ONE Championship Draws Massive Crowd for ONE: Reign of Kings in Manila

Wazzup Pilipinas!

For the third time in 2018, ONE Championship™ (ONE), the largest global sports media property in Asian history, brought their exciting brand of martial arts action to Philippine soil and once again, it brought the house down.  

ONE: REIGN OF KINGS, which was held at the SM Mall of Asia Arena last Friday, 27 July, featured a stacked card from top to bottom, and was headlined by top Filipino bantamweight contender Kevin ‘The Silencer’ Belingon of Team Lakay who defeated reigning ONE Featherweight and Lightweight World Champion Martin ‘The Situ-Asian’ Nguyen to become the new ONE Interim Bantamweight World Champion.

Aside from the massive main event that featured two of ONE Championship’s top athletes, a handful of other big names also saw action, including martial arts legends Renzo Gracie and Yuki Kondo, as well as former ONE Lightweight World Champion and Filipino mixed martial arts hero Eduard Folayang.

From as early as the opening bout of the night, fans had already filled up more than half of the seats at the state-of-the-art arena in Manila, and even as event night progressed, more people continued to gather outside the arena, hoping to make their way in to catch the action.

By the end of the night, the SM Mall of Asia Arena was packed to the rafters with passionate martial arts fans.

“The Philippines has always been one of the best countries to hold our events, so it’s no surprise that ONE: REIGN OF KINGS in Manila produced that kind of turnout,” said ONE Championship founder and Chairman Chatri Sityodtong.

“Filipino fans are some of the most passionate fans, not just in Asia, but in the whole world, and that’s because every Filipino, deep inside, has that warrior spirit,” Sityodtong continued.

“They celebrate and they embrace that warrior spirit that they see in their heroes. Look at Manny Pacquiao, who’s possibly the biggest Filipino martial arts hero of them all, look at guys like Eduard Folayang, look at their new champion, Kevin Belingon, these guys are warriors and these guys are champions, and that’s why they’re beloved in the Philippines.”

In turn, the Filipino contingent at ONE: REIGN OF KINGS repaid the unparalleled fan support by turning in a 4-0 clean sweep that saw Folayang, Joshua Pacio, and Rene Catalan all putting on impressive performances leading to dominant victories.

Drawing a huge crowd and pulling in an immense number of viewers in Manila is nothing new anymore, as back in 2017, ONE Championship made history by putting together the most-watched mixed martial arts event in the country.

ONE: KINGS OF DESTINY, which was headlined by then-champion Folayang successfully defending his ONE Lightweight World Championship against top contender Ev Ting back in 21 April, 2017, became the most-watched mixed martial arts show in the Philippines, not only filling up the SM Mall of Asia Arena, but also garnering a 26-percent peak ratings share that blasted the competitors’ television ratings out of the water.

“We broke all records with a 26 percent peak TV ratings share as per Nielsen. Those numbers are massive. It means one in four Filipinos who were watching TV was watching ONE Championship,” Sityodtong said then.

After making history last year, ONE Championship aims to make even more history in the Philippines this year and in the years to come, and one of the steps the company has taken is to double-up on the number of events to take place on Philippine soil.

From usually holding two cards a year, ONE Championship has already put on three momentous cards in Manila this year, and there’s one more on the way, which is likely to again feature some of the biggest names on the ONE roster.

By the end of 2018, Manila will have hosted four ONE Championship events.

“It’s always big when we come to the Philippines,” said Sityodtong. “We’ve put on big-time championship bouts, we’ve showcased legends on our events, and we’ve even introduced new avenues of martial arts like the ONE Super Series which we debuted back in April in Manila, because we know that we’ll always get a warm reception from the fans there, and they’ve never let us down.”

“This year, we’ll be holding twice as many cards in Manila, and moving forward, the Filipino martial arts fans can expect even more big names and even more exciting ONE Championship action. As I’ve said before, I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to what ONE Championship can achieve.” Sityodtong added.

ONE Championship returns to Manila on Friday, 23 November, 2018 for ONE: CONQUEST OF CHAMPIONS.

For more updates on ONE Championship, please visit www.onefc.com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @ONEChampionship, and like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ONEChampionship.

Breeding Tuna in the Philippines

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Jonah van Beijnen (MSc), Best Alternatives Campaign Proponent

Tuna are large predatory pelagic fish that swim through the seas of the world. In terms of value and volume, they are some of the most important species for the Philippine fisheries sector.

The most commonly-caught species include Skipjack, Yellowfin and Bigeye Tuna – taken using a variety of gear ranging from purse seine nets to circular handline reels. Tuna provide excellent income for fisherfolk and fishing companies, while generating thousands of jobs in vessels, canneries and other parts of the supply chain. 

Because of their high value in local and international sushi restaurants, many fishers focus on catching Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacares). However, in recent years the rising number of fishers and large fishing vessels targeting these fish have depleted stocks, putting the livelihoods of Pinoy fishers and other tuna sector workers at risk. Besides promoting sustainable systems like handline fisheries, limiting fishing effort and improving enforcement, closed cycle aquaculture or breeding tuna can be a #BestAlternative – especially for the Philippines.

Owing to technical difficulties, most aquaculturists still think producing captive-bred tuna from eggs is impossible – but much has changed in recent years.
In Europe and Japan, the culture of tuna started many years ago with fattening operations. Here special purse seiners target wild juvenile and sub-adult tuna, which are carefully caught and towed back to special fattening farms.

Upon arrival, these tuna are transferred to large floating cages where they are fattened to attain better marketable sizes and to improve the fat percentage of their meat. Fatter tuna fetch higher prices.

Since pellet feeds for tuna are still under development in Europe, fresh fish like sardines and mackerel are used as feed. The feed conversion ratio of fresh fish fed to these tuna is not yet very efficient and approximately 15 to 20 kilograms of other fish is used to produce one kilogram of tuna.

About 10 years ago, with the number of fattening operations rising and most tuna stocks overfished or fished close to their maximum sustainable yields, a number of governments, nonprofits and other stakeholders expressed their concerns about the sustainability of these farming practices.

This eventually drove the European Union and Japanese governments to steer their aquaculture sectors away from fattening wild-caught juvenile fish and instead invest in developing technology for the sustainable closed-cycle aquaculture of tuna.

Today hatchery projects for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) are already operating in Spain, Malta, Greece, Croatia, Egypt and Turkey. Since 2014, many of these projects have successfully produced small quantities of fingerlings and some harvestable fish. The first tuna products from these efforts are already available in the Netherlands.

In Japan, scientists have been working hard to close the lifecycle of the closely-related Pacific Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus orientalis), a species which is also found in the Philippines, especially around the recently-protected Philippine Rise, east of Luzon. After many years of trial and error, approximately 20 hatchery facilities are now producing Pacific Bluefin Tuna with an average survival rate estimated from 3 to 5%.

In 2016, these hatcheries together produced an incredible 500,000 fingerlings! The sales from grow-out operations using hatchery-produced Pacific Bluefin Tuna have lifted off as well, with 900 metric tons of sales in 2016 and over 1000 metric tons of sales in 2017 – thereby proving beyond a doubt that the closed-cycle aquaculture of Bluefin Tuna is viable, profitable and an excellent alternative to wild-capture fisheries.

In the meantime, two projects in Panama (South America) and Bali (Indonesia) have been focusing their efforts on Yellowfin Tuna. Both projects have been able to produce plenty of eggs in captivity and some fingerlings. Although there are still plenty of remaining challenges in improving the survival of tuna larvae and fingerlings, improving the sustainability of feeds and minimizing the environmental impacts of farming activities, the potential of the sector is clear.

The Philippines, with many islands and surrounding calm and productive waters, sits at the centre of the natural spawning grounds of wild Yellowfin Tuna. Juvenile tuna love these warm and calm waters, teeming with food. This might just give the Philippines a big advantage in the future closed cycle culture of Yellowfin Tuna.

The Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has also realized the potential of tuna aquaculture. On 11 July 2018, they released a statement that the Bureau of Fisheries will collaborate with the Japanese government to start Yellowfin Tuna fattening operations in Samar, where juvenile tuna will be gathered from spawning grounds in municipal waters for farming.

This is an innovative and hands-on move by BFAR. However, with Yellowfin Tuna stocks in the Philippines and Western Pacific Ocean already under severe pressure, collecting wild juvenile tuna from spawning grounds might not be the most sustainable approach. The same approach has been tried with groupers and lobster, where undersized individuals were caught for fattening purposes – and both practices resulted in a population collapse.

Since the Japanese are already producing hundreds of thousands of hatchery-bred juvenile tuna, perhaps the Japanese government can be requested to focus on the closed-cycle aquaculture of Yellowfin Tuna in their collaboration with BFAR instead.

As an alternative to catching undersized tuna, the Japanese could for example build a hatchery and farming research centre for Yellowfin Tuna in Samar and share their knowledge on how to culture tuna from eggs with Filipino aquaculturists.
In doing so, they will capacitate Filipinos, create a truly sustainable aquaculture sector for Samar and many other island provinces, and let locals truly benefit from their investment.

About the Author: 
Jonah van Beijnen believes that sustainable production and consumption of seafood is the key to ensuring a better world for all people. Ten years ago, he co-founded Fins and Leaves to develop and successfully market one of the Philippines’ first grouper (Lapu-Lapu) hatcheries. Now based in Spain and a Best Alternatives Campaign proponent, he continues to assist nonprofits, corporations and governments in improving the sustainability of their fisheries and aquaculture operations, focusing on high-value species like grouper and tuna. For more information, please contact jonah@vb-consultancy.com or see his work on Researchgate.

About the Best Alternatives Campaign:
Founded by environmentalist Gregg Yan in 2014, the Best Alternatives Campaign is an environmental communications think-tank which publicizes sustainable and profitable solutions to meet a host of ecological challenges – ranging from better ways to generate renewable energy to best practices for the seafood industry.  For more information, please contact BestAlternativesCampaign@Gmail.com.

Airport Personnel Returns Passenger's Forgotten Luggage Contailing P1.5 Million

Wazzup Pilipinas!

What would you do if you lost a luggage containing PhP1.5million in cold cash? One top of mind answer would be is to pray that it does not fall into the wrong hands until you are able to get it back.

That is what exactly happened on the morning of July 31st, 2018, at the Puerto Princesa International Airport. At around 8am, security guard Jovani Yumen noticed a blue luggage beside a flower box at the arrival area of the airport. Yumen called the attention of the airport security assistant on duty, Jel Anthony Cervantes, who then immediately sought K9 IED (improvised explosive device) inspection from PO3 Widmark R. Briones of the PNP Aviation Security Unit.

After the K9 inspection yielded negative result, Tourist Police PO2 Leoniliza Bautista, PO2 Job Arkhe Sancho III, and PO1 Anabelle Guimbongan of the PNP Aviation Security Unit examined the contents of the luggage. Upon inspection, the contents revealed one black jacket, one black wallet with ID/s belonging to a certain Danilo Dequito, and an envelope containing 15 bundles of PhP 100,000 totaling to PhP1.5 million.

Over an hour later, Mr. Dequito went to the arrival area looking for his luggage. Upon presenting proof of identification, he was allowed to claim his luggage and examine its contents. With Cervantes, PO2 Bautista, and PO1 Guimbongan as witnesses, Dequito counted his money and found everything intact and complete.

Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Arthur Tugade commended the airport employees for their honesty, professionalism and for following aviation security and police procedures.

“Saludo ako sa kanila. Even small acts of honesty and just by simply following the proper procedures are important in showing the integrity of our offices. Pinapakita lang nito ang disiplina at malasakit ng bawat isa na magserbisyo sa kapwa. Sometimes it’s so easy to be complacent, o kaya naman sabihin na ang tama ang dapat mong gawin. Pero kapag nalagay ka na sa sitwasyon na talagang masusubukan ka, doon na lalabas ang iyong tunay na karakter. Ang taas ng respeto at paghanga ko sa CAAP at sa mga empleyado ng Puerto Princesa International Airport because of this. They set the bar high, and this should be the norm for all of us public servants.”

Photos from Mr. Percy Malonesio, Area Manager, Area IV of CAAP.