Faces of the News: Nov. 3, 2019
ILLUSTRATION BY RENE ELEVERA
Apollo Quiboloy
Davao-based pastor and ardent Duterte supporter Apollo Quiboloy on Tuesday said he commanded the 6.6-magnitude earthquake that rocked North Cotabato and nearby provinces to stop and it did.
“I yelled, ‘earthquake, stop!’ and it stopped,” he said on the Oct. 30 episode of “Give Us This Day,” the weekly TV show of his religious sect, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Quiboloy said he only divulged his miraculous feat to shut up those who had doubted his claims of being the “Appointed Son of God.”
People should thank him for stopping the quake, he said, otherwise “so many would have died.”
The temblor left at least 8 dead and hundreds injured.
Quiboloy blamed his bashers for the series of calamities that hit Mindanao, comparing its destruction to the biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God destroyed for having too many sinners.
“The judgment comes from God,” said Quiboloy, who was detained briefly in Hawaii last year after airport authorities found $350,000 and some guns in the private plane he was on.
Lucio Tan Jr.
Recently named president of PAL Holdings Inc., the listed operator of the flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) Inc., Lucio Tan Jr. becomes a key decision maker in the fate of Asia’s oldest airline, arguably the most cherished asset in the sprawling empire of his father, Lucio Tan. In recent interviews, Tan Jr. spoke of turning around the flag carrier, calling its operations administration-heavy and possibly resorting to outsourcing and capturing more online bookings. With the help of Lufthansa Consulting, those initiatives would allow PAL’s return to profitability by 2020, said Tan Jr., whose academic history and personal interests reflect a self-discipline that bodes well for the airline. After high school in Singapore, Tan Jr. spent two years of intensive Chinese language and history studies at Beijing University. College took him to the University of California, where he majored in civil engineering and minored in mathematics, economics and linguistics. The ace basketball shooter and Class A golfer was also once part of the Philippine swimming team.
Stephen Strasburg
The Washington Nationals on Wednesday completed a Game 7 rally for the ages for a 6-2 win over the Houston Astros and their first World Series title. It was the first time in Series history that all games were won by the road team, with ace Stephen Strasburg owning two of those on the way to being named MVP. Third baseman Anthony Rendon, the Houston native, was also big in the last two games. In the decider, he hit a two-run shot off Will Harris that erased a 1-2 deficit and sparked the Washington breakaway. The loss was a sorry one for the 107-win Astros, whose manager, AJ Hinch, had Gerrit Cole at his disposal going into the seventh inning where Houston still had a 2-0 lead. This Series, though, was the third-least viewed in history after averaging 13.91 million viewers, according to national numbers from Nielsen. This was down by 1.3 percent from last year when the Boston Red Sox defeated the Dodgers in five games (14.1 million average). The Nationals’ first title had an 8.1 overall rating and 16 market share.
Tab Baldwin
Ateneo got half of the job done—getting to the finals—and in grand style at that. The Blue Eagles on Wednesday completed a 14-game sweep of the elimination round of Season 82 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball tournament after an 86-64 win over the University of the Philippines (UP). The last sweep took place 12 years ago when the University of the East pulled off the trick, only for the Warriors to go down in two straight games to the De La Salle University Green Archers. Coach Tab Baldwin said his team’s biggest asset was its heart, something he feels that the crowd doesn’t notice. With the sweep, the semifinals will be a stepladder format starting on Wednesday, with the University of Santo Tomas (UST) and Far Eastern University (FEU) clashing in a KO contest for the right to play No. 2 UP. The Maroons, for finishing second, have a twice-to-beat advantage against the winner of the UST-FEU game. The title series will be best-of-three and the Eagles will no doubt be shooting for the perfect season in trying to win their third straight title.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
His biographer described the world’s most wanted terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a short, nearsighted and not-so-bright man. Despite his weaknesses, the Islamic State (IS) leader managed in 2014 to lead tens of thousands of jihadists in carving out a “caliphate” called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, where he employed his own brutal and extreme version of Islam. Before the end of his caliphate in March 2019, Baghdadi reigned over seven million people in a territory the size of Britain, while his influence extended to Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia. On Oct. 26, after years of steady intelligence-gathering and 48 hours of planning once Washington got confirmation that the IS leader would be in a compound in northwestern Syria, US special forces raided and bombed his hideout. As the notorious terrorist tried to escape through underground tunnels, a trained military dog followed, allowing US forces to close in on him. Baghdadi then exploded the vest he was wearing, killing himself and three children he had with him.
