Much of the world sees the Miss Universe beauty pageant as an archaic remnant, with interest in it fading with the past in many countries.

In the Philippines, however, it still stirs as much frenzy as the World Cup does among Europeans or the Super Bowl in the US.

About a week from now, this national obsession will be manifested in all its glory as the Philippines hosts the Miss Universe pageant on Jan 30.

All 86 candidates are already here, and they have been everywhere.

They make the news every day as they frolic on the white beaches of Boracay, put on a fashion show on the cobblestone streets and Spanish colonial villas of Vigan city’s historic Calle Crisologo, and sashay in swimsuits in Cebu.

Everywhere they go, they are mobbed like rock stars.

They are cheered on and photographed, and their presence documented and spread far and wide on social media.

They are appraised, debated on, and ranked. Bets are placed.

Everything around them is being talked about.

There was, for instance, the commotion over Miss Malaysia Kiran Jassal’s diamond-encrusted, metallic jumpsuit, with laser-cut, foot-high replicas of the iconic Petronas Towers jutting out of her shoulders.

These women are now floating into the national consciousness, like once ethereal beings now made flesh, within reach and gamely exposing themselves for everyone’s entertainment, and this nation of over 100 million cannot get enough of them.

But they are also caught in the middle of a debate over whether something like the Miss Universe pageant can really rise above the superficiality of what feminists have derided as a “cattle show” and be relevant in a world racked by terrorism, economic uncertainties and conflicts over everything from race, inequality, gender, religion and birth control to food supplements.

Gabriela, a women’s rights group, has weighed in, calling the pageant a “manipulative and deceptive tool that projects an image of peace and stability to cover up the creeping influence of fascist repression of poor women’s rising protests”.

Ms Arlene Brosas, the group’s representative in Congress, calls it “yet another attempt to package the Philippines as a lurid tourist destination for cheap, easily exploitable women”.

But perhaps the most scathing indictment comes from someone who has been herself on stage, picked apart, in her own words, “like pigs being sold in the market”.

Ms Imelda Schweighart, who represented the Philippines in last year’s Miss Earth pageant, recalled having an epiphany as she wore a bikini backstage, with dozens of other women.

“We were like meat waiting for our turn to strut our stuff,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

Others lament that the pageant is being held as thousands are being killed in President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on crime.

UNFAIR, SWEEPING, MYOPIC

For tourism officials here, these criticisms are unfair, sweeping and myopic.

Tourism Undersecretary Katherine de Castro said the Miss Universe pageant, though still essentially a beauty contest, has also given women a powerful platform to push various causes.

She pointed out that the reigning title holder, for instance, the Philippines’ own Ms Pia Wurtzbach, has made her mark raising HIV awareness.

Ms Wurtzbach herself regards the beauty aspect as “bait” to get people to listen to more serious advocacy of issues such as gender equality and human rights.

There are beauty contests run like lurid sex shows, said Professor Jose Wendell Capili, an anthropologist at the University of the Philippines. But generally, pageants, especially marquee ones like Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss International, have provided Filipino women a doorway to instant fame and, with it, opportunities for a better life.

“Many pageant winners become successful celebrities after winning. Many see pageants as a stepping stone towards becoming a celebrity and an advocate for worthwhile causes,” said Prof Capili.

Many past winners have moved on to become actors, doctors, lawyers, businesswomen and politicians.

One, Ms Jeanne Therese Hilario, a second runner-up at the 1989 Maja International pageant, even earned a doctorate in environmental engineering from Cambridge.

The lesson has always been that there is a way out for everyone, said Prof Capili.

This is why a beauty queen in the Philippines is revered as exactly that: a queen.

The late banker Tomas Aguirre paid tribute to the nation’s beauty queens by naming streets of a gated community he built in a suburb south of Manila in 1968 after them.

NATIONAL OBSESSION

“Once you’re a beauty queen, you will always be remembered as a beauty queen, even when you’re already old, here in the Philippines.

You keep the title for life, the prestige for life,” said Mr Rodgil Flores, who runs a “boot camp” for those aspiring to put on a sash and tiara.

That is enough to motivate thousands of women to join pageants, despite the condescension heaped on by liberals and the lustful looks of onlookers.

In each of the Philippines’ 40,000 grassroots districts known as “barangays”, a beauty contest is held each year, mostly on some hastily built stage in a crowded street or alley, to mark the high point of a fiesta celebrating some obscure saint.

There are pageants for everyone: straight and gay men and women; transgenders, transsexuals and cross-dressers; little girls and boys; and housewives and grandmothers.

They compete for a bevy of titles: That’s My Boy, Little Miss Philippines, Mr Handsome, Little Miss Handsome, Miss Gay Philippines, Miss Supranational, Manhunt International, Mr Marketplace, Super Mermaid.

Marketing consultant Denise Sangalang was only 16 when she joined her school’s beauty pageant.

Now 21, she remembers being onstage, ogled by hundreds of pubescent boys.

She recalls feeling uncomfortable.

“I did feel that. They had their eyes on me whenever I was the one walking on stage,” she said.

What got her through being looked at as an object was to imagine the audience as objects as well.

“I pictured everyone as a cheeseburger,” she said, “as (it is) something that makes me smile.”

rdancel@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on January 21, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Singapore’s vehicle population, led by cars, has shrunk for the third consecutive year.

According to statistics released by the Land Transport Authority this week, there were 956,430 vehicles on the road as of Dec 31 last year.

This is about 0.1 per cent lower than in 2015, and 1.8 per cent lower than the peak in 2013.

The private car population fell by 4 per cent to 552,427 – the lowest in eight years.

Observers attribute the fall to a clawback of certificates of entitlement (COEs) in the early 2010s to correct an earlier oversupply.

The contraction is also attributed to a near-zero allowable yearly growth rate instituted for the COE system.

This growth cap has been lowered systematically in recent years – from 3 per cent to 1.5 per cent in 2009, then to 1 per cent in 2012, 0.5 per cent in 2013 and 0.25 per cent since 2015.

There is usually a lag between the time a car is scrapped and a new COE is recycled back into the system.

Previous growth rates were able to mask this lag, but not the near-zero cap in place now.

SIM University economist Walter Theseira said: “Given the policy goal to keep vehicle growth minimal or even static in the future, the expectation clearly is that reliance on public transport, as well as on private-hire vehicles and taxis, must increase to satisfy transport demand with a growing population.”

The trend is underscored by a spike in rental car numbers. Last year, their population grew 75 per cent to a record 51,336.

The figure has grown by over three times since ride-hailing apps Uber and Grab entered the market in 2013.

Kah Motor general manager Nicholas Wong said private-hire cars “have displaced private passenger cars as well as taxis”.

Statistics show that the taxi population has fallen by 2.6 per cent to a five-year low of 27,534.

Mr Wong said the private passenger car population could continue to shrink.

But transport consultant Bruno Wildermuth said that should be the way to go.

“For Singapore to become ‘car-lite’, the number of cars has to decrease, and cars must be used less. Currently, because of the high cost of owning a car, many drivers use the car even when it makes little or no sense.”

To counter this, he said, COE expiry should be pegged to mileage clocked by a car instead of years.

Dr Theseira said the ramp-up of bus services and rail infrastructure “will meet reasonable growth in demand” for transport.

“However, the public transport system clearly cannot satisfy demand for private transport as a status symbol,” he noted.

“The public transport system also does not completely satisfy the transport needs of groups such as young families and the elderly, and professions with irregular travel patterns.

“Private transport will continue to be a key part of our transport system for many years to come.”

Motorcycles – another form of private transport – have dwindled in numbers too.

Last year, the population fell to 143,052, its lowest in 10 years.

This has put a squeeze on motorbike COE supply, which sent prices beyond the reach of many low-income earners who rely on two-wheelers.

Experts said it is not possible for Singapore to meet everyone’s private transport aspirations.

Nanyang Business School adjunct associate professor Zafar Momin said: “For some people, this may be an unfair outcome as they may need the car more than those who have the means to own one.

“However, with an improving standard of public transport, this pain point might be softened.”

christan@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on January 21, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

YANGON – Myanmar rebuffed Malaysia on Saturday for organising a meeting of Muslim governments to put pressure on Myanamar over the plight of Rohingya Muslims following a military crackdown that sent at least 66,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.

Hosting a meeting of representatives from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called on Myanmar to stop attacking, and discriminating against the Rohingya minority.

Najib urged the OIC, which groups 57 Muslim nations, to act to end the unfolding “humanitarian tragedy”.

In response, Myanmar, a mostly Buddhist country, said it was”regrettable” that Malaysia had called the meeting, and accused Kuala Lumpur of exploiting the crisis “to promote a certain political agenda” and disregard for the government’s efforts to address it.

“The Government has been endeavouring to safeguard lives and ensure the security of the people from the violent attacks of new extremists,” said Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement printed in the country’s state-run daily, the Global New Light of Myanmar.

The ministry is run by Nobel Peace Prize winner and de facto leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, who won 2015 elections in a landslide after decades of pro-democracy struggle, ushering in Myanmar’s first civilian government for about half a century.

Myanmar authorities say the military launched a security sweep in response to what they say was an attack in October by Rohingya insurgents on border posts near Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh in which nine police officers were killed.

Since then, at least 86 people have been killed and the United Nations says at least 66,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh.

Residents and refugees accuse the military of killing, raping and detaining civilians while burning villages in northwestern Rakhine State.

The government denies the accusations and insists a lawful counter-insurgency operation is underway.

About 56,000 Rohingya live in Malaysia having fled unrest and persecution in Myanmar.

Kuala Lumpur summoned Myanmar’s ambassador last year to protest against the treatment of Rohingya, breaking a tradition of non-intervention by members of the Association of South East Asian Nations in each other’s affairs.

Najib said it would be a disgrace if the Southeast Asian group did not do its utmost to “avert the catastrophe that has been unfolding”.

On Friday, a United Nations human rights investigator criticized Myanmar’s operation and urged the military to respect the law and human rights.

Three South Sulawesi fishermen have been kidnapped by the notorious Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf when they were sailing between Malaysia and the Philippines, an official said on Friday.

Selayar Police chief Adj. Comr. Eddy Tarigan said on Friday that the Indonesian Consulate in Tawau, Malaysia, had confirmed that Subandi from Bonto Bahari in Bulukumba regency and Sudarling and his uncle, Hamdan, from Bembe Island in Selayar regency were taken hostage on Thursday.

Eddy said the police had picked up relatives of the hostages on Bembe Island, a 10-hour boat trip from the regental capital, so they could attempt on Saturday to communicate with the consulate to obtain information about the hostages.

Japan’s labour officials, under pressure to curb excessive overtime, are investigating Kansai Electric Power after one of its managers killed himself last April.

The man, in his 40s, was a section head who reportedly worked nearly 200 hours of overtime in February and 100 hours of overtime in March, while the Osaka-based utilities company was rushing to meet deadlines.

This means he was putting in 12-hour work days, seven days a week, in February.

This is the third probe reported in as many weeks, following a case of a young employee at advertising giant Dentsu who killed herself, and another of a 31-year-old man at Mitsubishi Electric who became depressed and was later sacked after allegedly being forced to do excessive overtime.

In particular, the karoshi (death by overwork) case of Dentsu employee Matsuri Takahashi, 24, whose pleas for help after clocking at least 105 hours of overtime a month went unheard, has tugged at the nation’s heartstrings and galvanised a movement for change.

Dentsu president Tadashi Ishii, 65, resigned last month, and this week the firm said it will dock the pay of five board members by 20 per cent, for three months, for their failure to prevent Ms Takahashi’s death. It also said it has “harshly penalised” three of her superiors, though it did not give details.

Some local governments are also taking action.

On Thursday, Shiga prefecture said it will suspend Dentsu from bidding for projects in the central Japan region for three months, invoking local laws that bar businesses under probe from submitting bids.

Other regions with similar guidelines might follow suit, broadcaster NHK said.

Meanwhile, a petition against overwork started last October by Mr Soichiro Nishimura of workplace consultancy Hares has gathered 40,000 signatures in one month.

Among the alarming anecdotes posted on Change.org is this from a woman: “My husband is a high school teacher and only sleeps two to three hours a day due to overtime and working from home. I am worried he will die. Please help.”

Mr Nishimura on Thursday said the petition has been submitted to a government panel on work-style reforms, which is expected to announce an action plan in March.

Among the measures it is looking at is a strict cap on overtime hours.

The panel could also address loopholes in the Labour Standards Law.

In Kansai Electric’s case, experts said the firm was unlikely to have run afoul of the law as management staff are exempt from hour restrictions and do not get overtime pay.

Another flaw is the cap on work hours.

Ms Yoshie Komuro of the Work-Life Balance consultancy said that while the law states employees must work no more than eight hours a day, firms have been finding ways to bend the rules.

Article 36 allows capped overtime and work on weekends under written contracts between firms and labour unions, said Ms Komuro, who sits on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Industrial Competitive Council.

But firms can exercise a “special provision” clause, meant to be used sparingly, for even longer hours. At least 60 per cent of large firms have invoked this “special provision”, Labour Ministry figures show.

Ms Komuro stressed that excessive overtime has destroyed the family fabric, leading to social ills such as low birth rates and an urgent gap in nursing care.

But she is hopeful the resignation of Dentsu’s Mr Ishii will send a signal that top management can be held accountable.

“Before this, companies did not see karoshi as something serious that had to be dealt with. But when someone at that level is forced to step down, it changes the way the problem is seen.”

waltsim@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on January 21, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Anime, high technology and sushi aside, Japan is a country with a rich history and culture.

These days, Japan is said to be the new Hong Kong, a hot tourist destination. Frequent travellers might be familiar with Tokyo and Osaka for shopping, and Niseko for skiing. But what about sightseeing?

My family and I became the ultimate tourists, trading the shopping malls and famous restaurants for Japan’s finest landmarks.

Nara

Fun fact: Nara was Japan’s first permanent capital.

Leading up to Todai-ji Temple is Nara Park.

It is best known for its deer, once revered as a sacred animal.

Until 1637, eating or harming a deer was punishable by death.

Our tour guide was right when she said the deer are friendly-a bit too friendly, in fact.

Buy a pack of biscuits at any stall for 150 yen.

Hold one biscuit up and watch a whole bunch of deer surround you.

They also love eating paper, so hide your cash!

Todai-ji Temple

Before entering a temple, Japanese Buddhists observe a ritual that consists of washing their hands and mouth.

The Todai-ji Temple is not only the largest wooden structure in the world, it’s also home to massive Buddha statues.

The Daibutsu statue, made of bronze, stands 15 meters tall.

One of its hair buns is larger than a human head. Its hand gesture symbolizes the saying, “Don’t, worry, don’t worry, I will answer all of your wishes.”

People come here to pay their respects, atone for their wrongdoing and, most importantly, to pray.

Kasuga Grand Shrine

We didn’t have time to reach the Kasuga Grand Shrine itself, though we saw the pathway that led to it-3,000 stone lanterns lit only during festivals in February and August.

Kyoto

Fun fact: Since Kyoto is Japan’s historic capital, it observes restrictions in colour. Buildings must only be in brown or beige.

Besides its traditional minimalist interiors, the temple is surrounded by exquisite scenery like the Arashiyama mountains and tranquil ponds.

We noticed that throwing coins in a pond for good luck is practiced in Japan, too.

Make a wish before you toss your coin into a bowl in front of the frog statue.

Bamboo Grove

Located behind Tenryu-ji Temple is Bamboo Grove.

Walk along a path flanked by a lush forest of tall, slender bamboo stalks.

The sound of leaves rustling in the wind is mesmerizing, and the sight of sunlight seeping through the foliage is picturesque.

No bamboo-loving pandas here (my brother asked), but we did get to ride a traditional rickshaw around the area.

Gion

Our last stop is a quaint little area, home to geiko (or what we know as geisha or woman of art) and maiko (a geiko apprentice).

These women, who are trained to sing, dance and serve guests at tea ceremonies, must master proper etiquette and are not allowed to enter into a romantic relationship.

Not surprisingly, many have quit training.

The ones who stay, however, are treated with utmost respect.

A tea ceremony with a geiko costs about $1,000 per person.

More places

Discovering six Japanese tourist spots in a day is an achievement, but there are more places that we have yet to tick off our must-see list.

There’s the Togetsu-kyo Bridge (which we actually saw), Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) and Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Theater buffs can watch a four-hour Kabuki performance near Gion (there are headphones with English translation).

A full day tour will leave you exhausted by the time you get back to your hotel room.

But all the walking is worth it.

After all, travelling is about experiencing different cultures.

Special prosecutors said Friday they have summoned President Park Geun-hye’s jailed friend as they speed up their investigation into a bribery case involving Samsung Group’s de facto leader and possibly the impeached president.

Lee Kyu-chul, spokesman for the independent counsel team, said it called in Choi Soon-sil to face questioning on Saturday morning as a bribery suspect.

Choi has denied repeated summonses citing health issues, her own criminal trial and her obligation to testify at Park’s impeachment trial.

Read Also: Dismissal of warrant for Samsung chief to cause setback in Park investigation

“We have not yet received notice of whether she will appear,” Lee said during a regular press briefing. “If she does not appear tomorrow, I understand that we will seek an arrest warrant against her.”

Prosecutors suspect that Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, offered or promised a total of 43 billion won (S$53 million) in “donations” to two foundations and other shady organisations controlled by Choi in return for the government’s backing of a merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015.

Earlier this week, the team sought an arrest warrant for Lee on suspicion of bribery, embezzlement and perjury, but a Seoul court rejected the request.

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Photo Gallery

Choi accused of interfering in state affairs using relationship with President

Source:

AFP

Reuters

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Choi’s attorney Lee Kyung-jae made it clear she has no plans to obey the summons.

“I asked (Choi) again yesterday, but she said she can’t appear before the special prosecutors,” he said. “She’s extremely busy with her trial and all.”

Choi has been indicted on charges of abuse of power, coercion and attempted fraud.

Read Also: S Korea court rejects arrest warrant for Samsung heir Park Chan-Kyong

Lee claimed the prosecutors have already gathered all the information they need from her.

“If an arrest warrant is issued, we’ll deal with it then. There isn’t much we can do if a warrant is enforced under the law. Either way, it’s the same to (Choi),” he added.

Park was impeached by parliament last month for allegedly letting her friend meddle in state affairs and colluding with her to extort money from conglomerates.