BusinessMirror January 2, 2016

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A broader look at today’s business n

Tuesday, February 2, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 117

10 million reasons cheap oil might hurt Philippines

C

HEAP oil should be a good thing for a country like the Philippines, which imports almost all of its fuel; but there are 10 million reasons that may not be the case.

INSIDE

DECORATING WITH WOOD

That’s how many Filipinos work overseas, many of them on rigs, tankers and as domestic help or construction workers in oil-producing nations in the Middle East.

Together, they sent home $22.8 billion in

LIFE

P.  |     | 7 DAYS A WEEK

the first 11 months of 2015, around 10 percent of GDP. The potential for a slowdown in remittances is being closely monitored, the central bank said last week.

S “C ,” A

40%

Share of remittances coming from the Middle East, according to Credit Suisse Group AG

BMReports BACKERS OF FOREIGN, LOCAL FASHION BRANDS SEE VALUE OF COMPETITION

D1

UNRAVELING ‘THE BEJEWELED COSMOS’

ART

MARKET RECOVERY? A trader prepares to ring the bell on the trading floor of the D4

SO MUCH LOVE

Philippine Stock Exchange to signal the end of the morning session. Philippine equities rallied to a three-week high near the 6,700 mark last week, as investors’ euphoria over the country’s 5.8-percent GDP in 2015 extended. Reports also said on Monday that Asian stocks started a new month on a cautious note. NONIE REYES

SY WINS 20-YR-OLD CASE ON POSADAS LOT

₧140M T

SPORTS

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Goodwill money offered by SMIC to the Posadas family in February 1996 for the development of a 27-hectare Muntinlupa property

HE Supreme Court (SC) has issued a ruling favoring the bid of Henry Sy-led SM Investments Corp. (SMIC) to acquire a 27.6-hectare prime property in Muntinlupa City and develop it into a high-end residential and commercial haven.

In a 12-page decision penned by Associate Justice Jose Portugal Perez, the SC’s First Division reversed and set aside the ruling issued by the Court of Appeals on September

13, 2011, which held that there was no agreement reached between SMIC and respondent-landowners Estela Marfori-Posadas, her daughter Maria Elena and mother-in-law Aida Macaraig-Posadas on the development of the property.

The property is in Posadas Subdivision in Muntinlupa City, between the South Luzon Expressway and the Laguna de Bay. C  A

Digital currencies aren’t just for geeks anymore

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ASH had a pretty good run for 4,000 years or so. These days, though, notes and coins increasingly seem déclassé: They’re dirty and dangerous, unwieldy and expensive, antiquated and so very analog.

Sensing this dissatisfaction, entrepreneurs have introduced hundreds of digital currencies in the past few

years, of which bitcoin is only the most famous. Now governments want in: The People’s Bank of China says it intends to issue a digital currency of its own. Central banks in Ecuador, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and Canada are mulling similar ideas.

At least one company has sprung up to help them along.

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 47.6850

Much depends on the details, of course. But this is a welcome trend.

In theory, digital legal tender could combine the inventiveness of private virtual currencies with the stability of a government mint.

Most obviously, such a system would make moving money easier.

Properly designed, a digital fiat cur-

rency could move seamlessly across otherwise incompatible payment networks, making transactions faster and cheaper. It would be of particular use to the poor, who could pay bills or accept payments online without need of a bank account, or make remittances without getting gouged.

AN apprentice at a fashion house in Makati City walks past dresses designed

by Pablo Cabahug. Spending, allotted to clothing and footwear, in the country posted a 10.2-percent growth rate for 2015. NONIE REYES B R C

F

Second of three parts

ILIPINOS always rise to the occasion.

This also applies to the fashion industry. Just ask Raul Francisco, creator of Eterno, which is a local men’s luxury brand for accessories.

Francisco acknowledges that local brands are being faced with difficult challenges with the entry of foreign brands.

But it’s not impossible to rise above them, he told the BM.

“Competition is good to a certain extent. The [entry] of foreign brands made local business upscale and [prompted them to] elevate their offerings. [It’s like being] local but [also] global to some extent.”

Francisco’s optimism is admirable, given that in 2014 alone, around 45 new international brands were able to penetrate the Philippine market.

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C  A

n JAPAN 0.3939 n UK 67.9416 n HK 6.1253 n CHINA 7.2507 n SINGAPORE 33.4866 n AUSTRALIA 33.7140 n EU 51.6810 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.7160

Source: BSP (1 February 2016 )

A2 Tuesday, February 2, 2016

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Backers of foreign, local fashion brands see value of competition C  A

That was the year the highest number of foreign brands have been able to enter the Philippine retail industry, according to research by Cushman and Wakefield.

“The resurgence of more people wanting to buy local products now helps local businesses to survive amidst the competition,” Joanna Francisco, owner of the Joanna Preysler Boutique, told the BusinessMirror.

Francisco, who also owns other fashion-related businesses, added she sees the local fashion industry in good shape amid the competition that foreign brands present.

“Filipinos are leaning more towards supporting local products,” she said. However, Francisco said Filipinos are leaning “slowly.”

Growth threads

COMPETITIVE prices in rent, an abundant number of retail spaces and the increasing level of income within the country has made it conducive for foreign brands to want to sell their items in the Philippines, according to the Philippine Franchise Association.

“There are many foreign franchises in the Philippines.

In fact, there was a time when foreign franchises dominated the Philippine franchise industry.” the

PAPAL LEGATE IN MANILA President Aquino converses with His Eminence Charles Maung Bo (fourth from left), papal legate and archbishop of Yangon, and the pontifical delegation during a courtesy call in Malacañang on Monday. The papal legate and his delegation are in Manila after the successful celebration of the International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu City. MALACAÑANG PHOTO PFA told the BUSINESSMIRROR. Mike Moon, director of the UK trade and investment for the British embassy, acknowledges the spiralling up of foreign fashion brands’ entry.

“British brands have been here [the Philippines] for decades and there is an increasing demand for more of such products [that] offer a high level of quality, creativity and craftsmanship,” Moon said in an email to the BusinessMirror.

According to Moon, “foreign brands fare well” in the Philippines.

“For British brands, we see that the market is increasingly receptive as the general public awareness of the United Kingdom grows.”

American brands like Aeropostale, American Eagle Outfitters and Old Navy are not far from trailing the Europeans when it comes to the entrance of fashionable clothing and apparel offerings.

Japan, to note, leads the clothing and apparel retail race for Asia, making up a huge chunk of the 25- percent Asian market share.

Nearly 22 stores carrying the Japanese fashion brands entered the Philippine market since 2008.

Brands like Muji and Uniqlo have become Filipino consumers’ top of mind recall, according to some analysts.

Woven land

THE entry of foreign fashion brands stimulated another sector of the Philippine economy: real estate.

The prime locations that foreign countries choose for their store fronts are the major shopping malls here in the country, according to property analysts the BusinessMirror talked to.

Besides having huge amounts of foot traffic each day, these prime spots also provide an area readily available to promote and sell brands.

Makati, Taguig and Mandaluyong have offered an array of wide retail spaces to foreign brands. According to KMC Mag Group, the Makati central business district offers a number of retail spaces both to foreign and local brands with prices starting at $47 per square foot per year.

Cushman and Wakefield also noted that the competitive pricing and the numerous spaces to choose from are added bonuses that help entice new retailers to set up shop in the country.

European store fronts in the Philippine market have comprised 42 percent of real estate space.

North America had 25 percent while Asian brands had 25 percent.

The SM Group also grabbed the opportunity in terms of the growing demand by foreign brands for

retail spaces. In 2013, the company added 101,000 square meters of space to their SM Megamall branch in the Ortigas commercial and business district to accommodate foreign brands.

The Swedish retail brand H&M was the first store to set up shop in the allotted space. Within the Mega Fashion hall, around 125 foreign and local retail stores are present. However, 90 percent of the retail stores found in the said hall belongs to foreign brands.

The SM Group has also announced plans to expand their SM Mall of Asia branch in Pasay, adding 200,000 square meters to accommodate the growing demand of brands for retail space.

“I think foreign brands provide local retailers with more options to diversify their portfolio and to have more to offer the market. Customer demand calls for more choice and competitive pricing.” Moon said.

According to Francisco, the demand for retail space also comes from the local fashion industry.

There is also the shift by local fashion businesses to become global by setting up shops near foreign brands, she said. “Local brands making an effort to becoming global is a way for the industry to compete.” To be concluded

Digital currencies aren’t just for geeks anymore…

For governments and their taxpayers, potential advantages abound. Issuing digital currency would be cheaper than printing bills and minting coins. It could improve statistical indicators, such as inflation and GDP. Traceable transactions could help inhibit terrorist financing, money laundering, fraud, tax evasion and corruption.

The most far-reaching effect might be on monetary policy. For much of the past decade, central banks in the rich world have been hampered by what economists call the “zero lower bound,” or the inability to impose significantly negative interest rates. Persistent low demand and high

unemployment may sometimes require interest rates to be pushed below zero—but why keep money in a deposit whose value keeps shrinking when you can hold cash instead?

With rates near zero, that conundrum has led policy-makers to novel and unpredictable methods of stimulating the economy, such as large-scale bond-buying.

A digital legal tender could resolve this problem. Suppose the central bank charged the banks that deal with it a fee for accepting paper currency. In that way, it could set an exchange rate between electronic and paper money—and by raising the fee, it would cause paper money to depreciate against the electronic standard. This would

eliminate the incentive to hold cash rather than digital money, allowing the central bank to push the interest rate below zero and, thereby, boost consumption and investment. It would be a big step toward doing without cash altogether.

Digital legal tender isn’t without risk. A policy that drives down the value of paper money would meet political resistance and —to put it mildly—would require some explaining. It could hold back private innovation in digital currencies. Security will be an abiding concern. Noncash payments also tend to exacerbate the human propensity to overspend. And you don’t have to be paranoid to worry about Big Brother track-

SY WINS 20-YR-OLD CASE ON POSADAS LOT… Instead, the High Court reinstated the ruling issued by the Regional Trial Court in Makati City, which held that there is a perfected joint-venture agreement between the SMIC and the Posadas family based on several correspondences between the two parties.

“Therefore, the said perfected joint-venture agreement still stands. In this jurisdiction, obligations arising from contracts have the force of law between the contracting parties and should be complied with in good faith,” the SC pointed out.

Prior to the filing of the case, the SC noted that on August 8, 1995, Sy sent the respondents a letter offering a joint venture for the development of the Posadas Subdivision property into a commercial/

C  A

A prolonged period of oil at less than $30 a barrel could create an economic headache for the successor to President Aquino, who steps down in June, and may further weaken the peso, which has fallen the most in Southeast Asia this year. The negative impact on remittances and less revenue from fuel taxes will outweigh the positive effects, according to Benjamin Diokno, the country’s budget secretary from 1998 to 2001.

“We’re heavily dependent on overseas Filipino workers,” said Diokno, who is now an economics professor at the University of the Philippines in Manila. “Some of them are coming home also in part due to war, which only magnifies the problem.”

More widespread

Sewn years

SURPRISINGLY, the year 2014 proved to be a struggle as the retail sales sector decreased to a low 4.2 percent from a 4.4-percent growth rate in 2013.

It was a dismal year for the retail sector after posting a 5.4-percent growth in 2012, according to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

That year could be considered a turnaround as the retail sales sector growth rate was at 3.2 percent in 2011.

Based on a report by the EIU, last year was better, especially for the fashion industry.

In 2015 alone, the market demand for clothing reached $8.623 million and is projected to increase up to $11.895 million by the year 2018.

The EIU noted that the demand for clothing in the Philippines has been growing over the years. In 2014, the market demand for clothing was at $7.602 million, a $0.5-million increase from 2013 ($7.094). In 2012, market demand for clothing reached $6.515 million from $5.695 million the previous year.

Still, the retail sector where the fashion industry operates is one of the many growth contributors of the Philippine economy.

Last year was one of its best as the sector proved it can hold its own as it reached a 5.3 percent growth in sales. The EIU continues to project a stable growth for the sector with a 5.4-percent growth average for both the year 2016 to 2017 and a 5.5 percent increase by the year 2018.

The clothing and apparel sector of the retail industry had a 33.7 percent share of the market in 2014, Cushman and Wakefield’s report said. According to the number of brands present in the country, footwear had 8.4 percent share of the brands while bags and luggage had 3.2 percent, the report said based on research data from 2008 to 2014.

Cheap oil. . .

residential subdivision.

The SMIC also offered the amount of P70 million as goodwill money, plus a 60/40, sharing in favor of the Posadas family once the project is implemented.

On August 18, 1995, the Posadas family responded to the offer and agreed to its terms, except for the goodwill money, which, they said, should not be less than P80 million. It also asked the SMIC to first disclose details of the development plan before the agreement is signed.

On August 24, 1995, the SMIC sent the Posadas family a letter, which contains an unqualified acceptance of the counterproposal. The letter was immediately followed

by SMIC’s submission of certain drawings related to the development.

The problem arose when the respondents sent SMIC a letter on December 6, 1995. In the letter, the Posadas family stated that they had received more lucrative offers for the property.

They also noted a three-month period of silence on the part of SMIC, and concluded that this was tantamount to a lack of interest on the part of the developer.

Sy wrote back the Posadases on February 27, 1996, reiterating the terms of the joint venture and increasing the goodwill money to P140 million.

The SC noted that based on the provisions of the Civil Code, particularly Articles 1318 and 1319, a joint-venture agreement between the parties has been perfected when there is a consent, or a meeting of the minds;

C  

ing your financial life.

Governments must be alert to these problems—because the key to getting people to adopt such a system is trust. A rule that a person’s transaction history could be accessed only with a court order, for instance, might alleviate privacy concerns. Harmonizing international regulations could encourage companies to keep experimenting. And an effective campaign to explain the new tender would be indispensable.

If policy-makers are wise and attend to all that, they just might convince the public of a surprising truth about cash: They’re better off without it. Bloomberg News

C  

there is an object certain, which is the joint venture; and there is a cause and/or consideration, which are the goodwill money and specific sharing scheme.

“We are all but convinced that respondents were well aware, were acting with the knowledge that the joint-venture agreement had indeed been perfected. This is precisely the reason respondents were very careful with their language when they insisted that unless SMIC would propose amending the joint venture to include better terms, respondents would withhold their comments on the drawings. It would be important to note that respondents, in the said letter, did not, in any way or manner, disavow the existence of the joint venture,” the SC ruled.

THE share of remittances coming from the Middle East could be as high as 40 percent, compared with 23 percent in the official data, according to a January 27 research note by Michael Wan, a Credit Suisse Group AG analyst in Singapore. Remittance growth slowed to 3.6 percent in dollar terms last year through November, from 5.8 percent in 2014, central bank data show. Volumes have held up reasonably well so far, Wan said.

That could change as the impact of a 29percent drop in Brent crude over the past six months forces Saudi Arabia to cut generous subsidies to its citizens, while the United Arab Emirates’s Etihad Rail suspended a major rail project this week after firing almost a third of its work force. Brent recovered to around $35 on Monday after falling to a 12year low of $27.10 a barrel on January 20.

“Before, when the trouble would be concentrated in one of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the workers could just simply move to a neighboring country and find employment,” central bank Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said on January 25. “Now the trouble is more widespread.”

The Department of Labor and Employment is monitoring the situation in the Middle East in the light of the possible retrenchment of Filipino workers there, although has yet to see any major job losses, Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. said in a statement on Monday. The department “is prepared to assist workers that may be affected in securing alternative employment and livelihood opportunities,” he said.

Job losses

AS well as declining oil prices, a more general slowdown in global trade is affecting the job prospects of Filipino seamen. Many drillers and oil-service companies have suspended operations and shipping companies are also hurting, said Nelson Ramirez, the president of United Filipino Seafarers.

“I have talked to one of the biggest crew suppliers of offshore vessels,” he said in Manila. “They have many laid-up ships. There will be more job losses.”

That could take a toll on the Philippines’s current-account surplus, which narrowed to $5.6 billion in the nine months through September from $6.8 billion in the year-earlier period, according to the central bank. GDP, already rising the fastest among Southeast Asia’s major economies at a 5.8-percent pace in 2015, will increase 6 percent this year, a Bloomberg survey shows.

While there’s already a slowdown in remittance growth from the Middle East, the current account will remain in surplus, said Joey Cuyegkeng, an economist at ING Groep NV in Manila. He forecast the peso, which dropped 7.5 percent over the past 12 months, will fall another 2.3 percent by the end of the year. External risks are on the rise, but the Philippines has enough buffers in place including $80.6 billion of foreign- exchange reserves and growing revenue from its business-process outsourcing industry, said Paulo Magpale, treasurer at BDO Private Bank Inc. in Manila.

Bigger cutbacks

“WE won’t be shaken easily during bad times,” said Magpale, who forecast the peso will strengthen 1.4 percent by the end of the year.

The peso fell 0.1 percent to 47.68 a dollar as of 12:25 p.m. in Manila on Monday, according to Bankers Association of the Philippines. The currency has dropped 1.1 percent this year.

Slowing remittance growth is unlikely to have a major impact on Philippine GDP, according to Credit Suisse’s Wan, who is forecasting expansion of 6.2 percent this year.

Weaker private consumption usually leads to expatriate Filipinos sending more money home to help families through tough times and savings on fuel costs will spur domestic spending, he said. “The real test might be yet to come,” Wan said. ”If oil prices continue to head lower, we could see bigger cutbacks by Middle East governments, which will weigh on remittance prospects.” Bloomberg News

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Ople center seeks DFA intervention on threats of 14 countries to shut down remittance centers

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B R L. M

N official of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center on Monday urged the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to start discussions with 14 countries that threaten to stop the operations of remittance companies being used by Filipino workers, owing to suspicions that these are being used to launder money to fund terrorists.

The aim is to help the Filipinos send back as much money to their loved ones and not be subjected to onerous exchange rates.

Susan Ople said the center has been calling the government’s attention since 2013, when only four countries were involved—the United States, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom, which have large Filipino populations.

“The [Blas F.] Ople Policy Center has been calling the government’s attention about this problem since 2013, the year these four countries have shut down remittance firms, ngayon dumami na,” Ople said at the Kapihan sa Manila news forum.

She said aside from the four countries named above, the newcomers include: Hong Kong, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, Cyprus, Papua New Guinea and Saipan. Ople, who heads the center, said her office is joining the private sector to address the problem and is in touch with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), “but they can’t initiate bilateral talks, that should be the Department of Foreign Affairs.”

Ople’s concern was forwarded to Foreign Spokesman Charles C.

Jose, who remained mum on the issue. Ople said Filipino workers abroad have been complaining that the countries involved in the closure of remittances have offered their respective banks to send the Filipinos’ cash back home.

However, the workers complained that these bank charge higher fees but offer lower exchange rates as compared to private remitting agencies.

“Yes, they charge higher [service fees] but the conversion is smaller,” she said, adding that the Middle East countries are not involved.

“We suspect that these countries have used the excuse of terrorism, so their respective banks can take over the business of remitting the Filipinos’ cash, which is actually an economic boost to these countries considering the amount of money involved,” Ople said.

When the issue surfaced in 2013, the Philippine remittance industry called on the Aquino administration and multilateral agencies to intervene. Specifically, the banks in these countries are closing the accounts of money-transfer operators, restricting the flow of remittance from these nations.

OVERSEAS Filipino workers line up at the entrance of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, a usual scenario at the country’s main gateway, considering the country’s 10 million migrant workers. NONIE REYES

In 2014 the cash remittances of Filipino workers abroad amounted to $24.3 billion, increasing by 5.9 percent, from the $22.9 billion of money transfers. While 2014 was a banner year for remittances, money transfers were up by 2.4 percent in the first two months of 2015—the slowest pace in years.

This could be the result of lower oil income and scaling down of projects in the Middle East, where a significant number of Filipino workers are based. Continued economic weak-

We suspect that these countries have used the excuse of terrorism, so their respective banks can take over the business of remitting the Filipinos’ cash.”–Ople ness in other countries, especially developed nations, may have also placed a drag on the pace of money

transfers to the Philippines, according iMoney Philippines.

Last year Filipinos worldwide sent

home $26.92 billion (P1.20 trillion) back to the Philippines, up 6.2 percent from $25.35 billion (P1.13 trillion) in 2013, according to the BSP. It was record high, the bank said.

Land-based workers remitted $18.7 billion, while seafarers transferred $5.6 billion.

The Philippines was third, after India and China, in terms of the amount of remittances received in 2014, according to World Bank data.

Remittances contributed as much as 8.5 percent to the GDP last year.

PIDS: Incentives needed to increase Government renews courtship to miners, private-sector participation in NGP assures protection of mining investment B C U. O

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TATE think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) has recommended the grant of tax incentives to private-sector proponents to entice them to undertake greening projects.

In a Policy Note, PIDS Senior Research Fellow Danilo Israel said these incentives can be in the form of tax deductions, “soft loans and other forms of de facto payments.”

“In the long term, the possibility of paying private tree planters for the environmental services that their trees provide can be considered. These payments may come in the form of reduced taxes, provision of soft loans and other forms of de facto payments,” Israel said. “Using tree-planted areas as commercial nature parks, for instance, can boost profitability and local employment.”

Israel said private greening proponents were able to plant the most hectares between 2001 and 2010, as well as in the National Greening Program (NGP) of 2011 and 2013.

The study stated that total nongovernment reforestation reached 103,272 hectares, with private reforestation contributing 72,465 hectares, or about two-thirds of the total.

“Thus, clearly, with other programs contributing little or none to reforestation, private reforestation has been the main driver of nongovernment reforestation in the Philippines,” Israel said.

103,272

hectares

Size of reforested area from 2001 to 2013 through projects of non-governmental organizations and private firms However, Israel added that nongovernment tree-planting efforts have been declining due to various problems.

From 2001 to 2010, nongovernment reforestation covered 55,825 hectares and contributed only 19.99 percent of total reforestation in the Philippines.

Israel added that during the NGP years from 2011 to 2013, the contribution of private greening projects decreased even further to just 6.94 percent of total reforestation.

The PIDS senior fellow said the private sector is saddled by erratic policies, making investments in tree planting risky and are left out in the NGP even if the government needs their help.

Further, Israel said these problems also include contested land claims and private lands suitable for tree planting left idle by their owners for various reasons, such

as price speculation.

There are also production issues and problems such as fluctuating costs of inputs, poaching, diseases and natural calamities that topple down trees.

Last year Israel and PIDS Senior Research Fellow Maria Diyina Gem Arbo authored a study, titled “The National Greening Program: Hope for our balding forests.”

The data showed that, while the program aimed to plant 600 million seedlings between 2011 to 2013, the NGP was only able to plant 397.76 million during the period.

The authors said the target was missed by 10,378,879 seedlings in 2011; 74,403,270 seedlings in 2012; and 117,451,138 seedlings in 2013.

Further, the study stated that past evaluation reports by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), as cited by the Commission on Audit (COA) in 2013, stated that there were no inspections made on the status of the planted seedlings under the program.

The COA, the PIDS study said, lamented that the evaluation of the DENR on the NGP were focused solely on the number of hectares and seedlings planted.

Based on these reports, the COA—as cited by the PIDS study— said that while the desired survival rate of the seedlings is 85 percent, the actual survival rate of sampled seedlings in 2012 was only 61 percent.

B J L. M

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HE government is committed to protect mining investments in the Philippines, Director Leo Jasareno of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said on Monday.

Mining investments in 2014 only reached $693 million, or 76 percent, short of the government’s own original projection of $3 billion, which the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines partly blamed on the alleged lack of protection the Aquino administration provides to mining contractors.

The group, represented by largescale mining companies, also questioned the wisdom of Executive Order 79, which calls for, among others, increase in government share in mining profit.

In an interview, Jasareno said the Philippines will continue to attract mining investors given the country’s rich mineral deposit mining companies are looking for. He added that adequate policies are in place to protect foreign investment in the country, including mining.

He, likewise, cited the case of the $5.9-billion Tampakan Copper-Gold Project in Mindanao, wherein the government created a committee on peace and security to address the problem.

The multibillion-dollar coppergold project remained stuck, owing to permitting problems. It is also besieged by stiff opposition of communities to mining. Jasareno, however, said he remains confident

that the project will eventually push through.

He said that the government is bent on pursuing the project through the Mining Industry Coordinating Council, of which the DENR-MGB sits as member.

Late last year, the MGB flashed the green light for the commercial operation of the $2-billion King-king Copper-Gold Project in Pantukan, Compostela Valley Province, and the $850-million Silangan Gold Project in Surigao Province.

“The underlying principle in attracting foreign investment in the Philippines is protection for their investment. This means, ’pag nag invest ka sa Pilipinas, the government will protect your investment,” Jasareno said.

President Aquino himself, he added, has personally assured mining companies that their investment will be protected during the Presidential Mineral Industry Environmental Awards Ceremony held at the Malacañan Palace on January 20.

In his speech, Mr. Aquino reminded mining companies of their responsibility, citing the destructive potential of irresponsible and unregulated mining. Nevertheless, he said the value of mining that is done responsibly—under fair and effective government regulation— cannot be ignored.

“The Philippines, after all, is one of the most mineral-rich countries in the world, and I believe it to be government’s responsibility to pave pathways through which our countrymen can benefit from our natural resources in a respon-

sible and sustainable manner,” Mr. Aquino said in his speech.

A bigger challenge for the government today, Jasareno said, is to enhance its power generation capacity to pave the way for mining investment to flow in. Mining companies, he said, also look at available infrastructure, such as seaports and roads, but most companies partly invest in these development projects, after weighing costs and benefits of such investment requirement.

Mining companies that plan to invest in the Philippines consider the energy requirements of their projects, first and foremost, particularly in Mindanao, Jasareno said. “You need power to operate a mine. Mining companies know that,” he pointed out.

“The Tampakan project, for example, is not just a mining project. It is also a power-plant project,” Jasareno said.

The proponents of the Tampakan project is also planning to build a 400-megawatt coal-fired power plant to sustain its mining operation. According to Jasareno, to boost the country’s annual metals output, it needs to attract more investors to operate large-scale mines and sufficient supply of electricity to sustain operation.

The 2015 metals output is expected to go down by 20 percent owing to the depressed prices of gold, silver copper and nickel. The MGB reported that January to September metals production went down from P107.24 billion in 2014 to P85.78 billion in 2015, recording a P21.46-billion decrease.

AseanTuesday

A4 Tuesday, February 2, 2016 • Editor: Max V. de Leon

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Suu Kyi’s choice of president a mystery as NLD takes over

MYANMAR’S prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (center) arrives to participate in the inauguration session of Myanmar’s lower house parliament on Monday. Hundreds of newly elected legislators, a majority of them from Suu Kyi’s party, on Monday began a parliament session that will install Myanmar’s first democratically elected government in more than 50 years. AP

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S Aung San Suu Kyi’s party assumes control of Myanmar’s parliament on Monday and ends more than half a century of military rule, who will lead the government and what its priorities will be remain shrouded in secrecy.

W hat’s know n is that the country’s first freely elected parliament since a 1962 coup will be dominated by representatives of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which trounced the militarybacked ruling party by a nearly 10-1 margin in November’s poll. Barred from assuming the presidency herself, Suu Kyi has given little hint as to who she will choose for the role or to lead key ministries.

“I don’t think it has all been decided for sure,” said Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “Probably both because the party is inexperienced in these areas, and this is the first-go-round, and because they want to informally float a whole range of names past military leaders and other important players, to see if these names are acceptable.”

Myanmar’s parliament dominated by prodemocracy leader Suu Kyi’s party, the NLD, on Monday began a new and historic session that will install the country’s first democratically elected government in more than 50 years.

For all the democratic change coming to Myanmar, there is much that will remain the same, which may give investors pause. The army retains broad powers under a constitution it wrote, including seats in parliament, effective veto power over charter changes and control of key ministries. One clause bars Suu

Kyi from the presidency.

While Suu Kyi, 70, has pledged to run the government regardless, she has been careful not to provoke military leaders, even urging supporters not to celebrate the NLD’s win.

She’s held meetings with outgoing President Thein Sein, a member of the former junta, as well as army chief Min Aung Hlaing, where both men assured her of a peaceful transfer of power.

The NLD has been vague about its plans. While its election manifesto spanned the economy to education to ethnic relations, the document included few concrete details. Its economic platform, for example, pledged to do things such as expand the tax base and increase foreign investment, without saying how.

“I think it is time for the NLD to announce their focus area or issues,” said Kyaw Lin Oo, a political analyst in Yangon. “So far, we don’t know it exactly.”

Personal physician

THEIN Sein’s term doesn’t finish until the end of March, so the NLD has time before it must put forward a presidential candidate for a vote by the parliament. Possible candidates mentioned in the local media range from NLD cofounder Tin Oo, a former general in his late 80s, to Suu Kyi’s personal doctor, Tin Myo Win, who was part of a recent party delegation that met with the army chief.

Making sound decisions about foreign involvement—balancing the interests of Asean, China, Japan and the West—in the country’s ongoing transformation will not be easy.”

—International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Lemahieu The government will face challenges, including luring investment, building infrastructure, cutting red tape, battling corruption and improving education. It needs to work to end insurgencies by ethnic groups seeking greater autonomy and show the international community it is serious about protecting minority rights. It has to shepherd laws on investment, mining, property ownership and intellectual property left over from the outgoing legislature.

After decades as one of the most isolated countries in Asia, Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government began opening up Myanmar after it won a 2010 election boycotted by the NLD. Foreign direct investment poured in, fueling some of the region’s fastest economic growth. The Asian Development Bank estimates the economy expanded 8.3 percent last year and will grow about the same pace this year. Foreign investment topped $8 billion in the fiscal year ended in March. That was more than 20 times the 2010 level.

Given Suu Kyi’s history as a champion for democracy—she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest— Myanmar may attract a new wave of investor interest. The US called Suu Kyi’s victory a “positive step” and signaled it may consider lifting some remaining trade sanctions.

“The NLD government will benefit from unrivaled and unprecedented access to international resources and foreign investment,” said Herve Lemahieu, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“But making sound decisions about foreign involvement—balancing the interests of Asean, China, Japan and the West—in the country’s ongoing transformation will not be easy.”

The last time a free election was held in 1990, also won by Suu Kyi’s party, the military refused to hand over power. This time may be different, but the generals will still control national security and maintain economic influence through army-run businesses. The army is guaranteed the cabinet posts of defense, interior and border affairs, is awarded 25 percent of seats in the legislature, and controls key industries like jade mining.

“An NLD-led executive will have a free hand to shape the country’s future.,” Lemahieu said. “Under current circumstances, that can only be done in cooperation with the armed forces. Only time will tell whether this form of ‘diarchy’—or rule by two—works for the country. There is no real tradition in Myanmar of sharing political power.”

Prodemocracy parliament

THE NLD won a landslide in the November 8 elections, winning 80 percent of the seats in the two houses of parliament to defeat the militarybacked Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Legislators from the two parties and from smaller ethnic minority parties as well as nominated military representatives filed into the cavernous parliament for the session in which the members took a joint oath of office.

The session marks a historic turnaround for the NLD, which for years was suppressed by the military, which had ruled the country directly or indirectly after seizing power in 1962. NLD leaders including Suu Kyi and other critics were jailed, and overt political activity was crushed.

The Southeast Asian nation started moving away from dictatorship toward democracy in 2011, when the military rulers agreed to hand over power to a nominally civilian government headed by President Thein Sein, a general turned reformist.

He will stand down in late March or early April when an NLD president takes over.

Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from taking the presidency, and has vowed to rule from behind the scenes through a proxy. She has not announced who her party will nominate for president. Bloomberg News, AP

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Vietnam’s leadership to continue economic reforms for growth

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IETNAM wants to reassure investors that new leaders chosen last week by Communist officials at its party congress will press ahead with economic reforms, as policy-makers aim to boost growth to the fastest pace in nine years.

Policy-makers will continue “refining and modernizing the financial and banking sector,” further privatize state-owned companies and upgrade its infrastructure, said Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung, who was reelected last week to the powerful central committee of top 200 Communist officials who will oversee the party’s affairs.

“The message is that we will continue with our economic reforms even though we know there are challenges,” Trung said on January 28 at the close of the party meeting that takes place every five years to chart the country’s direction. “The reforms have brought about historic and significant results, so we would go forward with it. It’s also the wish of the public.”

Vietnam’s Communist party officials gathered last week to choose a new slate of leaders who will lead the country until 2020 and set a growth path that avoids a repeat of past mistakes, including soaring credit growth that saddled banks with bad debt and preferential treatment of state companies that created inefficiencies. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was reelected to the position for a second term, while Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was nominated to replace premier Nguyen Tan Dung when his term ends in July, raising questions whether the political transition will slow the pace of reforms.

“Vietnam operates under a consensus-based decision-making framework and, therefore, changes in personnel will not immediately alter the policy trajectory,” Andrew Fennell, Hong Kong-based associate director of Asia Pacific sovereign ratings at Fitch Ratings wrote in a research note released on Monday.

Vietnam’s commitment to a structural reform-oriented policy including a focus on macro stability and market liberalization will remain important factors for the country’s macro outlook, according to Fennell.

Shun boldness

STILL, the new leadership will probably shun bold initiatives and may slow reforms needed to meet the conditions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, such as allowing for independent labor unions, said Tuong Vu, an associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon.

“They want stability for regime security,” Vu said. “That does not create an open environment for more reforms or faster reforms. The new leadership is going to tell people to keep believing in the party.”

Vietnam is forecast to expand at 6.7 percent this year and to be among the world’s fastest-growing economies, as rising local demand

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Number of communist officials in the central committee that will oversee Vietnam’s affairs and surging foreign direct investment are helping the nation counter global threats that’s sparked a wave of stock selling and currency depreciation. A cloud over the country’s economic picture is a trade deficit, widening public debt and the government’s failure to meet its goal to privatize 289 state companies last year.

During the congress, several leaders, including Trong, expressed concerns that Vietnam is at risk of falling behind regional peers.

Average growth in 2011 through 2015 was 5.9 percent, lower than the 6.5-percent-to-7-percent target that the government had set. The congress also passed on January 26 a five-year socioeconomic plan that calls for supporting the private sector with “equal access” to credit, land and other resources —the level playing field companies have been seeking for years.

State companies

“EQUITIZATION of state-owned companies is a very difficult process in any country,” Trung said, adding that Vietnam has made strides in increasing the number of state companies that were privatized and their categories. Policy-makers “would go forward” with it, he said.

The socioeconomic blueprint sees the nation targeting as much as 7 percent average annual expansion and GDP per capita at $3,200 to $3,500 by 2020 from the current International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimate of about $2,170. If Vietnam meets these goals, it will be one of the fastest-growing economies in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the IMF. “We are now trying to change to a new development model that aims for sustainability,” Trung said. “We would continue with our policies of trying to mobilize international resources including foreign direct investment.”

Outgoing Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told the legislature last October that “economic reform is still slow,” including restructuring of state companies, while high budget deficit threatens macroeconomic stability.

The government estimates the country will post a trade deficit of $200 million in January after registering a total $3.5 billion shortfall in 2015. The country’s public debt has risen about 20 percent annually in the past five years. Bloomberg News

Thailand set to push Made in Asean plan to neighbors

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HAILAND is set to team up with the Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro) and Asean members to push forward the Made in Asean initiative, with the aim of making certain products of the same quality standards.

Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn said holding products to the same quality standards would facilitate production connectivity throughout the supply chain, cutting production costs for regional manufacturers.

“Under this initiative, manufacturers in Asean could make

products for different brands, but those produced at joint manufacturing bases would be labeled Made in Asean for reexport in the world market,” she said after a meeting with Jetro President Masayasu Hosumi.

Jetro has pledged to coordinate development of production skills of manufacturers in neighboring countries and upgrade their management skills to meet international standards.

Last month Jetro agreed to cooperate with the Commerce Ministry to upgrade small- and medium-sized enterprises, particularly

under the One Tambon One Product scheme, starting with crockery in Lampang province.

Jetro also pledged to help promote and support the expansion of Thai-service businesses in Japan.

The assistance stemmed from an agreement reached during an official visit to Japan by Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak last November.

Apiradi said potential products that could be made under the Made in Asean initiative included electronics, electrical appliances, garments, furniture and cosmetics.

Thailand will propose the initiative at a meeting of ministers from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam to be held in Bangkok in February or March.

The Thai tourism and sports, culture and industry ministers will attend.

The forum will also try to underline trade and investment cooperation in the region, she said.

In a related development, Apiradi quoted Hosumi as saying Jetro was now preparing policy suggestions for the government, based on a survey of Japanese firms in Thailand. MCT

DELEGATES raise up their membership cards to adopt the final resolution of the Vietnam Communist Party’s 12th National Congress during the closing ceremony in Hanoi, Vietnam, on January 28. AP

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ALQAEDA SEIZES AZZAN TOWN IN SOUTH YEMEN

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ANAA, Yemen—Yemeni security officials say a local al-Qaeda affiliate has seized a town from southern separatists, setting up checkpoints at its entrances and besieging government buildings.

The officials said on Monday that al-Qaeda gunmen in pickups seized the entrances of the town of Azzan and stormed the city council. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, (Aqap), has widened its reach amid a civil war pitting a loose array of forces backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government against Shiite Houthi rebels and troops loyal to a former president.

Aqap seized the southern port city of Mukalla and the southern town of Jaar last year. AP

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • Tuesday, February 2, 2016

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China company accused of fleecing 900,000 investors of $7.6 billion

Boko Haram burns kids alive in Nigeria, 86 dead: officials

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ALORI, Nigeria—A survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children burning to death, among 86 people, officials say, died in the latest attack by Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists.

Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night’s attack on Dalori village and two nearby camps housing 25,000 refugees, according to survivors and soldiers at the scene just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in Nigeria’s northeast.

The shooting, burning and explosions from three suicide bombers continued for nearly four hours in the unprotected area, survivor Alamin Bakura said, weeping on a telephone call to The Associated Press. He said several of his family members were killed or wounded.

The violence continued as three female suicide bombers blew up among people who managed to flee to neighboring Gamori village, killing many people, according to a soldier at the scene who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to journalists.

Troops arrived at Dalori around 8:40 p.m. on Saturday but were unable to overcome the attackers, who were better armed, said soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Boko Haram fighters only retreated after reinforcements arrived with heavier weapons, they said.

Journalists visited the carnage on Sunday and spoke to survivors who complained it had taken too long for help to arrive from nearby Maiduguri, the military headquarters of the fight to curb Boko Haram. AP

IN this January 1 file photo, Chinese policemen watch as depositors from Ezubao gather outside the State Bureau for Letters and Calls Reception Division office in Beijing. AP

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EIJING—Chinese police arrested 21 employees at China’s largest online finance business on suspicion of fleecing 900,000 investors of $7.6 billion, in what could be the biggest financial fraud in Chinese history.

State media outlets reported the arrests late Sunday and state broadcaster CCTV aired purported confessions from two former employees at Ezubao, an Anhui Province outfit

that rose from obscurity to become China’s largest online-financing platform in the span of about 18 months.

Ezubao was the most spectacular player in a booming online-investment

21

Employees of Ezubao, China’s largest online finance business, who were arrested for their alleged involvement in the online-investment scam.

industry that Chinese authorities have been struggling to regulate.

Firms ranging from established Internet companies, such as Alibaba, to virtually unknown upstarts have flooded into the business, promising higher returns than those at state-run banks. AP

ANTI-SECESSIONIST STAGE PROTEST IN SPAIN’S NORTHEASTERN CATALONIA

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ADRID—Political parties opposed to a push

by Catalonia’s government to break away from Spain have gathered in the powerful northeastern region’s capital to call for an end to secessionism.

Thousands of protesters filled Barcelona’s central Sant Jaume square on Sunday under the banner of “The independence process robs us of our identity.”

Rafael Arenas, president of the Catalan Civil Society organization,

addressed the gathering saying pro-independence politicians “are trying to rob us of Spain” and were “promising heaven and earth” to gain support for their secessionist cause.

Arenas said it was unwise “to add a Spanish national implosion” to Europe’s current difficulties.

On January 10, Catalonia’s parliament voted in new leader Carles Puigdemont who says he is determined to forge ahead with a drive to secede from Spain by 2017. AP

VIOLENCE IN AFGHANISTAN FORCES OBAMA TO RETHINK TROOP LEVELS W ASHINGTON—Fifteen years into the war that few Americans talk about any more, conditions in Afghanistan are getting worse, preventing the clean ending that President Barack Obama hoped to impose before leaving office.

Violence is on the rise, the Taliban are staging new offensives, the Islamic State group is angling for a foothold and peace prospects are dim.

Afghanistan remains a danger zone. It’s hobbled by a weak economy that’s sapping public confidence in the new government. Afghan police and soldiers are struggling to hold together the country 13 months after the US-led military coalition culled its numbers by 90 percent.

The bottom line: For a second time, Obama is rethinking his plan to drop US troop levels from 9,800 to 5,500 before he leaves office in January 2017.

“I don’t see any drawdowns” in the near future, said James Dobbins, Obama’s former special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He predicted that Obama would leave the decision to the next president.

“They are just hoping that things hold together and they won’t have to face a decision on whether to actually implement the force reduction they’re talking about until late summer, early fall, by which time the administration will be on its last legs,” Dobbins said.

Top military officials, as well as Republicans and Democrats in Congress, think that trimming the force any more during Obama’s presidency is a bad idea.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Thursday that Afghanistan was in a “crisis situation.”

Initially, Obama announced plans to reduce the force to 5,500 troops by the end of last year, and to 1,000 by the end of 2016. Last fall, Obama changed his mind, saying the situation remained too fragile for the American military to leave.

He announced plans to keep the current force of about 9,800 in place through most of 2016 to perform not in an offensive combat role but to continue counterterrorism missions and advise Afghans battling a resurgent Taliban.

It ’s been a tough year on the

IN this December 22, 2015, file photo, Afghan security forces patrol in Nad Ali district of Helmand province, Afghanistan. Conditions in Afghanistan are getting worse, 15 years into a war that few Americans talk about any more. AP Afghan battlefield.

Afghan soldiers and policemen— bankrolled by $4.1 billion in US taxpayer money—fought virtually on their own last year for the first time since the US invasion in 2001. North Atlantic Treaty

Organization officials have told The Associated Press that Afghan troops are displaying prowess yet suffering sustained heavy casualties—28 percent higher in 2015 than before the international combat mission ended in December 2014.

Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, Obama’s pick to be the next top US commander in Afghanistan, said at his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday that the Afghan security forces have “more than held their own against the insurgency,” but are not yet “self-sustainable.”

Asked whether the US effort in 2015 had resulted in gains or losses, Nicholson replied: “The Taliban came at the Afghan security forces more intensely than perhaps we anticipated. Because of that, we did not make the advances we...thought we would make.”

When US and other foreign troops left on an announced schedule, the Taliban pounced.

Last fall, they briefly seized Kunduz, a city of 300,000 in northern Afghanistan.

It marked the militants’ first capture of a major city since before the US-led invasion and was marred by the mistaken US strike on a charity hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, killing 42 people.

Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the US, acknowledged that Kunduz was a setback. But he said it also reminded Afghans what life was

like under the Taliban.

“They don’t want to return to that,” he said.

In the south, Afghan army units have been engaged in fierce fights with the Taliban for months in Helmand province, where militants sow more than $3 billion a year in opium revenue. The Afghan army in Helmand has been plagued by incompetence and corruption. The Afghan military recently fired and replaced top Afghan army leaders there.

Also in the south, US and Afghan forces last year killed 150 to 200 al-Qaeda members in a large training camp, complete with tunnels, that was discovered in neighboring Kandahar province, another militant stronghold.

A current Afghan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, acknowledged the army’s many setbacks this year, but said the Taliban had sought to achieve major victories after the US-led coalition announced it would end its combat mission on December 31, 2015. Instead, they failed to retake huge swaths of land, the official said. AP

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A6 Tuesday, February 2, 2016 | Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Myanmar parliament begins historic session

LAWMAKERS arrive to participate in the inaugural session of Myanmar’s lower house parliament on February 1 in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Hundreds of newly elected legislators, a majority of them from prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, on Monday began a parliament session that will install Myanmar’s first democratically elected government in more than 50 years. AP/AUNG SHINE OO

N DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, accompanied by her daughter Chelsea Clinton, reacts to applause as she arrives for a rally at Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on January 31. AP/ANDREW HARNIK

Democratic, Republican races signal tight 2016 voting

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ES MOINES, Iowa—Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders hope to translate voter enthusiasm into victories in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, as Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton bank on sophisticated get-out-the-vote operations.

The caucuses kick off the 2016 presidential nominating contests, marking a new phase in a tumultuous election that has exposed Americans’ deep frustration with Washington and given rise to candidates few expected to present a serious challenge for their party’s nomination when they first entered the race.

After months of campaigning and more than $150 million already spent on advertising, the race for supremacy in Iowa is close in both parties. Among Republicans, Trump appears to hold a slim edge over Cruz, a fiery senator from Texas. Clinton

$150M

Total amount already spent on advertising by Democrat and Republican presidential candidates

and Sanders entered on Monday in a surprisingly tight Democratic race, reviving memories of the former secretary of state’s disappointing showing in Iowa eight years ago. “Stick with me,” Clinton said as she rallied supporters on

Sunday. “Stick with a plan. Stick with experience.”

Sanders, the Vermont senator who has been generating big, youthful crowds across the state, urged voters to help him “make history” with a win in Iowa.

In a show of financial strength, Sanders’s campaign announced on Sunday it raised $20 million in January alone. While Sanders has a large team in Iowa, his operation got off to a later start, particularly compared with Clinton, who has had staff on the ground in the state for nearly a year.

Monday’s contest will also offer the first hard evidence of whether Trump can turn the legion of fans drawn to his plainspoken populism into voters. The scope of the billionaire’s organization in Iowa is a mystery, though Trump himself has intensified his campaign schedule during the final sprint, including a pair of rallies on Monday.

Cruz has modeled his campaign after past Iowa winners, visiting all of the state’s 99 counties and courting influential evangelical and conservative leaders. With

the state seemingly tailor-made for his brand of uncompromising conservatism, a loss to Trump will likely be viewed as a failure to meet expectations.

Cruz has spent the closing days of the Iowa campaign focused intensely on Marco Rubio, trying to ensure the Florida senator doesn’t inch into second place. Rubio is viewed by many Republicans as a more mainstream alternative to Trump and Cruz, though he’ll need to stay competitive in Iowa in order to maintain his viability.

Unlike in primaries, where voters can cast their ballots throughout the day, the caucuses begin across Iowa at 7 p.m. CST (0100 GMT, Tuesday). Democrats will gather at 1,100 locations and Republicans at nearly 900 spots. Turnout was expected to be high.

The Iowa Republican Party expected Republican turnout to top the previous record of 120,000 people in 2012. Democrats also expect a strong turnout, though not nearly as large as the record-setting 240,000 people who caucused in the 2008 contest between Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. AP

AYPYITAW, Myanmar— Myanmar’s parliament dominated by prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party on Monday began a new and historic session that will install the country’s first democratically elected government in more than 50 years. The National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide in the November 8 elections, winning 80 percent of the seats in the two houses of parliament to defeat the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Legislators from the two parties and from smaller ethnic minority parties, as well as nominated military representatives filed into the cavernous parliament for the session in which the members took a joint oath of office.

The session marks a historic turnaround for the NLD, which for years was suppressed by the military, which had ruled the country directly or indirectly after seizing power in 1962. NLD leaders, including Suu Kyi and other critics, were jailed, and overt political activity was crushed.

The Southeast Asian nation started moving away from dictatorship toward democracy in 2011, when the military rulers agreed to hand over power to a nominally civilian government headed by President Thein Sein, a general turned reformist. He will stand down in late March or early April when an NLD president takes over.

Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from taking the presidency, and has vowed to rule from behind the scenes through a proxy.

She has not announced who her party will nominate for president.

“We don’t know exactly when the presidential election will happen.

We cannot tell you anything about who will be nominated as the presidential candidates, as well,” said Zayar Thaw, an NLD legislator.

Despite its landslide victory, the NLD in practice will have to share power with the military, for which the constitution reserves 25 percent of the seats in parliament. Suu Kyi has met with

senior military leaders to try to ensure a smooth change of government, and they have vowed not to interfere.

Thein Sein’s military-backed USDP won a 2010 election in which the NLD refused to participate, protesting that it was held under unfair conditions. After several changes in the election law, the NLD contested several dozen byelections in 2012, winning virtually all of them.

The military called an election in 1990, which Suu Kyi’s party won handsomely, only to see the results annulled by the military and many of its leading members harassed and jailed. Suu Kyi was put under house arrest prior to the 1990 election and spent 15 of the next 22 years mostly confined to her lakeside villa in Yangon. She was under house arrest when she won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Establishing democracy is only one hurdle the country faces. The new government will also have to contend with various ethnic rebellions in several parts of the country.

The military-backed government signed a peace pact with more than dozen smaller ethnic armies before the elections, but major groups have stayed away, and fighting continues in many states. Most are fighting for autonomy and rights over their resource-rich land.

“I hope this will be a good opportunity for us to speak out for the ethnic people and demand indigenous rights,” said Lama Naw Aung, a lower house member from the Kachin State Democracy Party, representing the Kachin minority who are engaged in ongoing battles with the army in the east of the country.

“I think there will be a change because Aung San Suu Kyi might want to finish the work for the ethnics that her father didn’t get a chance to do,” he said, referring to Myanmar’s independence hero Aung San who united various national groups. He and six of his colleagues were assassinated in July 1947, six months before Myanmar’s independence. AP

Israel’s Netanyahu warns Gaza militants against attacking J

ERUSA LEM—Israeli Pr ime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Islamic militant group Hamas that rules Gaza on Sunday that his country will retaliate with “greater force” than deployed in the 2014 Gaza war if cross-border tunnels are used to attack Israel.

Hamas has built a sophisticated network of tunnels to infiltrate Israel in order to carry out attacks.

Israelis living near Gaza have reported hearing tunneling sounds under their homes recently.

“We are operating systematically and calmly against all threats, including those from Hamas, both with defensive and offensive means, and of course, in the event we are attacked by tunnels in Gaza, we will operate with great force against

Hamas, with much greater force than what we used in Operation Protective Edge,” Netanyahu said in a speech to diplomats on Sunday night, referring to the 50-day war with Gaza gunmen in 2014 by its military name.

“I think that is understood in the region, it’s understood in the world.

I hope we won’t need to do it, but our abilities, both defensive and offensive, are developing rapidly, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to try us,” he said.

A senior Hamas leader boasted on Friday that Gaza militants dig tunnels and test rockets to attack Israel “every day.” Ismail Haniyeh spoke at the funeral of seven militants who died this week when a tunnel from Gaza to Israel collapsed while they were repairing it. He said the

tunnels are a “preparation” for war with Israel and boasted Hamas “has built tunnels two times more than Vietnam tunnels.”

The 2014 Gaza war was sparked by a chain of events stemming from the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas gunmen and the kidnapping of a Palestinian teenager who was killed by Israeli extremists in a revenge attack. Israel arrested hundreds of Hamas members in raids in the West Bank, prompting militant groups in Gaza to escalate rocket attacks on Israeli cities.

More than 2,200 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed during the fighting. In Israel, 66 soldiers and seven civilians were killed. Parts of Gaza were

devastated in the fighting. The war also exposed Israeli communities near Gaza to a new threat: underground Hamas attack tunnels that surfaced close to their homes.

Earlier on Sunday a Palestinian opened fire at a West Bank checkpoint and wounded three soldiers before he was shot and killed by troops, the military said.

Palestinians identified the g u n m a n a s A mj a d Su k k a r i , a 34 -year-old policeman who worked as a bodyguard for the Palestinian attorney general.

Posts on his Facebook page from just hours before the attacks read “your mourning will be victorious,” ‘’there is nothing worth living for on this earth as long as the occupation strangles our breaths” and “everyday someone dies, I may be the next.”

Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers praised the shooting attack, the latest in four months of neardaily Palestinian assaults on Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Also Sunday, the military said a Palestinian attempted to ram his vehicle into soldiers north of Jerusalem. It said troops opened fire, wounding the man who was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Palestinians have killed 26 people on the Israeli side and wounded dozens more since mid-September, mostly in stabbings, shootings and vehicular assaults. Israeli fire has killed 150 Palestinians during that time, with 105 identified by Israel as attackers The rest died in clashes. Israel says the bloodshed is fueled by a Palestinian campaign of incitement. Palestinians say it

stems from despair over nearly 50 years of occupation.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius last week said his country will recognize a Palestinian state if its efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at an international conference fail.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said such a move by the French “will be an incentive for the Palestinians to come and not compromise.” “ The substance of negotiations is compromise and the French initiative, as it has been reported, in effect gives the Palestinians in advance reasons not to do so,” he said. “We are prepared to enter into direct negotiations without preconditions and without dictated conditions.” AP

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news@businessmirror.com.ph | Tuesday, February 2, 2016

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Oxfam: $1.9B in Ebola aid not delivered by donors

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BIDJAN, Ivory Coast—International donors have failed to deliver $1.9 billion in promised funds to help West African countries recover from the Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and decimated already weak health-care systems, the UK-based charity Oxfam said on Sunday.

The remaining $3.9 billion pledged has been difficult to track because of “scant information” and a lack of transparency, the group said. “We’re finding it hard to understand which donors have given what money, to whom and for what purpose,” said Aboubacry Tall, Oxfam’s regional director for West Africa. Oxfam called on donors and the governments of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea—the three hardest-hit countries—to provide detailed information on how aid is being provided.

More t h a n $5 bi l l ion wa s pledged by the international community as part of a special International Ebola Recovery Conference in New York last July. At least $1.9 billion of that “still has not been allocated to a specific country in a pledge statement, let alone through more firm commitments to specific recovery programs.”

Originating in Guinea more than two years ago, the Ebola out-

break left some 23,000 children without at least one of their parents or caregivers, while some 17,000 survivors are trying to resume their lives despite battling mysterious, lingering side effects.

The international community already has been criticized for how it handled the crisis. An Associated Press (AP) investigation found the World Health Organization (WHO) delayed declaring an international emergency for political and economic reasons. Emails, documents and interviews obtained by the AP show the WHO and other responders failed to organize a strong response. None of the senior leaders involved in directing the Ebola response has been disciplined or fired.

Meanwhile, the disease has not been stamped out entirely. Though the WHO declared an end to virus transmission throughout the region on January 14, the next day officials in Sierra Leone reported a new fatality and a second person has since tested positive.

The WHO said it had anticipated there would still be flare-ups before Ebola was truly over. However, Oxfam said the slow response to recent flare-ups in both Sierra Leone and Liberia show they are still not able to deal effectively with new cases. AP

Experts in last attempt to salvage drifting cargo ship off France coast

P

ARIS—A team of experts are expected to make a final attempt on Monday to salvage a cargo ship that has been adrift off the coast of France for five days before it runs aground.

High winds and 6-meter (20feet) waves made weekend rescue attempts impossible.

Vice Adm. Emmanuel de Oliveira of the Atlantic Maritime Prefecture said a final effort to attach a towing cable to the 164-meter vessel, which is listing nearly 90 degrees, is set for dawn on Monday.

If that fails, he said, the vessel will run aground in southwest France

by Tuesday night.

Spanish helicopters evacuated the 22-member crew last Tuesday after the Modern Express, carrying 3,600 tons of wood and equipment,

sent out a distress call. The vessel was drifting south and by Sunday afternoon it was 100 km (60 miles) off the coast of the vacation town of Arcachon, south of Bordeaux. If not put in tow, it was expected to run aground further south, in the Landes region, De Oliveira told a news conference.

He said he expected only “limited” environmental impact if the Panama-registered vessel hits the coast because the cargo was mainly wood and there were so far no signs of leaking of its 300 tons of fuel.

Experts from the Dutch company Smit Salavage were called in to try to capture the drifting vessel, helped by two Spanish tugs and a French ship. It is “totally impossible to put the cargo ship upright,” de Oliveira said. AP

BRITAIN’S Prime Minister David Cameron (right) meets with European Council President Donald Tusk at his official London residence, 10 Downing Street, ahead of crunch talks to finalize an European Union reform package that could be backed by the rest of the 28-country bloc on January 31. A deal at the next summit on February 18 and 19 is seen as vital if Cameron wants to hold a spring referendum on EU membership. TOBY MELVILLE/PA VIA AP

Cameron, Tusk fail to strike deal on British EU reform demands

L

ONDON—European Council President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister David Cameron failed on Sunday to strike a deal aimed at keeping the UK in the European Union (EU)—but agreed to extend talks between the two sides for another day.

Both sides had hoped the dinner meeting would close the gap over Britain’s demand for more control over immigration. But Tusk emerged from 10 Downing Street and told reporters there was “no deal.” Cameron tweeted that it had been a “good meeting” and said late Sunday the two men had agreed on “another 24 hours of talks” before proposals were published.

Before the meeting, Tusk had said that if the two men reached an agreement, he would present

a draft text to the 27 other EU member-states on Monday.

After the two politicians failed to resolve their disagreements over a distinctively British dinner of smoked salmon, fillet of beef and fruit crumble, Tusk tweeted that “intensive work” over the next day would be crucial.

Britain and the EU have been hoping to reach a final pact at a February 18 and 19 summit—an increasingly unlikely prospect unless there is quick progress.

Welfare benefits have become the key issue, and main sticking point, in Britain’s negotiations with the rest of the EU before a UK referendum on whether to remain in the bloc. The referendum must be held by next year and could come as early as June.

Cameron wants to limit British welfare benefits to migrants from other EU countries—but other EU leaders say that undermines the right of EU citizens to work and live freely among member nations.

Britain’s Conservative government says hundreds of thousands of people from Eastern Europe who have flocked to the UK are straining schools, hospitals and social services.

On Friday, top EU officials offered Britain a mechanism known as an “emergency brake” that would let the UK temporarily limit tax credits—given to workers in lowpaid jobs—and housing benefit to immigrants if the country’s welfare system comes under pressure.

The proposal could satisfy Britain’s goal of regaining some control over immigration and other countries’ desire to maintain the principle of free movement.

Cameron said the proposal was positive, but didn’t go far enough.

Britain wants the “emergency brake” to take effect immediately after a British vote to stay in the EU, and last for as long as it takes to reduce the level of migration.

Cameron’s initial proposal was for a four-year halt on benefits to new EU immigrants.

Cameron’s office said on Sunday that the meeting with Tusk had made progress on that key issue, but “there is still more hard work required.” Britain also wants more power ceded from Brussels to national parliaments, exemption from the EU’s commitment to “ever-closer union,” a reduction in EU red tape and protection for the nine EU countries, including Britain, that do not use the euro single currency. AP

US pledges $97M to combat Ethiopia’s drought

A

IN this photo taken on January 29 and provided by the Prefecture Maritime Atlantique on January 30, the cargo ship Moderm Express is pictured drifting off the coast of France. The cargo ship listing in the water is drifting empty off the coast of France, as maritime rescue workers wait for the seas to calm. The captain of the capsized Modern Express, sailing with a load of wood in the Bay of Biscay, 300 kilometers (180 miles) off the coast of France, sent out a distress call on Tuesday and its crew of 22 was evacuated by Spanish helicopters.

LOIC BERNARDIN/ PREFECTURE MARITIME ATLANTIQUE VIA AP

DDIS ABABA, Ethiopia— The US has boosted its emergency food aid to Ethiopia by nearly $100 million to combat one of the worst droughts in decades, the US Agency for International Development announced on Sunday. The aid is urgently needed to head off a humanitarian disaster brought on by the El Niño climate phenomenon that has affected seasonal rains, USAID administrator Gayle Smith said.

“The funding for this is not where it needs to be and we are up against very tight timelines,” she said at a briefing during the annual African Union summit, which ended on Sunday. “This is the worst El Niño in history and it has affected the African continent in particular, most dramatically in Ethiopia where 11 million people have been affected.”

On Sunday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Ethiopia’s Ziway-Dugda region, one of the areas hit by drought, where he was welcomed by thousands of residents in the streets of Ogolcho,

IN this photo taken on January 26, Hamed Dawud, deputy administrator of the Megenta area, inspects failed crops in the Afar region. Morbid thoughts linger on people’s minds in the area.

The crops have failed and farm animals have been dying amid severe drought that has left Ethiopia appealing for international help to feed its people. AP/MULUGETA AYENE

the biggest town there. Ban visited a food distribution center, and met with farmers and relief workers.

“This challenge may last some time.

With the continued and concerted effort, I think we can overcome. And

I [am] very much moved to have seen how hard the people are working,” Ban said.

The El Niño warming over the Pacific Ocean has been particularly severe this year with spring and

summer rains failing in Ethiopia and causing crops to fail and killing livestock. The $97 million from USAID will include about 176,000 metric tons of food to be distributed to 4 million people. Since October 2014, the US has given $532 million in humanitarian aid to Ethiopia.

The UN has issued an international appeal for $1.4 billion in emergency funding for Ethiopia, of which less than half has been met by donors. Smith said the US will urge other international donors to step in and support Ethiopia’s efforts to deliver food aid and preserve the development gains of the last two decades. Donors have been distracted by crises in Syria, South Sudan, Yemen and the European migration issue, she said.

Ethiopia was famously devastated by a drought in the 1980s exacerbated by a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands. Despite the severity of the current drought, the existing government safety net is expected to prevent another famine, according to aid officials. AP

A8

BusinessMirror

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Candidates for Members of the House of Representatives, regional, provincial, city and municipal officials

Republic of the Philippines COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS Intramuros, Manila EN BANC RULES AND REGULATIONS IMPLEMENTING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 9006, OTHERWISE KNOWN

AS

ELECTIONS

THE

“FAIR

ACT”,

IN

CONNECTION WITH THE 09

Bautista, J.A.D. Lim, C.R.S. Parreño, A.A. Guia, L.T.F. Lim, A.D.L Guanzon, M.R.A.V Abas, S.M.

Chairman Commissioner Commissioner Commissioner Commisioner Commisioner Commisioner

MAY 2016 NATIONAL AND LOCAL ELECTIONS.

x-------------------------------------x Promulgated: February 1, 2016

government such as the Metro Rail Transit (MRT), Light Rail Transit (LRT), and Philippine National Railway trains and the like.

25 March 2016 (Friday)

07 May 2016 (Saturday)

SECTION 3. Prohibited Campaigning. - It is unlawful for any person or for any political party, or association of persons to engage in an election campaign or partisan political activity on Maundy Thursday (24 March 2016), Good Friday (25 March 2016), the eve of Election Day (08 May 2016), and on Election Day (09 May 2016).

SECTION 4. Prohibition against Foreign Intervention. - It is unlawful for any foreigner, whether a juridical or natural person, to directly or indirectly aid any candidate, or political party, organization or coalition, or to take part in, or influence in any manner, any election, or to contribute or make any expenditure in connection with any election campaign or partisan political activity.

Candidates for President and Vice-President – Ten pesos (P10.00) for every registered voter

WHEREAS,, Republic Act No. 9006, otherwise known as the “Fair Elections Act,” provides for the holding of free, orderly, honest, peaceful and credible elections through fair election practices;

b.

For other candidates - Three pesos (P3.00) for every voter currently registered in the constituency where the candidate filed his certificate of candidacy;

WHEREAS, the said Act allows the publication or broadcast of political advertisements or propaganda for or against any candidate or political party;

c.

For candidates under the above paragraph (b) without any political party and without support from any political party – Five pesos (P5.00) for every voter currently registered in the constituency where the candidate filed his certificate of candidacy; and

WHEREAS, Section 3 of the said Act provides that election propaganda, whether on television, cable television, radio newspapers or any other medium shall be subject to the supervision and regulation of the Commission on Elections (hereafter, “COMELEC”); WHEREAS, Section 6.4 of the said Act directs the COMELEC to supervise in all instances the use and employment of press, radio and television broadcasting facilities insofar as the placement of political advertisements is concerned so as to give candidates equal opportunity under equal circumstances to make known their qualifications and position on public issues within the limits set forth in the Omnibus Election Code and Republic Act No. 7166;1 WHEREAS, Section 13 of the same Act requires the COMELEC to promulgate the necessary rules and regulations for the implementation thereof; and NOW, THEREFORE, the COMELEC, by virtue of the powers vested in it by the Constitution, the Omnibus Election Code, the Fair Elections Act, Republic Act Nos. 6646,2 7166,3 and other related laws, has RESOLVED, as it hereby RESOLVES, to promulgate the following Rules and Regulations.

SECTION 1. Definitions - As used in this Resolution: 1.

2.

“Blog” and “collective blog” refer to websites on which an individual or group of users, respectively, record news, opinions, and information, in varying degrees of regularity. A “micro-blog” refers to a blogging format which allows users to exchange small elements of content – referred to variously as posts, entries, or status updates – such as short sentences, individual images, or links to video material uploaded to the Internet.

“Candidate” refers to any person seeking an elective public office who has filed his or her certificate of candidacy, and who has not died, withdrawn his certificate of candidacy, had his or her certificate of candidacy denied due course or cancelled, or has been otherwise disqualified before the start of the campaign period for which he or she filed his certificate of candidacy. Provided, that, unlawful acts or omissions applicable to a candidate shall take effect only upon the start of the aforesaid campaign period.

4.

“Contractors” and “business firms” refer to any person, natural or juridical, or firm to whom any electoral expenditure is made in accordance with Section 112 of the Omnibus Election Code and COMELEC Resolution No. 9991 dated 02 October 2015.

“Election campaign” or “partisan political activity” refers to an act designed to promote the election or defeat of a particular candidate or candidates to a public office, and shall include any of the following: a.

Forming organizations, associations, clubs, committees or other groups of persons for the purpose of soliciting votes and/or undertaking any campaign for or against a candidate;

b.

Holding political caucuses, conferences, meetings, rallies, parades or other similar assemblies for the purpose of soliciting votes and/or undertaking any campaign or propaganda for or against a candidate;

c.

d.

e.

Making speeches, announcements or commentaries, or holding interviews for or against the election of any candidate for public office; Publishing, displaying or distributing campaign literature or materials designed to support or oppose the election of any candidate; or Directly or indirectly soliciting votes, pledges or support for or against any candidate.

Personal opinions, views, and preferences for candidates, contained in blogs and micro-blogs shall not be considered as acts of election campaigning or partisan political activity unless expressed by government officials in the Executive Department, the Legislative Department, the Judiciary, the Constitutional Commissions, and members of the Civil Service.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

“Political advertisement” or “election propaganda” refers to any matter broadcasted, published, printed, displayed or exhibited, in any medium, which contains the name, image, logo, brand, insignia, color motif, initials, and other symbol or graphic representation that is capable of being associated with a candidate or party, and is exclusively intended to draw the attention of the public or a segment thereof to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly, the election of the said candidate or candidates to a public office. In broadcast media, political advertisements may take the form of spots, appearances on television shows and radio programs, live or taped announcements, teasers, and other forms of advertising messages or announcements used by commercial advertisers.

Political advertisements include matters not falling within the scope of personal opinion that appear on any Internet website, including, but not limited to, social networks, blogging sites, and microblogging sites, in return for consideration, or otherwise capable of pecuniary estimation.

Elective Office

Start

09 February 2016 (Tuesday)

Waiting sheds, sidewalks, street and lamp posts, electric posts and wires, traffic signages and other signboards erected on public property, pedestrian overpasses and underpasses, flyovers and underpasses, bridges, main thoroughfares, center islands of roads and highways;

Said online advertisement, whether procured by purchase or given free of charge, shall not be published more than three times a week per website during the campaign period. For this purpose, the exhibition or display of the online advertisement for any length of time, regardless of frequency, within a 24 hour period, shall be construed as one instance of publication.

5.

Schools, public shrines, barangay halls, government offices, health centers, public structures and buildings or any edifice thereof;

Broadcast programs which are the main content of online streaming or video website pages shall not be considered online election propaganda.

6.

Within the premises of public transport terminals, owned and controlled by the government, such as bus terminals, airports, seaports, docks, piers, train stations and the like.

d.

Common requirements/limitations:

1.

Any printed or published, and broadcast election propaganda for or against a candidate or group of candidates to any public office shall bear and be identified by the reasonably legible or audible words “political advertisement paid for,” followed by the true and correct name and address of the candidate or party for whose benefit the election propaganda was printed or aired. It shall also bear and be identified by the reasonably legible, or audible words “political advertisement paid by,” followed by the true and correct name and address of the payor. This rule shall apply to online advertisements.

The notices required in the immediately preceding paragraph shall be considered reasonably legible on printed materials, if it complies with the following: (i) The notice must be of sufficient type size to be clearly readable by the reader of the information.

Nothing in these rules shall be construed as limiting the authority of the appropriate agencies and instrumentalities of the government to promulgate their own rules and regulations, regarding the posting of political print advertising on any regulated land, sea and air vehicle, including but not limited to public utility vehicles and tricycles.

A notice in twelve (12)-point type size satisfies the size requirement of this paragraph when it is used for signs, posters, flyers, newspapers, magazines, or other printed material that measure no more than two (2) feet by three (3) feet. (ii) The notice must be contained in a printed box, set apart from the other contents of the sign, poster, flyer, or newspaper advertisement.

SECTION 8. Petition for Authority to Use Other Election Propaganda. - Any person seeking authority to use other forms of election propaganda not covered by those enumerated in Section 6 hereof and not prohibited by law may file with the COMELEC, through the Clerk of the Commission, a verified petition in eight (8) legible copies, describing the election propaganda sought to be authorized with samples thereof.

(iii) The notice must be printed with a reasonable degree of color contrast between the background and the printed statement. A notice satisfies the color contrast requirement of this paragraph if it is printed in black text on a white background or if the degree of color contrast between the background and the text of the notice is no less than the color contrast between the background and the largest text used in the communication.

(i) The notice must appear in letters equal to or greater than four (4) percent of the vertical picture height;

SECTION 9. Requirements and/or Limitations on the Use of Election Propaganda through Mass Media. - All parties and bona fide candidates shall have equal access to media time and space for their election propaganda during the campaign period, subject to the following requirements and/or limitations:

(iii) The notice must appear with a reasonable degree of color contrast from the background. A notice satisfies the color contrast requirement of this paragraph if it is displayed in black text on a white background or if the degree of color contrast between the background and the text of the notice is no less than the color contrast between the background and the largest type size used in the communication.

Pamphlets, leaflets, cards, decals, stickers or other written or printed materials the size of which does not exceed eight and one-half (8 ½) inches in width and fourteen (14) inches in length;

b.

Handwritten or printed letters urging voters to vote for or against any particular political party or candidate for public office;

c.

Posters made of cloth, paper, cardboard or any other material, whether framed or posted, with an area not exceeding two (2) feet by three (3) feet;

d.

Streamers not exceeding three (3) feet by eight (8) feet in size displayed at the site and on the occasion of a public meeting or rally. Said streamers may be displayed five (5) days before the date of the meeting or rally and shall be removed within twenty-four (24) hours after said meeting or rally;

a.

e.

Mobile units, vehicles motorcades of all types, whether engine or manpower-driven or animal-drawn, with or without sound systems or loud speakers and with or without lights;

f.

Paid advertisements in print or broadcast media subject to the requirements set forth in Section 4 hereof and the Fair Elections Act;

g.

In the headquarters or residences of candidates, lawful election paraphernalia may be displayed, but banners or streamers referred to in paragraph (d) above shall not be allowed; and

h.

All other forms of election propaganda not prohibited by the Omnibus Election Code or these rules.

Parties and candidates are hereby encouraged to use recyclable and environment-friendly materials and to avoid those that contain hazardous chemicals and substances in the production of their campaign and election propaganda.

Parties and candidates are hereby required to indicate in their printed campaign materials the phrase: “This material should be recycled”. In local government units where local ordinances governing the use of plastic and other similar materials exist, parties and candidates shall comply with the same.

SECTION 7. Prohibited Forms of Election Propaganda. - During the campaign period, it is unlawful: a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

To print, publish, post or distribute any newspaper, newsletter, newsweekly, gazette or magazine advertising, pamphlet, leaflet, card, decal, bumper sticker, poster, comic book, circular, handbill, streamer, sample list of candidates or any published or printed political matter, and to air or broadcast any election propaganda or political advertisement by television or radio or on the Internet for or against a candidate or group of candidates to any public office, unless they bear and be identified by the reasonably legible, or audible words “political advertisement paid for,” followed by the true and correct name and address of the candidate or party for whose benefit the election propaganda was printed or aired. It shall likewise be unlawful to publish, print or distribute said campaign materials unless they bear, and are identified by, the reasonably legible, or audible words “political advertisements paid by,” followed by the true and correct name and address of the payor.

To print, publish, broadcast, display or exhibit any such election propaganda donated or given free of charge by any person or mass media entity to a candidate or party without the written acceptance of the said candidate or party, and unless they bear and be identified by the words “printed free of charge,” or “airtime for this broadcast was provided free of charge by”, respectively, followed by the true and correct name and address of the said mass media entity; To show, display or exhibit publicly in a theater, through a television station, or any public forum any movie, cinematography or documentary, including concert or any type of performance portraying the life or biography of a candidate, or in which a character is portrayed by an actor or media personality who is himself or herself a candidate; For any newspaper or publication, radio, television or cable television station, or other mass media entity, or any person making use of the mass media to sell or give free of charge print or advertising space or airtime for campaign or election propaganda purposes to any candidate or party in excess of the size, duration or frequency authorized by law or these Rules; For any radio, television, cable television station, announcer or broadcaster to allow the scheduling of any program, or permit any sponsor to manifestly favor or oppose any candidate or party by unduly or repeatedly referring to, or unnecessarily mentioning his name, or including therein said candidate or party; and To post, display or exhibit any election campaign or propaganda material outside of authorized common poster areas, in public places, or in private properties without the consent of the owner thereof.

Public places include any of the following: 1.

Publicly-owned electronic announcement boards, such as light-emitting diode (LED) display boards located along highways and streets, liquid crystal display (LCD) posted on walls of public buildings, and other similar devices which are owned by local government units, government-owned or controlled corporations, or any agency or instrumentality of the Government;

2.

Motor vehicles used as patrol cars, ambulances, and for other similar purposes that are owned by local government units, government-owned or controlled corporations, and other agencies and instrumentalities of the Government, particularly those bearing government license plates.

SECTION 2. Campaign Periods. - For purposes of the 09 May 2016 National and Local Elections, the campaign periods shall be:

Candidates for President, Vice President, Senator and Party-List groups participating in the party-list system of representation

4.

If the COMELEC authorizes the use of the requested election propaganda, the authorization shall be published in two (2) newspapers of general circulation within one (1) week after the authorization has been granted.

“Mass media entities” shall include entities in broadcast media, print media, outdoor media, and digital media (both Internet and mobile mass media).

“Party” refers to either a political party, whether national or sectoral party, or a coalition of parties, and party-list organizations duly registered/accredited with the COMELEC.

3.75 5 2

Lawful election propaganda shall include:

“Media practitioner” refers to a person who is not employed by a media entity but performs similar functions or has control over what is printed or broadcast, such as a talent or a block timer.

Persons who create online content for personal or collective blogs and micro-blogs shall be considered media practitioners for purposes of these Rules.

600 600 600

Upon receipt of the petition, the Clerk of the Commission shall set it for hearing and shall send notice thereof to the petitioner. On the day following the receipt of the notice of hearing, the petitioner shall cause the publication of the petition, together with the notice of hearing, in two (2) newspapers of general circulation, and shall notify the COMELEC of such action.

“Election survey” refers to the measurement of opinions and perceptions of the voters as regards a candidate’s popularity, qualifications, platforms or matters of public discussion in relation to the election, including voters’ preference for candidates or publicly discussed issues during the campaign period.

“Exit poll” refers to a species of election survey conducted by a qualified individual or a group of individuals for the purpose of determining the probable result of an election by confidentially asking randomly selected voters for the names of candidates they have voted for, immediately after they have officially cast their ballots.

For Political Parties and party-list groups – Five pesos (P5.00) for every voter currently registered in the constituency or constituencies where it has official candidates.

160 120 300

SECTION 6. Lawful Election Propaganda. - Election propaganda, whether on television or cable television, radio, newspaper, the Internet or any other medium, is hereby allowed for all parties and for all bona fide candidates seeking national and local elective positions, subject to the limitation on authorized expenses of candidates and parties, observation of truth in advertising, and to the supervision and regulation by the COMELEC.

a.

It also refers to any registered national, regional, or sectoral party, organization or coalition thereof that has filed a manifestation of intent to participate under the party-list system, which has not withdrawn the said manifestation, or which has not been disqualified before the start of the campaign period.

3.

d.

Wide skyscraper Skyscraper Half-Page ad

The printing press, printer, or publisher who prints, reproduces or publishes said campaign materials, and the broadcaster, station manager, owner of the radio or television station, or owner or administrator of any website who airs or shows the political advertisements, without the required data or in violation of these rules shall be criminally liable with the candidate and, if applicable, further suffer the penalties of suspension or revocation of franchise or permit in accordance with law.

SECTION 5. Authorized Expenses of Candidates and Parties. - The aggregate amount that a candidate or party may spend for an election campaign shall be as follows: a.

RESOLUTION NO. 10049

www.businessmirror.com.ph

End

07 May 2016 (Saturday) 3.

Public transport vehicles owned and controlled by the

For Candidates/ Registered Political parties for a National E l e c t i v e Position

For Candidates/ Registered Political parties for a Local Elective Position

Not more than a total of one hundred twenty (120) minutes of television advertising, on a per originating station basis, whether appearing on national, regional, or local, free or cable television, and one hundred eighty (180) minutes of radio advertising, on a per originating station basis, whether airing on national, regional, or local radio, whether by purchase or donation.

Not more than a total of sixty (60) minutes of television advertising, on a per originating station basis, whether appearing on national, regional, or local, free or cable television, and ninety (90) minutes of radio advertising, on a per originating station basis, whether airing on national, regional, or local radio, whether by purchase or donation.

In cases where two or more candidates or parties whose names, initials, images, brands, logos, insignias, color motifs, symbols, or forms of graphical representations are displayed, exhibited, used, or mentioned together in the broadcast el bezection propaganda or advertisements, the length of time during which they appear or are being mentioned or promoted will be counted against the airtime limits allotted for the said candidates or parties.

In like manner, the cost of the length of time during which individual candidates, groups of candidates, or parties appear or are being mentioned or promoted, shall be computed as a fraction of the total cost of the advertisement, and such fraction shall be considered their respective expenditures, to be deducted from the total cost of the advertisement.

The balance shall be counted against the expenditure limits of whoever paid for the advertisements or to whom the said advertisements were donated.

Appearance or guesting by a candidate on any bona fide newscast, bona fide news interview, bona fide news documentary, if the appearance of the candidate is incidental to the presentation of the subject or subjects covered by the news documentary, or on-the-spot coverage of bona fide news events, including but not limited to events sanctioned by the COMELEC, political conventions, and similar activities, shall not be deemed broadcast election propaganda within the meaning of this provision. For purposes of monitoring by the COMELEC and ensuring that parties and candidates were afforded equal opportunities to promote their candidacy, the broadcast mass media entities shall give prior notice to the COMELEC, through the appropriate Regional Election Director (RED), or in the case of the National Capital Region (NCR), the Education and Information Department (EID) If such prior notice is not feasible or practicable, the notice shall be sent within twenty-four (24) hours from the first broadcast or publication.

Nothing in the foregoing sentence shall be construed as relieving broadcasters, in connection with the presentation of newscasts, news interviews, news documentaries, and on-the-spot coverage of news events, from the obligation imposed upon them under Sections 11 and 14 of these Rules.

Printed or Published Election Propaganda

The maximum size of print advertisements for each candidate, whether for a national or local elective positions, or party shall be, as follows:

In broadsheets

One fourth (1/4) page

In tabloids

One half (1/2) page

The cost of coordinated print advertisements shall be pro-rated among each candidate, political party, or party-list organization appearing in each advertisement, and shall be reported by them accordingly.

Print advertisements, whether procured by purchase or given free of charge, shall not be published more than three (3) times a week per newspaper, magazine, or other publication during the campaign period.

Online Election Propaganda

The maximum size of online propaganda for each candidate, whether for a national or local elective position, or party shall be as follows:

Name Rectangles and Pop-ups Medium Square Pop-up Vertical Rectangle Large Rectangle Rectangle 3:1 Rectangle Pop-Under Banners and Buttons Full Banner Half Banner Micro-Bar Button 1 Button 2 Vertical Banner Square Button Leaderboard Skyscrapers

Width/pixels

2.

If the space for printed or published election propaganda is donated by the publishing firm, or the airtime for broadcast election propaganda is given free of charge by the radio, or television station or cable television, they shall bear and be identified by the reasonably legible or audible words “printed free of charge,” or “airtime for this broadcast was provided free of charge by,” respectively, followed by the true and correct name and address of the said publishing firm or broadcast entity. This rule shall apply to online advertisements.

3.

For the immediately preceding purpose, each broadcast entity and website owner or administrator shall submit to the COMELEC, certified true copies of broadcast logs, certificates of performances, affidavits of publication or other analogous records that can only be generated after broadcast or publication, for review and verification of the frequency, date, time and duration of advertisements aired for any candidate or party through: For Broadcast Entities in the NCR - The EID, which in turn shall furnish copies thereof to the Campaign Finance Office of the COMELEC within five (5) days from receipt thereof.

For Broadcast Entities outside of the NCR - The City/Municipal Election Officer concerned, who in turn shall furnish copies thereof to the EID, which in turn shall furnish copies thereof to the Campaign Finance Office of the COMELEC within five (5) days from the receipt thereof.

For website owners or administrators – The City/Municipal Election Officer concerned, who in turn, shall furnish copies thereof to the EID, which in turn shall furnish copies thereof to the Campaign Finance Office of the COMELEC within five (5) days from the receipt thereof.

All broadcast and digital mass media entities shall preserve their broadcast logs or analogous records for a period of five (5) years from the date of broadcast or publication for submission to the COMELEC whenever required.

Certified true copies of broadcast logs, certificates of performance, certificates of acceptance, or other analogous records shall be submitted, as follows:

Candidates for National Positions

1st Report

3 weeks after start of campaign period

March 2 - 9

2nd Report

3 weeks after 1st filing week

March 31 – April 7

1 week before election day Election week 1 week after start of campaign period 1 week after 1st filing week Election week 1 week after election day

April 26 – May 2 May 9 - 16

3rd Report Last Report 1st Report Candidates for Local Positions

2nd Report 3rd Report Last Report

April 1 - 8

April 16 - 23 May 9 – 16 May 17 – 24

For subsequent elections, the schedule for the submission of reports shall be prescribed by the COMELEC. SECTION 10. Written Acceptance of Election Propaganda and/or Political Advertisements. –Election propaganda materials donated or contributed by any person to a candidate or party shall not be printed, published or broadcasted, or exhibited, unless they are accompanied by the written acceptance by said candidate or party, through the party treasurer.

Such written acceptance of the donated election propaganda materials must be personal to the candidate or party treasurer, and cannot be delegated to their duly authorized representatives designated to receive donations or contributions.

Two or more candidates, political parties, or party-list organizations may cause the publication of coordinated print advertisements, featuring more than one candidate, political party, or party-list organization, provided that the size and frequency limitations provided for in this paragraph shall apply to each candidate, political party, or party-list appearing, mentioned, or promoted in such a coordinated advertisement.

c.

(ii) The notice must be visible for the duration of the broadcast advertisement; and

Broadcast Election Propaganda The duration of air time that a candidate, or party may use for their broadcast advertisements or election propaganda shall be, as follows:

b.

The notices required in the immediately preceding paragraph shall be considered reasonably legible on television, if it complies with the following:

Height/ pixels

Aspect Ratio

300 250 240 336 180 300 720

250 250 400 280 150 100 300

1.2 1 1.67 1.2 1.2 3 2.4

468 234 88 120 120 120 125 728

60 60 31 90 60 240 125 90

7.8 3.9 2.84 1.33 2 2 1 8.09

SECTION 11. Reporting Requirements to be Submitted by Mass Media Entities, Contractors and Business Firms. - Pursuant to Resolution No. 99914, the following should be submitted to the COMELEC: a.

For Mass Media Entities: All copies of advertising contracts must be clear, legible, encoded, and must be accompanied by a Summary Report of Advertising Contracts which will serve as the cover report for all the advertising contracts submitted by the mass media entity on that day.

The copy of advertising contracts attached to the Summary Report of Advertising Contracts must be clear and legible, and must contain the following information: i. the period when the political advertisement is scheduled to be published, broadcasted, or exhibited; ii. the date when the contract was entered into; iii. the name and signature of the person who placed the advertisement, regardless of whether said person is a contributor or donor, or the duly authorized representative of the candidate or party; iv. the name and signature of the candidate or party who will benefit from the advertisement as a sign of acceptance; v. the particulars of the political advertisement (e.g. the size of the advertisement as published on periodicals, duration of the advertisement as published on periodicals, duration of the advertisement in terms of airtime, frequency, number of spots, and program or timeslot, etc.); vi. the serial number of the official receipt issued to the candidate or party by the mass media entity; and vii. the amount or consideration paid for the advertisement contract.

It must likewise be supported by a copy of the official receipt issued to the contributor or donor, candidate or

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph party, who paid for the advertising contract.

Mass media entities with offices within the C must make their submissions directly to the Campaign Finance Office of the COMELEC. For mass media entities located outside of the C , they must furnish a copy of the advertising contracts in accordance with the formal requirements stated in esolution o.

1 to the nearest COMELEC Field Office. The COMELEC Field Officer concerned shall then be responsible for sending the soft copy of said submissions via electronic mail to the Campaign Finance Office within twenty four (24) hours upon receipt.

It shall be the duty of the Campaign Finance Office in case of national candidates and parties, and the concerned COMELEC Field Officer for local candidates and parties, to formally notify mass media entities that the latter s failure to comply with the mandatory provisions of this Section shall be considered an election offense punishable pursuant to Section 1 of the Fair Elections Act. b .

within three ( ) days from notice issued by the Election Officer of the city or municipality where the election propaganda is posted or displayed. (Annex of COMELEC esolution 616, series of 2 1 )

A registered political party with provincial constituency and a provincial candidate may be allowed to establish one (1) headquarters in each municipality;

Members of the Philippine ational Police and other law enforcement agencies called upon by the Election Officer or other COMELEC officials shall apprehend the violators caught in the act, and file the appropriate charges against them.

d.

Congressional candidates may be allowed to establish one (1) headquarters in the legislative district they seek to represent. Should their legislative district be composed of several municipalities, they may be allowed to establish one (1) headquarters per municipality;

SECTION 20. Co m m o n P o s t er Ar eas . - Parties and independent candidates may, upon authority of the COMELEC, through the City or Municipal Election Officer concerned, construct common poster areas, at their expense, wherein they can post, display, or exhibit their election propaganda to announce or further their candidacy subject to the following requirements and or limitations

e.

City candidates may be allowed to establish one (1) headquarters per councilor district;

f.

Municipal candidates may be allowed to establish one (1) headquarters for the entire municipality.

g.

Lawful election propaganda may be displayed at headquarters subject to the limitations provided for in SEC. 6 (g) hereof.

a.

b.

The forms, contents, and venue for filing of the eport of Contributions shall be those provided in Section 2, ule 5, of esolution o.

1.

The candidates, political party, or party-list group who received the contributions, whether in cash or in kind, may, together with their campaign finance submissions, file the eports of Contributions on behalf of their donors and contributors.

SECTION 12. F ai r an d Ac c u r at e R ep o r t i n g . - All members of the news media, television, radio, print, or online, shall scrupulously report the news, taking care not to suppress essential facts or distort the truth by omission or improper emphasis. They shall recognize the duty to air the other side and the duty to correct substantive errors promptly and without prejudice to the right of said broadcast entities to air accounts of significant news or newsworthy events and views on matters of public interest.

c.

5,

a.

1st day 2nd day rd day b.

within the first week of the campaign period within the fifth week of the campaign period within the tenth week of the campaign period

The Election Officer shall make, and post in his office, a list of the common poster areas in each city or legislative district in said city or municipality, indicating therein their exact locations, and furnish each political party or candidate copies of said list at the latter s expense, and also the Provincial Election Supervisor and the EI irector;

f.

The Election Officer shall comply with his obligations in the immediately preceding paragraph not later than five (5) days before the start of the campaign period for national elections and failure to do so shall make him liable for gross neglect of duty;

g.

The size of each common poster area shall not exceed the following dimensions:

b .

h.

within the first week of the campaign period within the fifth week of the campaign period within the tenth week of the campaign period

Costs of production for political advertisements shall be borne by the candidate or political party, but the speeches or interviews shall be free of charge and the moderator shall be a COMELEC Official, or one designated by the COMELEC for the purpose.

b.

Each radio, television or broadcasting station chosen by the E or the EI irector, as the case may be, shall provide airtime including primetime at least sixty (6 ) minutes daily.

SECTION 16. R i g h t t o R ep l y - All registered parties and candidates shall have the right to reply to charges published or aired against them. The reply shall be given publicity by the newspaper, television, and or radio station which first printed or aired the charges with the same prominence or in the same page or section, or in the same time slot as the first statement. egistered parties and candidates may invoke the right to reply by submitting within a non-extendible period of thirty-six ( 6) hours from first broadcast or publication, a formal verified claim against the mass media entity to the COMELEC, through the appropriate E , or in the case of the C , the EI . The claim shall include a detailed enumeration of the circumstances and occurrences which warrant the invocation of the right of reply and must be accompanied by supporting evidence, such as a copy of the publication or recording of the television or radio broadcast, as the case may be. The claimant must likewise furnish a copy of the verified claim and its attachments to the mass media entity concerned prior to the filing of the claim with the COMELEC. The COMELEC, through the appropriate E or the EI , shall review the formal verified claim within thirty-six ( 6) hours from receipt thereof, and if circumstances warrant, endorse the same to the mass media enitity involved, which shall, within twenty-four (24) hours, submit its report to the E or EI , as the case maybe, explaining the action it has taken to address the claim. The mass media entity must likewise furnish a copy of the said report to the claimant invoking the right to reply.

The common poster areas allocated to parties and independent candidates shall not be used by other parties and independent candidates even with the consent of the former;

l.

m.

a.

For television - Thirty percent (

b.

For radio

c.

For print - Ten percent (1

Twenty percent (2

ithin five (5) days after the elections and without need of notice, the parties and candidates which applied for the putting up of common poster areas shall tear down the same at their own expense and restore the site into its original condition. on-performance of this obligation shall be deemed a violation of the law and regulation on the observance of common poster areas for which the candidate or party concerned shall be liable.

p.

q.

r.

);

)

b.

Authorized common poster areas in public places, subject to the requirements and or limitations set forth in the next following section; and Private property, provided that the posting has the consent of the owner thereof and that the applicable provisions of Section 6 herein are complied with.

The posting of campaign materials in public places outside of the designated common poster areas, on private property without the consent of the owner or in violation of Section 6 hereof, and in those places enumerated under Section (f) of these ules and the like, is prohibited. Persons posting the same shall be liable together with the candidates and other persons who caused the posting. It will be presumed that the candidates and parties caused the posting of campaign materials outside the common poster areas if they do not remove the same

In case there are more than thirty-two ( 2) party-list groups, organizations and or coalitions applying to put up common poster areas, the Election Officer concerned shall determine the appropriate number and size of common poster areas to equitably accommodate the total number of applicants, subject to the provisions of the immediately two (2) preceding paragraphs;

o.

s.

SECTION 19. P o s t i n g o f Cam p ai g n M at er i al s . - Parties and candidates may post lawful campaign material in a.

In case there are less than thirty-two ( 2) party-list groups, organizations and or coalitions, applying to put up the common poster areas, the Election Officer concerned shall reduce the size of the common poster area depending on the total number of applicants thereof, provided that each group is entitled to post one two (2) feet by three ( ) feet poster;

Parties and independent candidates shall file their applications to construct common poster areas with the Officer of the City Municipal Election Officer concerned within five (5) days from the effectivity of this esolution; otherwise they must accept the listing prepared by the Election Officer.

);

SECTION 18. R eg u l at i o n o f El ec t i o n P r o p ag an d a t h r o u g h M as s M ed i a. - In all instances, the COMELEC shall supervise the use and employment of press, radio, online, and television facilities insofar as the placement of political advertisements is concerned to ensure that candidates are given equal opportunity under equal circumstances to make known their qualifications and their stand on public issues within the limits set forth in the Omnibus Election Code, the Fair Elections Act, and these ules.

The common poster areas put up for party-list groups, organizations and or coalitions thereof shall be allocated at the ratio of one (1) common poster area for every thirty-two ( 2) party-list groups, organizations and or coalitions thereof;

n.

Should the claimant insist that his her right to reply was not addressed, he she may file the appropriate petition and or complaint before the COMELEC Main Office.

SECTION 17. R at es f o r P o l i t i c al P r o p ag an d a. - uring the election period, media outlets shall charge parties and candidates a discounted rate for their election propaganda over the average rates charged during the first three ( ) quarters of the calendar year preceding the elections, as follows

The sizes of individual posters that may be posted in each common poster area shall not exceed two (2) by three ( ) feet. owever, in case of space limitations, posters of candidates of political parties may be reduced to a uniform size to accommodate all candidates. This regulation is also violated by making single letters of names having the maximum size or lesser and then putting them together to form a size exceeding two (2) by three ( ) feet;

j.

Airtime The COMELEC shall, through the E , or in the case of C , the EI , also procure air time free of charge in at least one (1) major broadcasting station or entity in every province or city which shall be known as COMELEC Time to be utilized exclusively for public information dissemination on election-related concerns. In the absence of a major station or entity, broadcasting shall be done in any radio or television station in the province or city.

F o r i n d ep en d en t c an d i d at es four (4) by six (6) feet or its equivalent but not exceeding a total area of twenty four (24) square feet.

The individual posters posted in the poster areas shall contain the phrase T h i s m at er i al s h o u l d b e r ec y c l ed � .

k.

The COMELEC shall, through the E , or in the case of the C , the EI , upon payment of just compensation, procure print space in at least one (1) newspaper of general circulation in the province or city which shall be known as COMELEC Space to be utilized exclusively for public information dissemination on election-related concerns. In the absence of said newspaper of general circulation, publication shall be done in any other magazine or periodical in the province or city.

F o r p o l i t i c al p ar t i es an d p ar t y - l i s t g r o u p s . twelve (12) by sixteen (16) feet, or its equivalent but not exceeding a total area of 1 2 square feet; and

i.

SECTION 15. S p ac e an d T i m e f o r CO M EL EC I n f o r m at i o n D i s s em i n at i o n . - The COMELEC shall furthermore procure print space and air time as follows Print Space

1 additional common poster area

e.

a.

Each advertisement shall be for a maximum duration of thirty ( ) seconds, or in the form of interviews or campaign speeches at time limits to be set by the COMELEC in consultation with the said candidates or the parties;

1 common poster area

Such common poster areas shall be allowed by the Election Officer only in selected public places such as plazas, markets, barangay centers and the like, where posters may be readily seen or read, and with the heaviest pedestrian and or vehicular traffic in the city or municipality;

Air Time

Air time shall be allocated free of charge equally and impartially to all candidates for national office on three ( ) different calendar days, as follows

a.

Each party and independent candidate, with prior consent from the COMELEC, may put up common poster areas in every barangay, subject to the following limitations

d.

The COMELEC shall, through the EI , also procure free air time from at least three ( ) national television networks and three ( ) national radio networks wherein candidates for national office can announce their candidacies.

1st day 2nd day rd day

In no instance shall an Election Officer designate as common poster areas, any trees, plants, shrubs located along public roads, in plazas, parks, school premises or in any other public grounds. In cases where parties and candidates still persist in displaying, posting, or exhibiting of their campaign or election propaganda on trees and plants, they shall be prosecuted for violation of these ules, without prejudice to the institution of a criminal complaint for the violation of epublic Act o. 5 1.5

For every increment of 5, registered voters, or a fraction thereof, thereafter

Print Space The COMELEC shall, through the EI , procure print space in at least three ( ) national newspapers of general circulation, wherein candidates for national office can announce their candidacies. Such space shall be allocated free of charge equally and impartially to all candidates for national office on three different calendar days, as follows

A common poster area does not refer to a post, a tree, the wall of a building or an existing public structure that is in active use, but a structure, the location and number of which are specified below, that is temporarily set up by candidates or political parties for the exclusive purpose of displaying their campaign posters;

registered voters or less

SECTION 13. No S u s p en s i o n o f F r an c h i s e. - o franchise or permit to operate a radio or television station shall be granted or issued, suspended or cancelled during the election period, except by the COMELEC. SECTION 14. CO M EL EC S p ac e an d T i m e f o r An n o u n c em en t o f Can d i d at es . The COMELEC shall procure print space and air time as follows

the region; c.

F o r M as s M ed i a En t i t i es , Co n t r ac t o r s an d Bu s i n es s F i r m s every person giving a contribution, whether in cash or in kind, to any candidate, political party or partylist group or their duly authorized representatives, shall file with the nearest COMELEC Field Office a eport of Contributions, in duplicate, within thirty ( ) days following the day of the election.

Failure of the contributors or donors to comply with this Section, in connection with Section 1 ule 5 of esolution o.

1, shall constitute an election offense under Section in relation to Section 262 of the Omnibus Election Code.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

t.

o lawful election propaganda materials shall be allowed outside the common poster areas except on private property with the consent of the owner or in such other places mentioned in these ules. Any violation hereof shall be punishable as an election offense.

In all cases, the parties shall agree among themselves how their individual posters in the common poster areas shall be placed. In case no agreement is reached, the Election Officer concerned shall determine said placement by the drawing of lots.

The Election Officer shall act on all applications for common poster areas within three ( ) days from receipt thereof. For this purpose, he shall determine whether the proposed common poster area sites are public places with heavy pedestrian or vehicular traffic, or business or commercial centers, or densely populated areas, and equitably and impartially allocate the sites to ensure maximum exposure of the lawful propaganda materials of all parties and independent candidates.

Any party or independent candidate aggrieved by the action of the Election Officer may appeal the same within two (2) days from receipt of the order of said Election Officer to 1.

The Provincial Election Supervisors; or

2.

The egional Election irector, in the case of the ational Capital egion ( C ).

The Provincial Election Supervisor or egional Election irector concerned shall decide the appeal within two (2) days from receipt thereof, furnishing copies of the decision to the parties concerned and to the Law epartment of the COMELEC. The decision shall be final and executory.

SECTION 21. Es t ab l i s h m en t o f H ead q u ar t er s . - Every registered political party, sectoral organization or coalition participating in the party-list system or candidate may be allowed to establish a limited number of headquarters subject to the following limitations

SECTION 22. S u b m i s s i o n o f L i s t o f L o c at i o n o f H ead q u ar t er s . - All parties and candidates shall submit within five (5) days from their establishment, the list showing the specific locations and addresses of all their headquarters, to the following offices a.

ational parties and candidates - Law epartment

b.

Provincial parties and candidates

c.

City and Municipal parties and candidates

d.

Parties and Candidates in the C

A9

P o l i t i c al Ac t i v i t i es . - All applications for permits to hold public meetings, rallies and other similar political activities shall be filed with the authorized city or municipal official who shall acknowledge receipt thereof in writing. Immediately after its filing, the application shall be posted in a conspicuous place in the city hall or municipal building.

The official before whom the application is filed shall submit to the Election Officer concerned on the first working day of each week the list of applications, if any, filed during the previous week and the action taken thereon.

SECTION 32. Ac t i o n o n Ap p l i c at i o n f o r P er m i t . - ithin three ( ) days after the filing of an application for permit to hold public meetings, rallies or other political activities, the local authority concerned shall act in writing on said application. Any application not acted upon within three ( ) days from the date of its filing shall be deemed approved.

In acting on the application, the approving official shall give all candidates and parties equal and fair opportunity as to date, time and place, to hold public political meetings or rallies. In the last week of the campaign period, all independent candidates and parties shall be entitled to hold at least one public meeting or rally, in the public plaza or place where public political meetings or rallies are usually held.

Provincial Election Supervisor Election Officer

egional Election irector

The Official of the COMELEC to whom the list of headquarters is submitted shall furnish copies thereof to the Law epartment and the EI , within five (5) days from receipt of the list.

SECTION 23. H ead q u ar t er s S i g n b o ar d . - efore the start of the campaign period, only one (1) signboard, not exceeding three ( ) feet by eight ( ) feet in size, identifying the place as the headquarters of the party or candidates is allowed to be displayed. Parties may put up the signboard announcing their headquarters not earlier than five (5) days before the start of the campaign period. Individual candidates may put up the signboard announcing their headquarters not earlier than the start of the campaign period. Only lawful election propaganda material may be displayed or posted therein and only during the campaign period.

SECTION 24. P r o h i b i t i o n o n t h e R em o v al , D es t r u c t i o n o r D ef ac em en t o f L awf u l El ec t i o n P r o p ag an d a. - uring the campaign period, it is unlawful for any person to remove, destroy take down or, in any manner, deface or tamper with, or prevent the distribution of any lawful election propaganda enumerated in Section 6 hereof.

SECTION 25. Removal, Confiscation, or Destruction of Prohibited Propaganda M at er i al s . - Any prohibited form of election propaganda shall be summarily stopped, confiscated, removed, destroyed, or torn down by COMELEC representatives, at the expense of the candidate or political party for whose apparent benefit the prohibited election propaganda materials have been produced, displayed, and disseminated.

Any person, party, association, government agency may file with the COMELEC, through its field office, a petition to confiscate, remove, destroy and or stop the distribution of any propaganda material on the ground that the same is offensive to public morals, libelous, illegal or subversive.

The COMELEC, after summary hearing, shall resolve the petition within three ( ) days from the time it is submitted for decision. here the parties concerned cannot be contacted or are unknown or refuse to appear at the hearing, the COMELEC may decide the petition ex p ar t e.

The COMELEC may, m o t u p r o p r i o , immediately order the removal, destruction and or confiscation of any prohibited propaganda material, or those materials which contain statements or representations that are illegal, libelous, offensive to public morals, subversive or which tend to incite sedition or rebellion.

SECTION 26. Cr eat i o n o f T as k F o r c e t o T ear D o wn an d R em o v e U n l awf u l El ec t i o n M at er i al s . - There is hereby created a task force in each city and municipality, to tear down and remove all unlawful election materials composed of the Election Officer as Chairman, the Station Commander of the Philippine ational Police as ice Chairman, and a representative from the epartment of Public orks and ighways as Member.

The Task Force shall have the following duties and functions a.

To tear down and remove campaign propaganda materials posted in public places outside the common poster areas;

b.

To tear down and remove all prohibited forms of campaign materials wherever posted or displayed;

c.

To monitor and watch out for persons posting or distributing said unlawful election paraphernalia and to arrest said persons caught in the act; and

d.

To make a report of said activities done by them.

An application for permit shall be denied only on the ground that a prior written application by another candidate or party has been approved. enial or any application may be appealed to the Provincial Election Supervisor, or to the egional Election irector, for cases in the ational Capital egion, who shall decide the same within forty-eight (4 ) hours after the filing of the appeal, and shall give notice of the decision to the parties. The decision shall be final and executory.

SECTION 33. P r o h i b i t ed Ac t s D u r i n g P u b l i c M eet i n g s . - It is unlawful for any candidate, party or any person to give or accept, free of charge, directly or indirectly, transportation, food and drinks, or anything of value during and within the five (5) hours before and after a public meeting, rally, or other political activity, or to give or contribute, directly or indirectly, money or things of value for such purpose.

SECTION 34. M as s M ed i a Co l u m n i s t , An n o u n c er o r P er s o n al i t y R u n n i n g for Public O ce or is a Campaign olunteer. - Any mass media columnist, commentator, announcer, or reporter, who is a candidate for any elective public office, a party-list nominee, or is a campaign volunteer for or employed or retained in any capacity by any candidate or party shall be deemed resigned, if so required by their employer, or shall take a leave of absence from his her work as such during the campaign period; Provided, that after he she has filed his her certificate of candidacy but before the campaign period, it shall be his her obligation not to use his her media work for premature election campaign or partisan political activity Provided, finally, that any media practitioner who, while not himself herself a candidate, is an official of a political party or a member of the campaign staff of a candidate or party shall not use his her time or space to favor any candidate or party.

SECTION 35. D ep u t i z at i o n - The COMELEC hereby deputizes the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), apisanan ng mga rodkaster ng Pilipinas ( P), Philippine Association of Private Telephone Companies (PAPTELCO), Outdoor Advertising Association of the Philippines (OAAP), and the Telecommunication Operators of the Philippine (TOP) to conduct, in coordination with the EI , regular information campaigns on the proper use of any medium of communication.

The COMELEC hereby deputizes Local overnment nits and the epartment of Public orks and ighways to prevent, remove, destroy, confiscate or tear down any prohibited propaganda materials without any partiality.

SECTION 36. Applicability to Filipino Overseas oting. - This esolution shall apply in a suppletory character wherever applicable to all resolutions on campaigning abroad under epublic Act o. 1 .

SECTION 37. Election O ense. - Any violation of the Fair Elections Act and these ules shall constitute an election offense punishable under the first and second paragraph of Section 264 of the Omnibus Election Code in addition to administrative liability, whenever applicable. Any aggrieved party may file a verified complaint for violation of these ules with the COMELEC Law epartment.

SECTION 38. E ectivity. - This esolution shall take effect on the ( th) seventh day after its publication in two (2) daily newspapers of general circulation. This esolution supersedes all previous resolutions inconsistent herewith.

SECTION 39. P u b l i c at i o n an d D i s s em i n at i o n . - The EI shall cause the publication of this esolution in at least two (2) newspapers of general circulation, and furnish copies thereof to all COMELEC field offices, and to the presidents or secretary-generals of all parties, candidates, mass media entities, and deputized offices.

SO ORDERED.

Subject to the approval of the COMELEC, the Task Force members may establish rules and regulations for the implementation of their tasks and for ensuring compliance thereof, including requiring the candidates, political parties or party-lists groups to provide the contact numbers of the person in charge of the propaganda material, and establishment of proper methods to identify the propaganda materials to be removed.

4

J . ANDRES D. BAUTISTA Ch ai r p er so

SECTION 27. R em o v al o f P r o h i b i t ed P r o p ag an d a M at er i al s Bef o r e t h e S t ar t o f t h e Cam p ai g n P er i o d . - All prohibited forms of election propaganda as described in Section of these ules shall be removed, or caused to be removed, by said candidate or party at least seventy-two ( 2) hours before the start of the campaign period; otherwise, the said candidate or party shall be presumed to have committed the pertinent election offense during said campaign period for national candidates or for local candidates, as the case may be.

CHRISTIAN ROBERT S. LIM

The prohibited forms of propaganda contemplated in this Section include any names, images, logos, brands, insignias, color motifs, initials, and other forms of identifiable graphical representations placed by incumbent national and local officials on any public structures or places as enumerated in Section (g) of these ules.

Co m m i si

SECTION 28. El ec t i o n S u r v ey s . uring the election period, any person, whether natural or juridical, candidate or organization may conduct an election survey. Should they decide to publish the said survey for public consumption, they must likewise publish the following information a.

The name of the person, candidate, party, or organization that commissioned, paid for, or subscribed to the survey;

b.

The name of the person, polling firm or survey organization which conducted the survey;

c.

The period during which the survey was conducted, the methodology used, including the number of individual respondents and the areas from which they were selected, and the specific questions asked;

d.

The margin of error of the survey;

e.

For each question where the margin of error is greater than that reported under paragraph d the margin of error for that question; and

f.

A mailing address and telephone number at which the sponsor can be contacted to obtain a written report regarding the survey in accordance with the next succeeding paragraph.

n

o n er

AL A. PARREĂ‘ O Co m m i si

o n er

LUIE TITO F. GUIA Co m m i si

o n er

ARTHUR D. LIM Co m m i si

o n er

The survey, together with raw data gathered to support its conclusions shall be available for inspection, copying and verification by the COMELEC. Any violation of this Section shall constitute an election offense.

MA. ROWENA AMELIA V . GUAZ ON

SECTION 29. Ex i t P o l l s . - Exit polls may only be taken subject to the following requirements a.

Pollsters shall not conduct their surveys within fifty (5 ) meters from the polling place;

b.

Pollsters shall wear distinctive clothing and prominently wear their identification cards issued by the organization they represent;

c.

Pollsters shall inform the voters that they may refuse to answer; and

d.

The results of the exit polls may be announced after the closing of the polls on election day, and must identify the total number of respondents and the places where they were taken. Said announcement shall state that the same is unofficial and does not represent a trend.

SECTION 30. R al l i es , M eet i n g s an d O t h er P o l i t i c al Ac t i v i t i es . - Subject to the requirements of local ordinances on the issuance of permits, any political party or any candidate, individually or jointly with other aspirants, may hold peaceful political meetings, rallies or other similar activities during the campaign period.

a.

A registered party with national constituency and a national candidate may establish one (1) headquarters in each province or highly urbanized city;

Any party or candidate shall notify the election officer concerned of any public rally to be held in the city or municipality. The notice must be submitted three ( ) working days prior to the date thereof, and must include the venue and exact address, and within seven ( ) working days thereafter submit to the election officer a Statement of Expenses incurred in connection therewith. The prescribed forms for otice of Public ally and Statement of Expenses are provided in COMELEC esolution o. 4 6.6

b.

A registered political party with regional constituency may establish one (1) headquarters in each province or highly urbanized city in

SECTION 31. Ap p l i c at i o n f o r P er m i t t o H o l d P u b l i c M eet i n g s , R al l i es o r O t h er

Co m m i si

o n er

SHERIFF M. ABAS Co m m i si

1

o n er

An Act Providing for Synchronized ational and Local Elections and for Electoral eforms, Authorizing Appropriations Therefor, and for Other Purposes promulgated on ovember 26, 1 1.

An Act Introducing Additional promulgated on anuary 5, 1

2

eforms in the Electoral System and For Other Purposes .

Supra at note 1.

Otherwise known as the Omnibus ules egulations overning Campaign Finance isclosure in connection with the May 2 16 ational and Local Elections and All Subsequent ational Local Elections Thereafter promulgated on 2 October 2 15.

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5 An Act to Prohibit the Cutting, estroying or Injuring of Planted or rowing Trees, Flowering Plants and Shrubs or Plants of Scenic alue along Public oads, in Plazas, Parks, School Premises or in Any Other Public round promulgated on une 21, 1 6 .

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ules and egulations overning Campaign Finance and isclosure in Connection ith the 1 May 2 1 ational and Local Elections and Subsequent Elections Thereafter promulgated on une 22, 2 12.

An Act Providing for a System of Overseas Absentee oting by ualified Citizens of the Philippines Abroad, Appropriating Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes promulgated on February 1 , 2 .

A10 Tuesday, February 2, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Mosquitoes: Time for you to go

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OSQUITOES have been around for about 100 million years and maybe it is time for their extinction. While not directly harmful in and of themselves, like a shark or a poisonous snake, mosquitoes are responsible for millions of human deaths every year.

Nevertheless, mosquitoes are the deadliest living things on Earth.

More deaths are associated with mosquitoes than any other animal on the planet. Malaria still infects some 247 million people worldwide each year and kills nearly 1 million. There is an uncountable medical and financial burden by the spreading yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya virus and West Nile virus. Now we have another potential pandemic with the Zika virus that is spreading rapidly in South America.

Jittawadee Murphy is a researcher at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the United States, named after the army doctor who confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by a particular mosquito. Murphy is an expert in entomology and parasitology who has been studying these “bugs” for 20 years, working on ways to limit the spread of the parasites they carry. She says she would prefer that they were wiped off the Earth.

But there are many pests—fleas, cockroaches and the neighbor who honks his car horn 10 times to get the maid to open his gate—that should probably be eliminated. The question, then, is what would be the collateral damage from wiping mosquitoes off the face of the Earth even if we could.

Scientists are greatly concerned with using pesticides to kill these critters, as good insects can be killed along with the bad. The mosquito is far down the food chain, but still may be a critical part of that chain. One scientist notes that the mosquito fish is a specialized predator which only eats mosquitoes and could therefore go extinct. Many species of insect, spider, salamander, lizard and frog would also lose a primary food source if the mosquitoes disappeared.

Medical entomologist Carlos Brisola Marcondes from the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil said: “The elimination of Anopheles would be very significant for mankind.” The mosquito genus Anopheles is the one that carries malaria and its name comes from the Greek word for “useless,” so that tells you what scientists think of this insect.

It may seem that humans would be playing god by killing all the mosquitoes, but, in a sense, it is us or them. Disease, death and poverty follow where large populations of these winged killers live. The World Health Organization estimates that sub-Saharan Africa would see an increase of the GDP growth of 1.3 percent each year if not for the costs of the mosquitoes. An increase in economic output of that amount over time would have a huge positive impact on the people.

Maybe it is time to see the mosquitoes go the way of the dinosaurs.

Shaky start, cautious optimism Manny B. Villar

THE ENTREPRENEUR Conclusion

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HE elections and falling oil prices are one-time or temporary developments that provide an added cushion to adverse developments in the global economy.

The Philippines, however, remains in a good position not only to weather headwinds, but also to sustain growth despite uncertainties, even among the wealthy economies.

Car sales, for instance, exemplifies robust consumer spending, which is also behind the booming retail business. In 2015 motor-vehicle sales in the country reached 288,609 units, up from 234,747 units in 2014.

For 2016 the domestic car manufacturers are looking at total sales of 350,000 units.

Behind the boom in the retail business, as well as the property industry, are remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFW) and the business-process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), cash remittances

by OFWs for the first 11 months of 2015 totaled $22.8 billion, up 3.2 percent from $22 billion for the same period in 2014.

Based on the 11-month figure, it is unlikely that remittances will reach the BSP’s target of $25.6 billion for 2015, compared to $24.35 billion in 2014. Thus, the BSP lowered the growth-rate target for remittances to 4 percent, from 5 percent for 2016, with the total amount expected at $26.3 billion.

Actually, even a flat growth means a huge amount of foreign exchange flowing into the Philippine economy, so I look at a 4-percent growth as still a good development that will contribute to growth.

Filipino workers are still sought by employers around the world. The BSP, citing preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, said total job orders reached 771,635 for the period January to November 2015. The BSP expects steady deployment of Filipino workers this year.

At any rate, Filipino workers are still sought by employers around the world. The BSP, citing preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, said total job orders reached 771,635 for the period January to November 2015.

The BSP expects steady deployment of Filipino workers, including diversification of destinations and a shift to higher-paying skilled jobs this year.

Another major source of dollar flows, the BPO industry, is expected to record total revenues of $21 billion for 2015, up from $18.9 billion in 2014. For 2016, the industry’s revenues are expected to breach the $25-billion mark.

Even the tourism industry is becoming a significant foreign

The smartest man in the world

HE timeline of human history going back thousands of years is packed with people who were geniuses. Two thousand years ago, Hero of Alexandria designed and built the first-recorded steam engine from which all propulsion devices from the internal combustion engine to jet engines is based. Hero also invented the vending machine, where a coin placed in a slot then dispensed holy water for use at the temple of the Greek gods.

Maybe the smartest man in the world was Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 20 percent of the people in Italy owned 80 percent of the land. The Pareto Principle, or the 80-20 rule, states that, for many events, roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. The Pareto Principle is found across many disciplines and throughout history. In the US 20 percent own 85 percent of all the wealth.

While many of these geniuses were people that sat around thinking—Einstein and Stephen Hawking come to mind—a vast majority were those that saw order in chaos unlike everyone else.

Ancient hunters realized that animals did not randomly move from place to place, but followed a pattern.

Ancient astronomers observed that there was a pattern to the seasonal location of where the sun rose. Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci in 1202 expanded on the works in Sanskrit tradition of Pingala who

observed that 20 percent of the people in Italy owned 80 percent of the land. The Pareto Principle, or the 8020 rule, states that, for many events, roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes.

The Pareto Principle is found across many disciplines and throughout history. In the US 20 percent own 85 percent of all the wealth. Sweden, which is proclaimed as one of the most socialized economic systems on Earth, shows the same numbers; 20 percent control 80 percent of the wealth. This 80/20 pattern repeats itself from Thailand, to Germany, to

John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

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first realized a sequence of pattern we now call the Golden Spiral or Fibonacci numbers.

Polish-American mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot discovered what we now call the Mandelbrot Set in 1979 of fractal shapes. His work showed, for example, that the shapes of mountains—the peaks and valleys —were not random in the sense that they were a geometric repetition. A grain of sand has the same geometric pattern as Mount Everest.

Maybe the smartest man in the world was Vilfredo Pareto, who

exchange earner for the country. In 2015 some 5.36 million international tourists visited the Philippines, spending a total of $5 billion, up 3.3 percent year-on-year.

The figures do not include domestic tourism, which is also fueling the growth of the hotel industry, as well as the retail business.

Even the financial system has shown resilience amid the global uncertainties. In a recent speech before the banking community, BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. reported that, as of the third quarter of 2015, the asset base of the banking industry exceeded P11 trillion, an increase of more than P1 trillion in 12 months, while keeping nonperforming loans at low singledigit levels.

Tetangco noted that the domestic banking industry sustained growth and stability amid the global financial turmoil in 2015.

I titled this two-part discussion “Shaky start, cautious optimism” in recognition of the rough waters around us, which affect the Philippines, being part of the global economy, but also recognizing, with optimism, the strengths that I believe will keep us ahead of many of our peer economies.

For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@ gmail.com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.

the Philippines. Globally, 20 percent own 82 percent of the wealth.

The interesting thing about the real-world application of the Pareto Principle is when the situation varies too much from 80/20, conditions seem to change to bring it back to 80/20. When too much wealth goes to the 20 percent, something changes to bring it back in line. Likewise, Germany saw the wealth ratio drop to 65/20 and within a decade, it was back to 80/20.

If your business, for example, is only generating 70 percent of its revenue from 20 percent of your customers, you are doing something wrong.

For investors, you need to look for asymmetric situations. In other words, do not necessarily buy the stock issues that the 80 percent are buying but look where the other 20 percent of the money is going. That may be where the biggest rewards and profits are hidden. Eventually, the 80 percent will come to those issues and they will go higher.

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

Tuesday, February 2, 2016 A11

Mamasapano Senate probe also A positive and optimistic people exposes serious weakness of the AFP-PNP command structure Sen. Edgardo J. Angara Cecilio T. Arillo

DATABASE

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F one takes a closer look at the evidence presented at the reopening of the Mamasapano Senate hearing on January 27, it was not only the failure of leadership and breakdown of the chain of command that resulted to the slaughter of 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers, but also a serious weakness of the Armed Forces of the Philippines-Philippine National Police (AFP-PNP) command structure.

For example, the SAF commandos who carried out a specific judicial order to capture the two highprofile terrorists operated within the area of responsibility (AOR) of the Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) where the officers and men were supposed to exercise collective responsibility to help out the beleaguered SAF troopers from the enemy’s extensive firepower.

The Wesmincom is one of the seven Unified Commands (UCs) operating under the AFP general headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, but directly under the Office of the President and the Chief of Staff (COS).

In addition, there are the AFPwide support services and units that report directly to the COS: AFP General Headquarters and Headquarters Service Command, which act as the fourth Major Service Command representing the support, technical and independent services of the Armed Forces; Technical and Administrative Service, AFP; Presidential Security Group; Philippine Military Academy; AFP Commissary and Exchange Service; Communications, Electronics and Information System Service, AFP; Civil Relations Service, AFP; Dental Service Center, AFP; and National Defense College of the Philippines.

At a glance, you have here headquarters, similar to the PNP, redundantly operating over the existing general headquarter whose functions and responsibilities, which are not properly and clearly delineated, overlap with the latter and, thus, resulted to a lot of confusion and finger-pointing among officers in the field.

A specific example of this was the Mamasapano incident where generals and senior officers, who were supposed to exercise collective command and control responsibility to save the SAF soldiers, merely blamed one another, oblivious that the dead commandos

The SAF commandos who carried out a specific judicial order to capture the two high-profile terrorists operated within the area of responsibility of the Western Mindanao Command where the officers and men were supposed to exercise collective responsibility to help out the beleaguered SAF troopers from the enemy’s extensive firepower. operated in their AOR. Apart from the huge budget maintaining these multilayered command structures, there’s the Army with 10 divisions, 30 brigades, 90 battalions scattered all over the country with separate headquarters complete with the usual line services: intelligence, personnel, operations and logistics.

The P401.14-billion defense budget approved by President Aquino for 2016 provides only limited information on the costs of UC concept.

Various arguments for the UC concept appeared persuasive, but such impressions need to be thoroughly examined.

While there is a general absence of economics literature on the UC concept, Congress and the Executive branch should look at the subject by focusing initially on the economics of defense and the need for difficult choices in an environment of uncertainty.

Besides, why maintain such a big force without first looking at the nature of national security threats, internally and externally, and the requirements for public safety.

To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@ gmail.com.

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BELGIAN delegate at the recent International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) in Cebu City lauded Filipinos during a news conference for their “incredible sense of joy, despite suffering hardships.” Marianne Servaas, the church worker from the Archdiocese of Belgium, said that by being joyful, Filipinos are bringing about changes in the places where they live and work abroad.

The recent 2015 Social Weather Stations survey shows public morale at a record high in the Philippines, noting that net satisfaction with life is the highest it has ever been since the pollster first started measuring it in 2002. Optimism about personal quality of life and about the Philippine economy-at-large has, likewise, stayed consistently high since 2010.

Where’s the implementing rules?

Ernesto M. Hilario

ABOUT TOWN

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N July 2014 health advocates and antitobacco lobbyists were ecstatic over the passage of a law requiring tobacco firms to affix their cigarette packs with pictures showing the adverse effects of smoking.

This was the graphic health warning (GHW) law, or Republic Act 10643, mainly authored by Sen. Pia Cayetano.

Now, almost two years later, the interagency panel tasked to draft the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) has yet to issue and formally publish the contents of the IRR. The law fixes the date of its implementation on March 3, 2016.

The Department of Health (DOH) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) spearheaded the IRR drafting committee.

Consultations on the IRR were completed in May 2015 and the routing of the final draft copy for review and signing of each member departments started October of last year.

So far, only five of the ninemember interagency panel have signed the IRR document and four agencies, namely, the departments of Science and Technology, Education, Finance and the DTI, have yet to affix their signatures.

Sans the IRR, tobacco companies are already preparing for the March deadline. Local manufacturers will need permits and approvals from regulatory bodies (Bureau of Internal Revenue, National Tobacco

Central banks can’t do much more Clive Crook

BLOOMBERG VIEW

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N Friday the Bank of Japan (BOJ) stunned financial observers by announcing a new negative interest rate. Governor Haruhiko Kuroda got the result he intended: The stock market rallied and the yen depreciated, making exports more competitive and giving the economy a boost.

The direct effect of the change in policy will be slight. The central bank set an interest rate of minus 0.1 percent on additional reserves— a small cut applied to a narrow category. But the move to less than zero has symbolic weight and nobody had expected it, so the effect on investors was powerful.

The European Central Bank is in a similar bind: struggling to persuade markets that it can push inflation back up to target, with interest rates about as low as they can go and a huge bond-buying

program already in place. After the bank’s most recent policy meeting, President Mario Draghi announced no change in policy, but stressed he still had options for providing further stimulus and was ready and willing to use them. That worked too.

Investors were surprised. The euro moved down.

A current paradox of monetary policy is that central bankers are trying to stabilize expectations of inflation by dispensing periodic surprises: Stability through instability. Whenever investors begin to question

Last year a Deloitte survey noted that Filipino millennials— the generation born between 1982 and early 2000s—are generally more ambitious than their counterparts in the developed world.

According to the survey, eight out of 10 working Filipino millennials want to be their own boss, compared to four out of 10 in developed

countries, like France and Germany.

Our positive and optimistic disposition appears to be ingrained in our culture and is well-known throughout the world.

Here at home, such positivity helped generate the momentum for deep and far-reaching reforms— from the rollout of the K to 12 system under the Enhanced Basic Education Act (Republic Act [RA] 10533) to the recent creation of the Philippine Competition Commission under the Fair Competition Act (RA 10667).

Positivity and optimism had also been found to be a winning formula when it comes to elections. A seminal study by University of Pennsylvania psychologists on US presidential elections between 1948 and 1988 found that candidates whose nomination acceptance speeches were notably positive won 18 out of the 22 elections covered.

The study also found that the

the authorities’ will or means to push demand and inflation back up, the remedy is a hint of recklessness and “Whatever it takes.” (Kuroda likes that phrase as much as Draghi.)

Just days before the announcement, Kuroda had said negative rates weren’t in his plans. Weak figures for household spending and industrial production maybe justified a rethink. In any event, if you’re looking to surprise people, contradicting yourself in the space of a week is a good approach. The BOJ’s vote in favor of the change was close, as well, at 5 to 4. That added to the sense that something dramatic had happened.

The problem is that these mostly rhetorical surprises are, so to speak, a depreciating currency. It’s theater that works well for a while, but then you need actions to make it believable. That’s getting harder. The next policy announcements from the Japanese and European central banks are especially keenly awaited.

Markets will be asking, “So what have you got?”

Making interest rates a bit more negative is one possibility. It turns

Administration, Bureau of Customs) to commence production of packs with pictorials. For importers, they will need the permits to bring in the finished goods to the country and for its subsequent clearance from the Customs. Sadly, all these government agencies would not issue the permits and approvals without the IRR. Though the law provides that the nonissuance of the IRR would not prevent the law coming into force, regulatory and administrative requirements are facts of life that businesses have to contend with. No IRR, no permits—that’s how these agencies operate.

The Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI) has already called the attention of the DOH and the DTI, including agency members of the Graphic Health Warnings IRR Committee, on the negative impact of the continued delay.

The group, in a letter addressed to the two lead agencies, said tobacco activities would be disrupted and excise tax collections would suffer, even affecting the law’s mandated beneficiaries like the DOH, Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and the tobacco-producing provinces.

out that the zero lower bound is a misnomer: As Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and the euro area had already shown, the floor for nominal policy rates is a bit less than zero.

But central banks can’t move very far into negative territory without encountering serious financial and political obstacles.

To sustain significantly negative rates, paper money would have to be dethroned as the fundamental monetary standard. Another adjustment might seem even stranger. The idea that borrowers pay savers is pretty well entrenched; with significantly negative rates, savers pay borrowers.

(Try explaining that on the stump.)

The economics is correct. It could be done, and a lot of smart economists think it should be done—but it wouldn’t be easy, least of all for a central bank acting on its own initiative.

The alternative is to further expand the two banks’ bond-buying programs. But they’re already huge, their effectiveness is beginning to be questioned, and the consequences for financial stability give grounds for concern. Again, at best, it’s a case of

Tobacco companies need at least six months to produce and bring their compliant products to their customers, including the engraving of the cylinders to reflect the new pack design bearing the GHW. It is ironic that barely a month away, it is the tobacco players that are pushing the government to implement the law by issuing the IRR. Already buffeted with a cocktail of regulations—from yearly increases in their sin taxes to forcing them to vandalize their products with hideous illustrations of disfigured body parts and other sordid pictures—the tobacco industry just wants to comply with the new law the soonest.

They don’t oppose the law nor are they thinking of delaying it. They just want its efficient enforcement starting with the timely issuance of the IRR.

Peace in Mindanao: How do we attain it?

FORMER Tawi-Tawi Gov. Al Tillah was our guest at the recent Saturday Forum@ Annabel’s.

Since the Bangsamoro basic law is dead in the water—almost, as the legislature cannot possibly pass it with the start next week of the official campaign period—Tillah says that to achieve peace in southern Philippines, we should consider amending the fundamental law to allow the creation of two federal states in Muslim Mindanao.

One of the two federal states in Muslim Mindanao could be created out of the island-provinces of Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, as well as the Zamboanga provinces, the other for the landlocked provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and

diminishing returns. How much bigger would these quantitative-easing (QE) programs need to be to provide the next supposedly stabilizing jolt?

If demand and inflation fail to get back on track in Japan and Europe—and if the disappointing fourth-quarter figures for US GDP are a sign that America’s recovery is failing too—monetary policy won’t be enough. The shock that’s required is hybrid macroeconomic policy, meaning an approach that explicitly combines fiscal expansion with monetary accommodation.

The idea is for governments to run bigger budget deficits—with tax cuts and/or higher public spending—then finance them not with borrowing but with newly created money. The most eye-catching variant is direct cash payments by central banks to households, or so-called helicopter money.

In ordinary times, such a policy would be reckless in the extreme—it’s a classic formula for letting government spending and inflation surge out of control. But when demand is persistently weak

more positive a candidate was, relative to his or her opponent, the wider is the margin of his or her victory.

The unprecedented victory of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a recent case in point. The young leader of the federal Liberal Party rode to victory on a positive message, overwhelmingly trouncing his conservative counterparts. In his victory speech, Trudeau promised a new way of doing politics, saying to his supporters: “We beat fear with hope…. We beat cynicism with hard work.”

Here in the Philippines, candidates in the upcoming elections would wisely campaign on a positive and hopeful platform. But, more important, whoever emerges victorious must be able to galvanize and meaningfully harness our people’s positive energy to push through with even deeper reforms.

E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com.

neighboring provinces.

For the Tawi-tawi ex-governor, this is the only viable solution to end the fighting in Midnanao and restore peace.

“This government thinks the 1987 Cory Constitution is the Bible, the Koran. It is not. The United States Constitution has been amended several times. Why is it not possible to amend the Constitution to serve the needs of our people and country?”

Tillah asked.

Tillah claimed that the Autonomus Region in Muslim Mindanao that President Aquino declared as a “failed experiment”, and which the administration said should be replaced by the proposed Bangsamoro region under the comprehensive peace agreement wth the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), should have been given the chance to work as it is the product of the 1977 Tripoli Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front led

by Nur Misuari.

Tillah said he believes Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., if elected vice president in May, could help in solving the Mindanao conflict in the same way that the senator’s father initiated peace talks with the MILF in the late 1970s.

Tillah, who now heads the Parhimpunan sin Islam, or the Islamic Society of the Philippines, which he describes as a non-governmental organizations of the Sulu Sultanate, says he supports the presidential candidacies of Vice President Jejomar C. Binay and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte as he believes they are committed to the pursuit of peace in Mindanao.

E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.

and the usual tools for boosting it aren’t working, more spending and higher inflation should be part of the remedy.

Compared with negative interest rates and ever-expanding QE, the economics of printing money to pay for fiscal stimulus is simple. There’s little doubt such a policy would raise total spending and get you out of a persistent low-demand trap. Sufficient popular support seems achievable. Institutional resistance to the idea is strong, though, because it overthrows the hallowed principle of central-bank independence. In effect, the policy puts the central bank under the control of the finance ministry, an arrangement that often ends badly.

Again, in ordinary times, it would be a terrible idea—but these aren’t ordinary times. Political resistance would be intense in the US, and in Europe “direct monetary financing” is forbidden by European Union rules that would be hard to change. Perhaps, Japan is better placed. Since Kuroda likes surprises, he might reflect on the case for springing this one.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Tuesday, February 2, 2016

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Productive antepenultimate session day for House

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B J M N.  C

HE House of Representatives made good use of the 16th Congress’s antepenultimate session day, approving on final reading critical reform measures.

These are the bill institutionalizing and strengthening the publicprivate partnership (PPP), measure removing investment restrictions in the Foreign Investment Negative List (FINL), the proposal to declare large-scale agricultural smuggling as economic sabotage, the bill institutionalizing the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps), or the conditional cash transfer (CCT); and the bill extending the life of the Human Rights Claims Board by two years until May 12, 2018.

These measures will be forwarded to the bicameral conference committees for deliberations before they are transmitted to President Aquino for signature.

Congress is eyeing to submit these measures to the Palace before it goes on break on Wednesday.

The third and last regular session of the 16th Congress is expected to be cut short, as the House of Representatives and the Senate will take a break from February 3 to May 22 for the 2016 national and local elections.

PPP

THE measure institutionalizing and strengthening the PPP, principally authored by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, seeks to recognize the indispensable role of the private sector as the main engine for national growth and development, create an enabling environment for PPP. The measure also seeks to provide the most appropriate incentives to mobilize private resources for the design, construction, operation, maintenance and financing of infrastructure projects and services normally funded and undertaken by the government.

It said that among other incentives, PPP projects in excess of P1 billion shall be entitled to incentives as provided by the Omnibus Investment Code, upon prior endorsement of the PPP Center and registration by the project proponent with the Board of Investment.

FINL

THE new revisions to the FINL allow foreigners to own 100 percent of adjustment companies, lending

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Number of bills approved on third reading by the House of Representatives on Monday companies, financing companies and investment houses.

The bill, authored by Liberal Party (LP) Rep. Anthony G. del Rosario of Davao del Norte, amends investment restrictions in specific laws governing adjustment companies, lending companies, financing companies and investment houses cited in the FINL. The measure seeks to amend The Insurance Code for adjustment companies, The Investment Houses Law for investment houses, Lending Company Regulation of 2007 for lending companies and Financing Company Act of 1998 for financing companies.

Under Article XII of the Constitution, foreign investors are prohibited to own more than 40 percent on certain industries, while they are totally restricted to exploit natural resources, public utilities and own any company in the media industry.

Agricultural smuggling

HOUSE Bill 6380, or the AntiAgricultural Smuggling Act, proposed stiffer sanctions for largescale smuggling of agricultural products to ensure food security and price stability, as well as to protect

the income and well-being of Filipino farmers.

Committee on Ways and Means and Liberal Party Rep. Romero S. Quimbo of Marikina City said the bill seeks to promote the productivity of the agriculture sector and to protect farmers from unscrupulous traders and importers, who, by their illegal importation of agricultural products, especially rice, significantly affect the production, availability of supply and stability of prices and the food security of state.

The bill was coauthored by Nacionalista Party Rep. Mark Villar of Las Pinas, LP Rep. Mylene GarciaAlbano of Davao and National Unity Party Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo of Valenzuela.

The bill said penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of twice the fair value of the smuggled product in the kind and value described in the act and the aggregate amount of the taxes, duties and other chargers legally due on the said smuggled agricultural product shall be imposed on any person who commits any of the acts enumerated under the law.

The bill said the crime of largescale agricultural smuggling as economic sabotage, involving sugar, corn, pork, poultry, garlic, onion, carrots, fish and cruciferous vegetables, in its raw state, or which have undergone the simple processes of preparation or preservation for the market valued at a minimum amount of P10 million, as determined by the Bureau of Customs (BOC), is deemed committed through any of the following acts:

n Importing or bringing into the Philippines without the required import permit from the regulatory agencies. n Using imports permits of persons, natural, juridical or entities without juridical personality other than those specifically named in the permit. n Using fake, fictitious or fraudulent import permits or shipping documents, names of natural or juridical persons or entities without juridical personality, and addresses of consignee. n Selling, lending, leasing, assigning, consenting or allowing the use of import permits of corporations, non-governmental organizations, associations, cooperatives, or single proprietorships by other persons. n Misclassification, undervaluation or misdeclaration upon the filing of import entry and revenue declaration with the BOC in order to evade the payment of rightful taxes and duties to the government. n Organizing or using dummy corporations, non-governmental organizations, associations, cooperatives, or single proprietorships for the purpose of acquiring import permits. n Transporting or storing the agricultural product subject to economic sabotage regardless of quantity n Acting as broker of the violating importer.

4Ps

THE bill on 4Ps, or the CCT, seeks to break the intergenerational

cycle of poverty through investment in human capital and improved delivery of basic services to the poor, particularly education, health and nutrition.

The measure said that subject to certain conditions, each qualified household-beneficiary shall receive a CCT equivalent to P500 per month for health and nutrition expenses, or the equivalent of P6,000 per qualified householdbeneficiary per year.

A maximum of three children per qualified household-beneficiary shall be given-conditional grant for educational expenses, it said.

The measure added that P300 per month per child enrolled in elementary, or the equivalent of P3,000 per a 10-month school year; P500 per month per child in junior high school, or the equivalent of P5,000 per a 10-month school year and P700 per month per child enrolled in senior high school, or the equivalent of P7,000 per 10-month school year.

Human rights

THE lower chamber also approved on third and final reading the measure extending the life of the Human Rights Claims Board by two years until May 12, 2018, to give all legitimate martial-law, human-rights victims access to recognition and reparation.

HB 6412 seeks to provide full access to these victims for reparation and recognition of the sufferings and sacrifices that they endured during martial law, authors of the bill stressed.