BusinessMirror February 17, 2016

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Wednesday, February 17, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 132

Current tax scheme unfair to Pinoy employees–experts

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B C U. O

HE next administration would have to amend the current personal incometax (PIT) scheme, as it is unfair to workers who are not high earners but are taxed heavily, according to experts from the government and the private sector.

In the Senate Centennial Lecture Series on Tuesday, experts from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), Department of

INSIDE

Finance (DOF) and the Tax Management Association of the Philippines (TMAP) all agreed that the country’s tax system needs to change.

₧40,000

Tax paid by Filipino workers earning P210,000 a year

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

BMReports Motor vehicle theft cases bare crafty players, tech-reliant cops

Specifically, the country’s PIT has not been updated since 1997. This has resulted in what is called “bracket creep,” where low-income taxpayers “hurt more” than their high-income counterparts. “Actually, there’s no debate as far as the DOF is concerned. We believe that the personal income-tax structure needs S “T ,” A

BM GRAPHICS ED DAVAD

TAYLOR SWIFT WINS TOP GRAMMY AWARD; LAMAR WINS 5

B M M, Researcher  D E, Editor

SHOW

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MANILAACAPULCO TRADE A laborer works on top of the Manila-Acapulco Museum being built in a mall in Pasay City. The museum aims to highlight an important time for trade and commerce in the Philippines. While the Spanish occupation of the Philippines was turbulent, it left an indelible mark on modern Filipino culture and society. NONIE REYES

Construction of MRT 7 to start soon B L S. M

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OMMUTERS will have to wait for three more years before the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 7 commercially opens, as the private partner for the construction of the rail line envisioned to connect Bulacan to Quezon City has just reached financial closure. This developed years since the

P62.7-billion contract was awarded to San Miguel Corp. (SMC) in 2008 and may now start the construction of the rail line, as the conglomerate has now complied in full with the financial closure requirements of the agreement. Ramon S. Ang, chairman of SMC unit Universal LRT Corp. (ULC), said his company is now preparing to break ground on the vital infrastructure project. “We have already submitted

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 47.4880

required documents to the Department of Transportation and Communications [DOTC] last week, certifying commitment from us and our banks to provide financing for the project,” he said. Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya confirmed that his office has received the documents, and welcomed this development. “I think what is really important for the people of northeastern Metro

Manila is to get the service available as soon as possible,” he said. Hav i ng ac h ie ved f i n a nc i a l closure, the contract for the construction of MRT 7 is now deemed effective under the terms of the concession agreement. Given this, SMC asked the DOTC to determine the date for the project’s groundbreaking. Abaya said his office has yet to issue an official date for the event.

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Conclusion

NLIKE the crew in Gone in 60 Seconds, local—and real-life—motor vehicle thieves have a hard-on for light trucks. At least last year. According to documents provided by the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group (PNPHPG) to the BUSINESSMIRROR, some 115 light trucks from January to October last year were stolen. The figure only applies to the National Capital Region alone. The second-highest number of stolen vehicles in the same period was L-300 FB vans, commonly

used to ferry students to and from schools, and commodities to and from warehouses. The PNP-HPG document revealed 59 of these vehicles were reported stolen from January to October last year. According to the report, the PNP-HPG arrested last August six suspects involved in these thefts. Three were nabbed in Alaminos, C  A

S “MRT ,” A

n JAPAN 0.4145 n UK 68.5347 n HK 6.0993 n CHINA 7.3126 n SINGAPORE 33.9394 n AUSTRALIA 33.9152 n EU 52.9824 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.6669

Source: BSP (16 February 2016 )

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A2 Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Motor vehicle-theft cases bare crafty players, tech-reliant cops C  A

Pangasinan, and three in Binangonan, Rizal. One vehicle reported stolen was traced through a buy-and-sell website. The suspects apparently thought authorities are ignoring the cyberspace, according to PNP Chief Supt. Arnold D. Gunnacao. The PNP-HPG were also able to locate several vehicle parts dismantled from the stolen units that were being sold by auto shops in Blumentritt, Manila. But like in the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds,” local car thieves also focused on certain brands, like Toyota and Mitsubishi. “Upon observation, the most carnapped brands are Toyota and Mitsubishi,” Capt. Joel D. Conde of the PNP-HPG told the BUSINESSMIRROR. Conde explained most carnapping groups focus on a specific model or brand. The syndicate group then studies the vehicles’mechanism, making themselves experts on its parts, down to the smallest gears, he said. “It has something to do with the make of the cars, probably because these are the most common,” Conde said in an interview with the BUSINESSMIRROR. They recently noted an increase of stolen Montero (Mitsubishi) and Fortuner (Toyota) models. In the movie, only two Toyota-branded vehicles were stolen: A 2000 Toyota Landcruiser and a 1998 Toyota Supra Turbo. Only one Fordbranded vehicle was stolen, a 2000 Ford F350 4x4 modified pickup. Conde, chief investigator of a “failure to return” case involving a Toyota Alabang employee, said one reason carnappers became cocky is the absence of shipment clearances for motor vehicles. “For example, the car was stolen in Manila. They could easily ship it to the Visayas or Mindanao [via the] ro-ro [Roll-on/roll-off transportation system]. There used to be requests for shipment clearances, but I think it was abolished in 2001,” Conde said.

Laws

IN 2014, lawmakers succeeded in revising the Anti-Carnapping Act of 1972 as they sounded off that carnapping in the country have become “rampant.”

As soon as a vehicle exits the showroom, full responsibility over it is with their owner. What happens to the car is between the owner and insurance company, as we have no involvement anymore. The insurance company is not entitled to tell us of such incidences; same goes for the owners who do not report to us once the unit is stolen.” —Ayllón Section 11 of the Revised Carnapping Act of 2014 requires shipment operators, whether interisland or land-based, to submit a report of all motor vehicles that has been transported within the past seven days. The Act’s Section 14 also increased the penalty for carnapping, making it a non-bailable offense if the suspect prompts violence or used intimidation. It also imposed imprisonment of 17 years and 4 months to those found guilty and 20 years if the assailant used violence in the commission of the crime. The revision may have worked as the rate of cases of motor vehicle theft, or carnapping, decreased by 6.13 percent by 2015, based on preliminary data provided by the PNP-HPG. And while motorcycles still remain to be the most stolen, with 2,479 cases reported in the last quarter of last year, the number is 16-percent lower than the 2,922 cases reported during the same period in 2014. Gunnacao and PNP-HPG Spokesman Elizabeth Velazquez, however, attributed the “dwindling” number of motor-vehicle theft cases to the Lambat Sibat police operation. It was a more intensive crackdown against carnapping groups with the help of territorial police, Gunnacao said.

New

HOWEVER, Gunnacao told the BUSINESSMIRROR the effectivity of the Lambat Sibat operation may have prompted criminals to try new methods of stealing motor vehicles.

Aside from the rent-a-car scheme, another brewing method of carnapping involves a criminal buying a vehicle using fictitious documents. The vehicle is then put in mortgage and sold to unsuspecting buyers. The buyers are left with additional expenses imposed by the financing institution involved in the transaction. Gunnacao said this could only be done with the help of employees of the car dealer or vehicle distributor. Another scheme involves the use of blank documents passed in a pyramidal structure. The vehicle is passed from one person to another leaving the buyer at the end of the chain not knowing whether the source of the vehicle is legitimate. Joseph A.C. Ayllón, Ford Philippines Inc. AVP for communications, explained companies do not usually track the units they have sold. As soon as a vehicle exits the showroom, full responsibility over it is with their owner, Ayllón told the BUSINESSMIRROR. Motor companies do not keep tabs on their units that have been reported stolen or carnapped. “What happens to the car is between the owner and insurance company, as we have no involvement anymore. The insurance company is not entitled to tell us of such incidences; same goes for the owners who do not report to us once the unit is stolen.” Ayllón added companies like Ford “have no way of finding out or determining how many of our vehicles are reported stolen.”

Solutions

GUNNACAO, newly appointed director of the PNP-HPG, believes “the best way to get rid of carnapping is to track down the big groups and to implement a special project to be able to pursue the cases” filed in court. He also sees ordinary citizens as essential to eradicating motor vehicle theft. They should report to the PNP-HPG hotline or through text messages if they spot anything suspicious so the police will have extra eyes on the road, as well as identify more firsthand witnesses. Gunnacao said. He also encourages carnapping victims to report to the police and file cases against the suspects. “Those who are filed with cases are the ones who fail to return the vehicles they borrowed, or those who borrowed cars and sold them to another party,” he said. “Those stolen while parked unattended or forcibly taken are unidentified, all the more reason why these should be reported to the police.” Gunnacao added: “In some cases, it is the owners of the stolen vehicles themselves who pursue their missing vehicles.” This result to unreported incidents, he explained. He also encourages the application of technology in car manufacturing. We have tracked and recovered several units with the help of the car’s global positioning system (GPS) technology, Gunnacao said. Conde confirmed that the device has been of help to a number of investigations. “I suggest that even taxis install GPS and that the taxi companies coordinate with telecommunication companies,” Conde said. “They should be aware of the routes and somebody should watch out for any changes 24/7. That way, local police will be contacted immediately and the perpetrators will be flagged down.” Conde, however, could not say what would happen to the 29 car owners who complained of being scammed by a Toyota Alabang employee. A person of interest remains at large and other complaints filed at local municipalities have yet to be consolidated. But Conde, pointing to the file folders on the case, says it would just be a matter of time before the case is solved.

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Tax scheme. . . C  A

changes. Our position is that we must be fiscally responsible and we must also have compensatory measures,” said DOF Fiscal Policy and Planning Office Director Elsa Agustin. Bracket creep, PIDS Senior Research Fellow Rosario G. Manasan said, has occurred because of the “non-indexation” to inflation of PIT brackets. This means that the coverage of each tax bracket does not take into consideration the current value of the peso. Manasan said this presents a problem because the current value of the Philippine peso, using the 2014 Consumer Price Index (CPI), is already less than half of its value in 1998. This means that an annual income of P210,000 a year in 2014 is only equivalent to P105,000 in 1998. Adjusting this to reflect purchasing power in 1998, Manasan said taxpayers earning P210,000 should only pay P15,500, or 14.8 percent, instead of P40,000, or 19 percent. “Because of bracket creep, individual income taxpayers have to pay at least twice as much taxes in 2014 even if their purchasing power has not changed,” Manasan said in a presentation. “Bracket creep is regressive—taxpayers in lower-income-tax brackets hurt more than their better-off counterparts,” she added. Former TMAP President Rina Manuel said whoever wins in the May presidential elections must implement changes to the PIT. This is what TMAP aimed to address in their proposed tax reform. The TMAP proposal includes a lump sum exemption of P300,000 for all taxpayers, regardless of income, gender and marital status. A 10-percent tax on income in excess of P300,000 but not more than P500,000 will be imposed. This will gradually increase to as much as 30 percent of the excess of P2.5 million. “We need to reform our personal-incometax law to achieve the objectives of fairness, simplicity, broad bases and low-tax rates in doing so, we will be able to encourage greater compliance among individual tax players and consequently improve tax collection for the government,” Manuel said. Manasan, however said, indexing tax brackets to inflation is not the only reform needed by the PIT. As early as now, she said presidential aspirants must find ways to make PIT more equitable. She said comprehensive reform in the tax system does not only mean changing tax rates and indexing income brackets to inflation but also improving tax administration as well. According to the senior research fellow of the PIDS, this will be “crucial” not only in terms of collecting tax from individual taxpayers but from companies as well. “It would be good for taxpayers to know where candidates stand in terms of fiscal policy and other policy issues,” Manasan said. There are currently six proposals to amend the income tax scheme from both houses of Congress as well as the private sector through the TMAP. These include Senate Bills 716 by Senator Ralph G. Recto; 1942 by Senator Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV; and 2149 by Senator Juan Edgardo M. Angara. While Manasan admitted that the government would lose revenues, she said there are “compensatory measures” that can be undertaken to make up for these losses. She recommended increasing the value-added tax (VAT) by 1-percentage point for every P25-billion of revenue loss incurred by the government from cutting income taxes. Manasan said augmenting government revenues is necessary because of the financing requirements needed to improve infrastructure and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Since VAT is a consumption tax, she said it could also cover non-wage income earners such as those classified as selfemployed who earn from the practice of a profession. Manasan estimated that the effective PIT rates on wage earners was sig nificant ly higher at 5.3 percent compared to the effective PIT rates on self-employed and professionals at 1.5 percent using 2014 data. Her data showed that the effective tax rate of the self-employed and professionals have been consistent at 1.5 percent since 2012 whereas the effective tax rate for wage earners has been increasing to 4.9 percent in 2012, 5 percent in 2013, and 5.3 percent in 2014 from 4.7 percent in 2011.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2016 A3

ACB tells investors: Now is time to pour money on heritage parks

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B J L. M

ANGKOK, Thailand—The Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is pitching calls for businesses to invest in Asean Heritage Parks (AHPs).

The call was made by ACB Executive Director Roberto V. Oliva during his brief talk on the topic Business and Biodiversity, which was one of the highlights of the ongoing Asean Conference on Biodiversity, at the Bangkok Convention Center on Tuesday. ACB acts as the secretariat of the AHP Programme and is embarking on the aggressive promotion of AHPs for ecotourism to help sustain the sustainable management and boost biodiversity protection and conservation efforts. According to Oliva, the AHPs, which represent the “best of the best” national parks, are potential investment haven for businesses being aggressively promoted by the 10 member-countries of the Asean for ecotourism. The Philippines has the most number of AHPs with eight parks having been included in the short list of AHPs in Southeast Asia. As of 2015, Brunei Darussalam has one;

Cambodia has two; Indonesia, three; Lao PDR, one; Malaysia, three; Myanmar, seven; Singapore, two; Thailand, four; and Vietnam, five. Oliva said investing in AHPs has a big potential and almost no limitation “except destroying or damaging the park’s rich biodiversity.” There are currently 37 existing AHPs. “As long as you don’t damage the parks, there is no limitation,” he said. There are countries with Public-Private Partnership Programs which businesses can explore to be able to invest in biodiversity. However, Oliva said investment opportunities in AHPs also depend on the existing management policies of parks, which, he added, are on a case-to-case and governmentto-government bases. AHPs, he also added, are frequented by tourists around the world and one potential business in AHPs is the establishment of

There should be a higher goal than money or profit. Businesses must have a higher vision.”—Oliva

THE Church of San Agustin in Paoay, Ilocos Norte, is one of the eight Asean Heritage Parks in the Philippines.

environment-friendly hotels or cottages to accommodate the growing number of visitors. Another potential investment involves the construction of tourist attractions such as zip line or management of safaris showcasing amazing wildlife, Oliva said. AHPs represent some of the finest nature reserves situated in the 10 Asean member-countries. During his talk, Oliva, a forester,

stressed that profit should not be the ultimate goal of businesses. He said that in the Philippines, there are no more logging companies because they made profit as their ultimate goal. Before, Oliva said, the Philippines is a major supplier of Philippine mahogany and logging companies which export timber products to Japan, Korea, and the US, and the country have indeed profited

a lot. However, he said, that after years of logging, the Philippines suffered the consequence of losing its forests. “We no longer have logging companies. We are now a net importer of wood because business school taught us to aim for profit. Now, we are recognizing that it should be different,” he said. “There should be a higher goal than money or profit. Businesses must have a higher vision,” Oliva added. Businesses, he said, can help protect and conserve Southeast Asia’s rich biodiversity by adopting good environment and biodiversity practices. “If there is too much greed, business will die. If you have a higher vision such as goods and services, then you are preparing for business sustainability,” Oliva said. He also urged conference participants to champion biodiversity and help trumpet good biodiversity practices, and make other businesses cochampions. “Business should take the lead in biodiversity conservation. Businesses will be sustainable. We should find a way for business to lean this way,” he said. Oliva is pitching the call for Asean business groups to come together to form a network for business and biodiversity, to benefit from the natural

resources the region’s rich biodiversity has to offer. Adachi Naoki, executive director of the Japan Business Initiative for Biodiversity (JBIB), said for his part that businesses has a lot to gain in investing in biodiversity conservation. Global partnership for business and biodiversity, he said, is growing, recognizing that investment in biodiversity makes good business sense. Naoki said there is an opportunity in reversing the trend of global biodiversity loss as a result of deforestation and massive destruction of marine habitats. Scientist and experts agree that more than 99 percent of biodiversity loss is caused by man, thus making business responsible for biodiversity loss, he said. “Business use resources as raw materials—timber, fish, papers and so on. Business use land resources, water air. Business also depend on the natural ecosystems and it will cost them more to produce clean water, or air,” he said. According to Naoki, business depends on natural resources provided by biodiversity, which serve as its protection against disasters. “Biodiversity is a capital which supports businesses. It is natural capital. There is now a growing interest in natural capital,” he said.

A4 Wednesday, February 17, 2016

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SC orders indictment of former DBP execs, Marcos cronies

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B J R. S J

HE Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the indictment of several Marcos cronies and former officers of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) in connection with the more than P2-billion behest loans obtained by a shipping company between 1979 and 1984.

In an 11-page decision written by Associate Justice Estela PerlasBernabe, the Court’s First Division reversed and set aside the resolution issued by former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez on May 30, 2007, which dismissed the graft complaint filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) against the said Marcos cronies and former DPB officials. The Court held that the Ombudsman committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in dismissing the criminal complaint against former officers and directors of DBP, namely, Don Ferry, Jose Tengco Jr., Rolando Zosa, Cesar Zalamea, Ofelia Castell and Rafael Sison, as well as former officers and stockholders of National Galleon Shipping Corp. (Galleon), namely, Rodolfo Cuenca, Manuel Tinio and Antonio Roque.

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Behest loans supposedly obtained by a shipping company between 1979 and 1984 The SC directed the Ombudsman to issue the proper resolution indicting the respondents for violating Section 3 (e) and (g) of Republic Act 3019, or the Antigraft and Corrupt Practices Act, for entering into a contract that is grossly disadvantageous to the government. In its resolution, the Ombudsman found no probable cause against the respondents and, accordingly, dismissed the criminal complaint against them.

It held that that the pieces of evidence attached to the case records were not sufficient to establish probable cause against the individual respondents, considering that the documents presented by the PCGG consisted mostly of executive summaries and technical reports, which are hearsay, self-serving and of little probative value. But, the SC pointed out that Roque, Zalamea, Tengco and Castell merely denied liability by maintaining that they had no participation in the grant of behest loans to Galleon, while Ferry, Zosa, Cuenca, Tinio and Sison failed to debunk the charges against them by not filing their respective counteraffidavits despite due notice. “Indubitably, the foregoing establishes probable cause to believe that individual respondents may have, indeed, committed acts constituting the crimes charged against them, and as such they must defend themselves in a full-blown trial on the merits,” the Court said. The SC said the Ombudsman made a mistake when it simply discredited the Technical Working Group’s (TWG) findings contained in the Executive Summary, which were adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee on Behest Loans for being hearsay, selfserving and of little probative value. The Court pointed out that owing to the initiatory nature of preliminary investigations, the technical rules of evidence should not be applied in the course of its proceedings. The case arose from a complaint-

affidavit dated July 15, 2003, filed by the PCGG through lawyer Rene B. Gorospe, the legal consultant in charge of reviewing behest-loan cases against the said individuals. In the complaint, the PCGG alleged that on October 8, 1992, thenPresident Fidel V. Ramos issued Administrative Order 138 creating the Presidential Ad Hoc Fact-Finding Committee on Behest Loans (Ad Hoc Committee) in order to identify various anomalous behest loans entered into by the past administrations. The Ad Hoc Committee, with the assistance of a TWG consisting of officers and employees of different government financial institutions (GFIs), examined and studied documents relative to loan accounts extended by GFIs to various corporations during the tenure of the late President Marcos, one of which is the loan account granted by DBP to Galleon. After examining the said loan account, the TWG found on September 19, 1979, the DBP, pursuant to a board resolution, approved guarantees in favor of Galleon in the aggregate amount of $90,280,000 for the purpose of securing foreigncurrency borrowings from financial institutions related to Galleon’s acquisition of five brand-new and two secondhand ships. As a condition for the grant of the guarantees, Board Resolution 3002 required Galleon to raise its paid-up capital to P98.963 million by 1981, but Galleon was only able to raise its capital to P46,740.755.

Despite Galleon’s failure to comply with such condition, DBP still granted the guarantees. As of June 30, 1981, Galleon’s arrearages had already amounted to P40,684,059.37, while the aggregate DBP obligations of Galleon already totaled P691,058,027.92. Despite the outstanding debts, DBP still issued Board Resolutions 4008 and 3001, approving further accommodations in Galleon’s favor in the form of one-year foreigncurrency loans to refinance the latter’s arrearages, which amounted to P58,101,718.89 as of September 30, 1982. Although Galleon’s arrearages have reached P128,182,654.38 and its obligations ballooned to P904,277,536.96, DBP still approved the release of Galleon’s two secondhand vessels as collaterals resulting in collateral deficiency. Thus, as of March 31, 1984, Galleon’s total obligations to DBP amounted to P2,039,284,390.85, while the value of its collaterals was only P539,000,000. Based on these findings, the Ad Hoc Committee concluded that loans obtained by Galleon from DBP possessed characteristics of behest loans, considering that Galleon was undercapitalized; the loan itself was undercollateralized; the major stockholders of Galleon were known to be cronies of President Marcos; and certain documents pertaining to the loan account were found to bear “marginal notes” of President Marcos himself.

China new credit surges to record on seasonal lending binge—report

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HINA’S broadest measure of new credit surged to a record as a seasonal lending binge coincided with a recovery in property prices, and as companies paid back foreign-currency loans amid yuan weakness. Aggregate financing rose to 3.42 trillion yuan ($525 billion) in January, according to a report from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) on Tuesday, compared with the median forecast of 2.2 trillion yuan in a Bloomberg survey. New yuan loans jumped to 2.51 trillion yuan, also a record and beating the median estimate of 1.9 trillion yuan. The strong figures were helped by banks front-loading their 2016 lending targets, companies switching foreign-currency loans into yuan ones, and strong corporate bond issuance. To be decided is whether the acceleration in lending will translate into a sustained pick up in economic growth. “Chinese banks expanded their balance sheet aggressively in the first month of this year, which implies an implicit support from the government to counter the economic slowdown,” said Zhou Hao, senior economist at Commerzbank AG in Singapore. “In add ition, Chinese cor porates should have turned to onshore for funding, while offloading some external borrowing.” Corporations issued 454.7 billion yuan of notes in January, 2.5 times the amount sold a year earlier, as the yield on top- rated 10year corporate notes dropped to a decade low in January. M2 money supply growth was 14 percent from a year earlier, compared to the median estimate for 13.5 percent. “The stronger-than-expected credit growth reduces the probability of monetary easing in February,” said Nomura Holdings Inc. chief China economist Zhao Yang in Hong Kong. The Shanghai Composite Index extended gains, rising 2.8 percent to 2,823.20 at 11:16 a.m. local time.

Front-loading

WHILE the jump in new loans is mostly attributable to banks front-loading their full-year lending targets and the central bank’s efforts to keep liquidity ample ahead of the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, it also shows increasing financial support to the real economy, according to Chen Ji, a Bank of Communications Co. analyst in Shanghai. “We can’t call it a recovery yet,” he said, adding that he won’t raise his forecast of new loans for this year because of last month’s data. “We can only say we’re seeing some hope. We’re still in the early stages of deleveraging, cutting overcapacity and structural readjustments. The pressure going forward remains fairly large.” The central bank has turned to cash injections this year instead of cutting benchmark interest rates, as additional reductions could further exacerbate capital outflows. Net injections since mid-January have been the equivalent to about the same as a 1-percentage-point cut to banks’ required reserve ratios—the traditional way to boost liquidity. The difference is that injections are temporary and can be scaled back if policy-makers don’t roll over lending facilities, whereas a RRR cut is more permanent. The PBOC also stepped up support for the property market this month, saying on February 2 it would allow banks to cut the minimum required mortgage down payment to 20 percent for firsthome purchases, the lowest level ever, from 25 percent. Reviving investment in real estate is crucial for the government, which has pursued monetary easing with six interest-rate cuts since late 2014. “This acceleration in credit growth over the past year or so does add to long-term risks,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, a China economist at Capital Economics Ltd. “In the short run, it’s a positive for the economy over the next 12 months or so.” Bloomberg News

Airline accidents in 2015 lower than 5-year rate

6%

Fatal airline accidents in 2015 B R M

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N terms of global jet-accident rate, 2015 turns out to be better than the previous five years (2010-2014), but not as good as 2014, according to the International Air Transport Association (Iata). The Center for Asia Pacific Aviation (Capa) quoted the Iata findings, released on February 15. The data indicated last year’s safety performance of the commercial airline industry—in hull losses per million flights off 0.32, or one major accident per 3.1 million flights. A hull loss is an aviation accident that damages the aircraft beyond economical repair, resulting in a write off. The term also applies to missing aircraft, the search for its wreckage is terminated or when the wreckage is completely inaccessible. Excluded from the 2015 accident statistics are the loss of Germanwings Flight 9525 (pilot suicide), and Metrojet Flight 9268 (suspected terrorism), that resulted in the deaths of 374 passengers and crew. These are excluded as they are classified as deliberate acts of unlawful interference, Iata said. “This is a 30-percent improvement compared to the previous fiveyear rate [2010-2014] of 0.46 hull loss accidents per million jet flights, but not as good as the rate of 0.27 achieved in 2014,” Iata said. There were four fatal accidents in 2015, with 136 passenger fatalities worldwide. A ll accidents involved turboprop aircraft, Iata said. This compares with an average of 17.6 fatal accidents and 504 fatalities per year in the previous five-year period (2010-2014). “[There was] no fatal accident hull losses in 2015, [but] accidents were down 30 percent compared to fiveyear average,” Iata said. Iata said the statistics involved 3.5 billion passengers on 37.6 million flights in 2015 (31.4 million by jet, 6.2 million by turboprop). It added that 6 percent of all the accidents were fatal, below the fiveyear average of 19.6 percent. There were 10 hull-loss accidents involving jets compared to eight in 2014 and the five-year average of 13 per year. There were no jet hull-loss accidents involving passenger fatalities, down from three in 2014, and the five-year average of 6.4 per year. The 68 accidents recorded in 2015 (all aircraft types) were down from 77 in 2014 and the five-year average of 90 per year. Except for North America, all regions saw their safety performance improve in 2015 compared to the five-year rate. Iata noted safety improvements in Sub-Saharan airlines which recorded four hull-loss accidents in 2015—two involving jets and two involving turboprops. One of the turboprop accidents resulted in passenger fatalities. “African safety is moving in the right direction. In 2015 we saw improvements compared to the fiveyear accident rate for both jet and turboprop hull losses. Nevertheless, challenges to bringing Africa in line with global performance remain,” Iata said. Also, the world turboprop hullloss rate improved to 1.29 losses per million flights in 2015 compared to 3.95 in 2010 to 2014.

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AseanWednesday BusinessMirror

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Wednesday, February 17, 2016 A5

Obama, Asean leaders in landmark talks

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RESIDENT Barack Obama opened a meeting of leaders from a 10-nation bloc of Southeast Asian nations on Monday, calling the landmark gathering on US soil a reflection of his personal commitment to an enduring partnership with the diverse group of countries.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama greets President Aquino (right) at a meeting of Asean at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California, on Monday. Obama and the leaders of the Southeast Asian nations are gathering for two days of talks on economic and security issues and on forging deeper ties amid China’s assertive presence in the region. AP

Obama and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will spend two days discussing economic and regional security issues. In brief remarks as the leaders sat around a horseshoe-shaped table, Obama said he became familiar with Southeast Asia as a boy living in Indonesia with his mother. Since becoming president, Obama has made numerous trips to Asia-Pacific countries as part of his policy “pivot” toward the region, with the goal of reassuring allies unnerved by China’s assertive presence there while also reaping economic gains for the US. “You and the people of Asean have always shown me extraordinary hospitality and I hope we can reciprocate with the warmth today and tomorrow, which is why I did not hold this summit in Washington,” Obama said. “It is cold there. It’s snowing, so welcome to beautiful, warm Sunnylands,” he said. Sunnylands is the storied California desert estate where the leaders will conduct their talks at a conference center with picturesque views of the snow-capped San Jacinto Mountains. Underscoring the relaxed atmosphere, all leaders wore open-collar shirts with their suits. It’s the first time the leaders of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Cambodia have held a stand-alone meeting in the US. China is not an Asean member, but its territorial claims over disputed waters have raised international concerns and heightened tensions with some member-countries. Obama said trade between the US and Asean had increased 55 percent since he took office. The region is now the US’s fourth-largest goods trade partner. US companies are also the largest source of foreign investment in its member nations, he said. Obama said he wants to build on that progress “so that growth and development is sustainable and inclusive and benefits all people.” Monday’s talks will focus on the economy. After a working dinner, the conversation on Tuesday, the summit’s final day, shifts to regional security issues, including the South China Sea and counterterrorism. China says it has a historical right to virtually all of the South China Sea and has built seven artificial islands, including with airstrips, to assert its sovereignty. Taiwan and Asean members Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines also claim land features in these potentially resource-rich waters, which are an important conduit for world trade. Though not a claimant, the US has spoken out against China’s conduct and has angered Beijing by sailing Navy ships near some of the artificial islands. The US has argued for the maritime-rights issue to be resolved peacefully and is looking for Asean to take a unified stance by calling for the disputes to be resolved based on international law. Asean has avoided criticizing China by name in joint statements

55%

Rise in US-Asean trade since President Barack Obama took office

issued at past summits. The Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement among the US, Asean members Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, and seven other nations, will likely be discussed. The pact is Obama’s signature trade achievement, one he has sought to sell to skeptical lawmakers as a chance for the US to shape the region’s trade rules, not China. Congress, however, must ratify the deal and that outcome remains in doubt. Terrorism inspired by the Islamic State (IS) group is of increasing concern in the region. Eight people were killed during assaults last month in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, the first major attack there in six years. The Police said the attackers were linked to IS. Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, have all reported citizens traveling to fight in Iraq and Syria, and several small militant groups in the Philippines have pledged allegiance to IS. Obama also plans to raise issues of good governance and adherence to the rule of law. Human-rights advocates have faulted the US for inviting unelected leaders, like Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seized power in a May 2014 coup. Cambodia’s Hun Sen, who has used violence and intimidation against political opponents, made his first official US visit during his 31-year tenure as prime minister. Meanwhile, China’s South China Sea island-building has expanded into the Paracel Islands, according to satellite photos published. Images posted on The Diplomat web site show dredging and filling at two new sites in the Chinese-held island chain about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from a Chinese military base on Woody Island. The photos show a helicopter base under construction, according to the article by Victor Robert Lee, an analyst who tracks and analyzes China’s landreclamation efforts using satellite imagery. The Paracels, which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, sit northwest of the Spratlys chain, where China’s islandbuilding program has prompted protests from the US and countries with overlapping claims. The new evidence of reclamation came as Obama told Asean leaders that the US would seek to build a unified approach to ensure maritime security. China claims more than 80 percent of the South China Sea and has over the past two years built 3,000 acres of land in the Spratlys

including a runway and other facilities that could be used for military purposes. The claims clash with those of four Asean members, including Vietnam and the Philippines, over a body of water that hosts $5 trillion a year in global trade.

Dredging sites

U.S. officials have repeatedly requested China and others to stop reclaiming land and halt the militarization of the area. China’s Foreign

Minister Wang Yi told Asean foreign ministers last August that China had completed its land reclamation and was now focusing on building civilian-support facilities there that it would share with other nations. The latest dredging began sometime after December 2, and was creating terrain on a reef adjacent to North Island, which has been occupied by China since 1950, according to Lee’s article. At China-occupied Tree Island—5.5 kilometers northwest of North

Island—a dredger can be seen expanding a port area and piping sediment onto a new area of fill. Satellite images show the work at Tree Island started after October 18. Last month the US sent the USS Curtis Wilbur into disputed waters near the Paracels to contest the excessive maritime claims of China, Taiwan and Vietnam. It was the second time in less than six months a US naval ship has challenged China with a freedom-ofnavigation voyage. AP, Bloomberg News

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Trump threatens to sue Cruz unless he apologizes

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POPE Francis (right) wears a crown of flowers, gifted to him by indigenous Mexicans, as he arrives at the airport in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, on Monday. Francis celebrated Mexico’s Indians on Monday with a visit to Chiapas state, a center of indigenous culture. AP/GREGORIO BORGIA

Pope denounces exclusion of Mexico’s native peoples

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AN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico—In a Mass sprinkled with indigenous languages and customs, Pope Francis on Monday gave recognition to the “misunderstood” and “excluded” native peoples long repressed by Mexican power. Traveling to the heart of indigenous Mexico, the pope presided over a sun-drenched religious ceremony in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas state—Mexico’s poorest, on its southern border with Guatemala. “On many occasions, in a systematic and organized way, your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society,” the pope said. While the powers of the moment dismissed indigenous values as inferior, he said, they also stole or contaminated the lands belonging to the indigenous. “How sad this is,” the pope said. “Exposed to a culture that seeks to suppress all cultural heritage and features in pursuit of a homogenized world, the youth of today need to cling to the wisdom of their elders.” Prayers and scriptural readings were given in Tzotzil and Tzeltal and other indigenous languages. The pope spoke a few words in

25 yrs the period the Bible was translated into Tzotzil and Tzeltal languages Tzotzil: “The law of the lord is perfect, and His word revives the soul.” Chiapas state, whose land was once a stronghold of the Mayan civilization, has one of the country’s largest indigenous populations and is home to many ancient Mayan ruins, including Palenque and Bonampak. Inside the sports stadium in San Cristobal, thousands of indigenous people in local dress watched as the pope presided over the solemn Mass. At the end of the Mass, local priests gave the pope a pair of

Bibles translated into Tzotzil and Tzeltal. The Bibles took 25 years to translate, according to church authorities. The Mass also included readings in Chol, another Mayan language. The Mass was a major spectacle, featuring indigenous and other musical groups from throughout Mexico, as well as regional dances. The bishop of Chiapas, Felipe Arizmendi, joined in the dancing. The pope wore a cassock with embroidery from the town of Zinacantan, where artisans are known for their sewing skills. Ind igenous people from Zinacantan, recognizable because of their elaborately designed blouses and ponchos, with extensive f loral designs, were prominent among those attending the Mass. Indigenous work was also incorporated into the pope’s miter, or headdress, and his staff, church authorities said. During the Mass, hundreds of musicians gathered in a patch of artificial grass to the left of the main stage, stepping up to play as their turns arrived. Many donned indigenous dress and were from local bandas, or bands. One choral group came from the town of San Juan Larráinzar, which was a Zapatista revolutionary stronghold two decades ago. It was also the site of talks between government officials and Zapatista representatives that resulted in the so-called San A ndres accords of 1996,

which promised greater rights for Mexico’s indigenous population. Critics say successive Mexican governments have done little to improve the status of its indigenous people, long plagued by poverty and social marginalization. Indigenous residents interviewed here in recent days say improvements have been negligible in the past two decades. “In truth, things haven’t gotten better for us since 1996,” said Manuel Perez Teratol, 49, who was part of the San Andres Larráinzar choral group at the event. “The accords were basically useless.” All of the choral members were dressed in traditional wool ponchos, sandals and straw hats with multicolored ribbons. Another choral member, Jose Diaz Ruiz, 27, who was a child when the Zapatista rebellion broke out, said many from San Andres Larráinzar contemplate leaving the close-knit community because of the lack of job opportunities. “Sometimes people think of going somewhere else, even to the United States, because there is no hope,” Diaz Ruiz said. “But all of our families and traditions are here. And we are afraid of losing this.” Also among the players at the Mass was an almost 100-member ensemble from the state of Oaxaca, most dressed in indigenous-style white outfits and ponchos. The group goes by an elaborate title: the Municipal Musical Band of Santa Maria Tepantlali Mixe, Oaxaca. TNS

Sanders, Clinton court diverse Nevada voters R ENO, Nevada—A Bernie Sanders ad flashed across the TV at A Downtown Barber Shop over the weekend, and Carleton Pennington met the message with a shrug. Hillary Clinton has been organizing in Nevada for so many years that Pennington—who was administering a bald fade—became accustomed to her supporters knocking on his door and calling him at home. “For so long, we had one candidate,” the barber said. Sanders made little noise. But in the days since Sanders thumped Clinton in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, his supporters started calling, too. Sanders has opened more field offices in Nevada than Clinton and is spending

heavily on TV. Now Sanders comes up in conversation at Pennington’s shop, and a Sanders sign hangs in the window of the vintage boutique next door. As Sanders and Clinton shift their efforts to Nevada ahead of the Democratic Party’s caucuses on Saturday, a state that once appeared safe for Clinton has been thrown into question. Following the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire, the nominating contest here will test the candidates’ appeal among a diverse electorate more reflective of the country as a whole. The race is especially significant for Clinton, whose popularity with nonwhite Democrats has been viewed as a “firewall” capable of stopping early

Sanders momentum short. “Clinton’s on the defensive,” said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. “She has put a lot of time in Nevada. She’s far better organized than Sanders in Nevada, and her claim is, ‘I do speak to a broader demographic.’ So if she doesn’t do well in Nevada, then she’s really got a problem.” Clinton opened her first campaign field office in Nevada in April 2015 and hired as her national campaign manager Robby Mook, who ran her Nevada operation in 2008. In an effort to court Latino voters, her campaign has been running Spanish-language TV ads and phoning voters in Spanish. Clinton has said she would do more than President Barack

Obama to stop the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally. “Hillary has been working, building relationships with all kinds of constituencies since the 1970s,” said Antonio Gonzalez, president of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. “I remember Hillary coming to San Antonio in the 1980s to our offices and walking around doing voter registration with our guys in the barrios of San Antonio, right? So, she’s done that.” Meanwhile, Gonzalez said, “Bernie has been sort of a Northeast left activist and then elected official forever. So he’s been working his turf, and his turf is mostly white. So he starts off at a great disadvantage in minority communities.” TNS

ANAHAN, South Carolina—Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday offered rival Ted Cruz an ultimatum, threatening to sue Cruz over his eligibility to serve in the White House unless the Texas senator stops airing what Trump calls “false ads” and apologizes for what the billionaire realestate mogul called a series of lies about his positions. With less than a week to go before South Carolina’s pivotal Republican primary, the frontrunner also reiterated that the 9/11 attacks happened during President George W. Bush’s time in office—an apparent attempt to overshadow the former president’s Monday campaign appearances on behalf of his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. The new attacks came as the race entered an increasingly nasty phase, with numerous negative ads airing on local television following an unusually caustic debate this past weekend. Some of the harshest ads have been aimed at Trump, often using the political newcomer’s past words to illustrate his evolving position on issues including abortion and gun rights. Trump also took aim on Monday at the Republican establishment, accusing the Republican National Committee (RNC) of packing its debate audiences with donors—a move he claimed violated the loyalty pledge he signed last September vowing to run as a Republican and support the party’s eventual nominee. “I signed a pledge, but it’s a double-edged pledge,” Trump said at a luncheon in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. “The pledge isn’t being honored by the RNC.” RNC Spokesman Sean Spicer responded to the criticism by saying: “Ten tickets from the RNC went to donors—10.” But Trump saved the bulk of his criticism for Cruz. “If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies,” Trump said in a statement bashing Cruz, he will immediately file a lawsuit challenging Cruz’s eligibility to serve as president. Trump has previously said a federal court should decide whether Cruz meets the constitutional requirement of being a “natural-born citizen” to serve as president. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother, and many legal experts have said he meets

that test. “Ted Cruz is a totally unstable individual. He is the single biggest liar I’ve ever come across, in politics or otherwise, and I have seen some of the best of them. His statements are totally untrue and completely outrageous,” Trump said in the statement. At events in the Charleston area and at a rally in Greenville, Trump piled on, slamming Cruz as “the most dishonest guy I think I’ve ever met in politics, ‘nuts’ and a ‘basket case.’” He also questioned Cruz’s faith. “He goes around saying he’s a Christian. I don’t know, you’re going to have to really study that,” Trump said at a freewheeling news conference. Cruz responded to Trump during a question and answer in Camden, characterizing Trump as nervous about his standing in the state. “Today Donald Trump held a press conference. He apparently lost it. I mean, he was just going on and on about how I was the most horrible person in the world because I keep repeating the things he said,” Cruz said to laughs. “And it’s an amazing thing. Have you noticed how rattled Donald gets when his numbers start going down? He gets very, very upset. “But I guess the only explanation one can have is his internal poll numbers in South Carolina must be plummeting following the debate,” Cruz said. E a rl ie r, du r i ng a n a f te r noon news conference, Trump also renewed his criticism of former President George W. Bush. While Trump would not say whether he considered Bush to be a failed president and declined to label him responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the former reality TV star repeatedly noted that “the Word Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush.” Trump said his decision to go after George W. Bush—who made his campaign debut on his brother’s behalf on Monday in South Carolina—was akin to his attacks on former President Bill Clinton, which began once the former president ramped up his campaigning for his wife, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “If the ex-president is campaigning for his brother, I think he’s probably open to great scrutiny, maybe things that haven’t been thought of in the past,” Trump told reporters. AP

SC opening a dilemma for swing-state Republicans

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ASHINGTON—The sudden death of Antonin Scalia and ensuing fight over the process to replace him on the Supreme Court has created a vexing election-year problem for Senate Republicans, who—a mere nine months before November—are now caught between the competing demands of their conservative allies and moderate voters who could make-or-break the party’s already imperiled majority. In what might amount to their most high-profile decision of their campaigns, vulnerable Republican incumbents can side either with ideological allies who believe viscerally important issues, like abortion rights, immigration reform and government overreach, are at stake—or with moderates who are more broadly interested in lawmakers who lessen government dysfunction and help get things done. The pressure is especially intense for a quintet of swing-state Republican incumbents who have a direct say on if and how the Senate considers President Barack Obama’s appointee: Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio. Indeed, for a collection of senators whose biggest headache to date has been one outside their control—Donald Trump’s improbable success in the Grand Old Party (GOP) presidential primary—the

question of how to handle Supreme Court confirmation is at least within their power, but it could be no less challenging. Confident that they were seizing a unique political opportunity, Democrats were already pressuring Republican incumbents on Sunday to break from their conference chief, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said on Saturday that the Senate shouldn’t confirm a new Supreme Court justice before the next president takes office. The Democrats’ message: Either defy your party’s leadership or face the consequences on election day. “The Constitution is clear: the president is empowered to nominate Supreme Court justices,” said Lauren Passalacqua, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “This vacanc y may not be convenient for a Republican majority that has already abandoned any intention of governing this election year, but they have a responsibility to our nation. If Mitch McConnell and the GOP caucus follow through on their alarming plan to obstruc t this constitutional process, then voters will ensure they will not keep the majority for long.” The electoral fates of Portman, Toomey, Ayotte, Johnson and Kirk—along with open-seat races in Florida and Nevada and the reelection campaign of Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet—will determine which party controls the Senate majority in 2017. AP

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S. Korea’s leader warns of N. Korea collapse

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EOUL, South Korea—South Korea’s president warned on Tuesday that rival North Korea faces collapse if it doesn’t abandon its nuclear-bomb program, an unusually strong broadside that will likely infuriate Pyongyang. President Park Geun-hye, in a nationally televised parliamentary address defending her decision to shut down a jointly run factory park in North Korea, said South Korea will take unspecified “stronger and more effective” measures to make North Korea realize its nuclear ambitions will result only in speeding up of its “regime collapse.” Park shut the park in response to the North’s recent long-range

rocket test, which Seoul and Washington see as a test of banned ballistic-missile technology. North Korea last month also conducted a nuclear test. Both developments put the country further along its quest for a nuclear armed missile that could reach the United States mainland. Without elaborating, Park said the North has diverted Seoul payments to North Korean workers at the factory park to the Pyongyang

SOUTH Korean army soldiers pass by a TV screen showing the live broadcast of South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s speech at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday. Park warns of North Korean collapse if it doesn’t abandon its nuclear program. AP/AHN YOUNG-JOON

leadership, which is in charge of nuclear and missile development. She also said the South has sent more than $3 billion in government and civilian aid to the North since mid-1990s. South Korea’s main liberal opposition party

has criticized the government’s decision to suspend operations at Kaesong, saying the measure will only deepen tension with North Korea and raise more fear among South Koreans. Liberal lawmakers also said the Kaesong

shutdown isn’t effective because North Korea maintains economic ties with China and Russia. It is unusual for a top South Korean official to touch upon such a government collapse in North Korea because of worries about how sensitive North Korea is to talk of its authoritarian government losing power. Pyongyang has long accused Washington and Seoul of agitating for its collapse. Park’s comments are certain to anger North Korea, as they were made as the country marks the birthday of late dictator Kim Jong Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong Un. Seoul officials said North Korea was able to divert the Kaesong payments because the workers there were not paid directly. Instead, US dollars were paid to the North Korean government, which siphoned off most of the money and paid only what it wanted to the employees in North Korean currency and store

vouchers, according to a statement from Seoul’s Unification Ministry on Sunday. The ministry did not detail how it arrived at that conclusion. North Korea has previously dismissed such views. Earlier this month North Korea ignored repeated international warnings and launched what it said was an Earth observation satellite aboard a rocket. Washington, Seoul and others view the launch as a prohibited test of missile technology and are pushing hard to have Pyongyang slapped with strong sanctions. The launch, which followed the North’s fourth nuclear test last month, aggravated alreadystrained ties between the rival Koreas. Last week Pyongyang expelled all South Korean workers from the jointly run factory park in the North and put the area in charge of the military in retaliation for Seoul’s decision to suspend operations there. AP

Putin’s deal with Opec overshadowed by risks

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EITHER a recession nor a collapse in revenue has yet been enough to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that it’s time to join with Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in cutting oil output to boost prices. His reasons may be pragmatic rather than political. As Russia’s oil minister meets his Saudi Arabian counterpart in Doha on Tuesday, the world’s second-largest crude producer faces numerous obstacles in cooperating on such a deal, even if Putin decides it’s in the national interest. Reducing the f low of crude might damage Russia’s fields and pipelines, require expensive new storage tanks or simply take too long. So far Russia’s top oil official has offered mixed signals. Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said he could consider reductions if other producers joined in. Igor Sechin, CEO of the country’s largest oil company Rosneft OJSC and a close Putin ally, said last week in London that coordination would be difficult because no major producer seems willing to pare output. “The history of relations with Opec suggests that Russian companies are not keen to cut production,” James Henderson, an oil and gas industry analyst at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said by phone. “There are certain practical difficulties, and the companies would rather somebody else did that, and they could benefit once the price goes up.” Oil surged the most in seven years on February 12, after United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said producers are ready to work together and won’t make cuts unless there’s complete cooperation, according to a Sky News Arabia report. Brent crude, the international benchmark, remains about 70-percent below its 2014 peak, trading for $34.62 a barrel at 11:45 a.m. Singapore time on Tuesday. Russia’s economy contracted by 3.7 percent in 2015 and may shrink by 0.8 percent this year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Frozen pipelines

IN Siberia, Russia’s main oil province, winter temperatures can go below minus 40 degree Celsius (-40 degree Fahrenheit). That’s a challenge for anyone thinking of turning off the taps. The oil and gas that flow from wells always contain water, so once pumping stops, pipes may freeze, Mikhail Pshenitsyn, who has worked for more than 10 years in the Russian oil industry, said by e-mail. The problem goes away in summer,

but there’s still the risk of a longterm reduction in output because a halted reservoir can become polluted with salts and residues, he said. Production from a shutin well might never be restored in full, Maxim Nechaev, director for Russia at consulting firm IHS Inc., said by phone. Russia could reduce exports to global markets without cutting production simply by putting more crude into long-term storage. Trouble is, the country has too few facilities. The bulk of onshore storage capacity in Russia is owned by pipeline company AK Transneft OAO and already in full use to ensure steady flows to refineries and ports, Vladimir Feigin, head of the Moscow-based Institute for Energy and Finance, said by phone.

More storage

BUILDING the massive new reservoirs required to store a significant proportion of production for an extended period would cost billions of dollars and couldn’t be done quickly, he said. While crude can be stored in vessels moored just offshore, Russia has “only seven tankers—four products and three crude—in floating storage,” Antonia Mitsana, marketing manager at London-based Drewry Maritime Advisors, said by e-mail. Their total capacity is just over 643,000 metric tons, according to Drewry, or about 0.1 percent of the nation’s production last year. Chartering foreign vessels to store significantly more oil would be expensive. Freight rates are up in the short-term tanker market and ships in limited supply, Mitsana said.

Raising taxes

RUSSIA’S government is seeking ways to increase revenues from the energy industry, which generates more than 40 percent of the national budget. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov suggested cutting the price threshold for oil exempt from production taxes to $7.50 a barrel from $15, according to a report from RIA Novosti, a domestic news agency. Russian ran a budget deficit of 2.6 percent in 2015, its highest in five years. The measure could raise revenue by as much as 1.08 trillion rubles ($13 billion), if implemented at an average oil price of $30, according to estimates by Alexander Kornilov, an oil and gas analyst at Aton investment bank. That would help fill government coffers and could encourage companies to limit output at older wells with higher operating costs. Yet, changing the tax regime is a slower process than the “emergency” response Venezuela is seeking. Bloomberg News

A FARMER drives his tractor in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, in 2011. The Obama administration has approved the first United States factory in Cuba in more than half a century, allowing a pair of former software engineers to build a plant assembling as many as 1,000 small tractors a year. The partners were notified by Treasury Department officials in February. AP/JAVIER GALEANO

First US firm gets OK to set up shop in Cuba

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ALEIGH, North Carolina— A company co-owned by a Raleigh, North Carolina, man has gotten the go-ahead from the federal government to build a small farming tractor in Cuba, paving the way for it to become the first American manufacturer to set up shop in the country since the revolution and the subsequent United States trade embargo more than 50 years ago. Cleber Llc. plans to build an assembly plant in the Mariel Special Economic Development Zone, an industrial area for foreign companies, adjacent to a massive new port west of Havana. There, workers will put together parts made in Alabama for a tractor the company calls the Oggun, after the spirit of metal work in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria. The Oggun is an updated version of the Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor that was introduced in the US in 1948 and discontinued

70k

non-governmental farming cooperatives in Cuba

seven years later. The company thinks the small, rear-engine tractor will be coveted by Cuba’s 70,000 non-governmental farming cooperatives and small independent farmers, who now rely on animals and aging Soviet tractors to plow their fields. Cleber Llc. was founded by two former IBMers—Saul Berenthal of Raleigh and Horace Clemmons of Alabama, where the company is based. Berenthal is a native of Cuba who fled the country as a teenager

and has lived in North Carolina since the 1970s. He and Clemmons have known each other for about 45 years and have established, built and sold three companies in succession that made software for the retail industry. They chose to build a tractor for the Cuba market because they think it will sell and, also, because the business model will show the way for other American companies interested in Cuba. “Cleber chose tractors as the starting point for manufacturing because more than 70 percent of Cuba’s land has been returned to the private sector to be worked for the direct benefit of farmers,” Berenthal said in a statement on Monday. “Family farmers and cooperative farms are critically important to Cuba’s economy and provide a strong demand for affordable equipment to increase their productivity.” Cleber’s move into Cuba was

made possible by the thaw in USCuban relations being carried out by the Obama administration and Cuban leader Raul Castro. The venture would not have been legal without exceptions to the embargo made by the Obama administration, including one allowing the sale of American products to private entities in the agriculture business in Cuba. “It was a whole bunch of little things here and there that made our proposal valid,” Berenthal said in an interview on Monday. The US Department of the Treasur y, which enforces the embargo, gave the final go-ahead earlier this month. Cleber hopes to begin selling tractors by sometime in the first quarter of 2017, Berenthal said. It hopes to price them somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000, he said, but “until we know exactly what the labor costs are going to be, we won’t know for sure.” TNS

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Turk shelling of Kurds in Syria muddles IS fight

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Zimbabwe impounds US plane; body and cash found onboard

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ARARE, Zimbabwe—Zimbabwean aviation authorities impounded a United States-registered cargo jet, a senior official said on Monday, after a dead body later believed to be a stowaway and millions of South African rand were found on board. The Herald, a state-run newspaper, reported that the MD-11 trijet was traveling from Germany to South Africa “with millions of rands.” At today’s exchange rate, 1 million rand is worth $62,500. Authorities here learned the money belonged to the South Africa Reserve Bank, the country’s central bank. Police planned to issue a statement later on Monday. The plane had landed in Harare for refueling, said Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe General Manager David Chawota. He said the jet, registered with Western Global Airlines, was impounded at Harare airport on Sunday. A web site says Western Global Airlines is based in Estero, Florida. The airline on Monday said the cargo belonged to the South African Reserve Bank and the dead body belonged presumably to a stowaway. Zimbabwe police said it was still investigating the matter. The crew did not know there was someone else on the plane, according to a police officer, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

It appears from photos on social media that the dead person had sneaked into the plane’s landing gear, which severed his arm when it contracted, causing blood to splatter onto the fuselage and arousing the suspicion of the ground crew when the flight landed here. In a response to Associated Press (AP) queries, Western Global Airlines said it didn’t have the identity of the dead person, believed to be a stowaway. “The aircraft is leased to Network Airline Management, a longtime customer based in the United Kingdom, and the shipment consignee was the South African Reserve Bank. This particular flight was from Germany to South Africa, we are told for the South African government. During a routine fuel stop in Zimbabwe, a body was found in the lower compartment. The body is presumed to be a stowaway who may have entered the airplane during a previous stop. The situation is currently under review,” the airline said in an e-mail response to AP. South Africa’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, Vusi Mavimbela, confirmed that the cargo belonged to the South African Reserve Bank but refused to divulge further details, saying he was still liaising with the Zimbabwe government to resolve the matter. He refused to divulge the nature of the cargo or the amount of money that was in the plane. AP

4 US reporters nabbed in Bahrain

A TURKISH man helps a Syrian woman carrying a wounded Syrian girl to a hospital in Kilis, Turkey, on Monday. An air strike in the northern Syrian province of Idlib destroyed a makeshift clinic supported by an international aid group on Monday, killing and wounding several people, activists and the group said. Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that the hospital was hit with four times in two series of at least two attacks. AP/HALIT ONUR SANDAL

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NKARA, Turkey—Turkish artillery units shelled Syrian Kurdish forces suspected of trying to seize more territory along the border with Turkey, in a new eruption of violence complicating efforts to defeat the Islamic State (IS). The United States urged both allies to halt their fire. Turkey returned fire over the weekend at four positions of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD), in northwest Syria, Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz told a parliamentary committee early on Monday, including the Mannagh air base the Kurds captured last week. The US Defense Department said on Sunday that the violence threatens its efforts to quell IS, and efforts were being made to ease tensions. US Vice President Joe Biden called Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday to reassure Turkey that US efforts were

being made “to discourage Syrian Kurdish forces from exploiting current circumstances to seize additional territory near the Turkish border,” his office said in a statement. Biden urged Turkey “to show reciprocal restraint by ceasing artillery strikes in the area,” the statement said. The US-backed PYD is allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party, which has been warring with Turkish troops for decades in the country’s Kurdish-dominated southeast and is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and European Union. Ankara also classifies PYD as a terrorist organization, putting it at odds with West-

ern allies over how to deal with Sunni militants fighting in Syria, including the IS. Turkey is worried that the growing strength of PYD will lead to the creation of an independent Kurdish state on its border, fueling the aspirations of its own Kurdish minority to self-rule in the southeast. It has deployed hundreds of tanks and guns on the Syrian border amid concerns the Syrian Kurdish forces may seek to capture territory that would allow it to link the region it controls at Syria’s northwestern edge with Kurdish territory east of the Euphrates River. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Davutoglu repeatedly urged the US over the past week to reconsider its “wrong” stance on the PYD, asking Washington to “choose its side.” Turkey is also worried that People’s Protection Units (YPG) is trying to cut off supply lines between Turkey and Saudi-backed rebels in Aleppo, and accuses Syrian Kurdish fighters of driving Arabs and ethnic Turkmen out of northern Syria. “Every single territory gained by PYD means new refugees for Turkey, there is an ethnic cleansing in an area” populated by Arabs and

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positions of Kurdish Democratic Party fired at by Turkey

Turkmens, Yilmaz said. “If everyone stays where they are, Turkey won’t do anything but if a new territory gain threatens Turkey, then Turkey will respond as necessary.” Turkey has sought US support for creating a safe zone inside Syria for refugees and rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Obama administration has been cautious about the military and financial risks this would pose. Yilmaz denied allegations of a planned Turkish incursion into Syria. Davutoglu on Sunday said the latest developments in Syria threatened Turkey’s national security, and he told Kurdish YPG militants to pull back immediately from areas surrounding Azaz in Syria’s northwest. Bloomberg News/TNS

UBAI, United Arab Emirate—Bahrain has arrested four American journalists covering the anniversary of its 2011 uprising amid a long crackdown on dissent in the tiny Gulf nation, witnesses said on Monday. Police said they detained four Americans for providing “false information that they were tourists,” while also alleging that one took part in an attack on its officers. The US Embassy in Manama said it was “aware of the arrest of four United States citizens in Bahrain” on Sunday but could not discuss the case due to privacy concerns. Police said one of the journalists was a woman and three were men. Witnesses identified the woman as Anna Therese Day, an American freelance journalist from Boise, Idaho, who previously had contributed to The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast. In a statement, The Post told The Associated Press (AP) that Day, who had blogged on the web site and appeared on its HuffPost Live program, was not on assignment for the outlet at the time of her arrest. “The safety of journalists is of utmost importance to The Huffington Post and we have security measures in place for our reporters around the world,” the statement read. “Anna Day is not employed or contracted by The Huffington Post.” Jesse Ayala, a friend in New York, said Day and her crew “were not on an exclusive assignment” when they were arrested. “The allegation that they were in any way involved in illegal behavior or anything other than journalistic activities is impossible,” Ayala said in a statement.

INDIAN STUDENTS, TEACHERS PROTEST AFTER HINDU NATIONALISTS’ VIOLENCE

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EW DELHI—Students, journalists and teachers protested in the Indian capital on Tuesday after a student-union leader’s arrest and subsequent violence by Hindu nationalists. The uproar has once again sparked allegations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are displaying intolerance and cracking down on political dissent in the name of patriotism. Police cordons blocked right-wing Hindus from entering the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where thousands of students have been protesting for days. Police also arrested Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani before dawn. He and JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar are accused of sedition for participating in events where slogans against India allegedly were shouted along with criticism against the 2013 secret hanging of a Kashmiri separatist convicted of attacking Parliament. Few JNU students attended classes in New Delhi on Monday. Later, mobs of lawyers and BJP supporters attacked

students outside the courthouse where Kumar was appearing. The BJP supporters called the reporters and students anti-nationals, and demanded they leave India and go to archrival Pakistan. Police said they were investigating allegations from both sides. Human Resource Minister Smriti Irani told reporters that “the nation can never tolerate an insult to Mother India.” The home minister, Rajnath Singh, tweeted that anyone shouting anti-India slogans “will not be tolerated or spared.” Singh also accused Pakistani Hafiz Saeed of orchestrating the anti-India slogans, which the founder of the Lashkar-eTaiba group dismissed in a YouTube video. “The Indian minister is misleading his own people and the world” in trying to blame Pakistan for its problems, says Saeed, who is wanted in India and the United States for his alleged role in the 2009 attacks in Mumbai. An editorial in The Indian Express said the home minister’s “invoking Hafiz Saeed to corner students is divisive and dangerous.” Protests against the 2013 hanging of separatist Afzal Guru occur regularly in

India’s portion of Kashmir, where many among the region’s Muslim majority believe he was not given a fair trial. On Tuesday students and JNU teachers protested inside the university campus to demand Kumar’s release. Academics at foreign universities extended support. “As teachers, students and scholars across the world, we are watching with extreme concern the situation unfolding at JNU and refuse to remain silent as our colleagues [students, staff and faculty] resist the illegal detention and autocratic suspension of students,” said a statement posted on a blog run by academics and signed by 455 scholars, many of them JNU alumni of Indian descent. Most university classes were still suspended, according to PhD science student Pamchui, who goes by one name. “I am feeling safer now, as there is security outside the campus,” she said by telephone from inside the campus. Journalists also marched through central New Delhi, after several reported they were attacked while trying to cover Monday’s protests. Journalist unions accused police of standing by during the attacks. AP

A STUDENT makes her speech as Jawaharlal Nehru University students gather for a protest against the arrest of a student-union leader in New Delhi, India, on Monday. AP/MANISH SWARUP

Photographs of the reporters working in Sitra, a largely Shiite community south of the capital that has seen repeated protests, circulated on social media, including one image of Day being filmed while speaking to a masked protester. On Sunday, police arrested a photographer working with the group, the two witnesses said. Later that night, police surrounded the area with checkpoints and arrested the other three, they said. The witnesses spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of being arrested. An Interior Ministry statement alleged one of the four journalists “was wearing a mask and participating in attacks on police alongside other rioters in Sitra.” The statement also said the journalists entered the country between Thursday and Friday on tourist visas. “At least some of the arrestees were in the country as members of the international media but had not registered with the concerned authority and were involved in illegal activities,” the statement said, without elaborating on what those activities were. Bahrain requires international journalists to obtain special media visas before entering to work. The island kingdom allows citizens of many countries, including the US, to get a tourist visa on arrival. Obtaining a media visa takes several days, and activists say Bahrain has denied media visas for some journalists since the 2011 protests. A statement on the state-run Bahrain News Agency said the journalists had “been afforded full legal rights in line with the kingdom’s procedures and Constitution while investigations continue.” AP

The World BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • Wednesday, February 17, 2016

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briefs

FRANCE’S SARKOZY FACING JUDGES OVER CAMPAIGN FINANCING PARIS—Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is being questioned by judges investigating the finances of his failed 2012 reelection campaign. Sarkozy, a conservative who is positioning to run again next year, appeared on Tuesday before judges investigating the invoice system between his party, then called Union for a Popular Movement, and a company named Bygmalion allegedly used to conceal unauthorized overspending. France had a campaign finance ceiling in 2012 of €22.5 million ($25 million). Sarkozy is accused of overspending by €17 million ($19 million). Several people close to Sarkozy, including his former top adviser, already face preliminary charges in the case, one of several linked to the former president, who lost to François Hollande in 2012. He has already been fined €364,000 ($407,000) for overspending in the case. AP

PALESTINIAN AREAS UNTENABLEGERMANY

A RESTORATION expert works on mosaic inside the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. After two years of painstaking work, experts have completed the initial phase of a delicate restoration project at the Church of the Nativity, giving a much-needed face-lift to one of Christianity’s holiest sites. AP/NASSER NASSER

PALESTINIANS, EXPERTS RENOVATE CHURCH AT BIRTHPLACE OF JESUS

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ETHLEHEM, West Bank—After two years of painstaking work, experts have completed the initial phase of a delicate restoration project at the Church of the Nativity, giving a much-needed face-lift to one of Christianity’s holiest sites. The project, partially funded by the Palestinians and conducted by a team of Palestinian and international experts, is the biggest restoration at the iconic church in some 600 years. The removal of centuries of dust has left Crusader-era mosaics sparkling in sunlight filtering through brand-new windows. Structural repairs on the fragile rooftop and windows have been completed and art treasures have been returned to their delicate elegance. Although the Palestinians are overwhelmingly Muslim, they consider the church a national treasure and one of their most visited tourist sites, and President Mahmoud Abbas has been actively involved in the project. Ziad al-Bandak, who leads the Palestinian committee in charge of the restoration, calls what has been accomplished so far nothing short of “revolutionary.” “For the first time you can see, when you go up, mosaics really magnificent and beautiful and unique in the whole world,” he said. The Church of the Nativity, located in the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, was built by Saint Helena in the 4th century over the grotto where the Virgin Mary is said to have given birth to Jesus. Despite its spiritual significance, the church was neglected for centuries and is listed as endangered by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations cultural agency. Until two years ago, rain leaked through the severely damaged rooftop, threatening to harm priceless artworks inside. Then, in 2013, the Palestinian Authority, the internationally backed self-rule government, took the lead in financing the restoration. The rest has come from the Palestinian private sector, the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches and other countries. Al-Bandak said nearly $8 million has already been spent. The renovation is being conducted by a joint team of engineers, restoration experts and workers—Palestinians, as well as Italians from Piacenti, a firm which specializes in the renovation of historical sites and has worked on dozens of villas, palaces, churches and monasteries in Italy and Russia. Over the past two years, specialists have replaced the most damaged of the ancient wood beams of the rooftop and put up a new cover. They also installed new wooden framed windows that prevent water infiltration. For the first time in almost 1,000 years the thousands of fine mosaics’ tiles have been retouched. Mimmo Nucatolo, who heads the Ital-

ian team restoring the mosaics, called the gold, green and pastel artworks “a unique example” made by skilled mosaicists at the end of the Crusader period. But he said that after centuries of neglect, the mosaics were in such a bad state that they almost disappeared from sight. “From underneath you could no longer see the colors, so much so that some people were wondering ‘Do we really have mosaics in this church?’” Nucatolo said. While experts are still carrying out work 10 meters above ground, visitors and pilgrims will have to wait until the end of 2016 before being able to admire the winged creatures and brightly colored mosaics that have been brought back to rare brilliance. After completing the mosaics in the central nave, specialists are now renovating those in other areas of the church, working on wall plastering, restoring the external stone façade and repairing the wooden beams. The metal scaffolding will only be removed after these steps are completed, said Afif Tweme, the restoration’s project manager. He said he hopes this will be done by the end of the year. The plan is also to install a microclimate system to control sunlight, temperature and humidity in the church, as well as new lights and a smoke detection system, Tweme said. The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches share ownership of the church, and run it according to a 19thcentury agreement that assigns responsibilities for upkeep that are jealously guarded by each denomination. The churches have traditionally viewed each other with suspicion and have had fraught relations. But al-Bandak said they have all been “very cooperative” throughout the restoration, even allowing access to the church in the dead of night to facilitate the work of experts. The full restoration will continue in phases and is expected to take at least another three years. Additional projects will include work on stone capitals and columns, as well as on the ancient floor mosaics currently covered by stone flooring. The work will depend on the availability of funds. Al-Bandak said an additional $11 million is needed. The Palestinian Authority has already launched a campaign to raise the funds and Abbas has pledged to follow through. “He told me from the beginning: ‘Even if you don’t have all the money to go ahead, start. This is a holy place and money will come,’” al-Bandak said. The completion of the first phase is already a source of pride. “We are very proud of it because when we protect our national heritage, our history, we protect our future,” al-Bandak said. AP

Global network taps scientists in Zika fight

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ALTIMORE—A Baltimore-based research consortium is forming a task force of leading scientists from around the world, including renowned AIDS researcher Dr. Robert Gallo, to better understand the Zika virus and quickly develop a vaccine. The task force is being convened by the Global Virus Network, a group of 35 scientific research centers across the globe that work to prevent the spread of deadly viruses. Gallo, one of the scientists who helped discover the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, started the network in 2011. While the mosquito-born Zika virus has been known for decades, a new outbreak has hit nearly three dozen countries and brought new urgency to stopping its spread. The virus, declared a public-health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO), is suspected of causing a devastating brain disorder known as microcephaly, in which brain development is incomplete in babies born to infected women. The task force aims to connect researchers who are working on Zika or similar diseases. They will create a database or repository where scientists can go to find the latest research. “There are a lot of different efforts going on around the world on this Zika effort, and the role that we can play that maybe isn’t being taken on by other groups is international coordination and exchange of information,” said Dr. Scott Weaver, chairman of the new task force and scientific director of the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas. “There is not really an effort to coordinate basic science across the world and help people find the right experts they need.” The Zika virus is transmitted to humans primarily through the Aedes species of mosquito, which also is spreading chikungunya and dengue viruses. The similarity of the diseases

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could help those studying Zika but also could pose complications, the scientists said. A vaccine already exists for dengue, for instance, that scientists can use as a blueprint while learning more about Zika. But it can also be hard to distinguish between mosquito-born viruses in the blood days after the initial infection. Maryland health officials announced last week the state’s first confirmed case of Zika and said they expect more. The unidentified Maryland resident recently returned from a Central American country and has recovered. Cases also have been found in neighboring jurisdictions, including Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia, and local health authorities have begun ramping up testing. Fifty-two cases have been reported nationally in those who have traveled abroad. Maryland has sent 17 samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, one case was positive and two tested negative, and the rest have not been returned, state officials said. The state plans to soon begin testing for the virus in its own lab and provide weekly counts. The symptoms of Zika infection are usually relatively mild and include fever, muscle and joint pain,

and headache. Officials in several Latin American countries have noted increases in the rare Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis, and in babies born with microcephaly. A link to Zika is suspected in both. Gallo said collaborations among scientists can help to answer many mysteries regarding the Zika virus. Did climate change contribute to the recent outbreak? Was there a virus mutation? Are infected mosquitoes coming out of deforested areas? “There are so many unanswered questions so far,” said Gallo, who also is director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “It is a big research problem right now.” Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Diane Griffin specializes in mosquitoborn diseases and the link to encephalomyelitis, or inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. The professor in the department of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will soon begin to study the Zika virus and hopes she can benefit from the expertise of others on the task force. “The task force can help put people together who have different areas of expertise and hopefully make for more rapid progress,” Griffin said. Possible Zika vaccines are at least 18 months away from large-scale trials, the World Health Organization said last week. The agency advised pregnant women to consider delaying travel to areas where the mosquitoborne virus has been diagnosed. Health officials also are monitoring the spread of Zika at the federal level and helping to fund research into a vaccine. President Barack Obama has asked for $1.8 billion in emergency funding from Congress for the domestic and international response. Members of the newly formed Zika task force also hope their united front could help secure funding. “We have enough scientific experience around the world in basically every virus that can cause disease in man,” said Dr. Jose Esparza, president of the Global Virus Network. “Let’s use this expertise not only to respond to an epidemic but to prevent an epidemic.” TNS

BERLIN—Germany’s foreign minister says the situation in the Palestinian territories isn’t sustainable in the long term. In an op-ed published ahead of a German-Israeli Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Frank-Walter Steinmeier condemned the near-daily street attacks by Palestinians that have killed 27 Israelis as “despicable terror.” In the article for daily Bild, Steinmeier stressed Germany’s view that only serious negotiations aimed at a fair, twostate solution can offer hope of peace for Israel and the Palestinians. The meeting in Berlin, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, highlights the strong bond between Israel and Germany seven decades after the Holocaust, when Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews. AP

U.K. PRIME MINISTER HEADS TO BRUSSELS AHEAD OF KEY TALKS LONDON—Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron is heading to Brussels to persuade skeptical members of the European Parliament to back a package of reforms ahead of a key summit this week. Cameron wants European leaders at the summit to accept reforms so he can call a June referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union (EU). The British leader will hold talks on Tuesday amid criticism that any reform package could be vetoed by lawmakers after the referendum because it will not be secured by a change in the EU treaty. The meetings come a day after Cameron traveled to Paris for talks with French President François Hollande. Cameron’s Downing Street office says the leaders agreed a draft of reforms “provides a firm basis to reach agreement at this week’s summit.” AP

CHINA FORBIDS GREAT FAMINE AUTHOR FROM TAKING HARVARD PRIZE BEIJING—A former journalistof China’s official news agency says he has been blocked from traveling to the US to accept a Harvard University prize for a 2008 book uncovering the devastating toll of the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961. Harvard’s Nieman Fellows last December awarded Yang Jisheng for Tombstone, a 1,200-page account of the famine— which he estimated claimed at least 36 million Chinese lives—and a decadeslong government effort to whitewash one of the worst man-made disasters. Although more recent leaders have permitted, sometimes encouraged, reevaluation of Mao-era policies, any substantial discussion of national traumas like the Great Famine can be highly sensitive. Tombstone, for which Yang gained unprecedented access to restricted government archives, has been banned in Mainland China. Yang said by phone on Tuesday that Xinhua had forbidden him to travel. He did not specify how Xinhua would prevent him from traveling, or whether his passport had been confiscated, but Chinese retirees often depend substantially on their former employers for benefits and pensions. AP

A10 Wednesday, February 17, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

The Vizconde massacre: Justice not served

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HE passing away of Lauro Vizconde a few days ago does not close the sad chapter on the tragedy known as the Vizconde massacre. On the contrary, it reopens it. The trial of the case having been long concluded, the requirements of the law may have been satisfied, but not the demands of justice. Justice demands that the killers be identified, made to answer for their crime and be meted out appropriate punishment.

Recall that: On June 30, 1991, the Vizconde women—Estrellita, 47-yearold mother; Carmela, 18-year-old daughter; and Jennifer, 7-year-old daughter—were brutally slain in cold-blood, with Carmela also raped. Suspects were sons of prominent families: Hubert Webb, Antonio Lejano II, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, Miguel Rodriguez, Peter Estrada, Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. In August 1995 the trial began in the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Parañaque of Judge Amelita Tolentino. The case centered on the testimony of Jessica Alfaro that she saw Webb and his friends perform the criminal acts. Webb’s defense was that he was in the United States at the time of the commission of the crime and, therefore, could not have committed it. On January 4, 2001, Tolentino found the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt, sentencing them to reclusion perpetua. On December 16, 2005, the Court of Appeals found the defendants’ appeal without merit and affirmed the RTC’s decision. On December 14, 2010, the Supreme Court, reviewing the case, found the eyewitness account as unworthy of belief, and the alibi of Webb as backed by sufficient evidence, acquitting Webb and his coaccused, except Artemio Ventura and Joey Filart who were at large. President Aquino ordered the law-enforcement agencies to restudy the case and pursue it before the prescription period expired. A task force was formed. Justice Secretary Leila M. de Lima, reporting the findings of the task force, said there was evidence that Webb was in the country at the time of the commission of the crime. Magnetic reel tapes of the Bureau of Immigration showed some of Webb’s family members departing the country in March 1991, without Hubert, and arriving in October 1992, with Hubert. Four witnesses testified that they saw Webb in various activities in the relevant period and they all passed the polygraph test. However, whatever the new evidence showed, a retrial of the case, involving the freed accused, was barred by the rule on double jeopardy. There is where we stand today. After all the time, energy and resources expended by police officers, witnesses, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and justices, Lauro Vizconde, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and the millions of supporters of the murdered and raped victims—this is what we get: Nothing. Surely, we cannot allow the perpetrators of this heinous crime to go unpunished. What reason did Filart and Ventura have for fleeing if they were innocent? If government officials concerned have decided to do nothing to bring this matter to a closure, what about private investigators and citizens taking up the cudgels for the victims in the interest of justice?

Reap what you sow, and much more Susie G. Bugante

All About Social Security

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HE plethora of savings and investment options can leave one’s head spinning, especially for those with little patience, mathematic prowess and financial know-how to differentiate which among the available instruments offer the safest havens for their funds, most optimized returns and best fit for their personal budgets, capabilities and needs.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t require financial acumen to understand the soundness of putting funds under the care of the Social Security System (SSS). These forced savings are in the form of monthly contributions currently based on 11 percent of the member’s monthly salary—or up to P16,000, which is the present monthly salary credit (MSC) ceiling. SSS savings, which may be considered as investments for the future, are returned to the members and their beneficiaries in the form of benefits for covered contingencies, such as sickness, maternity, partial or total disability, retirement or old age and death. Three of these benefit programs—namely, for retirement, disability and death—offer lifetime pensions for qualified members and beneficiaries. SSS critics scoff at the low level

of the minimum SSS pension, which is pegged at P1,000. Pensions must also be paid for no less than an aggregate period of 60 months—or what is often referred to as the five-year guaranteed period—as provided by Section 12 of the Social Security Act of 1997. The SSS charter further provides that the minimum pension is P1,200 per month for members with at least 10 credited years of service (CYS), and P2,400 for those with at least 20 CYS. This often applies to those applying for retirement pension, given that the law requires members to accumulate at least 120 contributions—which is equivalent to 10 CYS—to qualify for the said benefit. There are three formulas provided by the SSS charter in determining one’s pension amount, and the

highest computed pension is what is paid to the eligible member or beneficiary. One of these formulas is the provision on minimum pensions. Some sectors argue that the minimum pensions of P1,000 for disability or death, and P1,200 for retirement, are simply too little to pay for the pensioners’ needs, especially given the rising cost of living. What they often fail to point out is that SSS pensions are not indexed against inflation rates, in the similar way that the law is silent on how to keep the amount of contributions in step with the actual growth in monthly income of members, particularly for high earners. These are major limitations set by law that stifle the SSS’s capacity to provide more meaningful pensions and other benefits. Despite the low amount of contributions mandated from members, the SSS is able to provide a generous rate of return: approximately P6 up to P15 in benefits for every P1 contributed to the SSS. In fact, what underscores the value of the SSS as an ideal savings and investment vehicle—apart from the security provided by the government guarantee on benefits—is the substantial rate of return that the SSS offers on the contributions of members. This is evident, even for those receiv ing the modest P1,200 minimum amount of retirement

Humanity’s race against itself Mark Buchanan

BLOOMBERG VIEW

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UMANITY is engaged in a high-stakes race with its own growth: Lest our use of energy and materials get out of control, we must constantly innovate to become more efficient. Unfortunately, new research suggests we may be losing.

The rapid advancement of electronics technology illustrates how the race works. The number of transistors in the world’s devices has gone from one in 1947, to a thousand billion today—more than there are letters in all the written text produced in human history. The proliferation hasn’t inundated the planet, because the amount of physical material and energy used in each transistor has shrunk spectacularly, reflecting a relentless advance—seen in almost all technologies—that gets economists and tech enthusiasts excited about the possibilities for a cleaner and more environment-friendly future. The hope is that by doing more

with less, we can keep growing without bumping up against physical limits—an optimistic vision sometimes called “decoupling.” But is there any evidence for it? That’s less clear. Long ago, economist William Jevons noted that improvements in energy efficiency, by reducing prices, often induce people to use still more energy. For decoupling to work, efficiency gains in energy or material must outpace this “rebound effect,” as well as other factors, such as overall growth in production and population. Despite all the progress humanity has made, a new parsing of the empirical data

suggests that’s not happening. Two engineers, Christopher Magee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tessaleno Devezas of the University of Beira Interior in Portugal, looked at two sets of data covering 116 different technologies existing between 1940 and 2010, ranging from the chemical industry and electronics to metals, wood and energy. Almost every technology over this period shows exponential improvement (though at different rates) in prices, performance and efficiency of energy and material use. Over 20 years up to 2009, for example, the price of photovoltaics consistently dropped about 10 percent per year. The improvements weren’t enough, though, to outpace the combination of population growth, economic expansion and the rebound effect. As a result, overall material use tended to increase: Those photovoltaics, for example, consumed about 13 percent more materials each year. To be sure, the data are far from perfect. Information on many of the 116 technologies exists over

pension. For example, let’s say a female SSS member has paid the P110 minimum contribution over a span of 10 years or 120 months, for a total contribution of P13,200. Upon retirement, she would be entitled to the minimum pension of P1,200. It would only take her less than one year—or only 11 monthly pensions, to be exact—to recover the entire P13,200 that she had contributed to the SSS. Based on the 20-year average period for pension payments, she would continue to receive P1,200 for monthly pensions—13 times a year given the traditional 13th month pension— for two decades. It is worthy of note that this excludes her possible availment of other types of benefits such as sickness and maternity, while her beneficiaries can also file for death pensions and funeral benefits, when the time comes. Clearly, in the SSS, it is not merely a case of reaping what you sow, because members gain much more. For more details on SSS programs, members can drop by the nearest SSS branch, visit the SSS web site (www.sss.gov.ph), or contact the SSS Call Center at 920-6446 to 55 which accepts calls from 7 a.m. on Mondays all the way to 7 a.m. on Saturdays. Susie G. Bugante is the vice president for public affairs and special events of the SSS. Send comments about this column to susiebugante. bmirror@gmail.com.

intervals of only one or two decades. Still, the fact that none of the data fit the usual story of decoupling suggests that the concept is, at the very least, highly questionable. The only six exceptions were technologies for producing substances, such as asbestos, mercury and thallium—all toxic materials that were ultimately controlled by policy intervention and legal restriction. The results don’t imply that humans won’t ever achieve decoupling. They simply suggest that the historical record, so far, isn’t encouraging, and that there’s no reason to expect it to happen on its own. Magee and Devezas, for their part, remain optimistic. We might still find a solution, they told me, if we can manage to eschew politically motivated argument and predetermined conclusions in favor of more good science and especially empirical work. The more we recognize the burden that everincreasing materials use puts on the planet, the more we might be able to encourage forces of many kinds—market, government or spontaneous social movements —to counter the trend.

Opinion BusinessMirror

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Zika is serious, but can we stop stigmatizing microcephaly?

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URING my first week of medical school, we watched a video documenting the life and death of a child with severe spina bifida. Her parents had been aware of her prognosis long before birth but did not terminate the pregnancy; they cared for her until her death, when she was 8. Speaking years afterward, they regretted nothing. They saw her as a gift from God, to be valued and loved as much as their other children. I distinctly remember sitting in the lecture hall and thinking, “You people are out of your minds.” I’d grown up with a sibling who had severe autism. His disability had never felt like a gift. Instead, it ruined birthdays, strained family gatherings and doubled my parents’ expectations of me. I’d learned to force a beatific smile when told how much patience I must have learned, but until that film, I’d never realized some people weren’t faking their smiles: for some people, disability was a source of joy. I’ve grown and changed since then, but the way we talk about disabilities in the news has not. The catastrophic tone in recent microcephaly depictions is only the latest inaccurate and overwhelmingly negative representation of the disability experience. Microcephaly is a symptom of a variety of genetic, infectious and toxic disorders, and is diagnosed when an infant’s head circumference is below average. Of all babies with microcephaly, 15 percent go on to have typical intelligence, while the remainder may have a range of mental and physical disabilities, depending on the cause. The news media has churned out stories like the recent CNN dispatch in which a Brazilian physician says, unchallenged, affected newborns “will require special attention their entire lives. It’s an emotional stress that can’t be imagined.” Disability activists say such florid coverage is bad for parents, people with disabilities and the rest of us, too. Journalists communicating negatively slanted stories might see themselves as simply telling it like it is. A Washington Post video—played by clicking a picture of a screaming baby—shows a brow-furrowed physician, then displays the text, “[babies are] born with…brain damage” while playing a vaguely nail-biting dirge. With so many grim-lipped doctors and anguished parents, it’s only natural to assume the worst. But journalists are responsible for transcending assumptions, says Kristin Gilger, director of the National Center on Disability and Journalism, which maintains a disability style guide for reporters. In the case of microcephaly, that means exploring the spectrum of associated anomalies. The disease has been presented as inevitably debilitating to the extent that the United Nations

has demanded affected countries reconsider abortion bans—when in fact, almost 30 percent of children with microcephaly in one study were able to attend mainstream schools. We also have a responsibility to use language that avoids implying people with disabilities are mistakes. If there’s a unifying rule to write by, says Gilger, it’s to use “peoplefirst” language. In most cases, people with disabilities prefer to be called, well, people with disabilities—not “disabled people.” Being characterized by a disability can make it feel like that’s all people notice. Fear of offending vocal activist communities might scare off journalists from covering disability stories. However, it’s critical that those stories be written. “The media tends to determine attitudes toward disability,” says Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, English professor and Disability Studies Initiative co-director at Emory University. “And the language is so negative about… the human variations we think about as disability.” Telling balanced stories that show a range of experiences and relationships for people with disabilities is a step toward changing public attitudes toward disability—itself an important step toward increasing accessibility, employment opportunities and social and romantic prospects. Perhaps, most important, broader coverage of disability experiences could dramatically reduce anxiety among new parents of children with anomalies. The media’s persistent depiction of microcephaly as a certain cause of severe debility must be hugely demoralizing to families of children whose futures are uncertain, and for whom parental morale can make a big difference. And for expectant parents deciding whether to terminate pregnancies on the basis of fetal anomalies, a prognosis untarnished by stigma and irrational expectations increases the likelihood of making the best choice to suit their emotional and physical resources. Katherine Schneider, a disability activist and retired psychologist who is blind, notes the potential for people with disabilities to contribute to the world. Still, she says, “I acknowledge people’s right to choose. I just hope they choose on the basis of good, balanced information rather than fear.” TNS

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HERE is something obviously preposterous about Anat Berko’s suggestion on the floor of Israel’s Knesset that Palestine can’t exist because the Arabic language doesn’t have the “P” sound. But the use of amateur linguistics in politics isn’t restricted to arguments denying opponents’ legitimacy—it can also be used for salutary purposes. Barack Obama, for example, visiting a US mosque for the first time in his presidency, recently said that “the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam—peace.”

From a technical standpoint, both Berko and Obama are wrong. The president’s philological expertise is no greater than the Israeli lawmaker’s. But both statements shed light on the deep relationship between language and politics—and suggest that being technically correct often

isn’t as important as you’d think. Before considering the wellmeaning president, let’s start with ill-meaning lawmaker. What could Berko have meant by saying that “there isn’t even a P in Arabic so this borrowed term”—Palestine—“is also worth scrutinizing”?

Congress assembled. If it had been up to me, all but a few women prisoners would have been released. Estafadors, and especially estafadoras, would be out after a year in jail; detention during trial deducted; excess financially compensated. If they fooled the banks, good; it is about time the banks got a taste of their own medicine. The constitutional principle behind that is no imprisonment for debt. If fraud artists are able to fool people again, then shame on those people for letting their greed get the better of them—again. Only the most violent criminals should be kept behind bars, making license plates as in the good old days. That’s just one idea from the ongoing American presidential campaign. And no, Rodrigo Duterte is not our Donald Trump; Trump stands for important things. I am not as intolerant about aliens but really, Malaysians running a third of Mindanao under the BBL? Thank God, that’s dead. Our candidates should stop listening to themselves and listen to their American counterparts. There is a reason that the “native” is a pejorative term and “foreign” is an indication of quality. Americans pick or unpick candidates on the basis of what they say. We can show no rhyme or reason for our electoral choices. Ay, ’di bale kung magnanakaw siya, basta…. Basta. What an etsepwera attitude.

convention, the word for Philistines will sometimes read “pelishtim” and sometimes “phelishtim,” depending on what precedes it in the sentence. It’s also worth mentioning that we really don’t know how the Philistines themselves pronounced their name, and their tiny number of remaining inscriptions don’t seem to be alphabetic. All this linguistic analysis, of course, is irrelevant to whether the Palestinian identity is somehow illegitimate because its advocates formulated their arguments for their identity under modern conditions. The Arabic newspaper Falastin—the contemporary usage and pronunciation—started publishing in 1911 in Jaffa. (The first Hebrew newspaper in Ottoman Palestine was started in 1863. Its name was Ha-Levanon, which means…wait for it…“The Lebanon.”) The point is that Berko, hoping to use her incorrect language analysis

to suggest that Palestinian identity is newer than Jewish identity, managed instead to cast the origins of Palestine back to ancient times. In particular, she unintentionally focuses our attention on the people who, according to Exodus 13 at least, were living in the land before the Israelites got there. Obama, in contrast, meant well. But, unfortunately, he wasn’t entirely correct either. Arabic—like Hebrew —builds words out of three-letter roots. The root of Islam is s-l-m. The same root is also the basis for the word salam, meaning peace. In that sense, and only in that sense, could it be said that the word Islam “comes from” the word peace. But the way Arabic makes words is to take the three-letter root and put it into a specific linguistic shape that changes the meaning, often drastically. The different meanings can’t be said to derive from each other. Salam derives from the first

form of the root, which designates peace or safety from danger. “Islam” comes from the fourth form of the root, which means to surrender or commit oneself. A Muslim is, grammatically speaking, one who surrenders or commits himself to God. The word “Muslim” is the participle construction of the fourth-form verb. The upshot is that Islam doesn’t “come from” peace grammatically— but the two words are nevertheless closely associated. Obama was trying to emphasize that association. In so doing, he sacrificed linguistic accuracy for moral suasion: He wasn’t saying what Islam comes from, but what he wants it to be. To his critics, Obama’s mistake matters: Islam, they say, isn’t a religion of peace, and it’s a naïve and dangerous error to say so. Obama thus unwittingly opened the subject of whether Islam is violent, historically or inherently.

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AST week’s proclamation rallies, and the provincial sorties that followed, showed up the mental laziness of the presidential candidates. By their laziness they show; by the inanity of their messages and the flatulence of their words they express their bottomless contempt for the Filipino voter. One promises to abolish the income tax, but only for those without income. To be sure, he redeemed himself by stating the obvious: He will implement Freedom of Information on the Executive branch through an executive order (EO). That is the only branch of government that spends money. Neither the Judiciary nor Congress merit public attention and concern to stop them from spending recklessly or dishonestly, or both the niggardly sums they get in the national budget. An EO does away with the issue of the right of reply by victims of media slander and blackmail. They can sue for libel. Yet, another wants to jail Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya for incompetence. If that were a crime, all our governments will end up in jail, including hers. Another one came down with

When every letter becomes political Noah Feldman

migraine—there’s a photo of him cupping his jaw, so he might have gotten it from giving kisses and tongue to voters, and probably got herpes. Our candidates should watch, listen and adopt as their own what US presidential candidates are saying— respectfully—to American voters. The US candidates have been speaking on issues that matter as much to Filipinos as to Americans; such as free quality education, free adequate health care and, lately, prison reform. Democrat presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders said: “At the end of my first term, we will not have more people in jail than any other country.” He was referring to the fact that the US has 2.2 million prisoners out of a population of 400 million, while China has 1.7 million out of 1.4 billion people. Sanders said he would let half a million prisoners go by the end of his first

term. First to go will be victims of drug abuse, the drug addicts. Taking drugs will no longer be a crime but dealing drugs will stay a crime. Next will be those jailed for nonviolent crimes, like estafa. This promise earned Sanders a cheap shot from critics. The US federal prison system has only 200,000 prisoners. So, where will he get the rest of the half million he promises to let go? The rest are in state prisons. Sure, but the example and federal savings from Sanders’s idea will encourage state governments to follow. Hillary Clinton answered Sanders. A president, she said, can do nothing about the prison problem; it all lies with the states. No wonder she is dropping in the primaries and the polls. People do not want to hear what a candidate cannot do after he wins. They want to hear what he will do if he wins, even if he fails. In all my years in Malacañang, I never got a prisoner out of jail. Nor ever got a good foreigner made a citizen of the Philippines, even if he deserved it more than most natural-born Filipinos. I am thinking of Giovanni Sanna, who took the ugliest garment in history, the A-shaped see-through barong Tagalog and slim-fitted it for Marcos—our last and possibly first non-ugly president since Independence. He also did my suits and Cory’s famous yellow suit at one of the greatest speeches ever heard by the Joint Houses of the US

Teddy Locsin Jr.

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It’s accurate, of course, that Arabic doesn’t have the “P” sound. But the word Palestine doesn’t come from Arabic. It comes (via Latin) from Greek, which does. To be precise, Greek sources refer both to people called Philistinoi— the Philistines of the bible—and to the place “Palaestina” of Syria. Both Phi and Pi are, therefore, used to refer to a geographical region and/or some of its people. The Hebrew word to designate the Philistines is also ambiguous between P and Ph. Hebrew doesn’t have two different letters to designate these two sounds, and can’t be certain how the ancient Hebrew word was pronounced. Even the medieval pronunciation convention, still in use today, varies the sound of the Hebrew letter based on where it appears in a word: Sometimes it’s P, sometimes it’s Ph. If you look in a Hebrew Bible that’s been pointed according to the medieval

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MINDANAO SUPPLY REMAINS CRITICAL

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HE Department of Energy (DOE) said on Tuesday Luzon and the Visayas will be spared from power-supply problems between now and after the elections, but not Mindanao where power reserves remain critical.

“Luzon and the Visayas will face no problems. They are interconnected, so both are safe. We can also activate the ILP [Interruptible Load Program] if there’s a need to do so,” Energy Secretary Zenaida Monsada said in a news conference. “Mindanao is critical. The supply situation there is more or less equal to the demand. We need to have some reserve. That is a requirement in the grid code. We can’t expect all plants running at full capacity 24 /7. Right now, yellow alert is still issued in Mindanao because of the rotating brownouts,” she added. An ideal power reserve in Mindanao is 255 megawatts (MW). As of 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Mindanao’s

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power, because the transmission tower that transmits power to the distribution utilities and electric cooperatives (ECs) was damaged in December 2015. The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), which holds the 25-year concession contract to operate the country’s power transmission network, said restoration of transmission tower No. 25 remains isolated since the rehabilitation

MRT 7. . .

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Malampaya Fund the electric cooperatives can tap to buy generator sets needed during the elections

power reserve stood at -98. Mindanao, which is dependent on hydro plants as the main source of power, could not use Agus Hydroelectric Plant Units 1 and 2, which supply about 80 MW of cheaper

San Miguel has tapped the consortium of Hyundai Rotem Co. and EEI Corp. for the engineering, procurement and construction requirements of the rail line. Under the contract, the consortium will build the train system and provide the trains to be deployed for the facility. It will also supply the communications, signal and electric requirements of the railway line. The deal is the largest the South Korean company has ever made in the Philippines. Ang said the timeline provided by the consortium shows construction has been set for Thursday and set for completion by August 17, 2019. The rail component of the MRT 7 project involves the construction

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crew is being denied access by the landowners. “Efforts are now concentrated on having these towers repaired,” said Monsada, who wrote to the Commission on Elections [Comelec] to assist concerned government agencies in helping the NGCP to access and repair the transmission tower. She said a resolution would be issued by the poll body soon. “Comelec will direct the military

of a 22.8-km rail-transit system envisioned to operate 108 rail cars in a three-car configuration with a daily passenger capacity ranging from 448,000 to 850,000. It will have 14 stations, starting with the North Avenue Station on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, passing through Commonwealth Avenue, Regalado Avenue and Quirino Highway, up to the proposed Intermodal Transport Terminal in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan. The road component of the project, meanwhile, involves the construction of a six-lane access road from San Jose del Monte to the Balagtas, Bulacan North Luzon Expressway exit. It took all the stakeholders seven years before finally closing the deal. “Part of the delay was the failure of the concessionaire to have the financial closure within 18 months of signing the

to provide the necessary support. It can’t direct NGCP because it is a private firm,” said Monsada, adding that only the Comelec “has that power to do so.” On the DOE’s part, Monsada said her office will prioritize the voting centers in Mindanao to have a stable supply of power before and after the elections. “Power supply should be secured five days before and five days after the elections. The voting agreement which happened in the previous administration. According to policy, the project had to go back to the Neda Board,” Abaya said, referring to the National Economic and Development Authority, the country’s economic planning body. The 25-year concession agreement between ULC and the government was signed in 2008, but was delayed owing to the proponent’s failure to secure financial closure. San Miguel Holdings Corp. owns a 51-percent controlling stake in ULC. The deal was seen closed by 2014, but delays in the construction of a common alignment for the MRT 7, MRT 3, and the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 has yet to be resolved. The common alignment, which aims to link the LRT 1, MRT 3 and MRT 7, has been in limbo ever since the Department of Transportation and Communications

centers are priority areas. There will be generators set up by the ECs,” she added. The ECs in Mindanao may tap the P4.5-billion Malampaya Fund to purchase modular generator sets that would be used during the election period. “There is an ongoing inventory to determine how many gen sets should be put up. The ECs could borrow from the Malampaya Fund to pay for the gen sets,” she said.

reviewed the project’s technical and financial components many years back. To recall, the transportation department decided to change the station’s location from SM North Edsa to TriNoma after several reviews on the project’s technical and financial components. SM Prime Holdings Inc. sought court intervention as it initially paid P200 million for the right to name the station. This led to the transportation department’s proposal of building two common stations as a compromise to the feud. The government is bent on striking a compromise deal with the SM Group to allow the infrastructure project to move forward. Under the draft settlement deal, the government and the private sector will jointly invest in building two common stations. One will be built near SM North Edsa, and another near TriNoma Mall.