BusinessMirror October 24, 2015

BusinessMirror

THREETIME ROTARY CLUBB OF MANILA JOURNALISM M AWARDEE 2006, 2010, 2012

U.N. MEDIA AWARD 2008

A broader look at today’s business Saturday 2014 Vol. No. 40 Vol. 11 No. 16 Saturday,18, October 24,102015

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HSBC SAYS PHL RELATIVELY UNEXPOSED TO SLOWDOWN IN CHINESE GROWTH, LOWER COMMODITY PRICES

‘PHL insulated from external shocks’

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ORRIES about the country’s ability to weather declines in commodities exports have diminished, in the wake of the adoption of more convincing structural reforms, according to the British-owned financial services giant HSBC.

INSIDE

In its most recent research note, HSBC economist James Pomeroy said the lender brushed aside concerns centering on the ill effects of particular global developments.

“The Philippines is one of the few emerging-market countries relatively unexposed to a slowdown in Chinese growth and lower commodity prices. Trade in goods [and especially commodities] plays a small part in exports and so the

SOUTH KOREA’S ECON GROWS FASTEST IN 3 QUARTERS BusinessMirror

World The

B2-1 | Saturday, October 24, 2015 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

VISITORS take their souvenir photo at the Gyeongbok Palace, one of South Korea’s well-known landmarks, in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday. AP/LEE JIN-MAN

S. Korea’s econ grows fastest in 3 quarters

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EOUL, South Korea—South Korea’s economy expanded 2.6 percent in the July-to-September quarter from a year earlier, the fastest annual clip in three quar quarters, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said on Friday, showing a recovery from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) crisis that gripped the country in the summer.

The result was better than expected. Asia’s fourth-largest economy took a hit after a deadly outbreak of MERS in the country, prompting tourists to cancel trips and keeping local residents away from shopping malls and concert halls.

Consumer spending and construction drove growth, the data showed, overcoming the negative

impact of a decline in exports, due partly to weaker demand from China.

Compared to the previous quarter, the economy gained 1.2 percent, the first time in 18 months that growth exceeded 1 percent on a quarterly basis. It was also the fastest quarter-to-quarter growth rate in five years.

With consumption and exports slowing earlier this year, the central bank lowered its key policy rate to a record low of 1.5 percent. The government also introduced a tax cut and added an additional public holiday in hopes that would boost spending.

“Consumer spending and the service sector that had contracted in the second quarter showed a recovery,” said Jeon Seung-cheol, director general of the BOK’s economic statistics department. “Private consumption improved thanks to the government’s stimulus policies.”

South Korean exporters, a key driver of growth, have been hurt by sluggish global demand, a slowing economic growth in China, as well as the weak Japanese currency that helped Japanese rivals.

Oil refinery companies, which also account for a significant portion in South Korea’s exports, saw their bottom line eroded as the price of crude oil fell.

Earlier this month, BOK trimmed its forecast for South Korea’s economy this year to 2.7 percent from 2.8 percent, citing a weaker global economic outlook. AP

KERRY SEEKSS DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION TO SYRIAN WAR IN VIENNA

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IENNA—US Secretary of State John F. Kerry opened talks in Vienna on Friday with his Russian, Saudi and Turkish counterparts aimed at reviving a moribund effort to end Syria’s civil war.

Kerry began a daylong series of meetings in the Austrian capital in consultations with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Turkish Foreign Minister Fer Feridun Sinirlioglu, both of whom share the US view that Syrian President al-Bashar Assad must go for the conflict is to be resolved. None of the three spoke to reporters as they opened their discussions at a luxury hotel. They will be joined later by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country is Assad’s prime backer.

On Thursday in Berlin, Kerry said one focus of the talks would be to consider “a broader participation of very necessary countries, all of whom need to be at the table” to discuss the way forward in Syria.

Russia is keen to bring Assad’s other main supporter, Iran, into the talks, but Saudi Arabia is opposed to it.

Kerry said all the countries with an interest in Syria, including Iran and Russia,

agree on what the result should be: a unified, secular and pluralistic Syria governed with the consent of its people. He said that Assad’s continued presence is the only thing preventing that goal from being realized.

“One thing stands in the way of being able to rapidly move to implement that, and it’s a person called Assad—Bashar alAssad,” he said. “So the issue is, can we get to a political process during which time the future devolution and allocation of power in Syria is properly allocated by the people of Syria? And that’s what we’re working toward. So my hope is that these talks can begin a process that could open up a greater discussion.”

Syria is now in its fifth year of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands, contributed to a massive refugee crisis in Europe and been complicated by the emer emergence of the Islamic State (IS) group and Russia’s direct military intervention.

Friday’s meeting in Vienna—the site of the world’s last major international diplomatic success, the Iran nuclear deal in July—follows a surprise visit by Assad on

Tuesday to Moscow where he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Russia’s military operations in Syria that the US and others say are bolstering Assad and not tar targeting IS militants, as Russia claims.

Putin said on Thursday that Assad had told him that he is ready for a dialogue with his political foes. Putin also defended Russia’s bombing campaign, which he said would set the stage for peace talks.

A military victory over the militants “will not solve all problems, but it will create conditions for the main thing: a beginning of a political process to encompass all healthy, patriotic forces of the Syrian society,” Putin said. His words echoed those of Syrian government officials who have expressed readiness to negotiate with the “patriotic” opposition—a term generally used to describe unarmed, mostly Damascus-based government critics who are tolerated by Assad.

The Kremlin said Putin also talked by phone with the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan about Syria. Ker Kerry plans to travel to Jordan late on Friday and then Saudi Arabia. AP

U.S. POLICYMAKERS TO DECIDE ON SOUTH CHINA SEA

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EARL HARBOR, Hawaii—The US Navy’s top commander in the Pacific says it’s up to policymakers in Washington whether his sailors patrol within 12 nautical miles of newly constructed islands claimed

by China in the South China Sea. Pacific Fleet Comdr. Adm. Scott Swift spoke during an interview on Thursday, amid tensions over Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and reports the US will sail near the disputed islands to challenge those claims.

Swift told the Associated Press his sailors have the capacity and capability to enter the waters, but he emphasized that the patrols would reinforce international laws and wouldn’t be directed at a specific country.

“We’re ready,” Swift said at his Pearl Harbor office. “We have the resources to support whatever those policy decisions are and whatever policy-makers may ask us to do to demonstrate the US resolve with respect to the operations that we conduct in the South China Sea.” China and five other governments, including the Philippines, lay claim to part or all of the South China Sea, a busy passageway for commercial and military vessels.

Washington has a policy of not

taking sides in the territorial disputes, but says it’s in its national interest to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight and the peaceful resolution of the conflicts.

Since 2013, China has accelerated the construction of new islands atop reefs and atolls in the South China Sea and is adding buildings and airstrips in apparent attempts to boost its sovereignty claims to the territory.

Swift said under international law, building on an island that’s only exposed at low tide but not at higher tide doesn’t bolster a territorial claim to the place.

He reiterated the US doesn’t support land reclamation efforts, regardless of their scale.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during a news conference in Boston last week the US will fly, sail and operate wherever international law permits, including in the South China Sea. The US newspaper Navy Times reported earlier this month the Navy may soon receive approval for a mission to sail close to a Chinese-built island in the Spratly Islands.

Swift said China’s construction of the islands hasn’t changed the way the Pacific Fleet operates in the area and won’t change the way it does going forward.

“We continue to operate in that space, just as if they hadn’t been built,” he said.

The US last patrolled within 12 nautical miles of the disputed islands in 2012, according to testimony Assistant Defense Secretary David Shear gave to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s defense minister says his country wants good and friendly relations with both the US and China, and will not favor one over the other. Vietnam is among the claimants to some islands in South China Sea. The Friday edition of TuoI Tre newspaper quoted Gen. Phung Quang Thanh telling a group of lawmakers that Vietnam wants to have peace and stability so the country can develop.

Thanh also told the National Assembly members on Thursday that Vietnam wants to resolve disputes in the South China Sea through peaceful means.

Relations between Vietnam and China plunged to their lowest point in years following the parking of a Chinese oil rig in disputed waters in the South China Sea last year.

The US has been deepening ties with Vietnam and others in a bid to counter China’s growing influence in the region. AP

US: No peace treaty with North Korea unless it abandons nukes

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ASHINGTON—The United States won’t consider North Korea’s call for a peace treaty unless it abandons its pursuit of nuclear weapons and improves human rights, a senior US diplomat said on Thursday.

Sung Kim, US special representative for North Korea policy, described Pyongyang’s proposal for negotiations on a treaty as “disingenuous.”

The North reiterated that demand last week and warned it would otherwise strengthen its nuclear deterrent. That was in response to President Barack Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye saying they were open to talks on easing sanctions if the North would negotiate on ending its nuclear program.

“Frankly I’m skeptical about their call for a peace treaty because I think they understand that we have some fundamental requirements,” Kim told a House foreign affairs panel.

“They would need to denuclearize, they would need to abandon their pur pursuit of dangerous delivery means, missile capabilities, and they would need to improve their human-rights situation. I

STATUES of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il stand above soldiers during a military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, on October 10. AP/WONG MAYEMA E mean I cannot imagine any circumstanc circumstances in which we would enter a peace treaty with a North Korea that continues to reject international obligations and commitments. They know that,” he said.

The Korean Peninsula is still in a technical state of war because the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The US retains 28,500 troops in South Korea.

Lawmakers at the hearing called for the North to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. The designation was lifted in 2008 during negotiations on its nuclear program that stalled soon after.

“The [North Korean] government is doing everything it can to be a bad actor in the world,” Republican Rep. Ted Poe said.

Among the allegations leveled by Poe was that North Korean-supplied rockets had been used by fighters of the militant group Hamas against Israel, and that the North had provided material support to Hezbollah.

State Department officials said a designation requires a determination that a government repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism, and it continues review available intelligence on North Korea. AP

WORLD

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same risks to growth do not exist,” Pomeroy said.

This, he said, has been reflected in the performance of the local currency the peso, “as the Philippines has avoided much of the turmoil in financial markets. The run-ups in asset prices that we had seen have cooled, and so our concerns have abated.” HSBC has lumped the Philippines alongside Japan S “PHL,” A

Value of crops damaged

by Lando now at ₧8.62B

DESPITE U.S.LED CAMPAIGN, I.S. RAKES IN OIL EARNINGS The World BusinessMirror

B2-4 Saturday, October 24, 2015

Despite US-led campaign, IS rakes in oil earnings

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AGHDAD—The Islamic State (IS) rakes in up to $50 million a month from selling crude from oilfields under its control in Iraq and Syria, part of a wellrun industry that US diplomacy and air strikes have so far failed to shut down, according to Iraqi intelligence and US officials.

Oil sales—the extremists’ largest single source of continual income— are a key reason they have been able to maintain their rule over their self-declared “caliphate” stretching across large parts of Syria and Iraq.

With the funds to rebuild infrastructure and provide the largesse that shore up its fighters’ loyalty, it has been able to withstand ground fighting against its opponents and more than a year of bombardment in the US-led air campaign.

The group has even been able to bring in equipment and technical experts from abroad to keep the industry running, and the US has recently stepped up efforts to close off this support.

Washington has been talking to regional governments, including Turkey, about its concerns over the importing of energy infrastructure into IS-run territory in Syria, including equipment for extraction, refinement, transport and energy production, according to a senior US official with firsthand knowledge of the IS oil sector.

Speaking to the Associated Press (AP) in Washington, he said international actors in the region

news@businessmirror.com.ph

OPENHAGEN, Denmark—The attacker who stabbed two people to death at a school in Sweden before being shot and killed by the police had a racist motive, the police said on Friday.

The police labeled the stabbing in the industrial town of Trollhattan a so-called hate crime based on discoveries they made when searching the perpetrator’s home, the way he dressed, his behavior at the scene and the way he selected his victims.

“All together, this gives a picture that the perpetrator had a racist motive when he committed the

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5 NOT-GUILTY PLEAS, BAIL FOR BILLIONAIRE IN U.N. CASE

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EW YORK—A former president of the United Nations General Assembly, another diplomat and a Chinese billionaire were among five defendants who pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a bribery case that has invited scrutiny of the world body’s operations.

The pleas in Manhattan federal court came as each defendant stood in a jury box, their hands handcuffed in front of them. Afterward, a judge refused the government’s attempt to revoke $50-million bail for Ng Lap Seng, the wealthy man whose money is at the center of the bribery scandal.

Prosecutors say Ng funneled over $1 million in bribes to John Ashe, 61, a former UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as president of the General Assembly for one year until a year ago. They say Ng was seeking to influence Ashe, who faces tax charges, to pressure other diplomats into supporting a major UN conference center in Macau, where Ng lives.

Bribery and money laundering charges have been lodged against Ng and Francis Lorenzo, a suspended ambassador to the UN from the Dominican Republic. Lawyers for the men have promised a vigorous defense.

After the pleas were entered on Thursday, US District Judge Vernon S. Broderick rejected Assistant US Attorney Daniel Richenthal’s request to revoke bail for Ng that had been set by a magistrate judge last week.

Broderick did, however, toughen conditions under which Ng can remain in a Manhattan apartment under guard.

He’s limiting who Ng sees, how he communicates by phone and computer and is requiring him to provide information to the US government about his fleet of private aircraft.

Richenthal had argued that Ng has every reason to flee and the money and connections to do so, despite an arrangement that will keep two guards at his midtown Manhattan apartment aroundthe-clock.

“The risk of flight is severe,” the prosecutor said, calling Ng “wildly wealthy.”

Benjamin Brafman, Ng’s attorney, countered that Richenthal’s arguments were offensive and absurd.

“Right now, all they’ve got is he’s rich and the rest is speculation,” Brafman said.

The lawyer said his client was prepared to post $20 million in cash and a $4-million apartment to secure his bail. AP

were intentionally or unintentionally aiding this effort and called IS’s management of its oil fields “increasingly sophisticated,” something that has helped the group slow down the degradation of its infrastructure from US bombing raids.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

IS sells the crude to smugglers for discounted prices, sometimes $35 per barrel but as low as $10 a barrel in some cases, compared to just under $50 a barrel on international markets, four Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP in separate interviews.

The smugglers, in turn, sell to middlemen in Turkey, they said. The oil used to be smuggled in fleets of giant tankers but, fearing air strikes by the US-led coalition, smaller tankers are being used now. The Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The IS group is believed to be extracting about 30,000 barrels per day from Syria, smuggled to middlemen in neighboring Turkey.

In Iraq, they produce around

10,000 to 20,000 barrels per day, mostly from two oilfields outside Mosul, Ibrahim Bahr al-Oloum, a member of Iraq’s parliamentary energy committee and a former oil minister, told the AP. But he said much of the Iraqi production is not sold and, instead sent to Syria to makeshift refineries the group has set up to produce fuel products.

In total, the group is believed to make $40 million to $50 million a month from sales, the Iraqi officials said. A report by the IS’s Diwan alRakaaez—its version of a Finance Ministry—seen by the AP in Baghdad shows that revenues from oil sales from Syria alone in April totaled $46.7 million.

The IS “finance ministry” report put at 253 the number of oil wells under IS control in Syria, saying 161 of them were operational. Running the wells were 275 engineers and 1,107 workers, it said.

Turkey’s prime minister’s office said in a statement to the AP that it has taken steps to tighten border security and “has effectively stopped oil smuggling” across the border.

It said that as of the end of September it had prevented 3,319 acts of smuggling from Syria and that since 2011 it seized more than 5.5 million liters of oil in antismuggling operations. It did not comment on US efforts to stop oil equipment and experts from entering Syria from Turkey.

Daniel Glaser, a US Treasury official, estimated IS oil revenues at around $500 million a year, based on evidence they made around $40 million in one month in early 2015.

The group is also believed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from “taxes” on commercial activities in the areas it rules, said Glaser, who is assistant Treasury secretary for Terrorist Financing in the Office of Terrorism and Financial

Intelligence.

That income is on top of the money that the militants first looted from the Iraqi central bank branch in the city of Mosul when they seized it in the summer of 2014 and other bank branches, which “at the time was thought to be anywhere between $500 million dollars to up to $1 billion,” Glaser told the AP. The Iraqi officials said some oil was also smuggled into Iraq’s self-ruled Kurdish region. But Ali Hama Salih, a member of the Iraqi Kurdish parliament who follows trade out of IS-run areas, denied the group was smuggling oil into Iraqi Kurdish areas, saying “there are no documents to prove Daesh is selling oil through here,” using an Arabic acronym for the group. It is easier, he said, for IS to move the smaller amounts it produces in Iraq into Syria.

Still, there is other trade into Kurdish regions. Salih said authorities in the regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan have recently arrested 15 people, including military officials and businessmen, on suspicion of doing business with IS. So far, the campaign of Russian air strikes in Syria that began last month has not hit IS oil infrastructure. In Iraq, air strikes and ground offensives have had a greater effect in grinding down the oil industry.

In March the militants were driven out of a major oilfield outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Fear of air strikes is preventing IS administrators from exploiting another large oilfield near Sinjar in northern Iraq, though, production teams are sent there occasionally to quickly pump out oil and leave, the Iraqi intelligence officials said.

Still, little has hurt the sophisticated industry that the IS group has built up around oil production. AP

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UCSON, Arizona—Arizona tried to illegally import a lethal injection drug that’s not approved in the US but never obtained it after federal agents stopped the shipment at the Phoenix airport, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press (AP).

Arizona paid nearly $27,000 for sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that has been used to carry out executions but is no longer manufactured by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved companies, the documents said. When the drugs arrived via British Airways at the Phoenix International Airport, they were seized by federal officials and have not been released, according to the documents.

“The department is contesting FDA’s legal authority to continue to withhold the state’s execution chemicals,” state Department of Corrections spokesman Andrew Wilder said on Thursday. The documents obtained by the AP were released as part of a lawsuit against the department over transparency in executions. The AP is a party in the lawsuit.

Arizona and other death-penalty states have been struggling to obtain legal execution drugs for several years after European companies refused to sell the drugs, including sodium thiopental, that are needed to carry out executions.

States have had to change drug combinations or, in some cases, put executions on hold temporarily as they look for other options.

Arizona is not the only state that has tried to purchase drugs overseas. Earlier this year, Nebraska was told by the FDA that it could not legally import the drug it needed to carry out lethal injection after the governor said the state had obtained sodium thiopental from India.

Ohio, which has halted executions until at least 2017 because of a lack of drugs, sent a letter earlier this month to the FDA asserting that the state believes it can obtain a lethal-injection drug from overseas without violating any laws.

And Texas on Thursday said it had obtained a license from the US Drug Enforcement Administration to import sodium thiopental. AP

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RBIL, Iraq—Acting on word of an “imminent mass execution” by Islamic State (IS) militants, dozens of US specialoperations troops and Iraqi forces raided a northern Iraqi compound on Thursday, freeing approximately 70 Iraqi prisoners in an operation that saw the first American killed in combat in the country since the US campaign against IS began in 2014, officials said.

The raiders killed and captured a number of militants and recovered what the Pentagon called a trove of valuable intelligence about the terrorist organization.

The US service member who died was not publicly identified pending notification of relatives.

Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said the target of the raid was a prison near the town of Hawija and that the raid was undertaken at the request of the Kurdish Regional Government, the semi-autonomous body that governs the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. He said US special operations forces supported what he called an Iraqi peshmerga rescue operation.

The peshmerga are the Kurdish region’s organized militia. The US has worked closely with them in training and advising roles, but this was the first known instance of US ground forces operating alongside Iraqi forces in combat since launching Operation Inherent Resolve last year.

“This operation was deliberately planned and launched after receiving information that the hostages faced imminent mass execution,” Cook said, adding later that it appeared the hostages faced death “perhaps within hours” and that freed hostages told authorities some had been killed at the prison recently, prior to the rescue.

Cook said Defense Secretary Ash Carter approved the US participation in the mission. Cook called it “consistent with our counter-ISIL [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] effort to train, advise and assist Iraqi forces.”

US combat troops have rarely, if ever, participated directly in combat against IS fighters on the ground since the US mission began in 2014. AP

Racist motive behind Swedish school attack

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IN this file photo, President Aquino views the Caticlan Airport scale model during the inauguration of the newly renovated airport in Malay, Aklan, on June 25, 2011. The Caticlan Airport Development Project is an example of a public-private partnership. The development is spearheaded by TransAire Development Holdings Corp., a subsidiary of San Miguel Corp. (SMC). In photo are SMC President Ramon Ang (third from left), Aklan Gov. Carlito Marquez (fifth from left) and Municipality of Malay Mayor John Yap. JAY MORALES / MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

ARIZONA TRIED TO American killed ILLEGALLY IMPORT in raid to free EXECUTION DRUG Iraqis held by IS

ISLAMIC State militants at a convoy in Tel Abyad, northeast Syria. ISLAMIC STATE WEB SITE VIA AP

crimes at Kronan school,” the police said in a statement.

A 21-year-old masked man, who has not been identified by police, entered the school in southern Sweden on Thursday and stabbed four people, two of whom died, before he was shot by police. He later died of his wounds.

According to Swedish media, the assailant posed for photos with students before beginning his deadly rampage in the halls of the Kronan school in the town that has a large immigrant community. A majority of the students at Kronan are foreign-born.

Many students thought the attacker was playing a Halloween

PEOPLE light candles and lay flower tributes outside the school on Thursday afternoon where a masked man stabbed four people on Thursday in Trollhattan, Sweden. A knifewielding masked man stabbed four people on Thursday at a school in southern Sweden, killing one teacher and a student before being shot by police, authorities said.

prank. News outlets posted a photo of a black-clad man they identified as the attacker wearing a militarystyle helmet and a black mask with a sword in his hand.

Panicked students fled the school, as police and ambulances rushed in.

They found a dead male teacher and three people seriously wounded— two boys, aged 11 and 15, and another male teacher. One of the students later died of his wounds. None of the victims have been identified.

Officers fired two shots, hitting the attacker with a bullet in the lower chest, and he later died at a hospital. AP

WORLD ADAM IHSE/TT VIA AP

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HE volume of crops damaged

by Typhoon Lando (international code name Koppu) has reached 510,438 metric tons (MT), valued at P8.62 billion as of October 23, according to the latest report from the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Based on the DA’s damage report on Lando, a total of 356,598 hectares of farmlands in Regions 1, 2, 3,

BusinessMirror

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TAMARAWS EYE FINAL 4 SEAT AGAINST WARRIORS

AR Eastern University (FEU) tries to formalize its entry into the Final Four round as it faces University of the East (UE) in the main game of the Season 78 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball tournament on Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The Tamaraws, alone at the top with an 8-1 win-loss record following the loss of University of Santo Tomas to Ateneo de Manila on Wednesday, battle the Red Warriors at 4 p.m., with UE trying to stay alive in the race for a spot in the next round.

De La Salle (5-4) battles Adamson University (1-9) with the Green Archers hoping to tie the Blue Eagles (6-4) at third spot.

FEU could take a one game lead over the Growling Tigers if they beat the Red Warriors and cement their spot in the Final Four. But they will be facing a dangerous UE side which is in a must-win situation to stay in the Final Four race.

The Tamaraws are coming off a 68-57 triumph over season host University of the Philippines for their seventh straight win, and Head Coach Nash Racela said he has been impressed with how they played in the last three games—particularly on

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OINT third-ranked Peter Magnaye and Jessie Francisco fought back strong from an opening setback, and turned back Joper Escueta and Indonesian Keshya Hanadia, 13-21, 21-19, 21-18, to barge into the semifinal round of the Open mixed doubles of the Bingo Bonanza National Open Badminton Tournament at Glorietta 5 Atrium in Makati City on Friday.

Magnaye and Francisco proved steadier in a seesaw second set duel then weathered Escueta and Hanadia’s rally in the decider with clutch smashes and drop shots to pound out the 45-minute victory for a Final Four clash with No. 2 and fellow Philippine Badminton Association (PBA)-Smash Pilipinas bets Alvin Morada and Alyssa Leonardo.

Morada and Leonardo combined well from start to finish, and dominated Carlos Cayanan and Alyssa Geverjuan to complete a 21-12, 21-14 victory in just 25 minutes in the event, sponsored by Bingo Bonanza and backed by official equipment Victor PCOME and official sports drink Gatorade.

Ronel Estanislao and

Joel Orellana

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fellow Atenean Aldo Batungbacal (2:09.47) in the process.

The Blue Eagles also swept the relay events, topping the 4x200-meter medley (1:49.66) and 4x800-meter freestyle (8:14.58).

The Fighting Maroons ran third with 40 points, while debuting National University had 25 points in fourth spot.

Powered by last season’s MVP Hannah Dato, Ateneo is also lording it over in the women’s division with 121 points, with UP in far second with 66 points.

A three-time Asean University Games gold medalist, Dato reset the three-year-old 200-meter freestyle record by former Lady Eagle Jasmine Ong (59.12) by recording 58.48 seconds to outlast Lady Maroon Winona Tee Ten, who settled for silver with 1:01.66.

Indonesian partner Marissa Vita posted the event’s biggest reversal late Thursday when they stunned top seed Paul Pantig and Thea Pomar, 21-12, 21-14, to clinch the first semifinal berth. The Estanislao-Vita pair, however, will face defending champion Paul Vivas and Eleanor Inlayo for a crack at the championship.

Vivas and Inlayo primed up for their defense of the crown by subduing the other third-seeded pair of Christian Bernardo and Joella de Vera, 21-11, 21-11.

The Estanislao-Vita pair and Vivas-Inlayo tandem dispute the first finals berth on Saturday starting at 11 a.m., also at Glorietta, while the Magnaye-Francisco team slugs it out with Morada and Leonardo for the other championship slot.

Victor-Pcome’s Danica Bolos and Jennifer Cayetano of Air Force also pulled off a 12-21, 21-16, 21-18 reversal over No. 4 Descka Calimlim and Fatima Cruz of Meralco to book the first semis berth in the Open women’s doubles.

Meanwhile, second seed Mark Alcala of

Allied-NVBA trounced Alvin Morada, 21-12, 21-11, also late Thursday to set up a semis duel with No. 4 R-Jay Ormilla, who bundled out fifth seed Jason Obaob, 21-14, 21-19, in the Open men’s singles of the event, organized by EventKing Corp. and sanctioned by the PBA, headed by Vice President Jejomar C. Binay and Secretary-General Rep. Albee Benitez of Negros Occidental.

Also on tap are the Open women’s singles semis pitting the surging Mariya Sevilla against No. 4 Airah Albo and defending champion Gelita Castilo battling it out with second seed Sarah Barredo.

Alcala, on the other hand, tries to reassert his mastery over Ormilla, whom he beat to cop the crown last year, in their 1:20 p.m. showdown while top seed Kevin Cudiamat and No. 8 Frell Gabuela dispute the other finals berth in the Open men’s singles.

All finals matches in the event are backed

by Glorietta, Smash Pilipinas and the Philippine Olympic Committee on Sunday.

KNIGHTS IN GAME 1

ATENEO TANKERS AHEAD

TENEO pulled away in the men’s and women’s divisions after Day One of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 78 swimming championships at the Rizal Memorial Swimming Pool on Thursday.

With reigning Most Valuable Player Jessie Khing Lacuna leading the charge, the defending champion Blue Eagles tallied 122 points, 55 ahead of De La Salle (67).

Lacuna won the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle in record fashion. The London Olympian shattered University of the Philippines (UP) standout Ken Uy’s 2008 record of of 52.3 seconds with 51.66 seconds, beating his teammate Axel Ngui, who finished with 52.14 seconds for the silver medal.

In the 200-meter individual medley, Lacuna won in 2:06.50 for his second gold, defeating

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| SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2015 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

SEESAW CONTEST

defense and his second unit.

Racela knows they are now closer to their target, but wants his players to focus on the task at hand and keep on improving.

“We are not thinking about it,” Racela said of their current streak as they move closer for a Final Four slot and a twice-to-beat advantage in the next round. “We are still looking for improvements in our game. What we talk about is how we can improve day to day.”

UE can still snatch a Final Four berth, but at 3-6, they could not afford to lose on Saturday.

The Green Archers, on the other hand, eye a crucial win to keep them in pace with Ateneo, but they will be playing a team that is already out of contention for a spot in the next round, and is expected to play loose with nothing more to gain in their succeeding games except for pride.

De La Salle was supposed to meet FEU on Sunday but games were called off due to Typhoon Lando, giving the Taft-based team more time to prepare against the Tamaraws.

Standings: FEU 8-1, UST 8-2, Ateneo 6-4, La Salle 5-4, NU 4-6, UE 3-6, UP 3-6, Adamson 1-9.

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DANICA BOLOS and Jennifer Cayetano of Team Victor-Pcome/Philippine Air Force in action against Meralco on Friday. NONIE REYES

ETRAN showed grit under pressure to snatch Game One, 94-90, of the championship series that turned out as a classic showdown between two fabled schools in Season 91 National Collegiate Athletic Association Season 91 seniors basketball tournament on Friday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Neither team refused to budge in the first three quarters, but the floodgates opened early in the fourth quarter when the Knights put up a quick five-point burst to take a 66-62 lead in the first minute.

Both teams combined for 23 threepointers, but none bigger than the five made by the Knights in the final frame that gave them enough cushion to overcome the five-time defending champions.

Pro-bound forward Kevin Racal scored a personal playoffs-best 28 points built around five three-pointers with five rebounds and five assists to lead Letran. Junior guard Rey Nambatac added 18 points with four steals, while Mark Cruz finished with 17.

“We know that it will be a dogfight.

We just had to be tough and we had to grab this opportunity because not all players and coaches are given this kind of opportunity,” said Aldin Ayo, the former Knight on his rookie season as the team’s head coach.

Ola Adeogun surged with his best game of the tournament for

the Red Lions, finishing with 23 points and 16 rebounds, while guards Ryusei Koga and Roldan Sara tallied 10 apiece.

Graduating seniors Baser Amer and Arthur de la Cruz racked up sub-par totals of eight and seven points, respectively, which contributed much to San Beda’s scoring woes in the crucial moments of Game One. It was the first time in four Finals meetings that the Knights took Game One—their 2007 and 2013 meetings ended in a sweep by the Red Lions, while Letran took Game Two of their 2012 matchup.

The Knights try to wrap up their first title in a decade in Game Two at 4 p.m. on Tuesday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Six-time defending champion San Beda-Taytay, meanwhile, beat Arellano University, 76-68, to move within a game of completing a season sweep en route to the juniors crown for the second time in their recordsetting run. Diego de la Paz BEDA’S Ola Adeogun and  SANLetran’s Kevin Racal battle for the rebound during Game One of the finals on Friday.

KEVIN DE LA CRUZ

Lady Maroons vs Lady Sailors in V-League

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OPNOTCH action resumes on Saturday as University of the Philippines (UP) takes a rare crack at the solo lead against Philippine Coast Guard in the Shakey’s V-League Season 12-Reinforced Conference at The Arena in San Juan City.

The Lady Maroons drew strength and inspiration from the comebacking Katherine Bersola as they turned back the Navy Lady Sailors, 19-25, 25-23, 25-23, 25-23, in the opener of the season-ending conference of

the league where it started.

Bersola came back strong from an anterior cruciate ligament injury last University Athletic Association of the Philippines season, accounting for four of UP’s 13 blocks and finishing with eight hits to power the Diliman-based squad past Navy on October 10.

“She’s one of the pillars of this team and we will need her for this team to succeed,” UP Coach Jerry Yee said of his prized ward.

PEPSICO Philippines Marketing Manager for Hydration Tony Atayde (third from left) with brand ambassadors (from left) Mika Reyes of De La Salle, Chris Banchero of Alaska and Alyssa Valdez of Ateneo.

LANCE AGCAOILI

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COMMUTERS, who are unable to use the highway due to raging floodwaters, ride a boat to get to their destinations in La Paz, Tarlac, on October 20. Slow-moving Typhoon Lando blew ashore with fierce winds in the northeastern Philippines early Sunday, toppling trees and knocking out power lines and communications, and forcing the evacuation of thousands of villagers. AP/BULLIT MARQUEZ B M G P  R A

SEESAW CONTEST

Sports

N celebration of its 50th year anniversary, Gatorade launched its latest White Lighting flavor with its newest line-up of brand ambassadors on Thursday at the Gatorade Hoops Center on Shaw Boulevard in Pasig City.

Buoyed by its golden anniversary, Gatorade flaunted its winning tradition by propelling hardworking athletes with its latest addition of energy drink.

“Honestly, the only thing that I really can say in Gatorade’s 50 years is we’re just getting started,” Pepsico Philippines Marketing Manager for Hydration Tony Atayde said. “We’ve been fueling athletes all over the world for the past 50 years, and we’ll continue to fuel them

AQUINO ADMINISTRATION APPROVED P903B WORTH OF PROJECTS SINCE 2010

The league, presented by PLDT Home Ultera, holds another weekend volley festival where matches are shown live on GMA News TV Channel 11 beginning at 12:45 p.m.

Air Force, meanwhile, tries to make it three in row as it clashes with Navy in a duel of unbeaten teams as action in the Spikers’ Turf Season 1 Reinforced Conference also resumes on Saturday at The Arena in San Juan City.

Game time is 3 p.m. with the Airmen seeking at least a playoff for the last semifinal berth in the season-ending tournament of the country’s premier men’s volley league backed

by Mikasa.

PLDT Home Ultera, on the other hand, sets out to check an early skid as it tangles with Instituto Estetico Manila at 5 p.m., hoping to get back into the groove after back-to-back setbacks to Cignal and Sta. Elena.

Another loss would send them to the brink in the single round eliminations among six teams.

Valdez, Reyes, Banchero endorse White Lighting for the next 50 years.”

“We’re proud of what we have achieved being the No. 1 sports drink in the world, and we’re going to continue not to just fuel athletes all over the world but also here in the Philippines,” Atayde added.

The country’s finest volleyball players Alyssa Valdez of Ateneo and Mika Reyes of De La Salle, along with the Alaska Aces guard Chris Banchero were introduced as brand ambassadors. Jeron Teng is also part of the powerhouse ambassadors but did not attend the event.

“What we’ve seen in the 50 years of campaign is the historic moments. The ‘Be Like Mike’ campaign at the start of the year that was about

the greatest basketball who has ever lived. But now, transitioning to the White Lightning, we picked this four ambassadors as they represent the future of Philippines sports,” Atayde said.

The light orange-grapefruit flavored drink is composed of non-carbonated water and 6-percent carbohydrates which promotes absorption and provides energy to working muscles. It also has electrolytes for rapid rehydration and minerals to prevent cramps.

“It’s a little bit lighter and a lot more refreshing, and Gatorade will always be the number one sports drink in the world and it will continue rehydrating the athletes all over the world,” Atayde added. Lance Agcaoili

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MEDIA PARTNER

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PCCI: We want trade facilitation, not pre-shipment inspection

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BusinessMirror

4A and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) were affected by the typhoon, with 93.48 percent, or 333,357 hectares, having a chance of recovery.

The rice sector suffered the most damage, registering a total production loss of 463,692 MT pegged at P7.09 billion. Rice farms in Region 3 were severely devastated, losing 393,440 MT of crops valued at almost P6 billion in terms of production loss.

HE Aquino administration has approved a total of P903.32 billion worth of projects—most of them meant to upgrade the country’s infrastructure—from June 2010 to September 21, 2015.

These projects were approved by the interagency Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) and the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

Approved public-private partnership (PPP) projects were estimated at P788.41 billion. The remaining P114.91 billion are locally funded projects, or projects to be undertaken by various implementing agencies. The largest PPPs approved by the Aquino administration were the P170.7-billion North-South Railway Project-South Line and the P122.81-billion Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike Project.

The majority of the PPP projects, worth P435.45 billion, were under the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

Another agency that accounted for a significant portion of the PPP projects approved under the current administration is the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

In terms of the locally funded projects, those under the DOTC accounted for P61.15 billion.

The DPWH also accounted for a large part of the approved locally funded projects at P12.53 billion.

Earlier, Neda Director General and Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said infrastructure projects, like those that will be implemented by the DOTC and the DPWH, will help address the long-term constraints of the Philippine economy.

Balisacan said the government aims to increase public infrastructure spending to 5 percent of GDP by 2016, from 2 percent in 2012.

“As you can imagine, this is quite a challenging task, as it is equivalent to raising the value of infrastructure spending more than three times over a span of five years—from P216 billion in 2012 to P766.5 billion in 2016,” Balisacan said.

Balisacan added that PPP projects are also gaining traction. He said as of September 21, 2015, a total of 12 projects worth P285 billion (or around 2 percent of GDP) were already under implementation.

He added that another 41 projects are in the pipeline, including 13 projects worth P514 billion (or around 4 percent of the GDP) that are already undergoing various stages of procurement.

ILIPINO businessmen want the government to concentrate on trade-facilitation measures and ways to curb smuggling, instead of reviving the preshipment inspection (PSI) scheme.

“A proposal to legislate pre-shipment inspection— inspection of imports by a third-party inspector prior to export to the Philippines—would be a step backward from strategic trade-facilitation measures under international trade protocols,” said the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), citing the Revised Kyoto Convention, the

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 46.5280

Asean Economic Community and the Philippines-US Trade Facilitation Protocol.

This was relayed by the country’s business group to the Senate through a letter sent to the Ways and Means Committee.

The PCCI, thus, joined exporters and lawmakers in contesting the PSI scheme. The Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) was the first to oppose the possible revival of the scheme, followed by the Makati Business Club and several lawmakers, including the chairmen of the House and the Senate Ways

and Means Committee.

“While we understand the intent and purpose of putting a PSI system in place, such should not run counter to the ultimate objective of facilitating trade. Absent a fully modernized and clearly streamlined customs procedures, the PSI may just be another hurdle for the ease of doing business,” said Peter V. Perfecto, MBC executive director.

Rep. Romero S. Quimbo of the Second District of Marikina City and Sen. Juan Edgardo M. Angara, chairmen of the Ways and Means committees of the House of Representatives

and the Senate, respectively, agreed that the scheme should be a matter of choice. The Ways and Means committees of both chambers are in charge of moving the amendments to the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA).

The chamber of local businesses said the x-ray schemes should be kept, supported by specific measures like a risk-management system.

The PCCI also wants an authorized economic-operator (AEO) system in place as part of efforts to modernize the customs administration.

Some groups, according to the

Philexport, is attempting to insert the PSI scheme into the proposed CMTA. This is meant to align local policies with the country’s international trade-facilitation commitments.

The PCCI said the risk-management system, for instance, would allow the Bureau of Customs to fasttrack low-risk imports, including accredited companies’ imports.

Having an AEO system, on the other hand, would enable exporting and importing firms to be approved

by Customs as compliant with the supply-chain security standards S “PCCI,” A

n JAPAN 0.3855 n UK 71.6392 n HK 6.0036 n CHINA 7.3187 n SINGAPORE 33.3821 n AUSTRALIA 33.5555 n EU 51.7066 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.4111

Source: BSP (23 October 2015)

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PCCI. . .

Continued from A1

and enjoy benefits such as simplified customs procedures and minimal customs intervention.

“The AEO concept is being increasingly adopted by various Customs administration with the object of securing the supply chain with resultant benefits for the trading community,” the PCCI said. “At a time when we are supposed to be streamlining and reducing processes in line with our international trade commitments, we will only be adding more layers in the importation process with pre-shipment inspection.”

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as economies that “no longer raise concerns” over developments in other countries.

The HSBC economist also said the Philippines should not be vulnerable to heavy capital outflows like some of its neighbors are.

According to the HSBC economist, a weaker currency and the widening spreads imply capital outflows and the potential for growth over the near horizon, especially for Brazil, Russia, Colombia and Malaysia.

India and the Philippines, on the other hand, are in a much better shape, Pomeroy said.

The economist also rated the Philippines as one of those with the most convincing structural reforms aimed at resolving deficiencies in the system. HSBC lumped the Philippines along with Mexico, South Africa and Romania for successes made in the name of fiscal and monetary-reform initiatives.

Tech companies face rocky road on the way to making cars

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EW YORK—Silicon Valley may think it can build a better car.

But should it?

As tech giants like Google and Apple look to automobiles as the next frontier for innovation, they face a looming reality: Cars are a lot harder to manufacture and sell than smartphones.

Industry veterans and critics warn that the auto business is a different animal. It’s fraught with massive costs to erect auto plants, complexities in developing new sales and service systems, and daunting liabilities involved when human lives are at stake.

Automakers recalled a record 64 million vehicles in 2014, shattering the old record of 30.8 million set in 2004.

General Motors Co. (GM) has had to pay $5.3 billion to cover fines, victim compensation and the recall of millions of vehicles for faulty ignition switches.

Toyota Motor Corp. paid a $1.2-billion fine for failing to report safety defects, and Volkswagen Group has set aside $7.3 billion for the potential costs of its emissions scandal.

“I think, like so many Silicon Valley techies, that they believe they are smarter than the world’s automobile business, and that they will do it better,” said Bob Lutz, a retired GM vice chairman. “No way.”

He added that tech companies would pay the same high prices for expensive components, such as electric car batteries, likely pushing retail prices of their vehicles out of reach for the average driver.

“It will be a huge money loser,” Lutz predicted. To be sure, Google and Apple have plenty of cash to burn, with about $270 billion in the bank combined.

But the challenges of the car industry may be steering them to find ways to revolutionize automotive technology without becoming actual automakers.

Google

Mountain V ie w, C a l i for n i abased Alphabet, the new holding company for Google and its affiliated businesses, has spent six years working on cars that can drive without human assistance. But the company says it doesn’t want the responsibility of building the robotic vehicles.

Instead, it plans to make the self-driving system available to automakers that already have factories, dealerships and experience.

“We have enormous respect for the expertise of the automotive industry, and how big and complex a job it is to manufacture a vehicle,” company spokesman Courtney Hohne said.

“We’ll partner with many different companies to bring this technology into the world safely.”

The strategy is consistent with how Google currently operates. It relies on other companies to produce the devices powered by its software. Most smartphones, for example, operate on its Android software. But the company

doesn’t make any of the devices.

If its self-driving system makes it to market, the company could license the software for a fee or, perhaps, making it free to use like Android.

That’s because it makes most of its money from ads within their popular online services. If they no longer need to drive, people might spend time in their cars watching videos on Googleowned YouTube, or seeking information on Google’s search engine—both of which show ads.

But licensing their technology won’t insulate it from safety issues.

The company potentially could be held liable if one of its self-driving cars goes awry and injures or kills people in an accident.

Apple

Apple CEO Tim Cook told an audience this week that the automotive industry is ripe for “massive change,” with new software, electric motors and selfdriving capability becoming “much more important, in a huge way.”

But Cook avoided commenting on reports that Apple may be building its own car, according to a video recording of his remarks on Monday at a technology conference, sponsored by the Wall Street Journal.

“What we really want, hopefully in the short term, is we’d like people as they enter their car to be able to have an iPhone experience in their car,” he said.

Apple has developed software for automakers, called CarPlay, which lets drivers use an iPhone and its voiceactivated assistant Siri to operate some electronic controls and entertainment systems. AP

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Lando. . .

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Farmers of high-value crops lost 36,373 MT with a value of P1.35 billion due to the typhoon. This caused prices of vegetables in Metro Manila markets to spike up, according to the DA’s daily price monitoring.

About 10,374 MT of crops with a total value of P146.50 million were damaged in the corn sector, while the fisheries and livestock sector suffered P20.96 million and P8.74 million in revenue losses, respectively.

Region 3 took the brunt of the damage, registering a total of P6.73 billion worth of crops lost.

Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala said during a media briefing recently that the DA has allotted its quick-response fund for the management and recovery of the damage caused by Lando.

He said 62,000 bags of certified seeds are being distributed to farmers with damaged crops, and an additional 30,000 bags of certified seeds are set to be procured by the DA. Farmers listed in the Philippine Statistics Authority’s Registry System on Basic Sectors in Agriculture will also be provided with crop insurance, he said.

Meanwhile, the National Food Authority (NFA) said it has already released 24,889 bags of rice to local government units and relief agencies as of October 19 for distribution to the families in the affected areas. The NFA has requested for supplemental budget so it can procure damaged palay crops from farmers.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has also committed to assist the DA in its disaster-relief efforts, Alcala said. He added that the Philippines can also request additional rice stocks from the Asean Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve if necessary. Counting the effects to infrastructure, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said total damage would already exceed P9 billion.

The NDRRMC expects the estimated value of damage will further increase once it completes its rapid assessment of areas hit by the typhoon in Regions 1, 2, 3, 4A and CAR. Among the public projects that were damaged were 751 schools.

The NDRRMC said at least 26,124 houses were also destroyed.

Lando affected a total of 295,835 families, or 1,407,805 individuals, with 108,688 persons still housed in government-run shelters.

Flooding was reported in 479 towns and municipalities in the provinces of Pangasinan, Ilocos Norte, Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, Zambales, Cagayan and Benguet.

While power has been restored in most of the areas battered by the typhoon, at least five cities and 52 municipalities were still experiencing power outages.

The NDRRMC said its death toll count has also increased to 46, while 82 persons were injured.

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Govt unprepared to handle disasters–legislator laments

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By Marvyn N. Benaning Correspondent

ARTY-LIST Rep. Rodel Batocabe of Ako Bicol has described the Aquino administration as “unprepared to handle disasters just as the lead agencies in combatting climate change are in disarray.”

Batocabe poured his heart out on Thursday when he met with protesting residents of Tacloban City and several areas in Eastern Samar battered by Typhoon Yolanda nearly two years ago.

“They are only reacting,” Batocabe told the protesters demanding that the Aquino administration redeem its pledge to provide decent, sturdier dwellings for those victimized by Yolanda.

The protesting residents held a picket at the main office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Que-

zon City and revealed the failure of the Aquino administration to provide them with dwellings.

They urged the newly appointed Interior Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento address their problems quickly.

S a r m ie nto i s a n at i ve of Eastern Visayas and a former Samar representative before

Batocabe

he was appointed to replace f o r m e r I nt e r i o r S e c r e t a r y Manuel Roxas II. Later, the residents met with officials from the National Housing Authority (NHA), Tacloban City and representatives of the Nongovernment Organizations for Fisheries Reform, Oxfam, Partnership of Philippine Support Service Agencies, as well as the Dutch development alliance Icco, a 50-year-old interchurch alliance that works in 44 countries in a forum organized by the Philippine Legislators’ C o m m i t t e e o n Po p u l a t i o n a nd D e v e lo p me nt ( PL C PD)

at a nearby restaurant.

PLCPD Executive Director Romeo C. Dongeto said that, while post-Yolanda reconstruction is a must, “it must nevertheless be pursued with dispatch since the affected families have the right to adequate housing.”

He added: “Adequate housing is a basic human right, the government should speed up the i mplement at ion of hou si ng projec t s t h at meet hu m a nrights standards before disaster strikes again.”

Dongeto said only 28.3 percent of the P76.678 billion for the housing program has been released and they are rushing t he const r uc t ion of 73,0 0 0 houses as more t y phoons threaten the eastern seaboard, inc lud ing Bicol and Easter n Visayas.

The residents assailed the fact that, while the NHA and Vice President Jejomar C. Binay had the mandate to build houses for the Yolanda victims, the task was later on transferred to Roxas, who also took over the overall task of rehabilitating and reconstructing Tacloban a n d o t h e r a r e a s f l at t e n e d

by Yolanda.

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Saturday, October 24, 2015 A3

Luistro allows typhoon victims to use school facilities as temporary shelters

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DUCATION Secretary Bro. Armin A. Luistro, FSC, on Thursday has directed all regional directors to allow evacuess to use school facilities as temporary shelters.

Initial data from the Department of Education from eight of the affected regions show that 419 classrooms were severely damaged, while 445 sustained minor damage.

Luistro said that local school authorities are also preparing contingency plans so that classes in those places can start to normalize the situation, address urgent problems and provide speedy solution as he also recommended the holding of make-up classes to cope up for the lost school days.

Meawhile, the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has distributed a total of P4 million worth of relief items, including sleeping kits (blankets, plastic mats and mosquito nets), hygiene kits, tarpaulins and jerry cans in Aurora, Cagayan and Isabela, some of the provinces that were battered

by Typhoon Lando.

During the typhoon’s wrath, PRC personnel and volunteers were able to rescue 728 people, mostly from flooded homes in Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Zambales and Bulacan. The PRC was also able to assist 255 people in Baguio City and Nueva Ecija, transported three patients to hospitals, and gave first-aid treatment to two persons.

“Our chapters in northern, central and parts of southern Luzon, as well as in Metro Manila are now operating and coordinating with the local governments to support operations on still ongoing rescue, first aid, welfare and provision of hot meals in areas that were severely affected by the typhoon,”

PRC Chairman Richard Gordon said.

As of October 22, a total of 3,742 food packs were distributed in Quirino and Tarlac and 4,419 breads were given to affected people in La Union, Pangasinan and Bulacan. Hot meals were given to a total of 8,871 people in evacuation centers in affected areas. The PRC also distributed 875 plastic mats, 474 blankets and 356 mosquito nets.

There were a total of 33 welfare desks that were established, which gave referral services to 10 people and provided psychosocial support to 3,905 individuals.

The PRC also provided hygiene promotion activities to 1,518 individuals, mostly in the evacuation centers, to help prevent the spread of diseases.

Breast feeding education was also given to 68 mothers.

A total of 394 PRC personnel were mobilized during Lando operations: 42 staff, 273 volunteers and 79 water search and rescue teams from the national headquarters, Cavite, Laguna, Subic, Olongapo, Rizal and Bulacan.

PRC operations teams are now working in Calumpit, Bulacan, where there is still flooding; in Concepcion and Camiling, Tarlac, for relief distribution; and in Pangasinan and Zambales for assessment, rescue and assistance to affected families.

“Our work continues in Typhoon Lando-affected areas, as such we are calling for more volunteers to assist us in providing relief, as well as in our ongoing rescue operations. In disasters like this, we must all come together to help those who are most vulnerable to alleviate their suffering,” Gordon said. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

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‘Infra, transport projects make Philippines ripe for investment’

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By Recto L. Mercene

HE government is allocating increased resources to infrastructure improvement and expansion, opening up numerous opportunities for investment in the Philippines.

Opportunities for doing business in the

transport and infrastructure sectors were one of the main topics during the second leg of the fourth Philippine Private Sectorled Investment Roadshow in Dallas, Texas, on October 21. There were at least 165 participants, including senior executives from American Airlines, Fluor Corp., Rio Grande Pacific Corp., Texas Instruments, World Affairs Council and heads of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce.

Members of the Manila business delegation agreed that the Philippines is serious in improving its infrastructure to meet demands of the country’s economy. This is reflected in the government’s increased budget allocation for infrastructure projects in order to meet population and economic demands.

Ronaldo Elepaño, first vice president for international business development at DM Consunji Inc., the 2015 National

Government Budget sets aside P569.9 billion for strategic infrastructure projects.

Infrastructure outlays for this year represent 4 percent of the country’s GDP, a 28.95percent increase in allocated budget from the previous year.

Additionally, P287.8 billion is earmarked for transport infrastructure projects, including road, maritime, air and railway transport. Of this amount, 53.1 billion will go to agricultural infrastructure, which includes irrigation, farm-to-market roads and fishery infrastructure. The growing population is a major driving force in infrastructure expansion. Juan Olondriz Peña, president of Raji Inc., said population growth and the expansion of the metropolis demands that infrastructure development extend to places outside Metro Manila.

“The Philippines has a population of approximately 100 million people, growing at an average rate of 1.8 percent to 2.3 percent

annually. The main population center is in the Metro Manila area and within the next six to eight years, Greater Manila will extend as far North as Angeles City in Pampanga, to Lucena City, Quezon province in the South, and to Batangas City in the West, with a radius averaging 80 kilometers from the center of Manila,” Peña said.

He added, “Looking at the potential growth of Greater Manila to include the outlaying provinces North, South and West of Greater Manila, the Philippine government needs to focus and fast-track the infrastructure projects that will support the projected growth of both the population and its economy.”

Philippine Port Authority statistics show an overall increase in cargo throughput or the average quantity of cargo and passengers that can pass through Philippine ports.

Peña said the increase in cargo throughput presents numerous private sector opportunities for the expansion of port facilities and railroads, specifically projects at the Port of Batangas, Port of Abra de Ilog in Mindoro Occidental and Port of Calapan in Mindoro Oriental. Expansion of the three ports will benefit Metro Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, Zambales, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, the Cagayan region, Southern Tagalog Islands, Quezon province and the Bicol provinces.

The Philippine National Railways is also working on providing an improved, sustainable railway system running from Manila to Legazpi City that will provide a rail service to carry cargo to and from Manila International

Container Terminal, North Harbor and Batangas. This will also open up even more investment opportunities for the private sector.

The mentioned multibillion-peso infrastructure and transport projects, along with an established Public-Private Partnership Program, make the Philippines ripe for investment, he said.

The conference in Dallas is the second leg in a three-city Private Sector-led Investment Roadshow and was made possible with the cooperation of the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles and the PhilippineAmerican Chamber of Commerce in Texas led by its executive director, Gus Mercado.

The Manila delegation was well received by the audience from the Dallas Fort Worth Area. Break-out sessions during the conference were also well attended, leading to continued dialogue among participants and members of the Manila delegation.

Other members of the Manila business delegation led by Bernardo Villegas, visiting professor at IESE Business School in Barcelona and professor at the University of Asia and the Pacific; includes Engelbert Camasura, partner at Ward Howell International Consulting Firm; and Jose Mari Mercado, president and CEO of the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines.

The delegation was accompanied by Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr.; Consul General Leo Herrera-Lim; and Honorary Consul Ethel Mercado, outgoing president of the Philippine American Chamber of Commerce.

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Uncut trees delay Maharlika Highway widening project

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HE Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), through its President Alfredo M. Yao and Director for Environment Felipe L. Gozon, proposed to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) means to address the problem of uncut trees causing the delay in the completion of the Marharlika Highway widening project of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Maharlika Highway.

In its letter to Environment Secretary Ramon S. Paje, the PCCI suggested that the trees be earthballed or transplanted to a protected area, if redesigning them to become island trees, such as in the case of the mahogany trees at the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue-Quezon Avenue road intersection underpass complex, is not an option.

In instances where cutting of trees is unavoidable, the PCCI proposed that the project proponent be required to plant 100 seedlings, saplings or propagules for each tree cut in accordance with DENR’s Joint Memorandum Circular 01, Series of 2014, or the Guidelines for the Implementation of the DPWH-DENR-Department of Social Welfare and Development Partnership on the Tree Replacement Project.

In addition, the PCCI also recommended that the trees to be planted should be native to the Philippines and that the proponent should take responsibility for the seedlings until they mature.

“We do understand the need to strike a balance between economic development and protecting our natural resources,” the PCCI said.

“As such we support your policy requiring an in-depth review of the feasibility of the roadwidening project, taking into consideration the possible options, including realignment and road improvement without compromising road safety and engineering.” Jonathan L. Mayuga

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Albay, Yamanashi explore sisterhood agreement in tourism, DRR, CCA

By Johnny C. Nuñez Philippines News Agency

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EGAZPI CITY—World-famous Mount Fuji in Yamanashi prefecture in Japan and Mayon Volcano in Albay will soon be kins. Both are active volcanoes and enticingly beautiful and attractive tourist attractions, even as they are similarly furious and destructive when they erupt.

Officials of Yamanashi prefecture and Albay started discussions last week on a sisterhood agreement for their two top assets that will benefit their development programs, particularly tourism.

Albay Gov. Joey S. Salceda said the “planned sisterhood between two of the world’s most beautiful and stunning volcanoes—Mount Fuji and Mayon Volcano—is a major marketing coup for the Philippines and the Department of Tourism, and there is no doubt Albay and the whole Bicol region will gain a major boost from this tourism alliance.”

Aside from tourism, Salceda said, the sisterhood agreement also explores partnership in disaster-risk reduction and climate-change adaptation for which Albay has been a global model, as well as on education, agriculture, trade and investments.

Four representatives from Yamanashi’s Fuefuki City, headed by Mayor Seiji Kurishima, met with Salceda and other Albay provincial officials on October 21 at the Diamond Hotel in Manila and started talks on areas of partnership that could link up their development programs.

With Kureshima were Fuefuki City Secretary Makoto Hashimoto, Director for International Relations Koichi Kubota and Tourism Inbound Manager Majed Kmiyama.The group visited Albay province following the Diamond Hotel conference.

The partnership was initially proposed

by Salceda earlier this year, in a letter to Gov. Shomei Yokouchi of Yamanashi prefecture, pointing out the noted resemblance of the two provinces, and the possibility of “partnership and collaboration, pooling of resources and expertise.”

“Our provinces have complementary mandates and common interest in the pursuit of our respective missions, and recognize the need to enhance collaborative undertaking of programs, projects and activities to foster and accelerate countryside development,” Salceda said in his letter. He proposed a partnership “in the fields of tourism, disaster risk reduction and climate-change adaptation, education, agriculture, trade and investments, and culture and the arts,” but stressed tourism is bound to immediately benefit from it because of their parallel attractions, particularly between Mount Fuji and Mayon Volcano.

Mount Fuji, Japan’s iconic snow-topped active volcano that is on Honshu Island, stands 12,380 feet, and is an international destination for tourism and mountain climbing, like Albay’s 8,000-foot-high Mayon Volcano, the Philippines’s nearperfect cone volcano which is also a magnet for tourists and mountaineers. Mount Fuji is a Unesco Heritage Site, while Mayon Volcano is still tentatively listed. Albay is likewise nominated for a Unesco Biosphere Area accreditation. Fuji-san straddles the boundaries of Yamanashi prefecture and another province. Mayon straddles eight towns and three cities of Albay.

Albay is known for its traditional arts such as pottery, hand-made metalsmith, Manila hemp or abaca (Musa textilis) woven cloth, and agricultural products like pili nuts (Canarium ovatum) and taro (Colocasia esculenta) leaves.

Saturday, October 24, 2015 A5

Ombudsman dismisses 19 National Police officials in P4.54-M rubber-boat scam

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HE Ombudsman has ordered the dismissal of 19 National Police officials for their involvement in the anomalous procurement of rubber boats worth P4.54 million in 2009.

The Ombudsman noted that the police coastal craft (PCC) were procured without public bidding and despite the glaring defects that were noted during delivery, the boats were still certified to have passed the acceptance criteria.

Ordered dismissed from the service for grave misconduct were Senior Supts. Asher Dolina, Ferdinand Yuzon, Cornelio Salinas, Thomas Abellar, Nepomuceno Magno Corpus Jr. and Rico Payonga; Chief Supts.

Reynaldo Rafal and Rizaldo Tungala Jr.; Senior Supts. Alex Sarmiento and Aleto Jeremy Mirasol; Supt. Michael Amor Filart; Police Officer 3 Avensuel Dy; Supts. Job Marasigan and

Leodegario Visaya; and Chief Insps.

Juanito Estrebor and Renelfa Saculles.

Supt. Henry Duque and National Police Accounting Division Chief Antonio Retrato were also dismissed for grave misconduct and gross neglect of duty, while Chief Supt.

George Piano and Commission on Audit Auditor for the National Police Jaime Sañares were dismissed for gross neglect of duty. The officials were also meted out perpetual disqualification from reemployment in the government service, forfeiture of retirement benefits and cancellation of civil-service eligibility.

Ombudsman Conchita CarpioMorales also ordered the filing of

charges for multiple violation of Section 3 of Republic Act 3019, or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, against Chief Supt. Villamor Bumanglag, along with Piano, Dolina, Yuzon, Salinas, Corpus Jr., Abellar, Payonga, Duque, Retrato, Marasigan, Visaya, Estrebor, Saculles, Dy, Rafal, Tungala Jr., Sarmiento, Mirasol, Sañares, Filart, and Roselle Ferrer and Pacita Umali of Four Petals Trading (FPT), the supplier of the rubber boats.

Additional charges for falsification of public documents were also ordered against Piano and Duque.

In 2009 the National Police general headquarters issued a resolution for the procurement of watercraft, including 20 PCC, with a budget of P5 million. Bumanglag, as former director of the Maritime Group, requested for the increase in unit price from P250,000 to P312,000 resulting in the reduction of the number of units to be procured to 16 PCC. At the time the rubber boats were delivered and inspected on March 22, 2010, several defects were uncovered, such as lack of water-temperature gauges, fuel gauges, engine

oil-pressure gauges and speedometers; engines were not operational; no rudderposts, one damaged outrigger; no ampere gauge; no canvass; no hole back portion for starboard side; no alternator; stacked-up transmission; and no heater plug.

Still, the PCC were accepted as conforming to end-user’s specification. Several procurement violations were also established, such as undated and unnumbered procurement documents; supplier was not a technically, legally and financially capable supplier, given that its address is in a residential area with no company web site; and FPT is not known in the coastal craftbuilding industry.

In August 2010 the Natinal Police officials paid FPT a total of P4.54 million for the defective rubber boats.

Morales said “the significant events leading to the procurement of 16 PCC would not only reveal badges of irregularities but also of haste and preference to buy from FPT as the sole and only choice of supplier for coastal craft.”

A6 Saturday, October 24, 2015 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Social media and the election

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he technological advances in real-time communication over the last decade are truly astounding. The widespread availability and use of cell phones was only the beginning of the revolution. We have seen this progress from text messages to social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, among others.

Wherever there is some sort of available data connection, literally anyone on Earth can be instantly connected to anyone else.

The impact on society cannot be underestimated. Natural events like an earthquake or man-made disasters like an airplane crash are now global news stories within minutes, if not seconds, of the actual occurrence. A crime can be reported in real time, even as it occurs through the use of mobile communications and through the social-media platforms. The impact that social media has had on the ability of the people to express outrage against government policies and actions is startlingly strong as we have seen time after time. The world might be a different place today if this technology has been available during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in China.

However, social media are only platforms which are an extension of what has happened repeatedly in the past. The Facebook and Twitter of past political revolutions in France, for example, was the pamphlet. Thousands of these, composed of a few pages of rhetoric and directions to the next protest, could be produced and distributed in a few hours, thanks to a technological revolution of that period—the inexpensive printing press. Prior to and during the French Revolution, some 1,600 different “newspapers” were being published regularly.

Then—as now—government tried to censor and shut down “social media.”

Those in the social-media business are convinced that for the Philippine 2016 elections, social media will play a major role in determining who is elected. We have our doubts.

“People Power” from 200 years ago to our own in the Philippines and beyond is created by the “noisy few.” We use that term with the highest respect, because to physically move from your comfort zones to the streets requires immense courage in the face of potential physical harm and loss of freedom.

The upcoming elections will see an enormous number of different views expressed with passion and clarity on Facebook and Twitter, particularly by young people energized by their quest for both people power and change.

But pressing the “Like” button on a Facebook page or retweeting a message on Twitter is not the same as getting off the chair away from the computer or smartphone and actually going to the voting booth.

Of the 51 million Filipinos eligible to vote, there are 28 million youth (“twentysomethings” and below), according to Commission on Elections data. However, unofficial estimates for the 2010 youth voter turnout ranged between 7 percent and 17 percent of those eligible.

Our Filipino youth seem to be constantly connected to social media. But when it comes to putting action to words, too many too often are “Low Bat.”

Is the PSE ‘dying’?

John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

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he amount of trading volume on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) and other financial and asset markets has been the topic in this column on several occasion. It is getting to the point, though, that the seriousness of the potential looming problem because of low volumes almost makes my hands shake as I approach the keyboard.

As I have said before, to the average person and investor for that matter, liquidity in the markets is either some abstract concept that really does not mean anything practical or is simply ignored.

One textbook definition of liquidity is, “The degree to which an asset or security can be quickly bought or sold in the market without affecting the asset’s price.” Another is: “In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is a market’s ability to facilitate the purchase or sale of an asset without causing drastic change in the asset’s price.”

Notice the difference in the two.

The first uses the word “quickly,” which means in practical terms, “Can I get rid of my stocks and back into cash whenever I want to?” The other key is found in both definitions; the idea that there are enough buyers

and sellers so as to not see the asset price crash on heavy selling.

We believe that something, anything can be sold at a low enough price. We believe that there is always a buyer waiting if we are willing to take a price that might be way below what we want. But what if the time came that no one wanted to buy what you were selling at any price.

That is not going to happen on the PSE, but we did see a similar case during the 1997 Asian financial crisis when Philippine real-estate transactions all but stopped. Most major property developers were not willing to sell at low prices and were financially strong enough to wait it out. But individual homeowners were often stuck being unable to find any reasonable buying offers at all.

Liquidity in the markets is like

Putin’s endgame in Syria

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By Marc Champion | Bloomberg View

F Russia’s leaders are concerned about their ability to succeed in Syria, they aren’t showing it. They may have to rethink their approach, though, if they want to bring their intervention to a quick end.

From President Vladimir Putin on down, Russian officials have reveled this week in comparing their military intervention to the failure of US-led air strikes to push back Islamic State (IS). “Our partners did not do anything efficient and the first actions of our forces have already yielded some results,” Putin told the annual Valdai conference in Sochi on Thursday. His message: Russia is back, and a more useful global player than the US. Even so, Russia’s Syria policy mirrors some of the inconsistencies that have bedeviled the US. For one, Russia insists that its military operation should quickly lead to talks on a political settlement—something that is unlikely to happen if it keeps treating all armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad as terrorist.

This approach is dictated by Russia’s goal of saving Assad, who is providing the ground forces needed to follow up air strikes and take territory.

Assad’s biggest fight is with a whole assortment of rebels in the west, rather than in the east where IS is concentrated.

So Russian air strikes have largely left IS alone while attacking all other Assad opponents under the same IS label. It

isn’t that Russian officials don’t know the difference; they just don’t believe it’s meaningful. If you take up arms against the state, you are a terrorist.

This closely tracks Russia’s experience in Chechnya, where it faced an independence movement, part of which radicalized to become Islamist terrorists. Putin came to power in Russia just months after the start of the second Chechen War in 1999 and crushed all resistance, installing a loyal warlord to govern the aftermath.

“One shouldn’t play with words differentiating between moderate and immoderate terrorists. What is the difference?” Putin said on Thursday. He went on to say that the US-led coalition in Syria was failing because it was trying to play what he called “a double game,” declaring war on some terrorists while working with others.

Second, Putin won’t give up Assad to entice the Sunni opposition to the negotiating table. Inviting the Syrian president to Moscow this week was a big symbolic step to show he has Putin’s personal support and that—unlike the US—Russia doesn’t abandon its allies.

Even if Putin did want to trade Assad away, says Vitaly Naumkin, Russia’s

volume for many major issues on the PSE has dropped by one-third or more in the last months and for most of 2015. But looking at peso volumes can sometimes distort the data because prices are higher than before. Share volume is running 37 percent lower in 2015 than in 2014.

That tells us that no net new money has flowed into the PSE in 2015.

Foreign funds have left the PSE; we knew that. But even a “smaller” river can still flow freely. Our stock market is smaller than a year ago, but is also flowing slower.

As I have said before, low liquidity causes large price movements and swings, and that can be profitable for quick traders. But if PSE trading volumes and liquidity continue to drop, we face two major and potentially serious problems.

Prices could fall rapidly again due to a domestic or external shock, and then take a very long time to recover as we have seen since the August drop. Further, no one wants to fish in a dead lake or invest in a “dead” stock market no matter how it looks or how attractive the surrounding landscape (or economy) happens to be.

a wide and deep flowing river, constantly moving as “new” water comes from one end and passes by to go to another place.

Illiquidity is like a lake that, when seen from a distance, looks serene, calm and even beautiful because of its size. But on closer inspection, that lake might be something entirely different than beautiful. If fresh water is not constantly flowing into the lake and then flowing out, it becomes foul, putrid and even deadly.

Even water coming in does not help; it must flow through. The Dead Sea at the end of the Jordan River in the Middle East does have water flowing in but the water never leaves.

It has been called the Dead Sea for thousands of years for a good reason. Fish and aquatic flora cannot survive and no animals can live on its shores. Money must flow both into and out of a stock market for its healthy survival. If the PSE trades P8 billion daily volume and is up 20 points, that is better than a 100-point increase on P4 billion traded. That 100-point increase can be taken out in an instant if there were, for example, P8 billion worth of selling pressure the next day.

Likewise, I would rather see a 100point drop on P10 billion traded than on P5 billion volume. Then, I know that there is P10 billion in cash waiting to come back in at the price bottom whenever that comes.

Average daily peso trading

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com.

Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.

internationally respected authority on the Middle East, “the Iranians are absolutely opposed.” And given that Putin is working with Iran in Syria (he had the chairman of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, to support him in his Americabashing on Thursday’s panel), what Iran wants matters.

Third, Russia doesn’t want to partition Syria, a move that could shorten the war dramatically. Putin committed himself to Syria’s unity in a statement after his meeting with Assad, and described partition as a recipe for perpetual future conflicts.

Finally, Russia’s intervention in Syria is designed to be limited to air strikes and short—around four mont hs. T his contrasts shar ply with Russia’s maximalist goals. It appears to want the campaign to end like its war in Chechnya, with the opposition “terrorists” utterly defeated, and loyalist Sunnis co-opted to help pacify the country by brute force. Yet that would most probably require a long military campaign, especially given that—unlike Chechnya—Syria’s war is sectarian and the opposition is supported by external powers.

“We are pretty dependent on whether they can succeed on the ground,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.

“Is the Syrian army really fit enough?”

So how to shorten the war?

The air campaign doesn’t have to continue until a cease-fire is reached, according to Naumkin. It just has to

change the balance of forces on the ground enough that opposition representatives can be brought into a revived political process. There are some signs Russian officials understand that can’t happen if they just assume that all opposition Sunnis are terrorists. They have begun to reach out to commanders of the Free Syrian Army, which until recently they dismissed as a US fiction.

Naumkin is well-aware that the Southern Front, a group of 50-plus militias in southern Syria that is working with the US and Jordan against IS, has some potential in terms of finding moderate militants to engage in talks on a truce.

Putin said he had asked Assad this week whether, if Russia could find moderate rebels willing to join the fight against the terrorists, the government in Damascus would agree. It wasn’t obvious Putin believed in the possibility, but he said Assad was on board.

Perhaps Putin seems anxious to get the US involved in part because he knows that Russia, if it wants to exit quickly, will have to find some way of negotiating with Sunni militias able to deliver cease-fires on the ground. On Friday the foreign ministers of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US are due to meet to discuss the issue.

So long as Russia was pretending that all rebels are IS, it made little sense for the US to get involved. But if Putin is willing to make distinctions, Russia and the US might be able to help each other out of their conflicted Syrian policies.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Clinton says source of Libya intelligence was a mystery

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Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Benghazi Committee, pressed Clinton to disclose exactly how much she knew about the credibility of the information that Blumenthal was sending to her personal e-mail account about the political and security situation on the ground in Libya in 2011 and 2012. E-mails released by the committee showed that Clinton sometimes solicited knowledge from Blumenthal.

She often passed on his memos for review and feedback to top White House and State Department officials, including Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack on September 11, 2012.

Clinton said that as far as she knew at the time, Blumenthal was collecting information from a wide network of associates that included journalists and other types of people around Washington.

“I don’t know who wrote them,” she said. “I don’t know where he got the information.” She “did learn later,” she said, that Blumenthal was talking to “former American intelligence officials.”

Blumenthal was not an official or unofficial advisor on Libya, she insisted, just a friend who passed on information, similar to people who buttonhole her at a cocktail party. “On occasion, I forwarded on what he sent me to make sure that it was in the mix,” she said.

But if there was nothing below board about the source of the information, Gowdy asked, why did Clinton remove Blumenthal’s name from the information before she passed it on to the White House? Clinton claimed that officials would be better able to evaluate the information on its own, without knowing where it was coming from.

Many experienced intelligence officials would disagree. Michael Hayden, who served as director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under President George W. Bush and is an adviser to the Jeb Bush presidential campaign, told us, “In evaluating human intelligence, the source is everything.”

Several of the e-mails Blumenthal sent contained analysis from a former CIA officer, Tyler Drumheller, who at the time, had a consulting firm. At times, those spot intelligence reports contained bad information, such as a rumor that the journalist Seymour Hersh was about to meet Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddaffi for an interview.

Drumheller was not an impartial observer. In 2006 he published a memoir about his time in the CIA that accused the Bush White House of politicizing intelligence before the Iraq War, a contention that remains disputed. After his book came out, many progressive groups celebrated Drumheller as a whistleblower.

The liberal watchdog group Media Matters wrote about him 11 times in 2006 and 2007. Republican sources on the Benghazi committee told us they had intended to call Drumheller as a witness, but he died in August.

Blumenthal and Drumheller worked

on the Libya memos with Cody Shearer, a longtime Clinton family friend and Democratic political operative. This was revealed in 2013, when a hacker posted a tranche of e-mails between Blumenthal and Clinton. Blumenthal, Drumheller and Shearer discussed their dealings with retired General David Grange, the CEO of a company named Osprey, which we reported was seeking State Department contracts in Libya after the war.

Clinton said on Thursday that Blumenthal’s e-mails did not influence her policy decisions. But in some cases, Clinton’s private e-mails contradict this.

For example, Politico reported on an email from the State Department’s chief of policy planning, Jake Sullivan, who wrote that Blumenthal’s ideas were being incorporated in a speech Clinton was planning.

Republicans on the committee have compared Blumenthal’s access to Clinton to that of Stevens. Rep. Mike Pompeo asked if Stevens had Clinton’s personal e-mail, cell phone, home address and fax machine number, which Blumenthal, he said, used to contact her. Clinton shot down an earlier assertion from Pompeo that Blumenthal was her primary Libya adviser, saying she received information on Libya from a number of channels including the US intelligence community, the State Department and the military.

Blumenthal’s e-mails to Clinton also came up on Thursday in the context of the actual attack on the US facility in Benghazi. Blumenthal had passed on intelligence the night of the attack to Clinton, asserting that it had followed a protest about a video mocking the Prophet Muhammad that had been aired on Egyptian television. Later bipartisan Congressional investigations revealed that to be false.

For the first time on Thursday, Clinton acknowledged that she had told the Egyptian foreign minister the day after the attack that the video was not the culprit. “We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack—not a protest,” she told the Egyptian official, according to contemporaneous notes released by the Benghazi committee Democrats. That contradicts what State Department officials were saying publicly at the time, including to the victims’ families.

Clinton wrote in her memoir that she often went back and forth over the role the video played in the attack. A talking-points memo released by the White House in 2014, however, showed that senior government officials were encouraged to publicly say the Benghazi attack stemmed from a protest over the film.

Clinton’s explanation for this and other discrepancies involving Benghazi has repeatedly been that it was a complicated situation and perceptions were constantly changing due to conflicting streams of information and the fog of war. Her claim today that she didn’t know the source of some of that information is troubling, but more so is her assertion that it didn’t matter.

Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual

SERVANT LEADER

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nce again, we are challenged as a Church and as a nation to come together and be in solidarity with the thousands of our countrymen displaced by the onslaught and aftermath of Typhoon Lando.

Caritas Manila and Veritas 845 Radio Totoo once again appeal for prayers for Divine protection and to help alleviate the sufferings through our donations in cash and in kind for the relief and rehabilitation needs of our kababayans in Northern and Central Luzon, particularly in the provinces of Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Isabela, Cagayan, Bulacan, Pampanga, Pangasinan and Zambales.

For cash donations, you may deposit to any of the following Caritas

Bloomberg View

N

ot that long ago, business book s a nd c a se st ud ies hailed Kentucky Fried Chicken’s (KFC) China subsidiary for having figured out the world’s biggest market. Its parent company, Yum Brands, controlled around 40 percent of China’s fast-food market by 2011; Yum China—primarily KFC and Pizza Hut—generated around 44 percent of the company’s global revenue. At one point, the company was opening 500 new fast-food outlets every year in China (it had 6,715 at the end of 2014, up from 1 in 1987) and seemed destined to dominate the sector.

Starting in 2012, however, the company began to falter. This week Yum announced that it was spinning off its once-prized mainland operations

entirely. The split is meant to maximize shareholder value while providing Yum China the freedom to find its way out of a multi-year slump without being micromanaged from abroad.

The move has already bolstered Yum stock. But it’s not going to solve the spinoff’s problems in China. There, the company—like other US fast-food chains —faces a series of headwinds that will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.

The central challenge is China’s changing demographics. For 30 years, KFC and Pizza Hut targeted their products at young Chinese and families. But declining fertility rates across China have shrunk that demographic—a trend that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Between 1997 and 2014, Chinese primary-school enrollments declined from 25 million to 16.58 million; junior high-school enrollments decreased

Manila bank account numbers: UnionBank - Current Account No. 00-030-001227-5 Banco De Oro—Savings Account No. 5600-45905 Bank of the Philippine Islands— Savings Account No. 3063-5357-01 Metrobank—Savings Account No. 175-3-175069543 For dollar accounts: Bank of the Philippine Islands— Savings Account No. 3064-0033-5 Swift Code—BOPIPHMM Philippine National Bank—

Savings Account No. 108566600025 Swift Code—PNBMPHMM For proper acknowledgment of your donations, kindly fax copy of deposit slip to 563-9306 or e-mail a scanned copy to donorcarecaritas_ manila@yahoo.com or caritas_manila@ yahoo.com. Please indicate your name and complete address.

Online cash donations are also accepted. You may visit our web site caritasmanila.org.ph or you can course your donation through Cebuana Lhuillier.

For in kind donations, you may bring them to our drop-off centers at Caritas Manila office 2002 Jesus Street, Pandacan, Manila, and at the Radio Veritas in West Avenue corner Edsa, Quezon City; or to your nearest parish.

We need in kind donations such as ready-to-eat and easy to cook food, drinking water, hygiene kit (soap and towel, toothbrush and toothpaste), and medicine for cough, colds and skin allergies.

We have initially sent P200,000

for the Prelature of Infanta, but more parishes are asking for help.

We need to quickly replenish funds for the 5,000 relief bags we have/are preparing to distribute.

Caritas Damayan is one of the programs of Caritas Manila, the social development ministry of the Archdiocese of Manila. Through its Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Program, Caritas Manila has put in place a disaster management program that allows for quickresponse relief operation and effective crisis intervention.

We will continue with Laodato Si next week.

To know more about the programs of Caritas Manila, visit www.caritas. org.ph. For donations, call 563-9311.

For inquiries, call 563-9308 or 5639298. Make it a habit to listen to Radio Veritas 846 in the AM band, or through live streaming at www.veritas846.ph.

For comments, e-mail veritas846pr@ gmail.com.

Historical perspective on national security

officers and men who were on official mission to capture two of the world’s most wanted terrorists, identified as Zulkifli Abdhir alias “Marwan” and Ahamad Akman Usman.

The chain of command includes thepresident, the chief of staff, the vice chief of staff and all the tactical commanders in the field. All of them, including Defense Secretary Voltaire T. Guzmin and former Interior Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II, except the vice chief of staff, were in the Military Command Center in Zamboanga City, monitoring the incident on those critical hours.

Worse, in the succeeding executive and congressional investigations, an important question that has far-reaching implication on national security arose; unfortunately, nobody among the participants even raised it: who accorded the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) a belligerent status and allowed it to form its own constitution (Bangsamoro basic law), a parliamentary form of government and third-party foreign observers led by Malaysia, all in flagrant violations of our Constitution?

Another critical question arose: Was there a cover up on the Mamasapano incident? I’ll leave the answer to you after giving you a backgrounder.

There were two conf licting reports done by the Criminal

Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) that came out, one officially submitted by then-CIDG Director Benjamin Magalong, an upright and dedicated officer, who honestly reported what really happened in Mamasapano and another, unofficial report, intended to muddle the CIDG report.

Curiously, the Senate Committee investigation and its subsequent report, done by Sen. Grace Poe, who was herself, for weeks, gracing the headlines of both print and broadcast media that catapulted her to popularity, did not reach the plenary session for debate as is normally done based on the Senate rules; instead, the report landed in the Senate archive.

Not only that. There were no media reports coming out from Mindanao in those critical hours when, in fact, there was a running story depicting a delicate mission called “Oplan Exodus” that turned into a cruel and merciless murder of a large contingent of SAF officers and men on official mission to capture two of the world’s most wanted terrorists.

By the way, in various war crime definitions, a rebel group gained “belligerent status” when 1) it controlled territory in the State; 2) its goal is secession or independence; 3) it had well-organized armed forces; 4) it began hostilities against the government; and 5) the government recognized it as belligerent.

Let me share with you a story that can provide you an answer whether the Aquino administration, in effect, recognized the MILF as belligerent and not just an insurgent: On August 5, 2011, President Aquino, together with six Cabinet members, including Budget Secrectary Florencio B. Abad and Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima, flew out of the country on a secret flight to meet with MILF Chairman AlHaji Murad Ebrahim and members of the group’s Central Committee, at the Travelers’ Inn in Narita, Japan.

The inquisitive former Ambassador to Greece Rigoberto Tiglao exposed this meeting in his column in the Manila Times on August 11, 2011. Tiglao said, “It was billed as his [President Aquino] ‘historic move’ to end the insurgency. He was also trying to beat a deadline to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Let me quote his column further: “The MILF gloated over its political victory in having the meeting in Japan, declaring in its statement: ‘The meeting between the two leaders in a third-party country host is a significant political milestone in the MILF’s quest for Bangsamoro right to self-determination.’

“The MILF was so delirious with joy that Mr. Aquino committed such a blunder, it even went on to further humble the President by saying: ‘On the part of the MILF chairman, his acceptance of the invitation illustrates a high level of statesmanship.’

“An unelected rebel chieftain proved himself a statesman by agreeing to meet the representative of 100 million Filipinos.”

Other participants of the UST national security conference worth mentioning were Dr. Marilu R. Madrunio, dean, USTGS; Dr. Belen Tangco, chairman of the conference; Maj. Gen. Jose Magno, who spoke on his experiences in Mindanao; Prof.

Edmund S. Tayao, executive director of Local Government Development Foundation and National Security in the Philippines; Dr. Edwin S. Martin, coordinator of the USTGS-PSPAC; Dr. Dennis C. Coronacion, chairman of the UST Political Science Department (UST-PSD); Prof. Ma. Zenia M. Rodriguez, faculty member of USTPSD; Dr. Ernesto Gonzales, Fellow LSE-UK, conference director; Prof.

Bernard Karganilla of the University of the Philippines-Manila Graduate Program; Sarah Mercado-Tan, UST Political Science Program; and Ms. Rhodalie Emilio, who delivered the invocation.

In 2012 consumer survey firm Millward Brown found that 39 percent of Chinese found Yum-owned Pizza Hut a “desirable brand;” last year less than one quarter did. These days, young Chinese are seeking out interesting local alternatives such as a “duck burger” restaurant introduced by one of Beijing’s best Peking duck vendors just this week. Meanwhile, homegrown fast-food chains that serve local—rather than localized—food are gaining market share.

Finally, scandals have undercut, perhaps, the strongest advantage KFC and other US brands long held: the widespread perception among Chinese that they’re cleaner and safer than their much-maligned (often justifiably so) Chinese counterparts. The fallout began with 2012 revelations of excessive antibiotic usage in KFC chickens (“I don’t go to the doctor, I go

to KFC,” became a common joke in the wake of the story) and continued with an even more damaging 2014 media report that showed a Shanghai-area supplier of chicken to KFC and other fast-food chains repackaging expired meat. The scandals have been a boon to local chain restaurants that now argue they’re no worse, and possibly better, than foreign alternatives.

Fast-food companies aren’t alone in facing these problems, of course. Foreign consumer brands are losing market share to local competitors across China, according to a June study from Kantar Worldpanel and Bain & Co. The trend is especially strong in smaller Chinese cities, where incomes are lower and premium brands—KFC and Pizza Hut still qualify out in the boondock—aren’t nearly as competitive.

Yum’s challenge is greater due to

its almost universal brand recognition and the scale of its operations. But the situation isn’t hopeless. Step one should be for the company to reposition its brands to appeal to an older, more sophisticated demographic. That doesn’t mean high-end Italian (like it’s currently trying in one of Shanghai’s most expensive addresses), but rather a rethink of its menu to reflect the concerns of an aging, increasingly health-conscious population.

Indeed, the company might take its cue from US fast-food chains, such as Chipotle and Noodles, that have pioneered a higher-end “fast casual” sector still mostly unexplored in China. In the meantime, KFC and other Western brands will have to adjust to a China where competition is stiffer, consumers are savvier—and growth is inevitably slower.

Cecilio T. Arillo

database

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HE people who love this country should join me in commending the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, Political Science and Public Administration Cluster (USTGS-PSPAC) for the timely holding of the conference on National Security Administration.

I said timely because they held the conference, with my humble participation as one of their guest speakers, at a time when nobody in government and the private sector, including politicians running for high office this coming election, is seriously talking about national security anymore, as if it has no correlation to the political, social and economic life of the nation.

It must be borne in mind that it is the paramount obligation of the government to draw up a cohesive national security strategy to ensure that the safety and security of the people and territory (air, land and sea) is of the highest priority in all circumstances.

Indeed, the recurring image that the government conveys to the public is that of a country devoid of a national security strategy, its inept officials reactive rather than proactive and seemed to operate on a blind chance as reflected by their buckpassing and ceaseless issuances of conflicting statements.

T he Mamasapano incident on January 25 clearly illustrated this reflection on the absence of a national security direction: For 12 hours, before dawn, the entire chain of command, led by the Commander in Chief Benigno Simeon Aquino III, did not strangely function the way it should have, leading to the slaughter of the 44 elite Special Action Force (SAF)

Fast food loses its sizzle in China

By Adam Minter

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Call for donations for victims of Typhoon Lando

By Josh Rogin & Eli Lake | Bloomberg View

ormer Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified on Thursday that she wasn’t aware of the source of information about Libya provided by her friend Sidney Blumenthal, and that it didn’t matter. Republican lawmakers and former officials were shocked that she had so little curiosity about information she shared with top members of her staff, and thought it was relevant that Blumenthal was working with a partisan former intelligence official, as well as a longtime friend of the Clinton family.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

from 22.63 million to 14.48 million.

Meanwhile, an aging China is already home to the world’s largest population of people over the age of 60—a demographic that doesn’t tend to buy a lot of chicken nuggets.

To make matters worse, young Chinese are much more affluent and sophisticated than previous generations; for them, the novelty of eating at an American fast-food chain has long since worn off. A September consumer survey by Miller Shandwick noted that 62 percent of Chinese consumers had posted their “food experiences” to social media in the last month, with 17 percent of them sharing food pictures every day (including a large percentage of my own WeChat friends). Despite KFC’s to-die-for-egg tarts, these Chinese foodies aren’t looking to advertise their presence at a banal chain restaurant.

Sports BusinessMirror

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TAMARAWS EYE FINAL 4 SEAT AGAINST WARRIORS

AR Eastern University (FEU) tries to formalize its entry into the Final Four round as it faces University of the East (UE) in the main game of the Season 78 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball tournament on Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The Tamaraws, alone at the top with an 8-1 win-loss record following the loss of University of Santo Tomas to Ateneo de Manila on Wednesday, battle the Red Warriors at 4 p.m., with UE trying to stay alive in the race for a spot in the next round.

De La Salle (5-4) battles Adamson University (1-9) with the Green Archers hoping to tie the Blue Eagles (6-4) at third spot.

FEU could take a one game lead over the Growling Tigers if they beat the Red Warriors and cement their spot in the Final Four. But they will be facing a dangerous UE side which is in a must-win situation to stay in the Final Four race.

The Tamaraws are coming off a 68-57 triumph over season host University of the Philippines for their seventh straight win, and Head Coach Nash Racela said he has been impressed with how they played in the last three games—particularly on

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OINT third-ranked Peter Magnaye and Jessie Francisco fought back strong from an opening setback, and turned back Joper Escueta and Indonesian Keshya Hanadia, 13-21, 21-19, 21-18, to barge into the semifinal round of the Open mixed doubles of the Bingo Bonanza National Open Badminton Tournament at Glorietta 5 Atrium in Makati City on Friday.

Magnaye and Francisco proved steadier in a seesaw second set duel then weathered Escueta and Hanadia’s rally in the decider with clutch smashes and drop shots to pound out the 45-minute victory for a Final Four clash with No. 2 and fellow Philippine Badminton Association (PBA)-Smash Pilipinas bets Alvin Morada and Alyssa Leonardo.

Morada and Leonardo combined well from start to finish, and dominated Carlos Cayanan and Alyssa Geverjuan to complete a 21-12, 21-14 victory in just 25 minutes in the event, sponsored by Bingo Bonanza and backed by official equipment Victor PCOME and official sports drink Gatorade.

Ronel Estanislao and

Joel Orellana

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fellow Atenean Aldo Batungbacal (2:09.47) in the process.

The Blue Eagles also swept the relay events, topping the 4x200-meter medley (1:49.66) and 4x800-meter freestyle (8:14.58).

The Fighting Maroons ran third with 40 points, while debuting National University had 25 points in fourth spot.

Powered by last season’s MVP Hannah Dato, Ateneo is also lording it over in the women’s division with 121 points, with UP in far second with 66 points.

A three-time Asean University Games gold medalist, Dato reset the three-year-old 200-meter freestyle record by former Lady Eagle Jasmine Ong (59.12) by recording 58.48 seconds to outlast Lady Maroon Winona Tee Ten, who settled for silver with 1:01.66.

aturday, October 24, 2015 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

SEESAW CONTEST

defense and his second unit.

Racela knows they are now closer to their target, but wants his players to focus on the task at hand and keep on improving.

“We are not thinking about it,” Racela said of their current streak as they move closer for a Final Four slot and a twice-to-beat advantage in the next round. “We are still looking for improvements in our game. What we talk about is how we can improve day to day.”

UE can still snatch a Final Four berth, but at 3-6, they could not afford to lose on Saturday.

The Green Archers, on the other hand, eye a crucial win to keep them in pace with Ateneo, but they will be playing a team that is already out of contention for a spot in the next round, and is expected to play loose with nothing more to gain in their succeeding games except for pride.

De La Salle was supposed to meet FEU on Sunday but games were called off due to Typhoon Lando, giving the Taft-based team more time to prepare against the Tamaraws.

Standings: FEU 8-1, UST 8-2, Ateneo 6-4, La Salle 5-4, NU 4-6, UE 3-6, UP 3-6, Adamson 1-9.

Indonesian partner Marissa Vita posted the event’s biggest reversal late Thursday when they stunned top seed Paul Pantig and Thea Pomar, 21-12, 21-14, to clinch the first semifinal berth. The Estanislao-Vita pair, however, will face defending champion Paul Vivas and Eleanor Inlayo for a crack at the championship.

Vivas and Inlayo primed up for their defense of the crown by subduing the other third-seeded pair of Christian Bernardo and Joella de Vera, 21-11, 21-11.

The Estanislao-Vita pair and Vivas-Inlayo tandem dispute the first finals berth on Saturday starting at 11 a.m., also at Glorietta, while the Magnaye-Francisco team slugs it out with Morada and Leonardo for the other championship slot.

Victor-Pcome’s Danica Bolos and Jennifer Cayetano of Air Force also pulled off a 12-21, 21-16, 21-18 reversal over No. 4 Descka Calimlim and Fatima Cruz of Meralco to book the first semis berth in the Open women’s doubles.

Meanwhile, second seed Mark Alcala of

Allied-NVBA trounced Alvin Morada, 21-12, 21-11, also late Thursday to set up a semis duel with No. 4 R-Jay Ormilla, who bundled out fifth seed Jason Obaob, 21-14, 21-19, in the Open men’s singles of the event, organized by EventKing Corp. and sanctioned by the PBA, headed by Vice President Jejomar C. Binay and Secretary-General Rep. Albee Benitez of Negros Occidental.

Also on tap are the Open women’s singles semis pitting the surging Mariya Sevilla against No. 4 Airah Albo and defending champion Gelita Castilo battling it out with second seed Sarah Barredo.

Alcala, on the other hand, tries to reassert his mastery over Ormilla, whom he beat to cop the crown last year, in their 1:20 p.m. showdown while top seed Kevin Cudiamat and No. 8 Frell Gabuela dispute the other finals berth in the Open men’s singles.

All finals matches in the event are backed

by Glorietta, Smash Pilipinas and the Philippine Olympic Committee on Sunday.

KNIGHTS IN GAME 1

ATENEO TANKERS AHEAD

TENEO pulled away in the men’s and women’s divisions after Day One of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 78 swimming championships at the Rizal Memorial Swimming Pool on Thursday.

With reigning Most Valuable Player Jessie Khing Lacuna leading the charge, the defending champion Blue Eagles tallied 122 points, 55 ahead of De La Salle (67).

Lacuna won the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle in record fashion. The London Olympian shattered University of the Philippines (UP) standout Ken Uy’s 2008 record of of 52.3 seconds with 51.66 seconds, beating his teammate Axel Ngui, who finished with 52.14 seconds for the silver medal.

In the 200-meter individual medley, Lacuna won in 2:06.50 for his second gold, defeating

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DANICA BOLOS and Jennifer Cayetano of Team Victor-Pcome/Philippine Air Force in action against Meralco on Friday. NONIE REYES

ETRAN showed grit under pressure to snatch Game One, 94-90, of the championship series that turned out as a classic showdown between two fabled schools in Season 91 National Collegiate Athletic Association Season 91 seniors basketball tournament on Friday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Neither team refused to budge in the first three quarters, but the floodgates opened early in the fourth quarter when the Knights put up a quick five-point burst to take a 66-62 lead in the first minute.

Both teams combined for 23 threepointers, but none bigger than the five made by the Knights in the final frame that gave them enough cushion to overcome the five-time defending champions.

Pro-bound forward Kevin Racal scored a personal playoffs-best 28 points built around five three-pointers with five rebounds and five assists to lead Letran. Junior guard Rey Nambatac added 18 points with four steals, while Mark Cruz finished with 17.

“We know that it will be a dogfight.

We just had to be tough and we had to grab this opportunity because not all players and coaches are given this kind of opportunity,” said Aldin Ayo, the former Knight on his rookie season as the team’s head coach.

Ola Adeogun surged with his best game of the tournament for

the Red Lions, finishing with 23 points and 16 rebounds, while guards Ryusei Koga and Roldan Sara tallied 10 apiece.

Graduating seniors Baser Amer and Arthur de la Cruz racked up sub-par totals of eight and seven points, respectively, which contributed much to San Beda’s scoring woes in the crucial moments of Game One.

It was the first time in four Finals meetings that the Knights took Game One—their 2007 and 2013 meetings ended in a sweep by the Red Lions, while Letran took Game Two of their 2012 matchup.

The Knights try to wrap up their first title in a decade in Game Two at 4 p.m. on Tuesday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Six-time defending champion San Beda-Taytay, meanwhile, beat Arellano University, 76-68, to move within a game of completing a season sweep en route to the juniors crown for the second time in their recordsetting run. Diego de la Paz BEDA’S Ola Adeogun and » SANLetran’s Kevin Racal battle for the rebound during Game One of the finals on Friday.

KEVIN DE LA CRUZ

Lady Maroons vs Lady Sailors in V-League

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OPnotch action resumes on Saturday as University of the Philippines (UP) takes a rare crack at the solo lead against Philippine Coast Guard in the Shakey’s V-League Season 12-Reinforced Conference at The Arena in San Juan City.

The Lady Maroons drew strength and inspiration from the comebacking Katherine Bersola as they turned back the Navy Lady Sailors, 19-25, 25-23, 25-23, 25-23, in the opener of the season-ending conference of

the league where it started.

Bersola came back strong from an anterior cruciate ligament injury last University Athletic Association of the Philippines season, accounting for four of UP’s 13 blocks and finishing with eight hits to power the Diliman-based squad past Navy on October 10.

“She’s one of the pillars of this team and we will need her for this team to succeed,” UP Coach Jerry Yee said of his prized ward.

PEPSICO Philippines Marketing Manager for Hydration Tony Atayde (third from left) with brand ambassadors (from left) Mika Reyes of De La Salle, Chris Banchero of Alaska and Alyssa Valdez of Ateneo.

LANCE AGCAOILI

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N celebration of its 50th year anniversary, Gatorade launched its latest White Lighting flavor with its newest line-up of brand ambassadors on Thursday at the Gatorade Hoops Center on Shaw Boulevard in Pasig City.

Buoyed by its golden anniversary, Gatorade flaunted its winning tradition by propelling hardworking athletes with its latest addition of energy drink.

“Honestly, the only thing that I really can say in Gatorade’s 50 years is we’re just getting started,” Pepsico Philippines Marketing Manager for Hydration Tony Atayde said. “We’ve been fueling athletes all over the world for the past 50 years, and we’ll continue to fuel them

The league, presented by PLDT Home Ultera, holds another weekend volley festival where matches are shown live on GMA News TV Channel 11 beginning at 12:45 p.m.

Air Force, meanwhile, tries to make it three in row as it clashes with Navy in a duel of unbeaten teams as action in the Spikers’ Turf Season 1 Reinforced Conference also resumes on Saturday at The Arena in San Juan City.

Game time is 3 p.m. with the Airmen seeking at least a playoff for the last semifinal berth in the season-ending tournament of the country’s premier men’s volley league backed

by Mikasa.

PLDT Home Ultera, on the other hand, sets out to check an early skid as it tangles with Instituto Estetico Manila at 5 p.m., hoping to get back into the groove after back-to-back setbacks to Cignal and Sta. Elena.

Another loss would send them to the brink in the single round eliminations among six teams.

Valdez, Reyes, Banchero endorse White Lighting for the next 50 years.”

“We’re proud of what we have achieved being the No. 1 sports drink in the world, and we’re going to continue not to just fuel athletes all over the world but also here in the Philippines,” Atayde added.

The country’s finest volleyball players Alyssa Valdez of Ateneo and Mika Reyes of De La Salle, along with the Alaska Aces guard Chris Banchero were introduced as brand ambassadors. Jeron Teng is also part of the powerhouse ambassadors but did not attend the event.

“What we’ve seen in the 50 years of campaign is the historic moments. The ‘Be Like Mike’ campaign at the start of the year that was about

the greatest basketball who has ever lived. But now, transitioning to the White Lightning, we picked this four ambassadors as they represent the future of Philippines sports,” Atayde said.

The light orange-grapefruit flavored drink is composed of non-carbonated water and 6-percent carbohydrates which promotes absorption and provides energy to working muscles. It also has electrolytes for rapid rehydration and minerals to prevent cramps.

“It’s a little bit lighter and a lot more refreshing, and Gatorade will always be the number one sports drink in the world and it will continue rehydrating the athletes all over the world,” Atayde added. Lance Agcaoili