BusinessMirror April 07, 2016

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Friday, April 7, 2017 Vol. 12 No. 177

HIGHER INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING TO CUSHION IMPACT OF GLOBAL GLOOM ON PHL

‘Golden age of infra’ key to high GDP growth–ADB

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By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

he Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday urged the Duterte administration to deliver on its promise of ushering in the “golden age of infrastructure” in the country, so that GDP could grow by at least 7 percent.

Based on the ADB’s latest Asian Development Outlook (ADO) report, Philippine economy will ex-

pand by 6.4 percent this year and 6.6 percent next year. These projections, however, are lower than the

6.4% The GDP growth forecast of the ADB for the Philippines this year

7-percent to 8-percent GDP growth target of the Duterte administration for 2017 and 2018.

The Manila-based multilateral development bank said the Philippines is the only country in Southeast Asia that could grow Continued on A2

Duterte’s promised tax plan may reverse exodus of foreign funds P

hilippine equities can lose their tag as the only emerging Asian market to suffer foreign-fund outflows this year —with a helping hand from President Duterte.

Strategists said progress on Duterte’s promised tax reforms is needed to bring back global asset managers, who have off-loaded $230 million of Manila-listed equities in 2017, while pouring $6.7 billion into India and $1.4 billion into Malaysia. Investors are also looking for company profit growth to justify an index valuation that’s at the widest premium to emergingmarket peers in six months.

“The Philippines is a very attractive market to invest in, but there are more obviously better oppor-

We like the Philippines for its potential for increased infrastructure spending, but how will the government get to finance that without getting this tax-reform package through?”—Columbia Threadneedle Investments

tunities elsewhere, and there have been some headwinds in terms of the tax reform not passing, the earnings momentum depleting and also geopolitical risks,” said Vanessa Donegan, who helps manage $456 billion as managing di-

PESO exchange rates n US 50.1630

rector at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. “We like the Philippines for its potential for increased infrastructure spending, but how will the government get to finance that without getting this tax-reform package through?”

Duterte has been a boon and a curse for stock traders, helping spark a rally before his May 2016 election through fiscal-spending pledges, and then spooking international investors with volatile responses to critics of his deadly antidrugs campaign and verbal attacks against the US. His tax plan has yet to pass its first hurdle in Congress, as lawmakers seek to replace his proposal, while Teneo Intelligence predicts a June target for the bill’s approval probably won’t be met.

Duterte’s tax package, which aims to raise levies on fuel and cars while cutting income taxes, is estimated to raise P163 billion a year. The funds are needed See “Tax plan,” A2

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LOPEZ’S TOUGHEST TEST MAY COME FROM WITHIN

DEPARTMENT of Environment and Natural Resources employees stage their “black Thursday” protest.

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

@jonlmayuga

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lmost all employees came to report for work as usual on Thursday. But they were all in black; and none of them were willing to talk about it. “It’s a silent protest. We are fed up,” one employee told the BusinessMirror through a text message.

The protest was to express indignation over Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez’s decisions to bring in her own team, replacing career officials in the process.

This shows that, while Lopez is being attacked left and right over her hard-line stance against miners, her toughest challenge could actually be coming from within her own department’s ranks.

Members of the employees’ union of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) held a meeting on Thursday to discuss plans on how to call the attention of Lopez, and issue a stern warning about their discontent.

See “Lopez,” A2

PHL slips 5 notches in tourism ranking

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eav y traffic and poor transport infrastructure caused the Philippines to decline by five notches in the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) tourism-competitiveness ranking.

Based on the Travel and Tourism (T&T) Competitiveness Report 2017, the WEF ranked the Philippines 79th out of 136 economies, from 74th out of 141 economies in 2015.

The WEF expressed concern that, if left unaddressed, “these

factors may not have had their full effect yet, and may reduce tourism activity in the future”.

“This country attains a lower competitiveness performance this year due to a more restrictive visa policy that reduces its openness performance; a reduction of the government budget dedicated to the development of the T&T [travel and tourism] sector by almost half; and reduced efficiency of ground transport,” WEF said.

See “PHL,” A12

n japan 0.4532 n UK 62.6335 n HK 6.4575 n CHINA 7.2726 n singapore 35.8154 n australia 37.9533 n EU 53.4938 n SAUDI arabia 13.3775

Source: BSP (6 April 2017 )

A2 Friday, April 7, 2017

BMReports BusinessMirror

‘Golden age of infra’ key to high GDP growth–ADB Continued from A1

slower this year.

“The government’s infrastructure investment is actually the cornerstone of the economic prospect in the Philippines,” ADB Philippine Country Office economist Aekapol Chongvilaivan said in a news briefing at the ADB headquarters in Manila.

C hong v i l a iva n sa id r i si ng oil prices and the protectionist stance adopted by many countries will increase commodity prices and global trade uncertainties, which would pose a threat to the country’s economic growth, particularly this year.

The rollout of more infrastructure projects would help cushion the impacts of these threats to sustaining the country’s high economic growth.

The ADB’s forecast assumes that at least 70 percent to 80 percent of the government’s projects in 2017 and 2018 will be implemented.

Chongvilaivan said ramping up

infrastructure spending to 7.4 percent of GDP will ensure that the Philippines would continue to enjoy high economic growth.

ADB Philippine Country Office Principal Country Specialist Joven Balbosa said apart from just meeting its GDP targets, spending for infrastructure projects will also fill up the gap in the country’s fiscal capital.

Balbosa said fiscal capital is one of the key components in propelling middle-income countries like the Philippines to highincome status.

The report noted that among the middle-income countries in Developing Asia, the Philippines has been in stuck in its income status for 42 years.

There are three other middleincome countries in the region— Thailand, which has been classified as a middle income country for 39 years; Indonesia, 31 years; and China, 23 years. “[A recent ADB report said the] annual (infrastructure) spending of

7 percent to 9 percent should be the norm. The Philippines going from less than 2 percent to 5 percent and the target of 7 percent is actually aligned with that kind of norm,” Balbosa said.

W hile these infrastructure plans are well and good, University of Asia and the Pacific economist Victor Abola said he does not think the government has enough absorptive capacity for the kind of infrastructure spending it envisions.

Abola said the government needs to recruit more “competent” government employees who will be able to help implement publiclyfunded infrastructure projects.

But, the hiring process will take time, even if government salaries have been raised. Also, it would take longer for this to have an impact on the government’s absorptive capacity.

“We will have to look at the last half or last two years of the Duterte administration for the impact on absorptive capacity. But, we have

enough ongoing projects to enable us to still grow 7 percent annually,” Abola told the BusinessMirror.

While he remains less confident about the projects to be implemented by the Department of Transportation, Abola said its big-ticket projects like the MRT7 and Cebu airport will boost inf rastr uct ure spend ing a nd economic growth.

The Duterte administration has yet to roll out its infrastructure projects. Most of the new projects are still being reviewed by the National Economic and Development Authority.

ADB forecasts GDP growth in Asia and the Pacific to reach 5.7 percent in 2017 and 2018, a slight deceleration from the 5.8 percent registered in 2016.

Southeast Asia is forecast to accelerate further, with nearly all economies in the region showing an upward trend. The region will grow 4.8 percent in 2017 and 5 percent in 2018, from the 4.7 percent recorded last year.

Lopez. . .

Continued from A1

Another employee said they are careful not to be identified by Lopez’s staff, who started investigating as soon as they learned about the silent protest.

The protesters later held a press conference and said the protest was to demand for the retention of Miriam M. Marcelo as chief of the personnel division and Rolando R. Castro, a staff in the same unit, who were both placed on floating status

by Lopez.

Lopez earlier met with employees’ union leaders behind closed doors, where she promised to withdraw her orders affecting the two employees.

But the silent protest was not just about the two officials. Sources said it was triggered by arbitrary suspension orders and putting on floating status other career DENR officials and employees without due process.

Some employees want to bring up the issue to President Duterte.

Lopez could not be reached for comment and did not respond to text messages requesting for interview to get her side.

Duterte, who said he trusts Lopez, has yet to reappoint the embattled DENR chief. The CA, it was learned, has also not received any document pertaining to Lo-

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Tax plan. . .

Continued from A1

to bankroll an ambitious $160billion infrastructure plan and Duterte’s war on drugs, while helping to preserve the nation’s investment-grade credit rating.

Uncertainty over the tax plan has also hurt the Philippine peso.

It’s the worst-performing Asian currency this year, slipping 0.8 percent, as the current-account surplus is forecast by Fitch Ratings to turn into a deficit in 2017 after shrinking 92 percent last year. Strategists expect the peso to weaken another 2.7 percent to 51.5 per dollar by the end of the year, as the US Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy.

Still, there are signs sentiment toward the nation’s equities may be thawing. Foreigners added $119 million to the market this week, helping push stocks to a fivemonth high and pare outflows, which reached $349 million in the first quarter. Even if his tax reform is slow, Duterte’s other policies—from opening up more to China to increasing infrastructure spending—are helping drive an economy that’s forecast by the World Bank to expand close to 7 percent from this year until 2019, among the fastest globally.

While GDP growth remains favorable, Alan Richardson, a Hong Kong-based investment manager

pez’s reappointment as DENR secretary as of this writing.

Twice bypassed by the CA, the feisty Lopez has brought in with her several individuals, designating them to take over key positions in the DENR. The displacement of DENR career officials and employees is causing a lot of emotional “silent outbursts” in DENR offices, until last Thursday’s silent protest.

“We are demoralized,” one employee quipped. Marcelo and Castro were being blamed by Lopez for the Civil Service Commission’s rejection of Undersecretary Philipp Camara’s temporary appointment to the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer position.

The alleged demoralization sweeping the DENR has already reached the knowledge of lawmakers, and was brought up by some members of the CA during last month’s public hearing on Lopez’s interim appointment, to which Lopez responded with conviction the need to bring her own trusted people, including former Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Director Leo Jasareno and Camara.

Jasareno acts as Lopez’s consultant, even after his employment was officially terminated in September.

Duterte has ordered Jasareno’s replacement as MGB chief by virtue of Presidential Directive 002 issued on July 26, 2016. Jasareno relinquished

who helps manage $173.5 billion at Samsung Asset Management, isn’t convinced that the tide has turned for Philippine stocks, pre fe r r i n g Si n g ap ore a n a nd Malaysian peers.

“The pullout was caused by a lack of positive growth surprises and a lack of stimulus from the new government,” Richardson said. “Fund outf lows will stop when the above reverses or valuations come down to a level that’s attractive to history, or regionally comparable.”

Shares in the Philippine Stock Exchange Index are trading at 18.4 times 12-month estimated earnings, the most expensive in the region and almost a fifth above their 10-year average. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index is valued at 13.7 times, while a gauge of emerging markets trades at 12.5 times.

Stocks are hitting “toppish valuations” and this could spur profit-taking, according to Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. fund manager Nescyn Presinede, who said better-than-expected earnings and weaker-than-forecast US interest-rate increases could push the index beyond its 7,100 to 7,500 trading range. Credit Suisse sees Philippine earnings-per-share growth slowing to 4.2 percent this year from 8.2 percent in 2016, one of only two markets in the Asia Pacific region that the brokerage expects to show slowing earnings momentum. Bloomberg News

his position on August 1, 2016, and was later replaced by Regional Director Wilfredo Moncano.

On March 30 a notice was posted in the official website of the DENR-MGB warning the public against transacting business with Jasareno.

As the silent protest went on, members of the union were eventually told Lopez has decided to withdraw the transfer order of the two officials.

As early as January this year the discontent among employees is already brewing with the revamp affecting DENR Regional Offices. In announcing the revamp, Lopez said the restructuring of 17 regional offices of the DENR aims to ensure the success of environmental programs and projects designed to help local communities protect their environment and improve their living conditions, and is an integral part of her five-year development plan for the DENR, which is anchored on sustainable integrated area development (SIAD).

According to Lopez, the restructuring will allow more efficient implementation of the SIAD approach in environmental programs and projects, especially those that directly impact the marginalized sector, such as the Enhanced National Greening Program, a massive reforestation initiative that doubles as a poverty alleviation measure.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

The Nation BusinessMirror

Govt, NDF peace panels agree on joint cease-fire

By Sammy F. Martin Philippines News Agency

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HE peace panels of the government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) late Wednesday sealed an agreement on an interim joint cease-fire, leading to a comprehensive settlement of the 48-year insurgency, Chief Peace Negotiator and Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III on Wednesday night said.

He said both parties also moved fast to conclude provisions on a draft Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (Caser) that is meant to address the root causes of the armed conflict.

The talks, primarily scheduled on April 2, were delayed for the next day after President Duterte alerted the government panel and laid down four conditions: Immediate release of captured police and military personnel; The signing of a bilateral ceasefire agreement; A stop to the extortion activities of rebels; and Nonrecognition of any territorial claim made by the communists.

The cease-fire takes effect as soon as the guidelines and ground rules are approved. The guidelines will govern such areas as the presence of armed groups in local communities, creation of buffer zones, prohibited, hostile and provocative

acts, including the collection of revolutionary taxes; and undertaking of joint socioeconomic projects.

Also contemplated in the agreement is the formation of a joint ceasefire committee and the prospective role of a third party in monitoring the truce and other mechanisms in the implementation of the cease-fire, including the handling of complaints and alleged violations.

“Matters regarding a single government authority and taxation shall be discussed and resolved in forging the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms within the framework of the proposed Federal Republic of the Philippines,” the joint agreement said.

The joint cease-fire agreement shall be deemed interim until a permanent cease-fire agreement is forged pursuant to a Comprehensive Agreement on End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces,” the agreement further provided.

The agreement was hammered out following marathon informal conversations among the panel members.

At the opening of the formal talks on Monday, Bello welcomed the openness of the NDF “to forge an agreement on joint interim cease-fire that will accompany our peace negotiations throughout, a cease-fire that marches in step with the discussion of the socioeconomic reforms that will address the root causes of armed conflict.”

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Friday, April 7, 2017 A3

Ombudsman orders Aquino to explain role in DAP mess

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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@joveemarie

HE Ombudsman’s Special Panel of Investigators has ordered former President Benigno S. Aquino III and other former Aquino officials to comment on the motions for reconsideration filed in connection with the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

All parties to the DAP cases, including Aquino, have 15 days from notice within which to file their comments.

In an earlier ruling, the Ombudsman found probable cause to charge former Budget Becretary Florencio Abad Jr. with violation of Article 239 (Usurpation of Legislative Powers) of the Revised Penal Code (RPC).

However, in their motion for reconsideration, complainants, led by Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate of Bayan Muna, filed their motion questioning the Ombudsman’s March 7, 2017, ruling and called for the indictment of Abad and Aquino for technical malversation and vio-

lation of the antigraft law.

They said Aquino and Abad should be indicted for technical malversation because they are the public officers in charge of the national budget and as such they are the ones who authored the DAP-caused illegal transfers of funds.

The charge stemmed from Abad’s issuance of National Budget Circular (NBC), 541 to carry out the implementation of the controversial DAP involving P72 billion.

The Ombudsman said NBC 541 authorizes the withdrawal of unobligated allotments of agencies with low levels of obligations as of June 30, 2012.

“During the investigation it found

that by issuing NBC 541, Abad unlawfully encroached on the powers of Congress by effectively modifying the provisions on savings of the 2012 General Appropriations Act [GAA],” the Ombudsman said.

According to the Ombudsman, “NBC 541 provided the principal bases for the withdrawal of unobligated allotments, which were declared as savings and used to fund PAPs [programs, activities and projects] under the DAP. The issuance of this circular is an act of usurpation. This is contrary to law.”

Violation of Article 239 of the RPC is penalized by prision correccional in its minimum period and temporary special disqualification from public office.

In 2014 the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the following acts committed in pursuance of the DAP: Withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies; and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year without complying with the statutory definition of savings contained in the GAA; and The cross-border transfers of the savings of the Executive department to augment the appropriations of other offices outside that department.

Korean-American yields ecstacy tablets

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OLICEMEN arrested a Korean-American for alleged drug trafficking during an operation in Pasay City on Wednesday night.

Senior Supt. Graciano Mijares, National Police Drug Enforcement Group acting commander, said the operation was launched on Wednesday at 9:20 p.m., in coordination with the Special Enforcement Service of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Pasay City police.

Mijares said Jun No, alias “Justine”, an American citizen of Korean descent, was arrested at the parking lot in front of the Royal Indian Curry House on Seaside Boulevard in Pasay City.

Seized from Jun No’s possession were 140 ecstasy tablets.

The suspect was charged with violation of Section 5 of Republic Act (RA) 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Mijares said Jun No has been living in Cebu City for about three years prior to his arrest in Pasay City.

The National Police Drug Enforcement Group is now looking into the possible connection of Jun No with the alleged “Korean mafia” in Cebu City. PNA

Economy BusinessMirror

A4 Friday, April 7, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

briefs cavite p.e.s.o. group boosts local govt job service machinery

TRECE MARTIRES CITY—Cavite’s public employment service office (Peso) managers here have organized the Peso Managers Association of Cavite (Pemac) in a bid to strengthen and expand the local governments’ job and employment facilitation service machinery.

In an interview with the Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Wednesday, Cavite Provincial Peso Head and the Pemac Pioneering President Dr. Eva R. Defiesta disclosed that the association’s priority agenda is to institutionalize job and employment services for Cavite residents.

As a non-governmental organization due for Securities and Exchange Commission registration next month, Pemac serves as the collaborative partner of the local government units and labor and employment facilitators for Kabitenyo job seekers and employment aspirants.

Defiesta also said the group will also work for the ISO certification of the Provincial Peso Office in June, achieving the country’s first ISO-certified Peso in the provincial category. PNA

pda sets 108th annual confab from april 30 to may 5 The Philippine Dental Association (PDA) will hold its 108th Annual Convention and Scientific Session from April 30 to May 5 at the SMX Convention Center, Seashell Drive, Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City.

Themed “PDA: Challenging the Next Generation of Leaders”, the convention will feature foreign and local speakers during the scientific meetings, which will form the bulk of the entire proceedings that will keep one’s dental practice abreast with emerging trends and discoveries.

A prescientific convention seminar, “Anesthesiology & Management of Medical Emergencies”, will be presented on April 30 at the SMX Convention Center, with eminent dentist anesthesiologist and author Dr. Stanley F. Malamed, as resource speaker. A Diplomate of the American Dental Board of Anesthesiology, Malamed is the author of three textbooks: Handbook of Local Anesthesia; Sedation: a Guide to Patient Management; and Emergency Medicine in Dentistry, which are used in dental schools worldwide and have been translated into 15 languages.

Malamed has authored more than 140 scientific papers and 15 chapters in dental journals and textbooks and is a well regarded speaker on these subjects.

Preregistration rate to the preconvention seminar is P1,000 until April 15, and on-site is P2,500.

Payments may be made at the PDA Office in Makati, or through the chapter presidents-elect or call the PDA Secretariat at 899-6332 and 897-8091.

d.t.i. launches ‘kapatid mentor me’ program in quezon TAYABAS CITY—The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), in partnership with the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship rolledout the “Kapatid Mentor Me Program (KMME)” in Quezon province on Wednesday at the St. Jude COOP Hotel and Event Center here.

Quezon is the first Calabarzon province to roll out the KMME this year after the successful pilot run in the region and launching in Cavite last year.

Following its kick-off rites, the Kapatid “Mentor Me” Program will be conducted from April to June at the DTI Quezon Negosyo Center, 2/F Lucena Grand Terminal, Diversion Road, Barangay Ilayang Dupay, Lucena City.

Trade Assistant Secretary Blesila A. Lantayona pointed out that the KMME Program augurs well for the Calabarzon region, which ranks next to the National Capital Region with the highest number of micro, small and medium enterprises. PNA

PSA revises PHL’s 2017 growth forecast

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By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

he Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has revised the country’s 2016 GDP estimates upward on the back of better-than-expected mining and construction growth.

In a news statement released on Thursday, the PSA said the full-year GDP growth has been pegged at 6.9 percent, slightly higher than the 6.8 percent estimated in January 2017.

“The major contributors for the upward revision in 2016 were construction, mining and quarrying and other services,” the PSA said.

Data showed that mining and quarrying growth estimates were revised upward to a growth of 3.2 percent from the initial estimate of a 0.3-percent contraction.

Construction growth, the PSA data showed, was revised upward to 13.7 percent from the initial estimate of 13.6 percent.

Other services, meanwhile, saw a reduction in full-year growth estimates, to 7.3 percent from 7.5 percent.

PSA data showed, however, that the fourth-quarter growth was re-

6.9% The full-year GDP growth forecast, slightly higher than the 6.8 percent estimated in January this year

tained at 6.6 percent.

The country’s gross national income and the net primary income from the rest of the world had downward revisions of 6.1 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.

“The PSA revises the GDP estimates based on an approved revision policy, which is consist-

ent with international standard practices on national accounts revisions,” the PSA said.

The Philippine Statistical Act of 2013 was signed into law by President Benigno S. Aquino III on September 12, 2013, to repeal Executive Order 121, entitled “Reorganizing and Strengthening the Philippines Statistical System and for Other Purposes”.

The PSA is the result of the merger of statistical agencies, such as the National Statistics Office, National Statistics Coordination Board, the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agriculture Statistics and the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics of the Department of Labor.

Its primary objectives are to rationalize and promote efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of statistical services and maintain an integrated statistical system characterized by independence, objectivity and integrity, so as to enhance responsiveness to the requirements of equitable national development.

It also aims to promote the orderly development of a statistical system capable of providing timely, accurate and useful data for the government and the public and support decentralization through the establishment of the statistical infrastructure necessary to service the statistical needs of local development planning.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

BOC collection in March up 3% to P37.654 billion

By Rea Cu

@ReaCuBM

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he Bureau of Customs (BOC) has collected a total of P37.654 billion in duties and taxes last month, expanding by 3 percent from its monthly amounting to P36.572 billion, owing to the strong performance of 10 collection districts under the agency.

According to a preliminary report by the BOC Financial Service Division, the March collection of the bureau expanded by 16 percent compared to the P32.383-billion revenue reported during the same period last year.

Of the 17 collection districts under the BOC’s watch, 10 exceeded their March collection targets.

Broken down, the Manila International Container Port collected P11.721 billion for the month, which is 3.7 percent higher than its P11.30billion target.

The Port of Batangas collected P8.50 billion, or a 3.7-percent expansion compared to its target of P8.195 billion for the month.

The Port of Cebu collected P1.680 billion, a 4.8-percent hike as opposed to its P1.604-billion target.

The Port of Cagayan de Oro collected P1.266 billion, or 44 percent more than its P879.3-million target.

The Port of Davao collected P1.321 billion, up by 24.1 percent

NEA gives ‘A’, ‘A+’ ratings to 97 electric cooperatives

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

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QC flood-control project The Department of Public Works and Highways-Quezon City Second District Engineering Office

rushes work on the improvement and widening of the Quezon Avenue westbound Elliptical Road to Agham Road in Quezon City. This project involves the building of a box culvert under the roads on Quezon Avenue, which is expected to solve the recurring floods on Elliptical Road and part of the overall flood-management master plan for Metro Manila. PNA/Gil S. Calinga

from its P1.06-billion target.

The Port of Clark in Pampanga collected P131 million, expanding by 5.4 percent from its P124.6-million target.

The Port of San Fernando collected P244 million for the month, showing a growth of 30.2 percent compared to the P187.5-million target it set for the month.

The Port of Legaspi collected P77 million, rising by 276.1 percent than the P20.5-million target it set.

The Port of Iloilo collected P219 million, expanding 8.7 percent higher than its P201-million collection target.

The Port of Zamboanga collected P32 million, which showed a rise of 128 percent from the P14-million target for the month.

The BOC’s January 2017 collections amounted to P35.943 billion, exceeding its P35.509-billion target by 1.2 percent for the month.

The BOC is aiming to hit its P468-billion revenue target for the year, which, Customs Commissioner Nicanor E. Faeldon said, is achievable.

“With the strong implementation of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act and our intensified operations against smuggling, I am positive that we will be able to achieve, or even exceed our 2017 revenue goal,” Faeldon said.

inet y-sev en electr ic cooperatives (ECs), or 80 percent out of the 121 ECs in the country, have received from the National Electrification Administration (NEA) an “A” rating or higher.

In the 2016 EC Overall Assessment Performance conducted by NEA, all ECs in Western and Central Visayas and Caraga have kept their “AAA” status, which, according to NEA Administrator Edgardo Masongsong, have “resulted from the ECs’ initiatives to consistently increase efficiencies on financial, institutional and technical areas of their operations”.

Meanwhile, the number of “AAA”-rated ECs jumped to 77 in 2016 from 70 in 2015. Sixty-nine ECs maintained their “AAA” status, while eight ECs were able to improve their rating to “AAA” from either “AA”, “A” or “B”.

T he per for mance rating is based on two criteria, namely, the Key Performance Standards or

KPS (80 percent) and the electric cooperatives classification (ECC) (20 percent).

The KPS cover 32 financial, institutional, technical and reportorial compliances indicators and standards, while the ECC covers seven financially driven standards and parameters, including power accounts to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

Using the KPS and ECC, corresponding ratings were given to scores garnered by ECs, as follows: 95-100 =AAA; 90-94=AA; 85-89=A; 75-84=B; 50-74=C; and 49 and below=D. “The results of the assessment attest to NEA’s successful campaign efforts to make the ECs more operationally reliant to better serve their member-consumer-owners [MCOs],” Masongsong said.

He added “The ECs must innovate and not allow their performance to retrogress, as it is through rural electrification that the MCOs can begin to have access to social services and quality investment and jobs”.

Highly urbanized areas seen reaping early demographic bonus

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ighly urbanized areas nationwide are on the brink of reaping an early demographic bonus, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

In a statement delivered in the 50th Session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development in New York, Neda Undersecretary Jose Miguel R. de la Rosa said this is largely due to the increase in the working-age population in urban areas.

De la Rosa said the number of Filipinos aged 15 to 64 as a percentage of the population increased to 63 percent in 2010, from 52 percent in 1990.

“There is a steady increase in the working-age population. If sustained, this could provide a window for a demographic dividend. Moreover, our highly urbanized regions are now actually facing the prospect of such a demographic bonus,” de la Rosa said.

De la Rosa said, however, a demo-

graphic bonus or dividend that can be enjoyed by the entire country is still not imminent.

He said, for one, the responsible parenthood and reproductive-health law has yet to be implemented given legal impediments.

To date, the Supreme Court has not lifted its temporary restraining order (TRO) on the full implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RPRH) Act of 2012.

“But the government, in close collaboration with civil society, the private sector and local government units, continues to intensify demand generation and service delivery interventions to promote access by Filipinos to reproductivehealth services, especially maternal health and family-planning services,” de la Rosa said.

The RPRH law can help manage the country’s growing population, which grows at an annual rate of 1.7 percent. This translates to an average fertility rate of three

children per woman.

De la Rosa said this is largely due to the increased number of births among adolescents.

In 2013 around 13.6 percent of women aged 15 to 19 years old already began childbearing. This was significantly higher than the 6 percent recorded in 2002.

“The poorest 20 percent of the population have a total fertility rate of five children per woman. The Philippines remains within a high population growth scenario,” de la Rosa said.

Nonetheless, the Neda official assured the UN that the Philippines remains committed to implement the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

De la Rosa said the government has identified strategies to respond to these challenges through the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017 to 2022.

He said the country’s medium-

term socioeconomic blueprint includes strengthening the population management program to hasten a decline in the populationgrowth rate.

The PDP also outlines the government’s plan to improve the quality of human capital for more inclusive participation in national development, as well as sustain economic growth anchored on improved human-resource use and good governance based on transparency, accountability and good practice.

He said the country also hopes that there will be greater SouthSouth, as well as international cooperation on these matters.

“While the prospect of a demographic dividend remains distant, we consider this period of transition as a window of opportunity to prepare our population to reap its gains by setting up the socioeconomic preconditions,” de la Rosa said.

The SDGs, or Global Goals, are

a set of 17 socioeconomic goals that 193 United Nations membercountries, like the Philippines, committed to meet by 2030. The goals are composed of around 169 targets and over 300 global indicators. The SDGs were adopted in September 2015.

The Global Goals aim to end poverty and hunger; promote universal health, education for all and lifelong learning; achieve gender equality, sustainable water management; ensure sustainable energy for all, decent work for all, resilient infrastructure; and reduce income inequality between and among countries.

The goals also include create sustainable cities, ensure sustainable consumption and production, take action against climate change, conserve and sustainably use oceans and marine resources, reduce biodiversity loss, achieve peaceful and inclusive societies and revitalize global partnership for development. Cai U. Ordinario

The Regions BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Efleda P. Campos • Friday, April 7, 2017 A5

Cebu City vendors call for boycott of establishments of tax evaders

A

By Charles R. Pepito | Correspondent

SIDEWALK vendors’ association on Colon Street in Cebu City is urging Cebuanos to boycott the establishments of tax evaders in support of the ongoing campaign of Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña and President Duterte against tax evaders.

The Sidewalk Area Vendors Empowerment Association Inc. (SAVE-A) also called on Cebu City Hall to stop the demolition of the stalls of sidewalk vendors who are paying taxes, called arkabala, amounting to P10 to P20 daily.

The group claimed membership among hundreds of vendors selling their wares in Cebu City’s central business district.

Signed by 11 officials, the SAVEA statement said they dutifully pay

their dues to the government, but were alarmed over reports about the business tax paid by big businesses, especially BDO and SM Seaside City Cebu owned by Henry Sy, acknowledged as the highest-ranking businessman in the Philippines.

The organization has set a general assembly and blessing of their office on April 20.

Osmeña had earlier issued a show-cause order to the BDO bra nc h i nOsmeñ a Bou leva rd

for declaring gross sales of only P6,898 and paying P35 in business tax in 2015.

Insisting the branch paid what was legally due the government, BDO secured a temporary restraining order preventing the mayor from further commenting on the taxevasion case and stopping moves to close the branch.

The mayor said he is not giving up and might resort to elevating the issue to the Supreme Court and the Office of the President.

“The 1,000 vendors in Cebu City, as a whole, paid taxes totaling P4.8 million to the government,” the vendors’ statement said in the dialect.

The vendors’ group said many of their members lost their livelihood due to demolition. Cebu City Hall should, instead, exert more effort in going after the rich tax evaders, the group said.

“We are expressing our support to the call of President Duterte and Mayor Osmeña to go against tax evaders, fight tax evasion and boycott their establishments,” the vendors said.

Suspension of military offensive versus NPAs ‘a prerogative of President Duterte’

By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM

R

ANKING officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said only President Duterte has the prerogative to suspend military operations against rebel forces.

They said the New People’s Army (NPAs) are calling for a suspension in the government’s operation against the rebels in order for the guerrillas to release the four captives they were holding in eastern Mindanao.

“Somo [suspension of offensive military operations] is a prerogative of the President,” AFP Eastern Mindanao Command commander Lt. Gen. Leonardo Guerrero said.

“If I may add, recently the NPAs released two captives in Davao Oriental without asking a Somo.”

Guerrero was reacting to the call of the rebels for both the police and the military to suspend their operations against the NPA in the provinces of Bukidnon, Agusan del Norte and Surigao del Norte in order for them to safely free their four prisoners of war.

Guerrero said they only conduct “military operations if there is a need for us to address atrocities or armed violent attacks being perpetrated by the NPAs against our troops and civilians.”

On Wednesday the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) agreed to work for a cease-fire by signing in the Netherlands the Agreement on an Interim Joint Cease-fire.

The interim joint cease-fire agreement will be signed simultaneous to, or immediately after, the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (Caser).

Caser, the current focus of

SEND-OFF CEREMONY Supt. Reynaldo Piañar, pastoral priest of the Police

Regional Office 7 (PRO7), blesses the SWAT team with PRO7 Regional Director PC Supt. Noli Taliño during the send-off ceremony at the BGen Benito Ebuen Mactan Air Base in LapuLapu City for the Asean Summit 2017. CYRIL CAMPOREDONDO

the discussions between the two panels, is expected to be finished within the year.

The NDFP, in a statement, said the interim joint cease-fire agreement (or the Comprehensive Joint Cease-fire Agreement) will be effective until a permanent cease-fire is forged as part of the Comprehensive Agreement on End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces.

“Both parties agreed to direct their respective cease-fire committees to meet even in-between formal talks to discuss, formulate and finalize the guidelines and ground rules for the implementation of the agreement,” it said.

The Comprehensive Joint Ceasefire Agreement is expected to be more stable than the previous unilateral cease-fires that existed from August 2016 to January 2017.

The prospective cease-fire’s g u idel ines a nd g rou nd r u les would govern the presence of

armed units and elements of both parties in local communities and the creation of buffer zones.

The ground rules would also include an agreement on what constitutes prohibited, hostile and provocative acts.

“They will also provide for a ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism to oversee the ceasefire’s implementation and handle complaints and alleged violations,” the NDFP said.

The NDFP added that the issue of a “single governmental authority and taxation shall be discussed and resolved in forging the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms, the third substantive agenda of the peace negotiations.”

President Duterte had wanted the rebels to do away with revolutionary tax and stop from invoking territory, and he set these as among the conditions for a ceasefire with the NDFP.

18 nations fly high in 37 balloons in Lubao, Pampanga

By Ashley Manabat Correspondent

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U B AO, Pa mpa nga—T he fourth Lubao International Balloon and Music Festival (LIBMF) is off with a grand start as 37 hot-air balloons, including 10 special-shaped dirigibles representing 18 countries, took to the skies at the Pradera Verde in Barangay Prado Siiongco here on Wednesday.

The good weather was perfect, as veteran balloon pilots applauded the favorable wind conditions they described as “box winds”, drifting the rising dirigibles first to the northwest before the winds brought them back to the southeast with thousands of spectators, including provincial board members of Negros Occidental, Lakbay Aral delegates from Western Samar and tourists from Southern Luzon.

Balloon pilots said the box winds are a set of predictable wind patterns that can be used to navigate hot-air balloons just like what happened in the past balloon festivals here, especially the first festival.

Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab said for the past four years, this has been a proud host to one of the country’s premier tourism spectacles, the LIBMF. Cayabyab said since its inception, the LIBMF has etched the name of Lubao on local and international tourism maps, providing the muchneeded lift to promote the town not just as destination for leisure, but also for business.

The municipality of Lubao’s hotair balloon itself has flown in many parts of the world, like Saga in Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Cayabyab said the increased tourism and trade activities in this town are partly due to the LIBMF, which generates resources the local government unit utilizes in the delivery of basic services to the people.

Noel Castro, LIBMF event organizer, said around 8,000 people came in the first day, with the biggest crowd coming in the late afternoon for the music festival.

Castro said they are expecting larger numbers of people over the weekends, when the grand music

festival will happen mostly anticipated by the younger generations.

Tourism Regional Director Ronnie Tiotuico said the LIBMF is a worthwhile tourism project that can propel not only this town on the world stage, but the province of Pampanga, as well.

Tiotuico said the continued success of the festival this year and beyond will definitely put it as a tourism destination that can propel economic activities here.

Other than a few minor kinks here and there—like the gate for the chase crew was not opened on time and the sound system was not yet set up—everything turned out okay, Castro said.

Among the participating countries were Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam in Asia; the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Swiss, Holland, Spain and Germany in Europe; and the US, Canada and Australia.

The LIBMF is slated until Sunday, April 9, and can easily be reached via the Dinalupihan exit of the SubicClark-Tarlac Expressway.

Metro Pacific Investments Foundation launches campaign to save PHL seas

T

HE Metro Pacific Investments Foundation will embark on uncharted territories throughout the year in a bid to rescue, restore and revive the seas in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.

The foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of Metro Pacific Investments Corp., recently signed memoranda of agreement with the local government units of Mabini, Batangas, Medina, Misamis Oriental; and Cordova, Cebu,

for the conduct of the rehabilitation of the coastal real estates in the said provinces.

“As our parent firm, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. rapidly grew its business and significantly expanded its presence throughout the country, it was but natural for us to do business in a manner that allowed us to contribute to the well-being of our communities,” Metro Pacific Investments Foundation Executive Director Melody M. del Rosario said.

Under its agreement with the local government of Medina, Metro Pacific will conduct several Shore It Up activities in the area, including the underwater assessment of the marine-protected area (MPA) in the province, underwater and coastal cleanups and tawike (whale shark) monitoring.

These activities will start today, April 7, and will conclude on Sunday.

Metro Pacific’s partnership with Mabini involves the establishment

of coral restoration field laboratory in Barangay Solo, the deployment of marker buoys to four MPAs and the provision of monitoring station for the maritime police. It also involves the conduct of Shore It Up activities, such as underwater and coastal cleanups.

The foundation’s agreement with Cordova involves the construction of a Mangrove Propagation and Information Center, which shall undertake the devel-

opment of mangrove nurseries, the multiplication and planting of mangrove trees in coastal estuarine areas, and the rehabilitation of degraded mangrove ecosystem, among others.

“We stand ready to see our partnership through. Ten years into our foundation work, we remain committed to the task of nation-building by fully embracing our responsibility to society,” del Rosario said.

Being an archipelago, the Philip-

pines boasts of a rich marine biodiversity. It sits at the apex of the Coral Triangle, recognized as the global center for marine biodiversity, along with Papua New Guinea, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands.

As the apex of such a coral “center,” the Philippines is home to a diverse species of corals, seagrass beds, mangrove and beach forests, fisheries, invertebrates, seaweeds, and marine mammals. Lorenz S. Marasigan

A6

Friday, April 7, 2017

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph

Chinese takeover of agri giant clears major hurdle

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ONDON—The Chinese government wants to make sure its food supply is reliable and safe, as it works to feed a rapidly growing middle class. So it was a coup on Wednesday when a Chinese company won approval to take over one of the world’s largest suppliers of seeds and pesticides.

$43B

The cost of the purchase of Syngenta, the Swiss farm chemical and seed company, by China National Chemical Corp.

In this March 15 photo, a man pushes a stroller past a magazine advertisement featuring US President Donald J. Trump at a news stand in Shanghai, China. Officials of China and the United States are discussing a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Chinese premier said at a news conference on Wednesday held after the close of the national legislature’s annual meeting. Chinatopix Via AP

Xi’s mission in Florida: Tame Trump to bolster power at home

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othing is supposed to go off script for President Xi Jinping in what is the equivalent of an election year in one-party China.

Enter Donald J. Trump, who rarely stays on message and regularly bashes China on Twitter.

The US president will host Xi on Thursday and Friday at his Mar-aLago resort in Florida for the first face-to-face meeting between the pair. On the agenda will be everything from trade to North Korea’s nuclear threat.

For Xi, the meeting represents an opportunity to establish a personal rapport with Trump and potentially stave off a trade war that threatens to make China’s economic slowdown much more painful. Yet, it also carries risk: An errant Trump tweet or offthe-cuff remark seen as disrespectful could give ammunition to party members who want to thwart Xi’s reform plans.

“Major conflict with the United States in the first half of the year would be very bad news for Mr. Xi because it could undermine the leadership credentials he’s been cultivating for the past five years,” said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based historian whose father was a minister under Communist rule before being purged in the Cultural Revolution. “It’s the most unstable, risky and fragile moment for Mr. Xi domestically. Trump might use this to put pressure on him.”

Five of the ruling Communist Party’s seven most powerful leaders might be replaced at the 19th Party Congress later t h is yea r, a long w it h scores

of other senior positions. The horse-trading is already under way among party factions.

Helped by state-run media and a landmark speech at Davos this year, Xi has crafted an image of a poor man’s champion at home and a leading proponent of globalization abroad. His government has built artificial reefs to assert territorial claims in the South China Sea and retaliated against South Korea for allowing the US to install a missile-defense system to protect against North Korea, a Chinese ally.

Trump has repeatedly blasted China for stealing American jobs, militarizing the South China Sea and failing to do more to stop North Korea. He threatened to use the One-China policy regarding Taiwan as a bargaining chip to get better trade terms before eventually relenting in a February phone call with Xi. “The Chinese have been dealing with a very difficult situation with the Trump administration,” said J. Stapleton Roy, former US ambassador to China who has met every top Chinese leader since Mao Zedong’s successor, Hua Guofeng. “They have calculated that the key to managing the relationship in the short term is trying to establish a relationship of reasonable mutual confidence between the two presidents.”

China has concentrated on wooing the president’s daughte r, Iv a n k a Tr u mp, a nd he r

husband, presidentia l adv iser Jared Kushner.

In Florida Xi will bring his wife Peng Liyuan, a celebrity folk singer and fashion icon who was once more famous than her husband.

The pair is expected to arrive in West Palm Beach shortly after noon on Thursday.

“There will be time, particularly in the first day, for them to get to know one another in a more informal kind of interaction, as well as a dinner,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters ahead of the trip, according to a published transcript. The leaders won’t play golf, which is frowned upon in China as part of Xi’s antigraft campaign.

‘Very difficult’

Both sides have sought to set the tone for the summit. In a tweet last Friday Trump predicted a “very difficult” meeting, complaining about the US trade deficit with China and job losses. Two hours later, a Chinese official deflected questions about the tweets and hailed the possibility of a “new starting point”.

Trump plans to discuss trade, the economy and North Korea at the meeting, according to the senior administration official. In an interview with the Financial Times this week, Trump said he wouldn’t be surprised “if we did something that would be very dramatic and good for both countries”.

Beijing would view a gettingto-know-you meeting as progress even without a major deal, according to a Chinese official, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. The meeting will probably be difficult as Trump predicted, particularly if he pushes hard, the official said.

China has prepared several options for give-and-take depending on what Trump requests, according to the Chinese official.

Beijing has assessed that Trump cares most about visible economic wins and some security issues, according to the official, who added that they saw his tweets on North Korea as a bargaining tactic ahead of the meeting.

When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met Trump in February, he proposed investing in infrastructure to create American jobs in a bid to offset criticism over its currency. Xi may try something similar as Trump looks to meet campaign pledges to rebuild the country’s roads and bridges.

Xi will likely explain the domestic pressures he faces as China enters a “complex and critical phase of reforms”, according to Cui Liru, former president of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing.

The government is weighing an overhaul of state-run enterprises and opening up more sectors, challenging entrenched interests and raising fears of job losses as economic growth hits the slowest pace in a quarter century.

Xi needs to show a domestic audience that he can manage Trump, said Steve Tsang, director of SOAS China Institute at the University of London. China may have agreed to an early summit because they see an opportunity to strike a better deal before Trump has a full team in place and a clearly defined strategy, he said.

Xi wants “a deal that shows that he can do business with Trump,” Tsang said. “If Xi can secure that, he puts himself in a good position in reassuring the domestic constituencies in the run up to the 19th congress.” Bloomberg News

ADB: Asian growth seen steady, US policy uncertainty a risk

H

ONG KONG—Asia’s developing economies will see steady growth this year and the next, though the evolving policies of President Donald J. Trump’s administration are a major uncertainty, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report on Thursday.

The Manila, Philippines-based lender forecast growth in developing Asia at 5.7 percent in 2017—unchanged from its previous forecast—and said pace would continue into 2018.

It said 30 of the 45 countries covered in the report will see sustained growth that will help offset the gradual slowdown in China, Asia’s biggest economy.

However, the risks include unexpected changes to US government policies in areas such as interest rates. The ADB said the uncertainty could undermine the outlook for the region, which accounts for 60 percent of global economic growth.

The US Federal Reserve, which raised its benchmark interest rate in March for the second time in three months, plans to gradually raise rates over the next three years as the economy improves.

If those rate increases come more rapidly because of stronger than expected US economic growth, the “sharperthan- expec ted monetar y tightening could have fur ther consequences for

developing Asia,” the ADB said in its Asian Development Outlook.

Economies with high corporate or household debt, in particular, would be most vulnerable to the shock of higher interest rates, the report said.

It said that “possible shifts in trade and tax policies, especially policy changes being discussed in the US, could create uncertainty for business, investment and export growth in developing Asia.”

The report did not mention Trump by name. Trump accused China of unfair trade practices, such as manipulating its currency.

He has threatened to impose punitive tariffs on imports from China. Trade is likely to be

a big part of the agenda during meetings between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida on Thursday and Friday.

The ADB forecast that China’s economic growth will slow to 6.5 percent this year and 6.2 percent in 2018 from last year’s 6.7 percent, a 30-year low.

China is due to release its first quarter GDP figures on April 17.

In India growth will accelerate to 7.4 percent in 2017 and 7.6 percent in 2018, from 7.1 percent last year, as the country rebounds from a one-off demonetization of its highest-value currency bills that “temporarily stymied commerce”, the report said. AP

By clearing the deal with EU regulators, China National Chemical Corp. is close to the $43-billion takeover of Syngenta, the Swiss farm chemical and seed company.

It would be the largest Chinese takeover of a foreign company and is one of three proposed mergers in a stop-and-go international race seeking greater influence over the world’s food supply.

“China has been trying to develop its own seed industry—and agricultural chemicals, as well— for decades, and the progress has been slow,” said Fred Gale, a senior economist at the US Department of Agriculture. “This is an attempt to upgrade productivity.”

The deal between China National Chemical Corp., a state-owned company known as ChemChina, and Syngenta comes as trade relations between China and the West have become increasingly tense.

The situation has been made worse

by President Donald J. Trump’s sharp talk on the issue.

Trump hosts the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, and trade is certain to be on the agenda.

Already, Trump has said that largely because of trade issues, the meeting would “ be a very difficult one”.

Syngenta’s clearance from the European Union is part of an international competition that inc ludes Dow Chemica ls and DuPont, who are still working to close their merger. Though best known as chemical companies, Dow and DuPont, both based in the United States, also have huge agricultural businesses.

Bayer AG, the German industrial conglomerate, is also trying to complete its multibillion-dollar takeover of Monsanto. That deal would give Bayer control of the company most closely associated with the rise of genetically modified foods.

And ChemChina’s takeover of Syngenta would give Beijing more influence over many of the seeds and chemicals it needs to feed its swelling population.

If all three deals are completed, they would reshape the global agricultural chemical business, reducing competition in the industry.

It is an important play for China, which has struggled to maintain and upgrade its food supply in recent years. China hopes to better feed its growing and increasingly affluent population, but several food scandals have made Chinese citizens suspicious of domestic supply chains.

Those scandals have fueled anxiety about genetically modified food, even as China wants to use the science to increase production. Although China has poured money into research, it still bans cultivation of genetically modified food for human consumption, and knowledge about genetically modified organisms [GMOs] is limited.

The ChemChina deal could bolster China’s efforts to become a

major player in genetically modified food. But Gale said Chinese consumers would probably remain wary.

“The general public has become very suspicious of seeds,” he said.

“That will be an obstacle to Syngenta becoming a pipeline for GMO seeds in the China market.”

ChemChina will have to sell prized assets to take control of Syngenta.

To appease European officials, it must sell substantial parts of its European businesses that make pesticides and, substances, that stimulate or slow plant growth.

“It is important for European farmers and, ultimately, consumers that there will be effective competition in pesticide markets, also after ChemChina’s acquisition of Syngenta,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner in charge of competition policy, said in a statement.

“ChemChina has offered significant remedies, which fully address our competition concerns.”

The EU granted its approval a day after ChemChina received the go-ahead from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC’s approval hinged on ChemChina selling parts of a subsidiary’s business in the US to an agricultural chemical company based in California.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which focuses on national security issues and was also regarded as a significant potential obstacle cleared the deal in August.

The ChemChina deal for Syngenta is part of a spate of consolidation in the agricultural chemical industry globally, as companies have tried to meet the challenge of falling crop prices.

Their efforts to win new customers are being made more difficult by consumer resistance.

Widespread suspicion of genetically modified foods in Europe mea ns t hat protests aga inst Monsanto can draw thousands, and several European countries ban their cultivation.

The approval of antitrust agencies would be seen as promising for others seeking deals, said Dale Stafford, the head of mergers and acquisitions for the Americas at Bain and Co., a business consultancy.

“This sends a strong signal that even though there needs to be concessions, with the right strategic deals, they can happen,” Stafford said.

The ability to complete another agricultural chemicals deal, however, could be diminished by the huge deals that have been done.

“As markets get more concentrated, the impact on competition gets amplified,” said Elai Katz, who leads the antitrust practice at the law firm Cahill Gordon and Reindel. This could make it harder to get deals past agencies or to find buyers for divestitures.

In recent years, Chinese companies have been on an acquisition binge, buying major strategic assets, like copper mines and oil deposits, and investing in flashier, if less economically or geopolitically important, deals for marquee names like the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

Lately, there have been signs that the shopping spree might be ending. China has tightened limits on how much money it is allowing past its borders, and that has threatened purchases that some Chinese officials have criticized as frivolous.

Far fewer overseas acquisit ions by C h i nese compa n ies have been announced this year than by this time a year ago.

The value of these deals has also fallen to about $31 billion this year, compared with $87 billion at the same point last year, according to Dealogic, the financial data company.

New York Times News Service

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

The World BusinessMirror

US to take action on Syrian chemical attacks if UN doesn’t

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NITED NATIONS—US Ambassador Nikki Haley warned on Wednesday that the Trump administration will take action against chemical attacks in Syria that bear “all the hallmarks” of President Bashar al-Assad’s government if the UN Security Council fails to act.

Haley urged the council at an emergency meeting to immediately approve a resolution drafted by the US, Britain and France that condemns and threatens consequences for the use of chemical weapons, especially in Tuesday’s attack that killed dozens of people in rebel-held Idlib province.

“There are times at the United Nations when we are compelled to take collective action,” she said.

“When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action.”

“For the sake of the victims, I hope the rest of the council is finally willing to do the same,” she added.

Haley spoke after Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Maria Zakharova announced Moscow’s opposition to the draft resolution.

She called it “categorically unacceptable” because “it runs ahead of the investigation results and names the culprit, Damascus”.

“The main task now is to have an objective inquiry into what happened,” Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the Security Council. “Up to now all falsified reports about this incident have come from the White Helmets or the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in London, which have been discredited long ago.”

He said that from 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. on April 4, the Syrian government carried out an air strike on the eastern edge of t he opposit ion-held tow n of Khan Sheikhoun “on a large warehouse of ammunition and military equipment”.

On that compound, he said,

there was a facility “to produce ammunition with the use of toxic weapons”, which was supposed to be used in Iraq and Aleppo.

“Their use was confirmed last year by Russia and military experts,” Safronkov said. “The symptoms of those affected in Khan Sheikhoun were the same as those by people who were affected last year in Aleppo.”

Britain’s UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft also told the council that Tuesday’s attack “bears all the hallmarks” of Assad’s regime. “ We have ever y indication that this was a sustained attack using aircraft over a number of hours,” Rycroft said. “We see all the signs of an attack using a nerve agent capable of killing over a hundred people and harming hundreds more.”

Holding up photos of victims of the attack, Haley accused Russia of blocking action and closing its eyes to the “ barbarity” of three previous chemical attacks that investigators blamed on the Syrian government by vetoing a resolution in late-February that would have imposed sanctions on those responsible.

“The truth is that Assad, Russia and Iran have no interest in peace,” she said. “The illegitimate Syrian government, led by a man with no conscience, has committed untold atrocities against his people for six years.”

Haley said Assad has shown he isn’t interested in participating in “a meaningful political process, Iran has reinforced Assad’s military, and Russia has shielded Assad from UN sanctions”.

“If Russia has the influence in Syria that it claims to have, we need to see them use it,” she said.

W

ficial said Bannon’s role had nothing to do with the troubles facing Flynn, who was asked to resign in early-February for misleading the administration about his communications with Russian officials.

A senior administration official said Flynn reluctantly agreed to have Bannon join the NSC. The official said that Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and chief counsel Don McGahn rewrote the original NSC memo with Flynn to include Bannon.

The official said the move reflected Trump’s dwindling faith in his national security adviser and that Flynn’s daily presentations to the president were seen as disorganized and not up to par.

Flynn’s replacement, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, was allowed to reorganize the NSC as he saw fit.

McMaster immediately expressed a desire to run a less hierarchical organization and be more accessible to his staff. Lack of access to Flynn when he was in charge created widespread frustration, according to current and former administration officials familiar with the changes.

Tom Bossert, the assistant to

A8

briefs

Showdown over Trump’s SC nominee

WASHINGTON—A Senate showdown is at hand over President Donald J. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, and it could change the Senate and the court for years to come.

Democrats escalated their attacks against Judge Neil Gorsuch ahead of key votes set for Thursday, portraying him as an ally of the powerful and an enemy of the weak.

Republicans defended him, accusing Democrats of trying to block Gorsuch out of frustration over Trump’s election victory.

“Democrats would filibuster Ruth Bader Ginsburg if President Donald J. Trump nominated her,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican-Kentucky, naming one of the more liberal sitting justices. “There is simply no principled reason to oppose this exceptional, exceptional Supreme Court nominee.”

Democrats begged to differ, returning again and again to McConnell’s decision last year to deny consideration to thenPresident Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, who was ignored for nearly a year by Senate Republicans after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. AP

Trump defends Fox host after harassment claims

Nikki Haley, United States ambassador to the United Nations, shows pictures of Syrian victims of chemical attacks as she addresses a meeting of the Security Council on Syria at UN headquarters on April 5. AP/Bebeto Matthews

“We need to see them put an end to these horrific acts. How many more children have to die before Russia cares?”

The resolution drafted by the US, Britain and France would condemn the use of chemical weapons in Syria, especially on Tuesday, “in the strongest terms” and back an investigation by the international chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

It stresses that the Syrian gover nment, u nder pre v iou s Secur it y Council resolutions, is obligated to provide OPCW investigators and a UN-OPCW team charged w ith assessing blame for chemical attacks with information on all f light plans and air operations on April 4 and the names of commanders of any helicopter squadrons.

It reminds the government that it is also obligated to immediately provide investigators with access to air bases where they believe chemical weapons attacks may have been launched.

Russia’s Safronkov told the council that several major provisions of the resolution are unacceptable to Moscow and France’s UN Ambassador François Delattre told reporters later that negotiations on the text have started “with a good spirit.”

He said he thinks there’s a chance for agreement, if everyone is ready to compromise.

“Our objective is to go for a vote the sooner the better...and we want a swift and strong resolution,” he said, adding that a vote was unlikely late Wednesday.

The best option would be united action by the Security Council, he

said when asked about possible unilateral action by the United States. “I’m concerned...by the risk of inaction at this stage.”

Syria’s Deputy UN Ambassador Mounzer Mounzer told the council his government categorically rejects “false claims and accusations” that the army used toxic chemicals against Syrian civilians in Khan Sheikhoun, saying they are being used “as human shields by armed terrorist groups”.

He said the army doesn’t have any type of chemical weapons and “we have never used them and we will never use them”.

Mounzer called Syria the victim of “falsification and fabrication” by some permanent members of the Security Council and “armed terrorist groups” backed by several UN member-states. He didn’t name any countries. AP

Trump removes chief strategist Bannon from NSC

ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump h a s re mo v e d c h i e f strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council (NSC), reversing an earlier, controversial decision to give Bannon access to the group’s high-level meetings.

A new memorandum about the council’s composition was published on Wednesday in the Federal Register. The memo no longer lists the chief strategist as a member of the Principals Committee, a group of high-ranking officials who meet to discuss pressing national-security priorities.

A senior White House official said on Wednesday Bannon was initially placed on the NSC after Trump’s inauguration as a measure to ensure implementation of the president’s vision, including efforts to downsize and streamline operations at the NSC. Bannon’s addition to the NSC sparked criticism that it was inappropriate for the political adviser to play a role in nationalsecurity matters.

Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was heading the NSC at the time, but the of-

Friday, April 7, 2017

Bannon AP/Evan Vucci

the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, also had his role downgraded as part of the changes. The White House official said Bossert’s change in status is simply a result of efforts to streamline the NSC. Bossert joined Trump’s team having previously served as deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence dismissed the notion that the changes reflect a demotion.

“These are very highly valued members of this administration,” he said. “They are gonna continue to play important policy roles.”

“This is just a natural evolution to ensure the National Security Council is organized in a way that best serves the president in resolving and making those difficult decisions,” Pence said.

As a participant of the Principals Committee, Bannon would have had the authority to call a vote if the president’s vision for the NSC was not being implemented. The committee, which includes top officials from various government agencies, meets regularly to address important policy issues.

One of the officials said Bannon’s removal from the NSC was not a reflection of any change in his standing as one of Trump’s closest advisers. Bannon will maintain his security clearance as is standard for most top West Wing officials.

Trump’s White House is facing allegations that it funneled secret intelligence reports to a Republican congressman leading an investigation into his campaign’s

possible ties to Russian officials as well as Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.

The New York Times last week identified two NSC officials as having helped House Intelligence Com m it tee C h a i r m a n De v i n Nunes view secret reports.

A US official confirmed to The Associated Press that Ezra Cohen-Watnick had access to those kinds of intelligence materials, but maintained he did not play a role in helping the Ca lifor nia cong ressman ga in access to the documents. The official pointed instead to the other official named in The New York Times report, Michael Ellis, a W hite House law yer who previously worked for Nunes on the House committee.

Senior administration officials said McMaster was out of town when these revelations occurred.

The senior White House official would not comment on who was responsible for the changes, but said they were a reflection of the confidence the president has in McMaster and were not in response to the recent controversy linked to the NSC. AP

Bill O’Reilly, the embattled Fox News host, received a powerful show of support on Wednesday from a longtime friend, interview subject, ideological sympathizer and fellow scandal-survivor: the president of the United States.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Donald J. Trump praised O’Reilly as “a good person” and declared, “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” days after The New York Times reported that five women had received settlements after making harassment claims against him.

News of the payouts, totaling about $13 million, generated a storm of criticism toward Fox News, which recently renewed O’Reilly’s contract, and prompted more than two dozen advertisers to withdraw their support of O’Reilly’s prime-time show, the highest-rated program in cable news.

“Personally, I think he shouldn’t have settled,” Trump told Times reporters in a wideranging interview. “Because you should have taken it all the way; I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.... I think he’s a person I know well,” Trump said. “He is a good person.”

New York Times News Service

Russian police check suspicious object in Saint Petersburg

MOSCOW—Russian lawenforcement agencies are checking a suspicious object at an apartment building in Saint Petersburg following a suicide bombing on the city’s subway earlier in the week.

Russia’s Federal Security Service said, according to Russian news agencies, that the object found early on Thursday in an apartment building on Saint Petersburg’s eastern outskirts could contain explosives.

Residents have been evacuated and explosives experts have started working on the site. The police in the city are on high alert following Monday’s explosion that killed the attacker and 13 other people and wounded some 55.

The police on Wednesday arrested eight Central Asian migrants suspected of acting as recruiters for the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda’s Syria branch.

The investigators found no immediate evidence of their involvement in the subway attack. AP

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

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Editor: Jennifer A. Ng • Friday, April 7, 2017

A9

Govt allows meat processors to import Dutch MSM

D

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

espite the existing ban on Dutch poultry products, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said it has approved the request of meat processors to import mechanically separated meat (MSM) from the Netherlands.

The DA issued Memorandum Order (MO) 16, which permitted meat importerprocessors (MIPs) belonging to the Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (Pampi) to import MSM. Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the government approved the request of Pampi upon the recommendation of an interagency task force (IATF) that conducted a technical evaluation of MIPs. MO 16 amended MO 14, Series of 2017, which imposed a temporary ban on the importation of poultry and poultry products from the Netherlands in January. “[I] do hereby issue this MO granting the request of the meat processors with thermal-processing equipment to import

MSM for processing OIE-declared free areas from highly pathogenic avian influenza virus [HPAIV] during the past 21 days,” Piñol said in MO 16 dated March 29, a copy of which was given to reporters on April 6.

The DA chief said Pampi had requested to import meat materials for processing from areas declared by the OIE as free from HPAIV in the last 90 days.

The DA said it formed an IATF, consisting of the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) and National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS), which evaluated select meat-processing plants to determine if they were capable of heat treating MSM imports. Piñol added the IATF team re-

DA must encourage rice farmers to plant other crops–experts R evenues collected from rice imported by the Philippines after the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice is scrapped should also be allocated to programs that encourage farmers to plant other crops, according to experts.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University senior research fellow Caesar Cororaton said the Department of Agriculture (DA) should provide assistance to rice farmers who will shift to other crops as this would help boost the farm sector’s productivity.

“That’s actually good, if they [rice farmers] move out of rice production and then use the money, amounting to some P24 billion, to train those who are willing to shift to other crops, which are more profitable,” Cororaton told the BusinessMirror on the sidelines of a forum on Philippine rice policy held recently at the De La Salle University in Manila.

In their paper, titled Poverty and Distributional Impact of Alternative Policies in the Philippines, Cororaton and De La Salle University School of Economics associate professor Krista Danielle Yu said the removal of the QR on rice would cut land use for palay production by at least 10.02 percent.

They suggested that the government put in place a post-QR regime scheme wherein rice tariffs will be gradually reduced to 25 percent in 10 years. The revenues from rice imports should be given as cash transfer to poor families.

“The amount of money to be plowed back [to farmers] is more than enough to support their displacement and would result in improvements,” he said.

Under their suggested post-QR regime scheme, land use for palay production would decline by only 1.5 percent. Cororaton said the 1.5-percent decrease in palay land use, however, would result in higher land utilization for other high-value crops.

For instance, land use for corn production would increase by 1.83 percent, while land use for coconut and sugar production would expand by 1.41 percent and 1.43 percent, respectively.

They also noted that there would be a 2.02-percent hike in the production of other crops.

Cororaton said the DA’s rice-self sufficiency program is no longer viable as it would cause the local rice to

become more expensive.

“It’s better if you just import rice and, at the same time, use the money [tariff revenue] to assist farmers. I think that’s the best solution that I can think of,” he said.

Under their sug gested post- QR scheme, Cororaton said the income of households, particularly the poorest 10 percent of the country, would increase due to rice prices. Also, the income of the 10 percent poorest households in the country would increase by at least 23.8 percent.

Corotaton said this would result in a 9.12-percent decline in the country’s poverty incidence and a 26.77-percent cut in poverty severity, or the degree of inequality among the poor.

“The results indicate that the control on rice imports is highly regressive because it increases the domestic price of rice and puts significant burden on poor households,” their paper read.

“Retaining the protection on domestic palay production through tariffication and earmarking the revenue generated as cash transfer to poor households will reduce poverty considerably by 4 million in 10 years,” they added.

The Philippine waiver on the special treatment on rice, which was approved by the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Council for Trade in Goods, has allowed Manila to implement the QR until this year.

Upon the expiration of the waiver, and no later than June 30, Manila’s importation of rice shall be subject to ordinary customs duties in accordance with the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture.

Last year Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol warned that the lifting of the QR on rice would discourage farmers from planting the staple.

Dr. Rene E. Ofreneo, former labor undersecretary and dean of the University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations, echoed Piñol’s sentiments, saying the entry of imported cheap rice in the country would force rice farmers to shift to other crops.

“The effect would not be immediate, but, the way I see it, there will be continuing labor erosion. You can imagine the displacement in the farming population. There would be a need for adjustment,” Ofreneo told the BusinessMirror. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

ported the availability of thermal-processing equipment in the facilities of the requesting MIPs. He noted that the temporary ban on poultry and poultry products from the Netherlands was imposed to protect the local poultry sector and ensure the safety of consumers.

Under MO 16, the MIPs will only be allowed to import MSM from the Netherlands if it is from a zone/compartment free from the HPAIV for at least 21 days.

“Only accredited MIPs that were subjected to the evaluation by the IATF on HPAIV and complied with the requirements shall be allowed to import from HPAIVfree zones in the Netherlands,” Piñol said.

An industry source said the government accredited four MIPs from Pampi.

The MIPs importing MSM from the Netherlands are required to submit a monthly utilization report so they can be issued import permits.

“To reduce risk, all consignment shall be stored in one centralized DA accredited Cold Storage Warehouse [SCW] identified by the MIP, which will be dedicated purely to the storage of MSM from the Netherlands,” MO 16 read.

Piñol said he ordered the NMIS to establish a program for monitoring the processing of imported MSM from the Netherlands and surveillance for HPAIV. “The NMIS will do monitoring and

surveillance and collection of samples for laboratory analysis,” he added.

BAI Assistant Director Simeon S. Amurao Jr. told the BusinessMirror that the ban on Dutch poultry products would remain in place despite the DA’s decision to allow the entry of MSM from the Netherlands.

Amurao made an assurance that heattreating poultry products would kill HPAIV. Earlier Pampi Executive President Francisco Buencamino told the BusinessMirror that his group made the request due to the difficulties encountered by meat processors in sourcing MSM.

Meat Importers and Traders Association President Jesus Cham revealed that the price of MSM in the international market has nearly doubled and that it would continue to go up due to the tightness in supply caused by the outbreak of bird flu in some European countries.

The Netherlands is one of the country’s top sources of imported MSM of chicken, a raw material used in making processed meat products, such as hot dogs.

Data from the BAI showed that the Philippines’s purchase of MSM from the Netherlands in 2016 expanded by 39.25 percent to 49,846.36 metric tons, from 35,795.678 MT imported in 2015.

A10 Friday, April 7, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

The perilous North Korean problem

W

hile local press and media are focused on local politics—“now and forever, Amen”—at least some focus is on the increasingly dangerous situation to the far north of the region on the Korean peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has carried on the family tradition but he is father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung on dictatorship steroids. But without the brains of either.

All absolute rulers from ancient Rome, through Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein, have found it necessary to purge the ranks from time to time. Taking out a few of the bad apples on the team is a necessary part of holding on to power. Even knocking off a “good guy” or two sends an important signal to those that would challenge you for the throne.

But, eventually, you start worrying of even those that previously had no ambition or intention of making trouble. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is truly a master of the purge. Every lesser member of the dictator’s inner circle and even those just outside have a loyal following. Much better to purge all the ranks like Erdoğan did, jailing or firing thousands of journalists, police and military members, and even doctors and teachers.

But in order to keep the fear level high and show your loyalists you are worthy of their respect, you have to keep punching higher. That is what Kim Jong Un is doing by taking on both the US and China.

The problem that China is discovering with having a crazed and vicious attack dog on a leash is that sometimes they take on a mind of their own. Using North Korea to annoy the Americans has worked for decades under US presidents that were more inclined to find a way to put North Korea on the back burner than to confront the issue once and for all. US President Donald J. Trump does not seem inclined to let “Crazy Kim” continue on the same path as Kim’s Daddy and Grand Pappy.

The last thing that China needs or wants is a war of any sort on the Korean peninsula let alone a US/South Korean victory that would put US troops across the Yalu River, a stone’s throw from China proper.

However, the Trump administration has strongly indicated that it will not accept a continuation of the status quo and has called on China to fix the problem. But Kim also clearly understands that regime change in North Korea could come as easily from China as from the US. Therefore, it is unlikely that China could ever convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and potential long-range ballistic missiles.

A “Mexican standoff” is a confrontation between two or more parties in which no participant can proceed or retreat without being exposed to danger. As a result, a strategic tension must be maintained until hopefully an external event of situation makes it possible to arrive at a satisfactory resolution.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump meet in the US, each might express to the other a fond hope that Kim’s purge of North Korean military generals might lead to a coup. Realistically, the only event that is going to change the dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula is for Kim Jong Un to disappear and sooner, rather than later.

Since 2005

Fake news and honorable men James Jimenez

spox

I

got the news at almost half-past 12 on Monday, the 3rd of April. A web site, one of a horde of others apparently specializing in pumping out fake news, had posted a video that the site claimed was both shot and uploaded to a social-networking site by me. I followed the links and arrived at a Facebook page named James Jimenez, and sporting a picture of me.

A scan of the page showed that it had only recently been created and, save for the video linked to by the fake news site, have very little content—all hallmarks of a bogus page.

At 12:39 p.m., I posted a thread on Twitter, calling out the “article” as fake news, and informing the public that the page it linked to was spurious. I also asked, on Twitter and on my actual Facebook wall, for help in reporting the page

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against this deplorable strategy to signal, if nothing else, that underhanded methods are not needed to win righteous victories.

Admittedly, that might not be the most politically savvy thing to do. One can almost hear Machiavelli preaching, “when someone is trying to rally your power base for you, you ought to look the other way and pretend not to notice.” However, it is hard to imagine a more honorable road to take than to denounce these scurrilous efforts at misleading the public.

I remain hopeful, of course, that we will eventually see such honorable denunciations. A fter all, while we might not have voted for saints—thus, according to some, we have no business expecting elected officials to be saintly—we all for sure voted with the expectation that the names we shaded on our ballots were those of honorable men and women. Time to prove the voters right.

You can access the new page at http://facebook.com/comelecspox.

My most unpopular idea: Be nice to Trump voters

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business Publisher

to Facebook. The response was immediate. A number of netizens retweeted and shared my requests, along with reassurances that they had, indeed, reported the impostor page. By 2:49 p.m., I got the first heads-up that the page had been taken down.

My thanks to everyone who spread the word and helped make that happen. To my mind, this sort of crowdsourced takedown represents a viable model in deal-

ing with the proliferation of fake news.

Moving forward, I thought it best to start a Comelec Spox page, hoping that the existence of a legitimate outlet on Facebook will discourage future attempts to hoodwink people. I don’t expect it, but then again, I never expected this first attempt either.

In hindsight, I suppose I should have. But until this happened, I had harbored the vain hope that fake news would be reasonably easy to spot. Yet, in this case, what would have happened if corrective measures hadn’t been promptly taken? And in answering that question, I am led to ask another: How long will the apparent beneficiaries of these fake news stories remain silent?

How legitimate can a cause be if there is a need to resort to, or at least quietly acquiesce to the use of, illegitimate tactics? It appears to me that those who stand to gain from the deliberate propagation of misinformation ought to come out sharply, strongly and repeatedly

W

new york times

hen I write about people struggling with addictions or homelessness, liberals exude sympathy while conservatives respond with snarling hostility to losers who make “bad choices”.

When I write about voters who supported President Donald J. Trump, it’s the reverse: Now it’s liberals who respond with venom, hoping that Trump voters suffer for their bad choice.

“I absolutely despise these people,” one woman tweeted at me after I interviewed Trump voters. “Truly the worst of humanity. To hell with every one of them.”

Maybe we all need a little more empathy?

I wrote my last column from Oklahoma, highlighting voters who had supported Trump and now find that he wants to cut programs that had helped them. One woman had recovered from a rape with the help of a women’s center that stands to lose funding, another said she would sit home and die without a job program facing cutbacks, and so on. Yet, every one of them was still behind Trump— and that infuriated my readers.

“I’m just going to say it,” tweeted Bridgette. “I hate these people. They are stupid and selfish. Screw them.

Lose your jobs, sit home and die.”

Another: “ALL Trump voters are racist and deplorable. They’ll never vote Democratic. We should never pander to the Trumpites. We’re not a party for racists.”

The torrent of venom was, to me, as misplaced as the support for Trump from struggling Oklahomans. I’m afraid that Trump’s craziness is proving infectious, making Democrats crazy with rage that actually impedes a progressive agenda.

One problem with the Democratic anger is that it stereotypes a vast and contradictory group of 63 million people. Sure, there were racists and misogynists in their ranks, but that doesn’t mean that every Trump voter was a white supremacist. While it wasn’t apparent from reading the column, one of the Trump voters I quoted was black, and another was Latino. Of course, millions of Trump voters were members of minorities or had previously voted for Barack Obama.

“Some people think that the peo-

ple who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and just deplorable folks,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has emerged as a surprising defender of Trump voters, said the other day. “I don’t agree.”

The blunt truth is that if we care about a progressive agenda, we simply can’t write off 46 percent of the electorate. If there is to be movement on mass incarceration, on electoral reform, on women’s health, on child care, on inequality, on access to good education, on climate change, then progressives need to win more congressional and legislative seats around the country. To win over Trump voters isn’t normalizing extremism, but a strategy to combat it.

Right now, 68 percent of partisan legislative chambers in the states are held by Republicans. About 7 percent of America’s land mass is in Democratic landslide counties, and 59 percent is in Republican landslide counties.

I asked the people I interviewed in Oklahoma why they were sticking with Trump. There are many reasons working-class conservatives vote against their economic interests—abortion and gun issues count heavily for some—but another is the mockery of Democrats who deride them as ignorant bumpkins. The vilification of these voters is a gift to Trump.

Nothing I’ve written since the election has engendered more anger from people who usually agree with me than my periodic assertions that Trump voters are human, too. But I grew up in Trump country, in rural

Oregon, and many of my childhood friends supported Trump. They’re not the hateful caricatures that some liberals expect, any more than New York liberals are the effete paper cutouts that my old friends assume.

Maybe we need more junior year “abroad” programs that send liberals to Kansas and conservatives to Massachusetts.

Hatred for Trump voters also leaves the Democratic Party more removed from working-class pain.

For people in their 50s, mortality rates for poorly educated whites have soared since 2000 and are now higher than for blacks at all education levels.

Professors Angus Deaton and Anne Case of Princeton University say the reason is “deaths of despair” arising from suicide, drugs and alcohol.

Democrats didn’t do enough to address this suffering, so Trump won working-class voters—because he at least faked empathy for struggling workers. He sold these voters a clunker, and now he’s already beginning to betray them. His assault on Obamacare would devastate many working-class families by reducing availability of treatment for substance abuse. As I see it, Trump rode to the White House on a distress that his policies will magnify.

So by all means stand up to Trump, point out that he’s a charlatan and resist his initiatives. But remember that social progress means winning over voters in flyover country, and that it’s difficult to recruit voters whom you’re simultaneously castigating as despicable, bigoted imbeciles.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

How to build China’s city of the future

By Adam Minter Bloomberg View

O

n April 1 real-estate prices in rural Xiongxan County, roughly 80 miles south of Beijing, spiked as much as 37 percent; highways jammed as speculators rushed to the obscure district. That morning, the Chinese government had announced that at the direction of President Xi Jinping, 800 miles surrounding Xiongxan would be developed into a city meant to serve as a model for China’s development over the “next millennium”.

Expectations are high: The government has placed the Xiongan New Area on equal footing with China’s two great successes in government-directed urban development, Shenzhen and Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, calling it an area of “national significance”.

Xi is following in the footsteps of Deng Xiaopeng, who presided over the rise of Shenzhen and laid the groundwork for Pudong. Whether the ambitious plan succeeds, though, depends on whether Xi learns not just from Deng’s successes, but from the many failures that followed.

Cond it ion s i n C h i n a h ave changed drastically from Deng’s time. Over 55 percent of China’s population now lives in cities; in 1978 less than 18 percent did. Back then, the most pressing question for urban planners was how to encourage rural Chinese—in effect, excess labor ideal for factory jobs— to move to the city. The answer was to create special economic zones (SEZs) with distinct geographical borders, where foreign investment would be encouraged and protected via tax breaks, legal safeguards and other incentives.

The idea of creating trade zones to encourage foreign commerce is centuries old, of course. But the first SEZs were unique in seeking foreign investors and allowing them to operate in a wide range of sectors. The new districts were meant to test policies that would eventually spread throughout the country, where the Communist Party’s more restrictive rules still held sway. In 1978 China sanctioned four of the SEZs, including Shenzhen.

Despite latter-day mythologizing about turning rice paddies into factories, the early history of SEZs was troubled. In 1981, 72 percent of foreign investment in Shenzhen went into real estate, not factories.

It was only after several finetunings—including pruning the bureaucracy and reforming labor laws to eliminate lifetime guarantees of employment—that foreign manufacturers and other investors began to take a serious interest in Shenzhen and it bloomed into Chi-

na’s manufacturing and innovation hub. Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, established in 1993, supplemented the Shenzhen model by consciously seeking to attract financial services. Today its soaring, futuristic skyline is visual shorthand for China’s promising future.

Many Chinese provinces and municipalities have since established their own trade zones. None have succeeded quite like Shenzhen and Pudong and, indeed, far more have failed due to bad geography and other problems. For example, Shantou, one of the original four SEZs established with Shenzhen, could never compete with the latter’s proximity to Hong Kong’s port and ready-to-deploy capital.

(Shantou’s reputation for corruption didn’t help.)

Other trade zones fail because they can’t make a compelling case for factories and labor to move to them. While the decade-old Dalian Changxin Island Zone in northern China is blessed with proximity to a busy port, rising incomes and living standards in the countryside have made factory life far from home a tougher sell than before. Meanwhile, manufacturers aren’t likely to set up shop in a new zone, unless they’re sure that labor will follow.

Early indications suggest Xiongan should be able to avoid most of these problems. It’s located in the midst of Jing-Jin-Ji, the name given to the giant megalopolis of 130 million people the government hopes to create by merging Beijing and surrounding cities and connecting them with a hub-and-spoke rail system. (China’s state-owned rail car manufacturer announced last month that its first high-speed commuter trains were rolling off the production line.) Among other benefits, the location will integrate Xiongan into what was already shaping up to be the world’s biggest-ever labor market. Wary employers should thus have good reasons—beyond tax breaks—to set up shop in the formerly remote area.

And Chinese leaders aren’t waiting to populate the new city; the government is expected to relocate large sections of Beijing’s bureaucracy to Xiongan. Inevitably, the many Beijing-area companies that depend on close access to government officials will follow, further concentrating an educated, affluent workforce in the city.

That leaves the question of whether Xiongan can avoid the pollution, traffic and social inequality that plague so many Chinese cities.

The fact that it’s meant to be devoted to high-end industries that generate less pollution should help.

The speculators certainly seem to have faith. With good planning, and a bit of luck, they might turn out to be right.

Primer on Philippine maritime areas

I

am pleased to send herewith a copy of the “Primer” I prepared on “The Ocean Space or The Maritime Area of the Philippines (Including the Seabed and Subsoil and their Air Space under the Law of the Sea Convention [particularly Part IV], the Philippine Constitution and Relevant Laws)”.

The Primer is intended to inform of the maritime areas over which the Philippines has sovereignty, sovereign rights or jurisdiction, principally its territorial sea, the contiguous zone, its exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf. For convenient reference, the pertinent provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), the Philippine Constitutions and relevant statutes are quoted.

Far too frequently opinions and views are expressed, not in accord even with explicit provisions of the LOSC. A recent example are views on the Benham Rise, a part of the extended continental shelf of the Philippines.

It was my privilege to have been a vice chairman of the Philippine delegation to the Law of the Sea Conference, initially in the Seabed Committee, which convened in 1968, and in the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, which convened in December 1973. The Law of the Sea Convention was adopted by the United Nations in

MAIL

1982, and it entered into force in 1994.

Some observations are made on the Arbitral Award on the Philippine Claim of July 12, 2016, particularly in relation to the tensions in the South China Sea and how the administration of President Duterte is addressing its enforcement and overall relationship with China.

It is my hope that the Primer will contribute to a more enlightened and productive exchange of views in regard the problems facing the Philippines in protecting and enhancing its rights over the maritime areas over which it has sovereignty or jurisdiction.

Estelito P. Mendoza

Friday, April 7, 2017 A11

Mad April rain Tito Genova Valiente

annotations

O

n the second day of April, the rains came. And on the third day, cold wind was all over the old city where I live.

By the lakeshore town of Buhi, these mad days of rain, chill and hot days would have been nothing unusual, years and years ago. Those days were auguring a pageantry. In that town of my father, the Holy Week was as sacred as it was raucous and festive.

The “Week”, in fact, was not enough.

Buhi was not keen in the gore of selfie-Crucifixion that men, today, appear to indulge in. Buhi and its people were into telling the story from Creation to the Fall of Man, and from being driven away from the Garden into the Birth of the Savior, from His Passion and Death and gloriously to end with a Resurrection defined by bamboo Heaven, clouds made of cotton and silk textile, and children whose parents could pay enough to make them angels.

The creation of the world passed without much notice, my father would tell us. It was when Adam and Eve were tempted that the drama was cranked up dramatically. Not one but many Devils were running around the town, while young boys

and girls made a dash to the safety of their homes. With wings made of battered black umbrellas, the Devils made everyone understand that the sins of the First Parents are in their children, as well.

The more the merrier. The number of Devils and Disciples (they were not interchangeable, of course) depended on the willing and the availability of costume.

The pageantry reached a peak with the retelling of the Last Supper.

This was also one of the most wellattended events. Jesus was the lead, everyone knew that. There were two characters that were reserved for the thespians of the town: Longinus and Judas.

Longinus was the Roman sol-

Alay Kapwa Telethon 2017 Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual

C

SERVANT LEADER

aritas Manila, in partnership with Radio Veritas 846, will conduct this year’s Alay Kapwa Telethon on Holy Monday, April 10, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., to raise awareness and funds for Caritas Damayan, the preventive-health and disaster-management program of Caritas Manila.

The Philippines ranked fourth among the most disaster-prone countries in the world, with a total of 274 disasters hitting the country over the past 20 years, according to a study conducted by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. It is also recorded that the Philippines is among the top 10 countries with the highest number of affected people—with 130 million.

Caritas Manila responds to help many affected people through Caritas Damayan. It provides emergen-

cy-relief assistance and humanitarian aid to victims. It also educates, conducts predisaster trainings and helps in the restoration and rebuilding of communities.

In 2016 Alay Kapwa funds were used in Caritas Damayan’s relief operations to help those affected by Typhoon Lawin in the archdioceses of Tuguegarao, Ilagan, Laoag and the Apostolic Vicariate of Tabuk; the victims of fire in the Archdiocese of Manila and the Diocese of Kalookan; and provide relief assis-

dier who pierced the side of Christ from whose body spurted the blood, which made him see. There are many versions.

Judas was the Misunderstood One, the closet Leading Man in the narrative of our faith, at least for Buhi.

Both roles were wailing, crying roles. They required the actors to be able to rant, scream, trash on the mat-covered floor for hours. The agony of Longinus and Judas could go on and on with the performers drawing from the Bible and other tales, including personal regrets, domestic recriminations, private guilt and anxieties, and secret crimes the atonement of which could be helped by being Longinus or Judas.

The agonies would continue for hours. This would allow some of the

characters to take a break, or take a sip from some hidden potent brew.

When they came back to the stage, they could be as drunk as Judas or Longinus. There were cases when the Christ himself was as drunk as Judas.

The last time I witnessed this feast was when we saw Judas hang himself upon the nearest small tree.

I recall how distraught the mother of the young man playing the Traitor, because the procession just went on neglecting the Iscariot who could not disentangled from the rope.

Some parts of the lake had dried up.

I doubt if the boys and girls of Buhi would still be scared of Devils with wings made of old, battered, black umbrellas. I doubt if they ever think of the Devil in that way.

tance to lumads in the dioceses of Tandag, Lipa and Legaspi. Caritas Damayan also extended financial assistance to the victims of Typhoon Ferdie at the Prelature of Batanes, and for the rehabilitation in the El Niño-stricken dioceses of Maasin, Cotabato and Gumaca.

The theme of this year’s telethon is “Alay Kapwa as Communion of Communities”. In his pastoral letter, His Eminence Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle, DD, is appealing to everyone to continue the works of mercy by supporting Alay Kapwa 2017.

“Once again, we appeal to you my brothers and sisters to support Alay Kapwa. Let us continue to keep wide open the door of mercy of our hearts and traverse the path of charity with fidelity and joy [cf. Misericordia et misera 16]. Through Alay Kapwa, let us continue the work of mercy,” Cardinal Tagle added.

Listeners can participate and donate in the telethon by calling 9257931 to 39, 563-9311 or 254-5519, 562-4269. Phone lines will be open

throughout the live broadcast on Radio Veritas 846 and also via live streaming at www.veritas846.ph.

Donations can be made online via http://ushare.unionbankph.com/ caritas/ or by bank deposit: n Banco de Oro—Savings Account No.: 5600-45905 n Bank of the Philippine Islands—Savings Account No.: 30635357-01 n Metrobank—Savings Account No.: 175-3-17506954-3 For dollar accounts: n Bank of the Philippine Islands Savings Account No.: 3064-0033-55 n Swift Code—BOPIPHMM n Philippine National Bank— Savings Account No. 10-856660002-5 n Swift Code—PNBMPHMM

Reversing the tragedy of the commons Ser Percival K. Peña-Reyes

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EAGLE WATCH

n interesting video posted by TV Patrol has made the rounds of the Internet recently, and it features an estuary in Purok de Oro, Barangay Poblacion in Iligan City. What used to be an unsightly, foul-smelling canal has now become home to more than a hundred colorful koi fish, attracting many tourists to the area.

It was only last year when two friends found out that a neighbor’s tilapia could still survive in the polluted water, and this discovery sparked some hope for rehabilitation. Of course, having to gather almost 300 sacks of garbage was a daunting task, but the friends’ relentless efforts would bear fruit in the end. They put up steel fences to filter out garbage and make cleaning the canal much easier. They also installed low barriers to ensure that the current would not carry the fish away.

Aside from providing a relaxing view, the koi fish actually have a more beneficial spillover effect on the community. Before, disease-carrying mosquitoes infested the polluted canal, but ever since the introduction of the koi fish, mosquito populations have noticeably dwindled. This is because the koi fish would eat the mosquito larvae.

In Luzon a similar story exists, but

this one involves a much bigger project. Hinulugang Taktak is a waterfall located in Taktak Road, Barangay de la Paz, Antipolo City. According to legend, back in the 16th century, the local people forced their parish priest to drop the church bell in the river due to the harsh and unbearably loud sound it made during Angelus. Thus, the name “Hinulugang Taktak” came to be, and its literal translation is “where the bell was dropped”.

In the 1960s Hinulugang Taktak was a tourist destination famous for its refreshing and idyllic landscape; nevertheless, migration and congestion would eventually take a toll on this once pristine location. There came a point where sewage from nearby households made it unpleasant—perhaps even unsafe—for people to swim.

In 1990 Hinulugang Taktak was declared a national historical shrine

by the National Historical Institute. It was later listed as a protected area by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). In 2009 the local government and the DENR agreed to manage the area and work toward its rehabilitation for three years. The two agencies announced plans to pool about P100 million for the task. The Antipolo City Hall and the DENR pledged P30 million each for the effort.

Although much work still needs to be done to bring Hinulugang Taktak back to its original splendor, locals observe the recent return of the egret, a migratory bird that has been absent for quite some time. This could only mean that ongoing rehabilitation efforts are gradually bearing fruit.

Indeed, these stories should serve to inspire many Filipinos, for they clearly defy what economists call the tragedy of the commons, which refers to a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action. The estuary in Iligan and Hinulugang Taktak in Antipolo are examples of common resources because of two main characteristics: rivalry in consumption and non-excludability.

Rivalry in consumption means that a person’s enjoyment of a good encroaches on and diminishes another person’s enjoyment of the same good.

Having many people living near a common resource creates congestion that

To know more about Caritas Manila, visit www. caritasmanila.org.ph or call our DonorCare lines at 563-9311, 564-0205, 0999-7943455, 09054285001 or 0929-8343857. Make it a habit to listen to Radio Veritas 846 in the AM band, or through live streaming at www.veritas846.ph. For comments, e-mail veritas846pr@gmail.com.

diminishes everyone’s enjoyment of the resource. However, since no one can claim ownership of the resource, no one can be excluded from enjoying its benefits. The tragedy usually comes in the form of pollution that has negative spillover effects on nearby communities. The ugly sight, the stench and the huge potential for lifethreatening diseases are examples of these externalities.

Promoting the common good is not an easy objective, because it often goes against human self-interest.

In the case of the Iligan estuary, it took extraordinary altruism to get the job done, since the two friends who initiated the cleanup would presumably shoulder considerable private costs in terms of time, effort and money, in exchange for minimal private gain.

Likewise, the case of Hinulugang Taktak entailed such huge economic costs that government intervention became necessary.

Nevertheless, “difficult” does not mean “impossible”. While the tragedy of the commons is a textbook example of a market failure, it does open up the possibility of cooperation between private and public actors. More than financial resources, individual volunteerism and malasakit are needed to carry out changes that will bestow key benefits upon society.

Ser Percival K. Peña-Reyes is a faculty member of the Ateneo de Manila University Economics Department. He thanks Dr. Philip Conrad M. Acop, District Two City councilor of Antipolo, for valuable inputs to this article.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Friday, April 7, 2017

‘Third serving’ of Madrid Fusión Manila attracts largest number of participants

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

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@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

TOTAL of 1,400 delegates are participating in this year’s edition of the Madrid Fusión Manila (MFM 2017), a three-day gastronomic event, which opened on Thursday at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

Tou r ism Secret a r y Wa nd a Corazon T. Teo made this disclosure, saying this was the largest gathering of chefs, kitchen professionals, culinary instructors, restaurateurs, kitchen equipment and ingredients suppliers, food enthusiasts and the media since the event was first launched in 2015.

She said many of the MFM 2017 delegates are not only from the Philippines, but also from China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Macau, Taiwan, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well. “The delegates will have their plates full with the usual MFM offerings, like the International Gastronomy Congress, where they will engage with 19 celebrated Filipino culinary chefs and Michelin-starred culinary chefs from Asia, Europe and the Americas in “master classes” tackling culinary trends, technological innovations and revolutionary techniques in the kitchen.”

The popular epicurean event opened with remarks from Teo

Peza eyes two public ecozones per region PLAZA: “We can benchmark against Vietnam and China, as long as the industries come in and we create jobs.”

By Catherine N. Pillas

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1,400

The number of delegates in 2017 edition of Madrid Fusión Manila and Spanish Ambassador to the Philippines Jose Luis Calvo, both of whom celebrated the strong relations between the two countries.

Then, dancers in native Mindanao attire gathered up rice and spices brought by Christians and other Western colonialists and put these in a large palayok (clay pot), the traditional cooking vessel of Malays, depicting the fusion of the East and the West.

Also present on Thursday was former Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez Jr., who was personally invited by Teo to attend the MFM 2017. In her speech, she acknowledged Jimenez for having started

www.businessmirror.com.ph

TOURISM Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo is joined by (from left) Foro de Debate President Jose Carlos Capel, Tourism Promotions Board COO Cesar Montano and Spanish Ambassador Jose Luis Calvo in the ceremonial opening of the Madrid Fusión Manila on April 4 in Pasay City. The three-day gastronomic event is back in the Philippines for the third time, and brought award-winning and Michelin-starred culinary chefs from across the world. ROY DOMINGO

the MFM and for his immense support to her organization of travel agents when she was still in the private sector.

The MFM enables the Philippines to grow its reputation as a culinary destination, Teo said.

“Three years ago when we first started Madrid Fusión Manila, the world barely knew about Filipino cuisine and the country’s indigenous ingredients. But today,

forecasts for 2017 name Filipino cuisine as the next big food trend.

With many articles written by credible international [publications and food critics] about how the food scene in the Philippines is heating up, we can say that now is the right time to go full blast in promoting the country as a vibrant and flavorful culinary tourism destination,” she stressed.

Teo added the MFM has “undoubtedly [reawakened] our culinary industry, and many of our chefs and students have been inspired by the knowledge and techniques imparted to them by the best chefs in the world through this event.”

With the theme for the MFM’s third ser ving being “Towards a Sustainable Gastronomic Planet”, Teo explained that “sustainable gastronomy is the art of fulfilling gastronomic needs and wants while respecting environmental limits and preserving and enhancing cultural traditions”. She emphasized, “As a country whose natural and cultural resources are being threatened by overexploitation and harmful effects of climate change, it is, indeed, important to look at the sustainability aspect of food production.”

Calvo underscored the large contributions culinary tourism can make to the overall tourism industry. He cited that in Spain alone, culinary tourists account for 10 percent of the 150 million visitors to the country, generating about €50 million in receipts for the economy. “And to think, many years ago, there were very few who were visiting Spain,” he said, not-

PHL. . .

Continued from A1

Apart from transportation and budget issues, security concerns continued to cast a dark shadow over the country’s travel and tourism potentials.

WEF said another issue is the government’s weak environmental policies that threaten the country’s natural resources, one of the, if not the main, assets for attracting tourists.

The report also stated that there are issues surrounding the protection of property rights, less effective judicial system and stricter rules on foreign direct investments that have reduced the conduciveness of the business environment.

“Although the Philippines’s T&T potential remains high, there are several areas where

ing that the same could happen in the Philippines as the MFM focuses the spotlight on the country, helping bring in culinary tourists.

The MFM is the only Asian edition of Madrid Fusión, and is touted as the single most important international gastronomy congress in the 21st century. It is a joint partnership among the DOT, the Tourism Promotions Board and Madrid Fusión Organizers Foro de Debate and Arum.

Iñigo Cañedo, managing director of Arum, told the BusinessMirror the Philippines has two more years to host the MFM, after which, consultations will be held among all parties to decide whether Manila will hold the event for another five years. Sources said other Asian cities also want to hold the Madrid Fusión in their respective countries.

In a news conference on Wednesday to introduce the participating chefs in the Gastronomy Congress, Tourism Director Verna Buensuceso, MFM overall project director, said delegates and connoisseurs alike can once again savor and taste premium local and Spanish products, ingredients and fresh produce across 200 booths occupying over 600 square meters of the SMX Halls 1 to 3 during the Fusión Manila International Gastronomy Expo. The expo will be open to the public on Saturday, for a minimal entrance fee.

Jose Carlos Capel of Foro de Debate acknowledged the growing interest Philippine cuisine is getting over the last few years, relating “it is no coincidence that the Philippines and its development in cuisines is something people should keep an eye on”. policy interventions could help to regain competitiveness,” the WEF said. In the rankings, the Philippines trailed behind the rest of the Asean 5. Singapore ranked 13th overall, followed by Malaysia at 26th; Thailand, 34th; Indonesia, 42nd; and Vietnam, 67th.

The top 3 in the overall ranking are Spain, France and Germany, which, the WEF said, have secured their position thanks to worldclass natural and cultural resources, outstanding infrastructure and hospitality services.

Traditional strong T&T destinations, which include Japan (fourth), the United Kingdom (fifth), the United States (sixth, down two places), Australia (seventh), Italy (eighth), Canada (ninth) and Switzerland (10th), have also made it in the top 10.

The WEF said that, while advanced economies dominated the top spots in the ranking, 12 of the top 15 most improved

@c_pillas29

he Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) is planning to establish two public economic zones per region and follow the model of China by offering free use of land to locators for a set number of years.

Peza Director General Charito B. Plaza said these initiatives can attract more investors, instead of relying solely on the initiative of private economic-zone developers.

“I want to build more public ecozones to give us more leeway to attract investors. I plan to do what China and Vietnam are doing, for 10 years they give investors free use of the land,” Plaza told reporters in a briefing on Thursday. “We can benchmark against Vietnam and China, as long as the industries come in and we create jobs.”

Peza manages and operates four public economic zones in Cavite, Mactan, Pampanga and Baguio. Private economic zones, meanwhile, number to 366. It was a stated policy thrust of the Peza in the previous administration to leave ecozone development to the private sector so as not to compete with them.

According to Plaza, rent per square meter in public ecozones goes as low as P19 to P27.

Aside from rent free land for a set number of years, locators in public ecozones can also benefit from streamlined provision of government services. “We can get support in terms of facilities and utilities from the government, like the Department of Public Works and Highways can provide the road network, for example,” Plaza said.

On the downside, potential locators to public ecozones will also be subject to some government red tape in compliance and availment of services. Plaza is looking at adding two public economic zones per region, or 36 additional ecozones. These will likely be included in the National Economic Zone Map project being crafted by the Peza to be rolled out in a few weeks. These will be separated from the private and local government-owned ecozones.

The Peza administers Republic Act 7916, or the Special Economic Zone Act of 1995. Under the law, several types of economic zones may be developed, such as industrial estates, export-processing zones, free-trade zones and tourism parks. countries are emerging markets in Asia.

Asia’s largest markets are not only becoming larger source markets but also more attractive destinations. Almost all of the region’s countries improved their ranking.

Except for Japan, Hong Kong, China, Republic of Korea and Malaysia also made it to the top 30. India made the largest leap in the top 50 or an increase of up to 12 places to land in 40th place.

“The rise of Asia’s giants shows that the Asian Tourism Century is becoming a reality,” said Tiffany Misrahi, community lead of the Aviation, Travel and Tourism Industries, WEF. “To reach their potential, the majority of countries still have more to do, from enhancing security, promoting their cultural heritage, building their infrastructure and creating stronger visa policies.”

Cai U. Ordinario