement in the business of governing our country. We take this

as an affirmation of the goals we have set out to achieve and a recognition of how far we have gone to realize the potentials of our people and country,” he noted.

“Legislative reforms

pursued by the Aquino administration were also noted which are seen to en-hance the entrepreneurial environment and develop a stronger private sector to generate broader-based job growth,” he added. [PNA]

5EDGEDAVAO THE ECONOMY

PET FISH. A lady chooses from an array of different variety of pet fishes on display on a sidewalk along J.P. Laurel Avenue last night. Pet fish breeding, a popular trend

during the 1980’s, is trying to make a dramatic comeback in this digital generation where children are more interested in computer and video games. Lean Daval Jr.

PHL jumps 10 notches in ranking of countries with freest economies


FASTER court action on err-ing tax payers has inspired and made the Bureau of

Internal Revenue (BIR) more re-solved to collect revenues.

The year, the revenue col-lection agency has increased its individual income tax collection target for 2013 to P258.14 bil-lion, up 16.4 percent against last year’s P221.77 billion. Collec-tion from individual taxpayers accounts for about 20 percent of BIR’s revenues, according to BIR Deputy Commissioner Estela V. Sales.

She expressed confidence that with the success of the agency’s Run After Tax Evaders (RATE) program, more people will be vigilant in reporting those who are not paying cor-rect taxes. The Supreme Court’s (SC) 2012 last year affirmed a decision of the Court of Tax Ap-peal (CTA) convicting one Glo-ria Kintanar and her husband, Benjamin Kintanar, for tax eva-sion.

Gloria Kintanar, a former distributor of the Forever Liv-ing Products, was convicted by CTA based on “willful blind-ness” ruling, which disallows taxpayers to blame their ac-countants for their fraudulent returns. Gloria Kintanar is now in hiding. Her husband has ap-plied for probation, which the

CTA rejected citing that he is not qualified for the probation.

“In the past, the agency’s batting average at the Depart-ment of Justice was dismal if you look at the number of cas-es that actually make it to the courts. Now, the increase in the

number of cases that reach the Court of Tax Appeals is much higher,” Sales said.

The statement said tax eva-sion incidence in the country is high, according to records.

Citing data from the Profes-sional Regulation Commission

(PRC), BIR said there are about three million registered pro-fessionals in the country and about 190,000 of these are doc-tors and lawyers “who charge higher fees and have higher incomes.” BIR may improve tax collection from them. [PNA]

6 EDGEDAVAOTHE ECONOMY

MONTHLY AVERAGE EXCHANGE RATE (January 2009 - December 2011)

Month 2012 2011 2010

Average 43.31 45.11December 43.64 43.95November 43.27 43.49October 43.45 43.44

September 43.02 44.31August 42.42 45.18

July 42.81 46.32June 43.37 46.30May 42.85 43.13 45.60April 42.70 43.24 44.63

March 42.86 43.52 45.74February 42.66 43.70 46.31January 43.62 44.17 46.03

Stat Watch5.8%

1st Qtr 2012

6.4 %1st Qtr 2012

USD 4,931million

May 2012USD 4,770

millionApr 2012USD -135

millionApr 2012USD -209

millionMar 2012

P 4,580,674 million

Apr 2012

4.1 %May 2012P131,403

millionMay 2012

P 5,075 billion

Apr 2012

P 42.78Jun 2012

5,091.2May 2012

130.1 Jun 2012

2.8 Jun 2012

3.7 Jun 2012

349,779Apr 2012

18.8 %Jan 2012

7.2 %Jan 2012

1. Gross National IncomeGrowth Rate(At Constant 2000 Prices)

2. Gross Domestic ProductGrowth Rate(At Constant 2000 Prices)

3. Exports 1/

4. Imports 1/

5. Trade Balance

6. Balance of Payments 2/

7. Broad Money Liabilities

8. Interest Rates 4/

9. National Government Revenues

10. National government outstanding debt

11. Peso per US $ 5/

12. Stocks Composite Index 6/

13. Consumer Price Index 2006=100

14. Headline Inflation Rate 2006=100

15. Core Inflation Rate 2006=100

16. Visitor Arrivals

17. Underemployment Rate 7/

18. Unemployment Rate 7/

Cebu Pacific Daily 5J961 / 5J962 5:45 Manila-Davao-Manila 6:15Zest Air Daily Z2390 / Z2390 5:45 Manila-Davao-Manila 6:25Cebu Pacific Daily 5J593 / 5J348 6:00 Cebu-Davao-Iloilo 6:30Philippine Airlines Daily PR809 / PR810 6:10 Manila-Davao-Manila 7:00Philippine Airlines Daily PR819 / PR820 7:50 Manila-Davao-Manila 8:50Cebu Pacific Daily 5J394 / 5J393 7:50 Zamboanga-Davao-Zamboanga 8:10Cebu Pacific Daily 5J599 / 5J594 8:00 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 8:30Cebu Pacific Daily 5J347 / 5J596 9:10 Iloilo-Davao-Cebu 9:40Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri/Sun 5J963 / 5J964 9:40 Manila-Davao-Manila 10:10Philippine Airlines Daily PR811 / PR812 11:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 12:20Cebu Pacific Daily 5J595 / 5J966 12:00 Cebu-Davao-Manila 12:30Silk Air Mon/Sat MI588 12:55 Davao-Cebu-Singapore 09:05Cebu Pacific Thu 5J965 / 5J968 12:55 Manila-Davao-Manila 13:25Cebu Pacific Tue/Wed//Sat 5J965 / 5J968 13:35 Manila-Davao-Manila 14:05

Silk Air Mon/Sat MI588 / MI588 18:55 Davao-Singapore 13:35 Silk Air Wed/Sun MI566 / MI566 18:55 Davao-Singapore 15:20Silk Air Thurs MI551 / MI551 15:45 Davao-Singapore 12:05Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri 5J507 / 5J598 15:00 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 15:30Philippine Airlines August 15:55 Mani2Mani 16:50Zest Air Daily Z2524 / Z2525 16:05 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 16:45Cebu Pacific Daily 5J967 / 5J600 16:35 Manila-Davao-Cebu 17:05Philippines Airlines Daily PR813 / PR814 16:55 Manila-Davao-Manila 17:45Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Thu/Sat 5J215 / 5J216 18:00 Cagayan de Oro-Davao-Cagayan de Oro 18:20Cebu Pacific Daily 5971 / 5J970 18:40 Manila-Davao-Manila 19:10Cebu Pacific Tue/Sat/Sun 5J973 / 5J974 20:00 Manila-Davao-Manila 20:30Cebu Pacific Daily 5J969 / 5J972 20:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:00Airphil Express Daily 2P987 / 2P988 20:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:00Philippine Airlines Daily except Sunday PR821 / PR822 21:20 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:50Philippine Airlines Sunday PR821 / PR822 22:20 Manila-Davao-Manila 22:50

as of august 2010

SIN TAX. Dr. Antonio Ybiyernas of Central Lab (left) believes that the passing of for Sin Tax Law will be a key factor in the decline of the smoking problem of the country in the weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao yesterday.

Listening at right is lawyer Carlos Isagani T. Zarate who promoted the 40th Integrated Bar of the Philippines founding anniversary and the 14th Nation-al Convention of Lawyers. Lean Daval Jr.

BIR exec lauds faster court action on erring tax payers

SUN Broadband, the wire-less broadband service of Sun Cellular, has an-

nounced its exciting partner-ship with MCA Music, Inc. that will provide subscribers free original music content online through its new product, Sun Broadband Entertainment Stick. This partnership will also help address the growing on-line piracy business in the Phil-ippines.

A first-of-its-kind, Sun Broadband Entertainment Stick is a Sun-powered broad-band modem which comes with 20 record-breaking songs from MCA Music Inc.’s “Hottest Hits… Ever!” album and lets us-ers download 10 songs of their choice per month for free!

“We are thrilled and hon-

ored to partner with MCA Music Inc. to offer our subscribers a revolutionary product that not only gives consistent, fast and reliable internet in one power-ful package but also special ac-cess to the newest songs every month for free. Sun Broadband Entertainment Stick guarantees our subscribers that they only get the freshest and hottest mu-sic from a legitimate source,” said Ricky Peňa, Sun Cellular Senior Vice President for Mar-keting.

He added, “This product is ideal for our subscribers who are also music enthusiasts. And on top of free music, subscrib-ers can expect more exciting surprises and deals from us in the future, such as exclusive web content.”

MCA Music Inc. is the Philip-pine division of Universal Mu-sic Group which is the world’s largest music company. Cris Hermosisima, Business Devel-opment Manager of MCA Music Inc., shared “Sun Broadband Entertainment Stick is the per-fect tool to go online. With this product, subscribers can be as-sured that quality music is just one click away”.

Under this partnership, Sun Broadband and MCA Music Inc. have also launched the “Sun Broadband Quest” – a battle of broad music styles among university bands all over the country. This competition is open to all unsigned and am-ateur college bands composed of 3 to 5 members between 16 to 25 years old. The winning

band will receive P150, 000 cash prize, record deal, guar-anteed gigs plus their own mu-sic video.

Above photo shows (from left to right): Mark Rosales (MCA Music Inc. Digital Man-ager), Cris Hermosisima (MCA Music Inc. Business Develop-ment Manager), Ricky Peňa (Sun Cellular Senior Vice Pres-ident for Marketing), Karen Capellan (Sun Cellular Senior Manager for Sun Broadband), Juan Manuel Chan (Sun Cellular Manager for Sun Broadband)

For more information about Sun Broadband Entertainment Stick, visit www.sunbroadband.ph/downloads. For more infor-mation about Sun Broadband Quest, visit www.sunbroad-band.ph/bandquest.

Sun Broadband announces exciting partnership with MCA Music Inc.


SEVENTEEN out-of-school youth (OSY) from District 2 com-

pleted the four-weekend plumbing training given through Davao City Wa-ter District’s “May Bukas Ka Bata!” program. The training was conducted at the University of South-eastern Philippines during weekends from November 16 and until December 17, 2012.

The skills training is a joint project entered into by DCWD and USEP to help OSY’s get alternative education that would help equip them with the nec-essary skills, knowledge, values, competencies and entrepreneurial abilities they need in order to be competitive for employ-ment. The memorandum of agreement for the pro-gram was signed by acting general manager Edwin V. Regalado and USEP presi-dent Dr. Perfecto A. Alibin on June 5, 2012.

In this project DCWD shouldered the training expenses and monitored the trainees’ performance throughout the course of the program. USEP, on the other hand, conducted the training on plumbing and provided the trainer

and training certificates of completion. Both partners conducted evaluation at the middle and end of the training period to test the

capabilities of the trainees.For many years now,

DCWD has been creating linkages with partners in order to maximize the ef-

ficiency of its projects in-cluding the ones under its community relations pro-gram. Aside from provid-ing alternative education

to unprivileged youths, DCWD also offers educa-tional assistance, health care programs, gender and development activities, wa-

ter and sanitation projects, environmental protection campaigns and communi-ty extension undertakings. [Jovana T. Duhaylungsod]

7EDGEDAVAO MOTORINGCOMMUNITY SENSE

“May Bukas Ka Bata!” program benefits 17 out-of-school youth. Trainees learn and enjoy plumbing skills during one of the classes of the four-weekend training.

DCWD trains out-of-school youth on plumbing

A total of 1, 146 job-seekers qual-ified for different

jobs, including 37 per-sons who were hired-on-the-spot during the job fair initiated by Senior City Councilor De Carlo “Oyo” L. Uy as a way of “giving back” to Tagu-meños in time for this 28th birthday last Janu-ary 12, 2012.

Thousands of Tagu-meños went to Tagum City Trade and Cultural Center to take part in the fifth year of the annu-al one-stop service fair spearheaded by Council-or Uy in partnership with the Department of Labor and Employment, the

National Statistics Office, the Professional Regula-tion Commission and this city’s Public Employment Service Office.

PESO Manager Nil-da Garcia said there are about 36 local agencies and 22 overseas recruit-ment agencies who par-ticipated in the said one-day job fair dubbed “Pa-sasalamat ni OYO – Han-dog sa Tagumeño Year 5.”

Aside from the job fair, thousand others availed of the mobile re-newal of PRC licenses as well as the authentica-tion of birth certificates by NSO.

Data supplied by PESO listed 1, 362 indi-

viduals who were able to avail of the NSO authen-tication while there are 170 professionals who renewed their profes-sional licenses, with 74 others still need to be processed this week.

A free legal consul-tation was also offered during the event.

In a statement, Coun-cilor Uy stressed the im-portance of this event as this adds convenience to Tagumeños and by not worrying for addition-al expense especially in fare noting that these services are only offered in the regional offices in Davao City. [Louie Lapat /CIO Tagum]

1,146 qualify for work in Oyo Job Fair 2013 THE province of

Davao del Norte is now on the resto-

ration and rehabilitation phase after a little more than a month of facing agriculture and infra-structure damage due to Typhoon Pablo.

“We are implementing a four-phase approach including preparedness, mitigation, response and rehabilitation,” Davao del Norte Assistant Provin-cial Administrator Romu-lo Tagalo said.

We are now on the fourth phase of our disas-ter efforts, he said, and the Provincial Engineer-ing Office (PEO) is prepar-ing its plan to repair and restore the Suaon-RCDG bridge in Kapalong which

is originally worth P25 million but requires P18 million to restore.

Tagalo said the prov-ince also have to repair and restore bailey or connecting and hanging bridges damaged by the typhoon. These bridges will require P5 million to repair, he said.

The concerned offices, he said, are preparing the program of work for the different infrastructure projects requiring repair and rehabilitation while the PEO is conducting an inventory of the extent of the damage.

He said the province has already included in its 2012 budget a P20-mil-lion floating backhoe which will help in de-silt-

ing the rivers.Davao del Norte Gov-

ernor Rodolfo del Rosario has given the department heads up to January 15 to come up with a complete assessment of the extent of the typhoon’s damage in preparation for the re-lease of the calamity fund from the Department of Budget and Management.

Tagalo said initial re-ports show that agricul-tural damage in the prov-ince due to the typhoon has reached P38 billion affecting 16 thousand hectares of land. He said infrastructure damage is estimated at P143.8 million but the amount required to repair it amounts to P240.8 mil-lion.[LAC]

DavNor now in restoration phase

DEPARTMENT of So-cial Welfare and De-velopment (DSWD)

has set the rate for all Cash for Work (CFW) jobs at P226 per day effective January 2013 to ensure a standardized implemen-tation of the government’s program.

The standardization of the CFW rate was raised as an issue by internation-al partners working with the different Philippine government agencies for the relief and rehabilita-tion of communities rav-

aged by Typhoon Pablo in Compostela Valley and in Davao Oriental.

“The CFW rate is 75 percent of the daily wage set by the Labor Depart-ment which present-ly amounts to P301 so the allowed CFW rate is P225.75 per day,” DSWD XI Institutional Devel-opment Division Chief Ma. Elena Labrador said. However, she said, DSWD has pegged the CFW rate at P226 effective January this year for uniformity. [LAC]

DSWD sets cash for work rate at P226 per day

MORE humanitar-ian aid arrived from Indonesia

Saturday for the survivors of Typhoon Pablo in the hardest hit areas in Davao Region as relief and reha-bilitation effort continues to bring back normalcy on the affected communities.

Captain Severino Da-vid, deputy commander and spokesperson of the Eastern Mindanao Com-mand formally received

the goods brought in by Commodore Ari Soedewo of the Indonesian Armed Forces on board naval vessel Kri Makasaar 7:00 pm Saturday at the Sasa Wharf.

The goods consist-ed of 2,000 tons of rice, blankets and tents.

It was the third sor-tie conducted by Indo-nesian government for the typhoon survivors in South-eastern Mindanao.

The Indonesian Na-tional Defense Force handed relief goods and cash assistance to the government in December 10 at the Davao Interna-tional Airport.

The delegation was welcomed by Lt. General Jorge Segovia, command-er of the Eastern Mindan-ao Command.

On December 28, 2012, Agung Laksono, minister of Social Wel-

fare of Indonesia handed more assistance of the Indonesian government to Undersecretary Vilma Cabrera of the Depart-ment of Social Welfare for the survivors of the storm.

The additional Indo-nesian aid came in form of 2,000 tons of rice and 12 tons of tarpaulin, blankets and food. [PIA 11-Joey Sem G. Dalump-ines]

Indonesia sends more aid to typhoon Pablo victims


‘Poet and Peasant’ now on

a fade-out

8 EDGEDAVAO

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POOLED EDITORIAL

Pass the FOI bill now

QUICK and correct action. This is the best and justly deserved path for the House of Represen-

tatives to take on the Freedom of Infor-mation (FOI) bill.

Slow and wrong. This is the worst and justly reasonable judgment that Filipino voters would have of the House members, most especially of those seeking reelection in May 2013, should the FOI fail to pass.

Time, the dribble drivel in the House, and an Executive seemingly less than lame in his support for the bill – the odds seem stacked against the passage of the FOI bill in the 15th Congress. This is even as the Senate had passed its version of the bill on third and final reading before last Christmas.

Only nine session days remain from Jan. 21, when lawmakers return to work after a month-long holiday break, to Feb. 6, 2013, after which lawmakers will have another extended break and plunge into election campaign mode. They will have just three more session days in June intended mainly for clos-ing ceremonies, before adjourning sine die to give way to the incoming 16th Congress on June 30, 2013.

Failure by the incumbent House to pass the FOI up to third reading, so it could be submitted to bicameral action thereafter, in the coming nine session days is certain death for the bill in the 15th Congress. Legislative work on the bill will revert to step one yet again in the 16th.

This is why only quick, focused ac-tion to pass the FOI bill is the absolute-ly correct path for the 280-odd mem-bers of the House to take, in their last nine session days before the election campaign kicks off.

It avoids wasteful spending of scarce taxpayers’ money on legislative work that often starts and ends as mere ver-bal jousts among lawmakers.

It is, most assuredly, also the right thing for the House to do.

The FOI bill implements the state policy of transparency and account-ability that the Constitution we Filipi-nos ratified in 1987 explicitly and fully

guarantees.Passing the FOI bill is thus a con-

stitutional obligation that lawmakers have had to fulfill, to do right by all cit-izens, from 25 years ago.

Passing the FOI bill is a public good that trumps any and all supposed pri-vate concerns that a few lawmakers claim are the reasons why they do not favor FOI and insist on loading it up with right-of-reply (ROR) provision. They have had, they say, fallen victim to negative reporting by the news me-dia.

Lawmakers that they are, they must be well aware of the Constitutional principle of “a public office is a public trust,” the very reason why the news media and all citizens must pry and probe, critique and censure, and re-port news good and bad about issues and events vested with public interest.

Libel laws, codes of ethics, and self-regulation mechanisms are fully observed in most news media agen-cies. There are no reasons that are writ in law for these few lawmakers opposed to the FOI to now dangle ROR as a precondition to their vote. In this instance, it is clear that to them, ROR is truly just a monkey wrench to kill the bill.

We, the newspapers, television net-works, radio stations, online and in-dependent media agencies, and cit-izen journalists of this nation state here and now clearly our expectations of the House of Representatives: Get back to work, assure a quorum, pass the FOI bill in your last nine session days.

You have all promised and sworn to serve by matuwid na daan, transpar-ency, and accountability in govern-ment, and we expect nothing less than clear, concrete results on your prom-ises.

It is election season once more and you are all likely to offer more prom-ises to get elected. But before we vote, we ask you to finish your unfinished business. Start with one you swore to deliver two decades and a half ago: Pass the FOI bill now.

VANTAGE POINTS

( 1st of two parts )

By Honor Blanco caBieSPECIAl FEATURE

WEEKEND guests inside this off-urban resort in the border of Quezon and Laguna south-

east of Manila were treated recently to a string ensemble interpretation of the Austrian composer’s composition “Poet and Peasant.”

The musical masterpiece used to be the opening number, an overture as it were, in formal town gatherings and school functions where orchestras – complete with the reeds, the percus-sions, and the wind instruments – played the nearly 12-minute composition in the different time signature and stress.

For the past nearly a score, bands invited to play ballroom music during town fiestas no longer play the over-tures of old – they now dish out popu-lar tunes with leggy silhouettes dancing to the rhythm of fast numbers to the amusement of the captive audience.

Franz von Suppé or Francesco Sup-pé Demelli , an Austrian composer of light operas, is credited for four dozen operettas and the “Poet and Peasant” overture composed in 1846, a favorite of full Philippine orchestras in the 1950s until opening numbers were changed by present-day bands.

But when the string ensemble, with its restless strings, played the von Suppe’s composition among its rep-ertoire that weekend, many in the au-dience, some of them in their 50s and above, were completely overwhelmed by the interpretation and the memory.

Some seniors were visibly touched by the classic air, remembering the sere-natas of the 1950s and the 1960s played by at least a 25-piece small town band in the countryside.

Some younger people in the audi-ence began to stroll down memory lane, remembering the concerts at the Rizal Park, colloquially called Luneta, by the Manila Bay, where bands from towns in the city’s outskirts played martial mu-sic to the delight of afternoon weekend promenenaders.

The concerts at the Rizal Park are continuing these days, but the serenatas in the country have been overtaken by CDs and DVDs bought from the nearest department stores if not brought in from the metropolis by visiting residents.

A northerner, himself a trombonist in his youth in the 1960s, still remembers the weekends in Paoay, the town which at the time had three major bands of at least 40 members each, doing afternoon serenatas beside the two-story town hall in the heart of town near the now United Nations heritage-listed Roman Catholic church.

Their weekend repertoire included overtures and martial music which al-ways gave great pleasure to the popu-lation, mostly farmers and fishermen as well as civic leaders and home-grown professionals.

It was soothing to hear any of the three bands – The Majestic, the Smart, and the Rhythm Masters – play, on alter-nating weekends, von Suppe’s “Poet and Peasant” and other operettas, a genre of light music in terms of subject matter.

And they always heard, among many familiar classic compositions that were part of the culture of that generation, “Haydn Concerto in e flat Minor,” the first movement of the opus of Austrian-born Franz Joseph Haydn, acknowledged as a great composer of the classical era.


THAT so-reported shootout on Mar-harlika Road in Atimonan, Quezon in the afternoon of last January 6

was a loud post-New Year greeting for President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and the Filipinos. The echo was loud, still ringing in the national media for almost a week – the message resounding.

The two sides in the shootout so-re-ported were a police-military contingent manning a checkpoint and a three-car convoy of suspected members of a crime syndicate that fired at the lawmen in-stead of stopping when flagged down. That story is familiar.

Two of the cars – Montero SUVs – were peppered with bullets, in the pic-ture looking like sieves; the third car was able to turn around and flee. That, too, is familiar.

Eleven in the two cars were instant-ly killed; two others died on the way to the hospital. There were no survivors to answer questions. On the lawmen’s side, only the police officer in command of the checkpoint, standing behind another of-ficer flagging the convoy to stop, suffered leg and arm wounds. Even that is not un-familiar.

Two reports said ten guns were re-covered from the two cars – eight caliber 45 pistols and two (M-14 and M-16) ri-

fles; in a third report, 11 caliber 45 and one 9mm pistols, one M-14 rifle and one M-16 carbine. Evidently, the suspected criminals were outgunned – explaining the lack of details about the shootout and in damage on the checkpoint. That was a one-sided “shootout”.

Among the slain suspected “crimi-nals” were a top official of Region IV-A Police Command and his two aides; three identified as military men – one belong-ing to the air force and two to the intel-ligence service (the two, officially denied as impostors); and seven others linked with “jueteng” – including one as the top operator in Southern Tagalog, who was also in security agency business but a suspected hea of a gun for-hire group. These are intriguing elements.

The immediate relatives of the “shootout victims” denied the accusa-tions that their loved ones were in illegal and criminal business. By their accounts, the victims were not only innocents but were respectable and exemplary mem-bers of society. The police and military men were officially reported to have no

criminal records; one victim was a mu-nicipal administrator and a civic leader; two were elected barangay officials. The relatives cried “rubout” and filed charges. That, too, is not new or unexpected.

Initially, the Palace supported the police report of the incident as “a legiti-mate operation” and “a shootout” (The Philippine Star, January 8, 2013: Killed in shootout: 3 cops, 3 soldiers). But in an Inquirer report, the President reversed the earlier position (Philippine Daily In-quirer, January 10, 2013: Aquino doubts Quezon encounter was a shootout, cites inconsistencies). And he ordered the Na-tional Bureau of Investigation as the sole agency to investigate the incident. While unfortunate, the flip-flop is not new.

In the above are facts of the “cops shoot cops” in capsules – the reports being updated by the hours. Loud is the echo: The crime fighters are deeply in-volved in crimes!!! This is clearly implied in the focus of the investigation ordered – more than just on the facts of the so-re-ported shootout, on the association of the police on both sides of the shootout with persons or groups engaged in illegal ac-tivities. As reported in the media, sourc-es within the Philippine National Police have called the shootout an eruption of “jueteng war”.

MANNY Pacquiao is in a hurry.He wants to immediately re-

deem himself from two succes-sive losses, the last of which was an em-phatic knockout defeat from longtime nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez.

His camp insists the congressman from Sarangani is raring and aching to go after a long vacation in Israel where he cloistered himself with his family, away from the maddening coterie of friends and hangers on which leaves a question whether his extended vacation really did his health being any good.

Pacquiao was suspended by the Ne-vada State Athletic Commission for 120 days, 90 of which he is barred from do-ing any contact activity related to box-ing. The 120-day suspension effectively slammed the door for an April fight for Pacquiao in Las Vegas.

Now, his camp is looking at three possible countries where Pacquiao can start his long climb back to the top of boxing world.

Singapore, Macau and Dubai have been mentioned as possible venues for his next fight, possibly in April. These places serve double purpose for Pac-quiao. One, they offer the Filipino box-ing champion some tax relief. And, more importantly, they enable Pacquiao to conveniently skirt the Nevada suspen-sion.

Fighting and finding a suitable op-ponent for an early return in the ring for Pacquiao should be hassle free. But guaranteeing another huge pay day may not be that easy.

Pacquiao will have to take a consid-

erable pay cut if he cannot fight in Las Vegas, where all roads to big money fights lead to.

But a good tune-up fight for a Septem-ber fifth fight with Marquez is not bad if Pacquiao wants to exact revenge from the Mexi-can.

The Marquez loss was not only a dev-astating blow to Pacquiao’s air and aura of invincibility. It also wrought havoc to his plans leading to eventual retirement before the 2016 Philippine general elec-tions when he plans to run for senator.

More importantly, the loss took away some sheen from his lucrative endorse-ment deals. Nobody wants to see their logo emblazoned on the seat of his pants the way Pacquiao laid face down and motionless in that Marquez defeat. Cor-porate sponsors will be having second thoughts about striking a new deal with Pacquiao. Not, if they cannot help stop replays of that punch that sent Pacquiao to dreamland.

But as I stated before, Pacquiao’s loss to Marquez was not a dominant defeat. He was on his way to finally stopping Marquez. Except that he walked into that straight right of Marquez.

In the aftermath, questions were raised about Pacquiao’s state of health

although he has been cleared of any contusions and serious brain damage by Nevada health officials following the KO loss. But many, too, fear the cumulative effect of Pacquiao’s intense fights could lead to long term brain damage, one that will slowly affect his motor skills long or shortly after he retires from boxing.

The business side of boxing in Pac-quiao is dictating that he continues to strike while the proverbial iron is still hot.

Pacquiao himself cannot wait any longer to prove he still has what it gets to be a marquee fighter and a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. may yet cap his Hall of Fame bound career.

Pacquiao has done it before – come back from decisive defeats. Two of those defeats (against Rustico Torrecampo and Medgeon Singsurat) were knock-outs and he rose to become a more dev-astating fighter. His decision loss to Erik Morales even propelled him to greater heights by avenging the only loss that he was decisively outfought. He routed Mo-rales in two rematches – each of those revenges ended up in stoppage victories.

Then came that Marquez debacle. Forget about that Timothy Bradley high-way stickup early in 2012.

There is no doubt Pacquiao will again rise to challenge. But time element is no longer on his side. The window of op-portunity is closing in.

Think about these and you will real-ize why Pacquiao is in a hurry.

[Edwin G. Espejo writes for Min-daNews and www.asiancorrespondent.com.]

Economic optimism in 2013

VANTAGE POINTSEDGEDAVAO 9

Long climb back to the top

Cops Shoot Cops: Echo Clear( 1st of two parts )

( 1st of two parts )

By anatole KaletSKyCOMMENTARY

By Patricio P. DiazMINDA NEWS

WILL the world economy be in better shape in 2013 than 2012? The Economist asked

me to debate this question with Mo-hamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of PIMCO, the world’s biggest bond fund. El-Erian is the author of When Markets Collide, a brilliant book that coined the term “New Normal” to de-scribe the world’s inevitable descent into a Japanese-style era of stagnation after the 2008 financial crisis. I was delighted by the invitation because I wrote a book at about the same time, taking a very different view of the cri-sis – and many of my predictions fi-nally look like they will be realized in 2013.

In Capitalism 4.0, I argued that the crisis would create a new model of global capitalism, one based neither on the blind faith in market forces that followed the Great Inflation of the 1970s nor on the excessive gov-ernment intervention inspired by the Great Depression of the 1930s. While this new species of capitalism would doubtless go through a painful period of evolution, its character would be fundamentally optimistic because it would be driven by four historic trans-formations. Those transformations helped trigger the 2008 crisis, but their roots are in the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

First, the end of the initial wave of communism created a world that was unified under a single property-based economic system. Second, the opening of China and India added 3 billion pro-ducers and consumers to global mar-kets. Third, the revolution in informa-tion technology made globalization possible by slashing communications and logistics costs. Fourth, the world-wide adoption of pure paper money money not backed by gold, silver, cur-rency pegs or any other arbitrary stan-dards of value allowed governments to stabilize macroeconomic cycles to a previously unimaginable degree.

These powerful megatrends in-spired economic optimism, but for that very reason they created financial bubbles, followed by inevitable busts. The tragedy of 2008 was that a blind faith in markets dissuaded govern-ments from properly managing these boom-bust cycles, thereby creating an unprecedented financial collapse. That crisis, however, is now over. Pol-icymakers and voters have recognized that markets cannot be left to their own devices. Economies need to be managed. As a result, a new model of managed global capitalism is evolving, and gradually replacing the market fundamentalism that dominated the world from the Reagan-Thatcher peri-od until 2008.

My book, published in 2010, was before its time – which can be a euphe-mism for “plain wrong.” But events in 2013 are starting to fit into my optimis-tic framework for three broad reasons. Short-term cyclical forces are turning positive. Long-term trends in global-ization and technology are regaining momentum. And economic policy revo-lutions are becoming entrenched from Washington to Frankfurt to Tokyo.


THE Philippines has entered the official election period Jan.

13 but does that mean candidates running in the midterm polls can start campaigning?

Not so fast, the poll chief said Monday, in a subtle jab at politicians popularly tagged as “epal” for ubiquitous “premature campaigning”.

“Official campaigning

should not begin until the start of the campaign pe-riod, Commission on Elec-tions Chairman Sixto Bril-lantes said via Twitter.

’Election period’ is dif-ferent from the ‘campaign period’. I hope politicians will not mistake one for the other,” Brillantes said in an-other post.

This, as he noted that the campaign period starts only on Feb. 12, 2013 for

national candidates, name-ly those eyeing Senate seats. For local candidates, the official campaign peri-od is set to start March 29, 2013, Brillantes tweeted.

Last September, how-ever, the poll chief admit-ted that his hands are tied when it comes to prema-ture campaigning. Brillan-tes cited a Supreme Court ruling which said that per-sons who have filed certif-

icates of candidacy shall only be considered can-didates at the start of the campaign period.

He meanwhile ap-pealed to the media last October to be circumspect about granting interviews with politicians running in the May 2013 elections. This, as Brillantes noted that the interviews may give candidates “unneces-sary exposure,” which he said is tantamount to “indi-rect campaigning”.

The Comelec chair-man also reminded the public that apart from carrying firearms, the fol-lowing are prohibited acts during the election sea-son (Jan 13 to June 12): -transfer or movement of officers and employ-ees in the civil service; -use of security personnel or bodyguards by candi-dates, unless authorized in writing by the Commission; -organization or main-tenance of reaction forc-es, strike forces o oth-er similar forces; and -suspension of elective lo-cal officials.

MILLIONS of Hindu pilgrims led by naked ash-cov-

ered holy men streamed into the sacred river Gan-ges on Monday, for a re-cord-breaking start to the world’s biggest religious festival.

The Kumbh Mela in the Indian town of Allahabad will see up to 100 million worshippers gather over the next 55 days to take a ritual bath in the holy wa-ters, believed to cleanse sins and bestow blessings.

Before daybreak on Monday, a day chosen by astrologers as auspicious, hundreds of gurus, some brandishing swords and tridents, ran into the swirl-ing and freezing waters for the first bath, signalling the start of events.

Assorted dreadlocked holymen, seers and self-proclaimed saints from all over the coun-try have assembled for the colourful and chaotic spectacle that offers a rare glimpse of the dizzying range of Indian spiritual-ism.

“I am ecstatic. When I enter the Ganges I feel so happy, it’s a feeling I can’t explain,” said Mokshanand, a heavily bearded guru who emerged shivering from the water in a small pair of saffron-coloured underpants.

“Our biggest wish is that there is peace and that people should look after each other,” a member of the Naga Sadhus, a devout, fierce and famously nude sect of followers of the Hin-du god Shiva, told AFP.

For most ordinary In-dians, the Kumbh Mela is a religious holiday enjoyed in an almost carnival atmo-sphere, where prayers and blessings are offered and sought alongside family or friends camping together at the vast festival site.

The hardships of being squeezed in the crowds, enduring endless whistling

and barked orders from thousands of policemen and even catching a cold in the chilly January weather are seen as a price worth paying for a dip.

“I was a bit reluctant to go in at first because of the cold, but I was pushed into the river by the mass of people,” Indu Bala Dha-wan, a 70-year-old grand-mother from western Pun-jab, told AFP.

“I yelled at first but I’m very happy now.”

The Kumbh Mela takes place every 12 years in Al-lahabad, in northern Uttar Pradesh state, with smaller

but similar events every three years in other loca-tions around India.

It has its origins in Hin-du mythology, which de-scribes how a few drops of the nectar of immortality fell on the four places that host the festival -- Alla-habad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.

For men like Ram Krishna Verma, a 42-year-old farmer from Chhattis-garh state who travelled some 700 kilometres (430 miles), it is a time of sol-emn duty as he has come to scatter the ashes of his late mother.

NATION/WORlD10 EDGEDAVAONATION BRIEFS

Exempted

Philippine Pres-ident Benigno Aquino may con-

tinue to carry a gun despite an impending ban on bearing fire-arms in the run-up to polls. Gun ownership is a sensitive topic in the Philippines, where calls are growing for tighter controls or an outright ban in the aftermath of a series of shootings starting on New Year’s Eve that have left 23 people dead.

The ruling by the official Commission on Elections exempted Aquino, a gun enthu-siast and competitive shooter, on the basis that he is constitution-ally the head of the mil-itary.

Inequality

Civil society groups say President Be-nigno Aquino III

has been unable to nar-row the gap between rich and poor in the country, and that he has failed to wield agrarian reform to close that gap.

Aquino’s critics came out recently to urge him to speed up the distribution of land to the landless, as the government’s Com-prehensive Agrarian Reform Program Ex-tension with Reform (CARPER) nears its end.

No access

The Philippines may boast of be-ing the social net-

working hub, but near-ly four out of five Pinoy adults still have no In-ternet access at home, results of a new poll showed.

A total of 79 percent of Filipinos reported being offline at home, U.S.-based pollster Gal-lup found in a survey of 1,000 adults in each of 148 countries globally.

Debate

Philippine lawmak-ers crafting the final bicameral

version of a bill grant-ing compensation to victims of human rights violations during mar-tial law are debating whether or not to au-tomatically recognise a certain group of claim-ants for indemnifica-tion or to open the fund to all claimants.

Despite this snag, however, they re-mained optimistic a fi-nal version of the mea-sure would be ready for ratification by the Senate and House of Representatives when both houses resume sessions on January 21.

Represented

The Philippines will be represented in the inauguration

of US President Barack Obama II on January 21, Malacañang said Sunday.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said Philippine ambassador to Wash-ington Jose Cuisia Jr. will lead the country’s representatives.

WORLD TODAYResponding well

The brother of Hugo Chavez has denied that the ailing Ven-

ezuelan president is in coma, saying the Venezu-elan leader is responding well to cancer treatment in Cuba and making progress on a daily basis.

Reports that the president is in a coma and that

the family is discussing ending life support, are totally false,” Adan Chavez, governor of the state of Barinas, said. “He contin-ues to respond well to his medical care and to make daily progress in his recov-ery.”

Exercise

The naval force of Iran’s Islamic Revolu-tionary Guard Corps

(IRGC) has held exercis-es to test new equipment and battle tactics in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported on Sunday.

The drills tested the IRGC naval force’s com-bat-readiness, speed in re-sponding to natural disas-ters and familiarity with new weapons, the Fars news agency reported.

Air strike

Just as its leaders were defining a new “hands-off” strategy for Africa,

France has been thrust onto the front line of one of the continent’s riskiest bat-tlefields deep in the desert of Mali.

President Francois Hollande’s backing of air strikes to halt Islamist reb-els advancing on the capital Bamako raises the threat level for eight French hos-tages held by al Qaeda al-lies in the Sahara and for the 30,000 French expatri-ates living in neighbouring, mostly Muslim states.

Threat

India’s army chief Gen-eral Bikram Singh held out the threat of retali-

ating against Pakistan for the killing of two soldiers at the de facto border in Kashmir, saying he had asked his ground com-manders to be aggressive in the face of provocation.

Singh’s strong remarks on Monday, amid mount-ing public anger at the alleged decapitation of one of the slain soldiers, appeared set to ratchet up tensions further with Pa-kistan, although analysts said a breakdown in ties was highly unlikely.

Cluster bombs

Syria’s regime has re-sorted to firing rock-ets containing cluster

bombs, marking an ex-pansion in its use of the banned munitions despite international condemna-tion, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The New York-based HRW has previously re-ported Syrian forces using air-dropped cluster bombs but in its latest statement said this had been expand-ed to the use of ground-based methods to spread the weapons.

Sadhus or holy men run into the Ganges river during the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad on January 14, 2013. Millions of Hindu pilgrims led by naked, ash-covered holy men streamed into the sacred river at the start of the world’s biggest religious festival. [AFP]

Millions flock to world’s biggest religious festival

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillanes. [Photo by NPPA Images]

Poll chief: ‘Election period’ is not ‘campaign period’

“

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in the May 2009 road-side bombing in Patikul, Sulu said to be aimed at killing Governor Tan.

Arnado appeared be-fore reporters during yesterday’s episode of the Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao at Eco-loand, Matina, Davao City with Mrs. Dawie Tulawie, mother of Co-coy and Mrs. Iluminada Sangkula, his mother-in-law to make updates on the case of Cocoy who was arrested one year ago yesterday.

According to Ar-nado, “Cocoy is still in Davao City Jail and will be transferred soon to Manila after the petition of Sulu Governor Sakur Tan for transfer of venue was approved by the Su-preme Court.”

The Tans and Tulawi-

es are rival political fam-ilies in Sulu.

“As of now, we are just waiting for the court order for the transfer,” Arnado said.

“We are preparing the transfer of Cocoy and we are coordinating with the Commission on Human Rights and they committed that they will take care of the securi-ty arrangement for the transfer of Cocoy for it is at high risk because there are a lot of threats to his life and he (Cocoy) wants to be assured that the transfer to Manila will thoroughly be as-sessed, especially the jail that he will be placed in,” she said.

Mrs. Tulawie, mother of Cocoy and mother-in-law Sangkula appealed to the people of Davao

for support the release of the detained suspect.

Cocoy was arrested in the midnight of Jan-uary 14, 2012 in Davao City.

In his letter from prison, Cocoy wrote on December 9, 2012 he expressed his gratitude and support for all the human rights defenders in the Philippines.

In the letter, he wrote “I wish to end this letter with a thanksgiving and a deep sense of gratitude for all your support, hard work, generous assistance, prayers and well wishes in the last 12 months when I had been robbed of my freedom. Let us continue working together to defend all human rights defender in the Philippines and all over the world.”

warning during his pop-ular Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa television pro-gram Sunday.

In the same program, Duterte reiterated that the entire Hugpong po-litical machinery and the Duterte family will be behind the candida-cies of former vice may-or Luis C. Bonguyan for congressman in the first district, reelectionist congresswoman Mylene Garcia in the second dis-trict, and congressman Isidro T. Ungab, also a reelectionist in the third.

He also frowns on suggestions made by propagandists and pol-iticians identified with the Team Nograles that he is secretly back-ing the candidacy of businesswoman Joji Ilagan-Bian, saying he knows the political loy-alties of Bian who ran and lost with Nograles

and former mayor Ben-jamin C. de Guzman, known rivals of Duterte, in several previous elec-tions.

The vice mayor said he had not forgotten that in the 2010 elec-tions, Bian’s call centers were even used to cam-paign for the candidates of Nograles who, him-self, ran and lost heavi-ly to Mayor Sara Duter-te-Carpio.

“Kamong taga Hug-pong, kahibalo mo kung kinsa ang akong kan-didato sa second dis-trict…si Mylene Garcia (Members of Hugpong, you know my candidate in the second district is Mylene Garcia),”Duter-te said, using as exam-ple the lady lawmaker whose family has been a consistent supporter. “Kung dili mo maka su-porta kang Mylene, mag-buwag-buwag nalang ta karon (If you cannot

support Mylene, we bet-ter part ways now),” he added.

Duterte was refer-ring to certain Hug-pong allies who were defeated when they ran against Duterte’s candi-dates in some past elec-tions and who are now secretly working for Bian allegedly to avenge their defeat to the Gar-cias.

Political analysts ob-serve that since Team Nograles had failed to form a group in the 2013 elections, it has also become fashion-able for some candi-dates aligned with the former House Speaker to try hard to shake off the Nograles stigma by acting friendly with the Duterte family, especial-ly with the vice mayor who is running virtually unopposed in the com-ing May 2013 elections. ASA/AMA

Province.The highlight of the

event will be the Gospel Concert that will be done every night of the event with 10,000 to 12,000 thousand young people coming from different sectors of the city are ex-pected to attend.

As a part of their flag-ship program, Arise has chosen the seaside villag-es of Matina Aplaya for the construction of toilets to the Badjao community which will, “God willing,” be turned over this Friday.

Pastor Danny said this

is a part of their commu-nity program and he can see that “the youth are very enthusiastic and they want to be a part of what is happening.”

“Another project of the Arise advocacy is to or-ganize a group of leaders to respond to whatever situations Davao and oth-er places may have,” said Pastor Danny, referring to the Typhoon Pablo inci-dent.

He added, “Like what happened in Matina during the flashfloods, we immediately responded,

this is what we call ‘Love in Action’.”

According to pastor Danny one of the greatest challenges that the move-ment is facing is “raising funds to keep the move-ment moving.”

When asked about the main problems of the youth, he said “Almost everyday our youth are involved in crimes. Being on the spiritual side, it is our responsibility to open an avenue for the youth to understand how to live a life that is in accordance with the will of God.”

Visions Davao Inc., say-ing “Pagusara wants to take out the torrid kissing scene while Benjie wants to take out the scenes with excessive violence.”

The title “Malan” is the name of a B’laan wom-an. The story came from one of the poems of Pe-

ping Domingo in his book “Crow with the White Feathered Wings.”

Domingo told young film makers of Davao that if they want to make a film, they must have a purpose in making it so that they will have the intensity to push through

with the project because it (making a film) is a long process. “You must start your project when you are already finished, which means, you must have already planned ev-erything to the T’, before you start the production of your film.”

region.He said the Com-

mission on Elections (Comelec) has required the establishment of a checkpoint in each mu-nicipality and city in the region that would reg-ularly conduct firearms inspections on local mo-torists.

“We might set up more checkpoints in the com-ing weeks, depending on the security situation and needs of our concerned local governments,” he said.

Since the gun ban started on Sunday, Mon-teagudo said there were no reported incidents yet regarding possible viola-tors in the region.

He said the ongoing implementation of the ban has so far turned out smoothly and with no re-lated untoward incident happening in any part of Region 12.

Meantime, the police official said they were

still verifying whether the reported encounter between government troops and breakaway group Bangsamoro Islam-ic Freedom Movement (BIFM) in Barangay Ned, Lake Sebu last Saturday was election-related.

“We initially classified it as a suspected elec-tion-related incident,” he said.

The encounter, which happened in Sitio Kumilat of Lake Sebu town’s Ba-rangay Ned, supposedly involved around 40 mem-bers of the group’s armed wing Bangsamoro Free-dom Fighters.

1Lt. Betheul Barber, public affairs officer of the Army’s 27th Infantry Battalion, said the fire-fight ensued after govern-ment troops responded to report from civilians that armed men have been sighted in the area.

A militiaman identi-fied as Rene Amar Per-nal, who is a member of

the 7th CAFGU (Citizens Armed Forces Geograph-ical Unit) Active Auxiliary of South Cotabato.

2Lt. Angelo Peralta, team leader of the troops that traded fire with the armed men, said they were conducting active defense patrol in the area when the armed group fired at them.

He said the armed men were headed by a certain Udtog and a certain Mod, both from Palimbang, Sul-tan Kudarat.

Last year, hundreds of residents had fled their homes due to the ten-sion brought about by a long-standing land dis-pute in the area.

Police, military and Comelec personnel had identified Barangay Ned as well as the municipal-ities of Tampakan and T’boli as among possible areas of concern in the run-up to and during the May 13 polls. [Allen V. Es-tabillo/MindaNews]

INDONESIA sent 1,700 tons of rice, blankets and tents aboard the

vessel KRI MAKASSAR-590 that arrived last Friday evening at the Sasa wharf in Davao City as assistance to survivors of typhoon Pablo in the provinces of Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental.

Commodore Arie Soedewo, head of the East-ern Fleet Command and of the mission, said they left Port Bitung, Indonesia last January 11.

He added that the In-

donesian government is always willing to help its neighbor when it comes to relief operations.

Captain Antongan Si-matupang, vice command-er to Soedewo, said they brought at least 130,000 bags of rice, each weigh-ing 15 kilos, which were immediately turned over to Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) personnel repre-sented by Pedrita Dimak-iling.

“The Indonesian gov-ernment has helped us

for the third time already and the rice donation is enough for thousands of families until June this year,” Dimakiling said.

She added that the rice would directly transported to areas affected by Pablo.

“This is the reason why we didn’t start our 2nd round of distribution kasi hinintay naming itong bi-gas at hindi na naming ito ire-repack kasi it is 15 ki-los a bag na and it will last from 9 to 10 days na con-sumption ng isang pami-lya,” Dimakiling said.

Indonesia sends boatloadof aid for Pablo survivors By Che Palicte

THERE will be equal protection for all in the new

political entity that will be called the Bangsamoro,” GPH negotiating panel chief Miriam Coronel Ferrer as-sured Catholic bishops, priests, Jesuit university presidents and heads of peace centers in Mindanao.

Coronel Ferrer ac-knowledged concerns

expressed by some par-ticipants that while there is wide public support for the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) signed by the government and the Moro Islamic Lib-eration Front (MILF), there are fears that insecurity, land issues and political marginalization will wors-en.

“These fears were there

before,” said Coronel-Fer-rer. “They did not result from the FAB. They are part of the unacceptable sta-tus quo that we now wish to transform through the peace process.”

Bishop Jose Colin M. Bagaforo, Auxiliary Bishop of Cotabato concurred that there has been no fighting with government forces since the FAB was signed.

Framework Agreement ‘guarantees’ equal protection for all -- panel chief

“

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VOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013 SPORTS13EDGEDAVAO

LOS ANGELES — Dwight Howard had 22 points and 14 re-

bounds in his return from a three-game injury absence, and the Los Angeles Lak-ers snapped their six-game losing streak with a 113-93 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night (Monday, Manila time).

Kobe Bryant scored 23 points for the Lakers, who finally earned their first victory of 2013 while ending their longest skid since February 2007. How-ard went 9 for 11 despite his injured shoulder while leading Los Angeles to a comfortable victory over the lowly Cavaliers, who beat the Lakers last month.

Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters scored 15 points apiece for Cleveland, which has lost seven of

nine. Alonzo Gee added 14 points for the Cava-liers, who fell behind by 19 points in the first quarter of their second stop on a five-game West Coast road trip.

Cleveland (9-30) is barely ahead of Wash-ington (6-28) for the NBA’s worst record.

Steve Nash had 10 points and nine assists for the Lakers, whose skid has been severe enough to cause fans to worry about this star-packed roster’s playoff chances even in mid-January. After Okla-homa City ran the Lakers out of Staples Center on Friday night in a 116-101 victory, a downbeat coach Mike D’Antoni told his play-ers that “our season starts Sunday.”

Opening day went well

for the Lakers, but much bigger challenges loom — including the Miami Heat’s visit on Thursday.

Pau Gasol missed his fourth straight game for Los Angeles with a concus-sion, while top backup Jor-dan Hill is likely out for the season with an injured hip. Earl Clark had another sol-id game in the starting line-up with 13 points, nine re-bounds and three blocked shots, while Antawn Jami-son added 16 points and hit four of the Lakers’ 13 3-pointers.

Howard injured the la-brum in his shoulder ear-lier this month during a game against the Clippers, and he aggravated the inju-ry last Sunday while grab-bing a career high-tying 26 rebounds against Den-ver. He sat out for the past

week to rest the injury, but didn’t appear limited while patrolling the paint against the Cavs despite commit-ting seven turnovers.

Although struggling Cleveland seemed to be an ideal slump-buster, the Cavs beat the Lakers 100-94 last month in Cleveland, Los Angeles’ third straight road loss in the series.

Before the game, Cav-aliers coach Byron Scott declined to follow the lead of fellow ‘80s Lakers greats Magic Johnson and James Worthy in hammering the current Lakers for their defense and Mike D’An-toni’s coaching. Scott un-derstandably has bigger concerns than his ex-team-mates-turned-pundits who have mercilessly ripped D’Antoni, Howard and even Bryant in recent weeks.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Kevin Durant had 33 points and the

Oklahoma City Thunder snapped Portland’s nine-game winning streak at the Rose Garden with an 87-83 victory over the Trail Blazers on Sunday night (Monday, Manila time).

Russell Westbrook added 18 points and nine assists for the Thunder, who played without start-ers Serge Ibaka and Tha-bo Sefolosha because of injuries.

LaMarcus Aldridge had 33 points and 11 re-bounds for the Blazers, who trailed by 11 points but pulled within one point with less than a minute left.

Westbrook’s 3-pointer made it 84-74 with 3:35 left but the Blazers closed to 84-80 after Nicolas Ba-tum’s putback with 1:57 to go. Batum added a 3-pointer with 21.9 sec-onds left to make it 84-83.

Kendrick Perkins missed the first of two free throws and after a timeout Aldridge missed a tough fade-away jump-er from about 20 feet out with 1.7 seconds left. Westbrook made a pair of foul shots for the final margin.

The Blazers extended their Rose Garden win-ning streak to nine after rallying for a 92-90 win over Miami on Thursday night. But Portland fell 103-97 at Golden State on Friday to stop a four-game overall winning streak.

Ibaka missed the game because of chest contusion he sustained in the third quarter of the Thunders’ 116-101 victo-

ry over the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night. It was the first time Ibaka missed a game this sea-son. The 6-foot-10 for-ward is averaging 14.3 points and 8.4 rebounds.

Ibaka was replaced by Nick Collison in Oklaho-ma City’s starting lineup.

Sefolosha, who was held back with a sore neck, has also started in all of the Thunder’s games this season, averaging 7.5 points and four rebounds. He was replaced by DeAn-dre Liggins, who made his first career start.

The Blazers trailed by eight points early, but pulled to 18-17 on Al-dridge’s layup and free throw late in the first quarter. Portland couldn’t get any closer and Colli-son’s reverse layup mid-way through the second quarter gave the Thunder a 33-27 lead.

The Blazers respond-ed with a 12-2 run, pull-ing ahead on a trio of free throws and a 3-pointer from Batum that put Port-land ahead 39-25.

Durant was whistled for three fouls and went to the bench but the Thunder kept up the pres-sure and the Blazers hung onto only a 43-42 lead at the break.

The Thunder pulled back in front, 52-48, after Westbrook’s finger-roll layup and Collison’s hook shot. Durant made a 3-pointer over Batum to make it 57-50.

Liggins hit a 3 that stretched Oklahoma City’s lead to 63-52.

Aldridge and Batum had back-to-back dunks to pull Portland to 72-67 with 8:04 left.

Lakers snap skid

OKC drops Blazers

VOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 201314 EDGEDAVAOSPORTS

MELBOURNE (Re-uters) - Maria Sharapova has put

a small fortune into her sweet making business but she might consider a sideline in baked treats af-ter serving up fellow Rus-sian Olga Puchkova a dou-ble-bagel to cruise into the second round of the Aus-tralian Open on Monday.

Sharapova’s 6-0 6-0 demolition of the hap-less Puchkova at the Rod Laver Arena completed a ‘bagel slam’, having left opponents scoreless at the French Open, Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows.

The second seeded Russian launched her premium-priced range of “Sugarpova” lollies in Mel-bourne on Friday, bring-ing her fledgling business Down Under after success-fully introducing it to the United States.

But there was precious little sweetness on display on center court as Shara-pova crushed the 107th-ranked Puchkova in 55 minutes to stay on track for a mouth-watering third round clash with Venus Williams.

“I didn’t want to focus on the fact I hadn’t played a lot of matches,” Sharapova, the 2008 champion, told reporters.

“(I) just wanted to fo-

cus on just what was ahead of me and really concen-trate and, you know, be ag-gressive.

“So it was just one of those matches where I didn’t try to worry about her too much. I just tried to, you know, think about what I had to do.”

After saving two break-points in the opening game, Sharapova needed to do precious little thinking, with her opponent com-mitting 19 unforced errors, including one to bring up three match points.

Sharapova had pulled out of all of her warm-up tournaments after suffer-ing pain in her neck and collarbone, but showed little discomfort as she blasted six aces and 18 winners in bright morning sunshine.

Puchkova surrendered the match with a forehand that floated long. While undoubtedly leaving her a bitter taste, the score gave Sharapova little extra satis-faction.

“When you’re out there and playing, you’re just fo-cusing on every point and every game and trying to win as many as you can, and today was just a good scoreline,” she said.

“If you win 7-6 in the third, you still won the match.”

MELBOURNE, Aus-tralia (AP) -- No-vak Djokovic

cruised through his first match at Rod Laver Arena since his shirt-ripping vic-tory celebration last year, opening his bid for a third consecutive Australian Open title with a 6-2, 6-4, 7-5 win over Paul-Henri Mathieu on Monday.

The top-ranked Djokovic faced only three break points, saving them all, and lifted his tempo when it counted most against Mathieu.

Djokovic’s five-set win over Rafael Nadal in the 2012 final that lasted al-most six hours is already part of Australian Open folklore. He tore off his shirt and flexed his mus-cles after the marathon win last year, and is hoping to add another chapter by becoming the first man to win three consecutive Aus-tralian titles in the Open era.

Nine others have won back-to-back titles: none have claimed three in a row since the Open era started in 1968.

‘’Any achievement, es-pecially if it’s part of his-tory, would mean a lot to me,’’ Djokovic said. ‘’I love

this sport. This sport is my life since I was 4 years old. I try to generate this great desire to play this sport from that love.

‘’I think it’s too early, again, to speak eventual-ly about the title because there are many contenders to win this title.’’

Djokovic, who lost to Australia’s Bernard Tomic in the Hopman Cup this month, said his win over Mathieu, who reached a career-high No. 12 rank-ing in 2008, was a good stepping stone for his sec-ond-round match against American Ryan Harrison, a 2-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 winner over Santiago Giraldo of Colombia.

Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams had nearly flawless opening matches in the women’s draw ear-lier in the day.

Sharapova finished her first match of the year in 55 minutes, cruising to a 6-0, 6-0 win over Olga Puchkova on center court. She showed no signs of trouble with her sore right collarbone.

The No. 2-ranked Sharapova, who lost to Victoria Azarenka in last year’s Melbourne final be-fore going on to win the

French Open, faced only two break points in her opener and she saved both of those in the first game.

Then she went on a 12-game roll that earned her a second ‘’double bagel’’ inside of a year.

Sharapova withdrew from the Brisbane Inter-national this month with the collarbone injury, say-ing she wanted to concen-trate on being fit for the first major of the season. She skipped the Brisbane tournament last year, and went on to reach the Aus-tralian Open final.

‘’After a couple of close games and a few break points, I certainly start-ed to concentrate a bit better,’’ she said. ‘’I didn’t want to concentrate on the fact I hadn’t played a lot of matches. I just wanted to focus on what was ahead of me and really be aggres-sive.

‘’It was one of those matches where I didn’t try to worry about her too much.’’

Sharapova has a po-tential third-round match against Williams, who needed just an hour for her opening 6-1, 6-0 win over Galina Voskoboeva of Ka-zakhstan.

SHARAPOVA IN DOUBLE BAGEL DEBUT

How sweet it is

Djokovic wins Aussie opener

INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 210 • SUNDAY - MONDAY, DECEMBER 23-24, 2012

EDGEDAVAOEVENTS

Christmas par-ties are times when colleagues finally forget the stresses of work and let their hair down for a jolly good time of eating, drinking, and laugh-ing together with the bosses. Throw in a sprinkling of con-tests and prizes and you have a memo-rable evening that is

A red hot Christmas at the Marco Polo’s Christmas party

The opening dance number was a portent of hot things to come.

You can now buy your weekly paper fill of in-depth business news and features from any of these

establishments still at Php 15.

FA RED HOT, A4

Davao’s pride, Bl-ugre Cofffee enters into another mile-stone in its growth by launching yet another Blugre coffee shop in one of the prominent retail institutions in Davao City, the Gai-sano mall of Davao. a nurse from tampa, Florida, Usa, ms. vivian Cubero, ventures into the franchise world by being the first foreign investor who has joined the Blugre fam-ily. ms. Cubero is a native of Bohol but is not unfamiliar to the business climate and opportunity that Davao has to offer. after she experi-enced Blugre in one of the trips to Davao, there was no doubt that when the oppor-tunity came to be a part of

this fast growing company, she made no hesitations to invest. The new store at the second level of the Gai-sano mall of Davao car-ries Blugre’s new updated interior design with cozy ang lounge-like furniture. The store still carries the full line of Blugre’s favorite

drinks and pastries like the decadent Choco torte, and pasta. This is only the beginning of Blugre’s national and in-ternational positioning and aggressive business mission to be a worldwide brand and to invite investors to come and invest in the Phil-ippines as well as the other

countries that they are tar-geting in the year 2013. 14 stores are being negotiated right now including stores in singapore, New York, Las vegas and Los angeles. it is a bold move by Blu-gre but the potential, capa-bility and quality all lead to global recognition. Blugre invites the business com-munity nationally and in-ternationally to invest in this fast growing company. 2013 will be a big year for Blugre and this launching is only the beginning of for-eign investments coming in and local investors joining the Blugre family nationally and globally. Franchise inquiries are welcome, interested parties may email ms. Joanne B. siy at [email protected]

ChriSTmaS is that time of Se-cret Santas, a fun and creative way of exchanging gifts between friends, classmates, and of-ficemates. and you’ll find a treasure trove of gifts for your Kris Kringle at Sm Statio-nery – your one stop shop for practical and functional gifts for school and the office. There are sticky note

pack and memo pads for jotting down notes and reminders as well as weekly planners, jour-nals, and notebooks to help them plan for a busy year ahead. Stylish laptop cushions and iPad cases; fashionable iPad stylus pens; and fancy USB flash drives are great techie treats. The Collection is avail-able at the Stationery sec-tion of all Sm Stores. also visit our website at www.stationery.com.ph

alThoUgh the holiday season kicks off earlier than usual in the country, it seems there’s still not enough time to squeeze in everything before Christmas day arrives – from decorating the house, shopping and wrapping gifts, to planning a Christmas re-union with family and friends. The holiday flurry has the potential to stress you out as you sprint from one errand to the next. avoid mor-phing into the grinch come Christmas time by making the most out of the remaining weeks before Christmas Day. adopting a clear plan on how to maximize your productivity each day this December will help make you worry less about forgetting a task or missing out on must-attend get-togethers. Your mobile phone will be your best friend in the coming days as you try to keep track of your holiday to-do’s, so better make sure you don’t run out of load in the midst of all the activities. Power up your phone with Sun Cellular’s Call & Text Unlimited P25 maX (Sun CTU 25 maX) which lets you maximize your productiv-ity this holiday season. loading up Sun CTU 25 maX will guarantee that you have one less thing to worry about this December because at P25 valid for one day, Sun CTU maX 25 already gives you unlimited Sun calls and unlimited Sun texts for maximum talk time when you need to call – to book venues, order food in advance or just stay in touch with friends you haven’t heard from in a long while. You will have no worries reaching your non-Sun con-tacts either with the generous 100 FrEE texts to other networks that now comes with Sun CTU 25 maX. it’s a cost-efficient way to accomplish a lot of things through SmS – whether it’s inviting a wide circle of friends to come over or asking a younger sibling to pick up items at the store. With Sun CTU 25 maX, Sun prepaid subscribers are sure to get the most out of the holiday season because they can maximize their time with worry-free unlimited calling and texting to just about everyone in their con-tact list. get Sun CTU 25 maX from your friendly Sun Prepaid retailers, or convert your regular load by texting CTU25 to 247. Sun CTU 25 maX is available until January 31, 2013. To know more about Sun Prepaid’s other offers, visit www.suncellular.com.ph or Facebook page www.fa-cebook.com/suncellprepaid. Follow @suncelldeals on Twitter.

A2 INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 210 • SUNDAY - MONDAY, DECEMBER 23-24, 2012EDGEDAVAOUP aND aBoUT

Plan ahead with this 2013 Paperline weekly planner

Polka pencil bags with bow Sticky note folio for notes and reminders.Stylish leatherette iPad cases.

Bright colored 9-10’’ Netbook Sleeve laptop protector

MOODS memo pad

Blugre closes 2012 with foreign franchisee

Merry Kris Kringle-ing at SM Stationery

New store located at the birthplace of the original Blugre coffee shop

Get the most out of the holidays with Sun Call & Text Unlimited 25 MAX!

EVEN by green-wich mean Time, nine months are nine months—and, though ulti-mately they’ll fly by, the world’s still got a long way to go before it gets to meet Kate middle-ton and Prince Wil-liam’s firstborn child, aka the most excit-ing baby ever. What will the ensuing trimesters really be like for the expectant couple? and what’s going to hap-pen once the little prince or princess arrives?! The British royal fam-ily is better than most at keeping a tight lid on their private lives, but we’ve got some details, start-ing with how the nanny-hiring process is going for Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge... Well, it isn’t going, at least not yet. “Forget all the sto-ries about nannies, how many William and Kate will have, whether they will have one at all,” a royal source tells E! News. “They have not made any deci-sions yet on that. The like-ly scenario is that they will follow royal protocol but it’s too early to say, as they have not decided on how many nannies, if they will have a nanny, etc.”

We’re just guessing that royal protocol includes extensive background checks, presuming mary Poppins herself is not available. more important than how much she’s getting done, however, is the state of Kate’s health. She’s back in the pub-lic eye, looking proper as always, after a bout with hyperemesis gravidarum, a beyond-morning-sick-ness condition character-ized by violent nausea and vomiting that usually requires intravenous flu-ids and, in some cases, a

feeding tube. Basically, our source suggests that Kate being out and about will speak for itself with regard to how she’s feeling. if we don’t see her, that means she isn’t up to being seen. Kate is taking it one day at a time and “is hop-ing to do a few solo en-gagements next year pre-birth,” the insider says. as for more couples en-gagements, Kate’s prince-ly husband—who’s still an officer in the royal air Force, remember?—will have certain duties to at-

tend to, as well. “Next year, William will be spending quite a lot of time in anglesey [an island off the coast of Wales] get-ting up his flying hours,” our source says. “it’s very important to him that he fulfills his obligations.” meanwhile, Prince har-ry is spending Christmas at his base in afghanistan

but is due back home in January. “he will spend the first month decompressing,” the royal source says, “and so will be off the radar for a bit.” (great news for the royal family, maybe not-so-great news for tab-loids.) But William will be jet-ting back in plenty of

time for the baby’s arrival. While no formal arrange-ments are in place yet, the source tells us that Kate will likely introduce their child to the world on the steps of the hospital—just as Princess Diana did with Will 30 years ago. Depending on how the duchess is feeling, of course.

JENNiFEr aniston is really good at pole dancing. Emma roberts, who co-stars with aniston in the upcoming comedy We’re the millers, knows first-hand just how sexy the Friends actress’ stripper moves are in the movie. “She’s really good,” rob-erts told us of aniston’s We’re the millers pole-dancing scenes earlier to-day. “i saw bits and pieces of it and she is amazing.” on a scale of 1 to 10? “[She’s] like a 20,” roberts laughed. “it was unreal! She looks really hot.” in the funny flick, Ja-son Sudeikis stars as a pot dealer who assembles a fake family in order to traffic drugs to mexico.

aniston plays his stripper wife and roberts is their pretend daughter. While we will be get-ting to see aniston on the stripper pole, roberts says Justin Theroux’s gal won’t be partaking in any fake drug-doing on screen. “if i recall, no one ac-tually smokes pot in the movie,” she dished. “it’s more the chaos that en-sues on such a ridiculous adventure. Four people, pretending to be a fam-ily to smuggle across the border is pretty funny on its own, so the stuff that goes wrong is only funny.” as for making the mov-ie, roberts gushed, “i got to work with Jennifer an-iston, who’s just the most amazing comedic actress,

and Jason Sudeikis, who’s obviously hilarious...They’re funny of course but also just the sweetest people. and i think that’s really important working with people for so long.” meanwhile, roberts has partnered with the Coca-Cola Company and (rED) to promote (ThrED), a mobile game with a cause to help deliver an aiDS-free generation by 2015. “it’s something that i think, especially young people, don’t really think about,” roberts said. “i think it’s something that young people really need to be aware of. That’s why i thought, since i’m a young person and i can help get the word out, it’d be a great thing to do.”

INdulge! A3VOL.5 ISSUE 210 • SUNDAY - MONDAY, DECEMBER 23-24, 2012 EDGEDAVAO

Kate Middleton’s health and nanny hires? Prince William’s military obligations? More royal baby questions answered!

Jennifer Aniston “Amazing” at pole dancing: “She looks really hot!” says costar Emma Roberts

ENTErTaiNmENT

A4 INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 210 • SUNDAY - MONDAY, DECEMBER 23-24, 2012EDGEDAVAOEVENTS

sure to create lasting memories. This year, i was again invited to the Christmas party of the marco Polo Davao and i can say that each year is definitely row-dier than the last and this year’s theme was definitely a hot one. i mean, how can you get hotter with siagon red Light District, right? The party started with songs performed by the marco Polo Davao’s very own choir which per-formed beautiful Christ-mas songs to set the mood. What followed were per-formances by the differ-ent department, each one more daring, crazier, and wilder then the last. of course the different heads of departments also joined in the dancing and merri-ment.

With the level of the performances, it was hard to imagine that these tal-ented performers actu-ally work at the hotel. This shows the talent and pas-sion that each person at the marco Polo posses. and as the wine flowed, prizes dolled out, and the bonuses are announced, i felt happy to be able to share a special moment of Christmas joy with the marco Polo Davao family. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @kenneth-kingong for foodie finds, travel tips and happenings around Durianburg.

Marco Polo Davao general manager Bruno Simeoni performs to the crowd. Lingeries, pantyhoses, bikinis and tanktops were the costumes of the night.

The heat is on in Saigon. The performances were really on a different level.

The heads of departments and managers take to the stage in their own dance presentation.

Awards were given to 5-year and 10-year employees.

The Voices of Marco Polo.

Mr. Lawrence Lee-VP Finance of Marco Polo Hotel, Mr. Bruno Simeoni-MPD General Manager, Mr. Hans Hauri-Area General Manager, Phils. MPH and Francis Ledesma-V.P of Halifax Davao Hotel

Halifax Davao Hotel Inc. family with Halifax Davao Hotel Chairman Mr. Carlos G. Dominguez.

WORlD TODAy

Tulip Drive, Ecoland, Davao City

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FFROM A1A red hot...

VOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013 15EDGEDAVAO SPORTS

CELEBRATED Rain or Shine rookie Chris Tiu had his

best game as a pro in Game 3 of the PBA Phil-ippine Cup Finals against Talk ̀ N Text Sunday night.

Unfortunately, his best wasn’t good enough as the Elasto Painters lost, 89-80, and are now on the verge of getting swept in the best-of-sev-en title series.

“A win is always a win. Whatever it takes to win… Today, we were lacking on offensive op-tions. I was just trying to be aggressive. Definitely, I wouldn’t trade a win for my best game,” said Tiu quietly emerging from

the Rain or Shine dugout shortly after the sorry loss.

The 6-foot former Smart Gilas mainstay played aggressively for 22 minutes before a crowd of 16,000 at the Smart-Araneta Colise-um, wisely posting up the smaller Jimmy Ala-pag several times in the second half and knock-ing down clutch jumpers from the perimeter.

In all, Tiu finished with a team-high 14 points, his best in his first conference in the league.

Tiu just lamented that Rain or Shine fal-tered in the stretch run

once again, failing to hold grip of a nine-point lead the Elasto Painters had in the final period.

“Eh, nasa match up eh. Kami yung may ad-vantage. Di rin maka-con-nect sila Paul (Lee) at Jeff (Chan) sa labas. Kail-angan makahanap ng paraan maka-score. Pinu-wersa ko na lang, bahala na,” he said.

“Pero iyan na naman, just like the other games, we got the run, the lead, but when it mattered most, that’s when we didn’t deliver. We made crucial turnovers.

“Sila (Tropang Tex-ters) naman they made the big shots, the big

plays, which goes to show their championship com-posure. We need to play a perfect game against this team (in Game 4),” added the seventh pick overall in the Draft.

With the specter of losing the series via a sweep, the guard out of Ateneo said the Elasto Painters will just have to concentrate on putting up their A-game in Game 4 and hope to prolong the series.

“We want to take it one game at a time, con-centrate first on getting one game first. We don’t even want to think of the championship first,” he said.

CERES FC of Ne-gros Occidental crashed into the

quarterfinals of the Phil-ippine Football Feder-ation-SMART National Club Championships after stunning United Football Cup titlist Pension Stal-lion Giligan’s, 1-0, Sunday at the Panaad Stadium in Bacolod City.

Korean import Kim Jung Mook scored in the first half to give Ceres a

1-nil edge, which Stallion couldn’t recover from.

With the victory, Ceres advanced to the quarter-finals to face powerhouse Global FC, which pre-vailed in its match against Nomads FC, 2-1, at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.

National team mem-bers Carli de Murga and Patrick Reichelt both scored in the second half to lift Global to victory.

Nomads still found the back of the net off a penal-ty kick in injury time, but it was not enough to over-come its deficit to Global.

Pasargad FC advanced to the next round after edging Philippine Army FC, 2-1, also at the Rizal Stadium.

Nigerian striker Em-manuel Mbata and Jo-han Taher both scored in the first half to give the triumph to Army, while

Ricardo Becite nailed a goal in the second half for Army’s lone goal of the match.

Pasargad will meet fellow UFL squad General Trias International FC in the quarterfinals slated next week, which will also feature knockout matches between Kaya FC and the Loyola Meralco Sparks and Green Archers Unit-ed Globe versus Pachanga FC.

UNITED Football League squad Kaya FC demolished

M’Lang FC of North Co-tabato, 5-0, to open the knockout stages of the Philippine Football Fed-eration-SMART National Club Championships at

the South Cotabato Sports Complex in Koronadal City.

Forward Nate Burkey led Kaya with two goals, while midfielder Chris Greatwich and striker Dario Dakic scored one goal apiece.

Kaya took a command-ing 3-nil edge at the break courtesy of goals by Bur-key and Greatwich.

Dakic then joined the scoring fray in the second half, which saw M’Lang score an own goal to settle the final score.

With the victory, Kaya will advance to the quar-terfinals to face the win-ner of the match between fellow UFL team Loyola Meralco Sparks and Flame United FC of Cavite on Sat-urday at the Rizal Memori-al Football Stadium.

GAME 3 LOSS

Bitter pill to Tiu

Negros booters stop UFL champs

M’lang bows to Kaya FC

NEW YORK – Car-melo Anthony scored 27 points

and rookie Chris Cope-land added 22 Sunday as the New York Knicks beat New Orleans 100-87 to snap a three-game Na-tional Basketball Associ-ation losing streak.

Amare Stoudemire added 12 points for the Knicks, who had five points and 14 rebounds from Tyson Chandler on the way to ending the Hornets’ four-game win-ning streak.

“They got into a flow. Carmelo got into a big flow in the second quar-ter and when he is flow-ing, their whole team is flowing,” said Eric Gor-don, who led the Hornets with 22 points.

“They had a big quar-ter and they kept having big strides after that. We didn’t play as well.”

The Knicks got off to a slow start, and trailed 29-22 after the first quar-

ter. Then Anthony came alive, out-scoring the en-tire Hornets team 18-12 in the period.

A free throw by An-thony knotted the score at 36 with 4:19 to play in the first half, and the Knicks never trailed after that.

“We were slow again out of the box defen-sively, I thought,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. “We’ve just got to start the game better. That’s what I’m con-cerned about right now.”

Anthony said the Knicks were determined to tighten up on defense after surrendering 29 points to the Hornets in the opening quarter.

“We came back to the huddle, at the end of the quarter, looked up and knew 29 points was defi-nitely too many points,” Anthony said. “We held them to 12, 13 points and the game turned around from there.”

Knicks end losing run

VOL.5 ISSUE 224 • TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 201316 EDGEDAVAOSPORTS

DAVAO DEL Norte Governor Ro-dolfo Del Rosario

is making sure every-thing is in order when the province hosts the 2013 Davao Region-al Athletic Association (DAVRAA) meet set Feb-ruary 24-March 1 at the Davao del Norte Sports Complex.

Del Rosario met with Department of Education XI regional officials last January 11 to ensure the successful staging of the regional sports conclave which will be hosted by the province for the first time after the old sports complex was gutted down by fire sometime in the early 90s.

Provincial Infor-mation Officer Romulo Tagalo told EDGE Davao in a text message that the provincial govern-ment and the Deped Re-

gional Office have agreed to pool their resources together for the week-long school-based sports competition.

“They have agreed to pool together to be used for the Davraa,” Tagalo bared.

Governor del Rosario

and provincial govern-ment officials represent-ed the host LGU in the meeting while Deped was led by Dr. Nenita Lumaad.

Tagalo also revealed that the private contrac-tor of the Davao del Norte Sports Complex project has started to lay down

the first layer of the rub-berized track oval.

The Davraa meet will be participated by Davao City, Panabo City, Digos City, Island Garden City of Samal, Compostela Valley, Davao Oriental, Mati City, Tagum City and host Davao del Norte.

FORMER world pound-for-pound champion Manny

Pacquiao is reportedly picking on two ‘light’ op-ponents whom he will be facing in April in the first step of his boxing career’s reconstructive surgery.

The Filipino eight-divi-sion champ is looking at a short-list of possible next foes – either American Jessie Vargas or Ukrainian Vyacheslav Senchenko.

A look at the records of the two prospects will show one aging fighter in Sechenko and a young up-start in Vargas. Either way, Pacquiao is expected to bulldoze his way over.

Senchenko is a former World Boxing Associa-tion welterweight (147 pounds) champion who is coming off a ninth-

round knockout victory over Briton Ricky Hatton in November. Senchenko, 33-1 with 22 knockouts, is already 35 years old and was losing to Hat-ton when he nailed the latter with a good body punch. Senchenko boasts of above-par punching power but he is a tough sell because of his age and the fact that he is not even known in his own house-hold.

Vargas is a young 23 and totes a record of 21-0 with nine knockouts. He reportedly has the inside track because he is also promoted by Bob Arum’s Top Rank Promotions. Vargas is also easier to sell to the public because he is undefeated and has Mex-ican blood running in his veins. Oh, with only nine

knockouts, Vargas also appears to be a safe oppo-nent for Pacquiao.

Born in Los Angeles, Vargas moved to Las Ve-gas, Nevada at age six and developed an interest to boxing at age eight after his father gave him a doc-umentary video of one of Mexican’s greatest cham-pions, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. Vargas was a two-time National Golden Gloves champion and compiled an amateur record of 120 wins against only 20 loss-es before turning pro in 2008 with a first-round knockout of Joel Gonzales.

Vargas initially fought for Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s boxing outfit before he jumped ship and joined Top Rank Promotions early last year. Vargas holds victories over world

champions Vivian Harris and Steve Forbes, but re-mains untested. He has not scored a knockout vic-tory in his last five fights and was lucky to escape with a split decision over Mexican Josesito Lopez in September 2011. Vargas’ last knockout victim was journeyman Walter Estra-da, who showed up in the fight with a 39-14 won-loss record and was pre-dictably dispatched in two rounds in July 2011.

While the names of Brandon Rios and Timo-thy Bradley Jr. have also been mentioned, all point to Pacquiao taking on a lesser-risk adversary. Var-gas appears to fit the bill, the perfect cannon fodder for a fighter like Pacquiao who is looking to regain his competitive edge.

DavNor, Deped to pool resources for DAVRAABy Neil Bravo

Pacquiao picking on Vargas, Senchenko

Documents

Edge Davao 5 Issue 224