Faces of the News: January 31, 2021

Jonvic Remulla

The Cavite provincial government canceled talks with a Chinese-Filipino consortium tapped to begin work on the P500-billion Sangley Point International Airport project. While the move eases national security worries over supposed Chinese expansionism on Philippine soil, it also puts Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla in the spotlight for making the “difficult” decision. “I don’t think this makes me very popular,” said the official who is up for reelection next year. The move followed about a year of negotiations and three extensions sought by the consortium of state-owned China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. (CCCC) and taipan Lucio Tan’s MacroAsia Corp. Remulla said Tan and the Chinese company failed to correct the defects in the joint venture agreement but added that the decision to stop the negotiations had nothing to do with the CCCC’s alleged role in building artificial islands in Philippine waters. The massive airport and land reclamation project was already controversial during the auction period for attracting just one bidder. The Cavite governor maintains the project is not dead and would be up for rebidding between February and October. —Miguel R. Camus

Ramon Lopez

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez had the arguments to support the call to allow more children to go outdoors and enter public places in areas under more relaxed quarantine levels. Easing the restrictions and allowing children at least 10 years old to leave their homes would encourage their families or their peers to spend more and provide a lifeline for struggling businesses. The government knew that increased consumer spending was crucial for economic recovery amid the pandemic, but Lopez observed that there were still too few customers going to the malls and other commercial establishments. Without such a boost, more people would go hungry and sink into poverty, he warned. As for concerns about the presence in the country of the more transmissible UK variant of the coronavirus, Lopez said this could be addressed by strictly following health regulations. But these assurances failed to convince President Duterte, who considered the more overriding threat posed by the new variant and thus decided to keep the age-based restrictions in place. Lopez said he would yield to the President’s wisdom. —Leila B. Salaverria

Alex Eala

Alex Eala had a pretty good 2020. She won the Australian Open girls’ doubles title and then reached the semifinals of the French Open in the girls’ singles event. Clearly, being a student at the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy proved fruitful for the 15-year-old standout, who has gotten some shout-outs from the King of Clay himself after her run of success in Paris. But the Filipino ace is going all out for a better 2021 and so far, it has been a great start to her year. Eala topped the ITF W15 Manacor Tournament with a sterling 5-7, 6-1, 6-2, win over Yvonne Cavalle-Reimers of Spain in the women’s singles final. After a tense opening set where she failed to get crucial breaks, Eala breezed through the next two sets against the 28-year-old Cavalle-Reimers. On her way to the crown, Eala bundled out tournament top seed Seone Mendez to make the quarterfinals. She then turned back Adithya Karunaratne of Hong Kong, 6-3, 6-4, in the semifinals. She was ready to make it two in a row when she kicked off the second leg of the same tournament with a win, but lost to Ylena In-Albon, 6-0, 6-3, in the quarterfinals of the tournament that is part of the Rafael Nadal Academy World Tennis Tour. —Francis Ochoa

Bernie Sanders

Talk about turning a meme into a million dollars. The image of a masked and mittened Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at the inauguration of US President Joe Biden was either too funny or too endearing that fans created memes showing him in memorable scenes from Michaelangelo’s Hand of God fresco in the Sistine Chapel to sequences in Studio Ghibli anime. The viral images not only cheered spirits the world over. The kind-hearted people of Vermont have launched a project that would sell sweatshirts and T-shirts showing Sanders in his now instafamous garb—blue mask, snowboarding jacket and those woolen mittens—and give the money to charitable programs like ‘Meals on Wheels’ that feed low-income senior citizens. The usually curmudgeon Sanders broke into a rare grin during a CNN interview when asked if he was enjoying his new status as social media darling. The senator said he was only too happy to help feed fellow Americans. Sanders’ meme merchandise—including stickers emblazoned with his viral photograph—has so far raised $1.8 million for Meals on Wheels and other charities. —CATHY CAÑARES YAMSUAN

Alex Luna

Just three months after his appointment, Maj. Gen. Alex Luna was relieved of his post as deputy chief of staff for intelligence of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, after Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana saw red in the online publication of an erroneous list of University of the Philippines (UP) alumni who had supposedly joined the communist New People’s Army (NPA) and were later killed or captured. Such “information,” among others, was supposedly the defense department’s basis for ending its 1989 agreement with the state university that prohibited the entry of security forces into UP campuses without prior notice of school authorities. Lorenzana said it was his “patriotic duty” to end the accord in order to protect UP students from NPA recruiters. But performing this duty apparently became problematic due to the boo-boo committed by the military’s intelligence unit under Luna. Lorenzana called the episode an “unpardonable gaffe,” saying the general’s “negligence only shows a lackadaisical attitude toward his job resulting [in] confusion and damage to reputation.” —Jeannette I. Andrade