MEGAWORLD WINS ‘BEST DEVELOPER’ IN 2016 PHILIPPINES PROPERTY AWARDS The photo shows the men and women of Megaworld Group, headed by Lourdes Gutierrez-Alfonso, chief operating officer, Megaworld, (ninth from left), together with other officials (from left) Eugene Em Lozano, VP for sales and marketing for Makati CBD, Megaworld; Isaias D. Berdin Jr., VP for operations, Suntrust Properties Inc.; Harold C. Geronimo, AVP and head for PR and communications, Megaworld; Jerry R. Rubis, FVP for marketing and business development, Suntrust Properties Inc.; Atty. Basilio C. Almazan Jr., FVP for legal, Suntrust Properties Inc.; Deanna Jean A. Claveria, EVP and COO, Suntrust Properties Inc.; Jericho P. Go, SVP, Megaworld; Kevin L. Tan, FVP and head of commercial, Megaworld; Monica Salomon, president, Global-Estate Resorts Inc.; Noli D. Hernandez, SVP for sales and marketing, Megaworld; Glennford L. Heraldo, VP for sales and marketing, Global-Estate Resorts Inc.; Mylene Manlogon, AVP for retail partners management, Megaworld Lifestyle Malls; Bimbo Andrade, senior marketing manager, Megaworld Lifestyle Malls; and Rowena Espiritu, sales director for Makati CBD, Megaworld.
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Tuesday, April 12, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 185
Telcos’ feud over 700-MHz band could drag on for years
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@lorenzmarasigan
HE whole telecommunications industry is keenly awaiting the outcome of the case lodged before the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on the “unfair” allocation of a digital real estate, considered one of the key answers to the relatively slow Internet speeds in the Philippines.
INSIDE
MELISSA McCARTHY’S ‘THE BOSS’ EDGES ‘BATMAN v SUPERMAN’
SHOW
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700 MHz
Spectrum key to the deployment of a highcapacity LTE-based wireless and fixed broadband network While Globe Telecom Inc. has called the uneven distribution of the 700-megahertz (MHz) frequency band to one mobile services group as “anticompetitive,” the telecommunications regulator believes that moves to block out competition will also result in more dismal services down the line. S “T,” A
BMReports D3
CARING FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES news@businessmirror.com.ph
The Millennials BusinessMirror
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Caring for employees a source of young restaurateur’s success
NOZAR Inc. President Ryan Razon (right) poses with his employees at the Teresita’s restaurant inside a shopping mall. Razon credits his experience working for a beer company, as well as thinking of employees’ interests as the key to the success of his restaurant chain.
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HIRTYISH Ryan Razon realized his background in human resources (HR) was a vital element in building the restaurant brand that was inspired by his mother’s passion in the kitchen.
A graduate of industrial psychology from the University of Santo Tomas, Razon said his realization came after working for two-and-a-half years in a major beer company and a computer-education institution.
When his stints in the corporate world did not meet his expectations, Razon decided to help his mother Teresita run the business in Guagua, Pampanga. Upon joining the business, the
young Razon introduced disruptive methods to make the business more competitive and sustainable. At that time, the Razon family was already contemplating to enter the lucrative Manila market. The older generation was shocked by my methods, he told the BusinessMirror. The president of Nozar Inc., the operator of Teresita’s, brought the restaurants into cyberspace by opening a web site, Facebook and Instagram accounts. He implemented a more shocking practice by allowing the staff to eat the meals, like palabok and halo-halo, they serve. “The first week was a disaster, because I saw an employee consume a pitcher of halo-halo and a group of workers finished a basket of palabok,” he said laughing. Inspired by the Chinese maxim
of one step backward, two steps forward, Razon believed this practice would click in the long run. After one week, he brought dried fish for the staff and asked them if they like to try eating it. “They said yes, because they got fed up eating our products,” he recalled. Razon applied this practice because he wanted to satisfy their curiosity and get a feedback on the quality of the products they are selling. Since the staff is on the front line, Razon said they are in the best position to tell customers that their products are good. “They will not also be tempted to steal and bring home the items.” Moreover, he was encouraged to implement this policy, because he discovered an illegal activity by some crew members. “When I went to the toilet for a break, I noticed the toilet bowl was clogged with a lot
of chicken bones thrown by the crew.” As part of his preparation in running the restaurant business, Razon finished his Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) degree at the Ateneo de Manila University. “One of the good things in Ateneo’s MBA program is you can apply the knowledge you learned in class the following day,” he told the BusinessMirror. “Moreover, I have an advantage, because I am already managing a business. I also learned the value of quantitative analysis taught me that everything not measurable is a loss in business.” There he discovered he was also able to apply “all the things I learned in human resources.” “I know the sentiments of being an employee.” Razon approached the Franchising Corp. of the Philippines (Francorp) to evaluate the Teresita’s business model and determine if it is ready to mix up with the big boys. After getting the green light from Francorp, Razon rushed to Pampanga to standardize the processes and operations of Teresita’s. He also asked the family to drop the name Razon to make the Teresita’s distinct from the other businesses carrying the same name. “We also wanted to give our mother the credit, because of her recipes.” The halo-halo was the only product that originated from the restaurant, while the other recipes were created by the different members of Razon clan. In 2011 Teresita’s opened its first branch on Tomas Morato, Quezon City, initially offering halo-halo and palabok to clients. Razon later introduced dishes from his mother’s recipes, like kare-kare and caldereta. In 2012 Teresita’s opened its second branch in Waltermart Muñoz, which got stronger response because of the bigger foot traffic. In 2013 Teresita’s opened a branch in Vito Cruz area near the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas office. In 2014 the family decided to go into franchising and opened its first halo-halo store. Last year Teresita’s went into a higher expansion gear by opening seven branches. For the meantime, Razon said he wants to remain cautious in their expansion and stabilize the business first and build the brand.
Play bares difficulty to talk about the birds and the bees B V V
ACK in the day when my uncle Elmer still lived in the neighborhood, he would accidentally leave seedy tabloids in the parking lot. These I would “accidentally” pick up and, from the paper’s raunchy covers graced by the likes of scantily clad sirens, I would, again, “accidentally” jump to the entertainment section and read the comics, titled “Buhulbuhol na Init” (Tangled Heat). I was 10 years old. That time I thought the people in the neighborhood minding their own businesses might suspect what’s up with this boy perusing what was obviously a filthy newspaper. “Ahahaha!” I would laugh out loud, so that they wouldn’t harbor on the thought and it would appear as though I were just reading a fable. “This is so funny!” This, as I was afraid the neighbors might tell my mother, because that time when I was just beginning to discover the sexual tingling inside me was also the time most fraught with hurt. That time I would “experiment” smooching my playmates on the lips. That time I would get a hard-on over pinup calendar girls and kiss-and-tell autobiographies. That time I would be caught touching myself under the bed covers just when I was about to climax. That time I wondered whether it was the all-knowing and omnipresent God telling my mother. Or maybe I was just terrible at timing, because I was getting caught with such a depressing regularity. If you managed to get away from so much ribbing, what was deemed a “mis-
mother, who talks endlessly to her dead “santo friends”. Preceded by Diego’s sexual advance, the utter neglect and her stumbling one night upon a peepshow of her parents petting and canoodling stoked her sexual curiosity. She was forced to perform a balancing act between desire and all the virtue and fear of God her Lolita body could hold. Diego wants the same attention from her catatonic mother, whom he finds mooning by the window day in and day out, as if stuck psychedelically in an emotional past, as if waiting for Diego’s father to come back. It is a youth pockmarked with grit and gray and where being turned down for premature sex was the first heartbreak. Julio, on the other hand, was an obvious pansy. Time was he covered up how he rummaged her mother’s closet of ermine dresses and lipstick by saying he was sweating out in the sun by playing basketball with Diego. It was in a household where being gay was condemned and the marching order was to develop muscles and break his neck like a man. The play is awash with sexual innuendoes and sinister lighting so as adult thespians Thea Yrastorza (Luna), JC Santos (Diego) and Abner de Lina (Julio) assumed otherwise juvenile roles when they play house. The technique works in a way always suggestive of something about to happen and demands the audience to stifle their coughs when that finally occurs. One day they would play hide-andseek against the benighted backdrop of cardboard mockups of a remote castle
and a church and the woods in an eventide. The next day, Luna would act to suggest she’s pleasuring herself in solitude, while Julio pleasures Diego. In the intimate and personal black-box setting that is the “Power Mac” spotlight, the ritual is an obligation of solidarity, at once raw, straight from the shoulders and shows how theater transcends film, devoid of any subterfuge to mask a flawed and ill-equipped 11-year-old fondling and caressing with the sleight of a fancy camera angle. The silence that wrapped the audience was punctured by a sound effect of lip-smacking. Perhaps the need to talk was to escape the agony of being point-blank grilled and the feel of being put on the spot, the way you blather words without meaning to extinguish an already-excruciating silence. Just being there watching young adults break down their unadulterated innocence and titillate oneself was to partake in an act deemed “sinful”. The “unfortunate” turn of events gradually give way to when these childhood friends have grown older. Now strangers to each other, they meet for the first time. Sighs were heaved; heads snapped to attention; onstage there was at once the need to talk about something. But about what? And how? Diego ventures upon the games they played. But, again, awkwardness ensues. What brought them together now sets them apart. The actors show their characters apparently refuse to talk about the past, if only because childhood was just a phase. And that was a long time ago.
Stateline.org/TNS
THE MILLENNIALS MILLIONAIRES! THIS undated photo shows Games People Play actors Thea Yrastorza (Luna, foreground), JC Santos (Diego) and Abner de Lina (Julio, right). behavior” would be met with corporal punishment. However, it’s unlike being ostracized and treated with a cold shoulder. Rather than a direct confrontation, your parents would sit you down and beat around the bush. Compare this with the people you’ve done it with who would rather shove the memories of a raunchy evening to the back of their heads. They would be unwilling to talk about that evening either because that was a difficult conversation or because that was a long time ago. Glenn Sevilla Mas and Ed Locsin’s Games People Play, an opus centered at heartbreak, coming of age and coming out, brought these awkward conversations out to the fore and nailed it there. Mas and Locsin’s opus is twin-billed with Si Maria Isabella at ang Guryon ng mga Tala at the recent Children’s Play
for Adults theatrical. The latter is the latest brainchild of Hero Blueberry & West and Bit by Bit Co., which also produced a seminal theatrical adaptation, Maxie the Musical: Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, in 2013. Games People Play stages what happens when fairy tales and bedtime stories actually become “bedtime stories.” In it, Luna, Diego and Julio are soulmates whose narratives and checkered back stories are pushed forward in the “games” they play. These games form part of the rites of passage, beginning from their being innocuous childhood best of friends to when they begin to lust over each other’s precociously seductive bodies. The virtuous girl Luna grew up in a home where she existed from one bedtime to the next, invisible to her oblivious drunkard father and overly religious
@caiordinario
A FARMER in Barangay Amaya in Tanza, Cavite, tends to his cow amid the searing heat due to the effect of El Niño. The farmer said the two-cropping season he is used to having in his two-and-a-half hectare farm has been reduced to one this year due to El Niño. NONIE REYES
THE Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) also predicts continued growth in apartments this year, saying the key drivers of the boom are still in place: rising incomes and more young people setting out on their own. Some of the cities where construction increased the most in 2015—Dallas, Nashville, Tennessee and Salt Lake City—still have low vacancy rates, the report said.
COMING HOME
COMING HOME
Farmers suffer El Niño’s wrath Wretched countryside sends poor to desperate measures
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| TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Mike G. Besa | www.pinoygolfer.com
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THE home hole at Marapara
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Demand factor
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HE next Congress must prioritize the amendment of a law which allowed Manila to protect the rice sector by limiting the entry of cheap rice imports, a senior official of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said on Monday. Neda Deputy Director General Rosemarie Edillon said Republic Act (R A) 8178, or the Agricultural Tariffication Act, should be amended before the extension of the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice granted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) expires in July 2017. While the QR on rice has temporarily given palay farmers a reprieve from the deluge of cheap imports, its extension has necessitated the grant of concessions that were detrimental to other farm sectors. “July 2017 is less than two years away and when the new Congress begins its session, I suppose [the amendment of RA 8178] will have to be one of the first bills that should be filed and passed,” Edillon told the BusinessMirror in an interview. After July 2017, the Philippines may no longer be allowed to enjoy the QR, as it has been over 20 years since the country joined the WTO. The Philippines officially became a member of the WTO on January 1, 1995. The country’s accession to
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Turning point
T hit me like a ton of bricks. In the 10 years that I’ve been writing and following the game in the Philippines, I have played just about every golf course of import in the country but I had not played a full round on the firm, fast fairways of the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club, known to us all as Marapara. » F
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B T H ENVER—Jason and Rebecca Petersen’s lives are in flux, just as they are for many young families. They like life as renters in the urban neighborhood here called LoHi, where apartments are steadily replacing single-family houses and crowds of millennials flock to trendy shops and restaurants. But will they buy a house in the suburbs as their son, 3-year-old Lucas, nears school age? It’s a possibility, if jobs lead them there, or they go in search of better schools. But they would miss the lively neighborhood and its short walk downtown, through a scenic park where Lucas loves to ride his bicycle. “We’d like to stay here. It’s just more vibrant,” said Jason, 30, a stay-at-home dad who develops software while wife Rebecca finishes her medical residency. The Petersens, like other millennials— who were born after 1980, have a taste for city life, and are willing to move in search of work—have helped fuel a boom in apartment construction unlike anything in recent decades. They tend to have careers that were delayed by the recession, and to lack the job security or savings to settle down and buy a home. Construction started on 386,000 new apartments last year, according to census data, the highest number since 1987. Apartments, defined as housing units in buildings with five or more units, made up 35 percent of all home construction last year, the highest share since 1973. Forty-seven states saw construction shift from houses toward apartments, as measured by approval of permits, between 2005 and 2014, the most recent complete year of census data. The shift was especially dramatic in western states, such as Colorado, where multifamily units made up 38 percent of new construction permits in 2014, up from just 10 percent in 2005. Other states where the share rose more than 25 percentage points were California, Oregon, Arizona, New Jersey, Washington, North Dakota and Nebraska. The only states to buck the trend were Wyoming and Rhode Island, where apartment-construction permits dropped by more than half since 2005.
DEBATE rages over whether a turning point has been reached as millennials begin to enter their late 20s and early 30s. Will they stay in the urban spots they’ve come to love or will many move to the suburbs to have children, just as their boomer parents did, for more space, better schools and less crime? The National Association of Home Builders predicts little growth in multifamily construction this year, with renewed emphasis on single-family homes, economist Robert Dietz said. But Jonathan Spader, a research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, said the need for new urban apartments is likely to continue. The center released a study of rental housing in December. Rents are rising and vacancy rates for apartments are near 30-year lows, Spader said, and if some older millennials are buying houses, younger ones are still waiting for a chance to move out on their own. The annual share of first-time homebuyers is at its lowest ebb in three decades, according to a National Association of Realtors report, and a new 3-percent down program had little effect in 2015. Buyers have been discouraged by higher home prices and mortgage rates, and rising rents are making it harder for them to save, the report said. “Those things together suggest a bull market at the national level,” for apartments, Spader said. “Growth in demand is rising and new multifamily construction, at least in the short term, is here to stay.”
‘PASSAGE OF NEW RICE IMPORTS POLICY A MUST’
30%
World Bank’s proposed tariff rate for rice after the QR expires in July 2017 the WTO means it agreed to liberalize trade for all commodities, including rice—the country’s staple. Over time, other countries, like Japan and South Korea, were no longer allowed to impose the QR, allowing rice imports to arrive freely in their markets, provided traders would pay the corresponding tariff and duties. Edillon said Manila’s decision to retain the protection for rice is due to the fact that Filipinos consider it irreplaceable as it is a cheap everyday food. The exemption also aims to protect farmers, many of whom could not compete in the international market. Only farmers living in plains like those in Central Luzon will be able to compete with international rice sellers. “What we’re saying is that protection doesn’t have to be in the form of QR. In fact, if you replace QR with tariffs, the money could be used to modernize our agriculture,” Edillon said. “ T he government could C A
World Bank still not sold on PHL tax administration
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Millennials fuel boom in building of apartments
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The number of households the Kidapawan city government has identified for direct food assistance and food-for-work program
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 46.1920
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@awimailbox
IDAPAWAN CITY, North Cot abato —78 -yea r - old Valentina Berdin looked up from where she stood at Saguing River, when she heard the sound of gunfire coming from the bridge above. “I just finished taking a bath
from the river below when I heard the pop! pop! pop!,” the Arakan Valley resident said. And then people, men and women, ran in all directions to hide, she said in this province’s language. One of those was Dionisio Alagos, 68, from Barangay Kalodkod, also of Arakan Valley. He hid inside a small hut near the river. It was C A
HE next administration should increase taxes and reform the country’s tax system so the government could hike its spending for infrastructure and social services by P900 billion a year, according to local economists and the World Bank. In a report, the World Bank said the Philippines needs to increase its investment in the infrastructure and social services sectors by 6.8 percent of GDP, which is equivalent to P900 billion, to achieve inclusive growth. The World Bank said this could be financed via reforms in the government’s tax administration and tax policy. “Higher and more efficient public spending, underpinned by increased revenue mobilization, is needed to raise physical and human capital and sustain inclusive
₧900B
Annual infrastructure and social service spending backlog of the Philippines, according to World Bank growth,” World Bank Philippines senior country economist Karl Kendrick Chua said. “Relying solely on tax-administration reforms is not enough,” Chua added. Former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno told the BusinessMirror that the country’s tax system needs to be overhauled, as it is “highly unequal.” This, he said, is crucial as the country’s tax collection is among the lowest in the region at 15 percent of GDP. Diokno said increasing the tax S “W B,” A
n JAPAN 0.4275 n UK 65.2554 n HK 5.9542 n CHINA 7.1416 n SINGAPORE 34.2290 n AUSTRALIA 34.8472 n EU 52.7051 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.3195
Source: BSP (11 April 2016 )
BMReports BusinessMirror
A2 Tuesday, April 12, 2016
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Farmers suffer El Niño’s wrath
where he and most of the farmers washed their sun-baked bodies on that early morning of April 1. Berdin, Alagos and hundreds of farmers attempted for the second time to get a free sack of rice to fend off extreme hunger in their drought-stricken farms. Berdin still managed to laugh as she recalled how she convinced a pair of police officers at the Kidapawan side of the bridge to arrest her, while antiriot police rounded up farmers, many of them elderly, shortly after police fired guns to disperse their protest rally. Authorities said Berdin, Alago s a nd t he f a r me re s w e re blocking a highway. “The son of the owner of that house was hit by a bullet and died,” Alagos said pointing to a dwelling with thatched roof. The number of people police said they arrested that day vary from 79 to 89. Organizers of the protest rally insisted on a higher figure because they believe people who were questioned at a police station after the rally should be included in the count. These men and women were the farmers who joined the barricade from March 28 to April 1 “just to get a sack of rice.” They became the painful face of a local government’s ironhanded response that has generated both national and global reaction. Reaction also came from members of Protestant churches after one of their own was dragged into the scene after opening a church compound to shelter fleeing farmers. What forced these farmers to join such a desperate action?
El Niño
THE obvious answer is El Niño, whose effects in the Philippines h ave been wel l doc u mented since 1998. “The dry spell and drought conditions prevailing in Mindanao this year are comparable to what happened in 1998,” Thelma A. Cinco said. Cinco heads the Impact Assessment and Application Section, Climatology and Agronometeorology Division of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa). Cinco explained that Region 12,
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where North Cotabato is located, have experienced three consecutive months of way-below-normal rainfall from December to February. This meant the region was suffering from drought. Aside from Region 12, four other regions in Mindanao were also drought stricken: Region 9 (Zamboanga Peninsula), Region 10 (Northern Mindanao), Region 11 (Davao Region) and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The first to feel the drought’s full effect were the upland farms.
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Budget the Kidapawan city government set aside for direct food assistance and food-for-work program “Upland farms are reliant on rainfall,” Cinco said. Farmers in these areas were hard hit. After three months of drought, their crops failed. And because there is not enough moisture, they cannot even plant new crops to sustain their livelihood. Loss of livelihood meant hunger for people in these far-flung farming villages. After suffering from three months of drought, the men and women in these agricultural communities were desperate enough to gather in Kidapawan for a chance to get some rice for their families to eat. For these farmers, the matter was now about survival.
Survival
BERDIN explained the offer of getting rice enticed her to join the rally organized by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and affiliate farmer organizations. “I brought my two older grandchildren here to help me carry that one sack,” she said, “but there would be no sack after all.” Antonio Opiniano, 48, from an interior farm of this city, also joined the barricade hoping to pressure the government to release the rice at the National Food Authority (NFA) warehouse here. “Rice is a luxury for all of us farmers,” said Edwin Inagong, 39, of Barangay Lamatikon, Abakan.
to exert pressure on the provincial government until it agreed to release the rice as assistance.” The protesters have demanded the release of more than 15,000 sacks of r ice from the NFAKidapawan warehouse. “From our computation of the calamity fund, we know that there is sufficient number of sacks of rice for farmers, including those who joined the mass action,” Arnado said. “If only the police allowed the protesters, or facilitated them to proceed to the NFA warehouse, it would have been done in an orderly manner and would not [have turned] violent,” Pastor Manuel Rapisura, director of the Spottswood United Methodist Center here, said. The center became the refuge of the protesters during and after the police dispersal.
Restoring order
SEVENTYEIGHTYEAROLD Valentina Berdin of Arakan Valley narrates her ordeal after she volunteered to be arrested. MANUEL T. CAYON
Families in the country were now subsisting mainly on saba, a variety of banana, for the past several months, Inagong explained. Whatever coin they can spare would be used to buy a fourth of a kilo of the cheapest regular-milled rice, sold for P32 a kilo, or $0.69— the price of a song downloaded from Amazon. “They would be given to the younger children.” Sharing was supposedly a common trait among rural families. However, the times were tough. “Now we have to make it on our own, even if we see smoke in our neighbor’s kitchen,” Inagong said in the native tongue. “Ang amon na bukid, pegado na gid kahit sa mga gulayon. Waay na gid, patay na lahat, camote at saging na lang [It’s very difficult in our farms, even with vegetables. All plants cannot grow anymore, except for camote and banana],” Alagos chimed in. His simple statement was a stirring confirmation of Pagasa’s climate outlook assessment, which mentioned in part: “the region has been experiencing drought condition [sic], hence, all farming activities are hampered. The rainfall received is still insufficient for any farming activities undertaken.”
State of calamity
THE Kidapawan city government declared a state of calamity on February 2, allowing it to use 5 percent of its annual budget of almost P500 million to deal with the searing effect of El Niño. The city has identified 11,240 households for direct food assistance, as well as a food-for-work program that had a budget of P3.3 million. “We also have water rationing for affected areas and provide irrigation equipment for areas where water can still be extracted,” a city official who requested anonymity said. “That is why we are very dismayed about the incident. It put us in a bad light,” the official said, adding that “many of these protesters are not from Kidapawan City.” “Why Kidapawan?” the official asked. Last week, the city mayor, Joseph Evangelista, requested the city office of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to conduct a study on the economic losses incurred. The city planning office said the DTI has already finished its study, based on evaluations and estimates made by business groups and other economic sectors.
The city planning office explained that the DTI study will be disclosed after the mayor evaluates the report.
Pressure politics
PEDRO ARNADO, KMP regional chairman, said Kidapawan was selected as the center of the move to ask for calamity assistance for a specific reason. “This is where the biggest NFA [National Food Authority] warehouse is located, and in case that the provincial government would finally agree to release the rice assistance, it would not burden our farmers anymore,” he told the BusinessMirror. The rice is there, he said, “and it was only disheartening that the provincial government would not release them to farmers when it has already declared a state of calamity.” However, he denied that his group told the farmers that the rice already in Kidapawan City was theirs for the picking. “It is not exactly what we have told the farmer leaders. Maybe, the communication eventually turned very simplistic as the message went from one person to the other,” he explained. “What we have in mind is
SUPT. Noel Kinazok, the North Cotabato Police deputy director for administration, has since replaced city police chief, Senior Supt. Alexander Tagum. On Friday the police herded 17 male farmers on two police vans that brought them to the Regional Trial Court for final decision on to where they would be jailed. The move came a day after the Senate committee investigating the bloody dispersal ordered senior police officers in Kidapawan City to release the arrested farmers, following the committee finding that pregnant women and the elderly were among those arrested. Several women, including Berdin, were still housed at a makeshift cell in a closed gymnasium. Police prohibited the press and members of the media from talking to them. Seen inside were members of the City Social Welfare Department who also avoided reporters. The wife of detained farmer Opiniano watched blankly as she saw her husband handcuffed and made to sit at the back of the police van. “It would have been better if we have that rice now and nothing had happened. Or if that rice were only given now, I would gladly trade it now for the release of my husband,” she said. “We were only wishing for the rice. But things turned out differently now,” Opiniano said. With reports from Fil V. Elefante
‘PASSAGE OF NEW RICE IMPORTS POLICY A MUST’ C A
help farmers currently planting rice in nonsuitable areas to shift to cultivating other more profitable crops. It is a win-win proposition,” she added. The Neda and the World Bank said that in lieu of the QR, the Philippines can set rice tariffs at 35 percent to 40 percent, or even 30 percent, when the WTO waiver expires in July 2017. The World Bank said this is the “most acceptable” thing to do since assigning a tariff on rice and gradually reducing it will encourage free trade and result in the decline in local rice prices. T h e Wa s h i n g t o n - b a s e d multilateral development bank said poor Filipinos, who allocate 20 percent of their household budgets for rice, are the ones who suffer the most when the price of the staple goes up. Retaining the QR and the government’s control over the country’s rice trade did not result in 100 rice self-sufficiency—a campaign promise made by President Aquino. Farmers have remained poor and consumers are forced to buy expensive rice. This despite allocating around 65 percent of the budget of the Department of Agriculture and related government- owned and-controlled
corporations for rice production since the 1960s. Government efforts to boost output were fraught with low-quality investments and few support mechanisms. “Decades of substantial budget outlays, even when supported by QR on rice imports with high inquota tariffs and government control over rice trade by the National Food Authority, did not advance the goal of rice self-sufficiency,” the World Bank said. “Instead, rice supply has been inadequate and kept domestic rice prices artificially high relative to world prices,” it added. Phi l ippine Inst it ute for Development Studies senior fellow Roehlano Briones said the government’s rice spending reached P37.44 billion in 2012, almost half of the government’s total agriculture spending in that year. Data showed that the government spent a total of P62.64 billion for agriculture-related programs and projects. This was significantly higher than the P14.38 billion spent in 2005. Also, government spending for other crops like corn only amounted to P951 million in 2012; high-value crops, P1.63 billion; coconut, P2.08 billion; livestock, P2.72 billion; and 3.308 billion for fisheries. Cai Ordinario
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PHL still a priority fund recipient for Spain B M. S F. A | Special to the BM
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@Pulitika2010
HE Philippines will remain a priority recipient of development cooperation funds from Spain, according to the European country’s top government officials.
Speaking on the sidelines of the recent Madrid Fusión Manila (MFM) 2016, Jesus Gracia, Spain’s secretary of state for International Cooperation and for Latin America, told the BusinessMirror that “the Philippines will continue to be a priority country for development cooperation. We are working with the European Union and the Commission of the European Union to increase the funds available for the Philippines.” Gracia was in the Philippines from April 5 to 8 to evaluate the status of Spain’s projects in the Philippines under its Country Partnership Framework Cooperation from 2014 to 2017. He specifically went to Zamboanga City on April 7 to assess Spain’s poverty-alleviation projects there. He was also in town to open MFM 2016, held from April 7 to 9 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City. He added
that Spain intends to strengthen its trade and investment ties with the Philippines. “We are going to maintain our ties with the Philippines, but we need to increase trade and investment on both sides.” He noted that there has been an increase recently in Philippine investments in Spain in the areas of real estate and food. But Gracia believes that Spanish investments and trade in the Philippines will eventually grow. “We see a very collaborative mood in the Philippines. We have been on good terms. We have to do more to let the business community in the Philippines and Spain see what opportunities are open between our two countries. But I’m sure that we will make it, and entrepreneurs from both countries will find a very good ground to [take advantage of these opportunities]. For his part, Spain’s
Ambassador to Manila Jose Luis Calvo noted that while the Philippines’s absorptive capacity of development funds “is good,” improvements have to be made in terms of coordination among local government agencies. “ There are always difficulties [in implementing projects] because they come from the fact that, to manage the projects and being able to spend all the money most effectively if possible, sometimes when it involves a lot of people, it takes an effort of coordination to be able to spend properly. But having said that, I must say the overall assessment is very positive and we are encouraged to continue, and which is important, keep the Philippines as a priority country for Spanish cooperation—the only one in Asia,” the ambassador emphasized. He added: [The Philippines’s absorptive capacity for Spain’s development funds] is good, but at the same time, it has to go through all the controls and filters so that it involves many different departments beginning with the Neda [National Economic and Development Authority], of course, and continuing with the DILG [Department of the Interior and Local Government], Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare [and Development], DFA [Department of Foreign Affairs] obviously, so it takes an effort of coordination both intra-administration, and bilaterally.”
As such, he said, “there is always much room for improvement. But I must say that it has been 25 years of cooperation between Spain and the Philippines this year. It’s quite a long time. We’ve had lot of experience. We have to draw on that experience and perform better in the future.” About €50 million (P2.63 billion) has been made available to the Philippines under the bilateral cooperation agreement between Spain and the Philippines for 2014-2017. No figures have been made available on how much has been released so far. Calvo said he doesn’t foresee any possible increase in Spain’s development aid, to the Philippines due to his country’s present economic state. “With the resources that we have, we are still under a stringent budgetary policy and I don’t expect the funds being increased dramatically, but at the same time, we have to be able to spend more efficiently and to be able to partner with other agencies and other international providers of aid, so we can establish synergies and be able to interact in an effective and more productive way.” T he a mba ssador, mea nwh i le, pointed to a “10 percent to 20 percent” increase in food and beverage trade between the Philippines and Spain, especially after last year’s MFM. There has been “an important and significant increase in all sectors, from Spain to the Philippines,
and from the Philippines to Spain. But strictly in food and beverage, there has been an increase between 10 [percent] and 20 percent, in some items in food like pork, beverages, there has been an increase in other items, and I think that probably it‘s the most dramatic as far as Spanish trade is concerned because this is a country, which has seen an increase not just in population but in income, and they are demanding high-quality products, the ones that we are ready to provide. If we continue at this rate, when we sig n an ag reement bet ween the European Union and the Phi lip pines, we w i l l be in a much better place to prof it by this ag reement. A nd I think this is in our hor izon, which is to continue trad ing w ith the Phi lippines, but to increase t he qu a l it y of a l l of t he items, bot h i mpor t s com i ng f rom t he Phi lippines and ex por ts that go to the Phi lippines. T hat is a ver y encouraging prospect,” Calvo said. On the possibility of holding another
MFM next year, he said, “I think they want to continue it but it depends on the next administration and the next Department of Tourism secretary.” According to a news statement on Gracia’s visit from Spain’s Embassy in the Philippines: “Spanish Cooperation in the Philippines is focused on two areas: governance and natural disaster risk prevention and management. In this context, Spain is fully committed to the peace process in Mindanao, allocating a significant part of its cooperation resources to the Philippines, through the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. Furthermore, Spain also wished to reaffirm its commitment that humanitarian assistance will continue to play a decisive role in a country so vulnerable to natural disasters. In this sense Spain offers its support, by means of a Fonprode [Development Promotion Fund] credit, to the implementation of the National Disaster R isk Reduction and Management Plan [2011-2018].”
We are encouraged to...keep the Philippines as a priority country for Spanish cooperation—the only one in Asia.”—C
BMReports BusinessMirror
A4 Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Scarborough Shoal: China’s next strategic military base?
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FTER setting up a combination of naval and air bases on reefs that it has reclaimed near Palawan in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), China is extending deeper into Luzon by training its sights on Scarborough Shoal as the next base for its warships and fourth generation of fighter aircraft. Although it has already been exercising de-facto control over the shoal, after seizing it from the Philippines in 2012, following a naval standoff, Beijing wants to develop Scarborough Shoal into a military base, one that would complete its domination of the region and far beyond. There are three reasons Chinese military planners wanted full control of the shoal and turn it into a military fortress. One, it would provide China a full and unimpeded access to Luzon, including its northernmost area, or in the military parlance, it would put the country’s biggest island within a striking distance of Chinese warships and fighter jets; Second, the rich waters of the shoal, which has been a traditional fishing ground for Filipino fishermen for a number of generations, could help pinch in for Beijing’s hunger and growing need of marine products; and Third, were the words of Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio who said it would allow China to have easier and unguarded access to the Pacific Ocean through the Bashi Channel, allowing it to attack the mainland United States, particularly Hawaii, in the event of a war. The Bashi Channel, off Batanes, part of the Luzon Straight in the Pacific Ocean, is a waterway in between the Philippines and Taiwan. Carpio said he would not be surprised if Beijing would soon start developing Scarborough Shoal and turn it into a base for its vessels and aircraft, just as what it did with the Subi, Fiery Cross and Mischief Reefs in the South China Sea. Subi Reef, which was seized by China from the Philippines in 1988 and located just 12 nautical miles from Pagasa Island, has been reclaimed and turned into a military base. On the other hand, Fiery Cross was developed into a 274-hectare air base with a 3-kilometer runway. Carpio’s theory seems to be supported by statements of US military officials who claimed two weeks earlier that Chinese survey ships were undertaking survey activities within and around Scarborough’s lagoon. The US officials also said they have noticed the unusual presence of more Chinese ships in the area, observations that the Armed Forces would neither confirm nor deny, having gotten used to the regular patrols or stationery presence of Chinese ships in the area. Scarborough Shoal and its lagoon measures 58 square miles or about 15,000 hectares and it is located just 124 nautical miles from Zambales. Carpio, who recently delivered a lecture about the country’s territorial dispute with China at the Armed Forces General Headquarter in Camp Emilio Aguinaldo, Quezon City, said the shoal is rich in fish and other marine resources and is a “high-tide elevation with the biggest rock protruding 12 meters
above water at high tide.” He said once the shoal turns into a Chinese military base teeming with People’s Liberation Army Navy ships and Air Force planes, then it could support activities or could serve as a launching pad for Beijing’s military operations in the Pacific Ocean. The biggest part of such operations were to attack the US by crossing the Bashi Channel. Domestically, however, it will afford China to take full control of Luzon with relative ease in case of a war. A senior military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, agreed with the observations of Carpio, saying the shoal remains the avid “object of conquest” by Beijing due to its strategic location, one that fully supports China’s domination of the region. He said that, while China already controls the shoal up to the point that it has negated a similar maritime patrol by the Philippine government, Chinese generals were drooling for the time that they could start the reclamation or the construction. “If this will happen, it is interesting to know what the national government will do, its response. Of course, on the part of the military, we will not easily give away the shoal, but it depends on the decision or course of action of the national leadership,” he said.
15,000 ha Size of Scarborough Shoal and its lagoon, located just 124 nautical miles from Zambales
The military official, however, admitted that the Philippines and no one, not even the US, could stop China once it starts its reclamation or its development of the Scarborough Shoal. The only question is, when will it happen? He noted that when Beijing began its reclamations in the South China Sea, both the US and the Philippines took no stronger actions, other than comforting themselves with sharp rhetorics against such activities, which later unearthed bases and military airfields. Manila merely filed a staccato of diplomatic protests, while assuring Filipinos that the maritime issue would soon end, given that the Permanent Court of Arbitration will decide on the case, which Filipino officials said should be in favor of the country. On the other hand, the US, which was supposed to be the most powerful military in the world and the self-appointed world’s maritime police just repetitively issued condemnations, despite its stance that what China has occupied and declared as part of its sovereign territory, were part of international waters where international naviga-
IN this April 4 file photo, Lt. Gen. John Toolan (center), commander of the United States Marine forces in the Pacific, speaks with Vice Adm. Alexander Lopez (right) at the start of their annual joint military exercise, involving thousands of US and Philippine military personnel, amid the current South China Sea tensions, at a military base in Quezon City. Tensions in the South China Sea are rising, pitting China against smaller and weaker neighbors who all lay claim to a string of isles, coral reefs and lagoons, rich in fish and potential gas and oil reserves. AP
tion and overflights were supposed to be guaranteed. “It did nothing, other than monitoring, watching these constructions,” the military official said of the US, adding “it will be the same case once China undertakes activity in the Scarborough Shoal.” Literally, and for the slighter purpose, this will take place once American troops and their equipment will temporarily station at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, one of the military bases that will host US forces and their assets under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. “For us, we may not expect a total game changer with China in the event that the UN court will decide in our favor, diplomatically, maybe. But for the sake of security, it will not. China had refused to participate in the proceedings and so what will you expect? It follows that it will not abide by the decision,” the military official said. “It takes a harder action, a more decisive one to deal with China on the issue of dispute,” he added. Sadly, however, the government does not have one, not even a national security policy for the West Philippine Sea as observed by former military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Francisco Cruz before he retired in 2012. “The National Security Council [NSC] has not drafted a national security strategy that should directly address the KIG [Kalayaan Island Group] issue. This is reflective of the poor sense of urgency on the part of policy-makers. In July 1999, four years after the discovery of Chinese structures on Mischief Reef, the task of formulating the strategy was delegated to the Cabinet Committee on Maritime and Ocean Affairs, chaired by the secretary of Foreign Affairs,” Cruz said. “Today the government is still bereft of a coordinated strategy that would employ the country’s elements of national power to assert sovereignty and protect its interests in the West Philippine Sea,” he added. In December last year the Armed Forces Western Command chief Vice Adm. Alexander Lopez said the national security policy in territory being contested by China is to restrain civilians from sauntering there because it would antagonize Beijing. The strategic importance of the Scarborough Shoal, apart from being considered a maritime territory of the country, was underscored by the decision of the Navy leadership over the weekend to reactivate
the Naval Forces Northern Luzon (NFNL) after having been merged with the Naval Forces West (NFW) based in Palawan. “The reconstitution of NFNL and NFW signified the reversion of Navy to its previous organizational setup prior the establishment of Naval Forces Northwest [NFNW] in May last year as a result of the merger of the two aforesaid naval forces,” the Navy said through its Spokesman LCdr. Marineth Domingo. “Said reconstitution followed after the higher headquarters approved the nullification of NFNW, which was then established in the rationale of employing Naval Forces in the proactive control of our seas and the denial of its use to an adversary. While the basis of merging NFNL and NFW to form NFNW last year remains valid, the command decided to reactivate the two Naval Forces on the thrust of higher headquarters and unified commands to have a more focused naval operations in their respective area of responsibility,” it added. Before it was merged, Naval Forces Northern Luzon was under the operational control of the Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command, and its primary focus was the shoal. Carpio called a Scarborough military base or the other Chinese bases in the West Philippine Sea as China’s “Pearl Harbor” in Southeast Asia, referring to the US’s Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Carpio said that beginning last year, Beijing has shifted from “offshore water defense” to the “combined offshore water defense and open-seas protection” as laid out by China’s military strategy. “The China military strategy states that the traditional mentality that land outweighs the sea must be abandoned and great important has to be attached to managing the seas and oceans protecting maritime rights and interests,” he said. “China’s grand design is to control the South China for economic and military purposes. It wanted all the fisheries, oil gas and mineral resources within its ‘nine-dash line.’ China already takes 50 percent of the annual fish catch on the South China Sea. China per-capita fish consumption is the highest in the world at 35.1 kilograms a year, while the rest of Asia’s per-capita consumption is only 26.6 kg per year,” Carpio added. Nine-dash line is China’s excessive territorial claim which covers 85.7 percent of the total maritime waters of the South China Sea.
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Telcos’ feud over 700-MHz band could drag on for years C A
Globe Telecom Policy Division Director Ariel B. Tubayan said his company is ready to file a case before the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) in July, should the regulator fail to act on its applications for a portion of the spectrum. “Potentially, yes, we will approach the commission,” he said in a business forum, spearheaded by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines. “If we go by the timetable set by the commission, which is June, we can approach them by July.” The competition body, set up in February, is currently crafting the implementing rules and regulations of the Philippine Competition Law. This set of standards should be out by June, PCC Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan said. “I think it’s not good to partner with our rival in approaching the commission, as this could send the wrong signals to people who we are teaming up with to put down the other player. We will act independently,” he added. Globe has been requesting for a “fair allocation” of the band from the NTC since 2006, Tubayan said, and the slowpoke action of the regulator on the telco’s filings have adverse effects, both on the company and its consumers. “The Philippines is unable to cash in on its digital dividend because of this refusal of her regulator to allocate this band. Control over a key source for providing Long Term Evolution or LTE services is potentially anticompetitive,” he said. The telco official added that the Philippines is losing P250 million in annual spectrum usage fees, claiming that the diversified conglomerate has not been utilizing the band for years now. According to Balisacan, there are three ways by which his office can take a case. First is if there is a complaint filed before the commission; second, if there is a regulatory concern from an industry regulator; and third is out of its own volition. “For each of these cases, there are processes that we have to follow. These are currently being identified, formulated in the implementing rules and regulations. The law, however, talks about undertaking a preliminary investigation, and if that review shows that there is a case for a more in-depth review, then formal review will have to be undertaken,”heexplained.Theresultsoftheformal review will determine the plan of action that the commission shall undertake, whether that would mean the imposition of penalties or fines. “In the case of Globe, any of these approaches can be used,” Balisacan said.
PLDT more hesitant
BUTwhile Globe is seriously considering approaching the competition regulating body, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is more hesitant in doing so. “We want to study that prospect first,” Ramon R. Isberto, the spokesman of the country’s largest telecommunications player, told the BUSINESSMIRROR via phone. “But with respect to our applications before the NTC, we would like the regulator to rule or decide on them.” Smart Communications Inc., the mobile arm of the tech titan, has written about eight letters to the telecom regulator for the refarming of the 700-MHz spectrum. “Because there is no decision yet, it is still in limbo. The moment the regulator decides on our applications, then we would pursue the next step, whether or not they decide for us or against us,” Isberto added.
6 months or 10 years?
EDGARDO V. CABARIOS, the deputy commissioner of the telecommunications regulator, said his camp has been barred from commenting on the issue of the 700-MHz band, as a case for the refarming of the said spectrum has been filed before the commission. Former lawmaker Rolex T. Sulpico earlier filed a case against San Miguel’s units for not utilizing the frequencies under the 700-MHz band “for years.” Sulpico was referring to these companies and their frequency allocations: Liberty Telecoms Holdings Inc. with 80 MHz, High Frequency Telecommunications with 10 MHz and New Century Telecommunications 10 MHz. “It will take time, because of the presentation of evidence. In this kind of case, the respondents will be given a copy with an order directing them to answer the petition. When their answers come, we will set a hearing. There, the petitioner will present, and respondents will reply. It depends on how fast they could present all their evidence,” Cabarios said. This kind of case, he said, can reach the Court of Appeals and even the Supreme Court. “Whetherwedecidefororagainstthecasefiled, a party may seek relief from the appellate court. It may even reach the Supreme Court, if neither parties give up,” he said. Pressed for time, Cabarios is resigned to the idea of completing the quasi-judicial process before President Aquino bows out from office this June. “We can do the process for as quick as six months. But if it reaches a higher court, then it will really take time. Resolving the issue on the 700-MHz can take up to 10 years,” Cabarios said. Telecommunications experts and players all agree that operating mobile Internet services under the 700-MHz spectrum is cheaper and more efficient than operating under higher frequency bands. Spectrum is the real estate on which telecommunication operators develop their respective network to deliver services to customers. The amount of spectrum assigned to a telco impacts the cost to build capacity, overall network performance, ability to offer new multimedia services and general customer experience of wireless services. For clarity, the 700-MHz band is key for expanding mobile broadband into the outlying islands and rural provinces in the Philippines, enabling mobile operators to reduce capital and network costs, thereby accelerating rollout and lowering prices for end users, according to a report of international telecommunications association GSMA. Utilizing the 700-MHz spectrum would allow the deployment of a high-capacity LTE-based wireless and fixed broadband network to deliver higher data rate and LTE wireless-broadband service. With the use of the 700-MHz frequency, broadband prices can go down further benefiting consumers. And, without the access to the 700-MHz spectrum, incumbent telcos will have to spend more to provide better services to consumers. Globe has set roughly P35 billion in capital expenditure this year, while rival PLDT will spend P43 billion this year. Bulk of this industry capital will be spent on the development of mobile and fixed Internet infrastructure across the Philippines. Bell Telecommunications Philippines Inc. is expected to debut in urban areas in the country sometime this year. This, despite losing its titan of a partner, Telstra Corp. Ltd., Australia’s largest telecommunications company.
World Bank. . . C A
collection to around 18 percent of GDP will help improve government revenues. “In general, politicians are afraid to increase taxes. To me, the next president should be bold enough, considering that he or she will only be in office for one term,” he said. Diokno said overhauling the tax system entails the reduction in income and corporate tax, rationalizing tax incentives, introducing new taxes or changing existing taxes. He said the government could consider increasing property taxes and even setting a “flexible rate” for the excise tax on petroleum to ensure that the government would not lose revenues when the price of oil in the world market declines. For his part, Eagle Watch senior fellow Alvin Ang said the overhaul of the tax system should also include improving the collection of taxes from small firms. Citing his own experience, Ang said small firms have difficulties paying taxes because they are not familiar with the system. If the next administration can address these problems in the tax system, Ang said the government will be able to raise enough funds to erase its social-service spending backlog. He said that while the government’s spending for education doubled, health tripled, social protection quadrupled, and budget for infrastructure increased sixfold between 2010 and 2016, these are
not enough. Many decades of underinvestment, Ang said, created a huge backlog in social-service spending, which will take time to address. The World Bank said the government must consider the removal of value-added tax measures that are not backed up by “clear economic rationale” and to index rates and valuations to inflation. In a recent forum, experts from the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS), Department of Finance, and Tax Management Association of the Philippines were all in agreement that the country’s tax system needs reform. The country’s Personal Income Tax (Pit), specifically, has not been updated since the 1997. This has resulted in what is called “bracket creep” where low-income taxpayers “hurt more” than their high-income counterparts. Bracket creep, PIDS senior research fellow Rosario G. Manasan said, has occurred because of the “non-indexation” to inflation of Pit brackets. This means that the coverage of each tax bracket does not take into consideration the current value of the peso. Manasan said this presents a problem because the current value of the Philippine peso, using the 2014 Consumer Price Index (CPI), is already less than half of its value in 1998. This means that an annual income of P210,000 a year in 2014 is only equivalent to P105,000 in 1998. With this, taxpayers earning P210,000 should only be paying P15,500 worth of tax, or 14.8 percent, instead of P40,000, or 19 percent.
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AseanTuesday BusinessMirror
Editor: Max V. de Leon • Tuesday, April 12, 2016 A5
What drought? Thai national water fight is on China sea claims alarm two other Asean countries
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ENSIONS in the South China Sea are rising, pitting China against smaller and weaker neighbors who all lay claim to islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters rich in fish and potential gas and oil reserves. China’s recent construction of artificial islands complete with airstrips and radar stations, and US patrols challenging Beijing’s vast territorial claims, have caused concern that the strategically important waters could become a flashpoint. A look at some of the most recent key developments: Vietnam and the Philippines have been China’s most frequent South China Sea adversaries, but now Indonesia and Malaysia are upset over forays by Chinese vessels close to their shores. Tensions with Indonesia flared when one of its patrol ships intercepted a Chinese fishing vessel on March 19 off the Natuna Islands. That’s where Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone overlaps with China’s so-called “nine-dash line”—which outlines Beijing’s vast claims to almost the entire South China Sea. According to Indonesian officials, a Chinese coast guard vessel came to the rescue of the fishermen and deliberately rammed the boat as it was being towed, allowing it to escape. Indonesia has since refused Chinese demands to release eight crewmen who are being held on charges of illegal fishing. Indonesia deployed four special forces units equipped with an advanced air defense system to the largest of the Natuna Islands, according to IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly. Achmad Sukarsono, an analyst at Eurasia Group, said the skirmish could signal a turning point in Indonesian views on the South China Sea. It has “dispelled the notion in Jakarta that Indonesia has no real stake in South China Sea tensions,” he said. Malaysia, meanwhile, complained that about 100 Chinese fishing boats had encroached near the Loconia Shoals. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the boats have a right to be there. Chinese officials consider the waters to be traditional Chinese fishing grounds.
War drills
THE Philippines, which has turned to the US to beef up its defense against China, has hosted more than 5,000 American troops for annual war games that include a scenario that could be playing out in the South China Sea. A key exercise involves US, Australian and Philippine forces retaking an oil rig seized by hostile units. The mock assault utilizes an unused rig off the western province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea. A highly mobile US rocket system, the M142 HIMARS, is being used for the first time in the Philippines during the exercises. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter will witness the drills when he visits this week. The Philippines is expecting soon a ruling at a United Nations tribunal on its case challenging China’s maritime claims. China has refused to take part in the proceedings and said it would not be bound by the ruling.
Oil rig
TENSIONS between Vietnam and China are heating up again. Vietnam has demanded that China remove an oil-exploration rig from an area of the South China Sea, where their border is still being demarcated, and has lodged a protest with the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi. The oil rig was at the center of a standoff in 2014 when China parked it near the Paracel islands, which Vietnam claims as its exclusive economic zone. The incident sparked deadly riots in Vietnam targeting Chinese-owned companies. Vietnam Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh also protested China’s operation of a new lighthouse on Subi Reef in the Spratlys, which is also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan. Rejecting Vietnam’s demands, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said the oil rig is conducting standard exploratory activities within waters under China’s “undisputed” jurisdiction. Hong also said the lighthouse on Subi Reef is a matter falling within China’s sovereignty. AP
Indonesia targets corporate tax cut to ‘competitive’ 20%
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NDONESIA plans to cut corporate tax to 20 percent this year, from 25 percent, as it tries to attract investment to spur the economy. The move will need parliamentary approval, Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said on Monday. A 20-percent rate will be “competitive,” he said. “If possible, we will discuss it immediately, this year,” Brodjonegoro said. “We’re seeking a figure that’s in line with neighboring countries but also not too far from other Asean countries. So we think 20 percent is still competitive in Asean.” Plans for a tax cut come as President Joko Widodo’s government is falling short of its revenue-collection targets, putting its 2016 budgetspending plans at risk. Lawmakers are holding up the government’s bill for a tax amnesty, aimed at raising more than $4 billion by persuading Indonesians to bring home money from overseas. Indonesia will gradually cut its corporate tax rate to around 17.5 percent to discourage companies from booking profits in lower-tax countries such as Singapore, Luhut Panjaitan, then the president’s chief of staff, told Bloomberg in an interview in May last year. Singapore is one of the top 3 destinations for Indonesians to keep funds overseas, along with the British Virgin Islands and the Cook Islands, Brodjonegoro said. The government will chase funds in these three countries and is using information in the Panama Papers to complement its taxcollection efforts, he said. Bloomberg News
IN this April 13, 2015, file photo, a tourist is showered in water by locals during the Songkran festival to celebrate the Thai New Year on Samui Island in Surat Thani province, Thailand. AP
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ROUGHT? What drought? Bring out the water guns! Thailand may be going through its driest period in 20 years, but the country’s military government wants visitors from around the globe to know that the biggest water fight in the world is still on.
So, get your buckets, hoses and other gear ready for the three-day nationwide street party that begins on Wednesday to mark the Thai New Year. “We can still use water for the new year festival. It’s not that dry,” said government Spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd. The government has instructed the Tourism Ministry to make sure foreign tourists don’t misunderstand the severity of the drought and cancel holiday plans out of concerns the water supply will be cut off, he said. After all, there are millions of dollars at stake. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) expects this year’s holiday will generate more than 15 billion baht ($427 million) for the tourism sector and attract half-a-million visitors in a span of five days. Songkran, as the festival is known, has the spirit of a soggy Mardi Gras and is a major tourist attraction. Revelers
line the streets, or prowl the roads in pickup trucks, armed with water guns and plastic bowls, and douse anyone in sight. Some areas are closed to traffic for wet-and-wild street parties with loud music, booze and dancing. Rare controversy has preceded this year’s water fight, with environmentalists and other critics calling for festivities to be curtailed. “Instead of mindlessly wasting water, new year revelers should be mindful of the crushing drought,” The Nation newspaper said in an editorial last week calling for “a dry Songkran” to show solidarity with the country’s farmers. Seventeen of Thailand’s 77 provinces have been declared drought zones with the lowest level of rainfall in more than two decades. Farmers have been ordered to curtail their water use and scale back planting. Tap-water rationing is in effect in certain provinces.
$427M
Revenue seen to be generated by Thailand’s tourism industry from this year’s Songkran festival that will likely attract half-a-million visitors in a span of five days
And yet, Thailand’s military government is playing down the dry spell and says it is powerless to crimp such a popular national holiday. “As the prime minister has said, Songkran brings happiness to the Thai people, and canceling it would be too difficult,” Sansern said. A ban would also be hugely unpopular both with Thais and tourists. In past promotions, the tourism authority has played up the party scene, urging tourists “to get wet and wild” and “be part of the largest street water fight the world has to offer.” In 2011 TAT used the holiday to organize a Guinness World Record attempt for the world’s largest waterpistol fight, drawing more than 3,400 people to a 10-minute shootout in central Bangkok. The prime minister, a former general who has dictatorial powers after toppling a civilian government in 2014,
has bristled at the notion of canceling Songkran. “I will not ban water throwing, that’s impossible,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, said in response to a proposal for government controls on holiday water use. He added dismissively, “Parents should teach their children to use less water and not splash it around for three days and three nights.” Prayuth is calling for strict measures this year during the festivities, but not related to water rationing. The junta is putting a damper on dancing and indecent attire, saying specifically that women and transgenders who show too much skin will face arrest. “I have told officials, police and soldiers that there should be no women— or transgender women—dressed provocatively or dancing on the backs of trucks,” Prayuth said. “If they do, they will be arrested.” Environmentalists say the government should get its priorities straight. “The government should tell people the truth that the drought is bad. They should not try to cover up the truth,” said Smith Thammasaroj, chairman of the Foundation of National Disaster Warning Council. “If people keep thinking we have enough water, it could badly hurt agriculture and farmers.” “They shouldn’t worry about clothing and covering up the body,” he said. “They should worry about the drought.” Some cities, including Bangkok, have taken it upon themselves to dilute this year’s festivities. Bangkok city hall has ordered a 9p.m. curfew on water fights and is trying to keep the festival to three days, excluding the weekend—measures that it says will save 5 billion liters (1.3 billion gallons) of water. Chief adviser to the Bangkok governor, Wanlop Suwandee, made a highly publicized proposal that party goers put down their guns and, instead, use handheld spray bottles, the kind that one uses on indoor plants to make leaves wet. The idea struck many as laughable in a city where water guns are not mere pistols, but large pump machine guns often with water-storage tanks worn as backpacks. A 22-year-old university student, Krit Pongchaiassawin, said he has no plan to enter into battle firing a gentle mist. “Are you kidding me?” said Krit, while shopping for a water gun at a Bangkok outdoor market. “I would get laughed off the street if I had a spray bottle. People would see that and just dump more water on me.” AP
Feud bursts into the open between Singapore PM, sister
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RARE and unexpected family feud has burst into the open between Singapore’s prime minister and his sister over the anniversary of the death of their father, the city state’s founding leader, Lee Kuan Yew. In a Facebook post on Sunday, Dr. Lee Wei Ling, a well-known neurosurgeon, said the government was trying to use the occasion of her father’s first death anniversary to “hero-worship” him, according to Channel News Asia, a government-supported television station and news web site. It said Dr. Lee suggested that her brother, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, was “abusing his power” by conducting elaborate anniversary events, and trying to establish a political “dynasty.” Channel News Asia said the post was taken down from Facebook later on Sunday. But then Lee fired back at his sister in his own Facebook post a few hours later, saying he is “deeply saddened” by her accusations, which, he said, “are completely untrue.” “The idea that I should wish to establish a dynasty makes even less sense. Meritocracy is a fundamental value of our society, and neither I, the PAP, nor the Singapore public would tolerate any such attempt,” he wrote, referring to the ruling People’s Action Party. The PAP has been a solidly united political entity since it came to be headed by the late Lee in 1954. It has continued to rule since then, crushing
A STALK of orchids is placed on the late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s seat at the former Parliament House during a remembrance ceremony held to mark his first death anniversary on March 23. A year ago Singapore mourned the death of Lee, who died at 91.
The idea that I should wish to establish a dynasty makes even less sense.”—L all opposition in every general election. Lee was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, and remained an influential figure in the government for several years thereafter. In the past, Lee had sued critics for defamation for suggesting nepotism in his government, so for
such an accusation to come from within his own family is a political bombshell for Singaporeans. Lee died on March 23, 2015, and the government carried out a host of public programs this year to commemorate his death. “The first anniversary of a person’s passing is a significant moment to remember him and reflect on what he meant to us. The more so with Lee Kuan Yew,” the prime minister said in his Facebook post. He added that his government recognized the “strong desire” of many in Singapore to show their respect for Lee, and agreed that the events and observances were “generally appropriate.”
Channel News Asia said that in her Facebook post, Dr. Lee had reproduced her correspondence with the editors of The Straits Times over the draft of an opinion piece on the anniversary programs she had written. The opinion piece was not published by The Straits Times, and was eventually posted in full on Dr. Lee’s Facebook page, Channel News Asia said. It said that in one of the e-mails released by Dr. Lee, she said that she and her brother “are at odds on a matter of principle” with regard to the commemoration, and that her brother had “no qualms [about] abusing his power to [have] a commemoration just one year after Lee Kuan Yew died.” She added: “Let’s be real, last year’s event was so vivid, no one will forget it in one [year]. But if the power that be wants to establish a dynasty, LKY’s [Lee Kuan Yew] daughter will not allow LKY’s name to be sullied by a dishonourable son.” Channel News Asia said the posts were taken down on Sunday, but it was not clear by whom. It quoted her as saying she will no longer write for the Singapore Press Holdings group, which publishes The Straits Times, saying its editors do not allow her “freedom of speech.” “In fact, that was the reason I posted the article that LKY would not want to be hero-worshipped,” she wrote, according to Channel News Asia. AP
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Tuesday, April 12, 2016
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Fujimori leads Peru election first round, heads to runoff
SUPPORTERS of presidential candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of the “Peruanos por el Kambio” political party celebrates the results of quick counts of ballots by local pollsters that place Kuczynski in second place in the elections, in Lima, Peru on Sunday. Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori, won the first round of the presidential election, though she didn’t get enough votes to avoid a June runoff. AP
IN this October 23, 2014, file photo, New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch (left), sits in on a bilingual kindergarten class at Washington-Rose Elementary School in Roosevelt, New York. Tisch and other state officials ordered a compliance review of suburban New York City school districts’ enrollment policies and procedures for unaccompanied minors and immigrant children following reports that several dozen children who had recently arrived from Central America were not admitted to a Long Island high school because of overcrowding. AP
Report: Immigrant children in US blocked from enrolling in school
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AN FRANCISCO—Immigrant children living in the US without legal status have been blocked from registering for school and accessing the educational services they need, according to a report on school districts in four states by Georgetown University Law Center researchers. Such students have faced long enrollment delays and have been turned away from classrooms as the result of some districts’ arbitrary interpretations of residency rules and state laws, the researchers said. All children—including those living in the US illegally—must attend school through at least the 8th grade or until they turn 16 under compulsory education laws in all 50 states. Many states allow students to enroll beyond that age, according to the Education Commission of the States. But some districts’ elaborate paperwork requirements effectively have kept immigrant youth out of school, while lack of translation and interpretation services have left their families uninformed about the process, the report found. The Obama administration’s efforts to find and deport the tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American children and families
775k
The estimated number of children under the age of 18 living in the United States without legal permission, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of 2012 Census figures who arrived during the 2014 surge of illegal crossings have further complicated the situation, prompting some students to avoid school for fear that they will be picked up by authorities, the report’s authors said. “US law is clear on this point— no child in the United States should
be excluded from public education,” said Mikaela Harris, a Georgetown law student who co-wrote the study issued by the university’s Human Rights Institute and the nonprofit Women’s Refugee Commission. “That doesn’t always play out in practice.” In May 2014 then-Education Secretary Arne Duncan issued joint guidance with the Justice Department reminding districts that a 1982 Supreme Court ruling gives all children the right to enroll in school, regardless of immigration status. The report, which studied school districts in Florida, New York, Texas and North Carolina, calls for a strengthening of federal outreach to districts unaccustomed to serving newcomer populations and better assurances that educational access continues amid immigration enforcement. Researchers said they had presented their recommendations to the Department of Education. “We remain vigilant about our responsibility to protect the civil rights of all students, including immigrant students, undocumented students and unaccompanied immig rant students,” Education Department Spokesman Dorie Nolt said. “We have provided a number of resources to communities in order to do so.” The agency is committed to working with federal agencies and community organizations to address any issues, she added. US Immigration Customs and
Enforcement Spokesman Bryan Cox said he had not seen the report so could not comment on it, but said agency policy in general precludes any enforcement activity at schools and other sensitive locations. The report analyzed barriers to education faced by the 775,000 children under the age of 18 estimated to be living in the United States without legal permission, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of 2012 Census figures. Since fall 2013, more than 100,000 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras also have sought refuge in the US and have been placed in communities across the country after being apprehended at the border. Researchers said an additional estimated 1.6 million schoolaged immigrant children who were brought to the US legally may live in mixed-status families and face similar barriers. Public school districts are entitled to request and vet paperwork to establish students’ residency, but some have gone a step beyond, requiring immigration documents, researchers found. “Under federal law, schools are not allowed to discriminate against children due to their racial or ethnic background,” the report said. “And yet, some communities have barred immigrant children from enrolling or meaningfully participating in school by creating intentional and unintentional barriers.” AP
White House: $589M from Ebola to go to fight Zika virus
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ASHINGTON—Federal money left over from the largely successful fight against Ebola will now go to combating the growing threat of the Zika virus, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday. Most of t he $589 m i l l ion would be devoted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for research on the virus and Zika-related birth defects, as well as the creation of response teams to limit its spread. The National Institutes of Health would continue research into a vaccine, and the US Agency for International Development
would intensify efforts to fight the virus overseas. Researchers fear Zika causes microcephaly, a serious birth defect in which a baby’s head is too small, and poses other threats to the children of pregnant women infected with it. President Barack Obama has asked for about $1.9 billion in emergency money to fight Zika, but the request has stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress. White House budget chief Shaun Donovan and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell told reporters that the administration still needs the full
request to fight Zika and maintain vigilance on Ebola. Burwell said there are 672 confirmed cases in US territories such as Puerto R ico and the United States, including 64 pregnant women. Zika can also be transmitted through sexual contact, and it’s estimated that 40 million people will travel between the US and countries with Zika outbreaks. The officials said additional money must be approved to manufacture vaccines, purchase diagnostic tests and undertake mosquito control throughout the rainy season in Central America and the
Caribbean, among other activities. “There are real consequences and risks for waiting,” Donovan said. While the administration has acknowledged that substantial Ebola funding is left over, it has already committed much of it to helping at least 30 other countries prevent, detect and respond to future outbreaks and epidemics. It also wants to preserve money to keep fighting Ebola should it flare up again. “We face two real global health challenges, Ebola and Zika, and we don’t have an option to set one aside in the name of the other,” Burwell said. AP
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IMA, Peru—The daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori held a strong lead in preliminary results from the first round of Peru’s presidential election and appeared headed to a showdown with another centerright candidate in a June runoff. With 40 percent of the ballots counted late Sunday, Fujimori had 39 percent of the vote, while former World Bank economist Pedro Kuczynski held 24 percent. Leftist congresswoman Veronika Mendoza, who had made a late surge in pre-election polls, was in third at 17 percent. Final results were not expected until sometime Monday, but Kuczynski’s supporters celebrated in the streets outside his campaign headquarters in Lima after two unofficial quick counts indicated he would edge out Mendoza for the right to face Fujimori on June 5. Such counts have been reliable predictors of results in previous Peruvian elections. The center-right Fujimori was the runaway front-runner for months and looked poised to outdo even the most-optimistic firstround scenarios in polls published on the eve of voting. But she will face an uphill battle in the second round because of how polarizing a figure former President Fujimori remains among Peruvians. While her father is remembered fondly by many, especially in the long-overlooked countryside, for defeating Maoist-inspired Shining Path rebels and taming hyperinflation, he is detested by large segments of the urban middle class for humanrights abuses and his order for the military to shut down Congress. Almost half of Peruvians surveyed said they would never vote for anyone associated with the former leader and thousands took to the streets a week ago to warn that Keiko Fujimori’s election could bring back authoritarian rule. In a bid to project a more moderate image, Fujimori promised during her campaign not to pardon her father, who is serving out a 25-year sentence for authorizing death squads during his decadelong rule starting in 1990. On Sunday night, she told supporters it was time to bury the past. “Peruvians want reconciliation and don’t want to fight anymore,” she told supporters while standing on a truck parked outside a luxury Lima hotel. If Kuczynski holds on to the No. 2 spot, it will ensure Peru continues along a free-market path after Mendoza’s rise in the polls spooked investors. It also represents another setback for South America’s left, which after sweeping into power across much of the region during the past decade’s commodities boom has suffered a string of electoral losses in Argentina, Bolivia
39% Votes for Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori, in the preliminary results of Peru’s presidential election
and Venezuela. After finishing a strong third in the 2011 election, Kuczynski threw his support behind Keiko Fujimori in that year’s runoff. He later said he regretted that decision but considered it necessary in trying to prevent the election of leftist Ollanta Humala, who held close ties to socialist Venezuela and had led an army rebellion in his youth. Once in office, however, Humala kept up a pro-business policy framework. The constitution barred him from seeking a second, consecutive term. Kuczynski, 77, is now urging Peruvians to turn the page on the widespread corruption and human-rights violations associated with the Alberto Fujimori years. But with an elite pedigree, heavily accented Spanish and until recently a US passport, he may face a hard time connecting with regular Peruvians, especially in rural areas where the older Fujimori is still revered. Sunday’s elections were marred by the worst guerrilla attack in Humala’s presidency. On Saturday Shining Path rebels killed eight soldiers and two civilians as they were traveling in a caravan to a remote village to provide security during the vote. Maritza Sacsara, one of the many rural voters who cast votes for Fujimori, called her “a born leader” and credited the candidate with campaigning fiercely in small towns and villages often ignored by Peruvian politicians. Fujimori’s Popular Force party secured an estimated 60 seats in the 130-member congress, while five other parties split the remaining seats. Sunday’s elections provided notable defeats for traditional politicians. Two former presidents, Alejandro Toledo and Alan Garcia, finished near the bottom of the 10-candidate field, while the congressional slate for Garcia’s almost century-old APRA party barely got by the minimum 5-percent threshold to hold onto its legal standing. Adding bitterness to the race, two candidates, including Fujimori’s strongest rival, were barred from the race by Peru’s electoral tribunal for campaign violations or technicalities, decisions questioned by the Organization of American States. AP
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G-7 foreign ministers push nuclear disarmament in Hiroshima meet H
IROSHIMA, Japan—Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized countries meeting on Monday in the atomicbombed Japanese city of Hiroshima, called for a renewed push for flagging nuclear disarmament efforts, as they wrestled with some of the intractable global problems facing their nations. A joi nt com mu n ique con dem ned t he u su a l su s pec t s: Recent extremist attacks from Turkey and Belgium to Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Pakistan; North Korea’s nuclear test and missile launches; and Russia’s “ illegal a n ne x at ion” of t he C r i mea n peninsula in Ukraine.
The international community used to share common values that maintained stability and prosper it y, Japanese Foreig n Minister Fumio Kishida told a news conference. “Today the world is now facing challenges to change such common values and principles uni-
G-7 foreign ministers—European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini (from left), Canada’s Foreign Minister Stephane Dion, Britain’s Foreign Minister Philip Hammond, United States Secretary of State John Kerry, Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Italy’s Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault—walk together after placing wreaths at the cenotaph at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan. JONATHAN ERNST/POOL PHOTO VIA AP
laterally, such as terrorism and violent extremism,” he said. On terrorism, the top diplomats from the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy pledged to complete a G-7 action plan that the leaders of their nations can adopt at their summit in Japan’s Ise-Shima region in late
Bangladesh closing notorious 18th-century prison in Dhaka
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HAKA, Bangladesh—Bangladesh is closing its notorious 18th-century prison where sensational political killings over decades have targeted people on both sides of the South Asian country’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. The government wants to reopen the old, dilapidated Dhaka Central Jail as a museum to its tumultuous past, while giving its inmates better accommodations on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital. The new jail will have an uninterrupted power supply, a 200-bed hospital and a job-training center. “Such initiatives will help criminals change their way of living and their thinking, as well as motivate them to return to normal life,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Sunday as she opened the new jailhouse on the capital’s outskirts. The Dhaka Central Jail, with architectural marks that reflect Mughal and British histories, has been chronically overcrowded. It now has about 8,000 inmates, though it was built to accommodate just 2,600. Inmates live in cramped, unsanitary conditions. Authorities plan to move the inmates to the new facility over the next month. “We will do it slowly, as security is an issue that needs to be taken care of very carefully,” said Col. Fazlul Kabir, additional inspector general of police (prisons). Bangladesh was born in 1971 through a bloody nine-month war. The war broke out after military rulers in Pakistan, then West Pakistan, refused to hand over power to majority Bengali politicians led
8,000 Inmates currently jailed in old Dhaka prison
by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father, after his party won most seats in a 1970 election. Rahman was confined to Dhaka Central Jail numerous times before he became Bangladesh’s founding leader. Many Communist politicians were also jailed, as were intellectuals who were involved in the nationalist movement. “ D u r i n g t h e l o n g p o l i t i c a l c a re e r o f Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, this central jail was his second home,” Forman Ali, a former jail superintendent, wrote in a newspaper article on Saturday. Bangabandhu is an honorary title meaning “Friend of Bengal” given to him in a massive rally in Dhaka following his release from jail in 1969 in a politically motivated sedition case. Rahman was assassinated in 1975—killed along with most of his family members in a military coup. Killed in Dhaka Central Jail that year were four close associates of Rahman who were the architects of the country’s independence war and advocates of secular Bangladesh.
World’s wild-tiger count rising for the first time in a century
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EW DELHI—The world’s count of wild tigers roaming forests from Russia to Vietnam has gone up for the first time in more than a century, with 3,890 counted by conservation groups and national governments in the latest global census, wildlife-conservation groups said Monday. The tally marks a turnaround from the last worldwide estimate in 2010, when the number of tigers in the wild hit an all-time low of about 3,200, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Global Tiger Forum. India alone holds more than half of the world’s tigers, with 2,226 tigers roaming reserves across the country, from the southern tip of Kerala state to the eastern swamps in West Bengal, according to its last count in 2014. But while experts said the news was cause for celebration, they stopped short of saying the number of tigers itself was actually rising. In other words, it may just be that experts are aware of more tigers, thanks to better survey methods and more areas being surveyed. Still, this is the first time tiger counts are increasing since 1900, when there were more than 100,000 tigers in the
wild. “More important than the absolute numbers is the trend, and we’re seeing the trend going in the right direction,” said Ginette Hemley, senior vice president of wildlife conservation at WWF. The global census, compiled from national tiger surveys as well as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, was released a day before ministers from 13 countries meet for three days in New Delhi. The countries teamed up with conservation groups after the disappointing count in 2010, and pledged to double wild tiger numbers by 2022. Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio joined the effort. “Tigers are some of the most vital and beloved animals on Earth,” DiCaprio said in a statement. “I am so proud that our collective efforts have begun to make progress toward our goal, but there is still so much to be done.” Not all nations are yet seeing progress. While Russia, India, Bhutan and Nepal all counted more tigers in their latest surveys, Southeast Asian countries have struggled. They are also behind the others in conservation measures, and do not yet conduct a tiger census on their own. AP
May. A separate statement took aim at China’s land reclamation in the South China Sea, where it is enmeshed in a series of overlapping territorial disputes with Southeast Asian nations. “We express our strong opposition to any intimidating, coercive or provocative unilateral actions
that could alter the status quo a nd i nc re a s e t e n s ion s ,” t he statement said, without mentioning China by name. It also ex pressed concer n about the situation in the East China Sea, where Japan and China both claim some uninhabited islands. Japan gave the issue of nuclear
nonproliferation added significance by making Hiroshima the venue for the two-day foreign ministers’ meeting. US Secretary of State John Kerry became the highest-ranking American official to visit Hiroshima since World War II, and the foreign ministers jointly laid flowers for the victims of the US atomic bombing in 1945. They issued two statements on nonproliferation, including a “Hiroshima Declaration,” which calls on other political leaders to visit Hiroshima, too. “In this historic meeting, we reaffirm our commitment to...creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons,” the declaration said. The task is made more complex, it said, by the deteriorating security environment in countries such as Syria and Ukraine, as well as by North Korea’s “repeated provocations.” AP
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Seoul: Senior North Korea military officer defects to South
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EOUL, South Korea—A colonel from North Korea’s military spy agency fled to South Korea last year in a rare senior-level defection, Seoul officials said on Monday.
The announcement came three days after Seoul revealed 13 North Koreans working at the same restaurant in a foreign country had defected to the South. It was the largest group defection since North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011. South Korean media reported the restaurant is located in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo. The colonel worked for the North Korean military’s General Reconnaissance Bureau before defecting
to South Korea, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry and Unification Ministry. Both ministries refused to provide further details including a motive for the defection. The reconnaissance agency was believed to be behind two deadly attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010. There have been occasional reports of lower-level North Korean soldiers defecting but it is unusual for a colonel to flee to the South. The highest-level North Ko-
rean who took asylum in South Korea has been Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers’ Party official who once tutored Kim’s late dictator father Kim Jong Il. Hwang’s 1997 defection was hailed by many South Koreans as an intelligence bonanza and a clear sign that the North’s political system was inferior to the South’s. Hwang died in 2010. More than 29,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government records. Many defectors have testified they wanted to avoid the North’s harsh political system and poverty. Defections are a bitter source of contention between the rival Koreas, which are still divided along the world’s most heavily fortified border since the end of the Korean War. Pyongyang usually accuses Seoul of enticing North Korean citizens to defect, something Seoul denies. AP
SOMALIA: MAN EXECUTED FOR JOURNALISTS’ KILLINGS
A MAN helps an injured boy to a hospital after an earthquake hit Peshawar, Pakistan, on Sunday. A powerful earthquake rattled Pakistan’s capital and other cities across the country on Sunday, causing panic among people but with no immediate reports of casualties or major damages. AP/MOHAMMAD SAJJAD
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OGADISHU, Somalia—A former journalist who joined the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab was executed in Somalia’s capital for the killings of five Somali journalists. Hassan Hanafi Haji, who was extradited from Kenya last year on the request of the Somali government, was killed by firing squad at a police academy in Mogadishu on Monday. Firing squad is the only execution method in Somalia. In his role as a liaison officer with alShabab, Haji was known to threaten journalists and radio stations for any reporting not in favor of the Islamic extremist rebels,
POLICE HUNT SUSPECTS IN INDIA TEMPLE FIRE THAT KILLED 110
forcing many media outlets to practice self-censorship for security reasons. Haji later led al-Shabab’s media unit, inviting journalists to press conferences and giving them tours of battlefields. He often urged journalists to report according to al-Shabab’s media rules, which included avoiding stories related to the group’s military setbacks. Haji was one of the few suspects prosecuted by the Somali government following years of criticism by rights groups who urged authorities to do more to establish the rule of law and end the killings of journalists. The killings of media workers often happened in government-controlled areas that journalists generally consider safe. Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. At least 18 Somali journalists were killed last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. It’s not entirely clear who has been killing journalists. Al-Shabab rebels, warlords, criminals, and even government agents all could have reasons to see journalists killed in Somalia. AP
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ISLAMIC STATE GROUP RETAKES SYRIAN TOWN IN NORTH FROM REBELS BEIRUT—Syrian activists said Islamic State fighters have retaken a northern town along Syria’s border with Turkey just days after losing it to rebel forces and allied militants. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Today TV station said the IS extremists captured al-Rai early on Monday morning after intense fighting for the frontier town. Al-Rai is strategically located on the border with Turkey, serving as the Islamic State group’s access point to supply lines. It also sits along the road to the IS stronghold in Aleppo province. IS lost the town on Thursday after an offensive by rebels and militant groups allied with them, including al-Qaida’s branch in Syria known as the Nusra Front. AP
JURY SELECTION SET IN CASE OF MAN ACCUSED IN HOT S.U.V. DEATH ATLANTA—Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the case of a Georgia man accused of intentionally leaving his toddler to die in a hot SUV. According to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 550 summonses were sent to prospective jurors to hear the murder case of Justin Ross Harris who is accused of leaving his 22-month old son, Cooper, in his SUV for hours on June 18, 2014, a day when temperatures in the Atlanta area reached the high 80s. Harris was indicted in September 2014 on multiple charges, including felony murder. That indictment also includes charges related to accusations that Harris tried to get an underage girl to send him a photo of her genitalia and sent her a sexually explicit photo. A new indictment filed April 1 charges Harris with sharing sexually explicit communications with underage girls. AP
Police evacuate protesters at Paris’s Republique square
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PEOPLE gather near damaged buildings at the spot where a massive fire broke out during a fireworks display at the Puttingal temple complex in Paravoor village, Kollam district, southern Kerala state, India, on Sunday. AP/ JYOTHIRAJ. N.S
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ARAVOOR, India—Medical teams on Monday tended to hundreds of people injured in a massive fire that killed at least 110 people, while authorities searched for those responsible for illegally putting on the fireworks display that caused the weekend blaze at a Hindu temple in southern India. Amid the burnt-out wreckage of the Puttingal Devi temple complex, in the village of Paravoor, rescue officials sifted through huge piles of dust, wood and concrete for clues about how an unauthorized pyrotechnic display staged before dawn on Sunday went so horribly wrong, sparking a fire that swept through the temple as it was packed with thousands for a religious festival. Police detained five workers for questioning about fireworks stored at the site, hoping to learn more about who owned the fireworks and who had contracted the pyrotechnical display, police constable R. Unnikrishnan Nair said. The five were later released, but Nair did not say if they were able to help authorities track down any of the 15 temple board members who fled after the accident.
As of Monday morning, the death toll from the tragedy stood at 110 people with more than 380 others hurt, including many with burn injuries and others injured when a building storing fireworks collapsed. Villagers and police had pulled many of the injured out from under slabs of concrete and twisted steel girders. They were taken to hospitals in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Paravoor, as well as the nearby city of Kollam. Scores of worried relatives crowded the Kollam District Hospital, searching for loved ones still missing. “We are just trying to calm them down so that they can give us the information, with which we can help them find their missing relatives,” said K. Shijil, a helpdesk worker at the Kollam hospital who was also giving out emergency kits that included a towel, clothes, drinking water and cookies. Among a throng of people crowding the help desk was Somraj, grey-haired man in his 50s who was looking for his son-inlaw, Anu Lal.
“We were about to return home, when Anu said, ‘let’s watch for a few more minutes,’” recalled Somraj, who goes by one name as do many in southern India. “Then came this loud explosion, and everything went dark. I’ve been searching for him everywhere.” The fire started when a spark from a fireworks display ignited a stash of fireworks that had been stored at the complex. Scores of devotees ran in panic as the massive initial blast cut off power in the complex. Flames trapped many devotees inside the compound. More explosions sent flames and debris raining down, with some chunks of concrete falling as far as 1 kilometer (a halfmile) away, a witness said. “It was complete chaos,” villager Krishna Das said. “People were screaming in the dark. Ambulance sirens went off, and in the darkness, no one knew how to find their way out of the complex.” TV channels showed video of huge clouds of white smoke billowing from the temple, as fireworks were still going off in the sky. Most of the 110 deaths occurred when the building where the
fireworks were stored collapsed, Chandy told reporters. Most of the bodies have been identified, officials said, though there were still at least 11 unknown victims charred beyond recognition. Police were investigating the missing board members for possible charges of culpable homicide, punishable with life imprisonment, and illegally storing a cache of explosives. District authorities worried about safety had denied permission to the temple this year for its annual competitive fireworks show, during which different groups put on displays at the end of a seven-day festival honoring the goddess Bhadrakali, a southern Indian incarnation of the Hindu goddess Kali. “They were clearly told that no permission would be given for any kind of fireworks,” said A. Shainamol, the district’s top official. She said officials had worried the competing sides would try to outdo each other with more and more fireworks, and nearby residents had complained that the shows were a nuisance and a fire hazard. AP
ARIS—French police on Monday evacuated the protesters who have been gathering at Paris' Republique square over the past 11 nights, tearing down the structures set up on the iconic plaza. Paris police said the evacuation, which took place after some protesters rioted over the weekend, went without incident. Video footage showed police officers removing tents and banners installed by the protesters, who started their Occupy-like movement to oppose labor reforms. Demonstrators are, however, planning to resume their sit-in on Monday night. Police made eight arrests on Saturday night after about 300 demonstrators went on a rampage across the capital, attacking a police building, damaging cars and vandalizing bank offices. It was not clear whether they had any affiliation to the socalled “Night Rising” group that started the square's occupation.
Trying to ease the tensions that have been growing over the labor law proposal, Prime Minister Manuel Valls met with youth organizations a few hours after the evacuation. Valls announced measures worth between 400 and 500 million euros aimed at improving youth access to employment. “Never has so much been done for youth in this country,” Valls said. William Martinet, the leader of students union UNEF, welcomed the proposals as “important measures for the young.” He insisted, however, that the proposed overhaul of France's labor code "still isn't a good bill," adding that his organization is still calling for another day of action across France on April 28. Martinet also expressed his support for the “Night Rising” action, praising the “thousands of people who are gathering for democratic debates.” AP
3 militants killed in attack on Russian police station
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OSCOW—Two militants were killed and a third blew himself up in an attempt to attack a police station in southern Russia on Monday, police said, adding that no police officers or civilians were hurt. The identity of the militants who attacked the police station in the town of Novoselitskoye in the Stavropol region was not yet clear. The Stavropol region is close to the North Caucasus, where an Islamic insurgency has simmered for years. In Dagestan, the center of the insurgency, many of the bombings and attacks have targeted police and other officials. Dagestan also has proved to be a fertile recruiting ground for the Islamic State group, with hundreds estimated to have traveled to Syria to join IS forces there. The attack could raise security concerns for the 2018 World Cup,
since the Stavropol region will host four training bases for national soccer teams competing in the tournament. The bases are all about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the site of Monday's attack. The militants set off explosives when they tried to break into the police station, Russia's counterterrorist agency said. Russian news reports said the blasts damaged the building and vehicles parked outside. Schools and day-care centers In Novoselitskoye were evacuated, as well as the local hospital, with the exception of 14 seriously ill patients and medical personnel. In a possible indication that law enforcement agencies fear more attacks, security was stepped up at schools, day care centers and hospitals in the Stavropol region, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the governor. AP
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The World BusinessMirror
US water repeatedly exceeds federal standard for lead
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ALESBURG, Illinois—This railroad town promotes its ties to Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and the poet Carl Sandburg. But Galesburg’s long history also shows in a hidden way: Aging pipes have been leaking lead into the drinking water for decades. Blood tests show cause for concern. One in 20 children under the age of 6 in Knox County had lead levels exceeding the state standard for public-health intervention, a rate six times higher than the Illinois average, in 2014. Galesburg offers just one example of how the problem of leadtainted drinking water goes far beyond Flint, Michigan, the former auto-manufacturing center, where the issue exploded into a public-health emergency when the city’s entire water system was declared unsafe. An Associated Press (AP) analysis of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data found that nearly 1,400 water systems serving 3.6 million Americans exceeded the federal lead standard at least once between January 1, 2013, and September 30, 2015. The affected systems are large and small, public and private, and include 278 systems that are owned and operated by schools and day-care centers in 41 states. Galesburg officials downplay the water’s potential contribution to lead poisoning, which can affect children’s mental development. But City Councilor Peter Schwartzman called the AP’s findings alarming. “Most people in Galesburg are not really being told that there is a problem,” said Schwartzman, an environmental scientist. “I’m very close to this and didn’t know it. I feel ignorant.” The AP reviewed 25 years of sampling data reported by 75,000 drinking-water systems that are subject to a federal lead rule that took effect in 1991. Details of the EPA data were first reported by USA Today. While no amount of lead exposure is considered safe, the rule calls for water systems to keep levels below 15 parts per billion. If more than 10 percent of sampled high-risk homes are above that level, water agencies must inform customers about the problem and take steps, such as add-
1,400 Large and small US water systems serving 3.6 million Americans that exceeded the federal lead standard
ing chemicals to control corrosion and prevent leaching of the lead. In Galesburg, a community of 31,000 about 200 miles southwest of Chicago, lead levels have exceeded the federal standard in 22 out of 30 testing periods since 1992. City officials say their ground water and water mains are lead-free, but the toxin enters the supply in service lines that deliver water from the streets to 4,700 homes. Lead-based plumbing fixtures that were common in homes built before 1980 also contribute. The city discovered its most recent problem last fall, when 7 out of 40 samples came back at unacceptable levels. The city followed EPA guidelines by informing residents of the situation two months later. Its notice said that a chemical added to the water since 1993 has been effective in reducing the lead levels and resulted in “lead compliance since 2010,” a misleading statement since no testing was required in 2013 and 2014. The notice added that recent testing showed the standard had been exceeded “by a narrow margin.” In reality, lead levels were 1.5 times the standard. Whitney Zielke, 32, said her mother “freaked out” after receiving that notice but that she didn’t know what to think. “It’s so downplayed,” Zielke said, standing outside her mother’s home on a street where testing revealed high amounts of lead. “It’s like, ‘Hey, we have to tell you this may or
may not be happening.’ It’s bogus.” Critics say the current rule has not done enough to protect public health or to inform individual homeowners about risks. Dozens of systems have exceeded the standard 10 times or more in the last quarter-century, including in Portland, Oregon, and Providence, Rhode Island, the data shows. In a statement, the EPA said events in Flint and elsewhere have raised questions about how the lead rule has been implemented. The agency is considering changes to the rule and urging state water regulators in the meantime to improve lead monitoring. But the ultimate solution is expensive: It will take billions of dollars to replace millions of miles of lead service lines throughout the country. Those are the lines that connect water mains to homes, schools and businesses, remnants from a time when scientists didn’t understand the dangers caused by lead. Water operators sought to distance their systems from the situation in Flint, saying they were taking actions to reduce lead. “We try to minimize it, whatever our contribution is” to childhood lead poisoning, said Joseph Bella, executive director of the Passaic Valley Water Commission in New Jersey, which has repeatedly exceeded the standard. His agency serves 314,000 customers and has increased its lead sampling. It’s also replacing the last 400 lead service lines the utility owns and is speeding up a $135-million plan to add storage tanks for treated water so phosphate can be added to prevent the corrosion, which leads to lead contamination. Lead problems have been particularly persistent in Massachusetts communities outside Boston such as Malden, Winthrop and Chelsea, which have repeatedly exceeded the limit. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which serves those cities, announced a program last month to make $100 million available in interest-free loans to replace lead service lines. Several schools have restricted access to their water amid lead concerns. “The kids are not exposed to it other than hand-washing,” said Sandra Porter, who manages the water system at Ava Head Start in Ava, Missouri, where a 2014 test revealed lead levels more than four times the federal standard. The crisis in Flint, where residents have been without tap water for months, has highlighted how tainted water can poison children. Even low levels have been shown to affect IQ, the ability to pay attention and academic achievement.
Children age 6 and under and pregnant women—whose bones pass along stored lead to infants— are considered the most vulnerable to lead, which can also damage brains, kidneys and production of red blood cells that supply oxygen. A close look at Galesburg illustrates some of the regulatory shortcomings that can fail to protect public health. To save money, Galesburg officials years ago scrapped a program that helped homeowners pay to replace their lead service lines. Now, they say they do not have the $15 million that would be required to replace the lines citywide. Instead, they are spending $15,000 more this year to increase the amount of phosphate they add to the water to inhibit corrosion and, they hope, reduce leaching of the lead pipes. Galesburg Public Works Director Wayne Carl said that is the most cost-effective way to address the problem, which he insisted doesn’t contribute to childhood lead poisoning. “We haven’t run into anything that would show it was a concern,” he said, blaming lead paint from the city’s old homes for high levels in children. After AP inquiries, school Superintendent Ralph Grimm ordered lead sampling at 25 drinking fountains throughout Galesburg schools, which had not been tested for years, if ever. The results showed levels far below the federal standard, a relief to school officials. Knox County public-health officials said they were also unaware that lead levels in Galesburg’s drinking water stood out nationwide. They say they focus on keeping children away from lead paint and toys, and that it was up to the city to operate the water supply. In 2014, lead levels in one in 10 county children exceeded the federal standard for public health intervention. Schwartzman said Galesburg was doing the minimum that’s legally required and should do more. He wants to bring back the serviceline replacement program, do more sampling, help residents purchase water filters and increase education on antilead strategies, such as letting water run in the morning before drinking it. But Tim Fey, Galesburg’s water operations supervisor, said the city “has been very active” in informing the public. Standing outside his 100-year-old home, Fey said he drinks tap water, even though recent testing there revealed lead levels far over the federal limit. The results were disappointing, he said, adding: “It’s all transparent. We’re not hiding anything.” AP
news@businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion
GOAT WANDERS FROM HOME, GOES ON STARBUCKS RUN
THIS photo provided by the Rohnert Park, California, Department of Public Safety shows a goat that wandered into a Starbucks in the Northern California town on Sunday. Rohnert Park police Sgt. Rick Bates said employees who were opening the store tried to give the goat a banana, but the animal kept walking into the coffee shop and started chewing on a box. Bates took the goat into custody and brought it to an animal shelter. SGT. RICK BATES/ROHNERT PARK DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY VIA AP
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OHNERT PARK, California—Police say a goat apparently needed a caffeine fix when it wandered into a Starbucks in Northern California. Rohnert Park police Sgt. Rick Bates said dispatchers received several calls on Sunday morning about a goat named Millie wandering around a strip mall on the city’s eastern edge. Bates said employees who were opening the Starbucks tried to give Millie a banana, but she kept walking into the coffee
shop and started chewing on a box. Bates took the goat into custody and brought it to the animal shelter—but not before snapping photos of her sniffing around the Starbucks and posting them on the police department’s Facebook page. He said word spread to Millie’s owner, and the animal had made it home. He said Millie didn’t travel far; she lives around the corner from the mall. Rohnert Park is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of San Francisco. AP
Trump calls ‘Boston Globe’ ‘worthless’ after satire issue
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OSTON—Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has derided The Boston Globe as “stupid” and “worthless” in response to a satirical front page printed by the newspaper on Sunday that lampoons a potential Trump presidency. The fake front page is dated April 9, 2017, and its main story is about Trump
THIS image shows a portion of a satirical front page of The Boston Globe published on the newspaper’s web site on Saturday. The editorial board of The Boston Globe used the parody to express its uneasiness with a potential Donald Trump presidency. THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA AP calling for deportations. Another article mentions work being halted on a wall at the Mexico border. There’s also a short item about the backlash Trump received after tweeting a photo of his new dog he named “Madame Peng,” after China’s first lady Peng Liyuan (puhng LEE’-yoo-en). In an editorial, the Globe calls the satire “an exercise in taking a man at his word.” AP
HAITI ARTISTS FORGE INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION WITH ART MADE OF JUNK
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ORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Amid a maze of car repair shops in Haiti’s gritty capital, Andre Eugene pitches a shredded tire he found atop a towering sculpture he built out of rusty engine parts, bed springs and other cast-off junk. “This is what I do: I work with the garbage of the world,” says Eugene, assessing the largest sculpture displayed at the entrance of his studio and open-air museum off a crumbling street cutting through some of Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhoods. The Haitian sculptor is a founding member of Atis Rezistans, a shifting collective of artists who recycle whatever useful scraps they can find to give a raw, physical shape to the spiritual world of Voodoo, or Vodou as the religion is known by Haitians, and weigh in on the country’s chronic political and economic troubles. While Haiti’s established galleries were slow to warm to the scrap sculptors of the capital’s impoverished Grand Rue neighborhood, bustling with furniture-
makers and other craftsmen, the artisans working with recycled materials have been embraced by a number of international art connoisseurs and academics. Over the last decade, the work of Atis Rezistans has been exhibited in cities, such as Paris, London, and Los Angeles. There are sculptures included in the permanent collections of museums, including the Frost Art Museum in Miami. Haitian art has long had a reputation for imaginative richness, and wealthy international collectors, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and filmmaker Jonathan Demme sought out self-taught painters colorfully evoking the every day lives of Haitians or depicting dreamlike scenes. And even though found-object creations have been part of the poor country’s art for decades, experts say there has been nothing like the in-yourface works of Atis Rezistans. “Atis Rezistans takes an old practice in new directions, expanding the range of materials used and offering stunning
new meanings for objects found in everyday life,” said Marcus Rediker, a collector of Haitian art and a distinguished professor of Atlantic history at the University of Pittsburgh. The materials that form the sharpedged sculptures include automotive fragments, carved wood pieces, broken TVs, discarded toys and even real human skulls collected at a cemetery of mausoleums where bones were scattered by grave robbers. Many of their artworks are a nod to Baron Samedi, the Vodou god of the dead, and his rambunctious offspring, Gede. Others offer a kaleidoscope of jarring images out of a Mad Max movie: sculptures of faces with spikes; masked figures resembling shrouded corpses; broken baby dolls fused with computer motherboards. But it’s not all darkness. There’s plenty of evidence of playfulness and irreverent theatricality, such as a skull-topped figure with a stethoscope, snake sculptures
IN this April 4 photo, colorful pieces made out of recycled tires hang on a wall at an open-air museum and art workshop off a trash-strewn street cutting through some of the poorest neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They were created by Haitian artists called Atis Rezistans. Haitian art has long had a reputation for imaginative richness, and wealthy international collectors. AP with scales of inlaid bottle caps and much frank sexual imagery. Perhaps their most acclaimed collaborative creation has been a mashup of high art-meets-developing world called the “Ghetto Biennale.” Every two years, international artists come to the Grand Rue neighborhood in a kind of cross-cultural festival that leaves the door open for just about anything. The Ghetto Biennale takes a form de-
veloped for European art fairs and radically subverts it, according to Anthony Bogues, a Brown University professor who cocurated a 2011 exhibition of Haitian art at the Providence, Rhode Island school. “Art for them is not about the elite but rather recognizing that art is a language in which Haiti speaks to itself and the world,” Bogues said of Atis Rezistans. Collaborations with overseas artists who come to Haiti have given younger
members of the collective chances to tap into art networks across the globe, while international artists are stimulated by the Haitian group’s creative process. “Their philosophy to turn trash into art, thus something seemingly worthless into something valuable, has inspired me,” said Alice Smeets, a Belgian artist who collaborated with members of Atis Rezistans to create staged photographs in Haitian slums that depict figures from tarot cards. AP
A10 Tuesday, April 12, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso
Opinion BusinessMirror
editorial
Who won the VP debate?
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NN Philippines and the BM brought together all six vice-presidential hopefuls at the University of Santo Tomas on Sunday for their only debate in this election cycle.
Of course, we are favorably biased about our sister company. But from the moment the broadcast began, it was unmistakable that Philippine television has entered a new era. That may seem like an over-the-top and self-serving comment. But the show was world class and at a standard that hopefully the rest of the Philippine media might try to follow. The professionalism of Ms. Pinky Webb and Ms. Pia Hontiveros was world class also. Walking into the lions’ den of six eager and intense candidates trying to win the public’s favor is not where a journalist necessarily wants to be. However, from the opening bell, the two ladies made it clear that they would be in charge. They stood ready and did crack the whip when the banter between the candidates began to get out of hand and they remained firmly in control. It seemed like no one wanted to risk getting on the bad side of “Team P & P.” The town-hall format is always a risky road to travel because no one is truly prepared for what might happen next outside of a rigorous set of preplanned questions. But here, too, it worked well. The portion where the candidates were to answer “Yes” or “No” questions by holding up cards was perfect, lessening the tension at the right moment with even some amusing laughter. But the questions themselves were important and opened the way for more discussion on some of the topics. Political events like this may move some of the “undecided” voters into a particular candidate’s camp. At this stage in the election though, it is crucially important not to lose any of your voting base. If you can pull a vote or two from another candidate, that would be great. But the main thing is not to make any mistakes that could lower your standing. The post-debate polls taken immediately after the candidates finish speaking and usually made online are not of much use. Supporters tend to flood the Internet polls distorting the outcome and serious voters need time to digest what happened and what the most important “takeaways” are for them personally. Answering the question of who won the debate is simple: The Filipino people are the winners. Regardless of the flaws and faults of the political system—and there are many of them—we still have a participatory democracy. The candidates talked about the past, the present and the future for the nation. The same diverse classes of people that watched the Manny Pacquiao fight had the same opportunity to see the vice-presidential candidates on TV. Always remember, political freedom is something you may not appreciate until you lose it. Since 2005
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Manny B. Villar
THE ENTREPRENEUR
T
HE government late last month declared the bidding for the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway-Dike Project a failure because the three qualified bidders did not submit offers.
The project is one of the largest in terms of cost, scope and benefits under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program. Estimated to cost P123 billion, it involves the construction, operation and maintenance of a 47-kilometer floodcontrol dike with toll roads, which will ease traffic flow and reduce flooding in western coastal communities along the Laguna Lake. In another time, the failure of the bidding for the project is a big setback for the country’s efforts to develop its inadequate infrastructure system. I consider the failure of the bidding, coming so close to the transfer of power from one administration to another, as a positive development. As a representative of one of the qualified bidders
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suggested, it was best to defer the bidding until a new administration took over to ensure transparency and fairness. The government has also postponed the bidding for the operation and maintenance of the Light Rail Transit Line 2, originally scheduled for April 4, to a still unspecified date. The government, however, is still pushing to award contracts for seven PPP projects before President Aquino steps down on June 30. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has moved the bid submission for its regional prison project from March 22 to April 20, while the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has deferred the deadline for bids for five regional airport projects (Panglao, Bacolod and
Iloilo in the Visayas, and Laguindingan and Davao in Mindanao) and the Davao seaport project from March 28 to an unspecified date. The seven are among 14 projects under the procurement stage, which means prospective bidders are conducting due diligence or preparing or submitting bids. Also included in the 14 projects are the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike and the NorthSouth Railway Project (South Line). I don’t dispute the PPP Center’s position that delaying the bidding for the PPP projects would delay the improvement in public services, and that the government has spent valuable resources in developing the plans for these projects, except that the incumbent administration will be out in less than three months, and a new administration will take its place. Based on our country’s experience, any bidding now may be viewed as a midnight deal, and would be subject to questions, which may even further delay the implementation of the projects. This may be one of the concerns on the minds of the prospective bidders for the Laguna Lakeshore project when they decided not to submit bids despite their interest on the project.
True, the government has spent valuable resources to develop the projects, but conducting the biddings and awarding contracts at this time may raise the cost if the new administration decides that the terms prepared by its predecessor are unacceptable. Some projects may even be so controversial as to compel the new president to not agree with it. Then we would have valuable resources gone to waste. The wise thing to do in the remaining days of the administration is to suspend biddings for major PPP projects, and allow the new administration, as a gesture of courtesy, to decide whether to push through with the biddings or revise the terms. This does not mean, however, that the government should stop implementing infrastructure projects. I refer only to major projects that may invite controversies. Infrastructure projects under the regular budget, and even bidding for minor PPP projects should continue. Of course, the government should persuade contractors to accelerate the implementation of PPP projects that have already been awarded. For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@ gmail.com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.
Bad-bank loans bring down the economy
Judge Pedro T. Santiago (Ret.) Benjamin V. Ramos Adebelo D. Gasmin Frederick M. Alegre Marvin Nisperos Estigoy Aldwin Maralit Tolosa Dante S. Castro
BusinessMirror is published daily by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror
HOM
Midnight issue
John Mangun
OUTSIDE THE BOX
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LTHOUGH none of us are able to remember it, it must have been a momentous occasion when we first realized the cycle of night following day following the night. It is the wonder that much of life moves in a circle unlike the linear movement of food going into one end of the body and coming out the other. The problem with things that move in a straight line—the linear movement—is that it follows sort of a birth-life-death model. But to think that the darkest of night is going to be followed by the brightest of days must be one of the factors that kept the human race from collectively jumping off the highest cliff to its destruction when things turned bad. As I have said before, humans look for order in the chaos of the events that we are surrounded by, from typhoons to illness. So many things do not make any sense in the short term because we are not able to see the big picture. Supertyphoon Yolanda came almost exactly 100 years after a previous supertyphoon
also hit in virtually the same place of Tacloban City. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 hit in the Sendai region and closely matched a similar occurrence in the year 869. Stone markers placed a thousand years ago said, “Don’t build your house any nearer to the ocean than this marker.” Buildings on the wrong side of the marker were destroyed in 2011. The idea that we are constantly in the midst of cycles that we have little control over drives modern thinking crazy. The objection to the concept of cycles that govern events is that there are too many variables at play. How can there be natural boom and bust
The idea that we are constantly in the midst of cycles that we have little control over drives modern thinking crazy. The objection to the concept of cycles that govern events is that there are too many variables at play. How can there be natural boom and bust business cycles if economies, society, technology and virtually everything else is different than it was before?
business cycles if economies, society, technology and virtually everything else is different than it was before? The well-recorded Financial Panic of 354 BC in Athens, Greece, happened this way. The religious temples were very wealthy from donations. They were the unofficial central banks, which made a little extra income loaning money to their banker friends. The temples kept their money in safes called Opisthodomos—the “back room”—which, because of the constant security, was where the Athenian government also
stored its cash. The banks could not pay the temples because of some bad real-estate loans. The government could not get its money from the now-empty Opisthodomos. The real-estate market collapsed. The government was bankrupt. Bad loans involving the realestate market resulted in a failure of some banks causing a major liquidity problem in the economy, which forced the government to intervene and bail out the system through currency devaluation. The Greek politician Demosthenes wrote it all down as it happened. With the banking crisis spreading, the treasurer of the temple of Athena tried to conceal the losses by burning the Opisthodomos down. His scheme was eventually discovered and he was put in prison. B ad debt d i s a ste r s h ave continued to happen throughout history. But is this just coincidence—perhaps, human nature— or are these part of cycles that we can track and indentify? E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.
Opinion BusinessMirror
opinion@businessmirror.com.ph
Watch out, hackers are on the loose Cecilio T. Arillo
DATABASE
I
SPENT five sleepless nights last week studying Marc Goodman’s latest handbook on hackers and other cybercriminals who drained online bank accounts, stole identities and wipe out closely guarded computer servers, just like what they did to the roughly 360 gigabytes of data of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). “To date, no computer has been created that could not be hacked— a sobering fact given our radical dependence on these machines for everything, from our national power grid, to air traffic control, to financial services,” Goodman said in his book, Future Crime, published last year by Doubleday, a division of Random House of Canada Ltd. Goodman warned that “hackers can activate baby monitors to spy on families, thieves can analyze socialmedia posts to plot home invasions, and stalkers are exploiting GPS on smartphones to track their victims’ every move.” Not only that. “Implantable devices, such as pacemakers, can be hacked to deliver a lethal jolt of electricity and a car’s brake can be disabled at high speed from miles away,” said Goodman, a futurist-inresidence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), advisor to the Interpol and founding chairman of Silicon Valley Singularity University’s Policy, Law and Ethics. Mac Arillo, a professor of Multimedia Arts at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde and founder of Mack & Chase Multidisciplinary Communications, said Goodman’s advice in Future Crimes, indeed, will “serve as an urgent call on how we can take back control over our own devices and harness technology’s power for the betterment of humanity—before it’s too late.” Going back to the Comelec files, the huge hacked data falling into the wrong hands can create massive cheating in the forthcoming presidential and local elections. A technical expert, who requested anonymity for security reasons, warned that the Comelec data stolen by a group of hackers, collectively known as Anonymous Philippines, on March 27 with the biometric contents of all the 55 million voters nationwide, complete with residence addresses, pictures, telephones, specific precincts where they will be voting, fingerprint and other vital information, can be used to favor local, municipal, congressional and presidential candidates, if safeguards are not put in place. “Remember that cheating in an automated electizon setting is done during pre-election preparations, including the deployment of the precinct count optical scan
“To date, no computer has been created that could not be hacked—a sobering fact given our radical dependence on these machines for everything from our national power grid to air traffic control to financial services,” Marc Goodman said in his book, Future Crime, published last year by Doubleday, a division of Random House of Canada, Ltd. (PCOS) machines, unlike in manual elections, where cheating is made in the post election stages just like the ‘Hello Garci’ incident,” the expert told this writer. He explained that PCOS machines, just like other computers, have both built in and retractable memories that can be accessed by the most able hackers. “The biometric data of the voters can be preprogrammed by unscrupulous technicians and hackers to favor a particular candidate or candidates in towns, cities, provinces and congressional districts,” the expert said. Isaac Sabas, founder and CEO of Pandora Security Labs, an on-demand IT security-service provider, said hackers typically have different motives whether for money, destruction, “hacktivism,” or just plain curiosity. “Based on the nature of the Comelec hack, the main motive is “hacktivism” (a portmanteau of hack and activism). The hackers merely proved a point that the Philippine government isn’t remotely capable of securing highly confidential and sensitive data, such as voters’ private information,” he said. The IT security expert also said that leaked data also poses another serious problem: identity theft. People who got hold of the data can now impersonate other people because of certain information they can gather from the data leak. “Worse, since the database was already hacked, how can we be sure that the integrity of the voting process is still intact?” he further added. To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@ gmail.com.
A culinary destination Edgardo J. Angara
F
OR decades, our cuisine has played second fiddle to that of our neighbors like Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. Many knew little about the Philippines, unaware about the richness, diversity and deliciousness of our food—the original Asian fusion cuisine. In recent years, this has slowly changed. Several restaurants across the United States, like maharlika or purple yam in New York and milkfish in New Orleans, have gained recognition for distinctively Filipino and Filipino-inspired menus. A 2015 CNN poll ranked the Philippines as a top destination with the world’s best food, gaining the most Facebook mentions behind only Taiwan. The report cited adobo as a common favorite, being ubiquitous among Filipino households. Lechon was also singled out
as a “popular party guest.” We recently played host to Madrid Fusión Manila—the Asian edition of the most important international gastronomy congress. Later this month, scores of people are expected to line up at the World Street Food Congress in Bonifacio Global City. The rise of our cuisine owes much to the many Filipino culinary workers who man the kitchens of hotels, cruise ships, fine-dining restaurants and cafés across the globe. They’ve gained recognition for their wonderful work ethic,
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 A11
creativity and adaptability. Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) shows that the number of Filipino chefs and related culinary workers deployed as new hires grew to more than 7,000 in 2013, marking a 60-percent increase from 2010. Among the most notable are of course Cristeta Comerford, White House executive chef since 2005, and Margarita Fores—proprietor of Cibo, Grace Park and Lusso—who was named Asia’s Best Female Chef for 2016 by Asia’s Best 50 Restaurants Awards. All these positive developments underlie an even broader industry— tourism, experiencing its own phenomenal rise. For instance, we gained another nod as a top tourist spot when National Geographic included us in its list of “must-see” and “best of the world” destinations for 2016. A decade ago, recognition from global publications was few and far between, if at all. Recently, they are becoming more commonplace, owing to the collaborative efforts of
BLOOMBERG VIEW
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HEN House Speaker Paul D. Ryan released a video laying out his familiar theme that politics should be fought on ideas and issues, the Drudge Report’s headline was: “Paul Ryan launches his first campaign ad.” A dream of some Republicans is that Ryan will rescue them from a looming fiasco in the presidential election. That’s not likely. As states assemble delegates for the party convention, there are already demands that no votes be cast for someone who didn’t run. It would be rational to turn to Governor John Kasich or Ryan, who might win the election, but neither the season nor the Republican grass-
roots reward rationality. If Donald Trump goes into the Republican convention with close to the 1,237 delegates required to win the nomination, it would be hard to deny him. It’s more likely that he’ll come in about 100 votes shy. That’s why in the days leading up to the Cleveland gathering, all eyes will be on the rules and credentials committees, most of whose
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Government should respect contracts with private sector Ernesto M. Hilario
ABOUT TOWN
D
OES the government always live up—as it should—to contracts it enters into with private firms? Apparently, not all of the time.
The Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) Group is up in arms against what it said is the continuing failure of the government, particularly the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB), to grant toll-fee adjustments that the company’s toll-road operators have requested for several years now. MPIC operates 63 percent of the 320 kilometers of toll roads in the country, making it the country’s biggest tollway operator. The toll road operators—Manila North Tollway Corp. (MNTC) that operates the North Luzon Expressway, Cavitex Infrastructure Corp. (CIC) that runs the 14-km Cavite Expressway (Cavitex), and the Tollways Management Corp. (TMC) that runs the 95-km Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway—are saying that they have been spending billions of pesos on maintaining their toll roads for the benefit of motorists, and they can recoup their huge investments only if the government grants the periodic rate adjustments due them. While the TRB may be correct in taking time to thoroughly review the rate adjustments, it has to balance the public interest with the need for businesses to recover their investments, especially when the toll-road operators are expected to
maintain the expressways to worldclass standards. Because of the TRB’s failure to approve toll rate adjustments, MNTC has filed an arbitration case to compel the government to compensate it for at least P3 billion over the state’s inaction on the long-due toll-hike petitions for the 84-km North Luzon Expressway (Nlex). This amount, which is inclusive of the value added tax plus interest, will cover MNTC’s foregone revenues from January 2013 to December 2015. It does not include an additional P111.8 million for every month of delay in compensation starting in January 2016. Toll-fee hikes were due for Nlex on January 1, 2013, and on January 1, 2015, as per the provision in the Special Toll Operation Agreement or concession deal forged in 1998 on biennial rate adjustments or once every two years, but the TRB failed to act on both petitions. Had both petitions been approved in line with the concession term’s proviso on biennial adjustments, Nlex toll fees would have risen by a combined 15 percent by now. MNTC filed its Nlex arbitration case before the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law in Geneva, Switzerland.
Apart from this, the MPIC may also seek a separate compensation of P700 million to P800 million, this time for its subsidiary Cavitex Infrastructure Corp., once CIC similarly decides to file its own arbitration case over the government’s similar inaction on its overdue toll hike petitions. CIC has a pending petition before the TRB for a 20-percent adjustment in Cavitex toll fees. The contemplated P700 million to P800 million compensation covers foregone revenue from 2012 up to the end of 2015. It is seeking respective rate hikes of 16 percent and 25 percent for Cavitex Radial Road 1 and 2 extensions. The toll road operators cite three main reasons for pushing their overdue toll-fee adjustments. One, the periodic rate adjustments are provided for in the concession agreements that the national government has sealed with them. Two, TRB’s failure to consider the rate adjustments is unfair to them as operation and maintenance contractors, and underlines the policy inconsistency or regulatory risks that keep prospective investors from investing their money in big-ticket projects. And three, the Supreme Court favors a “reasonable” rate of return for the operators via periodic adjustments. “Running through the gamut of our statutes providing for and encouraging partnership of the public and private sector is the paramount common good for infrastructure projects and the equally important factor of giving a reasonable rate of return to private sector’s investments. The viability of any infrastructure project depends on the returns—which should be reasonable—of the investment coming
Republican convention’s theme may be damage control Albert R. Hunt
tourism industry stakeholders and government agencies. Domestic tourism is of course the foremost success story in this industry—a boom that has reached even my hometown of Baler. However, our foreign arrivals remain unspectacular compared with our neighbors and we may not reach the 2016 target of 10 million foreign visitors. But more of our foreign guests are staying longer than previously projected. In October 2015 their average length of stay was already 9.66 nights, more than a day longer than the 2016 target of 8.04 nights. Raising the profile of our cuisine and reimagining the Philippines as a gastronomic destination gives our foreign tourists more reasons to prolong their visits. They will be enticed to spend more, considering research has shown that tourists devote up to one-third of their travel budgets on food. Indeed, the fast way into their hearts of our visitors is through their stomachs.
members haven’t yet been chosen by state delegations. These panels can come up with procedures to thwart Trump. The temptation to do so will be great, despite the havoc he could wreak. It’s a myth that the Republican anti-Trump movement is just the establishment. It includes prominent officeholders and donors, but also movement conservatives and leading economic and national security advisers. They are convinced that Trump would be an electoral disaster—polls show that he’s the most unpopular political figure in modern times—and that he would splinter the party. Already some Republican politicians say they won’t back him— “I will not support a nominee so lacking in the judgement, temperament and character,” Representative Scott Rigell of Virginia said— and more suggest privately that they expect to follow.
The substantive schisms are deep. Trump’s recent foreign-policy pronouncements were derided by Sen. Lindsey Graham as a “complete disaster.” His pledge to force Mexico to pay for a wall along the southern border by withholding all remittances to that country is legally dubious, experts said, and would be an enormous expansion of executive power even as the party, and Trump himself, accuse President Barack Obama of illicitly overreaching his office’s authority. On economics, Trump breaks with much Republican orthodoxy, except for his support for huge tax cuts for the wealthy. Trump would not go quietly. He might try to sway delegates with various inducements, perhaps even hold out the vice-presidency—his new top campaign adviser, Paul Manafort, was a player for President Gerald Ford in the 1976 convention and saw the challenger Ronald
Reagan almost succeed by picking a running mate before the delegates gathered. Some Trump backers raise the threat of violence. With the possibility of a disruptive end, Republicans are pondering how to protect incumbents at the congressional and state level. Some even argue that the best result might be to nominate someone else with Trump running as a third-party candidate, calculating that the votes he brought in would support Republicans in down-ballot contests. That someone else would probably be Sen. Ted Cruz, who’ll come to Cleveland as the runner-up. Smart, tough, the self-proclaimed rightwinger would draw a sharp ideological divide with Hillary Clinton. Yet as the freshman Texas lawmaker gets more scrutiny, his electoral liabilities might rival Trump’s. He advocates a huge tax cut, but it would include a value-added, or
from the private sector,” the High Tribunal said. “While the interests of the public are ideally to be accorded primacy in considering government contracts, the reality on the ground is that the tollway projects may not at all be possible or would be difficult to realize without the involvement of the investing private sector, which expects its usual share of profit,” it added. MPIC is worried that it would suffer the same fate as the Star Infrastructure Development Corp. (SIDC), which has yet to recover its multibillion-peso investments in road improvement works in the Batangas expressway that the TRB has demanded, with the supposed understanding that SIDC could later on recoup such spending through a toll fee hike. STAR implemented a Phase 2 expansion—on TRB’s prodding— without waiting for TRB to adjust the rates. SIDC spent a total of P2.3 billion on constructing two additional lanes from Batangas City to Lipa City, doing asphalt overlay work on all four lanes of the 20-km stretch from Lipa to Santo Tomas town, installing CCTV cameras, and opening the Lipa-Santo Toribio toll plaza that eased traffic in Lipa and opened access to the municipality of Balete. SIDC wants to recover its additional investment in STAR, but it looks like it has to wait some more— hopefully not forever—as the TRB seems to be taking its sweet time to act on SIDC’s need for cash to recover its improvement and expansion expenses. E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.
national-sales tax, which isn’t politically popular. He opposes all abortions without an exception for rape, and wants to roll back gay marriage rights. Some fringe issues or elements could haunt him, too. Cruz has spoken of returning the US to the gold standard. Or take a look at a recent segment by the television satirist Samantha Bee that highlighted the wacky comments of prominent right-wing pastors who back Cruz. But unlike Trump, he’s a lifelong Republican, and while he might lose, like Barry Goldwater in 1964, the recovery might be easier. Even as Republicans openly discuss damage control, some wistfully recall last April: They had their strongest field since 1980, the deepest bench, a favorable historical cycle against a mediocre Democratic field. That seems a lot longer than a year ago.