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Friday, November 17, 2017 Vol. 13 No. 37

‘Surprising’ growth stirs sustainability concerns

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By Cai U. Ordinario @cuo_bm & Bianca Cuaresma @BcuaresmaBM

he better-than-expected 6.9-percent GDP growth in the third quarter has stirred concerns over the country’s ability to sustain such economic expansion, especially with private consumption on the downturn and foreign direct investments (FDIs) still muted due to statutory restrictions.

6.9% The estimated GDP expansion in the July-September period

The 6.9-percent GDP growth exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg survey and cemented the country’s position as one of the fastest-expanding in the world.

Ateneo de Manila University Continued on A2

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No losses, but a lot ofTEAM gain DUTERTE ECONOMIC PUSHING FOR QUICK O.K. OF RICE TARIFFICATION

By Cai U. Ordinario

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@cuo_bm

he President’s economic team is urging both houses of Congress to fast-track the passage of the amendments to the Agricultural Tariffication Act to remove the quantitative restriction (QR) scheme on rice, which has been causing harm both to farmers and consumers, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

In an interview on Thursday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said the economic team would like Congress to pass the amendments by the end

of the year so the country can start imposing rice tariffs by the first quarter of 2018.

The country’s QR on rice has already expired on June 30. The waiver, granted by the World Trade Organization (WTO), needs to be replaced with a specific tariff to protect local farmers from the influx of imported rice. “[Tarriffying the] QR is not only one of the priority bills, but also considered urgent by the Ledac [Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council]. Congress has been distracted by so many things that’s happening; they’re distracted by the TRAIN [Tax Reform for See “Duterte,” A2

With US in retreat under Trump, Japan, China move to mend ties

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t was the smile that did it.

When Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, met w ith President Xi Jinping of China on the sidelines of a regional summit meeting in Vietnam over the weekend, the pair shook hands and posed for a photo. Xi, who had looked more dour in previous meetings, flashed a grin.

It was a sign, the Japanese news media suggested, of warming relations between the two longtime adversaries. With President Donald J. Trump creating unease among allies about the role the United States will play

Kawashima: “Japanese companies want to open their own opportunities to join with Chinese projects in Eurasia…so Japanese companies have required Abe to improve relations with China.”

in the region, Japan and China are inching toward a possible rapprochement as they recognize the shifting dynamics around the Pacific Rim. But with the two Asian powers long divided by disputes over

history and territory, as well as testiness over influence in the region, it will take more than a few handshakes—or a smile—to cement a genuine realignment.

In gesturing toward a new friendliness, Japan is motivated in part by the recognition that China is supplanting the United States as the leader of free trade in the region. Having watched Trump heap praise on Xi in Beijing last week, Japan is also propelled by fear that the US may develop a closer relationship with China that would exclude Japan.

Continued on A12

Asean shuns mention of China’s artificial islands

STRONGER PHL-CHINA TIES Chinese Premier Li Keqiang waves at his well wishers before boarding his plane at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2. The Chinese official was given full military honors prior to his departure from the Philippines on Thursday after a state visit. NONIE REYES

Duterte prefers legally binding sea code

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales @alyasjah

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f President Duterte is to be asked, he would like to see a code of conduct (COC) in the South China Sea that is legally binding so as to ensure predictability in the disputed waters, his spokesman said on Thursday.

In a news briefing, Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque Jr. said the President is keen on crafting a legally binding COC. “I think that was a priority of the President because, unless it becomes legally binding, we would not

achieve the kind of predictability that all countries want in order to achieve peace and stability in the region.”

Roque added claimant-states also intend to forge a legally binding COC, saying that “this was clear from the language also of the framework that they previously entered into.”

The Asean and China in August adopted a negotiating framework for the COC, which chalks the starting line for the crafting of a COC in the South China Sea. According to Duterte, China is committed not only to drawing up a COC, but also to the provisions that will be

PESO exchange rates n US 51.1160

included in it.

“China has graciously agreed to a code of conduct and it binds itself to the agreement,” the President said in a news briefing on Tuesday night.

The COC aims to provide substance to the nonbinding Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea adopted in 2002.

It was largely ignored by claimantstates, particularly China, which has constructed man-made islands and has harassed small fishermen making a living in the disputed waters. Aside from See “Sea code,” A12

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outheast Asian nations avoided mention on Thursday of China’s construction of islands in the South China Sea and a United Nations-linked arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s claims in the disputed waters in the latest show of China’s regional clout.

President Duterte, speaking on behalf of fellow heads of state of the Asean, also expectedly skirted any expression of alarm over serious human-rights concerns in the region, including the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and his deadly antidrug campaign in a statement following their annual summit on Monday in Manila.

Such statements have been made public shortly after the annual

gathering of leaders of the 10-nation bloc, but there was no immediate explanation for the three-day delay, which drew the attention of some Manila-based diplomats. The few instances of delays in the past were caused by differences over wording on long-thorny issues, like the territorial rifts.

China, which wields considerable influence on Asean, has steadfastly opposed criticism of its artificial islands, where it has reportedly installed a missile defense system despite widespread concern, including by the United States, Japan and Australia.

Duterte, who took office last year and assumed Asean’s rotational chairmanship this year, has openly tried to court China’s friendship, trade, investment

and infrastructure financing. He has toned down sharp rebuke of China’s assertive actions in the strategic waterway, one of the world’s busiest, and refused to immediately seek Chinese compliance with an arbitration ruling last year that invalidated its vast claims in the South China Sea on historical grounds. His rapprochement turned the Philippines from being one of Beijing’s sharpest critics in the disputed sea.

In the Asean statement, Duterte repeated previous calls for a peaceful resolution of the disputes and adherence to the rule of law, and welcomed the approval of a framework or outline of a proposed “code of conduct” aimed at preventing confrontation in the contested waters.

n japan 0.4531 n UK 67.3198 n HK 6.5474 n CHINA 7.7220 n singapore 37.6795 n australia 38.7868 n EU 60.2811 n SAUDI arabia 13.6302

See “Asean,” A2

Source: BSP (16 November 2017 )

BMReports BusinessMirror

A2 Friday, November 17, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Asean. . .

BCDA. . .

Deadly clashes have erupted in the past between Chinese and Vietnamese forces.

With an agreed outline, first proposed 15 years ago, negotiations could now start for the regional code, according to a joint statement by the Asean and China whose leaders met on Monday. Both sides agreed to start the negotiations early next year and conclude the talks as soon as possible, with Duterte taking a position that the code should be legally binding, Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque Jr. said.

“We further reaffirmed the need to enhance mutual trust and confidence, emphasized the importance of nonmilitarization and self-restraint in the conduct of all activities by claimants and all other states...that could further complicate the situation and escalate tensions in the South China Sea,” the statement said.

While the Asean’s decision to adopt a nonconf rontationa l approach promotes friendly relations with China, it may not foster the rule of law, said Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow with the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

“It is bad because it clearly places the political expediency of good relations with China over holding China to fulfilling its commitments under international law,” Cook said. “Short term expediency trumps long-term principle.”

On human rights, the Asean “welcomed the commitment by Myanmar, authorities to ensure the safety of civilians, take immediate steps to end the violence in Rakhine, restore normal socioeconomic conditions and address the refugee problem through verification process” in language devoid of the alarm expressed by some governments amid deadly conditions threatening the Rohingya.

“They expressed support to the Myanmar government in its efforts to bring peace, stability, rule of law and to promote harmony and reconciliation between the various communities, as well as sustainable and equitable development in Rakhine State,” the Asean said. AP

The New Clark City is envisioned to be country’s first smart, green and disaster-resilient metropolis. The Subic-Clark Railway Project is a 70-kilometer cargo rail running parallel to the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway and the Subic Freeport Expressway.

It supports the movement of goods and services between major economic hubs in Central Luzon, such as the New Clark City, Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone, Subic Bay Freeport Zone and Tarlac Industrial Park.

The Bonifacio Global City-Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia)-Makati Bus Rapid Transit is a mass-transport system that will facilitate a 15-minute travel time from Fort Bonifacio to the Naia, preventing delays for passengers rushing to catch their flights.

As of end 2016, China Development Bank’s international business has spanned 115 countries and regions, with $347 billion in outstanding loans, accounting for about one-fourth of the bank’s RMB and foreign-currency portfolios. Catherine N. Pillas

Continued from A1

‘Surprising’ growth stirs sustainability concerns EagleWatc h senior fel low A lv in A ng said that while the country’s growth was impressive at 6.9 percent, it remains “sustainability challenged.”

“This is mainly because both consumption and investments slowed compared to last year. This may be the reason Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia mentioned the need to increase foreign direct investments by opening up more sectors to foreign investors,” Ang said.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) grew 4.5 percent in the third quarter, slower than the 7.2 percent recorded last year. The HFCE contributed 3 percentage points to GDP during the period.

Government consumption growth was faster at 8.3 percent in the third quarter, compared to 3.1 percent last year. But it chipped in only 0.9 percentage point to GDP. In an interview with the BusinessMirror, Pernia said he expects a strong rebound in the spending of Filipinos, as they are now also chasing investments products instead of just buying items or eating out.

“The popular view about consumption is it’s just [for] eating and spending on consumer

products and not on important things like education and health. Some Filipino households are also investing [in small businesses] such as sari-sari stores,” Pernia said.

He also noted investments are increasing as can be gleaned from the expansion of the Industry sector. In the third quarter, the Industry sector expanded by 7.5 percent, higher than Services, which grew by 7.1 percent.

With household consumption posting a slower growth in the third quarter, inflation on the rise and a lackluster world exports market, University of Asia and the Pacific School of Economics Dean Cid Terosa said there is a need to turn to other possible sources of growth, such as investments.

Terosa said the government can make the Philippines an attractive investment destination by removing red tape and building more and better infrastructure. “[The country needs to] manage inflation, create a better business and investment environment by upgrading infrastructure and ease of doing business, and develop more competitive manufacturing industries,” Terosa said.

To attract more investments, Pernia said the National Economic and Development Authority has already submitted to the Office

of the President the revised Regular Foreign Investment Negative List (RFINL). The new RFINL, once signed by the President, will open up eight to 10 economic sectors.

Some of these sectors include utilities, such as telecommunications; education, by allowing foreign professors and training centers to operate in the country; retail; and construction. “It’s about policies to increase and sustain growth, such as [the] opening of [the] negative list. It’s a subtle recognition of sustainability. [Pernia] is right that increasing investments is the way to go because government spending on infrastructure is temporary,” Ang said. Pernia also said the government will continue to focus on unfinished business,” such as increasing the income of farmers and fishermen ,and their access to economic opportunities, new technology and financial instruments.

‘Not overheating’

The Department of Finance said GDP will further increase in the coming years as the Duterte administration ramps up spending on infrastructure and human-capital development. “Notwithstanding the continued political noise and the terrorist activity in Marawi,

which President Duterte had decisively addressed, the economy managed to perform well in the third quarter,” Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said in a statement.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) allayed fears of potential overheating in the economy on Thursday, saying the strong third-quarter growth is in line with its expectations.

Following the government’s announcement of a 6.9-percent third-quarter growth, BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. assured that the Philippine economy is not at risk of overheating. “That [overheating] begins to be a concern if we’re persistently growing above potential. The Philippines is not there yet,” Espenilla said. Earlier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently flagged the rapid expansion of the economy and the risks of overheating down the line.

“The combination of high credit growth, buoyant private investment and fiscal expansion without tax reform could lead to overheating of the economy,” the IMF said.

“The stance of monetary policy remains appropriate, but the BSP should be ready to tighten if there are signs of overheating,” it added in its most recent assessment of the Philippine economy. With Rea Cu and Bloomberg News

PM Trudeau. . .

Continued from A12

LOW PRESSURE AREA VICINITY OF MALAYBALAY, BUKIDNON NORTHEAST MONSOON AFFECTING NORTHERN LUZON (As of 4:00 PM - November 16, 2017)

Continued from a1

“The message that we are trying to send should be clear. Philippine tourism, which has posted double-digit growth that is three times more than the global average, is experiencing a breakthrough phase,” Tourism Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Frederick M. Alegre said in a news statement.

He held a news briefing with members of British media and travel trade representatives at the Philippine booth, where he asked for their support to further promote the country, especially after the accolades it’s received from various international trade and travel publications like Conde Naste group.

The DOT official noted the United Kingdom is the top source market in Europe for tourists in the Philippines, generating 173,299 visitor arrivals in 2016, up 12 percent from the previous year. Aside from the United Kingdom, other major markets of the Philippines are South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Taiwan.

At the WTM held from November 6 to 8, private-sector delegates, including Philippine travel and tour operators,

along with representatives of Philippine Airlines, met their counterparts from the UK and Europe in a series of businessto-business meetings.

Meanwhile, Teo’s trip to Ottawa will take place from November 19 to 23, where she will meet not only travel agencies and the Filipino community to talk to them about BHAF but government of officials and members of the parliament of Canada, as well. She said Trudeau didn’t say if he would attend those meetings, but added it was evident that Filipinos have a special place in the young prime minister’s heart.

Trudeau made waves again during his recent trip to the Philippines by visiting a Canadian-funded health center in Tondo, then going to a branch of Jollibee, the country’s largest fast-food chain. It was the second visit of Trudeau to the Philippines, having been in Manila during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit in 2015, where he and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto were dubbed #ApecHotties by netizens.

Teo said she was also fortunate to have personally met US President Donald J. Trump and Brunei Darussalam Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah during the Asean gala dinner.

Continued from A12

Duterte. . .

Continued from A1

Acceleration and Inclusion], among others,” Pernia told the BusinessMirror on Thursday.

In his speech during the briefing on the National Income Accounts, Pernia said the QR has “artificially” increased rice prices. This adversely affected consumers, including the rice farmers, who are rice consumers themselves.

He added that, with the removal of the QR, the government will be able to reduce the “rice obsession” of farmers while helping millions of consumers have access to more affordable rice in the market.

Pernia pointed out that, with a rice tariff in place, farmers will be able to explore other crops and maximize what they earn from their land and labor resources. “[Farmers can optimize the use of their farms] if we substitute tarrification for the QR. They will be provided the revenues from the tariff; it will be given to the farmers for their productivity and crop choices. In other words, their obsession with rice will be less,” he said.

In a recent interview with the BusinessMir ror , Phi l ippine Competition Commission Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan said removing the QR on rice and converting this into a tariff is a step in the right direction in terms of allowing more players to compete in the rice sector.

He also added the creation of a fund that will help address farmers’ needs will also not be anticompetition if it will be channeled to needs, such as farm-to-market roads and irrigation facilities.

However, if the rice-tariff rate is set at a very high, Balisacan said Filipino consumers, particularly the poor, stand to suffer the most, because a larger portion of their income is allocated for food items.

He explained that, currently, the tariff equivalent of the country’s QR is around 50 percent to 70 percent. With this high “tariff,” Balisacan said the QR has made rice prices higher, by 50 percent to 70 percent.

In 2015 Ba lisacan a lready blamed high food prices for the increase in the poverty incidence among Filipinos to 25.8 percent in the January-to-June 2014 period, from 24.6 percent in January to June 2013, based on the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey.

If the country will resort to an even higher tariff rate for rice, such as the bound rate of 400 percent included in the draft bill in Congress, this could result in a rice-price increase of 200 percent to 300 percent, Balisacan noted.

This means, he said, that if a family earns P10,000 a month and spends P2,000 on rice, a 300-percent tariff will triple this cost to P6,000 a month.

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PNP reaps kudos for summit security

By Rene Acosta

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@reneacostaBM

he Philippine National Police (PNP) commended on Thursday all its personnel who took part in ensuring the security of the just concluded 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit Meeting in Manila.

Director Napoleon Taas, head of the Asean Security Task Force (ASTF), said that with the departure of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at 12 noon on Thursday, all of the heads of states and leaders who attended the summit have safely left Manila.

“We have successfully secured the country’s hosting of the 31st summit and the 50th anniversary of Asean,” Taas declared.

“To the greatest security team that I had the privilege to lead, this is, indeed, a proud day for the nation. A day made possible by the nameless, selfless and dedicated men and women of the ASTF 2017,” he added.

Taas noted positive statements from US President Donald J. Trump and other world leaders describing their stay in Manila.

“US President Trump described his experience as fantastic. The Singaporean minister calls it a tough act to follow,” Taas noted.

Singapore will be the host of the 32nd Asean Summit.

Taas also cited how President Duterte’s called them, “PRRD [Mr. Duterte] refers to all of us as his fantastic team.”

“To all of you, I will forever be indebted!! Mabuhay po kayong lahat,” Taas said.

Apart from the Monday’s clash between antiriot policemen and protesters during the formal opening of the summit, there were no major untoward incidents recorded by the PNP until Wednesday’s closing ceremony.

The meetings of the attending leaders went on smoothly.

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Friday, November 17, 2017 A3

Lawyers say sedition, other charges against Trillanes could land him in jail

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By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

EN. Antonio F. Trillanes IV is facing possible imprisonment anew after being charged for allegedly insighting a coup d’etat charges and suggesting to soldiers to shoot President Duterte, amid charges of hidden wealth during a privilege speech in the Senate last month.

It can be recalled that Trillanes was jailed after leading the so-called Magdalo soldiers in a failed mutiny to overthrow the Arroyo administration.

However, they were cleared of coup d’etat charges after being granted amnesty by former President Benigno S. Aquino III in 2010.

This time, a group of lawyers, led by former representatives Jacinto Paras and Glenn Chong, charged Trillanes before the Pasay City prosecutor’s office with inciting to sedition, proposal to commit coup d’etat and graft before the Pasay city prosecutor’s office.

They cited as basis for the complaint the statement of Trillanes during his speech that soldiers may shoot the President upon the latter’s wish if the allegations

of hidden wealth would be proven.

“Now, Mr. Duterte said he can be shot dead if there is P40 million in his accounts.

He said that in front of the soldiers. So here’s the answer now. If the soldiers could see this, they will use an M60 machine gun on you. These are many. The magazines will be emptied if you’re looking for P40 million, Mr. Duterte,” the complaint quoted the lawmaker as saying in Filipino.

The complainants said Trillanes’s speech could be tantamount to “conspiracy or proposal to commit coup d’etat and inciting to sedition,” as he encouraged the military to go up against the President and that he should be indicted under Articles 136 and 142 of the Revised Penal Code.

In the said privilege speech on October 3, Trillanes accused Duterte of having

bank accounts with transactions amounting to over P2 billion from September 2006 to December 2015.

The complainants’ counsel, Manuelito Luna, explained that the speeches made

by Trillanes, including his privilege speech in the Senate, are not protected by immunity from suits.

“The October 3 privilege speech against the President and the government is not protected speech under the Speech or Debate Clause, in light of the holdings in US v. Brewster and Heltoski v. US. Neither was his speech during the launching of Tindig Pilipinas’s signature gathering against the President nor his media statements [are] protected,” Luna said.

Furthermore, the complainant cited the senator’s speech during the launch of the Tindig Pilipinas movement on October 14, involving Duterte’s alleged account deposits.

In the said gathering, Trillanes delivered a speech disclosing several details of the supposed bank deposits of the President.

He claimed that one of the alleged accounts had deposits of P50 million at least 13 times.

The senator also said that, in another bank account, there were at least 20 deposits of P40 million to P50 million each.

Trillanes further insinuated that Duterte bought in just one day insurance for his four children worth P80 million.

He said he has evidence consisting of bank-transaction records from the Anti-Money Laundering Council, which denied such a claim.

The complainants alleged that the senator’s acts of rumor mongering and spreading false information were unlawful.

They explained that such acts had caused undue injury against the administration “through evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence,” and should be penalized under Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act).

The complainants said Trillanes should be indicted “for irresponsibly and recklessly and continuously accusing sans evidence, that the President is keeping over P2 billion in bank accounts and or amassing illegally acquired wealth.”

“Trillanes not only repeatedly uttered seditious words or speeches and unabatedly circulated scurrilous libels against the President, which tend to disturb the public peace, but also repeatedly incited others to inflict any hate or revenge,” they added.

The group included other unidentified personalities as respondents in the complaint.

The lawyers also noted Trillanes’s involvement in several mutinies during the Arroyo administration—Oakwood Mutiny in July 2003, the Marine standoff in February 2006 and the Manila Peninsula siege in November 2007.

Economy BusinessMirror

A4 Friday, November 17, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

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Lawmaker slams ERC delay in PSA approvals

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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@joveemarie

he minority leader of the House of Representatives on Thursday questioned the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for the “suspicious” delay in the approval of contracts of power-supply generators.

Rep. Danilo E. Suarez of the Third District of Quezon, in a news statement, said the country might lose the opportunity to address the alarming thinning power reserve due to the delays in the approval of contracts of power-supply generators.

“The ERC must fast-track the approval of the application for a power plant that would help generate much-needed baseload in the country,” he said.

In a separate radio interview, Suarez noted that the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines has recently issued five yellow alerts, a situation when reserve power falls below the required level.

“In fact, I find it puzzling why the ERC has not yet approved contracts of power-supply generators, even if it has already taken them at least five years to study their applications,” he added.

The lawmaker said the ERC was established under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) as an independent, quasijudicial regulatory body.

“The commission’s job is to promote competition, encourage market development, ensure customer choice and penalize abuse of market power in the electricity industry.

Unfortunately, it failed to fulfill its mandate; and it has been merely duplicating the functions of the Department of Energy,” Suarez added.

Meanwhile, Suarez asked the ERC to explain the delays in the approval of the power-supply agree-

ments (PSAs) of Atimonan One, a proposed coal-fired power plant in Atimonan, Quezon.

He said the Atimonan One submitted the application in 2012 as 1 of the 7 PSAs entered into with Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), but still being evaluated by the ERC. “Construction of new coal-fired power plants is necessary because the existing coal-fired power plants are outdated and insufficient, rendering them vulnerable to transmission failures,” Suarez said.

“Power plants are not off-theshelf items: It takes seven to eight years to construct these before they become fully operational,” he added.

Earlier, Meralco told lawmakers in a hearing that there were actually more than 90 PSAs that were filed by different distribution utilities and electric cooperatives following the ERC Resolution restating the effectivity of the competitive selection process. However, some of these PSAs are being questioned by lawmakers.

The Meralco’s PSA at ERC include PSAs on the construction of coalfired power plants with the following: Redondo Peninsula Energy Inc. (225 megawatts [MW]; Atimonan One Energy Inc. (1,200 MW); Saint Raphael Power Generation Corp.

(400 MW); Central Luzon Premiere Power Corp. (528 MW); Mariveles Power Generation Corp. (528 MW); Panay Energy Development Corp.

(70 MW); and Global Luzon Energy Development Corp. (600 MW).

Group says DAR now moving to hasten land-use conversion

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S the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) backtracking on its position on the issue of land-use conversion?

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said they have reasons to believe that the DAR is moving to hasten the process of landuse conversion now that Rafael V. Mariano is no longer in charge of the agency.

According to the KMP, the DAR held the National Stakeholders Forum on Land Use Conversion recently.

Under the guise of holding a consultative meeting with stakeholders, the DAR aims to hasten the bureaucratic processes on the conversion of lands, the group said.

“This is a total reversal of what former Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael V. Mariano asserted during his term—a two-year moratorium on land-use conversion. The primary disposition of lands should be for agriculture and food production,” the group added.

Mariano’s appointment was rejected by the Commission on Appointments. In his short stint as DAR chief, Mariano advocated for a moratorium on land-use conversion and had ordered a nationwide inventory of Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program-covered lands that were converted for other purposes with the hope of recovering the subject lands for distribution to landless farmers.

To recall, as head of DAR last year, Mariano even proposed to President Duterte and the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council the issuance of an Executive Order on the moratorium on land-use conversion, but this was reportedly opposed by the Duterte administration’s economic managers.

The KMP claimed that the draft Executive Order was allegedly “shot down” by the National Economic Department Authority and Department of Finance.

Finance chief Carlos G. Dominguez III even expressed in one Cabinet meeting that all public lands should be convertible, to which Mariano staunchly objected, the KMP said.

“This latest move from DAR is clearly a di-

rection toward the neoliberal path to convert more lands for businesses, commercial use and investment for the benefit of local and foreign businesses,” the KMP added.

The unimpeded drive toward land conversion is increasingly placing the domestic agriculture and the national economy at great risk, according to Antonio Flores, secretary-general of KMP. The KMP said that in the last three decades, “land-use conversion has contributed significantly in exacerbating the country’s state of food insecurity.”

“Vast tracts of rice and corn lands in Central andSouthernLuzonwereconvertedtorealestate, ecotourism and economic zones. In Mindanao thousands of hectares of productive lands were converted to foreign corporate plantations. We cannot eat concrete and oil from palm trees. We need to preserve our lands for food production and for future generations,” Flores said.

“Land-useconversionhasbeenoneofthemain modes by which big landlords and foreign corporations, aided by the government, have been able to undermine land reform and displace countless peasant families from their lands,” he added.

Data from the DAR revealed that between 1988 and 2016, almost 100,000 hectares of land were approved for conversion.

The National Irrigation Administration said that an average of 165,000 hectares of irrigated prime agricultural lands are converted for other uses annually. These are varying data that may, in fact, account for just a segment of the actual extent of land-use conversion in the country.

Based on government data, some 97,592.5 hectares of land awarded to agrarian-reform beneficiaries were converted into nonagricultural purposes.

The extensive conversion of farmlands for nonagricultural purposes has invariably led to the cancellation of Certificates of Land Ownership Award and Emancipation Patents of thousands of peasants and their eviction from their places of livelihood. Jonathan L. Mayuga

Government to recognize eco-friendly, ‘safest’ mines

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

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Aerial stunt

A group of workers use ropes and steel locks to climb and install the glass windows on the façade of the Okada Hotel in Parañaque City. NONOY LACZA

Asean migrant workers’ protection pact to benefit 200K OFWs–Arroyo

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

F

ormer President and now Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Second District of Pampanga on Thursday said the signing of a consensus document on the protection of migrant workers by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will benefit at least 200,000 Filipinos abroad.

The lawmaker said the consensus is considered a centerpiece of the Philippines’s chairmanship of Asean.

“It is expected to benefit some 200,000 OFWs [overseas Filipino workers] working mostly in Singapore and Malaysia,” Arroyo said in a news statement.

“I am gratified that at [the] summit opening, President Duterte heralded the landmark signing of the Asean Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. It is the fruition of what we started in 2007,” Arroyo added.

According to Arroyo, 10 years after efforts to have the agreement signed, she is delighted that the 10-member organization has signed the consensus.

She noted that during chairmanship of the Asean 10 years ago in 2007, she particularly pushed for the declaration to protect migrant workers within the Asean since she was duty-bound to protect OFWs wherever they go.

“Let me refer to a major bottleneck on a human-capital issue that I addressed during my time as president of the Philippines and during my chairmanship of Asean 10 years ago. That year, 2007, I used my general prerogative to push for the declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers,” she said.

“It was our most contentious chairman’s initiative in the 2007 summit because in Asean, we have members who send workers and we have members who receive workers, and, of course, they had deep differences of opinion. But we invoked our chairmanship to push that initiative, on account of so many Filipino workers overseas,” she added. “[The government] recognized the value and hardships that every OFW experiences when working abroad, which is the reason she saw the need to protect their rights through the Asean,” the former president said.

At the signing ceremony on Tues-

day, Duterte presented to Asean Secretary-General Le Luong Minh the recently adopted consensus document that would strengthen social protection and provide access to justice, humane and fair treatment and health services.

“But for the foreseeable future, we will continue to be heavily dependent on overseas worker remittances. On that basis, we are duty-bound to protect our citizens wherever they [are],” Arroyo added.

Investment ties

Meanwhile, Rep. Luis F. Raymund Villafuerte of the Second District of Camarines Sur, in a separate statement, said the summit strengthened trade and investment ties with the Philippines’s economic partners not only in Asia, but also with superpowers, such as Russia and the United States.

“The participation of world leaders, such as US President Donald J. Trump, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, among others, in the Asean summit attest[ed] to the success of the gathering and Asean’s significance under the chairmanship of President Duterte to the direction that the global economy will take in the future,” Villafuerte said. “Their attendance underlines President Duterte’s gravitas as a global leader and affirmation, despite the incessant political noise, of his government’s commitment to the Asean’s shared prosperity and inclusivity despite regional diversity.”

According to the lawmaker, the outcome of the bilateral meetings held after the summit with the Philippines’s regional partners, such as China and Japan, will help boost the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program.

“The fact that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang found time to witness the signing of the agreements they had forged with our gover nment u nder President Duterte highlights the importance that these two world leaders place in further reinforcing the bilateral ties that their respective countries have forged with the Philippines,” said Villafuerte, a member of the House Committee on Economic Affairs.

Villafuerte cited, for instance, the agreement forged with Japan

But for the foreseeable future, we will continue to be heavily dependent on overseas worker remittances. On that basis, we are duty-bound to protect our citizens wherever they [are].”

—Arroyo on the construction of the first phase of the Mega Manila Subway and other Philippine flagship infrastructure projects, and the $7.34 billion in loans and grants committed by China.

“It has, among others, showcased the Philippines as a preferred investment destination in the region and, more important, highlighted President Duterte’s priority objective of making growth inclusive for Filipinos and other peoples across the region by training the spotlight on micro, small and medium enterprises or MSMEs as a key driver of global economic growth,” he said.

He added recent reports that the Philippines has moved up, to fourth place in attracting foreign direct investments (FDI) in the 10-country listing of Asean economies signals the country’s readiness to join the region’s roster of economic powerhouses.

He said, “Given the successive quarters of over 6-percent gross domestic product growth under the Duterte presidency, the Philippines has emerged the preferred investment destination as shown by the dramatic rise in FDI inflows to the country this year, as against the comparative drop in inward investments across the region over the same period.”

He was referring to preliminary Asean data showing that the Philippines, with total FDI of $7.93 billion in 2016, has emerged as the fourth largest recipient of FDI In the region. The Philippines was No. 6 in 2015.

he government is set to recognize the country’s safest and eco-friendly mines during the prestigious Presidential Mineral Industry Environmental Award (PMIEA).

To be held as part of the 64th Annual National Mine Safety and Environment Conference (ANMSEC), the PMIEA in Baguio City from November 21 to 24, PMIEA awards will be given to deserving mining companies engaged in mineral exploration, quarry operation, surface mining, underground mining and mineral processing.

The PMIEA was established under Executive Order 399 on February 03, 1997 in compliance with the policy that mineral exploration activities and mining operations shall not only be proenvironment but also propeople.

The said award is being conferred every year to mining companies that showed exemplary practices in health and safety; environmental protection and rehabilitation; and community and social development and management.

The PMIEA Selection Committee, together with the PMIEA Secretariat headed by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, routinely conducts serious field validation on the accomplishments of the nominees for the awards.

“As we continue to encourage our members to excel year on year, the annual awards night will recognize the best of the best of our mine workers and companies who demonstrate what responsible mining is all about,” Philippine Mine Safety and Environment President Louie Sarmiento said in a news statement.

Corollary to this, the Mining Forest Program, established by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’s Administrative Order 22, Series of 1989 through the National Executive Committee, will also select the Best Mining Forest based on the set criteria and rating system.

Winners of the Safest Mines Awards and Best Mines Personalities will, likewise, be awarded during the event.

The PMIEA, which promotes occupational health and safety, sound environmental management and social responsibility in the minerals industry, hosts the annual event.

As we continue to encourage our members to excel year on year, the annual awards night will recognize the best of the best of our mine workers and companies who demonstrate what responsible mining is all about.”

—Sarmiento “The 64th Annual National Mine Safety and Environment Conference again brings together advocates of responsible mining within and outside the mining communities where we operate. This includes not only the mining companies, but also our regulators, suppliers, academe, services contractors and local government units and communities,” Sarmiento said.

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng • Friday, November 17, 2017

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Oct rice inventory down 15.34%–PSA

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

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@jearcalas

he country’s rice inventory as of October 1 declined by 15.34 percent to 1.935 million metric tons (MMT), from 2.286 MMT a year ago, according to the latest report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA said the total rice inventory during the period is equivalent to the rice-consumption requirement of Filipinos for 57 days.

“Stocks would be enough for 32 days in the households, 21 days in commercial warehouses, and five days in NFA [National Food Authority] depositories,” the PSA said in its monthly report, titled “Rice and Corn Stocks Inventory September 2017” published on November 16.

Of the rice inventory as of October 1, the PSA said 55.35 percent were with the households, 36.42 percent were in commercial warehouses and 8.23 percent were in NFA depositories. Less than 1 percent of NFA stocks consisted of imported rice.

PSA data showed that NFA stocks during the period reached 159,350 metric tons (MT), while commercial warehouses accounted for 704,950 MT. Households

accounted for 1.071 MMT. “Compared to the previous year, an increase of 8.16 percent was recorded in the households’ stocks inventory level,” the report read.

“However, rice stocks in commercial warehouses and NFA depositories dropped by 10.53 percent a nd 68.63 percent, respectively,” it added.

On a monthly basis, rice stocks across all sectors were higher compared to their levels in September.

The PSA said stocks in the households was up by 55.52 percent, while stocks held in commercial warehouses grew by 5.49 percent. Rice stocks in NFA depositories more than doubled on a monthly basis with the arrival of imports to beef up the agency’s stockpile.

Data from the PSA showed that the total rice inventory as of October 1 was 36.06 percent

higher than the 1.422 MMT posted in September.

The government periodically monitors rice inventory to determine whether it would need to import the staple to boost local stocks.

PSA data also showed that total corn-stock inventory during the period more than doubled to 1.368 MMT, from last year’s record of 543,850 MT. However, the corn-stock inventory as of October 1 was 3.75 percent lower than September’s 1.422 MMT. The PSA said the bulk of cornstock inventory in October, or 87.20 percent, was in commercial warehouses, while households accounted for 12.76 percent. NFA depositories accounted for only 0.04 percent.

Corn stocks in commercial warehouses amounted to 1.193 MMT; households, 174,600 MT; and NFA warehouses, 550 MT. “Compared to the previous year, a decrease of 40.75 percent was seen on stock inventory in the households, while there was an increase of 379.51 percent in commercial warehouses and 120 percent in NFA depositories,” the report read.

“On a monthly basis, corn stocks in the households grew by 11.77 [percent], while both in the commercial warehouses and NFA depositories dropped by 5.67 percent and 3.51 percent, respectively,” it added.

Asean slams EU again for palm-oil import curbs

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales @alyasjah

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ember-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations criticized the European Union (EU) for imposing restrictions on palm-oil imports, which could cripple the palm-oil industry of Indonesia and Malaysia.

In his chairman’s statement at the 31st Asean Summit, President Duterte said he and his fellow leaders recognize with “deep concern” the concern of some Asean member-states over restricted market access for palm oil in Europe. Indonesia and Malaysia are top exporters of palm oil.

According to the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), Indonesia and Malaysia export at least 4.37 million tons (MT) and 2.09 MT of palm oil, respectively, to Europe every year. However, this industry is expected to take a hit from the European Parliament’s Resolution on Palm Oil and Deforestation of Rainforests adopted in April.

The resolution aims to develop a new, single certification scheme for palm oil, as well as palm-oil

products, by 2020 and, in the process, phase out and replace palm oil used in biofuels with EU-grown vegetable oils, also by 2020.

Losing Europe as a market will devastate numerous communities within Southeast Asia, including migrant workers from Myanmar who work in palm-oil plantations and Indonesian and Malaysian small enter prises who contribute about 40 percent of global palm-oil production, according to the SIIA. Because of this, Asean leaders have collectively slammed the European Union, for the second time this year, for its alleged bias against palm-oil producing countries. “ These restrictions do not reflect the commitment by the global community toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and entail adverse implications for the palm-oil industry, a critical economic element in producer countries within Asean,” the statement read.

The President’s statement at the 30th Asean Summit has also called out the EU resolution, saying it discriminates against palm-oil cultivation by singling it out as the largest contributor to deforestation.

“ We u rged t he Eu ropea n Union to recognize the certification of the sustainable palm-oil schemes in the countries concerned, which is a manifestation of our commitment to the [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals,” the previous statement read.

The EU has adopted the resolution to honor the regional bloc’s commitment to several international treaties for the protection of the environment, including those within the framework of Conference of Parties 21, the United Nations Forum on Forests and the UN Convention on Biological Biodiversity.

The European Union resolution has pointed to palm-oil cultivation as the main contributor to deforestation, and is responsible for land-use conversion and numerous incidents of wildfire.

If enforced, the EU will impose a tighter importation policy on palm oil, including the implementation of an “environmental burden-based tariff scheme.” It will also introduce nondiscriminatory tariff and nontariff barriers on palm oil based on its carbon footprint and a “polluter pays” principle.

Output of tomato, cassava up in Q3 F

avorable planting conditions allowed vegetable farmers, such as those planting tomato and cassava, to increase their production in the third quarter by as much as 4 percent, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In its latest report, titled “Performance of Agriculture,” the PSA said mongo production during the July-to-September period reached 1,500 metric tons (MT), 4.17 percent higher than last year’s 1,440 MT. “The availability of rehabilitation seeds from the Department of Agriculture’s Regional Field Office contributed to the increase in area planted in Cagayan Valley. Higher demand was also observed in Caraga,” the PSA report read.

Mongo output in January to September rose by 4.33 percent to 32,260 MT, from 30,920 MT recorded last year.

PSA data also showed tomato production in the third quarter expanded by 2.72 percent to

27,220 MT, from last year’s 26,500 MT. In January to September, total tomato output rose by 4.54 percent to 190,670 MT, from 182,380 MT a year ago.

“An uptrend in production was noted for tomato with this year’s 2.72-percent increase. In Northern Mindanao, there were additional plantings as more farmers were encouraged to cultivate the crop due to higher demand from the Visayas and Metro Manila markets and the seeds support from the local government units,” the PSA said.

Data from the PSA also showed the production of cassava during the three-month period grew 1.93 percent to 608,070 MT, from 619,830 MT recorded a year ago.

Increments were also noted in peanut and sweet potato production. Peanut output expanded by 1.64 percent to 3,710 MT, while sweet potato production went up by 1.72 percent to 136,250 MT. The PSA said eggplant and cabbage production recorded declines during the period.

Cabbage production in the third quarter fell by 5.05 percent to 17,100 MT, from last year’s 18,010 MT. The PSA said this was due to the decision of cabbage farmers in the Cordillera Administrative Region to plant other crops, such as potato and radish.

“This was aggravated by the decrease in yield because of clubroot disease that was brought about by excessive rains,” the PSA added.

Data from the PSA also showed eggplant production in the July-to-September period reached 39,060 MT, 4.87 percent lower than the 41,060 MT recorded a year ago.

“The 4.87-percent drop in eggplant production was attributed to the drop in yield in Calabarzon, where farms were adversely affected by Typhoon Maring. In addition, frequent rains during flowering stage and occurrence of stem and fruit borers were reported in Central Luzon,” the PSA added. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

Agricultural groups challenge California weed-killer warning

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Containers of Roundup, a weed killer by Monsanto Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

coalition of a dozen national and Midwestern agricultural groups sued on Wednesday to overturn a California decision that could force the popular weed-killer Roundup to carry warning labels that it can cause cancer.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Sacramento seeks an injunction barring the state from enforcing what the suit describes as a “false” and “misleading” warning.

It claims California’s decision violates constitutional due-process and free-speech rights, and should be superseded by federal regulations.

Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, is not restricted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and has been used widely since 1974 to kill weeds while leaving crops and other plants alive.

But the International Agency for Research on Cancer, based in Lyon,

France, has classified it as a “probable human carcinogen.” That prompted the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to add glyphosate this summer to a list of chemicals known to cause cancer. The listing could lead to a requirement for warning labels on the product.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the national wheat- and corngrowers associations, state agriculture and business organizations in Iowa,

Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota, and a regional group representing herbicide sellers in California, Arizona and Hawaii. The plaintiffs also include Saint Louis-based Monsanto Co., which makes Roundup.

The lawsuit contends that California’s “false warning” has harmed Monsanto’s reputation and its investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in the herbicide and glyphosate-tolerant seeds. AP

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Friday, November 17, 2017

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Da Vinci’s Christ painting sells for record $450M

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Night view of JXTG Nippon Oil and Energy Corp. petrochemical plant in Muroran, Japan. Bloomberg

Scientists are skeptical political leaders can meet climate goal

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limate negotiators inserted a dramatic charge in the 2015 Paris accord, asking world leaders to strive to keep global temperatures at just 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Now new studies have begun to sketch out what the tighter target—compared to the longtime benchmark goal of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)—actually means.

T he i r o v e r a l l me s s a ge t o c limate envoys meeting in Bonn, Ger many this week: B et ter get c rac k i ng.

“We would need an incredibly dramatic reduction in emissions in the very near future,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with Berkeley Earth. He called the 1.5-degree Celsius target “a little ridiculous and implausible.”

T he scientific studies suggest that every year that goes by without global emissions peaking would require larger pollution cuts in the future. As it stands, the world has “room” left in the atmosphere for less than 20 years of emissions at current rates.

A n essay Hausfat her pub lished on the web site CarbonBrief estimates that if emissions peak in 2020, then by 2030, the carbon-emissions rate will have to drop by 9 percent a year. If the peak had come in 1995, required cuts in 2030 would have been just 2 percent—and off a much lower baseline.

But emissions are still rising. In 2017 they’re expected to go up by

2 percent, according to researchers in the Global Carbon Project.

That’s much lower than rates seen in the early-21st century, but still the wrong direction.

Already, even the most optimistic scenarios can’t hit a 2-degree goal without assuming that whiz-bang future technology will emerge to pull carbon dioxide out of the air.

The climate models tend to show that it’s unrealistic to reduce pollution by more than 5 percent or 6 percent a year, Hausfather said. To get around that sticking point, the models build in “negative emissions” later in the century—perhaps the most significant TBD of all time. “ The idea that we’re going to depend on this largely unknown technology to get us to these targets is a little worrisome,” Hausfather said.

The world has already warmed by about 1 degree Celsius since the end of the 19th century, and there’s momentum in the system.

I n a t houg ht e x per i ment , authors of a new US National Climate Assessment found that if atmospheric carbon dioxide stayed at its current level, that would lock in another 0.6 degrees of warming. Another study found that if all emissions magically

stopped, the planet would eventually warm between 1.1 degrees to 1.5 degrees.

Veerabhadran Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in September envisioned an aggressive scenario in which nations yank hard on three main “levers”—zeroing out carbon emissions, slashing other greenhouse gases that don’t hang in the air as long, and deploying machines that suck carbon out of smokestacks and stick it underground.

In that scenario, efforts to “bend the warming curve to a cooling trend” should begin by 2020. Negative emissions would come later.

“Since 2020 is just a few years away, this is a highly optimistic option,” they write, with an understatement characteristic of the climate scientists.

A June study in Earth’s Future, led by Xuanming Su of Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies, concluded that temperatures could stabilize below 1.5 degrees, after shooting past it for a brief time, with immediate action, including a tripling of carbon prices and doubling of funds for preventing emissions above what would be needed to meet the 2-degree target.

The most forgiving of the studies came in September, when Richard Millar of the University of Oxford and colleagues reported findings that the carbon budget— a gauge of how much humanity can pump out before it enters the danger zone—may be bigger than previously believed.

While peers criticized the paper for making optimistic assumptions, the paper itself demonstrates that fixing the climate won’t be a cakewalk.

The Paris goal “is not chasing a geophysical impossibility, but is likely to require a significant strengthening” of national commitments, Millar and his co-authors wrote, suggesting “sustained reductions at historically unprecedented rates after 2030.”

The biggest challenge for the scientists may be that the largest source of uncertainty has less to do with the thermal physics of the Earth, or the melt rate of glaciers, than with the actions of the very people who have asked them to study the problem.

A study led by Swiss scientist Reto Knutti assigns the greatest unpredictability to politicians.

“Current and proposed” policies under the Paris agreement “are inconsistent with what would be required for the 1.5-degree or 2-degree target, and even these are politically difficult,” Knutti and his coauthors write in a study released in September.

They brush aside the thought that to make policy more work needs to be done on assessing temperature paths, saying more precision “is not necessary for eliminating those roadblocks.”

W hat to do about c limate change is so self-evident at this point that nonscientists needn’t even consider degree targets, said Kate Marvel, a climate researcher affiliated with National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Columbia University in New York.

“Things that make us not put as much carbon dioxide in the air are good, and things that make us put more carbon dioxide in the air are bad,” Marvel said. “If you want to think about this in a binary sense, don’t use 2 degrees/not-2 degrees.”

Bloomberg News

Trump: China agrees N. Korea nuclear-weapon freeze not enough

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ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that the United States and China agree that North Korea cannot just freeze its nuclearweapons program in exchange for concessions and that it must eliminate its arsenal.

Trump was restating a long-standing US position but suggested that China now concurred with Washington that a “freeze-forfreeze” agreement was unacceptable.

China and Russia have proposed that as a way to restart long-stalled negotiations: that the North could freeze its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for the US and its close ally South Korea, stopping regular military drills that Pyongyang considers as preparation for invasion.

China has not made a public disavowal of the proposal. China said on Wednesday

that it would send a high-level special envoy to North Korea amid an extended chill in relations between the neighbors. Trump was speaking a day after he returned from a 12-day trip through Asia that included a state visit to China, where he was hosted by President Xi Jinping.

“President Xi recognizes that a nuclear North Korea is a grave threat to China, and we agreed that we would not accept a so-called freeze for freeze agreement, like those that have consistently failed in the past,” Trump said.

He added that Xi pledged to implement United Nations sanctions that aim to deprive Nor th Korea of revenues for its weapons programs “and to use his great economic influence over the regime to achieve our common goal of a

denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”

China is North Korea’s traditional ally and accounts for about 90 percent of the isolated nation’s external trade—including virtually all its oil supplies. Speaking at the White House, Trump cast his Asian sojourn as a “tremendous success,” saying the US was feted by foreign leaders and asserted its strength in the world.

“America’s renewed confidence and standing in the world has never been stronger than it is right now,” Trump said, detailing his stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Trump added he had three goals on the trip: to unite the world against North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, to strengthen alliances in the region and to insist on “fair and reciprocal trade.”

Trump pledged to work “as fast as possible” to eliminate sizable trade deficits with US trading partners. He said it was “unacceptable” that the US trade deficit with other nations stands at about $800 billion a year, and promised to “start whittling that down as fast as possible.” He did not say how he planned to achieve that goal. Earlier, Trump used social media to spar with media coverage of his trip.

He tweeted criticism at The New York Times. He said the paper “hates” that he has good relationships with world leaders and “they should realize that these relationships are a good thing, not a bad thing.” He called the paper “naive [or dumb]” on foreign policy.

Th e p re s i d e nt a l s o t we e te d o n Wednesday that he was “forced” to watch CNN during the trip and “again realized how bad, and FAKE, it is.” AP

EW YORK—A painting of Christ by the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci sold for a record $450 million (€380 million) at auction on Wednesday, smashing previous records for artworks sold at auction or privately.

The painting, Salvator Mundi, Latin for “Savior of the World,” is one of fewer than 20 paintings

by Leonardo known to exist, and the only one in private hands.

It was sold by Christie’s auction house, which didn’t immediately identify the buyer.

“Salvator Mundi is a painting of the most iconic figure in the world by the most important artist of all time,” said Loic Gouzer, cochairman of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s. “The opportunity to bring this masterpiece to the market is an honor that comes around once in a lifetime.”

The highest price paid for a work of art at auction had been $179 million (€152 million), for Pablo Picasso’s painting Women of Algiers (Version O) in May 2015, also at Christie’s in New York.

The highest known sale price for any artwork had been $300 million (€253 million), for Willem de Kooning’s painting Interchange, sold privately in September 2015 by the David Geffen Foundation to hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin.

A backer of the Salvator Mundi auction had guaranteed a bid of at least $100 million (€85 million).

The bidding opened at $75 million, and ran for 19 minutes. The price hit $300 million about halfway through the bidding.

People in the auction house gallery applauded and cheered when the bidding reached $300 million and when the hammer came down on the final bid, $400 million. The record sale price of $450 million includes the buyer’s premium, a fee paid by the winner to the auction house.

The 26-inch-tall (66-centimeter-tall) Leonardo painting dates from around 1500, and shows

Christ dressed in Renaissancestyle robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal sphere.

Its path from Leonardo’s workshop to the auction block at Christie’s was not smooth. Once owned

by King Charles I of England, it disappeared from view until 1900, when it resurfaced and was acquired by a British collector. At that time it was attributed to a Leonardo disciple, rather than to the master himself.

The painting was sold again in 1958, and then was acquired in 2005, badly damaged and partly painted over, by a consortium of art dealers who paid less than $10,000 (€8,445). The art dealers restored the painting and documented its authenticity as a work

by Leonardo.

T he pa i nt i ng wa s sold on Wednesday by Russian billionaire Dmitr y Rybolovlev, who bought it in 2013 for $127.5 million (€108 million) in a private sale that became the subject of a continuing lawsuit.

Christie’s said most scholars agree the painting is by Leonardo, though some critics have questioned the attribution and some say the extensive restoration muddies the work’s authorship.

Christie’s capitalized on the public’s interest in Leonardo, considered one of the greatest artists of all time, with a media campaign that labeled the painting The Last Da Vinci. The work was exhibited in Hong Kong, San Francisco, London and New York before the sale.

In New York where no museum owns a Leonardo, art lovers lined up outside Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters on Tuesday to view Salvator Mundi.

Svetla Nikolova, who’s from Bulgaria but lives in New York, called the painting “spectacular.”

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” she said. “It should be seen. It’s wonderful it’s in New York. I’m so lucky to be in New York at this time.” AP

After 37 years, Mugabe’s rule appears to be over

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AR AR E, Zimbabwe— Z i m b a b w e ’s m i l i t a r y was in cont rol of t he capital and the state broadcaster on Wednesday, and was holding President Robert Mugabe and his wife under house arrest in what appeared to be a coup against the 93-year-old Mugabe, the world ’s oldest head of state. Related story on A11.

The militar y was at pains, however, to emphasize it had not staged a military takeover, but was instead starting a process to restore Zimbabwe’s democracy.

Still, the military appeared to have brought an end to Mugabe’s long, 37-year reign in what the army’s supporters praised as a “bloodless correction.”

South Africa and other neighboring countries were sending in leaders to negot iate w it h Mugabe and the generals to encourage the transition.

Citizens in Zimbabwe’s tidy capital, Harare, contributed to the feeling of a smooth transition by carrying on with their daily lives, walking past the army’s armored personnel carriers to go to work and to shops.

Many who have never known any leader but Mugabe waited in long lines at banks to draw limited amounts of cash, a result of this once-prosperous country’s plummeting economy.

Felix Tsanganyiso, who sells mobile airtime vouchers in Harare, said he was following the developments on WhatsApp. “But I am still in the dark about

what is happening,” he said. “So far so good. We are going about our business without harassment.

My plea is that, whoever takes over should sort out the economy. We are tired of living like this.”

The series of whiplash events followed Mugabe’s firing last week of his deputy, which appeared to position the first lady, Grace Mugabe, to replace Emmerson Mnangagwa as one of the country’s two vice presidents at a party conference next month.

But the 52-year-old first lady is unpopular among many Zimbabweans for her lavish spending on mansions, cars and jewels. Last month she went to court to sue a diamond dealer for not supplying her with a 100-carat diamond that she said she had paid for.

Grace Mugabe has been known as the leader of the G40, a group of Cabinet ministers and officials in their 40s and 50s who are too young to have fought in Zimbabwe’s war to end white-minority rule in Rhodesia.

When Mnangagwa was fired, the generals and war veterans felt they were being sidelined and took action to stop that, analysts say.

Mna ngag wa’s whereabouts were not clear on Wednesday.

He f led the country last week, citing threats to himself and his family.

Critics of the government urged Mugabe to go quietly. “The old man should be allowed to rest,” former Zimbabwe finance minister and activist Tendai Biti told South African broadcaster eNCA. AP

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Friday, November 17, 2017

A7

The 333-meter Tokyo Tower dominates the city’s skyline. Bloomberg

Abe’s expanding econ hides wealth disparity in Japan

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ot ever ybody is celebrating Japan’s seven straight quarters of economic expansion. The headline-grabbing gains in exports, corporate profits and financial markets that have marked the last few years have done little to change a longer-term trend that’s brought disparity between those Japanese who hold assets, and those who don’t.

Combining these figures, a similar survey of people who live alone and

the most recent census in 2015, there may be at least 14 million people in Japan with no investments or savings.

A s t h e n at i o n a g e s a n d m o re people retire, this lack of financial strength among many households is likely to become a bigger problem.

As many as 38 percent of households of two or more people are very concerned about their retirement, and another 44 percent are somewhat concerned, the Bank of Japan found in its household

Brexit deal in 2018 may be too late for UK firms

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he emerg ing v iew from European capit a l s on Bre x it t i ming sug gests companies will have no choice but to activate their contingency plans, making the potential economic hit in the United K i ngdom a fa it accompl i whether there’s a deal or not.

European Union (EU) officials bracing for failure at a December summit now see leaders’ gatherings in the first few months of next year as the last best chance for a breakthrough, three people familiar with the negotiations said.

While this would keep the talks alive, companies, such as London Stock Exchange Group Plc. a nd Deutsc he Bank AG, have said they need to start making plans early next year in preparation for Britain’s exit from the bloc in March 2019.

“This is a crisis point,” Nina Schick, associate director at Hanbury Strategy, a politicalresearch shop, told Bloomberg TV. “Businesses are saying if we don’t have clarity by December, this is when we’re going to act on our contingency plans to potentially move out of the UK.” Business leaders in the UK have warned for months about the need for certainty, with many companies viewing January as the cutoff date for arranging a transition period to smooth Britain’s departure from the bloc. If it comes too late, it will be of little use to companies that are already preparing drafting plans for relocations and shifting jobs from London.

London could lose 10,000 banking jobs and 20,000 more in financial services as clients move €1.8 trillion ($2.1 trillion) of assets out of the UK on Brexit, according to the Bruegel think tank.

Plans afoot

Barclays Plc. have already detailed plans to move some people out of London, and Deutsche Bank expects to move about 4,000 positions to Frankfurt and Berlin, people briefed on the matter said in August; UBS Group AG will start the process of moving its London-based employees early next year.

The view in Brussels is that the onus is on the UK to

make concessions before the EU agrees to move talks on to the transition and longerterm future trading relationship. If it hasn’t done that by December, the EU will wait rather than force the issue or move to a plan B, the people said. A summit in January or February could provide a second chance, they added.

The deadlock stems from the EU’s demand that Britain commit to meeting financial liabilities of about €60 billion ($71 billion) and spell out how it proposes to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK. The UK’s Conservative government, which lacks a majority in Parliament, says it has made concessions already, outlined in Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech in Florence, Italy, in September, and it’s now up to the EU to show some flexibility.

Not enough

“ W hile t he U K bel ieves they have gone as far as domestically possible in the Florence speech, the EU27, led by Berl i n, bel ieves a further, more substantial, concrete and unconditional step is need,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive officer of Europe Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank. “ There is a significant chance we w ill not reach a g re e me nt on s u f f ic ie nt progress by December.”

The run-up to the EU’s summit on December 14 and 15 is beginning to look like a repeat of the weeks building up to the last leaders’ gathering, in October. Then, as now, the chance of a deal began to fade as the EU side demanded concrete commitments from the UK and Britain refused to budge.

Brexit Secretary David Davis thinks it’s as close as 5050 whether there’s a breakthrough at the December summit, he told European business leaders at a meeting in London this week, according to three people present. A spokesman for Davis denied he said this. “ T he U K gover nment should make a move,” the business leaders told May and Davis, Emma Marcegaglia, head of the BusinessEurope lobby group, said in an interview. Bloomberg News

surveys published this month.

One class of asset holder, those who have stocks, have done particularly well since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to power, with the share market up about 130 percent over the past five years.

Still, stocks only make up about onetenth of the asset portfolio of the median household with financial investments.

Japanese still have a strong preference for stable investments like term deposits.

Bloomberg News

Trump’s ‘tremendous success’ abroad is overstated

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ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump marked his return from a fivecountry tour of Asia by recounting on Wednesday its “tremendous success” and that of his other trips abroad.

Deterred only by a struggle to quench his thirst, Trump listed numerous achievements against terrorism and for United States workers in claiming that “America is back.” But some of those statements don’t hold much water.

Here’s an assessment.

n He spoke of dealing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria “one crushing defeat after another” since his meeting with Arab allies.

In detailing his May trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump said he spoke about “our strategy to defeat terrorists by stripping them of financing, territory and ideological support,” and urged Arab states to drive terrorists from their societies.

It is true that the Islamic State (IS) has lost significant territory, including its de facto capital in Syria, “since that time,” as Trump said. But the extremist group had begun losing territory well before Trump’s trip to Riyadh, and he has largely kept to plans laid out under former President Barack Obama.

n He exaggerated when he

suggested that “billions and billions of dollars are pouring” into North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) at his urging.

A fter repeated ly cr iticizing other countries in the Nato for not paying their fair share to the military alliance, Trump has since claimed credit for changing the trend.

He sa id on Wed nesd ay t hat “Nato, bel ieve me, is ver y happy w it h Dona ld Tr ump and what I d id.” Under Nato guidelines, member-states agreed to commit a minimum of 2 percent of GDP to the organization’s defense efforts, but few nations actually do so.

T he secretar y-genera l of the a l liance, Jens Stoltenberg , said in Ju ly that f ive countr ies

$405B

The amount of total trade deficit under President Donald J. Trump, which was an increase compared with the $370 billion during the first nine months of 2016

cont r ibuted at least 2 percent of t heir GDP. He sa id he e xpected Roma ni a to reac h t he benc hma rk t h is yea r, a nd L atv ia and Lithuania to next year.

While it is conceivable that Trump ushered along the process, efforts to address the disparity predated his complaints. Members that were not meeting that bar of 2 percent pledged in September 2014—largely because of Russian actions that were continuing—to do so over the next decade.

n He overstated the overall US trade deficit.

Trump said that dur ing his Asia trip, he gave a firm warning to every country “that cheats, breaks the rules and engages in economic aggression,” which, he said, is why “we have almost an $800-billion-a-year trade deficit with other nations.” That figure is accurate when examining only the trade balance in goods, about $750 billion last year.

Trade in services, however, reduced the overall deficit to $505 billion. The total trade deficit has actually increased under Trump’s watch—to $405 billion during the first nine months of 2017, compared with the $370 billion during the first nine months of 2016.

n He noted economic growth trends that predate his presidency.

Trump ticked off several accurate

U.S. President Donald J. Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Wednesday in Washington. AP/Evan Vucci

economic metrics: The unemployment rate is at its lowest level in nearly 17 years, the economy grew at over 3 percent in the last two quarters and the stock market has been soaring.

What he omits, however, is that those trends began under the Obama administration.

A lmost all of the decline in the unemploy ment rate hap pened under Obama’s watch. It peaked at 10 percent in 2009, dropped to 4.8 percent by the time Trump took office and continued to decline to 4.1 percent in October.

Similarly, GDP growth in the last two quarters—3 percent and 3.1 percent—is certainly healthy but on a par with numbers posted in the last three years.

n He said Japan will make

arms purchases “worth many billions,” but Japan disputes that.

Trump played up Japan’s commitment to its own defense capabilities and suggested that P r i me Mi n i ster Sh i n zo A be, whose name he mispronounced, had agreed to “purchases of US advanced capabilities, from jet fighters to missile defense.”

It is possible that Japan agreed to the arms sale, but if Trump and Abe did strike a deal, it would be in a very preliminary stage in a process that could take years.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency has yet to notify Congress of any intended sale, which must happen before negotiations, can begin.

Japanese officials have also pushed back at the notion. In a report in The Japan Times last week, the Japanese chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said that Tokyo was following its existing defense procurement plan that was approved more than three years before Trump took office.

n He claimed $250 billion in deals with China, a figure that includes nonbinding agreements.

The Commerce Department’s breakdown of the $250 -billion package includes several deals that are not guaranteed to proceed. For example, an $8-billion natural gas project and $83 bil lion in sha le development projects were both agreed to in nonbinding memorandums of understanding.

The breakdown also lists a $38-billion agreement for Boeing to supply China with 300 aircraft, which is in line with its 20-year forecast, and $2.2 billion in sales from General Motors to Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., a large automaker in China that has a joint venture with GM.

New York Times News Service

A8

AseanFriday BusinessMirror

Friday, November 17, 2017 • Editor: Max V. de Leon

www.businessmirror.com.ph

US would consider individual sanctions for Myanmar

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nited States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that the US is deeply concerned by “credible reports” of atrocities committed by Myanmar’s security forces, and called for an independent investigation into a humanitarian crisis in which hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh.

Speaking at a joint news conference with leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar’s capital, Tillerson said the US would consider individual sanctions against people found responsible for the violence, but he would not advise “broad-based economic sanctions” against the entire country.

“All of that has to be evidencebased,” Tillerson said. “If we have credible information that we believe to be very reliable that certain individuals were responsible for certain acts that we find unacceptable, then targeted sanctions on individuals very well may be appropriate,” he added.

Tillerson’s one-day visit comes as a new report said there is “mounting

evidence” of genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where a government security operation has caused nearly 620,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Tillerson also met with Myanmar’s powerful military chief, Min Aung Hlaing, who is in charge of operations in Rakhine.

A senior US State Department official said on Tuesday that Tillerson would use the visit to “express concerns over the displacement and violence and insecurity affecting Rohingya populations and other local populations and discuss ways to help Burma stakeholders implement

commitments aimed at ending the crisis and charting productive ways forward.”

Myanmar was formerly known as Burma.

Though Suu Kyi has been the de facto head of Myanmar’s civilian government since her party swept elections in 2015, she is limited in her control of the country by a constitution written under the military junta that ruled Myanmar for decades. The military is in charge of the operations in northern Rakhine, and ending them is not up to Suu Kyi. Still, Suu Kyi has faced widespread criticism for not speaking out in defense of the Rohingya. At Wednesday’s news conference, Suu Kyi denied she had been silent on the issue, saying she had personally commented on the situation, as well as issued statements through her office.

“I haven’t been silent,” she said.

“What people mean is what I say is not interesting enough. But what I say is not meant to be exciting. It’s meant to be accurate. And it’s aimed at creating more harmony and a better future for everybody. Not setting people against each other.”

But United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said he was “hugely disappointed” in Suu Kyi, noting that he appealed to her after a smaller scale flight of Rohingya in October “to use all her emotional

standing and moral standing inside the country to confront the military and put an end to this.”

“Evidently, she was unable to do that and now she speaks in compassionate terms,” he said in response to a question after a lecture at Columbia University on Tuesday.

But Zeid added he fears the Rohingya, who have fled to Bangladesh since August 25, won’t be able to return “because the operations were so systematic, so organized, so well-planned, that there was intent involved.”

“I believe it rises to the threshold of very serious violations, international crimes,” he said.

US congressional pressure is mounting on the Trump administration to take punitive steps against Myanmar. The US House of Representatives passed a nonbinding resolution on Wednesday condemning “murderous ethnic cleansing and atrocities against civilians.” It called on President Donald J. Trump to impose sanctions on those responsible for human-rights abuses, including members of Myanmar’s military and security services.

The report by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the advocacy group Fortify Rights found there is “mounting evidence” of genocide against the Rohinyga. It accused security forces and civilians of mass killings—including burning victims

alive including infants—rape and other abuses, and called on the international community to take action.

“These crimes thrive on impunity and inaction,” said Matthew Smith, the head of Fortify Rights. “Condemnations aren’t enough. Without urgent international action toward accountability, more mass killings are likely.” Myanmar’s military has denied the accusations, most recently with a statement on Monday.

The military said it had interviewed thousands of people during a monthlong investigation into the conduct of troops in Rakhine, after Rohingya insurgents launched a series of deadly attacks there on August 25.

While the report acknowledged that battles against militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army had left 376 “terrorists” dead, it also claimed security forces had “never

I

f we have credible information that we believe to be very reliable that certain individuals were responsible for certain acts that we find unacceptable, then targeted sanctions on individuals very well may be appropriate.” —Tillerson

Bangkok firefighters on front line of city’s snake scourge

Singapore suspends part of rail line after ‘awful day’ of crash

W

hen the latest distress call came into Phinyo Pukphinyo’s fire station in Bangkok, it was not about a burning home or office building. Instead, the caller needed urgent help with a far more common problem facing Thailand’s capital: snakes.

A 2-meter (10-foot) -long python was dangling from the caller’s garage roof, and after rushing to the scene, it took Phinyo less than a minute to remove the slithering reptile.

The number of snakes ending up in urban homes is on the rise in Bangkok, apparently in part because of development pains in the vast metropolis of about 10 million people. Thailand has 300 species of snakes, and 10 percent are venomous—including king cobras, kraits and pit vipers—making many city dwellers fearful of dealing with the creatures themselves.

Tara Buakamsri, Thailand country director for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said the city is seeing more snakes because it sits on a “flood plain with a wetland ecosystem, which is a habitat for amphibians, including snakes,” and housing expansions in recent years have curtailed their land.

Bangkok’s low-lying landscape makes it prone to floods during the rainy season, which also invites snakes and other reptiles, such as monitor lizards.

The huge python Phinyo’s team caught was not the first of the day, or the last. Hours later, the station was called to remove a green snake found in the bathroom of another Bangkok resident, who apologized to the firefighters for calling them for the third time this year.

“I’ve been living in this house for 20 years and we would very rarely see any snakes,” said the caller and homeowner, Chanun Chisa. “But this year, it seems like we see one every few months.”

Phinyo said his fire station gets more calls to catch snakes than to put out fires.

“In a day, we can get several calls to catch snakes,” he said. “I think people have just started to become aware that they can call officials up to deal with it. Beforehand, people used to handle the snakes themselves, using sticks to hit them and that kind of thing.”

He said he can now identify most types of snakes and has become an in-house instructor who teaches other firefighters how to safely capture the wriggly reptiles.

“We have no choice but to learn how to handle them,” Phinyo said.

Piya Saereerak, a veterinarian who works for the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, said Bangkok’s snake invasion is sustained by the city’s growing piles of trash, which subsequently leads to more rats and birds—favored prey for serpents.

The Thai capital is producing more trash every year, and struggles to get rid of it. It has produced around 10,454 tons of trash per day this year, up from 8,943 tons daily in 2011, according to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.

“In the wild, you’d have eagles and big birds that eat snakes, and their eggs are food for other reptiles,” Piya said. “But in a big city like Bangkok, there is nothing hunting them.”

Piya heads a wildlife clinic that takes in around 300 to 400 snakes a month from rescuers, such as firefighters in Bangkok. Every week the staff from his clinic releases truckloads of snakes caught in the city into the jungle. City authorities say the number of snakes caught in Bangkok homes has risen exponentially in recent years, from 16,000 reported cases in 2013 to about 29,000 in 2016. Figures for the first half of 2017 are over 30 percent higher than last year.

Penchom Saetang, director of the environmental foundation Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand, said Bangkok is producing more trash each year because the city is quickly expanding under an insufficient waste-management system.

A July 2017 Greenpeace report notes there are 2,490 waste-management centers around the country, but only 466 of them working properly.

Piya’s advice to Bangkok’s residents is to keep the city clean in order to keep the snakes away. He said most snakes found in Bangkok homes and apartments are harmless, “but if you spot a venomous one, firemen will be there to help.” AP

shot at the innocent Bengalis” and “there was no death of innocent people.” Myanmar’s government and most of the Buddhist majority say the members of the Muslim minority are “Bengalis” who migrated illegally from Bangladesh, and do not acknowledge the Rohingya as a local ethnic group even though they have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Zeid said he was also “very unhappy” that the communique from the summit of the Asean in the Philippines didn’t even use the word Rohingya.

“How much more do they need to suffer before they are recognized by some of these leaders?” he asked.

“If we allow this to happen at zero cost ...how many other countries with minorities would be only too willing, if they want to remove a so-called problem from their society, to follow suit in similar ways?” Zeid asked. AP

S

Indonesia policy dilemma looms as credit growth lags

I

ndonesia’s hopes of hitting double-digit credit growth this year have all but faded, presenting a dilemma for policy-makers trying to stimulate Southeast Asia’s biggest economy in the face of rising global interest rates.

Despite eight interest-rate cuts since the beginning of 2016, including back-to-back reductions in August and September, demand for loans remains weak and economic growth continues to disappoint.

While that gives policy-makers reason to continue easing, they can’t ignore a depreciating currency as the Federal Reserve proceeds with its rate hikes. All 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict Bank Indonesia will keep its benchmark rate unchanged at 4.25 percent on Thursday.

“The room for further policy loosening is diminishing,” said Aldian Taloputra, an economist at

Standard Chartered Plc. in Jakarta. However, rate cuts can’t be ruled out in the first quarter of 2018 if inflation remains low and growth continues to disappoint, he added.

Here’s what to watch for in Bank Indonesia’s statement:

Bank loans

Loan growth dipped below 8 percent for a second straight month in October, according to Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority, or OJK. Bank Indonesia, which had already lowered its estimate for credit expansion this year between 8 percent and 10 percent, from as much as 12 percent, now says its new target may be in doubt.

“The chance is narrowing. It might be around 8 percent at most,” Assistant Governor Dody Budi

Waluyo said in a text message. “The demand for credit is relatively low, which is in line with the growth of the economy.”

At the same time, interbank rates are low, pointing to ample liquidity in the system.

Andry Asmoro, an economist at PT Bank Mandiri in Jakarta, said the lackluster credit growth had more to do with the fact that many banks are trying to reduce nonperforming loans and manage asset quality.

“They’re now very careful in disbursing loans to avoid new bad loans,” he said.

After dropping to as low as 1.8 percent in December 2013, the ratio of bank nonperforming loans has steadily risen to more than 3 percent last year. That number may drop to below 2 percent next year, Financial Services Authority chief Heru Kristiyana said last week. Bloomberg News

A Hyundai moment H

yundai Asia Resources Inc. (Hari) President and CEO Ma. Fe Perez-Agudo exchanged pleasantries with South Korean President His Excellency Moon Jae-in at the Asean Business and Investments Summit (Abis) 2017.

Agudo, a panelist at the Abis forum on “Unleashing Women Economic Power and Human Capital Development [Investing in Education, Global Competencies, Women and Affirmative Action],” echoed Moon’s keynote message on coprosperity and unleashing the potential of all.

Hyundai’s presence as official mobility partner of the Asean 50 and related summits signifies the Korean automotive giant’s solid support for the Asean Roadmap of “Prosperity for All.” South Korea is the Philippines’s fifth-major trading partner.

Hyundai’s increased investments and philanthropic work in the Philippines country through Hari is a case study of Hyundai’s interest to grow its presence and influence in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The deployment of 50 Hyundai H350 luxury vans to transport summit delegates showcased Hyundai Philippines’s bid to drive the success of local enterprises by introducing world-class commercial vehicles to the business community. By investing in the Hyundai Assembly Center, Hyundai recognizes the rewards of fast-tracking consumer access to its vehicles, while spurring the development of the local parts manufacturing sector into an indispensable player in the regional automotive chain.

ingapore suspended part of a rail line to conduct checks, after a train collision on Wednesday left more than two dozen people injured and prompted an apology from the Transport Minister.

At least 29 people were injured after a train hit a stationary one near the Joo Koon station in the western part of the city state. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said a software glitch was behind the rail collision, the country’s second in three decades.

The incident dealt another blow to a network that has faced public criticism in recent years for frequent breakdowns. Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan called it “an awful day” and apologized to commuters, saying authorities “are deeply sorry,” Channel NewsAsia reported.

SMRT Corp., the affected line’s operator, tweeted early Thursday that services between Joo Koon and Tuas Link stations on its East-West line were suspended, though trains on another major line were running normally. The Transport Minister had advised SMRT and LTA to suspend services between the Joo Koon and Tuas Link stations for the day for system provider Thales to conduct a thorough check.

Here’s what we know, so far, according to local media, citing statements by LTA officials at a news conference at SMRT’s headquarters late Wednesday: The software-protection feature on the first train was removed when it passed a faulty signaling circuit The second train detected the first train as a three-car train and misjudged the distance between the two trains, resulting in the collision SMRT is investigating if the driver could have reacted in time and applied breaks SMRT operates the two oldest train lines in Singapore, North-South and East-West, as well as the newer Circle line. SBS Transit Ltd. runs the North-East line and the newest downtown line.

Singapore’s worst rail glitches occurred in December 2011, delaying more than 200,000 people in the last weekend before the Christmas holiday, and led to the resignation of SMRT’s CEO at the time. Subsequently, Lui Tuck Yew, the former transport minister who oversaw an expansion of the public-transportation network, left politics. Bloomberg News

Banking& Finance BusinessMirror

Editor: Jun B. Vallecera • Friday, November 17, 2017

A9

Treasury offering RTBs anew worth P30B

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By Rea Cu

@ReaCuBM

he government is going back to the debt market with a planned sale of retail Treasury bonds (RTBs) worth at least P30 billion, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said on Thursday. It will be the second such sale of RTBs this year and the third under President Duterte, whose economic managers have crafted an ambitious infrastructure buildup program.

National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said the proposed sale will tap unmet demand noted at the RTB sale in April, when Treasury officials sold only P180 billion worth of bonds, instead of the full demand estimated to have reached P500 billion.

“We accepted [only] around P180 billion [and] see that there is still a lot of appetite among the retail sector. That is also going to be a very strong, [a] huge source of funding for the government,” de Leon told financial reporters.

According to her, the proposed RTB offering has a tenor of five years and will mature in 2022, with a minimum aggregate principal amount of P30 billion.

She said investor appetite for long-dated government securities have been observed to be most acute in the three- to five-year space and this was why Treasury officials agreed to do another RTB sale.

“So we are doing this comeback of the RTB, with a five-year tenor. This is also where we see the three- to five-year appetite,” she quickly added.

The lead banks tasked with handling the planned sale include the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank). China Banking Corp., BDO Unibank Inc., the Bank of the Philippine Islands and Security Bank have been appointed issue managers.

“The lead issue managers are Landbank and DBP and six who joined” issue managers, she said.

The RTB sale will help the government meet its funding requirements for next year. This was also a preemptive move and in anticipation of the interest-rate hike by the United States Federal Reserve.

“This is like a sequel, a second chance for those who weren’t able to avail [themselves of the first-time around]. And of course, if ever, we are trying to come ahead of the higher rates that we are also thinking early next year,” she added.

In May this year the government had its 19th-overall RTB sale for P30 billion, initially with a tenor of three years. In the end, the BTr sold a total P181 billion in RTBs, as the sale was 16 times oversubscribed with total tenders reaching P500 billion.

The RTBs earn a fixed interest rate based at prevailing market rates, with interest coupons paid quarterly.

The auction period will start on November 20 and the last day will be on November 29 this year. The issue date was set for December 4.

Alliances and cooperation produce better results

President Roberto B. Tan of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) was guest speaker during the Fourth General Membership Meeting of the Bankers Institute of the Philippines Inc. (BAIPHIL) on October 27. In his speech, Tan highlighted how member-banks contribute to the strengthening of depositor confidence in the Philippine banking system, as reflected in the steady growth of deposits and increase in the number of bank accounts. He also encouraged banks to support the government’s initiative of financial inclusion by empowering depositors to make sound financial decisions through information and education.

He added that, together, PDIC and BAIPHIL can help maintain a strong and robust banking industry. Also in photo is BAIPHIL President Irene D. Arroyo.

Oil rally may be inflation game changer for Asia central banks

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he rally in oil prices is a potential game changer for inflation in Asia and will pressure central banks to lift interest rates after years of easy money.

With the region’s economic growth already enjoying the tailwinds of an export boom, the ingredients for a pickup in inflation are falling into place.

Food costs can rise in response to higher oil prices, with implications for policy-makers in emerging Asia, where the combined weight of food and energy in inflation gauges averages 38 percent, and is around 50 percent or higher in several markets, according to analysts at Nomura Holdings Inc. “The implication is that the recent sharp rise in oil prices, if sustained, could be the spark that ultimately impels EM central banks to raise policy rates faster than they would otherwise,” the Nomura analysts wrote in a note.

The impact of sustained higher oil prices will vary from country to country. Oil exporters, such as Malaysia, stand to benefit. Ship-building South Korea could gain if higher oil prices trigger a pickup in orders from the Middle East. Taiwan, with a current account surplus of almost 13 percent of national output, is well-placed to handle any price surge, while Thailand will be cushioned by bumper tourism and electronics exports.

At the same time, an inflation up-tick will boost nominal growth and will be welcomed in a region awash with debt. Record levels of international reserves will allow policy-makers alternative tools to raising borrowing costs. Bloomberg News

A10 Friday, November 17, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorial

Nipa-hut mentality

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ongratulations are in order to all the agencies and individuals on both the national and local level for the success of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations 2017 summit. You did a great job, ladies and gentlemen. Events like this, from a security and logistics standpoint, are not easy. Imagine planning and executing a thousand birthday parties at 50 fast-food restaurants held all over Metro Manila for several days.

Criticism of the inconvenience that we all endured is normal. Differing views about if our government officials served the Philippines well are reasonable. But to question whether or not the Philippines should have hosted the event as a founding member of the Asean makes little sense. We might describe that attitude as “nipa-hut mentality.” We are too poor.

In a sense, life was simpler when the Philippines was a nation of only nipa huts and carabaos. It might even be easier just to return to those times, and a good way to do, that is to say that the nation is not ready for hosting something like Asean summit 2017.

One group that was characterized as representing the “urban poor” questioned the P15.5-billion budget for the summit and the related meetings that the Philippine government hosted. The initial argument was that the Philippine government and the people could not afford that sort of expenditure. As usual, arguments like these are never told in context.

In terms anyone can understand, the Philippine economy is more than twice as large as 10 years ago. In 2016 the annual budget of the Philippine government was P1 trillion. For 2017 the budget is P3.5 trillion. The nation is wealthier now, and the government has more money to spend.

But isn’t P15 billion a lot of money? Of course, but that amount needs to be put in context. The amount spent on the summit is less than one half of 1 percent of the national budget. The government spends P15 billion in just a few hours.

However, consideration should be made that the P15 billion could have been spent on something else than the Asean summit. Specifically mentioned was that the money could have provided average low-cost housing to 34,444 beneficiaries, provided free secondary education over six years to 55,357 high-school students or funded free tertiary education for four years to 77,500 Filipino college students. If those numbers are accurate, what is the problem?

Certainly, these urban-poor groups could have easily found a group of Representatives and senators to sponsor a spending bill to increase the national budget by 0.50 percent to pay for one of those options.

Perhaps, the worst argument against spending for the 31st Asean Summit is the idea that the money was somehow wasted. It is worth noting that a significant portion of the budget paid for security like for the police that was needed to manage the protests by the urban poor and other groups. Had there not been any protests, money would have not been spent.

Another consideration is that the P15 billion was not given to the delegates who attended the summit like some protestors receive when they go to the streets. According to Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, a bulk of the budget was spent on car rentals for the visiting dignitaries. So, then, government money was spent on Filipino goods and services provided by Filipinos. That sounds like money well spent.

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BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business ✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua

The awesome responsibility of teachers James Jimenez

I

spox

n 2004—or thereabouts—as I was reaching out to various advocacy groups to promote voter education, I was told that an administrative order had previously been issued by either the Department of Education or by the Office of the President (no one was sure which), mandating voter education in schools. No one seemed to have a copy, however. I tried searching for that order, whatever it was, and came up empty-handed, as well. When I brought this to the attention of a gathering of teachers, they all claimed to have some memory of it, but none could identify it either. One of the participants then stood up and proudly proclaimed that, although she definitely did see the order, she had deliberately ignored it because, as she put it, government officials were corrupt, and she didn’t want to be a party to their schemes, and that we shouldn’t be in a hurry to introduce kids to the “dirty world of politics” anyway.

Fast forward to 2017—just last week, in fact—and I received reports of a law-school teacher going on and on at length about how the automated election system should not be trusted.

There is no question that voter education is a key foundational element in any electoral democracy.

What is not so clear is whether our

teachers are adequately trained to be good voter educators. The best that can be said, sadly enough, is that there’s a lot of work to be done waking the teachers themselves up, so that they can be good voter educators.

The worst pitfall for teachers, obviously, is cynicism. If the teacher I spoke with in 2004 and the law

T. Anthony C. Cabangon

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seeded all across the curriculum.

Understandably, this puts a lot of pressure on the teacher to contextualize discussions fairly and in a way that will make the students more aware and appreciative of the fundamentals of democracy.

That awareness and appreciation is all the more crucial now that it’s 2017, and the “apathy of the youth” is no longer the thing it once was. With the youth comprising a third of voters, the last presidential election logged a voter turnout of 80 percent —higher than the turnout rates of most established democracies. And even with the serial postponements of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, voter-registration numbers remain high, with many offices in Metro Manila averaging about 150 to 200 new applications every day.

Teachers, more than any other member of society, have the responsibility now to see to it that this enthusiasm for electoral participation is not compromised by their personal politics of cynicism. Failing in that task, our teachers will run the risk of turning these youthful voters into mere vehicles for some politicians’ ambitions, rather than shaping them into a true force for societal good.

Opportunities and threats under the Asean economic integration

Founder

Publisher

lecturer in 2017 are any indication of the prevailing sentiment, then there is a very real danger of students learning to be dismissive of government and politics as being “dirty” and, in the process, undermining the very cornerstone of democratic government.

It goes without saying that this kind of indoctrination—whether done deliberately or simply the result of an individual’s sincerely held personal belief—is anathema to voter education and should be guarded against. I have no quarrel with teachers criticizing elections per se; but when they preach their opinions as gospel truth, from platforms of authority, at an audience with no easy access to facts and contradicting opinions, I feel like a line is being crossed.

Properly done, voter education will emphasize the development of skills essential to democracy—the readiness to intelligently debate controversial issues, the ability to disagree respectfully and to be tolerant of dissent, and sensitivity to the “other.”

Nor should voter education be considered a separate subject.

Practically speaking, there’s only so much that needs to be memorized about the electoral system anyway. Instead, voter-education principles and activities must be

Justin Jerome G. Valle

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EAGLE WATCH

HE Asean Economic Community 2015 (AEC 2015), established by the 10 member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, aims to eliminate trade barriers and facilitate trade of both goods and services within the region. With a population of 631 million people, total trade amounting to $2.82 trillion and total current GDP of $2.53 trillion as of 2015, the Asean Free Trade Agreement will expand the region’s consumer base and promote economic growth.

As shown in the table below, 21.7 percent of the Philippines’s total trade is with the Asean, making the region our biggest trading partner. This means that, if the region will totally abolish tariffs, goods traded within the region will be cheaper for Asean citizens, consequently improving their buying power. Moreover, free trade promotes competition among firms operating within the bloc, inducing them to produce better products and find more efficient processes in doing business as to cut costs and maintain their margins.

Additionally, AEC 2015 can

induce the growth of tourism within the region. The number of international tourist arrivals in the Philippines posted a CAGR of 5.49 percent from 1996 to 2016, with the industry accounting for 8.6 percent of the country’s 2016 GDP. The promises of the Asean economic integration based on trade and tourism are encouraging.

However, the Philippines has not been able to fully benefit from the integration due to various internal challenges, such as ownership limitations, lack of infrastructure development and differences in trade processing among others.

Currently, the infrastructure com-

ponent is being addressed through the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program. Upon its passage, it will aid the government in its “Build, Build, Build” program that can address the infrastructure-related issues. Beyond infrastructure financing, the need for the government to improve revenue generation is paramount in order to realize the possible gains from the Asean economic integration.

This is because full integration would mean that revenue generation will shift fully to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). About 90 percent of the government revenues come from taxes, of this the BIR accounts for 80 percent, while the Bureau of Customs (BOC) accounts for 20 percent of the total

tax collection. Under full integration, the 20-percent contribution of the BOC is supposed to decline, with the Asean accounting for 26.4 percent of our imports.

To give a broader perspective of what we are trying to argue, Table 2 shows the amount of customs tax collected by other Asean members since 2001.

As of 2015 the Philippines still has the biggest customs and import duties contribution to total tax revenue (20.2 percent), followed by Cambodia with 16.8 percent. The rest, however, are already on the single-digit levels, with Malaysia and Singapore posting 1.7 percent and 0.07 percent, respectively. The shift in tax collection toward internal revenue See “Eagle watch,” A11

Trade Partners of the Philippines, 2016 Partner

% of Philippines as of 2016 Imports 26.4 11.6 18.4 8.7 8.0 0.7 0.5

Exports 15.1 21.4 10.1 15.9 12.4 0.9 0.3

ASEAN Japan China USA European Union United Kingdom Russia

Total Trade 21.7 15.6 15.0 11.6 9.8 0.7 0.4

Table 2. Customs and Import Duties as percent of total tax revenues, selected ASEAN countries (Incomplete due to lack of data) Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand Cambodia Lao PDR

2001 4.7 5.4 20.3 2.6 13.0 -

2002 4.8 5.5 19.0 3.3 12.3 29.7 -

2003 4.4 6.0 19.3 0.1 12.0 26.8 -

2004 4.4 5.4 20.2 0.1 10.0 28.3 -

2005 4.2 20.1 0.1 8.8 27.1 -

2006 3.1 23.0 0.1 7.1 25.2 -

2007 2.5 22.4 0.1 6.4 25.9 -

2008 3.5 2.3 24.8 6.4 24.0 11.7

2009 2.9 2.0 22.4 5.6 22.8 11.5

2010 2.8 1.8 23.7 5.7 22.1 10.8

2011 2.9 1.5 22.1 5.4 19.3 10.6

Source of basic data: World Development Indicators, World Bank

2012 2.9 1.5 21.3 6.0 18.5 9.4

2013 2.9 1.6 19.9 4.9 17.2 9.3

2014 2.8 1.6 21.5 5.0 16.8 10.0

2015 2.5 1.7 20.2 4.5 16.8 8.6

Opinion BusinessMirror

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Damay Kapanalig Telethon raises ₧1.1 million for Marawi Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual

SERVANT LEADER

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aritas Manila, the social arm of the Archdiocese of Manila, through your generosity, has raised P1,147,954.25 in cash donations and P147,210 worth of in-kind donations for the recovery and rehabilitation of Marawi.

Caritas Manila’s Damay Kapanalig Marawi Telethon, in partnership with Radio Veritas 846, aimed to raise funds for the families affected by the recently concluded war in Marawi through its Caritas Damayan program.

I want to express my utmost appreciation to all the people who extended their love and attention to Marawi through our Damay Kapanalig Telethon. We are most grateful that we could help the war-stricken families and individuals to be happier and with hope.

Let us keep pouring our support for Marawi to bring back the smiles on the faces of their children.

Caritas Damayan is one of the programs of Caritas Manila.

Through its Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Program, Caritas Manila has put in place a disaster-management program that allows for quick-response relief operation and effective crisis intervention.

During the first three months of the conflict, relief assistance is being mobilized by all civil-society organizations, private sectors, non-governmental organizations, Church institutions and local government units in and outside the evacuation centers.

Currently, Caritas Manila, together with the Missionaries of Jesus, is mainstreaming psychosocial and relief support through its “Damay Marawi” program.

Damay Marawi aims to develop communities toward wellness and livelihood. This project provides psychosocial support through trainings and materials development for peace education, which will be integrated in the Catechetical Ministry for Iligan and in the school curriculum for the municipalities of Lanao del Sur.

Eagle Watch. . . continued from A10

will prove to be strategic for Asean countries, because once the lists of items that are still currently protected by tariffs are abolished through the integration, countries will lose their customs revenues from the bloc. It is evident that the Philippines’s contribution of customs and import duties to total tax revenue has not changed, as shown by rather constant values in the table. This could not remain the same, so revenue collection from BOC will definitely go down and this would have negative effects on our national budget. Currently, the government

Caritas Manila, together with the Missionaries of Jesus, is mainstreaming psychosocial and relief support through its “Damay Marawi” program.

Damay Marawi aims to develop communities toward wellness and livelihood. This project provides psychosocial support through trainings and materials development for peace education, which will be integrated in the Catechetical Ministry for Iligan and in the school curriculum for the municipalities of Lanao del Sur. The public can still help and donate for Marawi by calling 925-7931 to 39, 563-9311 or 562-0020 to 25.

Donations can be made online via http://ushare.unionbankph.com/ caritas/ or by bank deposit: Banco De Oro-Savings Account No.: 5600-45905 Bank of the Philippine IslandsSavings Account No.: 3063-5357-01 Metrobank-Savings Account No.: 175-3-17506954-3 For dollar accounts: Bank of the Philippine IslandsSavings Account No. 3064-0033-55 Swift Code-BOPIPHMM Phi lippine Nationa l BankSavings Account No. 10-856660002-5 Swift Code-PNBMPHMM

To know more about Caritas Manila, visit www.caritasmanila.org. ph or call our DonorCare lines at 5639311, 564-0205, 0999-7943455, 0905-4285001 or 0929-8343857. is already experiencing a widening of the deficit due to infrastructure requirements.

It is, therefore, necessary for Congress to also consider this challenge before they pass the final version of the tax reform. In the end, the promises of full benefits from Asean integration is that each country must also do its homework. A critical component is how to ensure revenue sustainability in the light of free trade and integrated market systems. After all, there is no such thing as free fruits, err, lunch.

Justin Jerome G. Valle is a graduate student at the Ateneo de Manila University Economics Department.

Remembering Tito Genova Valiente

annotations

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t is the 15th of November. I am waiting for the cab to fetch me. The doors have been locked. The morning sun has shifted.

The chair on which I sit is shaded by the wall behind me. Some weeks back, sunlight dappled this part of the porch. My parents used to sit here in the late afternoon and greet everyone who passed by. Those who were close to them would ask where their children were. They would tell them, they are in the big city.

It is a day after my sister’s birthday. She is missing my mother, who would always send her birthday cards via snail mail. The persons in the post office loved my mother dearly: She was one of the remaining few who went there with greeting cards on which she would paste stamps. They were for us. She would see to it that we received the card a day before our respective birthdays.

She was never contented with the words printed on the card; to those words, she would add her thoughts written in the rounded, slightly tilted cursive letters teachers of long ago were trained to write.

Without the card this year, my sister resorted to reading the old cards and letters our mother sent her. She told me she counted the blessings that came her way. She also had to cancel her trip because her eyes were puffy after spending the whole day crying and missing Mama.

I assure my sister, my mother is happier and healthiest where she is now. My sister agrees.

This morning, a silvery black butterfly flits around my head. I tell my sister this and she is further assured. As with other families, we see butterflies as good signs, soft messages from those who had gone ahead of us. As the butterfly swoons, it flicks around my arm.

How does one embrace a butterfly?

No one is looking, I tell myself.

I then stretch my arms as if about to hug someone standing right in front of me. Is that a whisper? It is the crisp November air, and the clouds steadily, but forever, saying goodbye.

The butterfly is gone. I am looking at the orchids nurtured by Mama when she could still walk and water them. It has ceased to be a cluster of bright-green leaves.

There are buds where the stars chill them at night. Ebit, Mama’s orchids are alive. In a few weeks, the buds will sprout the loveliest of pink and light yellow. I will gently cut them and bring them to her grave.

The plants remember everything.

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head of the nation’s security service. The armed forces stepped in, dethroning one dictator and perhaps making way for the next.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose removal precipitated this struggle, is no paragon of liberal democracy. He leads a rival faction of Zanu-PF, the ruling party, which has a long and brutal history of corruption and repression.

Sadly, Zimbabwe’s defense forces are champions of their own economic interests, not the nation’s constitution or its long-suffering citizens.

They rest for a while and, later, when the season is right, they take on colors. The bright tones are their memories.

The walls and chairs and porches remember the sun, the light. They constantly tell us of a planet that spins for a year. The house is alive as well, standing on the ground that breathes and recalls the passing of people.

It is good to think of life as a throbbing time and a moving space.

No one sits still in this world. When we wait for someone to pick us up, we are marked by this universe, this huge, boundless heart, this infinitesimal mind that thinks of love and more love, sometimes of regrets, but even these regrets disappear in the face of fate that allows only the recollection of good things.

There are flowers of the most delicate white outside the gate. Worms will eat their leaves tomorrow. The harsh rains will ruin their blooms, but we need not worry. Across the field, there are more of them, and

they cannot be destroyed. Not even the thousand tiny birds can consume them. Memory will keep them blooming.

Beneath my feet, I sense grasses inching their way out. They will join all the greens of this earth we know. They, too, shall remember the soil from where they come and to where they will go home to. Memory shall keep them green for days and, when they turn brown and rot away, memory will surrender them to the ground, for that is the most proper way to express gratitude.

The ordinary day will have the lowly butterfly to remember its passing to night.

Out there in deep space, there will be no sun rising and setting.

We need not worry, my dear little sister. In the morning, when I sit again by the porch, the butterfly of black and silver will spin around me. I will stand and embrace the air it has collected.

Nothingness has a mind and can, after all, remember.

China could sell Trump the Brooklyn Bridge

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By Thomas L. Friedman | New York Times News Service

here is a saying—“When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”—and it perfectly sums up the contrast between China’s President Xi Jinping and US President Donald J. Trump.

Xi has been brilliant at playing Trump, plying him with flattery and short-term trade concessions and deflecting him from the real structural trade imbalances with China. All along, Xi keeps his eye on the long-term prize of making China great again. Trump, meanwhile, touts every minor victory as historic and proceeds down any road that will give him a quick sugar high.

Trump literally has no idea what he’s doing and has no integrated strategy—because, unlike Xi, Trump’s given no thought to the big questions every effective leader starts his day with: “What world am I living in? What are the biggest trends in this world?

And how do I align my country so more of my citizens get the most out of these trends and cushion the worst?”

What world are we in? One in which we’re going through three “climate changes” at once.

We’re going through a change in the actual climate: Destructive weather events and the degradation of ecosystems are steadily accelerating.

We’re going through a change in the “climate” of globalization:

from an interconnected world to an interdependent one; from a world of walls, where you build your wealth by hoarding resources, to a world of webs, where you thrive by connecting your citizens to the most flows of ideas, trade, innovation and education.

A nd , f i n a l ly, we’re goi n g through a change in the climate of technology and work: Machines are acquiring all five senses and, with big data and artificial intelligence (AI), every company can now analyze, optimize, prophesize, customize, digitize and automatize more and more jobs, products and services. And those companies that don’t will wither.

So how’s China responding?

To deal with the change in the climate, it’s massively investing in clean power and electric vehicles—because its own people won’t be able to breathe otherwise, and because it knows that, in a world that will add another 1 billion people by around 2030, clean power and transportation and energy efficiency will be the next great global industry, or nobody anywhere will breathe.

In response to a more interdependent world, China is deepening its trade ties to all the fast-growing

The good and bad news about Mugabe’s exit

he fall from power of Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe would be well worth celebrating—were it not for the manner of his exit and the danger it presents for his woefully mismanaged country.

Over the course of nearly four decades, Mugabe has brought what should have been one of Africa’s most prosperous economies to a state of outright collapse.

Wishing to create a dynasty, he then tried to engineer the succession of his wife—ousting her most plausible rival, the former

Friday, November 17, 2017 A11

Africa’s military coups have rarely given rise to democratic constitutional order, so it’s hard to be optimistic. Still, Mugabe has set the bar for political progress about as low as it can go. It wouldn’t be hard for his successor to ease the country’s suffering, and the new leader should be encouraged to make that his priority.

The longer the military remains in control, the worse Zimbabwe’s prospects. A speedy, orderly return to civilian control is essential, preferably through the

formation of a transitional government that includes members of the political opposition.

Zimbabwe was supposed to hold elections next year. Letting that vote go ahead would help staunch growing unrest.

For the same reason, the next government should also abandon Mugabe’s recent crackdown on social media.

Zimbabweans need relief from their desperate economic straits.

The economy has shrunk by half since 2000. It’s impossible to say how many Zimbabweans are

Asian markets around it through its “One Belt, One Road” project and its Asian Development Bank, while tightly controlling its own market. I call it “globalization for me but not for you.”

Because, while China hails globalization, it imposes a 25-percent tariff on imported cars (while America imposes only 2.5 percent) and 50-50 joint ventures and technology transfers for big companies that want to gain access to China’s giant market.

But China gets away with it.

In technology, China has embarked on a plan called “Made in China 2025” that’s plowing government funds and research into commercializing 10 strategic industries while creating regulations and swiping intellectual property from abroad to make them all grow faster. These industries include electric vehicles, new materials, AI, integrated circuits, biopharmacy, quantum computing, 5G mobile communications and robotics.

And Trump? On the change in the climate, he’s promoting coal over clean energy, like wind and solar, and has appointed climatechange deniers to all of his key environmental posts. While China is run by engineers, Trump doesn’t even have a science adviser.

On globalization, Trump tore up the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, which would have put him at the helm of a 12-nation Pacific trading bloc (without China), built on United States interests and values, and would have eliminated as many as 18,000 tariffs

on US exports to countries that, together with the US, control 40 percent of global GDP. And then he went to China and praised Beijing for beating us at our own game!

Well, Donald, when you unilaterally disarm, that tends to happen.

On the change of the climate of technology, Trump is pushing a tax bill that is based on no analysis of emerging technologies and how we might reform our tax laws to incentivize more investment in them. Actually, the bill would eliminate the $7,500 tax credit for electric cars; shrink the tax credits vital for enabling wind projects; and impose a tax on the endowments of our wealthiest colleges—i.e., our science and engineering treasures —endowments that colleges use to fund research and extend scholarships for the neediest students.

Personally, I am not persuaded China’s top-down industrial policy will make China great in the end; it has created huge domestic-debt challenges related to its stateowned industries and real-estate bubbles. In fact, I’m certain our economic system is better than theirs—in theory.

But China, with its ability to focus, is getting 90 percent out of its inferior system, and it has brought China a long way fast.

And we, with too little focus, are getting 50 percent out of our superior system. If that persists, it will impact the balance of power.

Now you know why the Chinese were so happy to throw a bash for Trump in Beijing.

unemployed: Estimates run as high as 90 percent. US dollars— Zimbabwe’s de facto currency since a prolonged spell of hyperinflation—are in such short supply that people sleep near automated teller machines to get the cash they need for daily purchases.

Above all, the next government needs to roll back Mugabe’s commitment to economic repression. As the economy hit bottom, a tentative start in this direction was made. This needs to go much further. Zimbabwe will need to reengage with multilateral insti-

tutions, which can give technical and financial aid. Zimbabwe’s donors and partners, including China, should use their leverage to press for economic reform.

In the short term, the role for outsiders in this is limited, but Zimbabwe’s neighbors and the international community should do what they can to keep a dangerous situation turning into something worse. They need to assure the new government of support so long as it works toward a peaceful and, so far as possible, legitimate succession.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Friday, November 17, 2017

Prices of chicken fall below ₧90/kg on rising supply

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By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

@jearcalas

he average farm-gate price of broiler has sunk below P90 per kilogram (kg), as supply in the market increased due to the resumption of production, according to the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI).

Citing industry repots, BAI Assistant Director Simeon S. Amurao Jr. said the farm-gate price of broiler as of November 10 has declined by as least P18, after touching the P100 per kg price level in the previous week.

“This could be attributed to the resumption of production cycle of poultry growers. They might be now selling in the market the products of broiler hatchings imported this year,” Amurao told reporters in an interview on Thursday.

“Another factor would be the huge disposal of dressed chicken from the cold storages. So, somehow, the supply in the market would increase, leading to the decrease in the price of chicken both in the farm-gate and retail levels,” he added.

Citing data from the United Broilers Raisers Association (Ubra), Amurao said the farm-gate price of chicken as of November 10 ranged from P75 to P85 per kg. The figures

where at least 24 percent lower than the farm-gate price range recorded in November 3 of about P93 to P101 per kg.

Data from the Ubra indicated that the lowest farm-gate price of broiler was recorded in Bulacan, while the highest level was reported in Rizal.

Amurao said the country’s broiler production was continuously growing on a monthly average of 18 percent, even before the avian influenza struck Central Luzon in August. This, he noted, contributed to higher supply of chicken meat in the market this year.

“Plus, from April to August, we imported about 7.5 million broiler hatching eggs. So, from the time we imported it to the time it will be sold in the market, it would take almost two months,” he said.

“So this contributed to additional supply in the country.”

But the BA I official noted that the price of chicken meat is

₧75 to ₧85

The farm-gate price range of chicken as of November 10, at least 24 percent lower than in the week prior expected to increase by the latter part of the month as demand picks up. “Demand may peak by the last week of November because a lot of people will now be receiving their bonuses, so demand is expected to increase. Thus, price may also increase by that time.”

Amurao pointed out that the country has sufficient chickenmeat supply throughout 2017.

Based on the government’s projection, total broiler demand this year would reach 1.49 billion heads. Meanwhile, local supply would reach 1.44 billion heads, without including the imported hatching eggs to date, according to Amurao.

“Based on our computation, the country’s supply will balance out the demand up to December,” he said.

The local broiler industry estimated that output this year would increase by at least 16 percent, from last year’s recorded production of 1.2 billion heads.

Data from the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) showed that the country’s dressed-chicken inventory declined for the fifth consecutive week, as demand for poultr y continues to improve after the government declared that it was able to contain the bird-flu outbreak.

NMIS data showed the country’s chicken inventory in accredited cold storages reached 20,110.58 metric tons (MT) as of October 30, 24.37 percent lower than the previous week’s 26,593 MT. NMIS data also indicated that the latest dressed-chicken inventory level was nearly 40 percent lower than the 33,140.99 MT recorded in the same period last year.

The bulk of the inventory during the period consisted of locally produced chicken. Local dressed chicken in cold storages amounted to 11,570.11 MT, 34.36 percent lower than the previous week’s 17,625.45 MT. Earlier, Ubra President Elias Jose Inciong told the BusinessMirror that poultry growers have started selling their dressed chicken so they could earn and resume production.

“They are selling what they can to generate working capital. Growers who were forced to sell to stores are in dire need of capital,” Inciong said in an earlier interview.

PM TRUDEAU LOOKS FORWARD TO LAUNCH OF BHAF IN CANADA

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

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ANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was reportedly pleased that the Department of Tourism (DOT) would be launching its Bring Home a Friend (BHAF) program in Ottawa this month.

In an interview with the Business M irror, Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo said she briefly met with Trudeau during last Sunday’s gala dinner for world leaders and officials attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and side meetings.

“He was happy when I told him Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was that we were going to Ottawa to pleased with the Department of Tourism’s plan launch the BHAF program. ‘That’s to visit Ottawa this month, to launch its Bring good,’ he said, and, of course Home a Friend program. Canada is home to over mentioned that Canada is home 800,000 people of Filipino descent. In photo, to a lot of Filipinos,” Teo said. Trudeau chats briefly with Tourism Secretary “Canada is an emerging market Wanda Corazon T. Teo during last Sunday’s gala for us, thus, we would like to give dinner for world leaders and government it special attention in our tourism officials participating in the Asean meetings. campaigns,” she stressed.

Photo courtesy D.O.T. According to the latest census of the Canadian government, over 800,000 Canadians of Filipino descent live in urbanized areas of the country. In Ottawa alone, Canada’s capital, there are over 10,000 Filipinos, as per a 2011 census.

The BHAF program is the DOT’s latest incentive program to increase tourist arrivals in the Philippines by making Filipinos here and abroad “tourism ambassadors.” By getting Filipinos to encourage their friends abroad or in their host countries to visit the Philippines, they and their friends have the chance to win prizes.

This developed as the agency successfully launched the BHAF in London recently, during the World Travel Market (WTM), a global gathering of tourism professionals and government tourism representatives.

See “PM Trudeau,” A2

Sea code. . .

BCDA, China Development Bank eye faster completion of ‘BBB’ projects

Continued from A1

the Philippines and China, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam have also claimed parts, or all, of the South China Sea. However, China has claimed most of the disputed waters through its artificial island-building and militarization activities. In spite of establishing warmer relations with Beijing, Roque said the President is keen on coming up with a legally binding COC. “From the language of the President, he has put a premium and a lot of importance on the code of conduct because we want to achieve predictability,” Roque said.

In his chairman’s statement at the 31st Asean Summit, Duterte and his fellow leaders said they “looked forward to the announcement of the start of the substantive negotiations on the COC with China,” as well as to the convention of the 23rd Asean-China Joint Working Group Meeting on the Implementation of the DOC in Vietnam in 2018. They also reaffirmed the freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

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TRADING RESUMES A member of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) points to the stock ticker while conferring with a trader inside the PSE in Makati on Thursday, the first trading day of the week. Trading was suspended from Monday to Wednesday as the government had declared a threeday public holiday due to the Asean summit held in Clark, Pampanga, and Manila. ALYSA SALEN

he Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and China Development Bank (CDB) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the crafting of a framework for financing cooperation to speed up the implement at ion of i n f ra st r uc t u re projects worth $4.5 billion under the government’s “Build, Build, Build ” (BBB) program.

Under the MOU, the two state agencies will undertake research, study and other implementation requirements for BCDA’s major infrastructure projects under the BBB program. The collaboration will last up to 2022.

The BCDA announced that its chairman, Gregorio Garcia III,

and Chairman Hu Huaibang of China Development Bank signed the document.

The financial institution intends to team up with qualified Chinese enterprises that will take part in the project implementation. Their participation can be in the form of investments, feasibility studies, independent consultancies, detailed engineering design, equipment procurement and construction, among others.

Among the high-impact infrastructure projects that stand to benefit from the financing cooperation are the New Clark City, the Subic-Clark Railway Project and the BGC-Naia-Makati Bus Rapid Transit.

See “BCDA,” A2

With US in retreat under Trump, Japan, China move to mend ties Continued from A1

And as China seeks to consolidate its power, it realizes it may have more success exerting its authority in the region with Japan as a partner rather than a pure rival. At the same time, Trump’s visit showed China that the US is unlikely to get in its way, allowing a more confident Xi to be more generous toward Japan.

“What Trump represented was a real shock to the system of allies and the world,” said Nick Bisley, professor of international relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

The threat from North Korea is also naturally drawing China and Japan together, although Abe has, so far, hewed closely to Trump’s approach of calling for more pressure and sanctions.

Abe appears keenly aware of Trump’s erratic swings in opinions and loyalties. Japan is naturally wondering if the US may make some kind of deal with China that could put Japan at a disadvantage, experts said.

“Standing behind that is kind of what you always find in Japan — that underlying fear of abandonment,”said Daniel C. Sneider, a lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University.

“All of that is within the broader context

of huge Japanese mistrust and long-term apprehension about the growth of Chinese power,” Sneider added. “They understand that the Chinese see themselves as the natural hegemon and, in the Chinese worldview, the Japanese should be subordinate to them.”

As Abe and Xi take the first steps toward a better relationship, many obstacles remain.

Neither country has given any ground in a territorial dispute over a set of islands in the East China Sea, known in Japan as the Senkaku and in China as the Diaoyu. China also still regularly objects to what it perceives as any sign that Japan is returning to its militaristic past, and carefully watches the debate in Japan about how much to develop the military’s capabilities.

Japan has also actively sought to counter China’s economic rise by developing relationships with other countries in the region. On the same day Abe met Xi in Danang, Japan led a group of 11 countries in announcing the restart of negotiations for a sweeping trade agreement to create an economic bloc that would exclude China.

In both countries, the public views the other with suspicion, fanned in some cases by negative media coverage. “I don’t think I see

how they can make drastic improvements, given the public opinion base,” said Ezra Vogel, a professor emeritus of social sciences at Harvard, who is working on a book about Sino-Japan relations. “Less than 10 percent on either side have favorable things to say about each other.”

Still, the tentative outreach is happening, as both Abe and Xi have recently shored up their domestic power, in Japan through a parliamentary election and in China as a result of last month’s Communist Party congress.

In China, after five years of relegating Japan to the diplomatic freezer, Xi decided a richer and stronger China had more to gain from smoother relations with Abe than continued hostility, Chinese analysts said.

“We attach importance to our relationship with Japan,” said Ren Xiao, professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. “And now, both sides want good relations.” And as Japan tries to carve out its own sphere of influence, particularly in Southeast Asia, Xi is following the old precept of keeping his enemies close. While China applies a mixture of coercion, diplomacy and money to pull nations to its side, Japan is offering maritime and development assistance

to countries like Vietnam and the Philippines.

Xi “needs to make sure Japan doesn’t emerge as a plausible third power in the region,” said Rana Mitter, a professor of history at the University of Oxford and a specialist in China-Japan relations. When Trump was in Beijing, Xi made clear his ambitions for China to replace the US as the dominant power in the Western Pacific.

“The Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States,” Xi said with Trump beside him, an assertion that some in the region and Washington see as shorthand for China’s taking advantage of a US retreat.

Trump helped reinforce that perception by failing to press China on its military buildup in the South China Sea, according to analysts.

By warming up to Abe, Xi is getting the Japanese leader used to the idea of China as the primary power in East Asia, said Hugh White, an Australian strategic expert and author of a coming magazine essay, “Without America: Australia in the New Asia.”

“China making nice to Tokyo?”White said.

“The objective is to show the Americans can’t be relied on.” Experts said Abe may also be under pressure from Japanese businesses,

which want to work with China to develop projects around the region.

“Japanese companies want to open their own opportunities to join with Chinese projects in Eurasia,” said Shin Kawashima, professor of political and diplomatic history at the University of Tokyo. “So Japanese companies have required Abe to improve relations with China.”

Abe has been pressing for a change in relations between Beijing and Tokyo since he started his second term as prime minister in 2012. Earlier this year, the Japanese sent a senior politician to a Beijing conference hosted

by Xi for the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, his signature infrastructure program designed to magnify China’s influence in Asia and Europe.

Japan had previously boycotted Xi’s global programs, like the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank.

For its part, China refrained this summer from sending a fleet of fishing vessels to the waters around the disputed islands in the East China Sea — as it had in past years. During the talks in Danang, Abe proposed that he and Xi visit each other’s country next year.

When Xi smiled during the photo opportunity, the Japanese news media

trumpeted it as a breakthrough. “That smile was very different from the ‘salty response’ that Xi had shown in the past four meetings,” a commentator on Fuji Television noted while comparing pictures from earlier encounters between the two leaders.

Abe told reporters that Xi described the talks as ushering in a “new start of JapanChina relations.” Two days later, Abe also met with the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, at a separate meeting in Manila, an unusual diplomatic twofer. But history has shown that such meetings may not produce longstanding results. In 2008 when Hu Jintao, China’s president at the time, met in Japan with Yasuo Fukuda, then-prime minister, they released a statement promising to “cooperate to enhance peace and friendship over the long term.”That commitment lasted just two years, until the dispute over the islands heated up.

“Unfortunately, although a reset of SinoJapanese relations would certainly be welcome, the forecast isn’t very good,” said Kristi Govella, a postdoctoral fellow in Harvard’s Program on US-Japan Relations. “It would take a great deal of political will for Abe and Xi to make headway.”

New York Times News Service